Rising Stars: Meet Miles Stevenson of Fort Collins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Miles Stevenson.

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?
My father, Bill Stevenson, is a musician and a music producer. He plays drums in a band called The Descendents, he also owns a recording studio called The Blasting Room. My whole life I’ve been surrounded by the professional side of music and that might be why I never took an interest in playing or recording until I was 18 years old. When Covid happened, I quit my job because my dad was high risk and has compromised lungs. We both had extra free time so he started teaching me how to play guitar a little more seriously. We started with the easier Descendents songs. It was sort of like musical boot camp the way we did it. We practiced all the songs that I knew, every morning. Then we would add 2 or 3 more songs when I was confident enough. The songs would get harder and I would have to remember more of them. After a couple months we got to the more advanced songs and I knew around 30 songs by Descendents on guitar. I wasn’t a prodigy or anything but I was working hard and it was paying off.

Once I was a more well versed guitar player, he taught me how to record my own demos in our basement studio. He had me help him record drums for songs that people hired him to play on or music for one of his bands. Then he showed me how to drum edit, mix prep, tune vocals, and mix the songs. I started bringing bands into our basement studio and recording them for super cheap or free. After about a year of recording bands on my own, I asked him if I could talk with someone at the studio about an internship. He gave me an interview with Chris and Jonathon, they are in charge of the internship at The Blasting Room. Along with setting me up with and interview, Bill told them “To avoid nepotism, just treat Miles like some random off of the street”. I appreciate him doing that instead of just handing me a job. They signed off on letting me intern and I did it for about 2 years. Now I officially work at the studio.

For the last 5 years I have been studying and learning from my father and the excellent audio engineers at The Blasting Room. It’s exactly where I want to be and it’s the exact people I want to be learning from. I’m the almost the musician I want to be and I’m on my way to becoming the Audio Engineer I want to be.

Alright, 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?
I am more fortunate than others and I have more resources than others. I am aware of that and thankful for it. I’ve had a relatively smooth road because of those things. But I am not as successful as I would still like to be. I had struggles with self doubt and feeling unaccomplished at times. The biggest struggles were switching career paths so abruptly and remembering everything I learned at the studio.
Another struggle would be going through different bands before finding 3 musically inclined friends that I could count on. My current band All My Senses, is complete with 3 of my closest and most reliable friends, Erich Albrecht, Jarod Ford, and Jordan Pasquin.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I work as an Audio Engineer at a professional recording studio in Fort Collins Colorado, it’s called The Blasting Room. I am also a musician, I play guitar in a band called All My Senses and often fill in on bass for other bands. I would say I specialize in punk rock and post-hardcore music.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I can’t think of something surprising that my coworkers or employers wouldn’t know. They’ve known me my whole life and one of them is my dad. What seems to be a surprise to most people I meet, is when I tell them who my dad is. That only means something to a select amount of people though, like punk rockers. My dad isn’t famous, but he’s punk famous, which usually means not famous at all. That’s probably the most interesting thing about me. It might also be surprising when I tell people I don’t play the drums at all when my dad is known for his drumming.

Pricing:

• For recording, reach out to me for a quote, each project is different!
• For booking All My Senses, we are always looking for shows!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theblastingroom.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miles_stevenson_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/miles.stevenson.39
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/4YLLbFRP4F9dtdA3oc7p7U?si=Wps9oraASfCdWgfsvHJ43Q

Image Credits
Backstage Flash took two of those photos