JACOBY SHADDIX: Reinventing Papa Roach, Vibe Over Perfection, and Overcoming Creative Fear

Speaker 1 (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.

(00:55):

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 post and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. This is a cool episode today. It was a very last minute thing. Literally had less than 24 hours warning, but how could I say no? Colin Brit, who is a longtime contributor to URM, nailed the Mix guest podcast guest and friend of mine hit me up and asked if I wanted to do an episode with his co-producer, Nick Furlong, and the one and only Jacoby Shaddock from Papa Roach, vocalists the one and only. Of course, the answer was yes. They happened to be working on a new record in a house in California, and were all together one afternoon and we just talked for an hour and it was a great conversation. So I present to you Colin Britton, Nick Furlong, and Jacoby Shatick. Nick Furlong, Colin Brittin, and Jacoby Shaddock. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Glad to be here, man.

Speaker 2 (02:25):

Good to be here, bro.

Speaker 1 (02:28):

Pleasure to talk to you guys. So before we get into anything, I'm just kind of curious, how did you guys meet and decide to start working together?

Speaker 2 (02:36):

So we were looking for new producers to work with at the time, and there was a short list of guys that we wanted to work with, and the criteria was we want to see what's up with the young bucks in the business. And so Nick and Colin were on that list, and I remember I got a couple tracks from each of the guys and I checked them out and I was like, all right, well, let's get in a room with these cats and just kind of see where things go. And we got into the room, we came down to North Hollywood at the steakhouse, got in the room, and it was just like fucking magic. It was awesome. We wrote a song that day called My Medication, and we left the sessions just buzzing. And when it came time to make the decision to decide who was going to make the record, it was just unanimous in the band. We decided we got to go with that Youngblood, and these dudes are, I'm so glad that we've partnered up and started creating together because it's been an awesome relationship and we've been building it over the last six years now.

Speaker 3 (03:32):

Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (03:33):

Five, six years. And it's cool. It's fucking amazing. It's my boys man. It's my family.

Speaker 1 (03:39):

Did you kind of feel like maybe going with someone who you said you wanted to see what the young bucks were up to. Do you think that if you were going with maybe one of the usual suspects from the older generation of amazing producers, but older generation that did you feel like maybe that might get stale or might be more of the same?

Speaker 2 (04:06):

Absolutely. Okay. That makes sense. That was the thing. We just kind of felt like it was like we just started to sound like the rest of the bands on the active rock chart, and we really felt, we were like, all right, I mean, that's cool and we can keep catering to that, but it just feels like we're going to pigeonhole ourselves into this, paint ourselves into a corner that's miserable. And when we went in to start writing for that record, crooked Teeth, the whole mo was like, it's time to flip shit up, especially in the space of a New Metal was kind of being celebrated again by bands Bring Me the Horizon. And of Mice and Men, we were reading interviews and they were like, oh, those were our early inspirations. And so it made us kind of take a look back at our earlier selves and Nick and Colin were young dudes when we were dropping those records.

(04:51):

And so it just felt right. These dudes got this fresh idea. Some of these older producers, it's like you come in and you're like, alright, let's try this. We want to fucking put the guitar on top of the piano and fucking put a mic inside the piano and throw the guitar at the wall and see what sound that is. And they'd be like, that's never been done before. And it's like, well fucking, and we're not going to whatever dude. Yeah, it's just jaded. And I'm like, fuck that man. I want to bounce off the walls and have fun. I was fucking 18 again, and that's what we've been doing for the last five years.

Speaker 1 (05:21):

Yeah, I think it's really interesting when bands change their sound but still sound like themselves. It's interesting because I feel like there's some element of a risk involved, but then it's also a risk to just do the same thing over and over and over. I guess it's all a risk when you come down to it.

Speaker 2 (05:41):

Absolutely. Linking up with Nick, Nick works in a lot of different projects, a lot of different spaces. EDM, rock pop, hip Hop, Colin, you're on the alt rock folk indie kind of tip. And so it's like these spaces coming together that for P Roach, we're willing to just dive into all those territories. Like, fuck, we got a career, man. We keep doing the same dribble, but fuck, I'm too old for that shit.

Speaker 1 (06:11):

So I'm curious for Colin and Nick, when you guys get approached by a band that's established, long-term established and is known for certain things like Papa Roach for instance, do you guys approach it the same way as if you were working with a baby band? Is this still the same creative process or are you taking into consideration the fact that there's this legacy basically?

Speaker 4 (06:37):

Yeah, I mean I think that at the time when we met Papa Roach, it was because that's five years ago now. So we were just as artists and as creators much greener and didn't have as much experience. So to be able to have a band so sure of themselves as to what they did that actually helped us grow maybe even more than we helped them in a weird way.

Speaker 1 (07:03):

What do you mean by grow?

Speaker 4 (07:05):

Well, because when you work with a baby band, and I don't personally work with a ton, I get hit up all the time by younger bands who maybe just got signed or they're trying to get signed or something. And a lot of times it's not the first thing that I'm drawn to because I personally working with artists who at least know who are on their second or third record or even longer in these guys' case, because they know what their audience is, they know what they're doing, and I can just add and sort of mold that already working well-oiled machine into something even better as opposed to producers, no matter how good they are, don't have all the answers. And that's a misconception in the business now, I feel like you see all these producers who have producer handles, for example, you hear they had dropped a little sample at the top.

(07:52):

It's a big thing in hip hop and stuff. And these guys go out thinking that they're rock stars. And the truth is, producers are not supposed to be rock stars. They're supposed to be enablers of rock stars, basically helping create and push that boundary forward. And so if you've got to have that respect to work with a band like Papa Roach or a day member or bring to the horizon, you got to have respect for that. And that's why there's, I feel like a separation between some of the super young guys who don't know really how to work with a band like this. So to answer your question, I think it is a different energy. It's a more of a respect thing, and there's already a machine and an audience you have to keep an eye on. So there's a slightly different process. Yes, I think so.

