Meet Ted Davies | Audio Engineer and Multi-Instrumentalist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ted Davies and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ted, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I was born and raised in Fort Collins, Colorado. My parents, while not professional musicians, are very avid music listeners and festival attendees, and I was exposed to a myriad of live and recorded music from birth. Growing up attending music festivals such as the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, New West Fest, FoCoMX, and many others, as well as playing classical piano and saxophone from a young age, I learned very quickly that I want to pursue a career as a professional musician. During my teenage years playing the saxophone and composing music became a sanctuary through a very rocky high school experience, and it was then that I realized that if I have a purpose in life, it’s making great music with other people.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art covers a large variety of styles and fields within music. When I initially started college, I was primarily focused on playing the saxophone and composing/arranging music, but with the onset of COVID19 in 2020 I started to get heavily invested in music production, especially in the final years of my undergrad program. I recorded my first album “Trail Rider” in January 2022; this album was a strange collection of original compositions for big band loosely about the experience one goes through in their late teens/early 20s of figuring out what you want to do with your life. I went on to win a DownBeat Magazine Student Award in 2023 for one of my compositions on that album, entitled “The Shadows’ Dance”. After I released the album in November 2022, I immediately got to work upgrading my recording studio that I’d started building in late 2018 to record demos of my first band. I co-wrote, recorded, produced and released a single called “Good Grit” with my good friend Kate Fern in early 2023 after the release of Trail Rider late the previous year. I also recorded an album with my short lived jazz/hip hop band “To Be Determined” and released it in late 2023. In August 2023, I organized my recording studio as an LLC, Teddy Westside Productions, and have been recording, mixing, and mastering local artists in my home studio.

This journey has not been easy and continues to not be easy, but one thing that’s helped me quite a bit is my mindset. Having a broader scope with my goals and also being okay with doing other things to support myself has been my one saving grace with my career. My ultimate goal with music is to make incredible music with other people, and not having a perfectly laid out path with how to make that happen has actually made that goal seem easier to attain. Art by definition is imperfect, as to me all art is in some way a reflection of the human condition, and my career in art will have changes and bumps along the way just like the art that I make has imperfections. This is not to say I don’t work hard or just ‘hope things will work themselves out’; in fact quite the opposite. Taking and making opportunities for myself as they come is quintessential for making progress on the path to success; trying out different things and seeing what works and what doesn’t is a big part of the process for me. It’s also helped me grow the most; failure is ultimately the most important part of really learning how to do something well. Back when I was living in Greeley finishing up my undergrad I had my studio in the living room at the house I was living in, and would have weekly recording sessions with my friends and other people in the program; we would record class projects, original material, or music that we were working on at the time. Those sessions allowed me to make mistakes in a controlled environment not only so that I learned what not to do in the future, but also (and arguably more importantly) so I could learn how to more efficiently and healthily deal with mistakes in the future that I would inevitably end up making. The experiences I had cutting my teeth in college allowed me to handle bigger issues in professional settings with much more ease and grace than I might have if I didn’t have the experience of making mistakes in a more controlled environment.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh man, this is a difficult one. I’m terrible with trip itineraries – I usually like to wing it unless my friend has something they want to do – but if I were planning a week here with a friend these are solid contender for what we might do. I love the downtown aquarium and the Butterfly Pavilion – it’s a really nice way to connect with animals without going off the beaten path, as well as a very relaxing and meditative experience so long as you’re not there when there’s a large group of middle schoolers there as well. I would also take them to a concert at Red Rocks, and if there’s not a concert happening that week that we want to see then I’d take them up to walk around the park. It’s such a cool venue and location and I think experiencing it when you’re in Denver is quintessential. The big parks in Denver Proper are also very nice, City park, Cheeseman park, Washington park are all very pretty and I enjoy spending time in all of them. In terms of eating out, I have to confess I usually don’t eat at restaurants, and certainly not enough to have favorite spots down here. Me and my fiancee really enjoy cooking our own food, and I would want to cook for my friend when they were in town. I also LOVE grilling, it’s a great way to hang out outside with your friends while also cooking. I also don’t drink alcohol, so I don’t know any of the bars down here except the ones I play music at such as the Meadowlark, Herb’s, Lost Lake, etc.. Camping is one of my all time favorite activities, and that would certainly be on the to-do list. I’m not a fan of organized campgrounds such as the ones at Chief Hosa and Chatfield State Park, so we would probably go out of town to some National Forest/BLM land such as that up around Gross Reservoir up near Boulder or around Kenosha Pass up Highway 285. Depending on what my friend likes to do, we certainly wouldn’t do all of these things, but they are all definitely on the list of things I like to do here in Denver.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are a few people that have played a foundational role in pursing a career as a professional musician. The first person I’d like to recognize is my high school band director, Corry Petersen. Corry is an incredible trumpet player and teacher who was the first person to make me realize that pursing music is something I should pursue professionally. In addition to teaching, he’s been a professional trumpet player on the scene for 30 years; and with that experience he really mentored me through my first professional music experiences such as starting a band, hustling gigs, and going to jam sessions.

The other person I’d like to recognize is my undergraduate composition and arranging professor at the University of Northern Colorado, Drew Zaremba. I first discovered Drew’s music when I was in high school, and when I learned he was coming to teach at UNC I was immediately drawn to that school for the opportunity to study with him. Taking private lessons from him for three years I learned not just an incredible amount about composing and arranging music, but also about myself and about what I want in life. More than anything, he taught me how to challenge myself and follow through on my goals while still taking care of myself and being mindful of myself as a human outside of my art. Both Drew and Corry are foundational to my career as a professional musician, and I don’t know where I’d be without their mentorship and support.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teddaviesmusic/

Other: My Business’s instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/teddywestsideproductions/

Image Credits
Morgan Elizabeth Ella Gavlinski