Meet Jesse Singer of Likeminds in Atwater Village

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse Singer.

Jesse, can you briefly walk us through the story of Likeminds – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Chris and I started as musicians. I grew up outside of Philadelphia and Chris grew up in Worcester, MA. My grandfather was a professional musician and upright bass player that went on to become a songwriter/arranger. He co-wrote the songs “At The Hop” and “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay” for Danny and the Juniors. I took a lot of inspiration from him, and after trying viola, alto saxophone and guitar, I settled on the bass guitar. I wasn’t particularly disciplined in traditional practice, but I loved playing along to records learning the bass lines and melodies. Some of my best friends were drummers, so there was also a point where I would mess around on drums almost every day.

Towards the end of high school, my parents, although supportive of me being a musician, convinced me that getting a degree in music wasn’t necessarily the best way to go. I ended up going to Temple University for film school for a year before transferring to Full Sail to learn audio engineering. I found an Akai S-20 sampler on eBay and got really into chopping up samples and beat making, and how that could be combined with the live instruments I had grown up playing. At the same time, Chris had enrolled at the Berklee College of Music as a Production/Engineering major with guitar and keyboard being his main instruments.

I moved to New York City in late 2006 and got a job as a general assistant at Legacy Recording Studios on 48th Street and 7th Ave, one of the last remaining multi-room commercial recording studios at the time. That’s where I met Chris, who had worked there for almost two years. We worked there as assistant engineers for several years, working on some of the biggest hip hop, r & b, and pop records that were happening in New York during that time. We often worked 80+ hour weeks, starting at 5pm and going until 8am the next morning, then sleeping til 4pm and doing it all again the next day. The best part of working at Legacy was that the staff was allowed to use the rooms if they weren’t booked, so we took that opportunity as often as possible.

During that time, Chris and I along with another Legacy engineer named Nick decided to pool all of our equipment together and rent a tiny studio in the basement of a building down the street from the Queensbridge Projects. We called ourselves Lion’s Share Music Group. We could make music there 24 hours a day as the F train rumbled underneath every 10 minutes and a metal band rehearsed across the hall. This is where we developed the beginnings of our “sound.”

Eventually, we connected with a manager named Stephen Francis who worked for Billy Mann, an accomplished songwriter and music executive at BMG Chrysalis at the time. Stephen knew an unknown singer-songwriter based out of LA named Andy Grammar and convinced him to come work with us in NY for a long weekend. There we produced the songs “Keep Your Head Up” and the “Pocket.” This led to Andy getting a record deal, and “Keep Your Head Up” ended up in the top 50 on the Billboard Charts the following year. At that point, we signed an administration deal with BMG which allowed us to move into a real studio with a separate live room and lounge. We’ve been writing songs and making records ever since.

In the spring of last year, we found out that the building our studio was in would be sold, so we started looking around for a new space. It seemed likely that if we stayed in Brooklyn, we would end up spending more money for a smaller space. My wife Angela and I had an opportunity to potentially buy a house, and it felt like the right time to search out in East LA where many of my friends from New York had moved over the years. Luckily, we found a house in Atwater Village with a beautiful back yard and a recording studio already built in the converted garage. This house belonged to one of the sons of Bill Putnam, a legendary recording engineer and technician that built studios, invented what we know today as the modern recording console, and started Universal Audio amongst many other things. We’re super excited to be out here making music in such an inspiring place!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
All things being relative, I don’t look at the last 13 years as a real struggle. At the end of the day, we have the absolute privilege of making music for a living. And that fact is never lost on me. But of course, not knowing when your next gig will come is a pretty frightening experience when you’re getting started. Definitely, a feeling you have to get used to and come to terms with. I probably existed on $3 falafel sandwiches for at least a couple years. We work in an ever-evolving industry where your contributions as a creator exist on a sliding scale of value. It can be a struggle to budget your time and money properly, stand up for what you know your worth is, and maintain a balance where creativity meets commercial.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
Chris and I are songwriters, producers, engineers, mixers, and multi-instrumentalists. We go by the name Likeminds. We specialize in keeping the performance aspect and attention to detail at the forefront of making records. Getting great takes with great sounds on the way in. After all, you only have to get it perfect once and it will live there on record forever. Most of the time, Chris and I play and record the majority of the instruments on the songs we co-write and produce. We surround ourselves with vintage instruments and equipment that keeps us inspired as well as our collaborators. Recording music at home has never been easier, and everyone has access to every sound ever made, but that doesn’t make it easy to make something great. Having everything in our studio accessible and ready to record when inspiration strikes is one of the most important aspects of the job. Also, knowing when to be in the driver’s seat, knowing when to get out of the way, knowing to hit record when someone is just working out an idea. All of these things are equally as important as any technical knowledge we’ve picked up over the years. We’re proud of working on critically acclaimed records across many genres and bringing a blue-collar, hard-working mentality to an industry where an Instagram post in the vocal booth seems more important than what you sang into that microphone.

What’s your favorite memory from childhood?
I have a pretty distinct memory of seeing some friends of mine play at the middle school talent show when I was 11. They had formed a punk band called The Preps, and as they ripped through a Rancid cover, I was totally blown away that kids my own age were in a band and they were actually good! It definitely had a lasting impact on me and made me feel like I could possibly do the same thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.likeminds-music.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @_likeminds_

Image Credit:
Angela Singer

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.