THOM RUSSO: Working with Prince, learning from Rick Rubin, and the art vs. gear debate

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.

(00:00:55):

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. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is a Titan Thom Russo is the 16 time Grammy winning producer, mixer, songwriter, and composer who's worked with people like Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, prince, Janet Jackson, Johnny Cash, Jay-Z, and tons of others. He became a household name in the Latin music arena, amassing a ton of Grammys and other award nominations for his work in that genre. Before we get started, I just want to let you know that there was a slight technical difficulty about 20 minutes into the podcast where we have to use the backup recorder. So you're going to notice the audio quality on Tom's mic changing. I apologize, but it is what it is. Anyways, this episode is awesome, so enjoy. Well, Thom Russo, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:20):

Hey, very glad to be here. This is going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (00:02:24):

Yeah, it will. It always is. I was looking over the notes my assistant Ben took and you said something interesting I wanted to ask you about. You said you're not into the Hi-Fi thing.

Speaker 2 (00:02:36):

God, you just jumped into the interesting, oh my God, did I say that?

Speaker 1 (00:02:41):

Yeah, you said you don't get into the Hi-Fi thing because audio's amazing, but you can get lost in, I guess, the bullshit.

Speaker 2 (00:02:51):

Yeah, dude. I don't know. That's the thing. I don't know. I mean, it's just that nowadays, and it's not even nowadays. I mean, in the past whatever decade or something, everybody just gets lost in the BS of Tech talk and all that stuff. By way of saying, of course I'm into Hi-Fi, and I mean, we make records, we make music, so of course we are. It goes without saying, but it just seems like, God, I dunno. I dunno. I hope I'm making myself clear in the sense of you just,

Speaker 1 (00:03:22):

It's almost like people put the cart before the horse.

Speaker 2 (00:03:25):

They big time. And I wish in our line of work and so much of my occupation, I mean all of us, we can get lost in that. And it's just a minutia. It is really a minutia. Look, I'll talk about all that stuff till I'm blue in the face, sampling rates and these microphones and these speakers, I mean, all by way saying in a sweeping comment about it, I'm all for great sounding audio and great sounding equipment and blah, blah, blah and everything, but that seems like the primary you have that you get something that works and you just move on to the next step instead of carting it before the horse, like you're saying. It just, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (00:04:11):

Yeah, just a tool. Just a tool. I think that, honestly, I wasn't of age really before the internet took over, but I feel like the internet made it worse because a lot of it provides a forum for people to just argue about these things. And then also they'll read about gear. Yeah, they'll read about gear, and someone with incredible ears will say that they hear something different. They'll hear distortion, cool harmonics on an API, and so everyone will be like, I need that. But when they're talking masters of the craft or talking about those differences, we're talking about the last 2%,

Speaker 3 (00:04:52):

Right?

Speaker 1 (00:04:53):

Yeah. People will read that stuff, hear that stuff, and think that it makes way more of a difference than it actually does.

Speaker 2 (00:05:02):

Yeah.

(00:05:02):

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying. We're in completely green about, and look, there's a lot of guys that I've known over the years and whatever, and I'll see 'em on Instagram and they'll post some really interesting stuff about different signal processing chains that they have on blah, blah, blah, drums, bass, whatever. And that's cool. It's awesome, of course. But you're right. When it gets into all that talk, like you're saying, and it's exactly that, what the internet has brought to it is everybody can sit and talk about, I don't know, preamp, shootouts for fucking weeks straight instead of like, all right, well just put it up and if it sounds good, great. Then use it instead of getting lost in that. And look, it's a different thing when you're in the market. When you're in the market per se, it's like, okay, you got to shoot out, and that's true about everything. You're buying a car, you got to go drive five cars, you're buying produce, you're going to go to a store where you get the peaches that you like. You know what I mean? But it's the same thing. Or shopping women with dresses, it's the same shit. It's like us with speakers. I mean, when I needed a new pair of speakers, yes, of course I went and did shootouts and the blah blah blahs and the blah blah blahs. But I mean,

Speaker 1 (00:06:25):

Well, the thing that's funny is that I think generally when people argue about it, they're arguing about things that they've never tried. And so it misleads a lot of people, if they're in the market, they'll post a question asking about, what should I get? And then there'll be like a hundred replies of people just regurgitating info that they heard about a piece of gear that they never even tried when the real answer is try it.

Speaker 2 (00:06:52):

Especially nowadays when whatever, you could go in somewhere or we can't go in anywhere right now, but God, well return policy 30 days, but fucking fire it up, listen to it. If it sucks, then move on. And if it doesn't use it,

Speaker 1 (00:07:07):

I always used to call it the Sweetwater Rental Plan.

Speaker 2 (00:07:10):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:07:12):

I mean, what do you think the priority is when it comes to getting a great final product? If the gear is not the priority, what's the priority?

Speaker 2 (00:07:23):

Oh, I'm not saying it's not the priority, but it's again, it's

Speaker 1 (00:07:27):

Just one piece of the puzzle. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:07:28):

It's one piece of the puzzle. And as we talk, dude, I think maybe I'm a big analogy guy, and it's kind of like, it's extremely important. It's the race car, but if you don't have the driver then, you know what I mean? That

Speaker 1 (00:07:46):

Shit's going into the wall.

Speaker 2 (00:07:48):

Exactly. It's going to be the greatest scar that just like, boom. It makes me think about Ford versus Ferrari. If you haven't seen it,

Speaker 3 (00:07:55):

I have

Speaker 2 (00:07:56):

Incredible movie and I almost missed it. I was like, I really don't want to, I'm somewhat a car guy. But then I read a little of the ruse, I was like, whoa, this is pretty, yeah. Anyway,

Speaker 1 (00:08:08):

I'm not a car guy, but I'm a Christian Bale guy.

Speaker 2 (00:08:11):

There you go. Yeah. What a frigging. Oh my God. Unbelievable. What a super duper consummate, dedicated motherfucking pro. And my wife is an actress and a pretty accomplished one, very accomplished, I should say. And she's just like this to him all the time because he's 120%, you know what I mean? 120%.

Speaker 1 (00:08:34):

Can we talk about acting for a second? I know that that's not what this podcast is about, but

Speaker 2 (00:08:38):

Of course, alright,

Speaker 1 (00:08:39):

Since you're married to an actress, I want to know something.

Speaker 2 (00:08:44):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:08:45):

Okay. So I love great movies. I really do. I think that it's one of the highest,

Speaker 2 (00:08:51):

Sorry to interrupt, did you see bombshell?

Speaker 1 (00:08:53):

No. Wait. Yes, yes, I did. Did, yes I did. Yes, I did. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (00:08:56):

The Roger a story. Yes. Pretty intense and very zeitgeist in the Me Too. Do you remember the woman that played Judge Janine Perot?

Speaker 1 (00:09:07):

Vaguely.

Speaker 2 (00:09:07):

Okay. She had three scenes in it. That was my wife.

Speaker 1 (00:09:09):

I'll go watch it again. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:09:11):

You got to watch it again.

Speaker 1 (00:09:11):

That's pretty fucking cool though.

Speaker 2 (00:09:13):

Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, she's awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:09:15):

That's awesome. So she does it for real.

Speaker 2 (00:09:18):

Very, that's really cool. Very much. Yeah, she's been, since she was 11, 12, like countless movies. She's mostly a character actor, comedian, legally Blonde, meet the Fs, blah, blah, blah. You might not recognize her if you look at her, but then if you see the roles, you'll be like, holy shit, that's her, et cetera. What her name? Yes, Alana Ach.

Speaker 1 (00:09:39):

Alright. I'm definitely going to, I am db her.

Speaker 2 (00:09:42):

Anyway, back to your question.

Speaker 1 (00:09:43):

Yeah, I think they're one of the highest art forms out there, and I think that great actors are incredible artists, but it's a weird job because you're pretending to be somebody else.

Speaker 2 (00:09:57):

It is,

Speaker 1 (00:09:57):

Yeah. Where does the seriousness come in, where it's not a silly thing?

Speaker 2 (00:10:05):

Okay, there you go. That's perfect question. And a perfect example was what I was talking about before when she first got the audition piece about the movie Bombshell. This is what's cool about answering your question and how interesting it is. It was the first time she was asked to play a character that it was a living person

(00:10:24):

And had an entity and an energy, and not only that, but a look and the whole bit. So what's fascinating about it is this was the first time, like I said, that she's ever been requested to do such a thing. And so when she was in audition mode, because I'd say 30 to 40% of the time, she still auditions, meaning that the other 60 to 70 is what's called the offer only where they know her work. They just call her and say, I'd like to hire you. So this was a circumstance that she knew the director, and he's done countless movies. He's Jay Jay's last name, Jay Roche, sorry. Incredible, incredible director. She knew it very well. I'd worked with him on a couple pieces or whatever. But what I'm saying is what's fascinating about it, and similar to our work I guess, is that the moment she got it, she boom, she hit YouTube and watched this woman constantly, for every breathing moment, she'd wake up, she's watching this woman, her inflections, how she did stuff. Then she got the script and she had to interpret it within the realm of what this woman was or what this woman is. The woman still is on Fox News and blah, blah, blah. She's a staunch Republican and big Trump supporter and whatever. So I mean, I may say that this is the complete opposite political view that my wife has, but yet she still had to emulate this person. So there's just one example. And by the way, yes, she got the part, et cetera, and it was amazing to do.

(00:12:04):

And that is one example of the challenges that they face. And then the others are just simply creating something out of thin air, which is very similar to what we do in production. It's like creating something out of ear. And it's fascinating to watch my wife do it because she is very much an artist in this sense of with what the great s are, where it's like she looks at something page and trust me, I've been with her now 10 years and it's fucking awesome because she'll get something and look at it on a page and she'll get an idea in her mind of what it should be. And it's also cool, by the way, I didn't say this, but a lot of her work is voice overacting. She does a ton of voice overacting. She's also an incredible musician. I don't know if you saw the movie Coco, did she see the Pixar movie, Coco?

Speaker 1 (00:12:50):

I did not see Coco.

Speaker 2 (00:12:51):

Okay. You're going to want to see it because it's an absolute masterpiece and she actually sings in it. She's the only one that sings an entire song besides, it's very music based, by the way, the whole movie is her and the main character Miguel sing in the movie, but she's exquisite voice. She's amazing. That's a whole nother, she's a many, many trick pony as they say. I guess back to your question is that's just what gets her blood pumping, and she never leaves who she is, but I know when she's in a character mode because it will be her focus in a way, I guess much like us, again, if we're in the middle of a heated project and it's, it's our focus, and if we're working with not such nice people or maybe somebody that's super creative or whatever it might be because your question's really about how much does she bring her work home.

(00:13:46):

And I would say that it's at home a lot, but it's got to be, and that's why I think it's almost a cliche that two artists are together because I am in the entertainment business in the arts field, and I understand, I understand her when she's working on a new project or doing this or doing that, but the other side of it's, she's been doing it long enough to not bring it home too much. And that's a balance. I do hear stories about some of those guys that are so obsessed with, they do the method acting thing where they are the character for so much, and she was on American Horror Story and she played somebody, she wasn't one of those monsters or something, but she was a victim. She's murdered off pretty quickly. But I mean, she's done so many different things that it's just, it's fun. It's absolutely so much fun how she gets to do this and this, and especially dude, the voiceover stuff in a brilliant new one now that's on Hulu called Crossing Swords for this audience. You guys might like it because it's not animation, but it's stop motion animation. It's hysterical. It's super adult, like the dirtiest potty mouth humor, but it's hilarious called Crossing Sword. I recommend it highly. She plays a couple characters and the main one is the Queen. Anyway. Yeah, I mean, she's very, very fortunate in the sense of that she gets to do all these interesting, unique, cool, fun things. That's the fun part about it. It's a bitch of a business, just like the music business is. It's a terrible

Speaker 1 (00:15:32):

Business. I'm sure. I'm

Speaker 2 (00:15:33):

Sure. I won't even get into that where it's like, but I need to, I will just say, I mean, we're so off this podcast theme, but

Speaker 1 (00:15:44):

We talk about anything here.

Speaker 2 (00:15:46):

Oh, good, good, good. Yeah, I can tell you that. And it relates to the music business in a sense that she, even an accomplished artist and actress like she is, I mean, she's managed by all the highest, her agent manner, blah, blah, blah, William Morris, et cetera, et cetera. However, she was on a production last year that, and this happens all the time where she gets cast for one thing and they understand her talent and the presence of her talent. Then all of a sudden her character starts to expand and they start writing more and more and more for her, and she just starts doing more scenes and more scenes

Speaker 1 (00:16:26):

Idea creep.

Speaker 2 (00:16:27):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, wait, she's only being paid for X, but she's doing X and Y, and then she's doing X and Y and Z, and it's like, wait a minute, hold the phone. We need to get some shit straight. And then it gets pretty stinky, and that stuff happens often and you can't quell the creative process of the writers and et cetera. But the whole point is that, and that one also became a big challenge. She was shooting out of state and it became, I'll just use the word abusive in the sense of when she was needed and when she was not. And they were calling her at the last minute saying, okay, we're putting you on a plane in two hours. And at the time, our son was two years old. It's just like, wait, what? Okay. And I'm in the middle of a record and it's like, wait, this is not how it works. Suffice to say, what I'm saying is as exciting as, and fun as the acting business and the entertainment world is, and I may be stating something that everybody knows, but it's a bitch. It can be a very big challenge. It's like any business, and you got to work really hard and stay busy and do all those other crazy things.

Speaker 1 (00:17:42):

I imagine that kind of in the recording business, when people start adding stuff and adding stuff, at some point you've got to hold the line, but at the same time, if you don't go along, there's someone else who will and that'll get out.

Speaker 2 (00:18:00):

Yeah, you're right. And God bless her. I love the fact that we're using my wife as the example. God bless her because she has definitely been in that place for a very long time of, you know what? I'm not going to rock the boat smart. I'm going to do what I need to do. Smart. And that's why she's worked as long and hard. She's never been in, trust me, I won't get into all the stories.

