KEVIN ANTREASSIAN: Dillinger Escape Plan, studio horror stories, and building a music career

Speaker 1 (00:00):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Empire Ears. In collaboration with Grammy winning producers, engineers, and their family of touring musicians, empire Ears has developed a line of in ear monitors that deliver what you need for every mix. When it comes to unrivaled stage clarity, or needing a flat and honest reference for your latest studio mix, empire Ears has got you covered no matter where you find yourself. And now your host, Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:30):

Levi. Welcome to the URM Podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and I just want to tell you that this show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring you one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like th God Shuga, periphery the Day to Remember. Bring me the Horizon, Opeth many, many more, and we give you the raw multitrack so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and Portfolio builder, which are pro quality multitracks that are cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out more and nail the mix.com. We've got a great guest on today's episode, one of my favorite people in this industry, and I like having him on because he embodies something that I'd learned a long time ago.

(01:21):

The first time I ever took a music business class, I was told that in order to have a successful music career, I needed to have multiple streams of income that were somewhat independent of each other, but that nobody really ever made it work off of one stream alone. It was always multiple streams. And so I've approached my career with that in mind and seems like Kevin Antreassian has done the same thing. He used to play guitar for Dillinger Escape Plan. He owns Backroom Studios, just started a YouTube channel for backroom studios, and he's always got different things going on, and I find that inspiring and plainly just interesting. I think he's interesting to talk to and inspiring, and I think that those of you who are looking to make a living at this funny thing called music, whether it's production or as a musician or a mix of both, you should take a chapter out of Mr. Andres's book about creating multiple income streams. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Kevin Antreassian. Welcome back to the URM podcast. Thanks

Speaker 3 (02:34):

For having me back. This is awesome,

Speaker 2 (02:36):

And I just want to apologize for how hard it's been for us to link up. It's been really stupid.

Speaker 3 (02:42):

It's all good. I know how it is, man. Everybody in this business has 18 different jobs essentially, and we're all juggling that stuff, so it's not a big deal,

Speaker 2 (02:51):

But I feel like this one in particular, we've been trying to book this for a year or something stupid like that and

Speaker 3 (02:57):

Yeah, I think it was December we were going back and forth, so we're eight months or so ish. Probably.

Speaker 2 (03:03):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm not usually this bad.

Speaker 3 (03:06):

It's okay, man. And maybe it's better now that I have maybe some more interesting things to say. Who knows?

Speaker 2 (03:10):

We'll see about that. I'll be the judge of that. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (03:13):

Exactly. Alright,

Speaker 2 (03:14):

So speaking of having more to say, one thing I'm curious about just because getting mixed messages here, is your band done or not?

Speaker 3 (03:24):

Oh, Dillinger.

Speaker 2 (03:25):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (03:26):

You'd have to ask the other guys.

Speaker 2 (03:29):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (03:29):

I'm kind of the last one that got brought onto the project, so as far as I know, it's an indefinite hiatus, so is there a possibility that will come back sometime? Maybe. I don't really know. I know some of the guys wanted to explore other things in life, especially like Ben has been doing it for an eternity essentially, and when that's all, that's got to be kind of tough too, even though it is amazing and it is his passion, but you can't really do too much else when you're in a full-time touring band. I mean, it takes up all of your time, especially when it's a DIY type too. So he's doing tons of the management and the booking and all that stuff, and it really just eats away at life. And even him and I tried to start a business up when he was touring before I was in the band, and we tried to get momentum and then he'd go away on tour obviously because his job and then we'd lose all that and then he'd come back. We maybe could pick a little bit up and it is just so hard to get other things accomplished. So I think he realized that it's kind of a necessary thing for him to do to kind of take himself out of it so he can do all the things. There's almost so much time we have here, so got to do a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:37):

Never start a business with a guy in a touring band.

Speaker 3 (04:41):

Yeah, it's tough.

Speaker 2 (04:42):

I mean, I say that and then I'm going to get some hate mail from the three people who have managed to do it, but by and large it's really close to impossible.

Speaker 3 (04:52):

Yeah, there's just some things, especially with a new business, you really need to be present for physically and otherwise. I know just from starting my own business, the beginning is fucking rough, man. That's why obviously so many new businesses fail. It's just either not the right person, kind of entrepreneurial type person or you got a rough deck to deal with. There's so much. We got closed down in the first few months when we opened initially because the town did not like us, so it was

Speaker 2 (05:21):

How could they not like you?

Speaker 3 (05:23):

I'm a pretty nice guy. I think usually

Speaker 2 (05:26):

You seem nice.

Speaker 3 (05:27):

I mean, the quick and dirty story is that I was in a session with what limited gear I have. It was really embarrassing. I would hate to see a picture of that back then, but

Speaker 2 (05:38):

I want to see a picture.

Speaker 3 (05:40):

I might be able to dig one up somewhere if to ask some friends. If you want to go over details in my rig back then, it's pretty amazing. Just one. My favorite piece was my mic pre, I was using the lion inserts on a crate pa powered PA system.

Speaker 2 (05:59):

Oh, that's what we're talking,

Speaker 3 (06:01):

Yeah. That was my pre man and I aligned that to a borrowed oh oh two Digi design, so I didn't even own any interface back then.

Speaker 2 (06:11):

Man, that reminds me, I'll let you get back to this in a second, but that reminds me of times when I've been flown overseas or something to record a band

Speaker 4 (06:21):

And

Speaker 2 (06:21):

Told that they have a nice studio and all this stuff, and then you find out everything is a lie. You get there and there's a PV mixer or something.

Speaker 3 (06:32):

That's your board?

Speaker 2 (06:33):

Yeah, from 1987. Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:35):

Oh, it's vintage then, right? That's better.

Speaker 2 (06:37):

Yeah, exactly. It's vintage. I got to one in 2014 and they were running Cubase sx and I know that's old because Cubase SX is the first real DA I ever used in 2002 or something.

Speaker 3 (06:51):

Damn.

Speaker 2 (06:52):

Or 2003, I think. Something like that.

Speaker 3 (06:54):

Yeah, I think my first audio software I ever even touched was cakewalk or Guitar Tracks Pro or something. I don't remember what it was called. It was like I didn't even know what I was doing. It was like, oh cool, amp modeling. This sounds so good, so bad.

Speaker 2 (07:09):

Alright, so back to what you were saying, they wanted to shut you down and they did shut you down. Maybe they just didn't like the crate.

Speaker 3 (07:16):

Yeah, he was like, you can't record people with this

Speaker 2 (07:18):

And can you fault them?

Speaker 3 (07:20):

No, not at all. But I mean, that's how I made my initial money with that horrible rig. Here, I'll give you the quick rig rundown for me. It was that crate pa, powered PA when I was using the inserts into the oh oh two as my interface. Great conversion there, and then I didn't have a pc, like a work pc, so I took my gaming PC from home with all the blue lights and all kinds of weird shit in it with my graphics card. It's ridiculous. So I sacrificed my gaming rig. Then I didn't have anything to put it on because I didn't own a desk at the time, so I found two rehearsal room stools that people would sit on wobbly kind of stools. I put those down and then I put a piece of plywood that I found on the dock and that was my desk. It was so unstable. And then I didn't even have monitors. I was just running headphones. I didn't have any mics, so I just used the one I inherited when we took over the studio, which was only SM 50 sevens, and that's what I did my first few records with until I can make money to buy better shit.

