I wanted to talk about the Candy Butchers, not only as your launching point, but also what studios were like back then versus now.
Oh, yeah; let's get into it. I grew up outside of Boston, in the ‘80s. There was an incredible punk rock scene in Boston then. I was a kid playing music and I knew the three chords, I knew how to ape the rock stars that I loved, and I pulled it off. I got gigs around town. And then the press started calling me a rock 'n' roll prodigy – which was absurd, because it's three chords and some kid singing about skipping school and about his girlfriends. But there was something about the androgynous nature of my age and my size. Things happened quickly. I was 13, I was playing in rock 'n' roll clubs like The Rat, The Channel, and Jack’s. I was playing with my friends who were also 13, and we [The Bottom Line] started getting a following. We didn't listen to punk rock. We listened to Foreigner, Rush, and Ozzy [Osbourne]. But when we tried to play that music, we sounded like The Buzzcocks! We went door-to-door in our neighborhood and gathered money to go into a recording studio. We got enough money to buy three hours. And the name of the studio was Euphoria Sound Studios, in Revere, Massachusetts, right on the beach.
Awesome!
It was the ‘80s, but this was built in the ‘70s. It was carpeted everywhere and smelled like stale cigarette smoke. We set up, we had three hours, and we're thinking, “Okay, we're going to record every song Mike has ever written.” [laughter] We set up and the guy gets sounds. His name was Gordon [Hookailo], and he was a very good engineer. He was laughing the whole time because we were just ready for it. My mom was in the lounge, and my dad was there chain-smoking and putting out cigarette butts in our Coca-Cola cans. I remember this so vividly. We're recording, and we're burning. We're killing it. We asked, “Can we do another song?” So, we did 12 songs. We took a break for lunch, and we listened to the songs. The first time I heard the playback, I said, “This doesn't sound good.” It didn't sound like [Rush's] 2112 or Moving Pictures. [laughter] Gordon said, “Well, you’ve got to do overdubs.” I asked, “What's that?” He told me, and I said, “Oh, yeah. Let's do overdubs.” We did overdubs and we finished three complete songs. While we're doing that, my mom picked up a Musician magazine – not the nationwide Musician magazine, it was a local New England magazine called Musician – and Kim Fowley, a notorious L.A. impresario, was on the cover. In the magazine, he says, “I'm looking for the next superstar, so send me your cassettes. I will listen to them, and I will reply to every single one.” My mom, unbeknownst to us, steals the magazine! We finished this recording, and it was good. We ended up liking it. My voice was so high, and we had [Remo] Rototoms – let's leave it at that. [laughter] My mom sent a tape to Kim Fowley. The beige kitchen wall phone rang during dinner one night and Kim says, “I'm looking for Mike Viola. This is Kim Fowley calling from Hollywood, California. I want you to come out and make a record with me.” I was 13!
That’s insane!
I know. My mom got on the phone and they arranged for me to go out for winter break in February. I wanted to bring my whole band, and he said, “No, I'm just interested in you coming out. We will write the songs and then we'll talk about the band.” He flies me out, puts me up at The Tropicana, and there was The Pretenders' tour bus right out in front.
Did your mom go with you?
I was with my mom and my brother. I wrote a record with Kim Fowley, and he got me a record deal. He taught me how to write songs the way I do now. It was a master class in songwriting, freedom, and being a freak. He saw me and said, “You're a superstar.” Like an Andy Warhol superstar.
He saw the art in you.
He said, “It's okay to blurt whatever you're feeling. The odds are that it’s probably better than what you're thinking.” He taught me that the songs are in your body. We wrote these songs, I got home, and I played the songs for my band. My band said, “These songs suck.” [laughter] "This guy sucks, he's a creep, and we need to get back to what we were doing." So, I bailed on Kim Fowley and ignored him. He would call the kitchen phone at dinnertime and start swearing and calling me all sorts of shit. But anyhow, that was my first experience in the recording studio. I learned at a young age how to do it – what an overdub was, don't get too close to the mic, what a pop screen is for, how to get rid of a ground buzz on your guitar, and what an echo chamber is. The recordings are so beautiful, and I love them so much. I tracked down George on Facebook and asked, “Is there any chance there's a closet somewhere in Revere with all the master tapes?” He's like, “No.” That would be so fun to get my hands on that.
Do you only have a cassette?
I have a cassette, and it sounds bitchin’. I also have a 1/4-inch reel as well. I only bring this up because things were happening for me, and then my dad died. I call it my “super kid” phase because I was on this local TV show called Super Kids. I was this young kid whose destiny was clear. Then my dad died, and my family couldn't handle it. It blew up the whole thing. I had to go to work for my family in a restaurant, making subs and pizzas in a mall. I did that for a long, long time, and then I married my childhood sweetheart. Then I started to write really good songs, because I was back on my feet. I got my own apartment, and then she got cancer and two years later she died. All this got in the way of me living my creative musical life. I had love in my life. I had loss in my life. There's beauty in both of those. But I didn't get to be an artist. After she died, my good friend, Adam Schlesinger, had this loft apartment in the West Village [New York City]. We had a band together called Pinwheel that was a tangent from what I was trying to do with the band called Candy Butchers. We were at that age where everybody had four bands they were in, and we were all playing three or four nights a week in Boston. Adam had a loft in New York, and he was at my wife's memorial. He said, “Look, if you’ve got to get out of here, come live with me in New York. I have room.” So, I went and lived with Adam, slept on his futon, and within a week or so I landed a publishing deal. After a month or two, I got a record deal. I found my people in New York. There was a club called Fez, and Joe McGinty – he's still in New York making great music – had this night called Loser's Lounge. It was all the freaks doing versions of Brian Wilson songs. It was almost like a talent show, and some of the people involved were extremely talented. It was a great thing, and it was my launching pad. It got me attention, and it got people to know who I was.
