Simon Illa: the Unbreakable

Roughly twenty people surround a dark wood table flanked with colorful foods. The restaurant is lively with hungry patrons, ridiculously feminine male waiters, and the sound of several simultaneous conversations. This eat out is devoid of oversized bottles of mineral water, fine wines, fancy dishes that no one can pronounce, and stiff tête-à-tête. You can charge that to the positive and genuine energy that producer Simon Illa attracts. Or, Simon McSexy as he would insist on being called on his birthday night at Chili’s, where he’s surrounded by equally dope artists and movers and shakers in the industry.

Simon Illa—the man behind Unbreakable Music Group, LLC.—boasts about having tried nearly every dish on the menu, delivers witty one-liners throughout the evening, and occasionally slips in a few facts about his career in the music industry.

“We were like kids playing record label,” he said of his college years, putting in 14 hours a day in the studio and struggling from the daily trials that plague creatives of all mediums. During that time, Simon Illa produced 30 independent albums under his young label within two sleepless years.

Even for the most talented musician, complete with dope beats, a committed entourage, a dedicated manager, and a self-built fan base, the music industry is a ruthless bitch without a disguise. Try being 3-foot-1, affixed to a wheelchair, and having to battle the shock and awe from people who have already pictured someone tall, dark and handsome dropping gems in the booth. Simon Illa is neither tall nor dark. He’s a small white boy from the sticks of Illinois.

Simon was a name jacked from the movie Simon Birch, a tale about a boy with stunted growth who poked our soft spots with his big screen performance in 1998. Unlike the cinematic Simon, the Illest himself is blessed with talent that makes his physical condition, Osteogenesis Imperfecta (marked by a lack of collagen in the skeletal system), an unimportant postscript in his liner notes.

What is there is a story so thick with unfortunate events that only someone strong in spirit could survive. One could say that his determination and resilience pick up the slack of his weakened bones.

Simon Illa—then known as Eric Bradley Gilbert—has a story that starts in Paris, Illinois, which has a small population of 9-thousand-something. Tragedy hit him at age three, when his mother was shot in front of him in their home by an estranged ex. Eric and his brother, who’s five years his senior and also has Osteogenesis Imperfecta, were raised by their maternal grandmother from that point on. Despite several attempts to get in touch with his father, who had left the family after Eric was born, broken ties were not successfully mended by the time he took him own life shortly after Eric’s college graduation.

Although his parents weren’t instrumental in his rearing, their talents shaped their son directly. In fact, his father made a loving gesture by giving Eric his first guitar, a version small enough for his small frame to handle, when he was 13.

“I feel like it’s my blood because I didn’t grow up with either of my parents who both have musical abilities. But it was always music in our house. I grew up with my grandparents. My granddad listened to country music and my grandma listened to everything from Lionel Richie to Enya. My brother listened to everything from The Police to The Cure, and I just grew up loving it all,” Illa says. “I was introduced to hip-hop when I was about eight years old from a friend of mine because we grew up in the Midwest where you did not hear that Hip Hop until the early-80s or mid-80s. So by the time I was ten, I was addicted to every kind of music, especially—and I’m not afraid to admit this—New Edition.”

It’s not rare to hear that people currently immersed in the music scene were surrounded by music at an early age, thus gaining an early appreciation. But not too many people who deal closely with Hip Hop and “urban” music can say that they were inspired after watching a documentary on Metallica, where they showed the aspects of putting together an album—from production to the recording booth.

“At the time that was probably one of my favorite bands. I was about 13 or 14 and I said ‘Man, that’s probably one of the coolest jobs ever to just make records,’ and I’ll just say it’s very strange how the world turns out.”

After setting his sights on the “coolest job ever,” Illa used the money from his first job to purchase and 4-track recorder and a drum machine while most kids his age were blowing their money on the freshest new high-tops and gear.

