GARTH RICHARDSON: Producer Psychology, Recording Rage Against The Machine, and Why Audio is a Lifestyle

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

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're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners, and if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio, and let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:56):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share post and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is someone who you really should already know about and requires no introduction, but on the off chance that you don't know who he is, let me tell you, Garth Richardson is one of the most prolific names in the audio world. He was trained by his father, Jack Richardson, who worked with Alice Cooper, the Guess who, and Bob Seger among many, many others.

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Garth spent his teenage years assisting on major albums for artists working with his father. His work can still be heard on radio stations across the world, including tracks from bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nickelback, Motley Crewe, rage Against The Machine, rise against Chevelle Testament, and Too many More to name Garth. Also with partners Bob Ezrin and Kevin Williams founded the Nimbus School of Recording in Vancouver around 2009, and it is one of the legit recording schools out there. You know how I am about brick and mortar recording schools and how I think most of our ripoff, his isn't. I'm going to shut up now. I present you Garth Richardson. Garth Richardson. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thanks for being here. Hey, yeah, it's going to be fun. This is probably the fastest that I have ever gotten on Skype and straight to recording with somebody before.

Speaker 2 (00:02:51):

Why is that? Is because you know what? I'm having a hard time doing this kind of stuff, or

Speaker 1 (00:02:55):

No, it's not that. It's usually there's 10 minutes of chitchat and just shit, and I love this. We just got on and within two minutes we're just into it.

Speaker 2 (00:03:07):

You have to realize that my father, when he was doing records in the old days, he said noon. Noon meant you were sitting at the console and you were hitting play.

Speaker 1 (00:03:17):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:03:17):

Not noon, showing up and have a coffee, maybe get some breakfast chat for about an hour. He was like, let's go. So, you know, that's my thing.

Speaker 1 (00:03:26):

I really do respect that. I honestly wish that more of the music industry operated that way. I have this little theory that while especially in that era, we're downloading wrecked everything, that the biggest enemy to the music industry is its own work ethic usually, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:03:49):

Well, you'll hear something funny. Everybody from Canada kind of has that self, has that self defeatist attitude to where we think we are not as good as the people from the states.

Speaker 1 (00:04:02):

You guys are awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:04:03):

Yeah. So we always tend to work harder. It's strange. Right?

Speaker 1 (00:04:08):

Interesting. Is that kind of just bred in a weird way?

Speaker 2 (00:04:12):

Yeah, just

Speaker 1 (00:04:12):

A cultural thing.

Speaker 2 (00:04:13):

It is, because if you look at who's come out of Canada, we got Bob Rock, we got Bob Beard, we got Danny LAIs, we got Mike Fraser, we got Randy Staub, and it goes on and on and on. It's just that we always worked harder.

Speaker 1 (00:04:27):

Man. Canada actually has a great lineage of incredible productions and producers.

Speaker 3 (00:04:32):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true.

Speaker 1 (00:04:34):

When you actually start pointing it out, it's like, wow, that is actually pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 (00:04:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:04:40):

You guys don't get enough credit.

Speaker 2 (00:04:43):

Well, you know what? We do have Justin Bieber So

Speaker 4 (00:04:45):

True.

Speaker 2 (00:04:46):

That new single of his, I wanted to hate it. I really wanted to hate it, but it's the iest most simplest song in the world. It works.

Speaker 1 (00:04:55):

Oftentimes, I feel like with artists like that, I get this inner desire to hate them because of their fans more than their actual music.

Speaker 2 (00:05:07):

I get that,

Speaker 1 (00:05:07):

And then I find myself hearing their music and it's like, hmm, how do I reconcile this with myself? I kind of like it. I don't want to like it, but I do.

Speaker 2 (00:05:17):

Yeah, same, the same feeling. It's like, hmm, this really is a good song, but I don't want to like it. But you know what I do? It's strange.

Speaker 1 (00:05:26):

It's something funny in the heavy music scene is that the bands that I've noticed are the most hated, tend to be the biggest. So what I always wondered was, are all these haters? Do they have, back in the CD days, do they have secret copies of all these albums? Remember bands like Slipped on or Revenge Sevenfold just getting so much hate, but yet these bands are going, so somewhere there's a disconnect between reality and the way people talking about it in public.

Speaker 2 (00:05:58):

Well, you know what? Name me, anybody that, and this band sold 10 to 12 million records. Anybody that has a copy of Hootie and the Blowfish, that was a massive record.

Speaker 1 (00:06:13):

Oh man. It was ridiculously large.

Speaker 2 (00:06:15):

I know, but I don't know anybody. That shit has a copy of it, right? It's like, here's a band that everybody hated, but yet somewhere 12 to 15 million copies were sold and you what great songs.

Speaker 1 (00:06:29):

I believe that a lot of people just hid their CDs. True. True. Okay. Yeah, I'm convinced. Okay. Okay. I'm convinced. I believe that, I mean, it is statistically impossible to meet everybody who could possibly purchase one of these albums. I still feel like a lot of people in certain scenes will just not talk about things that they like because they don't want to get called out. Especially when you're a teenager, you don't want to necessarily get hated for something you like. So I think it's easier for a lot of people to just say, that band sucks, and then own the record anyways. Yep. True. Listen, in the car. Agreed. So you've mentioned that audio production isn't a job or even a career, but it's a lifestyle that you've got to eat and breathe in order to work. What do you think is, if you could sum it up, the mentality necessary to be an effective producer in 2020? Moving on.

Speaker 2 (00:07:28):

Okay, 2020. Well, it's kind of like seven 11. It never closes. You kind of have to be literally breathing, eating, sleeping it, but you also have to understand what a song is. I get all these young kids coming up to me saying that I am a producer, and I go, oh, so tell me what does that mean? He said, well, you know what, dude, I make sick beats and I'm going, that means you are a beat maker. You are not a producer. So what I'm actually feeling is they need to understand exactly what that lifestyle means because you have to take care of everything. The studio, the managers, the bands, the band's girlfriends actually call them. You have to have an actual grasp of everything that goes on to make somebody's actually music and all these young kids just think because that you have a laptop means that you are a producer, and you know what? That is wrong.

Speaker 1 (00:08:31):

Well, that's just one small part of the equation,

Speaker 2 (00:08:35):

But that's a lot of people that think that that's what it is, which is sad.

Speaker 1 (00:08:40):

What I wonder is if someone actually does think that that's all there is to it, how are they going to survive in a world where you do have to deal with budgets, psychology deadlines, all these different things that actually are very real. I don't understand how you would possibly figure that stuff out on your own. I knew I needed somebody else to teach me.

