In preparation for this interview, I went online to review Brian Paulson's recording credits and ended up printing out seven pages of albums. Seven pages. What's more is it's a very diverse list. Brian has manned the desk for sessions that have changed the way we think about music. Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne and Slint's Spiderland alone inspired legions of imitators. Paulson was there, capturing it all. Equally at home in legendary studios and suburban basements, he has been an inspiration as well. I sat down with him at his home in Carrboro, North Carolina, to rewind the tape on his career in crafting both music and meals.
Tell me about your first recording setup.
A Panasonic handheld cassette recorder that my parents gave me. I recorded everything from farts to bird sounds on that. Also, my Aerosmith record collection — using headphones pressed against the built-in condenser mic. Later I became one of those "stereo guys." Everybody's brother was in the Navy, so we could get good deals from the PX. If you didn't have huge speakers and 100 watts you weren't a man. [laughs] I started plugging my guitar right into the cassette deck of that, bouncing tracks back and forth. I was stuck in that world until I was 19. Then I bought a terrible Dokorder 4-track with Pete Conway [Flour, Rifle Sport]. That and a cheap line mixer was our setup. We never knew if it the Dokorder was going to work. It was always like, "It might overdub — it might not." That was the beginning of the madness.
What made you want to record?
Around 1976 or 1977 I was buying records that were recommended by Creem Magazine. "Christgau gave it an A+! It must be amazing!" Every bit of my lunch money would go to buying music. Midnight Special and Saturday Night Live fueled some of my purchases too. There was a commonality of names between the records I enjoyed, and Jack Douglas [Miles Davis, Cheap Trick, John Lennon] was one of them. "Who is he? He doesn't play on these records, but there's this similar tonality between them that really pleases me." Now I know that as the "low mid depth," but at the time it was more of a "sound" that I liked, even though it blew out my shitty Omega 3 woofers. So I looked for other albums he had worked on. The performances were really alive on the stuff that he did. "There's that guy again! Who is this guy?" So I became aware of what a producer did that way.
And so you got to work learning about it?
Everything I've done has been accomplished by learning as I go while failing miserably. I wasn't bookish. I'm a slow learner. I didn't know anything about the actual process until I moved from Bemidji [MN] to Minneapolis and started hanging out with bands I met during my time at MCAD [Minneapolis College of Art and Design]. I became good friends with Terry Katzman at the record store, Oar Folk Records, and he knew Bob Mould. Those two and the guys from Rifle Sport were key in launching me into what I do today.
For better or for worse?
Yeah, thanks guys. [laughs] Terry documented everything that was happening on the live music scene. He knew Steve Fjelstad, who was the engineer on some of the Replacements and Hüsker Dü stuff, and he knew the people at the Twin Tone label. The next thing you know it was like, "Come hang out at the studio!" So there I was, seeing Rifle Sport record and hearing them in high quality, three-dimensional sound for the first time. I was used to hearing them sounding ratty in a basement, and then all of a sudden it's like I can hear everything clearly. It's magic! That was it. "This is what I fucking wanna do. I don't want to design album covers — I want to make the albums that go in the album covers." I had originally wanted to be the Hipgnosis of the Midwest, doing freaky photo montages and logos, but that all changed within the first nine months I was at art school after meeting these people. So in 1981 Bob Mould helped me decide that taking a year off was a good idea, and I never went back. Then Bob asked me to run sound for Hüsker Dü because he knew I understood where they were coming from. We'd be in Iowa City, and the guy with the dB meter would say, "You can't put a mic on that because it's already too loud!" We did it anyway. That was part of the experience. There was a lot of fighting with the clubs, and we had to work things out.
Maybe you should have considered a career in diplomacy!
I decided that I didn't like doing sound because I'd show up in some club in New York with Big Black, and the guy would instantly be like, "Fuck you. This is how we do it here." The band brought me along because I understood their aesthetic, so I could keep things consistent and comfortable, but that never seemed to matter to the clubs. Of course I was young and defensive as well, which didn't help. Recently I did some dates with Polvo and Seven Mary Three and it was totally different. I just walked in and said, "I don't know what I'm doing. Any suggestions?" [laughs] Of course with that approach they were like, "Can we get you some coffee? A steak? We love you!" The early experiences are why I gravitated away from live sound and towards studios though. There's only one fight every six months, not 600.
