What got you started in recording and production?
I guess I ended up being the guy doing it from the beginning. Back in high school, we had a Peavey mixer and would run it to a stereo cassette deck and record everything that way. Then I recorded a few friends’ bands that way as well.
As early as high school?
Yeah. Maybe even freshman year.
Wow. And was that about the time that Season to Risk started?
I graduated in ‘87, and Season to Risk started in late ‘89 or ‘90.
But you'd already been playing?
Yeah. I was in a punk band called Curious George with Duane [Trower] from Season to Risk. At first it was Curious George, and we were looking for a different singer. But then we met [Steve] Tulipana, who was in a band called Nine Lives, and we asked him to join. We changed the name because it started to be completely different music than what we were doing before. And [Season to Risk] was the title of one of the songs we wrote with Steve, so that's where that came from.
Were you the guy manning the board at that time too?
No, I wasn't, but I was definitely interested in it. But we started recording at Westend Recording Studios here in Kansas City. I ended up working there forever, all throughout the ‘90s and '00s, until I got my own spot. The engineer at the time was Bart [Ward] – great guy, RIP – and he was very liberal with letting us sit at the board and run the tape machine while he was in the back room doing other things. We got a lot of experience that way.
Were you cutting tape back then?
The only tape cutting we did was for mixdown on 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch [tape]. Rarely was it cutting together takes on 2-inch back then. But we did so later on in the game, more out of necessity rather than luxury.
That's back when you had to get the take right.
Yeah. Josh [Newton] was telling a story the other day that I'd forgotten about. It was the last day of mixing [Shiner’s] The Egg, and we were at Great Western Record Recorders, Matt Talbott’s studio in Champaign [Illinois]. That was the first record that was ever recorded there. Matt got that studio, and then I brought J. Robbins [Tape Op #13] and Jason Livermore [#156] in to do the record. It was the last day, we're all stoked – having a listening party in the control room, and halfway through the song “Simple Truth,” we heard this stretching sound and tape was shooting up in the air! It was terrifying. Luckily, we had another take of that song and cut in just that section. That was some hot-rod tape cutting on Livermore's part.
I never noticed.
I'm not even sure if I could pick it out. I may have PTSD'd it out of my brain! [laughter]
So, what year did you start Massive Sound?
I got this space in 2008. I initially had one partner, Mike Nolte. He's in Portland now and he does all my mastering. He was my first partner here, then he wanted to move on to just mastering, and he ended up moving up there with his wife. My current partner, Chad Meise, moved in in 2013, and with him came a lot of the awesome gear that's at this place.
What's the story on the console you have there now?
This is a 1973 Auditronics 501 "grandson" that came out of Stax [Records].
How did that even come about?
I think they sold it to the RLDS Church; their headquarters is in Independence, Missouri, about 20 minutes outside of here. They have an amazing production facility; they had this, plus a bunch of other gear they’d used throughout the '80s and ‘90s. A friend of mine, who runs a big sound company here, acquired this and a bunch of other gear. He got it very cheap. It's amazing.
A total piece of history. On the many recordings you've done, the rhythm section is always carved out in such a specific way and it's always massive. It goes right along with the studio name. How did you come up with that sound?
I started on drums.
There you go!
Then I went to guitar, and I ended up being a bass player. That's why I play bass more like a guitar!
That's why I wanted to work with you on the Last Giant records. I also loved the Riddle of Steel album, 1985, that you did. That record sounds massive. I'm wondering what records you listened to that influenced that sound?
The music I grew up bonding with early on was Billy Squier and Led Zeppelin – heavy-hitting, natural-sounding rock bands. The Knack's “My Sharona” was the first seven-inch I ever got. That probably says quite a bit right there! [laughter]
Yeah. I think a lot of the bands around Kansas City – Season to Risk, Shiner, Molly McGuire, and Paw, had an identifiable sound. Did you all hang out?
We mostly did hang out. We were a pretty tight scene back then. Even Paw, even though they were a Lawrence, Kansas, band. They were the band that was supposed to be huge from here, and there was a big label feeding frenzy off their demo. They ended up signing with A&M Records. Season to Risk fell into our label deal with Red Decibel that ended up being a deal with Columbia Records. But did we hang out? Absolutely. We'd have parties, we’d do shows, and we would all play together all the time. A lot of us cross-pollinated, member-wise.
Which brings us to you ending up in Shiner.
Here's the glue to a lot of it: I worked for a company called Chameleon Dental Products. It was a dental product company that supplied stuff to dentists’ laboratories to make porcelain veneers. One of my friends from high school, her family owned this company, and I started working there almost immediately. Anyway, a friend of hers, Shawn Sherrill, got a job there as well. We became buddies working there, and then along comes Allen Epley, who was also in Shiner and at the time was in a band called The Industry. We're all working at this place, putting stuff in boxes, measuring out powders and liquids, and we were listening to music all day long. We shared a lot of the same likes. Al will tell you that it took him a while to get used to showing up to work at 8 a.m. and I'd be blasting Jesus Lizard in his face. He had never been greeted that way. [laughter]
Is that about the time you were in Season to Risk and he's in Shiner?
I was in Season to Risk early on. We were kind of the first band that started to get attention. Allen was in The Industry; they stopped playing and he wanted to start a new band. Wednesday or Thursday nights we'd get together in the practice space; me, Al, and Shawn. Shawn didn't know how to play anything, and we taught him to play bass. We had a big ensemble noise rock band called Godpipe. We would drink Wild Turkey. Al played drums, I played guitar, Shawn played bass, Tulipana sang, and we had other people from time to time. I don't know if we ever did a show, but it was more like a night to get together and party. Shawn learned to play bass in Godpipe, to a certain degree. When Al started Shiner, he was like, “I'm thinking about asking Bass Face if he wants to play bass.” [laughter] Because we used to call Shawn Bass Face! Al brought him in and melded him into a great bass player and they recorded Splay shortly after that.
Which you recently remixed.
That record was recorded in ‘94 by Bob Weston in Steve Albini's basement.
Were you guys already listening and paying attention to the Chicago bands?
Oh, hugely influenced by all of them.
Was that a big deal for Shiner to go record there?
Absolutely. They were stoked. It was with DeSoto [Records]; I don't know what budget they had, but it wasn't a lot. They did the entire record in four days.
That's fast! Did you have to do any tape transfers for this remix?
