Sterling Winfield: Recording Pantera, Dimebag’s guitar secrets, why performance trumps gear

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Drum Forge. Drum Forge is a forward-thinking developer of audio tools and software for musicians and producers alike. Founded on the idea that great drum sounds should be obtainable for everyone, we focus on your originality, drum forge, it's your sound. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek,

Speaker 2 (00:00:22):

And Eyal Levi. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Joey Sturgis Forum podcast. Hello. And how you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:00:30):

Not bad. Not bad. Great. Today,

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Yeah, today we have a cool guest. Sterling Winfield. Is that how you say that?

Speaker 4 (00:00:37):

That's how you say it. And wow, I'm cool. Tell my wife. Cool.

Speaker 3 (00:00:43):

Cool. And the more I read about you, the cooler you get actually.

Speaker 4 (00:00:48):

Oh hell, thanks man.

Speaker 3 (00:00:50):

Because Sterling has worked on a bunch of stuff that I grew up listening to. I didn't realize you had worked on that merciful faith stuff from way back when, but that was some of my formative stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:01:07):

Right on.

Speaker 3 (00:01:08):

Yeah, they were the first metal show I ever went to.

Speaker 4 (00:01:11):

Awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:01:12):

Yeah, so you're partly responsible.

Speaker 4 (00:01:16):

Hey man, I've corrupted many of Youth of America

Speaker 2 (00:01:21):

Also in these credits here are Pantera. Hell yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:01:25):

Yeah, that's my shit, dude. Pantera. Fuck yes.

Speaker 3 (00:01:28):

I think Pantera we can safely say is everybody's shit. That's

Speaker 4 (00:01:31):

That's the top of the marquee for me, man. Honestly, the good stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:01:36):

Damage plan as well, which is awesome. Yep. Hell yeah. And King Diamond as well, which is very cool.

Speaker 4 (00:01:43):

Yeah, the merciful fate stuff kind of bled over into King Diamond and ended up doing a couple of things with him as well.

Speaker 3 (00:01:49):

And you're in Texas and I know that he's not American, but he lives in Texas, right?

Speaker 4 (00:01:54):

Yeah, he lives right up the road here from me, probably about 20 minutes.

Speaker 3 (00:01:59):

Where's he from? Is he from Denmark?

Speaker 4 (00:02:01):

He's from Denmark, yeah, he's from Copenhagen.

Speaker 3 (00:02:03):

How did he end up in Texas? That seems like a strange,

Speaker 4 (00:02:06):

He married a girl from here.

Speaker 3 (00:02:08):

They

Speaker 4 (00:02:08):

Got hitched and it was right after I became an assistant engineer intern kind of guy over at the studio that he came by to check out, which was Dallas Sound Lab at the time. Probably the best studio here, one of the better studios in the southwest. And he came by to tour the studio a couple of times, just said he was moving here and he was looking for a place to record and it went from there.

Speaker 3 (00:02:33):

Was that your first studio gig?

Speaker 4 (00:02:36):

Yeah, that was my first real gig as being nobody there was on staff, so to speak. We were all freelancers, but you could have called us on staff. We just weren't getting benefits. So yeah, it was my first studio gig ever. It was back in 1991, October of 91 when I got on there and piddled around there for a few years. And then I met Pantera in October of 93. And the rest is history.

Speaker 3 (00:03:11):

You know what I was doing in 1991?

Speaker 4 (00:03:13):

You were probably in grade school. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:03:15):

Nothing cool.

Speaker 5 (00:03:18):

I was listening to Metal.

Speaker 4 (00:03:19):

Alright.

Speaker 5 (00:03:20):

Like sixth or seventh grade around that time, that watch. Cool.

Speaker 4 (00:03:24):

That's about when I got corrupted. My older brother corrupted me, so we can thank him.

Speaker 3 (00:03:29):

So how did you literally land that as your first gig?

Speaker 4 (00:03:32):

It wasn't my first gig ever there. I mean, my first gig ever there was making coffee. It was like, can I intern here? And they go, yeah, there's the coffee maker. I mean, that was literally it. There's the trash can. There's the coffee maker, there's the coffee machine. Be quiet. That was the gig. I love that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:03:56):

How did you even land that one?

Speaker 4 (00:03:58):

I had done a little apprenticeship type thing. There were no real formal audio schools at that point in time here in the Dallas area. I had moved up here from a small west Texas city called San Angelo that where I was pretty much born and raised and moved out of there when I was 18, couldn't get out of there fast enough and just wanted to come seek my famine fortune here and hated college. It wasn't for me. I was making good grades, but it just wasn't for me. And me and my dad sat down and I got the music bug from him. He's a singer songwriter guy for my whole life. So music was always a big part of my life. And he just asked me, what do you want to really do? And I said, I want to do something in music. And I was piddling around with a guitar, messing around with it and knew that I didn't want to be a musician for a living.

(00:04:49):

I saw what that took out of my dad and how hard that was. And he said, well, shit, you're always messing around with tinkering with gadgets in your amp and stuff. Why don't you be a recording engineer? And it was like a light bulb went off. It never occurred to me and it was just one of those defining moments of your life. And so he hooked me up with a local guy, a local legend named Phil York who did Willie Nelson's redheaded Stranger album. He worked with Robert Duval on the Tinder Mercy soundtrack. Really a really, really good guy. He passed away a couple of years ago, but he was so nice and so cool. I mean he would send in ballots Grammy nomination ballots for local level unsigned musicians that had never done anything just to boost their confidence. He was that kind of guy.

Speaker 3 (00:05:40):

Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (00:05:41):

And whenever I get into a situation where I'm conflicted, I always think, oh my God, what would he do? And try to help me through it. But I went and apprenticed with him for about six months and then he said, here I got a local blues band that needs a live sound engineer. Here you go. And threw me in the deep end of the pool and I quickly found out that I did not live sound and that I always wanted to be a studio guy. And so I messed with that for a few years and then a couple of years and then I actually got the balls to go to Dallas Sound Lab and asked for an internship.

Speaker 2 (00:06:16):

I don't like live sound either. I had to do it one time and I was like, man, I really appreciate the rewind button. That's all exactly a do-over for sure,

Speaker 3 (00:06:26):

Man. I hate it too. I got put on the spot once when I just went to watch a friends band and he just cornered me. It was like, we're not touring with the sound guy. Run sound for us. I don't really do this.

Speaker 4 (00:06:43):

Well, I got lucky and I did it for a couple of years and I got pretty damn good at it. But I never liked it. I never liked the spontaneity of it or anything. And yeah, it's an acquired skill for sure. And I much respect to my live sound brethren out there. I know a lot of the top sound engineers and they are, they're superheroes in my eyes.

Speaker 3 (00:07:06):

It takes a different mentality and temperament I think.

