PRODUCER Robert Eibach PREPARES US FOR "THE JOURNEY "
Photo credit Harrison Funk
"We wanted to do some good in the world, to give people hope."
-Robert Eibach-
Beginning in June, trumpet player David Longoria will be hitting the road to promote his new album called The Journey. Written in collaboration with producer Robert Eibach, the record was designed from the ground up to, as David put's it, “Give people hope.” The idea was to marry the organic sound of the trumpet to live mixed, DJ influenced, electronic dance music. While this, by itself, is a fairly unique idea, Eibach and Longoria have taken it a step further by creating a full-fledged concept album. Eibach says, “The album is based on your life beginning before birth and going all the way to the afterlife. The music goes from one cell, to two cells; to four cells, it multiplies throughout the album. The first song is called Angels. The second is called Genesis. The next is called Playground, and you'll hear it in the music the way the trumpet is played and the track is made. Each song represents a period in one's life, and it ends with a reprise of Angels.”
While Longoria has never been afraid to mingle his trumpet and voice with the 4 on the floor beat of EDM, he is perhaps best known for his sensual fusion of Latin and jazz. His album, Baila, which Eibach helped engineer, and re-mix, was featured with its own PBS special. Eibach says, “I worked on the song Deeper Love. That was the first song that I was part of that actually charted on Billbord!”. While he is understandably proud of his first national recognition, he eventually developed his skills enough to have worked on the Grammy winning Ricky Kej record The Winds of Samsara. He laughed, then says “I still have every record, I've either engineered or produced.” He continues, “going back and listening to my work from the past and comparing them to where I'm at now, I can see where I've progressed.”
Having worked in every musical genre from movie scores to main-stream pop he claims to have no favorite type. He says, “I grew up listening to rock, so I'm always kind of going back to that.” He explains, “Through producing I've learned a lot about other kinds of music. Right now, EDM is becoming super popular, so I'm really into that. The more genres that I produce, the more I'll listen to what's going on in that genre. I love jazz, classical is amazing. Country is amazing. It comes down to loving music. Yeah, there're certain artists who for any of us are going to pop out. I like the Beatles. David Bowie could do it all, Merle Haggard, rest in peace, all genres of music because there's always something there for me to find that I'll love.”
Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he eventually went to Temple University in Philadelphia. He says, “I studied broadcasting and telecommunications and mass media. My focus was audio and TV production.” During college, he interned at Third Story Recording where he began to engineer sessions and learn the in's and out's of his chosen industry. He continues, “The day after I graduated, I moved to LA and started working for a company called Del Oro Music in Studio City California. I met the owner, David Longoria on an interview to become an intern there. That was 12 years ago, and I've been with the company ever since.” Of Third Story Recording, he says, “I learned a lot from those guys, and it was a great place towork. It prepared me for the move to Del Oro by giving me a good knowledge base.” With reflection he adds, “I've learned so much here as well, and it's made it possible for me to take things to the next level.”
Art is an expression of someone's personality but when we listen a song over the radio, oftentimes you're hearing the expression of the producer's vision as well. While Eibach himself is an affable and exuberant guy, you can practically feel his enthusiasm when he discusses music, he talks about getting out of the way to let the artist shine through. Saying, “It really comes down to trust. Can I get the artist to trust me to take them in the direction that they need to go? Producing really is about communication.” He explains, “Making the artist comfortable by showing them that you know what you're doing, and that you have their best interests in mind." He says, “ It's all about the artist because they're the ones performing the music. When you're listening to the radio, even though in some ways you are listening to the producer, you are hearing the artist.” So where does the artist end and the producer begin? “I like to really get to know who the artist is and customize something that's them. If they're writing the song, or I'm writing the song with them, I have to look at it through their eyes because they're the ones performing it, not me.”
One of the keys to musical success is for the music to match the artist, and for the artist to match the music. However, there is no one way to make that happen. Sometimes an artist will show up with a finished song and all that's required is to record it, mix it, and move on. However, that's not always the case and one of the many skills Eibach has developed is writing music either by himself or in collaboration with the artist. He says, “I like to get to know the artist, so we can figure out what's going to bring them out to make them successful.” He continues, “The important thing is to make sure the way the song is communicating is coming across. Are the chords right for that singer, those different things?" So where does it start? He says, “A lot of artists already have songs on paper that they've written with a guitar or to a piano. Some write poetry and then say 'we've got to turn this into a song'. I've got to remember that it's not just words on paper, it's really personal to that artist.” But how do words become a song? “It's not always just lyrics and it's not always just melody. They have to work together for it to come across as something people want to listen to.” He continues, “There's no wrong way to do it, but I like to get inside their head and create a song that is uniquely theirs.”
This coming summer promises to be the busiest, and hopefully, the most satisfying and successful of Robert Eibach's career. Within the next few months, he's got songs and albums being released by several different artists. Among them, is the Drew Patrick single We Generate a Spark, which is out now and hitting clubs soon. Larissa Lam will soon be releasing I Feel Alive, and April Diamond's single I "Lose Control" will be out soon followed by the album release a few months later. The big one is the David Longoria album The Journey. Longoria and Eibach are traveling this summer for what promises to be an emotional and meaningful series of performances. While they are going to perform The Journey in its entirety, the bell ringer is the song, We Are One. Unable to contain his excitement Eibach says, “We wanted to do some good in the world, to give people hope.” With that in mind David and Robert decided “to combine the fun elements of gospel to dance music, so we figured out this blend that works nicely.” Growing serious Eibach continues “David wrote lyrics based on all the racial struggle in our society. New York, Charleston, and Baltimore have created this perception that we all hate each other. It sometimes seems like it's the worst it's ever been, and we wanted to write a song that said that not everyone's not like that.” He says,' We wanted to unite people, and that's why it's called We Are One.
Eibach pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts then continues “It's terrible that someone has to hold up a sign that says “Black lives matter” because no one should ever have to do that. We brought in people of all races, all religions to be part of the song. There's this big choir on the chorus, that's where the gospel comes in, but we said, let's see if we can get 25 of our friends into this choir, and now we're up to almost 400 people singing. They just wanted to be involved in this song.” The project sounds reminiscent of the Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones massive production; We Are The World. At that suggestion, Eibach excitedly says, “Exactly! David said, “it's been like 30 years since we are the world is out, and we wanted to carry that spirit on, so we started a charity based on that song.” He explains, “What we're doing is going to all the different cities that are having these racial problems, and we're going to do concerts featuring inner-city choirs. We're going to use the money to give music scholarships to these kids. We felt like we've been given this talent, and if we don't give back, we're wasting it. The single Angels from The Journey album is out now and the We Are One concerts are beginning to ramp up. With all of this going on it's little wonder Eibach can barely contain his enthusiasm when he says, “I just can't see myself ever doing anything else!”
For more on Robert Eibach please visit
@RobertEibach
roberteibach.com
thejourneyalbum.com
weareoneconcerts.org
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