JOSH WILBUR: Producing Korn, Learning from Legends, Why Feel Beats Gear

Eyal Levi (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 Levy urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

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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 everyone. Welcome to the URM podcast. My guest today is Josh Wilber, and he's a man that needs no introduction, so I'm going to keep this really, really short in my opinion. He's one of the top three living mixers in heavy music today. You know him from his work with bands like Korn, Trivium Lama, God Gaira, and an endless list of others. I present you Josh Wilbur. Josh Wilber. Welcome to the URM Podcast.

Josh Wilbur (00:01:52):

Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Eyal Levi (00:01:54):

I'm glad we got this going. I'm stoked that you agreed to come on.

Josh Wilbur (00:01:59):

Yeah, it was always just kind of like a timing thing. I always feel like anytime we've ever talked about it in the past, I'm in the middle of a record that I can't talk about.

Eyal Levi (00:02:12):

I just

Josh Wilbur (00:02:13):

Feel crippled in the conversation.

Eyal Levi (00:02:15):

Well, I mean, you were saying that this is the first time in ages that you're not juggling three records.

Josh Wilbur (00:02:23):

I've never actively try to be in the studio with three bands at a time, but you want to give every band 100% of your time. So I never want to be in that situation. So fortunately for me, the way that most of the records that I approach, if I know I'm going to be doing an album coming up and a band sends me demos, I'm probably in the middle of another record when it comes. So what I'll do is I'll just take a weekend or something when I'm not working on the other record and when I'm just taking a break from it, and I'm going to listen to the whole demo, everything that the band sends, and listen to every song and write down real quick my initial gut reaction to each song. And it's usually like love the verse, chorus needs work, outro, riff is banging, just whatever.

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My very gut reaction to every little piece of the song, not piece, just overall I guess kind of global picture. And then I'll send back the van my comments, and then I won't listen to it again because it's so easy to fall in love with the more you hear. But the average listener's only going to get that one shot for you to sell 'em for the most part. I mean, if they're already a built-in fan, they might keep coming back, but I take that first gut reaction to something as the most important thing I can have. So after I do that, then it's easy for me to just get back into whatever record I was doing. I didn't spend a bunch of time on that, but I spent the most important time on that because all the stuff that matters I just did. And then I won't really listen to the songs again until it gets into the time to work with the band.

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When I'm officially moved onto to, all right, I'm done with this record, I'm moving onto this record now, and I'll kind of open it back up and I'll do the same process that I already did and not looking at my old notes, just take the exact same, forgotten it. By this point, I don't remember what they sent. And even better if I hear a part when I'm like, yeah, I remember this. This is awesome. And I write down my gut reaction notes again to each song and then I'll compare. Then I take out my old notes and I look, and honestly, they usually are right in line. I have the exact same thoughts both times, which makes me tend to feel confident when I approach the bandwidth. Okay, this song right here, I really feel like we need a better verse. Maybe it's just a field change. Maybe it's just a drum B band, just something needs to happen here. So anyway, that's kind. I always seem to have a group of demos I'm supposed to listen to in a band that I'm working with and something else on the horizon that I'm dealing with. So it's always a juggle a little bit.

Eyal Levi (00:05:00):

When you reopened the demos down the line, when you're ready to work with the band, are they updated versions that the band band took your notes and reworked them and then your work opening that? Or are you opening the originals?

Josh Wilbur (00:05:13):

I suppose it could go either way. It depends on the band and the process and how familiar I am with them. It really depends on each record. It's funny, one of the things I try really hard to do when I'm working with different bands is get into their workflow a little bit. So easy to try to force everyone into my workflow, but it just doesn't work. Some people, for example, I love doing drums last. I think a lot of guys do now. It's so easy to,

Eyal Levi (00:05:46):

That's kind of almost become the way heavy records are done now, I think.

Josh Wilbur (00:05:51):

Yeah. So when I did the Soulfly ritual record, I was like, alright, check it out. We're going. I set up up, I brought in a V kit. I was like, we can work out hash out the songs here, I'll grab the midi. And Max kind of looked at me and he is like, so I still can stand near my amp, right? And I was like, alright, this plan is going to go away right now. I can already tell

Eyal Levi (00:06:18):

Yeah, not going to fly.

Josh Wilbur (00:06:20):

Well, at first I was like, yeah, I guess we could still plug in your amp and you can get headphones and we can still be in here with the V drums. And he's like, okay, yeah, yeah, that's cool. And his son, Zion is the drummer, and Zion's like, this is awesome. It's also so loud in the rehearsal room. And I was like, yeah, it's really kind of cool. You just can set the volume on the mains. We're still having band rehearsals, so to speak.

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And then Max is like, yeah, yeah. And then maybe we could just go in the other room, I can stand next to the drums and Zion's playing. I was like, this is done. I don't even want to try. And I immediately abandoned it right away. And in that record, they don't play to a click, they just jam live in the room. That's the way Max works. He just has to stand next to the drummer and they play parts and be like, that's the first and that's the chorus. That was a good take, right? You? Yeah, I think so. And then you go in later and assemble a song.

Eyal Levi (00:07:12):

Is being malleable or flexible that something that you had to learn how to do? Or is that built in? Is that natural to you?

Josh Wilbur (00:07:20):

I don't know. It's something I'm aware of. I don't know if that means,

Eyal Levi (00:07:23):

Have you always been aware of it though?

Josh Wilbur (00:07:25):

I had a real fortunate situation to work under so many producers before I started really producing. I mean, I guess I was always doing it. I just didn't know I was doing it. But I worked with Garth and Andy Wallace and Machine and a bunch of other just great guys. So for me, I got to kind of cherry pick and see different things that I liked and didn't like, and I worked at this studio in New York soundtrack. I started there mopping floors from midnight till eight in the morning and ended up working on RB and hip hop records. And my first sessions were Busta Rhymes and Lil Kim and stuff like that. So I've really seen every kind of manner that you can make a record and worked under almost every type of producer, engineer or whatnot. I remember random guys would come in that were like, I'd always check the schedule.

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Soundtrack was a 10 room facility. They always had stuff going on. And I would get in the room, look in the schedule and see David Botches coming in. I'm like, what? This is sick. I was a kid fired up, actually, that particular record I remember I was bummed Andy Wallace was in the other room and he was going to mix Iowa or what became Iowa. And he had the same assistant back then, Steve Cisco, who had been with him for 15 years. And sometimes I would fill in for Steve when he took vacation and Steve had come out to me and he's like, Hey Josh, I'm going to take vacation in two weeks. You good to work with Andy? And I was like, heck yeah, I am, dude, let's do it. And I go right into the schedule and I'm like, Steve's on vacation this week.

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And I'm like, slip knot is coming in no way. And then I look and my name wasn't on the gig, and I was like, bummer, what? What's going on? And then I looked, I'm like, well, what am I doing? And it was because I was like, David Bre, nothing face. That's super cool. I was a huge nothing face fan back in the day. So I was equally as excited to be doing that session. Not necessarily as big of a record, but it was like David Bocho had just come off doing tool anima or however you say it, and it was pretty exciting to work with him. Anyway, I'm just saying, I know I'm a talker and I get around the point, but I got to see so many awesome dudes work with different styles that it made me very aware of how I do deal with bands

Eyal Levi (00:09:39):

For sure. That makes sense.

Josh Wilbur (00:09:41):

And so I don't know that I'm necessarily trying to do it a certain way, but I'm definitely aware of how I'm dealing with bands and try to keep in check how I approach each situation and also always try to remember that they're the artist. Because I think that's the biggest mistake a lot of producers make is they, and honestly, it's a lot of the reasons I avoid doing too many podcasts and things like that because I almost feel like once if the focus starts shifting, this guy's some kind of rockstar producer that takes away from the band, and that's not cool to the band. They're the rock stars.

Eyal Levi (00:10:17):

I just spoke to someone on the podcast a few weeks ago who said something really interesting about why old school producers were more rockstar ish, like old school, like eighties era, nineties era, why it was more common for them to be tyrannical basically and super rockstar. And it's because this guy's theory and it makes sense is because the bands were also on that level. So in order to be able to match the bands that they were working with, they had to have a similar sort of bravado. But the kinds of people that are in the industry now are a lot more level headed and down to earth compared to the eras of excess. And so it makes sense for producers to be more down to earth and normal, I think.

Josh Wilbur (00:11:06):

Yeah, I mean to some extent we still, I wish I could say the excess was gone, not totally depending on the band that you're working with. And definitely rock stars are still rock stars, but I'm not. That all sounds accurate. I think I agree with all of that. That's a great take on the whole situation. But I also think the mystery is a little gone.

Eyal Levi (00:11:29):

Yeah, I agree.

Josh Wilbur (00:11:31):

That alone gave the producer, there was an aura of nobody knew what was going on behind the scenes. So you could ride that mystery a little bit and tell the bands, you don't know. You don't know what I do now. Everyone's like, dude, I watched what you did on the documentary, man. It's like no secret.

Eyal Levi (00:11:49):

I think the error around producers was almost like the error around someone like David Copperfield or something. It kind of had that vibe. I think it's a fine line these days because I completely understand why producers and artists are uncomfortable with the modern way of getting out there, social media and all that. But at the same time, I think it's almost the exception now to be able to get out there without embracing it to some degree. I mean, some people pull it off,

Josh Wilbur (00:12:22):

But

Eyal Levi (00:12:22):

I think it's increasingly rare.

Josh Wilbur (00:12:24):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean everybody has some sort of social media presence nowadays for the most part.

Eyal Levi (00:12:31):

Yeah, there's no way to avoid it. So question about mopping floors.

Josh Wilbur (00:12:36):

Yeah,

Eyal Levi (00:12:37):

I think it's really cool that we're talking about that because you're talking about mistakes that producers make. I think one of the big ones that they make early, early on is they think they're too good to do certain things or that certain things are beneath them. Like mopping floors and your regular intern gopher type tasks that were associated with working your way up the studio ladder. But something that I've heard over and over again on this podcast talking to people is people who go pretty far were never above doing whatever it took basically.

Josh Wilbur (00:13:16):

Yeah, it's funny, you come across, I get emails often on social media or messages or whatnot with people and they'll very often be like, oh, if you need someone to edit guitars or if you need someone to cut drums for you or something like that, I'm happy to jump in. I just got out of school and I'm like, dude, there is no way I would just grab some kid off the street on a record that's really important. I make every record, it's my last one. You know what I mean? You're as good as your last record. That's how I approach it and it matters. And I can't roll the dice on something like that with a client. It's not the way to try someone new out for stuff like that is the same way that I did. Everyone always said, how do you get ahead in the studio?

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I was literally midnight till eight in the morning, mopping floors and the turnover rate of interns, it's a 10 room facility is a lot of guys, the turnover rate was crazy high because people were like, fuck this man, I'm not doing this shit too good for it. And I thought that plenty of times too, man. I was like, this blows. Actually, I didn't think that that often. I was so excited. I grew up in Maine and I was from a small town and I was so stoked to be in New York City at a studio where some of my favorite records had been done. I was just, let me in the door. That was my attitude and I'll figure the rest out. I actually had a really hard time gelling with people. I was so green and I'm kind of an upbeat dude, and it wasn't like New Yorkers a little surly sometimes

Eyal Levi (00:14:51):

I think that it's probably not probably, I think definitely it's completely natural to say, fuck this when you have to do something that's not fun. But I think that the big difference between people who go far and those that don't are when they get the fuck this feeling, they say, fuck that, and just keep doing it as opposed to fuck this and then quit, I think.

Josh Wilbur (00:15:17):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I had actually said to myself a couple of times, I'm like, I'm not going to quit here on this.

Eyal Levi (00:15:23):

Got this far already. Why?

Josh Wilbur (00:15:25):

Well, I got beat. That's that. My attitude was I lost. They beat me. If I came in as a janitor and I quit there, that was on me. My job was to climb the ladder. And that's also a difficult thing. You don't want to step on people's toes and there's other people ahead of you in the studio and you want to make sure that you're respectful to them. The ones that need to teach you. You don't want to cut anybody off, and it's hard to know when to, what steps to take to keep your path running smooth without, I guess without making any enemies either. You know what I mean? For example, I was working with the r and b band actually one time. This was probably one of my biggest breaks, and when 2002 ish, but I was an assistant engineer. Pro Tools has just taken off and I'm pretty slick with it. I'm feeling like I'm one of the early guys knowing the system. And there was an engineer who did not really know Pro Tools and he was kind of learning it on the client's dime and they got hip to it. They figured it out, but as an assistant, your job is to try to

Eyal Levi (00:16:32):

Wait. They figured out that he was learning it on their time.

Josh Wilbur (00:16:35):

Yeah, they kind of knew. They were like, this guy doesn't really know what he's doing. I mean, his ears were good. He was mixing. That sounded good, but he was just watching paint dry, trying to get through the program and as an assistant, and I took this very serious, my job is to make him look good. No one should really even notice the assistant is there. If you're doing the best assistants, you don't even realize they're there. The session just runs like a top. And people notice when you're not there the one day that you don't show up and they get another assistant. They're like, why is nothing getting done? Where's the this? And the food didn't show you become essential because you make it run smooth. That's how you become a great assistant. And then people, they trust you with small things and therefore they want to give bigger responsibilities. That's just how it works. Anyway, this particular guy, guy, they were like, they got to add some personal issues and they were kind of arguing about stuff and they asked him to do an edit and he said, it can't be done. And the clients were like, dude, we're not stupid.

Eyal Levi (00:17:38):

We know it be

Josh Wilbur (00:17:38):

Done. I know. He's like, just take that bar and put it there. And I was like, I'm just sitting in the back of the room quiet watching this whole thing kind of play out. And the guy's like, all right, fine. And many times they had left the room and the engineer called me over, Josh, can you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here. There you go. And sit back in the back of the room and pretend like I hadn't been up at the front at all this particular time. It was tense. It was in the room. And I remember the engineer was like, this is so beneath me to even doing this right now. He's like, I'm going to step out, Josh. Why don't you just take care of this minuscule thing for me while I walk out? And I was like, okay, cool. And so I walk up, but the producer looked at me and he's like, while you're sitting there, he knew.

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He's like, I'm not stupid while you're sitting there, can you this? Can you move that and also duplicate this track? It's super quick, edit it and fly some stuff around. He's like, great, thanks. And then the other guy stepped in the chair and finish the mixes. So I like this engineer though. We really got along and the band, the producer takes me aside outside and he's like, listen, we are sick of this dude. Do you want to finish mixing this record? And I'm a guy that's never mixed a record at this time. You know what I mean? That's what we're aiming for. And this is for

Eyal Levi (00:18:49):

Not even on your own for practice.

Josh Wilbur (00:18:51):

I had done that, but this was for RCA records. It was a big budget album. It was a pop record. It was for all I knew it was going to be the next NSYNC type of record at the time because it was that type of thing. So I want to do it right. I really want to do it. I didn't like the way it happened. I didn't like anything about it that would've felt like I straight poached this guy's gig. So I was like, I remember I turned the producer and I was like, Hey, did the mixes sound good that the guy's doing? And he's like, yeah, yeah, they sound good. And I was like, why don't you just let 'em finish If the mixes are sounding good at the end of the day, isn't that all that matters? Right? And he's like, well, yes, but we won't be working with 'em again. I'm like, that's fine, that's fine. That's on you guys. I was like, but you let him finish this record. And he's like, all right, would you want to come track some vocals with us at our studio then on a different project? And I was like, absolutely. And so I ended up going and tracking a bunch of other records for them. That guy did finish that record. And then I ended up working with that producer, those producers for another two or three years just doing pop and RB and stuff. It was a big break.

Eyal Levi (00:20:04):

Did you have to wrestle with yourself a little bit to be like, this is not a good idea?

Josh Wilbur (00:20:11):

I didn't even tell the other part. Actually, one of the guys in the group was so irritated with him that they actually did. He was like, well, not, it was a five guy group. And he was like, he's not mixing my songs. So they actually sent that engineer packing, brought in another guy, a third party who was not me, who hadn't been at the session. He ended up mixing two songs. They slid that guy out and then the original guy finished the record. But it was one of those things like they were going to move on. So at that point, after that record was done, it was going to be someone else. I wasn't stealing anybody's gig at that point.

Eyal Levi (00:20:44):

Makes sense.

Josh Wilbur (00:20:45):

It's going to be someone else or it's going to be me, and none of it has anything to do with me. It has to do with personality issues and other stuff. And he makes the record. He did a good job. It's not his ears and mixing and talent wasn't in question, but they weren't going to move forward. And I think any other time in my career, if I've been presented with opportunity like that, I've made sure it wasn't like, I don't like the concept of people poaching gigs. I think that's a mess.

Eyal Levi (00:21:09):

I completely agree. I think that in addition to actually being good at what you do in this world, you also have to be really good at navigating the minefield, the relationship minefield. And I think that you always have to think long term and to basically drop a grenade on a relationship with someone who you're going to know for a really long time over one project is really dumb and shortsighted. But a lot of people do that without thinking of the long-term ramifications of creating that reputation for yourself and burning those bridges.

Josh Wilbur (00:21:53):

Yeah. Yep. That was a big time, man, in my early days at soundtrack where I was like the wild West man, one day you'd be working on a hip hop record. The next day you'd be working Trans Siberian Orchestra was always in there doing all the TSO. Do you know Trans Siberian Orchestra?

Eyal Levi (00:22:06):

Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (00:22:07):

Actually they used to work down in Florida, right?

Eyal Levi (00:22:09):

Yeah. And I'm friends with a dude that played guitar for them a few times. A dude named Bill Hudson.

