WEBVTT - Stephen Marcussen 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:08.440 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:15.840 guest today is my good friend and mastering engineer Stephen Marcuson. Hey, Bob, Now, 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.720 you've worked with literally who's who the music business, everybody 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:23.079 from the Stones to Tom Petty to Stevie Wonder, I 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.040 go on and on, and then you're mentioning a new act. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.720 You think it's gonna blow up, Ben Platt, anybody else 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.920 you want to throw in from my audience? Uh? Maybe 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.480 as we go along, I'll well, M it's literally too 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.800 many to mention. Let's start from the beginning. What exactly 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:44.120 is mastering? You know? Mastering is uh, it's this gray 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.600 art that people don't really understand. It's do you understand it? 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.400 I hope so forty years in right, I think I 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.040 got it. But it's sort of it's your last creative 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.520 stage of making a record. It's it's a chance to 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.400 take all of your work and put it together in 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.119 a cohesive manner. You can change the sound. You can 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:12.400 change tempos of tracks, you can enhance centers for vocals. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.480 You can do any number of things to get a 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:21.320 consistent sound that flows from beginning to end. There various 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.880 tools you use whether it's you can play it back 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.920 on tube type tape machines, if you're fortunate enough to 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:33.080 see things like that. Uh, files come in mainly these days, 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.440 but occasionally we see tape. So you can pick and 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.360 choose how you look at a project. And I shouldn't 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.560 say you, I should say I and uh I put 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.119 it up. I listened to it just as it comes in, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.280 and I think about what would do, what what I 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:57.640 could do to enhance this project and make it make 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.880 it deliberable to you know, a man us, I should 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.360 say numbers of ways to play it, whether it's radio, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.919 whether you're listening to a c D, whether you're listening 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.360 to hires files, m fits. So it's I don't know 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.520 what m fits are. M fits are mastered for iTunes, 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.520 and I don't know there was an acronym on that 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.519 there is and it's uh it's interesting because m FIT 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.760 they tried to set a standard of quality to reduce 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.960 what they call inter sample overs and uh, well, let's 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.799 slow down here. What are inter sample overs? I'm not 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.280 going to get into interstatt a little bit. Well, when 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.200 you're working in a digital scale, there's zero within the scale. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.400 You can have these inter sample overs, which are these 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:51.560 spurious peaks that essentially can clip. They don't, but they can. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.160 So Apple decided to try to enhance their format. The 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.680 A C and badget M F I T and it 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.040 gives the mastering house, or Apple gives the mastering house 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.960 an Apple it to drop it on. You can measure 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.560 your inner sample overs, and they don't really want to 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.600 see hundreds of thousands, which you can on a you know, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.840 a hot rock record. They want to see it brought, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.240 brought down and contained within a reasonable amount. They don't 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.079 define a number, they just want you to use good judgment. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.880 So an m FANT can typically be as much as 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.119 a dB, quieter than a c D or a digital 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:38.280 file source. So okay, let's just stay with there. If 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.600 you're mastering for iTunes, that's a downloadable track, do they 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:47.920 want the same track for the Apple Music service. That's 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.480 a very good question and the answer is yes. Um, 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.440 I'm going through something right now because all of these 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:02.560 services are looking at different features. Apple has the complete 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:07.760 my album feature, Spotify wants it to mirror the CD 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.280 UM and I literally got the email a half hour ago, 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.800 so I'm going to start dissecting it. When I'm done here, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:21.680 but they they they want to have a standard that 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:28.320 is consistent with their platform. Okay, just going for left 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.560 field for one second. Prior to these streaming services, there 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.000 were the loudness wars, which will get back to. But 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.640 now since these I know they basically I don't know 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.160 the technical turn off the top of my head. They 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.919 basically average the sounds or everything is the same volume 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.200 normalized normalized, thank you, and uh does that affect the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:54.159 loudness wars? It does? It's uh. Loudness is measured on 0:04:54.240 --> 0:05:00.520 a left scale l ufs, and depending on you know, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:06.080 who's releasing or playing your your your file, they like 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.680 to target a certain number. The lower the number four 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.720 point three is louder than seven point two. Our testing 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.920 has shown that if you bring a CD level down 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.440 a few dbs, and a few dbs is a lot. 