Studios are used to "outsiders" coming in to work. That's part of the deal.
Sure. There's already that understanding. There were other communication obstacles though. Music was transitioning hard and fast in the late '70s and early '80s. Engineers still wanted to make Dark Side of the Moon, but the bands wanted screaming distortion. There was no middle ground where both sides could communicate with each other. I was just lucky enough to understand where the bands were coming from, so that helped. Of course it's 30 years later now and I want to make Dark Side of the Moon. [laughs]
You started as an artist, so you have that in you.
In ninth grade I wanted to be an architect, but I was terrible at math, so I went with design. Originally, due to my strict Midwestern upbringing, I thought traveling around with a rock band wasn't responsible, or I needed a "real job" to please my father. The studio thing was the safer route in that regard. No hopping in a van and going out into the No Man's Land that was the club scene in the '80s. There was no network in place back then. It was dangerous! So I stayed home and took cooking jobs. My setup eventually became more elaborate, and people seemed to like the recordings I was doing.
An architect or designer sits at a desk, and so does a recording engineer.
Good point. I never thought of it like that, but it was a logical progression. You're drawing things out either way. For awhile I wanted to get formal training by going to the Institute of Audio Research in New York City, but I didn't have the time because I was actually recording.
You were too busy engineering to learn how to be an engineer?
Exactly. There's no reason to go to Full Sail unless you really want to. Buy some gear, make friends with bands, fuck up and learn from your mistakes. So I was slowly conquering the studio one bit at a time and stealing the wheel from Steve Fjelstad, God bless him. I was always shouldering up to the console to ask him what he was doing, which drives me nuts when people do that to me.
How did you convince Steve to let you sit in?
I'm sure there were many times he just put his head in his hands and regretted it. I just showed up with Rifle Sport and their buddy band, Man Sized Action, which I later joined. I would grab a six-pack and go watch Man Sized Action rehearse, and the next thing you know I was playing in that band. That gave me the opportunity to record us and incorporate all of the ideas I had about making Bowie's Let's Dance. [laughs] Bad idea number one: "What happens if we gate the reverb on the snare? You don't have one? How about if we use the gates on the plate reverb?" Bad idea number two: "How about if we put insane amounts of high end on the guitars? Turn up the harmonizer!" I do remember walking into studios, looking at patchbays and compressors and being mortified though. It takes years to figure out how to use a compressor effectively. "Is this bad? It sounds kind of cool, but it doesn't sound anything like it used to! I guess that's exciting! Let's run with it!"
A lot of great records were made by people who didn't know the rules. Information is easy to get these days, so things aren't done "wrong" as often anymore.
I'm happy to have acquired what I know. However, there's a certain innocence I had when I didn't know what the hell I was doing that I really miss. You just live with mistakes that came from a good place. The energy is there, so who gives a shit? I'm curious how access to information would have changed the way people did things back then. There was an immediacy issue, so we just had to press forward and figure it out as we went. I had this impression that the British bands had the luxury of just sitting at the estate, honing their craft, whereas the bands from Middle America had no money because there was no interest in what they were doing. A "show" was your friends making the effort to drive over from another city. Hüsker Dü recorded an album live and mixed it at a freakin' gospel studio in Chicago with one day to do it.
What was your first unassisted project?
I think the first thing I did completely on my own were Cows records. I did a 7-inch on my 4-track in their rehearsal space. I also did an album for them with a Tascam 16-track and a handful of decent mics. Around the same time I recorded a band called TVBC. I still had no idea what a patchbay was then. "That compressor? Yeah, um, we probably don't need that. The reels are moving; that looks good!" Man Sized Action and Big Black had become friends, so I spent time in the Steve Albini [issue #10] camp. Through him I met David Grubbs, of Squirrel Bait and Bastro. The Bastro stuff I did was the next step. Steve did most of the work at CRC [Chicago Recording Co.], but I was there for moral support. I did the second Bastro record at Smart Studios in Madison, WI. That was Butch Vig's place, and he had a different philosophy from Steve and me. He and I wanted to keep things raw, whereas Butch liked to take the nasty bands and make them sound more like Def Leppard. [laughs] That was good exposure for me though. I didn't know getting sounds like that took actual work - I just thought you set up mics and it ended up sounding shiny!
