KANE CHURKO: Method Actor Songwriting, Starting With A Title, and Being a Finisher

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Mick DSP professional audio plugins. For over 15 years, Mick DSP has continued producing industry acclaimed and award-winning software titles. The podcast is also brought to you by Slate Digital, all the Pro plugins. One more monthly price. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:27):

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Joey Sturgis Forum podcast. I'm Joey Sturgis, and with me as always is Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi. This month is songwriting month where we focus on the process of creating songs. Now, if you're a producer, engineer, artist, or songwriter, there's going to be something in here for you because we'll be talking with people who break the mold and they do a little bit of everything in parallel to songwriting. So together we're going to be discovering more about these unique blends of musical talents and as they relate to music and song making in which we hope to spark some sort of creativity as well as offer some insight to the current environment we're in. Now, lemme take a second to talk about this. If you're listening to this episode and you're still at the listener level, let me tell you a little bit about why you should be at the fan level.

(00:01:13):

First off, you're getting all the shows, which is great, but you're still missing out on our Tips and Tricks episode and our monthly live q and a. Now, the Tips and Tricks episodes are going to give you knowledge that we don't just drop in our normal episodes. We make this stuff exclusive because it's really hard hitting info that is rare to come by, and we ask the questions that people don't want to answer in public. So if you're going to want to hear that stuff, and the information contained in those episodes alone has helped some of our upper subscription members to improve by leaps and bounds, and we want you to know that it's available to you. The next thing you could be getting is the monthly live q and a where we hop on the video chat live and we answer your questions live.

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Speaker 3 (00:02:48):

Doing all right. I'm actually excited to spend an entire month talking about songwriting because I think the lines are super blurred these days between producers, musicians, and songwriters. You kind of end up doing a little bit of everything, and so I don't think that being just an engineer works anymore, kind of like it did back in the day. You could put on a lab coat and just fix consoles, but I think that these days you need to be able to wear multiple hats, be pretty good at music, and be able to improve other people's songs at a minimum, even if you're not writing hits, you still need to be able to be good enough to make other people's songs better. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:03:33):

There's so many blends of musical talents now. It's fascinating to me because I do see a lot of songwriters who even do the pre-production and they come up with stuff that is pretty hard to recreate. I've had a lot of situations where I've taken something from pre-pro and just gone, yeah, I have no idea how to make this better. We're just going to use the original tracks. And more so than that, I've also had songwriters continue to be a part of the process after the initial demo, go through the whole production, post-production process, come back in and offer additional insight into the process. So I know you actually write pretty closely with a lot of your clients, don't you, Joel?

Speaker 4 (00:04:17):

Yeah, I know, absolutely. I love writing and I'm super excited for this month because I feel like this is pretty virgin ground for the podcast here. We haven't really dug into this and we have a lot of very, very interesting people coming on from different genres that write amazing songs that you've probably heard on the radio or YouTube or many other various facets. And writing I think is a huge part of at least my process. A lot of times a band will come in my studio and they'll be like, alright, I've got some lyrics and two chords write me a song. And I'll be like, you're kidding me? And they'll be like, yeah, by the way, I only can afford one day, so you better deliver asshole. So there's a lot of situations like that that happened in my career when I was coming up and I really enjoy writing with bands. They walk in and we'll just pick apart riffs or whatever and then turn something into hopefully gold. So it's an exciting process. You get to be creative. It's very mentally exhausting and it's very fun. But there are people that make a really awesome living just writing songs and I love working with songwriters, hiring them and writing songs myself. So I dunno, I'm just excited.

Speaker 3 (00:05:22):

I want to dispel a myth, actually, you just made me think of this. I think that in some genres there's a misconception that the artists write everything themselves and that it's only in the fake genres like pop and country where there's another writer involved I guess. And that's just not the truth and it's never been the truth. All genres of music that get released have benefited from the collaborative process of an artist working with a writer. Now, sometimes the artist is the writer and there are special occasions where the band is just so talented or whatever that they don't need extra help. But I would make a money bet that those are the exceptions. I'm talking on the realm of professional bands and artists.

Speaker 4 (00:06:17):

A good thing to note too is a lot of guys that are like what would be considered the key point songwriter for their band who have very successful careers and write a lot of hits, usually end up becoming songwriters after they're done with their band career and usually, or sometimes in parallel with their band career and they write songs with tons of other artists and you might not even know about it, but what's cool is that artist is out performing and they're getting the checks while they're sitting at home by their pool. So it's a cool gig.

Speaker 2 (00:06:45):

One thing I think we should stress though is if you're listening to this right now and you're thinking, well, I don't really care about songwriting, I like turning knobs, I like making stuff sound cool, lemme just remind you that some of the best sounding productions, at least in my opinion, are by Mutt Lang. And he's also one of the best songwriters. Same thing with Max Martin. And there's definitely a certain kind of secret sauce to this to where when you understand songwriting to a certain degree, it's going to help you mix. It's going to help you engineer, it's going to help you produce whatever it is that you're doing in this part of the industry. Understanding songwriting can help, even if you don't write songs for a living and you're not paid to write songs, it's good to understand it. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:07:26):

The link between a really well-written song that's expertly arranged and a great sounding mix are undeniable. I mean, they're not the same thing. And clearly you can mix a great song badly, but it's very, very hard to get a song sounding amazing if it's not already set up to sound amazing down to the way it's written.

Speaker 2 (00:07:55):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as a producer or maybe even as an engineer who's kind of juggling multiple hats, if you can recognize where that has gone wrong before it gets put out, you might know exactly how to approach those problems and how to offer solutions. And as you climb that ladder and as you do that for your clients, you're going to find that people are going to come out and hire you. And this is how a lot of guys have come up recently. Wish I could think of their names. I know there's one guy, his name's Drew, who's been working with Crown the Empire, for example. He started out very basic pre-pro engineer type thing, started slowly working his way into suggestions and helping write stuff, and now he's full on doing co-writing for entire albums and also doing some upper end mixing work as well. So don't sleep on this stuff. Hopefully you guys get a lot out of this month. And today we actually have a really awesome songwriter, producer, engineer, kind of breaking the mold, doing a little bit of everything. His name's Kane Churko.

Speaker 4 (00:09:03):

Oh, do we ever, yeah, I mean Kane and his dad are pretty much, I would consider the hottest producers at Rock right now. I mean, if you're talking about Active Rock that's on the radio, these guys are kicking out top tens every month. And if there's a team of guys that are basically the IT guys that are working with all a bands that everybody wants to go to, it's the Hurcos. And Kane is a young guy, I believe he's in his early twenties, right?

Speaker 2 (00:09:27):

And

Speaker 4 (00:09:27):

Kevin is in his forties, so I don't dunno, whatever they're doing, they're killing it. So I can't wait to talk to Kane and we're going to pick his brain.

Speaker 3 (00:09:35):

I want to find out exactly how young he is because I noticed that his credits go all the way back to 2004 with Smash Mouth. He's been doing this since he was really young.

