Insights In Sound 179 – Bob Clearmountain, Audio Engineer S18 E9

Welcome to Insights and Sound, where we talk to the people behind the scenes, behind the technology, and behind the
0:06
music. People you may not know, but you should. And please check out
0:11
insightsandsound.com for a full list of our podcasts and YouTube series. And big
0:16
thanks to our sponsors, Mackie, Roland, Mojave Audio, Obot.
Studio Tour
0:24
I’m here with Bob Clear Mountain. We are in the brand new Is this Is this still
0:30
called Mix This? It’s called Mix This, but I kind of just for fun, I added a little FTA, which
0:35
means uh from the ashes. I love it. Oh, did you add an a second exclamation point as well?
0:41
No, just the one exclamation point, but um Yeah. So, that’s sort of unofficial, but it still makes this.
0:48
Yeah. Yeah. So, this is still the new studio. This is the new SSL console or consoles.
0:54
Yeah. put together by Tom and Chris Lord Algae for me which is like amazing
0:59
and uh and then a whole lot of don there’s little plaques around the room for the outboard gear that people
1:06
donated. It’s interesting time because so many uh producers and mixers have
1:11
gone in the box and so they have all this old analog gear sitting around and
1:16
you know collecting dust and oh Clear Mountain yeah here take it. You’ve got a few here, you know, um the
Bobs History
1:23
um the old LA2As and stuff like that. There used to be um LA3 well the 1176s
1:30
the 1176es too. There used to be a um a running joke around LA years ago back
1:36
in the 80s that Shelly Shelley Yakis would basically buy them all out of the recycler and he’d have Gary go through
1:42
them, you know, and and any that didn’t pass muster would go back on the recycler. So if you found one for sale,
1:48
it had already been rejected by Shell, you know, probably. Yeah, that that sounds about right. Yeah. I want to first, you know, preface
1:55
some of this by going through a little bit of your history because, you know, that’s that’s what you have to do when you do these kind of interviews and
2:01
stuff like that. Um, so you came up at at um well, obviously you’re a New Yorker. Yeah. Uh-huh. Um, and uh I share
2:10
that with you as well as being a bass player. Oh, really? Oh, great. Yeah. And uh and actually that’s a a running conversation
2:17
I’ve had with a number of bass players because I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that bass players tend to
2:24
become producers and engineers more often than almost any other instrument.
2:30
Could be. Yeah. I mean I don’t know why that is but my theory is that because we are
2:36
we’re not soloists. No. Right. That’s for sure. So we have to zoom out and we have to see the whole
2:42
picture in that sense from that 30,000 ft perspective and therefore we tend to be a little bit
2:49
more focused on that side of things. That’s my theory anyway. That sounds good to me.
2:54
It works for me. Yeah. I don’t I don’t really know. I just know um I think the one reason I
3:01
was a bass player was Yeah. Because you’re not the featured you’re not the lead singer or the lead guitar player.
3:06
Yeah. You’re kind of more background. Yeah, which I was so fine with. In fact, so
3:12
much so that I didn’t even want to be on the stage anymore. And so once I realized that there was this job in a
3:18
recording studio, okay, I’ll take that cuz then I’m nobody’s looking at me. You know,
3:24
for me it was more of the stability factor, too. You know, because that’s that’s the thing with, you know,
3:29
musicians being the personalities that we are. You know, you end up always in
3:35
these bands with these people who are just slightly crazy. Yeah. Well, the last band I was in broke
3:43
up because the um the guitar player was
3:48
was screwing the uh the lead singer’s girlfriend. Oh, that never happened. Yeah. And sort of a typical band thing
3:55
that happened. I went, “Okay, I got to get a proper job.” Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um so you also you
4:01
came through the power station. That’s right. Well, more than came through it. I helped find the building
4:07
and uh in fact, your friend John Stok was was in on it for a Yeah. for a bit.
4:13
He was helping us look for buildings and then, you know, helped build it, helped design it,
4:18
you know. Well, and Power Station and um uh Tony Bonjovi, we have a lot of sixderee
Legendary personalities
4:24
connections there. Zoe Thr is is a good friend. All right. Aral friend and of course Eddie Stacium came up
4:30
through Tony as well, you know. Yeah. and he was going to be uh one of the part he was helping us to uh find
4:36
the building as well. Uhhuh. And uh he was going to be in on it and something
4:42
about Tony I think put him off at some point and I’m not well that you’re he’s not the only one.
4:48
I mean Tony again you know we you want to talk legendary personalities in the industry. Yeah.
4:53
There’s another one. Well Tony’s Tony’s brilliant. I mean, I have so much respect for him and but he
5:00
was a little tricky to work with sometimes. Well, that’s what everyone says about him. You know, he helped me. He helped
5:06
launch so many careers and such a brilliant guy. No, he’s really, but as with so many people in our
5:12
industry, you know, a little erratic, shall we say? A little bit. Yeah.
5:17
Eccentric. That’s definitely the word. A good word. And then his partner was kind of
5:23
well questionable as well. Uh-huh. Yeah. And uh the whole thing was it’s
5:29
amazing that it was as good as it was. Uhhuh. Yeah. I think Well, that’s that’s what you call the
Nobodys an island
5:34
the supporting cast. Yeah. You know, and that’s I think, you know, if you look at almost any success story
5:41
in our industry, no, nobody’s an island. No. You know, no. Well, there was so many people
5:47
involved in in Power Station in so many ways, right down to the the guys, the actual carpenters that built it.
5:53
Mhm. you know, and the uh the inspectors that didn’t know about it.
6:01
And it was u Yeah, it was it was it was a fun time for me, you know, building
6:08
this new studio in this it was a big studio, too, you know. It wasn’t just some little little office studio.
6:15
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and that’s one of the things, you know, we were having this conversation last night at the uh the event we did at Cherokee, you
Multiroom studios
6:22
know, coming up in this era when you had multi-room studios, you know, there was
6:27
so much of that intermingling and that, you know, just sort of creative juices that went through just that.
6:34
Exactly. Thing, you know. Yeah. Well, a good example is of that is um I was m mixing the uh Roxy music
6:44
album Avalon. Mhm. And we hadn’t gotten to Avalon to the
6:49
song Avalon yet. And Brian Ferry had this something in his head about he
6:55
wanted a female voice in there somewhere. And he was walking in and and he heard this someone warming up, this
7:02
beautiful voice warming up in the in studio A lounge. And he walked in and
7:08
and found where it was coming from. And it was this little Haitian woman. there was a Haitian band in in studio A
7:15
recording and uh she was warming up and he said, “Wow, who are you?” And and she
7:21
didn’t really speak much English and so they found they got somebody to translate and he said, “Can you sing on
7:27
my album, please?” And she went, “Okay, sure.” You know, I have no idea who you are.
