WCA #611 with Scott McDowell

Matt: Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Scott: Great to be here.

Matt: All right, great to have you. let’s do the state of the state. Who are you? Where are you? And what do you consider yourself?

Scott: well, my name is Scott McDowell and I live here in San Francisco. and I guess I consider myself like I mean, it’s music, so it’s always confusing and complicated. I I co-own a recording studio, I produce records, I record records, I mix records, and for the last eight years I’ve had a part-time job doing music and a little sound design at a video game studio.

Matt: Awesome. We’re gonna get into that. And let’s get back into the beginning. Where where did you grow up?

Scott: Ha ha. I grew up in Novato, which is like North Marin. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Novato. It’s like I feel like if Petaluma and Novato were switched at birth, somehow Novato ended up in Marin Petaluma is in Sonoma. but I’m just below Petaluma. and I lived there for the first eighteen years of my life and then and then went to Boston for college. and moved back here and have just lived in the city ever since.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Did you did you go to Berkeley School of Music? Okay. Did you graduate?

Scott: I did, yeah. Yeah. I good question. I finished my time at Berkeley. I had like 50, like one semester of credits, gen ed credits that I still needed to transfer over, that I also finished here at SF Community College. And I never transferred them back. I just got busy working on studio stuff and no one’s ever asked. So

Matt: There it is. I ask because, you know, I know that people, there’s a large amount of people. Well, I don’t know what the percentage is. I don’t want to make a broad statement, but there’s a percentage of people that go to Berkeley School of Music and not they don’t graduate because a lot of them leave to go on the road with people because they just get recruited.

Scott: The the joke at the time when I was there was if you stick around long enough to graduate, maybe you haven’t made it. Yeah. Which I think is especially true, probably for performers. less so for like music tech stuff, like recording engineering and and music synth and stuff. But definitely performers, so many of my friends who have gone on to be really successful, a lot of them, that’s how that was their track.

Matt: Maybe you’re not that good, right? Y do you have siblings?

Scott: I have a sister who lives in Orange County. She’s two years younger than me. And then about halfway through my childhood, I’ve got two step siblings. my stepbrother is the same age as me. and my stepsister’s four years younger than me, and they’re all awesome.

Matt: Can you talk a little bit about your parents and were they the ones who exposed you to music or technology or did that come from other people?

Scott: Yeah, definitely. my mom, my mom worked at Kaiser, but she early on was like pretty computer savvy, pretty tech savvy. she the first digital pharmacy for Kaiser, my mom set that up in Napa in the late 80s. and at some point in the 80s, she got an Apple IIE. And that was the first computer in our house, which, you know, it’s funny because like an Apple IIE is like an Not a pretty powerful computer, but I mean I I was playing with it. I was goofing around with it. I was playing Karatika, some karate game. And and I remember taking a summer school program where I learned how to program like a really goofy word game for the Apple IIe. So I think I got a lot of my early like tech stuff and like we we upgraded from there. We got different Macs. I I got into computers thanks to my mom. And then my dad, this is crazy. My dad was a broadcast engineer. he worked here in the city at KPIX. And so for most of my childhood, trips into the city to hang out at the station were pretty normal. And I never intended to follow in my dad’s footsteps. I mean, I I grew up having an understanding of like how video editing worked, and how a little bit about how TV production worked. and even like I would play with the big cameras, the the big ones that had like motorcycle handlebars on them.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Scott: and my dad taught me how to focus and how to like raise and lower and I would I would do all kinds of stuff. And then it wasn’t until I was at Berkeley in Boston, doing a mix project. And my dad came to visit one time. And I remember he was sitting in the in the mix room with me, like just hanging out, letting me work. and I looked over at him and I saw my dad in front of this rack of gear and I realized, no, this is my dad’s natural space. I’ve I’ve become my dad. Like this is I mean, and to be fair, broadcast is very different from what we do. but honestly on the grand scheme of things, it’s kinda not.