Speaker 2 (08:25):

SM 57 is a saving grace compared to the rest of that lineup.

Speaker 3 (08:29):

Yeah, that's like the best part about the whole thing. So yeah, that was it. It was brutal. And anyway, so I was recording this band in that unconventional setting as is, and then this dude walks in and he starts knocking on the door screaming for the old owner's name and I was like, oh, he's not here anymore. We took over the business and he moved to Arizona and he was like, what? He was totally shocked. He's like, you know what? You got to open up all because it's a rehearsal studio. It's like 7,000 square feet. It's quite large. We have 20 something rooms and he's like, you got to open up all these rooms right now. We've got to have a full inspection and this is a mid session. And I was like, right now I'm like with customers and he didn't care. He was so pissed.

Speaker 2 (09:14):

What was he pissed about?

Speaker 3 (09:15):

I don't know. The thing is I think there was some kind of handshake deal or something, some kind of grease in the wheel, grease, his palms type thing, some kind of exchange of money. I don't know, that had some kind of arrangement that I wasn't privy to and I wish I would've just told me I gladly would've paid him money to get him the fuck out of my room. That dude was the worst. He caused us so many problems.

Speaker 2 (09:39):

So he was with the government,

Speaker 3 (09:41):

The town, he was the fire marshal for the town. So I'm like, oh shit, I guess, hold on guys. Let me deal with this dude. This

Speaker 2 (09:48):

Is a movie in the making.

Speaker 3 (09:51):

This is my life. This is

Speaker 2 (09:53):

If fucking Tom Hanks would be in it.

Speaker 3 (09:57):

And we just literally just took over this business. So he comes in all these rooms, starts writing up all this stuff. There was a lighter, lighter on someone's PA wedge, and he goes, what's this? I'm like, I don't know. It looks like somebody's lighter. One of the guys who rented the room by the month. And he goes, you can't have lighters down here. And he takes it and puts it in his pocket and he took it home. That's the kind of bullshit other things he would say.

Speaker 2 (10:21):

That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (10:22):

It is amazing. At that point, you cannot argue with the dude. Anything you say, he's just going to just go, it's going to get worse. So he would say crazy shit. One of these guys, they're using these search protectors. This is not for music equipment. This is only for computers. And I was like, what? That's definitely not true, but I can't go to bat with this dude. It's just going to make your life worse. So you just have to look yes them to death and get him the fuck out of there as soon as possible. Pretty much. He closed us down that day. He said, I can't let you guys operate. It's unsafe here. I was like, it's been here for eight to 10 years before us, no problems. Turns out we went through this whole bullshit with the town. The guy who we bought it from didn't have any permits for any of the work he had down there, and he didn't have a co certificate of occupancy from the town or anything.

(11:11):

He had nothing. He just kind of did this without them knowing about it, and then was buddies with the town dudes. So they kind of just look the other way, but when somebody else come in, they're liable now. So they shut us down. They gave us this huge, massive list of things that we had to get done by an unreasonable date, and if we didn't have it done, we were done. They were closing us down, so we had to switch gears. Instead of trying to nurture this brand new business, we had to just be like, okay, we got to go in construction mode and we don't have money. So we're doing it all ourselves. We actually told the bands, we'll give you discounts on your monthly rent.

Speaker 2 (11:46):

Why didn't you just sell your desk?

Speaker 3 (11:49):

One of a kind man that's custom.

Speaker 2 (11:52):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (11:53):

Never be able to get that back. So we told the bands, if you guys would pitch in and help us sheet rock the ceilings and spackle and all this stuff, well, they give you discounts on your rent. And so we had a bunch of people helping out and it was a nightmare, dude for months. It was a fucking nightmare. But anyway, so yeah, opening up a new business, you never know what you're going to get, so it's very difficult.

Speaker 2 (12:12):

How long did it take until things stabilized?

Speaker 3 (12:14):

I would say that went away within a year-ish, and then we started really kissing the town's ass and becoming friendly with them, and now they leave us alone. They come in for inspection and then they're gone. So that took a little bit, but then for me to get solid work took a while, obviously, because in the beginning you literally take, and I was younger, obviously it was 11 years ago now you take anything that comes down the stairs or through the door, I mean literally anything. There's drunk dudes

Speaker 2 (12:40):

And you should,

Speaker 3 (12:41):

Yeah, I mean, I didn't have anything else. I need to make money. They would stumble down the stairs, like half saying sentences. I need to record a song for my girl. I fucked up and I was like, sure, come. Right Starbucks, come right in. And so the guy goes in there and he's like, I need to make it right. I kept repeating that and I was like, okay, so what are we doing? He's like, I'm going to sing over this track. And he gives me some, I can't remember who it was, but some classic rock tune and the vocals are in it because he's trying to do karaoke and he's like, you got to take the vocals out though. And I'm like, oh my God. So I do my best with EQing to try to get them out. Obviously it's a fucking disaster, and then I'm still young at this point, so I don't know what many tricks of the trade. Oh man. It was like that situation over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (13:33):

That's actually one of the reasons that advise people not to go too crazy with advertising your studio

Speaker 4 (13:41):

And

Speaker 2 (13:41):

To worry more about word of mouth and building that, because if you go crazy with advertisement, like paid ads and shit like that, you're going to get a lot of those kinds of clients.

Speaker 3 (13:52):

They're the worst and they're too, they're not healthy clients. They don't come back and give you more money. They're just a waste of your time essentially. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (13:59):

They're not going to help build a reputation. I mean, every once in a while you might get a good one, but by and large, the clients that you're going to pick up through, just like blanket ads are going to be like that.

Speaker 3 (14:12):

Yeah, they're disasters. Usually we still get the occasional hip hop dude calling in and you can tell within the first 10 seconds of the conversation that it's a disaster and just not worth your time. We've tried even recently, we've tried. We've gotten some new interns there, so it's kind of cool to have them because hip hop sessions are usually pretty easy for the most part, dealing with the tech side of it. You throw in the track and you record the bubble. It's not too hard, but man, some of these people are just so brutal. This one dude just got out of jail and he started threatening one engineer that he worked with, so I was like, okay, can't do that. And then we moved him to another guy, started threatening that guy, and then he was like, dude, I literally, I don't give refunds. I gave this guy a refund to gave him the fuck out of my room

Speaker 2 (14:56):

So that he won't kill you guys.

Speaker 3 (14:58):

Yeah. He was so mad. For some reason I couldn't even understand, dude, if you've got a problem, I'm going to make it right because bad news travel way fast, so I'm going to do whatever I can. I gave him a full refund. I was like, dude, just go away. You clearly aren't happy here, and we are not happy. Just let's pretend it didn't happen. But he was like, after he got his refund, he's like, so when can I come back? And I was like, what? I was like, dude, this exchange is over, bro. We're done here. Go to another studio. You probably, maybe you'll do better somewhere else. Maybe it's just not working here with us. I don't know. Why would you want to do that again? And he was just adamant. He's like, I want to be here all the time, man. I love this place. I was losing my fucking mind, dude. So I gave him one more chance with another dude. He started threatening that guy, and I was like, done. Just fuck this dude. Get him out of here.