How old were you?
I was 29; almost 30. I felt like an older guy and washed up in a way. But people liked my songs, and I got this record deal. I wanted to work with Mitchell Froom [Tape Op #10] because I loved his records. He was playing on the scene with Dan Zanes, who’s incredible. He made this solo record with Mitchell and Jerry Marotta [#33] called Cool Down Time. I became friends with Jerry and Mitchell, and Mitchell said, “Yeah, I'll do a Candy Butchers record.” I flew out to L.A. to meet with him at Studio B at Sound Factory. I called him from the airport, “I'm here. Where do I go?” He said, “Mike, I'm so sorry. Crowded House is doing a greatest hits record, and Neil [Finn] asked me if I could come to Australia to record a new song or two for it. I'm so sorry, I can't do your record.” I said, “That's okay, Mitchell. It's fine. Can I wait for you?” He said, “Yeah. Can you wait three months?” My manager tells me, “No, you can't wait three months.” I had to find somebody else. I went back to New York and started meeting with producers. I met some of my favorite producers, including Danny Kortchmar, who did the Don Henley record, Building the Perfect Beast, that I love. I loved it in high school. It was a straight up ‘80s album, I know that! To be honest, I have a little bit of a hard time listening to some of it now. I cringe at some of the lyrics. But “Boys of Summer”? That song is bulletproof. Anyhow, I said, “I want to meet Danny Kortchmar.” I met him, and we got along great.
Wasn't he a session guitarist as well?
The guitarist’s guitarist. He played on Carole King, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne [Tape Op #105] records. He's a great producer and a great songwriter. Then I met this guy, David Kahne, who was a straight up freak. He was very uncomfortable in the meeting, but what he was saying was exactly the aesthetic that I wanted to go with. So, I picked him. My manager asked, “Are you sure?” He had some personal issue with him, but I didn't care. I wanted to work with David. We both agreed we should do it to 8-track, 2-inch [reel-to-reel]. There wasn't an 8-track, 2-inch machine at Sony, so we had to rent one. We never put on the mains [monitors], we only listened through the [Yamaha] NS-10s or we listened to playback in mono on the Auratone, which was David's thing. He said, “You will put less on tape if you listen this way. You'll hear more of what's actually going on.” I thought, “Is this guy okay?” I felt like I was getting ripped off, in a way. “What about those huge Urei [monitors]?” “No, don't listen to those. They lie.” He taught me to listen quietly and to listen on small speakers. We tracked live. I would play the song in the control room for the drummer and the bass player. The bass player wrote charts quickly; chord charts and a few notations. The drummer didn't do that at all. Then the drummer and bass player would go in the lounge, smoke a ton of weed, and come back in. I would be in a booth with my Gretsch [guitar] plugged into my Vox [amplifier], no pedals. We'd play the song maybe three times, and if it started to feel right, David would say, “Okay, we got it.” I'd be, “Really? Are you sure?” And he'd say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Then Andy Kravitz, the drummer – who’s also a bitchin' engineer – would cut the tape. He would do window edits on the 2-inch – he would do it fast, and he was stoned! He was cutting like a wizard, with tape flying all around. He'd cut it to get the pocket right. Once the pocket was right, then we'd determine, “Okay, do we have to do any punch-ins?” Some of these edits might've chopped up bass, guitar, or vocal notes. We'd do the overdubs to fix what he chopped in the edits. But it was never song forms; it was always pocket-based. Or, if he said, “I like what I did in take two in the bridge, so I'm going to cut that and put it in." He would do that all the time. That's how we made that first record. It was all on tape and eight tracks, which is the format I work with now. It taught me the economy of ideas. I do like records that are very layered and lush and ornate, where it takes a few listens to absorb what's going on. But for me, as an artist, it taught me, “This is how I can get my ideas across.” It's not for everybody, but it's how I need to do it. I learned that from David Kahne. All around us people were laughing, “Why aren't you using Pro Tools? Or the Sony DASH machine with 48 tracks? Why are you recording on this dinosaur?” My manager would say, “I don't get it. But go ahead, do what you want to do.” But Tommy LiPuma, who'd signed me to Universal, loved it and loved the sounds. He said, “I love that you're doing it this way.” Amos Newman, Randy Newman's son, had also helped sign me. The two of them together were total artistic freedom. It was a dream. David did a fantastic job. We did the artwork for it and everything, and then the label [Blue Thumb Records] folded.
Wow.
This happens with corporations. I wasn't the only record thrown out with the bathwater. But it was significant for me, based on the previous loss that I'd experienced. Losing my dad, losing my wife at 27 years old, and having that screw up my creative trajectory. And then the label folded. We couldn't sell the record because it was too much money. I think the budget for that record was a quarter of a million dollars. You might ask, “What did you spend it on?” It was the ‘90s, and they were giving out million-dollar record deals. This was a "small" deal. We were renting the NS-10s because they weren't in the studio. We had to rent the tape machine. We had to rent a Pro Tools rig for David to do all of his MIDI programming. It's weird that he did any at all, but it was a tool he wanted nearby. I think he was working on a Sheryl Crow record at the time as well, and he was moonlighting. That's what I think that rig was doing there, but maybe not. It all cost a lot of money.
