MATT GOOD: Building Trust with Bands, Fast & Efficient Workflow, and Navigating Make-or-Break Sessions

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:06):

Levi. This episode of the URM Podcast is brought to you by URM enhanced our tier of premium content. That's everything you need to know to deliver world-class mixes. The core of URM Enhanced is our library of fast tracks. Each one of the fast tracks is a video course that dives deep into a specific area of recording, mixing, or mastering in a level of insane detail that you're just not going to find anywhere else. A few of my personal favorites are drum tuning with Matt Brown, creating ambience with Forrester Seve, and recording metal guitars with John Brown. You get instant access to over two dozen fast tracks. That's over 50 hours of content when you join U rm. Enhance, and we're always adding new ones once per month. Actually, URM enhance members. Also get access to our mixed rescue series where we open up one of your mixes performing little surgery and explain what we're doing every step of the way.

(00:01:00):

And last, but definitely not least, URM enhancement members have the ability to book one-on-one Skype sessions with us and some of our friends. It's your chance to get a detailed mixed grit, some career advice or whatever else you want to find out more, or join URM enhanced. Just go to URM Academy and click the get enhanced link. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is a very awesome producer, multi-instrumentalist singer mixer named Matt Good. He's been a member of several bands, including from First to Last Drugs, the Color of Violence, and on the production side, he's worked with all kinds of acts from the word Alive to Veil of Maya, asking Alexandria, sleeping with Sirens and a ton more. We had a great conversation all about what it takes to really, really wow your clients from the very, very beginning and how to build that trust that allows you to really have a positive impact on their record and that trust is so, so crucial.

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Without that trust, you're never going to be able to get anywhere with your clients. A lot of people ask me how they can get their ideas accepted by the bands they're working with because they present ideas and nobody wants to listen to their ideas. Well, this episode, we talk about it in detail. One small note, there's a little bit of background stuff going on at times on Matt's mic just because he is in a busy place. I apologize for that. But the podcast never really happens under perfect conditions. We do them when we can, and I think it's more important for us to get them done and have an awesome conversation for you than to have to wait until we have the absolute perfect recording scenario. Because if we were to do that, I guarantee you that 75% of these podcasts would never happen. So it is what it is. It's a great conversation though. So I'm going to shut up and introduce you, Matt. Good. Cool. So you busted out the SM seven B?

Speaker 3 (00:03:28):

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:03:29):

I used to use those for this. I actually used to use Real Gear for these podcasts.

Speaker 3 (00:03:33):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:03:34):

Not to say that this isn't Real Gear, but I mean, I used to use an SM seven going into an API and A stressor and Pro Tools, and it was like a real vocal chain, but then Pro Tools crashed all the fucking time, and then I had to travel all the time, and I just gave that up.

Speaker 3 (00:03:55):

Right? Yeah, I was joking. I was like, I should bring my Sony C 800 and an 10 73 to do this. That'd be funny. And I was like, no, all you're going to hear is the inside of my throat the whole time and all the saliva in my mouth so sensitive.

Speaker 2 (00:04:10):

I have had some guests do that. It's exactly that. It's too clean. You're hearing every little pubic hair rustling across the street, basically.

Speaker 3 (00:04:21):

Yeah, it's too much. I was like, that's going to make me self-conscious. I'm going to swallow and you're going to hear it in high def audio. You're like, no, get out of here.

Speaker 2 (00:04:28):

Ask them. Seven Bs are perfectly fine. I mean, using a road protest, but I've used USB mics that are nowhere near this good. And they're fine.

Speaker 3 (00:04:39):

I mean, those kids on YouTube, they use the $50 plug and play USB mics and they sound fine. We're talking about the transfer of data basically. Can

Speaker 2 (00:04:51):

You? Yeah, totally. Well, dude, some of these USB mics, you'd be amazed by how good they're getting. At first, they were really shitty, but the ones that Rho has sent me or sure has sent me sure. Sent me one that's like really fucking good. It's MV 88, I believe. I feel like podcasting has gotten so big recently that the gear for it has gotten better.

Speaker 3 (00:05:23):

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a whole marketplace now, right?

Speaker 2 (00:05:25):

Yeah. It's crazy. When we started this, people were saying that podcasting was going to get huge. I kind of saw it, but not really. Spotify just put another a hundred million dollars into their podcasting. It's really, really taking

Speaker 3 (00:05:41):

Off. Oh, hell yeah. Last time I was in LA when I was making the anti flag record, I went with my friend and we went to go see a podcast, done live at the Hollywood Cemetery, and there was like 4,000 people there. Really? Yeah. So it's like, holy shit. And I was to watch them record the podcast. It'd be like, if we had 4,000 people watching us do this right now, you're like, whoa, would be

Speaker 2 (00:06:02):

Interesting. I've done these live at Nam in front of 30 people, and it was a little bit weird. 4,000 people. Holy shit. How long was the podcast?

Speaker 3 (00:06:16):

It was about two hours. Damn,

Speaker 2 (00:06:17):

Son.

Speaker 3 (00:06:18):

Yeah. Crazy. And they had merch. I mean, dude, they cleaned up it's Next Level. What podcast was it? I'll try and find out before this Conversation's over, I can't remember the name of it. They just do a lot of conspiracy theory stuff. It's comedy, but it's like two or three guys and a woman. It was funny, they did this whole thing about the Laurel Canyon murders, like Charles Manson, all the musicians and everything like that. They did a big thing about that. That was pretty cool. And they had a big Foot one Sasquatch thing. That was great. Oh, it's last podcast on the left. That's what it's called.

Speaker 2 (00:06:57):

Last podcast on the left. I'll check it out. I guess. It's a huge podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:07:01):

Yes, it is. I mean, it's not like Joe Rogan or something. It's not that big, but it's big.

Speaker 2 (00:07:07):

4,000 people is a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (00:07:10):

Yeah. Well, you also have to factor in the LA thing.

Speaker 2 (00:07:13):

True, true. Joe Rogan podcast is immensely huge, bigger than I would've ever expected a podcast could get. At this point. It's, I don't know if it's bigger than radio, but it feels like it's having more of an effect on culture than talk show hosts used to have Howard Stern or

Speaker 3 (00:07:35):

Something. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that, especially in this time where everyone's, well, I shouldn't say everybody because that's probably an echo chamber thing, but it feels like a lot of people are politically driven right now, and he's brought a lot of politicians on to give a long platform explanation of their policy ideas and who they are as people and stuff. And I feel like it's actually pretty amazing when you think about how much more you can get out of a two hour podcast and you can out of blurbs on a debate stage. And that's got to be positively impactful for sure. I mean, that's just one of a hundred

Speaker 2 (00:08:10):

Blurbs on a debate stage or regular interviews on the news that are 10 minutes long,

Speaker 3 (00:08:16):

And you just have to get your little talking points that you've created with your staffers across as quickly as possible, and it's over and you're like, yep, okay. Everything is curated for it, where this is just like, Hey man, let's talk about some stuff. What do you like? What do you do? What are you about?

Speaker 2 (00:08:32):

Yeah. I feel like podcasting also has made, I never really liked late night tv. I always thought that it was really petty and not that funny, but sometimes they'd have some cool people on there. I'd want to see the interview, but those interviews now are so pointless to watch because those same people that go on there like 10 minutes and say nothing, will go on a podcast for two or three hours and actually have a conversation.

Speaker 3 (00:09:02):

Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:09:04):

I prefer it.

Speaker 3 (00:09:05):

Yeah. Oh, me too

Speaker 2 (00:09:07):

Way prefer it. I think honestly, it's like a good sign for society. I think you can be negative about the direction that society's going in, and things can seem very, very negative if you pay attention to the news and social media. But if you look at certain things as evidence that shit's actually going okay. I think podcasting would be that because this long form medium where there's no censorship whatsoever and people go at length for several hours on any single topic from history to basket weaving to politics, the fact that that's huge, that gives me hope.

Speaker 3 (00:09:53):

Yeah, it's actually really funny. I don't know if you ever felt this way, but I feel like the odds are pretty high when you're just consistently working all day on music, sometimes on the way home, you're like, man, I really don't want to listen to more music right now after 10 hours of just sitting there listening to music all day and making it and everything. So it's really good in that aspect as well, just to kind of give your brain a break, take a different kind of information source.

Speaker 2 (00:10:18):

Absolutely. I think that I kind of stopped listening to music the moment that I really started making it professionally, which I will say this though, now that I've been doing URM for five years and I don't make music anymore, I started listening to it again.

Speaker 3 (00:10:36):

Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:10:37):

As someone who enjoys it, which is really, really cool. I kind of felt like that was gone forever. You know what I mean? It's not that you don't enjoy it if you're making it, but it's different.

Speaker 3 (00:10:51):

I just feel like the amount of time you have to dedicate to it is so much more limited. Even when I do listen to music in the car, it's like, I mean, how many times out of 10 is it? Oh, I better reference this mix I just did or I have to do. So it's like it's just consistently geared towards a different direction, a different mindset.

Speaker 2 (00:11:10):

Exactly. And so then when you do finally have any time away from work, why would you then want to listen to music? I mean, it's hard enough to balance a real life. Yeah. Why start listening to music? Do you get asked that a lot by people who don't work in music? I used to all the time.

Speaker 3 (00:11:31):

They was like, what do you listen to? And I'm like, honestly, not a whole lot. I mean, I listen to things that are just way outside of the box of what I do for inspiration, but other than that, I'm just like, I mean, what are your favorite bands right now? I'm like, I have no idea. I

Speaker 2 (00:11:46):

Dunno. Yep. I think people would be disappointed when I'd say that they'd come to me wanting a recommendation, figured that I'd know all this shit, all the latest shit and be like, I don't know. The funniest is Metal Sucks, always asks me to be part of their top 10 albums of the year thing. Every single year, a bunch of people in the metal community do this. They give their top 10 lists, and they've asked me to contribute to it every year for the past 10 years, and I don't think I've ever submitted one once. I don't think I could give you 10 new metal albums in a year to put on that list. I feel kind of bad about it, but I just can't, don't know. I don't know what to say.

Speaker 3 (00:12:38):

I feel like my philosophy on it has always been like if there's a record that's actually good enough to be on a list like that, I would assume that it would come to me in some way or another. Someone would have to tell me about it eventually, if it's that good.

Speaker 2 (00:12:51):

That is the way it works.

Speaker 3 (00:12:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:12:53):

You will have heard about it, I'm sure. So we already cleared up that you don't really balance listening much, but how do you balance the playing side of things with the production side of things?

Speaker 3 (00:13:06):

Oh, well, you mean as far as me being in a band,

Speaker 2 (00:13:09):

Just being able to get it all done because doing the band thing is quite a commitment and doing the production thing is quite a commitment. It's hard to do both. And then you're also married like a family man.

Speaker 3 (00:13:25):

It's

Speaker 2 (00:13:25):

A lot of stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:13:26):

So the band has become a extremely limited part-time endeavor at this point. So it hasn't really been much of a clash of time or interest for me. Luckily. I dunno, the band's funny. The band is kind of like, I don't even know how to explain it. I guess it'd be a fear of like, yeah, I got a Super Bowl ring back in the day, and now I like to go play with my buddies at the park a couple times a year and show off a little bit. I don't know how else to explain it. We don't really do much, but when we do, everyone's really happy and we're happy and it's nothing but positive, but the amount we do is very, very limited.

Speaker 2 (00:14:01):

I totally understand what you're saying. That's a great spot to be in though.

Speaker 3 (00:14:05):

Yeah, right. I mean, I don't know, as much as I'd like to do more stuff, the amount of time it requires doesn't really exist. And then on top of that, I think there's something to be said about not oversaturating, something that is held in a high regard and in a nostalgic manner for people. So once you overdo it, overfeed that desire, I don't know. I think something can happen there where it starts to go away.

Speaker 2 (00:14:30):

I think that one of the saddest things in music that I've seen is when a band goes out on a high note, maybe prematurely, there's quite a few bands who, and I'm not going to name names, they might be listening and I don't want to talk shit or disrespect anybody, but there's some bands who have gone out at the high point and have really cemented a legacy posthumously and then gotten back together like 20 years later or something, and were a cheap shadow of their former selves, and it kind of shot on the legacy a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:15:14):

Yeah, it's kind of sad. That's such a wildly important topic that I try to really impress upon people all the time. The idea that, so art in itself in any capacity is a direct reflection of the moment in many different ways. So it's like who you are as a person, the things that drive you, the things that motivate you, and it's not just you, it's all the people around you. It's also society in that moment's, the things that are happening around you. It's like a huge butterfly effect, and every single detail adds up to what made it work in the first place. And it's so crucial that people need to understand that because that goes across to many other topics, and you can dive into it if you want, but it's about bands changing styles or bands coming back and not being as good as they were, but people wanted it, but then when they get it, they don't really want it. Movies too, like Star Wars, everyone was like, hell and more Star Wars movies.

(00:16:14):

And even me, I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and it's like I went to see them and I didn't hate them, but I mean, I didn't leave the theater being like, oh my God, that was just how I felt before got my, you know what I mean? It's kind of a pretty wrapped present with nothing inside of it, and it's really crazy. I am not a super philosophical person, but I'm always really interested in what drives things to become what they are and why they're important, and then why they're considered not important later or why they change or whatever. You know what I mean? So that's a really deep topic, but that directly coincides with what you were just talking about.

