MARK HEYLMUN & TAYLOR YOUNG: Mixing Your Own Productions, Fixing “Cheesy” Lyrics, Creative Disagreements

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the

Speaker 2 (00:00:01):

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.

(00:01:01):

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. I'm Eyal Levi, and today we have my favorite kind of episode, which is the producer and artist tag team where we talk about what they did together. And today we've got Mark Heylmun, who is a guitarist in suicide silence and Taylor Young who produced and mixed their brand new album. Remember, you Must Die, which I love. I've heard it and I love it. And in this episode we'll take a deep dive into making the album, discussing their creative process, recording techniques and some challenges that they faced along the way. Alright, let's get into it. Mark and Taylor, welcome to the URM podcast. What's up? What's going on? A whole lot. It's been an insane year so far. It's been an insane, insane year. But what about you guys? How's life going with this new suicide silence? Well, I've been doing a lot of press,

Speaker 3 (00:02:40):

So I'm very prepared to talk about this album. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:02:43):

I don't want to talk about that same shit that you've probably already said 19 different ways. Dude, this record's so heavy. It's the heaviest

Speaker 3 (00:02:52):

Thing we've

Speaker 2 (00:02:52):

Ever done, the heaviest one yet

Speaker 3 (00:02:54):

Adjective, everyone's going to love it.

Speaker 2 (00:02:57):

I mean, how brutal is the workload right now for you as

Speaker 3 (00:03:03):

Far as supporting it? Not as much as you think. We don't have tour till April, so pretty much I'm just doing two, three hours of press every day, so I guess it's every day. There's that. Yeah, that's a good amount. It's cool too. I mean, when did we finish the album? I don't even really know. April last year.

Speaker 1 (00:03:21):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:03:22):

Yeah, so it's been done and sitting and now talking to people that have heard it, it's kind of cool. It's a refreshing, we were all super stoked I think when we were done, so there's been plenty of time that has passed and now it's kind of juicing it back up.

Speaker 4 (00:03:36):

You're like, oh yeah, this thing is sick.

Speaker 2 (00:03:38):

Oh yeah, right. Dude, these songs are pretty ripping. That's right. We weren't nuts, so I don't remember the exact time period. I know it was last year sometime, maybe around October. I don't know. It was sometime around 22. You sent me the unmastered capable of violence and I was like, yes. Fuck yes. This is great. I was really, really stoked to hear it. I listened to it 10 times in a row that night, so thank you for letting me hear it. Whenever I feel like there's a good song, I'm stoked already, but I was stoked also on the production, how much the production worked for the song. I loved hearing you guys like that kind of, I don't want to say again because it's not like every record has its own thing, but I like hearing you guys presented that it really works. So I was super stoked and Taylor had just kind of started to come onto my radar around then.

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So I heard about Taylor through you guys, actually Taylor, because I knew you were working on suicide silence. That's why I invited you on the podcast last time and once I heard the capable of violence mix, I was like, okay, this makes perfect sense. This is a rad pairing. Taylor understood the assignment as the kids say, yeah, all I know is chug understood the assignment. It's like this weird thing because I feel like, and I'm curious what you guys think for this kind of music, it's not something you should really have to overthink, right? It's like either you kind of get it or you kind of don't, but at the same time, did you need to discuss it? Did you need to discuss what the sonic, I guess, footprint or signature of this record was going to be?

Speaker 4 (00:05:31):

We did initially, and I think we even did more so after that first single, because it was like we took that as that was the blueprint and we were like, how do we advance it from there? It was mostly guitar tone and switching to a different drummer kind of did a lot of that by itself too. And yeah, it's a little smoother, but it's still agro as hell and that's all I am good at in general,

Speaker 2 (00:05:55):

That's your pocket.

Speaker 4 (00:05:56):

But at the same time, there are a lot of different ways to go, especially in their world. There's a lot of different types of this style now, and it was kind of like which way are they going to go? And it's kind of the way that nobody's going either crystal clear or kind of dirty, but still very Hi-Fi and I think that the root of the style is the realness and the aggression. So we made it that

Speaker 2 (00:06:27):

Kind of dirty, but I call it like car test mixes or something.

Speaker 4 (00:06:33):

It

Speaker 2 (00:06:33):

Would be like if I was trying to sell you a system for your car,

Speaker 4 (00:06:38):

Just say it's every frequency.

Speaker 2 (00:06:39):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:06:40):

It's pink noise.

Speaker 2 (00:06:41):

I mean it's impressive. It's not easy to pull that off at all.

Speaker 4 (00:06:44):

It's its own craft for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:06:46):

I used to be more, I guess disparaging of different styles that I didn't personally as much until doing nail the mix and seeing how much skill goes into every single one of these sub genres. And then also seeing the students try to do it every single month since 2015 and just realizing that now for something to sound that polished, this genre music is noise, it's just layered noise. To get it to sound polished is quite a feat, but I also think that taking this genre of music and managing to have it sound both like a song but also sound fucking wild, is this whole other skillset which I think you guys accomplished on this.

Speaker 4 (00:07:44):

Yeah, I think so too. Really, we just kind of took it to making the band just a rock band, not a rock band, but a band that is playing together and making it feel like that, which I think that's a rarity these days a bit, unless it's certain other types of music have that, but I think for heavy stuff it's very rare for it to feel like one thing.

Speaker 2 (00:08:08):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:08):

It's not typical

Speaker 4 (00:08:10):

Yet

Speaker 3 (00:08:10):

For us. We've always tried to be what would be considered a real band.

Speaker 4 (00:08:15):

Well, I'm not saying I never said you weren't a real band.

Speaker 3 (00:08:18):

Oh, I'm not saying anything. I'm saying it was a common goal and something that I feel like needs to be said about talking about this record before we did it and all that is something that I think is badass is that Taylor basically said he wouldn't do the record unless he could mix it too.

Speaker 4 (00:08:36):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:37):

Which I think automatic at first we were like, damn, this guy's bold. That's badass. And I kind of thought it was cool because of that there was this massive trust and a common intention that we all knew we were on and just set us on the path of like, all right, let's just make this sound insane and crushing and give Taylor the keys or hands on the steering wheel to have a producer say, oh, I won't do this record unless I could do all of it. We're like, okay, this guy's sick.

Speaker 2 (00:09:13):

That can go two directions, experienced that where it was a bad thing, but I think that it's either a great thing or a terrible thing. There's not much middle ground there. Taylor, I'm wondering why was that your approach? Is that always your approach?

Speaker 4 (00:09:28):

I always kind of think ahead to mixing. There's a part of me that feels like incomplete. I like to complete the mission and the mission is how it sounds as well as here's the songs I could work on, just here's the songs. But I also working on how it sounds and not being able to follow through or having a vision and losing the vision after we complete tracking is a little bit scary, but at the same time, I do it all the time. The new drain record, I didn't mix that and then the new military gun record, I didn't mix that, so it was kind of just like I feel like I am going to make it more aggressive than anybody else would. Now I'm open to it for the next record maybe. Oh, really? That's me saying that for the first time out loud.

Speaker 2 (00:10:16):

Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (00:10:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:10:17):

But what is it about them specifically that you're like, it's either mix or nothing.

Speaker 4 (00:10:22):

I think it was partially it being the first big ass shit I'm going to do, so I'm going to do it and if you don't want me to do it, that's fine. But at the same time I was kind of like, I can do it if you let me trust me. And they did, and I love these guys

Speaker 3 (00:10:37):

And that was something that we knew too. We're like, is this the biggest record that Taylor's ever done? Maybe and he's about to say he wouldn't do it unless he can mix it and that just seems so badass. It seems so cool. We're like, oh fuck. All right. That's sick. Then he's the guy.

Speaker 2 (00:10:52):

Do you consider yourself risk averse or are you the type of person that leans into risk?

Speaker 4 (00:10:58):

I didn't look at that as a risk really. It wasn't meant to be a bluff, you know what I mean? It was kind of just like, eh, if I'm going to do it, I want to do it all. No, but there

Speaker 2 (00:11:07):

Is the risk

Speaker 4 (00:11:08):

That they could have just been like, eh, but to me it wasn't a risk. It would've been like, okay, that's fine. Fair enough. Yeah. I don't approach records first as a job. For me, it's still at the core, it's art and that's what I lean towards first. I'm not worried so much about the semantics before I am the product and the music, and so it was just kind of like that's what I would like to contribute.

Speaker 2 (00:11:35):

That makes sense. I mean that's how you saw yourself fitting in and either they saw you fitting in like that or they didn't.

Speaker 4 (00:11:42):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:11:42):

Why try to force something where you're not all aligned.

Speaker 4 (00:11:48):

I feel like we had the chat and then it was like, cool, you got it a day later or something like that. There was no overlong deliberation about it.

Speaker 3 (00:11:56):

We literally went had lunch after we met with you and we were just like, dude, that guy's sick. He's totally the guy. But also with that said, I mean I'm sure me and Eddie told Taylor when we met him, it's like you've been on the radar of ours for quite some time and just kind of been listening to everything he's done and hearing everything. So we kind of knew if we ever do a record with Taylor, he's probably going to make it sound just ridiculous and he's underground. Even in our scene, I feel like a little more under the cut.

Speaker 4 (00:12:30):

Yeah, I think most of the comments are who?

Speaker 3 (00:12:32):

Yeah, but then there's the people that are like, oh shit, Taylor did it. I want to hear that.

Speaker 4 (00:12:38):

That's sick.

Speaker 3 (00:12:39):

Yeah. Yeah, it's super cool. But yeah, it was immediate. We knew we'd been talking to a couple different people and once we talked to you and saw your space and everything, it was well apparent that heavy as possible.

Speaker 4 (00:12:52):

I was equipped for chug.

Speaker 3 (00:12:53):

Yeah. If people don't know Taylor's Studio's the pit and it's the slogan or the ethos is the home of the perfect Palm Mute. That's correct. That's fucking sick.

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

Mark, you guys have worked with lots of great producers and mixers over the years,

Speaker 4 (00:13:11):

A plethora of legends, I would say.

Speaker 2 (00:13:13):

Yeah, seriously. We lucky been able to do that. It's been quite some heavy hitters, and so having all that experience, how did you guys come to the decision that you're going to go with your gut on this and not go with, I guess I don't want to say, but there's a reason for why labels like to go to their go-to mixers is they have a track record, they work well together, they know that in general they're going to get something that they're going to be able to work with. On your end, what was the decision making process like about not going with some huge name?

Speaker 3 (00:14:03):

Well, suicide silence as a whole. I think we're not adverse to risk and adverse to trying different things as a lot of people might know, and I think that we kind of were going all over the place. We had a bunch of different ideas of who we were going to talk to and who would be good to make this record, which we knew we were going to do. What this record ended up being more of an old school kind of death metal influenced raw riff oriented record. There was a bunch of different names tossed out and some crazy ideas, and pretty much since we knew what it was going to be and kind of could all as a band envision what it needed to sound like, for me personally, just getting in and communicating with Taylor and hearing him talk, it was apparent we were going to be able to just have good sessions and work together and not be working with not to knock anybody, all these great producers that we've worked with, but we always were looking at ourselves as kind of young and working with people that maybe were going to teach us something or we needed to learn new things from, but at this point it was like, let's work with somebody that we respect and let's work with somebody that's kind of our age and look at it more as this group project that we're all working on as opposed to trying to find someone that's going to, I don't know, unlock something that we level up the band.

(00:15:46):

Yeah, yeah. It's where we're at. It's not like we're not trying to level up or reach another stage, but it's more like, no, I know what you mean. Yeah. We just want to refine this thing that is already pretty well defined, and Taylor was this perfect dude for it really, and I think all of us were very much on the same page, the heaviest possible thing and just keep saying it. We said it from the beginning of the writing sessions that shit's supposed to be heav, ast, possible, and Taylor is heav ast possible.

Speaker 4 (00:16:21):

It's the mantra for this and the next record.

Speaker 2 (00:16:24):

Exactly. It's cool, I think for listeners of this podcast to hear that because question that always comes in, and I'm sure you guys get asked this too by people is like, how do I do X in music? How do I get signed or how do I get signed band to come to my studio or whatever? And just for people to hear that. Yeah, it is possible to just put yourself out there and say what you want and let your work speak for itself. Good things can happen. It doesn't have to be something unattainable.

Speaker 4 (00:17:06):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's part of why I always say it should be record first as soon as you make it about I need a manager and all this extra shit. If you're starting out that way, that's the wrong way to think. You can't set it off by doing that. You got to set it off by writing dope shit first.

Speaker 2 (00:17:27):

Those other things come in once basically the songs have created a situation for you where you can no longer handle those everything. Exactly. You as a producer, do you typically approach bands or do bands typically approach you? How does it work for you in general?

Speaker 4 (00:17:45):

I have never cold called a band in my life. Actually, that's not true. I cold called one band that was already talking about coming to me. I guess we had kind of had a back and forth slightly and I was just like, Hey, let's do it. And now I've done 10 records with that guy, but generally no, people come to me.

Speaker 2 (00:18:04):

Yeah, it's interesting. I see people talking about running ads for their studio or productions and I'm like, man, I don't know a single person who's making sick records who's ever done that.

Speaker 4 (00:18:21):

Yeah. That's the problem as I think that people need to be a little more like, Hey, if people aren't coming to me, maybe I'm not making dope shit, so maybe I should get better at it.

Speaker 2 (00:18:32):

That's tough though. That's a lot harder to swallow than Facebook's this evil entity that limits my reach and it's Facebook's fault that no one's seeing anything about my studio. I hear that a lot, but in reality, I think that there's a pretty repeatable and tried and true way that bands end up going with producers, and it's almost always they're listening to music as music listeners liking the way something sounds, and over time the same name will pop up on several things that they like. Then they'll ask their friends who have worked with that person what it was like, and then go from there. And that's basically almost always how it works is it starts with somebody's work and someone genuinely liking somebody's work and learning more about it because of the work. It's not because of an ad or something like that.

Speaker 4 (00:19:40):

It's almost always that I've never run an ad. I honestly don't even know how to do that on Facebook, but that shouldn't be what is selling your shit. Your product should be selling it. And I think the best advice would also be is just usually people who do this are somewhat musical. Go play in bands or go to shows and talk to bands and record shit for free. Make something Sick before you make it about, oh, my studio, my business.

Speaker 2 (00:20:16):

Well, I know that when I heard that you were from your former band, you immediately got points with me, even though I hadn't heard your work yet, when Mark had told me that they were going with you, and then I knew your background a little bit. I was like, okay, it's probably going to be cool and it's because I like your former band. And so I think that that's actually putting music out into the world is one of the best ways, especially for people who live in a place where there aren't many bands geographically close to them.

Speaker 4 (00:20:56):

Oh, that's easy.

Speaker 2 (00:20:58):

That's one thing that you do have available to you is the internet, and you can put music out and do your best to have it be heard. And I've noticed that having music out is really one of the primary ways that new producers get discovered easily through their own music.

Speaker 3 (00:21:19):

Yeah. I would wonder where you guys think of this would as far as advice, getting to know a and r people as a producer, not necessarily bands, but guys out there that are working with tons of bands as a producer, wouldn't allying with a and r people be decent advice for people?

Speaker 4 (00:21:37):

Sort of. I think that happens later. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:21:39):

Exactly. I

Speaker 4 (00:21:40):

Think if that happens too early, you get put in a box. Yeah. You get put in a box or you end up doing one thing and then the guy, yeah, you only get to do that kind of thing or something like that. You end up with the relationships with bands after doing the record too. And honestly, yeah, if you do one record for an a and r, that band, if they love it, they're going to tell the next band and then you may end up with more stuff. So I think either way it ends with bands being stoked.

Speaker 2 (00:22:08):

I do remember from my band's Roadrunner days that they very much had, there was a gravitational pull almost towards who they wanted to work with and for instance, with our first record that came out through them, it had to be remixed and there was a budget and there were several options, sick options from the metal production community who would've done it within the budget, but Monte Connor specifically wanted Colin Richardson, which no complaints here in 2005, Colin Richardson crushing Fuck signed me the fuck up. Totally. He Monte Monty was willing to completely blow the budget, blow right past it on a band that has zero track record because he was so comfortable working with Colin and just like that's his go-to guy, Colin and Andy back then, and I've noticed that you can get to that point with a and r people to where they would rather go with you than anyone else, and we'll try to steer things in that direction just because it's been so reliable for them. But I feel like that relationship also has to just develop organically.

Speaker 4 (00:23:37):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

You

Speaker 4 (00:23:38):

Can't force anything.

Speaker 2 (00:23:39):

No, you can't force it. There's the Colin and Monty relationship from back in the day was totally an organic thing, and also the quality of Colin's work had everything to do with it.

Speaker 4 (00:23:56):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:23:57):

If Colin had sucked,

Speaker 4 (00:23:58):

Monty wouldn't have spent all your money

Speaker 2 (00:24:00):

No more. Hey man, I was fine with it. I was fine with it. My thoughts on Roadrunner the entire time was we're going to be dropped, so before as we were getting signed, I was like,

Speaker 4 (00:24:11):

Let's spend it. We'll never see it anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:24:12):

Yeah. We're going to get dropped, whether it's after this record or on the next one, we're getting dropped by Roadrunner. There's absolutely no way they're signing us way too soon. We haven't done anything and they're going to be expecting shit that is just not realistic. We're going to get dropped. Let's make the most of it. Yeah. What a sick Colin Richardson. Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (00:24:34):

It's realistic. That's so cool. That just means like, yeah, go balls to the wall. Who gives a shit? I love that.

Speaker 4 (00:24:42):

Yeah. Fuck it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:42):

Hey, you want to do Oz Fest? Yes. Rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt with us. Yes, I know you're going to drop us in six months, so fuck it. Let's do this shit. Whereas I would not advise that for a band that's not willing to get dropped or something, don't let them spend all their money.

Speaker 4 (00:25:03):

You don't want six figures if 20 people like your band.

Speaker 2 (00:25:06):

Yeah. Not a great idea, but I have seen in the current age, not the common age that there are still those a and r and mixer relationships, but something that's really different now is that there's more options. Certain labels have always just let the bands decide, but the labels are much more open to letting the bands just handle that side of things, I think, and then, or even letting the bands do it themselves. Just all that stuff that was labels were not typically okay with back in the day. I think they're okay with now. And so a and r I've noticed is more of a support role than it was back in the day.

Speaker 4 (00:25:54):

Yeah, a little less.

Speaker 2 (00:25:55):

Yeah. I

Speaker 4 (00:25:56):

Don't know about Mike

Speaker 2 (00:25:57):

Gitter. Iss pretty hands-on.

Speaker 4 (00:25:58):

He's intense.

Speaker 2 (00:25:59):

Mike Gitter is

Speaker 4 (00:26:00):

Hands-on.

Speaker 3 (00:26:00):

Shout out Mike Gitter, who's our a and r. He was calling me like five times a day while we were recording that record. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:26:06):

That was a lot.

Speaker 3 (00:26:07):

It was for good reason. He abused it. He knew I would pick up the phone.

Speaker 2 (00:26:12):

Well, he's from the old school. He is from that old school Roadrunner mentality of a and r really being involved, but they knew what they were doing. There's this, I feel like unless your a and r is good, they shouldn't be doing that because I've seen, I don't know if you guys have seen, but I've seen a Andrs basically drive the car right off a cliff by micromanaging

Speaker 4 (00:26:37):

His calls. Were mostly just like, everybody happy? Cool. Good. Let's keep going.

Speaker 3 (00:26:41):

Good.

Speaker 4 (00:26:42):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:26:42):

He did a lot of cool stuff. He had people calling us, talking to us about calling Eddie and giving him support and advice. My getter is, some people might think it's a lot, but to me I'm like, dude, I've never had anybody that's so hands-on like this. I actually liked it

Speaker 4 (00:26:58):

In a caring way.

Speaker 3 (00:26:59):

Yeah. I mean, we go so far back. I've known the guy for almost 20 years, so to be working with him, this is our first record to be working with him, so it was cool that he was that hands-on.

Speaker 2 (00:27:08):

It's interesting. Sometimes you hear bands say that the further in their career they get, the less they want that the more they're like, this is how we do things. Why are you getting involved in our shit? This is how

Speaker 3 (00:27:23):

We do. I think we're so the opposite of that. I think that we're so, even though, yeah, we've been doing it however long, I think we have the ultimate imposter syndrome where we feel like we need people to tell us that it's good and we need a little bit of coddling. That's totally admitting that. I wouldn't have said that a long time ago, but it's true now. Having people that care is super important, especially our band. People didn't know what to do with us. They just let us do whatever we wanted early on. So now that we're a little bit older now, it's kind of like we are looking for that advice and looking for any sort of nugget of knowledge from people that have been doing this longer than us. So yeah, working with Mike Gitter is great.

Speaker 2 (00:28:16):

It makes sense, and especially someone like Mike, he has been around long enough to know what is it that these bands that stick it out and survive, what do they have in common? Start seeing certain behaviors. It's like, oh, I've seen that 19 times and every time it ends up destroying the band or is a shitty decision. It is good to have that kind of perspective on your team.

Speaker 3 (00:28:44):

A hundred percent, and especially working with anybody, the way that I do it is if they're giving you advice, it's almost like really keep track of what advice they're giving and what you're taking and what happens from that advice. I know that should just be a given, but it's like, no, you're right. And yeah, with Mike, it's pretty much all of his advice. It would always turn out good, so it's like, I want to hear what you got to say.

Speaker 2 (00:29:07):

That is wise, actually keeping track of if the advice works or not, but what's interesting about that is that that means you're actually following people's advice, which is already pretty rare. I've noticed that most people who ask for advice are not actually asking for advice. They're asking for an opportunity to have you validate them.

Speaker 3 (00:29:34):

Yeah. Looking for affirmation.

Speaker 2 (00:29:36):

Yeah. Basically they're not actually asking for help. So I've noticed that actual genuine requests for advice or situation like that, it's pretty rare. I'm not saying I

Speaker 3 (00:29:48):

Ever asked Mike Getter for advice, he just gives it.

Speaker 2 (00:29:51):

He offered it, I'm

Speaker 3 (00:29:52):

Sure, but that's not true. That's true. No,

Speaker 2 (00:29:55):

But still the fact you were open to it, that in and of itself is just very, very rare, I've noticed in music.

Speaker 3 (00:30:02):

Yeah, probably. I think most musicians are hardheaded and think they know everything. I'm victim of that every once in a while too, and hopefully people around me say, Hey, shut the fuck up. You're wrong. Which happens too.

Speaker 4 (00:30:13):

I'll let you know.

Speaker 3 (00:30:14):

Yeah, Taylor. Yeah, I remember Taylor told me I was wrong a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (00:30:18):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then 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 multitracks 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.

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And these are guys like TLA, will Putney, Yen's Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Mattson, 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-track 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 game 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.

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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 U RM Academy to find out more before starting URM. Finn McKenty, who is director of operations at URM, he and I, we had several things that we tried to do false starts, and one was called Unstoppable Killing Machine, which is a way cooler name than Unstoppable recording machine, but this couldn't keep that name for a recording school. It just won't work.

Speaker 4 (00:32:55):

Selling the wrong thing.

Speaker 2 (00:32:57):

Yeah, exactly. So unsolvable killing machine. The whole idea was we're going to help bands, we're going to work with bands and not manage them or anything, but help 'em make better decisions, and that was a total fail, and I figured that we can really help people make good decisions. We've made good decisions and bad decisions and have time logged in the industry from several different angles can really help make some decisions that fell on its face so hard. It was such a fail, and it was because bands did not want to hear anything from anybody. They felt like they knew how to do their shit. We very quickly were like, hell no. We're not going to be giving bands any advice. Let's rethink this whole thing.

Speaker 4 (00:33:50):

You're ended up babysitting.

Speaker 2 (00:33:52):

Yeah. Bands think they know what they want and they want it now. Exactly. That would be part of it too, is they would think that by talking to us that we were supposed to get them results or something, but then they wouldn't actually go do any of the stuff that we suggested they go do. So it was like this is going to lead to some bad feelings where they're going to feel like they got ripped off because none of this shit that we talked about happened, but then they're not going to go do any of the stuff we talked about because they know better. Fuck this. It's

Speaker 4 (00:34:24):

Lose lose.

Speaker 2 (00:34:24):

Yeah. Yeah, so actually just hearing that you're open to what Mike had to say is really, really cool and Taylor,

Speaker 3 (00:34:36):

Well, it's also so that I could throw in his face if he's wrong later. Got to have that Emma. That's win. Yeah, that's a

Speaker 2 (00:34:42):

Total win. Taylor, on your end, do you feel like that's ever part of your job as a producer working with bands on any sort of decision making? I know some producers do think that that's part of their job and I think it's debatable

Speaker 4 (00:35:04):

Sometimes. I actually manage a couple bands, so I would say that I saved most of my advice for them, but occasionally here and there, I wouldn't say it's part of the job, it would be more extracurricular, but sometimes it'll be like, well, what should we do with this record after? And I'll do a minor outline or reach out to labels and things like that. As far as over long advice, I'll help with making sure they don't take a bad deal here and there, picking the right tours and things like that, and I would say a lot of them still don't like to listen. I advised against a guest focal recently that they did not take my advice.

Speaker 2 (00:35:51):

What was your thinking? Just

Speaker 4 (00:35:52):

That it was too separate in a way that a young band maybe isn't going to gain from, and it might actually stain them a little bit or put them in a certain box that they're nowhere near and it would only hurt them in the long run. Not to say that the person who was doing it was bad or the music they make is bad. It was just something that just didn't fit. They didn't want to hear it, and that's okay. It was because ultimately it's there. It's their art and music and most important, from my

Speaker 3 (00:36:34):

Perspective, Taylor likes to preserve the cool. That's where his advice usually comes from. It's cool. Shit's cool. He wants shit to be cool. If it's not cool, Taylor's going to advise against it.

Speaker 4 (00:36:46):

Yeah. It's

Speaker 3 (00:36:47):

Generally good advice.

Speaker 4 (00:36:48):

Be cool is fucking cool,

Speaker 3 (00:36:50):

But it's a natural thing though. It's not like a forced cool.

Speaker 4 (00:36:55):

No.

Speaker 3 (00:36:56):

I realized that when we were writing lyrics and working on things and it was almost like you questioned because I'm Lord of Cheese. Some of my lyrics go far beyond cheese, and Taylor would,

Speaker 4 (00:37:07):

But you have good ideas. I can deco a little bit, but it's like deco overall. Yeah, we deco just a bit. DeCooning, both kinds of DeCooning. Sometimes you just need an outside perspective.

Speaker 3 (00:37:21):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:37:21):

But not a lot. I would say that your lyrics are generally produced spectacular.

Speaker 3 (00:37:25):

Don't need much.

Speaker 4 (00:37:27):

No, just a trim. Trim. The hedges of corn.

Speaker 2 (00:37:33):

That's actually what I think producers should bring to the table is stuff like that. Helping bands present the best version of themselves and get rid of the stuff that's not necessarily helpful or that's just excess.

Speaker 4 (00:37:50):

Yeah, absolutely. There are aspects of it too where it's like, oh, this lyric is insane. We should actually lean into that because that is the right thing. I feel like there's one or two lines on this record where it's like, I want to say you were like, is that too insane? I'm like, no, let's lean into that because nuts and so it's kind of just finding the balance of what is Korn in relation to the band. It's not super black and white.

Speaker 3 (00:38:18):

I mean, you said it during the sessions, you're like, that's kind of cheesy, but you guys are though, guys that wrote you only live once.

Speaker 4 (00:38:26):

Yeah. Sometimes it's okay for the, I would say that's the bar. YOLO is the bar. If we're going into Yolo, but Kill your grandma now. Let's keep it to yolo. It's a gut feeling thing though, right? It's definitely not something I have to think about. It's kind of like, I just think if I get the fucking heebie-jeebies, then maybe let's cut it. Or as I like to say, I get the CBGBs.

Speaker 2 (00:38:54):

That's an interesting thing in terms of trust, because I've noticed that there's been times in musical situations either as a producer or as a band member where there's been something where it just rubs me wrong. I'm just like that. Just it's kind of embarrassing and I don't want anything to do with that. And that's partially taste. Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:39:22):

Something is maybe not objectively wrong, and then there's taste how you feel about it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:39:28):

Well then that's the problem. The problem is when people start arguing about the technical reasons for why it's right and you can only respond with, but it just sucks,

Speaker 4 (00:39:42):

But I just don't

Speaker 2 (00:39:43):

Like it. I know you're right. It's played well and it does all the right stuff, but it's wrong. You got to trust me.

Speaker 4 (00:39:49):

Yeah. Doesn't feel good.

Speaker 2 (00:39:51):

No, it's this weird thing because it does need to just go on trust because there's no actual metric for that kind of stuff. You can't argue it in court or something. You can only say, feel weird about this part. It's not right.

Speaker 4 (00:40:08):

Yeah. Taste is a big part of it

Speaker 3 (00:40:10):

In our world. If that's happening, it's like, well then do something better or shut up. That's the suicide silence way. Oh, that doesn't feel right to you. Well, what do you got that's better? And

Speaker 4 (00:40:20):

Then I take the guitar.

Speaker 3 (00:40:21):

Yeah, exactly. One of the songs on this record, I had a riff that I liked. I still like it, but I remember Garza going, I don't know, there's just something hokey about that. And I was all, Ooh. I was like, well, what do you got better? And then he played something better.

