ARTHUR RIZK: Parallel Crapping, Using Shitty Gear, How to Approach Bands

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. And now your host,

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. My name is Eyal Levi. With me is Mr. Arthur Rizk as producer mixer out of Philadelphia. He's worked with bands such as Power Trip Code Orange Trapped Under Ice, and most recently on the Cavalier Conspiracy record Psychosis. He's also a guitar player for the band's Summerland. So welcome, how are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:00:55):

Hey Eyal, how are you doing brother? I'm chilling out here.

Speaker 2 (00:00:58):

Cool. Are you in Philly right now?

Speaker 3 (00:01:00):

Yep. I'm just hanging out taking the second half of my day to do this and probably jam out some guitar later too.

Speaker 2 (00:01:09):

Alright, so if it's the second half of your day and it's only 1:30 PM when did your day start?

Speaker 3 (00:01:17):

I get up around 7, 7 30 to do mixing and editing and I go to bed pretty late too. I don't sleep a lot. I think that's the case with most engineers and producers and mix people there. They don't sleep. I've heard some of the other interviews on your podcast. It seems to be a good ongoing theme.

Speaker 2 (00:01:39):

Yeah, I'm actually working really hard these days to normalize my sleep after an entire life of just insomnia and 36 hour days and stuff. It's not good for you.

Speaker 3 (00:01:53):

No,

Speaker 2 (00:01:53):

In the long run

Speaker 3 (00:01:55):

It's good for their career though.

Speaker 2 (00:01:57):

It is. I feel like at some point in time everyone who's successful and I think it's probably good and true in any career at some point in time, everyone who's been successful in some sort of entrepreneurial career has to put in a period of time where they sleep very little and they just grind most of the time and they give up social life and all that stuff. I

Speaker 3 (00:02:22):

Believe that, yeah, it's really the only way I went through that in my teens. The same thing with playing guitar where I didn't hang with anybody anywhere. I kind of just spent my whole life in my basement learning guitars, pretending I was in other bands and et cetera. So

Speaker 2 (00:02:41):

I mean better to do it at that point in time because I mean, I feel like nothing that you do in high school socially really matters.

Speaker 3 (00:02:52):

No, that's a truth

Speaker 2 (00:02:55):

And that's the time in your life when you have the energy to put in the hours on guitar. I mean, I'd say up until the age of 30, but it goes down and hey, guitar players that are over 30 who are listening to this who still practice more power to you. But I mean, I am sure everyone who's being honest can agree that when you're 15 through 23 or something you have sitting there for 12 hours a day is not that big of a deal.

Speaker 3 (00:03:26):

I'd say that's the sweet spot those years for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:03:30):

Yeah, you can always get laid later. Yeah, I mean it's true though.

Speaker 3 (00:03:39):

I've been over this crowd before in other interviews. I mean, I literally did not hang out with chicks. I did not, and if I had back then, I probably would've been so distracted, you know what I mean? I just didn't care. So it is definitely better to just play guitar than chase women around or dudes around whatever you just shred and then when you get a little bit older, then you figure it out.

Speaker 2 (00:04:09):

So. Alright. So you spent a lot of your formative years just playing guitar. How did that lead to recording?

Speaker 3 (00:04:18):

It was kind of the natural progression where you get tired of going to other people to record because I mean, if you have a vision in your mind, I had a vision for everything that I was doing and I was actually playing, I was doing a lot of weird experimental stuff around the time where I went from guitar to recording engineer, I was into a lot of noise and a lot of abrasive music underground shit and going into a studio to record just noise. I mean, I can understand why an engineer would be like, yo, what the fuck is this guy doing? But I've done that before. It gets a little bit disheartening to have someone not understand what you want to do. So whether it be that or any of the bands I was doing at the time, I just wanted to go and do it by myself and figure out how to do it all. So I took a class in community college and basically learned how to operate pro tools and how to mic stuff up and it is been experimentation ever since then. That was about 10 years ago.

Speaker 2 (00:05:44):

But did that give you enough of the basics to just move forward

Speaker 3 (00:05:49):

On your own? Yeah, it actually did that, just taking two semesters of audio classes at community college and then not doing so well at Temple University in my classes because I just really was not really down with college at that point. I graduated college with good grades, but when I was taking my audio courses, I was kind of just a little shit. I think I fell asleep in a couple of my audio classes and I had good teachers and stuff for the most part. But yeah, most of it just came from learning. Know what man, minor things. Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (00:06:32):

I was just going to say, I just think at some age some people are just not ready to sit in a classroom.

Speaker 3 (00:06:36):

Yeah, I definitely was. Not for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:06:40):

Yeah, man, when I was 19 or 20 and I was going to Berkeley, I fucking hated going to class so much. I had no problem sitting in my room and working on music, but going to class was like, I would rather get fucking waterboarded.

Speaker 3 (00:06:57):

The irony is I miss college now is such a carefree time because I was occupied with something and somehow it's okay to just do whatever you want when you're in college. It's a good time to be creative and shit. But back then I just didn't care about being in class. I just wanted to get as little knowledge as possible that I needed to do what I wanted to do. And then that changed little by little. The more serious I began to take it, the more that I would learn outside of school. I bought all the books that I was supposed to buy in college pretty much afterwards and studied them after I had made a couple records. Supposed to be the other way around.

Speaker 2 (00:07:49):

Well you know what though, I think that in some ways when you read those books before actually working on audio much, it can be really overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (00:08:01):

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (00:08:02):

What the fuck is all this technical garbage?

Speaker 3 (00:08:07):

Especially if this is so boring, a DD or something like that. You're just like, how can I get this knowledge quicker? What can I do? How can I shoot a needle of knowledge directly into my brain of this stuff? So I mean, I didn't care. I knew gain structure. I knew EQing I enough to mix a record without really making it very, without it sounding shitty. That's about all that I knew that the rest of the stuff I started to

Speaker 2 (00:08:42):

Pick up, you read the books, when you read the books later, were they easier to

Speaker 3 (00:08:50):

Take

Speaker 2 (00:08:50):

Down?

