Senior Taylor DeBlock has always had a passion for music, but when he stepped on campus freshman year he was set to be a business major.
That was the plan until sophomore year when DeBlock was on a weekend retreat and was asked about his career path.
“A guy who worked there asked me, “What are you studying?,” DeBlock said.
DeBlock answered and received the simple question of ‘why?’ to which DeBlock didn’t have a response. The man then asked, “What’s your passion?”
“Music, always has been,” DeBlock said.
That weekend, DeBlock changed his major to music production and never looked back.
Pursuing a passion
Growing up, DeBlock was always singing. He was in choir all throughout high school and an elite chamber choir.
With a passion for both performing and producing music, DeBlock traveled across the country with Elon in LA this past summer to gain more experience in the business.
After arriving in LA without an internship lined up, DeBlock made plans to meet up with a friend of his parents who lived there.
They agreed to go to a Bible study that was started for celebrities. Members of the group include Justin Bieber, the Kardashian sisters and many more, lead by pastor Judah Smith.
DeBlock befriended Smith and his friends, which is how DeBlock ended up at dinner with Justin Mayo, executive director of Red Eye, a nonprofit that works to help lower class youth achieve their dreams, who knows almost everyone in the business.
After learning DeBlock didn’t have an internship yet, Mayo pulled out his phone to help.
“He said, ‘I can probably get you an internship, hold on’ and he takes out his phone and takes a picture of me,” DeBlock said. “He texts his friend and asked me if I knew who Rodney Jerkins was.”
Rodney Jerkins is one of the biggest producers in Hollywood. Known by his stage name “DarkChild,” Jerkins has worked on tracks for everyone from Michael Jackson to Beyonce, including Justin Bieber’s “As Long as You Love Me.”
Mayo quickly showed DeBlock’s resume to Jerkins and he told Mayo that he would get back to him.
A week later while sitting in his apartment, DeBlock received a text from Mayo asking him if he could get to Jerkins’ house in 30 minutes.
“I got ready in two seconds, jumped in the car and drove over there,” DeBlock said. “I was in Burbank, and he was in Calabasas. So, I got there and went through security — he lives in the same neighborhood as Kanye and the Kardashians.”
After an introduction of his name only, Jerkins hired DeBlock as an intern for the summer and didn’t interact much with him after.
DeBlock was told he would be getting coffee and to not expect much. But he got more out of the experience than he imagined.
“[Jerkins] only said his name, that was it for two weeks,” DeBlock said. “I mostly talked to his engineer and with time we got really close.”
Once he began interning, DeBlock got to be hands-on in the control room working on music.
“The first day he had me tracking out beats into Protools [a music mixing software]. I got hands-on experience,” DeBlock said. “I think he made 130 beats in the time that I was there. In my last week, he actually had me write a song for one of his beats.”
Building a fan base
DeBlock has plans to move back to Los Angeles after graduation and hopefully work with Jerkins and his team again. Elon’s music production program also gave him a good foundation.
He said it goes beyond what you learn in the studio and allows for a more hands on experience.
“A lot of it is owning it on your own — learning it, teaching yourself, practicing, recording musicians,” DeBlock said.
DeBlock, a member of Rip_Chord, Elon’s all-male a cappella, decided with graduation approaching, it was time to build up a fan base. In the spring, he will be releasing his first EP, but leading up to that, he has begun his own YouTube channel TaylorDeBlockMusic, where he posts covers every Monday as a part of #MondaySessions.
“I wanted to build up a fan base or just some people that would be able to see it and not just ‘Facebook friends, check this out,’” he said, “I knew that YouTube was a great avenue to reach a lot of people. It’s a lot of fun, I love doing it. “
DeBlock films and edits music videos for each cover, with the help of other students. Sophomore Kellcee Batchelor, collaborator and friend, has been featured in a few videos.
“[Professors] will tell you all the time it’s a really interpersonal business, it’s really about putting yourself out there so people can get behind you,” Batchelor said. “I think that’s what Taylor has been doing lately, what I’ve been doing, what we’ve been doing together. Creating content to put out there so other people can tap into it.”
His video for “Hello” by Adele, featuring sophomore Rosemary Joaquin was the first time one of his videos reached over 9,000 views.
“Typically it’s a few hundred, or a couple thousand tops,” DeBlock said. “But, it’s getting a lot more recognition with time, so that’s cool.”