Java.Jan.2017

Photo: Scott McKenzie
Photo: Chris Loomis
TI-99-4A: THE BEGINNING
Fleenor grew up as the computer was first emerging. At
a young age he was drawn to the strange device, and
as an eight-year-old begged his parents incessantly
to buy him one. Right when he got his first
computer—the TI-99-4A—he started programming.
“The programming language was called BASIC,”
Fleenor said. “That’s all I would do, experiment and
try to make little games. You could do some graphics
and simple logic and interfaces. I just had an affinity.
I’m grateful for that.” Though programming and
making games was fun, Fleenor always wanted
to make music with computers, even though there
wasn’t the infrastructure to do that at the time.
“Some of my friends from junior high school
remember my elaborate hoaxes about music-making
computers that I had access to,” Fleenor said. “I
would read computer magazines and knew that
would be my world someday. They were very, very
expensive back then.” School wasn’t engaging for
Fleenor, so he would spend most of his time working
with computers and making videos with his friends.
Most of what he knows is self-taught. He is in many
ways a product of the DIY age invoked by the onset
of the computer.
To foster his musical passion, Fleenor would go to
the local mall and play keyboard until they closed.
He was entranced by the synthesizer and its capacity
to stretch the bounds of music as he knew it. The
synthesizer was the voice of the future, and he
wanted to harmonize with it. “It wasn’t until around
the time I got out of high school that I figured out
how to get enough money to buy my first sampling
workstation,” Fleenor said. “It was an Ensoniq EPS
16Plus, with a 61-key keyboard. It was an all-in-one
workstation that you could play live. That was the
beginning of me being able to jump into the artistic
side.” Fleenor’s favorite band was the new wave
group Depeche Mode, and he aimed to make music
similar to that.
Fleenor ended up going to Arizona State University
and majoring in psychology. After his undergrad,
he signed up for a graduate program in neuropsychology,
and he liked it, but he enjoyed working
with computers and making music even more. He
formed a band around that time called Mr. Meeble,
and they were eventually able to go on a world
tour. That opportunity was more exciting than
grad school, so he decided to follow his heart.
“That was the end of my academic path,” Fleenor
said. “Not to say that I don’t respect academia, but I
definitely can’t see myself ever going back to school.
There are certain people that are made for school. I
was never like that.”
EPIC FX
After months of touring with Mr. Meeble, Fleenor
found himself financially depleted and seeking
ways to make money. His girlfriend, Karina,
suggested that he work with lasers like he did
during the tour. That struck a chord, and Fleenor
decided to use his SEO skills to create a website
that advertised world-class laser services. But the
problem was, at that point, he wasn’t a worldclass
laser guy. He was really more of a beginner.
However, he didn’t let that stand in his way.
“When I built the website I had to create this image
of expertise even though I had very little idea what I
was doing,” Fleenor said. “I remember the first time a
person called from a search engine. The conversation
was about me having to represent. Really, I was
speaking about my future me. That’s the best kind
of lie, when you are speaking about your future life,
while manifesting it into a reality. That was the
beginning of Epic FX,” Fleenor said.
10 JAVA
MAGAZINE