Insights In Sound 184 – Neil Citron, Musician/Engineer S19 E4

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I’m here with Neil Citron. I would call you sort of a guitar players guitar
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player. You’ve worked with people like Steve Vi, Steve Lucther, uh Larry
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Carlton. Yep. You’ve done a bunch of music supervision, um film work, stuff like that. You’ve really kind of been all
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over the map musically speaking. Yes. All over. And um I know you’ve been doing this for
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um as you put it to me recently, years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Since I was a since I was a kid.
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Okay. I think the first mic I put up was in 72. Yow. Okay. Okay. Let’s start there.
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Okay. Let’s start with a little bit of just like your background, how the hell you ended up here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, funny enough, I
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wanted to be a baseball player. It seems like everybody I know wanted to do something before we fell into this, right? Like veterinarian or something. I
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mean, it’s always something weird like that. Okay. Baseball player. That’s I was uh 11 years old and I had the
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highest batting average in the league, but I was short as I’m still short, but you know, I luckily made it to 5’7 as an
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adult, but you know, I was nothing. And so when when it then stopped being where
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you had to play where you had to play and it was by picking, I was too short and no one picked me.
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So you were like the last guy picked for the team. I was 13 years old and I couldn’t play with anybody. So I went
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so I had played clarinet and saxophone as a kid and I was in you know just to get some musical whatever. So I have a
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cousin’s kind of famous Howard Lease who was in Heart and Bad Company and and Howard said to me do you ever want to
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get laid stop playing the clarinet start playing guitar.
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So So it’s my cousin Howard who turned me on to Jeff Beck and and all that stuff. All the early Yard Birds and all
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you know and Deep Purple I mean you name it. That’s all my music introduction was through Howard. And I started playing
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guitar at 13. So, it was kind of a I I wanted to do this, that couldn’t happen.
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It’s too short. Couldn’t get picked. Okay. Well, I’ll do this. And so, well, as far as picking up girls, it’s
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either sports or it’s music. Right. Right. So, it kind of worked out. Okay. Okay. Um, funny enough, out of all the things,
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I I can’t believe the wonderful people that we get to meet in the music business. It’s the best. And when sometimes you
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meet your idols, they say, “Well, I’ll be worried of meeting your idols because they can not be the wonderful person you think they are because musically they’re
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wonderful.” I have yet to find that. I have they’ve everyone’s been wonderful. I haven’t met a bad person yet.
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Yes. Absolutely. It’s crazy. And um I was at N. I’m kind
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of sidest stepping, but I was at NAM years ago and there’s this poor little bass player playing in a booth, you know, a little small booth with a lamp
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this big ripping it up and no one was visiting him and it was the first n I
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ever went to. So I I went I said, “Hi, you know, I’m Neil Citron. He goes, do you have a band?” “Yeah, we have a band.
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You know, do you play guitar?” I play guitar. And we’re talking we’re talking. Anyways, it was uh Ptorius
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and he was so nice to me. I had no idea who he was. He never said his name. I never asked. And that that just says it
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all. It’s like that’s who they are like. That it really is. And and you know, we we come from a similar background. Both
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were worked at Cherokee Studios for a while. Um I remember actually um getting thrown
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in on a session at Cherokee and I I love to tell this story because um it was the
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Monkeys, right? And it was the 80s. It was their comeback album. They were already like, you know, nobody paid
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attention to the monkeys, right? And there’s this producer in there and very droll dry British guy, you know, and
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we’re chatting about stuff and I said, you know, I suggested a particular microphone and he said, “Oh, yeah, that’s what we used on Squeeze.”
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I’m like, “Wait, wait, wait. Who are you?” Right. Turned out his name was Roger Basher and wonderful, wonderful guy. I’m still in
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touch with him to this day. Did all of the Nick Low stuff. Did the first Elvis Costello record, you know,
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great stuff. And and again, you know, but it’s it’s like the same thing. You know, you never assume anybody is nobody
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because everybody is somebody and and they’ve got, you know, one of my favorite compressors is a is a
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165A and I met the guy who invented it at at um Sapphire Group.
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Yep. Yep. That’s another thing. You know, we’re both we’re both sort of tech geeks, you know, and
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I like gear. I like gear. Yeah. Well, and you know, it’s funny because and again, I’ve had this conversation with so many people. I love
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gear, too, but it’s not about the gear. And it’s never been about the gear. Why do we love the gear? Because the gear
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enables us to get the sounds we hear in our heads. Yeah. Yeah. And and also uh gear envy. When I was a
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little kid, well, you walked into Cherokee, you okay, this is what I want. Yeah. And years and years of picking up
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one PCM42 and a PCM70 and a, you know, and you pick up the gears, you know.
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Yeah. So, yeah, it it’s funny, but um as a guitar player, you get geared out
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because you want this guitar and this overdrive and this amp and this, you know, and I think that’s where it started with me. Well, we were just talking about the
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Helix that you have down there, you know, that’s another uh uh and it’s funny, actually, I just had a
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conversation uh very recently with Marcus Riyle, who was, you know, on the team that invented that. And he said
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something really funny, you know, cuz Marcus is a keyboard player. And he said, you know, in certain ways I
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really envy guitar players because the guitar is such an expressive instrument in so many different ways, you know,
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like he said, like if you’re a piano player, you get to choose what note you’re going to play, how loud it’s
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going to be when you stop it. That’s about it, you know. But if you’re a guitar player, you have all this nuance,
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you know, and you definitely I mean, I’ve heard your playing, you know, you I mean, so so just a little bit of your
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background. Um I know you’ve played with Quiet Riot for a while. You also have
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done a lot of um a lot of soundtrack work, a lot of movie work, you know, which I think again, let’s talk about
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movie work because that’s a completely different animal than rock and roll. Yeah, I I fell into that, weirdly enough. a a a drummer that I had played
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with, Walter Garcus. Um he was in Electric Prunes, by the way. There’s a weird band.
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Oh, I love it. I had too much to dream last night. That’s right. That’s right. Um he uh he
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had got the gig of teaching the actor drums. The guy was in New York and he came to
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LA because they were filming in LA and and they said, “Hey, do you know anybody that teaches guitar?” And so Walter put
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me up for the gig and it was for that thing you do with Tom Hanks. And so I went to on on uh Ocean Park Boulevard. I
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went to their office, a temporary office they had and I went in and I met uh
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Steve Zan and um Okay. Yeah. He was the first guy I worked with and I was
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showing him some guitar chords and I was teaching him. He was sort of the better guy. He could actually play a little bit.
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So I was going to make him be the George Harrison guy. So he’d play the high little chords and then I teach the other guy kind of the
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theruming rhythm. Yeah. So I’m going like this and in walks Tom Hanks. He goes, “What are you what are you showing
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him?” And I go, “Well, you know, this is George and this would be John, you know, something cuz he played.”
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Uhhuh. And I was shocked. He’s really good. It was really funny. So he wrote that film.