7:32
I know who you are. Yeah. She had no clue. Yeah. you know, and then she ended up touring with him, you know, and she sang
7:38
that beautiful thing at the end of the song Avalon, which makes the song in so many ways.
7:43
It really does. But that that was because there’s another band working in a in a different multi-room studio.
7:50
Unfortunately, I don’t really have that here. Well, that’s the thing is so, you know, it that kind of business model is so
Studio lounges
7:56
much harder to maintain now. It’s pretty much over. You know, there’s u well, you know, uh the aforementioned
8:02
Zoe Thr, she works at a studio in Henderson, Nevada. Called the Hideout, and that’s a
8:08
multi-room studio, too. But even there, you know, every studio now has its own lounge.
8:13
Yeah. So, we’re still kind of siloed. Yeah. And that was not the case. I mean, you know, we had these memorable encounters
8:20
in the lounge at Cherokee all the time, I bet. you know, um, just people you’d never imagine, you know, u, cuz I worked
8:28
there in the 80s, so it was the hairband era, you know, and you’d have like warrant sitting there with, you know, Edy Gourmet and and, you know, Yeah.
8:35
these these crazy kind of conversations that would go around, you know, and I think that’s in a way it’s sad that
8:42
we’ve lost that, you know. Yeah. I think I think we have I mean that’s sort of why we have we have a
8:47
studio in Apogee. we have this apogee studio and that’s one of the reasons uh I
8:53
decided to build that because you know I was in in the basement of my house in in uh in the
9:00
Palisades and I just thought I just need something to get out of the basement once in a while. Yeah.
9:05
And so we would do do live shows for KCRW over there. In fact, we just did one a couple nights ago.
9:11
Really? You So you’re still doing those? Still doing them. Yeah. Oh, that’s great. Yeah. We were just talking about um uh
Mixing live
9:17
Josh Regozian who does the uh who did the Tiny Desk concerts for a while there. Yeah. You know, actually we
9:23
wanted to have him come out and do some workshops here because again, you know, I love the idea of getting out there and
9:29
doing this stuff live in a live environment like that. It’s just we don’t do it anymore. We’re we’re all
9:35
siloed like this, right? You know. Yeah. So, that was actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about because
9:41
you came up in this different era. Yeah. and uh not only in terms of that
9:47
social aspect of it, but the whole way that we made music,
9:52
you know, a lot of the stuff that you mixed a lot of the live stuff, you know, a lot of because you did you did Live Aid, you did the concert for New York
9:58
City, right? Um and then tracks that were, you know, you talked about Roxy Music. I know you did a bunch of Stones tracks, things
10:05
like that. Stuff that was tracked more or less live. Well, a lot of Stones uh
10:10
concert videos and two movies for them and um but whole, you know, all
10:17
the people that I work with. I’ve done videos for you lots for Brian Adams, for Springsteen, did did a a movie last year for
10:25
Springsteen. Um you know, so much half of my stuff is
10:31
live. I I’m mixing a live album right now, you know. Yeah. And I just love doing
10:37
doing live. Just give me enough audience tracks. That’s the thing. Yeah. But but even in terms of the stuff
Recording process
10:42
that wasn’t done live, the the recording process recording was for me much more live.
10:47
When I was producing, I’d always have the entire band in the studio with a singer in a booth,
10:53
you know, or sometimes out in the room even. Yeah. You know, just for vibe, you know, even though I know, okay, I’ll
10:58
redo that later, but ju I want I want the band to hear what the song is. And sometimes you don’t do it later. You
11:05
know, we were talking earlier about Roger Basherian, you know, and one of the things that Roger said to me once that I really loved was, you know, I
11:12
used to tell my assistant to put it in record and then set up the mics. Exactly. You know, always capturing stuff.
11:17
Record everything. Yeah. You know, and that I think that’s one of the things that’s changed that really um that I wanted to ask you
11:23
about. You know, we did so much back then that was really tracking for the
11:29
mix. Yeah. And there’s not as much of that now. And how’s that changed the way you work?
11:35
Well, I mean, mostly I’m just mixing now, you know. I I don’t really record that much. Um, so I I don’t know if it’s really
11:43
nothing that has changed that much, you know, other than we’re using a lot more speakers nowadays.
11:49
Yeah, of course. Of course. Well, that was the other thing I wanted to ask about was the Atmos stuff, but we’ll get to that in a minute. And um but no, I’m kind of doing doing
11:57
what I always mean, I’m always trying to come up with new stuff, obviously. Yeah. you know, and and I’m and people
12:03
inspire me to do new things. You know, I’ll work with a client that’ll ask for something that and sometimes I’ll go,
12:10
“What? You want to do what?” I go, “Ah, okay.” You know, at first I kind of go, but instead I’ll go, “Okay, let’s see
12:17
how we can do that.” And you know, I’ll think it’s a terrible idea. But half the time it’ll be, oh, I get it now.
12:23
Yeah. This is cool. Let’s try this. No, this works in this song in this in in that particular
12:30
um situation. A lot of times it’s a good thing. And so I don’t I you know I never say
12:39
no that’s not going to work. You know course don’t ever do that. Of course you know I always go well okay well I’ll
12:45
I’ll find a way to do that. Yeah. You never want to stifle the artist in that sense. Right. Exactly. But like for example,
Recording limitations
12:50
you know, yes, you’re doing more mixing now, but the tracks that you receive, is there a lot more of like having to comp
12:56
stuff and things like that than you used to be? Uh, not not really. Most of the stuff by the time it gets to me, it’s mo mostly
13:02
done. Okay. You know, and I’m I might do an edit or something and rearrange something a
13:07
little bit, but um but usually it’s it’s it’s pretty finished. And so, uh, you know, and
13:14
everything is in the old days, we’d record drums on four four or five tracks at the most.
13:20
Sure. And, and things would be comped down. You everything would be bounced. If
13:26
you’d have a bunch of backing vocals, they’d be down bounc because you only had 24 tracks, right? Or 23 really.
13:31
It’s that really. Yeah. And but then you know since digital you have unlimited numbers of
13:38
tracks which sometimes is unfortunate because people that’s what I’m thinking because you have now limitations.
13:45
Yeah. Yeah. And it can be a problem. I mean a good a good producer or a good somebody who
13:50
knows what they’re doing won’t let that get out of hand, you know, and they’ll just they’ll just get rid of whatever
13:56
isn’t necessary. Yeah. And uh but sometimes I have to do it, you know. I’ve done a few things where
14:01
okay, this is all good. these things. Let’s see. Mute, mute, mute, mute. Yeah. You know, like there be 15 synthesizers.