Speaker 2 (00:09:48):

Yeah, I think that's even before I started. I think. So that's pretty awesome. And he's staying really relevant. He is working on some awesome stuff. So yeah, let's bring him on and let's ask him some questions and get some insight from this guy. Hey Cain. Hey, how's it going? Welcome to the show. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So are you actually in Canada right now?

Speaker 5 (00:10:10):

No, I'm in Las Vegas.

Speaker 2 (00:10:12):

Okay. Yeah, so that's what's it called, the Hideout, right?

Speaker 5 (00:10:15):

Yeah. I mean, my dad have a studio here called the Hideout on Las Vegas Boulevard. That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:10:20):

How hard is it to stay productive

Speaker 5 (00:10:23):

In Las Vegas downtown Lake

Speaker 3 (00:10:24):

Vegas?

Speaker 5 (00:10:26):

It, it's not that bad for me because I'm a workaholic. Probably not much different than you guys, so I just work all the time, man. But what I love about it's everything's open all the time. So when I finish working at 2:00 AM I can go buy groceries at two 30 and make a meal at four in the morning if I want. That's relatively fresh.

Speaker 3 (00:10:47):

That's actually pretty cool. And I bet that the whole Vegas thing wears off. I know that a lot of the residents can't stand the whole Vegas thing anyways. That's what I've heard at least. So I bet that it wears off and just becomes a normal place.

Speaker 5 (00:11:03):

Totally. I mean, I only go to the strip probably once or twice a year, and that's if family or friends are in town and they want to do something or whatever, but most of the time you're just staying away from the chaos and avoiding all the tourist traps.

Speaker 2 (00:11:17):

I think an interesting problem might be actually the bands that come through to the studio.

Speaker 5 (00:11:22):

True, true. This is true. And I would say 50% of them struggle with that and 50% of them, it's a non-issue. Well,

Speaker 4 (00:11:32):

You just got to get a strip club in the studio and then you're set and they don't need to leave.

Speaker 5 (00:11:36):

I mean, again, it's great because open all the time, so even if they work long and everything, they can still go to the strip club at any time. They don't have to be there before a certain time, before a certain cutoff time, just making sure we got the priorities

Speaker 4 (00:11:48):

Straight.

Speaker 5 (00:11:49):

It shouldn't cut into their time, even though obviously sometimes it does, but most of the bands don't have a big enough budget to make the process go any longer than they had than they need to. Have you

Speaker 3 (00:12:03):

Ever had any budgets just go over because band members got sucked in by the strip and disappeared or anything crazy like that?

Speaker 5 (00:12:13):

No, I mean, for the most part, to be honest, most of the budgets we do are usually just all in this is the price until it's done. And so if it takes longer, it's on me. Now we were talking a little bit about

Speaker 2 (00:12:28):

The fact that you're the youngest person ever to win a Juno award, which is basically the equivalent to the Canadian and Grammy. And the song for that was Blood by in this moment you were the engineer of the year, right?

Speaker 5 (00:12:42):

Yes, yes. I shared that one with my dad, but Blood was very, blood was definitely my baby. So it was a very special award for sure.

Speaker 4 (00:12:49):

That album was huge, man, that was a great album. The vocal production on that, the first time I heard that I'm like, this is sick. It's so good.

Speaker 5 (00:12:55):

Thank you. Now, I mean, we're very proud of that one. That's one of our all time favorites for sure. And we figured out a lot about a lot of production techniques and stuff that we love still now on that album. That was kind of where we broke ground for ourselves in some ways too.

Speaker 3 (00:13:12):

That was also the turning point in that band's career. I think they were on the verge of breaking up possibly.

Speaker 5 (00:13:18):

Definitely, definitely. And I mean that was kind of just a really special situation where we had already done, or Dad had already produced two records for them and this was their fourth record and the last one on their independent deal was Century. And it was one of those situations where they'd never kind of sold more than their first record, just kind of about the same every time. Maybe about 60,000 records or so every time, but never a copy, more kind of, and never any radio play. So this was one where they lost their manager right before it. They lost half their band. It was the last album on their deal where they didn't even know if they'd get picked up again or have any opportunities beyond this record, beyond the blood record or whatever. And we kind of just got together with Marie and Chris and really just formed sort of a special team and Bond and just were like, what do you guys want to do and how do we do it? It became a very, that record's special just because we're really like family when we make that record. It's just the four of us most of the time in a room.

Speaker 4 (00:14:24):

So you guys wrote it together?

Speaker 5 (00:14:26):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:14:26):

Well, you guys sold what, over 200,000 on that?

Speaker 5 (00:14:29):

Yeah, I think it might even be over two 50 now or something. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly, but yeah, no, it's over 200, which is great for them. And the single sold, I think over 200,000 singles, maybe through over 300,000 singles, I'm not sure which for them was the biggest thing they had ever done at that time. The biggest thing I'd kind of ever been really, really a huge part of and kind of every way and stuff. So it's sort of what got the phone ringing for me a lot of the times too.

Speaker 3 (00:14:59):

So I have a writing question in regards to that. So I know that that was the first album where they started to incorporate elements from other genres pretty heavily that Hit Blood was a total departure and they had all kinds of electronic stuff and it was no longer just metal core with the Chick singer. How would you guys go about when writing the material, how you go about just grabbing that stuff from another genre and making it sound natural, I guess?

Speaker 5 (00:15:33):

Yeah, I mean a lot of it's accidental. No, that's a good question actually. And I mean, it was something we talked about ahead of time before even any songs were written. We had a meeting basically about what we wanted the album to sound like, and they had an album title. They wanted the album called Blood, but they had no song called Blood. And it was one of those things where the first album dad did with them did actually have sort of a lot of extra production and electronics, but the songs were softer and we're talking about the album, the Dream here and the songs were softer and maybe not as well received as the Thrashier songs from earlier in their career, even though it still did just as good or whatever. But then the album after that, we decided to scale it back and make it more raw and more thrashy and less kind of extra production for Blood.

(00:16:31):

They wanted to have it be as angry and thrashy as the album before that, but with the production of the first one that we did with just even a heavier kind of tone to it all, a little more industrial, they weren't afraid to take chances. They didn't know exactly what they wanted to do, but they definitely were opening it up and being, I mean even opening it up to me where that was the first time I was invited to write with them where they extended it as much as if you come up with something cool, bring it to us, we love it, we're down with it. So I went home probably that night and was like, I got to write the album Track Blood. They have an album title called Blood. They Have No Blood, let me figure. But that's even how I correlate it, where Let me go for the most obvious starting point. We need a blood song.

Speaker 2 (00:17:26):

Well, sometimes we talk about how some of the greatest work comes out of those types of scenarios. I know that's very true for Joel.

Speaker 5 (00:17:33):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (00:17:35):

He likes to work under Pressure.

Speaker 5 (00:17:36):

I do too. I mean, to be honest, it's one of those things if I have an unlimited amount of time to write a song, I'll write the song forever and

Speaker 4 (00:17:44):

Exactly.

