I was wondering about something you said at the SXSW conference — something about how and why a studio can be intimidating to an artist — that the musicians themselves should have ease of access to be able to operate equipment in addition to the engineer/producer.
Well, I think some of the functions in the studio should be regarded to be public functions. Knowing what the arrangement of the song is — that should be made public. The clock positions of your recording system should also be made public. So that the people in the room can educate themselves as the work is progressing. For example, if the guitar player hears a point in the song where he feels he wants to do a repair or have a point to come back to, it's nice for that person to be able to say, "Could we go to number — 2 minutes 37 seconds, please?" and so the engineer knows what he's talking about. With the wonderful advantages of modern day technology, one of the things that has not improved seemingly is exactly that — the communication system. So it has become more elitist, in a sense that the operator of the Pro Tools system has a rack and has a chair and has a job and is getting paid and perhaps the musicians are not included in the process. So we've kind of taken a few steps back in my opinion. I always increase communications systems as much as possible and that's what leads to good work. Some of my best work has been done in places where everyone was speaking the same language.
Even back in the day, you and brother Bob began experimenting with the idea of the "open concept" studio — to have the studio built around a band.
I grew up in a conventional studio environment through the 1970s. The usual control room — a piece of glass and musician's room. And I lost interest in that in the late '70s — it became kind of laughable to me. First of all, the amount of time people would spend getting sounds was unappealing to me. Someone would be out there beating on a snare for eight hours — somebody in the control room thinks they're a genius by equalizing it somewhat and I got fed up with it. I thought, "This has nothing to do with music." I also got tired of somebody trying to talk to somebody else in the studio and they're waving their arms and their microphones aren't on and their frustrations would build. I thought [about] why these people don't have problems when they're up on stage, and it's because they're relatively close together and there's no glass, no segregation. So I became fascinated with recording in an open room. I started that in the early 1980s in Hamilton. I used to get use of the old library in Hamilton — it was disused at the time — and they gave me access to it for several months. I recorded a few different bands there and it was great — I treated it more like setting up for a show and we were using more of a P.A. mentality to recording. Harnesses — put that drum over here, bring the microphone over — you know, treating it more like sound reinforcement, like you're doing a show on the Friday and this is Thursday — you gotta get your set-up going. And I found that it increased communication.
Everybody was listening to the same thing. Musicians were hearing their instruments in the room and the engineer would also be hearing the same thing. There's a little bit of a risk involved in the sense that the engineer can't be listening in complete isolation from the player — and you get used to that — you wear cans and what not. I got very musical results out of that system — that's what we did with U2's The Unforgettable Fire essentially. We had a couple of different band rooms giving us a lot of flexibility — the control room became the main recording room where we did all the vocals, all the overdubs were done there. It was kind of the brainstorming center. Over the years I've realized now that the brainstorming center is really the great arena of creation, it shouldn't belong to an engineer and producer, it should be the room where all the smart people get to hang out. That's what it was about as I first said, I got tired of head-banging and trying to equalize a sound for hours, somebody hitting a tom- tom for too long, that kind of thing. I wanted more of the jazz music school of thought where the kit is what it is and it's the engineer's job to document the thing — it's not about some incredible transformation or anything! I found that keeping people close together physically, I got more musical results. You could still isolate amplifiers and still have little hidden corners and DIs and whatnot, but you don't want to make too much of that — it should almost be like the kind of thing that goes to your recording system and you don't need to have a lot of discussion about it. And further to that, I found by designing a recording environment specific to a project, [it] paid respect to the project. It was like, "Okay, this is important — we're going to do something great — we're going to build a custom set." So you'll feel special and think, "Wow nothing like this has ever been done before, we're not stepping into someone else's sound — this is our own custom work." That was the spirit behind it. I'm moving out of that, by the way — in my mind I'm moving into another direction now, but that interested me to the mid 1980s to a few years ago. I'm still using it but I'm moving onto other ideas now.
You are a teacher as well? I think it's an integral part to being a good producer — to be able to pass on ideas and methods to others.
