As a member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather and the Rome project (with Danger Mouse, Norah Jones and Daniele Luppi [Tape Op #40]), Jack White III has certainly proved himself as a songwriter, singer, performer and musician. But it's also an impressive list when you add up Jack's production work with his bands, as well as producing artists like Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, The Greenhornes, Dexter Romweber Duo, his wife Karen Elson and even his pal Conan O'Brien. Jack also oversees the label he founded, Third Man Records, where his productions are released and where occasional live concerts are captured on analog tape in the back room. But the real action has been taking place on 8-track, 2-inch tape in his self- designed, private studio in Nashville, where he's been busy at work since September 2009 on many projects, including Wanda Jackson's excellent new album, The Party Ain't Over. I was able to catch Jack at his office at Third Man for an increasingly rare interview with a very busy and interesting man.
Obviously you're a proponent of tape. But some early White Stripes singles were tracked on an ADAT?
Yeah. The very first Stripes single was on a 1/4-inch, 8- track Otari. The only recorder I had was a 1/4-inch reel-to-reel. It was on the fritz for the next couple of singles, so I had to borrow my friend's 8-track ADAT, which is a horrible format. I took one of those tapes over to Brendan Benson's studio and asked, "Can I just pop this in and listen to it?" And he said, "No, no, no! Don't put it in. You might corrupt my machine!" [laughter] So I thought I'd skip that. In 1999, after we recorded our first album, I got a 1/2-inch Tascam 8-track.
You did your first album on tape with Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders [Tape Op #57].
Yeah, unfortunately!
I know you don't want to get into that part [there was a later lawsuit involved], but that first album was on tape.
Yeah. In fact, most of the things I've recorded have been on 8-track, whether it's 1/2-inch, 1-inch or now 2-inch. I like the constriction of 8-track. I like knowing in the back of my head that albums like [The Beatles'] Revolver were recorded on 4-track. If we can't do it on 8-track, twice as many tracks as that, then what are we doing here? I've always been that way when I look at any type of creativity: photography, films, anything like that. Sure, you can spend $200 million dollars on a movie and make it look interesting, but can you do it for $200 bucks? Sure, you can make something look amazing in [Adobe] Photoshop, but can you take that photo for real? That's where I get impressed with other people's work. That's why we work with [filmmaker] Michel Gondry — he makes everything for real. He didn't computerize Legos for us — he made real Legos. That's also where I feel comfortable creating, when there's a limitation and a time constraint, a money constraint or a tool constraint. Anytime I've ever had to mix something in Pro Tools where there's an unlimited opportunity, I just don't like it. It feels really uncomfortable to me. It's just scary. I see other people doing it and I don't like what I see them doing. I don't like the plug-ins instead of real tools. It's so abused. There's one great thing about working on tape and working with the limitations of tape and real, mechanical tools: you don't change things easily. When you're working on tape and recording to reel-to-reel, you don't say, "You missed a beat, but we'll just fix it later." It's even worse in Pro Tools; you'll fix three other things and then there's no soul left in it. I'm not saying it can't be done. I know people who record and don't use plug- ins. They use external, outboard gear and they're conservative with how many tracks they use. But others have 3,000 tracks and an edit a minute.
Obviously one of the things you're thinking is that a classic album didn't need that in the first place.
Yeah, it's tough to have those opinions and stick with it. I'm not dissing how other people work. If it works for you, that's great; but it doesn't work for me. If it did, I would do it because it's definitely easier. I've recorded many albums on 8-track with one engineer. When you go to a bigger studio and record on a 16- or 24-track and you have a lounge, a producer, an engineer, an engineer's assistant and you're editing on Pro Tools, all of a sudden your recording takes twice as long to do because you're sitting around waiting all the time. When I designed my studio I made a rule that no one is allowed to surf the Internet in there. You have to be part of it! There's no walking away; we're all here and we're all working. We're all part of every moment of it.
What about cell phones? I feel clients have become distracted with them while I'm working.