Speaker 2 (15:46):

Wait, so what were the threats?

Speaker 3 (15:48):

Gee, I could probably send them to you. One of my engineers, he started getting real. The guy is completely unreasonable. We're willing to work with people, obviously with mixed notes and all kinds of stuff like that, but this guy wanted crazy stuff and he wanted to immediately, and he didn't want to pay for things, and he had his mom calling me. This dude's like an adult. He had his mom calling me to give her credit card information. She even admitted that this dude was a mistake. It was brutal, man. I was just like, why am I even entertaining? I don't need this money. I don't need this guy. Get out of my life. Stress is way worse. So anyway, yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:23):

Was he violent?

Speaker 3 (16:24):

I mean, not towards me, but he would get really, I mean, I think his bark was bigger than his bike, but he had just got out of jail, so we were like,

Speaker 2 (16:32):

Man, you never know.

Speaker 3 (16:33):

You never know. I mean, it's not worth the risk.

Speaker 2 (16:36):

I don't like that kind of shit at all. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (16:38):

It's just not worth the headache, and you never know what something's going to do. Maybe they break in and they try to trash the place. It's just like, I'm not trying to have any of that karma or anything, so just make them happy. Get them out of the room. Bye-bye, kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (16:50):

Have you had any other choice characters like that?

Speaker 3 (16:53):

Dude, I have hard drives full of stuff and stories. I got to remember the story. It was so long ago. He came in and he was just like a weird cat totally out there. I was trying to follow him, but I couldn't for the project, he wanted me to record because we didn't have a tape deck in the studio, and he wanted me to record this tape deck into Pro Tools. For some reason, whatever this tape he had, I was like, dude, we don't have that here. It's not commonplace. You might be able to find someone that has it, but we just don't. And he loves getting really adamant about it. He's like, why can't you just get a microphone? Run it outside to my car. I'll play it from my speaker of my car and will mic it up and we'll do it. What? Yeah. I'm like, dude, we're in a basement, bro. How much feet of XLR cable do I need to run for this? I'd end up just saying, no, I turned it down. But why would you pay for that Fidelity? That would sound like trash, a cassette going through a car, stereo through a microphone.

Speaker 2 (17:52):

That's amazing. I had this one guy once, he was the singer of a band I had worked with, but the record never got finished, so I never really got to spend time with him. The studio got struck by lightning and Whoa,

Speaker 3 (18:04):

That's a thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:05):

Oh yeah. It was a thing. It destroyed the hard drives all of them and their record was on it, and they weren't there. So I was with another band who was there. Their shit got destroyed as well. The band who was there forgave me and let me rerecord their album. I mean, they were there, they saw what happened.

Speaker 3 (18:24):

Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (18:24):

This was way before the days of cloud backups or anything. So the other band never came back. They probably thought I was lying.

Speaker 3 (18:33):

I mean, that is a kind of crazy story.

Speaker 2 (18:36):

It is, yeah. I mean, I would think someone was lying. I absolutely, it was absolute truth, but

Speaker 4 (18:42):

I mean,

Speaker 2 (18:42):

I wouldn't believe me either. So anyways, their singer hit me up a year later and was like, Hey, man, I really need you to help me with something. It's really important. I need your skills on this. I was like, all right, come over. So he came over. He was like, my woman left me, but she's been fucking with me. And I think that there were people in my house that she sent, but I recorded them. Can you help me decipher this? Whoa. So he gave me a tape, so I happened to have a boombox that I could

Speaker 4 (19:19):

Get

Speaker 2 (19:20):

In into my rig. So we're playing it. It's just static. There's nothing there, nothing. And he'd hear a fluctuation in the static and be like, that's what I'm talking about. She's fucking with me.

Speaker 3 (19:35):

Oh, no,

Speaker 2 (19:36):

Man. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:38):

Don't get in the flat earth with him, man. It'll go on for a while, dude.

Speaker 2 (19:41):

Crazy. People make me really nervous.

Speaker 3 (19:44):

That's amazing. Yeah. That's why we got into this business to do that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (19:48):

Yeah, exactly. See, the thing is with people like that, you don't know if you say the wrong thing and they're going to dismember you

Speaker 3 (19:55):

Or

Speaker 2 (19:56):

Something. I don't like it.

Speaker 3 (19:58):

Yeah, totally. I mean, when you're in that intimate setting and you're dealing with music and other things, you never know what's going to cause someone to go off. I tell all my students and interns, the more you do it, the better your profile gets and the easier your job actually gets, in my opinion. So you don't have to deal with that garbage usually later down the line. It's just starting up. It seems so much harder than it is later.

Speaker 2 (20:24):

Well, and if you do have to deal with a diva band or a bigger band that might not play that well.

Speaker 4 (20:32):

There's

Speaker 2 (20:32):

Solutions that most people will be okay with.

Speaker 4 (20:36):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (20:36):

Yeah. It's not dealing with those garbage clients.

Speaker 3 (20:41):

Yeah, totally. It's a different monster.

Speaker 2 (20:43):

God, that was so long ago.

Speaker 3 (20:45):

Yeah, it makes you think, right? We've been doing this forever.

Speaker 2 (20:50):

Yeah. Whenever you lose perspective on how good things have gone, I just think back to that.

Speaker 3 (20:56):

Yeah, man. Totally. And I feel like I'm not religious, but blessed that I got to go through that stuff because it's character building, and I feel like a lot of these guys that are walking into my space now have no idea what that's like.

Speaker 2 (21:10):

That's really unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (21:12):

Yeah. I mean, because they're not building a business. I mean, they're trying to build their reputation or the name, but they don't have to deal with any of the things that I've had to deal, not just even personality things, man with clientele, infrastructure problems. Like building a 7,000 square foot spot. Oh my God. The amount of stuff I've had. When you have sewage problems and you got people that need to use the bathroom, you can't really call a plumber a study all the time, so you got to do it yourself. And I've literally had my entire arm up to my elbow in shit trying to fix stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:45):

That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (21:46):

Yeah, literally.

Speaker 2 (21:47):

That's terrible.

Speaker 3 (21:49):

Hands in it, man. Ben from Dja, he'll tell you he was there. He'll tell you sometimes you just have to do shit that nobody wants to do, and you got to get it done now. Oh

Speaker 2 (21:57):

God. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:58):

This

Speaker 2 (21:58):

Brings up something awful that happened.

Speaker 3 (22:01):

Yeah, they don't get it.

Speaker 2 (22:04):

Yeah. So there's this band, this was in 2004 or five. I was really pushing to get my local cred, and there was a band I really wanted to work with, and they were playing with mortician,

(22:18):

I believe in Atlanta. I offered to house them and stuff, and another band from the tour. So they came back to my place, my basement studio at the time, and I had drinks and food for everyone and really tried to be a good host. At some point, somebody went too far with the drinking and puked, I guess, in the sink, in the bathroom and filled it all up and then puked and then kept going like a snail trail. This was a big basement too, puking from across two rooms all the way to outside, and then puked all over the steps to get in, which then caused a chain reaction where other people started puking. And so all over my control room, the hallway to the control room, that bathroom all the way to the door outside. Right outside the door. Then in the other sink filled by way. Wow.

