Meet G.A.D & Shoji | Producers/Instrumentalists/engineers
We had the good fortune of connecting with G.A.D & Shoji and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi G.A.D & Shoji, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
G.A.D and I both came to Los Angeles around 2012 to attend Musicians Institute and to pursue musical careers. We quickly became friends and started playing gigs together. In 2015 we started writing and producing songs out of G.A.D’s studio apartment. We quickly developed a vision of having a full on production company where we had our own recording studio. The idea was that we would rent it out, as well as be able to assist other artists with any and all steps necessary to turn their musical ideas or demos into radio ready songs. We also intended to use the studio as a personal creative space where we could take our own musical projects to the next level. Initially it was daunting because although we were both trained musicians we had very little experience engineering or producing for other artists, as well as limited exposure to the business side of the music industry. Nevertheless, we made the leap from gigging musician to entrepreneur, which entailed investing in high end studio equipment and an inviting studio space. A few months and several thousand dollars of credit card debt later, the first iteration of our production company began operations in 2018.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We both came to LA from different places with the shared goal of making music. He is a guitarist from Paris and I’m a bassist from Washington D.C so although we share many of the same tastes in music, our experiences and the artists that shaped our musical upbringing are different. This gives us a unique sound when we create together. Our differing perspectives give the music we produce together a certain freshness. G.A.D & Shoji is the name of our producer duo and the name under which we release our own music. We released our first project “Hatred ‘Bout to Moon” in April 2023. Our debut is an instrumental mix of sample based hip hop and live instrumentation that takes the listener to deep corners of their mind they never knew existed. We also produced Ledisi’s newest single “Sell me no Dreams”, released at the end of November. We are looking forward to putting ourselves out there even more this year by releasing some new music both producing for artists and our own instrumental music. Although both our first release and producing our first song for a major artist happened this past year, we have been working towards these accomplishments for more than ten years ever since we both arrived in LA. Whatever degree of success we do have, we owe it to our perseverance. We spent many hours making tracks and trying to improve ourselves every time we went to the studio to create something new. Whenever we experienced disappointments like our tracks not getting picked for placements or losing out on opportunities, our reaction was always to work harder and not get discouraged. We are producers who want to bring out the best in the artists we work with and do whatever we can to make the songs we work on as good as possible.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If we were to show someone around LA for a week there are several places that can’t be missed. Los Angeles has a very wide ranging music scene and seeing some live music is a must if you are visiting. Here are some of our favorite places to see music: Shoo Shoo Baby (Tuesday night), Seven Grand (Monday through Thursday), Rhythm Room, Regent theater, The Baked Potato, Sofitel (Monday night), Black Rabbit Rose. These are all more intimate venues but there are always concerts happening at bigger venues too like the Crypto.com Arena or the Forum.
The food scene here is very diverse and there are so many options in every neighborhood but here are some places that I think are not too expensive and really showcase what the food here is all about:
Moos Craft Barbeque, Spicy BBQ, Humble Bird, Northern Cafe, For the Win Burgers, Villas Tacos, Tacos la Guera, Clark st diner, Seven Korean BBQ, Sticky Rice, Savores Oaxaquenos, Le Coupe, Republic of Pie, Katsu Sando.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
One of the most important relationships we have built is with music supervisor Derryck “Big Tank” Thornton. After hearing a few of our productions, he introduced us to a variety of artists. Since then collaborations with these artists, as well as instrumental tracks we wrote have gotten us more than seventy placements on TV shows and movies.
Among these artists, singer and songwriter Francci has been one of our most frequent collaborators. Many songs that we have written with her have gotten placed in TV shows. We recently worked together on Ledisi’s newest single which was our first time producing for a major artist.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/overlookstudio?igsh=NGVhN2U2NjQ0Yg== @gadprod @shojiproduction
Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7euYyqEKjS6ffhReVl5Y1L?si=dma9QRirTPqaSDXUxmKuZw
Image Credits
All photos of G.A.D & Shoji taken by Oscar Contreras @consume12 Ledisi single artwork by @philbeaudreau and @rontyoung
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