Twenty-nine-year-old Phil daRosa is concerned about what his health means for him as a musician.
"I thought all good men died young," said daRosa over a cup of coffee at the Haymarket in downtown Northampton last month. "And I'm like, 'What? I'm totally healthy.'"
Martha's Vineyard native and Holyoke resident daRosa is a founding member of the now defunct jam band Bathtub Mary (though he still plays with most of its members in other incarnations of the band). Guitarist and prolific singer/songwriter daRosa has spent the last couple of years concentrating on his solo act and his production company, Tight Records.
Last September, daRosa (pictured) submitted his first solo CD, Better Days, to Birdside Distribution, under the mantle of Tight Records. A few months later, daRosa got the good news that they had accepted his CD—which features a slew of local guest musicians, including former Bathtub Mary members guitarist Jeremy Milligan and bassist Jackson Smith—and would be distributing it in record stores all over New England. While certainly exciting for daRosa in terms of his solo musical career, this development also has extremely positive implications for his budding producing career.
"Once I have one release accepted, that means that Tight Records doesn't have to go through the whole process again," said daRosa. "They'll accept other stuff by Tight Records."
That's good news for the handful of artists on the Tight Record label—Milligan, edgy pop rock group Inside Job and singer/songwriters Justin Eck and Shawn Germain—and new artists looking for his label to produce their music.
Tight Records is based out of a small, one-room studio in daRosa's Holyoke home, but he maintains that if you record in layers, size doesn't matter.
"Although [the studio] is more suited for solo artists than a full band, that's not to say full bands can't come in and record if you record layers upon layers of stuff," said daRosa.
Although he's currently preparing for his upcoming Oregon tour in support of Better Days, daRosa, after getting Tight Records' foot in the door at Birdside Distribution, is looking forward to producing music for many other artists.
"I love working in the studio, lending my advice to others and consulting with them in terms of form and what to do and not to do," said daRosa. "I haven't done too much work to get people in [the studio], but if I could [record more musicians], I would be fucking psyched."
To contact Phil daRosa at Tight Records, email phil@tightrecords.com or log on to www.tightrecords.com.
