Bill Smith, Audio Engineer/Archivist – Part 1 of 2 – Insights In Sound 219 S22 E9

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0:3434 secondsWe’re here at Village Studio B with the illustrious Bill Smith. Good morning.
0:4141 secondsGood morning to you, sir, as well. And uh actually we’ve been waiting to do this for quite a while now.
0:4646 secondsQuite a while. We’ve been trying to hook up and do this. So here here we are.
0:5151 secondsAnd here we are. Now you started out at Capital, right? Was that your first No, you started out at Cherokee. No. Now where where did you start?
0:5858 secondsStarted out in 1985 in New York City. In New York? Yeah. Whereabouts? Which studio?
1:041 minute, 4 secondsSecret Sound. Todd Rung and Muggy’s place. Wow. Okay. 147 West 24th Street. Okay.
1:111 minute, 11 secondsSeventh floor. No way. Trial by Fire.
1:131 minute, 13 secondsThat’s where that’s the first studio I ever worked at was Secret or The Secret Sound, right?
1:201 minute, 20 secondsAs you’ll see on the inside of a lot of Todd albums cuz he used to live there as well. Did a bunch of his records
1:271 minute, 27 secondsthere. Um I can’t recall which ones quite frankly, but uh yeah, that’s the first place I worked was there. Secret
1:341 minute, 34 secondsSound. than any number of studios in New York City from 85ish, late ‘ 84, 85ish through
1:441 minute, 44 seconds89, early 90 when I moved out here. But I worked at Secret. I worked at a quad.
1:501 minute, 50 secondsI worked out of the Hit Factory, um, Atlantic, Clinton, Platinum Island.
1:581 minute, 58 secondsOh, man. You really did you you did them all. Well, nobody you didn’t really work for any studios, at least not in New York City.
2:072 minutes, 7 secondsNot in New York. That That’s true. And that’s that’s kind of a different culture than if you’re in LA. Yeah. That’s putting it mildly. Yeah.
2:152 minutes, 15 secondsRadically different. Um you were basically just scraping for whatever.
2:182 minutes, 18 secondsYou just worked out of a pool of joints and if one place had a gig for you on Monday, great. And then Tuesday you’d working out of another studio.
2:272 minutes, 27 secondsWednesday, Thursday, out of a third place. Right. It was like a pinball machine basically.
2:342 minutes, 34 secondsGood way to learn though. That’s one thing that’s different about coming up from one studio cuz in one studio like I, you know, my first studio was
2:412 minutes, 41 secondsCherokee and so I became an expert at a ranges and mtr90s. Whereas, you know, if you’re in different studios all the
2:492 minutes, 49 secondstime, you got to learn every console, every every two-inch machine, you know, every personality. Yeah.
2:562 minutes, 56 secondsYeah. The gear learned the gear was what it was. The thing that was more beneficial was having the opportunity to meet eight, nine, 10 times the amount of different people.
3:053 minutes, 5 secondsRight. Right. And that that’s the things that actually that’s what you learn give you lead you to a career. Yeah.
3:123 minutes, 12 secondsNot so much the gear. Learning the gear is, you know.
3:163 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. No, it’s learning the people. You know, SSL says one thing on a switch.
3:203 minutes, 20 secondsNeve says another. It does the same thing when signal when you press the button and there it is. or you know a ranges don’t even have
3:283 minutes, 28 secondshalf the switches so it makes it that much easier even you’re right it’s the people because that’s the thing that you really learn more than anything is how to handle the
3:363 minutes, 36 secondspersonality it’s the people you meet but it’s really I mean yourself in a way that gets you the career knowing the gear and knowing
3:443 minutes, 44 secondsoh I know how to set a compressor and I can do you know EQ big deal right I mean when you get bent down to it
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsreally okay that’s no great achievement In many ways, you know, what gives you a career, gets you a career in this
4:004 minutesindustry, especially one that goes on for decades, okay? You know, like yourself, me from what 42 going into 43
4:084 minutes, 8 secondsyears in, is how you are as a person each day, right?
4:134 minutes, 13 secondsAre you pleasant to be around for 12 hours a day, every single day in a room, okay, with people? What’s your attitude?
4:224 minutes, 22 secondsAs always, your attitude is everything.
4:264 minutes, 26 secondsAre your answers? Yes, of course, I can do that. You know, one minute and but okay, but you’re, you know, you’re
4:334 minutes, 33 secondspositive. You bring positivity to the sessions each day. You’ve got a good attitude. You’re happy to be there each
4:414 minutes, 41 secondsday. Not only happy to be there each day, you’re grateful to be there each day and thankful to be there each day because each day you’re in a studio,
4:504 minutes, 50 secondsyou’re getting the opportunity to do something you love and enjoy. You’re not out laying brick, right? Look what we do for a living, you
4:574 minutes, 57 secondsknow? I mean, what a what a blessing that is. As as much of a hassle as it is, and some people complain, it’s not a hassle at all. Doing what you would love and enjoy is never a hassle.
5:075 minutes, 7 secondsPeople think it’s a household because they need to step a little left into the gratitude. Exactly.
5:135 minutes, 13 secondsLane, okay. And realize like look around in the world outside around you. Right.
5:205 minutes, 20 secondsOkay. That you know we who do this kind of thing.
5:245 minutes, 24 secondsA one we’re not special. We’re just people like everybody else. Okay. Right.
5:295 minutes, 29 secondsThere’s nothing everybody Oh, you work in the It’s like you know what?
5:335 minutes, 33 secondsI work at the rock stars. Oh my god. You know what? We’re all the same.
5:375 minutes, 37 secondsBFD as they say. Okay. Right. There’s nothing real uh you know in the big picture of it all. You you know to me
5:465 minutes, 46 secondsthe people who I look at and go oh and who right are doctors go down in a hospital and go go shake the hand of a
5:545 minutes, 54 secondsdoctor who saves little children’s li babies lives. Yep.
5:585 minutes, 58 secondsOkay. Right. Does surgery. Okay. The you know the things like that. Okay.
6:026 minutes, 2 secondsThey’re, you know, they’re the people doing impressive things to, right, to to benefit the human condition in a way,
6:106 minutes, 10 secondsliterally. Okay? You know, what we do is great and music appeals to people and it becomes the soundtrack of their lives and
6:196 minutes, 19 secondsthe lyrics of some, not all, okay? Uh can be
6:266 minutes, 26 secondsuniversally appealing and people find solace in it. inspiration. However, if
6:336 minutes, 33 secondsyou can relate your life to something somebody’s singing about, great. Okay. But, uh, you know, we in
6:416 minutes, 41 secondsthe business tend to blow our own skirts up a little bit more than, you know, it’s just it’s just a thing.
6:496 minutes, 49 secondsIt’s just what we do. That that’s right. There’s nothing. No.
6:536 minutes, 53 secondsWe’re not curing cancer. We’re not, you know, or making art.
6:566 minutes, 56 secondsYeah. I’ve heard how many people have you said, “When I’m making my art, okay, we’re not making art, man. We’re making
7:027 minutes, 2 secondsmusic so we can make money and we can go and buy art and hang it on the wall.” Hopefully, we’re making music that will
7:107 minutes, 10 secondshave an impact on the whole Yeah. You know, if you could do something that
7:187 minutes, 18 secondsanother person can relate to, you’ve done a good job. let others decide whether or not it’s art.
7:267 minutes, 26 secondsYou know, for me, right? I I never got what the people say. Oh, you know, when I’m making my art, well, who’s the, you know, hey, hey, listen, step back a little bit there.
7:357 minutes, 35 secondsBut, you know, for me, I got to say like the most gratifying thing is not necessarily the fan, but if somebody comes up to me and says,
7:437 minutes, 43 seconds”You helped me to create, you know, to get this out of my head. You helped me to realize something that I was trying to get out there.” I feel good about that.
7:517 minutes, 51 secondsSure. Absolutely. And that has nothing to do with gear, equipment, microphones, nothing that has to do with a shitty four track.
7:587 minutes, 58 secondsWell, it has everything really to do with, excuse [clears throat] me, has everything to do with what I had mentioned before, which is being supportive, right?
