Daily Inspiration: Meet Simon Allo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Simon Allo.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m originally from Texas and grew up in Dallas. My dad is a doctor and my mom also worked in healthcare so I was destined to work in medicine but always had a creative side to me. I wrote poems in elementary school which turned into songs in high school and I was also in choir throughout school as well. I started learning the guitar junior year of high school but was super into the emo pop, Warped Tour scene. I went to college at the University of Texas at Austin. Freshman year of college, a classmate showed me Continuum by John Mayer and it absolutely changed my view on music. I have a very obsessive personality so I spent the summer after freshman year listening to that album three to four times a day to analyze the song structure, rhyme scheme, chord progressions, melodies and hooks, and use of metaphors. I really wanted to know exactly why it was such a great album.

After that I minored in music while still doing pre-med. For my senior music theory class, our final project was to compose a song to perform at the end of the semester. Inspired by that project, I spent my year off between college and medical school writing my first EP under my legal name and playing open mics and eventually solo acoustic shows. It was my first time in a studio and working with a producer. I loved it so much that I seriously questioned not going to med school to pursue music first to see if I could make it.

After a strong push from my family, I ended up going to medical school and found a way to do both. It was rough. I would study for eight to ten hours in a day and then come home and practice singing, practice guitar, practice, piano, and then write. On top of that, my friend and I would put on shows in town on Friday. I honestly don’t know how I did it all but I wrote my second EP first semester and recorded it during winter break.

Those first two EPs really allowed me to explore the type of music I wanted to make. During those, I think I tried to make music my friends would like rather than what I wanted to make. I had a lot self-discovery during medical school and so when I set off to make more music my third and fourth year of medical school, I decided to start fresh with a new project which became Class Jackson. Class Jackson was a short-lived band before it became my solo project. My bandmates wanted the band name to sound like someone’s name, which worked out well since it became just me. Jackson comes from Michael Jackson being a big influence on my love for music. My parents would listen to him all the time and there are videos of me at two and three dancing to his songs and trying to moonwalk. The name Class came from a band trip from Austin to Waco to see my college friends, Penny & Sparrow’s show. The only thing we could agree to listen to on the drive was old Kanye and so the college theme became Class.

I was so burnt out by the end of medical school that I decided to take some time off before starting psychiatry residency. Once I graduated medical school, I worked at a healthcare marketing agency in Austin for a year and made my first Class Jackson EP, To Santa and Little Brothers. Once I left that job and wasn’t sure what to do next. One of my close friends, Cranston, had done an internship at one of Atlantic’s studios in LA and told me he could probably help me get one as well. In early 2019, it all aligned to where I found a cheap month to month apartment five minutes from the studio and my cousin, Andy Allo, was just off to shoot season one of Upload for four months so I rented her car for super cheap. Took the leap of faith and moved out to Valley Village with two suitcases and my guitar and the chance of getting the internship. I ended up getting it and was there three to five nights a week. I got to meet some of the biggest rappers in music and got a lot of validation that I was talented songwriter and belonged. When you grow up anywhere else, it’s hard to really know if you are good or it’s all just a pipe dream. I remember one day in the studio, Dallas Martin, the head of A&R, came up to me and said that he was hard on me because he believed in me and one day I was going to win a Grammy. I don’t know if he really meant that but it fueled a newfound belief in myself for a very long time. I made a lot of great connections but ended up having to move back to Austin cause I ran out of money.

I was fortunate enough to get back to LA by getting into residency at Charles Drew University in South LA. I moved back in June 2020 and was thrust into getting back into healthcare while also trying to figure out what music was going to look like going forward. After some soul searching, I decided to pivot from trying to write and play guitar in the hip hop and R&B world to focusing on being an indie pop artist. Through a series of connections, I was able to meet my producer, Good Harbor and the rest of my team. Been happily balancing psychiatry and music since.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not. In the beginning, it felt like there was always a major life change write when I was about to track vocals for an EP. The first EP it was the job and the second EP was halted by COVID and moving halfway across the country.

But overall, I think one of the biggest struggles has always been lack of time. Medical school, residency, and now child psychiatry fellowship not only take up a lot of time but a lot of energy and brain capacity with patients, studying for 16 hour board exams, papers to write, etc. It’s been so hard to find time to do that as best as I can while also making art that I think is great and then promoting it on top of that. Going straight from dealing with a child abuse case to a songwriting session can also be emotionally taxing so it’s a lot of shifting gears. I feel like my brain never rests, honestly.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m an indie pop artist that sings, writes, produces, and plays guitar. My music inspirations include The 1975, The Japanese House, John Mayer, Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson, and The Weeknd. I think what sets me apart is my artistic vision, storytelling, and my perspective on life and humanity from my experience as a psychiatrist. In 2016, I watched Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea and was inspired to make my own character development story in the form of a concept album. I somehow found time to study Christopher Nolan films and character development plots during my last year of med school. That has led me to the Coupe Cathedral project that I’m working on that encompasses two albums, three EPs, and a young adult fiction novel.

I’m currently working on the first draft of the book which tells the story of young man going off to college and wrestling with growing up and what it means to be a successful man through challenges in his friendships, relationship, school, and family. There will be a song for each part of the book so album 1 will be 15 songs that cover the first half of the book and album 2 will be 15 songs that cover the second half of the book. The three EPs were prequels to book that set the backstory for the character and his experiences with family, dating, and life as a black kid in America. It’s been such an undertaking of a project but I’m so proud of what it has become. It tells an important story about men’s mental health while I also fully explore all of my music interests from pop to house to folk to rap.

Currently in the process of releasing the singles from the third EP, Lilies of the Field. The EP is one long scene at the end of the main character’s last day of high school. The next single, Red Rover, will be released April 10th and Lilies of the Field will be released May 22nd.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
You can support me by following me on Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, streaming my music on whatever platforms you listen to music, and sharing with any other music lovers you know.

You can work with me or collaborate by emailing me at [email protected] or DM’ing me on Instagram (@classjackson).

Contact Info:

• Website: classjackson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/classjackson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/classjackson/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@classjackson
• soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/classjackson
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6tued0wZEi4EsHvEe2TsuK?si=PEXfkhz0Qhy6NdSG7ZJI5g

Image Credits
Miles Stancil, Miles Snow, Joshua Guerra