ANDY PORTA
Andy Porta has grown up around music his whole life. With a family history of singers, pianists and music lovers, it was no doubt that Andy would soon begin creating. He believes it all started at a garage sale across the street from his house with a worn out drum set and a beat up cymbal. He instantly fell in love and began his journey with music and art.
Growing up, Andy fiddled around with cassette recorders, Casio keyboards, drums and was introduced to the baritone horn in public school. His interest in drums soon led him to join bands around the neighborhood where he would improvise with friends and write songs together. His father, Ron Porta, a talented bass player and recording enthusiast, gave him two microphones and a videocassette recorder to record his first multi-track recording session. From there, recording and drumming became his passion.
Present day, you can find Andy involved in the New England/Tri-state music and arts community. His band, Wess Meets West has been featured on Audiotree Live in Chicago, ESPN's "X- Games", Sofar Sounds, and commercials for major brands such as "Wrangler". He also writes and records with Zeme Libre out of Portland, ME, Greenridge out of Westchester, NY, Maps Of out of NYC and with his solo project “Stray Bikes”. After graduating from Mercy college's Music Technology program, Andy has shared stages with bands such as Caspian, The Apple Seed Cast, The Misfits, Dead To Me, and This Town Needs Guns. His talents have led him to work with names like Blue Oyster Cult, Steve Margoshes, toy pianist Margaret Len Teng, and composer Daniel Freiberg. Andy has been featured in the September 2018 edition of "Modern Drummer" and is an artist for Era Drum Company out of Oxnard, California. In June 2019, he won the Vintage King Audio Spring Mix Contest and in 2023, Andy played the ArcTangent Music Festival in Bristol, UK, sharing the stage with bands Converge and Russian Circles.
Andy strives to find himself engulfed in the recording studio, behind a drum set, producing and songwriting. He's recorded/produced and played on genre's ranging from metal to funk to reggae to bluegrass and is always seeking the next project that will expand his ever growing musicality. He is not afraid to "get weird" in the studio, try something new and will work tirelessly to make sure that your music and vision is fulfilled. Andy takes pride in listening, has extreme patience and relies heavily on collaboration to make sure the best outcome is achieved.
Andy currently works out of Maine Music Mill as an audio engineer, as a freelance mix engineer/producer/session drummer and as an educator.
