Arne Frager is a Grammy-winning recording engineer and studio owner who has worked with artists such as Beyoncé, Metallica, Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney and Prince. Now, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Frager can be found in the Redwood portable music building working as a guest artist, recording and mentoring teenage musicians.
Redwood’s music program hosts multiple guest artists each week, who join the class and mentor students with their respective instruments. However, the experience that Frager brings to the program is unique.
Like the musicians he mentors, Frager began playing music in his early teens, starting on piano before later switching to electric bass.
In his 20s, after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Frager put his music dreams on hold and worked in sales for Hughes Aircraft Company and Adage Technologies Inc. That career shift did not last long.
“When I was 30, I realized that I didn’t want to be in [sales] for the rest of my life. I really needed to be a musician, so I dropped out,” Frager said. “It was an old expression in the ’60s: ‘turn on, tune in and drop out.’ And that’s what I did.”
Working at Redwood is not Frager’s first experience working with teenage musicians.
“I’m used to working with young people [who] are under the age of 30. In all my years of recording, it’s always been new kids, new people who had something to say,” Frager said.
One of those “new kids” was Kennedy Gordy (stage name Rockwell), a 17-year-old artist who approached Frager in 1984 to record his single, “Somebody’s Watching Me.” This single, which Frager recorded and played bass on, hit number one on the Billboard charts, surpassing Michael Jackson’s previous Halloween hit, “Thriller.”
At the height of his career, Frager owned studios that were producing projects for Carlos Santana’s “Supernatural,” Metallica and the Dave Matthews Band – all at the same time. Frager remembers the energy in those rooms being electric.
“It’s very different when everybody’s together, because live recording sessions like that [are] sort of a party. Let’s say the band is five people. They have five friends that come along, maybe more, so you got a bunch of people with big smiles on their faces, having a good old time,” Frager said.
The members of Seordgarden, a Redwood student band that records with Frager, share a similar origin story. Junior Shane Morgan, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, describes their narrative.
“I came up with a basic song: four chords, super repetitive. I had the chords in my head for a while and I came up with Homegrown, [our first original song],” Morgan said. “[Our other band member] Robert came in one day when I was practicing in the back, and he didn’t have a drum set, so he just started hitting the piano with the sticks.”
The band recently recorded their first demo with Frager for another original song, “Formless.”
“It’s good to have a certain amount of ‘let’s figure this out live on the spot and record that right now, [until] we like what we have,’” Frager said.
It also helps a lot if band members are friends.
“You can work on a session, and if the vibe isn’t there, then it’s not going to happen,” Frager said. “After years of doing it, you begin to realize, ‘Oh, the kids are not into it today. We might as well just go home.’” Frager said.
The production process takes patience. When senior Fred Bartle asked for another take on a college audition recording, Frager patiently said he was in no rush, content to stay all day if needed.
“That’s why I came to high school,” Frager said. “I find people [who] are young, [just] starting [and] have a lot of immense talent. And [I love to] think I could help these people have a career.”