You were spending thousands of dollars a day.
Even hotels. The bass player was from out of town. I would never spend that money now. I make records with big budgets, but I try not to milk the budget just because it's there. If the deal is set up correctly, that money can go back into the artist's pocket. When I was doing A&R for a brief time, I made sure that that was the case. But anyway, from the Candy Butchers’ implosion, all around me everybody that I was making music with started to see success: Nada Surf, Fountains of Wayne, and all my friends. I was in my basement apartment, mourning and beat down. It was difficult for me. I turned to light drugs and that turned into an addiction. Pills, booze, and smoking. I was bummed out.
Was working on the That Thing You Do! film around this time?
Yeah. It happened alongside making the record with David Kahne. In between making that record with David and the label folding, I created the song, “That Thing You Do!,” with Adam Schlesinger and Andy Chase, who were both in the band Ivy that I also played guitar in. It's very incestuous! The three of us made that, we named ourselves Scientist Alexis; we sent it in and they picked the song. I didn't want to sing it. John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band were a Rhode Island band, close to Boston. They were really good. Then they did the film Eddie and the Cruisers, and that was it. He was known as the guy that sang that Eddie and the Cruisers song. So, when “That Thing You Do!” came down the pipe, I said, “Sure, I'll help you, Adam and Andy. But I don't want to do this for real.” But it's music. You put a guitar on me and put me in front of a mic, and I'm going to do the best I can because I love doing it. It came out really good, they picked it, and then they wanted me to sing it and play guitar. I didn't want to do it, but then Don Was [Tape Op #113] called me. He said, “Look, I'm producing it. I'm not going to put you through some wringer. Kenny Aronoff's playing drums and you’re playing guitar and maybe a little bass.” I'm thinking, “That sounds fucking fun.”
Don's a Detroit guy. He's got that Midwestern thing going.
Yep, exactly. He is a Detroit guy, through and through. “It's going to be about music. You're very good at this specific thing. We need you.” Tom Hanks even said, “We cannot do this without Mike.” Other people tried, and they sang in tune and sounded good. It was just not the right timbre. They put me on a plane, sent me the script, and I flew into L.A. I remember going to my hotel and being totally drunk, passing out. I didn't see any mountains; it was so gray outside and smoggy. I remember waking up, seeing mountains on recording day, and thinking, “Oh, wow. There are mountains. It's beautiful.” I had this hope. I remember getting in my rental car and going to the studio. It was Ocean Way, which used to be United Western Recorders, famous for The Beach Boys, but also the Mamas and Papas.
Yeah, that was Lou Adler's room.
Yeah. A historic spot. Don was there, and the first thing he wanted to know was, “What's going on with your music? Is your music like this?” I replied, “No, not at all.” He said, “Play me something.” I’d just recorded an instrumental song, “Death Rattle,” because of all the fucking death in my life. It's just this pretty melody. He loved it. He was saying, “Man, this is heavy. Play me other stuff.” I played him some, and he said, “You're very good.” I'm thinking, “Thanks, Don Was.” Then he puts the reel of tape up and gets me in front of the mic. He'd rented me a Gretsch Tennessean [guitar] and a Vox [amp]. He had me plug into a tuner. I said, “Nope. I'll tune with my ear and plug it into the amp." We did three takes, one after the other, without him saying much except, “You cool to do one more?” At the end of the third take, he said, “Thanks, Mike, I think we got it.” I came back into the control room, “Wait. That's it?” He says, “Yeah, man. You're an assassin.” I left the studio, and they comped those three takes.
This is for the main title song?
Yeah. Then he asked, “Would you be into doing the background harmonies? Who did those?” I replied, “Those are all me.” I slowly started to replace parts they put on there with other singers and other musicians. So, it's mostly me and Kenny playing on that. It was very quick. They had me back in the next day to do the other versions of the songs. Then they had this other song they wanted me to sing that I didn't like. They gave me a lead sheet, I was reading the words, and I was like, “Yeah, I don't think I want to sing this.” Don Was asked, “Why?” and I said, “This is a terrible song. I don't understand the words.” It didn't make sense to me. I didn't know it, but the songwriter was standing right there.
Oh…
I did that a lot back then because I was angry and sad.
No filter, let it fly?
Yes. When I found out it was him, I said, “I'm so sorry.” I was a nice person, but I didn't have a filter, like you said. Years later, when Mitchell Froom and I were working on a Rufus Wainwright project together, he said to me, “It's so crazy. You’re such a different person than who you were when I first met you. That was like your evil twin.” [laughter] I said, “I'm so sorry. Was I insulting?” He said, “No, you were just very, very sad.” Everyone could tell, "That guy needs therapy." During that session, Liz Phair popped over because she was recording next door, and then she was dancing to the song. I was thinking, “This is awesome! L.A. is incredible.” She was super cool. The last time I was in L.A. had been with Kim Fowley, and this time I was thinking, “L.A. is pretty great.”
I want to know how you got your foot in the door, years later, with Get Him to the Greek and Dewey Cox [Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story].
Dewey Cox was written by a good friend of mine, Jake Kasdan, with Judd Apatow. Those guys had done a television show called Freaks and Geeks.
Oh, right.
