JAKE PITTS: Producing Black Veil Brides, Learning from John Feldman, and Why You Shouldn’t Have a Plan B

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.

(00:00:55):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share post and a tag. Now let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is Jake Pitts, who's a musician, songwriter, producer and engineer, known for his notable performances with his band, black Veil Brides. He's actually worked on Black Veil Brides albums since 2010, and even worked with producers like John Feldman and Bob Rock on some of the releases. I mean, he really knows what he's doing. And just in case you don't know or have been living under a rock since 2009, black Veil Brides has been nominated four and one countless awards from Revolver Loud Wire, Ang, and have toured all corners of the earth and have done super well for themselves. Jake and his wife Ina, have created another project called Ionia, which Jake writes and produces as well. Really, I would call Jake a Renaissance man. Anyways, enough for the intro, I give you Jake Pitts. Well, Jake Pitts, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Jake Pitts (00:02:22):

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Eyal Levi (00:02:23):

How are you doing? How's, how's lockdown treating you?

Jake Pitts (00:02:27):

I mean, I can't really complain. I have in my house here, I have my own music studio. I've been doing Twitch, my wife and I, my wife's very creative. We do music together as well. So the whole lockdown thing for me, I think the biggest weirdness for me was just the small things like going to a restaurant. One of my favorite things to do is I love going out for sushi to a good sushi restaurant and just enjoying an awesome meal in the restaurant. And

(00:03:02):

We haven't been able to do that since, I guess, January. And I was very busy with Blackville. February and March we were getting ready for tour and we went and played Mexico City. And the second we got back, it was right when everything started to happen, so everything got shut down at that point. So just like the Normalities in life, going to a movie, going to the restaurant, it's just everything's so weird now. Restaurants are starting to open in la, but they're closing off streets so the restaurants can put their tables out in the street. And so if you go to the restaurant, you're sitting out outside.

Eyal Levi (00:03:38):

What interesting.

Jake Pitts (00:03:38):

Which isn't bad, that's kind of cool too. But it's summer, it's hot as hell here.

Eyal Levi (00:03:43):

Yeah, well, it's better than nothing, I guess. I know what you mean. And normally I just stay home anyways when I'm not traveling because now the mix, we travel so much. I actually travel more with that than I used to in the band. And so my normal life at home means going almost nowhere. But for instance, dating in this time period is fucking weird. Oh,

New Speaker (00:04:11):

I bet.

Eyal Levi (00:04:12):

To plan way in advance. And I still don't even know what that entails in this day and age. It's things like that that are weird to me. How is that even going to work? But on the other hand, I think that this is probably for those of us who are able to work on our stuff and have not been totally fucked over by it and who have a setup and have something going, this is almost a gift of time that I think you're never going to get again in your life. So once in a lifetime thing.

Jake Pitts (00:04:48):

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think a lot of people are a little bit lost, I guess, like you said, for me, being at home, I'm always at home and my studio's here, if I'm working on blackville stuff or songwriting or working on music with my wife or doing Twitch or whatever it, it's all here. So I honestly feel like I've been in, I mean, you can say locked down for literally the last year straight pretty much. Because last September, it was the first time I got to actually produce record and mix some Blackville stuff. And we did this Duology, two songs we called the Night, and we started that September 1st, and that just ran straight into doing our 10 year anniversary rerecord of our first record stitch These wounds, which we put out, which I did that as well. And then right into supposed to be going on tour, but I mean, in a sense, I'm going to rehearsals and stuff, but we went down to Mexico City, played the one show, came back, and then locked down.

(00:05:50):

And then it's just like, okay, well what do we do in the meantime? I mean, I guess that's the beauty of it, of me being able to have my setup. Literally, I walk 10 feet and I'm from the bed to this room and I'm in my studio, and it's like, for most bands, you have to like, oh, nobody can do anything. Everybody was shutting down everything. So for us here, it's like the guys weren't coming over, but we would just throw ideas back and forth or whatever. Even my wife and I would write a song and send it to Andy and be like, Hey, man, what do you think of this? Could this be a black veil song? And so we've been able to just keep moving forward. Nothing's really affected us in the sense of our creativity or nothing has stopped me during this quarantine from continuing my life and moving forward creatively at all. And like you said, it's a gift of time. If anything, it's just, we've had nothing but time. I was supposed to be on tour all year,

Eyal Levi (00:06:54):

But you're still using the time productively. So I mean, I know that we've met before, but I don't really know the people in your band. I don't think I've met them, but I've known Blasco forever, and one of the smartest dudes in the game, Dan too, and Glasgow doesn't deal with idiots, and so he doesn't have the patience for them. So I've always known just because you guys were involved with him for so long, and it's just so many good things happen for the band. I've always looked at you guys as one of those bands that, and this was just a guess. I didn't know you guys was super capable of getting shit done regardless of circumstance, and have some sort of entrepreneurial blood is running through the veins in that band. I've always kind of thought that.

Jake Pitts (00:07:54):

Yeah, yeah.

Eyal Levi (00:07:56):

So it's accurate,

Jake Pitts (00:07:57):

A hundred percent. I think it's a good mix of Andy, the singer, his vision is very straightforward. He knows exactly what he's trying to portray. I would definitely give him the credit for any of, for example, we did a record Wretch and Divine. It was this entire concept album, and it was just an idea in his head, and he wrote this whole story and then finding our ways, how do we make this a reality? How do we make it happen? And it's kind of what we're doing now, but it's just a little bit different. We did that with John Feldman and now it's a little bit different. We're doing another concept record, and I'm getting to produce this one, so

Eyal Levi (00:08:42):

Let's talk about that for a second.

Jake Pitts (00:08:44):

Okay.

Eyal Levi (00:08:44):

So there's two aspects I want to explore about you producing your own band. I'll just introduce both of them now and pick which one you want to start with. Alright. So number one, I want to talk about how you earned enough trust from the band to where they would feel comfortable recording with you, because sometimes a band member taking on that role goes against the dynamic between the players sometimes, sometimes. And then also sometimes when bands self-produce things go weird. And so I want to talk about what you're doing to make sure things don't go weird. So which one do you want to start with?

Jake Pitts (00:09:30):

I'll probably start with the first one. I mean, it is definitely an interesting position to be in, to be a member of the band. I think being so heavily involved in the writing, when we first started out, it was most of my material that became the first two albums, and I had already had this material written before I was even in the band. And musically, I didn't have melody or vocals on it, but it was kind of, I think right off the bat when I joined Blackville I, it was known that, hey, I can write songs and I can demo songs. And my production skills 10 years ago were nothing what they are now, obviously.

Eyal Levi (00:10:13):

But they knew that you were that capable dude,

Jake Pitts (00:10:15):

They knew I was

Eyal Levi (00:10:16):

That guy. Yeah, that guy who can do that.

New Speaker (00:10:18):

Yep.

Eyal Levi (00:10:19):

But it's a long abyss between being the guy in the band who can do that, which I admit 10 years ago was actually pretty rare. Now it's not so rare, but 10 years ago

Jake Pitts (00:10:32):

For sure,

Eyal Levi (00:10:32):

Not that many bands had that guy in them. But that's still a wide abyss between that. And then actually being able to produce and mix an album when there's the kind of pressure involved that a band your size has, it's not a small deal.

Jake Pitts (00:10:56):

I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with just how I've grown musically and how much more open-minded I am than I was even five years ago when we were making a concept album with John Feldman. We're making that in the later months of 2012, and that came out in 2013. At this point in my career, I was so just in my mind, I was the biggest metalhead. It was Lamb of God riffs all day long. I listened to the heaviest music, and so I wanted to always bring the gnarliest drums, the heavy riffs, guitar solos, dual leads. I wanted to write insanity and make crazy, crazy songs. And when we were making that record with John Feldman, John Feldman and I did butt Heads at first, and I think it took that, and it was such a cool experience for me to go through to be working with such a a-list producer and be arguing with him over like, no, I want to do this and this. And Andy, at the same time had our singer, he had such a vision of what he wanted to do, and it was just kind of like a mess at the start, honestly.

Eyal Levi (00:12:11):

So that sounds like three strong-minded people kind of going for the same thing, but not exactly. It sounds like obviously you all wanted to have the best record possible. We

Jake Pitts (00:12:28):

Got there,

Eyal Levi (00:12:28):

Sounds like, and you got there, but it sounds like there were times when there were three opposing visions

Jake Pitts (00:12:35):

You had to

Eyal Levi (00:12:35):

Work that out. Yeah,

Jake Pitts (00:12:36):

There was literally times where John Feldman would be yelling at me and I'd be flipping out ready to leave, just like I'm out of here kind of thing. And then there'd be times where he's coming up with an idea and Andy's like, no, this is not even close. And it was just kind of, it took this probably, I dunno, two, three weeks to a month of just kind of trying to figure everything out. And then we got in the groove and it would be like, okay, well, I mean there was all the way to the end of the record, there was songs being written that were just like, Nope, that's not even close to, I think a huge part that why I felt this conflict at the beginning was because I am, I've always had the want to take on the role as the producer and the writer and John Feldman's, such a heavy songwriter producer, and I came in with all these songs already demoed musically ready to go, let's put some vocals on 'em. And he wouldn't even want to hear like, let's go write four songs today. And I'm like, what about my song? So for me as a member of the band, that was kind of like, yo, you don't even care about what I'm bringing to the table. What is this? Eventually those songs got there, they made the record, we recorded them, and they came out great. But I understand now

Eyal Levi (00:13:58):

It's a tough pill to swallow the first time. Yeah,

Jake Pitts (00:14:01):

For sure. So for me, it was a huge learning experience. And at the time I maybe didn't really understand it, but when I look back at it now, that was probably one of the most pivotable moments in as far as me becoming somebody who can become a successful producer, was working with John Feldman's, a pretty intense guy.

Eyal Levi (00:14:24):

That's what I've heard. But you know what? I don't think you can do what he does and not be an intense guy. A hundred

New Speaker (00:14:32):

Percent.

Eyal Levi (00:14:33):

Yeah. It is part of the deal to have that kind of brain that's capable of that much. So consistently dude's going to be turned up to 11 all the time,

Jake Pitts (00:14:44):

Basically. Yeah, it's mind blowing guy. I wish, I mean, I know he drinks an insane amount of coffee, or at least he used to. I don't know if he does anymore, but I mean, yeah, man, we would always talk about, I wish I could have the energy this guy does. He's just constantly on 11 and yeah, I dunno how he juggles as many things as he has going on, as he does insane. Songwriter, producer, very talented guy. I'm very happy.

Eyal Levi (00:15:10):

And he churn out talent, people who work under him go on to do big things.

Jake Pitts (00:15:15):

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (00:15:16):

Look

Jake Pitts (00:15:16):

At Zach Sini.

Eyal Levi (00:15:18):

Yeah, dude, there's a whole list of, there's a few producers out there who have spawned Eric Ron. Quite some people do Mac Machine who did of God back in the day. Will Putney came up under him. Josh Wilber came up under him. Sini actually worked with him too

New Speaker (00:15:37):

At one point

Eyal Levi (00:15:38):

Before. Yeah. So that's another one of those dudes that just spawns greatness. But what about it was pivotal? How did it change? Did you learn flexibility or is it that you learned the potential of where things could go if you allow them to, or what was it?

Jake Pitts (00:15:58):

I think one of the biggest things for me was, I wouldn't say I'm so shy anymore, but for a long time I was kind of more of a quiet, shy guy, and maybe I was insecure. I never really knew where to start with vocal melody or anything like that. I wasn't good with that. I was just like, I'm the guitar player. And being a guitar player, you're writing melody constantly, obviously, but vocal melodies are so much more simple than writing a guitar lead.

Eyal Levi (00:16:27):

They sound dumb on guitar.

Jake Pitts (00:16:29):

Exactly. It sounds really dumb. And I think where it started for me was hearing John Feldman go in the vocal booth and just start singing da da, just singing these da da vocals that just sound hilarious and just doing it. He's the most confident person on earth. And I was like, wow, that's really inspiring to see. And that's one of the specific moments that made me go like, okay, that's how this guy does it. I can do that.

New Speaker (00:16:57):

Just go for it.

