Intense 10 Seconds:Anthony Falcone

So the other day, I noticed that I had a TV jingle stuck in my head.

Which is odd because I can't even remember when I last heard a jingle at all, let alone one infectious enough to get stuck in my head. A few days later I heard the jingle and it occurred to me that not only was the jingle funny, and catchy, but actually kinda sorta brilliant in it's effectiveness. I thought that whoever made this up must be a really smart dude.



Earlier today I got to talk to the producer of that jingle, Anthony Falcone. A 24 year old audio engineer/producer/really-smart-dude about music, school and the Telly Award Winning commercial that just put him on the map.

I spoke to him for like, 10 seconds:



F&S:So how long have you been making music?
AF:Professionally? Just about 2 years, but I've been playing and studying music since I was 8.

F&S:8 years old?
AF:Yeah, since I was 8, I played clarinet, drums. I later picked up the guitar, bass, keyboards...

F&S:So how’d you start doing this professionally?
AF: Right out of school, one of my first jobs in the business was as a Pro Tools Engineer for Snoop Dogg’s Story Tellers show on Vh1, I linked up with Dave Aron, he's produced and engineered for 2 Pac and Prince, I learned a lot from him.

F&S:How long after that did the commercial come about?
AF: James Vassallo helped put it all together.
The people from Education Connection said they wanted to go in a new direction, something fresh and new, so James came to me and said he wanted something catchy like the freecreditreport.com commercials, so I made the riff and Jason Sheldon, who goes by the name Rusty J, wrote the lyrics. I made the beat in about 30 minutes.

F&S:So how’s the response been? I was on YouTube looking for it and I saw it was viewed like 60,000 times on your page alone.
AF: Yeah, it has It has a huge following, there’s a lot of kids on YouTube singing it, it’s crazy!

F&S:So your major was music?
AF: I studied Audio Engineering and Music Production at Middle Tennessee State University.

F&S:Do you recommend majoring in music as a way to make it, because I know a lot of people drop out of high school to start a band.
AF: It depends, if you want to be in the music business, school is a good way to go, but at the end it’s all who you know, you can be a 22 year old with a degree competing with a guy with no degree and 20 years experience, but if you want to learn everything it helps. If you want to just start a band and go for it, you can do that too, it’s hard to say.

F&S:But there’s a lot to be learned though.
AF: Yeah, and today, it’s like, anyone with 500 bucks can get a Pro Tools rig and a keyboard but that doesn’t make you a producer, it’s about more than that, you have to learn about chords and theory, arrangement and tempo, a lot of work goes into it.

F&S:So are you going to keep making commercials?
AF: I didn't plan on it, it just fell in my lap and it's a cool way to make money, I got some stuff coming up with MTV and a few other things, my goal is to become a major force in the music industry. I want to be producing and engineering hit Pop, Hip Hop and Dance records.

F&S:So it’s kind of ironic that you went to college and because of that you got a job writing about going to college, don’t you think?
AF: I guess you could say I’m living proof, it’s funny I never thought of it like that until you just said it, but I guess I am.

Anthony also makes pop, hip hop and dance music, learn more about him, his company Drive Thru Productions and check out some of his other songs on his Myspace Page.

And stay tuned for a rock, rap and folk remix of his now famous "Education Connection" commercial.

Sing along now: