March – Aimee Terrin

At Piewatch, we love coming across quality independent artists and music, hidden gems and breaking talent.  So when we discovered Aimee Terrin floating around the Slicethepie scout room, we knew we had discovered someone very special.  With massive commercial appeal, an array of independent chart topping hits, and a proven crossover appeal, Aimee Terrin is the real deal!  Scratch a little deeper and it’s easy to see why Piewatch were extremely excited to have the opportunity to interview Aimee.  So, with great pleasure, it is our privilege to introduce Aimee Terrin, our Artist of the Month for March.  Sit back, click the player and read on to discover a truly remarkable independent artist.

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Piewatch – Hi Aimee, Thank you for chatting to us! So talk us through how you first got into music?

Aimee Terrin – I don’t think I first got into music, I think music first got into me…[laughing to myself]  My father, actually was one of those parents that recorded everything that his sons and daughters were involved with – literally – including recording my own birth at Day 1.  You see, I have audio of me being born and apparently as I came out of my mothers womb, I wasn’t really crying as most babies do… My Uncle Levon, in his heavy Armenian accent, can be heard in the delivery room (which makes me think – who knows why he was in there, now that I think about it) saying “She’s singing, she’s singing – she’s going to be a singer” — Ironic perhaps, but nonetheless I’ve never put much thought into what the Cosmos might have had in store for me — I just do my thing.

I guess from there, I learned early that when the cameras where rolling, it was my time…so as most performing arts kids probably do, I traumatized my family at an early age to the “Annie” phase of my singing metamorphosis, by performing at the dinner table…in fact, I clearly remember my Grandfather appreciating my ‘talent’ so much on one particular evening, that he ‘advised’ me to go outside where the “acoustics were more suitable”…in other words, “Not at the dinner table kid”…[laughing to myself]

Piewatch – How would you describe the music you make?

Aimee Terrin - If you were to combine my influences that are all essential to my musical evolution, my style could be interpreted as (if I may be allowed to quote my favorite Jeopardy! category) – a ‘Potpourri’ – of Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McCray, Nancy Wilson, Mel Torme, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack, Sade, Earth Wind and Fire, Sly Stone, Donnie Hathaway, Bill Withers, Rakim, EPMD, Mobb Deep, RUN-DMC and Beastie Boys.

In other words, music is a journey and not a destination and thus everything from that church choir you were traumatized to in your teenage years each and every every Sunday, to that Broadway Musical you couldn’t stop singing, to the first time you heard hip-hop…it’s just that journey that no one but yourself is truly aware of that is no more responsible for your stylistic evolution than the perceived destination that brings you before a crowd to which you are performing, that describes the type of music you make.

Which also reminds me, did I mention Journey as part of my influences…[laughing to myself]…geez I hate when bands break up…

Piewatch – How did you come across Slicethepie, and what do you think to the concept of fan funding?

Aimee Terrin – You know artists, myself included, have one fatal flaw that is crucial to sustaining an existence in this fine world – ‘We would perform for free, just to hear applause’.

Now with that said, if this was our hobby – instead of being our occupation which provides the means of affording those luxuries known as food and rent to us artists, applause would be great at the end of a performance…[laughing]   Music is funny to me and albeit a CD or a Hard Drive is a tangible object of perceived monetary value, music itself – and by that I mean the sound waves – are not tangible…strange concept when you get down to the meat and bones of it…sound waves are able to illicit a chemical response within a living (or who knows, perhaps non living too) being.

SliceThePie to me was a very interesting concept that had crossed my mind in the past and was intrigued to see a community of artists and non-artists alike supporting each other.  To me STP was the a group of ‘insiders’ who understand exactly how difficult it is to quantify sound waves into dollars…so I guess what I’m saying is “If it makes dollars, it makes sense”.

Piewatch – You’ve had dealings with some pretty big names during your musical journey.  Tell us a little about your collaborative works and how they came about.

