What were your first studio or recording experiences?
My first recording experiences were in Freeport, Long Island, with a guy named Steve on ADAT. It was chaos getting started. Then we found this guy, Goo, who would record an EP in two days and mix it for one thousand bucks. We were like, "We'll do a full length. Great!" We all saved up money. The live room was in the garage. The control room was a mud room that was in his parents' house. He had a gas mask that was a bong, and we thought, "Wow! This guy is rock 'n' roll." [laughter] Then we started doing session with our friend, C.J. Jestrebszki, at this place called Runaway Records in Port Washington. We hung out there a lot. That was where John [DeDominici], our bass player, and I started learning [Avid] Pro Tools a little bit. We worked there as engineers occasionally. They were really nice. It was fun to be around it.
Was it oriented around the style of the music scene? The ska’ish sort of world?
Not that studio. They were skate punk kids. The ska scene and the punk scene in Long Island, especially that era, was crazy. There were four or five bands in every high school, and there were four or five shows every day on the weekend. If you were not playing one, one of your friends was. It was good for me as a kid because I didn't play sports. I felt weird around a lot of high school culture.
Was there a lot of all ages music happening?
It was all all ages. I don't know where it went. It's so sad to me. In Long Island, there were so many VFW, Knights of Columbus, and church basement shows. Maybe everybody learned their lesson and decided, “We're not having a hardcore show here. Last time they drew all over the mirror. They were drinking in the alley.”
How did you end up getting into the recording angle?
I was working and hanging out at that studio, getting familiar with Pro Tools. I went to NYU for music and technology, thinking, "I want to record and produce records." It seemed fun to me. I did a handful of recording classes, but it was always with friends who knew more than me. I tended to say, “Why don't you do it? I'll play, and you can record." I could come up with ideas quick, but as far as mic placement it never really clicked with me back then. I graduated school, my grandma got me a laptop, and I bought a [Digidesign] Mbox. My mind was blown. I was doing a lot of Cakewalk MIDI notation of songs to show band members, like doing horn arrangements. What do 16-year-olds love to do? They love to do MIDI.
Had you studied enough music before that?
I took lessons when I was a kid and I was in band. But while I was doing that, I discovered General MIDI and that was insane to me! I hit play and it goes. As I was doing that, I thought, “Maybe I could put a real guitar here.” I'd be tracking guitar direct into computer through Cakewalk, and it was not very good. Eventually, I graduated to [Syntrillium Software] Cool Edit Pro, and then a friend lent me a laptop with Pro Tools and an Mbox to record some remote stuff while we were traveling. I was thinking, “Wait. I could just take it with me?" Around then, I started this project I called Bomb the Music Industry! I didn’t want to do the touring band grind thing. I just wanted to make songs and give them away for free.
Were you playing all the instruments?
The first three records I was playing all the instruments, and I also had [Reason Studios] Reason and a MIDI controller. That was the other thing that made it all click, because going from General MIDI and clicking notes on a staff to a MIDI controller and Reason was like, “Wait, this actually sounds like a [Hammond] B-3.” And I just kept doing it.
Was Bomb the Music Industry! what led to getting some of the cartoon soundtrack work, or did that come through other channels?
Bomb the Music Industry! played a house show in Brooklyn. The guy who would go on to create Craig of the Creek was at that show and stayed a fan. Right around the time that I was making those records at Panoramic House, I got an email from him, “I'm going to make a show. I used to work on Steven Universe. We're making a pilot.” I was thinking, "Yeah, fucking right."
Because a lot of opportunities like this never happen.
Somebody cold emailing asking, “Hey, want to make music for a pilot on Cartoon Network?” For me, that wasn't on the horizon. This had to be a mistake. “You've got the wrong address? You sure you want me, buddy?” The pilot went great, and they kept me on for the rest of the show – five seasons, and a movie. Cool!
With Craig of the Creek, are you initially tracking all of it yourself or are you bringing in some of your bandmates?