Speaker 1 (08:36):

Yet at the same time, you're pushing the art to places that it's never been before. So that's kind of like, that's an interesting line to walk, I think.

Speaker 3 (08:46):

Yeah, dude, I know for me personally, I think when the situation came up and we had talked about working together personally, I was really excited about it, man, because it was an opportunity to take something that had already amassed a really large following and to reestablish their identity and figure out, okay, well this is who you are and this is who you've been. But it doesn't seem like you guys have taken a look in the mirror in a really long time and sort of done this. Who are we as an artist, as a band, as an energy, as an entity? What is our brand and what are we doing? What is the trajectory of what we're trying to do? And when we linked up, there were a lot of conversations about, man, this is the idea for the layout of the first record. And then we could go a little more experimental with the second one.

(09:33):

And then by the third one, we just kind of strategized and came up with all these plans to really build around them and said, made suggestions where we saw fit. Like, dude, you guys should maybe try to come up with a different logo that appeals to a broader audience. Or, dude, you guys are, some of these songs that you're doing are so sick, but let's just reimagine 'em with some different influences from different spaces that typically wouldn't be used. And I loved how part of what Jacobi and Colin were talking about as well is I think with the older and more seasoned producers, they kind of have a system down with the way that they do things and they've been doing it so long that it becomes kind of clockwork to them. And I think with us, we're still kind of finding our feet, especially at the time when we met and initially started working. So it was very mutually beneficial in that we didn't really know what we were doing, so we were willing to take way more risks and they were also just seasoning us and we were getting so much experience. It's kind of learning how to swim by just jumping in the ocean.

Speaker 1 (10:45):

It's the best way.

Speaker 3 (10:46):

Yeah, exactly. So for me, dude, I had no experience working with a seasoned veteran band. It was so terrifying, but at the same time, exciting. I just was like, wow, there's so much opportunity here for growth and so much potential to just do something loud and different and make a little bit of a scene in the space of rock.

Speaker 1 (11:11):

So I'm curious, Jacoby, what made you trust them?

Speaker 2 (11:16):

Do I trust them? Is that what you're ensuing?

Speaker 1 (11:18):

Good

Speaker 2 (11:19):

Question. I think it was after that first session, it was just like we all left, the band left and we were buzzing in the car. We're like, fuck dude. It's like being in the room with the young us.

(11:29):

And it was just so refreshing. And as we get out there and we tour, it's like you just become jaded a bit by the business. And it was like this young excitement that was around us was just, it was infectious. And that for us we're like, alright, we got our squad here, let's go in here and do this. And it was definitely like, alright, we're taking a leap of faith here with this. Even our record company was unsure of us making this move, but it's like when the band really feels something in their gut, you got to go after it. And that's very important. I think you got to trust your intuition in this thing. And we've done that since the beginning of our career. And then after being in it for a while, it's like just we found ourselves kind of going through the motions a little bit and I just felt like it was time to switch shit up. And in that leap of faith, fortunately we've found two producers, collaborators that are just, they understand us, we understand them, and they push us. You guys push us straight up. It's like sometimes I'm totally uncomfortable. I'm like, fuck what? Yeah, we did

Speaker 4 (12:33):

That yesterday. We did that yesterday

(12:35):

On a song that was like, and the great thing about a band, this is that they're willing to put the piano inside the microphone and throw a guitar. We were going to do this one thing where we still haven't done it and I'd love to do that, but we literally want to light two guitars on fire and plug them into an amp and record the amps, and then sword fight with the guitars. And here's the thing, this is the thing that I would encourage younger producers to do. Not light your house on fire, but the beach. And here's another, yo, I'm going to give you two examples. So there's that. We haven't done that yet. The last record we were doing at the same place that we did the first record at, and it was my old room. You've been there Al I know at the steakhouse in North Hollywood.

(13:26):

I've since moved to built another studio. But we were kind of feeling about halfway through the record, I remember Jacoby mentioned, he was like, man, be sick if we did a record in Malibu. I think we were all kind pent up. We've been at the same place for a month. And of course everyone was like, well fuck, why don't we just bring the beach to us? So I remember we called the record company and we're like, Hey, we need an extra $5,000 tomorrow in the budget. And they were like, what for? And we were just miscellaneous recording costs, and we literally, literally called Nick called a sand company, like a beach sand company. And they went out and the next day, literally a dump truck full of beach sand came into the parking lot, dropped it off in the parking lot, we hired some dudes to fricking smooth it out. And then we rented beach chairs, a fire pit had a tiki bar.

Speaker 3 (14:19):

And

Speaker 4 (14:19):

We literally for six weeks had beach parties every single day in the parking lot of the studio. And

Speaker 3 (14:25):

You'd also do a ring around the Rosies at night, we'd have a campfire and someone would play guitar and we would all take turns singing a different pop song with the same melody over the same chords. And whoever couldn't come up with a pop song would end up having to drink or something like that.

Speaker 4 (14:43):

But my point is, and another thing we're going to do this time is there's this one part on a song we're actually tracking today we're staying in, for those of you don't know, we're staying in a beach house basically in San Luis Obispo on the coast to there you go, beach Bipo, San Luis Obispo, apo. Yeah. And we're going to go down, we're going to go down the beach and literally Titanic style. We're cord on the beach in the wind and all that. And it's not, that sounds better. None of that shit. It's just those memories being plugged into that creates so much energy under the surface that can manifest itself into something great later. And if you just take the time to live your life a little bit and not just do everything in the fucking bedroom, you know what I mean? And these guys are willing to do that, which is fucking cool, bro.

