Matt: There’ll be a countdown. It’ll yeah, it’s no big deal. Let’s see. Okay. All right. We’ll get started by me saying, Alex, welcome to the podcast.

Alex: Thank you so much, Matt. Really appreciate you you having me on.

Matt: Yeah, great to see you. and great to meet you. John Greenham, former WCA guest and and old friend of mine, has long touted your name as someone that I should talk to. And it’s taken me a while to get off my ass and and and contact you. But we made it happen and you’re here and I’m very excited.

Alex: I’m go I know you’re busy. I’m glad you I’m glad you found time. John, there’s a John, there’s another another check in the mail, John.

Matt: Well I’m glad you found time with Yeah. Yeah, John. We’ll make sure and spell your name

Alex: yeah, John John’s incredible. Yeah, I’ve kno I’ve known John for I mean, I was living in San we were both living in San Francisco in the early two thousand like two thousand, two thousand and one. And that’s when we first met.

Matt: I had no idea. ‘Cause I’ve been here since nineteen eighty eight. So we’ll we’ll get into that. But let’s talk about let’s talk about the state of the state. Let’s talk about who you are. What do you consider yourself? Where are you living? What what tell people what we need to know about you just right up front, the basics.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Mm, okay. Right. Well, I’m predominantly a a producer. I you know, I do some engineering and and mixing, but predominantly production is is my thing. And I’m out here in Joshua Tree. So I spent I spent many, many years in LA, San Francisco, moved to New York City for nine years and had a studio out there. But, you know, San Francisco and New York, like me if I wasn’t in the music industry that’s probably where I would be. San Francisco. But you but I don’t have to tell you that it’s it’s a little pricey, real estate is tricky and expensive and you know, that was I love living in New York, but you know, I had this tiny studio of the size of a cat box and it was five grand a month and it was you know, it was just ridiculous. And so, Then I moved back to LA and we were actually had a a house we had we had a rented house in LA with an amazing landlord, a good friend of mine, and and I was literally recording bands in the front room. And my wife was incredibly patient and wonderful about it, you know, but I after seven years of that she was like, something’s gonna need to change here. We cannot keep doing this. So I was like, okay, okay, okay. And LA is just completely unaffordable at this point too. I had a number of friends that had moved out to the desert and were sort of encouraging me, you know, you should come and check out the desert, it’s really beautiful. And you know, I felt like yeah, it’s too hot, there’s nothing out there, it’s you know but over time as we came to start visiting more and more, we were like, No, it is really special out here. It’s great and we could afford to buy property out here. Still not cheap, but you know, compared to New New York or LA or San Francisco, yes definitely affordable. So I decided to move out here and build a studio out here and I sort of do this it’s s it’s it’s sort of a package deal. you know, you come out to the desert, I’ve got accommodations for people to stay in here, so you sort of camp out and

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: And make your make your record.

Matt: Wow. That’s nice. I I really I want to come back. We’re gonna circle back to that because I really want to get into the depths of that. let’s talk about, let’s go back in time. Where did you grow up?

Alex: I grew up in the Midlands in the UK. I was born in Birmingham and then moved to Stoke-on-Trent. Sort of like out of the frying pan into the fire. I went to I went to college in Nottingham and that’s when I really started playing music because I had a band in Nottingham. We got signed to a UK label, but then the the UK label had

Matt: Ha ha ha

Alex: What do you call that? Like an upstream deal. So like, you know, if you if you start to sell enough records, then you’re automatically gonna be on Columbia Records. You know, classic kn early nineties thing. And so that’s what we did. So then we had a US label and we were touring all the time over here. and that’s when I met my American wife, at the ex wife now, but at the time.

Matt: Right, right.

Alex: you know, so I was spending a lot of time in this country and then one thing led to another and I just sort of ended up staying really.

Matt: In your upbringing, what was your exposure to music or technology?

Alex: Absolutely none. I mean, you know, when I was growing up in the early to mid eighties, I mean I was a huge music fan. I mean music absolutely saved my life when I was a kid. You know, so I was a huge music fan. But because of where I was growing up in a small town in the middle of the country, I mean it’s not like I grew up in London, I wish I had. But, you know, where I was there was no experience like that. There was Y there was no resources, there was nothing at all. looking back on it, I in a way I th it sort of makes me appreciate it because when you have nothing like that, you really have to work that much harder, you know, to to do something creative. And I think that did it definitely informed who I am or who I became, you know. But yeah, there wasn’t

Matt: Okay. Yeah.

Alex: there was no resources whatsoever. So it was like me and my mate Ben we would we would sort of jam on whatever instruments we could we could put together and, you know mostly it was like us trying to play Sisters of Mercy songs or or Killin’ Joke songs or something. you know, yeah.

Matt: Ha ha ha. So when you started out, was your first exposure was as a player? Okay. And when did you start to become, whether as a player or not, when did you start to become aware of or or start to raise questions about how do they make these records? How is this done? How is your awareness of production or or curiosity about it?

Alex: yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well so you know, a few years later when I was at college I had this band, that was the band that got signed. And just before we got signed, we went into a local studio. It was just a guy with literally a four track. So you got drums on track one, bass on track two, guitar on track three and vocals on track four. And that was it. You know, if you wanted to add a second guitar, well you you couldn’t, you just had to do it. But it was a really great experience because I loved the whole vibe of it. But I mean I must admit it’s it’s not his fault, but it it was a very, very small and rinky dink studio, so it wasn’t terribly impressive. But but I did really enjoy the experience of it. And even at that stage I sort of got the feeling, you know, most musicians will say, you know, I live for the road, I I want to play the gigs, the adoring fans and all I always felt like, I don’t really love that. I like, yeah, I like it, but that’s not like when we go into a studio and realise a song, that’s when I really come alive. It you know, that’s really special to me. So when we got signed to that label, they said, okay, see now you’ve got a bit more budget to work with, you need to get a producer. And we were like, why do we need a producer? We we know what I said. We’re a punk rock band and we We know what we’re supposed to sound like. And the label like, Yeah, but you know, like a really good producer can can help you see things in the way that you hadn’t seen before, or can be really objective in a way that you can’t possibly be. Okay, sure, we’ll try it. And I I was very resistant, actually. The the other two guys were not, but I was particularly resistant. Cause like a lot of artists, I felt like These songs are my baby, you know, I don’t I don’t need somebody messing with it. So it took and and so that producer was Colin Richardson, a British producer. I mean, of course he won me over because he’d worked with Sisters of Mercy and and a lot of punk records, GBH and Batfish Boys and all this stuff that I that I grew up with that I loved. So of course, yeah, I’m gonna trust this guy. He’s done something that I

Matt: Well, well

Alex: That I really respected. But working with Colin was a life-changing experience for me. For one, he took us into this incredible studio, which is this place, Sawmills, that we briefly talked about earlier. So, you know, I’m a twenty-year-old kid from Stoke-on-Trent, never seen anything, you know, never been anywhere or really done anything much. And we drive down to Cornwall, the furthest tip of England.

Matt: Mm.

Alex: And it’s basically like you drive to the tip of England and there’s no main road to this the studio’s on an island. So a power you you and there was no cell phones back in those days, right? So you had to go to the pug and ring the studio and say, We’re here, can you come and pick us up? And they’d send a power boat out across the lake. You’d load all your gear into his power boat, and by this time it was like the middle of the night, because it’d taken us twelve hours to drive down there. And and you go into this, it w literally is an old sawmill stone building. so it’s an incredible incredible studio. Muse did a lot of records there, Stone Roses, and there’s been a lot of really great records done there. And working both in that studio and working with Colin as a producer, you know, so this time we’re working on two inch twenty-four track. with a big Trident desk and big, big monitors and the whole thing. So that really just blew my mind. You know, that was I was just sort of we were halfway through the album and I was asking Colin already like, how can I do this? How can I do what you’re doing? I wanna do I wanna do this the rest of my life.

