Insights In Sound 214 – Dave Carlock, Producer/Engineer S22 E4

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0:2929 secondsI’m here at the Hideout Studios with entrepreneur, rockur, producer, songwriter,
0:3636 secondsRV vagabond, and allaround badass Dave Carlock. Good morning, Daniel. Good morning. Nice to see you.
0:4444 secondsNice to see you.
0:4646 secondsSo, um, let’s open up with just a little bit on you. Okay. It’s all about you. Okay. We know that, right?
0:5252 secondsWell, you know, it’s it’s a collaborative. I love it to be about you as well. So, it’s all about us.
0:5757 secondsIt’s about us. And here we are just for a moment. So tell me a little bit about uh some of the stuff you Well, I already know, but tell our viewers and
1:051 minute, 5 secondslisteners a little bit about what you’ve done and what you do.
1:081 minute, 8 secondsWell, let’s see. Uh the thing that I kind of marvel at when I look back at the the projects I’ve worked on is they’re so diverse. You know, never
1:171 minute, 17 secondsreally planning how these things were to happen. You know, I was a pop guy. I love pop music. I love the charts. I love dance music. And so I always
1:251 minute, 25 secondsimagined I was going to work with pop artists. Well, somewhere along the way, I not only worked with pop artists, but then I ended up working with some of the top punk rock artists. So, I had this
1:341 minute, 34 secondswild, you know, kind of blend of pop, punk rock, pop music, classic rock music, hiphop. It was very interesting
1:441 minute, 44 secondsto look back and say, how did I get in all those places in all those spaces? So I think a lot of us who are musically
1:511 minute, 51 secondsdiverse, we really kind of transcend those arbitrary boundaries, you know? I mean, it’s not unexpected for someone
2:002 minuteswho’s musically diverse, right? I And one of the maxims, of course, that so many producers follow is the idea that you let the song dictate where it wants to go.
2:092 minutes, 9 secondsYep.
2:102 minutes, 10 secondsAnd uh the song really dictated where I ended up being because it was all about the songs for me. So early on, you know,
2:172 minutes, 17 secondssome of my first sort of foray into uh, you know, professional record making was through certain relationships I had. Uh,
2:242 minutes, 24 secondsone of the initial people who helped me a lot in LA was CJ Vanston. He actually was a Michigan guy. I’m a Michigan guy.
2:312 minutes, 31 secondsAnd oddly back in Michigan, I I collaborated with a mutual friend of ours named Tony Katana on some live performances. He said, “You know, if you
2:392 minutes, 39 secondsever get out to LA, you know, you should contact CJ Vanston.” And CJ, by the way, I just want to say, just
2:472 minutes, 47 secondswant to point out here was episode number one of this show. I noticed that. Yes. Yeah.
2:532 minutes, 53 secondsAnd so I kept that in the back of my mind. He said, “You know, CJ plays on everything. He’s incredible keyboard player.” He says, “There’s certain things about CJ that really remind me of
3:003 minutesyou and you’re doing all this MIDI stuff and keyboard stuff and one man band stuff and all these things.” And uh of course you know what an incredible
3:083 minutes, 8 secondscompliment. I could never compare to CJ’s talents in the areas where he ex you know excels. I mean he’s incredible.
3:153 minutes, 15 secondsAnd uh but uh you know was inspiring to think wow there’s a guy out there that kind of like me. He makes me think of it makes him think of CJ. I’ve got to like
3:243 minutes, 24 secondsfind this guy. So I went to New York for a few years and um worked uh the first uh producers I worked with were uh Mark Leig and Chris Barbosa. Ah.
3:343 minutes, 34 secondsAnd and they were actually uh they received a a song demo of mine that I delivered at the new music seminar in
3:413 minutes, 41 secondsNew York in New York uh with Johnny Copela from CBS. And he delivered to them said, you know, he said this three songs, man, on this on this tape, you
3:503 minutes, 50 secondsknow, like I sent this off to them. I think it’d be perfect for this artist, George Lamont. I think you’d be great.
3:553 minutes, 55 secondsNow, the last song is great. I told them, don’t even listen to the first two songs. Listen to the third song. So, of course, I’m thinking the first song is
4:034 minutes, 3 secondsgoing to be the best song. That’s why we led with that on the demo. He said, “You’re going to hear from him in about a month. We’ll see what happens.” And,
4:114 minutes, 11 secondsyou know, maybe they can use one of your songs. So, I’m like waiting. Okay. So, about a month or so later, I hear from Mark Liot. And he goes, “Man,” he says,
4:184 minutes, 18 seconds”Really like this song.” I said, “Oh, the third song.” You’re like, “Oh, no, no. Uh, John Copla said, don’t even listen to the first two songs.” So, the first thing I did was listen to the first two songs.
4:284 minutes, 28 secondsOf course. Like you do. Yeah. Right.
4:314 minutes, 31 secondsAnd he said uh so actually we wanted the other song. So he didn’t like the one that John liked and he liked the other one which I thought actually was the
4:404 minutes, 40 secondssong that probably had the least chance of going anywhere. That’s why I put it where I put it. That song ended up going on George Le Man’s first record, Bad of
4:484 minutes, 48 secondsthe Heart, with a rewrite. So I rewrote it, wrote a new chorus and boom. So that we were off to the races. First thing was a songwriter in Colombia. And then
4:574 minutes, 57 secondsafter that, moved to New York for a couple of years, made some connections, did some tech work with uh Peter Moshe, which was really Oh, I know Peter.
5:055 minutes, 5 secondsOh, yeah. He’s great.
5:065 minutes, 6 secondsHe works now at uh Is he still working with Daryl? Daryl Hall, I believe so. Yeah.
5:115 minutes, 11 secondsAnd so, you know, he’s been behind Daryl’s house. He’s Yeah, he’s a brilliant dude, man.
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsHe’s managed to fit amazing an amazing amount of tech into a little closet, you know, back when Daryl was shooting in the in his previous space, right?
5:255 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. Uhhuh.
5:255 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. So he, you know, he helped Daryl get that studio set up in in Pauling, New York. Took the long train ride up the metro north, I believe it was, to
5:345 minutes, 34 secondsuh Pauling and checked it out and that became Daryl’s house eventually.
5:395 minutes, 39 secondsAnd uh so started uh you know uh working a bit with Peter also met up with Henry Hirs who was doing all the Lenny Kravitz
5:475 minutes, 47 secondsstuff at that time. That was a another brilliant dude. Yeah.
5:505 minutes, 50 secondsRight. Right. Super smart, super talented. And um I was sort of in this position where I needed to get out of my
5:575 minutes, 57 secondsday gig to start doing this full-time because I’ve been producing in my studio in Michigan for a long time. And that’s when I did all the George Lemon stuff in
6:056 minutes, 5 secondsthe song demos. End up doing three songs with George over a couple records including a Christmas song. And um so I was waiting to kind of break out of the
6:136 minutes, 13 secondsday gig. And I got the call from uh Lenny’s manager, Mark Brown, I think his name
6:206 minutes, 20 secondswas, and uh he’s like, you know, we’re looking for somebody who can run Studio Vision and ProTools. Well, I was a
6:276 minutes, 27 secondsdigital performer guy, and I just had a baby. My wife had just had a baby and I was like, hm, so I’m going to have to definitely quit my job living in New
6:366 minutes, 36 secondsYork. I don’t know studio vision, and I’m thinking if it goes great, it would be great. If it goes bad, I’m gonna be screwed.
6:446 minutes, 44 secondsUm, as I remember, there wasn’t that big a jump between between OPC code and DP in those days, though, in terms of the user interface.
6:526 minutes, 52 secondsSort of like that. It was kind of like the Neo moment where he’s got to walk out on the ledge and he it’s like, should I do this? And he said, “No, I’m going to go back inside.”
7:007 minutesSo, I end up staying with my job because I just thought it was a little too risky with a new baby.
7:057 minutes, 5 secondsAnd um the next thing you know, the five album came out and uh they got a Grammy for it. I was like, “Ah, damn it. Damn it. That might
7:147 minutes, 14 secondshave been me if I hadn’t gotten fired.” Uhhuh.
7:167 minutes, 16 secondsUh, so, you know, it kind of taught me about risk-taking and that was a little bit too much of a risk for me at that moment. But about a year later, moved to
7:247 minutes, 24 secondsLA and um looked up CJ Vanston. So, I was at the time working at Westlake Audio, which is a good hub to meet a lot of people. Yep.
7:327 minutes, 32 secondsAnd um connected with CJ and through CJ, met a bunch of different people, ended up meeting Greg Leadani.
7:387 minutes, 38 secondsAbout what what era would this have been? ’90s. That would have been 98. Okay. Mhm.
7:447 minutes, 44 seconds90s. Yeah, probably 98. So, kind of hung out with CJ a bit, met some people, was lucky enough to meet uh Greg Ladani who
7:527 minutes, 52 secondswas looking for somebody to partner up with to do his title wave entertainment.
7:567 minutes, 56 secondsSo, that was the other big moment. The next big moment came up about probably late 999
8:058 minutes, 5 secondsand two things happened. And another person I met through CJ, Keith Marks, uh he was working with Stixs. Mhm.
8:128 minutes, 12 secondsGood buddy. And um so I got a call from Keith and I’ve been doing some some tech work with Tommy Shaw, making some in inroads, just small stuff. And uh Keith
8:218 minutes, 21 secondsgoes, you know, you want to do this thing? We’re going to be at the record plant. Sticks is doing a new record with Ron Neon, which of course I was like, oh my god, Ron Neon, right? You know, he
8:298 minutes, 29 secondsworked at Quadrophenia. I was a huge Who fan. Got the best vocal performances out of Roger Daltry ever. So, it’s like, h, what am I going to do? I’m going to have
8:378 minutes, 37 secondsto quit this job because they’re going to need me. And, uh, I just was like, what am I going to do? So, I’m thinking back to New York, right? Thinking about
8:458 minutes, 45 secondsfive, not going to make that mistake again. Right.
