DAN WELLER: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, The Producer as Therapist, The “Piggybacking” Songwriting Technique

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. And now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man. Time moves fast, and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram, and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy, and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line. Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is Dan Weller, who's a songwriter, producer, mixer, and guitarist out of the uk. He's known for not only his productions, but he is the guitar player of the groundbreaking legendary band sixth, and he's also worked with several bands such as Hunger Sea Girls Holding Absence, Cody Frost, and many, many more. I really, really enjoyed this episode. I love Dan's perspective, so I'll stop talking. Here it goes, Dan. Well, or welcome to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:17):

Thank you for having me, my friend.

Speaker 1 (00:02:19):

It's a pleasure and I'm glad that we're finally able to do this. I know that we've been scheduling it and then unscheduling it and then rescheduling it and then unscheduling it and then rescheduling it for six months. Now there's been something that comes up every time we try to do this COVID or a good busy schedule or always been something. So I'm glad that we're finally able to do this.

Speaker 2 (00:02:42):

Likewise, mate. The Gods didn't want us to meet, but it's finally happened.

Speaker 1 (00:02:46):

Fuck them. That's what I say, so I don't want to kiss your ass or anything, but I remember in 2006 when Colin Richardson and Matt Hyde, the English Matt Hyde were mixing my band. I was in London for it, and Matt was playing me this band, and I forget if he was working with you or he just liked you or something, but he was playing me this stuff and I was like, holy shit, this band's fucking great. What is this? And it was you guys. It made a huge impression on me and I still remember it. People play me bands all the time. I forget them all the time, but I remember that day in 2006 being like, wow, okay, now this is some good stuff. And that rarely ever happens. So.

Speaker 2 (00:03:45):

Well, thank you, man. I mean that anyone who's listening, I guess, who's formed a band or is in a band, everybody has a different incentive for doing it or multiple incentives most likely. Mine was always for, and I think I can speak for the rest of the band, it was always for the songs to turn heads and for it to hopefully stand the test of time and even more of an ambition was to kind of influence some people. So the fact that you can remember when you first heard it, that's success for me. Yeah, because like you say, there's a lot of bands come and go, don't they? So you have to try hard.

Speaker 1 (00:04:18):

I can kind of relate to what you're saying. It's on a different level completely. I don't think my band ever went to a legendary place or anything like that, but the fact that people still, we haven't done anything since 2010 and the fact that people still care, it's kind of a mind blowing thing, right?

Speaker 2 (00:04:38):

It's great, man. I mean, that's what it's all about, isn't it? I mean,

(00:04:41):

The exciting thing, and there's probably numerous cliches that have been spoken on this very podcast, but I like the fact that when we're all a whole generation that I'm in now, we're all dead and gone. That record will exist, especially now in the digital age, find it hard to delete all the copies. So I like the fact that it's kind of like a sonic flagpole. You get to leave behind whether it sucks or it's good, at least it's still there. And on the grand scheme of things, is it an important legacy music? You could argue no. Are we trying to get to Mars? No, but it's better than nothing. And definitely I enjoyed it along the way as well. So I think if you can enjoy it and achieve something like that, that's a brilliant thing.

Speaker 1 (00:05:26):

Yeah, it's really cool. I just want to pick your brain on these feelings. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is when you were doing it, I mean obviously like you said, there's multiple reasons for doing it, which is, and I'm sure there's art, there's wanting to be in a band that does it for real, all kinds of different motivations. It's not just one thing, which is why when people say that people are in bands for the wrong reasons or something, I'm like, that is such a simplistic way to look at it because you can both want the art and also want the success and also want to not have to work a regular job and also want all kinds of different things that come with it. But is it something that when it ended, you imagined that maybe almost two decades later that anyone would give a shit? Or even remember?

Speaker 2 (00:06:21):

Part of me wants to say I didn't think anyone would care. I knew I was always probably much to the annoyance of the other guys. I was always looking ahead and thinking, what's the future going to hold? And can a band like Sikh that's quite an acquired taste, can I have a shelf life? Can I still be doing it in my mid forties and not feel like a douche? I had all these thoughts.

Speaker 1 (00:06:44):

Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 (00:06:46):

And I had no idea whether people would still listen to it. Now, I mean tangent a bit, but the comment I get most of all, which I find kind of comical, semis insulting but also quite sweet is people always say to me, oh yeah, I used to really love your band. And that used to, that always gets me, and I always think, so you're one off it. But then I think, geez, if I was a fan of a band like six and I'd grown up and just carried on all my life and wasn't in the music scene, would I go back to it in my middle age and think, oh, this really connects with me while I'm sort of wiping the kids' asses or whatever. I think a lot of our fans are the people that were there from the start and feel the nostalgia of it.

(00:07:26):

I have no idea if there's new fans coming along, but I guess the simple answer question is I didn't expect so many people to stay along for the ride. But equally, I think it's not just down to us, it's down to other bands that have openly been quite in a really nice way complimentary about the influence we've had and they've kind of carried the flame, if you made it bigger, monetized it. And we are kind of there at the start and the sort of dinosaur era of tappy wily nonsense music. But the fact we're still talking about now, the fact you can open up on the other side of the world and talk to me about my band as I'm sure it's the same for you,

Speaker 1 (00:08:00):

It's pretty cool, right?

Speaker 2 (00:08:01):

Weird. Yeah. And you can't bottle that feeling. You dunno how to don't what to do with that information. You can't go, yes, success, I've made it. I can sit down and relax. You just have to go, fuck. That's pretty cool, isn't it? And keep reminding yourself that there's probably numerous bands who tried to do that and then bombed and no one ever heard of them again.

Speaker 1 (00:08:20):

Well, yeah, you don't know what to do with the feeling in a way because there isn't like, it's different if the band went platinum or something and bought you a house and you're in the house that you know what I mean? At least for me, it's purely a Wow, that's cool. Which is fine.

Speaker 2 (00:08:37):

Yeah, a hundred percent. It led you to where you are. It's all part of the journey. It led me to being in the studio and no one is really defined by one thing in their life. So it needs just be one thing of many, doesn't it? And it's a good foundation to start a music career because you can relate to other musicians, you can say you've been there done it to an extent. When people talk about gigging, you say, yeah, I know that feels too, it kind of grounds you with a good knowledge base ultimately. It should just be fun, shouldn't it? You should just look back and go, well, I don't remember most of my twenties, but I know I went to these countries and I know I played to this many people. I don't remember the gig, I don't remember the backstage, don't remember how I got there, whether I played tight or I was fucking awful. But I know it happened and that's cool. And so I have to remind myself of that stuff a lot. And it's not like we were Coldplay, do you know what I mean? We made relatively fuck all money, but it's a good shot in the arm occasionally. And when you still get messages most days from a sixth fan somewhere in the world that I'd be a liar if I said that didn't top up my ever ebbing away ego and just give me a little bit of a shout.

Speaker 1 (00:09:41):

Yeah, I think it's a rare thing. It's a very rare thing and I do try to put it all in perspective. I have this conquerors mentality when it comes to things like I want the things I do to be as big as possible. And like you said at the beginning for multiple reasons, it's not one reason there is the making an impact, making a difference, but there's also financial ego, all those, there's a mix of different things. But when it comes to something like music, I do put it in perspective a lot to try to remind myself that doing anything that gets remembered like a decade later or something is crazy. We know a lot of people who are in successful bands who are doing it as their careers. And so I feel like if you are around those people, you work with those people and that becomes your bubble. You kind of almost become somewhat immune to how rare that sort of thing is. It is incredibly, incredibly rare. It's just if that becomes most of your social circle for a long period of time, it's easy to forget. I think it's easy to just forget how special and how rare that sort of thing is. And so I remind myself that doing anything that anybody cared about in music at any point in time, if they still care about it, is super special and super cool and fuck yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:11:19):

Exactly that you almost don't need to analyze the ins and outs of it too much because I can't speak for you, but for most creatives that I know aligned with a creative sensibility comes deeply analytical, must understand everything all the time. I don't understand what life is kind of stuff. And I've found as I've gotten older to try and make head nor tail of where I sit in the world and what I get from music and what I feel having had a record deal or whatever, I don't try to analyze it too much. I just try to say like you did. I just say it's cool, isn't it? And I made friends and I traveled and that's great. So where am I now? And I just look at where I'm now and I see I can't kind of look back if I start to go, oh, do you know what if we'd just stayed together and just wait for the internet to take hold when all these gen bands came out? We'd have been massive. We'd been, and maybe we would've maybe monetized it, but maybe we wouldn't. And I kind of just think, fuck it, we didn't. So there's no point worrying about it.

