Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bobs Podcast. My guest
Speaker 1: today is musician, engineer, producer Bob Rock. Bob good to have.
Speaker 1: It's good to be here. I'm a big fan, Bob.
Speaker 1: You're in a white right, Yes, I'm in Maui. I
Speaker 1: live in a small place called Haiku on the north
Speaker 1: shore of Maui. Yeah. How did you decide to move
Speaker 1: to a wire Well, my wife decided to move to
Speaker 1: Haaii and I followed her. We we you know. Um,
Speaker 1: Basically what happened is, uh, we knew we wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of live in the States, you know, at some
Speaker 1: point in my my life it was best for for us.
Speaker 1: For those who don't know, you aren't Canadian, Yes, but
Speaker 1: I'm a US resident. I've been here twenty five years,
Speaker 1: you know. So. But the thing is is, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife, she goes, you're always in the studio, but
Speaker 1: I gotta deal with in Vancouver. I gotta deal with
Speaker 1: taking the kids to school in the rain. She says,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that anymore. Let's move to Hawaii,
Speaker 1: And I said, sure, let's try it. So we tried it,
Speaker 1: built a house and never went back. Basically, it's it's
Speaker 1: a good life here. How many years you've been in Maui? Yeah,
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Okay, So you have how many kids
Speaker 1: do you have? I have six? Okay, you have six kids?
Speaker 1: What are their ages? Oh? From I guess thirty nine
Speaker 1: to twenty four? Two boys and yeah, and five girls? No,
Speaker 1: it's four girls. Sorry? And how many are with your
Speaker 1: present wife? If not all of them? Uh? Four? So
Speaker 1: are any of them with you in Hawaii? Yes? My
Speaker 1: last daughter that's at home is Sally and she's twenty four. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what's it like in the covid era in Hawaii?
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of for me, it's kind of okay.
Speaker 1: We have horses, we've got property, we've got twenty care's
Speaker 1: on another part of the island. So I basically get
Speaker 1: up in the morning, going to my studio right a bit,
Speaker 1: and then I go to the barn and I'm just
Speaker 1: you know, I do chores all day and I come
Speaker 1: back here. So it's not that bad. I just see
Speaker 1: the animals. We got lots of horses and goats, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I do. And are you seeing any people?
Speaker 1: Are you taking the quarantining things seriously? Uh? Definitely, Seriously,
Speaker 1: I just turned sixty six. I happy birthday. I had
Speaker 1: my birthday just a few days after years. Really, I'm
Speaker 1: the twenty second cool so you know, the wife and
Speaker 1: my daughter says I can't do anything, so they do
Speaker 1: all the shopping. I'm okay with this, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's for me. I don't think I've ever had this
Speaker 1: much time off since I started my career. Seriously, like
Speaker 1: three months going on three months. It's like this is
Speaker 1: something else. Okay, So but in today you can record
Speaker 1: from different locations. Are you doing any recording or is
Speaker 1: everybody kind of locked down? Everybody's kind of locked down.
Speaker 1: I've got uh you know, I mean we trade files,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Um, but that's not really kind of like
Speaker 1: what I do. You know you can do that, uh,
Speaker 1: Like I said, that's not really how I approach it.
Speaker 1: But I am. I'm sitting on two albums that i've
Speaker 1: I've finished and they were supposed to be basically be
Speaker 1: out right now, one with Richie Sambora, a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine, and the other one was the Offspring album.
Speaker 1: And both albums, I mean, we were done three months ago,
Speaker 1: but now they're not gonna come out until next year probably,
Speaker 1: which is kind of it's very strange. Well, that may change,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll discuss that with Garino. But it's like
Speaker 1: it seems like, now this's gonna go on a long
Speaker 1: time and you can't go on the road. It's a
Speaker 1: good time because there aren't that many new albums out
Speaker 1: by major acts. Yeah. The thing is is what I
Speaker 1: noticed is all my friends Dexter and like Ritchie and
Speaker 1: and other people, everybody with the bou Blet Camp, everybody,
Speaker 1: I know, we're all writing, which is kind of good,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, because normally you're working too hard to write. Yeah,
Speaker 1: usually you see that. I've got into this whole thing
Speaker 1: where I get up early before everybody gets up, and
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio writing for probably a couple of
Speaker 1: hours every day, you know, five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: You know, that's my alone time. Okay. Are you normally
Speaker 1: an early morning person? Yeah, I kind of am, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, rather than late at night. I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of like, I like it early in the morning. What
Speaker 1: I discovered is that I'm more creative in the morning
Speaker 1: because my head hasn't gotten into the day. My head
Speaker 1: is blank when I get up, you know, so I
Speaker 1: find that's the best time to create. I'm just the opposite.
Speaker 1: But now don't most aren't most musicians nocturnal? Yes they are.
Speaker 1: So how does that how does that work for your schedule? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, schedules of change. I mean, you know, when
Speaker 1: I was younger, it was, you know what, always always
Speaker 1: end up being new until like whenever, like Metallica, we
Speaker 1: we would work un till four in the morning, you know,
Speaker 1: and then just get up and just try and get
Speaker 1: to the studio and start again. But that was the
Speaker 1: younger days, you know. I try and keep I try
Speaker 1: and keep a limit on twelve hours now because usually
Speaker 1: after twelve hours I'm done. That's a long time. So
Speaker 1: how extensive is your studio in Hawaii? Well, I actually
Speaker 1: kind of have a full a full big SSL and
Speaker 1: need all the gear, but that went away with the budgets.
Speaker 1: You know. I had a lot of people coming here
Speaker 1: and we had a great time. But nobody can afford
Speaker 1: to come to Maui and and you know stay here
Speaker 1: to be quite honest, So it's kind of dormant, which
Speaker 1: is kind of sad for me. But but theoretically, if
Speaker 1: someone had the money, they could do the whole album
Speaker 1: at your studio theoretically, yeah, you know, so you just
Speaker 1: talked about doing these albums like with the Offspring, so
Speaker 1: you go to the act at this point. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. I got to California and I mainly go
Speaker 1: to Vancouver. I use Brian Adams studio. It's an amazing
Speaker 1: studio and you know, basically I came from that town,
Speaker 1: so it's really easy for me to record. It's it's
Speaker 1: the best studio. I bring everybody there. They love it.
Speaker 1: And so like if you cut the Offspringer, you work
Speaker 1: with Richie Sambora, do you work continuously and how long
Speaker 1: does that take? Well? With with both projects, those guys
Speaker 1: they kind of we don't really do three months at
Speaker 1: a time and just do an album, you know, because
Speaker 1: they're writers constantly writing. So with with Dexter, I go
Speaker 1: to Huntington Beach, stay there and we usually work like
Speaker 1: two three weeks and then we take a break, you know.
Speaker 1: And then with Richie it's the same thing. I go
Speaker 1: and stay at his house. Um. The thing is is
Speaker 1: like you know, even with the big guys who can
Speaker 1: afford it, you know, what has happened is like I
Speaker 1: put a studio portable studio in Richie's house. It's in
Speaker 1: his dining room and it's been there for three years.
Speaker 1: I guess he's not eating much. No, that the problem
Speaker 1: is is actually the studios right by the kitchen, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a drag because we eat all day.
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, he just loved it and
Speaker 1: it hasn't left, you know, because it's so creative. You know,
Speaker 1: you can do it, and then we go to the
Speaker 1: studio and we cut like for instance, Able Boreo Jr.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, Fame, etcetera. We just went into a studio
Speaker 1: for three days and did all the drum tracks, you know,
Speaker 1: So it's different now, it's it's very rare that I
Speaker 1: record everything at the same time. So how do you
Speaker 1: feel and how does your wife feel about being separated
Speaker 1: for all these recording projects. Well, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been together for thirty or five years, so she's
Speaker 1: kind of she understands, you know, and that's I think
Speaker 1: that's the greatest thing about my wife, Angie, is that
Speaker 1: we've always had that understand and she gets what I
Speaker 1: did and she knew what she was getting into. So
Speaker 1: we've managed to be okay with the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: it's some It takes a lot to get up for
Speaker 1: me to get on a plane and go away. Now,
Speaker 1: let's put it that way. It has to be special.
Speaker 1: Those guys are very very special. So in the average
Speaker 1: year prior to this insane era, how much of the
Speaker 1: year were you outside Hawaii? Maybe for nine months? Okay,
Speaker 1: so most of the time. And these records, you're producing,
Speaker 1: and you're engineering yourself, and you're mixing yourself, you're working
Speaker 1: with other people. Now, I um, you know, just generally,
Speaker 1: what I found is that I kind of oversee the
Speaker 1: how these sonics go. But I I found, you know,
Speaker 1: when I changed to kind of more producing. You know,
Speaker 1: the first records that I did, when I started producing,
Speaker 1: I did everything and I realized that my perspective was
Speaker 1: off and I couldn't do both. So I've always worked
Speaker 1: with an engineer to help me. Right now, I've got
Speaker 1: a great engineer, Adam Greenholtz, but you know, I've worked
Speaker 1: with engineers when I got into producing more seriously, it's
Speaker 1: just too much work, and I said, the perspective changes,
Speaker 1: you know, and who does the mixing? Well, I do
Speaker 1: the mixing, and sometimes it's gets uh put out for
Speaker 1: mixers that are hot, you know, like Chris Lord, Algae,
Speaker 1: Buff Clare, Mountain, etcetera. You know, and that has changed
Speaker 1: from when, you know, when I started. When I started,
Speaker 1: it was like it was, you know, we we mixed
Speaker 1: our own stuff, which is you know, lover boy, you know,
Speaker 1: slippery when wet. Everything that I did didn't even the
Speaker 1: first things that I you know, even Metallica and Motley
Speaker 1: Crue I was mixing. But then it turned into the
Speaker 1: business turned into A and rs and record companies always
Speaker 1: went to the same people, and so that changed. But
Speaker 1: I actually liked the old days. There was this great competition,
Speaker 1: you know, you know I did, you know, I go
Speaker 1: out and buy what the record that Bob did because
Speaker 1: I want to know what he did. You know, it
Speaker 1: was always there was great competition, and the competition kind
Speaker 1: of went out of fashion in a way, kind of
Speaker 1: got boring. And are you happy with the mixes these
Speaker 1: people do? I mean, ultimately you're happy because the record
Speaker 1: comes out, but do you feel that you could do
Speaker 1: just as good or a different job than the usual suspects.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's better, It's just it's a different perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll tell you a funny story. One of
Speaker 1: the one of the last records that I that I
Speaker 1: did the whole record, and uh, I was mixing in
Speaker 1: my studio here and I thought, I wonder if I've
Speaker 1: got any any better, So I put up term me
Speaker 1: lose or not terminators working for the weekend? Okay. And
Speaker 1: then the mix that I was doing a bank called
Speaker 1: American Bang who turned into Cadillac three. Okay. So I'm
Speaker 1: mixing this song and I compared TOI and sonically they
Speaker 1: signed it exactly the same. So basically I've learned nothing
Speaker 1: or or else you got bell? No? Well, no, The
Speaker 1: thing is, that's my perspective. Do you follow me? That's
Speaker 1: the way I hear music. So to me, if people
Speaker 1: like that perspective, I usually mix. If they want a
Speaker 1: different perspective, they go to somebody else. Okay, you talked
Speaker 1: about budgets. Obviously that would mean that you're making less
Speaker 1: money and a lot of these records don't generate as
Speaker 1: much capital as they used to. How has that changed
Speaker 1: your perspective, Uh, It's my perspective is the same. You know,
Speaker 1: I got into this for the love of of making records.
