THE BEAT

MusicianThe Making of a

OU alumni Lexi Murray and Anthony Enos turned a dream into a reality.

BY AYA CATHEY | PHOTOS BY ELLIE HABEL

Lexi Murray is a singer, songwriter, and music industry professional from Columbus, Ohio.

Lexi Murray has always had a love of music and songwriting. She wrote her first song in the second grade, played the piano and trumpet since elementary school and was in a band all through middle and high school.

“The first song that I can remember writing was a shitty little tune, but the music has always been in me,” Murray says.

Murray is a singer, songwriter and music industry professional from Columbus, Ohio. She is an Ohio University alumnus and currently works as the PR Coordinator for the Guild of Music Supervisors, a nonprofit with, according to its website, “the mission to promote the craft of music supervision for the mutual benefit of all media stakeholders in film, television, games, advertising, trailers and emerging media.”

Murray aspires to be more directly involved in the music business. As a part of her studies at OU, she took classes focused on the recording industry and they inspired her to pursue work in music production. Alongside songwriting, she is looking at professions in music supervision or licensing and copywriting.

“It would be awesome [to have a career in music] but the songwriting is more of my goal right now,” Murray says. “I love writing songs and experimenting with genres and arrangements. I think that comes from my experience in band and symphonic band. Whether I was playing the trumpet or being in a rock band, working with other people on arrangements was really cool to me.”

She graduated with a dual degree in strategic communication and music production in December 2020. During her time as an undergraduate student, she was a member of several organizations, including the OU Audio Engineering Society (AES), OU Women In Media Industry (WIMI) and the OU Multimedia Society (OUMS).

Murray took full advantage of her time at OU. In December 2019, she studied abroad through the OHIO Screenwriting and Documentary Storytelling program in Spain. As treasurer of Turn It Gold, a nonprofit organization fighting to bring awareness to childhood cancer, she has traveled to and volunteered in Houston, Texas.

Additionally, Murray held two internships. She worked as a publicist for Kovert Creative, a communication, marketing, and entertainment firm in New York City, and more recently worked as a music assistant at Creative Control Entertainment, a music supervision agency in Los Angeles. During her time at Creative Control, she was credited in several 2020 films, including Echo Boomers, Christmas in Vienna, Carlos Almaraz: Playing With Fire, and Feliz NaviDAD.

She was also a leader within her major. During her junior year, she successfully advocated for a baby grand piano to be installed in the RTV studio of the Schoonover Center for Communications. Due to her efforts, countless music production students can easily access a piano and pursue their music. In March 2020, Murray became the first student to be inducted into the Dean’s Leadership Circle for her efforts in acquiring the piano and her leadership roles in numerous campus organizations. In November 2020, Murray performed in the third annual Brick City Records Baker’s dozen concert series before graduating at the end of the semester.

Murray is an experimental artist who doesn’t fit into a single genre. She describes her style as pop overall, but more accurately, alternative pop or soft rock. Her influences range from bands such as Journey and Mayday Parade to Sara

Bareilles and Billy Joel.

During the writing process, Murray pulls inspiration from everywhere. Sometimes, she is inspired by random lyrics and will write them down on her phone notes app.

“I’ll play around with piano melodies, or get a random melody in my head, and sing it into my voice memos,” she says. “Later I’ll sit down at the piano and try to play what I sang in the memo. Usually, I’ll start with a theme based on emotion, and then I sit at the piano with chords I’ve written and dabble with melodies that fall within the key signature based on the chords I’ve written.”

On Jan. 22, Murray debuted her first single, “Release,” and her second single, “Blasé Road,” was released on Feb. 19. Her most recent single, “Table 44” was released on March 26. She plans to come out with a few more songs before releasing the full 12 track EP.

Murray wrote the vocals and piano of “Release” when she was 15 years old. At 16, she used her own drum kit to write the drumbeat. She also produced the bass with the help of a friend from her orchestra class. More recently, she hired musicians to play several parts, including the bass, ambient and lead guitar, to give the song the fullest sound possible.

“It’s really exciting because that’s the song I started with for this whole series of music I’m releasing,” Murray says. “It’s my very first full song that I’m really proud of. It’s funny because I think the lyrics are more accurate to today’s world now than it was then. For instance, the line ‘say goodbye to the world you think you live in’ is like how we’re all trying to say goodbye to 2020. It’s cool how that ended up working out.”

All three singles can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes and YouTube.

Anthony Enos is a freelance audio engineer, a post-production specialist and a recent graduate of Ohio University. During his time at OU, he was a music producer and audio engineer at Brick City Records and befriended Murray through their audio

“I love writing songs and experimenting with genres and arrangements. I think that comes from my experience in band and symphonic band.”

LEXI MURRAY OHIO UNIVERISTY ALUMNA

production and recording industry courses. He has produced three albums of his own and currently serves as the mixing and mastering engineer on Murray’s EP.

Enos began contributing to the project last year. A passionate musician himself, Anthony started creating music around 14 years old and built his own studio. The two bonded over their young start to music production and their love of experimenting with multiple genres.

“What makes me passionate about this project and the reason I offered to do it is because I know as an artist and an engineer that you want the project to be everything it can be,” Enos says. “To be honest, Lexi was really down about the project when she came to me and I would like to be a cheerleader for all the artists I work with.”

He describes Murray’s style as pop, R&B, and alternative with a “Disney-esque” vibe, due to the princess-like sound of her voice. Enos also says Adele is a large influence on her, and the two often joke about how her songs are written “in the image that Adele would be singing them.”

“We’ve been taking it a song at a time and addressing things together,” Enos says. “Each song started as instrumental tracks with one vocal track, and I suggested we rerecord some of them and get some doubles and harmonies in. She’s so talented and it’s really cool that everything is composed by her — the instrumentals sound awesome, as well as the vocals, and everything is coming together.”

Enos has been a loyal friend and patient audio engineer. Since they are both detail-oriented artists, they dedicate a lot of time to re-recording and making sure every track is perfect.

“Lexi is a perfectionist, so throughout the process, I’ve said, ‘Let’s re-record this. I know it will take longer and you don’t want to do it, but we’ll get a better product in the end.’ I started helping her on this EP because when things got tough, I didn’t want her to toss in the towel,” Enos says.

Enos cherishes the opportunity to work with a friend rather than the acquaintances or strangers he usually completes projects with.

“I would tell people to listen to Lexi’s album because you can tell there was a lot poured into it," Enos says. “This wasn’t a short process. It’s been over 3 years of writing and recording to get to everything where it is today. I would tell people that if you want to hear a project that someone really put their all into, this is the one.”

Murray’s music is incredibly soulful because she puts her heart into every piece of her work. Her songs are written entirely by her and produced with live instrumentation for a lively and diverse sound. For those new to the music industry, her advice is this:

“Remember why you made your music in the first place,” she says. “I feel like artists go through phases where they start to hate their music because they’ve listened to so many different versions of each mix and after recording it for so long, it is a very difficult mindset to get out of sometimes. It helps to keep in mind what your music means to you and remember it is all about that.” b