14:08
Okay. We probably work with eight synthesizers. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well, you know,
14:13
and I’m thinking like like mad respect to guys like Phineas who can can comp a
14:18
a a plausible vocal out of, you know, a 100 different takes and stuff like that.
14:24
Is that what he does? 100. I’ve seen actually a video of him just, you know, comping down to the syllable.
14:29
Wow. Stuff like that. And you know, like I say, I mean, respect to somebody who can do that, but
Eddie Stasium
14:34
you know, I really love how you do that. Well, you know, we were talking about Eddie Stasium, you know, and Ed told me
14:39
a story about um one of his first sessions was Midnight Train to Georgia. Oh, man. And he said, “Glattis Knight came in,
14:46
did the entire thing, one take, you know, sucked on her lemon for a minute and then just did and she called him up
14:51
a couple days later and said, “I want to replace one line.” Really? you know, so that entire thing is almost a almost a contiguous
14:58
performance. Great to hear. I think that’s so different from how we do things now.
15:03
Yeah. You know, you Well, it it is, you know, I mean, and different people do it different ways.
15:08
Sure. With Brian Adams, because we were on 24 track, he he would uh we’d have two
15:14
tracks for vocal and one would be the main one, and he would just punch in. Uhhuh. He would just phrase by phrase
15:21
or, you know, word by word sometimes, you know, and and then when he’d get one where
15:28
like I’d he’d think it was okay and I go, “Well, maybe you could do a little bit better.” And we’d put that on
15:34
another track and if it was better, we’d bounce it over, you know? But you had just those two tracks. That was the comp. Yeah.
15:39
You know, we’d actually comp it. Well, then later he he started doing, you know, eight or 10 tracks and comping
15:46
from that. Mhm. that I mean to me I feel like that kind of affects the performance in
Performance
15:52
certain ways. Maybe maybe only to us because we’re involved in the creative side of it. It it does. It affects it to me. Yeah,
16:00
for sure. It’s like I think we can hear that. Yeah. You know, and and I think that’s really
16:05
changed a lot of the way we make music now. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, electronically, you could do all these
16:11
things to make something sound smooth when really the performance wasn’t
16:16
wasn’t all that great. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. That’s it’s a shame because it’s it’s nice when you know
16:24
there’s that that’s other thing where you can make everything put everything
16:29
in time, put everything in tune and and makes everything sound the same.
16:34
Yeah. And it’s nice if you can leave some of the the human quality in the music in in all the instruments, I
16:42
think. Yeah. Well, that’s, you know, that’s uh it’s interesting. I heard recently uh I
Modern Rock
16:48
want to say it was one of the um one of the one of the LA radio stations, they did this kind of mashup
16:54
of a whole bunch of the current modern rock tracks. Yeah. And you could literally go from one to
17:01
the next and you know, same BPM same same key almost, you know,
17:07
sometimes the same chords. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like I you know, the the the uniqueness of it has kind of
17:13
been polished out of it. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Well, that’s why I I’m mixing a
17:19
live squeeze album at the moment and and they were I mean, they had their their
17:24
thing. They Nobody sounded like them. Yeah. Such a tight fit. I saw them uh way back in the 80s opening for Elvis
17:30
Costello. Oh, man. Elvis was amazing, too. Yeah. that with the attractions was such a great band.
17:36
Yeah. But again, you know, all that stuff, I mean, they could pull that off live. Yeah. You know, and that to me is just
17:42
incredible. And they were great songs, you know, they weren’t repetitious or, you know, there was no
17:48
loop going all running all the way through the thing. And um they had
17:54
sections and parts and and the songs would build and had someplace to go. Yeah. And the second verse had a little
18:01
bit extra added so that build from the first and stuff like that. I know that it’s great songwriting. What
18:06
whatever happened to that? Well, and that’s, you know, again, I’m a firm believer in the power of limits,
Power of Limits
18:12
you know, and the fact that you had to kind of do that in order to create something which, you
18:18
know, um, and you know, you talk about synthesizers. Yeah. I mean, man, you know, when you
18:23
had like, you know, maybe one or two synths, you had to milk the hell out of every
18:28
single one of them. You know, you had to tweak a patch and come up with your own stuff. And now we’re just like, you know, rolling through presets on virtual
18:35
synths and everything. I mean, not to say and I don’t want people to think that
18:42
I’m saying there’s no good music nowadays because there’s there’s a lot of great music. I mean, Billy Isish is a
18:48
good example. Yeah. Yeah, you know, there’s some great in incredible performance performers out
18:53
there and uh but it’s not not as much, you know, I think
19:00
there was a lot more back Yeah. for some reason. I don’t know why.
19:06
You know, you had um you had more gatekeepers in a way and you know, as much as I mean, we can malign the record
19:12
labels forever and you know, sure, let’s do it. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s Yeah. But but you know
Gatekeepers
19:18
there was that element of gatekeepers, you know, and now I mean the fact that anybody can make music and put it out
19:24
there is a wonderful thing. Yeah. But it’s a horrible thing. Yeah. Exactly.
19:30
You know, it’s like how do you find that really great stuff or how does it find you? Cuz Yeah. Everybody thinks, “Oh, look, I
19:36
can make a great I I just drag these loops into this timeline and I have a great record.” Yeah. Yeah. you know, and then I I put
19:42
my voice through um Extreme Autotune and I just sound like I’m on the radio and
19:49
you know, yeah, but you haven’t really written a song. Well, and you know, u thank you the
19:55
folks at Antares, but I really hate your invention, right? You know, it has become an instrument in
20:00
of itself. Yeah. And it’s just it’s I’m so tired of hearing autotune vocals, you know,
20:05
extreme autotune. Yeah. I had a friend of mine who was a a high school friend send me his son’s
20:12
demo, you know, and oh, what do you think of my son? I want you to hear his
20:17
songs and and his his voice. And you know, it was just slam through autotune.
20:23
And uh I said, “Look, send send me something where I can actually hear his voice
20:28
and I’ll let you know, but I can’t tell a thing from this.” Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing that that um and I’ve had this
Blue Notes
20:34
conversation with a few friends, uh a lot of the demos that you get now from
20:39
younger singers, they sing straight. They don’t sing blue notes anymore because they’re so accustomed to hearing
20:46
hearing it that way. Yeah. That kind of thing, you know, all perfectly in tune. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I just heard you
20:52
comp some of these vocals here and there’s some blue notes in there and it’s to me that’s the that’s the soul of
20:57
the whole performance, you know. No, absolutely. Mhm. So, so how has that changed for you? I
21:03
mean, do you find yourself cleaning up stuff more now or? No, no, not really. I’m kind of doing
21:09
doing this, of course. You know, every everybody, like I was telling you earlier, everyone I work with sings
21:15
perfectly in tune and in time, so I don’t really have to do any of that. Yeah. But but if I did
Demos
21:22
Yeah. But but you know, it’s true. I mean, a lot of the artists that you work with do come from that old school kind of mentality.
