About Me

Watchman Whitworth

It all started at 5 years old with a piano and lessons he wasn't the least bit interested in. His grandpa promised that if he stuck to it and didn't give up for 3 years that he'd get any instrument he wanted. Watchman has no relatives that can play an instrument, but his musical roots are in the family nonetheless.

He chose the guitar and fell in love with making music at 8 years old. At 15, he joined School of Rock, a "rock band" oriented approach to teaching music to young people that gave him first experiences playing with other people and playing live shows.

He also picked up a lot more instruments at School of Rock. He learned to sing, play the drums and bass, and brushed up on his keyboard skills, all with lessons as well. At 16, he auditioned and was accepted to play in their house band. With that came far more frequent gigs and he gained lots of experience in live music.

As he grew up and moved on to bigger things, he left SOR and started a band with his best friends he had met there, they were called The Creamery. They rehearsed in watchman's mom or dad's basement every Sunday for 4 years. They released an LP and wrote countless songs. Watchman learned in that band what collaboration looked like. No songs were written by one individual, but one person would bring an idea, and the band would expand upon it together always.

The Creamery was also his first experience in music production. "Blue Room" is the only part of his discography not produced by him. The band couldn't afford to buy studio time, so Garrett (guitarist) learned everything there was to know about recording. From borrowing microphones from friends, organizing time, converting Watchman's dad's basement into a makeshift studio (having a full drum set in his small bedroom for 6+ months), it was a tedious process. Every take had several retakes, nothing was ever good enough, Garrett's perfectionism has its pros and cons.

Around the same time as the recording of "Blue Room," Watchman started another band called Housecat with his high school friend Clay. He introduced Watchman to Ableton, his DAW of choice to this day.

"I had already been in love with music for a long time by this point, but this was something entirely new. I now had the ability to create entire songs and listen to them back instantly. It was mind blowing."

His time following was all dedicated to music production. Hed'd bring his laptop and headphones to school and produce in class, causing a notable impact on his grades. A lot of that time spent in class was mixing the Housecat LP, "Aliens on the Moon." Housecat was a lot of fun, they released that album in March of 2020, right before Covid hit. As quarantine started, Watchman's solo discography began to take shape. he produced his first solo album "Little White Lies."

Before embarking on his solo journey, music had always been in the context of collaboration, a great habit to form which taught extremely valuable lessons, but now he had control. He spent just about every minute of quarantine working on that album. Doordashing for money for plugins and gear.

Later that year Watchman moved out of his parents and into a house in Grandview, MO. There, his studio began to take shape. His gear collection grew and he began working with new people. He got his first steady clients in Grandview and learned what it meant to be an engineer.

"Since moving to Martin City and setting up The 211. I've been all over the place creatively and its been fun. I've been working in new genres with new people and learning a lot of new and fun production techniques, and I'm excited to be teaching those tricks in lessons."