So here was a kid who couldn’t play in band in high school because of his physical situation, learning to play by ear. Initially, Illa enrolled into college as a music major. On the first day of student orientation, where excited students were getting their first taste of freedom, the head of the music department asked Illa if he could read music. Illa’s honest reply was followed with a blunt “Well, you’re not gonna make it because these guys and girls are years ahead of you. They’ve been reading music for eight or nine years and we start at a pretty advanced level.”

Illa eventually dropped his first music theory class after the first exam because he felt the gift he’d already unwrapped was being put into a box. “I didn’t want to know that this is this key or this scale. I play by ear. If you play something for me, I’ll play it right back to you. I think sometimes when you put rules on art it starts to mess it up. No disrespect. Some of my favorite music is so skillfully put together by people that understand it. I dig classical music like crazy and those are masters at work, but I don’t know if I’d understand it by looking at it. I know what I feel, and I know what other people feel. I don’t think you can get that out of a book.”

Discouraged by the head of the music department and his first experience, Illa refocused his academic track to climatology, but he never kept his head in the clouds long enough to lose focus of his true passion. From high school to college, Illa went from making music in his bedroom to playing in a Hip Hop band. The indie label followed and it all escalated form there.

The Illa story’s setting changes to Philly after college, but it was far from resembling a fairy-tale. Having already dealt with some heavy blows, Illa handled his hardships in the City of Brotherly Love with the poise that suggests he’d already prepped himself for homelessness and rejection to be a part of the game. Eventually, his motivation led him to sit outside of the offices of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, R&B legends, and that’s where the ups of his story began to unfold.

“I was like ‘I write. I produce. Can I get a job?’” Illa laughs. “I was lucky to get some work. I was there for about seven years in Philly and did pretty well.”

I told a friend of mine years ago, as weird as it sounds I always look at it as a relationship. If you really like this girl—we’re just personifying it here—if you really like this girl in your life, what would you do for that person? That’s how I am with music. I’ve been through a lot in my life and I feel like the only thing that kept me sane is music. It does so many things to so many people and for so many people.”

While Simon’s relationship with music blossoms, we’ve been able to reap the benefits of his dope production, for artists like Young Jeezy, Vivian Green, Floetry and Dave Tolliver, in addition to others. He’s not buckling under the pressure. Illa is indeed getting better with time and opening doors in an industry cursed with vanity.

“The one thing I always tell people is that people don’t forget me. I work hard anyway because the music business is a tough business so amongst everyone else, I have to compete. No one’s giving me any breaks because of my situation. Nobody’s giving any shortcuts, which I appreciate because at the end of the day it has to be about my music. I do this just like everybody else because the music has nothing to do with what I am. It’s like, close your eyes, listen to what comes out of the speakers, and you tell me who made it. You can’t say ‘Oh, some guy in a wheelchair made this. I can tell,’ you know what I mean? ”

I was at the Hit Factory with Scott Storch and some other people and Scott was like ‘Dude, do you wanna play some stuff?” and I was like ‘Yeah, sure.’ I was producing an artist that he was working with at the time and that’s how I ended up in Miami to hang out. I played him some stuff, and I’m not one to watch people’s reactions, but I was really pleased that everybody was like ‘Damn, this dude really does this.’ It wasn’t a ‘Let’s feel bad for the guy, let him play his stuff and then we’ll kick him out.’ Even the dude that I was traveling with said that their eyes were wide open. I’ve been in studios where people have been like ‘You did this?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah.’ There’s always a level of that—of skepticism.”

Skeptics beware, Illa is poised to flex his songwriting skills and knack for vocal arranging. Last year, Illa packed his Philly bags in route to Atlanta. He’s been working alongside George Tisdale, a banging Hip Hop band called Vonnegutt, and other projects that he’s keeping under the radar for now. He’s also working closely with Dee Dee “Peaches” Murray of Dungeon Family fame. How they hooked up is simple. Simon says that the call went something like this, “She said ‘We’re looking for a producer and we heard you were the one to talk to,’ and you know what I said? ‘You’re right.’”