SAM GUAIANA: Producer psychology, handling difficult bands, and the power of saying “no”

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners, and if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levy urm audio, and let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:57):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share host and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is Sam Guaiana, who's an engineer, producer, and mixer out of Toronto. He's the owner and operator of Room 21 Sounds, and he's worked with artists such as Silverstein Limbs, obey The Brave and Prophets, as well as doing work for all the usual suspect record labels. This guy is someone you definitely want to be watching for in the next few years. Very, very insightful guest. I'll shut up. Enjoy Sam Guana. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:02:06):

Oh, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:02:07):

So I was checking out limbs before this, the mix you did for that, and I really, really, really love the energy in it. It's exactly the kind of energy I'd like to hear when it comes to that kind of music. I don't hear it very often in heavier music. Usually when stuff sounds raw, it sounds kind of shitty usually.

Speaker 2 (00:02:31):

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (00:02:32):

This case, it sounds like raw and over the top. It's tearing your head off or going to tear your head off. It's got that vibe, but it's also very clear and modern, but didn't sacrifice the energy at all. Great work with that.

Speaker 2 (00:02:47):

Thank you. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (00:02:48):

Yeah, you just mixed that

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

I did. Yeah. So Tim Mceg from Under Oath produced it and recorded it,

(00:02:54):

And then through both limbs and I are on the same management and just through that they were doing some test mix stuff and wanted to shoot it out with some people and sent it my way, and I was already a big fan of the band. I love that sort of raw energy kind of post hardcore metal vibe that's not super polished, but still needs to be, like you were saying, sort of modern sounding. Yeah, I just went to town with it. I had a lot of fun mixing it. I really appreciate you said that it sounded raw. The whole song is basically, the drums are all completely sampled. It was

Speaker 1 (00:03:26):

Awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:03:27):

Well, they're real, but everything's triggered in it. Yeah. Just because they recorded it in a small room. There's one room mic, and it was barely a room mic, and the shells were just kind of there to capture what was happening, and I just went through and spent a lot of time being meticulous with it to make sure if I was replacing all of it, that nobody could tell.

Speaker 1 (00:03:46):

I couldn't tell. That was definitely not what I was thinking when I was hearing it.

Speaker 2 (00:03:50):

Cool. Awesome. I did my job.

Speaker 1 (00:03:52):

Yeah, great work with that.

Speaker 2 (00:03:53):

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:03:54):

One of the first times that I realized that was possible I think was 2013, and I was listening to this avatar record that Jay Ruston mixed and Hail the Apocalypse. Anyways, base tone in it is phenomenal, but I thought the mix was incredible and I hit him up. Another Canadian, by the way.

Speaker 2 (00:04:14):

Yeah, Jay Ruston. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:04:15):

Yeah, he's incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:04:17):

Super good.

Speaker 1 (00:04:18):

I just wanted to know more about the recording, and he's one of those secretive types, and all he said was, I did my special magic and where you don't know I'm using samples, but I am the whole time it's like sneaky. I wonder what that is because it doesn't sound sampled at all. You totally cannot tell. So that's when I started to realize that it actually is possible because up until that point, I've heard people talking about it be possible, but then every time that they sent me a mix and be like, yo, I really can hear those samples, they sound like basketballs dribbling. That's not what real kicks sound like.

Speaker 2 (00:04:55):

Yeah. I think a big thing was there was this period of time where everybody figured out you could sample drums and everybody only used super process sounding stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:05:06):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:05:07):

And that was just a vibe for so long. Oh, that's just what drum sound like now is just everything is sampled, which sucks. Those samples are made from real hits and things like that, but they just sound so fake and yeah, basketball is the perfect word. You hear that scoopy bounce in it right away

Speaker 1 (00:05:23):

Or that sneeze, the snare. That sounds like a sneeze. The S snare sneeze. The snare sneeze. So I have a theory that that whole sound was a mistake. Andy Nee started that sound.

Speaker 3 (00:05:36):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:05:36):

But he started that sound on a record that he basically had to replace everything, so he was correcting problems. It was a kill switch record apparently, and I'm not talking shit here about anyone. This is 20 years ago. Apparently he had to just salvage it, and so he went like a hundred percent sample. This is just the story I've heard.

Speaker 3 (00:06:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:06:02):

Andy, you're welcome to come on here and dispute it. That would be cool. I'm not sure anybody expected that to be a band that became one of the first bands of an entire generation to help spawn an entire genre that lasted 15 years. So he was just solving problems, and I don't know if it was limited budget and he could only do that or I don't know. I wasn't there, but I don't think that they counted on it getting huge, and it got fucking huge back when records still sold, and then suddenly every band and label wanted Andy to do records. That sounded like the Kill switch sound. So little by little things became more and more and more like that. If you listen to the old Kill Switch, it doesn't sound hyper sampled like what we're talking about, but I think it started there and then over the next seven or eight years as the technology developed and people wanted that more and wanted it more, it just got more and more and more robotic till it hit this weird breaking point about 2010 to 13, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:07:15):

Yeah. Where people couldn't take it. It's funny that you mentioned Kill Switch, because like you just said, it's not a band that I would think of to have that sound, although I wonder if I just wasn't really hyper-focused on listening for that back then either.

Speaker 1 (00:07:29):

Well, you didn't know to listen for it. Exactly,

Speaker 2 (00:07:31):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:07:32):

Compared to today's productions, if you listen to a live or just breathing, it doesn't sound like that. So

Speaker 3 (00:07:38):

It's

Speaker 1 (00:07:39):

Not like suddenly this band came out and sounded fake and everybody loved it. It didn't sound fake. It just sounded awesome. It just sounded heavy as fuck and awesome. Nobody thought anything of it. There's nothing to think of it. He did a great job, but that is why his sounds awesome.

Speaker 4 (00:08:05):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:08:06):

All the stuff he did to it to salvage it. I also think though, that in 2001 or 99 or 2000, whenever it happened, we didn't have Slate Trigger or Drama Go or Yes, drama Go. That was a big one.

Speaker 2 (00:08:21):

Drama gog. I hated that thing.

Speaker 1 (00:08:23):

Yeah, me too. But it was the big one before Slate Trigger. I hated it too, but there was nothing like that, so it wasn't something that just everybody could do. Plus this world we live in now with home recording or small project studios being a thing was not a thing yet, so not that many people would even know to do that. So you're part of this newer wave, right?

Speaker 2 (00:08:52):

Yeah. I guess mean I've been doing it for a really long, but I definitely think that a lot of my methods are more of the modern, newer wave of things happening.

Speaker 1 (00:09:01):

Well, I realized I said newer wave, and then I immediately wanted to take that back because you're not part of the current newer wave. Right? I meant newer as in post Andy

Speaker 2 (00:09:12):

Sleep. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (00:09:14):

Yeah. I just realized that you're not 50. So obviously when you started recording, what was the reason?

Speaker 2 (00:09:25):

I'll give you the beginning of it to where I actually started recording too. I moved in with my dad when I was 13 and started, I had the music or sports choice, and I went with the music choice and then joined a band, started playing drums, joined a band, and we wanted to record. So I learned a little bit of it. I was pretty young at the time, and my dad had a friend who knew how to record some. He knew how to operate pro tools and things like that. So we put together this really small studio. It had I think a oh oh one and a small mixer and some stuff

Speaker 1 (00:09:59):

Like 2001, 2002,

Speaker 2 (00:10:01):

I want to say 2004 I think.

Speaker 1 (00:10:03):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:10:04):

Yeah. 2004. And then that little, that band was Eddie Kid's first band. It kind of folded. I didn't own any of the gear. It was my dad's friend who owned it all. But I ended up getting my hands on an mbox and then just kind of fiddling with that for a while and recording my friend's bands. Literally two tracks, and I pre-mixed the drums on a Soundcraft Live mixer into the two tracks and kind of just went from there and saved up, bought a oh one my own oh one, kept rolling with it. Then I went to an arts high school, which was just full of people in bands, which was kind of awesome. So instead of doing nothing on the weekends or working a part-time job, I'd be like, Hey, let's record a song for 50 bucks and some pizza and we'll spend the weekend doing that instead of whatever else. And it evolved from there. I haven't stopped doing what I've been doing. I haven't stopped being a teenager for the last 15 years.

Speaker 1 (00:11:01):

So that's what I meant by newer wave actually was the wave of people who started on

Speaker 2 (00:11:06):

Inboxes. Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. I didn't see a tape machine until maybe three years ago.

Speaker 1 (00:11:13):

So something interesting about my upbringing, and I think I want to know your opinion. So I went to a gift is slash art school when I was in elementary school, and it was great for me.

(00:11:27):

Then when we moved to Atlanta when I was 10, my parents put me in a normie school and that's when my performance in school started to tank completely. Parents who were listening, you should listen to this so you don't fuck your kids up. But that's when I started getting really, really bad grades and it just persisted forever. And I started hating school and one of the pretty prestigious gifted art school types tried to get me and my parents wouldn't do it. And to this day, my mom says it's one of her biggest regrets because normal people's school really kind of fucked me up a little and made me hate school. So now I'm hearing that somewhere around high school you went into an art school. How much of an impact did that have on your future? I feel like it probably had a huge impact on your future.

Speaker 2 (00:12:25):

It was definitely really big. I think everything is sort of a little bit of luck, and I got sort of lucky. I was in Catholic school my whole life in Canada here we have publicly funded Catholic schools, so you get the option between the two, and I was in that all my life and elementary school is one thing. You have your friends, I had friends who played music and everything, but when I got to high school my first year of high school, it really was, even though I was playing in bands, it really was a, I don't know what I'm doing with my life kind of situation. And not a lot of people in ninth grade know what they're doing with their lives, but I basically had sort of the opposite thing where it's like if I didn't go to an art school, I probably would've ended up doing something different realistically because I never felt, and my art school wasn't a super crazy art school.

(00:13:13):

I actually wasn't even in the arts program. I took it more electively. I just happened to be in the area, but being in the area put me in front of so many people similar to me, so many people whose goals weren't shot down by any sort of thing. It didn't really feel like we were being limited in the terms of any idea was good. We had people who wanted to be actors and they were in an actual drama program. We had people who wanted to be musicians and they were in a music program. It was very nurturing and just being around other people like that made it clear really early on that I want to do music in some capacity for my life. I have enough friends around that we can record our own music and do our own little thing. So it was very,

Speaker 1 (00:13:57):

Sounds like a very big deal.

Speaker 2 (00:14:00):

It was super defining. Come to think of it, I never really put it into perspective because like I was saying, it's been so long of me just doing this that I almost sometimes forget why or how. I mean I got into all of it, but yeah, I come to think of it without that I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today for sure

Speaker 1 (00:14:17):

Is kind of fascinating. Tracing back our own history. So I think one of the reasons that people who work with me know that I fight for what I want. I don't mean bully people or whatever, but I go for things aggressively

Speaker 3 (00:14:35):

And

Speaker 1 (00:14:35):

I think a lot of that just comes from how I was raised, but also it started to really develop in high school because I wanted to do fucking music more than anything. I was in a program called the IB and the school had to provide an elective and I petitioned them to give me music, which was a big deal because I was the only student in the music class. So they tried really hard not to do it because didn't want to get a professor just for me. And so I remember being sat down by, first it was a teacher who was supposed to, I guess seduce me over to the dark side. Then the principal sat me down than the guidance counselor, all these people and were like, why don't you take geography? It's so much more practical

(00:15:28):

And trying to convince me and trying to convince me and trying to convince me that it was a bad idea. Eventually, my best friend's dad who was on the board of directors of the school, it was cool with my best friend's parents. He called me to try to talk me out of wanting to do music. So all these people are just really making strong cases for it being dumb. And so it's interesting because it's not an adversity tale at all. It was actually a pretty privileged situation, but I had to learn how to start making arguments against really smart people because they were making logical sense. It didn't seem like a practical move. Why not have a subject that will help you with a real college? All this stuff poison your head if you let

Speaker 4 (00:16:19):

It.

Speaker 1 (00:16:19):

And so I learned how to fight for what I actually want in the face of logic, which is a good thing, but it started pissing me off and made me hate school.

Speaker 2 (00:16:30):

Yeah. Oh, I could totally see that. Yeah. It's weird when you're, like you just said, it's not like what they were saying was illogical by any stretch of the imagination. It's just you want to do something different and while it on paper has a smaller chance of succeeding, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try it just because of that. That's the whole method of any form of entertainment is we're trying the impossible task. At the end of the day, we'll do it or we won't do it, but it doesn't mean we're not going to try. If we don't try, we're not going to get anything at all out of it.

Speaker 1 (00:17:04):

Yeah, I think it's the impossible task. If you look at the grand majority, if you look at this, many people try to make it in music or the arts. This many people fail. If you look at it like that, it does seem impossible, but I don't think it's as impossible as people think, because I think most people who are getting into the arts, and I guarantee you that this is true across disciplines, most people getting in are delusional and are not actually worthy contenders. So once you strip all of those people away, there's not that many people left. I

Speaker 4 (00:17:43):

Can see that.

Speaker 1 (00:17:44):

Yeah. Though it is hyper competitive among the badasses, there's really not that many badasses to begin with. Some people are like, there's probably 10,000 bands going for 50 record deals a year. It's like, yeah, but is it really 10,000 bands?

Speaker 3 (00:18:00):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:18:01):

Or is it a thousand bands or 500 bands that are, I mean, that's still, that's hyper competitive, but it's not impossible at all.

Speaker 2 (00:18:11):

Yeah, there's definitely, it's that like, oh, I want to be in a band and they have no talent. I wouldn't count that band towards the quote competition of it all. If you're looking at that

Speaker 1 (00:18:22):

And then there's talent and no work ethic. That's a huge one.

Speaker 2 (00:18:26):

Yeah. Oh my God, so much of that. That one kills me because I've seen so many bands, even ones I've recorded, where it's just been like, if you were the right group of people or if you just put in, I mean, clearly they're putting in the bare minimum, but if you just put in more effort, you would succeed way more. But a lot of people, I think it's the other end of the delusion where it's like there's the delusional people who aren't talented who think that they can make it, and then there's the delusional people who are so talented, they think they're just going to make it because they're just super talented and there's no middle in that.

