Today we’d like to introduce you to Reed Fox.
Reed, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My life has been a lot about following curiosities to their natural conclusion and then finding a new wonder to fixate on. It’s fun to finish projects no matter how long it might take. I think some of it has to do with the joy that came from becoming a Black Belt and Eagle Scout when I was younger. For a while, I dabbled in rapping and playing accordion until DJing captured me three years ago. Last year I started making House music and have released some of it under my own name on Spotify/Apple Music. I’m still heavily involved with déCollage, a band I started nine years ago. We’ve played at Red Rocks & Meow Wolf with Dan Deacon while Max Geimer (our visual guru) handed out a seemingly infinite supply of googly eyes and fed oysters to the audience. Suspender Defenders is another weird electro punk project that starred in Moon Magnet’s TV Show called Cosmic Pineapple. Snarklet (Jamie Nagode) and I fell in love six months ago and started making G House Instructional BeeWave music as Bun Bun. I already mentioned Moon Hammer so somehow I’ve found myself in 5 bands and they’ve been releasing a ton of music this year!
The Moon Magnet story is hyper-collaborative and built on community. Moon Magnet began on Bayaud and Pennsylvania in Baker District at a house known as Snozberry Studios (ran by Matt Tanner). A band called Tantric Picasso lived at the house and people hung out at the house ALL THE TIME. The landlord was supportive and when Jackson Boone cut the heads off of dolls and made sculptures in the yard, Carmine’s on Penn called the landlord and he told them to deal with it. I hung out there quite a bit and posted on Facebook that all I wanted to do was live downtown. A few months later everyone moved away except for Pablo Cruz and Karl Rivers. Clay Cornelius and I were in déCollage together and we both moved into the Snoz, it was a dream come true! Then Derrick Bozich moved in and the rest of the Ancient Elk band including Anna Smith, Megan Crooks, and Cody Coffey were hanging out a bunch and playing music. Previously some friends and I started an artist collective called The Menagerie and we were never happy with the name of it. At the time, my goal in life was to start another artist collective. I was graduating college at UCDenver majoring in Music Business and Audio Engineering in 2013 and my senior project was to write a business plan so I decided to write it around an artist collective that was also a recording studio, record label, and publishing company. It was a group effort and we decided to name it Moon Magnet after a song Cody Coffey and I wrote at 4 am at The Menagerie. Neil Lyons had created 200 songs for Film/TV and wanted to start a licensing library at the same time I wanted to launch one and we teamed up and put our heads together with Derrick. Check it out on Moon Magnet’s website, now it’s all automated so that anyone making videos can download a license to a song and put it in their video in minutes. Now there’s 16 album/EP releases on the label and a thousand songs in our publishing company to license for film/TV. Moon Magnet moved into a new house in 2017 and Jay Marz from King Eddie/DenVR and Kevin Netz moved in. They’re staples in the community and became heavily involved in all sorts of projects with too many people to mention like creating pyramid installations at Desert Daze the past two years, proposing installs to Meow Wolf, and receiving the Meow Wolf DIY Grant the past two years. Kyle Hartman (from UMS) & Juli Williams (who shoots all our recent photos) are common collaborators and the forces behind Synesthesia: Denver Psych Fest along with Jordan Hubner & I. Currently, Collin O’Toole, Ryan Schlichtman, & Jay Marz live here and we have two studios for practicing and recording.
We recently started a band called Moon Hammer, it’s essentially a writing collective and we have a handful of tracks on Spotify/Apple Music The first two seasons of Cosmic Pineapple (A Surreality TV Show about life around Moon Magnet) were filmed at the house and Season 1 premiered at Alamo Drafthouse and is up on YouTube .
Great, 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?
We were devastated when our landlord told us he was selling the Moon Magnet house and the other three houses around it to a developer. They demolished them and the massive apartment complex is almost open now. We ended up moving into Ross Harada’s house from Land Lines two and a half years ago and immediately covered everything in mylar space blankets, it was home at first sight. We really love this house and it was the best meta-morph we could have asked for.
In college, my biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to do music full time. I set all kinds of goals and was pretty set on recording bands. After college, I enlisted in Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute’s business bootcamp and they gave me a business mentor, accountant, and accountabilibuddy. The program was basically free because it’s funded by grants and I’d highly recommend it to anybody looking to start a business. At this point I haven’t had a boss in a decade but I do work about 14 hours a day/7 days a week. I teach music lessons to 38 students one on one (guitar, recording, piano, accordion, bass) every day of the week and DJ on the weekends. Many artists are in similar situations where they have to find creative ways to make their art work for them. It can be a struggle monetizing art and working jobs that are unrelated and starting businesses based around music. I truly believe dreams can be realized with persistence and dedication.
Moon Magnet & déCollage – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I run a half dozen businesses and my first one was recording/mixing artists at Moon Magnet Studios full time for two years after college. Now that I teach music full time independently, it’s helped me be more selective of the artists I work with. Right now I’m mixing a few records with Talley and recording voice over for Joe Tabano. I also LOVE mastering and have been mastering a few songs every week for years. I also DJ a wedding or prom a month and spin at clubs almost every weekend.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There’s way to many friends to mention and it makes me a tad uncomfortable to answer this because of the volume of people I’ll leave out. But first, Mona Magno & I run Balanced Breakfast together and bring music industry professionals into Mercury Cafe every 4th Saturday morning and it’s free to attend. Juli Williams shoots mind blowing photos and she’s a major collaborator in our scene. Hayley Dixon is a creative ninja and the most technicolor of party throwers. Meow Wolf is super supportive and inspires the whole world. Jacqueline Sophia Cordova goes by @ancient_Future on instagram and is my favorite visual artist. Andy Ininns and Max Geimer are incredible projectionists and a joy to work with. Anthony Catanese, Morgan McIntosh, Andy & Ben Tyson work at DenVR with Jay and a team of others and are doing vibrant VR installations.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.moonmagnetstudios.com www.decollagemedia.com www.reedcameronfox.com
- Phone: 7202406936
- Email: decollagemedia@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/decollagemedia www.instagram.com/moonmagnet
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/moonmagnetstudios
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/moonmagnetmusic
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/49wSlaBCP0ZzhJAKNLpMjD?si=4FqG9OPbToKMvAOGB3UOSA
Image Credit:
Juli Williams http://www.juliannaphotography.net
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