In some ways you ended up somewhere between those guys, philosophically.
It's not black and white to me. My tastes are all over the map, and I have to appease the desire to make glossy records as well as something as raw as a Studio One record. Also, you can contour your decisions to how you think the artist should sound, or the artist can pick you because he or she wants "your sound." My ideas have changed over the years after I moved away from the Midwest. It's all Scandinavians and Germans out there, and they make a damn fine studio! I got spoiled at Pachyderm, CRC and Smart. I got used to working with SSL, Neve and Neumann gear. "Point it towards the ceiling! It doesn't matter; it still sounds amazing!" Then I moved down here [to North Carolina] and it's like, "This guy's got some SM57s and a broken 16-track. I guess we can do it in that carpeted room over there." It kinda hurt. The playing field was leveled, and I made some awful sounding records. It was more work too. In hindsight, it was a great experience. I learned how to make things that were poorly recorded do something.
When was that?
Between 1995 and 2002. At the same time, it made me less tied down to a particular place. I could go off and make a record anywhere. I like records that are weird and buzzy. It can be a more creative statement when you make a record in a less than perfect environment. Mixing is much easier in perfect spaces though. I miss that when it's not available.
So, backing up a little, your work with Bastro eventually led you to one of your most well known projects...
Brian McMahan, a former Squirrel Bait guy, was at the Bastro Sing the Troubled Beast sessions. His band, Slint, had recorded Tweez with Albini, but I knew nothing about them at the time. Steve played them for me when we were driving around Chicago in his Subaru. Steve mentioned that he thought it sounded a little like King Crimson, but I was really into it. So when I got the call from Brian McMahan to do the Spiderland sessions I was like "But of course!" I was still working in restaurants at the time, so I took the job because I wanted to not to put toast on the table. I left work early on a Friday, drove down to Chicago and we stayed up for 48 hours straight and tracked everything. I drove back the next weekend to mix it in the same amount of time. I went back the following weekend to remix a few things and it was done.
What did the band request? Were they prepared?
That band had been working on a performance. That's what that record is. They had been working every day in a basement in Louisville for six months, and they wanted to document it. It's like a jazz recording with some vocal overdubs. Brian McMahan was interning at a studio called River North in Chicago. Jesus Lizard was recording Goat that very weekend at CRC, by the way. We set up the mics and went for it.
How was the session mic'ed up?
The tracking space was a fairly live room, about 30 [feet] by 30 [feet]. The drums and bass were set up in the same room. David Pajo's amp was in an isolated room, behind a sliding door. I think we had a single Beyer M130 ribbon mic on his amp. I was obsessed with spaced omni pairs at that time, so on Britt Walford's drums I had two [AKG] 414s overhead. The bulk of the drum sound was that. Plus the usual bonehead mic'ing from there: [AKG] D12 on the kick, [Shure] SM57 on the snare and whatever on the toms. Another D12 took care of the bass. Brian's guitar was in another room with an SM57 and a [Coles] 4038 on his amp. It was really raw — no EQ, no compression and straight to tape. There was a little delay on the vocals, but we felt like the best thing to do was to keep it direct.
The results were incredible.
At the time they didn't think so! They weren't happy with the performances. Corey [Rusk], from Touch and Go had to call them and say, "You have to put it out. It's great!" I didn't try to push them down a path they didn't want to travel. They made their choices. Their innocence, my innocence — it all added up to something that sounded fantastic. ...then I spent the next 10 years trying to make that happen again. [laughs]
People took notice.
That record was the one that got my phone ringing about six months after it came out. I do remember being at my day job and getting a phone call about doing the next Wedding Present Hit Parade record. I assumed David Gedge was calling me because he liked Spiderland, but it was actually because he really liked a Cows record I had done on a 4-track. Gedge always looked for new things. He was one of the first people to work with Steve Fisk [issue #3]. So this thing I did on a 4-track plopped me down at Rockfield [Studios, Wales], where "Bohemian Rhapsody" had been recorded.
But Spiderland did open most of the doors?
Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar were big fans of it, so that's how I ended up working with Uncle Tupelo. I felt like I was living the dream when all of these great bands started calling. Fugazi and The Breeders were calling? What?! Pinch me!
And they couldn't just look you up online — they had to work a little to find you.
Yeah! Calling Touch and Go or going through a few friends was the only way to do it. Even now I look back on it and wonder how it happened. I really didn't think I was that good. I was still hacking together my skills. It's all synchronicity/Zeitgeist stuff.
What was the quality everyone liked?
The records had room to breathe. I mean, of course I nudged things here and there and fucked with things a little, but I gave the songs a lot of space, I think. I kept busy and went to work on Arcwelder's Pull right after that. I was recording in the Rykodisc [Records] offices at night. Those sessions were great learning experiences because it wasn't a foregone conclusion that we would put the [Sennheiser] 421s on the toms and a D12 on the kick. We wanted to try everything and we did. We did demos at the Ryko offices, so when we went into Pachyderm [Recording Studio] with a little of Touch and Go's money, we had most of it figured out. We mixed most of it in Albini's attic.
The sessions at Ryko are legendary. You were recording records at a record company's office.
It was actually a great space. We'd work there until 6 p.m., then we'd turn on the mics until 4 a.m. It was a big, open space with cubicles all around. I'd set the drums up in a conference room that was live as shit. We didn't want '70s- sounding stuff! We wanted live sounds, so it worked for us.
So you would record after work and then go back to work the next day?
I was usually an hour late. [laughs] I could do it back then [1990-93]. Soul Asylum's Grave Dancers Union demos were done there. Joe Henry recorded with The Jayhawks backing him up. That started as demos, but his manager convinced him it was "the record" so they released it. It sounds good even though it's flawed and has gates misfiring all over it, but with only eight tracks back then I made decisions early. Zuzu's Petals and some other Twin Tone bands recorded there. Babes In Toyland did their Fontanelle demos there. John Loder called me many years later and said he thought the demos should have been the official release.
Then Pachyderm became your home for a while?
Yeah — it's a great studio near Minneapolis with an SSL board. Between 1990 and 1995 I would direct anyone with a budget to that studio. These days I work anywhere. I like [Mitch Easter's] Fidelitorium, which is nearby, and other than full band things, I record in my home a lot. But Pachyderm was a great environment for getting things done. There's nothing to do around there. The U.S. Maple guys would go fishing though.
How did Simon LeBon deal with that?
Ha! The idea that he would produce Unrest's Cath Carroll was more of a concept than a reality. He showed up, went skinny-dipping at the house pool, decided he didn't like it there and went home. He didn't like the pizza and didn't eat tater tots. Rural Minnesota's a little short on escargot. He's got the credit on the album though. I remember initial set up taking a long time. We finally did "Hydro" at 2 a.m. It was the first record I did outside of the circle of friends, and it was a 4AD release, so I'm sure I was a little anxious about getting things right. Maybe it would be the gateway to me being the next Steve Lillywhite!
Mark [Robinson] told me it was his favorite guitar tone ever. Do you recall what you used?
It was an oddball, bidirectional AKG thing, probably a ribbon and maybe a 57? The room we used at Pachyderm has a "something" that makes loud guitars sound great. I can identify that room in other recordings I know were done there. Mark worked quickly, knew what he wanted and was very communicative.
Is that about the time you started identifying yourself as a "producer?"
I'm still trying to figure out what that means. Anytime you make a decision, you're "producing." I guess I felt that way in real time when I was working on The Jayhawks' Sound of Lies.
That's surprising! Gary Louris seems like the kind of guy who knows what he wants.
He absolutely does. However, in the past they had worked with George Drakoulias [Black Crowes, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers]. They were used to working with a very involved producer, so allowing me to be part of the process was probably easy for them.
At some point you became the "alt country guy."
