Lazerbeak

Biography

Lazerbeak
Super Producer

Lazerbeak is a thug. Do not be deceived by the nice-guy introductions backstage. Beak is responsible for some of the hardest lavabangers in hip hop, period. Catchy, rib-crushing, filthy.

In his basement workshop, Beak works mostly with a MPC2000XL. He layers propulsive, hard-hitting drums with driving guitar and keyboard melodies. He paces after the addition of each element, ducking to avoid the overhead pipes, playing air drums, and calculating his next layer.

Beak’s sequencing is a large part of his sound. “After you’ve got the main structure, to make it a real song, you have to take it all part again. It’s like a battle with the beat, every time.” And Beak always wins. When it’s over, the effect is some helicopter-at-the-omnitheater shit. He’ll take a beat down to its most essential elements before letting it off the leash to explode into anthemic proportions.

Lazerbeak got involved with the Doomtree crew through his high school friendship with Stef (P.O.S). But by then he’d already been playing music for years. Since 8th grade he played with The Plastic Constellations, the indie rock group that would go on to tour the country, signed to French Kiss Records. Stef, having heard Lazerbeak’s music with TPC, encouraged him to start making beats. Beak got a loan from his folks to buy his first MPC from Guitar Center. Stef came over in the afternoon to show him the ropes. No looking back.

To date, Lazerbeak has produced over 400 beats. His production appears on almost every Doomtree release, including all three of P.O.S’ solo albums. He's now completing the production for the upcoming Sims solo release and working on a solo endeavor of his own.

Most recently, Doomtree released Lazerbeak’s collaboration with Mike Mictlan. The two schemed for years to write and record the disc. For much of that time Mike was living in L.A. Lazerbeak sent Mike beat CDs in the mail. Mike rapped his verses to Lazerbeak over the phone. Big dreams, big phone bills. Now the fruit of their labor is available in all its glory as Hand Over Fist. Legend Recognize Legend.

Solo Projects
Hand Over Fist (with Mike Mictlan)


The Word

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

December 29, 2009

I’m taking one week off from this Tuesdays With Lazerbeak blog dealy in order to finish up mixing tweaks on the solo record, as well as try to relearn all these TPC! songs for our big one off reunion show January 23rd (get advance tickets here).  I hope you all had an incredible holiday time with friends and loved ones.  I know that I personally have eaten about 135 of those chocolate turtle clusters in the last week (thanks Mom).  2009 was pretty sweet, although it does not even hold a flame to how insanely mammoth and legendary 2010 will be.  Can’t wait.  After the jump I’ve left a Bonus Video Jam of a kid losing his mind after his mother takes away his World of Warcraft game.  If you’re one of the 17 million people who have already seen it, I apologize.  This is just the closest physical impression that I know of that can accurately resemble what I did last night after the Vikings choked on national television (except for the part with the remote, I absolutely did not do that).  

Hope you have a wonderful and safe New Years.  See you next week.

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

December 22, 2009

Hello and welcome to a special holiday version of Tuesdays With Lazerbeak.  A few years back I had an opportunity to take a shot at remixing some old standard Christmas songs to be played in the background of several different holiday themed Best Buy commercials.  It was one of the stranger musical scenarios I’ve ever been apart of, going back and forth over the phone with some executive about how the track still didn’t sound “hip hop” enough and whatnot.  Pretty funny stuff.  While three of my submissions made it to the final round, somebody else’s track ended up making the final cut.  Overall a very humbling/bizarre experience, and I still get a little salty whenever I have to walk into a Best Buy these days.  Oh well.  Since it tis the season and all, I figured I’d finally liberate these three Christmas beats and launch them out into the world.  You might not be ready for this.

Lazerbeak – “Sleigh Ride” (Best Buy Remix)

Lazerbeak – “The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” (Best Buy Remix)

Lazerbeak – “Random Christmas Song” (Best Buy Remix)

Ha!  You could almost say that I single handedly invented the (Best Buy) remix.  Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to get into another list.  Last week I took a stab at my top 5 favorite albums of the decade, and man was that hard.  This week I’m just gonna go for the top 5 of 2009.  I realized that I didn’t really pay attention to as much stuff that came out this year compared to years in the past, so I may have missed out on some awesome records.  Either way though, here are the five albums I listened to and enjoyed the most this year.

Lazerbeak’s Top 5 Albums of 2009….

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

December 15, 2009

Hello friends, welcome back.  A couple weeks ago this music blog Culturebully hit me up about contributing to a list they were working on: The Top 5 Albums Of The Decade.  Yowsers, that is a rough one.  I have a hard enough time remembering what albums even came out this year, so trying to really think about a whole decade proved to be quite challenging.  How could I say no to making a list though?  That is what I do.  Below is my best attempt at it, along with some honorable mentions.  It is probably not very right as far as the best of the decade, but after giving a ton of thought to the 5 modern albums I’ve listened to the most in the last ten years, I think it is fairly right on.  So here goes nothing:

“Lazerbeak’s Top 5 Albums Of The Decade” …..

