ZAKK CERVINI: Making a #1 album with no gear, mixing on headphones, and why guitars are back

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners, and if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al 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. My guest today is Zach Sini, who was actually on twice in our first year, but in the past five years, he has come a long way. He's basically worked his way up from writing and producing for New England hardcore and punk acts to being the right hand man of John Feldman, to then moving out on his own and working with industry giants such as Blink 180 2, poppy Architects, young Blood, bringing the Horizon and a ton more. I present you Zach Sini. Zach Sini, welcome back to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:01:56):

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. How are you doing? Doing great, man.

Speaker 1 (00:01:59):

It's been a busy five years, hasn't

Speaker 2 (00:02:00):

It? Has it been five years since I've been here?

Speaker 1 (00:02:03):

It's been five years. You came on in 2015.

Speaker 2 (00:02:06):

Wow, that's crazy. That is quick. Yes, it has been a busy five years. It has been a very busy five years. Yeah, a lot has happened in the past couple years, but feels good to be back. I'm stoked.

Speaker 1 (00:02:17):

Well, thank you for coming back and I love seeing when people that I've known for a while have a great trajectory, which I never really doubted in your case, but it's just cool to see it kind of coming to fruition after all the different things you've done and been through.

Speaker 2 (00:02:34):

Oh, man, I appreciate that. It's crazy to hear you say that because to me, I don't feel any different. I still feel exactly the same as I felt five years ago or 10 years ago. I, of course, yeah, I still feel like the exact same as when I was making records in my parents' basement. I certainly am busier than I've ever been, but I am definitely happier than I was five years ago. I'll say that much. But yeah, in terms of the way that, I guess it's just I do it every day, but it doesn't personally feel to me I'm a different person than I was five years ago. I still feel kind of the exact same, which is kind of weird. So yeah, it's funny. It's funny to hear people say stuff like that, but I appreciate that. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:03:19):

I understand the feeling, man. I kind of don't think that your external world changes much about you. The only way to really, if you want to change something, you have to do it on your own, but I don't think that external circumstance changing is going to make you feel differently.

Speaker 2 (00:03:35):

Yeah, you're a hundred percent right. I go into every single project and everything that I work on, it still is with the same goal, which is the fact that I love music. I love working on music. I love writing music, mixing music, producing music, and I love helping artists make the best music that they possibly can. And that's been driving me to do this since I started, and the way I feel about music and helping people make music just hasn't really ever changed. I've just have always loved it so much. So I guess that's why it feels the same.

Speaker 1 (00:04:10):

Do you get phased at all when you're working with a huge artist, or is it just you're doing your thing always?

Speaker 2 (00:04:18):

No, I don't.

Speaker 1 (00:04:19):

That's probably why it's working out.

Speaker 2 (00:04:21):

Sometimes once in a while, there can be something big that I work on that can be a little bit intimidating or a little bit scary, but 20 minutes into doing it, it just turns into this is the same thing and this is doing what I do. So yeah, honestly, I look forward to working with the people that might be big or scary. The bigger artists that I work with generally is an easier, more fun process for me, so I really look forward to stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (00:04:52):

Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (00:04:53):

It comes down to a couple things. So during this quarantine, it's been pretty interesting. I've gotten to make records with a few bands that I'm a huge fan of that do pretty well, and I've been able to see very clearly why they are as successful as they are. Two examples of that are bring me the horizon and architects,

Speaker 1 (00:05:13):

Those mixes sound great, by the way.

Speaker 2 (00:05:15):

Oh, thank you, man. I really appreciate that. I feel super honored to work with both those bands and they're so amazing at what they do, and both of those bands, everything is in-house and they produce themselves entirely. They write and produce, and in cases, they even direct their own music videos and do their own photo shoots and stuff like that. So they basically are entirely self-sufficient when it comes to making music and producing it on an a plus level. And the fact that they are able to do that just makes them unstoppable to anyone, because we're in this quarantine and there's all these artists that want to get in the studio and that want to make music, but bring me an architects, they're not beholden to anyone else. They can just do it on their own and they can spend as much time on it as they want to.

(00:06:04):

And yeah, they can do their own thing and it makes them unstoppable. And so it's really cool when they send it to me, it already sounds like amazing, and they already have very clear defined visions of where they want it to go, and I think that stuff just really inspires me, the fact that they're able to do that, and it makes it so much easier to work on because there's less people that you have to deal with, and they're just amazing bands that make amazing music, that have very clear visions. So that's everything that you can ask for,

Speaker 1 (00:06:35):

Man. When the home recording thing started to pick up how a lot of mixers and producers were very against the idea of musicians starting to record themselves and getting into it, I think mainly they were afraid that it was going to take their work away, but I never thought it was a bad thing. I thought it was going to lead to situations like this where it's the best of all worlds in a way, because the producer doesn't have to get involved in things that they don't have to be involved in. I guess not every artist has that kind of vision though.

Speaker 2 (00:07:10):

Yeah, certainly. It doesn't work for every single band. It is just really cool for me to see certain bands that it does work for. That's what inspires me. But again, yeah, it doesn't work for every band. Not every band has someone in the band that knows a do and knows how to tune vocals and knows how to do all the kind of engineering stuff while simultaneously being able to write songs and come up with amazing song arrangement ideas and kind of do all of that. It's just not every band is going to have that, and that's completely fine. That's okay. It's just really cool to see bands that do have that in this day and age. It inspires me.

Speaker 1 (00:07:47):

It definitely puts them a step ahead in lots of ways.

Speaker 2 (00:07:52):

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Agreed. Because they don't have to wait for months to get in the studio with some producer. They don't have to wait to do songwriting sessions. They can just do it on their own time when they want, and they can spend more time on it than any producer in the world would ever be able to spend on it, because it's all them and it's all on their schedule.

Speaker 1 (00:08:14):

I think one of the biggest problems with the music industry traditionally has been how long everything takes, having to wait for things, and also having too many people relying on too many other people for things that they could just do themselves. And I think that the modern artists, the modern engineer, just modern everything is to do as much as you can. I think that's kind of the way things are going, and people who have figured it out are going to do really well.

Speaker 2 (00:08:47):

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Another cool thing with working with those bands in general is that there's certain bands where you work with, and the mixed notes can be a little ambiguous. It can be something in the pre-chorus doesn't feel right, and I'm like,

Speaker 1 (00:09:02):

And you just have to guess what it is.

Speaker 2 (00:09:03):

Yeah, it doesn't really tell me anything, but I'm willing to spend time on it and try different things, but I don't exactly know what that is. Whereas with architects, their guitar player, Josh was like, I don't like the guitar tone. So here's a stem. I rerecorded all the guitars and bounced them down to a single stem and just drop it in, and that's what I want. And I was like, sick. Amazing. That's incredible. That's literally is a dream scenario. And so it kind of was like that with both of those bands where it would be like, we don't like this vocal, the way the vocal sounds in the chorus, so here's a new performance of the chorus and just fly it in. It was kind of a lot of notes like that, which was awesome because I don't get that every day. So it was really cool.