Jake Pitts (00:16:58):

Yeah, you just go for it. And he's just spitting out whatever comes off the top of his head. And in my private time I started trying to do some of that, and that turned into me just becoming very comfortable with it. I don't care if the room's filled with people or recording a voice note, Beavis and Butthead style, like a riff. That's how we've started songs on records now. And it's just, I think something for me, building confidence and then people can laugh at it or whatever, because yeah, it does sound funny and it doesn't, who cares? Exactly. Who cares because then it cares, turns into awesomeness. And so as far as working with John Feldman, I think that was a huge thing, just a learning experience for me. Even from the songwriting aspect, working with different producers. I've picked up little things here and there, just different styles of how they do things and just kind of applied that to my own workflow or tried things and maybe put my own spin on it.

(00:18:02):

I swear I've turned so many producers onto a Kemper profiling Amp when they first came out. I know John Feldman ended, he was like, what is this thing? And we profiled back in 2012, we profiled all his amps and we were working with Brandon Paddock at the time, and we were profiling everything one night, and he came walking in and he's like, what is this thing? What are you guys doing right now? We're like, oh, we're profiling all these amps and capturing the profiles of 'em, so your diesel is set up right now. And we just profiled it and check it out. And we were aing back and forth, and he's like, wait a minute, so you just basically stole all my amps? I was like, yeah, pretty much. And he's like, that's so awesome. And so then he ended up, he jumped on the train. I think he sold all his amps or something. I don't know, maybe he still has some, but I remember him, he's like, oh, I'm getting rid of all these. And he just used Kemper, Bob Rock. We did an album with, and we spent three days at Steakhouse Studios in North Hollywood.

Eyal Levi (00:19:03):

I like that place.

Jake Pitts (00:19:04):

Yeah, it's great. We track drums there a lot, so we track drums there. And we had three extra days.

Eyal Levi (00:19:09):

I'm good friends with Colin and Alex who are over there.

Jake Pitts (00:19:12):

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. We spent three days just nerding out on guitar tones, just getting every amp we could find and profiling them. So that was pretty cool. But I think the experience working with John Feldman, for me seeing just a totally different take on songwriting where I would always start my whole career, my whole as a musician, since I started playing guitar, I would write songs starting with guitar and starting with a riff and then building a song out and then programming drums to it and just building it as I go. Thinking like a guitar player. Exactly.

Eyal Levi (00:19:51):

Would you sit down, write the riff on the guitar itself? That's how you wrote? Yeah. Physically

Jake Pitts (00:19:57):

I would just noodle around until I started coming up with something cool and then see where I could take it. Yep.

Eyal Levi (00:20:02):

That's how I'd write too.

Jake Pitts (00:20:04):

And John Feldman really kind of opened the door for me to see that there's another way to do it. You can put down a piano, a four chord piano progression and start with a vocal melody. And some songs would start purely just some kind of piano riff, some programming, and then he would put a vocal down to it, put some drums down, and there would literally not be any guitar or bass, and it would start to structure out this whole song. And I'm like, whoa, this, this doesn't sound like a rock song at all. I'm like, what is this? And then we end up putting down guitars, start writing some leads over it, make a heavy riff, and then it's like, oh, okay. And I was like, this is interesting. It's like working backwards. And that was the first time really ever going with a vocal melody and a chord progression first that's not done on guitar and working backwards.

(00:20:58):

And it was very awkward for me at first, but honestly, for the most part, that's how I write now. I don't even, I'll just start with a chord progression on piano or, I mean, some stuff will start with guitar obviously, but if I have a riff or something, but it's more so not, I find myself writing so outside the box of what I would normally do. So I think that it really took me out of my comfort zone working with John Feldman, and it became probably one of the best things that could have happened to me as a musician, songwriter, upcoming producer. It just really opened up my world to seeing other possibilities of how things can be done and how it can become a success from that. So that was a huge thing there. The other thing of opening up my mind was meeting my wife, actually, she got me into EDM music, and that's a whole nother, it's like another planet basically. Yeah. I spent about the last three years learning how to produce EDM music, and that just took everything to a whole nother level for me.

Eyal Levi (00:22:03):

Interesting. I want to come back to that. I want to hear more about that, but I want to cover the second thing, or related to you producing the band.

Jake Pitts (00:22:13):

I don't even know if I answered the first question. I just kind of started going off there.

Eyal Levi (00:22:17):

I want to spend a little more time on that. Okay. So what I'm gathering is you started as the dude in the band who was capable of that stuff, not necessarily pro, but that was part of your role. Then you get with someone like Feldman and mind Blown basically and pick up skills from him. And over the years from all the different amazing people you guys have worked with, you've been taking notes and doing your own productions and basically seeing those as a way to get mentored by those people.

Jake Pitts (00:22:56):

Absolutely.

Eyal Levi (00:22:57):

So that's kind of what I'm interpreting. And then eventually get to a point where the band realizes that you know what you're doing.

Jake Pitts (00:23:07):

Yeah. Well, I think the big moment that made everybody kind of go like, whoa, okay guys, Blasco being our manager. He's not in the studio with us every single day. He just kind of will like, he'll pop in, check it out, cool. How's it going? Alright. I mean, he's very active. He does show up a lot, but he's the opposite of overbearing though. Exactly. And I don't think any of our business people or anything had any idea of what's actually going on. We would go work with John Feldman or Bob Rock or Josh Abraham, whatever producer we're working with. And I think people just automatically assume, okay, this is the producer, they're doing everything. You guys make the music, you play the parts, and they put it all together. What I don't think maybe a lot of people even realized was when we did those records, I was actually tracking guitars at my place.

(00:24:00):

And on the record we did with Bob Rock, I ended up, I edited all the, I wasn't supposed to, it wasn't my job. Nobody asked me to do it. It just never got done. And I went to track guitars for our fourth record, and Bob Rock's engineer, the drums were comped, but nobody edited them. They were just the raw takes. And I was like, what in the world? And so I had to edit all the drums on the record. I ended up changing Bob's drum comps because I was like, this doesn't make sense. And maybe I felt at the time I was overstepping my boundary of like, well, this is Bob Rock and he's producing a record, but I really feel that I have to change this. It's still your record. Exactly. And I was like, no, I'm changing this. And I thought for sure, I spent a month tracking all the guitars and the bass and I edited the drums, and then we went to Vancouver to do vocals and handed the drive. And I thought, for sure he's going to hear all this stuff I did. And he's going to be like, oh, you changed everything and what did you do? And he played it and he just turns around and is like, everything sounds awesome. And I was like, okay, alright,

Eyal Levi (00:25:06):

That's great.

Jake Pitts (00:25:07):

I think the big thing with my band, maybe Blasco and everybody just kind of being like, wow, okay, he's really stepped forward and can do this, was Andy went on to do a solo project as Andy Black, and he went and did that for about two years off his first album. So the rest of us had two years where we were just kind of chilling, or you could say chilling. I was

Eyal Levi (00:25:33):

Two

Jake Pitts (00:25:33):

Every day sitting there learning, learning. And my wife and I kind of accidentally started making music together. She's a singer songwriter, and she had this song that one of her friends kind of demoed out, and he was in a band that a long time ago, Joey actually produced their album and I think their album came out. I'm not sure. It was a band called Now. I see.

(00:25:59):

I think that's what they were called. Anyway, I think they're a different band name now. But she played me this song. I was like, this actually sounds pretty cool. And it was just a musical thing. And she's like, oh, I have vocals for it. I just haven't recorded it. And I said, alright, well why don't you let me record the vocals? So we did the song and then ended up, I was like, okay, I'll sing some harmonies on it and I'll do it my part. And we ended up making this song and it was like, this is kind of cool. This is something different. And we ended up shooting a music video for it, and we put it out and we just kind of accidentally started doing this thing together. And then we literally, I remember it was yesterday, I was joking around on guitar and I was like, oh, dumb riffs like this and just making fun of stuff.

(00:26:46):

And then I was like, wait, that's actually kind of cool. And then we literally just wrote a song on the spot and we just started writing music together. And that turned into, we made a whole album and we self-produced it. I recorded it, mixed it, and we just put it out independently. And we put that out in April of 2018. That was right, as I remember. Yeah, that was right as Andy was putting out his second solo album that he was obligated to finish because he had a two album deal and he had to put a record out. So we put it out just, it was an interesting thing for us because my wife and I were making this heavy, almost like metal core melodic music. It was a little bit different from Blackville obviously. Obviously it's my riffs and stuff, but I wasn't shredding all over everything.

(00:27:40):

I mean, there's some leads and stuff here and there, but it's not like these crazy dual lead guitar harmony solos and stuff. It was a little bit more pulled back. But that's because we were focusing more on the songwriting. Again, a lot of these songs would start with, my wife would have a vocal melody and I'd sit here on an acoustic guitar just playing, finding the chord progression or put down a piano progression, and then we'd just start building the song out. And we had probably six or seven songs done. We actually went into Eric Ron's studio. We tracked drums for six songs there, and then we kept bouncing back and forth, do we just put out singles? Should we put out an ep? Maybe we'll put out, well, let's do a full album. And then at the same time, I started getting into EDM music and it honestly started, I think I got so burn out with all the metal stuff.

Eyal Levi (00:28:31):

It'll do that to you

Jake Pitts (00:28:32):

That I found myself listening to artists like Martin Garrick's and even Marshmallow and these EDM artists that are very, almost like pop, EDM, that have these pop singers like Dua Lipa singing on it and stuff. And BB Resa and listening to these songs gave me a whole nother perspective of songwriting and just even from the start of how simple things can be, but how great they can be. And I really started analyzing vocal melodies from these pop songs and the EDM structure and learning all about, I was blown away when I first started learning about EDM was, I couldn't understand how, it's a guy, his name's Martin, but there's a woman singing on it. I was like, whose song is it? What is this? It's a dj and he made this song, but there's this Dua Lipa Pop pop artist is singing on it. I didn't really fully understand the whole collaborative world that's like hip hop and EDM and pop and all that stuff.

(00:29:38):

So that opened up a whole nother world for me. And then I bought Ableton and I started diving in and I started watching, I dunno how many hours of serum tutorials. And it took me, I started in my EDM world of pop, EDM, and that took me into the metal dub step. I went all the full circle, all into the hard genres of hard trap and the metal dubstep stuff, and just really learning about all these different artists and seeing the cool things they were doing and even into producing some dubstep stuff. And I remember back in 2011 hearing Skrillex, and I'm like, oh man, how hard is it to press buttons on a computer and make this music? And it's like, wow, it's actually one

Eyal Levi (00:30:32):

Of the most, it's really fucking hard,

Jake Pitts (00:30:34):

So fucking hard. The sound design is insane. And I mean, I can't sit here right now and say like, oh, I'm great at it. But I mean, I've definitely tried and I've made songs and we even put out an EDM track, my wife and I, but it's nuts, man. It's very, very difficult to be good at it. Anybody can make it, but to be good at it is a whole nother thing. So that in turn, with finishing this Ionia album with my wife, it was in the middle of that, I was discovering all this EDM stuff. So we started making these EDM demos and writing these other songs. I mean, we have, I don't know, probably 20 songs that we never finished. And we have some really great ideas that we should go back and revisit. I think anybody who records, especially I know EDM producers for sure, you start an idea and you're like, oh, this is great, great.

(00:31:25):

And then, oh, you start another idea and you end up with this just huge list of songs that you never finish or you got to go back and revisit them and try to finish. But we started incorporating some of this electronic stuff into the hard rock metal stuff, and we ended up finishing the album. We put that out, and I think that was a moment that, okay, here's a full album we put out. I wouldn't consider myself at all like a mastering engineer, but I mastered it myself. We didn't have anybody do it there. Nobody outside was involved in it other than we had two different drummers play on the album. One guy from Russia and one guy who's originally from Hungary, but moved out to la we'd had these two different guys track drums, and that was it. That's the only outside involvement that we had in it. But I wrote all the drum parts. It was just, I programmed everything.

Eyal Levi (00:32:23):

Sounds like it was the culmination of all your years of knowing how to do heavy music, then learning how to write songs the real way and then learning how to sound design and do the electronic stuff all coming together.

Jake Pitts (00:32:40):

Yep. It's kind of all of those pieces gel together. And then I think them hearing that production, I guess it was just kind of like, oh, they did this all themselves. Okay, he can do it. So he figured it out. I think the biggest thing, honestly, I know everybody knew I could track guitars. I don't know if they knew I can mix drums or anything like that or whatnot, but I think the biggest thing was vocal production, which my vocal production just keeps getting better and better. My wife and I have a new song that we're working on, and I think it's the best for vocals have ever sounded. I don't know. I keep, the thing for me is I think it's for every producer. When you find a way that works and sounds good, you don't just go, cool, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life forever this way.

