A couple articles back, I wrote about Zach Smith, a sophomore at UC, who has a serious talent for music and just released his first album at the age of nineteen. Well, because Zach is the coolest, he sat down for an interview with me and brought along the other members of New Class Music: Nick Willis (Willis), MitchWilly, Keagen Gulley (Keags), ayeceezy, and Joe Anderson (Jander). Let it be known, all of these guys are in college (except for Keags, who's a senior in high school. Yes, you read that right.), pursuing majors, as well as making music and being totally impressive.

We started off with a group interview and then broke off into one-on-ones, but those will come next week!

What, exactly, is New Class Music?

Zach: "It's a small, Cincinnati based business and organization that aims to find the poetry that is behind rap music. It helps these artists not only collaborate and make new music, but it helps them get out there and take the next step in their career."

How did you all meet?

Willis: "Me and Joe have known each other since kindergarten..."

Zach: "And we went to high school with Keagen..."

Keagen: "Yeah.. I would skip class and pop in and out of the studio... kinda met them through there."

Zach: "How we found Mitch and ayeceezy was kinda weird... Our co-founder, Nick Brems, would listen to SoundCloud and he would just listen to a ton of unknown artists and a ton of rappers and he came across one of Mitch's songs and really liked it... Nick played the song, and we all thought it was great. So, we decided to email Mitch... he was the only one that go back to us right away. So we told him about New Class, he was interested, so we met half way between Dayton and Cincy and he brought ayeceezy along."

How did you all know you had a passion for music? Is there a point in your lives where it just clicked?

Willis: "I feel like, when I was in 7th grade... it's when music became the most important to me because I started to kind of grow up in the sense of... taking a step outside of being a child. Music was the only thing that was always consistent in my life. It would make me want to get out of bed every morning, and ever since then, I just never wanted to let go of it."

ayeceezy: "For me, it wasn't a set point, it was more of a progression. The first instrument I started playing was the trombone and that was in a band setting... but I was looking to do stuff on my own so I started picking up the drums and playing the piano... I was just trying to merge all those instruments into my own sound and then I found producing... I mean, you have all the software, you have a whole orchestra right at your fingertips."

MitchWilly: "As I got more and more in depth into what I really liked and what I could relate to the most, the more I wanted to actually to put my input in and write a little bit... So, that was around 5th or 6th grade..."

Keagen, you're new to New Class. What drew you?

Keags: "Uh, well... I've known about it for a while, but when Zach first started talking to me- I was kinda scared. I didn't really have as much confidence as I do now... I actually ignored him a lot! Then I started getting a little more exposure and more people started hearing me and he came back and asked me again..."

So you [Zach] pushed for him?

Zach: "Oh, it's been a year now... He was definitely a little shy, not as confident, like he said... But he's grown into a very confident, very outspoken individual."

Keags: "Damn, right!"

Next, we talked about their majors and where they go to school... just to reiterate:

Zach is a sophomore at UC, studying Marketing and Entrepreneurship as a double major. Willis is a second-year Communications major at Mt. St. Joseph University. Joe is also a second year, but he attends Miami University and studies Game Development. ayeceezy is a sophomore at Wright State University in Dayton and studies Biology, and Mitch is a freshman at Clark State University, working toward his minor in Marketing, but he plans to transfer to the International College of Broadcasting in Tennessee to study Music Production.

Your majors' aren't music related... What drew you to them?

Zach: "I originally wanted to be a [Chemistry] teacher... but the more I took biology and chemistry classes, I knew that wasn't for me... I don't know how ayeceezy is doing it... but I wanted to get more into the marketing side cause I liked the promotion... learning how to draw people to my music, because that's when really started to get more into my music and release it for people to hear."

Willis: "I'm a very indecisive person, so I started off in Business... but either after one semester or one year, I ended up switching to Communications and realized Business is not for me and I definitely fit into classes for Communications better. After I graduate from The Mount, I might go to UC for some kind of music production degree, as well."

Joe: "Growing up, I played a lot of video games, pretty much like every kid... but when I was like, thirteen or fourteen, I was like 'This is pretty dope- I kinda want to learn how to make the games that I'm playing'... I was originally in Software Engineering, but it just wasn't for me.. It would've been good money, but the work just sucked. So I thought 'If I'm going to be doing something for the rest of my life, I might as well make it fun', so I ended up in Game Development."

ayeceezy: "Originally, I was in Biomedical Engineering, but I found that after like, a year and a half, that engineering wasn't really what I was interested in, but after taking a lot of biology and chemistry classes that were required for that major- that's what I really started to become more interested in."

MitchWilly: "I originally was a nursing major..."

No way! Really?

"Yeah, I actually wanted to be a doctor for a pretty long chunk of my life, but when I started making music on my own, I discovered that it just made me happier..."

If you had an end-goal, what would it be? What are you all looking to accomplish?

Keags: "Support a family. All I want to do... If I could make music and be able to support a family doing it, I could die happy."

Willis: "I would say that my end goal is just knowing that I helped other people and made something that not only made me feel better, but that was able to reach out to other people... Besides that, of course, if I could make a living off of something like this in the future, that would be the ultimate end-goal... I would do nothing more than make music... that's all I really want."

MitchWilly: "My biggest goal is to really just be an inspiration for someone to really just be who they are... My favorite songs are the ones I relate to the most, so I try to be as diverse and relatable as possible. My biggest goal is to just be inspirational and to have my music in everyone's speakers."

Zach: "Just to bring together a group of people who just need that extra step forward. Although there's only six of us right now, this is a really good group of people, really talented individuals that bring so much to the table and it's cool to watch the way they build off of each other... The whole 'end-goal' of this is to keep connecting people and keep making music."

Words cannot explain how talented and amazing these people are. They are each so different, but their shared passion for music brings them together and creates the incredible and impressive organization that is New Class Music. Catch Zach's back story in my article, "Talent Scout: Cincinnati Edition" and keep your eyes peeled for the one-on-one interviews in next week's article!