Jens Bogren & Ihsahn: The Psychology of Production, Changing an Artist’s Song, The “Illusion” of Perfection

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. I'm Eyal Levi and my guests today are two of my favorite people in music, Mr. Jens Bogren and the legendary Ihsahn. Jens is one of the most prolific producers in metal. I would say that if you were to make a list of the most influential producers of the past 20 years who have really helped bands make career defining albums, that list would be incomplete without gens. And he's known for work with bands such as ETH Dean Borg Gear, Aman Marth, arch Enemy Lepers, the List goes on. He's also the founder of Bogren Digital, which is a really, really sick plugin company. They make some great stuff and he's been a frequent URM contributor. Other guest is Ihsahn, who is one of the founding members of the One and Only Emperor. He's also a super prolific, super insightful guy and one of my favorite musicians in the scene and really one of my favorite musical brains.

(00:01:13):

What's really, really cool is that URM got to make a course with both of them called How it's Done with Jens Bogren and Ihsahn, where we featured the entire production process start to finish of an haw song called The Observer, meaning Pre-Pro to mastering where Jens produced and mixed and did everything on this eson song and we just released it. You can check it out and nail the mix.com/jens course. I would say that it's the most comprehensive production course ever made, and I am not exaggerating because before that URM already made the most comprehensive production courses ever made, but this is even more so. It's 35 hours long and it is intense. It's intense and it's great. My guests also are intense and great. That's enough. Let's get into it. I present you Jens Bogren and Ihsahn Jens Bogren and Ihsahn, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:17):

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (00:02:18):

Thank you both for being here. What is it, almost not quite a year later, but I'd say nine months since we were in, well, I guess ends. You've been in Sweden this whole time, but nine months since we worked on the course and your ep, and I'm wondering now that you've had a little bit of distance from that, both of you, how do you feel about having cameras in your face the entire time while actually trying to make a real piece of music? And the reason I'm asking is because typically with the kind of content that URM makes, like with a nail the mix or something, even though the mixer is mixing in real life, they're mixing something that already came out like you're doing pec Nail the mix. That's something you already mix. So there isn't that pressure of it coming out into the world for the first time. And I know for you esan on the artist side of it, just having us in your face the entire time and having to disregard that and just do your thing. I'm just wondering, thinking, looking back on it, what was that like for both of you in terms of being able to stay focused on the job at hand?

Speaker 3 (00:03:44):

Yes, you go first.

Speaker 2 (00:03:45):

You think as you go first because I think for me it's not really a big deal for me. I think the most difficult part about this was time planning and the fact that everything took so much longer because of all the explanation that I was doing while doing things and also doing interviews and trying to relate to the artist and the musicians around this because we had to work much longer the days that I anticipated and more days as well. But for the actual creative part, I don't think I saw that as a problem. I would probably think differently if I was the actual musician performing because that is a little bit more sensitive in my opinion. What do you say, Vegar? Isha, sorry.

Speaker 3 (00:04:41):

No, it was very different. I'll give it to you guys that URM that I think you made yourself very, the situation was very normal. I mean it all done and it didn't feel like there were cameras in your face because the atmosphere was so relaxed, the kind of conversation we had on camera, off camera, I'm very, very quickly I felt that it became very fluent. It was just part of the whole thing. And as Yen says, of course, it took longer time, everybody was explaining what they were doing all along the way and going into the project, I was afraid it should be, I usually work here in my studio just alone. I don't really even go to sessions with other people. But that part of it I think went really fluently when I was watching some of the footage. Now that the courses released, I got much more self-aware,

Speaker 1 (00:05:50):

Oh, I can't watch myself in this kind of stuff. Yeah, I

Speaker 3 (00:05:53):

Hate

Speaker 1 (00:05:53):

It. I hate it. I can't listen to my podcast or anything. I just trust that it's good and let it go into the world and I just can't. But so on the topic of it, feeling natural, I think that, and I've thought about that because it's really important to us obviously, is to not make people feel uncomfortable because that's going to affect everything. And obviously we just don't want to make people uncomfortable. But I think that the fact that everybody at URM has had some level of experience making records, like for me with my band or producing or Nick, he assistant engineered for this producer named Andrew Wade for a long time. John Douglas, the audio engineer we brought, he's always working with people like Jay Rustin and just all kinds of great metal and rock producers. And he's been in bands too. So all of us are from that world and we know the kinds of things that we know, the etiquette I guess, and that I had a previous experience, I'm not going to name the company, but before URMI used to make courses for a company and the crew were not music people, they were just video people and they were very nice people, so very professional, very nice.

(00:07:26):

So nothing against them, but they did not understand the etiquette or the vibe or the mentalities, any of it involving making records and especially metal records. And so there was always this very odd vibe, and anytime I brought an artist in to do something with me, that was always a problem was having five people in the room who just don't understand really what's going on. So we try to do the opposite of that, which is only bring in people who are from this world who just happen to be working with us, but they're from this world. And I think that that's crucial is basically buy metal people for metal people and everyone basically has been in the game. I think that matters,

Speaker 3 (00:08:21):

If I can add to that as well, I mean that naturally helps in any situation, whether that's live, if you say it's some kind of young festival that's just starting up and there's all these good intentions, but they don't really speak the language of how do you organize this stuff you need to be. And I think that, as I say, part of the comfort zone. And with this being self-aware part, obviously I thought I'd add to that as representing the artists in this course. Of course you're very exposed because with 35 hours you keep in my mistakes in there, the fiddling around, the playing wrong notes, maybe

Speaker 1 (00:09:08):

We only kept that. That's all it is,

Speaker 3 (00:09:10):

35

Speaker 1 (00:09:11):

Hours of mistakes.

Speaker 3 (00:09:13):

But then again, everybody, of course the records are kind of an illusion for most listeners, but for the people getting into this course, obviously you don't start with a course like this. So it also relates to people who are in a similar situation. I think me making mistakes, I want to talk. Jans doesn't make mistakes. No, of course not. But I guess it makes it more real and more relatable in a sense that regardless of how many years you've been doing this, the process is the same. The process is the same for everybody. Everybody just wants to make the best possible version of what they do. And then you break some eggs and that's the reality of things.

Speaker 1 (00:10:01):

And it's a necessary part of the process. And I think you're right, it does make it more real. I think that unless you've been around, I think unless you've been around I guess what you would call your heroes or the people who make the records that you aspire for your own records to sound like, whether you are on the artist side or the production side or you do both is easy to believe the illusion and it's easy to believe that these are just super humans who make this great stuff that you love. And it just comes out like that. It always existed like that because you didn't see it getting made. You're not part of it. And I remember actually it was an pec live DVD, remember the one that came out in 2004 watching it? And there's this part where Michael is playing these octave core, these octave slides up and down the neck and he lands like a half step off on one of 'em, and it's a lead. It is very, very noticeable and he laughs about it and keeps going. And they kept that in there. And I thought that that was incredible that they kept it in there. First of all, it was pure balls. But second of all, what it did was it made me think, okay, spans for real. This spans for real. Because if they kept that in, okay, I make that mistake too sometimes when I'm trying to slide octaves like a 12 fret slide or something.

Speaker 3 (00:11:46):

Oh, I hope I never make that mistake.

