John McBride: Blackbird Studios and Academy

John McBride's Blackbird Studios in Nashville probably has the largest assemblage of recording equipment in the world, and no expense has been spared on the eight rooms or ensuring the quality of his staff. Clients from all over the world, and from nearly every genre, rave about working here. Now John is starting Blackbird Academy, which might become one of the finest music recording programs in the world. On top of that John's wife, Martina McBride, is of course a talented country music star. I had to find out how John started his career, as well as what drives a man to build a studio and school of this caliber.

I know you were doing live sound before starting Blackbird Studios. How did you get into that?

I'll go way, way back. I love music. I'm not a singer, I'm not a player, and I'm not a songwriter. Growing up lower-middle class Wichita, Kansas, in the late '70s, I never considered the fact that you could have a career in music. My dad taught school and my mom stayed at home. I had a great childhood. I went to the bank in the late '70s and told them I wanted to start a recording studio. As you can imagine, they looked at me cross-eyed, laughed, and said it wasn't going to happen. In 1980 I was working full-time and going to school part-time. I went to the Wichita State campus credit union and borrowed $6,000. I bought two speakers, a power amp, a 12-channel Biamp console, a 10-band stereo Biamp EQ, and a 100-foot snake. I also bought two mics: a [Sennheiser] 421 and a [Shure SM]58. I went around to the bars in Wichita and I put up "PA for Rent" fliers. Somebody called, and I started. That's how I got into live sound; it was trial by fire. I loved it, and I worked full-time. I mixed in clubs; by '83 every penny was going back into the business. I didn't care if it was the biggest company in the world or a garage sound company; every penny went back in. I had put together two full club systems, as well as a third monitor rig that was separate. Around 1984 I thought, "If I could borrow $75,000, I could get enough gear to do a concert and make $500 in one night." Remembering my failed attempt at dealing with bankers earlier, I ended up going to the SBA — the Small Business Administration. It took three or four months to put together this proposal that was about an inch thick. They came back to me and said they'd approve my loan, on one condition: my parents had to put up their house as collateral. Their house was their only asset — it was appraised at $75,000. I went home and talked to my mom and dad. I told them that they'd approve the loan but we'd have to put up the house for collateral. My mom and dad said, "We'll do it!" Now I'll tell you, when you start thinking about your parents being homeless, it's a good motivation to work a few more hours!

Oh yeah.

Sure enough, I started doing shows at the Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita. That's where I cut my teeth. I did three or four hundred shows in that place, bands on their way up and bands on their way down. A couple of years later I met Martina and fell in love. In 1987, I went back to the bank and borrowed another $90,000. I don't know how they let me do it, but they did.

At that point they're going to repossess your gear if you don't pay.

I had a six-month tour lined up with Steppenwolf, Alvin Lee, and Roger McGuinn. We went out on this six-month tour, and had I ever used written contracts? Of course not. Five weeks into the tour, they cancelled with one day's notice and put me in a tailspin from hell. It started the hardest two or three years of my life. I was finding anything and everything that I could do to make money to try to keep my parents from losing their house and to keep the bank happy. In the fall of '89 I'd been married a year and I went out and did three shows; Ricky Van Shelton was the headliner, Clint Black was the middle act, and Garth Brooks was the opening act. Garth didn't have any crew. His manager was on the road with him, and he'd sit with the front-of-house guy and tell them where the solos were. One of my guys wanted to try to get the job doing sound for Garth. I said, "Yes, go for it! Of course you should." He went out and auditioned; they liked him so he got the gig. That was the fall of '89. He immediately moved to Nashville. Three months later, so did we. Martina decided that she wanted to be a country singer. We moved to Nashville on January 1st of 1990, and it's been a blur ever since. Within a year and a half Martina had a record deal. And I was production manager for Garth Brooks, which made no sense. But you know what? Hallelujah!

Good news!

So the '90s happened, and things were great. Garth decided to retire in '98. Martina came into her own in '99. In '97 I ended up selling my company to Clair Brothers [now Clair Global] and, for the first time in my life, I had no debt. I was stumbling around wondering what to do. In 2001, I said to Martina, "You know, we should do that studio that I tried to do 25 years ago." So I ended up finding a place and buying it on January 15, 2002. That's 2806 Azalea Place [where Blackbird Studios is now]. Unfortunately, I kind of lost my mind and I kept buying gear, and buying gear, and buying gear. I bought the double lot behind us and we ended up building more rooms. I don't know what happened to me, exactly. But I was like a roadie with a little money to spend, and that's what I did. I started the Blackbird portion of my life, and I tried to do things right. I was very motivated to try to build one of the best studios there could ever be, anywhere. And I feel like we pretty much succeeded.

Yeah, I think so.

We never said no. If we could spend more money, we did. So years went by and I spent all our money. And then I borrowed another $12 million, on top of that. Now we're just working away. With that kind of a loan, your overhead gets a little bit crazy because the loan payments alone are pretty staggering. I thought, "Well, here we are, and we're fighting the fight." As the music business crumbles around us and things are turning to crap, we're trying to maintain our standards and do everything right. [We want to] give people a place to record great music.

It seems like you've bucked the trend of what people would assume about recording studios, at this point in history.

You know what's funny? What's funny is that I won't say that I wasn't warned. A lot of people I knew in the business said not to have a studio, but I didn't listen. I thought that I knew more than they did. I didn't. In the process of building Blackbird, we ended up with eight studios. And we're busy. Thank God for that. 

