At what point did you start to think, "Hey, this could be a long-term career." Was studio work always an ambition of yours or did it come up later?
No, recording was more of a hobby at first. In the early '80s I was playing full time with Phil and the Blanks, and we were having a go at making a living playing music. We were on the road in a crappy little van, playing in clubs up and down the coast, trying to get a record deal and writing. I was recording other bands in my spare time. At one point, about 1985, I was getting really busy in the studio recording 8- track demos and records for people. I think I was charging $25 an hour, which to me was pretty good money. I decided to leave the band and go into recording full time. I got a bank loan and bought a Tac Matchless console, which was made by Amek. I also bought an Otari MX-70 1" 16-track. The larger track capacity and better sound quality enabled me to get more work producing indie records and pre- production demos for major label bands like R.E.M., Dreams So Real and Guadalcanal Diary. By that time I had also accumulated better mics and outboard gear, and I had gotten to the point where I kind of knew what I was doing. I was starting to understand more about the role of the producer, helping bands with the creative end of what they were doing instead of just making mainly "live" recordings. I started concentrating on helping them get better sounds, picking the best songs, zeroing in on vocal performances — emphasizing the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses. It was around that time I produced the Indigo Girls' Strange Fire and Widespread Panic's Space Wrangler. Those records seem to have stood the test of time.
Athens music is known more for attitude and enthusiasm than precision and professionalism. What challenges has this presented over the years, and did it have an effect on the type of engineer and producer you became?
A lot of the early Athens bands were made up of musicians who could barely play their instruments, but it somehow worked when they all got in a room together and did their thing. I found out early on that musicians can become very self-conscious when overdubbing their parts separately. That's why my studio is designed for recording bands as live as possible. That has always seemed to be the best approach, especially with younger bands who haven't had a lot of studio experience. I like to put everybody in the same room whenever possible for tracking and then fix what needs to be fixed. My approach varies with different types of projects. I've done plenty of singer/songwriter projects where songs were built up one track at a time. I find these kinds of projects enjoyable because I often end up playing a lot of the instruments and there's more experimentation.
Is your work inspired at all by a desire to archive the music scene you came up in?
When I was making all those records it never occurred to me that I was archiving Athens' music history. I was just trying to work as much as possible so I could afford to buy better equipment to make better sounding recordings. In those days it was common for major labels to send up and coming bands into the studio for a week or so to bang out demos of all their songs before deciding whether to sign them. These sessions were especially challenging. If the demo didn't come out sounding like a finished product it could really ruin the band's chances of getting a deal, since a lot of record company people didn't have the vision to hear past a demo-quality recording and hear the quality of the songwriting. I had to learn to work very quickly and not waste even a minute of time. Sometimes the preproduction demos would end up being part of the final album. That happened a few times with R.E.M. Over the years they were constantly coming in to demo new songs. They would usually come into the studio for a week and knock out 20 to 30 songs very quickly. Sometimes magic would happen and they'd get a great take of a song and decide to put it on the album. The song "Country Feedback" [from Out of Time] is one example.
What changed in 1988, when they were on Warner Brothers for the first time, and they came and recorded the full album here?
In 1988 I built an addition that doubled the size of the studio and added a vocal booth and a couple of isolation rooms for guitar amps. But R.E.M. didn't come in for an actual album until 1990. By then I had upgraded to a Trident 80B console and an Otari MTR- 90 2" 24 track. That was the first time a full major label album project had been done in the studio.
Was it Green?
No, that was for Out of Time. They recorded the basic tracks at Bearsville [Studios in Woodstock, NY] and then came to my studio for six weeks for overdubbing. During that time we recorded most of the vocals and added all sorts of bells and whistles — keyboards, background vocals, mandolins and such. They brought Kidd Jordan in to overdub horn parts. It was an incredibly exciting time for me. I leaned a great deal working with producer Scott Litt [Tape Op #81]. I'll never forget sitting at the console and hearing Michael Stipe's vocals for "Losing My Religion" for the first time. That entire project was a huge milestone for me.
In 2001, John Bell [lead singer of Widespread Panic] said about you, "He's not the kind of producer that comes in and makes every band — no matter who they are or where they're coming from — sound pretty much the same. He helps a band define what it actually is doing." Is that something you can explain?
There are producers who tend to put their stamp on everything they do, and they have a certain sound that they always get, as if they're running everyone through their own personal assembly line. I never wanted to be that heavy-handed. I was always more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. I want people to be able to say, "Wow that's a great sounding album," not, "That sounds like another John Keane production." I don't want all my records to sound alike, and I like working with different types of music to keep things interesting. I started out on the other side of the glass as a musician, and I went through studio experiences where a producer ran roughshod over what the band was trying to do. I never wanted to put anyone else through that experience. I generally let the bands do their thing and try to keep them from shooting themselves in the foot, if I hear them doing something that obviously they're going to regret later. For me it is mostly about trying to get the most out of what's there, rather than of trying to manufacture something out of thin air.
It seems like you've had long-term relationships with a number of groups. What is the key to maintaining relationships with an artist or band?
There are a couple of things that come to mind. I think you have to have a good, strong work ethic. You have to show bands that you're willing go the extra mile to do what it takes to make the record as good as it can be — whether it's in the budget or not. You also have to establish a rapport with the people in the band and have a relationship of trust with them. They have to be able to trust your judgment to help them make the right decisions in the studio. I think you've got to be honest with bands and be straightforward with them in your business dealings, too. If anybody feels like they got screwed or you overcharged them, then they're not going to come back. A lot of it is just common-sense business practice.
For the album Till the Medicine Takes [Widespread Panic, 1999] you brought in another engineer to run the board so that you could concentrate on the production role. What was the significance of that decision?
