Feature Photo: Kenny Siegal Photographed by Rayon Richards
In his well-equipped and comfortable Old Soul Studios in Catskill, New York, where artists such as Ratatat, Beirut, and The New Pornographers [Tape Op #27] have made records, Kenny Siegal has worked on albums with Chris Whitley, Langhorne Slim, Spottiswoode & His Enemies, Chuck Prophet, Tears For Fears [#147], Robin Taylor Zander (RTZ), The Wiyos, his own projects, Johnny Society and HUNK, and with his wife, Gwen Snyder Siegal, on her albums as Blueberry. He's an interesting combination of songwriter, producer, singer, musician, engineer, and studio owner, and – as you will see – someone who thinks about the creative process all the time.
Feature Photo: Kenny Siegal Photographed by Rayon Richards
One of the thoughts I push back on is when people say "there's only one way" to making records.
Right. It's part of our jobs, as we get older, to stay open. To remain creative. The more I live, the more I actively work to make sure that I don't close up. It's one of the reasons that I play music so much, and I continue to write songs. Producing is a skill for me, and so is engineering, but playing and writing music is a quest. I have to stay on it and keep doing it, and there're so many benefits to that.
Some artists are slow to release albums and others churn records out.
I've been through prolific phases in my lifetime, where I felt I didn't have time to perfect anything. I used to say to myself when I was younger, "One of these days it will slow down, I'll look back, and I'll maybe work on the craft a little bit more." It took a long time for me to slow down. I'm going to be 50, and we started a family, had two kids, and their energy was so intense that I had to slow down just to be a parent.
Yeah. I never had kids, partly because of what I was doing.
In some ways it feels like sometimes I'm trying to do the impossible. My wife is an amazing songwriter and musician, and so music is very real in our home. The kids now are playing, and it's incredible that it didn't skip a generation. They love it. Music is the language at home.
I would imagine. Is the studio connected to your house?
I'm here at Old Soul in Catskill, and this is a 3,500 square foot brick building built in 1855. There are five bedrooms here, but we don't live here. We lived here when our first daughter was born, but it became evident pretty quickly that it was not possible to live in the studio. Bands travel here, and they come here from the city a lot and they stay here and record. Mixing all that with family was not possible!
No, I can't imagine! [laughter]
We live about 20 minutes from here. We have a small house, and we have a little shack on the property that we turned into a studio. I needed instruments where our family was. We call it "Little Soul." It's got enough cool shit in it to make good recordings. If somebody else is working or making a record at Old Soul, I can still be creative there.
Did that come in handy during the early pandemic?
The pandemic and the shutdown had forced me to embrace remote working. On the new Hunk record [HUNK II], we worked with Jack Douglas and Jay Messina [both in Tape Op #90]. They mixed the record. It was an incredible creative experience for me and the band. I had to prep the tracks, essentially pre-mixing, and what I realized quickly was that the more work I did before I sent them the files, the better it was going to go. It was an interesting process, especially with the way I work. It's almost like two separate minds. When I'm creating, I don't want to stop to be organized. I find that to be a separate part of my brain. I like to work fast, with a lot of energy. I try to get the best out of everybody who's involved, including myself as a player. With that in mind, I had to do the comping, the muting schemes, and consolidating files. I was making sure the levels were communicating in the way where the energy rises, where the energy dips. I didn't leave it to Jack and Jay to do that. We're paying them by the hour, and these songs got expensive. And as much as I love and respect their work, we still would have tweaks and revisions. It was a creative process. After the first song was when I found that the more work I'd do before I sent it to them, the smoother this was going to go. It got easier. It was great to work with Jack and Jay. Those guys were inspiring. I was getting a kick out of what their work meant to me as a music lover. Every time they would send me a new mix, it would sound even better. I couldn't remember a time when I'd sent music out to somebody and was so pleased with what was being sent back to me. It was such a pleasure.
That's why you hired them!
The other thing that's funny is that when the music's done, we don't remember any of this shit!
Right.
I don't remember any of the emails back and forth or trying to figure out what to do. All that has disappeared, and we're left with the songs. It's better for your mental health to make decisions, commit, and move on. I've put a lot of thought into this. It's like developing a muscle specifically to finish projects. A lot of people are not well-versed in it. You're referring to an aspect of the process where people are indecisive or uncertain; that space of uncertainty is like purgatory to me. I don't like to remain there for long.
People ask me, "How do you know when a mix is done?" Well, I feel it.
