Meet Raz Klinghoffer of Hamster in Van Nuys

Today we’d like to introduce you to Raz Klinghoffer.

Raz, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started producing at a fairly young age, over ten years ago. I began my career primarily producing rock, but always had a love for electronic music and pushing myself creatively in the studio in general. I grew up in Tel Aviv; all of my earliest productions were done for Israeli artists. Some of my clients were quite well known over there. Those days were a great introduction in learning the ins and outs of production, engineering, and mixing. To become a really good producer, and especially a mix engineer, you need years of practice and a lot of trial and error.

Around then, I also formed a rock band called EarlyRise whom I produced and played guitar for. I’m proud of what we achieved; we played large festivals all over the world, our song “Wasteland” was the only unsigned track to be featured in the learn-to-play-guitar game ‘Rocksmith 2014,’ and our cover of “La La La” received airplay on top 40 stations all across the US.

I moved to the US to take EarlyRise to the next level, but for a lot of reasons – “creative differences,” personality differences, differences in goals, whatever you want to call it, we split up shortly after we arrived in Los Angeles. I then turned my sole attention to studio production and worked with a lot of up-and-coming artists. After a year or so of producing for others in LA, I started doing my own productions, experimenting with electronic, indie, and pop sounds. I decided to release some of those recordings under the name “Hamster.” I was thrilled when my debut single and music video, “City Limits,” charted on Spotify’s top US Viral Hits (#8). The video also exploded on YouTube – it currently has over 1.5 million views. That’s when I knew I had something with my Hamster project.

Has it been a smooth road?
Moving to LA was the hardest thing I’ve ever done both personally and professionally. Moving to a new country – with an entirely new culture, language, and being without the safety new of long-time friends and family truly tests what you’re made of.

I think I’m still adjusting to American culture, and LA culture specifically. It’s about expectations, but also understanding where people are coming from, how to communicate.

The move to LA was what ultimately destroyed EarlyRise – the culture shock was hard on everyone in the band, myself included.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Hamster story. What else should we know?
Hamster is an experimental electronic music project. It started out with a more straightforward EDM sound, but I gradually drifted towards Future Bass. These days, I’m taking Hamster in a new direction with genre and production experimentation. I’m interested in creating Indie sounds that are harder to categorize which folks will hear in some of my future releases.

I’m an extremely prolific producer. Not counting productions I’ve done for others, I’ve created something like 120 fully produced/mixed masters in the last three years.

I’m most proud of some of the collaborations I’ve done with some really talented LA-based singers and songwriters which you can hear on my Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. I’m also very happy with my team, especially my manager Fawn Goodman and my licensing company, Terrorbird, who have secured some great placements in TV shows like ‘Lucifer,’ ‘Insatiable,’ ‘Shadow Hunters’ and ‘Shades of Blue,’ over the past 12 months.

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
I would probably have made the move to LA when I was younger. The industry really tells you that if you’re not in LA, you don’t exist. A lot of potential partners and industry gatekeepers are here or in New York, so you do need to have a presence where the folks that work in music live. It’s only when you’re here do you understand how important that really is.

Contact Info:

• Address: 6747 Odessa Ave, 202
• Website: Raz Klinghoffer Music Producer and Mix E https://www.razklinghoffer.com/
• Phone: 3105609782
• Email: raz_klinghoffer@hotmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhamster/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hamster2016/
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVvE6PqGMzJvUgYzIie3Evg

Image Credit:
Cory Pitkavish

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