Josh Wilbur (00:22:17):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul O'Neal would work at soundtrack there, and they'd usually have two rooms going. So it was cool. At soundtrack, they'd have Andy Wallace mix in Limp Bizkit, Lincoln Park, stain Puddle of Mud, Slipknot, one of those things. And in the next room you'd have Busta Rhymes and Little Kim going and Mo Deep was a staple over there. That was actually the session that they broke you in on because Mob Deep, it was a mess. You'd have to show up at the official session start time would be 11 o'clock, and as an assistant, you got to show up an hour early. So you show up at 10 and then

Eyal Levi (00:22:54):

PM or am

Josh Wilbur (00:22:55):

Am.

Eyal Levi (00:22:55):

Okay,

Josh Wilbur (00:22:56):

Because the label booked the session, right? They're not paying any attention to the artist and the next thing, and the session's supposed to be 11 to 11, right? The studio, gosh, they made a fortune off this stuff because they're booking anything over 12 hours is overtime. So they book 11 to 11, everybody knows what they're doing. This is not a coincidence that this thing happens. So you show up at 10 set up engineer and producer or the engineer probably showed up at two, and then at three and four random people would start trickling in that had nothing to do with the session, but were friends or whatnot. And then next thing you know, there's a party going on and there's 30 people there, but the artists are still not there. And as an assistant, you're just ordering food and cleaning up and doing whatever random tasks that you're doing until the artist shows up at seven o'clock at night and it's just like speakers. Oh, by the way, the beat that you're about to work on has been cycling since two o'clock, pumping loud and the door open. Everyone's in the hallway at the studio, at the soundtrack studio. It was crazy, man. But that was the session that you had to cut your teeth on. If you got through that one, then you'd move on to other songs. But a lot of people didn't last pass. That'd be like, I'm out.

Eyal Levi (00:24:23):

A friend of mine who's actually done really well, he used to work at one of those mega hip hop studios here in Atlanta, and he's doing well in Metal and Rock, but that's also kind of how he cut his teeth doing that stuff. And he would tell me that he'd be doing a Nelly session as the assistant, and basically same thing like session booked for 11 noon, people would start showing up 5:00 PM Then they'd just start listening to music, smoking blunts, having people over party. Then by midnight, they would record one verse and then that's that.

Josh Wilbur (00:25:01):

So this is my Mob Deep session, another guy who worked those sessions almost all the time, but he was the only assistant too, man, this guy Sheldon, he was the only assistant in the facility. Everybody else, you were just at the mercy of the studio. If they said, you got to be here, you were there, you left at 5:00 AM they're like, we're going to need you at 9:00 AM. You're like, I can't. I'm cooked. They're like, sorry, man, you got to be here. And if you didn't do that, they'd put you on what we call a soundtrack vacation. You just wouldn't get called for a couple week or two soundtrack vacation. They're like, oh, okay, you don't want to work. We'll give it. There was enough assistance that they could just turn you off. The faucet turned off. You didn't have any work. But Sheldon, that was kind of his gig. He always worked the Mob Deep sessions. He was a funny dude too, but Sheldon, because that was his gig and it was a tough gig. He was the only assistant that would walk in and just be like, yo, I'm not coming in tomorrow. And management and everybody else just didn't do anything else about it, and I never understood. He just had the power to do that. He's like, I'm not coming in tomorrow, man. Forget it.

Eyal Levi (00:25:59):

What do you think it was about him that got the exception? It makes me think of, there's always these scenarios. You hear about this in the military too, how there's certain people who can wear whatever the fuck they want on base, like Special Forces operators for instance. Apparently they don't need to follow the rules like everybody else. And even though they're supposed to, they just don't, and nobody says anything because they're bad asses. This is what I've heard. What do you think it was that

Josh Wilbur (00:26:27):

It's like Draymond Green in the N nba, right? He can complain more than other people before he gets to tech because he's complaining the entire time. So then the rope is just, you know what I'm talking about? Well, I don't know if you watch a lot of NBA, but random players can mouth off way more than other players to the refs before they get called on it. I don't know. Well, I think first of all, the clients liked him. That's huge. That's the biggest, right? The clients want to work with him, that he's part of the team that makes the clients come back to soundtracks. And literally, mob Deep was in the studio for two years, every single night. Holy fuck. And they didn't end until four in the morning, and that last five hours was just overtime. So the studio made a fortune, like a small fortune.

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It was all in two inch tape too, and the studio was up billing two inch reels were like, you maybe bought 'em for 120 bucks, but the studio was charging like 300 bucks for a reel, like 50% markup. So in every session you open a reel or two, you only fix three songs on a reel for these, any kids paying attention that don't work on tape, but you could only fit 15 minutes on a reel, so maybe two songs depending on how long you were looping it for or whatnot. Anyway, so yeah, he was just built into the session. So it was just the studio knew that he was valuable to the whole thing and he knew he was valuable. I guess that's what it comes down to. They both know how valuable they are, so he is like, listen, I'm not coming in. You guys figured out. It's not like you're not going to fire me because most interns quit on this session. Most assistants quit on this session. So

Eyal Levi (00:28:02):

Man, that's how I feel. We've got certain employees at URM that are just stars and they make so much shit happen that I don't care. I don't care about normal things. I don't care what time they work, I don't care about anything because they do such a great job that it's just like, do your thing. It's cool. I want you to be happy. What's interesting to me about handling a session like that is that's a great way to weed out the weak because I think that most people would just get flustered and frustrated by the amount of chaos

Josh Wilbur (00:28:42):

For sure.

Eyal Levi (00:28:43):

To be able to handle it. That's a special kind of person who can keep their cool and still find a way to make a situation like that be productive.

Josh Wilbur (00:28:53):

Yeah, I mean the lessons learned at my time at soundtrack was more than I could ever count one time, one of the best lessons ever I got screamed at by Busta Rhymes like screamed at. I've told this story more times than I can count, but it's worthwhile. It was a great lesson learned.

Eyal Levi (00:29:13):

Well, I haven't heard it, so I'm all ears.

Josh Wilbur (00:29:16):

I am an assistant engineer and bus has got two rooms going on. I remember the dude Vinny that mixed most of his records back then. Vinny was mixing. I dunno if you've ever heard Busta Rhymes song Fire,

Eyal Levi (00:29:26):

I don't know, maybe.

Josh Wilbur (00:29:27):

Anyway, it was one of the singles. So Vinny's mixing it and everything's outboard gear back then and I'm taking notes and whatnot as Vinny's mixing it, you have to take the spike sheets for analog compressors and stuff. You know what I'm talking about, right?

(00:29:41):

I said to Vinny, I was like, man, I better make sure these recall notes are on point. He's like, what? I was like, this song is a guaranteed recall. He's like, why would you say that? Why would you jinx me like that? I was like, there's no baseline. He's like, no, man. This song is just going to, it's drums in the loop. I was like, there's no baseline man. It's a hip hop song. Vinny's like, don't even say that. Why would you jinx me like that? And then two days later I get the call for the session. Hey, you got to recall fire in Studio E. And I walk in and Vinny's like, you motherfucker, man. I knew you were jinxing me when you said that. I was like, why are we recalling it? He goes, there's no baseline. I was like, he's like, this is going to add a baseline to it. And I was like, all right. So whatever. I recall the song Now when we had mixed it originally, it's all on tape and we're going to get a little technical on this that's cool to non tape users, they're going to get a little lost, but the tape has a very speed, so you can kind of just nudge up the speed of the reel. It pitches it up a little bit, but if you just go a little bit, you can speed up the song

Eyal Levi (00:30:41):

Within reason.

Josh Wilbur (00:30:41):

When bus walks in and listens to it, the first time he walks in kind of like bobbing his head and he goes over and he just walks. He was tech savvy, walks right over to the tape machine and just starts tapping like bam, bam, on a very speed, just nudging it up until he is locked in with his head Bob. And he is like, that's where it needs to be right there. No problem. I'm a competent assistant. I look over, I'm like, okay, it's very sped. 1.25. I write it down, my notes very sped, 1.25. Got it. So when we are all done the mix, the next day when I'm recalling it, what do I do? I go to the tape machine, got to speed up the tape, 1.25 to match the previous mix. And the way you would check your recall at the end of the night back then is you'd put in the dat and you'd hit play on the dat and you'd hit play on the tape machine, just freestyle lock, run 'em both at the exact same time.

(00:31:27):

You got kind of good at catching it. And then you could just listen down to the whole dat with the tape machine and you just swap on the SSL, which you were listening to and just make sure the mixes sounded the same, just a being against the previous mix to this one. So I do it the whole length of the song, nothing drifts, same tempo, whatever. And then bus walks in and he's like, I'm going to be laying the baseline on this. And I'm like, oh shoot, we're all out of tracks. We'd use up to 24 tracks. So I got to put up a slave reel. And so I kind of panic, I can make quick because he's getting a little impatient. So I quickly run out, get a blank tape, you got a stripe safety on it, so you lock him up to anybody who's paying attention.

(00:32:02):

You have to put time code on the two tape machine on one track just so you can lock 'em up to each other and you use the links machine to lock the two tape machines up. So I'm racing around trying to print sim and it's all real time, so eight minutes of just printing sim or 15 if I did the whole reel, I don't even remember. Nonetheless, dudes are getting impatient, lock it up, two things, get a track, get his keyboard running into new track and I'm kind of just like, okay, I think I'm good, I'm good. And he walks in like, yo, we ready? And I just kind of was like, yeah, yeah, we should be good. I didn't really check it, but it should be good. And then he starts messing with the keyboard, keyboard with a little baseline thing and he's like bobbing his head and he's like, yo, this is slower.

(00:32:42):

And I look over and I see 1.25 and I had just listened to it with the dat and I was like, no, no, no, I sped it up 1.25, same as you did it. He's like, yo, this is slower. And I'm like, no, but bus, I just checked it against the dat from last night. It's the exact same tempo. He's like, are you calling me crazy? I was like, I'm not calling you crazy, I'm just telling you I listened to the dat, the entire song length of it, it didn't drift. It's the same as it was last night. Truth be told. Him being who he was and me being who I was, he could have ripped my head off. Then I was getting a little mouthy with him and he looks at me and he is like, if I go get Vinny, who was his engineer in the other room, he had had another guy just in there to kind of help it get set up while Vinny was mixing in the other room.

(00:33:21):

If I go get Vinny right now, he tells me this is slower. You going to call me crazy then, so now I'm mouth off. I'm like, why don't you go get Vinny? And he looks at me wide-eyed, turns around, marches out. He could have punched me in the face there, to be honest with you. He had every right comes marching back in. Vinny doesn't even really know what's going on. He's like, play the song. And I with attitude kind of like spin my finger, boop, let me hit the play button with a little bit of punk ass attitude. Bam. I hit it. He looks at Vinny, he's like, is this the same tempo as it was last night? Vinny's like, hell no, this fool, it's trying to tell me that, I dunno, my own song. He lays into me so hard screaming at me and I shrink.

(00:34:00):

I mean, he's a big dude too. I'm immediately just cowering like what? And so now I actually use my ears rather than my eyes and I realize, fuck man, this is slower. What did I do? I know I sped it up and I'm panicking. And then I realize when I put up the slave reel, I had to put in the links and the links overtakes the machine control of the tape machine and it overrides the various speed. Now the links is in control, so I actually have to vary speed the links controller up to get the tape machine to slew up to speed. I'm 100% wrong. This guy screams at me and then just storms off into the lounge. Now I got to solve the problem. So whatever, I solve the problem and then I just walk out. I'm like, I worked with this guy all the time. He was always in soundtrack. I got to just go address this. And I remember walking into the lounge with my tail between my legs. I was just like, yo bus man, I am so sorry you were the artist. I never should have second guessed you.

(00:34:59):

I was 100% wrong and I'm very sorry. And he's like, Josh, you are new to the flip mode technical squad, but when you're working with me, your internal machine, he's like pounding me on the chest when he says it. Your internal machine is better than any piece of equipment out there. And I'm like, okay. Words to live by from Busta Rhymes. One of the many valuable lessons learned in those years.

Eyal Levi (00:35:26):

Man, that's so interesting that that story is fascinating. I remember as an artist working with producers early on in my artist career where I had those kinds of issues where I was like, that's not what it's supposed to be like. And the producer would respond with, yes, it is because of this data that's on the screen. I'm right. That's what it says. And it's like, no, you're not right. I know what it sounds like, and I've had that argument with somebody a couple times from the perspective of the artist.

Josh Wilbur (00:35:59):

Those arguments happen a lot.

Eyal Levi (00:36:01):

The issue though is sometimes the artist is wrong

Josh Wilbur (00:36:04):

Sometimes.

Eyal Levi (00:36:06):

Yeah. So where's the line? Because when I had the argument I was right and sounds like Busa rhymes was right, but where do you draw the line? I think as your job as a producer is to hold the line when the artist might fuck it up.

Josh Wilbur (00:36:22):

Yes. See, right? There's no absolutes in this. Lemme just whatever I say, whatever I'm about to say, there's no absolutes. And I think we're talking about the biggest challenge of being a good producer is this exact situation when you reach a conflict with the artist, it's tough because yeah, sometimes you are right, sometimes you're not. And I think just recognizing that sometimes you're wrong and sometimes you're right. And if the artist can do that as well, you're going to have a smooth running session. I kind of have a saying, I shouldn't have to convince you. Well, this is a little different, more on artistic things. If I have an idea the melody should go like this or we should cut back to this. I don't really feel like I should have to sell you on that too hard. You should hear it and be like, yeah, that is better, better is better attitude on Lamb of God records.

(00:37:08):

That's the running kind of mantra on the whole session. Better's better, man, someone loves a riff and someone else is like, we should really try to change this. And you'll see Willie or someone just sitting there and go, I mean, what do you got better's better? Let's hear it. Knowing that they love that riff, but okay, top it. If you do, then we'll also shift. And that actually I have such a great working relationship with Lama, God in particular, that that kind of thing happens constantly and it goes both directions. I think that's part of the reason we've worked together for so long. But anytime you get into a situation with an artist, it is a tough one to try to remember when my job is to maintain their artistic integrity. They're the one's name, it's on the record. I mean my name is on it, but it's their album.

(00:37:53):

It's their art. And I try to remember that first. And in fact I have said straight out to several artists, Hey, I really, really, really think that we need to do X, Y, Z at the end of the day though, I understand and recognize this is your record, so I will have to default to you at the end of the day if you really want to go this direction. But I cannot express to you how much I think we really should be doing this. And those things pan out in different ways. I'm sure there's a million stories where I could tell you where it went one way and when they went the other way.

Eyal Levi (00:38:32):

Well, something that you just said is that it works best when both of you are capable of admitting that you're wrong. But what happens when you're dealing with an artist who is not capable of that and they are legitimately making the record worse?

Josh Wilbur (00:38:50):

Honestly, I think it's been a long time since I've had a client like that. I think the cream tend to rise to the crop. Yes. I just messed that whole thing up, but you know what I mean, cream rise to the top. I was doing crop and top and something, A lot of the bands that I'm working with have been around for a while now.

Eyal Levi (00:39:10):

They know the

Josh Wilbur (00:39:11):

Score. Some legacy bands and even younger bands of mice and men, for example, they've made what, six or something records, and they're still super young guys. They get signed when Trivium is actually the same way Trivium gets signed when they were kids and they're like eight records in now, but they're still, they're in their prime, but they've all kind of survived this long because they know what they're doing and they also know how to work within a group. And I think that's the reason bands survive. You recognize that you're working within a group or they become solo artist, right? And then becomes then one guy's in charge of the whole thing, which that can work too. You see other artists like the singer or the guitar player break off and do their own thing and it does work because now they're just doing, they're the only one that had a vision. Those situations exist. But I think generally speaking for myself, I haven't had too many situations with guys that aren't easy to work with.

Eyal Levi (00:40:09):

The thing that I noticed and just echoing what you said is that the most problems I ever would have would be with the smallest bands.

Josh Wilbur (00:40:18):

It's always the smallest bands. The smaller the band, the more difficult the record for sure. Well,

Eyal Levi (00:40:22):

They have something to prove. I mean, every band, I think bigger bands always have to outdo themselves and they want to keep it going, but if they never even had something going in the first place, there's still that mountain to climb rather than staying at the top of the mountain. It's a different mentality.

Josh Wilbur (00:40:41):

And a lot of these bands, like a younger band for example, don't really realize the job description, especially if they've been cutting their own demos and stuff. They don't understand that when they come into the studio with me, they don't have to worry their job to worry about. For the most part, the sonics aren't their responsibility. They can say what they like or they don't like, but it's my job to get it there. They don't have to feel like I'll steer 'em to that, I guess is what I'm saying. You focus on writing the songs, that's your job in the band, and not that you don't have a say because in our business engineer, producer, artist, writer, the lines are so blurred sometimes it's difficult to define for sure. Once again, making the group kind of mentality really important. But I had a band one time, they were trying to talk to me about what pickups they should use on the record, and we hadn't heard a song yet, and I was like, dude, no offense man, but we're so far from worrying about the pickups right now. We just need a song that's good and then we can worry about what we may got to make it sound like

Eyal Levi (00:41:48):

That's a very common issue. I find it's also with people learning production, worrying way too much about gear as opposed to their ears.

Josh Wilbur (00:41:59):

Yeah,

Eyal Levi (00:42:00):

Just worrying about the wrong stuff, I think.

Josh Wilbur (00:42:03):

Yeah. I watched a little bit of your interview with Tom Lord, algae. How do you say it? Algae.

Eyal Levi (00:42:09):

Algae. I think.

Josh Wilbur (00:42:10):

I know I just put you on the spot big time. I just call him TLA. Yeah, I watched your interview with TLA. I was about to do that anyway just to avoid it, but who I think is one of the greatest ever. He's so good.

