Interview with D.O.C.C on New Album ‘The Hensyn Night Blues’ & More

MuzicNotez: First off, it’s an honor to be doing this interview with you, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us.

What motivated you to start creating music? What age did you begin?

• D.O.C.C: I think what motivated me to make music was a fascination from an early age. When I was like five or six years old, I would be in the backseat in a booster seat listening to the radio just enjoying the sound of the records that were coming out at the time. My little mind was like “How did they get on the radio?” “How did they make this song sound like this?” It was this curiosity that motivated me to get into songwriting and learning piano. It took a long time to reach a dedication where I could make tracks without thinking about it. Once I got past the hurdle through education and practice, creating music was a necessity for me to express myself, in a way I couldn’t through other mediums.

Who were your musical influences, idols, or bands growing up that have helped mold you into the musician you are today? Or helped mold the music that you create?

• D.O.C.C: The first thing I think we are all exposed to is Pop Music on the radio, that was where the question of recording and sound came to mind. However, I was also raised in the church, and so worship music that involved a 4-piece rhythm section was the norm of what good music was to me. Of course, I later expanded my musical pallet during middle school and high school. Hip Hop was a big inspiration, with big influences ranging from 2Pac, Kendrick Lamar, Dr Dre, and xxxtentacion. Since film and video production was always an interest of mine, I started getting into film composers like John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. While taking music theory classes, I started to get into Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven. When 2020 rolled around with the world being shut down, ironically I got into blues music. Listening to the greats like Robert Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Magic Sam, and B.B. King. That’s why my music is so vast, because I’m open to all forms of music and see a place for it all.

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YouTube: @d.o.c.cmusic
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What’s the ultimate goal you want your music to achieve, or for you to achieve in your career as a musician? Any particular message you wish to send?

• D.O.C.C: I think the biggest thing everyone automatically wants is fame. To be honest with maturity I pivot what I wanted. All of us want recognition and to hopefully make money doing what we love, but I do not want to be no superstar. I love music, but I also love film, and so my ultimate goal is to become a renowned songwriter for pop music, but also an acclaimed film composer. I’ve already started that with student films at my college, and will continue to do that. The biggest thing I wish to push with my music is an authentic story. The story of a working class hispanic male trying to make his way in America. I believe music shouldn’t be just “a good beat peoples is carrying,” like Howlin’ Wolf coined. It should be a vessel for a story and experience that we can resonate with.

What’s the greatest concert you’ve ever been to or performed?

• D.O.C.C: Coming from a Christian background, seeing a concert from the 2016 for King and Country Christmas Tour was really something else. They are one of the few mainstream christian bands that experiment with their sound and compositions. That concert really demonstrated not only connection with God in rhetoric, but also musically.

Your latest release is ‘The Hensyn Night Blues’ album, how would you describe this release? What inspired it?

• D.O.C.C: The Hensyn Night Blues is the sequel to my 2022 album In A Matter of Days. Both albums highlight two specific points in time during this current decade. IAMOD speaks on the immediate aftermath of the pandemic on a young man, whereas THNB is the impact of isolation created by the pandemic several years later. The album centers on when this young man is at a turning point in his life, that being becoming an adult. The Hensyn Night Blues is an audio drama in which the young man returns to his childhood village after being away, and realizes that his home is not what it used to be. It’s a crisis of nostalgia and how its dark side prevents us from moving forward. The style of the album utilizes spoken word to provide context, and instrumentals to immerse you in the world. It was because of listening to film scores and the blues, that this “almost audiovisual like experience” could happen in the first place. I wanted to create a modern tale, about the modern bluesman. A story that is organized like a play or film, yet limited images are provided, leaving the audience to fill in the gaps. Gaps in which they can insert themselves in the story, further resonating with an individual.

How do you go about creating your music? What’s the process?

• D.O.C.C: I think because of my musical growth, coming up with music comes easily. Sometimes that involves me just sitting at the piano or guitar as I’m jamming on the instrument. Or, it involves me being at my DAW going through sounds and playing melodies on my MIDI keyboard to see what sticks. Sometimes it’s a melody, and other times it’s a chord progression. If it involves lyrics, this could be a compilation of notes like poems, or a combination of different verses for proposed songs. Sometimes lyricism is spontaneous, other times it takes months. Before I really knew how to compose my own music, I would go through different samples to see how it could be utilized and chopped. Much of this is the same with other techniques, though I’m just more efficient now.

You’re big into film production as well, how does this effect you as a music artist?

• D.O.C.C: Despite my love for music, audio recording, and sound design, my first love I think was film. The cinema going experience was burned into me very young. My parents joke that my first time being at a movie theater was when I was barely one year old when Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith came out. Of course I don’t remember it, but I believe that an intuitive memory exists and it can be traced back to when you were a baby. My parents and I would constantly see movies growing up, and that experience made me love film. Later with the video game content explosion of the 2010s, I was further hooked. I believe film is the most complete medium of art, involving visual art, music, and literature. So this has affected how I write my music, because I want to provide a cinematic experience when you listen. That there is not only a story, but also soundwise it feels like you’re in a movie or watching this movie in a theater. Overall, music is always more effective when played with a visual medium. This was true in Mozart’s day, and it’s even more true now. Especially in the age of low attention spans, you need to constantly engage the audience with stimuli.

What else are you working on? What can we expect to see and hear from you in the future? Tell us about the new singles coming up leading to your new album.

• D.O.C.C: I have been working on many FDUFilm student films like GIOVANNA, Remembrance, and HouseoHome: Who Am I. On GIOVANNA and HouseoHome, I was a Post-Production Sound Mixer and Designer. However what unties all three of these is that I was involved in the music, with Remembrance being completely scored by me. For about a year, I also worked as Lead Editor for a documentary called Leading from Within: The Untold Stories of Black Women in Higher Education. This was for the non-profit named Scholars in Solidarity and it’s not a short film, it’s about TV Special length. In terms of music, I’m planning on releasing the score for Remembrance, and further promoting The Hensyn Night Blues album. You should expect to see further work in film, especially when it comes to music and editing.

Anything else you wish to say about yourself or your music? Any message for your fans?

• D.O.C.C: I appreciate all you guys for reading my story, and I hope that you resonate with The Hensyn Night Blues. God bless! By the way if you’re in the NJ-NY Area, come see the horror flick GIOVANNA at the Bernardsville Theatre on June 13th at 4 PM EST.

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