People : Shawn Leahy

Bio

Shawn studied classical piano for ten years and attended Temple School of music where he majored in music theory. He was the keyboardist/singer for the bands Autumn, Heavy Water Cat, and Nerve in the eighties and lead vocalist for Trouser from 1992-96. Shawn's recording began with his first band on a 4-track and he has since recorded every musical project he has been connected with. His first studio was the tiny "Reel2Real Audio" in a basement in south Philadelphia where he recorded Rap group Junglistix for several years before moving to center city and opening Gabriel recording with fellow producers Greg Smith, Sam Yohannan (a.k.a Bonez) and Zvi Schmulevitch.

Credits

During the Gabriel era,20Shawn composed soundtracks for modern dance companies including "of God & Evil" for the Koresh Dance Company and "Crush" for the New Action Theatre Company. Next, Shawn joined Kevin Walker to form Millennium Sound Studios. Shawn recorded or mixed immense amounts of hip hop and rock including Dirty Deeds, Black Rook, Grand Poet, Chief Honcho, Snub Nose, Mcfadden & Whitehead, Noo Sphere, Bunny Sigler, Supreme Life, Vitalij Kuprij and the list goes on and on...

At Millennium, Shawn also learned the art of film sound design where he mixed several films and composed music for video including Lyn Rossi's "Brainwheels", DVD extras for "In the Shadows of Motown", a series of ten Job Corps commercials, and innumerable special sound effects for clients albums. With the birth of M Sound, Shawn has added singer Chandler Mogel and artist Hale Allen to his client list, having since produced two complete albums including recently released "Kill Love" on which Shawn also sings backup vocals and performs all keyboards. Shawn also engineered and co-produced Vitalij Kuprij's most recent albums "Forward & Beyond" and "Revenge", with a cameo lead vocal for the song "Emperors Will." Shawn's philosophy as a producer is simply to: "Bring out the best of the artist and enhance the artist with whatever skills I have to bear on the project. That it works well is borne out by the return clients and the full calendar."