Recording Connection mentor Leland Kracher brings a unique perspective to the students he teaches. First, he’s a former student himself; having apprenticed under mentor Rick Rooney, he now teaches alongside his mentor at Empire Sound in Dallas, where he specializes in teaching Ableton to his students. Second, Leland is very much an artist himself, currently managing and playing in EDM livetronica fusion band MOJO, shorthand for “Modular Johnson.” And third…as someone who nearly lost his musical path, Leland is especially big on encouraging his students to be as creative as possible, both in their music and in the studio.
In a recent conversation with RRFC, Leland reflected a bit on his own musical journey as well as the importance of professionalism, artistry and the creative process.
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ON HOW HE GOT DISILLUSIONED WITH MUSIC, AND WHY IT EVENTUALLY DREW HIM TO THE RECORDING CONNECTION AS A STUDENT:
“I was in a good music program [in high school]. I was in the best situation you could be in and still it stifled my creativity. Never in high school did I ever feel motivated to make my own songs, ever. It was the opposite. It was, ‘I have to practice this sheet music. I have to be able to sight read all these things, I have to go play everyone else’s stuff.’ There was no place for me to create. There was no place for me to be able to do anything like that…After high school, I kind of distanced myself a little bit from music because the institutionalized music kind of ruined it for me…They present it like all you can do [professionally] is go down the path to be a musician in the sense of playing your instrument and reading music. They don’t show the creativity side, which is where the Recording Connection came in. Once I saw that I still loved music a few years after high school, and it wasn’t going to go away, I started looking for mediums to get that out with the proper education as well. That’s where the Recording Connection came in for me…I knew that although I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to create my own content, the way to do that was to get into a studio and fully know what I was doing. That’s why I chose the Pro Tools program and also specifically Rick Rooney because I saw the blend between being able to create and having your own drive and what this program presented as an opportunity to learn and how to operate truly in that world. So that’s what drew me to it, and it was a no-brainer once I got there.”
ON HOW HE GOT INSPIRED TO TRY AGAIN WITH MUSIC AFTER WORKING IN THE CORPORATE WORLD:
“It wasn’t this big epiphany moment for me. It was the building up of seeing that that’s really what I was going to have to do for the rest of my life. No matter what I did, I was going to have to wake up and I was going to have to go to work, no matter where it was…I saw that I had to work every day, and I did not want it to be for someone else. I wanted it to be for myself doing something I loved [and to] help facilitating other’s dreams, and that’s exactly what I’ve gotten to do.”
ABOUT HIS BAND, MOJO, AND LESSONS ABOUT COMBINING HARD WORK WITH ARTISTRY:
Everybody who worked with me has told me that they really respect and appreciate my ability to basically manage the band while participating in it. I book all the shows, I run the lightshow from the stage while playing keyboard. So I have all of this oriented and mapped out, and I have the set list and have everything tracked out. So the point of that is, while people think it’s separate and different, if you really think about your favorite artists…That’s how they got there. It’s because they worked their ass off trying to get there, and they booked the shows and they messaged people on Facebook and they went to the shows…Go to shows. Go to local shows. Go support people. I don’t care if there are 20 people there. You’ll meet one person out of those 20 that will change your life, and it happened to me. I went to an open mic in Denton, met the person who’s in the biggest band in Denton, and we started getting shows from there.”
WHERE HE SEES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY GOING, ESPECIALLY ELECTRONIC MUSIC:
“Really, I think we’re at a beautiful time in music…You know, Daft Punk playing Coachella really is the first time that the music industry understood that electronic music was not only here to stay but that they needed to be educated. And I think from that moment it allowed electronic music to have its own platform, thus leading us to the blend with rock n’ roll. However early Ableton and other DAW’s couldn’t hang, no computer could keep up. People had to use analog synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines which were very difficult to play with in a band since they didn’t have much flexibility… How it’s being bridged now is through Ableton, honestly. Ableton and companies like Korg, Roland and Behringer, I would say those are the main three that are making budget analog synths, allowing digital and the analog to be in the same studio. They’re marketing towards who we’re trying to help educate—the bedroom backpack producer whose things weigh two pounds and they can fit in your hand and run on batteries, literally, and they’re replicating classic synthesizers like the Juno-106 and the Jupiter-8.”
BRAGGING ON SOME OF HIS RECORDING CONNECTION STUDENTS:
I’ve graduated five students…almost up to six students that I’ve graduated now…Bud Brinson was my first student. He has now moved back to Colorado, is in a livetronica band, much like what I make, playing drums and using Ableton, and has independent tracks that he’s produced that I was very proud of. So a little bit of nostalgia and whatever with him, as he was my first student, but a very talented producer and very talented musician, and has literally moved out of state to follow his musical aspirations… I truly think that Blair [Auzenne] is going to be something. It’s incredible. He’s just so good. It’s just all different types of music. He can play piano, he played French horn, he was classically trained…Just an incredibly talented musician, and just an incredible producer…Hunter Thomas—he is an active DJ, and just starting to work his way up and getting shows, playing mixes, things he produced, just mixes in general of DJ’ing. And then Bennett Rofsky is about to graduate. I think he’s just a couple lessons away. In the middle of his program he had to go back to Miami to finish his Marine Biology degree [and will be returning]. And so he’s really smart, and multitalented, but still…someone who’s getting a Marine Biology degree chose to go through the Recording Connection as his alternate form of education because that’s what he really loves…He has such a unique mind for coming up with modulation and matrix routing. Just very talented, very fun to explore synthesizers with.”
ON WHY HE JUMPED AT THE CHANCE TO MENTOR STUDENTS AFTER BEING A STUDENT HIMSELF:
“When the opportunity got presented to me to teach, when Rick asked me if I was interested…it was an immediate yes. I was given this, and I know how happy I am and how free I felt. So any ability to give that back to anyone is—I just feel like I had to do it.”
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