Speaker 1 (00:11:50):

Never made it. But it was really helpful for me to see that. And then also another example was Bard from lepers. I know in one of his playthroughs he released a few years ago. It's incredible. I mean everyone knows he's just an unbelievable drummer and he drops a stick in the middle. And I know so many drummers who would scratch the take, do it over, he just kept going. So the stick drop is in the video and he just recovers, grabs another stick and keeps going. And to me, and I noticed, I read the comments, so many people in the comments were talking about how awesome it is that that was kept in there because it makes you realize that's a real human. I love what they do and I aspire to do something on that level. And it actually is a person who makes the same mistake that I make or my drummer makes or that everybody makes. Wow. So if that's happening to that person, that means that this is much more real. It's much more attainable than I previously thought.

Speaker 2 (00:13:01):

I wouldn't perhaps keep that in on an album though somehow.

Speaker 1 (00:13:05):

No, no, no, no. Definitely not.

Speaker 3 (00:13:10):

No, but I'm kind of split in my opinion, not on that. But I think what you're saying, I think that makes the experience even more so. It is like if there's a technical problem at live show and then you just sort it apologize for the inconvenience for the audience, and then you keep going and then you have twice the energy afterwards

(00:13:34):

Because they see it's not perfect, it's problems or something happens. But for recordings or any kind of parts of artwork, of course there's all this work and all these mistakes that goes into it watching a movie, how many takes for each scene that people never see or how many kind of remakes of every painting, of even the greatest artworks we know. And as the end consumer, if you can just say it like that, I think that is a good thing that people don't get to see all the mistakes because it shouldn't, I guess this is kind of what you call it, a pet peeve of mine these days with all the social media stuff and we're all guilty and it's kind of unavoidable, but sometimes you feel you don't get to experience this distance to the artist and this perfect album that just lands on you and you don't even know the people in the band.

(00:14:38):

And suddenly you go to an R maiden concert and you're beating the same air as these people. That's part of the experience. But these days it's like, oh yeah, they had this for dinner before going on stage tonight. It kind of brings it all down. But for the purposes of this course, for the people who want to be making those kind of illusions and records, I think it is encouraging to see that artists and producers and engineers on any levels will have to deal with lots of takes and editing and to make the illusion as good as it can get.

Speaker 2 (00:15:18):

Exactly. Because that is the thing, and a lot of my philosophy as well, that when I produced things, I wanted to sound like it was the perfect take, if you know what I mean.

(00:15:30):

I don't want it to sound like it was edited. I hate when you hear the outer tune. I hate when the drum sounds stale from editing, but I use those tools a lot to reach the level where it sounds like a magic take. And I also think exactly like that. I really enjoyed that early nineties kind of live show thing where it just sounds, can I, Kelsey here? Yeah, well it just sounds fantastic and you don't really want to hear mistakes there. You just want it to sound like you listen to Operation Mind crime or whatever, live crime, and it's just sounds better than the album. It's like, I don't care if they rerecorded the whole thing afterwards, as long as it sounds and looks that great to me, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (00:16:21):

I agree. I miss that too. I'm speaking purely within the context of a person actively trying to get better at, not from the fan perspective, but purely from in the trenches musician or in the trenches, aspiring producer who's trying to absorb as much information as possible and really study their influences. I think in that context, it's a good thing to be able to see what the struggles are just so that there's a lot of mental, there's a stuff that goes on with creating art no matter what side of it you're coming in. On the production artist side, there's this psychological side to it where I think very few people don't torture themselves over it, and I think they're sociopaths. I think that it's a well-known thing that the artistic personality is a tortured one, and it's because often you're not sure about the thing that you're doing.

(00:17:36):

Does it suck? Is it good enough? Is it a total loss of perspective? Is very, very normal. And getting to see things like that, getting to see that other people who are doing the kind of thing that you want to do are also going through these struggles. That's how they overcome them, that happens to them. And it's not that big of a deal because I remember in my early days of playing live, I used to really, really, really kill myself over missing a note. And obviously you don't want to miss a note, you don't want to make a mistake, but it's going to happen. Everyone is going to fuck up at some point, and it's not the end of the world. It's definitely not the end of the world. It's not worth the torture that you put yourself under. And if you realize it happens to everybody, this is how they deal with it, that's how I should deal with it too.

(00:18:33):

This is how the people that I look up to deal with it, alright, that's a model for how to go about it. Or the people who I look up to, they go through this stuff too. Okay, cool. So I'm not unique. I'm not on an island here. These problems, I remember when I was first learning how to produce and setting up studios and getting all kinds of weird electrical issues in the first room I was setting up and not understanding how to get rid of hum and it's just humming everything. How do I get rid of noise? And it's like, it's got to be my building. It's got to be like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, et cetera. And then come to find out that in most cases, this is something that every producer or engineer studio builder deals with at some point. And even at the biggest studios in the world, it's still a problem sometimes and I'm not unique here and everybody has to figure out a way to get the electricity right in their studio. Once you know that, then you can at least deal with the problem, I guess more objectively and rationally rather than thinking that it's just because you don't know what you're doing and everything you set up is fucked up, basically. It helps you focus on the actual problems and solutions. I think.

Speaker 2 (00:19:53):

Yeah, I should also say that, I mean maybe there is also a reason why I wanted to work with Han for this one because he represents the more skilled musician side where it's a little bit more fun to work with in that regard and you could sort of focus on other things than just struggle in the studio. But that happens as well. I mean I work with a lot of bands on high level bands where they are big, not because they can play their instruments so well, but because they have good songwriters in the band or people really enjoy what they're doing or for whatever other reason. And it is a real struggle in the studio sometimes even for me to make those performances sound like it's natural and great. Sometimes I've been spending 10 days on rhythm guitars just grinding through, struggling to make it work for an album.

(00:20:55):

And it's just the nature of things in this course, it went smoother than it definitely could do. But I remember back in the day before I started to work with more recognized bands that I thought that the reason why I cannot reach the results that are top level is because I'm not working with top level artists. But then when I got to that point, I realized that many of the artists that I'm working with now are not more skilled than the ones that I used to work with back in my old hometown doing local albums and demos. It's just that obviously my own experience is bigger these days and I know where I need to end up and I just have to find the ways to get there. Yeah, as producer,

Speaker 3 (00:21:54):

Sorry. So you blame the band, not yourself. I

Speaker 2 (00:21:59):

Always blame the band.

(00:22:03):

No, but it's just that as a producer you have to be aware that you're going to have to deal with all kinds of things and just find the solutions to go forward. There is no one method that will fit or it is appropriate every time, if you understand what I mean. If I would work with you and I would have this method where I have to grid everything and have to record with evert tunes or whatever, it would sound extremely fucking boring. The result whilst some other artist bands, I might have to go in those directions even though I'm not the grider. If you watch the course, you will understand my philosophies here. But yeah, you need to adapt depending on the artist you work with. And of course the artistic visions to some extent. But these things, it's usually one of those things that the artists maybe not have a strong opinion on. They just expect me to do what I need for it to become good.

Speaker 3 (00:23:00):

And I think exactly the duality of this, as we talked about this course is for the people who want in some extent to do what we do, what we have the privilege of doing. And maybe as I told UAL that we would kill for something like this when we started out, because our only perspective was the illusion. We only have the albums.

