You were excited about studios from a pretty young age?
Yeah, I got to record at Sun when I was 14. I got a 2-hour gift certificate for my birthday! Me and a friend had a little duo; we never played out live or anything. The goal was to just get into a studio. That was the dream. The session started at six o'clock at night. The engineer was James Lott, who I would later intern and assist. He was just a character. He treated us like we deserved to be there, which we didn't! When he started mixing on the big console, I became transfixed. He was making it sound like something! I started bugging him and asking about every little thing he was doing, and he told me I should come back and intern sometime. I loved playing guitar, but I always knew, deep down, that I'd never be a great guitar player — I just like being a good rhythm guy. But when I started interning, I knew pretty quickly that that's what I wanted to do the rest of my life. I've always felt really lucky to have been that young and figured it out! So I started out as an intern and tour guide when I was 16 and could drive.
You were one of the tour guides?
Well, I started out as a tour guide and also became the studio intern a few months later when the other assistant left. My cousin, Johnny, ran the business and asked if I wanted to come work there. Of course I jumped at the opportunity! I worked up from tour guide, to operations manager, and from intern, to assistant, to second engineer. I became the main engineer when James left in 2010.
So the gear that was in there when you started was not anything like the original Sun equipment.
No. Sam Phillips was only at Sun for nine years. Then he left and built Sam Phillips Recording Service, and he took everything with him. Technology changed so much from '51 to '59. They went from direct to disc, to single track, to 3-track. So he was constantly updating his gear as well. Sun Studio reopened in the '80s — it had been empty for about 20 years. They had a lot of '80s kinds of equipment; like an '80s home studio with a really big Soundcraft board. We used Cakewalk Audio instead of Sonar. There was a big 2-inch machine that was basically an ashtray, and not a lot of great mics. But we had a great room. I didn't know anything about gear when I started. I feel very fortunate to have learned on something like that. I remember the console had so many issues; only 12 channels worked. We just had to work harder. It was probably ten years before I used a [Neumann] U 47 or some of these bigger pieces of gear.
Sun Studio is unique in that during the day there are always tours, and then after six are the sessions. How late did these sessions go?
A lot of the time it was by the hour, with a two-hour minimum. Some people would just come in and do two hours, but most would go late into the night. I was a manager as well, so I was there most days by 10 a.m., so it could be some long days. The session could finish at midnight, but I was often there until 2 a.m. James was a mentor, hero, boss, and a dad; all these things rolled into one. He's also a phenomenal guitar player. I'd just sit there and learn guitar licks from him. He'd tell me stories, and I just soaked it up. I never wanted to leave. I had to go home because I had high school the next day. My parents would kill me if I didn't get home at a certain time, but I learned so much from him there. Sessions couldn't start until about 6:30 p.m., and we couldn't set up beforehand. They could drop equipment off sometimes. I really enjoyed part of that. I had culture shock going into Nashville and other places. "Wait, we're supposed to set up the day before, and the band doesn't come, but we're supposed to get a soundcheck somehow?" Or, "The drummer comes at 10 and the bass player comes at 2?" I loved it at Sun. It's one room, and we all soundchecked together. I needed to hear everybody together. Whether you're in a booth or not, you still need to hear how the drums play off the bass. I enjoyed that, and it made me work really fast. I felt like, "They're paying for this, so we better be cutting by 7:15 or they might be pissed." I had to tear down every night.
Were most of the sessions for fan-based kind of reasons?
We'd get a lot of that. Everyone from all over wants to record at Sun, whether it's a souvenir or they're actually making a record. Memphis, in general, is the place that people are coming to do the one "funky" track that ends up being the best track on the record. When I became head engineer I left the hourly rate kind of high, because often people just want to do two hours and you can't get much done in two hours. I tried to make it way cheaper for the day, cheaper for three days, and way cheaper for the week. I'd rather have those people in who are going to spend time and get things done right, instead of rushing for two hours. But it did help me get really fast. We were getting people of all different talent levels, and coming to a historic place where they're already nervous. For a lot of them it was a lifelong dream to come to Sun and record. You have to be really good at calming people down, welcoming them, and being patient. I'd get people from all over the world who couldn't speak English. They wanted to record, and they wanted to hire session musicians. They have to work that out, and then try to figure out what they want to do. I think all that really helped me later on; to not have an ego, or not be upset if someone's not that good. I don't get upset, because I've done the worst there is to do, musically. But as long as they're happy and having fun, I am too. That's part of the job at Sun.
