Insights In Sound 190 Suzy Shinn, Producer/Engineer S19 E10

Welcome to Insights and Sound, where we talk to the people behind the scenes, behind the technology, and behind the
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We are here at the Treehouse with Susie Shin, producer, engineer, dog lover.
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Yes. Let’s talk a little bit first about your background. You’ve done uh well, you’ve done Fallout Boy, you’ve done um what
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you did something with Katy Perry, I think. Yeah. Weezer. Yeah. Yeah. You you’ve kind of been a little bit
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all over the musical map kind of in certain ways, you know? Yeah. Really interesting stuff. And you’ve
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been doing this now for what, like 10 years or so? I think probably a little bit over that. Maybe around then.
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Something like that. So you started when you were like 12? Yeah. So I started when I was very young. No, but but I did you know I I
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was recording and like using Garage Band or whatever when I was 12. Wow.
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Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And yet you’re not on Logic. I’m impressed. I switched to ProTools. And you have
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this wonderful studio, multifloor studio full of so
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many cool toys. I don’t even know where to start. So, are you like a gear geek? Um, I don’t think I’m like a total gear
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geek. I just like create like cool creative sounds and I just like the good stuff. Like give me like the thing that
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we know is great and then I don’t need 500 other things that are similar like in the technical aspects. I don’t get
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like super detailed in gear freaked out on that. But like This preamp, I love
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it. It’s amazing. This compressor for the vocal. Yes, that’s that’s the good the good one. Give me that.
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I mean, obviously that’s all subjective. So, it’s good. It’s what’s good for you for the song for this particular thing.
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Absolutely. Yeah. No, I totally get that. I mean, I’m, you know, as I was saying earlier, you know, I’m I’m a gear freak. Y,
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but I’m a gear freak only for the stuff that I like and I don’t really care how it works.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And especially with like creative sounds or like that’s why there’s so many pedals or like and
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that’s what I want to start doing like building the outboard gear and not just oh good preamps, good compressors, but
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like what is going to like [ __ ] up the sound, you know? But you’re very hardware oriented. I
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mean, there’s not it doesn’t look like you do a lot in the box. I that’s that is true. I do some I do
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some in the box. Like there’s like some plugins going on. Um, there’s some programming I’ll do in the box, but I
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love playing stuff and I love like the artists that I work with, I think, are also from the background of like they
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play instruments. It’s not like here’s the beat. Oh my god, I know it’s shocking. Well, it’s there, you know,
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there’s a very in pop music and and maybe even like rock or alternative
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there there is this like kind of artist that really relies on a producer to play
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every instrument. And the artist might not play anything, which is totally okay, but I made my money on those people.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, but I just do find myself often, more often
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than not, with artists who play or artists who like to get their hands on stuff, you know,
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which is great. It’s so fun. And then you just let them go and, you know, Absolutely. So, tell me about that because, you
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know, one of the things that I have seen with a lot of the the stuff that I was I mean, I was listening to some of your
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work and stuff like that. There seemed to be a lot of happy accidents. Oh, you know, like um did you really mean to
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put that in there or did it just kind of happen? Those kind of like organic things that unfold. Absolutely. You really into that? I I am I’m all
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about like the imperfection of art and it not not to make something sound bad
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or wrong but like what what’s natural and like what’s like human and like yes
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the small mistake that’s cool the creaking of the chair or the this I don’t know. Yeah, I I love that. I like
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stuff like for example sometimes um you know you play back a sample of something and maybe it’s completely in the wrong
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timing or the wrong key but somehow it works and you’re like you know um like I
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I actually it’s really funny. I was um telling somebody about this the other day. Uh, I had a conversation with um
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Prince’s old keyboard player, Morris Hayes, and Morris said, you know, he was tracking this one thing and he hit a
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wrong note on the lick. And he goes, uh, you know, let me fix that. And Chris’s like, fix what? You
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know, said, “No, no, no, man.” He said, not only did he leave it, Yeah. but he built a horn part around it.
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Very cool. Right. And I love stuff like that where it’s like, this is the unintentional stuff. Yeah. That really makes the song in a way.
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Absolutely. Yeah. When it’s too perfect, it starts to sound like I think clinical. Yeah. Yeah. Which is
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to me 90% of the music that’s out there right now. Sure. Sure. Sure. Absolutely.
