Matt: Lorenzo, welcome to the podcast. Here we are, Saturday morning.

Lorenzo: Yeah, all good.

Matt: Saturday afternoon for you. And could you give us the state of the state? Who are you? Where are you? And what do you consider yourself?

Lorenzo: Yeah, I’m Lorenzo Wolff. I live in Queens and work in Brooklyn. and I’m an engineer, producer, studio owner musician.

Matt: Okay. Fantastic. Where did you grow up?

Lorenzo: I’m from a town called Nyack, New York, that’s like 45 minutes north of New York City. It’s like a little river town that has a lot of kind of expats from the city, a lot of artists who kind of came up there to have kids or get more space. so it it had a pretty good music scene actually, Nyack, and it was integrated. It was like 40% black and 60% white, so there was like cross communication between Musical cultures in a nice way.

Matt: Sounds like a great place to grow up. when you were growing up, what was the role of music or technology in your household with your family?

Lorenzo: Yeah. Hmm. well, so my mother is a choreographer and my dad is a writer who writes a lot about music and the way that music intersects with history, sort of. So there was a lot of music being played, there was a lot of talking about music, there was a lot of sort of like tracing the origins of stuff. Like if I came home with a new artist that I liked, it was almost always a conversation with my dad where he was like, Well That’s cool, but have you heard these three artists that they were listening to who informed them? I in an in in a less pedantic way than I’m describing it. But yeah, it was nice. I could li I had a really close relationship musically with my dad. We got he shared he bought me thirty six chambers like the year it came out. So I think I was seven listening to Old Dirty Bastard.

Matt: Wow, I I love that he would get you into these conversations to really examine the history and the and the lineage of all of this stuff.

Lorenzo: Yeah, and because he comes from a perspective that’s pretty that’s a lot about class and s the social problems that inform music, it would always be like, Well, you can’t listen to Al Green without knowing about the Black Panther Party. So it was like sort of the way that things communicate with one another.

Matt: That’s super cool. And your mom was a choreographer.

Lorenzo: Yeah, so yeah, she she was making dances all the time. There was all these weird dancers coming in and out of our houses. She had a a Czech dance troupe for a little while. So I there’s photos of me as a young man being thrown around by this guy named Peter, who was a Czech dancer. And the music that she danced to was it was all different, but there was a lot of like she made s a lot of Springsteen dance to Springsteen and girl group stuff and Lee Dorsey and stuff like that. So they both of my parents really loved. American music and the and collaborated with it in their art forms, even though neither one was a musician is a musician.

Matt: It’s interesting. Did you get interested in music first and from a as a player?

Lorenzo: got interested in music. Well, I I grew up listening to hip hop, so I got interested I like bought a couple of turntables or I had my my grandmother bought me turntables for Christmas and I never figured I liked hanging out at the DJ store, but I never figured out really how to manipulate them. And then I was listening to the Fugees and the Wyclef solo stuff a lot and realized that the live instruments was was often the bass. So Jerry Wonda is like the reason that I got into music. Because his bass lines on all especially the Y Clef solo stuff and the Fugees was always like the live instrument that was happening that was most exciting to me at the time.

Matt: Wow. W when did you start to raise questions about how records are made and the production process?

Lorenzo: I my band when I was twelve went and made a record at some tiny studio that was like an older brother’s friend in Williamsburg, back when Williamsburg was sort of like all warehouses and wasteland. And that was the first time we recorded. I think it was a two hour session and we did six songs or something. It was like a if I was twelve, it was two thousand and twelve. It was Pro Tools, but I don’t know I don’t remember what it must have been very early Pro Tools. and I thought that was really cool. And then my next band we would go and record. Like I got into the studio from being in bands. but never until I started like working as a bass player for hire, I didn’t learn really how a studio works. and once I started doing that, I was like, you know, every once in a while I would get a gig as a session bass player in a studio. And I realized pretty quickly that there’s not enough work as a session bass player to be in studios as much as I wanted to be. so I would like, you know, I’d be there for basics tracking and then be gone. and not never learned really how the arc of it happened. So I got an internship through a saxophone player named Steve Elson, who was a friend of my dad’s, who got me connected to a studio on in the Lower East Side called Second Story Sound. That’s like sort of a classical and jazz studio. And I interned there and then assisted there. under a guy named Scott Lehrer, who’s like a really legit like science style engineer and sound designer. so like the first things that he did to get me educated was send me to Lincoln Center Library and was like get the microphone handbook, get the master handbook of acoustics, read all this dry bullshit and and if you still like it, you know, come by and you can wrap some cables. Which was Which was cool to me because it was like it wasn’t like you gotta learn how to clean a toilet first. It’s like you gotta learn what magic is happening and the science behind the magic that’s happening, and then you can clean toilets as well as sort of knowing what’s going on. But it was more like he gave me that homework and I went and did it and learned and then like when I was in the studio with him, even if I was doing menial tasks, I was sort of like, I I I I’ve read about what a decatry is, so I kinda know. I I don’t know what he’s doing, but I know that he’s doing a decadry because I’ve seen it in this book and I and I don’t know why. And he would Scott was really good about letting me ask him questions during sessions and really good about telling me when I couldn’t ask questions. That intern thing where you’re like, Excuse me, what does the space bar do? And he was really good about being like, Not right now, but I’ll talk to you later, after the session or when there’s a break or a or when the band is tracking.

Matt: Was he was a big influence on you, it sounds like.

Lorenzo: He was great. Yeah, I mean, he he’s the most formal education I’ve had in this. and he was like very patient and taught me how to like sort of compete mys comport comport myself in the studio. He taught me how to comport myself in the studio with artists, with other engineers, with people who are above you. to be supportive and an active listener without without intruding too much into the process. So

Matt: Interesting. And he c he came at it from a classical background?

Lorenzo: He he was sort of like downtown New York weirdo music in the 70s and 80s. And then he did a lot of work in musical theater as a sound designer and did a lot of recording like classical and jazz stuff at the studio. He was sort of like Rudy van Gelder style. Things are c things are like pretty clinical, pretty clean. the room is the color, not the equipment, really. Like he there was never he never ran anything through a pedal.

Matt: wow. Okay.

Lorenzo: You know, like not even close to like that world of you know what I mean? Like the the the things that look fun on the YouTube videos were was never a part of his process at all. He’d be like excited about Dante working across the two rooms much more than he’d be excited about a new speaker and a guitar amp.

Matt: Right. Well that’s that’s that’s interesting. back to you playing bass. So I’m you we were talking about the the turntable thing in the beginning. When did I I missed it? When did bass start to enter the picture for you?

Lorenzo: Well, because I was listening to hip hop so much, I was sort of like, What can I do here? So I got turntables and I like, This isn’t really what’s making this music happening happen and I’m not that interested in learning how to scratch. that felt like sort of a secondary world to it. But listening to those records, especially those Fugees records and the stuff that Jerry Wonda and the Outkast stuff, it was always live bass. And so I was like, Well, there’s somewhere there’s a person playing this instrument on these records and I wanna be that person. yeah, I remember hearing the bass line from Waterfall, Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls, which is like this beautiful through composed, like Jamerson 3.0 style bass line, and being like, That’s a guy. There’s a guy who played that. And I wanna be that guy. And I I you know, I had Bass Player Magazine, his name was Lamarque Jefferson, is LaMarquee Jefferson, I think. And I remember like reading interviews with him and being like, I wanna be that, I wanna be that person. I wanna be the

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Lorenzo: The supportive guy in the band who is getting to contribute to this music.

Matt: I might be wrong about this, although I’m gonna hedge my bets and think I’m right. This it it sounds like your dad’s dissection and tracing of through lines really tr really you like you embrace that because here you are listening to the records that you’re interested in and finding the people involved and dissecting and understanding.

Lorenzo: Yeah, I mean knowing how things work is in math in high school, when you when I got to the point where they were doing sine and cosine and tangent, I stopped being able to do math because nobody could tell me what they were doing or why they worked. So like if if if I can’t see the sort of system that makes something and the things that contribute to it and make it work, it’s pretty hard for me to get excited about it. Alternatively with music There’s all of these amazing intertwined networks of things that are happening that make the records that we listen to sound like they do. And so you can look at those systems and trace them everywhere. And f for my father, a lot of that was tracing the connections with politics, race, class, which I’m super interested in as well. But I also was like, Well, how do I get involved in this system as a contributor?

Matt: Mm-hmm. So your initial foray into it was via the bass, but did like in your mind, was there an agenda to like, hey, I’m gonna be like as you mentioned earlier, you said, you know, I want to be a session bass player, but then you started to take the turn into the recording side of it. Was your interest in the recording side of it unintentional? Or or did you start to say, the bass isn’t enough? I’m gonna, I’m gonna do audio as well.

Lorenzo: Whoa, the bass isn’t enough. The the the bass is like, the bass is the same as producing records, as far as I’m concerned. It’s like the instrument that doesn’t do anything that some people don’t even notice is happening. the guy really has to know the chord changes and what the song is doing. He really has to know the kick drum pattern. The less he plays, the better, the less they play, the better it is normally. Which it relates to me to being a producer. Like I think there’s a a reason why bass players become producers because you’re sitting there listening to the song, trying not to do too much. And in doing that, you’re given this free time to kind of like look around and think about what the guitar player is doing, what the singer’s feeling while they’re singing, what these lyrics mean. so the yeah the the bass player to making records pipeline makes a lot of sense to me. I I think it’s it’s not the only way obviously to do it. I mean there’s people who get at being a producer by channeling the magic through like a guitar solo, but but bass feels like this really supportive empathetic kind of musicianship that leads to listening to that like not playing an instrument and listening. It’s it’s as close as you get to not playing an instrument and still be in a garage band. And and that’s sort of what being a producer is too, as far as I’m concerned.

Matt: It is interesting that from if if you look at I think there’s a pattern there of bass players and drummers who are the two people out of a rhythm out of out of a band of of players that typically are in the back watching it all. And that seems to be a a constant a constant thing I see. Bass players and drummers find their way in behind the board.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it it was a great instrument in that like it let me move through a lot of different musical circles. Like I think that I’m speaking of it in the past tense because I don’t do hired work as a bass player anymore. I play bass on the records that I make, but I don’t If someone calls me and says, Do you want to do a club date, I don’t say yes anymore. and they’ve stopped calling. But the Yeah, bass lets you find people across genres and across disciplines because a lot of almost all music, not all music, but almost all music has some kind of low information. And once the bass guitar came around, it seems like it got adopted into almost everything pretty quickly.

Matt: Hmm. Yeah. And and very important instrument in so many types of music. I mean, hip hop, rock, jazz, I mean, everything, really.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah, especially in the African American tradition of music where it’s like the low end is the thing that propels a lot of the American African American collaboration in music.