Speaker 1 (00:19:00):

This makes me sad. Well, not anymore, but it made me sad for a while. I had these two roommates at Berkeley that were so much more talented than me. They were more talented than almost anyone I've ever met. They were so fucking talented. They could do anything. They could go sit in with the jazz kids, they could go do an orchestral session, they could start a death metal band. They could do anything they wanted, and they were always at the top level and with very little effort, it just came to them. Those types, they're just faster than everybody on the team or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:19:38):

They're straight up virtuoso from the get go.

Speaker 1 (00:19:41):

Yeah. Real talent. Oh yeah. When people say that there's no such thing as talent, I want to laugh in their face because obviously they've never met somebody who doesn't work at it and is still better than everybody else. Anyways, these guys fucked up completely and disappeared. Nothing came of it, and I just wonder how many people there are that out there who really could have been something but just made really, really bad life choices with pregnancy, drugs, just all kinds kinds of bad stuff. So it kind of bummed me out, but then I would see people who were not very talented, didn't really have the it. However, they worked like 12 to 14 hours a day, and I see those guys getting into signed bands or getting jobs at labels and it's like, hmm, maybe talent's not the most important thing here.

Speaker 2 (00:20:41):

Yeah. I think that's true to a degree. A work ethic is so important in anything that obviously you should know how to play your instrument to a degree, but if at least you're sort of knowledgeable to a point. I have this conversation with bands who always have that one week member, and there's those bands that have that one week member who want that member to record, and then there's those bands that have the one week member who know they're the weak member and are fine, but they're there because they have so much more value everywhere else.

Speaker 1 (00:21:10):

Maybe they do the networking or something

Speaker 2 (00:21:13):

And the band's not going to be like, oh, I hate to say it's bassist, but it's almost always bassist. He's like, oh, he's not going to play bass on this. Well, we're going to do bass, but he knows that he's fine with it and our lives go on because that guy is so much better at everything behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (00:21:28):

Well, this band Kyira that was big in the early two thousands, big as in, sold hundreds of thousands of records, did huge doors. Never like a headliner really, but still they did direct support for Slip Knot at one point.

Speaker 2 (00:21:43):

Oh, they were an Andy sne project too, right?

Speaker 1 (00:21:46):

Yeah, they were Andy sne, they worked with Andy sne, worked with Colin Richardson. They did the thing, the 2001 to 2008 thing. They did it and their basis kind of sucked, and they always called him out on their DVDs and made fun of him recording or not recording or whatever. And I asked a friend of mine who was in the band, why they keep him, and I was like, you guys are always releasing shit about how he sucks and making fun of him. Why don't you get a better bass player? And they're like, he's the dude who gets a slayer tourist. He's not going anywhere.

Speaker 2 (00:22:26):

That guy's value is so much more than his mediocre base skill.

Speaker 1 (00:22:31):

Yeah. He's the one who texts with Carrie King. He's the one that knows Slipknot. He's the one that makes shit happen.

Speaker 4 (00:22:39):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:22:39):

So he's not going anywhere.

Speaker 4 (00:22:42):

Oh yeah. He's the valuable one for sure.

Speaker 1 (00:22:44):

Yeah. I think, man, what you said is really, really accurate about the bands that have the weak member and everybody knows it and accepts it. That is so much easier to deal with.

Speaker 2 (00:22:56):

Oh yeah. In every capacity it's easier because it's nice to know that I don't have to record that guy and everybody knows I don't have to record that guy and that guy's still going to have a good time because it is that situation where everyone knows their place and that guy knows his place in that spot.

Speaker 1 (00:23:13):

I guess in situations where that guy doesn't know his place, how do you deal with it?

Speaker 2 (00:23:20):

So I used to just deal with it later. Like I said, it's almost always basis, so I would just go back and rerecord the base when that happens.

Speaker 1 (00:23:29):

Guilty,

Speaker 2 (00:23:29):

Yeah. Oh my God, I

Speaker 1 (00:23:30):

Think we all are. We've all done it.

Speaker 2 (00:23:32):

Oh yeah. But I feel bad and not for re-recording the bass, I don't feel bad for that at all. I feel bad because they have to know if you're watching intently during recording and we're punching guitar parts in and out and whatever, and all of a sudden it's your turn and we're playing bass and after an hour of me punching you in and out, I'm just letting you shit your way through these takes. You have to subconsciously know that I'm planning something else.

Speaker 1 (00:23:58):

I don't think so. The reason I don't think so is because if they're unaware enough to step up to the plate in the first place, then they're probably too unaware to realize that you've got a plan.

Speaker 2 (00:24:11):

I think you're right. I just always hope that that's not the case. I hope that they learn from that and they don't. They never do.

Speaker 1 (00:24:18):

I was going to say, dude, if they're not unaware, if they are aware, then they're assholes. Yeah, exactly. Because they're wasting everybody's time and money.

Speaker 2 (00:24:29):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:24:29):

I prefer that they were unaware.

Speaker 2 (00:24:31):

Now I sort of either have a conversation beforehand, I'll see them at a show and then just be honest with them at the beginning of it. Like, Hey, listen, here's the deal, bro. You suck kind of. Well, I'll try to word it without saying that as much. I'll try to be to sort of save time. I think it would be great if one guy, the strongest string player playing all the guitars in the bass, so everything locks in. Or I will at some times just say, I'll pull the rest of the band aside and be like, listen, the bassist isn't strong enough. I will have the conversation if you want me to, but I recommend you guys have it before. And then if I'm going in blind and not knowing if they're good enough from the get go, it's like a three strike rule. It's like, okay, we're going to try this. Alright, this isn't working. Okay, this clearly isn't working. Who's up next to play base? Or I can just do this later. I don't really, I used to trying to be the nice guy, although I felt bad playing bass anyways, and I feel like I less bad just telling them straight up that they suck than going back and redoing their stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:25:32):

I just did a podcast with another awesome Canadian, Garth Richardson. Oh, amazing. We had a whole section of the conversation about not being the nice guy and about how destructive it is to the project. So I think I agree with you, it's not a good idea. It doesn't do any good for the project for you to be nice about things and then sacrifice quality or time just to pad someone's ego. There's a way to handle things without being a destroyer of souls and still get everything done. Though it took me a while to figure that out.

Speaker 2 (00:26:09):

I think it takes everybody a while. Nobody wants to. People can have this reputation of being a hard ass or being whatever, but nobody wants to be that. I don't think anybody woke up one morning and is like, I'm falling into the hard ass role. We adapted to that because if we didn't do it, stuff wouldn't get done. And that goes in any business, if someone's not doing their job, you shouldn't just let them sit around and try and try and try and try. You should solve the problem. Bigger fish to fry at the end of the day

Speaker 1 (00:26:39):

Actually, I start to get resentful when I have to get into that position. Like why are you making me have to be this way? I don't want to have to be this way. I really would prefer for us to just do what's best, but you're forcing me into this position because no matter what, I'm going to do whatever's best for the project. So it hurts me more than it hurts you.

Speaker 2 (00:27:03):

I just pictured you being like,

Speaker 1 (00:27:04):

Why are you making me mean? Why are you, yeah, you're making me do this. I was thinking about that too. It's kind of funny, but it does kind of make me a little resentful when I'm put in that position. I really don't want to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:27:18):

Oh, of course. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:27:19):

Exactly. I don't want to hurt someone's feelings. I really don't. It bothers me. People may not believe this, but when I have to hurt someone's feelings like that, it sticks with me and messes with me for a while, so I'd rather not do it.

Speaker 3 (00:27:33):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:27:34):

I'd rather that everyone just understood and was cool enough to do what's right for the project.

Speaker 2 (00:27:41):

That totally makes sense. I've definitely had records that were super tough and I had to lay into band members and then probably even months after or even when the record would come out, even if it was six or seven months later, I remember that unfortunately and just be like, ah, the record came out so great. I'm so happy. But I remember just being absolutely ruthless to these people and it makes me sad in that moment to remember that.

Speaker 1 (00:28:08):

Do you feel like that has affected your relationship with bands ever?

Speaker 2 (00:28:12):

Yeah, so the band I was thinking where that happened, the record was incredibly tough and I'm really happy with how it came out and everything, but it wasn't so much of would I work with them again? I felt bad they wouldn't want to work with me anymore at the end of the day and I thought it would damage the relationship, but we ended up doing a single maybe about a month ago. It went so much better. I think what happened was going through that whole thing during the record kind of showed them you can't make a record like this and if we work together again, you've got to understand that it's bigger than the five of us in a room making a record. So in that situation it helped out, but there have been some records where I finished after they were really tough to do and just being like, I'd be fine if I never worked with that artist again.

(00:29:01):

There's something about this vibe of person that I don't want to create with. So it is sort of like a pick your battles thing with that. Whereas if the people are really great and the record was really tough, I think the relationship will stay intact. But if the people aren't great and the record's tough, then it's no sweat off my back actually. I don't even hold onto the sadness or anger of a record of a bunch of guys. I didn't really like as much as I would hold onto the sadness or anger of a bunch of guys who I'm still friends with at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (00:29:33):

Yeah, that makes sense. What exactly do you define as hard? What was hard about it?

Speaker 2 (00:29:40):

I'll give you one that was hard, that were a group of people that I cared about. It was hard because they weren't committing to ideas or they were going back on ideas. They weren't preparing, they weren't doing things. And it sucked because it went back to what we were talking about earlier where these guys were mega talented and they just assumed that it would all work out at the end of the day and I had to really kick their asses to be like, no, you need to do more or this isn't going to succeed. And then the other side of that was I was doing this one record where some of the members in the band, I just absolutely treated me. I wasn't there to do a job or to do my job, which is like then I don't understand why I'm even there to begin with.

Speaker 1 (00:30:23):

What were you there to do?

Speaker 2 (00:30:25):

I was producing the record, I was producing and engineering a really heavy record, and I haven't done my fair share of super heavy things, but one of the guys in the band would just constantly undermine me at every single turn and then he ended up rerecording all of his parts just because he had to do it.

Speaker 1 (00:30:43):

So they hire you?

Speaker 2 (00:30:45):

I don't know. Honestly, I had a fantastic time with the singer in that band or the, he sings and screams and him and I got along great. So I think my strongest suit in that project was that I went in co-writing with the vocalist and working on melodies and doing all that stuff. And maybe we should have discussed in advance like, Hey, I'm not the guy to engineer guitars if you're not going to be able to let go of that thing at the end of the day. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth to the point where when it was done and when I found out that he'd rerecorded all the leads that we blew three days on and rerecorded or they programmed all the drums after we spent four days on them, it was just like, you know what? That's fine. I don't care. I could be more bummed about it, but really I am fine with it.

Speaker 1 (00:31:27):

Interesting. Because what I'm sitting here thinking is I guess the knife cuts both ways sitting here talking about replacing musicians, but then I guess they're totally within their rights to replace what we do too,

Speaker 2 (00:31:42):

I guess so

Speaker 1 (00:31:43):

At the end of the day,

Speaker 2 (00:31:44):

And it almost made me feel better,

Speaker 1 (00:31:46):

It is their record.

Speaker 2 (00:31:47):

That was kind of it. It's like, well, you know what? It's yours. And I think to be honest, I come from a lot of pop sensibility and more vocal forward things where I still think that, okay, cool, you redid everything around my vocal production and everything. That's fine. That's really the thing I wanted to be truly involved with, and they didn't change any of that at the end of the day, so to me it was like, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (00:32:12):

That's an interesting scenario. That's happened to me too. I think that these days, that's going to happen to everybody, especially these days. Every band now has at least one player who has a DAW and the interface, every band has a producer in it now, and that is a good and a bad thing. There is a lot of good that comes out of that. I've been involved in some projects that were elevated so much because they had someone in the band who could record and maybe they couldn't record as well as me,

Speaker 3 (00:32:45):

But

Speaker 1 (00:32:46):

They brought so much to the project in terms of being able to do stuff simultaneously or just not having to try to get me to understand this vision that they don't have totally worked out. Just go work it out and record it yourself. That is such a good thing. But then of course there's a flip side, which is you get dudes who think they know what they're doing, but they don't and they really shouldn't be recording, but they're going to bring that with them mentally and get in the way of the project.

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):

Yeah, they're going to walk in going, I'm going to produce this even though you're the producer. It's like, well, that's fine. I guess why am I here then?

Speaker 1 (00:33:29):

I guess so the question is how do you know the difference?

Speaker 2 (00:33:31):

I think it comes back to attitudes at the end of the day. Yeah. Now that you mention it, probably the last five or six records I've done, every band has had some sort of knowledge of their demos were well done, and they did them themselves, and the ideas were fairly clearly articulated, and I think it came down to attitude. All those records went fine when dudes knew how to record stuff and the demos were super detailed and everything. In fact, those ones go so great because sometimes they nail stuff in demos that I'm just not going to spend the time to recreate. It's like, that's a really cool lo-fi guitar and it's recorded. Well, let's just toss it in because it's done and everybody's on board and everybody's stoked. And I think it's those types of bands where it's just like they're the happy to be here.

(00:34:12):

Bands like, God, we're just happy to make this man. We're happy. You're stoked. We're stoked. They learned the DAW side of it because they just wanted to get their demos out. They didn't learn it because they want to be some crazy prodigy producer guitar guy at the end of the day, and those bands always go super well. It's amazing that they demoed everything out, and it's amazing that I do drums. I mean, I'm sure a lot of guys do these days, but I do drums last and it's so nice when demos are all laid out. I've got MIDI to make drums and we can make changes on the fly. It's so collaborative when it's like

Speaker 1 (00:34:45):

That. Yeah, absolutely. That's the best case scenario for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:34:49):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:34:50):

I agree. Attitude. Well, skills too, but attitude makes such a huge difference. I remember this one time, there's this band I recorded, they're a well-known pro band where their old singer came in and when they were getting set up on day one and just looked at all the outboard and came out to me and was like, so ail, do you guys utilize the gear? My super condescending was like, what? Who are you? You

Speaker 2 (00:35:20):

Utilize the gear? No, it's all here just for

Speaker 1 (00:35:22):

Show. Yeah, the heating doesn't work. I needed heaters. Oh my God, what do you think it's here for? But he'd ask questions like that. A super condescending, not directly insulting me, but just condescending like that the whole time and it really, really rode me the wrong way. Four weeks of that, and then you end up hating somebody and the guy was not skilled at all. Whereas I've had these projects where there's a member of the band that's a borderline genius and they're in the other room with their setup and we're working together and shit's networked and it's like a factory and we're making greatness and it's great. Love it.