8:488 minutes, 48 secondsRight. And of course, you know, Matt Noble, who the great Matt Noble did the five gig and got the Grammy for that. I don’t want to be another repeat. Right.
8:558 minutes, 55 secondsLike, here’s this opportunity. And so, um, it didn’t happen fast enough, but then it was two things. It was Keith
9:039 minutes, 3 secondsMarks and Greg at the same time were saying, you know, I’ve got these records I want you to work on. And so I missed
9:109 minutes, 10 secondsthe record plant gig with Sticks and then Greg at the same time offered to have me involved on the Hoguadas record.
9:169 minutes, 16 secondsAnd so I said, I got to do it. So I got to make the jump. So I jumped out of the day gig at Westlake Audio and went independent and it’s kind of been
9:259 minutes, 25 secondsindependent ever since. So I started working with Greg Leani, did a few records, co-producing with him. Um, so the first big official producer credit was the Tubes World Tour 2001 record.
9:369 minutes, 36 secondsNow, I was a huge Tubes fan. That’s Yeah, that’s really interesting.
9:409 minutes, 40 secondsI had some six degree separation with with the folks from the tubes back when I lived in San Francisco. So, yeah, that
9:479 minutes, 47 secondswas a that was a very interesting and um fragmented diverse camp of people, right? you know, the whole uh Leela and
9:559 minutes, 55 secondsthe Snakes and and uh you know, that that whole evolution of uh all the San Francisco sort of punk new wave scene.
10:0410 minutes, 4 secondsThat was a really interesting bunch of people for sure.
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsOh, yeah. And you know, I I did a little bit of a refresher dive looking into who the tubes were. And there was a lot of things I I mean, I knew the hits of the
10:1610 minutes, 16 secondstubes because I was a huge David Foster fan because of the pop world and all the stuff you do with Earth, Window, and Fire. So that was where I kind of always imagined I would kind of end up right in that kind of a world.
10:2610 minutes, 26 secondsInteresting.
10:2610 minutes, 26 secondsSo um I knew the tubes from David Foster and uh when Greg said, “Yeah, we’ve got this opportunity to do this record with the tubes.” I was like all over it. And
10:3510 minutes, 35 secondsso working with Fee was incredible. So that was the first like really major co-production credit I got with Greg and I. And then again in sort of the world
10:4310 minutes, 43 secondsof you just go with the opportunities and follow them and don’t worry about where it’s going to end up. Just do the work. show up at the end of the record.
10:5210 minutes, 52 secondsThey wanted to take this live record and kind of finesse it a bit and release it with two new tracks. So, at the very end
11:0111 minutes, 1 secondof the record, they contacted David to see if he would co-write one of the new songs. So, David Foster was on board to co-produce one of those tunes. And I was
11:1011 minutes, 10 secondslike, I can’t believe it. So, you know, the first major credit I had for that for that record had a co-production credit alongside David Foster. It’s like
11:1911 minutes, 19 secondsthis is I mean how do you even plan for this? You can’t do much better than that. Yeah.
11:2311 minutes, 23 secondsI mean so it was amazing. Went out and worked with uh with his engineer out in Malibu at the old place he used to have
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsand um got that. So it was it was David Foster, Steve Lucther came in to co-write. So they kind of recreated that team that they had with uh she’s a
11:3811 minutes, 38 secondsbeauty and um co-wrote that with Fee and and got to work with Prairie and the whole bit and made some really lasting relationships within that band. I worked
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondskind of side by side with Gary Camber a lot who was Oh wow. Okay.
11:5011 minutes, 50 secondsAnd Gary super talent man. I mean Yes. Another another um kind of bubbling under kind of talent that a lot of people don’t know about. Yeah.
11:5811 minutes, 58 secondsNo doubt. And then after that record was released. I mean I went on to continue to work with Gary on several records. He
12:0512 minutes, 5 secondsdid a bunch of uh independent production things. Um we’re still working together today. If I’m going to see him in a couple couple weeks, I always like to drop in and say hi to him. We go back
12:1412 minutes, 14 secondsthrough the 80 heading home. we stop in and see him in California.
12:1812 minutes, 18 secondsUm, wow, what a talent that guy was. I mean, uh, we came in to do some keyboard overdubs. And so he was playing
12:2612 minutes, 26 secondskeyboards and guitar. He sort of, I think, kind of filled Bill Spooner’s place a little bit when when he left the band.
12:3412 minutes, 34 secondsAnd so he was going between guitar and keyboards. And the guy comes in and we’re doing this song called uh I believe it was Digi Doll was the name of
12:4212 minutes, 42 secondsthe song. And um he sits down and he starts trying to layer some some melatron flutes and he’s just doing this
12:5012 minutes, 50 secondsangular crazy live harmonization with the I’m going like how is this guy’s brain even working and I thought this
12:5812 minutes, 58 secondsguy is such an incredible talent. And then I later find out he hates playing keyboards. He loves guitar. I’m like how
13:0513 minutes, 5 secondscan you hate playing keyboards and do that you know? So, you know, it’s so inspiring to work with incredible musical talent.
13:1513 minutes, 15 secondsIt is. And that’s one of the things that um, you know, I think we both have in common is that we’ve been lucky enough
13:2213 minutes, 22 secondsto be a fly on the wall and sort of get, you know, get integrated into people who I mean, you know, I’ve said this many,
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondsmany times, both musically and uh, tech technological wise. I never want to be the smartest or the best person in the room, right?
13:3913 minutes, 39 secondsYou know, and other working with some of these other people that we both had the privilege to work with and just observe,
13:4613 minutes, 46 secondsman, that is I think the biggest reward because, you know, it it pushes you. It pushes you to up your game and it pushes
13:5413 minutes, 54 secondsyou to really try things that you may not have even thought of. You know, I think as artists, we
14:0214 minutes, 2 secondswe don’t know what we don’t know, you know, and there’s so much stuff like a, you know, the ideas that other people
14:1014 minutes, 10 secondsbring to the equation. That’s why I love the idea of collaborating. I’ve, you know, I’ve always felt like even though,
14:1914 minutes, 19 secondsyou know, both of us came up in an era of multitrack where we learned how to layer stuff, we learned how to be a
14:2814 minutes, 28 secondsone-man band, quote unquote, right?
14:3014 minutes, 30 secondsBut at the same time, we also learned the value of working with other really, really talented people and how it just
14:3714 minutes, 37 secondspushes you to places you wouldn’t have gone in a way.
14:4114 minutes, 41 secondsAbsolutely. It is. Uh, and I’ve done records both ways because, you know, you can do the 80s era David Foster
14:4814 minutes, 48 secondsthing where it was him in a room knocking it all out, doing everything. Yep. We’ve both done that, too.
14:5314 minutes, 53 secondsAnd then you can do the ‘9s era David Foster where you worked with the best people. And um I’m always reminded of a
15:0215 minutes, 2 secondsMick Fleetwood quote which is um you can do things by yourself but you will definitely be a happier human being if
15:1115 minutes, 11 secondsyou make music with other people. I have always believed that and I think the whole idea of collaboration and you know
15:1815 minutes, 18 secondsit it’s interesting to me too that it’s not just that you gain these musical collaborations which of course are
15:2515 minutes, 25 secondslasting and they’re wonderful but because music is such a in so many ways a very intimate experience. You end up
15:3315 minutes, 33 secondsmaking really lifelong friends with people based on these things you’ve gone through. And to me that’s one of the
15:4015 minutes, 40 secondsmost beautiful things about it. I mean, I feel like so many people I’ve worked with in this industry just, you know, immediately become friends and, you
15:4815 minutes, 48 secondsknow, we could go for 10 years without seeing each other and just pick it up like it was yesterday, right?
15:5315 minutes, 53 secondsYou know, and I love that, man. I think that’s one of the joys of creating together, you know, and that’s why I mean, even to this day when I’m teaching students, you
16:0216 minutes, 2 secondsknow, I’m I’m encouraging them to form alliances, form partnerships, even if it’s something that you don’t think is going to work,
16:1016 minutes, 10 secondsright? you know, because you’re going to be surprised, right?
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondsYou’re always going to be surprised at what somebody else brings to the equation. 100%.
16:1816 minutes, 18 secondsAnd uh beyond surprised, I feel that it’s juice, man. I mean, oh, definitely.
16:2316 minutes, 23 secondsIt’s juice. It’s like, you know, I mean, there’s no greater drug than making music with somebody else because true. I
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsmean, talk about when you when you sit in a room with somebody like Gary Camber and you see these these surprises, as you say, I mean, it just lights me up.
16:4016 minutes, 40 secondsYeah.
16:4116 minutes, 41 secondsAnd inspires you. It makes you want to practice more. It makes you want to make music more. It makes you want to work with great artists more. And that is really the key.
16:5016 minutes, 50 secondsOh, yeah. So much better than locking yourself in a room and programming drums for five hours.
16:5516 minutes, 55 secondsWell, and and you know, like for me personally, because my main instrument is bass, you know, I I can jam with with
17:0317 minutes, 3 secondsloops and beats all day long, but give me a live drummer who’s, you know, we’re going to get the eye contact going.
