RANDY SLAUGH: Creating Your Own Opportunities, Scaling Your Business, and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

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 Randy Slaugh, who is a producer and composer and he's worked with artists such as Architects, sleeping with Sirens, periphery Tesseract, Devin Townsend, and Four Years Strong, as well as music for television series on Netflix, C-B-S-N-B, CABC, Hulu Discovery, ESPN, VH one and MTV. He's also done work for video games and all kinds of campaigns. I mean, this is one prolific dude. I hope you enjoy this episode. Here goes Randy Slaugh. Welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:18):

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (02:19):

Thanks for being here. Excited to talk to you. Did you always want to be a composer or is that something that just kind of happened along the way? We have a mutual friend, Jesse Zare, who is doing very well for himself in composition, and I know that that's not the way he started. The way he started was as a guitar player in a metal band, and I find that a lot of people who do production or composition who have a metal background, they didn't necessarily always start that way. They just found that to be their calling eventually.

Speaker 2 (02:53):

Absolutely. I mean, I've always been creative, honestly, back in grade school I initially wanted to be, I was more into drawing and wanted to be in my initial sort of career goals were to be a comic illustration kind work for Disney, Pixar or something like that. In high school, I started, well, I guess I took piano lessons growing up. I've always kind of been into music. I picked up guitar in high school, kind of taught myself some buddies, and we played in just a hardcore screamo band and we didn't really want to go through the trouble of going to a studio, having to just do one take and have it be printed. I wanted to have a little more control with what we were creating. So got myself some cheap recording gear, started kind of teaching myself audio production and just over the years started recording friends projects and just stuff here and there. 10 years ago I recorded a Christmas album, just kind of random projects like that. Then, so this was back in probably initially 2009, 2010. I've been a huge fan of periphery for years, since they're MySpace days and started going to some of their early, early shows connected with the guys. Just started hanging out on the tour bus, just becoming friends with them. And I saw that Misha had posted way back in the day, I think it was his sound click account. He would post demos of upcoming songs.

Speaker 1 (04:12):

I remember that, yeah,

Speaker 2 (04:13):

Way back in the day, I think it was Have a blast. It had just a keyboard, kind of midi violin in the intro, and I was just kind thinking, oh, that's cool, but it'd be a shame of the final version. Just ended up with kind of midi strings, not there's anything wrong with midi strings, but I just thought, what the hell? Lemme just message Misha and just kind of go out on a limb, and I just kind of dmd him and just said, Hey, if you want, I heard the intro of Have a Blast if you want. I've got the resources to record that with a real violin. And he was like, oh dude, that'd be awesome. And it was kind of a kind of a, what would you call it? Say yes, then figure out how to do it later. At the time, again, I had done some recording projects here and there, but nothing of that magnitude and nothing of that complexity.

(05:03):

I read sheet music, but I'm not overly classically trained. It's something that I've learned as I've gone, but at the time it was an intimidating project, so I found a studio, a local place. I went to the music department of the college I was going to talked to the violin professor, found a killer violinist. We got the part recorded and turned out great. The band loved it. That was sort of my first, and it was more like I sort of found a random opportunity to work with a band that I like more than I was seeking out this, I'm going to be this orchestrator for metal bands.

Speaker 1 (05:39):

You just created your own opportunity basically more than anything,

Speaker 2 (05:42):

Kind of. Yeah. And then after that, I think it was a year later, misery Signals was recording up in Idaho near where I was going to school, and it just kind of right place, right time. They needed a bunch of orchestration. I showed 'em the periphery song and they had me come to the studio, work with them in person, and then I called the prom queen needed stuff, and eventually it spiraled to Devon Townsend Architects just intervals all this stuff. And it kind of started turning into where I was like, okay, this is working. I could probably do this. It just sort of happened organically, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (06:17):

It does make a lot of sense. And what's interesting is I feel like that was the same story for Jesse, and I also feel like this is the same story for a lot of people who got into this, this, I mean making stuff that sounds cool in heavy music, whether it means self-producing like Misha did, or it means Kurt Ballou becoming the dude in his area with a specific sound or you guys, you and Jesse composing. I feel like this somewhat figure it out as it goes. Not necessarily DIY, but just throw yourself into it mentality is kind of what I hear a lot. And I mean, it is kind of how it worked for me as well. It's like a very familiar story and what I think more than anything is interesting to me is that you did not know how you were going to pull it off when you offered it, but you offered it anyways. And that's one of those things that I talk to a lot of listeners and URM students who are too scared to put themselves out there like that. And I get it because on the one hand, you don't want to be delusional and over promise things and be known as someone who just talks a big game and then can't deliver it. But then at the same time, you have to have enough confidence that you can figure it out, that you will figure it out.

Speaker 2 (07:43):

For sure. I think a lot of it's knowing your limitations because last year Pablo from Chelsea gr hit me up to record some drums for some session work he was doing, and I just know myself, I have no experience in drum tracking. That's sort of not my field at all. So I referred him to a local studio guy that I know I trust and went in, sat on the session and hung with him. But it's just sort of, I guess knowing your limitations. Long story short,

Speaker 1 (08:10):

Well, yeah, when I was producing bands, I would always tell the vocalists, if what you need is help with lyrics, I am not the guy. I can make the vocal sound awesome, can be great with the vocal arrangement, even tweaking the parts. But when it comes to lyrics, you do not want my help and I don't want to help. That's not even if I wanted to, I would do a shitty job.

Speaker 2 (08:30):

No, totally.

Speaker 1 (08:31):

It's just not in my wheelhouse.

Speaker 2 (08:33):

So knowing your general skillset and even if it's something you haven't done, knowing that it's something that would be within your capabilities

Speaker 1 (08:40):

And

Speaker 2 (08:41):

That's it just sort of evolved from initially I started with this niche of taking bands existing arrangements, recording them with real strings using college students. So it'd be more affordable than your average symphony you would hire

Speaker 1 (08:55):

To put it mildly.

Speaker 2 (08:56):

Yeah, yeah, totally. And aside from recording strings, I do a lot of other kind of sub genres of production. What I really have gotten into more lately is just programming, specifically doing just kind of electronic stuff. I love the score for Tenet or a lot of just cool cinematic electronic stuff. So just did some stuff with Sleeping with Sirens, the Amity Affliction new stuff for Barry tomorrow that's kind of more in that wheelhouse on the new Sleeping With Sirens, we did stuff that's ranging from some heavier film trailers type stuff to more hip hop beat production. And I think that stuff is kind of fun. I am super A DHD, so I like having different challenges, different projects day to day instead of just if I had just a desk job where I'm clocking in and crunching numbers every day, I think I'd hate my life.

(09:43):

And this sort of what I do is, I mean, for all intents and purposes, I'm a full-time freelancer. I just have my hand in a lot of pots, whether it's working with artists or working on music for TV shows or commercials. I've got some corporate audio gigs I do. So just kind of keeping yourself busy and keeps my skills sharp too. Honestly, a lot of what I've been doing for TV and film type stuff has really expanded my production skills. I've been working remotely with this company called Full Clip Music, and it's owned by these two producers who worked with, so their names are John Plar and BJ Perry, and I know they worked with Tyler Smith on the Last Couple I Prevail Records. I think they've worked with Skillet and Escape the Fate kind of that scene, but they've kind of started their own production library for composers to kind of get their music on TV shows, commercials, and a lot of the projects are like, we need hip hop beats for VH one, or we need some country cues for CMT or whatever. And it's just kind of a discovery channel needs some harder rock songs, or we need some metal cues for wwe e, et cetera. That's really pushed myself to kind of just sharpened my skills with, for example, I've never produced country before, but I feel like I'm pretty confident and I can make some killer instrumental cues in that genre.

Speaker 1 (11:09):

So let's talk a little bit about getting your head wrapped around a genre that might not be what you listen to and also something that you're unfamiliar with. So name me a genre that you don't listen to that you might get asked to work with. Would it be country? I don't know what you listen to.

Speaker 2 (11:24):

No, no, no, totally. And to be honest, I'm sort of an omnivore.

Speaker 1 (11:27):

Yeah, but there's got to be something, look, I understand being an omnivore musically, but there's got to be something that's like you will never listen to. For instance, with me it's ska. You would have to put a gun in my head to get me to listen to Ska

Speaker 2 (11:41):

For sure.

Speaker 1 (11:42):

And it would have to be loaded.

Speaker 2 (11:43):

Yeah, totally. It'd be a pretty intense threat.

Speaker 1 (11:46):

And then it's a question, it's like listen to ska or end it all. And I'd have to debate that for a second.

Speaker 2 (11:53):

I respect that.

Speaker 1 (11:54):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (11:54):

Yeah, let's use Scott for example. I listened to a couple songs like Lesson Jake, that kind of stuff, or Old Goldfinger. But I guess if it was something, so for example, probably one of the weirdest requests I've gotten for TV was for this show very valari, and they needed, it was like hip hop country, they called it hick hop. They sent some references and I was just like, what the hell even is this? So I listened to the references, kind of just sort of analyze, okay, this is what are the elements that make this? And it's like, okay, it's hip hop Beats eight oh eights and then banjo, fiddle, whatever. So I just started, I'd started with what I was more familiar with, build a percussion bed and just start riffing instruments on top of that and turned out okay, I got some placements with it and stuff, but I guess it's just sort of a lot of trial and error and just seeing what works and what sounds okay and just going for it.

Speaker 1 (12:55):

But did you listen to any country in order to get your head around that in order to make it more authentic or was it just your impression of what country might be when writing the banjo parts, for instance, did you listen to banjo music in order to understand how banjo, what your typical fare is for banjo playing in that song? Or did you just kind of draw from your memory banks that you've heard, you heard this at some point in your life and just have some impression and just kind of went off of that?

Speaker 2 (13:30):

A little bit of both. A lot of the projects that they send for TV stuff, they'll send a list of references like here's this,

Speaker 1 (13:37):

Oh perfect,

Speaker 2 (13:38):

This Taylor Swift song or this Kane Brown song or whatever, and I'll kind of skim those and just get the general vibe and then I'll just start riffing. And that's one thing I actually feel like I'm grateful to be pretty good at is I've realized one thing that is one of my strengths is I have no shortage of just riffs. When

Speaker 1 (13:59):

You say riffs, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (14:00):

Instrumental hooks? Just like little licks. I dunno if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (14:05):

Okay. No, no, it makes sense. So my definition of a riff, the reason I want to point this out is we've got a lot of metal guitar players

Speaker 2 (14:11):

Oh,

Speaker 1 (14:11):

Absolutely. Listening. And so when they think of a riff, they think of a heavy guitar riff, but really I think of a riff is a repeating hook, like a repeating hook. That's not the main vocal melody, but it's a repeating instrumental hook. And so guitar riff that's a good one, is basically that it's a hook that's played over and over and over and over and over again and is usually an accompaniment to a vocal

Speaker 2 (14:34):

For sure. Yeah, that makes sense. So for example, I got it kind of more into the TV film licensing music thing because of a lot of the work I'd done in metal. The end goal for me would be, I dunno if you know who Ludwig Grantson is, he's the guy who did

Speaker 1 (14:47):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 2 (14:48):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (14:49):

Fuck yeah. He's fucking amazing

Speaker 2 (14:51):

Dude. Where he is at career wise, I would love to do so. Obviously he works on killer TV film scores, Mandalorian, black Panther, tenet, et cetera. But then he also has a hand in killer artist production for Charo Gambino, Adele, Travis Scott, et cetera. So I would love to have a hand in both fields working with artists like Post Malone or whatever, and then having a hand in scoring the next, I dunno, star Wars or Tarantino film or, I dunno. That's one thing where I can't really pick one or the other. I love working with artists. I grew up listening to Metal, I love pop hip hop, just a variety of stuff. I just did a song with Yellow Wolf the Rapper, and it was kind of just sort of like a random thing, but kind of a cool random project. But then before I listened to anything when I was five or six years old, my first stuff I got into was John Williams scores with Jurassic Park and Star Wars and all that kind of stuff.

(15:46):

So definitely film scores, video game scores, TV stuff. That's absolutely where that's been a passion of mine for my whole life. So that it's definitely something. And I've scored a couple short films. I'm signed on to do a feature length film that has been delayed with COVID, and right now it's kind of in limbo hell. So we'll see what happens with it, but I'm definitely looking to get more into the film scoring world as well. And that's something Jesse and I have partnered up with. We want to do a lot of trailer music, video games, just kind of more that field honestly. I mean that's as far as making a sustainable career, the kind of stuff that pays the bills and also still it's fulfilling. I've sort of figured out that my values, when it comes to projects I take on, it's really three things. Number one, it's got to pay the bills. Number two, it's got to be a project that will look good on my portfolio with a means to bring in more work eventually. And then number three, at this point I try and take on projects where it's going to be good people to work with and it's not going to be a client who's a pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 (16:54):

Those three things. Did it take you a while to figure out that you need to meet those three criteria in order to be happy with what you're working with?

Speaker 2 (17:01):

Yes, definitely. Because I think especially earlier on, I would take on projects and I'm sure you've seen the Venn diagram where everyone wants cheap, free, whatever. Yeah, cheap.

Speaker 1 (17:12):

Cheap and fast.

Speaker 2 (17:13):

Quick, fast and good. Yeah. And then exactly, that's the one. So initially I said yes to the impossible middle ground of all three of those where it was insane deadlines. I guess at this point I'll take on if it covers two of those. For example, the last periphery record I worked on my cut. So from what I quoted them at, the amount that I ended up pocketing wasn't a ton, but I knew that being featured on their documentary, all that stuff would lead to much more work down the road. I'll take that into account knowing that, I know it's kind of a dirty word, but how much exposure I would get from working on this project.

Speaker 1 (17:49):

It's only a dirty word because so many scammers use it to trick gullible musicians, but in reality, when used properly in the proper context, it matters. It is very important. If the exposure is actually real, it matters. It can be more valuable than money in some cases,

Speaker 2 (18:08):

For sure. And if you're playing long game, a lot of times it will lead to almost like residual money down the road. It's been a lot of trial and error figuring out what type of projects are fulfilling to me and what'll be sustainable as a career. Yeah, just figuring out as you go.

Speaker 1 (18:24):

You just said if you're playing long game,

Speaker 2 (18:27):

Oh, I'm saying for musicians who are looking to do this, I've actually had a lot of people hit me up and just be like, dude, I want to get into music production, I want to get into TV stuff. What do you recommend? And I think I've had some people hit me up who have a genuine drive with this, but a lot of people have sort of a get rich quick mentality.

Speaker 1 (18:45):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (18:46):

I know there's a quote, I can't remember who said this, but it's a lot of musicians want career level results for hobby level commitment, and you definitely have to play long game.

Speaker 1 (18:54):

I've actually said that many times.

Speaker 2 (18:56):

Oh yeah, it

Speaker 1 (18:57):

Might've been me.

Speaker 2 (18:57):

Yeah, I could be quoting you. That's true. I always joke that music is a get rich slow scheme and you definitely have to just, at least if you want to build an authentic career, and for me it's been a lot of over the years, it's been initially you got to do a bunch of cold calls, cold emails, going to shows, networking with clients, adding value first, which eventually leads, eventually leads to good word of mouth referrals, et cetera, and just kind of builds organically.

Speaker 1 (19:26):

I agree with you completely. I think that if you're not playing the long game, you're fucking up. Nothing good happens quickly in music. Now people can hear this and will point out Pearl Jam getting signed within six months of becoming a band, and of course there's outliers, same way that there's people who win the lottery and play the Powerball and fucking win $200 million, but that's just so rare. It's so rare that it's statistically insignificant. You shouldn't plan on that sort of thing. If it happens, cool, but you shouldn't plan on it because that's not the way it works for the vast, vast, vast majority of people in music. I think in music you have to be thinking long game with every decision that you make. There is no such thing as the short game if you want any sort of actual career level results, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (20:21):

Absolutely. And I think a lot of it's working smart too. Honestly. I know Finn McKinney posted this a couple months ago and he said something about we always underestimate, especially when you're starting out, how much outreach you should be doing, whether that's cold emails, whether that's going to networking events, et cetera. Even to this day, my career is launched enough to where I get a lot of inbound referrals or return clients, repeat customers, but I don't do this as much as I should. But I'll still occasionally I'll go on a, it's kind of funny just to kind of find a targeted audience of artists that would be a good fit for my services. I'll go on featured x.com, like the website where you can hire vocalists or guitarists from certain bands, do a feature on your song. I'll narrow it down to metal Core or gent. I'll sift through find artists who seem like they're working on some awesome stuff and I'll just send a bunch of emails out. And I've had a lot of success doing that specifically just because there's a higher chance of those bands being familiar with.

Speaker 1 (21:28):

Where's the line though? The reason I'm saying Where's the line? And I agree with you. I do a lot of cold outreach. I mean, I don't know how familiar you are, but now the mix, but I have to book that every single month. It's been six years now and now with Riff Hard, I have to book that every single month. I have to do a lot of cold outreach. There's a lot of people that I still don't know and it works not always and it works. However, we all know that there are some people out there who punish the hell out of you and will ruin their own opportunities because of the amount of outreach that they do. So my question is where's the line? Or how do you gauge if you're going too far with it?

Speaker 2 (22:11):

For all intents and purposes, it's putting out a job application. I know Brian Hood, he always says that marketing is getting the right message to the right person at the right time. So I think a big thing is it's a deliberate authentic connection and not just like, okay, here's this list of 5,000 artists or 5,000 production companies or advertising agencies. I'm just going to spam email every single one of them and to the point where if you get a response, you won't even know who the hell you're talking to. So I think keeping it deliberate and personal is still that's going to get you farther. I feel like 20 deliberate cold emails are more successful than 500 random ones.

Speaker 1 (22:52):

Yes. Keeping

Speaker 2 (22:52):

More focused and authentic. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (22:55):

I completely agree. I mean, how are you supposed to talk to people that you don't know if you don't do that? I mean, sometimes you can get introduced, but if you don't know them and there's no one to introduce you, you got to just do it.

Speaker 2 (23:10):

That's a good point. At the end of the day, I mean at having a personal intro that can be a hundred times more effective than I'll do cold emails as a last resort or as kind of a necessary evil of keeping your business afloat and all that stuff. But for example, I'm good buddies with KeHE from Sky Harbor, KeHE D just a while back, and this is a project that ended up not working out, but they toured with Deftones a while back. I knew they were working on the new album. I just asked Ke, I was like, Hey, I dunno if you feel comfortable with this, but I'd love to connect with Steph Carpenter. And he was like, oh, absolutely. Lemme give you an email intro. And he linked us up. Steph's awesome. We had a great conversation. I ended up talking with him at NAM later that year, ended up being where they didn't need the services I was offering on their album, which also definitely happens. Having an authentic introduction is much better than if I were to just cold email deftones management and there's a much lower chance that I would get a response from that. That's just kind of an example.

Speaker 1 (24:10):

Yeah, you've been vetted.

Speaker 2 (24:12):

Exactly. Totally. Or I mean best case scenario is I think it was six, seven years ago, I reached out to the Amity Affliction just because they were kind of a bandaid. I listened to a lot, kind of did like a, Hey, my name is Randy Slaugh, here are my services I offer blah, blah, blah. And I don't think I got a response from them back then, but just this past year, Dan Brown messaged me and he was like, Hey dude, I've heard you do really good work. We're looking for some orchestration, piano kind of stuff on our new singles we're working on and just having it come from them. I know Joey Sturgis said this, when you're producing an artist, and this applies with anything, you always want it to be their idea. It's more successful if you can have it be their idea versus shoving it in their face. Having Dan reach out to me, it was kind of much

Speaker 1 (25:00):

Fruitful. It was much more fruitful.

Speaker 2 (25:02):

Exactly. Much more fruitful interaction for sure. Dan's awesome. It was really, really cool getting to work with them on a few songs. We should be working on a full length next spring summer. But yeah, just keeping busy. And again, back to the hobby level, commitment for career level results. I have had to treat this a day job coming up on two years at this point where I just got an office space that I'm renting out that I've converted into my own commercial studio. I'll record local clients, I'll record string players here and stuff, but the majority of what I do is just remote work and I'll just kind of come in here, come my desk, kind of clock in, treat it like I'm at work and then come back home, treat it like I'm at home, I'm present, versus in past years I would kind of just be working out of our spare bedroom.

(25:46):

And that sort of makes, at least for me personally, that kind of made a weird a work-life boundaries issue where so-and-so needs revision. Oh, lemme just pause this, lemme go do this real quick, and then, oh, this person needs another revision. And it would just sort of be like, I'm always on call, whereas now it's like, okay, I've got my office hours, I'm at the studio, come back home, I'm present. That's sort of been something I've had to adjust and kind of just treat it like a job. And at the same time, you're your own boss, so you have to be ruthlessly self-disciplined as well. I could just stay at home and play video games. I don't have a boss hounding me to get this stuff done. I do have clients who they'll message me and stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:25):

We all know that person who ignores their clients and ghosts them, and it's not because actually busy, they're just playing video games or something,

Speaker 2 (26:35):

Dude, it's just being responsible, being efficient with your time and just treating it like a job.

Speaker 1 (26:40):

If you're going to be doing a lot of work and high pressure work, it's very, very important for the quality of your work and for your sanity to impose some sort of structure on yourself. Otherwise you could do things like not work, play video games, end up close to the deadline, cramp stuff, go nuts, lose your mind with stress, piss off your wife, all kinds of stuff. We see that over and over again. Whereas I've noticed that the people who have a very disciplined schedule are very, very consistent with it. They know when they're done working, they stop working except for in emergencies or special occasions, they have their hours and that seems to work better. It leads to less burnout, less anxiety. I mean, there's already plenty of anxiety to go with this field anyways. You don't want to be adding to it. I think you don't want to be making it harder than it already is. And routine solves for lots of those problems.

