Renowned Producer Bill Szymczyk (B.B. King, Eagles) and Head in the Clouds Music Enlisted by Meredith Parks to Help Her Find Her Way with AUDIX Microphones

“My awareness of AUDIX started about 15 years ago, when one of my longtime session drummers, Joe Vitale sent me a few mics, the i5 and original D6, suggesting I should try them out. I was impressed! (Bill Szymczyk)"

"Sometimes finding your way back means being guided by those who know you best. For Meredith Parks, that journey led her to reconnect with her roots and rediscover her first love—music—now enriched by years of life experience. Helping her bring this vision to life were legendary producer Bill Szymczyk and his son Michael, co-founder of independent music company Head In The Clouds Music Alongside Meredith’s childhood friend Evan Mathews, they collaborated to produce her debut album, Trying To Find My Way. The album’s unique sound and emotional depth were further elevated by the extensive use of AUDIX, capturing every nuance of Meredith’s voice and story."

“Evan and I grew up together. Our families have been friends for decades. I'm a little older and have known him since he was born. When I first moved to California, I had a one-track mind: I was a drummer. He moved out to LA shortly after me and we started a band. We did it, the whole independent track. We booked our own tours and we made our own records. Then as happens with 99% of bands, it eventually didn't work. I readjusted and became a session player and music director. I played with some really great artists and also focused on live sound. Evan did the same thing. We bounced around doing those things and then the pandemic hit, right as we were playing a lot of live shows. Everything stopped and we needed to reinvent ourselves again.

My family is very musical. My mom loved Carly Simon and James Taylor, and my dad would always play Johnny Cash around the house. I was always surrounded by music and I fell in love with singing early on, but my journey as a songwriter took a little longer. It wasn’t until my college years that I started writing songs. Even so, I'd hum myself to sleep as a kid, so I think I was developing myself as an artist when I was younger, but just didn’t realize it.”

My focus became “what can I do to help any artists, regardless of what they need,” and led me learn how to do everything that I possibly can to help them tell their story. I started by learning as many instruments as possible, not just drums. It led me to fine tune how I attack producing and records, how to engineer and all these little things. I also learned the business side of things so we could take care of our own publishing and other interests completely on our terms.

So that's where I'm at now. Whatever I can do to help an artist tell their story, I'm open and willing to do it. When Meredith came in with a bucket of great ideas…she came to us with 120… We started looking at her core ideas and asked, “what do we need to do to get this first batch of stories out?”

"Yeah, 100%. We have four artists right now, Meredith, Evan, Shatara, and a great power trio out of Omaha called Jack. I guess the easiest way to describe what we do is “a modern-day version of A&R,” because A&R in the true sense doesn't really exist anymore. Development now means so many different things.

We help on the business side, whether it's doing all the performance rights organization work, the copyright registrations, SoundExchange, sync licensing, and publishing. Some artists need help with their creative development, recording or production. So, we figure out what an artist is lacking and try to help them do that.

We also find the right partners. Obviously, the first one that comes to mind is AUDIX who has provided other worldly levels of support in how they’ve helped us as independent artists and producers.

Nobody's going to pay attention to you from a fan or business perspective until you've pretty much done everything by yourself. So, finding partners that are able to help your mission is critical."

Bill Szymczyk: "My awareness of AUDIX started about 15 years ago, when one of my longtime session drummers, Joe Vitale sent me a few mics, the i5 and original D6 , suggesting I should try them out. I was impressed."

Michael Szymczyk: "When I was younger and started miking my drums for recording and live performances, I was taught to mic a drum kit a certain way with certain microphones. I basically thought it would never change and it couldn’t get any better. Then I tried some AUDIX mics. First on the kick, then the snare, then the toms, and I realized that drums CAN sound better. Then in the post pandemic era, as we started to get rolling on helping musicians like Meredith, AUDIX reached out and asked how they could help, and they assisted us in sourcing the right products for our needs. We ended up using an array of AUDIX microphones on her record."

Bill Szymczyk: "At this point, we mic everything with AUDIX."

Bill Szymczyk: "The SCX25A lollipops are a good example. We set up drums in our library and the piano sits right across from the kit. During the recording of Meredith's album, I was using the lollipops as overheads on the drums and I loved them for their crispness. We needed a piano overdub, and I thought “let’s turn them around and stick them in the piano to see what happens.” I was stunned at the sound we captured."

