Looking at the resume of Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie is like reading a who's who of '90s rock: Radiohead, Hole, Dinosaur Jr., Uncle Tupelo, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, so on and so forth. I had the privilege of working with them while I was a member of Gerald Collier's band. Gerald was signed to Warner imprint Revolution and the label sent us to Boston to record with Sean and Paul at Fort Apache. That experience was one of the musical highlights of my life. I recently caught up with them while they were in L.A. producing the new Go Go's album.
How long have you guys been working together?
Sean: Probably since about 1981. We had a band called Mod Lang, which was named after the Big Star song, and that lasted about 9 months to a year. We got a bunch of gigs and had some interesting musicians, but we realized we needed a lead singer. Then probably later in 1981 we found one and that's when we became [laughs] our new wave band the Sex Execs. Paul: This was in Boston. Sean: That went till about July, 1984. We had a pretty good time playing the bars and colleges of the Northeast.
When did you start working at Fort Apache?
Paul: We started Fort Apache in 1986.
You founded Fort Apache?
Paul: with two other musician friends...
Sean: Then Gary [Smith] showed up in the latter part of '86, early part of '87. Paul: He came in to produce the Pixies and sort of stayed on as studio manager.
Did you guys work on any of those Pixies records?
Sean: Paul did.
Paul: Yeah, I engineered the first one with Gary...We did 18 songs and sent it to Ivo at 4AD and he picked the 8 that are on the first EP... Come on Pilgrim.
What gear was in Fort Apache at the time?
Paul: We had a Neotek Series 1 console, which was pretty old even at the time, but a good board, and an Otari 1/2" 8-track. It was an 8-track studio with an 8-track board. For the Pixies we brought in a 16-track, one of those Tascam MS-16s. But the best thing about the studio was that it was in this huge empty warehouse. We were really being urban pioneers and it was the very early days of urban renewal down there in Roxbury [a rather chancy Boston neighborhood] — we had this huge warehouse and it was just wide open. I mean, it was the size of a football field. It wasn't strictly speaking our space, but we would just drag mics out there. The Pixies album uses a lot of that space. Black Francis was out there screaming in a room that was just so enormous... with one flickering fluorescent light...
What kind of mics were you using?
Paul: We had a couple of good mics — a couple of AKG 412s... like early 414s
Sean: That was probably the key to the overall sound, because we used those for drum overheads.
Paul: Yeah, we would use those on every session, those were like the main mics on everything.
Sean: We also had enough [Sennheiser] 421s.
Paul: And 57s.
Sean: If you have a handful of 421s you can do a lot. You can use them on tom toms, you can use them on guitars.
Paul: We didn't have a lot of great mics, maybe we had a Neumann KM-86.
Sean: That was probably the only other classy condenser mic we had.
Paul: We just basically used those 412s — we had a pair of those and that was it. I think the first tube mic I got was that Sony C-37B.
Sean: That was a great guitar mic. Also a lot of the sessions used AKG C-451Es for drum overheads.
Do you remember any of the outboard gear you were using?
Sean: It's funny, the one compressor that we ended up using quite a lot, was the Brooke Siren stereo compressor. We had one black 1176 and then we had the stereo Brooke Siren.
Paul: It's called a DPR 402. We used that a lot. Sean: If you look back at the original sound of a lot of the Fort Apache stuff a lot of it had to do with the PCM 70.
Paul: We used that a lot. And we had a TC2290 very early on, which we used for delay and for sampling.
Sean: Another one that we used a lot, especially on the Dinosaur Jr. records, was the Roland SRV2000 reverb.
Paul: That was a really good cheap reverb and if you readers can find one, I would get one.
Sean: The thing that we discovered, kind of by accident, was that we could use a lot of SRV 2000 ambience on drums. Because the room itself was kind of clanky, with a lot of cement. We got a lot of the drum sounds by mixing the overheads with a little SRV2000 on the snare.
Paul: It was sort of the sound of the time too. It was the eighties [laughs], if you remember . . .