21:27
Yeah. And so you’re fortunate in that sense, but a lot of the new stuff that you hear now, I mean, I’m I’m sure
21:33
people are still giving you demos left and right, you know, and I mean, what do you hear now that’s um that’s changed in
21:40
that sense? I don’t know. just the um it’s hard to say, you know, because I don’t get as
21:46
many because I’m not a producer really and I don’t get as many demos, but I get things that people want me to mix and
21:53
and there’s a lot of stuff that I just I don’t, you know, write back to my
21:58
manager, I don’t think so. Yeah. And uh it’s just that songs, but that’s
22:04
always it’s always been that way. You know, you’ve always got a lot of people writing songs. Every once in a while
22:10
there’s a good one. most of them aren’t aren’t good or at least not to me.
22:15
And um so that’s the whole thing and and sometimes the the
22:22
I know as a producer I’d get overproduced demos and so you’re trying to hear a song through this massive
22:29
production that somebody’s done because you can do that at home now. Yeah. With plugins and and uh loops and
22:35
everything. And um yeah, I mean it you used to be that occasionally you would
22:40
get a acoustic guitar and vocal or piano and vocal where you could really hear the song.
22:46
Yeah. Instead of, you know, I don’t want people to try to impress me with their production.
22:52
If I’m a producer, then that’s what we’re going to hire a producer for. Yeah. Yeah. And um and sometimes people of
22:59
course there’s the demo ititis thing that somebody’s done this incredible demo they spent for forever on you know
23:05
all the plugins and the certain sounds and this and that and then you try to
23:10
um to top it and they’re so used to hearing that Yeah. that even if you do something that’s much better, you know, a lot of times
23:18
there’s that demo. I just the demo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, it sounded good on the demo. Let’s do that.
23:24
Yeah. Yeah. I worked with one artist who u we ended up basically having him record the vocal on his porta studio on
23:30
his at his kitchen table because that’s what he used to do and then just you know you load that in and well that’s okay. Yeah.
23:36
Yeah. Exactly. You know whatever it is that worked on that you know in fact my my wife makes all kinds of
23:43
gear that you can do that really very high quality with Yeah. I know. I’m a fan.
23:49
Yeah. Ag mics and lavalers. They make a good one of those things. Mhm. Now, I’m I’m curious about that, too. You know,
Being a mixer
23:55
you kind of migrated to being more of a mixer. Yeah. And, you know, you have produced artists
24:01
and of course that’s a totally different uh a totally different part of the creative process working with the artist
24:08
and getting that out of them. Is that is that something you you just decided
24:14
wasn’t that you didn’t like or was it just circumstances that got you into more being more of a mixer? And
24:20
I didn’t think I was very good at it. I don’t think I was because I work with people like Don was and Tony Berg and
24:26
some of these guys that are really really good at that, you know, and and uh
24:33
I’m thinking, you know, I should do what I’m good at. I’m pretty good at mixing.
24:40
Well, it’s a psychology and I’m not good at the at the psych that psychology what you’re talking about. Yeah. and dealing with the label
24:47
and the the the the artist and the moods and whatever, you
24:54
know. I just like, no, no, just give me the the music and some faders and I’m good.
24:59
Well, it’s funny because I’m a very simple man. Yeah. You mentioned Don and uh you know, uh when I was coming up at Cherokee, I
Phil Raone
25:05
got to watch him. I got to watch guys like Phil Raone and Peter Asher, you know, and there really is
25:10
really good. Yeah. And and there’s a certain just a a psychology aspect of it that I find
25:16
fascinating. What the the working with the label part that really turned me off. But but that psychology that you’re
25:22
talking about, that’s a completely different part of the art form. It’s an incredible talent to have. Yeah.
25:27
You know, and um being musical as well with that and I’m I’m fairly musical,
25:33
but unfortunately I never really learned to play piano properly. So, you know, I’ll have a something in my head and I
25:40
just can’t go over and say, “Okay, play this chord.” You know? Yeah. Yeah. I just I could probably do it if I spent
25:47
enough time figuring it out. But, you know, I just wasn’t very good at it. And not only that, but when I was producing,
25:54
it would always be the end of the day and I’d be like, “Oh, does anybody want a nice rough mix?” That was my favorite
25:59
thing was doing the rough mix. You know? Yeah. People go, “Well, no, that’s okay. You don’t have to do it.” No, no, really.
26:06
How how about in rough mix, you know, because I just love that part. Well, but now that that also, you know,
Rough Mix
26:12
that that’s the whole thing there of, you know, once you do the rough mix, do people get married to that rough mix
26:18
because they’re listening to it for a week or whatever, you know, and Well, if it’s my rough mix, I’ll just I
26:23
have to re I have to So then you’re the one who’s got to mix it. I have to outdo it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a challenge, too,
26:29
man. I used to try to get somebody else to because it’s hard to if you produce a record. That’s the other thing. mixing
26:35
can be difficult because uh you can’t really see the forest for the trees. You know, you know every note on the thing
26:42
and um it’s a lot easier to to mix something when you’re objective and you don’t have any preconceived notions
26:49
about anything, you know. Well, that’s why I’ve always um I’ve always been fascinated by these guys
Producer Engineer
26:54
that can do the producer and engineer role. Yeah. Because you know on the one hand
26:59
you want that you you want to be able to say you know I want to be intuitive enough that I can translate that musical
27:06
aspect to this you know to the to the technology but on the other hand it’s
27:11
it’s left brain right brain you know it’s it’s tricky and I get distracted I’m recording I’m thinking
27:19
about sounds and I should be thinking about the performance and and uh I could do it some sometime I’ve
27:26
done it and I can do it. But, uh, it’s just I don’t enjoy doing that.
Communication
27:32
But then again, you’ve got to then have that communication with the artist and the producer for, you know, when when
27:40
when like, you know, I’ve had guitar players say things to me like, you know, can you make my guitar sound a little
27:45
more brown? You know, oh, that’s a rough one. Yeah. You know, well, I I figured it
27:50
out. He wanted it warmer, you know. Yeah. Right. But I mean again, you know, just just distilling that that artistic
27:59
thing into the technology part of it, you know, that’s that’s a talent, too,
28:04
man, you know. Oh, it really is. Mhm. No, absolutely. Yeah. I’ve had all kinds of descriptions and but I’d rather get a
28:12
like a some sort of esoteric description than somebody tell me, you know, add 4
28:18
dB at 800 cycles or something like that. You know what I mean? Yeah, it’s like getting real specific. Wait a
28:25
minute, that’s that’s my department. I’ll interpret what you what you want to the kind of vibe you want or the feeling
28:32
that you want. And that gives you more freedom, too. Yeah. And I’ll turn it in. I’ll I’ll make that work, you know,
28:38
because that that’s the fun part. Mhm. So, now um I wanted to talk about your move to Atmos.