Speaker 2 (00:09:08):

It goes by to what we talked about the other day is that I had some insane actually mentors. I had my dad who did the Guess who and Alice Cooper and Bob Seger. I then had actually Bob Ezrin who did the wall and on and on and on. Then I also had Michael Wagner who did some six bands in the eighties, and it's like they all taught me that you have to care. You really have to show up, and you have to pay attention to every aspect of everything every day.

Speaker 1 (00:09:45):

Do you feel like maybe that level of mentorship is something that's getting lost a little bit in this modern age?

Speaker 2 (00:09:53):

Yeah. You know why? Because everybody's in their bedrooms, and two, nobody can afford to pay you anymore because of the budgets are getting small and smaller. There's kind of this big divide happening. It's kind of all over the world to where there is no more middle class. You have to begin at the bottom. Then you work your way up into the middle class, and if you have a hit, then you go up into the top class. There is no more middle class. There's no more spending six weeks on a record. You will now spend it every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then you'll take off the week because the band has to work. You have to have a regular day job, and then you get back to it again the next Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. So it's kind of the actual weekend warrior thing. When you were coming up, was there more of an artist middle class? Oh, totally. Totally. There were records being made every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. But from every aspect of every budgetary band to where some bands had actually 40,000, 60,000, 80,000, there was always labels finding new talent.

(00:11:10):

Now you kind of have to get your record done for the label to actually look at you.

Speaker 1 (00:11:15):

How would you suggest that someone who wants to learn this stuff? And I agree. I mean, I'm a little younger than you, but I still remember in the nineties when I was growing up that there were studios everywhere. Everywhere. There's a lot of bedroom studios now, but what I mean is there were commercial facilities everywhere. When my band wanted to record, it was in my high school band, but still, I just remember 1993 looking up where to go, and there were 50 places just here in Atlanta. Now there are 50 bedroom studios or more, but legit studios, there's maybe three in this town.

Speaker 2 (00:12:00):

Yeah. It's sad because you know what? When I grew up, there was a sign that was on my dead studio, a control room door. He said, closed session, dial eight on the intercom. When that door closed, that was a vault that would close, and you would be in that room for 12 to 14 hours, and then if you had to have a pee break, you would leave, go pee and get back. And there was this level of commitment and there was that magic. Magic was actually happening in that room to where there were no computers, there were no Apple C, apple V, there was no beat Detective you played. You were this group that literally played as a group, and there was that vibe, and you would have all of these engineers coming in, and you'd have all of these producers coming in, and you would pick all of these insane techniques that they would do, and you go, that's a good one. I'm going to put that into my brain. Oh, that's not a good one. I don't like that. I'm just going to put that over to the left. And you would have this incredible mentorship coming at you every single day to where you would learn and you would learn not what to do and learn what to do. You can't do that if you're in your bedroom.

Speaker 1 (00:13:25):

Yeah. I mean, there's literally no way to do that. Yeah. So it sounds to me like back in that day, the way that people got good was, like you said, they were getting the information and the mentorship on what to do and what not to do, coming at them from all angles. And I guess nowadays, if all you are is in a bedroom, you don't have the opportunity to learn best practices from as many people as possible. Is that why you started Nimbus?

Speaker 2 (00:13:57):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, Bob and I were having actually conversation, I guess it's almost 20, 22 years ago. I actually moved back up to Vancouver and I'd done a whole bunch of records here, and I called them up and said, I have just fired my 34th runner or my 34th second engineer, because they didn't know what to do. They knew all the Quick Keys actually tools, and they said, Bob, how we were trained by my father, we have to do something about this because our way of actually working and our way of actually being mentored is lost. So Nimbus started and Bob had just literally let go. I think about 10 people because they didn't it. So Nimbus is all about being mentored and being shown how to do it the right way.

Speaker 1 (00:14:58):

If the students or Nimbus walk away with one skill from their time there, what would you hope that would be?

Speaker 2 (00:15:04):

They literally know how to hang. That's a good one. That is the most important gift that you can give someone.

Speaker 1 (00:15:13):

So this is like the 260th episode. Oh, nice. So I've talked to a lot of people, made lots of records myself, had a lot of people on URM doing now the mix. I know a lot of producers, and I've talked to a lot of producers, and it's funny, when we talk about this topic, everybody who has any career always says the same thing, that that's the most important thing anybody could develop because skills, engineering skills, you can teach somebody, but the way how to hang that is really, really tough and will make or break you at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (00:15:54):

You know what? That is the most important thing that you can have the best skill. When I was actually, let's see, 15, 16 years old, I used to go down to my dad's studio and clean. I had his company called, actually it was called Gar Janitorial Services, and my job was to go down after school and clean the bathrooms and clean the floors and vacuum and dust, and then after I was done, I would go hang out in the control room and I got to watch the first Peter Gabriel record being made with actually Tony Levin, Larry Fast, Robert Fripp, Steve Hunter, Peter Gabriel, Alan Swartzberg, Tony Levin, who just to name a few. And if I didn't know how to hang, I would not have been inside of that room to watch that insane thing being made. And I used to go in and I wouldn't talk. I wouldn't say anything, and I'd just be there. If anybody wanted something, I would go get it and I'd come back and I'd give it to them and I'd go back into my corner and I would just kind of just hang. And so many people that I have had on my dates, I would go to the guitar player, well, I think you need to. And then my second engineer or my runner would go, well, I think and I turned and say, I think you need to shut the fuck up.

(00:17:22):

And they look at me and I go, dude, but I would always make sure after everybody had left the room, I'd say, come here. Don't you ever open your mouth again. Your job is to be seen but not heard. And that was what my dad taught me. That was what Bob taught me, and that's what everybody else that I was mentored by, you are to be seen but not heard. The building is about to burn down. You can speak,

Speaker 1 (00:17:50):

I mean, and people will ask you questions when they're ready for you to speak up. I think that people who might be hearing this who have never been in the environment might think that it's harsh, but the thing that you need to understand if you've never been in that environment is somebody speaking out of turn who's not running the session or the artist can completely destroy the vibe in two sentences.

Speaker 2 (00:18:15):

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. To where somebody could just say something or somebody could have an awkward laugh because we are dealing with very sensitive a creative people, and if somebody feels uncomfortable, but they have to go and sing a song or play a solo, they're going to get freaked out.

Speaker 1 (00:18:36):

They might not tell you about it. Artists are not necessarily the best communicators always.

Speaker 3 (00:18:42):

No.