Matt: Yeah. So yeah, a lot of crossover, a lot of similarities. It’s still still audio, you know. did your dad give you advice or did he have you know suggestions about, well, you maybe you want to come over to broadcast and

Scott: Yeah. No, I mean, he definitely tried to talk me out of music. he was he was not super keen. I mean, he wasn’t he didn’t stand in my way, but he was like, if you’re doing that, that’s that’s you, you’re on your own. and when I first moved to town, I remember there was one thing, there was there was one major like nepotism moment, which was I met I forget his name now. my gosh. I’m gonna blame that on brain damage. there was a tech for the dead that I met through like Friends. And he was doing football games where he would work as like just like a local on the football games. And I was like, my dad used to do that. I really want to do that. And my dad, I’d asked him and he could not find a role for me. either he was lying or he just didn’t have the contacts. But this guy, I want to say his name was Jeff, but I don’t think that’s right. This guy was like, Yeah, no problem. And like the next weekend, I was at a Niners game, like on the side of the field. and then I think I because of my dad’s status in the union. I got called almost every week because I was legacy status in the union. And I remember like a lot of the people were very upset with me. I that job for me only lasted a year. They were very upset because I got called more than I deserved. and I guess because I had this special legacy status. thanks to my dad. But that was about it. That was the major crossover, was like working Niners games and and it wasn’t really audio. I mean, I I was kind of shadowing the A2 and setting up the mics and learning how they like capture surround audience, you know, like crowd sounds and stuff like that. and I always wanted to be the guy holding the parabolic mic, because that’s especially by the time I was there, it was wireless. It was pretty chill gig, as my dad would describe it. You just point it at the ball and try to get the sounds of bones breaking when they crash together. But but they again because because the the the union rep

Matt: Yeah.

Scott: At the games, I would show up and it would be like like CBS or Fox Sports, whatever would like assign me to be like A2. And then the guy would be like, nah, you’re back on handheld. And handheld was there was a camera that a guy who would run up and down the length of field, like right on the sidelines. And it was probably he had had like a cable that was like as thick as my thumb and maybe 200 yards long. And my job was to run around behind this guy over, under, over, under, over, letting it in, letting it out, letting in, letting it out. And it was a frantic job. I got hit by a couple balls. and it’s pretty wild. It was really fun to be outside and get paid pretty well, but but I got really good overunder.

Matt: I’ve seen I’ve seen that person on on watching, you know, games and always wondered, how does one wind up in that position? No, I know I know. can you talk about when your first awareness of record production or let me rephrase that? Talk about when record production started to first pique your interest and when you started to ask the questions like, How is this made? What am I hearing? What what

Scott: Ha ha Yeah. you know, man, it’s hard to say. I mean, I had I had some like goofy ska bands in high school because it was the 90s. and then I remember I ended up through a teacher at my school, I ended up getting an internship at a recording studio in Belmar & Keys in Novato. and it didn’t go very well because the guy

Matt: Even work. Mm-hmm.

Scott: Which I totally understand as an adult now. The guy was a bit flaky and would not always tell me when he was coming or when he wasn’t coming. And I think he went on the road with some bands. So it was I ended up finding a different internship after trying on four for four months to get something consistent going with this guy. but but it’s hard to s it’s hard to say that that didn’t affect my understanding. Cause I mean, I spent a handful of time, you know, a handful of hours in the studio watching some records get made. In fact, even one of like my friends’ bands that would play at the Phoenix and Petaluma with me, they came through and spent a couple like a weekend making a record. so I definitely got a sense at that point, but I wasn’t thinking of that really as something I wanted to do. It was just an internship, just something somewhere to learn some stuff. and it wasn’t until in college, in my early twenties, and I didn’t really move to Boston until I was twenty. and I was I went just thinking I’d be a trumpet performer. I played trumpet. and I gave myself a hernia, had an operation, and it did not dot it did not turn out as I wanted. I don’t play trumpet anymore.

Matt: I was gonna sweat, it didn’t work out as you you mean the hernia didn’t work out as you wanted?

Scott: Yeah, well they’re t they the the surgeon, you know, told me like, yeah, a couple of months and you’ll be back to plan like nothing and that’s not how it played out.

Matt: I’m sorry, can can you clarify what kind of hernia? Because there’s mul multiple kinds.

Scott: Yeah. I had an in groinal hernia. and and so, I mean, I don’t want to get into the the the gross details, but there was you know the the cough test. I I did not pass the cough test. When you turn your head and cough, it was filling up. and that’s your intestines in a place where they’re not supposed to be. that’s what that test is about. And and I was playing trumpet at that point I I put off having surgery for like another

Matt: shit.

