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Issue #57 – Job Opportunities & Student Successes
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
From his early days, it seems Ferrell Martin was always a self-starter, an independent spirit. So it comes as little surprise that when he decided to pursue a career in music as a rapper and MC, he took personal responsibility for getting where he wanted to go.
“I work for everything I have,” says Ferrell. “I started working at pizza places when I was about 16, and just made enough [to buy] gear ever since I was a kid basically.”
That go-getter attitude prompted him to start his own small business as a bicycle rickshaw driver in downtown Austin, making money to go toward his career and paying for his own recordings out of his earnings. When he started getting frustrated by the time crunch of buying time at local studios (and in some cases, the bad mixes he was getting), Ferrell decided it was time to learn audio engineering himself. “I wanted to have control over my own legacy,” he says. “I just want the creative process to be open. I am not trying to confine myself to this and this. I’d rather just do it at my own pace, my way.”
A friend of Ferrell’s happened to be a Recording Connection graduate and suggested he check it out. He decided to enroll, and true to form, he saved up his own money to pay the tuition in full. He was placed as an apprentice with Nick Joswick at 5th Street Studios in Austin, and despite the fact that the Ferrell and Nick came from two different places musically, Ferrell felt connected right away.
“[Nick] knew what he was doing,” says Ferrell. “He is in more in the realm of recording and engineering bands like full bands…Even though I am more of a hip-hop guy, and what I am going to be doing is more or less like mixing down beats and stuff like that, I still just thought that what he did was awesome. He does what he does well. He’s also an artist, too. That was one of the things that I really respected…For me, that was big, the fact that my mentor is a musician, plus he was always just so nice to me, he was always just really cool with me. It’s like he cared about my life.”
About midway through his apprenticeship course, an incredible opportunity came out of left field: an invitation to go on tour with popular electro-soul act Fifth Nation. Ferrell found himself at a crossroads. “I wanted to improve my education and learn how to mix and master,” he says, “but at the same time I am an artist. I want to give everything I can to my art, and my art started working out. [But] I still wanted to learn those skills.”
Thankfully, due to the flexibility of the apprenticeship program, Ferrell didn’t have to choose between a career-forming opportunity and finishing his education. “Nick was a really, really, understanding person, letting me do my thing with art and then being like, ‘Dude, I got you. I’m still going to teach you.'”
The two agreed to put Ferrell’s apprenticeship on hold while he went on tour with Fifth Nation—but meanwhile, several weeks now into the tour, Ferrell isn’t wasting the opportunity to continue learning from his experiences. “Fifth Nation…gave me the opportunity of a lifetime,” he says. “They put together most of the touring stuff. It’s a duo, and the male of this duo is Musik Read. He is an excellent sound engineer. He has been just breaking me off with wisdom the whole way.”
When his tour commitments wrap up this spring, Ferrell says he plans to pick up where he left off with his apprenticeship. “I’m going to be shadowing Nick more than ever,” he says. “I want to just stand over his shoulder every single day and watch what he is doing. I really want to watch. I want to obviously go to my lessons, but I want to shadow more than ever.”
Ferrell’s experience underscores the advantages of learning the music industry on-the-job, especially for self-starters who are taking charge of their own careers—not only because the low cost of apprenticeship makes it affordable for independent artists like Ferrell to pay in full (an impossibility for a lot of other schools), but also because the flexibility allows up-and-comers to work their training around their careers.
“The structure of the Recording Connection was really attractive because I knew that it wasn’t exactly like a “school” school,” Ferrell says. “It was more of like a tailor-made fit. That came true more than I could have imagined…The fact that I’m able to live my life the way I am and still be able to come back is really awesome. I don’t think any other program could have offered me that. If I were enrolled in a [traditional] school, I’d be screwed right now.”
Check out some of Ferrell Martin’s work (under his industry moniker Feral the Earthworm) in the Apprentice Media section below!
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