Hiram Hernandez: Claiming Producer Royalties, The Power of Free Work, and Quitting the Lone Wolf Mindset

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to VRM Podcast. I'm Joel Wanasek, and with me I've gotten Hiram Hernandez. Hiram, you've been killing it, man. You've been knocking out just tons of bangers. You've had a great year. I was just looking up some of your credits. You brought band, bless the Fall, bad omans, the word alive, and a very, very long list of great artists. So thank you for coming on and chatting shit with me here today.

Speaker 2 (00:00:21):

Of course, of course. I've been looking forward to this one for a minute. I long in it, Sean Scott.

Speaker 1 (00:00:27):

Well, hopefully we can talk for more than a minute. We have no ale today and ale's really good at this stuff and not quite as good at it, but it's all right. We're just going to make one of him because he's not here. So why don't you tell me about your background? You've never actually had you on the podcast, correct?

Speaker 2 (00:00:43):

No, never. This is my first time.

Speaker 1 (00:00:46):

I should probably know that, but I don't, whatever. Sue me up.

Speaker 2 (00:00:50):

Yeah, it's so funny, man. Just to touch on that real quick, anytime anybody asks me any record I've done, I just completely forget immediately. I'm just like, I don't know if I've ever even done a record. But yeah, man, I started out in Virginia and man, this story is actually pretty crazy. We got time right?

Speaker 1 (00:01:12):

I got as much time as you need.

Speaker 2 (00:01:13):

All right. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:01:15):

Pick out drum samples all afternoon and listen to snare drums, so you're saving my sanity.

Speaker 2 (00:01:21):

Okay. Okay, good. Yeah, so basically, man, I started off in Virginia. I was in a couple bands and stuff, and I think for me, I was always a little too controlling. They were a little really too close to stuff to ever let somebody else take the reins in the band or really, really take in ideas. And I was really young, so I was like, when you're really young, you always think that your shit is the best or whatever. But anyway, so I had this friend who let me borrow his inbox. I think it was either a fast track or something. It was the tiniest little inbox, the in know that was the shit back then.

(00:02:01):

Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, the second that I got it, something clicked in my brain and I was like, oh, I could do this. I didn't know how to do anything. I didn't know how to do anything. So I had my girl twins computer at the time, and I just had garage band and this inbox, and I was like, I'm a fucking pro, dude. I can do it. I'm going to start charging bands. I can't even know how to record, but that's what I did. So I started charging bands to 50 bucks to record a song. I didn't even know what panning guitars up to write was or anything like that, and I would just, it doesn't matter, game shut up, straight up, dude. I would not bounce the end of song this stuff. I still do that sometimes, but

Speaker 1 (00:02:43):

If you beat your first client, then anything about recording, you're like, I got embox. How do you get somebody in the door?

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

Dude, I just talked my shit. I talked my shit as hard as I could, and I was like, because I could always play guitar, right? That's how I started really. I was just like, I started playing guitar really young, and then I got really well, in my opinion, pretty good, pretty fast. And so I started writing songs for a lot of people. And then like I said, I was in bands and stuff, so people around Virginia knew that I could at least write songs and I could play and I could put shit together, but nothing past that. I had nothing to show for it. So I was just like, yeah, I've just been, I can record your band, whatever. I'm just like 50 bucks. Let's just see what happened. And then it kind of snowballed a little bit from there. And then I was like, how about 75 bucks? They were like, sure and no people would happen is thank goodness I won this back then. And I think that if anybody watches this that has even had a similar story, they'd probably agree. When you're young and you're a musician and you think you're going to be in a band and you think you're going to make it or whatever, your priorities are all over the place. So I would record bands and I just wouldn't finish them. And then sometimes I would finish stuff and sometimes I wouldn't finish stuff. But then

Speaker 1 (00:03:59):

It's half the producers in la No, I'm kidding. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:04:02):

My gosh, yeah, I cannot do that now. Oh my gosh, I'm getting, so I'm

Speaker 1 (00:04:08):

Always files from one of you guys. I love you all and I'm going to just talk trash because you're all my friends, but Jesus Christ, let's go along.

Speaker 2 (00:04:16):

Yeah, we were just talking about were everybody's always mad at me for something, right? I can't please everybody at the same time. But yeah, so anyway, I digress. I was just like, I started to to learn more based off of YouTube University, and I just kind of was like, oh, okay, panning left or right, guitar is below, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the other. I started to get a little bit more bands, and then I got this crazy opportunity to play in the band, play the band Blast Cloud. So I don't know if you're familiar with them or not, but I'm familiar. But yeah, so it was a long story short, me and Jerry from Skys airplane, we grew up together and he hit me up and he was like, Hey, man, I'm starting this band with this dude from Scary Kids. You want to do it? And I was like, yeah, it sounds awesome. And I don't know, probably 20 at that time. So we started doing that, and then we kind of get going, and then Jerry's like, well, I'm actually going to do this other thing with these other people. And then that's how this Blast Cloud thing started. And then, man, this whole backstory is so crazy, bro. Like I said, if we have time, I'm trying to condense it all, you just go, you're doing it.

(00:05:35):

But yeah, so basically Jerry introduced me to this dude Chad, and Chad was in Scary Kid, and then Jerry and the Chad thing kind of fizzled out. So me and Chad Hasty, who's now in Glass Jaw and our friend Travis who was in Glass Jaw, we started this other thing that turned into Glass Cloud. Glass Cloud for me immediately fizzled down. I didn't think that I was ready to do the band thing yet, and it just didn't feel right. The second that I signed to Equal Vision, I was just like, this doesn't feel right. So then I was still talking to that Duke Chad from The Scary Kid, and then I flew out to Arizona, and then I really started to actually get my producing stuff really on track. And that's when I really started to like, okay, well now I know a little bit more of what I'm doing and I know how to fuck up less, and I'm going to start while we're trying to write music and stuff with this deep Chad, I'm going to start really taking producing really seriously.

(00:06:35):

And so for five years or so, I just recorded every single band in Arizona, and then it kind of snowballed into, well, Arizona, it's not bringing me everything that I want. Then I got this crazy opportunity to go play, go try out for the band Bad Wolf, this thing for them. And I was driving back and forth from LA and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to live in la. I like it here. And I just got a house, and then I really started to really get as it out here. So that's kind of the weirdest loosest most all over the place. Backstory. Like I said, I could write a book on all of the shit that really happens.

Speaker 3 (00:07:19):

No, it's great. Hey everybody, I want to take a quick break from this episode to talk to you about URM Academy. Now, if you're new here, URM Academy is the best online school for metal and rock producers and musicians. When you join, you get a whole access to a range of content. There's nail the mix, which I'm guessing most of, and that's where we bring on a different artist and a different mixer every month to walk through a mix and give you the raw multi-tracks. And we've had on mixers like Will Putney s Borin, Tom Lord, algae with Artists, bring Me The Horizon, Shuga, periphery, opec, even Nickelback and Tons more. If it's under the Heavy Music umbrella, as I like to call it, we cover it. You also get our Mix Lab tutorials, which are little bite size tutorials about very specific topics. We have over a hundred of those now.

(00:08:18):

So if you don't have the time for a Nail to mix session or an entire course, you just want to find one tidbit of info to help solve a problem, that's what Mix Labs are for. We also have exclusive members, only Facebook and Discord groups where you can make friends with and talk to thousands of people from all over the world who do the exact same thing as you. And what's super awesome about our community is that it's troll free. We kick trolls out. It's like an Oasis online, and also our instructors are part of the community and they interact with everybody. So you can not only make friends, but you can I guess socialize and learn from the best. Also, we have URM Enhanced, which is our more advanced membership tier. The main focus of that is our Fast Track library, which are some very, very, very detailed courses on everything from editing drums to post-production effects, automation, creating impulse responses, working with low tune guitars and more. We have over 70 of these. It's actually insane how deep and comprehensive the fast tracks are. And when you join Nail the Mix or you RM enhanced, you also get access to Riff Hard. Our online school for metal guitarists with hundreds of lessons from artists such as Animals as Leaders, spirit Box, arc Spire, Jason Richardson, and many more. So go to URM Academy. Let's get back into this episode.