Speaker 1 (00:18:21):

You can probably imagine them if you've heard anything about Hollywood Ever,

Speaker 2 (00:18:25):

And they've happened to her. They've happened to her, and she had to make choices. Where do I blow a whistle and potential? I mean, obviously this will be on the news and it'll be a big deal and this person will go, or do I just grin and bear it and

Speaker 1 (00:18:40):

Keep my career,

Speaker 2 (00:18:42):

And that's it. And that's what she shows. There's two or three examples, and I was with her at the time. I'm like, wow. One of 'em was a long time ago. I wasn't with her when she was a kid actor, and it was a movie that you would know maybe you didn't see. But yeah, the story was like, wow, holy shit wasn't so good. She was 14. Not a big kid or not a little kid. But anyway,

Speaker 1 (00:19:06):

Have you ever read The Godfather?

Speaker 2 (00:19:08):

I haven't read it. Of course I've seen it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:19:11):

So remember the horse's head scene when he tries to get the movie producer to go along? Yeah. Well, the book takes that story and goes way deeper into it and goes into how that producer was treating young girls, and one of the reasons that they cut the horse's head off wasn't just because he wasn't going to cast the dude in the part, it was also an ethical thing because the dude is such a fucking scumbag.

Speaker 2 (00:19:43):

Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:19:44):

The book is pretty nasty.

Speaker 2 (00:19:46):

I love that you're bringing that up, especially in the sense, and I will say this, I'm a hundred percent Italian and my father rest his soul Sicilian and did not really care for that film, nor did he care for the Sopranos for the obvious reason. It's a glorification and how certainly poignant right now to be talking about something that is somewhat racist, not really racist. I mean, look, he was telling a story about a poverty stricken community, and that's what happened in Sicily. But yeah, to your point, there you go. I mean, I like that you're telling me that story because it makes it, I never knew that, and that makes it even cooler because it was like, I'm not happy for the horse. Of course, that's heartbreaking, but it's

Speaker 1 (00:20:29):

Too bad.

Speaker 2 (00:20:29):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:20:30):

So the thing about the Godfather is what I understand is that it is a glorification for sure, but from what I understand, the writer put it together based on multiple different stories that occurred over a very long period of time. So in The Godfather, it makes it look like it's one crime family and all this shit happens. But really it's like a bunch of isolated stories kind of congealed into

Speaker 2 (00:21:02):

Yeah, no question. Yeah, it's a movie, of course. And look, we all understand that the word mafia, yes, it started there. It's present in many different cultures, Japanese, Russian, blah, blah, blah, and it really just means an organized crime group. I've been to Sicily two or three times, took my father back there. It was fascinating, but it existed because they were a poverty stricken country that were colonized through the history. It's a fascinating place because they were colonized by the Moors. They were colonized by the Greeks even before that. And then of course, the Italians, and it's a fascinating place because you've got a melding of a lot of those cultures in there, especially in the food. The food's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (00:21:45):

Yes, the best.

Speaker 2 (00:21:46):

Oh my God, absolutely unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (00:21:48):

If you live in the US and think Italian food, you don't.

Speaker 2 (00:21:53):

Yeah, you do not. And look, if you go to Italy and you think you're in Rome and Milan and you're eating great Italian food, it's good, but then you fucking go to Palermo and sit down. I will hands down tell you the best meal I've ever had, and I'm not a big pasta guy by any stretch, but I had, I'll never forget it, bow tie pasta and an olive oil with cherry tomatoes. That's so simple, right? But when you're talking about, obviously organic tomatoes just picked probably an hour before it was fed to me, handmade pasta, homemade, the olive oil, blah, blah, blah. I'm talking about you just, you're like, what?

Speaker 1 (00:22:37):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:22:38):

Fuck, have I been eating? Yeah. What have I been eating for all these years? Or it's just like that's the difference. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:22:46):

Yeah. I was actually about to say the tomatoes in Italy are an experience. You don't have that here.

Speaker 2 (00:22:56):

Nope. No, and I mean, the tomato is the pointer to if produce is good or not, because for some reason, I don't know, I'm sure that any scientist or biologist be able to tell us that, but you eat a good tomato and you're like, okay, I'm shopping in the right place, because they're just so, if you're not, it's like eating water. It's red water,

Speaker 1 (00:23:20):

Basically. Okay, so on the topic of holding the line, I want to know where you draw the line or where you've drawn the line in your career, and is it different now than earlier maybe when you're younger? Was it more about Yes, yes, yes to anything? How does that work for you?

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

Can I just say I think it's awesome. We've been talking for almost 40 minutes and we haven't talked about the business at all yet. I love that.

Speaker 1 (00:23:45):

If this podcast was just about compressors and settings and I would've quit a long time

Speaker 2 (00:23:52):

Ago. I'm glad you're saying that too, because that's why I had to say before when I was talking to Ben and stuff, I was like, please don't make me talk about the attack ratio ratio of a compressor. I mean, I will, but yeah. Okay, good. We can at the end, where do I draw the line in terms of

Speaker 1 (00:24:08):

Clients who want more than what you agreed on and are unreasonable, it's something that everybody who produces, whether you're working with local bands or working with mega stars, it's part of the deal.

Speaker 2 (00:24:23):

Yeah, absolutely. It's totally part of the deal. I mean, you're on revision 50 of a mix. That's just one example. Or even in the beginning, where do you draw the line? Yeah, I've been in so many scenarios where, look, it can get very uncomfortable if you're in the middle of something and you find out you're doing so much more than you need to, because that's specifically sort of what you're saying, right? You got to be open communication. Luckily, I have a liaison who is my management company who when he gets a little or even a lot like, oh, this isn't, I have 'em step in and say, Hey, look, and most of the time people are pretty cool. I can give you many examples where they're not, I will never give you names or blah blah of no names. Yeah. There's certain things that have happening in the last couple years where I will tell you, I'm bad guy to answer that question. Here's why I'm the dude that goes way past what is acceptable.

Speaker 1 (00:25:26):

Maybe that means you're the right guy to answer the question.

Speaker 2 (00:25:29):

No, I tend to be just abused. And then it just builds up so much resentment. There was a band I was working with a couple years ago, did a super cool version of a song, and they were managed by a really great, well before I had them. They weren't managed by this really great company. Then they picked up that manager, which was like, okay, cool. We're going to make an EP and it's, I'm going to do it for extremely cheap because they're unsigned right now and they don't have a lot of bread, but it's going to be great and super creative, and I'm going to be working with this management company who's all these great artists. We're going to get a relationship, blah, blah, blah. Did that came out amazing. Then all of a sudden, Sony comes knocking on the door and they love one song that run a release one song.

(00:26:12):

I'm telling you a long story, but actually it totally applies to your question. They love this one song. They want to release this one song, but here you go. I'm going to say the word, the a and r guy, and you all know what I mean, has visions about how the song could be better or the this or the that. Now I'm telling you, I've already, we recorded it, we mix it, and this was a band that was very much into 5, 6, 7, 8 revisions of the mix is, okay, I'm going to pull my sleeve. I'm just going to do it. It's all good. And again, when it's just me and the band and we're like, I've been doing it so long, I'm streamlining that stuff because I heard a quote a while back, and I really bring it to my work whether whatever I'm doing, if I'm writing, if I'm co-writing, whatever, I don't ever do it for myself unless I'm fucking prince.

(00:27:05):

Okay? My point being is that I know I'm going to have to do things two, three, maybe even four times, even if it's full production that don't work. The point is that I'm in a collaborative process, so I know that everybody's going to have an opinion, but suffice to say, I can't be so precious about my work and trust me being in the business as long as I've been, I've seen some guys that have been really, really precious about their work, and it just shoot yourself in the foot because you just get lost. And I'll tell you something back to my wife. That's a perfect example because she's worked with a countless amount of directors, and she will tell you hands down, the guys that she works best with are the ones that come into the game knowing sort of what they want, because then she's going to bring in something that's kind of what she envisions today, and they get a groove and they go, but she's also worked with a million directors who were like, I don't know.

(00:28:00):

Can you try it a little more happy? No, that wasn't, can you try it a little more sad? And it's 30 takes later, and she's like, okay, you have no fucking idea what you want really, because maybe you're inexperienced or maybe you don't trust your own intuitions or whatever. But it goes back to just, I mean, I'm digressing, but I'm not digressing because just like any band or any artist, we may work with it or any a and r guy or whatever. You got to trust your instinct. I mean, the pointer always goes back to Kaz, like the greatest artists in the world and the greatest record guys in the world, like Clive Davis, there's a motherfucker, he trusted himself all the time and knew all those artists that he was about to scoop up and invest his entire life and energy to. He knew what he trusted himself. So anyway, back to your point about, back to your question, and I've digressed, oh,

Speaker 1 (00:28:51):

It's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:28:52):

But anyway, back to this band. So Sony gets involved and they're like, what if it could be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Well, this is a baby band. This is a young band, and they want to get a single out there pumped by a big major record company. It's the first time they've been approached by this, et cetera. And so we start going through the hoops and I'm doing versions that I never imagined we were going to do. This is a lot, not a rock band, but that kind of rock esque pop rock band, and the song in particular, it's beautiful kind of acousticy. Cool. So then our guy now wants, he wants beats, he wants the live drums gone, and it's going to be electronic, and I don't know, he's coming up with ideas of hybrid things. Cool. Okay. So now it's gone down a road of like, okay, it's a remix, which is fine, but we've kind of agreed on a number, an amount that I would be paid for my services of doing said version, which became versions, which became versions on and on and

Speaker 1 (00:30:00):

On and on. Capital V.

Speaker 2 (00:30:01):

Yeah, capital V, yes, yes, yes, yes. Goes to them and it goes to Sony, Sony, blah, blah, blah. And then, dude, I still don't even remember how the process went down, but we didn't hear back from the a and r guy and then et cetera, et cetera. Then all of a sudden, I'm not doing it anymore, and some other producer's doing it who gets paid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and then the icing on the cake, the fucking thing comes out, and it's almost exactly like my first version before we, I swear to God, which before we even went down that road, and so in answer your question, how far will I go? I'll go to the point of being an idiot because it got to the point where I was an idiot because I wanted to make the band happy. I'm that guy, even though I've been doing it for so long, I'm the guy that you do you want in your trenches, you can do, I dare I say the word abuse. It got to the point where I was like, you know what? I shouldn't be doing anything more until I get paid, and I had overextended myself countless amounts of times, and then the record comes out. I mean, the single comes out and it's not my name on it, and I saw the release come out and I listened to it. I was like, oh, what?

Speaker 1 (00:31:25):

Yeah. The question then is, is it worth it? And I bring that up too because one thing that I always try to tell listeners or students of URM is that, for instance, if you're going to do something on spec or whatever, or you're going to cut a deal or whatever, anything that you do that's above and beyond has to be worth it. Worth it in some way.

Speaker 2 (00:31:51):

Exactly. Now, my relationship with the band is still great. I haven't talked to him in a long time or whatever, but eventually we may still work together and blah, blah, blah. It's no hard feelings because at the end of the day, I guess we had the same goal with a song. We wanted the song to get released and wanted it to be well done, and I realized it got lost in the minutia of, I don't even remember the record company guy's name or what, but the point is I got no hard feelings towards the band. It was just like, because I know it wasn't their doing. It's like, man, it tank dance because eventually was compensated. But yeah, I mean, why did I say yes and why did I keep doing it? Because yeah, it goes down to that thing, man, where it's like you want to always do quality of work, of course, but also, I dunno, it's integrity, man. I mean, I guess integrity to the point of, I don't know, ignorance because it's like,

Speaker 1 (00:32:52):

I think that a lot of people who hold the line end up fucking themselves in a weird way. There's different versions of this. For instance, I remember this band who won a contest, they won a record label, was put on a contest, gets signed to this record label, and it was actually a pretty big deal. They marketed it like crazy. They had showcases in 20 different cities, and it was like this whole big thing, and this is a good label too, and a band won, and then the band didn't like the deal and went public about how they didn't like the deal, and they kind of had that whole mentality of artists aren't fairly compensated, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that was the end of their career, obviously it was. It's so stupid.

Speaker 2 (00:33:53):

Yeah. I'm laughing because if Hello, read the book before you even learn a scale in music. I mean, artists are, hello.

Speaker 1 (00:34:05):

There's this fine line where you don't want to ruin your relationships by being that guy that argues about everything, but at the same time, you don't want to be a pushover, and it's a very hard line to walk.

Speaker 2 (00:34:21):

It is. It is. It is. But I find that, I think that's true in every business, but especially ours, and especially now, because it used to be different way back when I was first getting going, way back when I started, I was working on a Michael Jackson record. This was way in the beginning of my career, and I remember first I was a staff guy at the studio and blah, blah, blah, and we could talk about that if you want to. Anyway, I remember that when I was moving up the ranks and I was going to be actually the engineer to be recording Michael's vocals and stuff like that, swine, Bruce swine, the legend, et cetera, he pulled me aside and he said, now, Tom, I need to tell you something. He said, you need to be very organized about your billing and the blah and the blah, and this is what every moment, every hour, you're going to be billing Sony and et cetera.

(00:35:15):

Point being is that back then, because it was the world of no one had a home studio and the this and the that, I think anybody that called themselves a producer per se, it just wasn't, well, first of all, it also wasn't a career that anybody even thought about that much. I mean, there was just a handful of guys that were doing it because you needed a real studio, et cetera, because technology didn't lend itself to what it is now. But point being is that I just don't think you could be in a circumstance where you were taken advantage of as much as now. And a lot of times, look, a lot of times it's not even about taking advantage. I get approached by artists all the time that just don't have any experience in the business, and they'll sit there and talk to me and I'll get to talking about 'em, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(00:36:06):

And trust me, this is a daily thing, not daily, but probably a weekly thing where we're like, we'll talk. And then I'll be like, okay, well, let's talk about the business end of things. If you want me to produce, sit down and actually invest my entire life being like, I wake up, I make your music and do the thing, well, then we have to work something out compensation wise or whatever. Because look, I've done my many, many bands on spec and blah, blah, blah, and the master I owned and et cetera, and I've shopped them and I've done all that and I've had own their masters and had 'em synced in television film and blah, blah, blah. It's good because there was something that even though I wasn't going to be compensated for it, for the work would actually, there was a reason for me to be part of it.

Speaker 1 (00:36:55):

Yeah. It was worth it.

