Can you tell me a bit about the recording program you went to?
I went to Indiana University in Bloomington. They have a great recording arts department there. It's really small, and they only accept 15 people a year. It was scary and crazy trying to get into that coming from out of state. The way it was then was you'd do one semester of music theory, an electronics class, and a basics of recording course. Depending on the grades and your interview performance, that's how you'd get into the program. One could waste an entire semester without getting in, and the "weed out" classes had about 200 people in them. I'm looking around, thinking, "How am I going to do this?" But that first semester at IU I got 100% on almost everything I did. I wanted to get into the program. I was sure that's what I wanted to do. There was no way I was going back to Georgia.
Did you have an electronics background going in, or were you going in more from the artistic side?
I think it was both. I was a musician first, as a kid, then I found out that a recording engineer was a job from reading it in the liner notes of a CD when I was 14 or 15. I went and looked it up on whatever my dial-up [internet] was, because this was probably in the year 2000. I looked up what the job of "recording engineer" was, and thought, "Oh my god, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life." I was into music, but I was not a great musician. I didn't have the patience, or the passion to practice. For people who are incredible musicians, practicing doesn't feel like a slog. All of my friends who are great songwriters or musicians, they can sit down and play for an hour and it's fun. When I was taking piano lessons, I couldn't concentrate long enough; I was always looking towards the next thing.
That's interesting, because recording can often be such a slog.
I know. It's a weird, ironic thing – it does get sloggy – but I can Zen out doing that. I never felt that way playing on my own. Another thing that drew me to this, over being a musician, is that I'm 100% into the social aspect of music making. Band practice is fun and playing shows is fun, but I'm never going to put in the time to become exceptional on my own because I found that incredibly boring. But, as far as electronics go, when I was a kid, I loved to take things apart. I would take apart old TVs, which I found out was fairly dangerous. One time I smashed the bulb that holds all the gas in it, and there was this huge plume of toxic gas in my parents' basement. I would also take apart old radios and cameras. I got that bug from my dad. He was always a big computer hobbyist, building his own PCs. I learned a lot about that very early.
Were your parents influential on your music appreciation?
We would listen to the oldies station, so I was listening to The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Motown. My mom was also into keeping up with contemporary music, so she had Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers CDs. They also listened to U2 and Talking Heads. I didn't know anything about jazz or classical. They definitely weren't listening to rap or hip-hop. Maybe a little R&B. I was lucky in that we weren't just listening to new country or something. I was a nerdy, weird kid, and I had nerdy weird friends, so I found out about music a little past my age sometimes. Then I got addicted to MTV, and I got into R&B and hip-hop. I loved the BET video show 106 and Park, and I'd watch the countdown on TRL [Total Request Live] on MTV every afternoon after school.
You had a music obsession pretty early on.
Yeah. It's funny, because my parents aren't musical in any way. No one in my extended family is either. A lot of my family are psychologists, therapists, teachers, and social workers.
Well, being a music producer can often incorporate being a therapist.
Yeah, I definitely think I apply what I learned from my parents every single day in the studio. But, with my music obsession, when I was a kid, I would put on my headphones and listen to music constantly. The Talking Heads stuck with me. I remember in second grade they asked us to name compound words we knew, and for some reason I thought David Byrne [Tape Op #79] was saying "gramahawk" instead of "burning down the house." I wrote it on the board and sang it. People were laughing at me, and it was really traumatic. But, later on, I willed it into existence. There's a band from Athens called The Modern Skirts, and they couldn't think of an album title; I told them this story late at night when we were mixing, and they were dying laughing, so they named the album Gramahawk. [laughter]
When did you first start experimenting with recording?
As soon as GarageBand came out for free on [Apple] Macs, me and my friends started making weird recordings, screwing around with Apple Loops. I never had an early cassette 4-track phase. I didn't start getting into that until later. When I was 16, I got an internship with Velena Vego, who is the booking agent for the 40 Watt Club here in Athens. My job was to hang up posters and deal with tickets. In exchange for this, as long as I didn't drink or do anything mischievous, she would let me go to the shows. I never did anything bad; I was just so overjoyed to be there. I saw The Flaming Lips, Bright Eyes, and Modest Mouse. I felt so lucky. But, after working there for a while, I realized what I wanted to do was to work in a recording studio. She said she knew David Barbe [Tape Op #14] who had a studio in town; everybody loved him. I started interning at David's Chase Park Transduction when I was a junior in high school. I played a little drums, bass, and keyboards, and I could read music, so David gave me a chance to come and observe, make coffee, and get lunch. I was still in high school, so I wasn't there a lot, but I went when I could for the next two years. That was when I met the Drive By Truckers; I interned on one of their records. I learned a ton from David, and I supplemented that by reading [David Miles Huber's] book, Modern Recording Techniques. I'd read Sweetwater catalogues and think about the kind of studio I'd want in my basement. I tried to make a vocal booth in my mom's basement, and I experimented a bit. But I skipped a bunch of steps and went straight into this professional studio. When I went to school, I understood my way around the studio more than other people who were more DIY about it.