Speaker 1 (00:18:42):

So part of a producer's job is to be able to understand where the artist is at, even if they're not saying it. And one thing is that you're right, this music is very, very personal to them. They're very sensitive creatures, and if someone that they already don't know and that they didn't hire the intern, they hired you, you hired the intern. So this person who's one step removed from the person they hired who happens to be there while they're about to get vulnerable, makes them feel at all uncomfortable. That could be it for that day, and they may not even tell you about it, so you have to be on it, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:19:24):

Yeah, there's a very funny story. Do you know who Dave Ray OgLevi is? He mixed the Carly Ray Gibson Call me Baby Single.

Speaker 1 (00:19:32):

Not familiar with him, but I'd love to hear the story.

Speaker 2 (00:19:35):

Okay. He was in Skinny Puppy, right?

Speaker 1 (00:19:38):

Oh, awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:19:39):

So he was doing the session and the band was poor, so he brought in some snacks, some chips, some drinks, some peanuts, pretzels. This runner comes in, the band's on the floor playing the song. The song is finished. They come in, the runner is lying across the couch and just eating all of the food. And then he goes to me, sorry, not to me, but the ra. He goes, I'm not sure that that's a really good compression level on the snare drum. Oh, man. And rave looked over at the second engineer and said he's out. The second engineer said, Hey, dude, come here. You get your coat. He said, Hey man, thank you. Thank you very much for coming by. It's been nice. And he was out the door

Speaker 1 (00:20:26):

Faster than he came in.

Speaker 2 (00:20:27):

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So getting back a 2-year-old thing is hanging is the most important quality. We literally teach our students how to be decent human beings. That's the best thing that we can teach

Speaker 1 (00:20:43):

Them. I know lots of mixers, producers who when they talk about hiring an assistant or taking on an intern, they almost, if they had the choice of someone who's a really cool hang, but maybe not as skilled versus someone who has all the skills but is an awkward hang, a hundred percent of them that I've talked to will pick the person who's the better hang, but not as skilled.

Speaker 2 (00:21:11):

Yes. Because you what you can teach them the skills.

Speaker 1 (00:21:13):

Yeah. It's crazy how much it matters.

Speaker 2 (00:21:16):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:21:17):

So this is something that was basically that you just figured out as a kid. So you grew up in this environment. It seems like you probably didn't even need to be really taught because kids learn by imitating. So you're in an environment where people know how to behave and therefore you end up knowing how to behave. Is that kind of right?

Speaker 2 (00:21:39):

Yeah. I always knew that I would always go out to the studio with my dad, and I was fascinated. It was almost like a hockey team, because every single hockey player talks about when they leave the game, what they miss the most is being inside of that actual dressing room with the guys. Right. When I went to the studio, it was hanging out with the guys in the dressing room because there was this wonderful camaraderie between the engineer, the producer, the actual second engineer, and the band, and it was just you felt part of a team.

Speaker 1 (00:22:17):

Do you still get that feeling on records?

Speaker 2 (00:22:20):

Yeah, I do. I do. I just did this band from actually Holland called Kensington, and we spent three months here and we had five different, actually studios set up, and there was this camaraderie of us actually getting up and we'd have one guy working on some actual song lyrics. We'd have someone doing keyboards, someone else, we'd be doing some programming. There was this amazing feeling that they were all part of this amazing team. When you're on your laptop in your bedroom, you can't actually do that

Speaker 1 (00:22:56):

By five studios, you mean? So there were five independent rooms with their own workstations going. Just out of curiosity, on a project like that where there's all that going on, how do you make sure that you don't have versioning errors between the different sessions? How do you make sure that everybody stays current?

Speaker 2 (00:23:18):

Okay. Because basically we have the mothership and it happens to be the main extra hard drive, and the engineer is solely responsible to make sure that that mothership is always up to date, so that all of the files coming from all the other rooms always at the end of each day show up in this room.

Speaker 1 (00:23:42):

Makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:23:42):

Yeah, because basically everything gets here has backed up on three different hard drives so that we have three safeties, and then now we have the master. Because you know what? In the old days, if somebody stepped on a piece of tape, you at the ironing board a towel, and you'd iron the tape back and you'd flat tape out and go, okay, guys, we're good. In this modern age, if your hard drive crashes, it's gone. There is no, oh, we can get out the iron, and you could try that. You try that, but you know what? It's gone. So we always have the actual gatekeeper, and that person is my engineer, and he's solely responsible to make sure that all of the audio from any of the rooms ends up in the master hard drive, and then it's safetied. So one

Speaker 1 (00:24:44):

Person handles all that.

Speaker 2 (00:24:47):

One person handles. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:24:48):

Yeah. Man, I can imagine that if more than one person was handling it, that's inviting chaos. Exactly. So is it this sort of thing, the session starts when it starts and it ends when it ends, and then soon as it's over, then his day's not over. He then compiles everything, makes sure that the mothership is totally up to date, and then the next day everybody has the right starting point,

Speaker 2 (00:25:12):

Has a new versions. Yeah. Yeah. We'll give them lists at the end of the night saying, okay, can you do a rough extra mix with all the new parts? Would you give it to this person and that person needs this, so would you do that? And then we just have a whole list of it. So it's kind of like we are the hub.

Speaker 1 (00:25:31):

That's a cool way to work. I like that too, because it invites everybody to be creative, and it gives the opportunity for nobody to get burned out.

Speaker 3 (00:25:39):

Yeah, yeah. It's fun actually.

Speaker 1 (00:25:41):

Yeah. And you avoid certain problems, like the typical problem with vocals on rock and metal records of saving them for the very, very end and then possibly burning out the vocalists. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:25:54):

Can we talk about that?

Speaker 1 (00:25:56):

Yes, let's talk about that.

Speaker 2 (00:25:57):

Okay. So what everybody seems to basically forget, the most important part of any record is the singer.

Speaker 1 (00:26:06):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:26:07):

The singer is God the singer is going to make, or he is going to actually break your record. When I was actually second engineer a long time ago and what you just talked about, they would wait for the last three days. Singer would have to sing 12 songs, do all the doubles, do all the harmonies in three to four days, and you could see these singers as it's getting closer to the end of the record, you could see the stress on their faces. Of course. It's just like, and I've watched it and watched it and watched that. So what I do now, and I have done this for the longest time, this is on the other smaller records, but as soon as I'm done drums and it's all ready to go, I will put down actual guide bass and actually Guy guitars and have the singer start singing songs because he gets into the flow of it. You may want to go back and redo the first song you do, but you're starting it from right when you're beginning the record that the singer's singing because you're going to have to change as she lyrics may be. You may have to come up with new melodies, but if you're doing it in the last three days, the pressure on him is astronomical. And why people still do that is

Speaker 1 (00:27:33):

Beyond me and not just all those changes, but also it affords you the ability to give the singer days off.

Speaker 2 (00:27:40):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:27:40):

It's crucial.

