For someone who has worked on as many records as you have, I was surprised to find that there weren't any previous interviews with you.
Yeah, I've managed to stay under the radar. I don't have a website, you can't find my email online. I have no manager, and I'm not a member of organizations or social media. So I'm a little bit hard to find. People usually just get my email from someone else that's worked with me. It's all word-of-mouth.
How do you deal with the ups and downs of the freelance lifestyle?
Sometimes it's all or none. You just take it when you can get it. Sometimes it'll be two weeks in a row without a day off. Sometimes it's a month with nothing going on. But I enjoy my time off. I'm not a workaholic; I don't go insane when I'm not working. And when I have to work hard for a long stretch I can still do it. Now that I'm in my early sixties, it's not as easy as it was to do all those long days in a row as when I was 25 — but not impossible.
What got you interested in recording?
My father worked for RCA designing tubes. So we had all kinds of gear in the house, including a good stereo and an old tape recorder. I was fascinated by those. I remember my fifth birthday party, all the kids would come over and we'd record ourselves into the tape recorder. It's a toy I've played with since... forever. I always had an interest in it. I remember watching TV and there'd be a scene from a recording session. I'd think, "I want to do that." In high school I had a rock band and I was the guy with the tape recorder. The recordings always sounded pretty good. At least I had good levels and had an interest in doing it right. Then the same thing in college: I got into playing jazz piano in some groups. We gigged in bars a couple of nights a week and played what I called "dollar jazz," because that's what it cost people to hear us. We were playing a lot of blues and CTI [Creed Taylor Incorporated] tunes, some modal stuff. I wasn't really that versatile with the changes, but we played a bunch of standards too. But I always had the tape recorder and would record our gigs.
What were you using at that time?
As a kid I had a Sony tape recorder and just the two mics that came with it. And then I had a Teac Tascam 1/4-inch, 2-track and later a 4-track. We didn't have mics, so I'd borrow a couple of [Shure] SM57s from somebody. Nothing fancy. I ended up going to UW Madison to study communications. I figured at least it was something involved with media. I took radio production and electronic music composition. I was always splicing tape and using tape recorders and I got good at it. But nobody could tell me how to do this professionally. You know, "You gotta know somebody."
There wasn't as much information available back then.
No. The schools were just cropping up. When I graduated college in '75 I hung out in Madison for a while and worked in listener-sponsored radio. Eventually I moved back to New York and enrolled at Institute of Audio Research, which was just starting up. That's kind of how I learned a little of the technical end... at least enough to talk my way into an assistant's gig.
You ended up here [Power Station/ Avatar] assisting, right?
I had one other job before this. My teacher, Jim Jordan, at IAR worked at Big Apple Studios in SoHo. He got me hired as a part-time assistant. I was making $3 an hour, still living at my parents' place in New Jersey. I would drive into the city and between gas, tolls, and parking I definitely lost money. I have a photocopy of the first check I got for a nine-hour session for $27. It was pretty exciting. I had a great intro to the business. My first week in the studio I was the assistant on Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach mix. They were also doing a lot of punk sessions there. I learned from these guys how to set up mics. It's the kind of gig you learn by doing and watching. Then I got introduced to this place through a good buddy of mine from UW Madison who was friends with Iven Walters, the son of Bob Walters, who started this place with Tony Bongiovi. Those guys came from Media Sound and opened Power Station in '77. I saw this place and I said, "Wow, this is the real deal." Neve console, big room. It was unbelievable. So I would come here and hang out with Iven as much as I could. Eventually an opening developed because they built Studio B and needed another full-time assistant.
How long did you assist at Power Station?