Sean: Good point! So putting some sort of artificial reverb on a snare was considered acceptable, where as now you can get thrown in jail [laughs].
Paul: It was the time. It was pretty standard to augment the sound.
What were some of the records you did at Fort Apache in its original location?
Paul: Big Dipper's Heavens.
Sean: Three Volcano Suns records.
Paul: Bumper Crop, Thing of Beauty, and Farced, what else did we do?
Sean: . Buffalo Tom... the Flies... Salem 66... Gwar... the Neats... the Turbines... Barrence Whitfield... Treat Her Right... Throwing Muses... Boston was a hotbed of rock!
So then Fort Apache moved — when was this?
Paul: '87. We went to North Cambridge.
What gear did you guys have then?
Paul: We got a Neotek Elan board and an MCI 24-track. We were psyched because we had the 24-track that George Thorogood had recorded a gold album on. We figured if there was one gold record in it there was probably another... and it was true!
Sean: But let me clarify though, we did go to that location in North Cambridge, but we kept the original studio too. Then the original 8-track studio upgraded to 16 tracks. And then that studio eventually moved, in 1989, to another location in Roxbury. That location lasted through 1991.
Paul: The second 16-track studio was in an even worse part of Roxbury — we took over an existing studio and moved our gear in with what was there... that's where we did Uncle Tupelo's first album, No Depression... there were homeless people living in closets in that building... I think we did Sebadoh's Gimme Indie Rock! in there too... which was fitting... You gotta understand though... we were still booking church choirs and Moonie sessions and answering machine message sessions... every day was an adventure.
Sean: It's funny, I was going through a bunch of stuff in my basement and I found some of the original studio calendars... the first Uncle Tupelo record was recorded in the second week of January, 1990. It was done in 8 days.
Paul: 8-track.
That's an incredible album too.
Paul: Thank you.
Sean: I would say to Tape Op readers that both Paul and I are diehard fans of the Otari 8-track. We both own one. I think it's one of the finest analog machines you can buy because of how much sound you get from each track.
Paul: Then in the early '90s we moved the whole operation over to the Cambridge 24-track and that was sort of a golden age. We really focused on major label album work, and the great thing was that that was possible because a lot of the bands we had started out recording were getting major label deals and doing the records at the Fort... the Lemonheads did Lovey for Atlantic... Dinosaur jr. did Green Mind for Sire... Christmas was signed to I.R.S... It was an amazing time... we really felt like we were winning. Then after Nirvana blew the doors open we did an A&R/label deal with MCA which helped us redo the studio with the ultimate Neve/Studer combo. We got a Neve 8078 that was originally in the BBC TV studios in London. It was a custom ordered one and a little on the small side but powerful! That's what we mixed Radiohead's album The Bends and many others on... no automation mind you!
Then there was another Fort Apache?
Paul: That is now the last Fort Apache.
Is the other one closed.
Paul: Yes.
Let's talk about how you work together.
Paul: Well, it's not really defined. It's not really easy to say.
Does one of you have a strong suit or is everything more or less equal?
Paul: I'm more technical. I would fix something if it broke. Slade is more arrangement oriented. He plays keyboards, I play guitar. We are sort of opposite sides of the problem. If you want to get kinky about it, somebody did our astrological charts once — I think it was Courtney [Love] — she had our charts done. It was staggering: we're the complete opposite on the astrological spectrum. It's one of those things where the two opposites are different, but they're the same. That's the key to our partnership if you want to look at it metaphysically. We see opposite sides of the same problem.
Sean: And sometimes you have to make split second decision on how to solve a problem, so...
The clearest image I have of you guys from when we were working on Gerald Collier's album for Revolution, was you guys were mixing and you had the board split in half. One person would nod — you wouldn't even look at each other — and the next thing you know faders were moving and EQ knobs were turning. You were operating completely intuitively.
Sean: I think that's part of the fun actually. We try to get to that level. When it comes to the mixing thing it's interesting that we do split it up. Because what we're doing is combining two parallel universes. We divide the labor in such a way that it usually works out pretty well.