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It was the first film he directed and he knew so much about that stuff. So anyways, through that then it was, you
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know, My Big Fat Greek Wedding One and Two and it was Mama Mia. And so anything that came up through their office that
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had music, I somehow got involved in. The last thing we did was uh Ricky in
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the Flash, which was Mel Street. I taught her how to play guitar for the film and I was the MD on it. And uh it
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was Jonathan Demi film and it was, you know, he did one other film after then passed away. You know, it’s interesting
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to me because a lot of the actors and comedians and
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other people that we’ve met in the industry, you know, nobody’s mult nobody is on one-dimensional. We’re all
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multifaceted. Um, first time I met Keanu Reeves was before he was Keanu, you
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know, he was just some guy. He was the roommate of somebody I was writing songs with in LA in the 80s. And she said,
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“You know, we wanted to do a bass part.” She said, “Yeah, you can use Keanu’s bass.” And then Keanu came in. I didn’t know who he was, you know. But but
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again, it’s like all of these actors, artists, everything, they’re all multifaceted. They all play
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because music is another just another form of self-exression. Yeah. It’s kind of crazy. And so, um, so
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anything that they did, I got involved with. And really, like I always tell everybody, I didn’t like try and do that. I just fell into it because of
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Walter. And then they liked what I did. And so it just kind of continued from there. But it’s mostly when you when you
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say just that kind of stuff, you’re mostly coaching people and teaching people how to play
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and how to look like they’ve played for years. That right there. That’s what I wanted to ask you about because it’s not like
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just let me teach you the chords. It’s like let me teach you the confidence. Right. Right. And how they um I had I had
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Merryill Streep changing pickups during while she was playing, which is something real guitar players do and actors don’t usually.
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Right. Right. Um, so there was also uh finger vibrto. I worked on that. There’s
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a piece that I did with Merryill where it’s acoustic guitar and I padded the strings to play instead of using a pick
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and I was just goofing around. I was showing her and she goes, “Okay, you got to teach me that.” She filmed me doing it and she came back and did it
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perfectly cuz she was a good study. She’s a consmate actress, you know. And I think to a certain extent that’s part
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of it is that you know like artists like us when we watch somebody playing you
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know an actor playing guitar we’ll pick it up right away if it’s faked you know it’s like ah that that’s not
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the chord that kind of thing right and so teaching them that attitude
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is almost more important than teaching them the actual music in that sense you know that’s right and the the funny thing
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about going back to the wonders from that thing you do I guess I did a pretty good job because
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the Japanese thought they were a real band and they actually flew to Japan and played a gig. I love it.
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But they but they weren’t really great enough to play the gig by themselves. Really?
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So what we did was we piped the the actual guitar part through their amp and
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through the bass amp and the drummer that guy could actually play. Mhm. And so it was kind of fake kind of a
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fake good but Okay. But you know it wasn’t the A chord like this. It’s the A chord like that. It’s the D chord like that. not like this and
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it’s the way that you know like a real guitar player would play. play. Yeah. It’s too much effort to play records. Yeah. But but I but I like that and I
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think that you know that authenticity I think is really important when you’re watching a movie. I think so.
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Especially a movie about musicians, right? Yeah. Well, something that I learned that I think is really freaky is that
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most of the music editors aren’t musicians. So, how can they edit music? And that’s and that’s why all this
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stuff’s always out of time because they don’t know they don’t know it. In fact, I was really laughing. Um,
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I can’t tell you her name, but I met her. And there’s um a Neil Young movie
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that Jonathan Demi did. And he’s literally strumming, but it’s upbeats.
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Oh. So, she’s half a frame, you know, half of whatever beat off. That’s like clapping on the one and
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three. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. And and you know, it’s just wrong. It’s cuz she didn’t know. Yeah. Yeah.
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So, these are things that happened. And so we got hired for the for Ricky the Flesh. I was doing all the editing, the
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music editing. They would send me a clip and I would cut and we did those guys played live. It wasn’t uh playback. Yes.
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So it’s really them playing. So I had to find what Rick solo he was doing from the 10 takes and cut that section and
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put it in. It was pretty crazy. I’ve done stuff like that where you really have to like, you know, you’ve got so
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many clips of people and you have to just like for example, you know, watch the fingers and just go, okay, that’s
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no. And and and then half the time if the musicians are good enough, they’ll, you know, you’ll think you’re on the
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right take and then halfway through you’ll realize, oh they switch solos. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you know, that was uh that
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was Bernie Warell on keyboards, Ridiculous, and Joe Vitali on drums. Go and Rick Rosas on bass and and Rick
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Springfield. So, it was a real band. It was real players. And Rick got sick. Uh,
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he went home and did did some show or something. He got sick when he came back. They couldn’t rehearse because you can’t get everybody sick on a film.
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Mhm. So, they filmed I think two days with me playing guitar. I was next to Miral and I was playing Rick Springfield. It was
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really funny. And just closed in on your hands or what? No, me just just jamming whatever, you know. So, there’s there’s film
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somewhere. I’ve never seen it. But there’s there’s my photo. I love it. That’s there I am beside Tom Hanks.
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Yeah. Kind of funny. Oh man, that’s great. So So let’s back up a little bit.
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Okay. You start playing guitar as a teenager, right? Um is is it just like local bands and
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then you end up in some because I know you ended up in studios and stuff. So how’d that all transpire? My first band my father had to drive me
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to rehearsals, you know, right? Right. And I I think it was I don’t know two months after being in this band. And I
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mean I I knew chords. That’s all I knew. Mhm. My dad drops me off. I shle the amp in and the guitar in and I set it up and
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I look over and there’s another amp and I go, “What’s that?” He goes, “Well, that’s Jimmy’s.” I go, “Who’s Jimmy?” “Oh, he’s the guitar player that’s
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replacing you.” I said, “You couldn’t have told me before my dad dropped me.” Anyways,
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so that was my first harsh, you know, you better be the best in the room or this could always happen, right?
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So, I really started studying hard, playing really, really a lot of guitar. So, did you take any formal lessons or
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anything? I never did. No, but Howard showed me a couple things. I mean, which was worth everything. Um, and he gave me um
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uh what’s it? Um the Bino record. What’s it, you know, with Eric Clapton, um John
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Male and the Blues Breakers featur and he said, “Learn every solo on this record.”
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Which I did. That’s a good exercise. Very good exercise. And none of it’s so fast that you can’t learn it, but the
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the technique and where he uses vibrto and where he bends, you know, Clapton’s kind of underrated by shredders. they
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don’t really get. He’s got a great vibr that’s for sure. He really does. Yeah. And so there was a lot of studying that
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and that’s kind of how I, you know, sort of started becoming a better guitar player. And then I was in a band called uh
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Prodigy and we were sort of the house band at Gazaris. And when we were playing there, the Van Halen came in,
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started playing there. David Lee Roth asked if he could audition for our band. We had just lost our singer. I think he
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made a better move not staying with him, but there were a lot of really good
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musicians around in those days playing the whiskey and so there’s lots of guys to learn from. So I think that um the
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there was so much of young kids, old kids, old guys. Everybody could play so great. You felt bad if you couldn’t do
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it. So there was a lot of pressure to get better. So did you come up here in LA? Mhm. Okay. So yeah, you were really in the in
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the frying pan from day one. Ridiculous. So the door man at Gazaris
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was Greg Leiddani. Okay. Who became a very famous mixing guy later, an engineer. Mhm.
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And so but he didn’t know anything about it then. He was 18 years old working at a club, you know, and being the doorman.
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Right. So Greg one day called me and he said,
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“Listen, one day you’re going to be too old and you’re not going to be able to be on the that side of the glass. I want
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to teach you how to be on this side of the glass. Interesting. Okay. You know, bend my arm.
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So, uh, he I worked with him a couple days at the complex, which was him and Massenberg’s place. I worked at Sunset
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Sound with him one day. Um, he would call me up. Hey, I’m, you know, I’m at the Village. I’m working with, you know,
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Flewood Mac. You want to come? It it was insane. It was insane.
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Um, so I I watched him engineer. He did Toto. And that’s actually when I met Lucther was through Greg.