Speaker 2 (00:16:55):

The thing is, I totally agree. Art is a reflection of a moment in time, so the shit that artists get for not being as good as they once were, I think is unfair. I mean, I get it. The fans, they just want what they want, and most of them aren't artists, so they don't understand really how this whole thing works. But really, what more can you expect if an artist gave you something great once or twice or three times? Most don't do it for more than three times, but just say they made some great albums or had a period of time where they were making nothing but great movies. That's great. That's more than most people will ever do, ever. If a band had two great records and did their thing 10 years ago, the fact that they even did that just cherish that music, they did put out, they're not the same people they were 10 years ago or 20 years ago, that fire, whatever fire there was, maybe it's died down or maybe it's just morphed into something else, but you can't really recreate that scenario. I get asked a lot of, I'm ever going to put my band back together, and my answer is, no, I'm not. And the response is typically really, really loved your style and what you brought to guitar. I want to hear more of that. And it's like, well, if you love my style, I'd like to keep it that way

(00:18:31):

So I'm not going to shit on something good just because you want something more. My brain's not in the place it used to be.

Speaker 3 (00:18:39):

Yeah. It's like to recreate the product, you would have to recreate the conditions, and the conditions are notable. They'll never happen again. Everything is unique. It only happens once. It just is what it is.

Speaker 2 (00:18:53):

Absolutely. That's also why to bring up engineering and mixing and stuff. This is also part of why you'll never be able to recreate somebody else's mix just by copying moves that you also nail the mix or something like that. There's an element of where the person's head was at that time when they were making those decisions. That has everything to do with everything else that was going around

Speaker 3 (00:19:20):

And

Speaker 2 (00:19:20):

Going on, and all the thoughts that led up to every single decision. It's notable, especially not by somebody else. I think about this a lot. That's why I think that we should be, I know I just said this, but we should be extremely thankful for the great art that we do get.

Speaker 3 (00:19:40):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:19:41):

The fact that it even happens is a miracle.

Speaker 3 (00:19:43):

Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (00:19:45):

Well, think about it. Take a great song. You've been involved in the writing of many songs, and you know how it is. You write a lot of songs. Some are awesome, most suck, most don't even matter. But if you had gotten up five minutes later or taken a phone call instead of worked at that particular moment in time or whatever, that one idea that became a song that people loved wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 3 (00:20:14):

Yeah, no, totally. I mean, which is

Speaker 2 (00:20:16):

Craziness.

Speaker 3 (00:20:17):

Yeah. It's like that butterfly effect I was talking about earlier. If you had to stick in one different turn, everything could be different. It's like, yeah, a hundred percent definitely a miracle. There's so many things that have to happen in a particular way in the exact right moment. I mean, for the band to even exist, to get to the studio, to even make the record in the first place as a bazillion crazy circumstances, I have to play out perfectly too. And yeah, I mean, it's pretty wild when you think about it.

Speaker 2 (00:20:45):

Yeah, I think about that stuff quite a bit that in my opinion, if we're ever going to talk about a luck factor, that's the luck factor. I don't actually really believe in luck. I more believe in hard work and all that shit, but there is a little bit of a luck factor. The luck factor is that you met the people you met and that you did write that piece of music at that exact second on that day. That's the luck factor.

Speaker 3 (00:21:15):

Yeah. I think you could explain luck. You could interchange it with intuition, because a lot of times if you trust your intuition, then it'll lead you to be in the moment that can be perceived as being lucky in the first place.

(00:21:30):

I feel like a lot of people that are artists that have success do have strong sense of intuition, and they listen to it, and they have that sense of confidence about what they want to do, and I feel like they always know if it's right. Many of the ones I've met, the successful ones, they never really second guess. I was never that way either. I would always just be like, yep, this is what I'm doing. He'd be like, yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter. I'm going to do it. I've always been that way, and a lot of other people I've met are that way, and it's kind of hard to be like, oh, there's this thing, but maybe there is, I don't know. It's either a sense of confidence or it is maybe just having a sense of self and an awareness of how to get to the right moment or the right situation to be in.

Speaker 2 (00:22:20):

I'm that way too. Tell me if it's like this for you. Whenever there's an idea about something I need to pursue, whether it's a business idea or a riff, that's the right riff to, if you're sitting there just writing a bunch of riffs for a song, but one stands out and that's the one to go with, or I'm going to move to this other city to pursue something. Those types of decisions, once I know, I know. So I've talked about this before, but when I decided to start URM, I quit producing, and it was before URM was making any money, so I quit label projects that were coming up and just stopped fucking cold, and all my income stopped, and it was like I knew that this shit was going to work. It's just like this sense of, I dunno how to describe it other than certainty, it's fucking solid. You just know.

Speaker 3 (00:23:20):

Yeah. You just know.

Speaker 2 (00:23:21):

It's

Speaker 3 (00:23:21):

Weird. It is weird.

Speaker 2 (00:23:23):

You could be wrong too.

Speaker 3 (00:23:24):

Yeah, you could. And it's funny too that you bring up rifts because the rift being maybe slightly different, let's say five to 10% different. I don't know how much weight that bears, especially compared to something that life-changing as you were just talking about, but I still have that same affirmation when I know it's right. You know what I mean? Even though the consequences it being wrong are so vastly different, the feeling is exactly the same.

Speaker 2 (00:23:50):

Well, the consequences of a riff being five to 10% different may or may not be life changing, but then again, they might be.

Speaker 3 (00:23:59):

Yeah, that's true. What if back in black was like one of the three chords is a different one, you'd be like, eh,

Speaker 2 (00:24:06):

I believe that one of the Beatles was saying that that song, she Loves you. Yeah, yeah. One of their parents heard the lyrics or saw the lyrics written down and was like, it should be She loves you. Yes, yes, yes. And they were like, fuck no. That one little tweak could have ruined the whole thing. It could have ruined everything, one word change, and that right there could have impacted all of society as we know it.

Speaker 3 (00:24:36):

Yeah. That's pretty crazy to think about, huh?

Speaker 2 (00:24:38):

Yeah, I think that those devils in the details, so those little decisions do matter, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (00:24:45):

Yeah, for sure. But you still know when you're right or when you feel like you're right.

Speaker 2 (00:24:49):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:24:50):

Hopefully you are. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:24:52):

Well, don't you think that for a producer, part of the job description is to have that instinct or that sense, whatever it is honed?

Speaker 3 (00:25:02):

Yeah, a hundred percent

Speaker 2 (00:25:04):

And accurate, not just, I think that producers should have a strong sense of what's right, because they need to be able to fight for it or manipulate or whatever it is, convince, persuade, whatever the methods may be. But I think artists entrust producers, they hire to know which way is right.

Speaker 3 (00:25:29):

Yeah. You have to know that, and it has to be real. I think people can see through it if you're faking it. Because one of the things about being a producer that I think a lot of young kids don't really realize is how much of the psychological factor there is at play in the job role. And if you're not confident in being a strong leader, that can really carry the team to the finish line. I dunno, it's easy to get eaten up real quick in a room with a bunch of people that are opinionated and yeah, I dunno. It's funny because there's so much emphasis put on the craft, like the technical side in the gear and learning all the technical details, which is obviously incredibly important because I think that attributes to being confident when you know, don't suck. Right? But then there's the other side of it too, where it's like you're almost like this glorified therapist in a way, and you have to know how to work with different types of personalities and really learn how to be a true leader in a room that people respect and want to listen to.

(00:26:31):

And that's what I feel like is what gets you to what you were just talking about, the easiest and fastest way.

Speaker 2 (00:26:36):

It is more than just a therapist, though. Therapist is just part of it. I think it's therapist, salesman, general parent, friend. It's all those things at different times. So something you just said that I want to key in on that you need to have that not you have to have that sense about you, especially when you're working around a bunch of opinionated people, or you'll just get chewed up and spit out. And definitely the bigger you get, I mean, the further up the letter you go, the more opinionated or the more type A, the more dominant some of these characters are. When you start dealing with dudes who are multimillionaire musicians, whose ideas have bought them massive houses or something like that. It's not that they have oversized egos, it's more that their decisions have carried so much weight. There's so much history behind what their ideas bring into reality that you better have some really fucking good ideas. I don't want to make it adversarial, but to even get taken seriously by someone like that.

Speaker 3 (00:27:54):

Oh yeah. But you know what? What's great about, back to the technical side of things is it's so easy to execute an idea change now. So if I'm in the moment where I'm with someone that's a pretty stubborn person, I'm like, yo, what if we try this? And they're like, well, I don't know. And I start thinking about it and the time that they're sitting there mulling it over in their head, I can just literally do it on the computer and be like, here, it would sound like this. And they're like, you know what? That's actually pretty cool. And you're like, yeah. So I think it's super important to be very confident and savvy with your DAW and your everything. If it's like, Hey, I want to duplicate the end of this course twice longer, and then add this section in the silence, you better get in there and be like, add time motherfucker. Get in there and just make it happen really fast while they're sitting there talking about it.

Speaker 2 (00:28:42):

Yeah. One of the things that blew me away the first time that I got into a reel scenario was when my band was getting mixed by Colin Richardson in 2006. It was the first time that I had ever been working with an Alister or something. And the thing that blew me away, first and foremost about him and his assistant was how fast they were. I came from a home studio. I recorded my shit on my own, never really worked with someone like that, get in the room with them, and then they are just flying, just fucking flying on pro tools so fast. It was so much further than what I could do. Everyone I know who's done all right in the production game is kind of like that. They are really, really, really fast. The latency between their idea and it becoming something on that duh is very, very short.

Speaker 3 (00:29:44):

I've committed a crazy amount of time to being able to do that. I have so many things macro now, and I do use pro tools, which everyone gives me shit for, but

Speaker 2 (00:29:53):

Why

Speaker 3 (00:29:53):

I have a set of in away where it's like,

Speaker 2 (00:29:55):

It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:29:56):

Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, everyone's always shit. Talking about crashing and stuff like that. I mean,

Speaker 2 (00:30:00):

Well, it does crash,

Speaker 3 (00:30:01):

But I mean, it's just part of life. But I also have a nervous habit of saving. I probably save 15 times a minute, so it doesn't ever really bother me

Speaker 2 (00:30:10):

In addition to auto save.

Speaker 3 (00:30:11):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:30:11):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (00:30:12):

Yeah, because just like command S, so I'll just be as in working and just thinking and stuff, it's like, it's funny. But yeah, I mean, I have all these macros set up. I use a ball mouse and everything, so I can switch between tools and grab things and move so fast. I really want it to be what I'm thinking is happening as I'm thinking as close to that reality as possible. So I'm always just trying to streamline everything to get closer and closer and closer to that. It's super important to me. I hate anything that disrupts the flow of thought to work.

Speaker 2 (00:30:46):

Yeah, absolutely. When did you realize that workflow is life?

Speaker 3 (00:30:51):

When I made a record with John Feldman,

Speaker 2 (00:30:53):

I've heard that if you're not really, really fast, that it will not work with him. You,

Speaker 3 (00:30:59):

Yeah. Well, actually, it's funny, I didn't actually see him run the computer all that much. I know he is pretty proficient at it. I mean, he's definitely not a Lord algae or anything like that, but he'll get in there. I mean, slow. These guys are so funny, slow on computers, it makes me laugh so hard. But then they rip on a console and you're just like, I don't even know what you just did. But yeah, so I mean, he's pretty quick, but his assistant that he had at the time, or his engineer, I should say, Brandon, he was really fast and he was like, I was like, okay, so that's the bar. And then I got there and I was like, okay, now it's just like, where can I go from here? You can only go so fast. I crashed my computer. I put too many commands too quickly. So I mean, there is a threshold for me. Anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:31:44):

So you got to Feldman's and was it just like schools and session type thing?

Speaker 3 (00:31:51):

Yeah, I was starting to show little bits of interest at that point in production, just very, very modest amounts, you know what I mean? But it was something that crossed my mind a few times, and when I saw how they were doing things, I was like, oh, I mean, this is a lot different than any of my other experiences because I had recorded with Ross Robinson, which is amazing, but I mean, that cannot be any more polar opposite. And he's all about the vibe, and it's not fast. It's slow, but it's also slow for a purpose. And there's a lot of good things that come from it. Recording a thrash is recording to tape, but in a digital medium, he basically restricted us to the same limitations, very different. And then the next record I did with Josh Abraham, and that was digital, but it was still in that we're just limping down the road kind of stage where we were doing it, but it definitely wasn't fast. It was just, okay, it's fine. But then when I got to ies, I was like, oh, okay, these guys are running their computers. I play PVP Battles and World of Warcraft. And that's when I was like, okay, that's the thing you can do. And now that I realize it exists, now I'm going to learn how to do that. And then I did.

Speaker 2 (00:33:01):

Makes sense. Oh, by the way, when I said that, I heard that working with him, you've got to be fast, isn't because he's on the computer, it's because he expects the people that work for him to be able to take Oh

Speaker 3 (00:33:13):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:33:13):

When he spits an idea, you need to be able to get that in your head and through the DAW fast.

Speaker 3 (00:33:19):

Oh God, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):

Definitely. Before his next idea comes basically, and it comes fast.

Speaker 3 (00:33:24):

A funny story about him, I did a lot of the vocal harmonies on the record. I was a backup singer primarily throughout my career. And I was like, yeah, I love singing harmonies. I want to do 'em.

Speaker 2 (00:33:34):

What record are we talking about? By the way?

Speaker 3 (00:33:36):

We're talking about the drugs record, the story rebuild until the God shows. It was me and Craig Owens from CTOs, Adam Russell, story of the Year, Nick Martin. He's now in sleeping with Sirens.

Speaker 2 (00:33:47):

Okay, alright,

Speaker 3 (00:33:47):

Continue. So again, I get in the vocal booth and he is like, okay, you have three tries, and if you don't nail it, I'm going to do it. And you're like, okay. He is

Speaker 2 (00:33:57):

Just laying it down. That's how it is.