Speaker 2 (00:36:10):

Yeah, it's super good when there's a guy in the band that can do that stuff because they can basically, if I have an idea in my head, but I'm occupied with guitars or struggling to sort of solve the exact sound I can at least explain it to them and they can do their take, which might come out better, especially in the programming aspect. They've got a vibe for the song. They've been sitting with it for so long and they can go off into another room and work on that idea while I'm doing something else and we meet back at the end of the session or we meet back an hour later and it's 90% of the time when that happens. It's exactly the right thing for that part.

Speaker 1 (00:36:49):

Yeah, there's another scenario I've encountered where it's just better to let someone track themselves if they're really, really skilled at it. For instance, John Brown from monuments is such a great guitar player, and also he's really good at recording and the speed of his musical CPU, like his brain, it just moves so fast that he's got a vision for what he wants to do. He's got the right hand chops on the guitar like nobody else, and he's fast on the dog. You put those together and there's no way that I could keep up with him. Maybe there's an engineer out there who could. I'm sure there is, but it's not me, and I think a lot of people I know wouldn't be able to keep up with him. Guys like that. It's better to just let them record themselves eight steps ahead, and they know exactly what needs to happen and they're going to do it great. Why even fuck with it?

Speaker 2 (00:37:49):

It's playing to people's strengths in that way.

Speaker 1 (00:37:52):

Interestingly enough, it's like an evolution of the Rick Rubin style of production.

Speaker 2 (00:37:56):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:37:57):

I guess you just have to be sure that you are actually playing to people's strengths.

Speaker 2 (00:38:01):

Of course, I've been in situations where it was the opposite of that, where there's this, a singer who I spent a lot of time on takes and no matter how much time they either are really stuck in their head about it and don't know how to escape, and it was this one project I was working on where I said to him at one point like, okay, cool. I'm down to let you record your own vocals moving forward because you'll be in the right head space in your own home and everything. And we worked on the production, we worked on a lot of the harmonies, we worked on everything. So really it's just if you're struggling to capture the right take with it home and he had some pretty good gear and everything, take it home and work it out. That was the one time I got burned. I would get the takes and they were just kind of poorly edited in spots and things like that, and I was like, I know that this was better that you did it yourself, but now we're struggling. Now I'm struggling to clean up a slight mess at the end of it. So yeah, that's one of those things that also can go both ways too.

Speaker 1 (00:38:57):

That brings up a deeper question, what are we even being hired for in the first place? I mean, I know what we're being hired for and I think that our job's important, but I mean this in a way that how can we justify to other people who might start thinking, well, with all these other people recording, why should I even hire a producer?

Speaker 2 (00:39:19):

I think at the end of the day, there's this incredible value and the ability to be humble and step away from your work and let somebody else who is knowledgeable in the same kind of vibe give their opinion on it. I think, yeah, like you're saying, especially with everybody engineering these days or everything, and at least having a semblance of how to do what we do, to some degree, they're still not going to escape. Their demo is over a song or what they're stuck on in the song. Whereas I think the most valuable thing I can bring to any project is objectivity, and I try to articulate that with bands as often as possible days. I'm sure every producer feels it where it's a little bit of imposter syndrome. Why am I getting hired to do this super sick record and then I have to try? You have to ground yourself and be like, oh, it's because I've proven that my biggest value is the fact that I can look at this song in a way that you absolutely cannot anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:40:28):

I mean, that is valuable. That's very valuable,

Speaker 2 (00:40:31):

And it's something that I'm not going to say it gets overlooked because it doesn't get overlooked, but on the occasion that it does get overlooked, it hits sort of home where it's just like, I won't take engineering jobs anymore that are just engineering unless it was maybe some super insanely huge record that'd be really cool. But realistically, I don't want to just engineer your record. I want you to pick me because you believe in me as much as I want to believe in you at the end of the day, and that is letting me do what I've done on a thousand other songs in the past. So I want to be as objective as possible. I want to be as honest as possible. I want to improve your song, and I'm not, it's funny, I don't think that the decisions I make are, for me, I always try to imagine that the decisions I make are for the greater good, because I always tell bands a song lives on if we're lucky, a song's going to live on a hundred, 200, 300 years longer than we'll ever live.

(00:41:28):

But then sometimes I get in my head, am I just cutting this chorus in half because I want to do this or am I doing this because it's the right thing to do? And I've had that battle sometimes too, and I think the objectivity is nice, but the ability to just have a guy in the room to riff ideas back and forth, even if we don't stick with my idea, even if we circle around the entire song and literally nothing gets changed, but we spent a day trying out everything, then I think that's the value that producers can bring to the table these days or can still bring to the table these days.

Speaker 1 (00:42:01):

I think another thing that they bring to the table is the ability to wrap it up, get it done.

Speaker 3 (00:42:07):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:42:08):

That sounds like a simple thing, but it's not and Oh, absolutely not. Bands when left to their own devices for the most part, don't finish records or songs. No. They spend way too long on things. I mean, we're not talking about recording local bands, but the thing is, I'm sure the band and the local scene that's been around since you were in high school who are still playing the same songs. Yeah, oh yeah. They're in every scene. And I think that that's a natural thing for musicians to do. That's kind of how it will be in most cases. If somebody external isn't there to lead it into completion, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:42:53):

If there's no fresh approach or no growth or anything like that, then in that band's mind, why bother changing? We're doing this. We've got our little steady thing. They might be bummed and don't understand why they're not getting signed or anything, but without anybody to be like, Hey, maybe do something different for a change, then they're never going to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:43:14):

Yeah, exactly. And while the issues change when bands start to become more successful,

(00:43:21):

I think that that same thing that causes bands to stagnate still applies for well-known bands. There's still that human nature element of getting stuck on something or stagnating or beginning to repeat yourself. Your motivations change over time. If you take a band that's been around for 10 years and the first seven, they were local and they've spent the past three years fighting really, really hard, touring really, really hard, there's a possibility that there's now all this new type of psychology in the mix, like new types of pressures, new types of stresses, new types of burnout, new types of everything. And now those factors are playing into why they would overthink things and not release them or take way too long. So at first, bands are trying to get everything perfect because they want to have a career, then they're trying to get everything perfect because they want to keep a career. But either way, that tendency to not get stuff done will still be,

Speaker 2 (00:44:31):

Yeah, still

Speaker 1 (00:44:32):

Need the help.

Speaker 2 (00:44:32):

I don't know if you've ever experienced it. I mean, I'm sure you have where it's like the local band that gets big and made the same few records and it does really well, but because they're big and they stick with that sound, they think that that's the key moving forward. And they've got this small fan base, but very vocal fan base that don't want the change. So they also just get stuck in their ways and they have the opportunity. They're on the label. It's their fourth or fifth record coming out, but they're not changing because they think that the small people aren't going to be stoked on the change when really that change could make or break opening up the next door in their career. But they think that they got that door open because all, we're already on a label. We're all whatever, but there's always the next step in a band. Those are the ones that are the most heartbreaking to me. It's like, you've got the deal, you've done a couple records, you've established all your peers are growing in different ways. Why aren't you giving this a shot? What's the worst that can happen? You do a record that flops, which it's probably not going to flop, you're just going to capture a bigger fan base, but then they just get super freaked out about that. I'm sure you've had that happen or seen that happen with some bands too.

Speaker 1 (00:45:47):

Well, yeah, but dude, I think the flop thing is real.

Speaker 2 (00:45:51):

Oh, it totally is.

Speaker 1 (00:45:52):

I'm not going to name one, but there's a heavy band who recently totally drastically changed their sound and came out with it, and everybody shot on them so hard. Their opening week sales were less than half of their previous record, like true flop. This is a prominent band. Also, they wanted to expand their sound. They got with a big producer who had this huge track record and they fucked up and big time, and they came back though and went back to their original sound. And people liked that better, but it did damage. It definitely did damage. So first of all, I agree with you, but I understand where their fear is coming from.

Speaker 2 (00:46:40):

Oh, totally. Imagine witnessing that being the other band who wants to make a similar change. You see the band make that change and you're like, cool. They did it. And then you see the metrics of it and it's like, Ooh, that flopped really bad. And then all of a sudden you get freaked out and you just go back to doing your old thing. So it's like it could be limiting to see a band do that and fail to an artist's growth,

Speaker 1 (00:47:06):

But man, I think I'm going to bring up Slayer here. I don't know if you followed them at all. I'm not a huge Slayer fan, but I have followed them there for a while, for 20 years, and everybody says that all their songs sound the same, but they don't. And that's a band that has been accused of making the same record over and over and over, but they really haven't. And one thing that is interesting is that they changed with the times, just enough, multiple times. And if you go back over the eras and listen to their work, you'll notice that different things that were of the time entered their music. I'd say 10%. They started to have, for instance, slower, heavier, beat down parts in the new metal era. I even think I heard a blast beat recently now that blast beats are a thing. They incorporated these elements to their sound that made them just current enough without sacrificing what I guess they were all about. And so I feel like they managed to tow that line perfectly, which resulted in a 30 plus year career. But I think that's really hard to do.

Speaker 3 (00:48:20):

Totally. And

Speaker 1 (00:48:21):

Bands typically go extreme with it. When they incorporate new elements, they'll change everything or do something fucking drastic, and that is risky.

Speaker 2 (00:48:31):

It totally is. I think one of the things too is moderation. A lot of people when they make that big change, some bands just like, fuck it, we're making this. We're going to put everything in. We're just going to do this. We're going to make everything different. That's the big fear. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you mentioned the Slayer thing where people might say that it all sounds the same because there's still this core sound to the band. They're just incorporating modern things into what made them such a great band. And I think that's the smoothest way because you can do that over a few albums and realize that three albums later, you don't sound like the band you were in the first album, but the growth was so natural that nobody's freaked out by it.

Speaker 1 (00:49:14):

Yeah. It's really the perfect way to do it. However, obviously you get bands who completely change it up and explode, but that's a big gamble, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:49:25):

Yeah, it's a huge one.

Speaker 1 (00:49:26):

Yeah. That's kind of like betting all on black or something. It's a big gamble, but it can work. But I understand the fear. So how do you deal with a man when you get a band who is five records in, and everybody feels like this next record is the make or break and that they're going to have to quit if this record doesn't take them to another level. But at the same time, they do have something good going and they don't want to risk that.

Speaker 2 (00:49:55):

It's tough to deal with because you don't want to be the guy who made that band's worst record. So as the producer, you're sitting there with your brain just spinning the whole time, but trying to not show that to the band, especially when they're showing you different ideas and things like that. You want to be the guy who's holding the strongest face because that's the reason you're kind of there. At the end of the day. How I personally deal with it, I think is kind of that. I think I compartmentalize it a little bit in the moment. I'm always down to try everything. I want the weird song. I want a few of the weird songs even. But I am the guy who is going to be like, okay, where's the balance? How do we strike the balance? Because at least if it's one or two songs, somebody can just skip those on the record.

(00:50:41):

If you're freaking out on an entire record, then I'm definitely losing my mind. Thankfully, I haven't come to that situation. I have totally come to the situation where it was one or two songs, and in the moment I'm very excited. I want to be excited because the reason those changes are happening in the music is it's a couple members in the band who are very excited to grow, and I don't want to be the guy to stop that growth. So I'm not going to be there saying, no, this is a terrible idea. Don't release this song. I'm going to be the guy to go, cool. Let's try this right to the end. Throw me every nuts idea you have, especially in the weirdest song. Throw me all these ideas. Let's just get them out on this song. If we're lucky, there's still nine or 10 other songs on this record that are a little more in the wheelhouse at the end of the day, and I'm in that moment really excited for that.

(00:51:27):

I'm really excited to push the limits. I'm really excited to do something this band's never done, but I had that happen recently where I could probably say who it is on the Silverstein record, there's a song that's very electronic the whole way through. The choruses have real drums, actually. Well, a lot of the elements are actually real. They're just made to sound kind of different. Chorus is really the only spot where you hear guitars and drums happen. I don't even think there's bass in it. I think we programmed the bass and throughout the whole record, there was a lot of division in the song. Initially, the big fear was we wanted it to actually open the record.

Speaker 1 (00:52:01):

What do you mean division in the ranks?

Speaker 2 (00:52:03):

In the band? Some people were so excited about the song and some people were just terrified of it, and they fully had the right to be terrified. It's not what any other Silverstein song sounds like. And they are known to do some cool Synthes stuff. Even on some of their older records, there's actually stuff that's closer to this song, but in the room in the moment, it was just so different than anything else that they'd done. And I was excited. I was like, this is cool. Especially when the planning the track list. So yeah, let's maybe open the record with this. I'm like, if that is a bold move for it, I'm happy at this point that it doesn't open the record. But it was one of those in the moment. And then about a week before the record came out and I started seeing a few reviews and everything, and the reviews are, people seem pretty excited about the record and everything, but hardcore fans are always the loudest people when these things come out.

(00:52:55):

And a couple people who heard it were like, what is this song and blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, oh no. I am a little scared about this song a week before this record comes out. But I was so happy. Since the record has come out, I feel like I've had so many bands, especially pop bands, be like, I want a song like that on our record. I want to push it the way that song does because that's the most unique thing that they've done in a really long time. I'm for it. And I was like, oh, thank God. So it was just basically what I'm getting at is a roller coaster of, for a song like that where I'm thinking in the moment I'm stoked on this. And then a week before I'm like, oh, Jesus, this is terrifying. People are going to hate my guts for letting this happen. And then being validated, at least in this situation, I was validated for all I know next time this happens, I'll just be shit on right afterwards too. But it takes a toll. I think if it doesn't take a toll, I think I'm probably made more of a mistake.

Speaker 1 (00:53:50):

Well, yeah, it means that you're not really invested, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:53:55):

Exactly. Yeah. And that's the thing I'm spending this year mostly. I tried to do a bit last year, but obviously, and everybody does this, but I'm spending this year mostly working with projects, working on projects. I want to be invested in. If I'm invested, I'm definitely going to still do my job and reel you in, but that means I'm down for whatever you want to throw me. I'm down for everything. I'm at least down to hear it and try it.