8:068 minutes, 6 secondsBeing present for someone, being there, having a good attitude, providing
8:148 minutes, 14 secondscreating an environment where people feel comfortable enough to Yeah. do their thing, right? Realizing
8:238 minutes, 23 secondseach day when we come to work that it’s not about us, has nothing to do with us.
8:288 minutes, 28 secondsWe’re just hired to be there that day and we’re being paid to be there. So, we, you know, come in with thankfulness
8:378 minutes, 37 secondsand gratitude for the fact that, wow, okay, I’m here today and I’m getting paid to do what I like. How fortunate am I?
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsThat’s it right there. You know, and I can, you know, I mean, and you could be digging ditches in 100 degree weather.
8:508 minutes, 50 secondsYou know, there are people out there who will be doing that today right now. Exactly. You know, are doing it as we speak in LA. Yes.
8:568 minutes, 56 secondsI’m grateful and so are you that we’ve had the ability and the opportunity to do something we love, you know, every day. Absolutely. Every single day.
9:059 minutes, 5 secondsAnd the moment you start to get a little kind of is the moment you got to stop.
9:119 minutes, 11 secondsyou keep it in perspective and you say, you know, I mean, I’m fortunate that I’ve gotten to do what I do and something that I love to do, you know,
9:199 minutes, 19 secondsand been able to be around. Not just that, but I think the other thing that you and I both, I think, appreciate is all the relationships that we’ve been
9:289 minutes, 28 secondsable to cultivate, all the friendships, you know, I mean, so many of the people that I work with become my friends, you know.
9:359 minutes, 35 secondsOh, sure. And I’m I’m grateful for that, you know, because there are plenty of professions where really you don’t ever
9:439 minutes, 43 secondsget past the superficial and the surface with people, you know. Yeah.
9:479 minutes, 47 secondsAnd we spend we spend time really literally getting to an intimate place with people where they’re really vulnerable.
9:559 minutes, 55 secondsDays, weeks, months. Yeah. Exactly. In the old days, months at a time.
9:599 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. And you know, so you really get to in certain ways you get to know people and you have these longlasting relationships with people that like even
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsif you worked with them 30 years ago, you still you see each other and you know you have this bond that came about from this work you did together.
10:1610 minutes, 16 secondsSure. You know and not only people who work in the studios and for the studios but the artists and musicians. I mean Yeah. Yeah.
10:2510 minutes, 25 secondsYou share so much and you share something special.
10:2710 minutes, 27 secondsYeah. You know, absolutely. I think that’s great. And through, you know, the good great moments in the studio, some not so great moments in the studio. It’s all the whole gamut.
10:3810 minutes, 38 secondsExactly.
10:3810 minutes, 38 secondsFrom top to bottom, right? Emotions are, you know, very raw, bare things. And so, you know, Yep.
10:4510 minutes, 45 secondsSome days are good, some days not so much. You take them as they come. Not every day is a cherry, as they say, right? You know, it can be a challenge. Absolutely.
10:5510 minutes, 55 secondsAnd things like that. But yeah, you know, I mean, I’ve been very fortunate and blessed in the fact that I mean,
11:0311 minutes, 3 secondslook, the, you know, I’ve done records with people from, you know, all three of the living Beatles I’ve worked with.
11:1111 minutes, 11 secondsOkay. Right. Yeah. You know, uh, Jeff Beck, George Benson, Al Jro, Toto, Steve
11:2011 minutes, 20 secondsLucther. Okay. Stysand, Diana Crawl, uh, Manhattan Transfer to Slayer to, you
11:2811 minutes, 28 secondsknow, on and Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Queen Latifah, and just sort of on and on that that level. Yes.
11:3911 minutes, 39 secondsExtremely wide gamut, but all at just that sort of level. Lou Reed, Laney Stern, Mike Stern, for the jazz bows out there, right?
11:4911 minutes, 49 secondswho those two are, you know.
11:5111 minutes, 51 secondsAnd also, you’ve worked with some really amazing producers and engineers as well.
11:5511 minutes, 55 secondsI mean, I know you came up under under the man himself, Al Schmidt.
11:5911 minutes, 59 secondsWell, I mean, yeah, once I moved out here, I met Al. I didn’t know.
12:0312 minutes, 3 secondsI don’t want to skip forward or anything.
12:0412 minutes, 4 secondsOddly enough, I didn’t know Al in New York cuz he was already living out here. Yeah.
12:0912 minutes, 9 secondsEven though he’s from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Well, when I moved out here, you know, initially when I first moved out here, uh, I got a studio at Cherokee.
12:1912 minutes, 19 secondsOh, so you worked for the Robs as well. Oh, yeah. That was my first gig.
12:2212 minutes, 22 secondsThat was the first gig when I moved out here cuz you kind of had to start over. Yeah.
12:2512 minutes, 25 secondsIn a way, right? LA, New York is a very different Very different. Very different culturally. This the whole [cough] studio mentality is different out here.
12:3512 minutes, 35 secondsThe Yeah, it was just a total A to Z. Okay.
12:4112 minutes, 41 secondsdifferent. So, you kind of had to start it over in a way. But I already had years worth of experience. Okay. you know, in any
12:5012 minutes, 50 secondsnumber of studios that we mentioned earlier or gear, consoles, this that had done, you know, when you moved out here, you were almost
12:5812 minutes, 58 secondsendless amounts of 24-hour sessions with, you know, back then CNC Music Factory and that’s where I did a lot of Lou Reed
13:0713 minutes, 7 secondsstuff back then, too, which was, you know, he was always a chatty Kathy, let me tell you. Uh,
13:1413 minutes, 14 secondsyes, I I had the privilege of meeting Lou a couple of times. Yeah, he was great. Once he warmed up, you know, then it was it was like gez, you know,
13:2313 minutes, 23 secondsbut he definitely took a minute to warm up.
13:2413 minutes, 24 secondsOh, yeah. For sure. But yes, I moved out here late ‘ 89, early 90. Okay.
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondsI Okay. And um just drove out. I didn’t know anybody out here or anything. I didn’t have any place to live. And I bought a car.
13:3913 minutes, 39 secondsUhhuh.
13:4013 minutes, 40 secondsCuz you didn’t really need a car in New York City back. Okay. So, I bought a car and I just threw two bags of clothes, you know, duffel
13:4913 minutes, 49 secondsbags of clothes in the car and two guitars and my 19-inch color TV road shotgun and I just drove across the
13:5713 minutes, 57 secondscountry, man. And yeah, that’s what you did in those days.
14:0114 minutes, 1 secondI I uh there wasn’t an internet.
14:0214 minutes, 2 secondsI had a a friend Well, you know, or you knew somebody. I didn’t have zero, man. I knew almost nobody here.
14:0914 minutes, 9 secondsI knew nobody. So, I had a friend that lived in Santa Cruz. So, I drove up there and dropped my TV and the guitars and and the and then came down here and
14:1814 minutes, 18 secondsspent a week basically sleeping in a car, driving around figuring out what’s where and what’s what and all of that kind of thing. And
14:2714 minutes, 27 secondsat the same time at the, you know, a printer over by the Beverly Center, I had, you know, put like a resume cuz I
14:3614 minutes, 36 secondsrealized, wow, maybe I might need one of these things out here now.
14:4014 minutes, 40 secondsresume and had that printed and just started knocking on doors, man, and dropping off resumes. And the first call
14:4714 minutes, 47 secondsI got back was from uh uh I can’t remember if it was Joe or Bruce. Rob, one of the brothers, wasn’t D. I don’t think probably Joe.
14:5814 minutes, 58 secondsIt probably would have been Joe. Joe handled that. Joe took care of that kind of Joe called me up in um uh you know in New York back at that
15:0615 minutes, 6 secondstime very few neve consoles most every where it was SSL right okay or old MCI boards and things like that so they had you know the neve and
15:1515 minutes, 15 secondsthe trident stuff and right turkey some Harrison too not that was gone by the time I was yeah okay yeah ‘ 89 okay sure
15:2415 minutes, 24 secondsso Joe called me why don’t you come on down and all this you know and okay great you know and you know, but I put on the resume ne consoles, you know, whatever.
15:3415 minutes, 34 secondsSo, did they have did they have the fifth room by then? Did they have five rooms? Because when I was there, they only had four rooms.
15:4115 minutes, 41 secondsYeah, they had the V the V and the fifth room in there. Yeah.
15:4415 minutes, 44 secondsUsing the A range was, you know, pretty It’s pretty It’s one of the most not very challenging, right? It’s one of the most straight ahead.
15:5115 minutes, 51 secondsPretty straight ahead. So, it was the V they were interested in someone and I had put on, you know, ne how to drive one of these. Okay. And Joe said, “Do
15:5915 minutes, 59 secondsyou know how to use ne consoles?” “Oh, yeah, sure. Absolutely.” You know, and uh he Okay, well, you know, whatever. They called me back 2 3 days later.
16:0716 minutes, 7 secondsGreat. You’re hired. You got the job. I said, “Perfect.” You know, he said, “When can you start?” I said, “Well, how about this? I don’t know any of these
16:1416 minutes, 14 secondsrooms, right? How about I come down and I just kind of hang around for two or three days. Let me kind of scope out the
16:2116 minutes, 21 secondsrooms. We’re patch bays. Where’s all the mics and all that kind of stuff?” And I thought, “Great. Okay. While I’m doing that, I can get the take the manual for
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsthe knee console out of the tech shop and kind [laughter] of whiz through it.
16:3316 minutes, 33 secondsThat’ll give me like to figure out, you know, which button. Oh, okay. It’s it’s bus on a knee, but it’s float on the
16:4116 minutes, 41 secondscell. Got it. All right. Same button, same thing. And all Joe says, that’s a great idea. And I was like, yeah, I think so, too. [laughter]
16:4816 minutes, 48 secondsThat was very wise. Yeah, that was a good choice. out sometimes, you know, uh also you can you can uh you know, if you
16:5616 minutes, 56 secondscould you can do that as long as you can cover yourself and make it make it work.
17:0117 minutes, 1 secondAnd and you got the feel of the place, too, because the vibe at Cherokee was something very very different than what you would have had in a certain way. I mean, I mostly did
17:0817 minutes, 8 secondsit so I would have a minute to just look through the manual. A room is a room is a room. It’s a console. Oh, no. I’m thinking the people, you know, the Cherokee was I mean,
17:1717 minutes, 17 secondsin a lot of ways, Cherokee was um it was it wasn’t quite Spinal Tap, but it was definitely uh there was a lot of
17:2417 minutes, 24 secondsthat rock and roll comedy aspect to Yeah, it was a lot of that rock and roll comedy aspect to the whole industry, the whole business back then. And Okay. Not
17:3317 minutes, 33 secondssome studios were unique in the fact that it was three brothers.
17:3717 minutes, 37 secondsIt was three brothers and dad. Don’t forget the dad, you know. Yeah. But I never saw a dad.
17:4117 minutes, 41 secondsHe was always hanging down at the boat and things like that. It was cahoot, man. Definitely.
17:4617 minutes, 46 secondsSo, I I never got to meet dad personally, but you know, uh the the three brothers thing was different, but it was the attitude was of the time though.
17:5717 minutes, 57 secondsYes.
17:5717 minutes, 57 secondsUh back then it was a very very different world uh in the music industry back then.
18:0318 minutes, 3 secondsCertainly in the studio industry and studio culture and the the whole thing. It’s very different today.
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondsOh, yeah. than it was back then. 80s, ‘7s, ‘8s, ‘9s, even into the 2000s, but certainly ‘ 80s and ’90s.
18:1718 minutes, 17 secondsOh, definitely, definitely. And that was a that was a time of big budgets and big hair and it Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
18:2418 minutes, 24 secondsYeah. So, uh so anyway, I you know, took the gig there and uh that worked out well,
18:3218 minutes, 32 secondsyou know, I don’t know, two and a half years. Okay.
18:3618 minutes, 36 secondsSomething like that. I worked on a bunch of big stuff there, man. I did um bunch of Eddie Money stuff. I spent months engineering for uh Trevor Horn. Okay.
18:4618 minutes, 46 secondsWith Rod Stewart. Oh, cool.
18:4818 minutes, 48 secondsYou know, months ages with Trevor and Rod, which was great. Rod was always I did a couple of Rod sessions there.
18:5618 minutes, 56 secondsFantastic, man. He was just great.
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondsTrevor was incredible. Um I would have loved to work with Trevor.
19:0119 minutes, 1 secondNow, Rod was definitely he was he could be um very um how can I say erratic. Um, I never saw erratic. Not me. It was
19:1019 minutes, 10 secondsnever my experience with not that with him. I had a great time. We got along like peas and carrots. Funny as hell.
19:1619 minutes, 16 secondsYeah, it was great, man. We had a great time. I mean, I just, you know, I I always got on fabulously with him, you know, and and Kan
19:2519 minutes, 25 secondswas always there and Kevin Savagar and, you know, etc., etc. So, I, you know, I did a lot of that stuff there.
19:3319 minutes, 33 secondsRichard Perry.
19:3419 minutes, 34 secondsOh, yeah. my first encounter with Richard and I spent a lot of time engineering for Richard with um Ray
19:4119 minutes, 41 secondsCharles and uh and um Art Garfuncle which was
19:4919 minutes, 49 secondsa trip there’s some Art Garuncle tapes that have leaked out uh from Do from that era of sessions.
19:5719 minutes, 57 secondsDo you remember the Art Garuncle and uh Cummings tape was it? It was it was Art Garfuncle and Burton Cummings. It was I think it
20:0620 minutes, 6 secondswas the tape that they used all the time to uh after Koko would come in and tune the speakers. They would play this one tape and it would always be like the
20:1420 minutes, 14 secondsthree brothers would sit down and listen to how the room sounded after the speakers were tuned again, right? Because Koko would come in all the time. Yeah.
20:2120 minutes, 21 secondsOh, okay. Oh, you kind of shifted gears on me. You’re talking about the Rob Brothers now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right.
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsUh but but Art Garfuncle was on that there was a tape that D always used after Koko would come in and tune the
20:3420 minutes, 34 secondsroom, right? There would be this one tape that he would always ask me to put up and it was Burton Cummings and Art Garfuncle.
20:4120 minutes, 41 secondsNo, I don’t think it ever got released quite but I must have heard that song at least like 400 times. I’m sorry to hear that, man. God, it was awful.
20:4920 minutes, 49 seconds400 times. Having a room tune 400 times is pretty rough, man. Well, if you think about it, you know, I mean, they had Steve come in there
20:5620 minutes, 56 secondsprobably once a month per room, maybe once every couple of months and and you know, swap out the
21:0321 minutes, 3 secondsGod bless. I never saw too much of that when I was you were fortunate. Okay. No, maybe that had changed, but I was there in ‘ 86, 87, so maybe things had changed a little bit.
21:1321 minutes, 13 secondsThings had maybe died down a a touch within, but uh but I did a lot of that stuff there. I was there, I don’t know, two and a half years or so, something
21:2121 minutes, 21 secondslike that. Um, it’s hard to remember exactly so long ago.
21:2621 minutes, 26 secondsSomething in that ballpark. And then, um, then I got a gig over Capital and that must have been a big change in a lot of ways.
21:3721 minutes, 37 secondsYes. And no, I mean, financially it was a big change. Sure.
21:4021 minutes, 40 secondsYou know, for sure the size of the sessions to to a certain degree. Mhm.
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsUm, some of them, right? Not all of them, but some of them certainly the size of the sessions expanded. Uhhuh.
21:5421 minutes, 54 secondsYou know, um, was it more corporate?
21:5721 minutes, 57 secondsNo, not really. Not my experience of it of of it all, you know, cuz I’ve only done a couple of sessions at Capital. I never worked there on
22:0522 minutes, 5 secondsstaff and I was always curious about how that how the, you know, what the difference was because, you know, each studio of course has its own sort of personality based on the owners and and
22:1422 minutes, 14 secondsand everything. And you know, um, I kind of wondered how that was.