Eyal Levi (00:42:23):

Absolutely.

Josh Wilbur (00:42:23):

I remember him saying, it's just, it all just comes down to how guys like us hear the music, and I thought that was a really, I was like, wow, that's a great statement. That's the truth. That's really what it comes down to because when I'm mixing a record, I'm not a big ab listen to other people's albums stuff unless someone specifically asks me to, can you just make it listen to this? And I'll take that into consideration. But I've often found the fastest way I ruin my own records is if I listen to somebody else's because I ruin whatever special cool thing I had going on in mine that made it not sound like everything else. And as soon as I listen to someone else's, it's hard not to chase something, even if it's worse. You could put on a record you hate the sound of and have a mix that you want to like, you're like, oh, but their guitars do kind of sit in a cool way and then you just tear your thing apart and ruin whatever awesomeness you had going on.

Eyal Levi (00:43:18):

I think it comes down to trusting your own tastes, which I think is a tough thing to achieve, but it's crucial. You're basically, you're getting hired for your tastes and for your instincts. At the end of the day. That's what it breaks down to. Is that something that you had to learn confidence wise?

Josh Wilbur (00:43:38):

I don't know. I'm always trying to, I don't use the same stuff, mix to mix. I think if you listen to my corn record or I guess it helps that I didn't produce those two, but the corn record that I mixed and the Parkway Drive record that I mixed.

Eyal Levi (00:43:57):

I love that corn record, by the way.

Josh Wilbur (00:43:58):

Thank you. Which one? I did two of them.

Eyal Levi (00:44:01):

Well, I like them both. The first one you did

Josh Wilbur (00:44:04):

With rotting and vain.

Eyal Levi (00:44:05):

Yes. That one. I'm not good with names. That one sounds

Josh Wilbur (00:44:08):

Insane. What's cool about that one too is it's not mastered, I guess. I don't know if you would call it mastered. It's literally the way it came off the board really, and we just turned it up till it clipped, literally bumped the output until it clipped. Because everyone liked the mixes so much that we were just like, let's just leave

Eyal Levi (00:44:25):

It. That's so unconventional.

Josh Wilbur (00:44:28):

It is very unconventional and now that you'll hear it. But it was cool, man. Everyone kind of fell in love with it and they were like, I mean the mixes are great. Can you just make it louder and not change anything? And I was like, yeah, turn, dial up. There we go.

Eyal Levi (00:44:48):

Is that something that, were there any skeptics involved maybe at the label or something? It's kind of different.

Josh Wilbur (00:44:58):

I mean all a lot of these mastering plugins and limiters and emulators and clippers, it's all kind of the same thing, right? Turning it up. Yeah, we're just trying to find a way to make it louder, but a lot of times when you're in that process, you start being like, well, we need to EQ it and maybe some multi-band compression and this or that, and maybe you didn't need that. Maybe the mix just sounded good. I remember going back to TLA for a second, so I did this, I did a song, I tracked the song that he mixed back when I was working with Dr. Luke doing pop records, I did a song that ended up being Leona Lewis I Will Be, which was one of the sickest sessions ever. They recorded an entire orchestra for it, like a real orchestra. It was like harp everything.

(00:45:42):

It was wild session. And I remember hearing his mix, not from mastering, just his mix, what he sent, and I was like, this sounds perfect. Nothing is wrong with this. And I think situations like that for me, especially when I was working with, same with Andy Wallace, I got to sit behind him for a long time more than anybody else. Andy Wallace was the guy I got to work with the most. Him in full force, the pop guys, I should say pop, r and b, hip hop pop. That's what they did. But between them and Andy who I just got to sit behind other dudes and realize there's not as much trickery as we might think early on getting into this. It's just balancing it out and getting it right. Sorry, there's not as much. I think when I first started I was like, I suppose once I gets this mastered, it'll sound like a real record. And then there was always something maybe that I didn't have access to when it really isn't necessarily the case. I just needed to get better.

Eyal Levi (00:46:53):

That makes me think of that Gordon Ramsey show where he goes and he saves restaurants. Have you seen that? No. It was around five or 10 years ago or something. Basically it was a reality show where he would find a restaurant that was failing, go in there and basically whip them into shape. There would always be a point where he took their menu apart and redid their menu for them. And one of the things that came up all the time was that people would just use too many ingredients and were just going over the top with everything. He would do stuff that had five ingredients and it would just be incredible. He knew exactly how to use them and in what proportions. I think it's the same idea.

Josh Wilbur (00:47:42):

Very often I'll trap myself, especially on my own productions, more so than somebody else's, but when I mix my own productions, I'll mix 'em and be like, this is terrible. And then listen to the board rough mix that I had and I'm like, why is this so much better than my mix? And I did that when I tracked it. I eqd the Toms. I am pretty heavy with the EQ going in sometimes and then for whatever reason when I mix, I find myself doing the same moves, but it starts becoming too drastic. If I dip the mids on the Toms when I was recording and when I'm mixing it, I'm like, oh, I like to dip mids in Toms. Lemme do it. And then mix thing. I know. I'm like, why is the rough mix sound so much better? It's like, I already did all that. It sounded good. I just needed to not do anything,

Eyal Levi (00:48:30):

Man. So do you ever find yourself going back to the rough and

Josh Wilbur (00:48:35):

Yeah,

Eyal Levi (00:48:35):

Using that,

Josh Wilbur (00:48:36):

Not using the rough, but I'll very often import a portion of it. Okay, so that burned the priest covers record that we did with Lamb. It was like if we did that whole record in two weeks, it was super crank it out. Randy did all the vocals in, I want to say two or three days. He did three songs a day. Beast. Yeah, I mean it was super fun. We had such a good time doing it. It was kind of hysterical, but particularly the vocals. I remember Mark was like, dude, the vocals don't sound as good. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I didn't do anything. He's like, it was way better in the rough. And I'm like, I didn't change anything from the rough God damnit. He was right, first of all. So I finally had to go back to the session.

(00:49:18):

I tracked it in when I was in Richmond before I got back to LA and import the vocal settings. And all I had done was a slight low, mid cut or bump. It was nothing, man, but it was the littlest amount on the vocal. And if I had just left it alone, soon as I put it back to the flat, the way that I had it, when we tracked it, mark heard it instantly and he was like, there we go. That's exactly how it was. And I was like, God damn, he's right. It sounds way better. I'm like, I just felt like I needed to do something to it. When I mixed it, I had this, it needed to go through another process, kind of like amping actually a lot of people, it was a little pet peeve of mine will say, if you need anyone to do amping or anything, and I'm like, amping isn't part of making a record, not standard anyway. Sometimes it is, but I don't start a record going. And then when I reamp the guitars, that's never the plan.

Eyal Levi (00:50:12):

When I make them good later, they suck now,

Josh Wilbur (00:50:17):

Right? Nine out of 10 times the tone I tracked is the one that I'm going to mix on the record. Every once in a while I'll be like, all right, I can't make this work. And same thing when someone gives me a record to mix that I didn't record. I'll try my best to work with whatever guitars that the producer sent their artistic take. And it's not my job when I'm just a mixer. I try to get real clinical again. I'm trying to just, they send me the production and I'm going to try to maintain every aspect of their production. The best that I can. If it gets to a point where they're like, man, the guitars just don't, I don't know. I wish they were. Then I always have an amp and cab micd up in my studio or whatever. I'm not going to problem. Well, I can certainly ramp it if you'd like me to, but it's never like the goal,

Eyal Levi (00:51:05):

Man. That's a pet peeve of mine too, because I've been involved in so many records where so much time went into getting the tracking toned sometimes a week or something, just like Amp Shootout after guitar shootout after Cab Shootout just over. But always with the idea of we're going to reamp it later. It's like if you're going to reamp it later, why are we going through this trouble now? If you've already made that choice, I don't understand it, and if you're going through this trouble now, why not go all the way and get the tone you want? I don't understand. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Josh Wilbur (00:51:44):

Oftentimes too, and it doesn't always happen, but every once in a while, in fact, I just amped something recently where I didn't necessarily love the tone that they had, but certainly I could tell when I was amping it that the guitarist played to the tone. Certain notes worked and it was clearer in the track that they gave me just because he was clearly putting his hand on the bridge in a certain way that was working with whatever Tony had going. And when you're amping, you're definitely running a risk that you're going to lose a little bit of that. Certainly play through the tone in some aspect.

Eyal Levi (00:52:22):

I've always felt like there's some sort of a loss in amping. I mean, I've experienced really great amps, but it just never, it's never quite as cool as the real thing, I guess. I mean, it could be pretty damn good, but I feel like

Josh Wilbur (00:52:41):

Maybe it's because you played it through the tone.

Eyal Levi (00:52:44):

I think that's what it is.

Josh Wilbur (00:52:45):

You adjusted your hand in such a way to make it work for what you were hearing. It's like switching your monitors out halfway through a mix. Right. You're definitely going to change theq afterwards.

Eyal Levi (00:52:55):

Yeah, absolutely. You said something earlier that I want to touch on. You said that you don't feel like you should have to convince somebody about an idea, and I want to talk about that for a second because that's so important. In my opinion. I've always thought that people shouldn't argue about musical ideas because it makes no sense to argue with words about something that you should just be able to listen to. I've always thought that if you have an idea, you should be able to play it for somebody and then either they like it or they don't, and that should be it. That's all the argument you need.

Josh Wilbur (00:53:35):

That should be, and people definitely get attached to stuff and like I said, the more you listen to something, you start liking it, which is why I try not to spend a lot of times with demos do the same thing. I'll fall in love with it. You need that first listen, which honestly, that's the best reason to have a producer and a lot of that is why not always. There's always exceptions, but bands that self produce, especially if you look at a big band's catalog, that one album that they self-produced is probably not their best. And I'm not thinking of specific examples right now, and

Eyal Levi (00:54:06):

I am,

Josh Wilbur (00:54:06):

I'm sure that there are exceptions to it.

Eyal Levi (00:54:08):

I've got some examples in mind.

Josh Wilbur (00:54:09):

Well, don't bring me Horizon, and their stuff sounds great and their song great and they seem to get bigger every record, so clearly there's exceptions to the rule. Yes,

Eyal Levi (00:54:17):

But

Josh Wilbur (00:54:18):

Very often you'll see a band, particularly even a metal band or something, and they self-produced that one record and they wrote it. They lived with it, they created it. They never got that first opinion of the final product. And by the time that someone who was it, maybe the label or whoever hears it at the end, it's too late, they're not going to change it. Somebody would be like, dude, I don't know, man, this is not working. They're like, no, no, no, no, it's great. I had an artist one time legitimately tell me there was some slow, trippy part in this song and I was like, yeah, this is not working. I don't like this at all. And they're like, you don't understand because you don't smoke weed. And I'm like, logical, dude, I'll give you that. Maybe smoking enhances your experience. I'll give you that. I shouldn't need it to make me something. It should be good pre mind altering drugs.

Eyal Levi (00:55:13):

Yeah, that's not a very solid argument.

Josh Wilbur (00:55:17):

That was a real argument that actually happened with a band. You just don't understand his part. You don't smoke weed.

Eyal Levi (00:55:23):

That's like saying, my band sounds good when you're drunk or something. Right. It doesn't actually, that's, it doesn't, you're just drunk. You just don't understand

Josh Wilbur (00:55:35):

His band. You're not drunk.

Eyal Levi (00:55:37):

Yeah. Yeah. Everything sounds better when you're drunk.

Josh Wilbur (00:55:41):

No, no. I'd say every person that's ever been to a festival concert in their life, they sounded

Eyal Levi (00:55:46):

So much better at the show

Josh Wilbur (00:55:48):

Than they do on their album.

Eyal Levi (00:55:51):

Yeah. Of the 15 drinks you had, so when you were working at soundtracks, did what you're doing now, was that in your mind, did you think it was going to go this far? Was that the goal?

Josh Wilbur (00:56:04):

I don't know. I don't even know what my goal was.

Eyal Levi (00:56:06):

You just wanted to be in it. I

Josh Wilbur (00:56:07):

Just wanted to be in it, man. I loved it. I loved everything about it. The way I even ended up at soundtrack when I was in high school and I went to a communications college while I was in college actually, I just took out every record that I liked the sound of. I just took 'em all out of my CD rack, every record that I had that I just on a sonic, I'm like, I like this one. This sounds great. This sounds great, this sounds great. And I literally just wrote a spreadsheet out and what record who did it and where it was done, and I was like, okay, this one was done in whatever studios la. This was mixed by Andy Wallace, it soundtrack in New York City. This one mix it. Andy Wallace soundtrack, New York City, Andy Wallace soundtrack, New York City, God damn. Andy Wallace is doing a lot of things that I like. Andy Wallace soundtrack, New York City. Well, it seems to me that if I want to be working on the kind of records that I like, I need to get my ass to soundtrack in New York City. I just sent him a cover letter and a resume and I was like, I will do anything. And then got the job mopping.

Eyal Levi (00:57:06):

Why do you think that your letter worked? I'm just wondering because man, so many cover letters come in.

Josh Wilbur (00:57:13):

You have to understand it's a 10 room facility,

Eyal Levi (00:57:15):

So they needed people, they

Josh Wilbur (00:57:16):

Need people. There's sessions all night, every night, and they were open 24 hours, so there are at any given point at the time, we'd have maybe 10 interns, they called them. I called us janitors, but at the time, at any given point at the studio, had at least 10 interns running around in the studio's heyday. It was actually two buildings. You had to go around the corner, like 21st street and 9 36 Broadway, and it was like,

Eyal Levi (00:57:43):

God, that's extreme.

Josh Wilbur (00:57:45):

It was crazy, man. It was awesome. I mean, I still think about it. There was, and for me coming out of school, I'd never seen an SSL in my life. What

Eyal Levi (00:57:52):

Did you go to school for?

Josh Wilbur (00:57:53):

I got an associate's degree, communications, new England School of Communications, and they had a little audio program, but their audio program actually that school now has a totally legit audio program and a lot of those graduates are doing some pretty real stuff. When I was there, they had a Mackey 32, 8 and four eight at machines. It was not the same spot.

Eyal Levi (00:58:12):

Was that your goal though, even back then you're going to get into audio?

Josh Wilbur (00:58:16):

Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I went there because I could afford it. It was in Maine where I was from and they had a little audio program.

Eyal Levi (00:58:23):

It's what was available

Josh Wilbur (00:58:25):

And in retrospect it worked out because I think a lot of this, the career path, you can look at it the same way. Say maybe like a radio DJ host, you hear that they become the big fish in a small pond kind of thing.

Eyal Levi (00:58:38):

Howard Stern story for sure.

Josh Wilbur (00:58:40):

That's kind of how it was with me. It's weird to say without sounding like I'm tapping myself on the back, but I definitely became like, I think everyone at the school kind of knew I was the one in the studio that knew what was up and had a good idea of how to run the place. I was the only one that turned out anything that sounded remotely like a record. Everyone was still struggling. And I had taken all the audio courses, all of them in the first year, and I had a whole nother year left and I was like, what am I going to do here? And I was taking radio broadcast classes and things like that. So I worked up and got myself. I spoke to the school and set up an independent study, which gave me access to the studio, and I wrote my own curriculum for what I would accomplish in my independent study, and this is actually, I'm pretty sure what got me the gig at soundtrack is that I showed this massive assertiveness, I guess to better myself.

(00:59:32):

I just created my own independent study at school and found a way to get credit for it and wrote my own curriculum. I'm going to record a gospel choir, I'm going to record a jazz thing. I'm going to do this. And I expected to prove that I know how to do this at the end. And the school was like, cool, that's great. We'll sign you off on it. They gave me keys to the studio. Next thing you know, I'm cutting my own band's demo in the studio after hours and really took advantage of that little studio. So then once I hit up soundtrack, I remember the guy that gave me the job, Ken Thornhill was I showed up at soundtrack in New York. It actually seems like an appropriate time too. So I grew up in Maine, which is the whitest place on earth, maybe not the whitest place on earth, but it's pretty white, pretty damn white. It just seems like appropriate at this particular time in culture that we're in right now. And with all the craziness going on,

Eyal Levi (01:00:18):

Just so everybody knows, it's July 10th, 2020 right now.

Josh Wilbur (01:00:22):

Yeah, July 10th, 2020. In the middle of the pandemic and political arguing over Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matters,

Eyal Levi (01:00:32):

Maybe the most insane time period I've ever experienced.

Josh Wilbur (01:00:36):

It's the most insane time period ever as if when people said Black Lives Matter, they don't think that all lives matter. Let's just make sure you understand where I stand on that. Maybe the two biggest career jumps that I had were given to me by Black men. Ken Thornhill and half of the soundtrack studio staff were all black, and I came from Maine and there was not a single, we had one black kid in my high school and I didn't even think twice about it. I never saw him, but I knew he was there. He was the only one. But I didn't even know racism was real because there was no reason to deal with it. It didn't exist because

Eyal Levi (01:01:13):

It wasn't even part of your world.

Josh Wilbur (01:01:15):

It wasn't part of my world. And I moved to New York or I took a train to New York to go for a job interview at soundtrack studio, and I opened the door and 50% of the staff at the studio was black, and I'd never seen anything like that. And I remember actually thinking like, whoa. Right. Of course. I think in my mind, I just assumed I would walk into a sea of white people. That's what I expected to happen. I'd never seen that many black people. I remember Ken when he hired me early on, I was having trouble making friends for sure, and it had nothing to do with race or color. It had to do with I was a dork from Maine. I just could not. I was so eager and trying so hard and my sense of humor was different and I just couldn't make it work.