Was it your plan to get the degree and go back to work at Chase Park Transduction?
I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought maybe I could intern somewhere else. But after my junior year, I came back and worked the whole summer as an intern and assistant engineer on the Drive By Truckers record, Brighter Than Creation's Dark. That's when I got my first actual credit and was paid a little bit of money. I had my foot in the door, and David said I could come back and record bands there. I got integrated into the scene. I graduated in 2008, at the height of the recession, which was a terrible time to graduate, with a recording degree no less. The first couple years were rough. I'd never had had a job before, except fixing gear in the recording department in school.
Well, that's a great skill to have!
Yeah, I'm a little rusty now because I'm so busy making records. In school there was so much hands-on experience. For instance, in one class we had to record 80 hours of live jazz and classical.
That experience probably helped out with your production on Faye Webster's Car Therapy Sessions. [A live recording of Webster singing, accompanied by a 26-piece orchestra.]
Yeah. All those skills of learning to properly record different types of acoustic instruments in a classical setting was so helpful later on. If someone wants a cello on a session, a clarinet, flute, or piano – I've recorded those so many times. But for Car Therapy Sessions, we were working with a great conductor [Trey Pollard]. We wanted to do it live, for real, so it needed to sound beautiful as is. We hung a Decca tree [a three-mic setup conceived by Decca Records' employee Roy Wallace] up near the conductor. Decca would often use this setup to make these unbelievable orchestral recordings. I also used an omni spread on the sides, and a Blumlein figure-8 set up in the middle. We recorded this at Spacebomb [Richmond, Virginia]. It's a big space, but it's not massive like a concert hall. We knew we wanted to work with Trey. He had recorded some string arrangements on the Faye Webster record I produced, I Know I'm Funny Haha, and we liked the way it sounded. He had done all these great arrangements. He knows his studio so well and has a working relationship with a lot of the members of the Richmond Symphony and the surrounding area, so it made sense to do it there. We worked on the logistics of the mic placement layout together, based off of his normal setup. We also had another engineer who had worked with Trey a lot. We had this three-person team, which was great. Trey was conducting, and I could sit and take notes because I didn't have to think about levels constantly. It was more like "old school" producing.
Was every song on the album a complete take, from start to finish?
We would do complete takes of the songs, but we could steal parts from other takes if needed. We did overdub a few percussion parts because the percussion player only had two arms. [laughter] There was some triangle and a couple of kettle drum hits we overdubbed. It's one of the most amazing records I've gotten to be a part of in my whole life. I had chills the whole time. Trey's arrangements are unbelievable.
You've worked with David Lowery [Tape Op #169] a lot on Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker records, but I'm also curious about his solo acoustic records. Did he bring in 4-track tapes of home recordings and have you mix them? They sound intimate and raw, but also full and warm.
Lowery did those mostly at home, and then he would re-sing a lot of the vocals in the studio. His 4-track has this built-in mic that we would also use to blend in. It's not an analog recorder, it's a Tascam DP-008. He's obsessed with it. They have two omni mics that are built into the front that sound cool. I've used them as drum room mics before. We would touch them up in the studio a bit, but often we wouldn't need to, especially when he captured a mood or a moment. You know how that is, that's a special thing that's hard to recreate. David uses a lot of humor and wit to get his point across in his music, but this was different; it was so intimate, honest, and personal. We've worked on a ton of projects together.
With your career now, are you turning away a lot of work?
Yeah, I have so many projects coming to me that I can't say yes to everything. I feel very lucky, and I don't take it for granted. I only work on records that I think are going to sound interesting. A huge part of that is for the artist. I understand we all have to eat, and sometimes if you're the owner of a studio – which I have never done myself – you have to keep the lights on so any band can record there. But being hired as a producer or a mixer, if I'm not into something, how am I going to do my best for them? Doing something just for the money is not fair to the artist.