Speaker 5 (00:17:45):

If I have a day to write a song, I'll write the song that day. It's the challenge of it.

Speaker 3 (00:17:50):

How important is it for you to have a title before writing the song?

Speaker 5 (00:17:55):

So important, at least at this point. I mean, I feel like I've come up with enough beats and cool just music things in my life that that's kind of the easy part now. And for me, there almost is no song if there's no sort of identity to it at least. And I mean sometimes that can come from production as well, obviously, but for me, I want to be able to kind of single the song out as like, do I know another song called Blood Off the top of my head? How do I make this the song that when you hear the word blood, it's this song or whatever. And I like to think in terms of t-shirt songs a lot of the times where is it a slogan I would wear? Is it a specific thing that's unique to the title, even if it's simple? Does the song sound like that title? So for me, the title kind of at least conceptually is always the jumping off point and the point I like to start from for sure love even before I have a riff,

Speaker 4 (00:18:49):

I love that philosophy because when I write a hook, for example with a band and we sit down and I'm like, okay guys, we need that lyric where somebody's going to want to hold up their arm and yell it out. I mean, it depends on what kind of song. Let's say we're writing an anthem rock or whatever, that moment where people are going to want to grab it and it's going to be on a t-shirt or it's going to be an identifiable brand, we need that catchphrase and nailing down, like you said the title or that catchphrase is such an important and integral part of the track. And if you can hit that, that's at least in my opinion, one of the prerequisites for a song to be awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:19:22):

So you'd say that the title informs the lyrics as much as the musical decisions?

Speaker 5 (00:19:28):

I would say yes. I would say yes, at least if there's not a title early on, there has to at least be a concept. If it's like maybe we know the songs about sailing and maybe we're not going to call it sailing, but that sets the tone for the imagery and the lyrics that we come up with. Even though I did do a song called Sailing About Sailing, and it was metal as fuck, I was going to say, if you want to do

Speaker 2 (00:19:52):

A black metal band, if I don't have anything to go on, I'll always fall back on what is the comic book character version of this band?

Speaker 5 (00:20:03):

What's

Speaker 2 (00:20:04):

The persona of the vocalist? And then so what's the supercharged version of that and how would you throw that into a Michael Bay film? And then what would that look like? And then what would that sound like?

Speaker 5 (00:20:14):

You just said so many awesome things there that I couldn't agree with more. It's funny even you say the comic book thing, because for me, I'm actually a wrestling fan and I relate music to wrestling all the time. I'm like, I want the song to sound like how the character looks, which is the singer. I want it to be the tempo that they might walk to the stage at. I want the title to be a t-shirt that they might sell or a slogan that they might say, or that's why I love wrestling to be honest, is

Speaker 4 (00:20:49):

Well you guys nailed that with Five Finger Death points.

Speaker 5 (00:20:51):

Totally. I mean they've honestly taught us a lot. I think even about that they had so much of that together themselves out the gate and that's how they thought of it. And you're creating a lifestyle and trying to connect all the dots of that lifestyle and sort of a seamless experience that's more than just even the song. I mean, you want to wear the t-shirt of the song more than you even probably want to buy the song.

Speaker 2 (00:21:12):

Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (00:21:14):

And you're going to pay $80 for a Death Punch Jersey and 10 bucks for the record. So where, where's the money at?

Speaker 3 (00:21:23):

Sounds like you're using a lot of visual cues and a lot of imagery to draw your writing from.

Speaker 5 (00:21:30):

Definitely. I think I learned that from not being too schooled, but also I mean just certain artists we work with and people like Maria from in this moment have taught me a tremendous amount just about that, how they are. And she'll explain that she has an album she wants to do called Block Widow and not have a single song, but just explain every act of it and the whole process. And I really dig thinking like that and trying to reverse engineer the artist dreams in a lot of times, I mean most of the time I'm writing for the artist or at least with the artist in a capacity. So I try to just get out of them what they want to get out of themselves in a lot of ways. So it comes down to describing things and learning their language and learning how to speak their language.

Speaker 4 (00:22:14):

That's cool you say that Kane, because when I listen to B Blood by in this moment, adrenalize is probably my favorite song on that record. And the one thing I really love about that song, I mean the whole record in general, you could say this is a stereotype for it, but the vocal delivery and performance is so authentic on that record. And especially that song, it just like the whole, once she's in her zone, it just feels so real and so authentic and I feel like a lot of singers just can't quite pull off the theatrics of what they're trying to do when she speaks and sings and does her stuff. You can put yourself in her head and not a lot of front people I feel like can do that. And whatever you guys did with her, you guys fucking nailed it. Brilliant. Me and my assistant sat back and we listened to that song. We were like, wow, that vocal performance, holy shit. It was pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (00:23:06):

I mean, when she's in the booth, we're usually sitting there saying the same thing, being like, holy shit, she's sounds amazing right now. How is she killing it? And I don't think it's even her having as much an articulated understanding of the theatrics of the craft as much as she really just is that passionate. And even if there's imagery surrounding a song, the songs are all still very real to her and very, very emotional and very deep. And she's the artist that will cry in the vocal booth at the end of a take and we keep it rolling and have used that cry within. That's awesome. Within the records, I mean, I can't remember honestly if it was, I think it was Black Widow, but in the middle of the record, track seven or eight, I can't remember the song to be honest, but there's about a minute and a half of crying that's just her crying for a minute and a half that was at the end of that take, and we just kept it. And she's that artist that goes in the vocal booth and gives you goosebumps even if she's not super technical with her understanding of things, she knows so much about intention and just sort of putting herself right there in that moment of whatever she's performing.

Speaker 3 (00:24:20):

So on the topic of being technical, you said earlier that you're not very trained. Does theory play any part at all for you in the writing process or do you do it all by ear and imagery

Speaker 5 (00:24:36):

Pretty much by ear and imagery? I mean, I understand various technical things just randomly and in an unschool just from random pieces of experience. And I know a little bit about a theory, not a lot, but I know enough to figure out a chord for example. But I can't read it off a page. I can't necessarily tell you what the seventh chord, what the notes of the seventh chord are right away. But you can hear them. But I can hear them and I can go to the piano and show you. Yeah, I mean really just that mean, I've always just kind of heard the wrong notes more so than understood what the wrong notes were or why they were wrong. Dad will explain as much as he knows to me, but I've definitely never had music school or music teachers beyond my dad and other producers I worked for randomly.

Speaker 3 (00:25:30):

As long as you can hear it, that's really what matters.

Speaker 5 (00:25:32):

Yeah, I mean I think it's important not to get in the way. I mean, I do envy it time to time my friends that are amazing pianists for example, and that can just sit down and improvise endlessly and not hit a wrong note. Whereas I'll sit down as clumsily stumble around things, but write a song along the way, but not just be as amazing of a musician, I suppose, because of it. I mean, with Pro Tools and having pro tools so young, I really kind of learned how to play anything without having to know exactly what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (00:26:07):

I think there's an important distinction to make, and I feel like these are just my interpretation of it. So I don't know what you guys think about this, but I have two terms I like to use for writing songs and I feel like a producer being a good producer, the latter applies, but I call an idea person. You have a lot of people that are incredibly creative. They come in and they'll just blow your mind with how original they are and they could just splat a thousand ideas so quickly.