Speaker 3 (23:10):

Was this person alive after this?

Speaker 2 (23:11):

No, it was multiple people. Oh,

Speaker 3 (23:13):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (23:14):

And then they bolted. So I woke up to find this stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:18):

Oh my God,

Speaker 2 (23:19):

I pieced it all together.

Speaker 3 (23:20):

Who's through Zos?

Speaker 2 (23:23):

Well, yeah, through extensive testing. No, someone told me what had happened, and I had a band showing up from out of town at 6:00 PM that night. So it was traumatic. I mean, it was one of those things where this band is driving eight hours to start a record and it's 7:00 AM and my whole entire studio is covered in puke. What do you do?

Speaker 3 (23:47):

You clean it?

Speaker 2 (23:48):

Yeah. Started picking that shit out of the rug. It was horrible. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever had to do in my life.

Speaker 3 (23:54):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (23:55):

They had no idea when they arrived.

Speaker 3 (23:57):

Yep.

Speaker 2 (23:57):

It was terrible.

Speaker 3 (23:58):

That's brutal, man. Oh, other people's puke is like, my fiance can't even go near any kind of puke. She can't see puke on the movies, so it kills her. So I can't imagine what that would be like for her.

Speaker 2 (24:13):

It was like I had to go into this zen state almost

Speaker 3 (24:17):

To

Speaker 2 (24:17):

Where I wasn't really there.

Speaker 3 (24:19):

Oh my God.

Speaker 2 (24:20):

This is just a sensation, and a sensation is something the brain can turn off when thinking about the smell and all that you to try to get as clinical as possible, otherwise you fucking puke.

Speaker 3 (24:32):

Yeah. Oh my god, dude, that's insane. Shit. Has the smell of a puke has this burning smell. That stuff doesn't go away either.

Speaker 2 (24:41):

It was so bad.

Speaker 3 (24:42):

I have a ton of crazy plumbing related stories about the studio with shit coming from the ceiling and all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on.

Speaker 2 (24:52):

Shit coming from the ceiling.

Speaker 3 (24:53):

Yeah, like I said, man, when you run your own facility,

Speaker 2 (24:56):

What happened there? Well,

Speaker 3 (24:58):

The quick version of it is we were rerouting our plumbing and we had these contractors come down. We have businesses above us, so we rerouted our sewage line, and these fucking assholes didn't think that when you cut the pipe, there's residual shit in the pipe.

Speaker 2 (25:15):

Oh, no.

Speaker 3 (25:16):

So they cut the pipe and let it hang, and it all just flew out a ton of it all over the hallway walls, everything all over the floor just filled up. And I came in there and I was like, well, I heard them. I was tracking and I heard them in the hallway. I go, and you just hear water pouring out. It's not water, obviously. And then I was like, huh, I wonder what that was. And then you smell it and then you go look, and they're just staring at you like, oh, we are cleaning. And I'm like, fuck,

Speaker 2 (25:49):

That's so bad. My band was on tour in 2007. We're like first of five. That slot on Joffer Cowboy Acacia strain in 2007. So small places, but very packed and very, very fucking packed. And we had a singer back then who was just liked to do stupid shit, and we were at this club in Jacksonville, Florida. I forget what it was called, but he jumped up onto the ceiling and grabbed a pipe and started swinging from it

Speaker 3 (26:22):

And

Speaker 2 (26:22):

The pipe broke.

Speaker 3 (26:23):

Oh no.

Speaker 2 (26:24):

And it was a shit pipe. Oh no. Yeah, it doused the entire audience. Oh my God. It was fucking horrible. We were never allowed to play there again.

Speaker 3 (26:35):

Oh my God. I wonder if anybody got sick from that, just getting shit all over them. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (26:40):

I don't know. Yeah, it was horrible.

Speaker 3 (26:43):

I wonder if Dillinger has any stories like that. I'm sure if you ask some of those guys, they have to have because they do every show, they jump on pipes.

Speaker 2 (26:49):

Yeah, there's got to be because you can't tour that long and that hard doing that much crazy shit without encountering some sort of sewer homework or something.

Speaker 3 (27:01):

Podcast has derailed.

Speaker 2 (27:04):

I think it's great. I think, man, people need to know what they're getting into.

Speaker 3 (27:07):

Sure. They think it's all just making records and making money. Nope.

Speaker 2 (27:11):

Well, I mean, I know that at the audio compound, the place that Andrew Wade,

Speaker 3 (27:16):

That thing looks awesome. That thing looks dope.

Speaker 2 (27:18):

It's quite awesome. We have our studio there too. There were no problems like that, but I mean he, I remember, I think it was called a pressure fracture.

Speaker 3 (27:28):

I saw that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:29):

Yeah, that broke his control room window. He had no idea that that was even a thing, but he learned when the thing fucking shattered

Speaker 3 (27:38):

And construction settles man, and it's not settling, even if it's a quarter or an inch, I don't know how many foot pounds. It's a pressure. It's insane. It's not like a little bit that will shatter any kind of glass. Now hopefully his construction guy or insurance fit the bill for that. That would be unfortunate. Otherwise, because an construction flaw,

Speaker 2 (28:00):

I really don't know, but I know that Andrew built a lot of stuff himself. I don't know the inner workings of that.

Speaker 3 (28:08):

I actually just redid our window in our control room after I saw that the same week that that happened to him, and I told my construction guy, I'm like, listen, you got to put a gap. I'm not going to have this happen. So I'm glad he posted about it, otherwise I may have overlooked that too.

Speaker 2 (28:24):

Well, Dan Cornif knew exactly what it was right away, so I'm guessing that that's happened to him too. Well,

Speaker 3 (28:29):

He's a genius. He's been around a while too,

Speaker 2 (28:33):

And he likes to build things, so I'm assuming that he's encountered that problem. So yeah, it's not just these horrible stories we were telling if you're going to be building a studio from the ground up and dealing with all the business stuff in addition to that, just the building part is a monster all of its own.

Speaker 3 (28:51):

Totally. At least I'm assuming in the space that you guys built, at least you didn't have a business running during the construction. That's the hardest thing for me is that I have all these construction projects open that I can't ever finish because I'm not ever finished, but they get delayed so much because I'm currently using the space that I'm doing construction in. So it's like I have an open ceiling for three months, and then I was like, okay, well there's a two day gap here, so let's book that.

Speaker 2 (29:19):

It was like that, that for a while from the time that I confirmed that I was going to move in there till the time that I moved in, there was well over a year and a half because Andrew had to keep working and that's why the repairs are slow. I mean, updates are slow just because people need to work.

Speaker 3 (29:40):

You got to pay the bills.

Speaker 2 (29:42):

Let's talk about what you've been doing because last time you had been in Dillinger for a year I think or something, but since then, Dillinger has toured crazy and then apparently stopped gone on hiatus and you started a YouTube channel, started teaching at a university, kept the studio going, what's up?