(00:54:20):

I'm not going to say no, exactly what you just said. That just comes from being invested in it and that fear is real. I'm sure the band were feeling that same fear, which means, if anything, I did my job exactly how I should have because I'm experiencing what a band member's experiencing. And a lot of people say a producer should be sort of that fifth or sixth band member in the studio to be just as important to the project as everybody else. So I think it's a good thing when you feel that fear or when you feel that nervousness over a song coming out.

Speaker 1 (00:54:52):

Yeah. So there's two things I want to ask you based on what you're saying. First of all, talking about the tension between band members, that's a very real thing and part of what makes a great producer is the being a psychologist part, right? Or the mediator. That's a huge part that's always talked about the people skills and conflict resolution skills, all that. So let's talk about that for a second. When you have opposing viewpoints within a band that are completely logical, but very, very strong, two of the members really want this growth because they feel it's crucial for the career. The other guys, the other three or whatever, two don't want it because they feel that that's crucial for the career. Everyone wants the same thing here, but completely opposite about how to go about it. That's a very real situation.

Speaker 2 (00:55:56):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:55:57):

How do you get through that?

Speaker 2 (00:55:58):

A lot of it comes from starting right at the beginning of the project. I always have a conversation with the band like, okay, you hired me to do this. In what capacity? How much does my part of this way? Because I don't ever want to be the guy who says no to your idea and sides with somebody else. Then I just look like I've taken a side, but I do want to know where I stand with my vote. So if I'm going into a record and I hear this one freaky song and it hits me and I'm stoked on it, and I hear that sort of situation where it's like, ah, two of the guys are just really not feeling this, we don't want it on the record at all. Two of the guys are like, yes. If we go in and I'm a full vote at that point, then I will present my reasons as a producer and as just a listener of music as to why I would choose that song over another song.

(00:56:58):

And I try to tell band members that too. It's hard when you're a musician making music. You have the sound right at your hand, you have the sounds, and I play drums. I play some string instruments too, but I think my objectivity was built around the idea that I will just gravitate towards what I hear right away. I will work on it on instinct heard or I've never picked up an instrument, and that's where I think my objectivity is the strongest. So if I'm hearing a song and it grabs me right away and it hits me and it's a division between the band, I'm going to say from a listener's perspective, this is why I think it's strong. I don't want to be a jerk, but I think that the band doesn't have the listener's perspective. They just don't. They slaved over these songs. They've heard them a trillion times.

(00:57:50):

They've shown friends who are other musicians because all of our friends are musicians. It's not like most of the time we're just surrounded by people who do exactly what we do and things like that. So the feedback they're getting is a musician's perspective, whereas I try my best to step out of the musician role for a sec and just be a listener. And a big thing I do to solve that is I try not to listen to demos more than once or twice if I get demos, even if it's three or four weeks out of the record, I more just want to make sure that the songs exist. So cool. You sent me demos. There's 10 in this folder, 12 in this folder. Half of them have vocals. At least the songs are done, and at least I can hear you guys can play your instruments to a degree.

Speaker 1 (00:58:33):

Yeah. I guess this comes down to trust because Oh, totally. They have to trust your tastes and because I know what you're saying, but that could bring up the argument of Yeah, but that's just your opinion, man.

Speaker 2 (00:58:45):

Oh, totally.

Speaker 1 (00:58:46):

At the end of the day, yeah, that is just your opinion, but that's what you're hired for. You're hired for your opinion, so if they don't trust your opinion, then they shouldn't be hiring you. Your tastes are what you're getting paid for.

Speaker 2 (00:59:00):

Totally. And I've flexed that muscle a few times where it's like, yeah, because that exact thing has happened where it's like, yeah, well that's your opinion. It's like, yeah, it's my opinion, but you hired me for my opinion. Take that opinion to heart a little bit more than just your buddy who's like, nah, man, this doesn't sound like you guys. Well, too bad. Nothing sounds like anybody. Everybody's up for change, all the, just take my opinion more than anybody, but I'm not going to say that in the most conceited way.

Speaker 1 (00:59:30):

Well, it's one of those things that can sound really conceited or condescending, but in reality that is kind of the job is to have the right opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:59:39):

In an ideal world where budgets were big and I'm making a record over four months, I would do anything to just be that old school producer where the only thing, I'm there for somebody else's engineering everything, or I'm only engineering what I really want to engineer, but I'm the guy who's like, I'm here to just sit with you guys and work on every single creative part of this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):

Yeah, make sure the vision is intact.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):

Yeah, exactly. And be as objective as possible and challenge you. I want to challenge you. Even if in the moment I don't agree, say I'm stuck on one of those songs where it's like, yeah, you know what? I don't really know what direction I feel on this. I want to challenge the guys who are against it as to truly why they're against it. Because everybody, they don't want to say it, but there's a reason you're against that song. At the end of the day, it's not a genre of music you like or it's weird that there's so much synth in it or it's weird that whatever. You know what? Everybody's got an agenda. Why did the three of you say this? Why did the two of you say this individually? Why not as a group? Both of you guys can be like, oh, we don't think it's whatever. It's like, no, but there's a reason you in particular don't like this song and I, because I don't know where I am with it, I need to know, not even want, I need to know why you don't like this song.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):

What if it's just I simply don't like it? What if it's just as simple as I hear it and I don't like it? Kind of like I tasted that dish and to me, this is not me because I love cilantro, but the cilantro tastes like soap, and that's just what my brain is telling me. I know it doesn't actually, but my brain doesn't like it. What if That's just the reason

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):

I think that's valid. I don't want to be the guy who's like, no, that's the because of answers, but it is valid. The thing is, I do this sort of thing, it happens naturally because bands don't ever want to lead with that song, but I do this thing where we're not going to look at the crazy song until five or six songs in and at least gives me a vibe for the room. And it tells me the dudes who are stoked on every song are stoked in a specific way. They talk about their references a lot, or they talk about whatever, or they're just simple like, oh, this song hits me. I dig it. So if the guy who this song hits me and I dig it is the guy who just says, I just don't dig it. I will take that opinion as a valid opinion. But if it's the dude who's been like, oh, it's got that shoegaze vibe through this and I'm loving it and blah, blah, blah, and then the weird song comes up and they're like, oh, I just don't feel it. It's like, dude, you just spent five songs telling me in detail why you love them. The most you can muster up is I just don't like it. There has to be something under the surface of that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):

I remember in my own band some situations where, so look, I wrote 85% of the material is just the way that it is, and I remember some scenarios and some battles that I lost actually, and I still hear the stuff to this day and I'm like, Ooh, I shouldn't have let that go. But there are some battles where, let me preface this by saying that about, even though I wrote about 80% of the music, about 80% of the things I wrote got trashed. So I wrote a lot of music, a lot of which got deleted, so I was used to having my own ideas deleted, but because other people didn't write as much, they were a lot more precious about each individual idea that less ideas, so they each mattered more. The more ideas you come up with, the less they each matter to you individually, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):

Right? I never, yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):

Well, think about it. If you write four rifs an entire year, you're going to really, really care about those four rifts. If you write 400 rifts, you could ditch 350 of 'em. Exactly. Yeah, totally. So I was kind of fighting with people who barely ever wrote anything and who were really behind what I just thought weren't good ideas, and because I'm the one who had the most detailed vision, they wanted me to give them very detailed vision like answers as to why I didn't like it when it's just like, dude, the riff sucks.

(01:03:55):

Or Dude, those lyrics, they're just not good. I don't know what to tell you. They're just not good. And these people have written really great stuff other times and praised them for it and used their ideas, but people think that I was just trying to stop their ideas from getting through or take over and it's like, no, I just want the best record possible and I really just think this part sucks. I just don't like it. I think it sucks. I think it sucks. I think it sucks. I think it sucks. What else do I need to say? I think it sucks. I mean, I can tell you as the vision guy that sometimes that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):

Yeah, I think that's a valid thing especially, and it's funny the way you put it, especially if you are the person who created so much of something and somebody comes along that you just don't see as strong enough. You need to just be upfront about that. See, this is where I'm curious as to my skill in my job sometimes is I'd hope that if I were recording you, if I'm recording your band and you wrote 80% of everything and another guy came with something and you're super strong on why it sucks, I'd hope that I probably agreed with you anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):

I'd hope so too.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):

Sometimes I think that something great stands out all the time and something subpar in a group of great things is usually pretty obvious, or at least to me it is. So I'd hope that I would be on your side in that way just because I understand where you're coming from. There's no need for anything not as good as the rest of the stuff to happen just because you wrote it, you wrote one song, doesn't mean that your one song is going to make it on this record if it's clearly not as strong as everybody else's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):

Let's talk about you being the producer in this scenario. So you're saying that you're a big picture guy. Your songwriting and the vocal arrangements are kind of one of the things that you really, really value, and so you want to be hired for your opinion. So if I had hired you on the record, I would've known that about you because I always paid attention to what people's strengths were. And so if you were on the project, I would listen to what you had to say because that's why I hired you. However, in certain situations I would hire somebody for, they're really sick at guitar tone. They're not really good writer producers, but they're really, really great at making the sickest guitar tones you've ever heard these sickest, however, they couldn't write a song if you had a gun to their mom's head,

(01:06:32):

And that's just how I felt about their ability to write songs. So if they were disagreeing with me about something that I thought sucked, well then I am taking their taste into consideration and thinking, well, does this person have good taste? No, I've got better taste than this person. Did I hire this person to help with the songs? No, I hired them because they get fucking incredible guitar tones and I'm not great with guitar tones. So if I had hired you, I would've known what you're best at or what you consider yourself best at, what you're known to be best at and would've taken you seriously. But that's me. I'm an oddball, but that's how I would approach it at least.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):

No, totally. And that goes back to what I was sort of saying before where I'll have that conversation with the band. It's like, what capacity do you want me if the conversation comes up, I love your drum sounds, I love your whatever sounds, then maybe I know that I'll loosen up on certain ways I approach how their songwriting is, but I don't know if it's just lucky in the projects I've got, but anytime it was a big debate with a big change in song, I'm usually on the project as the more destructive producer, the guy who will rip some stuff apart without being scared and will want you to rewrite apart.

(01:07:51):

I think it's also types of work where if you're going into a record because you hired the dude, you love the guy's tones, that's awesome, but you're probably going in super prepared. You're probably, hopefully, hopefully, and you're going in with a pretty clear vision and you know that this dude will take the vision and make it big. But if you're going in hiring a guy who you want a more objective opinion on, you're probably going in with two thirds of songs done or with the mindset of, Hey, we wrote this bridge as a placeholder. Let's see what else we can get. So I think I'm curious, trying to think back at all projects I've done in both ways. I'm curious at how many times I got into an argument with a guy over a part where the project was, I had more say I worded that weird, but you know what I mean.

(01:08:42):

I'm wondering how many times I had an argument and it was a project where I had a lot of creative input and that's probably the ones where I had the most arguments with bands, and I've also been on this side where I do clearly remember now that you mention it, I do clearly remember projects where I knew I wasn't really there for more than just an extra opinion on the side and then cool tones, and then I would just let the band duke it out, be like, listen, we've got, you guys have come in with 15 songs. If you want this song on the record, make the decision We're contracted to 10. Make the decision I am down either way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):

The question then is because talking about earlier about how you only want to work on stuff that you're invested on, does that mean you're not as invested if you're like duke it out, or is it just you're a hundred percent invested, but just within the role that you're hired for?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):

I think I'm a hundred percent invested, but in the role that I'm hired for, that said, back to the me taking stuff that I'm more passionate about, I am taking fewer roles these days or fewer projects where I don't have a bit more of a say because it's not that I want to come in and trample all over your song, but I find that those are the projects where the best result is there at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):

Yeah, you know what you're best at.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):

Exactly. So two, three years ago, I would be totally invested while you guys are duking it out and I'm going to grab lunch.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):

Totally invested in that lunch break.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):

Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, you guys are fighting about this. Okay, cool. I'm going to grab a bite. I'll be back in 30. But these days I'm doing fewer projects where cool, I really love that you dig my guitar tones and you dig my drum tones, but it's 2020 and you can just hire me to mix your record. Really, if that's the case, I feel like I can just reamp and mix. As long as you track clean enough, as long as you do everything, your record's going to sound sick. If you just go to an engineer who knows what the hell they're doing and then just get me to mix it, and at one time I was scared to turn away projects or say that, but it's a scary thing. Oh dude, it's still scary. I'm super fortunate that the last couple years have been really great in terms of the quality and quantity, and this really is, I say it every year like, oh, this will be the year I'm going to turn down stuff I don't really want to do, but this is actually, I've been trying to do it for three years, but this is actually the first year where I am doing that, not afraid, and it's also I think makes me better at my job because I love mixing.

(01:11:11):

Mixing is one of my favorite things. If I can just skip the part of a record in a record that I would probably hate engineering and producing and just mix it, I'm absolutely going to take that. I don't need the stress that comes with sitting there grinding away at little chunks of recording. You can't play a part or listening to three dudes bicker behind me until I explode at them. I don't want that anymore. So I'm going to just pick the things that's like, oh, cool. I love these songs. I know exactly what I would do opinion wise to help you guys grow instead of cool. Thanks for liking my drum tones. Here's my rate to mix your song later.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):

I see. And what process goes in your head for you to know that this is a project you're going to be invested in?

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):

A big thing is vocal. I want to hear if somebody sends me demos and there's no vocals, I am not even nice about it anymore. I'm like, Hey, these don't have any vocals. I'm not sure what's up, but these are just musical pieces right now and they mean nothing to me. It's always the vocal. It's always back to how did the first song I heard or the first five seconds or 10 seconds of each song, how did it hit me and are the vocals cool? Does the vocalist sound cool? Can we do cool things with this vocalist that make these songs awesome? And that'll be how I sort of choose. I will take the project if I really like the songs and you tell me that you're hiring me because you like my tones, I probably still will take that project because it's a perfect little balance of both. If I really can't connect with the song and connect with the vocals and I'm not talking lyrics, I'm talking more just like it's like a pleasing thing to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):

Yeah, overall

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):

Lyrics are definitely important. I'm not going to say they're not, but the ways in which you deliver them can go so much further than just what you're writing about at the end of the day, and that's how I'll make the decision basically is does this song hit me as a listener? Yes. Cool. Then I want to be involved in this, especially if you want me involved in it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):

That's a good way to put it. Let's talk about saying no

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):

Because

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):

Very early in a career it's kind of a dumb thing to do, but I think it's everybody's goal. However, I know when I look at nail the mix, students oftentimes one of the things that causes people to cancel and oftentimes they come back, but they'll cancel because there's a band on they don't like and they don't see the benefit, which I think is the stupidest thing ever because when you're learning, you should learn everything. I mean, you're always learning, but especially when you're at the beginning, you should be learning everything you can.

