Some of the best songs never get a fair shot because the person who wrote them has no way to share them. Mike Bollig is a singer-songwriter whose songs reach back to the late 1970s, and I've been lucky enough to help him change that.
It starts with Mike
Every song begins with Mike. He writes the words and the melody himself, and he records them on his own. A lot of those recordings started life on cassette. He gets them to me as MP3s, and what I'm hearing is his voice, his lyrics and his tunes, exactly as he made them. Those original recordings are the heart of the whole project.
Where Suno comes in
I take Mike's MP3s and bring them into Suno, an AI music tool, where I work on them with him in mind. The goal isn't to replace what Mike wrote. It's to give his songs a fuller sound, with more polished arrangements and production, while keeping his melodies and lyrics front and center. Sometimes a song needs a little more, and I've added a few lines of my own. On "Soda J," for example, Mike's song had one verse, and I wrote two more to finish it. Mike's songs lean heavily on faith and everyday life, and I try to respect that in every version.
A website of his own
Songs need a place to live, so I built mikebollig.com for him. It has his songs to play and download, his music videos, and photos, in a design inspired by the clean look of some of my favorite artist sites. It's simple on purpose: people can press play and listen. His story is coming soon, once Mike sends me more of it and tells me how much he wants to share.
Why I do this
I build websites, print pieces and video for small businesses and cultural organizations, and the common thread is helping people get their work in front of an audience. Mike's songs deserve to be heard, and this project reminded me how much a little technology and a lot of listening can do. If you've got a creative project sitting in a drawer, or on a cassette, I'd love to hear about it. Say hello at [email protected].
Listen to Mike's music at mikebollig.com.