Speaker 3 (00:34:00):

And he'd be like, here's a harmony. And he was saying it to me, and I'm like, yeah, okay. Oh, that's so weird. No, okay. And I was like, all right, ready? Go. And you're like, oh, shit, I got most of 'em, but it was playing a fucking trivia game or something. It's just like, all right, go rapid fire, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was really funny. He also did this thing that I had never seen before at that point in my entire life, was he would pitch the whole song down with polyphonic so you could sing the harmony he actually wanted and then pitch it back up. And I thought that was funny. I was like, damn, that's a good idea. Not too bad, Phily not too bad.

Speaker 2 (00:34:34):

Wait, wait. So he pitched the whole song down, sang the harmony, and then pitched the harmony up to

Speaker 3 (00:34:41):

Yeah. Because if the harmony is too high to actually sing, right? So if you sing the harmony, a step or two steps down, pitches your voice.

Speaker 2 (00:34:51):

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, because making sure that the song isn't the right key for the vocalist is so, so important. That's a really, really good idea, especially for styles of music where the keys that you play in center around where the open strings are.

Speaker 3 (00:35:09):

So that is one of my favorite topics. So I am a huge protester of the idea of writing a record in a guitar tuning. And it is for basically the reasons you just brought up

Speaker 2 (00:35:24):

Always the same key.

Speaker 3 (00:35:26):

Well, yeah. I mean, that sucks. That gets so boring. How many times can you hear the same chord go, duh. I mean, after a while you're just like, oh my God, it's just numbing me out. But not only that, but there's some songs where it's like, you're doing it and you're like, yeah, it feels too high. And the old method would've been like, oh, man, you can do it. And now it's like, no, just pitch the song down a half step and then try it. And if that doesn't work, pitch it down another half step and then try it. And then whatever tuning ends up in who gives a fuck? Because it needs to sound good. And that is the number one priority always. It has to sound good if they're like, but then we'll need a second guitar. I'm like, for one. No, you don't. They have live pitch shifting. All the bands that I record use it now because of me, unfortunately.

Speaker 4 (00:36:06):

But it is what it is. I think there's a big

Speaker 3 (00:36:18):

Reason why so many other artists and other genres right on piano, because the piano is every note. You know what I mean? It's not like, oh, let me tune my piano to drop B. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:36:31):

I think that writing on guitar is extremely limiting for those reasons. Also, the fact that notes don't sustain, there's some instruments that the notes sustain way, way, way longer, which leads to melodies that soar way easily on some other instruments. It's hard to write a good melody on the guitar because of the limitations of that. But that key limitation has always bothered me.

Speaker 3 (00:37:00):

It's stupid.

Speaker 2 (00:37:01):

It's stupid, but it's also, it's impractical for some bands to write in multiple keys because they can't afford multiple guitars. I guess it's a shitty limitation.

Speaker 3 (00:37:14):

I feel like the only thing that applies to is metal though, because there's no other music I can imagine where having the open cord and the key would matter, right?

Speaker 2 (00:37:22):

Yeah, true. Very true.

Speaker 3 (00:37:24):

So I guess it's just one of the downfalls of metal, I suppose. I mean, fuck it. Jason Richardson would probably just do it. He played on the third fret, whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:37:34):

He can do anything he

Speaker 3 (00:37:35):

Wants. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:37:36):

So I'm really, really glad that you said this. This is something that has for a long time bothered me about metal and rock is, I guess the way I learned was that different keys bring a different sort of emotional weight to them. And if you're always in the two same keys, your range of expression is just kind of limited. That's it. It's just limited.

Speaker 3 (00:38:10):

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you run into this issue where it's like, I mean, okay, so here's something that's funny, and I like talking about this a lot too, is for things to sound like metal or rock or whatever it may have you, but especially those particular genres, there is, to be honest, a pretty limited amount of note that yield the emotional delivery that makes you interpret that sound as being the said genre, right? Yes. So when you're writing the whole record in the same key, I mean, dude, you're just going to keep writing the same melodies over and over and over again because when you start to write outside of that box, that's when it starts to sound like a different genre. Then you're like, oh, shit. This just went from sounding really evil metal to sounding like a day to remember, because I changed this one chord and the progression

Speaker 2 (00:39:04):

Because it went major, man. I remember towards the end of my band where I was really starting to expand my palette as a writer, and I was writing in major keys and writing and all different kinds of stuff, all different types of keys and feels, and I always felt like this major key stuff that I would write still had some darkness to it, and it still had intensity, but when the other dudes heard it, they were just like, what? Yeah. They just were not ready for that. And I get it. It's totally different. You're right. The way that the genre works is so specific and there's so little room for variation that anything that kind of skirts outside those parameters is just like, what? Yeah, what

Speaker 3 (00:40:01):

Was that? Because especially now that we have a labeled sub genre for anything you can fucking imagine. So if you did start to go outside of it, you're like, oh, you guys used to be Metal Corps, but now you're Prague, and you're like, oh, okay. You know what I mean? Oh, I just wanted to try some new notes and now we're a different genre. I guess that's how easy it is. And just as disclaimer, nothing I'm saying is 100% absolute, obviously, but I mean, this does seem to

Speaker 2 (00:40:29):

Be No, we're just giving our opinions. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:40:31):

It seems to be the case a lot enough for me to have noticed it anyway. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:40:35):

Yeah. Mean nothing on any podcast is a hundred percent absolute. You're just listening to jerk offs,

(00:40:41):

Giving their opinions on shit, basically. But one thing though, I will say that compared to how it was when I was growing up in the nineties, the genre thing has gotten way less fascist. Oh god. Yeah. I think that's the best way to put it. I remember for instance, in the nineties, if you were a metal person, if you so much as hinted at any sort of hip hop or rap element, you were just fucking burned at the stake. Those styles were like oil and water. And I know that some bands like Anthrax did the Public Enemy thing and Rage Against the Machine got kind of big Faith no more included some rapping at some point, but for the most part, 99% up until new metal came along, the idea of blending those genres could get you fucking ostracized. And now that's totally different, but it wasn't just rapid metal. It was like, if you play death metal, don't you go putting a black metal part in there? Because black metal is black metal and death metal is death metal. Wait a second. Are you death metal or you play thrash? That's a thrash riff, and you're a death metal band, and we can't have this cross cross-breeding shit. Stick to your kind, basically.

Speaker 3 (00:42:12):

It is just so

Speaker 2 (00:42:13):

Funny. Yeah, there's definitely a stick to your kind kind of vibe.

Speaker 3 (00:42:17):

A hundred percent, dude. So I grew up in Tampa, so I mean, you might know.

Speaker 2 (00:42:21):

So

Speaker 3 (00:42:21):

Yeah, mean dude, God, what the fuck is that band? The singer? He has Dia side, the singer of Dia side used to go to Guitar Center. He had a fucking upside down cross on his forehead. You know what I mean? Yeah. That guy's a crazy person. But I never knew about any of that shit. And I had a friend in high school, I think it was 10th grade, and he started explaining that shit to me. I was like, yeah, I like Pantera. And he was like, yeah, that's cool, but it's not real metal. Wait, what are you talking about? He's like, listen to this. And I was like, this sounds like shit. Oh my God was at that time, my frame of reference was like, these things sound pretty good. I didn't realize I was listening to multimillion dollar records and shit.

Speaker 2 (00:43:00):

I remember that exact same thing happened to me. I was listening to Pantera. This was in the early nineties and Mega Death, and then some metalhead kid at my school was like, that's not the real shit. This is the real shit. And he played me Cannibal Corpse, and I was like, Ugh, this is terrible. I actually started liking them later, but at first my initial reaction was like, what the fuck is this garbage, this noise? Though? I will say that it grew on me, but man, music fans have come a long way as far as this whole genre divide thing is concerned. I think that now you really can do whatever you want, and if there's an audience to be had, they'll find you.

Speaker 3 (00:43:52):

That's something I've been talking about for a while now, and I could be wrong, but I think that the majority of that is due to streaming.

Speaker 2 (00:44:00):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:44:01):

And it gets demonized a lot by the artists because of the payouts and everything like that, and we can talk about that if you want, but I think that the positive impact that it's making on the consumption of music in general, in a way it's impacting civilization, is positive. It's definitely doing a lot of great things. There's so many people that find out about bands that they otherwise would've never heard of in a million years, and artists and people liking more than one genre finally, because it's not such a huge commitment. When we were young, if you wanted to get a new record, it's like, damn, I'd spent all of my money to get this record. It was a big fucking deal, and it was such a huge commitment that you really had to be like, all right, I'm pretty sure I want this record. I'm going to take that risk. But now it's like, yeah, I'm going to check this out. I don't give a shit if I like this kind of music or not, but why not? I have nothing else to do right now. And then there you go, and then maybe you're a fan of a new genre you never even knew you liked before, and that could happen once a month. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:44:58):

How jipped would you used to feel when you spent all your money on an album? You had heard one song and the rest of the album was fucking garbage? Yeah. Fuck, man. They would get you

Speaker 3 (00:45:14):

Like that. These kids will never understand, bro, I'm telling

Speaker 2 (00:45:16):

You. Well, the thing is, when people demonize streaming, there's a few rebuttals that come into my mind. Number one, anytime there's a new technology, there's going to be pros and there's going to be cons. There's definitely always going to be cons. Nothing is ever perfect in life, and you need to weigh whether the net benefit is greater than the cons. Yeah. I think with streaming, there's an overall benefit for all the reasons that you said plus artists are making money again.

Speaker 4 (00:45:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:45:52):

The thing I think a lot of people don't remember is that in the nineties, pre downloading and streaming, it was virtually impossible to have a music career. Getting signed was the only way, and that was pretty much impossible, right? Getting signed was no small thing. I mean, it's still a big deal, but it was close to fucking impossible back then. And so I think the fact that it's so much easier to get your music out there or to find music has helped raise the bar in lots of ways and given opportunities to musicians and producers and people who would've never had a fucking chance in hell in the nineties because of the limitations. So I think it's a beautiful thing, and it's done certain things like kill the genre divides, which is phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (00:46:47):

Yeah. It's really easy to sit there and be like, yeah, but it could be better. I mean, that's literally the easiest thing you can do as a human being is say, if that's good, but it could be better when, especially if you're not actively really doing anything to help the situation. You know what I mean? That's a really lazy take on a situation. I get that.

Speaker 2 (00:47:07):

Yeah, because it's true of every single thing you could say. Yeah. It could be better about literally everything.

Speaker 3 (00:47:13):

And a big misconception unfortunately, is that, I mean, I get that Spotify doesn't pay a lot. I would never say it's a lot, but the huge misconception is that they pay so little, but it's really not the case. It's that people have bad deals. Their labels are 50 plus percent of their streaming revenue, and then that equates to these small numbers. You see these statistics you see pop up online all the time, and it's like, yeah, I mean, that sucks. That's not a lot of money, but that's less than a half of the actual money that it made. Where's the rest of it? Oh, that's right. Your label took it, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I actually did the math and I could have missed out some things, but I figured out that if you are selling records back before streaming and your band was getting $5 per sale,

Speaker 2 (00:48:01):

You mean $5 per sale in the band's pocket.

Speaker 3 (00:48:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:48:05):

That's crazy generous.

Speaker 3 (00:48:07):

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you're making $5 per record sold, let's say you're post recoup, I guess maybe, anyway, that would equate to what Spotify now pays. If you own all your rights, if you're just like, yep, I put out my own music. We own a hundred percent of our streaming royalties. Now ours, those two numbers are this close. They're so close.

Speaker 2 (00:48:28):

How does that work, I guess? How do you equate the streaming to a sale?

Speaker 3 (00:48:34):

I just looked it up online. I looked up the conversion rate, so it was like this many streams equals one record sold, one record sold, is this amount of money paid? And then when I did the math, I was like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's certainly not that much different

Speaker 2 (00:48:49):

From what I understand. People do very, very well with streaming when they're doing very well. People who have tons of streams end up making money from everything I understand from people in the game, you definitely do see these cases of I got a hundred million streams and got paid $1,800.

Speaker 3 (00:49:13):

Yeah, I want to know how

Speaker 2 (00:49:15):

Yeah, exactly. First of all, I want to know how, second of all, it's in the form of a meme or some sort of shared content, and you could never fucking trust that shit anyways.

Speaker 3 (00:49:29):

Yeah, I would like to see the actual breakdown from the record label. I wouldn't be surprised if on there was, oh, you owed the label $1.1 million from the recording and from the promotion and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that was recouped out of this royalty that you're now speaking of, because that seems far more likely that math makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (00:49:50):

Yeah, but you've seen those, right?

Speaker 3 (00:49:52):

Yeah, I have. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:49:53):

Yeah. The thing too is the loudest voices that I've heard saying that it's bullshit are typically people who will never be in a position to get royalties anyways, not to be an asshole, but they kind of don't know what they're talking about. I did do one podcast with Matt Squire where he talked about this, and he has a very interesting take on it. He goes to DC and lobbies senators and is working to get the payout laws changed, and that's cool, but he never, for one second had that attitude that we're talking about that you see in those memes.

Speaker 3 (00:50:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50:37):

He's more just trying to make things more fair and more transparent.