Speaker 1: I mean that is my art form. You know, I
Speaker 1: came from a group and I made records and I
Speaker 1: wrote songs, etcetera. But to me, it's making records that
Speaker 1: I love. So I'm gonna make records no matter how
Speaker 1: much I make. I just choose who I want to
Speaker 1: work with now, so I don't mind about the monetary thing.
Speaker 1: It's always nice. But you know, I get paid well.
Speaker 1: And if I have to make a deal to do
Speaker 1: a project, if I like the project, I'll do it
Speaker 1: bottom line. Okay, So let's assume you're on a project
Speaker 1: and you're not living in Richie's house, you're living in
Speaker 1: a hotel. Well, when Vancouver? Do you have your own
Speaker 1: place in Vancouver? What do you what do you stand
Speaker 1: in hotel? Okay? A lot of people don't like that life.
Speaker 1: How how do you do that? You know the session
Speaker 1: is over? How do you keep yourself seeing? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: in Vancouver it's easy because I have friends and family there,
Speaker 1: so that's easy. And I have friends in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Those are really the primary the two places. And you know,
Speaker 1: if like when I was doing Van Morrison, you know,
Speaker 1: five years back, it was great because I was in
Speaker 1: London for like a couple of months, right, And I
Speaker 1: love London. So you get to be in London, you
Speaker 1: do things. Okay, let's go back to something you said earlier,
Speaker 1: talked about writing. What are you personally working on in
Speaker 1: terms of writing? Well, what I do is I constantly right,
Speaker 1: That's how I write. I put together tracks and I
Speaker 1: guess present terms, it would be almost like rap producers
Speaker 1: put together beats or a track and usually handed off
Speaker 1: to an artist. That's what I did. So on the
Speaker 1: new Zambora album, uh, we co wrote basically, I think
Speaker 1: about eight songs on the record and I just brought tracks,
Speaker 1: which is very different, you know, But somehow we had
Speaker 1: so much fun that we just kept going. So the
Speaker 1: new stuff, it's like it's him and I writing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you go to the studio early in the morning.
Speaker 1: How long does do you work on a track or
Speaker 1: do you come back to a track? I mean tracks
Speaker 1: are done, Records are done when you all feel like
Speaker 1: you've nailed it. So that yeah, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: actually talking about that. I'm talking about you know, y
Speaker 1: now when you're working alone starting a ground zero. You
Speaker 1: talked about your writing. I assume you're creating things out
Speaker 1: of thin air. Or maybe I have that wrong. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's basically and this is what amazing technology has happened.
Speaker 1: The technology has come uh to make it really easy.
Speaker 1: So I work on my laptop so I can put
Speaker 1: together a track in about an hour, you know, basically
Speaker 1: with like I've got my own uh drum kind of
Speaker 1: sample library, et cetera, so I can. So something inspires me,
Speaker 1: I'll hear something that'll spark and I'll just play guitar,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll be something that I take and
Speaker 1: I take that and then I develop it and usually
Speaker 1: like I've been working on a piece of music now
Speaker 1: for two weeks and it started out as this, but
Speaker 1: it went there, which is kind of in a funny way,
Speaker 1: the way I work with artists. You know, you start
Speaker 1: with something and you have an idea and you work
Speaker 1: with it and it goes somewhere else. You know, conceptually,
Speaker 1: records for me, you know, you can talk about conceptions
Speaker 1: in terms of how you're going to make a record,
Speaker 1: et cetera, but it always comes down to the work
Speaker 1: that you put in in the hours that you spend.
Speaker 1: You know, it can either happen very quickly or it
Speaker 1: can happen over a length of time. People kind of
Speaker 1: update these days. I believe a lot, at least that's
Speaker 1: what I do. So even like with with the time
Speaker 1: that Ritchie and Dexter have had because of the virus thing,
Speaker 1: of course they're starting to hear things that they want
Speaker 1: to change even though we finish the record, because that's
Speaker 1: what musicians do. You constantly want you think it can
Speaker 1: be better. I'm not sure that works, but the way
Speaker 1: it was was great, but now you know, looking at it,
Speaker 1: you always think it can be a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And so you said, you've got an idea, tell me
Speaker 1: about that inspiration. It can be like a beat, it
Speaker 1: can be a sound, it can be something that I've
Speaker 1: heard and when like um, when I moved to Hawaii,
Speaker 1: I realized that a lot of the music stores don't
Speaker 1: have all the vintage gear that I collect and most
Speaker 1: of the gear that I've collected through the years. It's
Speaker 1: always like a sound like I have every amplifier, effect
Speaker 1: and guitar that Jimmy Page has, same with like Jeff Beck,
Speaker 1: same with Eric Clapton, same with Leslie West, same with
Speaker 1: Brian May, same with David Gilmour. I collected all the
Speaker 1: amps and everything and it's kind of like it's almost
Speaker 1: like an artist's palette, right, you know, all these colors,
Speaker 1: and that's what I do. So yeah, so it will
Speaker 1: It'll start with that and I get inspired. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: I have a collection of amplifiers, and Jimmy Page is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest influences on my whole life, basically
Speaker 1: from led Zeppelin on, you know, and so I've got
Speaker 1: a collection. I've got the actual amplifier that he used,
Speaker 1: not the amplifier, but the exact amplifier that he used
Speaker 1: on led Zeppelin one. And I've got the same guitar.
Speaker 1: I've got everything, right, I never nailed the sound. A
Speaker 1: month ago I discovered on the Internet that I was
Speaker 1: missing one piece of gear, which was a two bACC Coplex,
Speaker 1: and I have one. So I hooked it up and
Speaker 1: I got the sin that I got the sound on
Speaker 1: good times bad times, and I was like a little kid.
Speaker 1: I was dancing around the series because I actually nailed it. Now,
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do with that, I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but the fact is I still get excited about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: how much equipment do you have? How many guitars do
Speaker 1: you have? I don't count them, but it's over a hundred,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred and something. I have a warehouse
Speaker 1: full of amps and keyboards, et cetera, vintage stuff. That's
Speaker 1: my question, is the is the warehouse in MAUI? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's down below. Yeah. And how many amps do you
Speaker 1: think you have? Oh? I don't know. I've lost count,
Speaker 1: but I still buy them. I still buy I still yeah.
Speaker 1: You see went earlier on, like when I started I
Speaker 1: first started playing guitar, I had my dad could only
Speaker 1: afford a I can't guitar, and I had a heath
Speaker 1: kid am. So I was always like everybody else had
Speaker 1: better gear than me. So it kind of started this
Speaker 1: thing with me. So as soon as I started making
Speaker 1: money writing songs in my band, the pay all is
Speaker 1: I always put the money that I made by writing
Speaker 1: songs back into something. So like, for instance, one of
Speaker 1: our biggest songs with the Pails was Eyes of a Stranger. Okay,
Speaker 1: And how I got that is I read about Bob
Speaker 1: Marley using a drum machine on the Natty Dread album.
Speaker 1: I listened to it and I found out what the
Speaker 1: drum machine. So I got a check for writing songs,
Speaker 1: bought that drum machine. That drum machine turned into the
Speaker 1: machine that I used on Eyes of a Stranger that
Speaker 1: wrote the song. So I've done that for basically almost
Speaker 1: forty years. I keep doing it. Okay, let's assume you
Speaker 1: wake up and you don't have an idea. Will you
Speaker 1: sit there long enough or you just work on something
Speaker 1: you've already been working on, UM a bit of both.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I wake up and i'm you know, when I
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, I kind of think of things.
Speaker 1: I'll think of a song. Now I can kind of
Speaker 1: do it in ahead changes, etcetera. What you do when
Speaker 1: you when you become a writer, etcetera. You learned that
Speaker 1: there's certain standard changes. So to me, there's so many
Speaker 1: things that basically are the same song. So it's really
Speaker 1: about a feel, a feel that I hear or something
Speaker 1: that I remember. So I walk into the studio with
Speaker 1: kind of like that idea and I just try and
Speaker 1: usually what that seed takes me somewhere that I didn't
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't conceived. That seed made me go
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and that's when I get something I like. Now,
Speaker 1: this begs the question, how do you attribute songwriting credits? Well,
Speaker 1: songwriting credits. It's it's like, that's what I've done my
Speaker 1: whole life. Is I never anything that I ever added
Speaker 1: to anything that I've worked on Up until a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. I never took credit because I didn't
Speaker 1: think I wanted to be in that game, So suggestions
Speaker 1: that I did as a producer I never kind of went, well,
Speaker 1: I I need credit for that because I like being
Speaker 1: a pre docer and I think it's a different game
Speaker 1: to be a songwriter. You know. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be in that game. I just wanted to produce and
Speaker 1: make records. Things have changed slightly and and I think
Speaker 1: I think I put it out there a bit more
Speaker 1: like I just did an album with Jenn Arden up
Speaker 1: in Canada and we just we kind of played a
Speaker 1: couple of tracks, she wrote songs, and we just kept going.
Speaker 1: Same thing with Ritchie, So we'll see how it goes. Okay,
Speaker 1: now you talk about the reverence for Jimmy Page, and
Speaker 1: I was smiling, just can talk about that sound from
Speaker 1: good times bad times? Do you think these artists that
Speaker 1: have had previous peaks a decade or so previously, how
Speaker 1: would you personally try to get their head back in
Speaker 1: the game. If you had an opportunity, like if you
Speaker 1: had Jimmy Page, what would you do to try to
Speaker 1: get him to create something akin to his classic era,
Speaker 1: not in sound, but in that's Ah, that's a tough one, actually, No, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: you know, and we've talked and we've had you know,
Speaker 1: and stuff, and it's really really different when somebody like that,
Speaker 1: when you're at the presence of somebody that you revere,
Speaker 1: you know, that is a tough thing. You know. I
Speaker 1: just make him comfortable and from what I know, I
Speaker 1: would go with what I know and and kind of
Speaker 1: what he does and kind of make him, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of look back, but not go back, you know.