I started tracking by myself – kind of the same thing that I had always been doing when I demoed songs. Trying to figure out how to do the timing of it was a mindfuck.
So that songs fit to visuals?
Basically. Like, how do you get the downbeat to happen when the kid falls down a hole? I was working at your studio, Jackpot!, with Adam Lee. I know it was there, because usually I'm doing it by myself. That was with my band, and I had to figure the timing out.
Ways to cue yourself?
Yeah, I don't know if that is the way anybody does it. Everybody I ever spoke to about it was like, “Oh, I just use a count off." I was like, “How do you record what's before the count off if you need a pickup in there?” I was looking up “how to be a composer” on YouTube. “I can't let these people know I don't know how to do this." I was lucky they gave me a lot of time on the first four episodes to figure it all out.
What kind of instrumentation were you using?
Fake drum kit, bass guitars, and a lot of analog synths. Ben [Levin, co-creator of Craig of the Creek] wanted something that was ska/punk-based for the show. As I started looking at the actual show, I realized that there were all these cinematic moments. It’s serious. Early on, they would send me temp music for these episodes, and it'd be the fucking Lord of the Rings score. At some point I said, "Guys, you cannot send me this stuff!" [laughter]
You were still living in New York. What was your home setup like?
I was in an apartment. I was in a room that could fit a queen size mattress. I had a little modular desk, a table, and keyboards. A little shelf with notebooks I had not looked at in years, a bunch of guitars leaned against it, and probably a mic somewhere. I'd spin around for ten hours and play some parts into the MIDI thing.
Were you doing the guitars all direct?
Yeah, for a while I was doing amp simulators. I got the Quilter 101 Reverb [guitar preamp]. I got it for international touring because I'm not a Marshall amp person and they always give you a Marshall. And once I got [a Quilter], I was thinking, “Oh, cool. I could have this on my desk and it's like a tiny amp head." It sounds close to a Fender Twin [Reverb]. I started experimenting and seeing how my neighbors felt about it. I only got in trouble once or twice. I tried to keep it to normal working hours, where it's okay to be loud. But with Craig…, getting started it felt like, “What's the quickest path to learning how to do this?” In hindsight, I think that probably slowed me down. I'm not an engineer. I'm good at producing, writing, and composing. But then, at a certain point I just treated this like how I would do my Bomb the Music Industry! records. Just put a mic in front of it.
I wanted to point out your journey of writing, composing, and producing but getting the engineering good enough so you can get it done.
I think that's something that people need to hear.
If you hired an engineer to do all this, you probably wouldn't make any money.
I’d lose my money and somebody else would have basically lived in our apartment, because I was doing it all day long. I can make it sound good, but I had to get over the, “I don't know how to do this." I just have to do it. If it doesn't sound the way I like, I just keep at it. Eventually, I got to a place where I was happy with how what I was recording sounded, and all it really took was having enough energy to burst through the wall of sucking. Keep going until it sounds passible!
You've done those Craig… recordings on your own. Did you ever turn tracks in and get a pushback from them, as far as the quality of it?
No, and that was big for me. The first time I went to Hacienda Post, I asked the engineer, Tony [Orozco], “Hey, am I going to get fired because of this shit I'm sending to you?" He said, “Your mixes sound better than most of the music that comes through." Jack Shirley recorded all my [Jeff Rosenstock] records. I text him all the time, and he'll tell me basics of how to do this right. "Put this in the right spot. Get the right microphone that'll work for everything."
That's a great example of a mentorship. Someone like Jack that knows making records inside and out.
He's so fast. He’s just mics up a band in the room and records it onto tape. Sounds amazing immediately. I know he's made and mixed records in a day with bands where they say, “This is the budget we have." He's like, “All right. Practice and let's fucking go. Be ready when you get in there.”
Did he do the sessions with you at Panoramic House?
Yeah, he did. We torture Jack by making him leave his studio [The Atomic Garden Recording Studio] every now and then!