17:0917 minutes, 9 secondsWe’re going to get the thing where, you know, I may play something and they they’ll catch it the next time around or vice versa and we’ll lock in on
17:1817 minutes, 18 secondssomething unique. That to me is what makes those moments, you know, and a lot of them are, you know, my favorite phrase, happy accidents,
17:2517 minutes, 25 secondsright? You know, when when I visited you at Crass a couple weeks ago in Phoenix and you brought out the drum circle, I thought
17:3317 minutes, 33 secondsthat was a fantastic part and great exercise in the artist brain, you know, uh, conversation you had with all those
17:4117 minutes, 41 secondsstudents because it really demonstrates to people who probably more than ever at that age level and generational level are used to making things in a vacuum.
17:5117 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. Um, it shows them how just playing drums, hand drums together, you react and change based on what the guy next to you is doing.
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondYes.
18:0118 minutes, 1 secondAnd it’s such a great lesson and I love that part of your presentation.
18:0618 minutes, 6 secondsI really felt that that was something very, very valuable. And you know, it’s so funny because when people think of drum circles, it’s like, oh, hippies and
18:1318 minutes, 13 secondssmoking pot and you know, all that stuff. And yeah, there’s an element of that. There can be an element of that, but the whole idea of, you know, to me eye contact with other musicians.
18:2518 minutes, 25 secondsThere’s just something about that energy exchange. And, you know, look, music is energy.
18:3218 minutes, 32 secondsYou know, music is communication. That’s why we do this. I think, you know, so many of us, we forget because we get so
18:3918 minutes, 39 secondssucked into the technology, which is awesome. I mean, you know, the amount of technology we have these days to create music is just mindboggling, right?
18:4818 minutes, 48 secondsEspecially if you talk about people who have come up in the, you know, the 80s, 90s when we were dealing with 2-in tape and we were dealing with limited number
18:5618 minutes, 56 secondsof tracks and things you had to work with. Now, the it’s almost like the amount of restrictions is completely
19:0519 minutes, 5 secondsremoved, right? And I think there’s a value to those restrictions and I think it encourages more interplay between
19:1219 minutes, 12 secondspeople. I think you know um my first multitrack was a fourtrack
19:1919 minutes, 19 secondsTX 3340 you know and my my first synth was a pro one. My second synth was a Juno 106
19:2819 minutes, 28 secondsand I had that Juno for 20 years something like that. But I used it on multiple projects over the years.
19:3519 minutes, 35 secondsAnd one of the things that I think is really valuable there is you have to milk the hell out of stuff. You have to go past those restrictions and figure
19:4519 minutes, 45 secondsout like, “No, I want this sound and how am I going to get that?” You know, and it’s a lot different than just saying, “Okay, let me go through the patches and
19:5219 minutes, 52 secondsfind something that works.” You know, really having to push things. And I, you know, you can go back to like the whole Abbey Road thing of like, you know,
20:0120 minutes, 1 secondpeople coming to the engineers at Abbey Road, guys like Ken Scott and Jeff Emerick, you know, and just saying like,
20:0820 minutes, 8 secondscan you make it sound a little more this or that, you know, and using these esoteric terms and you can just picture
20:1520 minutes, 15 secondsguys like Jeff Emerick just, you know, going home and laying in bed at night and going, “How am I going to do this?” you know, coming up with the idea of
20:2220 minutes, 22 secondslike I’m going to hold a a loop out here with a pencil, you know, and all of that stuff. And I think that’s such a such a great thing to be able to just say, how
20:3020 minutes, 30 secondsam I going to milk the hell out of this, find something different, you know?
20:3520 minutes, 35 secondsWell, another inspiration on the technical side is I mean, all I don’t know if people realize who are younger perhaps, but they were making this stuff
20:4220 minutes, 42 secondsup like on the spot in Abbey Road. like they didn’t have a parametric EQ for all those years and you know these things didn’t exist things that we just absolutely take for granted.
20:5120 minutes, 51 secondsYeah.
20:5120 minutes, 51 secondsYou know and uh or they had one box and had to make it do 20 different things. Right. You know. Exactly.
20:5720 minutes, 57 secondsAnd I think that that’s the other thing too is the idea of figuring out how to make things do things they weren’t intended for.
21:0521 minutes, 5 secondsRight.
21:0621 minutes, 6 secondsYou know, it’s like I I’ve mentioned this a few times. the idea that I think I love to take something and give it to
21:1321 minutes, 13 secondspeople and say don’t read the manual just figure out how you can break it right you know breaking it figure out how you can make it do things
21:2021 minutes, 20 secondsthere was a um there’s a guy that I interviewed uh um Richard Factor the inventor and one of the founders of
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsEven Tide and he was telling me when they created the harmonizer they had no idea what people were going to do with it right
21:3621 minutes, 36 secondsyou know and I love that man I love the idea that you take things and just create something out of it that wasn’t intended for.
21:4421 minutes, 44 secondsYeah. Even if it’s just being a prop on a science fiction film.
21:4821 minutes, 48 secondsWas it was it alien? Alien. It was alien, right? Oh, yeah. I know. That’s great, man. It’s like, you know, Yeah.
21:5321 minutes, 53 secondsShe’s like plotting the the way through the universe with an even time, you know?
21:5721 minutes, 57 secondsRight. But no, absolutely right on the on the limitations. And I think about that a lot with EQs because you know with all the EQ plugins you can
22:0422 minutes, 4 secondsliterally kind of do anything until they began to model things like the API etc.
22:0922 minutes, 9 secondsAnd um you know you can kind of get lost in too many options when you realize all these great sounding records were made with the limitations of console EQs.
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondsYeah.
22:1922 minutes, 19 secondsAnd um so I think that’s a really great historical lesson in terms of how to create sound. So yeah, you can break anything. That’s that’s one discipline
22:2722 minutes, 27 secondswhich is a great discipline. But then when you’re trying to realize that sometimes having every choice available to you just doesn’t get you necessarily where you want to go.
22:3622 minutes, 36 secondsNo, you end up um with what I call the paralysis of analysis. You know, you end up going through a 100 reverb settings, right?
22:4422 minutes, 44 secondsYou know, when uh you know, the truth of the matter is um if you if you strip it down to like the
22:5122 minutes, 51 secondstwo or three reverbs that you use the most, guarantee you you can get a great record out of just that, right? you know, and quicker. And that’s
23:0023 minutesthe other part of that is committing to things, you know, commitments. Commitment. I know, right? Artists commitments. What?
23:0723 minutes, 7 secondsYeah, I know. We’re always afraid of commitment. Yes. Was it the word or was it the caffeine?
23:1023 minutes, 10 secondsI’m not sure. The heart kind of a little bit of both. Right.
23:1323 minutes, 13 secondsBut you know the whole idea of like um you know if I have unlimited tracks which I do these days
23:2123 minutes, 21 secondsI think I’m as an artist I’m then not compelled to bring my agame because I can say I can always try another one. I
23:2923 minutes, 29 secondscan always do another vocal take and then you end up with 20 30 vocal takes.
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondsYou have no idea what you have and you have this chopped up performance.
23:3723 minutes, 37 secondsWhereas if you only have two tracks for a vocal, you’re going to commit to that.
23:4423 minutes, 44 secondsYou’re going to do a vocal that’s that this great performance. And and it’s not to say that you can’t compile an amazing
23:5223 minutes, 52 secondsvocal track out of, you know, God bless Phineas, you know, I mean, the dude’s amazing and people can do that. But on the other hand, you
24:0124 minutes, 1 secondknow, there there are people who can do a single take all the way through. And there’s a certain validity to that and
24:0824 minutes, 8 secondsto committing to that. And I just I love the idea that some of the most classic records and performances were done in a
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondsroom together, you know, the James Jamersons of the world, you know, who just like, hey, I’ll play it, you know, boom, beautiful all the way through.
24:2524 minutes, 25 secondsAnd you do have to have kind of the right people for that.
24:2724 minutes, 27 secondsOh, definitely. which is again like if I want to use the analogy the ‘9s David Foster versus the ‘8s David Foster, right?
24:3324 minutes, 33 secondsBut a couple of things on that. Uh first thing is talking with Fee about how David used to do his vocals.
24:4124 minutes, 41 secondsThis was an interesting thing and I still I still feel that for a particular thing this is super valid. If you get a great singer, what they used to do is I
24:4924 minutes, 49 secondsguess David at the time used to have like like a little comp box that he that he would just uh like run the faders
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsthrough and they they do comps once they got the tracks done. So that’s cool.
25:0125 minutes, 1 secondSo what he used to do is they used to have him just get the best take on take one, you know, maybe punch a couple times,
25:0925 minutes, 9 secondsjust really get it down. and he’d do eight tracks of this and then they’d compile they’d comp the super take and
25:1725 minutes, 17 secondsthen they’d take the super take and he’d say, “Okay, Fee, go back out and beat it. Give me eight more.” So he’d beat the Super Take with seven more tracks.
25:2725 minutes, 27 secondsSo he would literally just take these incredible singers like Fee Way Bill and just grind them to raise their game. And
25:3525 minutes, 35 secondsthat’s why you’re hearing so many incredible vocal performances from David Foster’s vocal production because he,
25:4325 minutes, 43 secondsyou know, if you can get that super inspired first take, that’s beautiful.
25:4725 minutes, 47 secondsBut you, you know, he’s ultra perfectionistic, but that’s why these vocalists are heralded as being some of the greatest vocalists. It you in live
25:5625 minutes, 56 secondsperformance, amazing stuff comes out of them, but there is still a lot of crafting, you know.
26:0126 minutes, 1 secondOh, definitely. Definitely. And of course they’re not, you know, they’re not going to tell you that, you know, one of some of the greatest vocalists in the world still are being crafted that way. Oh, hell yes.
26:0926 minutes, 9 secondsBut, you know, that’s how they get there. Then the other part is, of course, you know, you do get those one takers where you’ve got the band assembled.