Speaker 1: As as Bowie said, it's you know, he's every album
Speaker 1: he makes is the same but different. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like recognizing what's good about what you do. Like I
Speaker 1: I'd like to see Jimmy play the blues. I think
Speaker 1: he would make an incredible blues album like The Stones
Speaker 1: did because basically that was, you know, that's the seed
Speaker 1: of my whole career in my life, really the three
Speaker 1: guys Jeff Back, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and the
Speaker 1: Truth Album, the Jeff Back Album and leads up on One,
Speaker 1: I bought within I don't know. They were released fairly
Speaker 1: soon in up in Canada, and those two albums started
Speaker 1: everything for me, my journey and so to me when
Speaker 1: I listened to it, Like with Richie, I played the
Speaker 1: Truth album, which he wasn't familiar with. He didn't know
Speaker 1: he he didn't know Truth. He now lives up in One,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know Truth. So you know, when he
Speaker 1: heard Truth, he went, well, what the fuck? He did
Speaker 1: not know that? And the tones and everything, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Yeah, so you can imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: Like you know, sometimes people try and make contemporary contemporary
Speaker 1: records and I get that, but like um, like for instance,
Speaker 1: the Sambora album, we were just two teenagers leaning on
Speaker 1: all those guys that we love, you know, and going back.
Speaker 1: But it sounds modern and it's just those influences. Is
Speaker 1: so would Jimmy to answer the question with Jimmy Page,
Speaker 1: I just go, Jimmy, Let's start with the blues. He
Speaker 1: was like the man. He made the blues sound different.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, I'm gonna put a question you're not
Speaker 1: gonna answer. Of the three, well, let's put it this way.
Speaker 1: Greatest rock guitarist of all time. Oh that's that's so mean,
Speaker 1: Bob um Well. I would say I would say that
Speaker 1: both Clapton and Paige because I was there actually when
Speaker 1: Monta got Uh in the Rock and Roll Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame and Jimmy Page put Jeff Beck in the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, and he said that Jimmy Page is the
Speaker 1: best guitar player in the world period, and Clapton has
Speaker 1: said the same, And so I would say I would
Speaker 1: go back because everybody I know Back is pretty much
Speaker 1: the guy in terms of the standard, you know, Key
Speaker 1: Scott of Brian Adams Fame, etcetera. We went and saw
Speaker 1: Jeff back and you could just we were just like teenagers.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting with Robbie Craiger to the three
Speaker 1: of us, and we were watching Jeff Beck and we're
Speaker 1: just going like, what did he just do? Do you know? Still?
Speaker 1: You know, still he's still the guy that shocks all
Speaker 1: of us? I agree totally. You know, when people talk
Speaker 1: to you. I remember they had the arms concerts in
Speaker 1: the Ronnie Lean Muscular Ms shows and the three of
Speaker 1: them were all on stage clapped in back. And that
Speaker 1: was when Page was working Uh in the firm and
Speaker 1: Beck just blew him away. I mean I talked to
Speaker 1: Beck once and they say, never missed a note. You know,
Speaker 1: he said, oh I missed a note. But it's like
Speaker 1: Beck doesn't write the way Page doesn't, doesn't produce whatever.
Speaker 1: But in terms of sheer playing, it's unbelievable. Yeah, A
Speaker 1: a big moment for both Keith Scott and I. We
Speaker 1: were both at the Queeney Theater in Vancouver when the
Speaker 1: Blow By Blow tour came through Vancouver. I saw that
Speaker 1: and just like, well, not Key so much, but me,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to give up because what I mean,
Speaker 1: what he's like so connected. Anyway, So there's your answer.
Speaker 1: I picked back because I think Gilmore, Page Clapton everybody
Speaker 1: would say the same thing along with Key Scott. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. So you're from Vancouver
Speaker 1: originally born in Winnipeg and Okay, and how many generations
Speaker 1: have your parents been in your family been in Canada?
Speaker 1: I would say just two. My parents parents were My
Speaker 1: mom's side was Icelandic my middle name is Jens and
Speaker 1: my father's side is Irish English from Birmingham and Belfast.
Speaker 1: On my dad's side, how did they end up in Winnipeg. Um, well,
Speaker 1: they immigrated to Canada as the Astec. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, a huge Icelandic community moved to Winnipeg in
Speaker 1: the uh after the I guess after the First World War.
Speaker 1: They immigrated to get out of Iceland. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of a funny story because they didn't realize how
Speaker 1: cold it was in Winnipeg. It was actually colder in
Speaker 1: Winnipeg than it was in Iceland anyway. But yeah, how
Speaker 1: long did you live in Winnipeg? Tell about sixty eight? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you grew up in Winnipeg. I grew up in Winnipeg.
Speaker 1: My team, the start of the start of my musical
Speaker 1: thing was in Winnipeg. And uh yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: was the Stones on TV on Ed Sullivan and the
Speaker 1: Beatles and the Monkeys, and just like that whole thing
Speaker 1: for me was great. Actually, my mom drove me to
Speaker 1: the airport with my sisters in her Volkswagen and we
Speaker 1: saw the Beatles get off the plane going to New
Speaker 1: York on the first tour. They came out and waved.
Speaker 1: She drove us to the airport because her girlfriend worked
Speaker 1: at Air Canada. So we went and we saw the
Speaker 1: beatles waving. That's like a standing meawhile, that's quite a
Speaker 1: supportive mother. My mother wouldn't have driven me to Kennedy
Speaker 1: Airport or Idle Wild. It was called Yeah, no, she was.
Speaker 1: She was into it. She was into it. I told
Speaker 1: that to Paul too. He thought it was funny. Did
Speaker 1: he remember waving in Winnipeg? He remembers getting off the
Speaker 1: plane because that was that was where they landed. They
Speaker 1: had to stop there for fuel right to get to
Speaker 1: New York. They couldn't get to New York they went
Speaker 1: over the pole right, so they stopped in Winnipeg. So
Speaker 1: he remembers getting off the plane. He didn't remember me though.
Speaker 1: So what'd your father do for a living in Winnipeg?
Speaker 1: It was an insurance salesman in the insurance business. And
Speaker 1: your mother homemaker or worked outside the homemaker. How many
Speaker 1: kids in the family. I have two sisters, And where
Speaker 1: are you in the hierarchy? I'm middle. I have an
Speaker 1: older sister, really, but that's just like me actually, I'm
Speaker 1: the middle whatever. So okay, how do you uh discover music? Well,
Speaker 1: it had a lot to do with my older sister, Sue.
Speaker 1: You know, she actually saw the stones in Winnipeg with
Speaker 1: Brian Jones. Can you imagine? No, I can't imagine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she saw them there. Yeah, so it was funny because
Speaker 1: she brought music in, you know, and she liked the Beatles,
Speaker 1: So I immediately like the Stones, right because I had
Speaker 1: to be different the animals and Dave Clark five, and
Speaker 1: she loved Beatles anyway, so she brought music in there.
Speaker 1: And then my dad actually got me guitar lessons, uh,
Speaker 1: and that started my journey. And of course the guests
Speaker 1: who were on TV. I was telling this to not
Speaker 1: to drop names, but Van Morrison because he asked me
Speaker 1: the same thing, where are you from? And I was
Speaker 1: saying I was saying that the guests who were big
Speaker 1: rock stars to me because they played all the hits
Speaker 1: every week on a TV show, like they would just
Speaker 1: recreate the hits, right, and so they were so big
Speaker 1: to me, you know, the guests who Okay, did you
Speaker 1: want guitar lessons because you saw the Beatles on TV?
Speaker 1: Or did it predate that or what was the inspiration
Speaker 1: guitar lessons were? Basically it was Keith Richards, Make no mistake.
Speaker 1: I singled him out right away, you know when I
Speaker 1: saw him. I went, I don't know what's going on there,
Speaker 1: but I like it. So I've always wanted to be that.
Speaker 1: You know, well, his sounds are not that easy to
Speaker 1: figure out either, the way does the tunings, etcetera. No,
Speaker 1: but when you know, you know, when you know it,
Speaker 1: it's it's something else. And what's so great about it
Speaker 1: it's signature. Nobody can put that on a record without
Speaker 1: going that's Keith richards thing, right, That's an amazing thing
Speaker 1: that it's so signature his thing. Yeah. I tried all
Speaker 1: the time and it never works. Okay, So you're taking
Speaker 1: guitar lessons, you start with an electric guitar or an acoustic.
Speaker 1: I had an acoustic at first, but I went to
Speaker 1: electric right away. I wanted to know how to play
Speaker 1: an electric guitar. I wanted it to be loud, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's you know once right in the beginning, though,
Speaker 1: I was always into the sounds you know of those records.
Speaker 1: That's that's what is that is kind of that whole
Speaker 1: line for me. It's always about the sonics and why
Speaker 1: does that sound like that? Like? Uh, and so electric
Speaker 1: guitars where I went, um, Yeah, The big point for
Speaker 1: me was actually we moved to Victoria out on the
Speaker 1: West coast, and I guess sixty eight, Okay, So I
Speaker 1: left school and I left all my friends in Winnipeg
Speaker 1: in that whole scene, and moved out to Victoria. Knew
Speaker 1: nobody right, I was playing hockey, blah blah blah. There
Speaker 1: was kind of no hockey out there. You had to
Speaker 1: pay to play hockey, so hockey went. So I was
Speaker 1: alone and I didn't have friends for like a couple
Speaker 1: of years. It was really tough. It was a tough move,
Speaker 1: you know. I hated my dad for it, but it
Speaker 1: ended up being the best thing that ever happened because
Speaker 1: all I did was play guitar and listened to records.
Speaker 1: You know. That's a great lesson that some of those
Speaker 1: things that hurt so much end up being the thing
Speaker 1: that changes your life. And that changed my life. As
Speaker 1: I've come to realize that begs the question, did you
Speaker 1: have a lot of records? Did you have a good stereo.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was a good stereo, but we
Speaker 1: had a stereo in the house, you know, as my
Speaker 1: parents love music, you know, and my sister had it.
Speaker 1: So we bought as many records. I bought singles. Of course,
Speaker 1: everybody about singles, right, you know, because that's all you
Speaker 1: could really afford. Albums were kind of like a little
Speaker 1: bit more money. You know, had lots of singles. So
Speaker 1: when did you form your first band? In Victoria? We
Speaker 1: were kind of like a doors cover band because we
Speaker 1: couldn't play led Zeppelin doors. It was a little easier
Speaker 1: except for the solos. And how did that come together?
Speaker 1: Are you like the business guy or how did you
Speaker 1: find the other members in the band? Well, we were
Speaker 1: all guys in school together, you know, so we we
Speaker 1: were called the Wine, which is horrible, horrible with y.
