ERIK RUTAN: Joining Cannibal Corpse, authentic metal production, and his relentless work ethic

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the

Speaker 2 (00:00:01):

Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners. And if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts. Who knows, we might even respond.

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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 host and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. I am super excited about my guest today because not only is he a fucking legend, but I've been a fan of his literally since high school, and I've been trying to get him on the podcast for about five years now. So it's really, really awesome that he finally found time in his schedule to do this.

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My guest today is none other than the legendary Erik Rutan, who I'm going to say it again at the risk of sounding redundant, but is a legend and is known far and wide in extreme metal circles. He's a former member of Morbid angel, lead, vocalist and guitar player for Hate Eternal, as well as the newly announced guitar player for Cannibal Corpse. I mean, what a run, right? And on top of that, he's also the owner and operator of Mana Recording Studios, and he's produced mixed and worked with so many badass heavy bands such as Goat Whore Nile, vital Remains River of Nile, of course, cannibal Corpse. And the list goes on and on and on. I'll stop talking. Introduce you, Erik Rutan. Erik Rutan, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:02:34):

Hey, all, thank you for having me, man. Good to be here

Speaker 2 (00:02:37):

Finally.

Speaker 1 (00:02:38):

Yeah, it's been in the works for some time, I think. All my fault I'll take responsibility.

Speaker 2 (00:02:45):

No, man, you're a busy dude. I was thinking about something that we talked about before the episode, about juggling the amount of time and in order to do everything you want to do and how you told me that you're not happy just doing one thing, and I can relate to that. But the thing where you have me perplexed is how you do all those things at the same time. See, for me, I like to do a bunch of different things and have different phases in my career, but I stick to one thing at a time, then stop and move to the next. Are you balancing this shit?

Speaker 1 (00:03:18):

You know how they say if you spread yourself out too thin, then everything suffers. And so something that I've always struggled with honestly, is just balancing everything I'm doing. But desire and ambition overrule everything for me. And partially because 35 years ago when I started playing guitar, man, I had these lofty goals. I mean, I knew from the minute I started playing guitar exactly what I wanted to do. I was, I don't know, 14 or 15. I knew I always wanted to play music, tore the world, create my own kind of style of riffing and playing. And I always felt like I learned early on. I guess that the biggest thing is why I've been able to do so much and why I do so much is my first experience in the record industry. Signed my first record contract. I think I was 18 with Ripping Corpse and signed the crazed records and basically did our first record back in 19 91, 30 years ago in February, actually, crazy quantum sound up in Jersey City.

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And I had been in the studio before that doing demos and whatnot, but doing that record, it changed my whole life really being in the studio, recording the album, working with some great engineers as well, who didn't necessarily understand the kind of music we were doing either, but we did the whole record in two weeks. I think we tracked, I mean, it was one of those things we recorded Live, Sean, the other guitar player, and I recorded our scratch guitars live with the bass of drums, and we ended up keeping those and then quad tracking on top of that in a day or something. And then the record came out June of 1991, and six months later, the record label went bankrupt. And so we had signed this contract and we thought, oh man, we had tour support and video support and all this great stuff and all these aspirations of like, yeah, I can doing this for real. Yeah, yeah, man, we're going to make it, man. We're going to make it. And then six months later, nope, crashed. And so that was my introduction into the record industry 30 years ago.

Speaker 2 (00:05:39):

Dude, that's actually a great introduction in my opinion, because I feel like the sooner you get your ass handed to you, the better.

Speaker 1 (00:05:47):

You know what? And when I look back now, I think it was kind of a blessing in disguise because it made me realize, okay, this is how it's going to be. I think I was pumping gas at the time and just saying, ah, whatever it takes pumping gas. I mean, I had so many odd jobs just because I had all my eggs in this one basket. And then I realized, wow, okay, this is how it's going to go. And I learned the hard way right away, and I started thinking about what can I do? What do I enjoy doing that can help fortify my passion of playing music? Because for me, nothing's been more important than playing the music I want to play, doing what I want to do from a creative aspect. And if that meant I had to have 80 crappy jobs or whatever it took, I never wanted that to compromise my artistic approach or vision of what I wanted to create. But at the same time, I felt like pumping gas, there's more I can do. And then the one thing, yeah, this

Speaker 2 (00:06:54):

Doesn't have to

Speaker 1 (00:06:55):

Be the

Speaker 2 (00:06:57):

Income source.

Speaker 1 (00:06:58):

No, there's got to be something better than this. And so I just remember thinking to myself, man, I loved being in the studio recording that first record. I just man, that experience as it was stressful. It was a lesson in so many ways of like, wow, I thought I was super prepared. But when you're 19 years old during your first album, you're never prepared, I don't believe, but I thought I was. Of course, I learned so much. And also knowing at that point, the music we were doing, bi Corpse, we were a hybrid band. Death metal, thrash metal. I mean, we grew up in Jersey, New York. We were always playing with a lot of hardcore bands as well. And so I just felt like, man, I would love to be somebody that could record and produce more importantly my own records of whatever bands I was doing. And also friends of mine bands and bands I enjoy. I wanted to be a guy that people knew if they came to me, I would understand what it takes to get this kind of music on tape at the time.

Speaker 2 (00:08:10):

Man, you want to know something interesting of the people who I've had on the podcast are now the mix who kind of come from generation of being between 35 and 55, I guess, who started studios in the nineties. They mostly pretty much say the same thing. The metal guys. I went to a studio with my band, a nice studio, but they didn't know how to record metal. And I started recording so that I could do my own stuff. No one knew how to do this.

Speaker 1 (00:08:43):

And the engineers we worked with, I mean, they were fantastic engineers, man. Bill Klatt was the main engineer, and I can't remember the assistant, Dave, I think his name was, but the music we were doing, it was just so different and it was just so foreign into him. And at that point in February of 1991, there wasn't a lot of this stuff going on. And so that experience, I mean, I enjoyed the whole thing. Everything about being in the studio, even the pressure. I mean, to me, anybody that knows me knows that when the pressure is on or when times are tough, it's like when I excel the most. And I think a lot of that attributes to my life. My childhood was complicated, and I had ever since my earliest memories of life, I've had a lot of obstacles to overcome to get to where I'm at.

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And so for me, when things are tough, that's just when I rise to the occasion, it's like default mode almost. And so I was thinking about this the other day too. It's like it's rare I'm ever bored. It's amazing that, I mean, the only time I'm ever bored is maybe if I'm stuck in a dressing room on tour and I can't go anywhere. But even then, I got my little rolling cube, I plug in, I go into my own world for a few hours and I'm out of here. And so I'm rarely ever bored. If anything, I always think if I could clone myself, if I could have more hours of the day, to me, I always feel like sleeping is such a waste of time as I get older, I have to sleep more, unfortunately. But even then, I mean, it's rare I ever sleep more in six or seven hours. It's like my brain will not allow me to sleep. I'm up all night. I wake up repeat, but I always feel like every time I'm sleeping, I'm like, God, damnit. I used to when I was in my twenties, man, I could sleep a couple hours and that's all I needed.

Speaker 2 (00:10:39):

Yeah, I remember those days. Just out of curiosity, do you think that boredom is a choice? I don't know. It's a good question. The reason I'm asking is because you're choosing to get yourself engaged in all these things. I've been on tour in those green rooms where people could take the practice Amp, put on some headphones and go to town, but they don't, and they're bored, but they could make that decision to get interested in something. They could make the decision to take an online class, they could make a decision to explore the city. They could make all these decisions to do something that would engage their brain, but they decide not to, and then they're bored. I

Speaker 1 (00:11:19):

Think that's a valid point. I mean, when I'm on tour, actually, I was just looking to do some photos from a Cannibal Corps tour we did in Europe and while we were in Rome, well, what did I do? I hopped in a cab, I went to the Coliseum, I walked around town. We were in Athens. Well, I went to the Parthenon, see the Acropolis. To me, unless I am stuck somewhere, I'm never bored. And I think that's a good point. I mean, boredom if you choose to do nothing, and it's kind of like with your life in general is perfect example. When the record label went bankrupt, ripping corps right from the bat, I remember it just was devastated. I mean, right from the beginning of my whole career, we all had so many aspirations, and I was very young, obviously, and we never ended up acquiring another record deal, which ultimately led to our demise and certainly ripping course breaking up, it was a huge disappointment for all of us.

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We had known each other since we were teenagers and put a lot of effort into it. And so what was interesting, before Ripping Corps broke up Morbid Angel a couple months before Covenant had come out in 93 and Richard had left the band and they needed somebody to do the US tour and the European tour of Covenant in May of 93. And Gunther Ford, who was managing ripping corpse at the time, also managed Morbid Angel and had approached me, Hey, would you like to fill in and try out at the time? Of course, try out for Morbid Angel to do these two tours. And ripping course had opened up for Mor Angel, for Altar, some madness back in 1990. We opened up, we did five shows with 'em in the Northeast, and then we did another five shows with 'em for Blessed. I was sick in 92, so I knew Trey, I knew David and Pete.

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I knew the guys very well. And at the time, ripping course, we weren't doing any shows. And I flew down to Florida, tried out Life Changer. Yeah, I ended up, I think I learned seven songs in four days or something, and four of the songs were off a covenant that I'd never heard before. And so I ended up flying back and then did the two tours and then came back to ripping corps. That was it. And we had no shows, we had nothing going on. I was working at a studio at the time, this is after I'd gone to institute Audio Research Engineering school in 92. And I came back and of course I was completely excited, like man touring was amazing. And then a couple months later, ripping course, we broke up and the studio I had been working at before I left Closed, and here I am sitting in New Jersey after doing these massive tours with Morbid Angel, super excited about getting another record deal with Ripping Corpse, super excited about getting back to the studio, and it was all over.

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And the next thing you know, I'm basically sitting there in New Jersey, still playing guitar viciously every day, and some people know this, but I was literally delivering chicken at this place called Chicken Magician, and many people have been to the studio. I have a framed, I mean, obviously artistic talent for me is not with a pen, but if you see what I have framed on the wall, you might think twice, but I'm joking of course, but stay out of the Kitchen. Call Chicken Magician. That was the slogan. So I'm delivering chicken playing guitar, just did two biggest tours of my whole career. The band is done, the studio is done, and I'm delivering chicken. That was a real low point of my life. And Richard had come back to do the tour of Morbid Angel, black Sabbath, and Motorhead.

Speaker 2 (00:15:30):

God, what a lineup.

Speaker 1 (00:15:32):

Yeah. And I went to see those guys on that. I don't remember when it was February or something. And of course it was great to see 'em. And they had just kind of asked me, how you doing? I was like, well, I've seen better days, but I'm playing guitar and this and that. And about a month later, David had called me and he had just said, what's going on? And I was explaining to him, yeah, playing a lot of guitar, figuring out my next step and what I'm going to do and this and that. And he said, well, listen, what if I said, we got a two week tour with Cannibal Corpse in Europe. We need you. I said, listen, I'll hop in the car. I'll be down there tomorrow. And so what I did, I remember telling my mom, I said, listen, I'm packing up my car.

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I'm bringing my stuff. I'm moving to Florida. I said, if I move to Florida, I'm going to make it extremely difficult for them to do anything but make me a member of this band. And I just packed up my car, I put the cabinets in there, I put my guitar. I didn't own much back in those days. I just packed a car and I literally came to Florida for a two week tour. There was nothing guaranteed past that. But two week tour led into another tour and another tour, and the next thing you know, I became a permanent member of Angel in 94 leading up to Domination. And so like I said, that was probably one of the defining moments of my career in a sense, because I could have easily just said, you know what? Screw this. It's like the peaks and the valleys.