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):

Oh, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):

So I think it's really dumb on that front. It's like why would you limit how much knowledge you can have? Do you understand that this resource didn't use to exist for people? Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. So it's dumb, but then there's also the part of it that's dumb to me, that's like to get to the point where you say no to projects because they're not your thing. That's a lofty goal. That's a big deal. It takes a long time to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):

It's probably the real goal. I know a lot of people, and it was my goal for years, and I see it a lot on the URM forum and everything too. It's like my goal is to make a full-time career out of this. That's awesome. But we don't do careers in the way that other people do careers because we're musicians or most of us are musicians, or at least most of us are very passionate about music. Our career is basically our hobby, our passion, our side career. It's everything rolled into one. So the real goal I think is being able to say no to work, not being able to make it a full-time thing, because clearly, I'm sure you've seen tons of people make it full-time in the URM world, and it's amazing to witness when somebody's like, Hey, I just quit my job. I'm finally got enough work to carry myself on. It's like, that's awesome. Now your goal is to start saying no to half that work.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):

Yeah, totally. Man. The producers I know who have gotten there are happy people. Totally. Typically,

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):

It's the work-life balance thing because now you're bringing the joy of why you did it in the first place back in, and any career has that. It's not a lot of people work their jobs to advance to a better position for something they enjoy even more than they did before, or they want a new challenge or they whatever, and that's I think, in our career, that's the advance and yeah, it is so hard to say. I still struggle with saying no to projects. It's scary. Oh dude, it's terrifying. I could probably have a whole year worth of work booked and still think like, oh, I can't say no to that thing initially when something comes my way and I'm just going to be like, okay, no, I can say no because I clearly don't enjoy this, but it's so hard to get there. I think the best way to do it is sort of baby step it, and I think that's what I did.

(01:16:12):

So a long time ago, I would take editing jobs and then the first thing I said no to was editing jobs, and then I would be cool with just engineering on a record or, Hey, we've got some vocals we need to record. Okay, cool. Well then I'll do that. Then I said no to just engineering blindly and that hourly rate engineer at any studio kind of thing. It's so scary to say no to work, but I think if you take it in the same way you built your career to getting full-time to just knocking out the different parts of that and replacing it with more passion stuff or replacing it with at least projects that you're more interested in than editing an album's worth of drums, then that's the way to eventually do it. And that saying no slowly lets you be more comfortable with saying no to a big thing that might not be great, like soul sucking wise down the road.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like 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.

(01:17:59):

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

(01:18:53):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more, and that's so important because you've seen it. I've seen it. It's a very real thing. You don't want to be the person who achieved that goal. However, they hate everyone they work with, and it's basically the same thing as having a regular day job just with no benefits and a very scary industry. I know people in that scenario,

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):

Oh tons.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):

In my opinion, that's worse than having a quote real job because real jobs, I mean, I'm saying this in a time period where the world has come to a standstill for people listening in the future. It's March 17th, 2020, and most of the world is on lockdown,

(01:20:08):

So I get there's no real security in anything ever at the end of the day that needs to be said. However, under the facade of a society that works real jobs tend to have more security. They have benefits, insurance, shit like that. We get none of that in production or being in a band. However, the trade off is doing something that aligns with your soul basically. Exactly. Now, if you work your ass off and there's no way to create a career without working your ass off for a long time, if you get to that place where you're making a full-time good living off of this and you hate everybody you're working with and you're not invested in the bands, then why did you do it in the first place?

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):

Yeah. A lot of people on the outside will be like, well, at least you're making music, and I don't agree with that sentiment. People who say that, I don't think they realize it, but to me, I see that as a condescending thing to say like, what do you mean at least making music? If you hate the people you're working with or you're not into the music you're working on, then what's so cool about making music? Just making music? People should love it. I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):

Yeah, I know, and that goes with playing shows and everything on the musician side of it, it's like, oh, well, at least you're getting gigs. It's like, yeah, but if you're not doing things that benefit yourself, if you're not doing things that grow, you then don't do them. That just turns into a nine to five chain to a desk job now, and that's the thing that destroys those people. I think that were, and I'm sure you've been there, a lot of people have been there. I've been dangerously close to that before where it's just like I'm three projects away from never wanting to make a record again, but not having any transferable skills if I stop.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):

Yeah, I was in a scary spot before URM because I didn't want to make records anymore, so I completely get the fear. I kind of had that no transferable skills sphere. It's a very real thing, but man, at the same time, at what point is it delusional to start thinking that you can say no? Because telling you, man, when I see URM students being like, I don't want to work on this style of music, so I'm not going to get the multi-tracks this month and watch the live mix from someone who is further than I probably will ever be. I can't imagine turning down getting that kind of knowledge when I was coming up and that translates into taking on clients. At what point is it delusional?

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):

Well, I think you touched on it a little bit before, where it was at the beginning, don't say no to anything, and that's the thing that everybody needs to do is you will have to grind. I hate that word, like, oh, make it the grind and blah, blah, blah. But it's true. Rise

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):

And grind,

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):

Bro. Yeah, exactly. I hate saying it, but the reason anybody says anything is because there's a truth to it. There are transferable skills in our jobs just to other parts of our jobs. There's a transferable skill in knowing how to mix death metal that you can bring to pop punk. There's a transferable skill in understanding the importance of editing that you can, especially when it comes to heavy stuff that just makes editing light stuff easier or understanding when to not edit something like an indie rock record or when to edit on that sort of record. There's these things that people wake up and be like, oh no, I just want to record indie bands. Cool. You want to record indie bands? You might learn how to do that, but what happens when you get that one indie band that wants to push the envelope of being an indie band and you don't understand how to incorporate that?

(01:23:59):

And I've hit that wall before too. I'll be the first to admit that I'm the guy catching up on introducing sort of electronic elements into organic stuff. It's definitely been the thing I've probably spent the least amount of time on and am ashamed that I also pulled that card on myself x amount of years ago, and I'm paying for it a little bit now. I'm learning now how to do things that I should have already known how to do. Thankfully, I'd like to think I'm a fairly fast learner, so I'm picking up, but especially going back to URM, having that at our fingertips and seeing what literal dudes that we look up to do every day is insanely valuable. I probably haven't watched all of them, especially because there are definitely a few that are out of my realm, but whenever I'm wanting to learn something new, those are the ones I'm going to reach towards because those are the ones that I don't know anything about. And I know that there's, I haven't watched one where there hasn't been a nugget of truth in there or a nugget of gold in there that I needed or that everybody needs. And it doesn't matter what genre it is, it's universal that at the end of the day, it's still music. That's still something in each one of these that will transfer to anything else we do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm not trying to turn this into a nail, the mix ad or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):

No, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):

It's just, since I'm not recording bands right now, this is kind of the frame of reference totally I have towards how people behave, and I see it as the same sort of thing as when I know a very new producer who's like, all I want to do is metal. And it's like, I get it. I understand you wanting to be the metal guy, but you should just try and record as much as possible, period. Oh yeah, totally. It's not going to take away from your metal chops at all. Some of the best metal producers in the world can do anything,

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):

And that's a big thing, especially metal and that's a big that I still sort of keep up and check back and do things like that is there's a precision in that that doesn't exist in other genres. And there's a goal, and I'm sure you've sort of seen the shift in certain metal, certain sub genres of metal these days where they are going back to a bit of an organic vibe that's not really taught by many places. So when you have the opportunity to learn how to, you've been force fed, programmed drum metal for eight years now you need to learn how to make metal with the rest of the world where they actually want a real snare drum. You got to go learn how to do that, and here's the opportunity and what you're going to say no to that because it sonically doesn't sound like the rest of the records that you want to make or enjoy. Well, you're just going to cut a door because when that dries up, now you're screwed.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):

Yeah, totally. I mean, we already talked about how it start saying no.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):

But I guess at what point do you recommend that someone start specializing at all? Because I think also on the other hand, if someone coming up, it maybe doesn't do them justice to become known as that local studio that just does anything that's not great either. Those types of places don't tend to spawn great producers typically at a local level, there's someone that's known for something and those types of bands go to that person, then one of those bands will rise and they'll rise together.

Speaker 4 (01:27:31):

Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):

Usually someone is known within a genre or scene, so how do you not limit yourself, but then also limit yourself at a point where you shouldn't be limiting yourself while also differentiating yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):

Okay, so I was basically that guy. I was in Toronto, I was the pop punk guy, like, oh, Sam makes pop punk records, and it started becoming a little cookie cutter and it started becoming a little formulaic, and I still love making pop punk records. I think the thing that you start saying no to are the damaging versions of that. So people started noticing I was doing a lot of this and this was because I wasn't saying no to work at the time. I'm doing a lot of cookie cutter, pop punk, very simple stuff, very whatever, clearly musicians who can't play and I'm replaying parts or making it sound way better than they should. And those were the things that would establish, because for some reason you get pigeonholed and those bad bands will explode due to your all right recording of them and get you 50 other bad bands in that genre, and that's how you become the pop punk guy like I did. And that was the first thing after the engineering, after the editing, the first thing I started saying no to was the damaging version of the genre I was known to be in.

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):

So what do you consider to be the damaging version? I've never heard of it referred to that way. I think I know what you mean and I think I like it, but could you clarify?

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):

I mean the clearly bad musicians, going back to what we were talking about way at the beginning, the clearly bad musicians who have no right to be in a band who want to be in a pop punk band, you're going to hate the project from the second you click record. Your mixes will be fine. They'll actually probably be better because you can just mix them without having to overthink everything, which makes it worse at the end of the day because people are going to hear those mixes and think they sound sick and you're going to double down and get even more bad work again.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):

So damaging to your soul.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):

Yeah, the soul crushingly bad pop punk band in the pop punk scene because you did one big pop punk record everybody stoked on, so now every bad version of that one record is knocking on your door. You need to know how to say no to the worst of those at the beginning, and then eventually you'll say no to all of them, but you need to know how to say no to the absolute soul crushing versions of those bands.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):

It's interesting, man, because there was a time period where I was starting to get some pretty good budgets, especially from unsigned bands. I was making more off of unsigned than the sign bands, which I'm sure is a common thing among many producers that are first starting to work with known bands. You'll notice that once you start working with some known bands, you start to get local bands that will pay really, really well.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):

And so when you first start making money, really good money at this after you've never made money at it, ever, it becomes very tempting to take on these damaging projects and it's a tough thing to say no to because you worked your ass off to get to the point where you could financially handle your life. Now here comes this project that is going to pay your bills for three months and you only have to do three weeks of work and you're going to say no to it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):

There's some psychology to that too. There totally is to being comfortable with it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):

I think I can fill the gap between that and me. The thing that taught me how to say no now was doing that. So right after the soul crushing bands comes the projects where if I had trouble saying no, I'd basically price them out, and that was my way of

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):

Fair enough

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):

Of saying No enough.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):

I've heard of that done before. The fuck you price as in if you're going to actually pay this fine, but otherwise not interested.

Speaker 2 (01:31:32):

Exactly. And those were exactly what you were just saying, where it's like, this is three weeks of work that's going to cover three months of my life with no questions. How do you say no? That's the thing that taught me to say no to the rest of it was I said no to the bad bands. I said, no. I said, the fuck you no to the mediocre ones. And so many of them would just be like, yeah, that's fine. And how do you turn down a stupid amount of money for a project? You just don't, but then you do five of those and you do that for two years, or no, it's probably about a year and a half for me. And then you realize, okay, a no is so much more lifesaving and not cutting years off of my life than just making a stupid amount of money.

(01:32:19):

At that point, I had steady work. I've been doing this luckily for six years now full time, that I was able to say no to those. And then I had these projects where the fuck you price made me not say no. And then making all that really showed me that I was basically becoming the thing I didn't want or I was just working my job to work it. The money was becoming the thing that was more important to me. And then I was just like, no, I don't want to do these anymore. It was five or six projects. It did really well. It made me a lot of money. It really helped set my future up a little bit in certain ways. I can't keep doing it like that though. My life is more important, my happiness going home is more important than that. And honestly, it sounds awful. It sounds so bad to say I don't want my name on that, and there's no amount of money that really should put my name on that. At the end of the day,

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):

It doesn't sound bad. Also, man, you want to know what one of the coolest things is that I get to do is I get to hang out with producers who are older than me, sometimes significantly older, like 15 years or 20 years. And when I am around people like that that I used to look up to or still look up to, and they still love it, that is the coolest thing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):

Oh, it's amazing

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):

When they still have that energy to it that the 25 year olds I know have, except they're 50 and they have all this experience and they're fucking badass. That's the coolest thing. And I do think that the reason that they made it two 50 still doing this and still kicking ass and not having quit along the way is because they made the hard decisions at some point to care after, I guess the health of their soul. And I don't mean that in a really spiritual way or religious way or anything like that. I mean that I guess I mean that in a psychological sort of way, and you can interpret it however you want, but they made the decisions necessary to keep that soul aspect intact and healthy, and that's how they stayed in the game so long. I mean, of course, making great records as part of it, but I know people who have made great records and burned the fuck out because they kept on working on stuff that they hated over and over and over and over again, and eventually they just lost the will to live basically. Yeah. Oh yeah. What you're saying I think doesn't sound bad at all to me. It sounds like the moves you have to make if you really want to go for the long haul.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):

Yeah. So hard to say no to anything, but when you look at it in an objectively, because if anything saying no to work is our way to produce our lives, as cheesy as that sounds, it's like if you look at it objectively and go, I've had three bad projects in a row. I'm not stoked on do I want to keep doing this just because I'm doing this, then I think that's how you make the decision and realize at the end of the day what is important. You might be busy in the studio every single day, but you're not actually growing and you're supposed to be growing, so why not put the energy into what are you good at? Are you good at co-writing? Go co-write with your friends, go make music from scratch with somebody if that's more enjoyable in the moment than just sitting at a desk, basically, again, chain to it and just hitting record to make ends meet. Well, if you're making ends meet, this is obviously a totally different thing. You've got to kind of do what you've got to do. But I think every job, every industry, every person will hit their point of the benefit to your health and soul. And yeah, I know what you mean by saying soul, not spiritually, basically health benefit to your health versus any amount of money at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):

Totally. So let's take this back a few years because we've been talking about this for a second. I'd like to switch gears for a second, and we've been talking about saying no for a while, but wasn't always a time where you could say no. There was a beginning to your career where you had to acquire clients for the first time and you had to work on turning garbage into quality. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like at first getting clients? How did you get your first paying client or how did you get your first view paying clients?