Atmos
28:43
Yeah. Yeah. because Atmos, you know, and immersive in general has opened up a whole new world
28:51
and uh that’s got to have been interesting for you in a way, you know. Yeah, it’s Well, it’s fun, you know. I
28:58
mean the because I was mixing remixing the band’s first four albums, you know,
29:04
and uh and but I had done 51 mixes for uh Big
29:09
Pink Brown album and Stage Fright and then Cahoots came up and the label said,
29:15
“Oh, can you this time can you deliver an Atmos mix?” I was like, “Oh, okay.”
29:21
Well, I looked around the room and yeah, I’ll just have to upgrade the room really quickly, which I did. And uh and I’m still really
29:29
proud of that one. I mean, that’s a lot of stuff going on musically in that album. Yeah. It’s not it’s not their best record, that’s for sure. But it’s
29:35
there’s some really interesting songs on there. Life is a Carnival is a great That’s the one I’m thinking of. Yeah. I
Gar Hudson
29:41
mean, Gar Hudson’s stuff on there. It’s just all over the place. No, no, it’s really good. And and Robbie
29:46
gave me a lot of uh freedom on that one. Uh cuz he didn’t really like the way it
29:52
came out ever. and he just thought that yeah, we never really nailed it. Just
29:57
wasn’t recorded. It was the first thing ever recorded at Bearsville Bearsville Studios when Albert Gman opened the place
30:05
and um they he felt they were sort of forced into making a record because Albert
30:11
wanted somebody to use the studio. Uhhuh. And uh so he said, “Look, whatever you
30:16
can do, you know, just change the arrangements, take stuff out, you know,
30:22
and so it was really fun record for me and plus it was a Atmos.”
30:28
Yeah. And so I was playing around with putting things in different speakers and and uh but then I’ve been, you know,
30:34
I’ve done Jesus, I must have done 30 or 40 albums in Atmos so far or more than
30:40
that. I’ve done all this Brian Ferry stuff. I’ I’ve heard some of those mixes over
AES Workshop
30:45
there. Yeah. Yeah. That Well, we did a an AES workshop a few months ago, right?
30:50
Where we were listening to the the Atmos mix of Avalon. Yeah.
30:56
And man, just seriously, dude, that was that’s some
31:01
amazing stuff, you know. Well, a bunch of other ones. Boys and Girls is out now. And um there’s a few
31:07
other ones. I think taxi and mimuna just uh there’s a bunch of them. Mhm. And and then we’re doing more in uh in
31:15
the fall actually. So talk to me about that. It’s it’s it’s almost I mean you have a whole new box
Keeping it true to original mix
31:22
of crayons. Yeah. How do you keep from overusing them? Um well I try to keep true to the
31:30
original mix, you I mean, I’ll kind of work on a stereo mix first
31:35
that that’s as close as possible to the original, right? And then and then I go for okay,
31:42
where where can we put things to make this more interesting? Mhm. You know, in this in this um
31:51
sort of it’s like a theater really, you know. I think of of Atmos as um
31:57
an environment, you know, you’re expand it’s like a expanding environment
32:02
and uh you know because I use quad reverbs and all kinds of delays and things like that
Atmos as an environment
32:09
which is most of what you put in the back, right? I mean you you don’t put like a lot of vocals and stuff behind you.
32:14
Not so much. Sometimes I’ll put the vocals in the side. There’s backing vocals. There’s a lot of them. Um,
32:22
depends on the song, but you’ll get something that’s like if it sounds like a church choir, you know, I’ll put them
32:28
up on the balcony in the back. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, that could work. Yeah. Yeah. Just things like that. You you
32:36
have to keep the song in mind and what what the the artist is trying to get
32:43
across with the song. And it can’t distract from whatever the right the the song is. the narrative of the
32:49
song. That’s I something that Springsteen drilled into my head for
32:54
years just on mix stereo mixes. Yeah. That it just keep that connection
33:00
with right with the the song itself and the whatever the singer is singing about.
33:07
Mhm. And and it’s the same. It’s it’s really not that much different than stereo.
33:12
It’s just that you’re actually immersed in it. Hence the name immersive. Well,
The focus of the mix
33:18
you know, one of the things that I’ve been fascinated about in listening to Atmos mixes is not so much the back stuff, but
33:24
the height. Yeah. You know, the fact that you can actually put stuff like up here a little bit more and stuff like that.
33:30
And that tends to give you a little bit more of that separation. Yeah. You know, there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve heard that, you know, the the Atmos
33:37
mixes where I go, “Wow, I didn’t even know there was a guitar there.” Yeah. Right. You know, little stuff like that. Yeah. Well, I like to think of the like
33:45
the if it’s a band, if it’s a rhythm section that they’re sitting around me, that I’m in the middle of the what
33:52
they’re doing. Yeah. You know, and so there’ll be a guitar over there or a piano over there, you
33:57
know, organ back in the back, strings in the back very often,
34:03
you know, things like that, you know, where the drums and and vocals are basically in the front. And I use the
34:09
center speaker a lot where a lot of people don’t. But I think that’s really important because it’s to me that’s the
34:14
focus of the of the mix. Well, that could be what you know uh a couple of people have said to me uh that
Atmos vs stereo
34:21
your Atmos mixes fold down to stereo better than a lot of other people’s.
34:27
That could be why. That’s nice. I didn’t know that, but that’s great. Well, there you Maybe that I don’t know why but um but I do I do use that
34:37
um that that’s one of the things that always bothered me about stereo was that if you know if I move to this side of
34:43
the room now the v everything that was supposed to be the center has followed me over to the right. Yeah. And um whereas
34:51
if it’s anchored, you know, I can walk around the room, which I usually do before I print an Atmos mix. And I like
34:58
to see where everybody is, where all the instruments are, and and I I like to maintain that,
35:04
you know, that things don’t move when I I move. Well, you know, the running joke is um
Early stereo mixes
35:10
who said this to me? Uh Nico said to me one time, you know, the only thing that matters is the produce section at
35:16
Kroger. And what he meant by that is, you know, if I’m walking around and, you know, something’s playing overhead, if I
35:23
only hear like the left channel, you know, does the song still make sense to me, right? You know, and a lot of like
35:29
the early stereo mixes. Yeah. You know, if you think about it’s like, yeah, it’s really weird, man. I’m only
35:34
hearing like, you know, half of the song. Yeah. Apparently the Beatles had a big problem with that because they were they
35:40
were putting the label was putting stuff out that it was in the early days it was their
35:46
their multitrack was stereo. Yeah. Right. And so they put it out as it was wasn’t actually stereo. It was two
35:52
channels. I was going to say it’s not really stereo when you have the drums over here. They mix it to to mono, you know, and
35:59
then they stereo came along. Oh, look. There’s two channels. Yeah. Let’s just put it out. And it just didn’t didn’t really work.