Well, I don't own one so there's your answer! [laughter] You really have to get out of that mindset. There's nothing worse than working in the studio and you come around and everyone is on laptops or cell phones and no one even heard what you recorded. Then you're not working on something together, you're just doing it piece by piece.
I know you did a couple of records in a row with Joe Chiccarelli [Tape Op #14] at Blackbird Studios — a very big infrastructure of a studio. Was the Blackbird experience interesting to you?
Yeah, Blackbird was incredible. The idea was to work in that realm as my struggle. How can I get these tones in that realm with two engineers and two 16-tracks? They have the biggest microphone selection in the world there. We'd out-budgeted every record we'd made in two days! Every album at that point had been $5,000. That was our sixth album we were working on! It was pretty quickly a high-budget thing. I'd never done anything like that and I agreed to try it. I love Blackbird and it felt great, but it's very hard for me to work in that environment. It's very hard for me to create, in the way I create, within that system. It's just not constrictive or centralized enough. I guess I'm in one of those zones where I'm a performer and a producer and I'm looking at things from several different angles. I prefer smaller spaces; for whatever reason it makes me more centered on what's happening. There are not as many distractions.
Blackbird is really something else though.
It's cool. I like the idea of an Abbey Road feeling. I could swim in their microphone collection; it's gorgeous! That's one of the first things Vance [Powell] did after we met [at Blackbird] was show me microphones. Can you imagine having that selection at your fingertips? Having 25 different ribbon mics to choose from, as opposed to having 25 different plug-ins, is so inspiring. I love to figure out what those microphones do and how they're best used. I want to figure out how to place them. [Joe] Chiccarelli and I were making Decca Trees out of ribbon microphones! [laughter]
That's an amazing resource to have.
That's why it's cool to have that studio nearby; I can always rent those mics!
And now you have your own studio space.
Yeah. That was just an empty structure that I could make into whatever I wanted. It was scary at first; the temptation when you're spending money on building a place is that people around you don't want you to take chances. It might not work and you might have to redo it. It might be a big waste of money. But to get character into a room, you have to take chances. Ultimately I said, "Screw it" and I took thousands of chances! "Let's just keep going." It's so easy to make a dead room and add the reverb later. But to really make a room scatter sound in a way that you want, you just mess with the acoustics and see what happens... You can always fix that too! You can add to the construction and figure out what's wrong. But we took so many chances. The first session we had there was with Keith Richards and I just kept my fingers crossed! I had no idea what it was going to sound like with a full band in that room. It could have been horrible. When we first played it back, I was relieved. Jack Lawrence, who plays bass with us on a lot of projects, does a lot of work at other studios too. He told me, "This studio has just spoiled me and I can't listen to music at other studios now. There's something different about this." It was the best compliment and it meant so much coming from him. I thought it felt that good to me, but I thought it was because I was proud of designing it! [laughter]
One thing that hit me, upon first impression, was that it reminded me of Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service ["Sun Studios"] space. It doesn't have that vibe of a controlled studio.
Yeah. I did away with worrying about outside noises. Eliminate that from the construction. If a truck goes by during a take I think it should be there!
Your studio is on the road, but set back.
Yeah, and you can see outside. Not too many studios have that option. I chose to add windows, though they are double- paned. People have noted that it's a comforting thing. There's a lot of trickery that we've added acoustically. There were a lot of details that I'd always thought of, but never seen implemented in studios. I don't want to go into too much detail. I do think there are a lot of unique characteristics in there and we've been lucky to be able to do it.
Vance said you custom built some of the diffuser panels?
Oh, yeah. Everything in that place is custom! I did the upholstery myself with the guy I apprenticed from, Brian Muldoon from Detroit. He came down and we did all the upholstery ourselves. I did all of the cutting, sewing and button making for him and he upholstered. So, that was great. I'd just built my upholstery shop and our first project was the studio. Another great thing, after having been in studios for a decade, was to finally get the equipment that I wanted. The big thing was to have a 2-inch, 8-track; that's what I wanted to get. I was able to talk to [producer] Michael Beinhorn and get one that he'd had made. It just seemed like the perfect thing to do. By the time we recorded on it, I just couldn't believe it. I really don't want to record on any other machine now; it's just so explosively large and huge.
