Recording - May 2013 - 55

MAY 2013
TAXI Road Rally 2012

The Five-Year Plan, Part 2
Moderated by Michael Laskow
Panelists: Matt Hirt,
John Mazzei, Dave
Walton, Barry French,
Dean Krippaehne
Most of these guys [on
this panel] have been
teaching a class called
“The Five-Year Plan” now
for several years at the
Rally. At some point I
decided we should get
more people to hear what
they’ve got to say
because they’re all successful, and I want every
one of you to be successful as well.
Let me introduce you to
our panelists, my friends,
and successful TAXI members, all!
Matt Hirt is a highly
versatile and prolific
composer with almost
Five-Year Plan panelists Matt Hirt, John Mazzei, Dave Walton, Barry French, and Dean Krippaehne line up for a photo after their panel at TAXI’s 2012 Road Rally.
1,500 unique published
then he has managed to evolve his ideas and
songs and instrumentals in nearly every musi- years. When he started in late 2006, he had
sounds into something more current and modcal style imaginable to his credit. Matt’s songs zero compositions in his ASCAP catalog and
now has close to 500 titles registered. John
ern. He has hundreds (and hundreds) of
have been featured in 4 Number One box
placements on network and cable television,
office motion pictures (Limitless, Rogue/Virgin continues to maintain a full-time day gig, a
full-time writing schedule, and is focusing his
mostly through direct TAXI deals with
2011, Tropic Thunder, Paramount 2008, Rush
Five-Year Plan on an early retirement from his
libraries and publishers. His daughter thinks
Hour 3, New Line Cinema 2007, and Mr. &
his music placements are cool but rolls her
Mrs. Smith, 20th Century Fox 2005). His music day gig. By the way, John is in year 7 of his
The Dr. Oz Show-Year Plan!! It continues to
eyes when he mentions having music in Bad
is also heard daily on network and cable TV
evolve every year as he learns more and pracGirls Club. Give it up for Mr. Dave Walton!
on shows such as Hawaii Five-O, How I Met
tices the various aspects of the business. He
[Applause]
Your Mother, CSI, Parenthood, Dancing With
lives in San Francisco with his wife Jean, and
The Stars, American Idol, America’s Next Top
his Maltese doggy Winston (who has his own
Barry French, or “Big Blue,” as his friends call
Model, The View, Access Hollywood, The Dr. Oz
Facebook page). Please welcome Mr. John
him, is a composer and songwriter for film and
Show, and the Beijing, Vancouver and London
Mazzei! [Applause]
television. He joined TAXI in 2008 as a comOlympic Games on NBC, among many others.
plete newbie in the world of film and TV
Ladies and gents, Mr. Matt Hirt! [Applause]
Dave Walton is a full-time composer/musician. music. Now his credits include the main title
theme for It’s A Brad, Brad World, the main
John Mazzei is a composer of various styles of After a long time away from music, he joined
TAXI in 2004 with ideas and sounds that he
music and has been focusing on composing
Continued on page 56
specifically for production music for the past 6 now calls “out of date and out of style.” Since
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Recording - May 2013

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