The amount of recording equipment that you've accumulated at Blackbird is pretty staggering. What do you think it is about you that led to your obsession with this?

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "obsession." I am an all-or-nothing guy. I'm a little bit obsessive-compulsive. I love gear. Man, I love gear. Especially microphones. I wanted to have enough so that if you wanted to do the whole session with Telefunken [E LAM] 251s then I could provide that. I never want the studio to be the weak link in the recording process. I look at the artist, the producer, and engineer as painters. I want them to have every color in the palette. If they need an Ursa Major Space Station or a DeltaLab Acoustic Computer, I want to have that available so they can get the sound they want, for whatever's in their head. 

Anything else would be impeding the art.

Exactly. I want to be able to make people happy. I have a real personality defect. Somebody once told me that I have a servant's heart. I want people to be happy. If people are happy here, I'm walking on air.

You've had some rave reviews from many types of artists that have come through the studio. I'm sure that feels good.

It has been an incredible experience to work with a lot of the people we've worked with. There are quite a few producers who might say that Blackbird is their favorite studio in the world. If there's a better studio, I don't know about it. I want to give them everything they need to make the music that is in their head. This is what matters. It's funny; people don't want to spend money to make music, because it's harder to get your money back. But studios need clients, and clients need studios. "Good is the enemy of great." I don't want to simply be good, because for these guys good isn't good enough. Great is what you need. I don't want to settle for good. I want it to be great. It needs to be great. I'm obsessed about that. That's the environment we've tried to set up here.

It seems like that has happened.

There have been so many great records made here. I'm happy and proud about that, and I still think that our best is yet to come.

Blackbird has rack after rack of gear available. Do you still have Rolff Zwiep running the rental department?

Yes. I figure even if we're not busy here, people are still recording. If they're at home, they still need a good mic chain. We do have a good rental department, and those guys stay pretty busy. I'm glad they do.

How did the idea for Blackbird Academy come about?

In the process of running Blackbird Studios we ended up having about 20 interns. When you sit down and start talking to the interns you find out how much they know, how much debt they have, and how long they've been going to school or studying this. How much they really know, for the most part, isn't enough! I thought that was wrong. To spend a couple of years and $150,000 and not know enough is not fair. About six years ago I thought, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to bitch or complain about it. I'm going to start a school." The paperwork for starting a school in Tennessee is daunting. It is ten times harder than any other state. We got through it, and we're getting our license now. When I initially started looking into the school, I got a little overwhelmed with all of the red tape you have to go through. It got put on the back burner for a couple of years. My life took back over, and I didn't focus on that for a while. Then about two years ago, again while talking to the interns, I got frustrated and mad about it again. These are all graduates of schools around the world, and they should know more than they do. In talking to them it was clear that they needed more hands-on time with the gear. I thought we'd figure it out and put together a program that is the best. We want to offer the best education, in the shortest amount of time, while spending the least amount of money possible. 

Are you doing a limited amount of students per teacher?

Here's the way it works. We have a six-month program. Three months are in the actual studios, and three months are in the classroom. The classroom has an API console, a patchbay, outboard gear, mics, and two overdub booths. The classroom's great — it's a studio in itself. Students will have three months in there with Mark Rubel [ Tape Op #47] and Kevin Becka, and three months in the normal Blackbird studios. There are a million ways to record audio, so I don't want them learning from just one guy. In the three months they'll spend in the studio, our students will get time with producer/engineers like Niko Bolas, Vance Powell [ Tape Op #82], Joe Chiccarelli [ Tape Op #14], and Nick Raskulinecz [ Tape Op #50]. These are great teachers. Students will form their own set of skills. We feel like we're going to give an incredible program to these students. I wish it existed when I was growing up, because it would've saved me ten years. To this day, I still mix Martina on the road. I'm fortunate that I get to work with her in the studio. Any day that I can make a living in the music business is a good day.

I know what you mean. I feel the same way.

Ultimately, our success as Blackbird Academy will only be based upon the success of our graduates. So we're going to be picky about who gets into the school. We want those students who, like us, have to work in audio. They don't have a choice. I don't want students there because they think it might be fun, or their parents are bugging them about going to school. I don't want to waste their time, and I don't want them to waste mine. I feel like this is going to be the rest of my life. I want to develop some programs that do not currently exist. There is no school for tour managers or production managers — we're going to start it. Look at my life, what I have, and what we can offer that other people can't: it's an incredible studio, in which hit records are made every day, as well as my black book — all these people that I've gotten to know over the years, that are in this business, that can come over for an hour or two and sit in on a class, guest lecture and tell the truth of the music business. We're going to focus on the etiquette of the music business a lot. It's 80 percent psychology and 20 percent talent, at the end of the day.

I've met some of your staff there before, and it seems like everybody's very gracious and accommodating.

Well, the first thing you hear is that attitude is 99% of the gig. I would rather have some guy with a great attitude and not much talent over a guy who knows it all and is a complete butthead to be around. I don't want to be around negative, unhappy people. We're going to try to find great students and help them on their way to a great career. We need to work together. We need to change the world. We need to fix what's broken. One thing I don't want to see, is for all of this incredible knowledge gained over the past 60 or 70 years in analog recording to fall by the wayside, because it's important.