Speaker 5 (00:26:32):

But

Speaker 4 (00:26:33):

The problem is they don't have a filter. They don't know what's good or bad, they just have too many ideas. And then there's what I call a closer, which is kind of like the producer role. The artist comes in with 50 ideas and you're like, this one, this one are brilliant, this is shit, this is shit, this is shit. But that is the hit. We're going to do this song. And then as the closer can come in and kind of take that raw talent and mold it into something, and that's where the magic calculus kind of happens. And I think that I know a lot of amazing musicians, I can totally relate where they're super creative or whatever, and I'm like, man, these guys are so talented. But at the same time, they don't know what a good song is to say of their ass, but they write just too many and they have all these ideas and they lack focus, I guess is what I'm trying to say in a less articulate way.

Speaker 5 (00:27:17):

I mean, my dad always says, some people in life are starters and some people are finishers. Yeah, there you go. That's

Speaker 4 (00:27:26):

Awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:27:26):

So I kind of agree and I think I know a lot of people like that that could come up with a hundred songs, but they won't finish any of them. And I've done three songs in that time period. But they're done. They're available.

Speaker 3 (00:27:40):

Hey guys, Al here, and I just want to take a moment to talk to you about this month on Nail the Mix. If you're already a subscriber, thank you so much, we appreciate the hell out of you. But if you're not and you want to seriously up your mixing game, then you might want to consider Nail the Mix. This month we have a guest mixer, Mr. Kane Churko, and he will be mixing Face Everything and Rise by Papa Roach. And when you subscribe, you get the multi-tracks that he recorded and produced, you download them, you can enter a mix competition with prizes by Mc DSP, you get an Emerald Pack version six, that's like a $1,600 software package. Plus the winner also gets one year of everything bundle from Slate. So really, really good prize package for our mixed competition winners. We've also got a second place package that rules.

(00:28:39):

And yeah, if you join Nail the Mix, you also get bonus access to our exclusive community, which is other audio professionals and aspiring professionals just like you who just dork out on this stuff all day and night and love spreading knowledge. It's troll free. And so whether you nobe or experienced, it's a great place to just come talk about the thing we all share, which is a love for audio. So once again, if you haven't subscribed to Nail the Mix yet, this might be a great month to try. You get to learn how Kane Churko mixed the number one single face everything and Rise White Papa Roach, just go to nail the mix.com/papa Roach. That's nail the mix.com/papa Roach. How many ideas do you normally put down or get recorded or write, I guess before you start to consider it the makings of a song?

Speaker 5 (00:29:42):

I would say as few ideas as possible. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Speaker 3 (00:29:47):

Great answer.

Speaker 5 (00:29:49):

I mean, both dad and I we're kind of always under the Mutt L philosophy of we don't want to write B sides, we don't even want to think we're writing a B side. So we sort of approach every song as it's not done until we love it and until we think it's not a B side, even if that's awesome, even if it's going to be a B side or whatever in the end. So it's more for me, if I spend an hour or two working on an idea or whatever musical or conceptual or something and it doesn't turn into something that just feels that exciting to me, I'll probably just lose interest and move on to the next thing. And I would say most of my favorite ideas still always happen really fast, really quickly, even if it's just the essence of it. I mean Blood was one of those where within five minutes I had the hook and the riff and the beat in my head and it never changed from that initial five minute moment, even though the rest of the song is written around that.

Speaker 3 (00:30:53):

You know what I think is one of the curses of amateur writers, it's not that they don't have the talent to write the good stuff, it's that they don't have the discipline to throw away the bad stuff and put the brakes on when the good stuff does present itself. Just make more and more and more and more and keep it all, they get way too attached to every single idea. So I like what you said.

Speaker 5 (00:31:19):

I agree. I mean I think I'm always telling so many artists I work with just kind of how much better writers they are than they think because they're always sent around by their labels to write with other people like me. And they always come to me with a bunch of really great ideas where I'm like, you don't need me to write this kind of, you need to be able to recognize it. You need someone to say, Hey, that's a good idea. And there's no one there doing that, maybe from the label side or the a r side or whatever.

Speaker 4 (00:31:49):

All they do is sit around and tell you everything is shit anyways until they decide that they like it this week.

Speaker 5 (00:31:55):

But honestly to me, most of the time my job feels ridiculously easy where I'm always panicking and how am I going to write a song in two days and the label wants it to be the single and I've never even met this band before and going through it all in my head and freaking out and then the band comes and I realize, oh, they have a good riff, they have a good, I mean, I'll just ask people if I'm writing with a band I've never met and I know nothing about, and maybe it's just the writing session, I'll just ask them straight up the gate, play me your favorite riff or all the different riffs you play yourself that you've never made into a song your whole life. The thing you play in between soundcheck the course you've been stuck on forever that you threw away and you have no focus to finish it or whatever.

(00:32:38):

Play me all those because chances are most of the time there's tons of usable stuff in there and there's tons of things that I usually find really inspiring. And a lot of the time it's just sort of finding what's inspiring about that artist and running with it. I mean, I always tell people I kind of approach the writing like a method actor sort of where I really like to get inside the psychology of who that artist is. And if I got to write with somebody, I'm Googling them, I'm looking up their Wikipedia, I'm finding out about the relationship problems that they had the year before. I'm finding out what all the things I think their fans are going to want to read about or in the lyrics or think that the artist is going to want to talk about. I'm going to find out where they grew up. To me, that's very important to represent who the artist is. Here's a question for you

Speaker 4 (00:33:25):

Kane. So what do you do when a band comes into your studio and the label and the band are having a freaking identity crisis? The band wants to go in one direction, doesn't necessarily know which way the label's kind of the same way. They keep experimenting back and forth and it causes a lot of stress. So where do you find creativity and inspiration in a situation like that where like I said, the artist kind of comes in and they don't know what they want to sound like or what their sound is going to be going forward.

Speaker 5 (00:33:56):

I know most of the label people aren't going to like this or necessarily agree with me on it, but I just believe you have to represent the artist. And usually in those kinds of situations, if there is sort of that tension around uncertainty, and we've definitely dealt with that. I'll usually just kind of say if I'm talking to the label, I'm just saying, trust us. Let us do one or two songs first and then show you. Let us show you. Because we might describe something that they think they don't like, but I know they're not hearing in their head what I'm hearing. And I like to think that once they do, they will be able to see it. Similarly, I think a lot of times that does work. I think there's been very few times where we've maybe handed something in and we've had those kind of real fundamental issues, I would say. In fact, there's been a lot of times where if that's happened and the label's like, oh, well, we still don't think there's a song that's enough of a single blah blah, blah, blah, blah, let's write two more songs. I

Speaker 4 (00:34:55):

Fucking hate

Speaker 5 (00:34:56):

That. Let's write two more songs. Maybe those two will be the singles. And then you do those two and they're not the singles and then the label realizes two weeks later they like the first two songs you did and those were the singles and the problem this ends up solve itself with albeit spending a lot more work than you maybe want to prove

Speaker 4 (00:35:16):

It. I hate those situations. I went through a very grueling one earlier this year with a band just as you described, the label changed their mind literally every three days. It's amazing to read the email change because they all sound like they're on fucking drugs. I mean, it just doesn't make any logical sense at all.

