Lawrence Mackrory: Mixing Bloodbath, Voicing Jack Black & Tony Stark, Building a Career in Metal

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. And now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man. Time moves fast, and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram, and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy, and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line. Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is one of my favorite people in the game, Mr. Lawrence Mackrory. He is a mixer mastering engineer producer from Sweden, and he's worked with bands like Chuga Catatonia, blood Bath, decapitated, and a Bunch More. I met him when we went to Sweden for nail the Mix with Daniel Berg Strand, which was actually really cool. Anyhow, let's get into his, here goes Lawrence Mackrory. Welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:14):

Oh, thank you so much, Al. Thank you. Pleasure. Yeah, it's a pleasure for me too. It's been a minute. It's been a long time. I actually remember in 17, I think it was, and you said it was the first time we met in person when we were doing at Daniel's, we're doing a future breed machine and nail the mix, and you said, yeah, we should do podcasts. And now it's finally happening a few years later. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:38):

Yeah. I was serious then. Some things just take time. Good things take time.

Speaker 2 (02:44):

It's good. It has to brew for a long time, I think. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:48):

Marinate. They

Speaker 2 (02:49):

Marinate. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:50):

Yeah. Aged finally. But you've been up to a whole lot in those few years. I actually think it's better that we waited a little while because so much has happened for you and to you since then.

Speaker 2 (03:03):

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I didn't have a lot of credits back then. Well, I had a lot of credits. I was doing a lot of work for Daniel and I had been doing a lot of local work and smaller bands for a long time. But the last few years have been really good and the work has been piling on and been doing bigger and better, in my opinion, work. Everything's great.

Speaker 1 (03:27):

When I met you, were you technically assisting Daniel? I wasn't sure I understood exactly. Or did you just have a room at his studio? How did that work?

Speaker 2 (03:38):

Both, I guess.

Speaker 1 (03:39):

Okay, so it was both okay.

Speaker 2 (03:40):

Yeah, it wasn't really something that was spoken about. It was just like he had some guy there and he was leaving kind of an intern and he was leaving and where I was closing down as well, the studio that I worked in and we were talking and it was just like, yeah, obviously I'm just going to move up to him and sit there in the other room. And I was helping him with productions and I was also doing my own kind of mixing and having my own clients there as well. So it was kind of like a collaboration, but then also I was still working on my own clients.

Speaker 1 (04:16):

How did you meet him and develop a relationship to the point where you could be the dude that got the room and got to work with him on stuff?

Speaker 2 (04:24):

So that goes way back. I went to a media high school thing and I was dead set on becoming a film photographer, but while I was there, I was kind of getting sucked into audio because I was a

Speaker 1 (04:41):

Film photographer.

Speaker 2 (04:42):

I was like, I want to be a film photographer. So I went to a media high school. With that in mind, I was thinking if I'm going to have kind of a direction, that's the thing I'm picking. You could learn anything there, be a journalist or computer programming or radio, whatever. So I wasn't really into sound then, but I became, while I was there, became really into it. So I quickly put that aside and started being really interested in audio. So when that quit, I wanted to keep learning more about this, and I went to school in another town. It was supposed to be one year of music production studio thing in one year, but I wasn't even halfway through it while I got the message from a friend back in Upsala who was in a band. And his band recorded with Daniel a few times and he said, Daniel needs an assistant.

(05:37):

He's back in Sweden because he'd been gone from Sweden for a couple of years, and he said, he's back in Sweden. He's opened up the studio again and he needs somebody there, an intern, basically. So I just left what I was doing there. I didn't even finish the course because I was thinking my mom was really, she was like, don't you think it's good to have a degree, a piece of paper that says that you have done this? And I was like, yes. But I think my name being associated with these Masu recordings is going to further my career a bit better.

Speaker 1 (06:13):

Just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:15):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:16):

Well, that's the thing is that I tell people is there's literally two paths to making this work. Lots of people say there's no rule book, no path. That's bullshit. There's two paths. One is you work for people or with people who are doing the kind of work you want to do. So you want to work with bands like Shuga. So you find a way to work at the studio and with the dude that has worked with Shuga, that's method one. Method two is to work with local bands and one of them develops a career and takes you with them. That's it. Exactly. There are no other ways that I can think of other than maybe you're in a band that gets famous.