Speaker 4 (00:07:10):

Totally. Totally. It's like part, you got to have that part sound guy thing where you're laid back, you work well with people, but you also got to have a real good size fuck you attitude as well because when people get up in your shit and on the road, I spent tons of time on the road. I toured the world with Pantera and Damage Plan and hell as well as a bass tech and a guitar tech and yeah man, people, you got to stand up for yourself on the road or you'll get rolled over. So

Speaker 3 (00:07:44):

Definitely a strongest survive in this situation.

Speaker 4 (00:07:48):

Yeah, definitely. That's where I kind of grew a pair so to speak, was I was this timid little woodland creature when the Pantera Boys found me sort of.

Speaker 3 (00:07:59):

So how did they find you?

Speaker 4 (00:08:01):

Well, I mean they came to Dallas Sound Lab to finish up far beyond driven in 93, October of 93. I had answered a phone call from Terry date there at the studio and he wanted to know what kind of gear we had, knew we had an SSL and just I rattled off the gear list and he booked, gosh, however long that first sessions, those sessions where it was the first two months he booked two months to finish up the album to finish recording and mix it there and

Speaker 3 (00:08:33):

Just like that.

Speaker 4 (00:08:34):

Yeah, just like that. And it was again, another one of those defining moments in your life and me and every one of those dudes just hit it off. We were almost the same age. I was like a year younger than all the rest of them just hit it off. I had always been a fan even through their glam metal days. I had worn out several of their earlier cassettes from when living in my hometown and going to school there. And they were always the band to go check out if you were in Dallas. It was Pantera. And I didn't really ever get to meet 'em or do anything with 'em until that time until 93. And then they needed a base tech after we were done with the album. I was assistant engineer on the album. The second engineer behind Terry Date was a guy that I absolutely love to death. He's one of my mentors. His name is Tim since gone on to win Grammy and he's head of a studio out in Cisco, Texas that's like a $10 million facility. They needed a base tech and I would've been an idiot to say no.

Speaker 3 (00:09:43):

I mean, what is the other answer besides yes,

Speaker 4 (00:09:46):

There isn't one. There really isn't one. And I was just talking to my wife while ago before we fired up here, and I was I talking about how much I respect what you guys are doing and how many things that I see that you have your hands in. And it's incredible to me to see how busy you guys are. And I'm like, I'm 46 now and I could not do what you guys do. I could not be that busy without there being some kind of consequence, whether it be exhaustion or a mental institution or whatever. And I got to tell you, man, I respect seeing what you guys got your fingers in and it's awesome to me. And she was like, well, you got a different kind of ambition or whatever. And I said, yeah, when I was their age, it was all about, Hey, let's go get fucked up and hang out with rock stars around the world. That's where I was at because literally I hung up being a recording engineer for a couple of years while I went on tour and did silly stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:10:52):

But I feel like getting the, well, first of all, you're working, but also I feel like that's one of those will only happen once in the history of earth to

Speaker 4 (00:11:04):

Without a doubt,

Speaker 3 (00:11:04):

Situations

Speaker 5 (00:11:05):

The stories low and are worth it.

Speaker 4 (00:11:07):

Oh yeah. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I would do it again in a heartbeat. And yeah, I have my little moments of remorse when I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to lock a machine up to Pro Tools or I'm sitting here going, what the fuck is dither? And there were things I missed out on during the birth of digital and I'm sinking my teeth back into it nowadays. But yeah, there's times when I'm just like, I have no idea what some of you younger guys are talking about, but I try to get in there and get my hands dirty and everything. But the stories and the friendships and the brotherhood and family that came out of all of this, I would never trade for anything.

Speaker 3 (00:11:48):

You should see one of us try to run a tape machine.

Speaker 2 (00:11:52):

Yeah, I was going to ask that. I was working in that time period. Obviously you came from an analog point of view and a tape world, is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting to me because I don't know anything about that world and I'm like, I've always been a hundred percent in the box and I know Joel's a little bit of a hybrid and has some outboard gear. Same with Al. But it's really cool to know that metal did have a period where it was done organically, I guess you could say.

Speaker 4 (00:12:26):

Yeah, no one do man, flying by the seat of your pants. You had to know your shit to do it. And even then if you didn't know your shit, you had a badass engineer to bail you out. And there are times when I long for those days and I miss the smell of tape oxide in the control room, but when I'm sitting here and I'm working with pro tools and there's no rewind time, there's no editing with a razor blade, God, I sit here and I smile and I go, yeah, I like this better. This is a little more convenient.

Speaker 5 (00:13:00):

You can make a plugin that smells like tape.

Speaker 2 (00:13:03):

That would be awesome. Shoots out of the port holes of the monitors. There you go. Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:13:09):

Well, I mean clearly everybody knows that the Panera dudes are fantastic musicians, but so are the merciful fake guys. So did working with those caliber of players in the studio spoil you at all?

Speaker 4 (00:13:23):

Totally. Absolutely. Well see. When your first studio gig ever, almost straight out of audio, if you want to call it audio school, loose definition of that, straight out of that apprenticeship going to the best studio in town and you walk in the door and within your first week there you've got people like the Smothers Brothers walking up and down the hall and Troy Aikman from Dallas Cowboys and Milton Burrows in town to do a voiceover. And this was a corporate studio as well during the day. So they're doing corporate shit during the day and then the rock and rollers come in at night and you're working with either guys like that. And if you're doing a jingle during the day, you're working with the best on-call musicians in town, first call musicians back when there used to be a thing called studio musicians. And they would come in and knock out 10 decker hotdog commercial versions of something in about an hour and a half. And then yeah, you get real spoiled. And some of the first call musicians are guys like Andy Timmons, and you're just sitting there and you become so jaded to what the rest of the recording world is doing. They're struggling through Billy Bob and the Dinga Lings down the street here and they can't play their instruments and they don't know what a tuner is. And yeah, this was a really, really professional environment, a really professional world-class studio. And so yeah. Did you ever record David

Speaker 5 (00:14:58):

Harbor on bass? I know David. Yeah. I had him up at my studio a few years ago to do a guest bass thing on a bass solo album. And man, he was super fun to hang out with him.

Speaker 4 (00:15:10):

He's great.

Speaker 5 (00:15:10):

The most ridiculous bass player. I was

Speaker 4 (00:15:12):

Just like,

Speaker 5 (00:15:13):

Holy shit.

Speaker 4 (00:15:13):

Have you ever seen him play piano?

Speaker 5 (00:15:15):

Yeah, he's insane,

Speaker 4 (00:15:16):

Insane, insane. And yeah, I mean, he's a cool laid back cat to go just hang out and have a beer with. I don't drink anymore. The Panera boys ruin me, but he was always cool when he would come over and do sessions with a local guitar phenom here named Michael Harris, and I

Speaker 5 (00:15:38):

Used to be a Shrapnel listener.

Speaker 4 (00:15:40):

There you go.

