Artists, whether musicians, fine artists or actors, seemingly do whatever jobs they have to do to pay for their dreams. These artists work as waiters, kj's, promotional models, book keepers, background actors and whatever else it takes to pay the bills so they can find and make time to fund their artistic dreams. Los Angeles is a city full of these dreamers.
Meet Dylan Lloyd 23 years of age and a dreamer, but a very focused and pragmatic one. He just moved to Los Angeles from Chicago seven months ago and four months ago began his 4 year music publishing contract with Radar Music LLC/Bug Music Inc. Dylan's salaried position as a professional song writer lets him strive to be both a song writer and an artist without having to wait tables or sing at Disneyland. Rather Dylan, on almost a daily basis, gets to write and co-write songs pitched to and for artists signed to major labels often with top songwriters like Grammy Award winner Tim Fagan, for example, who has collaborated with artists like John Mayer, Colbie Caillat and Jason Mraz.
Dylan's determination and focus started at a very young age. He started playing the piano by ear as a five years old. Living with his grandparents, in a rough neighborhood Englewood on the South Side of Chicago, he stayed inside and practiced. At this young age he already heard fully composed music in his head which he'd try to replicate on his grandmother's piano. Aside from 3 months of lessons he received as Christmas present from his mom as a 12 year old, he is self taught. Those lessons though did give him the fundamentals he needed to build upon, and changed his self teaching methods accordingly. Listening to and replicating the sounds of musicians like Billy Joel, Elton John, Ben Folds and many other artists, he continued to play by ear until the age of 18 when he got a 2 year Associates Degree in Music Education. That education he said, "made him realize how cerebral and meticulous music can be" plus "gave him a lot more control" and taught him how "to speak the lingo." Before this education, rather than reading and writing music, he simply remembered everything including his owns songs that he performed with the group Pangea. He played with Pangea during his four years in high school. This band's sound was like it's name a mix of everything with jazz, rock and blues influences.
A mixture of influences pretty much describes Dylan, and the sounds he was exposed to as a biracial child with a black mother from Chicago, and a white father from England. His mom loved the Jackson 5 and the Temptations, while his father was into the Beatles,and Beach Boys. Dylan, himself, is also into the sounds of the 80's, since he especially likes the great melodies from this era.
Pangea had a following on the South Side, but when Dylan went solo towards the end of his senior year in high school. During the next two he started to get a lot of media attention from Chicago's top alternative radio station WXRT, NBC, the Illinois Entertainer, the Chicago Tribune and the Red Eye. He was recognized as and included on compilation disks for best new artists in Chicago which included a promotional deal with Windy City Records. NBC and other media dubbed him as "Englewood's Music Prodigy" since, as noted above, at such a young age he heard songs in his head, figured these compositions out plus did this with only three months of lessons, and was able to play the way he does today.
With the help of the former online producer for WCIU-TV Chicago, Thatcher Kamin, Dylan compiled this coverage with his biography into a video press kit which can still be seen Dylan's music myspace page. The coverage and the video kit, along with his song "We Are the Same" got Dylan his publishing deal here in Los Angeles as noted above with Radar MusicLLC/Bug Music Inc.
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Please continue to Part Two which deals with who Dylan's publisher is, what publishers do, what Dylan does as a writer, and how syncs, placements, and royalties work.
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