Speaker 2 (07:00):

Yeah, that's the third one.

Speaker 1 (07:01):

Okay, so that's the third one. So you're in a band that gets famous and you're the producer and you get known for that or something. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (07:07):

Because thought about that exact same thing. It's those two and those three things that if you look at everybody who's doing this, that's how it goes basically. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (07:18):

That's it. So yeah, so you go to Daniel, you want to go learn from the dude that did me. Sugar makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 (07:24):

And while I was there, it was, the thing is I was really into it. It so much fun learning all these things, and it was so different than what I had learned at school. It was like, okay, but this is how we really do it. And it was,

Speaker 1 (07:37):

Man, that's funny you say that. I feel like that's kind of with URM, that's our whole thing is there's how you learned it in school and here's how people actually do it in real life.

Speaker 2 (07:49):

Exactly. Daniel's showing me to smash the compressor on something that was like, holy shit, are you supposed to do that? Does that work? Really? That is URM right now. And that didn't exist. I mean, internet barely existed back then, so I mean, yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (08:06):

It's weird. But I mean, the thing is because schools don't really give you that kind of information, they have weird rules, the specifics of a genre, you just need to learn it from the people who do it in real life.

Speaker 2 (08:18):

Exactly. And I felt that was the right thing to do and be part of that clearly and be in that environment. And I was also, while that was fun and and learning stuff, I was very focused on my own music. I had a band that people were listening to, so I was like, I didn't know what I should focus on. And looking back, I probably should have focused more on the production side, but for a while I strayed off from that. I wasn't making any money as an intern, and Daniel didn't have enough money back then to pay me either. So it lasted for a while, and then I started to work in TV and dubbing audio basically because in Sweden we do dubbing as we do in most other non-English speaking countries, but in Sweden we only do it for kids movies and stuff. So I started working there and I just stayed there for so many years. So when I got back with Daniel, it had been like, I don't know, 15 years or something when I got back to working with him. So that's how I know him from way back then, and so much time had passed in between there, me doing other stuff, and he was also doing that kind of work for a while. And because it's a great side hustle if you're working in music.

Speaker 1 (09:38):

Yeah, totally. So it was basically a big sense of familiarity when you got working with him again.

Speaker 2 (09:44):

I mean, we've stayed friends throughout the years and

Speaker 1 (09:47):

So then that's perfect.

Speaker 2 (09:48):

Yeah, and when I started doing music, get music production again full time before I got back to Daniel, I mean, I was doing it for a few years before I moved into his place. We were calling each other, not every day, but at least a few times a week, just like, oh man, can I show you these files that I've received? How am I supposed to mix this, listen to this, that kind of stuff. We were like being each other's therapists basically. Just when you're pissed off and you just want to scream, you just call somebody who understands what you're going through.

Speaker 1 (10:21):

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, people in URM in the group, you should know that when you post about negative things that happen with clients, everybody's reading, it's better to find someone you can confide in a friend and vent to them via text or verbally, but not in front of the world.

Speaker 3 (10:43):

Everybody

Speaker 1 (10:43):

Does it, but I think it's important to do it discreetly and with someone you trust rather than in public in front of the whole world

Speaker 2 (10:52):

Because we need to get it out. We need to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (10:55):

You do, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (10:56):

Yeah. But that's not a public thing. Not at all. I mean, yeah, you need to be a professional and stuff like that, but I mean, it's just venting frustration not towards anybody or any band or something. It's just like this, as with any job, this can become, it can be so much fun and it can be a fucking pain in the ass sometimes, and you just have to fix things. I've heard you say this a thousand times, it's just like we're professional problem solvers to a certain extent. I mean, if you get big enough, you can hire somebody to solve your problems and just do the fun stuff. But still, yeah, we're just fixing things a lot of the time.

Speaker 1 (11:35):

But that's not necessarily a bad thing, at least for quite a few engineers. Now, I don't consider producing to be constant problem solving, even though there are problems. But that's more of like a vision thing. Engineering is mostly problem solving.