Speaker 1 (00:09:48):

It's just so interesting about that because thinking about times where I've seen other mixers get really mad about that sort of thing, and almost like, why are they insulting my guitar kind of vibes? Whereas you've got the complete opposite attitude, like anything to make it better, which I think is the attitude. You should have

Speaker 2 (00:10:14):

Mixed notes, never. Again, it depends on the situation, but I am always willing to do whatever it takes to make everyone happy as long as everyone's cool about it. But I kind look at mixing more as a collaboration, I guess, because when I do the first mix, the band is coming to me because they're trusting that I'm going to be able to execute the vision that they have in their heads, but to a point, and maybe they like my taste in the way I do certain things, but to a point, it's kind of guessing a little bit. So it's like the better, the rough mix is usually good because if it's a good rough mix, then I can just find ways to improve upon that. And that way I know that I'm still keeping the band's vision intact while making it better, I think. But to an extent, yeah, I'm kind of guessing if I go out and take risks and put a certain effect on a vocal or pan a guitar a certain way or something, it's something that I think is cool, but I don't know if the band's going to like it because they're not with me the whole time.

(00:11:22):

So I look at it as a collaboration and if mixed notes, they don't phase me, I enjoy it as long as everyone's cool, because I think it ultimately usually yields a better product.

Speaker 1 (00:11:35):

Has it ever phased you or have you just naturally been cool with it?

Speaker 2 (00:11:39):

It's just about getting your ego out of the way. When I was coming up, if someone said that they didn't like my mix or whatever, it hurt me. But now I'm these kind of years down the road and I've worked with artists, I've been able to see how artists' brains work in certain ways and stuff, and I try to open a dialogue with artists before I mix or work on their songs just to make sure that we kind of already are on the same page. And that being said, if I mix the song and they don't like it and want to go with someone else, that doesn't really hurt my feelings either, because I know that I did the best job that I could and I'm not the right person for the job, and that's okay.

Speaker 1 (00:12:22):

It's probably better that they just go with someone else than have to live with something they're not happy with and then put that into the world and tell people that they're not happy with it.

Speaker 2 (00:12:33):

Yes, a hundred percent to an extent, because you can change songs out on DSPs and stuff nowadays, but when you put music out into the world, it kind of will always exist in some form or another forever. So I try to keep that in mind that I work with a ton of artists and I make a ton of songs and work on a ton of songs, but each specific artist that I work with that is their songs are their hard work and their art. And the culmination they've, they've worked so hard on everything that they've done. So I just try to keep in mind that it's forever for them, and that's another reason that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make it whatever they want it to be because it's their thing that's going to live on forever.

Speaker 1 (00:13:18):

Do you find also that the bigger artists, since they've done it a few times and they're seasoned, the kind of notes and ideas and direction you get back from them is less stupid?

Speaker 2 (00:13:32):

100%. So it does make sense that it's going to be easier for a bigger artist that has had successful records, that has kind of established their sound to an extent. It's going to be a little easier for them to know what they want versus a developing band that maybe hasn't quite figured out their sound yet because they're still shooting in the dark a little bit more. So to that extent, it's easier when I'm working with bigger artists that know what they're going for and know exactly what kind of record that they want to make, then yeah, that makes sense why it's going to be easier. Versus a baby band, they might not know exactly what they're doing. They might not have experience in the studio. They might not have ever had their songs mixed before. So yeah, it depends.

Speaker 1 (00:14:19):

Do you feel like with baby bands often you need to define the vision for them a little more?

Speaker 2 (00:14:25):

Yes, I do, and I do enjoy doing that stuff. It's, it's such a commitment to take on. So at the moment, I haven't been taking on that kind of stuff. I will do that more in years to come, but at the moment, I've really been enjoying working with more established acts because I just love doing it, and I just haven't really had the time to develop a baby band. I'm looking forward to doing that again someday, but I haven't been doing too much of that lately. A lot to take on. You can't do too many of 'em at once, because you really got to put your heart and soul into everything, and yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:15:04):

It's a lot of work. It really, really is. Do you think that your experience working under some pretty impressive, demanding people like Will and Feldman got you ready for the pressure of what you're doing now?

Speaker 2 (00:15:21):

Absolutely. 100%. I learned so much from the people. So yeah, I worked under Machine for a while. I worked under Will Putney for a while, and yeah, I worked under John Feldman for a while, and I learned all of those producers are so different and have such different skill sets,

Speaker 1 (00:15:40):

But so demanding,

Speaker 2 (00:15:41):

Yes, extremely demanding, very, very high standards, and also have very different tastes and very different skill sets. So yeah, it definitely helped a lot. My biggest thing is that I will outwork anyone. I will outwork you. I don't care who you are. I will work harder than you, and I will work more hours than you if I have to. That can be unhealthy sometimes, but that's just kind of is the way that I am. It's kind of the price you pay. Yeah. But yeah, so working under those producers, it was so demanding at times that when I stopped doing that and started doing my own thing to an extent, it was kind of like, okay, I'll never have to work that hard again, is what I thought. And now I do kind of work harder and more hours now, but how is that possible?

(00:16:34):

I'm more on my own schedule now, and I have a great team. I have a great management team and business management team and everything behind me, but I run my own business and I don't have a full-time assistant or a full-time person working for me. So as the years go on, the more projects that I do and the bigger bands that I work with, since I'm kind of a one man show to an extent, it can just get to be a lot. There's many years of, can you send those stems from five years ago? Can you send the instrumental from whenever and stuff and stuff like that happens every single day.

Speaker 1 (00:17:11):

Why are you a one man show

Speaker 2 (00:17:13):

To this point? Honestly, I've only been doing my own thing right now for about three years or so. And so I do hire on assistance from project to project, and I'm starting to do that a lot more in the past six months than I have. Honestly, for the first two years, it was just because I was able to handle everything completely on my own, and I had to work a lot, but I was kind of okay with it, and I was fine saving the money and doing it by myself. But now as I'm growing up and I'm taking on more work than I've ever done, and the expectations keep getting higher and higher, there's just certain tasks where it makes way more sense to pay to outsource them to someone. So yeah, I'm working towards hiring someone full on, but I just haven't gotten there yet, honestly.

Speaker 1 (00:18:04):

And I remember when you were working for Feldman, you told me that the workdays were like 16, 17, 18 hours long.

Speaker 2 (00:18:11):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:18:12):

So what are you working 19 or 20 or 21 hours now? Do you sleep?

Speaker 2 (00:18:16):

Yeah, it's kind of a weird thing. So this quarantine has forced me to completely switch up the way I work in a way that I love. So I have this awesome studio in North Hollywood that's owned by my management, that's my home base. But when quarantine started, the studio shut down and no one could go there for a couple months. So I had to take my computer home and take my whole setup home, and I live in an apartment, so I can't really be blasting music. So I was like, okay, this is an experiment. I got to learn how to mix and work on music differently. I took a month or two and developed some techniques and learned how to do everything that I do on headphones and have gotten actually better results than I've ever gotten before. So I kind of love that. But I basically just bought a laptop, made my setup as small, condensed in the box as possible.

(00:19:11):

And so now I'm able to work at home way more and just get a lot more done at home and not have to go to the studio every day or all the time, which has been awesome, really convenient. So it's just my work schedule. It can be really crazy. I work with a lot of bands from, I got projects going on in England, Japan, Australia, kind of all over the globe, and everyone's time zone is all over the place. So I usually wake up around six 30 or 6 45, and I'll usually will have a bunch of texts or emails or things that need to get done. So I'll just literally wake up, brush my teeth, walk over to my desk, knock these tasks out real quick, go work out, go eat breakfast, and then just come back. And then I just go and it's like, yeah, I'll take a break to eat dinner or something at some point, but I kind of never really turn off because my setup is right there. So I'm always doing something much to my girlfriend's dismay.

Speaker 1 (00:20:16):

I was about to ask how she feels about it.

Speaker 2 (00:20:19):

On a serious note, just to be real with you, I've been in LA I think eight or nine years at this point. And

Speaker 1 (00:20:27):

Has it been that long?