(00:33:28):

It's literally the next song I record. I'm like, well, what if I try this plugin? Or maybe I should try this? Lemme try and constantly trying different things. And because of that, of course it takes more time because you're experimenting, but that's how you grow and get better. And I think I've outdone myself on this track that's not out yet, but the vocals sound amazing. And I think that was the biggest thing for my singer Andy in Blackville was he was so comfortable with John Feldman because I mean, John Feldman pays the most attention to vocals. That's the most important thing to him, which

(00:34:07):

Undeniably that is the most important part of a song. So I think Andy hearing that I can do good vocal production, I mean, honestly, I don't know. I was never told why they decided to see if I could do it. I think it was also a situation of where the band was in the band had to make some changes, which kind of financially ruined the band, and we didn't really have any other options. So we are kind of in a position at the same time of, well, I don't know, maybe it was a trial run. Let's do this and see how it comes out. And I did it and everybody loved it. And we shot music videos for both of them. They're just kind of like low budget. We did 'em ourselves just performance like raw videos and the other ones kind of the songs of the Vengeance and Saints of the Blood, and they're just kind of like raw videos.

(00:35:02):

But it was a little bit more of a throwback to the old Blackville stuff. It's just more shredded than anything we've ever done. Just very, very technical songs. The cool thing was The Vengeance was the first song that we did, and it was an idea that we had, we even tried to do this song with John Feldman when we did Retched and Divine. We tried to do this song and vocal melodies were put down and they weren't clicking. And to come back and revisit the song last year, I ended up taking everything that I've learned and done, and I sat here. My wife was actually in Ukraine at the time, so for this song, I sat here and just did my DA do vocals. I hummed out a bunch of vocal melodies and recorded it, and I sent it to the guys, and they're like, this sounds great. So I wrote the vocal melodies on that one doing the John Feldman da dah, and that was the first time doing it with Blackville that they could see, oh, okay, he can write melody and do all this. So I really, it came full circle and I put all those elements together

Eyal Levi (00:36:07):

And it took like 10 years.

Jake Pitts (00:36:09):

Yeah, 10 years. And then the next song, saints of the Blood was another song that was revisiting some way old school riffs I had from this had this original demo, it's called Astronaut Destroyer. And I mean, the song was just speed metal. I think it was at two 20. The riffing was just insanely fast, and I just shred over the whole thing. And I wrote this in 2006, so obviously now I'm like, okay, well let's slow this down a bit. It's a little too fast, obviously let's take out all the ridiculous guitar solos that are over the entire song. And I just reworked it a bit, and it's like the main riff really kind of became the verse riff. And so I had tried to put down some melodies for this one, and I had some parts that I thought, okay, these are kind of good.

(00:36:56):

And my wife FaceTimed me four hours before the guys came over here. So she was visiting her family in Ukraine, and I think I was up at 9:00 AM and I was like, they're coming at one. I sent her the demo and I was like, do you have any vocal melodies? And she's like, let me think for a second. And a half an hour later, she FaceTimes me and she's like, okay, I sent you some voice notes. And I popped 'em in the session. And then we just, for four hours, we just went back and forth and she had a verse, I had a verse, and I recorded them both. And then we kind of combined our ideas for what the chorus became. And when the guys came, I played it for Andy. I was like, there's two verse options. Here's a chorus. And he picked the verse that was her melody, and he liked her melody more than the one I came up with.

(00:37:45):

And I agree it was better, and that's what we used. And so it was really kind of cool to take everything, the writing duo that my wife and I have become and be able to use it beyond just the two of us making music. We've done some crazy stuff up to today, especially even with the EDM thing. It's turned into this weird relationship with Papa Roach and doing remixes for them and just kind of crazy where things can take you. But she's helped. That was the first song that she helped as a co-writer with Black Vale. And then we've written some more songs that'll end up going on the new record that she's been a part of. And it's just really cool to have that dynamic in my relationship to be able to be creative. That sounds like a rare thing.

Eyal Levi (00:38:32):

Yeah, it is a rare thing.

Jake Pitts (00:38:34):

I know there's some people that have it, but not very many.

Eyal Levi (00:38:36):

No, it's a rare thing. So one thing that is interesting in what you're saying is I think that a, just a common issue that creative people have when they're starting to learn is they get overwhelmed by too much stuff. I need to learn how to play well, and then I need to learn how to record. I also need to know how to mix, but I should also know how to write songs, and I should also know theory, and then this, I should know sound design and all these things. And it kind of overwhelms people because they don't know where to begin, or they kind of just dabble a little bit in each one and don't really get good at any of them. I think that the way that you went about it is the way it's done as well is look at it a long-term thing.

(00:39:27):

Don't think about, I'm going to be able to do all these things within six months. It's more like get good at one thing. If you're a metal guitar player, become an awesome metal guitar player, and once you're at a comfortable, I mean, always get better, but once you're, let's just say proficient at what's needed for the job, then start exploring something else that's outside your comfort zone and get really, really good at that. Learning how to start songs with a piano and a vocal, then meld the two together. And once you got that and you're comfortable with it, I mean, again, always being able to improve it, but at least you're proficient in it, then can start looking at something else to start learning how to do. But I really, really like the idea of one area of focus at a time for the most part, rather than spreading yourself thin and doing a bunch of things shitty.

Jake Pitts (00:40:25):

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, for me specifically, I started playing guitar when I was 13 years old, and I'm about to be 35 this month. So for me, it was very much just, we didn't have social media, YouTube, any of that. When I was 13 years old, it was just I had an amp, a cheap guitar, and I could go to the record store and buy albums and listen to them and try to learn 'em by ear. That's kind of how my guitar playing came about. And I would just listen to anything from Corn Green Day, blink 180 2 to Metallica and Mega Death and just learning anything I could. I literally started out playing Green Day songs because that's something if you're just starting out playing guitar, that's what you should be learning because it's easy. Yeah,

Eyal Levi (00:41:19):

That's a good starting point. And

Jake Pitts (00:41:21):

That turned into going into learning Metallica riffs and learning the entire Black album. And then that turned into discovering bands like Unearth and Kill Switch, engage and Learn. I think one thing that I got to give credit to the unearthed guitar players, those dudes rip and I got the Oncoming Storm. I bought that album, I think it was in, it must've been like 2004, I think I had that album, and I learned the entire thing. And that is what taught me how to be proficient in alternate picking the metal, alternate picking those style of riffs, learning. That album just made me instantly a better guitar player. Obviously it wasn't instant because I had to learn it, but once I learned it, I was like, wow, I just became such a better guitar player with riffing and rhythm and all of that stuff. So that was a huge moment guitar wise, but I hadn't even messed with recording yet to this point. I didn't buy Pro Tools until 2005, which that's a long time ago now, but,

Eyal Levi (00:42:34):

But dude, I think that's such a smart way to go about it. I really, really do. I know a lot of incredible guitar players who now they're able to twitch and stream and record and all that. But I remember 10 years ago or 15 years ago, these dudes, and they're not the guy in the band who's going to record the album or whatever, they never took it to that level, but they always said to me, and I know a few dudes who said this, and they're incredible guitar players in the scene, I'm not going to learn that yet because I need to be awesome at guitar. And so if I start learning how to do that, I'm not going to be able to put the time into guitar that I would need to be as good as I want to be. And so they purposefully put that off. And so I think that what people don't understand is that it's okay to go either direction, but if you decide to go the direction of being able to do lots of different things, you won't have, you just simply won't have the time to put 12 hours a day into guitar forever,

New Speaker (00:43:50):

Just

Eyal Levi (00:43:50):

Won't.

New Speaker (00:43:51):

There's

Eyal Levi (00:43:51):

A point where you just won't be able to keep on doing that thing. And so if your goal is to be the greatest virtuoso on earth in the scene, you might be tough to do that and record and song write and sound design and mix, you know what I'm saying?

Jake Pitts (00:44:06):

Yeah, no, a hundred percent

Eyal Levi (00:44:07):

Might be tough to do all that. So I think it's really smart that you waited as long as you waited to get going with the other stuff.

Jake Pitts (00:44:15):

And even when I did finally jump into Pro Tools, so at the time I was living in Hawaii and I had been in bands and stuff. I lived in Minnesota and Idaho, and I was in these bands, and I had even come out to California in 2004 and been promised the world with the band that I was in. And then that turned into like, well, here's a deal and you owe us $75,000. So that was my first real experience into the music industry. And we didn't sign it, we didn't do that. And that turned into the band I was in, the singer went and joined the military. I don't know what the other guys ended up doing. They went back to Minnesota and I was like, well, I'm not done yet, but I don't know what to do right now. And my dad at the time had, he had just moved out to Hawaii and started doing construction work out there on the island of Kauai.

(00:45:09):

And so I went back to Minnesota for a couple weeks with my mom, and then I called him up and I was like, Hey, is there any chance could I could come hang out in Hawaii for a few months and maybe work out there doing whatever? And he's like, lemme see. He literally called me back the next day. He is like, I got you a job with my boss, and you're just going to be basically sweeping up sawdust and picking up scrap wood. I was like, alright. And I had never been to Hawaii, and I just bought a plane ticket, packed my suitcase, took my guitar, and I flew there and I was there for about nine months. But during that time, that was where I started my recording journey and I was making money from doing this construction, which I ended up, I learned a lot from my dad doing construction work and carpentry.

(00:46:06):

So I started out sweeping sawdust, but that turned into me helping actually build a house. And so that was a cool experience. I learned how to surf there, but I was playing guitar a lot. And that was when I decided to take the dive into, I'm going to, I'm buy my first laptop. I got a Mac, it was a PowerBook G four or something. It was before the Intel Max came out. And I spent $3,500 on this crazy laptop that now is just, the thing would just be absolutely terrible, but paid all this money for that. And then I bought the original Mbox, and I think it came to ALS like 6.8 or something. And that's what I started on, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I just dove in. For me, it was just, I opened the software, I plugged my guitar into this interface, and I just started pressing buttons.

(00:47:00):

And I'm like, okay, what? And I just kind of started figuring it out. And for about, I dunno, I was probably messing around with it in, I dunno, for three or four months. And I ended up moving to LA to go to the recording school, the LA Recording School. And the funny thing is, my whole time for these months working in Pro Tools, my dad had this little drum machine and I could program the buttons to different drum samples and I would press them. And I didn't even know Pro Tools had a grid mode. I didn't know what that was. I was just in slip mode and I was literally playing programming my drums on this drum machine, pressing the buttons to a click track and not editing them just in real time, just kicking and snare on one track.

Eyal Levi (00:47:49):

How would you know if nobody ever told you?

Jake Pitts (00:47:51):

Yeah, it was just me figuring it out the hard way. Still this time, this was in 2005, so YouTube wasn't even a thing yet.

Eyal Levi (00:47:58):

Let me just say something real quick. For those of you younguns, those of us who had to learn, this is going to sound like old timers talking, but the reason that we started URM actually and nail the mix and all that stuff was because of our experiences learning how to record like that because that's all there was back in 2005 or 2000, 2003, you could go to forums and get kernels of information from Andy sne or whatever, and maybe there was a tutorial from this weird recording school in Detroit that did Motown in the sixties, but there's no info. So we had to figure it all out ourselves, and it was painstakingly fucking brutal. And the only people who were getting somewhere were the ones who managed to get an internship or something, was somebody awesome. Those were the only people who would get any sort of fast track to learning how to do this thing.

(00:48:59):

So we started URM to kind of change that so that people can actually just sit down and learn how to fucking do this and not go through that. Yeah, it was fucking brutal in those days. But I also think that it's impressive to me how many people I know that stuck it out. I guess those are the people I wouldn't know if I'm in the industry are the ones who stuck it out. But still, it's very impressive to me that when I talk to people who were in that era and still figured it out because it means that they don't fucking quit. I think that it was very discouraging back then.

Jake Pitts (00:49:46):

Yeah, I mean, for me it was more so because I had gotten my guitar playing to a specific level and I was writing riffs. It was something for me that I was like, I need a place to put my ideas down,

New Speaker (00:50:00):

And

Jake Pitts (00:50:02):

I can't write a whole song if I can't record it. I can come up with riffs and play a chorus progression and stuff and imagine the song, but how's it going to become anything if I can't record it? So that was the initial idea of why I even wanted to get a laptop and an interface in Pro Tools. And I had just obviously heard that on these forums that like, oh, if you want to record, you got to get Pro Tools. I'm like, okay, I got to get Pro Tools. So I started out with, I think I could only run 28 tracks or something before I had to start mixing, consolidating things. And at the time, I didn't know how to do that. So I was just making very basic, like I said, I was, my drum programming when I first started was playing in real time, pressing buttons on this little drum machine, a kick and a snare to make the beat, which would get essentially recorded on the same audio track and you can't mix a snare and a kick on the same track.

