What I think is interesting about your saga is that it doesn't embrace the usual pecking order of spurious conduct. Sure, the A&R person is a moron, but to different extents so are people in the band — at the studio, and in the control room. Everyone has their own foibles.
Well, being the narrator of this epic session, I'm usually all too happy to display everyone's foibles, supposedly even my own. After all, it's these shortcomings that greatly affect and hinder our progress. In all honesty, as much as I make the band out to be a grotesque bunch of egotistical losers, they are victims of the system. Being required to write hundreds of songs over the course of two years after being bid on like they were the next Beatles? That's just cruel and unusual punishment, no matter how deserved.
You have gone to great pains with Bitch Slap to create a working environment physically as well as in other ways. How can you get a band feeling relaxed in what is often a sterile environment?
Keeping a band happy and relaxed is, without a doubt, the most crucial part of the recording process. As much as I bitch about these guys, I do keep them happy and relaxed. Well, maybe not Eyore, the guy's usually three sheets to the wind, so he's basically a lost cause as far as getting decent readings from the Happyometer. I get along fine with each of them on a personal level. It's how they interact with each other that is problematic. Every crowd has a personality. If you go to a play, a movie, or comedy club, you might notice that the crowd has a definite quality to it. Whether that be subdued, lively, giddy, angry, whatever. That's because each person brings a certain energy to the room. Those individual energies are trapped in the room, and start to react and interact, manifesting into one greater energy. This energy starts to affect us as individuals, and we begin to react within the parameters of the greater energy. The same holds true for small groups, even for couples. Our energies interact, and certain aspects of our personalities are brought out. Ever have one particular friend that brings out the devilish side of you? It's no secret that this band's energies don't react well. That's why on one of the segments, I asked, "Is it me?" In other words, is my energy the one that's fucking the whole thing up? Sadly, in my true evaluation of this, and regardless of some of my open ponderings in the Diary, my presence tends to improve the band's relationship. If my presence didn't improve the energy, I'd be out of there in a flash. What I do to try and improve the energy, is bring comic relief. I try to be as up, and as fun as possible, without losing focus on the task at hand. Yes, I often times hang up tapestries, put up lava lamps, candles, special lights, much like many other engineers in L.A. And that improves the physical sterility of a room. But those tools are no replacement for a lacking in positive human vibe. It's important to try to maintain a positive vibe in a session. I have to admit, I'm not always successful, but that's what I strive for.
Orson Welles already had a promising career before the War of the Worlds broadcast catapulted him to fame. How do you feel about the Mixerman identify competing with its alter ego? I mean, there are even T-shirts.
Here's the crux of the matter. Mixerman is an entertainer that knows something about engineering. My alter-ego is an engineer that knows something about entertaining.
And of course War of the Worlds was fake. That's what's so funny about this, it's all too absurd to be fake.
Indeed!
A lot of time was spent on getting drum sounds. Both you and the producer thought that you captured really good drum sounds. Please disclose your drum mics and mic'ing technique that you used on the Bitch Slap sessions.
I can't quite understand how my mic selections could mean anything when the product isn't available to listen to. And even if it were, one of the most important points of the Diary thus-far is that once the song is painstakingly recorded, the system is set-up to stomp the life out of the recording. Today, Mastering Engineers default automatically to "loud." Labels want the records to have absolutely no dynamics, and want the records to average digital overs. I got one Mastering job back last year that clipped every time there was a kick drum. Let's think about that for a moment. The kick is clipping on what is meant to be a sensitive song and your readers would like to know what I used to get that sound? Go talk to the putz that doesn't have enough musicality to whistle "Yankee Doodle" and is now a Mastering Engineer. He's the one that knows how to get that sound, not me (although, I have my suspicions). Then let's consider how many of your readers don't have access to the mics that I have access to. What are they to do? Are they SOL? Certainly not! These days a home studio with modest gear can actually compete sonically with the over-quantized, excessively tuned, over- compressed, hyper-limited, 2-dimensional, uninspiring load of crap that the major labels are spending $500,000 to make. The major labels have unwittingly leveled the playing field so that a record that has a 4 figure budget can compete sonically with a 6 figure budget. So, forget about the mics I use, use the mics YOU use, and try to make your recordings sound good. In other words, DON'T mimic what the majors are doing.
Someone on one of those boards asked why you only cut the drums to 6 channels. I'd love to hear why and what track allocation would be.
Who cares? Get your drums to as few tracks as you're comfortable with. The less the better. The goal being one track for mono drums, and two tracks for stereo drums. And don't beat yourself up if you need more tracks than that. Bands and producers are rarely comfortable with only 2 tracks of drums. Hell, I'm rarely comfortable with 2 tracks of drums!
Why did you choose to write this piece, if it's at all real, which I doubt. I've talked with many people — musicians, A&R, etc. — that think it's in poor taste. We all know the bullshit side of the business, why exploit it or better still why not try to work with people and improve their performance and their product instead of bashing them and dissing them behind their backs? It's not productive at all.
Ah, yes. Just the kind of hard hitting reporting this magazine needs. I'm going have to break this question up in order to answer it effectively.
Why did you choose to write this piece?
I didn't choose it, it chose me.
...if it's at all real, which I doubt.
Then why did you go on with your question?
I've talked with many people — musicians, A&R, etc. — that think it's in poor taste.
Poor taste. Yes, well so are the reality shows "Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire," "Bachelor," and the upcoming "Beverly Hillbillies," where they will put up real 'hillbillies' in Beverly Hills for weeks on end (yeah, I won't miss that one either!). Welcome to the real world.
We all know the bullshit side of the business, why exploit it?
Perhaps you know the bullshit side of the business, but there are plenty of people that don't. The people that react negatively to the Diary tend to be the people that have lived the Diary. I guess it hits a little too close to home. The people that love the Diary, marvel at the burn rate, the politics, the backstabbing, the arguments, and the general lack of productiveness that is allowed to go on, and on, and on, endlessly, without the unceremonious pulling the plug. I'm not exploiting anything. I'm telling it how I see it, and this project happens to be the vehicle for such insights.
...or better still, why not try to work with people and improve their performance and their product instead of bashing them and dissing them behind their backs? It's not productive at all.
It's not productive? You seem to enjoy speaking for the entire class. Something tells me little Freddy, who graduated from Hicksburg High and has dabbled in a plethora of menial jobs including contributing to an already overweight population by proposing "SuperSizing," is preparing to drop his parents life- savings as a cash payment on a trade school for engineering, and he doesn't even get a degree out of the deal. Do you think HE knows the bullshit side of the business? And what of consistency? The first question of this interview asks me what mics I use on drums, yet you think that all of your readers, many of whom are my readers know the bullshit side of the business? Holy Paradox, Batman! As to working with people to help them improve their performances, that's another point of the Diary. The time to work on your performances is BEFORE you go into the studio. Can I have some questions from the first guy again?
I think the reason this saga has struck such a chord with people is partially because it exposes the mythic excess of the music business as fact. What's funny is, when you started writing this, you couldn't have imagined that it would go on so long. It's been fortuitous from a literary standpoint that this has been such a comedy of errors.
Oh goodie, I'm in friendly waters again. It's made for a terrible session, but for a great book. Well, I should say a possibly great book, that remains to be seen. I can't wait to see how it all ends!
What's worse? The band with their collective head up their ass or the Kafka- like bureaucracy that fuels them?
Oh, without a doubt, the bureaucracy that fuels them. The band can go on their merry way, but the bureaucracy remains beside us.
Boxers or briefs?
Alfresco.
