Eyal Levi, Joey Sturgis & Joel Wanasek: Musical Translation, Producer vs Songwriter, Handling Difficult Clients

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing, and mastering. Go to creative live.com/audio to start learning now. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Proton Pedals, the secrets own weapon for guitar experts everywhere. Go to proton pedals.com to take your tone to the next level. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 3 (00:00:30):

Alright, what's up guys? Thanks for tuning into the show and thanks to everyone at the forum for all the support. If you have questions or an idea for a topic you'd like us to discuss, visit www.joeysturgis.com/podcast. You can also vote for the current questions and suggestions for next week's episode. I'm Joey Sturgis, and with me as always, is Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi. Hello?

(00:00:55):

Hello. Hey,

Speaker 2 (00:00:55):

What's up? Hello. If you haven't yet, check us out on Twitter and you can get the links on the website. You can also ask us questions there and we'll try to answer them on the show. I'm actually double fisting coffee right now because I'm a badass. I know you don't drink coffee jolt, but do you drink coffee aal?

Speaker 4 (00:01:13):

I love coffee, but I'm a caffeine aficionado I guess, and I like to cycle my caffeines because I feel I'm serious. I feel like I build up a tolerance to certain types of caffeine. Now, I'm sure that caffeine is just caffeine, but I don't know because I'll drink coffee for a while and then it stops working and I'll switch to Red Bull and then suddenly I've got wings, I'm zinging, and then suddenly this doesn't work for me anymore. So it's back to coffee, but yes, I love coffee. Long-winded answer. I should have just said yes.

Speaker 2 (00:01:54):

I'm glad you brought up Red Bull because apparently someone sued them recently about the Red Bull gives you wings marketing thing and

Speaker 4 (00:02:03):

It doesn't,

Speaker 2 (00:02:04):

Yeah, it doesn't give you wings, and they proved it in court and Red Bull lost the lawsuit, so now they have to pay back. Actually, there's a website you can go to, I forget what it is, but if you just go there and you just say, yes, I bought Red Bull, they have to send you $3 or something.

Speaker 4 (00:02:23):

So that's really what that, I saw something about that lawsuit, but that's really what it's about. Somebody sue them because you don't grow wings.

Speaker 2 (00:02:30):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:02:31):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:02:32):

I know. That's so awesome. How is that not like puffery or, you know what I mean? It just blows my mind how somebody could win that lawsuit. I mean, if I was the judge, I'd be like, just leave. Why are you even in my courtroom?

Speaker 2 (00:02:45):

It's like the hot coffee thing. Ever since that happened. People try to do that kind of shit all the time now, and that's why you see so many warning labels on everything.

Speaker 4 (00:02:55):

Okay. Now the hot coffee thing, it was really dumb to, but fair enough. In a way it was an old lady, right? And I do still think

Speaker 2 (00:03:05):

Physical harm, physical harm,

Speaker 4 (00:03:06):

There was physical harm. I mean, the old lady did get burned and again, it was an old person, so you could make the argument that yeah, while any reasonable person knows not to drive with coffee in their lap, old people kind of have their own little category of allowances for dumb behavior, but when it comes to Red Bull gives you wings like, wow, I cannot believe that somebody won that in court. America is so great. Only here. Could you do that? How fucked up is that?

Speaker 3 (00:03:44):

I think in Russia, if you tried that shit, you just disappear.

Speaker 4 (00:03:49):

Exactly. I mean, I am amazed that the Red Bull didn't have that person taken out. I

Speaker 2 (00:03:57):

I think they easily could have done it.

Speaker 4 (00:03:59):

I'm surprised he didn't get lamb bist.

Speaker 2 (00:04:03):

Oh my god. God damn.

Speaker 4 (00:04:06):

Sorry. Whoa. Shots fired.

Speaker 2 (00:04:09):

I don't think it's too soon, so that works. Okay. All right. Today we're going to be talking about some real life producer shit. This has always been an interesting topic to me. It's kind of something you learn along the way as you gain experience, but it seems to come natural the more you work with the different types of musical people and what we're calling it is the musical translator.

Speaker 4 (00:04:33):

Yeah. What's interesting to me about the whole professional musical translator idea, this is something where I feel like if producers and engineers just worked on their social skills a little bit and their life skills, we wouldn't have to be talking about this in quite so much detail. The fact that producers and engineers are just introverted, socially awkward weirdos who borderline Asperger's most of the time. This is the kind of people who make records, they're who else would be cool with sitting in a dark room listening to a sample in phase or out of phase for 12 hours straight? It takes a certain type. Definitely. Yeah, man, it's usually not the same type as someone who has great social skills and is if you're not naturally extroverted and you're not a people person, you have to adopt some people person skills. You have to actually make a point of doing this in order to be able to communicate with your clients more effectively and know what the fuck they're saying when they don't know what they're saying.

Speaker 3 (00:05:40):

Yeah. The funny irony of that is the producer is the guy who's supposed to be the people person because you're the one who gets a deal in the producer hat with all the egos, all the label bullshit, all the backstabbing, all the drama, all the guitar player sucks, can't play his part. So we got to find a way to get it on the record without making him feel too bad about himself. Fuck it, let's just humiliate him and make him get better. You're the guy that's got to do that and make the band and be the liaison between everybody and make sure that shit actually runs smoothly without any sort of problems, which is always fun.

Speaker 4 (00:06:12):

Absolutely. I think though everything you just said is the traditional definition of a producer and an engineer was traditionally something different. Producer and engineer were two different guys

Speaker 2 (00:06:24):

Today. The lines are very blurred now.

Speaker 4 (00:06:26):

Exactly. I know very few guys who can just be the old school producer without being an engineer. Now I know a lot of big time producers who delegate engineering tasks and do less of their own. That's normal, but still they came up through an engineering background always these days just big directors in Hollywood always come up through the editing room. Well,

Speaker 2 (00:06:50):

The interesting question is, what does a producer do? And it's funny because I think as time goes on, the answer to the question starts to get more complex or even maybe more mysterious. Basically what we're talking about here is you're a professional musical translator and what does that mean? Okay, so you're converting what people say into what they want. If you're working with a band and you're working on the mix or something, let's just say for the scenario, someone requests the bass to be turned up. That doesn't mean open the project and turn the bass up. Maybe you've got frequency problems, maybe you need to turn the guitars down, things like that. That's basically what we're trying to expand on, musical translation and how to get good at it and how to understand what you are actually trying to do without the artist really knowing what you're doing. Well,

Speaker 4 (00:07:43):

You have to be a detective almost like I relate it a lot to dating and not to sound like a male chauvinist, but I've always done best in dating scenarios and in relationships when I listen to what the girl does rather than what she says because the girl could say a million different things, but her actual behavior and body language is what will tell you.

Speaker 2 (00:08:08):

This is why people think women are crazy,

Speaker 4 (00:08:10):

But they're not crazy. You just don't know how to read 'em bullshit. If you think women are crazy, you need to work on your translation skills and you need to learn to read body language and it's very, very similar. You were telling me, Joey, that there's a guy you used to work with where you could make it sound like a dark red swamp and he would play that back. So it's the same thing if guitar player, if a band member says to you, I want it to sound like I'm in space,

Speaker 2 (00:08:42):

I want it to sound like monster truck metal.

Speaker 4 (00:08:45):

Yeah, tractor pull metal. I've been told that before. This is the tractor pull part

Speaker 2 (00:08:51):

And you got to know what that means. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:08:53):

It means a Chevy truck going through the mountains, Navy seals popping out of the ground or parachuting onto the Chevy truck and just shit exploding everywhere with Rob zombie songs playing and that's tractor pull metal. That's what I imagine. But you need to know what it is that they actually need. When they say they want something, they're communicating a need, but they're not the ones who are the expert here, they're the client. You're the expert. So they may not know how to say it in your terms, and this frustrates a lot of mixer producers at first. Why can't they just say, adjust the ratio four to one, take it to a four to one ratio?