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondsI never got if there was, I never had to deal with it. I just avoided it. Uh, you know, again, I Cherokee, I heard there
22:2622 minutes, 26 secondswas an opening, okay, for a staff engineer position at Capital, and I went, “Okay, great.” And I went over there, you know, had
22:3422 minutes, 34 secondsthat the resume, the only resume I’ve ever had in my entire life. [laughter] Okay. I I took the same one. And I
22:4222 minutes, 42 secondsdidn’t even bother to have it updated to put Cherokee on it or anything. I figured, why bother? I took another one of those and I just went over to Capitol. I just showed up.
22:5222 minutes, 52 secondsUhhuh.
22:5222 minutes, 52 secondsAt the door. I never called to make an appointment or anything like that. I just walked in the front door. Mh.
23:0023 minutesAnd uh, you know, said, “Hi, I’m here to see you know, Michael Fondelli, you know, who was running the studio at the time.” And I knew Michael I knew his
23:0923 minutes, 9 secondsname. And I met Michael up to that point, but Michael was a New York guy as well. Did a lot of work at Electric Lady
23:1623 minutes, 16 secondsand stuff like that. So I knew I kind of okay, you know, had the knew of him and we kind of had the New York kind of connection. But I just walked in the
23:2523 minutes, 25 secondsfront door and there’s this, you know, young lady sitting at the desk. Hi, I’m Paula, you know, and I was like, “Oh, hi Paula. What part of Rhode Island are you
23:3323 minutes, 33 secondsfrom?” You know, [laughter] she’s like, “Wow, can you tell?” I’m like, “Yeah, a little bit.” You know? Yep.
23:3923 minutes, 39 secondsRight. And all that. So, met Paul. Went in, you know, I’m here to see Michael. I heard there’s an opening. Here’s my, you know, who do
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondsI talk to about, you know, potentially getting the job here, you know.
23:5323 minutes, 53 secondsOh, okay. Hang on. Let me see if, you know, and so I went and I talked to Michael, you know, for I don’t know, half hour or so, something like that in
24:0224 minutes, 2 secondshis office down there. And we got on great and all that kind of stuff. And I kind of said to him, “Look, you know,
24:1024 minutes, 10 secondsI’m the guy you want, man.” Okay, just,
24:1224 minutes, 12 seconds[laughter]
24:1324 minutes, 13 secondsyou know, Uhhuh. you won’t be making a mistake, right?
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondsOkay. You know, um not cocky so much. Self-confidence. Confidence. Yeah. Yeah.
24:2224 minutes, 22 secondsConfidence is a good thing. It was confident just to even walk through the door with no appointment or no phone call, no nothing.
24:2824 minutes, 28 secondsI’m here. I’m here to you know sometimes it it’s you do simple things like that and you get a little minor miracle in
24:3624 minutes, 36 secondsreturn. People are always shy. Don’t ever be shy. There’s nothing anybody the only the worst thing that can ever
24:4324 minutes, 43 secondshappen ever is you hear the word no but then you hear the word no 18 trillion times in your life anyway.
24:5224 minutes, 52 secondsSo what’s the difference? Get used to it. Right?
24:5424 minutes, 54 secondsBut sometimes you go in like that and you know so I think that resonated with Michael. We got on really well. We’re
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondboth from New York. We both knew kind of some of the same people. Had done a lot of work at the same studios in New York City back in the all that kind of thing.
25:1125 minutes, 11 secondsSo okay great. And I left and then I didn’t hear anything. A week later you know Paula called said come on down.
25:1825 minutes, 18 secondsMichael wants to talk to you again. And I thought, oh, okay, you know, maybe another question or two. And he said, you know, okay, you’re in. You got the
25:2625 minutes, 26 secondsjob, you know, and all that. And years later, Michael and I have since become great friends. I talked to Michael.
25:3225 minutes, 32 secondsYears later, Michael said to me, he said, we were talking about that. He said, you had the job before you even walked out of my office that day. He
25:4025 minutes, 40 secondssaid, but I wasn’t I was going to make you sweat a little bit. Make you sweat a little bit. Okay. And then, you know, okay, great. So I got hired there and that’s where I met Al.
25:5125 minutes, 51 secondsOkay. And Michael like on my second or third day and again I just walked in as a staff engineer doing sessions
25:5825 minutes, 58 secondsimmediately, you know. Uh and on like day three, you know, Michael came down and went, “Al, this is Bill. Bill, this
26:0726 minutes, 7 secondsis Al. You guys will get on great.” And we looked at one another and said, “Hi.” you know, and you know, I was
26:1526 minutes, 15 secondslike, I know that sound coming out of your head. Okay. New York, Brooklyn kind of.
26:2026 minutes, 20 secondsAnd uh and from that day forward, for I think the three years I was there at Capitol, um he never worked with anybody else
26:2926 minutes, 29 secondsbut me. That was it. You know, we kind of, you know, got on, like I say, personally, you know, extremely well, but we also
26:3826 minutes, 38 secondshad the same exact work ethic. You know, 110% is, you know, anybody can be second best.
26:4726 minutes, 47 secondsThat’s simple.
26:4826 minutes, 48 secondsIt’s easy to be second best. Anybody can accomplish that, right? Doing that extra just enough. Yeah.
26:5526 minutes, 55 secondsOkay. Right. you know, the the next step up from that. That’s where you got to really, you know, step up and and bring
27:0527 minutes, 5 secondsyour agame and and you know, and so we very much had the same work ethic in
27:1127 minutes, 11 secondsterms of uh of that stuff. And um yeah, we just got on like you know, like I say, really well to the point where it
27:2027 minutes, 20 secondswas, you know, Oh, you guys had a tele I was half, you know, I was doing a lot of, you know, we’d come in in the morning, everything would be done, man.
27:2827 minutes, 28 secondsI’d have everything miked and it’s, you know, and he’d put a push [laughter] like, “Okay, this is great.” You know, here, let me let me do this. All right,
27:3627 minutes, 36 secondslet’s go. You know, it’s kind of a thing. Well, I told you, you know, um and uh before he passed away, one of the last conversations I had with
27:4527 minutes, 45 secondshim, we were talking about having him on the show. Yeah.
27:4727 minutes, 47 secondsHe one of the things he said to me was, “You got to interview you got to interview Steve Genoick and you got to interview Bill Smith.” Yeah.
27:5627 minutes, 56 secondsAnd it was like it wasn’t even a question. He said, “These are my two guys.” Well, yeah. Well, I was there f you know, first obviously, right? Okay. So,
28:0528 minutes, 5 secondsyou know, I met him there. uh whatever whatever it was 90. Okay.
28:1128 minutes, 11 secondsRight. You know and then um and then we would just work together constantly there at Capital. Capital is
28:1928 minutes, 19 secondswhere I first started to see you big orchestral sessions. That’s what you asked what was different. That’s
28:2728 minutes, 27 secondswhat was different. Everything else is kind of this. A studio is a studio is a studio you know. Did I notice any kind of corporate vibe or anything like that?
28:3528 minutes, 35 secondsNot for me. There was a union that as a staff engineer, you were part of a union, the IBEW, right?
28:4228 minutes, 42 secondsOkay. Which, you know, guaranteed you x amount of bread per hour and time and a half and double time and
28:5128 minutes, 51 secondswhich was stuff you didn’t have at other studios like Charity.
28:5328 minutes, 53 secondsI was like, what is this, man? This is like Nirvana, I think, right? Like this is like a real job.
28:5828 minutes, 58 secondsLike ching. No, I didn’t, you know, yes and no. working in a studio is anything like anything but a real job in
29:0729 minutes, 7 secondsmany ways, right? But um to me I was like, “Wow, this is, you know, like hitting the jackpot in Vegas.” So from a a mon, you know, the
29:1629 minutes, 16 secondsmonetary end, okay, you know, paid vacation, what the wow, you know, 401k, what the hell? What
29:2429 minutes, 24 secondsis this? You know, so so that was different through the union.
29:2829 minutes, 28 secondsI didn’t it was just part of what came with it. It’s not the reason I went looking for the gig there. I wanted to just keep moving up the ladder.
29:4029 minutes, 40 secondsOkay. And you know, from New York, those studios, then to LA to Cherokee to
29:4829 minutes, 48 secondsCapital, it was always looking to take another step up the ladder with each move, right?