Matt: So the shift was starting to happen right then.

Alex: Absolutely, yeah. And that’s when I realised like I’ve still gotta do touring with this band ’cause that’s part of the commitment of being in a band. But honestly, I’d much rather just be in the studio, you know, than than touring. And so I knew I you know, the writing was already on the wall. I you know, I toured as much as I could handle really, but you know, the touring lifestyle is not really my personality. You know, I’m a I’m a bit of a homebody, I like tinkering with stuff and just working on music, you know, so it felt like, okay, the studio is really my play.

Matt: What was your primary instrument? Okay. That’s I think that’s fascinating that it took you’re you were hesitant in the beginning, yet you go through this process and it just your mind just opens up in such a huge, monumental way.

Alex: Guitar and vocals. You know, Colin Colin was incredible and Colin showed me what a producer can do and what a good producer can bring out of a band, in that he adapted, he he could tell that, you know, we were a punk rock band and we were coming from that background and we didn’t need a very strong, you know, dictatorship idea from a producer. It was more s you know, Colin approached it more like What are your favorite bands? What are your favorite records? Can we play some of those? Can we listen to, you know, what they did and incorporate some of that influence? And you know, so he would ask us, you know, what do you think about drums? Should they be very dry or should they have reverb on them? And I would play him this birthday party records or killin’ joke records, you know, that had this very aggressive gated reverb sort of thing on it. And he’d go, Okay, I got it. You know, now let’s see. But I don’t want to do that exact same thing. Let’s see if we can how can we make that work with what your sound is and create something new with it. So he was brilliant. Yeah. The the only the only thing is that at that time Colin had moved much more into being a metal producer. Which you know, and metal is like like I don’t do metal because

Matt: That’s very different.

Alex: In metal everything’s about making everything perfect, right? Because you don’t you don’t really have a song to rely on necessarily. It’s more about the technical side of things and and this, you know, precise playing. Which is of zero interest to me. You know, I have no interest in that whatsoever. It to me it’s more about the vibe and and you know, we were a sloppy punk rock band. So there was a little bit of of

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Alex: of batting heads on that of you know, against how tight Colin wanted everything to be and how loose we wanted everything to be. But I think we you know, we had a really good middle ground in the end.

Matt: So the what are the takeaways from Colin? Because that style of production, that very engaging, what are you let’s play some of these songs and these drum sounds like some some producers would not go that direction. They would you know they would just say, Okay, here’s what we’re doing.

Alex: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean there’s so many producers you would just come in and they would say, This is the way we’re gonna do it and I don’t wanna hear your opinions and you know, and I I I often have meetings with potential clients, they’ll come to the studio and we’ll chat and I’ll ask them, you know, what’s your experience in with past records and I’ll hear stuff like that. I’ll hear that they, you know, had an album made by somebody that didn’t listen to what a a word that they said and they just stamped their own sound on it which wasn’t even good. It’s one thing stamping your sound if it’s amazing, but if it’s not even good or if it doesn’t align with the artist’s vision, then what’s the point? I mean there you know, there there are some cases there’s maybe certain clients I have that come in that say, look, we’re just open to being molded. Like we we’ve written the songs, now you do your thing with them. That’s what we want. And that’s great too, but you know but only if somebody’s expressly gives you that permission.

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: Yeah, so Colin was really, really good at that at trying to take our influences into into account and where where we were coming from. But you know, Colin he did also do a lot of things. I mean, he showed me so many things that I still use to this very day. So many little tricks and, you know, concepts. There’s also a lot of things that Colin did that I absolutely hated and that I to this day, you know, think, God, I’m never gonna do that. It’s just so ridiculous.

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: Colin he really had this whole concept of everything has to be isolated. To I mean to a ridiculous degree. you know, we all understand the the point of isolation to some level, but Colin took it to a very ridiculous degree. And then I know that that made mixing very difficult for him. Because you you have everything so incredibly isolated that it It’s very difficult to make it sound like a band.

Matt: Yeah. Absolutely. Where did you tell me about the post that record? Like after you’re after the end of that record, after the end of the touring for for that situation, like while you’re on tour, I assume you’re like, I gotta get to my next thing, which is what I want to do, which is production. where did you take this newfound love of the studio and production after this band?

Alex: Well, I was I was very, very lucky because you know, a a lot of people they have to go and work at an a a studio and clean toilets and be an apprentice and try to work their way up. The thing is, I would have done that if it was available, you know. I mean and if I’d been living in London, yes, I could have done that. But where I was living, I mean, there was only one recording studio there and they were already They were already filled up. It was it just wasn’t really an option. And so, you know, at that same time I come to the US and was spending a lot of time here. And that band that I was in was fairly well known at the time. And so, you know, it it was by touring with other people and and being around other bands. They would say, you you know a lot about all the studio stuff, right? Can could you help us with our album? And so I was very lucky that I fell into that thing. And and I actually it we it was a little bit interesting because I started doing that and I quickly realized I don’t know enough yet to do this and to and to charge people money and be a part of it. So I would have to have a conversation with people like. I’ll produce your album, I’ll work on your album, but either you don’t pay me because I can’t guarantee it’s going to be any good, or maybe you should find somebody else that is more experienced. And so with that in mind, I realized okay, I need to step back a little bit and I need to really learn more before getting too deep into this situation. So

Matt: You never had experience the T boy or the tape op position. It’s

Alex: No, it just I would have loved to. I would have absolutely done it. It just wasn’t available, I mean, largely because of my location and then spending so much time, you know, doing the band i and touring I wasn’t really available to be able to be in one place for long enough. So I finally I finally settled over here in first in Arizona. and just basically started working at local studios there. And then and then I got divorced and I moved to L actually I I tried to move to San Francisco but ended up in LA. yeah, well that’s the thing about LA. It’s like I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to get away from it or trying not to go there and to go to other places that I actually like better.

Matt: Just fell a little short.

Alex: But the thing is I’ve come to realise that LA is actually a wonderful place and especially if you’re doing music and you know, I have so many friends in LA and it’s it’s always treated me really, really, really well. So I sort of feel a bit bad, you know, I always talk shit about LA and you know, eventually so many people have a love hate relationship with it. I’m not alone in that. But I do feel like that it’s really helped me so much.

Matt: You know, coming from small towns in the UK and then coming to places like Los Angeles, I’m I’m curious about your initial impressions of America and and these big cities, because not only is it I mean, you could have moved to the big city of London, but here you are in a big city in America. So what were those early days like in terms of cultural shift or you know, trying to get acclimated to a new spot? Like that.

Alex: Right. I mean, yeah, it’s there was the the cultural shift of the coming immediately out to the west coast of seeing, you know, the car culture. So when I was living in England, it was always living in a city with a city centre and you could and you would live in the suburbs. So you could either walk into the city centre or get a bus or a train. It was dead easy and everything was all in one place. And so of course when I came out to LA and I said, Where’s the city centre? And people would say, Well, there ain’t one. There’s it’s like forty different cities all sort of jammed together over a fifty square mile radius. and you need a car. You’re not going anywhere without a car. So it was very difficult and for a long time I sort of struggled with that. Why isn’t there a central area? It doesn’t make sense to me, you know. Until of course I finally realized you can fight LA all you want, but I don’t think it’s gonna change just for you. So you be better get used to it. But I I immediately in LA found people incredibly friendly and open and frankly totally different from the UK. You know, the the UK Certainly at that time, early nineties, it’s just not a very welcoming place it’s not a very open place. You know, it’s difficult. People are not particularly friendly, especially to strangers. There’s a cultural barrier there, you know. And coming to LA, people were immediately open and and interested, and especially interested in people coming from other cultures. So I was like, wow, you’re you’re actually interested that I’m from somewhere else. That’s fantastic. And so I immediately, you know, I would just basically go to gigs in LA, go to gigs in Hollywood and and go and see a lot of bands. And if I saw a band I liked, I would go and talk to them and, you know, say, Well, you know, what are your plans? I I know a bit about recording, I know a few studios around here, I could help out.

