This entry is going to a fun entry. I will warn you now though. Grab your coffee, snacks, breakfast, whatever you need to enjoy your reading experience, because this one will be long. I feel like talking today. I have worked so very hard and dreamed of the day to create my very own music video. As I stated in past post. I was doing things so backwards. I was performing without any product to sale. I did not have control over my brand. I mean for real I didn't have a vision for my brand at all. I just wanted to perform and sing, with no clue that I needed to handle the business side of things if I were to make this career and dream of mine work.
Five years ago, Doc Bluz and I were creating music at the house, I was in my zone, working on a track called "Speechless" and out of no where Doc tells me that we need to have a music video. Immediately I said no LOL, so Doc asked me why and I explained that we had to have a single first to release before we could think about a video, and I told him that performing was more important LOL. Just reading this and remembering makes me laugh because I definitely thought I knew what I was talking about. I mean I was not completely wrong but in this instance I was not right either LOL. I mean I am admitting my mistake. Sheesh, I can feel you guys shaking your heads at me now. I was being hard headed and stubborn I get it, but hey I was passionate about my craft, and Doc understood that and I appreciate him fully for that. Needless to say that conversation didn't come up again that day. Doc and I continued to work on the "Speechless" Track.
Two years later while working on The first version of "Fire it up" Doc was in my ear again about this music video. I once again was in denial. I wanted a music video. I truly did. I just didn't know how to go about creating it, and music videos can get very costly, with all that is involved, so I was once again against it. This time though Doc became very adamant about getting this done telling me that I was not seeing the big picture, and that people are visual people. He said if I released my song and the video together than it would have a greater impact. I actually heard what he was saying and I definitely agreed with him since he put it that way. He was definitely right. I asked Doc would he mind looking into videographers in the area so that we could make this happen and Doc said " I got you bro." That actually was a great moment because though we didn't see eye to eye at first. We were able to find a resolution. Doc was passionate about this, but this was the right resolution. Well there is more to this story, I ended up not listening to Doc. I was being hardheaded and I was excited to let the world hear my single, so I released it. LOL telling this story has me laughing while I am typing. Man I was a handful LOL. To my defense I was just excited. The video was going to take too long for what I thought I was supposed to do then. (Ok no more excuses LOL, Ill finish the story) That is exactly what I told a disappointed Doc Bluz, but Doc being my brother, believing in me, believing in the gift that Jesus blessed me with and him seeing the hard work that "we" had put in for years understood. He also knew I had to go through the process LOL. Even if the process was going to take me in a full circle to wind up back at this same conversation.
That time I was also busy with something else important. I was going through my auditions for Carnival. Once I got my ship. I told Doc that I was going on the high seas to perform for four months. Doc was happy for me and told me to do my thing. Once on the ship after a couple weeks, I had met a video tech named Kyle and spoke to him about music videos and got the awesome idea to create a music video on the ship. I was excited and called Doc and he wasn't as happy LOL. Basically if I did it on the ship I would eliminate him from being in it and he was by my side with this project the whole time. (He actually NEVER said that too me BUT I could read him through the phone LOL), so I told him when I got off the ship we would do the video.
I like to keep my word. Keeping your word is important, and my intentions towards everything in life is always good and positive, but sometimes my intentions don't work out the way that I see them. I mean at the time the idea goes through my head. It seems genius. My great intentions I planned, to do the music video when I got off the ship, got detoured by something that I definitely didn't imagine would happen when I joined the ship. I fell in LOVE with a girl on the ship! True story. (I will explain that one too you one day) In no way did she slow me down from my goal of creating the video. I actually slowed myself down because I always wanted to talk to her on the phone, face time, and or text. Sheeesh c'mon, I was in love. You can't get mad at me for that one right? It became a long distance relationship once off the ship so that is where my time was being spent. One day Doc reached out to me too see how the numbers were going and told me that it was time that we made a bigger push towards the music. We had to capitalize on the market. I agreed with him so we spoke on future plans, and envisioned BIG stages and BIG crowds. I then told him that we needed a music video. He laughed and said I've been saying this for years bro.
Months went by I actually joined two more ships in between (The Vista and the Sensation). I had my music equipment on the Carnival Sensation and began working on another track called "Romantic Movie" Now I want you too pay close attention to the name of that song because this song "Romantic Movie" is what began the full process of this story. For my loyal fans and friends that are reading every post and sharing, "Romantic Movie" will be my second single release. (TEASER) so Martin (BASS) and Luke (GUITAR) heard my track and played in parts for me on this track and really bought the track to life. I originally was writing a different song to this track that I created. (I'll give you this story at another time) I was receiving a lot of positive feedback on this track, a lot of people liked the sound of the song. I felt like was sitting on a hit song here, but I was on the ship so I needed to wait until I got off the ship to complete it.