Speaker 3 (00:50:43):

So you know how in the future weed's going to be legal and our kids are going to be buying weed, and they're going to be like,

Speaker 2 (00:50:51):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:50:51):

And then we're going to be like, when I was young, I used to have to go find a drug dealer in the back alley and almost die. They will never know, and they would be like, what the fuck are you talking about? You're crazy. Right? I feel like it's kind of the same thing here. These kids are like, oh, it's Spotify. I put out my music. I want to get paid. And you're like, dude, you don't know how it used to be, bro. We had this thing called Napster. No one paid for shit. There was no money. You should be happy. There's money. We are forever scarred from the experience of going from, Hey, this is a business. Oh, wait, now it's not anymore. Just like that. It just fucking happened. I mean, I feel like, anyway, what my point is, is that mental scarring, I feel like it makes me forever grateful for any amount of money we can make now, because I've seen what it's like to make nothing, and it sucks.

Speaker 2 (00:51:44):

It is a beautiful thing that it's turned around, but let's not forget that the Napster thing is 20 years ago now, which is really, really crazy. It's a long

Speaker 3 (00:51:53):

Time.

Speaker 2 (00:51:54):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:51:55):

God,

Speaker 2 (00:51:56):

20 years. I can't believe it's been 20 years, but it has, and I know that there was a long time there where it felt like this whole thing is just going to go away. Remember maybe around 2008, 9, 10, 11, when people were saying, five more years, all the labels are gone.

Speaker 3 (00:52:17):

Oh, dude, I remember, remember? Trust me. I was like, what the fuck do we do? What happens now?

Speaker 2 (00:52:23):

Yeah, yeah. Five more years and it's all over. Yep. There were a lot of doom's day feelings going around, and I mean, I felt that way too. It was a very, very scary time. I also think that it did some fucked up things to music in terms of the quality of the output in that time period, I think started to suffer. I think it's come around though. What I think was happening was things seemed so scary, and it was like maybe seven or eight years into no money, that talented people were jumping ship from the industry. Retreating. Yeah. They were just, fuck this. I ain't going down with this ship going elsewhere. So you're getting all these really smart business people, people who would've been otherwise really talented musicians, people just fucking bailing, and we were left with, I think a lot of bands getting signed that didn't need to get signed, some pretty shitty productions, and that on top of the fact that there was no money made for a very scary scenario, which was honestly one of the reasons that I started URM was because I wanted to help bring recording quality back. I felt like I have to do something, even if it only affects one little corner of the music industry, I'm going to make that little corner better because I didn't put all these years into this industry to watch it just fucking poof

(00:54:04):

Vanish.

Speaker 3 (00:54:05):

Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:54:06):

It was a very, very scary time, man. I think that it is better than I've ever known it to be now or very close to being that

Speaker 3 (00:54:15):

Way. So I think that going way back to probably 20 minutes ago, it's easy to always say things can be better, and it's true. I mean, that's not a lie, but I think also too, when you come from where we're coming from, it's like I saw the entire industry at the edge of the cliff about to fall off, and now we are what many people are deeming as a new golden era of music, and it is because of streaming. So it's like you have this duality going on where it's like in one hand, streaming saved music from dying, basically the industry, but you also have the thing where it's like, oh, but they're not paying a fair amount, and it's like, yeah. So it sucks because on one hand you're like, well, we owe them this in a way, but then no, you don't. So it's like, it's the same shit as always. There's no right answer. There's just never a right answer to anything in 2020 or 19 or 18. That's just been the theme of the last few years.

Speaker 2 (00:55:12):

Yeah. I think also it's just because everybody has a say so I think that anytime period, if you were to put a microphone up to everybody's mouth at any time period, you would've gotten as many people saying, nothing's working out. There's no right answer. But the thing is that in the past, you never got that. Those voices weren't amplified. We get it all day long on our feeds, on the news. Everywhere you go is you're just surrounded and bombarded by people saying that shit's wrong. Shit's not working out. This is actually why I have this filter on my Facebook. I have to be on Facebook a lot because the URM community is on Facebook, and I like to interact there every single day. So I'm on Facebook. It's part of my work life, and that newsfeed can be fucking toxic. So I got something called Facebook purity.

Speaker 3 (00:56:10):

Nice. That's a good idea. Filter,

Speaker 2 (00:56:12):

Sit. Yeah, so anything I see in the news that pisses me off or that is just toxic or that people are going on and on and on about, or that I see everyone freaking out about on my feed, I just put it in that filter. I don't care if it's something I agree with or disagree with, so I put both Trump and Bernie Sanders in it because I don't want to hear anything about that shit. I don't care what side it's on. Literally every single issue that people freak out about, so the environment, guns like Nazis, everything, all of it. Anytime one of these outrage pops up, I add it to filter and poof disappears from my life and my life is way, way better as a result.

Speaker 3 (00:57:00):

Yeah, I'm sure. Because I mean, what you were saying earlier, if you put a mic up to everyone back in the day, I mean, I'm sure that would be the case, but I think there's definitely something to be said about group thought and how it can circulate the importance of certain things in communities and make things bigger than they need to be sometimes. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? So as true as that is, but then I guess if everyone had a microphone back then it would've perpetuated to where it is now anyway. Right. But

Speaker 2 (00:57:31):

Absolutely. Well, the thing that's happening now that I think is unique to now jumping off what you were just saying is that lots of issues get blown up out of proportion to what they really are. And because all we have is our newsfeed that's basically designed to repeat more of what we were looking at before. So it kind of becomes an echo chamber. We actually have no real perspective on how big or small these issues are, and in order to really find out you need to do some serious research, which takes a lot of time and effort, and most people are not willing to do that because it takes a lot of time and effort. And so lots of people that I know are convinced that lots of things are happening in the world that at a way greater rate than they're actually happening, or that they're way worse than they actually are, or that they're way better than they actually are in certain regards. They just don't have an accurate way to gauge lots of these things that they're freaking out about.

Speaker 3 (00:58:37):

That's definitely why I value the ability to have an open dialogue with anyone from any walk of life now more than I ever have before, because honestly, I don't know how else you could really get a balanced idea of what's going on in the world or how people feel about anything because, and it's kind of sad because I feel like that idea is looked down upon more now than it ever has been in a lot of ways. And it's unfortunate because there's so much to gain from talking to someone that has a different point of view than you. And even if you disagree, and there are obviously circumstances where you don't want to empathize with someone's situation if they're a really horrible person, but still, I can still advocate for the idea of getting to understand what made them like that in the first place as coming from a better place to figure out how to help them or to come to terms with whatever it is that they may be doing or to empathize or

Speaker 2 (00:59:39):

To just understand it.

Speaker 3 (00:59:41):

Right, exactly. If you just instantly go, fuck you, ah, angry, you're getting nowhere. You know what I mean? It is just nothing to, there's no good that will come from that.

Speaker 2 (00:59:50):

I have several friends that I consider really close friends probably listening right now, and you know who you are that I have some fundamental disagreements with about lots of things

(01:00:04):

From politics to everything else, but we're really, really good friends actually. And the reason is that we can talk about this shit with each other without flipping out. And what ends up happening is, so I'll see something that pisses me off a little bit, but I'm not sure I have the whole story. So I'll go to my friend who's pretty informed about a topic that I don't like or agree with, but I'll ask him. It's like, you've always been straight with me and I have always respected the way your brain works. So I'm not saying this to try to piss you off or whatever. I genuinely don't understand this topic or this issue. Could you explain it to me from your perspective so that I can get it? Sometimes he'll explain this stuff to me and I'll be like, yeah, I still don't agree, but a good amount of times I'll be like, wow, I didn't think about it that way. This makes perfect sense. You're not crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):

Right? Definitely because you're just a product of your environment. People end up in different places after decades of life, experiences that are totally different from each other and end up with different priorities or different points of view, and I would love to see people getting back to the point where they can respect that basic fundamental and start from there and kind of work from that jumping point. I think that would help a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):

It's as easy as finding a friend who is involved in something that's totally opposite of something you hold dear and just talking to them about it. It's really that simple. He comes to me about that kind of stuff too, and asks me, and the way we put it is the reason that it works is because neither of us are crazy and we're always respectful. The thing that's important to note is that people who disagree with you aren't always stupid. Sometimes they're really, really smart. Oh yeah. They've thought their shit out same way that you have, so they might be right.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):

Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):

It's important. Find this out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):

Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):

I like to know if I'm wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):

Me too. Because then once you fix it, then you're not wrong anymore. It's like one last thing you got to worry about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):

Yeah, exactly. Right. So let's take it back to where we were about 45 minutes ago. We started talking about this and then we didn't continue. I'd like to keep talking about this because I'm curious. I really like how your brain works. I want to hear more. So you got with Feldman, you're making a record and for the first time ever you're seeing, wow, these people operate at a level that I dig. This reminds me of how gamers approach it in terms of workflow, super efficient, methodical, not just limping down the street to use your words. What was your next step? How did that translate into you wanting to produce? Was it kind of like, wow, I see what's possible now I'm into it, or what was that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):

Yeah, okay, so rewind a little bit first. When I was in from first, well, I guess I'm still in from first last, but when from first last was my career and we had recorded with Ross Robinson. That was a crazy experience and I was starting to get interested in our guitar player as well. Actually, two of the guys in the band went to Full Sail that recording school in Orlando and graduated from it, but not me. The weirdest thing that they went and I did it and I'm the one who does it now, it's just like, but anyway, yeah, it goes to show, right? They're both really talented. I dunno, there's just so much to it. But anyway, I don't want to get off topic. After we had made that record, we had some money. Our band was getting pretty big at that point, and I decided to just buy a studio, not the room, but the gear. I just basically bought someone's studio sale and I was like, that's great. I had no idea about any of it, and we started messing around recording demos and stuff, but it was way too much. I had an HD three rig with all these preamps and stuff. I didn't know how to use. It was just dumb. There was no point in having it, especially for doing demos.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):

So you just bought something that was way beyond where you were at.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):

Yeah, exactly. Without realizing it, because I mean, that was also, it happens. Yeah, it was 2006. I mean, there wasn't really a whole wealth of information about what you would even need starting out,

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):

Man, back in those days when I didn't know what to get, I think I wasted, not wasted, but I spent about a hundred grand over a couple or three years.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):

It's really easy,

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):

And I'd say about 60 grand of that were on shit I shouldn't have bought.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):

Yeah, but you only find out one way, I guess. I mean,

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):

I will say that even now with all the information out there in the world, you still don't know if something's going to work for you unless you buy it and try it. It's just there's no getting around it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):

Yeah, it's true. Alright, so you buy this studio, that's way ridiculous for where you're at.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):

So yeah, we messed with that and made demos and I started realizing that I liked the recording aspect of things, so that was always in my mind. Next record, this is after our singer, Sonny Slik, whoever you want to call him. He had left the bands. We were like, we're just going to record ourselves. We know how to record now. We didn't, but whatever. We were on a major, they were like, yeah, sure. Got us' House in the hills and we just recorded songs for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):

Wait, they believed you. Yeah. That's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):

I mean, we could run Pro Tools, but I mean, it was one of those things where it's like, okay, cool. It's like now you have the songs, you want to go track the drums and the vocals somewhere and then have this mix by somebody. You know what I'm saying? So we did that for a long time and then we were just potheads and we never got anything done, so we ended up going to court, Josh Abraham in Silver Lake, and I was like, oh, cool, this is cool too. Added a little bit more to my interests. Ryan Williams is the engineer there. He was awesome. He was really smart and showed me a lot of cool stuff. And then Brandon O'Brien mixed that at, have you ever heard of him?

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):

Of course, yeah. He's the man.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):

Yeah, he mixed it at Henson Studio. So I sat in with him for a while. He was mixing that, which was really cool to watch, and I was like, man, every little thing. Just kind of kept checking off these little boxes in my head without me even realizing it, and then went on to be in drugs and saw Feldy, and then I think that was really the one where I was like, man, yeah, I would love to do this one day. And then when drugs ultimately ended, I came home. I had a laptop and I was doing EDM production, so this is actually the weirdest part about it, is that I was really in EDM production and I was on a laptop with the Ableton and I love sound design. I spent so long every day doing sound design. I loved it. And then because at that point I think I was really turned off to the idea of being in a band. I had been in so many and then all these stupid things kept happening to kind of fumble our steps and whatever. But then after a year of just shunning that world and just being closed off, my friend asked me to help this band he worked with to help write some songs, and in doing the writing with them, I started kind of adopting them a little bit and realizing like, oh, doing post-production on metal core songs. I was like, there's a lot of stuff I can do here with my skillset sets from other things.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):

You found places to apply your sound design chops.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):

Exactly. And then I breathe this new life into the idea of band music, and then once that happened, it was just basically game over and I just kept going and I did what everyone else would do. I recorded local bands until I didn't completely suck anymore, and then word alive wanted to do a record with me, and I did that, and then it just kind of spiraled from there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):

Spiraled up.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):

Yeah, spiraled up. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):

Just to clarify.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):

Just out of curiosity, when you were working with locals, was the fact that you had this track record, did it help you get clients easy?

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):

Yeah. I mean, I'll never discount that, but I also, I've never felt guilty or ashamed of that because

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):

No, no, no, no. I don't mean it in that sort of way. Actually, I want to clarify that because these days I feel like here's something I hate seeing online is when somebody has some sort of a card they can play or something like Billie Eilish is parents, even though that's a bullshit thing to say,

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):

Yeah, I'm all on that topic,

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):

But that topic, I don't back that kind of thought at all. So that's totally not where I was coming from. Where I was coming from was that people always ask me how to grow their career, how to get started actually getting clients. And I have always thought that there's a million different paths, but one thing that tends to always work is if you put out your own music in some way, shape, or form, that can represent what kind of quality you're capable of, that whether it's just a little unsigned project all the way up to being in a big band. Just the fact that a musician can relate to your work and can hear that will automatically gain you some trust.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):

Oh yeah. I mean the name thing helped, especially with the locals I guess, but something to say the name comes from a list of credentials and or accolades, and it's like at that point it's like, yeah, I have this name, but this name is backed up by a wealth of information about songwriting. I've worked with multiple platinum producers and mixing engineers and picked their brains and just lived a decade of just doing nothing but music. And at this point I at least have something to offer. You know what I mean? When I first started. So I felt like it made sense to me and I was willing to put in the work to figure the rest out, how to make mixes or whatever, make mixes that are passable for a while, you know what I mean? And record things the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):

So around what year, what time period was that when you were doing the locals?

