You grew up in Baltimore?
I did, until I was in my early 20s.
What was going on scene-wise, and what about that got you interested in recording and making music?
In Baltimore, there was a very arty punk scene. I don't know how to describe it, but lots of bands that were sort of post-emo. Baltimore was running alongside the DC/Dischord Records scene, but the Baltimore scene was different. A lot of the kids in the bands went to the art school in Baltimore, and, for lack of a better word, it was like beatniks making hardcore. It was a great scene, and it still is a great scene. There've been a lot of great bands to come out of that scene. But at the time, like in every town in America, there are certain kids that get electric guitars, then they find somebody else who has a bass, and they put together a group of friends and make a band. Eventually, it's time to go to the recording studio. For the bands that were in my friend group, the recording studio that everyone went to was a place called A.C.R [Studios]. There was another one called Social Services. These small, punk recording studios in Baltimore were these mythical places that, even though I'd never been to them, I would have dreams about what they were like. The funny thing is I would eventually go to these studios, and they were nothing like what I imagined. They were basically like a warehouse full of junk. But my roommates had a band, they were recording at A.C.R., and they invited me. At that time, I had been doing this mad scientist electronic music studio in my basement of the row house where I lived in Baltimore. I had tons of effects racks, synthesizers, modular stuff, and drum machines that were synced up with other drum machines. Bands would say, “We're gonna go record the songs, and then maybe you could come in and maybe make the songs more unusual” – effect them or give them treatments. That began my early teenage time of being something like Baltimore's Martin Hannett [Tape Op #103]. Taking a punk band and making it sound strange. In the '90s, in recording, there were a lot of things that were very by the book, and a lot of that had to do with the entire world of indie and punk recording being enamored with Steve Albini [#87] and his techniques. They were considered the grand alternative to doing things in a mainstream way. The problem with those techniques is, that while they sounded great and they work for certain bands, to me, they didn't feel very adventurous. I wanted to dub out the recordings by putting lots of effects. I learned that if I flipped the reels upside down I could record backwards. Then I learned about vari-speed, so I started recording parts an octave higher by speeding up the tape machine and then playing at normal speed. All of the instruments would have this strange sound. It wasn’t just that they were pitched down, but there was something strange about the performances. If you see a David Lynch or [Stanley] Kubrick film, there's this over-the-top acting style where people aren't acting like normal people. They're reciting their lines, maybe they have a different look in their eye, or maybe they're accenting different parts of the sentences, or just doing something unusual, and it creates an atmosphere. If you record something slow and speed it up to normal speed, then you've got a thinner, brighter track, and vice versa. Putting a click track down on the tape, speeding up the song, having the drummer play to that tempo, then slowing it down, and suddenly I'd have these monstrous drums that sound bigger than any drum set ever heard. I'd then add lots of digital delays and stuff.
And this is after they've tracked?
A lot of times it's before they tracked. The bands would lose patience sometimes when I would want them to wait for me to try out every possible vari-speed to get the drums to sound weird enough, especially since, back then, everyone was paying by the hour. In Baltimore, my career as a recording engineer, then producer and mixer, started with me making experimental electronic music in my basement and friends of mine asking me to come to the studio to provide treatments and effects and different approaches to each song instead of it being just the Steve Albini way where it's almost like making a documentary. By doing it the Steve Albini way, you do get a sense of the band. Where it really works are the bands that are just incredible bands. But if the band is not incredibly technically skilled and they go and record in that way, whether the song is good or not, it kind of kills the vibe.
Some of the greatest musical minds I've met are not great players.
I want someone to be able to play well on a recording because I want it to sound good, but there are a lot of ways that could be made up for. So, anyway, by collaborating with my friend’s bands in this way, I was able to visit these recording studios that I'd heard of. The big aha moment was like, “Oh, they're in the other room, we're in this room, and we can hear them through the speakers." The whole live room and control room. That was a big realization for me. From that point on, I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
You bring up a good point. So much of production is problem-solving, and if you're working with younger or less established bands there may be another whole set of issues.
Right, they're still getting good.
One of the best parts about your records is that they are always interesting sounding. Perhaps that's a result of creative problem-solving. For example, the new DIIV record, Frog in Boiling Water, sounds different than a lot of records. It's thick and gooey.
Yeah, that was a long project. We had a number of breakthroughs where the record went from sounding like a band playing in a studio to sounding like something more special. And also, because a lot of that album was made where we recorded everyone playing together at the beginning. But then, we spent a year in this house trying absolutely everything. We ended up re-recording most of what we recorded live, except for the drums. I'd be mostly working with one musician at a time in the band, and we'd have another three who are either thinking about the next thing to do. A lot of them would go off on their own and make things and say, “Hey, maybe we could try this,” and we'd fly it in and try it out. There are a lot of tape loops and strange samples that we pulled from different places. It became something that felt like a layered concept record. That was a hard record to make, but it did become that way on its own in a sense.
It becomes what it becomes.
Yeah, there's always a point, like the end of the first third of making a record is usually there's a point where it tips over. So, instead of trying to make the record be something, what it is becomes a reality. And then you have to finish it based on what it is, if that makes sense.
Totally.