(01:02:09):

The other interns didn't like me. It was obvious. It was just a really struggling time for me, and I'm a people person. I like talking and I had zero friends, and I remember Ken, the guy that hired me. Somehow we got into a conversation, which is actually unusual. He was a very high, once he hired me, I mean realistically, he worked in the office and I was midnight to eight in the morning. Our paths weren't going to cross for several months until I worked my way up onto the day shift. But I remember him being like, Hey man, you just got to learn. People from all walks of life are going to gel. You just got to find your way to make it fit. And I was like, okay, yeah, he's right. How am I going to gel with these New Yorkers? And it was maybe the best thing that ever happened in my life. I got immersed in tons of different cultures and I mean hip hop, I didn't know anything about hip hop. And my first plaque is for Lil Kim. How cool is that? What an amazing experience for me. And then I meet the full force guys and it was kind of a running joke with Lou, like Lou, we were taking a photo for Mixed Magazine. He's like, get in here, Josh, we got to get a little cream in this coffee.

(01:03:19):

It was just an amazing experience and I made friends who I still have to this day because of all that, and it made me a better person. So I'm off topic for sure, but it seemed relevant.

Eyal Levi (01:03:30):

We go everywhere. What

Josh Wilbur (01:03:31):

Was the actual question?

Eyal Levi (01:03:33):

I don't remember.

Josh Wilbur (01:03:34):

I actually remember you had asked me how a lot of people send in things at soundtrack.

Eyal Levi (01:03:40):

Oh, yes, yes. Endless Sea of Resumes.

Josh Wilbur (01:03:43):

Endless seas of resumes, because I developed, I think that independent study at school that kind of set me aside as someone who would work a little harder than everybody else. And when I showed up, God, dude, I showed up to this soundtrack and I remember walking, I'd never been to New York, I'd never left Maine, really? I mean born and raised in a pretty small town in Maine, and I remember walking into that place. I bought a three piece suit, dude, like,

Eyal Levi (01:04:09):

Oh, wow.

Josh Wilbur (01:04:10):

I was like,

Eyal Levi (01:04:11):

You really didn't know.

Josh Wilbur (01:04:12):

I was like, I am not messing this up. I showed up in a full suit with my cover letter in my resume, and I actually remember Holy, one of the other assistants who I became friends with later, I remember him seeing me when I walked in looking at me like, wow, look at this herb. I had a bunch of piercings back then, and I took 'em all out. I was like, no, I'm going to look professional. And then I walked in Kent Thornhill, he was the manager, studio manager. He was like, yeah, well, knowing what I know now, he needed a janitor for that night. Basically. Someone had been like, fuck it, I'm out. And just didn't show up the night before. And so now they go through the stack, all right, who can mop some floors tonight? I remember he asked me, can you come down for an interview? And I was like, when? He's like, today, tomorrow, and I was, I was in college in Bangor, Maine, New York City is a nine to 10 hour drive and I was like, yeah, I could be there tomorrow having no idea how I was going to sort that. And I remember I just Jo, my car, went to JC Penney's and bought a suit and then just started driving to New York.

Eyal Levi (01:05:21):

I mean, that's what you got to do. I've known a bunch of people when the opportunity comes up like that and it's super sudden they don't jump on it and then they wonder why things didn't work out the way they did, and I've noticed a lot of opportunities that have come up in my life have been of that nature like, yo, you want to do this? It's tomorrow. Or Yo, you want to do this, you got to be in another city in four days. That's it. I've seen an experienced through other people I know and myself, so many things like that, and there's this huge dividing line. I think some people don't have the risk tolerance for acting that fast, but I really think you need to be able to just pounce when that thing happens. You recognize it in pounce.

Josh Wilbur (01:06:11):

Absolutely, and you could say that about bands. I've seen bands who are on the verge of getting a deal.

Eyal Levi (01:06:16):

I am talking about bands actually.

Josh Wilbur (01:06:18):

I've seen bands,

Eyal Levi (01:06:19):

Primarily bands

Josh Wilbur (01:06:20):

On the verge of getting deals. It's their own worst enemy. Again, I think that's why a lot of my clientele, they've survived. They've been through it. It's why I think when I talk about the communication and the work ethic kind of all working together, they made it through. They know what it takes, and there's a whole lot more than just wanting to be a rockstar. Like,

Eyal Levi (01:06:42):

Oh, yes, interestingly enough, you were talking about big fish in a small pond. I remember talking to, I don't remember, it was Paolo or Matt from Trivium. It was back when they cut drums at my studio with Colin back in 2011. I remember I was talking to one of them and we were talking about bands who are faltering in their career, metal bands who then do a Hail Mary and switch styles immediately and try to go commercial, and he was saying that he thinks it's the dumbest thing ever, and he was telling me why Trivium is going to stick the course in metal. They had just at that point in time, right before in Waves, they had got in a lot of shit for making the album before that. I forget what it's called, but it was the one that sounded like Metallica. They got a ton of shit. They were doing well, but they were kind of hated and they knew it. Is

Josh Wilbur (01:07:35):

This Shogun?

Eyal Levi (01:07:36):

No, no. Shogun came after, I think.

Josh Wilbur (01:07:39):

Yeah, I think you're right.

Eyal Levi (01:07:40):

It was their second record. I mean, Matt just did an interview now talking about how they knew that they were kind of hated the beginning, so we were talking about it and they were saying, no, we're sticking the course with metal. We're not going to jump ship and do that because the philosophy being, if you can't dominate a smaller market like metal, how the hell are you going to be able to dominate a larger market like Radio Rock if you can't even handle this, how are you going to handle that? So they're going to stick the course with metal in Wise decision. They've just been doing better and better and better and better.

Josh Wilbur (01:08:21):

In my opinion, that's a band that's just hitting their stride right now.

Eyal Levi (01:08:24):

I agree.

Josh Wilbur (01:08:24):

I actually texted Matt a couple days ago and I was like, dude, you guys are incredible and I don't even think you've done your best stuff yet. I think they're still young and hungry, but they're eight albums into their own career. Most bands when they've been around as long as them at this point are cooked and just going through the motions. I don't feel that Trivium is not like that. They are just, they're already like, dude, our next record, it's got to be fire. They're excited, and you know what? Lamb is actually the same way. Every record, they're this one in particular, there was a new sense of urgency. This has got to be fucking fire.

Eyal Levi (01:09:03):

I've noticed that with producers too. We were talking about TLA or had Bob Clear Mountain on a couple months ago. Whenever I talk to people like that who have gone that far for that long, they don't have any signs of burnout. They're just as excited about it as they were at the beginning. I think that that's key. I've met a lot of people who do start to burn out and by the time they've been in it 15, 20, 25 years, they're kind of over it a little bit.

Josh Wilbur (01:09:32):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that because I had a buddy tell me the other day, I sent him a mix and I was like, dude, this is the sickest thing I've ever done, and he's like, you say that every record.

Eyal Levi (01:09:43):

Isn't that the idea?

Josh Wilbur (01:09:44):

I was like, well, I mean I always wanted to be sicker than the last record because true story hasn't been announced yet. This is my least favorite thing. I just mixed a record that I am so fired up on and I mean, it's worthless conversation. I can't talk about it, but I'm just super proud and I feel like it doesn't sound like anything else I've ever done, but it's just, I guess that's the excitement about the job. I still get pumped on it. Anyone who's worked with me will tell you I am voted most likely to throw my back out in the session because I'll start headbanging or jumping around. I love it, man. I have such a good time.

Eyal Levi (01:10:17):

I don't think it's a worthless conversation. I actually think it's super cool that you get excited about things. Honestly, man, I think that that's key. How are you going to do this job if you don't feel that way about it?

Josh Wilbur (01:10:30):

As soon as we get off this conversation, I know Ted is mastering it right now.

Eyal Levi (01:10:35):

Oh, nice.

Josh Wilbur (01:10:35):

So the second we hang up, I am going to be waiting for that email to come through.

Eyal Levi (01:10:40):

Now that is one dude who when he masters stuff, it doesn't sound that different than the mix of The mix is good.

Josh Wilbur (01:10:46):

Yeah, Ted's great, man. I mean, listen, I've worked with, so there's a lot of great mastering guys that I've used quite a bit. I love Brad Blackwood, I love Ted Jensen, I love Brian Gardner. There's a lot of good guys. It's funny, I don't actually get to pick the mastering guy that much often. This is what I'm noticing about myself, the labels. There'll be trends of what labels want the team for me to be. There was a time after Corn, perfect example, I think right around the time I mixed the corn record Serenity of Suffering. There we go. That was the name of the album. Is that the one with,

Eyal Levi (01:11:23):

See, I'm bad with names,

Josh Wilbur (01:11:24):

Whatever. The one with rotting in vain on it. The first one I missed when I mixed that record and I quote Mastered It, whatever you want to call it. I mean I guess I did, but that started a trend of people wanting me to master my own records and I did the Carbo record that I mixed, which is a sick album if you've never heard it.

Eyal Levi (01:11:47):

Oh yeah, I've heard it.

Josh Wilbur (01:11:48):

Carbo Meta I think is the one that I did.

Eyal Levi (01:11:50):

Yeah, it's awesome,

Josh Wilbur (01:11:52):

Dude. That record, I remember when they sent it to me laughing, laughing, giddy. This is unreal, man. Actually laughing with excitement on what I had in front of me that was really, that record was actually inspiring and they did the whole thing, so no click too. It was absolutely amazing. Anyway, sidebar after that, I think that was all around the time. I mixed and mastered that and then I mixed and mastered corn and then I mixed and mastered Killer Be killed, which I was really stoked on that record too, and there was a handful right around that time where I ended up mixing and mastering all of 'em because, not because I wanted to, I don't call myself a mastering guy. I don't really care one way or the other about it. I'll always send client my master and then the raw mix, which is really just my mix without the final limiter on it, but my two bus, one compressor, that's it, and then if I'm mastering it, it's a two bus compressor and a limiter.

(01:12:51):

That's it. I'll always just send, I send everybody both and I'm like, if you can use my master if you want to or if you want to have someone else from master, knock yourself out. I don't feel like it takes away from my cred if someone else mastered, it doesn't matter to me. It really doesn't, and honestly, I'm of the opinion better is better, please. I would prefer I'll send you the master and think that I love it and in fact, the record I just said to sent to Ted Jensen yesterday, I send him my master and I'm like, beat it, please. That would be ideal. We all win if it sounds better. Everybody's winning. Certainly no ego about that kind of thing. The labels, basically, I'll get into trends where the labels will start requesting either I do it and then I actually don't like doing it because also I just don't like the maintenance of it.

(01:13:41):

I don't like getting involved with DDPs and things like that. It just extra busy work that I don't want to do. I want to create, and that doesn't feel like creating. It's a little tedious, I guess, but labels will come to me like the sin in the sentence, the a and r guy right out of the gate when we were starting it, he's like, you're going to master it. We're not going to go through this whole thing, and I was like, what? No, no, no, let's, he's like, no, no, that's it. We're not. It's done. Okay. So I just did, but it just becomes trends. It's whatever the, and I'm very happy to use any of those four or five guys that I named, and there's probably a million other guys that I think do great work. It depends on whatever the label kind of steers it towards very often.

Eyal Levi (01:14:20):

Do you have a preference

Josh Wilbur (01:14:22):

On Mastering Guy?

Eyal Levi (01:14:23):

No, not on Mastering Guy, but on whether you do it or someone else does it?

Josh Wilbur (01:14:26):

Not at all. No. I don't care one way or the other,

Eyal Levi (01:14:28):

So just whatever's better.

Josh Wilbur (01:14:29):

Yeah, I always send out my master and the raw mix and I'm like, you do what you want. Fair enough. Again, I shouldn't have to sell someone, and I hope that, I tend to think that guys that Master for a Living are probably better at it than I am. Mine's just me cranking my mix up and I like my mix, so that works out great, but guys that have dedicated their whole life to probably just putting that final gliss on probably do a pretty darn good job.

Eyal Levi (01:14:58):

Some of them certainly do. Okay, so speaking of mistakes that producers make coming up, one thing that I've noticed is a lot of people will pigeonhole themselves before they've even discovered what they're good at or what their sound is. I noticed this, especially with metal people, they will not let themselves learn as much as they possibly can at the beginning because they want to do metal, but then I'm talking to you who obviously your career is very metal based now. You did everything. Did you always want to end up doing metal or was it just, I'm going to do whatever I can to do this and hopefully metal works out?

Josh Wilbur (01:15:43):

So it's funny, I'm telling you the whole career arc and broken up pieces, I'm working at Soundtrack.

Eyal Levi (01:15:48):

That's okay. I like Christopher Nolan movies, so

Josh Wilbur (01:15:50):

Yeah, we're definitely doing it like a Christopher Nolan movie, so I'm like, I work my way through the ranks from PP Floors, become an assistant engineer to become kind of a staff engineer at Soundtrack, and I kind get to assist David Bacho, Andy Wallace, different guys that are mixing Rock guys, the Trans Siberian Orchestra guys, so I'm assisting on these rock gigs, but they were not nearly as many as the hip hop and r and b gigs that were at soundtrack and then pop. I always was into rock heavy rock metal. I was a big Seur fan growing up. Pantera, Metallica, I dunno what the right word is. I never really got into the underground death metal kind of stuff, but I guess, what should I call it? The mainstream metal of

Eyal Levi (01:16:35):

Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (01:16:36):

I guess. Yeah, that's the term, right? Mainstream metal. There we go.

Eyal Levi (01:16:39):

Yeah, sure. The mainstream heavy bands basically. Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (01:16:43):

And I kind got into a little bit, I was a bit of a hardcore fan because Hate Breed was from my neck of the woods, so I was always at those shows and stuff and into bands like Snap Case and stuff like that, so that was kind of where I was definitely into heavy music. How about that? But on the engineering tip, I enjoyed all music because when I was in high school and stuff, I was all into musical theater and singing in course, and I liked music, so I liked it all. I liked to play heavy music. My band liked to play it, but I didn't get into the recording side of things thinking I can't wait to be a metal producer. That didn't even cross my mind the whole genre. I just wanted to be the guy capturing the sounds and I didn't even use the word producer.

(01:17:29):

I didn't even know what a producer was. I just thought I wanted to be an engineer mixer guy, and so when I was at soundtrack, I would take a bus back up to Maine and there was a great little studio called Disneyland, and the guy had an old Neve in there and I would, so if I had two days off or something, I'd get a local band up in Maine and I would take a Greyhound bus. I was broke as a joke back then. Soundtrack was paying me five 15 an hour to mop floors, midnight till eight in the morning living in New York City. It's

Eyal Levi (01:17:56):

A big money right there.

Josh Wilbur (01:17:58):

I lived in, I don't know if you know anything about New York, but I lived in in Inwood near the Bronx in a one bedroom apartment with four people.

Eyal Levi (01:18:09):

I know where that is,

Josh Wilbur (01:18:10):

And it was a slum. The ceiling collapsed in the bathroom while we were living there, but we were all squatting so the landlord didn't have to fix it. He knew we were all illegal in there. Yeah, you were making it happen. No, man, I'm telling you, you do not understand. Those early days for me in New York were rough. I don't even think people around me, dude, thank God I met this girl named Mayo. She's actually a standup comedian now, and she writes for an NBC show and then Mayo Zaed, she befriended me. We met through a friend of a friend, she's a comedian, she's a Muslim girl with cerebral palsy and she does a whole lot of bagging on herself in her routines. She really befriended me and kind of saved my life in New York. I didn't know how I was going to survive and I couldn't afford the dollar 50 ride in the train to get to work sometimes, and I would just start walking from Inwood straight down through Harlem, straight down through time school.

(01:19:09):

I'd just leave hours early and walk the eight miles of, I had no friends, I had nothing else to do. I was literally going to walk to 23rd street. I had nothing else going on in my life and may soon about the time I was going to leave for work one night she pulls up beside me and she's like, this is the way you're walking. She's like, hop in the car, and she drive me to work or we were so many hours early. She's like, I'll take you out to dinner and then we'll go ride to work. I'm like, man, take me to do laundry at her house. I couldn't afford it. I mean, this girl saved my life, man. She was amazing, and I met a cool group of friends there that kind of bailed me out. Anyway, way off topic, soundtrack Full Force came in, they're like a pop, r and b, hip hop producers. They actually wrote Backstreet Boys All, I Have to give one of top six selling records of all time, and they wrote some Insync songs and they had done some early work with Britney Spears, so they pluck me out of soundtrack and they're like, we want to make you our house engineer, and I'm like, whoa. And at the time I was probably making $9 an hour as an engineer at soundtrack. They're probably billing me for $70 an hour or something like that. Just

Eyal Levi (01:20:22):

Out of curiosity, real quick, how long into your time there was it before?

Josh Wilbur (01:20:27):

I interned for nine months

(01:20:29):

Before I became an assistant basically doing janitorial work for nine months, and then I turned into an assistant and then it's pretty blurred from then because you're still an intern, but they give you the low level assisting gigs. They clients they don't care about kind of thing, but then clients start requesting you back. In fact, my very first engineering session was, I had been assisting for a couple months on Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish. He was doing a solo r and b record back then. It was like right after Hootie and I had been assisting on the session and flown. The producer was from LA and they had flown in his, he brought his engineer with him. It was crazy too. It was a huge session, was crazy, big budget, major label kind of thing. You could tell by the amount of money and time we wasted and the producer had to go back to LA for something and he's like, we'll be back in two weeks.