Speaker 1 (00:12:13):

Those kinds of thoughts are very dangerous because you can convince yourself of something that doesn't exist because really you don't know. Maybe logically speaking, maybe Sikh would've become massive, but there's no way to know. So it doesn't matter

Speaker 2 (00:12:31):

Literally. No way. No, and it wasn't the right time to carry on, so we didn't, but what I will say is I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of, I dunno, a teenager listening to this thinking, well, how can I relate to who's got a band who hasn't gone anywhere yet thinking it's this sort of transitional place in the far distant future that seems like a mountain to get to. Actually, in my experience anyway, our sole aim was to create something so unique that the only place could get it was where we were. So you either, if you like it, you got to come to us to get it.

(00:13:06):

And yes, sure, it was pre the internet, it was pre MySpace, it was pre all of that stuff, but still the same rules applied. We didn't pander. We just did something that was purely for us that we were like, that fucking rules, that's disgusting, that riffs wicked. Let's do that again. We created our own little world that luckily people, albeit in a relatively small pond we're into. So I would say not in this kind of like, hey, internet motivational time, but I would say for anyone thinking that it's actually quite a challenge to get to that point. I don't think it is. If you put the right pieces together and you work really hard for it, and I think because a lot of bands probably over the last 15 years that I've worked with, going back to what you were talking about before with different incentives and like you say, yeah, some people just want to get on the cover of Ang and that is their aim and they then achieve it.

(00:13:52):

And will anyone ever sing their melodies or play their riffs in a guitar shop in the future? Fuck no. But that wasn't what it was about for them. So you've got to decide on what your aims are and then pursue them. My aim was never to be commercially successful, it was to leave some kind of sonic flagpole where people have difficulty learning how to play our songs in 20 years time, which is still a thing. So I feel like I achieved what I wanted. Sure. I mean the irony is I can't fucking play them either. So it is, I fucked myself there.

Speaker 1 (00:14:19):

Were you very clear about those goals back then?

Speaker 2 (00:14:23):

Ruthlessly? So I would say

Speaker 1 (00:14:25):

Good. It's important to know yourself. I feel like for me, my goal has always been the same, but I wasn't aware that that was my actual goal. So my goal has always been to make a huge impact and basically to improve music but in a big way, improve an entire genre or have some sort of an impact that creates some sort of a movement or that facilitates the evolution of a genre, which is super crazy. But that's what I've always wanted to do and to do it, like I said in a big way. And my mistake was to be channeling those feelings into a metal band, to actually doing the band to try to have those types of aspirations for the type of music I was making and for that type of working environment and just that format for making those changes that is completely inappropriate.

(00:15:27):

So I did have the musical goals and all those things, but my deeper purpose was what I'm doing now and I was always pushing to take things in that type of direction, make a bigger impact, do things bigger, but I was basically trying to fit around peg into a square hole type of thing. It took me several years to realize that that's what I've always wanted to do, but I was kind of barking up the wrong tree with how to go about doing it. But I do think that it's very, very important to do the work to try to figure out what your actual motivations are for anything, especially what you're trying to do in a creative career, because what you think it is that you want might not be what you actually want.

Speaker 2 (00:16:12):

And the big factor to throw into that is when you're younger, and I'm sure there are far smarter people at 18 than I was at 18, but so I only speak of myself, but when you're starting a band in your late teens, we were with sixth, you have this sort of boundless stubbornness, nothing's going to stop me because frankly nothing has up until that point. If you've been lucky enough to have a decent childhood or not, had to suffer. And I'm lucky enough to say that. So you have almost a blinkered arrogance that people older than you. Now that I'm older, I realize there would've been many people doing it behind my back when I was going, oh yeah, we're going to be this. Yeah, we're definitely going to do this. And people must be like, oh, fucking shut up dude. Once you've had a few years of life, you'll realize that's not going to happen for you.

(00:16:53):

But I do think although you are kind of delusional at that age, it's that delusional fearless approach that gets you to where you need to get to. Now. It's a bit of an all eggs in the basket approach for many people. It fails and then it comes crashing down. And I've seen that too. And like I say, we weren't Coldplay, we weren't able to go and move to Malibu and just drink crystal for a living, but we got to a big enough point to step to the next phase of life. But it was that kind of, there's this alignment of your dreams when you're 18, and in parallel to that is your maturity and your life wisdom and all this stuff. And the two at some point, I dunno what age it was for you, they intertwine and then it all becomes clear and you're like, oh fuck. I understand why I did that now and I understand that I shouldn't have done that, but I did. And that's the way. So it is funny if I could go back to the start of my career with the maturity and clarity of understanding how things work based upon having made loads of mistakes. So I've trial and errored my way through life now. Yeah, I would've made so many different moves, but we cannot go back in time and that is not a thing and there's no point worrying about it.

(00:18:02):

I wish to God I could, but I just can't.

Speaker 1 (00:18:05):

It was recent for me by the way, that understanding was in the last few years.

Speaker 2 (00:18:10):

Why do you think that was?

Speaker 1 (00:18:11):

Well, I think part of it is because what I'm doing now didn't actually exist in the world. What we do, the technology didn't even exist for it, it just didn't exist. It reminds me of when I went to Berkeley, I took a music business class, one of the only classes that was not bullshit and the first thing that the teacher said, and this teacher worked for major labels and had signed a bunch of artists, he was legit. He wasn't just teaching because he sucked,

Speaker 2 (00:18:39):

Which is a thing, which

Speaker 1 (00:18:40):

Is a thing. This guy is actually, one of the things that I modeled URM after was having real people be the instructors, real people, as in people who have done it for real. But the first thing he said was, most of you who go on to work in music for a career are going to work in industries that haven't been invented yet. So I think that that was part of it was that I knew I had to do something, but that something hadn't even been invented yet. So it's searching for something that doesn't even exist. But I can tell you that even two years into the band being signed, I was already thinking, well, this is not tenable. Imagine being 40 and doing this. Hell no. And then I remember touring with much bigger bands and sharing buses and paying attention to how they lived and thinking to myself, so best case scenario, very best case, everything goes right.

(00:19:35):

Would we be even as big as this band that we're sharing the bus with? That would have to be like every single thing goes right, and maybe we could be as big as this band. How cool is this not that cool? And it's not that cool. I don't want this as a future. And so I was thinking at what point, at what age will this be super depressing? And I came to the conclusion that it would be sooner than later. So already two years in, I was already thinking there is a next step. I don't know what the next step is. And then when I got the gig at Audio Hammer, I had already been producing for 10 years, but that was when I started being in the room with much better bands and much bigger bands. And I was also thinking with that, so this could lead to full timing production. If I keep following this path, is that what I want? And by the way, if that's what people listening to this want, awesome. You have to know what you want in life. So I was thinking, is this what I want? I was like 31 when I went there. Is this what I want when I'm 40 or 50? No, definitely not. Within a year of being there, I was already thinking there is something else, but it was driving me nuts. That's something else didn't haven't been invented yet. So

Speaker 2 (00:21:01):

It's inspiring though, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (00:21:02):

It is because right now people ask me, well, have you ever sell URM or something? Whatcha going to do next? I don't fucking know. But I do know that there is something, but I feel the same way. It's like whatever that next step is, it might not even exist in the world yet, but I do know that there is a next step and knowing that there's that next step and that hunting for it is the way you find it keeps me going. But that understanding of I'm always trying to do bigger things, it's super important for me to make an impact. It was always kind of beneath the surface. It didn't really become super clear until I was making that impact. And I was working with people where I can have a huge idea and they don't get mad at me for it or they don't think I'm nuts for it or they don't think of how unrealistic it is. I mean, obviously I have to sell my ideas to them and I have to make it bulletproof because they're super smart and they're not going to be cool with just following me down some stupid path. But if I have a outlandish idea that's going to take a lot of investment and is kind of unrealistic for most people, if I can sell it well, the people I work with are totally cool with seeing it through.

