I know you started out as an artist, right?
I think my whole way of coming to this is probably different than a lot of people's. I never thought I would be doing music for my career. Since I was 10 or 11, I've been writing songs and playing instruments. It was my favorite thing to do. I never thought music would be my career, and as such I went forward with what I thought my life would be. I ended up going to medical school, which was very much a choice. It wasn't like my parents were saying, "You have to be a doctor." I was interested in mental health and international public health issues. I went to medical school, and then halfway through, at 27, I questioned all of what I had held true, such as, "Can you do your favorite thing for a career? Can you pursue a career in the arts, and do it unselfishly? Or at least a little less ego-driven?" I forced myself to answer those questions as honestly as possible. I made a decision and left medical school without a net.
That's terrifying.
Yeah. I didn't grow up rich; I was paying for it myself. I didn't know or understand that people were producers, writers, mixers, engineers, mastering engineers, or drummers. When I looked at the back of my favorite album covers, it would read, "produced, arranged, and performed by Stevie Wonder." I realized, "Everyone does it all themselves!"
That's a rare example, though.
I didn't know that at the time. I thought, "I like writing songs and doing this thing that seems to be production, so I guess that I have to sing and perform." Neither of which I liked too much. I realized, in the course of doing that, that I was decent at producing and mixing. I'm decent at writing. That was how my career started.
What were the first projects you ended up working on?
I was my own guinea pig, so I figured out how to do production and engineering. I was never trained properly, and since then I have gotten to work with all of these great engineers; the Neil Dorfsmans of the world. In doing my own recordings, I asked myself, "How do I make a Rhodes piano sound good? How do I make a drum kit sound good?" I listen to my first recordings now, and I had 27 keyboard instruments in one song. There was way too much shit in everything that I did! I soon realized how good arrangements work, and how interactions with different instruments in different frequency areas work. That was all with me as the artist. Among my first projects was a woman named Maiysha [Kai], who I ended up having a very long working relationship with starting in about 2001. She was one of the first people I co-wrote with. Maiysha was a willing person on this journey; she has a great voice and talent. Many years later we got a Grammy nomination. That was my first thing that I'd call a real project. I was a very reluctant mixer, at the time. A lot of people end up mixing because they have a vision for what they created, and no one else is going to honor that vision. It was the same thing with me. It's easy to get intimidated with mixing and engineering, where you seemingly have to have a whole bunch of knowledge and training to be good at it, but there are a lot of different ways that people get good at their craft.
Arranging instruments so that they aren't cluttered, like you mentioned, makes mixing easier!
It sure does! I recorded something at Avatar [Power Station] in the A Room. It was beautifully recorded. I wasn't engineering the session, because I didn't know enough about what I was doing at the time. I got it back here, and I was tweaking like crazy, compressing everything and EQing, and it didn't sound right. I took off everything I'd done and listened to the raw tracking session. That sounded good. It was one of those great lessons. The first thing is to sit back and listen. A lot of work has already been done, so don't undo the good.
In what ways have you learned more about mixing and how to approach that? You mentioned Neil Dorfsman and others you've worked with. Have you sat and co-mixed with people along the way?
I have. I've done it with Neil. I produced a project that he mixed. Since then, we've worked a lot together. I learned a little bit of what he does; I'd sit there and listen. Everyone's got their own thing. Jimmy Douglass [Tape Op #130] is another one. He's a good buddy of mine. We worked on something I had produced that he had mixed. Another great experience. At a certain level of the game, the mixer is a reflection of who they are as a person. I find that [to be true] more and more. It gets increasingly psychological the higher you go, and then you see how people work. You see how people hear, as well as the types of decisions they make. There's a tremendous amount of humanity in the process. One flaw of the YouTube way of learning is that it's very easy to absorb technical information. The pieces that are more important are the human aspects, and how a mix makes you feel. That's what makes someone special in what they do. You have to be fluid enough in your thinking and approach that your methods don't get in the way of your total vision.
How did your career progress from working with Maiysha to other artists?
The Maiysha project got me my lawyer. A friend happened to swing by the studio and said, "I've got to play this for my lawyer." Having a good person representing you can make a lot of introductions. I did a lot of local New York-based projects. I was into soul music and neo-soul, and I became a bit known for that. My manager at the time pitched me for this this singer, Laura Izibor, who was on Atlantic Records. That was my first major label project. I was up against some other well-known producers, and I got an a cappella [vocal stem]. This is a woman from Ireland who's an incredible soul singer. I went way beyond what I should have. I brought in some horn players, a baritone player, I wrote arrangements, recorded live drums, and programmed drums. They were expecting to hear a sequenced, little track and I gave them fully-realized, arranged tunes. They were like, "You can do most of this record." It opened my eyes to working at a commercial studio, which I hadn't done much of. We tracked at Avatar. Neil Dorfsman did some mixing. We had the ability to hire musicians; real heavyweights on drums, bass, and keys. It was then that I realized that my producer fee for a track was probably ten times what I'd gotten on a single song I'd worked on before. I couldn't believe it was happening. This was in 2007. After that I started getting a number of different gigs. Vanessa Hudgens was another big one for me.
That's a trip.
There's this guy named Jon Lind who's an industry veteran songwriter and producer. He co-wrote "Boogie Wonderland" for Earth, Wind & Fire. He was A&R at Hollywood Records at the time, the company putting out all of the High School Musical records, then the Jonas Brothers, and then spin-offs from High School Musical. Vanessa Hudgens was one of those people. I was always submitting songs to Jon but never quite made the grade. One day I got a call from Jon Lind, "Scott, I'm in my office with Vanessa Hudgens. We're loving one of your songs, and Vanessa wants to cut it." It was a song called, "Last Night." I didn't write it with Vanessa Hudgens in mind; I thought of a riff that happened to be in 5/4 and made it into a song.
We're used to a lot of music in that world being kick-snare, kick-snare.
Exactly. All 4/4! I think it rarely happens. That was the lead track from Vanessa's album [Identified], released in 2008. I never would have pictured in a million years a Hollywood Records artist choosing that song to do.
Did you end up producing the song and carrying it through?
I produced it and mixed it. In fact, that was one of my first mix gigs. Jon said, "Why don't you mix it?" I said, "Serban Ghenea is mixing most of the other tracks on the record. I can't do it." He was like, "Do it! You're going to be fine." Mine didn't sound as good as the other songs on the record, but it was close enough. That gave me a little bit of confidence to say, "Hey, I can actually mix a record."
Were you doing it here or at another studio?
All here.
That's wild. Did she come sing here?
No. I tracked all the instruments here and then we did all the vocals in L.A. If there's one lesson I've learned, it's that you've got to do the thing that you do better than anyone. If you've got a natural talent and individuality, then allow that to be your master.
JB: What is the one thing that you do better? What is your mission statement?
I've never put that into words before, but I'm going to try. I would like to think that I take musical sophistication and do it in a way that is appreciated, without having to be a "music head." I have a decent amount of background in music, and I like taking some of that and throwing it into the mix. I think there's a way to do that where you're not batting people over the head with sophistication. I'm very hybrid in all my approaches. There might be programmed kick and snare, for example, but then there will be live hi-hat. It's a mixture of organic with programmed.
You're keeping some life in it.
Absolutely.