(01:21:21):

He's like, you know what? The engineer had been stealing the, and the producer was pissed about the Snapple thing. He was always like, Josh, you order me like I did. I put, there's a bunch in the mini fridge. He's like, there's none in there. I was like, okay, okay, I'll order more. He's like, man, this motherfucker keeps stealing my snapples. It was like a thing. He was getting more and more angry about it. It's crazy. What kind of things will get you a gig? So then when he's like, I'm going to come back, I'll be back from LA in two weeks and we'll finish this record up, and he's like, you got all this right? You know how to do all this stuff. I was like, yeah. He's like, cool. I don't feel flying to engineer back out from la. You'll just do it. And I was sick, but I was like, I don't think they're going to let me.

(01:22:03):

There's so many guys ahead of me at the studio, other engineers, and he's like, I'll tell 'em they're going to have to, or I'm not coming back. I'll go somewhere else. I'm like, all right, good luck with that. I'm staying out of this. I ain't trying to get on no soundtrack vacation, you know what I mean? Trying to avoid not getting a phone call. I needed the work. And then I remember the manager calls me up from the studio and he's like, Hey, the Darius record's going to be back in two weeks, and they said, they just want to have you engineer. And I was like, okay. He's like, you think you can handle that? I was like, yes, sir, I can. He's like, all right, you got to gig, and that was my first engineering gig was tracking my first, I shouldn't say my first engineering gig, but my first big time engineering gig was tracking Vogues with Darius Rucker and it was sick. He was awesome.

Eyal Levi (01:22:52):

So how does it go from that to Lama God?

Josh Wilbur (01:22:55):

So I got into the r and b world and then Full Force came in and they plucked me out, so I left. I totally left. I'd been working, I'd assisted Andy Wallace at that point on a seven Dust record and handfuls of other records just as an assistant engineer, and then Full Force takes me out and we go get a residential studio at Avatar, and I was there with them for two years straight, only doing pop, hip hop and RB and loving it because it was so different for me. Towards the end of the two years though of doing that, I was still going up to Maine and kind of producing a metal band that I was working with or a rock band. It was very kind of system of a Downey type of thing. So I was keeping my chops up, but my main gig was working with Full Force.

(01:23:42):

We did a three LW record, we did Little Kim. That's how I got my first plaque was for mixing that little Kim song. Whatever we did, that's the world that we were in. And then I hadn't been to soundtrack and at that point I'd become friends. Obviously I had tons of friends now at Soundtrack, the staff and Andy Wallace and other engineers that worked there, and I was missing Andy and Steve. I hadn't seen him in a while, and I happened to be walking down Broadway in New York and walked past soundtrack. I was like, I'm just going to go up and say hi. So I go upstairs and Andy's in Studio G. I mean he was every day and he was always mixing a record. We're talking like 2001 where he literally did every single song on the radio, maybe 2002, three, something like that.

(01:24:25):

I walk in and I'm like, Hey, Andy, what's going on? He's like, Hey, how you been Josh? I'm like, good. He's like, you still working with Full Force? I'm like, yeah, it's been going great. They treat me real well and I love working with him, super creative. He's like, that's cool. Hey, you've been doing much Pro Tools work. I was like, dude, I haven't touched a tape machine in two years. That's all I'm doing right now. He's like, Bob Marlet is producing. I think he did. I always mess this part of the story up because I don't actually remember, it was either Shine Down or C, something like that. One of those two bands at that time period, I suppose I could look up the credits and figure out which one Bob Marlet did, and that's the album, but he's like, Bob Marlet needs some drum editing tomorrow.

(01:25:06):

Do you think you could handle that? I was like, sure. I was on such a good terms full force, so I was like, I'll tell them I can't work tomorrow. They're like, I'll come here tomorrow and do that. He's like, cool. So the next day I'm at soundtrack editing drums and Bob Marlet turns to Andy and he's like, he's the fastest pro tools guy I've ever seen, and he really knows what he's doing, and Andy's like, oh yeah, we love Josh. We love working with him. And it was an in passing conversation and then the next day I got a message from Andy's manager who subsequently would become my manager saying, Hey, Andy has to go out to LA to work on this system of a down record and he's going to need an editor. Are you up for it? And I was like, how long?

(01:25:54):

I don't want to lose my full force gig. They're my paycheck. That's where my money's coming from, and they treated me well and I was like, how long? And she's like, I don't know, it could be three weeks or four weeks even. And I was like, I don't think I can do that. She's like, okay, alright, well okay. And I knew this girl because I'd met her, her name is Becky, and she'd worked with, I'd met her through Andy several times, so I was on a pretty good friendly basis with her. She's like, okay, all right.

Eyal Levi (01:26:25):

It sounds like she probably was not expecting that answer.

Josh Wilbur (01:26:27):

She was not expecting that answer, and so then I'm hanging out with Full force and I'm like, man, I don't want to lose this gig. I love working with these guys and that's a one time, so I was trying to weigh my, do I take the one time gig on the system of a down thing or do I stay where I'm at where I've been for two years? That's really been great, and one of the guys in Full Force's Girlfriend actually we were talking in the hallway about it and she's like, hold on a minute. She's like, you're telling me that you told the guy you idolize, you don't want to go out to LA and work with him? And I was like, no. I mean, I don't want these guys to hire someone else while I'm gone and then I'm fucked. She goes, oh my God, Josh.

(01:27:14):

She's like, do not let these dudes fool you. They might tell you they'll slide someone in while you're gone, but they love you and would take you back no matter what. She's like, honestly, at the heart of it, do you want to be doing hip hop and RB records or do you want to be working with your idol on some hard rock metal records? And I was like, I want to be working with Idols, my Mark metal records. She's like, get your ass out to la. So I'm like, okay, okay, okay, so I called Becky back at a am my management and I was like, Hey, Becky, I hope it's not too late. Do you think I could still go do that system of down thing in la? She's like, man, I never told him. He said, no, I knew you're going to call back.

Eyal Levi (01:27:54):

That's so fascinating because what have you had not decided to go say hi that day?

Josh Wilbur (01:28:00):

Geez, man. Well, it's funny. I actually still, I did a track with Jerry from Full Force not that long ago. I still keep in touch with him and he's still producing records and making beats, and so I try to keep a foot in that world a little bit because it keeps me fresh.

Eyal Levi (01:28:18):

What I mean is what if you had not gone into say hi to Andy that day?

Josh Wilbur (01:28:22):

Oh, yeah, right. Geez, what?

Eyal Levi (01:28:24):

Yeah, your life could be completely different right now.

Josh Wilbur (01:28:29):

I watched a lot of the Flash. Maybe it would've happened and it's just a different timeline, but it still would've happened somehow. I don't know. As it turns out, that record would ended up being the steal this album record, and my whole job was to assemble it because they had tracked it on two inch and then they dumped the two inches into Pro Tools, but they only had one guitar track, the drums in the bass, and then Rick Rubin and Sge had rearranged the structure of the songs and Pro Tools and made brand new songs out of it. They're all B sides. Then when Andy went to mix it, he's like, I'm pretty confident there's more than one Rhythm guitar track. I was like, yeah, so we start calling Sony and get into the archives and we find out that all

Eyal Levi (01:29:12):

As in there were two conflicting rhythms going on at the same time. No,

Josh Wilbur (01:29:16):

As in there's a single guitar track in the Pro tool session, like one No double

Eyal Levi (01:29:22):

As in you didn't get all the files that

Josh Wilbur (01:29:25):

Well, so they tracked Rhythm Live. That's how System of Down does it, right? They stayed in the room and once they did that, they transferred that live take. That was the master take into Pro Tools, and then Surge went off with Rick to work on vocals, and then the guys finished the rhythms

Eyal Levi (01:29:43):

On

Josh Wilbur (01:29:44):

The two inch tape at the same time, so vocals were getting done in Pro Tools. Rhythms were getting done on tape, but that was when they did the, I don't remember where that album was for because Steal This album was just the B sides of that toxicity. I guess it was the toxicity B sides, so when Rick and Serge rearranged the songs, it no longer matched up to the rhythms on the two inch tape. You get what I'm saying? There's massive arrangement changes, so what I had to do was take the two inch tape.

Eyal Levi (01:30:10):

That sounds complicated.

Josh Wilbur (01:30:12):

I had to take the two inch tape and the pro tool sessions and I'd sync 'em up with the links like we talked about earlier, and print the kick drum from both into a new pro tool session and then I'd see it going and it'd be locked up and they'd be, well, the one off the tape and the one in Pro Tools would be lined up perfectly and then I'd see it drift and I'm like, an edit was done here. Now I need to find what part of the song they found, what part of the song they took to make this part of the song and basically recut the rhythms from the tape to match the arrangements that were done on Pro Tools. It was a nightmare.

Eyal Levi (01:30:50):

That sounds like a nightmare, and it sounds to me like there's a lot of room for fucking it up.

Josh Wilbur (01:31:00):

It actually, once I got into a rhythm, I remember it being pretty smooth, but the way that you recognized that, so did everybody else working on the record and the fact that I was just kind of getting it done, I am sure that went a long way with Andy because

Eyal Levi (01:31:16):

Absolutely.

Josh Wilbur (01:31:16):

After that, his manager called me back and she's like, pro Tools was still kind of coming up. Then not everybody knew it. She's like, Andy wants a full-time Pro Tools this guy. How would you feel about coming in just working with him? And I was like, damn. I mean, yeah, I'm going to do it. At that point, I knew I was going to do it, so I had to go back to full force and be like, and I found him a replacement. I found my own replacement. I had a buddy, I was like, he's a great engineer. He's going to do a killer job for you guys, and I got to do this. I just got to take this gig, and so I was working with Andy and then I'll get you to Lamb of God. I was working with Andy on, so now I'm just his pro guy, so I'm worked on a bunch of records with him for a long time. We were in the middle of doing Fuel natural selection, and he turns to me and goes, or he turns to the band and he's like, Hey, I can only work till Friday, so there's going to be three or four songs that don't get mixed. I'm just not available off Friday, but Josh here is great and he'll finish up the rest of this record, and I was like, jaw on the floor. What

Eyal Levi (01:32:14):

Had you mixed stuff like that before?

Josh Wilbur (01:32:16):

Yeah, again, we're doing the Christopher Nolan thing.

Eyal Levi (01:32:19):

Yeah, okay.

Josh Wilbur (01:32:20):

The way I originally met Andy is remember I told you I was sneaking up to Maine and recording bands while I was mopping floors. On the days where I was in mopping floors, I would bring the two inches back from Maine and go into soundtrack overnight and mix. That's how I learned to use an SSL, so I would mix overnight my own projects, just kind of sneak in there and use the studio and I was producing bands and

Eyal Levi (01:32:44):

So that's what you meant by keeping your chops up?

Josh Wilbur (01:32:46):

Yeah, yeah. I would sneak up there and one night late at night I was mixing and I was kind of cranking back my final mix. I turned around and Andy was standing in the doorway behind me. I knew him from around the studio, but we weren't closed at the time and he was like, did you do this whole thing? And I was like, yeah. He's like, this is really good, Josh. Really good. Do you mind if I shop this around to some people? And I'm like, hell no, dude, you kidding me? And that's actually how we, before I was working with him, that happened before I had assisted him maybe once or twice I think at that point, so we were friendly, but certainly not, I wouldn't have walked up to him with a demo or anything at that point in my career, but he just happened to walk by the studio and hear what I was working on and be blown away. Actually, I think it was Cisco told him to come, his assistant, Steve Cisco, who mentored me and taught me a lot, Steve Cisco was like, you got to go to Studio E and listen to what Josh is doing in there. He's got something cool up on the board, and then Andy had kind of shopped it around to some labels and stuff, and that didn't work out when we were talking about self-destructive bands. That was a prime example of it,

Eyal Levi (01:33:56):

But years later,

Josh Wilbur (01:33:57):

But years later, it laid the groundwork.

Eyal Levi (01:33:59):

He felt confident enough to

Josh Wilbur (01:34:01):

Yeah, he knew. I knew,

Eyal Levi (01:34:02):

Yeah, pass you off to a major label band.

Josh Wilbur (01:34:04):

Yeah, and I mean that was big because that record got nominated for a Grammy for Best engineered. It was one of the first things I'd ever mixed for a record label and it's nominated for the best engineered album. I went to the Grammys, the whole deal, man. I was fired up. It was surreal and seeing my name come up on the board and it was like fuel natural selection.

Eyal Levi (01:34:25):

How old were you?

Josh Wilbur (01:34:27):

25. I don't know, something like that

Eyal Levi (01:34:29):

Young.

Josh Wilbur (01:34:30):

Yeah, it was pretty wild, man. It was awesome. I mean, it was a great time period for sure.

Eyal Levi (01:34:35):

Did you have moments where you're like, is this actually happening?

Josh Wilbur (01:34:39):

No, I'm more there now than I was then.

Eyal Levi (01:34:43):

How so?

Josh Wilbur (01:34:44):

As I'm getting older, it's easier for me to reflect a little bit more. I think having kids does that to you a lot and having conversations like this because when I was in it, I was just in it. I am just in the thick and working as hard as I can and not looking back. I'm just sprinting and

Eyal Levi (01:35:01):

No time to reflect, just

Josh Wilbur (01:35:02):

No, no

Eyal Levi (01:35:03):

Execute, execute, execute.

Josh Wilbur (01:35:05):

Yeah, and it's more like now and I'm like, damn, because so shortly after that, another one of my huge heroes is Garth Richardson. Right?

Eyal Levi (01:35:13):

Oh, he is awesome.

Josh Wilbur (01:35:14):

Yeah. Back then, I mean I'd do it today if the record I'd flip over records that a band I'd never heard of, if it said produced by Giga Garth and Mixed by Andy Wallace, I was buying that shit. I don't care what band it is. That was like a winning combo. I still think that they're both still rock stars in my opinion, and Garth was also managed, had the same management as me back then, and people kind of were like, Andy's been working with this kind of young upcoming guy who knows his stuff, and he was like, what? Do you want to come up and mix some this new band that I'm working with? And so that's cool. My first major label mix was one, I didn't get credit for that. A producer stole credit for me. I was so mad about it. I was like an intern at soundtrack and overnight I mixed a song for r and b guy and I got no credit, but the producer credited himself for the mix. I was furious, but what was I going to do about it? It was over and done, but the first mix mix, I think major label mix was either three lw or Little Chem one of those two. That was my first two, and then after that it was Fuel and then After Fuel, it was a REU because I went up and mixed the curse for Garth Richardson and I mixed the whole record in four days. It was crazy fast.

Eyal Levi (01:36:32):

Did you have any nerves? The reason I'm asking about nerves is, I mean, it sounds like you were all in, but it's very different to be getting handed a mix in the genre that is your genre from your hero versus working on stuff that might be big, but it's not really your world. I think it's much more of a personal thing to be in that Andy Wallace situation where Andy's handing you the mix, did it freak you out at all or were you just like, fuck it, I've got this.

Josh Wilbur (01:37:06):

I don't remember actually being, I mean, I wanted the clients to be as happy as they were with Andy's stuff.

Eyal Levi (01:37:13):

Well, I mean that in and of itself sounds pretty scary.

Josh Wilbur (01:37:16):

That was the only pressure I felt, but actually my manager who had been and still is Andy Wallace's manager for all those years, I talked to him about it one time. I was like, man, this is a lot, lot of pressure. And he's like, why is it pressure? I'm like, what do you mean? Why is it pressure? Andy's been mixing their record. He's fucking phenomenal, and now they're going to have me do it. What if they don't like it as much as they like, Andy's like, well, they're not supposed to like it as much as they like Andy's. And I was like, what? He goes, you have nothing to lose. No one is actually expecting it to be as good as Andy Wallace, and it was a weird thing that kind of put me at ease. If they've agreed to let you do it,

Eyal Levi (01:38:00):

It's good enough

Josh Wilbur (01:38:02):

That you're there. You know what I mean? They're confident that you can pull it off. If we're confident you know what you're doing, don't think about it has to be as good as Andy Wallace is. It's not supposed to be. He's been mixing records for 20 years longer than you,

Eyal Levi (01:38:17):

And if he felt good enough to offer it to you, then what's the problem?

Josh Wilbur (01:38:23):

Well, he also hired me to produce his son's band back then. Actually that happened first, I should say. While I was being his pro tools engineer, he hooked me up with his son's band at the time, his son's like a badass drummer and was in a really cool band, and he was like, I want you to record my son's band. Actually, that was a lot of pressure. I probably felt more pressure on that than I did on anything else

Eyal Levi (01:38:49):

Just because it was the first time.

Josh Wilbur (01:38:52):

I mean, he was legitimately hiring me and for something personal that was probably more pressure. That particular scenario, as it turns out, I mean, I made great friends on that session. All those guys were awesome to work with.

Eyal Levi (01:39:05):

Sounds to me like you don't get freaked out too much or if you do, you know how to bury it and just move forward.

Josh Wilbur (01:39:15):

I mean, I definitely get stressed out. I think every record, I'm always trying to be better than my last one, so I definitely run myself through the paces for sure.

Eyal Levi (01:39:23):

I'm bringing this up because lots of people reach out to me, listeners, URM students, whatever, and they bear their souls a lot. And one of the things that people bring up a lot is how do you overcome the fear of failure? How did you not get in your own way? And with all the stuff you've done in my philosophy has always been, fuck it. Yeah, it might be scary, but fuck it. What am I going to do? Not try. That's not even an option. It sounds like you kind of take that same mentality. Yeah, maybe it's pressure, maybe it's scary, maybe it could get fucked, but whatever. Doing it,

Josh Wilbur (01:40:06):

At the end of the day, that's what makes us professionals. You could put that on any profession. Everybody has professional stress. One thing people don't realize about this job, if you remodel kitchens, chances are everybody that walks in the house would be like, it's a brand new kitchen. Doesn't even matter if it's your style or not, right? Someone's going to walk in and be like, wow, ooh, this place looks great. That's the end of the discussion. And when you put out a record, everybody has an opinion.