Speaker 2 (27:39):

Absolutely, and it's something I've grown to create this lifestyle, but it's been a lot of trial and error and having those stressful, overwhelming, crazy months where I'm disappointing everyone and biting off more than I can chew. And one thing that's also helped with that is I've recently hired two assistants to help with more of the busy work with editing or session prep kind of stuff, and that's really helped me to be able to take on more projects, just being able to not, I know with hiring employees you have, for lack of a better word, fire yourself from certain tasks, for lack of a better word, I'm a control freak. I'm very passionate about the quality of the work that I put out, and I've got some killer assistants who do amazing work and they've kind of helped it to where I still have my hand on the creative side of things, but a lot of the technical stuff will be a lot smoother just having a team of people instead of just being a one man business.

(28:40):

And it's allowed me to where last week I went out of town for my brother's wedding and I had just an urgent project that got thrown into my lap that had a super tight deadline and I had my laptop with me, so I was able to do sort of some remote work, but my assistant handled a lot of the bulk work with that and I was able to something that would've been like a three or four hour project, I was able to get it done in probably a half hour, which really helps with that kind of stuff. Again, treating it like a business. The goal for a 2022 is to scale things up even further, take on bigger and better projects. Having a couple employees really helps with that. I know you've got a couple assistants and I'm sure it's helped you with your workflow as well.

Speaker 1 (29:21):

Yeah, I mean there's only so many hours in a day and there's way more stuff to do than there's enough time for, and there's just certain things that are better served by me doing, and there's certain other things that it doesn't matter if I don't do them as long as they're done. Well, it doesn't matter if I'm not the one doing it.

Speaker 2 (29:41):

Exactly. I know Will Putney, John Feldman, even Han Zimmer, Kanye West, they all kind have this setup with their productions where they still have, it's still their stamp, their sound, but it's a team of people just making it kind of run smoother and quicker.

Speaker 1 (29:56):

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.

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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, there comes a point where if you're working at a certain scale, it's a myth to think that you can lone wolf it. You hear about stuff like that because it makes for cool myths, cool stories like the Myth of Trent Resner being a one man show kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (32:24):

Absolutely. It's

Speaker 1 (32:25):

Just a myth. People like to idolize stars, whether it's a star producer or star composer or just a star like a Trent Resner. People like to deify and idolize them and it's easier for them to, I don't know, for some reason to think that it all came from that one person that they hold in this high regard. It's a little harder for them to understand that there's an entire team. I guess maybe the music seems less personal to them or something. I don't know. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (32:55):

It's kind of a weird

Speaker 1 (32:56):

That there's all kinds of weird psychology behind it, but everyone working at a high level is doing it with a team. I'm sorry, I don't know anyone who isn't or know of anyone who isn't

Speaker 2 (33:07):

Totally even, I mean Trent, I mean he's got Atticus Ross tag teaming all his recent stuff. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (33:12):

Exactly. I've

Speaker 2 (33:13):

Heard people criticize Han Zimmer. It's like, oh, his assistants do all his work for him. But when he first did the first Pirates of the Caribbean, I remember hearing that he was in the middle of scoring the last Samurai, so it was just kind of a weird timing. He wanted to take it on, so he spent an evening just coming up with all the themes, all the actual motifs and stuff, and then sent it to his assistant to essentially score the film, take those and kind of spread those themes out throughout the movie. So it was still his sound and his creative touch that is kind of irreplaceable, but a lot of the time consuming stuff that could be, it allowed him to take on more projects. And again, his score with Blade Runner in 2049, he tag team that with Benjamin Wall Fish, and you can still hear Hans's sound from his new score With Dune.

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There's a lot of similarities and you hear a lot of Benjamin's wall fish's stuff as well. We almost get this as musicians. We get this ego and we want to, when you're doing a self like a solo album, you want to make sure I did this whole engineered mix, mastered, played every instrument kind of thing. But in my experience, a lot of projects will be a tighter ship when you have a team of a specialists. For example, the Sleeping With Sirens record that I just worked on, so it was produced by Andrew Bayless, awesome producer, love working with him. We've done probably a dozen projects with him at this point. He does everything really well. He's a killer programmer. He is a killer. Guitar production. Vocal production. That was kind of a thing where I got to fly out to Nashville and kind of be a part of the process, and I was the guy who was doing programming on the record and got to just hyperfocus on all of that, do some just killer, just cool sounds.

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They had a couple people, they outsourced for songwriting. Nick Furlong, who's done stuff with a Vichi, a lot of John Feldman stuff, Julian Cuomo, he did a lot of the background harmonies, vocal production, editing, all that kind of stuff. And Zach Tini mixed it, and it allowed Bayless to kind of not wear so many hats and spread himself thin, which sometimes affects the quality of everything. And there are some people who do it great. I know Eric Ron, killer producer. I know he likes to do everything in house, and that works super well. I think just in my experience, I like to be a part of projects where it's, yeah, everyone's kind of specialized like that. And it's kind of case by case,

Speaker 1 (35:36):

Even in a band, if a band has a primary songwriter or something.

Speaker 2 (35:40):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:41):

But there's still the rest of the band there. It's not like the primary songwriter, say the primary songwriter's a guitarist, and that's all they do is play guitar. I mean, somebody else is doing those vocals, somebody else is doing those drums. It's not like they may have been the primary songwriter for the song. It might have their touch on it, but they're not doing everything. Absolutely. They don't have the skills to do everything.

