Your career started as a guitar player.
The Butthole Surfers just wanted to make records, but we really couldn't afford studio time. We recorded our first material at BOSS Studios in San Antonio. The owner [Bob O'Neill] would let Gibby [Haynes] and I sleep in the tool shed. When there was time available, we'd go in there and work. We didn't know what a board was, or a tape machine, or a microphone. It was a crash course. We'd sneak in and work through the night. We ended up with some pretty retarded recordings. We didn't have a drummer. We were literally using anybody off the street who would walk in and play drums. One guy heard music coming from the studio, said he was a drummer from New York, and asked if he could play on a song. He ended up playing two songs for our album. He did them and left — I don't even know his name. About two-thirds of the way through the first record we hooked up with King Coffey, who became our permanent drummer.
How did you make the transition into producing?
Instead of going into the studio, we decided to buy equipment. We bought a 1-inch, 8-track machine, an old Ampex 300 series with tube electronics and built-in mic preamps. You could just plug your mic into the back. It stood about seven-feet tall and weighed a ton. We settled in Georgia for a while and set up a studio. Then we came back to Austin. We had tape machines wherever we went. We moved to the country and, before long, I realized I was recording all the records for the Butthole Surfers. There was this band called the Bad Livers from Austin. I really was into this band and I offered them a deal where I would front the money for studio time if they'd let me produce an album [Delusions of Banjer] for them. They agreed, I fronted the money, and they did it for Touch and Go. I got paid my money back, and I produced a record for somebody else. The Butthole Surfers got signed to Capitol, and we worked with John Paul Jones [Led Zeppelin] as a producer. [During that time] I played the Meat Puppets for John Paul Jones. The Meat Puppets called me up afterwards and asked me to ask him to produce their record. I called him, but he wasn't interested. I figured he'd love them. So I called the Meat Puppets back and said, "Sorry, he's not interested." They were like, "We really like that Bad Livers album a lot. Are you interested?" I went to Memphis; we recorded in a place that was like a gymnasium. But we ultimately finished the project in Austin. I was working with Stuart Sullivan [see his interview this issue] at that time. That record [Too High to Die] had a hit song on the radio ["Backwater"] and went gold. Then they wanted to make another album, so I went to Phoenix. I'm driving a rental car and working on my second Meat Puppets album! Every day the radio's playing this song by Sublime called "Date Rape." They played it 100 times a day and I just never got tired of it. My agent called me at the hotel room one night and said, "Hey, there's this band called Sublime and they're into the Meat Puppets' Too High to Die album that you did and they want to know if you'd produce them." I said, "Hell, yeah." So they sent me these demo tapes. The first tape I put on had the David Kahne version of "What I Got," along with some other songs he'd recorded. I called back and said, "You don't need me. Whatever you did to make these demos is what you need to do." They said, "No, we like David Kahne's work a lot, but he was into drum loops. We want to capture more of the live thing." I told them I would do it if I could also record a version of "What I Got." So they ended up with two versions of that on the album. That record [Sublime] sold a lot and had a lot of radio hits. "Santeria" was on the radio for over a year and the label actually had to call the radio stations and ask them to stop playing it so they could move on to their next single. That was fun, and the Butthole Surfers were on the charts at the same time; so that was a kick start.
That must have been a good time for you.
Actually, a lot of it was a pretty rotten experience. It was fun watching albums on the charts, but working with junkies was a bad thing. The Meat Puppets were hobbled by a junkie problem, my band was hobbled with a junkie problem, and then Sublime showed up with a junkie problem. It was nerve wracking and depressing as fucking hell to have a guy [Bradley Nowell] die like that on you. That was tough.
How do you get those guys to focus when they're in the middle of that lifestyle?
You get them set up and then you wait for them to play. You'd better be ready to hit the record button. That's basically how you do it. You can't make them play. With Sublime, those guys were players but you had to catch them. There's all this chaos swirling about and your goal is to see the bits and pieces of gold nuggets, grab them and hold on to them for dear life. We did all the drum tracking at Pedernales Studio [in Austin], and they have a nine-hole golf course. They'd record a couple of eight minute long songs and then go to the golf course. Meanwhile I'd hit the two-inch tape with a razor blade and turn the songs into three or four minutes.
How do you keep the spirits of the rest of the band up in the midst of a junkie problem?
Sometimes you can't. I remember working on a project where a junkie woke up on the floor and, because I'd moved onto something else while he was passed out, he got pissed off and yelled at me for 45 minutes straight. Eventually I was across the street wondering, "How did I get here?" At that point you move the studio session and you don't tell him where you're going. That's what I did with the Meat Puppets on No Joke!.
How do you separate your own musical approach from overriding the group's style?