Speaker 5 (00:15:40):

Shred guitar nerd. So

Speaker 4 (00:15:42):

Michael Harris,

Speaker 5 (00:15:43):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:15:44):

I used to live in little, not a little city, but a city just south of where I live now called Lewisville, and we lived like a mile from each other. And this guy's a world-class guitar player and he just lives right up the street. It's funny. Small world. I did a lot of stuff with Michael too over the last two years.

Speaker 3 (00:16:03):

So I was wondering if there's, I mean, I feel like there is, but I kind of want to hear your take on it. Do you feel like there's a big difference in the bar for how good musicians are now versus what they think is good versus what was considered good in the Pantera days?

Speaker 4 (00:16:23):

I think good's a relative term, honestly. I think that it's still there. I think the bar is still there. I think people are still reaching it and exceeding it. Now. On the other hand, all this digital stuff has made a lot of other musicians lazy as fuck

Speaker 3 (00:16:44):

Agreed

Speaker 4 (00:16:44):

And not worth a shit, and they can't play what they write and they're lazy. And I just hate that. I hate that mentality of, oh, you got a Pro Tools rig in front of you, don't you that I hate and I will fucking kick somebody out of my studio for that shit. Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:17:02):

I love it. Awesome. Yeah, you're my hero. Well, I agree with you. There's definitely still great players. I just think it's the shitty players have such a voice now.

Speaker 4 (00:17:13):

Oh yeah, they're everywhere.

Speaker 3 (00:17:14):

Yeah. Maybe that's the difference. I

Speaker 4 (00:17:17):

Think so. I really do. And then there's social media on top of everything else where everybody can be a rock star or everybody can be just be shitty and bring mediocre way up closer to where the actual bar is.

Speaker 3 (00:17:31):

Yeah. It is funny that you said about a profession that doesn't exist anymore. The studio musician game, man, I remember when I went to music school, I went to music school in 99 or 98, 99, and that was a viable profession for a guitar player. People went to school for four years to study guitar in hopes of becoming a studio musician.

Speaker 4 (00:17:55):

Yeah, GITI remember the big GIT thing in the nineties

Speaker 3 (00:17:59):

No more. That's a bad idea now.

Speaker 4 (00:18:01):

Yeah, you can't make a living just doing that. You have to be in, if you want to be a musician for hire for a living, you have to be in several bands. You have to have your own website, you got to have your tentacles out there and everything in order just to scrape by. It's a, you

Speaker 5 (00:18:21):

Guys just ruined 17-year-old me's dreams.

Speaker 4 (00:18:26):

He'll get over it, man. He did. There you go.

Speaker 3 (00:18:30):

So let's talk a little bit about Far Beyond Derivative, if you don't mind. Sure. So you clearly bonded with the band because they asked you to go on the road, but I think that that's a pretty legendary record. You said that Terry Date booked two months just to finish it up.

Speaker 4 (00:18:49):

Yeah, they were most of the way through the recording process at their dad's place in Nashville, Jerry Abbott,

Speaker 2 (00:18:58):

By the way, my uncle lived down the street from that guy

Speaker 1 (00:19:03):

During

Speaker 2 (00:19:04):

That time period. And he said that he could hear that kick drum every night. So they were blasting it?

Speaker 4 (00:19:13):

Yeah. Oh yeah. Big 20 fours, two of them, 24 by 20 fours. But yeah, they were riding in the middle of that and then they decided they need a change of address. I don't think they were getting along with their dad real well at that point in time. And so they uprooted from Nashville there and came back down to home to finish it. And we were one of the only rooms in town with an SSL that would tolerate them being there for that long.

Speaker 3 (00:19:45):

What was left to do? I'm just wondering because two months now is a lot of time

Speaker 4 (00:19:51):

Make three albums in that time. Think about it like this. Here's what was left to do. All the vocals were left to do, they had a couple of bass punch ins and some add-ons there with some Moog Taurus pedals. They had a few rhythm guitar add-ons and punch ins to do with Dime and pretty much all of the leads, any clean guitar stuff that, in fact, that was the very first thing that was recorded at Dallas Sound Lab was the clean guitar on shedding skin. I remember it vividly. And then the mix.

Speaker 5 (00:20:26):

So what the hell bike do you use on fill and sell though

Speaker 4 (00:20:29):

At 58?

Speaker 5 (00:20:29):

No kidding.

Speaker 4 (00:20:30):

No kidding. 58 in that full control room. Yeah, that's

Speaker 2 (00:20:33):

What you're going to get Live

Speaker 4 (00:20:34):

58 in the Control room with Yamaha Ns tens on 11 and him just screaming his balls off. And that's how they did it on Vulgar and Far Beyond and Trend Kill.

Speaker 3 (00:20:48):

It's kind of amazing to me. A lot of dudes that are contemporaries to Phil also recorded their vocals like that 58 in the Room Monitors blaring and some of the vocals that we all

Speaker 2 (00:21:04):

Black album.

Speaker 3 (00:21:04):

Yeah, exactly. And Testament did it too. A lot of people did it. I think even U too did it,

Speaker 4 (00:21:10):

Right? Yeah. That was a big Daniel Landis thing to have a PA in the room and just have everything open. Right.

Speaker 3 (00:21:16):

Yeah, he's insane. I've watched a lot of his recording videos. Insane. In a good way. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:21:21):

You can

Speaker 3 (00:21:22):

Total genius.

Speaker 4 (00:21:23):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (00:21:24):

You can phase cancel it somehow, right?

Speaker 4 (00:21:27):

I think if you're off Axis is how it works. If you're off axis from the monitors, if you're just standing directly in front of 'em, it's going to bleed like a son of a bitch. But if you're off to the side or a 45 degree angle, you got to find a sweet spot or a dead spot in the room and that's where you do it.

Speaker 2 (00:21:43):

Yeah, that's how they did it with Bob Rock and Black Album.

Speaker 5 (00:21:48):

I remember seeing that. But I think they used a large diaphragm condenser on Hetfield's voice. They, it was like a triangle set up. I'd have to go back and watch the video, but

Speaker 2 (00:21:56):

I swear it's an SM seven B, but it

Speaker 5 (00:21:58):

Might be,

Speaker 3 (00:21:59):

Oh no, but they used a 58 or Panera is a 58.

Speaker 2 (00:22:03):

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's a dynamic, dynamic setup.

Speaker 5 (00:22:07):

And there was, the seven B was the newer album, one where they shot the Saint Anger or whatever the fuck that album was. That was the one they used the 50 or seven B on. But Black Album was like a condenser or something like that, if I remember correctly. I watch that video like 20 times when I,

Speaker 3 (00:22:22):

Yeah, I think I've seen that video more than any movie I've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (00:22:26):

Right. Yeah. That's what I look at when I'm watching studio videos or clips of stuff like that. I'm looking at the gear, I'm looking at how the mic's were placed. Oh yeah, I'm a geek.