Speaker 3 (15:33):

After this speech, I might even wrap my arms around you so delicately and watch the wind blow through your hair. Yes.

Speaker 1 (15:40):

You think that studio life can be contrary to living real life and you have to impose that on it, or it just becomes clinical. And

Speaker 2 (15:49):

I think it used to be, but now working with these cats, it's like we just step out the box and have a lot more fucking fun with it. It's like, here's the deal. It's making records felt sterile for a while and clinical and now it's like we're making records with the homies. It feels like I was hooking up with my bros and making records, but it's like these dudes are fucking super pro.

Speaker 4 (16:10):

To add to that, I feel like because I'm probably more, these guys are new to the URM community, I'm obviously a veteran with you guys. I've been doing it for a while. So I watch and I keep in with the community and I understand, people ask me questions a lot and I keep up with the posts and I see what other people are posting about, and I read that stuff, even if I don't comment on it, everybody is like, there's a consensus that it all has to be about the right plugins or the right. What are you doing with that kick drum and why is it all meticulous and all that stuff? And the truth is nobody really fucking cares. The best songs we've ever written or produced have happened in a blink of an eye and done all the wrong ways. You know what I mean?

(16:53):

With the wrong sounds out of phase kick drums, all that bullshit just because we didn't have time to throw it up and then you can fix it later to make it tighter or whatever if you want. We all know how to use pro tools. It's just that the energy store, this is the one thing I would stress about to listeners, is who are producing and writing and all that stuff is, it does not matter. The technical shit doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's on an iPhone, it doesn't matter if it's on a fucking $10,000 fucking C 800, mike. It doesn't matter. It's just is the vibe. There is every, and the vibe starts with energy, with people. It's communication, it's love, it's all the right energy. And if you don't have the right energy, then you're literally, it's like building a house on sand. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:40):

What's the point? If the energy's off,

Speaker 4 (17:43):

Yeah, your fucking foundation is going to crumble.

Speaker 3 (17:46):

I feel like your lifestyle kind of has to be conducive to your creativity if you're going to be a creator. So if that's

Speaker 4 (17:53):

A good way to put it,

Speaker 3 (17:55):

I think that if you're putting yourself in a box and metaphorically I'm saying a studio room with no windows and it's dark or it's light or it's whatever the fuck color lights you have and you're sitting in there for hours at a time, mentally that's not great for you.

Speaker 1 (18:10):

It's actually bad for you.

Speaker 3 (18:12):

It's horrible for you. So getting out and being in, we're in a bedroom right now with all of our, Colin's got tons of his gear, we got keyboards, guitars, and we're just sitting here in a bedroom. And this is what I used to do when I was 16. So it's no wonder that I feel in my element, I feel inspired and creative. I have the same drive I had when I was a kid because I'm in that same setting, doing it with my friends. It doesn't matter that I'm 34 because in my mind, I'm the same kid in my bedroom making music with my friends.

Speaker 1 (18:47):

What's interesting is, Colin, what you said to the community, and especially people who care about the wrong things, is I wonder if the way that people learn these days, they skip that part of making music with their friends. I feel like a lot of people do. They go straight from not doing anything to just by themselves in the bedroom forever. And I feel like that's a pretty crucial piece of creating great music, at least in these heavier rock oriented genres that's kind of missing.

Speaker 4 (19:20):

The rock stuff is so sterile in a lot of ways, especially the heavier, heavier rock. It's just way more sterile and it's not as fun. And there's a reason that I think hip hop music is the number one consumed kind of music genre wise in the world and the cool kids. That's why you hear it at all the parties. And it's because it's fun. And a lot of people will be like, it sounds the same, and it might sound the same. But the thing is, is that it's fun. And it comes from a place of when you do a hip hop session, dude, those guys go so fast. Those guys go literally a hundred times faster than we go, and we go pretty fast. You know what I mean? And it's all because it's like, well, shit, I'll make 10 songs and then we'll pick the one that fucking feels the best.

(20:09):

And it's all about vibe and it's not really about cerebral thinking. So that's the thing that people don't really, in the rock business, they get too into this whole like, oh, it's sterile. And then I was having to pivot on that. I was having a conversation, this kid was asking me the other day, you are a member about how should I move out of my place that I live in middle of Ohio or something? It's cheaper here to live. Should I move to Nashville or LA or New York or Miami or one of these music cities? And I was like, of course. Of course you should. Well, we don't really need that. We have Zoom and I can get clients online. And I'm like, okay, well then what's going on with that? Yeah, how's that going for you? And it's not because LA is like, yeah, it's more expensive and all that stuff, but the real reason is is because when you move to these places in non pandemic area, of course when people are more communicating and meeting in person, but in normal times, if you go to a city like this, Papa Roach came to la.

(21:10):

That's the reason we met is because I had a studio in la, Nick lives here, Jacobi. And the guys come down there because that's where they go to write music. They go live in different areas and stuff, and they're like, let's go to la. That's where all the producers are, and you're going to meet people like Jacoby or whoever, and you never fucking know. We thought that that session five years ago was going to be, I was nervous as shit. I was just like, I'm a big fan, fuck. But hey man, best case scenario, we'll write a cool song and we'll get a cool writing credit. And the next thing, literally a month later, Tobin, the bass player is calling me up going, Hey man, you guys ready to do this record? And we're like, what? Seriously? So yes, you have to put yourself in the place where the energy is happening,

Speaker 1 (21:55):

Basically open yourself up to good luck.

Speaker 4 (21:57):

Yeah, dude, luck doesn't exist, bro. It's all about repetition of energy.