29:5629 minutes, 56 secondsAnd Capital was another step up the ladder.
29:5929 minutes, 59 secondsOkay. at at that point that’s what attracted me to it. Okay. Sure.
30:0430 minutes, 4 secondsUm but once I started working with Al you know then it was doing 60 piece orchestras. Okay. Right.
30:1030 minutes, 10 secondsWhich is which is learning new techniques as well as learning how to deal with that many people.
30:1430 minutes, 14 secondsH yeah absolutely. Well yes and no. You don’t I mean you know more learning how to record it. You don’t necessarily have to deal with all of those people. You
30:2330 minutes, 23 secondsgot to deal with the producer and the maybe the concert master and the conductor. Right. everybody else just walks in, sits down and does their deal
30:3130 minutes, 31 secondsand off they go. So, you know, you got to go and move mics and you get to know the some of the people in the orchestra and and and the players in town and and
30:3930 minutes, 39 secondsthings like that. But that’s where I really learned how to do big orchestral recording and things like big band,
30:4730 minutes, 47 secondsokay? a huge stump in big band stuff, which I just did for a friend of mine about two months ago who called me up was like, “Please come do, you know, I got all these charts.
30:5830 minutes, 58 secondsNobody in town knows how to do this anymore. There’s no one to call really, right?” And the art of of microphone placement and stuff like that. I mean, that’s kind of a lost art to a lot of
31:0731 minutes, 7 secondspeople nowadays. But, I mean, you know, that’s that’s a I mean, young people Yeah. That’s one thing that Al was really really great at. just, you know,
31:1531 minutes, 15 secondsI mean, literally just kept the mic a quarter of an inch changes the whole sound.
31:1931 minutes, 19 secondsWell, in a certain way, depending. It’s not going to necessarily change it on a on a saxophone, right? As long as it’s anywhere,
31:2631 minutes, 26 secondsright? anywhere in the vicinity but but understanding all that little stuff understanding phase understanding you know I mean that’s absolutely you
31:3531 minutes, 35 secondsknow I mean we’ll get back to him in a second but that you know that’s so there is where
31:4231 minutes, 42 secondsokay doing big band sessions things like that okay and learning how to do that and it’s you know really learning more
31:5231 minutes, 52 secondslearning what to do but as importantly learning what not to do which is even in ways more important
31:5831 minutes, 58 secondsthan learning what to do. Okay. Yes. Cuz you can always kind of fake it, right?
32:0432 minutes, 4 secondsBut it’s the what not to do. That’s to keep your mouth shut.
32:0832 minutes, 8 secondsThat’s Well, even about the recording, all that stuff is stuff I already well knew from do for years already. Okay. It wasn’t really about that, you know.
32:1832 minutes, 18 secondsThat’s that’s that was already there, which is part of what got me all the way to knowing control room etiquette. You
32:2732 minutes, 27 secondslearn that very quickly or you don’t go stay. Yeah.
32:3132 minutes, 31 secondsOkay. From your first studio gig. So that’s already um but more about what not to do in terms of how do you record things like this?
32:4032 minutes, 40 secondsMhm. 60 pieces. How do you record a big band?
32:4432 minutes, 44 secondsWhat not to do? Okay. how not to get in your own way, okay, and things like
32:5132 minutes, 51 secondsthat. The the thing with Al um
32:5932 minutes, 59 secondsa lot of the learning that I took from him was again just seeing how to deal
33:0633 minutes, 6 secondswith clientele at at another higher level of the game, but also how to stay out of
33:1333 minutes, 13 secondsthe way of all of it. Okay. Right. Stay out of the way of yourself and stay out
33:2033 minutes, 20 secondsout of the way of the whole thing. In other words, you know, you listen to Al’s work. There’s there’s a consistency
33:2733 minutes, 27 secondsto it, but the consistency to it is not to have a sound, right? These days, every engineer producer, I’ve got a
33:3633 minutes, 36 secondssound. I’ve got a sound. Right? That’s, you know, that’s not being true to the artist,
33:4433 minutes, 44 secondsright? and what they’re doing and what their vision is, what their music is, you putting your stamp on their thing.
33:5533 minutes, 55 secondsThat’s not okay. He his approach was to not have a stamp other than balance and clarity. Okay.
34:0634 minutes, 6 secondsAnd understanding how should this sound, right? No matter what it was, jazz trio up to big band up to 60 piece orchestra.
34:1534 minutes, 15 secondsHow should it blend? You know, the innate musicality, right, of things, which trumps your technical end of stuff every day of the week.
34:2634 minutes, 26 secondsOkay, you can know how to turn all these knobs and all whisbang this and okay, but if you don’t understand how it
34:3434 minutes, 34 secondsshould sound in the end and you’re not sensitive to how it should feel and flow, okay?
34:4434 minutes, 44 secondsRight? And then all this doesn’t mean anything. Okay? Right? You know, you can have a quiet ballad, a string B. Okay?
34:5334 minutes, 53 secondsBut if you’ve got everything jack nine ways to hack slamming through comp and it’s, you know, compressing the life out
35:0035 minutesof it and it’s all right here. It’s lost right that right thing. Right. So, you know, the thing I
35:0735 minutes, 7 secondslearned from him was how to stay out of the way of all of it. Stay out of the way of the music.
35:1435 minutes, 14 secondsStay out of the way of yourself. You don’t really need to do that much. Right.
35:2135 minutes, 21 secondsOkay. The thing I learned from him, right, we’d be recording all these big orchestras. These the stuff would sound fantastic, you know, and he did almost nothing.
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondsWell, he’s doing almost nothing. But he’d also be the first one to say, I work with the best producers and the
35:3935 minutes, 39 secondsbest arrangers and the best musicians with the best sounding equipment in the best recording studios with the best microphones.
35:4835 minutes, 48 secondsI’d have to work to mess it up.
35:5135 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. What do they say? The secret to being a great producer is to know who to produce, right?
35:5535 minutes, 55 secondsWell, yeah. Well, or the secret to being a great producer is actually surrounding yourself with people who will make you smell like a rose. Exactly.
36:0436 minutes, 4 secondsOkay. Right. So, Al would be the first one to say, “I’m surrounded by people that only make me smell like a rose each
36:1336 minutes, 13 secondsday.” Okay. when I get the opportunity to work with the best in every different slot. There’s not a lot for me to do.
36:2136 minutes, 21 secondsThere is, but there isn’t. And that was part of it. But his thing was just a a musicality. He wasn’t a knob twister. He
36:2836 minutes, 28 secondscouldn’t tell you anything about how a console works.
36:3236 minutes, 32 secondsHe knew how to listen or he just knew how to listen. Yeah, that’s it. And he had a sensitivity to how should this sound? He had a
36:4136 minutes, 41 secondsfeeling, an emotion to it. Okay, which is what it’s all about. You know, that sensitivity, which
36:4836 minutes, 48 secondsis something that’s lost in modern music. When everything’s in ProTools and it’s quantized to a grid and it’s
36:5536 minutes, 55 secondsperfect and there’s nothing out of place and everything is tuned properly, it’s perfect, right? The soul is sucked out of it.
37:0437 minutes, 4 secondsBut perfection is inherently boring. Yeah. Okay. Perfection has no life to it.
37:0937 minutes, 9 secondsPerfection is flat and dull and lifeless and has nothing unique. There’s nothing unique about perfect.
37:1837 minutes, 18 secondsYeah.
37:1837 minutes, 18 secondsRight. Okay. It’s the things that are a little whacked, crazy, a little out, a little off. That’s what makes them
37:2637 minutes, 26 secondsunique. That’s what gives them a humanity. Mhm. Right. That’s what people latch on to.
37:3437 minutes, 34 secondsNot robotic Yeah.
37:3637 minutes, 36 secondsperfectionism. Maybe when you’re on a dance floor shaking your booty. Okay.
37:4137 minutes, 41 secondsBut but not if you’re listening.
37:4337 minutes, 43 secondsWell, and not in terms of any music that’s stood the test of time for decades. Right. Right.