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):

Basically, I got lucky in the networking part of it with the high school thing was I got lucky with a few friends who ended up pursuing music and going into different bands. Five guys would start a band and those five guys would split up and four of those dudes would go start four other bands and Oh, Sam's the dude who made our last thing, let's just go back and it would sort of accumulate from there. And I mean, that wasn't the only way, but that was a big one. And then in 2010, I started a band that I took very seriously because before I realized that recording was the thing I was going to do, I wanted to tour, I wanted to play shows and do stuff. So I started a band with a few friends and we toured, we amassed some cool stuff, we did some really great stuff, and that helped me network a lot with just bands that are still kicking now or the next step of those bands where it was like five dudes who split up and then started five more bands.

(01:38:11):

So some of those might've gotten too big for me to get at the time, but there were two or three of them that I still were able to record and I'm home from tour, let's make a record. I just need to make ends meet more than anything, and I'm stoked that we met while we're on the road. Let's do this kind of thing. That's sort of how it started for me. And then when the establishment of Hey, Sam is no longer in a band, he is making records full time. Oh, I remember going on tour with that guy or Oh, whatever. Oh, hey, I'm sending you this dude to check out, hit him up, he wants to record. It was basically just that evolution and that little snowball effect. The really big move was like 2015, I moved down to the city, I opened a studio space with a friend of mine, and that was when you start to feel the burn of it where it's like, okay, now I need to make this work again.

(01:39:01):

Can't just, my parents aren't covering my rent or I'm not living with my parents anymore. I need to have a real go at this. So you kind of go and start doing the hunting for engineering jobs and start putting it out to the people like, Hey, I'm taking this more seriously, I'm doing this. Let's make this happen. Let's do whatever. And that was the start of the work all the time thing where I wasn't saying no to anything. And it's fun, don't get me wrong, like you were saying before, you can't say no to anything at the beginning because you learn the most right then and there. And in the first maybe two years of being down here in the city, 20 15, 20 16 is where I learned the most about myself. It's where I learned the most about what I wanted to do at the end of the day and how I wanted to do it.

(01:39:46):

It's how I developed what I think is my sound. I feel like I'm still figuring that out, but to the most part, I think that's where I sort of figured out how to make something sound more uniquely like I did it, and that was basically it to me. It was just you can't undersell networking. You can't undersell how important it is to just, I mean, don't go to shows now because there are no shows to go to for the foreseeable future, but normal circumstances go to shows, make friends with people, and probably the thing I would recommend that I wish I did a little bit more of was go to shows. I probably would've maybe been able to skip a third of the bad bands I didn't want to record and fill them with at least slightly better bands.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):

So that's really interesting. That's actually why I tell people to ditch trying to advertise and get seriously proactive with your networking because the quality of the clients that you get are going to be completely different. First of all, advertising barely works and not networking barely works. So first of all, there's that aspect to it, but then there's the whole other aspect of when people are coming to you, unless you're known, really known in general, it's going to be a lot of low quality people coming to you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):

Yeah, totally. And I actually wanted to talk about that. This sounds super conceited. I have never advertised.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):

Good. No, no, that's great. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):

Oh, and no problem. I'm very proud of that. I don't want to be snobby about it, but you're not, you can't, can't advertise because unless you're going to just be an engineer and want to just record literally anything and treat it as a day job, sure, advertise away. But

Speaker 1 (01:41:41):

I don't think it even works for that very much.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):

It really doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):

Dude, I have had so many people on this podcast and this topic has come up and the reason this is a topic that I want coming up over and over because I want to drive this point home to everybody that advertising does not work for building this kind of career. It is a waste of time and a waste of money, and if it were to work, it would be the wrong kind of results. You can get the wrong kind of clients. That's not how it's done. If you listen to these podcasts, you'll notice a common theme is that nobody advertises, everybody did it through networking and word of mouth so you're not conceited.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):

Okay, cool. I feel a little better about it, but that's the thing is our advertising is just making friends in this industry, even if they're not really in the industry, just going to shows and checking out bands, and there's Toronto and there's Southern Ontario stuff, but Toronto is really the hub. So if I'm going to shows, I'm going to here, but if I were in the States, I would absolutely take advantage. I would drive an hour to see a show and in the States you drive an hour and you're in another major city, and I would absolutely be taking advantage of that to every degree possible if I were in the early stages of my career because it's just an hour isn't much to people in terms of building a relationship or whatever for all the dudes in those bands live right in the middle of you and that other city anyway, so it's not like it's going to be a stretch for them to come to you to record.

(01:43:20):

And you get lucky sometimes and people are like, oh, I know that one thing you've recorded. Yeah, let's keep in touch. There's so much value in just putting yourself out there in a very vulnerable, honest way and working with that. You can skip a lot of crap doing that, and that's the most proactive thing you can do. Again, don't go out right now, quarantine diseases, blah, blah, blah, but when this is said and done, go to every show. Go to see every band that you at least find the shows in the genre that you like, especially if you are trying to work a little bit in a genre. Prioritize those things and go and just talk and see what's up and see whatever. Just as well as I do that every band, every dude's got a side project. If you're not going to record the big band, maybe they'll keep you in mind like, oh, I've got another band that I do this stuff in. It's always a snowball and you need to be on the top of that, or you're going to fall into obscurity and hate yourself and hate your job at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):

Yeah. A big part of this with the networking is really just about having a presence in the scene so that you're top of mind with people. You just want to always be in the conversation. So it's not so much about going to shows and then making people uncomfortable, but directly pitching them right then and there. It's just more,

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):

I might've said that weird.

Speaker 1 (01:44:47):

Yeah, I didn't mean you didn't say anything weird, actually. I just know that some people listening are going to interpret it as go to shows, stick a business card in somebody's face and hard sell them, which is not the way to do it, really. It's more about just like I said, being a part of that scene so that you're always in the conversation and when you network, in my opinion, you should not be doing it in a goal oriented fashion. No, of course not. So when you go to a show to meet a band or just go to a show, you shouldn't have an end in mind for that conversation other than meeting somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:45:28):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):

That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:45:30):

Yeah, and there's been tons of shows where I've gone to and enjoyed, and you got to scope the vibe too. If it's too busy and you're interrupting people and you're doing whatever, at least go to the show, make the effort, check 'em out, and then I'm sure you could just email them later or something if that's sort of your end goal, like, Hey, I caught you guys live. I wanted to say I really enjoyed it. I do this if you're ever interested, but it doesn't need to be so formal. It doesn't need to be. So with an agenda, like you said, there's been tons of shows I've gone to where literally I just go to the show to check out the show. I have the idea, but I'm more just keeping up with the thing I love. At the end of the day, music, I'm just keeping up with what's going on and who's playing what and what's happening in my area more than I'm going out with this. Got to record every single thing vibe.

Speaker 1 (01:46:18):

Well, yeah, and that's exactly it. You're being an active member of the community that you're in just by doing that, that's kind of all that really needs to happen. Totally. As long as your work is good and people know about it. It's weird to say this because I do not believe that things will just work themselves out. I'm not that kind of person, but when it comes to networking, if you do good work and you're a good hang and you're present and top of mind, things do work themselves out a lot better than if you make people feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:46:53):

Oh yeah, totally. It even goes back to what we were saying about the weakest band member. If that guy just knows what he's doing but can't play his instrument, that's the reason you keep him around. If you go to a dude to record, because the vibes are great, even if his mixes aren't where you want them to be, yet at least that guy's got room for growth and you're having a good time and you're networking with other people and you're doing it for the reason you started doing it. And that's at the end of the day, the reason anybody, that's why I did this to start was because I played music. Here are bands. I record bands now. Here are my friends. At the end of the day, here are people I just want to hang out with. I would go hang out with these people if we weren't making a record. It has nothing do with that, and that's the value in it is just being around people you want to be around at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):

So how far did your band get, in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (01:47:54):

In my opinion, my band got, I'm trying to think about this. We got very fortunate. We signed to a really small indie label. We got to tour Japan, which was really cool with a lot of bands that we really loved too. So it wasn't just a random tour in Japan and we did the East Coast a bunch. I like to think that we were probably our next record out of maybe getting signed to something a little bit bigger, but I also don't want to be delusional about it, so I try not to ever think about that, but I mean, and I'm making you. Yeah. Well, I think that we were probably, no, but seriously though we,

Speaker 1 (01:48:33):

Well, there's a reason I'm asking though.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):

Yeah. Well, I think that we were known enough that when I was recording American bands that have come over, and I mentioned my band was called July, and I mentioned the band, half of them be like, oh yeah, I remember my old band toured with you guys. We did a four days thing, or we met you on a show in Chicago or something like that. And we were never big. We never really sold a lot of records, but we did tours with bands that now are still kicking and are signed to labels. We did Japan with bands that I still personally have kept in touch with some of the members of and had the opportunity to do maybe a side project thing with or whatever. So all said and done calculated. I think we were basically at the point where our singer ended up quitting, and that's what made me push the move into recording full time instead of focusing on the band. But I think had he not quit, had we maybe put out one more record, I think we probably would've gotten a little to the next step where we wanted to be as a band.

Speaker 1 (01:49:31):

So you were active, but by no means established.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):

Yeah, exactly. That's probably the best way to put it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:38):

Okay. So the reason I was asking was because I always tell people that one of the best networking tools of all time is to be in a, and one of the responses that I'm met with frequently is like, well, yeah, but we can't all be in s in like Bo or something. We can't all be in a band that people love. How do you get that going? And it's like, I don't even mean that you have to be in a band that gets big. First of all, my band never got big either though. I mean, I'm saying that and people are probably like, yeah, but you got signed and did all that shit. But still, we were tiny and we were tiny, and even my tiny ass band provided me all the contacts necessary for the rest of my career. And I think that even on a local level, when we were a local band, it was doing that for me. And so I think even if you have a local band, as long as it's a local band that's friends with other bands, that's enough.

Speaker 2 (01:50:40):

Oh, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:50:41):

There's something that happens when you're in a band that makes other musicians more willing to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (01:50:49):

It's clear at that point that you're part of the community a little bit more than just being some dude standing in a corner at a venue watching a band play. There's a good chance if you're in a band, even if the band doesn't go far, you're still going to do a few local runs. You're still going to play with your friends, basically. You're still going to do community driven things, and then the natural next step, especially if you're a recording guy, is like, Hey, let's make a record because we've toured together. We have a blast together. Let's just hang out. Even if you're not making a lot. Again, back to the money thing, it's not about making a bunch of money doing that. It's about connecting with your friends. You did a tour with them. There's another dude in the band. Like we were saying, everybody these days knows how to, everybody's got pro tools or garage band or Logic or whatever.

(01:51:38):

You're connecting with that dude in the band. Then when it comes time to do something, I say, Hey, dude, I remember you showed me that one song. You want to record it this weekend? There's always sense in being in a band, especially because we're musicians. Most of us are musicians first at the end of the day. Anyways, we got into this probably, I know I didn't get into this to record. I got into this because, or recording was the product of me being in a band, and I had a lot of friends who were always telling me, end of day, you are going to go make records. And I'm like, fuck you. I want to tour the world. Shut up. But they ended up being right. But you have to be part of the community, and the best way to be part of the musical community is literally to play music.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):

Yeah, absolutely. So you're a drummer.

Speaker 3 (01:52:22):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:22):

So obviously you're going to approach things. I mean, you said that your vocal arrangements and things like that are something that you really love doing, but as a drummer, you're going to always have a drummer perspective on things.

Speaker 3 (01:52:37):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:52:37):

It's kind of impossible to not have it. However, when we started this conversation, you were talking about samples, like no problem using them and using whatever tools necessary to get the job done, which I thought was really cool. Sometimes I talk to musicians who start recording and they have these weird biases based on what instrument they play. If they're a drummer as a producer, they're going to have a much weirder time about using samples because they have that thing that some drummers have. If they're a guitar player, they might have a weird issue about amp scenes. For instance, if they're a vocalist, they might have a weird issue about autotune. Now, typically the better people get, the more they get over this, but I've just noticed that people tend to have weird biases based on what their instrument is. Did you have to get over the sample thing or was it never even an issue for you?

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):

It was never an issue. In all honesty, when I learned about that, it was like a light bulb moment because I was making records in my basement and drums sounded like shit 80% of the time, and all of a sudden I found a few samples on the internet that sounded sick, and what did I have? I had sound replacer. I didn't even have drum a go at the time and instantly dropping in that extra kick drum or that extra snare drum all of a sudden made something that I couldn't, my skill wasn't where it is now, not even close, and I'm recording in a less than ideal environment. All of a sudden, my stuff sounds awesome, and it didn't yesterday. So to me, there was no hurdle. It was like, cool. I'm one step closer to the sound of my favorite records. In my mind, I was like, why would I let any sort of pride what I do to my instrument affect that at the end of the day?

Speaker 1 (01:54:35):

It shouldn't, but it does in some cases. I think that that's an interesting hurdle that people need to get over.

Speaker 2 (01:54:42):

Yeah, I always say it whenever bands come in with this sort of thing, because there are band members who feel the exact same way. Guitars don't want to use a Kemper or don't want to use amp sim, and I'm like 99% amps in these days. Not even Kemper. I don't even turn the thing on.

Speaker 1 (01:54:59):

They've gotten so good.