What's the outboard gear that you cannot live without?
Sean: Black-face [Urie]1176s — plug a guitar into one of those and it creates the harmonic overtones that one so desires.
Paul: I would say for me lately it's been the Telefunken V-72 mic preamp.
Sean: Absolutely!
Paul: It's an old tube mic pre — no controls, no volume controls, no nothin'. Man is it smooth.
And for reverb?
Paul: Well, we like an old Lexicon 224, the very first one. It sounds weird by itself.
Sean: Yeah, it's funny — in a track it creates more of an atmosphere than a reverb, especially a digital reverb, even though it is a digital reverb, it was one of the first ones to try to imitate a plate reverb.
Paul: Unfortunately with the early Lexicon stuff you're taking a chance, because it's unfixable if it breaks. I can't recommend that you go buy one, because chances are it won't work forever. We've really used that machine a lot though It's on virtually every mix that we ever did at Fort Apache.
Sean: I also swear by the [Lexicon] PCM 70.
Let's talk about micing drums.
Sean: It's all about phase. Paul: Exactly. Otherwise the drums won't sound natural and they won't sound right.
How do you get phase right?
Paul: You can only listen. We always start with the overheads. We listen and move the overheads until they are pleasing and the drums sound good in them. Then you phase the kick to the overheads and then you phase the snare. And even though it sounds geeky, it actually works to measure from the center of the snare drum to the two overhead mics and get the distance the same. We've done it — it works.
What mics do you use all the way around?
Paul: There's a basic set up. Let's start with the kick. If you can't have a FET-47, you can use an AKG D-112 or a 421, we've used 57s. You can use almost anythingonakick.
Sean: I like the D-112.
Paul: Outside the kick drum we would use a U-87 or a U-89. Any kind of large diaphragm condenser that you can get.
Sean: The ideal would be another Neumann FET-47.
Paul: We put that outside the bass drum to get some woof on the bass drum.
Sean: But, you have to pay particular attention to the phase of that.
Paul: That has to be phased with the mic inside the drum, yeah. You can do this by moving the mic back and forth and flipping the phase button. And if your console doesn't have a phase switch, then you are not in a professional recording studio. That's how you can tell.
Sean: [laughs] Good point! Let's keep going. 421s on the toms.
Paul: Maybe an RE 20 or something weird on floor tom if it's being unruly. Sometimes we do top and bottom mics (out of phase) on the toms if there's a lot of cymbal noise, it helps the toms come out.
Sean: As far as top snare goes, there's all kinds of advice about that. But one thing we've learned is that if you're going to mic the bottom of the snare a Sennheiser 441 is our preferred mic. It's ideal because it's laser sharp in terms of its directionality.
Paul: We usually use one condenser and one dynamic on the top. That can be a variety of things. It's usually a 57 for the dynamic and the condenser is usually a 451 with a 10dB pad or it can a KM84 which has a built in pad, or what ever you got — it's good to have one of each — a condenser and a dynamic.
Sean: Overheads are usually whatever the best matched pair is.
Paul: 414s. U87s — they've kind of got that '70s sound. We usually don't mic the high hat or the ride cymbal unless it's really called for.
You guys are both producers and engineers — what does a producer do?
Sean: I think the producer has to look at the big picture.
Paul:. Like the director of a movie. Sean: Yeah, and they also have to find the best batch of songs that fit together, and make sure the singer can sing them, and make sure the beat sounds correct. It all sounds kind of like idiot common sense.
Paul: You have to get the tempo right, the key right, the arrangement right, the performances right, and the recording right. That's all.
Sean: And I think sometimes a good division of labor is that sometimes the producer is really sitting there listening to the overall feel of a composition, or performance, and the engineer is listening to the individual sounds. If you get both of those things right, then there you are. We're able to switch back and forth between those things.
Paul: Right, we don't try to say one of us does this, one of us does that. At some point one of us is just listening, so we don't get bogged down in whatever's being punched in. Sometimes one of goes off and works with one guy on a part, or vocal, or something.
