Burchell students record multi-genre album

WASILLA — Not many people can say they had a rock star for a teacher who hooked them up with a producer for their own album.

But the Burchell High School students in the after-school music survey class can.

Letitia “Tish” Meeks fronts the party-punk rock band “3 Kisses,” launched in Austin, Texas, in 2004. She’s recorded eight studio albums and has been writing music for more than 20 years.

Meeks doesn’t have her teaching credentials yet — she has a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry, and she’ll be finishing her master’s degree in teaching this spring — but co-teaches the Burchell survey class with Safety and Security Supervisor Todd Whitehurst, who happens to have a bachelor’s degree in music.

The class is part of the Alaska 21st Century Community Learning Center’s after-school program.

“When I started this class, my goal was simply to teach kids to write music,” Meeks said.

But after talking with some co-workers and other Mat-Su Borough School District employees about the possibilities, she started to think bigger.

At the time, Meeks’ producer, Eric LaBrosse (Cherry Pit Studios), was planning to travel north to Alaska from Menomonee Falls, Wisc., to record 3 Kisses’ upcoming album. Thinking she should make the most of the opportunity, she asked him to stay a little longer and record her students.

“When she first pitched that idea to me, I was kinda like, ‘what? What are we doing?’” LaBrosse said.

Actually, it didn’t take long for him to warm up to the idea of creating a professional-quality, multi-genre album made by amateur musicians. But soon the question of “how” they were going to carry out their plan became the bigger question.

LaBrosse said he “couldn’t have students track everything from the ground up,” because not everyone was trained in the type of music they wanted for their song. Even if the class had one very skilled piano player, drummer and guitar player, the workload on those individuals would be too much to come out with quality arrangements.

“Putting 11 songs to track on someone that’s developing as an artist is a lot,” LaBrosse said.

So Meeks, Whitehurst and LaBrosse asked the students — some of them songwriters, some singers, some instrument players, some composers, some all of the above — to focus on writing the lyrics. The students also wrote down a song or artist they thought would sound similar to their piece, which served as jumping off points for LaBrosse and members of 3 Kisses — Meeks, Dale Payne and Drew Owens — to compose each student’s ideal song.

But with a little more practice, next time, they might not need the extra buffing up.

“There is so much talent in this room,” Meeks said, gesturing to her students in a Thursday class. “I’m more excited about their CD than mine.”

Meeks has plans to market the album under the students’ chosen moniker, “The Den Keepers,” and not only gain them profit, but help them maintain their intellectual property.

“When you give your music away for free, you’re saying it’s not good enough to buy,” Meeks told the students.

And she thinks it is. Read more to find out why.

The writers

• Daniel Armento and Nesha Delkettie — With the quiet Armento on piano, Delkettie gently sings “Forever and Always,” a classic love song. Delkettie also has a solo piece called “My Apologies for the Misery,” styled in the vein of “Bleeding Out” by Imagine Dragons.

Delkettie said it’s easier to express her feelings through song.

“When I’m talking, not a lot of people pay attention, they don’t really care about what I’m saying,” she said.

• Benji Meeks — He is Tish Meeks’ 15-year-old son, a freshman at Burchell. He’s not in the after-school program, but has contributed his song, “Time Machine,” to the album, and produced two other student tracks — “The Light” and “Sweet, Shy and Innocent.” Meeks brings years of music-making experience in the area of Electronic Dance Music, or EDM, to the album. Listen to “Time Machine” and other songs by the younger Meeks at soundcloud.com/officialbiomaniac.

• Tish Meeks — Long before her latest album, “Cardboard Cutouts,” hit the shelves in March, she and the other members of “3 Kisses” started working on their next installment. A song from that very recently recorded album — “Open Up Your Mind” — will also appear on The Den Keepers’ album.

• Jackie Moeller — With her practiced drumming skills, she can probably claim the most ownership over her song. “Til Morning,” styled in the vein of “Have Faith in Me” by A Day to Remember, features Moeller on drums and vocals.

“This is my strong point, this is what I want to do with my life,” she said, of drumming.

One of her earliest inspirations as a drummer, she said, was Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.”

• Traijen Morawitz — Like Moeller, he was inspired by a legend of rock as a child, albeit one slightly lighter: AC/DC.

“That’s what I wanna do — rock, just like that,” Morawitz said, recalling his “eureka” moment. Making people “feel better,” he added, is also a goal.

On The Den Keepers track listing, Morawitz’s background culminates in the defiant “(I’m Not) Useless,” an aggressive affirmation of existence and self-worth.

• Paul Morley — A veteran English teacher at Burchell, he and his band, Braided River, contributed “Nowhere Street” to the album. Morley typically plays mandolin and sings for his band, according to their website: braidedriverband.com.

• Shila Smith — Her song, “Stronger,” will appear on the album, though she has not been able to attend all the after-school classes.

• Terrence Thompson — He hardly speaks a word, but when reading his work silences a room.

“Terrence is so quiet. But what he writes is always so deep and really powerful,” said a classmate after he read his song, “The Light,” aloud.

• Katie Van Velzor — Her piece, tentatively titled, “The One,” is a fierce love song written about her most inspirational topic: her young son, Liam. While she also writes about “life in general” and other feelings, generally, “everything is about him,” she said.

• Andrea Warren — A photographer first, she’s a little newer to the music scene. But don’t discount her. Her song, “Sweet, Shy and Innocent,” is a bare-bones reflection on the self, styled musically in the vein of “How Ya Doin” by Missy Elliot.

• Todd Whitehurst — Although he has a degree in music, The Den Keepers album provided his first opportunity to write and record a song. At first, he didn’t think he could — he hadn’t had enough “adverse experiences,” he thought.

But Meeks encouraged him to write whatever he felt strongly about. The resulting “Theresa,” an acoustic tribute to Whitehurst’s wife, has a chorus that “gives me chills,” Meeks said.

One more track, tentatively titled “Fight or Flight,” will appear on the album by an unnamed student. The song is styled in the vein of “Skin and Bones” by Picture Me Broken, and uses dark, sharp imagery to get its message across: “You can try and hide, but it’s fight or flight.”

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.