Speaker 3 (30:05):

Yeah, all that stuff. You think you get some free time and then you're like, oh, wait, I got to fill this up with all kinds of things. I got to continue to do stuff. So

Speaker 2 (30:16):

Did you actually think you were going to get free time?

Speaker 3 (30:18):

I thought I was. I really did. I was telling my friends, telling my fiance, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to take some time. I'm going to relax. I'm going to work on less records. I'm not going to try to do every record I possibly can and just kind of enjoy my house and my lawn and nature and

Speaker 2 (30:34):

What does that even mean?

Speaker 3 (30:35):

I'm like an old person, dude. When there's a nice sunny day and I'm off from work, I want to work on my lawn. It's so crazy, but I just love being outside and doing constructive things, and so I thought I was going to finally get time to do that because when you're away on tour or you're running a business or both and all that stuff, you sometimes neglect stuff that when you come home you're like, God, damnit, that thing is still there. I need to fix or blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so I thought I was going to get this free time, but then I was like, man, I should really continue my momentum with the Dillinger thing with marketing in another. Don't just let that die. So I was like, let's start a YouTube channel. I have endless freaking content in front of me. I could review a billion things, tutorials, all kinds of interviews with all the people I know mean. Obviously you know much about this yourself. I was like, I'll just do another thing. Then. That took a long time to get going. It was a lot harder than I thought.

Speaker 2 (31:33):

Isn't it funny how easy people think it is?

Speaker 3 (31:35):

I thought it was just going to be like, oh, you fired the camera and you talk. It's like, Nope.

Speaker 2 (31:40):

Yeah, it's no big deal. Just say stuff.

Speaker 3 (31:43):

And some of it is that, but you have to figure out your formula and you have to get the right people involved and you have to put out quality content. You can't just put out trash. Obviously, I'm not talking down to people. There's obviously a marketplace or people that just put on their webcam and talk, and some of those people have millions of subscribers and shit and that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (32:02):

Yeah. The thing is though, that they've done it so much

Speaker 3 (32:07):

That

Speaker 2 (32:07):

They're already in that mode the way that a touring band doesn't need to rehearse as much and that tightness that you get after four weeks on the road, I think it's a similar sort of thing. If you make a lot of videos, eventually you're going to know what to say.

Speaker 4 (32:24):

You're

Speaker 2 (32:24):

Going to be better at articulating yourself, but while you're still figuring it out and getting comfortable, it's fucking hard.

Speaker 3 (32:32):

Yeah. I'm trying to fluff this guy, Ryan. Bruce has a channel, obviously it's very popular, especially in this world, and I'm like,

Speaker 2 (32:40):

We know him.

Speaker 3 (32:41):

We love him. Yeah, he works with you guys. He's kind of like a surrogate brother or something. Now I just ask him all the time, I'm probably annoy the crap out of him, but I'm like, is this better? Should I do this? What do you think about this idea? Because he's done it. He's obviously very successful with it, and I'm just starting and I don't want to misstep if I don't have to. And so far it's gone really well, but like you said, just figuring out how do you have to talk differently? You have to address things differently. You have to put out quality stuff. You don't want building a brand in one area, which is audio, which is obviously fidelity matters, and then do a side thing with video and have it just look shitty and sound bad and not be entertaining. That was our main goal was we want to do a channel and not like it's not done before. Glenn Fricker does it and does it very well. Some kind of a informative music related gear page. That's also funny. I don't want it to be too dry. I can't watch those. Man, those are brutal. When it's just like, here's the pedal and then I'm going to play this blues roof, and then it's just like, we're going to do this.

Speaker 2 (33:44):

It's rough shit.

Speaker 3 (33:46):

It's like, man, okay, I get it. You're getting it across. And I hear that the sound of the pedal, but that's a tough read. So we're trying to just incorporate some kind of element of entertainment or comedy and it's all improv essentially. So we're just going over with other people in our crew and the interns and stuff like that. What jokes go over? Well, what does not work to the viewer? And I'm not like a film guy, so I don't know any of this shit. So it's all totally new territory for me, but

Speaker 2 (34:20):

It's hard work, man. It really is. The thing that I hate the most about it is how much more animated you have to be in order to just sound normal. If I'm my normal self on camera, I'm going to seem like I'm fucking stoned out of my mind and don't want to be there and half asleep. I have to conjure an unnatural level of energy

Speaker 4 (34:47):

In

Speaker 2 (34:47):

Order to communicate things on camera. And especially the first few times I felt like such a fucking idiot, and sometimes I still do, but it makes a huge difference. So whatever level of energy you feel comfortable with in your delivery turned it up by 20%.

Speaker 3 (35:04):

I know. Yeah. That's tough to realize too. And another thing is, I mean, I usually don't talk super fast and everyone's telling me, you got to talk faster. You got to talk faster because we got to cut this time down, these videos, we got to keep it under seven minutes, under six minutes. And I'm like, so you got to just rip through.

Speaker 2 (35:21):

Where are you hearing that? Well,

Speaker 3 (35:22):

I mean that's what everyone's been telling me. Like I said, I don't know better, but

Speaker 2 (35:26):

That's bullshit.

Speaker 3 (35:26):

But they're saying like, oh, it looks like from metrics that people kind of lose interest after five minutes, they'll keep it under five minutes and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 (35:35):

What that means is you need to structure your videos better so that they remain interesting past the five minute point.

Speaker 4 (35:41):

Because

Speaker 2 (35:42):

Right now the YouTube algorithm really, really prioritizes minutes watched, and longer videos are starting to get way more priority than shorter videos, which is one of the reasons that we noticed all these video essays that are becoming popular and these long ass analysis videos of whatever.

Speaker 4 (36:02):

That's

Speaker 2 (36:02):

Because the algorithm changed. It used to be that everybody thought shorter was better.

Speaker 4 (36:07):

That's

Speaker 2 (36:08):

Really not the case anymore. And I've noticed that the URM YouTube is not huge or anything. We only really started focusing on it a few months ago really focusing on it, and some of our biggest videos are like 27 minutes long or something. I don't think that length is an issue. I think that keeping them interested is the actual issue.

Speaker 3 (36:30):

I agree with you, but everyone seems to say to the contrary, I come from, I like to watch lots of reviews and I'm not, I'm just saying gear reviews. I watch all kinds of reviews, all kinds of gear and other hobbies that I have, and those reviews are usually long, like 30 minutes to really get an in depth breakdown of something, and I'm like, that's what I was aiming for to really, the first one I did was the Freedman double J amp, and I really wanted to get into it, and there's so much we had to cut because everyone was like, dude, it's too long. It's too long. People don't care, blah, blah, blah. I was like, really? I mean, I would care, but

Speaker 2 (37:03):

Man, I don't know if I agree with that. We've been working really hard on YouTube lately, and we're finding that, look, of course, the longer a video is, the more drop off you're going to have, because the more length there is, the more opportunity there is for someone to get distracted by something else. So that's going to happen. But like I said, the YouTube algorithm is prioritizing length because of minutes watched and just look at your favorite channels and pay attention to how long some of the most popular videos are. You'll probably notice that that five minute rule is bullshit.