When Jake was working on the show, he would visit our apartment in New York. We’d chain smoke, drink Diet Coke, and talk about Freaks and Geeks. “How the hell are you going to get away with that? That sounds so great.” It was a show for a season, and then they [NBC] yanked it. But it teed both of them up to have important Hollywood careers, as they both do. I had left my record deal with a different record; it was a Mike thing, but Candy Butchers was attached to it. But the whole identity had been fractured.
Was this Hang on Mike?
No, I made Falling Into Place; a sad, angry record. I feel like somebody should have pulled me aside and put me in therapy a long time ago. By the time I did Hang on Mike, I started going to therapy. Hang on Mike was the therapy record. That was the record where I was thinking, “Oh, this is how I always wanted my records to sound.” I went back to tape, to cutting tape, and doing it live in a room. Right after Hang on Mike, I did a record called Just Before Dark live at Largo here in L.A. Judd and Jake liked that record. They're both astute listeners when it comes to songs. When they wrote Walk Hard, it's a music heavy script. Jake was like, “Look, read the script.” My daughter, Isabelle, was a baby at the time, and I went to the library around the corner with her. She was playing in the little play area, and I read that script, laughed out loud, and was thinking, “I would love to write a song.” I wrote a song right away without even any contract or talk about what I'd get paid. I recorded it and they loved it. It was as simple as, “Will you come out to L.A.?" I had a new baby, and my wife worked full time.
Were you in New York?
I was in New York, living in a storefront apartment. I flew out and they put me up at a hotel with Dan Bern, who was also writing songs. Dan and I became the best of friends and insisted that we collaborate on all the songs. We split the publishing and credits, and we wrote so many songs for that movie. I ended up being a consultant, going to set and seeing if the musicians needed help. I became good friends with [lead actor] John C. Reilly during the course of that movie. He can really sing and play, so we ended up writing a couple songs together. That movie was slated to come out for Christmas, but that Christmas there was a writers’ strike in Hollywood. If you don't live here, you don't really understand how impactful that is on the economy. It's massive. All the talk shows were running reruns, so John didn't get to go on them. Our plan was to go on all the late night talk shows, have John be Dewey Cox, and we would play live. It would blow minds, because John was so teed up and so good in that movie. But that didn't happen. As a backup plan, they agreed to put us on tour. They got a private jet and flew us around to all the major markets, calling it “Cox Across America.” [laughter] John would text me before every show, and he'd throw a left hook. He'd be like, “Tonight we're going to do ‘Rehab.' Just teach the band, okay? See you at the show!” We did that sort of thing at every show. In New York, we did the Beastie Boys' “Sabotage.” It was a great time, and I loved the music on that. Mike Andrews [Tape Op #168] produced all that music. He brought it to living color and did the songs so much justice. He's a great producer.
You have the ability to inject your humor into the music.
Yeah. Also, there's Judd and Jake and the feedback they'd give. There's a song Dan and I were trying to write for the end of the movie, “Beautiful Ride.” It's the big ending song. Dewey loses his sense of smell in the movie. So, in “Beautiful Ride” he looks back on his whole life and synthesizes it into one song – that was the song directive. That's a hard song to write. I had this idea about stopping to smell the flowers – like, “I couldn't stop to smell the flowers." I wrote this whole song. It was really pretty, and Jake said, “I think you’re swinging for the fences on that one.” I asked, “What does that mean?” He's like, “You don't understand what swinging for the fences means? It means it's trying too hard.” I realized, “Oh yeah, it totally is.” The feedback of the writers and the director played a large part. They didn't do the writing – that was me and Dan Bern – but the direction they gave, as well as the feedback, changed everything for us. On Get Him to the Greek, Judd produced that. It was written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, who I'm working on a movie with right now. Judd was my way into that. At that point, I had a full studio in L.A. all set up. With Walk Hard, I was living in New York, but then I'd moved to L.A. and Get Him to the Greek was the first gig that came my way. I had this crappy little Pro Tools setup with BFD Drums and everything was MIDI. But whatever; an artist can make anything sound cool. I played all the drums with my fingers; I never programmed anything. They dug the songs, and Dan and I had written all the ones we were asked to write. When it came to “Furry Walls,” what happened is that when they tested the movie, that scene with the furry walls was everybody's favorite. Judd and Nicholas, because they’re good at what they do, decided that we should swing back to that at the end. They asked me, “Can you write a song called ‘Furry Walls?’” I wrote four different versions, because it was in my wheelhouse more than Dan's, and then he would inject these crazy ideas into them to send them over the top. I'd send them to Judd and Nicholas, and they both said, “It's not quite right. It's too complicated.” I call it “overwriting,” and it's a difficult thing. I was getting lost. Judd sent me this text, and he said, “Dude, it's so simple. It's just got to be about furry walls. ‘Furry walls, blah blah blah. Furry walls, blah blah. Furry walls, furry walls.’” I took that and put lyrics to it. I did give him songwriting credit, because without Judd it wouldn't have happened that way. Working with that caliber of talent really does elevate you, if you let it. If you follow the flow, show up prepared, and are a good listener, you can learn so much.
How do those lessons from the movie world affect you as a producer when you make a record with Mandy Moore, Dawes, or Panic! at the Disco? Does that cross over?
As a writer, it definitely helps. If we're writing a song and we take an off ramp, and we're trying to head to the beach, but we're in the swampy area that's non-swimmable, I know how to turn around. Or to pull the ripcord on the jet pack and get the hell out of there! So, that's all from what I've learned as I roll forward. But with production, I'm not sure it did affect that. It affected my personality, so it affects it in that way, but not directly.
Does your “What does it need?” production style work in these cases?