It seems that, along the way, you've really learned about tape speeds, track width and the differences those factors make.
Yeah. Here's the thing with me and someone like [Joe] Chiccarelli — we live in different time zones. The thing I don't think engineers understand about me as a producer is that there are a lot of things I don't want to know anything about. I don't want to get underneath with a flashlight in my mouth and fix a Neve board. Not out of interest — I'm extremely interested in that. But I make sure to keep myself away because if I go down that route you'll never see me again! [laughter] I'll be in my garage fixing amps and I'll get so technical. I have to keep one foot in writing and performing music. I think a lot of times engineers don't understand that with me. They wonder why I'm not touching the faders when we mix. I want them to do it because they know the board so much better than me. I just want to tell them what I want. It's hard to explain that people. I have to watch myself all the time! It's the same reason why I don't collect records. I never have, even though I love making strange one-off versions of what we do. But if I get into collecting records, my songwriting goes by the wayside. It's very dangerous territory. I might start mimicking old, obscure recordings — which I've never done on purpose. It's the same attitude. As part of engineering, you're supposed to know that whole world. I've talked to Jimmy Page about recording and producing; he'll just say, "RCA limiter." He's my kind of producer! We don't talk numbers. It's a Fairchild, not a 670!
People spout out Neve numbers to me and I still don't know what they're saying.
I always say, "What color are the knobs?" [laughter]
Vance mentioned that you monitor really loud. Is that to keep the excitement level up?
Yeah, I've always done that. I've had a lot of engineers leave while I listen — they don't want to stay! I just have to make sure that the tones are there. To listen at half volume is dangerous. Sure, you can get the vocal level in right spot by doing that; and we do that a lot. But to really know what's there... It's like when you plug into a Fender amplifier — you almost have to go too loud to really get that tone. It's easy for me to do that in The White Stripes, but it's harder for me to do it in The Raconteurs or The Dead Weather. I'll push musicians to go louder into that tone too. You can always pull it back or tone it down, but it's impossible if it's not there to begin with.
With something like Wanda Jackson's new record, you've got a lot of players. You must have had a lot of sub-mixing going on. How involved do you get?
For most of that album, the drums are mono. That's a scary decision to make. How much of that kick drum is going to go on that track? It becomes a taste thing. I trust Vance's taste a lot as well, but as a producer your taste is 90 percent of what you're doing. You have to get in there. But the great part is taking that plunge. The drums are going mono; that's how they sound and we can't fix it! There was a video game that wanted the stems from a Raconteurs album. The drums were all mono for the first Raconteurs album and Vance told the guys, "The drums are all on one track. There are no stems for that." They couldn't comprehend that! Nobody does it that way anymore. But now I have less to worry about! If I had 16 drum tracks and it came time to mix down, I'd have five extra days of work just getting the drums right. Once you've made that kind of decision there's nothing to do. It's already on there and you can't take it back. "It's great. Now I don't have to worry about it!"
Have you ever gotten to a point where you're mixing and you've regretted decisions that you've made?
Not too many. It's scary every time and it's just as scary now to take those chances. But I have very few regrets, considering the amount that's out there. The cool thing is that when you go back to the music you love, like going back to old Rolling Stones songs, you can't find a bass drum to save your life! It's there somewhere. When you think of all the songs that you love and you can't even find those certain components — you've always got that to make you feel a lot better about decisions. As long as the vibe makes sense, you've got a lot to play with.
You've taken on producing, but have you thought of working with another producer in the future?
It's got to be the right guy. It's got to be a guy that I'd trust on all those levels, and I can't wait for that to happen. I could see it happening with Nigel Godrich. I've worked with him on some live performances. I like that he likes to record to tape. When I went and listened to playback with him, I really trusted him. I also worked with T Bone Burnett [Tape Op #67] on [the film soundtrack for] Cold Mountain and I really trust him. The only time I've really been produced is with T Bone and with Brian Burton [Danger Mouse] on the new Rome project, so that makes two times I've been produced.
