How much did you ever envision that you'd be recording people for a living?
Growing up in Rochester, NY, I did a lot of recording and producing in some way. In high school I had this room in my church that used to be a radio studio, which I was given a key to. I used that to record stuff with friends — demos and writing stuff with people. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for college, I wanted to do producing, engineering or something in music, but I wasn't really thinking that I could do it as a career. My brother had lived in Nashville for about ten years at the time. He told me about Belmont University, and it seemed like a good fit because he's 11 years older than me and I'd never really gotten to know him. That was reason enough to move there. I started working for Mitch Dane almost right away.
Since then your career seems to have fallen together very gracefully.
I think that mainly happened because I fell into this community of artists, either from Belmont or just from having met all these songwriters and making friends with them. The next project after Evan's was an EP [Already/Not Yet] with Aaron Roche, and it was really natural for him to approach me. At that point, I was still working at Sputnik after hours and it was still free, so that had a lot to do with it. [laughs] I think it's been so natural because I'm genuinely excited to collaborate with them and not just get something for my production reel.
How did Nashville differ from what you were expecting when you arrived?
When I moved to Nashville, I expected it to be a lot larger. I thought of it as a big city, where it would be really difficult to tap into a community and easy to get lost in. But it's pretty small. A lot of the indie singer/songwriters see each other a lot. They all hang out at the same coffee shops and go to the same shows. It's pretty easy to meet a bunch of people, and before you know it they're your friends. It's the main reason I really love it here.
How much do you see the role of the producer as a collaborator?
I see it almost completely as that. When an artist comes to me with the record that they want to make, I don't feel it's my place to take it in a completely different direction, grab the wheel and run with it. Sometimes an artist wants that, where they just have these guitar-and-vocal songs and they don't really know where the destination is. But for the most part the artist knows what the destination would be, and I'm sort of offering them another way to get there. I'm just trying to push them (lightly) in a direction, and set the scene up so that they can do what they do naturally. I need to help them highlight what makes them unique and authentic so that the listener will be able to hear those aspects first.
You recently wrote on your blog, "Sometimes I think I have a secret crush on the '70s."
I think it's pretty clear that the '70s are the high point for how records sounded. I often go back to that with the sound or vibe I'm trying to get. That seems to have been an age when it was very much about capturing a performance. You could hear a band playing in a room, whereas it just doesn't seem to be about that anymore. It's about everybody doing things separately and everything being too perfect.
What records do you hold up now, either as sonic reference points or albums that had a profound impact on you?
Lately I've been listening to [John Lennon's] Imagine, a lot of Otis Redding and Stax stuff. I'm talking a little bit about the sonics, but mainly there's just this magic where those performances are so incredible. I think those are good examples of the golden age of how records were made.
There are elements that are common to the various recordings — a rustic feel but a modern clarity as well.
I try really hard not to over mix or control things too much. One thing I really don't like about the Nashville sound is how over mixed everything is. Drums are completely separated and everything sounds larger than life. I can't really relate to that. I don't feel like anybody can listen to that for longer than ten minutes before their ears start bleeding. The only conscious thing I try to maintain is a natural feel, where the instruments sound like they should, not like this huge thing that's super-processed. I do try to approach every mix differently, but that would be the main tie between them.
Some of the elements in your mixes have a softer impact.
I think that's very accurate, and I'd say that's mainly from the production side of it. I really love when recordings cause you to lean in, when they have that sense of detail. So yeah, my stuff is quieter in style. I'm just naturally drawn to that in my taste, so I tend to produce that way and the final mixes end up being that way too.
You have an attraction to unsigned rootsy artists and country-tinged folk. What other styles would you consider branching out into?
I have this dream of doing a hip-hop record someday. In general I'm attracted to any music that's honest.