(00:23:30):

We didn't get to see all the mistakes. We didn't get to peak behind the scenes. When I started out, the only thing I had was my manual for my four track recorder. That was my reference. I had absolutely no idea how people would be doing this. And still, like we talked about, we all have these imposter syndromes that we struggle with. And it's been comforting to me to see some of the artists that I hold in high regard that I think could just, they never make mistake. It's just so easy for them. And they also have in conversation because they have exactly the same imposter syndromes. And it's like, yeah, it's comforting because then you know, can work your way through it.

(00:24:18):

And even my personal experience, I was very excited to go and do this course because me and Jen, we've been working on so many records really, but it's been really me recording stuff in my studio and mixing and mastering has been the main focus point of our collaborations. So to go over to Sweden again, see Jens and his amazing crew work on all these things and try to see the level of detail. Of course, just as a fan of doing this, it's amazing to be part of that, but also to see that, yeah, I have learned to do some of this stuff right on the side. There's part learning a lot of new stuff by following along as I've done with every engineer I ever worked with, but also a confirmation that after 30 years I'm doing some of these parts. Right.

Speaker 1 (00:25:18):

It's not all wrong. Something I was curious about, you said this in the course, you mentioned that this is the first time you've ever had someone like a producer come in and mess with the songs at all. Is your first experience with that, and I'm curious now in retrospect, what was that like for you? Because in watching that whole section, and I was in the room for that section, and the communication between all of you was so professional, and obviously it's professional because a pro, but that particular type of scenario where you're working on somebody's song, somebody else's song, and you're suggesting changes that can go lots of different ways. And some people are totally cool with it, some people are totally not cool with it. Some people want to be cool with it, but then deep down inside they're not. And so it leads to some a minefield basically of communication.

(00:26:37):

And what I've noticed is at least with the people that I work the best with and who are I guess my closest friends in this or the people that I relate to the most, I've noticed that this idea of feedback. And same with there's this orchestrator in my band guy Jesse Zure, and he does work for all kinds of big video games and things of that nature. And we were talking about feedback, how he's constantly getting feedback from these creative teams and he can't get personal about it ever. It's just got to be good at it. And he says that he always welcomes it because anytime he gets his feedback, whatever he's writing gets better. And I've noticed the same too when I'm working with crim on songs, anytime he sends me feedback on make this part better, it's too much of the same thing, whatever, even if I worked on it for a long time, it gets better. But I've also noticed in the studio or asked band members or whatever, that topic can make people get really nuts and it can cause lots of problems. So especially because this was your first time having a producer actually change one of your songs, and that's not in 30 years first time, what was that like for you and how do you feel about it now in retrospect?

Speaker 3 (00:28:05):

Yeah, let's be fair. I'm a solo artist for a reason. I say I've always thought that I was a great collaborator. A lot of the people I work with think not. I learned that the hard way. No, and it's not really for me. I like to think that it's not an ego thing, it's just that when I have an idea in my head, it's just so strong that it's almost impossible for me to deviate from that. And it's a horrible trait to have as a musician. I know. And sometimes over time, I've had one of the few people who can get through to me in situations like that is my wife because we work so closely together, but I may lose totally inspiration for a couple of weeks if I feel I have something great. And she was like, this could be better even trying to politely say it and having some ideas.

(00:29:07):

And then eventually I ended up changing it and changing it and it was totally for the better, but at the time I didn't see it. But I'm split. I mean recently with this project, but also I had an opportunity to work with Mafi on his Raki record. I was doing orchestrations for the tri album, doing bits and pieces like that or stuff that I worked with lepers, helping out IR with some recording vocals or whatever. However, when it's other people's music or I go into it with a collaborative mind with this project, I have no problem with that as long as it really helps, of course that you are with like-minded people and everybody has a similar level of experience that you, there's a trust, the ideas, all the IDs are valid. It's no ego like, oh, I'm in the room, so I have to have a say on this song.

(00:30:09):

It's like this, the best idea wins situation. And in this situation, no problem at all because me and NZ, we started talking about this even before I wrote the songs, and then I did, I remember I sent you quite a few different ideas for songs that we could pick from what vibe and what kind of composition would suit this kind of course the best. That's why I wanted to have to be with me for the drums because I knew he could also elaborate on setting up of the drums and everything like that. Stan Old Lamb, I knew he had a beautiful Barton voice, but he's also this amazing keyboard player. He knew his way around the draw bars on that Hammond.

Speaker 1 (00:31:00):

Yeah, that's

Speaker 3 (00:31:01):

So cool. So get the whole project was already, there was a collaborative spirit around the whole thing. And to me that was probably the most inspiring thing about it, to really just shoulders down throwing ideas in there and shape this together with all the amazing people I got to work with. So it's really, I probably, that's the biggest difference that I went into this with that mentality. It's much harder when you're kind of doing stuff on your own and then someone kind of comes in at last minute on the sideline and starts trying to pick it apart is different thing.

Speaker 1 (00:31:49):

Yeah, I guess that's just different parameters. Different parameters and boundaries to the project. But still, I've been in situations and seen it a lot where people say the best idea wins. No egos here, but then in the actual practice of trying to collaborate, it's very much not like that. And again, you're smiling, I know you've experienced that too with artists where the words spoken in advance are yes, if we're all about the best idea, but then in reality is not. Exactly. So in watching the way that you all communicated and collaborated, it truly was best idea wins and I appreciated that. And I think that even so I don't think that it's a bad trait personally, I'll just say that for there to be a singular vision. I mean, some of our favorite artists are people with a singular vision who aren't necessarily in a band band where everybody has an equal say. But I think the ability to collaborate like that when the situation calls for is very important. And I think there's something to learn from that. I mean, again, I out of curiosity for you, is that a tough topic for you to broach when working with an artist? Do you need to figure out what their personality type is in advance before you go there? How do you approach this? It's a minefield. How do you go about it?

Speaker 2 (00:33:43):

Yeah, it really is, and I would say most of the time it's fine. Some artists are great when it comes to this in terms of being open and really understanding the, or maybe they have not the best self-esteem in songwriting and thus they are more open to trying to make it better, whilst other times it's extremely difficult and can become personal very quickly. And then I've been in situations where I have to try to really think about what kind of decision I should try to make here because I can either try to push through or maybe manipulate the changes I feel is necessary for the product or the song, or I would think that if I do this, I will never see this person again or this band again. Is it worth it? They might break up.

Speaker 1 (00:34:58):

It might be for real.

Speaker 2 (00:35:01):

Yeah, anything could happen, right? Yeah. And then it becomes also, you have to think about it like this, who is employing me? Back in the day it was a little bit more common that a label would approach you to produce a band and then you have to sort of answer to the label how this product becomes, I would say these days that's very uncommon, at least for me now, it's almost always the artist, at least in the metal field. It's like the label will give, I would say the label is rarely involved in any creative decisions. And it's like the band comes to me to help them and it's their album or it's the artist album. So at the end of the day, I also need to not have my own ego too high.

(00:35:59):

I have to navigate what do I feel really strongly about? How would this affect the ongoing production? If I start a conflict here over something, maybe I try to win an argument about something and then I get three days of useless vocal takes because of it. Yeah. You understand what I mean? So that's something I need to balance all the time. And usually it's fine. Like I said, some bands are extremely open about this. There are bands that would even perhaps or have called me their sixth member or something because it's been such a nice collaborate thing. Even they use me to not fight within the band as well, just have chance decide this. And they go into the studio with that.