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But I always have looked forward since I was a teenager because for me, music, it was like my life's blood. It saved me in so many ways. I needed music way more than music needed me. And so I just put everything I had into playing guitar. And then of course, going to engineering school and being able to be a multitasking person who had the ability to do a multitude of things. But the dream always had been to play guitar, to write my own music, to create a unique path of the type of player I am, and have my own studio to record my own music and my own bands. Needless to say, it's multiplied times a thousand of what I ever had hoped or dreamed for, and I had very lofty goals. But those moments of being at the bottom are what have led me to where I feel like I've risen to the top of everything I've always hoped and desired for.

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And I've struggled my whole life with many different things and much adversity and through adversity has made me a stronger person. And the more I've been able to achieve and accomplish, the more humbled I've become just by the sheer opportunities and the ability to do what I love to do for 30 plus years. Now, sometimes it's hard to look at yourself from the outside because I still kind of feel like some regular kid that has the desire to do something that the odds of succeeding at are really against you, but close to zero. Close to zero,

Speaker 2 (00:18:45):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:18:45):

Some of it is ability and some of it is desire and dedication and hardworking and commitment. And then some of it is definitely stubbornness of like, I will succeed. I will accomplish this, and nothing's going to stop me or stand in my way. And then some of it is luck, luck that Richard Brunell left. And that completely changed the face of everything for me to play with Morbid Angel for, I mean, I played on three records. I toured for four. I mean, that was a huge step in my life and career that I always be grateful for. I mean, I try to explain it to somebody. When I started playing with Morbid Angel on Covenant, the first major label release of Morbid Angel and Death Metal, I think at that point,

Speaker 2 (00:19:30):

Yeah, the first death metal, major label release of

Speaker 1 (00:19:33):

All Ever. And I'm 21 years old, just this Jersey kid playing in front of 1500 people a night, going to Germany, playing in front of 3000 people. I mean, it was mind blowing.

Speaker 2 (00:19:46):

Just out of curiosity, why do you think they chose you? Have you ever found out? Did they ever tell you?

Speaker 1 (00:19:51):

Yeah, I mean, part of it is my aggressive style of playing. Trey has said many times, and David as well, they liked my kind of the hybrid approach of my playing or the dichotomy, really, of a melodic soloing style with a really aggressive evil rhythm approach. I mean, I always try to explain my rhythm playing, which is something that I put a lot of effort into. Before I played solo, it was just my rhythm. I play rhythm kind of percussively in a way. I play guitar and part of it, I think even when I was younger and I would play guitar sometimes without a Practice Amp, and I would just sit there, well, because I couldn't turn the Practice Amp on too loud or something, be practicing at night, and I just play guitar without anything. And so for me, if anything, sometimes when I'm playing I'm like, alright, dude, relax.

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I'm speaking to myself in my head, like chill out because my arms I get so tense is because I'm so passionate about it. But what those guys, Trey specifically liked about my playing was that my rhythm technique was very aggressive and Morbid Angel. I mean, some of these songs have a ton of picking, and Trey, arguably we all Know, is one of the best guitar players. He's such a huge part of Death Metal and legend, creative and unique. And what he liked was my soloing style was very different than his. And that kind of contrast really worked well together. But a part of it was my aggressive nature back 21 years old. I was an kind of aggressive guy as well as playing. So I was a savage, I mean, as far as a player. And then that's what they really liked about my playing.

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And the melodic Souling really worked well with Trey's approach as a guitar player. Like I said, we had some experience. I mean, we did Ripping Corps opened with Morbid Angel, like 10 shows. I think the first show we ever opened for Morbid Angel was in 1990. I was just looking at a flyer someone sent me at the TRO in Philly. I totally forgot. I was like, wow. I was 18 years old opening for Morbid Angel at the tro. It's just kind of ridiculous to think that was the beginning. That's when we hung out. Those guys came over the house we were living at, Sean and I, they came over, and so we knew each other for some time. And then Gunther Ford, who managed ripping Corpse, ended up managing Morbid Angel from that. And so that kind of helped get the juices flowing. And

Speaker 2 (00:22:29):

So you were already in the circle socially too?

Speaker 1 (00:22:33):

Yes. Yeah. We had known each other a couple years at that point and done shows together. And Sean and Trey and I had actually jammed one night in the basement or something. I remember this is back in 90 or 91. So we knew each other pretty well, and they just thought I would be good. I'd make some contributions, which was amazing too, is that I got in the band and here we are writing for Domination, and they wanted my input, Trey and David and Pete. I mean, I wrote five songs for Domination, and that was something that was pretty fantastic as well, that was able to compose. And that really for me, I was replacing somebody that was a legend. Richard Brunell is an amazing guitar player, a fantastic person as well. But at the same time, I also knew I need to create my own shoes to fill. I could never be Richard, I can never be Trey. I can never be anybody but myself,

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And I want to make as big an impact as I can. And that's always been my mantra since day one of playing guitar is making an impact. I want to make an impact. And so the fact that I was able to write songs for Domination, that was really key to my acceptance into the band, and people accepted me with open arms, and I was always really grateful for that one. The guys let me be as creative as I was. And also that the Morbid Angel loyal fans embraced me with open arms, and that always meant so much to me and still does to this day.

Speaker 2 (00:24:12):

Yeah, because it doesn't always go that way

Speaker 1 (00:24:14):

With new members. No, no, no, no, not at all. And at that time, I mean, yes, I was ripping corpse and in the underground people knew me, but on the big scale, I mean, who the hell is this guy replacing Richard? So I had to earn my place, and to me, I always feel like there's nothing better than earning. And yeah, I've never looked at things as I deserve this or I deserve that. No. It's like, I need to earn this and I need to earn that, and nothing's come easy for me. And I guess that's why I really appreciate all the nuances of everything. Obviously this year there's been some major changes for me in a good way, and I embrace every little bit of it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:59):

What cannibal Corps and the SSL?

Speaker 1 (00:25:01):

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:25:02):

I mean that's a good year.

Speaker 1 (00:25:04):

The SSL, which is one thing, I had a couple months of free time, which I can't even remember the last time. I've had three months of downtime. I mean, it's been decades, literally. You

Speaker 2 (00:25:15):

Don't strike me as a downtime kind of person.

Speaker 1 (00:25:18):

No, I lose my mind if I sit around and just

Speaker 2 (00:25:21):

What's the longest you can go before the anxiety creeps in?

Speaker 1 (00:25:25):

Not very long. I mean, I lose my mind, literally, I'll lose my freaking mind if I

Speaker 2 (00:25:31):

A day, two days.

Speaker 1 (00:25:34):

I don't know. It's hard. I've had to learn to even take hours. I remember I used to, I'd work 10, 12 hour days in the studio. I'd burn out some mixes and I'd come home and then it'd be like one 30 in the morning, and I'm listening to the mixing headphones and I'm listening for an hour or two, and then I'm relaxing for 20 minutes going to bed and repeating. And I had to learn the hard way of burnout. It's real. And so I've had to, it's very real.

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I've had to work on shutting it down. I leave the studio, shut it down, and 98% of the time I've become pretty good at it. And it's kind like for me, my wife and I, we try to take one vacation a year, and I really do my best to shut it down because I've realized how important it is. There was a stretch between oh six and oh eight where I did 11 albums in a row, and the last record I did was my own record, Haiti Eternal Fury and Flames. And during that period, I had Jared Anderson, my bass player in Haiti, eternal. One of my best friends had passed away, my grandparents had passed away, and I was working instead of dealing. And so I was just working and working and opportunities were coming, and I just was rolling with it. I mean, there was some between probably oh five and oh eight, my first cannibal Corpse record with Kill Vital remains through the eyes of the Dead, Soylent Green, a ton of records, but ending with the Haiti Eternal Record, which was probably the most difficult record of my career on a personal level and also the end of this long stretch.

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And I remember it's the one time in my producing career where, I mean, I don't know, I was like 50 something days straight without taking a day off. I was so wrapped up in the record and obsessed with it. When I finally finished that record, I came crashing down to reality, and it was tough. I took probably three or four weeks of just downtime, not by choice is because I just mentally and emotionally was spent, and I needed that time to face everything that I had kind of been dealing with by working and the reality of that's not going to cut it. And I learned so much during that process of the future of what I need to do to way more deeper than make better records, but what I need to do, take care of myself mentally and physically, and I never did anything like that

Speaker 2 (00:28:25):

So that you can keep doing it long term.

Speaker 1 (00:28:27):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:28:28):

That's not working. That is not a sustainable plan.

Speaker 1 (00:28:33):

No, it's not. One thing I never wanted to become is one of those bitter engineers, one of those guys that like, oh, yeah, we know those. We've all dealt with that. And I never wanted to be that guy that like, oh, I show up to the studio and this sucks. What the am I doing? I never wanted that to happen, and I never wanted to go through that process again. And so I definitely learned so much from that that I wouldn't repeat, but still, because now I'm in Cannibal Corpse, I have Haiti Eternal. I own the studio and a producing career, and I still struggle with balancing that on top of my personal life. I have an amazing wife and a great family, and so I have to balance that. It's still a balancing act, but I've learned so much about what I need to do to take care of myself, to preserve everything I'm doing and to really maximize everything I'm doing. But I'm such an ambitious person. I literally want to do everything. To me it's like, yep, I'll do that. I'll do this. I want to do that. What

Speaker 2 (00:29:41):

Are some of the things that you do in order to maintain, I guess, to preserve the ability to work? I think that's really interesting. I mean, I remember before the call you said you were going to ride the bike for 30 minutes. I am just curious, what have you learned to start installing into your life so that you can do everything? I

Speaker 1 (00:30:01):

Think that's one of 'em actually is really riding the bike out, man. I mean, I live near the beach, so I ride around, I ride the bike over the bridge, and I'll stop at the top of the bridge near me and just look out at the ocean for about five or 10 minutes. And I try to do this every day. Some days when I'm working 80 hours in the studio, I wake up the next day and I'm like, ah, I don't want to do shit. But I really try to do that. It starts me on the right path. And as I get older, I, I'm 49 now, so I have to really take care of myself. So part of it starts with how they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's like I never used to eat. I mean, 30 years ago, my breakfast was a coffee and a cigarette, so now my breakfast is a bunch of berries and yogurt and a protein shake, and it's very different. And starting my day off is key. And then also when I'm doing records, you need to take days off. And when you take those days off, I really work on shutting it down, shut it all down, and it's so hard for me to do.

Speaker 2 (00:31:15):

It's probably good for the marriage too though.

Speaker 1 (00:31:17):

Oh yeah. Well, my wife and I are, we're like the power couple. She's a certified badass. She does multiple things with her career as well. And so we're both very motivated, working career-minded, impassioned by our career type people. And so when we come together, we really enjoy that free time that we have, knowing that we're working a lot. And that understanding of each other and respecting each other's careers and things is what has been key to our relationship, which has been 15 years and going now. And so we support each other in all our endeavors, and those are things that are so key. And this year was COVID with 2020. Just to give a little backstory, I filled in for Cannibal Corps in 2019, and we had talked about producing the cannibal record at Mana. And so we finished the last tour, November, 2019. That's the last time I've played a show.

(00:32:25):

And basically I was working on some other things. I was working on a eternal tab book once COVID started kicking in and we weren't touring, I had some time, I was like, okay, I'm going to work on this, finish that. And doing pre-pro with the guys and getting the songs going over the songs, I was bringing Paul to the studio, we're demoing songs, which to me is key to success for anything is it all really starts there. But I got the call in February of, Hey, how would you feel about writing some songs and playing on the record and ultimately joining? And so that of course was like, whoa, you

Speaker 2 (00:33:08):

Weren't expecting it. I'm just wondering because man, when I heard, I was like, yeah, that is such an obvious move. I'm surprised that didn't happen earlier. It just makes so much sense.