Eyal Levi (01:40:34):

Especially now.

Josh Wilbur (01:40:35):

Especially now, and more importantly, everyone, whatever it is, you ever hang out with someone who's first year film school student and they'll tell you why fucking Transformers sucks, or tell you why Iron Man is a piece of shit movie, and when I hear statements like that, I'm like, oh my God, dude. I mean, that's cool that you got a camera and maybe you got a great eye for cinematography everything. If you think for a second you can comprehend what goes into making a movie like Iron Man or any other fucking massive blockbuster movie that has more political ropes to jump through and navigate than a record does by any means. Think how long we take making a 10 song album. Are you kidding me? A movie this

Eyal Levi (01:41:28):

Guy, like a thousand people working on it,

Josh Wilbur (01:41:30):

A thousand people all trying to keep track of all of it, and it's okay to not like those movies. I'm not saying you got to like 'em, but if you want to be a professional in the film industry, you can't look at a movie like that and think, I could do so much better. Get the fuck out of here, man.

Eyal Levi (01:41:49):

It's the height of delusion.

Josh Wilbur (01:41:50):

It's the height of delusion. Are you kidding? Were you even the top of your film class to get to that level? You got an idea of what's going on? How about that and maybe I don't know anything about these directors. Maybe Michael Bay wants to make indie films and do these single camera shoots and stuff like that. Maybe in his own personal preference. Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm just making up a theoretical situation.

Eyal Levi (01:42:16):

Actually. He's tried it and apparently I've researched him. Are you going

Josh Wilbur (01:42:21):

To ruin my analogy?

Eyal Levi (01:42:23):

I just want to say that. Well, no, he tried it and in the middle of making a movie like that, he reverted back to the style he's known for, so I think he is who he is.

Josh Wilbur (01:42:37):

That's even better. That's actually better. But my theory was let's say someone has, I'll just go to talk about myself even easier. So when I make a record, there's definitely records that I like the sound of that I've done better than other records and there's amps that I much prefer over other amps, but when I'm working with a particular artist, if their vision is a certain way and they want to do things a certain way, it's not my job to force the artist into my picture. It's my job to make the artist's picture the best it can be.

Eyal Levi (01:43:10):

Yes.

Josh Wilbur (01:43:11):

If I'm making a Lamb of God record, we use Mark fours, amps every single one and they get treated differently every single time or whatnot, but at the end of the day it always sounds like Lamb of God. In fact, we've been pulling up tones, Mark Martin and myself on Sterman actually. He was like, we had some amp up and we were like, listen to the guitar. I'm like, mark was like, God, this sounds sick. We're just geeking on it. And I was like, I love it. I mean I love it, I love it. Then he's like, all right, can I just put up my mark four for a second? I was like, yeah. He plugs it in and we are amping just to make sure the performance. We're comparing apples to apples kind of thing, and we run it through the Mark four and he's listening back to it and I'm listening back to him.

(01:43:54):

He goes, I mean, the other one might sound great, but this one sounds like me. And I was like, it does absolutely. It undeniably sounds like you. He's like, let's keep it. I like it. And I was like, all right, fuck it. That's what we're doing. There's an identity to it. So anyway, all I'm saying is if I'm making a record, I might have a preference that's slightly different than ours. It doesn't mean I don't try to steer it into something that could be better. I absolutely do. But at the end of the day, the bands that are going to succeed are going to carve out a little spot where they sound original. Otherwise it's just plug and play and nobody even really cares.

Eyal Levi (01:44:31):

I think that the same way that you don't need to try in your opinion, you shouldn't have to argue to get your point across musically. I think that you also probably shouldn't have to try to get your style across because your ears and your brain are still what's creating that mix. At the end of the day, you're the one who's producing it. So even if you are helping the artist be the best version of themselves, still going through your filter,

Josh Wilbur (01:44:59):

Absolutely. Anyone in the room, it goes through their filter. Yeah,

Eyal Levi (01:45:01):

Exactly. So no matter what you do, it's still going through you.

Josh Wilbur (01:45:05):

That's a great point.

Eyal Levi (01:45:06):

So you don't have to even try to make it you. It already is going to be you.

Josh Wilbur (01:45:10):

That's true. That's very true. That's a great point. Another thing that's like if we're talking about metal in particular that defines different records, the kick drum sound trends, so there's some metal records where the kick drum sounds like a straight dance kick straight. There's nothing you did a good job with that. Nothing about it that remotely sounds like a real bass drum. And then there's other ones that are typewriter and then there's other ones that have the hollow, which to me is kind of the more old school, like a hollow kind of basketball empty kind of kick drum. And I'm not going to argue whether any of that is better than anything else. I don't think it actually matters. That is a great way to decide what your record's going to sound like because that will really, that in the snare will define the entire drum tone and almost date it in another way.

Eyal Levi (01:46:02):

Okay, so if you're saying that that's one of the ways that you're going to define your record, but it also doesn't matter, how do you reconcile that?

Josh Wilbur (01:46:09):

No, I'm saying so to myself, exclusive to myself, I guess I bring this up, A lot of kids will ask me, what is your kick drum sample?

Eyal Levi (01:46:17):

There's just one way to do everything.

Josh Wilbur (01:46:19):

Yeah, that's the craziest kind of question I always get and I'm like, I don't know. I don't use the same thing. I mean there might be a handful of things that I circle back around to from time to time, but it's never the same. It is never the same. If you listen to the car bomb record, it's like this super, in my mind when I was mixing that, I was like, man, this sounds to me, and it doesn't sound anything like it, but it's what my memory thought it sounded like. I was like, this sounds like Pantera Meat, Slipknot sonically fogger display, a Power meets the first Slipknot record. It might not sound anything like that, but that was my mental vision when I was doing it. And it's the same thing. It has that really hollow kind of basketball kick drum, which I like a lot, but a lot of guys I've mix in a record and most natural kick drums kind of have that quality to it.

(01:47:09):

So if I start using the real kick a lot, I'll end up with that quality to it. And so every once in a while I'll be mixing a record and someone's like, the kick drum isn't powerful enough or it's not this enough, and your definition of powerful and mine might be totally different. So actually Phil from All The Remains was the first guy I worked with that knew exactly right coming in when we were working on the record, he's like, why do kick drums on Modern Metal records sound like dance kick drums? And I was like, I don't know. That's like people do it. That's part of it now. That's the way, and I've done it too. It's just whatever. Phil's like, I hate that. Can it just sound like a big old drum? And I was like, I know what you want. And then I put that in and made the kick drum sound more like a live kick that's got some air around it type of thing. I guess that's a better word to say, air around it rather than just a whack. And Phil right away was like, this is exactly what it's supposed to sound like.

Eyal Levi (01:48:00):

How deep do the conversations go before a record when you're trying to make sure that you understand their vision? I know that you were saying earlier that you'll be getting the demos far in advance and sending back your notes, but when it comes to knowing the direction things are going to go in, when you're in the moment with the band, is it a conversational thing or how does that come about?

Josh Wilbur (01:48:25):

That's a great question. So every record's different. Trivium for example, those dudes knew exactly what they came in with their songs and they know exactly what they want it to be. They know their songs are pretty much in the genre that they're not.

Eyal Levi (01:48:41):

Matt has a vision

Josh Wilbur (01:48:42):

On the two records that I worked on. Well, Paulo too is a huge part of that, but Corey, Paulo and Matt are definitely a perfect team. They know exactly what they want and Alex is just as equal perfect part of the team. I say the other three just because they're the original three, but they are pretty united and always on the same page of what they want to have happen then. So on Trivium, I think we kind of just know what we want to do. That's a weird thing to say, but we kind of fell into working with each other because we just kind of found out we agreed on a lot. So that made it simple.

Eyal Levi (01:49:12):

It makes sense to me. It's kind of like when you're in a relationship with somebody and you don't have to try because it just works. The puzzle pieces fit.

Josh Wilbur (01:49:21):

That's a great way to say it. This last Lamb record was more just an emphasis on, I think we just took longer than we ever have on developing the songs. I also think that's painfully obvious when you listen to the record because every lamb record we're always like, sometimes it's been a label mistake. There's a song or two that ends up on the record that was not supposed to be on the record. Whoops, that has happened twice, but it's not on the record. It's like there was one song that we were just not supposed to go on, and by the end everyone was so fried and the label added it to a iTunes exclusive or a B side for something and some song that nobody likes ended up on iTunes or something like that. We're like, oh my God, dude, that's what we get for burning each other out.

(01:50:05):

No one likes signing off on the final thing. No, but this particular last land record, everybody took a long time and being like we, these songs, we whittled it down from 25 songs and there were direction conversations for sure. In fact, in particular, it's funny, resurrection Man has been getting just a lot of positive feedback and the funny thing about that particular song is it wasn't written for the record at all. It didn't exist. When we got together to Pre-Pro, that song strictly came about. I had charted out all the song titles and what we were doing and we're just kind of talking about creating the record. At this point, I was like, well, we got a lot of speed and we've got this. We've got kind of the groovy tune here. I'm like, we don't really have anything like a vigil, a slow kind of dirty, heavy, slow song.

(01:50:53):

We need that tune. And on the spot Resurrection Man was written. So I guess I'm saying, I guess I'm saying every band is a little bit different how they approach it. A more difficult one though, because Lama God kind of knows what they do, so we know the scope of it for the most part. But take a band of Mice and Men, that was actually a very serious conversation that we had to have right out of the gate because they have radio hits, very big pop songs for the most part. I mean alternative, I should say not pop, but they have big alternative songs and I mean Aaron is an amazing singer. He can sing anything and he screams great. So when I get hired to make a record and their catalog, they got super heavy stuff and then they got big mainstream hits. That's actually a more difficult spot for me.

(01:51:46):

Like, okay, and you've had a success with both All the Remains. You could say the same thing about them. They've had success in the active rock world and they've also had success in the metal world. So when you get into a record like that, it's way more difficult. Like whoa, what do you want to do? And then you have to have an open conversation about it and with the Mice and men, they're like, we want to make a heavy record. That's the plan. I'm like, all right, if that's the plan, then let's focus in on these tracks and if this other song over here might be great, but it's certainly going to skew the record more in this direction. If we want it to feel heavy, we got to lose this song and this song and then do this one.

Eyal Levi (01:52:28):

Is there an added kind of pressure when you take a band that is a big radio band and they want to maybe go heavy, maybe possibly do things that could jeopardize them a little bit?

Josh Wilbur (01:52:42):

I don't try to make that call for the band.

Eyal Levi (01:52:44):

Fair enough.

Josh Wilbur (01:52:45):

I want to help 'em succeed in whatever they decide to do, and I might think that they're capable of doing one or the other, but at the end of the day, if you're going to make a call like that, and there are people that feel differently than me on this, but it's one thing if in a Vice Man is a good example, again, just because they've done both, but it was my job to steer it heavy and I did, and at times it started going the other way and I would try to steer it back, but I did that because we had decided at the beginning that that was my job. We want to make a heavy record, so I tried to keep us on that path. If a band, yeah, I don't know. That's a tough one, man. If a band decides that they want to take a left turn and just go all of a sudden mainstream, I think that really comes down to if they got the song to do it. Actually, we've had this discussion just because a song of metal bands make this mistake. Just because a song has singing it doesn't mean it's going to be a radio hit, and I wish I could get that across to most people. They're like, no, no, no, that's going to be like single. We were singing. I'm like, that's not going to do shit. It's not a slam dunk song. It's not an exclusive as long as we're singing it's a home run. No, that's not how it works at all. It

Eyal Levi (01:53:57):

Could actually hurt you.

Josh Wilbur (01:53:59):

You have to decide if you like the song enough to stand behind it if it's an album cut and then that becomes a whole conversation with the label too. If all of a sudden they're like, we want to push this as a single, and you're like, no, no, no, no. It was never an intention and we just made a thing that we like over there because labels will make that mistake. Same mistake. They're like, yeah, it's singing. It's a single no,

Eyal Levi (01:54:21):

I imagine. I'm speaking from experience here, that can be very frustrating dealing with the labels when they have an idea about how the marketing should go versus what the vision is supposed to be. And sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong, but when they get it wrong and it's not what it was supposed to be, that's a shitty situation and you're kind of at the mercy of what they choose. So how involved do you let yourself get?

Josh Wilbur (01:54:52):

I actually haven't had a ton of experience with that most. Again, most of the bands that I work with have all the creative freedom that they want.

Eyal Levi (01:55:03):

They earned it.

Josh Wilbur (01:55:04):

Yeah, I haven't actually had to deal with that. As much as you might think the label Lamb of God doesn't turn in a record. I mean the label just gets the record when it's done. There's no discussion. The label doesn't hear anything in the process and the work, they get the mastered record at the end and they release it. They might come by the studio and check it out, but Lamb of God has 100%. It's like tool. They have 100% creative freedom. They make the record they want to make. Trivium is pretty much the same way. They just make the record they want to make. And honestly, most bands really are at the end of the day if they realize it because at the end and the label might push. I'm making it sound like I don't have any say in this kind of stuff, but I have gone to bat for things that I believe in with bands before so hard that we've had blowout screaming matches. It has happened. I can't pretend like it's not always Roses for sure. I've been in serious heated discussions with certain band members before, just trying to remember. At the end of the day, we're both fighting for the same thing. We care. That tends to help when you can remind yourself what you said. It's like in a relationship, you're arguing because you care and you want it to be good.

Eyal Levi (01:56:09):

I mean, sometimes those arguments are necessary. I think there's a big difference between an argument and a fight.

Josh Wilbur (01:56:16):

Sure, yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:56:17):

When the stakes are high, everybody's got a lot on the line. It's important shit. There's going to be arguments about where and what to do with certain things, but I think that that's just a natural thing.

Josh Wilbur (01:56:33):

I got into it with one band in particular, a very big band, and I stuck to my guns so hard.

Eyal Levi (01:56:41):

What did they want?

Josh Wilbur (01:56:42):

There was a particular song that in my opinion, it just wasn't where it needed to be. It was very, very, very good, but I didn't feel like it developed properly. I also thought it left out some very signature parts of what that band does.

(01:56:58):

And that's a funny thing. A lot of times you work with a band and what they think their signature is and what people actually think of that band are two different things. That's the one great thing about being the outside the producer on the record, is you can step back and be like, this is your thing. Whether you realize it or not, this is what people love about you, so let's make sure we, or at the very least, let's make sure we include some of this. In this particular band, we got into it over a part in the song where I was like, when we were in the studio tracking, I was like, this song just doesn't quite go where it needs to. It gets up. It's this just huge climb, climb, climb, climb. You're just waiting for this climax and then it just kind of levels out and then goes out and you're like, what just happened?

(01:57:47):

I was like, it needs a part that kind of builds up to this and then cuts the halftime and has kind of this feel. And I didn't play any notes, I didn't do it. I was just like, it needs to have this kind of drop from this field to this feel. And I kind of hummed a little thing and immediately one of the band members was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we doing whatever we could go. And the band immediately just starts playing it almost. It clearly needed to go in that direction. It just fell out of them. Once I said it, I was the spark, but they did it,

Eyal Levi (01:58:15):

Which

Josh Wilbur (01:58:16):

Is to me a home run producer moment.

Eyal Levi (01:58:18):

Yeah, that's the definition of the job right there.

Josh Wilbur (01:58:20):

Exactly. So it happened. It happened for the most part organically with the right push song clearly is going to be a single labels freaking out on it. Everything's great band member. After the fact comes back to me and they're like, we got to cut that whole middle section out. And I'm like, oh no. What? We don't think it came from us. We think it came from you. It's got to be from us. And I was like, hold on a second, hold on a second. This is the climax of the song and you wrote it. Don't think for a second. I wasn't holding the guitar, I wasn't sitting behind. You did it. And it came out so naturally and it is clearly the climax of this whole thing. We cannot get rid of this. We went back and forth on that. I'm talking, I went head to head with this band, we ba told on it, it lasted weeks and there was several versions of the songs floating around. It was a big deal, and I did what I've never done in my entire career and I ganged up and I got the management and the label and I was like, help me stop this band from hurting themself.

(01:59:30):

Help me help them make the right call here. And one of the guys in the band actually saw was like, this is good this. And the other guy was like, no way. And it was like eventually, it's probably the only time in my career I've battled to the point where I lost, if you know what I mean.

Eyal Levi (01:59:50):

Did the park get cut?

Josh Wilbur (01:59:51):

No, it made it into song and thank God it did, and it was a huge, huge, huge song.

Eyal Levi (01:59:57):

So what do you mean though? You lost?

Josh Wilbur (01:59:58):

I didn't work with the band again.

Eyal Levi (02:00:00):

Ah, okay. So lost the war, won the battle, lost the war,

Josh Wilbur (02:00:04):

Won Wonder Battle, lost the war.

Eyal Levi (02:00:05):

Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (02:00:06):

You roll the dice on that kind of stuff,

Eyal Levi (02:00:08):

Man. You hear that story though. I remember Corey Taylor in an interview many years ago talking about how much they hated Rick Rubin and because he made him rerecord all the vocals on their third album and they talked so much shit, but it was their biggest record and then afterwards, I remember them talking about how they didn't appreciate how great he was until many, many years later. That's just how it goes sometimes I think when you're creating stuff at that level with people that are charged up, I mean those bands don't get there by accident.

Josh Wilbur (02:00:47):

No. Yeah,

Eyal Levi (02:00:48):

They're where they are because there's some very, very strong personalities creatively and also just as far as alpha assertiveness goes, they have to be that way. So you're going to clash at some point.