Matt: Very interesting. So back to the studio thing, what’s what’s the progression there? You know, reading books about as you say, books that are dry as shit, about mics and learning about studio etiquette, where do you take that?

Lorenzo: I’d so after that I stopped working in other people’s studios. I did that between when I was eighteen and maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. And after that I just started I had an ex-girlfriend who had an apartment that she wasn’t gonna be in for a year that I turned into a little studio. I had a funny little ex-control room that that’s the live room had gotten turned into some tech startup, but they could kept the control room they rented to me. So I I had I started building my own studios and Or taking over little spaces and then I eventually built my own place, a very small, the one that I’m still in now, that initially was a super small room that I learned how to do the sheetrock and framing and electric for. And then I kept kind of taking over rooms next to mine and expanding until I had a space big enough that I can track full bands and produce music and you know, do a string quartet with the rooms in a way that feels satisfying to me. So yeah, so to go linearly, I I left I stopped working at Second Story Sound and started doing my own little shops. Partially because while I liked working there, there wasn’t a lot of like running shit g through guitar pedals or putting, you know, a Juno through a Leslie. It was a lot of like, here’s how you get the best possible recording of this. the creativity, the scope of the creativity wasn’t Terribly experimental from the engineering side. It was experimental often from the musician side, but the engineering side tended to be like we get a really good capture of this thing. So part of why I broke off and started doing my own places was to have the space to goof around a little bit more and make mistakes and do things wrong.

Matt: But I bet you learned a shit ton from him about the capture and and mic technique.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah. And just like, you know, working pro tools fast, capturing things right. Like because it was a classical and jazz place, there was a lot of instruments that came in that I wouldn’t otherwise have ever seen. You know, like I recorded a French horn on my first session there w when some people probably go their whole career without recording one, you know. It’s like and he was really patient and really understanding and really knowledgeable about like Miking techniques for really capturing those in the best way. All all the various and sundry instruments.

Matt: giggling inside because my youngest son plays French horn and the first time I recorded French horn was for his like auditions and tryouts and stuff like that. And I was like, wow, this is not like recording bass drums and guitar.

Lorenzo: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. It’s a weird one. And then there’s the even weirder ones like like bass clarinet where you kinda can’t do one mic unless you’re really far away. Where like the bell and the pads are different notes, actually. Like the fundamental doesn’t come out the bell, except on some of the lower notes. Like on the higher notes, the fundamental is coming out here and the on the lower notes, the fundamental is coming out there. So the first time I recorded one of those, I was like, why am I missing why is it like Why does it sound gated? And it’s just the mechanics of the way that that instrument works. So that that’s to me was an amazing education in like, what are these instruments? Why do these people play them? And how do you mic them?

Matt: I’m going pause for a second. If for any reason we get cut off, keep your window open there to allow things to just keep uploading. And obviously, I’ll edit this part out. So, one of the things that I haven’t really talked too much about with people, and it seems appropriate in this conversation, is you know, you’re talking about taking over rooms and expanding as rooms become available and framing an electrical. Talk to me a little bit about.

Lorenzo: Yeah.

Matt: Navigating, especially in in New York, is working with landlords, space, the business of that, and how to and especially as an audio professional, like to make to to get done what you want to get done. But of course, you know, everybody kind of looks at audio people kind of sideways sometimes, like, what are you gonna be doing in here?

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah. I I had a broker who sort of turned a blind eye when I first took this space. And I’ve been here for eleven years. So me and the landlords know each other really well and they trust me a lot. I got an email from I’ve been expanding more lately, and I got an email from them yesterday from the landlords who s who said, Your success is our success, which was just like, what a sweet thing from a management company to say to you. I I I have I have all these stories of all these friends that I hear who have this like acrimonious relationship with a landlord, I for me, like sound cookies are the best soundproofing, you know? You like if you make friends with the people who are around you and you kind of like can keep it civil, it’s like twenty D B reduction.

Matt: I’m be doing a session, here’s a box of cookies.

Lorenzo: Exactly. Well now the place is built enough that I don’t have to apologize to the neighbors much. But yeah, initially when I built the place the the live room was, you know, floated double sheetrock and everything. But but the control room was just open to the floor upstairs and it’s an old building from the eighteen nineties. So the you know, if I was monitoring loud, which I did a lot in my early twenties, they the upstairs neighbors who were an art gallery were complain about it. And and yeah, we like it became civil and it at first it was acrimonious and then I went up and de escalated the conflict. And the the person who ran the art place up there was like, you know, there’s people up here trying to make art. And I was like, mm-hmm. I just didn’t say anything because and then she eventually was like, shit, right, that’s what you’re doing too.

Matt: Mm. That that’s interesting. where do you think those diplomatic skills come from?

Lorenzo: Second child, maybe? I I was a young guy with a lot of older people. I played in bar bands as a kid, worked at guitar store and worked for Scott. So I think like interning sort of teaches you how to shut the fuck up and listen and let people vent in the way they need to. The bar bands that I played in growing up was also sort of that way. It was like a lot of big personalities and late nights, and I was like thirteen, fourteen, so there was no room for me to put my foot down. I had to figure out like what people wanted and how to navigate these adult men and the things that they were thinking about, without having the possibility of like puffing out my chest. so yeah, I think I learned a lot from that from Guitar Store was the same way. There’d be like, you know big egos and bad days. They were all boys’ clubs, and so there was a lot of testosterone. Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of benefit in the world to learn how to not rise to somebody’s challenge of who’s more macho.

Matt: I love that. Yeah. Just to sit back, let them vent, and then say, so here are the cookies. I’m gonna be doing a session.

Lorenzo: Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, you don’t even have to say we’re making art too. You can just say I hear you. I hear you. I know you’re making art. Yeah.

Matt: Wow. Wow. Very, very well done. and and so you’ve been in this spot for a very long time. So you you haven’t had to go through the pains of, hey, I put all this money into this place and now they’re kicking me out and I’ve spent this money and now I gotta go spend more money and find a new place.

Lorenzo: I’ve definitely been spending more money, but I haven’t I haven’t had to like give up a build yet. because like my old live room is now the drum booth, because there’s like a maybe 30 what is it, twenty ten by thirty room over there that’s now like the drum booth, ISO booth. Singers can go in there and the live room is a like a twenty by forty big live room. So now that has become the the main tracking space. So every yeah, every iteration has sort of like grown on the first iteration here. And part of that is because these landlords are supportive and I don’t fight with them and I don’t ask for anything hardly.

Matt: Hmm. What about the the chicken or the egg thing when you’re first starting a space? Because to go and get a space, you need to have the income. You need to have the the flow of the cash flow to make it work. But then, you know, sometimes to get the work, you have to have the space. So how did you make that work?

Lorenzo: Yeah. I had a weird situation with a patron who was this very wealthy man who wanted me to work with these artists that he wanted me to work with Steve Forbert and Josh Joplin. I I had been producing records and playing bass and Josh liked me a lot. And Josh introduced me to this patron of the arts who put me on retainer to turn one of Josh’s albums into a musical despite never having written a musical or knowing anything about it. And so he put me on retainer for like it’s it’s not a story that someone else could emulate, I except like talk to rich people. he put me on retainer for a year to write this musical and I didn’t spend any of the money. I saved it and put it into cheatrock over here.

Matt: Wow. That’s brilliant. I’m and I normally I kind of save this conversation for later in in our in our conversation. can you talk to me about your your philosophy of survival and money and your approach to being an audio professional? And you know, basically as I like to say, keeping the boat afloat, like what’s what’s the strategy for you? Obviously, many of us are at work in progress and

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s changed over time. You know, when I was playing bass all the time and assisting a little bit, it would be can I get fifty bucks for this gig? How many gigs can I do in a row? will my parents loan me money if I need to do something? And since then I still ask my parents for money sometimes when I need to do something. but often now the situation my relationship to money on a gig level is how What do I need to get paid to feel like I’m being valued more than survival? Like what can if someone is negotiating a rate with me, will I be feel like I’m being taken advantage of or will I feel valued by this person in this way? so in terms of surviving, partially the studio construction has been a way to survive because I have two production suites over there and five over there, and I just built nine more. So my initially the first seven suites here. were to protect for soundproofing from the neighbors, but also they’re priced so that they cover the cost of the rent of the whole space. So the overhead is minimal. It’s gear maintenance for me and occasional purchases, although I’m not buying much gear anymore. the rents that those production spaces pay cover a lot of the cover the whole cost of the rent of my studio.

Matt: When did you implement these production spaces in your process?

Lorenzo: I had these two maybe four or five years ago. and then I built those two years ago. Those ones I actually built not to bring in money, but because they were talking about a metal shop moving in next door and I was like, Well, I I’ll just build rooms instead.

Matt: I I’ve been in in that position with a metal shop next door.

Lorenzo: Yeah, I was like I can’t this not especially ’cause I do a lot of strings and delicate stuff. So yeah, having having someone banging on stuff. but yeah, that that’s sort of like now that’s my survival mechanism. I mean I’d I’d make money through audio and through making music with folks as well, but that’s sort of like a way to take the pressure off of

Matt: Yeah.

Lorenzo: Every space bar bringing in X amount of dollars.

Matt: That’s interesting. And the how do you fill how like, you know, I I understand that, you know, it you can take a space, you can build these production rooms. How do you fill them? What’s the best approach to bringing people in?

Lorenzo: I mean, I do a ton of community stuff here. I do shows a lot at the studio. I do like I did a gear swap for a little bit. I had a residency program in one of the rooms to just like feel like I was giving back something to the community. So in general, I like bring people into my studio a lot in a community building way. And through that, people kind of are like, Lorenzo’s not such a bad guy. I guess, like, if I’m gonna have a landlord, maybe we make it Lorenzo. and it’s it’s an asset for if there’s a production room to have a studio next door that has every instrument you could imagine. You know, like people have come and borrowed a Whirley or a U67 or something. it’s it’s mostly just from not, you know, the same conflict de-escalation thing. You don’t piss off people in your community and You try to be useful to them in some way. You try to be the base player of your community and eventually people start to kind of trust you and wanna work near or around you.

Matt: Yeah. So community is is something that is a focus of your attention.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I’m really proud of New York. I’ve never left here. I really love the musicians who are here in the music community. And it does make me proud the more like when someone says they track something in New York, I feel proud always. And especially my community here around my studio is people who I love and trust. And and I want to be a safe space for them in the same way that if I call them for a session. They’ll listen to what I have to say and hear me even if they disagree. I wanna be the same thing for them in terms of like a a place to come and record.

Matt: So when you’re getting gigs, like w if you were to analyze how the gigs come in, what would you say is is the way that it happens best for you?