Well, in my world I still take people on all the time whenever I need people. Adam [Samuels] [Tape Op #37], who is doing sound with me, is a young guy and he wasn't doing this four years ago. But I knew that he was hungry, smart, had good musical taste and I sensed that he would respond very well to a teacher- student relationship. So I've been teaching him everything I know. He doesn't have to be taught what good music is. He just needs to be taught, 'How does this connector meet that one?', 'What do we do here?' and so on. Anybody can learn that, and it's just a matter of paying attention and writing stuff down. It's a great thing to do just to pass on whatever bits of wisdom I've picked up on along the way — I like doing it and I like working with young people. It's kind of a young person's position when you think about it — coming up the ranks into engineering. I like working with young folks because they're just hungrier. I have enough experience to steer them away from "sand traps" so I keep an eye out on people that I work with — I give them some rope. Also, I learn a lot from young people because I like to work with idealistic music listeners — they turn me onto records and a way of looking at the world that I wouldn't be able to see.
Well, people should never allow themselves to become set in their ways.
I don't know if I would call it keeping one "thinking young" — they just keep you interested. One of the great ingredients that we have to work with is to have the ability to get excited, and youth is often connected with that. But in fact, if you're ongoingly fascinated you'll keep being hungry for information and the ability to get excited is very important to me. I have it, and by having Jen [Tipoulow] and Adam around with me we get thrills — we brainstorm at night — it's really cool.
I've wanted to point out that there are certain records you have worked on which are fantastic and inspired- sounding that don't seem to get talked about much. For example, the Scott Weiland [from Stone Temple Pilots] 12 Bar Blues disc.
Well, Scott sent me his record with a view of my adding to it and maybe mixing it. And I thought it was fabulously interesting and I thought it was the most inventive work I've heard in a while. On the strength of that, I said I'd mix half of the record. I did an interesting setup, which is something that I always do now if possible. I set up in the main control room to do the mixing. And then we do an extra console in a side room. Let's say there's a little booth or a kitchen next to the main control room — I set up another console in there, usually a 24- or 36-channel compact console, maybe a Mackie or whatever. And that person in there gets all the same information. They get their own processing gear but they get all the tracks. So while I'm mixing in the main room, someone else is mixing in the side room, but I don't know what they're doing. And during Scott Weiland it was Mark Howard who was in the other room. And it's, like, no-holds barred. Whatever you come up with, I'm interested in listening to it. So I'll be working on a mix, an hour will go by and I'll go into Mark's room and say, "Let me hear what you've got," and there might be something in his mix that is better than what's in my mix, like maybe he's got the drums sounding better or the bottom is better at which point I will say, "Don't change anything!" I have two faders on my main console giving me access to listen to what he's up to. So I bring that up. And if he's got a better bass sound than what I do, we print it on the main recording system. So it's just the way of raising the standard a little bit. That person, the "renegade" person, they might hit on a cool vocal echo, so you use it. It's sort of a buddy system. I do that with Brian Eno as well when we're working together. We set up the "manipulation-station" in the room and that's the station that Brian usually sits at and he wears headphones and he goes bonkers — he tries the craziest stuff and every now and then we bring up the two faders on the console and see what he's up to.
That's how the background vocals to "It's A Beautiful Day" from U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind — that's how we came up with that sound, it was an Eno manipulation. Eno and I have always done that. Plus, come in the studio early and knock something together for the band for when they walk in. The thing I've done for years — as you're going along, and you hit on something nice, let's say a vocal effect that seems cool, you document it, you write it down — what the echo is and this and that. And that becomes 'vocal sound number one.' Put it on the wall. And for number two and three and so on. So for a specific project, you keep track of your most interesting sounds relating to that project so it gives that record a chance to have its own unique sonic personality. You don't wait until you're mixing to think everybody in the room is going to be a genius inside of an afternoon. In fact genius is small pieces — as you make your discoveries, you document them, you make your menu, and that becomes a menu for that record. Even if you don't end up using that very mix from that day, you at least document it, put it down and say, "Okay, here's the plan for the echoes"' and whatnot.
That Willie Nelson record, Teatro — we would record a track, do a couple of overdubs, and while we're listening back, we'd lay down a mix. And I would say to Mark, "That sounded great, Mark, let's try another one, lemme help you with the intro and I'll do the fade." You knock one out, and that record is made up of those mixes. So the spirit of the moment goes a long way. So what does it cost you? You know — a four minute stretch of a DAT to lay it down? It's probably one of the most valuable lessons — get yourself along the way.
Your new record, Shine, is highly interesting — sort of complex yet simple sounding, with great depth and extreme clean clarity to it.