Speaker 2 (00:36:56):

Yeah, of course. It was absolutely worth it to a degree. As I get older, I find that I do that less and less, less and less spec stuff, and I think that's true for everybody that's been in the business for a while, because unless something is like, holy fuck, it's the second coming of, but I also must say that I tend to start leaning towards the philosophy of a lot of the labels and the this and the that, because it's like even if some does come in, there is the second coming of Jimi Hendrix or whatever it is we were talking about earlier about your business before we started the podcast and stuff. It's like, and this is a great topic to expand about if we're going to talk about it. It is one thing to be the most amazing, whatever you might be, but it's another thing to be able to or have promoted yourself and to present yourself as that person.

Speaker 1 (00:37:53):

Oh, yes.

Speaker 2 (00:37:54):

I hate to even start talking about the social media thing, but it kind of is, I don't want to say it's a necessary evil, do I use that word? But it just happens. That's culturally what it is it or not. If you are whomever, you better have a presence that the world has discovered or you forced them to discover, man, that's it. Because we as humans have, we will always have just a limited bandwidth of like, well, first of all, we get 24 hours a day and now 23 of it is spent on a phone or glued to something. And so if that's the case, we better find a way that your talent as a musical artist or whatever a juggler has made its way into my eyes and whatever that might be. I mean, look, this song's on TikTok or driving billboard, which is driving radio, which is driving blah, blah, blah. My point is, I think made by, how did we get on that? How did I digress to that?

Speaker 1 (00:39:02):

I'm with you on this.

Speaker 2 (00:39:03):

Oh, I know what it was. Yeah, I was talking about if somebody presents itself to me doing something on a spec or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And that's so necessary for talking to people getting going and the new artists, whatever, man, you got to have that thing presence. You could be the greatest.

Speaker 1 (00:39:22):

You want to know what really annoys me?

Speaker 2 (00:39:24):

Tell me.

Speaker 1 (00:39:24):

Okay, so

Speaker 2 (00:39:25):

I want to know all things

Speaker 1 (00:39:27):

You don't want to know all, trust me, but okay, this topic comes up a lot with URM subscribers and stuff. Should I do work for free or not? And I say, at the beginning of your career, say yes to everything because you don't have any worth in the market yet. You don't have any worth until the market determines that you have worth. You don't even know what you're good at yet at the beginning, you just don't know. So they'll watch an interview with some multi-platinum dude who has a bunch of Grammys and has done a bunch of shit, and they'll say, never work for free. I never do anything for free. And they'll point to that guy as the example. And I'm thinking, well, this dude has been on top of the game for 30 years now. He doesn't remember what it was like at the beginning, obviously. And plus his struggle era was a different time period. It's not now. So apples and oranges,

Speaker 2 (00:40:30):

Exactly. Very well put apples and oranges, apples and frigging kiwis apples and completely, because I'm going to be that guy. Can I be that guy to say that I am, and I've been lucky enough to win some Grammys, and I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say,

Speaker 1 (00:40:49):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:40:50):

I just gave you an example how I worked very hard doing something for free. And you know what? Going back to my wife, if you call my wife and you ask her that question, she has gone on countless interviews, countless podcasts, and I will tell you what her adage has been for her entire fucking career, say yes, because Whoopi Goldberg told her in a movie years and years ago, say yes to everything. And she has said, and I get chills when I say it because it's made all the difference for her.

Speaker 1 (00:41:21):

Within reason. Within reason

Speaker 2 (00:41:23):

To a degree is what we're saying. When it gets to the point of, like you've said, within reason, and it's as simple as that, we're all humans here. It's that if you're dealing with a different species, then this stuff make it out of reason. But yeah, we're all humans. And if it's just like you've said yes, and you've worked too hard and back to something I didn't finish before, it's like I still get approached by people who are so new to the business and they're like, I want to collaborate with you. And they'll talk about the this and the that, and it'd be like, okay, well, we should talk about compensation. Like, oh, I didn't really know that. I didn't know that you had to pay for it. And that to me is that gets to be a respect thing. It's like, well, wait a minute,

Speaker 1 (00:42:13):

What did you think this was?

Speaker 2 (00:42:15):

Yeah. When you walk into a store, when you walk into a store and you want to buy those apples, it's like, oh, I just thought, you know what I mean? But if you're sitting down, it's like, oh, we're doing a co-writing session and this and that different story. Because again, that's a different circumstance where I'm going to own part of a song or part of a master or the blah, the blah, which of course is something I do all the time. Different circumstance. Totally. But if this is a band, totally,

Speaker 1 (00:42:44):

Totally.

Speaker 2 (00:42:45):

So again, pointing back to those people, answer that question. Yeah, I disagree. I think you should say yes. And you're saying find your strengths because when you haven't done anything and you got to not only prove yourself, but find out what you can do and to what degree you can do it, it's important.

Speaker 1 (00:43:07):

I mean, did you know going in that Latin music was going to be the shit for you? No, no, no. And

Speaker 2 (00:43:16):

It's not, by the way,

Speaker 1 (00:43:17):

Case in point, it's not.

Speaker 2 (00:43:18):

It's a big portion of my work, but the way it happened,

Speaker 1 (00:43:21):

You've crushed at it.

Speaker 2 (00:43:23):

Yes, I have. But it just happened. And I could tell you the story of how it happened, but again, it just happened. It's just music.

Speaker 1 (00:43:29):

That's my point.

Speaker 2 (00:43:30):

Yeah, man. When I started, when I was 20 years old, because I'll go way back, way back in the time, time shift when I was studying at a conservatory, I came from a very classical background, the whole stuff. I knew I wanted to do something in music. I knew nothing about what I wanted to do. And this is again, an era, and I'm dating myself, of course, this is an era where people didn't really talk about, because we didn't know about it that much. It was the eighties. So it was like, well, what's a producer do? What's an engineer? I didn't know anything about that. I knew about being in a rock band and that kind of stuff. And then I walked into a recording studio. This was the era where they were just recording studios. And I was like with the band that I was recording with in college, and I was like, holy shit, this is the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen.

(00:44:22):

It's like, wait, this is how Pink Floyd did it, and this is how steely Dan did it. And then I took an amazing recording class in college with this incredible, especially this guy was so cool because a very modern thinker in a conservatory atmosphere teaching us about recording and all this shit about, I learned about cardio versus HyperCard, blah, blah, blah, all that shit. But again, my brain went, boom, okay. So now I was like, man, maybe I can do this for a living because I've had my education, I was a theory major and I studied arranging and the blah and the blah and the blah, but I knew I wasn't going to be a rockstar. I certainly wasn't going to be in an orchestra, these amazing musicians that were, I was in classes with and stuff. But I was like, wow, this is cool.

(00:45:10):

So then cut to the great fortune I had of a recording studio. I was in school in Chicago, by the way, Northwestern University is where I went. There was a new studio opening up in downtown Chicago that a pal mine, much like me, he was a graduate of my college, and he was a great musician, grain arranger, whatever. He was lucky enough to get a job as one of the staff engineers down there, and he's like, look, dude, we need gophers. And I was a junior in college and I was like, holy shit, how am I going to do this? I went and saw the place and my mind exploded. It was incredible to talk about. Now, because this was rooms in Chicago, downtown Chicago, we had a Neve 78 in one room. It had an SSLG series in the other. It was like, oh my God, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (00:46:00):

Craziness,

Speaker 2 (00:46:01):

Craziness. Especially in the, not only was it Chicago, which is not a very big musical city, but not Los Angeles and New York or whatever. And they had four rooms or something rolling and they were brand new and they needed staff. And I was like, holy fuck, I got to make this happen. So I changed my song totally. And what I did was of course, started working for free down there as a grunt. And I'm talking guys, this was like the eras of the T boy and all that. You hear that stuff. It was pretty, it was gnarly. I was cleaning the bathrooms and doing the X and the Y and the Z so I could hang out and hang out and just watch music being made and mentor under these great, very cool producers that it was a big commercial business going on there. So I learned how to move really fast because those guys would have a deadline from whatever it was, DDB, Needham, where they got to finish a pizza commercial in two hours, whatever it might be.

(00:47:06):

And again, that era was very different from now because it was like, oh, okay, we got to do this. Cool, okay, we need a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer. And they worked on a demo, okay, we got to make this happen. Everybody come in, you record 'em up really fast and blah, blah, blah. I learned very, very quickly how to work quickly. And again, it was all for free. I was young, 20 years old, and by the way, I was still a full-time student at an incredibly challenging university Ivy League stuff, and trying to finish my classwork while I was hopping on a fricking train, getting on the subway and going all the way town, I think two or three days a week. And that went on for part of my junior year and almost my entire senior year to the point of the day I graduated from college, they were like, alright, you're hired.

(00:47:55):

Get down here. So I walked out of college. I was working in a recording studio. And that's not necessarily the specifics of what you're talking about, but it is in the sense of, I worked for free a very long time. Did they take advantage of me? Oh, fuck yeah. I mean, they could have given me five bucks an hour, whatever it might be for the fact that I was the guy getting lunch and I was the guy cleaning up the room. But I never knew anything about Mike in a drum kit before I walked in there. But when I left, I did. I knew about aligning a tape machine and I knew how to run a Neve console after that because before that, I was just a nobody that thought it was cool. But I learned, I learned, and I got that education for free. So I guess in a way, I just came up with something. Dude, I guess what you're saying is when you do say yes, you are getting something, even if there's not, you're getting an education,

Speaker 1 (00:48:53):

There's other forms of payment besides money,

Speaker 2 (00:48:56):

Boom, well put. Very, very well put, extremely well put. You are learning in, even if it's not the technical thing that you're learning, you're learning about interpersonal communication skills between you and whoever you're working with or you know what I mean? It may be a band that you've, God, I've never worked with anybody that challenging, or I've never worked with a hip hop band, or I've never worked with a trap band or whatever it might be, or a trap artist or something like that. It's exactly like you say, there are other forms of payment beside money.

Speaker 1 (00:49:35):

I kind look at it like different meters. There's money. You got experience, you got exposure, and you've got knowledge. And there's some sort of balance that those four with every single gig you take. And there's some where the money side, and this is not just gigs. This can be anything, but the money side could be really low, but those other ones could be really high. You could be making a relationship that 10 years from now will make your entire career or something like that. And so I feel like it's important to take that into consideration. I almost feel like, especially at the beginning, but still thinking about money is the most important part, is shortsighted.

Speaker 2 (00:50:21):

It is. It is. And that's true about everything because you and I are talking about this, but if you talk about a hedge fund banker or whatever, it's a whole different world.

Speaker 1 (00:50:34):

Well, that is the money business.

Speaker 2 (00:50:36):

Yes, yes, exactly. And we're not in the money business in the art business. And it is exactly. At the end of the day, if I've made something that I'm super proud of, and I try to always keep that on my meter, I don't ever want to do something that I'm not proud of or don't 100% believe in or 110% believe in, but if I haven't made the big blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I can still look back on it and say, wow, because just what it is, that's life. And it ain't all about that. It is absolutely not all about that.

Speaker 1 (00:51:11):

I think money's a gauge of the impact you're making. And I feel that way in business too. Money doesn't just appear right. It's not just going to magically land in your bank account. Somebody has to agree to give it to you. There has to be a reason. So it's like a side effect or byproduct of the impact you're making on the world and on other people. And if you make enough of an impact, the money comes to you because people are willing to give it to you. It's not like you can just print that money. I feel like, again, if you're in the hedge fund business, that's one thing, but if you're like an entrepreneur or a producer or an artist, whatever, these creative fields, what really matters is whatever impact you're making, if you create something that impacts 10 million people, you're going to make some money. That's just how it works. Whatever the details are of the deal. So that to me is kind of how, that's at least how I look at it.

Speaker 2 (00:52:15):

Well put, man. And that is a great way to look at it because it is. Absolutely. And now we're getting philosophical in a sense, because it is just byproduct of, it's an unfortunate byproduct often because culturally speaking, it is certainly our priority, and that's where it's so directly opposed to what we do, not just anybody in the arts. It's directly opposed because it's just funny and it has stuck with me, and it'll probably stick with me my entire life. I don't remember where it was. It was in Rome. It was one of Michelangelo's sculptures, and I remember we were on a tour seeing a bunch of stuff, and I remember seeing this one piece, and this was so much into perspective, bro, because it stuck with me too. I remember looking at it and I was like, that's not great. That's not great. And it was of two women, and it kind looked like he kind of threw it together. It looked like two dudes that he put lumps on.

Speaker 1 (00:53:20):

He phoned it in.

Speaker 2 (00:53:22):

Yeah, he phoned it in, and I asked the tour guide and they gave me, he said, yeah, he was not happy. What he was being compensated for this, whatever. I was like, oh fuck, this is Michelangelo. And he phoned this in. He made the thing, and he made it with a girl. It wasn't beautiful curvy. It looked like a two guys with just lumps on their chest, some bad hoop job out of Beverly Hills or something. I was like, oh my God, it's really not good. I mean, to ever say anything Michelangelo has done is not good. It's ridiculous. But you see, my point is that it was not, and after you're looking at it for a weekend and you really start seeing the nuances, and I was like, wow, this isn't, and again, it pointed back to, I don't know, maybe it was a bad day for him or a bad couple days for him, and he was like, screw it. This gig sucks. And I want to mean, it is just funny to think about through the course of history. And then you hear those stories about Mozart too, and it's just like they got sick of certain shit too because of whatever, but they had to deal with this question that we're talking about all the time. It's a question in history of art and commerce and money being compensated for your work. It's tough. It is a tough thing.

Speaker 1 (00:54:43):

It's tough, but I think it's not natural to put it in a perspective that doesn't get in the way. I think that the natural thing is to just want money. Even people who say they don't, I think they're lying.

Speaker 2 (00:54:58):

Well, yeah, that's a very good point because look, I mean to feed ourselves and to continue our survival, we live in a world where you need it, even if you're living in the woods to a degree, you need, you know what I mean? You need food, sustenance, shelter, these are all things that you do need. You need money. So thus, it is priority, but it is a balance. It's like it's back to this whole topic though. It's just like if you know yourself and also if you know yourself well enough to say, okay, well shit, this is something that I got to do for X amount of dollars, or B, I'm not going to get anything out of this ownership wise or whatever. I just want to do it for the integrity of what this piece will be, then that's a whole nother thing. So that's no one yourself.

Speaker 1 (00:55:54):

Speaking of knowing yourself, let's go back to the Latin thing. Do you even listen to that kind of music?

