Hailing from Strong Island NY, L.A. (aka LANSTARR) is a musician, producer, and software synth developer. He plays for the band Dirty Bath Water, and produces a number of Hip Hop and R&B artists. He is also the creator of three software instruments; STARRSYNTH, ELEPHO, and STELLAPHEX.
L.A.'s musical background started at the age of 9, when he learned to play the trumpet. He was influenced by a large range of musical genres, including Jazz, Reggae, Rock, R&B, and Hip Hop. This is the reason that he makes a wide variety of styles of music, ranging from up tempo "club bangers" to smooth melodic tunes – though he stays grounded in raw and gritty Hip Hop. By combining his natural musical ability with his trained skills, L.A. is able to adapt to and create a wide variety of music.
What instruments do you play?
My main instrument is the trumpet. I also play the trombone, piano, and electronic instruments such as synthesizers, samplers, etc.
When did you start creating your own music?
I started to compose my own music at around the age of 10. These were simple little riffs I would compose and write on staff paper. Eventually I got a computer and started to write music using software tools. When I was around 13 or 14 I got my first synth, a Casio keyboard. At that point, I started making tracks using this keyboard and a busted tape recorder. The keyboard could only record 5 tracks, but the tape player was broken, so it would overdub anything already recorded on it. So I would play 5 tracks on the keyboard, and then record it to tape. I would then rewind the tape to start of that song, play another 5 tracks on the keyboard, and then overdub that to the tape once again. The 5 tracks on the casio couldn't be edited either, and there was no quantize! It was a real primitive way to make tracks, but I had to work with the limited tools I had at the time. I got really serious about production when I went to college, and that is when I started focusing on making professional music. What I like is that I went from having no equipment, to low budget low quality, to more professional quality equipment very gradually. This gave me plenty of time to learn and try to perfect my craft.
What types of music did you listen to as a child?
I was exposed to a lot of 80's Pop, R&B, Rock, and Reggae music from my parents. In school, I was exposed to Classical and Jazz, since I played trumpet for the school's Jazz Band, Concert Band, and Brass Choir. Also, because my teen years were spent in the 90’s, I became a fan of the Hip Hop music from that era. But mainly, a lot of the 70's and 80's Soul, Funk, Pop, and R&B songs. I was too young to really know the names of the artists or songs, but when I hear them now, I am like "oooh, I remember that song!" hahahahaha.
Who were your influences? Who do you listen to now?
My father was my biggest musical influences growing up, since he would sing in church and was also their audio engineer. Watching him made me want to get into the technical side of making music. Also, I use to listen to a lot of music produced by Havoc, Wyclef Jean, and Rodney Jerkins early on. Some of my favorite musicians and artists now are Mobb Deep, Nas, Talib Kweli, Little Brother, Art Blakey, Herbie Hankcock, Howlin’ Wolf, etc.
You also develope your own software synthesizers and effects! How did you become such a technology enthusiast?
I think it came from a few different areas. As a kid, I was very much into science. The first thing I wanted to be as a child was a scientist; I wanted to work with DNA and genetics. But when I got into using computers, everything kind of shifted that way. The key element that caused me to really learn computers was that I could make music with them. While experimenting, I would constantly mess things up and then have to fix my machine, which led to me to learning about programming, hardware components and instillations, and software.
So which do you like better, the logics of technology or creativity of music?
To me, they are one in the same. This is not true for everyone, but this s how I see it. Whether you play acoustically or use electronic equipment, there is technology behind it. Even in the simplest instruments, which consists of raw hide being beat with a stick, you see technology and science. It’s just that by using a simpler tool, one does not have to think about the technology behind it. With me, whether I am playing a trumpet or programming complex timbres on my synthesizer, I like to understand what is going on behind the scenes, and more importantly, WHY it works. This is the reason I developed my own software synthesizer. So I could understand everything going on under the hood.
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