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Uhhuh. But um there there’s just the thing I I feel
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sorry about kids now is that they don’t get to see a real record being made. I mean, well, not just that, but you know, one
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of the things that I feel sorry for today’s generation is that they don’t really get to play together in a band,
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you know, because how can you be a good engineer, good producer, anything like that, if you don’t know what that whole
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vibe is like? Yeah. Yeah. You don’t you don’t And um when our first day of rehearsal with
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Merrill on the Ricky the Flash, I said to her, “You’re going to need some earplugs. Rick’s deaf. He’s going to play really loud.” She goes, “No, I’ll
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be okay.” They hit one chord. She comes running over. Okay. Cuz people don’t know how powerful that is when you’re
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standing on stage, you know. Yeah. So, so it it’s Greg that sort of got me to sort of learn how to engineer first and
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sort of learn how to get on the other side of the glass and I was still trying to be a player
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and not successfully. But then I got hired to do sessions. Then he gave me the idea. Greg said,
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“Why don’t you offer friends bands that you’ll work for free if they pay for the
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recording time and you’ll get experience cuz I didn’t have anywhere else to work and I knew a bunch of local bands from
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Gazaris and from the Whiskey and stuff and they they let me do it.” So, I recorded a bunch of those local bands
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for free but at all sorts of different studios and learned stuff. And then uh I as we
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both talked about Cherokee, I walked into Cherokee to get an in-house production deal and Bruce Rob the was I
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guess he’s the youngest brother. Was he? Yeah. I I thought Joe was the youngest, but but Bruce was definitely I mean D
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was the was the older brother. Yes. And he said, “Bring me a tape.” And I brought him a cassette tape. That’s what
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we had. And he said, “Yeah, okay.” And he started teaching me how to do some other things. a slapback by aiming an amp at a
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corner and putting a 57. It was, you know, weird stuff. Bruce and D both taught me so much, man.
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Yeah, they knew a lot about micing and engineering stuff. And they knew a lot about really um
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doing it without the tricks, you know, doing it without the the trickery, so to speak, you know. Exactly. The real, as
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you say, slapback, you know, tape delay. Um D was an absolutely
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fantastic tape splicer. He could take a 2in tape and do window edits, you know,
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remove like individual tracks and stuff, just the kick drums and stuff. Yeah, that that was before, you know, you
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couldn’t punch in and out that fast. Yeah, exactly. Um, and in between I got a I finally did
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get a record deal through Cherokee. They they did get us signed to Mercury Records. Um, same time as Legs Diamond. We kind
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of same time zone. So, this is like 80s big hair days. Yeah. Well, it was actually 77, I think.
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Okay. And so, then we had a year gigs with them. They we toured, we didn’t make it. And so then we had to go get summer jobs
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or any wass intermediate jobs till we could get another deal. And I got a job at West LA Music and
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Dusty Wakeakeman who’s bad who worked a dear friend. So he had uh Bad Dog and I did a deal
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with him where I he taught me engineering and I taught him karate because I was I did karate since I was
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five. So yeah, Dusty and I share our birthday. Oh yeah. Yeah. 31st. You just had it.
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Yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, so I’ve had some very Dusty did Dwight Yokum
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and, uh, and, um, uh, what’s her name? Oh, um, um, Lucinda Williams played with
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Linda for a while and and and, uh, Pete, somebody Pete Anderson was the producer who he worked with who was a great
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guitar player. Mhm. So, um, that was all that acoustic recording that I had no in, you know,
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experience with, which is another completely different art form. Yeah. So, how to do, you know, 12 string and six string and then mandolin and
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like who the hell knew all that stuff? Where to put a microphone for that? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty interesting. So, so I
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had that. I had Greg Liddani who was kind of the king of rock. Um, so those guys helped me and then
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George Tutco who worked for Roy Thomas Baker when I was at Cherokee. He let me set up some 57s on uh Journey Infinity
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record. So, it was kind of around kind of the creme to la creme. Yeah. I saw some really interesting Well, as
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you know, Cherokee, those guys very experimental. did a lot of really cool stuff. Um Roy Thomas Baker put the drums for
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the Cars record facing the wall about four feet from the wall and put PCMs on the wall. I thought poor drummers facing
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a wall but it sounded unbelievable. But RTD had some of the most amazing techniques and he was also he was he
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really did like you know to use a a cliche. He really thought out of the box on a lot of stuff, you know.
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Yeah. And he had great ears. Yeah. And how could how could that one guy keep finding all these great bands? No kidding. No kidding. So,
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but you know, I also want to point out something else that I think deserves to be said here.
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You did all these sessions, right? You work with all these different people. Obviously, one thing that you got early
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on that uh I think a lot of people don’t get is the hang. You know, I think
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because a lot of times, you know, you’ll get people who are really, really good, really knowledgeable, talented, nobody
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wants to work with them. Why? Because they’re a jerk, you know. And I I mean, I have talked to so many people who will
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say, you know, I’d rather work with somebody even who’s not that talented if they’re a good hang.
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Yeah. Yeah. You know, and obviously you got that early on. Uh well, I try I try. I think that for
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me, I always felt like I was very lucky to be where I was and I didn’t think it was like I was supposed to be there. I
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always felt like how did anybody check my ID? How did I get in here? You know? Yeah. imposter syndrome, right?
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Yeah. Right. It’s crazy. And that’s something we all go through anyway, you know, and I mean I I work with younger people now telling them the
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same thing. It’s like, you know, even people like us who have been in this business for decades, you know, we still
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kind of wake up and go and pinch ourselves and go to quote David Burn, how did I get here?
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Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. I was I was were doing stuff for Steve I had Favorite
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Nations and I was running his studio in Hollywood at that time and um
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he was they were they signed I guess Lucther and Carlton did a record in Japan live. They did two shows, two
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nights, so four shows alto together. And they brought it back and Steve signed a deal with them that we would
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edit, edit it and mix it. And so Vi actually started mixing it and then ran
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out of time and just said, “Neil, here go finish.” Uhhuh. And so which I did. Trusted you enough to do it.
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But I was sitting with Steve Lathther every day and with and Luke would say, “What do you think of that solo?” I’m
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like, “What do you mean, what do I think of that solo?” Just that kind of stuff. It’s insanity. you know, because he is a
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normal guy and he wants your opinion, but you you know, you never think about that. Why why would he want my opinion?
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He’s one of the greatest guitar players around. So, absolutely, but we need that perspective. And you know, if you’re
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trusted, if you’re again, you know, comes down to not just being a good hang, but being somebody who people
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realize they can work with, you know. Right. Right. And so, early on, not only was I very happy to be there, but um
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when I worked for VI, you can’t work fast enough. Vi is I’ve heard that about him. Yeah.
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Yeah. He’s not he’s not nice about it. He’s gracious as hell, but it’s a very fast pace.
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And he’ll I’m going to lunch. Mic up those three amps. Well, he has three mics per amp and you he wants them up and EQed and compressed and ready to go,
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not just mics on them. So, you’re like busting your ass. You got one hour and you get it all up and running. And so, because I was a guitar
23:48
player, I could play and do that for him sounds and then he’d come in and use it or not
23:53
use it, you know, whatever. He would then sit down and talk to me about, you know, White Snake Days or working with
24:00
Zappa, you know. So, even though he needed to do work, there was a hang moment. Yeah. And so, I think I learned it from him
24:06
and I learned it from uh Tutco would work very fast and then then he said, “Okay, now we can hang.”
24:12
Yeah. And then you have time to talk. And and again, I I loved the people I was
24:17
working with. It was just so insane. I mean, Alan Holsworth, I mean, you know, on and on. I mean, yeah.