Speaker 2 (11:52):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:53):

And I know quite a few engineers who find zen in that actually their happy place, their happy calm place is right in it with those problems solving them.

Speaker 2 (12:03):

That's weird because it can be obviously. Yeah, and it has been for me as well, when you find something that, because first you become frustrated and then you figure out how you're going to do something and you've probably found a new way to do something and you've learned something new. And that has happened to me many times. I'm like, what if I try this? Oh shit, it actually worked. Okay, fine. Perfect. I can put that in the bag for later.

Speaker 1 (12:31):

There's this cycle of learning a skill, using a skill, getting comfortable with a skill, getting proficient, mastering a skill, then coming up against a problem where that skill no longer works or your skill no longer works, or it kind of works but not well enough. And that's an uncomfortable, frustrating feeling because everything that you've been working on just doesn't work for this, and so you're not good enough yet. You have to become better in order to solve this problem. So the reason it's frustrating in my opinion, is because in that moment, it doesn't mean you're not talented enough or not capable of learning it, but in that moment, you're not good enough to solve the problem. So you're feeling this frustration, it's more with yourself than the problem, and I don't mean you specifically. No, no, no. I think people in general, I think that frustration is, even if they don't realize it more than anything, they're mad at themselves because they're not good enough to solve this problem yet. The ones that are great though, they come up against this feeling all the time that I'm not good enough to solve this problem,

(13:40):

And then they beat their head into a wall until the wall breaks and they solve the problem and they just keep on doing this. And their cycle of mastery to frustration, to mastery to frustration is much quicker than someone who's maybe mediocre. They keep on bringing themselves up against these challenges where they're not good enough to do it than they become good enough to do it, master it, then hit another challenge where they're not good enough to do it again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I actually think inviting those feelings in trying to find those things is one of the ways to get a lot better, a lot faster.

Speaker 2 (14:16):

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's experience. When you solve one problem, it's easier to solve the next one and the next one. And when you're up for a challenge and you're not going to be scared, you're going to be excited to try to fix something because that is the fulfillment you get when you fix something that is deemed unfixable sometimes. It's a great feeling, and I agree what you said, you're frustrated with yourself. I mean, jokingly, we can be frustrated that we even took the job sometimes without listening to the files or whatever. We've all been there, but it's like you need a lot of experience. You need to have been doing it for maybe not a long time, but doing it a lot to be able to, because Sure. I mean, I've seen in the group, I don't mix a lot of stuff from URM myself because I don't have the time, but I see sometimes that students complain about some files being messed up, and it's like, yeah, that happens. The original mixer probably didn't bother him, just fixed it. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (15:22):

I always laugh about that stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:23):

Yeah, so funny because

Speaker 1 (15:25):

Yeah, because on what planet are sessions perfect,

Speaker 2 (15:30):

Because

Speaker 1 (15:31):

I've never seen one. I've never seen a perfect session.

Speaker 2 (15:34):

That's a unicorn.

Speaker 1 (15:36):

It doesn't matter how big or expensive of a record it is, there are no perfect sessions. So when someone comes in into nail the mix, downloads the tracks and complains that they discovered a problem unlike one of the rooms or something, something who knows, but then instead of just fixing it, they make a big deal of it. That's immediately they're completely inexperienced.

Speaker 2 (16:03):

But I mean both, I'm sure both you and me and everybody has kind of been there where you thought it was going to be one way, and it turns out it's not, and you are kind of a little bit cocky when you were younger or just starting out now we've been through so much shit and we've understood that way up in the highest highest of productions and where there's the biggest artists, the most money floating around, they have shitty sessions too. They have files that are messed up too. That was the biggest aha moment when you started working on big productions and recorded by this fantastic engineer in this fantastic studio. And it's just like, this is, yeah, I mean, there's problems here too. There's distortions going on, there's a dropout. It's just life.

Speaker 1 (16:54):

Yeah, totally. Well, when I see that kind of reaction inside the community, it doesn't piss me off or anything. What I see is there's an opportunity to teach somebody something. Obviously they don't know they're inexperienced, so that's perfect.