Speaker 1 (00:33:19):

When I started playing with it, I thought to myself, I'll be here until Pat comes back. And because I'm a real positive kind of mentality, I guess I didn't really think about the opposite, I guess, because sometimes even though I do different things, sometimes I have horse blinders and I want to focus on what I'm doing and things. So it was just a lot to process. I spent a couple days just even going over it all in my head of what was happening here. And I thought to myself at this point, because I had done four tours with the guys, and I kind of felt like we've done, this would be our fifth album production we've done together. I've been friends with these guys since the beginning. Yeah, I remember Alex and Paul giving me eaten Back to Life in person before the record even came out back in 1990. I've known Rob and George and Alex and Paul since the beginning times when we all started. And so we have a rich history. Alex has played on a Haiti Eternal record. He played on some of my last demos. We were roommates for two years.

(00:34:37):

I mean, George, I've recorded five cannibal course records and two Path of Possession Records with him. I mean, I've done eight total records with George. I've known Rob and Paul, and we're all great friends and family at this point. We've done so much together. And knowing that this was in front of me, it felt it was the biggest decision that I really had to make, that my gut told me exactly what decision I needed to make. It was kind of like if I didn't join Cannibal, it would've felt really strange because I don't know. So Rob would always say sometimes to me, he's like, man, this is years ago. You're like the sixth member of the band. This is way before any of this happened. So I guess I already feel a part of it. This is the only missing piece at this point was me joining the band. But it felt very natural. And man, I got to say that it was a complex, complicated situation and not the first time that I've had this in my career. When I joined Morbid Angel, there was a very complicated situation there, replacing somebody that I really cared for and respected. And joining Cannibal Corps is the same thing, but different because this is 20, this is 27, 28 years later, way more experienced, been through more in my career, in my life,

Speaker 2 (00:36:22):

And you've got your track record. People know who you are. And

Speaker 1 (00:36:26):

Yeah, it was a really different scenario, I guess, man, I felt honored that they wanted me to be a part of it, and I kind of, in my heart, I knew that it was just meant to be for me to do this. You just don't know how you're going to feel about anything until these things happen. And I'm a kind of firm believer in, I really try to focus on the things that I can change and not focus on the things that are out of my control. And it's in general a good philosophy, I think. So,

Speaker 2 (00:36:58):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:36:59):

I mean, the whole time I was touring with the band, we get questions and questions and really, I always said the same thing that I would be here as long as they need me. I just focus on one thing at a time, and I had no idea it would come to this. I mean, when I left Mor Angel in 2002 or oh three, I think it was, to put it in perspective, my last two tours as a member of Morbid Angel were Panter and Slayer in arenas and main support for Motorhead, and I left Morbid Angel with Haiti Turner having one album out, making a hundred dollars a night, and my studio was in a historic facility. So when I left Morbid Angel, I left with aspirations of wanting to pursue Haiti Eternal, wanting to pursue the studio and my producing, but I was taking a huge gamble. I mean, it was not like I was leaving for taking a chance, but my heart knew. I was so grateful for my time with Angel and everything I was able to do with the guys and accomplish and achieve. But I think at that time I was 30 and I just had all these hopes and aspirations of my own band and my producing career.

(00:38:25):

For me, I really wanted to take the risk and focus on Haiti Eternal and my producing career. And when I did that, I mean, that was it. I never thought I'd ever join another band. I never thought I'd rejoin. I make decisions, I stick with 'em and I move forward. It's funny, I'm the same way with producing. It's like when I'm working on a guitar tone, I'll be tweaking and dialing and moving around freaking SM 57 40 freaking times and doing this and that, and then all of a sudden the switch kicks in. It's like we're ready to go. And I don't second guess the thought or the decision. I just move forward. And my life is kind of that way, partially because some of the decisions I've had to make, I didn't have time to think about it. I had to make the decision. And when this thing happened with Cannibal Corps, I didn't even think about it.

(00:39:17):

I thought, you know, whatever you guys need, I got it. And I learned the whole set a couple of weeks and went on tour. Ironically, the first tour with More an angel, which was like, that's interesting. Wild. Yeah, filling in Cannibal Corps touring with more Angel. I mean, that was wild. I mean, it was like a whirlwind. Honestly, the last two years, I mean, I'm main support with Haiti Turner releasing a pond Des of the Sands for Cannibal Corps back in 2018. Get home five days later, some things happened, and a couple weeks later, I get the call. I had talked to all the guys and just said, Hey, if you need anything, just wanted to make sure everybody was okay. And then I got the call about the tours and I said, absolutely, I got you covered, but it happened so fast. Then the next thing you know, we do these tours.

(00:40:18):

I mean, 2019, I did an album production, ether Coven for Century Media. I did another Haiti Eternal European tour. In between there, I mean, I did six tours in an album production all within a one year period on top of learning 20 something songs. And it just went by a whirlwind. And then the next thing you know, it's February of last year. And not only am I producing the record now, I'm writing for the record now I'm learning songs. I wrote three songs in music and lyrics in about two and a half months. I was just playing guitar all freaking day and then doing Pre-Pro with the guys at the studio and learning the other songs and then producing the record and all this happening during the early stages of COVID, we started April 13th. I mean, this is right when everything was hitting. And Alex lives on the West Coast, and he had come in town in March to do some pre-pro and practice and work on the songs and stuff like that.

(00:41:22):

And I remember he was staying at my house and before he came, he said, Hey, man, we should probably take band pictures while I'm there. March is good weather in Florida, otherwise if we take it at the end of the record in August, it's hot as hell. Who the hell wants to be outside? So we took the band photos, we practiced, and then things started heating up. They're talking about travel bands. So obviously Alex, he flew home early to be home, and then next thing you know, they locked everything down, and I haven't seen Alex since. And so it was kind of crazy. I mean, we started tracking drums and they were having lockdowns curfews. They were locking down businesses. I mean, the week before we started tracking, I was like, man, I don't know. Am I going to be able to stay open? At one point I was having Paul, we were figuring out a different map for him to go from his county to mine.

(00:42:11):

Okay, this county's shutting down. We can go this way over through there. And I mean, it was insane. And then Alex, because of the travel ban, he couldn't come back. So when we tracked base, he had tracked his own base for Blotted Science, and he had some experience, but he's been working with Pro Tools, but he's such an integral part of the band. He's never not been here for a record ever. And so he ended up tracking out there. We went back and forth, and then I amped here. But even that was a unique experience where Rob and I are tracking his songs and he's not here. And it was crazy. And when we were tracking George, I remember that's when they shut down the highways because there was protesting going on. And so there was one night where George was like, listen, I'm not going to be able to make it.

(00:43:02):

They're protesting. There's been a bomb threat at the mall near us. And then there was all this stuff. Oh, what a crazy year. It was nuts. I mean, the whole time we're doing the record, I'm worried it's going to shut down. It was definitely that kind of vibe on top of already my responsibilities with, as the producer of Cannibal Corpse, that alone is a huge responsibility, and I take very seriously. Of course, this is Cannibal Corps. We're talking here, man, and you add in all these other things. And then on top of it, the fact that I've been writing songs and writing lyrics and learning songs, I mean, from December of 2018 up until now, it just went by in a flash. And the next thing you know, the record got done and we finished the record in August with the hopes of touring in November.

(00:43:58):

We soon realized that wasn't happening, so we decided to hold onto it. And then we started talking about, okay, are we going to push? We haven't announced anything. We hadn't even announced We were recording and we had decided, are we going to hold onto it again until we can tour? And we all just decided, you know what? Let's get this thing out there, man. We don't want to hold onto this thing. We want it out there. And that's when we decided on releasing it with Metal Blade and Management and everybody that we would release it in April. And we all felt like people are hungry for something new and something people need excitement in their life during these difficult times.

Speaker 2 (00:44:43):

Yes, this is very true.

Speaker 1 (00:44:44):

And so releasing it, we knew it was the best choice. And this COVID thing has been like a mixed bag. It's allowed me to do things that I wouldn't normally do, like a Haiti Eternal Tab book. I've been wanting to do this for 20 years, and I've never had the time to do it. I finally got it finished, and Sheet happens is finalizing it right now, and I'm super excited about it. The SSL, well, when am I ever going to have three months of downtime?

Speaker 2 (00:45:13):

Yeah, let's talk about the SSL for a second. I remember when I hit you up about this. That was one of the first things you told me was you got an SSL and you spent a few months just installing it.

Speaker 1 (00:45:25):

Well, I had to decommission the Amec Mozart. It's a 56 channel console. That's a big thing. And then on top of it, because we were tearing that down, I kind of thought this was a good opportunity for me to, I wanted to get a new rack. The rack I used to have, it was bulky and tall, and I always hated it, but it served the purpose. And as I was adding gear, because I'm so busy all the time, sometimes you're adding gear, and we'd be making cables with whatever snakes we had laying around. And so you'd look in the back of my rack because I'm always upgrading, getting rid of gear, upgrading. I had different cables and different wiring and all this crap. I mean, it looked like the reincarnation of kaulu or something. It is just ridiculous. And I said, you know what? I'm going to decommission the Mozart.

(00:46:16):

I'm going to rewire the live room, my ISO room, the whole rack, get a new rack with all Montgomery cabling and do this thing. And Dave Rochester, who works for Technical Audio Services, he's been servicing my Mozart for 15, 16 years since I've owned it. And he custom built all my snakes and cabling and came and helped install the SSL and all the rack gear, we did it together, and I needed to sell the Mozart. I needed that. I mean, what is it like 1500 pounds? It's like nine feet long. What the hell am I going to do with this thing? And that's where my buddy Tim Holsinger, who is a good friend of mine and also my rep at Sweetwater, let me frame this out for you. Back in 2003 or oh four or something, I remember I had a full poster of the S-S-L-A-W-S 900, and I literally had it framed on the wall at the old studio of like, God, someday can I The dream of tracking through Neve, Neve clones, APIs mixing through SSL. That's my dream. Since I recorded at Morris Sound in 94 and they had the SSLs in there, my dream was always to own an SSL someday. The AWS 900 was the first one that seemed like, huh, maybe this doable. Now that price tag not so doable on a death metal budget, but still doable in my book, anything's doable. But

Speaker 2 (00:47:51):

If you figure out how to do it,

Speaker 1 (00:47:52):

Yeah, when I saw the SSL Origin, 32 channel, SL origin, E-Series eq, the bus compressor, I thought, oh my God, this is it, man. Something about it. I said, how the hell am I going to make this happen? I have no idea, but I must own it because I do all my automations and pro tools. I don't need the automation on the board. I don't need flying faders. I don't need any of that. What this offered was exactly what I needed. And to me, I've always mixed to a console. I have a lot of outboard gear. I love, I mean, to put in perspective, of course, when I started tracking records, it was all analog. When I went to engineering school, I remember we had a two hour lab on sound tools. I think I get black and white little slight editing capabilities or something.

(00:48:52):

But I mean, I went to school for almost a year. It was about a two hour class, and that was that, right? I mean, I was editing and splicing tape and all. That's how I learned. And so my roots are in an analog world, but I've of course modified into a digital world, but I always have an analog heart. And so the SSL origin, I just thought, man, this is it. And I just kind of asked Tim one day on the phone, dude, what is going on with this thing, man? He's like, yeah, it's sweet. They had it at Sweetwater. They had sometimes they do shootouts and all this stuff there, and they had it to test. And I thought, man, I want to get this thing. I'd have to sell my Mozart. There's no way I could make it happen without doing that. And he had told me, Hey, you know what?

(00:49:44):

You got a buyer. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, I'd love to buy that thing, the history on that thing. It's a great console. I'd love to purchase it. So that's when the wheels started turning. I was like, wait a second. I sold the Mozart to him. He flew here with his buddy. We helped load it up into the truck. And he took it away, and he connected me with SSL. And I sold a couple pieces of rack year I wasn't using and somehow was able to make it all work. But I guess that's the weird thing about this C is there's been so many really difficult things about COVID that I haven't taken lightly. I mean, I go to the studio, I come home, I go to the studio. I don't go anywhere. I'm very safe and respectful of others. You don't want it. Nope. Speaking from experience, you don't want it. I don't want it, and I don't want it for anyone else. And I want to,

Speaker 2 (00:50:40):

It is not

Speaker 1 (00:50:41):

Fun. I've been very careful, but I've had a lot of time on my hands and between the studio and my house and my bike rides, that's about what I've been doing. And I knew that now was the time to take this opportunity to make the switch. And I've had the SSL now only, I think installed for about six or seven weeks now. But I mean, man, I was just there last night at the studio. And of course, just walking into the control room and I see the SSL, it's like it might as well be going ble, even though it's a gray console, it's got a lot of bling to it, man. And then when I fire it up and I'm just listening through music, through it and whatnot, and I mean, I can't wait to record with it. Goat whore had done a live stream, I don't know, about a month ago maybe.