Speaker 2 (00:09:39):

Yeah, they're never going to be able to be, if they were on that level, they wouldn't be hiring you. So basically your job is to convert those, convert their language into technical shit.

Speaker 4 (00:09:50):

I don't know about you, but I've definitely had some backseat producers where they are telling me what ratios to choose and some technical things that I may have already done or that I was planning to do 20 steps from now. And that actually is far more annoying in my experience than having to translate, make it sound like it's on a spaceship beamed up through Mars.

Speaker 2 (00:10:19):

Of course, actually, I think the process of translating what people are asking you to do into actual actions is the fun part of the job. It's actually like the artsy creative part. In a weird way they might say, oh, the vocals just aren't loud enough, but that doesn't mean turn up the vocals. Maybe that means play around with some side chains, do some automation, and to me that's more rewarding and more fun. And then the other hand, what you just mentioned where the backseat producer's trying to tell you like, oh man, you should be using a three to one ratio on that guitar compressor. Man, I know. I try it at home all the time and it sounds really good. And you don't want to be dealing with that in comparison to dealing with musicians who are just trying to voice their perspective.

Speaker 4 (00:11:05):

Exactly. And I also think, I think it's almost unavoidable in this day and age that you are going to get some backseat producers. However, if from the get go you've got good communication skills and you can establish trust with your client to where they know that you know what you're doing, that you will appease those backseat producers a lot more.

Speaker 3 (00:11:27):

Well, they should know that right off the get go though. I mean because technically they're hiring you and if they knew better than you, you'd be hiring them to do the record. And I mean to me that's always

Speaker 4 (00:11:37):

Gone

Speaker 3 (00:11:38):

Without saying, but it's unfortunately, some kids don't realize that they just have that little bit of control freak in them, and it can be frustrating to deal with because you don't want to be rude to them or whatever, but they don't understand that in your head. You have a vision usually, and I'll relate this to mixing, because mixing is the worst when you have people over your shoulder. I mean you need the band's opinion and feedback. It's very important when you're mixing. But a major problem is when you're like, dude, turn up the bass. The bass isn't loud enough. You're like, asshole, shut up. I'm working on the snare drum right now or the relationship of the two to 4K on guitars with vocals. I've got eight other steps I'm going to do. I can clearly hear the bass is too loud because I mix records for a living, believe it or not.

(00:12:20):

Geez, what a fucking concept, but I need my time to really just get in there and do my thing. And I hear that. Now if I miss that, please say something and speak up and we will get it. And you don't want the band to leave unhappy or whatever, but they have to communicate. So what I usually do is I just kick 'em out of the room and I say, listen, give me some time to do my thing. I have this vision. I need to unlock what I'm hearing and my take on this, which is what you guys hired from me. You have to trust me to do this and then please come in and absolutely beat the shit out of whatever I've done and have free rein on it, but I need my time to express my vision and what's going on that you're paying me for. And that really, I think at least to me, takes care of about 90% of the problems in my experience.

Speaker 2 (00:12:59):

There's an interesting behind the scenes studio thing, and I think it was for the used, they're working with John Feldman and they went to Chris Lord algae to mix, and it was interesting to me. It shows them going to the studio and Chris Lord algae kicks them out. He's like, yeah, we're just going to let Chris Lord algae do his thing and then when the song is done, we're going to come in there and listen to it. And that just goes to show you that this isn't just a bullshit thing that we're coming up with here. People even at the top do their best work alone,

Speaker 4 (00:13:32):

But I guarantee you that the trust between CLA and the used was already established to where when he said, or his assistance said, or whoever said, the man needs his time to do this on his own. That's how he works. And then you guys will get your revisions afterwards. I guarantee you. Everyone was like, okay, cool. Because they trust in what he's doing. And so how this relates to guys at lower levels, the trust thing isn't quite as established. It's not like they're going to you because you've mixed or produced 15 records that they grew up listening to. You might be the only guy in town who does some heavy stuff, so you got the gig, but that doesn't mean they entirely trust you. So part of your job as translator is to build trust. Joel, one thing I do need to say about what you said about how they hire you, you're the expert. They should let you do your job. I agree.

Speaker 3 (00:14:38):

Before you say that, don't think that saying that, Hey, we always know and we're always perfect.

Speaker 4 (00:14:42):

No, no, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:14:44):

Absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (00:14:44):

The thing is that that's a real intellectual viewpoint and I've got it too. Hey, they hired me. Why don't they just let me do my thing? We're talking about music and art and musicians and emotional stuff. So

Speaker 3 (00:14:57):

Yeah, that's a great point.

Speaker 4 (00:14:58):

And we're talking about their babies, so yeah, they may have hired you, but they're going to go based on how they're feeling. And so you have to not only have to appeal to the actual needs that they've got, but you also have to appeal to their feelings and they need to feel good about everything that's going on. They need to feel like you can take the reins and run with it and it won't be like the last time they're recorded with somebody locally and everything got fucked up.

Speaker 2 (00:15:26):

I like that you said their baby. That does kind of put it into perspective. That is how it feels to them, especially when they're trying to trust you with everything you're doing.

Speaker 4 (00:15:37):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:15:37):

It's like giving your baby to someone else like a stranger almost.

Speaker 4 (00:15:41):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:15:42):

I feel like the key to being successful at doing that, Al is understanding and learning how to read things like body language and a little bit of psychology. And when you can go in and really read the band, you learn to interpret who's in charge, what the power dynamic is, when the drummer's squawking, how much of a say does he really have in the band and how much consideration you have to put into it or who's the main songwriter? And you have to figure out the power dynamic of every band. And I feel like that's very important, especially when you're dealing with labels and things like that.

Speaker 2 (00:16:11):

It's a people thing. You got to get to know the people and you got to get to know what they're all about. This group dynamic, I mean that's what being a producer is. And it's funny because a lot of people think it's replacing drums, but it really is not anything

Speaker 4 (00:16:24):

Right beats. Yeah. You know what else though is that trust is super important because who knows what their prior experience was. So I've noticed that a lot of these neurotic behaviors are not a reflection on you. They're a reflection on what they dealt with before you.

Speaker 2 (00:16:46):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:16:47):

For instance, if you get a baby national band who have only recorded with local Yoel and they had a real horrible experience before you, they're going to go in thinking that it's going to be the same. And so a lot of their neuroses are going to be based on what they know. And I've made the mistake of being like, so did you by any chance get fucked over last time you went to the studio and kind of exposed the wound? And that doesn't go over well, but if you understand that that's what happened, rather than getting them to talk about it, if you just understand that that's what happened, then you have the ammunition to use and employ trust building measures, and there's nothing that builds trust more than showing people results.

Speaker 2 (00:17:39):

I'll always ask the people coming in, I'll say, who'd you work with last? I'll even go as far as trying to dig up how they felt about it and try to get some, I don't know, some history on what's going on because then I kind of know what to expect. They might say, oh, we worked with this guy and then I might know that guy's kind of weak on vocals. And then one of my goals will be to try to impress them with my take on vocals, you know what I mean? And just really get in there and build a relationship, a really positive relationship with the band.

Speaker 4 (00:18:18):

And it works the other way too. I had a band in here last year sometime who came in, they went to a producer that we all know and they were just talking mad shit about him and I know him and I'm friends with him and it didn't sound right, but they were talking mad shit and they were like, he yelled at us because we showed up with no pre-pro at all and he was going through

Speaker 2 (00:18:44):

It. You should have been yelled at for that.

Speaker 4 (00:18:46):

Yeah, exactly. So I was like, alright, these guys are babies. But then two days later they start talking about who they recorded with before that. And again, total shit fest like this was wrong, that was wrong, this was wrong, that was wrong. And then a few days after that, they're talking about who they went with before that and it's same thing. And so by hearing these stories, you get to learn about the band a little and realize they will never ever be happy. So you can learn also that you might be in just to save yourself the heartache. You might be in one of those scenarios where you are working with somebody that's never happy and that's good to know too. So it's not just that you build trust with a band and you make them happy, but sometimes for your own fucking sanity that you're working with one of those dudes who just has no limit and is just a bottomless pit.

