Miles Comaskey, KLN’14, enrolled at Temple as a biophysics major, but by the end of his freshman year made a life changing decision and switched to media studies and production, leading to a 2017 Grammy nomination.
Comaskey lived in San Francisco, Boston and Delaware before ending up in Philadelphia to attend college.
“I really fell in love with the city and found my passion for music making there,” he said. “So I rep Philly. Except for sports, I will be a Boston Celtics fan forever.”
After switching to media studies and production with a concentration in audio engineering, for the remainder of his time at Temple, which allowed him to make beats and working with local rappers such as Matt Ford, EBN and the Bakery Boys.
He moved to Los Angeles after graduation to intern for Tony Maserati in North Hollywood. Maserati, a Grammy award winning audio engineer and record producer, has worked with mainstream artists including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Black Eyed Peas and Tupac Shakur.
For six months, he absorbed everything he learned at his internship while also being a bartender’s assistant in Santa Monica to make rent and stay afloat. Soon after, one of Maserati’s engineers quit, he took the position as second engineer.
In 2017, Comaskey was nominated for the Best Non-Classical Engineered Album in the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. He spent three months alongside Maserati and other producers mixing, a procedure involving blending and combining individual tracks together to create a stereo audio file, the album “Every Where Is Some Where,” by artist and songwriter K. Flay.
“You have to be willing to work harder than the next guy,” Comaskey said. “There are so many people that move out [to Los Angeles] expecting to become the next big thing. But most don't realize how much hard work and failure you will encounter in the process.”
Currently, Comaskey works as Tony Maserati’s second engineer as well as an artists and repertoire for the publishing company Mirrorball Entertainment. He does private mixing and production work in his spare time.
Will Yip, KLN’08, who was unavailable for comment, was also nominated for a Grammy under Best Metal Performance. He helped produce Code Orange’s “Forever,” which ranked 50th best album of 2017 by Rolling Stone.