I always figured there were certain sessions there that were just for them to take home and say, "I did it. I went there."
Yeah, some sessions were like that. The hardest part of the gig is when you care more than the client about their own session. But most of these people came in to have a good time. I would try to cater to that, while also getting something that sounds good. They never forget you either. I would get Christmas cards and notes from some of them, and most would become repeat clients. The music and talent may not have been incredible every time; but if you are helping someone realize a dream, there is no reason to think, or feel, that you are "too good" to do that.
When you did something that was a longer booking, how did you work with setting up and tearing down?
We could push things to the side. I would take the microphones down, because there are tourists in there every day. Believe it or not, people will steal stuff. When I first started we had [Shure] SM81s. About six months in, we no longer had SM81s. I could leave some of the stands up around the drums. Playback is always about what headspace you're currently in, and it never sounds like it did initially. So the one thing I liked about re-setting up every night was that it got me back into the music. I'd remove the mics, question what I did, have an idea, and move them back. The faders were all the same, but I still muted tracks and listened. I don't know how to explain it, but it really helped. Oftentimes I'd beat the sound the next day, instead of just leaving it the same and saying, "No, we had it."
I feel like I could get better every session.
Me too. I always want to experiment and make it better. Sometimes I feel like when it's day six of a session, or so, it's easy to get tunnel vision. Sometimes when I'm mixing I'll hear people say, "I'd like to go do a shaker." I almost want to go, "No! I'm set up for mixing!" Of course that's not the answer. It's, "Of course. Let's do it." But sometimes, with tracking, I feel I've committed to this drum sound for two or three songs and I don't change it. But the other side of me is like, "Make it better!" I don't know about you, but I go home and think about the session at night. I might have a dream, or wake up and think, "What if I put a [Shure] SM7 on that?"
Totally. It's always a little production idea or such.
And when you have to re-set up it's easier to change it out and say, "Hey, let's pause the song for a second. I want to try something." There's good and bad to it. I try to see the positive in everything. You know there are things that are negatives to other people in the studio, like someone may worry that you don't have an SSL or a certain type of Pro Tools. I got good when people called Sun and said, "It's kind of a bummer that we have to tear down every night." I would say, "Actually, it's cool. You get to improve every day." I got good at selling what some people would call the negatives about it.
Sun Studios control room under Matt | Photo: Sean Faust
Was anyone ever locking the studio down, like to do day after day without tours?
No. We did a T Bone Burnett [Tape Op #67] produced record with John Mellencamp [No Better Than This]. I went to the owner and said, "They want to book three days. This is the biggest producer, and this is one of the biggest artists." But it was still, "Well, they still have to start at 6 p.m." I think Chris Isaak [Beyond the Sun] was in the wintertime, when it was a little bit slower, and the owner let us start at 5 p.m. It's not so bad though. Who wants to sing or play guitar at 9 a.m.!
Hundreds of people go through there! I was watching a tour from the control room today.
When I started there, especially in the winter, you'd get five or six people a day. Nowadays it's nonstop, all the time. It's great to see young people caring about that music and history.
The tourists were sitting at the drums and piano, and moving mics around.
It drove me nuts. I'd take that gear out all the time, build little walls around the drums with mic stands, keep the Leslie [speaker] in the corner, and have the B3 lid closed. The worst was the piano. It would be tuned for a session, but the constant flow of 50 or so tourists every hour would swing the temperature in the room and the piano would go out of tune before the session started!
Did you start replacing some of the gear in the control room?
