Tertiary Institutes Fostering Creative Collaboration

Auckland

26 Oct 2017

ClassPresidentband

26

Oct

Tertiary Institutes Fostering Creative Collaboration

26 Oct 2017

There’s nothing more important in the audio industry than collaboration, and bright young talent are learning that collaborative projects can span tertiary institutions too.

Four Auckland students from SAE, MAINZ, and AUT have joined together to create their first EP, called "Vote" and performed by the band, Class President.

SAE Bachelor of Recording Arts student, Margaret Lee, is the producer/engineer of the EP.

She approached the band (Class President) earlier this year when she saw them playing and asked them if they would like her to record their live sound. 

They said yes, and the band have done a few gigs since. Margaret liked working with them so much, when it came time to produce an EP as part of her SAE bachelor degree project she knew immediately she wanted to work with them.

Class President began life as a MAINZ Bachelor in Musical Arts project started by lead guitarist/vocalist, Adam Young early in 2017.

Other members of the band include final year MAINZ Bachelor Degree (Musical Arts) student, Evon Lavea on rhythm guitar, and AUT alumni Matt Balawan on bass.

The original idea to do a four song EP took a sudden turn when Margaret had an idea to incorporate a high school Class President campaign into the EP with three songs. The idea was that each song represented a member of the band, who were running for Class President. 

She pitched the idea that an announcer would come in between each song to do daily announcements and "interview" the candidates and this would cue the next song to play.

The band loved the idea and decided on a sequence of events which represents their creativity better. the campaign is interrupted by a hostile zombie takeover of the school, keeping in tone of the track "High School of the Dead".

Margaret has loved the creativity of working with the band:

“Incorporating Foley, dialogue, and sound effects made the process very different. It was basically a soundtrack. I wanted for the listener to sit with this EP and enjoy the narrative. It’s a story within a story type of situation.”

Evon Lavea, rhythm guitarist for Class President and MAINZ student says:

"The collaboration project was a really fun and great experience to be part of. I loved being able to hear different thoughts and views about how we should maybe approach sound/textures or certain structures of a song to make it sound better.”

SAE Academic Manager, Dr Stephen Small says, “It’s great to see students from SAE and MAINZ collaborating on exciting new projects.”

The EP is due to be released at the end of October 2017.

auckland@sae.edu.