JOHN CONGLETON: The tortured artist myth, navigating fragile egos, and why a Grammy won’t fix you

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. Welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is John Congleton, who's a Grammy award-winning producer, engineer, mixer and songwriter, having fronted and written for bands like the Paper Chase and John Congleton and the 90 Night John has worked on some of the biggest projects you can aspire to work on from artists such as Erica Badu, Nelly Furtado, rice, explosions in the Sky, all the way to working on film and tv, MTV's Jackass, the Discovery Channel, and Halloween. I present you John Congleton. John Congleton. Welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:01:56):

Howdy,

Speaker 1 (00:01:56):

Howdy. So we were just talking about the virtue of saying what you mean, and I was saying that it's in my nature to do that, but I've gotten in myself in trouble quite a few times doing that. So I think there's an art to it also. You can't just do things with no filter, I think because you're going to be counterproductive, I think, to the goal you want to accomplish if you don't take into consideration how other people will perceive it, in my opinion. I think there's a way to be both blunt and also intelligent about it.

Speaker 2 (00:02:32):

Well, I mean, when you say blunt, I mean that implies almost like a blunt instrument. There's no scalpel at all. I think you need to be diplomatic when you say things, but as I was saying before we started recording, I think that being direct and saying what you mean as succinctly as possible, respectfully, of course is a virtue as opposed to dancing around things or not saying what you mean to sort of insulate people's feelings. Or even worse, being passive aggressive. I think it's kind of an awful thing to do in the studio because you're really robbing everyone of the most precious thing in the studio, which is time when people are passive aggressive. That's probably my biggest pet peeve in the studio because it's like, well, obviously you have an agenda, you have something that you want to communicate. There's something that you want to see go differently with this song or this process. Why not just say it and get it out there? Because the passive aggressiveness is almost like, it's like cancer sort of eats away at the morale of the session.

Speaker 1 (00:03:38):

The trust too.

Speaker 2 (00:03:39):

Yeah. So I would just say mean, my opinion always is if you don't like something or if you're unsure about something or whatever, you're trepidatious, just say it and get it out there. So it can be dealt with. And this is, as we were talking before we started recording, to reiterate, I find just being direct with people as a sign of respect to me, I feel it inside is like, oh, you respect my time. You respect that I have a finite amount of time on this planet, and I would like to be productive with that time, and you're telling me don't waste your time on something, or I don't like that, or something like that. That feels pretty good to me. That feels like I'm being respected. And so I do that in kind of course. You've got to occasionally pack those words and bubble wrap and make sure that nobody feels like things are being tossed off. So I do deliberate quite a bit in my head before I come up with a response to things. I just consider myself to be kind of a straight shooter all around, and that includes whenever I'm genuinely excited about something, whenever I'm really excited about something, I try to let that be just as transparent.

Speaker 1 (00:04:53):

Well, it's not your responsibility to manage other people's mental states. So at the end of the day, if you need to tell the truth about something that you're unhappy with, it's not your fault if someone doesn't have the maturity to deal with feedback. However, that said, if the big picture is that you want to keep work going, you want to keep progress continuing, maybe sometimes it's not in the best interest to do something that will elicit that reaction, which is why I think that sometimes it's not that I advocate dancing around the truth or anything like that, it's just know your audience if just being straightforward is going to get them to freak out, and then there goes progress for the day. That's not necessarily the best approach.

Speaker 2 (00:05:47):

Totally. I think the word we're looking for is tact.

Speaker 1 (00:05:50):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:05:50):

You got to take the temperature of the room and you got to deliver your message however it is. And look, I just don't believe in actively manipulating people. And I feel like when you're not direct, when you're passive aggressive, it is a form of manipulation.

Speaker 1 (00:06:08):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:06:09):

I don't really like to do that. I try. I mean, I always endeavor to, whenever I'm giving something critical one way or the other, positive, negative, I always try to do it as measured as possible. I also don't blow smoke up their ass either. I don't act like something is brilliant just to keep their morale super high. I think that that's slightly dishonest. We we're doing this together. We have to be. I expect them to tell me when they're unhappy with something.

Speaker 1 (00:06:39):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:06:41):

It's a simpatico free flowing exchange of ideas. And if everyone's an adult and everybody trusts each other, then it's never a problem. And there are people that maybe are slightly more brittle of spirit than others.

Speaker 1 (00:06:53):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:06:54):

I feel like I've been doing this 25 years now. I feel like I can kind of sense that and kind of calibrate pretty easily to that.

Speaker 1 (00:07:01):

And also, it seems to me like with the level of artists and companies that you work with, a lot of those people may have been weed out already.

Speaker 2 (00:07:11):

I don't know. No, I mean, think actually, I would say that I would say the insecurities and the sort of bristling nature sometimes goes exponentially with success. I think the more success you have, the more that people, everybody's guilty of this, you sort of insulate yourself from what other people may be thinking. That's critical. You kind of surround yourself with syco. Defense could tell you you're a genius all the time because obviously that tastes quite delicious to hear that, as opposed to, Hey, I don't know. You're kind of phoning it in. So there's that, and obviously I think it's human nature that as you ascend, there's something in you that's like, well, I'm not really worthy of this and I'm a charlatan, and surely I'll be found out to be a charlatan at some point. I assume everyone feels this way. It seems that way. And it also, I'm that way too.

Speaker 1 (00:08:08):

Likewise,

Speaker 2 (00:08:09):

I always feel like my next gig is my last, even though there's not a lot of evidence to support that, I still feel that inside. So I'm as insecure and a sad, tragic animal as anybody else, and none of that changes when you have a little success, I would say it actually becomes more visceral because then you got to prove it.

Speaker 1 (00:08:30):

And that's called imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2 (00:08:32):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:08:33):

I don't know a single person actually who's done well for themselves, who doesn't have it unless they're a psychopath or something.

Speaker 2 (00:08:41):

That would be the delineation, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:08:43):

And I'm not kidding. We all know a few psychopaths or sociopaths who have done very well for themselves, who are incapable of feeling anything negative towards themselves. But for people who aren't like that, I think that imposter syndrome is very, very real. It doesn't go away, but not that, not just that I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing because I think that it keeps you sharp. I think that it's there, it's there for a reason, and it's common for a reason. I don't think that it just manifested in so many people's minds randomly. I think that it's a self-defense mechanism, and it's there to keep us from slipping. It's there to keep us surviving basically. And thriving.

Speaker 2 (00:09:31):

Counterpoint to that, though.

Speaker 1 (00:09:33):

Sure,

Speaker 2 (00:09:33):

The counterpoint, I agree with what you're saying, but I think that unfortunately how it plays itself out sometimes is because the imposter syndrome is so unpleasant to experience that we go to Hercule links sometimes to avoid that uncomfortableness. And as I said, somebody on the real successful spectrum, they may surround themselves with people that tell them what they want to hear, and Sy offense or producers or engineers, they're like, that's great, or whatever. And what happens is, of course, is the art suffers. And I feel like you have these examples of, I mean, there's so many out there examples of an artist that puts out a record and it's unbelievable singular vision. They're immediately successful, and then everything else after that just kind of diminishes and seems very misguided or strange or weak. Everybody knows that, and I feel like that's one of the main reasons that happens for me. There's the other side of the coin that I can think of. There's a handful of artists and bands who are somehow able to reject that, and they continue to produce hungry, honest music. And I think that the secret, one of the secrets of that is to, as the colloquialism is to keep it real.

Speaker 1 (00:10:47):

Okay. So what I'm wondering is when you deal with artists who have been surrounded by the yes man mob, do they appreciate it when you are real with them, or does it sometimes cause problems? They're expecting you to bullshit them, you don't bullshit them, and then that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (00:11:08):

It's 50 50. Again, it's back to that big T word trust. I think that whenever I've dealt with an artist like that who's functioning on that kind of level, you can't come right out acting super hyper direct. You have to kind of ease into it like a warm bath. There are a few artists that I've worked with that I didn't have a relationship with previous, and they are famous. They're quite well known who I did not have a relationship with. Preme, who I've worked with since that I've witnessed throw tantrums. There's no other word for it, just disrespectful to people because they feel on the spot or something, or they have to deliver, and instead of just taking on that challenge, they throw a tantrum. I've seen that a few times, but that's okay. That's just, I think sometimes you have to do that to perform an exorcism, to move past it.

Speaker 1 (00:12:04):

Interesting. I think that a good producer, engineer, songwriting partner has to have a very high patience threshold for all kinds of behavior. And I know that we were saying that being passive aggressive or giving dishonest feedback is a pet peeve. And it's one of mine too, because for instance, one thing that I can't stand is if an artist is saying, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. Love it. Yeah, that's cool. And then six months later you find out after it's released, they hated it

(00:12:37):

And they didn't say. So stuff like that really, really bothers me. However, I do think though that sometimes you just have to go along for the ride of whatever their strange ass personality brings, because that strange ass personality is also what is going to deliver that amazing performance. In some ways. You can't have one without the other, with certain people. I mean, there are some people who can be totally normal, deliver amazing, amazing performances, but that's not everyone. There's definitely a lot of people who are just wired differently. Of course, that wiring gave them this talent and this thing that makes them super special, but it also, there's a dark side to it, and as producer, you have to got to be ready for that.