Obviously I have a slant that I bring in, but I'm really trying to facilitate the artist in fulfilling their vision. I'm not trying to impose my will on it. When somebody plays a really retarded guitar solo that makes everybody cringe, I'm jumping for joy. I have to rein that in sometimes. I just get into their headspace and try to understand what their vision is. If you don't understand it, you're going to be at a loss. As an artist I've worked with producers like John Paul Jones, Steve Thompson, and Rob Cavallo. They all have different styles, but they help the artist make the record that they want to make.
What were their differing styles?
John Paul Jones was there for every note that was played. There was never a moment that he wasn't there. That's my style as well. He does it because he loves the music and he wants to be a fly on the wall for everything. The other extreme would be Rob Cavallo, who's won Grammys for his production and done incredible work. He produced the Butthole's Weird Revolution; he'd show up, listen to the music for five minutes and then say, "Okay, I've got to go to my daughter's recital. I'll see you next week." You're left with an engineer asking, "Who's calling the shots?" I can't criticize that, because it works; but I never understood that approach because I want to be there when something cool happens.
You've worked a lot with Stuart Sullivan engineering, and you guys make a good team. What's your opinion of the producer's role versus the engineer's role?
There's a good reason why you don't try to do both at once, especially when you're tracking a band. An engineer is going to bring his own sound; Stuart brings his own sound. He has his own techniques, knowledge, his own equipment and he knows what to do with it. I want him listening to see if the snare drum is starting to sag or if the mic is drooping. I want to be able to listen to the vibe. Am I getting goose bumps? I don't want to listen to what he's listening to. If you're producing and hearing a bunch of songs go down, you want to be listening to the music and not to the technical aspects. Sometimes you just have to throw all that stuff aside and trust in other people doing that for you.
Do you approach each mix differently or do you have a routine that you go through to get started?
I probably have a routine and I just don't know it. I try to start off listening to everything at once, as opposed to bringing up individual things and making them sound good alone. I'll pull it all up together to get a gist of what the song is about. If it's something I'm producing I'm usually throwing a little mixing into the editing routine and make adjustments while I'm editing. By the time I'm through editing, I have a picture together and take the mix from there.
What are the important elements of a good mix for you?
Being able to hear what you're doing, which is tricky. There are a lot of bad rooms out there, including my room at home. I try. I have a lot of pressed fiberboard, but it's tricky. Then you get into a room that's tuned well and it all becomes really easy. The rooms at Sonic Ranch [near El Paso, Texas, see interview this issue] are well tuned, so it's fun to make rough mixes there. You can listen to them at home — or in the car — and they sound exactly the same.
How do you overcome a bad mixing room and figure out how it's going to translate to other speakers?
As far as working at home, I work with Barefoot monitors and old Auratones. I got rid of my ported speakers. I used to have three sets of ported monitors; I'd switch between them and it would sound like different mixes. That drove me crazy, so I got rid of them all and life got a lot easier.
You're known for production work, but do you have engineering chops?
Not really. I do what I have to do, when I need to do it, but I'd rather have another engineer do it. Probably any engineer in the world would do a better job than I'll do. If you have good equipment you can overcome a lot of deficiencies. Instead of buying a bunch of crappy gear, save up and buy one really nice piece. Everybody should own a [Neve] 1073. My god, those are expensive. I can't even remember what I paid for mine.
What was it like coming back to the studio with the Butthole Surfers in 2001 after having success as a producer?
By that time I was doing less of it. Sublime was in '96 and since that time we'd only done one album [Weird Revolution], and that was with Rob Cavallo. Nothing really changed, because I was producing the Butthole Surfers anyway. It's not that I wanted to do it. It's just that I'd look around and I'd be the only one in the room for a week, or month, at a time. Every once in a while I'd hear a complaint, "You're always in there." So I'd leave the room and then nobody would be in there.
How do you deal with that?
Well, that's just being in a band, you know? You're not going to be in a band without weird crap going on, on some level; especially a band like ours. We had no talent — no anything. Just a bunch of problems and a bad attitude. I hated the world. I got out of college and I didn't get a job. I was mad. I hated everything and I wanted to make music that would punish people. I wanted to upset people with horrible, wretched music and this big finger like, "Fuck you." It took a long time before I realized there was a chance of actually making a career out of that. I always looked at it as suicide. I didn't think I was going to live 20 years playing music. We were not making sound business decisions, we were just travelling around the country and partying every night with anybody who would come out and buy us beer.
Were there moments you had in the studio when it was all working?
The Surfers were a little different. Some people write songs and then go into the studio and record them. We would record the songs while we were writing them. We would literally hit the record button and whatever came out was our song. It's hard to gauge how that works, except that we never had a platinum record. [laughs] But that stuff's still around, people were influenced by it, and we were able to make a career with it. In Georgia, one time I wanted a guitar solo and just left an amp on with a guitar leaning up against it and a mic on, and just sitting there waiting for someone to play. Gibby walked by and started doodling, so I hit the record button. He wasn't even listening to the song, but that ended up being the solo. We got really great stuff that way. Or sometimes we'd buy used tape; by the time I figured out how to turn off that backwards violin part, I realized I wanted to leave it in there.