Speaker 3 (37:36):

Oh, good to know. I'll keep that in mind going forward.

Speaker 2 (37:39):

Do any of these people who are telling you that have successful YouTube channels or is this just

Speaker 3 (37:43):

Some of them do? Yeah, so that's why I take with what they say with some weight. So I mean, maybe everybody's experience is different, but it is harder for me to say things that I want to say while keeping the comedy element in there in that short of time, five minutes with audio clips and jokes and information that's fucking nothing really tight, so

Speaker 2 (38:07):

Well, if your whole thing was shorter videos from the get go

Speaker 3 (38:11):

And

Speaker 2 (38:11):

You could deliver everything in a shorter video top to the quality where people pay attention, that's great. Cool. But if you need more time in order to deliver something of quality, you should probably go with what's better quality,

Speaker 4 (38:27):

Because

Speaker 2 (38:27):

There doesn't seem to be any sort of correlation anymore

Speaker 4 (38:31):

Between

Speaker 2 (38:32):

Time and whether or not you're going to get views. And I can tell you that when I do these unboxing videos, for instance, for now, the mixed tracks, like I said, some of them are 27 minutes long. It doesn't matter because there's no way I could do it in five minutes

Speaker 3 (38:48):

Properly.

Speaker 2 (38:48):

I couldn't possibly go through an opus track in five minutes. If I did, it would be shitty.

Speaker 4 (38:54):

And

Speaker 2 (38:55):

If it was shitty, we'd have an initial viewership, but then people will drop off immediately and the algorithm wouldn't kick in.

Speaker 4 (39:01):

Right.

Speaker 2 (39:02):

So I think that you should do whatever you feel will be your best content because that's what people will respond to.

Speaker 4 (39:09):

So

Speaker 2 (39:09):

If these five minute guys, maybe their best content is at five minutes,

Speaker 4 (39:14):

Maybe

Speaker 2 (39:15):

That is what their content needs to be because that's who they are or something.

Speaker 3 (39:19):

Yeah, there's definitely an art form to it that I'm still learning, and I'm sure I'll continue to learn like a whole nother thing. It's like if I started audio all over again, there's so many things I don't know. So it's a learning process, but it's fun and I enjoy doing it. It's just like it takes up a lot of time and it's not super fruitful at the moment. It's not like we're not going for monetization. I could give a shit about that. It's just we're going for branding and being in media in a different facet to hopefully bring over people to the studio, bring more recognition to the studio or that kind of stuff. Just bring awareness to stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:50):

Well, good luck, and if you ever need any help, let me know. And yeah, seriously, not to harp on this too much. I really think that the more you do it, the more you're going to find your voice with it, but I wouldn't let people define your voice for you.

Speaker 3 (40:04):

Cool.

Speaker 2 (40:04):

If you make great videos that are 20 minutes long, you'll be fine. Man. Here's a great example. Ted Talks videos. I don't really like them anymore. I think they've gone down in quality, but they still keep getting massive amounts of views, and they're all 19 minutes long, pretty much. Or Joe Rogan podcasts, the biggest podcast in the world, 120 million downloads per month. Episodes are three hours, three and a half hours long.

Speaker 3 (40:31):

Yeah, I watch him every day almost.

Speaker 2 (40:34):

That's what I'm saying is if the content is good and shit that people are interested in, the length is not going to matter. It only matters if what you deliver is only interesting for five minutes.

Speaker 3 (40:45):

Right. That's true. I mean, that makes sense, and that's was more the methodology I was thinking, but I mean, I was surprised, honestly, to hear people just say that. So I'll definitely harp less on that in the future because if it doesn't really matter that much, I won't let it. Dude.

Speaker 2 (41:01):

It's the same as when you're talking to a band and they're like, should my songs be three minutes long or can it be like eight minutes? Well, who are you as a band and what are you trying to do? If you're opeth and they want to come record, are you going to tell them that you're going to cut all the songs down to three minutes, 30 seconds so that you can have radio singers? Right.

Speaker 3 (41:22):

That'd go over real well.

Speaker 2 (41:23):

Yeah, it would be stupid. It would be beyond stupid if you got Green Day in. Right. Would you be trying to do a 14 minute frog epic with them?

Speaker 3 (41:32):

I would love to.

Speaker 2 (41:33):

Yeah. I mean, it might come out okay, but you get what I'm saying. It's a similar thing. You're still finding your voice

Speaker 3 (41:40):

With

Speaker 2 (41:40):

The video thing, but you shouldn't let people try to define what your voice is for you before you've even found it for yourself. And once you find it for yourself, then you'll get feedback from viewers and that'll help you determine what tweaks to make.

Speaker 3 (41:54):

Another thing that you actually, in that last comment, you just brought up two other questions I had, which actually maybe that'll be interesting and pertain to this podcast. So question number one, this could be an easy one. Do you respond to people's direct comments at you? Is that a good thing? Or are you creating a dependency that you shouldn't entertain? Because then when it goes down in a bad way, then they're expecting you to respond, then you have to do that, or you just from the get go, just even though you might isolate a couple people and bum people out, it's maybe the safer route to go. Definitely. People being like, Hey, I'll blah, blah, blah, this question. And some of 'em are stupid, and some of 'em are actually like, oh, I could actually respond to that and give this guy an answer. I just don't know if it's something I even want to touch

Speaker 2 (42:37):

One thing's for sure. I wouldn't engage with the shit posters.

Speaker 3 (42:40):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (42:41):

Don't go down that path. I

Speaker 3 (42:43):

Haven't gotten 'em yet, but I'm sure they're coming. I'm waiting for those trolls. I'm waiting, man.

Speaker 2 (42:46):

They're out there and they're going to say things that you'll wake up weird one day and you'll piss you off. Have a fight with your fiance, and you'll read that comment and just fly into a murderous rage and don't give in. I mean, we all give in at some point, but it's best not to. The results are never good,

Speaker 3 (43:05):

Never good. There's so many political things on Facebook that I can't read. I'm just like, Ugh, I'm not going to get into politics. But personally for me, I like this course. I like when people have controversial opinions or different than mine anyway, and I love hearing their side of the argument because a lot of times I'm like, huh, I got to rethink mine. That's the best part of conversation. But some people, I can't entertain them and I have to just, I'm like, I want to say something, but I just like, Nope, just ignore it, man. Don't do it.

Speaker 2 (43:35):

Online's not a good medium for that.

Speaker 3 (43:37):

No, it's not. Because

Speaker 2 (43:38):

It takes the humanity out of the equation. You need that humanity in order for people to be able to get along while having different opinions.

Speaker 4 (43:45):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (43:46):

I think, but I don't see what the problem is with responding to your commenters, especially if they're seeking further clarification on something or, I mean, if your aim for the channel is in part to educate people,

Speaker 4 (43:58):

Then

Speaker 2 (43:59):

Why not educate people every chance you get? It's just going to build goodwill and have people come back for more. I mean, there will come a point where if it grows enough, you're not going to have the time to do that, and that's fine too. If it gets to the point where it's thousands of comments, obviously you can't go there, but when it's like in one or five or 10 or 20 comments or something, why not do that?