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Uh so what’s your background musically? Musically, um I don’t come from a musical family at all. My grandmother
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was the organ player in the church. Um and so she would she had an organ in in her house
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and she would like be like go play. I had like marker I would write on the keys kind of thing. And I would probably
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be playing like terrible terrible stuff, but she’d be like, “No, that sounds so good. Keep playing.” And
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I would just like experiment with like the little drum machine, the little layer, you know, it was like a cool organ. I want to bring it out here. Um,
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we still have it. Oh, one of those like automatic playalong kind of things where it does the little rhythm machine. You could have a rhythm machine go and
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you could change the sound of the organ. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Uhhuh. Um, so
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that’s like the very earliest like musical um, background. My great grandpa
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played vi fiddle. Fiddle, not violin, fiddle. Um, so and but my mom couldn’t
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tell you like a song by the Beach Boys or like the Beatles. She’d be like, “Can you play the one that goes?”
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And that was the extent of like the history of music I had growing up.
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So were you selftaught? I She She got me in uh lessons. She got me in voice lessons. That was my after
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school thing in preschool and I was obsessed with it. Like I was obsessed with it. Um and then I took guitar
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lessons in third grade. I hated it that my guitar teacher had the long fingernails and I thought that was so scary. It was like
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and um so what a year later this I think this is so fascinating. this old old
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80-year-old man like cowboy with a fishing tackle box shows up at my
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doorstep at my house and he’s like, “Hey, I’m here to give Jimmy or someone a guitar lesson.” And she’s like, “Well,
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I don’t know who whose kid that is, but my daughter has a guitar upstairs. She’s going to start here. You can give her
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the lesson.” Wow. And I started taking guitar lessons again and like I stuck with it. My mom
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made me stick with it. So that’s where I kind of like learned guitar. I discovered uh whatever I started
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listening to Britney Spears, Blink182, that kind of thing. And then with
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Blink182 led into Bride Eyes, I don’t know, brand new stuff like that. And that’s somehow
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I started writing songs there. Mhm. I like fell in love with the guitar.
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Interesting. So you you went from like hating it to loving it. I hated it. And I was learning country,
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fingerpicking. I was taking pian because the guitar teacher was also teaching me piano. And here I am.
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This dude with the tackle box. Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay. He’s a he’s an angel. Um I’m sure I’m
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sure he’s passed away now. But um uh yeah. And then I switched to like learning jazz guitars, taking drum
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lessons. Yeah. I thought diminish 13 scores and stuff. Right. All right. very I had this teacher Jerry Han
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who’s like an amazing guitarist and he taught me and I went I was learning to
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get into Berkeley because I thought you had to go to music college to be a rock
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star. Like I thought you had to go to college to man whatever you want to do. That would count a whole lot of us out.
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I didn’t know that. Damn. I didn’t know. Um, it’s so funny even in like I
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remember like in uh middle school there was like a essay project who do you want to be when
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you grow up and I wanted to be Jimmyi Hendris. And my teacher is like you can’t do that. You can’t be that person.
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Choose someone else. And I was like okay Angus Young. And they’re like no you need to pick a good influence. And I
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like landed on John Mayer. And that’s where I discovered Okay. You picked the wholesome dude. All right cool. you know,
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I like, you know, and he went to Berkeley and that’s where I found out about Berkeley and stuff like that. Okay. Okay. Oh, that’s funny. But what
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was wrong with Jimmyi Hendricks and Angus Young? Just that they were druggies or what? Yeah, absolutely.
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They’re doing drugs. They’re banging women. They’re partying. They’re rock and roll. You know,
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news flash, John Mayer’s no angel. Okay. Absolutely. This was his first album.
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This was his first album. white collared, you know, button down. I had to dress up
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like like the person I wanted to be also and a white collar button down and acoustic guitar. And
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well, as guitar players go, I mean, that’s that’s pretty good, you know. I mean, he’s he’s a damn good guitar player. So, Absolutely.
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Um, but then again, you know, Angus has his sound, too, you know. Yeah. You know,
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so funny. Oh, that’s great. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s kind of where music took off. I would go to these like local
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shows all the time. any bands that would come through my hometown Witchah, Kansas. And
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Witchah, Kansas. Witchah. Yeah. Very, very small town. Wow. Yeah, I’ve been through Witchah. Absolutely.
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No, the crew. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. Um and those those bands were like
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alternative indie emo that would come and um shoeazer stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And
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that’s where I kind of like my music taste grew from because that’s that was the music I got, you know. Yeah. and then started posting
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songs on MySpace and using GarageBand and like I got a little following or like got you know people coming to my
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shows and I was playing out and I had a garage band where I would play Green Day and Blink you know.
