When we met in 1997, you were already recording yourself on 4-track and releasing tapes on your label, Loose Change. What got you into home recording?
There was so much lo-fi home-recorded music in the '90s, and I was really into it. Nirvana was the thing that made me think I could play in a band, but a couple of years later, hearing bands like Guided by Voices [Tape Op #6] and Sebadoh suddenly made recording seem doable and fun. There were no recording studios that I knew of in the town where I grew up, and I didn't know any bands who went to studios. The little bit of a scene that did exist was made up of other people who were inspired by home recording. I don't think any of us thought about studios at that time. You could record on 4-track and have a cassette release, maybe make a 7-inch, and that, when I was in high school, was success. When we met, in the first year of college, I was just beginning to learn about recording studios. I was pretty intimidated.
You attended Purchase College [Westchester County, New York] to major in studio production, right?
Yeah, that was the idea. I didn't have any plans to go to college until a friend went to Purchase for production, and that got my parents nudging me about it. I think they just wanted me out of the house. [laughter]
Did you learn a lot through trial and error, or was the formal training at Purchase more important?
I didn't want to be in school. At Purchase, the studios at the time were mostly using ADAT, though some people were starting to use Pro Tools. I was still into cassettes and tape. I was always looking for old tape machines lying around in a studio closet or something that I could use. I was learning on ADAT, but I wasn't interested in learning anything beyond the basics. Purchase had a few dbx 160s, which only have three knobs, so that was an easy way to learn about compressors. To me, college was more about being social and learning by recording my friends. After college, I didn't even pursue recording for a few years. My energy was more focused on being in bands and figuring out how to go on tour. I don't think I learned that much [at Purchase]. I wish I'd learned more.
Is there anything in particular you regret not learning?
I wish I knew that I would be using Pro Tools every single day. I would have picked up a few more things! [laughs]
Over the years you've played in a lot of bands. How important do you think it is for a producer to also be a musician?
I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. The more instruments I'm familiar with, the easier it is to communicate with people. We learn on the job, too; learning about arranging strings, and instruments that we don't know how to play. We need to learn enough of the language to communicate ideas. It's important that I can jump in the room and play something if I need to. Not in a condescending way…
To have the ability to demonstrate something?
Yeah. It's totally useful.
Do you feel you the need to resist imposing your own aesthetic on a band you're working with?
If they're recording with me, chances are they've probably already heard something I've done, and our aesthetics are in the same ballpark. I try not to impose the ideas or opinions I have, but maybe I'll make a mental list of ideas and then figure out a way to introduce those ideas in a way that doesn't slow down the process or bum anybody out. I don't want to create a situation where people were excited about an idea, and now they're rethinking their whole lives. [laughs]
For Woods recordings, what's the division of labor in the studio between you and Jeremy Earl?
In the beginning, it was mostly Jeremy playing all the instruments and recording himself. As I got involved, that's really how I started getting into recording in a professional way; by assisting Jeremy with the home recordings that he was doing. Our working relationship consisted of me cleaning up his home recordings and figuring out different ways to do that. Those early Woods records are pretty gnarly, but they have a good vibe. I was trying to maintain the vibe while making it not hurt your ears. One thing I'd do was re-record the drums. They wouldn't be to a click track, which was challenging and would require a lot of editing. Jeremy would record drums with just a stereo room mic, five feet or so in front of the kit. So, we'd overdub the kick and snare, then we'd treat his original drum track as the room mic and the new tracks as the close mics. I'd add bass to make the rhythm section a little more mid-fi. Then we started writing songs together, with Jeremy on drums and me on acoustic. We'd write and record the basic tracks in our living room and then overdub.
What were you using to record these tracks?
Usually a Tascam 388, and eventually an Otari 1/2-inch, 8-track, then dumped into Pro Tools. If you look at the Woods discography, it's a clear representation of my chops progressing. On those early records I didn't know what I was doing, but "not knowing what you're doing" was also our mission statement back then.
You have either produced or co-produced most of your own work. Would Woods ever consider hiring an outside engineer?
We've done a few sessions with engineers, but we prefer to have it just be the band in the studio, with me engineering and all of us switching instruments from song to song.
Is that because it's easier and faster to do it yourself, or because you're a perfectionist?
It's easier and faster for the way Woods works. We have such a shorthand with each other, and we work quickly. There are a few engineers I've worked with at different studios that I've developed relationships with, and that can work well, but I do consider myself a producer. If I don't have a relationship with an engineer, it's easier for me to say, "I'll engineer this." So yeah, maybe I'm a perfectionist, or maybe just a control freak!
Ha! What's the difference?
Well, it's funny saying "perfectionist," because that implies that I believe the end result will be perfect. Which I definitely do not believe.
Would you ever consider using an outside producer?
I'm not against that at all, but we've never done it in our 15-year career, so what does that say? [laughs]
I think it can be fun to defer to someone else's vision, but if the result of that experiment is that you don't like the record you just made, then what do you do?
It has to be a shared vision between the producer and the artist, in order to hopefully avoid a situation like that. I like working with bands where a member of the band has those natural producer instincts. Those are the records that always turn out a lot better. This goes back to working with Jeremy, because Jeremy is also a producer on those records. He's got a lot of ideas. He adds interesting textures that I wouldn't have thought of. We have similar aesthetics, and whatever our differences are, they're complementary. Collaboration is key. I like opening a session from the day before and saying, "I forgot we did that!" And that's usually because it really went somewhere different once people were in the room bouncing ideas off of each other.