Yeah, a lot of the equipment was in museum cases. There were two Ampex 350 [tape decks] on display upstairs. There was an RCA 44 and an Altec 639 in the display case. I remember going through some of the old shelves, cleaning up. There was a drawer with two RCA 77s, two old Neumann U 87s, an old [AKG] C414 — some crazy cool mics.
These were not things that Sam left behind, correct?
Yeah, Sam left in 1959 and took all his gear with him. Sometime in the '80s or '90s they stopped working, and the engineer just never used them again. I asked the owners if we could get the RCAs re-ribboned, and the cables checked. I got them back and we started using those. Then I was like, "Can we pull these Ampexes out?" We started using those. When I became the head engineer, I told them about my idea of wanting to have the same kind of equipment Sam had, but also having a different kind of setup. I showed them Ardent [#58] and some other studios, because they're not typical studio owners. They own a studio, but they don't know about recording spaces.
They own a landmark, and a tourist attraction.
Yeah. And when someone sees a 12-foot wide Soundcraft, and then you want to go to a 4-foot wide Neve, to them, they're like, "You want to do what?" I explained to them that this gear is part of what brings people in, and it has a sonic difference. I worked up a budget. I put a lot of my own money into the original RCA equipment. I said, "If I leave or die, the next guy probably doesn't want to record four mics live to mono." We ended up buying a cool little Studer desk and a RADAR studio. I bought some of the old RCA gear, and we got an amalgamation of the two. We got the tape machines working. I can't say enough good things about the owners. They believed in my idea and really let me run with it. I also want to mention that Mark Neill [Tape Op #29] was huge help and ally in helping me with locating and operating the period correct equipment!
Were you doing some sessions live to one track?
I did a lot of recordings live to mono, like Sam did. Then lots of projects live to 2-track. I really enjoyed that. I think the band does too, because it puts this extra little bit of pressure on them. To be in there with no headphones, you cut it, we roll it back, play it, and there it is. It's pretty fun.
Were you doing that to tape?
Yeah. I had an Ampex 350, and then we had a Studer A80-RC that I did a lot with. I did a Dale Watson 7-inch, in Johnny Cash style, live to 2-track. He met the band that night; they learned the songs, and it was a blast. I also had a 1-inch, 8-track Scully 280 that I later upgraded to a 1-inch, 8-track Studer A800.
Were you setting up players to bring in on some sessions?
A lot of times they would get an upright bass player and/or a drummer, because they'd come from England or somewhere. I'm such a fan of Scotty Moore [Elvis Presley's guitarist]. I would never call myself a session guitar player, but if you need someone to do "That's All Right," or some rockabilly, that's my one thing that I can do. So it would be fun to hit "record" and go out there and play together.
What was your eventual path there?
Well, I'd been there for 11 years. I worked my way up to manager, and I'd been chief engineer there for about five years. I loved it at Sun. You don't have any problems booking Sun. I remember the last whole year I was there, it was like 330-some odd session days. And, because I was a manager, they were extra-long days. The time I had off, I went to Canada to make a record with this band called The Sheepdogs. I really love to work. If I'm not in the studio, I kind of freak out. Everything's an audition. I got a call out of nowhere from this guy named Dave Cobb, a producer. He said, "Will you come down to FAME Recording Studios and engineer this Anderson East session for me, for a day?" He gave me a heads-up that FAME, at that time, needed a lot of work. He'd heard from a mutual friend of ours, Mark Neill, that I was a very patient, easygoing engineer. I don't get flustered, angry, or throw things and shut down.
That's something you don't usually hear on someone's list of qualifications. I hear FAME is in better shape now.
Oh, it's in great shape now. When I went down there, it sounded incredible. They've got amazing instruments, microphones, and gear. It was just the console, and patchbay, and things like that. Dave called and said he'd heard a lot of records I'd done and really liked them. I'd met him once before, at my friend Chris Mara's annual Welcome to 1979 Recording Summit, briefly. But I met him at FAME, we set up, we got sounds, and about an hour in he says, "This sounds incredible." I'm like, "Yeah. It's FAME. It's Rick Hall's [Neumann] U 87. I'm loving it too." He said, "You want to do the next Jason Isbell record [Something More Than Free] with me?" I said, "Well, yeah!" But, you know. How many times have you heard, "Want to do this record with me?" And then nothing ever happens...
