Every now and then a record comes out where the production and recording techniques work together with some really unique songwriting to make a masterpiece album. The kind you listen to hundreds of times and still wonder, "How did they get that sound?" The Beatles Revolver, Beach Boys Pet Sounds, there's too many to list. While maybe not of that same scale, Yo La Tengo's Electropura was that sonic-awakening record for me. Roger Moutenot, the producer behind the last four Yo La Tengo records, has continually recorded landmark albums, as well as gaining success with artists such as Paula Cole and Sleater- Kinney. I had the unique opportunity to sit down with Roger and chat about his move to Nashville, setting up shop at Alex the Great, House of David and Woodland, and his adaptive recording insights.
How has it been working in a very music industry influenced city?
When I first moved here [Nashville], the first two years were hell cause all the clients I had in New York were like, "Well he split. I guess he doesn't want to work here anymore". And I came down here and didn't want to do country, so for two years I basically didn't work. I did a couple of little scattered things here and there. Then I got to do the Paula Cole record, and that kind of brought in other projects and a lot of traveling. I still didn't work here much, 'cause all my work was in LA. You know 8 months away out of the year? But, the saving grace was Yo La Tengo always had to come down here. They love it down here. Princes Hot Chicken and all that. [laughs]
I heard that place shut down?
Really? I don't know. They found some other soul-food truck off Charlotte Avenue. They would find places that I'd never heard of. But more and more projects since have started coming down here. And this year has been great. I really like living here. I've got two kids. It's been fantastic. I've found this studio, and besides right now this time of year [July], I dig it
Well, you've had your name attached to some of the finer albums in the indie-rock scene.
Yeah, and that's what I'd rather do personally. The Paula Cole record was cool and it's fun and exciting to see it doing so well and everything. But I made her second record and, you know, they slapped so much money at her and it was such a high expectation that this record has to be [makes big explosion sound]. And that kind of pressure makes it to where you can't perform well in the studio. Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney, The Pierce Sisters (my latest record) — you try to keep the budget down. You don't have a lot of money so let's just DO a record. I prefer that. Let's just dig in and get it done.
You do a lot of your own engineering work as well.
I do. Lately though, I've been hiring an engineer. I like having the producing hands on and still stepping back to let somebody else do it.
Has it been more of a cost issue or control?
A little bit of both. And I still feel that, you know? That I can't really let the whole thing go.
You've started to dabble in the digital world as well. Why the addition of the Pro Tools set-up, and what was the progression from analog?
I will never leave analog. I won't. I will never leave it and it blew my mind when I heard that there are no more tape machines being produced. Studer ran their last production of analog tape machines. Otari does not make them anymore. There are no analog tape machines being produced right now. Then you go and you open up Mix and it's like one page after another... its digital, digital, digital. And I'm like, "What the hell is happening?" But with the whole Pro Tools thing, I would never use this as a stand- alone recorder. It's never going to be, "Okay turn on the Pro Tools and let's rock!" I've got it so that I can fly something over from analog, manipulate it, process it, flip it backwards, time stretch it, and then put it right back on tape. I've found that it just opens up a whole new palette of ink. I never overdo it, but I do a session now and if the artist says, a "I want this", or "I want that", I never have to say that we can't do that. It's like, "Great, yeah let's try it". But Pro Tools will never be my main thing. It's just that, a tool. I even went to a seminar on Pro Tools and I walked out. There's all these country guys going, "You mean I can get rid of amp noise?" you know. What the hell?
You've done a lot of work at Alex the Great and House of David, is there something there that keeps bringing you back?
I love House of David. They have this analog tape machine that they bought after the Yo La Tengo session for I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. We did that whole record on ADATs. That's the only Yo La Tengo record that was ever recorded on ADATs. We wound up mixing to analog though. But I've done a lot of work at Alex the Great, and the greatest thing about that place is that anything you want, all the guitars, keyboard, organs, Acetones, vibes, piano... if you have an idea it's all there for you to use. The vibe is great and so is the rate. It's awesome. I wound up at House of David because Alex the Great was booked up. And that place has an API. I love APIs, and it's funky too. I like funky studios, where you feel like you can put your feet up or if an ash drops on the floor nobody's going to freak.
How do you usually start setting up? Say, with mic'ing the drums?