(00:51:31):

And Sammy had hit me up, and as you know, I've produced four of the goat horror albums and he loved them. He needed an intro for one of the songs. He's like, Hey, can you make me an intro? But without the drums, just the guitar and stuff. I said, yeah, no problem. So I brought it up and I some, I don't remember what plugins, I had some kind of S-S-L-E-Q plugin on there and I was like, screw this. Let me dial this in with the board. And I just started messing with the eq, my first chance at kind of messing with the eq. And what was amazing about it is comparatively to any of the assortment of EQ plugins I have is I was able to get exactly what I want without it sounding. I'm adding to get it. It's like it just came like, oh, I need a little more presence or a little more bite. Let me add in a little three or 4K. And you know what? Oh man, I need to do a high pass there. And I spent two minutes and I got exactly what I was looking for, and it was so smooth and natural, and my mind was completely blown of, this is my future now having this SSL at my fingertips. I don't know how to describe it. It's like I feel like I've arrived to the party or something.

Speaker 2 (00:52:48):

Yeah, I mean, dude, that's a dream. 18 years in the making.

Speaker 1 (00:52:52):

I mean, I started mono recording in 1999, and I think my first console, it was like a big task am console. And then from that, I upgraded to the Soundcraft Ghost. And then from that, the Amec Mozart and now the SSL, and I was like, this is it. I finally have what I need at my disposal. And for me, I don't know how many records I've worked on. Now I'm in the nineties, I know that I'm getting close to the century mark as far as albums are concerned. I don't know off the top of my head, but it's around 90 records or something I've worked on now. And I thought when I first started at the historic facility studio, I had a one inch 16 track and some a DATs, and my one Vintech X 73, that was my one mic inning. I didn't even have a full pro tools at that point.

(00:53:49):

I was using Ellie with just the Apogee, Rosetta, and I put the snare through that or the overheads, and then I do all the guitars through it just so I could get better conversion. Then I went from that to the DA 78 and then the two inch. So I had the two inch that I bought from Morris Sound in 2003 or oh four and the DA 70 eights with the ghost, and I got another mike pre and another compressor. Oh, I got a distressor now. Holy shit. And slowly but surely, it's like owning a studio. As you know, it's an expensive hobby,

Speaker 2 (00:54:26):

You could call it that. The good thing about it though is that if you buy the right gear, it does retain its value. So at the very least, you can offload it if you need to.

Speaker 1 (00:54:37):

And I'm using it. I love that. My DBX one 60 vus and I

Speaker 2 (00:54:43):

Love those things are awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:54:45):

I can't live without it.

Speaker 2 (00:54:46):

So just out of curiosity, man, we were talking earlier about how the real secret is someone's ears in their brain, and I feel like with guitar, the secret is someone's hands, but gear is important. Of course it is. How important to you is gear in the process? I'm sure that if you had to go produce a record in a motel and you had an interface in a laptop, you could still make it sound good. It might not be ideal, but you could still make it work. So my question is, what about the gear is what is important

Speaker 1 (00:55:27):

To you? Well, for me, I look at recording. When I'm recording a record, I don't know if everybody has this for me, I have a visual of the audio in a sense of I'm looking at this empty canvas and say, when I'm mixing and I'm the panning and stuff, I'm visualizing it. And to me, every album, it's like a blank canvas. And especially with a lot of the music I'm recording, you've got a canvas and it's tight, and you got to squeeze everything in there and somehow not squash it all together. That's my analogy to over compression or something. And so for me, the different textures and coloring of the gear is really important. And I guess that's why I've always tried to have a hybrid. Recently, about two years ago, I bought some API mic pres and some EQs, and I was like, holy crap, where have you been my whole life?

(00:56:27):

And they add this different texture. And I recorded the Toms for the cannibal corpse with it because Paul and I, with this new record, we really wanted to go very old school with it and try to capture a more organic drum sound. And so to me, I bought the APIs knowing how great they would be for drums. And then of course they were, and then I'm using Great River or Vintech and other different mic pre for different things. And I feel like all those little textures, they're almost like different colors of a canvas. And so to me, I like to utilize those colors. One thing I learned long time ago, and I wasn't always like this when I first started recording, and I'm sure that people can relate to this, when I first started recording, you have this comfort zone. Oh man, I know this amp works great, and I know these mics work. Perfect.

Speaker 2 (00:57:28):

51 50 block letter.

Speaker 1 (00:57:30):

Just keep, I better keep with that because you're maybe not as confident in your ability when you're early on and you've had success and it's easy to just stick with it. But for me, because I've had the fortune of One minute, I was recording cannibal corpse and the next minute I was recording Mad Ball. And then the next minute, Soly green or goat whore, or then the mountain goats, and then agnostic front, I've had a hybrid of different music that's come in and it's put me out of my comfort zone, which is the best damn thing that could ever happen to someone in my opinion, is trying new things. And through all these different types of bands and music, even though they're in the heavier aspect of things, it forced me to think out of the box. And where now, maybe 15 years ago, I wouldn't feel so confident about some guy coming in with some amp.

(00:58:30):

Now a guy comes in, he's like, yeah, I've got this amp from 92. I don't even know what the hell it is or whatever, but this is my sound. The first thing I'm thinking is awesome, let's dial it in and listen to what it sounds like and try different cabinets and try different amps. Because I look at every record uniquely. I'm excited when guys have something different because I want different, I don't want to do the same thing. I don't look at producing or recording an album as a factory line, man. A lot of modern metal production is a factory line. It is. It is. And it doesn't

Speaker 2 (00:59:07):

Have to be though.

Speaker 1 (00:59:08):

It doesn't have to be. And sometimes guys that are doing that, I think part of it is not even their own doing producing wise or mixing wise. It's sometimes bands. They might come in and say, Hey, I want my record to sound like this, or I want that. I love this record. But fortunately for me, and this goes back to our early speakings, is I've always done things different. And I've always been like this unique guy that just sticks out in the haystack of ever since I can remember as a kid, I've just been a different guy and I think people, I'm not that guy and everyone knows it. If you're looking for a certain, I want the so-and-so sound. See to me, I don't think I have a sound. Why not just go to so and so? If you want the so and so sound. Yeah. Or once in a while somebody's like, Hey, we're looking at names for producing. And I'm like, okay. I know plenty of guys with names.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):

I think Kurt Ballou once told me that someone came to him wanting an Andy Sneak mix. It's like Kurt, if you go to Kurt Ballou, there's a specific aesthetic. If you want the sneak aesthetic, go to snip. If you want to Joey Sturgis aesthetic go to Joey Sturgis. It's not that complicated.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):

No, I mean, it's amazing. Of course, all those guys, what they do is amazing, their approaches, they're all unique. I mean, there's so many great engineers and producers out there. And certainly Kurt Ballou is a guy that I really have a lot of respect for because I feel like he leans over to the purest sense of the word of how he does things. I really admire that. And of course, well, on the other token, like Andy sleep well, I mean, he's done so many records that I love and appreciate and listen to regularly. Certainly never more being in that equation of, I don't know how many times I've listened to Andy Sneak produced Nevermore records a lot, and somewhere I fall in the middle of there, I'm probably not as raw as say, Kurt Blue or as polished as Andy somewhere. I'm in the fence of old school and modern and a mash of everything.

(01:01:37):

But I guess the thing is, for me, when I'm doing records, the primary objective for me is obtaining and capturing the band's unique sounds, gaining the best performances out of the individuals and preserving the integrity and the authenticity of the individuals in the band and the collective of that band. And that's something that has resonated with me my whole career is when I started recording, well, we were tracking the tape. We just got the best we could, and that was it. And now because of modern technology, we have the ability to do so much stuff. I use pro tools in so many ways, but at the heart of it all, and the root of it all is I'm always trying to really preserve the authenticity. I use that word a lot. It's perfect example, Paul, with the accountable course. Paul has a very unique style of drumming.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):

Yes, he

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):

Does. And for me, I've never wanted to strip that away. I want my records to sound like everybody on their best day, not like human machines or machines. And so kill our first record together. Every song we did was one takes from beginning to end, and that's because we wanted to capture this analog old school vibe with the record. And I think that's why a lot of people really embraced kill is it had this raw edge, no click track. At that time, Paul was not using the click. And so it was like this kind of free for all, but that energy and aggression really translated in the final product. And so for me, I've always put, I use the click track for most bands, but to me it's not the end all be all. It's just to keep the song feeling in the right vibe and like, oh, you want the vibe of the song to be in this area.

(01:03:43):

But I've always looked at as like I've had a couple interns come into the studio and we'd be tracking drums and maybe an intern would look at it and say, oh, that kick drum, let me zoom in and see how many milliseconds it's off from the grid or whatever. I was like, listen, man, this is audio engineering. It's not visual engineering. Does it sound okay? Because if it sounds okay in my book it is. It's like when I solo or write riffs, are they exactly by the book? Hell no. I'm not by the book by any means. Whatever book that is, I don't think it exists. But if it sounds right, it is right. And that's my mentality. Certain when it comes to drummers or singers or guitar players, they have these, I don't know if ticks is the word, but certain traits about their playing idiosyncrasies. Idiosyncra. Sure,

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):

Idiosyncrasies and me. I want to capture them and preserve them. And so I've always approached it that way. And I know that's kind of very uncommon in especially extreme death metal and death metal these days. But I'm not big on the copy and paste thing. I like to get original even with vocals. And George, he could tell you, man, if there's the two choruses in that song, guess what? I'm getting two unique choruses. I'm not copy and pasting guitars. I'm not a copy and paste guy either. And I know some people say, well, that's like, what's the difference, blah, blah. There's so many reasons. I'm not saying it's right or wrong either. I'm certainly no judge and jury on what's right or wrong. I'm just explaining how I do records. I understand the principles of all of it. Some bands want that quantized drum sound, and they want that perfection in the guitar note, fornot solos or exactly to the grid.

(01:05:46):

And I get that. But fortunately for me, the music that I have the luxury of doing doesn't fall into that category. So guys coming to me, I think my reputation's out there. I'm going to work. One thing I'm really good at is working people to get the best out of 'em without pushing them over the edge. And that's a balancing act to me. Of course, I could say, yeah, this is good enough. I'll copy and paste it and whatever, or I'll quantize this later. But to me, I want to know regardless of what I have to do later, editing wise, whatever, I like to get original performances for every song, whether it's drums, bass, guitar, vocals, whether it's beginning to end or not. It depends on the individual situation, but I really like to have everything at play and really try to, I mean, authenticity. I know that's the one word that somehow sticks in my head all the time, is I don't want to strip the soul out of the record. And sometimes people will be like, wow, this doesn't, it's amazing how we live in a time where you hear a drum performance and maybe the double bass isn't absolutely perfect, and people will say, oh, wow, that's sloppy as shit, and that's completely ridiculous.