Scott: Two years maybe, because I was like, I’m about to go to music school. I got a lot of playing to do. And it just got worse and worse and worse. And so I finally got it, you know, fixed up and and I tried to play. And after three months, I tried to play and it was really painful. And I waited a little longer and I tried to play and it was really painful. And I ultimately was like, all right, what am I doing with my life? And I being at Berkeley, you know, I think I my time before I got to Berkeley, I was doing web development. I was pretty tech savvy, but I but music. And technology were very separate things for me. Music was my escape from goofing around on computers, and computers was like a very nerdy endeavor that didn’t really involve music. And I, you know, my friends who played music never really got the web dev stuff I was doing, database integration. They weren’t excited about it at all. And but then I got to Berkeley, and I think I made this decision to go to Berkeley to be like, I don’t want to do I don’t like.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Scott: Tech, I don’t love this. I’m happier. You know, the social aspect of music and the community aspect of music was what I loved. So I I get to Berkeley and then I realized right away, like, my gosh, music’s been swallowed up by computers. And it’s funny to say that now because my gosh, it’s swallowing it even more. But in 2000, 2001, it was this like gotcha moment where I’m I’m at music school and realizing like tech is such a big part of all this. And I think I realized, like, I am, you know, I had. I had interned an Autodesk. I had had an intern at another place doing web development. I was working as an IT person at a nonprofit in Cambridge while I was the the first two semesters in Boston. and actually I ended up running the website for the music tech department or for the MPE department, the music production engineering department at Berkeley. so I was like, maybe I should just put these together. Like that’s let’s see. I think I have the right brain. you know, I can, I can, I can bop. you know, and get my way around some core changes. And also, you know, I’m pretty tech savvy and I’m not intimidated by by big stacks of technology layered together to make stuff happen. So maybe I could figure this out. And I I think that was right, because honestly, I don’t think I was that great of a trumpet player. I mean, I was still pretty young, but I once I dove headfirst into recording engineering, and I mean it. For me, it wasn’t like this thing I had been pursuing. It was just all of a sudden, I’m like halfway through college, I’m like, this is what I do now. And I dove all in and did it as much as I could. And, you know, I’m I’m living in San Francisco, putting avocado on my burritos, and I’m really proud of the work I do. So

Matt: You yeah, you know that you’re you’re you’re living pretty well if you’re putting avocado on your burrito, right? okay, so how how did you find your way to San Francisco? I mean, obviously the proximity to you know, Nevado and San Francisco are not that far from one another. so there’s obviously the proximity part. Your dad used to work in the city at KPIX. So

Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: What made you decide to come back to the West Coast as opposed to exploring the East Coast?

Scott: Yeah, well, actually, yo, the plan was New York. the whole time I was in Boston, I think like subconsciously for me, Boston was New York on training wheels. I was just so excited to move into the big city. and actually when I after surgery, when I moved back to Boston and dove head first into the MP and E department, I had a by that point I had friends who were graduating and a lot of them moved to New York. And I set up a lot of my my class schedule so that I would always have a three day weekend. And like at least once a month, I would take the Chinatown bus from Boston to New York. The Chinatown bus is this crazy thing that exists on the East Coast where from Chinatown to Chinatown you can take these dirt cheap buses. and they kind of run almost 24 hours a day, and there there are times where some suspect things happen on the bus. But you know, you’re a kid and you’re just like, hey, I can get to New York for less than $10. Let’s go. and I so I would go down to New York and spend a lot of time there. and I had a friend, one of my one of my good buddies who was an inspiration for me at the time, was interning at right track, was what it was called at the time. I forget what right track became. and I was I would hang out at right track, I would hang out with him, I would hang out with other friends. Eric Andre was a friend of mine. I would crash with him quite a bit in New York. and I was ready for New York. And then I remember it was I it’s funny because people keep asking me if I’m a member of AES, and I keep just not signing up, but I feel like I should be a member of AES. But I went to like I got a a sponsorship as a student to come to an AS conference here in San Francisco while living in Boston, my senior year. And I so I was like, hey, free trip home. Let’s go. And I remember at AES, I went up to some producer. man. Wow, I haven’t thought of that name in a long time. I’m for blanking on his name, but he was a big shot. Phil Ramon. Phil Ramone. I went up to Phil Ramon and was like, hey man, I I, you know, I am at Berkeley. I’m about to finish. And I’ve been thinking I want to move to New York, but at that time I was also starting to realize like my friends living in New York, they were interning at studios for like several years, making nothing.

Matt: Yeah.

