Charlie Izzo
Photo Credit: Ray Suen
Audio Engineer
Current Artists - Frank Ocean / Childish Gambino
CHANGEOVER: Tell us a little about yourself and your history in the music industry.
Charlie Izzo: I'm a sound engineer. I do both front of house and monitors for various artists and I live in Florida. I started at the House of Blues in Orlando when I was 19 as a stage hand. The guys there taught me audio basics and everything. Then I worked for Disney for a while and they sent me to classes on engineering. After that I got a picked up to start touring early on with Clayton Senne. Then more and more bands started hiring me, like Anberlin, Portugal. The Man, and M83 to name a few. I just kind of worked my way up through the industry. Now I’m working for Childish Gambino but the last person I was working with was Frank Ocean. I was scheduled to work with Crowded House this year as well.
How has COVID-19 affected your plans in the industry?
Well, it has stopped everything for me. I haven't worked in the past few months. This was actually supposed to be my most financially successful year that I've had to date. Instead, it's looking like the worst year I've had in about 12 or 15 years. It's unfortunate.
Photo Credit: Marc Chambers
What have you been doing while the industry is on pause?
I’ve done a couple live stream shows for Anberlin. I've taken the time to try and sharpen my skills by doing online reading and webinars. I’ve just been trying to keep busy and I like to spend a lot of time outside at the beach and riding my bike. I was able to get unemployment. Once that unemployment system kicked in it was very helpful.
Photo Credit: Marc Chambers
What do you feel is the future of the industry?
It's so hard. People speculate on so many different things that It's actually really frustrating that so many people do that. I mean this has been going on for quite a few months. In the beginning, people thought we were going to be back to work by the fall and that everything would be normal again. Obviously that's not going to happen. I honestly just have no idea. I like to be optimistic and think that by next year we'll be back to some normalcy. If there's a vaccine that everybody would actually take then maybe we can go back to normal. I just don't know.
What do you think is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Never half ass anything that you’re working on. No matter what the project is. No matter how boring it may be. That work is always a representation of you and your reputation.