Interview with an artist: Ilán Rodríguez explains history of Heads in Motion and his love for performing 

Insight, inspirations and advice from a young musician

By John Mahoney

Ilán Rodríguez is a sophomore music business major at KU with a love for playing guitar. Being the lead singer of the band Heads in Motion and maintaining an independent music career as Ilan71, Ilán has fostered a unique and inspiring love for all things music.  

Heads in Motion is an indie/grunge band formed by lead singer and guitarist, Ilán Rodríguez, bass guitarist Joshua Dejesus, guitarist Gianni Tassone and drummer Charlie Kleinspehn. Ilan71 is a solo project by Rodríguez, centered around making simple instrumental beats in garage band. Some of Rodríguez’s biggest inspirations are The Red-Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead and Dream Theater.   

Rodríguez started making music in his sophomore year of high school, where he took a guitar course simply because a friend was doing it. Though, what started off a whim would soon become an intense passion.  

“Early on in learning guitar, even with very simple, single note stuff, I was thinking ‘this could be something,’” Rodríguez said.  

Rodríguez’s love for music began as he started to write songs, developing his skills musically and collaborating with his good friend Joshua Dejesus. The two knew that this shared love for making music would soon turn into some sort of joint project or band.  

At the same time, fellow students Gianni Tassone and Charlie Kleinspehn were equally interested in forming a band of their own. It was then that Heads in Motion was born.  

“Me and Josh were starting to write together, and we knew ‘Yo, we gotta start a band together,’” Rodríguez said. “And Gianni and Charlie were like ‘Yo we want to start a band too,’ so I hit Gianni up.” 

The group began to meet for extensive sessions and played as often as they could. However, despite the immediate click that the group had together, Rodríguez said that they had much difficulty at the beginning when trying to identify who would do vocals.  

“The big question when we started was like, who’s going to sing? Like, sure we can make sounds, we can play, but who’s going to do vocals,” said Rodríguez. “At first, I was like ‘Alright Josh get up there,’ but he had just started playing bass, so he didn’t want to take it up, and so I was like ‘Okay, then Gianni, you try.’ After he said no, I just tried and we just kind of went with it and started talking about an album.” 

The first project the group would work on was “Righteous and Wicked” under the guidance of music producer and engineer Jay Fritzshaffer. Rodríguez had said that Fritzshaffer was massively inspiring and helpful when it came to learning how to sing, which made the arduous process much easier and more comprehensible.  

 “Jay would really see my vision and he would help out. He’s an amazing singer; he helped a lot with learning vocals,” Rodríguez said. 

From there, Rodríguez and his group would produce their second album on Dec. 25, 2023, the self-titled “Heads in Motion.” They would then carry on and release a second volume of the album on Aug. 2, 2024. The group most recently compiled their works together on Sep. 13, 2024, forming the “Heads in Motion: Complete Edition.” 

Rodríguez has said that his favorite part of Heads in Motion has been performing, particularly, playing guitar live.  

“Eventually, it got to the point where I was asking Gianni to sing, because I love playing guitar live, and I wanted to focus on that,” Rodríguez said.  

When asked what the biggest obstacle he had faced when making music was, he explained that starting college and balancing work with music put a halt on his creative processes, making music creation a struggle. It was this dilemma that drove Rodríguez to leave college after his freshman year, before inevitably coming back after a year-long break.  

“My time away from college was fine, but looking at it objectively, once I saw the fall semester was coming back up, I thought it’d be good for me. Here they have a guitar teacher and ensembles and stuff that’ll benefit me,” Rodríguez said. “As much as you can critique the college experience, you really get something out of college and the music program is extremely helpful for a lot of people, including myself.” 

Rodríguez hopes that when he finishes college, he can someday travel the nation and perform. His biggest dream is to perform in cities like New York and Nashville, experimenting with and learning more about their respective music scenes.  

When asked for a piece of advice for any student who’s considering producing or making a career out of music, Rodríguez said, “Don’t listen to people when they try and stop you from being creative. People talk out of their ass and try and tell you which way to do things, and most of the time they think you need their advice. All you really need though, is yourself. If you have something in your soul that you need to express or push out into the world, do it, and do it for yourself.” 

Recently, Rodríguez released his fourth solo album on Ilan71, “IF YOU CARE, IT’S YOUR FAULT!” Now, Rodríguez finds himself working on his newest project “Baroque Chroma,” another new solo album set for release on Dec. 6, as well as honing his guitar skills and finishing out the semester.