37:4737 minutes, 47 secondsOkay. Most of that is stuff that doesn’t sound great, isn’t recorded that great, isn’t mixed that great. There’s stuff out of tune all over the joint. Okay.
37:5837 minutes, 58 secondsRight. It’s whack. You listen to it. Go, wow. Okay. But it’s got a feel to it. Believe it. That’s the thing.
38:0538 minutes, 5 secondsIt’s got an emotion to it. It’s like I’ I’ve said that a lot of times. It’s like, you know, the vocal doesn’t have to be perfect. What I want is I want to believe what you’re saying, you know,
38:1438 minutes, 14 secondsbelieve what you’re singing to me, you know?
38:1638 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. I mean, certain aspect believe it in a way, but more I think from a a listening perspective to be able to
38:2438 minutes, 24 secondsrelate to it. Okay. Believe. Yes. But more that you can like, well, this you know that. So that’s something that’s been
38:3338 minutes, 33 secondslost. Okay. and and that’s what he really brought. But any of the you know sort of great producers or engineers
38:4138 minutes, 41 secondsfrom the past and there’s so many of them you know some of them get elevated to this status and but there’s so many
38:4938 minutes, 49 secondswho are just as good who never do relatively unknown
38:5638 minutes, 56 secondspress guys who have done incredible work. Okay. Absolutely just mindblowing work. when you listen to it, you go,
39:0439 minutes, 4 seconds”Wow, wow.” Okay. You know, who never got that sort of, you know, for whatever reason or another.
39:1139 minutes, 11 secondsOne of my um one of my favorites uh producers that not a lot of people know about that I worked with at uh at Cherokee was a guy named Roger Basherian. Do you know Roger?
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondsNo.
39:2139 minutes, 21 secondsHe did all the uh the Elvis Costello, Nick Low stuff. Um a lot of the Stiff Record stuff. Remember all that stuff?
39:2739 minutes, 27 secondsNo. Stiff. Yeah. I know those records. I know that. I worked on the Monkeys album with him. Yeah. Good for you.
39:3339 minutes, 33 secondsBut but he was absolutely, you know, brilliant producer in that same vein where you you know, you felt like this is somebody who understands that
39:4239 minutes, 42 secondsthe magic happens when it it’s almost indescribable when the musicians just kind of gel and something happens, you
39:4939 minutes, 49 secondsknow? Sure. And that I think is something that a lot of work that Yeah, exactly. You know, I mean engineers, I
39:5639 minutes, 56 secondsmean guys like Wilbur Bascom who’s just phenomenal, Steven W. Hower’s work is incredible. John Fry. Uhhuh.
40:0440 minutes, 4 secondsOkay. Who started Ardent is one of the most incredible. I mean, the records he engineered and the stuff he recorded,
40:1340 minutes, 13 secondsespecially the big star, Oh, the Argent is Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
40:2040 minutes, 20 secondsIncredible. Sparkling crystalline.
40:2440 minutes, 24 secondsI mean, incredible sounding records. No, they know him as the owner of Ardan Studios in Memphis for those that are
40:3240 minutes, 32 secondseven aware of Ardan from back then and all that stuff, but not so much as engineering. But Cat’s even production with guys like Jim Dickinson, okay? You
40:4040 minutes, 40 secondsknow, who were incredible, but come from a whole different anti Yeah.
40:4640 minutes, 46 secondslike it’s too pretty. It needs to be messed up attitude of production, which is incredibly valid.
40:5540 minutes, 55 secondsand like all the stuff he did with Alex Chilton, which is it’s too nice. Yeah. Yeah.
41:0041 minutesIt needs to go off the It needs a monkey wrench thrown in.
41:0341 minutes, 3 secondsI don’t necessarily want to hear everything. I want to hear the soup.
41:0641 minutes, 6 secondsWell, yeah. And I don’t necessarily want to hear everything in tune or in time. Right. Right.
41:1041 minutes, 10 secondsEither the magic is is, you know, in the madness. Yeah. Okay. That’s where God lives in
41:1841 minutes, 18 secondsin in the fold there. Not in the perfectionism. God doesn’t live in perfection. He lives in the cracks in the mistakes,
41:2841 minutes, 28 secondsyou know, in the things that are unique and weird and different. That’s where God lives in all of that stuff. Most
41:3541 minutes, 35 secondspeople forget that these days as well because they’re too busy lining things up on a grid.
41:4041 minutes, 40 secondsWell, and to realize, you know, unfortunately, music has been commodified to the point where it’s just entertainment. Exactly. Exactly.
41:4641 minutes, 46 secondsAs my friend Jeff Emer would say, it’s just entertainment.
41:4941 minutes, 49 secondsThat’s another one. And now I know you worked with Jeff and you were very close with Jeff.
41:5341 minutes, 53 secondsJeff was my one of my best friends if not my best friend for like 30 years.
41:5841 minutes, 58 secondsYeah. Yeah. And you know I mean I’ve read his memoir. We all have. I had the pleasure of meeting him once. Yeah. you know, and I mean there again, you know,
42:0642 minutes, 6 secondsyou talk about people who are incredibly humble in nature about, you know, it’s like my god, the stuff that, you know,
42:1542 minutes, 15 secondsyou talk to this guy and you think to yourself, you know, not only the people he’s worked with, but the ideas that he came up with, you know, I mean, as as
42:2342 minutes, 23 secondsyou have said to me in other conversations, you know, George Martin gets all the credit for a lot of this stuff, but honestly, you know, Jeff was
42:3242 minutes, 32 secondsone of the people who You can just picture, you know, him laying awake at night going, “Okay, how am I going to do this thing?” You know, and coming
42:3942 minutes, 39 secondslaying awake at night. How about all day long?
42:4142 minutes, 41 secondsWell, yeah, of course. But but you know, point being like how do you how do you you know, and especially one of the things that I have always been kind one
42:4942 minutes, 49 secondsof the things that I’ve lamented is that at this point now we have so much technology at our you know, at our fingertips that we can do damn near
42:5842 minutes, 58 secondsanything. Whereas in those years, you know, when we were coming up and even earlier than that, you had to really
43:0643 minutes, 6 secondsmake work. You had to really you had to be innovative because the power of those limits, you know, the power of having x amount of tracks, of having
43:1543 minutes, 15 secondsonly a couple of compressors.
43:1743 minutes, 17 secondsWhat you’re saying is that to to put it boil it down to his essence is creativity is no longer required.
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondskind of sort of and talent. Yeah.
43:2943 minutes, 29 secondsTalent, talent and creativity in many many ways are no longer required for a lot of the musical avenues.
43:3843 minutes, 38 secondsBut guys like Jeff, I think you know they really you don’t have to puzzle your way out of how the hell am I going to do this, man.
43:4543 minutes, 45 secondsBut guys like Jeff, they really I mean they they took these raw materials and they made something out of it and they made some things that were just incredible, you know.
43:5443 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. Not by hook a crook. Again, there was no plan to it. It was just, you know, there was no manual.
44:0244 minutes, 2 secondsHe worked on all kinds of stuff. I mean, people always relate him with the the Beatles stuff, but I think some of his best work was not post Beatles.
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsAbsolutely. Absolutely. I agree.
44:1244 minutes, 12 secondsYou know, you know, like the Odyssey and Oracle Zombies record that he did two weeks after he finished Pepper. Yeah.
44:1944 minutes, 19 secondsI think is okay. You know, Bridge of Size, Robin Trower, you know. his stuff with Elvis Costello.
44:2744 minutes, 27 secondsYep.
44:2844 minutes, 28 secondsYou know, uh, you know, all his useless beauty and things like that are incredible albums. Gentle Giant, man. He
44:3544 minutes, 35 secondsdid Steelers Wheel, Stuck in the Middle, I forgot about that one. Yeah, that whole first Steelers Wheel album.
44:4244 minutes, 42 secondsIncredible, man. You know, I mean, people hear so many things, they have no realization. He time of the season,
44:5044 minutes, 50 secondsspeaking of the zombies, right? Every time everybody hears ahoo, that’s her
44:5744 minutes, 57 secondsemer synths.
