You got to where you are now not necessarily by nepotism, but by the traditional going up the ladder with hard work, except that you saw and heard some amazing things.
Yes. I used to clean my dad's studio [Nimbus Nine Sound Stage Studios] in downtown Toronto, and I used to go to school during the daytime and then I'd go down and clean and watch people make really wonderful records. The first Peter Gabriel solo record, Mark Farner, John Denver. I guess I kinda was the actual janitor and that's kind of how I got my start. And then when I was sixteen, the first session that I actually ever seconded on was Bob Seger's Night Moves. That was way back when.
And Bob Ezrin was around in those days.
Yeah. You see, my father used to play stand up bass. And Bob's father used to play stand up bass. And Bob's father left this one band and my dad took over his place. And when Bob was about seventeen or eighteen, he came knocking on my dad's door because he wanted to get into the rock and roll business. And Bob was actually hired to write charts. But what happened too was that Shep Gordon, who managed Alice Cooper, wanted my dad to record him. And my dad was like, "Some girl that's actually a guy? No way!", so they flew Bob down to New York and after he saw what it was about he told them, "We'll do it!" and my dad got pissed off and said, "Okay. If you think you are so shit-hot, we're gonna do this at the same time." And that is how Bob got his first break too. My dad and him did Love It To Death.
So you went up the ladder the traditional way — ending up as an assistant. I noticed you worked on tons of those 1980s metal and rock records.
Oh yeah... [laughs] Thanks a lot! Basically, I got a job at Phase One studios in Scarborough, which is part of Toronto, because my dad was working with some band and they were looking for someone to drive people around and I said I'd do it. And the two bosses there, Doug Hill and Paul Gross, asked me if I wanted to come and work there. And I had been there for two years and a German guy named Michael Wagener came in to do a band called Bright Rock and I was his second engineer. It was the first time Michael had ever been to Canada and he actually comes in the studio and he looked at me as some guy who couldn't talk properly, because you know, I actually do stutter, and he was so pissed off and thought, "What the hell am I doing here?" and in his German voice said, "Maybe I should just go home and get the hell out of here!" But then Michael and I became best buds. And after we had finished the record he left and he said, "Garth, I am going to bring you down to Los Angeles," and I said, "Sure, sure, sure Michael, great," and about six months later the phone rang and he said, "Listen Garth, can you hop on a plane?" So I went down and I helped him mix an Alice Cooper record. So my dad got to work with Cooper, and I actually got to work with Cooper. I think Constrictor was the actual record.
And you just stayed down there?
Yep. I went down there for six weeks and that turned into thirteen years. I never left and I basically used to keep my money in the freezer because I couldn't open up a bank account, and I had thousands of dollars hiding under my ice cube trays. It took me about three years to actually get a work visa. I became Michael Wagener's engineer and I worked on records like White Lion, Bonfire, and I even helped get the BulletBoys their start. My first big break was getting to record Mother's Milk by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and then from there I got to do the first Rage Against The Machine record too.
Before we get to those — what did you pick up osmosis-wise from Wagener? I guess back in those days those records were super-vocal laden — lots and lots of layers of falsetto I bet.
[laughs] Yeah. Vocals and lots of hairspray. I actually learnt from Michael how to get great guitar sounds. He was always the king for that. He had the '80s metal sound down to a tee. And of course back then they didn't have Pro Tools or whatever, so anytime you wanted to fly tracks around you had to lock up two decks and offset things and such and it got pretty difficult.
And Mother's Milk?
That was absolutely wonderful. I was actually working with a drummer named Chad Smith — we were doing this jingle and I was going over to meet Michael Beinhorn and a guy named Lindsay Getz, who was at the time the manager. And they said, "Look Garth, we're looking to find someone to play the drums for them," and I said that I knew the guy so I told them about him. They said he was going to come and play the next day and I told them then that's their guy. So that's how Chad and I got started, and that was when John [Frusciante] began to play guitar for the band too. He was absolutely a brilliant player. I think he was eighteen when he joined. That was his dream — to play with Flea.
And then to Rage Against The Machine, which I think is one of the greatest rock records of the 1990s. To me it sounded like they didn't need any rehearsals. They sounded like they were on fire.