Lorenzo: Well, I there’s sort of like in my life, there’s sort of two tiers of gigs. There’s like the big famous people gigs and then the gigs within my community. Sometimes the two overlap. Like initially it was all the gigs in my community. And then this amazing violinist Bobby Hawk hired me to record his strings for a record that we didn’t know what it was, and it turned out to be a Taylor Swift record. And so that that Taylor Swift record made this kind of other stream happen of like

Matt: Mm.

Lorenzo: Because I’d done the Taylor Swift record, my friend Chris Connors was like, well, I can recommend him now for this Kanye record because he has a credit enough that it’s not taking a huge chance on someone who nobody knows. And then through the Ye record, I made friends with Josh Berg, who is an amazing kind of a mentor and an amazing presence in my life. And he connected me. He we became friends through the process of making Donda, and he connected me. with Ms. Lauryn Hill, who I work for now. So there’s like, in that way I can trace the trajectory really directly. In the community gigs, you can trace them all back to one or two gigs as well, but they’re less it’s a little bit more amorphous because it’s like everybody is talking to each other and knows each other. I find that in that world it’s sort of like We want Lorenzo to be a presence on this record because we know him and we love him and he gets great sounds and not we want Lorenzo to be a presence on this record because he did the Taylor Swift or the Yay or whatever. It’s a it’s a little bit less transactional and a little bit more like we’re in this together, we’re making things. If Bill wants a different bass drum than he than I have at the studio, I will make sure that there’s one there for him the next time that he comes back. It’s sort of like, you know, and and he knows that I don’t like you know, the drums to be next to the violin or whatever. You know, like there’s a there’s as much as Bill would like to play drums right next to the violin. yeah, so I I guess in that world it’s more of like a trust that’s built on years of working together and being stable. And in the sort of famous person world it’s a lot more like this person is vetted and doesn’t act weird around celebrities and is really good at their job, but mostly like is able to play well with big famous people.

Matt: So having been an early Fugees fan, you must be like, I mean, working with with with Ms. Lauryn Hill, come on now.

Lorenzo: It the friend The first session was like I I’m not s like I’m a little starstruck most of the time, but I’m like, wow, that’s that person from the T V. W with her with the first time that she sang, I I was sort of like I it I sort of questioned my reality where I was like, That’s that voice from that record. The mics aren’t on, my headphones aren’t on, she’s singing and it’s that voice that I’ve listened to my whole life that, you know, guided me through a lot of my youth and continues to be records that I listen to. So yeah, that was That that was really meaningful to me to be connected to this artist who I cared so cared and cared so much about for so long.

Matt: What a full circle moment for you. I I I would have paid money to been a fly in the wall to see the look on your face.

Lorenzo: For sure. It was the first I think she might have been testing me, but the first week that we worked together was at Germano. it was before I was now I mostly go out to her studio in New Jersey to work with her. But we were at Germano and the hours were like You know, engineers tell these stories about seventy-two hour work stretches. I hadn’t had that much experience of that in my life. And and these weeks were like there was three different studios rented, and we were just working and work. I was sleeping Troy woke me up sleeping on the floor of Studio B a couple of times. It was like very intense. So the awe quickly became like, shit, how do I navigate this intensity of recording with this person who I respect more than almost anyone else in the music world.

Matt: ‘Cause you hadn’t really dealt with any like heavy duty stretches of, you know.

Lorenzo: I I don’t I don’t find that it happens that much in in my world, especially if someone’s renting my studio, they’re very rarely like lockouts where somebody wants me to be engineering for 72 hours at a time or for a week all the time. Yeah, that was it was exciting. I was like, I’m doing that thing that people talk about. how do you do it?

Matt: Wow. That’s it’s a test of on on many levels because you’re dealing with an artist that you have huge respect and and you know history listening to. And you’re also trying to navigate this thing physically of, well, I need to stay on top of my game and like stay up for a large number of hours and accomplish a lot.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah. And be really present. I mean, there was a time at the end of the process where I sort of like tried to get she’s so sharp. She’s like knows everything that’s going on and is really listening and really paying attention, really remembering things. And this was like the first three or four days that we were working together. And I kind of tried to like get the intern on my side in terms of like, You said we had to leave at X hour, right? Like you gotta leave. And she was really quick in correcting me and being like, Don’t do that shit. Don’t you like tell me when to work and when not to work. Don’t insult my intelligence. She like really leveled with me and straightened me out in this way that I think I probably wouldn’t have done that if I had been a little bit more rested. but she she was like, Don’t don’t collude with this with the person working at this studio against me. That’s not that’s not why you’re here. Like, focus and do the work with me. It was a it was a really like stern.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Lorenzo: respectful moment and I I’ve learned a lot from it.

Matt: Yeah. It’s it’s good to get called out on stuff sometimes, like like that. You know, ’cause then you you’re like, right, right, you’re right.

Lorenzo: Big time. Big time. Yeah, and like an artist isn’t especially an artist, she’s running a lot of stuff a lot of the time. An artist who’s that visionary and focused doesn’t need me slowing her down. Like in terms of I I I should be there supporting this thing that’s happening, or saying, you know, I can’t I actually can’t work anymore. Like let me see if I can get someone else to cover for me in this moment because I’m too tired to keep working. And and I’ve done that. now too. I find it like it’s better to be l honest and just say I I I no longer can be good at my job right now. Like let me go home and sleep for eight hours and I’ll come back and be ready to do it tomorrow.

Matt: Yeah, I’m sure that that honesty is much more appreciated.

Lorenzo: Yeah, lying to the artist is like it’s just so tacky and people I see people do it relatively often where they like do the that there was that Leland Sklar thing where he was talking about the fake switch on his bass, and I was like, I love the way you play, you’re an amazing bass player. I I don’t like we don’t need to do this though. We don’t need to be lying to each other in terms of what’s actually happening in the studio. I understand like the placebo effect is funny and cute, but like if you flip a switch on your base if I’m like asking for something to sound different, I want it to be a real collaboration that we’re having with one another. And that I made that mistake on that session with Ms. Hill where I was like, I’m not telling the truth to one of the people in this room. And I got called out on it. And and I try not to do that anymore. Sometimes sometimes if you’ve forgotten, if you’ve like done Command Z at a really bad time, you’ll be like, I think we should do one more take. I think I think that’s still morally okay.

Matt: Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Lorenzo: Like that was a good one. I think we can do one more.

Matt: Yeah, let’s yeah, probably for safety, let’s just have another one. when these you know, the Taylor Swift thing, Lauryn Hill, like any any any of these more high profile projects that come in, do you do you have you seen it materialize into further gigs as a result?

Lorenzo: Yeah, totally. Totally. Ye with yeah, sometimes with the same artist and often because of that artist like the I got recommended for the Kanye thing because I was trustworthy enough on the Taylor thing that the guy who was recommending me was like he’s gonna be okay. sometimes it it also moves like people see that you’ve done something with this person and they’re like, I wanna be connected to that world. I admire that artist, I care about what they do. How do I align myself with someone who has worked with them. so that happens sometimes too, where someone calls up and says, I want strings like the strings on folklore. How do we do it? And I say, get me and Bobby and we’ll do something like that. so yeah, sometimes it moves like sort of in that tier and sometimes it moves sort of like into the community of other people who are interested in that sound.

Matt: When when you say, you know, they they trust you and that you’re gonna be okay, could do you think you could articulate what does that mean really and when we’re looking at the bigger picture? What do they mean by he’s gonna be okay?

Lorenzo: Yeah. Like you’re you’re first of all, you’re great at what you do, right? There’s like an understanding that if you’re in those rooms you know what you’re doing. But almost more there’s a lot of people who are great at what they do. Almost more important than that is that you’re gonna get in the room and not be like, you gotta hear my beat. let’s collab on a song. Can I put your picture on this team? Like I I think people at that level are being asked for so much all the time in terms of collaborations or commitments that like the

Matt: Mm.

Lorenzo: the more that you can not participate in that ecosystem, the more pure your relationship with a person like that can be.

Matt: I get it. And it I can’t even imagine like getting a gig and then saying, you gotta hear my beat. We gotta collab. It’s like, no man, just get capture the vocal and do a great job and support it.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean I I think it’s it happens a lot though, I think. I think people are really ambitious and I admire that people are so ambitious and people want things to happen really fast. And sometimes you’re like, Well, now I’m in this room with this person, I might not be back tomorrow. How do I solidify my relationship with them? my experience has been that you solidify it by doing a good job and being around for it, but I think it is tempting to say I’m doing this tribute album, will you come sing a song on it? you know, d will you be a part of the can we align ourselves with one another in this way, especially when someone is really talented and really charismatic and exciting and someone you trust and respect. So I could see I could see the temptation to want to collaborate further with someone that you really adore.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, and you’re you’re fortunate that you you’ve you’ve been granted these these opportunities and risen risen to the challenge. It’s it’s very cool. do you deal with interns in your particular studio?

Lorenzo: I’m so bad at it. I’m so bad. I really need to get bad. That’s a skill that I would like to learn. I had such a great experience of being an intern that I would love to find an organic collaboration with someone who really wants to do something like what I do. my experience has been that I’m really bad at not just doing it myself. I’m really bad at Communicating ahead of time what I’m gonna need from an intern. I’m overworked to the point of like, if I cannot answer an email, I feel better. So I I’m sort of like the bandwidth for navigating an intern I haven’t found yet. I’ve had them, they’ve come and gone. Some have been great, some I probably like could have developed a relationship that would have turned into a really good collaboration with, but I find that I often don’t have. the space or energy to do it, really.

Matt: I’m the same way. Like I just, you know, my my particular situation is is I’m in my home working most of the time, unless I’m at a s at a studio. But even at a studio, like it’s just so much faster to do it on your own. But I know that there is kind of a a a a wise and responsible thing to do to bring in new people and show them.

Lorenzo: Yeah. Yeah, and for myself, I’m starting to feel the sort of limitations of what one person can do on their own in a once the machine gets this big. Like there does there does need to be someone else. Like I did a show last night at the studio. I’m doing a show tonight at the studio, like I’m gonna be moving the chairs, I’m gonna be running the cables, I’m gonna be taking out the garbage. the not just The energy level is hard to keep up the energy to do those things that I really don’t you know, I’ve done since I was an intern and I don’t much want to do anymore. And then the the optics of crawling around on the floor in front of an artist is not always it doesn’t always feel that good.

Matt: I could see that. Definitely. you know, you talked about the the community. Do you when you t when you speak about the community, are you speaking of it from a perspective of mostly musicians and artists, or are there engineers in that community?

Lorenzo: Yeah, there’s more engineers than there used to be. I c I kind of came at it from a musician forward perspective in That like the musicians that I was collaborating with, I had played bass on something that they did, I had toured with them, whatever, and then it became we should go to Lorenzo to record, he’s a cool guy, he’s a pretty good bass player, his studio doesn’t look too too bad. At that time it was really like we can put up with his studio in order to like not have to hang out with somebody else. now it’s not that much that way anymore. but yeah, now there’s much more Rocky Gallo, who was on your podcast who I think maybe connected us is I talk to him on phone every day and we have these kind of like bitch sessions that are like what’s it like to be an engineer today for you? How do you feel? What is how does the money work? Does the money work? Is our job a real job anymore? So yeah having Rocky in my life to collaborate to talk to it that feels like community to me. That yeah it feels a lot like community to me.

