Life & Work with Sam Allison

Hi Sam, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Sam Allison (aka Blank) and I’m a music producer/engineer. I’m originally from a small town in Virginia, and moved to Long Beach to go to CSULB back in 2018. I began experimenting with music before that but never considered it a serious investment. During the pandemic, that changed and I began to take my music more seriously. I went after the audio engineering role to better understand the technical side of music, and in August of 2020, I started an apprenticeship at ES Audio in Glendale, CA. There I learned under Donny Baker, whose career spans nearly four decades and includes a Grammy win and names like Madonna. After a year of learning under him, I finished my apprenticeship with enough success and skill to earn some gigs at the studio, and now as I just completed my bachelor’s degree in marketing, I’m ready to go wherever my career will take me.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I view obstacles as opportunities to prove my strength to myself. Growing up with a single mom and my brother, I learned that there is no time to look up at how steep the mountain you have to climb is but to just start with putting one foot in front of the other. I am the first person in my family to graduate college, so starting that process and having the tenacity to finish was an obstacle in itself. On top of the fact that I was pursuing my college degree, the COVID pandemic began in my third semester in school. The only work experience my family really has is restaurant experience, so navigating how to make money when the only way I knew how was shut down, proved to be difficult.

But the toughest obstacle I faced was getting hospitalized with GI issues in December of 2020. To give a background, I was hospitalized in the fall of 2019 with similar issues with an infection. Even though I had made a full recovery the first time, my system was nowhere near 100% by the time I got sick again. So before being hospitalized in December 2020, my issues slowly progressed starting in early November 2020. I was unable to eat anything substantial and lived off of basic carbs, and by the time I was hospitalized, I was already starved. At the time of my admission, I weighed 140 lbs and to put it in perspective, I am 6 feet tall and normally weigh 185. There were many contributing factors to these issues, and since I was never diagnosed with a definite causation, I concluded that it was a combination of everything.

I was incredibly stressed with balancing work, school, and my apprenticeship. One of my friends from high school passed away a month before in October and my grandfather had just suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. My living situation was a cramped apartment where I lived with three roommates that had an awful roach infestation. But the one catalyst (in my opinion) was that I had eaten a whole burrito before finding out the pork was undercooked.

After being in pain since mid-November, I spent Christmas in Virginia that year in horrible pain and was hospitalized for five days, including New Year’s Eve and Day. I eventually made a recovery and eventually returned, found a new apartment, and began my journey back to health. Being alone in a hospital bed on New Years’, while in agonizing physical pain and still dealing with all of the stress I mentioned above, sparked a motivation in me. While I was going through what felt like hell, I promised myself that when I got better that I would attack every single day with everything I had. You really never know how good the sunny days are until you truly experience the rain. Every day I take the time to be grateful for even the most basic things, such as eating dinner, because I know how fragile life and health is.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a music producer and audio engineer. Since I’m from a small town in Virginia (my town growing up didn’t even have a stoplight), and then moving to Los Angeles, I have so many different influences and it shows in the music I create. I have done everything from rap, r&b, pop, edm, rock, country, reggaeton, and even some Colbie Callait type stuff. What sets me apart from others is that since my ear is so familiar with everything, the music I make has the capacity to be really unique.

I call myself Blank because I was trying to work my mom’s maiden name of Blanken into my name, and I realized that Blank is a good fit for my multi-genre approach to music. I try to approach each song as a blank canvas that can go in any direction. Also I hate trying to answer the question “What type of music do you make?”, so I figured I would just leave the answer blank.

While I do have technical training with engineering, I have no musical training. I have great musicians in my corner helping me learn, like my producer friends Amir Kiani and Dean Ricker-Manning, and learning how to communicate with trained session musicians was definitely a hurdle. Even though I sometimes struggle with the correct terminology and things like that, other times I feel like my lack of musical training can have the benefit of going strictly off feeling. Sometimes the wrong chord sounds right, and going off that feeling makes it so I never put myself into a box.

I’m also never scared to bring in elements from other genres to blend the best of everything. Most of the things that I try don’t work out, but that’s a part of the process that I will never be bored of. Experimenting is probably my favorite and most rewarding part of this job. Some of the coolest things I’ve done came from just messing around and I learned so much during the process, so even if what we were doing then didn’t work out, I’m able to draw on the experience in the future.

It’s exciting knowing that I still have so much to learn, but I already have so much value to offer at 22. I’m the youngest person in 95% of the rooms that I work in, but despite that, I know what I contribute and know the impact I have in these sessions. But the thing I am most proud of is the fact that I’m able to make money doing what I love. Being able to turn my passion into my career is something that is pretty unheard of where I come from. Like I said, the town I grew up in didn’t even have a stoplight, so to come back home and tell everyone that I now work in a Grammy-winning studio in LA at the age of 22, that makes me proud.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
On top of being a creative, I pride myself on my business-minded side as well. It’s not very often that you find someone that is able to wear the hats of a producer, engineer, business manager, and marketer. I feel like I’m able to help anybody with anything in this industry, and that makes me feel valuable to any conversation. I may get into the room as an engineer, but I might end up playing a producer role too. Or an artist I’m producing needs help with getting their business set up or some marketing ideas, I’m able to contribute to these conversations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://blankproductionstudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blank_on_it/

Image Credits
All photos credited to Christian Solorzano