Speaker 2 (00:27:41):

Yeah, because you know what, it's kind of like a drummer when you bring them into the studio, and I've seen people make drummers play for 12 to 14 hours a day, and I go to the producer, I go, what show? Have you ever seen a actual drummer playing 14 hour show? It doesn't happen. They actually may play three hours. Every drummer can only play for three hours, maximum, maybe four, but eight to 10 hours to 12 hours a day. That's fucking ridiculous. We are dealing with human beings.

Speaker 1 (00:28:13):

I found that with drummers sometimes they were the ones who wanted to play for 12 hours, and so it would put me in this weird situation where I didn't want to bum them out because like you said, vibe is so important. So I didn't want to bum them out or frustrate them, and they're super motivated to just keep going and crushing and how to communicate to them that the best thing to do would be to stop for the day so that we can do every song at full intensity. That was always a very interesting thing for me to try to tackle. How would you get through to people when they want to be the ones to keep

Speaker 2 (00:28:52):

Going? Well, basically your first clue is your levels are not as hot. So that means his arms and legs are getting tired. So always when I'm doing drum tracks, I'm always looking at the meters and just going, oh, he's beginning to get tired. Then the next thing that goes is if he's doing double kicks or doing kicks, he isn't as actually crisp.

(00:29:19):

So I always go, Hey, dude, how are you feeling? Are you getting tired, tired yet, and no, man, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I go, okay, okay. You know what? Let's just do one more take. And then after that take you go, Hey, you know what? You see all of my gray, gray hairs because I've been doing this a long time. I think we should stop because I feel that you're not as good as you were earlier on today, and I really want this to be great. So it's all about making sure that they have insane, that you're giving them actually props because you're saying, dude, you nailed it today. You're now tired. Let's stop and let's actually pick it up tomorrow. And you, what? About an hour later? You go, Hey, man, how you doing, man? You were right. I am tired. I go, Hey, dude, go and have a hot tub. Go for a walk. Go have a nap. But you know what? You nailed it, and it's all about that. You did a great job today.

Speaker 1 (00:30:25):

And if they feel like you're not trying to rush them, but you're there with them, their partner trying to get the very best out of them, I find that that helps them chill. I think the pressure that you were talking about that vocalists have, I've seen lots of drummers put that on themselves too. And just to be a good drummer, you have to be kind of an intense maniac anyway, so it's kind of riding a wild horse in a way. You got to team it just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (00:30:57):

Well, have you ever watched, you always see the drummer just about when he's almost done all of his drum tracks and you can feel and see this weight on the shoulders?

Speaker 4 (00:31:07):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:31:07):

The day after they're done, they come in, they're smiling, they're happy, they're like, I'm alive. And you go, ah, you're done. Your drum tracks. Yeah, man, that was really hard. And I go, no, you did great. Because everybody, because we are human beings, but so much pressure on ourselves to be great, and nobody wants to go in and fail. Everybody wants to be praised. It's hard making records. It's hard playing drums because live, it's live and it's gone inside of the studio. Everybody around the world is going to listen to it, and they are going to comment and they are going to basically call you out on any shit that you do forever. So forever. The one thing that we have to say to the young producers, it's your job that you never show the band that you are actually stressed out, that you are worried. Because if you do that, then every band member will see that and guess what's going to happen? They are all going to be stressed out too. So you have to show them confidence, and if you're stressed out, go outside, scream and yell, actually punch a wall and then come back in and go, okay, guys, let's get back to work. So that's a very big, big thing is you have to be in control and you have to make sure that you do not show that you are actually

Speaker 1 (00:32:45):

Stopping. I think that's important for leadership in general. I've noticed that one of my biggest regrets has been anytime that I've let my guard down when I'm in a leadership capacity and let people know that I'm stressed, it is a bit like a virus just to bring up something current. It is a bit like a virus. When you let people know that when the leader lets people know that he or she is feeling the pressure, you'll notice that pressure then starts to spread to everybody else. And that vibe you were talking about earlier dies. What a quick way to kill it.

Speaker 2 (00:33:24):

Yeah. Well, look what's happening with this virus happening around the world, they've shut down the whole country of Italy,

Speaker 1 (00:33:33):

40 million

Speaker 2 (00:33:33):

People. So it's like that whole thing is absolutely horrible, and it's sad that people are actually dying from it, but at a much, much, much, much smaller scale. If you show fear and you show stress, then your singer's going to get that. Your guitar player is going to get that, and then everybody is going to actually panic.

Speaker 1 (00:33:55):

Yeah, it's crazy how quickly it happens too. And then also I can say that I've been in the opposite situation. It's not just in recording. This is when I was running my band or running the company or as a producer and very, very stressful things would happen, but if I kept a level head about it, not saying be dishonest to anybody, definitely communicate with everybody, but don't let them feel that

Speaker 3 (00:34:29):

Stress.

Speaker 1 (00:34:30):

We always got through everything great and things ended up

Speaker 2 (00:34:34):

Okay. Yeah, it's true. Because you know what the other word that we have not talked about is trust. I was going to get there. That's a big one that That's fantastic. Word. You have a great, great actually story. I was doing this one band and we were punching in a guitar chords chord by chord tuning, punching. I get a call from my manager who is in New York that got a call from the record label in actually London, England, which got a call from the guitar player who was sitting three to four feet from me, and he was stressing out and he was panicking, and he was like, this is hard work. So I get the phone call, I'm like, yep, okay, thanks. I said, Hey, come here. Let's go out and have a talk. I actually pulled him out of the room so that nobody else could know what we're going to be talking about.

(00:35:36):

I said, I just got a call from my manager, which got a call from uric label, which you're got a call from you that you're not happy. He went, yeah, this is really hard. I said, okay, if you and I cannot talk to each other, then that means there is no trust, and if we don't have any trust, then we should stop now because we have to be on the same page and we have to be able to talk to each other, and you don't have to call somebody in England to call somebody in New York to call me to tell me that you're having a hard time with it. So right there, we do not have trust. Are you happy with how things sound? He says, it sounds brilliant. I said, it's hard work. He says, it's really hard work. I said, okay, so how do we have to work moving forward so that you do not freak out? He said, can we just not work as long hours and maybe take longer breaks? I went, yeah, that's done. But there's that word trust that you have to be able to actually talk to each other and to have open minds. But my job is also to be able to see that actually prior, actually prior to it actually happening. And that's a skill.