(01:07:15):

It's human. And so I really put a lot of effort into making sure the records and sometimes better than others. Every album's unique situation and every player is different. But I always want to preserve the integrity and authenticity of each individual record and band. And I always go back to some of my favorites. Ironic that today I saw online it's the 35th anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time, Metallica, master of Puppets.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):

Yeah. And arguably for me, one of the most influential and important records of my whole life. I mean, there's no doubt about it that Metallica, master of puppets, I mean, it changed my life in so many ways. And even with the new cannibal corpse record, when Paul and I were discussing drum tones, we really wanted to capture that older vibe of master puppets, rain and blood, like natural sounding, organic and authentic drums. And so it's kind of rare these days, especially for death metal, for records to kind of approach things that way. But to me, it's exciting. How the hell are we going to make this sound cohesive and sound great? And at the same time live amongst a majority of productions these days that are way more modern esque.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):

I mean, that's such a huge challenge, especially in heavy music because I think one of the reasons that people go for the fake sound is because things cut through the mix easier that way. Exactly. It makes it easier to mix this mess of a genre. It's an audio mess. And so to deliver something that's both natural and modern is quite the

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):

Challenge. I think if I can go acoustic, like perfect sample, ether Coven is a band I produced for Century Media about a year and a half ago, and they're like this hybrid killer band. I mean a lot of clean guitars. And so what we did is I went all acoustic, kick on all the clean sections, some even had double base or whatever, or went all clean. But then I captured my Pearl reference, which is my studio kit, and I captured some samples from that exactly how I had it eqd. I didn't change anything. So then that way when it goes to the metal parts so it could cut through a little bit more,

(01:10:08):

I was still preserving that same kick drum sound and using multiple samples to create that. But when it goes from the clean to the heavier, it sounds the same. It's very natural. But for me, on the cleaner stuff, I just went all natural. I didn't replace the kicks. I just kept it organic and the whole drums, the snare, the Toms, everything acoustic and it just breathes so much life and energy into the dynamics of the whole record. And that's something that's so hard to do, especially when you get into more extreme music, say Cannibal Corpse or Haiti Eternal or something where man, there's so little space to do anything. I would rather sacrifice slight consistencies for Authenticities, like on the new cannibal record. And there's a lot of Tom fills on the record. I mean, they're all acoustic Toms, there's no samples in there. There's anything.

(01:11:08):

And sometimes Paul, he's laying into it. Sometimes he's not laying too much and maybe I'm automating or I'm compressing it differently and I'm doing all kinds of stuff with the drums. To me, I live in automation. I spend a ton of time automating drums, guitars. I mean, if you looked at a session, I mean, I've got lines everywhere, man. I'm doing so I don't have to over compress. I'm doing a ton of automation. So of course when you're dealing with all acoustic Toms on a record like cannibal course where there's a ton of fills, I mean, I spent days to preserve that, those dynamics and not squash it. And I love that. It's kind of like when I listen back to random blood or master of puppets. And here I'm showing my age here, right? 49 years old, but I grew up during the birth of freaking metal, man, black Sabbath, what was it?

(01:12:05):

70, the first record, right? Yes. I mean, I was born in 71, so there you go. I grew up finding metal as it came, but I always go back to those earlier records, and I know within the texturing of people's perceived flaws are the perfect, in my opinion. It's like, because they sound like when I listen to Master Puppets, it sounds like those guys jamming this amazing stuff or raining blood or hella waits. Even those records, I mean, I still listen to 'em on a regular basis. I still love the way they sound. I don't know something about it. But we live in this modern era of music, and the music has become very complex and advanced. And so I try to balance the soul of the earlier style records, but because of the music I do, of course I need to utilize technology like pro tools and maybe drum sampling or automating in pro tools and all these things.

(01:13:17):

So I really try to balance it, but always keep rooted in the old school kind of vibe. And that's the hardest thing, and that's why the records I do, I definitely would say that I make life much harder on myself by doing records the way I do. But at the end of the day, when that record's done and I get the vinyl and I put it on the wall to studio, which is starting to fill up, I'm going to have to start moving some things around. I know that I gave everything I had, and I know I pushed everybody in the band to give everything they had. And at the end of the day, I've learned that as a perfectionist, it's hard for me to be satisfied with anything, but I've kind of come to an understanding with myself so I can move forward and not live in the merc of disappointment, or why didn't I do this?

(01:14:10):

Why didn't do that? It's like I give 110% to everything I do. And at the end of the day, when that record's done, I captured a moment in time and I gave everything I had to that record, and there's nothing else left for me to do. And whatever things I said, man, next time I won't do that. I learned from those mistakes. Kind like how I always said about my life. I learned from my mistakes. The failures helped me to achieve my successes. And the same thing with the studio. It's like the guy I am today in the studio from 15 years ago. I am completely different because I've had so many different situations come up in the studio now after last year, the cannibal course record. Well, we can throw COVID into that situation of like, okay, I've survived doing a record during a pandemic with lockdowns and travel bans and holy crap.

(01:15:08):

And that just adds to my arsenal of things that I can handle. And so for me, if I didn't have those experiences, man, I would not be where I'm at today. And so I'm very grateful for all those struggles and failures that have allowed me to succeed and get better at my crafts, plural. Do you think that art requires struggle? Great art? Well, it's interesting when you think about my favorite artists, whether it's in music or even paintings or of that nature, all the different artists I've worked with have all had struggles. I'm not sure it's hard to speak on everybody, but for me, absolutely.

(01:16:01):

My guitar playing is really a branch of my struggles in my life. And that's why I think there's something very, for me, I'm not the most technical guitar player or certainly I'm way far away from the most knowledgeable. The one thing about my playing is it's real. It's very authentic. And sometimes, I mean, it's amazing. I can go back through my whole career and there's many different solos or different songs that I've written over the years that bring me to a moment in my life where I had tremendous struggle or tremendous loss or grief or rage or sadness. And there's certain times in my career I listened to the songs and it brings me back to those moments. I can feel the struggle as if it was yesterday. And I guess for me growing up, my childhood was very complicated and very complex. By the time I was 18, I had already experienced a lot of trauma and loss in my life.

(01:17:07):

And for me, playing guitar was really that only outlet I had. That was a positive exploration because prior to that, it was a lot of negative. And guitar gave me something to express all that negative emotion into something positive, to the point where I needed it. I still need it. Playing guitar is my outlet of so much emotion for me that I might not be able to express in other ways. And that's why there's a couple things about myself that I think, I don't know if they're written on my sleeve, but I feel like they are in a sense of no matter what I do as an artist, it's pure and it's true to who I am as a person. And I look at that with production as well, is keeping things true and as pure as possible to the person I am.

(01:18:00):

And honest, I guess. I think I'm probably honest to a fault, and sometimes that makes people uncomfortable because I just lay it all out on the table, man, I don't pull punches part of that, maybe I'm a Jersey guy, I am from the Northeast, and I grew up just kind of laying it all on the table. But part of that's just who I am as a person and the struggle because of my struggles in my life and being able to express that through music for 30 plus years now has enabled me to become a healthier person. It's been therapeutic for me. Unfortunately. Some people, they have to depend on other things to get them through things in life, and I understand that approach as well. I've lost many friends due to tragic loss. And for me, I feel grateful every day that I'm always inspired the way of dealing with everything. My whole life has been playing guitar, and luckily I've been able to formulate other ways, healthy therapeutic ways to kind of get through life as well. But the guitar, it's just a part of me writing music melodies and things. It just, it's something I can't even imagine not having in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):

Do you find that in common with the artists who produce that they also are using it as an outlet for processing trauma? A lot of people, yeah. I mean, I think so from the ones I've met, that's kind of like a connective tissue between metal musicians. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):

And the people I've connected the most are people that have had similar kind of thought emotion behind it. You don't get into this style of music by accident. No. I mean, you don't start a band like Haiti Turner, because I had some peachy Disney Life. I had to fight and struggle so hard to get to where I'm at and to just be able to accomplish what I have and what I've been able to do. And that's just because I just felt like this is the way to save myself from the other end result. And I've seen, I've lost many people in my life that are so integral and important to me, and some tragically, and those tragic losses really have been a reminder in my life of I don't want to be a statistic. I don't want to be. It's easy to go down that path too. It is. And you know what I mean? I'm no saint and anybody knows me from my youth till now. I've made plenty of mistakes, and I certainly paid the price on many and learned, like I said, learning from your mistakes. I'm definitely one of those guys where I make a major mistake, I learn from it and I don't repeat it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):

That's kind of key.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):

It's like I smoked cigarettes for 10 years. I mean, there was a point in my life where, I mean, in the early morbid days, I remember just choking around. I'd be like, man, where would I be without Marlboros? Marlboro's helped make my whole career some stupid stuff that a 20 something year old would say. And then I ended up quitting cigarettes, and I never went back. I haven't had a cigarette since 1996 or something. Usually when I'm, and to me, smoking cigarettes for 10 years was an absolute mistake. Of course, we all know cigarettes are bad for you, but I learned from that. I had a window of opportunity to get out. And it's funny, it ties into an interesting story. I was on tour with Morbid Angel Domination. We were touring the states and we were ending in California and then flying to Australia, and I ended up getting walking pneumonia on tour.

(01:22:16):

I had a hundred, that's fun, four fever. I had to go to the hospital. I was really in bad shape, and I was so sick that I was like, listen, we're not canceling crap. I'll be up there. So I would roll out of bed. I wouldn't even do soundcheck. I would just roll out of bed, come on stage, play the show, go back to bed, repeat for the last week of this US tour, and I wasn't smoking. I was so darn sick I couldn't even smoke. And we were about to fly to Australia, and that's 96. They just started implementing no smoking flights. About a year or two earlier when I first started touring, you could smoke on the plane. I remember me and Trey sitting there in a smoking and then the row in front of us, and I thought, wow, this poor guy, I'm sorry, but I remember, I think it was David or my friend Dieter who was selling merch for us, said, Hey, man, have you ever, I had gone a week at that point without smoking, and he's like, have you ever gone a week without smoking? I was like, nah. And I remember they were like, man, this is your chance, man. And I remember, I think Phoenix was one of the last shows before California, and I was waking up and I decided I was going to do soundcheck that day and somebody's knocking at the door and I am just waking up and I'm rubbing my eyes, and you open that door and oh my God, the blinds are closed, the sun's coming in, and all of a sudden standing in front of me is Rob Halford. That's random.

(01:23:42):

And he's like, yeah. I came to say hello to Marvin Angel and see the show tonight. And I remember I was standing a little far away. I was sick, and last thing I want to do is get the master of all sick. And I just remember I was, I was in a fog. I just woke up, have walking pneumonia, and Rob Halford is literally standing in front of me. I probably, I don't even know if I said maybe three words because I was just kind of shellshocked of Rob Halford being in front of me on the bus. And years later, we ended up doing a festival with Judas Priest, and I remember Glenn Tipton and KK Downing coming in the dressing room when me and Trey were warming up and completed my Judas Priest life of like, holy crap. I've met, I mean, three of the most important people in my whole goddamn life and met period. But I remember that meeting I'll never forget. And at that point, I was miserable. I was sick, I was jonesing for cigarettes, and I'm looking at Rob Halford and two days later flying to Australia, all non-smoking flight, which sucked. But I kind of had all this in front of me, and I knew this is my chance. We're flying every day in Australia, all non-smoking flights. Now's the time to quit, and I quit and I never look back.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):

It's interesting how you took a really shitty situation like pneumonia on tour, which I've had, and it's horrific taking that and turning it into one of the most positive things that's ever happened to you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):

It took me a long time to get over cigarettes because I loved smoking. I wake up, I'd have a coffee and a cigarette, I'd eat a meal, have a cigarette, play guitar, I'd have a cigarette. It was it just like a habit. But once I quit, I never went back. And that's kind of been my, usually when I make decisions, I usually stick with it. And there's a couple cases I didn't, and I'm so grateful. I remember after Domination, we had finished and David had left the band, and I remember Trey had said, listen, I want to write formulas myself. Of course, at the time, for me, it was difficult. I just wrote half a domination. And to say I wasn't disappointed, of course I was disappointed, but I said, okay, I understand I'm going to leave. I always knew I was going to have a band where I sang and play guitar.