Speaker 2 (00:20:29):

Yeah. Yeah. So it's been almost 10 years that I've been in LA and I've realized that I really have not, I love to work so much is the thing that I have not enjoyed living in LA barely at all, really for the last almost 10 years, which is kind of a crazy thing to think about. So that's another reason that I'm trying to outsource some more of my work and just going into 2021, just be a little smarter about, be a little more picky about projects because I love everything. Anyone that comes to me with anything, I want to do it. And then my managers have to sometimes talk me out of, you don't have time to do this because I love everything. Yeah. So the past couple years, I've just have said yes to everything, just try to do as much as possible because I love it. But yeah, going into 2021, I'm making a very conscious effort to try and find a little bit more of a balance between living life and working, which is hard because my hobby turned into my career. We all know it. So it's like, this is what I love to do. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:21:45):

I feel like for successful artists or producers, entrepreneurs, like anybody who basically develops their career out of their own thing that they kind of created from scratch, I feel like balance is something they're always looking for, but I'm not so sure that it's ever going to be a hundred percent possible, though I don't think that you should stop trying because it's always good to try. It's almost like since you're not working for someone else, it's your own business that if you stop working, the wheels stop turning basically.

Speaker 2 (00:22:21):

Exactly. That's a part of it too. It's like, yeah, when I'm not doing something, sometimes I feel, yeah, I know I could be doing something, so that makes me want to do something. Yeah, it it's a hard thing and yeah, I know I'm not going to find the perfect balance, and that's okay.

Speaker 1 (00:22:42):

Well, if you do let me know.

Speaker 2 (00:22:44):

Yeah. I didn't even realize how much having an assistant or how much outsourcing, making drum mid, how much time and energy that could really save me versus what it would cost me. And I've been having someone do that for the past six months, and I pay them decently well, but it has really saved me a lot of time and has really helped me out. So yeah, I'm trying to find more ways to do stuff like that. Again, the pandemic made it hard as well because there was just a long time that I couldn't really see people in person and maybe teach them things that I would want to teach them the correct way or something.

Speaker 1 (00:23:28):

Do you feel like the whole don't mix in headphones thing is a myth?

Speaker 2 (00:23:32):

A hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (00:23:33):

I feel like this pandemic is kind of showing that.

Speaker 2 (00:23:36):

So I figured out a way to reference mixes and mixing headphones that will, I'm still kind of perfecting the system, but I took a week when this pandemic thing started back in March to figure out how am I going to do this? Because I'd never really mixed in headphones my entire life. And I remember when I was working for Will Putney, this must've been back in 2010 or 2011, I remember him telling me he did this when I was there. He mixed this Amity Affliction record in three or four days in his headphones, in his bedroom or something, and it came, and he never heard it on a Paris.

Speaker 1 (00:24:21):

It was in a hotel room,

Speaker 2 (00:24:22):

In a hotel room, and he'd never heard it on a pair of speakers. And then it came out and it was one of his most successful records. And I was like, okay. So it is possible. I personally, so first of all, whatever you mix on, it's a reference. So the biggest thing that matters is that you know what you're mixing on. A lot of people just happen to know studio monitors. That's what they know, that's the best thing that they know. But as long as you can hear a decent amount of frequencies and just know how something is supposed to sound on a given source, that's it. That's kind of it. And headphones are getting so good. My laptop, I probably bought it six months ago, and the speakers out of it, the base response is incredible. And I'm like, think about laptops from 10 years ago. It sounded So mid rangey with no high end and no low end.

Speaker 1 (00:25:18):

What kind of laptop?

Speaker 2 (00:25:19):

It's a MacBook Pro.

Speaker 1 (00:25:21):

Okay. One of the new ones.

Speaker 2 (00:25:23):

Yeah, it's like the new banging MacBook Pro.

Speaker 1 (00:25:28):

Okay. I just bought one and it arrives in two weeks, and I was looking at the description and it was talking about the speakers being full frequency, and I was like, really?

Speaker 2 (00:25:37):

Yeah, laptop

Speaker 1 (00:25:38):

Speakers.

Speaker 2 (00:25:39):

They sound like I wouldn't listen to music on 'em all the time, but yeah, it sounds great. I was like, wow. And then my roommate that I lived with for a super long time, he produces exclusively Japanese EDM music and he's really incredible, but he doesn't even own a para monitor. He's never owned a para monitor. He doesn't even own an interface. And he'd be on Ableton just on his laptop, just on headphones, just making these crazy sounding EDM songs. Yeah. So yeah, over the years I just saw certain people working on different systems. I actually, I worked with Skrillex for a little bit. We became friends through Matt Good for a little bit. And so we did a couple things together. And he, again, same thing. He would just mainly work off his laptop on headphones or off his laptop speakers or something. No

Speaker 1 (00:26:30):

Bullshit. Just right to it.

Speaker 2 (00:26:32):

And he has the best sounding stuff ever. His stuff sounds insane. So I was like, okay, yeah, it is possible. So I made a point to just learn my headphones and just learn my Sennheiser HD 600 headphones, what stuff sounds like on them. And then I just had a pair of Apple earbuds laying around. I was like, these things, they're like old ones. And I was like, they sound pretty bad. But if I put 'em on, then I can kind of pinpoint the harsh frequencies in a mix, like the harsh mid range of a kick drum attack or the harsh part of a vocal or a guitar. And I can also tell Balance really good on them as well. So just between those two kind of things, I kind of figured out how to mix on headphones and it's the best thing I've ever done.

Speaker 1 (00:27:23):

You just said that headphones are getting way better.

Speaker 2 (00:27:25):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:27:25):

Do you think that's part of it? Whereas maybe five, 10 years ago we didn't have such good options?

Speaker 2 (00:27:33):

I think so. I mean, AirPods are amazing. I use AirPods every day at the gym, and I check every mix that I do. I don't mix on the AirPods, but I'm sure that I could, and I'm sure that I would love it, but they sound so good that I honestly just love mixing a song on something that sounds kind of worse, and then listening to it on my AirPods because it just sounds way better and makes me feel better about myself. It makes me feel like I don't suck. But yeah, I just bought the AirPod Pros too. I haven't tried those out yet, but I've heard that they're even better. Again, it's when I listen to AirPods, I can hear everything that I need to hear. I can hear the low end, I can hear the high end, I can hear clarity, I can hear Punch, I can hear it all. I don't see what's the difference between them and some studio monitor. And the other thing that I love is that you can take 'em anywhere and they'll be the exact same. You don't need to build out a giant room and spec it out.

Speaker 1 (00:28:32):

That's the beauty. I'm using these in ears from Empire Ears. That sound pretty amazing. I mean, their big selling point is that it sounds the same everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, not only does it sound accurate, but it's not going to change.

Speaker 2 (00:28:49):

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm very big on that. That's a big reason that I made the effort to buy a nice laptop and stuff and have my setup be so portable because there's all these artists that I work with. There's a lot of young kids that I work with that just expect stuff really quickly, or they're like, oh, come over right now and let's do this. And I just wanted my setup to be the exact same as it could be anywhere, for instance. So this band, all Time Low that I've worked a lot with, this actually is a really cool story. So they've been a band for I think 16 years at this point.

Speaker 1 (00:29:27):

Yeah, they've been around.