Was working with T Bone a fun experience?
Of course! He's got a great head for real music and it's not a gimmick. He wants something real and he's always searching for it. I love working with him!
You've built your own studio and you have other locations that you work out of, but you've also worked in places that aren't really studios. What do you think of the different benefits, or not benefits, of moving that process around?
A lot of my fans' favorite record, I'm told, is the second White Stripes album De Stijl, which was recorded on 1/2-inch, 8-track in my living room. And I had not one good microphone in my possession! It was all broken 58 Shures. But I did it all myself — I recorded, produced and performed all in that spot. It can be very distracting to do it at home. I do like going to a studio when you've booked two weeks and you have to finish it before that time is over. I've always liked that. When you're at home you can take a month. To me, that's a travesty. I've got to finish it! But one thing that came out of that recording was people really liking that I did it all myself. Maybe more of that can happen, now that I have my own place. Maybe I can get a similar vibe that was on De Stijl, because I don't know what it was that sounded so great! You're always searching for that. I don't know what the tones were on that record that I should try to find again
That's just it; the very mystery of it. The vibe that was in that space at the time and how you felt while you were there is all part of it.
I guess so. I've got to pick it up in this new place. The Dead Weather records sound really vibe-y to me.
I would say! They definitely have a feel. I was surprised, after listening to those records, to come into your space and see how small it was.
It's like with the Wanda record; you can make really large sounds in a small space. There's something about when you get too big in a studio; musicians start to feel like they're in an airplane hangar. The coziness pushes people together, like when you're around a campfire. I've recorded in both, but I've always preferred smaller rooms. We were just talking about that the other day. I did an interview with the BBC about [The White Stripes' fourth album] Elephant. Some of those songs... For example, "Ball and Biscuit" is a huge sounding song. That was recorded in a space even smaller than mine!
At Liam Watson's place? [ToeRag Studios, London]
Yeah. But it just goes to show what can be done with limited space. You can make it sound gigantic and still have that connection with the musicians.
Was working at ToeRag kind of a revelation of sorts for you and Meg? It seems like there was a transition for you to start working with Liam and realize that the process of limitations was cool.
Yeah, it was definitely the studio that everybody from our scene, all the garage rockers, dreamed of recording at. ToeRag was Mecca. You just don't see that kind of recording studio anywhere else. I still haven't seen another one like his. I've seen pictures of old studios that look and feel like that, but not a contemporary one like his. That was just mind-blowing when we were in there. He's a big Abbey Road fan; he has one of the EMI REDD 17 desks. We got done so fast. We recorded the album in 10 or 12 days — we thought, as a nice present to Liam, that we'd go mix the album at Abbey Road because he'd never been there. He was excited but thought he could still mix the album at ToeRag. I agreed. We did the whole album there, plus b-sides. I remember we did 18 songs in one day.
Mixing?
Yeah, that was it. We put it to 1/4-inch and that was it!
You never went to Abbey Road?
No, I've still never been there.
It's an amazing piece of history.
Yeah, I'd love to go. I'd love to build something like that failed reverb system they built.
Oh, the Ambiophonic?
Yeah, I'd love to build something similar. Maybe not in the studio, but in a garage, to construct a reverb chamber in that fashion. If you can get a room without rounded walls, you can do that speaker system idea. I think there's something to that that could be done; maybe it didn't work at Abbey Road but it can work in a different way.
They were trying to pipe sound back in and make it feel even bigger?
They were trying to delay the signal just barely as it went around. I have to go back and read about it. It could have been great.
I noticed you had a speaker and an amp up above the walk-through in your studio.
Yeah, we can re-amp up there — send signals and bounce them around.
Are you thinking of possibly putting a chamber in your property?
Well, I got mad at myself. There was a 200-gallon gas tank on my property, next to the studio, that I got rid of and junked. Then I realized I could have buried it and put a mic and speaker in there, underground. That could've been something interesting. Maybe I'll still go find one and try that.
I interviewed Jack Miller a while back. He worked with Lee Hazlewood on the Duane Eddy records. You know that story about the tank reverb?
No.
They went around looking in yards, banging on metal tanks in Arizona. They found one and put it in back of the studio and put a mic and speaker inside of it.
Oh, wow. That's great!
You should look into it; they have such a distinctive sound.
I want to see the Les Paul reverb chambers at Capitol Records. Those are the ones I really want to check out.
Besides monitoring loud, what else do you do during the mixing process?
Jack Lawrence bought me an FM transmitter, so now I do a lot of mixes in my car by walkie-talkie with Vance. I can tell him exactly how it sounds in the car over FM. It's an astoundingly accurate way of mixing.
You can really hear how it's coming across that way.
It's a great way to mix because I'm detached, but I'm right there with him. We're listening together, in two different ways. I can tell him, "I was just in the studio and the bass sounded great there, but in the car it's too much." It saves a lot of time. The first Dead Weather record was done with no flying faders. We just mixed that by hand. Some songs, like "Treat Me Like Your Mother," were so complex on 8-track. We had so many things that were split; it was impossible to mix that record. That song got mixed 13 times! We'd come so close then realized we'd forgotten to do something.
Did you ever wish you had a 16-track for one song?
Well, you can do it. Sometimes it makes sense, but I feel like it takes away from the beauty of it. I always try to reel it back in. Those Chiccarelli albums were done on double 16-track so we could get a wider head space and try to get a thicker sound. But it was also hard because you'd make a slave — I wanted the slave to be mono and Chiccarelli wanted the slave to be six tracks — so we had to keep erasing stuff from the slave mix to get bigger and bigger. It was hard; when you jump over it's almost like you're between two worlds. You're not in the constrictive world and you're not in the "do whatever you want" world. You're in an in-between zone. I want to put an extra guitar on, but there are no more tracks left? How could that be? [laughter]
"The coziness pushes people together like when you're around a campfire. I've always preferred smaller rooms. "Ball and Biscuit" is a huge sounding song. That was recorded in a space even smaller than mine!"
You have to start budgeting.
Yeah, it was an interesting experiment!
With the artists that you've produced, especially Wanda Jackson and Loretta Lynn, have you had a talk beforehand about constrictions and constraints? Do they understand that they're not on a 48-track system?
You know, a lot of the artists from the older days don't care at all. They don't know anything about it. I don't think Wanda or Loretta have cared about how many tracks are on their songs. They've never mentioned anything to me about caring! They've always put themselves in great hands, like [producer] Owen Bradley, who could handle the job. I've never noticed them having a preference for stuff, even for microphones, which is really inspiring to not care. That's how you notice an artist, as they get on in years, can fall victim to digital technology nowadays. Back when everything was analog and mechanical, you would go in and do a great performance. Now it's a lot easier for things to sound plastic.
It's a terrifying thing.
Yeah, it's scary! This generation has to start finding their favorite ribbon mics for when they get older because it's going to get worse and worse, I think. To know, that even though someone is recording on Pro Tools, that you can record into an RCA mic and still get some kind of soul is important. Everyone's got to find his or her own thing.
For Wanda's record I heard you had up to 12 people playing in your studio?
Yeah, it was pretty wild.
Were you getting close on takes and then having mistakes?
Not too many. There was surprisingly really cool separation, and by "cool separation" I mean the bleed-over that was happening was good. There weren't too many phase issues. I like the idea of, "Where are we gonna put that steel guitar amp?" I like those kinds of problems, as a producer or a performer, because you figure out how you're gonna make it work! If you're in a studio where it's easy, "Just put it in the amp closet and we're done," then your problems become ridiculous — you start worrying about something else. When it's a mechanical problem and you're hands-on trying to fix it, for some reason that adds to the character of everything.
Wanda has some really distinct vocal sounds on the new album. There's tape delay, like the Fulltone Tube Tape Echo, and sometimes the sound is very focused in a frequency range.
Yes, we even did master fading of the whole band to tape, as well as recording Wanda at different speeds. We'd already recorded the band before she got there. She then found out that it wasn't in her range, "I told you it had to be in this key." "Well I thought you said D sharp." Then we had to find a way to do it in her key.