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):

2012? Yeah, 2012. And I think I did it, I think word alive, maybe I did that in 2015 or 14. So it was two or three years of me just kind of winging it, figuring it out. I had this idea in my head, I was like, if I just help people write better songs and I just keep doing that, I'll eventually get better the whole 10,000 hours thing, you know what I mean? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. So I was like, it's just going to organically happen, and then I'll have a moment to reflect and I'll be like, okay, I'm pretty good now. Now let's see if I can utilize the fact that I know a bazillion people in bands already. Let's see if I can now bring the wealth of experience plus the technical information, combine those two things and be like, haha, what do you think? And that was my plan, and it works.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):

That's something that I also have always told people and I really, really believe is that before anything you need to do whatever you can do to get as good as possible. So if you're coming from a spot where you don't have a background like you did, I came from a band as well, which helped me, not at the very beginning, but it helped say you're starting from zero. Maybe it means doing projects for free for a few years just to get people to work with you so that you can put in those 10,000 hours. The thing is that you want to get to those 10,000 hours or whatever it is as quickly as possible at the beginning when nobody knows who you are, it's going to be hard to get people to pay you come work with you. So you got to do whatever you can basically to put in the work. The only way that you're going to get better from there, that's when all the networking stuff and all that shit starts to even play any role, but none of that even matters if your skills aren't there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):

I just thought of this, but if you're starting from zero, I think it should be encouraged to do things for free probably because there's something that people I think often forget is when you're working with other artists, you're also learning from them as well. You know what I mean? There's an equal, maybe not equal, but there's definitely a contribution from both sides. So if you're coming from zero, I mean, dude, you're going to learn a lot from a fucking band. They're musicians. They're going to be like, Hey, check it out. Guitar sound like shit. If you do it like this and you're like, oh, good point. You know what I mean? You have nothing but information to gain in that scenario. So doing it for free is actually pretty great for you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):

Yeah, totally. I mean, so I've said this before, I'm sorry if I'm sounding redundant, but sometimes you'll hear these super successful mixers be like, here's my advice to up and comers. Never do anything for free and don't listen to them. The reason I'm saying that is because when they say that they'll never do anything for free, they're talking as someone who's been on top of the game for 20 or 25 years

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):

Who

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):

Doesn't have to do anything for free. So why would that even enter their brain? And they probably have been successful for so long that the same way that we were talking about earlier about how art comes from a very specific place mentally and in history, being at that in your career where you're hungry for it and you'll do whatever it takes. You can't necessarily go back to that once you've passed it, especially if you've been successful, it's very hard to put yourself back there becoming a different person almost.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):

And that really displays the problem with value being defined by GDP in this scenario. It's like, I think you have to look at it. What do I stand to gain from this scenario? If it's a wealth of experience or if it's like the path forward after this point, then maybe getting $0 is a good idea because you're getting something else in return that's far more valuable than that currency. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and 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 Lama, 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.

(01:15:51):

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Speaker 3 (01:17:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):

It's unfortunate in a way that that goes around because I feel like a few shysters who like to screw over bands have ruined it for everybody else because that whole pay you and experience thing. Yes. Some people have used that to get free work out of people and to screw them over. So obviously I'm not suggesting that people allow themselves to be taken advantage of or anything like that. You got to know the difference, but you're absolutely right. There are some scenarios where what you get in return is super valuable, but it might not be money. It could be that you understand the path forward or you get a wealth of knowledge that you didn't have before in lots of ways that's more valuable than money.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):

So you worked with the word alive and you said that things spiraled up from there. What started happening

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):

After that record came out? A lot of people hit me up into like, wow, that was a huge change for them stylistically, and it's really great. A lot of people liked that record, I guess. So I think it displayed that I was capable of taking a group of people that were trying to re-identify themselves or rebrand themselves in some way and help them achieve that goal. And I was also in that time period where the very big popular scene, kid version of Metal Core was kind of coming to its end. That chapter was coming to a close basically.

(01:18:52):

And I think that a lot of those bands were like, we still love playing fast, energetic, heavy music. We like rock, we like guitars, we like all this stuff. We don't want it to be over. Let's figure out how to keep this ideology progressing. But you know what I'm saying, but we got to figure out how we got to figure out what to do. We make it something that just won't just go away and be like, oh, remember that band? And they're like, oh yeah, that was from 2009 to 2012 and that was it. So I don't know, maybe that had something to do with it, but I recorded Memphis May Fires Next Record after that, and they were kind of wanting to do a bit of a transition stylistically and stuff, just kind of how it goes. You do one thing and then someone will hear it and be like, oh man, I love what you did with X, and then that leads to Y.

(01:19:46):

And then someone will hear that and be like, oh, I love what you did with this. But I guess the biggest thing is that I was hanging out and my friend Kyle's house and Ben Bruce was there, and we had always been friends. I did their first or second tour ever when I was in from first to last. And I toured with him again a couple times and we had been pretty close. Me and Danny had been buddies for a long time, and Ben was like, and this is when Dennis was in the band, and he was like, we really want to, we're looking for someone that can help us change what we're doing. Not so much that we're not a band anymore, but we just want to do something that's totally different, but still us, but just totally different

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):

The next step.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):

Yeah. He's like, I don't know how to explain it. He's like, I just don't want it to be like, I don't want someone to come in and be like, yeah, you guys are this and start from there. I want someone that's just like, oh yeah, I mean whatever. And I was like, well, let's just give it a shot. And we started writing some songs and the first time I ever hung out with 'em, we wrote Under Denver, which is on their last record, it's like track eight or something. Literally the very first time we ever hung out and it made on the record, which is crazy. And in some of the other songs Alone in a Room, which is one of the biggest songs they've ever put out. We wrote that in the first week or two of us ever hanging out in a room and it was pretty cool. And then a lot of crazy stuff happened.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):

It just out of curiosity, that's a big band, and I guess you did have the credentials of being in a big band yourself, but how did you get the trust for them? Was it just we're going to hang out and see what happens sort of thing?

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):

Well, yeah, I mean it's the same. Every scenario in my head is the same. So when you meet a new band, there's a trust building period. And what happens now, I've learned how to refine that process in a pretty good way, but it always starts off with everyone in the room being accepting of each other but not integrated.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):

Let's define that phase a little bit more. So it's like everybody's there, everybody understands who they're working with you, it's cool, but it's surface level.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):

It's surface level. And in order to get the real trust, the real bonds that give you the ability to lead people in a direction that's new or different or bizarre or uncomfortable, you need to have the real trust, the kind of trust that you can't build in any other way other than personal unique experience.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):

Yeah, because you know what? Let's just say level one is that surface level that you were talking about where everyone accepts that they're working with you and it's cool, but you don't have the real trust if you try to make crazy changes or crazy directions at that point in time, even if you have conversations where the band is saying, we want to go someplace new, we want to hear your ideas. All these types of positive words are said, you hit them with an idea that's totally out of left field and takes them out of their comfort zone and you're going to get pushback because it's an emotional reaction to the trust not being there. Even if five minutes before the conversation was We want to take this to new places, the trust has to be on an emotional level too to where they don't have that instantaneous fuck this guy

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):

Reaction a hundred percent. So I have a series of things that I do now, which I don't want to make it sound like it's mechanical. It's definitely not. It's just it's back to the intuition we were talking about and being able to feel a room, being able to understand people on a deeper level. I think when those things come together, you just like, it really helps. I was in a band, this is where me being in a band is the absolute just most insanely helpful thing you could ever imagine, because a lot of times on the first day of being in a room with guys, I'll just talk to 'em for sometimes up to six, seven hours before we're even listening to a single fucking thing. I don't care. We'll just sit there and we'll just shoot the shit and we'll just bro down. I would with all my buddies when I used to be on tour because I know what it's like and they know that I know.

(01:24:06):

And then once we start talking about stuff and we share these similar experiences, you get that instant bonding and that's where the trust starts to build. Like, oh man, this guy, he gets it, man. He knows this guy. He knows that guy. Oh man, he's done this. Oh, he's played these shows. He's had the label. Screw him over. He is, had the manager ditch him, he's had this happen, he's had that. That really, really, really helps a lot. But then when you finally do get to the point you're making music, I always have a few things that I like to do right away. I always keep a template where I know it's going to sound fucking sick as hell immediately. So we'll be like, oh, let's drop the song in. If they have drum media or something, I'll just pop it on this thing that's multichannel out to 16 channels and start playing and they're like, fuck, that sounds dope. Every little tiny little thing starts to add up and then by the end of a day or two, they're just like, man, I love working with this guy. This is great. This is fun. We're in good hands. And then those ties, they start to happen, the trust build and then you get to go on these really crazy journeys with people where you get to challenge 'em and make them become the best versions of themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):

I thought of this earlier when you were first talking. This is rewinding about an hour and 15 minutes. We've gone full circle. This is something that I've thought for a long time, which is that the best way to convince somebody of something in the studio that you're working with is to let them hear your idea. Because saying your idea will never do it justice, and all you're asking for is an argument because you can't really understand a musical idea through words. You could be explaining what you want to do, but you're hearing it in your head a certain way. Nobody else is in your head with you. So no matter how good of an explanation you give, there's no possible way that they can understand what you mean

(01:26:01):

Because they're going to be it their own way and you have no way of knowing what they're inventing in their head based off of what you're saying. So verbally explaining an idea is introducing a miscommunication into the environment. Whether you mean to or not, you're creating a miscommunication because there is no way to effectively convey a musical idea verbally other than a technical idea. We're going to do this in three four for or something, or go to bar one 18 or something. Besides things like that that are just technical instructions, you can't actually convey a musical idea. So they have to hear it. And like you said earlier, you said in the amount of time that someone could sit there and argue about an idea, you like to be able to just create it fast so that Yeah, and then whatever happens happens. Either they like it or they don't, but at least they're reacting to the actual idea.

Speaker 3 (01:27:02):

Yeah, absolutely. Just stuff first they bring in the demo and you're like, yeah, we just feel like the chorus doesn't hit. It's not big yet. I mean, I'll just use stupid things. I have this sphe preset, I just call it chorus keys. It's just like I take this atmosphere keyboard and I throw devil lock on it and I just destroy it, and then I cut out the lows and the highs that are really shitty and I just play the same root note as the guitar. And then if there's a separate progression, like an octave melody or something like that, I'll put that on it too, put it under there, take a sub-base, copy the baseline, put it under there, and then I have this master chain that I always just keep on for demos because every little factor comes in wowing people. I remember a couple months ago when we were finishing the asking record, the new one, Ben was like, man, why doesn't this doesn't sound as good as the other songs? And I was like, oh yeah, it's bouncing it without the master chain on, and I turned it back on. He's like, yeah, that's what I like. I mean, it's just like an SSL compressor and a pole tech and a limiter and some shit like that. You know what I mean? But when

(01:28:08):

It's off, they notice, you know what I mean? To us it's just like, oh yeah, some arbitrary detail, whatever, but the artist is going to fucking notice all of a sudden. Of course

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):

They are.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):

Yeah, all these things matter. So I'll just whip that thing on there really quick and then get my drums going and start putting in these preset things in pro tools as you can save channel strips now, thank God. So I'll have ones that I've made that I know sound great with the different things I'm using, and I'll just start whipping shit in there really quick without them even realizing is happening. I'll be like, check this out. And he'll be like, dude, it's not so good. What'd you do? And I'm like, just added a couple things that were already there, but this brings them out more. It makes 'em shine more.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):

I love that. So what I think is interesting, or I'd love to explore is how much work you did to be able to get to that point. A lot. Yeah. Because you're talking about having something awesome in the first few minutes. And by the way, as an artist, I have experienced this, and so I know the power of what you're talking about. When my band, we went to record our second album with Jason Soff and Mark Lewis at Audio Hammer in 2008, and that was my first time getting recorded by someone real Before that I had been mixed by someone real, but never had done something from the ground up with a set of bad asses. And the moment that we started getting drums coming through the speakers, we weren't programming for pre-pro, we set up the drums, mic them up fully, and then we're going to do a week of pre-pro with drum sounds. The moment that they start getting the snare and the Toms coming through and they were like, oh, we'll just put a little EQ on there just so that it sounds kind of cool. But they queued it for 30 seconds

(01:29:59):

And it sounded awesome. It was just a wave of confidence came over me and I was like, alright, now I know why we're here. And I just felt great about being there. It gave me a level of confidence and trust in the experience that no amount of conversation could ever do. In that moment of hearing that Tom suddenly sound the way I always had wished Tom's would sound on one of my own records, it was like, all right, here we doing

Speaker 3 (01:30:34):

This shit. This is cool.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):

Let's do

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):

It. Yeah, I guess you excited.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):

So I have experienced it, and so I know that what you're saying is the truth, and I encourage anybody who wants to gain the trust of people they work with to be able to get to that point to where you're delivering something awesome as quickly as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):