Speaker 2 (00:13:27):

I agree. And I absolutely am fine with people being weirdos individually and artistically. I encourage it. That's what makes life interesting to me. The only texture to that that I would add would be that we're all just adult versions of our child's selves. And as a child, when you're a toddler, the main thing a toddler does, as I've learned, is just to test boundaries. What can I get away with? What can I get away with? And as a parent, I'm not saying a producer's a parent at all. A parent's job is to essentially set up boundaries to make that child feel safe because a child doesn't necessarily want to live in chaos. I can do anything that can cause anxiety. So what I think what happens is when people have these impulses, whether dark or positive impulses that is kind of hand in glove with the artistic sentiment or perspective, and you have success.

(00:14:24):

Let's say you have success, and then you realize that some of those darker impulses or weirder, more irritating impulses can be expressed and people will tolerate it because they think you're a genius, or B, because they make money off of you, you realize, Hey, I can act a fool and people will tolerate it. I can get away with it. It doesn't matter how much money you make or how much money you make for other people or how genius you are, you have to be a decent person. We're living in a society here. I think that things are changing, obviously, culturally, but I think that for a long time we've thought, well, they're an artist. They can be an asshole. That's just part of it. And I certainly at some point in my life have thought, oh, well, they're just a misunderstood genius. I don't know if I so believe that much anymore.

(00:15:10):

I think that at the end of the day, you still have to be a decent person. There's a responsibility there, and I also don't think that madness necessarily means creativity, and I don't necessarily feel that somebody has to be a wild person in order to conjure the art. I think that we're all sort of essentially pulling from the same creative, well spring and some of us are just a little more plugged in than others. If you're neurodivergent meaning to say you have severe depression or whatever, I have sympathy for those sorts of things. We're all struggling. Everybody has a cross to bear, but there's just no reason to wreak havoc on other people's lives no matter what. There's no excuse for that. You should take responsibility for that. That's not to say that you should be punished necessarily for being a mean person. Sometimes we all have bad days, and I would never want to be judged on my bad day, my worst day either. What I'm trying to say is I think that, I guess this is a very long way to say maybe actually the art is better whenever those darker impulses are not entertained.

Speaker 1 (00:16:14):

Well, I can speak from personal experience how there's this idea out there that some people have to be depressed to write or something.

Speaker 2 (00:16:23):

Oh, yeah. We can talk a long time about that.

Speaker 1 (00:16:26):

Dude, I don't understand that at all because when I'm depressed, because I've got clinical depression that I've been dealing with forever, but when it's kicking, I am not doing anything good. I mean, that's what it is. Nothing good is going to come out of you. You're depressed. Creativity is the opposite of that. So I've never understood that idea of how someone could be both depressed and productive. That just doesn't make sense to me. So it sounds like a myth.

Speaker 2 (00:16:55):

It's a myth. Now, first of all, to be clear, everybody's process is different. Yes,

Speaker 1 (00:16:59):

Of course. There

Speaker 2 (00:17:00):

Are people who are more inspired when they're depressed. Totally legitimate.

Speaker 1 (00:17:04):

I just don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (00:17:05):

Fair enough. I don't either. Whenever I'm depressed, I don't want to do anything other than lie in bed and do nothing. So I hear you. I talk a lot about this with people, so I have so many thoughts. I just want to give you a quick succinct coalescent of ideas here. I think that we have these stories of artists that were tortured. One that comes to mind right away is like Mark Hollis would talk.

Speaker 1 (00:17:27):

Tell me about that one. I'm not familiar with that one.

Speaker 2 (00:17:30):

There's a very culty famous record called Laughing Stock. It is a very cool record. It has a very interesting sound to it. But the myth of this record, and it's actually not a myth, it's true, it's Mark Hollis just tortured the band because he was such a miserable prick, tortured the band, tortured the producer, did all kinds of weird, strange deprivation with the band, put in a strobe light in the live room while they were recording, really fucked with people, and kind of basically tortured them, and they came out with this interesting record. To me, it's a good record, but not a great record. But some people think it's an absolute masterpiece, even if it's a masterpiece, in my opinion, that process, there's not an equivalency in my opinion. It's like, well, you were a dick to all these people, right? There's stories like that.

(00:18:14):

There's Pink Floyd where the band hated each other. There's some stories like that of really potent art that has come out of misery, that bad feelings. There are those stories, and those stories are really interesting to talk about. Here's what's not interesting to talk about, a great record where everyone got along, but guess what? There's way more of those. Because when people are having fun in the studio and they feel listened to and they feel like that they can throw out ideas and it's nutritious and everyone feels heard, people perform better and they come up with better ideas, and those records are better, but we don't like who wants to talk about that? People like to watch soap operas. They want to know about struggle and tragedy. They romanticize misery. So I think that's what it is. I think people think, oh, that's what I have to go through. I have to be Johnny Cash and have a horrible addiction. In order to make great art, you got to kill your fucking idols when it comes to that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (00:19:16):

I really do believe that in most cases, the success of those people or those albums or projects come despite the bad stuff, not because of the bad stuff, however, the stories, I mean, I'm sure there's an exception here and there, but I think when you're talking about some of the greatest artists of all time, some of the most brilliant musicians, creators, like of the past century, pink Floyd or something, one of the best bands of all time, of course, they're going to do something great, but to say it wouldn't have been even greater if they were mentally healthy. And I think that a lot of these stories, because they're the stories that you hear about for the reasons that you just stated, they're more interesting to people.

Speaker 2 (00:19:59):

Yeah, they're sexier.

Speaker 1 (00:20:00):

They're sexier. So people start to think that that's the template for greatness. I think that more than anything, that's the exception. That's the anomaly.

Speaker 2 (00:20:11):

I totally agree. That's precisely what I'm saying. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:20:13):

And I really do think that they succeeded despite they're that great that they could be in that fucked up situation and still do something amazing. That's how great they are,

Speaker 2 (00:20:23):

Or

Speaker 1 (00:20:23):

How great they were. Probably would've been much better if they were healthy.

Speaker 2 (00:20:27):

I agree. I 100% agree. That's exactly what I'm saying. The only thing that I would put shading to on that is I would say, I'm talking specifically about the process of making the record. I think that whatever creates a song makes somebody sit down at a piano or guitar and say something to the universe that only they could say the way that comes to them, whether it's out of pure joy or misery, nobody's business, but their relationship with the art. So whatever that is. I mean, obviously we know great art has come from extreme pain. We know that.

Speaker 1 (00:21:00):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:21:01):

I'm not talking about that. That's neither something else. I'm talking about the creation of the work product, I guess is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (00:21:11):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If artists only wrote about the good stuff or were only inspired by the good stuff, art would be pretty boring in my opinion. In

Speaker 2 (00:21:20):

My opinion, yes. But I also don't listen to top 40 too.

Speaker 1 (00:21:24):

Even top 40 from time to time will have some dark shit in there

Speaker 2 (00:21:30):

For sure.

Speaker 1 (00:21:31):

And I am not entirely sure why, but I think that there's something about darkness that I think a lot of people find far more inspirational. Maybe it's because the happy times in life, you don't really need to think about them too much. You just experience them and they're good. You think back on a good memory, but it doesn't stand out. I think it doesn't stand out the way that a bad one does. It doesn't fuck with you the way that a bad one does. Unfortunately, if we were wired opposite to really, really blow the good ones out of proportion, think about how much better the world would be. But we're not. We're wired to take the bad stuff and really let it affect us, some of us more than others,

Speaker 2 (00:22:13):

Trauma

Speaker 1 (00:22:14):

And trauma, yeah. We're wired to make trauma important. And so here's an example. I don't think, for instance, that animals are, I mean, you can traumatize an animal. You shouldn't. You can, but it takes a lot more than with a human. And I'll give you a for instance. My dog was playing with another dog a few years ago at the dog park, and I threw a Frisbee, and this was just bad luck. Mine jumped for the Frisbee while the other one jumped for the Frisbee, and somehow the other one's ear landed in my dog's mouth. Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:22:52):

No,

Speaker 1 (00:22:52):

My dog's a German shepherd.

Speaker 2 (00:22:54):

Oh, no.

Speaker 1 (00:22:55):

The ear was gone.

Speaker 2 (00:22:56):

Oh my God.

Speaker 1 (00:22:58):

Yeah, it was horrific.

Speaker 2 (00:23:00):

That is terrible.

Speaker 1 (00:23:01):

I had it on video. It was a hundred percent an accident. Like a hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (00:23:05):

You happen to be videotaping it.