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So you didn’t have a band you were just playing along with your tracks or I was forcing people in my grade to be in my band
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and firing them like I fired a couldn’t play in time when I fired his dad called me and was so mad.
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Oh, I love it. Yeah, it’s very very foreshadowing. That’s hilarious. Okay. Um, so but now
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Garage Band was also where you started figuring out how to do arrangement and production and stuff then I would
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assume, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, there I don’t know. An arrangement of a song always
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seemed like very natural to me. Um, but yeah, Garage Band. I had Logic. I think
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my like uneducated pre-YouTube brain couldn’t really grasp logic at the time
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as a 13-year-old, even though it’s really just GarageBand on steroids. I know, right? I didn’t I didn’t know what an
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interface. I didn’t know I had to have an interface, you know? Okay. And when someone said interface, I was like, I don’t know what this means. And
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I had this long MOTU interface. I was probably for live sound
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more so that Guitar Center guys told me I needed. Okay. And um yes, so I didn’t
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I didn’t learn a lot about that until or formally until probably college.
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So you basically you grew up with this concept of learning production by
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playing along with basically prefab beats and stuff like that. Yeah. Or build building it out on my I
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would build I would build things out. I would build I would put my acoustic guitar down. And I would put whatever blah blah blah the
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I put something else behind it and then Yeah. Okay. Because you really do obviously from
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what we were talking about before you really understand the value of humans playing together.
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And that’s one thing that I mean I’ve always been kind of uh a stickler about is the idea that there’s so many people
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especially in today’s generation who have never really played with other musicians
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and they don’t get that magic of like people because it is magic and like people will
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walk in all the time like a a oneperson artist with me and be like I want to sound like um radio head and I’m like
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okay well I’m not that good of any of musicians. So, and are you that good?
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Um, so it’s like there’s this beautiful chemistry with Weezer, with Modest Mouse, with Radio Head, like that that
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that people capture in a room or together playing off of each other that
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like I don’t want us as like a society to lose that.
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Yeah. Well, we, you know, we were talking uh earlier about neurodiversity. Yeah. you know, and um one of the things
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that I found in a lot of the the workshops that I do is that a lot of
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people who have played music, grown up playing music, have grown up with things like Garage
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Band, and they’re so used to being in their screen that not only don’t they
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understand the vibe of playing with other people, but they also don’t really get like when
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you’re playing with somebody and you just, you know, you have a facial thing that goes on like, you know, for And people don’t pick up on that, you
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know, and so the whole idea that you’ve worked with artists who like, you know, Weezer is a
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great example, right? You know, um that band, they really have a chemistry between them and they always absolutely, you
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know, and watching them play off of each other is I mean there’s magic that happens
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there. Those happy accidents we’re talking about, you know. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, it’s it’s incredible. It like hits all my dopamine
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when I like witness it and experience it happening. So, how did you I mean, was there like
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an aha moment for you where you went from like, “Oh, I’m playing with loops.”
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to, “Oh, wow. This is what it’s like playing with other people or I mean, how did you transition from one to the
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other? Did it just kind of gradually happen for you?” Um, I don’t I think it kind of gradually
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happened. I I you know I don’t know if I was ever
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playing like so much as with loops. I think there was maybe some Garage Band loops that they had in stock, but like
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more of like the acoustic singer songwriter thing to like you know the few Garage Bands I had it was really
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really fun. I was very controlling
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of ah you know firing people and stuff. Sure. Yeah. Okay. of those situations
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cuz it needed to be like what I wanted it to be. Um, and then
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I don’t know when I when I when I really got used to like playing with people and
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I don’t know if I really ever did even now I’m pretty shy playing in front of
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someone. Also, when I’m like in front of like Rivers Cuomo or like Isaac Brock, I’m like I don’t want to play guitar in
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front of you. Yeah. Um, so, so yeah. And I think like too
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like with my friends like who I feel really comfortable with, it happens more naturally. Mhm. But you obviously knew what you
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wanted like pretty early on. Yeah. Okay. So, you’re a control freak. I am. I had like these beanie I’m like
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thinking of this now. I had these beanie babies that I built a stage for and they each played an instrument and like
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Jesus. Yeah. I absolutely I um in a good way I think and I’ve like really been
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able to like be mature and like kind with it now but like yeah I I have my
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ways or I have like you know the what I what certain things of what I want. Well, now that’s an interesting point
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right there about being mature and kind with it because I think that’s one of the production ethos ethoses, ethosi, I don’t know. Um,
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but it’s it’s a production ethos that I’ve always felt is really really important is being able to get that
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thing out of the artist and you can’t force it. You know, there are some producers who
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you can crack the whip. Definitely you can. And yeah, there are some producers who are like total slave drivers.