24:22
Just the list went on. the the day I recorded Slash, they we did a Yard Birds record and they had guest guitar players
24:28
and Slash came over and I mucked up his amps and and he was very happy with the sound and he was playing this lick um
24:35
extended lick like D was going on and then he made a mistake and so we had to roll back and punch him in. He goes, “Oh
24:41
my god, where do I start?” I go, “Well, you were going.” He goes, “What?” And I go, “You know this lick and I
24:47
picked up guitar da da da. You were playing that, right?” And he goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Okay, well, when you hear it, just start playing it and I’ll
24:53
punch in.” So, it was that he was he was amazed that someone knew music as well as I
24:59
did. That you spoke guitar and then it made it life easy for him. Yeah. And the fact that he was so gracious and
25:06
so nice about it. Mhm. You know, I I couldn’t have been happier recording him and Lucther and God,
25:12
everybody. Um, Vi is a particularly wonderful guy to work for. He’s really really great and
25:18
what a great guitar player. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. So, I think he and uh Buckethead are the two ridiculous
25:25
amazing guitar players that I most amazing guitar players I’ve heard in a long time. You know, Steve has has ethics that’s pretty
25:32
crazy. He has a work ethic that’s really hard to beat. Um he’ll do a lick and
25:37
[Music] like where’s the last note? And he’ll
25:42
work on it for 20 minutes till it’s what he hears, it’s perfect, and then we record it. The funny thing about that is
25:48
there’s guys who do that and then when it comes time to actually record it, they can’t do it again, you know. So, yeah. Red light fever.
25:54
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well, you know, and another thing that you obviously were hip to right away is um
26:00
we had an old joke. We used to have an old joke, you know, first put it in record and then set up the mics, you know, just like always be recording
26:08
because you never know when you’re gonna get that magic, you know. Yeah. It’s pretty crazy. And and more often than not, your first take’s your
26:13
best take. More often than not. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, and then the other thing that I tried to do if if I was
26:20
gonna ever be good at something that maybe somebody else wasn’t, I wanted to learn how to record drums better than anybody because everybody always talked
26:27
about how hard it was and I didn’t think it was that hard. I mean, I I just maybe I had an an insight into it or a love
26:34
for it so much. I always love drummers. I would I would die. I never got to record Cozy Powell. He was my the one
26:39
that slipped away. But I recorded a lot of other famous drummers that made my day so great. And they have a certain
26:45
way of hitting and there’s a certain where to put the mics that always picks that’s kind of universal where how they
26:51
play. Yeah. Yeah. And I got into it and I so for a long time I I mean that’s how Frankie Benelli
26:56
hired me because he heard I was could do John Bonham drums. Uhhuh. And so then I had a long career with
27:02
him. That’s how I wound up being in quiet. I actually did his uh Frankie Benellian friends which was his tribute to Led Zeppelin record.
27:08
Okay. So it was Glenn Hughes over and it was, you know, uh, Don Dawkins and it was, you know, everybody he knew. And so
27:15
it was kind of wild. I did that at Vice Studio. And one of the tricks I always found about recording drums that a lot of
27:21
people don’t realize is actually standing in the room. What does it sound
27:26
like? You know, because I mean, everybody tries to like get behind the glass, get behind the console, and play around with it. It’s like the first
27:33
trick is to go stand out there and see what it really sounds like, right? Yeah. Yeah. Th This is my $2 trick. You
27:39
ready? The The mics that go on top are not called over symbols. They’re
27:45
called over heads because it’s supposed to be over the drummer’s head. Yes. Not over the symbol. Yes.
27:50
Move your mics back and you’ll be so shocked how good the drums sound. Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I got really good at was um using a
27:58
stereo mic as an overhead. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a perfect choice. In fact, there’s one um I mean, you know,
28:04
everybody loves the C24, but there’s only like 10 of them in the world, you know. Um but u sure makes a really nice
28:12
VP88. Oh, yeah. Have you tried that? No, I have not. It’s actually it’s really nice and you can even do like a midside with it and
28:18
stuff, you know. Yeah. Dusty when when he first started, he turned me on to the Royer mics and I
28:23
got an SF12. That’s what I use for Yeah. Yeah. Um Oh, I love the Royer mics. Yeah. But then, you know, Dusty moved to
28:29
Mojave and I love Dusty. So now I’m using, you know, the the 200 black overheads, you know.
28:35
I I use a Mojave on all of my the podcasts I do from home and everything, you know.
28:40
Yeah. Great mic. And I just purchased an MA1000 that I did vocals with, which is
28:45
their kind of 251. Yeah. Um the thing that’s the thing that’s really interesting, like you said,
28:51
when I put a mic up in front of a singer, the first thing I want to do is hear them sing in the room. Exactly. I don’t know how people pick mics if
28:57
they haven’t heard the source. It’s kind of crazy. You have three violinists. They’re all different, so you got to
29:02
pick, you know, listen to them. Okay, she needs a darker mic, he needs a brighter, you know, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
29:08
Um I was lucky enough to I did one record with Eddie Kramer and he’s probably one of the best ming
29:14
guys I’ve ever seen. He is. I did a record with him, too. And just watching him, you know, pretty amazing. And the the thing about Eddie
29:21
Kramer that really surprised me more than anything else is how
29:26
how he he just acts like he’s doing nothing at all, you know? It’s like it just comes so
29:32
naturally to him. Yeah. And a lot of a lot of the Hendrick’s tricks, you know, how he might guitars
29:38
was so different. And um how he got a big sound out of a small situation was
29:43
so different out of these little tiny amplifiers. Yeah. Exactly. closed in with goos and covered and you know I was what dude
29:50
where’s the Marshall? Yeah, exactly. But he’d make it sound like a wall of marshals. Yeah. So he was the king of mic
29:56
placement and he’s a guy that would EQ. He wasn’t afraid to EQ and I and I watched him
30:01
crank away. Okay. But then I watched Al Schmidt just move a mic and move a mic and move a mic and
30:08
move a mic and you know it never touched the EQ and they both have their merits.
30:13
They both sound great. Sure. So, I try and I try and not go run to the EQ first. I try and move the mic
30:18
a bunch, but um I really, like you said, the the fact that we were in bands and
30:24
then I remember what a drum set sounds like standing in front of it. Y and the drummer tunes his drums to where he sits, not where I sit.
30:31
Yes. So, that’s the best spot. Another good point. And that’s why they put the one mic in the old days in the Beatles. That’s where the drummer sounded, you know. And
30:37
I know that I think Bonham they used to put a mic right here by his ear because that’s kind of what he heard. Um, and a
30:43
guitar amp, you know, I I know close micing is the thing, but it’s not really where a guitar amp sounds great. It
30:48
really sounds great a little further away. Yeah. And bass amps, too. I mean, sound has to sort of develop.
30:54
It has to bloom. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so, um, I’ve gotten into much further away micing as I got older.
31:00
Well, you know, I had a I had a studio, um, in Hamburg, Germany for several
31:05
years. I was experience. I lived in Germany, worked with German rock bands. Color me jealous.
31:10
Yeah. Well, it was it but I tell you the coolest thing about it was this was an old converted factory.
31:15
Wow. And we had the downstairs building next door and they were attached. We ran 300t
31:22
mic cables down into that building and set up a Marshall down there. Wow.
31:28
And miked it at the other side of the room. It was like an 8second reverb time, like a natural chamber, you know. And I
31:35
learned so much about, you know, same kind of thing like you’re talking about, just playing around with like moving the
31:40
mic a little bit. And Al Schmidt, you you know, you mentioned Al who was like, you know, as close to a god as you can
31:45
get in terms of recording. Yeah. What he I watched him work and what I
31:51
realized there and you just mentioned it. Even just turning the mic like a quarter of an inch makes just such a
31:57
difference, you know, and and you have to have miked enough stuff to know which way to turn it and where to go.
