Dave Catching lives at Rancho De La Luna. Yup, a bed sits in the corner of a room that doubles as a space to isolate one's amplifier while tracking. Dave is also a guitarist, and his playing graced the very first Queens of the Stone Age recording (plus later touring and albums) as well as being a member of Eagles of Death Metal, earthlings? and former member of Tex and the Horseheads and Mondo Generator. Of course, he also shows up all over The Desert Sessions albums.
Dave Catching lives at Rancho De La Luna. Yup, a bed sits in the corner of a room that doubles as a space to isolate one's amplifier while tracking. Dave is also a guitarist, and his playing graced the very first Queens of the Stone Age recording (plus later touring and albums) as well as being a member of Eagles of Death Metal, earthlings? and former member of Tex and the Horseheads and Mondo Generator. Of course, he also shows up all over The Desert Sessions albums.
So this house started with Fred Drake?
It started with Fred. He moved out here in '91 or '92. He was here with some friends and saw a sign that said, "Three houses for rent." He came up, looked and he said, "I'll take it" and moved out of L.A. At the time he didn't even have a car, all he had was a cooler. Every morning he would walk to get ice from the store. Finally he got a truck. It wasn't that long, but when he first moved out here it was pretty hardcore.
What was he doing before that?
He was an engineer. That's how I ended up meeting him. A friend of ours — Dean Chamberlain who plays in the band Code Blue and was in The Motels for a time — had a studio and Fred was the engineer. Dean and I played in bands together, so that's how I ended up recording with Fred. It was kind of funny because Fred was like, "I want to move to the desert and start a studio." So, he moved out without anything and in a couple of months he got a call from a friend of his, a singer named Hugh Harris. Hugh had a 24-track Tascam and a board of some sort that he sold to Fred. So within a couple months Fred had a studio. Within another month Dean was shutting down his studio. I was living in New Orleans and I actually had a restaurant out there — I had given up the music business. I said, "Fuck this. I hate L.A." and I moved to New Orleans. I get a call from Fred in early '93 saying, "Dean is selling his gear and he wants to know if we want to buy it" which I thought was interesting since I was living in New Orleans and he's living out here. He was like, "It's just six thousand dollars for the board, the tape machine, a bunch a mics" — not good mic's but 57s and 58s — "and some cables and everything we need" — speakers and stuff. I said, "Yeah, sure. Let's do it." He said, "All we have to do is give him a thousand dollars down and make one hundred dollar a month payments." His wife at the time just wanted him to get out of the business and it wasn't really about the money. I sent Dean my three grand and I said [to Fred], "Okay. You take care of doing the payments for your half." So we had a studio and I was still in New Orleans. Daniel Lanois [Tape Op #37] had taught a woman named Trina Shoemaker to record. She did Victoria Williams' Musings of a Creekdipper record here and she engineered The Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R. She ended up working for Daniel Lanois, and now he was looking for a location. At the time he was in Baja [California, Mexico] and he had a giant mess tent set up with all this gear. His engineer, Mark Howard, showed up at the door here one day — no call or anything — and knocked on the door. Fred opened it and he said, "I'm Mark Howard. I work for Daniel Lanois. Trina said that Dan would probably like to record here and I just wanted to check it out." Daniel Lanois — Fred's favorite producer in the world! Mark walked in and [clapped] and was like, "This will work fine. Dan will call you." Fred gets a call from Dan and he said, "This is what I've got: I've got a vintage Neve console." He had [Fender] Strats that felt like you were playing barbed wire — like '58 Strats that felt like they had the original strings. He had Eno's keyboards, like [Yamaha] DX7s. We were like, "Oh my God, it's Eno's keyboard!"
The broken DX7?
It's a broken DX7! His deal was, "Here's what I'm going to do. I'll leave all my gear here for at least six months. I'll probably record two or three weeks in that six months and when I have a week I'll come out."
This is long before he did the Teatro Studio in Oxnard, California?
Yeah, before. He went from here to San Francisco for a short time. Then he did Teatro. It was wild. Fred was working with Dan. It was really weird because Fred got pretty ill and he had a roller IV [intravenous therapy] so he was helping Dan Lanois engineer while he was walking [the IV] around. I mean, Fred was a tough motherfucker.
I guess so.
It was the best thing ever for him.
It was like a dream come true.
It's ridiculous, right? I love Dan's productions. Especially in the early '90s — they really have their own sound. They still do, but especially at that point, it was so completely out there. Fred's stuff, if you listen to some of his stuff — especially considering Fred did it on a Soundcraft board with a 16-track 1/2" Tascam — he was really good.