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Yeah. But you still kind of got to make it be their idea.
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You have to make it their idea. And like I have seen people cry in sessions. I’ve
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seen people do a hundred takes in a row and break down. I’ve seen like producers say really mean things or just like
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things that are unnecessary. And that’s cool. Um, no, no hating on
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that, but it’s just like I’m like I can get I think I can get the same result by
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not making someone feel like a piece of [ __ ] at the end of the day.
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It’s a concept. It’s just a concept. And um yeah, I it needs to be their idea. And I’m like I’m
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an incredibly patient person at the same time. So like I will never and I I will
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never shoot down an idea. Um, I will never be like, “No, that’s wrong.” Even if I’m like, “That’s so that’s so wrong.
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That will never work in a million years.” Let them try. Let’s try it. Let’s try it. You still got to let them try it and have them say, “Nah.”
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Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and like I think like two things that really also
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helped with getting there is um I took an improv class.
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Oh, yes. And I learned the concept of Yes. And and I learned the concept of how quickly
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no shuts down creativity and how it kills the conversation. Great point. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
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Um and then I took and I will not be doing any magic today. I took magic classes. I was like obsessed that Rick
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Rubin, you know, loved magic. My manager is an amazing m magician, too.
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We were talking about that earlier cuz Charles uh worked uh doing some editing with Pen and Teller. Oh my god, that’s so cool. Yeah, that’s
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so cool. And uh I had this one magician on one of my shows, too. And you know, Oh my god.
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And I love that kind of stuff because it’s showmanship, too. It is. And it’s like psychology.
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Yeah. Totally. It really, really, really is. Totally. And that’s a big part of production. It really is.
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It is. You know, the idea of how am I going to get this performance out of somebody? Yes. It’s so heavily into psychology,
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you know, and yeah, being able to understand that that’s that’s I mean, I think it’s interesting that you have
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taken all of that stuff as part of the package in a way. I love to learn and I love the human
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brain and I feel like, you know, you can play a guitar part. Sure, that’s great. But like there’s so much other things
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that surround it that make some that make something special or I don’t know.
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Yeah. Yeah. And there’s what I’m always fascinated by is there’s the leftrain stuff and there’s the right brain stuff.
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Yeah. And especially in making music, we are such a mix of that. You know, it’s like
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the technical aspects, the leftrain stuff of like learning to play an instrument and then and learning all
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this stuff, right? You know, that’s all totally leftrain. Yeah. But what are we using it for? We’re
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using it to create art and art is so totally rightrained and art is so
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unpredictable and it’s like where does it come from? You know, you mentioned Rick Rubin. Um, you know, he mentions in his book about
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the whole idea of there being this sort of creative unconscious, you know, and stuff just comes through us.
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I fully believe that too. I do too. Yeah, I fully believe that. Um, there’s another
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book by the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. I read it but it’s like her kind of memoir or something but she was like
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you know God or the higher being or whatever you want to believe in like comes down and like will sometimes give
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you an idea. Yeah. And if you don’t act on that idea, if you don’t turn it into a song, if you
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don’t turn it into a podcast, an app, like they’re just going to go to the next person.
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And maybe you’re not the person to who is supposed to be the channel for it at that particular time. You know, that’s
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happened a lot, too. You know, where like you start a song and then, you know, it’s just like, okay, this is not going to work. Absolutely. Like that. Yeah. Or like
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that cool movie idea you have in your head, it’s going to end up being a Jordan Peele movie. It’s going to go to him. Or it’s like I’ve seen like song
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titles and I’m not saying I’m like even that good of a writer, but like song titles I have that I never ended up
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doing with and I’m like, “Oh, Billy Isish has that song title.” And I’m like because like the if you don’t if you
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don’t act out on this this creative stroke of whatever it is, it’s going it’s going to go.
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Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it’s just not the time to act out. Absolutely. You know, I mean, you
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can try and pull teeth all you want. Sure. But sometimes it’s just not going to happen. Yeah. And you can try, you know,
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you can you can try all these different things, but maybe it’s like, okay, I’m not supposed to get that idea. I’m supposed to get this one over here.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. you know, but and just saying too, like don’t just be like, “Oh, that’s a great
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song idea.” And then you go about your day. Yeah. If that’s a great song idea,
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I don’t know. Damn it. True. Do something about it. Um I I’ll just notice that like there’s
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so many amazing songs that like someone woke up in the middle of the night and sang, but they like sang it into the
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voice memo or like they were like in the shower and came up with this in driving. I’ve writt some of wrote like some of my
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favorite songs for sessions like as I was driving and I just turned on the voice.