Speaker 1: It was just a horrible name. Um. But anyway, um,
Speaker 1: you know when we started, we played the the Sawcops
Speaker 1: in school and did covers and we started getting blues
Speaker 1: and stuff. Yeah, so I had many bands and really
Speaker 1: until I moved in Victoria to another place in Lankford.
Speaker 1: That's when I met the guy that I really started
Speaker 1: to hit it off with, a guy named Paul Hyde.
Speaker 1: And it was like grade ten and he was from England.
Speaker 1: So to me that was a guy that you know,
Speaker 1: I had to know. He showed up at the bus stop,
Speaker 1: he had his head shaved and I thought he was
Speaker 1: a skinhead, so I thought, this guy gotta meet. We
Speaker 1: ended up meeting, and oddly enough we just had the
Speaker 1: same love of English blues, in English music and just music,
Speaker 1: and that's when really connected. And we had a band,
Speaker 1: and we had a blues band because blues was was
Speaker 1: a big thing in Victoria. So, so how long did
Speaker 1: you take lessons for? Are you self taught? I took
Speaker 1: lessons to learn how to play, and then it was
Speaker 1: self taught and you didn't have I just listened to records,
Speaker 1: you know. Can you read music today? No? Okay? So
Speaker 1: you get together with Paul Hyde. At what point do
Speaker 1: you say this is what I want to do as
Speaker 1: a career. If you even say that, well, we kind
Speaker 1: of decided. The thing was I went to England when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. As soon as I finished school, Paul
Speaker 1: and I and the drummer that we had, Billy, we
Speaker 1: went to England to be rock stars. We saved money
Speaker 1: working in restaurants. I had a guitar. We went to
Speaker 1: England and we lasted six months, okay um, and came back. Uh.
Speaker 1: But we were I knew it like the last the
Speaker 1: last year's school. Basically, I don't think I went. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I know I didn't win. Go
Speaker 1: I should say. All I did was go to Paul's
Speaker 1: house and we just play music. So I knew what
Speaker 1: I was supposed to do. And your parents were cool
Speaker 1: with this, No, they weren't, not whatsoever, my dad particularly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The greatest thing though that happened. I actually graduated. I
Speaker 1: had a graduation. Okay, this is the greatest thing in
Speaker 1: Canada is that you don't get your marks until after
Speaker 1: you graduate. So everybody goes through the graduation. So I
Speaker 1: went through graduation, didn't get a diploma. And my dad,
Speaker 1: till the day he died, said, did you get your
Speaker 1: marks yet? Bob? I never got He knew, right, but yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so he he wasn't keen on the musical thing. But
Speaker 1: there you go. So you come back from England and
Speaker 1: where's the act? Then? Well what happened is I ended
Speaker 1: up getting jobs working in mills, slaughter houses, cardboard box factory,
Speaker 1: doing all sorts of stuff and playing music. But I
Speaker 1: ended up hearing this advertisement on the radio ah and
Speaker 1: saying that there was this course offered in Vancouver for
Speaker 1: six weeks one you know, Saturday, for six weeks, uh,
Speaker 1: and I asked my parents if they would give me
Speaker 1: the money to do it. So it was basically I
Speaker 1: went over to Vancouver six saturdays in a row and
Speaker 1: I learned basic engineering okay, And because of that, what
Speaker 1: happened there? Um, the guy that was teaching the course, uh,
Speaker 1: offered me a job at a little mountain. You know,
Speaker 1: I was the guide. I wait, wait, how many kids
Speaker 1: were in the class and how come you got the job? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why I got the job. I was
Speaker 1: the only one that wasn't scared to make a mistake.
Speaker 1: Every time he said who wants to try? And it
Speaker 1: was always I'll do it, even though I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was doing. But I got the job because
Speaker 1: I was the only guy that would say, I don't
Speaker 1: care what if I make a mistake. I just want
Speaker 1: to do it. That's why I got my job, which
Speaker 1: started my entire career. So it's a very good lesson
Speaker 1: just put yourself out there. Okay. So you immediately moved
Speaker 1: to Vancouver and you start working a little mountain I suppose.
Speaker 1: And where does that Where does that leave you as
Speaker 1: a player with Paul Hodg Well, he went off, he
Speaker 1: stayed in England and moved to Toronto, and then he
Speaker 1: ended up in Vancouver. When I started at a little
Speaker 1: mountain and right then punk music came happened, okay, in
Speaker 1: the late seventies. I started at a little mountain in
Speaker 1: seventy six, okay, and about seventy eight we started, Uh,
Speaker 1: we were playing and stuff. But then when punk broke
Speaker 1: um and it's kind of an interesting thing looking back
Speaker 1: at it. What happened is looking back at it when
Speaker 1: I look back, and the punk documentary that Vervados Niggy
Speaker 1: Pop did is an excellent documentary and it shows exactly
Speaker 1: kind of what happened. A lot of people in that scene.
Speaker 1: We weren't allowed to be playing clubs and stuff because
Speaker 1: we weren't that good, right, But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: with punk, we could play clubs, right because we only
Speaker 1: knew three chords and played fast and loud, and actually
Speaker 1: we could make records. Well. I worked at a studio,
Speaker 1: so Paul and I started to write songs and that's
Speaker 1: how we learned how to I learned how to put
Speaker 1: it together. Okay. So that was punk music gave us
Speaker 1: that foot in the door we didn't want. We weren't
Speaker 1: into anarchy or anything. We just wanted to make records
Speaker 1: and punk music allowed us to learn how to make records.
Speaker 1: So the first song we wrote, China Boys, we put
Speaker 1: it out a thousand copies. We got signed to I R.
Speaker 1: S Records on one song. We got signed on the
Speaker 1: first song we wrote, I'm not kidding you. Ok, how
Speaker 1: did that happen? Well, this guy somebody, because we sold
Speaker 1: the foul and and it it became kind of a
Speaker 1: hit in the Vancouver scene, and then everybody heard it
Speaker 1: in Toronto, so A and M. This guy Michael got in.
Speaker 1: He signed us for an EP and he said do
Speaker 1: you have any more songs? And we said, yeah, we
Speaker 1: got lots. We had nothing. As soon as we left
Speaker 1: the meeting, we wrote songs. We wrote four more songs
Speaker 1: and put out an EP and that did kind of
Speaker 1: okay in Canada, and so we got an album deal
Speaker 1: with with I R. S. J. Boberg. He signed us
Speaker 1: and R. E. M at the same time. The same
Speaker 1: week he signed us, it was then called the Paolas. Yes,
Speaker 1: worst name ever. So what's the story of the name. Well,
Speaker 1: we thought we thought it was really kind of funny,
Speaker 1: poking at the Payola scandal, right we thought that was
Speaker 1: very punk. Right. There's this famous uh radio guy, Charlie Minor.
Speaker 1: You probably heard of him, right, And he said yeah,
Speaker 1: and I do. We know him really well. And he
Speaker 1: said to us one day, he says, you know, guys,
Speaker 1: I love your music, but your name. I can never
Speaker 1: do anything to help you because that is just an
Speaker 1: insult to what I do. Let's go have some dinner.
Speaker 1: And he says that dollar signed at the end is
Speaker 1: such an insult. Anyway, I saw him two days before
Speaker 1: he was shot. It was very weird, but okay, you
Speaker 1: have the peel those what do you do for the
Speaker 1: rest of the band were just fine players. We made
Speaker 1: our first album. We actually asked, uh, we're big fan
Speaker 1: Bowie fans, and Mick Ronson was the guy that we
Speaker 1: wanted to produce our first record. We sent him all
Speaker 1: the demos and we didn't hear back, so I ended
Speaker 1: up just doing it myself, which was a big mistake,
Speaker 1: you know. But what was great is Mick Ronson phone
Speaker 1: back nine months later and says, I really like your demos.
Speaker 1: There was actually the demos for the first album, and
Speaker 1: we had already started writing for the second album, so
Speaker 1: he actually league came to Vancouver and he produced our
Speaker 1: Second Experience or Bad Experience with Ronson. Yeah, Oh, Mick
Speaker 1: Ronson is the biggest influence on my production and as
Speaker 1: a musician period. You know, working with him changed everything.
Speaker 1: He was such he did two albums with us and
Speaker 1: actually toured with us. But I'll tell you the best
Speaker 1: thing I can tell you. Mc Ron's story is so
Speaker 1: Eyes of a Stranger. I told you about buying the
Speaker 1: drum machine, blah blah blah blah, and I actually recorded
Speaker 1: the whole track as a demo. So he comes in
Speaker 1: and he listens to all the song and he's saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: we've gotta do this, so this is great. I play
Speaker 1: him the track of Eyes of a Stranger with Paul
Speaker 1: with the rib vocal. He goes, we're not going to
Speaker 1: get better than that, so let's keep that track. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna overdub some keyboards. In other words, he just
Speaker 1: he didn't have to rerecord it. He just said, that's great.
Speaker 1: So we did an at it to fix it. He
Speaker 1: put keyboards on it. I mixed it at the power station,
Speaker 1: and it's our biggest song that taught me a lesson.
Speaker 1: It's like he didn't have to change anything. He heard
Speaker 1: that it was good by itself and that a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't do that. Most people would just go like, well,
Speaker 1: we got to re record it. He went, no, that's great.
Speaker 1: That's just a simple story about him. I could tell you.
Speaker 1: We could talk for hours about him. Well, give me
Speaker 1: one more story. Well, he he taught us. He taught
Speaker 1: us like, there was a couple of songs where you know,
Speaker 1: he would say, this is a great song, but let's
Speaker 1: see if we can find the home for the song,
Speaker 1: and we're going like, what do you mean the home?
Speaker 1: In other words, he heard the song, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: done the right way. So we had this great song.
Speaker 1: I was really into Darkness on the Edge of Town,
Speaker 1: the Springsteen song, so I basically mimic kind of that feel.
Speaker 1: And he said it's a little kind of hard, and
Speaker 1: he said the lyric isn't like that. So he ended
Speaker 1: up playing a piano part and we did this. It's
Speaker 1: called Hastings Street. It's about the skid row in Vancouver,
Speaker 1: and he changed it and it went to a place
Speaker 1: that is beautiful and it's an incredible song and a
Speaker 1: credible track. So he taught that to us that no
Speaker 1: matter what you do, and I still believe this is
Speaker 1: whatever you need. Inspiration was to write a song, write it,
Speaker 1: and then you find the home. A lot of people
Speaker 1: get stuck where they write that demo and there it's precious.