Speaker 3 (00:22:38):

Yeah, that's okay. I think we all are, but I guarantee you that Hatfield used a 58 at some point. I know that I read that

Speaker 4 (00:22:48):

You had to have.

Speaker 3 (00:22:49):

Yeah, and it got ingrained in my head.

Speaker 4 (00:22:51):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:22:52):

I haven't heard about that being done too much recently, but I think that there's something to be said though about how good these vocalists were.

Speaker 4 (00:23:01):

Oh yeah, without a doubt. A lot of control. What a lot of people, a lot of these guys don't understand in bands that are coming up and bands that are, I make a lot of my living from local level unsigned bands, and they don't understand that even though you're screaming, there's pitch involved and there's tonality and there's control and yeah, I get a lot of these newbies that come in and they blow their voice out after five minutes and it's sad, sad to watch. I've totally seen that. Yeah. I saw a kid that couldn't even make it through the first part of a song and that was it. He was done.

Speaker 5 (00:23:41):

Yeah. They go extra hard in the studio thinking it's going to be so much more awesome. And it's like moron, you have to scream the whole record and you've gotten through two lions and you're already out for the next two and a half months. That's it. Come on.

Speaker 4 (00:23:53):

Nah. Yeah, those guys are fantastic. And again, going back to the age of analog, the age of, you better know your shit, you better have some control over your craft because you're under the microscope and nuance counts. So

Speaker 3 (00:24:10):

What was the stuff that you guys would spend the most time on? Would it be Takes or because they were so good, you would've more time to experiment with Tone? What was the big, I guess, time eater?

Speaker 4 (00:24:24):

I don't know, man. Phil was pretty quick. Usually he knew he would come in even from when I saw him working with Terry all the way up to where I got to sit and help co-produce vocals with Dime on Reinventing the Steel. He was very quick. He had everything mapped out, all ready to go. It was all in his head. Never saw him with a notebook other than just his lyrics sheet, his handwritten lyrics. And he had it all mapped out, Hey, I'm coming in. I'm going to do my, there's going to be a double here. There's going to be a harmony here, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it was that quick. And he would knock out a vocal for a song in about an hour, hour and a half, and it was all done and mapped out in his head period. And then Vinny or Dime might say, Hey, can you do something here?

(00:25:12):

Can you do a little something extra here? And he'd go, oh yeah, yeah. And they'd just pop in and do it. And that was pretty easy peasy. But a lot of time on the Pantera stuff was eaten up with guitars just because Dime was so meticulous. He was very hyper aware of the fact that he's the only guitar player in this band and everything had to be asshole tight and Rhythm Guitars were a big deal for him. He would sit for hours. I would sit with him for god damn 12, 14 hours sometimes just to get a track. Right. So

Speaker 5 (00:25:53):

What did you guys mic up that cab with, man? Because Pantera has one of the most legendary identifiable tones. You might love it, you might hate it. I've never been a fan, but I've always respected how unique it is. Only Dime sounded like dime. And I always wondered what kind of shit was actually used on those records.

Speaker 4 (00:26:12):

Here we go, you're going to ship when I tell you

Speaker 5 (00:26:14):

57, right?

Speaker 4 (00:26:17):

A 58 Damnit, a 58. We tried 50 sevens and it was always a 58 with Dime, and it was never a two mic set up or a two cabinet or multi this multi that. It was Dime's hands, dime's rig, and a 58.

Speaker 2 (00:26:34):

That's great.

Speaker 4 (00:26:35):

That is a testament to the fact of whenever I talk to people that ask me, what do you do for this? What do you do for that? I tell 'em, it all starts with the source. And that is a case of the source being impeccable and the source being the musician of course.

(00:26:53):

And it has nothing to do with gear. It has nothing to do with anything other than the musician. And that is one of the clearest examples of that happening because when I tell people it was just a 58, and a lot of times it was just going into an old MCI 500 console preamp, which he preferred. It was part of his tone that he liked. It's an old console from the seventies that a lot of country artists use. And that was it. That was the only particulars of his sound outside of his guitar rig that he insisted upon. And it's, it's just one of those things that people are just, I'll tell people and they're just like, fuck you. Come on. You're hiding something. And I'm like, no, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (00:27:45):

They want to believe that you can purchase.

Speaker 4 (00:27:49):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (00:27:51):

You can purchase your way

Speaker 4 (00:27:53):

Into

Speaker 3 (00:27:53):

Something legendary.

Speaker 4 (00:27:54):

No, no, you cannot. And that's a huge deal with me too. You cannot, it's not about gear. If you were ever down in the studio, the Pantera Studio where they did everything from trend kill on you would shit, because it's nothing special. It's a fucking Mackey console. It's cheap ass Barringer composers that you can buy now for $30 on eBay. It's not the gear, it's how you use it. It's not the size of your pencil, it's how you sign your name. Just that's where I learned all that I learned the most valuable lesson from them was, you better eat something or you're going to be really hungover. And it's not the gear, it's the people.

Speaker 3 (00:28:46):

Absolutely. Did he quad his rhythms or

Speaker 4 (00:28:50):

No, just two.

Speaker 3 (00:28:50):

Just two.

Speaker 4 (00:28:51):

Just two. And they were surgical tight man. And that's what we spent most of our time doing was, yes, we spent a lot of time with Vinny crafting his sound. He had a very specific sound as well, a sound just as unique as Dime's guitar playing in guitar tone. And so we would spend a lot of time getting the drums and we would spend the other lot of that time getting the guitars tight and getting them right. And then Leeds Roy's pretty fun with him because it was such a unique thing because he would always come in with some crazy idea or have you chain together like 15 guitar pedals and it would make this god awful horrendous noise. But he would make it work for the song.

Speaker 3 (00:29:37):

Would that be the same rig or would you guys set up something different for leads?

Speaker 4 (00:29:41):

Most of the time it would start there. That would be where it would start. And then maybe he would have us plug into a mini Marshall or something weird. But it wasn't always just that rig, just that dime bolt guitar and just that setup. It was never, when it came to leads, it was like he loved to experiment. He always had something up his sleeve. He always had some new gadget or something.

Speaker 3 (00:30:07):

Did those tend to go quickly once you got everything hooked up?

Speaker 4 (00:30:11):

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I mean, there was no defined, I have an idea and it's going to work. It was, let's try this. Let's take a toque off a joint, let's do a few shots and let's see if this fucking thing flies. It was really up to the universe at that point.

Speaker 3 (00:30:30):

Yeah. One thing that I've always thought is really cool is that there's generally no rhythm guitars going under the leads. And with a lot of other bands, I would never like that because, I dunno, because their bass players aren't as good, but well, whatever it would drop out for the solo, it would just be bass and drums holding it down for most of the time. So I think that the base tone, I mean everything about it is legendary, but I feel like you can't forget, the base tone base is such an important part

Speaker 4 (00:31:06):

Of

Speaker 3 (00:31:07):

A metal mix.

