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October 11, 2023 78 mins

So far over the course of this series, we've examined the madness and socio-political movements that made the Rolling Stones' 1972 North American tour a singular moment in pop culture. But very little attention has been paid to the music — especially the album that the Stones were on the road to promote: their moody double disc epic 'Exile on Main St.' To remedy this, host Jordan Runtagh and executive producer/co-composer Noel Brown sit down with legendary Georgia-based record maker David Barbe, a veteran of the band Sugar (with Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould) and the producer of albums from the likes of Drive-By Truckers and Son Volt. Together they throw down about all things Stones and discuss why the sound and style of 'Exile' continues to endure. 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stone's Touring Party is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Stone's Touring Party. I'm
your host Jordan run Tug So Far. Over the course
of this series, we've examined the madness and socio political
movements that made the Rolling Stones nineteen seventy two North
American tour a singular moment in pop culture, one that
crystallized the tumult of the era and reflected a crucial.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Shift in the business of rock.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
But very little attention's been paid to the music, especially
the album that The Stones were on the road to promote,
their moody double disc epic Exile on mainstream. To remedy this,
I sought the help of my dear friend and colleague
Noel Brown. In addition to being the executive producer of
this podcast, he's also a brilliant musician and record producer
who's responsible for co composing much of the music you've.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Heard on this show.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Noel put in a call to an old buddy who's
a bona fide music legend, David Barbie. On top of
co founding the pioneering host punk band Mercyland and playing
alongside Who'scurdu's Bob Mold and Sugar. He's also produced in
during classic albums for the likes of Drive By Truckers,
Ram Deer Hunter, and sun Bolt. What's more, excell on

(01:14):
main Street happens to be one of his all time
favorite records. Nolan and I were so excited to throw
down with him about all things Stones and learn why
ex All on Main Street has been a creative.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Touchstone throughout his entire career.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
I hope you enjoy our conversation with David Barbie.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
This show.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
It's about the Rolling Stones tour of North America in
nineteen seventy two to promote Exile on Main Street. And
over the course of the show, we've talked about the
circumstances the recording of the album and all the craziest
of the tour and all the social and political changes
happening in the United States at that time. But we
haven't really discussed the music yet. We'd like to remedy
that today, and we know this is an album that

(01:53):
means a lot to you. So I guess, just to start,
what exactly is it about this record that has had
such a profound effect on your life and your work?

Speaker 5 (02:01):
Well, I love the stunt and it's funny.

Speaker 6 (02:06):
We should be talking about this now because two days
ago I had my sixtieth birthday party at the forty
watt here in Athens, and I played with four of
my bands of the last forty years, No Sugar.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
Bob and I talked.

Speaker 6 (02:23):
About this, but we couldn't. We just couldn't coordinate. Once
he couldn't do it. It's like, well, I can't do Sugar
without Bob. But anyway, these all these other bands played
and I was trying to think of some way to
end the night, and so it occurred to me what
I wanted to do is cover rocks off with including
horns and percussion and keys, like the whole thing pretty epic.

(02:46):
There's about fifteen people up there because everybody wants As
soon as I proposed it, every person in every band
was like, oh my god, I want to play on that.
And I'm discovering that like three of the people that
played guitar or bass and the bands play a saxophone,
trumpet and trombone.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
Was like, well we got to do this, yeah, and
it was pretty phenomenal really, but so yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
We should be talking with this now because just by
pure happenstance. That was the last musical thing to emit
from my body was me playing the first song on
this record. So we're just going to take the needle
and from my sixty years of being on the earth
and my forty years of listening to this record and
put it back.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
To the beginning.

Speaker 6 (03:33):
And then I loved, you know, obviously I love the
Stones and I love the record. I mean, people, my
aides at make rock and roll records, it's like we
all just basically rip off the Stones and the Beetles
and leads Uppelin and Bob Dylan and just stew it up.
And Neil Young, you know, brought those five. You kind
of got it and you stew it up your own way.
Add like a little dash of Jimi Hendrix in there, maybe,

(03:54):
you know, sprinkle punk rock to taste, and it so
my awareness of the record as a child, until getting
a copy of the actual album in college is.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
Sprinkled like Tumblin Dice was a hit.

Speaker 6 (04:14):
Like I knew the song, I didn't have any idea
what it was called, or any idea of what the
words were because like to me, I love the mix
of exem La main Street because the vocals are loud
but not clear.

Speaker 5 (04:27):
It's it could mean virtually anything to you.

Speaker 6 (04:32):
Then, like all through the seventies, there's a come through
the sixties and seventies really, but especially probably starting in
about the mid sixties, there was it was really common
for artists to have multiple Greatest Hits packages because it's
a way for the record labels to repackage and sell
it a second time. It is a way to take

(04:53):
the singles that weren't on albums. I mean the stones,
you know, it's like Jumping Jack Flash was not deemed
worthy of inclusion on Beggar's Banquet because well, that old thing,
it's already been out. Honky Tonk Women was not included
on Let It Bleed, because you know that who needs
that old thing?

Speaker 5 (05:09):
It's already been released.