So we know you produced Hole's Live Through This, the first couple of Uncle Tupelo records, Radiohead's Pablo Honey, mixed The Bends. What have you done since then?
Paul: We're currently producing the Go Go's at Sound City studios in LA. Where they shot Boogie Nights!
Sean: Well, we did the Mighty Mighty Bosstones... Tracy Bonham... Warren Zevon...
Who else have you worked with?
Paul: Well... the Boo Radleys... Lush... Sebadoh... I did four albums with Morphine... Slade did a record earlier this year with a group called Bear Junior, from Nashville... that will be out soon.
Do you guys have home studios?
Paul: Based around the Otari 8-track. We still use it — it's still awesome.
Sean: I got the Otari 8-track and I have a Trident Flexi- mix 8-track board, circa 1976. I got it from my friends in Speedball Baby, I guess it was considered a Chevy with no wheels, or something. I had some people work on it and now it sounds great. My main trip is that I have a wide open space in a house up in Maine. I got this 8-track and this Flexi-mix board, all my mic pre's are tube mic pres. I've got this Altec 4 channel to mono, got an Altec 2 channel to mono, I've got a Gates pre amp that's two channels to mono. And I got a Ludwig blue sparkle 1962 Ringo kit. I also have tons of LPs. [laughs]
Paul: My studio is part of the larger Q Division complex. Which is a brand new operation here in Somerville [Massachusetts]. My room is just kind of a storage space, but it has the 8-track and an Auditronics board, which is circa '75, made in Memphis. I've got a bunch of '70s stuff, an LA 4, old Furman Sound stuff. Altec stuff... an amazing limiter called the Pandora, some of our mics — when were not using them, a bunch of guitars — I have a green sparkle drum kit, the same drum kit as Slade's... .but green... We send tapes back and forth sometimes if we have enough vacation time.
Sean: It's a good set up because I can take one of my multitracks and work out at Paul's studio, or work on it anywhere.
Paul: We have a friend down in New York and he has the same machine. We send him stuff too. It's just a bizarre little way to stay in touch.
So you send these 8-track tapes around, kind of like a round- robin thing?
Paul: To be honest with you, it's when we have time. But we try to do whatever we can when we're not doing stuff. It's just nice to have a place you can go and be off the clock.
Sean: Lay down some crazy rhythm track and throw some samples on it.
Paul: It's a luxury. It evolved out of us having so much stuff. If we're not working it's fun to do something with it.
What kind of samplers do you guys use?
Sean: I like to do it manually. I'll take a piece off a record, I'll put it on a DAT and then I'll just fly it in. Paul: We don't really have any modern computer technology like that. We're into the-state-of- the art 1976. Sean: If one guy influenced us when it comes to our home studios, it would be Lee Perry.
Let's talk about the digital vs. analog debate.
Paul: I gotta say, that I do have a new digital Tascam DA 78, I think it's a good machine. That's the best digital thing that I've heard.
And Pro Tools.
Paul: We've got Pro Tools at the studio, but we try not to use it.
Sean: Pro Tools is a fine computer program, but it all depends on the analog to digital converters. We've been sitting here extolling the virtues of analog, and in a way we're almost militant about that. But, if you buy an 8-track Otari, you've got to know how to set it up and bias it. Which is one thing you do not have to worry about with a digital recorder. It would be kind of wrong for us to recommend analog to everyone — it's not a given thing. You can't just buy an analog recorder and expect it to sound good. But if you set it up right, then it will sound better.
Paul: I don't think digital sounds as good.
Sean: I'm still waiting.
Paul: I want it to sound good, I wish it would sound good. It just doesn't handle distortion right. Distortion is just too damn complex.
Sean: All of the overtones don't translate into these zeros and ones.
Paul: It just doesn't come out right. You get most of it, but you don't get all of it, I swear.
Sean: The compromise we make is that we try to make records analog up until the very last moment... then the mastering becomes all important... taking it through the digital portal...
Is digital ever going to sound as good as analog?