Speaker 3 (44:23):

That's my thinking. I was just worried that if it got to that point, would people be pissed like, yo, he used to fucking reply to me now, can't get a reply like, blah, blah. Then I don't isolate that person or those people.

Speaker 2 (44:34):

Well, I mean, if that happens, you can always put out a video

Speaker 3 (44:37):

That's true.

Speaker 2 (44:38):

Apologizing and just explaining the situation.

Speaker 3 (44:41):

That's true too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:42):

I wish that I had more time to respond to individual stuff, but I just don't. I used to spend a long time every day inside the URM group and the chats and all that really getting in there, and I'm really glad I did. I think it's one of the reasons that we grew so fast and have developed such a great community, but there comes a point where you can't do that as much anymore, and as long as you're open with people about what's going on, they're cool generally.

Speaker 3 (45:12):

Yeah, I hope so

Speaker 2 (45:14):

In my experience at least. So that said, what about

Speaker 3 (45:19):

The teaching thing?

Speaker 2 (45:20):

Yeah. What about that? What's the story with that professor?

Speaker 3 (45:25):

Yeah, that's what my fiance was like, dude, do they call you professor? What did you introduce yourself as? I was like, oh, I just introduced myself as Kevin because I didn't think about that. It is really weird having this perspective being on the other side of the table now. If I think hard enough, I can remember back in college when I would walk into the same room and have a different guy sitting on the other side and being in a completely different world frame of mind and just either not even caring what they're saying and being like, oh man, I just can't wait to get through this class so I can get to this next thing I have to do, or got to reply with my girlfriend. I got to respond to her afterwards. Just like I don't even know what these kids are thinking.

(46:05):

So I'm trying to engage them and keep that in mind. It's like a different world, man, when you're in college and then when you're a real person. So I don't want to keep that in mind. Back then, I would do crazy things that if I saw a student do, I'd be like, you're a fucking weirdo. But I used to do them myself. I would literally show up in class in the winter in a full Tigger costume. Don't ask me why. Don't ask. I couldn't give you an answer. It is super embarrassing. I don't care, obviously. But that's how I was in college. I was just a weird kid, and I know I've already seen the campus weird kids, so I'm sure it'll be interesting, but all my students in the class are awesome, and it's really crazy being on the other side of that and having that like, man, I am the guy now that they're listening to. And it wasn't even that long ago. It doesn't feel like it. I, I went to school in 2002 and graduated in 2007, but it feels like it wasn't that long ago. I used to hate college so much that I used to tell my friends after I graduated, you couldn't pay me to go back there. No way would I ever go back to college. But I guess they are paying me to go back. So I'm there.

Speaker 2 (47:18):

So what are you teaching them?

Speaker 3 (47:21):

The backstory for that is that when I graduated, I did my own business type thing and obviously my professor who I was close with, I still am, obviously, I would ask him all these questions because as a college kid, this is incredibly difficult and you don't know anything about the real world and taxes and money. I was making a hundred bucks a week, and that was more than enough for me at that time. So the perspective is crazy, and I got out of there, and upon getting into the real world, I was like, when I would get sessions to mix, I realized that the school, it prepared you for a lot of things and it taught you a lot about, the program was fairly new at the time, but they never really got into hardcore mixing. So when you'd get a session in front of you with a hundred plus tracks, you were like, I don't even know where to start.

(48:13):

What do you start with and what do you do? What are some things to streamline all this information? And I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. So all that, and it was before YouTube tutorials and all that stuff really, and obviously URM. So I didn't have any guidance. I just kind of figured it out on my own, I guess. So this class is to try to address that concern with those kids and really, I mean more about teaching audio than most people, so I'm sure you understand some of 'em are just so lost in the beginning, and it's really rewarding to do that. I've been doing it. I have workshops at the studio with one-on-one type stuff occasionally, but it's a lot different in a class setting with an SSL duality and all kinds of nice stuff in there.

Speaker 2 (49:00):

Yeah, absolutely. How are they taking to it?

Speaker 3 (49:03):

I literally only had one class last week, and I had my second class this week, and they were so excited, man. It was just like, I know some professors are super dry and boring and you're paying for it, and it sucks because you're just like, I don't want to be here. Whereas when you're an adult and you pay for something, you're only going to pay for something if you want to do it usually, right?

Speaker 2 (49:24):

I would hope.

Speaker 3 (49:24):

But when you're not forced into it, but you're in a different mindset and you're just going to college sometimes for the sake of going to college or whatever the situation is.

Speaker 2 (49:33):

I mean, I went to make my mom leave me alone

Speaker 3 (49:37):

To get out of the house, right? So there's that.

Speaker 2 (49:39):

Well, no, no. Now I just get out of the house, go to college. I couldn't handle it anymore. I had to go.

Speaker 3 (49:44):

Yeah, I, and that's it too. I went to college because my parents told me that's what I had to do, and I was like, well, no, I want to go tour and play arenas. Really? That's what I thought I was going to do. I was like, you graduate and I got this cool band, which obviously didn't get big, and then I was like, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I see other people doing it. Why can't I do that? I was just determined, and they're like, no, you're going to college. So I strangely kind of got to do both in a weird way.

Speaker 2 (50:11):

Yeah, you did. Which

Speaker 3 (50:13):

Is bizarre and just the exception, not the rule maybe. But yeah, it's really cool to get in there and it's going real well. The kids seem to be really interested in it, and I'm trying to engage them. And I opened up the homework assignment for the last one was I have the 24 track for Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm sure they come across that at some point.

Speaker 2 (50:32):

Yes, sir.

Speaker 3 (50:33):

Yeah, and it's just opening that to people who have never heard it like that in that context. The eyes just like, it's so wide. They're like, oh my God,

Speaker 2 (50:41):

It's crazy. It really is pretty nuts. It's

Speaker 3 (50:45):

Awesome. I love it. So just really honing in. Obviously that's a track that almost everybody knows and loves, hopefully. So that's a pretty good one.

Speaker 2 (50:53):

How can you not?

Speaker 3 (50:54):

I don't know. I don't know if I've met anyone who doesn't. I would love to have a conversation with someone who doesn't just see why they don't love it. But there's got to be somebody out there who hates that song.

Speaker 2 (51:02):

I'm sure you can find them on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (51:05):

The song is just poor musicianship and it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (51:11):

I guarantee it. So do you think that your background helped make the students more stoked than they would if you were someone that didn't have a badass background?

Speaker 3 (51:21):

I hope so. My professor did tell me that the students were fighting for the class, so there was interest in it for me to teach it.

Speaker 2 (51:29):

Like octagon style?

Speaker 3 (51:31):

Yes, would be great. That would be amazing. Great. Oh my God. I'd watch that

Speaker 2 (51:34):

With a tiger thrown in just to up the stakes. It's

Speaker 3 (51:37):

Like running man.

Speaker 2 (51:38):

Yeah. Or gladiator.

Speaker 3 (51:40):

Yes. So there was interest to do that and I think that the class, like I said, was definitely needed in that curriculum. So yeah, I guess what was the original question?