(00:51:01):

They're different things. But that's what I was doing. That's what I had to work with. So I had my kick and stare on the same track. I'd go back over and I'd record my symbol crashes and high hats and stuff and overdub it or whatever, and everything would be not perfectly in time because I'm a human pressing rubber buttons, and sometimes they don't hit instantly. It's not like a mini keyboard that's more accurate. So it was weird, but I made it work. And then I would track guitars and I just started experimenting and figuring it out. And the very first demos I did on that, man, I'm sure, I'm sure I have 'em, I think I have 'em on a hard drive somewhere. It'd be really funny to go back and listen to 'em. But that turned into, I started Learning Pro Tools. At least I knew my way around it.

(00:51:53):

I didn't know how, I knew very little about eq. I just had a tiny idea of the audio spectrum. I understood the concept of it, how it works, but I didn't know how to apply it correctly, and I didn't know anything about compression. And I would record everything would be on its own track, and then I would just bounce the song out and that was what I did. And for a long time, that's kind of where my recording was at. I came to la, I did go to the LA Recording School, which it's a very fast program. I think what you guys are doing is awesome. And I would never go to a recording school. I mean, I don't want to discourage anybody from it, but in my opinion, I think what I do, okay, well okay, then I'll take it back then. Yeah, don't waste your money on that because what you guys are doing is a lot cheaper and so much more valuable in my opinion.

Eyal Levi (00:52:52):

Yeah, I mean, I'm not afraid to say that I agree. I've gone on record a lot saying that. I think that for the most part, traditional recording schools are a giant ripoff.

Jake Pitts (00:53:04):

I think they're outdated too.

Eyal Levi (00:53:05):

Yeah, that's what it is. So it's not that there's bad information there that they've put so much money into their facilities, for instance, that it's steering a huge cruise ship technology and music production evolve so fast now that they just can't keep up. So they're not generally teaching you what really, really matters. They'll still teach you good stuff, but they won't teach you what really matters now. Cutting edge from

Jake Pitts (00:53:37):

Exactly. Yeah. I remember, I think I had a whole month of one class that was learning about how to record on the old tape machines. And I'm like, I've used that never, because nobody does that anymore. It's like nobody did that when I was at the school in 2006, and that was a long time ago.

Eyal Levi (00:53:55):

And there's nothing wrong with learning how to do that if you don't know how to do that, if you want to learn how to do that.

Jake Pitts (00:54:00):

And

Eyal Levi (00:54:01):

It's like if you're one of those dudes who really wants to know how to use tape because you love that shit, or you're going to want to go work at the one studio in town that still has the table

New Speaker (00:54:12):

Rocking it,

Eyal Levi (00:54:13):

That's your thing. Cool. But to devote an entire month that you're paying for making everybody learn that that's just dated and it's a waste of time and money.

Jake Pitts (00:54:24):

Yeah. I think the thing that upset me the most going to that school was I really felt like it was a nine month program, and I felt like the first five months of it was stuff I already knew, literally the first, I'm already a guitar player, I know what delay in reverb are and these effects, and I know the parameters of them. And literally the first two months was just taking lecture classes of learning the different parameters of different effects and all this stuff. And I'm like, what in the world? I'm paying a lot of money for this. I already know this stuff,

Eyal Levi (00:54:52):

Man. I went on a tour once of one of the big, big recording schools. I won't say which one, but it was near where I used to live. So anyone who knows where I used to live will know because they kept trying to feed me interns. They had to fulfill requirements. So they invited me to go on a tour of their campus, and this was one week before finals. And that's a very, very important detail because they walked me into a class that was in session and one week before finals, they were still covering the difference between mono and stereo. So that means that they'd been there for months and months and months and months and months and months, and we're just getting to mono and stereo. What?

Jake Pitts (00:55:39):

Yeah. That's crazy.

Eyal Levi (00:55:40):

And they're paying how many tens of thousands of dollars. That shit was crazy. I was actually kind of shocked by it. I shouldn't be, but I was.

Jake Pitts (00:55:49):

Yeah, I mean, it is pretty mind blowing. It's just kind of wrong.

Eyal Levi (00:55:54):

Yeah.

Jake Pitts (00:55:55):

For me, I think it was four or five months in, we got into the Pro Tools classes and I was like, that's what I was waiting for, was like, I want to learn more about Pro Tools. And we got in there, and then again, it was just like, okay, we're going to teach you how to start a session. And by the time I remember my first Pro Tools class, it was like the instructor was teaching everybody how to set up a session and create some audio tracks and a MIDI track. And by the time they were doing that, I had already a session started. I imported all these files. I was chopping things up and making beats, and the instructor comes over and he is like, you've obviously done this before. I was like, oh yeah, I've been trying to figure out Pro tools for a few months now, and I literally didn't learn anything from the class.

(00:56:42):

I had already figured it out on my own. And the craziest thing I think for me was, I think still up to this point, I don't think I programming drums for me, I still didn't understand that yet. Now if I'm going to program drums, it's all mid, right? But at the time I got done with this recording school and the crazy thing for me was I was excited to get onto the Neve consoles and the SSL consoles and that's the last two months of the program and then it's everybody books to get any time in there, you have to book after hour stuff and by the time you get there,

Eyal Levi (00:57:24):

10:00 PM to 7:00 AM kind of shit.

Jake Pitts (00:57:27):

By the time you get to these classes, you can't book those rooms until you get to the class, which is in the eight, nine months of the school or whatever. And once you get there, they're constantly already booked out. And so I think I had one time that I got to get into the Neve room and mess around and hook up an amp and record it and track it and

Eyal Levi (00:57:48):

I bet that sounded great.

Jake Pitts (00:57:50):

It was fun. That was my first time getting to really track on an Eve and I was just blown away by, it was just a little Marshall combo amp and a 57 and I was like, really? It sounds that good. It actually sounded pretty damn awesome.

Eyal Levi (00:58:04):

Sure.

Jake Pitts (00:58:05):

So that was pretty cool to get to mess around on those consoles for a bit, but it was like learning those man, it's like going into steakhouse to track drums. I don't go in there and get the console set up and running there helping get it set up. It's like, alright, yeah, this is how I want to run things. I couldn't go in and start up an SSL 4,000 on my own. That's not my world, which is fine. I can record off of it once it's going, but I'm kind of, for the most part in the box. I mean, I have some outpour gear here. I do have in my studio I mixed through a rack mounted SSL, GBU Compressor, the hardware, so I do love that. And for the most part though, I've pretty much turned everything to almost in the box except for that really. But yeah, the school's like I got to the end of it and I really don't know what I took from that school. I mean, it was interesting. I think

Eyal Levi (00:59:16):

It doesn't hurt to learn that stuff,

Jake Pitts (00:59:18):

But the funny thing was, so the first band in LA that I joined, Logan Mader was producing, it was kind of like on spec producing him and his writing partner at the time, Logan Mader was the first real producer I met in LA and started working with

Eyal Levi (00:59:35):

What a nice human being too.

Jake Pitts (00:59:37):

He's amazing. I love that guy. And I learned the simplest thing from him just watching him operate Pro Tools, which was programming drums to the grid with audio samples. And I was just like, what? You could do that? And it just blew my mind and I went home, I opened up Pro Tools and I was like, oh, that's what that grid mode means. I was clueless up to this point.

Eyal Levi (01:00:02):

All it took was one thing though.

Jake Pitts (01:00:04):

Yeah, it took that one thing and then that's where I started being able to actually demo songs. I would then go on these forums and find kick samples and snare samples. So you're pointing out

Eyal Levi (01:00:18):

Right here why I hate audio schools and it's because those types of skills, what you just picked up from Logan, well not just picked up, but what you picked up from Logan, that one little thing that's a super hireable kind of skill. That's the stuff that you should know how to do in the modern age. So I wish that audio schools focused on that. They focused on teaching you how to edit drums, how to edit vocals, how to operate your dos super fast. Those types of things are what should be the main focus, not like learning a console. That should be an elective in my opinion, just because the majority of audio careers now will never involve a console. You have to want that basically.

Jake Pitts (01:01:05):

Yeah. The only experience I have with those even now producing records is for drum tracking. You go track drums in another studio and you'll have a console. You need all those inputs and it sounds great to record through the Neve at Steakhouse, for example. We track there all the time. It sounds great,

Eyal Levi (01:01:23):

Of course,

Jake Pitts (01:01:24):

But that's it. That's, that's all we need.

Eyal Levi (01:01:27):

I would never say it doesn't sound great. I agree that it does, but if you're going to school, you're going to school because you want to work and if they should be teaching you hireable skills, of course you should understand signal flow and all that stuff, of course. But what I've noticed is that kids don't come out of those schools with hireable skills. They just come out with very generalized knowledge and I feel like that's a ripoff man. It should be teaching you what it is that the cutting edge people of that time period are doing and keeping up with those techniques. Something that's come up in the past few years and gotten in super popular, even though the technique has existed before that is now part of the repertoire is key spikes, for instance, using key spikes. It wasn't around as a big thing that every metal mixer did when I was mixing records, but it has come up in the past two, three years and now lots of people are doing it and we see it on now the mix all the time. That's the kind of thing that you would expect a kid to have to learn in an audio school, in my opinion, the kind of stuff that all or a good amount of pros are doing over and over and over that's just a part of their repertoire. But being dated, you're sitting there learning how to operate a tape machine. Yay.

Jake Pitts (01:02:49):

Yeah. Yeah, it is kind of mind blowing. I mean, again, I went to this school in 2006 and felt like it was outdated back then, and I don't know, maybe they've changed it since now, but I have no interest in really caring. But I think for me, the most valuable thing was having the pleasure to work with these different producers. And even

Eyal Levi (01:03:11):

That's who you really learned from was the people you did it with in real life.

Jake Pitts (01:03:16):

Being in the band, working with the producer and paying attention and just wondering, oh, what microphone are they using? Oh, how's the guitar cab micd up? What preamp are they using? I was that guy that was looking at all the gear and going okay, and making notes and then seeing how it's operated, how everything's, that's really how I learned is just seeing actual setups and being used in the real world and then seeing how, for example, John Feldman, how he put something together from scratch or it was a combination of operating in the studio like the gear and how things are being tracked and recorded to how it's being written and formulated and put together creatively too. So it was kind of a combination of both. Same thing with Logan Mader working when he was just in this small little studio, and I would do the same thing. He would do some crazy guitar mic, he would have a guitar cab with four mics on one cab, and I was like, this is insane. But I mean, his tones were amazing. It sounded great. And I actually got my first real amp from him. I bought his Bogner Uber Shaw off of him.

Eyal Levi (01:04:34):

That's a good one.

Jake Pitts (01:04:35):

And I of course don't have it anymore unfortunately. But I mean, I guess not, unfortunately. I don't use that stuff anymore. At one point I had 14 different amps and I sold 'em all. I don't blame you. I started collecting them. I had so many and I was like, I don't have any room to put these anywhere and I don't find myself using them because I went through the phase of, as a guitar player, if you're a guitar player and producer, you're going to go through this phase of constantly tweaking your tone and can you outdo it? Can you make it better? What if I use this amp? What if I use that one? And I would spend just a ridiculous amount of time just tweaking a guitar tone. When I got rid of all my amps, I stopped experimenting. I'll use either Kemper ax effects or mostly what I'm using now are just VST plugins.

(01:05:22):

The plugins have gotten so good now and they sound so great that I pretty much just go with that. And that saves me so much time where you don't have to sit there and tweak a tone for hours on end and try to capture the guitar cabinet correctly. Somebody who's already done all the hard part for you and my opinion, if you're in a world-class studio and you have the ability to track guitars through a e console and mic up with any mics of your choice and experiment with the greatest guitar cabinet, with the best speakers and a great go for it, do it. Why

Eyal Levi (01:06:00):

Not?

Jake Pitts (01:06:00):

Why not? But most people don't have that

Eyal Levi (01:06:02):

Or if that's your thing.