I don't present it as a rule, like, “If you want to work with me, this is how we do it.” If the songs are incredible, the singer is great, and we get along, I'll do whatever they want. I would love to give my method the first shot because I believe in it, but if they want to pivot and go to Pro Tools and spend hours comping a tambourine part, I'll do that too. I believe in the art and the artist first. But sometimes I lock horns. For instance, with Dawes, Taylor Goldsmith is the singer-songwriter in the band, and then his brother, Griff, is the drummer. He’s also a singer; it's the two of them. All their other records were made with a full band, but their keyboard player [Lee Pardini] left to join another band. Then their childhood friend and bass player decided to retire from being in a band. He's a luthier now.
Wylie [Gelber]. He's an insanely good bass player.
And he's an incredible luthier. But there are Dawes fans that love Dawes for all kinds of reasons. When I go to the Dawes show, I'm there ultimately because of Taylor and his songs. And Griff is an incredible drummer. The loss of these guys at almost the same time felt devastating, but I didn't see it that way. I see it as now as a distilled version of this band. This band has been ever-changing, but they're all still best friends.
I love that it occurred that way.
Yes, me too. They showed up at Barebones [Studio] and my computer was shut. The Otari [reel-to-reel recorder] was on, the console’s on, and all my outboard gear was lit up. Griff asked, “So, are we going to tape? Do we have to get it perfect in one take?” I said, "That would be nice, but I can cut the tape.” He asked, “Are you going to throw it into the box [computer]?” Taylor was saying, “Can we try not to? It's Mike's method, and we love the sound of his records.” Griff said, “Sure, let's try.” I said, “If you don't like it, we’ll recut the tune or we'll recut your drums in Pro Tools.” We did it, and because of the nature of the song – it was a song called “House Parties” – it was eight tracks. Every single one of them was used, with drums in mono. I told Griff, “We're going to put the drums in mono.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Griff, most of the drum sounds that we loved growing up are in mono.” He's like, “I know. But I love the sound of Pro Tools.” I replied, “Totally. But you're in a band, and the other guy in your band is saying, ‘Let's try this,’ so let's try this.” He said, “All right. I'm down.” He's so open and cool. I did it, mixed it, and sent them a mix. They listened to it in their car, and they were both, “Holy shit! This sounds unbelievable.” It's all on tape with mono drums, and Trevor Menear played George Harrison-style slide guitar; economical but beautiful. They kept pushing me to play bass, and I said, “Nope. You guys do it.” I played bass on one song, but I was like, “Nah, it sounds like a different band. It should be the two of you.” Wiley had been an extension of those brothers. Griff asked, “Can we try dumping it to the box and I’ll redo the drums in stereo? I'm curious if I'll like it better.” We did, and he didn't like it any better.
Nice.
So, we kept it on tape. Then, on the next song, he said, “Can you keep the drums in stereo?” I said, “Yep. Let's do it that way. If you want to keep doing overdubs and I run out of tracks, I'll migrate to the box.” Taylor pushed back, “Why do we have to do that? It sounds so good.” But Griff said, “Look, I'm half the band. I want to do a bunch of percussion ideas to see if I like them. The only way to know is to try." I'm like, “Yep, let's go to the box." This is not a hill anybody should die on. It's a silly battle. Just go there if you need the flexibility.
They don't have to prove anything by staying on tape.
Yeah, absolutely. If you step up to the mic or plug in a guitar to prove something, I think that's a little silly.
I know that some people will wear it as a badge. "They made a record on tape." The American Egypt and Godmuffin were your first ventures in home recording your own records, right?
Yes. I knew how to home record, but I never did it in earnest. When I started working with Ryan Adams at his studio at Sunset Sound – he had a room there – and I was able to use all that gear and make records with him, I was very comfortable doing it. I knew how to use all the gear, but even when I produced other people's records, I wouldn't be engineering. I'd be playing, helping shape the song, and shaping sounds but still giving someone direction. When I worked with [the late engineer] Ducky Carlisle, that's how I did it. I never touched the gear. I would just ask, “Thin that out. No, more – like Big Star. Yeah. Okay, chain compress that. Great!” But when I was working with Ryan, I was doing it all, so I learned. So, that's how it led to The American Egypt. The way I did it was just jamming with friends. I'd have a friend over – Griff Goldsmith from Dawes was one of them.
He had worked with you before, so this wasn't like his first venture into Barebones Studio.
Yeah. He knew that it was going to happen fast. That's a David Kahne thing: Get the sounds beforehand, and when the musicians come in don't spend time screwing around. Get to what you want to do, and then it's probably going to be take one, two, or three. If you need to learn the song first, then don't be in the studio doing that. Be somewhere else, and don't be on your instrument plugged in with your tone, because your body is going to grow fatigued. Your brain won't. Your brain is going to adjust the tone and do all these things. But again, this is not the right way to do it, it's just how I do it. We'll be in my dining room with other guitars learning the songs. In Brendon Urie's case, with Panic! at the Disco, we wrote the songs in the house. Then, once the songs were written, we'd run into Barebones and record them. It was so fun. He is an incredible drummer and an incredible singer – as a musician, he's over-the-top excellent. But, that being said, we would do one version of the song. There are not multiple takes of any of the songs. If it wasn't right, I'd rewind and record over it. The truth is, we didn't know that we were making a record [Viva Las Vengeance]. It was just, “Let's have fun recording!” And that's all it was.
That's got to be refreshing for Brendon to get back to, “I'm in a room with my friend, writing a song."