Matt: yeah. Yeah. I’ll put a link in the show notes to to Rocky’s episode so people can get that perspective as well. So what

Lorenzo: Rocky’s like this fucking guy Lorenzo calls me every day. Every day Lorenzo calls me. Such a pain in my ass. It’d be amazing if that was his podcast episode.

Matt: How can you get this guy to stop calling? I’m trying to change my number. what do you find is really, really I mean, we can bitch about a number of things, but really at the heart of it, what do you think are the real challenges to this, to this as to this job, to what this audio thing we do, this production thing?

Lorenzo: Yeah. Mm. I think for me at least, it’s about like keeping the urge to want something to be better strong. And not just for me, but for the artists as well. Like keeping the curiosity and the excitement of something being a little bit better than it was before, instead of making something easier or more fluid or more intuitive, you know. reaching for something being as good as it can possibly be, or as fast as it can possibly be if that’s the thing that this project needs. But not getting not letting the dust settle on the bridge of the song and if like the the you repeat a word in the verse or that the patch bay is not labeled or that you don’t know the shortcut for bounce the track out so you do it this one funny way every time. Like there’s these sort of ruts of Both the technical and the artistic that are easy to if you’re a relatively capable person, you can sort of work around them and keep doing a pretty good job at your job. If to I find that the times that I’m most excited about this are the times where I’m like, Well, today I’m gonna do like faders up for the monitoring thing instead of monitoring in the like for a jazz session and like label the whole board and really, you know

Matt: Mm.

Lorenzo: do a board mix for playback, even though it’s never gonna go anywhere and when I export it, I’ll just go to one two and bounce them. Like I was like, yeah, I’m making things harder for me, but I’m also like learning and having fun and and I think making things better by making them harder. I I you know, I AI is all we fucking talk about right now, but I do think that like things getting easier doesn’t make it more fun for me.

Matt: Mm.

Lorenzo: There’s things that I would like to be easier. Like I would like to be able to give someone an OMF file and have it be able to be opened in Pro Tools and Logic and Ableton OMF, right? That’s the extension. I’d like for that to work. Like I don’t need I don’t need a cat who’s bodybuilding in a video with his girlfriend. I I like I want to be able to have cross-pollination between DAWs.

Matt: Yeah, yeah. O open media framework, yeah.

Lorenzo: I would like for that to be easier. I don’t think like that being hard is a good thing. But I do think that like making your own cables, at least for a little while, is good. Cause you’re like, that’s hard and it sucks. And now I know how an XLR is wired, and I know that if when it breaks, it’s my wiring that broke. and I think that like stopping the singer, even if someone hires you to track vocals, if you stop them and say, Hey, listen, you know, you’re using this lyric twice. In the same line, like you’re you’re you’re using the word memory twice here. Are you doing that on purpose? Can we stop for a second and like examine that and think about it and make sure that it’s something that we want to do? That’s much harder than saying, really nice take, do you want try another one? so the the pitfall for me, I think, is when is really nice take, do you want to try another one?

Matt: Yeah. Don’t take the are you saying don’t take the easy way out on everything.

Lorenzo: I think so. And it’s so tempting because, like, especially we are in a semi-mercenary field. Sometimes we don’t always like the people that we work with. Occasionally you get a difficult client and you’re like, well, how do I make this easy for me? And how do I get through the day? And especially if you’re working long hours, you’re like, how do I get so I can rest and focus on the next thing that I want to do? But yeah, I think the the laziness is the scariest thing about it for me, is like settling and getting lazy.

Matt: And what about the the aspect of this to you know promote oneself? Because if I I I feel like if you like you could there’s two tracks that I see people take. I see some people take, I’m only gonna do the work, and hopefully the work will speak for itself. And then there’s the people that really You know, I’m not saying that they don’t do the work, but they they also are leaning on the self-promotion part of it, the in the you know, the social media parts, to let people know, hey, I am working on doing stuff. Where do you fall for that?

Lorenzo: I have been better at promoting myself in the past. I’m not I haven’t the I haven’t had the space or the energy to do it much lately. It it feels best to me when I can be celebrating someone else and sort of by association be like, and I’m cool enough that I’m in this room with these people. so in a in a I don’t have the bandwidth to do the talking head thing to like sit at the desk and say, here’s my signal chain. I I just don’t I can’t

Matt: Right.

Lorenzo: It doesn’t excite me. It doesn’t feel like something connected to the way that I want to be in the world. Here I am a talking head on a podcast. but I can’t set up the tripod myself. I don’t feel comfortable setting up the tripod myself. I do feel comfortable when someone comes into the studio and is really cool to be like, wow, look how great they are. And I have like kind of a nice camera set up here and a little like closed circuit thing so I can like capture stuff and be able to celebrate the artists who are coming into the studio.

Matt: Yeah.

Lorenzo: And some of that is self-promotion. You know, you say, like, Charlie Burnham’s here playing beautiful violin. This is I am cool. I am cool. Charlie’s here. I’m cool. because I’m with Charlie and he’s so good. You know, like so so that is not an altruistic, that’s not an entirely altruistic pursuit to celebrate the musicians in my community. Some of it is me saying, and I’m and I am with these people.

Matt: ‘Cause I’m with Charlie. Yeah. you know, I mean, in this day and age, I feel like it’s it’s it’s a necessary evil because there’s so much going on out there that if you want to let people know that you are actively doing work and and for them to take you seriously, sometimes you have to you have to do that to show some social proof to say, no, I I’m I’m here working. Come work with me.

Lorenzo: Yeah, and it’s and it’s it’s not it’s not fake. Like the the Instagram, TikTok it’s it’s the real world too. And it like it is how people connect with one another and how gigs get gotten and how people get excited about what other people make. yeah, I think like maybe I’m thirty six. I think people who were were born around when I was sometimes look at social media and they’re like, Well that’s like Kind of a funny fake thing, but it’s as much a real part of our world as, you know, the the sheetrock screws that I put into the wall yesterday.

Matt: Yeah, I guess I look at it from a straight up business move. It’s a it’s a free promotional tool to reach people. I don’t spend any money on it. So

Lorenzo: Yeah. I I think the trick is to really know what you’re promoting, you know, to be like, Well, am I promoting me as a mixer? Am I promoting my space? Am I promoting me looking hot to get laid? Like there’s there’s a a whole world of things that you can like of messages that you can put out there. I find that if I don’t have a message that I really want to put out there, it doesn’t feel inspiring to me to participate in it. And and when I force it it doesn’t feel right.

Matt: Right. You won’t see pictures of me shooting pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror going, Hey everybody, check me.

Lorenzo: Yeah. What if you look really good though? Sometimes I’ll put on an outfit and I’ll be like, Actually, I either look stupid enough or good enough today that I kinda wanna post a pic I I won’t. But I I have that urge sometimes. You don’t have the vanity urge ever? None.

Matt: No. No. I’m I’m a goofy looking dude, so I’m like, you know.

Lorenzo: When you dress up for a wedding or for the graduation, when you put on a suit, you’re never like, I kinda wanna show people what I look like in a suit.

Matt: Okay, so you know, like I’ll go to recording academy events and if I’m dressed in a suit, you know, I’ve I’ve had I’ve posted pictures of me in in a in a group of my friends, fellow engineers, you know, in front of the Grammy thing and you know.

Lorenzo: Yeah. It’s kind of fun. I could see that being addictive. I could see like getting into influencing because you’re like, I kinda like dressing up and looking cool.

Matt: if yeah, I mean if that’s your thing. But yeah. Yeah, it’s just not my thing. So well, as usual, audience, links will be in the show notes as they always are. And wow, this has been a really good conversation, Lorenzo. I really enjoyed talking with you and I’m I’m super happy to get to know you. Yeah. Well, I’m gonna let you get to your weekend and I’m gonna get to my weekend and thanks again and

Lorenzo: Right. As you can tell yeah. Me too, this was really fun.

Matt: Appreci appreciate your time. All right. Take care.

Lorenzo: Thank you. Take it easy.

Matt: Okay, we’re good to go. So here we go. Gert, welcome to the podcast.

Gert: Thank you. I’m very happy to hear you, be here. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. Great to great to meet you. let’s get started with the state of the state. Who are you? Where are you? And what do you consider yourself?

Gert: Well, I live in Belgium, which is a small country in Europe. and I’m busy with music in a professional way for thirty-five years, something like that. I’m a very passion-driven person, so I always want to do things I love to do and I want to make my job out of it. And my main passion is is. Is you I want to say beer, that’s also a passion of mine, but that’s for something later. Beer and music. and well, I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve I’ve worked for a record company. I’ve was a music journalist for three newspapers in Belgium. I’m teaching for the moment two university colleges. I used to teach at four university colleges.

Matt: Well yeah, we’re gonna talk about

Gert: I have a PhD in sociology of music. That’s also one of my main occupations. I’m a musician mys I I worked for an art venue. I did organize concerts in in Ghenton, Belgium. I’m a musician myself, released seven albums. I had a project in the Nilly’s combination of jazz and electronica called Briskey, with which I also had a big band, which we performed all over Europe. right now I make music all on myself in an immersive way. So I’m very into immersive audio, Dolby Atmos. so I create my music in immersive and then I mix and master. Mastering is also something I do for other people. So I’m a I’m a certified mastering engineer. That’s one of my side jobs beside of of of teaching. So it’s I always know it’s it maybe it sounds impressive, but it’s not for me. I’m I’m just busy with my passion and and that’s music. And and I always want to explore music on different angles. So meeting artists by writing about it, by organizing concerts, then performing myself, meeting other people. So I’m always in the run and and and looking for new challenges in in music and maybe I’m I’m bored. too quickly that I do a lot of different things.

Matt: And but did you mention the brewery?

Gert: Yeah, I I also have a brewery. That’s my my other passion. It’s music and beer. and I live at at the countryside in in the Flemish part of Belgium. and when we moved here, it’s about thirteen years ago, my first thing was I want to do something with my hands too, so I cultivated my own hop plants. so I have a small brewery, two hundred liters, it’s very small, and grow my own own hubs and I make my my different kinds of beer from different sorts, blonde beer, dog beer. I’ve got IPAs, I’ve got I’ve got stout beer, different kind of of beer. So that’s for me it’s a bit like making music. It’s also working with with small ingredients and make something which suits people, which is nice, which is beautiful, which is tasteful. and it’s the same with making music. It’s that’s also a combination of different small parts and and making something which is bigger and and can can can be yeah pleasing.

