North Carolina native Alan Fox finds beauty in the music he produces and wants to inspire his listeners.
But it was a long road to get to where he is today. Fox had to work different jobs and undergo numerous experiences in order to reach success. The Oak Ridge native made appearances in “The English Teacher” with Julianne Moore and played the male lead in Taylor Swift’s music video for her song “Fifteen.” But this wasn’t Fox’s dream—he wanted to make music of his own—and Elon graduate Max Cantor helped him achieve it.
“My passion was always music,” Fox said. “I slowly but steadily worked on stuff and wanted to make a go at it. And things just kind of worked out.”
Although his career in music was still fresh, Fox found he wanted to promote his work through videos. This is where Cantor, Class of 2010, came in.
Cantor moved to New York City three months after graduating from Elon. He applied to places around the city for employment while also working on personal video productions on the side. Not much later, he found himself developing and working on Elon’s current admissions video shown to all students who visit for a campus tour.
From this project, Cantor said he gained a lot of work in New York City and shortly after, he began working with Fox to direct and edit his music videos.
“Alan and I both do these projects that are ‘pay the bills’ projects,” Cantor said. “And we make the most of them and they’re fun. But there is still that itch to do the bigger projects and the projects that we really care about, and I think hopefully we are getting closer and closer to doing projects like that.”
One such recent project was a music video by Fox, “Mirrors,” which Cantor directed and edited. The two worked to try and create a finished product that would actually mean something to the audience.
"The idea of this song is that it is about someone that we all know,” Fox said. “We don’t really see the good in ourselves as much as we see the negative.”
This is one project the two have worked on together. Another one of their favorites, they said, was the song and video “Lost and Misled.” Both said they feel close to this song and liked the message it sends to listeners, and that they want most of what they produce together to carry meaning.
“There are a lot of white college rappers that are kind of indistinguishable from one another and there are kind of ‘flavor of the week’ songs,” Cantor said. “That’s not something I’m into, and I know that’s not something that Alan’s into. I think that we have loftier aims, but I also want to make sure that the messages are substantial.”
Cantor emphasized how important it is in this industry to be different from the rest of musicians, pointing out that Fox does this particularly well.
“If you have a good work ethic, if you’re smart and you write well, people will listen and they won’t pay attention to their preconceived notions about what they thought about you,” Cantor said.
Fox said it is also one of his main goals to create that type of reputation for himself and he is willing to try hard to bring forward his best work.
“I just really believe that if you’re not going to put out your absolute best quality, then why do it?” he said. “One thing that I really like about Max, is he has a feeling for what is as good as it can be. I think that there is something to be said for really crafting something that you’re proud of, and then doing it.”