Speaker 2 (00:56:00):

Oh, yes, I do. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:56:03):

Did you, before it became your thing?

Speaker 2 (00:56:06):

No, and that's fascinating about it. I just, it's not that I didn't didn't want to or whatever, I just didn't know about it because I fell into the Latin thing, I would say by accident, but a very happy, incredible accident that the way it went down was amazing and joyous and super cool. Now that I look back at it, and it's incredible because it was just fortunate and cool because here's why BB and a guy from the US and again, born and raised in the Midwest and then came to California or whatever, I know about all those cultures, but I didn't know what the alternative rock scene of Argentina was or what was going down in Peru, and I knew nothing about that. And again, this is pre-internet, so it's not like I could be exposed to it either. It's just nothing about it. So here I go. I'm a staff guy at Larrabee. So going back to the Michael Jackson story and working with him and blah, blah, blah. After my Chicago period, I came to Los Angeles again, man, on a mission needed to get a job.

Speaker 1 (00:57:14):

What was the mission? The

Speaker 2 (00:57:15):

Mission was I want to live in Los Angeles and I want to be in the big leagues. I had lived in Chicago, I was working at that studio. I was being paid. It was a great gig. I was having an amazing time, amazing experiences working with Great.

Speaker 1 (00:57:30):

But you wanted more?

Speaker 2 (00:57:31):

I wanted more. I wanted more. I had my eye and that prize, and I didn't want fame, I didn't want ever. It's just that I was listening to these records again and going, it's New York or la

Speaker 1 (00:57:40):

Dude, I get it.

Speaker 2 (00:57:41):

Yeah. I want to be in some kind of the big leagues and I liked, I had my heart also in California. I had been out here and it was California dreaming

Speaker 1 (00:57:48):

Man. I really, really relate to that, and I think that that's part of knowing yourself. I think that some people don't care about being in the big leagues and that's fine, but some people are wired that way. I feel that way too. That's actually one of the reasons that I've had several careers and what I'm doing now is the biggest thing I've ever done. But the band I was in, for instance, we got signed, we did the whole thing, but there was no way that it could ever get to the big leagues and it wasn't worth it to me because I'm wired for doing something with a greater impact. And I feel like you got to know yourself. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:58:29):

Always. If

Speaker 1 (00:58:30):

You know that you need that, then you have to go for it or you're going to be fucking miserable your whole life.

Speaker 2 (00:58:37):

Yeah, it's awesome. We were talking about all these things, dude, too, because I got to tell you, these are good lessons for me. Again, I got a three-year-old. I'm constantly going, okay, remember I got to teach him that. Remember I got to teach him. And that is such a big thing because it's such a cliche and ridiculous to quote Shakespeare, but knowing thyself is one of the biggest. That's it. If I know that my son gets to be 11 or 12 years old, and I'm bringing it back to what we're talking about in the second, but he gets there and all he wants to be is a landscaper. I shouldn't say all. He wants to be cool. It's fucking awesome, dude. You go out like Martin Luther King said, and you be the best landscaper you can be or whatever, whatever it is, you got to know yourself and whatever.

(00:59:24):

It's you just go for it, and if it doesn't work, then know yourself more and try something else. But yes, exactly like you're saying. You got to. And look, I don't even remember how much I knew myself back then, but I knew it wasn't about, my whole California dreaming thing was not, I didn't want to be famous or whatever. I just wanted to be a part to see how those records were really made, how they were really made. I got such a big taste of it. I mean, look, I was this close to it because I was working on real records in Chicago and all that stuff, but I don't be like, okay, I want to see how, trust me, man. The first week I came to Los Angeles, I learned two things very quick, which was three things maybe or maybe more. We'll see when I start to expand.

(01:00:18):

But the first thing was, wow, this is different. This is the big leagues about being in a studio and watching a top end mixer or producer do their thing, how different it was and how similar it was, but how different it was. That was one. Number two, and this is myself patting myself on the back before I came here, I was terrified that I didn't know my shit. And it turned out when I got to Los Angeles that I did know my shit, which is another great lesson for all your listeners and stuff. It's just like,

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):

Well, that's a relief.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):

Yeah, it was a huge relief. Well, because I was like, okay, the story's cute and funny. But again, I was living in Chicago and I was like, I didn't even tell my family we're a very close Italian family. I didn't even tell them that I'm going to fly to Los Angeles for three or four days and going some interviews at studios. I'm going to go, because back then you could do that. I am passing my resume out. Okay. Hi, I'm Tom Russo. I've done this, blah, blah. And I did that and as luck would have it, I got a call back from two studios before I even got back to Chicago about offering me a full-time position as a staff guy, as an assistant and staff. One of them was Larrabee and one of them was Ocean Way. So these are world fucking class studios.

(01:01:40):

So I hit the jackpot at the right time and I literally had to make a decision about where I was going to go. I knew I was moving and within a week and a half, so I had to tell my family and they were very heartbroken and such. That was one. And number two, I had to drive across the country and then also decide well, what studio I was going to be at. Okay, so there I am. I'm a staff guy at Larrabee, and this is my early twenties, early mid twenties. Amazing. And if y'all don't know anything about Larrabee Sound Studios, Google, it should be in the history books of the music business because there is so much amazing shit that came out of those rooms and I mean all the way back to Hauling Oats, Fleetwood Mac, and there was incredible stuff that was made in those rooms.

(01:02:34):

There were three locations at one point and it went down to two, and now it's just one still running and still big and famous and incredible records coming out of there. But the one I spent most of the time at, I'd say half 50% of the time at, was one called Larrabee West, which was over on Santa Monica Boulevard and West Hollywood. Then the other one's in North Hollywood, right down the street from where I'm now. But anyway, at Larrabee West, I was staff guy, staff engineer, the owner, Kevin Mills, amazing guy. His father had built the studio, actually built all those rooms, and Kevin and I had a great rapport and he also knew that he could call me at any time and I was going to show up and work my ass off and be the guy as much as I can. Anyway, prince walked into Larrabee and fell in love with those rooms. So he was just there. He was kicking it, making shit constantly and the way that guy worked, talking about a work ethic, it was he'd sit there, book the room out for a month straight and like, boom, just go, go, go, go, go. So we were all myself and then this another amazing engineer producer who I'm sure you all know Sylvia Massey was a staff,

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):

Staff

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):

Girl there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):

I would love to have her on this podcast at some point,

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):

Dude. Yeah, shit hit her up. She would love. She is awesome. She's an awesome human. She's obviously an awesome talent, but she's an awesome human and she's great to talk to. I love her to death. I haven't talked to her forever. And that was another thing too, when I was a staff guy there, we were all there. It was magic because Dave Aaron was there who ended up doing a lot with Snoop Dogg. He's a great talent. Just our staff team was all super cool, all the assistant engineers, and then forget about the engineers we were and mixers. We were working with Dave Way, Alan Myerson and the producers and blah, blah, blah. I mean, they were all like mixer producers type stuff, and then the artists, okay, boom. So anyway, back to making this long story, even longer, there's a reason for it. So I ended up working on some of the Prince sessions and I was working under Keith Cohen, another amazing mixer, and in the late eighties, early nineties, Keith, everything he touched turned to gold. He was mixing everybody's record constantly and producing and such. But Keith, he was untouchable. Prince loved Keith's sound, and I was starting to work under Keith a lot. There were two records that Prince was kind of making at the same time. They ended up doing a lot of shit on that was Diamonds and Pearls, great record. And the first Batman soundtrack, if you remember it, and I'm talking Michael Keaton era,

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):

The Danny Elman one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):

Danny Elman I think did the score.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):

Oh, okay, so not the score soundtrack. You mean the Prince soundtrack?

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):

The Prince, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):

Prince

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):

Soundtrack, yeah, the Bat Dance, all that shit it, fuck

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):

Yeah, it was awesome. So I was part of that. Now, the way that lent itself to my Latin world was this. There was a band that came to town from Buenos Aires, Argentina. This band was signed to Universal down there. They were a big deal down there. What year would this have been? Early nineties, maybe early to mid nineties. They were called IA Kara and the Val Ramus. Okay. I knew, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):

How the hell do you spell that,

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):

Right, exactly. Ilia Kiki's a very famous soccer. No, Val Ramus is the soccer player. I don't remember where the name derivation comes from, but it's beside the point. Anyway, these guys were in town talking to people, talking to producer engineers, blah, blah, blah. They wanted to collaborate with somebody in the us, somebody in Los Angeles, hopefully. So they had heard that I had worked on, this was a couple years after the Prince stuff, and they had heard, and I had worked at Prince, blah, blah, blah, heard the records. They were like, wow, we want to meet this guy. So I went to lunch with them and we met and they gave me this CD of what they had done. They'd done, I think a record or two before that, and it was insane. It was so fucking cool because these guys were doing talk about forward thinking.

(01:06:58):

They were doing hip hop meets, jazz meets, r and b meets everything. I mean, they had influences from Steely Dan to Prince. Some of their shit was super deep funk, by the way, an all live band and two front guys that were rapping and singing. So I was like, what? Oh my God. I heard it and I was like, this shit's incredible. It's so forward thinking. It's probably the most forward thinking. And here I am in the US thinking like blah, blah, blah and all this shit because this is the era of Dre is happening now and blah, blah. I'm like, wait a minute. Check this shit out. This is coming from Argentina. And they were a big deal down there. And of course I knew nothing about this, as did most people not knowing it. And even if you were Latin, I don't know if you, you'd have to be really on the edge to know something about this super cool band in Argentina. So I ended up doing a record with them, and we did the first one here because this is what was also amazing about it. Here's this band from Argentina. You signed a universal whatever. So we're cutting everything live. It's the whole band's, live bass, drums, guitars, the whole bit. The arrangements are bowing my mind because they're a six peaks band with two guys in the front that are pretty much rapping and stuff. Then three or four of the songs, it's full orchestra. I'm talking 50 piece orchestra is on these tracks. I'm like, this is

(01:08:25):

Blowing my mind. I'm like, this is the cool, coolest fucking, and here I am. I just stumbled on it and I'm a part of this and this is so fucking cool. And I was working at, we Did, God, we recorded almost all of it at Ocean Studios Burbank, which sadly now is deceased. That was an amazing room, absolutely one of my favorite rooms in the world, I would say. It was like this ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):

Yeah, it's legendary.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):

Legendary 80, 78 for days. It was a huge, I made a million records there post this place. I didn't even know about this place. They had heard about it because the production coordinator said, oh, maybe we should go and work at this place. And I went and I was like, oh, wait, I'm making this super cool music with this band from Argentina and we're recording here and was like, sign me the fuck up. And so there we go. The first record in the Latin industry that I'm doing, and it's super cool and I couldn't be happier and we're making great stuff. So the way this springboarded into all these other projects I ended up doing was the band knew a guy very well by the name of Gustavo Santo, AYA. Now, Gustavo is an incredible, incredible talent, amazing musician of his own right? He's Argentine had been in the US for a while, was given a boutique label on Universal because the thing about Argentina that I came to learn was that they're kind of alternative rock and rock and Espanol was the scene that he was on the forefront of or whatever, and he was given this label that was again, a subsidiary of Universal to sign all these cool acts and to do all these cool things because again, he was a producer in Argentina for a long time and came here and was doing a bunch of stuff.

(01:10:17):

Now, this guy is, again, if you Google him, you'll be like, holy crap. He was a producer in his own right for all these legendary, super cool Latinx and alternative Latinx, and then he turned around to become a big film scorer guy. Now, not even now. He's been doing that for a long time, and that's like 90% of what he does now, or a hundred percent. He's incredible. And he turned around and won three Oscars for all like Motorcycle diaries and babble and these incredible movies. Anyway, back to my story. Gustavo knew the guys in the band of IA Karachi very well, and he happened to just come to the studio and we were mixing, we're at the mixing stage, we were mixing at Larrabee. That's it. I remember now we cut everything in ocean and mixing it Lar. So we down there, Gustavo came in the room and was hanging out with the guys saying, hi, blah, blah, blah, and he heard what I was doing and he was like, holy shit, this sounds great.

(01:11:12):

And we had a rapport. We got to chatting and he's like, maybe we should do something together. I was like, absolutely, dude, whatever. I was like, sign me up. This scene is super cool. And so then, yeah, I don't know, a couple of weeks later he called me and he's like, Hey, I got this new guy that we just signed, new artist. He's had a band in Columbia for a long time, and now he's doing this solo thing. His name's Juanes. Okay, now I put the big thing around that because Juanes is now international superstar, one of the biggest Latinx of all time. And Gustavo called me and I went over to his studio and I listened to some of his demos and I was like, fuck, once again, sign me up. Now, this time the budget was pretty low because he was a new artist. We didn't know where we were going, but Juanes had a vision and he and Gustavo had a vision, and it was super cool, and it came in as this time, I was just an engineer mixer, but I heard the demos and I heard what this was going to be about. I was like, sign me up once again. And there you go. That was one springboard led to another springboard led to another springboard, and then kaboom.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):

That's how it works.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):

That's how it works.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):

That is exactly why I tell people to not pigeonhole themselves when they're starting, because there could be a genre that you don't even know exists where somehow you just click with it and do great work. Something you said earlier, I want to ask you about that. You said that when you went to LA, you realized that you kind of knew what you were doing, but that's a pretty big scenario to walk into suddenly working with people like Prince and did you have any imposter syndrome? Just because most successful people I talk to have dealt with imposter syndrome at some point,

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):

Oh, I don't know what imposter syndrome is. Does that mean I'm there and I'm thinking like, oh my God, I'm an imposter.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):

It's this feeling of I'm here and they're going to figure out I'm a fraud.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):

Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):

Yeah. They're going to figure out. I actually don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):

You know what? It's hard me to remember specifically, but I remember being nervous in a sense of, yeah, I got to tell you, it's so funny, man. I saw Alan, I don't know if you guys know who Alan Myerson is. Do you know who Alan Myerson is? I do not. Okay. He's a legendary mixer now. He's gone into the film thing and works, does all the big film mixes for Han Zimmer or whatever. Well, back when I was just starting, Alan, he's in the music business as a producer mixer, blah, blah, blah. I tell you this, because Alan was the first guy, I'll never forget it. I walked into that room at Larrabee and it was studio B. There be studios. And I get emotional when I start thinking about that room because that was a special place. It's like for me, and it's not just for me.