Speaker 2 (17:07):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:07):

You hooked up with Daniel, and at the time I met you, you had been doing a lot of mastering there and also doing some stuff with Daniel, but you're not there anymore.

Speaker 2 (17:16):

I was doing a lot of mastering because that was the one thing that he didn't do, and he was like, all these bands are asking me if I master as well, and now I can just say, yes, I can offer mastering with my guy Lawrence here. So that's what I basically mastered everything that he did there that didn't go to another mastering engineer that was kind of the band's choice, and I still, he still sends me a lot of stuff to master. So we worked for a few years. He had been thinking about letting that studio go for a while, and Frederick was building this new studio in Stockholm and he was building an extra room. It was like, yeah, perfect. Because Daniel and Frederick have been working together for forever. They just gel, which I don't have a good way to say it, but they're like two mad scientists together. It just explodes.

Speaker 1 (18:10):

Yeah, seriously.

Speaker 2 (18:11):

Yeah, exactly. So he went there. It was also a very good opportunity for me to kind of distance myself a little bit and try to, we were talking about earlier that how many ways, they're like three ways to get into this and assisting somebody and being an intern is one, but you have to let go of that as well. You can't stay with that person forever because then you're just going to be in the shadow of somebody else.

Speaker 1 (18:35):

Yes, that's correct. That assistantship route is meant to be temporary. What's supposed to happen is that during that time, you're supposed to pick up your own clients.

Speaker 2 (18:43):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (18:45):

So that you can move out on your own and have a career.

Speaker 2 (18:48):

Yeah, because easy to get comfortable and yeah, work is coming in, but now, and it was a really good thing that I did that, I don't know, maybe I would've still sat there today if it didn't close the studio, but I'm very glad that it happened because it kind of got me more hungry to, I mean, I had work, but I didn't have enough work I felt. But now, I mean, just these last three years now, I definitely do. So it was a good thing. I got my own place. It just a mixing mastering studio. I lived happily ever after.

Speaker 1 (19:24):

I mean blood bath. Sounds great.

Speaker 2 (19:26):

Thanks. Thanks. That was a big one for me. I mean, it was the first time I got to work with a band that I kind of really, really liked before and actually bought a t-shirt a long time ago before I got to work with them. And so that was kind of a really great feeling to do that album.

Speaker 1 (19:48):

It's cool, right?

Speaker 2 (19:49):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:50):

You don't get to the point of being to choose everyone you work with unless you're beyond mega successful.

Speaker 3 (19:58):

At

Speaker 1 (19:58):

Most, you can hope for working with some bands you like, but you're going to have to work with bands you don't like. It is what it is and it's fine. It's still a cool job, but that's why when you do get to work with bands that you're legitimately a fan of, it's a special thing.

Speaker 2 (20:15):

Absolutely. The thing is though, I'm kind of a believer, that might sound silly, but it's this idea of if you can envision something that it will eventually happen. And I've seen so many things have happened that way where I see that if you can see a path somewhere, it has to be a link. There has to be a way. I can't just from nowhere, just say, I'm going to work with Metallica because there's no way I can't see a path. The signal chain is broken somewhere. There's a piece of gear that's broken in that path, but there was a path towards blood bath, and I saw that and I knew that it was possible and it, it became true. It's all because of the people that you meet and the people that you work with. One thing leads to another and suddenly you're just like, you're there and you just remember, oh yeah, eight years ago, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to work with this band? And now I am so, but there needs to be a path there, and if there is a path that you can see, you just need to keep looking towards that direction. You will eventually end up there.

Speaker 1 (21:22):

Very cool of you to mention that because that's how I think about things too.

Speaker 2 (21:28):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:29):

Well, anything I've done in my life that has done well, even when there's a big risk involved, I never thought there was a big risk because I could see the path,

Speaker 3 (21:40):

Even

Speaker 1 (21:40):

If no one else could see it. For me, there was this logical order of events. I could see how it would get to the other side, and so I just did that. It wasn't crazy to me. My projects that have failed have been the ones where my brain can't work out the path to success. It just is blurry. I just don't see it.

