Today we’d like to introduce you to Cole Kruggel.
Hi Cole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC
I was born and raised in the South Bend/North Central Indiana area also known as “Michiana.”
My first introduction to music was through my dad at an early age. He was always blasting his favorite Rock jams around the house and in the car which ironically annoyed me at the time because years later, I was the kid with the obnoxious subwoofer rattling my trunk through the neighborhood and school parking lot. Rock was my first love in music until my older brother put me onto a lot of hip-hop music. Back when burning CD’s was a thing, he used to burn me all the explicit versions of music I wasn’t supposed to be listening to. I still remember my mom taking me to buy the first CD I got with my own money at 8 or 9 years old. It was Dr. Dre “The Chronic 2001.” She made me buy the censored version, haha. As I got older, my taste gravitated toward southern rap and trap music like Three 6 Mafia, T.I., Young Jeezy Etc. I gravitated towards it because it had an aggressive/hard-hitting energy to it that correlated with my mindset as a football player at the time.
HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN AUDIO ENGINEERING
I started to tap in with the fact that I loved the way music made me feel. It was an escape and channel of energy for me. I would start trying to memorize lyrics and rap in the mirror which inspired me to try and make my own. When high school came along I ended up purchasing a bunch of studio equipment to record myself. I had no idea what I was doing with the equipment when I got it, but I’m the type of person that loved to figure out problems on my own through trial and error. I studied the sound of all the music I listened to hoping to understand how they got songs to sound a certain way. Once I started figuring it out a little bit, other people that made music started recording at the house with me and liked the way I made things sound. I came to the realization one day after spending hours tinkering with someone else’s song that I was actually meant to be an engineer because I spent more time working on other people’s music rather than my own. I fell in love with all the technical aspects of recording and mixing music. It was one of those things that put my racing mind at ease.
JOURNEY TO MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER AND NOTABLE INSPIRING MOMENTS
Not knowing how to get into the field as an engineer, I attended a local college for two years. For one of the first times in my life, I was doing poorly in school. I couldn’t see myself leading the life of an accountant or any other traditional job. I still loved audio engineering and music. I ended up finding a trade school in Chicago for Recording Arts and attended that in 2013 and 2014. When first arriving in Chicago, I went to Guitar Center to buy ProTools and some equipment for school which ended up setting the course for what is to come because Elton “L10MixedIt” Chueng was there and randomly came up to me to strike a conversation. He had recently got done mixing Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap which was blowing up. I had no idea who he was at the time which was probably a good thing because it made the conversation natural. He told me he worked at Classick Studios. He then proceeded to give me a card with his number on it and told me to hit him up for an internship. It took me a year to hit him up, but he remembered me and I ended up getting the gig during my last semester in school.
The internship was the real start of a wild journey. I was mopping the studio floor around midnight when the mop snapped in half and went through my forearm. (Every layer of skin gone/bones showing and all.) An ambulance had to come take me to the E.R. After I was discharged from the hospital around 3AM, I begrudgingly called a few of the engineers at the studio to see if they could come get me. When we got back to the studio, I continued to pick up where I left off cleaning the studio with a hole in my arm which had everyone there in shock. That moment showed them how bad I wanted it and my mindset. I didn’t care about anything besides becoming an engineer. Chris “Classick” Inumerable, the owner of the studio, began to let me bring in my own clients and slide some my way which eventually led me to working my way out of the internship as my actual engineering workload grew. I was given keys to the studio after about 6 to 7 months interning and became a full-fledged engineer. Unfortunately, I had to move back to South Bend when school was over because engineering wasn’t paying all the bills yet. But that didn’t stop me. I would take a 4 hour train and public transportation route from South Bend to the studio in Chicago and sleep in the studio for weeks and sometimes even a month at a time to cut costs and commute less. I used to take a 45 minute bus ride downtown every morning to shower where I still had an active gym membership. I eventually made enough money to buy a car to make the commute easier, but a 200 mile journey from South Bend to Chicago and back made it difficult to afford that amount of gas every day. Sleeping at the studio for days/weeks at a time continued for about another year. Many times I had to sleep in my car due to the other sessions going on until 5 in the morning which left me nowhere but there to sleep. It all paid off though. I was able to save a substantial enough financial cushion as my clientele grew which allowed me to get an apartment in Chicago with enough of a rainy day fund to ease my mind in the unpredictable nature of freelancing. Since then, I’ve continued to grow and achieve the goal of making a living off of engineering music and am extremely blessed to do so. I get to interact with so many different types of people on a day to day basis, vibe out, zone out and facilitate a creative playground for artists to express themselves. I’ve gotten to work with people from all over, My clientele spans from Japan, Atlanta, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, California, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida Etc. It’s awesome to connect with people from all over.