Speaker 1 (00:23:06):

Well, no videotaping it because of the security cameras at my apartment building. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:23:11):

Okay, okay. Okay. So

Speaker 1 (00:23:11):

It was in the dog park at my apartment building. So we have the whole thing on video, which is why I didn't have to put my dog down or anything. It was obviously an accident. But anyways, I guess my point being the other dog, yelped and then was playing again over it. Let's just get to this. We're a human. We'll think about that and we'll keep on thinking about it and we'll keep on thinking about it wired. We are wired to think about this kind of stuff. I wonder what the human condition would be like if we weren't, but it's not so

Speaker 2 (00:23:43):

Well, we're going to go way deep on this one, but I'll just say it real quickly and we can move on. But I mean, there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that humans, I'm not trying to get super negative and mechanistic about things, but there's a lot of evidence to support that humans are kind of an evolutionary defect in the way we do things. An animal success depends on how aware they are of their surroundings. If you're a mouse and every time you go to forage, if you're aware of the sky, you're going to be more successful in avoiding the hawk

Speaker 3 (00:24:20):

So

Speaker 2 (00:24:20):

That mouse will live longer and procreate. So there'll be smarter mice to avoid the hawks, right? There's a lot of evidence to provide that. We were too successful and we became so self-aware that we really kind of turned it in on ourselves, and we're just thinking about ourselves all the time, and we're kind of too individualistic. We are married to our misery because it's what protects us. We have a trauma and we're like, well, I'm not going to do that again. And it really is our circuit board. So I mean, I'm not the first person to postulate that, but there is a significant good amount of evidence to say that we've kind of gone over the rainbow a little bit and we're too aware of ourselves because I agree. That story about your dog is so true. I see that with my cats all the time. My cats fight. They fight like crazy, and then two minutes later they'll be sleeping. Imagine having a fist fight and then falling asleep two minutes later,

Speaker 1 (00:25:24):

Nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (00:25:25):

Nothing happened. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:25:28):

Yeah. That's not how we're wired. So do you see what you do as one of the ways that we have figured out to exercise that?

Speaker 2 (00:25:37):

Oh, wow. I mean, look, I spent a lot of time wondering about art and why we do it and why it's important. And for me, at the end of the day, I do it because, and I've talked about this in other podcasts, so I don't want to repeat myself too much, but for me, I think ultimately at the end of the day, why I do it and why I continue to do it is because it's the only time that I feel present. When I'm being creative, I feel present, and whenever I'm present, I'm not time traveling, meaning to say I'm not anxious, which is living in the future, or I'm not depressed, which is living in the past. I'm present. I'm in the moment. I'm in a flow state. I'm just making things happen. I'm making the next decision that's right in front of me. So for me, that's why I do it every day as far as saying something to the universe and trying to figure out who I am through art. That's part of it too, but that's not the reason why I do it all the time.

Speaker 1 (00:26:32):

So this next question, tell me if you've already talked about this on another podcast, and if you have, we will go to the next one, but do you think that there's any benefit to being able to think of the future? For instance, if we talk about animals again, what they have that I am jealous of is the ability to be in the present all the time. They're not worried about what's coming up tomorrow. They're not worried about what happened yesterday. That's beautiful. So beautiful. I look for moments in life when I can be that way. They're few and far between, but I treasure them when I find them. But at the same time, I think it's fucking great that I can think of the big picture and where I'm going. That has allowed me to create a great life for myself. And it's a great thing too, that I can look at times that I've fucked up and analyze them. Now, going too far with either of those is not a good thing, but having that ability is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Speaker 2 (00:27:35):

I think that we're talking about two kind of different states. The flow state are being in the zone in the studio is one thing, but I think what you're talking about is being self-aware of the fact that you are a creature that eats shits and has to have an income in order to have shelter and food. That's just being pragmatic. If you're like, okay, I would really like to make this many records this year because I want to be making records five years from now. I want to have a career and I want to be gainfully employed by this. That's just being responsible. That's just like being a pragmatic person. And that's good shit, man. That's being an adult.

Speaker 1 (00:28:19):

Out of curiosity, you've done some really cool things in your career and achieved some stuff that people dream about doing. Was that your goal, or was your goal just, I want to make a living at this and do X amount of records so that I can be doing this in five years and it just got to there?

Speaker 2 (00:28:37):

This is the great thing about my life that I will always feel super lucky about. Everything has been an epic surprise for me. I mean, I didn't even want to be a producer. I just wanted to record records

Speaker 1 (00:28:47):

As an engineer.

Speaker 2 (00:28:49):

I started playing in bands very young. I loved playing music. I loved writing music. I loved creating music. But something in me knew at a very early age, even at the age of 14, that whatever music I wanted to make for my own personal pleasure, people would not be that interested in. I somehow was able, I had that epiphany so early on. People don't have that epiphany until their late twenties sometimes.

Speaker 1 (00:29:13):

Sometimes later,

Speaker 2 (00:29:15):

Sometimes never actually.

Speaker 1 (00:29:17):

Yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (00:29:19):

And here's the thing, it's fucking great to make music that nobody cares about except you or a small amount of people usually. That's really interesting music to

Speaker 1 (00:29:28):

You,

Speaker 2 (00:29:28):

To a small amount of people. It's more important to those people as opposed to a broad amount of people where it's like, oh, this is lifestyle music. This sounds good while I'm on my way to the club, woo, or whatever.

(00:29:39):

That's beautiful. That's just pure expression, and I love that, and I love people that do that who don't care about the commerce or don't concern themselves with it. I love that kind of music. That's the kind of music I like to be involved with a lot of times. So I had that epiphany essentially. But I loved the creative process and I loved recording my band. So I was like, well, maybe this is what I could do. And I didn't even really think about being a producer other than the producer is somebody who would hire me sometimes. I just liked recording bands, and by the time I was 25, I had recorded so many bands and learned how to do it very affordably that people started to ask me to produce because I could do their record very efficiently if I just was like, tell us what to do.

(00:30:26):

How do we do this? So that's how I kind of got into producing, and then next thing I know, I'm writing with people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it's like, whoa, you're doing records that are going platinum. Holy shit. You've won a Grammy. All a total surprise to me. All I ever wanted to do was make a living doing it. And the goals just kind of shift a little bit every year to where now I guess the only goal I have is continue to be interested in what I'm doing. Making a living is great. I've been able to figure that out one way or the other. I just want to be engaged and be challenged, I guess is really my goal. Now,

Speaker 1 (00:31:03):

Something interesting that I had been told a lot at the beginning of my music career and then also that I read a lot in interviews with artists was about doing things for the right reasons and how the right reasons are not financial. And part of me was like, what do you mean you need money? How can that not be part of the right reason? You have to get paid? And then I realized what it means, and here's what I think it means. If you are doing something creative, artistic as a profession, and your number one goal is money, there's no way that you're going to be interested enough in the actual work to basically to get through the dips, to get through the hard times, to get good enough to actually do stuff that's good enough to make that money. So you have to put the work first and the art first, make that the priority.

(00:32:02):

And obviously, while making intelligent decisions, you can't just say, oh, then the money will come. If you make stupid decisions, it won't. But putting the work first while making intelligent decisions, I think that that's the way that it should be prioritized. And that's what I think that people meant when they were telling me about the right reasons. The right reasons should be because you aim to be as good as possible and make the best possible art out of it, because otherwise, when the money doesn't come much for the first 10 years or something, you're going to get really discouraged and quit.

Speaker 2 (00:32:37):

For sure, man. And also just if anybody's listening to this who's an upstart and they're having trouble, please,

Speaker 1 (00:32:44):

Most people.

Speaker 2 (00:32:44):

Okay, great. Here, listen, and I mean this sincerely. There's absolutely no problem in having a day job. No problem. There's plenty of dignity in that music. First and foremost, up until about a hundred years ago was nothing more than a hobby. For most people, music was just something that people did after the sun went down because there was no electricity and everyone had played an instrument in a family, and this is just something that families did together. This was just a communal thing. That's where folk music comes from. That's why we have all these songs. We don't know who wrote them. It's like humanity wrote them. So we're a little scrambled a little bit when we think about, well, I need to be paid for this. I understand that everybody's time is valuable, but remember that good art is always its own reward. Always, always, always. And music will always give you more than you can ever give it. You expect it to make you a millionaire too, Jesus Christ. Let's manage our expectations slightly here. Always go into it because music, making music, fucking rules because it's great. It's like this wonderful prayer that we all can have together. If you always look at it that way, then you're never going to be disappointed. Right? Always. I don't want to use the word hobby, but there's nothing wrong with music being a hobby. That's okay. That's what it was for squillions of years up until basically recently in the human experience.

Speaker 1 (00:34:15):

But you're saying that yet, you said that you wanted to make it your living. So by definition, you didn't see it as a hobby.

