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

Hi Xu, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
This is Xu Zhu, as known as BooBoo, a recording & mixing engineer and producer. I am originally from Chain. I was a foreign transfer student at Ohio University when I first came to U.S.. I graduated with Music Production & Recording Industry major of School of Media at Ohio University. However, music wasn’t my first major at the beginning when I went to collage. I started my collage life with social work major in China but music is always my hobby since my childhood and I am also an amateur Chinese Opera actor since elementary school. I always go to the show and even record myself at home. So all these background about art and music always influences me and made me decided to jump into music world.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

Academic-wise, my journey was smooth, but since I moved to LA, the music mecca of the world, everything became much more difficult. I submitted my resume to many companies and received no response, so I started to search and visit many music studios in person with a printed resume. Some of the studios opened their door for me and received my resume but most of them didn’t even open the door for me. It wasn’t until 4 months later that I got an interview opportunity from Blackwood Studios, where I am currently working, that I started my music career until now. ​At the beginning after I started working at studio, all my jobs were cleaning, and acting as the runner, helping the client get stuff. I didn’t even walk into any recording room or touch any of the gear in my first 2 months at studio. This was definitely not what I expected when I was in college and I wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to really start my music career. I was trying everything I can to attract my boss and client’s attention. I just stayed at studio all the time even after I finished my working shift, I would watch how other engineers work and would ask questions. Other than sleeping, I pretty much spent all my time at studio either watching how other people work, or working on my own music stuff and ask for opinions from other people at studio. A year and half later, I started getting some sessions with clients.
​The biggest hurdle was communication. Since I am not a native English speaker, it was really hard for me to communicate with my clients, especially I didn’t understand the slang words used in daily conversation. In addition to how good and fast I can run a session on music technique wise, I also have to learn how to communicate with my clients. At the beginning, I just guessed from the way they talk and their body language. Bit by bit, I was able to learn to deal with pretty much all of my clients’ request. I can now run my sessions way smoother and am now the one who gathers everyone in my session.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
As same as a lot of musician, I am super internal type person. So I barely go out for crazy party unless with my friends who I know pretty well. Otherwise my favorite spots would be my studio and my home. However I really love to do city walk or set up a destination, such as a restaurant , shopping mall, or museum, then just walk to there either with earbuds on or just self-thinking. I also love cooking by myself. These are the best way how I relax my brain after long time recording session.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
As I mentioned earlier, music is been staying in my life somehow all the time even I didn’t really study it properly as a major or career until I made this decision on my sophomore year. My English teacher, who is called Robert, loves playing guitar. So we have been talked about music a lot and sometimes party together like a little live show after class. Since then I feel like my dream of music has been roused.

Also, I started listen a lot songs and watched documentary of Bobby Chen, who is a really talented and unique Chinese singer and producer. I knew the way how he made all his music and the idea he was trying to express with his lyric and “ideologue” from his music and I thought those are really cool. Especially how he worked in the studio with the big console and how he dealing with all the recording equipments. To me at that moment, those were magic! And I love how he walk around cities and talk with different people to learn their stories and put into his music eventually.

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