Meet Darrell Nutt of defMEDIA Group in Fort Myers – Southwest Florida

Today we’d like to introduce you to Darrell Nutt.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Darrell. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
First and foremost, I am a drummer. I’ve been a professional drummer since I was 14 playing drums in my mother’s country music band in New York. You see, I come from a long line of professional musicians. My maternal grandfather was the West Virginia state fiddle champion in the late ’70s while my mother had records out and toured around the country at that same time. My father was a singer and drummer. My stepfather sang and played both guitar and steel guitar. My stepbrothers played drums and bass guitar and my step-sister sang on the Grand Ol’ Opry. My half brother plays keyboards and most of my cousins play instruments and sing, You get the idea… I come from a musical lineage.

I grew up on Lake Ontario just north of Buffalo, New York. During high school, I was fortunate to be accepted by the Buffalo music scene. Some of the greatest musicians come from Buffalo and they were very gracious in letting me “pay my dues” as a young drummer. This was in the late ’80s and I was playing with musicians that worked with Rick James, Spyro Gyra, Paul Williams, Goo Goo Dolls, Steve Miller Band, and Ani DiFranco. I was 17.

I attended Villa Maria College in Buffalo and loved the music program led by Jim Kurzdorfer, bass player with Spyro Gyra. What a thrill to study music with a guy whose name I knew from the credits on the back of my favorite albums and been listening to for years.

At 19, I moved to Southwest Florida for the first time and performed with a young emerging country rock band called Thorobred. This band was signed to a record deal had some great musicians in it. One of whom was Phil O’Donnell. Years later, Phil became known as “Philbilly” and is one of the biggest songwriters in Nashville. I loved Fort Myers and made some great lifelong friends. However, I was disillusioned by the “record deal” and the amount of time it was taking to start a tour, so I moved to Orlando and joined a touring Top 40 dance band called Gibralter. In those days, a band could perform three weeks at a time in one club. We traveled from city to city across the US and made a pretty good living. Since I never finished college at Villa Maria, I credit my time with Gibralter as my continued education. Drumming 4 hours a night, 6 nights a week, 48 weeks a year for 3 years helped me get one-third of the way on the 10,000 hours rule!

After Gibralter, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. I was 22 years old and full of energy and excitement. I quickly started playing around town and meeting prominent people in the music industry. I played with The Warren Brothers, who have written some of the biggest songs in Country Music, and jammed with The Wooten Brothers (The Flecktones), and started touring with Barry Fish from the TV talent show Star Search. I spent 3 years working with Barry and again, I consider it my continued education because I really cut my teeth in the studio with Barry. The Barry Fish Band took up residency in Tallahassee, Florida as the house band for The Moon, a popular dance hall and we also became the session musicians for Blue Moon recording studios. Blue Moon was previously called Pegasus Studios and was built by Butch Trucks, the drummer from The Allman Brothers Band and the uncle of popular guitarist Derek Trucks. I had my own room (studio C) at Blue Moon and I really dove into writing music and recording techniques. I wrote jazz, lounge music, techno, house, royalty free music libraries, anything, and everything. I feel very fortunate for having the opportunity to spend endless hours in that studio.

At 24, I was asked to take over the drumming chair for The Forester Sisters. Those wonderful ladies had been on top of the charts for over 10 years. They had 15 top 10 hits and five of those went to number one! I had such a great time touring with them. We were on several Country Music TV shows. I finally got to perform on the Grand O’l Opry like my mother, brother and sister had done previously. With the Forester’s, I performed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland headlined in Las Vegas and played countless shows with many legends in country music like Jerry Reed, BJ Thomas, Ricky Skaggs, Oak Ridge Boys, The Bellamy Brothers and more.

I was with The Forester Sisters for a year when I decided to settle down in Southwest Florida for the second time! I was 25 and I already knew several musicians in Fort Myers. It didn’t take long to start working with local artists and bands and recording in most of the local studios. I was starting to dig my roots into Southwest Florida for real. At 28, I started a multimedia company called definition MEDIA. As a sole proprietor, I designed websites for local business owners and became the art director for The Senior Living Guide Magazine. I had always been a fine artist with a design eye, but never had a break from drumming and touring to pursue the field. Over the next four years, definition MEDIA did well and I was ready to go to the next level. I bought a home and added a soundproof room that became a small recording studio of my own. Over the next 15 years, I produced and engineered 29 albums in that small studio. Ten years ago I started learning about video production, directing and editing.

