Did you go to school at Berklee College of Music?
Yeah. I got an internship at Sear Sound the summer of my last year at Berklee. [The late] Walter Sear hired me. You knew Walter, and Roberta [Findlay], right?
Steve Masucci [Tape Op #124] took me over there once, and we sat with them for hours while they were chain smoking and telling stories.
They're amazing people. Walter hired me, and Roberta was pissed that he hired me. They needed an intern because they would get a beach house every summer, so they needed somebody to answer the phones and such. I was going back to school before they were done with their vacation, so Roberta was pissed. She's like, "He's useless!" For the whole summer, she would refer to me as, "That fucking moron kid." I'd be standing about five feet away, and she'd say to Walter, "Tell that fucking moron kid to clean the bathroom. It's filthy!" I'd do it, but at the same time I was in on every single session, running the tape machines and taking notes. I would show up early, and Walter would be there vacuuming and busting his ass. He'd be staying there even after I was leaving. By the end of the summer Roberta saw that I was useful to the studio, and then she was nice to me. But it took me a whole summer to win her over. She was a pretty good read of someone who would be a good worker, whereas Walter would hire whoever walked in the door. He'd like one thing on their resume. Walter hired me because I'd worked for my brother who had a commercial cleaning business. I mentioned that, and that they did record records the way that I liked. But he saw the cleaning aspect of it, and was like, "I want to hire him!"
That must have been a really intense learning ground.
Oh, yeah. Aside from hooking up with Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, getting that internship at Sear Sound was the best thing that's ever happened to me, career-wise or music-wise. He was an amazing person to work for and to listen to. Such a great mentor.
So, did you go back to school, finish up, and then come work for him?
Yeah. I went back to school, came back on winter break, went to New York, and then right back to the studio. I wanted to drop out. "This is what I want to do." But Walter insisted, "No, you're going to finish school, and we'll see if there's a place for you." He really valued an education. Walter and Roberta became my New York parents.
What was your learning growth like there, and when did you start engineering as a first engineer?
He put me in the studio right away. My first day there, I was there until about ten o'clock at night. There was a house engineer doing a session, so it was "watch and learn." I hadn't even been hired yet, and there I was, running the 1/2-inch machine and documenting it.
Were they mixing down?
No, it was a live to 2-track jazz session. I'm like, "This is amazing!" Walter's thing at the studio was that everybody did everything. I got to do a lot right away. There were two other guys who worked there as engineers. Fred Kevorkian ended up building a mastering room in the back of Sear Sound, so he wasn't doing as much in the main room. The other guy went freelance. Then it was just me and Fred, and the studio was booked nonstop. By default, the first record I engineered there was for Sean Lennon. He booked the studio based on the reputation and wanted to use the house engineer. By default, that was me.
Was that his album on Grand Royal Records?
Yeah, Into the Sun. It's a great album, and it was really fun. Sean walked in, and the way he liked to work was to record a song, mix it, and then record the next song and mix it. It was a really fun way to work. It was great. Yuka Honda was producing it. The first day of the session, we were recording a song and working really fast. We got a take, and then Sean and Yuka both had overdub ideas. We were working on tape; they both ran out and wanted to do it right away, a break for the bridge. I armed some new tracks, – I thought I'd disarmed everything – punched in right on the bridge, and I heard the drum sound totally change. I looked, and I saw the overheads were still in "record ready." I went through the whole bridge and punched out on the downbeat of the verse coming back in; then Sean and Yuka came back in the control room. I thought, "Oh, this is it. My first engineering session, and I'm fired." I told Sean and Yuka, "I'm really sorry. I fucked up. I'm sorry." They said, "Well, let's hear it." I played it; it got to the bridge, and the drum sound got really tight and then it opened back up. They said, "Oh, my god; that's great! We love it!" I was like, "Phew. Okay."
Tom & Jeff @ The Loft
You might never have had the craziness to go punch in and erase drums, but when it works...
Oh, yeah! No Pro Tools. Walter was a holdout for that. It was tape. I feel like a lot of great records were made like that. Accidents would happen, and you'd work around the limitations.
Sear Sound must have been such a great place to learn. Walter could be really ridiculous with some of his statements though.