Speaker 1 (00:36:53):

Well, people will put off signs, they'll communicate it. Like we were saying earlier, a musician may not always tell you

Speaker 3 (00:37:00):

No,

Speaker 1 (00:37:00):

Sometimes it does take the phone call to London and then the phone call to New York and then looped back to you to just say, I need 15 minute breaks instead of seven minute breaks. But yeah, sometimes they just won't talk because they're sensitive or they're weird or they feel they're grateful for how awesome things sound and they love it and they don't want to fuck it up, or there's all kinds of reasons for why they might not communicate, and the quicker that you can figure out that they're not communicating something and then find a stress-free way to talk about it, the better. But how do you spot it when they're not talking about it?

Speaker 2 (00:37:40):

You know what? You can always tell by their body language.

Speaker 1 (00:37:44):

That's a good one.

Speaker 2 (00:37:45):

And also when you're talking to somebody and they can't look you in the eyes, that's the first one I see.

Speaker 1 (00:37:52):

Yeah, just shoegazing.

Speaker 2 (00:37:54):

Yeah. They're like, yeah. I go, okay, dude, what's wrong? What's going on? Then at that point, you do have to put on your actual child psychology hat and you kind of have to basically let them talk. You had this one band, and this is probably my ma time favorite story. I might have band here, and the extra drummer and the guitar player singer were at odds. Everything that we were doing, they would fight over it and we'd be getting this guitar sound, and then the drummer would come in and they would argue about the sound for two hours. And after the second day, I was like, guys, we don't have the time and we don't have the budget so that you guys can argue about you don't like his guitar sound. So I actually pulled the whole band over into a room and I had them all sitting there and he went, Pete, Tom has something that he would like to say.

(00:38:56):

Tom, say it. And Tom would say how he felt. I said, Pete, tell me what Tom just said went, no, that's not what he said. Tom, say it again to Pete and Tom would Say it again to Pete. I said, okay, now Pete, tell me what he just said. And we spent two hours in a room doing actually therapy session because the two were at each other's heads, and they both wanted to hurt each other, and we finally calmed it down. They got to say their piece. We came up. We had a really wonderful way of actually moving forward, but it's like we at that point found that word trust that they could do that. Now,

Speaker 1 (00:39:42):

Just out of curiosity, was it as if one, there was speaking two different languages. One person is saying, this is my idea, and then the other person was interpreting it their own way completely. It sounds like from what you just said,

Speaker 2 (00:39:57):

I think it was more that they had a record, that they had a gigantic budget, had it tanked, and now they were doing this new record and they wanted to make sure that it didn't tank. So they had this whole fear, and of course they were panicking,

Speaker 1 (00:40:16):

I think, and they probably each had their own theories as to why the other person was responsible for it tanking. And so every time that they would give an idea, they would run that through the filter of, well, you fucked that record up. And so this idea

Speaker 2 (00:40:31):

Is going to

Speaker 1 (00:40:32):

Fuck this one up too.

Speaker 2 (00:40:34):

So I had to be the extra counselor. You had them all talking and it was like you could see this huge black cloud finally leaving. So

Speaker 1 (00:40:47):

You said you figured out a beautiful way forward working wise. What was that? What was the

Speaker 2 (00:40:52):

Solution?

Speaker 3 (00:40:53):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:40:54):

The solution was the people that you hired know what they're doing. Let us do our job.

Speaker 1 (00:41:01):

That is trust, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:41:03):

Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 (00:41:03):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41:04):

Because so many people do not understand that we have been let in to give birth to their child.

Speaker 1 (00:41:14):

I think sometimes musicians lose sight of that too. It's really weird because they're the ones who hire you, right?

Speaker 2 (00:41:21):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:41:21):

But maybe you're so deep into the project or the pressure is so great that they forget that that's what they hired you to do. And there's a reason.

Speaker 2 (00:41:30):

This all goes back to it's very stressful making records. It's so fucking stressful, and bands get stressed out and they panic and they don't think straight. For instance, when I did the first rage record when we were near the end of the record, Tim or the bass player was so stressed out, he was shitting out blood.

Speaker 1 (00:41:55):

I mean, imagine the pressure.

Speaker 2 (00:41:57):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:41:58):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41:58):

Right? And it's like he came in and said, I'm shitting out blood. I went, dude, are you okay? I'm just stressed.

Speaker 1 (00:42:04):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, you RM 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.

(00:42:56):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, toy Madson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics. Again, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. I mean, stress is a killer. That's been, it is. That has been proven.

Speaker 2 (00:44:17):

You get to known fact. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:44:18):

Speaking of how to deal with different personality types, we were talking about how to help people understand something like the drummer being tired but not wanting to realize it, or someone's shoe gazing and not making eye contact. Here's one that I've always had trouble with. Maybe you have a solution, a method for dealing with this, those types that will yes, you, no matter what, they'll always say that things are great. They will look you in the eye, they will smile, but something about it tells you that they're lying, that something is actually wrong. And then you end up being right. You find out six months later that they were pissed off the whole time. You find this out because you get the call from the manager or something like, keep trying to talk to this person. And all signals are that everything's fine. But then you get the phone call anyways. How do you communicate with those?

Speaker 2 (00:45:17):

Okay, so basically you have your team, your team, because usually bands always actually gravitate to somebody that has no kind of authority, and they'll speak their mind

Speaker 1 (00:45:32):

Like your intern or something.

Speaker 2 (00:45:34):

My intern or my second engineer or my engineer, because they always become close

(00:45:41):

To them because I'm the guy that always says, no, dad, I'm that dad guy. So I always have my extra meeting with my team is if you hear anything, any discontent, anything that is negative that is coming out of their mouths, let me know because bands will shit talk. Oh, yeah, they will. But I have also done that for many of the other producers that I've engineered for, or I was the runner for, or I was think and I go, Hey, just, I only let you know that I just heard this. And you may not be aware of it, but you should know. And again, it all bows down to that word trust.

Speaker 1 (00:46:30):

Man. I did that too actually when I was working under some people and they didn't ask me to, I did it. I felt like they should know it. I was always afraid to tell them, but I felt like if I didn't, then I'd be doing them a serious disservice to not let them know that the singer from the band wants to leave. If this one thing doesn't change, you should know that.

Speaker 2 (00:46:59):

Yeah. Again, it's all about trust. It's also always knowing what is going on around you at all times, because your job is to deliver the band's record. And if you second engineer completely wipes a song, the label doesn't call him and go, what the fuck did you do? No, it's your fault. It's my fault. So I tell everybody, the buck stops here and my knows that I have their back. They also have to have mine. Right? It's kind of like if you don't deal with it right away, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and then it blows up. But if you deal with it as soon as it happens, it goes away.