Speaker 3 (00:19:44):

As a producer, it's really important to be careful with what projects you pick. Just mixing when you're not busy, you want to take as much as possible because you're like, yeah, I got to keep the lights on and put food on the table. And when you're too busy, you still usually take everything as much as possible. Crazy. And you can't say no to people. And Joey, I know you and I have that problem all the time,

Speaker 2 (00:20:05):

It is hard to say no, especially when there's a lot of shit flowing through,

Speaker 3 (00:20:08):

But you fucking need to learn to say no, because I know that I'm not the right fit for every band. I know Joey and Al, you guys aren't going to be the right fit for every single band. And there are some bands that I think each one of us would work brilliantly or any producer and some bands where we would be the worst possible person to hire. And unfortunately you and the band don't know that going into the situation. And that can make it fun, especially if you're, I'll give you an example in mixing you, you've already mixed a song, you send 'em the mix and they're like, dude, fuck this. And you're like, okay, what does that mean? And you got to dig and you find out that they're just completely on a different page and how they want to hear it and for whatever reason, don't know what they want or just weren't able to communicate it to you.

(00:20:49):

And it's frustrating because you have to figure out the dynamic. For example, something I really try to push for is some bands will come in and I'll pretty much sit down and take over the band and write most of the stuff for 'em. It just depends on what level of comfort. And some bands will come in and they're just such like, dude, it's done. Don't fuck with it. And I mean if it's that good, and sometimes it is, you just sit back and hit the button really and try to make a little couple of suggestions here or there, but fueling the need to, I would say overproduce or making sure you don't under produce. It's a fine line to learn and it takes a lot of records on a lot of experience to really get that down and master that. But you need to learn to say no sometimes and it helps to kind of pre-screen bands and at least know where they're coming from and what you're getting into before you take the project. That can save a lot of headache and heartache because for example, if a country band hits me up, there's no fricking way I'm going to produce it or like a Death Corps band. That's just not what I do. But if it's a radio rock band and they're trying to write some radio rock songs, well, I'll probably be a decent guy to hire to do that.

Speaker 2 (00:21:50):

I want to say something about a little thing you mentioned in there, which was I want to say something about producers that write, I personally take kind of offense to that. I know that it all depends on a lot of different things. If you're working with John Feldman, of course he's going to come in and he's going to try to write some songs. That's what he does.

Speaker 3 (00:22:09):

I'm in the radio world, honey. That's how it works.

Speaker 2 (00:22:11):

Exactly. And it's not the same in every genre and especially in the pop industry or even in the hip hop, I think producers are mainly songwriters and not really session controllers or whatever you want to call it, translators. But I do have a problem with producers that write music and I think that it should be a little bit more black and white, and it kind of annoys me that it's really blurry right now. What do you guys think about that?

Speaker 4 (00:22:38):

Agreed. And I can say that being a composer first, I think I'm more of a music writer. I'm better at that than I am at production. Music writing is probably what I'm best at and enjoy the most. And so you would think that when a band comes in unprepared, I'm stoked, I get to write some songs, but that's not the case at all. It annoys me to no end man. I feel like bands should write their music and be ready to record it when we get together. And sure, we might change a few things. Maybe their chorus sucks, so I'll give 'em a new chorus or whatever the solo is garbage.

Speaker 2 (00:23:17):

There's also the argument that the band comes in unprepared on purpose because they want to see what will happen if they write with the producer. But I think that's only okay if it's been set up ahead of time. And I'll tell you that

Speaker 4 (00:23:31):

More

Speaker 2 (00:23:31):

Often than not, it's not set up like that. They just try to pull a fast one on you.

Speaker 3 (00:23:36):

You guys got to come hang out with me sometime.

Speaker 4 (00:23:39):

Well, look, that's one thing is if it's old school, we're going to write this in the studio. The producer is the extra band member. We're going to do it like that. We've got the budget and the time. Let's make the black album. That's one thing. But I agree. I feel like most bands are trying to pull a fast one. It's like, yeah, we've practiced. Yeah, we've got songs show up and they've got two guitar pro tracks and that's it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:07):

And they never played the riff before

Speaker 4 (00:24:08):

Ever. And I've produced albums that have been released that are like that, and I do feel like either the band is trying to pull a fast one on you or the management just does not give a fuck about the band as people and they schedule too many things back to back to back, and they don't have time to write a record. And so before they know it, they're back in the studio and somehow some manager thought two months would be enough time to write the album of their careers after being on tour for 10 months.

Speaker 2 (00:24:44):

Someone that got two months to do that.

Speaker 4 (00:24:47):

I got a Prague band that's actually doing pretty well right now who came to me like that and they ended up, they had four songs. The record did pretty well, man, they're doing all right, but wow, the stress, they came in, they had four songs in Guitar Pro. They had only played through one of 'em as a band, and they had to come up with the rest. And man, what a situation.

Speaker 2 (00:25:16):

I just can't believe You think that two months isn't enough time. I get people all the time with a week or two weeks of writing,

Speaker 4 (00:25:24):

No, two months. Well, dude, look at the genre. If you're talking about Prague,

Speaker 2 (00:25:29):

I guess, yeah, it takes a lot longer to write that

Speaker 4 (00:25:32):

Technical Prague with eight minute long songs and stuff like that. That two months is not enough time. You can write a pop punk EP in a weekend, but

Speaker 3 (00:25:46):

I disagree. Not a good one.

Speaker 4 (00:25:49):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (00:25:49):

Well listen guys, I sit on the complete opposite side of the fence at you guys in this, because I work in really a different genre and a different market than you guys do, and I totally understand and completely agree with everything you guys are saying. And I think all of that is great advice. I work in the radio world with a lot of rock bands, and the problem is most people can't write fricking hits. So what they do is they find a producer who can write the top lines and understand the chords and the melodies and for example, and that can deliver songs that are going to be big. Now in the pop world, it's all co-writers and all, it's no secret Britney Spears or Ka Perry don't write their own music. They have teams of writers that sit down and the best of the best in the world, and they submit 200 songs.

Speaker 2 (00:26:31):

People should know that there's camps for that.

Speaker 3 (00:26:33):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:26:34):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:26:35):

Huge camps. I mean, I know some guys in Dr. Luke's camp for example, if you guys could see what goes on behind the scenes, I mean, just from what I've heard from them, it's just like, holy shit. I mean, it's really serious. And again, you can have 20 guys writing songs and maybe none of those songs even get cut on an album. Now in the rock world, a lot of times my bands come to me and they're just like, alright, well let's write together. We've got some ideas, but we're going to bring in 20 ideas and we're going to sit down and we're going to write, because again, we're trying to write radio songs that are going to break top 10, top 20 on a billboard chart and that are going to have a couple hundred thousand dollars of radio because I mean, it legitimately costs like 80 grand.

(00:27:08):

Just for example, in Active Rock, if you want to break top 40. So there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in that market invested on the ability of the right songs. And unfortunately most of the time the bands just can't write and deliver that sort of level of material. So that's where the guys like Howard Benson and a lot of the big rock producers have made a killing because they know how to write songs like that. For example, when I listen to Hailstorm, I kind of feel like Howard Benson wrote the whole record in his team. I can just tell the chords and I mean, I know there again, there's songwriters and things like that. So I think in different markets the rules change. And if a Death Corps band came to me or even a hardcore band, they're like, dude, let's write together. I'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with you guys can't write your own music. But

Speaker 2 (00:27:49):

When

Speaker 3 (00:27:49):

We're trying to write radio hits, I feel like that is an art that has crafted over many, many, many long years. And the guys who can really do it, that's why you get a hundred grand for three songs.