26:1726 minutes, 17 secondsUh, so that’s there’s something really valid to that. And I tend to want to work vocalists harder because I am of
26:2526 minutes, 25 secondsthat mindset and model. Um, and sometimes for newer artists it can be a little bit like disorienting because
26:3326 minutes, 33 secondsthey’re so used to just if they don’t have their own studio yet, they’re used to just trying to hit the one performance. But I’m always trying to
26:4226 minutes, 42 secondstake them to the next level, right? Um, the other thing about committing that I found was interesting is in terms of the
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondsway that the records were done, one of the greatest things I learned from Greg Leadani, who had did of course, you know, Jackson Brown, he did he mixed
26:5826 minutes, 58 secondsAfrica, he mixed Rosanna by Toto, of course these tracks today have gone on to whole other catastrophic heights through streaming.
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsUm, he got he got a Grammy for that album.
27:0927 minutes, 9 secondsUm, and so many others. Don Henley’s Building the Perfect Beast. I mean, what an incredible opportunity to work with him and be alongside of him and see what
27:1927 minutes, 19 secondshe had learned to distill down to his working style at that point. You know, at the time it was the end of the ‘9s.
27:2627 minutes, 26 secondsUm, so many of my favorite records from the 70s, I found out that he was, if he didn’t produce them, he was an engineer on them. Uhhuh.
27:3427 minutes, 34 secondsYou know, incredible. So, that was a fantastic experience to have him as a mentor for a couple years when we partnered on the studio. And um one of
27:4227 minutes, 42 secondsthe things that I noticed that he was doing was he was running Alisa’s M20s which were the big dog adats
27:4927 minutes, 49 secondsessentially. So he had seven of them that were synced.
27:5327 minutes, 53 secondsSo he could get you know that’s a fair amount of tracks. Yeah. 56 tracks. Yeah.
27:5627 minutes, 56 secondsSo what he So how he used them though that was the interesting thing is he would end up I think doing 32 tracks or so or something in that range. And then
28:0528 minutes, 5 secondswhat he would end up doing is he’d kind of cut with a basic sort of general gentle EQ compression just to kind of track like you would analog tape.
28:1628 minutes, 16 secondsUh and then after that was done, he would run it through the console, kind of listen carefully, and then he would
28:2328 minutes, 23 secondscommit. So he he would do he would basically take the original masters and do a change to them to really get
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsthem to the next level and then he’d print them over to the other ADATS. So he’d basically like be working like he had two 24 track machines.
28:3928 minutes, 39 secondsOkay.
28:4028 minutes, 40 secondsSo then he’d basically take it one generation over, right? Of course, not so much in digital, but he would do all the all the sweetening. Then that would
28:4828 minutes, 48 secondsbe his new set of masters. And then from there he was primed to go into a mix mode. So, so he had the option basically of
28:5728 minutes, 57 secondsdeciding what was that that primo track basically, right? So, he would do his tracking with some basic stuff, but he wouldn’t
29:0629 minutes, 6 secondsbelabor it, get it to where it sounded right. Then he’d do a sweetening pass and then from there he would do whatever overdubs, etc. That would finish things
29:1429 minutes, 14 secondsand then all the original tracks that were cut were ready were already sweetened and ready for mix. And I always thought that was a really interesting way of
29:2329 minutes, 23 secondsworking because these days it would be if you didn’t understand that that was part of the production process for so many years for so many top engineers. Uh
29:3229 minutes, 32 secondsyou wouldn’t think to do that in the digital world because you have unlimited tracks.
29:3829 minutes, 38 secondsWell, first of all, I want to I want to go back to one thing that you were pointing out with all the stuff that Greg did. Um, and that’s um, the phrase
29:4629 minutes, 46 secondsthat I’ve heard many, many times, which is that the secret to being a great producer is to find the right people to produce, right?
29:5329 minutes, 53 secondsYou know, I mean, you’re talking about aame musicians, you know, the a team of artists and musicians and that certainly
30:0030 minuteshelps because those people are prepared to give you their top tier performance all the time, right?
30:0730 minutes, 7 secondsBut even that said, you know, how do you get there? You get there by just doing it over and over again, right? and perfecting your game. And I
30:1530 minutes, 15 secondsthink that is something that we are kind of accustomed to and I think it’s one of the things that I push
30:2330 minutes, 23 secondsartists for, you know, um I love the idea of people who are impassionate about the music, right? And a lot of
30:3230 minutes, 32 secondstimes I think that’s not necessarily the case because people a lot of people come up they’re kind of imitative. You know,
30:4030 minutes, 40 secondsthey’re they’re just looking to sound like this. And again, that comes down to the idea of do you try new things all
30:4730 minutes, 47 secondsthe time? Do you try and stretch your boundaries? Do you push yourself to do a little bit better, a little bit different? You know, and again, that
30:5530 minutes, 55 secondsgoes back to the whole idea of playing with other people. You know, I think if you’re creating music in a vacuum,
31:0331 minutes, 3 secondsyou’re not going to grow past certain self-imposed boundaries that we create just because we don’t know and we
31:1131 minutes, 11 secondshaven’t been exposed to other things, you know. That’s why I mean I loved working with a lot of different artists because they would always bring
31:1931 minutes, 19 secondssomething I hadn’t heard of, you know. I mean, right, I had one band come in and the singer, you know, I went to pick up the singer
31:2631 minutes, 26 secondsonce at his house. um German band that I worked with uh kind of a worldbeatish kind of thing called South Indian Tea Company.
31:3431 minutes, 34 secondsAnd was this is when you were in Germany?
31:3631 minutes, 36 secondsYes. This was was I was working in Germany and um because you know in in America a lot of German bands do focals. So I just wanted to make sure that we understood. We’re in Germany now.
31:4431 minutes, 44 secondsWe Yeah, we were in Germany. Yes. Got it.
31:4631 minutes, 46 secondsAnd um this singer I walked into his house and of course you know one of the first things I do is check the bookshelf and the record shelf just get an idea who these people are.
31:5631 minutes, 56 secondsThis guy’s CD collection had almost no pop, no traditional rock. He had things like Chance, Tibetan Book of the Dead,
32:0432 minutes, 4 secondsChance and Native American stuff, you know, things like that. And and I thought, you know, it’s interesting to
32:1232 minutes, 12 secondsme because there again, he and the rest of the band, too. I mean, the guitar player was, you know, into like uh sitar
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsand and ragas and stuff like that. The uh percussionist was really into uh a guy that I really admire, a
32:2732 minutes, 27 secondspercussionist named Trilock Gertu. The keyboard player was uh studying ethnomusicology
32:3332 minutes, 33 secondsand doing an internship at a an African Baptist church, you know, and so again, this particular
32:4232 minutes, 42 secondsband came in with all these really really diverse influences. And I think that is really really valuable because
32:4932 minutes, 49 secondsthen again you’re stretching your boundaries, man. You’re trying that you’ve never ever heard before, right?
32:5432 minutes, 54 secondsYou know, so how did what did you end up leading them into based on this recon this this musicologist recon that you did?
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondsI’ll give you a copy of the record.
33:0333 minutes, 3 secondsActually, we it’s it’s definitely odd and interesting. Um my stepfather
33:1033 minutes, 10 secondslistened to it and gave it back to me and said that’s a tough listen, you know. I mean it was definitely out there
33:1833 minutes, 18 secondsa little bit, you know, but um you know, it’s um I think worldbeat kind of stuff,
33:2633 minutes, 26 secondsyou know, world beat influence that’s not for everyone. And a lot of the music that you and I both do is not for everyone.
33:3233 minutes, 32 secondsYeah. you know, and I’m fine with that personally. You know, I’d rather be known for a little bit offbeat stuff than, you know, necessarily. I mean, I
33:4033 minutes, 40 secondslove pop just like you do, you know, but it’s interesting, you know, those of us who are music afficionados and appreciate music.
33:5233 minutes, 52 secondsWe appreciate all sorts of genres. We appreciate the the brilliant um you know the the the
34:0134 minutes, 1 secondMiles Davises of the world, the Jimmyi Hendrises, the the brilliant brilliant performers. Um
34:0834 minutes, 8 secondsit’s interesting. I I was having a conversation once with the the brilliant producer Susan Rogers. Oh, sure.
34:1434 minutes, 14 secondsAnd Susan pointed out something that I thought was really interesting. And she said, you know, those of us who are that
34:2134 minutes, 21 secondskind of musical appreciator, appreciator of music, we know about those artists. We we love those artists.
34:2934 minutes, 29 secondsThe average public, they want something a little bit more accessible, mainstream, you know. Um I I
34:3834 minutes, 38 secondsalways go back to um there was a show show in the uh 60s and 70s, Dick Clark’s American Band Stand.
34:4634 minutes, 46 secondsSure. and and he used to play the latest, you know, current top 40 stuff and then he would ask the teenage
34:5334 minutes, 53 secondsguests, you know, what they thought. And the the average response was like, it’s got a good beat. It’s easy to dance to. I give it an 85. There you go.
35:0035 minutesYou know, and and that’s the thing is a lot of people just want that, right?
35:0535 minutes, 5 secondsWhereas I think we’re more attuned to the that’s a little bit out there and that’s okay, you know, takes all
35:1235 minutes, 12 secondskinds. I I often think of uh Paul McCartney revealing what some of his inspirations of some of his songs were
35:2035 minutes, 20 secondsand he’s like, “Yeah, you know, when I when I wrote this song, I imagined I was Little Richard.” And you listen to it and you go, “I never got that.” Yeah. Are you kidding? Really?
35:3035 minutes, 30 secondsNow that he says it. Yep.