Have you adjusted fairly well to doing sessions remotely?
I think so. Even without the pandemic, it's common for me to work with overdubs that were recorded at someone's home, or to mix a record without being in the same room as the artist. It's lonely, but it's okay. When you have artists who are competent on Pro Tools or whatever DAW they're using, they can almost be an assistant engineer on a session. It's also great that people can do overdubs at home, especially since Covid. And having people who know how to record themselves and send a string arrangement is helpful. For recording, even just overdubs, I prefer to be in the room having that real time back and forth.
Are you mostly working with digital these days?
For most projects, digital makes the most sense for speed. But if it's a band that's well-rehearsed, and they can record to tape, then we will do that. Sometimes I'll use tape to capture a live moment and then dump it to digital for overdubs. For the Sam Burton record that I did [I Can Go With You / I Am No Moon], all of Sam's vocals and acoustic guitar were live to tape, with the drums in the same room. The arrangements were pretty simple: Just a live band in a room, with me in the control room playing bass. But the majority of the tracking I do is on Pro Tools, and I have a hybrid mixing rig I use to print mixes to tape.
I know you occasionally work in your own home studio, but you mostly freelance at various studios around L.A. and Brooklyn. How long does it generally take to acclimate to a new studio?
The way I used to go about it was the first day I'd be setting up, and maybe I'd do some tracking in the evening. I read interviews with engineers who would spend days getting drum sounds, and I thought that was how you did it. But now I feel comfortable enough in almost any studio situation to get started as quickly as possible. It doesn't have to be an amazing studio, just one that's set up in an intuitive way so I can start recording within a few hours, if not immediately.
I don't think everybody can do that.
Before I started working at professional studios, I had a home studio. Once I made the jump to other studios, I got into some situations where I was patching a compressor, sweating, thinking, "There's a client here, and I don't know how to do any of this shit!" My home studio was wired in very specific ways that only I understood. But after years of throwing myself in different studio situations, I can wing it. It's great to get somewhere a few hours early so I can make sure all the mics are roughly in place, get a signal, and get the headphones working. Sometimes, here in L.A., I'll take a smaller job or I'll bring a personal project to a studio to try it out. Maybe I'll do overdubs there, and get acclimated. Meet the house engineer and see where the good coffee shops are. There's no shortage of studios here in L.A.
What's your ideal studio environment to walk into cold?
A clean studio, with no gear that I don't want to use. I walk in, and there aren't a million choices for everything.
No broken chord organs laying around?
I've done a lot of sessions where I get to a studio early, take a bunch of amps and unnecessary gear, and hide them in a closet. The ideal situation is a place where there's already a house kit mic'd up; even if it's not exactly how I would mic it, it helps if it's in the ballpark. That way I can get going pretty quickly. I can make adjustments while the drummer is warming up, or while the band's learning the song. That's when I apply my own personal taste and mic'ing preferences. Expediency is a big thing for me. I like capturing ideas right away, where the band isn't waiting around all day and getting tired. Ideally, the situation you want to walk into is one that the band would want to walk into. Where people gravitate towards instruments and start playing something. I try to create a space that invites that; where they get in and they want to start playing music.
You're very expedient, but once the work is happening, I've never seen you be careless, and I never got the feeling you were rushing.
It's a fine line. I want to work quickly enough where I'm still getting quality performances, but not getting diminishing returns. I focus on keeping a session moving, and if someone has an idea, we can try it, but it's understood that we're not going to spend all day chasing this thing. I like to work quickly enough that there's momentum, and then that affords us time to fuck around.
It's been said that a producer also needs to be an amateur psychologist. How do you handle those tensions when you're working with a band?
Having a studio dog helps ease tensions! Anything that can get someone out of their head and can help them gain some perspective. Sometimes we just have to take a break, especially if people are getting hung up on something. But I like to hear everyone out, determine what people are getting hung up on, and see if it's something that needs to be addressed or just given space. I don't like to stop a session just because someone's in a bad mood, but sometimes I have to. It depends on who's in a bad mood! It's important to have a vision of what we're going for, move towards it, and be prepared for it. But, at the same time, I need to be totally open to letting it go somewhere else. That's why I think doing pre-production is so important.
I've found that different people define "pre-production" quite differently.
So many people write as they're recording these days, so maybe pre-production isn't really a thing anymore. For me, it can be something as simple as me going to the practice space and sitting in for rehearsals. Or it could include getting together at someone's home to make dinner, listen to records, listen to demos, talk about what we like and don't like, and focus in on the shared vision. That way we're on the journey together. It's almost like trying to have a truncated version of what it would be like being in a band together for a month. I'm not just a voice in the headphones bossing people around. We're all on the same team, working towards a goal. And then, in that context, maybe I do have some suggestions about song structure or chord voicings. The main idea is to do some prep work so we're not wasting time and money in the studio.
For James & The Giants, you asked to be part of the mastering process, and asked to be put in touch with the mastering engineer. Adam [Gonsalves] at Telegraph Mastering told me that this has become quite common.
