In the Studio: Senior Luke Pearcy started a rapping career out of his closet in hopes to become a professional music artist

Then-seventh-graders Luke Pearcy and Charlie Carroll are sitting in Pearcy’s walk-in closet, rapping verses from their notes app into the microphone on their earbuds. Surrounding the boys were Lego sets and bright purple LED lights.

Pearcy had seen the fun other kids at school were having creating lyrics and recording their songs and wanted to try it out. He convinced Carroll to join him in their makeshift “studio”— every once in a while, convincing classmates to join them to freestyle a verse.

The group would pick a beat off YouTube and jokingly freestyle over it — sometimes even adding “effects” to their voices by covering the earbuds microphone with a sock before saving it on GarageBand.

“It was us getting into this crappy closet, just getting on our phones and writing down lyrics and then finding beats online — and then just go for it,” Carroll said.

Though it started out as a joke, the more Pearcy continued to rap, the more passionate he became about it. Once in high school, he began to take it more seriously.

Five years later, now-senior Pearcy can still be found rapping in his closet — but he replaced his earbud-microphone with a professional recording microphone and his closet is now decked out with $1,000 worth of recording equipment.

“Every time I would record and finish a song, each one was better than the last,” Pearcy said. “So that’s how I kind of knew it was meant for me and then I started working and experimenting more and finding new sounds till I got what I have now.”

Through rapping in seventh grade Pearcy also came up with his very own rapper name: Leanhead. No one can quite remember its origin, but the catchy name has stuck with him in and out of the studio.

“That was part of the joke [of us rapping together], and I kind of just stuck with it,” Pearcy said. “I don’t even really like it that much, but people know me by that.”

Now when Pearcy records a song he still finds a free beat off YouTube like he used to, but downloads it to Logic Pro and puts down his vocals and freestyles. He then finishes off the song with adlibs or background vocals before adding autotune to get the sound he wants on his voice. He tries getting sounds similar to artists Playboi Carti or Ken Carson with their playful melodies and intense beats that are sure to blow your car speaker.

Pearcy has released ten singles and four albums on all streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud and YouTube Music since early 2022 and released his latest song “Fam3” this January.

“Fam3” was different from Pearcy’s previous songs. When he was recording it, the sound of the song itself stood out more than others he’d released. After showing it to others, he realized how much it stood out from the rest of his discography. It quickly shot to his top song on Spotify and he collaborated with senior and videographer Calen Domingues on a music video for it.

“I actually sent the song to one of [Domingues’s] friends and his friend played it for him and he said he really liked it so he decided that he would make me a free music video, which I thought was actually the coolest thing ever,” Pearcy said. “It really, really helped my confidence.”

The video was posted across all of Domingues’s and Pearcy’s social media and gained over 200 likes on their shared Instagram post.

“I had expectations going in for what I wanted to do, but I went above all the expectations I had even though I had no idea what I was doing,” Domingues said.

Pearcy also received help from other friends along the way, such as seniors Charlie Greenstein and Levi Brown with things like coming up with lyrics, finding the right beat or even just supporting his career.

Brown’s known Pearcy since second grade and watched him grow from jokingly rapping into a sock to planning album drops. He’s always supported Pearcy’s career and thought he was breaking stereotypes, starting a rap career as a “white boy from PV.”

Greenstein has helped Pearcy’s rap career from the sidelines, supporting his work and letting him use his mom’s apartment for his music video.

“They were filming and Pearcy was texting me, and I had the idea if they wanted to go and use my mom’s place and they could dance around,” Greenstein said.

Greenstein will be able to keep cheering Pearcy on next year while they’re both at the University of Arizona, with Pearcy attending their music program after high school. 

Pearcy wants to get more into production of music and making beats throughout college instead of simply doing vocals like he does now. 

“My program after high school, that’s where I feel like I should be at my peak,” Pearcy said. “I’m making the beats, I’m making the vocals, I’m mastering it all myself. I think that’ll make me feel complete.”