Matt: Wow, we’re like not even five minutes into the interview and I’m totally inspired by you. That’s fantastic. okay, before we go into the beginning and where you grew up and all that business, I want to know how you deal with time management when you do all these things.

Gert: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a difficult difficult thing. Because I can I can stress out quite quickly because I’ve got too much on my mind. maybe I also they say I also have AGHD, so that’s that’s why I have this this very big energy to to keep on doing things. Maybe that helps. but it’s it’s like yeah, just just get get yourself organized in a way. I’ve got a few things I have to do. So I’m teaching at two university colleges in Belgium. Those hours are are blocked and locked. those days are fixed. But in between I’ve got three days. And then when I have a mastering gig, I just do that. If it if there isn’t a mastering gig, I do some mixing myself. I start composing, work in the the hop yard. So it’s really from from day to day. See if there is time, I will I will do something I I I fancy at that at that time. but sometimes it’s just all all together and and and I have to admit, there are nights that I hardly sleep just because my my head is so so active and I have to do this and this and this. And then one thing which is very important for me, I I really like cycling. so that’s my way to free my mind. like within two days I will do a tour of 80 kilometers cycling. I also go to my my school, which is 40 kilometers one way, I do it by bike. with an electric one of course, but but that’s just to to free my mind. that’s when you have a bit too much energy, but then then I can sleep well. Yeah.

Matt: Amazing that you do all of this stuff. well, my next question would be: do you have kids? Okay. Well, there we go.

Gert: No. No, that’s the reason why you can do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No kids. And I have a very lovely wife who is really encouraging me and and also she’s also letting me free and and doing the things we do. We do a lot of things together, but but in the meantime I can do whatever I want. And so that’s that that’s very important. I also I all met her when I was thirty. so That was also important that that we have we had already a long history, both of the two of us. She came from from the radio. She she was she she was doing she was a presenter, a host on on national radio in Belgium. and she was hosting a program in which my music was played. So I knew her because she was the host of the program and then we met for the first time and it was yeah, love at first sight. So that that’s important too. Yeah.

Matt: That’s absolutely important. let’s go back to the beginning. talk to me about where did you grow up specifically?

Gert: Mm-hmm Well, you know, Belgium have got has got two parts, a f a French part and a Flemish part. I’m from the Flemish part, which is very crowd. So it’s it’s in in in square meters it’s difficult to explain, but I think you can fit London five times into Flanders, maybe something like that. And there are six million people living there. So it’s very crowdy. and but I was from more of a of a more quiet part of of of this of this country in in a small town with parents singing in a choir my older brother was playing the flute so there was music in the family and so it was easy for me to follow music lessons when i was in in in low low in not in primary school yeah when i was ten years old and because it’s it it’s a small city When I went to study after after college time, went to a bigger city where there was a university there that did sociology. but that city, very beautiful, it’s called Leuven. It’s the biggest university city in in Belgium. but it’s only students. So after that, I moved to Ghent, which is the nicest, one of the nicest cities I know. I’ve lived there for 20 years. It’s just like Bruges, which everybody knows, but Ghent is alive. It’s a very it’s got a medieval castle in the middle of the city center. It’s it’s it’s a it’s like a pig it’s like like a fairy tale. It’s so beautiful city, but it’s alive with a lot of youth, a lot of music, a lot of cinema, theater, also a lot of economy. So it’s a very alive city. And and there I lived for twenty years and and started my whole my whole professional career. but it’s by getting older, and I think we have the same age. I’m from sixty nine.

Matt: Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Gert: Yeah, yeah. I heard you saying in a podcast once that you were fifty-six. that’s the same age age as I am. so but by by getting getting older, I wanted to to have more more a more quiet life. so I went really went to the to the countryside. And if somebody of of of the listeners are familiar with cycling and you know the the famous cobblestone classics in in Belgium, like the Tour of Flanders. That’s where I live. So it’s in in that part of of Flanders with a lot of it’s the hillside. it’s it’s not no mountains, but it’s hilly. Hilly with a lot of cobblestones and and and wadow meadows. So it’s it it’s a nice it’s a nice place, which also brings brings rest in this life.

Matt: When did you get interested in audio or or the creation of you know, the the the recording side, the mixing side, the production side of audio?

Gert: Well, that’s I try to play an instrument first. so I studied the flute when I was a child, because my elder brother was playing flute, and I knew this is the most sexy instrument in the world, so I also wanted to play the flute. but then I became a teenager and I want to impress girlfriend, so I played the guitar and I brought an electric guitar. and I played a lot of guitar. but one day, and that is very important, I because I I’m I’m a big Pink Floyd fan because of my brother, so I played David Gilmour style guitar. And I want to do something else. So I decided I will go to follow jazz lessons. And my jazz guitar teacher, he got one of the first editions of Cubase. I think it’s Cubase two, and I’m talking about ninety ninety one.

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: That time. So it’s really the beginning. And so I went there to to follow some jazz lessons, but I came back with the first cracked version of Cubase. And my brother got an old Atari computer on which you can load in this this Cubase file. And and then I just realized: well, I prefer creating music instead of playing an instrument. And then I st started writing two tunes in in on my my small on this small system. And I also had an old Tascam four track with which I already record some some of my first songs, playing guitar, some flute, some keyboards. I got a rhythm machine, this Bose Dr. Rhythm 500 or 50. What’s the name of it? It’s an old rhythm machine. and that’s

Matt: yeah.

Gert: That’s really the first it was in the nineties, making my own and and I played in a few bands, but I I I realized that playing in a band is fine as long as I could deliver the music. So I’m I’m really an an an yeah someone who who wants to create in even more than just playing together, playing an instrument. so I I I’ve I have my my my biggest moments when I can. make a new tune. And that started in in the 90s. And then I just that’s the reason why I still work with Nuendo today. because I’m working with Cubase since since 90s. So that’s that’s that’s that’s 35 years. So it’s that’s my my second nature. I know the program inside out. and that’s of course important when you create music that it’s an attachment to yourself and it’s not something you have to think about. and

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: And in the beginning I was making music to perform with friends and and to perform live. so in the niles I have I had this band called Briskey. the minimal setup was seven musicians. so and I rich I wrote all the compositions for them and I was doing the sampling and and live electronics and and the conducting because the musicians are mainly professional jazz musicians, highly qualified musicians could play instruments much better than I do.

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: but they played my music and and together we we reshaped it. and then I got this idea to make to turn it into a big band because I was using a lot of big band samples. so I had a 15-piece big band for which I wrote all the arrangements, did a lot of concerts with, and so in the first period was composing tracks, performing live by my musicians. And then there was some yeah this this yeah maybe typical artistic frustration after a while. so after four albums, what what shall be next? shall I make the fifth one, which is more or less the same with the same kind of concerts? I was looking for something new, something fresh, some and and also in in the beginning when I started there w there was this new lounge, new jazz, Saint-Germain hype with which I could profit. so I had my my first gig ever was I even had a live band. My first gig ever was in the Ancien Belgique in Brussels, which is the most famous concert hall in Belgium. And it was just because of my records. The the the guy the programmer listened to my record said do you want to play here? So yes I have to find a band. and that’s how it all started. So I made music myself, but then invited a band and and we grew as a band. but yeah, I was just following my own path and and and my own taste. and maybe maybe that’s different from from another musician or or or normal musician. Is my main profession is teaching. I’m a professor, so I have my income.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Gert: And that is very important. So I have a job which I really love doing, and I’m I I can share my passion with students, which is so great. But that also means that I don’t have to make any compromise at all in making music. That’s just yeah, I have my income, and that’s that’s important. So I was just doing the things I I wanted to do, but it it it wasn’t that popular anymore because it was my music w went more into a cinematic style, more soundscape, and And then I had this frustration and then I decided, well, one of the universities called asked me, do you want to make a PhD? yes, why not? So I started a PhD and in music sociology. and then I started a brewery. And there was a time around two thousand twelve when we came to the place where we live for the moment, when I really thought I will never make music again in my life. Been there, done that. And I’m a brewer s from now on. So I started the brewery, my own hop yard, and I was brewing beer, beer, beer, beer, and teaching, of course, but no music at all. until Corona gets kicks in. the the time when a lot of people were just r yeah, reflecting, and and the same with me, I was sitting in my studio, I rediscovered my studio and said I I’m I’m going to make a new record. But because of the lockdown,

Matt: Right.

Gert: I decided I will do everything myself. So I do the composition, the whole producing, the mixing, the mastering. Mastering was something new to me, and there was really like this this click, wow, this is something for me. Like digging into details and and and and and and and sorting out how sound is working. So mastering that’s it’s made for me. So then I went studying at the mastering academy in Hamburg with Friedemann Tischmeyer, the guy who invented dynamic range. And then I did let followed lessons with Ian Shepherd in London. He was he was also a guest and at your podcast. he was one of my mentors. and then I started my own mastering service after this afterwards. But the main reason was I want to master my own music. That was my motivation to do mastering. yeah.

Matt: Right. You know, it’s amazing just the the thing you just keep piling up activity after activity. And I I love how how like you know, whether it’s beer or teaching or writing or mixing or mass, you know, like it’s unbelievable. Like I could probably come and spend a week with you and just be exhausted. ‘Cause you’re you’re doing so much. But when it comes to the so I wanna understand a couple of things. the teaching. What what specifically are you teaching?

Gert: Yeah. I’ve three two main things. The first part is is music history because I also I didn’t mention but I I wrote four books about history of popular music. so that’s my main that was my main teaching area since since I started teaching 30 years ago. that was teaching popular music history. and then also music sociology because that was my study. that’s one thing, and the other thing is music production. And I teach a few things. One is the introduction course for all jazz and pop students at the conservatory, who are entering the school because they want to play an instrument, and I’m teaching them creating music in the box. So they have to work in a DAW and with soft sins and etc. And I try to to to help them in in creating demos. And that’s in the first year. in the music production department I also teach mastering and I have my own cars on immersive sound. And that’s of course the cherry on the cake. yesterday we had a presentation of our students, because in our students in in this car’s immersive audio, they have to make an immersive track. We have a Dolby Atmos room in in at the university. so that’s the first part creating a track, but then they have to translate it into live and In the city where I’m teaching in Ghent, there’s a venue called Winter’s Circus. And it’s a fully equipped immersive Eliza concert hall, and then have to they have to translate their then to translate their track into an ELISA immersive music project. And yesterday it was the presentation of those tracks, which was so so lovely. I was I was really I I was riding home with with a big smile. and and and that’s why I get my energy. you want to help students and when you see the results and the students are happy and they they thank you so thank you for helping us. that’s that’s the most beautiful beautiful thing there is. Yeah.