35:3235 minutes, 32 secondsIt’s like, okay, I can kind of hear him thinking about Little Richard a little bit. But it doesn’t sound like Little Richard. So even the creative people
35:4035 minutes, 40 secondswhen they are trying to aim their arrow at a certain target they take the inspiration but the way it filters through you makes it your own. If you’re
35:4835 minutes, 48 secondstoo great of a copier then of course it just seems derivative but right if you have that artistic side you can be inspired by other things and you
35:5635 minutes, 56 secondscan’t help but make it your own and that’s always the best way to go. It is.
36:0136 minutes, 1 secondAnd I think that’s one of the really great great things about being a creative person is that you
36:0836 minutes, 8 secondsyou’re not imitating as much as you are filtering all of these different influences, you know, and and you know,
36:1536 minutes, 15 secondsI go back to the uh the theory that I’ve always held, which is that we are interpreters, all of us, of great ideas.
36:2336 minutes, 23 secondsWe are um you know I think I mentioned this in my artist’s brain workshop. I’ve always
36:3136 minutes, 31 secondsbelieved that there’s sort of a creative unconscious out there somewhere in the cosmos. You know, if I may get very
36:3936 minutes, 39 secondshippie woo woo about it here. Sure. You know, let’s let’s do this.
36:4236 minutes, 42 secondsYeah, man. Um you know, hold on one second. Let’s bring in the uh the incense.
36:4836 minutes, 48 secondsOh, yes. Exactly. Um, but you know, I’ve always felt like those ideas are out there. They’re floating around and we are just interpreting them. They’re
36:5636 minutes, 56 secondscoming through us, right?
36:5736 minutes, 57 secondsAnd I’ve always believed that and I’ve always felt that that’s really um the mark of an artist is that we are just
37:0637 minutes, 6 secondstaking all of those different influences that we have and we’re filtering them through our particular perspectives of the world. You know, I
37:1537 minutes, 15 secondsmean, yeah, you talk about McCartney. I you know I I think brilliant dude. You know he’s definitely he’s had his clunkers too. I don’t like everything
37:2437 minutes, 24 secondshe’s done. You know he can get pretty hokey sometimes.
37:2637 minutes, 26 secondsWell, you know the meme about the uh CS80 CS80. Yeah. Yeah. Having a wonderful Christmas time. And the other one that I
37:3437 minutes, 34 secondscan’t stand is the girl is mine. But those are just my Yeah.
37:3737 minutes, 37 secondsmy takes on it, you know. But look, you know, the dude also did, you know, Revolution number nine and you know, he was listening to Shustikovich and and
37:4537 minutes, 45 secondsyou know, some of uh uh who was the guy who was doing all the John Cage. John Cage. Yes. Cage.
37:5237 minutes, 52 secondsYeah. And you know, just stuff that’s really really out there, you know, and I mean I think every musician has these
37:5937 minutes, 59 secondsextremes, right?
38:0138 minutes, 1 secondYou know, I mean Zappa was able to do, you know, accessible stuff too, right? Right.
38:0538 minutes, 5 secondsBut yet a lot of people can’t listen to half of his stuff, you know, and certainly not someone who’s interested in, let’s say, pop music, you know, that is a that’s a tough listen.
38:1538 minutes, 15 secondsThat’s a tough listen. I remember with when my drummer at the time in the 90s, he was really into Frank Zappa and he said, “Dude, you got to come over.”
38:2338 minutes, 23 secondsBecause he knew what a pop guy was. I think he was trying to convert me, man.
38:2638 minutes, 26 secondsHe said, “You got to come over and listen to this stuff.” And he’s playing me all the Frank Zap stuff and going, “Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, I I I I
38:3438 minutes, 34 secondscan appreciate this, you know, and he sees he sees the fear in my eyes, you know, the nail marks in the chair arms, right? No, of course.
38:4338 minutes, 43 secondsBut then, you know, think about something like Peaches and Regalia. What a brilliant piece of work, you know, and it’s it’s definitely it’s right up there
38:5138 minutes, 51 secondswith some of the great composers of our time, right? Is it for everybody? Hell no. Right.
38:5638 minutes, 56 secondsYou know, but you got to hand it to him, man. It’s brilliant, you know.
38:5938 minutes, 59 secondsRight. Right. No doubt. But yeah, I think looking for the extremes. I mean, I’m always interested in that. I mean, it’s like trying to bring out different
39:0839 minutes, 8 secondsaspects of your character. Like, I’m looking for real emotion when I’m working with artists and when I’m producing tracks. And if there’s some
39:1739 minutes, 17 secondslack of it, I try to bring it. And one of the things we were talking about in your um in your UNLV class that I
39:2439 minutes, 24 secondsvisited this week is uh the idea of when you are a producer engineer who also
39:3139 minutes, 31 secondscreates musically. That was one of the sort of uh paths that helped me get into certain gigs as well. I encourage your
39:3939 minutes, 39 secondsstudents and all students to try to play an instrument even if they definitely start now. you talking to people in
39:4739 minutes, 47 secondstheir 20s like oh am I too late it’s like no no no just imagine where you’ll be in like five years right so play some instrument do that
39:5539 minutes, 55 secondshelps you speak the language ex well yeah and through the instruments that I played I found that I was able to fill
40:0440 minutes, 4 secondsgaps in whatever band I was working with so the the the funny part of it is when I worked with keyboard players like
40:1340 minutes, 13 secondsBrian Chattton who was in the band uh Boys Don’t Cry He worked he was in actually he has this interesting story where he he wrote a song called Second Man on the Moon.
40:2240 minutes, 22 secondsUhhuh.
40:2240 minutes, 22 secondsAnd it was sort of like an analogy to his life because he was in a he was in a band with John Anderson who then left the band to start Yes.
40:3140 minutes, 31 secondsUhhuh.
40:3240 minutes, 32 secondsAnd then he was also in a band with Phil Collins called Flaming Youth who then left the band to join Genesis.
40:3840 minutes, 38 secondsSo he wrote the song Second Man on the Moon kind of talking about the comedic side of this twist of fate. So, he’s had so many different experiences. He
40:4640 minutes, 46 secondsproduced the Holl and did all kinds of different things. And then eventually his probably biggest solo success was Boys Don’t Cry, I Want to Be a Cowboy.
40:5440 minutes, 54 secondsAnd um when I worked with Brian Chattton and he actually met him in Michigan, believe it or not, before I ever left and we worked on a couple of tracks together at my studio there.
41:0341 minutes, 3 secondsAnd uh he’s like, “Oh man, you’re such a great guitar player.” Because he didn’t have a guitar player. And I’m like, “Oh, thank you very much.” So I end up playing guitar for him on a few tracks.
41:1341 minutes, 13 secondsThen I ended up landing in punk rock land when I met producer Tim Armstrong of course who was from Rancid and he’s like oh man you know you play keyboards
41:2241 minutes, 22 secondsreally well because they don’t have keyboard players and punk rock bands. Y so you end up sort of whatever arrow you can pull out of your quiver and offer up
41:3041 minutes, 30 secondsyou become part of the process. So it’s you know one of the things is that people will sort of project on to you
41:3741 minutes, 37 secondswhat they need from you if you can deliver that. And yeah, I I also find that playing different instruments, well, first of
41:4441 minutes, 44 secondsall, just the idea of being able to approach different instruments, I think, is important because it enables
41:5141 minutes, 51 secondsyou to speak multiple languages in that sense, you know, as opposed to being a virtuoso on one instrument, right?
41:5841 minutes, 58 secondsBut it also as a songwriter, it to me like if I sit down at a keyboard and I’m a, you know, I’m a decent keyboard
42:0842 minutes, 8 secondskeyboardist. not by any means virtuoso, but I can sit down at that and I’m going to write something completely different
42:1542 minutes, 15 secondsthan if I pick up a guitar for sure, you know, and you know, I’ I’ve always said, I mean, I can fake it on almost any instrument. Can I play well?
42:2442 minutes, 24 secondsDefinitely not. You know, and there’s the trick, too, again, knowing, you know, knowing who to produce. I
42:3142 minutes, 31 secondseven in my quote unquote one-man band eras where I would um for a long time in
42:3842 minutes, 38 secondsthe in the uh late 80s early 90s I was um I was working with a lot of singer songwriters and in several cases I would
42:4542 minutes, 45 secondshave them just you know cut a guitar and vocal to a click track and then I’d send them home you know and then I’d lay down all the instruments and everything
42:5442 minutes, 54 secondseven then you know it’s like at one point we said on this one song oh it really needs a sach I sure is helling going to fake it on sachs. I’m going to
43:0143 minutes, 1 secondfind a damn good sax player and in that case it made the song. You know, it’s knowing when you have the chops to do
43:1143 minutes, 11 secondswhat that song needs. And again, you know, backing up, man. It always comes down to the song. What does the song need?
43:1743 minutes, 17 secondsGet out of the way and bring in somebody who can really deliver when you need it to. And so, yeah, that’s definitely a great way to go. kind of the the further
43:2443 minutes, 24 secondsyou can throw your net to finding great musicians and find a way to collaborate with them, that’s just going to make things much better for you as a producer. For sure.
43:3243 minutes, 32 secondsDefinitely. But but I do love the idea of being able to play just enough to know and also be a good listener, right?
43:4043 minutes, 40 secondsYou know, well, you know, to a punk rock band, if you have uh, you know, if you know four chords, you got it made, reasonable keyboard skills, like you’re amazing, you know. Oh, yeah. Definitely.
43:5043 minutes, 50 secondsAnd to the keyboard players, if you have reasonable guitar skills, you’re amazing. So just, you know, be amazing as you are and just keep building, you know, that would be my advice.
44:0044 minutesWell, and be amazing is really, you know, again, it’s all relative, right?
