It was through the inspiring State Government project, Words Not Weapons, that students from Geelong High School, Hallam Senior College, Haileybury College, Lorne-Aireys Inlet P-12 College, Parkdale Secondary College, Princes Hill Secondary College and Victoria University Secondary College were given the unique opportunity of participating in songwriting workshops conducted by music educator Dobe Newton and revered hip hop artists, Pez and Mantra. As the final stage of this Mushroom Marketing-curated project, each participating school was granted the reward of having one song recorded by superb Melbourne producer/songwriter, Styalz Fuego.
“It was great to have the opportunity to work with the kids and see their understanding of songwriting,” says Styalz of his continued involvement with the Live No Fear campaign. “It’s good that songwriting has been made a focus instead of just focusing on recording songs. As a songwriter and producer, I really like the idea of the songwriting workshops and the kids get to hear their songs that they’ve written, recorded and produced professionally, as you would if you were a songwriter who had never had a song placed on a project before. It’s a good opportunity to show the kids what can be made out of songwriting and taking that direction with music.
“I wanted to be involved with the cause and do something that is for kids who are interested in music and positive messages – to keep them writing about something that is relevant, so they’re not getting carried away by what they hear on the radio or what they hear in rap songs generally.”
While it’s inevitable that some kids will possess more of a knack for lyric writing than others, there were certainly songs that impressed Styalz. “There’s definitely two or three songs that jumped at me instantly; ones that I wanted to get stuck into and record straight away,” he affirms. “There were hardly any creative changes made to the songs, so there were definitely a few songs that I was impressed by – just by their understanding of structure and songwriting in general – structure is more experienced-based, so it’s really amazing that kids can understand structure straight away.
“If some of the songs had an awkward structure or structures that were too hard to work with, we’d rewrite some of the lyrics to make them fit into an easier flowing one,” Styalz explains, “because if artists come in to record these songs and the actual structure of the lyric is a bit strange, it can throw them off recording the songs, so I guess the first step is to get everything to fit into a nice structure and a nice arrangement. After that, the artists put the vocals down for the lyrics and do any further melody writing for the choruses and middle eight sections, and we’ll move on to mixing and mastering.”
Styalz produced all the music but recruited a few of his talented friends to contribute vocals: “Even if it’s for a good project like this, it’s finding the right people who will take it on board, run with it and have fun with it. They’re really good at what they do and they’re not going to have any issues with being on something that will be out there but isn’t their lyrics. It was rewarding being able to show kids how it actually sounds to have a song that they’ve written taken to a level that is ready for release or could be a song for another artist.”
Styalz has not only produced music for many established artists including 360, but broke into the US Billboard Charts in 2007 with Not A Criminal – a song that he produced for Grammy Award-winning hip hop star, Chamillionaire. Styalz also produced Not A Criminal Part II featuring Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes. “The funniest thing about the Chamillionaire placement was that I’d been shopping beats and songs to a lot of artists for a long time and [Chamillionaire] ended up getting that song, but he didn’t hit us back after we’d given him the CD for maybe four or five months,” he relates. “When my manager called me and said, “It looks like you’ve got the first single on Chamillionaire’s new album’, I was so broke at the time – I was just making music all day but not really making that much money off it – I reached in my piggy bank jar of coins to go and get lunch that day, so it was kind of a stark contrast to having the lead single off one of the biggest artists in the world.”
In 2005, Styalz and Weez created the Affinity Music Group, which has developed into an exciting production/management/studio company. Dividing his time between his own work and producing music for other artists remains a constant challenge. “I was thinking about that this morning. I haven’t had time in quite a while to just sit down and make music for myself, not even just for myself, but to rebuild a catalogue of beats and songs to shop and show artists,” Styalz ponders.
“I’ve just gone from finishing the 360 album (Falling & Flying – to be released on September 30) to then writing and producing the Diafrix single with Daniel Merriweather (Simple Man) and then straight off from that I’m now working on [former The Scare frontman] Kiss Reid’s album [Reid is now performing under the moniker of KING KSSR], so that’s taking up all my time at this point. I’m kind of looking forward to some point – hopefully this year – to be able to block out a month or so to just sit down and make new music with no interruptions.”