Speaker 2 (22:01):

That's the thing. I mean, seeing it and just, you have to keep thinking about it and thinking and try to walk that route in your mind, and you're going to come across all these things. Oh, it's not going to work because of that. And then you solve that problem in your mind. You have to keep thinking about these things because just by thinking about it, you will subconsciously be moving towards it. Even if you don't think you're actively doing something, you're moving towards it.

Speaker 1 (22:34):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I love that that's how you see things, because I think that if you let this stuff just happen by chance now, that to me is what's super risky. A career in music is risky to begin with, but if you're not basically making bold moves and charting your own path and really, really figuring this out, it's going to be a tough, tough road. And if you succeed, it's going to be purely by chance.

Speaker 2 (23:02):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (23:02):

I don't like those odds. Those odds are terrible.

Speaker 2 (23:05):

Yeah, they were the worst.

Speaker 1 (23:07):

Yeah. Well, you can work outside of those odds if you figure out a path to success. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:12):

That's why it's so good that, I mean, and I see it a lot in the UM community that you talk a lot about. If you don't know anybody and you want to do this, you have to get to know people. I mean, it sounds easy, but you need to go meet people at shows and talk to bands or whatever, but that's so important. How else are you going to do something? I mean, you have to kind of get out there and make friends basically, because that's what it's all about. You meet someone and you do some work for somebody else, and that person knows that person, and that's the way it goes. You can't shut yourself in and create a website and think that things are just going to happen by themselves. You need to think about it, and you need to actively throw yourself out there.

Speaker 1 (23:53):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(24:45):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed.

(25:39):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. Yeah. So when you built the new place, how did that work as far as getting clients over there? Did you just hit up people you were working with and tell them you were moving to a new place? Or did it even matter that you moved?

Speaker 2 (26:18):

No, it didn't.

Speaker 1 (26:20):

Okay. That's what I thought. So you just had bookings and bookings continued as usual and just you happen to be in a new place.

Speaker 2 (26:26):

Yeah, I just made sure, okay, I need a couple of weeks to set this place up and as good as I can, and then I'll keep chipping away at it. Obviously making improvements, but I was booked and I was like, yeah, I have two, three weeks here when I have the time to do everything, put everything, treat the room and paint and everything. And I was just listening to, well, basically I needed inspiration, so I was just listening to your end podcasts for two weeks straight. I had missed a lot of episodes. I'm so sorry. No, but it was good. And so it didn't matter where I was. I had been mixing at home. Actually, I mixed an album in my living room in between Daniel and this new place, and that album won an award in Sweden. So it was like, yeah, you can mix an album in an untreated room if you trust your hearing.

(27:21):

So it didn't matter where I was and nobody asked where I was working, and I had been working in this new place for a few months when I put up some pictures, Hey, here's my new place. I wasn't set on having a recording studio because I mean, 90% of what I do is mixing or mastering. But now in this place, I, I'm lucky enough to have recording capabilities. I can record drums next door and track it in here and everything, so I can do full productions, but it's not a studio in that sense. There's no place to kind of hang out or something. Just, I have a mixed room basically with recording capabilities. So that's it.

Speaker 1 (28:03):

That sounds great though.

Speaker 2 (28:04):

Yeah, it's great. It's been really good to get out of the home because just working at home for first, it was fine, and it was the beginning of the whole pandemic as well, so it felt good to just be at home. But it's so great to have someplace else to go, and if somebody's thinking about getting a room, if you have the money to get a room somewhere else, it's so nice to just go somewhere else and work and then go back home. So you kind of separate those two. That's the way I like it anyway.

Speaker 1 (28:34):

Yeah. Tell me more about what it was like mixing blood bath. I love Blood bath. I want to hear more about this.