Speaker 5 (00:35:34):

Or how about the classic, oh, this is great, we love it. Now let's get so-and-so to mix it. Of course you'll be better once they mix it,

Speaker 4 (00:35:41):

Of course.

Speaker 5 (00:35:43):

And you go through that and they pay three mixers to mix it and then realize that they don't like any of those mixes better. They like the ones that they've lived with for six months and it's the same old, same old, same old.

Speaker 3 (00:35:57):

So what instrument do you play?

Speaker 5 (00:36:00):

I would say I'm strongest at guitar. Maybe I play a little bit of keys, just self-taught. And I mean I sing, like I said, pro tools. I can program and imagine most things.

Speaker 3 (00:36:14):

So how important is it for you to have a guitar in your hand when you're writing? Do you do it at the guitar or you do it in your head or on the computer or just a combination of all the above

Speaker 5 (00:36:27):

These days? A combination probably. I mean, I started definitely writing songs on guitar when I was younger. I mean the first thing I did, I had a handful of guitar lessons in my life and the first thing I did when I went to the first guitar lesson was Take the Guitar, was get them to teach me a Green Day song, learn three chords, go home and be like, oh, I can rearrange these three chords and make my own song. Let me just do that. That's more fun. It's funny to this day, I know almost no covers at all I know are songs that I've written and

Speaker 2 (00:36:57):

I'm the same way.

Speaker 5 (00:36:58):

I can't play the most basic cover song. And people are always like, come on Kane, you're in a band. Get up on stage and at this jam session play American Woman or Back in Black or something with us. And I don't know, I don't know more than a verse on a

Speaker 2 (00:37:11):

Course of anything. I only recently started learning how to play some songs, but I was the same way for the longest time. And I think there's definitely two different styles of songwriting. I think there's people who know how to play every single pop chord progression ever. And so when they write they use those and then there's people who have no clue what they are and they just do what they think sounds cool. And I think both ways are completely viable, but it's just two different things.

Speaker 5 (00:37:40):

I like understanding somewhere in the middle. I mean, I've definitely spent my time reading all the books and articles about this is the most popular key to write a pop song in. And there's the hit song progression and the most famous pop female sensitive songs are written with this progression and all that kind of stuff. And I've definitely gone through phases when I was younger trying to do that and being like, let me write 15 songs with the same hit song progression and maybe I'll have a hit or whatever. And I think it's important to maybe understand a little bit of that. And there's definite tricks that you can apply and make almost any song better for sure.

Speaker 3 (00:38:18):

That's like the songwriter's version of practicing your scales when you're

Speaker 5 (00:38:23):

First

Speaker 3 (00:38:24):

Learning guitar is right

Speaker 5 (00:38:25):

Most of the time. My biggest songs aren't any of those things or only have a couple of those things, but they have never been the hit song progression yet, even though I'm still writing that one over and over again. Again.

Speaker 4 (00:38:39):

So speaking of hit songs, because kind of a fun topic, and this is always a weird question because sometimes it gets political and some people get really weirded out by this question and some people are like, oh yeah, dude, so what do you think makes a hit song?

Speaker 5 (00:38:51):

I'm on the side of the fence of music being subjective. So I mean for me, what makes a hit song is it has to have identity for me. I want to have more reason to listen to that song than the next thing. I like lots of bands that are very separate from each other. I love a band like Cake for example, that only sounds like cake and always sounds like cake. And when I want cake I can kind of only get it from them and no one's really truly emulated all those ingredients in that kind of way. And I always kind of like those sort of things a lot. I want to be able to remember it. I want to be able to hear it once and be able to Google it and find it and add it to my Spotify playlist,

Speaker 4 (00:39:34):

The bar test I call it, where you're drunk at two in the morning and the song comes on and no one can even talk. But they can all sing the hook in that song, but no one knows how the rest of the song goes.

Speaker 5 (00:39:44):

It's got to give you a feeling that you want in some way. I mean, even songs that aren't songs I would listen to 10 times a day like Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leopard. I wouldn't listen to that 10 times a day maybe anymore. At one point I probably listened to it a hundred times a day, but when you hear it in a bar and you're in a bar and you have Add two drinks and pour some sugar on me or Back in Black comes on, it feels awesome. Fuck

Speaker 4 (00:40:11):

Yeah, it does.

Speaker 5 (00:40:12):

You feel the moment it enhances the moment, it becomes like it augments your reality. A good song should be able to do that.

Speaker 3 (00:40:20):

So as a pro songwriter, going back to what you said about every song or band needing their own unique identity that sets them apart completely from all the other songs, just like the Cake example. So how do you go into a situation with a band where you're part of the creative force as a writer, but manage to keep that identity intact for that artist? Meaning not have it suddenly sound like you keep it sounding like them.

Speaker 5 (00:40:50):

That's tough. I think both of us have kind of come to accept that there's a certain amount of style with what we do that is kind of specific to us as well. And when you're coming to team up with us, you're getting that along with it. I've always really liked producers like Mutt Lying or Dr. Dre or let's say even Pharrell or someone like that. When you go to them, you're going to them very much for what they do and you're not going to get something that doesn't sound like Pharrell back and they're not going to be guys where you can say, oh actually, hey Pharrell, can you make a song for me that's kind of like this other Jay-Z song that a different guy produced, you're going to go to Pharrell because you want it to sound like Pharrell. And kind of, I guess egotistically enough. I want people to come to me generally for my strengths and also because lots of the time my strengths are my interests. So I don't usually like to work with bands that I'm not writing with because I love to write. And that's just really fun to me. And I love to write way more than I love to engineer.

Speaker 2 (00:42:00):

Well, some of the most successful people really just pick one thing that they're very good at and they just laser focus on whatever that is and just do it extremely well and just keep doing that. And that's the same thing with mine. I could easily work on various styles of music, but obviously people come to me for a very specific niche thing. And I think that's probably, in my opinion, the proper approach to it nowadays, especially with the market being so saturated and diluted as well, you sort of have to just excel at whatever it is that you're bringing to the table, your little special steak sauce.

Speaker 5 (00:42:39):

When it comes to the identity and stuff, I try to approach it. I'm maybe signing up to be in that band's band for those three or four months that we make that record for. So I'm certainly trying to think from their perspective, trying to think of their audience, trying to, if they're a young band, trying to think younger, if they're more mature, trying to think more mature, just whatever the goal is. I'm trying to assimilate myself sort of into that and join in this moment as if they had a writer in the band that maybe knew a little bit more about how to form a song for a format and for the listener maybe a little better. But yeah, I mean it's tough, especially because we do everything and most of our records we co-write, engineer, produce, mix and master. So I mean, I'm so obsessed with the end result that I would say that almost nothing kind of doesn't get affected by our own style.