Speaker 4 (00:31:08):

Absolutely. And that, again, this comes back to the fact that Panero first and foremost was a live band. They were the band that you heard their album and you either loved it or you hated it. And if you loved it, you wanted to go see 'em live. And then the live experience blew you away that much more. And that was the whole part of that dime being the only guitar player in the band. And well, when that lead came up, most of the time his rhythms would drop out because that's the natural flow of things live. And then Rex had to pick up where Dime left off and walk around down there, and the tone had to be big enough and badass enough to help keep it up, to help keep the song energy moving forward and flowing so that you didn't feel like everything dropped away

Speaker 2 (00:32:01):

The days before. Track backtrack,

Speaker 4 (00:32:03):

Right? Yeah, absolutely. It is amazing to me. I went and saw a couple of them. The band head lighting was not so new, but the band that was warming up for them was very new, and it was pro Tool City, and I was just like, wow. I guess they don't even care if you know anymore. They don't give a shit.

Speaker 2 (00:32:26):

That's the standard. It is.

Speaker 4 (00:32:28):

It is.

Speaker 5 (00:32:28):

Backtrack everything and it sucks.

Speaker 4 (00:32:31):

I hate it. And I got another example of that is I got a friend who was our monitor engineer for a long time, for Pantera, for a few tours, and now he does sound for everybody. And he was having to do a show for Ka Perry on New Year's Eve, and he was telling me that she has this band of just unbelievable musicians, their killer. And she was out front listening to how he was going to mix the show, and she kept telling him, it just sounds too live. Can you pull the band down and push the tracks up? And it eventually ended up being three quarters tracks in one quarter band. And it's just sad, dude. That's what they want to do.

Speaker 3 (00:33:16):

And you know that Katie Bear had the best of the best musicians. Totally.

Speaker 4 (00:33:20):

Totally. So that's just where it is, matter of fact.

Speaker 5 (00:33:24):

So what was it like working with Terry Date? Because Terry Date has done so many records that I grew up listening to and is just an absolute legend. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:33:34):

Honestly, I just can't say enough about the guy. He's, again, another one of those guys that I just was in awe of when he was on the other end of the phone. I was just blown away that I was talking to Terry Date. I was already a fan and oh, and I told him so too right there on. I was like, oh wow, Terry Dade, I'm a big fan. He's super duper humble and laid back and was like, oh, well thanks. Yeah, I got the guys. I think we're coming back home and just want to see what you have in the studio. But that dude is, I can't explain it. He's just got ears of platinum and just knows what a mix should sound like. One of the most valuable things I learned from him was Noise is your friend. Use it to your advantage. And if you have noise in a track or bleed or some noise that you think you're going to get rid of and clean up, don't use it. And 90% of the time he's right, it works.

Speaker 3 (00:34:35):

Was he a task master,

Speaker 4 (00:34:37):

Meaning

Speaker 3 (00:34:39):

Very, I don't mean in a mean way. I mean just super demanding and very high standards.

Speaker 4 (00:34:47):

I think when you're working with guys like Pantera, the standard is always high.

(00:34:53):

When we were working, yeah, it was, no, that's not good enough. No, that doesn't have the energy. There were a lot of do-overs. There were a lot of this isn't right yet. I remember when we started mixing Far Beyond Driven, we mixed on it for two solid weeks, and then we came back after the Christmas break and Diamond Vinny were like, it's not right. And they were right. And so Terry went in there and we pulled all the faders down and started over from scratch on the mix. That has to happen sometimes. But as far as him being a task master or anything like that, I don't think so, man. He's laid back and goes with the flow and keeps the train on the tracks. And that's always how I kind of viewed him as more of a father figure of, come on guys, we got to work on this instead of party, or we got to focus or I tried this out, what do you guys think? I always looked at him like that rather than better get in here, the record labels breeding down my neck. Nothing ever, ever like that. I remember.

Speaker 3 (00:36:01):

I can see that really ruining the vibe of the session.

Speaker 4 (00:36:04):

Totally. So yeah, it was always an atmosphere of fun. It was always an atmosphere of we were always cutting up about something, or Dime was always picking on Terry or Terry was telling a story about whatever, working on the Sound garden or whatever. And then, yeah, we'd work for a little while and then we'd drink a few shots and it was always laid back. It was never, ever hardcore. We got to get this done, we have to have this done. It was never ever like that. I don't ever remember it being like that,

Speaker 3 (00:36:37):

Which is amazing because in reality it was on a major label and you did have to get it done.

Speaker 4 (00:36:44):

I remember at one point for Trend Kill Dime was not happy with that outro part, that outro guitar part on what song is that Floods where he is doing the little that part with the delay. And he just wasn't happy with it and wasn't happy with it. And they were sitting in mastering at Sterling Sound in New York and he was like, I have to redo this. I have to redo it right now. So he called down to Sam Ash and rented a little amp and a guitar and a delay pedal, and they set him off in one of the studios that wasn't being used with some headphones and a little preamp and to get it to DA 88 tape or something like that, that they could sync up to the master. And he was sitting in there with a six pack of beer redoing this outro lead on floods. And there was literally a record company guy standing in the doorway tapping on his fucking watch. Geez. And Dime was just like, look man, if I don't get this right now because you're standing there doing this, it ain't going to get done and then you're going to get fired. Get the fuck out of here. So there you go. That's just, no matter if the world was coming down around him, those dudes Royce just cool as Ice Man.

Speaker 3 (00:38:04):

Well, at the end of the day, I feel like a label needs them, would need them more than they would need a particular label. It could have easily just gone anywhere.

Speaker 4 (00:38:16):

Nailed it.

Speaker 3 (00:38:17):

Yeah, that's leverage. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:38:20):

It was great that they got signed. It was great that their music got exposed to millions of people, but I feel like it would've happened anyways.

Speaker 3 (00:38:26):

Yeah, I'm sure. So when did you stop touring?

Speaker 4 (00:38:33):

I'd finally had enough on the Korn Family Values tour when Hell yeah, I was out on that a few years ago on the Stampede tour.

Speaker 3 (00:38:43):

Oh, so you've been touring for a while?

Speaker 4 (00:38:44):

On and off, on and off since 94. And the drinking and the traveling and I had just got to where I was just, I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't fucking do it. I think I was done. And then even after I came home, I was still a little ways from my bottom and I'd finally after that, had enough the drinking thing. And there gets a point in your life where you either stop doing the things that keep dragging you down or you croak. And so made a decision to stop doing all that shit that made me miserable. And I got to tell you, I live a life now. I never could have imagined 25 years ago, 25 years ago, it was all about going out and partying and working on albums and touring and all that. But now it's more like work out on my home studio and hang out with my kid and be conscious and in the moment hang out with my kid and my wife and actually pay attention to them and be around for things like that. And

Speaker 5 (00:39:59):

That's hard in this business.