Matt: Hmm.

Alex: And you know, so I got a lot of experience that way.

Matt: Were you intimidated at all by the culture at that time?

Alex: No. No, not intimidated, no. I I found it exciting, I think, you know, being in a being in a new country, being in a new town. Like I said, made so much easier because people were so open and friendly. I mean if I’d moved to New York City immediately, that might have been a bit more difficult. You know, I think that there’s specifically being in California is you know, people are very friendly and open. And you know, you could argue it’s probably ’cause they wanted something from you. And maybe that’s the case. But it’s certainly it’s certainly made my life a bit easier. You know, I mean I don’t know. I mean LA it is filled with music industry sleaze bags. Absolutely. And I’ve met you know more than my fair share of But I’ve also met hundreds and hundreds of people who are genuine music lovers, creative, normal, good people. And so I found that very inspiring. So so no, I didn’t find it intimidating. It’s just more inspiring really. And it you know, and I and I sort of felt like I kept sort of feeling like, well maybe I should go back to England ’cause I do still have my family there. And but at the same time it I felt like things are going pretty well here. It it really wouldn’t make sense to do that at the moment. And And now it’s thirty two years later.

Matt: And and we could dedicate a whole podcast to this, but I just looking at the two different cultures, you know, it makes me wonder with England in particular, like, you know, the difference there is is that, well, you know, in World War Two, Los Angeles wasn’t bombed, right? And and the UK was. And I wonder if the effects of World War Two had long lasting impact on the culture of England and that more buttoned up, you know, little more cautious approach to things versus, you know, I’m isolating Los Angeles, but America in general do doesn’t have that same history. So I don’t know. It’s definitely getting me to think about, you know, the history and the cultures of of the UK and and America.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think I think you’re right, you know, World War Two does have a a lot to do with it and but it’s also it’s also just a part of British culture. It’s probably been like that for thousands of years, you know. I mean I just you know, when I was growing up there, that’s I just thought that’s how the whole world was. You’re cold to each other and there’s a lot of fighting, you know. I just thought that’s wow, the world sucks. It’s fucking awful, you know. And then I started with the band we started travelling, we would go to France and Holland and Spain and be like, Wait, people are open and friendly and not gonna claim they’re perfect societies, but they were definitely much more open and less violent and, you know, much more inviting than the UK.

Matt: And, you know, I’ve I’ve said it before on this show to others, you can’t beat Los Angeles weather. I mean to especially you come from the UK and you get that sunshine and go to the beach and

Alex: It’s well, it’ll it’ll make you laugh, but that’s the only thing I didn’t like about it. I Well, I don’t you know, I I prefer the cooler climates, right? So that’s when I first went to San Francisco I was like, This is it. This is this is my jam. So I I prefer San Francisco. I mean i winter in LA is wonderful. It’s great, you know, everyone else

Matt: Little too s a little too sunny. Yeah.

Alex: is complaining, it’s fucking raining, it sucks, it’s cold, you know, I’m like, this is perfect. It’s seventy degrees. It’s great. You know. I’m like the one light whiny Brit that’s that’s like winter in LA is awesome. but the you know, yeah, the rest of the year it’s a bit it’s a bit warm for me.

Matt: Can you talk a little bit about your your trajectory in America and and the progression of growth with the records that you made and and how you made these leaps to, you know, in g you know growing your career?

Alex: Yeah. Well, so I started off in in LA as you know, and then at some point I was like, I need to go to San Francisco. That was always the plan and so let’s just do it, you know. And so I moved up to San Francisco and and didn’t really know anybody there at all. But it worked out great and you know, I’ve been very lucky in this country I always seem to like fall in with a good crowd of people. So I I feel very, very fortunate. And I sort of fell in with the the studio Tiny Telephone and John Vanderslice. So John and I connected on a really deep level and I loved his work and and John knew that I was really into analogue tape and the the whole old school vibe and and that was his jam as well at that time. This was around two thousand, two thousand and one. And so he was like, You know how to work a tape machine, you know how to do all this stuff? You should work here. So, you know, at at the time I I sort of felt like, you know, okay, I’m I’m a producer, right? And that means I’m sort of putting my taste and my ideas onto this project. And John, what you’re asking of me is that I just become a house engineer and I basically would just press record and not have any of my ideas, like the opposite of the producer, right? But I thought about it and I thought it could be really, really good because because I didn’t start off working in a studio, for example, I had no idea how to mic a trumpet or what mic to use or where you where would you I knew about rock guitars and drums, yeah, but not I didn’t know how to mic strings or trumpet or And so working at Tiny Telephone, you know, you’d have all these different bands that would come in, every from indie rock to these funk bands to mariachi bands that were local bands that would come in. And so I’d be like, Okay, now’s your time to learn how to micro trumpet. And I’m gonna and I remember like micing it and the guy saying, That’s not how you micro trumpet, man. Put it over here and you should use a ribbon mic. You should try that and I like, right, okay. Yeah, let me try that.

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: And you know, so slowly I learned a lot of the engineering side. And it also because I worked at the studio, it gave me a lot more time to experiment. You know, when I’m producing bands, I’m in an expensive Hollywood studio, it’s fifteen hundred a day, and there really isn’t much time to experiment with anything. But working at Tiny Telephone, I kinda felt like, you know, people would do a few takes and then leave early and I’d like, Great, I’m gonna try messing around with this mix and see what you know, let’s see what this compressor does or let’s see what this does. So it was really great experience for me. And I felt like after a few years of that, I was then able to go back into producing on a much deeper level and and more more connected on a technical side certainly. and then after that I d I did eventually move back to LA and That’s around the time, probably 2004, when I and I’m sure everybody else started to notice: whoa, these budgets are just suddenly going way down. Like way down. And so I found myself, you know, okay, if if we’ve only got 15 or 20k to make an album now.

Matt: Okay.

Alex: And all these studios in Hollywood are fifteen hundred a day and a reel of tape is three hundred dollars and we’re gonna need ten reels of tape or twenty reels of tape. And so I found, you know, we were really rushing through records like it sounds pretty good, not perfect, but you know, we’re running out of time, we just gotta go, we gotta and you know, some of the most well known records that I made were done that way, like the At the Drive-In record, which was done very, very, very quickly. And I sort of regret that, you know, because I sort of felt like there wasn’t really time to mix, you know, it was sort of like you put the faders up and be like, Well that’s that’s what we got. That’s all we have time for. There isn’t any more money or time. And I I you know, I do regret that a little bit. And so I started to think, I probably really need to get a room. You know, and at that time Pro Tools was coming in.