Oh, I know what you mean!
I drove home that night thinking, "That'd be really cool. Let's see if that happens." He called about two days later and said it would be in March, at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville. I went to the owners at Sun and said, "This Jason Isbell record is huge. I've got to do it, but I'm going to be gone for a month." They didn't want their salaried engineer and manager to be gone for a month, even though I had a replacement lined up. It was a little weird. I went back and said one more time, "It's a really big deal. This will be a big record, and will help bring people to Sun, believe it or not."
Matt and Patrick Sweany | Photo: Nate Burrell
Right. And Sun's a nice job, but it's kind of a cul-de-sac.
It's a really wonderful job, and I put my whole heart into that place. But, for me, recording comes first. The artist comes first. At Sun, the studio tours come first. So that was always hard to come to terms with. I'd been thinking for a while about needing to make a jump. I'd always been known as "the Sun Studio guy." I wanted to be known as Matt, rather than just the Sun guy. I wanted to work in other rooms! It's one thing to work in the same room, every day, with the same microphones. Most could be good at that. But I wanted to know if I could be good elsewhere. I wanted to push myself to be better. Sam Phillips said, "If you're not doing something different, you're not doing anything."
I remember that quote.
I didn't want to be sitting there just trying to recreate "the Sam thing." All of this played into it, and I knew if I didn't do that Isbell record that I'd regret it forever. It was the easiest decision and simultaneously the hardest decision, and I figured that I had to leave. So I went and told them, "I'm sorry, but I'll be leaving in two months. I'm going to do this record." Everyone thought I was crazy. I did that Isbell record, and this artist I'd co-produced one year before, Margo Price., her record [Midwest Farmer's Daughter] came out. It was a good one-two punch. I went independent, and I only had one record booked. But then Dave Cobb booked me for 20 or so more albums.
You and Dave started working together pretty good as a team?
Yeah, we've worked very well together! We are both fans of live performance-based recording; we both love to experiment and have fun in the studio. I have really enjoyed working with him. He's just an amazing producer/engineer, and I've definitely learned a lot from how he hears things. A great thing about me going independent was I felt like I was getting a little lazy at Sun; in the sense that the phone was always going to ring. There was always going to be bookings. I talked to my close friend Jeff Powell [Tape Op #95], who went independent from Ardent Studios, and there's something to be said about going out there and fighting for gigs. It was one of the best things I ever did.
I've met some engineers where I get the feeling that this is just a job — a clock-in, clock-out thing. To me, it's just too important a role to think of it that way.
Yeah, I agree. I didn't want it to feel like that. You have to make a leap of faith if you care about it. All I want to do is record and produce. What kind of places did you work with Dave Cobb? Well, you know, it's funny. I called Jeff Powell one day, and I said, "I have the keys to Sam Phillips Recording, Sun Studio, and RCA Studio A with me right now, and that's a weird feeling."
"What year is it?"
Yeah, exactly. I feel very lucky. All these classic studios. We also work out of Sound Emporium, House of David, FAME, and Dave's house. Dave's little studio at his house is one of the best-sounding rooms out there! Mark Neill came in and did some adjustments, and it's really quite amazing what it can do. I can't remember the last time I worked on an SSL console, or in a "modern" room, so to speak. I've only been in funky, old studios! Dave and I have probably done 20 records in the year or year and a half since the Isbell record. But he also uses Vance Powell [Tape Op #82], Darrell Thorp, and Eddie Spear a lot. And I've been in Memphis producing a lot too. We like to work quick, so we usually do a record in 7 to 12 days.
Matt and Jeff Powell during Emily Baker sessions | Photo: Stacie Huckeba