We took an 18-wheeler [truck] full of equipment to Mexico — that was complex in itself! [laughs] We were dealing with immigration and customs, having to bribe people and so on. [laughs] We set up the same kind of "renegade" setup — we had an Amek Tac console — a very compact 48 channel — like a high-end P.A. console — and it was great. I loved it down there. We had no magnetic field problem. You know about magnetic field?
Somewhat...
If you play a single-coil guitar, like a Fender Telecaster, in some places — Hamilton, by the way, is one of the worst places in the world — you get this incredible buzzing and humming coming through your guitar. It's the pick-up picking up what all that exists in the air — it's called magnetic field. It's created by high-current power lines and streetcar systems and factories, just lots of wires creates magnetic field. And in Mexico — no magnetic field problem — incredible! It was the purest electricity that I have ever experienced working with. It's the kind of stuff that never gets talked about in other magazines — it's the quality of your electricity that has a lot to do with how your guitar amps sound, how good your computers run and all that stuff. So as someone who has moved around a lot, I look for really good power and low magnetic field problems.
Another strength to your production values is on dance/beat-oriented music. The Luscious Jackson Fever In, Fever Out album is another album that just sort of came and went.
Well, I've always been interested in rhythm. It happens to be part of my musical "gift" — I'm a very rhythmic musician. In the early days I played in funk bands and I have the gift for that. It happens not to be where I go musically for songwriting, so it's kind of a contradiction, but I love the idea of rhythmic music but it's not what I'm known for — for whatever reason. For the Luscious Jackson stuff we did most of that in the drummer's apartment on 14th street [in New York City] where they were rehearsing. I thought that room had a vibe to it so I said, "Let's just start here." I shipped some equipment down from Canada — my brother Bob did the set-up and we just kind of worked with what they already had, and chipped away at it. We got a lot of nice tracks in there because they were physically really close together — there was nice vibe there. The shape of rooms — it's an ongoing mystery to me about rooms and their musicality, but I've pretty much come to the conclusion that rooms with really tall ceilings that are kind of rectangular-shaped, like Sun Studios — tile on the floor — not carpet — tile or wood or preferably tile on concrete, like a lot of the old BBC studios are like that, orchestra rooms, including Tuff Gong in Jamaica — those seem to be the most musical and dense rooms.
The room becomes the engineer and musician at times...
It's the kind of thing that never really gets talked about — how a room becomes the extension, if you're a guitar player, of your amplifier. Your amplifier will not sound the same in every room you go. I suppose an extreme example is if you play outside, your amp has no walls to play off — it tends to poop out a little quicker, it'll be more bagged-out sounding. But if you're in a really good dense room, like maybe like a big kitchen for example, suddenly your amp sounds twice as loud, twice as good and has more body. So I really look for rooms that are musical rooms and that will be sort of amplifiers of music. Band shells are an example of that — if you sing in a band shell you sound louder than you would if you were just standing out in a field. So some of the most musical rooms that I have ever worked in have been rooms that have not been designed for sound.
What would have been the most interesting and unique environment you recorded in? I recall that you did some of the first U2 record you and Eno worked on in a castle in Ireland...
Well I think the Mexican set up was the most unique because it was sitting on top of a cliff that somebody had dynamited — taken a chunk out of the cliff and had built this kind of a house with a palapa roof so we were under a palapa roof on a mountain top, but then you can step outside — so the house was half inside, half outside and that was probably the most unusual and creative environment.
Your music/style lends itself perfectly to films. Slingblade is a rather fine example of that.
Well I don't want to be a soundtrack guy, but I like great films. So I always keep my eyes open for a great film. I was lucky enough to write and deliver the music for Slingblade. Billy Bob Thornton and I have been talking about doing one more.
What some people might not know is that besides painting, photography and drawing, you make your own films as well.
Yes, I have my own little film on the go — it's provisionally titled Silvio. It's a little science-fiction film, about a little baby who comes from somewhere else in the universe and comes to this planet and his journey through childhood, teenage years and adulthood and just sort of his way of looking at the world, and I kind of do it with just a little tabletop project. I use photographs, dolls and by hook and crook I make my own films. It doesn't have a home right now but may come back into existence after this tour.
Of course you like using old and obscure equipment, like mics, old cameras, and whatever other toys that have a fine lower or higher grain or marred sonic quality. The need for "high fidelity" doesn't really matter in the process, does it?