Speaker 4 (00:28:01):

But look at what the target market is though for that. That's like going to the mainstream. So while some musicians may appreciate this, that's music that goes to non-musicians and it's not marketed to musicians. It's like if it's a song about partying, it's like a song that'll be marketed to the TGIF crowd. And it doesn't matter how it came about, that's not integral to whether or not the song is good. But if you take a look at some of the genres that I deal in, the way that this shit is marketed is by musicians. For musicians,

Speaker 2 (00:28:42):

It's got to

Speaker 4 (00:28:43):

Be authentic. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:28:44):

Absolutely. I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept of a producer writer. Me neither a producer slash writer, but where I get pissed is when it's not

Speaker 4 (00:28:53):

Specified

Speaker 2 (00:28:55):

Or it's not set up properly, the band just shows up and they expect you to do it, but they're not ready to sign a contract to share musical.

Speaker 3 (00:29:04):

They're trying to fuck you. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:29:06):

Compensation and stuff like that. Yeah. Well,

Speaker 4 (00:29:09):

That's where communication, back to the beginning of this whole podcast when we were talking about communication is key, communication is king. These types of things for your own, not just for being a good producer and giving a band a good experience, but for your own sake and not letting yourself walk out, having had a bad experience or pissed off or fucked over. All this type of stuff needs to be communicated well in advance. It can't be an accidental thing. Wow. Now I'm writing, wow, this band's not ready. I only booked X amount of time. I thought they were going to be ready. Now I have to write this with them. I'm not getting any publishing and what the fuck is going on? That's not cool.

Speaker 2 (00:29:59):

Yeah. There was something that we kind of skipped over too, and I wanted to backtrack to it a little bit. We were talking about how it was important for some producers to be a little bit picky in the situation where make sure that you're going to work with like-minded people or people that you can earn their trust. But what about the situation where producers are having trouble getting business and they can't really be super picky and they always end up with the worst situations? I mean, what was that? You showed me something, a screenshot the other day, Al, where the band, do you remember that?

Speaker 4 (00:30:36):

Oh yeah. I mean that was just one of quite a few. And look, this goes, at the end of the day, I claim responsibility for having said yes to this. Joel, you said earlier, learn to say no, I need to take your advice and my own advice.

Speaker 3 (00:30:55):

We all suck at it.

Speaker 4 (00:30:56):

Yeah, I have fallen prey to my own eagerness to please and my own eagerness to just have work coming through. And I've said yes to projects that were not ready to be recorded or that were not a good fit, but so for instance, I had a project earlier this year, I'm not going to name names. They were going to record it themselves and they just wanted a mix. And I listened to their pre-pro. I was like, they're okay. Big deal. A week out of my life, I can handle this. So they're recording themselves and well first of all, lemme just say they give me the down payment. We're set, we're locked in. I charge a good down payment to where someone got to lose an arm to reschedule. So we're locked in for the last week of a certain month and they're recording themselves and they're kind of not so sure about the vocals, it's just not going. So they're like, can we have you produce the vocals? This is really important to us. We want to get signed from this. I'm like, yeah, that's probably a good idea. I agreed to produce the vocals because what difference does it make if the vocals suck? They're not going to get signed with bad vocals. So I have them bring the vocalist to me, and it turns out to be the worst vocalist I've had in 10 years.

Speaker 2 (00:32:20):

Oh my gosh,

Speaker 4 (00:32:21):

Literally. And mind you, I had just come off of recording the monuments vocals, which are some of the best vocals I've ever recorded. And before that, I had another vocalist that was just a genius. So then I get this guy and he is fucking horrible. He's trying to sound like Chris Cornell meets somebody else that's fucking awesome and doesn't know the first thing about holding a pitch or hitting a pitch. I mean, it was like a total situation of trying to pull an Iron man, a competition when you can't run a 5K. So it was fucking horrible. I convinced them to maybe do five songs instead of a full album, no way we could get it done. And then I had to let them know that, well, we're not going to be able to get the mix done in that amount of time because now we had to edit these vocals.

(00:33:16):

It's going to take forever to tune these. There's absolutely no way. So we're going to have to push back and pushing back doesn't mean just pushing back to some arbitrary date. It's got to be scheduled. So alright, so we're editing these vocals, cleaning them up, tuning like crazy, and I do a creative live on songwriting and the guitar player decides that the songs are fucked up and improperly recorded. I guess he watched Andrew Wade's creative live on songwriting and he's got to rerecord everything. So alright, so yeah, so I've got some vocals now, but then that's all I've got. This dude is starting from scratch, so that takes about a month. And I told them, I can't just start mixing this until you're done. We can't do this thing where I get a song and then I wait for a week and get another. And

Speaker 2 (00:34:07):

It's funny when people think they're the only client that you have,

Speaker 4 (00:34:12):

Well, here's the thing, you got to make them feel like it's you and them

Speaker 2 (00:34:15):

And there's no one else

Speaker 4 (00:34:16):

And there's no one else, and they're the most important person in the world, but at the same time, you're not at their beck and call unless you're paid to be. I was not being paid to be at their beck and call. So shit needed to be rescheduled. So a month goes by, dude, re-record everything. And so then I get the files and it's like, okay, now we can schedule this mix. So sorry, but it's going to be about five weeks before we can even get to it. So five weeks go by and my engineer and myself figure out some cool stuff to do with drum programming and real symbols set. And we do up a demo for them because we're doing this for all our clients that have programmed drums. And we're like, would you like it like this? Or would you like it like this? If you choose number A, which is just the midi and I run it through whatever and mix it, it'll take X amount of time. If you choose door number two, it's going to take longer. We're going to have to schedule the drum session and only then will we be able to start mixing. So they choose door number two. So mind you, through all these little decisions, they have added five or six months to their time and it's a horrible thing. And it all started because their vocalists sucked.

(00:35:35):

But I should have, if I had known better, I could have seen all of this coming and I would've just said no to the project to begin with or whatever. But I feel like somewhere there was a communication lapse. And so you have one guy in the band who understands one guy in the band who thinks I am the worst person on earth, and it's the real life situation that just got out of control. And I wish I hadn't ever agreed to do it, but I feel like the way that I would've fixed it going forward was as soon as I got the vocalist in and he was the worst vocalist ever to just back out of the project,

Speaker 3 (00:36:14):

Send 'em home and say, Melissa Cross and come back when you're ready. Yeah, exactly. I've done that before and it works.

Speaker 2 (00:36:22):

My gosh, she is a genius.

Speaker 4 (00:36:24):

She is a total genius. But that's the beauty of being able to say no and making the tough choices. If I had weakness in that moment and I tried to fix what was unfixable, and then I ended up extending this project months beyond what it should have been pissing people off, and I had the best of intent and I let it get away from me.

Speaker 2 (00:36:49):

It's a really cool picture by Banksy and it's, I don't know what it's called, but it portrays a boss and a leader and the difference between that, and it shows the boss sitting on a throne looking at all the slaves and pointing forward and they're pulling the boss. And then the other one is a leader where the throne is empty and it's behind all of the slaves and the leader's in the front of the slaves and he's helping them pull and he's pushing forward. And I think that's a very important concept to understand when you're in the role of the producer is you're not trying to be the boss, you're trying to be the leader.

Speaker 4 (00:37:26):

Well, I was trying to be the leader by encourage him to be better. It gives me something better, to mix better yourself, but I should have been the leader by saying, this is not ready. Here's your money back. I'll talk to you guys in six months.

Speaker 2 (00:37:40):

The tough choice. Make the tough choice. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:37:42):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:37:44):

You kind of each shit either way.

Speaker 4 (00:37:46):

Look, yes, you eat shit either way. But I just wanted to give you guys an example of one time where I made the wrong choice. Currently, this is stuff that no matter what level you're at, this is going to come up, whether you're first starting out or you're 15 years in, or you've worked with some sign bands or you've sold gold records, like this kind of shit happens and making the tough choice doesn't get any easier. And I still have moments of weakness. And in my moment of weakness earlier this year, I fucked myself over with this project when I could have just lost a few grand, which would've been fine. It's not a big deal and not have any ill will or anything like that. Now the project is going to get done, it's going to sound great, blah, blah, blah. But that's not the point. That's after all this heartache, which could have been avoided if I had just said, sorry guys, this isn't right.

