I recently had the rare opportunity to witness first-hand an independently produced professional album from song writing to the final CD release party, and wow, what a journey. I thought I would share this experience for those who might be interested in the anatomy of a dream coming true. The band is Random Ninjas; the album is Random Hero. Forging dreams from guitar strings is tough business. Sadly, this is especially true if you’re an Asian American musician. Two-thirds of this six-musician band is Asian American, and they integrate taiko drums as part of their sound. Here’s the story of how they made their independent album a reality, after the jump.
Round 1: Writing the Songs & Gigging
Recording independently means living the life a super hero with a secret identity, working full-time jobs during the day and being professional musicians at night and on weekends. Songs needed to be written, and gigs had to be played. And if you’ve ever been a supporter of local rock bands like I have, there’s A LOT of equipment to lug around from show to show.
Round 2: Securing funds
A full professional album requires a lot of funds, especially for the complex and loud sound of a rock band with hard-to-record taiko sounds, and aside from supporting this project out of their own pockets, Random Ninjas used Kickstarter to secure the financial support from fans, raising $10,867 in 40 days, which covered half of what they would need to produce this album. Their thank you videos to their supporters were so catchy that they even got covered on Kickster’s blog.
Round 3: In Studio
To me, NRG studios is literally holy ground, being the recording studio where some of my favorite musicians No Doubt, Linkin Park, Jay-Z, Hoobastank, Incubus, Evanescence, etc. etc. recorded their hit albums. Only able to afford six days of recording, the Ninjas recorded 11 songs and 1 drum battle (taikos vs. western drums) in record time. Each day was a 12 hour day, from 10am to 10pm. These guys worked tirelessly alongside more established musicians also busy at work in that studio at the same time: Linkin Park and Bush’s Gavin Rossdale (his pet dog is ADORABLE).
Round 4: Mixing
At sound engineer Chuck Choi’s studio, just after he had just finished working on Kung Fu Panda 2, the band continued their marathon, editing/mixing the tracks they had recorded over a 5-day whirlwind with enough all-nighters to make even the most seasoned cramming college student weep.
Round 5: Mastering
I’m not a musician or a recording engineer, and the most musical I’ve ever been is cranking up the karaoke, so I can’t even begin to explain what “mastering” is, but here it is–it’s another final step before an album goes to press in order to bring out the best of the whole sound of the music. And as it says on the all-knowing Wikipedia, “it cannot be achieved without the presence of a mastering engineer”. For the Ninjas, this was the legendary Howie Weinberg, who mastered some of my favorite albums of all time from Nirvana, Pantera, Limp Bizkit, and Garbage (yeah, I’m kind of into rock music, can you tell?).
Final Round: CD Release Party
After printing, the physical album was in hand, and the Random Ninjas had secured a spot opening up for Teri Nunn and Berlin, best known for the Top Gun hit song “Take My Breath Away”, at the Key Club on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. The Random Ninjas sounded simply amazing on stage, happily with a long line at their merch booth after their set, and Teri Nunn sounds as good today as she did in the 80’s, too.
Bonus Stage: Touring
As a writer and a writing teacher, I always tell my students who aspire to be published and widely read authors that writing is the easy part, selling is the hard part. The composing and recording of this album was a gargantuan feat, and what’s true for writers is the same for musicians, if not harder because of all the equipment and people to manage.
The next step for these hard working musicians is tour and promote and repeat. So far this summer, they’re set to play at the Lotus Festival July 10th and both days (July 9 & 10) at the Zenshuji’s 53rd Annual Obon Carnival. Check them out at these major Asian American festivals next month. The Random Ninjas don’t just work hard, they most definitely rock hard too!
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Disgusted
- Sad
- Angry