Speaker 3 (00:08:50):

They were like, and it's kind of, I don't know what that says for me, but this is stuff I should have known in college when I was looking at it five or six years after I got out of college, I was like, oh shit. Yeah, that's what that connection is right there. And then instantly my recordings improved objectively. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:09:15):

But do you think that you would've really understood if understood how to use that knowledge if you had just

Speaker 3 (00:09:22):

No

Speaker 2 (00:09:22):

Paid attention right out the gate? Say that you worked on audio less and you studied more. Do you think that you would've been able to put that info to good use?

Speaker 3 (00:09:33):

Maybe, but I don't think it's situational. For me, I didn't really understand everything. It was too much. If I had understood it and I had worked hard, maybe I wouldn't have put as much time into being creative. It's like the thing where people who go to art school, they won't take a job that requires a lot of concentration. They get jobs working at the grocery store with making cakes or whatever because they want to take all of their actual thinking power on being creative. So I think that going to college, I did learn stuff, but had I actually studied, maybe I wouldn't have been as creative in my recordings. And I think that that's what's been setting my stuff apart from other people's stuff is the just the actual of not being afraid to experiment more or less knowing what technical results could happen from doing something that isn't technically correct.

Speaker 2 (00:10:44):

I imagine that that helps you stand out in a place like Philly because there really are a lot of musicians and producers out

Speaker 3 (00:10:51):

There. Oh yeah. And great ones too, will Yip. Who I don't know if you know who Will Yip is he did some title fight and tons of crazy shit. He was a semester ahead of me at Temple and he's always been a great friend of mine and has helped me out a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:11:09):

Well hey Will, if you're listening, you should come on the podcast. He was going to, but it didn't work out.

Speaker 3 (00:11:15):

Yeah, go out. I'll talk him into it. If this works out good. If you don't torture me too much, know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (00:11:22):

I mean no torture. Yeah. Alright, so go on about Philly though. So you've got Will Yip and talk about standing out in a scene like that. I think especially for dudes who are like, how do I stand out in my scene? I don't get it.

Speaker 3 (00:11:37):

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I learned a lot from Will. He gets amazing sounds in an amazing studio and I have, don't have the same type of situation as a lot of the other dudes who are producing in Philly and mixing. They have a lot of high end studios, higher end gear, and what I learned is that just you don't need all of it. You need some of it where it matters and then the rest of it's just about not being afraid to experiment, not being afraid to throw your own ideas out there if you're a producer. Just not be afraid to suggest something that everyone might fucking really hate. Be like, there's a lot of that and not being afraid to just do, use shitty gear if you need it.

(00:12:45):

I have so much go-to random bullshit that I bought at Music Around, which is a used music store that people just sell their ancient digital rack gear to. And you could pick up digital rack stuff for 15, 20 bucks for old stuff that I just will randomly pick up and use on anything mean. And this is, I'm kind of ranting on about the question, but I think I'm starting to get to what I'm trying to tell you is that I've used a lot of demoing techniques when I'm making my own music and I'm writing demos for my band. Summer ones, I'll do anything and just try pretty much anything that there is to try no matter how stupid the idea is. For example, taping mics to a ceiling near a bass trap or taping mics to the wall, just stupid shit running mics through guitar pedals, just doing everything in the demoing process, throwing shit to the wall, seeing what sticks. If there's a good idea to be found in a demoing process and there's no reason why we can't add it, apply it to doing a band, I don't know, power trip for example, or piss jeans or one of the other things that I've done.

Speaker 2 (00:14:26):

So with those types of ideas in the experimentation, is it off the cuff or do you have a list of things you'd like to try?

Speaker 3 (00:14:36):

It's usually just a bit of both. Like I said, some of the stuff I do when I'm demoing Summerland, shit just doesn't sound good at all and I'll never use it. But if something worked, I'll often bring it into a session and be like, Hey, I did this on this demo and it actually sounded cool. Do you want to try it out? But sometimes you're just sitting there and you see something and you're like, oh, we should throw headphones into these roto tos and run it through this delay processor and return it here or use a cassette three head cassette deck and use it for delay or it just depends on what the situation calls for. But I think all of that experimenting that I do in those sessions is what sets most of my recordings apart from other people's.

Speaker 2 (00:15:39):

So is it safe to say that if someone comes to record with you, they're going to probably be experiencing some techniques that they would never

Speaker 3 (00:15:50):

Pretty

Speaker 2 (00:15:50):

Much never use anywhere else?

Speaker 3 (00:15:52):

Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I like throwing, using a combo amp ball on the base instead of micing a giant fridge sometimes and just stupid little things that people are like, wait a second, I want my base to sound giant. How are we supposed to get out of a 10 inch speaker, eight inch speaker combo amp? It's like, well, it's the same thing as micing, a giant fridge. You just got to figure out where to put the mics and it's all about air and stuff like that. For example.

Speaker 2 (00:16:33):

Can you give me some examples of some of the shitty gear you've picked up that has actually turned out to be really good?

Speaker 3 (00:16:42):

I have an a RT reverb unit that I use. There you go. It's fun to overdrive the inputs of old digital reverb units and then EQ 'em later, print them and EQ 'em later and just any, that's one example. I have digi tech guitar pedals, one of the first guitar pedal multi effector pedal that I have that I've used on just dumb shit everywhere. I've run it through room mics on drums and have some kind of flange going or some kind of phaser going and just bury that deep in a mix somewhere where it pops in and out.

Speaker 2 (00:17:32):

So how would you pipe it into the room? Explain that chain if you're getting it on room mics, how are you getting it in the room?