Speaker 4 (00:40:01):

It is. It's a hard balance because there are trade-offs, sacrifices, and I see all the great things you guys are doing that I would at this point in my life would never have the time for. I just wouldn't have the time for it. But the satisfaction in all that is, Hey, I've got my family that I love. I get to stay close to home. I only travel when I have to record something. Like I was just in Canada last year recording a very awesome band that they're about to release their debut album and just, that's the only time I travel anymore is when it's for that. Well,

Speaker 5 (00:40:42):

I got three kids and I think that

Speaker 4 (00:40:44):

God almighty, how do you do it?

Speaker 5 (00:40:46):

I don't know. You just got to balance my mind. And when you're with them, you have to be with them. You got to turn off the damn phone. And it's hard.

Speaker 4 (00:40:52):

It's about balance. It really is, man. It's about balance. I watched that rush thing beyond the lighted stage, and when Getty Lee said, there is time for both, it really resonated with me. And it's like, well, maybe that's where I'm at in my life too. And I think that's where I'm at. I think if I were on a nonstop schedule I used to be on 25 years ago, I couldn't do it. I'd be divorced again and just estranged from my own kid and it wouldn't be good. So that's just where I am now though. And it's fucking awesome, man. I love it. But I wouldn't trade the past for nothing, man. Oh my God. What a roller coaster.

Speaker 3 (00:41:31):

So it's interesting when you're just reached that point where you're like, okay, enough's enough time to move on to the next thing.

Speaker 4 (00:41:40):

Yeah, most definitely. And I knew it. I was in the middle of a tour and I found a guy to replace me and I was so over it. The conditions that we were touring under were not fun. It wasn't five star hotels like it was with Pantera. It wasn't Pantera. And that's the realization that I hit. That's where I hit the wall, was like, this is fucked. We're rolling cases through three inches of mud and we're barely fitting on the back of the stage with 10 other bands and corn's the headliner. And it was a cluster fuck every single fucking day in the rain, in the summer heat. And it was like, I'm 38 years old. Fuck you. And that's just where my head was at.

Speaker 3 (00:42:29):

Plus you already did all the, you probably toured the nicest, just about the nicest anyone can tour.

Speaker 4 (00:42:36):

Totally. Absolutely. The Pantera guys always wanted us to be where they were. It was a family and we stayed in the nice hotels with them. We didn't fly first class or Learjets or anything like that, but we still got where we were going and we all went together and it was just fun and it was family and we were treated like kings. And it wasn't like that on Damage Plan. It wasn't like that on hell. Yeah. That was the first time I quit was the Damage Plan tour about six months before Dime got killed. And then I picked it back up again with Hell. And then I just had enough of that and that was it, man, that was over for me. But I know guys that are still touring, guys from Grady that used to be Dimes, guitar tech, God, he still goes out with Blondie and Incubus. That's his two main bands right now, and he still does it. And he's got three kids and a wife and

Speaker 3 (00:43:37):

Some people just find there's Zen on the road. They

Speaker 4 (00:43:39):

Do.

Speaker 3 (00:43:39):

So was it tough to transition to a more regular sedentary studio lifestyle

Speaker 4 (00:43:47):

After

Speaker 3 (00:43:48):

That Huge ass party?

Speaker 4 (00:43:50):

Yeah. Oh yeah. It took me, I've been sober now for six years and I'm just now starting to hit my stride and I had to quit everything. I had to quit the traveling and the drinking and whatever else I was doing. I had to quit because it was wrecking everything and I was watching a 20 year career go down the toilet. So yeah, it was tough, man, changing gears over the last six years. But I've come to find a little bit of serenity and a little bit of peace in the whole thing and a lot of acceptance. And I have my tough days where I'm like, goddammit, I wish I was out there doing that again. And then I think for a second, no, you don't. You stupid idiot. Don't even go there. But yeah, it was tough getting settled in and now I'm just, I'm cruising along doing my own thing and going from having the recording career that I had and then going out on tour destroys it every time because well, you're not available to go record anybody else while you're out on the road. And I had to turn down a gig with Rick Rubin because I was out with hell at one point on the first tour.

Speaker 3 (00:45:15):

Ouch.

Speaker 4 (00:45:16):

Yeah. Big ouch. Or no, it was the second tour. And so yeah, that was tough. And you just got to roll with the punches and then having to come back and reestablish your clientele, let people that you're not touring anymore. It takes a long time. It's like getting a, when you build a new studio and getting that established, that takes about 10 years, five to 10 years. And it's the same for when you're an engineer. If you leave it and you come back, you don't expect all that shit to be there because it ain't, the show must go on.

Speaker 3 (00:45:49):

Well, yeah, now especially with the speed

Speaker 4 (00:45:52):

At

Speaker 3 (00:45:52):

Which shit happens, you are,

Speaker 4 (00:45:53):

Oh man, lightning.

Speaker 3 (00:45:55):

Yeah. You can't drop momentum at all.

Speaker 4 (00:45:57):

Nope.

Speaker 3 (00:45:58):

We've talked about this before that nowadays you'll get dues that get super, super successful, but there's a lot more limited of a time window for which that'll happen because typically whatever trend they get successful in doesn't last that long anymore.

Speaker 4 (00:46:18):

I could see that. Sure. A lot of validity in that.

Speaker 3 (00:46:21):

But I've noticed, I've heard the same thing from lots of touring guys that do studios that it's hard to start back up when you get back from a tour.

Speaker 4 (00:46:28):

Oh yeah. The transition is weird because neither world is reality and neither world travels at the same speed, especially the studio. The studio is watching paint dry and when you're a touring musician and you go from everything happening at the speed of light to sitting there watching the grass grow, yeah, that's like hitting a wall. It can be. And a lot of guys when they come off tour that I know, I know I went through this, but you go through about a depression, it's weird. It can't be helped sometimes.

Speaker 3 (00:47:05):

Well just making good choices after that.

Speaker 4 (00:47:08):

Sure, absolutely. My niece told me that last night I went over her house to get some medicine for my kid, and as I was leaving, she's like 20 years old, she said, make good choices. And I just laughed. So too late for that kid.

Speaker 3 (00:47:24):

So we've got some questions from our audience.

Speaker 4 (00:47:28):

Absolutely. Fire away.

Speaker 3 (00:47:29):

But some of these we already kind of talked about,

Speaker 4 (00:47:32):

So

Speaker 3 (00:47:33):

Don't want to get too repetitive here.

Speaker 4 (00:47:35):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:47:36):

So I'll avoid the ones that we definitely already covered, but here's one from Dave Watkins. I would love Sterling's thoughts on achieving great base tones like on Pantera Records.