That's right. It was some of the best music I've ever been involved with, working with him, Jake Sinclair, and Rachel White, who's also a great singer/songwriter/engineer/producer. She was working as Jake's engineer at the time, so I showed her how to use the Otari, my Auditronics console, and how my patchbay worked. She's ripping as an engineer, and she’s currently working with John Congleton [Tape Op #81]. She's awesome.
They're also your band on your last two records, right? Paul McCarthy and Rock of Boston?
That's correct. Brendon, Jake, and I; we just love playing together. For my albums with them, I'll write the songs. I won't send them the songs because I don't want to get them thinking about it; I want to get them reacting. Like when you're with a band on tour and at soundcheck. You've been in the van all day, you pick up your instrument, you're playing music, and it's so rad. If you record it maybe it's not that good, but it feels so good, doesn't it? I like recording sessions that have that same newness and discovery. I often say I pick the takes where it sounds like the song is being discovered. I just did this song for Dawes called “Time Spent in Los Angeles (for Altadena).” It's a re-record from one of their earlier records [Nothing is Wrong from 2011]. They played it on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and people reacted. It got them the gig playing at the Grammys. This was when there were the devastating fires in Los Angeles. On January 7th, I was at Taylor’s studio in his backyard recording a Pernice Brothers song for a compilation. It was the first thing I produced and played on at that studio. I helped them a little bit with the studio build. Alan Hampton was on bass, and Griff was on drums. I engineered and produced, so I played guitar in the control room, which I haven't done since the '80s. We recorded, and during the song the wind started blowing. Griff had to leave early. Then Taylor had to leave because they lost power in his house. He said, “I'll come back later and help you shut down.” They had a Cadac console that Jonathan Wilson [Tape Op #96] had found. I was in the studio, mixed the song by myself, and then I thought, “I'm going to put this in Dropbox." And then I shut down as best as I knew how. I'd never shut down that studio before, and I didn’t know what to shut off. I split to pick up my kid who was nearby. This is Altadena, and her best friend lived right on the next street, which was convenient. Griff, John Reilly, and Alan Hampton all lived right around the corner. It was an incredible community. But that night, a fire started in Altadena, and the next morning they found out that the studio was gone. Their house is still standing, but they lost two studios and all their gear. So, they did Jimmy Kimmel Live! Here's a band that lost everything and here they are. The song was beautiful; the way they arranged it on the spot. I had recorded the Pernice Brothers song for them, and then I played bass on “I Love L.A.” for the Grammys. Jonathan Wilson produced that one. Then Taylor hit me up to produce “Time Spent in Los Angeles (for Altadena).” I said, “All I need to do is record it. It's not going to be much of a lift.” He said, “I'd like to put bass on it. Do you think Andrew Bird would want to play on it?” I hit those guys up. Both Alan and Andrew were like, “We'll do that.” Barebones is a little garage built in the 1920s, maybe earlier. My house is from 1908. It's a small garage, and couldn't fit a car, but I have tie lines in the house. There’s a speaker in there for talkback, and my piano's in there. I emptied out the living room and put the drums up there. I put Andrew on the staircase to the second floor, which has natural echo. Alan was next to Griff, and I put Taylor facing them with a [Shure] SM7. I put Taylor's amp in the basement. They recorded it live in five takes. The other players didn't know that version of the song, and Griff was trying out these new pockets. Every take was in a different pocket. It wasn't like, “That wasn't quite right. Let's try it again.” It was more like they were discovering the tune. On version five, it was obvious to everybody. Those are the best recordings to be involved in, where it's not just one person saying, “Trust me, trust me.” It's everybody being, “Wow, that was a moment.” I think we overdubbed a second guitar to fill it out a little bit in certain spaces, and an Andrew Bird string pad in the last chorus. Otherwise, it's all live. I mixed it really fast on the console while everybody was packing up their gear. I said, “This is mix one. If you want tweaks, I'll keep the console up.” The guys listened to it in their car on the way home, and they were like, “This is it. Done.” It's so much fun to make records like that. The night before, I moved my dining room table with the help of my friend who came over to help. I said, “Look, we're going to set up the drums, make sure the mics are in phase, make sure it all sounds good, and make sure the headphones are working for when these guys show up. I'll make coffee and get some nice Danishes. When they come in, we'll gather around the counter like a few cops in the doughnut shop. We'll eat, then we'll make the song, and then they'll go home. That's my hope." At one point during the recording, Taylor said, “I can't believe how good it sounds right off the bat. There's something magic about this place.” I pressed the talkback button, “It was the night before. We set up. It's not a secret.” Christmas mornings are really magical. But it’s actually your parents who are up the night before setting everything up.
You mentioned Andrew Bird. What was it like making the Madison Cunningham/Andrew Bird record [Cunningham Bird], where they recreated Lindsey Buckingham [Tape Op #146] and Stevie Nicks pre-Fleetwood Mac album, Buckingham Nicks?
