Daily Inspiration: Meet Matia Simovich

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matia Simovich

Hi Matia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was about 18/19 years old I was hired to program drum machines and synthesisers on a record produced by one of the members of Nine Inch Nails. The studio this was done at, in San Francisco, decided to hire me full time and so my adventure in producing music began. As an immigrant, originally hailing from Yugoslavia, I did my best to balance my parents wishes for a diploma as well as my own passion for a career in music. Thus, I declined an offer to tour with the M.I.A. production team (“Paper Planes” era) and instead chose to move to London and attend Goldsmiths College at the University of London. There I received a masters in Sociology and also found work at producer Flood and Alan Moulder’s (Depeche Mode, U2, Nine Inch Nails) Assault and Battery studios in Wilsden.

Following my tenure in England, I returned to California where there would be much success for my own band, INHALT. For several years and with several record labels I produced and performed my own music, which ultimately combined many of the post-structural ideas I explored academically in my masters with an alternative and counter cultural aesthetic. This sound and concept sort of became my calling card, but it wasnt until after the fallout of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland that I would find the call to help heal my music community.

I was hired by Dais Records to help complete the second Them Are Us Too record, a band who suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of one of the band members in Ghost Ship. It was a really difficult record to make as it was marked by a tremendous loss but through it I learned that I had the ability to hold space and keep the production on-course despite the overwhelming circumstances. More importantly, I found immense meaning in helping alternative artists that represent a different, non status quo viewpoint and aesthetic experience a large scale and professional production in a big studio environment.

The success of my working relationship with Dais Records would ultimately lead me back to Los Angeles, where an invite from producer Rhys Fulber to join a studio in Van Nuys would set the course for the next 7 years of my life. I founded Infinite Power Studios in 2018 and established it as a hub for alternative and independent artists and labels, who are often marginalised within the larger music industry, to experience a large studio production with the most optimal and timeless technology (old and new) alongside a production team with decades of experience and accolades.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think the biggest struggles are largely the ones that the music industry as a whole faces, which is the restrictions on budget due to the impact that streaming has had on the overall profit an artist or label can make from recorded music. Unfortunately the industry that I started in is not the industry that I work in today and that has impacted not only how much time can be spent producing a record, but also the styles, ideas and voices that gain the biggest audience. In tandem with the prevalence of social media as a significant signing factor for an emerging artist, the priorities of what that algorithm favours has continued to erode at the diversity in both sound and identity of the musicians that are signed by labels and thus given the chance to do it in the first place.

On a day-to-day level I am constantly having to reinvest into the studio itself to keep all of the equipment maintained and operational while striking a balance between what the asking price is and whether or not alternative and independent labels and artists can simply afford it. Thus is the reality of operating in the music business in Los Angeles today. It doesn’t help that there is the notion that producing music is cheaper than it’s ever been. It’s simply not true. Timeless records are still largely made the same way despite what Spotify’s CEO or the manufacturers of innadequare prosumer equipment would love the general public to believe.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In the simplest of terms, I’m a producer, musician, sound engineer, and studio owner. Within that I’ve sort of carved a niche for myself in terms of the styles of music that I work on and that my studio itself specialises in representing largely independent record labels and alternative artists that don’t conform to the styles, aesthetics, and ideologies of top 40 pop music.

At the same time and on a technical level, my studio is one of the only places that specialises in using technology from decades ago in tandem with the most cutting-edge technology of today. Case in point, the main studio workhorse is a Synclavier digital audio workstation that was the most cutting edge piece of equipment built in the mid 80s and that cost upwards of $500,000 then, but it is connected to the latest analog mixing desk made by AMS Neve and the latest version of Pro Tools.

Technology aside, what I’m most proud of and what is one of the biggest assets of my studio and my work is that I’ve curated a team that truly understands the alternative music and culture we work in and that we genuinely care about the work that we do and our clients success. We are fully invested whether it’s somebody’s very first record with no label backing or an established artists seventh.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I guess I can take a look at this question from several angles but really on a personal level, I think it’s perseverance. I just never gave up and I never accepted no. I saw every obstacle as an opportunity for growth or for ingenuity and I saw doors closing really helping to clear a path for where I needed to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://inhalt.bigcartel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinitepowerstudios
• Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/inhalt.us
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG4PaJJsxqY1_uBPPatEeKQU3bhCEPr0F&si=R6Sk_GKgL8iEr-kw
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Brandon Burkart, Julia Villalobos