36:06
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I liked it because as who I am, you know, I put the thing on,
36:12
I go, “Oh, great. I can I can hear the rhythm section over here and I can hear the vocals over here or whatever.” Yeah.
36:18
You know, it’s fun. But I like that too, as you say, for almost for the analytical perspective of it.
The idea behind stereo
36:23
Exactly. You know, but you know, theoretically, the whole idea behind stereo is, you know,
36:29
stuff that reaches this ear maybe a little bit sooner than it reaches that ear. You know, you want to recreate that
36:34
live space, right? you know, that’s the thing. And I guess Atmos allows you to do that
36:39
even more, doesn’t Well, it really does, you know, and it was interesting with the the band stuff
36:46
where they um Robbie said that when they recorded they and it drove the engineers
36:52
nuts because they’d like to set up in a circle without goos or anything, just
36:57
looking at each other so that they could, you know, they could kind of play off of each other. they could signal and uh and
37:05
in the studio they they wanted to rope everything off and put it and they they said no no we’re not doing that and so
37:12
for me I mixed it like that like they’re all sitting around me. Yeah. I saw them live and they set up
37:18
like that too. Yeah. You know and that I mean that that is really truly one of the most underrated
37:24
that Brown album especially you know like there’s not a clunker on it. No. No. It’s an amazing record.
37:29
Yeah. But the the again that’s that’s one of those bands that you know um this
37:34
the sum total of the parts you know I mean yeah Robbie all due respect to him and everything but
37:41
his solo stuff would have never matched what they got together as a as a synergist.
37:46
They were amazing. They were really incredible just just the way their vocals worked together because there
37:51
were you know there were three well there three lead singers in the band. Yeah. And they were all amazing.
37:58
And they and they would all sing together and uh it’s beautiful. Really
38:03
was beautiful. I remember I I can’t remember where I heard this, but I remember at some point I I read a review of a band and and uh
38:11
the drummer was singing a song and the guy wrote, “Uh, now first of all, drummers shouldn’t sing unless they’re Levon Hill.”
38:17
Yeah. Right. You know, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it just something about that band, you know, they were they were
38:22
freaks in that sense. I know he Levon was amazing. Just Well, let me let me uh let me wrap by
38:30
asking you the question that I ask almost everybody. Um
38:35
you’re you came up in this completely different era both creatively, technology, everything else.
38:41
What do you tell 15year-old you coming up now besides run?
38:47
Yeah. Learn a trade. I don’t know. It’s a tough business to break into. M
38:53
I don’t know how you do it nowadays. I wish I knew. People ask me that all the time, but uh you could do like my my
39:00
assistant Ira who justounded me. He phoned me like once a month for a year.
39:06
Mhm. And then then he worked with Nico and Nico phoned me, “Oh, look, you should
39:12
you should check this guy out.” Then finally he phoned me one day when it was on my own. I had no assistant at the
39:18
time and everything was uh nothing was working. All the computers were ganging up, you know, and it was one of those
39:24
kind of days. I’m sure you’ve had days like that. Oh, yeah. And it was like I was just getting
39:29
really wound up and the phone rings. What? Who? Who the [ __ ] are you? Like what? Oh,
39:35
this is Ira again. Ira. Oh, just get the [ __ ] over here right now.
39:43
And that was it. I mean, that’s one way, man. You know, I stalked uh David Rubenson. Yeah. you
39:50
know, back at the at the automat in San Francisco. Same way, you know, I mean, I think that’s really maybe that’s still
39:56
the way in. I don’t know. It’s it’s harder now. Yeah, it’s it’s really tough, I think.
40:01
And um because everything is isolated, like you say, if you can get a job in a in a
40:07
still a working studio, that that’s great. That’s probably a
40:12
good way to to do it if you can can swing that. Um but and there’s great schools.
40:18
There’s um um Berkeley School of Music of course has an incredible
40:25
a couple of programs for recording engineers and stuff like that. Mhm. And um we were talking about crass earlier.
40:31
Crass. Yeah. And Blackbird as well, right? Black. That’s right. All I’ve kind of done little things at all of
40:38
them. Yeah. Yeah. you know. Mhm. And uh it’s it’s great to talk to the students and hear what their their
40:44
concerns are and what their worries for their future is. You know, I always
40:49
suggest man post-prouction, you know, do get into movies and commercials and TV because there’s I
40:56
think there’s got to be more stuff going on there. Well, there’s a lot of jobs that didn’t exist when we were coming up, too, you
Rockwell Hall of Fame
41:03
know. Yeah. That that kind of thing. In fact, I’m doing more TV and and
41:11
stuff like that. I mean, I do the Rockwell Hall of Fame every year and and stuff like the Fire Aid
41:17
show, which is, you know, Ira and I did which is great and um
41:24
and so yeah, that you know, stuff that’s linked to video with linked to visuals,
41:29
just concentrate on that because just just records. Yeah, you if you happen to
41:35
hook up with um with Taylor Swift, good for you, man.
41:40
Yeah, it’s winning the lottery, basically. Yeah, right. Yeah, those are the odds. But Well but Well, yeah. I mean, I think um
Healthy Record Industry
41:47
the industry has changed quite a bit. I mean, do you think that there’s still a healthy record industry, quote unquote?
41:54
I don’t really know. You know, I I got I wish I wish I knew. I know. I’ve been
42:00
approving vinyl lately. We had a we I brought in a record player as part of the studio now.
42:05
Uhhuh. And um you know so I don’t know may maybe it’s you hear things about oh well
42:11
it’s going to it’s coming back and people young people are really into records and and albums and things like
42:17
that like boy that’d be great but I don’t think on a big scale yet. No and I think you know the convenience
Convenience of Streaming
42:24
of of streaming has really changed a lot. You know you don’t do albums anymore. No, no, not really. And people
42:30
are still making albums and I sometimes I wonder why they’re even doing that, you know, why wouldn’t you just do a
42:36
little EP or something or Mhm. you know, cuz who who sits down and listens to an album? Not that many
42:43
people. Well, and that’s just old people probably like us. Well, I you know, I I joke about that all the time, man. you know, short
Attention Span Theater
42:49
attention span theater, you know, and that’s I mean, even down to like this podcast, you know, we talk for this
42:56
long, but you know, for the most part, what gets heard is these little 30-second snippets that I do, you know.