Speaker 6 (05:10):
And it's a funny thing about a band now that had,
even if they're lucky enough to write and written one
song like either of those, to actually just say yo,
we're not putting that on the album wouldn't happen. But
the Greatest Hits package is the other thing was able
to market to more casual consumers and to kids. Because
an album, if you bought a copy of if you

(05:33):
wanted to get all, say the Rolling Stones hits of
like the first half of the nineteen seventies when I
was a school age child, you would have to buy
you know, four or five six albums at you know
six or for a double maybe a ten or twelve
dollars apiece, and you know, I probably got like, you know,
twenty five cents a week allowance, or you could buy

(05:57):
Greatest Hits package, And so nobody was a more shameless
repackager of Greatest Hiss collections in the Rolling Stones, Who's
starting with Big Hits High Tides in Green Grass in
nineteen sixty six, which is awesome, Okay, so we got
one in sixty six that'll cover us for a while,
well until sixty nine, because then we're going to release
Through the Past Darkly.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
That'll last a while.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
Yeah, maybe two years this time, because like by seventy
one will released Hot Rocks, and then in seventy five
it's Made in the Shade, So in like a ten
year period they've got four Greatest Hits albums already.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
But so Made in the Shade was.

Speaker 6 (06:31):
One that I had, and it had little slices off
of the post basically the first few years of Rolling
Stones Records once they had control over their own master recordings,
because of course Alan Klein owns every master recording up
until There's probably a whole separate podcast about the Alan
Kleines involvemore with the Rolling Stones.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
Great book about it too.

Speaker 6 (06:54):
But so those you know, four albums that had been
released to Fingers in Exile and Goat's Head Soup and
it's only rock and roll, you you know, picked two
three songs off each record and man, you've really got
something so humbling Dice ripped this joint and happy We're

(07:17):
all made in the shade.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
So it was like a school age kid.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
I had those, and then occasionally I would hear these
other ones, you know, on the radio or whatever, like
all down.

Speaker 5 (07:29):
The Line or rocks Off.

Speaker 6 (07:33):
And when I was a freshman at Georgia, I was
in my dorm room and heard this music blasting out
of the room below me. Went down there, banged on
the door. These guys opened up, you know, boonk smoke
wafting out. One of them a highly successful attorney right now,

(07:54):
name will be concealed to protect the end semi innos,
of course, but uh as opposed to that I was
gonna as opposed to yelling them, it's like, hey, turn
your music down.

Speaker 5 (08:06):
And I was like, what album is this song on?

Speaker 6 (08:11):
Because like I didn't even know rocks Off was called
rocks Off. I just knew that it was a stone
song that went Bob, you know, here it on the radio,
here it in the parking lot, and uh. But well,
you know had my childhood, you know, buying albums here
and there had a few albums, but like it's not

(08:31):
you know, Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan, like it's not a
thing and it's uh, and so they were like, oh yeah,
and for some reason weird because it's like every kid
I knew had there's some albums that every kid I
knew had in my neighborhood. We all had Abbey Road,

(08:51):
we all had to Let It Bleed, and we all
had like Zeppelin two. But like there's other weird pockets,
like very few had Zeppelin three and very few there
was just like weird albums like here and there that
like some neighborhood, some older brother was into some record
and had some but not all. So it was just

(09:13):
like they were like, yeah, do you want to borrow it?
And I was like yes, and then I was like,
oh my god, even like all the deep cuts, and
so what I really started getting into around that time was,
I mean I'd heard you know, Tumblin Dice probably about
as many times as I heard Freebirder Stairway to Heaven.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
So it's like.

Speaker 6 (09:38):
I wasn't like I want this so I can listen
to the songs. I know, it's just like I found
myself like obsessing over like Soul Survivor or Torn in
Freight or something. And you know, it's probably about a
couple of days before I went out and bought like,
you know, first I recorded taped theirs at my own
home cassette and then it's.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
Like, I just need to buy a record of this.

Speaker 6 (10:00):
So it's like I knew that most I knew a
lot of it just from like other people's records here
and things, parties and things, but never just had a
copy of it. And it's more a matter of the
reality of economics of being a kid in the seventies.
It's like, yeah, dude, you get paid to sixty five

(10:21):
an hour for working at Taco bell. And I came
from a family that was of the belief that there's
no scholarships for retirement. Son, you better get to save
in your money up and like to go to school
or live or whatever, you know, So which was actually
better for me than.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
Having a bunch of stuff handed to me, I think anyway.

Speaker 6 (10:44):
But it's so yeah, that's my kind of like slow
dive into it, and it's one of those things. There
are just albums in my life like this where the
more I listened to it, the more I listened to it.
There's some you listen to it a few times and
are like, man, that's great, got it. There's other things

(11:04):
that are just so dense, and I think this is
true of double albums and generally Exile on Main Street,
Physical Graffiti, Blonde on Blonde, Double Nickels in the Dime.
These are all things that I can listen that just
like kind of don't grow old.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
Because there's just so.

Speaker 6 (11:24):
Much and it just takes a while to really go
through it, and you might be in a while where
it's like I'm really you know, I'm just into side
three right now, and so yeah, it's a grower. The
other thing about Exile is that it's not like the

(11:45):
immediate impact of hit hit hit hit hit.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
It's just one of those growers because there's.

Speaker 6 (11:51):
So many deep cuts, the sound of it, the vibe
of it, and then once you know the story behind
it too. Yeah, it just it just like sucked me in,
Like you know, there's things in my life that do.
And I will say this about me in general. I've
had other people point this out to me before whatever
I'm into, I really get into it. And me and

(12:20):
eggs An on Main Street absolutely was a thing that
uh yeah, it's like it's like eating at like my
favorite local taco place or like some kind of genes
I like to wear that.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
It's like, yeah, I just don't get tired of it.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, you mentioned, you know, the density of it, and
I think that speaks to you know, the content the songs,
but also the sound.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
I mean it is it sounds.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Different than other records, and when you get into the
story of how it was made, it's understandable why that's
the case. Obviously they did overdubs and you know, fancier studios,
but it was a very kind of DIY, you know,
big budget DIY, the big budget dy record that made
in a basement. Did you immediately clock that this didn't
sound like other records that you knew that there was

(13:06):
something in there. Were you thinking about production yet at
this point or was it kind of just like secondary
to like these songs?

