By Esther Sanchez
I had the pleasure of being introduced to Milan Beker through our mutual friends who happen to be the owners of Palm Springs Recording Studio. With a resume like Beker’s at his relatively young age, there is no surprise that I was thoroughly impressed. A jet-setter who spends his time working and living between LA and his hometown of Toronto, Beker has achieved great success in the music industry as a producer, sound engineer and studio musician who has worked with the likes of Travis Scott and Metro Boomin on projects that have hit Billboard’s Top 100 and been certified gold by RIAA. As the cliché goes, success for this Berklee School of Music Alum did not happen overnight.
CVW: “I know you have been a multi-instrumentalist since you were a small child. Do you come from musical parents?”
Beker: “My parents are music lovers but are not particularly musically inclined themselves. My older sister is however, a musician as well and our parents were always very supportive of my desire to study and pursue music and did very much encourage me to do so. I started piano lessons at the age of three so this life is all I can remember or even imagine for myself.”
CVW: “As a young guy fresh out of college, you moved thousands of miles away from your hometown in Toronto to LA to engage in what has become your notably important work in the music industry. Tell me about some of those challenges.”
Beker: “There have definitely been adjustments I have had to get used to. I’m very family oriented so not spending as much time with family as I’d like has not exactly been easy. At the same time, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities I have been given since I moved out west and obviously the warm weather helps.”
Beker continues: “Toronto has a very vibrant music scene as well which I try my best to stay involved with, especially on the PRO side of it with SOCAN, (The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada ) and other Canadian organizations who are actively trying to push Canadian music forward.”
CVW: “As a professional in one of the most cutthroat and difficult to penetrate industries in existence, is there a single moment that you feel was your, ‘big break?’”
Beker: “Probably when I found out that a song that I co-produced with Metroboom was going to be released. It was a song with him and Travis Scott, two, obviously huge artists. Up until that point I had been recording some major label artists and some engineering but up didn’t have any major placements where my name was credited and I was able to have some ownership of the music. That was the moment I could sink my teeth into the reality of it all. That was in late 2018.”
Beker continues: “I remember getting the master version of the song from the label to approve and thinking to myself, ‘This must be what it feels like to get a placement and it kind of validated a lot of my journey. To know that there are so many talented people out there and now my name is out there with them as a professional. It’s been a real blessing.”
@milanbeker_ https://www.discogs.com/artist/10913575-Milan-Beker