Speaker 3 (00:17:40):

Basically I would put it on basically parallel. I would run the room mics into a mixer and then run the mixer out directly into a different pre for dry and then another pre that's just the flange or whatever the pedal is and kind of use it as parallel compression type, like a parallel whatever. That's actually the big underlying theme of my recordings has been parallel, just parallel everything. Somebody on online called it parallel crapping, which I think is a pretty good term,

Speaker 2 (00:18:27):

Parallel crap. That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:18:29):

Yeah, like running something like room mics into a shitty delay pedal or a reverb flanger or whatever, getting a crazy sound, compressing the shit out of it and then just bringing it in into the mix. I've done it before where I've just committed it all into one room track that's just room mics with a phaser on it and then cut out all the high end out of the eq. All of a sudden all the low end is kind of moving around in the room. It's just weird stuff that if you have digital a do you have an interface, you basically have infinite possibilities with this stuff. I'm not saying that you should all run through your room mics through phasers would probably have pretty stupid results overall, but there are ways to just fuck with things to make 'em breathe and not really point stuff out.

Speaker 2 (00:19:33):

Have you ever had experiences where you suggest trying a technique or you just go do it and the musician's like, what the fuck are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:19:44):

You know what? I can imagine that happening in the future. In the past, people have always kind of just known what they're getting into when they're recording with me. I like to talk to people that if I'm producing somebody, it's different than mixing or mastering or anything like that. If I'm producing and recording and doing the whole thing, I'm talking to people for weeks in advance about everything. They know that I'm fucking weird already. They already know. So they just expect stuff like that. Usually the number one thing is the bass guitar. People usually want to have it cranking through giant cabs. I think a lot of the other weird stuff I do, I kind of just do it on my own for my own results and make sure to cover my ass if the idea is too crazy by having parallel outputs of a dry signal smart. But I do like to work fast also and commit a lot of stuff. So if it doesn't work in the first quarter, I probably will just chalk it up as a loss.

Speaker 2 (00:21:00):

Fair enough. Makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:21:02):

So

Speaker 2 (00:21:03):

Let's go back to guitar. How do you think that being a guitar player, and obviously based on what you said, being a committed guitar player at least for one point in your

Speaker 1 (00:21:14):

Life,

Speaker 2 (00:21:15):

How does that affect your productions? Do you find yourself being super guitar centric or you feel like it doesn't affect it? I'll

Speaker 3 (00:21:21):

Tell you how it affects it. Fuck drums, fuck vocals, fuck bass, fuck everything except for guitar, that's all. So you just press solo? Yeah, no, I do, honestly, I love guitar and people tend to compress the shit out of guitars and bury 'em in a mix or just make them super, super super in your face. And I just don't feel like I like guitar to be in the front, but not in your face. So I do, when I mix, I always try and mix exactly how I hear it. I mix the record exactly how I hear it, and then I'll bring the guitar down, I decibel and the vocals up I decibel every single time.

Speaker 2 (00:22:07):

Does that have anything to do with the fact that guitars usually come up in mastering?

Speaker 3 (00:22:11):

Yeah, that's one thing, but I think I always notice that I try to keep stuff under control enough to the point where it won't blast off during mastering because I'm not squashing the guitar signal. But like I said, the parallel happening thing to always helps with a guitar to keep it from really taking over and mastering, just keeping one thing of it, one mic or something squashed and keeping it in phase and just keeping the other mic to breathing and queuing. It takes a lot of work is the problem is that there are different parts of different songs you find that you have to do volume, automation, EQing automation, et cetera. But as I said, with digital, you pretty much do anything you want if you have the time, if you're willing to put in the effort.

Speaker 2 (00:23:16):

So can you talk about how you go about dialing in a guitar tone?

Speaker 3 (00:23:20):

Yeah, usually it'll start with just basically listening to the amp, picking out the amp that goes with the album or song or whatever, picking out an amp, picking out a guitar, playing it, listening to it, the obvious stuff. And then I'll usually go put, throw on two mics, a dynamic in a condenser usually or some type of combination. We'll listen to the tone until I think it sounds, we'll just record something once it's in phase. Once we have the tone we want, we have the mics in phase, we'll listen to what we have. And then I like to go with pedals instead of EQing on the board or compressing on the board or anything. I like to start with using guitar pedals because I'm such a guitar dweeb that I like to think that we can get the tone by ourselves without going to the process of EQing everything on the board and compressing everything on the board. So just try and get as close as I can with a 10 band EQ and a guitar compressor, whatever. I like to get that tone. And then we will go to listen, print something, see how we feel about that, and then go from there. Usually just maybe a little bit like light compression and queuing and that's it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:53):

What are some of your favorite guitar pedals?

Speaker 3 (00:24:56):

I have a lot of pedals. Any chance I have, I'll buy 'em. If they're cheap, I'll buy 'em. I don't have a lot of the classic expensive stuff. I don't have a clon crazy shit, but I'll always go for heavy metal tones and heavy stuff. Once I have the amp dialed in, I like to mess with old boss pedals, like a super overdrive is one of my favorite over drives, old tube screamers or amazing. You've heard all this stuff before for a chorus. Might be my favorite guitar pedal. That chorus is one of my favorite effects. I have the new boss Wza Craft pedal of the chorus that basically is the three classic boss pedals put into one. Oh, well Terry Tank.

Speaker 2 (00:25:57):

You can't beat those. No, you really can't

Speaker 3 (00:25:58):

Beat those. They're fucking amazing. So I use that a lot all the time. Those are pretty much my go-tos. I got old boss DD five. I have a Moog Mini Mini Fuer delay that I like because it adds gain to the delay. You can add gain to the delay. That's cool. That's pretty much it. Oh, I have some pedals that people have been sending me and out of all the bunch that I've gotten, there's a damnation audio makes a sick distortion pedal and idiot box effects sent me some stuff that I really liked. There's a fuzz pedal called Horrors, which I think is a band. They have a fuzz pedal that's really sick. So I've been using those Idiot box.