Yes, fast speed cannot be emphasized more. If I'm like, Hey man, I have this weird idea. All they're going to say is, yeah, I guess I'll have to hear it, so fuck it. Don't even bother with that part. Just do it and then be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Because all they're going to say is either, fuck yeah, or I don't know, it's not really our vibe. And you're like, okay, cool. And you just move on with your life. Who gives a shit? You know what I mean? Not every single time is it going to work out, but when it does work out, not only does it make the song better because everyone's more excited, it also gains the trust more. Like we were talking about, there's another thing that happens too where it's like as you start to take left turns or stylistic changes or whatever may have you, it sets you on this path. Every one thing leads to the next thing, leads to the next thing, leads to the next thing and the next thing. And I guess this is kind of the theme we've been talking about the whole time, where it's like since every decision leads to the next one, if you hadn't have made that, then who knows where you would've ended up at? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):

Absolutely. So sorry, I sidetracked us by talking about my experience. I want to hear about what went into getting to this point. We've kind of touched on it at different stages, but I want to hear a little more about this template and also what went into that because this thing that happens in those 30 seconds that are kind of game changer for the session took years. It's like years leading up to a game changing five to 30 seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):

Yeah, I know. That's the funniest part about it, right? Because you think about a template and you're like, yeah, that's just my thing. But it's like, dude that's been cultivated over so fucking long. I mean, you're talking tens of thousands of hours of trial and error. You know what I mean? It's a game stage. I mean that in itself is like, okay, that save you so much time. There's so many things about it. So it's like, yeah, to go into that. I mean I think first was figuring out, okay, the biggest thing is what do you want stuff to sound like? Everyone's idea of what sounds good is subjective, so you automatically have to understand that, and that sucks. That's a fucking rabbit hole that you can never get out of if you really think about it too hard. But the reality is, for me, I've always just thought if something sounds impactful, that's good. At least when you're starting, there's nuances that come into play when you're doing the real mix later, but to start off with, to really grab people's attention, you want it

Speaker 4 (01:33:14):

To be impactful. So I've always thought, okay, what impacts in something the most? It's like heavy drums, like drums that push air. I've taken as long as I possibly can to find ways to make kick drums that will push air without just taking your entire mix over.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):

So I spent a long time on that and Sarah balance and everything and just different samples and why they sound good or why they don't, and then balancing rooms with three verbs and et cetera. I all the same shit you guys talk about all the time, but just trial and error over a long time. And I think the template thing started from me mixing and then when I finally got to the point where I was like, okay, I really like the way this mix sounds. I would take that and then I would interpret it into a writing template and then use it. The thing is when I'm making records, I do a shit load of writing with the band. So it's always been a necessity for me to have a writing template available so we don't waste any time because a lot of times it's like, Hey, we have this idea. Or I'll be like, Hey, I have this idea, what do you think? And then we'll talk about it for a few minutes and it's like, bam, let's execute it now. And if there's waiting, alright, let's plug in the guitar in.

Speaker 2 (01:34:24):

All right, let me just set up some tracks and I'll route them.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):

That kills the vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):

Yeah. They fucking have to hold that idea in their head.

Speaker 3 (01:34:32):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):

Just like hold it, don't let it go.

Speaker 3 (01:34:34):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:34:35):

Hold on.

Speaker 3 (01:34:35):

Yeah. It's so important to me that sometimes if I have an idea, I want to pitch to the band, I'll show up to the studio an hour or two early and make something that's been in my head just when they walk in, I'm like, yo, check this out space bar. And they're like, what the fuck? It's a big deal, but this is the template. It's just come from that just like, oh, I like the way that mix sounds. Let's just start from there. Keep on it, keep pushing on it, keep pushing on it. I am obsessed with the idea of just being able to get drums that just when you listen to a mix at any volume are just exploding out. It's weird. I want drums that are rap drums in the sense of you can listen to it at such a loud volume that it feels like you're hurting from it, but the drums are still the thing that's coming through the most because there's other mixing styles where when you get past a certain threshold, like a decal point, I feel like the whole thing falls apart. There's so much upper and mid mid-range frequency content that happens, and I don't know how to explain it, but there's this point where it just doesn't sound like music anymore because it's so much static

(01:35:44):

And it loses clarity. So I've always had this thought in my head that I want to make a mix that is the most sound at the highest level possible volume wise because I like to listen to music loud as fuck. I think heavy rock music is meant to be listened to loud as fuck. I know that metal is kind of a different world, but I'm not really as much a metal guy as I am a rock guy,

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):

As improper as it is for me to admit this just because I don't want to encourage bad habits. I agree with you wholeheartedly. That is a style of music that is, it's all about volume and power. I get that there's subtleties in there, but at the core of what it is, and it's like a primal thing.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):

It is, yes. And if I like a song, I find myself turning it up louder as I'm listening to it. Same here. He'll be like, damn, I like this cheerful louder. I'm feeling this cheerful loud. Next thing you're like, Jesus, this is loud. But it feels good there. There's a literal feeling. And the other thing is bass. I love bass. It's not like bass, guitar, bass. I mean I am fine with bass guitar, bass, don't going to me wrong, but like bass, like low end bass, low end, yeah. There's something that your body has a positive physical reaction to low end bass at high volume. It's like an actual science article that I've read. It's weird, but it does.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):

I mean bass and drums done well, super powerful and super loud. This is something that we take for granted because it's a regular part of our society, but if you don't take it for granted for a second and just think about what a big deal it is that those elements can get a human being to physically respond and start losing their shit. Anything from dancing to climbing up a tower or at a show staged and diving into the crowd and fucking going nuts. The fact that these sounds can elicit that type of reaction out of people, like someone who might be an accountant all day long and just totally put together buttoned up kind of person, and they go to some heavy ass show and go fucking wild, and then they don't go wild at all in the rest of their life until two months later when they go to another show. But just the fact that it can do that to people, that is very, very powerful.

Speaker 3 (01:38:21):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):

I do think, like I said, it's a primal thing, but I agree with you that there's something in the human body and mind that just reacts to it.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):

Yes. So getting back to the template, since those have been two of one of my most forward focused goals of how do things can just sound immediately without any effort, that probably makes sense, right? Because how do you shock people and get them excited more than two things that clearly

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):

Make a move,

Speaker 3 (01:38:49):

Right, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):

So you try to get to that point fast, smart. The thing is, it's not just smart, it makes sense for artistic reasons too. So you've got the artistic purpose of it dialed in, so how can we move as much air as quickly as possible? We want to get that response. We want to make it fun and inspiring. And I think that it's not just about the trust people hearing these sounds and wanting to freak out and then them trusting you as a producer. It's also that they'll get inspired to work, they'll get into that head space.

Speaker 3 (01:39:34):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):

I think that there's that as well, right?

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):

And now I've newly entered the point in my career where I actually have a sound that people are wanting when they work with me too. So I think that is now becoming a little extra player in the game where it's like, because I do certain things that are pretty like me, I guess now, stuff that people can identify as being something that I like to do or whatever it may have you when I do it, I think that's probably satisfying as well. It's like, oh, that's exactly what we were hoping for, so glad we came.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):

So they're coming to you because they like a thing you do. And then in the first five minutes of working, there's that thing. That's great. And then technically speaking, what kind of stuff is in the template? What elements do you make sure are definitely in there?

Speaker 3 (01:40:22):

Oh, okay. So there's a master fader with that strip I talked about earlier. There is a get good drums midi channel that is routed to a ton of channels. I have five kicks and five snares or something like that in Tom's rooms, overheads. But just

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):

When you say five kicks, it's so that you can check out five different kicks for the same part just to see what you like.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):

No, this is another trial and error thing, but I have all these different one shots that I like. I use the kick from their thing as the kick that you hear. I guess the one that you would identify as what you're hearing because it has the multis samples. I use their kick in and their kickout, but then I have these other kick drums where I've cut pieces of them out that I just think sound cool. They're a cool character that they provide and just blend them in and blend them in. And I've just been adding more and doing more stuff. They're all, so every single channel goes out of contact into an ox that has slate trigger on it and the mini triggering slate trigger for all of 'em. So only that, I guess the only thing you're hearing in this pierce form from the plugin is the overheads in the rooms, but it's, it's just very easy for me to use. I like the way they laid out the midi on there, so I'm just so used to it. I can program a crazy ass drum beat in two seconds now because it's just so familiar.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):

So you've got the drums not just routed for ease of use, but you've already got certain sample blends that

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):

That you very much, and I'm assuming that just because it's that way at the beginning doesn't mean it's going to necessarily stay that way, but point being that right out the gate you've got something that just sounds cool.

Speaker 3 (01:42:19):

Yeah, actually, to that point, I rarely end up keeping the way the demo sound as even something you would associate with the final mix. I have this weird thing, some people really like to mix all their records to sound like the same way, more or less. I'm the exact opposite. I think every single record of every mix sounds totally different.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):

The reason I wanted to point that out is because I don't want people to think that you're taking the same template into every band preformed.

Speaker 3 (01:42:49):

Oh yeah, no,

Speaker 2 (01:42:50):

Yeah. And you get it, it sounds awesome, and then you work with it the way it is, and then that's what you end up with. It's like you just have a great starting point that helps the work take place. And then mixing is a whole other story.

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):

It is. And I think the biggest thing to clarify with that is that as much as I love the writing template that I have, there's a lack of unique character. You know what I'm saying? So even though it sounds good, it's instant gratification. It's all that stuff you want and it helps you be creative and inspires you because it has no, there's no time needed to do anything and whatever. At the end of the day, the impact of it, I mean, it still sounds like there's fake drums and it still sounds like I'm using Amp Sims that everyone else has and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And not that there's anything wrong with that, because some things it sounds great for, and I have think at least once, kept a pretty close version of that, but most of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:43:47):

But the fact that you're even saying I think at least once says a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:43:52):

But I mean, most of the time, once you've gotten to the point where the songs are done and you've used all these different guitar tones, all these different ranges of gains and delays and all the vocals are there and the drums are live, and then it's like, okay, the record has taken on this identity and I try to let it, for lack of better words, I try to let it speak to me. What does this record feel like? How should this sound based off of how I feel listening to it? Should it sound like this or should it sound like this or that? You know what I mean? There's so many options and a big part of our job is being able to be in touch with that intangible thing that I guess guides you into what it should sound like.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):

Absolutely. Okay, cool. I'm glad we clarified that. Alright, so that's the drums. What else is in this template?

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):

I have a MIDI bass. I should say that as far as MIDI goes, I am so ungodly fast at mid Pro tools. In fact, I would really go out and say, I've never seen anyone faster than me and Midn Pro tools in my life. And I've heard that from multiple people.

Speaker 2 (01:44:53):

I believe it. Interesting. People talk shit about Midn Pro tools, but doesn't sound like you have any issues.

Speaker 3 (01:45:01):

No, I mean, dude, I understand why they talk shit about it. I used to use Ableton. It's far better, but in my point of view, I'm not going to use something that inconveniences me in other ways just for one small convenience. I'd rather just figure out how to make it work for me the best I can. And I have,

(01:45:19):

And it is what it is. I just do a lot of holding alt when I'm doing MIDI and it's all good. It's like alt in command, just whatever. You can do anything with that. But anyway, yeah, so I have a MIDI bass, so I have three channels of bass. I have the Inferno bass, it's a ding wall sample native instrument thing, and I use that as my bass guitar sound. And then I have a sub synth base that's just literally cut at a hundred hertz and down, so it's just rumble. It sounds so good though. Then I have this ultra wide out of phase base distortion synth that I put too. It kind of sounds like muse in a way. It's kind of cool. And I use all three of those. Not

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):

A bad thing.

Speaker 3 (01:46:04):

I use all three of those. And actually the synth thing that I use is like 30% of my guitar tone most of the time because it's ultra wide and it's up in there where the guitar is frequency wise, and it actually makes the guitars go from sounding like this thing you're so familiar with that cabinet sound that it's not really perfect, but the imperfection makes it what it is and you like it. But then you add this crazy 3D kind of perfect distorted synth, which it has so many of the same characteristics, but they're so different. It is weird. It doesn't have the crazy frequency spikes that happen in 2K and 4K and stuff like that. And there's no whistling in it. It just sounds like this flat line of just signal with distortion out the ass. And the way that it compresses when the distortion hits it, it's so much different because you're not compressing these huge signal spikes. It's like this really uniformed thing. Anyway, I just really like it. I put it up in there and that's my bass. I have two channels of guitar. I actually use JST, Jason Richardson ones. Those are just really easy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:12):

Shout out Joey.

Speaker 3 (01:47:14):

Shout out Joey

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):

And Jason Richardson.

Speaker 3 (01:47:16):

I got a left and right of that. And then I'll just have a few channels for my temporary, I actually using my temporary a lot, but I also have a million profiles that are all not what you get when you buy it and everything. So it's pretty subjective.

(01:47:29):

And then I have a whole thing for vocals and then for programming stuff, I have all these saved preset chains that start with omnisphere or serum. I've been using this thing called Atom by EMA lately, which is, it is funny. It's supposed to be these Grammy award-winning ready presets. And I was like, well, even if one's good, I'll try it. And there's a few in there that I like. So I was like, whatever. Because for me, it's like if I can open a plugin and it makes something good for me in the first minute, I'm happy. If it doesn't, I'll probably never open it again. So that's how I base it. And a lot of times I'll find more than just the first thing I find that makes me like it. You know what I mean? But if you can't impress me in a minute, I'm pretty much over it. Just so many things. Fair

Speaker 2 (01:48:16):

Enough. By the way, on that topic, real quick on if it can't impress you in a minute, I agree with that. I think that lots of things in writing and sound designing and mixing and recording should be pretty fast in that if it's not going in a good direction within the first few minutes, it's probably not going to go in a good direction at all. So it doesn't mean it's the perfect final direction or the final sound, but if it's not good pretty quick, it's probably not going to be good at all.