Make him drive across the Bay Area to work.
Yeah, he stayed up there with us and we hung out. He has everything set up exactly like he likes it at his place. So, every now and then we punish him and make him go somewhere else. It could be Abbey Road and he would still say, “I wish I had my Toneluxes!"
I get it! I tell people it's not even the gear if I go work somewhere else. It's that I can work so much faster at Jackpot!
You know where everything is!
I designed it! The soundtrack for the film prequel for Craig.., [Craig Before the Creek] has Taiko drums and real strings. How did that work?
I mapped out the whole thing here, with virtual instruments and very deliberately. I've been trying to move more and more away from that and instead using my music theory brain and doing the shit the way I'm supposed to. Dan Potthast, who plays in my band, recommended the conductor, Noah Luna. Fine Line Music Service in L.A. took my MIDI, wrote it out, and turned it into the notes that they play. Since then, I've done a string quintet for another episode of the show just because I get it now. I get what it all sounds like when it's actually in the room and I'm not just playing it on MIDI. I can know [the arrangement] to an extent, but I can't know what my own music sounds like when played by professionals.
I always find when we've got a string arrangement and we're tracking, we’ll find notes that rub. They never seem to rub in the mock-up, or they make sense on paper.
There was crazy shit that was happening on the floor. Honestly, a lot of it was just trying to understand what was written down, because we were going so fast. Noah’s a pro, and these players are pros, but they only have so much time.
Where did you record this at?
We recorded synths, pianos, and shreddy guitars here at my place. Everything else was at Atomic Garden with Jack. Jack and I were like, “Let's record a fucking orchestra. Let's see how this goes." What happens if two punks try to make a Hollywood soundtrack? Now I feel comfortable that if I want string arrangements, I know who to hire!
I'm glad you did! When Corey was telling me about your whole career and this soundtrack opportunity, I thought, "This is a crazy mix." Ska punk origins to scoring a cartoon? But it all comes together.
I was psyched to branch off into the scoring side because I've seen that done wrong in movies. How many times have you heard distorted guitar in a movie score that sounds good? No times! It's always some weird [Boss] Metal Zone pedal, and it's only low-mids coming through. I wanted to make something that I hadn't heard before; fast and thrashy, but it still has those strings and they're fast and thrashing too. I was lucky to work with all these people. They let me go crazy and throw in my little blast beats whenever I wanted to.
Does this soundtrack writing inform your solo work?
Working on the cartoon pushed me to make faster music with my band, partly because I didn't like the record we had put out right when this show was starting [post-2018]. I remember playing a show and seeing people aggressively moshing, in a way that was not fun. I want to make something that feels more like music you can dance to, rather than more music for men to beat each other up to, or for men to encroach on someone else's space to. I wanted to try and make some more songy songs that don't necessarily lean on being fast. I was listening to a lot of ambient music at the time. I was reading the copy of [Mark Prendergast's] The Ambient Century book that was at the Panoramic House when I was working on those records. I was getting into that. Then the show started and I was listening to a lot of punk in general, trying to think of stuff that Ben liked, and then trying to think of music that I liked that Ben would also like. I was also running a lot, and punk is good to listen to while I'm running. All of a sudden, I was fully back into listening to punk all the time, and I think that nudged our band to remain fast and punk. But also, the quieter moments on the show gave me confidence to think, "Oh, I could do that kind of thing."
Do you think that you'll do production for other bands and artists in the future?
I have no idea. For friends? I have a buddy, Laura Stevenson. We did some Neil Young cover records together [as Jeff & Laura]. We're good friends. I produced one of her records and I've recorded a bunch of demos for her. If she wanted to do something, I'd do it in a second. I don't know that I'd seek out production work. I've been sought out, but I don't think I'm quite ready to start doing that. I don't want to butt heads making music. I'm so particular, and I'd know that what I would be saying is going to be helpful. I have a hard time letting go of that. I want bands to have a good experience.
