Meet Chapters | Pop Production and Songwriting Duo (Simon Jay – Luke Shrestha)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chapters and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chapters, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
In starting Chapters and our production business, we’ve always thought very practically about it. There are a few parts to a successful business: bringing a product to market, having a positive cashflow, and having a sustainable model that can run long-term. All of these concepts apply to an artist too, like having a unique brand, crystal clear storytelling, and finding authenticity so that they may have longevity in a music career. This is something we aim to instill into our artists.

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.
Music has always been a part of our lives even when we were toddlers so our relationship with music is so unique. The fact that both of us have similar stories with how we grew up playing and making music definitely has a huge impact on how we think about making music together. Both of us feel like we communicate our emotions better through music than with words so being able to communicate these feelings with the world gives the music a unique feel.

We’re proud of everything we do for different reasons but one project specifically we are very proud of is our artist Faime. We’ve been executive producing Faime since the beginning when he had no fans and now he has 700k monthly listeners on Spotify and charts across Asia consistently every release. What’s cool about his project too is not only do we produce and write all the records with him, we also music direct his live shows, help manage his social media, creative direct and anything else he may need to expand his art. We are currently working on a new EP with him and it’s some of our best and most personal work to date so keep an eye out for that project coming out near the end of 2022!

I think a lot of people expect their careers just to take off all of a sudden one day but I think most of the time that’s just not how it goes. We’ve been grinding day and night for years and it always felt like climbing a ladder. Each step took years and years to take but through it all we have learned so much about the industry and about ourselves. The old saying “life is a journey not a destination” is something we always try to remember and in all honesty I don’t know if we’ll ever reach the destination. We want to continue to learn more, push the boundaries of music and find new goals to achieve each and every day.

One lesson that keeps coming back a lot is “keep it simple”. It’s so easy to overcomplicate things and fall into the trap of thinking complexity is synonymous with great art. Oftentimes the biggest songs are super simple and were written in a matter of minutes so they don’t need to be super complex.

For us, we hope the music we make helps people experience emotions and life in a way they haven’t felt before. Our name “Chapters” came from the way we experienced music as kids. That one song that takes you back to senior year of high school, or reminds you of your first love, music can be a time machine for us. Music can take you back to that Chapter in your life and I hope people can experience our music in that way.

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?
We’re both really big gear heads, and our buddies at Westlake Pro always have what we’re looking for. We also both like experimenting with gear, so even when we want to try something that’s a little out there, they always come through. We live somewhat close to the beach, and thankfully the beach around us is very forest-y, so we’d probably do that too. We love our Chipotle too, that’s our go to spot!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Yes absolutely! We’ve both had different mentors over the years including Rickey Minor, Mark Watters and John Feldmann. One person though that has basically become family to us is Robert Irving. We met Robert early on in our careers and he has always been so supportive of both of us. In 2014 we started working out of Roberts studio which he built from the ground up since the 80’s. He had worked on tons of cool projects in the studio including High School Musical, Breakfast Club, Richard Carpenter and many more so it’s a place with a lot of history now. We were able to buy the studio from Robert in 2020 and now we hope to continue to further the legacy of this studio for years to come.

Website: chaptersmusic.com

Instagram: instagram.com/chaptersmusic

Twitter: twitter.com/thisischapters

Other: instagram.com/simon_chapters instagram.com/luke_chapters

Image Credits
Image 1: PC Irina Garaiacu Image 2-6: PC @shadesofbren (IG) – Brendan Calton