What do Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, LL Cool J, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, U2, Mick Jagger, AC/DC, The Damned, The Posies, and Rage Against the Machine all have in common?
They all belong to a long and diverse list of artists that have had David Bianco touch their music. I fondly remember my own daily ritual of going into Toast Recording in San Francisco, in 1997, to work on my band's (Black Lab) debut record for Geffen/DGC. David and I have been friends ever since. I recently caught up with him at his studio, Dave's Room.
What do Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, LL Cool J, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, U2, Mick Jagger, AC/DC, The Damned, The Posies, and Rage Against the Machine all have in common?
They all belong to a long and diverse list of artists that have had David Bianco touch their music. I fondly remember my own daily ritual of going into Toast Recording in San Francisco, in 1997, to work on my band's (Black Lab) debut record for Geffen/DGC. David and I have been friends ever since. I recently caught up with him at his studio, Dave's Room.
What was your path to L.A.'s Record Plant Recording Studio?
I played in bands all through high school and college. I moved out of my parent's house after I graduated college. I had a communications degree and I decided, "Well, I'll be a big time cameraman" or something like that. My girlfriend had cracked up my car, and I lived within walking distance of Record Plant. David L. Wolper Productions was across the street, at the time. I had my last résumé, after months of not finding anything and realizing that the union had a lock on any camera work. I walked into Wolper Productions and the lady at the reception desk said, "I'm sorry sir. We're closing." I walked outside and there was a wire trash basket, which I threw my resumé in. As I did that, I looked up and there were the big ol' psychedelic Peter Max letters, "Record Plant." So I fished my résumé out of the trash and walked across the street. I met Rose Mann, handed my résumé to her, and she gave me a tour. I didn't know anything about recording studios. My bands did home recordings, but we'd never been in a big recording studio. They had Dave Mason [Traffic] in one room, Crosby, Stills & Nash in the other. Stevie Wonder had finished up Talking Book in Studio B, and The Eagles were in Studio A. I was like, "Yeah! This is my kind of thing!" I walked down there every day and hung out, until management said, "Why don't you give him a broom if he's going to just stand there?" I had taken a job at a Pier One Imports as a cashier; then I got a call from Rose saying they had an opening and she asked if I wanted to come down. I said, "Oh, I have to give at least a week's notice." When I told her where I was working, she laughed for about a half hour on the telephone. She said, "You know, I like that you would do that, jeopardizing this job for that one." I started answering phones at night and on the weekends. Then I worked my way to janitor. They started giving us free reign to work in the studios on the off hours to learn. I recorded every weird hair band in L.A. in the late '70s and early '80s for free. That was the beginning of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Knack. They'd all say, "You're going to do our record, man," and then you'd never hear from them again. [laughs] But I learned, worked, and lived there. I'd be there 86 to 90 hours a week, sometimes sleeping in the back. That's how I learned how to record, and I worked my way up from there.
Some of your early days at Record Plant were spent doing mobile recordings.
I started answering phones, then I got a promotion to janitor — I actually got to be in the studio because I was cleaning it! Eventually I was an assistant engineer, and the remote division of Record Plant needed somebody. I developed it, side by side. I would assist in the studio when I wasn't doing a remote, and vice versa. I did remotes for about five years or so, and got my first "big break" recording Nazareth live — their engineer couldn't make it back from England. From there I got more and more gigs as a first engineer doing remotes.
What were some of the other artists you did remotes for?
We used to do a regular gig at The Roxy. You never knew who was showing up. It'd be Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, The Psychedelic Furs, or David + David. We also went on the road with Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, and Arlo Guthrie. We probably rolled more tape on Springsteen than anybody.
Has any of the Springsteen tape ever seen the light of day?
He finally released that three CD/LP set [Live 1975-85].
What was your first break, outside of mobile engineering gigs?
My demos were getting around the place, and people were starting to hear what I was doing. Rose recommended me to David Kershenbaum, who was coming through. He was working with an artist named Robert Hazard from Philadelphia, and I wound up engineering the record [Wing of Fire] there at Record Plant. From there I mixed a band called Icehouse from Australia for David, as well as doing a couple of other projects for him. Then I started to go in a bit of a different direction.
How did you develop your own sound and aesthetic?
Once I got to the top of the seniority at Record Plant, I was there for almost ten years, so I got to work with artists like Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart, as well as working on all these studio records with a variety of engineers. I would snitch the best ideas from each [of them] and then apply it to my own work. By the time I got to the point where I was working with David Kershenbaum, I realized I had a feel for how to get things to sound good and big. My style evolved further when I started doing more R&B and dance remixes in the '80s. I would take the rock 'n' roll aesthetic and apply it to R&B. I'd make the drums slam and the bass hit really hard, and not be afraid of ambience. From the mid '80s, and into the early '90s, I did a lot of that. But what happened was that there were people that wanted to get the rock bands onto the "power" format radio stations that were broadcasting R&B, so I got to do some remixes for U2 and Aerosmith. That was my end around into production, because I was able to add production and beats for these club mixes of rock songs. From there I was able to parlay that into hardcore rock production. I learned not to dismiss ideas from young kids doing demos. Instead I'd collect tricks from the experience. "Oh, you put a [Shure SM]57 through a [Boss Compression] Sustainer pedal, and you got the toms to go berserk! I love that! I'm going to do that!" I loved working with young bands because they were very excited and wanted to experiment...
Who were some of your producer or engineering mentors?