It was something I had always wanted to try, because I had always worked alone — putting all the microphones up, getting all the sounds, running the console and so on. I was always in the chair working the auto-locator for the tape machine — I had never done it any other way. I wanted to try something different because I had worked with producers like Scott Litt, Pat McCarthy and Don Gehman. I wanted to see what it was like to just sit on the couch and concentrate on the music without watching VU meters. But when I tried it, I totally felt like a fish out of water. I felt strangely disconnected from the process. I felt like I didn't have direct communication with the band. I had to communicate through the engineer. I was used to being able to go, "Okay, Dave we need to punch in these two bars on the bass," and we'd do it [finger snap]. It would be done in five seconds. But with the engineer here the whole process would take longer, because I'd have to explain where it was and what I wanted to do, and it just took four times as long. That drove me nuts. Even though the engineer was fully qualified and doing a great job, I sent him home after about a week [laughter]. When I finished the recording we brought in Jim Scott to mix the project. That was great, because I had been listening to the songs for weeks and needed some fresh ears.
You toured with Widespread Panic full- time in 2006. What was the transition like to go from working with the band in the studio to playing in front of 20,000 people?
It was a completely different experience. I felt like I ran away and joined the circus. Of course, I've sat in with the guys many times over the years, but this time I was playing on a lot more songs, so I had to do a bit of homework. It gave me an incentive to work on my guitar and steel guitar chops, which had gotten rusty due to a couple of injuries that prevented me from playing guitar for a couple of years. Of course, I was familiar with the most of their catalog — having recorded the songs and even played bits and pieces here and there on the records. But that's not the same thing as actually knowing the song well enough to be able to get up and play it with the band. So, I had to sit down and learn a ton of Widespread Panic songs. Having been out of the bar band business for 16 years, I had completely forgotten what it was like to be a full-time musician. Riding all over the country in a big tour bus with my buddies was a total blast. It was quite a rush to play in front of thousands of fans in places like Red Rocks and Radio City Music Hall.
You're known for excellent recordings of acoustic music. Can you talk about your approach and the techniques you've developed?
With acoustic music I'm always trying to capture what the instrument sounds like when you're standing in front of it. That sounds like an easy thing to do, but it's really not. If you sit in front of an acoustic guitar and put your head in a certain spot, and then you put the mic in that spot where your head was and go into the control room and listen to it, it doesn't sound anything like what you were hearing in the room, and it's really frustrating. That's just the way it is with microphones — they don't hear like your ears do. So basically I do a lot of running back and forth, moving the mic around and trying different combinations of mics — and watching out for phase cancellation. Anytime you have more than one mic on a single acoustic instrument there's possibility for the sound to actually cancel itself out, if it doesn't reach the two microphones at the same time. One thing that's helped me a lot is that I've got a couple of Martin guitars here that record really well. Nine times out of ten they are gonna sound better than what someone brings in here. It really starts with the technique of the player. Those Martins sound different in the hands of every person who picks them up. Sometimes they will sound great, and sometimes they sound awful.
So you are adjusting for the player.
Yeah, and I'm usually coaching the players. Some people will play too soft, and some people will play too hard and overpower the instrument, and it won't sound good. Sometimes I have to work on improving a guitar player's technique. He might be using a pick that's too thick that sounds thuddy. Or a pick that's too thin will sound clacky. If they're playing it too soft, it sounds wimpy. If they're playing it too hard, and it's rattling and buzzing the strings, it's just non- musical. So, a lot of it is technique and a lot of it is having a really good sounding instrument. If you've got those two things, then the choice of microphone and mic preamp is just icing on the cake. It's the same with a drum kit or anything else.
Is it the same working with vocals?
Yeah, it's similar, because vocals are an acoustic instrument as well. It's very critical that you pick a mic that enhances the sound of the voice, as with an acoustic guitar, or banjo, or mandolin or what have you. To me the vocals are the most important element of the song. Everybody's voice sounds different. Some people have really dark, throaty sort of guttural voices, and some people have really bright nasal or raspy voices. You just have to have several different sounding mics in your arsenal. Usually I can listen to a person talk and get an idea which mic is going to sound best. A lot of times the best sounding mic is going to be the $200 Audio Technica and not the $4,000 Neumann tube mic, so you have to keep an open mind about that. I've got these Earthworks TC30 omni mics. It looks like a dentist's drill. It's probably the last mic most people would think to pull out and use on a vocal. But I've used that on a great many and often choose it over a standard mic like a Neumann U87. I'm a big fan of Audio-Technica mics. They're inexpensive, but they sound really great. They sound good on acoustic instruments.
Did you make a conscious decision to specialize in acoustic music, or was it just a result of the bands that came your way over the years?
Yeah, it was just a result of bands that would play live rock, like R.E.M., Drivin' and Cryin' and Uncle Tupelo. When they got in the studio, a lot of times they would want to do more delicate acoustic numbers. I think that also working with the Indigo Girls brought in acoustic musicians, because the Indigo Girls have a very wide circle of musician friends that were doing acoustic music, like Michelle Malone. I've always really liked that kind of stuff. I think that Uncle Tupelo album [March 16-20] is definitely one of my favorites.
How does performing on an album change the working relationship with a band? Does it?
Well, it makes it more fun, I think. It's a little different headspace that you get into when you're playing on something, as opposed to recording or producing, and sometimes it's hard to maintain objectivity. As soon as I strap on a guitar and starting playing it, I'm worried about, "Oh, do I have the right guitar sound? Am I in tune?" It's a little tricky playing and engineering at the same time, but it's the only way I've ever done it.
How do you approach the producer role on a new project?