At House of David they had this drum set already set up, microphones placed, baffles set up, and I started tearing it all down and they flipped. Come to find out they haven't moved it in about 4 years. Like the mics even! Whenever I record Yo La Tengo it's pretty much no headphones. They can't do that. They're so used to rehearsing that way. So it's a real live situation.
How do you approach recording a band like Yo La Tengo?
We'll do it all live, sometimes with vocals that go flying in the room. And then we'll put a few things on it, put the song to bed and move on to the next one. One of the things I like about Yo La Tengo is that we never brought in people. There might have been a few guest appearances, but you know Georgia will play vibes. Georgia doesn't play vibes, but there's something beautiful about that. You don't have this guy that's just flowery on the vibes, you've got Georgia and she's just reaching for that C and is just an 8th note behind. And that's character and I love that. Spontaneous, and just flying by the seat of her pants. She's making it work somehow, but it's not pristine. In fact one time we did something really cool. I think that was the ...Heart Beating... record. We invited about 40 people toAlex the Great and set the band up, gave them monitor wedges and recorded them right in front of the people. I think we wound up using like 2 or 3 tracks from that session.
Just to get the vibe of a live show?
Yeah. Yo La Tengo is a really tense band. You know? And they work off that. If it's not tense then something's wrong. If they're having too much fun or things are going too well, then something's wrong. There always has to be a little tension. And it took me a couple of records to get into that. When I did Painful, I had no idea what was going on. I thought, "This record's going to fall apart any second", but we made it through and it was very appropriately named Painful. But since then I've realized what they go through making a record, and they realize what my thing is and it all kind of works out. But it's so cool to see that transition of recording their records.
Did you invite a crowd in on the newest YLT Record?
Uh, no. We didn't invite anybody, but we again went back into a real live situation. We'd set up things like, Ira would have his first guitar bit set up in one area of the studio, like set up some amps in the tiled room. Then he'd lay that part down and let the feedback roll a little and just walk over to the drums and start doing something with Georgia for another part of the song. Then he'd get off that and go do something else. So there's a lot of moving. James would have his delay pedals feedback on out and then leave them to go play a keyboard part. So we get a lot done in one song if we plan it out like that.
It's all happening live going down to tape like that?
Yeah, like Ira will be walking around... like when he leaves the live room and is going into this area where there's another amp set up, I'll have another set of NS10s set up playing so he can hear what Georgia and James are playing. So, it gets pretty involved.
How do you deal with the bleed?
I love bleed.
But a lot of Georgia's drumming is brush-work and soft at times and the band is often very dynamic. How do you deal with that?
It's taken me a while, because they also sing like [makes high whisper noise]. The first time I recorded them I thought the mic was broken. I walked out to the room, because I had the mic-pre cranked and I was still getting no level. I was like, "What the"...and I went out there and I said, "Could you sing for a second?" And it was literally like [makes higher whisper noise], and I thought, "Okay now I get it." We really work on the vibe of the recording, and I'd really rather capture the vibe. When you let things play over and over, and you've been working on it and you've been trying to get a sound and hours are going by, you're past it. The band is lost. Especially with Yo La Tengo. In fact Ira has this saying, "This is getting tired." But as for bleed, we'll have amps set up in rooms to create more bleed. I'll put a mic over the drums, feed it into a Fender amp, put some reverb on it and have it facing back into the drums. Just put vibrato on it and stuff like that. We'll try to be creative and use the bleed to our advantage, especially tracking without headphones. I worked with T-Bone Burnett and he taught me so much about bleed. You sit down and talk with that guy and it's the best time you've ever had. He's got great ideas, like he'll get three things going on the low end. Just [makes low throaty noise]. And you're thinking the mix is going to sound awful. But then you find there is something he's going for and he gets it by taking that route. He's taught me a lot about just one mic recording. You know bleed with bleed? He loves bleed, even more than me.
What are some of your favorite toys, no matter where you go, that you have to bring with you?