Speaker 2 (00:22:22):

Yeah, you've proven yourself through your aims coming to fruition actually as well probably in any industry. I think when you have these big ideas in whatever it is you're doing and then you can prove it and you can make them a thing, not only does it prove to everyone else that, oh, this person's the real deal, but actually the deep rooted vulnerability that most of us have where we're like, fuck, I might fuck this up really badly. It cleanses that a bit. And if you do it a few times, you start to actually, for me personally, I have a sort of an equal amount of confidence and self-loathing and that kind of tips one way or the other for most days to the next. And I find the closer I get to my description of this is good enough, whether it comes to producing a record when I listen to a record I've done and I'm like, fuck, that sounds really good actually. Did I do that

Speaker 3 (00:23:10):

At

Speaker 2 (00:23:10):

That moment where I'm like, I'm not sure. In six months I'll probably find loads of holes in it, but at that moment if I'm actually happy and I can genuinely say, well, I worked my ass off for that, I got paid well for it, I didn't make any enemies, everyone had a great time, there's probably going to be more bands coming of that ilk now wicked, more importantly, does it sound fucking great? Yeah, that sort of does something to me internally. It's not about massaging my own ego, it's like an inner sense of pride. You knew how hard you've worked to work out how to do this and you've done it and you are the only one who remembers all the sleepless nights you've had stressing about it. So getting to that point where you feel like you can bring your aims and your thoughts to life in a way that represents them clearly, that's a really important turning point in your life. And once you've passed that or you get to a point where you start to be satisfied, sure you're unsatisfied to a degree going forward, but it becomes incremental because you are operating at a better level than maybe you did 10 years ago or whatever. So I can relate to what you're saying, there's a sense of needing to know what you want and then when you start to bring it to life, things just make sense more. I dunno why it is, but they do. For me,

Speaker 1 (00:24:22):

I call it proof because I think that just about everyone I know in music has imposter syndrome regardless of their level of success. Everyone I know except for the sociopaths have it and there are some of those, but there are always questioning whether or not they actually belong in the room with the people they're in the room with or when people are going to figure out that they suck or all kinds of stuff along those lines. And I think that that's part of getting better actually, is if you have the drive to get better, it's because you think that you're not good enough yet, at least for that ideal that you're going for. And so a little bit of imposter syndrome is a good thing. It's part of what gets you there, but it can't be so strong that it prevents you from moving forward, which I've seen in some people where some URM students, for instance, their imposter syndrome is so over the top that they prevent themselves from even trying. And since I've got imposter syndrome, what I do is I like to collect proof that I'm full of shit when it comes to that and that I should just keep going for things anyways.

Speaker 2 (00:25:35):

I think it's important to do that. Yeah, I often say to people, I have loads of little sorts of soundbites that I seem to have created to motivate artists when they're feeling like the bit of despair. And it may make some people cringe until they turn curl their toes, but I try to think of things relatively, and I always think I be, Elon Musk is pissed at himself that he's not on Mars yet. Feels like a failure some days.

Speaker 1 (00:25:56):

Oh, I'm sure

Speaker 2 (00:25:57):

If you look at it relatively, everybody feels like they've not quite reached the level that they should have done. And then with music, we're not all making, we're all liars if we say we are, we're not just making music purely for ourselves. The whole nature of music is that it's there and you can't stand next to it disclaimer, the out of tune vocal that you wish you'd tuned or you can't stand next to it apologizing for any of it. It's out of the pen and then it's free for any stranger who you may or may not agree with you might be politically unaligned or whatever the word would be. Once it's gone, they will hear it and they can make a judgment on it. And that in itself, enormous anxiety. It is like letting all these things you're really proud of out into the ether and especially with the internet now, people can then go, Hey, this is shit.

(00:26:43):

Who are you? Doesn't matter, but it's still shit. And that's a really hard thing to deal with and you've got to be pretty bulletproof. Not to mention when a band will come into me and I always make bands, put a Spotify playlist together of references a lot of people do. If a record gets put on that has passed me by or it just blows me away and there's a little voice in me going, fuck, I dunno how they created that. How did they make that synth sound? I couldn't do that. Instead of saying, well, that's why I'm not that person. And we all have our own strengths and I'm sure Bob Rock and Randy Star couldn't have made that record either, but I still hail them for the black album. The point is, you can't be great at everything. So I say, well, I couldn't do that, but I could do this and I have to find little mechanisms to make me not go to the toilet and sort of berate myself, which used to happen on the regular life is too short

Speaker 1 (00:27:29):

And it's a natural thing to do.

Speaker 2 (00:27:30):

Yeah, it is. And we're all the same. And actually talking about that stuff and smiling about it and riding the wave of self-loathing and Oh shit, I wish I was better at this. That's one of the best techniques for not feeling like it because like, oh, actually we're all fucking crazy. It's fine and we're all going to be fine and we're all getting better together and then one day we'll all die and it doesn't matter anyway, so fuck it. And that's the only way I can deal with those demons these days. Otherwise it's like you spend most of your mornings and nights just fucking hating yourself for how much a hundred hertz is in the snare drum on this record that no one gives a fuck about. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (00:28:08):

I do think that bringing up the teenager that's listening to this or even someone in their thirties or whoever is listening to this who is early on in their career and is facing those sorts of feelings or even if they're well on into their career and facing those sorts of feelings, I think that it's really, really important, especially if you feel that sort of thing pretty intensely a lot of creative people do is to try and find a way to manage it because those feelings, they don't have to be a detriment and they don't have to be a roadblock, but they can be. If you let them run wild, they can definitely get in the way and having some sort of a strategy for dealing with them, like you said, you find a way to put it in perspective. I know some guitar players who are the best guitar players on earth in that category, which I know you do too, who are in their forties and they still take lessons and that's how they keep themselves.

(00:29:14):

They always feel like they suck, but instead of sulking about it, they'll still get lessons once or twice a week and they have their entire careers except for when they're on tour or something and they do things in the real world to combat that. So they don't just accept that they feel this way, actually do something about it. That's a huge difference maker. I think people need to figure that out for themselves, whatever that is, that helps them get past those feelings. The sooner that they figure out how to manage them, the better. Because the one thing I have noticed is that they don't really go away. So it's not that you're going to eliminate them from your psyche. If you're wired that way, you're wired that way and changing your wiring is borderline impossible. But the thing that you can change is how you deal with things and learning how to deal with that stuff is crucial.

Speaker 2 (00:30:09):

I don't necessarily practice what I preach, but what I've found, again in my early forties, wisdom, especially when I'm on records and I'm playing catch up and I'm getting up at 6:30 AM editing, going to bed at midnight, the days when I've had a good night's sleep the following day, I always manage to get better results and I sound like my mother now, but it's a thing

Speaker 1 (00:30:30):

Your mom was right.

Speaker 2 (00:30:31):

Sleep is genuinely the biggest cause of self-loathing a hundred percent. It's also the cause of pushing someone's buttons or reacting to a comment you wouldn't normally react to or feeling like the world's a bit of a twilight zone today and the clouds are sort of gathering around your head. That's often an illusion. And I swear in my experiences based upon sleep or a culmination of sleepless nights for a few nights in a row, it can make creative decisions seem a lot harder. Your ears don't work as well. So you're doing things that seem really difficult. Everything gets more difficult, put loads of difficult things together. When you're trying to aim for a certain standard that's still got to be hit and you're running out of time, loads of bad shit starts happening. So I do think fundamentally getting sleep when you're on a creative project is key.

(00:31:13):

And you know what? This is just a little tip that I found has really helped me, and if hopefully it may help some people who suffer from the same levels of self-loathing that most of us creatives do. I've got a document in my phone in capital letters that says things I don't know that I wish I did know, and I just add to it all the time. So if someone talks about the American Civil War or this Spanish ahma shit, I dunno about that and I feel dumb and I want to know about that, I just write on the list. And most of the time it's audio related shit, whatever it may be,

Speaker 1 (00:31:42):

But not necessarily

Speaker 2 (00:31:43):

Understanding what that arturia synth does in that pack that I've got 20 arturia synths and I just go straight for a preset every time. Why don't I actually work out how that ARP works after all these years? I write it on a list and then without any self-induced pressure or without any clock ticking, if I'm having a chill, I just go to that list and I just tick one of 'em off and I feel a sense of the shit I'm not good at is getting smaller. That's good. It feels like progress for me. And actually it's a very simple mechanism, but it really works. It really does because you get a sense of pride that you've actually tackled what you perceive to be stupidity head on, and I would recommend everybody did it because it can't fail you. It helps. That's my tip of the day.