Paul: There's going to be a breakthrough in some other direction I think... and they're going to go with some other thing. I'm hoping for that. If digital gets better that's fine... I'm waiting for plasma recording... It can work, like with The Bends:, it did work. Most of The Bends was mastered from DAT. The guys at Abbey Road did a great job pulling it all together. They thought the DATs sounded better than the 1/2 inches that we sent them.
Sean: Here again, we're talking about identical mixes.
Paul: The DATs we sent them were transfers from the 1/2".
The Bends is so incredibly dense — what was it like to mix that album?
Paul: We did it in pieces. They would send us two tracks at a time. Sometimes we got them on the first try and sometimes we had to do them several times. Radiohead was never there, they were in England.
What song mixed itself?
Sean: "Bones". That's a straight-ahead rock song. Something like "Fake Plastic Trees" might've been mixed four times over the course of a couple of months. "Just" was the one we had to do over and over again.
Paul: That power drill section was really hard. [laughs] Sean: That's the one section where the lead keeps going up and up and up.
Was that the hardest song on that record to mix?
Sean: A lot of it had to do with us doing a mix, sending it over to England and in 48 to 72 hours we would get some comment back.
Paul: We didn't always know what they wanted and sometimes it would take us a while to figure out what to do.
Sean: That's an interesting comment on how 24 tracks can be mixed — there's any number of ways you can do it. There's any number of emphases you can put on it. Especially with a group like Radiohead where every one is playing a brilliant part. The main thing is, you just try to make it sound like a song.
How much ambience did you put in there?
Sean: Some of those guitar parts were pretty good to go as far as how the echo was printed. But then again, there's an awful lot of that album that was just me and Paul figuring out what combination of 224 and PCM 70 and all that kind of stuff. There is always a certain thing we are looking for — we are looking for it to be musical and a certain kind of throb.
Paul: I definitely try to get things in time with the tracks that are happening. You want to think about where you tempo is at and how all the reverbs and delays relate to it. Sometimes you want it to be in time, sometimes you want it to push a little. It's something that will really affect the feel of the track, if you have a delay working against the track. Maybe it's a little subtle, you don't hear it — but it's there.
Sean: Once again that gets back to Lee Perry.
Paul: Ah, yes. Besides Lee "Scratch" Perry, who are your idols?
Sean: Chris Thomas. Paul: He's the master.
Sean: He did Procol Harum, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, and the Pretenders. If you look at the section of late '70s early '80s English rock, he was flawless.
Paul: Also Bill Price is an amazing engineer...
Sean: And Chris Thomas worked with Bill Price.
Paul: It's hard to single out anyone. There are so many people who have made so many great records. It's hard. Sean: We have been asked this question before and I guess one of the reasons Chris Thomas comes to mind, is that he's a guy who can make a great record with a lot of different groups.
Paul: I think a great producer is one that has success, and I don't mean money, with different artists from different genres. If you're a good producer you can take what anyone does and make it good. Quincy Jones is a good example. He had a hit with Leslie Gore. He put his mind to it and "It's My Party" was huge. And then he turns around and works with Ellington and then he turns around and works with Sinatra and then he turns around and works with Michael Jackson and has the biggest album of all time. There is someone who clearly understood how to get things happening.
Sean: We also like the old school arrangers like Jack Nitzsche.
Paul: Yeah, and that's a field that's disappearing.
And why do think that is?
Paul: Pro Tools.
Sean: Right, those cats were looking for performance and looking to get it in the moment, where as everyone today wants to fix things.
Paul: They run through it however and then throw the pitch of the vocal in — you can hear it. It sounds like a doll singing.
Sean: Is that what a producer is supposed to do: Run around and find things and try to fix it? I like hearing something that's right!
Paul: Some people would compare a producer to the editor of a book, where you look for inconsistencies, bad grammar, and stuff like that. But we look at it more, like I said, as the director of a movie... you've got a script, but you don't have to stick to it as long as you tell the story effectively. I think its the best job in the world... we've been really lucky. Thanks to everyone for all the great music we got to work on along the way!