Speaker 1 (00:47:46):

Some guy I used to work under told me that same idea about when to exert authority as a producer, because his philosophy was that you don't ever want to be a dick. You don't want an adversarial relationship ever, but they still need to know that you're in charge. And so if you're a pushover for say, the first four weeks, and then it all builds up inside of you, and then one day on the fourth week they just cross the line and you explode and comes out of nowhere, you might fuck up the rest of the session. Whereas if there was something happening on day one that's out of bounds for what you think is okay working wise, and you address it right then and there, then it's over before it can develop into anything further. And also you've established boundaries, and that's essential, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:48:38):

Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, when my father used to walk into the room, you knew he was in charge when actually Bob Edmond walked into the room. You knew he was in charge. When Michael Wagner walked into the room, you knew he was in charge. So you kind of have to have that persona that you are in charge. You are solely responsible for getting the record done. If anything happens again, if anything happens, deal with it right then and there, because if you don't, it's going to fester and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. And you also have to, the other thing is you never become buddy buddies with the band.

Speaker 1 (00:49:23):

Yeah, that's hard. How do you walk that line though, between being cool but not getting buddy buddy?

Speaker 2 (00:49:29):

Right. What I do is I always have one night out with the band before we start and I buy drinks and we get fucked up, we drink and we have crown roll, and we have beer, and we have champagne, and we have whatever, and we have the best day, and then we get down to business. And after that point, like an ever party with the band all the time when we're done, I'll do the same thing. We will have guys, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'll buy them Crown Royal again, and we will drink and have a great time and get hammered and hug and kiss. And guys, that was a great time. But from the day that you start with the first sound, until you are done your job, you have to have a professional thing. Because if you don't do that, the band will slowly begin to not basically respect you. You have to have that a professional.

Speaker 1 (00:50:29):

Well, they'll start to think of you as a hangout buddy rather than the boss of the session. Exactly. And what's interesting that I think I want people listening who don't have that much experience with this to understand is that even if they're hanging out with you, and it's cool if you lose that authority over the session and they lose respect over you, they might think you're a perfectly cool guy, but on a professional level, that'll be that. That'll be over. And bands are very capable of liking somebody but not wanting to work with them.

Speaker 3 (00:51:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:51:06):

That's a very normal thing. I mean, anyone in the industry has heard nice guy, but, or nice guys, but nice guy, but means something sucks, something sucked.

Speaker 2 (00:51:17):

What's like when you're going out on a date and you really like the chick? And she said, I like you like my brother. And you're like, oh, dead. Dead, right? Yeah. So no, again, I said, this isn't a job, but it is a job and you have to act like a pro. You do have to have a line. My dad used to, whenever somebody in a band would actually cross a line, he would always look over his glasses at you. And when that happened, you went, oh, here it comes. And he would just go up one side of the guy and see down the other side. So you also have to slap the hand, right. Got to be in charge.

Speaker 1 (00:52:03):

Hey, just out of curiosity, when you said that your dad or Bob Ezrin or Michael Wagner walk in a room and everybody knows it, what do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (00:52:13):

You know what I'm, I'm going to have to say it has a lot to do with ego. I have it. Bob has it. My dad had it. I go, Wagner had it has it. It's all about if you show up in the room and you show up and you're kind of like, your actual body language is slumping over and you're like, nobody is going to pay attention, but if you walk into the room to where you own this place, they're going to think that you're in charge.

Speaker 1 (00:52:43):

So healthy ego, it's interesting because there's obviously the side of ego that turns people off where it's more delusional and arrogant. But I've always thought that if you can back up confidence, then

Speaker 2 (00:52:59):

It's all good. Yeah. Well, it's also basically a respect that you basically, you respect the band.

Speaker 4 (00:53:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:53:05):

You know what, in my earlier years, I probably wasn't the most, I respectful a producer. I was very determined, and I was very, what? I always wanted to make great stuff. And some times I would plow over the drummer or I'd plow over the bass player or I'd plow over the guitar player. But I've learned I'm much more calm. And just

Speaker 1 (00:53:33):

Out of curiosity, when you would find yourself plowing over people sometimes though, weren't the results

Speaker 2 (00:53:42):

Magical? Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:53:43):

So where's the line?

Speaker 2 (00:53:45):

I was doing this one record in London, England, and the drummer showed up. It's a punk band. It's a hardcore punk, punk, punk. And the drummer shows up with a little splash symbol. He shows up with Achy, and he shows up with a bell. I looked into the guys and the band and went, what up with the splash, the Bell and the China? And they went, yeah, we're not happy. I said, okay, I got it. So we were doing the first song, and he's playing the thing, and he goes, and he hits the China symbol as he's playing, playing the song. I walk over, I unscrew the symbol, I take it off, I wrote it off, actually hand it to his tech. And when the song stops, I look at him and go, there is no China symbols in punk. And then we get that song done, the next song, he goes and he goes about to hit the bell.

(00:54:44):

And I'm standing on the flow of them, and I shake my head and he doesn't hit the bell. And I go over, I take off the bell, I hand it over to his tech, and I go, there's no bell. And she punk rock. Well, after about, actually halfway through the record of actually doing the drum tracks, he went over to where he was staying and he smashed every plate, cursing my name. He fucking hated my guts. Now, I had heard, because I had max of people there, and they came back and said, oh man, he is fucking destroying his suite. And so he came back over and after we were done, all of his parts, we hit play and we played them all back. And at the end I said, Hey, I'm sorry that I was hard on you, but listen to what you did. It's phenomenal and you should be proud of this. And sometimes my job is very difficult, but I have to get what is best for that band, but not for each individual in the band. I have to make sure that I am doing what is for that band's name. It's kind of like a corporation, what is best for that corporation? And he got it, but he still doesn't like me.

Speaker 1 (00:56:10):

It reminds me a little bit of when Corey Taylor was talking about working with Rick Rubin, he was talking about how Rick made him redo all the vocals on that record. They did, even though, I mean, they had the whole record done. And I believe at some point he just decided it was all garbage and made him redo everything. And I think this was when Corey Taylor was getting sober also.

Speaker 2 (00:56:37):

Yeah, because you know what? Maybe he was a better singer when he was all actually fucked up.

Speaker 1 (00:56:44):

It's entirely possible, man.

Speaker 2 (00:56:46):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:56:46):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:56:47):

Cory Taylor talked a lot about his intense hatred for him and how he never hated anybody as much as Rick Rubin. And then eventually he loved him because turned out great.

Speaker 2 (00:57:02):

He got

Speaker 1 (00:57:02):

It. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:57:03):

Yeah. Well, there's a funny story. My dad was doing Dickie bets from the Allman Brothers solo record. My dad said, Dickie, when you come in, can you be sober, please? So Dickie went, okay, fine. I'll be sober. He had to sing. He couldn't sing a song.

Speaker 1 (00:57:19):

And that's a tall ask sometimes.