Jake Pitts (01:06:04):

Yeah, I mean there's nothing wrong with that. It does sound great, but for me, I think the most important thing is it's time. And if I'm able to just, I can play through my X effects, I can track my DIN and I can then just change it at any, just like that, the flip of a switch and have my presets or whatever. It's like,

Eyal Levi (01:06:26):

Yeah, you're all about efficiency, workflow, time management.

Jake Pitts (01:06:31):

I have a pretty good idea of how to easily get some killer guitar tone with plugins and a guitar bus chain that I use. And it's just kind of in that sense of where I say like, oh, I don't do everything the same thing twice or whatever. I do have my presets, my templates where I just pull it up and I can hit record on my midi drums and blah, blah, blah. I can tap the keys out or draw the notes in real quick and my guitars are already set up. And I think that's a huge time saver as well. I think it's something beginners definitely overlook is creating a good session template where you can just start instantly and be creative. You're not, let me create 800 tracks and now I got to import all my plugins. It's like you open it, it's got everything and you're ready to go. It's so key to have that.

Eyal Levi (01:07:19):

We have actually, a really good podcast episode on this topic is the one with Matt. Good. Just for everyone listening, if you want a lot of going deep on templates, the right kind of templates, check that one out. I'm just saying the right kind of templates, a good and a bad way to use them. I think the way you're describing is what they're good for, especially if it's one that you've tweaked over the years. And so it's like your custom template for your workflow that's been developed and developed and developed, and when you hit go, it's already awesome. I think some people feel like grabbing other people's templates is going to make them magically better or something, and it doesn't really work that way at all.

Jake Pitts (01:08:12):

Yeah, I don't think so. It's definitely something that's accumulated over the years of trying different guitar tones and creating, I've created this insane, it's not a plugin, obviously, I can get very similar tones to hell raiser bass plugin, but I've created my own base chain, two tracks. I have my tone part, I have the low end, and then I've got the bus that it goes to, and I think I've got 17 or 18 plugins in this entire chain. But it's just like an instant thing. You track a base di and you pop it in both of these tracks and it just sounds massive. And it's just having things like that at your disposal to you can instantly, if I have a band or an artist or my band or whatever or I'm just writing a song and creating, I don't have to sit here and waste my time, oh, let me try to get a good bass tone.

(01:09:13):

It's already there. I can tweak it from there to make it even better or make it fit whatever it is I'm doing. But it's already the starting point. Sounds great. And same with the drums. I'll start with program drums, but I have a blend of different custom samples and even some drum shots and stuff in there, and I've just built my own triggered kit that just sounds crushing from the start. And I think that's such a huge thing, especially if you're a producer working with another band for the band to be in the studio and you're writing a song. And that was something that I always, I didn't necessarily know the steps to get that right off the bat, but working with John Feldman, we started writing a song and just like everything sounded good, we would record it and it would just sound great,

Eyal Levi (01:10:02):

Man. The first time that I ever worked with a real producer, real budget, real producer, everything just sounded great. The moment that they started micing up the drums and getting going, it was already just a little eq. It was already awesome. I was like, whoa, this is the big leagues. It's awesome. Out the gate with those people. Sounds like the same experience you had at Feldman's. Like, whoa, it is already awesome.

Jake Pitts (01:10:33):

Yeah, well, I mean, I had that experience on our second record set, the World On Fire, and we recorded it Pulse in LA here, and they had an SSL board there, but we tracked, they had a rack of Neve 10 70 threes and we tracked all the drums through that, and that was the experience of just getting the drum tones, just live the Toms everything just sounded, I was like, this sounds phenomenal. It sounds like it's already mixed what in the world? And that was a mind blowing moment for me. I was like, wow, it is really great to be able to record through that top quality gear. And then it was also a mindblowing experience when we did go to, I was like, where's the big console? Where is it? He doesn't have one, and he's recording through. Totally. And that was another gear learning experience for me of, okay, you don't need a big console to do this, obviously this is John Feldman we're talking about, and it's just a different setup, a different take. He has great preamps, great mics obviously, but you don't need that giant console to track drums and make a record.

Eyal Levi (01:11:43):

What matters is the operator, that's the person using it is the thing that matters.

Jake Pitts (01:11:49):

That was just, again, the most valuable lessons that I've learned in my career have been as far as the audio production part goes, is just having the luxury to have worked with these different producers and be in these studios and different environments and just seeing how wildly different each producer is from each other. It is crazy to go from making a record with John Feldman to making a record with Bob Rock. Totally different experience. I can't imagine both amazing guys, but totally different, totally different take and vibe. And it also helps me kind of develop my own. I'm not trying to take somebody's style and go, I'm going to do exactly what they do. It's just kind of like I analyze how different people do different things and John Feldman's very much involved in the songwriting where Bob Rock was more about not so much involved in the songwriting, but let's figure out how we can get some cool sounds or whatever. And it is kind of funny because again, as a guitar player, I'm coming up with as discovered the Kemper profiling amp when it was first put out, and I jumped on board immediately and I ended up showing these guys, like John Feldman got one because I brought it into the studio and he was intrigued by it. Bob Rock, same thing. He ended up buying one. And it was just kind of funny to see that I was kind of turning these guys onto this new technology and now it's something that everybody's using and it's cool.

Eyal Levi (01:13:32):

It's interesting to see who are the guys that adopt stuff early. I'm not surprised that John Feldman adopted it early.

New Speaker (01:13:41):

You

Eyal Levi (01:13:41):

Showed him something that works great, why wouldn't he do it?

Jake Pitts (01:13:45):

Yeah, I mean it's a space saver, a time saver, and I think he is definitely a guy that's in the place where he wants time is everything. So he works very quickly.

Eyal Levi (01:13:57):

Yeah, he's got a family too. Yeah.

(01:13:59):

Question on a slightly different topic, but still same topic. So let's not name names here with this question, so without naming names, but since you're both in a band and a producer, obviously you know how important it is to be able to hang the hanging out part, being a cool enough person for people to be able to hang out with you for weeks and weeks on end. That's true on tour, it's true in the studio. It's more true in the music industry, I think, than in a lot of places because you're so locked in with the same small group of people through so many highly stressful situations. So that said, for those who haven't really been in the experience of a really bad session with a producer, can you talk about from an artist's perspective, what it's like to have a bad session and why you really need producers to have a good personality? Why is it so important? It's just because we tell people all the time that your social skills are just as important as your technical skills, but we rarely get to hear from the artist's perspective why that's so true.

Jake Pitts (01:15:14):

I mean, for me personally, I've had those experiences on both sides of things. We've worked with producers that have been just like, every day has been absolutely amazing and it's been a blast. And then having some say songwriting sessions that are just totally bizarre, uncomfortable, awkward, and you're just like, you can't wait to leave. So this is the importance of why it's important to hang. Because if you're making the artist feel uncomfortable, and you might not even know, it might just be you have no idea, but I think it's important to know.

Eyal Levi (01:15:52):

You might not know that you're making them uncomfortable,

Jake Pitts (01:15:55):

But I don't know. I mean, I think it's really important that you should know

Eyal Levi (01:15:59):

Because

Jake Pitts (01:16:00):

If you are doing that, the artist doesn't want to be there. They're not going to hire you. They're not going to say anything good about you. You make 'em feel uncomfortable. They're not going to be creative, they're not going to feel, you have to feel comfortable to be creative, in my opinion. You could be in some circumstances, I guess being kind of an, for example, I've been in uncomfortable situations that then became a learning lesson, et cetera. But to be in a creative songwriting session, for example, and the person you're doing this co-write with is just not on the same page, doesn't know anything about you, doesn't have a studio to record in, and you're just sitting in a living room and just having some conversations and then just making the most, how is this a songwriting session? It's just the weirdest thing ever, and all you're thinking about is, I can't wait to get out of here and leave and go home.

(01:17:03):

I never want to come here again. I've had weird experiences like that. So I think it's very important from the producer aspect of when an artist comes, you got to shoot the shit for a little bit and get to know 'em what they're about, their goals are, hear some stories, listen to their music and make them feel like they matter and that you care and you're not just like, alright, I'm going to do. Yeah, exactly. That's the whole point. It's very important. And I think just having the ability to just hang and bro down or whatever and be able to communicate, talk, have fun joke, and also get work done and create a great, whether it's a co-writing session, you're writing a song, make a great song, or if you're making an album or a single or whatever, you're producing a track, or if you're just engineering something, I think in all aspects mean, again, it just comes down to really basic human people skills. Just be a good person, be kind, be nice, but brush your teeth. Yes, yes. Shower, brush your teeth. Don't show up stinky.

Eyal Levi (01:18:25):

I'm saying that for a reason.

Jake Pitts (01:18:26):

Me too.

Eyal Levi (01:18:27):

Yeah. Yeah, that's a real thing. The thing is though, even if you're a good hang, that doesn't mean there's never going to be uncomfortable situations, which is why it makes it that much more important for you to have good rapport with each other, trust each other, trust that everybody's got the same goals in mind. Because when you're working on a project that has a lot of strong-minded people, kind of like you, Andy and Feldman, if there's not that bond already there, those types of clashes could fuck everything up. But if you do have that bond, everybody's got the best interest of the project at heart. They just have different opinions on how to go about something that's different. That's not the same thing as someone is making you feel uncomfortable. They don't get you and they don't even want to be there and they're just fucking offputting. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Jake Pitts (01:19:25):

It's

Eyal Levi (01:19:25):

A totally different thing.

Jake Pitts (01:19:26):

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely.

Eyal Levi (01:19:29):

There is going to be conflict. There is going to be conflict in a session. Oh, for

Jake Pitts (01:19:33):

Sure. There's nowhere

Eyal Levi (01:19:33):

Around it. Yeah.

Jake Pitts (01:19:35):

Especially if when you have multiple people who are writing, and I don't know for every band, but I think in most bands there's usually either the guy or a couple guys that kind of do the majority of the writing and have the ideas and put 'em together. So when you are that, of course you're going to have, for me, those conflicts were early on because I was close-minded. And now I think going back to that, is it a weird thing to produce your own band? I think now for me, it's not difficult to do because I am so open-minded, gone down the path of EDM production and making EDM music to full on heavy metal stuff like extreme metal and working with different bands. I've had different experiences, both good and bad. And really, I think especially making the Ionia album with my wife, I learned so much from her as a top line writer and just mind blowing for me to see another just experience of, we call her bathroom Narnia because she'll take, I'll bounce the song, give it to her, and for her to go write lyrics and melody, she always goes into the, takes a bath or something and writes, and she'll be in there for 45 minutes and then comes out and then here's the idea, and it'll just be mind blowing.

(01:21:10):

I'm like, this is so good. Where are you going when you go in there? And it's the same thing we talk about Andy, when he goes to write lyrics, he'll go outside and it's like we always say joking around. He goes outside and talks to aliens and they speak to him, and he comes with this crazy, he'll be out for 20 minutes and then come in with this insane piece that we're like, dude, what? And it's just cool. People have their gifts for sure.

Eyal Levi (01:21:35):

I know quite a few people who get it in the shower.

Jake Pitts (01:21:38):

Yeah, yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:21:39):

That's where the idea hits them.

Jake Pitts (01:21:41):

I don't know if it's just something about the water running or something. I don't know. I mean, I find myself coming up with melody ideas in the shower and I'm jumping out like, ah, voice note on my phone, trying to record it. But just learning a lot from her too in the vocal sense of melody and just analyzing melody. And I think creating a memorable melody is one of the most important, yet one of the hardest things to do. So I create that hook. And

Eyal Levi (01:22:12):

Absolutely

Jake Pitts (01:22:13):

Studying pop melody is very helpful with that because that for me, even shows how simple it can be, yet how catchy and hooky it can be. At the same time,

Eyal Levi (01:22:26):

Man, I actually think that's more difficult than writing complex music. I think writing a simple melody that is, what's the right word? Infectious, like an infectious simple melody that just becomes a universal thing. So good. But it's so simple. To me, that's the hardest thing to do. I agree. Way harder than just throwing down a ton of notes. Not saying that complex styles of music. I'm not talking down at them or saying they're not hard. I just think that the hardest thing is to come up with something simple, but that's super effective.

Jake Pitts (01:23:07):

Yeah. Oh, totally agree. Personally, sometimes I find myself just having to walk away for 15 minutes and clear my head to come back to it, because I always find myself, when I'm even purposefully trying to come up with something simple, I'm still just overdoing it. I'm trying to be too complex with it, and that's where I'm like overthinking it. Overthinking it. A hundred percent.