Matt: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Alex: it sort of felt like, well, maybe this is an affordable way to have a smaller room at least to take up some of that that budget, you know. So I would maybe I would go to Grandmaster or I would go to Sound Factory or I’ll go to Paramount, cut the drums in a nice big room, and then all the guitars and vocals, like, well we’re only using one mic, right? So let’s just go to my place and we can do all that stuff there. And so there became, you know, a a j shift for everybody, the whole paradigm, right, of of more the the home studio sort of thing. I it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do. I didn’t it wasn’t my You know, because then you’re you’re also running the business side of it. There’s equipment that breaks all the time that has to be fixed and you know, and you have to deal with with clients in a different way than when you’re simply a producer. You’ve got to watch out if somebody eats a burrito and leaves it open, you know, in in California we have the the ant problem. Y you know, so

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: It’s all that sort of stuff that I didn’t really want to be dealing with, but is ultimately is the only way to do it. So then I had a studio in LA, I moved to New York City and had a another studio out there. And and that that was really good, but yeah, it was ultimately as as budgets continue to come down, it just felt like why am I in the most expensive city in the world trying to run a a recording studio in dis you know severely damaged business.

Matt: What what were your observations between differences between Los Angeles and New York? And and because you’d you’d had experience in both cities and obviously, you know, the budget is is continually going down, but other than that, like what are the noticeable differences to you at that point?

Alex: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean New Yorkers in general, or maybe it’s East Coast, is it’s a bit more of a direct thing and it’s you know, it’s quite a cliche. I’m not sure if it’s quite the same anymore. Yeah, I’m I’m sure it certainly used to be very much that way, you know, whereas California people were very relaxed and and open and easygoing but but very fake, right? That’s the cliche. And in New York it’s very aggressive and in in your face and very in intense, but honest, brutally honest, you know, you what you see is what you get. And I felt like I wanted to experience that. You know, it’s maybe a bit closer to British culture.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex: and it is. But I you know, but I also experienced that New York is also totally filled with fake music industry people and and passive aggressive weirdo fake people who are just nice to you because they they want something from you, you know. New York in particular, I know there’s a lot of it in LA, but New York in particular there’s a hell of a lot of

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: rich kids who have fantastic studios that they have no idea what they’re doing with the with those studios. They they bought their way into the studio industry. So I experienced a lot of that. But you know, generally I I don’t think it was drastically different, you know, I that I met a lot of really, really great people in New York as well. I think it’s because it’s harder to live in New York and everything is more intense, there is a little bit of that element that comes across in people’s attitude and and in the music too. You know, but there is there is also a great feel of, you know, whatever it is like we can do this, you know. Like you you always see in New York, you know, someone’s delivering a couch, right? And they’re like there’s a fifth floor walk up with no no elevator, right? In LA they’d just be like, Fuck it, forget it. I’m going home, not gonna do this, you know. Or I’m I’m I need to go home and smoke a smoke a joint and think about it, you know. In New York they’re like, Fuck it, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna do this right now, got some rope, we’re gonna do this, you know. So there’s that kind of attitude that

Matt: Right.

Alex: The I respected that, you know.

Matt: From a survival perspective between those two cities and those and that time period in general, the your time spent in LA, your time spent in New York, your survival and and with the budgets going down, at any point did you think, okay, well, I better go get like a day day job here, or I better augment my income because it’s just getting really thin.

Alex: Yes, I’m sure everybody everybody in the music industry has. you know, and when you’re a when you’re a freelance producer, for everybody it’s it’s very up and down, you know. Sometimes I go months without seeing my wife or talking to anybody else ’cause I’m so busy. Back to back sessions. And then all of a sudden it stops. And I have six weeks with nothing to do. And you know, that’s you you you start to get a little bit nervous about it. What’s what’s going on? You know, I have no income, I have nothing coming in. For me, it’s always been something always comes up and then suddenly I’m slammed again for six months and it’s it’s always up and down. But when you have those down periods, yeah, that’s definitely concerning. And as you see budgets generally coming down and down, you start to think, well, is this really viable? long term. But the thing with me is there there’s two things with me. A, I’m too old to do anything else. I don’t have any exper you know, can you imagine my my C V is gonna say, you know, miserable Brit with 30 years of experience in music can barely use a computer. It it’s like I it’s I’d be you know, I’d be minimum wage at Home Depot. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s where I would be at my age that would be a bit difficult. And yeah, but the other part of it is there isn’t anything else I want to do or really am capable of doing. So so you have to make it work. And, you know, whether that means you just gotta get out there and put yourself out there a bit more and and hustle a bit more or or at least use your time creatively, you know. So anytime I’ve had a down period like that, I usually put myself more into the creative side, get to work with musical projects with other people and and try to stay busy with it.

Matt: Do you think that your time at Tiny Telephone, did that help solidify your confidence about your engineering to complement your production skills?

Alex: Absolutely it did, yes. yeah. Because before that I was I was a producer in the in what is sometimes a little bit of a pejorative term, you know, it’s like the guy that sits at the back of the room and says, it sounds great, turn the snare up. My you know, I was a lot more involved than that, but I didn’t really understand a lot of the engineering. I like I I was like I you know, I was I was engineering. But there was I was bluffing my way through a lot of it. And that, you know, it doesn’t instill you with the confidence you need when you know you’re bluffing through some of it. A lot of the stuff I would do would be h happy accidents or you know, I would like, Wow, that sounds really good, but I actually have no idea how I did it, you know. Or I just kinda chanced upon something. To be fair, that does still happen even now and that that’s great. But yeah, working at Tiny Telephone really allowed me that that freedom to b to big to get deeper into the engineering side of it. And now and you know, and you develop a lot of methods that work really well for you, right? Not that I always rely on them, but they are there if I need them. And so oftentimes if I’m producing, I’m also engineering and it’s just sort of autopilot. You know, I’m I’m doing the engineering stuff and it’s just second nature. I don’t think about it too much. The The only issue occurs is when something technically goes wrong, right? And then you have to switch from producer, which is much more creative, vibe driven, to being very technical and like methodically testing patch cables or whatever it is. You know, that that’s it’s two different things. So you know, on some of the when when it’s When it’s possible, when it’s doable, I hire an engineer on the sessions to take up some of that engineering. I still do a lot of it, but you know, I would I wouldn’t be comfortable, I don’t think being a hundred percent hands off because it’s not who I am. To me the the the sound and the electronics and the vibe and the emotion, they’re all linked. together. So it it’s it wouldn’t make sense for me to completely detach. In the same way that it wouldn’t make sense for me to b only engineer. I’m la and I’m way too opinionated and I have way too much experience to simply engineer and not have an a an opinion that I could offer to people.

Matt: Yeah, because I’m sure you you like many of us hear like, okay, we’ve got a great sound, but this part you’re playing, you know, or for me, like I’m I’m s I get super nitpicky with drummers and I’m like, let’s switch the ride symbol. The snare drums tune too high, it’s clashing with that. We and it’s just that that sonic puzzle making that we do.

Alex: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Matt: But it’s interesting because had the like the budget started to go down. So like that forced a lot of people’s hand, a lot of producers’ hands into having to engineer because if you didn’t, you’d eat up your budget hiring the engineer. So you kind of have to take on both tasks. I wonder if your trajectory would have been different if budgets had stayed solid and you could have just said, I’m gonna produce.

Alex: Absolutely, yeah.

Matt: I’m gonna hire an engineer and stay and stay on this side of it, or if you naturally would have gone and and absorbed that knowledge anyway, because

Alex: No, I think I think I definitely would ’cause like I said before, it’s to me it’s all it’s all linked. It’s part of this the same thing. This the sonics and the vibe and the emotion. It’s all linked. And I and I find it hard to detach that. There I do do it sometimes, you know. Sometimes I really step back and let somebody else do it and and kind of oversee it a little bit. But I have to really force myself to stay away from the desk and to, you know, shut up about all the technical stuff. It it really depends on the project I think, you know.

Matt: Mm. You know, you mentioned a divorce earlier, and if I may ask, was that partly precipitated by you being gone a lot?

Alex: no, nothing to do with that. I we we were just we were just way too young and a bad fit, you know.

Matt: okay, okay. Yeah, okay. So but I’m sure you would stress the importance of finding the right partner in in your romantic life b because of the nature of being away and, you know, doing the job.

Alex: Absolutely. It’s it’s always been a problem in every relationship I’ve ever had. And you know, until I met my now wife, who’s incredible and, you know, was the first person that, you know, just said, I understand you do what you do, I really respect it. Of course I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone, but there’s no way I’m gonna tell you not to go or you know I’ll be here. And you know, I’ve I’ve ha I’ve had f I have a lot of friends that are touring musicians, you know, and I know a lot of times we’ll have the discussion where their partner is very angry at them about the amount of time that they’re gone. you know, it’s it is very difficult. But it at the end of the day it comes down to that it’s that simple thing. If you love someone, set them free. You know, you’d like that’s what I would my friends that are going through that, I would say I would say to them like whatever no matter how angry you are, and I know you’re upset and you feel lonely because they’re away so often, but don’t hold it against them and don’t because all you do is make it worse. If you show them love and you show them respect and and let them do their thing, you’re probably gonna find that they will actually want to be away less. And I’ve seen that happen many, many times with couples of mine that are friends, where it’s like if you just let that go a little bit, you suddenly find that wow, that person doesn’t seem to be going away quite as often. They want to spend more time with me. Right, because you gave them that freedom where you know it’s a classic thing when you’re telling someone, I don’t want you going on tour anymore. This sucks. No one wants to be around that. And so

Matt: No.

Alex: subconsciously that that person might end up taking more tours than before. yeah, it has been very difficult. I mean, yeah, but my current wife is is just incredible and it’s never been an never been an issue. And because it’s never been an issue, that’s exactly how it worked with me. Where I was like, she’s so great that I don’t want to s spend time away from her so much. I don’t wanna keep going out to New York or going to Canada or go into this what if I had my own place here where I was very close to home and then I’m not gonna be gone for weeks or months at a time. We’re still gonna be closer together. So that was the you know, that was the idea with this place where I have this setup now. I you know, I have a I have a lot of clients from the UK and from Australia and basically I I I set it up so that You can get off the plane, I’ll pick you up at Palm Springs Airport. You can walk in here and it’s everything you need. All the guitars, pedals, drums, everything’s set up. Drum you don’t even need to bring drumsticks, cymbals, anything. So that takes away a little bit of that need where, like, okay, I don’t need to go to Toronto for six weeks anymore. They could come here. And actually really enjoy it because ‘Cause it’ll be warm.

Matt: Yeah. Do you do you miss that travel and exploration of a new studio though?

Alex: No, I don’t. I you know, like a few years ago I would have said yes, absolutely I used to love that travel and going to new places and and you know but you reach a certain age where that is maybe not quite as appealing anymore, you know. I mean if I was lucky I got to stay in some nice hotels, right? Like I when I do the City and Colour records, we would go out to Nashville and we’d be staying in the W Nashville.

Matt: Ha ha. Mm.

Alex: Very nice. Yeah, that’s great. You’re still away from home, but yeah, it’s nice. But not everybody has that sort of budget and oftentimes it might be sleeping in some bo sleeping on someone’s couch. Yeah, I’m pe people always did their best for me and I really appreciate that. But at the same time, you know, you get into your forties and now in my fifties it’s like I can’t be sleeping on people’s couches. I just can’t. But

Matt: We’re too old for that.

Alex: I really really love this band and I think we can make an amazing record. So how can I make this work? Well, so the only way I can make it work is have them come here. And and you know, but but once you have a place and you have it set up and you have all your favorite stuff, you know, that is appealing to me. Like they it’s kinda like this workshop that’s right there, this magic workshop that’s right there. You know, yeah, I the I do miss going to certain rooms sometimes, but but not enough to worry too much about it. I’m too busy doing stuff here to worry about it.

Matt: Yeah. Have you and the wife ever considered packing up and moving back to the UK?

Alex: after the election last year? Yes.

Matt: Ha ha ha.

Alex: yeah.

Matt: Does is it I mean, is that like legit? D I mean, is it would you consider like moving to back you know, bat maybe maybe to Cornwall, right? Or you know, maybe maybe to another town that where you could

Alex: It’s it’s not I mean, it’s not expressly because of that. I mean it’s like I love this country so much. I am a US citizen, so I am an American as well as being still British. I’m a dual citizen. And I love this country, it’s been so great to me. But I wasn’t born here and it’s not necessarily my culture, although I have adopted it and love it. So I my point is I guess

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Alex: No matter what, there’s always going to be a thing of I’m from somewhere else and maybe I should go back there. No and it’s not to do with n not being happy here. It’s just a sort of thing of, you know, like, well that’s maybe my maybe my home is back over there. but I mean, you know, I still have family over there and my mom is elderly and I miss her very much. And so there, you know, there has been this thought of

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: Maybe that’s something I should think about and then and then I I’m you know definitely with the election last year that pushed me a little bit further in that direction. You know, but there’s two things. Well I mean, one, I’m very well set up over here and it’s not quite as easy as just packing a few things in a suitcase and getting on a plane.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Alex: I mean I have a mortgage and a huge amount of debt. My wife has a job and I have my clients here and it it would be it would be a lengthy and difficult process. The second thing is that

Matt: Yeah. Do you

Alex: The political situation in the UK is just as bad and is getting really terrible and is going the same way. So I feel like what would be the point of that? I’m just gonna go into the same thing, except with worse weather. and lastly, the thing is I’ve spent a lot of my life running from things. And I sort of feel like

Matt: Yeah. What do they say out of the frying pan into the fryer?

Alex: with this political climate. I just don’t know that the although it’s definitely very appealing to just get away from it and and run away from it because I can, but I don’t know if running away from it is the answer.

Matt: Yeah, stick it out. St stay here. Let’s talk about well actually before I ask you that, y do you have kids?

Alex: We do not have kids. We we partly because of my lifestyle

Matt: Yep.

Alex: We really waited way too long and found out too late that really we left it too late. And we we really tried and we did we did IVF, I don’t know if y you know what that is and all that stuff, but

Matt: Mm-hmm. yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’m I’m aware of it. But

Alex: Right. We basically le we basically left it too late and we are too old to be to be doing it successfully. So we we had to we had to stop. It’s very it’s very unfortunate, you know, ’cause I didn I’d never it never in my life I hadn’t met anybody that I wanted to have kids with. There’d just be no way. It wasn’t until I met my current wife that

Matt: Right.

Alex: maybe with her that would be different. But it was already really too late by that time.

Matt: Okay. Well let’s let’s I don’t I don’t mean to cut you off about that, but I but I do want to talk about n this space now. can you talk a little bit about the thought process of moving to Joshua Tree and purposely setting up a residential studio, really?

Alex: Yeah, it’s one. Right. Well, so, you know, a big part of it was as we as we discussed that that thing of me constantly being gone. I mean, there was in the last twenty years there’s there’s been times on on your when you do your tax return there’s a deduction that you can use, the the amount of days that you’re out of town. And even if someone else is paying for that trip, you can still claim that as a deduction. It’s just set I don’t know how much it is, maybe it’s a hundred dollars or whatever. ‘Cause it’s just an automatic thing. And so when I would do my taxes every year, my accountant would say, How many days are you out of town? And I’ll calculate it and I’d be like, my God, I was out of town seven months last year. And it’s just, you know, a ridiculous amount of time. So I kind of felt like I wanna spend more time at home, I wanna spend more time with my wife and my cats and you know, and be a a little bit traveling a little bit less. So that was the idea with having a a studio of my own that was really equipped well enough for anyone to be able to come out here and work. And secondly, it was also a little bit of a throwback to my days in the the early 90s of the residential studios, like Sawmills, because for me that was such a life-changing experience. You know, to the young kid in a punk rock band who I would, you know, never been to any place like this, and you go out to this beautiful scenery. I remember the you’d be in the control room, there’s a Trident desk, and you’d be looking

Matt: Loston. Mm. Lost ya. You wanna jump back in? I’ll be here hanging out, waiting for you to come back in. Mm-hmm.

