I've been working with this band for five years now, but I am always in awe at how rapidly and immensely they mature and grow. Over the past four weeks we've been in San Francisco's Trilogy Studio. We've been taking everything one song at a time. I think the reason I always love working with this band is it feels much more like a partnership with recording because Vin Peters has lots of producing experience, and everything goes smoothly and we're always on the same page. This time were making a rock record, but the kind of rock record that hasn't really been attempted in years. It is almost a religious or philosophical document put down in a series of songs. I'd go on for hours about that but the band wouldn't want me to give anything away. Working with the band in the past has meant coming into the studio and they figured out what they want. This time around it is going into the studio and perfecting what they have which is the true mark of a mature artist. Over Vin Peters hammering out an echoy lead, Billie Beckett and Matt Collins practicing a harmony, Robert Edwards patiently listening to Vin, and random friends and family meandering about, I've found the time to write down a few words as a glimpse into the studio. Most of my job has been mastering tracks and giving creative ideas. For a band that needs no guidance, giving guidance because they want it is a tricky task. When they called me last summer and asked me to produce their next record I decided I had to really listen to their previous ones. I never want to make the same record twice. Thus my job has mostly been finding nuances that the band overlooked. I've added synth and worked mostly on the ambient aspects of songs. I've been helping with pianos mostly, as no one in the band is an expert on piano. But at the end of the day I am just an observer of their art. I help them perfect their creation which in this case is something I am confident with after nearly a month. We've worked quickly making over half of an immense album. We've made songs with garage rock aspects, with a whole bunch of heavy guitar riffs, with soft piano, with soaring vocals, with subtle synth, with driving drums, with pop-punk roots, with metal aspects, with emo twists and hooks, with broad atmospheres, with epic bridge sections, and through it all I've helped a band in their prime create the best work of their career. Tomorrow is the last day. Billie Beckett has vocals to record. Once they're done it will be on to a day of final mixing, and until next time when we meet to finish the album I will remember from the experience that sometimes my job is easy yet necessary. Sometimes my role as a producer is little more than someone with an outside perspective to tell an artist that what they think is great is in fact great. I was there so I mixed tracks and provided ideas but I was altogether humbled at how my role was reduced from creator in my own work or my producing of new, inexperienced artists, to co-creator as I usually am, and with this recording session to observer and assistant. It is a feeling I rather enjoy and hope to find again in my future work.

I Need a Job
I've just wrapped up production for Reported Failure's album "Rome" in Iceland of all places but I am now back in the states and ready for a fresh project. So ring me up and let me produce something great with you! In the meantime I've been working on my home studio, getting some gear lined up for my own recordings and just to mess around. No studio is complete without a fer great condenser microphones so I picked up this beauty even though I already have many. Its a microphone and a producer can never have too many of those!


Anyway, hire me. I'm hungry.