(01:14:21):

I mean, for many people in the music business, hip hop, metal pop, whatever, that space should have been a historical monument. They should have left it up and just charge tickets for people to walk through and said, this is where X and Y and Z and BA was recorded. And Kevin Mills great guy. He was smart. He's a businessman. He sold the space and it became a bar and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, my point is that I walked into that room when I was that age or whatever, and I'll never forget it. I was going to be the assistant under Alan Myerson. And so onto your question about imposter, I mean, I was nervous as hell. I was like, God, I don't think I'm ready for this. But I never freaked out because I guess I had had enough experience into accepting the fact that I might not know everything and I needed to be a good student and to shut the fuck up when I needed to shut up or whatever.

(01:15:19):

Pretty much always shut up. Don't say a word, just do anything you were told. But I'll never forget, Allison was like a master craftman with mixing, and it's just incredible. Again, go look at his discography, it'll blow your mind. But the way, and this was the analog years, of course, the way his patch bay looked, I will never forget it because you'd have 12 reverbs and 13 delays all set up doing different shit or whatever. And the way an analog patch bay looked, I mean, I got a big one here, but it was insane. And I remember, and that was talk in a mix room. That was the assistance job to make sure that was well-documented and this and that because it's so different from the world now. I mean, now you save your session and then you just open it back up and it's, oh, it's all there.

(01:16:10):

Well try doing that in the analog world where every fucking piece of gear not only needs to be recorded in the chain that it went, but the settings and this, and this is also before the era of cell phone photos and all that bullshit. You wrote the shit down and it had to be written down correctly. So back to my story about Alan, he whipped me into shape in the sense of, we just had a vibe in the sense of he knew that I knew enough of my shit about signal flow and the console and the blah and the blah, but that I still needed to know the X and the Y and Z of what needed to be done in my job. So back to your question, I think I had, I'll pat myself on the back again. I think I had a perfect balance between, I was never cocky ever because I think I didn't realize that, oh, I do know my shit until way after the fact.

(01:17:07):

I was confident enough to say, okay, I know enough and I'm going to do really good work. But it was never to the point of being cocky because there were those guys that were kind of poking around in the rooms and whatever that were a little bit. And I think that also made me more excited about working really hard and like, oh, I'll do that session. Sure, I know it starts at 2:00 AM whatever. I'm there. I'm going to learn something from it. I'm going to learn something about something, and I've never worked with that guy, and I want to learn from him and see how he does something. Because again, this was the era of just legendary guys like Alan, of course, Dave Way, who that's a name I'm sure, or most people that are listening know. I mean Dave, he's still a dear friend of mine, and the shit that I learned under him, incredible, had a totally different way of working than all these other guys, et cetera. But to answer your question specifically, man, I don't know. It would make sense that I would've had that imposter thing, but I think it was more just about nerves of being like

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):

Nerves.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):

Yeah. Oh god.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):

Well, I think it's related though. I do think that imposter syndrome is kind of like a form of social anxiety,

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):

Which

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):

Is nerves. I think it's related.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it's very related, and sometimes it's healthy too. I mean,

(01:18:35):

I remember being very, this is a funny story. I remember being very nervous because working on a track, I think it was diamonds and pearls at this time, and this is what always would happen with Prince. We called 'em the P Man. You'd never know. Imagine a room. It's about, I don't know, maybe this is the rooms at Larrabee, maybe 20 by, I don't know the exact dimensions, but my point is these are small mixed rooms, and you'd never know when he was coming in and he was like, Batman, because we'd be working on the track for countless hours just at the console. This all of a sudden you'd turn around and there he'd be, he'd just be standing there just he'd be like, oh, fuck, that's Prince. And then he'd be just grooving or whatever. Then he'd come over and sit at the console.

(01:19:18):

So I remember one day, and this again relates back to what we're talking about, about nerves. Remember one day he's grooving and then all of a sudden he stands up and he looks around and he picks up his guitar, which is in the corner, and he's playing a part and he's like, I want to put this in the chorus. And I realized, fuck, I didn't have a line set up and I got this ginormous mix with every piece of equipment in the room plugged in or whatever. First of all, I don't even know if there's a track, because this, again, back in the analog era where everything's filled up and you better make sure that things were documented well, because what if I'm putting it on track 13, and that's actually a background vocal that happens in the second chorus. I don't know about it and I'm going to fucking erase it then. Then it's my ass. Talk about needing experience because I hate to say it. I don't hate to say it. I'm not digressing here. It's easy. Now you got that thing called undo or you can see it. Well, imagine making music with not being able to see. Imagine that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):

I think that the modern generation of engineers cannot imagine that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):

Yeah, it's ERs. There's a drum tech I work with all the time that

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):

Calls ERs, holy shit, I've never heard that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):

Before's

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):

Great.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):

He calls it ERs, and it's true. And look, I've acclimated, I have to do it, but I haven't thought about it in a long time. But here we are talking about it. I remember that. I remember working with Puffy once. This was in the beginning of his career, and the track came in the track sheet that I opened. I was like, oh my God. The track sheet was terribly labeled. I didn't know where anything was and I had nothing to do with that. It was a vocal session and I had to run the kind of show. And I was like, okay, what do I do? Because this track seat's a fucking joke. So imagine the only eyes you have on this piece of tape is something that somebody else wrote, and they did a shitty job of it, then what are you going to do? Because it's your ass. If you roll over something that is obvious,

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):

I guess the modern equivalent would be, okay, so there was this session once where it's like 300 tracks came in, not consolidated to zero, and all kinds of audio one, audio 42, audio 89. But not just that, a lot of them were, somehow the timeline just got screwed up, so they were not even in time. So it required, first of all, you don't know what role these play in anything. I mean, some things are obvious, some things are obvious. So you know what the snare is, but when a 300 track production that has all kinds of synths and pads and strings and guitars and room mics, it was like guitar room mics and all that shit, and they're not in the right place and they're not labeled.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):

Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):

I think that's the modern equivalent. I think

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):

It is the modern equivalent. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I mean, modern equipment comes down to something as simple as labeling, track labeling. Yes. But imagine if you just can look at the track label and not see, oh, yeah, if

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):

You couldn't even see it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):

Yeah, you couldn't see it. If you couldn't see it. It's like, fuck, you actually have to listen and then you listen. But how do you know unless someone's sitting there talking to you about it, what role it plays, especially if you're not the producer or whatever, you don't know what role something could play. So anyway, back to this print story. Why were we talking about the Prince story? I don't remember. Oh, being nervous.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):

Being nervous, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):

Yeah, imposter. Anyway, it was very funny. I remember how nervous I was because there he was sitting playing this part and he was in a really good mood this night, and I was just scrambling to fucking grab a di, plug it in. There's got to be an open preamp here somewhere, and there's got to be an open track. And I'm looking at the track sheet and going, and I'm just freaking out. He goes, man, he said, you better figure this out before I forget this part. I'll never read it, say it was the funniest thing. And I said, bro, I'm working on, I'm on it. And eventually, very quickly I found something, a place to put it and to record it, and it ended up great and it was Prince playing a rhythm part that ended up on the record. It was incredible. But hot seat, just nerves of fricking just freak out like, oh my God, because you got to be ready for everything. I guess the moral of the story is, A, you got to be ready for anything, and B, when you're in the hot seat, you got to sweat, but make it happen. It's like landing an airplane and I don't know, in a big storm,

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):

Extreme crosswinds with an engine out.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):

I've always said that being a great engineer, and I mean this means producer, mixer, whatever, all that, it means being a great problem solver.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):

You have to be,

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):

Again, I keep referring back to the student base at URM, but this is crucial because they're listening and

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):

Something

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):

That comes up a lot is, so are you familiar at all with Nail the Mix? Our program Nail the Mix?

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):

Okay. So you know that we provide tracks from actual sessions.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):

Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):

Yes. Every single month they get exactly what the mixer got, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):

Yeah, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):

We license it from labels and it's the real thing. And as you know, there are no perfect sessions. No matter how high budget or no matter who's working on it, there's always some fuck up somewhere, something maybe there's a bad edit. Who knows? There's always going to be something.

(01:25:00):

A lot of the beginners who are only used to programming MIDI with drums using superior drummer and recording some DI's and all that, they're not used to that. So they think that we're providing them subpar tracks or something like that, or that we didn't quality control them. And it's like, actually, we're giving you exactly what the mixer got and you've heard the final result, which sounds incredible, which means this person solved that problem. Exactly. So you've got to learn how to solve that problem. There are no perfect sessions, and if you can't do that, you're doomed straight up.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):

Yeah, dude, that is, and whatever it is, I mean, those guys like the legendary dudes that were in the studios making records with the legendary bands, pink Floyd, whatever it was, trust me, they had problems to solve on a whole different level. And many times it was like, how do I get the band all in the room at the same time? You talk about a problem, here's a problem, try to make rumors. Okay, Fleetwood Max, try to make rumors with not only the drugs, I mean not whatever, but how about the fact that you've got two couples as the band? Come on,

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):

What an insane story. That band is

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):

An incredible story. And then you hit play or you drop the needle on that shit and you're like, talk about, I mean, you don't ever talk about the problem solving. And there you go. It goes back to how we started our cast here. I mean, in the movie business, that's all it is, is problem solving because trust me, man, I mean God, oh, they're shooting outside and it's pouring rain or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):

You want to know how long it took for me to set up this shot that you're looking at right now?

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):

Tell me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):

This took a lot. It took a few weeks. I'm not the camera guy At URM, we have someone who's way better, but from my limited experience with shooting things, it's so fucking hard to get something to not look God awful to do things on the level of a movie, say the most simple movie or a Chris Nolan movie.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):

There you go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):

So beyond ridiculous. I can't imagine the kinds of problems that they're solving. It's beyond me

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):

And in a group, and that's what makes the really good. Again, problem solving is, and it's cool to talk about in our line of work, because we can talk about the specifics about, trust me, man. I mean you might get those nail the mix things. I mean, there you go. I'm sure sometimes because it's happened to me before where I get handed just a pile of audio ones, audio twos, audio threes, and the first thing I'll be like, are you fucking kidding me? And then you'd be like,

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):

Well, what's the second thing you do?

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):

You solo it up and hit play and you just listen and you start to, and hope to God, whoever you're working with, band labor or whatever, are communicative enough to say, alright, tell me not only what you're looking for in the broad sense of stuff, but do we need to get down to what everything is? Because look, anybody that's going to do that, especially nowadays where it should be somewhat obvious that you need to correctly label things. I mean, you would

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):

Think it's obvious, but I can tell you, so we have these courses and the very first one that you have to take is mixed prep

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):

Because

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):

I know they'll skip, they'll skip to parallel compression. Everything's sexy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):

Oh God.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):

And they won't do mixed prep. And so many people don't label things right?

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):

Man, I feel like if you don't have that stuff down, you're asking for so many problems, you're setting yourself up.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):

You really, and you know what? And bro, it points back to just personal skills. And you can ask my wife mean, especially in our line of work, the most important thing to be is organized. And the reason why I ask my wife, because she thinks I'm crazy because hyper organized, but I don't know. But in our line of work, if you don't know what this one tiny thing is and you're going to present it to somebody else, you better make sure you can communicate it enough via label that they will understand what it is. I mean, much of my work, dude, is I'm like, nowadays, especially it's like a producer, engineer mixer. I do it all in my box or in my world, but even though I've been doing it for so long, if you see the labels on my tracks, you'll be like, oh, okay. It's been so organized enough and I'm so glad to hear that that is one of the first classes because it's a life skill about, I don't know.

(01:30:10):

I mean, being organized, tell me the negative impact of being organized. I don't understand. And you just go to your computer if you're looking through your system folder, if that's not organized, your computer's not going to run, so et cetera on your phone. It's just like if stuff is not organized, if a car engine is not organized, it's not going to fucking run. Ask a pilot who's flying the plane, if he's not organized about his check, it's not going to fly. Oh, Andy's going to kill the hundreds of people that are on a plane. It's like there's nothing negative to being hyper organized. I just don't. I see it as just such an attribute and it brings happiness and positivity to everybody. Such a like, alright, that's

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):

Done. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):

Yeah, that's done. Let's do all the rest of the stuff now because it's the primary.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):

I think the thing with organization is on top of not making your life chaos and the life of people you work with, chaos, it also frees up your brain ram. I mean, you only have so much ram in your head and also so much time, big time in the day. And if you're using that time and ram trying to find things, not knowing where they are, you're wasting your life.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):

I cannot agree more. I mean, again, it comes down to the basic things. And now in my life, my pointer is always my 2-year-old son and I'm teaching him about these things where stuff needs to go, which is very relative to what we're talking about. Because look, if the scissors go in this drawer, and that's where they always are, the million times, you need those scissors, you're going to know where they they're. And you don't have to use brain ram on spending time. Oh fuck, where is that? And it's time and it's brain and it's stress. God knows you're going to probably have to be doing something else or blah, blah blah. So it's like, why don't I just go to where the scissors are supposed to be? Which is exactly what we're talking about. It's just primary.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):

See, the thing is if someone is thinking, oh, it's not a big deal, it's just the scissors, that's not the point. Because typically it becomes a chronic thing. It's not just the scissors, it's lots of things. And so if you factor looking for the scissors and then looking for your wallet and then looking for your keys and then trying to find some bills, and then where's that item of clothing? And then the amount of time it starts taking up multiplied over days, over weeks, over years. It is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):

Yeah, it's a fucking year. Yeah, it's insane. It's insane. And literally, so that five seconds, it takes you to label the thing as hi hat or electric guitar two rhythm is just going to in a month or even in the next day. Seriously. I mean, I don't understand these people. If it's called audio, it's like, how do you fucking know? Really? How do you know?

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):

It's like, of course it's audio.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):

It better be.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):

Yeah, we already know it's audio.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):

Yeah. So it doesn't make any sense because think about that again, the time it takes you to label it is exponentially multiplied because the next day you need to find it. You're going to not know what the fuck it is not even named. You know what I mean? It's just the point. Unless it's some kind of weird exercise you want to do where it's like, I dunno, but we're saying the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:51):

An exercise in ruining your life basically. Yes, exactly. Alright, so you said you wanted to get in the big leagues, not necessarily get famous or whatever, but you wanted to be working with that top tier doing the real shit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):

Did

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):

You see Grammys coming up? Was that on the list of bucket list?