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

December 08, 2009

MAAAAN that was a fun weekend.  The Doomtree Blowout V was an insane success, in my opinion the best one yet.  A gigantic amount of thanks goes out to every single person that was a part of last Saturday’s festivities.  To paraphrase Stef: I love my rap crew, I love my friends and family, and I love our fans.  Such a good time.  If you wanna see some pictures of the night, Vita.mn posted up a photo gallery with some pretty sweet shots courtesy of Leslie Plesser.  Check em out here: Vita.mn Blowout V Photo Gallery 

blowout 5

There were so many highlights, but one of my favorite moments of the night was finally being able to premiere the brand new music video to “Prizefight” off of myself and Mike Mictlan’s Hand Over Fist album, directed by Greg Hubacek.  So many people have been working tirelessly for such a long time on this thing, and I couldn’t be more proud of it….

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

December 01, 2009

So it is officially Blowout week and man am I excited about this show on Saturday!  We’ve been scrambling around like crazy getting everything together.  New merch is on it’s way, sets are being fine tuned, lava bangers are brewing up.  I love it.  Anyways, below is a pic of just some of the new stuff we’re gonna have available for the first time the night of the Blowout.

blowout merch

VINYL!!! That’s right, this is a first for us and quite long overdue.  We will be reissuing the self titled Doomtree crew album on vinyl for the first time…..  

Tuesdays With Lazerbeak

November 24, 2009

Welcome back to another edition of Tuesdays With Lazerbeak.  First off, just want to say a huge thank you to everybody that made it out to last week’s “Making Music” series at the UofM.  ’Preciate you very much.  As nervous as I was about it, it actually ended up going really well and the trip down memory lane was a lot awesomer than I imagined.  Since I’m still in full blown reminiscing mode, I figured I’d make a childhood list and hopefully close out a few chapters of my early life.  I also threw a half-assed Thanksgiving theme on there to keep current with the times.  And so I give to you:  

“Three Fashion Statements I Am Thankful I Have Made And Therefore Never Have To Make Again”  

TUESDAYS WITH LAZERBEAK

November 17, 2009

Hey everybody.  This is just gonna be a quick one because we’ve got a ton of work to do this week getting everything in place for the Blowout, as well as getting the word out on this new Doomtree “False Hopes Fifteen” mini album coming out.  Next week it will be back on and popping though with list-o-mania (shout to Phoenix, kinda).

FH XV cover

So yeah, first and foremost we are releasing an eight song CD at the Blowout as a way to close out 2009 and bring in the monster Doomtree year that is 2010.   We just put a pre-order for the album up on the webstore just in case you aren’t gonna be able to make it to the Blowout.  We also leaked a track off it called “Coup For The Kings.”  It’s got Sims and P.O.S. on the raps, and myself on the beat (genuine certified Lava Banger, expect nothing less my friend).  Check it out:

“Coup For The Kings” ~ Sims & P.O.S (prod. by Lazerbeak)    <——- click here

Really happy with how this one turned out.

In other news I am gearing up to be the honored guest at The Whole Music Club’s “Making Music” series…….

TUESDAYS WITH LAZERBEAK

November 10, 2009

Hey!  It’s once again time for yet another Tuesday With Lazerbeak.  This post is gonna be a little more “off the top of the dome” as they say.  They say that right?  Before I get into it, I need to make a quick shameless plug.  I’m gonna be speaking next Thursday, Nov. 19th, at the U of M’s Whole Music Club.  It’s all free, all ages, and starts at 8:00.  From what I’m told the format is similar to an episode of “Behind The Actor’s Studio” so you can only imagine the hilarity that may ensue.  Bottom line, I’m pretty nervous about this whole thing and could definitely use some back up. If you live close to the Twin Cities you should try to make it out/hold me down.  I will do everything in my power to make it extremely awesome.  

making music flyer

Now that that’s outta the way, bring on the lists!  I decided to make this week’s list about some songs that are especially close to my heart.  Truly these are some seriously motivating jams.  Life affirming even.  I hope you are into them.  Without further ado, I present to you a new feature:

“3 Songs That Are Ruling For Me This Week”  

TUESDAYS WITH LAZERBEAK

November 03, 2009

 

Packers Vikings Football

Hello there and welcome back to Tuesdays With Lazerbeak.  Man I can’t believe the Vikings are 7-1 going into the bye week!  Absolutely incredible.  That victory coupled with the fact that, against all odds,  I managed to defeat my fantasy football opponent by less than one point in the final seconds of Monday Night Football (take that Tony Gonzalez!), I just couldn’t ask for anything more!  Admittedly, …

TUESDAYS WITH LAZERBEAK

October 27, 2009

lavabangers

Happy early Halloween people.  Ended up carving pumpkins over the weekend and decided to put my personal mission statement out there for all the neighborhood to ponder.  At my bachelor party last year I was given a list of tasks to complete before the end of the evening (hi-five everyone in the bar, etc.) and one of the most challenging and daunting tasks was that for one

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