Speaker 1 (00:32:24):

It's interesting that I feel like if you're talking about, and I am not a doctor or a medical professional, but I have a lot of experience with this when dealing with depression. Depression needs to be attacked from multiple angles. It's usually a mixture of therapy, medication, lifestyle. One of those alone isn't going to solve it. But in my experience, the one key thing that will make everything else work synergistically as opposed to making none of it work, is the feeling of momentum and progress. And so things like what you just said, whether it's just some fact you want to learn more about the American Civil War or something that has got nothing to do with your career, it doesn't matter. That feeling that you get when you're making progress on something that you previously viewed as a deficiency, big or small, just that feeling of progress in my experience is the thing that is the biggest difference maker because it starts there and then kind of starts to infest other areas of your life. And the opposite is true too. If you're stagnating, that starts to infest. Are there areas of your life? So I actually think that that tip is very powerful actually.

Speaker 2 (00:33:44):

Well, to take it further, it's broken down into numerous things, whether it be nature, whether it be electronics, whether it be music theory, and these are things that bother me. I know that they annoy me, that I dunno certain things, but in the most simple terms I could possibly put it in. It's a way of tricking your brain because if there's something going on, for example, my life, I'm sure many of people listening to this, my life is in pro tools that has been since the year 2000. I see in pro tools, I do shortcut commands in my head in the middle of a conversation to sort of apple zed, someone's comment when I can't get out of that world and I'm in that world. But even within that world, there's certain challenges that I find just creative challenges that I think, shit, I'm not going to be able to do this and it's going to take me ages to work out.

(00:34:31):

But then if I align that with another thing that's unrelated to music that I also consider to be an unattainable target, a bit of knowledge that I'm never going to grasp in a short space of time, if I then go away and I attain it very quickly, it conditions me. I'm like, oh shit. Okay. So it's quite easy actually. So I go and do that in this thing now, and I find it's a way of tricking my brain into telling me that I'm actually smarter than I'm, because we're all a bit smarter than we think we are. Whether you can retain the knowledge, that's another thing that's a problem I have. But that's years of headbanging and not sleeping long enough probably. But it's proving to self you can do it. That's

Speaker 1 (00:35:05):

Less important in my opinion, than the momentum feeling and the feeling of progress.

Speaker 2 (00:35:10):

I agree. And you're taking the bull by the horns, and when you're in control of your destiny, whatever, however significant or insignificant you may feel it is, you're still in control. And that's important.

Speaker 1 (00:35:20):

Yeah. So I think that that's a good time to segue into talking about production some and taking control of sessions. So you were saying that when a band comes in, you have them make a Spotify playlist, for instance, so that you can kind of get inside their heads some. And one thing that I've noticed about production is that when a session, this is kind of tied to what we've been talking about, when a session kind of starts, let's just say when something goes wrong in a session or you're not on the same page as one of the musicians, or you try for something and it doesn't work out the way you thought it would, just like any kind of thing, or there's a ton of band drama that you're dealing with, anything that could cause you to lose control of the session. As the producer who should be in control of the session, what are some of the steps that you've taken to regain that control, or what are the kinds of things that you do in advance to kind of preempt those types of situations from even happening in the first place? This

Speaker 2 (00:36:32):

Is an area that's most important to me, Ashley, and for me is kind of the basis of why I like to call myself a producer proudly, because I think I've always considered a producer as not just a creative role. It's an unqualified therapist as a friend, but ultimately as a project manager, it's someone who's going to take the reins. I've done so many records where the band's management are awful and have fucked things up and have booked the wrong days in the studio, whatever. And it started to occur to me that I am a control freak, but I'm also, I know where the line is, but I like to do shit properly. So I thought that's something that's missing from people that I'd worked with, from people that I knew. I felt like what a band's first impression of me should be. I want them to know they can call me about anything. They can completely trust me and know that I'm going to work harder than anyone for their band, and I don't want them to even have to question that.

Speaker 3 (00:37:24):

I

Speaker 2 (00:37:24):

Want them to just see it in me like, fuck, this guy's. The real deal. He really cares. So for me, and it's not some calculated trick I've created to make bands go, wow, this guy is really trustworthy. It's who I am. And having been in a band and wanted that, I know what it feels like to feel like your whole career is in someone else's hands and they better give a fuck because if they don't, my future could be screwed. And it sounds melodramatic, but that is what it's like when you're in a band.

Speaker 1 (00:37:51):

No, no, no, no, that's not melodramatic. That's accurate.

Speaker 2 (00:37:54):

That's literally what it is because as you know, and anyone who's not been in a band doesn't get it. When you're in a band, you're all in, 90% of your conversations are about being in a band. Everything relates to being in a band. So when some guy comes along and says, this is what I charge to produce your album, I'll probably earn more from this than you will over the next few months. That's the fact of the matter. In this day and age, I already feel like shit, I better really, really bring my A game. So for me, proving my trustworthiness and proving that they can rely on me is key to everything. And if that is proven early on through not forcing issue through honest friendship, everything else falls into place better than because I'm never fighting against the tide. People are willing to take my advice and go, okay.

(00:38:41):

And I find that if I don't establish that connection early on with a band, well, I dunno what that feels like. I always do. I want bands to enjoy every minute of the session. I want them to feel like, and I always say it, I want it to feel like a holiday camp. I want it to be like, okay, so we're all away with our mates making a record in a forest or in the countryside, this fucking rules. Sure, there's going to be moments of jitteriness arguments, fear, all of the above because ultimately every band and every artist ever is scared shitless of failing, not just failing commercially, but failing themself and not hitting the target they know they're capable of. So you do have ups and downs, as you know in the studio. You do have people all aligning at different times, oh, this guy's woken up, got a smile on his face, but this guy looks like death.

(00:39:25):

What's going on here? But you read those moments and you understand when someone's going too far, when someone's being pushed beyond the point that they're going to be able to do it. And you have to be the one to say, okay, guys, let's go to the pub. We don't need to fight this. Everything in the studio when it comes to controlling a session is about reading the room and about knowing when to put your foot on the gas or when to go. It's okay, we're well on schedule, and do you know, why don't we knock off early tonight and let's start a bit earlier tomorrow. I'll get the Starbucks on the way in Everybody's happy, try and find a way to create positivity in every moment. And I find sometimes I'm feeling like shit and I have to fake it, but most of the time if there's always someone in the room bringing some positive energy and bringing some, you guys are making the best record.

(00:40:11):

Believe it. You can drag most people through any shit they're going through, and as long as you walk the walk and actually deliver when you say you're going to, which is obviously the most important thing, then when it comes to the next clients that come your way, if a band has spoken well of you and said, you can totally trust him to deliver what he says he's going to deliver, that's good enough for that. Band's touring buddies, it's exponential. Equally, and I won't name names, but there's a few producers that I get regular negative stories about that's exponential too, that travels like wildfire because bands love a good fucking moan. They, let's be honest, I've been in one and I did too. I mean, I'm sure my reputation isn't completely squeaky clean. There'll be someone who's like, yeah, he's a bit of a prick sometimes.

Speaker 1 (00:40:56):

Nobody's is,

Speaker 2 (00:40:57):

We can't be just these righteous perfect humans. We are going to clash with some

Speaker 1 (00:41:01):

No, it's more about a ratio.

Speaker 2 (00:41:02):

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:41:03):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lamb of God, angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:41:55):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed and enhanced.

(00:42:49):

Members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to M Academy to find out more. So there's two things about having your future in somebody else's hands. This is something that caused me lots of problems when I was younger because it's something that I understood from when I was a teenager. And so when you're in high school or younger, finding people who are serious is very hard. But I was always serious, and so I always viewed the people I work with as holding my future in their hands. And so it was, I would move on from musicians or people I worked with and I was accused of using them or being cold or whatever, but they didn't see it the way I saw it, the way I saw it was actually this person is being an asshole because they're fucking up my future, or they're fucking up the future of me and the other people in the band.

(00:44:03):

It's not fair to the rest of us. I've worked my ass off for this. I'm devoting my entire life to this, and this person isn't, why do I owe this person a spot in a band with me? I don't. And I've carried that forward. And then in production, I thought about that too. I remember being in a band and working with producers who didn't give a shit, and then having those feelings like, wow, this person controls my future right now. I got to get away from them.

