Ya gotta love the Other Asians for their in-depth interviews with our favorite artists. There’s a new post out about rising star AJ Rafael and they dive straight into all the major topics from his album to his life to his personal relationship with other artists. There’s bound to be stuff in there that you didn’t know about AJ, even if you label yourself a fanatic. Head on over to the OA for the read – def recommended.
OA: Congrats for releasing your first full-length album. This was an unimaginable feat, especially as an independent artist. What has been the takeaway lesson?
AJR: I learned that recording a song takes a lot of work, especially if you want to make every song the highest quality. Each song took so many hours; it took at least 24 hours. Maybe even 48 including mixing and what not. Jesse Barrera produced the album, thinking about what’s missing. There were some tracks we were thinking the last week before the deadline to turn it in, changing it and changing little things here and there. Jesse and I were even listening to the songs in the car, right before we had to send the master and we had gone to San Diego to record the song. He had to chat with his girlfriend Gracie back home and get the screen share and just mix from there; he couldn’t even hear anything but doing it all by feel. Up until the very last moment, that’s kind of what I learned. Even if it’s just worth 99 cents, it’s worth a lot more.
a-Tunes 