Speaker 1 (22:02):

I agree. Yeah. When I say good luck, what I actually mean is basically putting yourself in the path of opportunities that wouldn't come to you otherwise, just because you're not there.

Speaker 3 (22:14):

Dude, if I hadn't moved to LA when I was 21, I don't think I would've been in the action because I wasn't getting any progress from being in a remote location. There's not much of a music scene in Lake Tahoe or Carson City. So by moving to LA, I was able to be accessible and make myself accessible and be of use to the people that I knew I wanted to plug in with. And just being around those crowds for a long period of time, you start to become, you're slowly injecting yourself into those circles. Another thing that Colin talked about, I just wanted to briefly say, is a big part of being a musician I think is having respect for the genres. And I think that if you go straight into just like, alright, I'm going to download some shit off Splice and I'm going to obsess over this sound design, and you got dudes who are like, I'm going to make hip hop beats because I'm listening to fucking young Dolf and I just like it and I want to do that.

(23:12):

And that's where the inspiration comes in. But then I feel like where you kind of have to stray a little bit is get rid of that programming that you have that you've been taught to just obsess over sounds and learn when to step back and say, this is good, this is done, and I'm going to get more work done and not just spend all this time working on sounds. It's kind of like what you were saying, Colin, it's like you can do that until you're blue in the face, but it's not going to be conducive to your operation if you're trying to get work out there. So just learning when to kind of say this is finished and not obsessing, figuring out that self-discipline and finding the line and the balance between finished product and when you're kind of just being in your own head.

Speaker 1 (24:04):

Well, I think that a lot of times when people do that, when they go down those rabbit holes, there comes a point where they're either making it worse or just different, but not better.

Speaker 2 (24:14):

Totally. It's like a painter painting on top of paint, painting on top of paint, painting on top of paint.

Speaker 4 (24:19):

And I would say to add to that, I think a lot of that comes down to insecurity and fear. So when you finish something, I'm a finishing producer, and not every producer does this just so everybody knows. There's some people who do more writing and starting of ideas, and then there's guys who me who do, yeah, Nick is great at that. He's got always 20 times more ideas than I have the closer, closer. And I'll go the fucking

Speaker 3 (24:48):

Clothes,

Speaker 4 (24:48):

Bring the clothes in. Sounds like

Speaker 3 (24:50):

Fucking Ricky Vaughn baby wild thing.

Speaker 4 (24:54):

It sounds crazy, but when you close something out and you finish it and you send it out, the next step is always judgment. Somebody is going to be judging that. Somebody's going to be giving you feedback, putting it online, sending it to your manager, sending it to the artist, whatever label, you're going to hear some feedback and you're either going to like that feedback or you're not going to. And what people do, especially young and experienced producers or shitty producers who don't get a lot of work, they obsess over details forever. And then their output is way drastically limited because I send shit out all the time, that gets fucking knocked down all the time.

Speaker 3 (25:39):

And Jimmy, ive fucking dropped Lady Gaga. You know what I mean the most, you could be a huge pop star and it might just not be the time yet. You might just be right on the cusp of something and somebody could tell you I don't see it.

Speaker 2 (25:55):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (25:55):

And I mean, Jacoby's got some stories about that.

Speaker 2 (25:57):

Yeah, dude, we were doing our album, getting Away With Murder, and at the time we had just gotten shuffled from Dreamworks over to Geffen, and that was part of the Universal family. And Iovine was at the top of that chain, and we finished our record and we turned in the song Scars of ours, and Jimmy Ivy was like, I don't really hear it. I feel like you guys need to go rerecord it and make it sound more like it's been a while. And I was just like, what? And so we went in and we were willing to give the exercise a shot. And so they paid for us to go back in the studio with Howard Benson, and we did this and we wrote, it just turned into the worst piece of average white guy rock I've ever heard in my life. And it was just like we turned it in and we're like, well, in my mind I'm like, here's this fucking turd. If this guy likes this, I don't know what the fuck is going to happen. And he turned around right after I heard it and he's like, Nope, the original, well, that's where we're going. The original you guys were onto something. And so sometimes it's going through those exercises out of respect for

Speaker 3 (27:00):

His opinion.

Speaker 2 (27:01):

Yeah, exactly. Somebody else's opinion. It's healthy to do. And sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. And in that one, it's like P Roach, we won, our original version was the one, and we turned around and sold a million and a half records for those guys on that album. And that was a really turning point in our career, was us being willing to play the game, but then knowing while we're playing the game going, this is horses shit.

Speaker 3 (27:27):

Dude, you know what that says to me is that you create with an open mind. So you're having an open mind about what it is that you're doing and the feedback you're getting, but you're not letting it dictate your art. You're just like, okay, cool. And if by having an open mind, the result is better by the feedback you're getting, then obviously you're going to be like, okay, cool, great call. But if it isn't, I mean, it's nice to at least be like, we entertained it. I always feel better about that.

Speaker 1 (28:01):

Yeah. I have a theory that no matter what people on the outside hear about bands or artists, in reality, if they've stuck around a long time, they've got to know how to work with other people, which involves taking their ideas and at least trying them figuring out compromises because it takes other people to make anything successful happen in this world. No one can do it alone.

Speaker 2 (28:31):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (28:32):

Yeah. Got to know how to work with people.

Speaker 2 (28:34):

Yeah, I totally feel you. It's like being in a band is constant compromise and being in relationships, it's constant compromise and it's being willing to hear the other voice in the room pausing and allowing somebody else to interject and try what they got. And I think that that's important. And for us, we've grew up making records in a room together and just throwing ideas out there all the time and always being willing to hear each other's voice. And that's where the progress happens. Because if it was just one person calling all the shots in the band, it wouldn't be fun. And so sometimes it's torture. Sometimes I'm like, fuck, I got to hear you again. Give me a fucking critique. But it's like you got to have some humility. That's a big part of it.