Speaker 1 (00:09:46):

So when you got to la, there's a lot of people obviously aspiring, probably watching this to break into production and stuff. And I always get questions, oh, how do I go get my first client? How do I do this? How do I do that? What about people who move to la? Because LA is a really interesting, I live in Wisconsin of all stupid places on earth, but the rent and the taxes are quite a bit cheaper.

Speaker 4 (00:10:09):

So I

Speaker 1 (00:10:09):

Work in la, but I live out here and totally, it's always interesting when I go to la, I got to take a bunch of trips every year, but people that live out here, they're like, oh, if you wanted to move to la, how do you break in? And you're like, I don't even know. So how did established in la, because that is definitely a hard nut to crack.

Speaker 2 (00:10:30):

So basically while I was living in Arizona, I was already working with some labels. So I had gone on tour, this is right before I moved to la. I had gone on tour, this band called Avoid, and I was spilling in for bass with a band called Is Field, and I met this band of Void and I thought they were awesome. And long story short, I did their record. It was the last record I did in Arizona, and then they got fined a real record, which you're familiar with.

Speaker 1 (00:11:05):

Yep. So just did a song together on Thriller.

Speaker 2 (00:11:08):

You sure do.

Speaker 1 (00:11:09):

It's my page.

Speaker 2 (00:11:10):

Yeah, we sure did. So I mean loosely, I had already kind of gained I guess a name for myself in Arizona a bit where outside people already knowing who I was, people out here knowing who I was and stuff, people all over the country street and stuff. But when I came out here, I had a phone call with Bob from Thriller, and he was like, Hey, do you want to do the next avoid record? And I said, yeah, that sounds awesome. And then from there, other stuff happened and then I did this band Dragged Under and then from drag under, it just turned, it just snowballed effect. And people started to notice, Hey, I don't totally suck.

(00:11:53):

But yeah. And then with that being said, with bands out here that I've met out here, I feel like it is in the best interest of yourself if you're a producer starting out. So that's the question. If you're a producer starting out or a songwriter starting out, you have to be everywhere all at once. Somehow you just have to be the most recognizable person in the room and just get after it and just be personable and just talk your shit, lie a little bit. Say, Hey, I've done a little bit more than I've really done. Don't lie, but embellish, right? Very just have people come over. Just have people come over and if you suck, they'll know. And if you don't, you're doing something. But I think really it comes down to if you're good at something and you're persistent about how good you are to people, it'll come across

Speaker 1 (00:12:44):

A hustler. When you meet one, I feel like anything in life, you just got to go get it. You know what I mean? Straight up, stand back up, you fall back on your face, you get back up, you know what I mean? And you can't be free rejection or losing or you're going to lose a lot of gigs. It's just the politics of the nature of this industry. But it's like you just got to keep going. And

Speaker 2 (00:13:08):

I used to be the most jealous, most spiteful, most why not me kind of guy. And that's such a narrow-minded bullshit way to be. And even still, I've done it, but it's just back in the day when I was first starting out. But I feel like, and I'm very far along and I'm so grateful for all the stuff that I have and all the big records that I've done and all the big records that I'm doing and will continue to do, but I feel like if I was to start off with a way cooler head mentality of just like, Hey, just let some shit slide. It's not that big of a deal. If they want to go record with somebody else who gives a shit, there'll be a baby about it. Roll up, right? You'll get the band you want to get, even if it's not this band, you'll get another band you want.

Speaker 1 (00:13:53):

Yeah. Usually come back or it's like they go cut a couple tracks here, mix a couple tracks over there. You still in the Rolodex, you're getting the call, you're working on it, you

Speaker 2 (00:14:04):

Yeah. And the only way to really fuck this up, and this is something I've recently had to be like, again, everybody is a work in progress, but for me recently I've been like, oh, I'm doing that thing. I'm doing that thing to where I'm being kind of a bitch about something and I don't need to be, because when you're producing a record or you're something, you're so narrow-minded and focused on the thing that's right in front of you, you probably lose a parascope of all other reality. You can't. Or at least for me, it's been hard to really just see the world for what it is instead of what's right in front of you. And when you just learn to let shit go and let other people have fun, it be easy to work with, oh my gosh, then you get the most work because you're just a chill guy.

Speaker 1 (00:14:49):

It's so true. For example, I get obviously asked because of URM, oh, I want to mix. How do I get into mixing? And I'm like, okay, well, mixing is a harder thing to just get into. Do you have any production clients? Do you write? They're like, I just want to mix and I want to do it all remotely. I'm like, okay, let's talk about that for a second. I'm like, first off, the amount of free work you're going to do is going to be exponential. And even when you're good, and even when you've delivered a better mix, half the time you're going to lose shit because you don't have the bigger name for the right market for that radio station they're trying to go to or target, or you're going to get politiced off stuff just because that's the way shit rolls. It's, but the thing is things get passed around.

(00:15:30):

It's like a wheel. It gets fun. So if you're cool and you do a good job and you give value and you're easy to work with and you're not a dick, when you lose, it'll be fine. I think where people run into trouble is, at least when I was younger, I kind of looked at when I was doing all in before, I was just like, okay, I'm a mixer. This is what the market apparently wants me to do, and this is the work that I'm getting. When I was all in, it's like I went to another mixer or a mastering engineer, I'd be like, fuck, that's my money. You're taking my shit and I get so pissed. Or you're going to go right with another producer. Why the fuck would you do with that? Not Oh man. And I feel like those are natural emotions to go through as you're coming up, but as you get older, you've been beaten down by life so much. You're not cynical, but you're just be cool and hang out, be easy to work with.

Speaker 2 (00:16:17):

Oh my goodness, I want to touch on that free workday real quick because that is that right there. I don't think some people understand how valuable free work is, bro. The amount of times that I've been like the label says, oh, we don't have a budget. I'm dealing with this literally right now. Oh, we don't have a budget for this. Sorry dude, we had you in mind, but you're too expensive. I'm like, did you ask? Right. If I really focus something, I'll figure it out, right? Albeit, if it's not upfront money, who cares? I'll figure it out on the backend. Or if it's a band that's just starting that I really fuck with just that band dragged Under, which they weren't even a band. And then it was me and Tony and I just, that's the prime example right there, dragged under. It was that is stepped feel for.

(00:17:08):

They weren't even a band. They were a band called Rest Post, and you probably know 'em because flu and stuff. So I came in and I met them on the tour and I was like, dude, I don't know what this is that your current iteration of this, but let's just write some stuff. And I was like, I won't charge you anything. I don't give a shit. You guys don't even know who I am. That's fine. I've just met you right now too. So I flew up to Seattle, we wrote eight songs and it was just like, oh, so this is making a lot of sense. And we did two more in Arizona and then all of a sudden we had that first drag under record that went fucking crazy, and then all of a sudden they got flying a mascot. I got my budget for the next record and I got my publishing and I got my royalty split reworked. It all started because of just being a homie and just saying, I like this.

Speaker 1 (00:18:00):

That is good advice because I think delayed gratification, I dunno if you got kids or not, but got three kids and my kids are always like, I want this. And I'm trying to explain to them the concept of delayed gratification. It's like if you're just trying, if you treat bands like Tinder swipes where it's just like, oh, next, next, next, next. You're not building any relationship, anything that's going to last. And if you want to stick around more than three years from this business, you have to be somebody that people like working with or want to work with. And you have to have actual relationships with people, meaning they become friends, they're homies. You can just, Hey, do me a favor, do this for me. And that involves doing a lot of free work. So people come in with this mentality, well, I'm not doing that.