Scott: And having to pay rent, like I mean, I don’t want to t I don’t want to tell this story, but like this might I mean if if do you edit this? Great, great, cool. I’m gonna this you probably doesn’t fit, but I’m gonna share it with you because it’s wild. Eric Andre, my last summer in Boston. Eric Andre, like his parents as a graduation present had

Matt: Yeah. Like like crazy.

Scott: He just they gave him a lease for like, I don’t know, eight months or something in his apartment in in Manhattan. And I think Upper East Side, I think. And he just leased it out for like four or five months to someone else and was basically homeless, sleeping in Central Park, showering at the Y. I would go hang out and like cause you know, he was coming up in the comedy world. he was a bass player at Berkeley, by the way. He was coming up in the comedy world. And then like the end of the night, I would like go back with my friend and it we’d be like with Eric and he’d be like, All right, guys, bye. Like, good luck, dude. Like, I don’t know where he’s gonna sleep. I can’t invite you to my friend’s place. It’s not my place to invite you, you know. It was but I mean, by the end of the year, he was regularly getting paid to go out of Manhattan and do stand-up gigs. so I’m looking at this and I’m like, well, that was clever because his parents paid his lease for a year and he was able to find a way to like make a small amount of money and make this work for him. I Wasn’t sure how I was gonna make Manhattan work for me financially. And I got scared and and I started thinking like these thoughts. And so, okay, back to my story. Phil Ramon. I hit Phil Ramon up and I say, Hey man, I’m thinking about moving to New York, but I’m starting to think like I’m gonna be a small fish in a big sea and it seems really expensive. And I’m looking at friends who are all just like kind of being exploited in these studio internships where they’re working. Full time, like overtime, not getting much for it, definitely not earning a living. and I don’t know how long I can make that last or how I’m gonna find time to pursue opportunities while doing that. And he says to me, Yo, I told my own son not to move to New York. And so he’s moving somewhere else. Go somewhere where there’s a music scene and you can make it work. And I that that was it. It hit really hard. It was exactly I think I think I was ready to hear that. It was what I needed to hear. And I did a full about face where no, I’m not moving to New York. And so then I was looking at I applied to Austin City College, to Portland City College, Community College, and San Francisco City College. to all three of them. And I mean, got into all of them because like obviously admissions are pretty easy at schools like that. And then at the last minute, I shipped everything to Portland. Came home and came into the city, went to a pub quiz and was like, what am I doing? I don’t want to live in Portland. I’ve always Had a love affair with San Francisco. I want to live in SF. And went out the next week and got this apartment that I live in still. rent control dating back to 2006, which is crazy. But it was a really wild time in SF, you know, the dot-com boom one had like failed. iPhones didn’t exist yet. So San Francisco was like a very affordable, wild, crazy place with a really cool music scene and all sorts of artists.

Matt: Well you’re

Scott: And I moved in at the right time and you know, flew up to Portland and put everything in a U Haul and came right back here to this apartment. And I’ve been rocking ever since.

Matt: Okay, so as a parent I have to ask, were your parents like, What the fuck are you doing?

Scott: Ha ha. Yeah, totally. And my grandmother, my grandmother lived in Portland. She was so mad at me. She was so upset that I wasn’t going to move there. My parents were definitely confused. At that time, you know, I mean, they were happy that I was going to stay in the bay, because at that time they still both lived in Marin. now I’m I’m unanchored. Everybody’s left the bay. I’m all that’s left. But but yeah, long run, I think they were both happy that I was gonna be closer to them. But but they were definitely like Okay, you went to music school, you have all this college debt. what? Figure yourself out, man.

Matt: Alright, get your shit together, son.

Scott: But again, it worked out. Cause like I said, being being a slightly bigger fish in a much smaller sea, I I had a sense that I would be able to like claw my way up and get to doing work sooner. and I mean it it while I was at city college, I got an internship at SF Soundworks. That was a bit of a bust. I don’t want to throw them I don’t wanna talk a bunch of bad stuff about that that place or that guy. but it was not a very it was a pretty traumatic experience. And I remember getting fired. And the day I got fired, I went up to John Vanderslice. he was playing at the independent right over the hill. and I went up to him and I was like, and I didn’t tell him I had just gotten fired, but I said, Look, I do not like the vibe at SF Soundworks. I really want to come work for you, a tiny. Like, what do I gotta do? How do I get my foot in the door? And at the time he said, I don’t take interns, but you should call this guy Justin Phelps. Call him up. He’s awesome. He said, this was the words he said at the time, which JV is full of a lot of crazy things that he says. And I’ve have gotten getting closer to him after that. I also realized don’t take him as word of face value ever. but he said, the only engineer outside of Tiny I’ll ever work with is Justin Phelps. I know, I know. but he loves to say really bold things. so I end up.