Speaker 3 (00:38:41):

Well, there is one golden egg, and I guess this goes back to our last podcast is remember I was talking a little about stoicism and look for the opportunity, think about what you've learned out of it. And I guess it's the same for relating this back to what we were talking about and where this tangent has kind of all taken us. Is the guy starting out or the more lower level record us? He's got to kind of take everything. This is where you learn to really cut your chops. And I mean, again, it's inevitable, but this is where you learn the hard lessons like, hey, this happened. Here's the result. I approach this situation like this. And after you get a bunch of bands that you've had issues like this over the years, you learn how to minimize that sort of thing. And so there is an opportunity there. And what I'm saying is that there is ultimately a positive side to what seems like a pile of crap that is sometimes unavoidable. So you do get to learn how to see those things, predict them, and hopefully minimize the damage or avoid them

Speaker 4 (00:39:36):

Well, and look, as much as people say, learn to make tough choices, you can only really develop the balls to make the tough choices by fucking yourself over a few times. You got to fall flat on your face a few times and know what it feels like. You got to be in a situation where you were overconfident and bit off more than you can chew. You have to do that a few times in order to be able to understand why saying no and politely backing out is the right thing to do. And that makes me think of a book that we were talking about that I recommend for everybody, and Joel, I believe you've read it, but the reason I'm recommending this book to an audience of producers and musicians is because this book is good for non-readers. It's only 76 pages long and the fonts are huge. Oh yeah. And there's pictures in it too.

Speaker 3 (00:40:30):

Oh, the suspense are killing me.

Speaker 4 (00:40:33):

It's a book called The Dip by Seth Godin, S-E-T-H-G-O-D-I-N. And the book is exactly about that, about how to know when it's time to back out of a bad situation or to not even get into one in the first place. And it basically takes you through a few phases of a project. And this is true of relationships, this is just true of life. First you've got the honeymoon period, which is, it could be once you're already in the project before things have gotten tough and you're all stoked to be there and working together. Or it could be early on when you first get the email, the honeymoon period. Yeah, I've got a project, I got a booking. If you're in a tiny studio and just getting a booking is a big deal, or you're dating somebody and it's been the first nine months and it is great, the person could poop on your head and it would be like vanilla ice cream.

Speaker 2 (00:41:40):

It would be cute.

Speaker 4 (00:41:41):

It would be cute. Yeah, it would be like vanilla ice cream and strawberries raining from the heavens. That's the honeymoon period. But anything in life that you go through, the honeymoon period ends, or if you're in a band, for instance, it's the first year of touring where you are happy to eat shit. You're happy to be in the van. That a hundred dollars guarantee is a hundred dollars more than you were making before. This is fucking cool. Sleeping on people's floors, and

Speaker 2 (00:42:13):

That doesn't last forever.

Speaker 4 (00:42:15):

Nope, it doesn't. You hit the dip. And basically the dip is when that goes away and things become tough and you actually have to start motivating yourself to get through to the other side. Now you have two choices at that point, which are throw in the towel or fight it out. And this book helps you figure out when it's smarter to just throw in the towel. So when I got that vocalist, that would've been the dip and it would've been smarter for me to just bow out of the situation. But instead I tried to fight through to the other side and I'm still dealing with that mistake.

Speaker 2 (00:42:56):

He was a non unicorn, right?

Speaker 4 (00:42:58):

Non unicorn. Well, maybe he was like a black unicorn. Well, just the other side of the bell curve, just like a mangled unicorn.

Speaker 3 (00:43:10):

Let's explain. Did you just really pull out the bell curve Chevy chef?

Speaker 4 (00:43:14):

Yeah. Yeah, that could be red, that could be misinterpreted.

Speaker 2 (00:43:18):

Let's tell people what unicorns are. What do we mean by that?

Speaker 4 (00:43:22):

It's like a four leaf clover. It's something that, well, obviously unicorns don't exist, so that could be the joke too. Like

Speaker 3 (00:43:32):

Wait, they don't,

Speaker 4 (00:43:34):

Yeah, I thought I saw one. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:43:36):

You can get unicorn meat on the internet.

Speaker 4 (00:43:39):

That's awesome. I guess there's two ways of looking at it. Like you call somebody a unicorn, it basically means that they're so rare, it almost is impossible. Like the singer from monuments, he's so fucking awesome. It is a unicorn.

Speaker 2 (00:43:56):

I wanted to talk a little bit about how to deal with actual unicorns, and I don't mean the horse, but yeah, sometimes you get into a situation where the artist is just in the zone and they've got their own agenda and they don't really need your, well, they need your help, but in a different way. I'll give you a story. I was working with somebody and we were recording vocals, and one thing that you want to do when you're a producer is if somebody fucks up, you kind of hit stop and say, this is what you could have done better, or maybe try doing this so that the next time we do this take you'll get it right. Sometimes that can be the problem. I was working with someone where they said, Hey, I don't want to sound like a dickhead or anything, but if you could just not say anything, every time I mess up, just hit stop, rewind and record again. Because every time that you try to tell me something, I start to lose my mojo, whatever it is. So I was like, alright, swallow my tongue, get the job done. And as soon as I started to do what he asked me to do, his takes got better and we finished the song and nailed everything. So sometimes you get into situations where you got to know when to get the fuck out of the artist's way.

Speaker 4 (00:45:21):

Yeah, that is one of the toughest things to do because I think in American culture especially, and I realize not everybody listening to this is American, but a lot of you are. And in America we're taught that you got to work harder and keep grinding, and that is the best thing to do. So as an American producer or whatever, you have this urge, this weird instinct to get it to meddle with everything. You kind got to get involved or you're not doing your job and in reality, and you got to spot situations where you're doing your job by staying out of the way, that's the best thing you could possibly do. The artist is so fucking awesome that you just need to make sure that the signal that you're capturing sounds great. It's not clipping, it's not too quiet, it's going through the right pre right mic selection, whatever, and that's it. Fucking stay out of the way. And that's I think just to tie this all together, that's another one of those tough decisions you got to make.

Speaker 3 (00:46:27):

You can always ask too. I mean that's something that I find at least works for me is I'll sit down with the band and be like, guys, how involved is your expectation? And the keyword is expectation there. Do you expect me to be in your process? Do you want me to be really hands-on? Or how do you work? What works for you guys? In your experience, tell me, like Joey, you were saying earlier about interrogating a little bit, who have you worked with? How is their style, how is their flow? And you can walk 'em through yours, for example, like a pre-production meeting or just the meeting to see if you're the right fit for the band. You're going to get the gig, sit down and just talk to 'em. And again, it comes to good communication. Just ask questions, find out what makes these guys tick and they'll be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (00:47:08):

I'm even willing to ask them. I'll tell them how I want to do something and I'll say, do you guys like that? Are you down with it?

Speaker 4 (00:47:15):

Absolutely. Let me ask you something, Joel. I agree. It's important to do exactly what you said, but do you ever encounter bands who just say yes because they're being polite or will tell you that they're cool with stuff just because they're nice guys or they don't have the communication skills? Have you ever run into a situation where just asking them the questions isn't enough?

Speaker 3 (00:47:43):

That's a difficult one to answer because I can't pull a specific example out of my head. I'd have to really think about it, but I've definitely encountered that

Speaker 4 (00:47:52):

That means you're a good communicator.

Speaker 3 (00:47:54):

Sometimes, again, body language to me is I would say one of the most important things because example, if I pitch an idea like, guys, I think this hook sucks. And I watch everybody in the band sit back, cross their arms, cross their legs in the chair and look down. I know I just pissed them off and I've just lost the room. They'd be like, yeah, dude. Yeah, yeah. And no matter what comes out of their mouth, you can really read what they're saying and you got to identify the patterns. And again, also what the key people in the band who are the decision makers. So it's really hard. I mean, it's one of the hardest, most challenging things. You have to go in and just figure out what these guys are telling you and if it's actually legitimate or if they're just bullshitting you because they're for whatever reason, pissed or they're not feeling it and they're just going to get the product and then go bitch about it after they leave. I mean, you got to get inside their head one way or another. And again, body language for me is my second line of defense for dealing with what you just said because you can see what comes out of their mouth. But when you can actually look into their eyes and you can see how they're gesticulating and responding to what you're saying, that's a much better indicator. Now, obviously you can't do that on the phone or the internet over email or Facebook or whatever, which

Speaker 2 (00:49:00):

Is where a lot of businesses happening these days. And that's why a lot of stuff is starting to get weird. And that's why this fucking podcast exists.