Right. Trust has a lot to do with this. If I'm working with people I've never met, and they don't know me well, this gets into psychology. Making music with people and producing; there's a certain psychology to it. Sometimes with people I need to ask, "What's the goal? What do you expect of this song?" Maybe it's communicating clearly to me as the listener. Some people can get hung up, and they get stuck. I tend not to work with those people very much, but they do exist. We can mix the same song 500 different ways. It helps if we're working with people whose vision is understood, and if they don't have a vision, they should let us have our vision.
That's why a person may choose a different producer for different records.
Yeah. Different producers bring different aspects out of people. I've been blessed over the years to collaborate with some amazing people. I can listen to music I recorded with Bryce Goggin [Tape Op #40] back in the '90s at Baby Monster Studios. I listen to it now and still love it. Bryce is somebody I've done a lot of inspiring work with. I've done work that I love with Tom Schick [#132], and I've also worked with Joe Blaney. There are recordings I've done with Joe where the music just jumps out of the speakers, and I'm proud to hear it.
Those three are such quintessential engineers.
It's true. They bring a lot to the process, in that regard. When I know that somebody has got all the sonic stuff covered, then I tell myself that I can now concentrate on trying to be the best artist that I can be, because I know it's going to sound good.
Did you ever have any bad experiences when you first started trying to record your own music?
I definitely did. Early on, there was one guy that we worked with that liked to smoke a lot of weed, which is usually totally cool, but in this case we all felt it got in the way of the work.
It can work for some people!
I don't judge, but I do believe that it created some sort of barrier for us. You get into the studio, and to reach these spiritual highs and to expose yourself creatively and be as free as you can be, I want to believe that the people I'm working with are "there" with me. There's that sense of trust. Looking back, I think this one record might have come out better if the producer wasn't stoned the whole time. [laughs] But you live and you learn. On the upside, some of the negative experiences helped me to realize how to work "right." Through this, I developed my philosophy of what I need when I'm working. It also helped me to realize that I should become a good producer in my own right. Even the negative experiences were valuable. It was an important experience. Sometimes we need to work in ways that are not right to figure out how to work correctly. I guess it comes down to energy. Staying with positive energy is the way to go forward.
Yeah. I totally concur.
When I was younger, I would party. I wouldn't ever judge anyone for partying. However, working on music was a sacred thing to me. It always was, and it remains that way. It's something that is almost hard to express. As an artist, I've got to work with people who I know, love, and trust and that I feel I can be at my best around. Who will push me to reach higher creative heights and will challenge me. I'm lucky that when I need to work with outside people that I have a shortlist of professionals I can call who are pretty fucking great to work with.
When you're working on your own music, like Johnny Society, do you produce yourself?
I definitely produce it, but I welcome co-production. I'll bring it to Bryce or Joe Blaney. Sometimes Matthew Cullen records our foundational tracks. I see the power in collaboration. When you put good teams together, you can end up with results that are way beyond what you could have done on your own. The other core members of Johnny Society, Brian Geltner and my wife Gwen, also contribute so much creatively. I love their input; but after our sessions many hours of grunt work go in on my own, hence I think of myself as the main producer. Someone's got to see the work all the way through.
Yeah. Sometimes there's a crazy myth that as producers we're always going to have 100 percent of the direction mapped out.
That's weird. It defies the idea of what is actually happening. To get music done, you're diving into some mysterious process. That's why I love to do it, and why I still continue to do it. It'd be boring to know exactly what it will be. You start something and usually it becomes something completely different than what you planned. Mistakes sometimes are the most fun things to listen to. I want to love this when it's done, so my desire to really love what I'm listening to, and what I'm working on, is what I'm wrestling with the whole time that I'm working. That's where the conflict is. You try to drop a song into the speakers, and you ask yourself if it's it speaking to you the way that you believe it can. In some cases it is, and you're lucky. If it's not, then you have to figure out, "What can I do to make this speak more?" Try not to get in your own way. Try to be free. Try to work with chaos and try to get parts to sound like they're alive.
I always tell people that it's not done until it's mastered, and even then, maybe it's not done.
That's a good point. I'm not afraid to say, "Okay, this version is good, but I think there's a better version in us." I've done that. My band works hard, and I'm thankful that they put up with my standards. They have high standards too. My wife, Gwen, makes music under the name Blueberry, and she's got such beautiful songs. She has a vision that is so unique to her. We work on that together. The drummer in Johnny Society, Brian Geltner, is a phenomenal multi-instrumentalist who I've been making music with since I was a little kid. He has high standards. He has opinions. When you have a band it's like a family. You're working with everybody's sensibilities, trying to get everybody to be excited about the results, and it's challenging, but we get there.
I was recently on some sessions with a couple of artists that go back to my basement studio days 28 years ago. Many parts of it just fell into place.