Speaker 1 (00:36:53):

When you mixed those three songs for me back in October, there was this one section I remember that me and Sean just could not agree on. We just couldn't. And the decision was, we're not agree. Let's just let whatever Ys decides, just go with that because me and you are not going to agree on this and we don't need to fight about this. Let's just let Ys decide whatever he goes with. Cool.

Speaker 2 (00:37:25):

It makes sense. I think

Speaker 1 (00:37:28):

We trust you. That's the big part. We trust you. So that's why it was okay. It's not just let anybody make this change. It's like we trust you, so we trust that whatever change you make will be the right one.

Speaker 2 (00:37:42):

Yeah, I think for some, I mean a band, they spend so much time together. They're basically family, live together, tour together, et cetera. It's really important that they can keep a thing, a healthy relationship within the band. And going into the studio can be really stressful in those situations depending on the personalities with these people obviously. But let's say that there is this strong band member that sort of steps on the other member's toes all the time. I shouldn't name any band names here, but that happens and other bands are a little bit smarter about it and perhaps hand over more to the producer. And that way they could just fire the producer for the next album instead if they are not happy so they can at least agree on something that it binds them together instead of having a recording session that just drives them apart because they're all trying to act producers. Yeah, I've had all sorts of experiences when it comes to this.

Speaker 3 (00:38:51):

I

Speaker 1 (00:38:51):

Have a question about, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (00:38:53):

Sorry, could I just pitch because these days with all the information you get through media and everything, the term producer seems to be, it could be anything someone like making a beat. But traditionally in my impression is that the producer is the one who takes responsibility to make the album or the product the best that it can be with the ingredients served.

(00:39:22):

And I can imagine it's really tough job because me have, again, without outing any of my collaborators, but I think a lot of us who have played in bands, even in the stuff we did in early teens, the illusion again amongst the audience is that it is four or five guys really pushing it. Everybody's contributing equally and blah, blah, blah. And everybody who ever played in the band knows that it's one or two people who has to do everything and the rest are complaining and they're only present if there's money or beer around. But I think again, there's a perception of how things work and then there's the reality of how things work.

(00:40:11):

And I think again, the mentality going into it. I think also for bands, I'm not quite sure how this works say in a band like Opus just using in Medicine example, but I think I have an impression that Michael is doing the writing and everybody trusts that, that's fine, that's his job. And then he in turn has all these amazing musicians in his band and pulls out those qualities. And that becomes an amazing evolving band like Opus because the roles are really defined and everybody's seemingly doing what they are best at, and that makes the best result. And I think as long as you go into a project like that, I saw something with Radiohead as well. I think it was Ed O'Brien, the guitar player, one of the guitar players set up with Radiohead, with all the different arrangements they do, sometimes it could be hard for the ego to sit there and make a song and realize that this song is better if I don't play anything on this. But I think that is really, then you have defined a very nice culture within that group that doesn't matter. And I think that's something that most bands should strive for. I'll just go solo.

Speaker 1 (00:41:47):

Yeah. Okay. So speaking of on that topic of doing what's best for the song, one thing I noticed also was in the demo version of the song, there were no bad parts. Everything was awesome. It was already awesome and it could have just gone with it the way it was and it would've been really good. So it wasn't taking something bad and molding it into something good. It was taking something that was already really good and making it even greater. And one thing that I noticed was that there were parts that were on their own really awesome that you guys were totally cool to just either get rid of or completely minimize or just not go in that direction where if you just heard the part on its own, it's awesome. But then in the context of the song itself, I don't know if you guys actually said this out loud, but it seems like the question, the underlying question was, is this making the song better or not?

(00:43:07):

If it's not, then goodbye. If it is, then cool. And it doesn't matter how good the part is on its own. Is it making the song better? Does it fit the grander context? Is it part of the big picture? So I'm wondering when it comes to that, so both on your side, Han as the person writing it, and then you Ys is the person producing and helping make changes when there's a part that you have spent a long time on and it is legit, it is objectively a really good part. Or Ys, when you're pre-pro a song and there's a part that someone wrote that obviously they spent a long time on, and again, hearing it in isolation, it is an awesome part, but it just does not fit. And so how do you go, what's the mental side of getting cool with getting rid of it?

(00:44:03):

Because I know that it's like there's this thing called the sunk cost fallacy that I don't know if you're familiar with it, it's just this fallacy that is part of human nature, that we have this idea that the more time we spend on something or it's about money, it's a financial thing, it's sunk costs. I already spent this much money on this thing, on this boat or something that I really shouldn't own, but I put so much money into it and it's falling apart. I need to keep going or I need to keep investing in this thing, or I need to keep this part of this song. I spent one week straight only on this part and this part's awesome. And then to come to hear or realize it doesn't fit the song or doesn't make it better, it's a hard thing for the human mind to accept because of the amount of time and effort that went into it. So I'm wondering for both sides, how do you approach that mentally?

Speaker 2 (00:45:12):

For me, it's pretty easy since I'm not the one spending the time usually. But what I usually would say, let's first say that there are no absolute truths when it comes to these things, right? Songwriting, because you could say that Op is writing terrible songs that would not work on the radio at all. Let's make them into three minute songs and they would be great and they probably would be great, but they're also great in their 10 minute format. So there are no absolute truth there. But I guess so it completely depends on the artist and what kind of vision and what kind of listener that would go into this. But I guess instinctively if I hear something like that, it feels like there are too many ideas in this song, it doesn't make sense for this song to have this many ideas, then I would suggest that.

(00:46:05):

And then there could be a decision, are we going to focus on these parts? Are we going to focus on these parts? What would make the better song? And sometimes it would take me a few attempts. I usually work quite a lot with that demo cuts and edits and send back and forth maybe with a band if we're working remotely and do suggestions. And sometimes it takes a few attempts for that to sort of land. And sometimes I would actually come back to the original versions, okay, well actually this in this form is probably the reason why I enjoyed this song to begin with. And then I was maybe overthinking about maybe we can trim this part, but in its whole it makes sense or the opposite, we actually need to really make this song move faster in these parts, et cetera. And sometimes I would just say, this is a great riff, make a new song out of it for the next album. That will of course never happen. But that's how I would sell that thing. But there are no hard truths here, but I could just follow my own head in those cases. And usually for me, that has worked out.

Speaker 3 (00:47:23):

But it's a matter of taste, isn't it? And it's this quote where the first step to developing a good taste is trusting your own opinion. And that can go both ways. And as the end said, I think every especially extreme metal bands have done this mistake starting out and that is like, okay, we don't want to be doing what everybody else is doing. We don't want to follow the pop formula like Judis Priest or Iron Maiden, and with two verses pre courses and a bridge courses, we want to do something else. And then you have all these extreme metal bands who pieced together at some point in the early days, like pre emperor stuff in the death metal period before the black metal thing, it was almost like a competition in between bands, how many riffs could they put into a song? So it's like, oh, that's so experimental, blah, blah, blah. But it's really just, again, not mentioning names, but so many bands who just piece together totally unrelated material for so and so many minutes. Bad

Speaker 2 (00:48:36):

Songwriting,

Speaker 3 (00:48:37):

Really bad songwriting. Then again, you have examples like Opus. I'm not saying they do that, but suddenly there are some really surprising elements, like huge down sections with accused the guitars in the middle of a song that is seemingly unrelated, but that becomes more like a change of scene in a movie because it's much more long format. So of course it can be a bad idea and it can be done very tastefully and successfully. But as a general rule, as I've been doing this for a while, my go-to is really to not try to add too many elements and still go back to using very, very traditional compositional tools. If I need a bridge, how about I play all the nodes backwards in half tempo and see if I can work a bridge out of that? It's still the same building blocks and it's still connected even if it sounds totally different.