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Oh yeah. I mean I used to have I used to carry a little voice recorder and I’d be driving along and then like you know days later I’ I’d listen to something.
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It would be me going like you know something really stupid and no one can ever hear it.
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Exactly. But but it’s like okay maybe I should try something with that you know. Yeah. Absolutely. There’s that that thing with like the alpha, right? Alpha
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waves where you’re like you’re driving, you’re in the shower, you’re surfing, you’re whatever where it’s like, okay, that’s where something might come down.
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Well, and that’s, you know, that is an interesting concept that I’ve heard from a lot of people is the idea that
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when we’re creating, we’re creating subconsciously and that this stuff, this is all
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basically, it’s the documentation, yeah, of that, right? It’s like, okay, the
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idea’s been swimming around back here somewhere for a long, long time, and then, okay, now it’s time for me to
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actually put it down, you know, and create something with it. That’s that’s just the the documentation process, so
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to speak. Absolutely. Absolutely it is. Yeah, that’s very cool. That’s interesting. Yeah. Um, so want to
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talk a little bit about your career path because it’s obviously been sort of um a little bit um shall we shall we say
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circuitous? Don’t even know what that word means. Like uh it’s not the shortest distance
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between two straight lines, right? It’s like all over the place, you know? Absolutely. Uhhuh.
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Um yeah. You want me to just like break it down real quick? Okay. So you you know
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my childhood, you know, going to summer camps too for music, whatever. I get into Berkeley. Um I was like kind of
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like using a lot of like drugs. I didn’t have a good influence around people in high school.
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Oh my gosh. And I was like, I’m going to die if I stay in Kansas. I I will end up dead. And like so sad. Like one of my best
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friends from from high school overdosed and die. Like it that’s that’s it’s what happens in small towns.
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So I graduated high school a year early. I got into Berkeley. I started Berkeley in the summer, the day after high school
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graduation, and I was there for like a year and a half. Um, running out of
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money. Uh, using all my poor mother’s money, like she took a lean against her
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like life insurance to get me through another semester, like, you know, really trying to make this like dream happen. I
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was completely overlooked. I mean, even if the guys see this, I think it’ll be funny at this
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point, but I was like, I was a student of many. I No one knew my name. No one
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thought I was doing anything worth anything. I was just like a blend in the
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crowd of of college students. Okay. You’re not your prize student. That’s valid. Yeah. And I got an internship at a
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studio in LA for the summer. Um, so I went and at the end of the internship
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they were like you can go spend 150,000 h 100,000 more dollars and like end up
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back here like cleaning our toilets in two years or you can just stay and like
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maybe you’ll start getting paid in like six months or a year. And I was like okay cool. I’m like too broke to fly
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back to Boston anyway. I’ll just stay. Um the weather’s better here anyway. I did.
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I loved the weather and I didn’t know anyone. Um I couldn’t really go anywhere. I had I had a little bachelor
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sublet um in WeHo. Uhhuh. And that seems to be the town everybody
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lands in. That’s where you have to live. It’s like West Hollywood, you know. Um it sounds so LA, right?
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And um and it’s rent controlled. And it it was rent controlled. Like looking back now, the That’s why I landed there, you know.
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It’s like, oh, cheap apartment. Okay. And it’s central location, too. Yep. Um, so I was there. Um, this this it was a
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very like interesting studio place. Like I, you know, I did learn a lot in co more so probably than in college. Like I
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learned how to melt. What studio was it? It’s I won’t name it because I don’t but it was like I wouldn’t I wouldn’t
25:26
recommend it. Okay. Um, and but it was a commercial studio as opposed to a private one. No, it was a private one that could be
25:33
rented to and like it was in someone’s house like that kind of thing. Um, and
25:38
the studio would be made like very cheap and affordable if you were very very legit.
25:44
And long story goes, I met who would become my publisher at the
25:52
time. His he was a producer. He was renting the studio to work with a band. And he was like, “What are you doing
25:58
here? This is so God, you and I, we have a lot of parallels. I came through a lot of the same stuff.” Absolutely. Because that’s kind of like
26:03
a way that’s like that’s kind of a way. Um and that’s what Berkeley had taught me too was like you have to like go be
26:08
that if you want to be a producer you need to go engineer like you and you will be the and someone will call you
26:15
and you also need to network. Yes. You know to just know how to be a good hang
26:20
that’s all. And like the word like network I always got scared of because I think a lot of people at Berkeley will
26:25
like give you their card or be like let’s collab and I’m like oh my god no I don’t want to collab like I just want to
26:32
hang. I just want to like you want to ask him to come do a session, you want to write for this thing, you want to like have me engineer, that’s one thing.
