What’s your stage name and where are you from?
My artist name is Q.Rock639. I am originally from Clarksville, TN and I lived in New York for several years but I currently live in Los Angeles area.
What’s the story behind your stage name?
My first nickname was LA Rock. My first name is Laron, and there used to be a big white stone that was yard decoration in my driveway and when I would give directions to my house, I would say “Look for the rock.” I used to write grafitti (sloppily) and would write Rock 639, like the old graf writers would do, using their address in their tags. At some point, I decided to shorten it and started using Q.Rock639 as my name.
Describe your musical journey in three sentences.
As an older artist, I have had several phases in my life and career. I was in rap groups and bands since high school and would later attend an audio engineering school and started working in professional studios in New York. I managed to get signed to a music production company that had a distribution deal with WEA in the mid 90s. Since then, my career has been a series of events and roles from being an engineer, club DJ, A&R and of course a music producer and artist. Currently I still make music under my own company, Canhead, LL or Canhead Records.
Share an interesting experience you had while creating your latest track.
My music making process is all over the place at times and I work alone on most of my projects. I have several works in progress with other producers, and one of the last sessions I had was a while ago, back in Tennessee with some of my old crew. It was a great feeling to reconnect with old friends and share a moment of music making again after all this time. I enjoyed it and can’t wait to share some of those song with the public soon. (Shout out to One Way Posse/Southern Asylum)
What message do you want to convey through your music?
At this point in my life, I only want to continue to create and make music for the love of it. My styles range from boom-bap Hip-Hop to dance music and all spots inbetween. I still enjoy the process of making music and hope to share my life experiences, thoughts on the world and create some incredible songs along the way. If there is a message in that, I guess it would be to never stop doing what you love!
Tell us about a challenge you faced during production and how you overcame it.
The challanges are endless. Working on a limited budget (time and finances). I over come that by focusing on each project and task when it’s time to do so. Audio challages are a day to day challange for self produced artists and I dont always overcome this, lol. Thanks to all my music making friends that help me out with my tech issues and registration keys!
If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
I can only pick one? Alive or Dead?? Ha, that is an interesting question and I have several that I would want to work with for many reasons, but if I had to pick one for this question I’ll say MIles Davis. There are several albums that I love and consider my all time favs but “Sketches Of Spain” by Miles Davis alway seems to retake the #1 spot for me. It’s personal to me, and if I could ever get a chance to work with Miles like Easy Moe Bee got to do, I think I would stop making music after that. I can imaginge a album with boom bap, house and traditional jazz with me on the beats and vocals from time to time, with Miles doing the heavy lifting, hell maybe I could get him on the mic for a track too!
Where do you see your music taking you in the next year?
That’s a good question. Honestly, with the current state of the music industry in general and the world as a whole, I am not sure what to think of the future for me as an artist. I spent time last year promoting my older material as well as putting out a project on my Bandcamp profile. I do have material that I need to finish up, give some songs a polish and properly master and that is in progress. I think the next year will see more ecclectic random funk from me but I hope to branch out into other lanes of creativity this year. I have a few book ideas that I have been working on for a while and can’t wait to bring some of them to the world.
What’s the next big step for you as an artist?
Each step will hopefully bring me closer to my goal of meeting new friends and introducing my music to the world, one day at a time. Recommiting myself to my craft and taking time each day to bring these concepts to completion is what I am working on presently.
Where can we hear/watch your most recent work?
My most recent project is called “Selfies On Sunset Sets” and is on Bandcamp. The album features some vocal tracks as well as some instrumental productions of mine. Hip-Hop and House is explored on this one and I hope to continue this as a series. Other than that, my music is on YouTube as well as Spotify and all the major platforms. I have a older bio on my Wix page as well, that features Discogs links where you can find my 90s house music releases on vinyl! https://qrock639.wixsite.com/mysite/laron-q-rock639-discography