(00:18:45):

I'm not getting paid for this. It's like when people get pissed about interning, they're like, interns should get paid. And I understand the sentiment why people are furious on the internet about shit like that, but I'm like, man, when I was starting out, I would've cleaned toilets with a toothbrush if I could have been in the room with somebody cool and learned how to literally fucking do anything because you know what I mean? When you come in, your value is zero. You've never worked with the band. When a band comes in to write with you, you have your reputation in the songs that you've written, they've heard of you, but you've never actually been in the room with that band, so they don't know if you're shit for them or you're the best, and it's kind of just like you got to prove yourself every single fucking day. So people come in with this mentality. They're just like, oh, well, I don't want to do any free work. I am like, okay, well, you do enough free work, you get your name out there, you do enough good work, and yes, some people will take advantage of you. What happens is if you kill it, you'll be making so much fucking money. You'll look back at that and be like, oh, I used to work for free. That's funny. Now I can't keep the phone off the hook. So it

(00:19:50):

Sucks, but none of us like doing it, but if you want to be successful, you got to, you're working five years ahead of where you are right now. You know what?

Speaker 2 (00:19:59):

Yep. That's the funny thing about, or at least for me being a kid and thinking that I was the best in the world at anything that I could possibly do. I had such a stupid fucking ego when I was a kid,

Speaker 4 (00:20:13):

20-year-old,

Speaker 2 (00:20:16):

And I was just like, yeah, nobody can touch my fit. I could play guitar really good. That for sure I knew. And then that just applied to my brain. I could be, oh, I could be fucking anything better than anybody. And now that I'm so far advanced to what I've been doing, I feel like, oh, I would rather anybody else just do the things that I don't want to do because I know that there is somebody out there that could just crush this more than me. Right? Synergy is the key to life, dude. And to me it's like, man, I wish that I could beat my little ass, bro. I wish I could go back and just put soul right in the head or just chill out.

Speaker 1 (00:21:00):

This is a great topic because I think there's a transition when you start off as a producer. Again, everybody's eating your lunch and you're fighting for every little scrap, but I feel like as you go to the bigger producers, you realize they're all team-based and it has stuff around and they don't look at it as competition. They're like, actually, I want that guy mixing and I want that guy mastering and I want this top liner in the room when we're writing and because it's like, I don't mind sharing splits and this and that because what happens is each one of those people you work with makes you stronger, makes your work better, increases your chance of getting a hit. You get more names on the record, and it's just like when you're collaborative in this business, I feel like there's a transition where you're just like, you know what? I don't need to master my own mixes. Why don't I pass it to somebody who's actually really great at this shit? Who offs my level? Now my mixes are better now I can fucking charge more because more people want to hire him.

Speaker 2 (00:21:48):

That right there, that right there, that right there, that sentiment right there. When I found Mike Ian, which I got to shout him out from the highest mountain in the entire world, but there's plenty of amazing mastering engineers, you being one of them. There's so many good guys that have so many flavors to add, but when I found this guy, I didn't really know much about mastering at the time. I knew that I had to turn shit up loud, and that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (00:22:22):

I mean,

Speaker 2 (00:22:23):

Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought it was, right? I was like, as long as it's louder than the next guy's shit, doesn't matter how fucked up it sounds. It's kind of people out. But I found him and then when he returned a master back to me for this local band that I did in Arizona, I was like, oh, now I've got one other band album so good and the shit that I've been doing, so I'm right here, right? Because of my lack of knowledge and mastering, Ooh, this still to this day, I get it now, but I still don't do it. I still will never do it. But man, that was the one pivotal turning point in my career that I was like, oh, okay. That's when I started to learn about passing the rains off is when I found him and I was like, oh, this guy can make my shit sound better. And not that my shit even sounded that great to begin with, but he made it sound like it was the best version of what it could be. And that's one I

Speaker 1 (00:23:22):

Like to think about it like this. The song and the production is the painting or the easel with the colors and shit. The mix is the painting or sorry, no, hold on, I got to get this all fucking back. Let me try that again. Rewind. Edit that shit out. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, so the song is kind like the painting. The mix is the frame. You put it in and the mastering engineer is the person who comes in and shines a light right at the right part of that fucking painting. So when you look at that shit on the wall, it's like boom, it pops, and I master my own shit for 20 years. I hate mastering engineers because I've had so many bad experiences, but I will tell you this, I finally found one. I got a couple that I like, but I one that I really love and it took me a long time to find that person, but the thing is, 10 years ago when I first met that person on malware applebom, it wasn't the right, I wasn't good enough for his masters as a mixer back then, and it didn't give me the result.

(00:24:18):

I'm like, oh, it's too small. But result where now it's just, it just takes my mix and I had to get good enough for the mastering engineer that made sense, and then I was like, oh my God, I'm never mastering my own shit ever again. This is stupid.

Speaker 2 (00:24:30):

Yeah, that makes the most sense to me. That makes the most, I've tried everybody, dude. I've tried. Well, I think even mayor, I tried on one, but I can't remember the project specifically, but I mean, I've done records with Jensen. I've done records with what's the, oh yeah, I've

Speaker 1 (00:24:46):

Gone around. And you got to find the right fit for where you're at and certain people will elevate you and that may change over time as you get better, well hopefully, or maybe get worse, but it changes and that was an interesting, I never thought that somebody could be the right fit for me now, but not back then even five years ago. It's just mind blowing to me that sometimes you kind of got to level up and then all of a sudden that person sound matches yours perfectly and then you

Speaker 2 (00:25:16):

Straight up, I think the biggest thing of why Mike worked for me specifically, and like I said, I'll doubt him about playing on rooftops for the rest of my life, but he knew that I wasn't necessarily the greatest mixture in the world back then, but he took the time to say, Hey, try to fix these things and try to do this where a lot of mastering engineers will just print it and send it back and say, thank you.

Speaker 4 (00:25:41):

You take the

Speaker 2 (00:25:41):

Time just to communicate with me and say, try to do this, that and the other, or even send me stems and I'll try to balance it out. And he just took the most amount of time with me that had the most amount of communication from any other person. And like I said, I feel like I'm so indebted to that guy that that's another reason why I keep going. That guy. Plus he's awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:26:02):

I mean, Mao or and I have become really good friends and he almost banged towards me. I'll talk to him for three hours on a fucking Tuesday night and 11 o'clock we sit there whispering in my bathroom as my kids are sleeping and we're talking about some really crazy theory about low end movement or some stupid shit. That's the kind of thing where it's like when you do one song with somebody, it's kind of a snapshot, but when you master 50 songs for somebody, now you know that person and you can kind of guide them like, Hey, I noticed that you've been doing this in your last 10 mixes. It's not good, dude, you're using this saturation, this piece of gear in it, it sounds, he was chewing me out, I tweaked something in my sound a couple of weeks ago and he didn't like it and he calls me immediate. He's like, what are you doing? What did you change? I'm like, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (00:26:49):

Oh, I love that. I love that. That's the most valuable shit in the world. The brutal bluntness of telling you how it is is the most that fit isn't valuable. That is the,

Speaker 1 (00:27:00):

And producers, it's kind like you can be like, yeah, that guitar tone, man, reamp that shit. That sucks. We can't fucking put this out. You're right. I should have edit that. I didn't have time to do the cross page. We were in a hurry. The deadline's three, same thing. It's like, but again, how do you know that if you're just like a lone wolf sitting in your studio working on everything by yourself, you need that team and that feedback because it's positive. It's like as a team, you help each other be better and improve and that's what,

Speaker 2 (00:27:30):

Yeah, straight up me and my buddy Matt Good, which hopefully he comes in buzz one with you because you could talk to that guy for hours about

Speaker 1 (00:27:42):

Him up. I don't know if we've ever had Matt on or not, but I mean I know of Matt, and I've known Matt a long time.

Speaker 2 (00:27:47):

That dude is in this world. He is my musical best friend, right? He is a dude that when we actually first we came up in Arizona together, he started producing the exact same time that I did in Arizona, and at first we started off, actually, I don't even know if pea pop is, I thought this that we started off rivals or some shit, and I would hear little Chis that he was talking shit, which were lies, and because I heard that I would actually talk shit, she fuck this guy who care. And then I hit him up one day on Facebook and I was like, Hey man, do you have a problem with me? He was like, no. I was like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (00:28:29):

The think about music is like, this is just my observation after doing this for a long time, and I'm sure you've seen this is like go to la, you know what I mean? And you're at a party or something and it's like if you're up against that person that week, you're like, fuck that motherfucker. I'll whip his ass. That makes you said suck. And then 20 minutes later after it's done, you're having a beer in your best friends. It's like everybody's friends, but then you got to get in the ring and you got to go box it out sometimes and one of you gets knocked out, but then you get up and you shake hands and you're home music again.