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):

It's funny, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):

You've got a lot of, lots of people have one.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):

Yeah, it was definitely not on my bucket. Although if you talk to one of my old girlfriends, she told me many years ago, and we're still close, this is my girlfriend. When I was in my twenties when I moved her and stuff, she said, it was so on my prize in the sense of, again, I didn't want to be famous. I was like, man, I want to win a Grammy someday. She said that. I would say that a lot, and I don't remember it. I don't, because maybe I said it. And then once I got into making records, all I was thinking about was how fun it is and how cool it was. And again, it wasn't about I want to be famous and I want to do platinum records and I want to be like that guy. It was just about learning and making cool shit and being a part of the cool shit.

(01:35:02):

And that was it. I feel like having your eye on the private of an award, what is that? I dunno. I'm being really honest about this. It's just like, I don't know what that is again, and I can tell you that I'm not taking 'em for granted by any means. And maybe I'll get emotional when I say this too. It's like I don't really look at 'em much. And when I do look at 'em, I really look at the year or whatever, and I really look at what the award was for, but I look at the name and the project and I think back to the cool memories of what it was like to be in there to make it, that's where the value is. That's where the real deep, deep beauty in the value is. And I guess that would be just me scrolling through my discography and Oh, that project was so like blah, blah, blah. But that's to me where, and it's awesome to be acknowledged by the academy and your peers and this, and for someone to say, wow, that was such a cool record and know that it was recognized. But I know I sound like a cliche, but it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):

I don't think it's a cliche. And I can tell you that I don't have any Grammys, but I've gotten quite a few plaques for different things, and the company just received some plaques for some milestones we achieved and

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):

Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):

I didn't give two shits. I didn't even go. My partners went to the ceremony to get, and I didn't even go. I'm like, whatever, because I didn't really care. But then at the same time, there's a part of me that's like, well, it still represents what went into it. It represents a time period of going all out and then the result of going all out.

Speaker 3 (01:36:46):

And

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):

That's the part that's cool. The actual getting the award and all that stuff is like whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):

So I don't think it sounds like a cliche.

Speaker 2 (01:36:56):

Yeah, no, you're saying the same. And there you go. I hate, don't hate to bear. I mean, Ford versus Ferrari is exactly that. That was Christian Bale. It was not so not about you wanted to win, but that wasn't the motive. It was,

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):

It's the byproduct.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):

Yeah, it's just a byproduct. I mean, that's the cool little icing on the cake, but we all want the cake, and the cake is making good shit that you believe in and is cool. And I don't know, the older I get, the more I see that and I look back at it and think like, man, not that it doesn't matter, but

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):

It matters probably differently than before it happens.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):

It's interesting you said that about your old girlfriend just because I have a girlfriend that I got with when I was 18 through 22, and we're 20 something years later. We're really good friends.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):

That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):

She's gone on to become a successful artist, and we've of had parallel careers, and she always said she wanted to be a successful fine artist, and so it's cool. She's in museums and all that shit. Oh my God, for real.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):

Yeah. Incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):

Yeah, so we're like family. But she told me that when I was 18, I kept saying, I want to build an empire.

(01:38:17):

But then I didn't think about that because then I started pursuing my band and then production, and somehow it all turned around and went into having a few companies that do this education stuff that is starting to slowly, I guess become that. And it's just interesting that it's not about that word, but at the same time, that's where my head was kind of like you were saying, you want to get a Grammy back then when you're really, really young. I guess there's this purity of vision. You got to keep your eye on the prize, but at the same time, you can't be distracted by the prize,

(01:38:58):

If that makes sense. You know how some people, they worry about Grammys and they worry about the money too much. They're not worried about the stuff that actually gets you there, which is making the impact, helping the artists become the best version of themselves, connecting with their audience, being a great person to work with, all this stuff, all that stuff, which is the journey, which is much more important. I think where people make a mistake is they focus on the result and not the journey. And the issue with that is that the result, that prize is maybe it's like a fleeting moment. It's like you get the prize and then it's over, and then what? That's that. And then, so that's all you're focused on. Well, what were you doing the other 10, 20 years?

(01:39:47):

Were you hating it on the way to that? So that's why that cliche about the enjoy the journey. I didn't use to understand it when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I get it. Because if you're just going purely on math, purely, practically just on amount of time spent on things, the amount of time you spent receiving an accolade or something is tiny, tiny, tiny compared to the amount of time you spend on everything else. So if you're not digging everything else, what are you doing? Are you really doing it for that one night?

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):

Yes, exactly. Or yeah, it

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):

Seems like a waste

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):

Or two minutes that you're going to maybe go on a stage and receive the award or whatever. It's just like a, oh god, that feels great moment. But if you don't, yeah, that's a perfect, yeah, it's like that is your motivational factor. And again, this is beautiful. We're talking about this, of course it has to do with the music business, but it's in anything in the arts. But also anything that's creative in a sense, if your motive is just that, then maybe it's time to just reassess.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):

Reassess and not because there's anything wrong with wanting that reassess. Because if you're not really loving what you're doing, just you're not going to work as hard as the people who do love it, and you're not going to get that award anyways,

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):

Right.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):

From talking to you, I can tell that you're obsessed with this stuff, and it sounds like you've always been obsessed. And I think that in order to do great things, you have to do something that you're obsessed with because the amount of time it takes and effort it takes is just, it's unreasonable. So the only way you'll do it is to be obsessed.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):

Well put, well put. Yes. You've got to be unreasonable in the sense that's true for, again, every line of work. I have a good buddy that's a surgeon, very interesting that we became pals, and it's awesome to talk to him because it is in a totally different world than I am. You got to be obsessed. And there you go. This is an incredible analogy, and I've never talked on a podcast about this, but it's interesting when we hang out because, and I ended up meeting this guy because his surgeon that's taking amazing care of my mother, because she had some health things go on, and God bless her. She's doing great now, but

Speaker 1 (01:42:20):

Glad to hear. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):

He's worked on her two or three times. Anyway, we got to be pals. And it's fascinating because every time we sit down and have a beer, he's interested in talking to you about what my life is like or what my wife's life is like, what goes into a day of, and then I want to sit there and I tell him, of course, and I laugh. I'm like, oh, dude, come on. We're not saving lives like you. So point being is that, here you go. You talk to a guy like this, and it's like his priority. It's certainly not money, per se, but it's also, it kind of goes without saying, I guess, that he's saving the life, but literally, this is what this guy does. Every time he gets that call to go into the emergency room, it's like, okay, what's the problem? And I fix it, but trust me, he's not doing it for, I dunno, some of those guys that guess do it for the fame or the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he's, he's a scientist and a doctor and this is what they do. So I guess what I'm saying is that his motivational factor isn't certainly some award or even the fact that I saved a life good for me because, and God, I mean pointing back to that, it's just like if you are in that place where that's your motivation, where the award or the money or the blah, blah, blah. Well, isn't that all ego-based?

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:43:48):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:48):

You need some ego though.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):

Oh, you got to have ego. Of course. You got to have ego.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:52):

It's part, it's healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:43:54):

Just got to keep it in check.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):

You got to keep it in check. As a human, it's very healthy. And back to my toddler son where they're all running on ego. My wife and I were talking interestingly enough about we have a friend of ours who supposedly checked his children too much about their ego. He tried to take the word me out of their vocabulary and it tweaked them.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):

Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):

Yeah, it tweaked them. Now they're a little older and there's issues, but because look, I mean my son is certainly, it's about him and what he wants and the blah, blah, blah. So you've got to apply the discipline of what, but again, the ego is very important in those early years, in that early period of forming like the self, because you do, you've got to have it. But when it comes to just being egotistical in this place that we're talking about, man, it's like that can't be the motivational factor. Or then you become the guy who's running our country there. I said it

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):

Hopefully not longer. I was just reading a couple books on narcissism.

Speaker 2 (01:44:59):

Oh my God. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):

Because a topic that fascinates me, because it's interesting. I'm trying to figure out for myself how far down that spectrum I am and also people I work with, and it's just, I like to understand people. And one thing, what I learned about narcissism, and I think this directly relates to ego, is that it's on a spectrum. Lots of other things to do with the brain, and there's one end of it that's pathological and a complete mental illness that's almost untreatable. So that would be like a 10. But then on the other end, which is when someone doesn't have enough of one, they don't have any confidence in themselves,

Speaker 3 (01:45:43):

Their

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):

Complete pushovers, they don't have enough confidence to take an opportunity. So you need to have the right amount to be able to say, yeah, I can do this. I'm going to do it. If you don't have that much ego, you're going to have a very, very hard life. And you're going to get run over by people all the time. Very

Speaker 2 (01:46:03):

Much. Yeah, very much.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):

Yeah. So there's a healthy amount.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):

Yeah, dude. Is our podcast about psychology and parenting and socialization, or is it, I'm just saying we've hit some great topics to this talk really, really good. Really good. You couldn't be more right about that. You couldn't be. It's just like those are interpersonal communication skills and interpersonal skills that are so fricking necessary. You've got to have just the right amount because if it's too much, it's just like it's too much salt in the soup, and if not, it's just too bland.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):

Yeah, exactly. It does. You no favors. And on the topic of the podcast, like I said, we were just talking about attack ratios and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):

Yeah, I meant that as the biggest compliment because this is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):

I do this because honestly, I get really, really bored by a lot of audio and music podcasts. I feel like, first of all, I don't feel like podcasting is the best medium for teaching. So if you want to learn how to compress something, either you do it in person from a mentor or there's a lot of great videos online where you can listen to things, watch the moves, have them explain. But a podcast, I don't think it's the place for that. I

Speaker 2 (01:47:24):

Agree.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):

I agree. That said, so speaking of egos and egotistical people, narcissists artists, they don't necessarily always go all the way. Obviously, sometimes if they go all the way, they can't have relationships with people that are strong enough to propel their career. They alienate everybody. But I think to be a superstar, you have to have some enhanced degree of narcissism. So that said, how have you dealt with that? Or is there something that you've learned around these superstars of how they keep it in check enough to get the job done?

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):

And by the way, before I forget, you got to tell me what those books are on the narciss. I'd love to read 'em, but in answer to your question, yes. I think luckily, and I have said this before, my exposure to the ones that have a level of unhealthy ego has not been too much.

Speaker 1 (01:48:23):

I'm not surprised, because I think that in order to get to the top, you have to be able to communicate with people.

Speaker 2 (01:48:33):

You got to be able to communicate with people and have humility and have an understanding. And a perfect example, man, I got to have so many examples, but you remember Adele and the Grammys a couple years ago. They were doing the George Michael thing, and she started it and she had a full fucking orchestra on stage with her, and it was live tv, and she stopped the orchestra and she stopped live tv. Why? It wasn't ego, it was, she hit a couple bad notes and she literally said to the audience, I owe this to him and what this is

Speaker 1 (01:49:08):

About. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):

That's right. I get chills just saying, because it was such a humbling, beautiful, from that voice, a voice of an angel. And so I guess what I'm saying is that an artist like that, who should have the biggest ego and blah, blah, blah, it's like I think when artists get to that level, it's the ones that aren't at that level or whatever, where like you said, they've got to have a certain amount of ego to get to from nothing to that place. But it really is about believing in your art and believing in what you got. And it's cool and knowing that, but believing in your art. Yeah, it's on the same page of ego, but it's not like when you get to that, whatever that thing ego is, it's just, it's ridiculous in a way. It becomes ridiculous. And yes, you're a hundred percent right that when you're dealing with the superstars, you'd imagine that it has to be present to a degree.

(01:50:06):

And look, I am not going to sit here and lie and say, I've never seen it because there has certainly been some things where I've just rolled my eyes. Give me a break. But it's also, I find it to be circumstantial. A lot of times. I've spent so many hours of a day in a room with the superstar, a tiny little room where they're fucking up in front of me and they're not sounding good, and they're not whatever, and they're not. And then a day or two later, they'll be like, braggadocia, because there's some hot chicks in the room or somebody. I mean, not necessarily that part, somebody from the news or somebody from the label or whatever. So it's almost like dealing with children in a way. It's like they're at, so you just got to, again, back to just personal skills. You got to roll your eyes and just say, okay, that's just part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):

It's part of the deal,

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):

Part of the deal. It's part of what they're selling, and it is, it's just part of the deal. Yeah. It's funny. Again, I am lucky enough to say I haven't experienced it too much, and when I have or I do, you just got to know when to just kind of secretly roll your eyes and say, okay, this is funny.

Speaker 1 (01:51:23):

Yeah, just deal with it. Once a long time ago when I went to Berkeley, Eddie Kramer gave a masterclass speech.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):

Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):

He was talking about all the cool people he worked with, and I asked him, what did they have in common?

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):

Oh, I knew you were going to Jimmy

Speaker 1 (01:51:39):

Page and Jimi Hendrix. Yeah. And you know what he said, which was really cool, and I want to hear your take on it. But what he said was, most artists can see 10 feet ahead of them, but someone like Jimmy Page could see three football fields ahead. These guys, they just had this vision that is so huge and it's so far beyond everybody else that it made sense. They're designed to be the way they are.

Speaker 2 (01:52:08):

That's a brilliant answer. And it's brilliant. Analogy's brilliant on so many levels, because I remember one, I was sitting down talking to a record company guy, really, really good guy, and he's been in the business forever like me, and now I think he's president of a label right now. That's how long, he was just an underling in the beginning. And I remember him, we were sitting saying, he goes, you've worked a lot of big people. You feel he started the sentence like he said, don't you feel that the ones that are going to really, really do it and get to that level have that thing? And that's basically what Eddie's saying. It's like that thing in its God, it goes back to a lot of things that we're discussing here. It's like, yes, the obsession about what they're doing and the confidence,

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):

Charisma,

Speaker 2 (01:53:01):

Yeah, it's charisma, but it's knowing that thing. And that's where it almost becomes like a metaphysical thing, bro, where it's like I bring that to metaphysical in the sense of how do they know that what they're doing is going to align with the interest and the desire of the populace to accept them as that level of artistry? And I always go back to, because it still will blow my mind. I've sat and I worked with Rick Rubin for many years. We were talking about this once with, I don't remember who was in the room and he was presenting, and he said it very well. It's like the fact in that short, tiny window that four guys from Liverpool did what they did and made it happen in that creative sense, and it fucking blew the roof off of music and art and everything, and are still considered to that level. How did it all align like that? Yeah. I mean, maybe they had that three football field vision, but I also think it's like kind of like, do you know what I mean by what I'm saying? The metaphysical thing, it's almost like there's an awareness, like a subconscious third eye thing.

