Sally Browder is a producer/engineer working in Los Angeles. The path to her career was an odd one, paved with lots of luck along the way, but the results are impressive. Initially working with artists like Wayne Kramer, The Humpers, Rocket From The Crypt, Claw Hammer and labels like Epitaph, Interscope and Lookout!, then moving on to work with Pete Anderson [see interview this issue], Dwight Yoakam, Curt Kirkwood, Earl Scruggs, Willie Nelson, Flaco Jimenez, Dave Alvin, Joe Ely and the Young Dubliners, she's made an impression with her clean, clear yet full sounds and productions.
You did a lot of punk rock stuff early on.
I did a lot of punk rock stuff and a bit of folky, alt- country kind of stuff — The Silos, The Plimsouls, The Geraldine Fibbers. But I don't know — I felt kind of done. I wanted to branch out a bit.
Do you feel like you were being pigeonholed?
I was doing it to myself. I made great sounding punk records. Some I produced, some I just engineered. But I never wanted to be an engineer. I engineered because I wanted to produce and I didn't want to hire an engineer. I hear it all in my head and I know I can figure out how to make it sound.
So you really wanted to produce?
Yeah. [Initially] I got a job at a studio and they put me to work soldering. I was doing the bookkeeping there too. I left the east coast to get away from all of that. I thought, "Oh, recording is good. That's something different." I had studied music arranging and really enjoyed it, so I decided I wanted to work in the room. Assistant engineer is the worst job. I've had some crap jobs, but that was the worst job I've ever had in my entire life.
In what way?
Everything! The hours, the conditions — you never get breaks. I didn't eat most of the time — I weighed like ninety-five pounds when I quit after two and a half years. It was the happiest day. That was in '91.
Did you learn stuff in that time?
I learned a lot in that time because I didn't know anything. I went from knowing absolutely nothing — not knowing what a direct box was — and during those two and a half years of assisting I got four or five engineering credits. It was all such a mystery. I have really good ears. I have perfect relative pitch. I have a great ability for arranging. But I had no technical aptitude at all. I love sound and I hear all the tiny little nuances, but getting there — it was excruciating. Two years of fifteen, eighteen hours a day. I'd work thirty, forty days straight. I was the only person that worked there.
What studio was it?
It was a home studio called O'Henry [Sound Studio]. Amazing room, amazing gear — they had two 24- tracks and this monster, customized API which I helped build. My first assistant credit was with a band called Southern Pacific. It was Keith Knudsen and John McFee from The Doobie Brothers and Stu Cook from Creedence. Keith turned out to be a really good friend over the years. He was one of my first freelance clients when I left. I set up a little home studio for him in his garage and I did a lot of demos. But you know, when I went freelance I had not seen other studios, and it was a rude shock to find they were not all as plush as where I had trained! When I went independent somebody referred me to Doug Messenger's studio. I was looking for a low budget room and I went in and I looked at it — "No." Then I tried it and said, "This sounds amazing." I worked at Doug's quite a bit. One day I when I was working Doug got a call and he was trying to blow off a client and I said, "I'll do it. I'll cover for you for a few hours." It was a blues piano player making a solo record. The artist turned out to be Andy Kaulkin from Epitaph and we hit it off really well — he said, "Oh, you should meet my boss." I said, "I'm not ever working for anybody ever again. I work for the artist. That's it." But then I gave him a tape and they called me to produce a record, and after that I was a record producer.
Do you think your career path is a little bit unusual?
Yes, it is. Ironically it's exactly what I set out to do — produce independent, edgy records, but with no plan and no method to it. My entire life I've always been extraordinarily lucky — undeserved luck that I don't expect or have any idea about or even truly appreciate a lot of the time when it happens. It's just always been like that for me. I love edgy, guitar-based music. I always get to make that kind of record. When I said, "Gosh, I'd really like to get out of the punk rock thing and more towards an edgy kind of country thing — like a Dwight Yoakam-y kind of sound — I wasn't even that familiar with the style. The Bottom Feeders gave me a copy of Guitars and Cadillacs and I really liked that record. I said, "Yeah, something like that!" A couple of months later I meet Pete [Anderson].
But not because you were even trying to meet Pete.
No, I was at dinner with a bunch of producers and engineers, because we all had the same manager, and they were all talking about Pro Tools. Someone asked me what I thought and I said, "I can't comment on it because I haven't used it. I'm really pretty entrenched in the analog world." Pete started talking very favorably about [Line 6's plug-in] Amp Farm and I was stunned. I said, "Aren't you a guitar player? That's really weird."
Well, I was pretty surprised with the interview with Pete, about his meth- odology with Amp Farm and Pro Tools.
You know, it's so much easier. When I think about all the struggles and years of trying to make amps sound good — it's great. No more mics getting bumped or falling. No more extra buzz and hum or speaker fatigue. No more unbearably bad sounding amps. When my indie records get reviewed they still comment on, "Wow, there are analog guitars." But hey, they're actually Amp Farm. I won't even mic an amp these days.
Even if you're producing somebody else?
For anyone. Just plug in. I never liked setting up mics in the first place. I really don't like it now, when I know I don't have to. Sound is in my brain, not in the tools.
So you worked two years as an assistant, hating it but learning stuff, and then found yourself mixing major label records right after that?
Mixing I love! I left [O'Henry] at the end of '91. '92 and '93 were scrounging. I lived on credit cards because I wouldn't take anything that wasn't rock. It had to be rock, or like The Silos — kind of edgy, country stuff. It wasn't like anybody knew who I was, so any referrals I got were from engineers that I worked with. I never had a lot of patience. I loved the artist. I could sit and do vocals for ten hours. When I was first assisting the producer said, "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" I said, "I'm going to be a record producer. I'm going to produce independent rock records." He burst out laughing and walked out of the room. When I quit my job after two and a half years everybody that I had met in town was laughing at me and saying, "You are high if you think anybody is going to hire you as an assistant anywhere else." I said, "No. I don't want to! I'm not ever going to do this job again." They were like, "Well, you're never going to get any work."
Don't you think people are going to read this and go, "God, I hate that Sally!"
Probably. Or they're going to think, "I'll never call her!" I guess by now it doesn't matter how it all happened.
Have you done work in larger studios?
I've worked in many of the larger rooms in town. They used to be better than they are now. I don't know if you've worked in many here, but some consider themselves the top echelon, so even the assistants are really snobby about the clients and frankly, many are snobby about the work that I do beyond the Dwight Yoakam records.
They don't want to hear about The Humpers.
And all my weird little artsy fartsy projects. I was engineering a moderately large budget record at one of the bigger studios and asked for an old RCA mic for the accordion — I thought it would sound great. The assistant said, "Well, that's not what we customarily use. May I recommend?" "Well actually, no. You may not recommend — no." A couple of days later it was just really burning me that they were being like this. They were just challenging me on everything. I had them tear down the entire set up of the entire room and I said, "I want 57s on everything — overheads, high hats, guitar cabs, Leslie — I want it on every instrument in this room." "Ha, ha, you're joking." I said, "No. I'm serious. I'll be back in an hour and I want everything set up please." "Well, we don't have that many 57s." I said, "Well, rent them then. Get them in here somehow."
Jesus!
The other thing was the machine wasn't aligned properly. In a place like that — twenty-two hundred bucks a day — I walk in, I'm listening to playbacks and this isn't what I put on tape. "The tech aligned the machines. It's not the machine. Maybe you're not used to the speakers." I was like, "I think you need to check it." I mean, the high end alignment was down like a dB and a half or something. Not to pick on any particular studio, but it's an overall comment on the huge decline in the quality of the bigger studios. as they have been hurt by the budget crunches and can't train or keep assistants and techs as they once could, and as some of the B rooms have become more organized and engineers are bringing more of their own gear or using Pro Tools at home.
Do you ever feel like when you get something like that, that it's partly gender-biased too?
There may be some of that. Maybe not. It's a natural question and people always ask it. But it's just such a competitive business, assistants everywhere are looking at engineers and producers and saying, "I could be that person! That person doesn't deserve to be sitting in that chair." I did it too. In the rock world, when I was an assistant, bands would come in and say, "Oh you know, you seem like a nice person, but we can't have you assist on our record. It's just not the right vibe." People are nervous about the unknown. This record is their whole life on the line. Then they'd grudgingly give in and after a week it was different, it was okay once they saw I knew what I was doing and I really cared about their record. I think it's much more of an advantage than a disadvantage. I mean nobody forgets you because you stick out like a sore thumb. I believe people just won't call me if they have a problem working with a woman. Even if they haven't met me and seen, "Oh, she doesn't look right for the part. There are no tattoos", in the punk rock world, in the alt country world, nobody cared. They want it to sound a certain way, so whoever is going to get them that sound, they're gonna go with. Many times that was me.
They listen to other projects you've done, and that's how you get all the work.
Almost always it's the band or artist that approaches me to do their record. Some producers get work partially based on their personal relationship with the band. I love what I do, but it's a job. I pour a lot of myself into it and I want to go home and check out at the end of the day, night, whatever. I don't think it's always a gift to the artist to know them better outside the studio. Within the studio confines you can develop a real respect and empathy for somebody based on the record making experience that really can get blown out of the water if you see them at a party. And it cuts both ways.
What makes a good producer?
A good producer will cover everything from song selection, song arrangements, budget, bringing in outside players or assembling a band for a solo artist. A good producer will spend time rehearsing before recording. You know, pre-production. In the punk rock world all of these things were different. Nobody did that stuff. Nobody spent time on arrangements like I did. I'd go in rehearsals and say, "Try this." To me that's part of making a record. You don't just surprise somebody when they show up at the studio and say, "Oh by the way...", or " Let's do it completely differently." Being a critic, an editor, a psychologist, a friend, a parent — whatever the band or artist needs to realize the vision. You have to be musical. You have to be organized. You have to have backup plans if this plan isn't working right now. You have to have an overall vision for the record and not let it completely morph itself around you and say, "Oh yeah, that's what I meant."
How did you talk your way into working with Pete and Dwight Yoakam?
I told Pete I really wanted to work on a Dwight record. They had always worked with a big name engineer in big name studios. I had helped Pete set up the Dog Bone. I said, "Try it one day — tracking here at the Dog Bone." They had already done some overdubs here. I said, "Just try it and if you don't like it you don't have to pay me. Everybody goes home and it's like it never happened. If it works it'll save money on the overall budget." Then I got to engineer the record because no big name engineer is going to walk into this set-up. It's very quirky and the patchbay isn't labeled right.
So that session went well when they came in and tracked?
Yeah, they loved it here — it's really comfortable. It's a lot more casual and they don't have to really set anything up. Everybody was plugged in. The drummer was in the main room and Dwight in the booth with a guitar and a vocal mic, and everybody else was just plugged in here in the control room. It's just so much faster and easier and not a big deal.
Everybody was happy with the tracking sounds?
Those guys — I don't know if they had a little bit of a gender thing, maybe it was more of an age thing — they were pleasantly shocked. Besides Pete, they didn't know me. To them I didn't have a name. To my mind, I was famous in my world so I thought, "I'm the you of my world."
That kind of confidence is really important, though. Without that confidence you might have run away from your first assisting job.
Confidence or delusion, take your pick. Either way it worked for me. The Dwight thing, you know, the records went on for a long time so people just stopped calling me.
Really? Because you were busy?
Yes. This band Racing 8 I had worked with years before came out from New York to work with me and fit it in around the Dwight schedule, and a handful of other projects like the Young Dubliners. Some of the more hardcore punkers felt betrayed — like I'm part of the establishment now and unable or unwilling to work with them. And by then there were some places where I just wouldn't work, "No, I'm not going to work in this studio where I have to crawl under the console and re-patch the board every time I want to switch from mic inputs to line inputs." I'm not going to do that anymore.
It's fun to have those stories — it's not necessarily something you'd want to do again.
It wasn't all that fun the first time. The first Humpers record — I was so sore after three days of tracking from climbing onto baffles and crawling around under and over cords to deal with ground lifts. I wanted to cut everything live. The studio was in an industrial park — the grounding changed every five minutes and there was a new buzz from somewhere.
Coming through some power somewhere?
Yeah, and I hate buzz. I don't care if it's punk rock — I like it to sound good. I want them to hear every little nuance — every tiny piece of aggression I could pull out of it — and buzz dilutes that. The assistants were stoned all the time and they were tired and they couldn't keep those hours (18 to 20), so I'd be out there climbing on stuff and hanging from this thing and trying to reach down and re-patch it. It was fun a few weeks later to look back on it, but it wasn't fun at the time. I was cross-eyed and my whole body hurt and I still had to mix seventeen songs in two days. I wanted to get out of that working situation and still earn a living.
A lot of the punk rock sessions are just not going to have larger budgets.
It gets draining because you do the best with what you've got, but you're not actually doing your best and you can't find out what your best is because the constraints are so tight.
What have you been doing lately?
The Little Dog roster and a few outside things that I bring in.
Who pays you?
Pete and I are married, so it's all sort of one big pool on the Little Dog stuff.
Does work follow you home or is it good?
It's so great. Every year it gets better and better. The first year of working together and then the first year of dating and working together were a little trying for both of us. Then it got really good for both of us because he doesn't have to think about what I do and for me it gives me freedom. I can come in and work the hours that I want. Now that I have a baby I can't really work at night, so I come in during the day.
Do you have to have someone watch the baby?
Sometimes she has a sitter. Sometimes I bring her in. When she was three weeks old I was doing bass overdubs with her in my arms. She spent a lot of time in the studio the first six months of her life before she really started feeling the urge to be mobile. Now she's in school a couple of half days.
You always wonder what it would be like to be brought up in a studio.
She can tell you... She's so musical. She runs in here and says, "What's this?" I say, "Headphones." Puts them right on. She sings, she writes her own little songs.
You should make her an engineer.
I know. She comes in and she knows what faders are called and what knobs and buttons are called.
Do you do much punk rock stuff at this point at all?
No, but I'm totally open to it. I enjoy a lot of different music, as long as it's edgy. I did the rock end of the punk rock bands — I mean I grew up on '70's rock. If it has loud guitars and a lot of vocals I'm totally happy. I could make those records until I die. I never, ever get sick of that. Good songs with huge harmonies on them and big, beefy guitars.
Are we jaded or are we looking for more stimulation?
Well, you get accomplished at something and it's not as mysterious anymore and you need something that's a mystery to discover. Great music will always have that mystery.