Matt: You know, considering the amount of activities you do, how where do you find the discipline to do like for an example, when you when you wanted to get into mastering, you know, you went to Friedemann Tischmeyer, you went to Ian Shepherd, like you, you, you really focused in to figure out like how does this work? How should I be doing this? What’s the approach? How do you find the discipline to do each of these activities well?

Gert: Well, that’s the strong urge to understand something. I really can dig into something until the very smallest detail. for instance, I have a book, not a book where you write with it with pen and paper, like an empty book. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Matt: yeah, like like a journal or or or a notebook.

Gert: Only for the the lessons of of of of of those two mentors. I’ve two of those books written everything down, which I thought which was interesting. And that’s how I do always the translation. So I’m always writing down in in books. I’ve got plenty of them, according to the to the subject. and that’s when I see a YouTube video, when I follow a course, when I see when I heard something new, then I write it down. And time by time I just read all those notes again and and that’s how I memorize it, how how it’s how it’s getting structured inside my head. But that’s really my my my way of of of handling things is by writing it down. in fact I’m very bad in the digital age because internet is too much for me. It’s too much information. and I I really get a lot of stress because it’s too much for me. So I want to slow down and to and that maybe that’s the reason why I focus. Just to have I’m control freak. To have control on different things and and then I can really dig very deep into it. And it’s time by time. So the the the the the year I was studying with with Ian Shepherd and Friedemann Tischmeyer, that was the only thing I did that year. That was one year only mastering from morning until night. and and that’s the same and and afterwards it’s it’s with immersive audio and they’ll be honest. I just wrote a book. on creating and and mixing immersive music. So that means after a lot of reading, but the writing itself was like like four to six months full time, seven, seven, twenty-four, twenty almost w with a few hours of sleep. Yeah.

Matt: So with with Atmos, t talk to me about your journey there and and did you apply the same learning techniques that you did with mastering?

Gert: Yeah. Well, first of all, I I learned mixing by doing mastering. because then finally I understand what a compressor was doing and and other effects because that’s that’s what was a very good perspective just to have the general image and then go into detail. and maybe that’s also my my interest because for for for immersive it started like a lot of people from nowadays When Apple joined the the the the circus and and I could hear specialized audio on on my earbuds. that was my my first encounter. And that’s also one of the maybe the bottom line, because in in my opinion, the when you have a good immersive mix, the headphone experience will be better. And if that’s the only win we have, that’s already worth doing it.

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: So that was a starting point. And then I thought, maybe this can be something interesting. and mastering, I really love doing it, but but also maybe I’m I’m I’m I’m doing too much to to develop it in into a a fully full functioning job, to to get a lot of gigs. I’ve I’ve got some which is fine. but I think maybe there are already enough mastering engineers. I’m very bad in promotion. I’m I’m very good in doing things, but I’m very, very bad at promotion. so so maybe I thought maybe immersive can be can be a big next thing. Let’s let’s let’s dig into that. and then yeah it’s it yeah that’s really one of my my my big problems that I it has to go the all all the way. So only headphones wasn’t enough for me, so that I invested in in small speakers and and that it can can have an immersive setup at home. and from there it all started was just like experiencing and because always say hearing is believing, and once you hear this this immersed sound, then you’re sold. And because of that strong feeling, I th I said no, this is what I want to do. And so I was

Matt: yeah.

Gert: reading and writing and and I I I I think I’ve saw all the YouTube videos on on on immersive and all the atmosphere I I could find. I’ve I’ve I’ve bought all the books on immersive you can find on Amazon for instance. And then I’m studying and writing down and then I think maybe I have to do something with it. So and then the advantages when you when you’re when you work at the at the conservatory music higher music education then it just s suggested to to the school but maybe I can do Cars on immersive audio. yeah, okay, great. well, not from the beginning, but after a while, because I was come on, please, let’s do it. Let’s say finally, yeah, okay. it’s your ball, ballpark, and and just do it. and and that was the the the the urge to or the the motivation also to to write the book because I didn’t find a a good handbook for for the students, so I thought, maybe I’ll write it myself.

Matt: Yeah. Exactly.

Gert: But but that’s that’s how and it it all sounds more special than it really is. I’m just again busy with my passion and and and I want to to dig into things and and I’m I’m happy when I can can explore something and and and find some relationship between things that really gives a feeling of of satisfaction and that’s why I write books and and and I’m teaching. That’s I I’m always looking to to to connect the little the little dots. and and then I just thought, yeah, if I if I spend all this time in in studying immersive sound, maybe it’s good to to to collect everything in in one book. And and if this book can can help people then then I’m I’m very grateful.

Matt: and I do want to talk about the book, but before we do that, I want to ask you when you are researching anything and you’re reading, first off, are you are you do you do you read a lot of books? Okay. I I have trouble if it with certain books, it it depends. Like I get bored really easily, like I can do audio books.

Gert: Yeah. Yeah. A lot.

Matt: like any day of the week because I can it’s that listening is easy for me. Reading the light has to be great and I have to be comfortable and it’s just if there’s any distractions, it it becomes very difficult for me to read. I’ve I’ve discovered and So you don’t have that problem and you can easily read. When you do read, do you take detailed notes like you do okay, yeah.

Gert: Yeah, and and it’s I already told you I have H D H D R D R D H A S D, yeah. right?

Matt: A yeah, well ADHD?

Gert: A D A D H D, yeah, yeah. R D R D A D H D yeah. and

Matt: A attention deficit hyperactive disorder.

Gert: Yes, that’s it. That’s it. And that makes it difficult for me to read books on a computer. Because there’s always flickering and it’s always scrolling and there’s always new information coming in. Maybe an email is coming in. And does it that is very distracting for me. So when I read a book, I’m not online. I’m offline. I’m in my in my in my in my living room and I’m I can concentrate on the things I’m reading. And that’s that’s the only way in which I can yeah really concentrate because otherwise I’m always distracted. I’m distracted by everything. And so I have to close myself and the book is is helpful for for me. And then I take a lot of notes first with a with with a pencil I I I I I make some marks in in the book and then I reread it and sometimes I write it down in a new book with all the all the the most important things and that’s maybe that’s a reason why i love to write books too because it’s very difficult for me i also have got the dyslexia dyslex yeah okay so writing is difficult for me but even then i’ve got the strong urge to yeah just to to connect everything

Matt: Dyslexia, yeah.

Gert: Maybe that’s because there’s so much happening in my head that it w that I want to find ways in which I can structure it for myself. And one way to do it is is is writing a book or or teaching about it. Because when you’re teaching, you have to structure all your thoughts. and I learn most of the things by teaching on it. And because you have to explain it and talk it loud and and there are questions, and suddenly I realize, I didn’t know this, I didn’t know. I have to look it look it up. Sometimes say to the students, well we will discuss this further next week. And in the meantime, I’m I’m studying because I want to know the answer on every question. And that’s my motivation. And and and and yeah, and reading, writing, teaching helps me in in in structuring. And because I need it for myself, for my health. it’s also profit for me as an as a profession, and because I made my living out of doing this.

Matt: I I I think it’s really important that you the fact that you understand that you have dyslexia and ADHD and understand the the potential pitfalls of those two those two diagnoses and understanding what you need to do to make it so that things are organized. And I love that.

Gert: Mm.

Matt: you you go that you go offline to really focus that’s that’s really interesting so let’s talk about your book and because of your fantastic setup there could you flash your book up on the screen for our YouTube viewers look at that stereo was a nice try creating and producing immersive music okay that is great so in creating this book what is the goal

Gert: Mm. Yeah. Here it is.

Matt: for you in this book.

Gert: Well, this the title is is self ex explainable explorable. No. yeah, indeed, that’s the word. Yeah, English is not my mother language, so excuse me for that. Yeah. because when when I’m working in immersive audio and also at school with colleagues of mine and people you meet in the music industry and musicians, there’s a lot of hesitation when it comes to immersive Odolpia.

Matt: Explanatory. Self explanatory. Yes. I I I no, I totally get it, yeah.

Gert: it’s like, yeah, we’ve heard about it, but it’s not let’s wait and see. maybe it will go over, but we’re still fine with stereo. so to begin with, I want to persuade people, well, stereo was a nice try. It’s it’s it was good because we didn’t had any anything that was better. But now there is something which is better. So it’s time to explore that and embrace it. so the first chapter in my book is all the 13 reasons why Dolby Atmos sucks. So all the critique I hear, that’s my starting point. And then I try to give counter-arguments to say, well, maybe, but look at on the other hand, it’s this. And I think the central point in in in everything I do, and also in the book, is W when it’s when it when we’re talking about immersive music, I’m not that much interested in reworking an existing stereophile into a Dolby Atmos project. No. I’m interested in creating music in an immersive way right from the beginning. And I strongly believe that the real future of this format is when artists start to think immersive. And that’s my main goal of the book. Let them think about what is possible. So I’m I’m very interested in in the creation process. So it’s like recording with multiple microphones, but also working with virtual instruments in an immersive way. how can you use those in an in an immersive setup? And and then make a project which is and I’m I’m telling immersive because it’s more than Dolby Atmos. Dolby Atmos is a most well-known format for the moment, for the moment. But it’s one not the best one. And maybe it won’t be the one for the future. We don’t know. But the most important thing is to be future-proof and just make something which is immersive. That means work in multi-channel groups, multi-channel buses, work in in object-based, in channel-based, and scene-based, with with ambisonics. And when a project is finished, then you can decide what you’re going to do with it. You can turn it into a Dolby Atmos. But you also can turn it into Eclipse when YouTube will start broadcasting Eclipse. Maybe that will be the next big thing. Who knows? I don’t know. If you want to have a high quality audio file, well go to Auro-3D, which is a very good format too. If you want to make a live performance and you want to change it into ELISA for a live system in ELISA or in DOB or or mayor sounds, you can do it.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Gert: So it’s like one project in and and you also can make a stereo file out of it, of course, just like you. I’ll also do the the Atmos or the immersive mix and stereo at the same time. so that’s my goal. And and also in the book, I present a workflow in which you first create an immersive and then make an an mixing with a format agnostic way of working. And when it’s finished, then you decide which format you’re going to do. Of course, half of the book is mixing in Dolby Atmos. let’s be honest, that’s the most important thing. So that’s also the main thing of the book. But it’s just like it it’s it it’s when you talk about channel placement, for instance, it’s the same for Dolby Atmos or Eclipse, for instance. So it’s it’s it’s more general than than only this this this format. And

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: Yeah, one of the reasons is also that that well Dolby Atmos I really love and and I have a Dolby Atmos set up and I work in Dolby Atmos. but it it has got limitations, which is really a pity. And and and they refuse to change it, which is really a pity. And and there are better alternatives. so that’s why I always keep my eyes open on on new developments and and just yeah, we’ll see what a future will will bring, but I think that it’s better to be future proof. So my book is is is an encouragement for people to stop thinking only in stereo, no start thinking in immersive. And from the creation process, how you can place an instrument in in inside a room, how you work with space, how you work with delay in the creation of music. And then when you do the the the mixing, what what is the best way just to to to fill to fill this room? But I’m also discussing the difference between channel based, object-based, what is the the the the pros and the cons. can we is it important to have a lot of movement or not? things like that. and also there’s a chapter about mastering, where I do the comparison between stereo mastering and immersive. It’ll be Atmos master mastering. so this is considered to to Atmos, of course, because you’ve got Wavelap thirteen, which has a

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Gert: Atmos mastering program and also Fidel Audio Mastering Console. You’ve got two very good mastering programs for Atmos mastering. So do the comparison comparison between s stereo and and immersive. And then also the the last chapter is about the the the delivery formats, the D D plus jugs and the the AC fars and and other conversions which take place take place all over in in in in in the whole project process.