Speaker 2 (00:34:22):

No, I mean, well, the thing is, it was more of a conversation with myself of like, Hey, maybe I can make this my living. And of course, it wasn't. For a while, I had other jobs. I was in a touring band, so I couldn't always put all my time towards recording. I worked in a record store. I did a lot of audio work that wasn't music related, which is a good way to earn money. There's all kind, especially nowadays, 5 million people I podcasts, I know people that are through quarantine. That's how they got through. It was working on podcasts for people. How about this? I'll tell you a story. This is what I'll remind myself of how far I've come. Sure. For about a year, the main source of income I got in my early twenties was recording second tier Barney, the dinosaur in the nineties. I'm from Dallas originally, and Barney, the dinosaur was filmed in Dallas. Do you know what Barney the dinosaur is?

Speaker 1 (00:35:18):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:35:18):

Okay, good. I don't know how old you are, so I wasn't sure

Speaker 1 (00:35:21):

41 in. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:35:23):

He's

Speaker 1 (00:35:23):

Scary.

Speaker 2 (00:35:24):

So you definitely know who Barney the dinosaur is.

Speaker 1 (00:35:26):

Oh, yes.

Speaker 2 (00:35:27):

But you're a little old for it, but you know who he is.

Speaker 1 (00:35:30):

Yeah. He was not part of my childhood.

Speaker 2 (00:35:33):

Right, of course. Obviously neither mine, but it would've been a part of my niece's childhood. Right. So Barney, the dinosaurs from Dallas, a lot of people don't know this, but there were two Barneys. There was the Barney that did the TV show, which I did record a lot of the kids on the Barney TV show, but my main gig was recording the second tier Barney. The Barney that did the stuff that wasn't as important.

Speaker 1 (00:35:57):

The understudy Barney.

Speaker 2 (00:35:58):

The understudy Barney, exactly one time for an entire month. I recorded the second tier Barney. There were these dolls, these personalized Barney dolls that you could buy special order, and the Barney Doll would say your name and it would say it within the context of sentences. So it's like, I love you, Joey. Right. So there would be a few different sentences that the Barney Doll would say, but in order to do that, you had to record the second tier Barney saying every name that's ever existed in the history of names it different in fluctuations for these Barney dolls. So for about a month, once I recorded the second tier, Barney saying every name in the history of names,

Speaker 1 (00:36:42):

Holy shit,

Speaker 2 (00:36:43):

At two different in fluctuations. So it'd be like Joey, Joey, Angela, Angela. I did that for a month, and I didn't even have to do anything other than set the microphone up and plus pray and record because we had an ISDN line from the producer from New York or wherever. So I didn't even talking to anybody. I would just sit there for 10 hours a day and record those voices. That's what I did. So I think about that. Whenever I feel too big for

Speaker 1 (00:37:16):

My bridges, I'm just taking that in. That's why I was silent. So I mean, to some degree that is assembly line work.

Speaker 2 (00:37:27):

Of course.

Speaker 1 (00:37:28):

Just something super repetitive where you just have to make sure that the bag of chips doesn't fall off. The assembly line,

Speaker 2 (00:37:38):

I mean was so mind-numbingly boring. It was like, other than making sure that it didn't distort and the signal was hot enough, I mean, come on, you got that down in five minutes tops. So to keep my sanity, and of course this was before iPhones and the internet and everything, I couldn't just drift off. So to keep myself sane, I would just write down the times on the tape for what reason? Not really all that. Sure. Because they were doing it in New York or wherever too.

Speaker 1 (00:38:11):

So when you were doing that, were you thinking, fuck yeah, I'm doing something in audio, or I need this to move on to something cool as soon as I can.

Speaker 2 (00:38:21):

I can't really remember how I felt about it other than like, wow, this is fucking gnarly and gnarly bad. But I had to put food in my body and I had to pay my rent. The way I looked at it is like, Hey, I get up every morning and I set up a microphone and I'm recording something. It's not my dream. I'm not having to dig a ditch.

Speaker 1 (00:38:43):

It's a step in the right direction for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:38:46):

Even if it's not a step in the right direction, I'm in a studio.

Speaker 1 (00:38:50):

I'd say that's a step in the right direction. I mean, okay, if the direction is getting to the kind of stuff you do now as opposed to digging a ditch, well,

Speaker 2 (00:39:01):

What's

Speaker 1 (00:39:01):

Closer to what you do now than I would say recording Barney B.

Speaker 2 (00:39:06):

Right. But here's another thing. I just sharp distinction here. Nothing wrong with digging ditches. The world needs ditches.

Speaker 1 (00:39:12):

No, but if you don't want to be the person to do that though, then I think that, yeah, there's absolutely nothing wrong with any honest work, but really we are in lots of ways responsible for our own lives and how we feel about our lives, and it's unfortunate that we're so emotional in everything that we already talked about, but I mean, if your brain decided that it doesn't want to dig ditches and it wants to do this audio thing, you're going to be a very unhappy person if you don't at least try.

Speaker 2 (00:39:45):

Yeah, I agree. I agree with all that, and I think there is a place and a time to always just be grateful that life played out, whether in the fact that I had a genetic lottery winning lottery card of how I was born, the time I was born, the way I look, the fact that I was a male, which made it a lot easier at that time. It's nice to reflect on the fact that I was fucking lucky. Just lucky. A lot of things fell in line for me.

Speaker 1 (00:40:17):

The white dude in the US in this time period. It's lucky. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:40:21):

You're very lucky. And anybody who acts especially 20 years ago, anybody who acts you're not lucky is full of shit, and I don't know what you're trying to prove. It doesn't mean that you didn't work hard, but I think there's always time for a little quiet reflection of like, wow, man,

Speaker 1 (00:40:38):

Look at my place in history.

Speaker 2 (00:40:40):

Things worked out for me before I was even born. The sperm and the egg that I happened to be hatched from worked out in this timeline. So what I'm trying to say is here's that P word, but that privilege that another person, maybe they're in a situation where it's like, my only option is to dig a ditch. I could never dream of doing that, which of course is not true. They should be able to anyways. You get what I'm saying? Yes. I was born with the hubris that I could do something like that, and I'm grateful for that. That's all I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1 (00:41:16):

So do you think that it's ever a bad thing for someone to have that kind of hubris?

Speaker 2 (00:41:23):

Well, I think what I was saying I was grateful for was the fact that I just happened to be born into a situation that made that marginally or significantly easier. I'm not sure who knows how it would've gone if I was somebody else. Hubris. I am saying I think I had hubris in the fact that there was obviously something in me that felt like I deserved that or I could achieve that. And I think that anybody in the arts has some level of hubris to think that they have something to offer.

Speaker 1 (00:41:54):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:41:54):

I think you kind of need that. Otherwise that means you probably don't feel you have anything to say. So hubris has got bad connotation. Maybe. I don't know what the word would be because the only other word I can think of is entitlement, which is even

Speaker 1 (00:42:09):

Worse. Well, I think narcissism, so

Speaker 2 (00:42:11):

Sure, we all have a little bit of that.

Speaker 1 (00:42:13):

I did a lot of reading about narcissism last year because I wanted to find out if I was a narcissist, and I also wanted to be able to identify the narcissists around me.

Speaker 2 (00:42:23):

The fact that you wondered if you were a narcissist means you weren't a narcissist. Maybe

Speaker 1 (00:42:27):

It means I am.

Speaker 2 (00:42:29):

No, it means you're not. I think any psychiatrist would agree with me on that. The fact that you took the time to go, I wonder if I'm a narcissist probably means you're not a narcissist,

Speaker 1 (00:42:38):

Not pathological. At least

Speaker 2 (00:42:40):

We all have narcissism in us.

Speaker 1 (00:42:42):

It's a spectrum.

Speaker 2 (00:42:43):

But if you're talking about narcissistic personality disorder,

Speaker 1 (00:42:46):

Yeah, no,

Speaker 2 (00:42:48):

You would never ever have the reflection to go, I wonder if I'm a narcissist. That's what makes it that.

Speaker 1 (00:42:53):

So there's a spectrum and a scale, and basically if you're a nine and a 10 on that scale, you've got the disorder, your pathological, no, you'll never think that. However, also on the other end, if you're like a one or a two, that's not good either because you're going to be a pushover. People are going to walk all over you, and those people have lots and lots of problems too. I'm sure that type, that always gets taken advantage of

(00:43:19):

A normal, well-adjusted person, whatever that means, has somewhere between three to six. However, people in the entertainment industry who are not pathological, who are just very driven, tend to be a seven or an eight. So they're in that direction, but they're not over the edge, and it's almost like they have to feel strongly enough that they've got something that they're, something they have that nobody else has, that they're going to give to the world and they have to have that. If not, how are they going to put up with what the world has to offer them? Totally

Speaker 2 (00:43:55):

Agree.

Speaker 1 (00:43:55):

I'm a 7.5.

Speaker 2 (00:43:56):

Oh, you took a test. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:43:58):

I'm a 7.5.

Speaker 2 (00:44:00):

Where's this test? I think your listeners should all take it to find as if they have what it takes.