Speaker 2 (00:29:28):

They've done it all. They've had so many. They've made classic records, they've made so many records. They've switched their genre. They've had number one records. They've sold out Arena Tours, they've done it all. They're an incredible band, amazing band. Have not had a member Change friends since high school. It's a crazy scenario. They're crazy. And so they've done it all over the past couple of years, and one thing that they never really had was radio Success and Radio success. It's such a different world to me. Some stuff that I do has success on the radio, but it's never something that I think about. I've never made a song and to be like, oh, this is going to do well on the radio because I don't know what that means, and I feel like I would just be wasting my time if I did that. And so they had tried to do some of that and it hadn't worked out the way that they wanted to.

(00:30:24):

So they wanted to make this record last year, and they were like, we're just going to get a bunch of our friends and we're just going to rent a house in Palm Springs for a month, and we're just going to set up a studio in a closet and just go in the pool and write songs and make a record with our friends and just have a good time and have the whole band living there for a month. And this is something that they hadn't done in over 10 years, had the band living under the same roof recording together. They hadn't done that in forever. And so I was like, okay, cool. So that was the first step of me being like, I want to take my exact studio to this house in Palm Springs, and it needs to be a small setup. So I just brought my computer and my Apollo and a couple guitars, my Kemper and an SM seven B, and that's pretty much it, and we made this record, it was me them, and then another amazing producer.

(00:31:24):

His name's Andrew Goldstein, super good friend of mine. He worked on a couple songs of those too, and also our friend Kevin and our friend Phil, and so it was just the band and all their friends, and we made a record kind of for fun, and this week, the single of it has had 10 weeks at number one on alternative radio 10, which is crazy, insane, insane. They made that record with the intent of we're not trying for radio, we just want to make a record that we love, that our fans are going to love with our friends in a house with no gear whatsoever, and it's their biggest one they've ever had.

Speaker 1 (00:32:01):

The thing about No Gear really is the way of the future.

Speaker 2 (00:32:06):

I agree. It's crazy because yeah, every time Will Putney is such a good friend of mine, and we text all the time and every time I watch videos of his stuff, I'm like, oh, man, I want to buy gear so bad. I want gear so bad. And I was literally texting him last night and I was like, dude, your videos are making me want to buy gear so bad. And he's like, I wish I could do this stuff without the gear,

Speaker 1 (00:32:28):

Dude. I think he doesn't need it. I think he just likes it.

Speaker 2 (00:32:31):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:32:32):

And that's

Speaker 2 (00:32:33):

Fun

Speaker 1 (00:32:34):

As well as that he could mix in the box and it would still sound incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:32:38):

Yeah, it's crazy for me. I've tried so many times. I've tried to buy around this room. I have bus compressors, summing mixers. There's different gear that I've bought over the years and I've just never been able to make it work. I always try, and then I always just wind up being back in the box and I'm like, I don't know. But yeah, I work in the box and I do think that it is the way of the future, and so I'm happy that I've been able to figure out a way of doing it that works for me and sounds good.

Speaker 1 (00:33:10):

Do you think it's a generational thing, as in you grew up in this era where in the box technology was already a thing? Yeah, totally. As opposed to people who grew up when it didn't exist, and so they're kind of psychologically tied to that old way of doing things for better or for worse, and it's not like it's bad or something, but they just can't let it go for whatever reason. Never. I mean, I know you worked in places that had it obviously, but you come from a generation where the world had already kind of moved on, so you don't have those shackles.

Speaker 2 (00:33:46):

Yeah. Well, I think it's just whatever you're comfortable with and whatever inspires you and whatever you're good at using and helps you. I literally make stuff sound worse when I use not in the box stuff. It literally turns out worse, but when I started, I started messing around on the computer and doing stuff, and 2008, 2009 is when I started and in the box technology was pretty decent at that point.

Speaker 1 (00:34:19):

It was already pretty good,

Speaker 2 (00:34:20):

And also dance music and stuff was on the come up, and that was a huge thing for a while, and all those people were completely in the box too. So I think that that was a part of it for sure. But yeah, it's the same thing for me. I can't make an analog compressor sound as good as I can make in the box compressor sound. I've tried so many times I can't do it for some reason. Whereas some of these people that grew up working with gear, it's probably the opposite for them. They love the gear and they know how to use it, and that's how it is.

Speaker 1 (00:34:54):

A lot of them say that. It doesn't feel like mixing to them if they're not physically touching something and turning a knob.

Speaker 2 (00:35:01):

Yeah, I totally get that. I totally understand that, and I've tried it and it doesn't work for me. Yeah, it's just the way that I came up working on a laptop in a bedroom, and that's what I've gone back to

Speaker 1 (00:35:19):

And I like it. It seems to me too, that part of what is working for you is understanding what works for you, where I think a lot of people might have a certain tendency but feel like it's not correct to do things that way, and so they won't just go with it. Whereas it seems like that that's how you work best, so you're just going with it and it's working.

Speaker 2 (00:35:43):

Yeah. Efficiency is a huge part of my workflow, so I utilize, to get technical for a second, I utilize a lot of the UAD stuff and the way that their console is with the pre-amps and the compressors on that console. I've spent time to learn what I like on the way in with that kind of stuff. There's just so many times that I want to buy gear and stuff, but in the back of my mind, I just know that A, it's going to be expensive, and B, ultimately it's going to slow down my workflow, even if maybe I can find a way to make something better, something like it's going to slow down my workflow, which is going to be less time for me to work or do other stuff, which ultimately is going to be bad. And that's what my girlfriend tries to remind me. Every time we're sitting on the couch and I'm on Sweetwater looking at a summing mixer, she's like, don't do it. Don't do it. So she knows. Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:36:43):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock Loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:37:34):

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

Speaker 2 (00:38:54):

Awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:38:54):

That shit is nuts.

Speaker 2 (00:38:55):

She's an anomaly. Again, I've been very fortunate to work with a lot of amazing artists, and she is unlike any other artist that I've worked with. She's just built herself in such a way that she can do literally anything and it will make sense.

Speaker 1 (00:39:13):

It fits.

Speaker 2 (00:39:14):

Yes, literally anything. There's not a single band that can do that.

Speaker 1 (00:39:19):

Mr. Bungle maybe?

Speaker 2 (00:39:20):

Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Not a single band in our current generation, I guess. Nope. She can put out any kind of music and have the ability to not piss off her fan base in the way that another band that wants to switch their style up will risk losing a large part of their fan base. She doesn't have that in the way that she's built herself, and it's like, it's brilliant and it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:39:43):

What's your role?

Speaker 2 (00:39:44):

Yeah, just producing and writing songs and just kind of doing what I do with everyone. She likes me because I come from a metal background, and so she likes a lot of that stuff, so she likes me for the metal riffs and just making stuff sound heavy, trying to at least,

Speaker 1 (00:40:04):

How do you take an artist like that that's got such a crazy ass vision that's so basically unique and stay on task with it when it's going in 8 million different directions?

Speaker 2 (00:40:18):

We're both super focused people, so when we're in the studio, it's kind of in it just working, and a way that we've found to do things is we just make, again, this wouldn't work with really any other artist, but we kind of can make certain minute long, like mini songs, maybe one's a metal song and then one's a Beach boys type thing, and then one's a trap thing, and just all these little mini songs that have hooks within them, and they could be different keys, different tempos, whatever. And then just figuring out how to transition in and out of them that sometimes it kind of makes sense and sometimes it's really jarring, but that kind of is a workflow or that at least worked for her last record, which is called I Disagree. That's kind of what we did on a lot of the songs. So yeah, there are songs that are more like the title track called I Disagree. It's a bit more of a cohesive thing, which I hope to pursue with her in the future, a little bit less of the sporadic kind of thing, but for that record, yeah, it was a lot of let's make these kind of mini songs and just make people's heads spin. That was the goal. Well, it worked.