(00:43:38):

And I think in some ways people listen to our band's records for a bit of that, whether they know it or not. But I mean there's a lot of musicians definitely that come to me that are like, we love your records. I love how the drums sound. And I can tell they're turco drums, and I think we just live in a time period where that's just happening and producers are becoming more apparent in the style of all genres. And there's not a lot of players these days, musicians that I think can think of that always necessarily have a certain unique drum tone to just that musician. It's not like Vi Paul. I mean, there's those guys that have existed for sure, but exactly like those guys. But there's not a lot of young guys these days to me that are that distinct and that's maybe mainstream enough to become relevant in that specific way where they're unanimously known for being the new young, awesome sounding guy with that one specific tone and that one specific groove or whatever. I mean, I think that's happening less and less and people are sort of getting just the style of the production.

Speaker 4 (00:44:45):

Yeah, it's interesting. It's like the producers have become the stylized musicians in a way now that you kind of pointed out and the light goes off in my head.

Speaker 5 (00:44:55):

I think so. And to be honest, and I'm not championing that way necessarily as being the best. I mean, I know a lot of musicians would much rather have producers keep their hands off of their work. But I mean, for me as a kid, even before I knew I wanted to do producing or writing or anything like that, I was just a geeky kid that liked music. And one day I made a database of all the CDs I owned. And in that database I wrote down who produced each of them just because I wanted more data, I guess.

(00:45:27):

And in that process I found out, oh, I own a hundred CDs and eight of them are by the same producer. I probably liked that producer's work, and I would start just looking up producers and listening to producers. So I mean, all my favorite producers I found did have a style I realized without knowing it or knowing of them that I'd own a dozen records by the same guy or whatever. And I don't think that's accidental by any means. So for me, it's just how I listen and it's how I then execute I guess, my own work.

Speaker 3 (00:46:00):

So with all that emphasis on writing and also having a unique sound, do you think that these days arrangement is part of the writing process as opposed to one point in time where somebody wrote on a piano and then gave it to an arranger and an artist and is two totally different things?

Speaker 5 (00:46:24):

I mean, I've honestly never worked any way that's different than that as far as I've never had the luxury of even working with an arranger and knowing what working with a good arranger would be like. But yeah, I mean, arrangements to me is crucial. And it happens day one and bands bring me in there five and a half minute songs, and I immediately put it in Pro Tools and cut it down to three and a half minutes and just find what the good part is. Lots of time I find they don't even know what the best part of the song is, and it'll be like the last section of the song I'm like, oh, what's this chant? That only happens once in the last 15 seconds of the song. That should happen at least four more times for twice the length. And then I'll copy and paste it around and even Frankenstein their demo into an arrangement regardless of even if we're rewriting something or whatever. That's

Speaker 2 (00:47:16):

How I usually start out is take the demo, chop it up and Frankenstein.

Speaker 5 (00:47:21):

And I find it helps just to show people I could explain how I want it to them, I find, but not everyone can imagine it the same way, way. But once you cut it, they're like, oh yeah, that part does go on too long. Let's cut every part in half and it's a better song.

Speaker 3 (00:47:36):

So where's the line drawn in your opinion, between arranging and writing?

Speaker 5 (00:47:42):

Is there a line? I mean, for me, I guess they're the same, I suppose. I mean, here's the thing. If a band, let's say if a band does bring in a song that they wrote themselves and I'm just doing some edits to it, I'm not going to take songwriting credit if I'm not adding lyrics or melody to it. I don't think I'm writing it really, even though I might be making it a better song by taking a minute out of it. That being said, there's almost never been a time where I didn't feel I could make someone's song better by maybe rewriting something or adding something melodically or lyrically different at some point in it too. So usually for me, that just happens as part of the process.

(00:48:24):

And again, it's just fun for me. I listen to everything as a fan sort of. So I'm singing along and I'll sing something that isn't in the song, but I feel should be whatever. It could be something big or it could be something small. Maybe I won't like the chorus, maybe I'll just think the course is only half of a chorus and it needs a tag or something and something to resolve to, maybe they don't say the title enough or something and it's a good title. Maybe there's something about the song that I like a lot that just should happen more. And usually I try to start there. I try to find all the things I like first and emphasize those things more. And then after that, try to cut away the things I like less and keep working the weakest links sort of out of it if you can.

(00:49:14):

And it's actually funny, there was one time I had a client just, or not a client of prospective client come through here and tour the studio and stuff, and I was talking about the process and saying exactly what I just told you guys about how I'm going to probably think of a better way to make their song better basically. And they got mad at me straight away and we're like, and we're like, how could you even say our songs need to be better before you've even heard them? I just said, don't be offended by this, but I don't care if you're Stevie Wonder if you're hiring me to make your songs better. I'm going to find out a way to make them better. Or at least I'm going to try and I might tell Stevie Wonder of a better course, and maybe my course isn't better, but if he's hiring me to produce or to be responsible for the end product, then I'm going to do whatever it takes.

Speaker 2 (00:50:05):

I think that some of our listeners probably encountered this on the lower end, the smaller studios and smaller guys are working with these people who sort of think that way before they think the other way, that they're quick to jump to, well, why would you say that our songs are going to suck, and why would you even assume that we have?

Speaker 5 (00:50:26):

So

Speaker 2 (00:50:26):

I think it's very hard for them to listen to where we are coming from and to try and take our advice and actually apply it to their own situations. But it's nice to hear, I guess, that it still occurs with people even at your level. So

Speaker 3 (00:50:42):

We have some questions from the audience if you don't mind us asking. Okay. So Giovanni Angel was asking if you could touch on some of the legal aspects of co-writing with artists.

Speaker 5 (00:50:54):

Yeah, I don't know specifically what he would want to know about,

Speaker 3 (00:50:59):

He didn't get more specific than that. So I would say maybe some major pitfalls to avoid and just major things to definitely,

Speaker 4 (00:51:06):

You could also explain how writing splits work and points and why points is a producer thing, but you know what I mean, the legal side of how does BMI work and shit like that.

Speaker 5 (00:51:17):

Yeah, I mean, I would say splits are an important thing to talk about. I like to think a little bit old school when it comes to rock music, at least where it's a team sport. And if I'm writing a song with three people and three of them show up to write the song with me expecting that I should get 25% a fourth of whatever the song split with them. And I expect at least that I expect it to be equal. And I usually fight for equality, even if there's been other writers, there's been times where the artist has come back and sent a split sheet out for the fact that it isn't equal or maybe even as equal for me, but not equal for another writer. And I'll make whatever concession I have to and make whatever phone calls I have to usually to make sure it's equal.