Speaker 1 (00:44:05):

Narcissistic personality disorder test.

Speaker 2 (00:44:08):

Okay, so it's just an online test,

Speaker 1 (00:44:10):

But that one specifically, and then there's also, there's the narcissistic personality inventory. Both of them are pretty good.

Speaker 2 (00:44:18):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:44:19):

Yeah. I'm a 7.5, which is what I was expecting actually.

Speaker 2 (00:44:26):

But you're aware of it. That's the important thing. You're aware of it. That's all that matters.

Speaker 1 (00:44:31):

I mean, I think self-awareness is a huge, huge part of all this, and I want to key in on something that you said you said deserve that there's some part of us that has to feel like we deserve it, which is interesting because I don't like when people feel entitled to things, they're not entitled to. However, I've had that feeling of I deserve certain types of success, but it's hard to explain because I don't believe that I deserve to have it handed to me by anybody else. It's like this weird, it's grander thing, like this agreement I have with the universe almost that I'm going to do my part. I'm going to do my part because

Speaker 2 (00:45:15):

Yeah. Hey, universe, you keep up your end of the bargain. I'm going to work hard and you're going to give me what I want. I don't know how to

Speaker 1 (00:45:22):

Explain it without sounding weird, but I guess I know what you mean. Do you know a way to explain it? I've been trying to figure out a way to explain it for a while without sounding, I believe that shit should just be handed to me, not even it at all. Yeah. I have this feeling that there's this stuff that has to happen.

Speaker 2 (00:45:41):

I think that, and look, this sounds diminishing, but I don't mean it to be, but I think it's what they call delusions of grandeur

Speaker 1 (00:45:47):

Could be.

Speaker 2 (00:45:49):

And every artist I know has a little bit of that. I think I kind of tend to agree with you that if there isn't a delusion of grandeur, then you probably don't have anything worth saying.

Speaker 1 (00:46:03):

Yeah, maybe you're right.

Speaker 2 (00:46:05):

This is just a really, really complex textured conversation that's just hard to have, and we're going to fumble around the edges for eternity with these sorts of things of how much of a narcissist do you actually have to be in order to feel like you have something to say that anybody wants to listen to? That's kind of narcissistic to say, Hey, you need to hear what I have to say.

Speaker 1 (00:46:27):

Yes. That's one of the reasons I took the test was like, I can't believe that I talk for a living.

Speaker 2 (00:46:34):

I mean, that's pretty

Speaker 1 (00:46:35):

Narcissistic. It's fucked up.

Speaker 2 (00:46:36):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything's a spectrum, and just because somebody has narcissism to doesn't mean that they're narcissistic personality disorder.

Speaker 1 (00:46:46):

No, I agree. I'm sure you've met that type.

Speaker 2 (00:46:49):

Oh, yeah. They're everywhere in the business. Yeah, they're everywhere.

Speaker 1 (00:46:53):

One of the things that I read, and I thought this was interesting because some people, I remember saying that the music industry or the entertainment industry turns people into narcissists and thing I read, and the thing I believe is no, it doesn't. It attracts them. It doesn't turn you into anything. It attracts a certain type of person. Just

Speaker 2 (00:47:13):

Reveals what you really are,

(00:47:16):

And this gets back to what I was talking about 45 minutes ago. It's like if you get success, then sometimes you're able to express these darker impulses and these tangential things that are really quite unattractive and ugly, and people will put up with them because they get a paycheck from you or they think you're a genius or some horse shit like that. So yeah, it does allow people to reveal who they really are. It's sort of, in my opinion, not to bring it back to something global. I've always felt like COVID revealed a lot of what America truly is in the divisions and

Speaker 1 (00:47:53):

Good and bad,

Speaker 2 (00:47:54):

Good and bad. But the fact that we can't agree on basic science that exposed something very menacing in America, to me it's sort of the same thing. It just exposed who we really are.

Speaker 1 (00:48:09):

It's interesting that it takes something extreme. It takes something extreme like a pandemic or something extreme, getting rich or getting famous. These extreme things that are not normal. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:48:21):

Not normal. Not normal.

Speaker 1 (00:48:22):

Yeah. Well, yeah, getting rich or famous is not a normal thing.

Speaker 2 (00:48:25):

Not normal. Being famous is not normal.

Speaker 1 (00:48:28):

No, absolutely not. And so there's no rule book, just like with the pandemic, there were kind of rule books, but no real rule book on how to deal with something like this. So

(00:48:40):

I mean, some people dealt with it better than others, but I think everyone was kind of dealing with it as it went. You get to see all over the world how ready or not ready or who guessed and who didn't guess. But there was no rule book for dealing with this sort of thing. Just like there is no rule book for what to do when you get famous or successful in music. All you have is the lessons maybe learned by people who came before. You have the lessons from earlier pandemics, which may or may not apply to future pandemics. It's interesting to see how people react. You really get to see people for who they are. And it's interesting too. I know a lot of people have said things like, money changes you, success changes you. I don't buy that for a fucking second. I think it amplifies whatever you are.

Speaker 2 (00:49:27):

Yeah. Couldn't agree more. I've had this conversation with a lot of people like, oh, blanks man, they've really changed.

Speaker 1 (00:49:34):

Oh, they haven't.

Speaker 2 (00:49:35):

I saw that in them back then. It was just a tiny little squeaking, little gerbil, and now it's a dragon

Speaker 1 (00:49:42):

Because they have the means to be the dragon now.

Speaker 2 (00:49:46):

Yeah. That's all it is. And we allow people to behave that way. That's the thing. We let them get away with that. And I guess in terms of cancel culture and things like that, in a weird way, it's a pushback to that. And that's one of the good things about it. I mean, as complicated as all that is, that's one expression of that that I see is just kind of like, ah, we're not going to just let power do what it wants. That's the impulse there that's being pushed back. That I think is a good thing. You can't behave however you want just because you have money or whatever. And of course, we've got a very long way to go with that.

Speaker 1 (00:50:27):

Yeah. I mean, whether or not you agree with how far the pendulum swang or if it has been handled properly in all cases, that's regardless. I think that the idea that you can't just be a monster and get away with it.

Speaker 2 (00:50:42):

Right. Cool. Which is a good thing that we feel that way.

Speaker 1 (00:50:45):

It is a good thing. Yeah. Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and 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 eth shuga, bring me the Horizon. GA Jira, 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.

(00:51:38):

And these are guys like TLA, will Putney, Jenz Boren, Dan Lancaster, to I Mattson, 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 game 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.

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Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more on the topic of putting up with behaviors. How do you deal with it when you encounter it in the studio? Because in order to be a successful producer, co songwriter, everything you do, you have to be able to navigate the waters basically. You have to be able to navigate people's personalities and you will encounter these personalities and you will have to deal with, I know that every situation's different. How do you go about approaching the difficult ones that are super important for your career and artistically,

Speaker 2 (00:53:32):

Nobody's important for my career as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (00:53:35):

Good way to put it.

Speaker 2 (00:53:36):

Nobody owns me in that way, and I don't mean to sound like petulant.

Speaker 1 (00:53:41):

No, that's great.

Speaker 2 (00:53:42):

Nobody owns me in that way because I've curated my career to where I don't have to deal with bullshit that I don't want to deal with. If you are an artist who is troubled and you're hard to deal with, that's okay. We can work through that. But if you are abusing people in what any reasonable person would, deduce is a pattern that's a problem. As I said before at the beginning of the podcast, nobody should be judged on their worst day. So when people have a bad day and they're short tempered, that's okay. We all do that. And I'm a very forgiving person and I'm a tolerant person. We all misbehave sometimes and act a fool. If there's a pattern, if you feel like you can behave that way all the time, then that's a problem and we probably shouldn't work together. So there's that. But how do I deal with it on sort of an anecdotal situation?

(00:54:43):

Just let 'em know that they're understood and loved and everything's cool and we're trying to make something beautiful together, and there's no reason to let things get out of hand. If that means that we got to take a break while they cool down or whatever, that's okay. And a lot of times it's not about that. It's not about them expressing power. It's more of just that they don't know what to do and they need help. And it's hard to ask for help sometimes and to admit that you don't know how to proceed with something, but I am there for that. Honestly, man, it's not that big of a problem. It really isn't.

Speaker 1 (00:55:18):

It is for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (00:55:19):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:55:20):

That's why I'm zeroing in on this. But it is for a lot of people, and I want them to hear what it's like for someone who is good at this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:55:27):

Part of it is I think that I'm wired for this in a way. I grew up in a household with a lot of unpredictable personalities. I kind of was tempered for this job a little bit of like, oh, I don't know who I'm going to deal with today. So I think some of it comes naturally for me, knowing that it is end of the day, you are employed and they are your employer. You need to be understanding and be somewhat malleable to how their process needs to be so they can make the art that they're proud of. I think I would be better answering this question if it was happening right now, and you would just see how I would deal with it. Fair enough. So if you want to give me an anecdote of how I would deal with something, I can try to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:56:11):

A fucked up situation that I've encountered in the studio.