Did you vari-speed?
Yeah. I love vari-speeding; I use it all the time. It's an incredible little tool to have. When you have mechanical tools at your fingertips — so much can be done with a Fulltone echo. It's just so different to use that fader instead of typing into a keypad! There's just something about it. You're a ship's commander or a submarine pilot at that point, and you really are involved in the mix instead of trusting the computer. It comes through in the track when you have real moving parts. You can hear the squeaks — they're all there in the track.
The slight quirkiness?
Yeah. I think it's also human nature to want to see things moving. We liked seeing a record player moving. It's mechanical. It's not invisible, it's really happening. When the CD player came out and you couldn't see the disc moving anymore, we guessed it was still working. It's like staring at a campfire. I was lucky enough to talk to Robert Altman about film before he passed away, and he said, "I don't like videotape because I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on with those molecules. I'm assuming it's there. With film, I know each frame is a small photograph and that makes sense to my brain." And I told him I felt exactly the same! As tape compares to digital, I know tape is still just moving molecules, but at least I know the mechanics of that machine moving and I understand what happens if I slice that tape. The formats that are really going to last are vinyl and analog tape. You can have a tape, in the right conditions, that can last 100 years. But the stuff on Pro Tools? Good luck 20 years from now! You can pull out a hard drive and find that it's gone; it's scary! You don't know if it's going to be there.
I know you have a tape vault here at Third Man. It seems that you've made a concerted effort to keep all of your master tapes in your hands.
Yeah, we've done a lot. We have custom reels and boxes, as well as temperature and humidity control for the vault. It's a lot better than where it was, which was my closet for many years! It's good to have it on site.
It's interesting to me that you're living in Nashville, because there's a very rote process to music recording here. It's a very 9-5 environment, which is bizarre to me. And you're coming in and working in your own way.
It's the perfect town for me. I don't think I could come in and do what I'm doing anywhere else and get away with it. Because of the music industry and the town, I think I'm sneaking by on the side. I need the environment to be able to create. I couldn't do that in Detroit anymore — it just wasn't a productive, positive environment for me or for my community around me. It felt stifling. It felt like people were out to get me or didn't want me there anymore. But this feels perfect. The funny thing is Jimmy Bowen used to live in my house.
"I think it's also human nature to want to see things moving. We liked seeing a record player moving. It's mechanical it's not invisible, it's really happening."
Have you read his book, Rough Mix?
I want to! He brought digital to Nashville, so it's funny that I'd end up living here. I hear a lot of bizarre talk about the guy! It's funny to have an opposite viewpoint on how to record and to live in the same place.
One thing Vance said is there are no computer setups allowed in your studio. Do you ever have situations where you need to back stuff up?
There've been a couple moments where we have to do something and we have to bring Vance's stuff over and set it up. I'm also a firm believer that if you don't have it there, you won't use it. If something's available you'll use it, so it's better not to have it there.
"We can just fix it with..."
Yeah! We got into that at Blackbird because we were recording to tape but backing it up with Pro Tools. So when we made a mistake we were all of a sudden in that world of thinking, "We can fix it in Pro Tools." So it was almost like we were recording in Pro Tools. We were living in that world and it felt dangerous. I felt like I had to reel it back in. I like having no safety net. It's scary to me to have the ability to fix it!
When I to record on tape I find that people are more focused and serious when I say, "Rolling."
People aren't now because they're so used to "you can fix it later." It's really affecting musicianship and that's where my views become a lot stronger. When James Brown came into the studio, those guys were rehearsed and ready to go. That was the only chance you had to record and you did it right. You came prepared. Now no one is prepared and they're putting a lot of stress on the engineers to fix what's wrong. Then the album takes six months as long to make, especially all that plastic pop music! Things could be a lot simpler if people came prepared. Instead of learning how to play a guitar solo from the heart, I can spend weeks in my room on Pro Tools. That character should come from your fingers, not some plug-in!
I thought the It Might Get Loud film showed interesting viewpoints from all three of you guys. It all came down to the player, the vision and the ideas.