Eyal Levi (01:23:30):

So in order to stop overthinking it, is it like you have to take yourself out of the situation consciously so that whatever is getting in the way kind of shuts the fuck up a little bit?

Jake Pitts (01:23:43):

I think so. I mean, I think every situation's different. Every song has its own creative process, and a lot of people will ask me like, oh, how's your songwriting process? What do you start with? It's like every song's different. It could be a guitar, it could be piano, it could be a vocal, it could be a drum part, it could be a voice note on my phone. It could be anything. It could be the sound of a bird chirping outside during a rainstorm or something, and you're like, oh. And it just sparks this creativity and this inspiration. You have to find inspiration in different ways, and it comes in different ways and forms. I think something for me personally that's very inspiring, which I don't do enough, is being out in nature. I love to go to crazy places and do crazy hikes like Zion National Park and these crazy hikes in Hawaii. I wish I could do them more, but that is just, I dunno, something about how insane this planet is in some places and putting yourself in these experiences can just, for me, very, it clears your mind. It's almost like a form of meditation, I guess you could say. I mean, it's not meditating, but it's different.

Eyal Levi (01:24:57):

It's almost like a mental enema.

Jake Pitts (01:24:59):

Yeah, for sure. And for me, it can take anything from, okay, it's not working, let me walk away for 15 minutes and just step away from it and not even think about it. And then I'll come back and try again to, it could take five years later, the idea all of a sudden just boom. There it is. Got it.

Eyal Levi (01:25:19):

So do you find that your best ideas are the ones that happen like a lightning bolt boom, or is it more carving them out?

Jake Pitts (01:25:29):

It's hard to say because I want to say the lightning bolt boom, just out of nowhere, those ideas. But again, that's maybe because it's more exciting because you're like, holy shit, this is awesome. This is so great. This is the best thing I've ever done.

Eyal Levi (01:25:43):

It just happened.

Jake Pitts (01:25:44):

It just happened. But I mean, who knows? In five years you could look back at that idea and go, oh, that sucks. Because that tends to be a thing, especially for songwriter producer. You're going to make a song, you're going to think it's the greatest thing ever, and a year from now, you're going to go back and be like, oh, that totally sucks. This is so much better.

Eyal Levi (01:26:02):

Okay, let me rephrase. Since you're a writer, obviously you're used to having your riffs thrown out, ideas thrown out. Obviously that's part of doing it for real, is getting comfortable with the idea that a certain percentage of what you write is never going to be used just because you can't always write great stuff. You have to write a lot of stuff so that you can, the more you write, the more awesome stuff you're going to write, but there's always going to be a ratio of shit to not Shit.

Jake Pitts (01:26:34):

Oh, a hundred percent. It's not all great. Yeah, yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:26:36):

It's going to be like, I think it's 60% shit, 35% okay, and 4% really good and 1% fucking incredible. Some tweak of that is what I feel like it is, but I feel like, so you got to get comfortable with just letting go of the shit that's not good. So out of your ideas that do make it so take out of the equation, whether you like them five years later or not, out of the ideas that have made it to records, the ones that did not get thrown out, do they tend to be the boom rifts that happen, the boom ideas that just come like a lightning bolt or more carved out ideas or there's no pattern? Some of each?

Jake Pitts (01:27:27):

I would say some of each. There's definitely a lot of the instances of boom, the idea just hits and song is basically structured, written in two hours, and it's like, here it is, and then it's just a matter of filling it out. It's like a freebie. Yeah, it's definitely happened. But there's, for example, Blackville Song In the end, that song literally started out kind of as a rap song. It was nothing like what turned into what the song, the session went and how that song came to be.

Eyal Levi (01:28:07):

So rock song that has a lot of epic orchestration and huge sound and started as a rap song.

Jake Pitts (01:28:16):

Big chorus.

Eyal Levi (01:28:16):

Yeah, big chorus, big everything.

Jake Pitts (01:28:18):

Yeah. The session did, it started just literally almost the whole day. So I mean, I guess in a sense you could say, this is in the matter, in the course of a day, in a session in a studio, it's like everyone's beating their head on this idea that's just not what anybody wants to be doing. Just basically wasting a whole day. This is just not, it not happening to then switching gears and instantly going, boom, here we go, now we're on the right path. We found it, and that became in the end. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:28:48):

Okay. I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So you're sitting there working on this idea that started as a rap song somehow and nobody's feeling it, but for some reason you just keep going as opposed to ditching it. And then at some point in that session, the spark hits.

Jake Pitts (01:29:07):

Yeah, it was Enough is enough. This isn't working. We have to do something different. And that's where that lightning bolt struck and Okay,

Eyal Levi (01:29:15):

But did you keep the same, we had to do something different. Do you mean something different to this preexisting song, or did you basically ditch it and start from scratch?

Jake Pitts (01:29:27):

It was pretty much just, let's throw this away and start over.

Eyal Levi (01:29:32):

Okay. So it started as a rap song. You threw that out. How did you then start over? I

Jake Pitts (01:29:37):

Don't even know. Thinking back it was, it's probably all a blur. Making that whole album was crazy, but I mean, we had many days like that. I can't recall the exact

Eyal Levi (01:29:45):

Fair enough.

Jake Pitts (01:29:46):

It wasn't like that was the one time it happened. It happened all the time that there were so many songs. I had these sessions where I'm like from that album that I'm like, what is this? There was just some madness that was being created, and like I said, we would sometimes write four songs a day, and out of those four songs, sometimes none of them got used, but the ideas got put down the start of them. So there's ideas there, and I've pulled them up before and I just laugh. I can tell in there that there's a good song somewhere in these ideas, but it's not a black Vale song. It's somebody else. So that's kind of the situation. It was like, well, there's good songs there. This could be a good song. I could see where it could go somewhere, but at that time being like, we're making a blackville record. This is not it. We got to stop doing this and do something different. And there was a lot of moments like that, making that record.

Eyal Levi (01:30:48):

I think that that's one of the biggest differences between bands that do well and bands that don't. So for instance, have you ever noticed that there's a big thing that local bands do? Local bands who tend to stick around for a long time? There's some local bands who've been around for 20 years

New Speaker (01:31:09):

And

Eyal Levi (01:31:09):

Have never gone anywhere. And one of the reasons I think that is, is because they get too precious about everything that they write. So I know bands personally who, my band started in 2000. They had already been around in the local scene for years when my band just started, and they are still around now, and they're still playing the same nine songs that they've been playing this whole time. And I've seen that lots of times. So it's not just one example, but I think that that's something that basically is one of the biggest mistakes, an up and coming or a band that wants to graduate from the local level can do is to get too precious about shit they're right and not hold their standards high enough. Everyone I know who's in a band who's done well are super brutal about their material and have no problem throwing shit out. If it's not right, just get rid of it.

Jake Pitts (01:32:09):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I know several bands that have made a whole record and then they throw the whole album out and write a new

Eyal Levi (01:32:19):

One, not right.

Jake Pitts (01:32:20):

Yeah. Yeah. I think you got to be okay with knowing that not everything that you do is going to see the light of day. You're going to have, that's why you have to write and write and write and always try to outdo yourself. But in a sense of guitar playing, me and my other guitar player, jinx, we would always say that, oh, we're always trying to outdo ourselves with guitar and everything. And I think we've done that throughout the time, but I've transitioned more into the area of trying to outdo myself as a songwriter, and I've stopped caring so much about maybe making, of course, I love writing great riffs and memorable solos and things like that. It's important, but my focus has become more about how do we make a killer hooky chorus that is just going to grab everybody? What do we do to incorporate elements that are in music right now? And I think for me, it was learning EDM production over the last three years helped me get an edge on bringing in these different influences and styles, and maybe it's not going to be prominent in the mix where it's like, oh, here comes the crazy EDM part, like the corn dubstep

Eyal Levi (01:33:43):

Record.

Jake Pitts (01:33:44):

Yeah, which I actually think is badass. It is cool. And I would not be opposed to doing something like that. Actually, the song my wife and I are going to put out soon, it's interesting. It's very different because we were on this, we're making rock music, and then we're making EDM music, and this is two separate things. How do we balance this? So we actually took this song, we did, we took the EDM format, but created a rock song out of it. So it's like it starts out with the verse and it has this rise. It builds up, builds the tension, and instead of having a big heavy electronic drop, it hits this big rock course. Then the breakdown is just this extremely heavy screaming part I'm doing, and my wife is screaming too together. And it's just this insanely heavy, brutal part into this beautiful soft vocal, and it's, it's just a different take on, it's not the typical rock format, and it's cool. I don't know. It's trying different things like that and just trying to make something different. And I think it's cool to try to bring different elements of different music styles together. I mean,

Eyal Levi (01:35:00):

That's how new genres are created anyways,

Jake Pitts (01:35:02):

And I think it's important. If you look at the hip hop, EDM and pop world, it's like they'll mash everything together, and I don't see why rock music has to be left out of that. I think it's okay to bring different elements into it. I know a lot of people might be like, no, it's got to be heavy all the time. There are people that just want that, and so you don't want to

Eyal Levi (01:35:28):

Alienate them.

Jake Pitts (01:35:28):

Yeah, alienate your fan base or whatever. But if you can subtly bring elements in that kind of make it go, oh, this is a little different. This makes me feel something different, not just like, oh, here's some more music. Here's more songs. There also is, as an artist, as a songwriter, and as I can take my own experience from 10 years ago starting and being very just, I want to play metal. I want to be in a metal band. I want to make heavy music and crazy fast riffs and rip solos, and I want everything to have the fastest double kick in it to where I am now, where it's like I've unreleased stuff but have demoed out full on EDM pop songs. I'm not saying to merge those two worlds, so that might be a little too weird. But growing as an artist, you're not going, I mean, like you said, some local bands are on those same nine songs.

(01:36:22):

Some people maybe don't find that need or want to try new things. And it's like, if you're happy doing what you're doing, then, I mean, by all means, be happy doing what you're doing. But for me, I'm always exploring new things and I want to try something else, and your fan base can maybe the first record, it is your best record. Nothing will ever beat it. It's like, okay, well, we're going to make a new record now, and if it sounds a little bit different, you've got to understand that we're trying to grow as songwriters and artists, and we don't want to just keep writing the same 10 songs.

Eyal Levi (01:36:56):

You can't write the same 10 songs. That's the thing is you're never going to be able to put yourself back in the place that you were when any record happens.

Jake Pitts (01:37:05):

Exactly.

Eyal Levi (01:37:06):

Yeah. That happens to heavy bands all the time. Oh, the first record was the awesome one, blah, blah, blah. You hear that all the time. But I think that criticizing a band for changing or evolving or whatever is just, it's kind of unfair because a record really is a combination of the experiences and just that moment in time, exactly what happened to happen at that moment in time where everybody was emotionally, where everyone was mentally, you can't recreate that scenario. You're at a completely different point in your life. So when bands do that, try to recreate their first record, sometimes I feel like sometimes they end up sounding like a cover band of themselves. You can't really put yourself where you were.

Jake Pitts (01:37:58):

Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. And I mean, that's why when Black Veil did this Duology of the Night, those songs sound like the Old School Black Veil in a sense, because those rifts were from that time period that just never got used. So it was revisiting ideas that were from that time period that wasn't like, oh, we just ripped out this brand new stuff. It was produced now and put together as now. It wasn't the exact idea how it was back then, but it was, oh, this riff and this riff, this will work together.

Eyal Levi (01:38:33):

Yeah, that's different than what I'm talking about.

Jake Pitts (01:38:35):

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. But yeah, you're never going back. We just did this, we put out REIT's wounds, which is the rerecord 10 year anniversary of our first album, and we did a live show from the whiskey playing the album in its entirety. So there's songs that we haven't played in 10 years, some songs we never played, ever. And going back and just relearning it all, even from re-recording it, it's like when we're recording, you can punch, punch, punch, make everything perfect. So learning it in its entirety, it's very complex. And it's like I'm sitting here scratching my head going, how did we write this stuff? How did I come up with this riff? How did Jinx come up with that riff? How did we put this together? It's pretty musically. It's insane. Like you said, that's where our Headspace was at the time. Again, it was our first record we had. It was just trying to outdo every song, outdo the next, and can we write the most complex, insane guitar parts that are like these classical fugues on heavy guitars speaking back and forth to each other in sections. And it was just like madness. And I have tried, I've sat here and tried to be like, I want to write something super insane and complex, and it's not the same style. It's different. It's evolved. Everything is different now,

Eyal Levi (01:39:55):

Which is how it should be, I think.