Speaker 2 (00:57:21):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He couldn't sing in tune. He couldn't get the timing. He was so fucking depressed. He left the next day he came in and he was so fucked up to the point of where they had to get the two big boom mic stands, put foam around it, put it under his armpits to hold him up. He was so fucked up, and he sang eight songs perfectly.

Speaker 1 (00:57:48):

Yeah, man. It's right. It's unfortunate, man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:57:52):

There's that devil and there's that

Speaker 1 (00:57:55):

Angel. Yeah. One thing I always tell, or well, I don't record anymore, but one thing I always used to tell people was, if you're going to get sober, quit smoking, go through a big life change, go vegan, whatever the hell it is, do it at least two months before the record. Don't do it the week of, please spare us all and spare your own record because you're going to put everybody, including yourself through hell. If you have a drug, look, I don't want you doing heroin, but don't quit when you're coming into the studio. Quit two months before, or not at all.

Speaker 2 (00:58:38):

Well, I had a few engineers of mine that they decided halfway through the record that they were going to quit actually smoking. Oh man. And I went, no, no, no, man. I'm going to quit. It's going to be great. And by day three, they are the biggest assholes in the world. They came into the control room, sat down beside them, and I lit up a cigarette. Of course I don't smoke, and I've never smoked. I lip cigarette. And I went, oh God, this tastes so good. And they both got up and they went out and they smoked,

Speaker 1 (00:59:07):

And then they were probably really nice after that.

Speaker 2 (00:59:10):

They really nice. They were really nice. I said, don't ever quit in the middle of a record that we're doing, doing again, because you are not a very fun, actually person to be with. And they went, I get it. It's like, you know what? You are absolutely right. If you're going to quit, do it that you've had time to get your body used to it. Don't do it when you're going to be doing the absolutely most important thing.

Speaker 1 (00:59:38):

Yeah. I mean, I encourage anyone who's on something that could kill them to get off of it, but maybe not when we're recording. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Man. That brings up that whole can of worms, about the self-destructive behaviors of musicians actually helping their creativity. Where do you stand on that? Because seen it too, man. I've seen it where people believe that they're not going to be creative without drugs. And I've seen people who actually really suck without them. But at the same time, I'm not interested in having people I'm working with die young. It's terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):

Yeah. It's kind of what I used to have to put in two much of contracts that hit the band is not of sound mind. Then I wouldn't be responsible for the budget. Fair enough. Because if they're doing heroin or smack or speed or cocaine or there's all of a plethora of drugs, again, the label and the managers and the lawyers are saying, it's your responsibility. So for all of you people out there that if you're being paid by somebody to do a job and your singer or your drummer shows up on speed or heroin or coke, let the people that are paying, this is what is going down. If you wait until after, they're going to go, well, how come you didn't tell us? So again, if you have a small crack in your wall, fix it then and there because if you don't, it's going to grow to, it's going to fall down. I did three records in a row. The first one was actually heroin. The second one was heroin and coke, and actually vodka. And then third the third one, one was speed. And if I had to pick which one to never do again, it'd be

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):

Speed. Why is that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):

Because they were crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):

It seems like it would be really exhausting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):

It was like I literally had to, we were doing a guitar part and his nose began bleeding and I had to stuff actually kleenex up his nose so that the blood wouldn't get on his strings because they were doing so speed. You know what, if a band's doing heroin, they're going to be falling asleep. If a band's doing coke, man, I love you, man, bro. Speed is a different horrible drug. But now too, I tell bands, if you're going to do any drugs, don't. Because up here, everything is actually laced, right?

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):

You really have to be a actual fool. Right?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):

I don't think anyone should be doing street drugs in this day and age.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):

I know lots of medical professionals, and I'm not anti-drug or anything like that. I don't believe that it's my business what anybody puts in their body, and I'm not here to judge their demons. But I will say that I know for a fact that street drugs are laced a lot of the time. And you're playing Russian Ro Relate basically.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):

Yeah. Now the funny thing was band number two, they were doing heroin and coke, but the one guy that was doing heroin and coke was actually a vegetarian, so it balances out Well. No, wait, that's true. True. I was having a hamburger and he had the balls to look at me and go, you're not going to put that into your body, are you? And I looked at him and I went, are you fucking serious, dude? You are a heroin addict. You're putting that shit in your body and you're telling me to not put beef in mine. That's so funny. It was just like it was golf clap.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):

I had this girlfriend once who was, she was real, and I remember once I was putting on deodorant and she was smoking a cigarette, we were outside or something, and she was like, don't do that. It's going to give you cancer. It's like saying that as you're exhaling a cigarette puff. What a

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):

Cigarette.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):

Yeah. I was like, are you kidding? She's like, no, no. It's made with all kinds of, she was a hundred percent serious. The deodorant's going to give is going to give me cancer, but cigarette's fine, but the cigarettes

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):

Are not going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, don't do

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):

Drugs. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):

That's all I have to say.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):

Yeah. Don't do drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):

You know what? Smoke weed, weed. It's great. Do CBD oil, but stay away away from all the hard stuff. It's bad for you,

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):

Man. I grew up in an era where it was made out to be cool. The nineties bands that were popular, really glamorized addiction, they made it seem like a really, really cool thing. I remember seeing recently a home video that ministry did from touring in the nineties, and they've got needles coming out of their arms. I couldn't believe it. And I think back to those days, hearing about all the heroin addictions and all that, and so many of those people are dead now. And it's really weird thinking back because I know that drugs are still glamorized to some degree, like pills are, but I think that overall, this is just my impression, but it seems like overall the industry has gotten smarter about this topic. To a degree. I think

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):

You could no longer show up to work high.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):

I think the youth are actually still doing it. Actually lost, well, my neighbor, a buddy a year and a half ago, he was a young man and he did a bump and the bump was laced. Sorry to hear that. So I think the industry is a little bit more wise because of the fact that they know that if they do something, you could kill them. And you know what? People do not want to die,

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):

And I think that also the business side of it, there isn't the same kind of stupid money flying around.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):

Nobody wants to take a chance on something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):

Yeah, true. Agreed. Agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):

Before we wrap up, I've got some questions from our audience that I'd like to ask you. They were super stoked that you're coming on David Power saying, do you look back to the early days and the peers you started out with in and around Toronto, and think about how such an amazing group of talented people gathered together and do you ever think there was a recognition of such talent?