(00:52:06):

So if I'm writing a song with, in this moment, it's usually me, Chris, Maria, and my dad, and it's an even four way, four way split. For example, if I'm writing a song with a band where just the singer shows up, then it's 50 50 or whatever. So that's usually what I expect. Now that being said, most of the time I don't have a contract ahead of time and I just sort of taken on good faith. I mean, I've been screwed over a couple times doing that, but the most part I find at least I'm lucky enough at this point in my life to find good people to work with, and if someone is going to be a dick bag and try to screw you over something and want more than something that's fair. I just don't have to work with them again and I don't have to think about it and I don't have to sign the agreement if I don't want to. And it's a cheap lesson to learn to find out someone isn't of good character.

Speaker 3 (00:53:06):

So is the reason that you do the contract afterwards, not to spoil the vibe ahead of time?

Speaker 5 (00:53:15):

A little bit. I mean, part of it for me is I hate contracts. I hate contracts.

Speaker 4 (00:53:23):

I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (00:53:23):

I hate the idea of them. It was actually one of my all time favorite producers that I know has had the same manager for 30 years and he's never had a contract with him. They've had the deal on the handshake and 500 million records later, they're all still cool with each other and there's no problems, and they talk to each other on the phone every day and there's no problem. Maybe it's the Canadian in me, I like to leave the front door open and just trust people. It's called integrity and find out who the bad guys are.

Speaker 2 (00:53:55):

The problem with that really though, is the fact that just at least in my experience, is that bands just aren't always loyal. They're not always going to be loyal. They're going to want to go to greener pastures or whatever it is. And even the bands, I'm not naive to believe that if I work on five albums with the band that they're going to want to come back for the sixth one. So I find that contracts are just a necessary evil. I definitely agree. I mean,

Speaker 5 (00:54:21):

Yeah, I think producer contracts are more important for me in terms of making sure I get paid and work and stuff. Writing is always usually sort of spec anyway to an extent where I'm not usually getting a fee or anything, and I don't even know if the song is going to be on the record until I'm either hired to produce it or someone else is hired to produce it. So writing to me is still sort of a bonus, I guess. So income wise, I would say, I guess it's more of a bonus where I make as much time for it as I can, but you never know what you're going to draw that quarter, whereas producing, I know what I'm going to get for a record and I know I'm going to get X half upfront and half at the end and how long it's going to kind of take and stuff. So contract's more important for producing and I've gotten screwed on both ends. I've gotten screwed on writing and I've gotten screwed on producing. However, I've never actually had someone try to screw me over and get away with screwing me over.

(00:55:23):

So let that be a lesson to everybody out there. I mean, it's definitely good advice to get a contract and it's good advice to do all that. For me, it's usually extra time, extra money, extra thought. It's like I said, I want to be able to trust someone and if I see I can't trust them, I just won't work with them again and I'll open my email and pick one other client that I'll like more. And I love what I do. I love what I do, and we have a very family oriented business here. I work with my dad every single day and have most of my life, and my sister's the studio manager and my mom decorated the studio and I work with most of my friends as assistants and stuff like that. So I like who I work with. I like doing what I do and if anything kind of remotely sours an experience for me, I just want nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3 (00:56:19):

Fair enough. That's awesome.

Speaker 5 (00:56:20):

It's an exaggerated version of the best thing you can do is lend someone 20 bucks, have them not pay you back and find out for 20 bucks. That person's not of good character writing. I usually get a contract after the fact most of the time. Everyone's cool. I'm very generous. I think there's a lot of writers that would take half regardless in some situations if there's even the whole band shows up and I'm at this point, at least have been happy taking a fifth if the four guys show up, so I'm just happy to be there and usually trying to get the production gig if I'm doing a writing session anyway, so it it's fun. I

Speaker 4 (00:56:58):

Think equal splits are awesome when you're writing because it makes it very non awkward. It's always weird when you're doing a skewed split writing. You're like, well, I wrote that riff and I wrote that word and I wrote this part of the hook and this melody note, so I get an extra 6%. And then you sit there and you fight back and forth about it and then it becomes 4% or 7%, and it's more like, okay, we got six guys writing six way split, three guys writing three way split. It's just so much less bullshit.

Speaker 5 (00:57:24):

I agree. I think that being said, it's like I try to discourage anyone from being in the room that doesn't need to be in the room. A bass player, if there's a bass player that's not a lyricist or coming up with a melody or writing a riff, he just doesn't probably need to be there. So it's like you try to discourage having too many cooks on the kitchen For sure. And maybe there's some exceptions where if some random friend gave you a line change for one thing or something and you're like, oh, I think that's actually cool, and let me give my friend his first writing credit and give him 5% or 10% instead of 50% or whatever if I wrote the song myself or something like that. But I think for the most part, I think it's a team sport and I mean, if you change back in Brown to back in black, that alone's a big enough difference to warrants equal share.

Speaker 3 (00:58:17):

Yeah. So Carl Winy is asking how soon should a hook hit and how do you take an okay melody and make it pop Seven seconds? No,

Speaker 2 (00:58:30):

I always thought before 60 seconds, but in the more alternative rock metal scene, it's not as important, but you will notice that most of the biggest songs have the hook in the first 60 seconds.

Speaker 5 (00:58:43):

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I'm a lyrical listener, so I love getting to a vocal quick, even if I'm not getting to a verse right away and have an intro and then an intro riff or something. I love if I can sneak the title in there somewhere. And if you can start with a course, that's wonderful. It's hard for me to do a lot, but I mean, I like to get to the hook as quick as possible or have different kinds of hooks. I mean, it's not always the course that's the only hook in the song or whatever. I mean, I think a lot of times the intro riff is, at least in rock, is just as important for aming up the whole song as the chorus might be for winning people over with the songwriting aspect or something, if that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (00:59:29):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:59:30):

Totally.

Speaker 4 (00:59:30):

Hey, real quick off topic before we get back to questions. How fucking awesome was it working with Papa Roach?

Speaker 5 (00:59:35):

I love those guys. They're my favorite. I

Speaker 4 (00:59:37):

Got to tour with them for a couple of dates back in 2008, and they're just the nicest, coolest dudes I've ever met in a band. They were the least douches guys. They were just so nice. They'll come right up and like, Hey guys, what's up? And I just think the world of them as people, they're just, especially Jacoby, he's just so awesome. I

Speaker 5 (00:59:54):

Completely agree. And Jacoby is definitely one of my favorite people in the world. He is not just a front man on the stage, he's a front man in life.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):

He himself is like a brand. I mean, he's just amazing live and just an incredible front man, and

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):

He's just someone that's just so genuine and genuinely wants to uplift the room, whatever room, whatever room he's in. And he's the guy that will walk in the room and you don't know him, he'll walk up to you and be like, Hey, dog, that's a cool shirt. Where can I get one of those? And he'll just come and compliment you and immediately start taking an interest in you. And I think that's rare. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):

He's just a genuinely good dude. Well face everything and Rise is an amazing song.