Josh Wilbur (02:01:02):

The funny thing was is me and this guy ran into each other, well not run into each other. We stayed very cool, super cool with each other, and after the record came out and was overwhelmingly hailed, people loved it. I went out and caught him at a show, caught the guys at a show, and the dude comes up to me and he's like, Josh, I'm like, Hey, and we gave each other a big hug and he's like, I'm sorry. I was like, no, I'm sorry. And he's like, no, I'm sorry. I'm like, okay. We had a big hug it out. It was funny. I was like, so are we doing another one? He goes, I'm not there yet. And I was like, okay.

Eyal Levi (02:01:39):

I mean, had the song failed, maybe a different story.

Josh Wilbur (02:01:45):

No, no, no. That one's still in the set.

Eyal Levi (02:01:48):

I mean, like you said, your job is to fulfill their vision, but I think nowhere in the job description does it say at their expense. You're not supposed to let the band hang themselves basically.

Josh Wilbur (02:02:04):

Yeah, and I mean it's a strong statement to say they would've hung themselves had they not done it, but I'm rarely that Fair enough. I shouldn't say I'm rarely that confident, but I was. Sometimes it's worth fighting for and I tell people that all the time when I work with 'em, one of the first conversations I have with any band is like, listen, we are a team and I will never forget that we're a team and I need you to remember that we're a team so that when we do get to a sticking point, you understand that there has to be a dialogue and we'll get there because sometimes the answer, if I come to you and I'm like, this isn't good enough and I present you with a solution, I honestly don't give a fuck if you use my solution or not solve it, I'll give you a solution like here, you can do this and this will fix it for me. But if you don't want that, that's okay. Just come up with another way to solve it. I think I have that conversation probably more than anything else when I'm working on a record.

Eyal Levi (02:02:55):

I think that that's maturity to be able to say, it doesn't matter if it's my idea, just we need something that works here. I think lots of times people get too hung up on their own idea when in reality they're just trying to, they just want something better there. That's what everybody ultimately wants, right?

Josh Wilbur (02:03:17):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually thought of another funny Busta Rhymes story when I got involved with the whole Busta Rhymes crew, because again, pro Tools was still coming up and it was new and he was on the Anarchy record. He did everything on tape back then and on the Anarchy record, he had 80 or 90 minutes of material and he wanted it all on the record. And the CDs only 80 minutes long, I think. I'm pretty sure you had to get the extent they're usually like 74 minutes or whatever. Anyway, he had way too much material. He wanted it all on the record.

Eyal Levi (02:03:47):

How does that work?

Josh Wilbur (02:03:48):

He booked the studio solely to have me take all the final mixes and cut 'em as tight as I can. Literally bump one song into the other on the beat without the four bar outro or whatever. Literally trying to find a way to slam 17 songs or something onto a cd. So this is another one of my early engineering gigs, so I'm just being a digital editor basically. But that process meant I would edit together and it's like 80 minutes of material or 85 minutes of material and he's like, yo, I don't don't know what song to cut. It's all fire man. And I was like, yes, I don't know. And I learned right away, do not give your opinion on what song should be cut because every once in a while someone from the label or management would come in and be like, you know what you really should do?

(02:04:41):

This is the one that we should cut. And he's like, which one? Yo Josh play that one. They're all in the pro line. You know what I mean? He's like, which one? Yo play that one. So I fire off that song and he'd like start mean mug and while he's head banging, just staring at the a and r guy, not breaking eye contact headbanging, just looking through his soul with his hand on the volume knob, bobbing his head and turning it up louder and louder and screaming loud. And then he's just like, you want to get rid of this? How are you going to cut this? And then you just watch people back down. Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about, and then he'd get all bummed out, he'd be like, I don't know what do, right? The R or whoever would be like, yeah, I don't know. What are you going to do? That's that's tough, man. He's like, alright, just Josh, just play the whole thing. And I'll be like, oh my god. Boom. Start of the record, he'd listened to the whole 80 minutes top to bottom. This would happen four or five times a day, and as soon as he is just play the whole thing. I'm like, here we go. I just got to step out of the room, let this thing run for the next 85 minutes.

Eyal Levi (02:05:54):

Oh, okay. So at least you didn't have to sit there the whole

Josh Wilbur (02:05:56):

Time. No, no. I would walk out after the first time through it I was like, this is ridiculous. But anybody who came in, he'd stare 'em down and head bang him into submission. It was pretty funny. So

Eyal Levi (02:06:07):

Did a song get cut?

Josh Wilbur (02:06:08):

Yeah, well, he eventually cut a deal. That record is 80 minutes long. It's like the extended 80 minute CDs and they did cut one song. They couldn't clear the sample, so the question I think I got solved for him. The other, oh, that was right. That was the whole quote from the whole session. He's like, he's looking at the guy who was telling him what song to cut and he's just staring at him and he goes, I don't even know why you're talking right now. Your whole brain pattern is lurched. It's fucking great. He was fun.

Eyal Levi (02:06:40):

It's like a trick question almost when the artist asks, what song should I cut? It's just presenting you with a grenade to blow yourself up with.

Josh Wilbur (02:06:51):

It's a tough one. It depends on the artist. My buddy was working with Pharrell as an assistant and he was like, they'd listen to the whole record and Pharrell turned to the label at one point, and this is all hearsay, but I trust the source. He was like, he turned the label and he was like, I don't know about this song. And they're like, no, no, no, no, it's good, it's good. And he turned to the assistant in the room and he was like, you like this song? And he goes, eh. And he's like, that's enough. It's not going on the record. The fact that the assistant just kind of was like, eh, it's okay. And he's like, that's it. It's not going on the record.

Eyal Levi (02:07:21):

A friend of mine, professional soldier, lifelong and he does counter terrorist stuff relates to this and he told me that they have this philosophy that when there is a doubt, there is no doubt. Basically,

Josh Wilbur (02:07:35):

Yeah,

Eyal Levi (02:07:36):

That's their operating philosophy. So it's kind of the same thing. There is a doubt. There is no doubt. So I feel like someone's eh reaction. That's the answer you need. I've also heard of people losing record deals or business opportunities that way when they'd get offered something or asked to describe what they do and they kind of meh it because they don't feel very secure talking about their thing, whatever it is. Or the question is why? Why is your band different or why should I invest in your company? That kind of question and not giving a very strong answer. And I've heard of people losing the opportunity right then and there because of the me kind of response.

Josh Wilbur (02:08:29):

Early in my career you had asked me about my confidence in things and I saw a great diagram that was your knowledge on the topic and the less of it, you're like, I'm an expert and I feel like early I was on that team, I fucking know everything about doing everything. And then the more you learn about something, you're like, I know nothing about this. Do you humble yourself into being like there's still so much to learn and I think that's the arc that got me through because in the beginning I just had all the confidence in the world but always thinking I could be better. And as long as you stay on that path, by the end, by the end, hopefully not the end, but hopefully if you keep reaching and you're still trying to get to the next level, that's the tricky thing about this business. Nobody ever talks about nobody. I've had kids, I've done went up and spoke to a college and stuff and I've had kids say, when did you know made it? And I'm, what the fuck does that even mean? Did I make it? I don't even know what that means to me. That's a weird question because

Eyal Levi (02:09:37):

The fact that you don't know what it means, I think says everything.

Josh Wilbur (02:09:41):

The thing is is when you're in the entertainment business, you're always pushing the bar while you're navigating the business. So you never reach your goal. It never happens. In fact, the guy from Dead Poetic, I mixed a dead poetic record years ago and when the singer left the band he had written, it was like the MySpace days. He wrote a little blog about it and I remember him talking about that You never get to where you want to be in this business. You will never get there. You're always Metallica one of the 25 million, 30 million records worldwide. You know what I mean? One of the biggest selling records of all time and god damn well, when they make a new record, they're still trying to top it. And whether they achieve it or not, it's not the point. The point is that they're trying to,

Eyal Levi (02:10:23):

I think also it always feels like a house of cards. And the reason I say that is because you also hear super successful actors saying that too, dudes that are worth a hundred million dollars who have been in all these blockbusters will still talk. It could all just fall apart the next day. And I feel like anyone in the entertainment business who gets too comfortable is asking for trouble. So there's what you just said of you're always pushing the bar and then there's always the idea that it could go away tomorrow, which forces you to push the bar also.

Josh Wilbur (02:11:02):

I think about that all the time.

Eyal Levi (02:11:04):

It's very real.

Josh Wilbur (02:11:05):

It is very real man, and if I don't have something on the horizon, then I'll stress. I try to always have something in the pipeline. I feel like I'm fortunate to be in the situation that I'm in and I've worked hard to be here, but I also recognize that feel like if I ever take my foot off the gas or I try to phone in a record, I've seen other people do that. I've seen it happen where someone's like, okay, this is it. I'm in cruise control now. We just go into this mode and you, you got to treat every record. It's your last one.

Eyal Levi (02:11:42):

So I know you don't remember this, but I do. So I'll remind you, when we talked over Skype that one time back in 2012 or 11 about you coming down to record those drums, we were just talking about

Josh Wilbur (02:11:57):

What was it for

Eyal Levi (02:11:58):

Lamb of God?

Josh Wilbur (02:11:59):

Oh, okay.

Eyal Levi (02:11:59):

And it didn't happen. Obviously we were talking about what you had going on next and you didn't have anything booked for four months. I remember this specifically and you were stressed. I remember that. Yeah. You didn't have anything after that record. Obviously it all worked out, but I remember talking to you and I remember you being stressed.

Josh Wilbur (02:12:21):

That's funny because particularly after I would imagine that would've been wrath, I'm kind of guessing.

Eyal Levi (02:12:29):

I think so. Yeah.

Josh Wilbur (02:12:31):

So things got wild after Wrath because that was a big production for me. I had mixed a lot of records at that point. It's kind weird how I did it a little bit backwards. I kind of became this mixed guy. I did, like I said, a trade with the curse and haste the day and the fuel thing and Puddle of Mud, and all of a sudden I was doing mixing these records and then I had engineered on a bunch of records and then all of a sudden I'm going to step into the production role and I had produced things on my own, the things we talked about when I'd go up to Maine and produce bands and stuff, so I knew what I was doing, but for a major label, production Wrath would be my first, and it was like there's a big gap between when you finish an album and when it comes out, maybe four months. So if I wrapped Wrath, which was going to be debuted number two on the billboard, did some insane number first week. I mean it was unreal, but right after I finished it, nobody one knew who I was. I mean people in the industry knew because again, I had been engineering for all these other guys. So right after I finished this major production, I had to go right back into the engineering role and sit back behind engineers immediately again. I think a lot of people would've struggled with that a little more than I did

Eyal Levi (02:13:56):

Just mentally.

Josh Wilbur (02:13:57):

Well, you go from running the show

Eyal Levi (02:14:00):

To not running the show,

Josh Wilbur (02:14:01):

To not running the show. I mean, it's definitely a downgrade. I didn't look at it like that. I just needed a gig and I went and sat right back in the engineering chair and I started getting right back into it. So it's a weird time. It was a weird time.

Eyal Levi (02:14:15):

Sounds to me you've never been afraid to do what's necessary.

Josh Wilbur (02:14:20):

For sure. When I moved to la, so I had a good little thing going in New York. I thought I was kind of like the rock metal guy in New York. I had just done Lambe God resolution. I had done Gojira and I had done a La Fage and then I did, I don't know, I did a whole bunch of stuff out of my studio in New York and then I was going to move to California with my wife. That was a big change in my life and I was like, dude, I'm like the rock guy in New York right now. What happens when I go to la? We talk about big fish in the small pond, not that New York's a small pond in the rock game. It kind of is.

Eyal Levi (02:14:53):

Well, compared to la, yeah, there's some bad motherfuckers in la.

Josh Wilbur (02:14:57):

There's bad motherfuckers in New York too, but there's just, you can count 'em on two hands when la there's bad motherfuckers and there's in the hundreds.

(02:15:07):

Anyway, so I came out of here all panicked, and so the first thing I did is I hit up my management and I was like, yo, give me any engineering gig that comes up. And they're like, you really want to do that? I was like, yeah, I want to do that. I'm not too good to work. I'll sit behind any producer and engineer a record for him. And that's exactly what I did. As soon as I came to la, same exact thing, I kind of took a step back to just make sure that I stayed busy and in the moment I ended up taking a gig, mixing. I was mixing for X Factor, the show. I ended up mixing the I interesting mixes for X Factor, all these pop stuff, which got me back into the pop world and it was super fun. I would crank out because of it, so they perform, the contestants would perform live and they'd give me the files afterwards and I had to have them mixed and uploaded that night. So eight to 10 performances as it got easier as the show contestants got knocked off the show, but when it was started out, it was like 16 mixes that I had to do that night and I was there super, super late, extreme.

(02:16:08):

It was pretty extreme, but by the time it whittled down and I kind had a little system going into it, it was rad. And because of it, I had one day I had the number one song in four or five different categories on iTunes, country Pop Alternative, all because of the iTunes X-Factor mixes.

Eyal Levi (02:16:27):

I mean, that doesn't sound like a step back.

Josh Wilbur (02:16:30):

No, it's one of those things nobody knows you're doing it. Nobody had any idea who was mixing those things.

Eyal Levi (02:16:36):

Very different than when you do a Lama God record.

Josh Wilbur (02:16:39):

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eyal Levi (02:16:41):

But I'm sure that because of Wrath and all that work, it was just a matter of time before another heavy band came around.

Josh Wilbur (02:16:48):

Sure. There was time between that because After Wrath, once Wrath came out, yeah, I got busy with production work and it was, but I stayed. I've never felt like I was too good to work.

Eyal Levi (02:17:02):

I think that that's awesome. Do

Josh Wilbur (02:17:03):

You, you know what I'm saying? Yeah,

Eyal Levi (02:17:05):

I do.

Josh Wilbur (02:17:05):

If I had downtime and there was something that came along, I was like, let's do it. And a lot of times I'll get emails or messages from kids and they're like, Hey, do you ever work with unsigned bands? And I hate to answer that now because I mean it's been a long time. I'm not going to lie, but not because I don't want to. You're

Eyal Levi (02:17:26):

Not against it.

Josh Wilbur (02:17:27):

Certainly. In fact, I would love to. It'd be so much fun. And I did actually just recently, I take that back, I did just work on developing an artist and it was super fun actually. We ended up hiring Ray Luer to play drums for, it was badass,

Eyal Levi (02:17:42):

The

Josh Wilbur (02:17:42):

Mode of black and check it out.

Eyal Levi (02:17:44):

That was fun. I think you're right that a lot of people would have a problem with that. And you see that with bands too. They get to a certain level and then maybe the next record dips a little or maybe their popularity changes or whatever and they don't want to take a lower slot on a tour than what they're used to. The thing is the super successful bands will do that kind of stuff and then end up growing again, I've noticed. But I do think that some people feel above that

Josh Wilbur (02:18:16):

Or an even bigger thing is recognizing if you need something to do better that you just need to do better. I've certainly felt that way on things like I've sent out a mix to a client and had them come back and not like it. And it's very often, especially new up comers, people being like, these guys, their notes are crazy. They don't have any concept of what I did to make it. You know what I mean? It's so easy to think that way because you work so hard on it. But the better way to think is what do I got to do to get them to like this and put it inward? I need to be better to get this, to get them to it. That's how I approach it. Anytime I do a mix, if I send it to a band and I don't get a positive feedback, listen, it happens. I'll think I reinvented the wheel and I got the dopest thing ever. I'm in here head bang and just loving it. I send out of the band, they're like, how do you love this? But they don't, but they don't, and it is what it is. So then I'm like, all right, well what do you want? Tell me. Honestly, I always feel like as long as I can have communication with the band, I will get it where they want. I definitely feel confident in that. You just got to tell me what's the things that you feel like you're lacking from this? And I'll do everything in my power to get it there.

Eyal Levi (02:19:34):

I have definitely seen, and I think it's pretty natural that when you work really hard on something like a mix and you feel great about it and then you get negative notes back from people who aren't mixers. There's this natural reaction to be, like you said, they don't know what they're talking about, but they do know what they're talking about. They know if they like it or not. That's what matters. Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (02:20:01):

Right. That is absolutely. It just recently I was mixing a song and it just wasn't recorded well, and it happens. The tracking was just not good and all of the, in particular, the bass and I mean I just struggled to get this bass to sound like anything, and at some point I wanted the bass to be real up and present in the mix because I thought it was like the line and the part was cool, but it just wasn't recorded like it. And it was in the, like the bass they chose just wasn't a good bass. Bass is one of those instruments more than anything I guess they're all like that, but if you pick up a bad instrument, there's no amp in the world that's going to fix it. It's just going to sound bad. And I struggled with this bass guitar, man, it happens to everybody.

(02:20:53):

And finally I was like, you know what? I just need to accept that it's not going to sound the way that I way I would record it. I just need to let go of that and let this thing be what it is. They recorded it at some level, they must like it. And half the times I just strip it back to whatever they sent me and just put it in and I'm like, there you go. There's your lousy bass. Enjoy it. And everybody comes back like, sounds great. I'm like, okay. It is what it is.

Eyal Levi (02:21:24):

How do you cross that mental barrier? Because I mean, the job is, you have to think it sounds good to a degree, right? So if you don't think it sounds good, how do you get the,

Josh Wilbur (02:21:36):

Because I guess good is the wrong word.

Eyal Levi (02:21:37):

Okay.