(01:26:18):

I've been singing backup and playing guitar ripping corpse. I mean, ever since I started playing guitar, I've been singing. And so I've always wanted to have my own band singing and playing guitar, and I always wanted to have a studio. And so that year plus from me being not on the formulas recording, I was able to really start putting some gear together and formulating the studio and work on Haiti Turner and writing songs and doing a demo. And then when formulas was coming out, they had contacted me, Hey, would you be interested in touring, helping us out? And I thought at the time, yeah, sure, why not? And I ended up doing the tours, and then I ended up rejoining and still doing Haiti Eternal. And then I did my last project, and then I started the studio. And I mean, at one point I was doing four different things, which was insane.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):

You know what I think is really interesting about what you just said, A lot of people would've been disappointed and would've really let it get to them and would've harbored a lot of resentment in that situation of, Hey, I was previously writing half a record. Now I'm writing nothing. What the fuck? And start to hate the other person. Whereas it sounds to me instead of that, you're like, all right, this is my opportunity to do some of my own shit that I've wanted to do forever. Boom, let's do it. And

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):

You know what? At that time, I was what, 25, 26 or something. So it definitely lit a fire under my ass of like, wow, okay, what the hell am I doing now? Because I felt like not everybody would've reacted

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):

That way though.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):

I just looked at that as an opportunity. Actually at first it took me back a little bit, but I just looked at it as like, and this is my whole life. It's like, okay, you take this perceived negative and I'm going to turn this into something positive. And that was the beginnings of Haiti Eternal, the beginnings of my other last project that I did. And then on top of it, the beginnings of the studio without that 14 or 16 months away from the band, I don't have that. I don't have everything that I formulated. Then I came back and toured all the formulas, ended up rejoining, and that was after we had done the live record with David, still in the band. And then that about 14 months away from Morbid Angel maybe. And then I came back toward joined the band, wrote and played on Gateway's, annihilation.

(01:28:59):

And man, I'm so grateful that I did do that. That's the one, I guess that situation came up. It felt unsettled to me. I don't know how to describe it. I guess I never once said to myself, this is it. I always left that door open because in my heart, I felt such a part of Morbid Angel. I never thought I always kind of kept that open, but I also said, man, this is a huge opportunity for me to pursue all these things that I've wanted to do for the longest time and have not been able to. And I was able to get a Haiti Eternal record deal with Erik. Also started the recording studio and started to produce some demos and things like that, and then records.

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):

It's a lot COVID times something gets taken out of the equation, which gives you the ability to do something else that you've been meaning to do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):

Yeah, and I mean, at that time, I remember I was working, me and my friend, punchy, we were working for,

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):

I love that guy, by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):

Oh, punchy is the best. Listen, punchy, he's one of my best friends. He started Toing Morbid Angel 93. When I did, I lived with Punchy at his place. He gave a place to live when I moved down here. So we go away, of course, he's the best, but me and him, at that point, we were working for, we were selling HBO and Showtime for DirecTV. And so we were like, telemarketers, Mrs. Jones, this is Erik Rutan from USSB. How are you doing today? I mean, I was doing that for a year, and it was incredible because of course, it was another one of those moments of you're touring the world, you're on top of your world, and now you're starting over again, and I'm selling HBO, and you're getting abused on a regular rotation. But I had DirecTV. I knew all about it, and me and him were just really good at it.

(01:31:02):

And so we ended up getting to this top sales team. We had plus hours 12 to nine Monday through Friday, and every week I'd be like, you know what, man? I can't take this crap anymore. I'm sick of this abuse. It definitely inspired the first hate eternal record. I would come home angry as shit, people would abuse you. But then I get my paycheck, and I was like, well, I guess I'm pretty decent at this. I kept going, but obviously when Trey called me about touring with Morbid again, I was like, yep, let's do this. I was very excited to get out of there, but as I did Morbid Angel Moore and Haiti Eternal, we did the, I mean, think about this for a second, and this is all during me being a morbid angel. I recorded Haiti, eternal Conquering the Throne, wrote and recorded in 99, wrote and recorded Morbid Angel gateways to Annihilation, wrote and recorded my last project in 2001, and wrote and recorded Haiti Eternal King of All Kings in 2002.

(01:32:02):

So within a three year period, four albums that I was a part of on top of touring, I remember one of the many bonehead decisions I made is I was recording Morbid Angel gateway's, annihilation at Moore Sound, and I thought to myself, I'm going to record my last record right after it. Why not? And I remember I finished My Souls on a Friday, and I was like, all right, guys, I'm out of here. And went to a studio and started recording in New Jersey on a Monday and a whole different project, a whole different thing. It was one of those moments now when I look back, it's like, what the hell were you doing? But that's how it was. I mean, there was times I remember finishing a Haiti Eternal Tour in New York City at the Wetlands. I hopped on a plane from Newark, met the morbid guys over in Europe and played vCAN the next day.

(01:32:57):

I remember producing Christian Conquerors Armageddon in Germany and then meeting Morbid in Ireland the next day to start a tour. And so I was doing this routine of all these different things, and it was during gateways at some time where I just knew in my heart, I was like, you know what? I've got to make a change. There's no lasting. This is not going to last. There's just no way. Yeah, I got youth on my side. I'm 30, but I'm starting to not 30 forever. No, I knew something had to change, man. It was such a tough decision when I look back on it, one of the hardest decisions of my life. But I knew that something had to change, and I really felt like it was time to branch out on my own, succeed or fail regardless of what happens. This was my time.

(01:33:49):

I remember telling Trey almost a year in advance, I said, listen, I'm going to fulfill every tour we have for this record. I would never leave you high and dry. And I did. I fulfilled my obligations and always said, Hey, if you ever need help with anything, I'm here. But this is something I feel passionate about. And you know what? Morbid Angel was his baby, his dream. And so he respected that. He understood, and I think probably, I'm sure some disappointment from everybody, but at the same time, they respected that and I respected them. And I remember just that was the one decision, one of the most major decisions I made, where I thought to myself, man, I hope you know what the heck you're doing, man, because like I said, my last two orbit tours, Slayer, Pantera, main support for Motorhead, and here I am, I'm not starting over again per se, because Haiti Turner, we had one record out the studio I had at the historic facility. So it was still quite a risk. Quite a risk, yes,

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):

Quite a risk,

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):

But ultimately, absolutely the right one. I remember in oh six, David had called me and David had just come back to Morbid Angel, and he's like, Hey, what are you doing? I was like, ah, I'm getting ready to produce a record next week and just release a new Hate, eternal record not too long ago. And he's like, cool. He's like, Hey, man, you ever remember telling Trey if he ever needs anything, he can count on you? I was like, yeah. He's like, well, we got to cash that in. And I'm thinking, okay, what's up? He's like, we got a month of festivals in Europe, and it starts next week with Ving, and we have a situation where we need a guitar player, and who the hell else is going to learn 20 songs in a week? And I was like, oh, man, wow. Okay. So the band I was recording at the time, I talked to them, I said, well, let me talk to them and see if they're okay with this.

(01:35:49):

They were a Florida band, they were okay with it. They were disappointed. It wasn't in the us. They would've liked to seen it, but I remember calling 'em back. I said, let's do it. And I hadn't played with the guys in years, but I remember going to the first practice, I spent a day just going over all the songs, and I mean, some of these songs I've been playing for a decade. So it was amazing how fast they came back to me. And then on top of it, the first band practice, it was like nothing. It was just normal. But I remember sitting there at vain on the side of the stage, and I was like, man, I would've loved a warmup show before playing in front of like 70,000 people on a week notice, but it's kind of coming back. That was the last time I ever played with Morbid Angel.

(01:36:38):

And it was amazing because people were so grateful to, first of all, that David had come back and people were excited about that. And then for me to come back with the domination lineup, and it was a really neat experience. And it just goes to show, you just never know. Life has so many twists and turns, and I've really tried to live my life by keeping doors open and keeping relationships good. I mean, relationships are key to everything. God, one of the most important things in everything, album production, being in a band is communication. And fortunately for me, I have good communication skills, probably to the point where some people wish I just shut the hell up, but I have no problem talking about the hard things or I mean, not being confrontational, mind you, unless called upon of course. But bringing the tough shit up. Yeah, I don't have a problem discussing it. I don't have a problem being approached with it. And that's been really helpful for me to preserve those relationships with former band mates. And when I left Morbid Angel, honestly, I never thought in a zillion years that I would end up joining another band. I mean, I've worked on 90 something Records at this point, not just another band, the

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):

Other

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):

Biggest band in Death Metal. I mean, exactly. I guess it's twofold, right? One, I never thought an opportunity that would ever come up again. That's first and foremost. And then two, I've been really happy doing Haiti Eternal and producing, and I've been doing this for 17 years now, and doing some guest parts here and working on a project there or something. I've been really happy and content. And to me, I can't tell you how many times I've thought to myself like, wow, man, if this is the totality of everything that I've done in my career, as of right now, I'm so grateful for everything that I've been able to do. And so I've had some other opportunities, and they just never, like I said, when I left Morbid Angel, really, it was like, I'm doing Haiti Eternal, I'm doing mono recording and whatever other musical endeavors I choose to do, but I thought, this is it, including going back to Morbid.

(01:39:00):

I just kind of moved forward with this plan and stuck to it. And so obviously with the Cannibal Corps situation, it just blew my mind of like, wow. But the analogy to that is Countable Corps to me, is more of an angel to me of importance in my life from a career standpoint, from a personal standpoint. I mean, countable Corps with Kill. And even way before that, bringing Haiti Eternal on tour, our first tour ever with Haiti Eternal was with Cannibal Corps back in 2000. Besides our friendships for 30 years. And besides all the tours I've done with Cannibal Corps, with Haiti Eternal and Morbid Angel, and so leading up to now when Cannibal Corpse Let Me Produce Kill, that changed my life forever. It was the record that kind of put me on the map. And not that there wasn't other records before that that were important, sorely Green into the Moat, premonitions of War, Haiti Eternal, Chrissy, there's a lot of very important bands, but of course, cannibal Corpse, the biggest death metal band giving me the biggest opportunity that I could ever ask for.

(01:40:16):

It changed my life forever. There's no two ways around it. And just like Morbid Angel changed my life forever. And so when I had the opportunity to join Cannibal Corps, it hit me, of course. Wow. It was a deep thing, but it felt so natural to, I'm already a part of it, I guess it was. I felt like I belonged there and they felt like I belonged there to, and it just goes to show life. You just never know where it's going to take you. And I still leading up to the announcement a couple weeks ago, I mean, we held onto this for a year, so I mean, we decided this in February of last year. So I kept it on the lowdown for a whole year. And so it didn't even seem real for the longest time, even though I played on the record, I wrote songs, I produced whatever, it just, but when it finally got announced, I mean, my anxiety was so high because I had been just keeping this under wraps for a whole freaking year. So when it came out, it was so relieving. I was just like, whew,

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):

Fucking finally.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):

I'm a really humble person, man. So I was like, man, I know that this situation I'm coming into is I'm taking somebody's position that was really important and integral to the band and somebody that obviously we all respect and care for. And I personally felt like it was my, I don't want to say obligation, but on a personal note, besides a musical note, I just knew that when it was presented in front of me that I was the right guy to do this. And then obviously they felt that way and just continue the legacy that we already have together. I mean, when I think about doing five album productions with Cannibal Corpse, it's like

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):

That's a whole band's career right there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):

It's kind of nuts, because I think Scott Burns produced five records with Cannibal Corpse, if I'm not mistaken. And so I thought, wow, we think of me personally, of course, I think of Scott Burns so integral to Cannibal Corpse and so much of Death Metal period, of course, man. So I dunno, it feels pretty surreal, and it still feels surreal that I'm actually in the band. I mean, it's just crazy. It's still surreal.

