TRACHTA

In 2012, Fran Trachta released "Differences", a solo project recorded mostly at his home studio in San Antonio, TX. Other than the help of a former bandmate and musician friend, Fran wrote, recorded, and mixed all of the songs. Martina Castro remotely recorded harmony vocals in San Francisco, CA, for the title song, "Differences". Jeremy Averitt, a former bandmate, remotely recorded slide guitar in Denver, CO, on "Rhodes 73", and bass and drums on "Love Divided Us"  Fran had an idea to create a music video for "Bicycle", one of the songs on the CD. He worked over 180 hours creating a digital landscape in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator,  and Cinema 4D and then composited and edited himself riding a bike through the digital city for the music video. “Bicycle Music Video”  was submitted to the San Antonio Film Festival and ended up generating a lot of interest that turned out to be the catalyst for pursuing additional collaborative music and video projects.

 

In 2016, Fran Trachta, Stefan Shambora, and Matthew Medellin began collaborating and recording in a rehearsal space, but their momentum quickly inspired interest to search for a professional music studio. Harter Music seemed to be the best fit for the project, not only because it was one of the best studios in town, but because the Harters seemed more like an extended family. The studio sessions began recording bass and drums with a scratch guitar and vocal track. For months, Fran continued to record various parts, guitars, keyboards, and vocals. Keith Harter recorded a lead guitar track on Subterranean because it just needed something special. Brandi Neely recorded harmony vocals for most of the tracks and after many months of recording off and on at Harter Music Studio, "Soul Pigeons" was released in 2018. Fran pursued an idea to create a music video based on the lyrics in Subterranean and searched an online artist database, featuring artists for hire. Fran contacted Chus Sarrión, a Digital Artist from Spain, and started discussing the concept for the music video. Chus and Fran spent weeks collaborating on ideas and Chus spent hours designing storyboards for the project. After months of collaboration the animated music video for "Subterranean” was finally finished. The music video was submitted to a handful of film festivals and won bronze at the Telly Awards and Best Music Video at the San Antonio Film Festival, in 2018.

 

In 2020, Fran Trachta, Stefan Shambora, and Matthew Medellin began recording their most recent project, "Moving At the Speed of Life" at Harter Music. The approach this time in the studio was to focus on individual songs and release them as singles, which allowed each song to have its own unique sound. Most of the songs would be categorized as rock music; however, "Grizzly Country" had a country kind of feel to it and just needed some additional talent to make it perfect. Keith Harter recorded lap steel guitar and Emily Monson recorded harmony vocals to bring it all together in the studio. Fran had an idea for one of the songs and contacted Chus Sarrión to collaborate on another animated music video. Fran provided the lyrics and the concept behind the song, but Chus expanded on the concept and created a masterpiece. The animated music video for “Rise Up” has won multiple awards and is still in consideration for many other festivals. The current list of awards is available on the Rise Up Concept & Design page on our website, The entire audio project, “Moving At the Speed of Life” is currently streaming online and also available for download.