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Rip?

Speaker 5 (13:15):
Man, that's a good question. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (13:18):
You know, I have been recording things my bands. Like
the oldest recording I have of me and other kids
playing music goes back to being about ten years old.
So I was thinking about production. I was always in
the studio with my parents and stuff.

Speaker 5 (13:33):
But I I don't know that I thought consciously about,
Oh I love how they rolled a little three K
off the guitars here, or.

Speaker 6 (13:45):
It just just like the way it sounds is just
a way that sounds, right, Like I've been wearing regular
just like regular Levi's jeans that I only now know
the number of because for years those were just known
as jeans, and now of course it's they've got like
a billion different kinds. Right If I were to go

(14:06):
into a store and put on like a modern pair
of like slim fit jeans, would be like, what the
fuck are these things?

Speaker 5 (14:11):
You know? It's like who knows.

Speaker 6 (14:12):
It's just like that sound of that record is just
the thing that's like, Uh, I realized that I'm not
really much of a closed horse. I realized this is
my second attire reference that I've made in this. But
it's the sound of it just over time, I think,
kind of seeps in. But I'll tell you one of
the things that's so different about it than other Rolling

(14:33):
Stones records is this is clearly a Keith Richard's production
that the sixties records. You know, Loug Goldham definitely in
charge the first couple of Jimmy Miller things. Just like
it's like this is a different take.

Speaker 5 (14:53):
And but.

Speaker 6 (14:56):
I mean, obviously you guys as much as me have
read the books and know this stories. And I also
had the incredible experience of having Stanley Booth live in
Athens for about six months or so, maybe.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
Five eight years ago.

Speaker 6 (15:10):
He was donating some stuff to the EGA Library. And Stanley,
even in his seventies, a delightful guy, like a witty,
interesting and also kind of a man about town, and
I would we really hit it off, and he told

(15:31):
me a bunch of great stuff just about hanging out
with them, and uh, but yeah, to me, just like
the sound of it is like this is a Keith record,
like Mick is. I mean, all this is like fan
knowledge to me, you know, it's not like they've you
know that in my two and a half minute meeting
with Mick Jagger about five years ago that we.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
Like discuss this in d In fact, I.

Speaker 6 (15:53):
Didn't say anything about the Stones to him. It was
just like, I'm not doing that. We're just gonna have
a little chit chat. But it's a you know, but
just what you know about the band at the time
is that like Mick has just gotten married to Bianca.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
He's kind of off doing that, and nobody else really
has a vote. I'm sure that Charlie would if he
wanted to rest his soul.

Speaker 6 (16:19):
But yeah, it's so like this is a Keith record, man.
It seems like it's all driven by that and the
tangle with Keith and Mick Taylor, the Graham Parsons hangout influence,
you know.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
By now he's an icon. Then he's like a young hotshot.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
You know, and the Burrito Brothers and those and I
guess that I don't think like Grievous Angel or GP
are out yet, but.

Speaker 5 (16:46):
They're a little out of like seventy three, seventy four maybe.
But yeah, it's just got.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
Its own kind of stew It's produced by Jimmy Miller,
but now he's kind of living like the band. It's
all kind of Basically every peripheral person involved other than
the other band members seems to have just been sucked
into Keith world. Mick Taylor certainly sucked into Keith world.

(17:14):
Mick Jagger, He's Mick Jagger. He is his own thing,
and he and Keith are their own thing. But like he's,
you know, doing his thing as he's going to do it.
But really it's just like Jimmy, all the engineers, all
the hangers on, everybody's in Keith world. When you read
about because I've read all the books you've talked about
on the episodes, but I've read all that too, and

(17:36):
which was cool.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
Is just like listening to this and being like, oh, yeah,
somebody else also reads all of these books. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
It's probably spent my adult life trying to recreate with
something that's almost as good as that.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
In twenty twenty three, it's almost become a shorthand for
a band to do their exile, you know, a long,
sprawling mood piece, right, And it's fascinating to look back
on the contemporary reviews of when Exile came out and
see how confused people were by it. Yeah, and I mean,
I guess this is partially because you know, it's not

(18:24):
it's it's a hard album to get to know. I
found and but like you said, it is a grower.
But I mean, that's what I love reading the first
blush reviews from some of these people having listened to it,
you know, a couple of times only, and basically said,
you know, what is this dark, unhappy place that the
Stones are bringing us to?

Speaker 3 (18:41):
What is going on?

Speaker 6 (18:43):
It's murky, the vocals aren't loud enough, it's too long,
there's too much on it.

Speaker 5 (18:51):
It'd be a better record if it was edited. Yeah,
you read contemporary reviews.

Speaker 6 (18:54):
There's a few people that like God had I mean
that really loved it right away. But there's a lot
But it's not an instant classic. It's funny. It's like
I got into a while back. I was curious, like, okay,
like reading reviews of old records, Like there's certain records

(19:15):
now that we all just acknowledge as classics, but how
were they perceived at the time.