Once off the ship I dove into this song, I was motivated, I was determined, I had stuff on my brain, and I was committed to this project. I invited my live band to come to the studio to finish the creation of the track. (If you follow me on facebook then you can go to the videos and get a teaser of me in the studio with this song and this moment I am speaking of now if you don't follow me, then go follow) This song was in the process of getting finished and I called Doc to discuss business moves about the song "Romantic Movie" during this conversation Our thoughts switched to another song that I had released two years before "Fire it up" Doc had the idea too release it again since it was out already, because the song "Fire it Up" had great potential but I released it too prematurely, and if I had released it at the right time then we would have another hit. Doc was onto something, so I told Doc if we released "Fire it Up" again than we would have to record it over and update the sounds of the songs while still keeping the essence of how I heard the song to be originally. Doc agreed with me, so we moved forward with our business plan where we ended up finalizing our team, which included an outstanding producer named Torrey out of Augusta Georgia.
I had been sitting on Torrey's contact info for a while. I was waiting for the right time to call since I was traveling with the ships. I didn't know what too expect but Torrey came highly referred to me from my good friend Courtland. I reached out to Torrey and he was cool. He has a lot of musical knowledge, and he plays most of the instruments himself. I sent him my track and I asked could he pull this production off and he said yes. Torrey worked on the track and sent it to me, I told him my corrections and sent it back to him. This was a process of ours and I loved it. I realized that I should've been allowing the professional's to do this anyway LOL. I have the ear, and I create the demo's, but sending the track off to let the Pro's handle it was definitely a better option. We finally settled on a track of "Fire it up" that we liked. It was very nice, but it wasn't there yet. I wasn't getting the feeling that I wanted. Torrey kept working on the track. I mean sheesh we were 8 hours away from each other trying to get this track done right. Not to mention the hours spent working. I was literally up working on average of seventeen hours per day. Everything was about music. Doc had an idea about the track to add more bounce, and my bro Q said that we needed to eliminate a specific sound in the track because it was too high pitch. I heard everyone's opinion and I made the necessary adjustments and relayed it to Torrey, so on Thanksgiving day Torrey and I stayed on the phone for 3 hours making sure that the track was right. Then Torrey sent me the version that I was going to share to the World.
In the meantime Doc Bluz was on the back end working on booking the video shoot. Our team had already told us what dates we needed to get things finished, in order to be able to get the release date that we wanted. Doc reached out to a close friend Daniel who wanted to shoot the video for us, but was working on an important project already, but he referred us to Lou. I had a vision on how I wanted the video, and a message that definitely wanted to relay to the world. Doc and I hammered out all the details of the video. Doc then met up with Lou and presented the details of the video with Lou, then guess what we had our director for the music video and our date booked for December 17th in New York City.
Next thing we had to do was build the cast. Since the shoot was in NYC, I needed to find a female to play the part that lived in NYC as well. With all the stuff that I was doing to get the song together and the materials that I needed I to get to the team. It seemed like I was pushing the video to the side again, but I was not. The video was fully on my mind, and I had the perfect person to play the female part, Liz.
Liz is my home girl that I had met ironically five years before at an audition in NYC for another project. Liz is also an awesome vocalist as well, and a firecracker when mad. She was acting lol (Check out the behind the scenes live video on FACEBOOK) We had always kept up with each other, but with life changes we hadn't spoken to each other for about 3 years, so I reached out to Liz to see if she wanted to play the part and she was on board with it. This shoot was awesome. We all had chemistry and the plot of the video was ready to take flight. It was fun. It felt like I was hanging out with family. Lou really did an awesome job of bringing my vision of the video to life. (I would tell you what the video is about but you have to go watch it on January 9th) After the shoot we dove into editing the video. Lou worked countless hours to get the video done. It is amazing to see what all goes behind editing. It'd crazy to think that 5 years ago, Doc bought up doing a music video and now it has gotten finished, and I could not be more excited to share this hard work and dedication with everyone.
I want to send a huge shout out to my good friend Vic for allowing us to shoot the music video on his property. Also a shout out to Anthony and Son Panini Shop for allowing us too shoot scenes in front of the Brooklyn sign of your shop and bringing us free coffee, and water. Thank You everyone for reading this post, It truly means a lot to me that you take the the time out of your day and schedules to give me a little time. I promise it's the little things that get me excited. Other than 2018 coming and I will be on the BIG stage, with the BIG crowd, in the BIG room. I am truly looking forward to January 9th 2018. When I release my hit single "Fire it up" to Spotify and other various streaming outlets like Apple music, Tidal, and Itunes, just to name a few. Also the release of the video "Fire it up" will officially be released to my new VEVO channel ChuckStarrVEVO and also youtube. Make sure you continue to spread the word, about the release. According to my team this will be a huge release, and all of this will be possible because of the support and believe that you continue to show me as fans. Thank You very much. This will be my last post until after the New Year, but make sure to enjoy the New Year be safe out there. I am excited for 2018. It is going to be an amazing year. JUST WAIT ON IT!! Trust the process!