Speaker 1 (29:23):

You guys have said fun a lot in this interview and well podcast, and I want to just say that I can actually hear it in the music you guys have done together. It actually sounds like you guys had fun in the studio.

Speaker 4 (29:38):

And I'll add to that, there was something really special about the record we're working on right now. The album we're working on right now, it's been a gauntlet of an album, so many songs, and we keep writing shit that's even better. But we started this process in the middle of a pandemic and we all thought, okay, how are we going to do this? So the first thing everybody thought was, you know what? Let's not just go to LA and write. Because normally it's like we come down, we write in my studio or whatever for a month or two, and then we go track it either at the same studio or somewhere else. And we were like, let's break this up because there's no touring right now. There's no hard deadlines. Let's just do this in a different way. So we rented this massive house mansion, like house in Temecula for three weeks, three and a half weeks in August. And we got Jacoby's brother Bryson, who's a great videographer, and Wan, who's Tobin's brother, who's our friend Nick, who's like a chef who made us food every day. And we have my engineer Kevin, Kevin McCombs, who's by the way, just the fucking shout out Kevin, the G dude,

Speaker 2 (30:51):

Tits. Dude. Kevin's the tits man. We love you, bro. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (30:53):

Kevin, dude, Kevin's the man. And we had Kevin, we have a friend, Michael Nolasco who was guitar attacking. We had a

Speaker 1 (31:00):

Crew, we all got tested. Another person,

Speaker 4 (31:03):

Dude, Michael. Dude, lemme just say real quick. Michael Nolasco has been the fucking coolest motherfucker this year. Michael

Speaker 3 (31:11):

Is definitely hands down, one of the most hardworking and just amazing level-headed. Good dude, great energy to have in the room. He was one of my favorite parts of the trip of having, he was like a new

Speaker 4 (31:24):

Dude and he just shows up. He didn't ask to get paid, he just showed up and he's just been hanging out learning and he's all over this record. But my point is that we're saying that we started that process out getting out of la, getting out of our box and just writing music with friends. And it just kickstarted. The energy of this album was just way higher than even the last two

Speaker 2 (31:50):

And

Speaker 4 (31:51):

The amount of fun that we all had. Nick brought his electric dirt bike. We were riding around, we had our boy, Brandon Seller from Atreyu came down and hung out. It was just the whole, and then we came back to LA and then we spent a couple months tracking it, properly tracking it, which is always fun for me. And then now we're here in slow,

Speaker 3 (32:14):

Also, simultaneously, while they were tracking guitars and drums, Jacoby and I would run over to their Airbnb in North Hollywood and be like, they had a projection screen in the living room. So we would pull the projection screen down and put on Mission Impossible and watch Tom Cruise running and just write lyrics to some of the songs while Tom Cruise was running. It was

Speaker 1 (32:35):

Awesome, man. There's a lot of him running to write to

Speaker 2 (32:39):

Dude. Dude, if you Google Tom Cruise running, it's like put it on loop and then just put some rock music on, join in the room with us essentially.

Speaker 3 (32:46):

We also had another time when we put David Byrne, or was

Speaker 2 (32:50):

It? Yes, it was the same night.

Speaker 3 (32:52):

Yeah. So we had the Talking Heads playing, we watched them play a live show and David Burns just run around the stage just going crazy and being possessed. And we turned on one of the, it was unglued, right? Or

Speaker 2 (33:05):

No, it was something, no, it was unglued. And it was the same tempo of the song that he was dancing to and it was all lining up and we're like, you know what moments are like that, it's, it's just like a God shot to me. It's like, yo, you're in the room with the right people doing the right thing. And we've had a lot of moments in that that relate to that in this process, especially

Speaker 3 (33:27):

In the last three months.

Speaker 2 (33:28):

Yeah, absolutely. And also, we did a record called the Paramore Sessions, and it was inspired by the Red Hot Chili Peppers living in the Houdini mansion. We wanted to go live in the Houdini mansion and make a record. Slipknot was there. So we went to this place called the Paramore and holed up and did that experience. And it had been a long time since we did that. And so when we linked up on this record going to Temecula, it was the call. It was just the brotherhood was strong, and this was our third album working together. And so there wasn't any more, I guess, discovery with each other. It was like the brotherhood was strong.

Speaker 3 (34:03):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (34:03):

And it was like we rolled in confident and we knew what we were there to create. And it was just from the first night kickoff, it was a major

Speaker 4 (34:14):

Energy, high energy level the whole time. And even if the band isn't willing to go out, I think it's important for the producer or somebody who's in the creative seat to be out of their comfort zone for some of something of the project. The day, remember album that I just did last year, I went to Florida for three months, you know what I mean? Because the band really wanted to stay in their home.

Speaker 1 (34:41):

I remember.