I have been at my current studio location for almost five years now. The company name has been shortened to defMEDIA Group to convey my many creative divisions: audio recording studio, video production services, print design services, online drum tracks, acoustic drum sample library, and a songwriter performance-based video podcast called Music Studio Live. I co-host the podcast with a very talented singer/songwriter, Sarah Hadeka. Together we perform a couple of songs live in my studio that was written by our featured artist Then we sit down and have a conversation with that artist about songwriting, music, and life. We have 8 episodes on YouTube for season one and we look forward to recording season two.

In my personal life, I live with my wonderful girlfriend Lisa. We have three kitties with distinctly different personalities. I love binge watching old comedies from the ’90s and my guilty pleasure is a late night salad after a long gig!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The career I chose was not always an easy road. I think back at my life at 25 and realize that I made a conscious decision to settle down here in Southwest Florida at that age because I had seen so much heartbreak, depression, and addiction while touring on the road and living in Nashville. I had a 5-year plan when I was 20. I had surpassed that plan by 25 and had to come up with a new plan. That’s why I chose to start definition MEDIA and diversify my talents into the design world.

The biggest struggle for a local musician is getting a fair wage for your work. Musicians spend years upon years practicing, paying dues, and putting their souls out there on stage for the listener, only to get paid what a club owner or agent “wants” to pay. Not necessarily what you are worth based on your skills.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
As for audio producing and recording, I think my experience and amount of stage/studio time is what sets me apart from others. I find that in the last four years, my recording clients have been young singer/songwriters between the ages of 14 and 18. I work well with them and explain the process to them as we record their music. I respect our young artists and there are some really talented young songwriters out there. I used to be young once too. I started at 14 professionally, so I get it. I know what they are thinking and what they are going through. I was like them.

As for video production, my clients tend to be bands and artists that want to take their project to the next level in the corporate function world. A corporate band video is an excellent way to get more exposure. I have a GREAT production staff for making these videos. Brent Billman, Michael Von Pick, & Jess Bunger. We are ALL musicians and photographers and we are all on the same page when we make a music video. We work fast and they know what I like to see on the camera. Since I am the director and editor, I rely on them for most of my “winning” shots. They have never let me down! They are also the production staff for our podcast Music Studio Live.

As a studio drummer, I joined up with the website: soundbetter.com. This website allows artists and producers to reach out to me and request my drumming services. It’s a great business model and I’ve recorded nearly 100 drum tracks for music makers all over the world including: Israel, South Korea, Trinidad, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Canada, Brazil, England, Portugal, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia and several from the US.

What are your plans for the future?
The future holds some exciting new challenges and projects for me.

I started recording a drum loop library called “Drum Song Tools.” This audio loop library is geared towards the singer/songwriter that wants to record a demo of their song but also wants a real drummer playing on the demo. Most drum loop libraries consist of tehno, EDM and hip hop loops. There are very few drum loop libraries that specialize in Americana, country, roots rock, coffee house, jazz, and blues styles.

I haven’t played music with my mother in over 30 years. She turns 70 this year and she is still on top of her musical game. This summer I will be producing an EP for her of original songs we wrote together. It is a long time in the making and the first time we’ve been in the studio together.

The Music Studio Live podcast is my dream project that has come to life! I hope to continue with that for a long time. We have some great guest coming up next season!

Pricing:

• Recording studio $65/hr or 10 hours for $500 prepay
• Acoustic Drum Tracks: $100 a song up to 5 minutes
• Video Production Services: Call for quote

Contact Info:

• Address: defMEDIA Group
  8359 Beacon Blvd
  Suite 418
  Fort Myers, FL 33907
• Website: www.defmediagroup.com
• Phone: 239-822-7634
• Email: darrellnutt@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicstudiolive/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SWFLrecordingstudio/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/musicstudiolive
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9z14FP4B-1S95oC94dshQ/

Image Credit:
Photos by evokestudio.io, Sarah Hedeka, and Lisa Brandt

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