Speaker 2 (00:44:32):

It can bring the worst out in you as well. Everything you've just said I relate to. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:44:36):

It made me more brutal. But then when it helped me understand that when the tables are turned, I'm holding their futures in my hand. And even when it comes to something as, I don't want to say low impact, but it's not the same as making a record, but working with someone on nail the mix or whatever, I know that that's not going to make or break their future, but it could either help or hurt. And I take that very, very seriously. I feel like every interaction you have with somebody on a professional level, you can either help or hurt their trajectory. And so I take that seriously, and I think that bands may not always think about that consciously. They may not be thinking 10 years out or something like that, but they feel it, and they do think about it on some level. And if they don't have that trust for you, they don't have the trust that you give a shit somebody really, really tough to get their trust and to make it through the tougher times.

(00:45:41):

That's when it really matters, is if they don't think that you really care about their future, but you're getting great tones and everything's working great, but they don't think you really care, but everything's awesome, they'll overlook that to a degree. But the moment that there's a disagreement or a bad day or some band drama or some shit goes wrong, which is going to happen, that's going to happen, that's when that really starts to affect everything. And I think that producers at all levels need to think about this. But especially if you're starting out, when you're starting out, one of the biggest problems is you don't have the trust of bands. You just don't because you don't have, we were talking about proof earlier, you don't have any proof behind you. There's no reason for them to really trust you more often than not early on in your career, if a band is coming to you, they're coming to you out of proximity or convenience or price.

(00:46:41):

It's one of those things. It's like you're available and you're good enough. You're not their top choice. You're not even close to their top choice, but you're what they have to settle for at that moment in time. And that's why you hear a lot of early stage producers having a hard time getting their ideas accepted or bands not listening to them or bands arguing with them about too much stuff. It's not that the band are difficult, that they don't trust you yet. So you need to take steps to earn that trust. And it can't be is, like you said, it can't be some trick. It has to be genuine. And one of the things that you can do to make it genuine is to actually give a shit about their future and realize that how well this goes, depending on where the band is at, but how well this goes could mean the difference between them existing in a year or not existing in a year, or if they're professional band, this could mean the difference between them being able to pay their crew and pay themselves or not pay their crew or pay themselves for the next two years or any permutation of that.

(00:47:44):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:47:45):

I mean, they're the facts. The guilt I feel as a producer is that I can finish a band's record, and I'll always make sure the band are happy and I'm happy, but then if that record doesn't connect or the band don't get to the level they want to get to, I still carry on. I get to do another record and I come away unscathed unless it sounded like shit. But I like to think there aren many of them. But the point is that we're protected for a band. It's like, no, this means even more to the band in question. It's not about your production or the mix or anything. Yeah, it's about their future because you are dictating the trajectory of their future, and as long as you've worked super hard and you've given your all, then that's all you can do. And it doesn't mean no one's got a divine right to succeed, of course.

(00:48:29):

But I wouldn't be, I mean, this isn't some kind of, I'm such a nice guy, dude, it is. Not that. It's just, I know myself, if I even scrimped on something, I just couldn't be fucked because I was desperate to get home and watch Netflix, and I could have just edited that last bit of guitar, but fuck it. No one's going to tell I wouldn't be able to live with myself. You just can't corner that shit. You've got to do it thoroughly. Do it properly. Look at everyone, say, I worked my ass off for you. I, and I'm sure most producers listening to this will agree, there's been records where I've been paid a good amount of money. There's been records where I've paid, been paid, fuck all. Does it impact how hard I work? No, of course it doesn't because all of that stuff, there's no parallel between financial gain and knowing you've done the job.

(00:49:11):

There is none at all. There certainly isn't for most of us. I would like to think it's an irrelevance. Sure. When you've worked your ass off and you do get paid a good paycheck or whatever, at least makes you, it's the people around you, whether it be your partner or your family, whatever. When you've been away for ages, you can say, well, look, there's something to show for it that you care about. We can at least do something nice or whatever. But for me, it has no impact at all. I'm just like, God, tell me the vocal sound good? Tell me they do. That's all I care about. And I like to think artists can tell that I'm one of them in that moment. And segueing back to the old wacky metal band, having been there in a band and having had a career, it definitely helps me to feel like one of the pack kind of thing, and not just sort of the nerdy guy with glasses, twiddling knobs in the corner. I feel like I get it from their angle, so that probably certainly helps me.

Speaker 1 (00:50:04):

Do you think that they relate to you differently because they know that you have that background?

Speaker 2 (00:50:09):

It depends who the band are. I'm working with Barry tomorrow at the moment, who Amazing metal band over here. And yeah, a couple of the guys in the band grew up being into sixth. So I mean, obviously we're just mates now, but when I have a guitar idea, the guitarist will listen because he knows I understand riffs. Whereas if I work with an indie band, you're like, what? Sick God, no metal. They don't give a fuck about the band. And it doesn't equip me in any way to have any. In fact, it hinders me. If you're trying to tell someone how playing into that tweed with offender Jaguar should sound, it should sound more cury. If they then reference you as the guy from the atonal metal band, it stands you in bad stead, not good stead. So sometimes it's a real shackle that I wish I could get rid of. He'll be artists that I've worked with in the pop worlds where the management will go, oh God, yeah, I remember six really heavy, noisy stuff. He's probably not the right guy to work with So sometimes it can be really unhelpful and most of the time it's good though.

Speaker 1 (00:51:09):

Yeah, I can imagine that. It just depends on who you're working with. Speaking of someone you're working with or worked with right now, it is March, 2022 and we've got Taylor Larson withholding absence on now, the mix right now. And I know that that's something that you produced, right?

Speaker 2 (00:51:31):

Indeed. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:51:32):

I already knew that. I don't know why I asked.

Speaker 2 (00:51:35):

Yeah, Taylor was calling me saying, Hey, I've been asked to do this. Which song should we do? So Taylor and I have a kind of a iMessage voice memo relationship that's just extensive where we got through the whole album on that.

Speaker 1 (00:51:48):

He loves the voice messages

Speaker 2 (00:51:50):

He does, and they're always at the stupid time of night. I'm like, hang on, listen, lemme just do the maths here. Okay, it's 5:00 AM what the fuck are you mixing this song for? But all I care about are results and Taylor's got the ears, so it suits me fine. Yeah. I produced that record and I co-wrote some of it. That song in particular, I co-wrote

Speaker 1 (00:52:08):

Afterlife.

Speaker 2 (00:52:09):

Yes, afterlife. I've worked with the band on basically all of their singles and produced, they've got, I mean, one of my favorite bands, one my favorite bands to work with as well. Sometimes when you, people who use pro tools will understand, there's a moment where there's, someone stood there singing into a mic and then suddenly you hear it back through Pro Tools and you've added a bit of extra compression and maybe sent it to some delay and you listen to it and you're like, holy fuck, that sounds like a record. And there's that moment. Sometimes the conversion doesn't happen. It takes quite a bit of work. Shit, I better double track that. Okay, we're going to have to wait for the bass to come down on this one before it starts to sound like an album holding absence of one of those bands where you put one or two elements in and it's like, oh fuck, this sounds really special.

(00:52:52):

I get a funny feeling from it. And there's not many bands. You can say that every beat and every note in that band is thought out with kind emotion and it has to feel something. And that's a real pleasure to work with because we all filming, we all get that shiver and there's certain chord you're like, oh my God, that felt amazing. That chord that some people don't understand that band have that in droves, and I have that. And I dunno, making music with them is just pure joy for me. I shouldn't be getting paid for it. It's a crime

Speaker 1 (00:53:19):

Or Awesome. So when you work with a mixer like Taylor, does it change how you approach the production or at what point in the process do you start communicating with the mixer?

Speaker 2 (00:53:33):

Yeah, I mean it really depends on who. I've used so many different mixers over the years, and again, a relationship with them is really important to understand what they're like. So I suspect on that album we had a phone call or something about it. References are really important what the band's into. And I also write a fairly anal monologue when I send proto sessions to a mixer, which is not, this is how I want you to do your job. It's more

Speaker 1 (00:54:01):

This is how you're doing your job. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (00:54:04):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There'll be certain things that I put in a session that it's to the mixer discretion if they want to turn up. I often do lots of Valhalla shimmer kind of three dimensional stuff,

(00:54:14):

And I'll just do it across the whole song loads. And I often say, if you're in need of some three dimensional moments where it's feeling a bit empty, just automate that up and it'll do the job. It's all perfectly in tune. So I'll often say stuff like that and give them a grounding. And I'll try to just describe how I want the records to hear to sound. I'll describe it in words. I want the vocals to feel very upfront, but I want the delays to be kind of caught notes, half notes. I don't want it to be sloppy delays or I don't want a vocal to be too verby. Try and give them some kind of push in the direction that I know the band are going to be happy with. It's all based upon what the band want. And then because Taylor and I had never worked together before, it was really then just in the lap of the God, you dunno what you're going to get back. And I knew it would be of a high standard and the first mixes I got back were of a high standard, but they weren't quite where I wanted it. But Taylor talk about diligent and never throwing his toys out of the pram. He was like, okay, cool. I understand. Let me go back to this. And we just hashed it out in a kind of really obsessive two people who just loved the record. He just wanted make it great. He wasn't getting paid loads for it, neither of us were.