Speaker 1 (00:41:38):

It definitely worked. Yeah. Cool. I mean, I feel like bringing me the horizon also kind of inhabit that space where maybe not in the span of one song, they don't hit four genres in one song, but you kind of never know what genre they're going to do next. And I know that some people seem to not like it, but overall they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

Speaker 2 (00:42:03):

Yeah. They're so amazing in so many ways. One of the biggest things with them too is that I find this to be common with a lot of artists that have a similar trajectory as they have is that I'm sure there's a part of them that cares what people thinks because there's a part of all of us with that, but they really just want to make music that they think is cool that they like and then put it out there. And I'm a huge proponent of doing that and the stuff that they like and that they're good at making, just people happen to really like it a lot because it's so sick, but they really, really make music that they love. So that's something that I definitely preach. Again, you have to be kind of smart about it, and it can't be a big, long 20 minute thing of noise unless you're poppy or something. I actually think she did do that at some point.

Speaker 1 (00:43:00):

Yeah, I'm sure she could do that. That's

Speaker 2 (00:43:01):

The driving force. Again, I work with Tom Moreo a lot on his solo music and stuff, and we're good friends and that guy, he doesn't care what anybody thinks. He just wants to make something that gets him off that he thinks is dope, and it makes it so much more fun, and I always think that your audience is able to tell when you were trying to make something that will be successful versus when you're doing something that you actually think is cool.

Speaker 1 (00:43:33):

Have you had that experience of working with artists where they're doing something and it's just because they're checking off boxes?

Speaker 2 (00:43:43):

Oh, yeah, totally. I've done enough of that in the past, whereas when I kind of see that happening these days, I will make an effort to shut it down in one way or another because I know that it's not smart. I've seen enough bands fail from doing that, at least for what I do and the kind of music that I like and the kind of music that I can help people make, I'm not into that. If you're making something that you don't even really like that much that you think other people might like, I don't know. How can you expect people to like it if you don't even it? That's something that I think

Speaker 1 (00:44:21):

It's such a gamble too, because if you're trying to make stuff that people will like, well, it's impossible to make something that everyone's going to like. So some people are not going to like it no matter what, and you can't even guess who those people are going to be. So it's kind of a dumb thing to even try, in my opinion,

Speaker 2 (00:44:40):

A hundred percent. Making music, it's such a weird thing because it's like, yeah, you build up this fan base that love what you do and love you for what you do, but at the same time, you want to grow and make new fans and you want to expand your sound and not always do the same thing. It's such a hard thing, and inherently they're going to be a couple records where artists are going to go too far or experiment too much or go in the wrong direction and it's not going to work out, but that's okay. They're all learning experiences, and as long as they kind of keep on and persevere from that, yeah, I think it's going to be okay. It's just, it's such a hard, making music is freaking hard, man. I always think about whenever I'm creating a song with someone, it's at the end of the day, that song did not exist at the beginning of the day, and now there's this new thing in the world that didn't exist, and that's kind of cool. Pulling things out of thin air basically. Yeah, literally it's sit down and make a song.

(00:45:51):

It's a weird thing. Where did it come from?

Speaker 1 (00:45:54):

Yeah, so what do you do? Speaking of writing songs, what do you do on the days when nothing's happening? I mean, you're getting paid to work, but it's just shitty

Speaker 2 (00:46:06):

When we're not making something that's good

Speaker 1 (00:46:09):

And no one's feeling it.

Speaker 2 (00:46:11):

Yeah. I start something else, switch the vibe up. That's something usually when we're making a song, if we don't like it either, we'll see it through and finish it, and then it's like, okay, we don't like that. We're not going to use that, which is fine. Or it's like if everyone's just really not feeling it, then we'll just either take a break or we'll start something else. Or if I'm working with a band that we already have other things to do, then we will work on another idea that we have, that we do or something. So there's always something to do or just take a break and go home. If everyone's really burnt out

Speaker 1 (00:46:49):

Sometimes that's the move.

Speaker 2 (00:46:50):

Yeah. Yeah, that can very much be the move. But yeah, I think just if no one's vibing what you're working on, then just stop and do something else, whether that be taking a break, whether that be starting another idea or working on something else. Yeah, just don't do it.

Speaker 1 (00:47:07):

So when you are faced with an artist who has a track record, right? You just said they build up an audience over time, but they're coming to you and they want to do something completely different, like a total left turn, does it worry you at all that you could be the dude associated with them dropping a nuke on their career?

Speaker 2 (00:47:30):

Absolutely. It does. And thankfully that doesn't, I don't really find myself in that situation too much, but I have found myself in that situation in the past, and honestly, I'm not a big fan of being in that situation, and I will have conversations with them at length about what they want to do, and then we will get in and start making stuff, and if I don't think it's good, I'll straight. First of all, it's their thing at the end of the day. Yeah, it's my name on the record, but it's their record. So at the end of the day, artist always wins. Artists can always do what they want to do. I am very big on that, and I truly mean that. That being said, if I'm not feeling something or I think something is going in the wrong direction, I can be like, I don't know if this sits very well with me, or We might be missing an opportunity by doing this, or I have certain things I can do to steer things into a direction when they're not going the right direction. And if none of that works, and I think that this is a situation that I rarely find myself in, but sometimes I do. If something is really going in the wrong direction and the artist really wants to do it and I'm not feeling it, I'll straight up tell 'em that. I think it sucks. I have said that to people in the past before, and it has caused arguments. You

Speaker 1 (00:49:03):

Kind of have to,

Speaker 2 (00:49:04):

Yeah, yeah. That's like a last resort after I've exhausted all the other options and stuff, and that can cause hurt feelings that can cause people to walk out of the room for sure. But people sometimes just need to hear it. I think sometimes, and again, this is a rare thing, but it does happen sometimes where it is my job, and if I tell 'em that I think it sucks and they disagree with me and they still want to do it, they're the artist. They win, and that's completely fine. But yeah, it does happen.

Speaker 1 (00:49:36):

And then you get cases like Machine Gun Kelly.

Speaker 2 (00:49:38):

Yeah, machine Gun Kelly. Again, that's a project that I'm not that involved in. I've been very fortunate to work on a couple songs with him, but he has really done great things for rock music, in my opinion. Bottom line, he brought the album back. He brought back guitars, bass and drums, and making it cool again. He brought back kids wanting to play guitar again. He completely did a 180 on his genre, and he's bigger than he is ever been.

Speaker 1 (00:50:10):

It's so crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:50:11):

Yeah, it's wild. I can't, off the top of my head, I can't think of someone in the modern age that has done that. The way he has it is wild, but good for him.

Speaker 1 (00:50:21):

When I think of things like that, I think of Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines. I don't know if you're aware of that one. Hit me. You don't want to be, just look up Chris Gaines. Gar Brooks decided to have an alter ego at one point named Chris Gaines, and he had, I am trying to remember, but it was kind of like swoopy long hair,

Speaker 2 (00:50:43):

And

Speaker 1 (00:50:43):

He was kind of like alternative rock, kind of. It failed fucking miserably. Miserably. It was so awkwardly weird.