Speaker 2 (01:42:36):

Can we talk about risk for a second? Seems to me like you are not risk averse at all, which I relate to. And a lot of people I know are risk averse, and I think that that's one of the things that holds them back. But for instance, I quit a production career to start URM quit Cold Turkey, had an album for Metal Blade that I was going to co-produce on in a January of 2015. In November, 2014. I canceled everything including that, and was like, there's no coming back from this. If I cancel this, this is it. But I had to do it, and it was a great decision, but it was a huge, huge risk. And I've always been cool to take those risks. I've always felt like if I don't jump into the next thing wholeheartedly, how's it going to work? I have to go all in. It won't. It won't, exactly. So I'm just curious what your psychology is on risk. It sounds to me like it's similar to mine, where regardless of the negative outcome, you're going to give it the best chance you can.

Speaker 1 (01:43:42):

I always felt like I have nothing to lose, but everything. That's my approach, I guess when I entered just doing music, there's just so much risk. But I feel like it's amazing that I have many people in my life that have had stability their whole life, whether it's family or whether it's financially. And I'm always amazed by that because my life, from my earliest memory, I mean, some of my earliest memories of my life are traumatic memories. And so I've had this roller coaster of a life my whole life. And so I've always been a risk taker. I mean, when I was younger, I was taking all the wrong risks. And as I got older, I started taking the calculated ones. And it's amazing. Steve Tucker from Over Angel, one of my great friends, he said, there's many compliments that some people say to you that really stick with you.

(01:44:40):

And something he said to me one time, he said, when it comes to all the major decisions, you always make the right ones. And I thought, I don't know about that. But then I started thinking about it. I think he's right. And even though some of those decisions at the time weren't perceived that way, even when I left more of an angel, I mean, I had a lot of people saying, what the hell are you doing? You're out of your freaking mind. You've got it made, man. You're playing in arguably one of the best death milk bands, and you're doing it, man. I mean, you just got off tour with Slaying Pantera, you freaking idiot. I mean, I had people, literally, they were angry with me that I made that decision. But my gut, luckily, I have that gut that kind of tells me I don't make decisions based off what other people think or what is perceived as right or wrong.

(01:45:33):

I make those decisions based off what I think is best regardless of the risk. For me, I've always lived it like no risk, no reward. I mean, I've made so many risks, and I guess leading to this decision of joining Cannibal Corps now, I almost feel like this is, every decision I've made has been special and meant all my major decisions in my life. I have continued to pay me back tenfold in satisfaction and happiness and achievement and fulfillment more than anything. It's almost like right now, it was the right time for this to happen because when I left Morgan Angel in 2002, I think, or three, I knew what I wanted to do. I knew that I was going to achieve it no matter what the cost. I'm never going to stop until I do. And the producing and owning a studio was more like a selfish thing for me, of I want to be able to record my own records, man, and then record some great bands and stuff.

(01:46:37):

But literally, and this is what I'm leaning to with Cannibal Cores. When I produced Kill In, we Recorded in oh five, I think it came out in oh six, it changed everything. And the next thing you know, I'm doing a ton of records and a ton of different bands and different styles of music. And I mean, it's all that hard work and dedication has paid me back a thousand fold beyond what I could have ever dreamed of. And same with my musical career. If you told me when I was 14 and I was spinning hella weights on the record player and reciting the lyrics word by word, trying to learn black magic on guitar and learning Ozzy riffs and stuff, and that I would end up touring with Slayer not only once, but twice in my career, I would've said, yeah, right. I'll be happy playing and doing records and owning a studio to do that.

(01:47:36):

And if I could just make all ends meet to me, and this is one of the things that's been key to me is money was never a motivator for me because, and it's different for everybody of course, but I attributed just to my humble beginnings that I was able to really look at my artistic vision as the most important thing regardless of the financial outcome. But I always dreamed that someday I could somehow scrape a living together in music. And if it takes me doing eight different things to make that happen, so I don't have to deliver chicken or pump gas telemarket yet, but at the same time never compromise my integrity, because I always looked at it as like I'd rather telemarket and do music I love than do music that I don't feel or isn't natural for me and make a living. I'm just kind of like, I'm not better than anybody or worse, I don't look at myself any different than anyone.

(01:48:42):

But I think integrity played a big role in my life and respect for the craft of what everyone does. And that's why I respect so many different musicians, and we've shared this before, is like, well, I grew up around so much different music, starting with classical, my dad, I played cello, my grandmother played classical piano. My sister, oh, one of the earliest memories of my life is sitting on the bench next to my sister, practicing for her classical piano recitals. I played violin when I was just a small kid, but my dad listened to rock and blues and jazz. And then on the other hand, with my mom and some of that, it was Elton John or Billy Joel or The Temptations, the four tops, Frank Sinatra. And then my sister, well, she listened to Journey and Joan Jed, and then my uncle listened to Dallas Cooper and AC DC and Kiss and Van Halen.

(01:49:46):

And my earliest introduction to heavy music was my uncle putting in the eight track in the old Chevy with A C, DC. And Van Halen won on repeat. And that's what really got me into heavy music. And because of my exposure to all this different type of music, it garnered absolute respect for the art and the craft of music, and also my early struggles, my early successes, and then my failures, and then my successes and my failures. That led me to really being grounded and humble, knowing that between that and some of the tragic loss in my life of it can all be taken away from you in a heartbeat. So to me, you got to take care of yourself. You got to protect yourself. And I mean, I look at the most important as you get older, and that's the one thing that comes with age, is I'm going to be the Big five O this year in June, which is still blowing my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:50:51):

Congratulations. How the hell,

Speaker 1 (01:50:53):

First of all, how did I make it to 50 if I was 14? And you said, man, I never even thought that far. I thought like 27, no pun intended to that year, as you know, many people have passed at 27. But I always thought, geez, if I make it to 27, it'll be a miracle. And here I am at 50 doing everything I could have possibly dreamed of times a thousand, and still being able to feel so positive and inspired to continue what I'm doing. I want to do everything I can to prolong this feeling that I have and what I'm able to do as long as I can. And it starts with physical and mental health. And COVID certainly has put that all to the test of trying to keep my mind. And that's why for me, doing multiple things has always been the thing that's kind kept my mind.

(01:51:57):

And during COVID, believe me, I think about like, wow, it was a really hard year last year. And at the same time, it was a super productive year for me as well. And then this year, I've got a lot of great things on the horizon. Unfortunately, I don't think touring will be one of them, but probably not by not touring is allowing me to do all these other things that I don't have time to do. And I'm just maximizing these opportunities while I have them. Because next year, knock on wood, I'll be touring a lot and spending quality time with my wife at home, spending time redoing the studio and working on some other projects musically and things around the house that have been put on the wayside for way too long. Well, now I have time to do it right. Everything in my life, I've tried to spin negative into a positive, and that's what's got me here.

(01:52:59):

And this COVID thing has been a massive challenge, of course, and such a tragedy for so many people that have lost so much their lives, their jobs, their livelihood. And that certainly has been, every musician I know, including myself, has been affected by that. Our livelihoods not being able to tour. Well, as you know, if you're a professional musician that without touring, it's tough, got to get creative. And then it's made me, it's forced me to, not forced me, but it's allowed me rather than forced to focus on all these other things that I've always wanted to do, but haven't had a chance to do this podcast today.

Speaker 2 (01:53:47):

So speaking of the podcast, I have some questions actually from listeners

Speaker 1 (01:53:52):

That

Speaker 2 (01:53:53):

I'd like to ask you. So first question from Patrick Seaver. He says, I'd like to know why. In terms of drum production for Cannibal Corps, you decided to have Paul use a click. What's the benefit since Paul has done it without a click for so long? Interesting

Speaker 1 (01:54:07):

Kill was the first record we did together, and we didn't use a click at that point. And actually before that, it actually starts with my own experience. Haiti Eternal I Monarch is our third record. We tracked that to two Inch, the 24 track back in oh five, and we didn't use a click. And there's a couple songs where the rifts just ended up either being too fast or not the right feel, the song. There was some riffs that just didn't translate the way I had envisioned it. And that's when, even me personally, I started, I decided after that record, I want to work with a click track in the future, not because it has to be perfect, but to at least be in the ballpark of what we're looking for and not be the end all be all, but just the guide. And so when I started working with the Click for My Own Records and other records, it also helped.

(01:55:03):

I can't even tell you how many drummers using to a Click help their consistency, but certain riffs just vibe better at certain feel. Even when I write riffs, usually I'm sitting on the couch, I'm tapping my foot. First thing I'll do is go to Pro Tools, figure out that tempo, and then track the riff, because that's where it came to me naturally, that's where it lives, that's where it lives in that within this window. And I remember mentioning DePaul for Kill, like, Hey, you ever think about working to a click? And he was like, oh, no, man, no way, man. Even the thought about it at that point, he was adverse to it. And I thought, you know what? Listen man, don't worry about it. Now's not the time to maybe interject this right now. And I remember coming to Band Practice for Evisceration Plague, the next record I produced with 'em.

(01:55:55):

And I came in there and Paul's like, Hey, because every record, I usually go to practice. I had helped set up Mic so they could do Pre-Pro, helped them get a console and some mics. And Alex started working with Pro Tools and Recording Pre-Pro ever since Kill. And I remember I came to practice and he's like, check this out. And he hands me the headphone and all of a sudden I hear the click. And I was like, oh, shit. He, he's like, you know what, man? I decided I want to use a click. I feel like it'll help the record, it'll help the flow of the record, the feel of the riffs. It'll also help the consistency of my playing. And like Paul From Kill to Now with Violence, unimagined the new record. Some of the drums he did on this record are some of my favorite.

(01:56:45):

I mean, he did some really amazing shit. And he's come so far. When I think about when we first started working together to now and how he has fell into this groove, the Click has really helped him feel more comfortable with the songs and track them and perform them. It's helped the songs preserve and capture the vibe of what they were intended to be. And that's, to me, the click. Why. Leaning back to the question, really the click, I think being utilized was more about capturing and preserving the feel of how the song should go and the tempos. And sometimes I write riffs, if you speed it up six BPMs, it don't feel right. It's not the same riff it. I think Paul, with the Click track now, it's just kind of second nature to him. And not only has helped him as a player, but helped everybody else in kind of preserving the vibe and feel of the riffs and the song.

Speaker 2 (01:57:47):

Makes perfect sense. Okay, so question from William Tibbs. It's a two part question. First of all, how do you go about creating such a dense full mix without sacrificing attack and transient quality? And second, what are your thoughts on creating atmosphere through production?

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):

Well, the first question, man, that's

Speaker 2 (01:58:05):

Kind of hard to really explain that on a podcast. I think it is tough now, the mixed territory,

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):

It is a big challenge mean, especially with cannibal corps, where we're dealing with a sharp g sharpp tunings, and then this massive heavy guitar sound. And then of course you have Alex, who's one of the best bass players period. And you want that to shine. And then with Paul, like the drums, because Paul, the more we've worked together, the more we've leaned into trying to go for a more acoustic sounding drums. That's what he loves, that's what he embraces. And for this record, for violence unimagined, that's man, I mean, it's funny because a lot of people might listen to it and say, oh man, I wish this cut through more. Or Why isn't? There's a lot of things I'm sure people could say, why isn't there that typewriter kick drum sound or whatever. But we were going for punch and we were going for naturality and going for a very organic kind of approach.

(01:59:18):

And so of course, that makes everything even harder if you don't have the sample drums to get through this dense guitar bass combo. And then of course, the vocals. Well, George, he helps a lot because George's vocal delivery and pronunciation or second to none in death, me in my opinion, and he's really specific about, he has great timing, great pronunciation, everything about what he does is awesome. And so his voice and his frequency range where he lives really helps a lot. But that's the biggest challenge is trying to make it sound authentic and real and also have it all cut through. There's not a simple answer to it. It's lots of listening and lots of work really, and I try to preserve a wall of sound. That's kind of what I'm going for. Rather than having just a bunch of individual instruments into one record, I'm willing to sacrifice some of that to capture the overall vibe and wall of sound.