(00:49:44):

I think on the subconscious level, it's part of the song, and I think that is almost more challenging to have a very, very core idea, not like Beov. And we're not that. That's the perfect example that everybody refers to and that's the core motive of an entire symphony, and that's how much variation and it feels like one piece. But then again, I now go around playing live shows with Emperor and we have so many songs that have a totally unrelated intro. Then there may be some repetition of riffs in between and then an outro, which has nothing to do with the rest, and people are singing along and having a good time. So there's no absolute truth to that. But the craftsmanship and just to add to the way we edit the song and everything, normally of course I will do that part on my end because then I do all these second guessing and cutting and doing the editing because I self supplied in that respect.

(00:50:58):

But for this project, I didn't have to do that. So I kind of presented, deliberately presented the raw idea because I knew it was no point in me going into this holding it dear to my heart and be very precious about it because the whole idea was this collaboration that Ys would produce it, and then I don't have to make all those decisions on my own and second guess it. I could play ball with someone with that experience. And that was much more interesting. So I didn't put all that work into making it the most perfect whatever. I just went very fluently making the song open that this will be edited in some form. And so I guess that's also a matter of as a band or an artist going into the studio, if you get the opportunity to work with Jens or someone of his caliber, maybe you should write your songs like that, that you don't have to do all these decisions yourself. And the same goes with making two good demos. I always make my demos sound crap. I don't want to be stuck with some of the stuff that you can't recreate later.

Speaker 1 (00:52:25):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:52:26):

That's a very good tip right there.

Speaker 1 (00:52:27):

Yes, seriously, man. Guilty, guilty. It's such a disappointment too. If you put all this time into a demo and really captured this thing, this thing that you think is great, and then you think that you're going to go to the studio and then do it for real, the problem is you already did it for real just with shitty di or something and out of tune, you already did it for real. You're not going to be able to put yourself back in that moment. It's a hard lesson to learn, but I feel like once you've learned it, it's hard to unlearn it once you've had the experience of really loving something and then trying to recreate it properly and then I guess it's well recorded, but it sounds like shit. It's this weird thing. It's technically better, but it's worse. And once you experience that, you'll never forget that I want to change topics and talk about guitar Some and a few things I'm curious about because I know that you told me in conversation that you don't consider yourself a good guitar player. I consider you a really good guitar player, but I know nobody considers themselves a good guitar player.

(00:53:51):

I know some of the greatest guitar players on earth who don't consider themselves good. So I think that that's just part of being good is not considering yourself good. So anyhow, that said, I'm not with you every day, so I don't know how you spend your musical days and what your priorities are, but in order to get ready for the studio to track, especially on a song like this, that there are going to be changes, your skills, the ability to play that's got to be ready. You got to have some familiarity with the parts, but obviously can't be worked out the way that you would for a live show where the parts are the parts and you can practice them. Exactly. So excuse me, how do you go about preparing yourself on the playing side for a session like this where your hands have to be able to do whatever is thrown at you, and you kind of have to know how to play this song, but not really because the song you have going in, it might not really be exactly the song you have when you're tracking. So how do you get yourself there?

Speaker 3 (00:55:10):

I am probably guilty of, as you saw from my use of my iPad when we are recording the guitars, because normally in my typical situation, referring a bit back to the songwriting part, making bad demos, I've come to the point now where I write all my music just with a piano sound. I write the songs with a piano sound and make the arrangements, and then I adapted to what guitars and bass and stuff after the fact. And I literally tab everything in cubase in real times that when it comes down to recording guitar, even a lot of the guitar parts, I don't even play them first and then I just learn the stuff as I go and play to the score and tableture in real time with my sessions, and since this was on pro tools and everything, I had to just have printed score of what I was doing and playing a lot, playing along. So I probably should have been more and more prepared,

Speaker 2 (00:56:17):

I should say, that all musicians are doing this.

Speaker 3 (00:56:20):

No, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:56:21):

Right.

Speaker 1 (00:56:23):

Okay. Just learning it on the spot.

Speaker 3 (00:56:26):

Yeah, but also, I mean this is not like there's some pull of it, but it's not a super technical song in that respect. So I think it was was very manageable, I

Speaker 1 (00:56:41):

Think. All right. So first of all, that's really, really impressive because I don't know if you remember when this change started to happen, and I don't know if this happened with the bands that you recorded. I feel like you always had, I guess first time I heard about you was with opec, and so I always just associated you with producing the good musician bands. But I don't know if you remember somewhere around 2007, 8, 9, 10, at least, I know bands that started coming to me. They started coming without having ever played the stuff because it was all in Guitar Pro. And so they would write everything in Guitar Pro and then we'd get to the session and they've never played it before and it doesn't work on guitar. It doesn't make sense. They have these rifts where it's a jump from the 18th fret on the high string to the fifth fret on the low string and just these weird ass jump arounds and just things that don't make any sense on the instrument itself.

(00:57:51):

And so in my experience, there's only been very few people who I've noticed write in a score or on Guitar Pro or whatever without playing it, who then come in and then it makes sense. So if you're actually able to do that, that's pretty remarkable because it's not common at all to be able to do that. But also, I guess that speaks to your skill as a guitar player. What I'm wondering is when you are writing it that way, are you at all thinking about are you seeing the guitar in your head or is it purely just when you get to recording, you're going to look at it and then you'll figure out how to make it work?

Speaker 3 (00:58:33):

It is rather that, because to me, a lot of the reason, it's not like just to make bad demos, but it's also the part where I've been playing guitar for such a long time that there's so much muscle memory going on. This was my reason to going to seven string. This was my reason to go for an eight string guitar. It was not to just play everything I did lower, it was to put my mind in a different, where I skipped the Muslim memory part where you go straight to the music and that's really helped to write with a piano sound. And if this sounds great, you get the chord together, the aligning, the different harmonies, the right registered. There's always a way to figure out. I will of course limit myself to like, okay, I'm writing this song for a song in drop c tuning.