Michael Szymczyk: "After experimenting with the SCX25A overheads on the piano, we took that approach for the whole record. We decided to use it as a hi-hat-mic for things that were a bit more dynamically soft and then we used it on a crazy guitar part. Then I had to capture live strings in my apartment in LA and I used them paired with the A231 . It was fun figuring out all the uses we could find for the SCX25A, it was so flexible. We also used the a lot. It's on vocals. It's on the JC120 guitar amp. I used it to mic a cello. Every mic from AUDIX has two or three prominent uses on the record and that’s a testament to their versatility."

"Don’t get me wrong, we tried mics from other brands that we had in our locker, we were actually pretty scientific about it, but time and time again, we kept returning to AUDIX because they just sounded better"

Bill Szymczyk: "I’ve had a series of go-to microphones that I’ve used for an endless amount of time…some 30+ years. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but for the first time I’ve rethought my entire approach to miking and it’s all thanks to AUDIX. I'm totally happy."

Michael Szymczyk: "We filmed a promo piece for the record, completely live in the studio and we were able to mic Meredith’s vocals with the PDX720, with guitar cabs, pianos, cello all performing around her, and it sounded great. In fact, we used our entire set of AUDIX studio mics, all 15, on every instrument for this live recording. It didn’t matter if it was a song like Cowboys, which is absolutely screaming with wailing guitar, or a song like Feel Alive, where it's super stripped down and mellow with strings and piano, we were able to use the same AUDIX mics for the entire thing. We’re not just planning on using AUDIX in the studio. We’re in the process of testing out their OMX mic for some live festival performances that Meredith has coming up."

"When we use the PDX 720, it's just beautiful. Give me that mic on everything I sing, every day. I love it. I'd like to take it home, but they won't let me. [Meredith]"

Bill Szymczyk: "With every act I've ever worked with over the last 60 years, I’ve learned something new and filed it away in this old cranium of mine. It’s cumulative and every new act benefits from the experiences I’ve had. This record has benefitted from everything that came before it."

Michael Szymczyk: "It’s been amazing to have my dad as a mentor. I grew up with musical history happening around me. Learning specific approaches to things and not just from him, but all the great musicians, songwriters, producers and other engineers that were his friends. When I started to figure out what I wanted to do musically I had all these brains I could pick… I could talk to Willie Weeks about rhythm section details, I could talk to Stuart Smith about being a professional… Joe Vitale was my drum mentor. Honestly, it was such a privilege, such a rare thing to have access to that kind of knowledge. I tried to soak up as much of it as possible and not take it for granted. That’s part of my inspiration for Head in the Clouds Music. I was so lucky, why should I hoard this for myself? Applying what I’ve learned is my way of giving back. It's not just about passing on knowledge…there’s playing too. Dad’s gang are such a close-knit group, they’re like family. When we told them about the record, they said they’d chip in. Willie Weeks is the bass player on this record. Kenny Passarelli played on a track. We called Joe Walsh and he said, “yeah, I'd love to play on a track.”

Meredith Parks: It's so cliché, but really, just believe in yourself. If you have the desire to write, sing, act, anything, just go for it. Put yourself out there and believe in yourself.

Michael Szymczyk: "You also need to absolutely grind on it until you feel like it's worthy of putting out to the people that you're trying to reach. There's eight billion people in the world, that means there's a sustainable audience for everybody. Now go find your way to your audience."

Meredith Parks: "But don’t forget it's a marathon, you need to prepare yourself for the long haul."

Michael Szymczyk: "That leads into the only consistent advice I've ever received: don't quit. For as long as you can possibly hold out, don't quit. Eventually you'll do something that you're really proud of or it will lead you to something else, maybe that you never thought of, that you can be really proud of. So just don't quit. And on your way, find the people that help you do your best work. Know what your strengths and what your weaknesses are, and like my dad says, “hire the best and get out of the way.” You don’t have to do everything but try to be diverse in what you can do, because that helps you recognize others’ talents and offerings. So, find your people and stick with them."

Bill, you've seen a lot of changes in the music industry, but what do you feel hasn't changed? What's still important today?

Bill Szymczyk: "Words and music. Everything after it comes out of the singer's mouth has changed in 60 years, but you still need to have a song. If you don't have a song, you're dead in the water. So, tell a story!"

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Michael Szymczyk: Trying To Find My Way is now available on all streaming platforms. You can learn more about Meredith, other artists, and the work we do at Head In The Clouds Music