Chad Kowal Discusses Working with Jac & Harri and Thomas Gold on "Without You" [Exclusive Interview]

Chad Kowal Discusses Working with Jac & Harri and Thomas Gold on "Without You"

11/8/2019

It's been almost a year since our first interview together! What have been some of the highlights and changes that have happened over the past eleven months?
Well for starters, I bought a new house & converted one of the rooms into a home studio. I've spent nearly every single day of 2019 in that room writing and recording new songs and have written nearly two-hundred more since we last spoke. I just got back from a three day recording session with Maximals and my Vocalkitchen brothers: Nino Lucarelli and Bryant Powell in Italy. It's amazing to see our little Arizona VK family go from humble beginnings to traveling the world together through the amazing vehicle of music.

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What was it like working on your latest release, "Without You" which is also Jac & Harri's first collaboration ever with Thomas Gold?
It was an amazing process. The song was written in a studio in Zaandam, Netherlands during ADE 2018 with myself, Nino Lucarelli and Bryant Powell. We were going back & forth with melody ideas with filler joke lyrics until I realized we had something special on our hands & went into another room to finish it. The whole song was written from start to finish in 30 minutes from original idea to finished product. The ideas just kept flowing naturally and it felt like magic.

Once I finished recording the song I posted a video of it on Instagram, that's when Jac & Harri messaged me to see if it was available. They ended up buying the song and began to work on it - not too long after that, they messaged me letting me know Thomas Gold had heard it and was interested in hopping on to add his flare to the track. I couldn't possibly be happier with how this collaboration turned out and it is shared with such great people which makes it that much better!

How was your second year going to ADE? Can you give us a few standout moments from your time in Amsterdam?
I couldn't have asked for a better second ADE. The first year I went was amazing, but I only had a couple of releases under my belt and was still learning the ropes for how everything worked. This year I had more songs released & I noticed a massive increase in my name getting out there. So many DJs and producers I hoped to be in touch with last year I worked with this year. I got to spend some quality time with Thomas Gold, KAAZE, and many other members of the Revealed Recordings and Protocol Recordings family. It's such a blessing to get to know so many different musicians from around the world and hear all the different journey's we've had to get to where we are. The building of new friendships in this industry is priceless to me.

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Walk us through a day in the life of Chad Kowal.
I usually wake up way too early in the morning and can't fall back asleep because my mind is already buzzing with music. I make something quick to eat then head right into the studio. Sometimes I open up an instrumental track that a DJ has sent for me to write over, other days I write something completely from scratch. I spend anywhere from 6-8 hours in that room starting with the writing process, to producing the vocals, all the way to final mix. From there I will spend time organizing my back catalog of available vocals to be uploaded on the Vocalkitchen website. I try to go over this process as many times as I can in a day without passing out at the keyboard, or driving myself crazy and losing passion for what I love to do.

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You previously told us that you aim to finish five tracks each week. How long is your average workflow from idea conception to finalized vocal?
Each song is different. Some songs are written in 20 minutes from start to finish & others take more time. I've come to find that some of the best songs I've written come to me easily. Sometimes the vocals, the lyrics & the instrumentation all come at once like a strike of lighting. I've tried to figure out how to duplicate this process but have found that the way to get the best results is to just show up everyday and put in the work.

One trick I practice while brainstorming is making myself listen to different genres of music back to back. This helps me be able to see things from different perspectives and keep fresh ideas flowing. For instance a band like My Chemical Romance might not write a song in the same way that Lady Gaga does but they're both amazing in their own right.

Seeing as 2020 is right around the corner, what are some of your New Year's resolutions?
My goal above all else is to collaborate with as many DJs/producers that I can through the incredible art of storytelling. I want to show the world each side of myself and all the diverse influences that make up who I am as an artist.

Thanks so much to Chad Kowal for taking the time to answer our questions! Follow him using the links below!