Speaker 2 (00:50:54):

Yeah, it's scary, honestly, what it comes down to for an artist to switch up their total thing and be successful, the songs have to be undeniable. The songs, the songs have to be great. The songs have to be amazing, in my opinion. Machine Gun Kelly has been around for a long time. He's been at this. He works super, super hard. Personally, his new stuff is my favorite music that he's ever released. His old stuff. I love a lot of that too. His new stuff. I think it's the perfect combination of him changing his sound and the personality that he is and just everything. It's just this perfect storm of elements that has created what he's doing now. And yeah, he had a number one record, and he's one of the biggest artists in the world right now, and so yeah, good for him. But yeah, it's this perfect storm of everything that he does that created that, but with great music as well. So a lot of the times when artists say a rock artist wants to go pop, a lot of the times the music is underwhelming. It's just not undeniable. It's just not that great. It can sound like C grade pop songs a lot of the time, whereas he was like, I want to go rock. So he got Travis to produce it, and Travis, he's like a God at that kind of stuff. He knows everything, so they made a great record and it did. Well.

Speaker 1 (00:52:27):

I know exactly what you're talking about. Also, a lot of times when bands that have only done screaming starts singing, I think that it's not anything wrong with singing. It's that they're just not good at it, and so it doesn't sound good, and they're not good melodies or good lyrics or good choruses or whatever, and that's why it doesn't do well.

Speaker 2 (00:52:50):

Yeah, totally, totally agree a hundred percent. If you're going to switch it up and do something like you better be amazing at it. Otherwise, if you're just okay, if you're not that good at it, then it's going to suck, honestly. Yeah, well

Speaker 1 (00:53:07):

Keep trying. Yeah, keep trying to get better.

Speaker 2 (00:53:09):

Yes, yes, yes. Keep, yes, keep trying. But yeah, it's a hard thing to do, but yeah, props to him, man, that is crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:53:17):

So a lot of people attempt to break down songs and create a structure, an anatomy to songwriting, but you mentioned that certain producers like Nick Mira, you really admire their mental acuity and feel like there's something to really look at. What do you think is a differentiating factor with a producer like Nick versus the majority of his peer group? Why are you so into his stuff?

Speaker 2 (00:53:42):

Nick is, he is super inspiring to me because he's a freak. Again, he just uses his laptop and he can create this simple beat with an 8 0 8 and a kick drum and an incredible melody and this really interesting sound in five minutes. And a lot of the times it's just, it can be like an eight bar or 16 bar loop, but just the way his ear is developed for rhythm and melody and sonics and what's new and fresh, it's like he's taking the most simple possible tools that you can have and just creating these massive songs about them in an instant, which it's crazy. Yeah, he's a freak. So he inspires me because just how fast he works and the output of amazing stuff that he's able to do, and it comes down to the fact that he's so musical. He has great taste for sounds, and he has an amazing, amazing ear for melody, which is at the level that he does it, it's so rare. So he's someone that I can learn a lot from. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:55:05):

Seems like you really admire speed, efficiency, minimalism, and simplicity when done well, obviously. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55:13):

I think simplicity is the key. The thing is that it's really easy for simplicity to be boring. So finding ways to make simplicity interesting is what excites me. So Nick working with him is, it kind of has applies to my workflow in the sense that I kind of try to do what he does, but in more of a rock sense with live drums and live instruments and live vocals and stuff, and I don't work nearly as quickly as he does, but we can make a finished sounding song in a day from scratch and make it sound like cool. I've done that many times before. But yeah, just finding ways to keep people inspired and to just capture great ideas and just do it quickly. That excites me. When I sit down with a band and we're making a song from scratch, I want to listen to that song later that night. I don't want to have to wait weeks to listen to that song. I just want to hurry up and go in my car and blast that song. So I just kind of want to finish it as soon as possible, and I know the band does as well. So yeah, that's a part of it. What

Speaker 1 (00:56:33):

Do you think is a bigger challenge working on complex music or really good, simple music?

Speaker 2 (00:56:39):

It's interesting. That's a really tough question. Honestly. I think complex music takes more time to do. Working with a technical metal band takes way longer. If you have a technical metal song,

Speaker 1 (00:56:53):

There's more notes.

Speaker 2 (00:56:54):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like if it's four minutes long and not that many parts repeat and there's really intricate guitar parts and drum parts that all need so much love that's going to take a long time. Versus making a song, making a two and a half minute song where the choruses are flown and the beats are really simple. You could get that done in a few hours, but having that be good and more interesting than the technical song is probably harder. I think.

Speaker 1 (00:57:27):

I agree. I think simplicity done right is the most difficult thing. It's almost like you can hide behind complexity. Yeah, a

Speaker 2 (00:57:35):

Hundred percent. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I totally agree with that. That's interesting. But yeah, there's something that fascinates me about having something that's efficient and simple and fast and amazing. To go back to Nick again, he produced Lucid Dreams by Juice World as an example of a song that he produced, and he probably made the beat in 10 minutes and Juice probably freestyled or sung that song so quickly, and it was this huge, massive song that was amazing, and I just think that's

Speaker 1 (00:58:14):

So cool. Tell me what you think about this. Speaking of people who do stuff in five minutes, 10 minutes, or even a day for a song, which is quick, given the genre, have you noticed that there's this tendency among producers, artists to feel like they didn't really do any work, therefore, what they did isn't valid if they move too quickly?

Speaker 2 (00:58:40):

Absolutely. 100%. A part of the reason that I like to move so quickly too is because I feel like a lot of the best stuff comes out the quickest. If someone goes in the booth and freestyles and they're good, their best, most interesting melodies might come out of the first or second take because either they weren't thinking about it or the headphone mix was weird or something. They were just, it's just exciting and they're just running on adrenaline. Whereas if they sit and pick at it for too long, then it can kill the song instantly. I see that happen all the time. Does that answer your question? What was the question again?

Speaker 1 (00:59:19):

It does because it's like they won't take what they just did seriously if they did it quickly.

Speaker 2 (00:59:25):

I feel that that's a part of my job to let them know, no,

Speaker 1 (00:59:29):

It's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:59:30):

This is sick. Yeah, this is cool. This is dope. Yeah. Again, you don't write an amazing song in 20 minutes every day. That happens once in a while. That does not happen every day. I think it's a lot more with the artists that have been around for a long time that they feel like they have to spend a really long time on their stuff for it to be good. They just feel like they have to, but that's really not the case. That approach does work for people. I don't know exactly how long the Bring Me the Horizon guys take to make a song, but I think they spend a really, really long time on their stuff. But that's a case where it works extremely well and it comes out really amazing because yeah, they're able to experiment and do all this different stuff, whereas with certain artists, if you overanalyze what it is, it can kind of kill it. So yes, I think certain artists have a tendency to think that they need to spend a really long time on something for it to be good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):

And I used to work with this mixer who's really good, who would get stuff done in 45 minutes, and the mixes would sound great in 45 minutes. I mean, maybe they needed some automation or whatever, or mixed notes after, but for the most part, they'd be 90% done like Sendable to the band.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):

However,

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):

He would wait a week because he got fired off a couple mixes after sending them back in 45 minutes or an hour because the band thought that he was just fucking around and they sounded great. Wow. They sounded great. So he, he had developed this policy of just waiting a few days or a week and then sending them and bands never had a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):

Wow, okay. Okay. That's smart. Wow. That's crazy. Psychologically. That's smart. I have done that where I've finished something in two or three hours and then I've waited a day to send it, but Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, I could see that though. I could see the band being like, you only spent this long on this, and yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):

I mean, that's probably why you waited, right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):

So same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):

Yeah, exactly. I even find that with myself, if I'm mixing or doing something, a lot of the times I'll go back to what I had three hours ago and it's better than what I'm doing now because I feel like I have to spend longer on it, or something totally happens to me every day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):

Do you think the initial inspiration is the purest or something not blocked by conscious thought for the most part?