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):

But I mean, that's basically it. The template's just drums that fucking push the air I was talking about already, the bass, the sounds huge that I like. And then a bunch of guitar options. And then when programming gets involved, that's so specific to the project. I mean, I use things frequently that are the same as far as tonality goes, but I am a huge re-sampling guy. I love taking splice samples and destroying them and then making new things out of 'em. I do that a lot. And as far as synth go, half the time, what the final tone is, is some fucked up version of what the preset and the synth was. I usually go to a synth looking for a certain type of character, like a round wave or a saw tooth wave, something sharp, something gritty or something like round something voluptuous or warm.

(01:49:38):

You know what I mean? And honestly, I get that starting sound. I'm like, okay, I can make this in anything I want at this point, which goes back to the Ableton EDM world that I was doing for so long. And once you realize how you can manipulate the sounds, it doesn't matter. I don't care about presets anymore because I'm like, if I want this crazy wide stereo reverb synth sound, I can make it in two seconds. It's just three plugins. It's not like rocket science once you start to understand it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:50:03):

It's only not rocket science. You do understand it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:06):

Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah, but

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):

Getting to that point, think about what it must be like to someone who doesn't know anything about it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:16):

Oh, I do know. My grandparents came to my studio six months ago and I was like, yeah, check it out. I can play a string symphony now on my computer. And they're like, what the fuck is going on?

Speaker 2 (01:50:26):

Yeah, it is pretty incredible if you think about it. It is. It's just we're used to it. So that was actually my next question was how do you account for things that aren't a normal part of your work experience? Like say a band that has a clarinet in it or something, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:50:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:50:48):

Fuck all those heavy ass bands with clarinets in them. But do you do that on a case by case basis? You have your template that basically encompasses 85% of what you'll ever encounter, and then you just go case by case on the clarinet solo.

Speaker 3 (01:51:04):

And honestly, dude, all you ever have to do, if you're not sure what to do, just add distortion on it. It's fine. That's so true. It is. Honestly, I don't think it's funny because programming, it's gotten bigger in music, rock music over the years and when it started, it was so not cohesive. I guess the frequency, frequency, sorry. Spectrum of a synth is so vast compared to other instruments that we record that when you put them in the same sonic realm, they don't live together properly, at least in my opinion. I think they sound weird. I think the high end of a synth is so high fidelity, and it's so far extending past what you hear in a guitar or in drums. I don't know. It just doesn't sound

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):

Right. It's like a mismatch.

Speaker 3 (01:51:49):

Yeah, totally. It would be like if you had a 4K main character in a movie, but the rest of the movie was from the eighties on VHS.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):

Man, I had that experience once when recording one of my band's albums. We decided that we wanted to put upright bass on this one song because we thought it would be cool in our heads and we recorded it and it just sounded so stupid, but in the same sort of way in that it didn't fit the sound at all. It was not cohesive whatsoever. It sounded like you were playing two different records at the same time.

Speaker 3 (01:52:35):

Yeah, it's weird, right? And you're like, Ugh. I guess the thought could have been cool. I don't know. But yeah, back to the distortion, that's where that comes into play. I don't think I have any programming whatsoever, strings included, to be honest with you, that I don't distort in some way because I want to get that hemac distortion in there and just have it live with the other instruments better. And I usually shelf off the high end on stuff a lot like that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):

Yeah, makes sense. I've got some questions here from some of our listeners.

Speaker 3 (01:53:06):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you some of them.

Speaker 3 (01:53:09):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):

Unless you have anything else to say on the template, but I think we've covered it pretty well.

Speaker 3 (01:53:13):

Yeah, there's nothing else to say, man. I mean, honestly, it's just get some tracks that sound fucking dope and just go, what's your song? Let's drop some shit in it and bam. There you go. Everyone's happy.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):

Yeah, get to work. Alright. I am not going to pronounce this right, and so forgive me, it's Sarky Lazio, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:53:32):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:53:33):

I love what he did on that new Hollywood Undead album. I have dozens of questions about how they achieved all those lovely tones and sounds that layer those tones, but I don't think you guys would spare another hour on my question. So could you ask Matt, what is his thought process about finding out what sounds go well with the given part of a given song, and how do he decide that something is needed and what it is he's looking for when he finds out kind of a rabbit hole there?

Speaker 3 (01:54:07):

Man, honestly, I'm going to do my best to answer that, but I feel like if I could answer that, then I would probably be way richer than I am because people would be like, holy shit, he just solved everyone's problems in art.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (01:54:22):

Yeah, I don't know. I guess the thing I would say is, and we talked about this a lot, is it's just really trusting your gut and also can't downplay the importance of the vision. The vision is so important on a record, and that's why I like to spend a whole day talking to the band. If you have a bunch of people in a room that understand what their common goal is, then there's not enough that can ever be said about how much that helps you get to that set goal. And I think that by spending a lot of time together with the band and talking and getting together and understanding what it is that we're going for, then everyone's going to be contributing positive ideas to how to get there. And I think when you're talking about how to choose what sounds go and what parts, that's a huge part of it because if you have the vision, you're like an art record.

(01:55:07):

We're like, we want to marry hip hop and rock in a way that feels cohesive. Not like we're just doing a genre mashup, but just a genre in and of itself. So it's like we all knew what the goal was. We wanted to write these heavy, energetic songs that had these hip hop vibes in them. So by choosing sounds, it's like, okay, well a friend is verse, what's a cool dirty hip hop sound we could use that will flatter everything else going on or contrast the part right before or after. I love contrasting tone, so I mean sometimes it's that too. That's probably the best I can answer that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):

That makes sense. It's a hard, there's no final answer on that. He's kind of asking you how do you make art in a way, it's like the whole thing that you are paid for as a producer is knowing when it sounds right. And that is one of the most crucial skills. And if you could verbally, like we were talking about, verbal communication of a musical idea, if you could verbally communicate that, it wouldn't be such a tough job to get great at.

Speaker 3 (01:56:12):

Actually, I take what I said back earlier, I don't think I would have a job if I could explain that to people. There would be no purpose for what I do anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:56:20):

Agreed. So, alright, question from Scott Bennett. He actually has two questions. So start with the first one. What was your goal when you started working on the latest Sleeping with Sirens? That album felt very intentional and stood out to me.

Speaker 3 (01:56:34):

I actually didn't have a goal. I was making the Hollywood and Dead record in LA and I've known Kellen forever, and he came in and he was like, Hey man, what are you doing here? They were both managed by Madden at the time and it's in Burbank and there's a studio there. So I was just working on edits and he was like, man, what are you doing tonight? And I was like, oh, nothing. And he was like, let's write a song. So we wrote this song and it's this song called, I don't know actually actually called it on the record, but it was called Bastard's Son at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):

Does that happen to you a lot where you know all the working titles but you don't actually know any of the real titles?

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):

Yeah. Okay. The real song's called Bloodlines. It's incredibly dark and it's pretty heavy. I mean, the only intention was he just told me, he was like, yeah, we just want to do something different. We want to do something darker, something heavier. We went super pop on the last record, it wasn't for us, and I've always loved what you've done and your stuff, so let's just try and fuck around and write a song. It started off incredibly innocent. We made the song, everyone loved it, so they brought me in to do a few more songs. I think I did four or five on the record. So yeah, I mean the only intention was just the same as always was just trying to understand what it is the artist wants, what they're looking for, and try and deliver that in the best way that I can and make something that we're all very proud of and stoked about.

Speaker 2 (01:57:51):

Great answer. Alright, his second question was The New Dragged Under Feels familiar and yet new at the same time when it comes to rock and metal. How did the process go for finding the sound for the record when it came to mixing and how much of it was, here's amazing tracking and production.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):

Okay, so Dragged Under Love that band. Those are great guys.

Speaker 2 (01:58:13):

Shout out to Ryan Bruce.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):

Yeah, I talk to that guy every day. I love him. He is great.

Speaker 2 (01:58:18):

They just came through Atlanta and I didn't know, and I said, I wish that I had known you were coming through Atlanta so that I could have texted you an excuse for why I'm not coming to the show, but I was kidding. I would've actually gone to say hi.

Speaker 3 (01:58:33):

Yeah, that was fun. Hiram is my friend, he also lives in Arizona. He recorded and produced that record. He asked me to mix it because buddies and he likes what I do, I guess. But that was interesting. That mix was fun because the drums and the bass were midi and the guitars are di. So more or less I got to make it whatever I wanted really. Usually a mix isn't really that open-ended, you know what I mean? Usually there's more to go off of I suppose. But it was actually in that case really cool because that band for me gave me this feeling when I listened to the songs of when I hear this, all I want is for it to feel like it's just ripping my face off. So I tried to intentionally go to make everything sound the most chaotically organized and pissed off, but also, I don't know, not soothing, but accessible maybe. I don't know how else to explain it. I wanted it to feel like it was ripping your face off while hugging you at the same time. I really did my best to do that. I feel like the tones are very aggressive, but also same thing as earlier, I love, I can play it so fucking loud and it still sounds held together. So that's always my goal with that stuff, but I'm glad that he likes it. It's a great record.

Speaker 2 (01:59:52):

They're doing very well.

Speaker 3 (01:59:53):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:59:55):

Very happy for them.

Speaker 3 (01:59:56):

Me too.

Speaker 2 (01:59:56):

They've paid quite the dues, especially with the previous incarnation and anyways, here's one from Mason York. Do you feel when recording that, getting a good source tone is you or your studio slash equipment, if you feel like it's your equipment, what piece of gear makes a noticeable difference for you? And I will add to that question and say, what do you think is the most important element in getting a good source tone?

Speaker 3 (02:00:26):

I think that's pretty dependent on the instrument. So if we're talking about drums, I think the player is just as important as the mics and the pres, and then you're going to talk about the room. That's another huge factor. This is kind of one of those things where there's this whole list of things that need to come together to get the right tone for it to sound the way that I think that you're probably imagining it should sound, but drums, I say it's 50% player because I mean, dude, if I mic up

Speaker 2 (02:00:58):

A totally agree,

Speaker 3 (02:00:59):

If I mic up a kit with a hundred thousand dollars of pre and compressors and you go in there and you suck, it's not going to sound good. It just is what it is. I mean, there's no getting around it. Guitar, it's a little bit more lenient, but it's still a lot of the player. It's still the right hand. Oh my God, if your right hand isn't right, you can play in time. It still doesn't sound that great. It just is what it is. I never bullshit people about this kind of stuff. There are plenty of people I've recorded that are great live players because live isn't under a microscope. It doesn't sound the same. And they're great. They can play in time.

Speaker 2 (02:01:32):

You can't even fucking tell what's going on live.

Speaker 3 (02:01:35):

But then when you get in the studio, it's like, man, if you don't know how to pick in a way, your strings aren't consistently bending on a tune or if you press your fret so fucking hard that everything's sharp all the time, that sucks. It doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound professional. It makes everything sound like it's wobbling when you're listening to the song and it drives me insane. So I mean, the player's important there too, but the guitar is such a huge element. And after that, I think guitar is a lot easier to get. The drums are so far and above and beyond guitar. Guitar is like if your di doesn't suck and you're not clipping and the guy who's playing as good, you're pretty much fine. You don't have anything to worry about. Same thing with bass except for the strings, because bass strings, if they're not new, they sound like total ass. And then unless you're going for a certain genre, I guess, and in vocals is where I think the gear is very important. And so I have spent so much money on my vocal chain, how good you are of a singer is going to matter a lot. But I mean, I would assume that if you're going to be recording with me, that you're at least a pretty good singer. So I'd like to just

(02:02:34):

Subtract that out of the equation. But yeah, I mean, I have a Sony State hundred G. I have a U 10 73 and I have an 1176, and I record into an Apogee Symphony MK two and stuff, and I monitor with GenX, what are they, 40, 30 fives, whatever the really good ones. And my number one thing with vocals is I want to make sure that what I'm using to capture is perfect, because unfortunately, if it isn't and you get some great take, but it's fucked up. That sucks. That is the worst thing in the world. You cannot recreate some shit sometimes, and that is the worst thing ever. So I've always prioritized all of my money spending on vocal stuff

Speaker 2 (02:03:16):

That is very, very smart. I feel like there's something that a great vocal chain adds that can't really be recreated, a great tracking chain that can't really be recreated.

Speaker 3 (02:03:31):

And it adds to the confidence of the singer too,

Speaker 2 (02:03:33):

When

Speaker 3 (02:03:33):

They hear

Speaker 2 (02:03:33):

Themselves. Totally. Which is everything.

Speaker 3 (02:03:36):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:03:37):

All right. This one is from Chris Acosta, and I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit. So cool. You, for lack of a better term, helped the word alive. Reboot, in a way, kind of took a 180 degree turn there and it did well for them, but it was quite a change. And you kind of alluded to them kind of feeling a little stuck or they needed to figure out how to take that next step to not get washed out or whatever. It was a very important moment in their career, make or break, live or die kind of moment. And how do you approach that? Does it just come with a band being willing to give a little more trust to stay in the game? Or what are the elements that go into pulling that off? Because it could also be a total disaster. It's a risky move, but great when it's pulled off.

Speaker 3 (02:04:48):

Yeah, I think in that scenario, you have a group of guys, they're creative, and they've been doing this a long time. Their hearts are in the right place, and they love music. It's all they know. And you face this reality where it's like, okay, so what we're doing right now, it isn't working in a sense that there, there's no foreseeable future for us. Sometimes you see your path and it's clear as day, and you can see yourself walking down it and it's like, oh, I can see the next few years. And sometimes all you see is fog, mist, whatever. You don't know what to expect. You don't know what's coming. And I think that's where those guys were at the time. And when you're in a position, I think you're really just searching for answers. What is my purpose? Obviously I'm a musician, but what is this band's purpose?