32:02
And you know there’s a funny thing about you know everybody talks about phase and phase isn’t always just 180 you know
32:08
and so everybody likes one of two ways of phase when it’s a little out they either like
32:13
this way where it’s brighter or they like this way where it’s darker right and I’m a darker dude and Vi is a
32:19
brighter dude we have I go it’s got a face it’s killing me and it sounds so good
32:24
so um that’s with the under snare and so I got the thing from little labs where you can adjust the phase so it’s not
32:30
just a click and you can get that snare to be just enough dark for me or just enough bright
32:35
for Vi or whatever. Oh, I love that. Wonderful thing. So, yeah. Well, you know, and it’s funny
32:41
because these days when you mic a drum kit, I mean, almost everybody knows, you know,
32:46
mic from under and over, right? And uh I used to try like different mics all
32:51
the time and I settled on this one combination of mics. You familiar with the 441? Yes.
32:56
Fantastic snare mic. Nobody uses it, you know. It’s I think I think they used to do use it
33:02
at Cherokee, but I think people have That’s where I discovered it. Long Suns moved on from that mic. It’s a very good sounding mic. It’s a great mic on stairs, you know.
33:09
Um, uh, Mojave Audio made a little small snare mic that Dusty gave me and then
33:15
they made a tube version of which I never bought and they don’t make either one anymore. It’s a 101. Okay. And it’s super great. It’s like a 57
33:22
with a little more top end. Okay. It’s sort of like when they do the 57 and the 460 together. It’s kind of
33:27
somewhere and you know um but I come from the school where they didn’t mic the bottom of the snare. You
33:32
know when you had tape right you didn’t have the mic and so yeah so it was all 18 toms were two tracks.
33:40
Yep. Overheads and hat were the other two tracks right and so um they just had the one snare
33:46
mic and so that John Bottom snare sound is not a bottom snare sound. It’s a overhead
33:51
crack you know. Oh so it’s leakage into the overhead and that’s the sound I love. That’s interesting. Yeah. So, I learned
33:57
how to do drums from overhead and then everything else is just subsequent like
34:03
where’s the snare coming from? Where’s the It’s really not supposed to be the source per se.
34:08
Well, when I lived in Europe, yeah, I also uh I did artist relations for sure. So, they gave me a bunch of mics. And
34:15
the mic that I discovered that was really really great on things like toms and stuff was uh they had the SM98.
34:23
I’ve never seen it. It’s a little tiny condenser mic. Yeah. Little and then it has a little thing. It’s a polar adapter
34:30
that makes it a hyperc cardioid. So if you put it on the toms, it doesn’t pick up everything else
34:35
around it, you know. Oh, I would agree. It’s just beautiful, you know. So yeah, those are those are fun. And then uh of
34:42
course, you know, they make these um it looks like a boundary mic, but it’s it’s actually not. the the SM91, this little
34:50
flat thing, you know, and you throw a blanket and a kick drum and you put that in there and then you
34:55
put another mic outside the kick. And again, you know, when you have enough channels
35:00
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Which we now have. But um I remember seeing Bill Schne use 251s
35:05
on toms. Yep. And I was like, “Okay, you must really trust this drummer because $10,000 mic.”
35:11
Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so Bill Schne is another absolute genius. I I have talked to him about stuff and he
35:18
just, you know, blows me away with again, you know, it’s like he was telling me about um getting hired for
35:24
the Steely Dan sessions and he said, you know, one of the things that they told me was you’re going to get a different
35:30
drummer in here every two or three days, you know. Yep. Yeah. And to be able to do that and
35:35
then as you say really like listen to each drummer’s sound and those drums were so different each
35:41
guy and some would be really dull and tight and some would be open and I guess didn’t Gad do some of those sessions a
35:46
lot of them and he’s just ridiculous. I think Lucther tells stories about him coming in like with a hangover and they
35:53
go how’s he going to get through the session? It’s one take wonder and he’s gone. Yeah. I got to record with uh Jr.
35:59
Robinson a couple I recorded him a couple times. um as far as the studio guys, you know, um um and he’s pretty
36:08
ridiculous and Terry Bozio and um Virgil Dennady who’s ridiculous and Vinnie Apey
36:15
that’s all the way in this end. That’s the other end of the spectrum basically. Yeah. You know, and his kick drum so loud I couldn’t sit in the room when he hit it.
36:21
I had to I mean he’s an absolute animal, you know, and just amazing drummer but
36:26
definitely like my big, you know, you want to talk big sound. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was the for me
36:31
the love of if I was lucky at all that we got to be at Cherokee where you saw the Cars and Foreigner and Jouri and
36:38
whoever. And then I was with Steve and I saw Skunk Baxter and we said the Yard Birds and we had Jeff Beck and we had
36:44
Steve Lucther and we had all these um Stained started there. Uhhuh. Um Steve’s manager managed them in the
36:51
beginning. um all this crazy stuff me from metal to rap to hard rock to you learn how to do
36:59
all this different stuff nowadays I don’t know where you go to get that experience I well and that’s just it because
37:04
everybody’s siloed now you don’t have that that um first of all
37:10
you don’t have that experience of doing like you know I remember working at Cherokee where I had you know sometimes two three sessions in a day
37:16
yeah and you had a rip down setup rip down setup yeah and and they were musically so different I also worked um After
37:22
Cherokee, I worked over at Paramount Studios. Also a good place to do stuff. And again, you know, I’d go like I’d
37:27
start out the day with, you know, overdubs on a country session and then I’d be doing a rock session, then I’d be
37:33
doing a hip-hop session, you know, and you you have to learn I mean, and and you understand this, too, the ethos is it’s
37:40
all about the song. Yeah. You know, always. and but then learning that learning to listen like that, you know,
37:46
and trying to make the the uh the the artist be happy with what you’re doing
37:52
and sort of you be invisible. Yeah. Because it’s not my song and it’s not my band and it’s not supposed to sound like
37:58
if I had written it, this is what I would have done, right? It’s their song. And so I’d pull up a guitar sound and I
38:04
would say, “Is this what you’re hearing?” You know, do you want it harder, brighter? You know, eventually I stopped
38:09
asking because it seemed like I was more right than not. And I figured they’d just tell me if they didn’t like it. So I So I stopped at doing so much, how’s
38:16
it, how’s it, how is it? And just went, okay, it’s probably okay until they say. Now, to your point though, a lot of times when they don’t know how to ask
38:23
for what they want, right? And so again, being able to interpret that, you know, I want my guitar to sound more brown, you know, what’s that
38:31
kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Can you make it more blue? That’s always right. Right. You know, I guess that means cold. I don’t know.
38:37
Blue means cold, brown means warm. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Uh but but again, you know, a lot of times they don’t even
38:42
have those words. Yeah. Yeah. You know, exactly. And you’ve really got to kind of read read the room.
38:48
Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. And so in our day, nobody used to click. That was
38:53
originally there was no click involved. And if there was, it was that stupid box that was really loud, you know, you turn
38:58
everything. Um and then there was a thing for all you youngsters. There was a thing called Russian dragon.
39:04
Oh, yeah. I remember that. And if you’re ahead of the click, it would show you. And if you were behind the click, it would show you. So, um,
39:09
that’s a drummer could visually watch instead of having to have something in his head, but which never really worked, by the way.
