Exposed Vocals Interviews Dr. Rick Boswell
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become a producer?
Dr. Rick Boswell: I was born in Princeton, New Jersey but moved to Newport News Virginia when I was 8. Music has always been an interest from an early age but it wasn’t until High School that I looked more into making it a hobby. I started out as an artist but grew to love the production and engineering side more. When first starting out with music a lot of artist don’t have a budget for production and engineering so it was from there I started to study both. It soon became a passion that turned profit and I have been working since.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Dr. Rick Boswell: My real name is Eric Bosley but when Facebook first started being popular my friends and I gave each other alias’ to make it harder to search for us on social media. So Rick Boswell became a thing. As I started getting better with engineering and music production I was given the name Dr. Rick Boswell because I was literally doing reconstructive surgery on peoples tracks. I had an artist send me 32 bars and from proper arrangement I turned it into a completed song.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Dr. Rick Boswell: Online music sharing is a beautiful thing. I share about 100 different artist songs in a 2 week span on twitter alone. I think it is vital for musicians to give away free music from time to time as appreciation to their fans. I give away free beats to artists who don’t have a budget all the time as well as mastering artists’ tracks. As a successful musician you learn that the more you give back the more you receive wether it is a retweet share or blog post or someone just passing your name to someone you can work with
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Dr. Rick Boswell: The biggest tip I can give you is make sure your music has great sound quality. Over the years I have been to many music conventions, shows, etc and the quality of your music is the difference between an A&R listening to your music for 5 secs or 1 minute. Also a vital tip is stop paying for fake views, followers and things like that use that money to invest in blog post engineering and equipment.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather beat making inspiration? What is your usual beat making process?
Dr. Rick Boswell: Right now with engineering being a full time job I don’t make as many beats as I would like to but the ones I do make are hits. But I draw my inspiration off of emotion, how do I feel today, whats on my mind things like that. From there its “what sound would convey this feeling” wether its synths or more classical elements or both. From there it’s using Fl Studio. Being an engineer I mix as I go and make final tweaks on a post mix and then when that is all done I master the track and send it off to my artists or upload it to my site to sell it.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Dr. Rick Boswell: www.DrRickBoswell.com is my website and I literally use almost every type of music platform to get heard wether its the bigs ones like: Pandora, Spotify, iTunes or Tidal to Groove, Amazon music, or Google play. The biggest thing to remember is everyone uses something different so you always want to reach to different listeners
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Dr. Rick Boswell: I probably wouldn’t touch it unless to get new equipment and as far as a year off probably be bored out of my mind not doing music. It is literally all I do but for an answer travel and go to different music events.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Dr. Rick Boswell: I have literally spent a year studying this aspect of music alone, writings guides and things like that. But social media is the best way right now to reach new listeners and get your music heard. My biggest social media network is twitter, it is where I get the most engagement and interaction from my followers
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Dr. Rick Boswell: Right now I am in the work on two separate projects: A compilation piece for artist from my beat tape “The Waiting Room” as well as finishing “The Waiting Room 2” Also starting up The Waiting Room music blog to help other artist get exposure.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Dr. Rick Boswell: Teaching K – 5 students.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Dr. Rick Boswell: Things can get overwhelming from time to time but organization and setting schedules help a lot. I use my calendar and alarm clocks 24/7 I also minimize distractions as much as possible. Music is truly my passion and my source of income so it is a very high priority for me.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Dr. Rick Boswell: The Waiting Room 2 and the summer sale for beats on my website