Today we’d like to introduce you to Allen Salazar
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
From a very young age, I have been very interested in all things music, however, my family doesn’t have very many musicians so I had to figure out how to make sounds all on my own. I experimented with violin, trumpet, drums, bass guitar, and electric guitar. I would also beat box for my brother to rap on our way to school. It wasn’t until my brother found a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) called FL Studio, that I had found my way into fully expressing myself. I was studying Electrical Engineering at the U of U at the time, and in between classes and homework I was making beats in the booths at the Marriot Library. One day, I decided that EE wasn’t my thing and that making music was fulfilling me the most, so I decided to drop out and I haven’t looked back since.
For a couple years into using a DAW to make music, I was completely self taught. There were some YouTube tutorials around at the time but nothing comprehensive like there is now. I also was feeling like FL Studio wasn’t the best fit for me so I started looking around at other DAWs but it was at that moment when I came across a local school that teaches a specific DAW called Ableton Live. So I immediately signed up at Salt Lake DJ & Production to beat the learning curve. This was in Jan 2014.
A little over a year went by and I was cruising! I made a 7 min ballad for a music video shot at Cafe on 1st, where I was employed at the time. I was DJing at Circle Lounge weekly, and was making a bunch of new friends in the music scene. Summer 2015 came and my boss recommended me to someone to teach DJing and production and I accepted. His name is Omar, and we met a few times and really kicked it off. Eventually he proposed we form a DJ duo and see how it goes. Initially I was skeptical, because I had just started a new alias, but we agreed that if it wasn’t a good fit, we would break up and continue lessons. We combined our DJ names, ZAR for me and ZAI for Omar, to form Z & Z. Our first two shows were held at the Opium Lounge above the venue The Hotel, now Lake Effect in October 2015. We were able to bring around 350 people for our first show, and another 550 for the following show. I agreed to keep the project going.
Fast forward 9 years, we’re still going strong. We have performed at major EDM festivals in SLC, headlined a number of sold-out shows at various venues, and opened for some of the top EDM artists. We have music releases on several major EDM labels and so many unreleased tracks still in the pipeline. Along with our major success, we bring up a lot of our friends to perform with us and have given these opportunites to the people who deserve it. I have always been interested in teaching music and DJing so I went back to the place where I learned how to make music. I have been instructing at SLDP for a little over a year now and it’s such a fulfilling quest for me, to be able to turn around and give back to the community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being in a duo, we have to both agree on what we want our sound to be, how our brand to be represented, even down to what clothes to wear when we perfom. Initally we were unsure of what the project would look like, so it took some time to get that structured.
One of the biggest obstacles was COVID19, as the live music scene was one of the biggest impacted of all the industries. We played our first out of state show in San Diego, we had a lot of momentum and were eager to play more out of state shows. But then the lockdowns hit and we came to a grinding halt. It was a huge shift for us, to be more focused on social media and the new app TikTok, we never really acclimated to be honest.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
With music production, what set us apart was that we were making a wide array of genres. We didn’t have a set style as far as genres go. And the same idea goes for our DJ sets, we like to mix everything, play remixes from different genres, and find different ways to mix these different genres for a smooth transition. Our live shows are something we excel at. I think it’s because we like to include something for everyone, and it makes our sets interesting and exciting.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Get involved with your local scene. Go to shows, talk to the patrons about your project, you never know who is willing to help you out. We live in a particularly small market as far as music industry goes, hence the name “Small Lake City”, so if a friend of a friend is a venue owner, that could be your ticket in to playing your first show.
Really focus on your brand image, production companies and record labels like to put artists in boxes, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s to help them categorically place you on lineups or tours with similar artists, and to release your music to audiences that will receive your music positively.
Pricing:
- Private lessons $60/hour
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sldp.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/zandzmusic
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/zandzofficial