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.400 Remember six d b s is twice the volume. So 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.479 if you bring it down three d b s, they're 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.760 normalizer isn't kicking in as much, and consequently your program 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.520 sounds better. There's you know, an example that comes to 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:43.880 mind is there's a piano vocal track that gets played 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.720 up against you know, a slamming hard rock track. Well, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.039 the hard rock tracks got stack guitars, it's got bass, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.320 it's got bombastic drums. Yet the piano and vocal so 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:01.200 much louder because it isn't as loud physically in the 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.799 digital medium as the slamming track. So the normalizer doesn't 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.240 kick in. Normalizers can really bring your level down. You 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.240 know a lot of dvs. So in addition, getting technical 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.680 for a second, if it's normalizer brings it down, obviously 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.000 it's going to be quieter. How does that affect the 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:28.440 sound It's not beneficial. Let's go back to the beginning 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:34.200 of our discussion. Theoretically, especially in today's d I Y world, Uh, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.040 could you just make a record on your laptop and 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.360 send it straight to a streaming service? People do every day. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:45.599 That's very common SoundCloud, you know, people that put post 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.240 their music up on services like that. It's a complete 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.960 d I Y. In many cases they get a little action. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.359 Then they want to actually master it or finish it, 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.719 remix it, depending also, you know, it just depends on 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.200 the kind of action they get. So I think a 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.440 lot of people that are you know, breaking in as 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:09.279 it were, go ahead d I Y at if there's uh, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.240 if there's notice. They then maybe get get get noticed 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.080 by a professional and indie somebody that wants to you know, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:22.600 join forces with them, and then they'll go rework the project. Okay, 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:27.280 asking something that's not quantifiable in a quantifiable way, what 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:32.720 percent can mastering effect attract? Yeah, you know that's that's 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.200 kind of an impossible question, but I'll attempt to answer it. 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.680 If you've got a track that comes in and you 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.280 were working in a studio or just in your own studio, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.320 and your speakers weren't giving you reality, reality means the 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:54.080 balance of frequencies lows, mids, highs were you know, terribly skewed. 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.480 You take if you know, you take your track to 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:02.560 a professional mastering facility, you're in a room that your 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.520 engineers worked in for a period of time, in my case, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.000 twelve years in my particular studio, I know the room 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.680 like the back of my hand. I put your track 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.800 up and I say, this is dull, or this is boomy, 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.119 or what what what? Whatever the correction needs to be. 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.960 You take my judgment because you've now come to me 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.040 for my services, and I say, well, we can open 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:30.960 it up. In the vocal now is coming out of 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.599 the track and clean and clear, and the bases and 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.680 muddy and you know whoofing out your bottom end. So 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.840 that really is a big change and well worth doing. 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.200 Um okay, so since I've known you almost forty years, 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.480 you're working precision. Then you worked at A and M 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.439 before you established your own facility. I didn't really work 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:55.959 at A and M A and M. I meant to 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.280 say work in a general term. That's where you your 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.360 worked reinspired. You did not work four AM and am. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.360 You rented the space. But my question is all three 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.400 rooms are different. Is someone like you so professional? How 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.920 long does it take you to adjust to a different room. 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:18.040 Mastering engineers are nervous types. Uh. To make a shift 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.600 in just your chain, in your chain as your processing 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.560 to plug in a new new piece of gear can 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:31.000 be daunting because it could change something. And you know, 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.040 back to the gray area of mastering. If you put 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.719 something in that you think sounds good, and I can 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.320 be fooled. Anybody can be fooled by sound. Its sound 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.120 is an elusive dragon. But you put something in your 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:48.520 chain and you don't notice it immediately, and it changes 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:54.080 your sounds. So you go from room to room, moving 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.960 from the place I learned to work to A and M. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.120 I took in my own loud speakers. Uh that they 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.720 were kind enough to let me place in a mastering 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.160 room and a lot of my own gear. So uh, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.680 it's it's always scary making a change like that, going 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.120 from A and M to the first facility I I 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:21.000 built for myself. I fell in love with bing W 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.199 loud speakers and really bought them site, you know, without 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.119 having evaluated them. I knew that they were good speakers. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.160 Then how did you fall in love with them if 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.600 you hadn't evaluated them? Good point, I had heard them 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:40.880 in places I had never worked on them. The you 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.160 go to a hi fi shop and you listen to them, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.080 and you take your favorite CD and you go, oh, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.800 I can relate. The center is a little off center here, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.240 The vocal sounds this way, the sibilance is what it 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.640 should be. So, and I've listened to a lot of speakers. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.120 Believe me, they were the only ones in a store 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.920 I could say that's good. Okay, let's go back to 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.760 the speakers. Forty years ago, there was a transition. There 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.520 was something called the aura tone, which was one speaker 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.280 meant to mimic the car dashboard. Then seemingly everybody went 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.120 to the Yamaha and as ten M and they might 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:16.920 take off the grill and put a little piece of 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:22.480 tissue paper over the tweeter. But obviously car radios have 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.280 become more sophisticated and less important. But every mastering room 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.040 you go to, everybody is using different speakers. It's it's 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.160 a taste. You know. Some people like a t C S, 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.640 some people like homemade speakers. You know, there are many 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.840 facilities that incorporated a woofer here in the mid range 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.000 here and put them in big, big cabinets. It's really 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.080 a taste. Okay, let's go just a home audio for 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.720 a second. You know, the big thing on home audio 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.400 is these digital testers. Now, Okay, you buy something and 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.600 it comes with a little microphone. Whether that's good or bad, 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.040 that's not really my point. Are you so sophisticated that 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.600 you could set up a room just by ear? That's 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.319 how I did my last room, and I think it's 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.960 my best room yet, I mean, I don't think you 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:20.959 could get a better place to listen to music loudsoft, direct, indirect, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:22.560 the back of the room, the front of the room. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:29.760 And I've worked with acousticians George Ocksbird namely for decades now, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:35.679 and I brought him in just to help me. Um. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.079 Just you know, you're building a new room. You've got 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.000 a lot of things on your plate, so it's good 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.719 to have professional help there. But by and large, you 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.080 set the room up to please yourself. Uh. You know, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.840 I've got good equipment. I built a phenomenal room. George 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.960 designed the room. It's trapped properly. It's incredibly for the 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.680 people who don't know what it's contained, the low ends contained. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:06.000 It doesn't boom. It's uh, it's natural. It decays naturally. 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.400 It's not splashy. There are no reflections from left to right. 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.160 You know, imagine a loudspeaker playing loud in a barn. 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.640 That wouldn't be a good room. Uh. You put a 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.160 loudspeaker in a room similar to what we have here, 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.200 you can see their sound dampening on the walls. It 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.520 just breaks up reflected sounds so that you can, you know, 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.040 focus on the direct sound in my case, the direct 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.320 sounds coming out of loudspeakers. Okay, Now, there's been a 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.080 big transition in the Internet era. Back prior to the 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.720 year two thousand, there were a limited number of professional 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.920 mastering engineers. Literally you could count unless than five fingers 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.400 people in Los Angeles, and there were people in New York. 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.240 But suddenly, since the digital revolution, everybody thinks they're a 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:57.920 mastering engineer. There's a good amount of that. Okay, and 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.320 I know I'm trying to think of way Roy would 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.839 ask this question, But is basically all the newcomers, or 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.600 any of them, any good. There's always going to be 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.600 somebody younger, hungrier, and better. So I'm glad I asked that. Uh, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:18.160 whether or not they're discovered remains to be seen, but 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:24.000 don't discount anybody that's young and trying hard. Okay, let's go. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.520 There's Lander. Why do you explain for the people who 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.080 don't know what lander is. I'm not fluent in lander, 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.120 but to the best of my knowledge, lander is a 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.560 computer algorithm that looks at your sound, analyzes your sound. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:42.160 You say you want it to sound like X y Z. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:47.720 I think you can actually plug that criteria into the computer. 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.000 It will look at the frequencies, it will look at 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.760 the level, and it will make sonic adjustments to your track. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:14:59.800 But let's to be over, I should have put it. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.600 Lander is essentially automated mastering. Right. I think there are 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.280 actually a couple of programs out there that are doing 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.920 automated mastering. I think there's another unit in Florida. I 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.920 don't really keep up with that. Would any professional use 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.320 one of those automatic I mean professional act Would anybody 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.680 use one of those services? I would doubt it. Okay, 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:23.920 let's go back to the beginning. Now, you've had quite 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.600 a peripatetic life. You were born in Africa and a 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.280 country that no longer exists. Well, it exists, it's just 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.160 changed its name. Okay, So how many years did you 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.720 live in what was then Rhodesia. I left Rhodesia at 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.360 a very early age. The pattern was we we left 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.200 Rhodesia moved back to Northern Europe. As my parents were 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:52.440 Northern European British and Danish. Realized that what they had 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:58.640 experienced in Rhodesia was very different than being in Northern Europe. 