Speaker 2 (00:29:01):

Actually, my least favorite part about LA is that I am very much like that. I'm so vocal and I'm still unafraid to just go up to somebody and say, Hey, do you have a problem? Let's fix this. A lot of people here are a little bit more, I guess passive, but maybe I can't do that

Speaker 4 (00:29:17):

Too much.

Speaker 2 (00:29:18):

I'm seeing Whatsa guy in and out of the studio, man, intense

Speaker 1 (00:29:23):

Societal trend right now. I mean, my wife's Eastern European, so she's just like, they have no fucking filter over there. They're just like, that sounds like shit, and this band sucks and why did you play this mix? And I'm like, fuck. I'm like, damn, how about I am not feeling it? That would be like, yeah, yeah, good job on this. Not even that. It's just like, I don't like this. Fuck you. And that's it, and it's just like, but I'm used to that now, so then that translates and I'm like, you where I just call it out. I'm like, oh, shit. I wasn't trying to be mean. I'm just telling it like it is. We're all thinking it and I'm actually trying to help you realize you got to,

Speaker 2 (00:30:02):

Yeah, straight up. Straight up. Yeah. Cooler heads I guess. Well, I mean I'm still than that cooler head maybe prevail maybe. I don't know. I walked the fine line of being passive and was way too much. I'm intense.

Speaker 1 (00:30:16):

I guess how you kind present it because talk about producing, right? Sometimes different types of artists have different personality types, so if you walk in and be like, that fucking sucked dude again, oh my God, you could really ruin somebody's day, but then the right kind of person, they want that kind of coaching. You're like, no, I'll do it better this time. You're the kind of guy where I'd be like, dude, that's shit. Send me a fucking produce this better. This sounds like shit. What the fuck? You'd be like, oh, fuck you motherfucker, and you would react really good to that or I react, do you turn them fucking vocals off? Why the fuck did you, you react good to that, but a lot of people don't, so you kind kind of read the psychology, but it's interesting to me that depending on who you're working with, sometimes just straight shooting is a real weapon because if you get a person who's a competitive alpha kind of overachiever, they love that. They don't want, I think it was okay, they're like, fuck that. Was it good or not? They're like, do it again. Do you? Don't stop this time. I love those types of people because you can really push 'em and that's the A game when you do that and they want to be challenged.

Speaker 2 (00:31:22):

I used to have the shittiest rule back in the day when I first started, and I think this is again, if I could go back and punch beat the last I would, but I used to do this thing. I was like, because I was so bad at editing, I was so bad at doing anything in this motherfucker. I would so bad at it. I would be like, if you can't play it right three times, I'm playing it for you and there's no answer.

Speaker 1 (00:31:47):

See, now internet police would be like, I need to cancel you. That's

(00:31:53):

What you got to understand about psychology is that different people need different types of inputs. I was just saying and that you're not doing it from a place of trying to be an asshole. It's really more like you're trying to help this person, but you're catering your approach to what they react to, which gets the best results and allows them to achieve the goal because sometimes you got to be really hard on somebody and then sit 'em down and be like, Hey, I want you to know I actually like you and I'm teaching you. You never had a performance coach and the bands like that. They're like, you're great. I haven't been practicing enough and I'm not ready for the studio and thank you for showing how to fucking play my guitar correctly today. I'm like, good. Next time week when I see you, you come in and then they do.

Speaker 2 (00:32:33):

Yeah, that's actually my favorite thing about working with some of these bands is the younger bands who don't have these egos, the ones that I know that will succeed, they're just like, you can play it. If you're just going to do it quicker than me, it saves more time than me just trying to learn the part that you just wrote for us. I'm just like, that's great. That's the attitude because I'd be to save way now too. I'd be like, well, I just wrote it. If you're good enough to actually do this in the way that it should be, if it's your band and your hands have a certain sound, then I want you to play it, right? I just try to let all the ego bullshit go, but at the same time, I try not to hold anybody's hand because I bet. I bet you who's probably the best at this whole psychology thing is Rick Rubin and I never understood Rick Rubin until recently and now I fucking get it. I really understand it.

Speaker 1 (00:33:29):

Howard, you ever been in the room with Howard?

Speaker 2 (00:33:32):

I've been in his studio over here wherever he is at, but yeah, I've never actually met him personally, but I met Mike Nikko.

Speaker 1 (00:33:40):

Amazing dude. Howard can talk you into anything and anybody who works with him will tell you the same thing. Howard will get you to do what he wants you to do and you'll feel good about it no matter what it is. Howard, he'd be like, go jump off that cliff headfirst and smash the ground as hard as possible, and you'd be like, hell yeah. Howard thinks he's just awesome, man. And Rick recruit would completely believe that

(00:34:04):

There's something about, there's just a certain charisma and a certain, some people just, they have this zen they figured out, they just talk and you're like, damn, dude, that just makes sense. I like producers like that. A lot of people don't get Rick Bruin because he has this in a sound bite world where you deconstruct it where you're like, oh, I can't believe he says he doesn't know anything about music. What kind of producer in a sound bite world where people are looking for a stupid clip to cop and make a reaction to or whatever, no one actually sits down and really thinks about, well, what is he actually saying? Why is he saying that? What is he trying to achieve? And then when you unpack that shit, you realize, man, this guy's brilliant. What an approach, man.

Speaker 2 (00:34:49):

I literally used to be that guy who was like, oh man, this team must be the greatest salesman of all time. But well, sure, he definitely did start out that way. He had to whore himself out to Beastie Boys and shit to make it make sense, but at the same time, you can be the greatest salesman and also have the be the greatest pacemaker in the entire world. And at the very least, even if you're not to present yourself, we've already talked about to present yourself in a way that you will make Geo Cooper. I mean, and the trap record speaks for itself, even if he's never touched an instrument or if he's never turned a knob or if he's whatever, he played one note on a keyboard and that was, it's it. The stuff you do with Kanye is my favorite Kanye stuff. The stuff you do with Slayer is my favorite Slayer stuff. The stuff he did, it is just the track record speaks for itself. So yeah, then you can't talk shit about somebody who's done your favorite song, can't. It's impossible. You're an idiot if you do.

Speaker 1 (00:35:45):

I think that a lot of people when they think about producing, they're like the song, the performance. They don't realize that 90% of this is psychology and performance or expectation management in terms of performance. It's like taking musicians and getting people who may be fighting, who may be a band almost on the edge of breaking up or a band that is under pressure and all this shit's going on in their life and the one guy's going through divorce and the other guy's getting canceled on the internet and the other this and this and that happened, and you've got to come together and you've got three weeks to make a record and labels like this has got to be the biggest fucking record you're ever going to do, or you're going to get dropped and we're going to, all this shit's going on and there's all this pressure and the producer has to take this collection, this fucking mess of garbage and get everything to not only come in together and make the best art of that artist's career and get the best performances and the most authentic performances. That's really the art of great producing. I feel. It's like

Speaker 2 (00:36:40):

You know that I know exactly what you're talking about, we won't touch on it, but you know exactly what you know that I know.

Speaker 1 (00:36:48):

Getting people to be their best in some of the worst places of their life or no matter where they are, I mean, it's fucking chaos because people don't understand if you've never produced records for a label, a band has their whole career, their whole life to write their first fucking record and then your second one comes, you get signed and what happens? They're like, alright guys, we've got three weeks to go around and write and then we're going to pick a producer and you've got two weeks to get in the studio, knock out a thing. We got to meet this and this and Deadly Asses are back on tour. Go make fucking money. And the band's like, shit, I got three rifts that I've been able to write because I haven't slept in two months. We've been partying and playing on tour. And then they walk into somebody like you and you got to pull an amazing fucking song out of the band and get them to deliver excellence and do it on the spot and you do it every fucking day.