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):

Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, my feeling is that I came through at the best time. I got to see and meet and hang out with some incredible, credible, credible people. Every day, Peter Gabriel would come in the door and go, hello, Garth. I go, hi, Peter.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):

That's crazy,

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):

Right? And you know what? Nice guy, he would take the time to say hi. And you know what? You look back at all those times and days to where they were incredibly talented people. Like the watch, the first Peter Gaber record being made live off the floor was insane. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):

That's history.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):

There was no, we're going to get the drums first and then we're going to edit the drums, and then we're going to get the bass. Well, then we're going to edit the bass, and then we're going to do the vocals, but you only have to sing me the first course and then I'll fly it. It was like they worked it and they played and they played with such vigor and just passion. So those early days are special, and I actually miss it because nobody, well, there's very few bands that actually could go into the studio and play live.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):

It's a total rarity.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):

It's very rare. Yeah. It's sad.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):

Yeah. I think that at least in my world, heavy music, I could think of once a year or something that a band could come in and really lay it down in that way. Question from Sean Allen, Roberto Frost, which is, he has two. First one is Biffy Claros only Revolutions and Opposites has some of my favorite rock band sounds, vocal space, et cetera. I was wondering if you might discuss how you went about creating those sounds with Biffy. How much of it was already there, meaning just in how they play and who they are and how much of it did you have to finesse?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):

The funny thing is when we did opposites, that was record number three, and I had told Ben, the drummer, I said, do you know the lyrics yet? He said, yeah, I do. I said, okay, so when you're playing the drum parts sing and when you're singing, you could only keep time. I said, so let's go through the songs, and he would keep time and sing the songs in his head so that he never got in the way of actually Simon, the singer, the things that I helped them with was for them to be able to actually listen to each other, because I do find a lot of bands today that when they're playing, you go, stop. What are you playing on the bass part? And of course, the bass player plays part, and I said, and what are you doing on the drums? And of course they go, oh, is that what you're playing?

(01:09:48):

I didn't know that. So part of my job is to teach the bands how to listen to each other, and I spend a lot of time with actually Simon and James and Ben that they began to realize that everything has a space and everything has a part, and if you're doing a big drum fill over a very kind of important vocal, then that'll get in the way. Something has to give, and it's always going to be the drum fill has to go. My buddy was actually working with actually Max Martin, and he was doing drums on this one song, and the drummer played this incredible fill, and my buddy went to Max. That's a brilliant fill. And Max goes quote, that fill will cost me $3 million, because that was the phenomena fill but wrong for the song.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):

Yeah, man, that is such a brilliant tip to give a musician. When you think about the idea of playing something more musically or play the right part for the song, these are easy things to say, but when it comes to actually doing it, it's hard to really define it. So what you just said is sing along. That's perfect, because then by singing along, the space is already ingrained. It's in their head. They know where to put it, instinctually, they can feel where the breaks are or where they need to emphasize something.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):

Yeah. I always do the stress point to where I tell a band, I said, you know that song Living on a Prayer? They go by Bon Jovi. Yeah, yeah. I go, you know what? I was at the show and there were 80,000 people, and they go, yeah. And I go, when the song stops and it modulates and the whole band stopped at the modulation and John Bon Jovi put out the mic and 80,000 people were singing, I think so drum part, and they went, they were singing the drum part. I go, no. They were singing the fucking lyric. Vocals are the most important thing that we do with any record, and that was the whole thing about with actually Biffy Claro was we spend a lot of time making sure that everything fit. That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):

His second question was, could you discuss a little more broadly how you approach taking a band or an artist's sound and then taking it further?

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):

Okay. There's a very funny story. When is working, working with actually Michael Wagner. We were doing this one band, and the guitar player said, I really want that Eddie Van Halen sound. And Michael went, okay. Michael caught up out of his chair, went over to the phone, this is in the day. This is in the day when we didn't have cell phones, and he called up Andy Van Halen, and the guitar player is going, dude, fuck, what are you doing? I said, mate, the only way that we're going to get you that sound is to get him to come in and play your parts, and I learned that day the most insane. I love that. The most insane, valuable lesson. You can only work with what you have, get that actual person's sound. What my theory is, you have to get them to go through every amp cabinet, find out what they like, and then spend the time getting their sound right. It's also a big part of everybody playing other right parts.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):

Yeah. That's brilliant. Last question here. This is from Michael McDonald. He says, sorry to be so broad, but I just want to hear a bit about recording the self-titled Ridge Against the Machine record. Was it mostly Track Live? How was it trying to capture the energy of the band? Is there anything very memorable about making such an iconic album? And I'll add this, did you know at the time that you were making something iconic?

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):

Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did the record actually 30, 30 days. The budget was 90 grand. I was in the middle of this other record. I got asked by Michael Gold's own to go see the band. I was in this little Van Nuys. We practice place probably 12 feet by 14 foot room, and they played me three songs. My jaw dropped because I had never heard anything like the hits before. It was, oh my God, now I got asked to do this record. I did not want to basically fuck it up. I did not want to take them into the studio and put headphones on them and have their little space that they could only go so far because of the headphone cable. So I actually brought in a full concert PA system. I put Tim and Tom's amps in the back room. I put Brad behind the PA system, and I had Zach holding Extra 58, and we made their live show coming out of the speakers.

(01:15:04):

So all of our sounds that we were getting coming through the mics ended up going back out through the PA system. So we literally captured a lot of it live off the floor, because I didn't want to do a Let's get the drums and then let's get the bass and then let's get the guitars. A lot of it was I was live. There is one song that if you listen to the one song, it's a ball settle for nothing. Tom wanted to redo his solo because of how we did the record. The old solo bled through actually Brad's mics. You can hear the old solo coming through the actual song, so it sounds like it was a delay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):

That's really, really cool actually.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):

Yeah, so you should go listen to it because it sounds like Tom plays, and then you can hear in the background of the old solo. I'm going to go listen to that actually. Yeah, so that all record was done literally live off the floor. I was the one that made them bring in their friends to come and sit and actually watch them record, because I really wanted that live atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):

I guess one of the things that I've noticed on a lot of heavy albums is that when you have a band that basically sounds like an explosion of energy, it's very rare to actually get that captured. I think it's because of that split up way of tracking the overdubbing style. I do think that there's a lot to it, that the energy is greater than the individual parts, and so that special sauce only comes out when those people are doing what they do together.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):

Yeah. I do think Brad is probably one of the most underrated drummers Absolutely. That I've seen, and because he has actually pocket and he plays with such a feel, and it's like he's kind of shadowed by Zach and Tom, but Brad and Tim are the heartbeat of that band,

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):

And band is nothing without a rhythm section. Exactly. Well, Garth Richardson, thank you so much for coming on the URM podcast. It's been a pleasure talking to you. It's been fun. Yeah, dude, it is really cool talking to you. It's been a blast. Thank you. Cheers. Okay, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at AI Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. 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

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):

Podcast link today.