Speaker 2 (28:41):

I love that band too. It's so insane. When I heard Nightmares Made Flesh was the first one I heard. I didn't hear the first album at first, and I remember so many other people hearing that album and also thinking, this is awesome, death Metal, and it sounds so good. And that was a scary thought for me. Just, I mean, okay, so just, just think about this. I'm following up Yz Boren, David Castillo. Well, Dono to begin with from the beginning, the OG guy. So I mean, I'm following up all these great producers, and so that album was on my mind for a year. I had to make it the best thing I ever did, basically. And the thing is, I was also kind of in charge of the production and making sure everything they recorded sounded great, because it was all done during the pandemic, and everybody recorded themselves basically, apart from the vocals, and I'll get to that, but first off, the drums were recorded, ax recorded those drums in his home.

(29:54):

I went up there with a drum tech just to check everything out and make sure everything was, I had a good signal and everything. And then he recorded himself and just sent me files. But once we got those drum tracks done and compiled, everything was just got a lot easier from that point on. And guitars were tracked DI's were tracked at the rehearsal space by Thomas, who is the new guitar player in the band, the new second guitar player in the band. And then I recorded, then Nick, the vocalist, came down to Stockholm and I tracked the vocals there in Stockholm with the guys in the band for a week. So everything was set for mixing. So mixing everything was, I knew what I had, and I knew I had a clear vision of how I wanted it to sound. And the guys also had a very clear vision of, well, they didn't have a very clear vision, but they had a vision. And the vision was not to do the whole, Hm, two Stockholm death metal. Alright, that's different. Yeah. They didn't want to do that again, because I think they had kind of squeezed as much of that as possible that they could get from that. And also, it had become such a big thing, the whole h Hm two, so many bands doing it. And so they want to move towards your neck of the woods, Florida basically. They wanted it to be a little,

Speaker 1 (31:24):

Well, my

Speaker 2 (31:25):

Old neck of the woods. Yeah, your old neck of the woods, a bit more Florida inspired. And they were looking, were listening to a lot of D side and cannibal corpse and mostly American death metal. So they didn't want the H hm two sound, and I was totally on board with that. But I wanted to create a guitar tone for them. That was, I mean, maybe not unique, but that was new. I wanted to figure out something completely new that I hadn't even done before. So that was one of the main fun things about that album was me amping and just trying new sounds and just figuring out that, oh, hey, I can use this shitty pedal and I could just put it in the effects return and I can go straight into the pedal, use it as a preamp, basically. And so it was trying out all my distortion pedals. I wonder which one sounds great, if I put it in, what happens if I stick it in this hole? And just trying a bunch of stuff and eventually combining things and coming up with something that kind of has the same kind of fizziness and fullness. And just because there needs to be a lot of distortion going on, but you need to be able to hear the tone clearly as well. So I was a mad scientist there for a couple of weeks. But yeah, I'm really happy with it in the end.

Speaker 1 (32:51):

Well, I mean, trying to figure something out that is just as cool as this classic, classic tone, but that's new. That's tough.

Speaker 2 (33:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (33:01):

That's a tall order actually.

Speaker 2 (33:03):

Yeah, it is. I mean,

Speaker 1 (33:05):

You got it.

Speaker 2 (33:06):

Yeah, I think I got it. I got something that I liked, but unfortunately, it's impossible for me to hear this album the way everybody else have heard it for the first time. I wish we had one of those. You've seen Men in Black when they can erase the memory.

Speaker 1 (33:21):

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (33:22):

Yeah. I want one of those pens that you just flash because as soon as you delivered the masters or something, you wouldn't be able to do that and just listen to it fresh. But I've heard from so many people that it sounds really good and it sounds really powerful and everything, and everything that I wanted it to sound like is what people are saying about it. And that makes me happy. And I mean, I'm in love with the album still, but obviously I, I've heard it to death, but it's the best production that I've been involved with, I think just because of the experience basically.

Speaker 1 (33:59):

Well, I think it's fucking cool, man. I think it's great. I love that you're getting to do legendary bands on your own now.

Speaker 2 (34:05):

Yes. And remember that path that we talked about. I can finally actually say today that I've done some work on the new Catatonia album as well.

Speaker 1 (34:14):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:14):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:15):

That's cool.