Speaker 5 (19:23):
Read a review of Neil Young.

Speaker 6 (19:25):
Time fades away from when it came out, and then
read like the Pitchfork glowing review of the reissue like
a year ago, and it's like, oh man, all it
needed was to be like forty eight years older and
people would like finally appreciate it for what it is.
And yeah, there's It's interesting you read contemporary reviews of
Exile and it's like not universally hailed. It's only over

(19:47):
time that it became universally recognized. At the time, I mean,
there's some people that got it right away, but yeah,
but it's it's a real grower. I mean, it's one
of those records that would have been better if it
was if it was really to the press like a
year early.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Why do you think that is?

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Though? Like, what is it about it that was maybe
ahead of its time? Isn't even the right way of
describing it. Do you think there was intent with that
or was it just the product of like a kind
of perfect storm of chaos and just like you know,
the whole story behind it, it yielded this result that
wasn't really repeatable. I'm just wondering, like, why has it

(20:24):
become you know, in hindsight this kind of like Juggernaut.

Speaker 6 (20:29):
You can only look at decisions that were made based
on the knowledge that the person that made the decision
had at the time, right, Like, there are that you
can march backwards into history and find all kinds of
reasons why the nuclear bombs should not have been dropped.

(20:51):
But we didn't have that information or not we I
wasn't born yet, but they didn't have a lot of
that information at the time. It's a huge unknown there.
There are all kinds of things that when someone encountered
something new the first time, is just so alien to them.
And if you think about the stones, like the last

(21:12):
thing that people had heard from the Stones had been
Brown Sugar, a number one hit record and just and
a different you know, and it was just like kind
of it seems to me like a you know, just
like uplifting feeling track in spite of the subject matter.

(21:34):
I mean, as a child, I thought, I was seven
years old, I thought that Brown Sugar was about kids
who stayed up all night and waited until just after
midnight when the grown ups go to sleep, and then
eat candy all night long, like chocolate, you know, brown sugar,
and it's not about that. But when I was seven
and it was a hit record, and my mother would
say that song is vulgar, and I was like, oh,

(21:54):
vulgar means she doesn't want the children to stay up
until after midnight and eat Hershey's bars all night long.
She didn't that either, but that's not again what it's about.
But anyway, but it had this massive hit record and
then also like The Moving Wild Horses had come out,
and it's the seventies, the Stones are no longer drug.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
Outlaws where a couple of years.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
Pasted Altamont, and it's they're just huge stars. And so
there's that. But if you think about like popular music
at the time, the Beatles have broken up and now
it gives way for somebody else to ascend, and it's
a little like Neil released them Tonight's to Night or

(22:39):
Time Fades Away or something where fans are just like
what happened to Harvest and with Exile, I just I
mean I think that it's it's just so it's just
not what people were expecting out of of an album

(23:01):
at that time, and so like what we know that's
happened since it's like, it totally makes sense in the
progression of things. Music by other people, it totally makes
sense in the progression of things and in some ways
the Stones are ahead of their time, not just with
having the vocals buried in a murky mix or something,

(23:23):
even though I think the mix is perfect, don't get
me wrong, but it's But in terms of this is
in front of Watergate, this is in front of I mean,
this isn't all of those you know, it's in front
of the US, you know, pulling out of Vietnam.

Speaker 5 (23:45):
I mean, it's like.

Speaker 6 (23:48):
And there's a lot of records in the mid seventies,
you know, there's not the economic you know, downturn of
the you know, is in front of the Arab oil embargo.
A lot of huge cultural and economic things that have happened,
and there's a lot of records that were made in
response to that. But like this, the Stones thing, it

(24:10):
just happened. It's just but there were just hard to
have many records like that at the time.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
But also like all that political stuff doesn't really read
to me as a listener.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
It's less, it's not part of it. It's insane, that's
not part of it.

Speaker 6 (24:23):
But like these like downward feeling, down feeling records by
the mid seventies were very common, but like in nineteen
seventy two, none of that existed, and so.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
I guess they had the blank check ability to make
that record because they had already proven themselves and had
all of these hits, and so they were you know,
they were allowed to go into a basement and make
a murky, weird record and nobody shut them down. It's
so funny that you mentioned the mix and the vocals
being low. You know, in the podcast, we talk about
how they you know, talked to radio stations and had

(24:53):
them play the mixes for them so they could listen
to it in the car, because that was like one
of the only ways to do it.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
I think it was.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Barry Gordy would like just you know, wire up a
car speaker, you know, in their conference room. But like
the Stones literally had DJs just they would like ply
them with drugs. I guess their PR team would and
they would just play whole records and they'd listen to
it in their limo, and they fussed and sweated and
obsessed over these mixes and it still ends up not
sounding like a traditional rock record of the time. What

(25:23):
do you think that esthetic came from? Like, do you
think they knew consciously we're making this weird, dark record?
The tone needs to match the tone of the content
of the songs, Like as a producer, like where does
that at? What stage does that happen? Is it conscious
or is it just this is what we ended up with.
Now we have to lean into this as hard as
we can.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
I mean, there's two things that could you know, possibly
be the case here. One is I get where you're
coming from this. Sometimes you're working on something else, Like
we want the tone to match the music, right, we
wanted a darker you know, it's like it feels like
a really bright, hyper compressed Nick Drake album. It wouldn't
make any sense to anybody, but really, to me, what

