He was 17 years old and still figuring out how to drive a car when he walked into a studio with Debbie Gibson and started producing her first album in more than twenty years. I was impressed when I first read about Sean Thomas. Not just the ambition of it – a teenager sitting across from one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s, but the fact that it worked.
Sean joined us on the PULSE Community Podcast recently, and within the first few minutes it was clear this is someone who has spent his entire life treating music as something to be understood from the inside out. He started piano at five, guitar shortly after, then bass, drums, and eventually violin. He spent ten years in classical choir. He did voice acting from age six. (Including the My Little Pony Movie) And through all of it, he was writing – first a song for his grandmother when she was diagnosed with cancer at age 11, then charity fundraisers, then production sessions with artists who had been in the industry before he was born.
“When I’m in a writing session,” he told me,“I’ll often just take a backseat or keep asking questions until they bring it out themselves – because when it comes from them and it’s an idea they thought of, it’s more inspired.” That philosophy has carried him through his work with Joey McIntyre, New Kids on the Block, and New Edition. And now, he is turning it on himself.
“Better” – his debut single, is the result. He wrote it, recorded it, produced it, and mixed it entirely himself, stacking more than 100 vocal layers to create a choir out of just his own voice. He wrote about the people in his life who make him feel like a better version of himself.
The song is big. Really big.
I kept thinking of Paul McCartney, who you might remember wrote and performed everything on McCartney II (1980). He played all the instruments and produced it himself.
At 24 years of age, Sean has already done more than most artists accomplish in their careers. Whatever comes next, I for one will be paying attention.
Hear the full conversation with Sean Thomas and the song “Better” on The PULSE Community Podcast at: https://bit.ly/S2EP35PulsePodcast
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/