The whole Gram Parsons trip wasn't my thing, but I loved the Uncle Tupelo record they did with Peter Buck [March 16-20, 1992]. Also, I saw them live a few times and understood the Minutemen angle they had. They were simply a great band. I wanted to be in their band — or in Superchunk — because I liked they way they did things, so naturally I wanted to work with both of those groups. In a way nobody understood that movement. Nashville started to call, thinking we all had the key to the "next big thing," but in actuality it was just some guys who didn't want to make the same old Midwestern rock music. It forced me to do something new and different. Everything on Anodyne was done live on the floor, and it was a motherfucker. Jeff usually just knocked it out. He was just happy to hear his voice on tape. Jay was content to do many takes until he liked what he heard. Cedar Creek [Recording, Austin, TX] has a tight room, so I'd have to rearrange things a lot. During that time they would rehearse songs on acoustic guitars, so I suggested they do more songs in that style. "Fifteen Keys" was supposed to be a rock song.
More like "Chickamauga?"
That worked as a rock song. It came off the floor fine. Maybe I was too wedded to the March... record, but the string band idea for most of the other songs was attractive. The rules they made were "24 tracks, no punch-ins and live." They were listening to really old music. Jay didn't want to be the guy singing over the prerecorded track. There's a lot of bleed in a session like that, so punch-ins would have been hard anyway. Way too many open mics. That session was probably my biggest recording challenge to date.
Uncle Tupelo's split was acrimonious. Was it hard to work with both Jeff and Jay separately later?
Yes, because I didn't want to take sides. I like them both a lot. The call to do Jay's record came when we were finishing up Jeff's, and Jeff was in the room, which was awkward. Warner Brothers wasn't happy about it. I'm not sure if they thought it was a conflict of interest or not. It was an anxious time. Richard Dodd ended up having to clean up my work on A.M.
And after all that, you ended up working on a record called Down With Wilco [Minus 5].
That was done in a hotel room in Raleigh, NC. We were using all sorts of stuff, including a sampling toy called a Yak Bak.
Why did you choose Salmagundi [Recording Studio] as the location to record [Son Volt's] Trace? I hear they have the "Midwest's largest collection of Vintage Microphones!"
That was it! He was the first person who was on that before it became a "thing." Everyone was lost in the world of [Neumann] U87's and modern condensers, and he was collecting old mics. He was getting old tube mics for 600 bucks. They're probably worth about $6000 now. I mixed the early Arc Welder records there and he was just a sweetheart of a man. I think the console was a Ward-Beck that was heavily modified. He had done it all himself. He had his shit together that way before the boutique movement happened. The band was located near there as well. Jay [Farrar] had been to Pachyderm and didn't really like it. He felt like the clock was ticking when he worked there. Salmagundi was an odd but functional, affordable space. It was tough making it work. The drums were in a 12 by 15 foot room. The bulk of the performance was in another similar sized space. The amps were sequestered off wherever we could put them, with long leads and great mics on everything. Jay likes small spaces. I remember being courted by Bearsville for the second Son Volt record [Straightaways] and being brought into this airplane hangar that Born In The U.S.A. was recorded in. I thought, "Ehhh, I don't think the band will be too into this."
How did you end up working with Archers of Loaf?
I went to Chicago to see Superchunk at Lounge Ax, and the Archers guys were there too. I met both bands simultaneously. The Archers were working with Bob Weston at Steve Albini's place and I stopped by. We just kept in contact, even though we didn't see each other that often. Then I moved to the South and ended up working with them, Superchunk, Polvo and Squirrel Nut Zippers. I wish I had gotten a chance to work with Lambchop.
[Archers of Loaf's] All the Nations Airports must be one of the most underappreciated records of its era. How was it done?
At the time Archers were a band of brothers at their creative peak. That was done at Ironwood [Studios] in Seattle. It was a last-minute decision, because everywhere else was booked. In some ways it wasn't ideal. Everything was tracked in one room, no isolation and all of the guitars in there, which is why the drums have that '70s close mic'ed sound. Then we took it to Smart Studios to mix it. I worked really well with Mark [Haines], side by side. We cooked the hell out of those sounds, and in hindsight I'd like to remix it. At the time I was getting tired of being a "documentarian" and wanted to start doing more production, so we all got creative on that one.
During the recording of the Archer's White Trash Heroes, Eric Bachmann and Matt Gentling recall looking over at you one time and seeing your ass hanging out from under a piano.
I have no idea what I was doing! Maybe moving a mic around to capture some ambience? Plucking piano strings? I do remember that we had taken a break, gone out and gotten very drunk. We came back on got back to work, so who knows what was actually going on.