Speaker 4 (34:42):

And that was cool because that was for me that I was out, I was just excited to be there. I was like, wow, I'm fucking in a new place. It's a new thing. And I was new blood for them, and we had totally new instruments, and those guys probably looked at me. I was fucking insane because I was, for example, we did this one thing. Jeremy bought a Steinway piano. We found one for Hella Cheap. And so I remember recording, I was like, man, I want this sound, this guitar thing to sound like a machine gun. So we went and I took a quarter and played the piano note on fucking literally on the piano with a quarter inside, inside the piano, picking the piano string, picking the piano string with a quarter. We recorded it and then I chopped it up to make the riff. And then we sent it back out through a distorted bass amp, and it becomes this guitar amp machine gun that plays underneath the riff. And we did that all over the place. And the guys just kept going, man, this is so fun that we're doing this. And again, shit like that, just artistically, that's what I do. I love, love experiencing things like that and trying new things. And the band gets excited by that, and then they get more inspired. And then Jacoby,

Speaker 2 (36:01):

Lemme tell you a story real quick. So this is when I knew that we were awesome, real shit. So I roll in the studio, it's probably like one o'clock in the morning, fucking Jerry's playing guitar. Nick is twisting a pedal, and Colin's over there twisting two other pedals at the same time to create this one moment, right? This one moment for this guitar part. And I was just like, now this is fucking rock and roll. This is exciting to me. I wasn't doing anything but just sitting there witnessing this moment, I was like, those are the moments that make this thing special. And it's like we were riding in the car last night to go get dinner, and people ask me all the time like, yo, what's special about being in the studio? Or What's special about making music? And I'm like, one of the most sacred moments to me is after we get done writing and recording a song, it's like the moments that we get to listen to this music together before anybody else in the world gets to experience it. It's just that raw, pure like, fuck yeah, we created something together. I can't wait to, I want to listen to it again. I want to listen to it again. It's like a Christmas morning energy. It's just, yeah, I love it, man.

Speaker 1 (37:12):

Christmas

Speaker 4 (37:12):

Morning energy for sure.

Speaker 1 (37:15):

Do you think that sometimes people in music let themselves get too jaded about this stuff rather than finding ways to be stoked?

Speaker 3 (37:24):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (37:24):

Yeah, man, I mean,

Speaker 4 (37:26):

Many jaded. I mean, how many jaded musicians, I hate that word by the way. It's

Speaker 2 (37:32):

Jaded on jaded.

Speaker 4 (37:33):

It's just one of those things where I hear that where, and I see that in a scummy word, it's a scummy word, and I feel like it's in, it is a good point. You bring that up though, but you've seen it. You know what I'm talking. Oh yeah. No, no, no. It's a fine. It's a word. It just means what it represents is defeat, because I agree, not jaded. Shit is defeat. And I've been just like anybody at a high level in music business, this can be a scummy business and people can be mean and bad and judgmental or whatever, but if you let just in your life in general, if you let that kind of energy affect you adversely, you have already lost. And it always comes from a place of fear. And I just don't believe in that kind of fear. And I see that happen when I read the URM Facebook post, I occasionally see somebody use that word.

(38:25):

They're like, maybe I'm just jaded, but this and this and this. And I'm just like, dude, what the fuck are you jaded for? Just go. Are you not enjoying it if you're not enjoying this to begin with? And again, every day I don't wake up every day just the stoked that I'll ever be. That's not how I operate. And not because I'm human, but dude, I'm almost every day stoked as fuck. Like I was texting you on the way over here, I remember, and I was just like, yo, I can't believe that they're paying me to do this. Literally, that's how I feel. And if you don't feel that way, then you're either in the wrong business or move and do something else. Shake it up and do something else that gets you stoked. Because what the fuck? Are everybody going to die one day? Why are we doing this?

Speaker 3 (39:11):

I have a friend, another guy that I know his jadedness kind of stemmed from. It's similar to what you're talking about, a lack of being stoked about what he was doing. And that didn't really necessarily mean he was successful too. He was successful at it. It wasn't like he was getting turned down on jobs, he was getting the work. He just wasn't excited about the music he was making. And I think some of that just kind of had to do with the way maybe his thinking, or maybe he had some personal life, the stories he told himself, shit going on. Exactly. Or maybe his lifestyle, maybe he was depressed because he's not going outside or exercising or eating well. You know what I mean? There's so many elements, but to just accept that you don't feel good. So that's just the way it is. If you're not, anytime I feel jaded so to speak, it's just because my shit's not firing, dude. The cylinders aren't firing. And I'm jaded because I'm frustrated that I'm not working at a level that I know I'm capable of. So in those moments, I try to find my inspiration outside of the studio. I try to go live my life a little and don't allow the pressures of being creative or being first or being successful plague my mind while I just get a little bit of freedom from that stress.

Speaker 4 (40:32):

Dude, if you're not really stoked about what you're doing, if you don't believe in yourself and really believe in yourself, and you have to be stoked to believe in yourself, let's be honest, if you don't really believe in yourself, you're fucking done. The deck is way too stacked already. It's already way too competitive to, if you're already against yourself and you add all the fricking real shit in there too, dude, you're done.

Speaker 3 (41:05):

What happens if you write a bad song? Well, you know what I mean? If you don't have confidence to tell yourself to keep getting up after you get knocked down or to keep getting up even though you don't want to, you know what I mean? It's like you might write a bad song and talk yourself out of writing a great song because that's the next song. And it's just good to not do that. Don't listen to all this bullshit and don't listen to your brain. Fuck with you.

Speaker 4 (41:29):

Rick Rubin had an interesting quote the other day, and it was actually really rang strong with me, which was, he said, for every piece of critique, I'm paraphrasing. So for every piece of critique that you get, the opposite is also possibly equally as true.

Speaker 3 (41:48):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (41:48):

So if somebody says that you have a bad song, it also might be that that's just not the right person. That's what I took from it, that listened to it. Now, that's not saying that every song you write is going to be good,

Speaker 3 (42:02):

It's also

Speaker 4 (42:02):

At all

Speaker 3 (42:03):

Just one person's opinion.

Speaker 4 (42:04):

Yeah, exactly. It's

Speaker 3 (42:06):

An art is so objective. So whoever perceives it as whatever

Speaker 4 (42:11):

Subjective, you mean

Speaker 3 (42:12):

Subjective, excuse me. Yeah, sorry. Whoever perceives it as whatever they're entitled to do so, and that means that people might hate what you do. I'm sure that there's plenty of people who don't prefer the music that I work on or don't really prefer to listen to my music, and I'm totally okay with that.