26:38
Or like go get lunch or go to the bar. You know what I hate is, you know, the word network used to be a noun. You
26:44
know, I don’t know when it became a verb. It did become a verb, didn’t it? That’s really funny. Um,
26:49
but it’s like just the whole idea of really understanding how to be a good hang, how to be good with other people. I think it is important.
26:54
I think that’s like the number one thing almost like next to like are you talented? Like if you are talented in a
27:01
bad hang, you’re not going to get any work. If you’re talented in a good hang, like it’s all good. Um but yeah, so event he was a publisher
27:09
6 months after I met him and he he was like, “What’s that girl at that studio doing?” And he signed up me to a
27:16
publisher. Girl, why are you here? Right. Y for sure. Um and then I was doing like the classic
27:24
LA five sessions a week, writing blah blah blah. I started only five. Yeah. five, seven, whatever in my
27:31
bedroom on like a desk I built from Home Depot kind of thing. And then he
27:37
Oh, you went to Home Depot? I like didn’t have money to buy a desk, dude. I got a used IKEA one. Okay.
27:42
You should have. I needed a big desk for all my stuff. My box
27:47
and my one preamp that my man at my publisher built for me. I was always so jealous of these people that had like real studio furniture. I
27:54
know. Cuz I was like, you know, mine’s called Mickey. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Or your glowing or something like that.
28:01
So funny. Yeah. So, yeah. So, and then they he they realized I could engineer really well
28:06
and so I would get to like engineer a lot of the artists on the publishing company like Nelly, like Diplo,
28:13
um Tony Canal from No Doubt, like Brian Lee. I would engineer a lot. So, a bunch of nobodies. Yeah.
28:20
Yeah. And it would it was teaching me to learn and I was getting paid to like be in a room that I wouldn’t have gotten in
28:27
as a producer, as a writer on my own. Yeah. And then, long story short, I’m doing
28:32
that forever. It’s like not I don’t know what’s happening. And then Evan, my
28:38
publisher, becomes a manager kind of head in ANR over at Crush Management. And
28:45
he introduces me to this guy Jake Sinclair at a Halloween party. And like I DJed I I took the iPod and I was like
28:53
DJing the music. I don’t know. And Jake was like, “Your music taste is so cool.” And I was like, “Oh my god.” Um
28:58
whatever. I didn’t even want to go to the Halloween party. I was just going out um because I I I said I would go out
29:04
and we hit it off. Those are the ones that always work, you know. I was like, “I don’t want to go out.” Oh, baby. The things that I’ve said no to I’ve
29:10
regret I regret. I’m like, “Why didn’t I just freaking show up at that thing?” Uh-huh. Um, but yeah, and then I I hit it off
29:18
with Jake. A couple months later, he breaks his arm and he needs help in the studio.
29:24
Um, it’s Weezer and his 5 Seconds of Summer, two days that week. And we like
29:29
started this like really cool relationship of where I would engineer all these records that he was producing.
29:34
He had was Butch Walker’s engineer and he had just had a hit with 5 Seconds of Summer on his own and he had his own
29:40
studio in Echo Echo Park above Vintage King and like we like so began this like
29:46
beautiful process of making a handful of really cool albums together and he knew he knew I didn’t
29:53
want to be an engineer. He knew I wanted to be producing. He knew I wanted to be writing and he was always incredibly
29:58
kind and thoughtful of that. So he’s like here you go do ad pro on this. Here you you try this. like you you can I
30:05
don’t want to do this session you do this session you know and that’s a long long story it led to we me working with
30:13
Weezer for several albums as engineer then vocal producer then blah and then
30:19
um I they were like looking for their next producer for this album called Van
30:25
Weezer and they were like should we go to like one of the old school dudes like
30:30
we always do should we what if we tried this pearl that
30:35
knows us. Uhhuh. That we’ve been working with for five albums now. And so I got asked to do
30:41
that and I had I remember specifically two like a week or two before I got asked I was at the Grammys and I had
30:48
like worked on three albums in the rock album of the year category and one was I wrote a song with Ghost. I like I helped
30:55
him finish writing a song and like Rivers loves Ghost and he was like he was like you worked on that. And I was
31:01
like, “Yeah, oh, I love it. I love it.” So that was also the the association with Michael Binhorn was through Weezer.