(02:05:45):

What is our role to play? And I think we're facing an existential question like that in the studio. Everything kind of is serving this purpose of answering said question. And we were all just really aiming to achieve finding the answer to that the whole time. And we wrote many songs. And I think at the end of the day, the fact that they're all so different from each other, personality wise, finding the songs that they all agreed on were great, was the kind of filter that I suppose that we needed and used to decide what worked

Speaker 2 (02:06:22):

Makes sense. And it sounds like they were at a point where it was like, this could end,

Speaker 3 (02:06:27):

Right?

Speaker 2 (02:06:28):

We don't want it to end.

Speaker 3 (02:06:29):

Let's

Speaker 2 (02:06:29):

Fucking make it not end.

Speaker 3 (02:06:32):

And bear in mind, this was the first real record I ever made. So if you want to talk about getting thrown, it's like the most high pressure scenario you can imagine on day one.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):

There was an element of make or break for all of you.

Speaker 3 (02:06:45):

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (02:06:47):

For you, it wasn't like this could all end, but it was also, this could either start something awesome or kind of hinder me if I fuck it up.

Speaker 3 (02:06:57):

Yeah. I mean, if my first footing in the producer world was, oh, I'm the guy that ruined a band's career.

Speaker 2 (02:07:06):

That's a good one,

Speaker 3 (02:07:07):

Right? Hey, man, you're after a great start. It was like, yeah, fucking hell, man. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):

Yeah. What a bummer too. I think that what's key to note is that the band was a partner in this. They wanted to make that change. It's not just like you manipulated them into it. Oh no, definitely

Speaker 3 (02:07:29):

Not.

Speaker 2 (02:07:29):

Yeah. Well, sometimes when a band takes a 180 turn and it doesn't work out, a lot of people blame the producer,

Speaker 3 (02:07:37):

Right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:07:38):

The producer brainwashed them.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):

I've heard that before.

Speaker 2 (02:07:41):

I've heard that too. But man, I don't buy it. I know how records are made. Everyone is on a kick, and either it works or

Speaker 3 (02:07:50):

Yeah. I mean, there are definitely people that are more aggressive about their opinion being the only right opinion. I do know that for a fact.

Speaker 2 (02:07:56):

Yes, this is true.

Speaker 3 (02:07:58):

And see, and then again, these possibilities where personalities come into play. Some people are more susceptible to opinion than others, and a lot of weird dynamics can happen in that scenario. I don't know. There's a lot of things there, but at the end of the day, I know for sure I've never pressured a band to do anything other than what they've wanted. In fact, sometimes I've been like, are you sure this isn't too much? I feel like I'm sometimes more often than that guy, because even though I love it, I still like to check myself. I'm super about trying to be as objective as possible. So I'll be like, even though I'll love this part we're making, I'm like, fuck yeah, I'll sit there and I'll be like, hold on, hold on guys, hold on. Is this okay? Are you sure? Are you sure this is good? I always like to make sure that I'm reminding them that I'm thinking about that aspect too, because it's really easy to get carried away when you're in a room with a bunch of people and everyone's excited about something. Losing sight of the fact that maybe some people will be pissed about it or hated or whatever, and I don't actually have a problem with that, but you have to be willing to deal with the circumstances of making those changes too. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (02:09:02):

Well, there's a responsibility here that's beyond just the music, especially when you're dealing with bands that have a career. You've got their future in your hands, not just their future, but around every band, there's a circle of people that orbit the band. There's their families, there's their team, there's the label. There's all these people who are counting on that band to keep going,

Speaker 3 (02:09:30):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 2 (02:09:31):

Because fucking up a band's future like that. It affects way more people than just some narcissistic singer or something.

Speaker 3 (02:09:38):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (02:09:38):

There's a whole ecosystem around a band.

Speaker 3 (02:09:41):

To be fair. It would take someone who is a manipulator on the master scale to be able to fully do that, and they do exist, don't get me wrong, but

Speaker 2 (02:09:50):

I can think of a couple. But

Speaker 3 (02:09:51):

Yeah, and at that point, I even questioned what the motive is. It's like, do you just get off on the idea of this? Or what is going on with that? I don't know. It's weird, but I just try to remain being a fan of music as much as I can in that process. If we start doing something weird, it's hard because I love weird shit, and I have no genre boundaries. Personally, I don't care. I respect all music equally. I always have. And I don't see any one thing as being better in any other thing, because everything that you like is subjective to who you are. There's no way to ever quantify that. It's fucking pointless. You're wasting your time trying to even debate that. So it's just like, as someone who always likes everything, it's really easy to be like, let's just do this part. And you're like, fuck. Yeah. But then sometimes you're like, well, I don't know. Should we really do that? Is this artistically inspired? Is this going to lead to something that's truly creative and inspiring, or is this just some bullshit out of our ask as we're bored? You know what I mean? You have to try and distinguish a difference there.

Speaker 2 (02:10:49):

Well, on that note, going way full circle, one of the things that we talked about at the very beginning was that feeling of certainty. When you know that it's the right move, does that come into play when those thoughts of like, is this bullshit? Did we just do it because bored?

Speaker 3 (02:11:10):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:11:10):

How do you find that feeling of certainty when that voice creeps up? I think every creative person has that voice to some degree.

Speaker 3 (02:11:19):

Of course. Yeah. Honestly, it's just, it's that intangible thing. You just have to trust your instincts. Most of the time. What I'll do, if it's something I'm curious about, if it's gone over the line too far or something like that, what I'll do is I'll walk away from it for a few minutes. I'll go do something else, and I'll completely shift my mind into a completely different thing. Maybe I'll go outside and have a conversation about something completely non unrelated. Right? All I'm looking for here is for a complete mental reset.

Speaker 2 (02:11:49):

Like a pallet cleanser,

Speaker 3 (02:11:50):

Like a ginger. Exactly. So then walk back in, hit play from the beginning and just let it ride. And don't look at the screen. Don't ever do that. So just walk around the room and listen, and when the part that comes into question comes on, if it doesn't feel right, then fuck it. It probably isn't right. But if you're like, dude, oh my God, yeah, that is really fucking cool. Then, you know, did it, and it's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:12:14):

I think that's good. So it's kind of giving yourself the opportunity to get perspective.

Speaker 3 (02:12:20):

Yeah. Because if you're sitting there analyzing it, what you're doing is you're actually, without realizing, I believe that you are making a case for it to exist to yourself. You're in court in your own head. So if you go outside,

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):

That's so funny. So,

Speaker 3 (02:12:35):

Right. Yeah. Right. You don't even realize you're doing it. Half the time I catch myself doing that shit, I'm like, Nope, not falling for this again. No. So if you just completely just shift gears for a minute, walk back in, you won't have all those weird, stupid, intricate nuances in your head anymore sitting there, and you'll just hear it freshly again. And that's important,

Speaker 2 (02:12:54):

Man. That is one of the best ways I have ever heard that phenomenon described, and it's so interesting to me because I think people don't realize when they're doing, dude, I don't realize when I'm doing it half the time, you put yourself in a, it's almost like a trance. You go into this trance where you're talking to yourself about this thing, and one thought leads to another, leads to another, and you really convince yourself of something. It is crazy, and you may not even realize that you're doing it half the time or more, or at all or at all. That's a very self-aware thing to point out. When did that start dawning? It sounds to me like you're a very introspective person. You like to understand how people think, which I think is really cool. How did you develop that awareness?

Speaker 3 (02:13:54):

Honestly, as sad as it is to say, I think it's because I spent my entire life being criticized publicly. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (02:14:00):

Yeah. I do know what you mean actually.

Speaker 3 (02:14:02):

So it's like if you do something and you perceive it this S one way, and then you watch this huge group of people perceive it in an entirely different way, and then as you watch this cause and effect happen and play out in real time in front of you, I don't know. I guess over time you just start to realize things like I was just talking about. You're like, okay, well, maybe I built this up in my own head to be cooler than it really was. Or maybe I could have done this differently or that differently because I didn't realize when I made X that people would've interpreted it as y. Here's a great example actually, and this actually has nothing to do with me, but when asking Alexandria released the violence, the song we've been working on, they made this huge movie music video for it. It was super long, and it was cool. As fuck was the zombie one? Yeah. It was like this full, well, not full length movie. It was like a mini movie. So they showed it to me

Speaker 2 (02:14:53):

Certainly a full length music video.

Speaker 3 (02:14:55):

Yeah, exactly. So they showed it to me, and I as being someone who I'd heard the song as many times as I had watched the video already, having the song as a part of my life. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 (02:15:06):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (02:15:07):

I'm already familiar with it. It's already quantifiable in my head. I get everything about it.

Speaker 2 (02:15:11):

In some ways, that probably means that the video didn't have as much of an effect on you as it could have.

Speaker 3 (02:15:18):

Well, yeah. I mean, there's that, and then there's also the fact that when I watched the video, all I watched is a video. I didn't think about the song that much, and I watched the video, what it was, and I was like, that was a fun video, guys. I like the old school horror part of it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Didn't think about anything past that. So anyway, flash forward a few weeks, the video comes out, and one of the things that people didn't like about the video is that the song abruptly stops multiple times. So at the video, I never even considered the fact that the song had never been heard by the people that are going to be watching the video for the first time. So if you're enjoying the song and then it just stops and you're like watching this video, you're like, what the fuck just happened?

(02:15:57):

Where's the song? And it's hard to get into the groove of the song. So that's a bad first impression. That's a perfect example of the kind of thing I'm talking about though, because, and it's not my job to, so I don't feel bad about it, but it didn't occur to me. So you do something and you think of it one way, and then it comes out, and then it has a different effect than what you planned on. And I think as you observe that happening over and over and over again, it leads you to be more self-aware, to try and make better choices in that regard, and try and remain as objective as possible. Thinking about different outcomes, just different scenarios and why they're important, and how they could affect what it is that you're trying to portray with what you're doing, because that's obviously the most important part. If people don't understand you and they don't understand your intention and what you're trying to make, that sucks because it means it's all been in vain in a way.

Speaker 2 (02:16:47):

This is the reason that I always tell people, I strongly believe this, that you need to release stuff often, and that's the only way that you're going to really, really start to evolve. And I mean this as far as someone wants to do anything like a podcast or a YouTube channel or a band, or become a mixer, whatever it is, start making that thing and finishing songs, episodes, videos, whatever, putting them up and dealing with the consequences. Don't wait until everything's perfect. I find a lot of people are afraid to take that step of putting things into the world or really getting them done because they want everything to line up perfectly. It's got to be good enough. And that's really, I think that that's just an excuse to not get judged, but there's something that happens when you're getting judged in public that it wakes up a part of you that you can't wake up otherwise. And I think it's the same sort of thing as when soldiers talk about doing drills like room clearing drills or training exercises, and they say that they can only get to a certain level because the one thing that you can't recreate is the actual feeling of fear. You can't be fearing for your life unless you're actually fearing for your life,

(02:18:29):

And that wakes up a part of your brain. It also fucks up your motor skills, but it wakes up a part of your brain that you can't really wake up otherwise. And I feel like, obviously we're not talking life or death here, but it's a similar sort of thing. Same way as a band is never going to be as tight as they possibly could be unless they play a bunch of shows. There's only so far you can get in the rehearsal room. You could play a set every night in your rehearsal room for 90 days straight, and you still won't be as tight as a band that did a 30 day tour. No, it's just not going to happen because something that kicks in in your mind when you are doing something in public, and I think that that is the only way that you're going to truly, truly evolve. And so I totally know what you're saying, that getting judged in public is where that self-awareness came from.

Speaker 3 (02:19:19):

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I can't think of any other reason why I would care.

Speaker 2 (02:19:24):

No. It wakes up your brain in a way that nothing else does. I encourage anybody listening to let go of that fear and just put your shit out there.

Speaker 3 (02:19:35):

Yeah. I really honestly think that you need to feel comfortable enough to fail if you're ever going to make it doing anything. I really don't even know if there are people that have really made it that haven't failed. Honestly, I could even think of anybody. I'm sure they exist, but

Speaker 2 (02:19:52):

I don't know anybody. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's not that failing is fun. No, it sucks. It sucks. And I know that there's a lot of motivational speakers and who will talk about failure and encourage people to fail and make it, get them to reframe it as learning and all that. And that's all true. That's all true. Absolutely. A hundred percent that I agree, you should fail. But the one thing that they don't ever really talk about too much is that it fucking sucks. I know, right? Yeah. It's a learning experience and all that. True. You need to fail a few times to really get your shit together and in so many different ways, but it is not a good experience in the way it feels. It fucking sucks.

Speaker 3 (02:20:45):

Yeah. I mean, it's mentally damaging. It feels like shit. You know what I mean? But then, I don't know. Some people rise to new levels through adversity, and a lot of times those are the people I was just talking about, the ones that when, at the end of the day, I feel like adversity is going to do one of two things to you. You're either going to crumble under the weight of it or you're going to say, fuck this. Get up and do a better job next time. There's really no other way to do it.

Speaker 2 (02:21:11):

No, absolutely. No other way. Well, Matt, I think this is a good place to end the episode.

Speaker 3 (02:21:18):

Perfect.

Speaker 2 (02:21:18):

I think it's been awesome talking to you.

Speaker 3 (02:21:21):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:21:22):

I can't believe that it's taken this long to line up the episode, but I'm really, really glad that we finally did it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:29):

Me too. It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:21:30):

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