Speaker 2 (34:15):

That's cool. I know. It's really cool. I mean, we became friends, obviously, Jonas and Anders, while we were doing the Bob Bath album. He wanted me to come and track guitar and bass for the new album. And there's this, I can say this now, I think because there's a single coming out tomorrow, Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (34:34):

Okay. So yeah, you say tomorrow, Wednesday, but by the time this comes out, it will have been, so we're recording this Tuesday, October 25th, 2022. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (34:45):

So

Speaker 1 (34:45):

I guess the single is coming out the 26th of October, 2022, just for people listening, five years in the future or something.

Speaker 2 (34:53):

Yeah, hi. Hi. From the past, my name's Lawrence, so that was a really great experience as well. And the drums are done by Jacob Hanson. And Jacob also did fantastic mix of it, and he was happy with my file, so I was like, Hey, that's always a big thing. The first time you record something and send it off to a producer, because I haven't done that much. It's nerve wracking. Yeah, it is. But all you need to figure out is how would I want this? How would I want it? And then just do that. And you're fine.

Speaker 1 (35:32):

It's weird, man. With the new doth stuff, I didn't even engineer it, and I felt that way sending the stuff to Jens Boren. Nice. John Douglas engineered the majority of it. He's a beast. Oh, he's a beast. Oh, I wasn't worried about it, but I still had that feeling because John sent me the zips, and then I went through and made sure that everything was right, 8 million tracks on it. So I did one final check through before sending it to Y, so I'm the one that sent it to Jens, and I still had that feeling that sending it to that guy,

Speaker 2 (36:10):

That guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:11):

And I had the same feeling with Colin Richardson back in the day. It's nerve wracking when one of those dudes, whoever it is, just one of those dudes is going to look at your work.

Speaker 2 (36:23):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (36:24):

Puts hair on your chest.

Speaker 2 (36:25):

It does. Yeah. I mean, luckily I feel confident now even

Speaker 1 (36:30):

More here.

Speaker 2 (36:31):

Even more,

Speaker 1 (36:32):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:33):

Fucking, I'm getting older. I'm getting hairier by the minute,

Speaker 1 (36:36):

Not putting it on my head, but definitely on my chest.

Speaker 2 (36:39):

It just moves down from the head and just to the rest of the body. It just make you,

Speaker 1 (36:43):

Yeah, I've just been giving lots of files over the years to lots of these dudes. So more of the hair is, hair's not coming back to my head, but it is definitely on my chest.

Speaker 2 (36:52):

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, luckily I've been doing this for a while, so I wasn't nervous that way. I knew that he probably knew that I knew what I was doing. And because, I mean, I was trusted, the guys trusted me to record this, so I'm sure Jacob was like, yeah, we'll be fine. And he didn't ask for anything when I sent everything and it's quiet, it's like, yes, thanks. And you don't hear anything that's like, whew, great. It's still a good feeling to get it confirmed that everything's fine and you haven't messed anything up. And yeah, it worked out like a charm. Well,

Speaker 1 (37:33):

Congratulations. I mean, I think that's great. I'm not surprised either that all this stuff's happening.

Speaker 2 (37:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:39):

I want to hear about the voice acting though.

Speaker 2 (37:41):

Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a fun thing because I mean, I guess you don't have that in English speaking countries, but there's a big business of doing

Speaker 1 (37:51):

We do.

Speaker 2 (37:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:52):

I have a few friends who do voice acting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:55):

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I,

Speaker 1 (37:57):

And this isn't some secret because he's been posting this on his social media, but Mark from periphery, Mark Holcomb has been doing some even, oh, that's awesome. I know it's not a secret on his socials. Yeah, I know quite a few people who are doing it.

Speaker 2 (38:15):

That's cool. The thing with doing it over here is that it's very rare that we do original productions. We basically just voice make a Swedish version of the American original or the English speaking original. So that's obviously a big business in every country that doesn't speak English. And I mean, as you know, in Germany and Spain, they basically do everything. Friends, the TV show is in German and Spanish, Italian and everything, but we don't do that in Sweden. But we do stuff that's catered for kids cartoons and stuff. And as I said, I was working as an engineer in that area for a long time, 10 years I think. And I started off as an engineer, and quickly it became like, oh, we need a voice. We have policeman two who needs to say a line, can you do it? Yeah. And I did it, and one thing led to another.