(26:08):
I see in the studio, you know, after years and
years and years and thousands, tens of hundreds of thousands
of hours, maybe doing this is that you're just in
it and just kind of make it what it is.
And it's, uh, I'm way past like going out to

(26:29):
the car and listening to something. It's like, I know
what it sounds like in a control room. I mean,
I just listen to other things on the speakers to
kind of get my head wrapped around it a little bit.
But I just think you're just in it and just
make it what it is. And it's funny because sometimes
in the process of doing that, you come out later

(26:52):
and realize, are these vocals loud enough? Are the base
too loud or something? And sometimes it is and you
got to go back and do it again. But other
times it's like, it's just what it is. And it's
like if you I mean personal experience, like when I'm
not sure about a mix, I'll listen then compared to

(27:12):
other things, or when somebody else isn't sure about a mix,
I was like, Okay, tell me four songs that you
love that you wish this sound alike. And they'll tell
me four things and we'll listen to all four in
a row and they'll realize, oh, yeah, none of them
actually sound alike. I was like, Yeah, anything is any
good doesn't sound like anything else.

Speaker 5 (27:30):
It's its own thing.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
Anything that sounds like something else is like being the
you know, nobody remembers the second guy to walk on
the moon, and so it's uh. I mean to me,
it's like, if you're doing any making, any great piece
of art, it is got to be its own thing.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
And maybe that's what I like about exile. You know,
both the content and the sound is it's its own thing.

Speaker 6 (27:53):
When you hear one of those songs, there's no doubt
which Stones album it's from. And it was all you
know we talked about the beginning. It's all recorded not
in a traditional studio, the room things are recorded in.
I mean there's a lot of work on the back
end done at Sunset, we know that, but the primary
parts of it being tracked down there in the basement.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, it's got to have an effect on it.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
I am no word, I'm not well versed in any
sense about the finer points of recording, but I wanted
to talk to you more about just how challenging it
was to get anything that sounded halfway decent in a
basement of a French villa, Like.

Speaker 6 (28:36):
How man, I've done this kind of thing so many times.
I can tell you all about the challenges of it.
And there was Sunball Wide Spring Trimolat, which I recorded
in their practice space, which was a warehouse that shared
a building with some kind of wood shop because we
couldn't start until the evening because we had to let

(28:56):
all the glue fumes die down before we could work.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
There was I took a.

Speaker 6 (29:03):
Bunch of gear into there and then had a bunch
of stuff that they had in their space and just
kind of cobbled it together. There was the first Harvey
Milk album, which I made in somebody's house on a
digital eight track with four hundred dollars portable console and
then like three good mic pres and a couple of
good mics and just made it work because that's what

(29:25):
they have, the budget they had, and that's what they
wanted to do.

Speaker 5 (29:28):
There is blood Kin Raven Beauty's, which.

Speaker 6 (29:31):
I rented a mobile truck and went to the basement
of a friend of the band's.

Speaker 5 (29:39):
Uh and uh, they they.

Speaker 6 (29:43):
Wanted to make a record like Exalaman where we had
a mobile truck. We had we didn't work until like nighttime.
We worked into the middle of the night and uh
there and then of course I met did not record
but mixed drive by Trucker Southern Rock Opera, which was
made with a bunch to you know, whatever they could
afford to put in some old warehouse. I've done this

(30:04):
a ton of times, the process of making that work,
even if you've got great engineers. But by now we
but we have to go back and remember it's like
at the time Andy Johns is not this veteran, but
he's like a young guy who's a great engineer, has
worked on huge records and he's the real deal. But
but it's not like you hear Andy Johns or Glenn

(30:25):
or any of these older producer guys talk about, you know,
and it's like they're these weathered old men of you know,
of you know, sands of time. But at the time
they're like guys, young guys in their twenties who were
like it's like, okay, we are We've got microphones, we've
got a mic box, We've got a snake with the

(30:48):
snake runs out of the truck. The truck, there's another
box that we take there and plug into the gear,
plug out of the you know, gain input gain, and
then out of that into the tape machines and then
out of the tape machines in some sort of playback system.
And we have to be able to listen to it
in the house too, because they want to be able
to do that. And does the electrical power that we
have the truck wired for match the French electrical power

(31:10):
that's in the basement. Does years of a huge house
being on the water that was designed to power like
chandeliers and a stove and not a recording equipment and amplifiers.
Is the power system overtaxed? Are their additional ground hums?
Is there RF interference that gets into the signal?

Speaker 4 (31:26):
Wait?

Speaker 6 (31:27):
Channel eight's not working right now? Hang on, let me
get out of the truck. Unplug some wires. Walk down
the hill, walk into the house, go in the basement,
tell them they have to stop. Unplug something there, you know,
be back and forth. There's no cell phones, We're not
remember they have a walkie talkie or something.

Speaker 5 (31:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (31:44):
But what I'm getting at here is it's not just
there was a house. There was a truck, And I
mean there's literally a so many Q points where something
can go wrong. It's a real start and stop press
the process. And the other thing that is kind of

(32:05):
not addressed that much, because there's so much romance behind
this record, deservedly so, is the fact that the people,
the engineers that work on these records are human beings
who need to eat and sleep and take a walk
and have a life outside of waiting on people to

(32:25):
show up to work at midnight. And I can tell
you making these kind of records like this, there is
a lot of time where it's just like I'm there
a few hours before anybody else gets there, and I'll
be there after everybody is done, and I'm like one
of the animatronic musicians at Chuck E Cheese, except the
engineer version where it's like I'm ready, I'm on my

(32:46):
game and then whatever.