Matt: That’s not true. John. Come on.

Scott: Working for Justin, and then Justin had and Jaimeson Durr had just taken over Studio C at Hyde Street. and then Justin was like, You should also intern at Hyde. So I was interning at Hyde Street two days a week, and then two days a week I was interning with Justin and Jaimeson in Studio C. And then after a year, and that’s a wild story, they just made me a partner. and I couldn’t believe it. I thought actually I thought I was getting, I’ll tell the story quickly. I thought I was getting fired. it was the first time I messed up. in the entire year, I was so determined to make it work and just be the best intern they’d ever had. I remember six months earlier, Justin was having a kid, and I remember overhearing a conversation just around the corner where Justin and Jaimeson were like, we need to bring on another partner. We gotta find someone who’s a good fit because I’m gonna be working less and the calendar’s not gonna be as full. And I’m thinking, man, if they bring another partner in here, how am I ever going to get dates on the calendar? so I was determined for the next six months to never let there be an open day on the calendar. Like, whatever I could do, I would just work for free. I would usually try to get people to pay for the studio time, but work for free. Sometimes I would even just like, I’ll split the studio time with you. let’s just go do some stuff. But I would not allow.

Matt: So but just y just to clarify, you when you say w you’d work for free, but the client would pay, so the money would come into the to the kitty.

Scott: The comp the money would go to the studio. and because I I basically the way we’ve run our business in Studio C and we’re already running then is like we were basically you pay for the time you use. It wasn’t like at the end of the month we each owe equal. It’s just like calendar, what did we do this month? Okay, you did this many days, you did this many hours, great, you owe that much, this many. And then anything in the black we would split, anything in the red we would split. and then there’s repairs, you know, there’s always something that needs to be fixed.

Matt: Right.

Scott: at that time I wasn’t involved in the red or the black. I was just putting in time and helping them stay in the black. and so I was I just wouldn’t allow an empty day. And then there was a time where I remember it was actually I was already kind of, I think I was already interning at at Tiny by that point. And I had this like 20 hour recording session, and then I had to like ride my bike across town over to Tiny Telephone and stuff. Stomped down the garbage can and cleaned the gross toilet because this was before he got a better bathroom. and it was it was rough. And and I was really exhausted. And I remember I Justin was mixing the next day, and I knew he was just mixing. And instead of coming in, I just left a note basically saying, Hey, I cleaned everything up. I’m really tired. I’m gonna sleep. so don’t expect me today. I’m sorry. And then he called me as I I just woken up. He calls me and he’s like, Hey man, you coming in? I was like, No, did you see the note? He’s like, yeah, I saw that. well, I need some CDRs because this is 2007, right? and I was like, I’ll get you those CDRs, I’ll be right there. And I like ran to Walgreens, bought a stack of CDRs, run down to the Hyde. and I catch him as he’s heading out to lunch. And he’s like, Hey man, you know, maybe you don’t need to be an intern anymore. And I’m like, my gosh, he’s firing me. He’s letting me go. And I was in the middle of a couple records. I was so scared. I was so scared. and And I le like we left it at that. And I was gonna assist him in studio A downstairs the following Monday. And so the whole like the next, I don’t know, 24 plus hours, I was just a wreck thinking, I’ve just lost a second internship. What am I doing with my life? and on Monday, I was assisting him and I remember we were in the mic locker up in the up upstairs in the back of High Street, and I it comes up. He brings it up again, and I go, About that, where am I gonna finish the records I’m working on? You know, because I you’ve been giving me this really great intern rate and I don’t know what I’m gonna do. And he goes, yeah, we’re just gonna make you a partner. He had not talked to Jamison about this. Jameson found out after the fact.

Matt: And and for the audience, Justin eventually left and went to Portland and stepped out of that situation, which maybe

Scott: About a year, two, two years later, maybe Justin moved to Portland, had a second kid and moved to Portland. And Jaimeson and I have kept it going.

Matt: Yeah. So what did Jaimeson say?

