Did you go to school at Berklee College of Music?
Yeah. I got an internship at Sear Sound the summer of my last year at Berklee. [The late] Walter Sear hired me. You knew Walter, and Roberta [Findlay], right?
Steve Masucci [Tape Op #124] took me over there once, and we sat with them for hours while they were chain smoking and telling stories.
They're amazing people. Walter hired me, and Roberta was pissed that he hired me. They needed an intern because they would get a beach house every summer, so they needed somebody to answer the phones and such. I was going back to school before they were done with their vacation, so Roberta was pissed. She's like, "He's useless!" For the whole summer, she would refer to me as, "That fucking moron kid." I'd be standing about five feet away, and she'd say to Walter, "Tell that fucking moron kid to clean the bathroom. It's filthy!" I'd do it, but at the same time I was in on every single session, running the tape machines and taking notes. I would show up early, and Walter would be there vacuuming and busting his ass. He'd be staying there even after I was leaving. By the end of the summer Roberta saw that I was useful to the studio, and then she was nice to me. But it took me a whole summer to win her over. She was a pretty good read of someone who would be a good worker, whereas Walter would hire whoever walked in the door. He'd like one thing on their resume. Walter hired me because I'd worked for my brother who had a commercial cleaning business. I mentioned that, and that they did record records the way that I liked. But he saw the cleaning aspect of it, and was like, "I want to hire him!"
That must have been a really intense learning ground.
Oh, yeah. Aside from hooking up with Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, getting that internship at Sear Sound was the best thing that's ever happened to me, career-wise or music-wise. He was an amazing person to work for and to listen to. Such a great mentor.
So, did you go back to school, finish up, and then come work for him?
Yeah. I went back to school, came back on winter break, went to New York, and then right back to the studio. I wanted to drop out. "This is what I want to do." But Walter insisted, "No, you're going to finish school, and we'll see if there's a place for you." He really valued an education. Walter and Roberta became my New York parents.
What was your learning growth like there, and when did you start engineering as a first engineer?
He put me in the studio right away. My first day there, I was there until about ten o'clock at night. There was a house engineer doing a session, so it was "watch and learn." I hadn't even been hired yet, and there I was, running the 1/2-inch machine and documenting it.
Were they mixing down?
No, it was a live to 2-track jazz session. I'm like, "This is amazing!" Walter's thing at the studio was that everybody did everything. I got to do a lot right away. There were two other guys who worked there as engineers. Fred Kevorkian ended up building a mastering room in the back of Sear Sound, so he wasn't doing as much in the main room. The other guy went freelance. Then it was just me and Fred, and the studio was booked nonstop. By default, the first record I engineered there was for Sean Lennon. He booked the studio based on the reputation and wanted to use the house engineer. By default, that was me.
Was that his album on Grand Royal Records?
Yeah, Into the Sun. It's a great album, and it was really fun. Sean walked in, and the way he liked to work was to record a song, mix it, and then record the next song and mix it. It was a really fun way to work. It was great. Yuka Honda was producing it. The first day of the session, we were recording a song and working really fast. We got a take, and then Sean and Yuka both had overdub ideas. We were working on tape; they both ran out and wanted to do it right away, a break for the bridge. I armed some new tracks, – I thought I'd disarmed everything – punched in right on the bridge, and I heard the drum sound totally change. I looked, and I saw the overheads were still in "record ready." I went through the whole bridge and punched out on the downbeat of the verse coming back in; then Sean and Yuka came back in the control room. I thought, "Oh, this is it. My first engineering session, and I'm fired." I told Sean and Yuka, "I'm really sorry. I fucked up. I'm sorry." They said, "Well, let's hear it." I played it; it got to the bridge, and the drum sound got really tight and then it opened back up. They said, "Oh, my god; that's great! We love it!" I was like, "Phew. Okay."
Tom & Jeff @ The Loft
You might never have had the craziness to go punch in and erase drums, but when it works...
Oh, yeah! No Pro Tools. Walter was a holdout for that. It was tape. I feel like a lot of great records were made like that. Accidents would happen, and you'd work around the limitations.
Sear Sound must have been such a great place to learn. Walter could be really ridiculous with some of his statements though.
Yeah. Sometimes I feel like some of it was for show. "You only use equalization if you've made a mistake. That's why it's called corrective EQ." He started to come around a little bit towards the end. Pro Tools was allowed in the studio. It was actually my fault that he got Pro Tools. I'd been there for four or five years. He kept saying, "I don't want Pro Tools. It sounds like shit." Eventually I said, "Walter, I really feel like I'm falling behind. This is something that I need to know." Then eventually, I said, "I'm thinking about buying a rig." He's like, how much do you have saved up? He wrote me a check for $10,000 – an interest-free loan – to buy Pro Tools and bring it into the studio. And he said, "Now it's your problem."
Well, that's brilliant.
I put the whole thing together. I got it up and going. Walter had just finished the new studio, and an artist – I think it was Maxwell – booked it for six months, but they needed a Pro Tools rig. He said, "They can rent your rig." I set it up, and it would not work. All these computer guys came, and nobody could figure it out. I had a friend who had a system, and we were swapping out parts. Eventually I got part of it working with a hybrid from another rig, but this was thousands of dollars later I spent trying to get it to work! It turns out that Apple happened to make a run of computers that were incompatible with Pro Tools, but they didn't know.
What did Walter say?
"I told you!"
How many years were you working pretty much exclusively at Sear?
About five or six years. It would have been '94 to around 2000. In 2001 Walter finally told me, "You're ready to go freelance."
What were some pivotal sessions for you there?