44:0544 minutes, 5 secondsBut I think being open is part of being amazing because again, you know, if you love all kinds of
44:1344 minutes, 13 secondsmusic, if you’re open-minded to it, to me, one of the most beautiful things is, you know, especially in this day and
44:2044 minutes, 20 secondsage, we’re so genrespecific, you know, because the the commod the
44:2744 minutes, 27 secondscommodification of music has led to this real sort of siloing of different
44:3444 minutes, 34 secondsgenres. as and to me I think what’s really beautiful is when somebody comes in and just mashes it all up you know
44:4044 minutes, 40 secondsand yeah I may be punk rock but I have classical chops in there or you know whatever it is that’s great man
44:4844 minutes, 48 secondsthat was one of the best parts of working with Tim Armstrong. So the the relationship with Tim Armstrong was very interesting because the way that I met
44:5644 minutes, 56 secondsTim was through my time at Westlake Audio, I was also doing ProTools training because I’ve been a ProTools guy at that point for, you know, four
45:0445 minutes, 4 secondsyears or so. I was kind of an early adopter when I was in New York and kind of traded in my half inch 16 track
45:1045 minutes, 10 secondsFostex for uh ProTools rig because I said I’ve either got to like invest a lot into outboard gear at this stage right now or I’ve got to make a jump
45:1945 minutes, 19 secondsinto ProTools. and I saw the whole plug-in thing in the mid ‘9s and said this is where it’s at least for I got to get more juice out of what I’m doing. So
45:2745 minutes, 27 secondsI made the jump and then would you know help people understand ProTools and that opened a lot of doors for me at that time since a lot of people weren’t
45:3445 minutes, 34 secondscompletely on board for another probably five six years after that and so I uh was referred to Tim Armstrong to do some
45:4245 minutes, 42 secondsProTools training. So the way that it started out was like yeah come on over my house and you know of course he’s was Tim Armstrong of Rancid you know of
45:5045 minutes, 50 secondscourse huge huge hits you know uh and outcome the wolves had been out life won’t wait had come out they were working on the hardcore record what I
45:5845 minutes, 58 secondskind of called rancid five and um he was just looking to kind of expand his own skills and so I’d go over
46:0646 minutes, 6 secondsto his house like twice a week like 9:30 in the morning we go from 9:30 to 12 and we just kind of get into stuff and I’d show him things and you know had him got
46:1546 minutes, 15 secondshim going pretty fast in terms of you know just operating the stuff but then he began to realize oh wait you know I got to put a baseline out I was like yeah you want me to try that he’s like
46:2346 minutes, 23 secondsoh you can play bass yeah go ahead try it and he was so to his great credit as a producer as an an artist you know he was open to seeing how other people as
46:3246 minutes, 32 secondswe’ve been saying can contribute so I laid down a bass wow you’re a great bass player I’m like oh thanks and then
46:3946 minutes, 39 secondshe’d say uh yeah I like put some keyboards. Oh, I want to play some keyboards. Oh, yeah. So, I’d put on Yeah. Cool. Keyboard player, you
46:4746 minutes, 47 secondsknow. So, it’s like again like those weren’t necessarily in his strongest wheelhouse, you know. He’s Tim Armstrong, you know, uh songwriter, very
46:5546 minutes, 55 secondsprolific songwriter. I mean, it was incredible, you know, through those sessions, we just uh he would come up so quickly with different song ideas and
47:0347 minutes, 3 secondswe’d work on loops and things and and we would just end up numbering them. So he’d have, you know, we were like song number 12
47:1047 minutes, 10 secondsor song number 112 and we and I mean he had hundreds of these songs that were that were started where he’d kind of work while his
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondsinspiration was high and then he’d go on to the next thing.
47:2147 minutes, 21 secondsSo he was like constantly just creating and starting things and then reviewing saying which were my favorites and then
47:2747 minutes, 27 secondsfinishing those. And um that’s how the transplants record started was all of these basic ideas and then he’d pick his
47:3547 minutes, 35 secondsfavorites and he’d start writing lyrics and things. And so he um he decided with
47:4247 minutes, 42 secondsthe transplants he really wanted to do something that was a mashup. And that’s where I was going back to what you’d said is that project was really a boundary breaking punk rock project.
47:5547 minutes, 55 secondsMhm.
47:5547 minutes, 55 secondsAnd uh and it really started with Tim and myself in his basement working on these tracks. He um started working with
48:0248 minutes, 2 secondsSkin Head Rob, who of course, you know, what a what an amazing hardcore singer he is and talent and uh rapper. And so
48:1048 minutes, 10 secondshe said, you know, let’s bring this guy in, Skin Head Rob, that we know, and and we’ll have him try some some uh some rapping on this. So we came down, he
48:1948 minutes, 19 secondsstarted doing sessions and then he was starting to formulate this idea, you know, and it’s like, “Wow, okay, we got the hardcore rapper guy. We get him to
48:2748 minutes, 27 secondsreally get aggressive and shout and scream and um then he’s like, “Okay, so we got so now we’re going to focus up on
48:3448 minutes, 34 secondsthese songs.” We took I don’t know how many maybe 30 songs or so out of the 200 on his hard drives at those times and
48:4248 minutes, 42 secondsdeveloped those into the Transplants record. And then from there it was like, okay, well, what do we do to really make this a record? And then that was when he
48:5148 minutes, 51 secondsdecided to reach out to Travis Barker to come in and do the drums.
48:5548 minutes, 55 secondsAnd Travis came in on the first Transplants record and basically in one afternoon nailed everything but one song, which the only reason he didn’t
49:0349 minutes, 3 secondsget to that one was because we had a self-imposed time deadline because Tim liked to keep his neighbors happy and he didn’t want to do drums after 5.
49:1049 minutes, 10 secondsAnd we had some sort of a headphone Q problem. is really strange. He couldn’t figure it out. So, he did everything but the first everything but that last track
49:1849 minutes, 18 secondsin the first afternoon. He came back the next day, knocked it out in one or two takes, boom, gone. And that was the transplants record. So, we were able to
49:2749 minutes, 27 secondsfinish it up. I’d laid down keyboard stuff. So, I did a lot of filling in on different things. Um, they also brought in a lot of collaborators. We had uh
49:3649 minutes, 36 secondsEric Ozine from the Nerve Agents just killed it on a song called Romper Stomper. Uh Davy Havoc was on that
49:4249 minutes, 42 secondsrecord. Um I think uh yeah, those are the two that that stick out in my mind that were just really mindblowing. And
49:5149 minutes, 51 secondsum and it was really as the record turned out, it just became this kind of complete boundary crossing thing.
49:5849 minutes, 58 secondsParticularly in the second record, it became drum and bass, it became punk rock, it became uh pop element elements.
50:0650 minutes, 6 secondsum Diamonds and Guns, you know, which was such a big track on the first record. Um laid down the I laid down the
50:1450 minutes, 14 secondspiano part for that and that became a loop which then led into the Garnney Fruit disc commercial. So so many different boundaries crossed of just
50:2250 minutes, 22 secondsmish mashing things together. That was the whole transpants project. And to me that is like the template of really interesting music because it’s not just
50:3150 minutes, 31 secondsconfined by it’s not punk rock unless it’s this. It’s not pop unless it’s this. It’s not rock unless it’s this.
50:3850 minutes, 38 secondsAnd just crossing all those boundaries.
50:4050 minutes, 40 secondsAnd Tim was very influenced by reggae artists like Buju Banton.
50:4550 minutes, 45 secondsUm Yeah. Yeah, I could see that.
50:4850 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. And so, you know, he uh you know, he would take all these elements. We do stick baselines and things that were very interesting. This was all from his
50:5750 minutes, 57 secondsvarious experiences. And so, he was a fantastic producer in that way. He was really good with kind of allowing things to happen. One of his things that he
51:0551 minutes, 5 secondsused to talk about was not getting focused too focused on the outcome of things which was something at that time in my 30s like I don’t quite even know
51:1351 minutes, 13 secondsexactly what he’s talking about you know he was a little ahead of the curve in in terms of thinking of these concepts you know
51:2051 minutes, 20 secondsuh for someone of our age group and uh that’s always been something that stuck with me uh since those days I’ve had a lot of time to think about those
51:2951 minutes, 29 secondsconcepts since then. Well, the other thing that you know, just to sort of connect that dot with with another one,
51:3751 minutes, 37 secondsum, we’re talking about an era where technology was really changing and evolving.
51:4351 minutes, 43 secondsYeah. and the evolution of that technology and the impact it had on the creative process, you know, going from
51:5251 minutes, 52 secondsthe era of, you know, multitrack tape, which had its limitations and whatnot,
51:5951 minutes, 59 secondsand outboard gear, which of course had its limitations to ProTools and unlimited takes and unlimited instances
52:0752 minutes, 7 secondsof plugins and what I maybe not unlimited at that point. you limited by computer power, but right the creative process itself where you no
52:1652 minutes, 16 secondslonger you had an undo key, you had you didn’t have to wait for things to rewind, you know, you could try another
52:2352 minutes, 23 secondstake. All of that, I think, really impacted the way we created. For sure.
52:3052 minutes, 30 secondsAnd I think you kind of rode that and evolved with it, I would say.
52:3652 minutes, 36 secondsRight. Uh, you know, at that moment, Tim had uh a two-inch tape machine in the in the
52:4452 minutes, 44 secondsback of his studio because all of his early masters were on 2 in, right?
52:4752 minutes, 47 secondsAnd we were transitioning into ProTools at that time. And then eventually his work with Rancid after the hardcore album, you know, the next one after that was indestructible.
