After releasing his first Extended Play (EP) last spring and participating in a GRAMMY camp this past summer, senior singer-songwriter Zach Gospe is working with his manager, senior Riley Soward, on his latest project: launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 for a trip to Los Angeles to record his first professional EP.
“This project is an opportunity to expand the environment I’m in right now,” Zach said. “Riley and I have exhausted our local opportunities both in concert availability as well as the amount of time and effort we are able to put into an EP locally, which we did earlier. Having this opportunity to go to LA to do a studio quality recording broadens our outreach both in the music sector and influence.”
For this upcoming EP, Zach will be working with producer Mark Mazzetti, the internationally known music and entertainment producer who worked with artists including John Mayer, Elton John, Sting and Janet Jackson. Zach and Riley got in contact with Mazzetti at the West Coast Songwriters Conference at Foothill College on September 7 and handed Mazzetti a copy of Zach’s first EP with his name and number but were not expecting Mazzetti to call back or listen to the EP.
Three days later, Riley got a text from Mazzetti, who expressed his excitement with discovering Zach’s EP and offered to be Zach’s producer for his first professional album.
“Listening to Zach’s EP, I thought he had incredible potential, a wonderful young voice and that he was on the cutting edge of a full singer-songwriter,” Mazzetti said. “This project will be successful because the songs are great and they are going to be produced, sung and mixed in a first-class manner. I think Zach is an excelling artist…the world hasn’t even heard what’s coming yet.”
Mazzetti and Zach have already started the song development stage of production, also known as the Artist and Repertoire (A&R) stage, and will continue to prepare songs for recording in February.
“I measure success by whether the songs are effective, the vocals are great and there’s an audience that gets it and is willing to spend money to come out to your show and buy the music,” Mazzetti said. “I see success. I think we are already a really great team, and I look at this first stage as getting [Zach] off on the right foot in more elaborately produced records…I’m really excited to be working with [Zach and Riley].”
Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website for a range of creative projects. Artists who need a certain amount of money to realize their newest ideas and inventions establish a funding goal and deadline. They then upload a video explaining their project, and permit others to decide whether the project is worth their funds. The money raised must reach the funding goal within a certain time period or else the project is not realized, in which case all funding is returned to the individual investors.
Zach’s Kickstarter campaign launched today at 6:30 pm and runs through 11:59 pm on December 15. The funding goal is $10,000 and will go towards studio recording and production fees. Depending on the amount they contribute, investors will receive rewards for their donations if the project reaches its goal.
“[Investors] will be giving me an experience to grow as an artist and Riley to grow as a business manager,” Zach said. “Above everything, they will be investing in the music, so if they feel a connection to the music, they want to see it grow and expand its outreach…This is all for the experience I will get as a songwriter and musician and bringing everything up to the next step.”
The link to the campaign can be found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2032161415/zach-gospe-17-year-old-singer-songwriter-original