Aimee Terrin – How many kilobytes does this hard drive hold?  [laughing]  This is a loaded question with stories within chapters within volumes.  I signed my first agreement with Jazzy Jeff in Philly through Touch of Jazz, his production company.  From there, Dr. Dre heard some heat and I flew back out to my native Los Angeles.  I remember playing keys and performing Nothin’ Feels Right in the foyer of his house on a $100,000 Bosendorfer Grand Piano…I think William Hung could have sounded great with those acoustics in that foyer, but whew what a privilege to play on a Bosendorfer…damn right Nothin Feels Right with regards playing keys since then.

From there I was asked to perform and produce with a laundry list of individuals from various musical genres over the years including collaborations with artists such as Rakim, P.O.D., and Floetry to name a few and also producers such as Massive Attack, Dr. Dre, Andy Johns, Glen Ballard and George Clinton.  Most of the material that was produced from these sessions is still yet to be released to the public and will be available on my debut project.

Some of these records can be found on the Indie charts at Independent Artists Company where I currently have 4 #1 Records in 4 different genres, including the #1 and #2 positions in their ALL GENRES charts, which is analogous to Billboard Hot A/C.

Piewatch – You were recently the winner of AKON’s HITLAB 2009 Showcase! How did it feel to win and perform live for Akon?  

Aimee Terrin – This is actually quite an interesting topic of my current events in the last few months so I’m glad you asked.  I actually joined Akon’s HITLAB as sort of a novelty, so allow me to elaborate.  HITLAB and it’s competitors HitSongScience and uPlaya are Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs that utilize Dynamic Hit Scoring (DHS).  This technology is supposedly able to predict if your song has the potential to be a hit.  DHS breaks down your song into variables such as pitch, tempo, etc. and compares the structure of your music to the top 100 billboard charts of the past six years.  The more your patterns resemble the ones of hits, the higher you score.

Okay, so imagine the audacity of a program to think it can pick a hit song?  Come on…so I ran my records through Akon’s HITLAB and low and behold I was ranked 55 out of 23,000 artists, which I found to be intriguing at best.  Well a few months later, I received an email from HITLAB asking me to perform for Akon in Toronto at the 2009 HITLAB Showcase.  Now the reason why these Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs now have my undivided attention is exactly this…I was not the top scoring artist – in fact I was #55…but what is intriguing is that I was the 2009 HITLAB Showcase “Judges Choice”, which means a computer did not pick me as a hitmaker.  The Artificial Intelligence (AI) showed that I had hit song potential that when combined with my package, which includes my recording history, my collaborations, my Indie charting success at IACmusic and other variables – “I looked perfect on paper” – which allowed me to be chosen as an artist with Predicted Success in the mainstream music industry.

Piewatch – What is your greatest achievement to date?

Aimee Terrin – To be honest with you, my greatest achievement to date is that I am still even involved with the record business by recording, producing and constantly evolving in an industry that appears to be moving faster than the artists that it relies upon.   By this I mean, I originally believed that the “record business and technology had outgrown Aimee Terrin” and didn‘t really need artists like myself anymore, but I have found exactly the opposite to be true…much like a prisoner doesn’t escape from prison on the first day of incarceration but after 8 years they devise a plan of action, so too have I…

After being ‘held captive’ the last few years by the confusion that the record business exerts upon new artists, I have come to realize that the roadblock that existed for me all along was that “Aimee Terrin had outgrown the record business and technology“ long ago and now that AI technology is available to the masses, it can be combined with my Indie chart success to formulate a business plan.  Perhaps these indicators of predicted success will also prove successful with respect to artist financing and bring SliceThePie mainstream.

To make a long story short, I’m now the poster child for the next generation of artist development and predicted success utilizing an artist’s existing contributing indicators, which will now also include Artificial Intelligence (AI)…so with that said, I guess you can now refer to me as AImee Terrin [laughing to myself].