Speaker 2 (00:26:50):

So the Horror Pedal by Idiot Box. I like

Speaker 3 (00:26:53):

Those names. I mean, they're just guys like me who fucking love music and guitar and shit. And they have their companies, they're not giant companies, but they send me stuff they know I'm a freak and they're into the bands and stuff. So I'll add to that. I love trying out random shit with guitar with when it comes to guitar stuff, I'll mess around with that stuff on five different amps, directing all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:27:26):

That brings up a question that I get asked a lot, which is how did you go about getting gear sent to you? How did that, A lot of guys are like, how do I get an endorsement? How do I get gear? And what did you do to get yourself in a position where people send you stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:27:48):

I'm also a front of house audio. I tour with a lot of the bands that I record and do their live sound. So I tend to meet people a lot just at shows. And if somebody is coming to somebody's endorsing a band that I'm with and I check them out and I see that they have something that's cool, I'll usually just hit 'em up and be honest and say, listen, I just want to try something out. I really like your company and I'll pay you for something. There's all this stuff that try out and I'll, I'll just, I'll buy something. That's usually what if you buy something, you ask to try out a couple pedals and you buy something and they trust you, then people will send you shit and then it's priceless. And then you probably end up buying stuff anyway that you weren't planning on buying. But I've gone a lot of free pedals that way where people will just be like, well just keep it and try something else out.

Speaker 2 (00:28:57):

So basically be a valuable person.

Speaker 3 (00:28:59):

Yeah, I mean you got to think about it people, and I hear a lot of this talk now about endorsements when I'm going to these metal festivals and stuff and people are hamming it up backstage talking about I'm endorsed by this, endorsed by that people think that you just should get tons of free shit because of where you are in your life. But I think that a valuable relationship is one where you also give something too. Be like, listen, I'm not just some guy who's going to take pedals or take mics off of you and then pawn it in a couple years. I want to use this shit. I want to be inspired by this shit. I'm not inspired by what I have right now and offer some money, don't be greedy.

Speaker 2 (00:29:52):

That's great advice. And that's similar to what I tell people, which is look at it from the company's perspective. They're trying to get their name out so that people buy their products. What are you going to do to help with that? What are you going by them giving you a piece of gear that they spent money on they had to create that is valuable to them. It's their livelihood. What can you do for them that will make them want to give it to you?

Speaker 3 (00:30:26):

Exactly. So that's always, and that's the same thing also for getting work. You can say the same thing. You should always, I mean, for years I've volunteered myself to people that I thought could give me something. And a lot of times my judgment was spot on where I would be like, okay, well I'm going to do a free, I'm going to do sound for this band, and then they will, maybe I could slip in that I'm also a recording engineer and that they should bring your band to my studio or et cetera. So I mean that's how I've gotten a lot of my work too.

Speaker 2 (00:31:12):

I'm sure that it's not a 100% success rate, but sounds like, I mean, and I guess I'm just saying that because I would think that it needs to be said that when you do things of value for other people, you shouldn't do it expecting something in return because you're not always going to get something in return.

Speaker 1 (00:31:34):

And

Speaker 2 (00:31:34):

People can sense it if you're not being genuine anyways and people can just sniff that out. And there's nothing more unappealing in a networking situation besides getting punished like crazy. Besides that, there's nothing more unappealing than somewhat feeling like you're getting used by somebody.

Speaker 3 (00:31:53):

Yeah, well it's definitely an issue, but I definitely just think that if you have some confidence that you can give somebody what they need, that it'll work out more or less.

Speaker 2 (00:32:13):

So do you have any tips for the social skills necessary to properly network with artists or gear reps or any of these people? It sounds like a lot of people, obviously if you tour people enjoy being around you enough to let you in their vehicle for a month at a time. Were you naturally always just

Speaker 3 (00:32:38):

No, I think you chill or did you

Speaker 2 (00:32:40):

Have to work on it?

Speaker 3 (00:32:44):

When I was younger, I've toured with bands that definitely pointed out because when I was younger I was much more, I don't know what the word is. I definitely, definitely wouldn't say that I was a punisher, but when I was younger, it took for me touring with people that pointed out that I was doing things that were kind of annoying to artists or in those social situations. Basically people pointed things out to me to the point where I was like, oh man, I've been doing, for example, point things about me or other people. For example, somebody going into a dressing room and eating all of the food. Oh man, that's not something I did, but there was a guy,

Speaker 2 (00:33:36):

What a big, big no-no

Speaker 3 (00:33:37):

Right there. Yeah, basically just going in there, taking food and putting them in their bag. That's something that a lot of people just don't think about when you're meeting with somebody. Like, oh, there's all this free shit. I've never seen free shit before. It's like that is a big, big no-no. And just stuff like that. But I guess I'm getting off track here. We're talking about networking. I think that being cool, something that you can learn, not saying, oh wow, look, Arthur's cool. He's like a fucking cool dude. I mean being cool as in literally chilling the fuck out. And when you're meeting somebody important, listen. So who can give you something? Listen to what they have to say and don't enter. Don't be annoying. Don't try and take pictures with people. Don't ask for stuff. Just give what you truly feel you have to offer to this person in the most impactful and the least amount of time. You know what I'm saying? And treat them like a normal human being. Exactly. Because if there's one thing that gets annoying to people is just, I've always loved your band. I'm like the number one fan fucking you changed my fucking life. That's somebody that you don't want to hang out with in a studio for six months.

Speaker 2 (00:35:17):

Well, no. And also the thing about that kind of stuff is that while it's flattering at the same time, once you're in that category for somebody, they don't really see you like a person. They see you more like a concept. And there's a big difference there in how you're going to get treated when you're just an ideal or an idea versus a flesh and blood human being that takes a shit and gets annoyed or is tired.