How did you end up in the studio with Beck?
I was friends with Joey Waronker from Minneapolis. He was in a band called Walt Mink. He moved to L.A. and ended up on the Mellow Gold tour. Everyone had a day off, and we were booked at The Terrarium in Minneapolis [issue #15]. The idea was to record some blues, bluegrass and folk standards with Koerner, Ray & Glover, who were part of the old, West Bank Bob Dylan scene. There was some studio time left over, so we decided to work on some of Beck's songs and just started screwing around in a very non-bluegrass way. We were distorting drum mics and doing everything "wrong." Rebecca Gates is actually on one of those songs ["Lemonade"]. It went well, so I got a call a year later when they were halfway done with Odelay. They flew me out to The Beastie Boys' studio [G-Son] in L.A. The first half was done with the Dust Brothers in a cut-and-paste style, so he wanted the second half to be more organic and live in the studio. I showed up in the studio and there was no band — just Beck and Joey. I walked in an introduced myself to Mario Caldato [issue #27] and said I was doing the Beck session. Well, he thought he was doing the Beck session. Very awkward. We forged ahead and I let Mario do his thing, since it's his home room, but like a gentleman he let me in. We got along well and we've been pals ever since. I dropped in to see him when he was in London doing a Super Furry Animals record [Love Kraft].
You've worked with Rebecca Gates multiple times.
[The Spinanes'] Manos was a real rock record. I loved how it turned out, but I'd love to work with her again on a different project. She still hasn't made her Dusty In Memphis. She has it in her.
What attracted you to Squirrel Nut Zippers?
I wanted to do something really different — not just do the same old rock records. It forced me to think differently about recording. One of the singles from that record ["Put a Lid on It"] was recorded with only two microphones. Of course a friend of mine says it sounds like it was recorded under a hat...
Did you try to capture a '40s vibe by using old techniques?
At first we were heading that way — going minimal — but then the people from Mammoth Records stopped by and said,"What the hell are you doing? We need airplay! Put up more mics or something!" Um... okay... what does that have to do with anything?
People aren't really going to hear the nuances after it gets compressed and forced through tiny radio speakers.
Exactly. More mics equals commercial success? We ended up doing some of that and made it sound pretty good, though. I remember hearing it on the radio and noticing how much of the dynamic range stayed intact after mastering. It made everything else sound puny. When things are compressed to hell [in mastering], there's nowhere for the songs to go, so the radio compression kills it, but we didn't do that. [Nirvana's] In Utero is the same way. It sounds massive on the radio.
Do you embrace new technology most of the time?
There's a Catch-22. It seems like red light fever is being eradicated. One missed snare hit doesn't ruin a perfect take. That takes a lot of tension off of everybody. To this day I love the sound of tape, but the process of working with it is slow. For a while I was working half and half, but economics have moved people towards digital. I do feel freer to try new things these days. I think The Comas' A Def Needle in Tomorrow was my first digital project, and I definitely did the "producer" thing on that one. I felt like, "Now that I have a computer and some converters I can finally make my temple of sound!" It was a learning process in so many ways. I wish I had been more organized during the process because I spent a lot of time editing later.
How often do you get to work with tape these days?
Less and less. I do miss it, but I have good converters now so it's less of a problem. Don't forget, though, that for a time quality control wasn't so good with tape. ATR has it figured out now. If a band is well rehearsed and seasoned, then tape is a great choice. Very few are though, because they don't have to be as much these days. I probably work with tape only once a year now. I do most of my work in [Steinberg's] Nuendo.
How did you end up working with Polvo?
They were here in North Carolina, and I also knew them through Bob Weston, Merge Records and the Superchunk connection. They were fans of Slint — part of the same musical movement. We made an EP [This Eclipse] in a couple of days — recorded and mixed. I got along great with them.
So you got the call to work with them again, 10 years later?
I ran into Ash [Bowie] at a wedding. They had just reformed, done All Tomorrow's Parties and decided they wanted to make a record. Ash asked if I would do it, and I said of course! They had decided to do it at Echo Mountain [Asheville, NC], which was exciting. You know — well-maintained gear and anything you can think of at your disposal. It's in an old church and it's absolutely gorgeous there. I got there and thought, "Do people still do this?" [laughs] I'm so used to the lower end of recording, doing things at home...