31:07
So So on I think it was that album. I really can’t remember. It might I think
31:12
it was Van Weezer. Michael Binehorn was our like I don’t know what to call him.
31:18
Consultant guidance. Like he does these like he gives like production production
31:24
evaluation. Yeah. Yeah. And we’ll like update give updates on every revision of the song. Um
31:32
Yeah. Michael’s been doing that for a while. Yeah. It was really cool. Yeah. I like looked back and he’s really good
31:37
at it. I congratulated him when the email or when the album finally came out because it got delayed because of co and
31:42
he goes, “What album are you talking about?” And I was like, “Oh my god, I don’t know. What am I talking about?”
31:48
Um but yeah, so that’s where that relationship began and like kind of led to where all of this is now.
31:56
That’s been a really interesting path. A lot of saying yes to stuff. Saying yes. One time I said no. I think
32:03
about this time all the time. I said no to going to engineer and they were going to offer me publishing on this Brian Lee
32:09
Ali Tamposie um Lou Bell song. They were working with
32:15
Kigo and it the song ended up being this it ain’t it’s called it ain’t me by
32:20
Selena Gomez and Kigo. It was a freaking massive song and I said no because they
32:27
texted me at 11 p.m. and I didn’t want to go and I was doing all this other stuff and I was working with Jake and
32:32
like I don’t know. And I think I think I like have the screenshots of like that text
32:37
and I’ll like look about at it sometimes and be like it could have all been different. Maybe not.
32:44
Maybe it could have been a they would have written a different song, a not good song, you know? And and you know there’s all these
32:49
different paths that we could go on, you know. It’s very true. But I always say like say yes. Just like say say yes.
32:56
Yeah. That’s I mean I think that’s one of the biggest most important things right there because you know a lot of
33:04
times we’re afraid to say yes for something because we don’t think we know. Every time I said yes, I would be so terrified. I’d be like, “Oh my god, I
33:10
have to go to this session at 11 p.m. and like Katy Perry’s gonna come. Is she not going to come? I hope she doesn’t
33:15
show up. I hope she just cancels.” you know, and it’s then I’m like always thankful and like lucky for it and it’s
33:21
it it’s amazing, but your brain wants to say no, no, no, your brain wants to keep you safe. So like all that new stuff
33:28
like you’re like no no no no no no no no no no you’re you’re not ready don’t do that don’t do you know. Well that and that’s funny because you
33:35
will be on the panel that we’re doing at the AS show and what am I calling that panel feel the fear and say yes anyway.
33:42
Absolutely. Absolutely. which has been the story of, you know, not only my career, your career, but so many
33:48
people’s careers, you know, because really it’s like, what have you got to lose? But we’re
33:53
always afraid of of what? Of looking bad, of screwing up. I don’t know, you
33:59
know. Yeah, absolutely. I’m still like, if there’s like a a sick session I’m excited about, I’m like, “Oh, I’m going
34:05
to kuke it so hard. Oh god, this is going to be so stressful.” I’m like panicking, you know, the whole like
34:11
probably 24 hours leading up to it. Not total meltdown panic, but it’s that back of my voice.
34:16
Well, that and that’s the the stuff we were talking about earlier with neurodiversity. You know, the two big traits in neurodeiversity are anxiety.
34:24
Yes. Right. Which is worrying about a future that we have no control over anyway. Right. So true.
34:29
Right. And then imposttor syndrome. Yeah. Which is like we are for the most part
34:34
most of us who work in in this kind of artistic field, we are we are the
34:40
epitome of the imposttor syndrome. Right. Absolutely. Like who me? I know. You know, it’s very true.
34:45
Oh, I girlfriend, I’m the textbook case of that, you know. Seriously, I I I totally get that. Same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like
34:52
that’s really part I think it’s part of our DNA, you know. It is. It It absolutely is. And it’s
34:58
terrifying. I It’s so funny. I I told you before we did the podcast today, like I did like 14 hours of
35:04
psychological testing, whatever, and like I saw my therapist notes to the psychiatric or psychologist and they
35:09
were like, “We believe Susie has GAD,” which is anxiety dis. And I was like, “Oh, do we believe Susie has GA?” Yeah.
35:17
You think? Yeah. But yeah, it it’s it’s very interesting. And your brain doesn’t care
35:24
if you’re happy. I learned. Right. It cares if you’re safe. Right. Exactly.