Speaker 1: They don't want to change it. But sometimes there's a
Speaker 1: song there, but it's just not done right. So he
Speaker 1: showed me that. But the greatest thing I'll tell you
Speaker 1: we we did a tour after the second album we
Speaker 1: did with them, and we didn't have a keyboard player,
Speaker 1: and we had a tour to open up for Split
Speaker 1: Ends in Canada, the whole Canadian tour um and he says, well,
Speaker 1: I'll play keyboards for you, And so he came on
Speaker 1: the whole tour with us. And the first night we
Speaker 1: were playing in Victoria and sound check can Split Ends
Speaker 1: around the side of the stage and they're going like
Speaker 1: is that So he was, Yeah, he did the whole
Speaker 1: tour with us. That's the kind of guy he was. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes a question. I mean, everything's changed today, but
Speaker 1: prior to this decimation of recording royalties and budgets, are
Speaker 1: you the type of guy? You know? The Stones legendarily
Speaker 1: rode in the studio. So you're the kind of producer
Speaker 1: where you want the material firsture, you want to work
Speaker 1: in pre production or every act is different. I think
Speaker 1: every act is different, you know, the whole thing of
Speaker 1: writing in the studio. Uh, it's a luxury. Always has
Speaker 1: been a luxury, you know, the best thing. You know, Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, it was everything I've done I learned because
Speaker 1: of Bruce Fairburn and because of you know, how he worked.
Speaker 1: I learned the fact that you do pre production. Pre
Speaker 1: production is key no matter what. All the all the
Speaker 1: album albums that I've done has always been that, or
Speaker 1: there's a demo to go from. Some people do demos
Speaker 1: and then you can just go from there. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, you always want to do pre production
Speaker 1: before you go into the studio. And what is your
Speaker 1: pre production look like? Well, it's changed because everybody, like
Speaker 1: I said, now on computers, people are kind of making demos,
Speaker 1: you know, so you can really just work with the
Speaker 1: demo and go from there. Uh. But you know, you
Speaker 1: just you talk. For instance, it's like with bands in particular,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was like with Metallica, they never
Speaker 1: played in the same room when they made a record.
Speaker 1: So to me, I said, but that's how I make records.
Speaker 1: And I explained to him, I said, well, that's because
Speaker 1: you never know if you change the beat in the
Speaker 1: in the verse or something, change it later, you know,
Speaker 1: so you've got to get a you gotta get a
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, you got to get an idea
Speaker 1: of what's going on. And you know, the tempo means
Speaker 1: so much difference, makes so much difference, like one beat
Speaker 1: to find the pocket where you know, like the Black
Speaker 1: album is a pocket album. All the fields are like
Speaker 1: we worked on it to find the right tempo, and
Speaker 1: we stayed there, you know, so that that was it,
Speaker 1: and so we spent time. And that's that's the difference.
Speaker 1: You go in when you know you've got it in shape,
Speaker 1: you've got the arrangement right, and you've looked at what
Speaker 1: the base is doing with the kick. You just go
Speaker 1: through everything. And you do that in the room and
Speaker 1: you can just make a cassette with one microphone and
Speaker 1: that's fine to kind of work until you get into
Speaker 1: the studio. So that's what we did, you know, and
Speaker 1: I do that. How much reproduction did you do for
Speaker 1: the Black Album? I was probably there for two weeks,
Speaker 1: you know, and we went through every song, and you know,
Speaker 1: they were warming up to me and me warming up
Speaker 1: to them. You know. I think the first time we
Speaker 1: had lunch, I was in one room and they were
Speaker 1: in the other room type thing. By the end we
Speaker 1: were all in the same room. They were you know,
Speaker 1: you know, with a band like that, they were so intense,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were so they had that club,
Speaker 1: the Metallica club that they were in. It was hard
Speaker 1: to get into the club. It took a long time.
Speaker 1: And how long did it take to actually record the record?
Speaker 1: Fourteen fifteen months? And how did you get the gig?
Speaker 1: They wanted me to mix the record because they really
Speaker 1: liked the sound of the Motley album. They didn't like Motley,
Speaker 1: but they loved the Doctor Field Good album the sonically
Speaker 1: and they so they came up to see me in
Speaker 1: Vancouver and they brought cassettes of the songs and they played,
Speaker 1: you know, they played the material and it did not
Speaker 1: sound like the Justice album, which I knew. And actually
Speaker 1: just so you know that that just before that, I
Speaker 1: saw Metallica because Sonic Temple, I did the Sonic Temple
Speaker 1: album and the cult warmed up on this, uh Justice tour,
Speaker 1: so I stayed and watched Metallic and I went, their
Speaker 1: records don't sound anything like they sound live. They were
Speaker 1: so big and powerful, so I made a mental note.
Speaker 1: Any Anyway, they they said they loved the sound of
Speaker 1: the bigness and the weight of the the Molly Crue album.
Speaker 1: So they came up to Vancouver. You had a meeting,
Speaker 1: and when I heard the songs, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: Saba true was to me was like the Levy Breaks.
Speaker 1: It had that feel. It was there, Sam Man was there,
Speaker 1: all the fields were there, um and so basically we
Speaker 1: started talking and a couple of things happened that we're
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Uh. We had dinner that night and I
Speaker 1: could see that they were looking at the bus boy
Speaker 1: that was looking at the table right. He finally came
Speaker 1: over and he said, excuse me, are you Bob Rock?
Speaker 1: Can I get my your autograph? I didn't ask them
Speaker 1: for and they they thought that was hilarious. They thought
Speaker 1: that was hilarious. So that was breaking the ice. They
Speaker 1: had no idea, the guy had no idea who they were, right,
Speaker 1: but because of the pail is it was. It was
Speaker 1: pretty funny. So there was the moments that basically we
Speaker 1: just talked about music, and that didn't hear from them,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they said, come on and
Speaker 1: let's get going. There you go. Did you have any
Speaker 1: idea the album would be an interstand Man would be
Speaker 1: as big as they ultimately were. No, No, not at all.
Speaker 1: When I said conceptualizing albums, I mean really, the thing
Speaker 1: is is what we just saw did It's like, because
Speaker 1: you know, the basic tracks and the fields were there.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think I changed that, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: It was always there. If you listen to the demos
Speaker 1: that have been released, the songs are there. But what
Speaker 1: I did is I changed basically the approach of how
Speaker 1: to record. Okay, so um, you know, it took a
Speaker 1: while to get to get going and then it just
Speaker 1: became work, which is like we we decided that we
Speaker 1: weren't going to compromise in any way, shape or form
Speaker 1: on anything. So the drums sound took three weeks. You know,
Speaker 1: the bass sound like James's guitar. We built a room
Speaker 1: specially for to get this sound that you know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out. We built a room to have this
Speaker 1: certain resonance, which is part of the sound. Everything was.
Speaker 1: There was no compromise on what they wanted, and I
Speaker 1: was there as the guy that kind of went, well,
Speaker 1: I know how to sort of do this. Let's worked
Speaker 1: together and do it. So that's I was the guy
Speaker 1: that kind of like helped them learn how to record
Speaker 1: what they wanted because of the experience that I had.
Speaker 1: So you know, uh, that's why it took along, and
Speaker 1: that's that's what we did. So in the end, we're
Speaker 1: so tired of each other that we said we went
Speaker 1: and had a bottle of wine. After Randy stab and
Speaker 1: James and Lars we finished mastering and we're just like,
Speaker 1: it's been fun, don't call me, never want to see
Speaker 1: you again. And we all walked our separate ways, you know.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I was playing my band
Speaker 1: was playing at Club Soda and Vancouver. It came on.
Speaker 1: I went, wow, people kind of like this. Who knew? Okay?
Speaker 1: So how did uh peale Is morph into rock and Hide? Well,
Speaker 1: we did a record that wasn't us that the record
Speaker 1: company made us use a producer that we really didn't
Speaker 1: want to use. I'm not going to name names, but
Speaker 1: and it kind of ruined the band. And so Paul
Speaker 1: and I, who basically wrote all the songs and did
Speaker 1: it pretty much everything. We reformed it and we got
Speaker 1: signed to E M I in England for Rock and Hide,
Speaker 1: so it just became the two of us. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we kind of used some of the guys in the
Speaker 1: Palis as the band. Yeah. So tell me about morphing
Speaker 1: from being a player to being a studio guy. The
Speaker 1: thing with the Pale is in my career as a
Speaker 1: writer and a guitar player kind of were was running
Speaker 1: parallel with learning how to make records. So and what
Speaker 1: I realized and and it just to go back with
Speaker 1: all the guys that I loved, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Page, I could never play like them. So
Speaker 1: I found this guy that wasn't like that him and
Speaker 1: his name was Pete town It. And Pete Townsend was
Speaker 1: a songwriter and he played rhythm guitar that I just
Speaker 1: got chivers talking about it because I've met and I
Speaker 1: told him that changed everything for me because I realized
Speaker 1: I didn't have to be a ship hot lead player.
Speaker 1: I just had to play rhythm like Pete Townsend. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that was the guy that made me decide that
Speaker 1: I was more about the record and writing and sounds
Speaker 1: and being Pete Townsend and Keith Richards who was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest rhythm players as well. Okay does great
Speaker 1: lead work, so does Pete Townsend. But there you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So that was absolutely Pete was in
Speaker 1: my brain when you were talking about was so funny
Speaker 1: you mentioned it. Yeah, No, that is seeing and you know,
Speaker 1: like the Who were just so big for me as well,
Speaker 1: because that's you know it and you know, we started
Speaker 1: with I can see for miles and just like my
Speaker 1: generation and stuff. And I had dinner with Shell. Tell me,
Speaker 1: by the way, that's something I haven't done. No, it
Speaker 1: was I had dinner with him after I did a
Speaker 1: thing at south By Southwest the panel. I only went
Speaker 1: because he was on the panel and and so I
Speaker 1: I kind of met him over the video or whatever.
Speaker 1: But this guy, Mike Jacobs set it up and I
Speaker 1: had dinner with him. I just like I was in
Speaker 1: heaven talking about the Who. He had just an amazing guy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So the Who, what did he tell you about making
Speaker 1: those records? Well, he you know, he said how he
Speaker 1: got the gig, you know, and he said he was
Speaker 1: in he was an engineer in l a. He's American.
Speaker 1: He went to England on holiday and we just went.
Speaker 1: He had a friend at Decoration Records in London and
Speaker 1: he and he said, he was just hanging around the
Speaker 1: Decca office and this guy came in with an Asceta
Speaker 1: Ray Davies and he had an ascetate which is basically
Speaker 1: a demo, and nobody wanted to hear it, so he said,
Speaker 1: I'll listen to it. He listened to it and he says,
Speaker 1: I want to record you. That's how he got the
Speaker 1: Kinks gig by being there, just by luck. He recorded
Speaker 1: that Pete Townsend heard you know, you really got me.