Jake Pitts (01:39:58):

Yeah. That's why music changes. If it was the same all the time, it would get boring.

Eyal Levi (01:40:04):

Beautiful thing about it, which I wish fans understood, is those records that you love aren't going anywhere. You can still listen to them.

Jake Pitts (01:40:13):

Yep. That's what I always say. It's like if you want a record like that record, go listen to that record. It's that easy. It's

Eyal Levi (01:40:20):

Dependable. It's going to be the same every time. It's not getting deleted. I wish that the audience was more understanding of that, but then again, how can they be? They're not the ones making it.

Jake Pitts (01:40:33):

Sure. Yeah. I mean, you're always going to have criticism with anything you do that you're putting out into the world. Especially now with the social media and YouTube and anything. It's like if you put yourself out there, people are going to come for you either positively or negatively, and it's just no way around it. Yeah, there's no way around it. So yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:40:51):

Is that something that you had to learn how to deal with, or you always been just naturally thick skinned because dude, there's no way to survive in this game without being able to take a certain amount of abuse coming at you from the public or from certain people in the industry. You have to be able to handle a lot of shit. Sometimes I find some people are just born that way to where they don't, they just don't have that chip in them, that it bothers them, but then other people, they learn how to deal with it. Which one are you?

Jake Pitts (01:41:29):

I would say maybe a little of both. So I kind of grew up, nobody taught me this. I don't know how I learned this. It was just my mindset from a very young age of if I want to achieve something in my life, I can do it. If I want something bad enough, I'll get it. And for me, that was, I started playing guitar and I was like, alright, I'm going to be a rock star one day. This is what I want to do. Before I picked up a guitar when I was 13, I was obsessed with the idea of joining the Air Force and becoming a fighter pilot. That's what I wanted to do with my life. And I discovered Metallica and started playing guitar. A yeah, I mean, it's still badass, but I picked up a guitar and it totally changed my course of life and changed my path.

(01:42:18):

And I was like, okay, nope. Scratch that. This is what I really want to do. And I just started playing every day, and I would go to school and go on those college field trips and find out what college you want to go to and what you want to do with your life. And I was like, I already know what I want to do with my life. I already know what I'm going to do. And they're like, oh, what's that? I'm like, I'm going to be a rock star. And people would just laugh at me, just laugh.

Eyal Levi (01:42:45):

Think

Jake Pitts (01:42:45):

About it.

Eyal Levi (01:42:47):

It is one of these things where I would never advise somebody to actually try to do it right, because the odds of failing are

Jake Pitts (01:42:57):

Enormous, but that's part of it, because you're going to fail. Can you pick yourself back up and then learn and try again? Because I think getting success in anything is you're never going to succeed the first time you have to try something and you're most likely probably going to fail at it. And then you have to take that experience and learn from it and try again. And if it doesn't work again, you have to figure out why it's not working and learn more and adjust something, maybe change something. And you have to keep trying. I think a lot of people think that you become successful just like, oh, it just happened. It's like, no, it doesn't just happen. Surprise. You don't understand. I'm about to be 35 years old. I started playing guitar when I was 13. It doesn't just happen. It is my entire life that has gone into trying to make a successful career of where I've gotten to this point.

(01:44:02):

And I'm not at a point that I'm like, oh, cool, I'm chilling. I'm good. It's like, no, I'm still working towards the next thing and the next thing. And it is just something that I think a lot of people can get discouraged from, oh, something didn't work. And then, well, okay, I guess I'm not going to do that again. And it's like, how would that work if you want to be a business person and you're going to create a successful business, you think, I mean, maybe some people get lucky and the first idea works, but I don't know.

Eyal Levi (01:44:37):

I can tell you that there were at least five different iterations of URM before found the one that worked. Yeah, absolutely.

Jake Pitts (01:44:47):

Yeah. So it's just a matter of you got to try something. If it doesn't catch on and work, you learn, you change it, you analyze it, you find out why it's not working. If you can figure out why sooner than later, that's better. But at the same time, especially speaking about music, and if you're an artist and you're being creative, you don't want to just go find what's working and then copy that and just regurgitate that and write that and put it out. You have to, I think the most important thing you can do is be aware of what is working and what's not. But you have to stay true to yourself, and you have to make music that you like and that you enjoy because the second you start catering to what you think other people want, it's all the fun and the joy that you get from making music, which is why any of us start doing it in the first place. It just, it's thrown out the door, gone, and then it's not fun anymore. And then what's the point of doing

Eyal Levi (01:45:45):

It? And you can't predict anyways

Jake Pitts (01:45:47):

What

Eyal Levi (01:45:48):

People are going to like, nobody can predict it. You're just in tune with that or you're not basically, in my opinion.

Jake Pitts (01:45:55):

And a lot of times you might be onto something that isn't exactly it at the time, but things changed so quickly, especially now that what you're doing, you might get discouraged and like, oh, I don't know. Nobody's going to like this, or Nobody likes what I'm doing. But if you just keep doing it and you keep making it better and better, that can become the next hot thing or the next trend. Trends change so quickly now, and it doesn't necessarily matter if it's, I often find if you're trying to recreate what's already popular, you're already behind the game and you're going to lose because by the time you create something and put it out, it's already shifting into something else. And I discovered that with producing EDM music and seeing how fastings evolve in that world where I'm like, oh, this song's really cool right now.

(01:46:46):

I'm going to learn how to, and it was just a learning experience. I'm not pumping out songs or anything in the EDM platform, so to say, but to learn how to do that style and recreate it, by the time I am like, cool, I can do this. It's already changed. And then it's like, oh, this is the next trend and this is the sounds people are using and this is what's happening now and then, okay, you learn that. And that's why I went through so many different styles from pop EDM to trap music, to hard trap, to dubstep. And I went through all the phases of all these different genres because that learning experience for me took me down that path of discovering all these different artists and seeing the trends and who's doing what, and going back and studying where it came from. And guys, you could get a lot of hate for something that you're doing and not even know how big it could be. Like Steve Aoki bringing rappers into EDM and people just being pissed at him like, dude, what are you doing? You're ruining this to becoming one of the biggest EDM DJs in the scene. So

Eyal Levi (01:47:46):

You got to be fearless.

Jake Pitts (01:47:48):

Yeah. I guess going back to the, was I born thick skinned or did I have to learn how to be, it's a little bit of both. I had that I'm going to be a rock star in school and everyone laughing at me thing, you're going to do it no matter what anybody says, I had already decided I was going to do it no matter what anybody said. And I think people laughing at me just made me like, oh, it fueled my fire even more. I was like, oh, you don't know what I'm capable of. Why are you laughing at me? I don't find this funny. I'm serious. And there's like, yeah, okay. And it is just little things like that can really discourage somebody relate or it can do the opposite and just make you want to pursue it even harder. Man,

Eyal Levi (01:48:31):

I remember when, so I quit production to start URM, cold Turkey going from doing real well to suddenly zero. And I remember telling my family and stuff, and people close to me that I'm walking away from a six figure job to start something that's going to do zero, and they're trying to talk some sense into me. It feels a lot like when I wanted to play guitar and people would try to, the same thing you're talking about, it felt like the adult version of that same thing. People were trying to advise me against it or trying to tell me that I'm kind of nuts. Why give up something good you're already doing? Well, I'm doing it anyway, so I'm just letting you know, yeah, this is happening and this is entertaining that you don't believe I could do it, but just check back in two years.

Jake Pitts (01:49:30):

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Basically that's it. It's like if you want something bad enough, you'll make it happen. You'll make it work. And I think a lot of it is your mindset, and it's mind blowing for me to see how many people really don't believe in themselves. Because I always tell people, it's like nobody else can decide for you what you're going to do with your life or what you're going to be successful with, or what you're going to fail at, because those people aren't you. Only you know what you're capable of and what you're willing to the lengths you're willing to go to achieve something. So if you want something bad enough and you're willing to work for it and do whatever it takes to become and learn enough to do that, then nothing can stop you. Somebody's saying, oh, that's not going to work. Stop anybody. Of course not.

Eyal Levi (01:50:23):

It's ridiculous. They're not in your head. So as a teenager, it used to piss me off, but it didn't piss me off when it happened around URM because by then I was mature enough to realize that, well, I'm the one who's got the vision here, not them. So of course they're not going to

Jake Pitts (01:50:44):

Understand it. They're not going to understand it.

Eyal Levi (01:50:45):

Yeah. This isn't their thing. And so all they see is me taking a massive risk, walking away from something super stable. That is the goal for a lot of people's entire careers. People

Jake Pitts (01:50:58):

Love security.

Eyal Levi (01:50:59):

That's what they see. I can't expect them to understand my vision for something. Now they get it, obviously. But you're the one with the vision. So you're the one who has to determine what path you're going to go on to get there, or if you're going to even go on any path to get there in the first place.

New Speaker (01:51:21):

Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Eyal Levi (01:51:22):

Yeah, I agree. Okay. But that's one kind of negativity you have to have a thick skin for. The other one is just pure abuse and hate, and that's different.

Jake Pitts (01:51:32):

Being in the band that I'm in has been the last 10 years, it's just been Blackville Brides is a very controversial band. People either it's polarizing, absolutely hate it, or it's the opposite. It's just like nobody can compare. Blackville. We're Gods, we're the best band in the world. It's one or the other. Maybe over the last 10 years, we've proven ourselves that we didn't go away. People said, oh, you guys won't make it a year. You won't make it two years. You won't make it three years, four years. Well, here we still are and still here, still doing it, making another record, still doing it. Obviously times are different. We can't tour right now, but it's like, alright, we'll do live shows and we'll do livestream shows, and we did that already and it was great, and we're going to keep doing that. And it's like if you have some insane goal in your mind, like, oh, you want to be an astronaut, or you want to be a rock star, you're going to become the next greatest music producer. Nobody can tell you that. You can't do that. People will tell you you can't do it. But if you tell yourself you can't do it, then you won't do it.

Eyal Levi (01:52:35):

You're making your own bed the moment you start doing that.

Jake Pitts (01:52:39):

Yeah, if you start to doubt yourself, then that's it for you. You're already setting yourself up to fail. But if you know that nothing could stop you and nobody can get in your way,

Eyal Levi (01:52:47):

Well, I think there's a level of doubt that's just natural. Like, oh, of course, is this going to work? But it is hard to explain. I know exactly what you're saying. The moment you start to doubt yourself is a moment you fail. But it's a fine line because there are times where obviously if something hasn't worked and you're taking a massive risk and it's not working yet, you got to definitely ask questions and definitely can get scary at times. But I think that the bigger picture is do you believe that you can make it through that? Yeah. Not that you aren't going to have downs. Everybody has downs. It's more about how you let those downs affect you overall, really.

Jake Pitts (01:53:32):

Of course, of course. Taking any kind of entrepreneurial dive or even if you want to be in a band and you want to be in a successful band or anything, the, you're always going to have those moments of, I don't know. I don't know if this is the right move. Is this going to work? Is this not going to work? Because it can be scary. It is just more so I think a thing of it can be scary

Eyal Levi (01:53:57):

Because

Jake Pitts (01:53:57):

There is no sure, it's not like you're going out to get hired at Best Buy and you either get the job or you don't. You have no clue what could happen, but you're just doing what you believe is is the right thing. And it is automatic that you're going to have self-doubt and stuff. And it can be scary, but it's persevering through that and going, Nope, I know it's got to be it. Or if something isn't working, like you said, you got to look at why and see is there something I can do to change it? To make it better, analyze things. And I think a lot of people just start from the aspect, I've noticed this trend, people doubt themselves and are afraid of failure, so they don't even try.

Eyal Levi (01:54:47):

Yes. I've seen that many times.

Jake Pitts (01:54:49):

And that's the biggest failure of all is not even trying, you already failed because you didn't even give it a shot. You got to at least try guaranteed it,

Eyal Levi (01:54:58):

Basically. Yeah.

Jake Pitts (01:54:59):

Yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:55:00):

So, alright. I think that the doubts that come up should be based around is this the right move? Is this going to work out? But the doubt should never be, am I capable of this in my opinion or am I being nuts or whatever? I don't think you should question yourself in that way. At the same time, I don't think people should be delusional either. So there's a very fine line here. It's a balance beam walk almost between staying tunnel visioned enough and focused enough and confident enough and borderline narcissistic enough to feel like you've got something to give the world and you're going to do it no matter what anybody says. But at the same time, you got to be aware enough to know when something you're doing isn't working, why it's not working, or understand that maybe you're not great at something, but you are great at something else.

