Inspiration
Wilks, Brian

Brian: Michael Jackson was my biggest influence in music and I remember reading his book, "Moonwalker" which is his autobiography, when I was in the second grade actually. It took me about, from what I can remember, it took me about only a month to finish that book and I actually read it one time through and I was just so amazed at the story that I read it again. Listening to his music, being just taken away by Michael Jackson, everything, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson. I had the games, the pictures, the posters, I wanted the toys - I never got the toys but I wanted them so bad. I remember saying I wish I could do music with Michael Jackson, even from the second grade. I didn't even know how to start, what to do, so all throughout elementary school I was a Michael Jackson fiend but then I got into sixth grade and that was the first time I joined a band - it was forced on me, I was in a music class, I won't call it a band - I played the trumpet in music class in the sixth grade and I remember the teacher told me, I ended up being the best trumpet player in the class because I remember this one time we had a show coming up and there was a part in the song where there was a trumpet solo but no one knew how to play it, there was only three of us who played trumpet but no one knew how to play the solo and he used to cut us off right before the solo started but he didn't know I was at home practicing, you know, how to play that solo. One day of class, you know, we go in and do that song again - I can't remember what song it was - but we were doing it and he said, you know, it's done, or whatever, but I kept going. I got to the solo part and I played it. Usually, you know, I expected him to get upset cause I was interrupting the class or whatever, but he looked at me and everyone just looked at me and he started clapping and so I knew maybe I got something to do in music a little bit. About a year later, I remember my parents bought me a piano - a little keyboard - a teacher keyboard for Christmas and it would show you how to play certain songs, it would show you what notes were which, you know so any button you press it would pop up on the screen what note it was so I started learning and the first song I learned on the piano was "For Elise" by Beethoven and that was in the seventh grade when I learned how to play that and piano became kind of like my new passion in music I would say. Since then, since that sixth grade class I didn't take a music class until college actually. I got to Columbus State and took a piano class and I found out there, that's when I really found out I could not read music. Every test we had, anything we had to play for our finals we were supposed to read the music and we had to play it for the teacher in the class but ultimately what I did - she would play it for us and I would hear her play it and hear other people practicing it and I would just listen to what other people were playin' and it just turned out to where, you know I would just play what I heard. It took her about five weeks into the class it took her to realize that I wasn't actually reading music, I was just playing cause I kept messing certain notes because I heard them wrong and if I was able to read music I would have played it right obviously so that's when she asked me and I told her and she didn't get mad actually she said I have a gift for music because I was able to hear and then play whatever I heard with practice of course and that turned into me now - I'm a producer, I make music for people around the city of Columbus. My family, they're both - my two cousins - they both rap, I know people who sing and I'm actually I'm working on signing with a record label, Fab Vision Network, it's a record label here in Columbus, they're lookin' at me, trying to get me to sign or whatever. Hopefully it will progress into something big where I can start making some money off of it. You know, for now music is it and startin' from reading that Michael Jackson book when I was in the second grade, from the point on I just knew, you know - I was gonna be music. What I did was, I automatically knew there was A-B-C-D-E-F-G in notes, that's how music is made up and I just kind of memorized where the C was, the middle C they call it, on the piano on the keyboard, so if the teacher told us to play [clears throat] excuse me, if the teacher told us like the notes were C, G flat, B flat, I just remembered what she said and I know corresponding - reading music was like reading Spanish or whatever, it was just not working for me. But really I would tell you that keyboard is the reason I can kind of play by ear because I know what each note sounds like and if I hear it I correspond it, that sounds like a C, and I know where the C is because of that keyboard - it showed me where the C was. I hit it and it just went on from there. I get lucky nowadays because most beat I make I can use a keyboard makin' the beats they have all the different sounds so I took, and if I wanted to use different chords - say I had brass horns I wanted to play and I wanted to use a chord of those I'd start and just like the same thing I just think what would sound good together and then you hit that note and then you hit that note and you put a note with it and then another note with it, you hit it like that. So since everything is keyboard based it kind of saved me cause, you know, I don't even know how to play guitar anymore, you don't need to play trumpet anymore and you don't need to know how to play any of that stuff as long as you got the keyboard which I do and you know how to play that pretty well, you're good to go. If you have a dream, a passion go with it, you gotta go for it no matter what if it's teacher, doctor, music like I do, anything, go for it. I say read people's biographies, autobiographies, seriously if you want to be a doctor read a biography about a doctor, you know. There was one, I can't remember the name of the book but there was one book about a doctor, there's an autobiography about Malcom X. You know what I'm sayin'; any book that has to do with anything that you want to do, it really does inspire you - at least it inspired me so I would say definitely read somebody else's story, even if it is not a book, go on Wikipedia, read their story, see what they did. It does give you a lot of inspiration.