Speaker 2 (36:06):

And Misha Mansour is a perfect example. I mean, we all know from his early demos he full on guitar production, he can mix master. He literally plays drums amazingly well. And I think in the more recent work, it's a lot more of a collaboration where there's songs fully written mostly by Jake and Mark, and even Spencer writes a lot of guitar stuff too. And it's much more of a collaborative thing. I mean, I love Old Periphery, but I feel like their more recent records are, I don't know if they're more musically interesting, but they're definitely musically interesting. You can hear a lot of different approaches coming together, and I feel like that almost turns into better results. And again, with the Sleeping With Sirens record, people don't like the idea of outsourcing songwriting or doing co-writes, collaborating with other songwriters, but some of those songs, we had a killer chorus written by someone else, and then Kellen would write the verses or vice versa, or I just find it so interesting to see different people's approaches to the same task. You get completely different results based on their experiences or their backgrounds. Kind of a random example is, I dunno if you heard the new Metallica cover album that came out this past year.

Speaker 1 (37:23):

I sure did. And was surprised that some of those songs were actually awesome.

Speaker 2 (37:28):

Yeah, totally. And it's just, for me, it was so weird to see, so there were a dozen different versions of Nothing Else Matters and it was so cool to hear. Okay, what would Chris Stapleton do based on his background and his style? How would he approach nothing else matters? And then how would Phoebe Bridgers approached that completely different style? I always think that getting a variety of people with different backgrounds to approach the same task will almost always get completely different results. And kind of an example of that is I'm, it's not really a band, it's more of a remote project called White Moth Bike Butterfly, and it is with Dan Tompkins from Tesseract Keshe from Sky Harbor, this other singer from the UK named Jordan. Matt Christensen, one of my good buddies here in Salt Lake. We just get such a different style having Dan and Jordan are up in the uk.

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Dan's got a big background in Prague metal and all that stuff. Obviously he's done a bunch of stuff with Sky Harbor, but then he does a bunch of Bollywood film scoring and kind of brings a totally different approach. Whereas I'm here in the us I work on a lot of metal records, but then if we want to do sort of a more electronic pop type track, I'll bring some weird, almost like Kanye West production or some stuff that Dan Kechi would never think of or vice versa. I just think it's always cool kind of bringing in more heads into a project, more creative opinions. You can definitely have too many cooks in the kitchen, so it's good to sort of delegate roles and kind of tag team stuff.

Speaker 1 (39:06):

Well, there's got to be someone who sets the vision. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:08):

Long story short, in my experience, I think team efforts usually end up with cooler results than if it's just one do it all kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (39:17):

Yeah, totally. Now, one thing that you said in the pre-interview that I thought was cool, I agree with it, is that sometimes projects don't work out. Sometimes what you did will get replaced or it won't come together, or you'll be in the project and it just won't work. And that the best way to not get too bummed on that is to just have a lot going on, so you really don't have the time to let it bother you.

Speaker 2 (39:42):

Absolutely. I always try to have a number of projects going at the same time. I think anyone who has shot for building a career in music or anything creative at the freelance route, you are going to have a lot of successes. You're going to have a lot of failures and a lot of ones that got away, and again, I mentioned the Deftones record, and it wasn't a matter of I wasn't good enough or you can always get in your head with imposter syndrome, but it was definitely just more of a not the right fit. And that's kind of the way with, I think you can knock on a bunch of doors, but there's again, the Brian Hood quote, marketing is the right message to the right person at the right time. It's just finding those right people and the right timing, honestly. So I did an audition back in 2017, I think it was right after Veni had left John Feldman's studio and Feldman posted on Instagram.

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He said, Hey, we're looking to hire an assistant producer at the studio sending a resume to this email. I just figured, what the heck? I'll just send something in. And I got a response from his assistant saying, Hey Randy, we listen to your stuff. We like what we heard, we'd love to do an audition with you. And it was one of the tracks for the Fever three record. They're working on south side of Inglewood, and they just sent vocals only and just said, Hey, build a song around this. And I dunno if you're familiar with their stuff or that song, but they're kind of more of a modern rag against the machine, kind of heavier

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Rock rap type stuff. That song in particular is more, at least vocally, it's much more subdued kind of low energy. And initially when they sent it, I was like, this almost sounds like it could be a Macklemore song. So I started kind of building piano around it. I had it build up to some more heavy guitars later in the arrangement just because what they were doing and sent it to them. Felman said he liked it. We hopped on the phone, kind of talked about doing some more stuff, and long story short, that specific thing, I guess this is kind of a tangent, but also kind of relevant. I started talking to, it was sort of where it started kind of going forward, and I was like, okay, what would working for Feldman really look like? Because obviously I've been a humongous fan of his stuff since 2002, 2003.

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A lot of his earlier story of the year, the es, a lot of those records were highly influential in my formative guitar playing music production years, especially with everything Feldman does with live strings and all this stuff. I talked to a few people and they were just like, oh yeah, dude, he, again, not talking shit about Feldman, but I think just a lot of producers run this type of ship where his assistants will work 16 hour days, zero days off and just kind of go through the wringer at first, which again is, for example, if it were 10 years ago, I would kill for an opportunity with that. I would just take that in a heartbeat. I would just slave over that.

Speaker 1 (42:38):

No, your limits, right?

Speaker 2 (42:39):

Yeah. At this point, being married, I was just kind of thinking, okay, that would definitely put some strain on my marriage if I were living at the studio, never saw my wife uprooted her whole career path and just had her go to LA where she doesn't know anybody. And a lot of the projects I had going on with architects, periphery, all that kind of stuff would have to go to the wayside so I could just focus full time on Feldman's Productions, which again, I love his stuff. I love those things. It was kind where I weighed the pros and cons. Do I want to be an employee at a studio like this, or do I want to keep doing my own thing, which I'm more in control of. It's kind of more something that I can scale up myself, I can take on whatever projects I want to work on.