Josh Wilbur (02:21:39):

I have to decide if it's

Eyal Levi (02:21:41):

Acceptable,

Josh Wilbur (02:21:42):

If it fits in the piece of music, that's really the thing. And maybe I just really want to hear this bass sound a certain way that it doesn't. That certainly happens where my vision of if I was recording this, I would've had this be a very Cheney top end base that sounded cool and they don't envision it. They want it to be fuddy and tubby and kind of just snuck away in the back even though the part's sick and you would love to hear it, but if it's not recorded that way, I certainly can't create that. And I guess that's the challenge is being able to just say, well, I mean this is the kind of base that it is. And you do get those comments back from bands where they're like, can you make it sound like this? And I'm like, absolutely not. It sounds nothing like that. That's not what you recorded. And I have come back to bands particularly, they come back and they're like, can you make the snare drum sound like this record? I'm like, not if you want me to use the drums you recorded, you tell me what do you want me to do?

Eyal Levi (02:22:42):

Can't always have it both ways.

Josh Wilbur (02:22:44):

No, at some point I got to mix the production you give me.

Eyal Levi (02:22:47):

Yeah. So dude, I don't want to take up your whole day. I've got a couple questions from our listeners if you don't mind me asking.

Josh Wilbur (02:22:55):

I got nothing going on right now. Hit me.

Eyal Levi (02:22:57):

Cool. So from Jordan Weathered says, I saw on the making of Sin in the sentence that the band fed off of your energy while tracking, which helped add to the vibe and feel of the songs. Can you give some examples of what you do to pump a band up to help with the vibe in the studio to make sure the recordings come out great.

Josh Wilbur (02:23:17):

I'm a big hollerer and fist pumper and jump off the couch and head banger kind of guy. That quote was most definitely from Matt from the Sin of the Sentence because when we were doing vocals, if he did a take, there was a hurdle on that record. I really wanted Matt to gruff it up more than he had on the previous record and I was getting, I love my job and I was legitimately getting excited when he was going down the road with me. So as we're doing takes, I'm getting more and more excited and then all of a sudden he's rah and he does exactly want to do, I'm tracking vocals in the same room with him. We're both in the booth together and he's loose and does what I want and then as soon as I stop him, yeah, I'm screaming just as pumped as he.

(02:24:01):

Then Matt starts laughing. He's like, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing. Let's go next. Let's go one more take. And that's a vocal session with me as a whole lot of like, yeah, do it again. Yeah, you were a little sharp on that, but everything else was sick. Please, one more time, let's go hit it again. I try to keep it moving as fast as I can because if the energy drops, the singers in particular, man, they feed off of you. I'm going to get out of him. Everything I give him, so as excited as I get it comes into his performance and I try to do that. I shouldn't even say I try to do that. That's one of those things that just happens. I get pumps when I'm making a record and I start hollering a lot. Did that answer the question? I don't even know.

Eyal Levi (02:24:40):

Yeah. So it sounds like you don't even really have to try. You just get excited when shit's awesome.

Josh Wilbur (02:24:44):

No, I started having fun. Yeah, I mean we're making a record and it's what's cooler than our job. We're making a record and it's sounding good and I'm just an excited enough guy that I'll stand up and scream about it.

Eyal Levi (02:24:57):

Alright, so here's one from Dennis Toy. What was it like to engineer a record with Tenacious D? I always wondered if they were all jokes in person too, or if maybe the musician side of them came through during the process. Also, how much fun was it?

Josh Wilbur (02:25:12):

Man, great question. That will go on the list of top three sessions of all time. It was so much fun. Jack Black is just as funny. I mean he's on all the time. He's exactly the way you would expect him to be. And Kyle, he's poking the bear with Jack all the time. He's just constantly very quietly. Well, maybe you could just dropping his 2 cents to irritate Jack enough that Jack kind of goes off. And so

Eyal Levi (02:25:46):

They are who they are.

Josh Wilbur (02:25:46):

They are who they are. When we did Death Star Man, and first of all, I lived in New York at the time, so I was out in LA and actually that's what I did right after Wrath. I did Wrath and I ended up, I needed an engineering gig and I came out and I engineered for that tenacious D session and it was, you're right. It didn't feel like a step back. It was great. I was at 6 0 6, Dave Grohl was playing drums. Give me a break, dude. It's like the coolest thing ever.

Eyal Levi (02:26:14):

That's not a step back.

Josh Wilbur (02:26:14):

No, it was fucking, that's

Eyal Levi (02:26:16):

Not a step back.

Josh Wilbur (02:26:17):

It was cool. They set up the drums and it's like I micd him up the way I always would or whatever, and Dave goes in, he's like, ready? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And he goes, he plays the take. And he's like, mind if I come in and listen? I was like, yeah, sure. He comes in, he sits down, he bobs his head. It's like, fuck, it sounds great. Alright, let's do it. Simplest session ever goes in plays the songs like three or four times it's done. And then the rest of the time just spent goofing around and laughing and it was a great session. Jack on the other hand, so when we did vocals, they put Jack and Kyle, they mic them both up and they do their vocals at the same time. For exactly what I was talking about. Jack feeds off of Kyle and it gets funny, man, that song, death Star in particular, Jack, I remember he only sang the song three times.

(02:27:07):

He's a great singer, sang the song three times. We come from the Three Takes Cake, the Lion's like Death Star, it's a fucking ship. It's the son of a bitch and we're building it or something like that. I remember what it was, one of the lines is like, what's that? It's a fucking squid, an evil alien squid join on the ships. We're about to let it rips about to burn this bitch to another dimension. So anyway, the part of something like that, he only sings it three times. The first time he sings through it like whatever. But by the third, take mind you, he standing in the studio in the glass on the other side of the booth in front of him. I can see him and he's like, by the end, this is going to be totally lost on podcast listeners, but you'll get the visual. He's like, by the last take, he's like, what's that? It's a fucking squid and acting it out. He's doing a movie and he's like an evil alien. S queened, join our ships. We're about to let it rip. Totally over the top fucking dying, man. We're all just rolling while he's tracking and when we're comping, if you laughed during a take, he's like, that's the one that was the official. If you actually laughed out loud when you heard it. Fun dudes. Everything about that was great. All right. Good question.

Eyal Levi (02:28:15):

Awesome.

Josh Wilbur (02:28:16):

I feel like I glazed over the other guys in the band who were all actually just as awesome. I know there's two very big celebrities in that band, so

Eyal Levi (02:28:23):

Yeah, I mean Jack Black and Dave Grohl and stuff.

Josh Wilbur (02:28:27):

Yeah,

Eyal Levi (02:28:27):

That's some big personalities.

Josh Wilbur (02:28:30):

I still actually, the guitar player and the bass player, I still talk to the bass player actually recorded himself the rest of the record, from what I understand, John Spiker.

Eyal Levi (02:28:39):

Oh, cool. Did a good job. I hope

Josh Wilbur (02:28:42):

He did a great job. I think they actually mixed that song that we tracked, if I remember correctly.

Eyal Levi (02:28:47):

Oh, cool. Alright. From Jose Castro, you worked with one of my favorite bands, the Gazette on Falling, their last album single. Is there any difference at all when mixing a song from a foreign non-English speaking band like them? Or did you treat it as you normally would?

Josh Wilbur (02:29:05):

Yeah, no, it's a Japanese band. If I remember correctly. I've worked with a lot of Japanese artists. I love Japanese culture in particular, and I love the people, and so very often if a Japanese artist approaches me, they don't know this, but I'm already trying to get the gig just because I like the people.

Eyal Levi (02:29:20):

Yeah, you're in.

Josh Wilbur (02:29:21):

And my studio Japanese is pretty good. Just from one of my first gigs ever once I kind of got out from under Andy's umbrella was I went to Japan and spent a month there working on a record.

Eyal Levi (02:29:32):

Dude, that is a different world.

Josh Wilbur (02:29:34):

It is great. Culture's great. The people are great. The studios are amazing. Yeah, I'll very often jump at any opportunity, but no, I mean it's all pretty much the same. The only time I ever run into any kind of issue is on delay throws. I've straight up been like, if the word, I don't know if the word's hello and it's in Japanese, I'm like, oh, oh, am I delaying the O? Oh, or is it a full word? I need to know where the delay is. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? I want to make sure I'm not just delaying some like the K

Eyal Levi (02:30:12):

Some syllable

Josh Wilbur (02:30:12):

And kick.

Eyal Levi (02:30:13):

Yeah.

Josh Wilbur (02:30:16):

But no, outside of that, it's all music. In fact, that particular session I just mentioned in Japan, the artist was Korean, the producer was Japanese, and myself being an American and nobody spoke any of the other languages fluently. We had three different languages. The Korean artists spoke a little bit of Japanese and a little bit of English, and he was the go-between between the three of us, and we made a really cool record with nobody speaking the same language because music is universal.

Eyal Levi (02:30:45):

It absolutely is.

Josh Wilbur (02:30:46):

It was really amazing how efficiently it ran with a massive language barrier. We did have a translator in there, but we would still laugh at the same jokes, and if the drummer did something silly, it was music's universal. It works.

Eyal Levi (02:30:59):

Seems like you would almost just get forced to get down to business,

Josh Wilbur (02:31:02):

You'd think. But oddly enough, we ended up goofing around a lot. It's funny, I've worked with Vamps and hide an awful lot, and I've made really good friends in Japan and a couple of the friends guys that I would absolutely consider friends when I go to Japan speak almost no English, but when we see each other, we're stoked to see each other. Yeah, it's a hard thing to describe. We will share little moments with one word, jokes and stuff. I remember looking in the fridge, we had a catered session on Vamps, and I remember looking, the caterer would put sandwiches in the fridge from time to time, and I had brought one down the day before and left it and forgot about it, like a tuna sandwich or something. The next day I come into the lounge and I'm looking for something to eat, and the guitar tech is in the studio and he just sees me coming in and he kind of gets on it alert, what do you need? Can I help you with something? And I'm kind of giving, no, no, no at ease. He's there to help. I'm like, no, no, no, it's no problem. And I open the fridge and he realizes I'm looking for food and he realizes I'm staring at this old sandwich and he just behind me, I hear this dude kiri just goes, oh, danger. I was like, danger, and he's like, danger. And I'm like, all right, I won't eat the sandwich.

Eyal Levi (02:32:21):

Yeah,

Josh Wilbur (02:32:22):

He's sharing these one word jokes.

Eyal Levi (02:32:23):

No mistaking that.

Josh Wilbur (02:32:26):

Anyway,

Eyal Levi (02:32:27):

Okay. Yeah. Last question. This is from Adrian Blazer. Sorry if I mispronounced it. The nothing from corn sounds amazing, lots of soundscapes in all the songs. How did you manage all the little synths and ambiance noises that we can hear in the record? Did you have certain freedom to manage all of that? I'm a big fan of your work. Thanks for doing this. Thanks

Josh Wilbur (02:32:51):

For the question and that record. Nick Rascal next produced it. He did a great job. Yeah, he's great. And Jonathan Davis, a little known secret about Jonathan that I don't think people understand. JD grew up in studios. He knows the recording process. He knows he has a studio, he knows all the gear, he knows all the tech, and he's a hell of a musician. I don't think he gets enough credit for as talented of a person as he is

Eyal Levi (02:33:18):

Even being one of the biggest rock stars on earth. I still agree with you that he doesn't get the credit.

Josh Wilbur (02:33:24):

Did you know that? Did you know that?

Eyal Levi (02:33:25):

I only know that because a friend of mine works with him, but it was a surprise when I found out.

Josh Wilbur (02:33:33):

I'm guessing Chris,

Eyal Levi (02:33:34):

Mike Montoya.

Josh Wilbur (02:33:35):

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people just don't know that about him and more importantly, first of all, he's a super nice guy, super nice guy, but between him and Nick, they have a very distinct vision on what they want the record to be, and I actually, it's great to hear that all those nuances and stuff are noticed. I almost feel like there was so much material given to me on the corn mixes. It was very involved in depth mixes because most of those sessions, first of all, they're all 96 K and they're max track count. The sessions are heavy. A one song would be like 80 gigs. Holy shit. It's unreal. Managing the session alone was a task. I couldn't mix a song in a day. I had understanding because I didn't produce it. I don't know the songs, so when there's several hundred tracks of things and I don't know what those things are, I'm going through listening and creating the song as I go, and I mean, I do have a rough mix to base it off of, but it's a whole new world when I'm trying to piece it together and get it into, I like to call it my picture.

(02:34:47):

You ever have someone send you a track and they already put the effects on it?

Eyal Levi (02:34:51):

Yes, because

Josh Wilbur (02:34:52):

They love how that sounds. Sometimes. That's fine. Sometimes it doesn't fit in my picture, and that's the only way I can describe it. I'm like, I need, he's like, no, no. Well, it's just a delay in a reverb, and I'm like, that's fine, but that delay in reverb and eq bounce don't fit in my picture.

Eyal Levi (02:35:11):

Yeah, just a delay in a reverb is a very general thing to say.

Josh Wilbur (02:35:16):

Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of guessing, but just recently I was doing something and the guy had a really wide doubler on the vocal and some chorus and all this stuff, and sometimes I can make it work. Sometimes. When I did motionless and white, he had a very distinct vocal sound that he wanted and he sent it with and without the vocals, his printed vocal sound, and I ended up really paralleling it with my own to create something that again, fit in my picture because his EQ just didn't sit in my mix, so I needed the dry signal, recreated his effects, and then just kind of balanced in his wet one along with it to make it all work. That kind of thing happens a lot anyway, with all those synths and stuff, and not even just synths, just textures and corn. It was a lot of little noodley guitars that do little things and sweeps and bends and stuff like that.

(02:36:08):

They have a lot of stuff, and in particular, we did that whole record. I'd stream the mixes to Jonathan at the end of the night. Nick would sign off on the mixes, and then I'd stream the mixes to Jonathan at night and he would very detailed go through the vocals with me. I want this harmony up. I'd do a live stream of the mix, and we both sit there and listen in real time, and that's how we got through the record. I don't know if I actually answered that question. What was it? How did I deal with it?

Eyal Levi (02:36:35):

Yeah. It sounds to me like you dealt with it by what I understood was first of all, intense session management and second of all intense detective work just to figure out, and then also intense collaboration.

Josh Wilbur (02:36:50):

Yeah. Yeah. You pretty much summed it up very well,

Eyal Levi (02:36:54):

Not just Jonathan Davis. I think Korn, again, it's weird to say this, they're so big and have been so big for so long, but I don't think they get enough credit for how awesome they are.

Josh Wilbur (02:37:06):

Let's talk about that. I have a very strong opinion on this. I'm going to say it. Korn changed music the way Nirvana changed music.

Eyal Levi (02:37:15):

I agree.

Josh Wilbur (02:37:16):

Before them, and they do not get the credit for that because before them it was grunge and the same way that grunge came in and wiped out hair metal, Korn came in and everybody was wearing Adidas track suits and records. Sonically started sounding different. There was no low end. We put in records now before corn, I don't know, it was Fear factory. They might have, but they're around the same time period though. You know what I'm saying? They really, I mean if they didn't pioneer it, they rammed it home.

Eyal Levi (02:37:51):

I think they pioneered it.

Josh Wilbur (02:37:53):

No, they definitely were like the sweeping global change in music,

Eyal Levi (02:37:57):

Not just that they throw down live still, they hit so much harder live than bands half their age. I don't know how to say it. I think they're just devastating live.

Josh Wilbur (02:38:14):

They're a great live, and Ray was telling me on Jonathan Davis's solo record, there was a beat. I know if you heard J d's solo record, there's some really cool stuff going on in that album and all the drums are one particular beat. I was talking to Ray about it. Ray Luer played drums on that as well, and I was like, dude, that is the raddest beat. It's so out there. How did you even think of that? And he's like, it's not even me. He's like, JD came up with that, and I was like, really? He goes, yeah, dude, he's a badass drummer. Had no idea. But then I got thinking about it. I'm like, this dude can play the bagpipes. Maybe if you know how to play the bagpipes, maybe you got a pretty good understanding of music. You could play a lot of different instruments.

Eyal Levi (02:38:59):

How strange is it that he knows how to play the bagpipes?

Josh Wilbur (02:39:02):

I'm going to have to make a leap that he might play guitar too.

Eyal Levi (02:39:06):

Just a guess.

Josh Wilbur (02:39:07):

I think maybe the theory is if you know accordion or bagpipes, those are the two instruments,

Eyal Levi (02:39:13):

Man. I don't know any other bagpipe players.

Josh Wilbur (02:39:16):

No, he's a talented dude. He really is. That whole band, man. They're great guys. I think I've been really fortunate. I don't know that. I don't think I've ever worked with a band. Nope. I take that back, but I'll say 99% of the bands I've worked with have been nothing but great people.

Eyal Levi (02:39:31):

Man, you've had quite the roster. It's pretty cool.

Josh Wilbur (02:39:35):

I'm always trying to push the bar and wonder what the next one is.

Eyal Levi (02:39:38):

I'll just close on this. I think that that's probably why you're getting those kinds of bands is because of that attitude. It reminds me of, I've said this before, but the guitar player, Jeff Loomis, who's one of the best league guitar players ever in metal. I remember I was talking to him a few years ago, and I think he was 42 years old at the time, and he was telling me that he was getting guitar lessons, and I was like, Jeff Loomis is getting guitar lessons interesting. He still wants to get better. He still doesn't think he's good enough, and if that guy doesn't think he's good enough, then nobody else can ever think they're good enough. I think that that attitude is why he's so awesome and why he's done great. I think that that attitude is necessary. Got

Josh Wilbur (02:40:26):

To keep reaching.

Eyal Levi (02:40:27):

Absolutely. Well, Josh, thank you so much for coming on. I'm really glad we got to do this.

Josh Wilbur (02:40:32):

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. Sorry, I talked your ear off.

Eyal Levi (02:40:36):

That's kind of the point, isn't it?

Josh Wilbur (02:40:38):

I guess so. No, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Eyal Levi (02:40:40):

It was a pleasure. Thank you. Okay, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at AI levy 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.