Recording - April 2013 - 57

APRIL 2013
TAXI Road Rally 2012

The Five-Year Plan, Part 1
Moderated by Michael Laskow
Panelists: Matt Hirt, John Mazzei, Dave Walton, Barry
French, Dean Krippaehne
Most of these guys [on this panel] have been teaching
a class called“The Five-Year Plan”now for several
years at the Rally. At some point I decided we should
get more people to hear what they’ve got to say
because they’re all successful, and I want every one of
you to be successful as well.
Let me introduce you to our panelists, my friends, and
successful TAXI members, all!
Matt Hirt is a highly versatile and prolific
composer with almost 1,500 unique published
songs and instrumentals in nearly every musical
style imaginable to his credit. Matt’s songs have
been featured in 4 Number One box office motion
pictures (Limitless, Rogue/Virgin 2011, Tropic
Thunder, Paramount 2008, Rush Hour 3, New Line
Cinema 2007, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 20th Century
Fox 2005). His music is also heard daily on network
and cable TV on shows such as Hawaii Five-O, How
I Met Your Mother, CSI, Parenthood, Dancing With
The Stars, American Idol, America’s Next Top Model,
The View, Access Hollywood, The Dr. Oz Show, and
the Beijing, Vancouver and London Olympic Games
on NBC, among many others. Ladies and gents,
Mr. Matt Hirt! [Applause]
John Mazzei is a composer of various styles of
music and has been focusing on composing specifically for production music for the past 6 years.
When he started in late 2006, he had zero compositions in his ASCAP catalog and now has close to
500 titles registered. John continues to maintain a
full-time day gig, a full time writing schedule, and is
focusing his Five-Year Plan on an early retirement
from his day gig. By the way, John is in year 7 of
his The Dr. Oz Show-Year Plan!! It continues to
evolve every year as he learns more and practices
the various aspects of the business. He lives in San
Francisco with his wife Jean, and his Maltese doggy
Winston (who has his own Facebook page). Please
welcome Mr. John Mazzei! [Applause]
Dave Walton is a full-time composer/musician.

After a long time away from
music, he joined TAXI in 2004
with ideas and sounds that he now
calls “out of date and out of style.”
Since then he has managed to
evolve his ideas and sounds into
something more current and
modern. He has hundreds (and
hundreds) of placements on network and cable television, mostly
through direct TAXI deals with
libraries and publishers. His
daughter thinks his music placements are cool but rolls her eyes
when he mentions having music
in Bad Girls Club. Give it up for
Five-Year Plan panelists (L to R) Matt Hirt, John Mazzei, (TAXI’s) Michael Laskow, Dave
Mr. Dave Walton! [Applause]

Walton, Barry French, and Dean Krippaehne are all smiles after their panel wrapped up.

Barry French, or “Big Blue,” as his friends call him,
is a composer and songwriter for film and television. He joined TAXI in 2008 as a complete newbie
in the world of film and TV music. Now his credits
include the main title theme for It’s A Brad, Brad
World, the main title theme for In The Bedroom with
Dr. Laura Berman, Duck Dynasty, Access Hollywood,
The Dr. Oz Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC
Nightly News, The Today Show, Bad Girls Club, and
Teen Mom, to name just a few He just had his
1,000th placement a couple of weeks ago! In addition to his full-time writing schedule, Barry also
maintains a full-time day job, for now! This year’s
Rally marks the start of Year Number 4 of his Five Year Plan. Barry lives in the Nashville area with his
wife and two cats. By the way, Barry has lost over
100 lbs. in the past 7 months!!!
Dean Krippaehne is a songwriter and producer
whose credits include: The Oprah Winfrey Show, One
Life to Live, Parenthood, Vampire Diaries, The Dr. Oz
Show, The Today Show, Say Yes to the Dress, Friends
with Benefits, The Hills, Duck Dynasty, The Secret Circle, Bad Girls Club, and Chris Rock’s Good Hair, to
name a few. He currently produces music for TMobile (corporate), and has 40 songs in rotation on
Muzak. As a songwriter, Dean has earned two platinum records as well as a Billboard Top 10 with the

amazing Stefanie Heinzmann (Universal). Virtually
all of those accomplishments have happened as a
result of connections, deals, and relationships
made through TAXI. Dean is founder of Retro
Media Collective, continues to work with multiple
indie artists, and writes the weekly music production blog: TheBellyOfTheBeat.com.
So I asked each of the guys to put together a montage
of their music, and they asked if they could do a little
setup before we play it. Matt, can you give us some
setup on yours please?
Matt: As you said in the introduction, I’m a very
versatile composer. For this montage, I chose to
feature music that’s all basically in one style. And
there’s a reason for that, which, hopefully, we can
get to later in the show. All the music is Chinese
music of some kind that I co-wrote with my awesomely talented co-writer, [?]Kwong, who is
somewhere in this room, I think. So…enjoy.
[music plays]
John, got a setup for yours?
John: I picked snippets of four pieces that have
either than been placed or I’ve received a sync fee
for. The first one was on True Blood, season one—
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