Speaker 2 (51:51):

Just if you felt like your background helped people get more stoked. Oh

Speaker 3 (51:55):

Yeah. But I didn't want to assume because I'm not famous or anything. So I guess locally I would be, some people know who I am from my area, but I didn't want to assume because you never want to do that.

Speaker 2 (52:07):

You may not be Steven Tyler, but you still, none of us are Steven Tyler. But you've still done just about everything that a kid coming up would dream of doing.

Speaker 3 (52:17):

Yeah, I've been very fortunate. My first class, a lot of it was introducing myself as my experience, like what I've done. So hopefully that weighs a little bit more with them. When I teach 'em stuff, I'm like, listen, I'm not going to say everything I tell you is a hundred percent the best way to do something. Or even maybe a hundred percent correct all the time. I'm fallible just like anybody else, but hopefully it means a little bit more coming from me with someone who has all this experience behind me as opposed to another teacher who say maybe doesn't have nearly as much experience doing what I've done. If you want to talk about being in a bus crash and having two fractures in your vertebrae and staying in Poland for a while, I'm that guy. I know that

Speaker 2 (52:57):

Well. It's interesting. I try to tell people who subscribe to Nail the Mix or URM this all the time, which is, look, you're not supposed to take this stuff as the letter of the law. This is information coming down from people who have done it. But I mean, if you watch enough nail the mix, you'll see that some people disagree with other people's methods and they're both great mixers. You'll have one amazing mixer who thinks that this technique, another amazing mixer uses is bullshit.

(53:26):

And it's not that the technique bullshit, it just doesn't work for them. For whatever reason, their brain has not figured out how to make it work, and that's perfectly okay. But when you're learning this stuff, you should always keep in mind that you're just getting somebody's perspective on it. Try to incorporate it into your own work. And another thing that we do is sometimes if you want a 100% technically perfect audio education, we might not be it. I am sure that there's some professor at some recording school that has memorized every single recording book ever, who knows every single scientific fact about everything. Maybe never made a good record in his life, but is like a walking

Speaker 4 (54:10):

Encyclopedia.

Speaker 2 (54:11):

And that's not necessarily us or what we're trying to do. We're trying to give people practical shit that works

Speaker 4 (54:16):

That

Speaker 2 (54:17):

Will help them get better. But that said, we're fallible too. It's not like we're teaching people to fly an airplane or do brain surgery. We're teaching them how to make things sound good. And there's an element of subjectivity to all of it

Speaker 3 (54:30):

And all that stuff. You talked about that technical, the super technical side of things. I mean, I just remember when I was in college, there was dudes in my class for my program has a lot of the audio stuff obviously, and music ear training and all that stuff. But it was very focused in technical data aspects like logarithmic calculations and acoustics, electronics, physics. So there's a lot calculate, there's all kinds of stuff involved. I guess. Either they're trying to fill the curriculum or they think that you need that stuff. And maybe if you're building components and hardware, that stuff would be helpful. But when you get in a studio, I'm not computing algorithmic calculations, it's like, well,

Speaker 2 (55:13):

It's like the whole reading music thing, sight reading that they push at Berkeley. When I went there, they tried to make you think that being able to read on guitar is the gauntlet or something. That's what will determine everything. But they really get this into students' heads. And since leaving Berkeley, it hasn't come up one single time in my professional career, not fucking once. And I've been at it on a pro level, a different pro level since 2002 or three.

Speaker 4 (55:51):

But

Speaker 2 (55:51):

You know what, it's, learning how to read on guitar definitely helped me.

Speaker 4 (55:55):

It

Speaker 2 (55:55):

Helped me be a better guitar player, a better musician. It helped me with my arrangements. It helped me with all kinds of stuff way beyond just guitar. It definitely made me a way better musician and that's cool and I'm glad I did that. But I imagine that that kind of information is the same sort of thing. It definitely can't hurt.

Speaker 4 (56:13):

It

Speaker 2 (56:13):

Can't hurt to know more about your craft, but is it absolutely necessary?

Speaker 3 (56:18):

Right.

Speaker 2 (56:19):

No, definitely not.

Speaker 3 (56:20):

Could time be better spent doing something else?

Speaker 2 (56:23):

Probably.

Speaker 3 (56:24):

I had to do the same thing. I'm a classical guitar minor and I failed my first audition mostly for sight reading. And then second one I got in, but it was the same thing. They really harped on sight reading, all that stuff. And I agree with you. I have not to this day once needed it. And it's definitely one of those things that if you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing. If you throw sheet music in front of me, it's going to be real sad. But at one time I was decently proficient in getting through stuff, but not anymore. But if you have time, all that stuff is cool to learn. It's not going to help you in most cases. If you're trying to go for something, you definitely could hone it a little better. And the mixed course for this was definitely a sore spot I thought they just weren't getting involved in, and I'm hoping to learn things too from these guys because when you get older and you kind of get set in your ways, you're like, okay, maybe I got this template for this thing.

(57:17):

I'm just doing this thing. I know it works. And I'm not really thinking about the process anymore. I'm hoping I'm hearing things already within the first class of like, oh, you try. There's this thing you could do. I'm like, oh my God, I love this. I forgot about this. One of my favorite things about having interns and having them, watching them work is seeing different techniques for things. I'm like, oh my God, I never thought to do that. That's cool. And you're never too old to learn or you should never have too big of an ego to be like, I can't learn from somebody younger or less experienced because that's ridiculous. I mean, you're just cheating yourself at that point.

Speaker 2 (57:48):

Yeah, I totally agree. That's actually one of the coolest parts of doing all these nail the mix episodes,

Speaker 4 (57:54):

Because

Speaker 2 (57:55):

Originally we started with only the three of us doing them, and then we started with almost none of us doing them and just having guests and just seeing all these different people do amazing shit. It's like a never ending barrage of new techniques and it's great. Love it.

Speaker 3 (58:12):

Yeah, it's crazy. It's just sometimes it just takes you aback. You're like, oh man, I feel so stupid now. I didn't even realize that's how you could do that. That's so much easier.

Speaker 2 (58:21):

You don't remember everything that you forgot basically.

Speaker 3 (58:23):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (58:25):

It's true. Alright, well Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (58:30):

Pleasure as always.

Speaker 2 (58:31):

I very much appreciate it. I'm glad we finally got a chance to do this. Good luck with the YouTube and the school and the hiatus, if it is the

Speaker 3 (58:41):

Hiatus. Yeah, I guess we'll find out, man. I'll keep you posted, I'm sure maybe somebody else will find out before me.

Speaker 2 (58:49):

Yeah, well, good luck either way.

Speaker 3 (58:51):

Cool, man. Thanks so much as always.

Speaker 1 (58:54):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Empire Ears. In collaboration with Grammy winning producers, engineers, and their family of touring musicians, empire Ears has developed a line of in ear monitors that deliver what you need, deliver for every mix. When it comes to unrivaled stage clarity, or needing a flat and honest reference for your latest studio mix, empire Ears has got you covered no matter where you find yourself. If you like the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast, make sure you leave us a review, subscribe and send us a message if you want to get in touch.