Tell me about the new Jimmy Eat World album. You started tracking it at Cherokee with an API board, I assume?
Yeah, we tracked it at Cherokee. At the time they didn't have the API board. They had a Trident. It was probably my favorite tracking room in town... They recently just swapped it out for an API. I haven't been there since they changed it, but I am a little afraid because I was so into that Trident... The room itself was really good. It was one of the best sounding rooms in L.A. that I have found. It's got the size, but it's not cavernous- sounding. Playing drums there feels so good.
Are you still playing drums when you go in and get drum sounds?
Well, I mean I fuck around a little, but I am not really playing very much anymore.
Did you do all the basic tracks there?
Well, no. We had some money to spend, but not a lot of money.
The story goes that the band wasn't on a label then when you were recording. Did you do it on spec?
Yeah. Well, I had done two records with those guys, and I felt really brotherly. I had been hearing demos that Jim had been sending me, and I was in love with the songs and wanted to get involved some way. We decided that we would just make the record and either find someone to release it or they would put it out themselves. One way or another we were going to make it, and we were going to do it right. Fortunately, they had developed a fan base from their days on Capitol and were able to tour and bring some money in. We didn't have to cut too many corners. We were able to go to a place like Cherokee to cut the drums and to save money, go to a cheaper studio to do the overdubs. We went to a place called Hard Drive and spent a month-and-a-half to do the overdubs, which was pretty luxurious.
That's probably why those performances are so tight on that record.
Yeah, well, we had the time to spend. And then we were able to go to a place like Ecstasy and mix it and spend two weeks to mix it.
Did you mix the record from Pro Tools to the SSL board there?
Yes, we mixed through the board but that studio also has a Neve. I need to track and mix on a Neve. I have tried an SSL, but I needed to go back to the Neve. I have also learned what kind of rooms I am into. I am really into a medium/small control room.
I heard that you mixed the new Finch record in Pro Tools?
Yeah, I did. That was my first Pro Tools mixing experience.
So what did you think?
Well, I don't know. I am pretty happy with the way it sounds. One advantage that I had was that I could spend a lot of time mixing it. I didn't have any projects going on while I mixed that thing. So I would work on it for four or five hours and make a CD and drive around or fuck around and stuff, bring it back it the next day and tweak it a little more. I didn't have to get a song a day done. There was no pressure. It was a really cool experience.
Once you get fatigued you can run. Do you prefer to work that way now?
No. Sonically I think the record could sound better, but for the budget I am really pleased with it. I wouldn't do it if I had all the money in the world to spend. I would definitely go back to a console.
And recently you mixed The Starting Line at home, but it sounds a lot different then the Finch record. Do you attribute this to lessons learned from the Finch record?
I also recorded it in a different studio, which I think contributed a lot to the way it sounds. The control room there is nicer and translates better outside of the studio. But yeah, I also learned a lot mixing the Finch record that I applied to the Starting Line. I definitely didn't squash the Starting Line as much as I did the Finch record. I think the sounds were better, so I didn't feel that I needed to.
You do both major label and independent records. You've had the luxury of overdubbing for a month-and-a-half now. What do you do when you have to get the record down fast? What are the first corners to cut?
First thing is the number of songs I am attempting to record. When I have a couple of months to spend, I will record, like, 15 and then cut three. But when I do smaller projects, I am only going to record what's on the record to save time. This is a little more intense in the pre-production. You [have] got to know what the good songs are and cut the songs early. I have done records in six days and done them in three months and it doesn't matter. It's never enough time and it always gets done.
When you go into pre-production, what are you looking for?
The thing I am looking for is that the songs are finished. I am really listening to the drums because that is what I record first. [I] make sure that they are all arranged. It's also figuring out the tempo of the songs, because most times I record to a click, so you have to make sure it feels good.
So with pre-production there is a tendency nowadays to go in and really screw with the songs as well as the performances. Do you stick to the performance? Will you go as far as messing with melodic composition?
Naturally, I want to get the best performance. But if I have to go in and edit, I am not afraid of doing it, nor am not morally opposed to it. But I do not like to rely on it. Sometimes I have relied on it a bit too much, just to keep it moving along. I don't want to have to keep overdoing it.
When I hear your records, they are some of the tightest records I have heard in recent times by far, yet they still sound natural and have good feeling. Are you doing anything different than everybody else?
I don't know. I don't know what everyone else is doing. I don't really talk to other people that do this. I am totally self-taught and have just picked shit up along the way.
In that case, what was your education like as an engineer?
Well, I can attribute how I was able to get started by being in Drive Like Jehu. All [of] my initial work had nothing to do with my skills or anything like that. I was able to track bands that were into that band. I was also really lucky, because when I first started doing it at the time in San Diego there were a lot of bands there, and there was a good sized label putting out all these records.
Which was?
Headhunter/Cargo. It was just kind of like good timing for me, and I found this really cool studio that wasn't getting used very much. So I kind of had my own place, which was a studio called Big Fish.
They were just vacant at the time?
Yeah. This guy built this amazing studio for himself on his property and he built [it] from the ground up to be a studio and it wasn't like a converted garage or something like that. It was awesome. It had a great console and a great mic selection, really cool woody sounding room, but it was barely getting used at all. He wasn't really doing anything himself. So I found it and Jehu wanted a place to work in San Diego when we were working on Yank Crime.
