A little bit of Hollywood has come to Plainview. The Loft Sound Studio, a Plainview-based vocal and performance training facility, is the creation of lifelong music artist Donnie Klang
and Matthew LaPorte. The duo says that they draw upon their personal experience of the ups and downs of the recording industry to give kids today the chance to be superstars.
“Essentially, we’re looking for the next Justin Bieber, someone we can train and teach them how to really become an artist, put them on YouTube and hope they really blow up,” said
LaPorte. “If they do, through our connections that we made while we were in the music industry the past 15 years, we would try and get them a record deal.”
The Loft Studio, located at 1530 Old Country Road, already has a list of achievements, including protégé Madison Beer, who got attention after Justin Bieber tweeted a link to a video of her singing. She is currently signed to a record deal on Bieber’s label in Los Angles.
Klang and LaPorte met when they were both 13 years old while attending St. Dominic’s, a private Catholic high school in Oyster Bay. The two instantly bonded once they discovered each other’s mutual love of music; in particular, the R&B-styled pop music that was especially popular at the time.
“We ended up in the same homeroom. One day he heard me humming, I heard him humming, and we discovered that we both liked to sing,” said Klang. “This was during the whole
*NYSNC/Backstreet Boys days in 1999, so we started a boy band called Playa Deception with a few of our friends.”
LaPorte already had a background in construction at this point thanks to the influence of his father, and the two built a recording studio in the basement of his home. Soon their hard work paid off, and the group began to get noticed by some big names in the industry. However, due to some bumps in the road, the project never quite got off the ground.
“We got picked up for a contract with Mathew Knowles, the father of singer Beyoncé Knowles, when we were all about 15 years old,” said LaPorte. “He got us a developmental deal with Sony, and we started going from studio to studio, but with five underage kids having to travel all over the place, along with all the contracts, the parents and everything, it all got too convoluted and hectic and we ended up breaking apart—except for Donnie and me.”
Two years later, Klang and LaPorte responded to a casting call that rapper P. Diddy put out for a new MTV talent show entitled Making the Band, with the goal being to create the next big all-boy pop music group. While Klang didn’t quite make it into the final line-up of the group at the end of the season, he nonetheless impressed Diddy so much that the media mogul offered him his very own solo contract with Bad Boy Records.
“Being on Making the Band was insane. It really was the last television program that developed artists, unlike today with American Idol or people posting videos on YouTube hoping for their 15 minutes of fame,” said Klang, who currently resides in Levittown. “We had to learn how to sing, dance, record, how to do interviews; everything from top to bottom to become a real artist.”
LaPorte, on the other hand, released his debut album, Just a Rolling Stone, in late 2008, and toured extensively to support it, including a stint opening for his idols the Backstreet
Boys. LaPorte, somewhat disillusioned after witnessing the darker side of the recording industry during Making the Band, took a break and went back to construction. He started his own company, got married and settled in Dix Hills.
Despite his record deal and training, Klang began to find the music business to be more vicious than he thought. When his career stalled, he started working with LaPorte’s construction company to help make ends meet. It was then that they discovered the successful new avenue down which their love for music would take them.
“My wife owns a dance studio on Old Country Road, and it had a little 100 square-foot loft above it,” said LaPorte. “Donnie and I decided to build a studio in it; we thought that maybe we could give kids today the opportunity to be developed in a way that most people aren’t—vocal training, dance choreography, etc.”
Dubbing their endeavor The Loft Sound Studio, the duo initially found themselves with no clients and few prospects. But soon business started trickling in and after three years,
Klang and LaPorte’s undertaking was hot enough for a relocation to where they have been operating since July.
“We call this The Artist Factory; we have two recording studio rooms with vocal booths. We do piano and guitar lessons, live performance training and innovative vocal songwriting training,” said LaPorte. “We also have a hair and make-up salon and photography and video studio.”
Klang and LaPorte also serve as scouts for several high-profile TV talent search programs, such The Voice. While they find this new phase of their career deeply fulfilling, Klang and LaPorte said that no one should rule out a possible return to the mic.
“It’s always a possibility,” said LaPorte.
“It’s something that never leaves you,” added Klang. “Like we tell the kids that come here; when something is your dream and your passion, you never can escape it. We’ve both tried to walk away, but music is like a magnet and it keeps pulling us back in. We’ll both be involved in music forever.”
To find out more, visit www.theloftsoundstudio.com.