You can see The Edge, no matter how much of the technology he's involved in, he still knows it's about being able to write and have it come from a pure place to begin with. But, yeah — I've manipulated my guitar signal in recording many times, but the original emotion of it has to come from someplace real first. Again, I'm not saying it can't be done. But there are a lot of problems these days. If you go out and ask people on the street about modern music, most of them will say that it's very uninteresting or it fatigues them. There's nobody out there writing songs; there's not even a Michael Jackson. That's why this place here is about reeling it back in to a physical product where everyone is involved. We take the photos for the [album] covers here [at Third Man]. Our pressing plant is three blocks away. We don't send it off and count on seeing it three months later.
The thing I notice when coming by your studio and visiting Third Man, is that there is a sense of fun, even in the business aspect of it. It feels very fun and enthusiastic. You wouldn't necessarily see that at RCA or someplace like that.
Yeah, I think sometimes people forget! We should do a tour of a label that has tan cubicles where you have to turn in reports. But it is very creative here and I want everyone to be as creative as possible and come up with things on his or her own. I was fortunate enough to design the layout of the offices and how people are related to each other and it's helped the whole thing. I like the fact that when these guys are walking into a conference for marketing, they're walking past two kids who are folding 45s. They can see it's a real thing and it's happening here. That changes your whole attitude — you're very involved. These records are people's babies.
With the singles you're putting out, you're the producer. What's your role? A lot of these are one-off singles that the label has decided they're interested in. Have they mostly been recorded at your space?
Yeah, all of them. It's a blending of the modern ideas, as well as the productions ideas that I think are relevant and soulful. It's about singles and quick things on the Internet or iTunes for a lot of artists right now. We can still have that, but have it also be real. We can have our music out on vinyl within four weeks — it's still relatively instantaneous. We've put out so many records lately that they're coming out later than I want them to right now, but we can still do things very fast. I think it still matches the modern attention span. The only thing that hasn't lined up is the hype in the press and the media — they're on a different time schedule than musicians and songwriting. I think we'll see it start to blend in the next few years, but it's really confusing right now. Say that we come out with a Raconteurs album but we didn't tell anybody we made it, then we reveal it's coming out in two weeks. But magazines have a three-month lead-time. You can't do an interview and have it out next week. You need photographs and videos. The hype machine still very much needs a long period of time. But the kids are getting songs and passing them to each other instantaneously.
People are getting albums before they're even out.
Yeah, of course! But at some point it will blend together.
What's your role specifically, if you have an artist come into town and they have a one-day singles session? Are you down there watching everything and guiding it as a classic producer?
Yeah, a lot of them are people I've wanted to work with or who have asked to work with me. The Blue Series is an idea of people passing through Nashville on tour. I work with them when they're here, after their sound check or on their day off. There's also the live records recording spot with the 8-track booth upstairs. It's great. I think this might be the only place in the world where you can record live in front of an audience to tape. I don't think there's anyplace else you can do that.
Unless you roll a truck in.
Yeah, exactly. That album comes out on vinyl a few weeks later and that's pretty compelling. Sometimes artists will come through that I don't know much about. We've got a 1-inch Otari [tape deck] up there and that thing sounds huge. This room sounds really good — we got lucky on this one too.
It's an old film or video stage back there, right?
That cyc [cyclorama] wall? They were filming industrial videos back there, yeah.
What's your involvement on the live records? Are you more of an executive producer?
Yeah. It's sort of piecing the whole thing together and figuring out how it's going to work. We've got a lot of restrictions. It's got to be less than 45-minutes so we can fit it on one record. We record to 8-track so Vance has to announce to them that he's switching reels in the middle of the set. The audience hears that and knows it's really happening — a reel has to be changed. It's great for the audience to hear those words. I want to get recording lights up there so they can see it turn on and start.
That's a neat idea. When you're touring with any of your bands, are you doing live recordings of the shows?
Yeah, I've been recording every live show I've been a part of for the last six or seven years. I have that done on 24- track, I think on RADAR or something else. I have a huge plethora of live shows.