(00:56:18):

Okay. This one was more just really fucking annoying. There's a band, classic band, been around forever. Long lineage, Grammy winning. They're a real band. And so with that lineage, they have habits that they've developed. I don't mean like drug habits, behavior habits, and those behaviors that we talked about have been encouraged and allowed, and so what that translated into was nothing insane. However, super counterproductive, like for instance, one of the members of the band would not shut the fuck up ever when other people were trying to work, and the guy could literally talk for seven hours straight and would just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, and could not remove himself from the situation and then would get in people's personal space and always thought that he had something to contribute and came to a head when he was drunk in the studio, was talking, talking, talking while holding a beer over a Chandler and didn't notice that as he was talking. The beer was starting to tip and tip and tip, and then the whole thing went into the Chandler. But I would say that about two weeks got added onto that recording because of that. And just dealing with the guy was the band leader too. So dealing with that personality type, I'm purposefully not picking something that's super dark or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:57:52):

No, this is a fascinating one. You're bringing up a situation that is super complicated.

(00:57:59):

I thought you were going to say, this singer can't hit a note or something like that, and they're freaking out. That's so much more specific that I could say, well, maybe this X, Y, and Z. What you're talking about is like, holy cow, so many dynamics. That right there might need to be one of those intervention style things where outside of the studio, everybody gets together and talks about this problem and that person may very well act like a caged animal when that happens. That's a hard one, man. Sounds like, like a real chaotic personality.

Speaker 1 (00:58:34):

Very chaotic.

Speaker 2 (00:58:35):

Probably in that situation where somebody was just being verbose. I would probably at some point say, we got to get to work, man. I would say it like that. I would say something like, Hey, I'm concerned about the record and you're spending too much money. I would make it about them. It's like, whoa, we're blowing money, man. We can't talk so much. We got to get to work. I would be like, I'm concerned about the budget. That's probably how I would do it.

Speaker 1 (00:58:57):

So always looking out for them.

Speaker 2 (00:58:58):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:58:59):

Rather than, dude, you talk too much. Shut the fuck up,

Speaker 2 (00:59:01):

Dude. You're irritating the shit out of me. And here's the thing that's still being direct. I'm not lying. No,

Speaker 1 (00:59:09):

That's that tact you were talking about.

Speaker 2 (00:59:11):

Yeah. It's tact. And look, I hate when records go over budget and we waste time. So sometimes you just have to diagnose what's wasting the time. Sometimes it's like, Hey, we're spending spending way too much time tuning the drums. The drums sounded great before. Why are we still tuning the drums? Shit like that.

Speaker 1 (00:59:26):

This tact you're talking about, because you mentioned it before and you just gave a really good example of it. Is that something that you learned? I know you worked under Steve Albini for a while. Is that something you learned while you were being mentored? Is that something that you just came to the table with? Is it something that you got from all the years of just recording people before you consider yourself a producer? Where did that come from?

Speaker 2 (00:59:51):

Yeah, all of the above, man. I would say I learned a lot from other engineers and other producers that I either assisted or engineered for. I learned a lot from those people, more people than I could even name. I learned even more of what not to do from those people. I'm like, that didn't work. The band really turned on him when they said that. I learned that. You mentioned Steve. Steve, absolute genius engineer, one of the best ever living dead or

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):

Deadly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):

But I will say that the most I ever gleaned from Steve was his ability to keep a session moving. He does records so incredibly efficiently, and his secret weapon is besides the fact that he's a brilliant engineer, so problems are minimized. He's very good at just conducting a session, which to me is what a producer does a lot of times. But he would never want to be called a producer. But he's exquisitely talented at keeping a session at high productivity without feeling oppressive.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):

Interesting. Not many people are.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):

No, it's an extremely rare talent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):

I just had Andrew Schwepps on, we talked about that exact thing, what he considers himself versus what other people could consider him. He's super humble, but me and Andrew were making the argument that these amazing records took place in his presence. He's got more to do with it than he's giving himself credit for.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):

Yeah. He'll never give himself credit for that, and he would even probably not be too stoked that I said this, but Steve has a sound, he has an approach that every band he works with is clearly influenced by, and part of it is of wanting to have an impact. That's part of it. And then the second part of it, his humility, which are both beautiful aspects of him. But at the end of the day, you put on a Steve Albini record, I will know right away that it's a Steve Albini recording. It's just the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):

Do you think that that's something that you have to try to establish? The reason I'm wondering is because I'll tell you my theory, I want to hear yours. My theory is you don't have to try to be yourself in art. You just have to try to get good, because that's very smart. You're still the filter. It's still coming through you. So just get good. You will come through.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):

That's great. You don't have to be yourself. You just have to get good. That's super potent. I feel

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):

Cool. Thank you. Podcast over. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):

Land on a high note. Thank you. Goodnight.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):

Have you always felt that way?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):

I don't know if I've ever put it in those words. I think that's great what you just said.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):

How would you have put it if someone came to you and was like, I want to develop my own sound as a producer?

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):

Oh yeah. I think I would say something like that in different words, but I love the way you just put it. I think the one thing that I always find myself saying is just trust your instincts. Always. Your instincts aren't always going to be flattering or the taste of other people, but hone those instincts. Know what they are. Know how not to second guess yourself. Feel confident in your decisions, and you'll develop by accident. I hate saying this, but a sound. You'll develop an approach that people will appreciate. Maybe it's not what they want and they don't have to hire you. Of course, at least you'll have a thing. You'll have a point of view which art is all about point of view.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):

Yeah. I mean, what are you without a point of view? I feel like that's what a producer is at the end of the day. I mean, yes, keeping a session going, all that stuff is part of it, but at the end of the day, if they didn't like your point of view or your taste, basically, why would they hire you? That's what they're hiring you for.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):

Of course. And I would say that running a session and keeping a session moving, however pragmatic and boring and that may seem, is still a point of view. That's a point of view of a process, that's a point of view, how to make something and that energy flow, that maintaining inspiration and energy, that absolutely is heard in the results. It's not sexy to talk about that, but it's heard in the results.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):

No, that's why I want to talk about it. Actually.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):

This is the unsexy podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):

No, I think it's very sexy, honestly. We've got a weird crowd, but productivity and workflow are topics that are very interesting to these people. It's interesting to me too because I feel like one of the biggest problems that creative people have is just managing their time. And then you notice the people who get ahead aren't always the best, but they are the people who just get shit done,

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):

Couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):

They just get shit done. And so people rely on them and labels will go to them. Bands will go to them, even if they're 10% worse than somebody else, because they know that they'll get the thing that they need on time because that person knows how to manage a session. It's huge. It's fucking huge.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):

If you want to make a living in the arts, you'll never ever make a living until you start making a living for other people.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):

Yes, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):

It's so demoralizing to know that. But it's true. A label is going to hire you if they know that they will get a record on budget because that means that the record will recoup quicker and they'll get paid. So they're like, let's hire John because we know, yes, it'll be a good record, but yes, we'll be able to make our money back and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all that horrible shit that nobody wants to think about. But

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):

You know what? Demoralizing, maybe. But at the same time, it's one of those things, one of the first things we talked about is just being upfront with people rather than sugarcoating the truth, being forward telling the truth. That's a truth that is very beneficial for people to know whether it's sexy or not. That is one of the most important things that someone could know that if you want to make a living at this, you need to make a living for other people. I wish I knew that way earlier in life.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):

Yeah, yeah. It's the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):

Yeah, because then you can act accordingly. When did you figure that out?

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm still figuring it out. Oh, probably in my late twenties maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):

Well, you said you're still figuring it out, so I'm guessing it didn't come as an epiphany.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):

No, I think it was an epiphany, but it's one of those epiphanies that I tried to ignore because look, I can be a pretentious fuck, there's no doubt about it. And I can really sit there and cork sniff about the virtues of different art and like, oh, this is good art. This is bad art, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can absolutely be that kind of dickhead, but at the end of the day, not all art has to be for me. As a matter of fact, most art shouldn't be for me because there's a lot of people in this world, and if everything just suited my taste, it would be a boring artistic world. And that's actually something that Steve would say, I think, is if everything just suited his desires for sonics, nobody, not very many people would like the records he did. So that's one of the things he would say. Have you had Steve on here?

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):

I tried to contact him once and he didn't respond, but then again, I don't even know if I contacted him the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):

Do you want me to make an intro?

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):

Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):

I'll do that. Yeah, no worries.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):

Please, and thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):

Yeah, no worries. He's a wonderful man.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):

Yeah, I would love to have him on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):

Yeah, you guys would get along I think.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):

Well, thank you in advance. So when you figured out, I guess, when you started to realize that, did it change your approach at all? Or was it just like, okay, now I understand this?