Speaker 4 (00:47:49):

Well, again, here we go, down the road of it starts with the source, and if you've got a shitty player, you're going to have shitty everything. So tone don't matter. You got to have a good musician. A good musician makes everything better. It makes your job easier. It makes everything happen. It makes things tight. But outside of that, once you have that, then God, it's all about what the player's comfortable with. Myself, I love PBAs. I just love the sound of them. It's not my favorite in the whole wide world, but they're right up. They're PBAs inspectors. A good instrument is a good thing. I don't know, I don't use cabinets much anymore or amps for base. I just go direct and I'll use a combination of maybe two different kinds of direct signals. Like I'll do a direct signal from a like radial di, and then I'll do another direct signal that I'll plug straight into the front instrument input of a vintech preamp. And then I'll have two different DI's and I don't know why it is, but they double up and they're arriving at different times, and so they get thick. And I like doing shit like that. And then maybe add on a base distortion pedal or something like that and have three different di going at once. I've had a lot of success with that and amping and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:49:18):

That's great. One of the things we always talk about, and it applies to a lot of different stuff, but mixing in particular, it's like get good with the basics. Get good with EQ and compression and actual vault and faders. Damn straight. Do that first before you worry about parallel compression and

Speaker 4 (00:49:34):

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:49:35):

And all this other stuff. So yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:49:37):

There's no trick to it. I don't think a lot of the shit that I do is so simple. It is so, so simple. And I think, I guess I maybe should throw that in there before anything else. You're talking about basics and yeah, learn your rudimentary basic things, but keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate it because the creative people are the worst about complicating something. Overly. Overly. So I can complicate a ham sandwich if you let me.

Speaker 3 (00:50:08):

I feel like the thing with, for instance, that base tone we're talking about is you take Rex out of the situation and you put an average bass player in and then you might need to complicate it just to get it to sound decent.

Speaker 4 (00:50:22):

Yeah, absolutely. No, amen to that. You might have to throw some bells and whistles in there to get it to kind of come back around the corner. No, I've had that happen. I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (00:50:33):

So Eric Zan asks, did King Diamond ever wear corpse paint while tracking focus? Hell yes. I

Speaker 4 (00:50:41):

Hope. Oh my God. It's funny. It's funny. We used to joke around about, dude, you should mow your lawn over here in Frisco in Texas like that. He said, I do live right across the street from a preacher, and he's got a great sense of humor. He's a really funny guy and just one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And we always used to joke about that. And no, he never came in and sang in full makeup. That's only a show thing. So sorry to smash your dreams, man.

Speaker 5 (00:51:13):

I always wonder that about the black metal bands. I'd really like to do a black metal record with. They come in with shields and corpse paint and all that shit. I've had that happen. I just would be so disappointed.

Speaker 4 (00:51:25):

Now those guys are serious. Those guys are like, Hey, this ain't a show. They live that shit.

Speaker 3 (00:51:30):

Yes, they do. Especially in Europe.

Speaker 4 (00:51:32):

Oh yeah. I remember Vinny telling me, this was one of the tours of Pantera. I didn't tour constantly with them. I was on and off over the years, but one of the times I wasn't with them, they toured with, I believe it was Celtic Frost or something like that. Oh shit.

Speaker 5 (00:51:51):

Now we're talking

Speaker 4 (00:51:51):

And I think that was the band and the drummer's name was Frost.

Speaker 3 (00:51:56):

Is that right? Oh, isn't that, that's Satan.

Speaker 4 (00:51:58):

Satan, Satan. And I'm not a death metal guy, so I don't know much about the sub genre, but Vinny always used to call the dude Frosty and he would say, my name is not Frosty, it is frost. And he was really serious about it. And they used to just catch a nut on the dude. Totally. And he just took everything so serious and never cracked a smile. And they were in Spain and they were at a beach and it was like 90 degrees outside and this dude was out on the beach with his fucking arm gauntlets on and everything. And it was just, I don't get it. You got to

Speaker 5 (00:52:36):

Be grandma on the beach.

Speaker 4 (00:52:37):

You got to. You got to. I guess. So that's one of the stories from the road. But yeah, man, those guys are serious. But now King, when he came in to sing, it was a real simple setup. He usually liked this, at least back when I was working with him. He liked this audio Technica 40 50 mic. It really complimented his voice. Everything I had ever did with him was on that mic. And he would sit out there back when he smoked, he would sit out there with a couple of packs of those prints, cigarettes from Denmark that he had imported from Denmark and a whole buttload of fisherman, friends, cough drops and a pot of coffee. And he would sit out there and sing literally until his throat would bleed sometimes.

Speaker 5 (00:53:24):

Wow.

Speaker 4 (00:53:24):

And here's another cool story about King Diamond. This happened to me twice when I was tracking vocals with him on two different albums. We did Voodoo and Dead Again, back to Back. We did King Diamond Voodoo, then Merciful Fate back to back with no break. And during the tracking of vocals on both albums at one time, he was doubling a vocal and he sang it so perfectly that it was out of phase with itself and it canceled itself. Holy shit, this happened twice. That's how precise that dude was.

Speaker 2 (00:54:02):

Jesus

Speaker 4 (00:54:02):

In the studio. Still is. Still is. But it would go away and in the middle of the phrase and you'd be like, what the fuck happened? And you thought there was something wrong with the console or something, and so you'd solo it up, no, it's there. And then you'd solo up the double and no, it's there. And you'd solo 'em up together. They would cancel.

Speaker 5 (00:54:20):

I had that happen to me once in my entire career. It was only on one word and it was like a scream or something like that. And I remember that specifically. And it is the trippiest thing ever.

Speaker 4 (00:54:31):

And this happened twice with him. That's how precise that dude always was and how much of a perfectionist he is, which is a good thing. I've

Speaker 3 (00:54:38):

Had something similar happened twice with DI's

Speaker 4 (00:54:41):

Yeah, I was going to say,

Speaker 3 (00:54:43):

Yeah, where they go to Mono when it's just so tight.

Speaker 4 (00:54:46):

Yeah. Oh yeah, man.

Speaker 3 (00:54:47):

But that was not from editing. The first time it happened was the dude from ais, which one of the best guitar players I've ever worked with, he was so tight that the riff went to Mono at one point for a few notes, and the same thing happened. It was like Solo, the right solo left, what the fuck's going on?

Speaker 4 (00:55:06):

Wow.

Speaker 3 (00:55:06):

And you noticed that they're exactly the same.

Speaker 5 (00:55:09):

That is killer. It

Speaker 3 (00:55:12):

Happens

Speaker 5 (00:55:12):

Wildlight zone shit.

Speaker 3 (00:55:14):

Yeah, totally. So here's one that we got to ask even though we kind of talked about it earlier, but it just needs to be asked is Phil is asking Phil Skoda saying, how sick was it getting to track Die Bag?