(00:37:39):

And that's the thing people don't understand is a great producer has the ability to just take anything and make something great out of it and find those moments where like, oh, alright, you've got 50 songs that you've written, garbage, garbage, garbage, holy shit, play that riff again, that's something special. And then all of a sudden I have a big fucking hit. And it's like being able to filter that stuff out, being able to find those moments, being able to coach those musicians. That's really what the art producing is to me. And that's the soft skill. That's not something you can learn on the internet. It's like

Speaker 2 (00:38:09):

Yours. Absolutely not. Yeah, that's just environmental training, I feel like, you know what I mean? Years of saying the wrong thing to get to the right answer.

Speaker 1 (00:38:20):

So I always respect people like Howard or Rick Rubin, just these people that have just such insane track record who just have, it's like the bigger you go, the more big picture they think. And it's like you go on the internet, people are like, oh, what's your snare drummer? What chain did you use on this and that? I'm like, nah man, you're thinking wrong. But you sit in a room with a badass plus mixer, they're not thinking about what the fucking snare is. They're just like, what's the trend? How can I make this shit timeless? Is this going to last? What's my fucking sound? I dunno, there's just so many. Same thing with producers, it's just like how am I going to make a song that defines the trends and what's the next thing and the next wave? How am I going to usher in this new every desk they're like, what did you use on fucking guitars? I'm like, you guys eat get,

Speaker 2 (00:39:09):

I think, I mean obviously I feel like a lot of people would agree and maybe some would disagree, but Serini is really doing that exact same thing that you're saying in my opinion, just pushing the limits of what human music is supposed to sound like in my opinion and from what I like he is crushing that exact sentiment that you just said. I really love that guy stuff with does.

Speaker 1 (00:39:31):

He's got a sound, he's on top right now and that's an interesting position to be in. I remember for example, when Joey was in that position or good friends of Jeff Braun who's in country, who's in that position, he is the number two guy in. It's just like when you're in that position, I feel like that's terrifying because you're just like, man, you step off the railing a little bit. There's a bolt just waiting to

Speaker 2 (00:39:58):

Yeah, but I think that it's kind of like, I wouldn't even call it a double-edged sword, but let's take Crystal for example, right Chris, I mean, clearly leaky gun, arguably all of my favorite songs from that whole genre and from that whole time period of music and stuff. And the thing about it, if he was smart in business, and even obviously his advanced could give him the mixing whatever, but if he was smart and took maybe a mixed point or something on it, he doesn't have to do shit. He's happy if his ego is gone, hopefully he's just happy doing whatever the fuck, and he doesn't have to even open his eyes anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:40:41):

He doesn't have to. He hear stories, and I don't want say numbers publicly, but I've heard what I know some people, and I've been told what they've sold their catalogs of mixed points. I mean, the funny thing is mixers make so much less than good producers, but because you guys get three to seven points if you're really bad depending, and plus pub and all that stuff, but a mixer is you get your stupid fee and your point. But I've heard what some of these guys have sold their points for. But again, it's a different music industry now than it was 25 years ago, but some of these back in the day sold their stuff and it's just like, holy shit.

Speaker 2 (00:41:19):

So if they fall off a rail, who cares because they built them.

Speaker 1 (00:41:23):

You know what

Speaker 2 (00:41:23):

I'm saying? So it'll even matter to them

Speaker 1 (00:41:26):

When you're getting five fucking bands, a song plus a point, and you're doing a song to two songs a day, and you do that for four years. It doesn't matter if you fall off, if you're have any bit of a brain with your money, you're good. You can just take that and your grandkids can, they're good.

Speaker 2 (00:41:45):

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this side of the coin is not something that's talked about nearly enough, especially from my angle of being a producer or whatever, but that whole other side,

Speaker 1 (00:41:56):

Man, this is a good topic, let's dive it because this is something I'll tell you, this is embarrassingly stupid. A business guy like me shouldn't fucking know better, but I didn't even know I needed register with sound exchange until recently. And I'm like, dude, what points I've got on this and that? And then I was in Nashville and my buddy's like, dude, why aren't you registered with sound exchange? I'm like, I've had five fucking managers and not one of them has ever fucking told me that.

Speaker 2 (00:42:26):

I feel like in the last three years I figured it out, but man, before that, holy shit, I didn't know. And then I was like, the first person that told me about it was a friend of mine, I won't name the name because I'm going to name the number, but they were like, yeah, we didn't know about sound exchange. And I was like, what? Sound Exchange? And then they were like, we registered all our songs and all of a sudden we found $150,000 in our sound exchange. And I was like,

Speaker 1 (00:42:54):

Wow. Was like, that's when you give 'em a hug and be like, bro, you're buying motherfucking lunch. How we,

Speaker 2 (00:43:01):

I was like, yeah. They were like, we found 150 grand in our sound exchange. And I was like, oh, I haven't even done that and I have over 300 songs. So then I went and registered some and I still have a bunch to go, but there's stuff in there.

Speaker 1 (00:43:16):

Why don't you break it down? Because they might not have any fucking idea what we're talking about. So you're a producer, I'm an artist, I'm coming to you. We do a production deal. So there's going to be a fee where you might take say a couple thousand dollars for a song, and then there's going to be points and what people don't understand about, because there's two types of royalties. Let's see if I can explain this concisely. There's points, percentage of master, and then there's the PRO stuff like BMI as cap, which is like the publishing for the songwriters. Basically. One is handled by sound Exchange, one is handled by your PRO. They're two different things. If you write the song and tell me if I fucked this up, I'm not the expert on this, but you the song. So let's just say you and I are 50 50 writers at a song.

(00:44:02):

It's a hit now it's on octane, spinning the shit, getting the highest amount of revenue per radio play a at any station. Song goes number one, bro, BMI and ASCAP starts setting us checks. Nine months later, shit gets on tv. NHL we we're getting these, we're pulling these racks from BMI, right? So that's the piracy song, right? On the other side there's the master, which is and mechanicals and stuff. So you played guitar, put your hand clap on it, you get to your point or you're a mixer, you get one point, the producer, you get three, whatever. The way that works is you register with sound exchange, you have to do a letter of direction, which is the most cumbersome pain in the ass fucking thing because sound exchange is run by the wonderful federal government.

Speaker 4 (00:44:46):

Sure is. Sure.

Speaker 1 (00:44:49):

So a picture of the fucking DMV for collecting royalties. Yeah, good god. And the way that works is basically, let's say you get a point, if a band has 20%, 20 points, right? The record label takes 80 and a standard deal, they would get 23, go to the producer one maybe, I dunno if a R points get taken off, one goes to say your mixer, if you're hiring a good team, so now you're at 16 points. So each point on a 20 point deal equals 5% of net because, so 1.5%, hopefully that math makes sense to people that are, so when I get a point, it's 5% of net. That's what it says in my contracts. I go register that shit with sound exchange and hopefully someday they send me some fucking money.

Speaker 4 (00:45:33):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:45:35):

Yeah. You fucking nailed it. That was awesome. Yeah, that was exactly perfect. Okay. I'm learning. Yeah, I think the smartest thing too, I don't know about you, but I have a fantastic lawyer, so he's finessed it a little bit to make that whole process a lot easier for me. And if anybody's watching this that is coming along in the game and have a couple hundred sirens under their belt, get a lawyer if get a good one and a good entertainment layer and they can finesse that whole profit so much,

Speaker 1 (00:46:11):

Explain them how to, okay, so now that I explained how it works, explain them how to set that up. So for example, you're a new producer, you record your first label band, they come in and let's just say you get a budget of 30 grand and you get three points on the record. So how do they get royalties? And you're writing on it, say you've got 25% of each song. So what do they do?