New Speaker (01:56:00):

It's

Eyal Levi (01:56:00):

Good to know that kind of stuff. I know several people who have careers now because they realized that this one thing that they were going for, they couldn't be the best in the world at, but there's something kind of like it that they could be the best in the world at. And by just altering course five degrees, now they've got success and you can't really figure that shit out without asking questions. Right. So it's a real fine line between doubt and doubt and awareness, I guess.

Jake Pitts (01:56:32):

Yeah, yeah. Definitely agree

Eyal Levi (01:56:35):

With you.

Jake Pitts (01:56:35):

Also, it's speaking on the delusional side of things. If you're a young kid, say you're like me. When I was 13, I started playing guitar. I didn't have it when I said, I'm going to be a rockstar one day. It wasn't in my mind that, okay, when I'm 14 next year I'm going to be a rockstar. It was always in my head like someday I will. And I don't consider myself. Now I'm more mature now. I'm not sitting here like, oh, I'm some egotistical asshole rockstar. I'm so cool.

Eyal Levi (01:57:07):

No, but you made it happen.

Jake Pitts (01:57:08):

I see myself lucky to have had a career in music for the last 10 years and I hope it continues to be that way.

Eyal Levi (01:57:14):

But you know what it's like to be in a big band. You made it happen.

Jake Pitts (01:57:17):

Yeah, I've played Download Festival main stage before Metallica in front of 120,000 people. It's insane. It's such an insane thing to do.

(01:57:27):

And if I were to go back and tell 13-year-old me that, Hey, fast forward a lot of years and you'll do this, it would be like, what? No way. But I think a lot of people get discouraged from things because people are impatient. I think there's a lot of distractions now with social media. It's so easy to just get on your phone and be distracted for an hour. Like, oh, I got to focus again. And I had nothing but time when I was younger and I didn't have a cell phone and I didn't have a lot of friends and I didn't have computers and video games and all this stuff. It was just, I had a guitar. And so in a sense of being fortunate to, I had a guitar, that's what I would spend my time playing and learning songs and learning how to play.

(01:58:15):

And if somebody nowadays, like somebody young listening to this and they're like, oh, I want to be in a band though, and I want to do that, I am driven. You just have to apply yourself. You have to focus and get good at it. And what we touched on earlier, it's like a lot of people want to learn guitar, learn how to sing, and then they want to learn how to record and learn how to mix and shoot videos and do all this stuff. And it's like if you're doing all of that at once, it's just going to be overload, brain overload, and it's going to be really hard to really retain the information because a lot of it for me, it's something that I've, and I'm not sitting here saying like, oh, I figured it all out. I'm the best. I'm constantly learning every single day still.

(01:58:58):

And that's what this industry is, is you're never going to learn it. All things are constantly evolving and changing and new techniques and gear and stuff are coming out and there's always going to be something else and a new way to do something. And you just have, it's like you have to be consistent with, I mean I think being successful with anything, you have to be consistent. Consistency is key, but you have to always be applying yourself. And there's never really an end goal of like, okay, I reached my goal. I was on the cover the guitar world in 2011. I was on the cover, that was one of my childhood goals and I did it, but I did that and then it wasn't like, well, cool, I'm done. I'm good. It's like you do that, you've already set up five more goals that you're going after. And I think that's with any industry that you try to get in. And if you overload yourself with too many things at once, it's going to be difficult to do it all. So I'm not saying don't learn multiple things, but I think it's to streamline, it's kind of a saying of if you're trying to do, you're going to be more successful. Picking one thing and focusing on that and getting that off the ground first.

(02:00:11):

Say let, let's just take guitar for example. Spend two years solid learning guitar. If you're a complete beginner, spend two years, but play every single day and really carve out the time where you're not just playing for five, 10 minutes. You're spending two hours a day playing every single day for two years. You will get good pretty quick. And then, okay, we talked about get proficient in one thing and then move on to the next thing. Because if you're applying yourself to five different things all at once, you're probably not really going to get anywhere too quick with any of 'em. And you're just going to find yourself in this battle of not really getting anywhere where if you just take some time, focus on one thing, get good at that, and then start applying these next things, create a plan and move forward with it.

Eyal Levi (02:01:01):

It reminds me of something that Blasco said actually when he spoke at the URM summit. It's a variation of what we're talking about, but the same principle we're talking about Zach Wild's entrepreneurial ventures, basically the Zack Wild brand, all the products and stuff. And people were asking about branding their own unsigned bands and having products and all that stuff. And he was like, look, consider Zach like an airplane that went down this runway, which is the guitar God runway. And he ran out of runway and then took off and had to do something else. He completed that mission basically the become a Guitar God mission, which then allowed him to start doing all those other ventures. But instead of becoming a guitar God and sustaining that long enough to become a legend, if he had started a coffee company instead of practice guitar or split up his time, what he has now would not have been possible. So same kind of idea is make something happen. I like to say you can do anything you want, but not all at the same time.

Jake Pitts (02:02:16):

Exactly. Yeah. For me was I became a guitar player and I got good at it before I even tried to be in a band and play with other people, I got to the point where I felt comfortable playing. I was like, I'm solid player. And anytime I did, oh, I'm going to go audition for this band, or I'm going to go play with these guys and see how it goes. Every single time it was without a question, it was like, you're hired, we want you in the band, you're great. And there was no sorry man, you didn't cut it. It was never that situation. It was every single time I would get the job. And I think that's important. You have to be good before you try to go do those things. And then blackmail happened and I found that artist success. I had already gone to recording school and whatnot and started dabbling with recording because I felt comfortable with my guitar playing. I'm not going to say I'm the best guitar player in the world. People can shred circles around me.

Eyal Levi (02:03:14):

You were proficient enough for what you wanted to do.

Jake Pitts (02:03:16):

Yeah, exactly. And then I started developing like, well, I know it's important not only because I know it's important, but because I'm interested in it too. You've also got to be interested in what you're doing obviously, or you're just not going to do it. But I wanted to learn how to record because I wanted to develop songwriting skills and I wanted to be able to take these rifts that I'm playing and build them into something more. I want to be able to play it back and hear it with drums and stuff on it. And so I got good guitar. I found success in a band as I started developing some recording skills. And for a long time I wasn't really developing those skills. It was like I was picking up things here and there and I was getting better at recording and it was more so I was learning how to record things. And I didn't even start messing with mixing yet. It was more so just learning how to record things and how to record things the right way and learning about the right gear and what's good. And I mean, nowadays you can make almost, if you know what you're doing, you can pretty much make anything sound good if you know what you're doing and you record it the right way.

Eyal Levi (02:04:24):

Key being,

Jake Pitts (02:04:25):

Knowing what you're doing, knowing what you're doing. Exactly. And so for me, up until five years ago, it was learning how to record things. And I still learn today. Like I said, you never stop learning. And in 2015 is when I really took the dive into, okay, I want to learn how to mix and make it sound crushing now and again, here I am in 2020 and I'm producing and mixing I albums and putting things out, and I'm being hired to do it again because it sounds good enough. And I'm constantly learning and out doing my, myself and my mixes get better and better every time. But again, it's like I didn't do this all at once. It is Stepping Stones. Five years ago I took the plunge into, I'm really going to learn how to mix properly. And you don't just learn it, right? It's not like you learn it and that's it. It's, I'm still learning. Five years later, I'm still here learning

Eyal Levi (02:05:22):

Man. We get some URM students that started mixing three months ago, and then they'll join

New Speaker (02:05:28):

And

Eyal Levi (02:05:29):

Within two weeks they'll be like, my mixes don't sound like I want them to. You guys are scamming me. Oh man, dude. I mean, that's a very small number of people. It is just funny when it happens. So you've been doing this three and a half months and you're bummed that your mixes don't sound like Josh Wilber. How about 15 more years?

Jake Pitts (02:05:56):

Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. That's what I'm talking about. When people try to, you want to do all these things at once. You've been playing guitar for two years on and off, and it's like, Hey, I'm in a band and recorded the demo and check out my demo. And it's like, I'll hear it and I'll just like, some stuff's great that people send some stuff. I'm just like, what in the world?

Eyal Levi (02:06:18):

Well, there is talent out there.

Jake Pitts (02:06:19):

Of course there is for sure. But a lot of the people, it's just like, you need to focus. Just keep going. I not to be discouraging, keep going. That's awesome. You're doing it, but you got to keep going and you got to keep working at it because there's a lot of work to be done, obviously. And I mean, especially with mixing, it's like, man, it took me five years just to, before I even took the plunge into mixing, I started dabbling here and there and learning plugins. And I think one of the hardest things to learn, and I think probably anybody that's like a mixed engineer can say is just understanding and being able to hear compression and when you're supposed to use it, how much, it's a tough one. It's difficult. And then I'm still learning with it. It's like it's a thing that when you first start out, it's like, I can't imagine only mixing for three months. And I could say right there, your mixes don't sound like that. You don't understand compression, don't

Eyal Levi (02:07:17):

Understand anything.

Jake Pitts (02:07:19):

Anything. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (02:07:19):

At that point. But so when you were young and you were thinking, you were talking about how you didn't say, I want to be a rock star. By 14, however, did you realize, could you imagine that it was really actually going to take decades to get to? I mean, it took a long time and decades for a kid is centuries to an adult, basically.

Jake Pitts (02:07:48):

Yeah. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (02:07:48):

Did you think it would take that long?

Jake Pitts (02:07:50):

I honestly never even thought about it.

Eyal Levi (02:07:52):

You just were going to do it.

Jake Pitts (02:07:54):

I was just going to do it. I didn't have a plan B, I didn't have any other, it was

Eyal Levi (02:07:57):

Nobody who makes it work has a plan B. That's what I've decided. I don't know a single person who's made it, it happen that has a plan B.

Jake Pitts (02:08:07):

Yeah, it was all or nothing. So that was my path that I took and that what I was going to go down, and I didn't have any other option but to stick it out.

Eyal Levi (02:08:17):

Glad you made it work.

Jake Pitts (02:08:19):

But again, I have to say, it's like I applied myself very heavily into, I can't tell you how much time, even to this day, just watching tutorials and it's not even like that. I'm trying to learn something new. I go watch things just to keep things refreshed in my mind. I already know how to get great guitar tones, but I'll go look up like, oh, I just got this plugin. I want to see how somebody else got a crushing tone with it, and I'll learn how someone else did it, what they use. It's just constantly learning new techniques, how somebody else does it, and just even refreshing my memory or finding just a slightly alternate way that somebody else might do something. And I go, huh, I never thought of it like that. And that's what will make you grow and become better and better and better.

(02:09:09):

And anybody listening like you can't expect to achieve greatness overnight. It just doesn't happen. It takes a lifetime. I can't sit here to this day and say, oh, I've achieved greatness. I'm good. I'm happy with where I'm at. I am stoked to have had a career for the last 10 years, and I am going to keep working hard to make sure that I can stay in the game and keep doing this, whether it's songwriting, producing music, or being the artist, touring, putting out albums. For me, it's just what I like to do. My spare time was always when I had to work a day job, I would go to work, and the second I got home, I would open up Pro Tools and ground my guitar and I'd start making music, and I would record till two, three in the morning and like, oh, I got to go to sleep for three hours and then get up and go to Back to work.

New Speaker (02:10:01):

And

Jake Pitts (02:10:02):

That I would just repeat that process because for me, making music and recording in my free time, that's what I did. I didn't find it like, oh, I have to go do this. I was eager to, I can't wait to get home and I can just work on some new music idea I have in my head or something. And if you don't have that and you don't find yourself thinking every moment, you can't wait to work on your idea or get it done or whatever it is, then you're not doing what you actually love. You got to.

Eyal Levi (02:10:36):

I

Jake Pitts (02:10:36):

Agree. The most important thing is to find what it is that you absolutely love and pursue that.

Eyal Levi (02:10:43):

Well, there's a big difference between actually loving it and loving the idea of it. Sure. It's two totally different things. I think a lot more people are in love with the idea of it than the actual thing.

New Speaker (02:10:53):

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Eyal Levi (02:10:55):

I agree with you completely. Anyways, I think this is a good place to stop the episode. I want to thank you for coming on, dude. It's been awesome talking to you. Thank you.

Jake Pitts (02:11:04):

Yeah, absolutely. It's been great.

Eyal Levi (02:11:06):

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 al 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.