Speaker 4 (00:40:36):

There you go,

Speaker 2 (00:40:37):

But hold on. What if he said that's hokey, but he didn't have something better. We just leave something hokey. I guess

Speaker 3 (00:40:45):

It's circumstantial. If that riff, I liked that riff. I can remember exactly what it is now. How's

Speaker 4 (00:40:50):

It go?

Speaker 3 (00:40:51):

It's the how's it go? Somebody gave me a morphine milkshake. If anybody gets that reference, you're awesome. But no, the verse of God be damned, and it was like a way thrashier almost like metal Corey kind of riff that wasn't exactly that suicide silence sounding, but it was still cool and fit and I liked it and basically if Garza wouldn't have had something that was better pretty much right there on the spot, I probably would've taken it and sat with it and been like, okay, Garza thinks this is hokey. How can I alter this or rethink this and be a good collaborator? Also something, I mean, God, if you're writing music, you better learn to take people's constructive criticism and also be aware that sometimes they're speaking purely from taste.

Speaker 2 (00:41:43):

Yeah. One thing man that I have now after having taken a hiatus from making music and now making it again and just having this perspective of having a lot of time to think about the past, there are some things that to this day from say from our self-titled record that I hated, hated in the studio. I was like, this sucks. It's like cringe and I let it go and I hear it now and I'm like, why did I back down? This sucks. I am the only one who saw it and should have stuck to my guns on it, and so now I have this attitude of if someone is feeling that way, it doesn't matter who it is. It could be crim, could be me, could be Sean. Doesn't matter if one of us has this, I can't explain why. Just know and not feeling it. Even if they don't have a better idea, should probably trust that something's wrong with the part I've just noticed a decade or more later, those parts still bother me. Those parts that I let go

Speaker 4 (00:42:59):

And I have an outlook on that. If that comes, something like that comes up. I say, if there's a person in here that cannot live with a moment, let's fix it. It's usually Dan Kenny, and we usually fix it, but it's like if this is going to eat at you forever, let's do it. It's fine. Or we'll pretend to do it and trick him. Yeah, but you can't pretend on a lyric. You can't pretend on a lyric. There's probably one or two lines that we bought 'em on and that they remained.

Speaker 3 (00:43:34):

Oh, so many.

Speaker 4 (00:43:35):

Yeah, but sometimes Dan Kenney's wrong. That's all. It's

Speaker 3 (00:43:38):

Dan. Two

Speaker 2 (00:43:38):

Things, Kenny.

Speaker 4 (00:43:40):

Okay. Two things.

Speaker 2 (00:43:41):

That's the problem is that no one's always right, so when you get that feeling and you're like, oh, this has got to go, and everyone's disagreeing with you, it's like then you got to ask yourself, am I wrong? Am I just being nuts or are they all deaf? They're like, they've got temporary deafness. They're taste deaf temporarily.

Speaker 4 (00:44:03):

There's definitely a little bit of both all the time.

Speaker 2 (00:44:06):

It's hard to know when are you right and when are you being nuts?

Speaker 4 (00:44:08):

Yeah. That's my job.

Speaker 2 (00:44:09):

True. That's why you got to trust your producer.

Speaker 3 (00:44:12):

When we work with a producer, you better be looking at that producer. He's a member of your band or you shouldn't be working with them anyway.

Speaker 4 (00:44:19):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:44:19):

Just for that.

Speaker 4 (00:44:20):

If it's like, no, no, no, no, shut up. No, no, no, no. It's like

Speaker 2 (00:44:24):

How deep do you get into the songs or is it different depending on the band?

Speaker 4 (00:44:29):

Different depending on the band for suicide. I was there the last couple practices and we switched up a couple things before preliminary tracking and kind of decided not to make a big grid map and all this shit because Ernie's such a rock solid drummer that I was like, I think we can just make this feel like a band. We don't need to computerize it and it paid off. I don't usually get in a room beforehand. Sometimes I'll send notes on things on demos here and there. If bands are able to do new demos quickly. Sometimes we restructure stuff after. There's a lot of different ways to do it. I would say suicide is probably the only time I straight up went to practice.

Speaker 3 (00:45:14):

We wanted that. We're used to that getting a producer in the room with us before we go in the studio and have him watch us Jam. Didn't machine used to do that? Yeah, we flew to Jersey to do pre-pro with him. He didn't come to our spot. We flew to him and did pre-pro with him before we started to record.

Speaker 1 (00:45:30):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:45:30):

But still you played together in a room with him? Totally. Very similar. We basically did the same amount that we did with Taylor with Machine. It was like maybe, I don't know, five sessions.

Speaker 4 (00:45:39):

We did that with the single you guys came and did. We did a pre-record day here. Yeah. Which I think the practice was more efficient. Oh, a hundred percent. Going there and just hearing you play the songs, it's like, okay, not only can I get the vibe of the song, I can get the vibe of how the song would feel played on a stage and it was easy to cut down stuff. I think next time I'll just come earlier.

Speaker 3 (00:46:05):

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I'm curious, how much more are you with other bands than you were with us? Were we typical or

Speaker 4 (00:46:12):

I would say that you were the most that I've ever been hands-on.

Speaker 3 (00:46:16):

Really?

Speaker 4 (00:46:16):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:46:17):

Wow. It doesn't surprise me that we're that way. We let our producers in like that.

Speaker 4 (00:46:22):

Yeah. Well, I wouldn't say that other bands would be opposed to that, but I think that it was easy with you guys because we're local too. It would've been expensive to fly somewhere else to do that and then maybe come back. I guess it felt the most too because I was actually in your practice space, whereas I probably have given as many notes to other bands, but just via demos.

Speaker 2 (00:46:47):

That makes sense.

Speaker 4 (00:46:48):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:46:48):

Different bands though have different goals and different needs. There's definitely that type of band where when they go to the studio, they've already recorded note for note everything, those tech bands and stuff. The good ones that I know.

Speaker 4 (00:47:04):

Yeah. I'm not changing a note on a sweet pick, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:47:07):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (00:47:09):

No, no, no. Go here.