52:5752 minutes, 57 secondsAnd um he kept riding that wave. You were we were working uh at places like Sonora. Uh we cut cut
53:0553 minutes, 5 secondsthere. there we cut over at um Sound City for that album. Drums were cut at Sound City and um and it was about sort
53:1353 minutes, 13 secondsof blending the two, but there was all the ProTools editing and comping and things and you know uh really brought that element
53:2153 minutes, 21 secondsinto the new albums changes the whole process.
53:2453 minutes, 24 secondsIt changes the whole process and um that was a fun record. That was actually one that I uh did co-write a couple of songs with
53:3353 minutes, 33 secondsTim. one on the transplant second record um and uh on the uh Madness and then on
53:4153 minutes, 41 secondsthe Rancid Indestructible record I had the opportunity to co-write a song called Spirit of 87 with Tim and Lars
53:4953 minutes, 49 secondsand uh so those were really fun records for me to do as well. Got a chance to work with Brett Gerwitz who of course you know Oh yeah maverick
53:5753 minutes, 57 secondsyou know a maverick another out there talent. Yes.
54:0054 minutesYes. you know, and what a visionary record label exec he was. If you want to think of him as a record label exec, also an artist.
54:0754 minutes, 7 secondsYeah, exactly. And a lot of those people, you know, to me it’s like there’s an authenticity to those people where like, you know, you think to
54:1654 minutes, 16 secondsyourself, I don’t know if I could ever necessarily be that per, you know, like I was talking the other day to somebody about Tom Weights. Mhm.
54:2454 minutes, 24 secondsYou know, there’s another person that I feel is like really authentic and at the same time totally out there.
54:3154 minutes, 31 secondsYou know, the Hunter Thompsons of the world, you know, the Shell Silverstein of the world, people who are singular,
54:3954 minutes, 39 secondsnot only singular talents, but singular human beings. And you think to yourself, man, I mean, how do I, you know, how
54:4654 minutes, 46 secondscould I even live that kind of lifestyle? cuz man, you know that it’s like they wake up and they’re real, you know, that’s who they are. It’s not like
54:5554 minutes, 55 secondsthere’s an act going on there. That’s like right, that’s how they live. That’s how they think.
55:0055 minutesAnd I think that’s a, you know, again, a a part of creativity that, you know, really it’s
55:0855 minutes, 8 secondsit’s um the only word I can think of is authentic, you know, but it’s it’s out there and in a brilliant brilliant way,
55:1655 minutes, 16 secondsright? and Brett Urwitz was uh definitely one of those involved in a lot of those artists. I mean I believe he did do an album with Tom Weights. I’m not I believe so too wrong on that with
55:2455 minutes, 24 secondsEpitap. Uh Epitap broke a lot of ground for punk rock. I mean I believe if I’m not incorrect on this I think Offspring was with Epitap at first.
55:3255 minutes, 32 secondsYes they were.
55:3355 minutes, 33 secondsAnd Rancid was with them. And you know, one of the one of the biggest things that prove how strong relationships are
55:4155 minutes, 41 secondsin this business is when everybody was coming and snatching away all the punk rock artists from the little labels in the ‘9s.
55:5055 minutes, 50 secondsUm Tim Armstrong and Rancid decided they were going to stick with Brett Urwitz being one of the largest indie labels in the in the world at that time. Um, but
55:5955 minutes, 59 secondsthey they refused the lure of the major labels and basically said, “Hey, as long as you’re in charge of the company,
56:0756 minutes, 7 secondsBrett, we’re going to stick with you.” And uh, to their credit, I believe they’ve been with him all of these years. And Brett, you know, Brett was
56:1556 minutes, 15 secondsbehind No Effects. I believe he was signed, they were signed to Brett at one time.
56:1956 minutes, 19 secondsYeah. And so many of the really great early punk indie labels got completely destroyed by going corporate, you Right.
56:2756 minutes, 27 secondsIt was a great label that um I was on for 15 minutes called 415 Records in San Francisco which was started by a brilliant guy named Howie Klene.
56:3856 minutes, 38 secondsOkay.
56:3956 minutes, 39 secondsAnd uh I think if I’m not mistaken, Howie recently passed away. Um amazing amazing visionary of a guy. And then Howie uh went over to Sire Records.
56:5256 minutes, 52 secondsMhm.
56:5256 minutes, 52 secondsAnd you know, to his credit, did a lot of great stuff at Sire, but 415 eventually just kind of petered out
57:0057 minutesbecause of that, you know, and there were some amazing artists on that label, uh, Translator, Romeo Void, Pearl Harbor, and the Explosions, you know,
57:0757 minutes, 7 secondsand again, these labels that they start out as really innovators and then they get sucked into that corporate wheel, right? Right.
57:1657 minutes, 16 secondsIt’s a damn shame in a way, you know.
57:1857 minutes, 18 secondsRight. Right. Yeah. And they’ve certainly, I think, done well to stick with Brett and Brett with them. Oh, hell yeah.
57:2557 minutes, 25 secondsAnd uh, you know, when you see uh, you know, uh, Brett’s always putting great bands out there. So, you know, he’s an
57:3357 minutes, 33 secondsinspiration. And, you know, the time I worked with Brett, you know, he was uh, around 40. We did we did a a couple sessions together
57:4057 minutes, 40 secondsworking on Bad Religion. I think the process of belief album or one of the singles off of that album and also a matchbook romance. We did
57:4957 minutes, 49 secondssome stuff at Sound City on that. I kind of assisted him in the mix and and uh so it was really a great experience to kind
57:5657 minutes, 56 secondsof be surrounded by these uh individuals who were really making art and trying to push boundaries either
58:0458 minutes, 4 secondsin sort of the aggressive way in the punk rock way or by blending boundaries as Tim did. Mhm.
58:1058 minutes, 10 secondsAnd it was that that whole period was a really interesting time to kind of round out my pop period. So Tim would look at me go you’re like the pop guy, you know.
58:1858 minutes, 18 secondsSo if he does a song like DJ DJ, he’s like, “Hey, let’s get Carlock’s background vocals on this.” You know, or you know, Breer’s like, “Where’s Carlock
58:2558 minutes, 25 secondsZelton John like background vocals?” We got to get those on that track, you know. So it’s just again like what can you contribute? So right
58:3358 minutes, 33 secondsalways work on developing your musicality. Yeah, find that and be able to be somewhat chameleonesque. I think,
58:4158 minutes, 41 secondsyou know, that to me has also been, you know, very rewarding that I can that I can draw from all of these different influences. I think that’s a that’s a
58:5058 minutes, 50 secondsgreat way to be, you know, why why be pigeonhold, right? So, it’s it’s cool to be uh looking back on certain things I was
58:5858 minutes, 58 secondsinvolved in and going, you know, I’ve always been drawn to iconoclastic innovators
59:0459 minutes, 4 secondsand um and the great pop songs. So, how do finding those two and marrying them?
59:0959 minutes, 9 secondsThat’s sort of what my orientation is, you know?
59:1259 minutes, 12 secondsI Yeah, I definitely get it. So, let me wrap with the question I normally do ask
59:1959 minutes, 19 secondspeople and I think having come up in the era you have, it’s probably very relevant.
59:2559 minutes, 25 secondsNow, we’re in a completely different era in terms of not only music and what music is worth or not. Um, but
59:3559 minutes, 35 secondsalso technology-wise, what do you tell a 15year-old you coming into the industry now in this day and age?
59:4459 minutes, 44 secondsuh seek out human experiences in the way that you create. Make connections with people. Um again, back
59:5459 minutes, 54 secondsto learn an instrument. Do something with it. Challenge yourself to get out of the room and in amongst other people
1:00:021 hour, 2 secondsin a bigger room. Challenge yourself to get outside the box.
1:00:071 hour, 7 secondsIf you can work at a beautiful place like some place like hideout here, I mean, what a great studio this is.
1:00:121 hour, 12 secondsYeah. uh come and have those experiences. Um I have a a drummer friend of mine who I talk to a lot and
1:00:201 hour, 20 secondsI’m like, “Dude, you know what? Uh I would love to be involved in more projects with more people, but what I’m known for doing is like making the
1:00:291 hour, 29 secondsrecord.” So it’s just like, “How can I make a record for somebody in like an afternoon?” So it’s hard to give to people that I
1:00:361 hour, 36 secondsjust really am passionate about or excited about. How do I give them two, three hours of my time? And the answer is if you’re playing an instrument, you
1:00:441 hour, 44 secondscan easily do that. So sure, you know, my drummer friend, I’m like saying to him, dude, just go out and play with people. Find people that inspire you and
1:00:531 hour, 53 secondssay, I’m going to come and I’m going to play drums for you. Just get out there and make music. And if you if you you know try to throw that net wide to work
1:01:011 hour, 1 minute, 1 secondwith interesting individuals and collaborate you know it just how can you give something in a short amount of time
1:01:101 hour, 1 minute, 10 secondsthat contributes that makes relationships and makes more music and that expands your own pallet again going back to that you know
1:01:181 hour, 1 minute, 18 secondsthat’s exactly right and performances that’s how people see you. So if you if you’re if you can play any instruments get out and play. Sometimes it’s hard to
1:01:271 hour, 1 minute, 27 secondsif if these aren’t the great gigs. You don’t want to get caught in the slog of things where it’s dominating all your time, but people really do see you playing. And and that’s kind of what
1:01:361 hour, 1 minute, 36 secondshappened when we had worked with Pink when Tim Armstrong produced Pink is he, you know, we were starting out on
1:01:441 hour, 1 minute, 44 secondsthe Transplants tour and she came out because Tim had written some songs for Pink and she was kind of getting to know him and she came on the road with us. So
1:01:531 hour, 1 minute, 53 secondswhen we went out on the road for the transplants tour, we were basically main support act for the Foo Fighters and we did sort of a tour down the southern states and then made a jump up
1:02:011 hour, 2 minutes, 1 secondto New York and she jumped on the bus at one point and rode with us for a few days and while she and Tim were riding in the studio that I’d set up in the
1:02:101 hour, 2 minutes, 10 secondsback of the bus and she saw me performing on stage and she was like, you know, I would love to have this guy
1:02:181 hour, 2 minutes, 18 secondsplay on my promotion for Charlie’s Angels. As it turned out, the scheduling didn’t work because we did need to finish her record. But for a minute, she
1:02:251 hour, 2 minutes, 25 secondswas like, you know, I want you to be, you know, playing on Charlie’s Angels Feelgood Time, uh, promo stuff.