Speaker 1 (01:54:28):

Yeah. Tapped into the collective unconscious, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:54:31):

Yeah. Boom. That's exactly what I'm saying. Well put. And that's exactly what I'm saying. There's a little bit of tapped into that where it's like they're not conscious of it at all. They're just doing it. And Lenon McCartney are writing that thing, and it's just like, how would they have known that they were just a band? How would they have known that they go on the Ed Shelva show and then holy shit, and there you go, in that tiny little window of time that everything would change. Everything would change. I think it's answer exactly that. And it's also that they're tapped in to something that, I don't know, it's deep.

Speaker 1 (01:55:12):

Dude, I read the anthology book and I remember one of the first things in there is John Lennon saying, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm a genius. I always knew I was a genius. It's something along those lines.

Speaker 2 (01:55:27):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:55:28):

It's kind of like when I hear people say that about themselves, I'm like, no, you're not. But the thing is with John Lennon saying it, it's like, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:55:38):

But also too, it goes back to all the things that we've been talking about where John Lenon said it and we know what the word or the name, because now it is word what John Lennon represents. But I'll bet you he had a lot of imposter syndrome. I'll bet you. Yeah, exactly. I'll bet you all those things where, and that goes back to what you're saying about ego, where it's just so many artists just say, I'm the shit. Because really they don't think that they're the shit. So they think they got to say, I'm the shit to prove to everybody that like, oh wait, they are the shit. So my point is that for Lennon to say that it makes me kind of giggle because I can bet that when it was that little band playing in the bar in Germany for all those hours, it's just he didn't think that. He didn't think it was like, fuck it, I'm a genius. I shouldn't be in this bar. He was just doing it because he was working up his graft and all those things, and he got to that point where enough people had told him and blah, blah, blah.

(01:56:46):

It's fascinating because I am by no means an expert on all the Beatle stuff and all the Beatle quotes and stuff, but I mean, just back to the world of art and stuff, it's just funny because yeah, I dunno, it's just fascinating

Speaker 1 (01:57:03):

When people talk about the luck factor. I'm not a very big luck person. I believe in making your own luck and all that stuff. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:57:10):

I do too.

Speaker 1 (01:57:11):

But I do think that there is a luck factor and the luck factor is that you happen to be born at the exact right time for what you do to be tapped in.

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):

Boom.

Speaker 1 (01:57:25):

Yeah. That part that's not in your control.

Speaker 2 (01:57:28):

Yes, yes. And I agree. And that goes back to something like what we're talking about with Hendricks and Zeppelin and the Beatles. It's just like, again, and that's what I meant by the tapped into the subconscious because if they would've happened 10 years earlier or 10 years later, it would've never happened, would've never happened. And all those three examples, that's where it's just, whoa, shit. Just a line and then kaboom and there you go. That is sort of a fascinating thing to think about and talk about because it's a luck factor and it's just, it's wild.

Speaker 1 (01:58:06):

It's a luck factor, but it doesn't take away from anything else. The work. Just out of curiosity, do you get into a different frame of mind when you're working with someone of that stature than say when you're working with a baby band? Or is it just doing a session?

Speaker 2 (01:58:21):

Oh, yeah. I usually, it's all the same to me, but I mean, inherently, inherently it feels different.

Speaker 3 (01:58:32):

Inherently,

Speaker 2 (01:58:33):

I'm still going to use my same sense of quality, integrity, but inherently it's, I got to tell you, it's a bit of a, when you make a record with somebody that's made 10, 15, 20 records, whatever it is, or even three or four or whatever, it's an awe because they've got their road tires tested and they've done it and they know it. And I guess most importantly, and it goes back to what we're saying, that Shakespeare quote, knowing thyself, that's a really good thing. It may be the best thing, and it goes back to Eddie Kramer's answer. These are examples of artists and people that know themselves. Because if I'm working with a baby band that really knows what they want, it's the greatest thing in the world because okay, this is what we're doing. But if I'm working with a baby band that's got, or a new artist that's got their head, and maybe it can sound like this, or maybe it can be this, or it's like, well, shit, you're right.

(01:59:43):

Maybe it could, you want me to hold that vision? I'll hold that vision and I'm going to make it like this way. But that's me. That's not you. Who do you want to be? Because I'll tell you something. Honestly, anybody that approaches me, I've got new artists I'm talking to right now, it's like they'll send me their demos, and I don't care if it's two finger piano in a song. It's like, how do you hear yourself as an artist if you can't send me a bunch of links? Tell me how you hear this. Maybe it's about this one song, or maybe it's about all your songs, but how do you hear yourself? And if they don't know, and then it's like, well, keep digging. You got to know. If you don't know, the world's not going to know.

Speaker 1 (02:00:26):

It seems like some producers are totally cool with inventing the vision for the artist, but way more that I've spoken to definitely prefer the artist to have the vision.

Speaker 2 (02:00:39):

Yeah, I'm fine to do it, but you know what I mean. But again, A, that's ego. And B, what happens if you've got the vision and then you're a month in, then all of a sudden they're like, wow, yeah, this is not me.

Speaker 1 (02:00:55):

That's not what we wanted.

Speaker 2 (02:00:56):

Yeah, this is not me. It's like, wait, I got to fucking do this all again, and then you're the bad guy. You know what I mean? Everybody needs a little push in direction or whatever it might be, but no, man, it's like, of course, if you got it's collaboration, the bottom line is it's always going to be a collaborative effort we've been talking about this whole time. And again, you're always going to have to make it countless amounts of times to make it work. I mean that in the sense of when you're, whatever is your role, even if you're co-writing and stuff, they do so much of that now and you're collaborating. But if someone's coming to you as their project, my God, I mean, it seems kind of obvious that the more they have a little bit of a sense of their vision, it's just so much easier.

Speaker 1 (02:01:50):

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious, working under Rick Rubin.

Speaker 2 (02:01:55):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):

I'm sure you've been asked about 'em a lot, but I have to ask about him. What's that? Because you hear so many stories, and what I understand about him is that he's kind of like a mastermind that has a vision for what's best, and then he hires the best teams for

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):

That

Speaker 1 (02:02:19):

Is the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 (02:02:20):

Yeah, it's very much that way. He also knows when to not be there in a sense of to be the guy in the background and to always be there because that's the beauty of my experience with him is that I met him, I was on a Macy Gray record, which was super fun, and I was called in, I can't remember if he called me in or not, but I had never worked with him before. And he got pulled in the record to be the executive producer because the record wasn't getting done. It was the second Macy Gray record, and she was taking way too much time, and she was intimidating the producer in the sense of like, oh, we got to keep recording and blah, blah, blah. And Sony was like, all right,

(02:03:05):

Yeah, there goes the budget. And I love Macy to death. She's a genius and an incredible artist or whatever. And ended up doing a couple of records with her after that too. But anyway, so that was my first experience with Rick and his role was that to kind of come in and save the day, he was executive producing and producing, he got both credits on the record, but he was coming in to like, okay, let's wrangle. And it was awesome to see how he would do that. And it was like you said, he knows who to hire and how to get the thing organized and to the finish line. So again, it goes back to our whole conversation about organization because very much something that I think he sees and understood. I think he saw how fricking organized I was and how of course you count on me and blah, blah, blah.

(02:03:59):

But the other thing is that in terms of the mastermind and what I meant by when to be present, when not to be present, some of the other projects I worked with him was the Johnny Cash record. The last one that he did before he passed away, which was man comes around and Rick was present and there at every moment of the recording process, very, very, very involved because what he did with Johnny, which everyone knows now it's historical, is Johnny had gotten a little older. Nashville had turned a blind eye on this guy that was a legend. And Rick had that sonic vision and that artistic vision of like, alright, I'm going to present Johnny as who Johnny really is, which is just in your face conceptually and sonically in your face, him in a very stripped down arrangements of these incredible songs and that voice.

(02:05:02):

And he accessed the fucking unbelievable power of the presence of that man and that artist. And I was incredibly visionary and cut to me being involved with the audio slave records, which was he produced, executive produced, all this other stuff. And that was incredible because there was a scenario where Rick was not around for much of it. He was there for the pre-production with the bands and stuff. But my point is that he knew that these were guys that were so seasoned and knew, obviously these are legendary rock stars that knew what they wanted to do and how they were going to do it and whatever. And Pat myself on the back a little bit, he's like puts a guy like me in the room to know to get the job done that it would get the job done. So Rick would pop in every couple days or call me and ask me how it was going or blah, blah, blah.

(02:05:55):

And it was that thing. And then Rich Costi ended up mixing in. Of course Rick was there and et cetera. But yeah, Rick's a fascinating, and that was also the era tour where he was doing many projects at once, which blows me away how he could keep it all going at once because he had his personal life. That would be Roland too. But there you go. He's a mastermind in the sense of he would hire really good guys to be doing the thing and then he would come in the sessions at the most important moments to make a decision or to collaborate on the record with those decisions. And that would be that. Yeah, it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (02:06:33):

He's like a general or something. So I don't want to take up your whole day, but I do have a few questions here from the listeners, if you don't mind.

Speaker 2 (02:06:42):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:06:43):

So Danny Wallen.

Speaker 2 (02:06:45):

Hello Danny.

Speaker 1 (02:06:46):

Hello Danny. Danny's cool from England. What form of psychology do you use when working with artists as big as Michael Jackson when trying to get the best performance out of them?

Speaker 2 (02:06:58):

Great question. Really, really good question. Form of psychology. God. Yeah. And it just goes to who you are as a person. You got to be knowing. And what I mean by that in a sense of there are certain people, look, every artist has an insecurity, many insecurities. But I guess I spent enough time in studios with producers that I learned a lot about linguistics. There's one phrase I learned early on in my career that is so valuable, and I'd love to spread it to all. And if you say to somebody, they've did bad or they did terrible or they did semi good, if you say to somebody, I know you can do better, or I think you can do better, it goes right to their own confidence. And the fact that you understand that their ability is better than that, and it's not bullshit. It's like, I know you can do better.

(02:07:55):

It's a wonderful practice you just have in the room, in the production room all the time, because I hope it's the truth. But you know what I mean? When you present that to somebody, it's just like, because look, I've known, I've been present with, and I've heard all the stories about all those insanely negative things that people have said in rooms to artists or bands or whatever, and it's terrible. And it's also counterproductive. How are things going to get better when you're like, that fucking sucked. Come on guys, or whatever. That's counterproductive. It's like, okay, well, let's think about doing it this way or this way, or blah, blah, blah, or I mean, look, I'm a human and I've said enough incorrect things in the room, but for the most part, no. You got to know how to communicate with whomever it might be. I mean, my God.

(02:08:52):

And when you're dealing with a level of Michael, I'm trying to remember what it was like, but God, then it's a whole different, what the fuck? You don't say anything until you are asked in a sense of, I mean, I remember recording one vocal, and on the second take, Michael asked me, what'd you think of that? And it's like, what did I think of that? Hello? And then you see, I don't know, you were a little whatever. Then you might, because you were being asked, well, what did you think of that? You'd ask anybody. You'd ask your cousin, Hey, what'd you think of that? And then you should lend your opinion. You should always lend your opinion to a degree. But I hope I'm answering the question. I think I am.

Speaker 1 (02:09:41):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:09:42):

Yeah. But you got to know how to handle it. You really got to know how to handle to handle it. And look, I think, and that's not just in the studio, that's certainly in pre-production room with the band or whatever it might be. I mean, God, I deal with that question daily where a new artist gives me a bunch of songs and they really want to cut this one, or they think that that's the one on the record. And I'm like, no, it's not. It's

Speaker 1 (02:10:07):

Not. Yeah, not really.

Speaker 2 (02:10:08):

Yeah, not really. And you got to be, you're the person that's giving them perspective, realistic perspective, and that's just a difficult thing to do. Then it becomes that terrible thing about, I know y'all out there have something on YouTube, and it's like the this and the this. Oh my God, that's the scariest thing in the world.

Speaker 1 (02:10:29):

Oh God, the thumbs up, thumbs down. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:10:31):

Yeah. I mean, and again, back to my wife, my wife's been acting her whole life and whatever. She still fucking reads the critiques on everything, and it just crushes her. And I constantly tell her why, just don't read it, because everybody's got a fucking opinion. And again, it's creativity and art. I was telling you about that one cartoon that she's in, and she's like, oh my God, it got panned. I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? I'm like, that's hysterical. I watched, I bingeing watched. It's the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen. I'm like, you care about one dude panning it? I'm sure it's in a failed animator that wrote the, honestly, the journalism

Speaker 1 (02:11:16):

Piece.

Speaker 2 (02:11:16):

Yeah. Which is it's just like, man to be a critic. What's the adage about that? It's just to be a, I don't know. There's a whole thing about being a critic. It's like it's the worst thing in the world. Everybody's a critic and they shouldn't be.

Speaker 1 (02:11:31):

Why do you want to take your time out of your day to tear somebody down? That's the part I don't get.

Speaker 2 (02:11:37):

It's got to be because you don't feel good about yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:11:39):

Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, here's one from Toby William Allen, the system of A down steal. This album rhythm guitar tone has been a holy grail for me. Mr. Jack in particular, how did you manage to create a sound that is so crushing and heavy yet so crisp and clear?

Speaker 2 (02:11:56):

Oh God, you're going to hate me, bro, because I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (02:12:00):

Oh, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (02:12:00):

I don't remember. Although I remember that it wasn't that complicated. I can tell you

Speaker 1 (02:12:07):

Probably because the dude's a sick player.

Speaker 2 (02:12:09):

Yeah, he's an unbelievable player. It was a Marshall GCM, I guess in a four 12. It's about the micing of the cabinet, and back then it was sort of the beginning of recording a di at the same time, which I always do now, which everybody always does. And so you could re-amp if need be. I don't remember if we did. We might've at that time, and we weren't pro tools at that stage. So I can tell you that there wasn't a lot of effects processing before the amp. In other words, not a lot of pedals. He was not into all that stuff, which was ironic because right now I'm in the middle of a record and there's at least 150 pedals in my studio. It's ridiculous. But this style of music and what they do, it's very experimental, a lot of crazy. It's just, I dunno. It's insane, but it's fun. A lot of fun. To answer your question, just God a's a great player, and B, it was a Marshall and Les Paul, I believe, I don't remember. He's mostly Les Paul player. I may be wrong about this, but yeah, an incredible player. Incredible player. Talk about a visionary

Speaker 1 (02:13:22):

Man. I feel like with guitar tone, at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to is who the hell is playing the guitar?