I got to do a Bob Dylan session at Sear. I was told it would be five to ten musicians, Bob doesn't want to wear headphones, and don't talk to him. That was the only information I had. I set up a bunch of microphones in the live room. As the band started showing up, I'd put a microphone in front of them. It was a touring band at the time, and Al Kooper [Tape Op #73] playing organ. It was a song for a TV movie soundtrack. Then Dylan shows up, walks right into the live room, and grabbed a microphone I had up as a room mic. I think it was an RCA 77, and he started running through the song. Then he said, "Let's record one." I got on the talkback and said, "I recorded that, if you want to hear it." He was totally nice to me after that. He's like, "That's great!" It was a nice, painless session. A really good experience.
Plus, you did the right thing. You recorded early.
I recorded early. Then he said, "Is that the rankest mic you've got for the vocals?" I said, "I think so!" He's like, "Okay, good." That was the vocal mic that he used.
You know, when you look at his career, you can definitely see that he has a contentious relationship with the studio.
Yeah. He wants to walk in and do what he does. I feel like it's an engineer's job to capture sound and not get in the way; Not always worry about getting the perfect sound. It's more about being ready to record when the musician's ready to record, and deal with the rest later.
Right. You're known for working fast, too. People say, "He can get sessions going fast."
Yeah, sometimes a little too fast. I'll solo the kick drum and it's like, "Man, that sounds weird." I'll go out into the room and find the kick drum mic was on the floor. I try to get going and worry about the sound later. It's part of what's great about working here. We have it set up so that there're a lot of mics out in the room, and they're all plugged in all the time. If a full band wants to play, I'm ready to do it. If anybody has an idea, I can get a microphone in front of them in less than a minute.
You were obviously dealing with a wide variety of music.
Yeah. On some of those jazz sessions, I learned more than anything. There was this engineer, David Baker, who did all these jazz records. He was out of his mind, and he and Walter would fight with each other. But he was such a great engineer. He would send me setups and tell me to put up whatever I wanted.
Mic-wise?
Yeah. I did one session where I used all the microphones I'd never heard, and I didn't even know if they worked. All these weird microphones. I'm like, "Oh, this is really going to fuck with him." He's in the control room getting sounds, and the band's playing. I walk into the control room, and it sounds amazing! No EQ, no compression. That's when I realized that it's all about balance and the relationship between the instruments. He was actually one of the first guys I assisted with at Sear Sound, because none of the other guys wanted to work with him. He was surly with the bands! The bands would be out there getting ready to do another song. They'd be struggling with it, and he'd get on the talkback and say, "Uh, maybe we should try something that you guys know." But they all knew he had a reputation.
What other kinds of music did you work on?
All kinds of sessions. Little Jimmy Scott would come in. I got to be a tape op for a Paul McCartney session where he was with Elvis Presley's backing band. Tricky was there for a couple of days. I got to be a tape op on it. He had a guy who was more of a sequencer engineering it, but the way that he would work was so amazing. He'd have this guy get a sound for him. He'd be like, "Get a drum sound." He had a keyboard that was triggering different things. Then he'd say, "Okay, roll the tape." He would play it live onto the tape; then he'd get a different sound, ready a new track, and keep adding tracks like that. It sounded incredible.
Keeping it organic, in a way.
Yeah. Sonic Youth would do some sessions – it was fun to work on those. There was a project I got to assist on that was Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley, Ron Asheton from the Stooges, and Mike Watt playing bass.
The Wylde Ratttz? [For the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack.]
Yeah, The Wylde Ratttz! I didn't know it at the time, but Watt had borrowed Kim Gordon's bass. He broke a string on a session, and he's like, "Oh, fuck!" So, he puts a new string on it. Walter always used to put out lox, bagels, and cream cheese. I'm in the control room changing the tape reel; I looked out in the live room, and I see Mike Watt rubbing a piece of smoked salmon on the bass strings. Then he holds it up in the air, looks around, doesn't see anybody, and he doesn't know what to do with the fish, so he eats it, and then he plays! I went out and I'm like, "Wow, what was that?" He said, "I hate new strings." I wonder what Kim thought when she got her bass back!
What happened after Sear Sound? When we talked years ago, you were working at The Magic Shop [Tape Op #66].
Yeah, I was freelance at Magic Shop because that was a good studio and they had a good rate. I really loved that studio. After I did the record with Sean, that led to work with Rufus Wainwright because Sean was friends with Rufus. Everything led to something else. Then I worked with Jesse Malin. We had some mutual friends that Ryan Adams was producing. That led to a bunch of work with Ryan. Then I met Norah Jones when she played on a Ryan record. Then she introduced me to Matt Ward [M. Ward]. I got one lucky break, and it led to other things.
The funny thing is that you also mentioned a lot of people who are more attuned to the recording process than most.
Yeah. I think a lot of it goes back to Sear Sound. Being mentored by Walter carries some weight. Having a job there, people are like, "Okay, he knows what records are supposed to sound like." Getting that led to everything.
It's a lot of old school techniques. Live to 2-track jazz helps you keep your shit together.
Oh, which is fun. I got to engineer a lot of those at Sear Sound. It's amazing. Then you get in that mindset – I would try to pretend that everything was a live to 2-track.
It's got to sound good from the get-go.
Yeah, exactly. What we do here a lot is every time we do an overdub or work on a song, we do a new rough mix. Every time, it's a rough mix. Because we have unlimited recording space with Pro Tools, we can do that every time. On a lot of records there are a few rough mixes on it. We'll capture something that happens in the moment, and it's hard to get back to.
