So what have you been up to? What's happening at Engine Studios?
Well, what's happening here right now is that another studio in town got both of their music studios locked out for two months straight by Billy Corgan — so we're getting all their business. Which is totally awesome, we're having very solvent months. [laughs] Honestly, I'm doing a little bit of nothing right now because I spent a lot of the summer on tour with Ugly Casanova. I have been doing some work with John Cale, which is totally awesome and fun. I did a new record for the Fruit Bats. They used to be on Perishable Records in Chicago, now they're on Sub Pop. I also did another one for a band from Florida called Hollow Paw that's coming out on Sub Pop. I think they're fairly previously unheard of and the singer in that band is the other singer in Ugly Casanova.
How long have you been working out of Chicago?
Since about 1986. I moved here fresh out of college. I went to music school and got a degree in playing drumes, which is incredibly worthless. [laughs] [I] moved here and started looking for a job in a recording studio with no technical training at all. It took me a while to learn things since I did it without school.
Did you dial in at a certain studio?
I landed at Chicago Trax recording studios, which was sort of the birthplace of Chicago house. I worked there for a year and I think I saw real drums mic'ed up once. It was all really early house music with like [Emu] Drumulators, SP12s and CZ101s and, um, bad divas. It drove me insane, so I left there in a rage one day after about year of working and never went back. I ended up after that at CRC [Chicago Recording Company] where I was an assistant — which probably sounds like a drag, but I learned a ton doing that. I mic'ed up 30-piece orchestras made up of CSO players, every kind of woodwind and brass instrument you can think of, lots and lots of rock 'n' roll rhythm sections. It was really beneficial, but I'm not good at working for a boss, so that didn't last either. [laughs]
When did the whole Clava Studio thing figure in? [pronounced Clay-va]