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:05.000 Northern Europe where Denmark and England, and they sort of 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.040 followed the sun, if you will. So living in Rhodesia, 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.520 it's it's beautiful. It's like California. The climate's magnificent. You 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:18.760 can grow anything. It's a marvelous place. California was in 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.000 my in my parents sites, and so we we flew 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.240 to well, let's just go a little bit. So you 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.040 were in Rhodesia to what age three or three and 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.200 a half, okay, and then you moved to northern Europe. Correct. 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.120 We floundered there for about a year, six months in 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.520 uh in England, six months in Denmark. We arrived in 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:42.040 Los Angeles on my fifth birthday. Okay. They were literally 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.680 following the sun, they were, and that was their last destination. 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.280 They never left, okay, but they sent you different places. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.360 I was sent to boarding school in England for my 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.600 formative years. And so when did you start boarding school 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.200 in England? I started when I was ten and a 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.440 half and I left England when I was I think 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:08.280 just about fifteen, maybe just fifteen. And was there anything 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:13.359 good there? It was everything good there. It was a 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.280 great time to be in England. Uh. From four it 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:22.280 was fantastic. We turned onto music and I went to 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:27.719 a very progressive boarding school and we one of my 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.560 classmates got a cassette, which was a portable way of 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.920 listening to music. It was mono, but we taped out well, 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:40.159 he taped albums and we would be out, you know, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.000 in in the fields just with music and hanging out 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.960 with people. I mean, music was a really really big 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.240 part of my life. And this boarding school was were 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.920 a relative to London. It's forty miles southwest of London. 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.840 Did you go to London? Like? Positively? London was an 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.920 hour train ride from Frensham, and uh, we we get 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:02.520 to London as often as we could. You have to 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:07.200 remember we're boarding school. We don't We didn't have unlimited budgets. 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.200 Once you're in London, you know, we'll see these cost 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.760 money and you could bum around London and we did 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.880 and stayed, you know, dropped in on people that we knew. 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.000 But it was just a marvelous time to be in 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.000 London people, you know truly, you know, think of Austin 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.160 Powers and Carnebie Street and that's really what it was. Like. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.359 Let's go back. Your father was a butcher, right, correct. 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.679 So he moved to Los Angeles and where does he 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.119 go to work? Uh? He went to work for a 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:50.520 supermarket chain. And uh, you know, my my parents really 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.560 didn't have much to be to begin with. We came 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:59.560 to America having left Rhodesia, um with not a lot 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.000 because Rhodesia was in a downturn, so selling your house 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.800 it wasn't you know, it wasn't easy for them to 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:14.000 literally uproot and come here. My father worked at a supermarket. 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.560 My mother worked as you know, they referred to people 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.560 like my mother in those days as secretaries. You can't 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:27.080 say that anywhere, um. But she worked for a company 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.000 called the American Gem Society, which was a standard. It 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.960 was a company put in place for standards and jewelry. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.600 She worked the balance of her work life there. My 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.240 father ended up migrating from one chain to the next, 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.400 ultimately landing it a shop that I'm sure you remember, Jorgensen's, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.320 which is a very high end grocery store. And I 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.960 was forced into an early retirement. Okay, but a couple 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.240 of questions. If you're going to school in England during 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.440 the winter, spending your summers in Los Angeles, I would 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.199 come back twice a year. I'd come back for the 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.920 Christmas break and I'd come back for summer. Now, the 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.600 English school year was divided differently than America. You got 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.160 a month off for Christmas and you only got seven 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.720 eight weeks for summer. So did you make any friends 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.520 when you were in l A over the summer. Well, 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.760 I had my friends that were here, but England was 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:29.000 a very, very uh changing experience. I left as a 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.280 fairly straight child and came back with my eyes opened. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.159 And you come back to l A and you go 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.160 to high school in Lafe. I negotiated my way through 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.200 high school from boarding school. I had my eyes set 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.280 on being in the music business. How did that revelation 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.639 there was? I think it's the third Yes album called 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.199 Close to the Edge, and there's a picture on the 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:53.760 back cover of Eddie offered in front of a console 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.639 and you know, we we love music. I saw that 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.720 and I said, this is for me, this is what 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.199 I want to do. So I finished high school. You 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.960 say you negotiated your way What does that mean? Because 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.520 of the English education and l A Unified, there was 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:13.919 no way to access what where I really was in 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.119 my education. So they brought in specialists from u C. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:22.520 L A to evaluate me and uh. I was actually 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.960 going to graduate when I was fifteen and a half, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.840 but they couldn't allow it, so they forced me to 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.160 stay an extra semester. I I did the one semester. 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.320 I then did summer school to take care of some 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.400 required courses government in history, US government history, and then 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:48.480 my last semester I had to take the the early 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.080 course for the advanced course I had already taken just 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.399 to fulfill. So I made an arrangement with the teacher 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:59.120 that I wouldn't show up and take the final. Meanwhile, 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.280 I was working in to nine in grocery stores. Okay, 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.480 but then you do graduate, you have a dream of 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:07.840 being in the music business. What's the first step in 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:13.320 when um, I was working in a grocery store. I 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:18.879 then decided I wanted to be in the music business 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:20.240 and had to get out of that and had to 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:24.439 pound the pavement. I found, Uh, never a thought to 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.720 go to college. I went to college j C to 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.159 really fill time because I was at loose ends and 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:34.880 I had to get out of my parents house because 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.960 I couldn't be hanging out. UM. So I did that. 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.640 I I took some electrical engineering courses, but I pounded 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:49.320 the pavement and got a job at a radio commercial duplicator. 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.760 So I think it was a J. Walter Thompson was 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:57.600 a big ad agency McDonald. So literally we stuffed a 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.679 two cards which were like eight tracks, except they were 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:06.840 thirty second or one minute spots. And from there one 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.560 of the guys I worked with had I should say, 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:16.840 he came to work there. He had just left what 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:22.879 was Richard Perry's studio, which was studio on Melrose. I 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:25.680 heard that and I thought, well, that's the door I've 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.639 got a knock on. So I noticed that there was 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:32.080 a studio across the street called I think Radio and 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:35.520 Records or something. It's still there on Melrows is gone. 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.920 I knocked on the door. The receptionist had been involved 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:43.080 in a car accident, and the Carol Child's who ran 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.879 Richard's publishing company at that point, let anybody in because 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:52.120 it was seventy four it's a great time. And I waited, waited, 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:56.119 and the studio manager interviewed me and then called me 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:59.640 back and started, you know, from from the toilet up 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:02.440 and okay, So the first job, I'm sure there was 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:05.480 not a job description, but it be what janitor? There 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:08.879 was a job description. Really, you were the janitor, truly, 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:11.040 you had literally had the foot in the door. Had 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:13.159 the foot in the door, couldn't have been happier. And 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:14.639 that was the job of the guy was working to 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:18.520 the grocery store janitor. No it was. He wasn't working 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:20.399 in the grocery store. He was working at a T 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:26.119 and T. That's I think that he had played his 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:29.240 cards wrong and said he was qualified and he wasn't. 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:34.639 So I knew that there was a void, So okay, 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:37.439 so tell the people that didn't no longer exists. The 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.359 history of studio Studio fifty five was I think it 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:44.440 was Decca where being recorded White Christmas. We always said 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:49.760 the ghost of being resided in the attic there. Um 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:54.240 Howard Steele, who was Richard's engineer, had owned it with 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:57.320 and Howard, by the way, it was a part of 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:04.240 a console manufacturer called quant him. He had you may 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:08.159 remember the name Vanjie Carmichael. She did all the jingles. 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:12.119 He was married. Howard was married to Carol, so Carol's mom, 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:17.280 Vanjie sort of funded this studio for Howard and it 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:23.280 just didn't happen for them, and somehow another Richard got involved, 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:26.879 and part of the agreement was that Howard would be 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:29.760 Richard's engineer, and Richard so that as a benefit because 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:32.520 he knew the room and and all of that, and 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:37.000 Richard developed the studio. He rebuilt the big control room 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:40.160 A made a beautiful studio out of it, and there 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:44.320 was B which was a smaller room. Both had quantum consoles, 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:51.160 and it became an incredibly successful studio. Toto came from 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:54.920 that studio. There was just a lot of great music 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:57.119 made in those rooms. Okay, so you started out as 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:00.560 the janitor, how do you get out of the ship hole? Well, 0:26:00.720 --> 0:26:08.000 Howard was He was interested enough to ask me to 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:13.000 come and assist him on on some demos he was 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:17.760 doing on a weekend session. So I'll never forget this. 0:26:18.280 --> 0:26:20.800 I knew nothing of what I was doing, and I 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:23.600 mean nothing. I didn't know that you had to tell 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:26.000