(00:59:24):

I will take that into consideration, otherwise it's a mess. But usually I don't think about how to play it first when I arrange the parts. But then of course, as soon as I start putting the temperature down, I will of course go through and okay, I need to move this voicing around like this to make it playable, so then I will, that's have shortcuts on my keyboard here to move to string, blah, blah, blah. And also trying out different voicing to where they may sound best and Swiss all and X experiment for me. But for me personally, it's just so much better to not have to deal with all of that. And second guessing in my muscle memory as well in that part is take the music for what it is and try to adapt it afterwards.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):

Kind of have a lot of trust in your own playing to be able to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):

Or I can hire someone who's better than me, or you can hire someone who that's better than me. That's what I do live. I mean my solo band, I just make sure I have someone who's amazing at guitar. I can pitch all the hard parts on them.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):

And there's something to be said for having great musicians in your band.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):

I always try to make sure I'm the worst player. Yeah, totally. That's the secret, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):

Yeah, that's what I tell my kids too. Put yourself in a situation where everybody's better than you, then they are the gloss ceiling of where you can go. Exactly. Not yourself. Yeah, and again, this would, thank you for your kind words about my playing, but I think Ys have been working with a lot of these amazing guitar players, for example. And I think it's in my position because I've been in some situations and a band that has some kind of mythical aspects to it and everything, and we were pretty early on with some of the emperor stuff. There's some really complimentary and high genius words and stuff is thrown around and people say, oh, you're so humble, blah, blah, blah. And honestly, I'm not, I feel I have a really good relationship to where I'm at and where I want to go and learn and everything. But I think it's a matter of perspective because if someone says genius, I'm thinking of real geniuses like Bach. When I think of a great guitar player, I think of Frederick Oxon and John Pater, people who can do F is probably my favorite guitar player to this day because he has the legacy of the feel of old school guitar playing

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):

Is insane.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):

Yeah, it's just tasteful. There's all these shredders. It is just amazing to watch sports, but to make it tasteful like that, and within that technicality Dr regard is not comparable.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):

I think that that's a really good way to stay humble actually is not to try. What I've noticed is it's not about trying to be humble because I feel like trying to be humble is kind of egotistical. It's in this weird backwards way. It's more about just being aware of who's out there. And so if people are saying, oh, you're so great, you're so great, you're so great. But actually there's a dude, his name's John Petru out there. He's great. There was a guy named Bach. Now that guy was great. I think it helps put a little perspective on things so that you don't allow yourself to believe in yourself the way that a fan does, because that, I think if a fan believes that an artist they love is a genius or writes the perfect thing, that's cool. That's great, that's awesome. There's plenty of artists that I feel that way about, but they should never feel that way about themselves because then they're going to stop. But we have met them. The

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):

People who believe that

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):

I know and they're not very charming. No, they're not very charming. And most of the time they're not actually that great forever.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):

I mean, again, it's this glass ceiling. I mean, all of us have what we know how to do becomes our baseline normal. And by the time you get to this level or this level, that becomes our normal. And by the time we get there, our eyes are on something further ahead. Because I think the reason all of us have been doing this for quite some time, and the motivation is not to really reach a goal. The motivation for us to do what we do is to stay on the road and keep doing it. Am I right? Is that just me? No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):

So on the business side, that's not it. But on the art side, yes, a hundred percent. So with the companies, my goal is not to just stay on the road forever and just do it indefinitely. There is an end point for me with business, but the musician side of me, the artist side of me, there is no end point. That's for the rest of my life thing. What about you, Jan? I'm just curious where you're at with that now, you in both, now that you're, I feel like you're kind in my shoes too, with this one foot in business, one foot in the art. Where do you see that for you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):

That's a good question. I should say that. I guess most people that get into music production or producing, they don't think anything about business. I certainly did not. I didn't have a thought about running a business. I just wanted until

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):

They do.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):

I just wanted to produce music and be in the studio and be able to do it. And I was super happy by the time I felt that I could actually do it. I have a few dollars left on my account every month. That was an amazing feeling. Then my goal was reached, so to speak. But of course I've been doing this for, I mixed my first album nine to six, and it's starting to become a few years, and I still, I'm turning 44 later this year. So in Sweden, we retire at 65 usually. So I have like 20 years to go. And I guess just continuing, no, I guess AI will replace me, right? But yeah, I also have the new business that just was also by accident, actually. It wasn't like a schemed plan to start doing these digital products. It was just happened that way. But

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):

You're doing great stuff, and I'm not trying to kiss your ass. We, I say we as my partners at URM, we're watching everybody. And we have seen, because some of my partners have been doing, also been doing software forever now, like Joey's been doing plugins longer than URM has existed. So we kind of have been paying attention. We have to, and there came a point where every producer started putting out sample packs and IRS and all that. And that wasn't special, but your stuff was just better than everybody's. And then the plugins you started making again, I'm not trying to kiss your ass. It's just your stuff is great. And so I think because of that, it's become a real business, intentional or not just you make great stuff and fulfill a need in the market and the market responds and now you have a business on your hand. So obviously it has to be taken into consideration.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):

Yeah, it is. And I am exactly at that point now where I sort of need to try to make a decision how to go on about this because last I released the first thing like three years ago already, and up to this point it's been very fun, extremely rewarding in a way I've been nerding into stuff that I thought I would never have the time to do while creating the Guitar Amps, for example. I mean, I have knowledge, but the knowledge that I've acquired to be able to do those products, it really has helped my production side as well in terms of, it's just so much easier for me to get a really good guitar sound now than it was three years ago because I've made research that I didn't think I would ever need to do

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):

Scientifically how a guitar sound exists in the universe now, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And of course that's not the point, but still and going forward, I feel a lot of joy doing this, like the product side for that reason, for the research reason, for the ability to go into these things. And so far think it's fun as me in 20 years, I probably be sick of it, but at this point, having been doing so much mixing, production, et cetera, it's really fun to be able to actually do something else. So for next year, it is likely that I will be doing more of the products and a bit less of production mixing side for that reason, so to speak. And yeah, it is also perhaps potentially a better business because production and mixing it's art in a way, for me, it's not a fantastic financial business, not a bad one. But yeah, no, I mean I enjoy it. I cannot complain. I work with great artists and I have a very nice studio and all that, so I'm not saying that, but it's still, I have friends who went into finance or to other things that laugh at my achievement.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):

Well, the thing that's funny about business, at least I feel like URM is different than what you're doing, but I feel like there's a very strong creative component to this, all because you have to create things. It's not the same as creating art, but you're still using the creative muscle to create something that makes an impact on somebody else's life. And you are doing a lot of creative work to create something that did not previously exist in the world. And so especially with URM or Riff Hard with URM, it originally started with myself or my partners doing the classes, but it was never meant to stay that way. It was meant to expand to being what we think are the best in the field doing it. But the creativity there is in figuring out how to communicate, how to capture and communicate this stuff in a way that is not just not just filming something and putting it up there.

(01:11:36):

You're packaging it and putting it together in a way that somebody can actually get a result in real life out of it, not just some passive, passive watching. That's why there's so many other aspects to it, like the community aspect and all these other things we do. It all serves this mission of what we like to say about some of the other education companies is that their product ends the moment that you stop watching. And that's where ours starts because I guess the landscape is always changing and the way that people consume information and interact with information is always changing. There's this strong creative side of having to always figure out how are you going to actually do stuff that will make a difference and also stay ahead of the curve and stay ahead of the curve and then stay in touch with what is it, what is that people really want to know about that's going to inspire them to want to get better. There's this strong creative component, but at the end of the day, I see it as a finite thing. I see an end point. There will come a point where it is sold and it's no longer mine, but art on the other hand, that's never ending. So it's two totally different things. Just kind of to long answer to what Han said about it, just being more about just staying with it.