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that part of doing anything creative is so important in my opinion. Just that initial thing that you do, and there is a part of the process that is the refinement and the trying different things and the fixing up of things. But yes, that initial spark moment is so important with making anything excited, I think

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):

Is part of the reason that you're set up is so efficient, kind of designed in order to be able to capture those or

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):

Totally not lose them when they're happening?

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):

Yeah, a hundred percent. My thing is that I've just spent so many years dialing bass tones, vocal settings, guitar tones, drum things, and that are constantly evolving, that I just have this system that I can make something sound like a finished song almost kind of instantly. And that inspires bands, I think, because that way they can hear their ideas brought to life to a pretty final form really fast, and that way they're able to tell if something is good and awesome and they want to pursue it, or if it doesn't sound that great. So many times where bands will write a song and they're like, this is amazing. This is cool, but they'll just write it on acoustic guitar or something, and then they'll come into the studio three months later and we'll actually produce the song out, and it doesn't turn out quite as good as everyone thought it was going to be. So I think just having the instant ability to just hear things in a kind of finished form really quickly helps people figure out what they like and what they don't like faster.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):

Matt Good was telling me that that's what he does too. Have it sound as finished as possible right from the get-go.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):

Yeah. Yeah. Matt's awesome. I've spent, we're good friends and yeah, we've worked out of the same studio building a couple times while we've had certain projects going on, and yeah, he's super fast at making an intricate song in a couple hours. Yeah, he's amazing. He's crazy. But yeah. Yeah, it's probably the same exact mentality.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):

I feel like the old school thing is to hear things shitty and assume that they're going to get better. You used to be able to send a and r guys, for instance, just rough, shitty mixes, and they supposedly could understand that it was going to be good, and bands were used to hearing unmastered, quiet mixes with weird drum levels, and just assume that it's going to sound huge and balanced later or pre-pro was okay to sound like shit, knowing that it's just going to sound good later. Whereas now, I think a lot of dudes that are doing current stuff and doing real well have the attitude of make it sound incredible from the start. Don't wait to make it sound incredible. Do it now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):

Yeah, totally. Totally. That's so funny. Yeah, I've always, I know of those days and stuff, but I never lived through a time like that. I would love to. It was real. I would love to be there for a second just to see what that was. That sounds kind of nice. Everyone was used to moving at a bit of a slower pace, which is cool. It

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):

Was stressful though, because you'd be working on a mix and you wouldn't know if it's going to be good or not because it is going to change so much. When it went to the mastering guy and the bands didn't know either. Nobody knew. So it was kind of like, you never have this feeling of, yeah, this is done. Wow. Yeah, this is sick. It's like, yeah, I think it's okay. Oh, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):

Yeah, but we're going to have to wait. That's so wild. Yeah, the world has definitely changed since then, and people expect stuff to sound really good, really fast these days.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):

Yeah. Also, another thing that was not cool about it was you had to explain things to people, so this doesn't sound very good, but just imagine it like this, and obviously, how are they going to imagine what you're saying verbally? They can't, so now you just show it to them the way it's supposed to sound, and either they feel it or they don't.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):

Yeah, totally. I am not a big fan of explaining something to someone before I show it to them. I always kind of want the song or whatever it is to speak for itself. Sometimes it helps to, if I have an a r or something here to explain the thought process that went into something. But a lot of the times, my goal is to just make something so cool or good that this doesn't happen every day, but my goal is to just make something that's so sick that when we play it for anyone, that they just get it from hearing it rather than us having to explain it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):

That's a good goal.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):

And again, that's worthy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):

That's not always the case, but yeah, that's what I try to shoot for.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):

When you're working with artists and you have to float an idea to them, do you kind of take the same approach of just getting it down first rather than trying to explain it to them? Or how do you navigate that when it's a left turn or something?

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):

It depends who it is. I find that it can definitely help to explain where an idea is coming from. If you're laying down some clean guitar part in a verse and you can tell the band's not vibing it, and you're like, oh, but it sounds kind of like this cure song, and then all of a sudden everyone's on board because everyone loves the cure. I find that explaining things in that context can be very helpful. I would like to have that not be the case and just have people able to be of the same mindset all the time, but that's not really realistic for me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):

So I mean, obviously situationally dependent kind of thing, but say you have an idea that you feel very strongly about and that it might be met with resistance, but you feel really, really strongly about it, will you just do it and be like, check this out, or, hold on a second, let me try something.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):

Yeah, I will do it and present it, and if everyone hates it, first of all, it doesn't hurt my feelings. That's fine. So be it. Yeah. I'm not going to fight tooth and nail for someone to do something because they're probably going to end up hating it at the end of the day, and that's the last thing I want is for someone to hate their own music. I will present ideas and fight for them when need be, but I'm never going to force someone to be like, you have to sing this song, and it has to be like this, because from my experience, I've never seen that and well, really,

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):

I don't think it does end well, but I know that there's some artists who if you tell them an idea, verbalize it, they're not going to be down. But if you show it to them, then there's a possibility they'll be down.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):

That happens all the time. That happens all the time. If it's like, oh, what if the bridge went to a minor part here? If the song's major and everyone's like, I don't know, it might be too dark. And then you actually play it in and it sounds sick, and everyone's like, cool. That happened just the other day. I was working on this song, and the song was, it was a dope song, and it was just a guitar and a vocal, and it sounded cool, and my mind, I was like, I don't think this song should be a stripped down thing. I think this should be an opus, a big rock song. So I was like, what if we went rock for the last chorus? What if we went, the whole song was stripped down and we went full band for the last chorus, and then we did it and it sounded great, and everyone's like, oh, that's sick. And I'm like, all right, what if we made the bridge where the band comes in? So the band comes in rocking for the bridge in las Chorus, so that's cool. And then I'm like, alright, what? That was the Trojan horse that I was able to sneak in. I was like, what if we made the intro a rock thing and the verse had live drums, and then it turned into a really cool song because of that. So sometimes I have to take that approach. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):

Slowly cooking them.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):

Yeah. Yeah. But

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):

That's

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):

But you think that if you had just said, we should put drums under the whole thing from the get go, they've like, fuck no.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And they were still opposed until I made it and showed it to 'em, and then they were down. And again, that's the good advantage of being able to do stuff quickly too, is that I was able to make something to show them in about five to 10 minutes in they were in.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):

So by make you mean just program some drums kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):

Yeah. Programs from drums, play some guitars, play some bass, just get a feel for what it's going to be. Yeah, five, 10 minutes though

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):

That's fast as

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):

Fuck. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):

We work pretty quick. That's great. Yeah, I can imagine that if it was like, Hey, come back in three hours, it would be a lot harder to pull that kind of thing off.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):

Well, I mean, yeah. It wasn't like the keeper full thing. It was just like, no, no,

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):

No, I know, but still five to 10 minutes to show a developed idea is fast.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):

Yeah. Speed is not by any means the most important thing to me. I just like being able to be fast when I can be.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):

I mean, obviously speed without accuracy or without quality is bullshit, but when you combine them, it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):

Yeah, making 20 songs in a week, that all suck. Obviously that's not good. You don't want that, but no, make one. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But if you can make a song in a day, I think is pretty, even a song, a song in two days is pretty fast, I think. And yeah, I just being able to do that. For instance, do you know the song X by Poppy? Have you heard that song?

