So have you been in the Chainsaw Kittens all along?
I played guitar on the very first record, but I wasn't actually in the band. After it was done they were like, "Hey, you want to be in the band?" So I did. It's been a while now. I'm only 26 years old, but it seems like we've been around forever. The Chainsaw Kittens formed when I was a senior in High School and they had another guitar player at the time. They had just signed to Mammoth and at that point, bands like us weren't really getting signed.
Wasn't that in the late '80s?
This was around '89-'90. That was before Nirvana. I think we got $3000 to record the first record and we were like, "Oh my god! We're in the big time now." Have you ever heard of that country band that has sold 3 million records called the Tractors?
Yeah.
The singer, before he was in the Tractors, recorded our first record and he hated it.
Really? Why?
He just thought we were so weird. A couple of years ago we saw a Tractors video and we were like, "Oh my god that's him!" We thought it'd be really funny to re-release that record. It's a really weird record as far as lyrical content and stuff. Re-release it and put real big, "PRODUCED BY STEVE RIPLEY OF THE TRACTORS!" Just ruin his life.
Where was that done?
In Tulsa, at Leon Russell's old studio. A big church.
Did it have good acoustics?
Yeah it did, but the album doesn't really sound that great 'cause he didn't really do that great of a job on it. He had a Neve board and all these Neumann microphones, but thinking back, he didn't use any of the Neumann mics. He used all 57s and stuff. I think he really didn't like us.
Ouch. Do you ever think about that kind of experience when you're working with someone?
Oh yeah, totally. We did a record with Butch Vig and he's such a good guy. He practically did our record for free. We worked with a guy named John Agnello, who I learned a lot from. Working with a lot of these people, I'd just sit back and watch what they were doing. Whenever we had some time off I was like, "I'm gonna put a studio together." When we got signed to Scratchie, the first thing we said to them was we're not gonna do demos for our record and we're gonna record it ourselves. They were like, "Cool."
It's nice to know a label will allow that. So that was about two years ago that you got the studio going?
Yeah.
And that all started 'cause of the Scratchie deal?
We had some time off and this guy in Norman was selling his 16-track and an AudioArts board together. I had saved up some money so I thought I might as well get it. I bought it and I had it in my house for a while, I eventually got mics and outboard gear, two DAT machines and stuff like that and moved it out into a barn. Over the two years we've gotten new stuff. The new board I got I just love, the Neotek.
How many channels?
28 by 28.
28 assignable busses for each one?
Each channel has 28 little buttons. Very flexible. It's huge. It's 7 feet long, 3 feet deep. It has a hundred something point patch bay.
Can you pull out individual channel strips?
Yeah, but all the mic connectors and stuff you have to solder. It's a pain, but it's a good board.
What did you do with the old board?
I still have it. I think what I'd like to do is if I could get a 24-track 2" I could have a studio A and B. But in Norman, there's not a hell of a demand for that!
So this is all set up in a barn on your friend's property.
It's a big, metal, prefab building. What we did is we went in and built a building inside that building. We built it so it's kind of a chapel. We have one ceiling that goes up, at the top point it's about 16 feet. Good for drums.
It sounds like a hell of a project having to make a whole building.
It's Carl's (the guy who's playing keyboards for us) parent's property. I shattered my wrist playing softball right when we were getting ready to build it. I was there for moral support, but I couldn't really help a whole lot.
What inspired you to start a studio?
We recorded all these records with people. One of our records we did out in Los Angeles and we spent five weeks in all these huge studios and spent an outrageous amount of money. We mixed at Ocean Way where the Beach Boys had worked, which was really cool, but we were spending so much money. When we were done, I wasn't that happy with the way that record sounded. I was thinking, "God, if I had my own studio there would be no one to blame except ourselves." I like that.
When you feel like something's being rushed you can stop...
Yeah. We took a really long time to make our new record and we could do that because it was my studio. Plus, since we were in Norman, we were in our own environment. It just worked out a lot better. I think it's our best record by far and I'm happy with the way it turned out.
If I didn't know where it was recorded I wouldn't say, "Oh, it sounds like the band went out to their friend's barn and knocked it out!"
In all the reviews and everything, I've never heard anything bad.
No. It sounds like the kind of record where the band got to spend the right amount of time.
We put strings on everything we did.
And lots of keyboards.
I love old keyboards. We have an old Acetone organ. I did all the keyboards on the record. I'm the guitar player who hates guitar. I like them but I hate guitar solos. I did an interview with Guitar Player magazine and the whole thing was about recording. I never even talked about the guitar.
I think people get a good perspective when they've done a lot of recording. When you've watched a lot of bands work you become a little less self-involved as a player.
Definitely, I know we'll never not record on our own anymore.
What other stuff have you worked on?
I've done a bunch of stuff with the Flaming Lips. There's been a couple of things on b-sides. I just recorded a song for the new Batman soundtrack, but I don't think they accepted it. I don't think the song is what they were looking for! I did this thing for Steve, the drummer of the Flaming Lips. He did this song on a record coming out on Hollywood records that has nothing but drummers on it. There's a lot of bands from Kansas and stuff like that. Hopefully, I'd like to start doing more, mostly mid-west bands. There hasn't been a ton of major label CD's there! There's been some good stuff. The way I look at is that you learn by doing that stuff. You don't want to get thrown into a $100,000 budget record... you want to make sure you know exactly what you're doing before you do something like that.
It's not like you're experimenting on people but you're honing your craft.
Exactly. It's mainly CD's for bands from around the mid-west.
At a reasonable price?
I charge $25 an hour. Considering the equipment that I have... Most of the studios in Oklahoma are ADAT and Mackie boards. This Neotek I just got has a four band parametric EQ that's just awesome.
Four of them?
Yeah, that's a great thing to have.
You use a 1" 16-track. What kind of deck is that?
A Tascam. It has DBX noise reduction.
Do you use it?
No.
Good. Did you try it at all?
Yeah, when I first got it I tried it but it just made everything sound kinda weird.
A little compressed?
Exactly. One day I was recording some friends and I said, "Do you mind if I try something?" I wasn't sure if it was gonna work or not. I took it out and sent the signals really hot to tape and it sounded so much better.
What kind of tape do you use?
I use [Ampex] 456.
And you run it at 30 ips?
Yeah. Whenever people find that we did our record on 16-track 1" they're pretty surprised. It's a 1982 machine and I've never had the thing worked on once.
That's nice. Nothing weird at all?