39:15
Yeah. No, no, but it that was the thought, but I just recorded a band without a
39:21
click and the drummer has really good time so I didn’t have to worry about it. And I made sure everybody that the drums
39:27
were loud in their headphone mixes so that they listen to that as a click. Uhhuh. But I have guitar leakage in the
39:34
overheads. You can listen to the whole band in the overheads. They got bass amp leaking. and I got hammered over in the corner leaking. It was the most fun
39:40
record I’ve done. It was like the old days. No click. Nobody had headphones on. Everybody just sat in a room and
39:48
played. They all could hear themselves because they’re right by their instrument. Yeah. So, um I’m the the other thing I want to
39:55
talk about, of course, is that I have a partner and we got a studio. We bought a a 1912 opera house in a little town
40:01
called Idaho Springs, Colorado. And it’s 14,000 square feet. And the live room
40:07
is, I think, 38 or 39 by 58 long with 15
40:12
foot ceilings. Pretty big. And I know a lot of studios now have little individual mixers for the, you
40:18
know, the guitar player could do his own mix. Yeah. I’m sorry, I’m not doing it. Um, the board I got gives you two mixes,
40:24
two separate mixes besides my mix. So the virtually you could have three different mixes. And if I can’t make
40:29
them happy with that, then I don’t know what to do. But I want to put everybody in a room. That’s what I’m just gonna
40:35
say. Only the drummer, if they want to use a click, the drummer hears the click. Nobody else hears the click. They just
40:41
play. That’s what I’m hoping for. Well, and that’s that’s a lost art. That’s a really lost art, you know,
40:47
being able to put some put the whole band in a room like that. Yeah. Um there’s a there’s a guy um used to be a
40:53
punk producer uh John Kunie up in the Bay Area and he does these one mic
41:01
recordings. Wow. with with an Aea88, you know, he’ll just use like front and back, left and
41:06
right. And you want somebody to be louder, they step forward, you know, like the old days.
41:12
Yeah. Exactly. And I think there’s something really really wonderful about the idea of putting everybody in the
41:18
room. Okay. You know, in in the case of, you know, what you’re doing, obviously, you’re going to mic things a little separately, but that leakage
41:25
is golden. I know that these days people wipe out all the drums, the toms unless they’re playing, but a drum set doesn’t
41:32
sound like a drum set unless there’s tom leakage. Yeah. The snare sounds totally different if you erase the toms. Horrible.
41:38
Yeah. So, you know, and the first thing I ever worked on with Vi, he asked me to he had
41:43
he had um George Massenberg automation, GML automation in his API and he said, “Can can you uh you know
41:50
work the toms? Can you just mute them and pull them back?” And what he really wants is when you figure out where the
41:56
fill is and you ride them up and then as the fill as you slowly pull it down, right? And then down to a a good level where
42:04
you can hear it leak but not out completely. Not out completely. And I was going
42:09
mute cuz he said mute. Yeah. And he didn’t mean that. So then I learned that from from Steve who had
42:15
learned it from Eddie Kramer, of course. So So there you go. But the the thought of gooseing toms up and then pulling it
42:22
back down but not go away. Goosing up a snare fill and bringing it back. Um, lot
42:28
sometimes now guys just add the sample in during the fill and then take it out. It’s not really the same, but it’s easy
42:34
to just, you know, add a channel. Vi used to work the guitars like
42:41
with little movements and the um if you look at Mick Gazowski, he’s doing a
42:46
thing and every he’s talking about with plugins, but if you look at all the writing of the automation that he does, nobody seems to ever notice that stuff.
42:53
Yeah. He’s the king of automation. That guy moves around everywhere. Yeah. And so for me, it’s because when we
42:59
played, your guitar is not constant, right? It’s all about dynamics. And we
43:05
didn’t play with compressors. We just amp loud and you’d get quiet. You you use your tone your volume knob, your
43:10
tone knob. Mhm. Pickup selector, you know, um on less Pauly used to use the back pickup full
43:17
and the front pickup just barely on and that was a rhythm sound and then click it to the back pickup for loud. Mhm.
43:22
Yeah. Kids don’t do any of that stuff now. Yeah. or on a telecaster, you know, same thing, you know, and and I think that’s,
43:29
you know, again, that comes down to like we didn’t have all the options and therefore we had to get more creative
43:34
with what we had, you know, and make and make decisions. Yeah. You know, exactly. Well, you had 24 tracks to work
43:41
with if you were lucky. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yes, you had to make decisions. You had to commit.
43:46
And, you know, and I I mean, even Steve only did three or four takes on tape cuz tape was 300 bucks.
43:52
Yeah. Exactly. you know, and so you only have so much of an album budget. Um, at one point Steve was using an 827
43:59
and 800 stutter locked together. Um, and it was a pain in the butt. So, we used to do a rough mix onto the 827 and Steve
44:05
Dwell’s guitar overdubs and then you’d lock them up for mixing, right? Okay. But what a pain. And that was only
44:11
gave you 44 tracks. I mean 46 tracks because you had the two for Simpy.
44:16
Um and now K, you know, I’ve literally one of Steve’s surround sound mixes had 135 tracks on it that I did for him.
44:24
It’s a five piece band and and that’s just it. You know what you’re doing then is you’re you’re
44:30
basically leaving all those decisions to later on. Yeah. You know, and they’re harder to make later on. They are they’re hard to make and and
44:37
you lack that objectivity, you know, whereas I think if you commit to stuff early on, you know, I mean,
44:45
Bill Schneay, you know, tal told me about recording a threetrack, you know, where really it’s like what you see is
44:52
what you get, you know, and that’s it. Exactly. And Okay. I mean, I understand how cool
44:57
it must have been to go from that to an eight track. Oh my god. Life life changing, right?
45:03
Yeah. Exactly. And then, you know, 16, okay, 24, yeah, that’s when you start
45:09
getting into less natural music production. And, you know, and I mean, I don’t want to sound
45:15
like a purist about it or anything, but but there’s an art to playing together.
45:20
And the more options you have, the less you have that. That’s right. Exactly. And even even to
45:27
have a bottom snare mic separate. Yeah. It’s like I mean there there is a marriage that you like as the engineer
45:34
and when it’s made print it but you’re not going to change it later. That’s the one you love.
45:40
Yeah. Or like u or like you know um Mikey the cabinet and a DI on the bass. Yeah.
45:45
You know same thing, you know. It’s like crazy. It’s I mean Yeah. It’s cool to be able to do it but you know they didn’t do it
45:52
back in the prehistoric days, you know. Yeah. And uh all my favorite records
45:57
were done in a studio on the same board. I mean there this is an argument I’ve had with a lot of people.
46:04
So a band would go into a room so it’s an environment with a certain sound to it and the board had all the same mic
46:11
pres so it has a certain sound to it. Yep. All has the same EQ so it’s a certain sound to it
46:17
and whether you use the EQ or you didn’t you pushed the board or you didn’t everybody was kind of in a level playing field.
46:22
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a sound to that. Yeah. It’s an environment. That’s dark side of the moon. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no better sounding
46:29
record for it just being a four guys, you know, playing a a record. It’s insane. Well, and that’s, you know, there again,
46:36
you talk about stuff like that, man. That was The Room. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so much of Well, you talk about Cherokee, you know, that big room
46:42
at Cherokee. Brilliant. And the A-range board, which was ridiculously sounding.
46:47
Yeah. Exactly. So I I know now even even uh Vi in his new room, he’s got a board,
46:54
but then he’s got a bunch of 500 series mic pres, and he goes, “Well, I like these two on my guitars, and I like this
46:59
one on the bass, and I and and yes, it might be better specifically for his guitar. That might be the best sounding
47:06
thing in the world, but then is this really the best snare drum that matches the best guitar, right?” And you get into this thing
47:13
like the best super bands aren’t always the best sounding bands just because the
47:19
guys are the best at their own instrument, right? They may not gel the blend work where a lot of bands like
47:26
um Black Crows. Okay, that guitar player is not Steve Vajjo Satriani, but oh my god,
47:31
what a guitar player. And what a sound and the tone in his fingers and that band the sound. Okay.