Matt: When you’re exploring a particular topic or writing a book, do you feel a sense of time pressure to get it done before, you know, is there a threat that you will lose interest in what you’re doing? Let’s say you’re 50% way through writing a book about immersive, you know, audio. Is there a potential, do you ever worry like, crap, I gotta get this done because I might lose interest and something else might catch my attention?

Gert: Mm-hmm. Well, I I have to give myself a deadline. In the beginning there’s no deadline, and I’m totally free, and that’s the most fun part of all, because then you’re just watching some videos and reading and and and exploring things because I I I I test everything myself in my studio. every plugin I I describe, I’ve tested myself. So those are the the the the fun things to do. but Then there’s this time that that you you have to to to finish it and and and to to to to to finalize everything. And for that I really need need a deadline. And in this case, it was in in in February there was a convention in in Helsinki for European convert conservatories, in which I did a a talk on immersive audio. So I thought that day I will present my book. And that was my personal deadline. And that’s something I need to to really finish it. And then the last month it’s like nonstop working just to to finish it. and I need to have this deadline because I want to do something else also afterwards. Then maybe there’s two months I do do don’t do anything at all anymore with immersive. I’m just doing other things, just to clear my mind and then it comes back. So it’s not I’m not doing everything at the same time. It’s just always

Matt: Right. Because you only have room and and time for so much. So I’m sure that, you know, the minute you discover there’s a new thing you want to explore, you’ve got to like shuffle out or move move aside one other activity.

Gert: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s always one big investigation at the time. So there’s one big topic I want to explore at at one specific time. So when I’m very into when I’m working busy with mixing in in in in Dolby Atmos that I’m not doing mastering anymore, at that at the same time. So or or or a lose interest. So luckily I’ve got some some mastering gigs just to Keep on going because otherwise I just maybe I forget things after a while. so yeah.

Matt: I know you you you have to do the activity to keep it’s like exercising the muscle.

Gert: Yes, indeed. So yesterday I got a question from from an artist. he he will release three full albums in the next month. will you master it? So yes, of course. So and that’s that’s good just to have have this this this practice, because otherwise I yeah I’m I’m I’m yeah.

Matt: When it comes to the the business part of everything for you, now you’ve got your teaching gig. So that’s that’s your regular income. How do you price yourself for the other activities? How do you establish, like, what’s a fair price for me to charge for mastering, for mixing for other people? what process do you go through to to determine what your value is?

Gert: Well in the beginning it’s like start low and see how high you can go. but there’s also an ethical question in this way that for mastering, when a student asks me to do mastering, I will give a huge discount. because it’s not because it’s a student. I won’t do it for free, but it’s not my regular price. Normally for mastering I’m asking 50 euro for a trick, but for student it’s thirty five. Yeah, and that’s cheap for students. and I can live with it. because that’s good. It’s also it’s an ethical thing. I I can’t charge the the same amount of money. but there’s a lot of things I I you you just do for free. You’ve got a lot of people asking you for advice and I want to give advice, There’s some some commu communities in which I contribute just for free. I’m giving mixing feedback for on on the line communities for friends. I’m just doing that for free because I love doing it. and when I do a talk, then yeah, of course I that that’s that’s see how how high can you go. I say I’ve got my minimum. if I do a talk, so this is my minimum amount. And it’s always like like a typical economic economical game. You you ask much more in the hope that you get a little bit more than than than the basic basic price. but I but I see all those things as as an as an extra extras to buy gear. That’s really the thing. That’s that’s how I I I work. So I do mastering to to to to pay back my my investments.

Matt: On the on the Right.

Gert: the same with immersive. I’ve do visits in my brewery, which also get a little bit of money, which I buy plugins from, because I’m I’ve I’ve got a huge collection. So I I’m that that’s also yeah, I buy too much things and and and also selling and reselling, but I’m yeah, I’m I’m a control freak, but also a controller freak. so I want this is new, I want to try it out.

Matt: Th let me ask you about that.

Gert: And and that’s that’s with all those mastering gigs and and and other gigs that’s yeah for for so at the end I have a free hobby. That’s how I see it.

Matt: You have a hobby that right, that pays for itself, essentially. Let me ask you about the trying things out aspect because there’s things I see that I think I don’t really wanna own that, but I do want to try it. And sometimes I confuse my need for something with the desire to just test it out, just for experiment’s sake.

Gert: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Matt: Do you do you also have a a a desire to just try things?

Gert: Yeah, and that’s that’s all I’m not saying it’s it’s really a sick situation, but but I think there’s a lot of us music engineers have got this this problem. maybe also fear of missing out. so something new. I I I need to know, especially when you present yourself as a as an expert, you you have to know it. so you can’t say, I don’t know that. No, no, you have to know it. So for software I buy too much, really too much. I buy plugins, even it’s that sick. Sometimes I buy plugins and I know I will never use it. But there’s also for my collection, just to to know what it is. It’s that’s stronger than myself. it’s only 20 euros. Okay, I buy it. And and that’s not good. For hardware, it’s something different. well, we all know there is this economical system where you can buy gear at the big shop and then send it back after a month. That’s what I do sometimes. I just try it out. And if it’s no, this this this wasn’t a bad this was a bad mistake, then I send it back. So we have to admit, yeah, I do that. So that helps a little bit without losing that much money. But on on the other hand, I still buy a lot. So it’s it’s justified to to to to work that way.

Matt: You mentioned communities and I realize you participate with my good friend Chris Selim in his his communities. you mentioned you’re a Nuendo user and and he runs, you know, he does a lot of Cubase-centric stuff. do you get a lot of enjoyment from participating in those communities?

Gert: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the fun thing is I I started by being a member myself a long time ago, just because I thought that maybe it’s interesting to get some mixing feedback, until I realized that, well, yeah, that’s I’m a teacher myself. And then it’s sometimes difficult to be a student again. and and I told Chris, I say, Well, I will help you, but I’m not just yeah. attending the sessions. And I said, well, join the team. And then I’m on the other side was together with Chess, Chess Roots, we we do the the monthly mixing revisions and and there’s a QA and and I really love doing it for two reasons. One is the same already explained. It also helps me structuring my thoughts because there are questions which are new and which I didn’t know before that makes me think, yeah maybe this is it this this is interesting. but also the second one is is like building a building a community so now i know chris now i know chess now i know some people that’s also interesting because those those are just lovely guys which i otherwise i would never know them and and and and and that’s it’s it’s it’s the same like playing in a band by doing this you’re part of a community so i’m i’m a and Einzelgänger, so I like to play myself on my own in my studio, but I also want to have contact with with people who think the same. And when you meet people with the same passion, the same interests, then that’s that really gives a very warm feeling. so after every session with with the the Chris Selim MCC, it’s called, I’m always smiling. It’s like yeah, and Then this has nothing to do with money or something. No, this is just because you want to share your your passion with with somebody else. That’s why I like to talk with you. That’s that’s the fun thing to do. That’s that’s and we need that. We we we’re we are human beings are very social beings, so we need to have social contacts. And for a modern music producer pr producer working in a in a in a studio, a lot of most of the times we work alone. then it’s important to have this this

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: these meetings. That’s why I love teaching. That’s that’s also my well, keeps me healthy. so

Matt: Yeah, it’s that’s interesting you say that because I I really think what I get out of doing these interviews is I just love to hear what people are doing, what their story is, how they’re you know, like I’m completely intrigued by your whole world and how you’ve structured it and some of the things you’ve learned about yourself along the way. I just find that endlessly fascinating to know. So I I I agree with you.

Gert: That’s also the reason why I listen to your podcast quite a lot, because just to hear these stories. That’s and I I know how how you’re working, so I really like this. It’s like it’s like meeting somebody, somebody which you don’t know. So, this is interesting. And sometimes I I hear podcasts w from people who who doing things which are totally different than my point of interest. But even then I found some things. this is nice, this is good to think about. do it do does it this way, and and that’s That’s that’s important. It’s like an an a window to to the world.

Matt: Let’s talk about beer. Tell me tell me how you got involved in making beer and and you have a proper brewery?

Gert: Yeah. Yeah, small one, but it’s it’s yeah. It’s well it’s it’s the same as as making music. It’s I’m I’m very bad in having hobbies. Let me explain. When I’m interested in something, something gets a passion, and a passion gets almost an obsession. then I’m so intrigued by something that I want to explore it, I want to know it. So music is not just enjoying music, no, that’s making myself and then presenting myself, pre-mixing me. And with beer, it’s the same. It’s like I’m I’m a I’m a a huge fan of of of the the strong Belgian beers. at my parents’ house there were always fifteen different kinds of beer, no lager beer, no industrialized beer, but the artisanal, real strong, heavy, pure beer. we we of for which Belgium is very famous for. we were really a very famous beer country.

Matt: yeah.