Speaker 3 (00:35:44):

And here's the thing to all those listening, if you get the gig with somebody that you, for example, I'm a giant Sura fan and a Max Cavalier fan all around. I'm a giant fan of the Cavalier Brothers and I just got to record their new lp,

Speaker 2 (00:36:08):

Which was just so

Speaker 3 (00:36:09):

Badass by the way. Yeah. Do you know how hard it was for me the first time I met Max Cavalier to not just be like, I fucking owe everything to you. I love you, man. You're the best. Your bands fucking changed my life. I stole all your ideas for production. I idolize you. It's like I held back and I only put four strings on my guitar of you. That's also crazy to me. I had to ask him, I said, dude, you've been doing that forever. And he's like, yeah, since the early eighties. I was like, nah, dude, I've seen DVDs. And then we went back and we looked and I was like, yeah, I guess you really literally have always used four strings and he doesn't need the other ones. So I mean it is what it's, but anyway, fair enough. Get into that.

(00:37:01):

I wanted to tell him all that stuff so badly, but instead I kept that shit to myself. And then maybe a year later I was in the studio with him. We had just gotten through half or almost all the tracking done and I was able to tell him all that shit and thank him properly. And I got to say to him as an equal, not as a fucking weird fan, that just was a passing moment in time. We got to actually make fucking art together. You know what I'm saying? So when you meet somebody like that and you really want to work with 'em and you really want to network with them, just literally don't talk about yourself. Just be the coolest person you could be. Go with the flow and if it doesn't work out that you don't think it's going to work out, that's it. You don't have to express all your feelings or whatever. If you get that chance down the line in the studio, it's way more meaningful. It's way more of a meaningful conversation.

Speaker 2 (00:38:12):

Well, because at that point too, they view you like you said, like an equal. So they're probably open to being receptive.

Speaker 3 (00:38:20):

Exactly. And Max knows that I'm a giant fan. He knew that and he knows it now too, so he knows. In the same way with just a bunch of bands that I've recorded, I try and work with bands that I actually really love. And that's another hint that I would give out to anyone listening to this. Just hit up bands that you like that aren't like giant and already taken care of by some talent booking or management or something. Fine bands who don't have management that you want to record and just hit 'em up and see what happens. Just say, try and make a link with them. I've done that with a lot of bands. And

Speaker 2 (00:39:11):

Tell me a little bit about your process for doing that, actual steps you've taken.

Speaker 3 (00:39:17):

I'm trying to think of a specific example of a time that I've done that. Let me think. Let me look. Well, there's a black metal band from Peru that I did that with. Essentially what had happened was they had posted on their Facebook that they had demos for their new lp, and I just sent them an email, was like, Hey, I'm a producer in the United States. I've done this, this, and this when I still had nothing really going on. I sent them, I think I did the first power trip record at that time in 2013, and I just sent them that and said, I know what I'm doing more or less. I love you guys. I like to offer you my services because I think I get what we could do, what we could do or whatever. And they contacted me back pretty much two months later and were like, we really liked the sound of your

Speaker 2 (00:40:35):

Work. So you didn't hit them up every 12 hours?

Speaker 3 (00:40:39):

No. To

Speaker 2 (00:40:40):

See if they had gotten the

Speaker 3 (00:40:41):

Message. Exactly. That's the other thing. You just wait and you wait and then you're like, all right, well they're never going to contact me. So that's the end of that. But you tried at least, and then they got back to me and they were like, we really like what you did here, so how much do you cost us? And that's when you take a cut because you're doing something you believe in and then you build yourself up to the point where you can actually, you've worked in your own network of bands that you like as opposed to just taking work from the local bands and probably making more money than someone like I do. But you work on stuff that you like and you're able to out output more meaningful shit.

Speaker 2 (00:41:30):

The money comes eventually, in my experience.

Speaker 3 (00:41:33):

It takes a long time, but it's coming. If you can live and pay your bills and just kind of suffer, the happiness manifests itself.

Speaker 2 (00:41:48):

Yeah, exactly. There's this idea that I learned from the CEO of Creative Live, a dude named Chase Jarvis, which is that the kind of work that you put out there is the kind of work you're going to get more of. So if you're a black metal dude, but for some reason you get a bunch of church bands coming to you, you're probably not going to get lots of blackmail bands.

Speaker 3 (00:42:13):

No.

Speaker 2 (00:42:14):

And if what you want to do is you want to make a living doing extreme music, then you need to record extreme bands and do whatever you can to record extreme bands and then get good enough to wear eventually the ones that have budgets will come to you, but you're not going to get to work with those bands if you're making country records for Latino pop or indie music, it's just not going to happen. So the kind of work you put out there is the kind of work you're going to get more of. So if you focus on working with bands that you like really going for it and finding them rather than,

Speaker 3 (00:42:52):

And like I said before, I just have to mention, it's important that when you're doing this that the band doesn't have management because you'll, you'll be wasting your time to hit up a band with a manager trying to solicit stuff. People usually only pay attention to that stuff if they're reading their own Facebook messages and they somehow strike a connection with a certain message. I get fan mail all the time and I respond to it, but there's only a certain percentage of fan mail that I get that I actually connect with and that I remember the people that are in those messages. So if you can manage to make a connection with somebody, that's how it works. I mean, for example, power Trip was a band when I hit them up, they were on a hardcore compilation called America's Hardcore, and I had recorded a title fight song back then for the compilation in my old house because I don't think Title Fight had recorded with Will yet.