47:36
Yeah. So there’s the Well, and and that’s the chemistry, you know. It’s like you always talk about the Beatles, you I mean, yes, there are
47:43
better drummers technically than Ringo, but Ringo was the drummer for those songs with those other people.
47:50
Yep. And he played to the songs. He didn’t just play drum parts. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, there’s there’s that, too.
47:56
And then like there’s guys like Virgil Zenady who can actually play keyboards and so when he plays he knows what the keyboard’s playing and he can actually
48:03
accent certain hits and stuff. Yeah. He’s not just a Yeah. this guy that’s a consciousness too of the other
48:10
you know and again it comes down to playing together right right you know and so I know I know I’m sound like an
48:16
old fart talking like this but there there are definitely there are some really good young metal bands hard
48:22
rock bands that I really like and I’m sure they don’t do it like this I’m sure they don’t and their records sound good
48:28
but they are not lovely to listen to day in and day out well sometimes it’s it’s too perfected
48:35
you know Um, I mean there’s a lot of really really great bands right now. You know, I um what’s the what’s the band
48:43
I’m thinking of? Garbage. Okay. Fantastic band. Really, you know, every person in that band are incredibly
48:50
talented. On the other hand, everything is honed to perfection. you know, it’s like,
48:57
okay, it’s on it’s on the grid and it’s, you know, and they’re great songs, don’t get me wrong, you know,
49:04
but again, it’s a different way of making music. Yeah. Well, even the even the Foo Fighters leave stuff a little pushy and
49:10
pulley. You know, the time is what makes you excited. Mhm. Um I worked on a project for Line Six
49:15
and they were redoing a lot of the classics and there’s there were a couple of Black Sabbath songs that go from like
49:21
85 to 130 by the time the song is over, you know, and we tried to record it at like 90 all
49:27
the way across. It was so dull. You know, I talked to a friend of mine who did a lot of uh remixes back in the
49:33
day. And uh he had gotten uh he he was working on the remix for Brick House.
49:39
Oh, wow. The Commodores tune. And he said, “Oh, you know, disco era, it’s probably right. It’s probably drum machines
49:45
probably right on the grid.” Nope. Yeah. Yeah. It’s all over the place, you know. Yeah. Yeah. What one of the coolest
49:51
things I got to do, uh, which I thank Jeff Moscow for. He worked at Universal at the time.
49:57
I got to mix, uh, I think it was 13 or 16 Michael Jackson songs or Jackson 5.
50:03
It was uh I’ll be there, ABC and stuff, but the album’s called Strip Mixes
50:08
because we tore everybody out and and all it’s there is um the bass, some hand
50:15
drums, the acoustic guitar that one of the brothers played, all the backgrounds from the brothers and Michael.
50:21
Oh yeah. I mean, some of that stuff, man. You know, plenty of that old Mottown stuff. It’s just incredible. If
50:26
you can strip that out, you know, it was really funny. Um I want you back. Yeah. That is just I mean if you listen
50:32
to those parts individually. Yeah. Oh my god. But so Michael also did a cover of A No
50:38
Sunshine really that I mixed on that record and it’s unbelievable that sing.
50:44
Oh yeah. So you can you can hear that it’s a 47 and you can hear that it’s a Fairchild. It’s so compressed
50:50
but right in your face. Yeah. No tuning, no fixing. Unbelievable
50:56
pitch. Just And the brothers sang great harmony. There was no fixing. It was just it was a matter of just, you know,
51:03
putting stuff together. I barely EQed. James Jameson on bass with his thumb.
51:08
Ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, so much of that just like, you know, just the players themselves,
51:14
you know, there’s a certain magic to that. I mean, have you ever been to the um the Mottown Studios? No.
51:20
The room is not much bigger than the room we’re in right now. Oh, wow. And if you think about the idea
51:25
that they had like 12, 14 people in that room, you know, horn players and, you know, everybody and again it’s like you
51:33
want to be louder, you step up, you know, you step back, things like that, you know, and that art of making of of ensemble
51:42
playing. That is something that I think you cannot replicate no matter how many tricks you use in multitrack.
51:49
No, it’s true. It’s true. And all the country stuff with all those people that sing together. Yeah. and whoever’s louder steps back
51:55
like you said. Yeah. Excuse me. Um, so I’m friends with the guys in the nitty-gritty dirt band and to listen to
52:02
them sing live is ridiculous. Oh my god. Yeah. And what they play is mistake proof.
52:08
I’ve seen them a bunch of times. Uh, so um, I went out on the first G3 tour and speaking of which I saw what 40
52:16
shows. Joseani made that many mistakes. Um, you know, Vi goes for it. he lives
52:22
kind of on the edge and so he every once in a while you know it’ll be on the wrong string or you know because he’s moving around and Joe kind of just
52:28
stands there but neither one made more than three mis you know Joe nut Steve maybe five six
52:35
mistakes in 40 shows I mean and you’re talking about an hour hour and a half at those days was crazy and Eric Johnson
52:41
was the other guy I mean it was ridiculous yeah and what’s the old bile Miles Davis line about there are no mistakes it’s
52:47
the note that’s the next note right you know it’s like how you recover basically that’s So,
52:52
um, again, how did I get here? How, you know, why am I allowed to be here? It’s
52:58
just really insane. But isn’t it wonderful, you know, and and I think part of why
53:04
we’re allowed to be here is because we do understand that ethos and that’s, you know, look, that’s been
53:09
that’s obviously been a cornerstone of your work and your career, you know, to be able to do that kind of stuff.
53:15
I I’ve been, like I said, I feel very grateful. Um, I I’m always I’m always
53:20
shocked when somebody who doesn’t need really need to be nice to me is super nice to me. Not just nice, but super
53:26
nice. Like, okay, this is a person that is just a good human. So, um, one of the
53:32
things that I’m going to have, the new studio is called River Sound. And my my the person who is putting this all
53:39
together, Julie Stevens, who is unbelievable designer, an unbelievable human and has the highest IQ of anybody
53:45
I’ve ever met. This is ridiculous. She said, “We have the no rule.” And so it it could be anybody and it
53:52
could be the last five minutes of the session. You go off, we’re done. You unplug, you give them their money back. See you.
53:58
Cuz I just I just don’t want to do that anymore. I just want to be around people. I mean, we’re not car salesmen,
54:04
right? You know, right? And even if you mess up a song, nobody’s dying. We can do another take, right? We’re not curing cancer here.
54:11
And it’s hard drive space now, which is cheap. Yeah. So, I don’t you know, there’s no there’s no reason to go crazy. You know,
54:17
comes down to what we were talking about before, the hang. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, so listen to this. You’re I’m so proud of this. The live
54:23
room is going to have heated floors. Oo. And we expect you to take off your shoes and we’re going to have little booties
54:29
that you put on with our logo on them and super comfy, you know, or play in your socks.
54:34
That’s That’s going to be some great photos right there. Yeah. Yeah. Just a real hang. Oh, I’m looking forward to coming out
54:39
and visiting. Yeah, we’re going to have definitely grand opening. We’ll be there. Mhm. Um, and that’s kind of what we’re going to have a couple of rooms where we’re
54:46
going to do like some kind of bass lessons, guitar lessons. So, we’ll have people come in and but mostly I want to give back to kids
54:52
because I’m trying to I think I’m going to try and teach a few interns instead of get a kid from school and then kind
54:58
of, you know, undo his bad habits and whatever. I’m going to try and find a couple of kids that live out near where
55:05
the studio is and get them to just here’s a microphone, here’s what you do, here’s how you wrap a cable, here like
55:10
from ground up and get them to be real engineers and know how to use automation on a board and how to EQ and how to move
55:17
stuff around. That’s how I was hired at Cherokee. He said to me when the guy who hired me, uh Brett Yakom,
55:23
Brett said to me, you know, um I don’t want someone with experience because I don’t want to have to unlearn.