Scott: Jaimeson was cool. He was chill about it. I didn’t find out until like maybe a decade later when Jaimeson, like he and I, we have our disagreements ever every now and then, because you know, it’s a business, it’s hard. and I remember there was some disagreement, and I think I got impatient with him. And he he got impatient and let out that he was like, you know, when Justin made you a partner, he didn’t even talk to me about it or whatever. And I was like, not surprising at all. But

Matt: And for the audience, you know, Jamison’s been on, Justin’s been on. I’ll include links in the show notes, you know, so you can kind of listen to these different people. John, of course, has been on, so you can listen to that. It’s it’s connecting all the dots of these people. This is great because I didn’t I didn’t realize you had interned for John. I didn’t know you were at SF Soundworks. we’ll just table that. and then but that’s funny. So eventually.

Scott: Ha ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: You know, did did Chris McGrew take Justin’s place?

Scott: No. okay, so that’s a that’s a that’s a rough period, but character building. Justin left. and the same and another thing was when I rolled into Studio C, we had a bunch of Bob Weir’s gear. I think he had a studio I I was told it was above a car park or something or carport. I don’t know. he had some studio somewhere that shut down because of cause mold or something like that. And they needed to get everything out of this space. And somehow Justin managed to get all that gear into Studio C. And and I remember they had this Sony board with a bunch of John Hardy preamps that have been like aftermarket John Hardy preamps that have been put in. It sounded good. And it was the same Sony board, Sony MCI console that I had studied on in Berkeley. And I remember walking into the room and just going, like, my gosh, I’ve done tests on the like signal flow of this board. Like, I know this board inside and out, which is another thing that got me.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Scott: Going fast. Like once they started letting me do sessions, I was so comfortable on that board. and but it sounded better than the ones at Berkeley because it had the aftermarket pre-amps. but Justin left, and within a couple months, we lost all the weir gear. because they were building Tamil Pies Research Institute. They brought all their gear back to build TRI up in, I think, Terra Linda, very close to Novato. and Jaimeson and I Honestly, we should have just shut down at that point. and then Hyde Street hadn’t had a talk with the both both of us to to talk about the lease because Justin was gone. and so they they raised our rent. And Jaimeson and I, it was like it kind of just seemed like it was over. We had so little gear. I mean, we maybe had like 12 channels of nice preamps, and then I don’t I think that was I mean, it was dark. we didn’t have a console.

Matt: Can I can I pause for a moment? Cause I want to make sure the audience is going along for the ride here. Just so everybody knows. Okay, so Hyde Street, classic San Francisco studio. You’ve heard about it many times on the show. But within Hyde, there’s different studios. And Studio C that we’re talking about is upstairs. And that’s different people have control of different studios. Studio A is Hyde Street at this point.

Scott: Yeah.

Matt: And Studio C has gone through many, many owners. And when I was in my early twenties, I would do midnight to 8 a.m. sessions there when Sandy Pearlman ran the studio. So this is this is the structure of how this works. So when we’re talking about Studio C and Hyde Street raising the rent, that’s what we’re talking about. It’s a sublet within Hy.

Scott: Whoa, I didn’t know that. Absolutely. Yeah. And and when I started, Studio D was still part of Hyde Street. So they were still studios. and now they’re they’re they’re Hyde Street Studio. I mean, they are the the S is part of the brand and the name, studios plural, but they’re really just studio A and then and then it’s a bunch of subleases. And we’re a big complicated family. And I in a way we’re all competitors, but it’s not the that’s not the vibe at all. We all share gear, we pull gear. I’ve done sessions where they’re doing a salsa thing downstairs and and I’ll be like, dude, it would be dope to have Cowbell on this bridge, but I don’t just want dink, dink, dink. Let me go talk to that guy. And then we get, you we get a salsa dude to just walk up and lay down Cowbell. it’s a it’s a pretty exciting place to be just because it is like kind of this old school, like three big, large format studios, and then like everywhere else. I mean, if there’s a closet, someone’s in there making beats. and that’s In a lot of ways, I think what’s allowed Hyde Street to continue functioning is all knowing that there’s regular rent coming in from all the subletters, like me. but yeah, they raised the rent. We lost the gear, we were down to just like the bare essentials. and it was just Jaimeson and I without Justin, who was really the strong guy on the calendar. and we should have we should have just closed up, but we’re crazy. And so we’re like, nah, we’ll power this out. And This was 2009, 2010. 2009, it felt like maybe we were recession proof. because you know, all my friends were getting laid off. Everybody was like getting severance packages, but we were busy. I kind of think that it was all these people getting laid off were finally like, I’m gonna spend my severance money on this record I’ve always wanted to record. Like they had time, they were here. I don’t know, but all of a sudden 2010, everybody was dead. Tiny was dead, we were dead. I mean, all the All my other friends with other studios, I I don’t think I knew you necessarily at that point, but

Matt: I was I was suffering over at my building with that my Kamanowski and I were sharing. Yeah. It was it was it sucked.