(01:13:18):

I don't see an end point for the art thing. Never really at a goal. You're never really at anything. Once you finish a project, it's done. It's done. And you're still you and whatever it was that drove you to create that project in the first place is still there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):

Tarantino, he was supposed to do 10 movies, wasn't it? And it is coming up, right? His final movie

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):

Movies, spite of that, movies. But not only 10 works. That's the thing with Tarantino, he's transitioning to TV after that apparently. So yeah, so it's not like Tarantino is retiring. Well, I mean long form tv, so basically 12 hour long movies. But yeah, with Tarantino, he's not quitting. He wanted to make 10 movies and then transition to making stuff in a different way. But

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):

I guess I can relate with my long-term in the case where you can make a plan. I mean, I still love making records, but I guess I'm becoming more and more open to other ways of utilizing this passion and just thinking creatively, could I be as passionate about utilizing what I know and what I've learned in some other way that all the time, every album I do something different to not be bored, that I want to be just as excited about making a new record now than I was when I was 16. So I have to put myself in a position where I'm like that. And on the topic of throwing compliments around for both of you, I mean, I think because you were talking about business and that's definitely like Jane Simmons would've said, there's music and there's business, music, business. But what I realized, of course we know how it is in the business side of things. It goes up and down. You have no control of that. And some years are good, some others, if there's an album year, you spend all this money making a record and otherwise, other times you're touring and selling records, it's up and down. But no matter the income, it hasn't made me a more creative person to have more money.

(01:15:56):

You can only do so much. So there's a different gap between there, but then it's the other side of things that is not only the art, but I would like to compliment Jen now that I got to spend so much time, not only with him, but also the entire team and your guys at Fascination Street, that some of them are early in the career and we worked together enough to see some of the guys starting out just doing the editing and then aspiring to take on more and more. And for you, I would like to compliment you on creating an environment and a culture and inviting these other talents into your flow of things, sharing and creating an environment where perhaps you are the gloss ceiling, but still you are spreading the craft and all these experiences. And then with UM Academy to share that onwards.

(01:17:02):

Because I think in some way when sharing this, doing courses like this or just in my experience giving lectures, I've never understood why people would want me to come give a guest lecture at some music school or something or clinics for that matter. But for some reason I just start talking about the stuff that I think is important and some of my experiences. And for some people it's some eyeopening things, just perspectives, which I take for granted. But for someone like myself when I was young, just as passionate about this as I am, so in some ways it feels good if as a grownup I can be one of those people who may push people in the right direction into a life of music in some sort. And those perspectives that we've all learned over the years. And I think with the course and with the whole thing with fascination streets, growing with more people, URM Academy, I think that is an extremely valuable thing for the next generation of creative people because that will never change.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):

Well, I feel like, well, thank you. I feel like what I mean by we as in those of us who have been in it for a while, don't do that. Who else is going to, you can't go to a university to study this stuff. That's the thing. It is up to, it is up to this generation and the generation older than us to spread it on or it's not going to get spread because for almost anything else, you could just go to university and get that. But metal still, it's changing, but it's, it's not in mainstream academia, the way that you go about making metal records, it's like a different skillset than the traditional, I think the traditional skillset is very important too. But the way that things are done is it's its own world. And I think that it's up to the people who have defined what that world is up to this point to pass it on to the next generation or it just will not get passed on.

(01:19:32):

So if you care help, and I think that that attitude is starting to change for the better. I can tell you when we started URM, this is, or almost on year nine, the attitude towards this sort of thing was very different. It was very negative. Very few people wanted to work with us, and there were a lot of people who felt like we were, I dunno, we were spilling CIA secrets or something. This is class, you're sharing the nuclear documents with everybody, something crazy. They were acting like that we were messing it up for everybody or sharing, sharing these highly coveted secrets. But I never saw it that way because first of all, you can't share your brain at the end of the, you can't share your ears or your brain or your tastes,

(01:20:36):

Right? That is a hundred percent you. And that's every individual is going to have to develop that for themselves. You can't share your work ethic, you can't share your vision. That part is a hundred percent on the individual. But the techniques, the workflows, habits, lay of the land, all that stuff can be shared. And I think it should be shared. And the attitude has changed a lot. I feel like we're at a time period now where people who are against sharing information and helping out are now becoming, they feel like dinosaurs now. And it's super rare. Whereas yeah, when we started, man, we got a lot of hate, a lot of hate and a lot of resistance. And people really tried to take us down several times.

(01:21:36):

But I really did believe in this mission and still do. And I think, and it's good to see that it's kind of spreading to where more and more people from, I'd say the 30 5-year-old and up generation in metal are pretty cool with helping out the younger generation and spreading the information around. Because again, in any other genre, if you want to go learn orchestration, you can just go to a university and learn orchestration, classical composition, jazz, blues, country, you can go learn that stuff from almost any music school in the world. You can just go and learn it. And it's not a big deal. You could just go learn it. Not the same with metal.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):

No, but I mean music is music and I am sure you could adapt. I think of course, I think the production of metal music is something, especially, I've heard this from engineers and people who work with all kinds of other music but not metal. And it's just too hard. There's just too much going on. And it's apparently some of the hardest music to mix and produce because of the elements. And that may be so, but I wanted to, because I have been doing some interviews lately and talked about the course and everything and in regards to this sharing of information of what it's about. And I think the technology, we've been doing this for a while, and yeah, I've recorded a lot of albums just to unlock tape.

(01:23:22):

And we've come so far and this technology where people can have a laptop and make recordings at home that sonically sounds far more pristine than what I could ever do with my four track machine or whatever. So much of that has changed. But I think some of the big takeaways from a course like this, that even though there's all the plugins, there's all the emulations and pro tools and editing and all that, but still as the course goes through tuning of drums, tuning of guitars, microphone placements, capturing a performance, even though as you said that you edited, that hasn't changed the actual communication of the music in that sense, that hasn't changed. And for all these young people who are home with their laptops and work with all these plugins, but the plugins are still emulations of real things. And to see how those real things respond and react, I guess it's easier to relate on how to use the emulations. I think a lot of people will use the old school compressor plugins. It has all the graphics that makes it look really old, but have no clue of the gain staging on how hard you push them or whatever to get results that you need. And I think of course, this demonstrates that even if you are just emulating and don't have the resources to go to a big studio like Fascination Street or anything, having some feel for what it is that you're trying to emulate. And it is really, really valuable.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):

It is. And I think it's important to note that I think people could see a course like this and think to themselves that it doesn't apply to them because they don't have a studio like Fascination Street or a team like that. And they're not working with artists such as yourself, they're just working with shitty local bands or whatever. All they have is a bedroom, a laptop, headphones, some plugins, and that's it. So none of this applies. And I think that it's important to say that it does apply because Jens, I know that if you were in a situation where you had to mix something in headphones on your laptop and pro tools, you could still do it. It might not be your ideal scenario, but you could still do it if you had to. And I know that, I know that Will Putney, there's some record he did that sounds great, that he had to do in a hotel room in Australia.