Speaker 2 (01:55:00):

I know know, this stuff sounds so great. Why would you hinder that? And thankfully, I've never had the dude who's been like, I don't want my vocals tuned. Thank God. I don't know how I would deal with that without screaming at them basically. But whenever it becomes a really difficult time to talk about it in the cheesiest of ways, go to every cliche I can think of. You don't want to know how the sausage is made or look at the outside. This is the one I say to people all the time, I think it's so stupid. Look at the outside of a human where we're perfectly symmetrical for the most part, whatever, but if you saw the inside of us, it's literally wherever something can fit, it's going to fit. And that's how a song works. I don't care if I use Sam, you started this saying how you love how natural the limbs thing was, and right away I was like, yeah, it was totally fake. That's awesome. That's the goal. At the end of the day, you watch your favorite TV show and their conversation was literally filmed one person at a time in different takes, and it was all combined together. If it's an emotional movie, if it's something sad, if it's something, whatever, you don't feel any less of that emotion because it wasn't live and done in one shot. Why should music creation be any different?

Speaker 1 (01:56:10):

It's actually crazy to think about it that way when it comes to movies.

Speaker 2 (01:56:15):

Oh, it's nuts. It's not like the creativity isn't there because of these decisions. In a lot of comedies, they riff on improv intakes and some of the funniest stuff happens between one take that had a great setup and one take that had another great setup that wasn't even delivered in the same take. The humor is still there in the take, and that's just exactly it. If we're punching in a chorus or if I'm adding in a huge, incredibly large snare drum because this chorus needs to change from the verse, and I do that a lot sometimes where it's a different sample in the chorus or an extra sample in the chorus, that is a creative decision now. It has nothing to do with sampling or not sampling. It has to do with how cool and creative can we make the end product

Speaker 1 (01:57:00):

That's the right priority?

Speaker 2 (01:57:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):

That should be what people are worried about, in my opinion. How does it sound at the end of the day? Is it awesome? Cool, the end?

Speaker 2 (01:57:10):

Yeah, exactly. Tones are awesome. Don't get me wrong. I love a great amp guitar tone. I'm not the strongest at getting them with an amp. That's why I've sort of made the switch to Kemper and then plugin and things like that. I know how to work those, but realistically, that's like what 10% of the final product when you factor in drums in a bass tone and a vocal, and really to most people listening who aren't musicians, all they feel is the rhythm and the vocal. So that's why those two things are so incredibly important, like locking in the vocal and I think, yeah, when you were saying about me being a drummer first is the rhythm of the song. Every hit, every kick, landing properly, every accent. If the vocal has a sick rhythm, can we play on that rhythm in the rest of the band and things like that. Those are the important things. I'm not going to sit there and tweak it and amp until it sounds sick, or I still tune my drums to the way I want them tuned, but I'm not going to go out of my way to get something so specific out of a drum if I've got the answer in my sample folder already.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):

That makes sense. You're just trying to get to that answer to the musical question. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there. Exactly. And the quicker the better,

Speaker 2 (01:58:26):

Honestly. Yeah. I'm a fan of creativity first, so all the guitars in my studio right now, all the ones IO in anyways, they're ever tune bridges. They're set in different tuning, so we can just switch kind of quickly. I don't want anybody to have an idea, pick up a guitar, and it's horrendously out of tune, and we're fiddling with tuning for 10 minutes and the idea has now fallen flat. I want you to grab that guitar, lay that sick rift down right now. We don't need to think about it. We don't need to, whatever. And that's where all these tools that people are purists are freaking out about. That's where they play the best, and that's where they sound the least like a digital amp.

Speaker 1 (01:59:02):

Absolutely. As a drummer, you were just talking about how there's some things you will do and some things you won't do in the pursuit of the end goal. Let's talk about priorities then, because there's certain elements recording drums that matter more than others, in my opinion, certain parts of the process or certain elements that just impact the end product way more than others. And I'm just wondering, in your opinion, what's the hierarchy of importance when it comes to capturing a great drum sound?

Speaker 2 (01:59:37):

The cheesy answer is straight up the drummer.

Speaker 1 (01:59:39):

That's not cheesy.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):

It's the

Speaker 1 (01:59:41):

Truth.

Speaker 2 (01:59:42):

Yeah, exactly. The drummer, hands down. You could have a bad room. You could be doing drums frigging underwater if the guy is hitting hard and awesome. That's half the battle right there. More than half the battle, I would say. It's just, I'm sure you've found, how many times have you recorded the exact same mics, the exact same kit, the exact same setup, the exact same room, and it's a different drummer, and you're just like, where'd the magic from that last session go

Speaker 1 (02:00:10):

Multiple times?

Speaker 2 (02:00:11):

Yeah. Oh, always. I would say that first. And then the second thing is symbols more than drums even. Although drums sounds are very important, but symbols are a big one because especially when you're replacing or augmenting shells or whatever, a lot of times you're not really doing much with the symbols, so picking the right sounding ones, I mean, you can usually have different ones per genre, but the ones that work for one thing can usually work across the board. I'm a big fan of dark symbols like Xigen Ks or mine stuff, not the dry end of the dark, but that kind of stuff where you can lob on a bunch of top end and it doesn't get gnarly in your ears and you're not angry at the world. And then relating to that overheads, because as we've all learned from watching a ton of these, so much drum sound can come from the overheads, so capturing that properly.

Speaker 1 (02:01:06):

Completely agree. Where do rooms play in

Speaker 2 (02:01:08):

Rooms play in only if you've got some sort of decent room sound somewhere. So my studio is really small. I have the ability to do drums, and I've probably tried every conceivable room mic thing in that space, at least inside the room. And they've been trash. They've been fine, but not enough where I'm crazy about it. Here's the thing, rooms are literally everything. They're so important to the drum sound, but when you're recording drums, if you don't have the actual room sound, that's not the end of the world. You can solve that later.

Speaker 1 (02:01:45):

It does suck though, if you impart that room on what you're recording though.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):

Yes. Oh yeah. And especially, I'm sure a lot of people who've done drums in a basement or something, you solo a mic and there's so much bad reflection in it or a tinny sound in the overhead because the room, the actual room just sucks.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (02:02:07):

Yeah. A bad room is a big bummer in that situation.

Speaker 1 (02:02:10):

That goes for vocals too, by the way.

Speaker 2 (02:02:12):

Oh, yeah. Especially me. I learned that the hard way. Sometimes I'll slam a vocal on the way in, which I still love doing, but you hear shitty room reflections all the time and things like that, and you're just like, oh, this is more work now to get rid of than any other way.

Speaker 1 (02:02:27):

Yeah, absolutely. You're saying the drummer first, then the symbols, then the overheads,

Speaker 2 (02:02:33):

Yeah. And then if you have it, the rooms,

Speaker 1 (02:02:36):

For sure. Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:02:37):

I found lately my hallway in my studio sounds kind of cool. It's not a big one. It's a super tiny little space, but it's just enough that it actually adds some weight. And then I'll augment rooms in with a drum program just to get extra stereo rooms, and mixing those two together with a good reverb really all of a sudden turns my small room into an actual room. But I'm using a lot of that. Anytime I've ever had the opportunity to go to another studio and I dial in a drum sound, and I'm super stoked on it, I'm realizing that it's like it's 90% overheads rooms, the balance of that, and then the rest of the mics,

Speaker 1 (02:03:16):

Man, sometimes soloing a close mic on a drum that you think sounds great, you solo it and it's like sad trombone.

Speaker 2 (02:03:26):

It's snares. It's always snares. For me. It's like, man, I'm loving how this snare sounds, and I listen to it soul like, okay, I'm hating how this snare sounds.

Speaker 1 (02:03:33):

Yeah. You can't let yourself get tricked by what close mics sound like. Where does drum tuning and shell choice play in?

Speaker 2 (02:03:44):

It's pretty important. I'm not a fan of tuning Tom's to notes. I prefer Toms. Yeah, I don't care. Unless, the only rule to that is if you hit that Tom, and I'm actually noticing something is wrong between that and the rest of the song, maybe I'll go do something. But I don't think that has ever happened. I think that's just a precaution I've set up in my brain for when it happens. But no, I do not care about Toms. I would rather just Toms that. I enjoy hearing the like, cool. There it is. Toms sounds sick. They're not changing in pitch when you hit them, and they decay really quick, as long as they decay kind of quick. I'm not a fan of Toms going on for years. And then snare tuning is important. I still won't tune that to a note, but I will make sure that whatever sound it's making, especially if it's very characteristic, isn't offending anything. Or I will just record a bit more of a ringless snare that's just a lot of body, and then get the character I want out of a sample or something like that. And then kick, I won't lie, I don't remember the last time I've tuned a kick

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):

Drum. This guy I work with, Matt Brown, told me this idea about tuning drums to a note that has stuck with me. First of all, he taught me that you can't actually tune a drum to a note that it's technically impossible because the way that drum heads ring, what makes you think you're hearing a note is just phase canceling out some other notes, and it's never really actually a note, so you're never going to actually get it exactly in. So that's number one. And then number two, if you're tuning it to the key of the song, you're going to have a much harder time getting the drums to cut through because they're going to blend in a lot more. Oh, and number three, he says, and I agree, it's best to find the range where the drum comes to life. Every drum has its sweet spot, basically.

Speaker 3 (02:05:51):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:05:52):

Oh yeah. And when you find its sweet spot, it's just going to sound better, and that's what you want.

Speaker 2 (02:05:57):

Yeah. And like I was saying, I've never heard a song or recorded a rack, Tom, that bothered me to the point where I went out and change the tuning. It didn't work with the song. I would rather hear just that thing be an expression of a rack, Tom. It doesn't need its space. I mean, it's so hard to make them pop in a mix. Anyways, the last thing I want to do is fight it because it's tuned so well that it's hiding away.

Speaker 1 (02:06:26):

Yeah, totally. So you being a drummer and you working in pop punk a lot, I imagine you had to deal with some shitty drummers along the way.

Speaker 2 (02:06:36):

Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:06:37):

So many.

Speaker 1 (02:06:38):

Yeah, I know. And I've worked in that genre before. There are some beasts, but man, there are a lot of bad drummers. And being that everyone agrees that the drummer is the most important part of the hierarchy, how did you deal with bad drummers?

Speaker 2 (02:06:59):

Oh, so a lot of the times I would try to salvage it and it would just not work. I've replayed bass on a ton of stuff, but I've never really replayed drums on anything. I have gone and reprogrammed them and then told the band, Hey, here's the deal. This is why you'll thank me later. But a lot of the times, especially when doing drums last, if I'm seeing in pre-pro that the dude's really not cutting it and I can't save it, I will just solve it. I'll tell the band and be like, listen, this is the one thing. We can't hide with distortion or we can't hide with whatever. We need to solve this. We need to get a guy in. Here's a list of dudes I really like. So a lot of the times I will, if they're so bad that they're, I'm not going to record them. There's just a super waste of time for me.

Speaker 1 (02:07:50):

And do you ever bring in session drummers or is it straight to programming if you've deemed their due to waste of time?

Speaker 2 (02:07:57):

I will do my best to bring in session drummers. I can still hear, at least in my programming, when drums are fake, I haven't tricked myself, so I don't want to know that the drums are fake and I'll do my best to have a guy actually play them.

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):

Yeah, man. Program drums, you can get away with it, but nothing beats the real thing.

Speaker 2 (02:08:19):

It's true. And I have been fooled to the point where a couple songs I had message a producer I liked or something like, dude, drums sounds sick. What are these? And then they'd be like, oh, programmer, are you kidding? How did I fall for it? So it is there. It's totally at the point where you can get away with it, but why not? That's the thing we're talking about replacing with samples or whatever, but at the end of the day, I love just truly recording drums and hearing drums be hit.

Speaker 1 (02:08:48):

Yeah. I mean, there's nothing like a drummer who's got the pocket, who hits hard, who sounds great. There's no replacing that.

Speaker 2 (02:08:57):

Yeah, there really isn't a treat. It's still a treat to see a guy so good at their craft who has to use every single limb and flail around and be sick at it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:08):

All right, so how do you deal with the psychological and people aspect of bringing in a session Drummer? I've had to do that a few times and it is interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:09:19):

Oh, okay. So it sounds kind of bad, but I deal with it by planning it. So if it's in pre-production and the guy's harder one to deal with, because that guy's going to sit there for the rest of the record, unless they send him home, he's going to sit there for the rest of the record not doing anything and knowing he's not doing anything at the end. The way I deal with that is doing the session drums after, not with the band there. We hash out every idea, every fill, every little thing in the program realm, and then a guy comes in and on my own time and I'll engineer the drums afterwards. When it comes to me not knowing the drummer's bad until that last moment, I'll sometimes do the, I hate when I do it too, because it's such a waste of time, especially with drums. I'll sometimes do the thing I would do where I was talking about with bass, where I'll kind of just let the drummer get through his ideas and then tell the band, listen, here's what we got to do. I need you to hire this guy, and then I'm going to record him on my own time, and we need to have the conversation about it. So both of them sort of involved me mitigating the band, having to be around during the replacement drums where I think it would probably be the most impactful psychologically to them.

(02:10:37):

It's like, oh, there's this dude playing all this stuff that you should be playing.

Speaker 1 (02:10:40):

It's like it's just bringing in a dude to bang your wife in front of you, basically.

Speaker 2 (02:10:46):

Literally. Is

Speaker 1 (02:10:46):

That

Speaker 2 (02:10:47):

The musical version of that?

Speaker 1 (02:10:48):

Man? I've been in that scenario, not the wife scenario, but the drummer scenario with bands, man, where the session drummer is replacing the band's drummer with the drummer Right. There some weird cuck porn situation

Speaker 2 (02:11:06):

And

Speaker 1 (02:11:06):

Oh man, it's so uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (02:11:08):

Yeah, it can't be good. It can't be good for anybody. It's the reason why I spent so long not telling people when I replayed their bass or whatever. It's just like, I don't want you to know that this is happening, and especially

Speaker 1 (02:11:20):

In front of everybody

Speaker 2 (02:11:22):

And drums take a full day on an EP or two to three days on a full length, the guy's going to sit there for two to three days just being fucking miserable. I don't want anybody to experience that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:31):

No, it is not fun.

Speaker 2 (02:11:33):

Yeah, so that's kind of the way, it's like, listen, we're going to tackle drums. Just know for the sake of the record, it's happening at the end of your process. You guys don't need to be here, blah, blah, blah, and I'll handle it.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):

Yeah. Have you had drummers cause an issue over it?