Speaker 1 (00:55:18):

He told me that there was a lot of back and forth. So that's what I'm curious about how that went.

Speaker 2 (00:55:24):

Yeah, I mean the amounts of layers on that record are excessive to the point where I should have stemmed some of them out a bit more. But the bands kind of mantra, if you like, is that they hear their band as how many layers can we add until protos kind of stops it? And sure, as a producer she jobs to go, listen, that 25th layer of shimmer Ebo is doing nothing now. But equally, you want to embrace the chaos and say, Hey, chuck some more shit down. It sounds great. So yeah, I think the reason that record went back and forth was because there was a lot of tracks and it's very down to discretion as to which one needs to take the lead. But also I wanted the drums to sound a certain way. I wanted it to have something magical that I knew Taylor could get and he got it.

(00:56:10):

When we got beyond Belief mix, which was the first mix, I was like, that sounds insane. That's how it should sound loads and loads and loads and loads of low end but not scooped. And that's really hard to do because then you've got to have loads of sort of 400 to one K and then you've got a vocal getting clouded and then before you know it, you're like, oh fuck. So there's a hundred channels of epic shit. Where am I going to put that? So the poor guy must have just wanted to jump off a cliff, but he nailed it.

Speaker 1 (00:56:35):

That's something he's great at though. He's great at mixes that have millions of different layers on them. The other track we've got going on right now is the Jason Richardson track, which there's so much shit going on in that track and it all works, but there is so much going on. I think one of the things that Taylor is phenomenal at is figuring out how to take productions that are over the top in the amount of layers and somehow you can hear what's in there, but it doesn't get in the way of the main idea.

Speaker 2 (00:57:19):

Yeah, I agree. He's really good at that. I think with multilayered stuff, there's a decision that gets made by all mixes, me included, I think. And anyone who's good at mixing it, I guess you need to decide what's going to be perceived as fairly dry, fairly close to your ears, and then you can get away with making loads of that shit wettened crazy if you have too much verb on the snare and then suddenly you're sending the vocals to a bit of verb and then it just becomes a washy mess. It's like making those decisions. What's going to feel super upfront and what's not. Then you've got so much more depth to play with. I do think there are creative decisions that need making early on, and I think with someone like Taylor, he's just naturally good at that anyway. So I think he'll just lean in that direction, which is obviously why I wanted him to do it.

(00:58:06):

I'm still, that record stands up against anything. I think his mix is incredible on it, and incidentally he mastered it too. And we shot it out with a friend of mine at Sterling and I warned him, I was like, Taylor is very, very adamant. He's mastering this record. You better be fucking great. And I brought Taylor in on the email thread. I was like, here he is Taylor, this is Ryan. He masters on my records. He's fucking brilliant. And we ended up just saying, Hey, Taylor's just ticking the box. It's just does what we want it to do. And we were really happy. So yeah, I rate Taylor highly and there'll be many more records I'm sure that we'll do together

Speaker 1 (00:58:41):

When you know that somebody else is going to mix it. Does it change the way you approach your production choices or your input on the arrangements?

Speaker 2 (00:58:53):

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when Chris thought algae mixed a single for me. I was so scared of it sounding like shit,

Speaker 1 (00:59:00):

God, that's a little terrifying.

Speaker 2 (00:59:02):

Yeah. So I was like, this better sound amazing.

Speaker 1 (00:59:05):

You mean on your end, not his end.

Speaker 2 (00:59:07):

Yeah, I wanted him to not, I didn't want to get a phone call. I was a much younger than I didn't want to get a phone call going, Hey bro,

Speaker 1 (00:59:14):

This

Speaker 2 (00:59:14):

Fucking sucks, man. So I was like, shit, I better tune that snare drum within an inch of its life. But I want the mixer to have a great time. And I pride myself on mixers mostly saying, Hey, this is all sounding great. Thank you. I mean, let's be honest. They're not going to tell me it sounds like shit, are they? But most of the time I believe them.

Speaker 1 (00:59:31):

Oh, they might. I think TLA actually told me that he's called some producers. Well,

Speaker 2 (00:59:37):

If it makes your job really difficult, there's a point where the producer is you to fucking you. And it's like, this is not fair. You're making work for me that I'm not getting paid for. Yeah, I mix a lot of records too. I know what I want a session to look like and I make sure the mixer has it like that. I make sure it's grouped perfectly, color coded perfectly. I make TCI files of the drum kit. I'll extract midi really anally with Mass Massey, whatever you call it, DRTI think it is

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):

DRT.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):

I'll provide all the midi. I don't trust anyone's assistant to do it better than me. So I just provide it all and I'm like, there you go. You can't fuck it up. It's all there on a plate. And I make a nice Dropbox session with a Read Me normally. Funnily enough, Jay Rustin mixed something for me recently and it was through listening to your podcast,

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):

He's fucking phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):

And listening to what he said and how he works, this is a kind of full circle moment As we were talking, it shaped the way I tuned the kick because I heard your podcast with him. I was like, okay, he likes some decay on a snare drum. I'm going to throw that moon gel in the bin. I'm going to let that sn. I'm not going to sun anger it, but I'm going to let it ring a bit. And so that definitely shaped my creative choices there. I knew he likes to use the real kit, he's going to want to parallel compress. He wants as much kind of stuff as possible. So yeah, I tune that kit completely differently to how I would normally tune a kit. It depends on the style of the music as well. Some Joseph McQueen's mixing bow tomorrow at the moment for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):

He's also great.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):

He's brilliant, great guy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):

His dudes are all great. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):

They're brilliant. And Joseph and I get on really well via Instagram. We're chatting all the time. It's a really nice relationship where we can talk openly about how we want it to sound. I know whether I, you can see the diesel VH four and it doesn't matter how great a tone I deliver, some mixers are going to take that DI and they're going to reamp it because that's their style and that's what suits them. And so I always make sure I'm really anal with the di so that if someone wants to make that as a creative choice, it's not about whether I'm sad about my guitar tone and getting thrown in the bin, it's about what's going to help them to give the best results. So I just try and provide choices for mixers so that I would hate it if they were like, did you get a stereo room mic right at the back of the room? No, I didn't. I prefer 'em to just have it all. So I guess I'm always in the very short, non rambling answer to your question is I'm always considering making the mixes job as easy as possible. I think

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):

It makes sense. And you, with the amping thing, there's also many mixers that will refuse to reamp. So it's important to know who you're working with or to just preempt, be ready.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):

Some people, depending on which generation they're often from,

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):

I think that's correct. If

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):

It ain't got tubes in it, those people are out there. And that's fine. And I respect that too. For example, I did some new holding absence recently. Taylor is in fact mixing as we speak, I think, and we did it at the Marshall Martial Amplification Studios. They've created a state-of-the art studio at their factory in Milton Keynes, which is obviously a legendary place. It's where all the marshals are built, and this is like 5 million pound studio with a load of marshal amps. And I've got the diesel VH four in my boot, and I'm thinking, can I be that guy to wheel my diesel in? Am I going to use a torpedo or a sir and use some irs? I just can't be that guy. So for that particular session, I was just like, right, we've got every marshal ever made at our fingertips. We better make the amp sound good. So if Taylor ends up amping them, then I'm clearly fucking shit at my job. I literally had it all there

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):

Or he wanted something else

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):

Maybe. So yeah, I should put a note on the read me for him about that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):

Well, I really do think, just from my experience, like you said, there are some mixers that just they don't give a shit what you send them. They're going to reamp.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):

