Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Castelli.
Jon, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I began engineering and producing out of my own studio a town called Smithtown, NY on Long Island that my father and I built. I was working with a lot of local rock and indie bands out there, but I kept getting told my sound was really clean and should make an attempt at mixing pop music. After about five years, realizing that wasn’t happening very much on Long Island, it seemed like the right move to close that studio up and come out to Los Angeles where the pop music scene was thriving. After being in LA for six months, I was serendipitously introduced to the mix engineer I looked up to since I was 16, Tony Maserati, who had also just made the move from New York to LA the same month I did.
To make a long story short, after hanging out with him a few times in the studio, he had asked me to mix some Lady Gaga with him for her Born This Way album, and our collaboration seemed highly beneficial to both of us, so he asked me to move into a small room across from his mix room in a studio in Burbank. That was the beginning of the five years I spent in that studio collaborating and studying with Tony. During those years, I really learned and began to understand what it meant to be a reliable professional in my field. In circumstances like the lucky one I had (being truly mentored by a master of their craft) you realize how much you don’t know. Any sense of ego has to be forgone in those moments in order to truly be open to learn. This was very humbling and very inspiring to say the least.
After those five years, and after a few successful albums, specifically the sophomore album by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, which was the first high charting album I mixed on my own, I knew it was time to go find a studio and team of my own. That is when I founded The Gift Shop in the arts district of downtown Los Angeles. I lead a team of three engineers. Myself, Ingmar Carlson, and Josh Deguzman. Within the first four years at The Gift Shop, we’ve worked on artists such as Khalid, Nicki Minaj, Kesha, 6LACK, Harry Styles and many others. The list continues to grow, and I couldn’t be more excited to be doing what I’m lucky enough to be doing. It blows my mind everyday that I get to make art for living. Every morning, I wake up and meditate, and I reflect on this. It could be gone at any moment. People could stop thinking that the sound I offer to them is relevant tomorrow. I take this very seriously, and I’m super excited to ride the wave as long as I can, and I’m more and more honored that artists continue to trust me with their song babies.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s been a struggle the whole time. I’ve been making records professionally since I was 17 years old. I’m now 33, and if I’m being honest, this past year was the first year I wasn’t living month to month, struggling to support myself. Somehow I always paid my bills on time, but there were many times when days would go by where I was only able to eat rice and beans from Poquito Mos which cost a total of $2.03. Once I started working with Tony, I always remember him checking in with me at the end of every year. “did you make more money than you did last year?” he would ask me. “Yea, man, about $100 more.” I’d say with a sigh. “Great. You’re on the right path.” he would finish with confidence. I trusted that man so much and he wasn’t wrong the entire time. The struggle and the hunger taught me so much. My work ethic shows no signs of weathering.
Even now, while I respond to this question, I have an artist texting me his thankfulness for my patience on this 21 song album I’m trying to finish by this evening with him. He is sending me the smallest, most nitpicked set of final mix notes, but I don’t once get frustrated. It’s all part of the process. And I truly believe the process is found and thoroughly mastered in the struggle. If you can make the best art in high pressure and stressful conditions, you can learn how to handle almost any situation. In fact, tight deadlines and time limitations are where I feel I do my best work. To go back to the original question, no, it hasn’t been a smooth ride, although the rough terrain always seemed to be directing me on the right path.
The Gift Shop – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The Gift Shop is a mix engineering team lead by myself. We specialize in the finalization of songs or full-length albums for artists at all levels. I’m the head engineer. Ingmar Carlson is second to me. He collaborates with me on certain projects, but after apprenticing with me for almost four years, I thought it was time to get him on projects of his own. Josh Deguzman is my full-time engineer and apprentice at the moment. I suspect in a couple of years, he will also be entering a new position as a mix engineer of his own right, and I’ll be looking for a new apprentice. As a company, I’m most proud of our ability to collaborate. Mixing music has become less and less collaborative nowadays. It’s a bit black-boxed if you ask me.
An artist sends their song off to a mixer that sometimes they never speak words to, and they get back a new version of the song they spent months or years on, and it is a 50/50 chance it’s going to sound better or worse than they left it. My values are very different and they affect mine and my team’s approach to mixing. I prefer being in direct communication with the artist. I want to know their story. I want to know how their story can come through best in their lyrics and instrumentation choices. These values are transparency, professionalism, quality, altruism and community. I want artists to know I’m putting them and their song first, not my own sound or agenda. They are the ones that have to go eat, sleep and breathe their song. I can choose to never listen to it again. They have to go perform it for their fans night in and night out. I take this collaboration very seriously, and it winds up making artists feel valued, comforted and heard. I think this is what sets us apart.
I’m also proud of the monthly dinner and conversation series we’ve put together called Conversations at The Gift Shop. This is an evening where I bring together 30-35 engineers from all over to strengthen the community of engineers. Engineers are notoriously isolated and we are usually the first to show up and last to leave a session. This unfortunately impedes upon our ability to have a social life. Conversations at the gift shop was created to be a place to hold open conversations, to honor attendees, and to create a comfortable environment for engineers. We discuss the ways our role is changing and together collaborate on ways to push to roll into the future. For the evening, I cook us all a 9-10 course Persian feast. We eat well.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me is complicated. Again, like I mentioned earlier, I am reminded everyday how I get to make art for a living. That feels to me like I made it. The fact that I don’t have to sweat the first of the month feels like success. The solid relationships I’ve made with artists, producers, managers and others in the music business and outside demonstrates success. At the end of the day, I think the majority of success is based around forming and nurturing relationships. I think we are passed the times where people forgave assholes because they were really good at what they do, and thats all that mattered. Artists seem to want to work with good and thoughtful people right now, and I really dig that. I only want to work with good and thoughtful people, so successful to me is having the ability to work and collaborate with people that reciprocated the want to work with me and my team, and the values WE uphold.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mixedbyjoncastelli.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @mixedbyjoncastelli, @wheresingmar, @joshua_deguzman
Image Credit:
All photos taken by Michael J. Morgan @michaelj.morgan
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