Speaker 2 (02:11:49):

No, I don't think so. I'm trying to think. No, not really. It sucks because they puppy dog around a little bit afterwards, but that's about it. It's never been like, well too fucking bad. Those are the times where I come down the hardest is if anybody could act like that, I'll probably phrase why. I don't want them doing their thing in a way where they just can't come at me.

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):

So the harder they come, the more real you get.

Speaker 2 (02:12:17):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:12:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:12:18):

Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:12:19):

I take that approach too. When I'm trying to let someone off easy. I'll basically adjust the level of realness to respond to the amount of resistance I'm getting.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):

Exactly. That's exactly it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:36):

Yeah. If I'm not getting much resistance, there's no reason to say anything that could potentially hurt.

Speaker 2 (02:12:42):

Yeah, you don't want to be mean.

Speaker 1 (02:12:44):

No, no. We're saying that earlier. It's like, I hate being put in that position.

Speaker 2 (02:12:51):

Yeah. Oh yeah. It's awful.

Speaker 1 (02:12:53):

The man, I just am thinking back to this one scenario where a band came to record for eight weeks, and we had a week and a half to two weeks set aside for drums, and within two days it was clear that it was not going to work. This was recording at the beginning with drums, and we flew in a dude on the third day, and he stayed there for 10 days, and it was just the band staying at my house with the drummer there and the session drummer there too. Oh man. Yes. Oh, man. Just painful. I feel like a little piece of my soul died for that drummer.

Speaker 2 (02:13:38):

Yeah, yeah. You really feel for them.

Speaker 1 (02:13:41):

Yeah, and no one was being mean. Everyone was trying to be nice, but it was just, I don't know. It was like, there's definitely a walk of shame element involved,

Speaker 2 (02:13:53):

Especially 10 days of that. It's one thing, two or three

Speaker 1 (02:13:55):

Days, 10 days. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:13:56):

Oh, oh my God. It's a six day in. You just, if you're the drummer, you've just succumbed to it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:02):

Well, the reason it was 10 days, let me just add, is I know people are probably thinking, well, if it's a session drummer, why didn't he just come in and knock it all out? Aren't session drummers supposed to be pros who can just come in and knock it out? Yes. However, this kind of involved some pre-pro and reworking parts, so we're not only recording stuff with this drummer that came into Save the Day, kind of taking his ideas too

Speaker 3 (02:14:30):

Into

Speaker 1 (02:14:30):

The song, so he's kind of becoming the drummer of the band for that moment in front of the drummer's face. It was so worth it though. It

Speaker 2 (02:14:41):

Was so worth. Oh, yeah. It never isn't, because you'd hope also that the drummer who's sitting there being tortured by this whole thing would learn from it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:51):

No, he quit.

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):

Yeah. That's the other thing too. Maybe if it were a two to three day thing, but at 10 days this guy's writing parts and whatever, he is just like, you know what? I'm going to go home.

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):

He doesn't play drums anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:15:02):

Honestly, it's probably for the best.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):

You know what? I feel bad. That uncomfortable situation had to happen, but honestly, it had to happen for a reason.

Speaker 3 (02:15:13):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:15:13):

This wasn't just people trying to be cruel for no reason. No, of course. It's not like we sat around and we're like, let's crush this motherfucker. You know? Why? Because it's Wednesday. It wasn't like that. There was a really good reason. The good reason is dude didn't take his drum playing seriously, and everybody else took the project very seriously. There's a real budget, real time being put in label money on the line, so people's fucking livelihoods were resting on the success of this record, and this one guy didn't take it seriously. So whatcha going to do?

Speaker 2 (02:15:57):

Yeah, no. At that point, it's back to everything we've been saying. You do what you need to for the project and for the future. You can't just pad people because they're there.

Speaker 1 (02:16:07):

Yeah, for sure. Man. Those projects though, where everybody is on the same page and everybody is awesome and everyone just knows their role, it's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (02:16:18):

It's so nice. It's funny because you'd think when you hit the point where you're doing more label work or you hit the point where you're doing those passion things, a lot of people on the sidelines like, oh, so you don't have any of those shitty musicians anymore where it's like, no, you still do.

Speaker 1 (02:16:35):

You got

Speaker 2 (02:16:35):

More. Yeah. If not, you've got more. And there's other people's money involved and there's everything. But yeah, when you do have that serendipitous project of everybody's on the same page, every problem, that kind of problem is sorted out or it just doesn't exist, it's so nice. There's no better way to put it.

Speaker 1 (02:16:55):

What's weird about it though, this reminds me of something. When I did my instrumental guitar album, we hired a drummer for it who was one of my favorite all time drummers, a dude named Sean Reinhart, RIP, but he was amazing. That's why we hired him. He just had a very unique vision for what drums brought to music, and I wanted that on this record. And he delivered exactly what he was hired for. He elevated the music and took it to places that I could have never have thought of on my own, and just one of those things where the drums helped the art go to another level, and we were all so blown away by it. And I just remember thinking, it's kind of sad though that we're blown away by this because really all he did was his job. Why is that special? It is though, because so few people actually deliver like that, but that's so fucked. That's so fucked because all he did was accept the job and do the job. Why is that so rare?

Speaker 2 (02:18:08):

It's funny you mentioned that. You said it was like an instrumental guitar record.

Speaker 1 (02:18:11):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:18:12):

So I worked with an instrumental guitar guy recently, and I was nervous to do it because like I said, the most important thing to me is the vocal. So in my mind, what I was doing was I had a meeting with him and we were like, Hey, let's try a song. If it doesn't go well, no hard feelings. I totally understand that. It's different when you work with vocalists and there's no vocal in this, but I was able to appreciate that the lead guitar in his music was basically the vocal. So I incorporated that into my thinking process. But anyways, where I'm going is when we started working together and he started recording his parts, and it's like Fast p proggy crazy metal stuff, and he's nailing it in huge chunks, super huge chunks of where most guys would just punch every third note basically. And my mind is exploding right now. I'm like, holy shit, you're the best guitarist I've ever recorded. These songs are sick. Everything is going amazingly. I'm having a blast, which makes my energy level better, and he's feeding off of that and we're actually working really well together. And then I went home and really all that guy did was his fucking job.

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):

I know. It's brutal. It says something about the music industry.

Speaker 2 (02:19:26):

Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. I didn't have to punch every single note I do with everybody else, but that's because realistically, he's the gold standard. He succeeded at doing his job correctly when everybody else still isn't doing that.

Speaker 1 (02:19:41):

So it reminds me of a Billy Joel quote, I believe he got an honorary doctorate at Berkeley and was called a genius or something, and he said, I'm not a genius. I'm just competent in a world full of incompetent people that's stuck with me for a long time.

Speaker 2 (02:20:01):

Oh my God, that's amazing. And it's so true, especially in that field.

Speaker 1 (02:20:05):

Yeah, absolutely. It's a hundred percent true. And on the topic of instrumental records, man, I'll send you mine so you can see what I mean. No pressure to tell me it's good or anything, but the reason that it was pretty successful as far as instrumental records go, and I do think that the reason is that we took into consideration that there's no vocal, and we made a point of there always being something capturing the attention, so it's not just like fucking solos from start to finish, so damn boring. There's always something that takes that same place that a vocal would. There are ways to do that. That's the challenge though.

Speaker 2 (02:20:52):

I would love to check that out, especially because I am actually doing that record the guy's record. We had such a blast that I'm now looking for those things because that was the thing when I first told him in my mind, I was scared, and I've obviously listened to his music before, but do you still get overrun by, what is it? Is it basically just guitar solos whenever there should be vocal, but no, it is creative ways to deliver each instrument or creative ways to deliver a lead guitar that doesn't make it sound like a guitar solo. I think that's why we vibed so well was just like, this is cool. It's not that different from music with focals in it. It's just a unique way of showing the song.

Speaker 1 (02:21:28):

Yeah, absolutely. If it were just solos, it would be like those shred records from the eighties that are just god awful,

Speaker 2 (02:21:38):

And I won't lie, I definitely had that in mind. I'm like, oh, no, it's just going to be straight up solo after solo after solo. And I was like, oh, no, I'm pleasantly surprised. That was weird. Looping back to working in different genres. I work a lot of active rock and pop punk and things, and this is a straight up POG metal. It was the first time where it was a project I was going to turn down because I thought I wasn't capable of doing it, not I didn't want to do it, but so important to try those things because clearly I realized that, I mean, the guy wants to do the record, so clearly I think I'm the right guy for the job.

Speaker 1 (02:22:13):

Okay. So you had a little bit of trepidation about doing that project. You didn't think that you were capable. In your words, why do you think the dude hired you? What is it that he was hoping that you would bring to the project? Because it's kind of interesting to bring someone who's known for pop punk and stuff onto that sort of project. Typically, the Prague dudes go with the Prague dudes. It's an interesting choice. Why do you think he hired you?

Speaker 2 (02:22:43):

I think what sort of happened in that situation, it was a bit of a perfect storm where I'd had a chance to slightly work with him a little bit on something.

Speaker 1 (02:22:51):

He loved the

Speaker 2 (02:22:51):

Result of that

Speaker 1 (02:22:52):

Something in another project.

Speaker 2 (02:22:55):

He lent his skill to something and we were all really stoked on it, and he was stoked on the end result, which led to, Hey, let's talk to Sam about being a potential guy. Especially you mentioned prog guys have their guys that they go with, and I think one of the things was he wants to break free of that. Smart. I definitely thought, and I didn't think about it at the time when he first said it, but yeah, I think it's like a smart move. He wants to see what somebody else would do, and the way to get to that was let's try a single, I had a meeting with him. It went super well. But I remember leaving that meeting, if I don't get this record, even though it's a big record, I'm okay with that. I don't think I'm the right dude, or at least I don't feel like I'm the right dude.

(02:23:32):

And then we started the song, which I was even super nervous about that day, and nothing went poorly. Everything was super smooth. We got ideas out. We were still creative in the way I would be with any sort of vocal based thing, and the vibes were great. Sometimes when I'm working with, I've done a little bit of Prague or heavier and faster metal things in small doses in the past. I don't really enjoy working with those musicians. It goes back to what we were saying before. It's a lot of piecemeal, it's a lot of punching in and out of just little bits. But this guy knows how to do his stuff. He's basically a virtuoso in his craft. It felt like recording any other project. And his attitude was great. He was super great. We vibed on stuff. And what was cool, going back to choosing somebody not in his genre, for him, I was able to pull little tricks that I would do to a vocal on guitar, things that he was really stoked on.

(02:24:24):

And I think that was the thing that sealed it for both of us. We both had a great time. It probably would've ended up happening either way, but when I started diving into how I would treat a background vocal or how I would layer something up or whatever, everybody was like, oh, this is sick. This is cool. This is something nobody else is doing in our music. Let's do this. And we locked the record in. And then after we locked the record in, I actually found out I'm mixing the record too, which I'm really excited about, because for the same reason, they don't want to just fall with a mixer who's done a million projects in this genre. They want to bring an organic aspect of some of the things that I'm good at into such, basically such a tight style of music and everything, letting it breathe in certain spots.

(02:25:10):

And because I'm the guy engineering, I'm thankfully not engineering the drums. I hate engineering. Crazy, crazy, crazy p proggy drums. I love mixing them. It's not for everyone. It is really not for me, but I'm doing all the guitars and bass and the guitars are the whole thing. So I'm still really excited about it, and then I'm mixing it. I think it lets him be involved for the whole process and lets him and I basically tag team the final result right till the end. And I think it's just that he wants to do something with this record that no one else in the genre is doing. And if anything, that's the thing that's still freaking me out a little bit, is I hope I'm the right guy, but I'm definitely more confident about it now than I was say two months ago.

Speaker 1 (02:25:48):

You sound like the right guy to me, because my experience with this record that I made, the reason I'm bringing it up was because it was successful. This was before bands like Animals as Leaders came out and before instrumental gen music kind of became popular. This was before that. So instrumental music when we got this record deal was not in a good place at all. And I do believe that we helped to kind of change the thought on that in a bit of the guitar community. It came out and people had said, we're like, whoa, I've never heard anything like this before. And it inspired a lot of guitar players to start doing something different, but when we were making it, we were getting this weird pressure to kind of make those solo all the time kind of records because that's what those kinds of records are

(02:26:49):

Or were. And then also this expectation that that's what it was going to be. And so there was this weird kind of negativity about it. And so the reason that we chose that drummer, for instance, was because he wasn't going to do the thing that you hear on all those shitty instrumental records. And every choice we made was a choice. Moving it away from those records and everything about it was designed to stand out in every way possible from that garbage, if I may say so. And it worked. And I think that sounds to me like this is being approached in a similar way, which makes me excited for it because I think that's the way to pull it off. Because these instrumental records, man, they sound different now than they did back in the day

Speaker 3 (02:27:45):

Because

Speaker 1 (02:27:46):

Now it has become more like Genty Froggy, not so much like Neoclassical Shred, but they still have that boring element to them, like solos all the time. No real melodies, no real hooks, no real moments that grab you just they're boring overall.

Speaker 3 (02:28:05):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:28:05):

So I love the idea of someone who works in a genre that is all about choruses and catchiness working on something like this. That seems to me like the right move.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):

Cool. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I'm really excited about it because of exactly that. It's a way for me to hone a new thing while doing the things I think I'm the strongest at.

Speaker 1 (02:28:30):

Yeah, that's really, really cool. I'm actually looking forward to hearing it.

Speaker 2 (02:28:34):

Thanks.

Speaker 1 (02:28:35):

Instrumental music man is, it's tough. It's really, really tough. People want to hear vocals if you can trick them into not even missing the vocals, that's a huge feat, I think.

Speaker 2 (02:28:48):

Yeah, I definitely battled with that a little bit, and that was my initial concern was just like, how am I going to connect with this? But I did, and that's why I was really excited.

Speaker 1 (02:28:57):

Yeah. Well, I think this is a good place to end it, man. Cool. Just want to thank you for coming on the podcast, dude. Thank you for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. It's been awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:29:07):

I had a blast. I really appreciate it more than I can. Thank you. If that makes any sense.

Speaker 1 (02:29:13):

Well, thank you. Okay, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levy URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast.