Paul Oldham: On all things Palatial and Bourbon

East of Louisville, Kentucky, in a small town called Shelbyville, Paul Oldham has been recording some of the most unique and important American records of our times. His work can be heard on everything from mid '90s Royal Trux records to New York's own improvisational noise rockers Gang Gang Dance. But perhaps he is best known for his work with his brothers Will and Ned Oldham. Will, mostly under the monikers Palace Brothers and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and Ned, through his Anomoanon releases, are creating some hauntingly beautiful music that has brought them work and praise from folks like Johnny Cash, Marianne Faithfull and Harmony Korine. I was honored to sit down with Paul and talk with him about his studio and many of the records he has recorded and played on through the years. He spoke openly about the making of (some would say) Will's finest record, Ease Down the Road, why they canned the entire first version of Master and Everyone, his love of Pro Tools and how he battles the harshness of digital recording.

Tell me a little bit about your past in recording. Did you go to school for this ?

When I was 17 I had a 4-track and I played in bands. I would record the rehearsals and I started recording other bands. I knew a couple of people that had gone to IU [Indiana University] for their recording program. I went there and it was a pretty intense recording program — way past its heyday by the time I went there — everything was broken. I spent a year there and one of the requirements is to do an internship somewhere. After I had been there a year I got a call from Royal Trux, whom I had worked with a couple of years earlier doing sound for their tour [see Tape Op #11 ]. They were going to make a record and they had used David Briggs, Neil Young's old producer, for their previous record and he died right before they went to make their new record. Instead of getting a big name producer or engineer to work on their record they spent the money to put a studio in their house and just recorded it there and got someone to mix it. So they asked me a few things, consulted Sweetwater and bought all these ADATS, a board and all these effects. I went there and spent four months making a record. They rented a house for me and the bass player and the drummer. I had to set up their studio and learn how to use everything. I had never used an ADAT. I read a bunch of manuals and plugged everything together. That was a great, intense experience. I ended up going back to school for a little bit and when I finished I needed to find a place to live. My folks own this farm — I don't know why they decided to do it but they fixed this house up. It was in complete disrepair — you wouldn't recognize it. That was in 1997. I started out just recording my band Speed to Roam and recording my brother's bands, which is something I'd done a little of before, and my friend's bands. Just having this great space to do it in. I love it 'cause it's so non studio-like.

What were you recording on when you first started?

Two DA-38 tape machines — Sixteen tracks through a little Alesis mixer. I made a lot of recordings with that. I recorded one of Ned's albums and Will's album, I See a Darkness, on those, plus a bunch of other stuff. About a year after I moved out here I decided to buy a computer with the idea of just burning some CDs. I just got more and more into it and enjoying using a computer — I was able to get better quality recordings. The next step up from a tape machine was out of my price range. I could go from 16-bit recordings to 24-bit recordings without incurring much more cost. About a year after that I bought a Mac and after about six months after that I started using Pro Tools. That was about three years ago when I got that.

How did you find the learning curve of Pro Tools as opposed to other programs?

I used a few other programs before I settled on Pro Tools. When I finally got Pro Tools it was like, finally, something that makes sense. They were all totally usable. The more time you spent with these programs the better you can get at them, but Pro Tools was totally made for the audio recording engineer. Most of those other audio programs seemed to be made for MIDI sequencing people. When I switched to Mac I used Digital Performer because a good friend of mine was really into it. That's what I made Ease Down the Road with. I switched after that.

What sort of plug-ins do you use?

I use a Channel Strip plug-in and a couple of Waves plug-ins. I use outboard reverb and a couple of nice compressors.

What speakers do you like?

The 20/20bas Event speakers are the ones I've had the longest. I bought the NS-10s kind of cheap and they are in every studio so they are kind of nice to have even though they sound horrible. When I mix on one set of speakers for a while and then switch to the other at first it sounds completely different and then after a while I can't remember what speakers I'm working on and that's the point I like to get to. When it doesn't matter what speakers you are listening to everything just sounds good everywhere. I'll also take pointers from whoever is in the room at the time. In ways you'll never know what someone will ask you to change.

Are the recordings you've done recorded live?

Yeah. Most of them I record the band in a live setup in this room. I'll rearrange it a little but the drums would go on this rug, amps over here with a bass amp over there, and that gives a nice almost like a stage layout. I'm mic'ing everything close, so you get bleed on the mics. In digital I try and take away some things that are digital about it. When you're recording to tape you always have cross-talk between channels and things like that and recording live like that you still get that close mic sound but then there is this little bit of stuff in the back that makes everything come together in a way that I like. That said, I will separate things out sometimes, it's not a rule. It's fun to spread out people into other rooms. If I'm recording drums with an acoustic instrument sometimes it's not practical to have a singer and an acoustic guitar player in the same room as the drums. Ease Down the Road we actually put the drums in the dining room and we had the bass in here and then Will was out in the hallway so everything was totally separate. I can run cables to any part of the house.

How much of what you do is knob twisting, or is the "magic" hitting the recorder without much additional effects from you?

There is definitely a thought process: 'I want to use this mic on this instrument or this preamp.' It is thought out. It's not like I'm sitting here having the drummer kick on his kick drum for an hour while I tweak the mic position. I like to work relatively quickly and just set everything up and then do a line check to make sure everyone's mics are working. Sometimes I get everybody together, sometimes everybody separately or eventually both just get everybody to play and record a little bit. And then be like, 'This might work a little better if we move this mic over here.' Just go through it and see what people think. They could say, "I really hate the way my snare drum sounds." "Okay, how do you want it to sound?" "Less mushy," which never makes any sense but you just go with it. It's usually a pretty quick process. I don't use a lot of processing when I mix. I just like to balance things in a way that sounds pleasing. If a mic I'm using is causing a problem there's no second thought, I just put it away. A lot of things just sort of happen. Like that Amalgamated Sons of Rest record — we were all just sort of in here and we'd come in and start playing and I'd hit 'record'. Mics were just set up.

So that was just everybody playing together?

We'd all play and just switch around instruments — I played either bass or drums on any given track. Whoever was singing would go to the vocal mic and it would just sort of evolve from that. Some of the songs were written and they would just pick the one that was the best, some were off the cuff.

Are you a producer or engineer for hire outside your own studio?

Colin Gagon made a record last year and got me and a few other people in California and we went to a studio and actually recorded on 2" and transferred it to Pro Tools and went back to his house and did basic overdubs and vocals and mixing there. I like to travel around and do stuff. The last Anomoanon record I packed up a lot of gear and took it to a house on the eastern shore of Virginia and it was not unlike this place, same sort of feel. We just sort of set up there and worked with what we had there. I've never worked in another studio but it's come up before where it might have happened. Like with the Royal Trux — I went out to them and have done that a couple of times. It's something I'm open to though. I'm used to working in this environment but I love to work anywhere.

Is there a specific production sound you are going for?

Different people work in different ways. Will has sort of an idea of things. With Ease Down the Road he said he wanted the drums to be muted. The drummer took it upon himself to tape up the drums and put all these t-shirts on it and I mic'ed it. I think it's fun to listen to what the people there have to say and sometimes it's a stupid idea or more trouble than it's worth and sometimes that's not true. I think it's important for me not to think I know what's right and what's going to work.

Anything unusual you have?

If people have been here before they know what I have. Maybe people come here because they've heard recordings and liked them but also it's such a nice place to be. One thing I have that a lot of studios don't is a really cool environment. This band Gang Gang Dance from New York recorded here. It's a really cool, weird record — improvisational stuff. They're not in Manhattan or Brooklyn worried about getting on the subway or going to work. "If we spend one more hour working on this how much is that going to cost us" — no one is thinking that. Let's take a break and go for a swim. This band from Chicago called The Hours came down here and recorded and one of the things they said was not worrying about all these little things they had to worry about in a studio in Chicago. I've got to find a place to park my car and then after we record I have to drive home and deal with life but when you are out here this is nothing to do and it's nice. You can think about music and jam whenever you feel like it. It's a real stress-free environment. It's stressful to be in recording studios in general and I think that people like that that's not as much of an issue here.

Do you think you could afford to record out here if your brothers weren't such a success?

Because of the way I have chosen to do this business it's primarily by word of mouth. Will's records in particular are great advertising for the studio and get me some work. That has been a really helpful thing to me and I make money from work I do with them too. It's another job playing with Will on tour — I'll make some money doing that and that may or may not affect the studio directly. I can buy a new mic preamp or something. If I didn't have that I would have to take a more active role in advertising, which I probably would have had to do more of. But I also don't have to pay rent to live here because my parents own this place. That's a big help. I don't have a particularly extravagant lifestyle. I don't get every job because of their accomplishments. I get people out here from Louisville just 'cause they know me.

What is Will like in the studio?

Generally Will doesn't like to do more than a few takes of something, which I'm totally hip to. A lot of the times when he comes in the studio it is with an unrehearsed band and first takes aren't always possible to use. The band would have heard the songs; they would work it out as it goes along.

With Ease Down the Road how much experimentation was there in the studio with extra tracks?

That was the record we spent a really long time on. We spent six weeks or so making it pretty intensely every day. The way it worked was we had this basic tracking thing, two guys came in and did bass and drums and Will sang and played guitar and we recorded that. He had a bunch of people in mind that he wanted to come out and spend a couple of days. So any given week we would have two or three people coming into the house who could play different instruments. So, for example, we had a violin player come in and play on a bunch of songs. Then we had a friend of ours who sort of knew how to play the banjo play on a bunch of stuff and then sing too. Then everybody left and we mixed and a lot of that stuff got thrown away. There might be violin all over any number of tracks when we were recording it and then end up using like four bars or we might not use any of it. It's really easy to do with a computer because we had as many tracks as we needed, as many takes as we needed. That's not always how I make records out here — a lot of people don't have that sort of time to spare. A lot of times people come in with a basic idea of what they want to do, where they want to put things. I'm open to whatever. The Anomoanon will do the same sort of thing — they'll add some shit and take some away. I like recording live but it's fun to separate things, it creates different options. 

How far in advance do the brothers tell you it's getting time to record a new album?

Will will plan a record in advance in some fashion for quite a long time. The last record [Master and Everyone] we were going to record here and we planned it for a few months and brought all the musicians out, had a guitar player, a drummer, a bass player and started tracking and then just threw it all out. Will and I went down to Nashville and made the record we did instead.

Why did that happen?

It just wasn't coming together, I guess. I think Will wanted to do his record a little differently than the way it ended up coming together. It just wasn't what he thought it was going to be. I can't profess to read his mind. Not everybody has that luxury of being able to throw it all away; Will was in a position to do that. But the record happened and it was a great record. I was still involved but I'm confident it would have been a great record regardless of that. It was a great experience for both Will and I working the way that we did, working in another studio — actually we recorded in a house — just doing things a little differently.