So, instead of telling the record what it's going to be, the record starts telling you what it's going to be, and you become a servant to the record. A great example is, "Okay, we need a keyboard in this bridge," and then you play a keyboard that's not right. Why is it not right? Because it doesn't fit with the song that we've created. The song is telling us what's right or not. The song is telling us what the keyboard should be. When you're serving the song, for weeks on end it can be tough. Especially when you can't find the thing that the song is looking for. But I like that. Often, if the song is good, once the song starts telling you what it needs then you just have to listen to it and go with it. In the end, when you listen back to a song having told you what it needs, it all feels like, “Hey, look. It works.”
When you're starting a record, are you going in with firm, definitive ideas about how you want to start?
Well, one thing I find essential is that every song gets approached from a different direction so that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to producing a song. Every song has to be special and unique from its foundation, and the foundation is the part that I put a lot of emphasis on. You could call it the basic tracks, or some albums are a lot of programming. Also, depending on if the song is all built around a vocal. In that case, try and get a good scratch vocal to build the track around. I try and do every one of them differently, or I break them into pairs and say, “Okay, this drum sound we're going to use for these two songs.” Some certain kinds of folk albums, or a punk album that's maybe a more traditional punk album, benefits from having the same snare sound the whole record. Or a folk album, you don't want to change the mic on the guitar every song. But these are the things that keep me up at night before a project. Almost as if it was filmmaking, how to shoot each scene with different lighting. So, as you pass through the album it doesn't feel like you're just looking at it from one perspective.
It probably depends on who you're working with. That approach requires a luxury of time.
Sometimes.
Say you've got a week to get a band recorded. How are you approaching that?
Well, for a ten song album I try and get three songs down per day, with one day getting four. If we're doing a four-day drum session, one day we can get one less. If we don't get it that day, we don't have to stress out. In between each song, I tear the drum set apart and often I have three sets of toms that I'm rotating. Once that song is down, those files go to the editor. The editor is usually an engineer in the next room over. I've written notes saying, "These are the takes that I like. These are the sections where those takes stood out." They take that into consideration. While those files are being edited, that's when I go back in, and we hear the drum beat for the next song. Usually, there are a couple of members of the band that want to be a part of this. We do it as a committee, where we all go in and listen to the drummer playing. Sometimes the drummer will say, “I would maybe use this snare on the song.” Often it's an average of about eight snare drums that I have. I get them all tuned differently from one another. Having that many snare drums is for two reasons. One, to have the variety to be able to customize the drum sound going down so that it feels like it's meant for that beat. But also, after a drummer plays that drum for an entire song it's not recordable again until it gets tuned up. I usually put a piece of red gaffer tape or something on the ones that are out of tune. Otherwise, we'll keep trying them to see if they work. Maybe it was out of tune two songs ago. Maybe it's in tune now. Angel City Drums comes in the morning, and they tune the drums, and then they come in the evening after dinner and tune them up again. This sounds like crazy overkill, but it's not very expensive when you consider the results. Some drummers will say, “I'm really good at tuning the drums. Maybe I can just do it.” Often I'll have the drum tuner come anyway. Not to tune the drums how I want them, but to do the drums the way the drummer wants them. I do want the drums to sound like that drummer. Doing all of this is to elevate that drummer for who they are and the way that they play. But I'll change out the toms, I'll change out the kick, or I'll leave it all exactly the same if it sounds good for that particular beat. I also rotate the hi-hats and the cymbals. The cymbals have a pitch. Maybe it's because I'm obsessive about every detail, but I do want the cymbals to be in harmony with the song. A lot of times when we're testing out the drum sounds, I'll have someone play along on a bass or guitar to hear, in the room the key of the song and the key of the drum set. The same thing goes with bass sounds. Usually, I have four or five basses that we'll rotate. Sometimes an album sounds good with flatwound strings on every song. But often, I find that there are songs, especially more rocking songs, where the round wounds are better. So, we'll rotate them, we'll try everyone out. I do that for every single instrument, on every single song. Everything gets shot out against every other possibility before going down. There are people who lose patience. They don't want to do that. If I get the feeling where I'm losing more than I'm gaining by making this person wait when they want to play right now, I will let go. But most of the time people like hearing the results. When I like the way it sounds and I say, "Okay. I'd like to go with that," everyone else is usually on the same page. They like it too.
Well, I would imagine that it probably feels pretty good to the artist to have somebody spend the time to get it right.
Yeah. Aside from my ideas, or my grand idea for what the record sounds like, it's very common for someone to say, “Hey, I had an idea. Maybe we could try some sort of effect on this guitar or bass for the song.” When somebody does that, a lot of times we go on a tone quest together to try and get the best possible version of that effect. I want it to stand out and I want to not just happen to have a flange on the bass at this certain point, but to have it be a memorable flange where it doesn't sound like a plug-in that everyone has. But I'll contradict myself. Almost every song that I've ever worked on that resonated with people has been done extremely spontaneously with very little setup – just, "One, two, three, go." Some of the best things I've ever worked on have been made that way, where the whole thing was done in a day. I heard Al Green's Let's Stay Together record was tracked and mixed in one day. It's absolute perfection; the sound quality and the way that the production suits and supports the songs. It couldn't be any better. Granted, every single person involved in that project was insanely skilled, but they didn't have time to second guess anything. You hear about The Beatles, and you'd think that they spent so long on those tracks. A lot of those great Beatles songs were done immediately. But, as we all know, there's not a right way. I guess I said that because there's virtue in not going through it all. And whatever the snare drum happens to be, that's the snare drum and you go for it and then you get a great song. I don't want to ever stand in the way of that!
That's such an important part of the job, knowing when to dig into that minutiae and the details and also knowing when to step aside and let the process take over.
