Life & Work with Silas Hite of Bath Township

Today we’d like to introduce you to Silas Hite.

Silas, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born and raised in a tiny mountain town in Arizona, called Crown King. I studied music, art, and business at University of Arizona where I played in bands and interned in a recording studio where I discovered I loved recording. In 2003, I graduated and moved to LA to begin working with my uncles, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh (of the band Devo) as an intern at Mark’s studio. I began by making coffee and running errands, but soon worked my way up to on-staff composer. It was a fantastically busy, fun, and informative time. That’s where I really cut my teeth as a composer, learning how to score film, tv, commercials, and video games. I was thrown into the fire and had to develop my writing, mixing, and producing skills very quickly to keep up!

After seven years of working there I got together with my future wife and she moved from Akron to LA. For the first few months we were deeply dismayed about us both working full-time and not being able to see each other very much despite the cross-country moving effort we made to be together. So, we both quit our jobs and became freelancers so we could spend more time together. It was an exciting and difficult time, but being deeply in love helped quite a bit!

After that I built numerous studios in LA for myself and was a freelance composer from 2010-2023. Life was good, but during COVID, we began to feel like our time in LA was drawing to a close. The silver-lining of the lockdown was that it was more widely accepted for people to work remotely. So we sold our LA home, bought a gorgeous Mid-Century Modern house next to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and built a brand new music studio for me to continue my work.

Building a new recording studio from scratch was a wildly stressful, yet rewarding process. Luckily I teamed up with an absolute gem of a builder, a brilliant local architect named Fred Zumpano. Together we built my dream studio in our piece of the forest. It’s ten times bigger than anything I could have had in California and I finally have room for my massive instrument collection. That’s where I am these days, scoring films, tv shows, commercials, video games and making albums from my lovely new studio, happy as a clam.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When I quit my job at my uncle’s studio in 2010 to become a freelancer, it was the middle of a recession. No one had enough work. It was really tough to get established, but I hustled until I had enough clients. Ten years later when the pandemic hit and the lockdown stopped filming, it was even worse. Not only was work practically nonexistent, but I think we were all filled with at least some amount of existential fear about the state of the country and whether we were going to die from going to the grocery store. What a hellish time!

The upside was, when I wasn’t filled with despair, I was able to finish some albums that I am really proud of. I created an album of instrumental Spaghetti Western influenced music, titled Out West, as well as an album of Americana music titled Amigos, under the artist name, The Satin Cowboy & The Seven Deadly Sins. Both are very special albums to me.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At this point I’m probably known for being a consummate professional with tons of experience that can handle whatever is thrown my way. I work very quickly and in 22 years I’ve never missed a deadline. Depending on the budget I can play every instrument myself, or write the score to be performed by an orchestra. There’s hardly a musical genre or difficult situation I haven’t dealt with before and the majority of my clients come back time and time again and we often become friends outside of work, so I must be fairly easy to work with as well!

I’d like to think that outside of that, I’m known for creating memorable scores that really serve and enhance the story, whether it’s a film, tv show, video game, podcast, or even a commercial.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Choosing to try to conjure a creative career of any sort is risky and never stops being risky!  In terms of my career, leaving a salaried composing job with my uncle to become an unknown freelancer during a recession was certainly a risk!  Leaving Los Angeles to move to Ohio also felt like a major risk.  Would I be forgotten once I left?

Whenever I have attempted a risky career move, I have always given it much thought and planned ahead, setting myself up as best I can for whatever pitfalls might come along.  There is no way to totally control life, but at least you can give yourself better tools or chances for dealing with hurdles by preparing and thinking ahead.  I also have to give credit to being in a strong supportive relationship.  It certainly helps having your spouse or partner believe in you and help bear the stress.  She has made some wild leaps in her career and I am always trying to show up for her as she has for me.

I think it’s worth pointing out that really is no “safe” career path these days. Corporations and government jobs used to be considered a “safer” path, but they lay people off all the time. There is no “safe”, so you might as well do something you enjoy!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.silashite.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silas_hite/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SilasHiteComposer/#
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silas-hite-82a21a4/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SilasHite
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/satincowboy
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3wNDer1huCI8BLSeL8k3jA