Speaker 4 (00:49:09):

I think that Skype is a beautiful, beautiful invention. Video chat is great, and not everyone's into it, but the way I see it is that's the next best thing to being in the room with somebody. You can at least see their expressions. You can understand if there's sarcasm, you can begin to realize when they talk about a certain story, they look down into the right or something like that. You can start to read their body language via Skype and start to get a feel for what kind of person it is. And that definitely is as close as it's going to get to flying out. But there's a reason for why in business, in real business, in the corporate world, people fly out for meetings.

Speaker 2 (00:49:58):

Yeah. It's not just because it's cool, it's because they want to experience the vibe of the room and how people are. They want to read the full body language.

Speaker 3 (00:50:07):

And everyone has a rhythm too. A group of people has a rhythm, a room, a city, if you've ever traveled somewhere. And you have to be able to read the rhythm of where you are, your surroundings, your situation. So I mean, I feel like that's a great point because you really should, as a producer, when you're courting a band or they're courting, you should really make an attempt to get in front of them face to face or over the internet, face to face on Skype, or find a way to get and physically sit down with them the best you can despite distance and really get to just look them in the eye and say, Hey guys, let's just talk about who we are and what we want to accomplish together. And it really helps in the beginning because again, little problems or your big problems can start as little tiny seeds and a little misunderstanding can become a huge one three months into the record that no one would've foreseen that could have been prevented, had proper cording been done.

Speaker 2 (00:50:56):

Yeah, that's huge. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:50:56):

Totally. Absolutely. And just to drive the Skype point just a little bit further, a lot of Hollywood auditions are done via Skype.

Speaker 2 (00:51:11):

That's right.

Speaker 4 (00:51:12):

Not when you have 5,000 people all applying for the same job, but when there's situations where you have five stars all going for the same role and they're all on different locations around the world and it just doesn't work. I've read recently that a lot of roles have been cast with a person doing a Skype audition. And so if in Hollywood that's enough, if you can read, if that's enough for a director to get the body language and everything from an actor, then it should be enough for a producer reading a band.

Speaker 2 (00:51:50):

Jennifer Lawrence auditioned on Skype for Silver Linings. Did you know that?

Speaker 4 (00:51:53):

There you go. No, I didn't know that. But there you go. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:51:56):

Perfect

Speaker 4 (00:51:56):

Example.

Speaker 2 (00:51:57):

So let's talk about there. This is an interesting concept. What happens when you are working with a unicorn again and they're really amazing and they're just smashing shit, one take, one or two takes, and they're starting to get mad at you because you're not pushing them farther.

Speaker 4 (00:52:16):

I had that happen to me. Oh

Speaker 2 (00:52:17):

Man,

Speaker 4 (00:52:18):

I had that happen to me. You had that happen to you, Joel.

Speaker 3 (00:52:22):

Not really. I mean, usually you just get the fuck out of the way and let them be them. And it's not something that's occurred to me. It happened to me a lot,

Speaker 4 (00:52:29):

Man. I had that happen to me with this drummer who's a machine. He is legendary. And I had heard all about him from other producers. His name is Shannon Lucas, and he used to be in the Black Dahlia murder. Then he was in Battle Cross for a bit.

Speaker 2 (00:52:47):

Fuck yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:52:48):

Yeah, dude, fuck yeah is right. He's like a human machine with feel basically the perfect metal drummer in so many ways. Just so consistent and just so badass. And I remember hearing about him from the Audio Hammer guys before I even got here. And then I worked on some Black Dahlia stuff where I got to replace the drums on the record and do some mixed engineering. Those were his drums. So I knew that this guy was phenomenal. And they were telling me that a lot of that Black Dahlia stuff was single take or two takes, no edits, like real deal. And I didn't believe it until I recorded him on Battle Cross. And there it was, single takes. Or we would get halfway through a song punch in at the break or at the tempo change, go all the way to the end and no need to edit it.

(00:53:41):

It's fucking perfect. And maybe it's not a hundred percent on the grid, but it's got that stank. It's got that little bit of a swing that makes it feel like the real thing, authentic. And so there was no need to really mess with it. Maybe slide a couple things here and there. I'm talking like 15 minutes of drum edits per song. And I guess at one point, Shannon, who's a good friend of mine, I must say Shannon voiced a little bit of a problem with my methods because he said I wasn't pushing him hard enough, and that kind of blew my mind because it was like, well, it's perfect. What else do you need?

Speaker 2 (00:54:24):

Yeah, where am I supposed to push? You're already nailing it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:54:27):

Here's

Speaker 3 (00:54:27):

What you do. Stop him. Tell him it screwed up and it's absolute shit. Even though he's nailed it. I've done that before. It works. I'm like, dude, I can't believe you just busted out that take. That was absolute fucking garbage. Now in reality, it's perfect, but then they get all pissed and then they do it even better. Well

Speaker 2 (00:54:42):

See. That's cool.

Speaker 3 (00:54:42):

Most of the time,

Speaker 2 (00:54:43):

That's cool.

Speaker 4 (00:54:44):

I feel like there's some merit to what you just said, but I'm telling you, this shit was perfect and the thing is it wasn't like you could piss him off and then suddenly he would play harder or with more balls. I mean, this shit was great. This wasn't just competent. This was fucking great. There was no need to, and we tweaked parts and stuff and we did what we had to do. It wasn't just like Shannon shows up and hit record and don't say anything and we're done. There was maybe one or two songs like that, obviously when you're doing a whole album. We did get involved. We did change parts. We did consult with the band. It took a minute to get through the drums, but it was so good that I didn't feel the need to push where it wasn't warranted and he felt like he needed to be pushed a little bit harder. That kind of blew my mind and it made me think that some people feel like if they're not, I guess getting sweaty, if they're not getting the mud up to their knees, if the elbow grease isn't there, if

Speaker 2 (00:55:51):

You're not recording it a hundred times, not good.

Speaker 3 (00:55:53):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:55:54):

Yeah, exactly. For 16 hours straight, you're not really doing the work, and I just don't think that's true. You have to learn to work smarter, not harder when it comes to this. You're going to burn yourself out, so if something is great, then you need to learn to just to go with it and realize that some people might not agree, but you got to do what's best for the record. Again, that goes with making the tough choices, but just because you do a hundred takes that doesn't mean that take number a hundred is going to be better than take number two.

Speaker 2 (00:56:26):

If anything, it's probably worse.

Speaker 4 (00:56:27):

Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:56:28):

They're tired

Speaker 4 (00:56:29):

And the drum heads are gone and your ears are shot and whatever. You got to take a shit who knows.

Speaker 3 (00:56:37):

Concentration too. You lose your concentration and your attention span.

Speaker 4 (00:56:40):

Exactly. You

Speaker 3 (00:56:41):

Got to be able to recognize great things, I guess.

Speaker 4 (00:56:43):

You

Speaker 3 (00:56:44):

Know what I mean? As a producer, that's really the goal. If something's great, there it is, don't fuck with it. Those moments sometimes can never be repeated.

Speaker 4 (00:56:50):

I mean, have you guys ever had a similar thing where something is great and you're like, okay, cool, I'm going to go with this, and then the artist disagrees. Not that they think they could have done better, because that at least in my situation, it wasn't disappointed with my own performance, I could have done better. It wasn't a mismatch of expectation. I'm just saying. Has there ever been a time where you are cool with something and the artist is cool with something, but the artist doesn't feel right about it because you guys didn't work for 16 hours or something?