Alex: Matt, I’m really sorry. my internet went out again, so I had to hotspot on my phone. Hopefully hopefully this will stay good. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that.

Matt: All right. no worries. No, yeah. It It froze on on me and I was like, shit, is that me or is that him? And then when you disappeared, I was like, okay, okay. So we’re good. a hundred percent. Yeah, we’re still recording. So I will completely you won’t even be able to tell. So we we the question was to talk about, you know, the creation of this space and the decision to move to Joshua Tree and create a residential studio and you still

Alex: Will you be able to to join it back together? Okay. Okay, great. But so I was you know, I was I was talking about the that studio Sawmills in the UK, which is just this fantastic, beautiful residential studio. And as you were recording in Sawmills there was windows everywhere, which you know, I’d always worked at studios in London or Birmingham or Nottingham. They’re always in a like dingy basement, you know. And so being at Sawmills

Matt: You start to go into it. Right.

Alex: The control room has a window that looks out onto a lake as far as the eye can see, forest and lake. I mean, it’s just incredible. You’d be rocking out, playing your parts, and be in this amazing, peaceful environment. And you know, when I was in New York, there was there was the opposite thing. It’s the whole point of this my studio in New York was you come to the studio, then you go out and drinking until 5 a.m. You know, that’s the New York. lifestyle and it’s very cosmopolitan, metropolitan. But so come you know, at a certain age I realized I want to do something different and and I always remembered what a incredible experience that was at Sawmills. And so I thought what if I could offer people something like this where you could come out to the studio, you can stay here, stay here for a week or two weeks or whatever. It’s peace and quiet, there’s beautiful desert scenery, natural light. And and so that was the the concept really was you know, most residential studios these days are gonna be impossible, right? But I was like, what if there’s a way that I can make it work and I I can make it affordable for people? So instead of staying in some fancy hotel, you’re staying in a in a trailer. But it’s a really nice trail, it’s a vintage trailer and it’s been refurbished and it’s got a lot of character. And it’s got a it’s got Netflix and air conditioning and it’s very, very nice. So it’s mu it’s sort of like a more glumping experience. You know, I don’t I don’t offer catering, it’s definitely a little bit lower budget type vibe, but that’s the whole point. You know, the the whole point is that I need to make it affordable to clients in today’s music industry.

Matt: Yeah. And talk to me about the studio itself. Like what you you mentioned bands showing up without even needing to bring guitars or drums or even sticks for that matter. So talk about the planning of what you put into the space.

Alex: Well, yeah, I mean I put a lot of work into the the space itself in terms of because we built the building from scratch. So it was actually great that I could design I want very high ceilings, which which the contractor said, no problem, that’s dead easy and then it ended up that it cost me another thirty five thousand dollars. And I was like, I should have just stuck with the low ceilings, no one would have cared. But I mean to me If you’re gonna do it, you’ve gotta just you gotta do it right, you know? And so, you know, I didn’t wanna have a place that was like, Well, it’s not very good, but it’s it’s affordable. I wanted to have a place that it’s great and it’s affordable. So we’ve got high ceilings, natural light, all that stuff. And then, you know, I tried to set everything up in t I like to have lots of equipment around so there’s always stuff to to play on and and

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Alex: Always stuff for people to try. I’m you know, I remember when I used to visit studios in New York or even San Francisco, and there’d be these fancy studios that were, you know, this incredible you could tell that they’d spent thirty grand just on the lighting, you know, and they got this fantastic big black leather couch and all this, you know. And I’d be looking at it and I’d be going, Well, this was designed by an engineer, not by a musician. When I worked at Tiny Telephone, John had this old, old couch that was falling apart that he got from a thrift store at Tiny Telephone. And it was falling apart, it was an old 70s couch. But anyone who sat on that couch, you’d immediately be like, I don’t want to get up. It’s just so comfortable. I just want to stay here all day. And be like, okay, stay here all day. I’ll bring the bass guitar over to you. You can play right there. Again, working with John at Tiny made me realize, you know You wanna design everything from a musician standpoint. You wanna have a funky old piano that has a lot of character. You wanna have a drum set always set up so that anyone can just immediately jump on it, even if they’re not gonna record. They wanna jump on it and try something out. You know, you don’t want to be like, yeah, okay, let me let me set up this eight piece drum set, you know, just give me an hour. You you want everything set up and ready to go, everything plugged in and everything comfortable. good coffee, you know, that’s more important than the any of the fancy lighting or the couch. And I would also say it’s more important than the equipment that’s in the rack. And oops and one thing I will say that was very interesting is that I don’t have a huge rack full of fancy stuff. I don’t have big banks of ten seventy three’s or APIs or you know, I have a lot of really great stuff, but a lot of it is very basic and does the job really, really great. Because I chose to put my money more into buying instruments and equipment and having a comfortable space that people could vibe on.

Matt: I I think that that is a a a fantastic way to do a space. And I always tell myself if I were ever to lose my mind and build another studio or b or get involved in a in a studio on that I would always set it up to where

Alex: Yeah.

Matt: there would be that that just show up. It’s already, we’re ready to go. You wanna play that keyboard? Play it. It’s on. It’s you can hear it and we can I could just engage the track and we can go.

Alex: Right, exactly. That’s so much more appealing. That’s the all the stuff I learned from John Vandersleis. You know, he would tell me you can have all the fancy compressors and ribbon mics you want. No one cares. musicians, they don’t care. If your coffee’s shit, they won’t come back. So get get good coffee, get a comfortable couch. If it’s winter time, put out blankets so people can stay warm or at least make damn sure you put the heating on. I saw Larry Crane, a good friend of mine in Tape Up, also wrote a very similar piece just a couple of months ago and I really enjoyed reading it because he was right. It was you know, it was don’t worry about equipment. Like no one cares about all that stuff. It’s it’s about

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: We’re about working with people and taking care of people and making people feel comfortable and that’s so so important. And so that’s that’s how this space was designed, you know. There’s a lot of funky stuff that I’ve got from thrift stores and little weird knickknacks and, you know,

Matt: Yeah. You know, I interviewed Philip Broussard. I don’t know if you know Philip, but he worked a lot.

Alex: I I kind of do it. Yeah, no, I I haven’t met him, but Philip actually took over one of my old studios when I was in LA.

Matt: Okay. So you you you might have an indication of his past history with Daniel Lanois and and what really inspired the hell out of me out of that interview was listening to Philip talk about those spaces that they would create at Teatro and in New Orleans at at Kingsway and talk about making it just so that musicians could show up and it was just like a

Alex: Yeah.

Matt: The the t the recording equipment was there, but it wasn’t overthought. It was just like, let’s just set it up, get it going, make it comfortable for people to play so a vibe could be had the minute they walk in.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. That’s it. You don’t wanna you know, you don’t wanna spend hours trying ten different mics on a guitar. But it’s like by the time you get there the guitarist doesn’t even care anymore. He’s just lost interest, you know. So yeah, it it’s good to have everything my rule is have everything set up and have everything working. The minute I find something not working, a cable, a mic, it just gets tossed. I don’t wanna deal with it, you know. Everything needs to be working all the time.

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: Yep. There was it it was originally an old garage here. Not quite big enough for a studio, but I thought, well maybe if we could just extend it a little bit, maybe it needs a new roof. You know, that was the plan. But when we got into it, you know, once they started knocking down some of the walls, they were like, This wood is fucked, it’s it’s rotten, it’s this is from the nineteen fifties. So

Matt: So you built a building from scratch, huh?

Alex: It’s probably thirty percent of the original building, you know, like the main frames and the corners were were still are still original. But then we had to add new concrete and extend it out ’cause the the live room wouldn’t have been big enough. So it’s is essentially it’s called a reefer, but it’s essentially built from scratch.

Matt: What are the pros and the cons of living in the desert?

Alex: well that’s a really good question. The pros are it’s very peaceful and quiet and there is definitely something special about the desert and people always comment about it when they come here. You know, they always say I never knew it, but there’s there’s something a little bit magical about it and and I would agree I can’t quite put my finger on it. But the yeah, there is something quite special about it. The the cons of living in the desert are it’s boiling hot in the summer and it’s freezing cold in the winter. It does snow out here and it gets very yeah, it gets very cold. And so it’s like harsh weather conditions, that’s for sure. There this like six months out of the year are great. You know, right now is is great, fantastic.

Matt: wow.

Alex: But pretty soon it’s gonna be boiling roasting hot. So there is there is that.

Matt: Yeah. I grew up in the desert southwest, so I you know, I have an experience with it, but it you know, Joshua Tree and Palm Springs and that whole part of California, man, there there’s a there’s a different kind of beauty there. It’s lovely.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there is. And there’s a you know, there’s a lot of nature and wildlife around and you know all that stuff I think is really inspiring to make an album. Twenty years ago, if you’d asked me, I would have said it’s really inspiring being in Brooklyn and seeing all this crazy stuff going on all the time and and that you know, that worked for me at that time and that worked for energy of those particular records. But now I feel like much more at home with this this is a much better environment for somebody at my state my stage my state of mind to to be in.

Matt: Do you do you think that if you’re trying to make a heavy record, that it’s counterintuitive to be out there because it’s you’re so relaxed, or or do you think that that that has no bearing on it?

Alex: Well, I think it’s you know, that i if if you already have that music written in mind, then that’s that’s in your personality and that’s not gonna suddenly change by you know, you’re not gonna suddenly come to the the desert and w and you know, wanna suddenly start playing lap steel on everything. You know, I think it’s I don’t think it n it necessarily changes your your viewpoint too much, you know. I mean it’s I don’t know, something that’s very urban inspired, like a hip hop record. I don’t I don’t know. But I mean like I said, I think if you’re doing that, it’s already within you anyway. So it’s not gonna it’s not gonna necessarily change that. if anything, there’s less distractions because there’s less to do around here, so you tend to get things done more quickly. Th that is also one of the cons though, is also

Matt: Yeah.

Alex: We’re in the middle of nowhere. So if you break a guitar string, you’re not gonna head to guitar center. It’s you’ve got to go to Palm Springs and it’s an hour away. So I have to make sure I’ve always got drum heads, I’ve always got guitar strings, I’ve always got extra of anything that I need, because we are fairly far away. Having said that, a lot of times in LA, it could easily take you an hour to get across town. to get to guitar centre and an hour back. So it probably isn’t really any different.

Matt: yeah. So as as one as a record maker, as as an audio professional, what is your philosophy based on your experience up to this point about money, about survival? Is there an approach or a or a way you look at it to make it work for you?

Alex: that’s a really great question. I mean it’s you know, it’s the one thing no one wants to talk about in music, right? It’s the I mean, for me, my my approach, I I never envisioned being able to make a living, you know. Like me, the kid in the nineties, I would never have imagined like, in thirty five years you’re still gonna be doing this and you know, have a career doing it. I would never have imagined. So my thing was always

Matt: Right.

Alex: I just had a hunger to work with exciting artists and help them along the way. And that was all and I never really worried about the money. Or, you know, I always thought like if you just do stuff that’s really good, the money will follow. The money will take care of itself. And that’s always been my rule and it’s worked out fairly well. But what I will say is that I make enough money to get by, I can pay my mortgage. But I wouldn’t be able to pay it if I was living in a major metropolitan area, only in a urban in a s you know, a a more rural area. And I don’t spend a ton of money on fancy clothes as you can see or anything in particular. You know, I but to me it’s it’s very successful. I you know, I feel like I I get to run the studio, I get to work with really great bands. And I don’t have day job and I don’t have a boss. And that’s like my worst fear. I think my my two worst fears in life are like going to prison and having a boss with a day job, you know? And and because I’ve had to do so much of that back in the day, I really don’t want to go back ever. So to me, you know, every every day I I wake up and go, Well, I’m not a millionaire. And I don’t even have much spare money at all this month, but I have just enough to cover the studio. And I don’t have to get a day job. That’s great. I feel good. So that’s that’s my attitude on on money. It’s it’s it’s tough, but you know, you know.

Matt: Yeah. And Yeah, and y but you’re living in I guess one has to make a choice, right? You can you can live in terms of you could live in a metropolitan area, you’d have a smaller space, and you’d probably be paying twice as much. but here you’re out in the desert, it’s beautiful, you probably have more space than you would in any city. And it’s a it’s a lot more relaxing on on the soul.

Alex: Absolutely. It is, it really is. But I mean also like on a musical level, you know, I’m I’m well aware that I’ve I’ve turned down a lot of projects over the years that I didn’t feel were a good fit for or that I wasn’t a good fit for or was a genre that I don’t like or I’m not comfortable with or just the artist just didn’t resonate with me. And you know, I’ve had managers and girlfriends and friends that have said, What are you doing? You you’re turning down some of these people a actually have really good budgets. And I would just feel like, Yeah, I know, I I’m not stupid, but I just can’t do it. I just couldn’t I just not in a position to pretend I like to me it’s the would be the worst insult to any musician, you know, to pretend that I like their stuff in order to get paid and sit there, you know, while they’re y they’re doing their songs and I’m thinking, God, this is shit and then they turn to me, how was that? And I yeah, it’s really good. I just feel like I just couldn’t live with myself to do that. So yeah, it would be really, really tough. To me, music is my entire life. It’s everything. It’s so important to me. It always has been. So to me it’s like that’s the one thing that you don’t fuck with. You don’t, you know, you don’t

Matt: It would be too

Alex: lie and pretend and get involved with things that you don’t believe in. You just don’t do that. I might do it in other aspects of life that I care less about. I try not to, but it’s possible, but not with music. It’s too precious to me. So you know, I definitely could have made a lot more money than I have had. But I just wouldn’t be happy with myself. So I can at least look back and feel

Matt: Right. Yeah.

Alex: confident in those decisions. There’s you know, there’s some artists that my name has come up for and I’ve just said, you know, I’m not the right p I don’t I don’t get it. I’m not the right person for this or I don’t like it. And they’ve gone on to to sell a lot of records. I’m I mean a lot of records. And so you know there’s always that slight regret of like, well damn, you know, we could be doing this interview now from my mansion in the the hills if that was the case, you know. But I I would I just also would just hate myself. And the reality that I know to be true is that if that was the case and I’d done that record with a band I hated and they had been very successful, all that would bring me is more of those kind of projects that I hate. And I’d end up stuck in this path, you know, that I was not happy with. So Yeah, absolutely. In music industry you get pigeonholed so very quickly. And I dealt with it myself a lot as producer, you know. Years ago I worked with this band called The Locust who’s from San Diego. A very intense, aggressive band, l like if you took Devo and played it at like ten times the speed, you know, it’s just very chaotic.