It would be pretty prohibitive to roll a tape deck around after you! [laughter]
Yes, and very expensive! It's hard enough to get the 24-track to work at a live venue; things are so manic a lot of times the engineer doesn't even have time to set it up. That can happen. We have this vault subscription service at the label now, where people get a 12-inch record, a 7-inch record and something else, like a DVD, every quarter. There are a lot of records we can put out from the history of Third Man.
That's a cool deal. How do you budget your time?
I'm off the road right now, so that's been helpful! [laughter] I think you just make it happen. I like when there are a lot of things on my plate because it inspires me to complete tasks. Idle time and free time are sort of destructive. They make you sort of rest on your laurels instead of arriving somewhere. "Oh, I've made it so I can rest for six months." I've never felt that's a good place to be.
It doesn't look like you have! [laughter]
I just want to keep moving forward. It's death to sit still; I think it affects the creativity.
Do you budget time for just writing music?
No, I think everything finds a time for itself. If something needs to exist, it will make itself happen! Sometimes you'll find yourself up at 4 o'clock in the morning making it happen, but it's because you know you're not in control of it. The music, or the video or whatever it is, is in control. When you relinquish control to the piece of art, you know you're in a good place. That's what I'm trying to do: set the whole situation up, let God into the room and then let the art take control. You're just a servant to it. Building this [Third Man Records] and the studio has just helped facilitate that.
I assume there are some instruments in your house somewhere so you can go grab a guitar.
Yeah, always!
Do you have a way to record ideas? It's always funny, we build ourselves studios and then we get away from the studio.
I used to have a Sony 2-track, 1/4-inch reel-to-reel that I recorded a lot of ideas on, but now I just try to remember them. It's a good idea for me not to have a recorder, that way I'm forced to play the song over and over to remember it. It gets really stuck in my head and I walk around all morning thinking about it. But there are times, like when I woke up this morning with a song that was for The White Stripes. I just knew this song was for that band, but I was too busy to hum it quickly before I forgot it. I was forcing myself to remember the chords, but I think I only got half of it! [laughter]
You've had a number of relationships, like with Meg and your wife Karen, that have been brought into the musical realm of the studio. Especially speaking of producing your wife's album, is there friction? I mean, not between the two of you, but between your roles?
I take it as a challenge, whoever I'm working with, to help them facilitate whatever they're trying to do. I want to help that song exist and get it to tape. I've worked with my wife and my best friends and people I admire that I've never met before. Each one goes into that same zone. The door is closed and now we are working together. Whatever happens outside that door is something else. It's up to the other person, in my mind, to put away anything else because I'm putting it away. Like when I'm working with Wanda Jackson and we take a break... I'm a huge Wanda Jackson fan and I can't believe she's standing next to me! But when the door is closed and we're working, that's a singer and I'm a producer. I'm putting a microphone in front of a singer and we're trying to get a vocal tone. Everything else has to be put away or you can't get anywhere. If you don't, you just fail and fall apart. It's almost worth a talk at the beginning, but I'm a little scared to do that with people. I don't want them to feel like I'm forcing them into some box. It's up to them to join into that world.
That makes sense. If you had a choice to record anybody, living or not with us anymore, do you have one person that would be ideal for you to record?
Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, for sure. [Sadly Don passed away shortly after this interview. -ed.] He's an incredible genius; he's sort of like the white Howlin' Wolf. He was avant-garde in an unpretentious way, in my opinion. A lot of that music can become pretentious, but his music is not. It's a very narrow zone to get into and he was just brilliant at that. I sometimes feel bad for him that he had to go through the '80s and record in that time period. I don't like those tones. I like the tones of the '70s records. I wish we could get those tones right now with him because he's such a genius and he's still alive. Even if he could sit in a room and tell other people what to do, because he was a producer too. They didn't write that on the records, but he produced his music.
The stories of how he would tell John "Drumbo" French what to play.
Yeah. We come up with words to understand them, but every writer is an auteur. You're a writer, you're a producer and you're a director. You're creating and you're all those words. He's a great example of that.