Speaker 5 (32:47):
It's like, that's just the job.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
And having been, you know, a musician myself for so long,
I understand that, like, everybody will play better, will be
more creative if the engineer and the gear is an
invisible part of the process, if you don't think about it,
like here in the con studios, Like when I'm training
young people, it's like the wires in here, the mic

(33:11):
cables always run this way, the sound baffles are always
put up this way. You know, Hey, where'd you put
those headphones? Is the guitar player right handed or left handed?

Speaker 5 (33:19):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (33:20):
Well you should have thought about that, because now the
neck of their guitar is hitting their headphone box.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
Put it on the other.

Speaker 6 (33:24):
You know, you learn every time it's like, how can
I be invisible where people don't even all they're thinking
about is playing music. So the technical challenges are probably
very real in an environment like this, But it would
be boring in a book for the general public to
talk about the electrical power standards of you know, coastal
France in the early nineteen seventies. But I guarantee you
it's not like some like transformer isolated and they took

(33:48):
a power to tap off of like the railroad or
something like that.

Speaker 5 (33:56):
Yeah, I read the books. I'm a listener of the
podcast saying this.

Speaker 6 (33:59):
Yeah, legal, highly dangerous, illegal and dangerous. So yeah, it's
like there's some tremendous technical challenges to making it so
at the moment that everybody has finished their decadent meal,
wine and uh mind altering, uh creativity enhancing, we hope, substances,

(34:22):
it's like you.

Speaker 5 (34:22):
Just have every all that shit just has to work.
So yeah, it's it would.

Speaker 6 (34:30):
Have been easier to do it in the studio, but
it's a better record the way they exactly the way
they did it.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
I heard a really funny Instagram video from John Mayer,
who I'm not the hugest fan of, but like, he's
a great guitarist and this stuff with the Dead is fantastic,
and he's obviously a bit of a workhorse, and he said,
the biggest creativity killer is the dreaded dinner.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
The dinner.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Oh yeah, right, so you're you're you're working, things aren't happening. Okay,
you take a break and now things are popping and
it's about four o'clock and you know it's going to
take like four hours to really harness this energy. But
then the dreaded dinner and this was built in. This
is Keith, the most chaotic host. The dinner was more
important to him than the record. How with that being

(35:14):
the case, did they manage to harness that creativity and
make such a magical piece of work. It just seems impossible,
it seems and your your your whole point about the
invisibility of the you know, the engineers, that seems impossible.
It's almost like they were running a surveillance detail on
this basement and somehow it worked.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
I just don't get it.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
It's wild to me, as as a producer, knowing the
challenges even in a you know, accessible studio situation that's controlled,
that you you have control of and you know where
everything is, how could they have possibly gotten what they got?

Speaker 6 (35:48):
Well, with all due respect to John Mayer, and I
do want to say, like, in a straight fight between
the recorded catalog of John Mayer and Keith Richards, I'm
putting my money on Keith. There are millions and millions
of people who would disagree. At the end of the podcast,
we can give my mailing address if you're care to

(36:08):
send me an angry letter about that. But I don't
care the but But the other thing is is I
think that with Keith, you know who I've never met,
don't know him, just know him through his music. But
it's less about the dinner and more about the vibe.
And uh, you know, Exile Main Street is just a vibe.
And all these great records I've referenced that are like

(36:31):
these Grower records are a vibe. Man, They're all a
They're not like other things. And with Keith, it's like, yeah,
the dinner, the celebration, all the Yeah, it's you do
that stuff on other records, and it's going to be
a bummer and you're right, no, it's going to be like,
oh my god, it is one step forward, two steps back.

(36:52):
But for some reason, it you know, it just all works.
It's Keith's record, it's his vibe.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
I'm somebody who's written a song in their lives, let
alone produced a session or overseen a recording. But I'm
fascinated by the role that problem solving plays in music
and making music. There was a great interview that Paul
Simon gave to Dick Cabot in the seventies where he
plays a semi completed I think it's still crazy after

(37:19):
all these years, and he gets to the point where
he stopped writing, and he goes through all the different
choices and options that he could take, and it's so interesting.
He breaks it down like a logic puzzle. And I
had never to me songs are sorcery and they just
come out of you know, thin air, people from these
Beatis who are capable of conjuring that up. And that
was just so fascinating to me to see them. I mean,

(37:41):
I guess get Back and the Beatles stuff was sort
of a similar thing, where you see the problems that
they're up against. I'm just curious how much of that
is normal, how much of making music is problem solving?

Speaker 5 (37:54):
Man?

Speaker 6 (37:55):
I think you know, it's a split that there's some
of it that really is this guy.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
I've worked with artists who have played me.

Speaker 6 (38:05):
I mean, like the song is like a fit of
inspiration for myself. I know, there's some that are just
simply it just comes out, like the first time you
sit down and play it or sing it, it's like, oh, man,
change like two words and you got this. I mean,
it's like a finished thing. At an artist who a
great song, and he told me that he dreamed about

(38:28):
another artist with whom me and this guy are both friends,
was singing this song at a festival, and then he
woke up and remembered the song and then went through
the guy's catalog and realized, no, no, no, I just dreamed
this song.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
And it's interesting because it kind of sounds a bit
like the other guy and it's a.