43:01
I’m sure. Yeah. Right. Because that’s the attention span of the average listener now. Yeah. You know, and I think that’s obviously
43:08
changed the way we create stuff now, too. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. So, I don’t know.
43:13
I’m I’m doing everything pretty much the way pretty much the way I always did it,
43:18
you know. I It’s the same console I’ve been working on for 40 years or something like that. I mean, I have a ne
43:25
and and an SSL. There you go. Which is pretty much, you know, Mercedes and BMW.
43:31
Yeah. Kind of. And um you know, I’m not not in the box. I
43:37
mean, I obviously have the computers here. Mhm. because everything comes from a computer and goes back into it.
43:44
Yeah. And uh don’t have a two sitting around anymore. We have one in the in the Apogee studio,
43:50
but it’s more of a prop. I mean, it doesn’t the thing doesn’t really work properly. Yeah. You know, and no, nobody wants to use it
43:57
really. Well, you know, owning one of those now is like owning a vintage car. I mean, you know, maintaining all that stuff.
44:03
And you know, Bruce Rob still has an MTR90 sitting in the studio, too. Yeah. you know, which is probably one of
44:10
the ones I aligned a hundred times, you know, back in the day. But, you know, who uses that now?
44:15
I know. I still have my digital uh um 48 track Sony. Oh, the Sony.
44:20
Yeah. It was worth a quarter of a million dollars when it was new. And now you have to pay somebody to take it away. You know, it’s worthless.
Brian Kiheu
44:28
We we were joking about that the other day. Um, you know, um, Brian Kiheu has a a business where he, uh, basically
44:35
restores all these different formats, you know, and and, uh, he said, “Yeah, you know,
44:40
somebody basically found this old Sony, the old Sony 24 track digitals, you know, somebody had wheeled
44:47
it out onto the sidewalk really in New York and just left it there for the trash to pick up.”
44:52
Sure. You know, it just it it blows my mind. I mean, those were, you know, 200 grand. They were expensive, you know. They
44:59
weren’t cheap and they sounded like [ __ ] too. But that’s another story. Well, until Apogee came along and
45:04
yeah, put new filters in and you know, then it all got better.
45:10
Mhm. But um but yeah, I mean that my my 3348
45:15
works perfectly. I mean, yeah, you put a tape on there. It’s like brand new
45:20
and it rented I rented it out a lot too for for people to record on or to to
45:26
I don’t know. People just used it when I wasn’t using it. If I in a different place or
45:32
if I wasn’t using it would go on rental. I’m I’m impressed that people still want
Digital Tape
45:37
to even use tape. Some people do. Analog tape. Nobody uses digital tape
45:43
anymore. Well, that’s why I was wondering why why people would rent that out other than to maybe, you know, Well, not anymore. I’m just saying back
45:49
in the Okay. in the 80s, you know, when I bought it. But um
45:55
yeah, I mean people do use record on on analog tape which you know I guess it
46:01
does a thing it does its own compression thing and yeah yeah you know um
46:08
to me it’s a lot of extra work you know lining the tape machine and but yeah exactly
46:13
and I don’t know if it helps the sound that much but well done you know I mean yeah the the the analog digital wars are long over
Analog Tape
46:21
you know it’s been settled and you Especially now you have tape saturation plugins. That’s the thing. There’s so much that
46:27
you get that sound. Yeah. Digitally. Yeah. But there’s something there’s a romantic
46:34
quality about, you know, having that tape spin around and then when you open the box, the smell of the
46:40
the tape. We used to joke about that because every once in a while we’d get a session that wanted 3M tape. And I always was
Analog Tape Smell
46:48
fascinated by the fact that 3M tape in particular, you open the box, it smelled like burning transistors. Really?
46:53
Yeah. That stuff more than 456 and you know some of the other brands. I mean that stuff was really
46:59
it had this very distinctive smell. I guess I was used to it because we always use 3M tape.
47:06
But the thing is that the 3M most of the 3M tapes don’t need to be baked now. If you you know
47:11
that’s interesting really the Ampex tape they used a um a uh
47:16
organic lubricant uh and it went bad it goes bad it’s like fish oil or something and um and the uh
47:25
the 3M tape they use a synthetic lubricant and that then doesn’t go bad so it doesn’t get sticky.
47:31
Huh. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Because I I actually have a 3M tape from from the early 70s. It was a I
47:40
had this little workshop band in the in the at media sound where I started and
47:46
we used to record and somebody found it and sent it to me and I put on the
47:52
machine and played perfectly. Really? Yeah. No shedding or anything? Nothing. No, it was just fine.
47:57
It was just fine. Yeah. But you get an ampex tape and No, you got to you have to bake it.
48:02
You have to bake it and you have to be really careful and hopefully you get everything on that first pass. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
Bake it
48:08
I know. Oh, I know. I’ve watched some of those like peel off onto the heads and Yeah. Yikes, you know.
48:15
Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting, man. I mean, you you know, you you’ve transitioned to the digital obviously like everybody
romanticism
48:21
has, but uh you know, Yeah. I I see the romanticism of it,
48:26
you know, the same way. It’s like you watch a 65 Mustang driving down the road and you think, “Wow, that’s really
48:32
cool.” You get behind the wheel and you go, “Yeah, you know, this ride rides really funky, man.” And you know, the steering’s all over the place and
48:39
and the suspension squeaks like crazy. Yeah, exactly. You know, but but yeah, there’s a romanticism to, you know, how
48:46
great it was. I know. I do the same thing. I see I’m I just saw one the other day, a 65
48:51
Mustang. I Oh, man. Remember those? Yeah. Yeah. But do you want to own one? No. Not unless you got a full-time mechanic,
48:58
right? You know, because Yeah. That’s a Or we were talking about English sports cars, you know. Uh back in the 80s I had a uh
49:06
a Triumph. Oh yeah. That I restored, you know. A fun little car. Yeah. It was great. It was so much fun
49:11
to drive. But God, you know that that that joke about you got to work on it all week to drive it on the weekend.
49:16
You had to be into working on the car. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. People like that. And and that old gear the same way, man.