Speaker 2 (42:28):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (42:28):

Because I have an open mind to the reality that other people have different tastes.

Speaker 2 (42:35):

It takes a pair of balls to really put yourself out there into the stage of the world.

Speaker 3 (42:40):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (42:41):

And it's like it does. All three of us, we're all willing to do that. And it's like, I'm willing to get mud thrown in my face and I'm willing to bleed for this and suffer for it at times because it's worth it.

Speaker 3 (42:55):

It really is. But also when you get feedback, something that I like to do is just analyze that feedback and take from it what you think benefits to you personally. Just because someone gives you feedback or gives you advice doesn't necessarily mean that it's always going to apply to you or be beneficial to what it is that you're trying to do. So just kind of take bits and pieces, don't verbatim, listen to everything that you're told. Be very mindful of that. You are trying to create something as yourself. So it's good to take and learn lessons from people along the way, but you don't want to be a replication of all these things into one.

Speaker 1 (43:36):

I think that applies. Keep your identity, think good feedback as well first.

Speaker 3 (43:39):

That's exactly good and

Speaker 1 (43:40):

Bad. If you believe all the good stuff, you kind of got to believe all the bad stuff too. So I think it's good to take all of it with a grain of salt

Speaker 3 (43:48):

Or just ask yourself the questions. If somebody says like, man, I don't think that this hook's like it. I just don't think the chorus is catchy enough or it's not right. Ask yourself the question. Be like, Hmm, is it not right? What's not right about it? How could I make this better? Let me go back and maybe take a second look at it and try it. And if it's not better, then I know, well, my initial idea works better for me.

Speaker 1 (44:12):

I mean, what else can you do? Right? You got to put your shit out there.

Speaker 4 (44:16):

Absolutely. Here's what else you can do. You can wrap it up and either bury it and burn the hard drive

Speaker 2 (44:23):

And burn the hard drive.

Speaker 4 (44:25):

You could do that, or you can put it out in the universe and move the fuck on. And I'll say this too, those people, for those of you who are, get a fucking gold single or whatever and think your shit don't stink and get high off of that or even get high off of, it's okay to celebrate successes, but the same is true opposite for five minutes. You can get the same is true opposite though, is if you get caught up on the negative feedback, that means you care too much about what everybody else is saying. But also the opposite is true. If you get too high on the positive feedback, that's equally as destructive, I think, because then you wind up craving other people's feedback, you craving that praise, that's insecurity. And insecurity does not make good music, period.

Speaker 1 (45:18):

So based on what you were saying earlier about people being afraid of deadlines or judgment, actually, do you think that that's why they never get stuff done because they keep trying to push that judgment back?

Speaker 4 (45:32):

100%.

Speaker 1 (45:34):

That is why, that's the only reason, like anything, to not ask out the girl.

Speaker 4 (45:39):

That's literally the only, as far as I see it. Again, this is one man's opinion, so take it for what you will. But in my opinion, that is the underlying, if you strip peel back all the layers, that is the underlying for anything, not even in music, but just any lack of action is always rooted in fear of judgment from other people in which is judgment your of fear of other people's judgment. So if you can clear that out and silence that out, and then filter people's objective opinions and then do what feels right to you, and then, yeah, you put something out and it doesn't fucking work, and it's like, cool. Why did that not work? Was it because the band wasn't big enough and because we just didn't have enough people push it? I've had songs that I thought were really great that didn't get the love, because not every song is a viral song. And if some songs require a label pushing it, and maybe the label didn't do the job or maybe whatever, whatever. But you can't get hung up on any of those things. You just go make a new song.

Speaker 3 (46:43):

And I also feel like a lot of times with new artists, the thing that I feel like a lot of people have talked about in this conversation is that pressure of like, fuck, I got to have the thing. It's got to be the best. I got to get out there. I got to get successful, dah, dah, dah, dah. And they don't take the time to do any development of themselves or their tools. So it's just a constant rat race. Instead of trying to sit down, take your time, be a little bit patient with yourself and your art. And sometimes I think people forget that they can take a couple years to develop something. And once you're cracking, once you get a hit, then you can be on the money. And every day at the studio, we got to get more stuff going. We got to have a release schedule, blah, blah, blah. But in the beginning stages, it's okay to put something out as a feeler and see what people think about it, get some feedback, start building a fan base, and then gradually just keep releasing things as tests and get feedback that way. You know what I mean? It's like then you're building an audience and you're getting that praise or the feedback, the critiques from a natural organic audience.

Speaker 2 (47:53):

I feel so fortunate to be able to have come up. In the time that I came up in back in the nineties, it was like we just had to slug it out in the trenches. We were in the rehearsal space, we were rehearsing in a meat locker for a while, and that was it, man. It was like we would just write a song and rehearse it 15 times over. Then we would go play shit tons of shows in these little dive places, and we'd have great shows. And then we'd have shows where we're, I remember this one time we handed out our cassette cassette EP deals to the fans before we played. And as we're playing, they're throwing our fucking cassettes back at us.

Speaker 4 (48:30):

That's so sick.

Speaker 2 (48:33):

I was bold enough and brave enough to just get up there and deal with that. Like, you know what? I fucking believe in this. And that's what fucking matters. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (48:39):

And

Speaker 2 (48:40):

It's like I think that you got to be able to toughen up a little bit if you're going to be in this business because it's not always just rad.

Speaker 3 (48:49):

I think the public, there's always a hazing that goes

Speaker 2 (48:51):

Into

Speaker 3 (48:52):

Any artist who's especially interesting and very individually themselves. There's this public hazing that always occurs where people just want to fucking hate you. They can't figure you out.