Speaker 2 (00:47:10):

They're open to anything to do with how the shit is going to sound and come across, but when it comes down to the actual notes, it's like this math equation has been solved. There's no resolving it.

Speaker 4 (00:47:24):

No,

Speaker 2 (00:47:25):

I don't get a lot of those. It doesn't seem like that's up your alley too much.

Speaker 4 (00:47:28):

Nah, no, thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:47:30):

Yeah, and that's kind of not us either. We're always trying to make everything better, so it's as soon as there's somebody that's going to listen to it and give us a second take, we're ready for it.

Speaker 2 (00:47:39):

Yeah, that's awesome. One thing that I think is interesting about you having gone to the practice is kind of tied back to something we were talking about earlier, which is that not very many bands in this world are capable of really sounding like bands and doing more of a live kind of thing on a record, and when you do think of those bands, typically it's actually not really this genre. It's more like Prague kind of stuff, like opec, you think of them recording live and could imagine it Shuga did it. You think of these pro year kind kind of bands, you don't think about it so much in this genre. However, I feel like this genre is the one that would sound the best like that because of how the songs work, how the riffs work, the arrangements are just designed, they're just lend themselves to sounding huge live, so I feel like you get the most bang for your buck on something like this.

Speaker 4 (00:48:47):

Yeah. It's supposed to be like, oh, this collection of five people is audibly whooping your ass. Not how does the computer make it chug? Are all the snares aligned? I don't fucking care. I want to know which weapon it's holding to beat me with.

Speaker 2 (00:49:08):

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. I've noticed there's been certain bands that toured with that. They sound tremendous live and then on record it's just like, Hmm, what? Stale. Stale. Yeah. This is not the band that I've heard a hundred times. Something is just missing.

Speaker 4 (00:49:29):

Yeah, the mid-range frequencies, Taylor

Speaker 3 (00:49:33):

In the mid range. I think for us kind of dating us a little bit, I kind of just remember when the bedroom band came about. I remember when all that was really happening and you could hear somebody or hear something on pure volume or something and be like, is that just a dude or is that an actual band? And I've never been a part of project like that and just us being dudes that like to jam and come up with stuff. The only idea is learn to be sick and then try to recreate it in audio form, and that's always been the goal. Try to sound as badass as we know we can sound live, and I think that's still the goal and trying to refine how sick you are live is going to refine how sick you are on album. Not to say that the other way isn't good where you're trying to create sound that you're going to recreate on stage. I'm sure that works really well for people. It's just never really been the way that we work and trying to just slam and have it be as crushing and intense and all on point as possible and then be able to somehow capture that and have it so when you put a song on, it's like, boom, whoa, this is pummeling.

Speaker 4 (00:50:55):

We got that more than ever, I think too.

Speaker 3 (00:50:57):

I

Speaker 2 (00:50:57):

Agree. I agree. It's really, really important though, and it doesn't have to be something that's written out or whatever, but it's important to understand that about your own, I guess identity or sonic personality or whatever you want to call it. I just think it's important to be that clear about it. Again, I don't think it needs to be some mission statement or whatever, some cheesy thing, but you know what you're supposed to sound like.

Speaker 3 (00:51:26):

I think the mission statement though, I mean I feel like our mission statement is to be a ripping live band, so I think that it is kind of our mission statement. It's be just murderous so that when you have a producer like Taylor or anybody that we've worked with, if they've seen you live, they're like, oh wow, I want to be able. It's a fun project for someone to try to capture.

Speaker 2 (00:51:49):

I've noticed that you guys have stuck to that this whole time. I remember seeing you guys on Mayhem Tour back whenever that was, like 2008 or whatever, and getting that impression and then I saw you guys a year later at Golden Gods and was like, got the same exact impression and just like I've always gotten that impression, so I admire the consistency. Even with changes in producers, changes in sound like experimentation still. It seems like the one thing that's remained consistency is that is how it comes across live. Yeah. I guess

Speaker 3 (00:52:31):

In my head, not knocking any other way, it's just being a live band is where, especially with extreme music, that's what it's all about. The live setting is where you're going to end up taking that music. We got real close on this. We did the best we've done in a long time, but always I'm always like, oh, we're going to sound way better than we sound on record no matter what. I'll listen to the record, be like, oh yeah. I mean people are going to, if they like these songs, they're going to love this live. It's always been the intention.

Speaker 2 (00:53:01):

Interesting. So the opposite of how so much metal comes off, it's like you hear it on record and it's amazing and it's just kind of a sad trombone live

Speaker 3 (00:53:15):

A hundred percent. It's been that way for a long time. It's always disappointing when you discover a band and they're awesome on album, but then when you go see 'em live, they can't do it or they can't do it consistently. Maybe they're on some nights and off other nights, and I feel like that's super prevalent or was more prevalent probably when we were first starting and it was just all over the place. So I think that foundation of us just being, knowing what we want out of our live performances and pretty strictly trying to just recreate this live thing that we do on album, which is kind of difficult to do when you are dudes that play. We try to play dynamically in extreme music. It's not always at a thousand percent. So wanting to be able to capture those dynamics, which might be subtle in our style of music. It's not like we're have too much dynamic, but yeah, trying to capture, like you said, a progressive band is more known to do things that are live, but I feel like we've always leaned into the ups and downs of everything and trying to capture an energy almost just as much as capturing sonic frequencies,

Speaker 4 (00:54:34):

Human humanity.

Speaker 3 (00:54:36):

Humanity. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:54:37):

It's interesting because I know I've said it's interesting about a lot of stuff, but sometimes people equate capturing humanity or I don't know, raw or any of those words or terms. It's basically just an excuse for sucking. There's a lot of bands who they will hide behind words like that, but really they're just sloppy. Really? They just sound like shit, but no, it's raw. No, it's got a human feel. It's like we're not one of those polished bands that grid everything and sound perfect. It's like, well, you couldn't be, or that would be the only option is because you suck. So a producer would have to do that to you to get you to sound acceptable. I've noticed that it's actually pretty rare. It's pretty rare for raw to actually be pulled off, I think.