Speaker 4 (00:55:29):

Dude, it was amazing. It was always, a lot of times goosebumps, more of those working with that dude than almost anybody else. And just, he was amazing. And he would sit, when he was tracking rhythms, I would sit off to the side and he would kind of produce, he would police his own playing and produce his own rhythms and we would be punching in one two note pieces where it was just a little bit off and he would tighten it up and almost to the point of going to mono, like you were talking about. And it was badass, man. The dude was amazing. He was, his instrument and him were one when he was jamming like that and when he was in the zone. And it was just, I dunno, there's not many other things I could say about it other than yeah, it was fucking sick, man. It's great. Of course,

Speaker 3 (00:56:26):

Something you just said is interesting. We've talked about it a few times already on the podcast, but this is a great, great, great, great example, which is that sometimes the best thing a producer engineer can do is know when to get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 4 (00:56:44):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Let me tell you guys, that's my style all the way, because I'm not a control freak. I'm not a guy that comes in and says, okay, here's how we're going to do shit. I can't stand that. And I know guys like that, and it bugs me to see a band's identity basically yanked out from under them because the producer wants to get his take on the album rather than theirs. That's one of my biggest things with bands when I go to work with 'em. I say, I don't, when we get done with this album, I don't want you to put it on and hear me. I want you to hear you. I want the people to hear what you sound like, and I want to be as transparent as the glass between you and me when we're in the studio. And that's it.

Speaker 3 (00:57:30):

I think that you really need to work with great bands to be able to hold true to that. I feel like at least the problem that I've had with that at times, even though I agree with it a hundred percent, is that sometimes you get bands that don't want to find their own sound. They want somebody else's sound, or they're not good enough to have their own sound.

Speaker 4 (00:57:55):

Oh yeah. I run into that a lot too. And that's where, for me at least anyways, there's still a definable line of doing something with somebody and doing something for somebody. And sometimes the sad part is you just have to do it for them and have to show them, literally hold their hand and show them, Hey, this is how you do this, and this is how we're going to get through the next eight hours with each other without killing each other. Yeah. Some people don't have an identity and you got to coax them into it, or you got to something out of them that they didn't even know they had. And that's one of the things I love about this job is showing people shit they had no idea was inside. And that's priceless to me. That's worth more than anything. I've done that so many times, just getting to work with somebody and go, well, what if you tried this? And they did it and they were like, holy cow, I didn't even know I could do that. And that's awesome. I love that shit.

Speaker 3 (00:58:58):

I can say from a musician's perspective, because I've been on the musician side of it, I've gotten to work with a couple really great producers, and that's totally real, that a great producer will pull stuff out of you that you didn't know you were capable of or that you wouldn't be able to pull out of yourself. That's totally real.

Speaker 4 (00:59:18):

Yeah, no, it's a great thing. And I tell people all the time, again, this goes back to the gear thing and people asking, what kind of console do you use? What kind of mic do you use? What version of pro tools you running? And I'm like, none of that shit matters. And honestly, if you don't have good people skills and you can't talk to somebody and you can't get to know them, fucking hang it up, walk away. This job is not for you because 95% of this job is mental. It's about relating to people. It's about being prepared. When you walk into a studio, it's getting over whatever your hangups are and leaving them outside the studio and your dirty laundry or your baggage or whatever you're pulling in there with. You fucking leave it outside and talk to people. Open up, get to know. That's where I learned, that's how I learned everything was by watching people when they told me there's the coffee maker, there's the trash can sit down and be quiet and watch,

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):

Well, people don't like hanging out with you. They're certainly not going to sign on for spending eight to 14 hours a day every day with you.

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):

No shit. And you're going to burn out. Both of you're going to burn out real quick and you're all going to be uncomfortable and you're going to hear it. You're going to hear it in the music.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):

So one thing that we always ask our guests, but that I would like to ask you is you had one piece of advice or just something, what would you say to engineers that are just now trying to come up and get into the game? What would be a piece of advice that you would extend to them?

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):

Well, it used to be get a lawyer. That was my number one advice because I'm not big on the business and I don't know the business. A lot of guys do, and that was one of my fatal mistakes in the beginning was I never had anybody in my corner legally to explain the business part to me, and I lost out on a lot of good shit. I got ripped off. We've all got stories like that, but nowadays it's just educate yourself, man. There's so many tools at your disposal. Yeah, the internet's great. I'm watching YouTube videos all the time on how to mix things and what people do differently than I do and try to get out of my comfort zone and just learn the business, learn what's going on, learn digital marketing, learn internet. That's the key to all of this shit. If you want to succeed in the business part of it and be able to pay your bills, learn the business or all of this, you'll be doing in a very, very poor fashion.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):

We encourage people to take the business side of it as seriously as the music side of it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):

Absolutely. And I didn't for so long, I was so busy partying, I didn't care. I didn't give a shit that I was getting ripped off on things and whatever, but yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's a balanced thing too.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):

That's kind of why I like being in business with Joey and Joel. You guys are, your priorities are in the right place.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):

They only embezzle a little.

Speaker 5 (01:02:36):

I just want to party, if that helps. There's no time for it, but someday.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):

Ah, man. I hear you. It's good to find good people too. You have to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):

Yeah. I had the fortune of being surrounded by people who are worth lots and lots of money telling me what to do. And Craig Erickson for one, and he just sold his record label for 20 million. So

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):

Good for him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):

Yeah, I definitely agree with your advice and I just want to say it's been a blast to have you on here and thanks for sharing your stories. Hope to have you back sometime

Speaker 4 (01:03:13):

For sure. Oh, I would love to do it, man. Like I said, man, I watch what you guys are doing in the social media and some of the things that you're connected with, and I see how you do things and stuff. Again, I don't know that I'd have the time or energy for it now, but it's really intriguing to watch guys like yourself and you're actually changing the game. You're part of what I like to look at is, I don't know, just a transitioning or the next generation of audio. Yeah, next generation metamorphosis,

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):

Next generation's coming up, whether we like it or not.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):

Exactly. Exactly. And Dime always used to say, roll with it or get rolled over and I'm going to roll with it. I like what you guys are doing and

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):

Thanks.

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):

You guys are actually like Joey, you make plugins. I have a couple of them and they're fucking awesome and thank you and all. You have your drum package and that's great, man. That's killer that you're doing stuff like that, and you have to stay in that front edge of things or you're going to get rolled over. And so good for y'all, man. I'm honored that you guys asked me to come be on this thing, so thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):

We're honored to have you on here.

Speaker 5 (01:04:33):

Well, thanks so much, Sterling. It was an awesome conversation and super interesting and really a trip for me down nostalgia road. Just remembering all of the great things that I came up listening to and hearing the stories behind them is pretty awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):

Ah, you're welcome, man. Anytime. And yeah, you guys want to have me back, I'd be thrilled. Awesome. The Unstoppable Recording

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):

Machine podcast is brought to you by Drum Forge. Drum Forge is a forward-thinking developer of audio tools and software for musicians and producers alike. Founded on the idea that great drum sound should be obtainable for everyone, we focus on your originality, drum forge. It's your sound. Go to drum forge.com for more info to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit nail the mix.com/podcast and subscribe today.