35:29
And it leans negative and that and that’s just it. We do we we adapt these behaviors because they are a
35:36
defense mechanism to keep us safe. And if we don’t take the chance, if we say, you know, stay here in our little
35:42
safe box, then we’re not going to get hurt. It’s true. And there’s like I think too now in like modern times like 2025
35:48
especially, like this like I’m setting boundaries. I’m setting healthy boundaries. I need me time. I need
35:54
decompression time. I like Yes. But I think it’s also like preventing a lot of people from like having community and
35:59
like developing meaningful relationships and deep relationships and which could
36:04
be with an artist which could be forming a band because it’s like you want to be so isolated with your little
36:10
phone scrolling away. Yeah. Scrolling life away. Well, and and yeah, and that’s the thing
36:15
is um you know and I was telling you earlier about these workshops that I do. Same thing. You know, a lot of people
36:21
we’re so deep in those screens that we lose touch. We we don’t understand like facial expressions, we
36:27
don’t understand nuance, you know, there’s this connection that happens just in facial expressions, in those
36:34
nuances, you know. Absolutely. And same thing with, you know, when you talk about musicians playing together.
36:39
Absolutely. This is stuff that if you if you have come up in, you know,
36:45
working on the screen all the time. Yeah. And if you have come up with talking to people this way all the time with your
36:52
thumbs, you know. Yep. That somebody says something, you don’t necessarily catch the nuance of the tone
36:59
of voice. Yes. Or something. Oh my god. Tone of voice is always misinterpreted.
37:04
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and I think it’s so important to be able to, you know, get
37:10
out there and do these kind of human interchanges. Yeah.
37:15
Because Yeah. You know, all of a sudden you read people completely differently. Mhm. Obviously that’s I think that’s key to
37:22
you know part of part of your success in the sense of like okay I’ve learned how
37:28
to actually not just work with people but communicate with people. Absolutely. Yeah. And even like I think
37:35
like when I do vocals or when I do any kind of tracking where I can see everyone like especially vocals like
37:40
there’s a lot of the time where I don’t need to verbally communicate what I’m about to do.
37:45
Yep. you kind of just like look at each other or you just like sigh or like what like not me the artist um you know and
37:52
like that means like another take or like you know it’s very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know because the
37:58
creative process is so fragile in certain ways it’s like that little sigh
38:04
could totally change everything. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Or like you know I remember um a lot of
38:09
times when I’ve been working with a band that’s tracking live I will have somebody else running
38:15
recording and I’ll go out into the room. Yeah, for sure. And I’ll just like uh I remember one
38:21
particular time I got in front of the drummer and I was just jumping up and down like a [ __ ] ape,
38:27
you know, to just like egg him on. Yeah. No, for sure. For sure. Because you can hear that. You hear that in the
38:33
recording. Yeah, you do. You do. And you know, I think sometimes that’s exactly what it takes.
38:38
Absolutely. Is to make that sort of human contact with them. you know, that’s that’s the artist thing.
38:45
Very true. So, I’m going to wrap with the question that I usually wrap with because I think
38:50
we we’re we’ve kind of got a great segue into it here. Um,
38:56
you have now kind of reached a certain point in your work and you’ve had all
39:03
these experiences. What do you tell 15year-old you now? Oh
39:09
my gosh. What do I tell me? Uh, I would say
39:16
I would say, “Hey, you want to do this? Keep playing your guitar and writing
39:24
songs and just be you.” And also skip college and just move to LA and go hunt
39:30
down Max Martin or Rick Rubin and or whoever you want to learn from and get
39:37
into that room. Because if I had been told that, I would have just not stopped until I found one of those great
39:45
producers and been like, can I intern? Can I I’ll do it for free. I’ll just be let me let me whatever, you know. Um
39:50
but there’s dozens of people who want to do that. Now, yet you still have to do the work.
39:56
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and in my brain, I was like, you have to go to college first. you
40:01
have you must go to college and then you can find the assistant job or the intern
40:07
position at the Village Recorder or United or East West and that’s how you will advance. Like I for some reason I
40:14
had all these like proper rules in my head that I didn’t know I could break. Ah yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s the
40:20
that’s the big one right there is you know learn the rules and then break them, right? I know. I know. I should I should have
40:25
bro I should have broken them earlier. I don’t know. I think you’ve done well with breaking them. Yeah. Yeah. It’s true. It’s true.
40:31
Awesome. Yeah. Okay. Well, Susie Shin, thank you so much for being my guest. Thank you so much, Daniel. It’s been
40:36
awesome. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
40:43
Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.