Happy Perez
"To me its (MiKo) perfect - I have everything I need in one sturdy box ..."
-Happy Perez
Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview
- by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer
Maybe he left a sort of electric wake behind him. Maybe it was coincidence. But it wasn't an hour after Happy Perez walked out the Open Labs doors that I knew I needed to talk to him.
“I just got a quad four processor put in,” he told me about his Gen 3 MiKo LX and the visit to the shop. “I've had it for about a year now, but it feels like I got it last week. It still feels like a new toy. I'm never going back to anything else.”
For the platinum producer “going back” could mean another pile of equipment, hours of laying down individual tracks that needed additional work, and work flow that's closer to sap on the side of a tree than the racing river it's become. “[I had] to make the beat, and separate the beat in Pro Tools, then put all my plug-ins on it... just way more of a process. My work flow is way faster. And it gives you room to be more creative, you're not saying, 'Oh, I've got to hurry and get this and do this.' Everything I think of I can do to it as I'm creating. Its something I've been wait for forever.”
In the middle of gushing about the improvement to his studio he said, “It's a dream come true. Open Labs makes dreams come true, that should be your slogan.” Then he laughed and said, “No, I'm joking.”
Being serious, though, Happy talked about his favorite aspects of the gear, the ease of production that comes with Cubase and Reaper – and being able to switch between the two; the VSTs, East/West and Native Instruments; the convenient touch-screen, and the fact that everything was already in one place. But he wasn't always a believer, “I was in Guitar Center in Houston,” he recalled, as if telling the story of the first time he laid eyes on his true love, “one of the guys who works there is a friend of mine. I wasn't really using computers with MIDI yet, I was still using MPC and regular keyboards, he said, 'you know man, there's this board by a company called Open Labs where everything is all in one unit,' and he showed it to me and I thought it was cool, but I was uninterested because I wasn't in to all that. Then I was working with another producer ... and he used one and ... it really left me saying, 'Oh, now I get it.' I saw it in action and I was like, I've got to have this, and I got one like two weeks later.”
Either nature or nurture knew what Happy was meant to do. From childhood he's been steeped in music. Even before his first batch of produced tunes at 17, and his first full record at 20, Happy was strumming guitar along with legends at the impressionable age of 8. “The first time I picked up a guitar and initially could just play and find notes, really, there was never a doubt in my mind that that's what I wanted and was going to do. I was the only 10-year-old kid listening to Jimmy Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn. I would sit and try to play it – try to mimic it.” A decade later he was working with a different legend, Master P, and kicking ass.
Since then Happy's learned for himself that music is his calling, and he says, “It's the best. I wouldn't do anything else. I couldn't do anything else.”
Nesting atop a video of Young Bleed on Happy's Myspace page is a note on the strides he's made since the video first came out. In his words, “This was my first hit ... when dudes was at school learnin bout nuthin I was in the studio blowin sweets makin hits, this album ended up goin gold within a month ... Me and bleed made this beat with the asr 10 sittin on eggcrates in an apt on Gardere Ln ... in baton rouge ... we aint have shit, but this song changed my life ... so sittin in my big ass house and thinkin of all the $ucce$$ ive had over the years really makes me think GOD is good.”
Happy's long list of accomplishments – starting, impressively, with Mater P and Young Bleed – includes Ludacris, Baby Bash, Chamillionaire, Juvenile, Paula DeAnda, Various, C-Loc, Frankie J, Rubber Studdard, South Park Mexican, Mddl Fngz, Ricsta, Trae, and Natalie. He's also produced tracks on the movie Be Cool, starring John Travolta and Uma Thurman; as well as Barber Shop 2.
Many of the new tunes boasting Happy's name on production are getting radio play and picking up momentum, like the saucy duo, Prima J's song, “Corazon”, and Miguel's soulful “Sure Thing”. Though he's worked with a long list of successful artists he says that there's something about these up-coming projects that's got him anticipating the best. “I'm really excited, I've worked with a lot of artists and a lot of platinum records but for some reason I'm really excited about these people. I'm going to try to get them out there as much as possible.”
It's lucky for the producer that not only has he found artists he can be excited about, but that he can be excited to work with, especially since, he says, “There's not a lot of current music I'm really impressed with.” Happy finds inspiration in less conventional places.
“Have you ever seen American's Game on NFL network? I get inspiration from watching these Super Bowl teams in an hour long session and all the stuff they have to go through. And even though they don't lead, they end up being champions. And I transfer that over to my music, and all the stuff I have to go through. They take teams and interview the players and shows how hard it is to get to that point, and then they end up taking it all. I find inspiration in that, rather than listening to a lot of music.”
With an inspiring television show to watch, a glittering horizon, and passion for his work, Happy is continuing to take on new challenges. And armed with his Gen 3 MiKo LX, there's little he wont be able to do.
Equipment Used
Purchased MiKo LX (Gen3)
Artist Links