(01:26:30):

Jet lagged in headphones. I know Nali mixed a periphery album in headphones on a tour bus on tour. I know Zach Sini has done stuff in earbuds. These are not ideal scenarios, but the point is they know what they're doing and therefore they were totally able to make it work because they'd know what they're doing. And so the idea is to see something like this, a course like this, and just get an understanding, a perspective on how this stuff is done, and then apply it to your own situation. Because a situation like Fascination Street Studios, it's a very rare kind of set. And

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):

Even more rare now. I mean there are hardly any big studios left to have that kind of room. But as you say, as it all comes out, I mean the big white hat and there's expensive knives, doesn't make you a chef.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):

And Jens didn't respond to what I said about the laptop. So I'm wondering,

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):

Of course, I mean, that's what I always said as well, that you use the tools that are available to you. There's not like one single unicorn piece of equipment or something that I have to use or that you have to use. Of course, it helps. And you're very used to how certain things are, especially if you're as old as me, it's like as soon as you deviate just put me in front of a different pro tool system than the one I'm using, I will be like, what's happening here? I have to, what's going on with this keyboard? Because everything is muscle memory, et cetera. It takes a little longer. But of course it's not about that. It's about your brain and the mindsets. And without having watched the final course of 35 hours of edited material, I would say that as much as it is practical information on how to do things, it's also a lot about the process and why we think in certain ways, the mental aspect, the psychological aspect, the music part, the visions, those sort of things is as valid no matter the equipment you have at hand for a certain task.

(01:29:07):

Is that correct? Without having watched the course? Absolutely correct. You watched course?

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):

Oh yeah, I watched it. Oh, you watched it. 35 hours is no joke, let me tell you. That's intense. But yeah, there's a lot of technical practical stuff, but it's combined with the reason why for everything, which I think is what matters at the end of the day, because people's tools, no two studios are exactly the same except for if you go to a university and they have 12 SSL rooms with the exact same stuff, that's the only time that you'll ever find studios that are identical, every studio. And I've been to, not all of them, but I've been to, if you can think of any famous or known metal studio or rock studio, I've probably been there. And they're all different. And they all have problems. They all have quirks. There's no perfect place. Every room has something wrong with its acoustics. There's always some piece of gear that doesn't work. Someone's computers from 2004. There's always some problem that's unique to that place, yet they make it work and it's not really a problem. And so to watch something like this and think, oh, well this sounds good because fascination Street Studios is set up like this and it's that drum room. I mean, that stuff helps. But that's not why.

(01:30:46):

That's correct. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):

I wish I knew all this before I bought all this expensive equipment. We say that and then we go buy something really, really expensive. It does one thing. Well, it doesn't hurt. No, no, no,

Speaker 4 (01:31:02):

No.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):

Actually that's another, for me personally, a takeaway and something that I of course am aware of. But I also try to take more to heart for my future work as well, when you have a room like that and the competence most importantly. And also the courage of commitment, because I think all we spoke about the illusions and what inspires us, and all these records that I hold as examples of what I want to achieve aesthetically, they are all formed by the time and place and situation of where and when it was recorded. That whole thing binds it together. Whereas these days without, you can't even out them because there's so many bands who sound exactly the same. Even just listening to pop music this week, there are three songs or four songs on the top 10 in the world that has the same beat in it. So this generic middle ground of that

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):

Goes for metal songs as well. Oh

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):

Yeah, totally. Totally. So the limitations, as you say, of a studio or whatever tools you have there will help form that. And I am guilty of this a lot of the time, especially since I work alone, that I will, with recording di with everything and being able to edit and second guess everything until the very, very last moment, it might take away some of the genuine expression that you have in mind and the magic of those first takes or what have you. And we were at over in Sweden finding that drum sound that really found the sound that this sounds great for this song. And then every consecutive decision on what kind of guitar amp we ended up using, what bass sound we ended up using, how we recorded the vocals, how we arrange the harmonies of the additional vocals, they were all decisions made, layering on what was committed in a sense.

(01:33:47):

And I think we were all in a digital age, we're very consumed with this that we always edit and replace. And then the end result, as we've all heard, becomes very, very stale. And we don't, I mean, back in the eighties, it wasn't really hard to tell Wasp and Moley crew apart. And it wasn't hard to tell Iron Maiden and Judis Priest apart or Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. But I mean, there are ups and downs of this, mostly ups of the Democratic, what can I say, access to all these tools and that you don't really need labels anymore to make you make records or whatever. There's this total upside. The downside is like you give everybody's access to the same tools and the exact same tools. And not, I'm explaining this wrong, but I think you get my point.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):

Well, basically, I think even the level playing field has made it to where you have just as much access to really bad music as to really good music. So I don't think that there's less great bands. I think there's more actually now because there is so much access to being able to record and to get better through learning. Because in the past, and I know we had to end this in a minute, but in the past, think about it, when I had to get guitar lessons, and I'm sure it's the same for you guys, I was limited to whoever was around. I did have a pretty good teacher, but that was luck. And I know that Kirk Hammett, for instance, studying from Joe Satriani is luck that because of proximity. But there's, most people from our generation older had shitty teachers just by virtue of the fact that that's the person who was near them. And so now with the access to information from the best minds in the field, it's possible to get that much better. And so I think because people can now record themselves, there's just a lower barrier to entry. It's possible to get, it's a lot more possible for a lot more people to get better. And I think LPARs is a perfect example of where young kids these days can just become phenoms growing up in this modern environment. But

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):

I told you about that, right?

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):

Yeah, yeah. Bringing them up

Speaker 3 (01:36:42):

That was forced. Me and my wife forced IR to play.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):

But man, those guys are incredible musicians and I think they're a product of the best thing that can happen in the way that generation learns. Totally. And so I think there's more great bands now than there were before, but there's also way, way, way, way more terrible vans, no moderation and way more access to it. And so it's just like you're inundated in a sea of shit. But there's still, there's still a lot of great stuff. But

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):

There's the flip side, it kind of goes in parallel because I think there's so many bands who are now successful that would never have gotten a chance through the keyhole of record company. Exactly. So for this kind of access is really great for music as an art form, but not maybe great for music as a business because it is flooded with all the kind of crap as well. But having access to technology, I mean, you and me, as we know, I've been working a lot of it with orchestrations lately.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):

I know something about that.

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):

And to have access to that, all the stuff that I've been able to learn from online and just even old orchestration books and what have you that are now accessible online and all kinds of, that simplifies some of the stuff I tried to study on my own. And I had access to nothing. I mean, I live in this very, very, very small town in Noleton. I had five guitar lessons from a local blues guitar player. And then they said, well, I strongly the riff, I can't tell you how to play a solo. And that was it. And then luckily my luck was I got hold of the Tablature book for son of a seven song for Iron Maiden. And every day after school, like three, four hours playing along to the record, that's my guitar tutor. So to have access to the stuff that people have today, I mean they don't know how lucky they are. And to see my own kids, how so easily access the best resources for anything they want to do. And especially with music,

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):

It's

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):

Amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):

It's an incredible time period. Well, dudes, this is a good place to end the conversation. I want to thank you both for taking the time and beyond that just I want to obviously thank you both for contributing everything you contributed to helping make this how it's done happen. I do think it's the best thing that URMs ever done and my favorite thing. So thank you for that. And thank you for taking the time to hang out on this podcast. And I will see you next week

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):

Right back at you. I mean, thank you to both of you for including me and my guys in the project. I had an amazing time and I hope people will have just as much fun watching this as we had had making it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):

And people should know that it was hard work. We have really put ourselves into this course, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:40:14):

And

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):

I'm very happy that I chose Han, and I'm super happy with how the song turned out as well.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):

The song is great. Thank you. Thanks guys.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):

Thank you.