RECORDING GRAD DREW DRUCKER DISCUSSES WORKING WITH WIZ KHALIFA

This week we are highlighting Drew Drucker. He graduated in 2005 from the Los Angeles Recording School.
Drew’s interest in recording and being part of the entertainment industry really took shape when he was in high school. Drew took digital music technology classes at his local community college and realized this is something he could do as a career. After high school a friend of his recommended the Los Angeles Recording School.

After graduating Drew has gone on to work with many different artists. He worked at Paramount studios as a runner,

The way it works there is, if they can’t find someone to assist, they throw a runner in to see how they do.

After about six months, this is exactly the opportunity he got. He worked on tracks for Ray J, and he also got to work on some tracks with Scott Storch, during that session the main engineer had medical issues and Drew got to take over. Fortunately Scott Storch liked what Drew was doing and asked if he wanted to mix a song, a week later Drew got a call from the label and he got his first mixing gig.

So I went from an assistant to mixing in one session, of course after I went back to assisting.

Currently Drew has been working with Wiz Khalifa, on his mix tapes, albums, and features. He has also worked with Juicy J, and Travis Barker. With everything he has worked on and done, when it comes to his engineering work, he is most proud of working on Wiz Khalifa’s album Blacc Hollywood. It is his first Billboard #1 he has worked on and it is also Grammy Nominated for Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song.

His education at LARS helped him with,

General knowledge of signal flow and how not to blow stuff up.

The major thing that the school provided was a painless way to get an internship.

I called the first two and they accepted me because I was going to the school. I got two internships within five minutes of making the phone calls, and I think without the school it would have been harder to do that.

The advice that Drew leaves for current LARS and LAFS students,

Make your life as simple as possible, if you are going to dedicate it to the music industry, the less drama you have in your life, the easier it will be to focus, because so much of what you do when you’re starting is working for free…focus on perfecting the craft and never thinking you know everything… if you think you have nothing left to learn, then you are not going to be successful.