Speaker 1: I want Shell tell me? And Shell tell Me changed
Speaker 1: the way the who recorded because Shell, being American, he
Speaker 1: used multiple mics okay, and most of the English engineers
Speaker 1: were using just three or four mikes on drums. Shell
Speaker 1: tell Me set up all these mics with Keith moon
Speaker 1: and on the guitar and they were in heaven and
Speaker 1: that's my generation and I'm going like, I was just
Speaker 1: like this is amazing. Yeah, you know, and we just
Speaker 1: had the greatest time talking about you know, because his
Speaker 1: career just lasted too. I think Waterloo Sunset with the
Speaker 1: Kinks or whatever, and then they moved on. But his
Speaker 1: career and what he did for kind of rock music
Speaker 1: is just unbelievable, the impact he had with that kind
Speaker 1: of recording, etcetera. All on the fact that he went
Speaker 1: to England for a vacation, he stayed in London. An
Speaker 1: American guy. So going back to your career, how do
Speaker 1: you decide to go get off the stage and switch
Speaker 1: sides in the studio Bruce Allen. Bruce Allen managed the
Speaker 1: Paolas and and Bruce says, because I was the engineer
Speaker 1: with Loverboy and Prism, I've I knew Bruce like America.
Speaker 1: The day I got my job at Little Mountain, was
Speaker 1: sitting in the waiting room and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the doors December six six the door swung open and
Speaker 1: this guy with a full length for coat, Oh, open
Speaker 1: the door and just like walk by me and beat
Speaker 1: ore in the studio and I went to the reception
Speaker 1: who's that And she said that's Bruce Allen and I
Speaker 1: went and it never That guy ended up managing me
Speaker 1: and he's my closest friend to this day. That's over
Speaker 1: forty years Bruce Allen has been in my life. But
Speaker 1: Bruce told me I did a rock and high gig
Speaker 1: at the tour and he said rock. He says, you
Speaker 1: gotta stop doing this. Okay, you're a producer. You're you're
Speaker 1: a producer. You've got to be a producer. Let me
Speaker 1: manage you as a producer. And he says, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell him. I'll tell you what he said. Yes,
Speaker 1: I will tell you said. He says, you got to
Speaker 1: lose the dumb broths and you got to just listen
Speaker 1: to me, and you're gonna make some money. And actually
Speaker 1: the thing he that he did, the first thing he did,
Speaker 1: I had met my wife just after that, Angie, So
Speaker 1: I lost the dumb broads and got a great woman.
Speaker 1: She actually she got me. But uh. And then Bruce
Speaker 1: Um with Slippery when wet Um Bruce Fevern had a deal.
Speaker 1: He said, just before that, we've done Honeymoon Sweet. He says,
Speaker 1: the next record, you're going to get a point on
Speaker 1: the record. The next record was Slippery. He didn't give
Speaker 1: me the point. Okay, okay, the next So the next
Speaker 1: record I did was Aerosmith Permanent Vacation, and I was
Speaker 1: making for Slippery. I made ten thousand Canadian, which is
Speaker 1: American engineers were getting twenty American Okay. So on Permianity Vacation,
Speaker 1: Bruce Feveryon says, we can't afford to give you ten thousand.
Speaker 1: We can only give you eight. And then I went,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna be my future. Okay. So after
Speaker 1: that I went on to I left the Permanent I
Speaker 1: didn't mix the Permanent Vacation record. I was on tour
Speaker 1: with Rock and Hide. I had to go on tour,
Speaker 1: and at the end of that tour, Bruce says, I
Speaker 1: told her the story. The next record. I got to
Speaker 1: Dramba Jovi wanted to Bruce Fevert and I to do
Speaker 1: the New Jersey record. Bruce Allen said, Rock ain't doing it.
Speaker 1: John says, but I really want Rock to do it.
Speaker 1: Bruce got me paid the New Jersey album on one
Speaker 1: point on ten million Rockords, ten million records. Cash Angie
Speaker 1: and I about our first house. That's Bruce Allen. Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you could say all that, but
Speaker 1: that is Bruce Allen. He changed my life. And he's
Speaker 1: the guy that said be a producer, that's what you're
Speaker 1: good at, and you know, the rest is history. He's
Speaker 1: the reason why you know Metallica. You know, we had
Speaker 1: Louis made the decision. He helped put that together. You know,
Speaker 1: he's like like said my best friend, and uh yeah huge. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So but you talked at some point playing club Soda.
Speaker 1: When did you literally stopped playing with the band erws
Speaker 1: that really never died After Rock and Hide, I had
Speaker 1: while I was doing the Black album, actually did a
Speaker 1: rock album, Rockhead. And it was because just because I
Speaker 1: was in l A a lot and I started writing
Speaker 1: music and for whatever reason, I want to make a
Speaker 1: rock album. I didn't want to be like a new
Speaker 1: wave guy. So I made a rock album and I
Speaker 1: was you know, so I made a rock album, and
Speaker 1: so I ended up touring Europe. We opened up for
Speaker 1: bon Jovi. Okay, did European tour, and I realized that
Speaker 1: that I should just produce. I just couldn't deal with
Speaker 1: that anymore. I couldn't deal with because you know, it
Speaker 1: was like, uh, you know, all the US all they
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about what was Metallica because the Black
Speaker 1: Album came out right and I went, this is this
Speaker 1: is just not me. So I ended up making records,
Speaker 1: which I love doing. So there you go. And so
Speaker 1: what did you learn from Bruce Fearburn. I learned Bruce
Speaker 1: is really his pluses were, uh, it took me a
Speaker 1: while to learn. His greatest thing was like he didn't
Speaker 1: really he was never a fan of bands, like in
Speaker 1: other words, he didn't really like to me, Aerosmith walked
Speaker 1: in the room and and it was like I was
Speaker 1: a fan. I mean, I was like Joe, Barry, Steven Tyler,
Speaker 1: They're in front of me. I'm in the stud there
Speaker 1: in front of me, and it meant nothing to Bruce.
Speaker 1: They were just a band. So he could say, like,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of a take, and he always
Speaker 1: went for dinner at five o'clock. If we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of the take, he'd say, I'm going for dinner,
Speaker 1: he'd leave. And so that he had control with those guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: he had ultimate control with over Stephen and Joe and
Speaker 1: the band. Okay, that kind of thing. In other words,
Speaker 1: his scheduling was amazing, and he made them work, and
Speaker 1: he made them work hard. That's what he was great.
Speaker 1: And he had this outside because he wasn't. He did
Speaker 1: his homework on Aerosmith and he brought the best parts
Speaker 1: to the the project, much like bon Jovi. You know,
Speaker 1: he recognized what we had, this way of working, the
Speaker 1: two of us, and and so he taught me a lot.
Speaker 1: What he taught me is as he actually gave me
Speaker 1: my first job. Besides the job at the studio, The
Speaker 1: first guy to believe in me was Bruce Fairburn. He
Speaker 1: asked me to do the Prism album. And he asked
Speaker 1: me because he wanted to change up and he had
Speaker 1: heard this the kind of the punk stuff that I
Speaker 1: had done and it was raw. So he hired me.
Speaker 1: So he gave me a shot. He kind of started
Speaker 1: my career and it was he managed by Bruce in
Speaker 1: the end, but he he was prison, was managed by Bruce.
Speaker 1: Bruce Fabrin was in prison, and Jim Valence was in
Speaker 1: prison and in an earlier band that turned into prison.
Speaker 1: So that's why they wrote the songs in the Prism album.
Speaker 1: So it's all tied in. Well, I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: asking is if Bruce managed Bruce and you, how come
Speaker 1: you couldn't get the point? Uh, he wasn't managing Bruce
Speaker 1: at the time. He managed Bruce later. Okay, so uh
Speaker 1: do you know Slippery win Wet is going to be
Speaker 1: Slippery Win wet. What do you mean when did we know?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're making that record, an iconic record by far,
Speaker 1: the best bon Jovie record. You know, wanted Dead or Alive?
Speaker 1: First time I heard that, never mind Living on a
Speaker 1: Prayer and you give love a bad Did you say,
Speaker 1: holy fuck, we have something here, Fabride and I. At
Speaker 1: the end of that, we finished, the benches left and
Speaker 1: we were in the control room and we're kind of
Speaker 1: going like, hopefully this is gonna go gold, so we
Speaker 1: get another gig. And we knew and we thought Living
Speaker 1: on a Prayer was probably you never want to say,
Speaker 1: there's this thing. You never want to say that's a hit,
Speaker 1: because it always seems to you never go that way.
Speaker 1: But we knew Leving on a Prayer was really strong.
Speaker 1: But we had no idea. I mean that when that
Speaker 1: was triple platinum in like three months, we had no idea.
Speaker 1: So let's say, uh, you realize you have an eleven
Speaker 1: in a song whatever. If you realize that, whether it
Speaker 1: be in pre production or recording, does that steward away
Speaker 1: from being eleven? What I mean is, do you become
Speaker 1: so self conscious that you can't nail it? Then? No, no,
Speaker 1: not not really because this is the Beauty of Bruce Fabron.
Speaker 1: That was a six week album. Okay, that was there's
Speaker 1: only one guitar track, one keyboard track, all caught live.
Speaker 1: I I mixed it in a week, the whole record,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was like so there was no
Speaker 1: time to even think about it. You you're just I
Speaker 1: was just doing my job. I was learning. You see,
Speaker 1: this is the whole thing all through that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: and there's there's more. I'm still learning, Bob. I'm still
Speaker 1: being schooled. Van Morrison schooled me to death, you know
Speaker 1: when I worked with him. You know, constantly I'm learning,
Speaker 1: And through all of that I was learning. So I
Speaker 1: never ever thought that it was eleven and I'm scared
Speaker 1: to do it. I was just trying to do the best, okay,
Speaker 1: but I was really referring to now when you are
Speaker 1: the producer. Uh so, what do you mean solo king back.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of my own life. If
Speaker 1: I'm writing something and I realize it's incredible, it's just
Speaker 1: something fires in my brain, then it ends up not
Speaker 1: being incredible because I'm self conscious. Now the nature of
Speaker 1: writing the way I do it, You're write it it's done.
Speaker 1: A song is a whole thing, usually have pre production, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So do you say, ever when something is really phenomenal,
Speaker 1: you don't want to fuck it up? But are you
Speaker 1: so self conscious that it's hard to get it right? Well?
Speaker 1: As a producer, the thing the thing is is, here's
Speaker 1: I think. What I learned from Bruce Fairburn and just
Speaker 1: making records for a long time is I don't stop
Speaker 1: trying to make something great until the artist says, until
Speaker 1: the artist is happy, not even the record company. If
Speaker 1: the artist says this is the best I can be,
Speaker 1: and I say, this is the best I can be,
Speaker 1: It's done, and I'm okay with it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can listen to every record I've done, and I know
Speaker 1: all the flaws. I even know all the punches for
Speaker 1: on Slippery that I made. I can still hear the punches.