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):

I think I just had a little, I stood in awe of how unfortunately true it was that this is a business. Unfortunately, I say unfortunately twice there because I do, it makes me sad that it has to be a business, but it is, I think I realized that it was time for me to put away some of my more childish notions of things, and that's when I started to incorporate. I think it happened. You know what it is? I'll tell you exactly what it is. I think I realized it shortly after I started to have management.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):

That's

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):

What it was. I had a manager who was a great manager for three years. He worked out great, but he wasn't the right, he worked out great as a friend, but he wasn't the right match. And then I started working with a different manager who I'm still with to this day, and he said something to me, your

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):

Manager's cool, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):

Oh, great. Cool. Did you talk to Adam or Connor?

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):

Connor, I believe.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):

Okay. Yeah. Adam is actually my manager. Connor's the day-to-day. But yes, Connor's great. Adam said something to me on our first phone call that I really appreciated because it wasn't a sexy thing to say. He said, I like your records, man. You make cool sounding records, but nobody really buys them. And I'm happy to pick you up as a client, but just so you know, three years from now, I'm going to need you to starting to make more money because I have kids and I love weird music, and I love what you're doing, but if I'm not making a little more money off of you, I can't justify the time. And it was really hard to hear that at that moment. I just wanted him to say, I think your records are rad. I don't care. That's what I wanted to hear. But that's stupid. He has three kids to feed. Right? And he said that, and I think that's when I started to realize that if you're going to do this for real, you probably need to be valuable in a capitalistic sense. Unfortunately, to other people,

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):

It's the world we live in.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):

It's the world we live in. Obviously, I don't like the system, just so that's clear. I wish there was a better way. This is the reality we live in though, and I believe in pushing things forward, but this is where we live. This is what's happening right now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):

I'm sure that you appreciated the straightforwardness. I would.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):

I did. A hundred percent. I did. I was coming off the heels of three years of being with a manager who really blew a lot of smoke up my ass and actually was kind of in it for the art with me and had big ideas for me, but at the end of the day, didn't know how to get me to a point where I would be making more money so they could make more money. And so they got frustrated.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):

So what role do you see for a producer, manager, something that comes up a lot. I know that there's some who literally all they do is they're the bad guy. They're your pit bull, which is perfectly fine too. For some people. They don't get any work, but they do negotiate contracts, and they do say, that's not enough money.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):

Here's the deal. And I think that people listen to your podcast need to hear this, so I'm going to say it, even though it's going to blow some minds, producer managers don't get you work, work. It doesn't work that way. I don't know why people think that. I don't know. It doesn't work that way. Maybe it worked that way 25 years ago. There is a certain amount of value that they add because if they've been doing it a long time, they know all the people and those people talk to each other. So maybe they spitball ideas and that manager goes back to their band and says, my friend who manages this guy, or this girl said maybe they would be interested and blah, blah. Next thing you know, have a meeting. Next thing you know, you're doing a session that happens, but they're not going to pick you because the manager, they're going to pick you because you recorded something that they find interesting or good. That's it. So you still got to do the work. Really, Adam and Connor make my life easier. That's it. They just make my life easier. So when I wake up in the morning, what I worry about is working on the music that's sitting in front of me. That's all I care about. I hate everything else. Adam will tell you, it's impossible to get me on the phone to talk about things because I hate talking about it. Just let me at the work. That's all I care about.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):

So what's interesting, we talked about self-awareness earlier, and I really think that it's one of the most important things that you can develop. I mean, there's so many reasons for it. For instance, knowing that you are actually good enough to do something or not actually good enough to do something. Maybe you're not good enough for your original dream, but there's something adjacent you could do that self-awareness is fucking crucial. And if you know about yourself that you're just not designed for the paperwork side of this stuff and that everything is better when someone else deals with that and you just deal with the music, great. There's some producers who have no problem doing that kind of stuff, too, are perfectly fine handling all the business, and that's fine. I don't think one way is better than the other thing that's better is knowing who you are and then setting up the way you work accordingly. That's what matters.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):

Of course. That's what matters. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all that matters to me is how can I do the best work possible? And the best way for me to do that is to not waste my time. I feel dealing with a bunch of horse shit, that's not interesting to me. Adam loves doing this shit. It's what he gets off doing. He likes it. He likes putting things in order. I like making music. And we have a wonderful relationship because we understand that about each other. Look, and Adam is an exquisite straight shooter with me. He tells me exactly what I don't want to hear all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):

That's great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):

Yeah. I appreciate it. It

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):

Just reminds me, I was negotiating something with somebody's manager the other day, and we're friends. He's a friend of mine. I value his friendship quite a bit, and we have a policy of just being fucking blunt. And he said that frankly, what we were offering was not enough for X, and he apologized for being blunt. I was like, why would you apologize for being blunt? Thank you for saying that. Now we can. Now

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):

We can figure it out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):

Now we can figure it out. If you hadn't said that, and then I'd be left wondering why this isn't moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):

Right, right, right. Yeah, no, I agree. Please blunt. I think you and I are. Exactly. I think we're very similar that way. Let's just get it out there,

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):

Then you can fix it. Are you self-taught? I mean, minus having mentors, are you self-taught

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):

In what capacity?

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):

Self-taught in that? Did you go to recording school or did you just figure it out on your own?

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):

Oh, okay. I went to music school but didn't graduate. I had a handful of people who taught me how to record, but no, I didn't go to school for recording. I went to college for jazz composition, actually.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):

Interesting. Why that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):

Because I had a little outside pressure from my father who really felt like I should go to college. And I was in a band, a touring band at the time, and I was already recording people whenever I came out of high school. This is in 95. I didn't see the point of going to college. But he was really that old school, you should go to college.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):

That's why I went too. I got pressured into it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):

Yeah, I was pressured into it. And he was like, go for anything you want. I was like, really? I can just go for whatever I want. I was like, well, what will make me better at music? And I think that I knew that I wanted to make records, and I was like, what will make me better at that? I don't need to learn how to record. So how about I learn how to be able to communicate any musical idea with anybody imaginable? So the fact that I really knew how to communicate with bands and talk to shitty punk rock bands about how to tune their guitar, I had that already. So I was like, I want to be able to read a jazz chart. I want to be able to communicate with anybody musically. So that was my goal. And whether or not I totally achieved that, I'm not sure. But I certainly got better at that. And I think at this point, I can communicate with anybody. I can communicate with a modern classical composer. I can communicate with somebody who can barely play drums. I can interface and resonate with any of those people.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):

And do you think school helped with that?

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):

I do actually. I think that I dropped out at the right time. I think that the fact that I didn't finish was actually probably the smartest thing I ever did.

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):

Same.

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):

But it did give me some discipline, and it did put me in situations that I was uncomfortable with. It put me around people that I didn't know how to talk to, and I learned how to do it, and I met a lot of people that I really liked, frankly, that weren't like me. So here's what I say to anybody that wants to go to school, whether it's for recording or music or whatever, learn everything you can and then forget it. That's what I say.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):

Do you think that if you were getting out of high school now, same parents

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):

And you, oh God, I know where this question's going.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):

Would they have pressured you to go to college?

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):

Probably not. Things are different now.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):

They are very different. I'm just thinking because my parents too, it was like, you just have to go to college. You have to go to college. What the hell's wrong with you kid? You have to go because you have to go. I was like, what do you mean? I have to go? I don't need it for this career. You just have to go have to go.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):

A 20-year-old listening to this podcast, I know that they probably won't totally believe us, but things were different then. The understanding was you wouldn't be able to be as employed. Your options would be more narrow. So your parents a lot of times would just be like, go to college. Doesn't matter what you study, because whatever you do when you get out, they're going to train you to do it. Which of course, when I was 18 years old, I was like, fuck that noise. That just sounded so, such a was of time to me. But I went because I didn't have a better idea, frankly. So it's not all my data. I didn't necessarily have a direction. I was recording bands for almost no money, didn't really particularly have a path laid out in front of me other than to continue to play in my band and tour and kind of maybe go nowhere with it all. So I appreciated the fact that he was trying to give me a direction. So I'm grateful that I went, but I'm more grateful that I dropped out.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):

I think dropping out was one of the best decisions I've ever made too. Why did you drop out? Out of curiosity?

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):

Things were already, I was recording more and more and I was diverging my attention away from school because I was already doing what I wanted to do. Shortly after that is when I went to Chicago and lived up there for a while, and I met Steve up there actually, to tie into that, I felt like I was already doing it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):

Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):

Was I going to spend two more years doing this? I just didn't see the point.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):

Yeah, it was very similar. Came home on a winter break and started the band that I knew when we started. I knew this band was going to get signed, and it did, and I knew that starting a studio in Atlanta would have, I just knew. What

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):

Was your studio?