Yeah. I mean, well, going back to CLA, I mean, I don't know CLA, but I know how he works and some people have a that goes down that channel through that eq and that is it. Whether you've given me the best sound of all time, I don't care. This is how I do it, and who am I to argue with C'S results. So it is very much a, it's not the producer's job to tell a mixer how to mix. The mixer is mixing because they're the mixer and however they want to do it is their fucking thing. It is down to me to sign it off and check the band to super happy. That's kind of it how we get there. It's on them to an extent. And sometimes you need to weigh in quite heavily. And sometimes there's a really awkward chat where you call the mix and you say, look, this isn't working and you need to really make it work because this band, they're quite difficult and they're not going to have patience. So I'm leveling with you. I try and protect the mixer with honesty and then try and help them get it over the line to a point where I know that the band will be happy. But that's always a difficult balance. Then you're like, here's this patronizing Englishman telling me how to do my job. Fuck off. You are always trying to strike a balance for keeping the client happy, not offending or patronizing this mixer who's basically got Grammys or whatever. But ultimately, most people, when they put their egos aside,

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):

This wasn't me. Someone I used to work with on some record, I'm not going to say which one. Somebody else was tracking the drums. That's right. Okay. So the person I'm talking about was mixing the record and there was somebody else tracking the drums in a different location with a drummer obviously tracking the drums of the drummer. And the mixer wanted certain things like spaced pair overheads and certain things. Now this engineer who tracked the drums has done slayer and all kinds of stuff. I'm not going to say who it was, but has done all kinds of big shit and has been in the game for a long time. And this mixer wanted to get on the same page about how the drums were being produced and the engineer flipped the fuck out. This mixer has a temper problem too.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):

Perfect storm.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):

Oh god. They got into one of the most brutal fights I've ever heard about the stupidest shit. The problem is that the mixer was calling him to tell him how to mic the drums, which is not what you do. I think that if he wanted to get on the same page, he should have asked him how he intends to mic the drums or if there's, or just ask him for a few things. Could you also put a trigger on the snare or something, whatever. But he was basically from the get go, telling him how to do his job and that dude was not taking it. And holy shit, if they had been in the same room, someone would've been dead at the end of that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):

So pointless though, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):

Yeah, totally pointless. It doesn't have to be that way.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):

There's almost always a remedy to a conflict. Obviously it seems tone deaf to say at the moment with what's going on in the world, but in music terms, you just say, okay, well you like a pair of Coles. I don't like Coles. They've got no top end. So I want a pair of form fours. I don't want to use form fours. The remedy is fucking do both and then I'll choose later. It doesn't need to ever become an argument. I mean, often I'll put stuff up at my end of things when I'm producing. It'll be an in-house engineer, almost always in-house engineers are great, brilliant humans because they're used to be around people and adapting and not getting in the way and not letting their ego take over. And there'll be, sometimes I get to a studio and there'll be an engineer has put some overheads up in a totally batshit kind of way that I would never use. Part of me is like, this is out of my control. I dunno what's going to happen. Let's go back to what I know. The other half of me is, this could be fucking great and I'll do that in my next session. So I embrace it. And if it's great, then you've just won. You've just accumulated some knowledge you didn't have. But arguing about Mike's is definitely, there's more important shit in life, I think. It just really is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):

There is so much more important shit. The two of 'em are just assholes when it comes down to it. So not a thing to fight about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):

Egos, testosterone, fear, throw it all in the pot together and then just align two personalities that are not going to back down. You can have war pretty quick between over really stupid shit. My mother has always said, the world spins round on the end of a prick. And I think that's kind of a perfect example of it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):

Yeah, absolutely. Also, like you said, there is an easy solution to that conversation. It doesn't have to be a fight. And I think what the bigger point here is that I think one of the places where music people tend to do the worst, where they could improve the most, which would I think that it would help the entire music industry and certainly help people's careers on individual levels, is learning how to communicate properly with people.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):

Listening.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):

Listening. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):

It's key actually. Actually, if I was to give you a good example of, and I've told this anecdote a few times as a means to prove my point. Back in sixth, I used to feel like I was the riff writer and my riffs were this and I was this. And if I thought something, there's every chance it was. Right? So let's just go with my opinion. Yeah. Guys, you're 20 years old. You dunno what an annoying prick you are acting like and when you're 20. Well, when I was 20, I can't speak for other 20 year olds, I used to not realize the subtext that was beneath the tone of my voice. I thought, no, they can't see that. I'll just say it in a really friendly way and everyone will just go along with it. Not realizing I just used to annoy the fuck out of people. Same. And I had to grow up to realize that, oh fuck yeah, passive aggression is a thing and I'm good at it and I need to learn not to be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):

No, you need to be bad at it and just be aggressive.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):

Yeah, exactly. Own your shit. Either be, it's better to say, I've got a fucking temper and I'm going to unleash fury now than to sort of manipulate someone in a kind of patronizing way. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):

I actually agree with you,

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):

And I think people respect it more. Actually. They prefer to be on the receiving end of just your rage than you trying to coerce them into your way of thinking because that's kind of an insult to their intelligence often. And you're like, hang on a sec, I see what you're doing here. Yeah. But I mean this particular scenario was, there's a song called Sky's a Millennium Knight on the first sixth album. And it was a song that structurally I hadn't had as much to do in the middle of the song. I forget why at the time and when I came in to hear what the guys had done, I was like, absolutely not. This doesn't sound good enough. This structure sucks. I don't like this. No, no. And I remember, I can still remember myself now thinking, yeah, but I'm right. I know I'm right.

(01:10:27):

So they'll come around eventually. But that was a real turning point for me when it comes to listening because they were like, look, we really think this is going to work. And I backed down and I resented them over it for a little while. And then when the album came out and when we started playing it live, it became apparent to me one day that section of the song was by far my favorite bit on the album by far. My favorite bit to play live. I look forward to it every night. The crowd went crazy every night. And that was a genuinely poignant turning point for me. I was like, okay, shit, you need to shut up a lot more because actually they're all right and you are not, and that's okay. And it had a very big impact on the band's relationship with me because I was kind of Johnny sensible staying up later than everyone writing and applying pressure, never touching drugs. We must just write great rifts. We're here to succeed. I think people must have been like, dude, chill. Just do some

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):

Drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):

But that was a moment where I was like, okay, I need to realize that A, I'm definitely not always right, B, in fact, I'm regularly wrong and I didn't realize, and that's okay too, going back to the original point, listening was key. I should have just backed down and listened. And if three people in a room are saying something and they really believe it, there's very, very good chance they're right. That's kind of how it is.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):

Yeah, absolutely. Or very good chance you didn't communicate your idea properly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):

Indeed.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):

One or the other. And

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):

You know what? Those same three people often acknowledge when something hasn't worked, if they thought it was going to work, sometimes the proof's in the pudding if a vocalist here on this record wanted to try something, and I was like, that's not going to elevate the song. They want it to be really intimate. I'd sooner just do it and then see if they feel it. And actually I might be pleasantly surprised and go, oh shit, that sounds really good. Actually, we're having a discussion on this record actually, because we've been referencing as a lot of metal bands are at the moment, spirit Box because

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):

Their

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):

Most recent record is monumental sounding. Absolutely. Really, really a bar I would consider in metal production. And you listen to the singer and she's sometimes singing so intimately over the most insanely heavy thing, and it rewrites the rules in the same way that Billie Eilish has with Pop, where it's like, okay, I can whisper over a song and just compress the fuck out it and put it up front. I guess Birk started that years ago. So there's certain things on this record that we're making where the vocalist is wanting to do something a lot more intimately than I would consider to be intuitive or the right thing to do. And I've come round to it, I'm like, fuck yeah, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):

Giving it a shot, why not?