1:02:321 hour, 2 minutes, 32 secondsAnd so that was exciting. So, even though it didn’t work out in the end, it’s still a, you know, a good testament to how being seen, doing your thing,
1:02:421 hour, 2 minutes, 42 secondsabsolutely, is so important. Social media also get out there.
1:02:461 hour, 2 minutes, 46 secondsGet out there. make make the best quality content you can without having it be a situation where you you you are
1:02:551 hour, 2 minutes, 55 secondsparalyzed because you can’t get the quality right. You got to find that right thing. Push yourself to get the best quality that you can. So you’re
1:03:031 hour, 3 minutes, 3 secondspresented well. So you’re learning and growing in there. But don’t say no because it’s not quite right. You got to keep the forward momentum going. Um, and
1:03:121 hour, 3 minutes, 12 secondsI think that a lot of artists get into a little bit of a per perfectionistic thing because they’re used to, well, I’m not ready. I need to practice more. I
1:03:201 hour, 3 minutes, 20 secondsneed to be prepared for the performance or I need to be prepared to demonstrate what I can do. But find that sweet spot so you can say yes and be challenged
1:03:291 hour, 3 minutes, 29 secondsrather than saying no. Because in the end, if it isn’t perfect to what you want it to be, you still get a lot more
1:03:361 hour, 3 minutes, 36 secondsjuice and a lot more uh a lot more exposure from being seen. And that’s how all works. I think back to the stories
1:03:441 hour, 3 minutes, 44 secondsthat I there’s so much great, you know, seems like these are old tiny stories, you know, these days. But when you look at the history, you know, we learn so
1:03:531 hour, 3 minutes, 53 secondsmuch from the history of anything, the ind the history of our business, the history of how music worked. And what can we draw from the stories that we
1:04:011 hour, 4 minutes, 1 secondhave from back then to apply to today, even though it’s not a perfect fit of how we’re going to do it, what is the premise of the story that we can learn?
1:04:101 hour, 4 minutes, 10 secondsAnd here’s one that’s going to sound real oldtimey.
1:04:131 hour, 4 minutes, 13 secondsuh James Newton Howard who I don’t know if younger people are going to really know who he is but of course amazing film composer but he started out as I
1:04:221 hour, 4 minutes, 22 secondsbelieve he was at USC I think that’s right if I’m not right you know maybe you’ll caption it uh I don’t know what’s the budget on this uh
1:04:301 hour, 4 minutes, 30 secondsproduction are you doing real you doing real time factchecking we ain’t got no stinking budget
1:04:391 hour, 4 minutes, 39 secondswait you didn’t tell me that before uh anyway Um, so James Howard, I believe he went to USC and he had made a record of his
1:04:481 hour, 4 minutes, 48 secondsstuff like back in the day, like he had to press vinyl. Uhhuh. Right. Which is kind of a big deal. Yeah.
1:04:531 hour, 4 minutes, 53 secondsSo he just made a little independent record of himself.
1:04:561 hour, 4 minutes, 56 secondsThat record ended up being in the hands of Elton John who listened to that record to say, “Well, I heard about this
1:05:041 hour, 5 minutes, 4 secondsJames Newton guy. Let me hear what his record sounds like.” And he goes, “This guy’s incredibly talented. I want him to
1:05:111 hour, 5 minutes, 11 secondsbe in my new band in the mid70s. So really, it’s releasing the music that got him into the position of being, you know, working with Elton John.
1:05:211 hour, 5 minutes, 21 secondsYeah.
1:05:211 hour, 5 minutes, 21 secondsOrchestral director of some of those things. Um I have always loved the phrase start ugly but start.
1:05:301 hour, 5 minutes, 30 secondsYou know, a lot of times we tend to be perfectionist, right?
1:05:341 hour, 5 minutes, 34 secondsAnd we set very high standards for ourselves. And the truth of the matter is sometimes you just got to get out there and put it out there and know that
1:05:421 hour, 5 minutes, 42 secondsit may not be the best you ever in fact you hope that it’s not the best you’ll ever do because otherwise you you got nowhere to go, right?
1:05:491 hour, 5 minutes, 49 secondsBut you know, we’re always going to get better. There’s always going to be a new idea. There’s always going to be, you know, we’re always going to be hopefully
1:05:571 hour, 5 minutes, 57 secondsimproving in our craft, right?
1:05:591 hour, 5 minutes, 59 secondsYou know, and that’s the idea to keep growing as an artist. And if you’re going to if you know that you’re going to keep growing as an artist, then no
1:06:071 hour, 6 minutes, 7 secondsmatter where you are right now, you can only get better, right? And to that point, I think that
1:06:161 hour, 6 minutes, 16 secondsthey’re the two poles. I think of it as this the Hollywood star system and social media daily live streaming.
1:06:261 hour, 6 minutes, 26 secondsUhhuh.
1:06:261 hour, 6 minutes, 26 secondsAnd therein we have the wide Yeah. chasm of experience. Right. Right.
1:06:331 hour, 6 minutes, 33 secondsI have always tended to lean more toward the star system because I’m trying to help artists develop aspirational best level.
1:06:421 hour, 6 minutes, 42 secondsYeah.
1:06:421 hour, 6 minutes, 42 secondsBut on the other hand, there’s such a value in building a following through social media.
1:06:481 hour, 6 minutes, 48 secondsY and that can’t be denied certainly uh at this point. And the trick is though, I still don’t believe that warts and all
1:06:571 hour, 6 minutes, 57 secondsdaily live streaming. I just don’t know that that’s the answer unless you’re really good or really entertaining. Mhm.
1:07:051 hour, 7 minutes, 5 secondsUm I think if if you’re going to if we’re moving the needle this way, I don’t think we should go all the way this way. No, you have to curate it a little bit.
1:07:131 hour, 7 minutes, 13 secondsIt has to be curated to a degree.
1:07:151 hour, 7 minutes, 15 secondsSure. But the point there is if you want to curate, you have to have enough material to actually do that, right?
1:07:211 hour, 7 minutes, 21 secondsAnd to you have to have enough chaff to find the wheat. That’s right.
1:07:251 hour, 7 minutes, 25 secondsSo to speak, you know. And again, it’s like you got to keep doing it. You got to keep doing it regardless of how good
1:07:321 hour, 7 minutes, 32 secondsor bad it is because you never know when you’re going to get those happy accidents, when you’re going to get those golden moments, you know? So, right. Yeah.
1:07:401 hour, 7 minutes, 40 secondsAnd building teams is a good way to sort of curate that as well, particularly when you’re starting, try to get some opinions. Maybe don’t do the daily live
1:07:471 hour, 7 minutes, 47 secondsstreaming. Maybe don’t say, “I’m going to just release this right now.” Like, maybe hang on a minute.
1:07:541 hour, 7 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. Yeah. But try to increase that throughput as you go. Build your game up and then increase your frequency because
1:08:021 hour, 8 minutes, 2 secondspeople will make some decisions about you that you maybe want to collaborate with or maybe you want to try to raise
1:08:091 hour, 8 minutes, 9 secondsthe bar with. And you don’t want to be so loose that they feel it’s going to be really hard to work with you. And you don’t want to be so immediate that you
1:08:181 hour, 8 minutes, 18 secondsscare away a professional because they’re like, uh, some something crazy is going to happen and next thing you know, they’re going to post it and that doesn’t feel
1:08:261 hour, 8 minutes, 26 secondssafe. So, it’s like instead of being this way where you only release a record and you only do promo video right before the record and no one knows anything
1:08:331 hour, 8 minutes, 33 secondsabout you and there’s this incredible mystery like print style, right?
1:08:371 hour, 8 minutes, 37 secondsLet’s move the arrow this way or the meter this way. have some curation and don’t scare away potential collaborators
1:08:451 hour, 8 minutes, 45 secondsbecause they’re terrified that you’re going to take the first thing that happened and just shove it out there. Sure.
1:08:511 hour, 8 minutes, 51 secondsAnd even, you know, Prince did a hell of a lot of stuff that was off the record, so to speak, you know, right?
1:08:571 hour, 8 minutes, 57 secondsYeah. You still have to crank out that stuff because again, if you don’t do that, you’re not going to get those beautiful moments, right? You know, or they’re going to be much fewer and far between. Let’s put it that way.
1:09:071 hour, 9 minutes, 7 secondsYeah.
1:09:071 hour, 9 minutes, 7 secondsSo, yeah, man. Thanks for having me today. Dave Carlock, thank you for being my guest.
1:09:121 hour, 9 minutes, 12 secondsHas been a pleasure. We’ve been waiting to do this a long time already.
1:09:151 hour, 9 minutes, 15 secondsI know. It’s been a while. So, I’m glad we were able to bring it together. And I got to see you in two cities this year, Phoenix and Vegas. So, Damn. I know.
1:09:231 hour, 9 minutes, 23 secondsNot bad.
1:09:231 hour, 9 minutes, 23 secondsAnd uh you throw in some of Zoe’s uh double shots of espresso. And I think this has been heavenly. Absolutely, man.
1:09:341 hour, 9 minutes, 34 secondsHey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.