Speaker 2 (02:13:30):

Because it's that. And then they get to a point where they've spent enough time in Guitar Center or wherever they've played in different amps, and they know what their sound will be or how it will be.

Speaker 1 (02:13:43):

So I have another podcast called the Riff Hard Podcast. My other site is a guitar school.

Speaker 2 (02:13:49):

Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (02:13:50):

And we have a podcast as well. And we were talking to a guitar player named Nick Johnston yesterday, who's phenomenal. He said the exact same thing. He does clinics all over the world, and when you're Latvia, you don't know what the fucking gear you're going to get is. You're always getting something different every single night. And his answer is, well, I've played through enough amps to know exactly what I have to do to sound like me. I just know at this point. So same answer.

Speaker 3 (02:14:19):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:14:20):

Alright. Let's see here. This one is kind of complex, but I can tell that he really wants this answered from Javier Nola. Okay. What was the biggest cultural barrier besides language in terms of recording, producing and mixing big Latin American acts such as Mana or Jesse and Joy, if there even was one, because as a Mexican, I can say that the way people work and sound we try to achieve over here is heavily influenced by American producers and mixers, but industry practices seem to differ in some aspects. My question is geared towards that side. As someone who wants to collaborate with other people around the world, it's always amazing to listen to advice from producers that have a hand in creation of Latin American pop rock.

Speaker 2 (02:15:07):

What an amazing question. Very, and well put, God, I want to answer it. I'll tell you quite simply is there's not a lot of difference, and I'm not oversimplifying it to answer your question, but it's like music is music and in the studio is in the studio, and you're just there making great stuff. I mean, I think sometimes the industry gets a little in a different way occasionally, but it gets a little here too. And what I mean by that is you'll get

Speaker 1 (02:15:42):

She sure does.

Speaker 2 (02:15:43):

Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a different, that might be the most brilliant thing I've said all day. To answer your question, that's really what it is. I don't, it's not that different. And if you're asking, because I think just to gain more insight and awareness and stuff, it's like that's not, there's cultural barriers. But I don't know. I think especially nowadays too, I think all the cultural differences are things that are luckily falling away, especially in this world of art and creativity and music and the beauties things. Thank God we're getting borderless.

Speaker 1 (02:16:26):

Just do great work.

Speaker 2 (02:16:28):

And it's like the whole world is like we're talking about borders this and borders that, and blaming a country in Asia for a terrible pandemic. Of course, things start in different places in the world, but why we've got to blame and segregate people and all this bullshit, it's like the happiest thing in the world. I can say an answer to your question or in relation to your question is like it's beautiful that there's less cultural divide. It really is. And trust me, I make records in America and I make records in Spain and in Mexico and the blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, yeah, like you said, just do great work and it's going to be all. And it depends on the person too. I mean, what I mean by that is the project, not only the artist, but it's like, again, I've had weird business scenarios making an American record with the label or the whoever might be making the record if it's a backer or blah, blah, blah, as I've had with Mexican labels and projects. It's just,

Speaker 1 (02:17:31):

Yeah, there's going to be situations to overcome no matter what,

Speaker 2 (02:17:35):

No matter what.

Speaker 1 (02:17:36):

Yeah. Final question. This is from Enrique de LaPaz.

Speaker 2 (02:17:40):

Oh, cool.

Speaker 1 (02:17:41):

How was the experience of working with Audio Slave? Did you get to record Chris's vocals? I once had read that he'd liked to record them by himself late at night.

Speaker 2 (02:17:51):

Okay. The experience was amazing. Yes. I got to record Chris's vocals very frequently. That's

Speaker 1 (02:17:57):

Amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17:58):

Chris was an amazing guy, and heartbreaking, the end of the story.

Speaker 1 (02:18:02):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:18:02):

Very heartbreaking. What an amazing artist on many levels. And we got to be quite chummy, and I can get deep into those stories, but that's a whole nother thing.

Speaker 1 (02:18:11):

Next podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:18:12):

Yeah, exactly. He had his demons, but incredible artist. So yes, I recorded Chris's vocals a lot, and it was amazing, and it wasn't always perfect. There you go. And when it wasn't perfect, I'm going to go back to the other question that was asked to me. How did I communicate with him about that? Well, I didn't have to because when Chris did something that wasn't perfect, he beat himself up so much that it was almost me on the other side of being like,

Speaker 1 (02:18:47):

He did it for you.

Speaker 2 (02:18:48):

Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how often, it wasn't that often, but he would come in, he had a fucking tendency, which was very frustrating, where he wouldn't warm up for whatever reason, he frequently wouldn't warm him up, and he'd just walk in and he'd show up in, Hey, man, and I'd be in the studio ready to go. He'd walk in the booth and expect to do a Chris Cornell vocal. And sometimes he would, but very often he wouldn't. And it ended up with him losing his temper and himself throwing the headphones down, storming out of the studio, all those things would happen. It was frustrating, mostly for him. They saw a guy and it sucked. But I think that was also personal things that he was experiencing that might've been frustrating because eventually he got back to, oh my God, I got to get back to my vocal coach and warm up for 20 minutes before I tried to record this three active, not three active, but you know what I mean, vocal, that is going to be record quality.

(02:19:52):

He was also a perfectionist. Of course he was Chris Cornell. And as he should be, oh, in answer to your question about him recording himself, the second record I did, the first Audio Slave one, their debut record, he didn't record any of himself on that. On the second one, by the end of the record, he wanted to, because he started to think about it, and he's like, Hey, what if you set me up in the room? He didn't know anything about Pro Tools, and we were off tape at that point of those records. He's like, what if you set me up and you show me how to record, and I could start recording myself. So I would say a third of that record was him on headphones recording in the booth in the control room like Prince always did and stuff. And I said, sure, dude. Because that was, again,

Speaker 1 (02:20:48):

It's Chris Cornell.

Speaker 2 (02:20:49):

It's Chris Cornell, and it's also the finish line. It's like whatever's going to make him feel like not nervous or confident and wanting to be alone. Because I would tell you, it's another thing too. When it got to vocal, final vocal time, the band were never there. They also, because of the nature of that band, it was a super group. I mean, you had Rage Against The Machine, and then you had Chris Cornell. And ironically, it's very funny. In the beginning, that's how the project was called it literally all the tapes said RATM, ccc. That's every fucking tape. And this was again, before Pro Tools. We got to Pro Tools in the end of it, but it was like every tape said, because they didn't have a name, which is very funny. But he just got the end and he was like, Hey, what if you sent me up and I just did my own vocals?

(02:21:38):

And I said, yeah, man, let's do it. So I gave him a Quick Pro Tools lesson because it's fairly easy when you're talking about just recording one track of vocals. And I set him up and I gave him a little recording lesson. He was like, don't touch this, don't touch the preamp and the compressor, blah, blah, blah. And I taught him a little bit about making playlists and stuff. Now, there you go back to the other thing we were talking about. When he finished, of course, I had to go back. It was Audio one, audio two. I had to label everything. But by the end, he really got it when he was just doing choruses and he'd write stuff down for me. So yeah, I mean, there was probably three or four or five songs by the end of that record that he was recording alone.

(02:22:17):

And it worked out fine because at the end of the day, he would say, okay, this one's my favorite, and this is one my favorite, because I was responsible for making the vocal composites. So was there, do the thing. And for those songs, I wasn't even present to what he might've thought. I was out in the hallway. He wanted a little bit of privacy. So if I would be out in the hallway and he'd say, okay, track three in the verse I liked, and the this and the that. So there you go. My responsibility in those records were unique in a sense of I'd put the composite together and he'd hear it. He'd get final say so about it, and then Rick would hear it and say, okay, this is great, or It's not great. Here's what I think. So they would have to see kind of get a vision. So it's kind of like I was the first producer in a way, but then of course it had to be approved by artists and very similar to the way it's done now. That obviously answers the question of how it went done.

Speaker 1 (02:23:17):

It does. A couple things that come to mind off of what you said is, I forget who told me this, somebody awesome. But that part of production is knowing when to get the fuck out of the way. A great producer knows when to get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 2 (02:23:32):

That is exactly it. And that's probably one of the biggest things I learned from Rick Rubin and what to do when people ask me that don't know anything about the music business, what does a music producer do? And we use that analogy, well, it's like a director, like a movie director. Those guys definitely know when the fuck to get out of the way. Because if you're Spielberg or Coppola or all these greats and they see some actors doing their thing, and it's like mind Bendingly past what they had envisioned. The best ones know when to get out of the way. And I think that's the thing about us too. It's like if something's happening and it's not exactly what you thought it might be, but they're doing something, it's like, you better just get the fuck out of the way.

Speaker 1 (02:24:19):

Let Chris Cornell be Chris Cornell.

Speaker 2 (02:24:21):

Yeah. And it goes back to what Quincy Jones, one of those famous quotes, he said, it's like you can have all the ego in the world, but when you walk through that door that's in the studio, you leave the ego right there. I don't give a fuck who you are. And him included was his point. It's like, doesn't matter. Ego's at the door. We're in here to make music, to honor that woman. That is what music is the analogy of a woman being music and stuff and the song. And that's what's it. And thus what you're saying is when to get the fuck out of the way. I remember, this is a great Rick story, if you want to end with this one, but

(02:25:00):

We were in New York finishing up a Macy Gray record. It got to the point where she'd taken a lot of time and she was starting her tour. So we had to finish the mixes in New York. And again, I adore Macy, but a lot of artists get to be procrastinators where they don't want to finish, they're afraid or blah, blah, blah, blah. Michaels Jackson was the consummate procrastinator. That's why sometimes this record would take three, four years, blah, blah, blah. It's just like, because a lot of times you don't want to finish. It's so much fun making the shit, why finish? Because then the critics are coming out. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (02:25:33):

Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:25:34):

Anyway, we were finishing mixes and Rick wasn't there. We were in New York. It was Dave Way and myself are working on the mixes and stuff. And Macy was starting her tour and we're all in the same hotel, but she was in rehearsals with the band. But we had to make sure that Macy wasn't stopping by the studio while we were working. So we had to make sure we heard that she heard, heard the mixes. So I remember Rick called us one day and it's like, did Macy hear the mix? We're like, no, we couldn't get her to come down to the studios. And he's like, alright, here's what you got to do. You've got to, and this sounds so unbelievably simplistic, but it's perfectly on the nose in the best way. He's like, here's what you got to do. And we were in the studio at the time.

(02:26:20):

It was like two in the morning whenever and deadline. And I know I'm forgetting a lot of details, but the point of the story is a funny one. He's like, make sure that in her room there's a Hi-Fi system where she can listen to a cd, whatever. This is the era of CDs. Okay, so call the hotel, blah, blah, blah. Okay. There's no CD player in her room. Fuck. What are we going to do? Okay, Rick, there's no C. Okay, send somebody out to go get a boombox. Which one? It doesn't matter. Okay, so we go the assistant on the session. Okay, go get a boombox, get two or three boomboxes, have them bring it to the hotel concierge. Open up her fucking room, put the boomboxes in there, play it. Okay. Plug it all in. Okay, great. It's just like, alright, make sure that, okay, we call Macy.

(02:27:01):

All right, Macy, you got some boomboxes now. Okay, great. Alright. So we send the CD over. It's like, okay, and Rick call the next day. Did she hear it? I don't know. I can't find her. Okay. Get ahold of her, blah, blah, blah. Make sure, so I'm making sure that she's in the room at midnight that next night, the CD's there, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Macy, did you hear the mix? It is. It's a sterile, did you hear the mix? Yeah. Okay. You got some comments and points. She's like, yeah, yeah. I wrote 'em down. Okay, I'll see you at the studio tomorrow. She did come down and I remember Rick saying, you know what that is like, what? He's like, that's producing records. Perfect. It had nothing to fucking do. Yeah. I had to make sure that a fucking concierge could get a boombox in her room so she could, you got to feed the animal a little bit to just get to the end of the prize. But it's a cute story. It's a funny story, but it's the truth. And I learned

Speaker 1 (02:27:56):

It's whatever it takes,

Speaker 2 (02:27:58):

Whatever it fucking takes.

Speaker 1 (02:27:59):

So what was the thing you wanted to say?

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):

Oh, I always like to say this, especially the younger folks that I think about it. I try to think about it daily, but I know that it's necessary to me daily. And it's about, and this may seem obvious, but it's about perspective because I find that taking breaks, especially in our line of work, we'll sit and we'll work for 12, 13 hours a day and we don't get any perspective as important as knowing the compressors and knowing the mics and knowing the band and knowing the music, blah, blah, blah, blah. The most important thing to do is take breaks and get perspective. Leave whatever you're doing for however long you need to do. And I mean that in a macro sense. It's like if you've been working on a record for six, eight months and you're a band, you have no perspective anymore, then maybe not listen to it for a good week. Because when you come back to it, I guarantee you you're going to have a different perspective. And that perspective might be like, holy shit, this is the greatest thing I've ever heard. Or this is just chie and I need to throw it away. Because I guarantee you all those artists that we've been talking about, the Lennons, the Paige and Plants, and they all had that where they would be able to pull themselves away from something long enough to come back to it and make a really good judgment call.

(02:29:27):

I dunno. I wanted to toss that out there because I find that

Speaker 1 (02:29:30):

Thank you,

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):

Invaluable to myself and my work.

Speaker 1 (02:29:33):

Absolutely. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on. It's been fucking awesome talking to you,

Speaker 2 (02:29:40):

Dude. It's been super, super fun. Super fun. I know it would be, but this went way beyond.

Speaker 1 (02:29:46):

Yeah, man. It was an absolute pleasure. So thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:29:49):

Yeah, for sure. And if anybody has other questions, you know where to find me. It's an easy world with the internet, so go on Instagram or blah blah, blah.

Speaker 1 (02:29:58):

I appreciate it. 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 a ar 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 podcast link today.