49:23
You know, now Well, it’s funny because our our our Neve is 50 years old. That’s in the in
49:30
the Apogee studio. It was actually the first um console at Power Station Studio
49:35
A that came up for sale and I got it back. Oh, but man, that thing
49:42
it’s like an old car. It takes Yeah, Brandon, I think he’s that’s probably what he’s doing now. There a couple
49:48
channels on that that he’s been trying to bring back to life. Well, you know, we were talking last night about the Trident, the A- Ranges,
Trident
49:55
you know, and Cherokee had four of them. Oh, yeah. And we had uh we had a
50:00
collection of modules that we were always recapping and then we’d swap them out, you know, and and it was like
50:06
painting the Golden Gate Bridge. You were never done, right? You know, same thing because Yeah. You really have to work on those things
50:12
constantly in order to keep them running. Yeah. You know, so you know, we’re working on this thing,
50:17
too. No doubt. It’s pretty much I think all the channels work on it now. We hope.
50:23
Yeah. I’m pretty sure. At least this week. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, and you know, nothing sounds like them,
Other projects
50:29
right? Obviously, I mean, they’re they’re wonderful instruments in and of themselves,
50:34
but yeah, you know, that’s the convenience factor of having it all on on a disc.
50:40
Yeah. You know, it’s nothing beats that, you know, and Right. Yeah.
50:45
Yeah. So, so, uh, what are you working on now? Well, this is um you know my old
50:51
friends Squeeze which of course from the 70s and um it’s just a live album that
50:57
they recorded in some place called the Roundhouse in England. Yeah, I’ve been to that venue.
51:03
Yeah. And uh and so that’s I mean they’re just an
51:08
amazing band. It’s really good. I just did another album for them which is a
51:13
bunch of songs that they wrote in the in the early 70s in ‘ 74 I think that that
51:19
Chris and and Glenn wrote and but they just never really recorded it. So they
51:25
spent last year well the last I don’t know when they recorded it probably last year
51:30
they recorded the whole album and it was something called the uh Trixies
51:35
and you’d have to listen to it to understand what exactly what that means. Uhhuh. and and uh but it’s really good
51:43
and it’s been fun working with those guys because they’re old friends and uh I just love the music.
51:49
Yeah. And then Brian Ferry and I I don’t know what else have we been doing.
51:57
I lot lots of other stuff obviously you continue to keep working. No, John Fogerty. He’s got a record
52:04
coming out that’s he recut most of his hits, like 20 of his his singles.
52:10
Uhuh. And um and we were Tony Berg and I recorded the tracks with um Matt
52:16
Chamberlain and Bob Glow and and then he John worked on it with his son Shane for
52:24
what like a couple of months when with Brandon and u just trying to really make it
52:30
sound authentic and um we were just approving the pressings the other day
52:37
and that voice man. Yeah. Yeah. And it just sounded It sounds It sounds pretty very close to
52:43
the original, but it’s a little little different. And he sounds amazing.
52:48
We I went to see him in at the Beacon Theater in New York about a month ago, and the show was just stunning. I mean,
52:55
it was so much fun. And he’s 80 years old. Got to say, man, he’s got to be like in his
53:00
These guys do that. Yeah. Well, you know, I I mean, I am in awe of any of those guys who are still
53:06
around and and still doing it, man. still going for it. That’s I tell you what, that’s rock
53:12
music, you know. It just keeps you young. It keeps you just keep can keep doing it until you drop dead. Look at
53:17
Azie. He’s doing it. And then Yeah. Yeah. You know, I just recently went to see uh my my
Steve Van Zandt
53:23
buddy Pab Booid was mixing AC/DC. Oh, yeah. There you go. And again,
53:29
fantastic. Dear God, you know, these guys are ancient. They’re still out there rocking, man. You know.
53:35
Yeah. There’s no denying it. Well, I’m I’m glad that uh that guys like you are
53:42
keeping this alive, man, and keeping it running, you know? I mean, because we’re not going to get another era like this.
53:48
My friend Steve Vanzan is a big, you know, he’s trying just doing everything he can to keep keep rock.
53:54
God bless Stephen, man. Yeah. Keep keep it in the in the consciousness.
54:00
Yeah. Um Andy Burton is his keyboard player. Goes travels around with him a lot. Still
54:05
gigging constantly. Well, he’s his band is amazing. Just inc. I mixed a bunch of things for him, you know, over the last
54:12
few years and he’s incredible. I mean, he’s just just a genius as far as I’m concerned.
54:18
Musical genius. He’s written great songs and his his arrangements are
54:24
just fantastic. They’re like classic old rock arrangements, but that they
54:30
sound modern. Well, Andy always jokes about the fact that that on every song he wants a Glock, you know, Glock and
54:35
Spiel here, you know, he said, “I got a preset just for Glock and the whole New Jersey Springsteen thing.”
54:42
Yeah. Yeah. But again, you know, I mean, I’m just I’m I’m so grateful that that
54:47
kind of stuff is still, you know, relevant. Yeah. You know, we’re turning on a whole another generation to that
54:53
now. I hope so. I hope people get it, you know. Yeah. It’s funny once in a while when
54:59
you talk to some young person and they they haven’t really heard of the Beatles, you know, and they’re like,
55:05
“Yeah, how’s that even possible?” It’s like not hearing about uh you know, the the um
55:14
World War II or something, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and it’s weird for me to put that in perspective
55:19
and think, yeah, you know, I mean, that era was as far back for us, for them as,
55:26
you know, our parents, you know, thinking about like World War I or something. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You know, it’s like,
55:31
yeah, okay, I get it. I understand why you’ve never heard of this, you know? But like, man, I’m I’m grateful to be
55:37
able to, you know, I mean, I I work with AES, you know, and I’m grateful to be
55:42
able to create like, you know, we did a we did this workshop last night on Trident, you know, and talking about
55:48
Trident Studios and talking about, you know, like the first Queen recordings and, you know, amazing.
55:54
I mean, they six months after they opened, they recorded Hey Jude there. Really? Yeah. You know, and on the first eight
56:01
track machine, you know, the first Ampex Atrack. Oh, really? you know, they that studio got the first ampex a track,
56:07
you know, and just thinking about that, man. I mean, those you’re not going to get that again, you know.
56:13
I don’t know. I don’t think so. But who knows? We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.
56:19
Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, I’m grateful to have come up in that era myself. Yeah. Well, me too. I’m really happy
56:26
about that. Yeah. you know, and uh politically it was rough in the,
56:32
you know, in the 60s and 70s, but nowhere near as rough it is as it is now. Hello.
56:37
Now it’s like, what the hell is going on, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and that
56:43
gives me hope, too, you know, watching the way the pendulum. God, I hope it swings back to sanity
56:49
pretty soon because it’s man, it’s pretty well lodged in insanity at the
56:54
moment. It’s pretty crazy right now. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Well, we’ll see. Well, on that cheerful note, Bob Clear
57:02
Mountain, thank you for being my guest. Yeah, sure. My pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you.
57:09
Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.