(00:44:09):

To that point, they were recording in Wilkes Bear. So they were on a comp with Power trip, and I heard, and I got the comp in the mail and I just decided, oh, I'm going to listen to this whole comp and see what all the bands are like, see how my recording sounds compared to the other ones. And it got to Power Trip. And I was like, holy fuck man, this is fucking insane shit. This is actually good. A lot of the hardcore bands back then were just kind of bullshit as far as copying crossover stuff. All the crossover hardcore stuff was just kind of bullshit. And then I heard that Power trip song and it sounded like an actual fucking thrash song. So I contacted Riley, I'd known him, I just met him at a show in Texas at a fest in Texas, and I hit him up, I got his number from somebody.

(00:45:08):

I just said, dude, guys, can I record something for you guys? Can I mix something? And I showed them my Band War Hungry that will actually record it, and I produced Will Yip, sorry. I showed them that and they were like, oh, this is awesome. Let's do something. And then that's how I ended up doing stuff with Power Trip was just because they didn't have a manager at the time. They didn't have anybody. They had a connection with me and that's how it worked out. So I've done everything that they've recorded up until that. I've done all that stuff, all their shit.

Speaker 2 (00:45:45):

Can you just elaborate really quickly on why I think you said to avoid managers? In my opinion, it's because if a band has a manager, the manager is going to try to get them with someone popular. And we're speaking to you as if you have no clients and you're trying to get clients. So you're not going to be on any manager's radar. Exactly. And the manager's probably going to get, they're going to try to go for Will Putney's assistant or something over you any day.

Speaker 3 (00:46:14):

The managers also have people that they're managing that they're like, yo, use my guy Jimmy, or use my guy Joel. They're fucking great. So I mean, they always try and put their nose into the band's artistic elements or whatever. So with that, it's much easier to just hit up people who aren't being guided through. And

Speaker 2 (00:46:42):

I think there's a third reason in my opinion. Go

Speaker 3 (00:46:44):

Ahead.

Speaker 2 (00:46:45):

Third reason is that when, I mean, like you said, don't be contacting huge bands. You got to contact bands that are somewhat realistic

Speaker 3 (00:46:56):

And that you believe that you could help them and you believe that you can do something for them. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:47:04):

So they can't be big. They got to be pretty much at the beginning of their career too,

Speaker 3 (00:47:09):

More or less.

Speaker 2 (00:47:09):

And so in that case, more or less, so in that case, bands that generally don't need managers, and if they do have a manager, then you can count on the relationship with them and the workflow and the process being way more convoluted than it needs to

Speaker 1 (00:47:25):

Be

Speaker 2 (00:47:26):

In most cases because they're already adding layers of paperwork and bullshit that a band their size doesn't need.

Speaker 3 (00:47:34):

Exactly

Speaker 2 (00:47:35):

Yet. Generally not always, but generally.

Speaker 3 (00:47:37):

Exactly. So I mean, yeah, just also if you're trying to produce a band, they're trying to mix a band, you really got to, if you're going to give it your volunteer, your time to do that, then you basically have to work on something that you love. Otherwise you're fucking yourself over. You're volunteering your time to, it's volunteering your time to, I don't know, just do something you like. Do something you don't like. Yeah. At a loss for metaphors today.

Speaker 2 (00:48:11):

Well though I do think that there is some merit for being able to take on multiple different kinds of sessions. But I mean if you're, one thing is if you develop a reputation and people come to you and you got to keep the lights on, another thing is when you're actively trying to carve out your own niche and your own space in the world, why go for stuff you don't like? You won't be passionate about it and you won't sacrifice, you won't put in the sacrifice needed to turn it into something.

Speaker 3 (00:48:45):

Yeah, exactly. And you can't really get behind it either. Someone comes up to you and says, oh, you're fucking, you're recording Summerland record. And I'm like, well, yeah, but they fucking suck and I'm sick of it and I hate recording and I want to kill everybody. But you have to be behind what you want to be like, oh yeah, it's fucking going great. They rule this rules. It just makes you have a hunger. And that hunger naturally manifests itself into good work if you put the time in and the effort. And then like I said, like you said, the money comes eventually as long as you stick to your guns or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:49:36):

And I mean, just to touch on the sacrifice thing a little more, if you have that feeling of I hate this band, they suck. Why am I doing this? You're not going to be willing to stay the extra nights or be single or Miss Thanksgiving. All the things that successful people have had to do along the way, miss that wedding or not sleep for two weeks, all that shit, you're not going, if it's like, fuck, I hate this band. I am just going to end early and enjoy my night. Or I'm going to that wedding,

Speaker 3 (00:50:12):

Fuck this band. Being in his studio is the ultimate suck, the ultimate sacrifice for day. Many times you don't have the privilege of being able to end this session early or end the session at under 10 hours or something. It's like you really don't know when you're fucking leaving. There's other people who are asking you, when are you leaving? When are you going to be here? It's just like you don't know. And in order you have to to really believe in what you're doing in order to be able to be there and be successful. So I mean, I guess the overall point that I'm trying to give you going way back is just really, really try and work on stuff that you can make a connection with essentially.

Speaker 2 (00:51:02):

And that's what, or that sounds like that's fueled you this whole time.

Speaker 3 (00:51:07):

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (00:51:09):

And I mean, you've come a long way very, very fast. I mean, I know you've been at it for a decade or more, but for instance, you just said that in 2013 you were still at the relative beginning of

Speaker 3 (00:51:23):

Your

Speaker 2 (00:51:23):

Recording career.

Speaker 3 (00:51:28):

I would officially say that my recording career began in 2012, 2013. Even though I was tracking friends bands for a few years before that, maybe five years before that I'd been tracking friends bands and doing stuff. It wasn't until 2012 that I was just like, alright, if I'm going to do this, I got to be fucking great. Otherwise I need to go work at my parents' sandwich shop. So it's one or the other

Speaker 2 (00:52:01):

Because it nothing wrong with sandwiches.

Speaker 3 (00:52:02):

No, I love sandwiches and I love my parents' shop too, so I still help them out too. And it's funny because I get random people who recognize me there and be like, oh dude, you're just in LA with power trip accepting an award and now you're slinging shawarma. It's fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:52:27):

Yeah, but I mean, it's not like you're working at some random fast food places, the family business.