How long were you there?
We were up there for five or six days doing the basic tracks. Dave Brylawski [guitar/vocals] only had a short time to get his stuff done. Those were long-ass, keep-going-until-you-get-it-done, old school style days. And of course Polvo's songs are never really done — they're constantly in evolution and never the same twice. They did a great job sorting that out on the spot. Originally they wanted to do most of it live, but there were some open-ended things remaining when we left Asheville, so we continued to work here in Carrboro [NC], at my house.
What were you doing?
There were layers of guitars. Most things were mapped out, but we spent a lot of time layering and working on different tones. Ash was meticulous about that. There have always been all sorts of crazy sounds and pedals going on, but the execution is so organized and arranged. You can hear all of it. In the early days it was one layer of haze. The clarity of this record comes from the timing being more "on," and the time being put in to make sure it all came together.
The mystery of their early records seems to be tied in with economy — cheap guitars, and low budgets.
They had to use cheap gear.
If ouds and sitars don't need to be perfectly intonated, then it's okay if the guitars aren't precise.
Right, and things change over time. Ash now plays through an Ampeg V4, not a solid state Yamaha. That alone will change how things sound. Then you throw in Brian [Quast], who's a very different drummer than Eddie [Watkins, Polvo's original drummer], and things change again. He locks it down, whereas Eddie was more loose, artsy and flowing. They are both amazing, but totally different flavors. That affects how the record will sound.
Were there any new challenges owing to the different drumming style? Was it a "different Polvo" than you had expected?
I knew him to be a solid drummer, which lends confidence to the whole thing. Plus we had good gear capturing it. Regarding the whole band, I had to remind myself that sometimes you have to wait for the performance to come together. Sometimes I would ask myself what I was doing wrong. Why am I doing such a bad engineering job? Then at 2 a.m. the whole thing would come together. It would all come into focus! "There it is!" I do wish I had tried tracking the drums in the medium-sized room and not the church. We would have had more control over spatial relationships that way. As we recorded it, in order to open things up and get any room sound — well it's just gargantuan and hard to control. You would need miles between drumheads for that not to be a mess. I was wishing we had done something where there was a little more early reflection, especially for the faster stuff. We risked having things turn into a total wash. It's not a regret, just a note for the next time I work there.
Did it help that Brian has a background in recording?
Oh, definitely. He was very helpful and aware of what a cymbal change could do. We could talk about tonality and what was working. Our backgrounds are different, so we could trade ideas. He understands the greater whole and how sounds "cooperate," which is really helpful. I like working with people who have been through the process, like Joe Henry. Believe it or not, they aren't very precious. Artists often do their best work once they understand the process.
If you could sit in one recording session in history, which would you pick?
Only one? I'd pick any of the Berlin trilogy sessions with David Bowie. I'm curious about [My Bloody Valentine's] Loveless but those sessions took so long [laughs], so maybe not. And there's [Radiohead's] Kid A. That would have been great to experience.
Do you still love your job?
I can't imagine doing anything else. It's constantly changing and exciting. The stuff I like falls the fuck out of nowhere and I love that. I like that there's joy in the process and that it can be fun. The only time I like for things to be stiff and measured is when it's Kraftwerk.
Are you still playing music?
I really should, but sometimes during breaks from recording, I just want to not listen to music. I'd rather relax and cook.
...In the great tradition of Midwestern recording engineer chefs like Bob Weston, Gerard Boissy and Steve Albini.
[laughs] ...and many others. I do think it's important to put myself on the other side of the glass sometimes so I don't forget what that's like. It's easy to sit there, hit record and say, "Oh, whatever! What are you worried about?" Being on the other end of a microphone can be terrifying though.
What are you cooking these days?
I'm working on quick breads, drop biscuits and homemade pasta. Not with a machine either. I just roll out the dough and shape orecchiette by hand. I forgot how good it was. You don't have to think about making some amazing sauce to dump over some shitty pre-made pasta. Just some fresh tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil and you're happy.
Artists wanting to work with Brian can contact him via brianjamespaulson@gmail.com