I don't love the original Buckingham Nicks record. I know people are going to say, “That guy sucks for saying that.” The talent on this record is obvious. The songwriting, at times – especially Stevie’s songs – are pointing to what was to come. The chemistry is incredible. The production, some of it, is awesome. But there's enough of it that makes me cringe. It's almost like that Don Henley record. The music fan in me still loves it, but the record maker in me thinks, “There are some things about this that are cringe.” I was thinking, “How the hell are we going to sing the record?” These songs – “Frozen Love” for instance – we didn't know how to crack that song. And “Lola” is like a song you could strip to. We started working on it, and we were thinking, “We're going to pull this off.” It was a really good idea that Andrew's manager, Andrea Troolin, had to do this. But the label didn't want it to happen, "It's too much paperwork. It's too confusing. Who's going to A&R it? Who's in charge? It's on two different labels.” I said, "Let's make the album to see if we like it. We won't send it to anybody. We'll get no feedback. It'll be our project." That was the plan. Because we still had to work for a living and we all had other shit to do, we got together at night. I have children, Andrew has children, and Madison has a social life. It was difficult to schedule, but we did. That record was all on tape as well. It was basically the three of us in my room. At one point we had a conversation about bringing in other musicians, and I said, “I don't think it's a good idea. It should just be the two main people. I will be the concrete bed that the house is built on. There shouldn't be any other players on this.” I was insistent. So, it was the three of us in this room. I played Wurlitzer [electric piano], an old drum machine, and Moog bass with my left hand. Everything was going through amps at a low volume. There was an [AEA] R88 [ribbon microphone] in stereo for the room mic, through an AEA RPQ2 [mic preamp]. Andrew sang through an AEA R44, through the Neve 1073 [mic preamp]. Madison sang through the AEA KU4 – both ribbon mics. That hit the 1073 as well, because I liked the EQ and the punch of those. I used a [Shure] SM57 on Madison's guitar. The room mic was picking up most of everything anyway, but this was for details. Andrew's violin was coming through his vocal mic, and he also plugged into an amp. There were four amps in the room and two singers. But that record sounds very delineated and clean because I worked hard to get the mics positioned right. For the longest time they had no headphones, which was great for me. But Madison wanted to use headphones. And once she did, Andrew said, “I might as well too.” Not my favorite to do when you're in the room with all the sound. When you have headphones, you tend to play a little louder.
In your room, if people start getting a little too loud does it become overbearing?
It does. We lose the whole purpose of why we're here. It was raining eight out of ten days that we were here, and it's not soundproofed. It's charming in the moment, but I know from experience that it's going to sound like a hiss later on. But it is charming on the song “Lola,” which we cracked the code on. Madison was asking, “How in the hell am I going to sing this song?” I said, “It's a perspective change. You need to change the perspective.” We didn't want to change any of the words; we didn't want to deal with having to get permission or anything. We changed a lot of chords, but more in a way where we don't have to clear it; the way a jazz artist would interpret a song. She found a way to sing it. Instead of being about a dude singing to a woman, [singing in a throaty, aggressive manner] “Lola, my love, sure knows how to treat her man.” Instead of doing that, she was going, [singing softly] “Lola, my love, sure knows how to treat her man.” It becomes about a girl who is somebody she knows, who is maybe in this phase of being taken advantage of. I'm pretty sure that's where she went with it. It's sad and beautiful. Then she came up with this other melody that we inserted that's so devastating. That record was all done live in this little room with those microphones, on tape, mixed through the console, and dumped to Pro Tools. We did some overdubbing to the master, which is a fun thing to do!
I love that you've gotten back to the essentials. On “Don't Let the Light Go Out” on Panic! at the Disco's [Viva Las Vengeance], are you bringing him seeds or is he bringing you seeds to start songs? Are you just taking their ideas and sculpting them?
Great question. [Panic! at the Disco’s] “Viva Las Vengeance” is a good example for answering that question. Brendon came to my house, and it was me and him writing in my living room. He had this idea for a verse, and it was very girl group-y. He came with the seed. All the best songs came from seeds that Brendon brought. In the beginning, that wasn't the case, because he was getting to know me. I don't know if it’s a comfort or trust factor, but when you have a seed, nine times out of ten it's the dumbest lyric and probably not that good. But it might not be, so you want to play it for someone you trust. At that point, we trusted each other. He played me this idea he had, and “Don't Let the Light Go Out” was a song he mainly wrote on his own and had presented it to Butch Walker [Tape Op #138]. They were doing some writing while I was working on Mandy Moore's record [In Real Life]. During that time, he worked with Butch, and they wrote a couple of awesome songs. That song was brought back to me and Jake. We rewrote the verses, and we had to get in there and tweak, but that one was mainly a Brendon tune that he brought to Butch that Butch helped him finish. There's this romantic version of co-writing a song, where we're all sitting around and it's this cosmic moment that we're all involved with, but nine times out of ten that's not the case. There's this one songwriter I work with from time to time, and he's the best at being the overview guy. Say we're writing a song about a glass of water, and we're almost done with the song. Everything's going great; it's got a hook and the chorus is ripping, “Me and my half glass of water.” And then, at the end of the session, he'll say, “Half glass of wine.” I'll be, “Damn, bro!” He's that guy. But that's as valid as sweating it out for four hours to finish “Half Glass of Water.” Just coming in and saying, “Oh, no. You got it wrong.” Then you go back and rewrite the verses about wine, and it becomes this bigger thing. Songwriting is funny. Again, going back to Jake Kasdan from earlier, there have been songs I didn't get credit for that I would say disturbed me and upset me, but didn't ruin or change my life in any way. I remember having lunch with him one time, asking him, “What do I do? I don't want to go to court over this. Has this happened to you?” And he says, “Early in my career I had a big director take my idea and make a movie out of it. I was given an executive producer credit." But then he said, “I've gotten too much credit for some things, and sometimes I don't get enough. It balances itself out.” With songs, it really is that way.