45:0045 minutesWell, of course not. You’re talking 1968, right? [laughter] But I mean, you know, if you just think about like the whole idea now you can do you can correct, you
45:0945 minutes, 9 secondscan pitch shift, you can do all this stuff, you know, but when you have these limits, I think they make you work harder to get something creative out of it, you know.
45:1845 minutes, 18 secondsWell, of course they do. Yeah. Yeah. You have to actually work. You have to be creative. Yeah. Yeah.
45:2445 minutes, 24 secondsOkay. To start with. Okay. You have to write a good song to start with. You have to have a good melody to start with. You have to have a good arrangement to start with. You have to put it together.
45:3545 minutes, 35 secondsAll of that first. You can’t just figure it out in a computer. Oh, let’s take this. You know what I mean?
45:4045 minutes, 40 secondsYou can’t whip out the talent. You know, the only band I ever spent time working with that Well, and we actually did get to use one that would have benefited from having a workstation was Yes.
45:5245 minutes, 52 secondsOkay. Right. Yeah, I could see that.
45:5445 minutes, 54 secondsYou know, I mean, the the I spent nine 10 months living with those guys in San
46:0146 minutes, 1 secondLouis Abyspo then in 96 actually right after I left Capitol. Uhhuh.
46:0746 minutes, 7 secondsSo, I was at Capital for very short amount of time, three years. you know, uh, three, four years at best. Three years, three and a half years, I forget.
46:1546 minutes, 15 secondsSomething like that. And again, I had hooked up with Al. Okay. Right. Was I even there? No. I think may have been in 95.
46:2446 minutes, 24 secondsUhhuh.
46:2446 minutes, 24 secondsIt was 1995 in San Louis Abyspo with Yes. Um, had sort of, you know, got the gig at
46:3346 minutes, 33 secondsCapital, kind of hooked up with Al, had, you know, done tons of great stuff there. Okay. learned how to record big
46:4146 minutes, 41 secondshuge orchestras, big band, right? So, expanded those capabilities. Okay. You know, bit
46:4946 minutes, 49 secondsbetter gear in terms of the knee desks and the microphone selection and things like that and stuff like that. Yeah. Which
46:5646 minutes, 56 secondswas what it was anyway. You know, I mean, you know, we everybody been having that for ages at that point since NAM
47:0447 minutes, 4 secondssince the old days of uh MCI with the you had to record the automation on two tracks, right?
47:1147 minutes, 11 secondsOn the 24 track machine, man.
47:1447 minutes, 14 secondsDid they still have the kneecam automation at Cherokee when you were there in studio 2?
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondsUh, they had a kneecam 2 when I was could I don’t remember quite frankly.
47:2347 minutes, 23 secondsStill had a kneecam in the on the 8068 and BH at Capital. Uh-huh.
47:2847 minutes, 28 secondsat that time. But even that stuff was way advanced. The uh Yeah. The big Bernoli’s, you know, the tape based stuff was the real adventure.
47:3747 minutes, 37 secondsOh, yeah.
47:3847 minutes, 38 secondsYou know, when we had to use two tracks on the multitrack to record, you do your first pass and record it to one track and then play that back in the patch
47:4647 minutes, 46 secondsbay, plug in computer in and then computer out to another track. Y and when you started the next pass, you had to go into record again. Yeah.
47:5747 minutes, 57 secondsYou know, and the problem always occurred though when you’d have punch in in the same spot a couple of times
48:0448 minutes, 4 secondsand it would get a little so you’d have to like you’re fighting the jump the patch cord and stick it back.
48:1248 minutes, 12 secondsThat was always a real trip with automation. People are so the younger people today are so spoiled [laughter] and many have no idea what we used to go
48:2048 minutes, 20 secondsthrough with all of that or even drum samples replacements and you they have no idea about we, you know, being up all night,
48:2848 minutes, 28 secondsokay, putting drum samples in an AMS or an SPX90 and pulling out, you know, the cards on a 24 track so you could jack
48:3648 minutes, 36 secondsoff the sync output. Okay. If there wasn’t a sync output on the back of the machine, right, with a pair of, you know, you know, the clips.
48:4748 minutes, 47 secondsYeah. Okay. To trigger it into a, you know, into a delay into a gate and, you know, and you had to lay it back and then get a Russian dragon. Okay.
48:5648 minutes, 56 seconds[laughter] Right. And all of that. I was just talking about the Russian dragon with somebody yesterday. I mean, it was insane. Okay. Just to like, you know,
49:0349 minutes, 3 secondsput a new snare drum on. That’s why you made sure you recorded the stuff properly the first time.
49:0849 minutes, 8 secondsYeah. And that’s that’s the thing, too, is how many people even know how to mic properly mic a drum kit anymore, you know.
49:1549 minutes, 15 secondsI couldn’t tell. I do. I couldn’t tell you. You know, I I don’t know. You know, I hear some stuff. It makes you wonder these days, but uh you know, who knows?
49:2549 minutes, 25 secondsBut uh so anyway, you know, after I left Capitol Mhm.
49:3149 minutes, 31 secondsUh okay. because I could see um you know the money was really good.
49:3749 minutes, 37 secondsThere was a lot of work more work I mean it was crazy. Paula was a booking machine. Okay. You were six days a week from
49:4549 minutes, 45 secondsthe top of the page to the bottom of the page. It was just nuts. Oh yeah.
49:4949 minutes, 49 secondsUm and it began to dawn on me after a while. You know, I looked around at some
49:5749 minutes, 57 secondsof the other people that were on staff there and I’m like, “Wow, they’ve been here forever.” Okay. And I didn’t
50:0450 minutes, 4 secondsnecessarily want that to become Uhhuh.
50:0950 minutes, 9 secondsmy story. It wasn’t the reason I moved from New York to LA to be on staff at a particular
50:1850 minutes, 18 secondsstudio. I moved Yeah. 3,000 miles away from everyone and everything I knew to, you know, eventually be an independent
50:2650 minutes, 26 secondssure engineer. So, I looked at that after two and a half, three years and went, you know, I got to cut the cord
50:3450 minutes, 34 secondshere. It’s great. It’s incredible. I’m making good money. I’m working on all this fantastic stuff, but if I don’t cut
50:4050 minutes, 40 secondsthe cord now and throw myself back into the ocean, I can see where this is going to go. It becomes what I guess the term is um the velvet handcuffs.
50:5250 minutes, 52 secondsYes. Yes.
50:5350 minutes, 53 secondsYou get stale, right? Yeah.
50:5550 minutes, 55 secondsWell, not even about getting stale. It’s just you get so you get used to making X amount of money and working in a great place and then you know you get used to
51:0451 minutes, 4 secondsthe bread and all that. So you expand your lifestyle and you buy a new car and then you get a bigger apartment or you
51:1151 minutes, 11 secondsbuy a house and this and that. Okay. Get married, have 2.5 kids, whatever. Okay.
51:1751 minutes, 17 secondsAnd then one day you wake up and you realize you can’t leave because you’ve got all of these financial obligations now.
51:2651 minutes, 26 secondsRight.
51:2751 minutes, 27 secondsOkay. And so you’re kind of that’s becomes the velvet handcuff the handcuff part of it all. Yeah.
51:3451 minutes, 34 secondsIs you can’t you know you can’t leave anymore. You can’t. So it dawned on me before
51:4251 minutes, 42 secondsthat before I expanded my lifestyle or my life in any way, you know, cuz I had just been saving the
51:5051 minutes, 50 secondsmoney I made, right? You know, there I was working so much there was no time to spend any of it. Right.
51:5751 minutes, 57 secondsOkay. Right. So it dawned on me if I don’t go now and follow what the goal was. This isn’t the goal.
52:0752 minutes, 7 secondsthis is just one more step on the left for most people would say capital it’s the goal it’s the old and I was like
52:1552 minutes, 15 secondswell yeah yes you had other things yes and no they people thought I was crazy to leave I personally thought I would have been
52:2252 minutes, 22 secondscrazy to stay I had a totally different outlook upon it you know at least as a for me they
52:3052 minutes, 30 secondswere like you’re nuts what are you doing it’s great money great work one of the best studios in in the world what are you doing you can’t leave. And I was
52:3852 minutes, 38 secondslike, “Oh, yeah. Watch me. I’m out of here.” Okay. It’s not the goal. Mhm.