Speaker 5 (01:00:37):

Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):

And I know you absolutely killed that. Thank

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):

You. Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):

And I love that song. I think what you did with that band was great.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):

Thank you. It was a very special record for me and just the experience of working with them and Jacobi, I mean, that record was working with your best friends, making something you love and you love it the whole time you're doing it, and then it's well received and you can't get better than that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):

That is the

Speaker 5 (01:01:03):

Ultimate, I mean, when you're cheersing every day to face everything and rise and then six months later or a year later, practically after it's out, it's number one single and stuff. My first number one single, it was really special for sure. Congrats

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):

On that. And last question is from Riley Jackson, and just wondering, what do you do when you get stuck on a section of a song like a chorus?

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):

Yeah, I think that's a good question. And it happens I would say every day at some point, and I like to work oddly enough on a lot of things at once. I find if I can switch gears even for a minute, if I'm writing a song and then maybe also doing a mix for someone else at the same time, I'll just flip over to the mix for a couple hours of the other thing and do something else for those two hours. And when I go back to the other song, it feels fresh again, and sometimes I just find that digs up new inspiration. That being said, sometimes you just got to go outside and walk around the building, walk around the parking lot, just take some fresh air. I'm not a cigarette smoker, but if you're a smoker, you smoke. If you're a meditator, you maybe meditate for a little bit. If you're a weed guy, you might smoke a bowl and all of a sudden the song sounds different when you come back and you think of something different. It's just,

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):

Yeah, I think just taking yourself out of the process and coming back to it with a different perspective.

Speaker 5 (01:02:32):

And people ask me that a lot about objectivity and how even you remain objective and stuff like that. Being so involved in every part of the song, and I find it's really not that hard if I'm indecisive about something at this point. If I can't make a decision after taking a break for 20 minutes, then it's not even that important of a decision or I'll split the difference of the decision of my uncertainty, and that usually just solves the problem at least enough for me until someone has an opinion about it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):

Well, at what point do you decide to just ditch the part?

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):

That's tough. I mean, maybe that's contingent upon how much time I have to deliver it. Fair enough. If I'm doing a writing session that's only two days to write a song or something and we're stuck on something for more than half a day, it's like we got to just get off of it and move on to anything else. That being said, even when I write a song, I don't like to do it sequentially. So if I get stuck on a course, let me start working on the bridge, and if I get stuck on the bridge, let me start doing some programming in the verse. And because I'm usually doing production too. If I am stuck on a song part, I just do a little production somewhere and maybe it inspires the song part a little more.

(01:03:51):

Or there's tricks too, I think. I find with rock, it gets really hard to write different kinds of melodies under riffs that don't move around a lot. There's a lot of open where there's a lot of open notes and you're always falling on the open string, and they're kind of one chord songs to me. A lot of the time I'll put a keyboard progression behind the riff so that way it just throws more melody in there, so it's easier for me to write melodies too, and then even if I take it out after that, melody will still probably work or whatever, but it just inspires something different I suppose.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):

That reminds me of a question I forgot to ask you, but lots of people have trouble with transitions and endings. Do you have any tricks for that or any specific methods that you use to just get transitions seamless?

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):

I mean, as far as endings and stuff, I hate outros that fade out, and I hate just non definitive ends, so I'm always a big fan of it. Something ending abruptly or ending on a bump bump or ending on the last word of the course or whatever. I like very definitive ends for sure. So I'm always trying to figure out usually how to do that. So you don't

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):

Like the fade out guitar solo where the guitar player puts all the best licks at the very quietest part of the song, so you got to jack up the volume Such a

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):

Cop out.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):

I hate that there was an vey song, dude that nevermind.

Speaker 5 (01:05:23):

Well, and I think part of it too is from playing in bands myself and having backing tracks and stems and stuff, the worst part is when you have a song that didn't have a definitive end and you're making stems and trying to figure out how it ends and having to make different live stems that have endings and stuff and stuff like that. So you could play it live without pretending to all fade out or whatever, whatever. But I'm used to thinking of some of those mechanics where maybe another writer producer wouldn't always think from the band point of view of running stems off an iPod and having a proper ending.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):

Usually when I hear fade outs, I just think that somebody ran out of ideas

Speaker 5 (01:06:07):

To me. I've only ever used a fade out when I just couldn't figure out how to end it or it was, there you go. Or it was a client request and they just absolutely wanted that. But

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):

I'll tell you, the only case where I think a fade out is warranted and it's when there's a part of the song that just you wish could go on forever and ever and ever, and obviously you're not going to be able to get away with doing that. Yeah, for sure. You have a repeat quite a few times, but you can

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):

Out, it's got to be like the interlude or the last track of the CD or something like

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):

That, or it's got to be like a singular saxophone solo just at the end fading out from the New York distance.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):

Okay. Hey, let me ask you one quick thing here as sort of a last question, because there's a common thought process that the sort of formal songwriting knowledge can cripple creative thinking for great songwriting, but I think you can find sort of the opposite thinking in terms of when it comes to production. I think there's a lot of people who learn how to make stuff sound good but don't understand songwriting, and so I'm just curious, would you agree that knowing more about songwriting can help you be a better mixer or a better producer or all the different types of skills oriented with this craft?

Speaker 5 (01:07:26):

I think for sure. I think all those things bleed back into each other. I feel like a lot of what makes me a good producer is that I feel like I'm a good mixer, and in some ways I feel like I'm such a good mixer that I can get away with a lot of stuff, even at the engineering level because I know how it's all going to work in the end. It just all correlates. I think even being a good mixer makes you a better songwriter because I'm used to thinking about song length and radio edits, and I almost write like that. I haven't ever usually had to do any radio edits of songs I've written because they are the radio ads. That's great.

Speaker 4 (01:08:09):

Yeah. If you're writing good songs, they shouldn't need radio edits,

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):

And if someone's asked me for a radio ad, I feel like the song's not good enough and I need to make the song shorter.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):

Right, absolutely. It's a huge pain to get a great song and then go back and think of it as a radio edit and go, oh, shit,

Speaker 5 (01:08:29):

And sometimes it's impossible, but for sure. But I think as a kid, I also just liked, I hated hearing a different version on the album than I heard on the radio, so it's more just even still the 14-year-old and me functioning from the place of, well, I want to give them the right version and I don't want them to have have the Tom Lord LJ Radio remix or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):

By the way, anyone that hears my radio edit for the two new asking Alexandria songs, I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):

Yeah, it's teacher own. I mean, I've heard people say the flip side of that and say that they loved when they heard a different version, and it just gave them more to dig into and stuff. But I usually feel cheated because I usually like the radio version and then when it's not on the record that I'm a sad customer.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):

Yeah. Awesome. Well, hey man, it's been great having you on here. Thanks so much for offering up your perspective. Sure. Thank you on this, and thanks for answering the audience questions and everything, and we appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really, really had a lot of fun

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):

After talking to you for an hour here. There's no doubt in my mind why you and your dad are where you guys are at and kicking so much ass and kicking out top tens like they're a joke. Oh, thank you. It's really awesome to kind of dig into your process. You guys are killing it. Keep at it. Thank you so much. It means a lot. The Unstoppable Recording

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):

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