(39:12):

I was doing more and more voice work. I was promoted to being the production manager of productions, and all of a sudden I was just managing a full studio, doing this work while simultaneously doing voice work. And then it just all became too much for me. I just decided that this isn't what I want to do anymore. I'm not doing music anymore. So that's why I stopped doing the whole production side of it and just started working in music again. So now the only thing I do in that world is that I do voices. Here's a fun thing. We're talking about the whole seeing a path somewhere. While I was working at a studio, I saw that a movie was incoming called Kung Fu Panda, and it was Jack Black. I've always loved Jack Black as an actor and as a singer. And I was thinking, oh, wouldn't be great if I could do that, if I could do that voice, because I'm a rock singer and I'm a chubby guy. It's perfect.

(40:17):

So funnily enough, I was like, the studio where I was working said, we need to do a really quick teaser, and we don't have the voices set yet. We're going to do voice tests and everything with famous Swedish actors and stuff, but we just need to get this done. We want you to do the panda. So I did that in the trailer, and then it was just like, yeah, okay, I've done the trailer, but I'm not going to do, probably not going to do the whole movie because in Sweden, they kind of make a big thing of having famous people do the voices as the originals. And so they did a bunch of voice tests for those characters, and they approved all the voices except for Po, the Panda that Jack Bag was doing. They didn't like anybody that had done the voice test. And finally, when I say they, I'm talking about Dreamworks in the States because they communicate with the studio in Stockholm because they make the final decision. Even if they don't really know the language, they can hear that, okay, this is going to be a great voice for the Panda, or whatever character it is. The studio in Sweden said, okay, yeah, we've tried a bunch of people.

(41:31):

We have to think about this. We don't have anybody famous in mind that, and Dreamwork said, it doesn't have to be anybody who's a big name. I mean, what about that guy who did the teaser? That sounded great. So that's how I got the job, basically. So it's like me and then a bunch of Swedish famous actors in that movie, which was fun because I was probably the only person who people didn't know by name when that first movie came out. And since then, I've done three movies, I think, and just I'm doing now, I'm dubbing a TV series on Netflix, and it's, it's a good side hustle to have on top of this.

Speaker 1 (42:13):

That sounds like a fun side hustle, and that's not too time consuming and too much bullshit.

Speaker 2 (42:19):

No. Yeah, you get booked to do, I like to do a lot of hours. I don't like to go in and just do one hour, but I do, let's say an episode takes an hour to do. And so I'll go to Stockholm and just work for four hours. And since I basically work myself anyway, just mostly do, mixing and mastering can pretty much make up my own schedule. So yeah, it's a great thing to do. And apart from that, I do Tony, I'm the Swedish Tony Stark in The Avengers as well. And basically all the, and if you get a Marvel character, you basically have, there's like 10 series that you're in all of a sudden because there's, there's The Hulk, there's everything. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (43:05):

Dude, that's fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (43:07):

Yeah, it's cool. I'm not sure if I'm going to do the movie or not, but I just did a trailer for Super Mario movie because now they're thinking like, okay, Lawrence is Jack Black, so whenever Jack Black does a cartoon character, I will probably be asked to do it. And he does, I think he does Bower character in Super Mario. So I just did that as well.

Speaker 1 (43:34):

That's amazing. Well, congrats on that. Sounds like all kinds of good stuff is going on, man.

Speaker 2 (43:40):

Yeah, I mean, it's just ticking on a lot of good stuff.

Speaker 1 (43:46):

Yeah, totally. It's great. Well, Lawrence, I think it's a good place to end the episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out. I want to congratulate you on everything. Awesome. And it's been awesome just getting to hear about it.

Speaker 2 (43:57):

Thank you. It's been great to catch up. Thanks for having me. And cool.

Speaker 1 (44:02):

We'll do it again before five years.

Speaker 2 (44:04):

Let's do it. Yeah, it's a date.

Speaker 1 (44:06):

Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some of your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy. And of course, tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at M dot aca MY. And use the subject line answer me Al. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.