You grew up in the DC area, right?
Yeah.
How old were you when you first sat in on studio sessions?
When I first started interning, I guess I would have been 13; right around eighth grade.
How did you know you were even interested?
I was shoved into music pretty young, with Suzuki lessons.
Your parents were into it?
Yeah, my mom played piano, and both of my parents thought it was a good thing. Takoma Park had bands around. The guitar player at this studio worked at some music stores my mom used to teach at. We had these neighbors who played in a band. They had a cool little basement studio where they'd jam a lot and let me hang out. They upgraded from their Tascam 234 4-track cassette to an 8-track cassette, and then they sold the 4-track to me. They started recording in a studio where a bunch of my gear later came out of, which was called Avalon Studios.
What kind of music were they playing?
They were world beat. They had a bunch of local musicians who were their buddies. Those were in the days of 2-inch and ADAT, where you'd sync them up with SMPTE. They bought an ADAT so that they could do overdubs at home while they recorded in the studio. That's where my tape machine and board came from. They brought me along a couple of times. I
think I was pretty bold. I got that shuttling, punching, and arming tracks was the same on my Tascam as it was on the MCI.
Right. That knowledge translated across.
It was the same thing to me. We wound up hanging out a bunch. I think, as I was younger, I hung out less on client sessions and got to hang out more during after hours studio family sessions; like the bass player's cutting a solo project, or whatever was going on.
That's cool. So they let you punch in and record?
Yeah, totally.
And you were in eighth grade?
I couldn't figure out my way around the board until probably ninth or tenth grade. I think the first week my boss actually took a vacation in Jamaica for ten days. I would have been going into eleventh grade. He left me some easy sessions, like local rock 'n' roll bands doing demos and voiceover sessions. I think he called once to make sure the place was still there.
Eleventh grade? You were young! Were people looking at you like, "Wait a minute"?
A little bit. I think I was definitely often mistaken for older, just by my attitude. I remember people trying to get me to do beer runs when I was assisting. It was a very nice studio, but it didn't look like the biggest commercial facility. It looked like a tried- and-true homemade, owner-operated studio. We had some cool bands come through, for sure; but it wasn't equipped with a huge reception area or hangout rooms. It was a studio. You came in, there was a live room, vocal booth, drum room, control room, and one lounge. There were a lot of small hip- hop sessions that I could handle. They were two tracks already, for the most part.
Like somebody brought in the beats?
Yeah, there was a lot of that going on. I was so into mics and mic'ing, but at that point my boss was more into sequencing. He had [Akai] MPCs and a record collection. He would let me cut a lot of the jazz bands. There would be a jazz band every month, as well as a couple of rock bands. It was a lull in the scene in that era. This is way after punk rock's era, and 20 years after the jazz scene.
Go-go was not really happening?
Nope, not really. I think go-go started making a comeback when I left. I think it's an amazing part of American culture there.
What led you to Nashville?
I was urged to come down here because there would be way more musicians. I dug that a lot more. I love playing with mics and moving things around. To me, getting sounds was so much more fun than anything else. That was the big thing, getting into a scene where that was happening way more.
How long ago did you move?
About 11 years ago. I was 21. A big thing was the leader of a jazz band I got to record. Montgomery College has this amazing jazz program. I got to record this guy, and he brought in some amazing players. He was intending to take it home and mix it himself on a computer. We tracked it all to 2-inch, and he said the sounds were better than anything he had gotten in 20 or 30 years. I told him I'd love to hang out with him while he mixed it. He let me hang out at his house and give him my thoughts when mixing. He was like, "You should move to Nashville. There are a lot of musicians there." I don't have any idea if he remembers me, or remembers it hit me that hard, but it really did.
Where did you start out when you got here?
I always had a home setup: I had my 4-track, an Otari 8- track 5050 1/2-inch, and I had Pro Tools 5 LE with the Digi 001. I probably had $300 worth of microphones. I would record bands in my house. In this town, especially then, every single person was in a band. Now I feel there are a lot more people here — a lot of different kinds of people. For a while there it was weird, like a gigantic music dorm room.
So your home became a studio?