Speaker 4 (00:55:34):

Well, that's the thing is everybody had to do this at some point.

Speaker 2 (00:55:37):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:55:39):

It wasn't until what nineties, early two thousands that you could grid up a band like this. So it's like I would say subpar musicians were allowed to come to the front, whereas it used to be like, if you don't have the fucking chops, you're not going to be able to record because it's going to suck, and it is so dope to see a band kind of the old way they're a band and they would sound like this no matter what, and that's impressive.

Speaker 3 (00:56:11):

We all as individuals in our band, we learned it while it was all happening that you could go in the studio and make yourself sound better than you are, and I think we all did that at some point in time. In other bands. It's kind of like if you hear something and you're like, oh, that sounds way better than we're able to sound, you shouldn't be doing that, and I think that's just something that we learned along the way and people need to probably learn if you're recording, the veil will

Speaker 2 (00:56:42):

Lift. There are some genres that I think are just better suited for recording. There's some types of music where it's so intricately layered and it's great. It's almost like live is a bonus, but the real art is what you hear through speakers in headphones or just not live.

Speaker 4 (00:57:08):

I can definitely appreciate some stuff like that or yeah, the production is absurd, and then the live version is maybe abridged and it's kind of okay sometimes.

Speaker 2 (00:57:18):

Yeah. I love DMU Borg gear and I'm not knocking them live or anything, but I love that band. I always have, but look, you can't always tour with a hundred piece orchestra it. No,

Speaker 4 (00:57:31):

You can't ever do it.

Speaker 2 (00:57:33):

Yeah. It's a special event, so no matter what, unless you're at one of those special one-off shows they're doing and filming, it's always going to be a reduced version, which is not a knock on them at all. It's just the logistics. It's just not realistic.

Speaker 4 (00:57:55):

The dope part about them was when they do that instead, they're kind of shifting the focus and live. You're not worried about the orchestra so much because they're pummeling you with their open 1 3, 4 secret hate read

Speaker 2 (00:58:09):

Riffs. That band has some fucking riffs. That's

Speaker 4 (00:58:14):

Probably the highest per capita ripped off band dmu for me and my brother. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:58:19):

Yeah. Oh, I've directly ripped. I still have that riff in my pocket, dude, holding onto it forever.

Speaker 4 (00:58:24):

How could you not? You said Dmu Borge and my brain went,

Speaker 2 (00:58:32):

That's a great one. But that's exactly my point is they are good live, but I wouldn't knock 'em if they weren't because their records are so fucking great. It's like

Speaker 4 (00:58:43):

They're dense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58:45):

Yeah. It is what it is. Where I don't like it is where the records not that great, and you can tell that tons of doctoring had to happen just to get past the finish line because nothing was going to happen otherwise.

Speaker 4 (00:59:00):

Yeah. Or it's just got straight fake drums.

Speaker 2 (00:59:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:59:03):

Basically. That's where I push stop. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:59:06):

Unless

Speaker 4 (00:59:07):

You're God flesh. Don't fucking have fake drums.

Speaker 2 (00:59:09):

Well, Shuga did it once and I think it worked, but he injured himself.

Speaker 4 (00:59:13):

Yeah. There was a reason, but then they came back and did the live one and sounded fucking sicker than ever.

Speaker 2 (00:59:21):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:59:21):

I love that record.

Speaker 2 (00:59:23):

I think when people say to me, yeah, but Shuga did it or something, I'm like, yeah, but are you Shuga?

Speaker 4 (00:59:27):

No. No one is Shuga. Shuga sometimes

Speaker 2 (00:59:29):

Is the answer to that, yes or no. If the answer is no, then

Speaker 4 (00:59:32):

Yeah, there's only one. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:59:34):

Basically. And Shuga is still finding

Speaker 3 (00:59:36):

Themselves,

Speaker 2 (00:59:38):

Which is crazy. It is crazy. Every record. I love that about a band or a musician where they have already had more success than is ever reasonable to ever expect out of heavy music,

Speaker 4 (00:59:55):

Out of legitimately just palm muting Zero.

Speaker 2 (00:59:58):

Yeah. It's crazy, but somehow they're finding ways and are still hungry to make it better and better and better.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):

So sick.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):

They could have just checked out a long time ago.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):

They're the example.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):

That's a gauge of my willingness. Whenever I finish a record, I'm like, how hyped am I to do another one of these And still, I still get hyped after we're done recording one. I'm ready for the next one, so still go. How long does it take you to recharge the battery or are you just ready? I mean, I'm always ready, especially after the pandemic. I kind of learned that I'm the most happy and balanced if I'm almost always in writing mode. I try to never leave writing mode.

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):

Are we in writing mode?

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):

I'm writing lyrics right now. Honestly, dude, I have not been playing enough guitar. That's the truth. I've got so much going on.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):

Well, now you have helm work.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):

I know. Well, I got tours soon, so I got to start doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):

Oh, you got to start playing the songs. You already know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):

I know. I remember when we finished this record, I was like, I was ready for the next one. Right away

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):

You guys were like, let's schedule it now.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):

I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. That's awesome. I wanted to, I mean also from a business perspective too, because it's a two album deal on the label and I'm like, let's just crack out these two records quick and just tour. But yeah, life happens.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):

It would be cool to have shit in your pocket, but at the same time, now you have time. Time is your friend.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):

Yeah. I think that, yeah, maybe if that would've happened, we maybe would've wrote a samey record. It would've maybe just sounded a little too close to the way that this one does, and I think that distance and having some new life experiences, I totally believe that that real life totally, totally influences what you're doing. And it's not just music

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):

Absorbing other music too. Over time, you create, you add to the Well. Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):

Yeah. You need that time,

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):

That space. Totally. I absolutely agree with you on that. Well, dudes, I think this is a good place to end the episode. I want to thank you both for taking the time to hang out. It's a pleasure as always. Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):

Hell fucking yes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):

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 m Audio at M 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 me at al at M Academy. That's Eyal. At urm dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line, answer me a. All right, then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Do Academy and press the podcast link today.