The only reason the 'producer'/'engineer' thing is weird, Bri, is because fucking higher ups in the music industry made it weird. As this bunch of people gets paid more and more money, they trick up and coming bands into thinking that they absolutely need a producer. There's a very specific track for bands these days. A manager gets a band, gets them in the studio... lets them record, produce... whatever. You know, waste a few months on some label's money. Then they pick one song, knowing the whole time that the one they pick, they're going to send off to be remixed or even recut by a big name producer-guy and get on MTV. It's the 'one — hit wonder' thing. That's why you have a band like Weezer, who was huge as fuck last year, now opening for No Doubt, who is huge as fuck this year, who next year is gonna be opening for someone else. The 22 Brides thing Red and I did... They took the single and sent it off to this guy, Tim... Tim O'Heir I think his name is... I could be wrong, actually. I really don't know who it was... but they went into his studio, probably recut it on 48 tracks or something, quantized shit, double and triple tracked instruments... I don't know... and now the CD single that came out is that take. That's just how it seems to be now.
Does that bother you a lot?
Yeah, It does bother me, actually. I made no mistakes with that recording. It was done when it left the studio. The way it was, was the way we intended for it to be. The only reason it was redone is because somebody higher up in the music industry thought it should be redone... and you already know how much disdain we have for people like that.
So I guess that seems to set things off balance as far as the commercial weight that one song carries verses the value of the album as a whole.
Well, it's not even that. That song is actually not on the album. The album cut was called "Lullabye". But the version they redid was for radio only. It was on a CD single and it was named "Lullabye '97" or something like that. So it's not even about the album. It's about having a radio hit.
Do you think that's going to be a lasting trend? Or do you think that it's always been like that? Because I think that for the last few years this Lo-fi/DIY/Independent rock thing has made it possible for beginners like us to record someone and actually hear it played on the radio, no matter how crappy it sounds.
Well, I would like to say it could be like that again, but I think really what is happening is that our peers, who we were lucky enough record back then at that stage, are coming up and getting caught up in it all too. But hey, I might get caught up in it too. [he smiles and begins to pick up speed] If I were getting paid to take four months to make a record, I might just be an editing, cocaine-snorting fool — me and Billy Corgan sitting around doing nothing but wipe our asses a few weeks at a time." [He breaks out in a roar of laughter. A few seconds passes, he looks around] We're not being very technical are we... hmm
But I seem to think that lots of bands don't want to call us producers, they'd rather say 'recorded by...' or 'mixed by...' And I think that in a backward sort of way that it's because we're not getting paid a shitload of money.
I talk about how hypothetically I'd walk into Cycle Sound during the Bardo sessions and there'd be a bunch of people mostly on a couch reading, and one guy's saying they want another guitar in this or that song. From there J would go to work. He'd get really excited and say, "Yeeeeah, cool. Let's take the Marshall.... or something huuuuge like that... and," his eyes getting wider the whole time, "we'll hang a 414 from the ceiling in the Warehouse, like 30 ft. up... something fucking totally sick like that." The band would look around, until someone let out a half-stuttered, marijuana-tone "Yea... Yeeeeaahh!."
In that situation, I think, the album's a little bit of your art as well, J. I always picture that to be the role of the producer. Don't you think that right there, by being so genuinely involved and creative, you're doing as much if not more for an artist than someone who's biggest contribution is their name and a big hole in the label's bank account?"
Exactly, Bri... [he smiles as I'm getting just a bit overly passionate, and puts his fist on the coffee table], I want to be that guy... the one who does less for bands, and takes most of the money! [Another burst of laughter.]
I figure I should drop the subject for fear he was starting to get too much of a kick out of me. In an attempt to talk technical, I ask him his opinion of the recent outburst of "retro-sixties style" recordings. I mention the Olivia Tremor Control, the Apples, etc., all of whom he seemed to know very little about. But he does have something to say.
Clothes, bikes, cars, music... everything, it seems, has to be retro. [He mentions that he, on the other hand, feels the bulk of these recordings are just poorer quality.] I don't know, Bri. I'll say two things... First of all, I'm a nineties-guy. I hate the eighties, I hate the seventies, sixties, fifties... I just want to look ahead. [He trails off to talking about Aphex Twin, but I'm not sure that his second point ever got made.]