SansAmp. I love it. That is an incredible little tool. I always bring my Moog. I have two Echoplexes that I always like to have along, one that is tube that I got for 25 bucks here in Nashville. I personally don't have an extensive microphone collection right now, but I have this podium mic that's just weird. It's just a long goose-necked omni-directional mic. It just sounds great. Vocals for Ira, sometimes a 57 would be stuck like this [shoves hand straight up in front of face]. Every singer's different. And everything that you're going for from song to song may be different. You might want a vocal big and just right there inside your head, or you may want smaller and a little thrown off or something like that. So there's never one vocal mic that I always use. I try not to do that. Anything too much the same — I hate that. I used to assist this guy when I first started, and he drew me a template for his drum sounds. These are the mic's you use, this is the mic pre-sets, this is the placement of the mics. So he would just walk in and it would all be ready to go. Weirdly enough, the drums almost always sounded the same no matter who was playing them or if it was a different kit.
Did you go to school for all of this?
I did. I went because I was in a band, and had a studio in my parent's house. I was recording my own band, and all of a sudden neighborhood bands and guys coming in from other towns would want to come in and record. I felt like I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I had two 4-tracks.
Would you recommend going to school for up and coming producers/engineers?
Um... I would. Although I gotta say that in the year I went to school I learned a little bit about how things worked, inside guts-wise, and hardly anything about how to listen to something. And that really only comes from experience. You know, just trying it out. My first gig was building ballasts. They asked if I did carpentry work, and I was like, "Yeah". I built these things with ten thousand nails in them and weighing at least a hundred pounds and they STILL wobbled! But they kept me on and I could easily say that in about 3 months I learned more than I had ever known before. Just by hanging out and doing alignments and all that stuff I learned so much just by watching the guys. It was an incredible education. So if you could have both, that would be the way to do it.
Do you have a record or project that is the closest to the sonic vision that you had for it in the beginning? A "most proud of" recording?
That's only coming about now. I'll be the first one to say it — that I'm learning with every record that I do. There's so much more to know. It has only been until the last couple of records that I feel that I'm starting to get comfortable. I don't mean comfortable as in lazy, but where if there's something I'm going for I know how to do it now. And this is the first time I'm feeling like musically and sonically that there is this whole wide range of things I can pull from. If there is something new I want to go for I feel like I know how to get there. So I guess I'll honestly say it was the last record that I did that I'm most happy with. Every record that I do is like a new stepping stone. You know, all those Yo La Tengo records I look back on and say, "Oh, if I'd only have..." and I think everybody does that, but you know, it propels me into trying to reach my goal. Where I came from, working with Arto Lindsay and all these guys that were just wacko, downtown New York, you know, just out-there... like I'm trying to mix stuff that is a half step out of the key of the song and it really taught me a lot. And I always pull from that. So I can have a pop hit and dement it somehow. Not in a way that I'm trying to destroy it, or take it away from the radio. Although personally I don't care, as long as it turns out how the band likes it. I like to produce records where I'm not just making myself happy. I've gone from Gypsy Kings, to Paula Cole, to Yo La Tengo and I love that I'm not captured into one little category.
Living in Nashville, surely you've done some work on a country record.
My first country assignment was a favor to a friend that I'd known for a while. Never worked on a country record before, and I got my first call, and I was like, "Uuuggghhh... okay." It was a favor because the engineer got sick and they were about to track this Hal Ketchum record and they needed somebody. So I said, "Okay." He says, "Great we're going to start at 8:30 tomorrow morning." What? So I go in there and there's this, "Fwap, fwap, fwap", click track going on. And the drummer's just, "Boom, tap, boom, tap." The only problem is that the song had this backbeat feel to it, and the drummer was just right on the click. And I said, "Shouldn't the snare just sort of fall? I mean everything else is just flowing". And they just didn't get it. And that's the difference right there. Fuck the feeling of the song, just get the part down. Jill Sobule played drums on her record. You know, just real simple and sometimes awkward, but the tracks just sounded gorgeous. As opposed to someone who's right there on the money.
That's a great mentality to have, but as a producer you must run into situations where that isn't the financially profitable standpoint to take.
Here's the deal. If you do something your way and the way the band wants it and it does hit... like Paula Cole, okay? We didn't go in and record that record to make it break. I don't really have that in me. It made it and that was the thing. Paula and I made that record in three weeks and when it was all said and done, it did well. So great. That's the beauty of it. With Yo La Tengo we go in and do what we want to do. If it clicks and people like it, then that's better. Better than you sitting there trying to make something formatted that you think people are going to like to listen to.
