The Talented Mr. Leslie, as I like to call him, has a feature in the latest edition of Interview magazine. The producer/artist talks about his early start in music, his first break, producing vs. performing, his new album “Les Is More,” future plans and more.
After the jump Ryan talks about his early start in music, and view some of their exclusive photo gallery.
FINDING HIS VOICE: The first recordings I produced were crude a cappella songs that I wrote in Brussels in the eighth grade for talent shows. Using a dual cassette recorder, I would sing each part and using a second cassette, I would layer enough harmony parts to sing a lead over them. The vocal arrangements were very new-jack-swing inspired. When I moved to the San Francisco area for my sophomore year of high school, my dad and uncle let me front a band that they formed to jam at church functions. After a youth retreat, I met a girl and was inspired to actually record two songs to send to her. I used the tape deck at the church and recorded them over and over again until they were good enough by my standards at the time to send along to her. In college, I was able to improve the quality of my recordings by joining a student recording engineer group. I would take my favorite CDs and try to emulate them sonically. First I would completely re-make songs that I loved, tweaking each drum and synth sound to match what I heard on the recordings. Then I would create original variations over which I would write/record new songs. I would perform these songs at college events.
For the full story and photo gallery Click Here