Speaker 2 (00:46:33):

Well, first of all, so yeah, if they're signed, you're going to have to get a letter of direction from a label, and then the label has to approve it, and then you have to sign it back and then it goes and sign it page for them to review it. And it takes so fucking long. And it's just like, if I didn't have my lawyer to help me out with this stuff, I would be, I just not do this is too hard. But that being said, it's not too hard. That's just a mean thing. But yeah, I've never dealt with sound exchange outside of a label scenario, but it is obviously very possible. It's just them all parties have to agree. You have to sign that letter of direction with sound exchange, and then they overlook it. And then for whatever radios band or whatever plays you on Spotify or any of the PSC

Speaker 1 (00:47:23):

Streaming goes to Sno Exchange and then radio goes to EMI or ascap. Or csac. Right?

Speaker 2 (00:47:31):

They all go everywhere a little bit. It's very, very weird Everywhere a little bit. Yeah. And somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I was to log into my sound exchange, I would see where I, I'm almost positive that I would see some stuff in there and I could be wrong. All sounding pinch could just be from radio play, but also radio play comes into BMI too. It's a very confusing world. I don't own a publishing company.

Speaker 1 (00:47:56):

Yeah. The only guy that you know, Andrew Wetzel from Attack Attack.

Speaker 2 (00:48:01):

Yeah. I just talked to him the other day. He's

Speaker 1 (00:48:04):

The fucking man with this stuff. I was in Nashville and he just gave me, I was at Andrew Bayless's house and we're just chilling and they were doing a song, oh

Speaker 2 (00:48:11):

Boy,

Speaker 1 (00:48:12):

I fucking love Bayless.

Speaker 2 (00:48:13):

I've known Bayless since I was 14 years old.

Speaker 1 (00:48:15):

No way, dude. Oh yes. He's a great guy. I love Andrew. He's just fucking amazing. He does incredible work. He's such an, he's just killing it right now, man. It's so incredible to see just how much he's blowing up in the last three years and just not respect to him. Very late. Wetzel was sitting there, he's good friends with Joey, and so am I. And I was just like, I hear you. The guy. I was like, I did a couple of records for some things back in the day and I never got a fucking penny. And he's like, oh dude. And I'm like, I know that band made money. I know they made a lot of fucking money. Where the fuck is mine? I am. I thought they just never recouped. And he's like, oh no, dude, did you sign up for this? Did you do this? I'm like, no. I'm like, I got BMI and ascap because I've been writing songs forever. I didn't know I fucking needed to sign up for Song exchange. I'm like, I'm the dumbest fucking person. I can't believe. So Wetzel really kind of crashed, course me in like an hour and he helped me set it up and now I got to figure it out. See, one of these days. But okay, so once you put the letter of direction and now you have to go claim the songs, correct? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:49:17):

You have to go in there and claim that each percentage of what song you own, and it's a bit of a process. Speaking on publishing though, real quick, this is one that I've been kind of talking about, and nobody barely anybody knows about this, but this is where a lot of your publishing companies, so you sign a publishing company, they give you in advance, they put you whatever they pitch you, whatever. Where they're getting paid from is from something called the MLC. Are you familiar with the MLC Mechanical?

Speaker 1 (00:49:43):

I just fucking learned about this four weeks ago. My buddy's like, dude, you got to sign up for the MLC, dude, you probably got a bag sitting there. I'm like, shut the fuck up. What's the MLC? He's like, C, licensing Collective. And I'm like, what's that? I haven't signed up yet, but I have the tab open on my browser.

Speaker 2 (00:50:01):

So that one took me, this was a crazy story because somebody who had registered me for bm, I used to work for Warner Chapel way back in the day I used to do sing stuff for their subsidiary called Nonstop Music. It's a bunch of bullshit. Again, I have this whole fucking pack story. I could take the fucking forever but quickly to touch. I used to do this thing for notice hot music. I wrote a bunch of shitty stupid fucking jingles for ESPN and they show and just a bunch of bullshit that nobody really wants to

Speaker 1 (00:50:28):

Hear. Sprite, sports music for football teams and shit.

Speaker 2 (00:50:34):

Yeah, I've got a theme song for a wrestler on ECW or back when, I don't even know if E CW still thing, I think it's, but whatever. So I did that and then the guy who had registered me, he fucked up and put my name, my IPI number under somebody else's name. And so I had to go into the MLC and I went back and forth for three months and then finally I my, I proved who I was and then finally I was like, okay, all these registered songs. Like I said, I have about 400 and something songs in my catalog right now. I only registered about 36 at the time because it's so lengthy. It's so lengthy. And then I after that phone bag lotion. So

Speaker 1 (00:51:25):

You're buying on,

Speaker 2 (00:51:26):

I see

Speaker 1 (00:51:26):

You.

Speaker 2 (00:51:29):

I found a substantial amount that was like, wow, that's crazy. And people should know that there is money sitting around for you, right? So for you example, for example, you have puns and tons of credits on stuff, right?

Speaker 1 (00:51:44):

Aurora Aurora's a mixer in mastering, so there's not backend, but I did do a bunch of shit as a producer back in the day and a writer many, many years ago. And again, I've gotten pretty decent BMI checks and stuff like that. Here's

Speaker 2 (00:51:59):

The thing about MLC, I'm sorry to cut you off, I didn't need to, but Uncollected royalty, you only have three half months or three and a half years to recoup them until they go into a black box account. So after three and a half years, yeah, that's why you have to be on it.

Speaker 1 (00:52:14):

You should register every single song in your catalog, whether you wrote on it or at the MLC, correct? Or they would know

Speaker 2 (00:52:21):

No. So know some based off of what is registered somewhere, and I assume for me it's BMI, but they're not all registered there. So just like sound exchange, I had to go in there and give them all my information and say this is what I did on this song, this percentage that I own. Here's the other IPI numbers from the people that own it. And I think that I heard this could be wrong, but I don't know if it is that a hundred percent of the song has to be claimed on the MLC for MLC to pay out any royalties to anyone.

Speaker 1 (00:52:48):

What the fuck? Yeah, so there could be, yeah, so the producer, the mixer, or whenever I record doesn't claim it now nobody gets paid,

Speaker 2 (00:52:56):

But you can still register it for someone else if you have their information. And if you're saying, okay, well I did this with before people, we each have 25%. As long as you have all their IPI numbers, you can go in there and claim it for everyone. Then the NLC will start to bail you out three months from now. Damn. So they don't necessarily have to do anything but information just has to be in.

Speaker 1 (00:53:16):

Damn, dude, I'm curious, what if I go in there and there's money sitting down buying another fucking essence?

Speaker 2 (00:53:27):

Oh man, what's it on that thing? Is that bigger

Speaker 1 (00:53:31):

Ad shit, now you're going to get me going. I've talked enough on this, but I've been mixing for a long time and I've mixed half my career was hybrid or sorry, in the box. Then the other half was hybrid. And then I started mixing for Joey who was like, fucking, we have to have exact things cloning me and you're going to be me. So dude, when I was mixing shit for Joey Rub backed into the box and then I was like, dude, don't give a fuck. I'm getting results and I'm charting and this and that. I went through a bit of an identity crisis in mixing in 2021 and basically I was just like, man, I feel like I'm keeps, nothing I'm doing is just, I'm stuck. And then I kind of got back into gear and I had this massive explosion of progress and then I ended up buying a console, which was the smartest and stupidest decision of my life's

Speaker 4 (00:54:32):

A big one. Regardless, it's expensive, but

Speaker 1 (00:54:35):

I've always, always wanted and I've always wanted to work on one and I love how they sound. And so I bought an SSL origin and I bought it used to save money a sheet.

Speaker 2 (00:54:46):

We should be, everyone should be, everyone should be,

Speaker 1 (00:54:50):

Honestly no bullshit. Out of all the gear I've ever bought, and I've had a lot of shit in here, and I've had cool shit like Shadow Hills Master and Compressor,

(00:54:59):

I got a fucking Xen or limiter. I've got crazy shit, dude. The console is the best piece of deer I've ever got in my entire life in terms of sonic return on money spent. So when I put stems through that at Unity, I'm like, fuck. And then I'll stem 'em back out into the computer and I'll be like, what happened? Same fucking volume, no changes. And it's just crazy to see how it just, it's like all of these, how do I explain it? The problem with going down this rabbit hole is that people are going to beat the shit out of me. They don't fucking use this shit every day and they don't. Can you run this cast and nel toss? You just fuck off and go get a board and go mix on it for a day or go rent a studio. You'll hear what I'm talking about a lion.