Piewatch – Have you ever had any comical or embarrassing moments whilst performing?

Aimee Terrin – Thankfully nothing in the universe like Lady Gaga’s “equipment” malfunction at one of her last concerts, but one does come to mind.  I was over at my friend’s studio having a few drinks and one of my all time favorite artists, Raphael Saadiq happens to arrive with one of my producer friends.  Come on this is frickin’ Tony Tone Toni you are in the presence of and he askes me to sing for him…on any given day, this is a dream come true, but did you hear the part that I was mentioned I was a bit tipsy? [Laughing]   Now, I’m always on my game and professional when I know I need to be, but I was sucker punched by his request.  I’ll make this story short and let’s just say, luckily I had the opportunity of singing for him again a few days later and in better condition, which he reminded me was “much different than my last performance for him and more on the lines of what he had expected to hear from Aimee Terrin“. [Laughing]

Piewatch – What are you currently working on at the moment?  Are there any exciting developments on the horizon?

Aimee Terrin – As I mentioned before, I’m now the poster child for the next generation of artist development and predicted success that could translate into a Showcase Opportunity at SliceThePie.  Investors might understand my current factors of predicted success and how they could be strong indicators for financial reward of an investment including:

1)  Former Record Deals w/ Dr. Dre and Jazzy Jeff

2)  Prior artist and producer collaborations as mentioned in this interview

3)  Artificial Intelligence Scores @ HITLAB

4)  Independent Charting Success @ IACmusic w/ 4 #1 Records in 4 Different Genres

5)  Top Attorney Representation w/ Barry Reiss

6)  Artist Appeal by being HitLab’s “Judges Choice”

Currently, I am developing a website with IACmusic founder Dave Walton that focuses on monetizing artists assets by utilizing predictors such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), independent charts and their existing catalogs.  The platform will expand upon IACmusic’s current social networking model and will serve to define Web 3.0 through the introduction of the next phase of the logical evolution of social networking, open source and distribution modalities as we bring current underground artificial intelligence technologies to the forefront of the net …perhaps all buzzwords for the moment, but will soon become as commonplace as blog and LMFAO in the upcoming months.

Piewatch – Finally, would you like to say anything to your fans?

Aimee Terrin – Thank you for taking a minute to get to know me, AImee Terrin.  In my opinion, without my music, none of this article even would matter, so check it out for yourself…xoxo A.T.

Piewatch - Love Aimee Terrin as much as we do? Be sure to check her out on;

Aimee Terrin Links:

Aimee Terrin  ranked #70 (at time of publishing) by HITLAB

(Why – 92%) (Work It Out – 92%) (Just Wanna Get To Know Ya feat. George Clinton – 91%)

(Anytime You Want – 89%) (Perfect Imperrfection – 89%) (Handle Your Business – 88%)

‘Handle Your Business’ (currently charting for 38 weeks @ #1)

#1 ALL GENRES INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

#1 R&B/SOUL INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

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‘Fly’ (currently charting for 15 weeks @ #1)

#1 ALTERNATIVE POP ROCK INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

#4 ALL GENRES INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

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‘Blue Skies’ (currently charting for 22 weeks w/ debut @ #1)

#2 JAZZ INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

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ALL GENRES INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

(#1 ‘Handle Your Business’) (#2 ‘In Another Lifetime’) (#4 ‘Fly’) (#8 ‘Stop’) (#14 ‘Anytime You Want’)

R&B/SOUL INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

(#1 ‘Handle Your Business’) (#2 ‘In Another Lifetime’) (#3 ‘Stop’) (#4 ‘Anytime You Want’) (#5 ‘Why’)

JAZZ INDIE CHART @ iacmusic

(#2 ‘Blue Skies’) (#9 ‘Do You Remember My Name’)

Aimee Terrin @ Akon’s HITLAB 2009 Showcase in Toronto