Speaker 2 (49:04):

I'm cool with that.

Speaker 3 (49:05):

I'm good with that. But then eventually the more that you're consistently yourself, the more eventually I feel people come around and they're like, I fuck with that dude because he's just himself or that

Speaker 1 (49:15):

Woman. Yeah, people respect longevity.

Speaker 3 (49:17):

Exactly. Hell and genuineness just being genuine.

Speaker 4 (49:24):

And it does take a lot of work. I mean, let's be real about that. For me, it was two years solid in my little room in North Hollywood trying to, I was mixing Japanese artists. I was always a producer and a musician and a writer. That was always my thing. Mixing was not my thing. And then I was like, you know what? Fuck it, dude. I'm going to just figure this out. I'm going to figure this out. Make it my thing.

Speaker 3 (49:51):

He's like one of the best mixers, if not the best that I personally know and choose. But for him to say that, that's,

Speaker 4 (49:59):

But the dude, I love you, by the way. But listen, it really did take, it took two years of sucking ass in that space, specifically mixing, this is a sub genre or subspace of where I already was. And then all Time Low was the first one where the label goes, you know what? Actually we were going to pay a hell of a lot of money to do this, but the band is actually really stoked with the shit that you're doing. And I was like, wow. I remember it. I was like, fuck. Okay. Two years of year and a half of just grinding every fucking day and trying and trying and trying getting knocked down and taking shit gigs that you didn't pay much or working for Japanese artists that I didn't understand what they were saying and just weird stuff. And I was like, and now I'm fucking mixing the bands that I fucking respect and love. And people are like, oh, well, how did you do that? And I'm like, people forget. They look at you and they'll be like, oh, well, you've got gold records all over your fucking wall.

Speaker 1 (50:57):

Well, they see the result. They don't see what went into it.

Speaker 4 (50:59):

And I'm like, okay, yeah, dude, but check it out. Fucking literally, literally, I was living for an entire year on that couch in my studio. I couldn't afford an apartment in the studio on my studio. I was showering every day at 24 Hour Fitness. We didn't have a shower at the studio. That's

Speaker 3 (51:14):

Why you don't see the Blood, sweat and Tears you shower.

Speaker 4 (51:17):

Yeah, I washed them all down the 24 at the 24 Hour Fitness shower drain.

Speaker 2 (51:23):

That's amazing. Totally.

Speaker 4 (51:26):

So that's a real story. And dude going to our friend Zach Sini, he kind of had the same shit working for John Feldman forever, and now he's mixing, bring Me The Horizon and Danny Elman and shit. And it's just like we are in company with all those dudes who were fucking, and that's again, going back to my statement about living in la. Those guys are my homies and Nick Long, our friend Nick Long, who is actually the guy responsible for bringing me to LA in the first place. He's playing with Machine Gun Kelly on Saturday Night Live and wrote his entire album and is now written multiple platinum records and one of the best songwriters we know. And I'm watching all of my homies that my buddy Stevie, from 30 Seconds to Mars is now a full member of 30 Seconds to Mars. Like my boy, Tommy English, he's fucking producing fits in the tantrums. And I'm watching all these dudes that I came up with who are my age that are just living their fucking dream and I'm living my dream and we're all running on this road next to each other and we're all doing our own shit. And a lot of times we don't work together on necessarily everything or anything for that matter, but it's like you just look over and you guys are all still here. Well, you all the company

Speaker 1 (52:36):

You keep.

Speaker 4 (52:37):

So I feel really, really fortunate to be here for that.

Speaker 3 (52:41):

I love what you just said though about you are the company you keep. The biggest takeaway, I feel like from anybody listening is that don't isolate yourself off from other people because you can learn so much. I've learned so much from being around people like Zach and Colin and Jacoby and Andrew Goldstein or Nick Long. It's like these people all have a different way that they go about things. And I have so much respect for it. And watching them succeed is so gratifying to me at least, because I'm like, man, these people actually have a relationship or a friendship with them. And to see them living their dream and succeeding is amazing. But also knowing that at one point I've learned from being in the room with one of these people, I've taken away so much value in just the relationship of being

Speaker 4 (53:29):

In the same room. Yeah, dude. I mean, Nick Long told me one day he goes, by the way, he's got one of the greatest baritone voices I've ever heard on a guy. And one time he looked at me and he goes, man, he's like, you got a really cool low voice. You should use that more. And literally the other day yesterday, Jacoby's like, I can't sing that. It's too low. And I'm like, lemme try it. And I sang the part and it fricking helped make the part, right? And I wouldn't have had that without Nick Long years ago. I wouldn't have known that. I wouldn't have even known that about myself. You got to have other people. He just pointed something out and from a guy I respect and I like his taste, and I was like, fuck, man. Okay, maybe. All right. That's a tool that I didn't know I had. And the opposite, by the way, of all this is being jaded.

Speaker 3 (54:18):

The

Speaker 4 (54:18):

Devil's advocate of here is so the attitude of you see all your friends succeeding and maybe some of 'em, I mean, Zach is fricking out of here. He is on another stratosphere. He is doing some incredible stuff. The jaded attitude of that would be, well, fuck, what about me? Fuck man, I'm not doing that. Fuck. Fuck that guy. I don't like what he does. You know what I mean? That's the attitude that's poisonous. When you see that shit, you got to just nip that shit in the bud immediately.

Speaker 1 (54:45):

I completely agree. I want to thank you guys for coming on. It's been fucking awesome talking to the three of you. I'm glad we got to do this. I know it was last minute and kind of a short episode, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and it was really cool. Thank you guys. 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 AAL 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 link today.