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And it ended up kind of, not really fizzling off, but just sort of turning into something where I think they ended up going with someone else. The final song they scrapped my production ended up working with, I want to say it was Matt Malpas, John Lund, I think they were his assistants at the time. The final version is awesome. It's much more refined than the version that I made, which is another thing because one of my buddies was like, oh, dude, your version is so much better. And I was like, no, you can't even get into that mindset because the version that they chose of that song is objectively the correct version that was released.

Speaker 1 (43:55):

There's a reason for why it was picked.

Speaker 2 (43:58):

I could be like, oh, mine had so much more dynamics and all this stuff. But you can't get into that sort of ego. You have to have the philosophy that the song comes first. And I've had some projects where I'll do programming or orchestration and it ends up being super low in the mix or cut from the song, and you just, again, the song comes first and it'll still be something where I get my name on the song, but it's not like, oh, here's my work front and center. Sometimes there are projects where that's super cool. I get to hear like, oh, dude, I wrote that and that's first thing you hear in the intro. That's all my stuff. But there's some things where it's like, I'm grateful to have been a part of this, but it's not all about me. It's about the song and the project and other stuff was featured more prominently, so I got to work on the new, a couple songs recently with Skillet, they just announced a new album.

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It's coming out in January, and the two songs I worked on ended up getting cut from the record. I talked with the guys I worked with, and they're like, oh yeah, we're pretty sure they're going to use them as lead singles for the deluxe release, which will be out 2023, which is kind of a bummer, but it would've been Atlantic Records, all this cool stuff. But at the same time, again, with having your hand in so many pots, it is like, okay, that's kind of a letdown, but I'm still stoked about the upcoming Amity affliction stuff that's going to be released or the upcoming Sleeping with Sirens or Yellow Wolf or all these other cool projects that I have in the works. So I think you just got to be resilient, and it's almost like dating if you were to, you just got to see it as this person maybe isn't the right match. It's not, I'm not good enough. It's more just like, this

Speaker 1 (45:41):

Doesn't work. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (45:41):

Totally. You'll find there's going to be someone else who is a better fit for you, or there's going to be, you just got to have the mindset. There's a million people out there, there's a million options, and I think you always got to just shove the imposter syndrome out of your head. Something we all deal with. I know even now to the point where I'm doing music full time and it's paying the bills comfortably, and I'm working with some decent sized clients and life is awesome, but I had a random, random thing where, I dunno if you're familiar with Andrew Callahan, he runs All Gas No Breaks and Channel Five. It's kind of more of, not really a meme channel, but sort of he interviews weird people. It's kind like an Eric Andre type.

Speaker 1 (46:20):

Got it. Not familiar, but got it.

Speaker 2 (46:22):

He was in Salt Lake a few months ago for this music festival. It was like a post Malone thing, and there's a video on YouTube of, he kind of documented the whole thing, and he interviewed this 15-year-old kid freestyle rapping, and he's actually pretty damn good for his age. So he posted something about, he was looking for a studio in Salt Lake City where he could record this kid, and I was just like, okay. It's kind of random, and my initial thoughts were like, okay, for hip hop stuff, there's so many people who would do the job better. One of my buddies who owns the studio down here, they just worked on Logic's new album and for hip hop vocal tracking, they'd be the first choice. But I just reached out to him and just mentioned, here's some of the stuff I've worked on, blah, blah, blah.

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He responded, he's like, do you want to hop on a call? I'd love to hear more about this. They ended up going with me. I recorded produced Mixmaster the Track. It turned out great, but I think initially I sort of had the mindset that like, oh, someone else who could do that so much better than me. But you just have to shut that out and realize, okay, Joey Star just said this a few years ago where obviously not 24 7, but when you're in the moment when you're producing, you have to get in this Kanye mindset of like, yo, I'm the man. I'm the guy. I got this. And just have that confidence and not be an asshole and not just go on social media and just screw all you guys, all this stuff. It's more just like you in the moment when you're wearing the hat of this role. You just have to know you're good and be able to, again, with that first periphery, have a blast song I worked on years and years ago. It was something where I told Misha I could do it, and I sort of sold it. I was the guy and I was able to do it, and I killed it. But it's something that you almost have to train yourself to kind of just wear that hat when you need to.

Speaker 1 (48:16):

Yeah, totally. The whole imposter syndrome thing is very, very real, but I always advise people just ignore it. It'll happen. It happens to everybody except for the sociopaths. Just ignore it.

Speaker 2 (48:28):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (48:28):

Literally just ignore it.

Speaker 2 (48:30):

Yeah. Again, rolling with the punches. I had a buddy of mine who he had this killer opportunity where he was going to fill in on drums for this really sick artist. He had a bunch of gigs lined up with Download Fest and all this stuff, and then COVID hit and everything was canceled. All his opportunities went out the window and it just threw him into this funk where he left la. He just threw in the towel with a lot of music stuff and we had to talk about it and just be like, no, there's so many other opportunities. You just got to adapt and adjust. And there's definitely things that are, we've all had ones that got away and situations that are bummers, but if you're going to be in this industry, and if you're going to be doing this, being your own boss, running your own business, you have to roll with the punches and kind of just like you said, shove out the imposter syndrome, shove out the woe is me stuff, and just keep going.

Speaker 1 (49:34):

Yeah. I mean, it is actually pretty natural to get those feelings. It goes along with that feeling of wanting to improve at things. If you have that feeling of wanting to improve at things and you also recognize how awesome other people are at certain things, it kind of stands to reason that you're going to feel like you're not good enough at times, but that doesn't matter because if people are hiring you, they think you're good enough. There you go. That's all you need in my opinion. Also, the thing about imposter syndrome is by listening to your imposter syndrome, you are making other people's decisions for them. So if you're deciding, I don't belong here, this is too high up for me that I'm not good enough, you can't accurately judge that. Nobody can accurately judge that. So you're basically robbing other people of the chance to make the decision for themselves.