That's a beautiful thing. I believe in that. Chemistry is really important, and intense in that way. People who did not see each other for 20 years, and then suddenly they'll be playing and linked together. It's unbelievable! Sometimes it can get lost in the session world, but I could say that around here, in upstate New York where I'm working, I'm lucky to be surrounded by such great people. I'm constantly bringing people in to work here on different projects. I can't think of a session that hasn't been inspiring in years here.
How does work come to you?
The first thing I would say is that I realized years ago that to survive in this business, you have to [be able to] do everything. When I was younger, I told myself if I'm going to try to make something of Johnny Society, I'm just going to do Johnny Society and I'm not going to do anything else. That served me for a while. But all of that inevitably led to me buying this building in Catskill and starting Old Soul. The studio was the perfect creation, because it is a place to concentrate. It's like a laboratory, and it's a place to execute visions. Because I have the studio, some people reach out to me because they just want to work at the studio. They don't give a shit about my ideas. [laughs] So, sometimes I'll just be an engineer. Some people reach out to me because they heard Johnny Society's music, and they want me to produce their songs. In that situation, I just so happen to have a studio and we can get work done. Some people reach out to me because they want me to play guitar. Sometimes I get called for songwriting. I have to keep an open mind and tell myself, "If I can be creative and making a living, I'm very lucky."
It's important that we look at it that way. It is a multitude of different jobs to offer.
When I used to go out on the road with Johnny Society, I used to bump into bands, and I'd say to myself, "I could produce them. I would love to make a record with them." The feeling would be so fiery, so passionate, and so real that it would overtake my state of mind. I would become engulfed in this feeling. This is why Old Soul was the perfect creation. It alleviated a certain [amount of] searching – a lot of unknown elements were suddenly out of the picture. I have the building, and, if we have an idea, we can execute it.
When did you get the building and this space up and running?
In 2001. I was 28 years old at the time. I wanted to buy a shack in the woods; a small space that I could call my studio. I had a publishing deal, and instead of living off of that money over a year, I took that advance, found this building, and I put the money down. Then I had no fucking income. [laughs] I had the keys to this building, and I had no money left. At that point, I told everybody I knew in New York, "I just bought this building. Come up and I'll produce or play on your music. I'll do it for cheap." That's how I built this place up early on. Now it's 20 years and over 110 records later.
Were you living in New York City before?
We were living in Brooklyn. I used to live in Dumbo in 1995. It was very different than it is now. Larry, we were the only space in that J Street building, in the basement there. My old friend, Chris Rael, found this crazy, lone work space, and we rented it to use as our studio. Then the Hasidim, who owned the whole area, saw that it was working for us, and they built up all the spaces around us. All of a sudden, they were renting to tons of people. There were death metal bands around us. It started out good, then suddenly I found I couldn't concentrate. I had a session with one of my heroes, who was a friend of mine. He passed away. It was a Johnny Society session and Chris Whitley came down to play guitar on some of our music. There was a death metal band rehearsing down the hall, and I remember saying to myself, "That's it! I'm fucking changing this scene." I started thinking about finding a space outside the city. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I moved out of the city. A local real estate agent brought me to Old Soul. It was the first place she brought me to. When I came into the space, I was silent. I knew something heavy was going to happen. I bought the building, and I'm so glad I did. Not that it's been easy. We've been through many ups and downs and slow periods and times where I was worried if I could keep it going, but we always managed to make it work.
One of the aspects that people often don't understand is that it's not about putting gear in a room, but about having some larger scene based around it that generates something else outside of the room and the gear.
Oh, totally man. I do think that there are many people that don't understand what you just said. The gear is there to help us record our musical visions. Yes, gear matters. But it does not matter more than instruments, your desire to express yourself and to be creative, and to get something going musically with your friends. My roots were about playing, writing, and being creative. Inevitably I had to own my own space, and I lucked out by getting Old Soul. It gets into taking care of yourself. Music is about energy. We have to have energy to give, right? In other words, we get a gift, and we have to honor our gift. Part of that is taking care of your person and yourself. You have to be in a good state of mind.
When your body's not at 100 percent everything is harder.
With every artist that I work with, I say to them, "When we have to do vocals, you have to sleep. You have to get rest." It's taxing and quite physical to sing. We used to tour with Cheap Trick, and we couldn't believe the way that it sounded when Robin Zander was warming up his vocals. He's got such an incredible voice. I asked, "Robin, how do you do that?" He said, "It's just a muscle!" It was a workout for him to get ready to sing those sets. As I developed more as a singer, I also realized singing is like putting your life force into it. It's a very important aspect of making records. The voice is what most people are listening to.
I hate if we haven't started getting to vocals early on a project and it's all piled up to do at the end.
I would say this to anyone who's producing music all the time. Get a rough vocal down early!
Oh, 100 percent.