Speaker 6 (38:51):
But then the other thing is like, yeah, the problem
solving aspect of how do we get out of this song?
I mean, on exile on Main Street, you know, the
overwhelming percentage of the songs off fade out, there's not

(39:12):
a way out, you know. I mean, there's some there's
a couple that do that end, but it's true, like
a lot of their catalog anyway, there's a few famous
ones that end brown Sugar, can't you hear me knocking?

Speaker 5 (39:29):
That actually end chattered ends.

Speaker 6 (39:32):
But if you think about the end of most of
the Stones big hits, most of them fade out, and
Exile certainly is like a classic like fade out album.
And so that's one way to solve a problem is
we don't have an ending well faded you know, and
Glynn faded out. And the other is Keith having this

(39:58):
wealth of music and then hey, Mick write some lyrics
for this. So yeah, and there are things where it's
just like trying to find out, like this song could
go one way and get Back was an incredible view
of people doing that, especially like the song get Back,
where it's going to be like a protest song and

(40:20):
then as soon as you hear it's.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
A little cringey and it's like, oh, thank god they
didn't do that with it.

Speaker 6 (40:25):
And uh but like a great artist, you know, and
in a case of Exile, certainly, it's like what they
how they solved it turned out to be the right way.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
It's funny.

Speaker 6 (40:37):
There was a there's a you hear outtakes of things
that usually artists go there's one Exile outtake alternate version
that uh, I think might I like, I might like
more than the record version, which I've got some bootleg
of like some alternate take of Stop Breaking Down that

(40:58):
is just fucking awesome. It's just like a little rougher
that is it, though it needs to be then the
other one. But I talked to somebody else who has
a copy of the same bootleg and they're both like, God,
that one thing is so good, but it's in But
what I'm but in general, it's not radically different than
the other one. What I'm saying is that in general,
when you listen to the outtakes of great artists, you

(41:19):
realize now they did it right at the time. It's
like yeah, and it's funny. There's not outtakes and other mediums.
It's like there's not like there's not like an alternate
Mona Lisa out there that everybody says is better than
the real one.

Speaker 5 (41:36):
But that's rock bands for you.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
That's what I find so interesting.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I'm a huge Beatles guy, and I love the anthologies,
all all three double discs for that reason. I mean
hearing all the different versions of you know stuff like
I'm Looking Through You, where they did a completely different
and on the new the new Revolver box set from
last year, they had like a it sounds like something
from Nuggets, like a garage band version of gott to
Gate in the life pre horn section, and it's so good.

(42:03):
It's but I mean, but you understand, Oh yeah, you
need that. You need that insane like where you're shoving
the mics down, the bells and the trumpets and everything
to get that in your face stack sound. But yeah,
it's fascinating to see the I don't want to call missteps,
but the the detours, if you will, before they landed
on the idea that you know ninety percent of the
time was the right one.

Speaker 6 (42:25):
Yeah, I you know, as a kid used to wonder
what would happen if Dorothy had gone down the other road?

Speaker 1 (42:30):
That's well and the whole the whole fade out thing too,
makes me think that likely probably on other records of Theirs,
but this one in particular.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
These were jams, right, Like can you talk about that?

Speaker 1 (42:43):
How you harness those kinds of jams and figure out
which one's the right one and like the one that's
going to give you the best chance of like you know,
making it really shine with overdubs, like you know, this
is what you would call I guess basic tracks.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
But like if they're jams and you're writing it on
the fly. How do you know when to stop?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I guess it's a key thing, But I'm just you know,
from your perspective as a producer, how is that process
of making a record different from coming in where everyone's
got their parts, everything's ready to go, everyone knows what
they're doing, and that's the record.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
The building a record from jams is can be great
if you've got if you've got you know, a great lyricist,
you know, to turn it kind of you know, make
it into something. But as far as like that kind
of thing making decisions is that, I don't. I think
nobody probably has done this more than the Stones that

(43:34):
I know of, because some girls, Emotional Rescue and Tattoo
You all seem to have been like to some degree
contain a lot of like jams that something was gone
back and.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
Added to later on.

Speaker 6 (43:48):
There's this other great bootleg called Sympathy for the Disco
that has a bunch of like mid seventies like dirty
kind of dance Stones playing these like dirty kind of
danceable jams in the studio, a lot of which turn
into miss You and Emotional Rescue and dance part two
and all these things. But it's interesting because you hear

(44:09):
this thing and it's like, oh man, they have like
all these jams and managed to like pluck a few
songs out of them, and other ones are just just that,
just a jam with So to answer your question, Noel,
I think that it's a process of just knowing. I mean,
it's a thing of like I mean, it's like picking
which cabinet handles you want in your kitchen. It's just like, yeah,

(44:31):
we like these, we vibe out with these, and let's
try to make something with these songs and see see
where we get with this. Or you're playing things and
your singer is kind of coming up with something, or
you know, you've got who knows, you've got Bobby Keys
and Jim Price sitting around and they go, what if we,
you know, added a little thing on it. Just it

(44:51):
just makes it a more collaborative experience, and as long
as you can find your way to a song through that,
you know you've really got something. And it's a much
more jazz approach. It's much more be bop approach than
mainstream pop music. It's interesting. It's like a bebop approach
that was like crafted into the wildly popular music via

(45:19):
decadent meals and heroin.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
I mean, the other thing that blows my mind is
in a post pro tools world, that this was all
done to tape. I think sixteen track in the mobile studio.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
I think, yes, the greatest format of all time.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
You've said that in an interview that working to tape
is actually the fastest way to work, and I wanted
to ask you more about that.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
That was interesting to me.