Speaker 2 (50:23):

That's a good point. You can apply that to anything. We've all had the getting in our head when you're about to post something on social media and you're like, oh, what if this is dumb? What if the caption is dumb? What if no one likes this? But if you don't post it, you're like you said, you're robbing everyone else of making that decision and for all it could, dude, you never know what's going to hit and what's going to be a success or what's going to flop. I just had a random opportunity where I worked with a singer, Peyton Parish, and he did this cover of the song from Mulan. It's like, I'll make a man out of you, but did this sort of metal version of it, and initially I was thinking, okay, this is cheesy, but it's fun, cool, whatever. I'll work on this.

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It's awesome. And then I was having a studio session a couple months later and one of my clients shows me this random video, and I hear that in the background of this TikTok video, and I'm like, wait, I worked on that. What's going on? He's like, are you serious, dude, this is blowing up all over TikTok. I reached out to the producers I worked with, and they're like, it's got millions of views. It's blown up. We're releasing the single, it's on schedule to be hit number one on the rock charts. It ended up getting number one, so they're sending a billboard plaque for this random Mulan cover for this guy just because it went viral on TikTok. You never know. I definitely did a good job with that. Since then, I've sort of done the approach that you treat every project with the respect that a million people are going to hear it, even if it's for some smaller artist.

(51:56):

You never know who's going to blow up. You never know who's going to get some opportunity, especially nowadays with the, I think traditionally the music industry used to be more get signed to a label, get a record deal, get your songs on Octane radio, and it was kind of more of a predictable formula. Whereas now it's like, especially TikTok, it's kind of the wild west as far as business strategy. There's like whoever could have predicted some of the songs that are trending currently, which have affected the radio charts now. So I think it's just being open to opportunities and just respecting every opportunity that you give regardless of how big the client is currently or how prestigious this opportunity seems.

Speaker 1 (52:38):

I actually have known people who will treat different clients differently, and I don't mean that in understanding their client and having a different approach. I mean, this band is smaller, so fuck their deadline. I'm working on this other thing, which is really not cool. I really don't like that kind of behavior, but I've seen it many, many times. Then my thoughts are why would you commit to both of these at the same time if you're not going to be able to follow through on both of them at the same time? If you're going to commit to something, you have to give it a hundred percent regardless of the size of the project.

Speaker 2 (53:15):

Definitely makes sense.

Speaker 1 (53:18):

And if the project is something where you don't feel it's worth it, not big enough, then don't accept it.

Speaker 2 (53:24):

Totally. Yeah. If it's something where, again, those three values of will it pay the bills, and regardless of how big the client is, it's something that will look good on my portfolio as far as music that I am proud of, the finished result. And then also is it a client that's not a pain in the ass? Yeah, there's definitely been some gigs where I have turned down work recently or send them to a friend producer. There's no shortage of people who are looking for work, so if it's something that's not a good fit for you, there's always going to be someone you can send them to. And a lot of times that will drum up more business for you, start a good relationship with someone else, another fellow producer, they'll probably start sending you stuff. And not just in this industry, but I think as creatives or freelancers, we kind of get into this scarcity mentality of like, I got to take on everything that comes my way because it's a lot of feast and famine and what if next month dries up and who knows what, but I've got so many quotes that I am pulling out, but there's something I read that was essentially saying that you should only take on projects that you're going to kill it with or something like that.

(54:25):

But it was again, and that almost kind of contradicts the say yes and learn how to do it later. But again, back to only taking on things that will be within your skillset and within your capabilities, even if it's something that you haven't done, but something that you know would be able to do. I've got a buddy who recently, he's just completely specialized in mastering. He's a killer mixer producer, engineer, but he's only doing mastering nowadays and he's gotten a ton more work just being hyper specialized in that. And I think I've, I'll take on certain projects, whether it's engineering or scoring or stuff, but I've definitely built more of a name for myself in the metal scene, just specializing on programming, textural stuff, orchestration strings, that type of stuff. And just people know you as like, okay, that's the guy. This is what he's good at. And it's almost like if you want to go out and get a really good steak, are you going to go to a steakhouse or are you going to go to a buffet? And chances are the steakhouse is going to have killer quality. The buffet is probably going to have decent steak, but they're working on a million other things, so it's not going to be the same quality.

Speaker 1 (55:45):

Go to the specialist.

Speaker 2 (55:46):

Yeah, go to the specialist. And within reason, you don't want to limit options for yourself. It's a balance. I guess that's kind of where I'm going with this. You want to be specialized, but you also want to be capable with a few other things just to keep yourself afloat. That probably all sounds like it's contradicting itself.

Speaker 1 (56:03):

I don't think it is.

Speaker 2 (56:04):

Okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (56:05):

Yeah, I definitely don't think it is. I mean, you should have a specialty, but you should also have a broad skillset because reality is going to present you with things that don't just fit this one narrow focus. And if you're successful enough and fortunate enough to only work on things that fit your one preferred focus, cool life doesn't always work that way. And sometimes getting to the point where you can just focus on that main thing, you got to do a lot of other things to get there.

Speaker 2 (56:33):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (56:34):

Well, Randy, I think this is a good place to end the episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 2 (56:43):

Yeah, absolutely. Likewise. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (56:46):

Anytime. 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 ey at urm. Do AC ACA DEMY And use the subject line Answer me Eyal. 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.