Check Out Fili Filizzola’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fili Filizzola.

Fili, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? 
I became interested in music and began playing guitar when I was 11 years old. As time went by, I discovered more bands that I was really into and that were shaping my interest in music. Bands like blink 182, green day, NOFX, Metallica, etc. Those bands made me fall in love even more with the guitar, and I became obsessed with getting better. I loved the challenge. As I got better, I also discovered other genres that I felt were even more challenging in different ways, and I started wanting to learn how to play those songs that demanded a technique and musical knowledge that I didn’t have yet. Genres like the Blues, with musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jazz, with musicians like Charlie Parker. 

I ended up getting a bachelor’s degree in Popular Music (guitar performance) and was getting traction as a freelance musician, playing with several bands of all sorts of different genres, teaching guitar, and also songwriting for my band/artist project, 500 Year Flood. 

The need for releasing music and content of good quality (on YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, etc) and the lack of funds to hire engineers and studios weekly made me get interested in the audio side of things. I bought basic recording gear (mics, audio interface, speakers) in order to record 500 Year Flood and get better at doing so. This process made me fall in love with the audio side of music. I went deep, got an internship at MGB Studios in Boulder, Colorado (now in Las Vegas), and found a mentor in producer/mixer Mike Binder. 

A couple years later, my wife and I (the other half of 500 Year Flood) moved to Los Angeles to continue to pursue our music dreams. At this point, on the audio side of things, I had committed to “mastering”. I had my business and was taking on clients and had completely fallen in love with the often called “mysterious art” of audio. Within a few months of living in Los Angeles, I got a job at Becker Mastering, and there, under the mentorship of Dale Becker, I worked for 4 years. It was a beautiful learning experience where I got to work on the music of artists like SZA, Khalid, Justin Bieber, Fletcher, Harry Styles, Snoh Aalegra, and many, many incredible artists (signed and independent). 

While working at Becker, I was fortunately able to continue to work on my freelance mastering business and work with some incredible artists, producers, and mixers. As my business grew and I became busier, it was time to move on and run my own mastering studio full-time. Two weeks after going on my own (in September of 2023), I was thrilled to find out I was nominated for “Best Engineered Album” at the 2023 Latin Grammys for the album “Depois do Fim” by the Brazilian band Lagum. Being nominated for a Grammy category that exclusively awards the engineers on an album was an incredible honor! The other engineers on the album are incredible friends, and we had a blast attending the first-ever Latin Grammys in Seville, Spain. 

I have since moved to Glendale, CA, where I run my studio, “Insider Mastering,” and look forward to working with as many artists as I can. It brings me joy and honor to be able to be a part of the finishing touches of a record that means so much to many people, especially the artist, songwriters, producers, and mixers. Everyone has poured their heart and soul into getting this song to where it is, and it is a daily pleasure to be able to be a part of the magic that is music! 

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road. It has been super challenging but also immensely rewarding. 

The main struggle in the beginning days as a musician was self-confidence and patience. To be an artist, musician, or audio engineer is to be in the spotlight at all times, with people constantly judging and evaluating your work, your performance, and your “talent.” That can be very stressful on us. The comparison game runs wild in our minds, with social media and so many incredibly talented people in all categories of the music industry (or any industry), it’s hard to not get caught in comparing yourself constantly to others. Many of us have great difficulty dealing with that, especially in the beginning when you are still discovering yourself as an artist, songwriter, instrumentalist, etc. Patience and dedication is key! Years of countless hours of study and practice, performance, and shows got me to a point where I felt more confident about my work and could perform at a high level without the “inner critic” getting in the way. I still think it’s a constant and permanent battle that we learn to handle better and better (hopefully) as we gain more experience. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a guitarist, songwriter and mastering engineer. I write and produce with Kay-Kay Filizzola for our band 500 Year Flood, and I master music for everybody else! 

I love doing both aspects of music. The songwriting/notes and melody side of music as well as the audio and frequencies side. 

For my work as a mastering engineer, I have benefited immensely from my musical studies with the guitar, music theory, production, playing in bands, songwriting, etc. I think that experience helps me stand out in what I do. Although mastering is considered a form of audio engineering, to me, mastering is art. It can and should be musical. Years of experience with performing, arranging, and producing shape the way I listen and what I am looking to happen with a particular song. So, as a mastering engineer, when an artist sends me their song to “finish up” I am listening to it almost like an arranger would. I can be transparent if needed, or I can be “heavy-handed.” If something is getting in the way of the vocals and impeding it from coming through and shining, I can hear, like an arranger or producer would, what is causing that and target the specific area in the frequency spectrum, like an engineer would, that needs to be cleaned up in order to let the vocals shine. Same with any other aspect of the track. The translation between instrument and frequency/transient seems to connect easily for me because of all of the experience I’ve had in all other aspects of the music-making process. 

The thing I am the most proud of is being able to work on music daily with incredible artists and creatives. It’s pure magic to be able to dedicate 100% to music and make a living in such a beautiful, inspiring, and challenging city like Los Angeles. Oh yeah, I’m also extremely proud of being nominated for a Latin Grammy in the “Best Engineered Album” category. The fact that my music industry peers voted for that specific album enough for it to be one of the 6 nominations out of the thousands of albums submitted that year is extremely rewarding to me! It just makes me feel like the difficult choices I made in life pursuing a career in music are paying off and I am extremely grateful for the honor of working on music with other creatives.

How do you define success?

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/fili_filizzola
• Other: https://jaxsta.com/one-sheet/fili-filizzola