Scott: Yeah, it was rough. And somehow I I survived like we survived that. I don’t even know how. It was so hard. I mean, I remember there were months where I would literally pay rent with a credit card. I worked up a lot of credit card debt that had to work with Bank of Mom to help me find a path to getting out of that. and that was really hard. but it it also taught me a lot about, you know, not spending Like not spending money I don’t have and having a savings account for emergency times and you know, being ready when for the economy to switch and you don’t know when it’s coming. So I I learned a lot and it it kind of made me stronger. At somewhere, I want to say 2015, 2016-ish. At that point, Jameson started mixing at home, and I was still mixing at at Hyde, in C in C, which also which now we call Wally’s Hyde Out. but at that point it was just Studio C. and I I was still doing all my mixing there and all my recording there, and it’s turned into like like maybe 80% of the calendar was me. And I was starting to lose my patience because I would get these gigs. I would be I was getting gigs where I was being I was going up to Panoramic in Stinson Beach for a month, or I was going to Sonic Ranch for a couple weeks, or I was going to I was getting flown different places, going up to Seattle, going going around the country to do what I kind of call destination records. and my studio would just sit empty the whole time. And so it was exciting and fun to go to a new place. but it was also frustrating because half the money I was earning was just going to paying for an empty room. And I I think actually, when I told you the story about Jaimeson telling me how our partnership began, this was this tough point for us where I was feeling overworked and a little like like burnt out, I think. And I kind of like broke down at him and and wanted. Because he started mixing at home, he stopped coming into the studio as often. because he lives he lives kind of out at the end of a Bart line. and exactly. And like over the next several years, he just like like his his trips into the studio became less less. He was working for Sammy Hagar, so he’s he was often up in the studio up there, up in Marin. and then mixing at home and then just sprinkling in a few dates here and there.

Matt: Yeah, you lived out in Pleasanton.

Scott: And I I remember just feeling like it’s all on me. It’s all on me to keep this place going. And I I kind of got really mad at him. And again, we worked it out. He was honestly, the dude is so cool. Cause I couldn’t he had every right to just tell me what a jerk I was and to never talk to me again. But he kept his chill. and he was like, I got a friend who I think is ready to maybe come in. And he brought in Chris McGrew. and Chris

Matt: Incredible drama.

Scott: Incredible drummer. He was a little green as a producer engineer at the time, but man, he gets great sounds in that room now. And he brings in pretty dope record. I mean, he did a headhunter’s record last year.

Matt: Yeah. He’s I love watching him play drums. He’s a great drummer.

Scott: He’s a great drummer. We also now we have like we used to be before him, we had like the studio kit, which was be like, no, I don’t want to use the studio kit. The studio kit is not it’s unloved. No one knows what to do with it. It sounds bad. It’s just like if you’re really desperate and you don’t have a kit, we could use that, but please bring your own drums in. And now with Chris, we have four very different drum kits that are all like perfectly tuned, always ready to go. Like every three or four sessions, he replaces the heads. He’s got sponsorships for the heads and the symbols. and now, I mean, and and it’s it’s so exciting. Also, he changed the hardware so that they’re all all the toms. I think it’s the Gretsch hardware maybe he’s using. I forget. But like basically any of the toms from any of the brands can fit on any of the kick drums as rack toms. floor toms aren’t a problem. But so you can mix and match. You can be like, I’m gonna do. the like ash kick drum with the the maple toms. it’s dude, it’s so it’s really opened up my world. And now I have like an ear for like the different sound the sounds of the different wood and and it’s great. It’s so great.

Matt: Yeah. But it’s the it’s n it’s the three of you now, right?