Speaker 1: I hear all the flaws. But now I listened to
Speaker 1: it as a whole, and I'm going like, as a whole,
Speaker 1: it's great. You can always like it's that thing. As
Speaker 1: I was telling about Dexter and Ritchie with the time
Speaker 1: off they're listening, we can change this. You always think
Speaker 1: you can do better, but realistically it ends up being
Speaker 1: what I said when I said I compared my mix
Speaker 1: to uh, working for a weekend. I'm that guy, and
Speaker 1: this is the way it's going to end up sounding. Okay,
Speaker 1: different band, different kind of species, whatever, uh, different people,
Speaker 1: but it always ends up sounding the way I hear
Speaker 1: it when it. When I go like, this sounds great
Speaker 1: and the artist says this sounds great, We're done. I'm
Speaker 1: okay with it. Whatever happens. Okay, how does the Black
Speaker 1: Album change your life? Well? I live in Hawaii, okay.
Speaker 1: But in terms of offers and things like that, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I got a lot of offers, but I
Speaker 1: kind of win, you see, because I'm a rock guy.
Speaker 1: I'm not a highavy metal guy, you know. And that's
Speaker 1: what I think, you know, the perspective, Like in other words,
Speaker 1: if I was a fan of metallic and I was
Speaker 1: a metal guy, wouldn't have been the same. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I got lots of offers. There was a couple of
Speaker 1: things and stuff. But when you do the best and
Speaker 1: the biggest, where do you go? Do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? That's the way I looked at it, like
Speaker 1: who's And besides, they were demanding and I spent fifteen
Speaker 1: years of my life working with Metallica. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: like I needed more work, you know what I mean
Speaker 1: if you think about was like, if you think about
Speaker 1: like all the stuff that we did for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: I you know, I just did an album a year
Speaker 1: or two as well as a matter of got a
Speaker 1: little worrisome that I wasn't doing anything, you know, outside
Speaker 1: of them, you know, which is why, you know, the
Speaker 1: relationships kind of end. I had to move on and
Speaker 1: do something I just didn't want to say, set up
Speaker 1: the same set of drums, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It gets kind of old, absolutely, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just got to move on. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to the lover Boy. The sound on Turn Me Loose,
Speaker 1: that whole record is just unbelievable. What do you remember
Speaker 1: about that experience? It was big, like lover Boy, we're
Speaker 1: the best band in Vancouver, and when we came to
Speaker 1: do the album, I mean, Paul Eaton, the guitar player,
Speaker 1: busted my balls constantly about sonics. But I learned so
Speaker 1: much about because he walked in and he had the
Speaker 1: guitar that he put together himself. He had this amplifier.
Speaker 1: This is his speaker. This is my sound recorded, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Nobody before that had ever
Speaker 1: had that, like, this is my sound, just like Brian
Speaker 1: May has a sound, Jimmy Page has a sound, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. He was the first guy that
Speaker 1: really ever put that in my head, and he had
Speaker 1: ideas about how to do that, so he pushed me.
Speaker 1: And everything I've done, Bob, is because the people like
Speaker 1: the sound of the drums on Motley Crue, the sounds
Speaker 1: on Metallica. Those guys pushed me. And when everything I've
Speaker 1: done that's good is when guys push me, they make
Speaker 1: me out of get me out of my comfortable zone
Speaker 1: and make me work. Paul Dene made me work. And
Speaker 1: a funny thing, really funny about teremy loose, right, so
Speaker 1: turn me loose. He he kept referring to the Pat
Speaker 1: Banatar album that Mike Chapman had done, right, going like,
Speaker 1: we gotta sound like this. We got a sounding like that,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm just doing my best to get
Speaker 1: it sound as great as as I possibly could. And um,
Speaker 1: years later, I did a this band called Spider Okay,
Speaker 1: and and tok Fig was in the band Okay and
Speaker 1: he uh, he was working with Mike Chapman and the
Speaker 1: band when they recorded they had the first lover Boy
Speaker 1: album and they were busting the engineer's bolts sound. So
Speaker 1: that's what I mean about that time, Like the competition thing.
Speaker 1: It's like I was trying to get what they were
Speaker 1: doing and they were trying to get what I had done.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny. How did you get the gig
Speaker 1: with Motley Crue? Basically, DC McGhee, it was the records
Speaker 1: that I had done, like the Kingdom Come album, the
Speaker 1: Sonic Temple album. The bands heard that and kind of
Speaker 1: in DC McGhee said, you know, working with bon Jovi.
Speaker 1: You know, he just said you should have a meeting.
Speaker 1: So I took a meeting. And when I took a
Speaker 1: meeting with him, I was at Tommy's house and they're
Speaker 1: all sober, you know, and this that's that was my
Speaker 1: momlot crew thing, and you know, and I basically did
Speaker 1: what I said. We did pre production and we worked
Speaker 1: hard a pre production and then we went to Vancouver.
Speaker 1: I said, I recorded a little mountain, and they knew
Speaker 1: about a little mountain, so we didn't have a problem there.
Speaker 1: And we just worked hard and I had a sober
Speaker 1: band to the end. Well, you know it was a
Speaker 1: huge step forward for them. So you keep mentioning Van Morrison,
Speaker 1: how did you give that gig and what was that experience? Like?
Speaker 1: He did a duets album and Michael Booble. He asked
Speaker 1: Michael to do a duet with him, so he did Real,
Speaker 1: Real Gone and we did a track. We recorded his
Speaker 1: band in Birmingham live, so uh, I recorded Michael and
Speaker 1: I had to go record Fans Vocal, so I went
Speaker 1: to his session. He was already working on the duets
Speaker 1: thing and I spent the day and oddly enough I
Speaker 1: didn't record Fans Vocal because they did this trick. They said, Bob,
Speaker 1: why don't you go for lunch Van, I'll be here
Speaker 1: in an hour. Well I left, Van came in, sang
Speaker 1: the vocal, and I got back and they already done it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I ended up spending the day and we talked and
Speaker 1: then he heard the mix that I did, so he
Speaker 1: phoned me and he said would you come to England
Speaker 1: and mixed the rest of the record, and I went yeah,
Speaker 1: and he ended up. I ended up doing a song
Speaker 1: with George Benson. We caught a song I produced it
Speaker 1: with Van and I mixed the whole record, and I
Speaker 1: mean recording the song that I did with George Benson
Speaker 1: and him. He schooled me like he's a first take guy, right,
Speaker 1: and if you know, he won't do a second take.
Speaker 1: So we did the track George Benson. I didn't know
Speaker 1: the lyrics, so I said, Van, you know George sang,
Speaker 1: but he was He wasn't saying the lyrics and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I said, we got to do another one. He says, nah,
Speaker 1: we can't do what I said, But you know, what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? I said we should do one
Speaker 1: and he says, okay, I'll do one. So he did
Speaker 1: one and it sounded great and George sounded great, and
Speaker 1: Van said, uh, first one. So I had to repair
Speaker 1: George right. And he was right because the first take
Speaker 1: was magic and it was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: just seeing him and and just like he's so on
Speaker 1: and I had some great moments I gotta tell you
Speaker 1: about after that. Um. So we did that song and
Speaker 1: we mixed that, mixed the whole record, and he invited
Speaker 1: me to go to Montserrat uh No Mantro for the
Speaker 1: Jazz festival because he wanted to cut a song with
Speaker 1: Dr John. So it flies me from here to Mantro
Speaker 1: or at the jazz festival. So actually I forget the
Speaker 1: song that we're doing. But so I go to the
Speaker 1: stewards set everything up and it's Dr Jones band because
Speaker 1: that's how the duets thing. It's whoever the artist is,
Speaker 1: it's their band. They do the arrangement. So we get there,
Speaker 1: I meet Dr John, which is a thrill. I'm there,
Speaker 1: I get it there early, he's there. I get to
Speaker 1: meet him. He was just like it was surreal. So
Speaker 1: we get there and his Dr John's ranger wrote a
Speaker 1: really complicated horn section chart okay for for actually Van's
Speaker 1: horn guys because they didn't have the full horn section
Speaker 1: with Dr John. So we get there, I've got Dr John,
Speaker 1: a piano, Van singing live. We're cutting the track and
Speaker 1: Van hates the horn that Van's guys couldn't play the
Speaker 1: horn chart because it was too complicated. So Van says
Speaker 1: the horn charts wrong. Max says, no, they're right. They
Speaker 1: get into an argument. They're swearing in it. I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of the two of them, these two icons,
Speaker 1: and they're swearing and they're yelling at each other and
Speaker 1: everybody just leaves. It all blew up and that, and
Speaker 1: it didn't get finished because of that. Literally none of
Speaker 1: the finished never finished it. Van, just like because of
Speaker 1: that happened, No, not gonna work on it. Everybody just
Speaker 1: walked out. They flew me into it. Yeah, but anyway,
Speaker 1: so that was that was a bit disappointing. But the
Speaker 1: day before that, Van phone me and said, I want
Speaker 1: to take you to lunch, Bob, and were like, okay.
Speaker 1: So we went for lunch at the uh the hotel
Speaker 1: right on the lake, just him and I and his
Speaker 1: his day to day girl and Van and I talked
Speaker 1: about music for three hours and it was one of
Speaker 1: the highlights of my life. Highlights of my life. He
Speaker 1: talked about everybody, He talked about Winnipeg, and he told
Speaker 1: me a funny story. I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: use it though. You can't use it because who are
Speaker 1: we going to piss off? Well, I guess, well it's
Speaker 1: a funny story anyway, I'll let you would say. But
Speaker 1: he told me. I told him about Burton Comes, and
Speaker 1: I said, Burton Coming, you know, to me was a
Speaker 1: rock star and said he had a cape And Van said, well,
Speaker 1: I had a cape, and I wonder what. He said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I lived in l A. I got this girl
Speaker 1: to make me these custom clothes. And you know, she
Speaker 1: made all these you know things. And if you look
Speaker 1: at the uh what is it the band video, the
Speaker 1: live one, you know, um right, the filmore right, the
Speaker 1: last one, he's wearing a jumpsuit. Right, he's anyway, he's
Speaker 1: the best part of the movie. But so and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, I had a green cape. She made me
Speaker 1: a green velvet cape. She said yeah. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know, you know I go to the Whiskey Goog
Speaker 1: all the time, and you know, i'd wear the cape
Speaker 1: and my velvet clothes and and he says, I love
Speaker 1: the whiskey, says I love the way that all the
Speaker 1: girls danced there because they just moved their arms and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I said, then you gotta come to
Speaker 1: me because they still dance like that. You gotta come,
Speaker 1: you know, the freak dancing. Anyway, So we talked about
Speaker 1: that and and he told many many stories, like just
Speaker 1: talked about music and where about p J. Proby. I
Speaker 1: didn't know about that, and we uh, he just you know,
Speaker 1: he told me the story about that, and he talked
Speaker 1: about Bruce because he had met Bruce and Bruce is
Speaker 1: the biggest Van Morrison fan ever. Ah, so it was
Speaker 1: all it was just like an amazing experience. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I was supposed to go back to mix it
Speaker 1: and he calls me and he said, you gotta coming
Speaker 1: and be here Monday. And I said, well, I'm just
Speaker 1: mixing this band called the Black Veil Brides. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell him I'm mixing a project. I can't come Monday,
Speaker 1: but I'll be there in a week. Click. He hung
Speaker 1: up on me. That was it because I said I
Speaker 1: couldn't come on Monday. That for all time, for all time,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that is the story. I know people
Speaker 1: work with them, etcetera. That they tell similar stories. It's
Speaker 1: like everything's great, it's over. You don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: That's it. But I'm I'm happy. I had the best.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I was just in the presence of something.