WHAT’S NEXT
Although being based out of Chicago for the last 8 Years. I’m looking to migrate to Atlanta to freelance. I really enjoy Atlanta and think highly of the reputable music scene that has birthed so many talented artists. It coincides with a lot of my musical taste and is a great place to build with a lot of infrastructure and talent in place to be honed and discovered. I’ve already done some work out of Street Exec Studios in 2020 and work with a few artists down there. One being my close friend Ryan Real aka Squirt who will also be my manager moving forward.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road wasn’t smooth. Anything worth having tends to present obstacles and hurdles. I went through being broke for a few years, 2 and 4 hour commutes, sleeping in my car and on the studio floor for days/weeks/months at a time and even shed blood for it all which has left me with a gaping scar on my forearm that will never fade.
One of the things I have yet to go into detail on is the strain it took on a lot of my personal relationships with family and friends. To get what I wanted, I had to sacrifice almost all of my time and energy towards getting my career going with very little to no reference points. I come from a line of people who tend to view “success” through the traditional “go to college and get a corporate job route.” At times I felt like people didn’t believe in me or see my vision. That gave me a bit of a chip on my shoulder as a token of motivation though. I often interpreted my family’s anxiety over the route I was taking as a lack of belief. To be honest, it was always coming from a genuine place though. They had no reference points or knowledge to understand how to make a career out of this, but ultimately they understood my determination and supported my decisions. One of my mottos is “If you want it, you’ll get it. If you don’t get it, you don’t want it.” That’s still something I have to remind myself.
As I’ve grown, my goals continue to grow. The guy from 8 years ago who would have been overjoyed about the position I’m currently in probably wants to punch me in the face at times because it’s easy to lose sight of how far I’ve come when I’m always focused on what’s next and how to level up. You’ve got to take one goal at a time though. The bigger picture always has sub-components.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m an Audio Engineer (Recording, Mixing, Mastering) and Producer specializing in Vocal Production and Arrangement.
What sets me apart is my awareness of the room and how to facilitate a comfortable space for artists to create that helps bring their ideas to life. Everyone is different. They respond to different forms of motivation etc. Sometimes I feel like a psychologist or therapist. The awareness of how to bring the best out of different people is rewarding. The added bonus is that I do a lot of vocal production in my sessions. I love providing feedback and critique which artists have told me they don’t get from most engineers. I just want the record in its base form to be the best it can be. I have no problem bringing my creativity to the table. At the end of the day, I want the record that I may later mix to inspire me to mix it. I can be meticulous on how an artist’s delivery comes off because music is all about feeling. I try to bring that out by providing artists with infliction ideas, melodies, harmonies, etc. if they are open to it. Many times, this leads to me being a part of the songwriting process and even helping with cadence ideas.
The feeling aspect is also very important to my mixing process. It’s easy to get carried away with all the technical engineering stuff (what’s proper/what’s not), but all of that can go out the window at times because the mix needs to aid in communicating how the artist is expressing his or her self. It’s important to soak up the song to bend, shift, and shape frequencies through spectral and creative tools to enhance the artist’s expression. The awesome thing is that you can have ten different engineers mix the same record, and each version will come out with its own unique feeling. It’s important to work with people you can build trust and understanding with. There is a unique set of ears out there for every artist trying to build a sound with an engineer that fits their taste.
NOTABLE ARTISTS I’VE WORKED WITH
Juice Wrld
Tory Lanez
G Herbo
MF’n Melo
Saba
G Count of L.E.P.
Mick Jenkins
Daniyel
King Louie
SG ALI
D. Lylez
What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
You have to take things a day at a time. Patience and self-belief is key in the long run. All of your major goals should be broken down into smaller goals to help you build toward the major ones. Achieving smaller goals as a part of the process will help you feel accomplished on your mission to achieve the bigger ones. Most importantly, if you have a Plan B, you never fully intended Plan A to work out. That’s the way I see it anyways.
Contact Info:
- Email: cole@classickstudios.com
- Website: https://www.classickstudios.com/cole
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cole_kruggel/
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2kHJQreBIzI3paM6L6aiqg?si=ez_npbfZR3u2FofC8bNKpw
Image Credits:
Rodriguez Production Kieferroflix nos.pov