Scott: No, one more. We also, right before COVID, we brought in Roan. and that was another another moment where actually we were kind of struggling. I so here’s the thing. Shortly after we brought Chris in, I got a job at a video game studio. And so that had gotten a point and I built a home mix room. That was part of my whole pitch to Jaimeson was like, I felt like I wasn’t competitive because I couldn’t mix at home. and I knew if I started mixing at home, we’d go out of business. So we brought Chris in and it was working. But then as I started mixing from home more, kind of like Jaimeson, You know, I I feel like I mix twice as much as I record now. and I wasn’t putting as much on the calendar and it was falling on Chris, and we got a little behind. And so we had this like, all right, guys, the next two months we’re gonna pull ourselves out and we’re gonna make a bunch of money and just cover it. And Roan was our intern at the time. and I made this pitch to him. I was like I talked to them first, but I made this pitch. I was like, hey, this is our goal. We need to make this much money over the next two months. if you help us do that. We will bring you on as a partner. and he did. We did. We got it. and so we honored it. We brought him on as a partner. He’s been a great partner. And the first thing he wanted to do in 2020, he and Chris, they won the battle on this. They wanted to paint the walls. They wanted to redo the fabric. The place really needed a makeover. and I remember at the time there was a studio in studio, there was like somebody in studio D, I forget who they were. It was actually an old partner of our Nigel, but I forget his partners. They they had remodeled Studio D and made it look really nice. And then they didn’t last like two years. I like, every time a studio remodels, they go out of business in just two years. Like

Matt: Was that was that Tom Richardson and Sean Beresford? Right. They came because because when I got out of thirteen forty mission, Tom came in on my heels and took over my room.

Scott: Yeah, they came from thirteen forty mission. Yeah. And spent a bunch of time making it look squeaky clean and really nice. And then two years later, they’re out. And then they did the same thing in studio day. They spent a bunch of time making it look really squeaky clean and nice. and it went from like the least loved room in the building almost to like, wow, this room is gorgeous. And two years later, they’re out. I was like, no, like we can’t remodel. It’s the kiss of death. Like every time someone does that, they’re out in two years. And Ron like put his foot down. He’s like, I’m a new partner.

Matt: Yeah, Tom doesn’t get your

Scott: I really believe this. And Chris was like, yeah, let’s go. And they they won Jaimeson over. I lost that battle. So we shut down for the bulk of February 2020 and remodeled. And it was looking amazing. I mean, it really, I’m glad we did it. It looks, it’s such a nicer space now. And you know what happened in March 2020.

Matt: Right.

Scott: but we survived the curse.

Matt: Yep, yep, yep. Covid comes, kicks everybody’s ass. So, so how did you guys get through that?

Scott: actually we were really lucky. early on there was a grant program that the city had, for an arts grant that was like really easy to get into, I think. Because Jaimeson and I both got it. Chris and Ron were in it. We all applied, but Jaimeson and I each got a grant that we don’t have to pay back. and honestly, it was each the grant was like a little bit more than one month’s rent. So we basically had two months in change of rent covered. and then after that, like the the thing that’s interesting. So something that’s weird about Wally’s hideout or Studio C, which you maybe you know, is that the AC, we’re the only room in the building where we have a separate AC unit for the control room and the live room. So like they’re kind of airlocked, they’re different. and so what what we started doing is like, all right, like let’s all meet in the back. Everyone gets, you know, do what your do your tests, get your covet test, and we’ll all meet in the mask, mask mask up. Go in and like I’ve already placed mics. And then I would we would go and I’d let them in the live room, close the door, and then I would just talk through the mic and be like, move this here, move that there, great, cool, cool, cool. And then they would leave. I would give it a couple hours and then go in and tear down. but like the acoustic isolation is also kind of sort of covet isolation. And you know, we had to we had to make it work because we had to pay rent. and then Ron and I got into live streaming. I had worked on a on a game for Twitch. I’d worked on this Twitch Sings is what it was called. And I was I’d done all these like vocal presets for a karaoke game that was for live streaming. and I learned a lot about Twitch working on that game. I’d spent like six or seven months on it. and so I thought the sky was falling, and I was like, maybe we need to pivot into live streams. and that was so much work. it was a lot of work. I think we did okay. we had some pretty clever, like we we developed a lot of skills and our our streams were like for for the money we had, I think they were pretty high production quality considering it was like punk rock like budgets. but we had no audience. And then we looked at noise pop and noise pop had a huge audience and terrible sounding live streams, terrible audio, terrible video, terrible everything. And we’re like, we gotta link up with them. And then actually Dan Strickland from Noise Pop, Who now he likes show manages at Dunort often. I if you’ve met him, but Strickland reached out to us and was like, hey, we should talk. And so then we took over the noise pop streams. and that was a lot of work. But that was again, it was like money was coming in, and we were doing this work on live streams. and and then I remember there came a point by the like August, September, wher