When you're writing, are you thinking about production and production style to guide your path on the writing process? Or do you think, “Okay, right now I'm a songwriter. I'll get to that other shit later.”
If I'm writing, yes, I do think about it, for sure. Even if I'm writing for myself. Songs, for me, need to have a purpose. I don't mean a functionality – they can be a trifle – but they need to be purposeful in that capacity. If I'm working with Brendon, and he shows up for a session and he's feeling a certain way that I can tell, I might say, “Have you ever heard this Cheap Trick tune?” Then I'll play him “Dream Police,” with that arpeggio, and then the song we're doing will start with an arpeggio. Which is production. Arranging and production go hand in hand with me. They're the same thing in my world. That makes me think about production right away. I'm thinking, “Maybe strings?” And then I think about how I'm going to chain the compression on this 12-string [guitar] to make it sound chimier, like The Byrds. I do think about it as I go, and sometimes it's fun to write in a recording studio for that reason. Writing in a recording studio is so fun, but it can also be cumbersome and can get in the way. Honestly, I don't feel there's one way to do it. With Dan Bern, for Get Him to the Greek, we’d drive around in our car with a handheld microcassette and we'd write songs. Whatever you need to do, go there.
You wear a lot of hats. Do you prefer one job more than another?
Honestly, when I get hired to do a record, I have to understand what this artist is doing, love what they're doing, and then I have to love them as a singer. I don't mean they have to be a great singer, but I have to love their voice. We have to get along. Essentially, I'm joining their "band," even if I don't play anything. I was "in" Dawes for three months. I'm in that band on that record, even if I don't play a ton – I'm one of the voices in the band. It all goes back to Euphoria Sound Studios when we're 13 years old, we're in a band, and we're doing it all. We're just figuring it out, because that's what you do when you're a musician. I get in there with everybody and figure it out. I was never afraid to reach for the EQ – until Bob Clearmountain [Tape Op #84, #129, #151] one time told me, “As much as you can not EQ, don't EQ. Your music's so minimal, you don't need to reach for the EQ. All the records you like, they didn't have the type of EQ detail that we can mess with now. They didn't have it. Just move the mic around." And I was like, “Oh, my God!” He loved my home recordings.
When Bob Clearmountain tells you something, that's got to stick.
Yeah. Working with him was great. He mixed “That Thing You Do!” I'd always been a fan! I got to go to his house, which he lost in the L.A. fire. His studio, Mix This!, is gone. But I met him when I did “That Thing You Do!” Somebody else had mixed my [initial Candy Butchers] record, and I didn't love the way it sounded. It was tight, and I wanted it to be open. Bob's mixes were so open. I played him some of my record, and Bob said, “I'd love to mix this.” We sent the reel of 2-inch, 8-track tape to L.A. and he mixed it. He did such an incredible job. Then the label folded! He ended up doing Falling Into Place, for me but I don't think my songs were as good on that record. Then he did Play with Your Head, but by that point I was gone to drug abuse, alcohol, and depression. By the time I did Hang on Mike, I played him that record, and he said, “This record's mixed. I shouldn't mix this. You did a great job.”
I love that he said that. At that time, his assistant was a young Ryan Freeland [Tape Op #101], who's a mutual friend, and such a great record maker.
I should mention that early on, Ryan Freeland and David Boucher [Tape Op #91] were Bob's engineers. They did a lot of the pre-mixing, and the setup. Bob would come in, and he's so good. Bob plays the console. I'm still super close with David, and I see Ryan every time I go to your neck of the woods.
Yeah, he's in Chicago now.
I played Reggies a couple of months ago and I saw him. He's a great guy!
You were doing A&R for Verve Records a while back.
Which is so strange. I was working at a record label? For two years I did that, and then Covid hit. It was so strange, but I learned a lot. It was like getting paid to go to college. I learned the business of record deals: How record deals are done and not done, how they're undone, how artists get screwed, how artists are taken care of, and how to win at a major label. Just making a great record doesn't mean you're winning. I learned that in a hands-on way. Not that I can apply it to anything, but it's this knowledge I have. Every once in a while, a friend will ask me something and I'll know the answer. I did get to sign some incredible artists and make incredible records while I was there. The guy that hired me, hired me as an old school A&R, inasmuch as he wanted me to produce the records as well.
How it used to be done, back in the day.
Yeah, that's right. He wanted that. I had an office, but he said, “Stay in the studio.” Because Capitol's part of Universal, I had an office in the tower for a year or so and then Covid hit. But there's a small studio with a Neve sidecar console in it, and I would be up there. It had tie lines to the [echo] chambers under the parking lot! That's where I would take my meetings and I'd do overdubs, like working with an artist that needed a little extra studio time. “Come to my office.” It was so crazy. Eventually, they kicked my ass out of there. They were like, “This guy needs to be in Zoom meetings.” I didn't want to! We had to do these year-end tasks, like, "What are my goals for next year?" My answer would always be, “Find new music?” [laughs] I'm a good businessman, but I wasn't a good corporate businessman at all.
You're better served to be in the studio every day.
Again, going back to Euphoria Sound Studios, I'm just going in as prepared as I can be but not knowing anything. Every time I enter the studio it's a new experience. Even with all the knowledge I have, and at the age that I am now, it's still new. I'm with new people; it's a new day, and it's a new song. I have to look at it that way; that's where the excitement and joy is for me. So, circling back to your question of which hat I like to wear, it is the hat of the teenager, the hat of the kid who's just so happy to be there. He's only got four hours, and he's going to do the best job he can! 