Speaker 1: One thing I did say, and this is really interesting.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know, because I went and saw
Speaker 1: a show Bruce and I went to see him before
Speaker 1: we went in the studio and he played sacks right,
Speaker 1: and then I started putting together and actually, you know
Speaker 1: when you're mixing, you kind of have solo tracks and
Speaker 1: and you kind of get in a kind of like
Speaker 1: a different feel of what people are doing. And I
Speaker 1: noticed that a lot of vans where he goes melody
Speaker 1: melodically sounds like sacks parts, Like he's not doing singer stuff,
Speaker 1: he's doing other stuff. And so I said, so what
Speaker 1: came first for you? Saxophone or vocals? And I said,
Speaker 1: because it sounds like your vocal parts are like ax parts.
Speaker 1: He goes, he kind of smiled up, and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he started on sacks and then he went to vocals
Speaker 1: and that's where he gets all his melodies. And to me,
Speaker 1: that freaked me out crazy. Okay. Uh Now, ultimately Bruce
Speaker 1: manages Michael Bubley. You end up producing and the records
Speaker 1: are very successful. But from a disan someone would say, well,
Speaker 1: that's not your regular wheelhouse. Bruce has known me forever.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about I'm not talking about getting the
Speaker 1: gig you work with. This is the thing. So he
Speaker 1: suggested it to Michael. Michael goes Metallica and he says,
Speaker 1: well you, Bruce says, you don't understand. Bob started he
Speaker 1: was recording orchestras when he was doing jingles at Little Mountain,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I made records a day like
Speaker 1: same with Bob Clearmount. We all came in, Chris Lord Algae,
Speaker 1: We all came from jingles. Like that's making a record
Speaker 1: every day, a one minute record, you know, and you
Speaker 1: do orchestras and stuff. He says, Bob knows how to
Speaker 1: do it. So actually, Boo Blay played Maui and I
Speaker 1: went to see him, and so they played this song
Speaker 1: and the producer that he was working said it was
Speaker 1: a ship song. And I said, it's not a ship song.
Speaker 1: It's a good song. And I said, but you need
Speaker 1: to rewrite the bridge. Just this is where you should go.
Speaker 1: We ride the bridge. So Alan Chang Is m D
Speaker 1: wrote the bridge. We went into Brian's studio. I got
Speaker 1: great musicians Josh Freeze and guys from l A and
Speaker 1: some Vancouver guys that I know, and we cut the
Speaker 1: song live. We cut two songs and it was like
Speaker 1: it was easy because we did the pre production. They
Speaker 1: changed it. We ran a couple of times and cut
Speaker 1: it and Michael loved it. That was everything. He only
Speaker 1: did one song. He just you know, Michael went, okay,
Speaker 1: I get it right. Okay, Well, today's world is mostly
Speaker 1: a hip hop pop world. You certainly Boo Blaze in
Speaker 1: his own lane and rock doesn't have the presence. What
Speaker 1: do you think about today's scene and to what degree
Speaker 1: does it intersect with your career and out yikes? What
Speaker 1: what inspires me constantly is like if you if you
Speaker 1: pick out just a song that really hits you, like
Speaker 1: Circles by post Malone. Okay, so out of the Blue
Speaker 1: that comes on and I went, that's a great record. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's not a rock record, rock record, that's kind of
Speaker 1: like it's just a great song. The lyrics are great,
Speaker 1: that feels great. That's a great song. That's what I
Speaker 1: can still do if that happens. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go into the rap thing because I don't know it.
Speaker 1: But I can still make great records with people that
Speaker 1: want to make records like that. And the great thing
Speaker 1: about the Post Malone is there's room musicians. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just not all you know what I mean. There's guitars,
Speaker 1: there's vocals, and you can hear the work that was
Speaker 1: put into it. That's a great record that keeps me inspired.
Speaker 1: Billie Eilish too, same thing. You hear the craft, how
Speaker 1: things people are making great things. You know, what's the
Speaker 1: The girl put out the record that's very weird. What's
Speaker 1: her name, uh, Fiona Apple? Yes, listen to the record.
Speaker 1: There's four four tracks that are just great. You know,
Speaker 1: it's still inspire. I don't know if I could do that,
Speaker 1: but sure, so that's what keeps me interested as long
Speaker 1: as I'm interested, you know, um, yeah, I mean people Still.
Speaker 1: The thing is is that I think still people appreciate
Speaker 1: proper recording. And that may sound really strange, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of good recordings that get away, like you know, um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of raw recordings that get away because
Speaker 1: it's a great song. But still people really appreciate like
Speaker 1: good sonics and good recording and not many people know
Speaker 1: how to do it. So maybe there's a place for me. Okay,
Speaker 1: but uh, I'll use the vernacular. Does your dick still
Speaker 1: get hard? Are you still as excited? Because certainly once
Speaker 1: you pass sixty ones, perspective tends to change, and you know,
Speaker 1: you certainly can nail it and there you know, certain
Speaker 1: people work forever in this business, But how do you
Speaker 1: get key and you get as excited as it used
Speaker 1: to be? And how do you get excited? I worked
Speaker 1: with the band called class Less Act and I did
Speaker 1: it basically for nothing, and I work with them and
Speaker 1: they were so excited about having great sounds and their
Speaker 1: their songs being arranged, and I got excited. So yes,
Speaker 1: I still get excited about it. I just love making
Speaker 1: records and until I can't, I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker 1: And to what degree are you a student of the game?
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is you wake up early,
Speaker 1: you work in the studio. Are you someone who is
Speaker 1: literally going on the services Spotify, whatever and checking all
Speaker 1: the new stuff? Do you listen to old stuff? You know?
Speaker 1: To what degree? You obviously know the limited number of mixers.
Speaker 1: But if we were to go through the hit records
Speaker 1: of today, whatever genre, are you keeping up with that
Speaker 1: or not? Basically the stuff that rises the surface in
Speaker 1: my realm so to speak? Yeah, I mean I buy iTunes.
Speaker 1: I still buy you know whatever, If I hear something,
Speaker 1: I'll buy it. I support musicians, I still do. That
Speaker 1: is insane as that sounds, but um, yeah, people are
Speaker 1: still making great records. I just heard the New Killers single,
Speaker 1: their New Killers single. I like it. You could see
Speaker 1: that they did it. I'm asking a slightly different question,
Speaker 1: which is how do you find it? You gotta look.
Speaker 1: It's like shopping, you know that when I started when
Speaker 1: when I bought the m C five album Kick Out
Speaker 1: the Jams at Hudson's Bay in Victoria, never heard the band.
Speaker 1: Bought it because I liked the album cover, right, because
Speaker 1: I was searching for music. Okay, I was there to
Speaker 1: buy led Zeppelin one in truth. But I went to
Speaker 1: Hudson's Bay and I was going through records, never heard
Speaker 1: of the m C five. I bought it because they
Speaker 1: had American flags draped on their amplifiers, and I thought
Speaker 1: that is cool. Ship bought the record. I went to school.
Speaker 1: My band learned out Kicked Out with the Jams, right.
Speaker 1: We played it at a sow cop and we got
Speaker 1: banned from the school. That was when it came out. Okay,
Speaker 1: so right now I still search for inspiration, I really do.
Speaker 1: I see. You gotta search it out, yeah, because you
Speaker 1: can't hear it on the radio drilling down. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little about your technique and how you
Speaker 1: sort Well, I've got kids, Okay, that definitely helps you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, like when you're in at the warehouse or
Speaker 1: when you're in Los Angeles. I listened to the radio.
Speaker 1: I listened to people tell me about stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm working, Like it's less of it now. I'm
Speaker 1: not hearing so much right now. It's mainly from my
Speaker 1: kids or somebody will saying, listen to this um or.
Speaker 1: I searched it out the Killers. I always buy The
Speaker 1: Killers because I like them, and I'm glad that they
Speaker 1: put out a record and the first single sounds great
Speaker 1: to me, and Lindsey Buckingham's on it, so I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in there just for that, you know. So like
Speaker 1: I said, you gotta search, you've gotta do the work.
Speaker 1: And if you do the work and people that if
Speaker 1: you look at all the music that's released, it's hard
Speaker 1: to find something that nobody knows about. That's what worries me,
Speaker 1: because there isn't there isn't that that thing that used
Speaker 1: to be. There's not the great guys that developed people like.
Speaker 1: We don't have the John Hammonds, we don't have ahm it.
Speaker 1: We don't have you know, those guys helping us discover,
Speaker 1: you know, so we're kind of on our own I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say, by the way, I think Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin is a great record man. I think he stands
Speaker 1: with Jon Hammond and Ahmad and stuff. I really believe
Speaker 1: that's the guy. He is. Well, he makes records in
Speaker 1: a in a completely different way from most people. It's
Speaker 1: all very conceptual, trying to inspire the brains of the
Speaker 1: people exactly. And but I think that's he's so good
Speaker 1: at that. He's a great music guy like John Hammond,
Speaker 1: like he's one of the greats, Clive Davis and stuff.
Speaker 1: He's got vision and stuff. I thought i'd say that
Speaker 1: to you because I put him in that category. I
Speaker 1: admire the guy. Did Did you watch the Beastie Boys movie?
Speaker 1: I did, and I saw that and I was shocked.
Speaker 1: I knew sort of about that, but that that whole
Speaker 1: thing what they did is just so bad, right, It's
Speaker 1: just that that's the business. It's cutthroat, man, But it's
Speaker 1: also funny, you know, knowing George dr Culius, etcetera. The
Speaker 1: transition of Rick Rubin to the guru, you know, the
Speaker 1: quiet guy whatever it's opposed in that movie. He's the
Speaker 1: guy who's right up front promoting, etcetera. I know, well,
Speaker 1: people change. Yeah, anyway, listen hopefully people do tanche well.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking time out of your creative day, Bob.
Speaker 1: Always great to see you and you Bob, love love
Speaker 1: what you do, keep doing it, keep telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks so much. Til next time. This is
Speaker 1: Bob left sense fo