So let's backtrack a little. You started with Wally Heider in LA, right?
Yeah, at what later became Filmways/Heider Recording Studios.
And that was your first gig?
Yeah, I was a guitar player for years. Not a very good one, really. But it took me years to realize I wasn't going to get much better. And I got a job at Wally Heider's, just by beating on the door, to try to stay in music. I'd just done a TV show about sharks, where I was the still photographer and boom man. It was a great experience, going out with the sharks. I got it through this young guy who was the son of the director. He was a sound guy with Nagra. I'd always carried tape recorders around with me since high school, just to record sounds. Walking through hallways, doors closing. And I just loved it. I'd go home and listen to it at night. Sad, but true. [laughs]
Were you thinking about musical applications, or were you just into sounds?
It wasn't really about music, but just noise. I put weird guitar noises to it, synth noises. And I used to love feedback. It was more avant-garde, almost like installation stuff, which I tired of pretty quickly. It got pretty stupid after a while. [laughs] But it was fun at the time. I just loved the sound. It wasn't the music so much. I was never a composer. I just liked sounds. So I met this guy...
The shark guy?
Yeah, great guy; Nick Webster. He used to build robots and go to the Himalayas with his dad to look for the Yeti. And he said, "You know you could get a job. You could be a recording engineer. If you like all these sounds you could just go do it." And I thought, hmmm, really?
How old were you at the time?
About 19. I actually played a session as a guitarist at Wally Heider's and I met an engineer there who told me what I should do and it interested me. So I just went pounding on the door everyday for 2 or 3 months. One day they said, "We need someone to work the equipment room." And then 2 days later they said they needed someone on the phone at night down at the other studio, which was the RCA building in Hollywood. So they took me down there and showed me this set-up. It was a live set-up in this huge room, Studio B, which was a famous old room that Wally Heider had taken over. And it was the Rolling Stones and they were recording what would eventually become Tattoo You.
And what were you doing?
I was just on phones and running for ribs at 2 o'clock in the morning. I was a runner and a janitor. Cleaning up after everyone, you know. It was a great studio to work in. It totally was not about anything technical. It was just about keeping a session going, you know. In fact they didn't want you to learn too much technically. I was caught reading a manual on re-aligning a tape machine and it was taken away from me.
So you were being mentored, but they didn't think technical training was what you needed?
No. They had tech guys for that. As assistant engineer you could record. But not really. Learning how the tape machine worked wasn't where it was at. But they had some really good engineers there. Really old school. But I used to just go and hang out. Everyone was really friendly and the sessions weren't closed. I mean, you couldn't just walk in off the street. But engineers would always say, "Come by if you want to hang out." Because they knew they could get you to do stuff. "Go move that microphone, go get that other microphone, go get us some food." It was really great.
So what sort of things were you picking up at that time that you could use later? When did you get your hands on the board?
The board I got my hands on right away. They used to let me go in after hours. I'd take records in, LPs, and bring them up to the console and mess with EQ, fool around in the patch bay. There was an old harmonizer that I'd used to tape mono records and "stereo- ize" them, it made them really wide. [laughs] Or we'd go into the media rooms where they did only voiceovers and fool with tapes of speeches to make them say rude things. Really horrible stuff. But I loved it. I thought I was Phil Spector.
So you had the opportunity for a great deal of experimentation?
Yeah, I'd just go in and stay up all night playing with a drum machine. I was able to bring people in to record every now and then pretty much right away. There was a guy there named Sherman Keene, who eventually wrote a book that's become a standard I think. He'd hold classes once a week and he'd talk about engineer stuff; fixing machines and things you needed to know for orchestra sessions like figuring out beats per minute. And studio etiquette. His big thing was studio etiquette. He thought that was about 60% — knowing how to make people feel at home.
What techniques did you learn?
Oh, knowing when to speak at the right times, having a studio that looked nice, make sure you have sharpened pencils. And it's all true, that's good stuff. It was a good atmosphere, and that's important.
So how long were you there?
Only 3 years.
So how did you make the transition from that period into a real career as an engineer?