Matt: Yeah, it’d be a vicious cycle.

Alex: And I didn’t necessarily always love what they were doing, but they were really awesome guys and they became really good friends of mine. And I liked what they were trying to say. I liked what they were trying to do. They were really trying to do something different. And I respected that. And so I agreed to work with them and it and it was great. But then what happened was immediately after that, every project that came in was the same sort of very chaotic, insane, you know, like non-melodic. stuff and I would think no no no I don’t want to keep doing this that’s not that’s not where I’m at. I just I just did that once but that’s not my whole thing. So then I turned down project after project and I actually didn’t work for like almost a year because of that because I had to like work my way back into more of the the type of stuff that I felt comfortable with. And that can that can really happen. And when I worked with City and Colour, I did two records of City and Colour And those records sold a lot of records. And then everybody that called after that was like a guy with a beard and tattoos with an acoustic guitar doing heartfelt songs. And I was like, no, I don’t I don’t want to be that guy who just gets stuck in the same thing. And I see that with producers a lot. And I and I feel sorry for them. I I I know why they did it. They, you know, they kept getting the work and they kept getting paid. But before you realize it, you are totally stuck in that. that genre, you know. And if that genre suddenly becomes uncool, which all genres do eventually, then you’re completely without word. So I was I always felt like I wanna just keep moving on.

Matt: It I I can Yeah, I c I can imagine like a director, like let’s say you do a couple great horror movies and then after that all people want to do is hire you to direct horror movies, but maybe one day you want to make a romantic comedy or or you wanna make a a you know, a documentary. can be very Right. No, no, no. You’re the you’re the horror director. Well, we’re we’re about

Alex: Right, and they probably wouldn’t yeah, they probably wouldn’t let you. Right. Right. So with me it’s been in it’s always been about balancing, you know, like money is the last of my concern. When a when an artist approaches me or reaches out to me, money is the last thing I think of. The first thing is let me hear your music. Let’s see if we connect on that. You know, like everybody, I have to pay my bills and I have a lot of debt, especially after building the studio. I have a lot of debt. And so You know, so I have to balance it out. But I always wanted to be in a position where I felt like I don’t I don’t want money to be the thing that b that gets in the way of of making a great album, you know. So I try to Right I don’t want it to be the deciding factor, yes. so, you know, I always try to make it work out one way or or another. So it’s

Matt: Yeah. Or the dis or the deciding factor.

Alex: you know, some clients have more than others, you know. Client that’s on a major label, you’re gonna expect them to pay a bit more of a budget than an unsigned band who no one’s heard of yet. So, you know, my rate is kinda set accordingly to that, a somewhat sliding scale based on what I think is fair in any situation, you know.

Matt: Well, before we go, I wanted to ask you, in your estimation, what do you think what’s the strength that you bring to the table when working with a band?

Alex: That’s another really good question. There’s several. One of them for me is As a producer with an outside objective opinion, I can bring a lot to the table. And this is going back to the days that I worked with Colin Richardson, where I felt like, you know, what good is a producer? We don’t need a producer. And he would suggest, you know, why is this part here? It’s way too long. Haven’t you realized it’s way too long? God is right. Why couldn’t we see that? So there’s like an objective opinion that that comes from not being involved in the songwriting that I think I’m really, really good at. But you’ve also got to be able to be good at working with people in order to com to win their trust to convince them to try taking out that part or changing that part or whatever it is. So those are the those are the two things that I’d I bring is the kind of people’s skills and and the objectivity. But I’m also my thing I guess is like I have zero interest in making a record that sounds like what everybody else is doing. I you know like I’ve had managers who say, you know, like, you’ve got you’ve got to listen to the radio and listen to what everyone else is doing and I’m like, I do. But not because I want to sound like it, because I whatever they’re doing, I’m going to do the complete opposite. Whatever I hear on the radio, I hear it, or on whatever’s currently popular and I go, Great, I’m not gonna do that. There’s you know, there’s a big thing at the moment for the the the kind of Phoebe Bridges sound, the the acoustic guitar sound and it and I love Phoebe Bridges. I think she’s incredible and I love that sound. But what is the point of just replicating that? Again, there’s zero point. I believe in making records that are timeless and that stand on their own. So to me it’s like it’s not like how can we sound like Phoebe Bridges? It’s like how can we sound as great as Phoebe Bridges sounds, but in a completely different way. And so that’s the challenge that I want to bring to records as you know, I want to do I want to make records that are unique and very specific to that artist. So what is special about this artist in particular and How can we bring that out and maximize that as much as humanly possible? Like I don’t I I don’t wanna sanitize it, I don’t wanna make it sound like other records, I don’t wanna smooth out any rough edges, I want that particular artist to be as their their personality to be as strong as possible on the on the record. So that’s what I always try to do. You know, years ago I when I was first learning My whole thing was how do you make something sound good? How do you make a snare drum sound good? What’s the technique? Or how do you make a guitar sound good? Which mic should you use to make it sound good? And I worked a long time on that, and then at some point I realized, boy, that’s a waste of time. There’s millions of people in the world that can make a snare drum sound good or a guitar sound good. It’s not particularly interesting. What is more interesting is How do make something sound unique? How do you make something sound weird and unexpected and interesting and specific to that particular artist? So those are the challenges that I that I bring to the table and try to challenge artists out of their comfort zone and to doing something that they hadn’t thought of before. Or maybe, and I invite them to challenge me to do something I hadn’t thought before. thought of before. You know, that’s always a great challenge when when somebody suggests something and I go, Ugh, I don’t know how to do that. I have no idea how to do that. But we’re gonna have fun finding out. We’re gonna we’re gonna try. So so yeah, that’s I you know, I know there’s people that that make generic records and that’s what they want to do. And they work hard at it. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not what I want to do. I you know. So

Matt: Mm.

Alex: I’m all about making the ex experimenting as much as possible and you know unique sounds as much as possible, interesting recording techniques, anything that’s not standard. But at the end of the day, I’m also a a song guy, right? And so I believe if any of the weird character stuff that you want to do is great, but there has to be a song to hang it on. Otherwise then it’s just weird without any real meaning to it. So the best thing to me is when you get something that here’s a great song, it doesn’t have to be in a traditional verse chorus, verse chorus bridge, whatever structure. It doesn’t have to be that, but it does have to be a great song. And then you hang something unusual or unexpected on it and it just elevates it to a really unique place. So that’s that’s what I’m always always trying to bring to the table.

Matt: I love it. I love it. Well, we’re out of time, but I wanna sincerely thank you. It’s really great to talk to you. I’m glad that we had this opportunity and great to have you on the show.

Alex: You too. This is this is, you know, this this I’ve done quite a few interviews with people where we talk about production and stuff and it’s it’s oftentimes a lot about a lot of times about the gear. You didn’t really go there and you went into much more interesting, deeper subjects, really great questions and I really appreciate that. It’s much more fun to talk talk about that sort of stuff.

Matt: Well, thank you. Thank you. I always s say this to a lot of my guests. I hope at some point to to interact with you in the real world and

Alex: Yeah, that would be that would be excellent. Well, I’m well overdue for a a Bay Area trip. Алексей.

Matt: Come on up. Yeah. Fri get John Greenham along the way and and we’ll all go out.

Alex: Yeah, that would be amazing.

Matt: our connection’s getting a little wonky here. So I’m gonna so I’m just gonna say this. I’m gonna don’t hang up yet, but I’m gonna say thanks again, Alex, and we’ll talk soon.

Alex: Okay. Thank you so much, Matt. Really appreciate your time.

Matt: And then I’m gonna stop recording here.