What did Lanois work on at Rancho?
He did a record called Trip. I think it was soundtrack stuff that he was working on. [It was a promo-only compilation of soundtrack pieces. -LC] It was just trippy experimental stuff that he did. He loved it out here.
What fell into place for you to start doing things here?
Right around that time my restaurant caught on fire and I lost it. After a few months of living in New Orleans, people were starting to call me to do work for them. My best friend Hutch [QOTSA's live sound engineer] who lives next door — we were talking and he said, "I'm going to Europe with this band, Kyuss" — which were friends of mine through Chris [Goss]. I was like, "Fuck. I need a job. I've never been to Europe. I'll guitar tech." They said, "Yeah, that sounds great." I went to Europe with them and while we were over there [I told them] I'd just started this studio up in Joshua Tree, so they came up here to do some recording.
That was their final record?
It was an EP [Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age] that they did. They came out here and then came back to finish up and it was the last stuff they recorded.
Was it really three days on mushrooms?
Yeah, it was three days on mushrooms — horse farts and everything. Lizards and horse farts. Fred had this horse called Kashmir that was a stallion. It was a great horse but it was a motherfucker. It was hilarious — while they were trippin' Fred decided to ride the horse into the house. It was pretty out there.
That was Fred engineering alone for this?
A guy named Billy Bizeau was helping him. You can imagine it was pretty crazy. I love that stuff — I think it sounds great. At the time it was on a Soundcraft board with a 1/2" deck. It still has a great sound, but it wasn't the Lanois Neve with the 2" machine. We did a little bit of stuff. We did some earthlings? recordings on his gear and a band called Wool. The singer for the earthlings?, Pete Stahl — that was his band.
At that point were you living out here full time?
Yeah. Hutch and I moved into the house next door in June of '99.
You were working here a bit and touring and starting to play with people?
I started playing with Queens of the Stone Age. Josh [Homme] was playing with the Screaming Trees at the time and they were doing a European tour. Some friends flew me over to hang out and go to a few shows and have a good time. I wasn't working at the time. It was really nice. I forget what label, but they had some money to do a compilation record and they wanted Kyuss and Josh was like, "There isn't a Kyuss" so they said, "Do something." He and I wrote a song and we had a couple of friends of ours, Milo [Beenhakker] and Eva [Nahon] from a band called Beaver [in Amsterdam], and we all went to a recording studio outside of Amsterdam and recorded a song called "1880." It was a silly sort of song. Seeing as drugs are legal in Amsterdam we had this huge bag of weed and mushrooms. It turned out alright — it wasn't the crowning moment of either of our careers but it was the first Queens of the Stone Age release. We started doing some recordings with me and him and Fred, and then he went back to Seattle and started playing with John McBain (from Monster Magnet) and Matt Cameron [Soundgarden, Pearl Jam]. They actually did a show, I believe, with Mike Johnson playing bass and then he [Homme] came back down and we tried it with a few different people. Barrett Martin [Screaming Trees] was one of the drummers and we tried it with Brant Bjork [ex-Kyuss] playing drums and then it kind of morphed into Nick [Oliveri — bass] and Alfredo [Hernández — drums]. Josh came down and we started the album here with Mike Johnson and Alfredo and it just kind of wasn't working. I don't know exactly why it wasn't working, but it wasn't really working. Joe Barresi was doing the record and then it got moved down to Goss' studio — he and Alfredo and Josh did the record with little cameos from everybody.
And started a long history of that.
Once the record was done, that's when Nick got involved.
That's kind of crazy. Everything all ties together with this place.
It all stems from meeting Josh. I met him at a Masters of Reality gig in L.A. and they were looking for weed, and I just happened to know where to get weed, so I brought some down and I ended up meeting Chris. He might not want me to say that, but it wasn't for him. Anyway, that's how it all got started.
After Fred passed away and you were living nearby, was there a time where you wondered what was going to happen with this space?
It got to be a problem, because when Fred passed away he left the studio to a lot of different people. But in all honesty I bought the majority of the gear, so it was a difficult time there. First of all we all lost a great friend, which was horrible. Then it became kind of "business" and it was like, "Okay. We'll just continue on. There's no way that we're going to let this place close." Not that it was ever going to close. It was all a bunch of musicians so everyone was just contributing whatever they could and occasionally, if we got people in, that would pay the rent and then after a while no sessions were coming in. We didn't really have any good gear. The bills weren't getting paid and I thought, "I kind of need my own place." I already paid for the gear. I'd kind of already paid for it again, so I thought that I should just move in and start taking care of it. And slowly, Josh started doing more Desert Sessions.
It seems like The Desert Sessions really gave this place some identity. I assume that lead to other people hearing those and wanting to come record.
Yeah, and Lanegan doing his EP [Here Comes That Weird Chill] here was really good for the studio. There's a whole scene that's not about the hi-fi. It's not about lo-fi either. It's really just about a vibe. A lot of the records that we make are made one track at a time anyway, so if you have one good mic and something good to put it into it's going to sound pretty decent. Those Desert Sessions: the first one was kind of funny because Josh liked the way earthlings? worked, which was you just get loaded and make a bunch of coffee and sit around and, "Oh shit. That keyboard's broken! That sounds awesome! Lay that down, quick." He said, "You should come up and jam with us." Kyuss was very focused. Even Goss didn't play on their records, despite the fact that he was producing them. They were really tight.
They were very much a band.
Exactly. I think maybe he saw it like, "Well that's kind of cool to experiment. I don't have to do it with Kyuss but I can do it with other friends." That's how it started, based on that premise. The first one was so unorganized — we had no idea what the hell was going on — and it started getting better and better. Those sessions would facilitate us getting a better mic. Any time we've ever done a session it was like, "First of all, let's fix the broken things that don't sound good and buy something that helps."
Just keep adding to the arsenal of toys.
Thank God we met Ed [Monsef] because he completes the whole picture. He actually knows how to do stuff that none of us are able to do.
Do you think that part of The Desert Sessions' charm is a door opening to something happening that might not have in another situation or place?
It's always been fun. The last time [The Desert Sessions 9 & 10, 2003] was really one of the most fun. I'd never, ever in my life been in a session where there was so much going on in a three day period. It was amazing. Twiggy [Jeordie White] was walking around singing "Shepherds Pie" until I almost peed my fucking pants before we laid it down. Then it'd be Chris [Goss] and P.J. Harvey going up to Hutch's house for a few minutes, while Mickey [Michael Melchiondo, Jr] from Ween and Alain [Johannes] were sitting out on the front porch working out something, while Joey [Castillo] and Josh were cutting something.
For three days.
Yeah, but in one day, Chris and Polly [P.J. Harvey] came back, "We've got this idea. Let's just lay it down real quick so we don't forget it." One take and they did "There Will Never Be A Better Time." We all got up and gave them a standing ovation — it was fucking incredible. Right after that, laying down another song — "Powdered Wig Machine" — where there was a possibly busted microphone, so I just threw one out and did a little [synth] sequence to check it out. Josh was like, "What the fuck is that?" An hour later everyone had already done their parts. Josh Freese walked in and nailed the drum track. Polly said, "Oh, I've got an idea for that." It's crazy. I don't know how often that happens in other situations. Maybe because it's in a living room. When Lanois recorded he put the drums in here some days. Some days he would do them in the bathroom or in the back. Victoria [Williams] recorded here. At one point Fred and I decided that we had to have microphone lines going into every room in the house because in the middle of doing a song she'd go, "Hey. I got this idea for a banjo song" and she'd go out on the front porch, "I'm going to cut it out here." So, after about a week...
...they're running everywhere?
Everywhere. She'd disappear to the fire pit, "I've got a new song." I don't think it happens in a lot of studios like that. People feel inspired to do things like that here. That's the coolest part.
It's a different environment.
Yeah. Almost everyone that's ever recorded here has felt comfortable enough to just do whatever, wherever and was inspired to do so. I feel like the luckiest guy alive to be here. I have a beautiful view. My favorite musicians in the world — my best friends — all love to come out and record. It's amazing.
It doesn't get much better.
It really doesn't! At one point I wanted a bunch of gear and I was like, "Fuck that. If I start spending on gear it would just never stop." I think I've got one microphone that's good, I have one good chain — we're going to be able to make a record, no matter what.
How do you "market" this studio? I'm sure that's a really dumb question. But what about when people call you, "Do you have this? Do you have that? Where's the iso room?"
It's on the porch! It's funny — when Chris brought the UNKLE guys up here they were only coming for one day. "Just go up there and write a song. We'll take it back to the studio." I saw them getting out of the car — before they walked in here they were like, "Can we do five weeks?" I said, "The only problem is I live here" and they were like, "No, we want you to hang out and play and write with us." I'm sure that neither one of those guys have worked in studios like this. I'm sure their studios have been tight or at home. That was the coolest thing that before they walked in the door to even see what was in here, they felt the vibe and said, "This is enough for us."