52:4352 minutes, 43 secondsIt was just one more rung on the way to reaching the goal. So, [clears throat]
52:5152 minutes, 51 secondsthe thing that kicked it finally out the door was got a call. Are you available to go to San Louis Abyspo to work with? Yes.
53:0153 minutes, 1 secondUhhuh. And I was like, yep, sure I am. Okay.
53:0453 minutes, 4 secondsSo, you know, handed in my papers, so to speak, at Capitol and all that, and off I went up there
53:1253 minutes, 12 secondswith those, you know, guys for 10 months, which was amazing and insane all
53:1953 minutes, 19 secondsat the same time, which a lot of things are okay, you know, and all that. uh cuz it’s a band I had loved
53:2853 minutes, 28 secondssince, you know, reading the back of the record jackets, you know, sort of since I was 13. And I had met Eddie Eddie
53:3653 minutes, 36 secondsOffered several times, had worked with Eddie a couple of times since then. Okay. And so I’d already, you know, I I I mean, I got
53:4553 minutes, 45 secondsthe call cuz I was familiar with the guys, right? Okay. You know, even before I was working at Capital, when I was at Cherokee, when I first moved out here,
53:5353 minutes, 53 secondsthey were working on the um Union album, okay, at Cherokee. And so I had met Fish Chris. Yeah.
54:0154 minutes, 1 secondOkay. Right. I had come across Eddie Offford, right? Met Eddie and worked with him on that stuff. The first Yes.
54:0954 minutes, 9 secondsBox set. Uhhuh.
54:1054 minutes, 10 secondsWith Eddie, some 311 stuff with him. But I had met Chris at the time. I had met Steve. Okay. So I was already kind of
54:1954 minutes, 19 secondsknown in the in the camp, but I got the call. So went up there uh you know for what was going to be the band. This is
54:2854 minutes, 28 secondspost the Trevor Rabin era. Okay. So this is after 90125 after Big Generator and after talk.
54:3654 minutes, 36 secondsThis is now the 70s version back together again. So John Anderson, Steve How, Rick Wakeakeman, Alan White, Chris
54:4454 minutes, 44 secondsSquire, for the first time since Yeah.
54:4854 minutes, 48 secondsYou know, whenever 15 years, right, they hadn’t it hadn’t been that version of the band, right? And so we went up there and the whole thing was, okay,
54:5554 minutes, 55 secondswe’re going to do uh reintroduce the band, okay, way to get these back together and move forward. We’re going to do a bunch
55:0355 minutes, 3 secondsof live shows at the Fremont Theater up there, this beautiful art deco theater.
55:0955 minutes, 9 secondsOkay. in St. Louis Abyspo, right? Um, beautiful place. Okay. So, went up there, you know, we’re going to record
55:1855 minutes, 18 secondsthe show. So, I went up there to do that and then just to rehearse with them as well, right? Cuz these guys, they hadn’t played together in 15 years.
55:2655 minutes, 26 secondsSo, you know, rehearsing a lot of songs, songs they hadn’t done since the 70s, revealing Science of God and things, you
55:3455 minutes, 34 secondsknow, things like that. Songs that are 27 minutes long. Okay. you know, just like Mhm.
55:4055 minutes, 40 secondsthese epics and and everything else, you know, but um you know, the edict was
55:4655 minutes, 46 secondssort of no new music. No new music and but we had all the recording gear up there. We were in an old Wells Fargo
55:5455 minutes, 54 secondsbank. John Anderson was living up there in San Louis Abyispo at the time. He had a house up in the mountains just right north. Everybody else was staying. Chris had a house he rented.
56:0456 minutes, 4 secondsOkay. But like you know Allan and myself and Steve we were you know at the beautiful Laquesta motor in Connecticut
56:1456 minutes, 14 secondsat the end of Monterey Street you know and I had the room next to Steve for you know 10 months or whatever you know
56:2156 minutes, 21 secondswhatever it was. Um but we had you know John had rented a bank and it was a Wells Fargo that had moved down the street. Okay. Right. To a
56:3056 minutes, 30 secondsdifferent location. So John rented the bank and all the the ground level counters and stuff, everything got taken
56:3756 minutes, 37 secondsout. Okay. It was just open space, right? We didn’t even care about the vault, man. That’s where we just I was just I was just thinking, you know, be a great drum booth or something.
56:4556 minutes, 45 secondsNo, no, no, no. Not not for what we were looking to do. Um that’s where we just put case, road cases and everything went
56:5256 minutes, 52 secondsinto there. But it was a a two, you know, the bank had a second story to it, but it was an open like an atrium. Uh-huh.
57:0157 minutes, 1 secondOkay. Where if you were upstairs on a second floor office, you could open the door, take two steps, and there was a railing and you could look down Uhhuh.
57:0957 minutes, 9 secondson the main floor.
57:1157 minutes, 11 secondsOkay. So, we set all the guys up, you know, band positions like they’re playing live down on the floor.
57:1857 minutes, 18 secondsWe brought all the recording gear into one of the the bigger offices upstairs. Set it all up. Just took all the cables and stuff and just threw them over the side.
57:2857 minutes, 28 secondsI love it. Okay. Down. Uhhuh.
57:3057 minutes, 30 secondsset mics up and all that so we could record some of the rehearsals and things cuz so they could hear it and
57:3757 minutes, 37 secondsand all that kind of no headphones just nice going for it. Okay. Couple of goos. Yeah.
57:4457 minutes, 44 secondsHere and there a little bit round of drums and stuff like that and off we went. But it was sort of no new music
57:5057 minutes, 50 secondsand that you know was stood for a little bit. But they’d be playing and jamming and just and you’re sitting there. So
57:5857 minutes, 58 secondsyou’re like, “Record, man.” Okay. You know, and uh and at that time we had Sonic Solutions had put together. Okay. Cuz
58:0658 minutes, 6 secondsthis is like, you know, like the infancy of digital workstations, okay? Right. The beginnings of ProTools and
58:1558 minutes, 15 secondsall of that and Sonic and stuff. So, um, John Anderson, bless his heart, had worked out a deal with Sonic Solutions,
58:2458 minutes, 24 secondsand we got a 24 IO Sonic Solutions system, which was insane back then. It was two or four channel.
58:3358 minutes, 33 secondsYeah.
58:3358 minutes, 33 secondsAt best. Okay. So, we had it, which was crazy. Okay. Um, so we were using that to record, too. Uh, and then they would
58:4158 minutes, 41 secondsjust play and jam and we would record and you know come in each day and you know but as it things went on we’d start
58:5058 minutes, 50 secondsputting stuff together songs together. Yeah.
58:5258 minutes, 52 secondsYou know we did the live shows and there was some you know fixes that need to be made. how to mix all the live stuff
59:0059 minutesas well and do all that. But, you know, the sort of no new music turned into these epic tracks like Mind Drive and
59:0859 minutes, 8 secondsBring Me to the Power and Be the One and That That That Is and what as far as the band was concerned
59:1659 minutes, 16 secondsand those of us that were there at the time was going to be the next Yes. studio album.
59:2359 minutes, 23 secondsManagement at the time had a different idea. Okay. And so the what came out of it was the two keys to ascension albums.
59:3259 minutes, 32 secondsOkay, which basically, you know, if you were thinking about it in vinyl ways, okay, which would have been, you know,
59:3959 minutes, 39 secondstwo albums, three sides vinyl, one side new studio stuff,
59:4659 minutes, 46 secondsvolume one and then second volume again, three sides live material from the Fremont Theater Shows and then
59:5459 minutes, 54 secondswhat would have been side two of the new studio album.
59:5959 minutes, 59 secondsSo, this was like a year out of your life pretty much, right? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, a lot of it. This was took a minute to to do all this. So, anyway,
1:00:071 hour, 7 secondsyou know, management and unfortunately and uh what can you do? You know, it made Rick Wakeakeman leave the band, I think,
1:00:151 hour, 15 secondsagain, you know, cuz he was so upset about it and stuff like that. But, um,
1:00:241 hour, 24 seconds[music]
1:00:251 hour, 25 secondshey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.

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