(02:00:18):

That's kind of my approach. The second question, ambience. It's funny because every record's different. Sometimes I want the vocals just right in your face, just right here. I don't want it too wet or even the drums, it just depends. Sometimes it's about texturing and for me, when I'm doing special effects, I'll call 'em like special delay or a chorus or a huge reverb on the snare. At this point, I like to texture it and not, I always look at it as like, same with soloing. Sometimes on a record, maybe there's a riff. I thought, oh man, I'm going to do a killer solo here. And then I work on stuff and I don't come up with anything substantial. And I think to myself, you know what? I ace it. I don't want to overdo it. And so when I come to ambience and stuff, I tend to do a lot of the new cannibal chorus record. There's a bunch of cool little things going on, but to make them special, I just don't do 'em all the time because I feel like that takes away from the impact of that special moment delay here, chorus there, reverse reverb here. I like to texture them. Some music needs more, ambience some music. There's no rule of thumb. It's basically, I mean, the one thing I do with all the bands, every record, and it's key. I know by listening to your podcast, how many people have said this about the importance of pre-production,

(02:01:49):

But on top of that is the communication. Every band I work with, and anybody will tell you this, I have hours of conversations with each individual person in that band. What are they looking for? What are they aspiring with this record overall? What's the sound? What were you feeling when you wrote this part on top of talking about structurings or when we're in the studio? What about this? What about this harmonization? Or maybe we do a counterpoint part here, or maybe we double this vocal part, or maybe we do this. It's ongoing. From the minute a bands I know I'm working with, I want in immediately. I want to get into the writing process, not necessarily me writing, but I want to be in the people's minds and hearts of the people that are creating this. And so every record I do, I talk to the people to really gather the necessary info to know what they're looking for. And because this, I'm sure is that translation, you can have five conversations and still not have a full grasp or understanding of what they want to translate. And to me, being a band guy, my job is to bring out the best out of the guys in the band recording and to capture the sound that they are looking for. That's ultimate objective for me is it's not about me, it's nothing. It has to do with them. The 4, 5, 3, whatever guys. I want to capture what they're looking for and use my knowledge and experience

Speaker 2 (02:03:23):

To do so. Interesting you said translation because our second podcast episode ever back in 2015, we called it a musical translator. It was about what a producer's ultimate job actually is. And that's what we talked about is that really that's what you're doing. You're translating a musician's idea into something coming out of the speakers that represents their idea.

Speaker 1 (02:03:49):

And sometimes you think you translated that and you didn't. And I've had situations where maybe somebody's guitar is just not working. It's not staying intonated properly. We have to use another guitar or the amps tubes are dying, something's wrong with it. Oh, we got to use something else. And maybe my vision wasn't exactly what they were looking for. And then you have to go to the drawing board. And so that's why you cannot have enough communication, man. Arguably communication might be the most important thing. Through all of this is the communication open line of communication with everybody involved. And as a producer, this includes talking besides talking to the band, you got to talk to management. You got to talk to the record label, you got to talk to your mastering engineer, you got to talk to your assistant engineer. It's a constant, it never stops from beginning to that final proofing of the mastering.

(02:04:50):

It's an open line of communication. I don't think there's anything that's like one of the most important things of producing records and being in a band. And because fortunately for me, I have experience on both ends, and so I always make a lot of analogies to football. I have a system, I guess, and I'll make the analogy to say Bill Belichick or something. I'm no Bill Belichick. I don't own seven Super Bowl reefs, but he has a system and players, they either buy into that system or they don't, and they don't go to New England or they don't last in New England. It's the same with me producing my system, is to try to work people to get the best out of them, to capture performances that they didn't even know they were capable of doing, and to preserve the integrity of their sound and capture that moment in time that will never ever happen again.

(02:05:45):

You'll never duplicate. And I don't want any record I do to sound exactly the same. That's boring as shit. I wanted to capture that moment in time, for better or for worse, flawed or not, because that is where we were at at that time. And so to me, you have to kind of buy into what everybody's doing. And of course, it's not always that easy. Sometimes people, musicians, maybe they doubt your idea, but you have to communicate these things. And for me, I always look at it this way. I'll throw in ideas. And if somebody's like, nah, not feeling it, okay, next. If it's an idea I feel is crucial, then I'll keep reiterating it. But if ultimately the band is like, that's not going to fly, well, you know what? This is their record and they have the right to shoot things down when they want to.

(02:06:42):

But I'll always voice my opinion because if you're working with somebody like me that has 30 years of experience of doing records as a musician and then later as a producer, most people that come work with me, they want my opinion regardless of whether it sticks or not. That's a whole nother thing. And maybe my advice or my opinion is not the right one, but ultimately one of many things I've learned is you have to be open-minded. Everyone needs to be open-minded and never give up. And that's my whole life, my career. Never give up. You get some amp in there, that is a guy's sound, and he's committed to using that amp. Well, you know what, God damnit, I'm going to capture this goddamn thing. I don't care how long it takes, I'm going to get it. Don't worry about it, never give up. Because ultimately, whether it's your first record, your 10th record, your hundredth record, these albums, they're for life. And I look at every single album this way, whether it's band's first record, whether it's on a small label, big label, big band, small band, it doesn't matter. This record means everything to them at that moment in their life. It's the most important thing ever

Speaker 2 (02:07:59):

At the time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:08:01):

How many bands have I done records with where they never made another one? I look back at those memories and I think to myself, I'm so glad I treated it with the dignity and respect that they deserved and that the record deserved. I look at every record as it could be your last because you just life's short. It could be, I mean, I could go to Publix today and get hit by a car, and this is the last interview I ever do, is my podcast, knock a Wood, not the case. But you have to treat it this way. And I treat every record very, it's so important.

Speaker 2 (02:08:35):

Awesome answer. So question from Jay Murphy with newer technologies and more solutions available, how has this changed or impacted your workflow?

Speaker 1 (02:08:45):

Well, pretty drastically when you consider, I started recording all analog, right? And so I was tracking to a two inch machine. I was mixing down to a quarter inch machine. That's when I first worked at a studio back in 1992 before I joined Morgan, an Angel. That's how I was making demos at the time. So kind of started engineering during transfer to digital. And although I must say, I mean, I probably held on to do an analog longer than most because I just love it. Although I haven't tracked. Last record I tracked to analog was Goat Whore actually in 2014. And I remember we were listening to the drums and you're getting tones and it sounds great. You play it back from tape. It sounds even greater it, and I miss, of course, I miss it. I can't tell you how many times I went to my track ball, like, okay, let's do it.

(02:09:47):

And then I'm like, oh, shit, I'm not using a track ball. But everything has changed. But the funny thing is, and I've embraced Pro Tools. I mean, I've been using Pro Tools now for 20 years, but even when I started working with Pro Tools, I was still tracking some records to tape, integrating tape and Pro tools, sometimes tracking the tape, dumping the pro tools, but I guess life in general and music and everything. I utilize the things that benefit the records the way I want to make them. And I don't utilize the other things like quantizing drums and beat detecting and stuff. I know it's like a commonly used practice, and I totally understand why. And there's different degrees on how you can do it. Me personally, I've really tried to stay away from doing that. And not that it's right or wrong, it's maybe more uncommon and more extreme metal, but every record's different.

(02:10:43):

Every drummer's different. Every band is different. Some people like, Hey, I love that chorus. I want that. I want to have that in a pop format or something. Everything's different. There's no right or wrong. But from, I don't know, a principle aspect or how I like to do things is I really try to capture and preserve authentic and unique performances throughout the whole record. And if I'm editing or something like that, I always believe in doing the most minimalist editing possible to preserve the authenticity of the players and the music that they present forth. And with the kind of music that I record a lot, it's a challenge of course. But the one thing about technology that I love, it really when it comes to Pro Tools is just the automation factor on top of the ability to like, well, that was a pretty good take.

(02:11:40):

Why don't we try it again? I'll create another playlist, or all three playlists, five playlists, who the hell knows? You have so many opportunities to do so much, and those are the things that I maximize with Pro Tools is just having the ability, why don't we try changing the structure a little bit and then easy do it right? You know what I mean? Those are things that I'm so grateful for with Pro Tools and just digital medium and having a DAW system everywhere on my laptop, at my house, at the studio, I mean, anywhere I go, I have Pro Tools, I go on tour, I have Pro Tools on my laptop. I go in my home studio. I have pro tools there. I mean, the ability technology is amazing, but as I like to say it, I use technology. I tend to not abuse it. So that's kind of my thought process in life is use the gifts that we're given with technology, just don't

Speaker 2 (02:12:38):

Abuse it. Yeah, I feel like there's a double-edged sword with every technological advancement. There's great things you can do with it, and there's also the shitty things you can do with it, and it's up to us to decide how we're going to use it. And it's

Speaker 1 (02:12:55):

Really hard too, because I know there's a lot of guys that probably have the mentality of me, but there's also this pressure when it comes to producing records. Some guys will say, yeah, I want all my drums quantized. I want to copy and paste every section. I want to do one bar at a time. I want to do solos note for note because I want it to be perfect. And you know what? If that's how they feel, then that's their prerogative and their right to feel that way. And our job is to accomplish that for them. So I guess, fortunately for me, the majority of bands I've done my whole career are guys that want to lay it all on the line. It's like going to battle. It's like, alright, here it is, man. We're going to lay all the cards on the table. I'm going to give you everything I got and I expect you to get it. And that's my job and I'm going to get it. And I'm very fortunate that there's a lot of bands that will probably never ring me up because I'm not the right guy for them. And I understand that.

Speaker 2 (02:13:59):

That's a good thing though.

Speaker 1 (02:14:01):

It's

Speaker 2 (02:14:02):

A good thing. Yeah. It's good to have your neck of the woods, I think.

Speaker 1 (02:14:06):

And stories come out from recording experiences, and I've had some really funny stories. And Sammy Duhe, I owe a lot to him. I love that guy. I don't want to say he struck the fear into people, but he has told people like, Hey, he'll call you on your shit if you're not prepared. And guess what? It's not in a malicious way because we all have to learn. How many times did I, especially when I was younger and I thought, yeah, starting with the ripping course record, I thought I had my shit down, man. I was like, I'm ready for this man. And then I got in there and I was like, oh my God, blood, sweat and tears coming right here. And I'm not talking about the band. I'm talking about, wow, I'm not ready at all. And I felt I was, but I needed that somebody to kind of let me know, Hey, you got to get better at this.

(02:15:03):

You got to focus on that. And that's my job to, I want to improve everybody. It's not in a malicious way. I give a crap. And I had guys do that to me like, Hey, you could be a little smoother on your picking or man your tone. I don't know. Working with other producers, bill Klatt, Jim Morris doing Domination with Bill. I mean, he was instrumental to me as well. And these guys, I learned a lot from that. And I just view it as I have a wealth of information. I feel responsible to share that information. And you take it or leave it. I'm not going to be upset if you don't want to learn from my 30 years of doing albums experience, that's your prerogative. I'm not going to get upset about it. That's your prerogative, your decision making. But to me, I have so much knowledge to share and trial and error is how I got it.

(02:15:59):

And so I want to share it with everybody to the best of my ability. And that's what has helped me to get where I'm at. And also, I mean, if my walls could talk at the studio, it's seen it all, man. I mean there's, I believe it crazy over the top stories that I won't even be able to repeat. But they're all learning lessons. And like I said, people don't reach out to me usually unless they have a certain goal in mind because I'm not the best producer or mixer or engineer. I'm one of many really talented guys that exist out there that do great work. But if you want to be pushed and you want to capture the magic of what you represent, then I'm one of some guys that can do that for you, and I'm going to give everything I have to help bring that to fruition.

Speaker 2 (02:16:51):

Well, I think that's a good place to end it, man. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out and chat. It's been awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:17:00):

Yeah, my pleasure, man.

Speaker 2 (02:17:01):

Okay, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at AI Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording

Speaker 1 (02:17:25):

Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.