The goal was always getting the purest sound. There were guys on staff at Record Plant that were really, really good. Bob Merritt was a great carpenter, as well as an engineer. I learned in my formative years about getting really good, pure, vocal sounds and things like that from him — learning about the [signal] chain. The engineers we would work with on the road — that was a very formidable learning ground. You had to make things happen because you had one go at it. There was an engineer named George Tutko who did a lot of the [John] Mellencamp hit records. George had a great aesthetic of not only making things sound good going to tape, but he would also hype it coming back on the board so it sounded like you were listening to a record when you came into the [control] room. Ron Nevison did The Who and Zeppelin records; he had a great way of mic'ing drums and getting ambient sounds. He and George were both good at getting ambience. I learned also that even if you have the mic placement, and have the mic pre at the right level, it doesn't mean you are going to get his sound. It's the artistic side of it, I guess. Then there's the creative side where you have to get it to a certain level — as big as your heart can make it, as big as your vision.
Everyone has the same tools available, to some extent, but everybody paints a different picture.
It really depends who's working the hammer, doesn't it? I saw guys trying to imitate Ron and George's setups. They had the right setup, the right mics, but it sounded horrible.
What are your thoughts on playing live versus building tracks?
You have to figure out what fits the bill for the band, and what they're most comfortable with, obviously. It's really wonderful if everybody can play together. To me, that's where the magic and the mojo happens. We had a session about a year ago, after pizza around 10 o'clock at night, where everybody grabbed their instruments and started playing. The jam went on for about 10 to 12 minutes, and it was unbelievable. The guitar player comes in and says, "I can make four songs out of that!" That shit doesn't happen when you build tracks. If you are building tracks, it's going to be good, and probably nobody's going to know how you did it. But [playing live and together] it becomes more than a nuanced thing, and I think it can really be magic. That's my whole idea of this place. Mix your own headphones, get excited off of each other's playing, and come up with new and fresh ideas that you didn't do in the rehearsals.
Has your production and engineering changed over time?
Yes. Every situation you find yourself in is different. You find yourself in the situation as a producer, where you have to figure out how you fit in and what is needed. What gap are you filling? Sometimes it's being a sounding board, sometimes it's helping write the songs, sometimes it's playing on the project. It could be any manner of those things. You also have the whole idea of being the cheerleader/psychologist. My method has always been to try and be as patient as possible, figure out what needs to be done, and, the best way; do it gracefully. [laughs]
You are not a producer that sits in the back of the room...
Yeah, well it becomes Pavlovian. You hit the red light and you become super concentrated. It's difficult once you are in that [mode] and do it for a number of years to not do it. Of the times when I was sitting in the back, because somebody else was running the tools or tape machine, it's a harder thing for me because I have to really force myself more into the game. When Pro Tools came out I have to say that my knee-jerk reaction was that the sound really bugged me. It messed with my ears and I didn't really like it. Eventually it got a little better. We would drag it along with the multitrack on the background vocals, percussion, or the odd track on it. But when HD came around, I liked it and decided to learn how to use it. I feel that I have to be autonomous. I cannot rely on some young kid to come run my rig for me. Being as old as I am, it might've taken me a little longer than others; but I got my head into it and now I thrive on it. I love it. Another engineering friend of mine was saying he didn't really care about, or want to learn, Pro Tools, and I said to him, "I think that it's the most intimate you can get with the music." I never could have imagined it; you are actually touching the waveforms. It has absolutely fantastic flexibility. Being able to affect the slope on an EQ for a 10th of a second in a mix is absurd to me! We never imagined this! We used to climb over each other doing manual mixes, switching EQs on and off, and all that sort of thing. I'm not a control freak per se, but I do like the idea of running my own ship and not having to explain to somebody, "Punch in here, because of blah blah..."
How is it, jumping between the two roles of producer and engineer?
Again, I think you have to fit the role that is asked for and be willing to do what is necessary. I don't want to say, "Kids these days," but it's so funny with all of these recording schools. People come out of them, walk into studios, and they're instantly putting their sunglasses on their head and saying, "This is out of tune. This is what's wrong." I came through a boot camp at Record Plant that had a hazing like no other. You never spoke. You had to be there, be ready, know what the next move was going to be, and know what the engineer was going to need. But you never spoke or said, "Oh, that's not right." You had to figure that out. As you progress along, the roles are very, very clear. For people to spend a lot of time in a control room with you, as an assistant, an engineer, or a producer, you better be pretty fun, unless you're really big time. [laughs] For the most part, you're going to go by the wayside if people can't be around you. There is a sensibility and sensitivity that you have to have for the people around you, as well as the situation. And you have to be on it, at all times. You have to be super present. If I am working for another producer, I know what I would want to hear from the engineer, and what support I would want from him or her. If the producer asks, I proffer up whatever I have to give, but otherwise I stay in that support role. I'll tell him or her something discreetly if something might be wrong, or call attention to it, but not with anyone else in the room. You learn it.
You've done many genres: R&B, hip-hop, indie rock, Americana, pop, metal, and so on. Has that been a curse or blessing?
It's both. I guess there is something to be said for specializing these days, but I love all kinds of music. It's cathartic for me. I have been trying to coerce more jazz in here, because I think my room is set up for it. I think we could make an amazing jazz record here and I haven't done enough of that. I try to do the best I can with everything, as well as giving people something that they can hold their heads up high from, and have a hard time beating down the line. That's usually what I go for. I guess it's my competitive nature, but it's also about being honorable about the job and trying to do it well.
How did you come to work with Bob Dylan?
