How did you get into recording?
Dad gave me a set of keys when I was a kid and said, "These are the keys to the studio."
To the barn?
Yeah. He said, "You wanna learn about recording? Here you are." And that was it!
Because you had pestered him?
No, no. I'd been playing music on one instrument or another since I was a toddler and I'd always wanted to go into the studio, so he let me, "Go figure it out." His idea about teaching was [that] the best way to learn is to just do it. The only way that you get to figure stuff out is by jumping on it and coming up with your own ideas. When I was sixteen I left school and went to work for him full time for a few months, but he had already showed so much by then. I'd been a "t" boy off and on since and had graduated to tape jockey on a few projects, I knew how to wrap a cable but I'd watched him make records all my life. I think the music and the industry had changed on so many levels by 1986 he thought I should learn how to operate an SSL and monitor on telephones if I was going to support myself in music. He basically fired me and kicked me out of the house. "You wanna go do this? Off you go, fucking go get a job." So just like anybody else I would write to every studio in the country for six months every week until somebody finally said, "Okay. Come and make tea for us."
You did gopher work?
Oh yeah. I mean my first job at a recording studio was two months of cleaning out a storage space that had been basically left to rot for ten years.
You're a 4-track head too, right?
Absolutely. That's how I learned. The funny thing is that I very quickly set up my own recording situation. I had an 8-track in the vocal booth that was my little home.
What kind of 8-track?
It was a Tascam cassette 8-track but I'd had a Porta One for few years. I ended up getting a deal as an artist by accident. I sent a reel, a show reel of stuff, to this A&R guy looking for gigs as an engineer. I had such a small amount of stuff, there were a couple of things on the reel that were my own compositions and he called me up and he was interested in those and I was kind of blown away. I know what it's like to be in a relationship with a major label as an artist and I'm sure it formed a lot of my opinions because it was not the best experience for me.
Did you do a solo record?
I did do a solo record.
I've got to find that.
Don't bother.
How so?
Well, it was the first batch of songs I'd ever written. The material was lacking. I can't sing to save my life. I sound like a drowning rat. It's a great sounding record. Jack Joseph Puig engineered it. And dad mixed it. It was an amazing experience for me. We supported the Beach Boys, so I found myself on stage without even really knowing what the hell was going on. All of a sudden I'm standing in front of a microphone and I'm going to entertain twenty thousand people at Wembley Arena.
Oh my god.
But again, just to be able to have that experience and know — it helps me understand the artists that I work with. It gives me fantastic experiences to draw on in conversation with them and to help them understand that I understand their predicaments a little better, perhaps. I think my passion for music is all encompassing, from an engineering standpoint and as a player. I love to play and make music on all kinds of instruments. I love playing bass; I love playing organ, doing string or orchestral arrangements, working on compositions. I owe so much to so many people [for] my education, which is still ongoing. I'll do any job. I was Daniel Lanois' [Tape Op #37 & #127] roadie for a while. I'll carry his guitars around, just to stand at the side of the stage and watch him perform — incredible performer. I was very lucky to make three albums and tour with Emmylou [Harris] as a musician, which was an incredible experience just to be around her and Malcolm [Burn]. Her ethic is impeccable, her discipline — she's an extraordinary artist and a great writer too. I've been really, really lucky to have people be patient with me and teach me from a very young age. I mean, Charlie Watts was an extraordinary guy to be around, you know, even Eric Clapton, to a degree. I mean, these things stick in my mind because there's a reason why people are still talking about these musicians. Ronnie Lane was an amazing character as well. Getting the opportunity to play with Crosby, Stills and Nash was amazing, there are just too many — but what a combination of people. Holy cow!
You were playing drums with CSN?
I was playing drums with them and a little bit of guitar. Amazing opportunities to learn and get better. I have an ongoing pursuit to be a better record maker, because I'm still basically pretty crap.
When you say you track things live — like with Kings of Leon and Ryan Adams — how live is it? I mean, are we keeping vocals?
Yep, yep.
So what do you do if they mumble a word or something?
Well, it's not the take or we do an edit if there's dropout.
Overdub a word or something?
For the most part, like on Gold he re-sang one verse because he changed a lyric. Every other lyric, every other vocal on that record was cut live with the track. There was some editing between takes, not extensive at all — maybe cut an outro from something onto another take. But I would say that most of the records that anybody would be familiar with that I've done over the last ten years or so have been live vocals with the track.
With a situation like that are you putting them in an isolation booth?
Sometimes yeah and sometimes no. I mean Heartbreaker was open room, open mics. That was just the two of us tracking, for the most part. If you hear Gil [Welch] and Dave [Rawlings] [Tape Op #85] on the track, they were there on the floor cuttin' live with us but that's .
How do you get enough isolation — say, on a vocal mic?
I tend to use the positioning in the room for the sound of the kit.
So where the vocal mic is, how much bleed determines part of how the kit is going to be built up, sound-wise?
Yeah. I think on Heartbreaker it's really evident and I think on the Ray LaMontagne record that's really evident too. Most of the sound of the drums on Ray's record is through the vocal mic and the acoustic guitar mic. And most of the sound of the kit on Heartbreaker is through the vocal mic and the guitar mic too.
How do you re-sing a verse then?
Well, on Heartbreaker we didn't do any vocals over and on Gold he was in a booth at Sunset Sound — we were separated.
If someone is playing electric guitar and singing — the kind of chime-y strum, the kind of sounds that come in, how do you find ways of working with that sound?
I actually happen to love that sound. There's a couple of great examples of that — there's a Tift Merritt cut where I may have even put a mic on the electric to get that. The first time I heard that I remember visiting Jack Joseph [Puig] and Jon [Brion] [Tape Op #18] on Aimee [Mann]'s I'm With Stupid record — they had just mixed the track that Julianna Hatfield sang harmony on. Aimee was playing electric guitar and singing, and I think the amp might've been in a separate room, but you hear that pick on the strings, and it was just a great sound. You know, what it comes down to: the advent of multitrack recording and the idea that everybody has sort of been on this massive quest for isolation and control, can create a discrepancy between the sound that people are making and the sound that you are capturing. I am usually, in my basic philosophy, going to err on the idea of trying to capture whatever is going on in the room. This is something I learned from talking to my father about the way The Band worked live. I remember him telling me a story about recording them at the Isle of Wight, and they were one of the best sounding live bands. I remember him explaining it to me when I was quite young — it's really about the sound that they make as a unit onstage without any kind of significant monitoring. And if you look at a lot of the footage of the early stuff they're playing, they're making a sound...
On the stage.
They're balancing themselves. That instantly is going to create much better musical conversations with everybody because you're listening to everybody and nobody is getting overpowered. If the band is making a great sound you're playing to the sound of the room, and if you're doing that, recording that should be pretty straightforward. It's like setting up the Kings as a rock 'n' roll band — everybody's in the same room — you use amps that are appropriate for the room.
Volume-wise?