Gert: And then I just want to to start reading about how is beer made. And I thought, this is interesting. Maybe I have to try it myself. And then I bought a small kit to brew in the kitchen. And and my first brewing was was so nice to do and and and it tasted well. That’s that thought, this is great. I I want to do this more. And then we we live in the countryside and we’ve got this this like this this workshop place in an old part of the building where used to be horses long time ago before we lived here. and then I renovated one of the one of those spaces into a a full functioning small brewery. and and yeah the same stor story. I studied a lot of because I’m I’m a sociologist, that’s my my thing. I’m not a chemistry guy. I’ve never loved chemistry. But then I start reading books about how to make beer, making notes, studying, and and the same process as with mastering and immersive. And then I just try it myself and and and I can do every anything I want if I have a very strong intrinsic motivation. and if you ask me something which I don’t like, I’m very bad in it and won’t do it. So I’m very difficult with the things which like bookkeeping, for instance, doing promotion, I hate it. I hate the whole economical side of things. That’s not my world. but when I have very strong interest in like this making beer, then I just go into it. And the coincidence was that my grandfather, he was a brewer, and I’m the first person in the in the in the whole family, in the second generation, starting beer again. So he made beer one century ago. and and maybe that’s something unconsciously part of the whole story, because maybe that’s the reason why there were so many good beers at my parents’ place, because it was also part of that that family. and and then yeah, i it’s a nice story to to tell also that the I found some old bottles of my grandfather with his name on it, bottles which are more than a century old. and that was so so so so hard warmful to to to find this also for my father. and and and and this is yeah I I experiment with with with taste and the 10 years that I didn’t make or nine years that I didn’t make any music at all I was only doing my brewery Then was really professional brewery. I sold to all the restaurants and pubs in the neighborhood. at a certain time I had about more than than than 15,000 liters per year selling my beer. But the same thing, I’m very bad in promotion and economy. and the beer world is full of mafia, really. It’s it’s if if you know all those. those shops and and and the in-between persons who take all the money and and and and the the producers are really sometimes don’t have anything. So there was also during Corona I I decided no I don’t want to to waste too much energy in the bad vibes I got from the business part of the beer world. so I go f today I go to another brewery nearby, which is a bigger brewery. And they brew my recipe. So I changed my small brewery into a small labo where I can still experiment with new tastes and and make new recipes because that’s the creative thing about making beer, and the thing I really love doing is being creative. So I want to make recipes and that’s my i enjoyment. But when a recipe is finished and the brewery Brewing process itself, it’s always the same for every kind of beer. It’s always the same steps you have to do. The bottling of the beer, it’s always the same. So at the end, that’s that’s that’s boring for me. and and then it’s really work. unless it’s really paid that well, I can say, okay, I do it for the money. But even that wasn’t the case. because it’s such a small brewery. I couldn’t, I even couldn’t ask the production price from a beer because it’s so expensive.

Matt: Yeah.

Gert: To have a fully functioning official brewery with all the regulations there are, that it’s so expensive that I decided no, that’s it’s not worth doing it. So I still have my and I still do brewery visits. I’ve got one group a week maybe coming and visit me and do my talk. And we do a a tasting which is very nice doing it, and I can I can do my talk on beer, which I enjoy. And it’s still, yeah, something that’s also to to keep balance. maybe that sounds like a contradiction, but sometimes by doing different things at the same time, it it’s a form of to to relax because I’m not too pinpointing on one small thing, so it’s I’m spreading the attention and that’s easier to to to to to relative rel to to to make it more more in balance, that’s the word. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: More imbalance. what stresses you out?

Gert: Things I have to do which I don’t want to do. people who are not responding or not fast enough, in my opinion. people who are Yeah, too too much information. so for instance, the reason why I go to Ghent, which is again a forty kilometer drive from my home by bike, is because I get too stressed by taking a train and forced To follow conversations which I don’t want to follow.

Matt: because you’ll be on the train and you’ll hear other people talking in that and your mind

Gert: Yeah. Yeah. Especially on the phone and and and even with earbuds with with noise cancelling still coming through and and that’s too much for me. And then I’m so pissed when I when I enter my my school. And that’s yeah, I’m I’m I’m very sensitive to too much information and too much things happening around me. And and one of the really my bad sides is I’m I’m always thinking I’m am I am I doing the the right thing? And I’m always thinking maybe I this wasn’t good what I did. Maybe I said something which wasn’t okay. And during the night that keeps on going in my head. maybe that was wrong, I shouldn’t have done this. and yeah, that’s also part of my psyche is working, I think.

Matt: You know, I completely identify with what you’re saying about the the distractions of because I am super I’m hypersensitive to people like being on their phones and watching a YouTube video in public with the volume really loud, like like at an airport or wherever there’s enough distractions at an airport for most people, but add the cell phone or add the people talking at a movie theater, like I love that you take the the the time to bicycle to work to isolate yourself from all those distractions and to just focus on you and the road ahead.

Gert: Yeah. Yeah. That’s something you you you learn about through the years. because I I used to live in Ghent, which is a city, and I was live living in a in a city life with a lot of concerts and going to pubs and restaurants and a lot of social contacts and a lot of noise. but maybe there are some things which change when you get older and and some things are are more difficult. and I especially experienced this since my 50, 55. So the last couple of years. and it’s more or less like Corona that that time, because I was 50 during the lockdown. and then you just find a find a solution. So it’s always a contradiction. you’re you’re looking for s for some less distraction, but on the on the same time you also need social contact and and you you’re you’re looking for new people. So it’s yeah. Sometimes the balance is is is is is different, but yeah, time by time you you learn.

Matt: Now this part it is gonna escape some of you who are just listening. So if you if you’re on YouTube it’ll make more sense. But can you talk a little bit about your your setup there at home with the different video capability? Because you were telling me that you are set up to fully teach online. Is that is that correct?

Gert: Yeah. Yeah, that’s correct. because I want first I wanted to start my own on online academy. but then I realized I needed to have a YouTube channel and and promote myself to get a lot of subscriptions or something, which I don’t want to do. but I’m I’m still equipped, which is good also for teaching. sometimes when when there’s a a strike or something in the country, then I say, we do the lesson online. And the car of my system is is a roadcaster from road, the roadcaster video. You also got the roadcaster pro, which is the podcast thing with with only audio only. but this is audio and video, so you’ve got inputs from your screens from different cameras as much as you want, and almost. and You can also choose the the outputs. so I also can send my system audio through the same stream without any connection. I can show the screen of my of my main Mac. no problem. It’s just pressing a a button. Because for instance if I and you can have a lot of shortcuts, so I you can show my book, I can show my name underneath the screen. so here is if you’re on YouTube, this is my email address. You always can contact me if you want. this all the things this makes it very easy to do online teaching. even like I can have some sound effects in between, which is also nice.

Matt: That’s and and when did you start to realize that this was something that would augment your your online teaching or was this a part of the initial idea of putting together an online academy?

Gert: Well, it started viewing again during Corona. being a professor, all the lessons were online. And I just realized that these online lessons were so boring because just on Teams with small screens is not the same. so I first I wanted to have something by which the audio quality was better, but also that the video quality was better, just like a YouTube channel with with with 4K video and and a nice camera angles. I wanted to have this too for my online classes, even at at the university for for for for any lesson at all. and that’s why I thought maybe I’ve have to invest in this system. And if I do online teaching, then then I’m set. maybe I will restart the online academy one day, but we we’ll see. the book is first, and maybe the academy is afterwards. But I’m also open for yeah, work with other people. Also when I when I w do these online communities, this is this is easy. For instance, on the MCC if there’s a Chris Selim’s channel, if there’s a question about mastering, I just open my sc I just I don’t have to share my screen. I just show my my DAW. I can say, y this plugin. this is interesting. you’ve got much more possibilities and especially today there’s a lot of things happening online. So being equipped a little bit better is not that bad. It’s very fruitful.

Matt: I would agree. Yeah, because in this day and age, you know, there’s there’s so much that let me let me back up. In this day and age, it’s nice to be prepared because I think that the activities that we do, I mean, you’re y you have a lot of activities going on, and I don’t think everybody has as much going on as you do, but those that do participate in audio in any kind of video or interviews or teaching, the ability to share your screen at at in the most simple way and have a good mic and and talk effectively with people I think is super important. sometimes my wife at her corporate job, you know, I I see you know, maybe I see over her shoulder or something if she’s in a meeting and Like everybody’s just got horrible audio. Horrible audio and mediocre video. So

Gert: Yeah, and it of course it’s an investment and and not everybody is is preparing to do it. For instance, this roadcaster video it’s it’s about one thousand dollar. but yeah, if you use it a lot then and yeah. And and and of course I’m also self employed, so these are are expenses, so I I it’s in my bookkeeping. So

Matt: Which is not your favorite to do.

Gert: No, I have a bookkeeper.

Matt: Well, so your situation is a little bit different than than many of of the guests, but still my question about money that I typically ask is what is your philosophy about how to be I mean, you’re not just an audio professional, you’ve got so many other things going on, a teacher, audio professional, beer, you know, a a beer beer what would you say, a brewer? A brewer. how do you approach survival and and money?

Gert: Well that’s of course very important because it’s part of your survival strategy. you have to be sure that that that that you can live. And once again, maybe it’s difficult different from from from other people because I’m self-deployed as a side activity. It’s not my main job. And really if I don’t if I shouldn’t have a regular job like I have at university, my life would be totally different. This is really the car business for me. And maybe also an advice I can give to other people is like first find a job which is not that bad, but which give you a financial secure basics that you know I’ve got this amount of money every month, this I I need to pay, so I’m safe. I don’t have any financial troubles. And then you can see what else can you do on top of that. And that’s how I step into this life it’s like i I I’ve got some extra jobs and extra gigs for mastering and mixing or whatever. And okay, I’ve got new money to buy gear. And this way I keep this this this balance. But the the the basis is really to have this this this the same amount of money every month. So I know until I’m retired I will have my the same salary every month with which I can pay the house and and pay the bills and and pay my food and and yeah that’s a luxury but when you’re working in in a creative sector it’s it also give you so much freedom for instance if if you only are a mastering engineer just to to pay the bills at the end there’s so much things you have to to take into account and and buy new gear and do promotion and and so that That’s the disadvantage of being an fully self-employed. You have to do everything yourself. If you love doing it, then it’s fine. If you love doing promotion, I love doing bookkeeping, then it’s good. But in my case, I don’t like that. So I need really I need a job. but what a it’s I know it’s really a luxury, but when I do teaching, I don’t need to do any promotion, to be very cruel. If crude, crude, cruel. If I don’t have students, I even get money. So it’s the university who is attracting new students. I don’t need to do that. So every year there’s a new year and there are new students in front of me. That’s that’s wonderful. Because the system is doing the promotion, not myself. And it’s a platform in which I can share my my passion. So if I do a production class and I go home, it’s it’s like big smile, the biggest smile I can and I I always tell my students, just email me a anytime, also during holidays. There’s no problem for me. I answer your questions because I love sharing my my my ideas. So so then I’m not talking about money because I know the basic bills are paid. And that gives without that I don’t think I could live this life. I n really need this security that I know this is this is sorted out. If not, I I think my head would explode. Absolutely. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, makes total sense. well, I I must thank you for your time. I I know that you you are doing a lot of different things. And so to make time for me, I I know that you know, you had to you you had to stop doing something else to allow the bandwidth for me to come in and and intrude. So appreciated. links will be in the show notes audience for everything we’ve talked about. yeah.

Gert: Pleasures totally mine.

Matt: Great to great to meet you and I maybe someday I’ll be in Belgium and we’ll meet. I’ve last time I was in Belgium I was passing through on a train.

Gert: Yeah, next time you’ll have to stop and we do a beer tasting at my place. That would be absolutely lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Because beer tasting, it’s almost an immersive experience.

Matt: that’s what we have to do. Okay. I’m in. Great, great note to stop on. well thank you again and and you take care.

Gert: Yeah. Take care of you too and very happy to be in the show.

Matt: My pleasure to have you. Thank you.

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.