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):

And it's taught me something and I was absolutely sure it was going to fail and it definitely didn't. It sounds great. So you're always learning, aren't you? And it's important to, you just can't be right all the time. And honestly, in such a subjective world that is music, there isn't, right? So you sometimes have to lean on democracy and trust that if more people like it. That's a good reference point.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):

Yeah, I completely agree with you. So we have time for a few more things. I'd love to ask you some questions from our listeners if that's cool with you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):

Of course.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):

Alright, so question from Jack Norman. He says, I'd like to know if you were involved in the writing process for the Mind Sweep by Enter Shaka. It's one of my favorite albums that you've worked on and is the album that got me interested in recording and mixing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):

Oh wow. Well, thanks for the question. No, I mean with Shaka, I'm never really involved in the writing. It's very much more often than not Rao the singer on that record. There was a few moments where the rest of the band got involved, but no, Shaka making Chiari's music is kind of a bizarre process generally, and it's not really a co-writing situation. It's more just all hands on deck, creating chaos and putting all together. So I wouldn't say I co-wrote, but it's very much gathering all the bits and bobs and making it all make sense, and then capturing performances and embracing the boundless creativity that is Ros brain.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):

So it's more just wrangling the ideas into one place.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):

Yeah. Yeah. Raul doesn't need any help on writing. He's a total genius, one of the greats in music that I've ever worked with. But sometimes it's just seeing things from the outside. He'll have such left field ideas, as will the drummer who comes in with some really amazing creative stuff that turns things on its head. It's my job to just make it all make sense, I guess, and make the listener enjoy it somehow. But yeah, I would never, ever get involved with RA's lyrics. I'll often say to Rao, Hey, that bit there, you should come up with something that's kind of in this tone that's a bit more spoken just to fill that gap. We don't really have a reference point there. The music all gets a bit floaty. What's the focus? So I'll often push to do things or I might suggest hitting higher notes for certain melodies, but it would be completely fraudulent tos co-wrote and hopefully that answers your question, Jay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):

Makes sense. Well, I think a producer's job description changes depending on the project they're working on. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):

Man. I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):

So let's see here. Question from Joe Colletta, which is how did you make the transition from unquote guy and cool band into trusted producer? Now I know that we kind of talked about this some, but we never talked about the transition.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):

Fair enough. Well, coupled with our shared kind of ambition issues that we probably had where we saw the future and wanted it. Now, I always was looking, and the band won't want to hear this if they're listening. I was always looking beyond the bands and I was always thinking, fuck, what can I do if this all goes wrong? Coupling that with an obsession for being in the studio because it was pre-internet getting less in the industry when it comes to investment. We were getting silly advances for a p proggy metal band. We're talking the early noughties here. So because of that, we were getting to go into really fancy studios and essentially learn the ropes in really good places in London. And then it just became an obsession. I got an inbox, I think the label bought us a laptop to share, and we started recording a lot of the backing vocals on the first sixth record just in my parents' living room or whatever.

(01:16:45):

I realized I had a passion for it. And then when Colin Richardson was mixing the record or most of the records, I was the guy going to the studio and was there doing it with him and traveling. We were on tour at the time because it ran over so long. I was traveling from gig to hotel to Colin in the day, then driving to soundcheck. It was horrible. But it was in that process that I was just like, oh my God, I've got to do this shit. And then Colin, I remember he won't remember, and I'm sure he said it to loads of people, but he was my hero at school. I was obsessed with burn my eyes, de manufacturing all the sort of roadrunner stuff. And he was like, you have a producer's ear, you need to do this. And that for me was red rag to a ball.

(01:17:26):

I was like, okay. It was like my hero telling me what I needed to do in my future. And I never told him that because it'd just be weird, wouldn't it? So that was it really then. And then from that point on, again referencing what you said earlier, who the fuck's going to want me to produce their shit? I'm just a guy in a band and I've never produced anything. So I saw that clearly then was I was like 24 or something and I thought, I need to offer my services completely for free. I need to take a mobile rig and work in people's houses. There's no cost outlay, PV were endorsing us with 50 on fifties. They gave us a recording desk. We had some shitty mics that we gathered. Let's go to people's houses and let's trade off the back of the fact we're a band with a bit of a name and we know people will probably go, Hey, yeah, I'll have you produce my stuff, even if it's shit, we can just hang out and play riffs.

(01:18:14):

I knew that would happen. So I took that chance and course in that year of just recording for free, I learned the ropes and there was no pressure on it, no bands were worry. They were like, well, doing it for free, fuck it. If it's shit, it's shit and hasn't cost anything for me. I was like, I'm literally getting all these bands that I'm considering to be sort of recording Guinea pigs. There's no risk for them. There's no risk for me. I'm just getting better. And then before I knew it, a couple of those bands started to get in Ang. And then you start getting emails and then you're like, oh shit, okay, people want to work with me. And in essence, it hasn't stopped since then. It's just kept rolling and rolling. And that's literally, that is the transition. I had to deeply reference the memory banks there. Well, that's essentially what happened. That's

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):

A good story. We had time for one more, and I know what I want to ask you about, but this is from Toma, San Antonio Reyes who says, what's a unique approach to music creation and writing that has helped you throughout your career? And I will add that in the pre-interview you talked about piggybacking, and it sounds super fascinating

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):

Piggybacking

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):

In riff writing. So I want to hear more about that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):

I think I have a flawless technique for being able to come up with shit, even if you're completely uninspired. It's not revolutionary, I'm sure, and I'm sure music theory students out there will be going, yeah, okay bro, this is great. But for me, as a self-taught kind of blogger who listened to the black album growing up and just down picked guitar forever, that's how I got into it. Piggybacking is this technique that I've created whereby, and all the bands I work with, they take the piss out of me. And they always, even one band had a t-shirt made up with song DNA written on it because that's a term I use all day. And it's something I actually learned from the drummer in sixth, which is, if we have one thing and one element, don't just scoot away from it and create another element. That next element needs to feel like it's organically grown from the first element.

(01:20:06):

So let's see if we can steal a couple of notes from that first rift. Stick it in the second riff. Before you know it, there's two rifts there that felt like they were born together, they weren't. Piggybacking is an extension of that for me. I'll start with one element. So whatever it is, fuck it. Just say it's a four chord pattern on a synth, right? Loop it, piggyback it, write something over the top of it. Once you've created that thing over the top of it, if it's like a say a guitar top line or something, then mute your original element of the synth. So now you're left with just the guitar. Now you piggyback that guitar. Okay, I am going to write a keys part over the guitar. Or maybe I'm going to go back to synth, write some different chords because that guitar part in isolation is forcing me to hear different chords.

(01:20:47):

Go back to the synth, write some new chords, and then mute the guitar, and so on and so on. And before you know it, every element you've created, you've stacked up all based upon the original element. And what you'll find is that they all work together perfectly. And then you extend upon that. So you're like, okay, fuck. So I've created four chord progressions here all based upon this first thing. So that's our say verse and our chorus. And then there's like five guitar parts here. Okay, cool. Maybe that guitar part's, the vocal melody, why don't you sing that? And then I might mute everything else, play along. So the vocal melody come up with a new riff, and it's just this continual process of piggybacking, creating elements from one element. And the reason it's so easy is that you're only ever having to think of one thing at a time.

(01:21:29):

You're not sat there going, shit, how do I come up with a song? I'm totally uninspired right now. You're just like, I can do one thing that's easy, I can do that. And that's kind of why. And again, going back to the drummer in sixth, he's taught me more than he ever knows he's ever known. He forced us with sixth. Every riff we wrote was written in tempo order. And he knew, and those tempos were defined by how fast he could do single stroke rolls on the Toms, how fast he could do triplets with his feet. So we had definitive tempos and we would just write riffs in those tempos and those tempos alone. And what we would do then is go, well, hang on. If these are all in the same tempo and they're all in the same key, let's now steal bits from that riff.

(01:22:09):

Put it in that riff, put that riff in that riff. And before we knew it, we had 10 riffs all in the same key, at the same tempo that all have bits of the same riffs. And it's exactly that same mentality. It's just song DNA. It's just like rinse it as much as you can and it serves me well. As a producer, I'm always like, fuck, what does this song need? Right? Okay, that riff in the intro, let's get the guitarist to play that. The octave up, exactly the same riff stick some chord note delay on it. There's a twinkly lead for the chorus. No one knows it's the in ear for Octa up, but fuck it, you've done it and it can serve you so well. It's like at your fingertips at all times. So like I say, I'm sure lots of people have done shit like that, but I referenced that stuff first in my mind before when I'm making every decision.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):

It's cool that you said it. That's one of my methods for escaping writer's blocks. So I can vouch that it works.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):

What do you call yours if it's not piggybacking? I need to come up with a better name.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):

Oh, I never called it anything. I just do it. It is how I write. It's how I basically evolve songs. I've always done it is have something layer it, then that layer becomes something else. Then that layer on top of that layer becomes something else. And before you know it, first of all, you have 800 layers, but you have a song. But Dan, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to hang out. I think it's a good place to end the episode, but I really appreciate that you were able to do this and it's been a pleasure finally being able to talk to you and getting to meet you in this way.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):

You too, my friend. Yeah, thank you for having me. And yeah, I look forward to talking again at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):

Anytime. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some of your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at M Academy. And of course tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at urm dot acm y. And use the subject line answer me Ale. All right then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.