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):

Yep. Pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):

Yeah, that was one of our first explorations into metal, and that was made, bounced and done for the cd, written everything in less than eight hours. Really? That was a fast one. That one just kind of came out pretty quickly. That's faster than it would normally take to make something like that. But yeah, that one was pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):

Do you think it's just because you guys have good chemistry and she's also a hyper-focused individual and

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):

Yeah, I think it was, the metal thing was so new at that time that it was kind of like anything goes and we didn't have to really overthink anything, and it just kind of flowed out. It was one of the first metal songs that we made, so it was kind of open to do whatever we wanted to do, so yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):

Makes

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):

Sense.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):

So I think it's kind of easy to get labeled as the Rock Guy or the Metal Guy. A lot of dudes that we know who do that super well also complain about being typecast. I mean, they love it, but at the same time, they acknowledge that doing other genres that would kind of have to start, not at the beginning, but they'd have to take significant steps back. But you've taken a pretty interesting approach to branching out from the beginning because obviously you come from the same world that we all do. You come from the heavy world, but

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):

You've

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):

Successfully gone beyond it. Can you talk a bit about how you've incorporated pop production and other genres in your work and how you see that evolving?

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):

So I love aggressive music. I love live guitars. I love live drums. I love bands is what I love, and that's what I grew up listening to the most. My skills are honed in that department, more so than anything else. It comes down to, I learned so much from working for John Feldman about how to incorporate pop production into more rock kind of things. And I'm very much okay with being, he makes alternative or rock leaning kind of stuff. I'm very much am okay with that because I love doing that kind of thing. So yeah, it's an interesting question. To be specific, I use a lot of synth basses. I do a lot of vocal effects. I layer up vocals a lot. I use drum and guitar sounds that I've created that no one else has, so that it sounds different than things that other people do.

(01:14:53):

A lot of it comes from the songwriting as well, that a lot of the songs that I work on are inherently pop songs that happen to be rocked up. I think that's a super important part of it. But yeah, it's, I'm trying to think of an example. So the song Monsters By All Time Low that they have right now, which is featuring Black Bear. So that song was a co-production between myself and my friend Andrew Goldstein. And that song was really awesome because they demoed the song out with Andrew this one night for a couple hours. And Andrew, he does a lot of more leaning stuff than I do, and he's super amazing at it. He's done all Black Bear stuff. I think he's done Demi Lovato and Hot Cell Ray and a lot of things like that. And so they demoed out this song with him and the song was amazing, and they just wanted it to be rocked up a little bit more.

(01:15:48):

So Andrew had made this essentially this pop track, and he shot me over all his stems, and then I put on live drums, live guitar, live bass, everything. And I just layered them with his pop drums and his pop syns and all of his kind of sounds. And it just kind of created this interesting blend between, it's literally a rock producer's production on top of a pop producer's production. And then it wound up being an alternative song, so kind of in the middle. So that's the approach that I tend to take to some of that stuff is I'll just layer pop stuff on top of rock stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):

It sounds like it's not overthought.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):

Yeah, not really, but I'm way better at doing rock stuff than I am doing pop stuff. So I love co-producing stuff with other producers that have different skill sets than I do, because we're usually able to create something that's pretty cool and unique. I think

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):

What's interesting is earlier in the episode you said that you're kind of a one man show, but for being a one man show, it seems like you really do love collaborations.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):

Yes, I do love collaborating. I just love having someone to be able to bounce ideas off of or someone that can do something different than I can do. Yeah, usually is cool. Yeah, I do like doing that. I'm a one man show in the sense of I don't have a mix assistant or something like that when I do so much mixing, but when I'm actually producing a band, it doesn't happen all the time. But yeah, I love being able to bring in an outside co-writer or an outside producer that can do something that I can't do that can help us create this more interesting product. So

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):

Speaking of outside influences and stuff that other producers are doing for a while, I feel like in pop and hip hop there was a strong, and I mean it's still there, but there was a strong, strong push towards electronic music. Those worlds were definitely coming together, but now you're starting to see more organic instruments and alternative influences in modern pop and hip hop and also rock artists starting to incorporate stuff from hip hop and pop. How are you seeing that manifest with your clients? First

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):

Of all, I love that music is going in the direction of that because now there's more artists that are coming to me that are like, I want to edge it up. I want to make some rock stuff. I want to do live drums. I want to do live guitars.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):

And that's your shit. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):

Exactly. So that's really exciting to me. So yeah, first of all, it's really cool that there's all this whole scene of rock bands that I work with or that I have worked with that a couple years ago, they might've been trying to lean more into the pop real and to lean less on guitars and less on what they're good at and try to do something else because that's what the times were. But now it's shifting the opposite direction where people are trying to do more of that stuff. So for Rock acts that I produce, they're trying to lean more into what they're good at and what they do. What just like a 20% of modern flare, which that excites me a lot. So again, we could do a rock production, but we can do some cool synths or some cool synth bases or stuff that makes sense that will support the rock band, but that doesn't sound like overdone. And then on the other end, yeah, you have Machine gun Kelly who just wants to go straight rock band, even though he's a super mainstream artist, which is super cool to me,

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):

I feel like one of the great side benefits, or maybe not a side benefit, one of the direct benefits of the streaming era is that the walls between genres aren't nearly as high as they used to be, which is great. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):

Totally. And even more so now than ever. There was such a long time when I first moved to LA where it was like, no guitars, no live drums, none of this, blah, blah, blah. And that was disheartening for me because I was trying to learn how to make hip hop beats and how to do that kind of stuff. And I'm just not wired for that. I just don't have that in me. And so now that the pendulum is kind of swinging the opposite direction, that really excites me, and I think that's really cool. And yeah, I think people just want to make from 2010 to 2020 so much amazing music. You had Lord, and you had Post Malone, and you have Billie Eilish and all this really awesome music, but it was a little more of a chill decade for music, I think. And now that we're kind of entering into this new decade, people want to make, as opposed to 2000 to 2010 where you had Ka Perry and these people with these anthems and these massive banger songs. I think heading into this new decade, people want to make more traditional bangers again, which I think is sick.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):

I think you're noticing that in heavy music too.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):

Yeah. I feel like 2000 through 2010, there was just this explosion of awesome bands. And it's not that there haven't been cool bands in the past 10 years, but it kind of tapered off a little, and now I'm starting to hear awesome stuff come back. That's awesome. Little by little, I have a few theories as to what it is. I think that because everybody thought the music industry was going to implode and disappear, kind of like around 2009, 2010, a lot of talented people just checked out. Not everyone, obviously, but a lot did. A lot of people just jumped ship, but now it's doing well again. It's been doing well for a little while, and I think there's more and more talented people working and taking it seriously again.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):

Yeah. It's so interesting too, because Trap was such a huge thing, especially from 2015 to 2020, and that was very similar to the punk movement in my opinion, because you had all these kids that were making beats on their laptops, but they didn't know I'd be in the room with these kids, and they didn't know what the word chorus meant, or what a verse was, or what a b section was, but they had these amazing, or they had these chart topping songs that were crazy with no knowledge of making music, and it was just pure raw energy. And I thought that was so cool. And now people are making more traditional songs. Again, I don't know. I don't know what causes the trends and stuff, but yeah, it seems like people are definitely leaning back into making organic great songs again, which

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):

It's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):

Yeah, yeah, that's what I love. That's what I like to do, so I'm stoked.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):

Well, Zach, I think this is a good place to end the podcast. I want to thank you for coming on. It's been awesome catching up. Likewise. Thanks so much for having me. This is so much fun. 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.