(00:55:39):

People don't understand. You haven't experienced it and spent enough time on it, especially in your own room where you really don't, it sounds, it's kind of an overwhelming thing. There's a learning curve. Just like if I said to you, Hey, I got to teach you how to EQ or use a compressor, dude, it's going to take 10 fucking years. And then you're finally going to be like, and then 10 years later you're going to be like, shit, man, what I knew about EQ 10 years ago, fuck, I suck. So you learn to hear these sounds and what they sound like and then I don't know, I can't go back. The difference for me is it's like we went to the gallery and looked at this beautiful oil painting for sculpture, and then I sent you an iPhone picture of it later. It's like going to the mountains, dude. You go to the mountains, you're like, fuck yes. They take a picture of it and you're like, wow. And you show your buddy and you're like, that doesn't even look impressive. The picture does not capture. That's how I feel about mixing on the board shit that I didn't understand about how the fuck does CLA get or Andy Wallace get this certain base, this locking the way that it sits in its own space.

(00:56:45):

You throw it up on the board, you go like that and you're like, dude, that's that fucking sound like holy shit.

Speaker 2 (00:56:50):

That's exactly what I thought that you would get at. And that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Because I mean for everything that it makes, I do it completely the box, right? And there's a certain sound to both that is extremely pleasing to certain people. I think Vin is completely in the box with, like I said, a lot of the stuff that he does is amazing, but it's a different flavor. If I go back and I listen to POD, right? If I listen to the satellite album, that shit has a yes, exactly. Lisky that specifically that kick drum on hotdog is the biggest sickest kick drum still to this day in my life, the way that was he, that's

Speaker 1 (00:57:29):

Fucking best bass and kick in any mix ever. To me, Nickelback was the bar. And then I heard that. I'm like, dude, I don't know what Andy Wallace was on when he fixed that, but we should know the fucking statue in his honor and we should force to worship it three hours a day because it's that fucking,

Speaker 4 (00:57:44):

That's so good,

Speaker 1 (00:57:47):

Dude. That shit just hits in a certain way. And I've always liked those sounds. It's not that I don't like the modern shit, obviously I've mixed so many fucking bands that with Joey that were iconic. And when that shit came out, the Atilla record we did and all these things, dude, that was the heart. People were like, oh, it's the heart of shit, blah, blah, blah. Everybody was stoked about it on the internet. But I miss the way those old records feel. There's

Speaker 2 (00:58:10):

Something, yeah, because it had identity, it had a spirit in it, right? There's something about the

Speaker 1 (00:58:16):

Fucking move and you don't feel that minutia in the knocks. That's what it takes away. It's like it takes away that movement. And it's hard to explain, but when you hear it, if you were in my room, we could stay here and I could play a couple things on these speakers and then we could switch back and forth. And once you hear it, you'd be like, fuck, that's awesome. And then we would put it back in the computer and they'd be like, what happened? What happened? Why isn't the base moving? Why does it sound like it's plastic? And then you'd pull it out and you're like, oh my God, I could feel the fucking playing.

Speaker 2 (00:58:45):

Yeah, yeah. No, I completely get it. And like I said, favorable, favorable things in both. But there is something that in my opinion, that it's still yet to be replicated in this down,

Speaker 4 (00:58:57):

Just like

Speaker 1 (00:58:58):

That design software and somebody who sold a lot of software and some plus programmers in the world for various companies, and again, I'm going to get fucking torched for saying this, but I don't give a fuck. I'm honest. So let's be honest, when you sit down with some of these guys and you have a beer, fuck what the marketing says. The marketing is there to sell products so people can have jobs and they can continue programming. But when you sit down with some of these guys and you had a couple of drinks and they kind of let their guards down, they're like, dude, we're so fucking far off from the modeling. You don't even fucking understand how electricity works on our quantum level. And maybe that'll change with AI and all this shit, but it's just like I know how far off we are. I know exactly how they make plugins. I know how they model them. I know, and they've gotten better. But again, there's still something there and it's not, look, you can make great fucking records with digital, obviously we done it, we do whatever. It's a different sound and sometimes you want a different sound. And I have shit that I mix that it's almost no plugins, it's almost our hardware. And I have other things where I'm loading that shit up. I want a different sound. So I dunno, I have, because I'm a mixer and my job is sonics, and it's like certain things need certain sounds and it's just having different tools.

(01:00:20):

It's like you got how many fucking guitars back behind you right now? You don't set that fucking guitar. Every guitar has a different sound. So when I going to that guitar and puts in a riff, you are like, eh, not that one. Grab that one, grab that. Holy shit, that's the guitar for this fucking riff. Plug that motherfucker in and let's go. It's the same thing with mixing. It's like you want to have a lot of different tools, plugins, pieces of hardware because you can be a sonic painter and that's fun

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):

And you just have more brushes and straight up and you just have more tools to do. And I think that's very, very, very, very

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):

Get hung up on the verse shit. And it's just like, just fucking admit that they're different than they are and accept it and embrace it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):

And then

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):

For what they're good at, because there's shit you can't do in hardware that you shouldn't do on a computer. That's just so easy. Imagine hardware attracts space. How the fuck would you do that? I mean maybe smart,

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):

A lot of compressors and a lot of,

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):

There's crazy shit you can do in software that you just can't do in hardware. Some of these resonance removal tools that are dynamic. Oh

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):

Yeah. It's just,

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):

Again, you use them each for what they're good at. I like the summing on the console and the way things come together and I like the tone shaping eq, but when I want to noch a bunch of shit out and use the better tool, which is have

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):

You tried pro Q4 yet?

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):

It looks pretty sick on pretty, I'm one of those weirdos. I've always used the stock EQ and cubase. I never got. I'm just like it exposed. T commands are backwards, but I just fell in love with Metro klo. Channel strip allows,

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):

Oh that shit rocks too. It's good. That's the se special,

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):

Dude. I cannot stop using that eq. I love it. That's my new favorite eq. So I'm in love with that one now. But Pro Q4 looks fucking same. I

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):

Like for channel strip style stuff. That one is great. I like the DSP, I think it's called the vintage eq. That thing is really nice. I think it's got a really good pop-in thing. But yeah, the pro q4, they have this band, this thing called Spectral so well you said you don't use ProQ three, but you can used

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):

It enough habit, but it's like, oh, I see Soothe on particular bands and shit like that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):

Yeah, yeah. So with Soothe, again, it's like a broad thing, right? It'll pick out a certain bell that you want it to go, but within the pro Q4, it'll start doing individual noch EQs within the big bell thing that eBay, so let's say that you want to make dynamic, it'll go tiny dynamic and it sounds really cool. It sounds good. It's just the best version of that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):

I'll tell you the difference between digital and auto. You ready? So I always mix the box, man, like symbols, right? We all hate symbols, especially if you've ever mixed a metal record.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):

I talk about this all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):

I talk about all the time

(01:03:17):

Fox symbols let's, we all hate symbols, get us some matching t-shirts or something. So I sit there and use shit like DF clarified and sue all this EQ and shit to, because you know how it is, it's like, especially when you're mixing somebody's home recorded stuff and they're on a couple of shitty mics. I mean now people just programmed, they've gotten lazy, but back in the day, people would like with whatever deer you had and into the shittiest fucking interface in a room that's treated shitiest, cracked ass fucking symbols. And then you're sitting there just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Screaming. You can't get the shit to sound good, but you have to because the mixer and they expect, well, it sound as good as this record you mix. I'm like, because that record had a budget and we recorded it in a great studio and the guy who played drums was a fucking great player and the song was arranged. Well anyways, man doesn't want to hear that. They just want to know why they're shitty crack ass symbols recorded on 50 sevens, new shit, it unfucking treated room with shitty new reflections. Doesn't fucking sound the same as the big budget record that you mixed last week for their favorite bands

(01:04:18):