Speaker 2 (00:57:27):

Yeah. That's a weird psychological thing too. You can get in a cycle. I know a couple vocalists who they feel like the first thing that comes out of their mouth is never going to be the one, and so they on purpose ask to do it over and over and over again, and sometimes you have to come in and say, are you sure that you want to do that again? Because that was actually really good, and I promise I'm not lying to you.

Speaker 3 (00:57:52):

You have to convince them. You have to just be like, dude, you'd be fucking stupid to do it again. It was perfect. It was amazing. Get your ass in here. Listen to the fucking magic of this take, and then you got to use a little psychology. Just get 'em in there, drag him in, play it for him and be like, tell me that you can play that better. I've been watching you drum however long you can use that as ammunition and you're not going to do a better job. That was incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:58:15):

Sometimes they want to know that you care and it's all about figuring out how to show it.

Speaker 3 (00:58:20):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:58:20):

Dude, Jason Soff used to do that to me when doth, my band recorded with Jason Soff as our producer. There are times when I would nail something that he was producing. I would nail it on guitar and he'd be like, that's great. I'd be like, what do you mean? That's great. This is the second take. He's like, it's great. Cool. Next or double that. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? We just started this riff.

Speaker 2 (00:58:52):

It's great. It's great,

Speaker 4 (00:58:53):

Man. Yeah, he'd be like, listen to it. It's great. Just listen to it. Trust me, listen to it. And then I listened to it and be like, you're right. Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:59:02):

It's an important part of producing. You really need to be able to carry the session on and be decisive and make decisions, and a lot of people like to save decisions for later and post edit, and at least I can only speak for me. I'm not like that. I edit as I go. I cut as I go and I like to make decisions and I said, okay, this is it. Any objections? Making decision, moving on. And I feel like at least in my experience, it seems to be the records turn out better, they're more authentic and everybody's happier with them when we are really decisive about it and we make decisions, and the times I have artists in where we sit down and we defer again, like I said, I can only speak from my experience, but it seems that it just turns out to be a cluster fuck. So I really try to push to be decisive, and I feel like that's something that's important for a producer is you have to be able to carry the session, progress it know when it's time to move forward instead of sitting around and cutting fucking another 20 takes of the chorus vocal when it's unnecessary. Lemme

Speaker 4 (00:59:53):

Ask you guys both just because you brought up something and I realize it's probably situational, but Joel, so you edit while tracking, right?

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):

What about you, Joey? What's your preference?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):

Yes, edit while tracking.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):

Okay, and I agree most of the time. Are there any,

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):

Oh, yeah, there's a good point to make there actually that is actually situational because sometimes you'll work with someone where they just did a vocal take. You're sitting there editing it, and they're losing the mojo. They're losing that, and sometimes you have to know, okay, if I sit here and do what's best for me, it's not going to be what's best for them. And sometimes you got to get the fuck out of the way. You

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):

Got to learn how to pace him. I mean, you can ask him too, like, Hey, do you like to sing for an hour or two hours? When do you start burning out? Or Then we'll sit down and we'll cop the stuff and we'll do all that, but let's roll while you're in the zone. We've

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):

Got a question that goes with this, and it's Walker Philip Tompkins. He asks, have you ever had trouble with vocalists not being able to reproduce their stage performance in a studio? Not because they're a bad vocalist, but because the environment throws 'em off?

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):

Yes. But I got to say that most of the time when an artist wants what they have live, you got to wonder what the fuck do they even mean? Because what are they even hearing live? What's their frame of reference to live?

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):

There's a lot of shit that goes into that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):

Exactly. It's not a simple yes or no. I know obviously it can be like vocalist is used to holding the mic and it's better to use a stand sometimes in the studio, but it's actually a lot deeper than that. What is it about the live experience that the vocalist is craving? Is it the volume? Is it the feeling of being on stage in front of a lot of people? What is it? Is it screaming his ass off like a fucking crazy person and being able to run around? What is it? Because once you figure out what that is, then you can reconcile the two. Hopefully as

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):

A producer, you really need to get inside the artist's head when they're delivering and performing. And I mean, every vocalist is different. I mean, some guys, I, Gordon Ramsey the crap on, I just scream at 'em, I yell at 'em, I get in their face and I get even a little physical, believe it or not. And sometimes some people, you have to, if that's what it takes to get 'em in that mode. I mean, I've heard stories of, I'm not sure, it may have been Ross Robinson and Corey Taylor have slipped, not were they just locked each other in the studio and just brought each other to tears and fist fights, but that's what it took to get that record. Oh

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):

Yeah. He's known for that. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):

So as a producer, sometimes you got to go in and just tear a guy's head off. Sometimes you need to be as light as a pillow. You need to be supportive. And again, it's learning to read the people that you're working with and the artist and each individual's preferences. You got to learn what makes 'em tick. And when you learn how to get into somebody's head and really figure out what makes 'em tick, you can then use that to get an amazing performance out of them almost every time and get them in that zone. And as soon as you figure that out, that's like one of the linchpins, in my opinion, of producing and getting great takes

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):

Linchpin. That's another Seth Godin book on the Seth Godin tangent. But I feel like this whole podcast basically is pointing in a direction, and the direction that is pointing it is that producers could help themselves out by studying a little bit of psychology, actually making an effort to formally, I don't mean formally as an enroll in college and become a psych major, but actually read some books, subscribe to some newsletters, watch some YouTube videos about this stuff. However you learn, it's okay, but formally make yourself learn some Psych 1 0 1 and study human motivation and also how to influence people.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):

Yeah. If you don't, how are you going to do your job as a producer? And I feel like that we can say stuff like, you got to get in their heads, which is true. You do have to get in their heads, but how do you actually get in people's heads? And that is a whole field of study, and that doesn't just happen. You can't just say, well, next band that comes in, I'm going to try to get in their head. It doesn't just work that way. You don't just suddenly develop the Jedi mind trick like, you will play this correctly. I will play this correctly. You will stop being a whiny bitch. I will stop being a whiny bitch. It doesn't work that way. So it would be good for people who want to be good producers to actually, like I said, buy some books on psychology. Buy some books on communication. Buy some books on leadership,

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):

Body language.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):

Yeah, body language, all that stuff. Study it, learn it, be it, feel it, eat it. Ooh,

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):

Here's one more question. I think we're going to answer this and then wrap it up. Caleb Rodriguez asks, what helps keep you creative in the production process? And this can apply not just to producers, but also what are producers doing for musicians to keep them creative as well.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):

Joey, I would love to hear what you have to say on this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):

I think for me, it's not the most obvious thing, but it has a lot to do with environment and comforts. For example, if the band likes to wake up at 5:00 PM and record until 5:00 AM, then fuck it. Let's do that. Because I don't want anything getting in the way, and that's why I'll set up a series of things to make sure that this happens. For example, the first thing is I want the drummer to be playing on his drum set. I don't want him to come in and play on a studio kit or some amazing kit that he's never touched before because he's going to be trying to perform and say, oh, I've never played on this drum set before, so I can't fucking do what I'm trying to do. And that sucks. So sometimes you might think, oh, it'd be so badass if we had brand new guitars to record this record. Let's order a bunch of brand new guitars and get new strings and change our string size. And the vocalist starts drinking honey because he thinks it'll make his voice sound better. No, fucking don't do any of that stuff. That's dumb. You're going to get to the studio, you're going to play on the new drum set, the new guitars you never touched before.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):

I'm fascinated.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):

So it's going to be all fucked up, and now your whole process is ruined, and sometimes you don't need to fix what's not broken.