Speaker 3 (00:52:32):

No, I love helping my parents out. It's also good for decompressing away from fucking music because I actually love music. I'm a music freak, and if it was up to me, I'd be jamming shit 24 hours a day. But sometimes you have to take a break from it and helping out, helping them out or doing whatever is my way of still feeling like I'm doing something. But it doesn't have to be evolving music. Also, I listen to Howard Stern four hours a day too. Dude,

Speaker 2 (00:53:07):

I love Howard

Speaker 3 (00:53:07):

Stern. Yeah, same here. Hit him with the hind.

Speaker 2 (00:53:10):

He's one of the greatest interviewers of all time. And yeah, he is. And I've learned so much. I don't know what else to say. He's just great.

Speaker 3 (00:53:19):

Well, I've learned so much shit from his interviews with celebrities and I mean, he's done producers. He just interviewed Jimmy Iovine who did,

Speaker 2 (00:53:34):

Oh, that was an incredible interview. If anyone listening, if you have HBO first, go listen to the Howard Stern interview with Jimmy Iovine and then go watch the Defiant Ones, which is what the interview is about.

Speaker 3 (00:53:48):

And that whole interview kind of covered. I haven't watched the show yet, but the whole interview kind of covers a lot of the stuff that was on the show. But stuff like the fact that he was banging Stevie Nicks in the basement and hiding her because Tom Petty was upstairs and recording a record upstairs, and he didn't want Tom Petty to know that he was dating Stevie Nicks and recording her record at the same time he was recording Tom Petty's records. Just stuff that is insane to me. But

Speaker 2 (00:54:21):

What was so funny about that story, first of all, I was driving to the convenience store to pick up a Red Bull and a blunt wrap, and I heard that the convenience store is two blocks away. And I was hearing this and I was like, man, I don't want to drive back home. I just want to listen. I drove around town for two fucking hours and then when I got home Classic. Yeah, I walked in and I was like, to my girlfriend, I was just like, Hey, we're watching The Defiant Ones now, so stop what you're doing. And then we watched the whole thing. But that story especially I thought was so awesome,

Speaker 3 (00:55:00):

Dude, it's

Speaker 2 (00:55:01):

Crazy. It's so relevant now because now even you have to play those same politics. You can't tell a band that you're working on another band

Speaker 3 (00:55:11):

At the same time.

Speaker 2 (00:55:12):

Yeah, I've seen that shit go real bad for people working with small death metal bands and stuff. And it was just cool to hear that it goes all the way

Speaker 3 (00:55:23):

Up

Speaker 2 (00:55:23):

To Tom Petty and Stevie Ns.

Speaker 3 (00:55:25):

Yeah, Tom Petty's actually bummed out by that thing. It's kind of like, whoa, that's kind of crazy. But it's definitely something that you can learn from and take a fact that you never really know how people feel about stuff and that you should always take those things into consideration. But I thought that was awesome. I was like, this guy's the fucking man. He's done so much. He's done so much crazy shit. People who produced in the seventies and the eighties are among my heroes of producers because I feel like those are the best recordings that were ever made, especially Fleetwood Mac and was one of the bands that completely inspired me to be a producer, because when I finally started to notice production in music wasn't until I was in college, maybe, or not college, probably like I was 19 years old, and I know that record Rumors was one of the records that kind of made me realize that there's so much thought that goes into making records move in a mix. It's not just like that. And Queen Too, obviously with the panning and 28 million layers of vocals and all that stuff. So I think the guys in the semi, so Reinhold Mac produced some of the Queen stuff that I really like, and

Speaker 2 (00:57:00):

Those recordings are mind blowing, and I view those people as the true pioneers, and I definitely do feel like people are pushing the art of recording forward now, still to this day, of course, recordings sound amazing now, and there's geniuses working on

Speaker 3 (00:57:19):

It,

Speaker 2 (00:57:19):

But we're talking about exploring the Wild West or something. Those people in the sixties and seventies were the pioneers of this stuff. And I mean, to hear about Jimmy Iovine working with John Lennon

Speaker 3 (00:57:33):

Or

Speaker 2 (00:57:34):

Something, a dude who now in our day and age is selling headphones to Apple and affecting our popular culture, hearing him talk about being a kid and working with John Lennon, and then his biggest advice was be of service, which is the same thing that we tell everybody who's trying to get an internship job and recording. It's like, wow, this stuff doesn't change. It's the same no matter what level you're at.

Speaker 3 (00:58:02):

Yeah. Well, I believe that completely be of service actually would probably be what I would say too. I mean, it's just do something fucking worthwhile. So that's something that I do to decompress is also, I'll jam Howard Stern a lot. I'll listen to four hours a day or collectively 12 hours a week across the week or whatever. But yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:58:31):

That's a lot of Howard Stern.

Speaker 3 (00:58:33):

Yeah. Well, it's my way of keeping up with what's going on with the outside too. You got to have some kind of popular culture input.

