You got to where you are now not necessarily by nepotism, but by the traditional going up the ladder with hard work, except that you saw and heard some amazing things.
Yes. I used to clean my dad's studio [Nimbus Nine Sound Stage Studios] in downtown Toronto, and I used to go to school during the daytime and then I'd go down and clean and watch people make really wonderful records. The first Peter Gabriel solo record, Mark Farner, John Denver. I guess I kinda was the actual janitor and that's kind of how I got my start. And then when I was sixteen, the first session that I actually ever seconded on was Bob Seger's Night Moves. That was way back when.
And Bob Ezrin was around in those days.
Yeah. You see, my father used to play stand up bass. And Bob's father used to play stand up bass. And Bob's father left this one band and my dad took over his place. And when Bob was about seventeen or eighteen, he came knocking on my dad's door because he wanted to get into the rock and roll business. And Bob was actually hired to write charts. But what happened too was that Shep Gordon, who managed Alice Cooper, wanted my dad to record him. And my dad was like, "Some girl that's actually a guy? No way!", so they flew Bob down to New York and after he saw what it was about he told them, "We'll do it!" and my dad got pissed off and said, "Okay. If you think you are so shit-hot, we're gonna do this at the same time." And that is how Bob got his first break too. My dad and him did Love It To Death.
So you went up the ladder the traditional way — ending up as an assistant. I noticed you worked on tons of those 1980s metal and rock records.
Oh yeah... [laughs] Thanks a lot! Basically, I got a job at Phase One studios in Scarborough, which is part of Toronto, because my dad was working with some band and they were looking for someone to drive people around and I said I'd do it. And the two bosses there, Doug Hill and Paul Gross, asked me if I wanted to come and work there. And I had been there for two years and a German guy named Michael Wagener came in to do a band called Bright Rock and I was his second engineer. It was the first time Michael had ever been to Canada and he actually comes in the studio and he looked at me as some guy who couldn't talk properly, because you know, I actually do stutter, and he was so pissed off and thought, "What the hell am I doing here?" and in his German voice said, "Maybe I should just go home and get the hell out of here!" But then Michael and I became best buds. And after we had finished the record he left and he said, "Garth, I am going to bring you down to Los Angeles," and I said, "Sure, sure, sure Michael, great," and about six months later the phone rang and he said, "Listen Garth, can you hop on a plane?" So I went down and I helped him mix an Alice Cooper record. So my dad got to work with Cooper, and I actually got to work with Cooper. I think Constrictor was the actual record.
And you just stayed down there?
Yep. I went down there for six weeks and that turned into thirteen years. I never left and I basically used to keep my money in the freezer because I couldn't open up a bank account, and I had thousands of dollars hiding under my ice cube trays. It took me about three years to actually get a work visa. I became Michael Wagener's engineer and I worked on records like White Lion, Bonfire, and I even helped get the BulletBoys their start. My first big break was getting to record Mother's Milk by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and then from there I got to do the first Rage Against The Machine record too.
Before we get to those — what did you pick up osmosis-wise from Wagener? I guess back in those days those records were super-vocal laden — lots and lots of layers of falsetto I bet.
[laughs] Yeah. Vocals and lots of hairspray. I actually learnt from Michael how to get great guitar sounds. He was always the king for that. He had the '80s metal sound down to a tee. And of course back then they didn't have Pro Tools or whatever, so anytime you wanted to fly tracks around you had to lock up two decks and offset things and such and it got pretty difficult.
And Mother's Milk?
That was absolutely wonderful. I was actually working with a drummer named Chad Smith — we were doing this jingle and I was going over to meet Michael Beinhorn and a guy named Lindsay Getz, who was at the time the manager. And they said, "Look Garth, we're looking to find someone to play the drums for them," and I said that I knew the guy so I told them about him. They said he was going to come and play the next day and I told them then that's their guy. So that's how Chad and I got started, and that was when John [Frusciante] began to play guitar for the band too. He was absolutely a brilliant player. I think he was eighteen when he joined. That was his dream — to play with Flea.
And then to Rage Against The Machine, which I think is one of the greatest rock records of the 1990s. To me it sounded like they didn't need any rehearsals. They sounded like they were on fire.
Yeah. With Rage, we didn't really have to do much pre- production because for their first record, they were actually A BAND. That's why I think the record turned out so great was because they were four close-knit guys. After I did them, the next record and the other two, Zack [de laRocha] and Tom [Morello] didn't really speak. I do tend to try and do many, maybe like a week or ten days or two weeks getting to know a band and their songs — because some bands you have to go in and kind of have to show them what a song is, and some bands you don't — and Rage was one of those bands. They had everything there. I did help Zack with a couple of vocal lines and parts and there but that's it. We actually did that record where we had brought in a big concert P.A. system and we had Brad Wilk sitting behind the actual P.A. with his drums and we had Tom's guitar, Tim's bass and Zack's vocals coming though the P.A. The one song that was completely live from the floor was "Settle For Nothing". Zack lost his voice after the first couple of days and we basically had to go in and redo his vocals on some songs.
I can imagine that hardly any vocal comps were done too.
Well, what I actually did with his vocals was that I cleared out the front of the console where somebody would sit down and balance things and I gave Zack a hand-held SM58 and I cranked the main monitors as loud as they could go and just had him sing. What Zack would do live, Zack did there — you know, dancing, and doing what Zack does. I didn't want to bring him in there and put him in front of a nice mic with a pop screen. I wanted him live.
He had to be himself.
Exactly yeah. You know what? That's the biggest problem that people do today. When they make records they take the band out of their comfort zone and environment of what they are actually used to and a lot of people that made records are so cut up on specs this, and specs that. The whole thing is that you're dealing with human beings and you are dealing with music and art. The whole "art" thing to me is getting lost.
Who do you think has retained that virtue thus far?
The only band that I think basically has taken risks is Radiohead. The last two records that they did are such a far departure from what their first three records were. Everybody is hopping on a stupid bandwagon. I wish people would make records form the heart and not from the pocketbook.
Like The Melvins?
[laughs] Oh yeah. You know what? That's exactly why I loved working with them because they are absolutely 100% true art. The really funny thing was I think it was Danny Goldberg who called me up because he had actually signed them to a label he was with at the time and he said, "Buzz Osborne is a complete lyric genius." And I thought, "Okay, great," and I went to Buzz and asked him to write me out the lyrics to a song and he said, "They weren't done yet." So then goes on and says, "Okay Garth, hit play [on the tape machine]." The song plays once, and then again, and then he basically wrote out the lyrics right there. He actually just wrote them for the first time. And I read them and they went like "tic-a-toe-rest, do-fa-me-lah, be-so-do, me-kay-be-dee." And I said, "Buzz... what is this!?" and he goes, "This is how I write songs!" They meant absolutely nothing. There were basically words that just sounded good. Buzz really pushed it, but I loved that. We would do those records from start to finish — mixed in twelve days.
Houdini, Stoner Witch and Stag, right?
Yeah. I took over from Kurt Cobain for the first record, Houdini.
Stoner Witch was recorded with Joe [Baressi].
Yeah. That was my favorite one. And the really weird thing was, that record and Stag and Shot by the Jesus Lizard which I also did were the two records I got a Juno nomination for a [Canadian version of a Grammy], and actually ended up winning, too.