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):

Oh, it was stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):

No, what was the name of it?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):

Oh, it was called Hairy Breakfast.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):

Hairy Breakfast. See, I mean, I've toured a ton and I've been to Atlanta several times. I've made records there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):

It wasn't a real studio. I didn't get to a real studio until 10 years later.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):

It

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):

Was real enough to record a bunch of underground death metal bands and for my band

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):

Then it was real.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):

It was real, but not like one that you would've heard of. We weren't doing bands that charted or anything like that, but I was able to get my band off the ground. I was able to get my band signed from it. I was able to do enough underground metal bands to get me a job at a real studio about 10 years later.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):

Great.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):

But that was it. I knew that it was the best idea to leave Berkeley and pursue this band and pursue the studio. It just was why am I going to stay here when these two things are showing so much potential? If I stay at Berkeley, who's to say that these two things are even going to exist in two years? Go do it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):

I hear you. The old linen quote, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. And I felt like school was making other plans whenever I had this thing right in front of me that was totally viable.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):

So do you consider yourself a risk taker?

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):

No. I would consider myself really pragmatic. It seemed obvious that that's what I should do.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):

Do you think an outsider would see it as risk taking

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):

Somebody who doesn't understand what I wanted out of life, might think it was a risk taking

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):

Or how you saw it?

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):

Yeah. I mean, I think it was a risk in terms of like, well, you probably won't make any money doing this, but I didn't give a shit about money, gave a shit about not my life, not being a pride, swallowing, siege every day of my life. I wanted my life to involve making art, and I was doing that, and school was literally siphoning time away from the thing I wanted to do. So why school's always going to be there? I could always go back.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):

True. Absolutely true. I think that people would've seen it as a risk back then to not get the degree. Because the reason you went was that classic thinking about you need the degree in order to be a real human.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):

For the 20 year olds listening, you had to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):

Yeah, you did. You did. But even back then, I didn't believe that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):

I don't know if I did either, but

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):

I definitely didn't. I just succumbed to the pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):

It was definitely a pressure thing for me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):

Yeah. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. I mean, I think that if you want to go to a school because you want what they have to offer, cool. By all means, why not? Wherever it is that you will learn best, go for it, but it's not going to make a difference in your career.

Speaker 2 (01:22:04):

I agree. I mean, learning is awesome. Learning things is one of the greatest things about life. So whatever way puts you on that path here.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):

So one last thing and then I'll let you go. And this one last thing might take a second, but when you started working with bigger artists, I'm sure that it took a while. Obviously you worked with locals and then moved up and then moved up a little.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):

Actually, it was a funny thing for me because at about the age of 21, I got a job at the largest studio in the southwest called the Lab. I was a staff engineer. This is when staff engineers still existed. It was a five room facility, and because it was the largest studio in that area, whenever big artists near there or on tour or whatever needed to work, that's where they went. That was just the place. So at a young age, I started working as an engineer on some pretty high profile things. Not in any enormous creative capacity, but I would be

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):

Around them.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):

I would be around them, and I would sometimes be assisting people that were very famous, and sometimes I would be the guy recording the famous person. So I started recording extremely rough local kind of music and then kind of pole vaulted to that world. Then went almost entirely back to my roots after that for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):

How did you get that gig?

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):

How did I get that gig? I had kind of at an early age achieved enough credibility that I had heard that they were looking for somebody and literally called him on the phone and talked to the owner. I was like, her junior engineer. I'll work for cheap. It was that simple. I needed a job. Alright.

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):

So getting in that environment, being around famous artists, did it fuck with your nerves at all, or did you just feel like, here I am. Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):

No, I was stoked. I was stoked. I, well, I was just stoked to work. And here's the thing. I was a punk. I didn't care about these famous people. A lot of these people, they didn't mean anything to me. I would've been far more impressed to see, I don't know, Ian Mackay or something. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):

So it didn't phase you?

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):

Not really. I think that there was a surrealist kind of thing about it where I was like, whoa, that's weird. I'm in the room with this person. And then I would tell my friends, this was fucking weird, and then they'd be like, were they weird? What were they? Like? I am slightly impervious to being starstruck, but it was surreal sometimes. Like, whoa, I've seen you on TV a lot

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):

And now you're in front of me

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):

And now you're here and you're a typical normal person.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):

But when you were doing, but you were just doing the job any other day just happened to be with them?

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):

Well, there was the implicit stress of knowing that this person probably will be fussy or they don't have a lot of time, or the producer will be super high strung because they want to impress them. There was that stress.

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):

So I guess that probably helped you develop that tact too, and how to read the room and

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):

Yes, and also just be super fucking fast. Be fast as shit. Never be the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):

Did you learn that the hard way?

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):

No, I think I just knew

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):

That's probably why you stuck it out.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):

Yeah. I mean, I've definitely, I've had a few instances where I fucked things up and was embarrassed in front of people, but nothing's noteworthy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):

So fast forward, get Grammy platinum records, all that stuff that people think they want when they start the career, which are still, they're cool, but how much do those things matter to you?

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):

Not at all. I mean, nothing. It means nothing to me. The Grammys I have are literally in boxes and storage. I don't own a gold or platinum record. I would never put anything like that in my house. It doesn't mean anything to me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):

What is it about it that's just whatever,

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):

All the great art in the world that I really love, not all, but let's say 80% of all the great art that I love is fairly unknown, but it means a lot to me and I champion the underdog. Simple as that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):

So what does it represent to you if it's not like

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):

A Grammy, what does a Grammy

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):

Represent to you? Like a Grammy or a platinum record. It can't be nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):

Okay. Here's what it did do. We'll talk about the Grammy. It finally got my parents to stop worrying about what I was doing because

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):

Hey, that's worth something.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):

Yeah, I guess so. There are certain benchmarks that happen in your career that make you appear more valid to people that aren't in the business.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):

If somebody says, oh, my son won a Grammy, then they're like, oh, he's legitimate. It doesn't matter that I was legitimate for 15 years before that. I'm legitimate in their eyes now. I think it probably made my parents sleep a little easier about the future, even though I was fine for years before that. I

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):

Mean, that's worth something.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):

It's worth something. I'm saying spiritually to me,

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):

Spiritually, not

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):

Nothing total fucking void. I'm happy for the artists if it means something to them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):

Did it do anything? The reason I'm asking is, and I know the answer, but I'm asking for people who don't. My thought on those types of things has always, whenever I've gotten, it's interesting, I put up some stuff behind me, but as an experiment, I've never put up anything in my life, ever. I've always thought that it's really, really lame, and I started to, I got this idea that what if I put up some plaques and stuff, and that way when I start to get the imposter syndrome, I can remind myself that I'm full of shit. The proof, there it is. So

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):

That's okay. I think anybody's relationship to their success is their own business.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):

I'm only telling you my subjective experience with it because this interview is with me and I am just letting people know who I'm

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):

Well, I'm curious. I'm just curious because I've always had an issue with those kinds of things too, and I've always felt like they're meaningless.

Speaker 2 (01:28:35):

Here's why I think it's meaningless. Okay. Here's why. I personally think it's meaningless, and this is going to sound super existential. When I die, the first line of my obituary will be Grammy winning producer. Okay. I'm not going to be there to enjoy that. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):

So it's like what I'm getting at is me obsessing about legacy and immortality projects is a waste of time for me. I'd rather just focus on whatever anonymous band I'm working with at that moment, because that means something to me. Right. Then that's just me though.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):

I feel that actually,

Speaker 2 (01:29:14):

I have friends who put their Grammys on their speakers right there in their studio, and these people are not arrogant people. They're not people that I dislike hanging out with because I think they're full of themselves. Their relationship to that Grammy is something different than my relationship to it, and that's cool, man. Not everybody needs to be like me.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):

No, but I completely relate to what you're saying. Always, whenever I've gotten something like that, I've never gotten a Grammy, but I've gotten some plaques and just things over the years and

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):

Anytime

Speaker 1 (01:29:50):

One has arrived, some sort of benchmark or achievement, I've been like, so what?

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):

Yeah, it's all meaningless, man.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):

I mean,

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):

It's like cool, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):

Not to sound like an ungrateful prick, but seriously,

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):

It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with being ungrateful.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):

It just did not phase me whatsoever. So some of the stuff that you see on the wall behind me stayed in boxes for years and years and years, and then I moved into this place and was like, all right, let's try and experiment. But I think a lot of people get into this thinking that that's a goal. I want plaques. I want a Grammy. I want that stuff, and then they get it. Sometimes some will get it and will be like, that's all it is.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):

Well, yeah. Here's the thing. This is a big secret no there. There's a Grammy, a platinum record, a lot of money being successful in Hollywood or whatever. It's not going to hold you when you're dying of cancer alone in your bed. It's not mommy and daddy. Mommy and daddy don't love you more because of it. It's none of those things. Your wife's

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):

Not going to stay with you because of it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):

No, that's right. People confuse this with an immortality project, and I spend a lot of time trying to strip those things away from it. You can't eat it. You can't fuck it. It won't get you into heaven.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):

I think that's a good place to end it, man.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):

Yeah, right on.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):

Likewise, man. Cool.

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):

Thank you very much for your time.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):

Of course, man. Have a great day.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):

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.