Using all these things like ProQ and hating your life. When I switched to hardware, all of those resonance removal tools that I had been using, I bought a pair of C tone control EQs and I put them on my symbols and I was like, hold on a second. And I turn it off and I bypass because I was using as a hardware insert. I'm like, what happened to all those? It smooths out all that shit that you would want to take that it smooths it out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):

You got the butter in there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):

Yeah, dude, it's got that creamy fucking smooth ass. I'm like, man, so then I bought the SSL and I got rid of those EQs again. It does the same fucking thing. It's just all that shit. It's like when I'm mastery and I'm throwing hardware on it, it's like you just put the hardware on and all of a sudden all the shit, you're like, I go nos that and s that. I hear this frequency and this. It just takes all those residences and kind of just, it's like taking a paintbrush and just going smooth and a good one,

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):

Man, you just start pitching for some of these companies, bro, they probably make a lot more money because that's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):

The hardware company, I don't know, man, pretty good about it, you know what I mean? It's all I care about is sonics and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):

If I could touch on, if I could touch on you as a human being for a second, and we don't know each other really at all, right? But I've followed once again literal

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):

Other than

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):

I've followed you on Instagram enough to know now that I can kind of tell how much you give a fuck about what this all is and what you do and how important it is that not only you get a good selling product, but that people understand what this whole thing is. It's extremely admirable that you and a all B, because you can just fucking tell that your purpose here is to do good shit and help people do good shit. And it's like the coolest fucking thing. I've learned a lot from the whole platform. I've learned a lot of people from this platform and I've learned even just things that I was unsure of that you've said. I'd be like, okay, well at least somebody else agrees with me now. And it's these tiny little things that I commend you both. I commend all of you, I commend you the whole thing. It's so fucking cool. And I personally really appreciate it, man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):

Thank you. It's amazing to hear. It's kind of like you're hanging out with your buddies one after you do and you're like, oh, let's do this stupid thing where we live stream mixing or some shit and then all of a sudden it becomes a thing. Your band writes a song, you're sitting there jamming and all of a sudden you got a label calling you and then all of a sudden it's on the radio, now it's a hit. And the band's like, yeah, three weeks later you're playing thousand cap arenas and you're like, what the fuck? Or not arenas, what am I saying? But all of a sudden your shit changes. So when we started doing Nail the mix and stuff, it was kind of just like Joey and I would sit on a phone for hours and talk about production shit, and then we're like, oh, let's start a podcast. I'm sure other people are interested in this too. We're fucking weird. Maybe other people want to talk about this. So we started doing that and then we did nail the mix and I don't, people liked it, so it's fun. But at the end of the day, first and foremost, I'm a mixer. That's what I care about. And

(01:07:33):

Education is an extension of that for me, obviously, and I really love what we do and it's fun. But I don't know, there's something about being in the weeds and I did take a little bit of time off from making records and it killed my soul and I had to come to it so happy that I did. You know what I mean? It's just fun being in the room, making music with people and working on records and I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):

People,

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):

I feel like, I'm sorry I didn't cut. That doesn't even, but

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):

I talked to fucking fucking about Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):

I think that because I know a lot of producers out here and I know a lot of them that are really good at some of them that I could talk less about. But at the end of the day, regardless of that, it's like a lot of people get jaded and they say, well, we don't want to do rock anymore. We don't want to do pop anymore. We want to branch off and this that and the other. And I'm just like, man, I understand it in a sense, but when you start to leave that thing, you're going to start to miss it. So rather than not be grateful for what you're doing, I think that the mentality should be is like, Hey man, go take a walk. Just take a poop walk. You don't have to go off and go on this. I'm going to call it fucking mental vacation for three months and go do some fucking Arabic music or something crazy that you're like, just out, dude. You're good at what you do. Take a second, come back to it because you don't want to look back on this shit, man. I was really fucking, I was all the times that you were having fun that you didn't think you were having fun, when realistically you were start enjoying it right now. Enjoy it right now rather than looking back on it. And doing that actually was fun.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):

I mean, that's a great point. It is easy to get jaded, especially if you get screwed off a record or I'm thinking about some of the mixes I lost this year, not because the artist didn't think my mix was better, but because I didn't have the right name for that radio segment or whatever or shit like that. That's the kind of stuff, or the politics that happened on this record or that record. You lose shit. You win shit and it's really fucking frustrating. And by then you got to step back and be like, dude, I used to sit in a bank and hate my life and dream about recording bands and now I get to deal with bands and all the shit that comes with it, but brother,

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):

Nobody understands that more than me. Dude. And I worked at a blockbuster video when I was younger. I worked at a fucking blockbuster. I was a bartender. I did all this bullshit. And then I'll tell you this, and I don't suggest this to everyone, but the second that I decided that this was the only thing that I was going to do in my life was music. I quit all of my jobs and I fucking coucher with my laptop and my interface for a year in Arizona, and I just couch surf and I was just like, I'm just going to try to record every band that I can and try to just figure it out. I'll go to your house, you can come to wherever I'm at. If the person I'm sleeping on their couch lets me. And I'm just 100% only focused on doing this and that's it.

(01:10:55):

I never touched drugs. I never did crazy amounts of drinking really. I like to have fun and I like to be the personable and I like to just get my shit done. So I couch surfed and then I finally got a room. I finally got a house and I finally did this, that and the other. But the only thing, just like you said, the only thing that you care about, about the main focus rather is for you it's mixing. And for me it's writing songs and producing records, and that's all I give a shit about. And mix cool too, but not the number one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):

Well look at you now, you know what I mean? Looking at your credits and all that stuff. You have almost the max bars on New Self. It's like looking back, it is funny because I feel like no matter how much you rise up in this business, your brain is being an ambitious wired person. You're looking at where you are, you're like, man, I soak, I'm not good enough. This person has 40 billion more streams than me. I need to go. It is so easy to just chase gremlins, but sometimes it's easy to forget that you just got to take a minute to pause and be like, I've done this and it's pretty fucking cool. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):

Comparison is truly the people of joy and that used to fuck me up the most. And now,

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):

Yeah, your path is different. Everybody's path is different and you just got to embrace it. So last question I'll ask you here today. So when you were in those moments where you're just like, fuck everything and you're burned out, you've gone through enough of the shit and you've enjoyed all of the politics of music that burned people out. What do you do to keep yourself on track when you're in your lowest moments and just stay focused and keep moving forward? Aside from gratitude and just taking a minute to walk?

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):

I think for me, man, I don't really like to ever think, I don't really ever let myself get to like, oh, I don't do it. I just don't because I know how hard I work and I know what I want to do and what I'm capable of. And I never really let myself get to a point where I do the pity party thing where I feel like that, because that doesn't stir me anything. It does not serve me any purpose to beat myself up or to wonder or to fucking, I'm about to get emotional because at least lately, because back in the day, I mean there's some pretty fucking things that we don't have to talk about on this podcast. Maybe we'll do another one someday not related.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):

But I don't think like that because I feel like it is a useless behavior, and I'll feel like sometimes, yeah, you can be immediately. Immediately. I'm like, no, no. I know what I'm good at and I know my capabilities and I know that I can do this shit. If I can do it better than I did it yesterday, then I'm better than everyone. Not really, but in my head, if I can do this shit better than I did it yesterday, then fucking I'm on the right track. So I never just don't do it. I don't get there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):

Colin Britton had a really great quote that I saw him post on Facebook before he wiped this Facebook and joined Lincoln Park and Colin fucking kills it. He's such an incredibly great producer. And he said, if you're not waking up every day trying to be number one in the world at what you're doing, he's like, what the fuck are you even doing? I almost like, yeah, dude, I love that attitude. It's like, just wake up best you can possibly fucking be.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):

Yeah, dude, I feel like in the music shit, I mean, we're all just a bunch of pussies just playing guitars and stuff, but at the end of the day, I just try to be the least amount of pussy I could possibly fucking be, and I just like, man, this is sick. And go to the gym. That helps everything straight up.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):

As long as my snacks fucking weak, I'm happy. Well straight up. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. And hopefully we can do it again sometime.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):

Hell yeah, man. This was awesome. I appreciate you, man. The whole thing is so thick.