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):

Wow. I'm actually fascinated. Can we talk about this a little bit because that's actually the opposite of the audio hammer style of doing things. That's awesome. And

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):

All right,

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):

Yeah, let's talk about this because you make awesome shit. We've made awesome shit. So I guess at the end of the day, there's more than one way to skin a cat, but let's talk about this. So here's why I don't like to use a drummer's drum set, especially if they're a touring band. That drum set has been through every weather change you can imagine, and who the hell knows, who the hell knows if it was left outside in a blizzard, or if it was left outside in Florida, who knows what the fuck has happened to the wood, what state of maintenance it's in. I've noticed that touring kits, the tuning won't hold up quite as well, and you just have way more issues as opposed to having a bunch of drums to pick from. And then

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):

A lot of technical issues are getting in the way of what the goal, like the sound.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):

Yeah, exactly. Now, however, I know exactly what you're saying, where you then have the problem of the drummer not being comfy with the setup, but the way that I get around that is by making them play for a few hours a day as we're building the drum set. But yeah, I hear what you're saying though. Obviously if they're not comfortable, they're not going to do their best. And so then what's the point?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):

I just like to make it so that they can't complain. Awesome. So you're not going to tell me, oh, it's the guitar. Oh, it's the strings. Oh, it's the drum set. Oh, it's the time I woke up earlier than I normally woke up. No, fuck that. I want to get on your level so that we're in your zone and we're doing what works for you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):

What's interesting about that, you guys? I make a lot of my bands produce results by making them uncomfortable. As crazy as that sounds, I work best under pressure, and I find a lot of people, if you can create pressure, whether internal, external, fabricated, or even real generally, it can really promote performance. I'll give you an example, songwriting. If you told me to write a song right now, or I was sorry, if I was sitting down in my room and just dicking around, I'm not going to write shit. But when I got five dudes standing behind me and I'm like, I got eight hours today with this band and I need to write a number one single, my mind goes, holy shit. And my focus kicks up and I'm just like, go. And I'm going to go in and just absolutely decimate and do the best I can, and we always end up with something more at the end of the day, better than we thought we were going to end up with.

(01:09:32):

So I try to create pressure and res positive stress, I guess that's what I'm saying. And again, my style isn't going to work for everybody. Everybody's got a different take and it's pretty cool. But for me, it's creating eustress and positive pressure that really says, okay, man, we're under the fucking gun. We've only got X amount of time to do this. We've got to do it. And it's got to be amazing. And everybody usually, I am able to, like I said in my experience, pull out peak performance out of people and make songs and records that better than we thought they would start with. So that's kind of my approach. I'm a little bit more like,

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):

Yeah, there could be a little bit of a weakness in over-planning.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):

Yeah, I don't know if you've ever gotten this from a band, but this doesn't happen anymore. But I remember back in the early days before the trust was established, when I would sometimes get these schedules from control freaks from Monday to Tuesday at this hour, at this hour, we will do this and this, we will get tones. And you've ever gotten that? It's like, what planet are you on?

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):

Oh my God, that's fucking weird.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):

I tell 'em to fuck off and I say, listen, here's how we're going to do things. And then I explain it to 'em and they're like, okay. Sometimes if you're doing it with a local band or whatever, you got to work around the work schedules and stuff like that, but you can't let the band fuck with, if you've got a flow that really works and you've got this down to a science over years of experience, you can't let some random straggler come in and just totally throw the whole fucking thing out of whack because they think they know what's best, but they don't have the experience.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):

That's a good point. Yeah. You're, what you're saying is in my situation where I'm like, let's make everyone absolutely fluffy and comfy. Don't let 'em fucking control everything though.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):

Yeah. You're going to know what works best for you. I mean, you'll intrinsically feel it. And again, the key is you develop a process as a person, as a producer, and it gets reinforced over time, and you get to try out a bunch of shit, and everybody comes to a little bit of a different conclusion and way of doing things, and that's part of their sound. That's how they get their results.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):

You know what? I got to say something, even though on the surface it seems like Joey, you and I have different methods about this, actually is unto the same end, which is you say you want the band to be comfortable, and I want the band to be comfortable too. Now the thing is, what if, because I'm a guitar player, I've got a lot of guitars, Sukkos got a lot of guitars, Mark's a guitar player, so we've got 25 guitars here, and a lot of them are way better than the guitars of the bands that come in. A lot of these guys get the bottom level endorsements and they come in with who knows what, with what pickups and just piece of shit, whatever. And it's nothing compared to what we've got.

(01:12:31):

And tone-wise, just what we have is often far superior. However, as we know, tone is mainly in the hands. So if the guy can't play comfortably, what difference does it make? What guitar you're giving him. But the way I get around that is say that there's three guitars up for possible rhythm guitar. It's going to be one of these three. And we figured it out early on. I will actually, if we did a shootout and none of their guitars are good enough and they agree, I'll let them borrow in their guest room. All three of those guitars, I will get on them about practicing. And from this point on any pre-pro that you're doing in the guest room or anytime that you're practicing, you're no longer using your guitars. You're using this guitar that we're going to use. And then since we got to do drums first, within a week or so, they're totally comfortable. So that's how I get around it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):

I see how that works. And I should clarify too, it's not like I say, no, we have to use your guitar. I get people that come in and they might see my guitar sitting over there and they say, Hey, can I play this? And sure, yeah, I'll play it. And then 10 minutes later they might be asking, Hey, can we use this to record with? And nine times out of 10, and I'm like, sure,

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):

You got to go with the flow. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):

Go with the flow and just try to work with the people that are in the room and do what's best for getting the best results. And that's part of, you can't teach this, but that's what comes with time and experience is knowing what's going to be best for the song and what's going to be best for the project. And I think it's just trial and error. It's something you learn over time with more experience.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):

Absolutely. Do we have any more good questions? Lemme

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):

Take a look here.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):

I love q and a. Me

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):

Too. We need more questions.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):

Questions and anal.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):

This is a cool one. This comes from Randy Nas Worthy. He asks, do you have any prerecording rituals?

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):

Go beat up a bum.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):

Is

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):

That real?

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):

No. No,

Speaker 4 (01:14:45):

Of course not.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):

How else did you start a record? Come on. How about you, Joel? Pre-recording rituals. To be honest, you guys are probably going to be like, what the fuck? And I know, especially you, Joey, I really don't like to do a lot of pre-pro. And again, this may sound really fucking weird and counterintuitive, but for me it works, especially because I write a lot with a lot of my bands. But I want to be inspired and under pressure at the moment to create the eustress for me to hit peak performance as a producer. So I like to say to the bands, okay, do all your pre-pro, but I'm not going to hear it till the first day because when I don't hear it the first time, instead of through the internet and I've got all this time to analyze it, I'm going to react to it emotionally and the physical level, and I'm going to be like, this song moves me.

(01:15:27):

This song is shit. This song is shit. Let's do this. And I'll use that as a guide. And that initial inspiration. So for me, it's like I want to get inspired and I want to be drawn towards material that inspires me. So when people bring in songs and things like that that are kind of in rough form and we're looking to pick some stuff, I really like not having a direction and more so just kind of come in and let's just go under the gun and under the clock when we're on the clock because it's going to make me be really a decisive, and B, really react to what's most inspiring and that we're all, everybody in the band's like, oh yeah, yeah, we really like this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do this song. Everybody in. Yeah, awesome. And then we go,

Speaker 4 (01:16:06):

I think that's smart. And I have a way around it that I learned from ov, which is if you're going to do pre-pro with a band, get drum tones first and interesting. Yeah. Get the drum tones first and be ready to record, be capturing good quality and don't just fuck around because, because nine times out of 10, when you get into the flow of it and what you start creating, we'll become the album.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):

It could snowball at any minute.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):

Exactly. And

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):

You want to be ready for that,

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):

And you don't want to have to go and try to recreate lightning striking, so you just got to be ready. So that's actually kind of in line with what you're saying, Joel. Even if a band has a week of pre-pro booked or something, we still will get drum tones and be ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):

Yeah. That's awesome. I totally agree. I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):

Well, that's going to wrap it up for us on this episode. If you are into what we're doing, go to www.joeysturgis.com/podcast. You can vote for topics, you can ask us questions, and we'll try to answer 'em on the air. And thanks for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:17:19):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):

Thank you. Now fuck off.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):

Fuck up. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with glasses on songwriting, engineering, mixing, and mastering. Go to creative live.com/audio to start learning now. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Proton Pedals, the secret tone weapon for guitar experts everywhere. Go to proton pedals do to take your tone to the next level. To ask us questions, suggest topics and interact, visit urm academy com and subscribe today.