55:31
Yeah. you know, and and unfortunately I when when Bruce would show me stuff,
55:38
he’d say, “Well, if you go ask Roy if if he needs some help, the worst he’ll do is he’ll make you get him lunch,” which
55:44
is the worst he ever did. And so I had to get Roy lunch a couple times, but they would show me stuff. It was, you
55:50
know, they were happy to help. You don’t find that too much anymore. People are not that happy to help. I mean, there are there are older guys
55:56
that have, you know, uh, YouTube, you know, channels and they show a bunch of stuff and they talk about stuff,
56:02
but that’s not the same. It’s not like being there with them and seeing the mic and hearing what it does and, you know, and just talking.
56:07
Yeah. Theory. And it’s also again, you know, you don’t have that same experience of everybody
56:14
being around in a multi-room studio where maybe you run into somebody in the lounge and everything. It’s like
56:19
everyone now works out of their house. That’s right. which is great for work,
56:25
but it’s not so great for learning. No, no, it isn’t. Um, my band used to rehearse at Leads, which was on
56:32
Weddingington in in North Hollywood. Yeah. Uh, right near Energy, which is there now. Y and we were in the middle room, which
56:38
was 35 an hour, I think, which is a lot of money for me in those days. And the big room was Van Halen.
56:45
And the little room was like this cover band I heard playing David Bowie covers. So I was like, “Oh god, it’s okay, I
56:53
guess, but you know, why would you if you’re doing covers, why would you practice?” And I’m in the lounge later and then walks David Bowie
57:01
because he was in the little room because why waste the money? They were just getting it together. They were just starting to rehearsal. And
57:07
like, how was I ever going to meet David Bowie? Right. Right. Crazy. So it was things like that where
57:13
you’re just you just happen to be around. And at Cherokee, um, um,
57:19
De Leopard was in the back room doing vocals. And in the front room, I love that room. In the front room was Journey.
57:25
Uhhuh. And the two singers were in the lounge talking about, “So, how many vocals did you get?” Oh, we got a whole song. And and Joe Le said, “Yeah, we got one note
57:33
because he was with Mut Lang, who’s much harder to please.” Yeah. Mut would spend days and days just
57:38
getting a snare sound. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you know, his records are great. I, you know, I can’t. Absolutely. Um, I I watched George
57:44
Massenberg mix a song and he would go two bars at a time. Had the whole band on, two bars to the next two bars. It’s
57:50
not how I hear it. He’s a brilliant mixer. He’s one of the smartest idiots in life. Invented the parametric EQ.
57:57
Come on, give me a break. Exactly. Exactly. But it’s not how I work and and or a lot
58:02
of people, I think. But I mean, I think that’s when I learned he can make a great mix like this. And then there’s Al
58:08
Schmidt who doesn’t touch anything and he makes a great mix. Yeah. And then there’s Greg Liddani who he he would
58:15
just micromanage panning and volumes in the middle of the record, not the outsides. Yes, that
58:22
stayed the same. The vocal and the little guitar thingies. That’s kind of where he did his mix changes.
58:28
I went, “Okay, all these guys are different. They’re all great mixes.” Yeah. You know, I mean, there are there are producers out there who
58:35
like Mut Lang or like Jeff Lynn is another example who you hear a production of theirs, you know, it’s
58:41
theirs. Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know, there are producers who really can work on one record,
58:47
another record, and you you have no idea because they really just they they put no fingerprints on it.
58:52
The chameleons. Yeah. Um I watched Andy Wallace do a couple mixes when I was in New York.
58:58
Brilliant mix is so quiet. Yeah. Uh and and Matt Wallace is another one.
59:04
Matt does these mixes and you think like, “Wow, you did John Hyatt and you
59:10
did Faith No More.” Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s like but but you know there are producers like that
59:16
and engineers like that and then as you say you know there are people who really agonize over every two bars.
59:22
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s no you know that’s the thing the rule is rule number one there’s no rules
59:27
rule. Yeah. Right. So the so the first time I ever was told about a compressor I was told you
59:34
compress first to control the dynamics and then you EQ everything that the compressor ruins and bring it back to
59:39
life. Okay. So, okay. All right. So, then so then, yeah, but I thought it
59:45
was the way. I was a kid. I That was the way, right? And then, uh, Greg Leadonni ran an EQ
59:51
into the compressor and he said, “Well, this way I jack up the highs and the compressor stops it from hurting my ears, but I get a lot of height out of
59:58
Yeah. Okay. There’s way too. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And there’s so I now put
1:00:04
uh two compressors on a vocal when I cut it, which was uh Paul Sabu was a guy I had written some songs with. He’s the son of
1:00:11
the actor from Sabu the Okay. from Jungle Book.
1:00:16
Uhhuh. Yeah. So anyways, um he did a two compressor thing 4 to one and infinity
1:00:21
and you kind of you know grab more and just stop anything and then you never have to look and the vocal just stays in
1:00:27
your face and you never have to do anything. for for rock singers. It was kind of a thing, you know, kind of
1:00:32
thing. And when I do it, I’m always amazed how great it sounds. It’s one of those things like so, you know, you learn
1:00:39
something and then I guess if I pulled it up and it didn’t sound good, I wouldn’t. I’d change it or do whatever.
1:00:44
But for certain singers that you hear that are really aggressive and in your face, it keeps it that way and they
1:00:50
don’t do much dynamics and it just kind of just holds it in your face. It’s all about the song. It’s all about what does this artist, this song need.
1:00:58
And you understand that. Yeah. So, it’s been fun. It’s been a fun road. I want it to keep going. That’s why I’m I know at this age I go, “So,
1:01:05
what’s the dumbest thing I can do?” I know. I’ll open a studio because Perfect. Well, let me let me wrap with uh with my
1:01:12
favorite question to rap with. Okay. You’ve been in this a long long time. Everything’s changed. Industry,
1:01:17
technology, everything. What do you tell 15year-old you coming up now? Oh, wow. Uh, embrace change. To embrace
1:01:24
change. Look backwards. It’s very important to look backwards, but embrace it because I remember saying the day I
1:01:31
have to mix, when I have a have to have a computer, I’m done. What a stupid thing to say.
1:01:37
And here we are. Here we are. What a dumb thing to say. But that but I was an analog boy. Analog boy. And I just couldn’t see it. I just
1:01:44
couldn’t see it. And then I worked with Steve and he was using, you know, these huge amps and all the best stuff. And he
1:01:50
used a little zoom thing for delay on. I went, “What?” Yeah. You got a rack mount. You got a 2290.
1:01:55
What? What? What’s this? He goes, “It’s a sound.” Exactly. And I really It’s all just tools, right?
1:02:01
So, that’s what I would tell a 15-year-old. There’s just however you get it done, get it done. But don’t don’t be shy to jump forward. You know,
1:02:08
there’s going to AI has got the bad thing. There might be some really cool stuff with AI in the future. We don’t
1:02:13
know. It’s just another tool. Y another instrument. Yeah. We don’t know. Yeah. Neil Citron, thank you for being
1:02:18
my guest. Oh, thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. Oh, really fun.
1:02:25
Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.