Speaker 2 (00:58:45):

Do you do anything while you're listening run, or is it just

Speaker 3 (00:58:49):

Fill

Speaker 2 (00:58:49):

In a

Speaker 3 (00:58:49):

Dark either driving or doing some? I mean, I do all kinds of, sometimes if I'm editing something and I don't need to listen all the time, I'll have it on in the background, then I'll stop what I'm doing if I take a break, if I'm listening to a segment that I want to pay attention to or whatever. So I do a lot of multitasking or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:59:17):

So I think it's fascinating that this whole episode you've been talking about basically doing things you love, going for bands, you love sticking to your passions, following through on your ideas. And I think there's a myth out there that when you do those things, you don't need to take breaks or you won't feel run down or run out of creativity. But even so, I think it's important for people to realize that no matter what you're doing, creativity and motivation are a finite resource and you need to regenerate

Speaker 3 (00:59:51):

Them. Yeah, decompressing is key. Even if it's not for a long time, you should definitely always find something, some way to decompress. I mean, I have friends that ask me, dude, what do you do when you're not working? Do you do anything? And I have no, I don't really have an answer for them. Howard Stern is usually my answer, but then it's like, I don't know, stare at the wall or just, I can't remember the last time that I've had a true day off. I think I was, when I went to California a couple weeks ago for the Loud Wire Awards with Power Trip, they flew me out to accept an award with them, and I still ended up working. I was still doing sound for them at the awards, but it's just like be of service. Jimmy says, why not? If you're having fun, you don't really need to have hobbies. If you're not having fun, then just need to find a new line of work probably, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):

Well, I think, and also it's, I think with taking breaks, it's not that you have to take a break from being active or a break from working or anything like that. It's more that no one can be creative at all times. That's the thing that people need to take breaks from.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):

You could fall into psychological traps or whatever, black holes by trying to do that shit all the fucking time. But I would say the other thing, you were talking about advice. I don't know if people haven't fallen asleep listening to me yet. I would say that the other big piece of advice I could have is that it sounds stupid, but just work hard because you can attain all these things that you want to do by working hard. When I was starting to do recording, I also had to do a job doing front of house at a venue to make enough money to live and be able to do the recording stuff and pay bills. And I was doing it while I was going to college, and I was doing touring and just working at a record store and just doing all kinds of bullshit that kept me in music, but not enough money to keep doing music stuff. And it kind of all feeds itself, like surround yourself with musical work. I mean, people do that in Hollywood all the time. They get jobs on movie lots or something like that, and then you just work your way into something. I dunno.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):

I mean, I agree. When my career was first starting, my goal was to get my band signed to Roadrunner

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):

Hell,

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):

And I started, it worked, and I wanted

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):

What up, Dave Wrath to

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):

Also, yeah, Dave Wrath. And back then Monte Connor, when I was starting out the career, I wanted to get the band signed, but obviously that's not a job, and I had to find a way to make money. So I started doing the studio thing and the studio thing fed the band, and the band fed the studio bands band that I would record and the studio would then let my band go on weekend tours with them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):

That's the way

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):

To do it. By doing that. Yeah, by we'd meet bands that would then convince them to come to the studio, and one thing led to another, and eventually through all that for a few years, I got to Roadrunner. But if I had taken a job in another field to support my band, who the hell knows what would've happened? It was symbiotic.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):

If you work at fucking Jimmy John's, you're not going to run into potential clients every day. You might run into one potential client in six years. You know what I mean? So that's definitely it. And then also, just to revert back to what we were talking to talking about before, while you're doing this and the whole cycle is feeding each other, it's important to be cool at all times, like we were talking about before, because if you're cool in the studio and you go on tour with a band that you're recording and they know you're cool, they will tell every other band, yo Arthur's Cool or El Iss cool. It is all about just getting an endorsement from somebody else. People tend to just listen to other people. For Riley, the singer of Power Trip is one of my best friends, and he tells pretty much any band that they tour with or any band that he sees that's up and coming, he's just like, you should hit up Arthur. He'll know what to do with you guys. And whether I do or don't, it's like an endorsement that's pretty much priceless because that's just how it is. They're popular band.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):

They're basically, people don't need to do the research. It's like if someone that they trust says, this dude's cool, he knows what he's doing. That right there, they don't need to do research on whether or not you're full of shit or anything like that. Maybe they want to hear your work and see if they agree that they like it, but a lot of the, is this guy for real? Is he full of shit? Will he run off with our money? All those kinds of things that

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):

Those suspicions are put to bed, you're basically being vouched for. Exactly. So back to advice for people, back to being cool. Just be cool in the studio over, insert yourself into things and just work hard and people will respect you for that, and they will pass your name around. People want to have a good experience in the studio because oftentimes they don't, and it's because they, for whatever reason, they're working with somebody they don't like. Maybe they're not performing to their maximum capability to begin with, but people want to have a good time. So just let 'em have a good time. Bring 'em donuts, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):

Whatever. I've done that before. It works. Well, Arthur, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an awesome conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):

Oh, thank you for having me, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):

Yeah, I'd love to have you come back on a few months and continue the conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):

Sure thing, man. I'll put in a word for you to will you up too and see what he says.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):

Thanks. Yeah, tell him to text me back about it. We'd love to have him on, and he's been requested a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):

He's a busy motherfucker. Of course. I know. That's a true man who works a lot, lives like two blocks from his studio too. So he's not,

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):

So basically, he lives

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):

At his studio. He lives the studio more or less, but like him and me, we both bust our asses. That's the reason why both of us have been able to be successful too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):

Do you know a single successful person who hasn't busted their ass?

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):

No. I know people who are rich that haven't busted their ass, but I don't know anybody who's made personal success without busting their ass. I also have friends who are born into money and had this opportunity to take that money. Or maybe they didn't, but they could have. They're born into money and then they just bust their ass anyway and just fucking work grind in front house gigs and stuff like that. So,

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):

Well, being born into money is not going to give you talent or work ethic. So I mean, I've known a lot of people who were born into it, who just are the biggest losers I've ever met. So I don't think being rich and being successful are the same thing. If you're given all your money, that might actually ruin your drive.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):

It might

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):

To

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):

Work for stuff. Yeah. Not always. No, no. Like I said, I know people who are born into money and didn't let them affect their drive at all. Yeah. But you really can't be successful without putting in the time in this industry at all. At least you need that block of time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):

Of just nonstop fucking misery.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):

Well, with that, thank you. Yep, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):

Take it easy, brother. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Chico, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas, and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. To get in touch with the URM podcast, visit urm.com/podcast and subscribe today.