Speaker 6 (46:07):
It's the fastest way to work because you run out
of options. I mean, you know, the Wizard of Oz,
you know, I just made you know, said, what if
you pick the other road? What if there was like
sixteen or twenty or one hundred yellow brick roads. It's
it's I mean, pro tools digital recording is amazing. It
offers unlimited possibilities. It offers a world of creative opportunities

(46:34):
that simply didn't exist fifty years ago. However, creatively, it
also if you live in a world of command z,
you constantly can undo, you can always go backwards, you
can fix anything easily. You can make it sound like

(46:57):
somebody can almost play their instrument. And when you do
it on tape, there's a few factors of work. Now,
of course you can edit with the razor blade.

Speaker 5 (47:06):
I still do this.

Speaker 6 (47:06):
I mean I do work on pro tools too. We
have both here, but I still do razor blade editing,
did some not too long ago with somebody.

Speaker 5 (47:13):
There is.

Speaker 6 (47:16):
But it but outside of like the sound of the tape,
which is a thing that people, you know, when they
think about tape, they think about the sound difference is
it kind of romanticizes it and it is a great sound.
Much like an Alfred Hitchcock movie in the fifties made
in CinemaScope just looks different.

Speaker 5 (47:34):
You know, it's not reality. It just looks great.

Speaker 6 (47:37):
It's art reality and that you know, perception is reality,
and you know when you're taking in some artistic work anyway.
But I mean, my driver's license picture doesn't look like
a renoip and but you know where I'm going with that.
But the create But the reason I say tape is
faster is that you can't just hit command Z all

(48:01):
the time. You can't just say, Okay, that's the sax solo.

Speaker 5 (48:05):
Great. Can I keep it doing another one? Sure? Can
I keep and do another one? Sure? How about if I.

Speaker 6 (48:09):
Do like eighty of these and you like pick through
it and make one. I know how to do that,
and that sucks. What's great is when somebody does something
once and you're just like, wow, okay, okay, listen to that,
and they come in here they listen to it and say, man,

(48:31):
could I do one more of that? And just like
see and if the answer is like, man, we're out
of tracks, we can do it, but we've got to
erase something, and then the decision is can I top
it or not? And basically what it does is it
inspires real time performance because you have to. And it

(48:55):
is like people who make records now where hey, we're
going to I mean this works for some records, but
for a lot of records it is, hey, we're just
going to go and like record the drums. And so
what you've got now is three or four other people
and they're playing a part, but they're not really trying
because it's not their keeper part. And the drummer can't

(49:16):
really do too much because they're not exactly sure what
they're going to be playing with later on. And if
they screw up, the engineer can just like move something
around and just make it work. And I mean that's
all fine and good there's people that make amazing records
like that, but I find that in some cases what
you do is you wind up where you can be
long on perfection but awfully short on inspiration. And working

(49:40):
in tape world, it's all about getting an inspired take
because we got one track left to do this, and
it's going to be like right now, or hey, we're
going to do some where three of us are going
to sing backup vocals. Okay, nowadays you might have each
person go do the part separately and put them on

(50:01):
different tracks and you can blend it later and you
can auto tune it and you can fix it.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
No, no, no, you're gonna.

Speaker 6 (50:07):
Go stand the two of you are going to stand
in front of one microphone at the bottle of Old Granddad.
And I saw somebody drinking some Old Granddad the other day,
and when I saw I saw him, I was like, oh, man,
the liquor of Exile on Main Street.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
Excellent choice. I will have you know.

Speaker 6 (50:26):
This was like the This was like at a tailgate
before like a Georgia football game, and was like, man,
you're getting channeling your inner Mick and Keith. Fortunately, the
person I was hanging out with understood where I was
coming from.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
And uh, but.

Speaker 6 (50:42):
Yeah, but that's kind of This is my theory on
this is that it forces it forces people just to
be on their game.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
If I was to say there's a curb.

Speaker 6 (50:52):
Outside my studio here and it's you know about you know,
six inches wide, right whatever the legal curb with this,
let's call at six inches wide, and said, hey, walk
down that thing, and you're like four inches above the ground.

Speaker 5 (51:09):
You just walk right down there. You wouldn't even think
twice about it. We'd just have a little chit chat
while you're doing it.

Speaker 6 (51:14):
If that same thing was thirty feet in the air,
it's a different mindset to walk down it. You really
don't want to slip up. In my opinion, we could
also have like thousands of angry letters about that. Everybody's
got an opinion, but that's mine.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Athens is a very special place to me and obviously
to you and lots of people who are huge fans
of music in indie rock, whatever you want to call it.
There's an incredible documentary that just came out about the
Elephant six Recording Company, some of whom members of that
group have recorded at your studio, and it's interesting when
you talk about groups or collectives or artists that really

(51:55):
go hard into the whole tape thing, and you know
the idea of you, oh, we're out of tracks. You
have to bounce down like the Beatles, I think only
had four for some of their records and then eight.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
A little bit later.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Or to get the level of depth and stacked sounds,
they had to dub things from one reel to another,
you know, bounce things destructively, meaning that you lost what
was on there. I always wondered if they made copies,
but that's a question for maybe a nerdier conversation. But
the Elephant six documentary, to me, was one of the
best kind of I don't know, artifacts, like of pure

(52:29):
creativity using the technology to your advantage as a creative
tool rather than.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
Like a crutch.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
And I think that's something that is really coming around more,
even certain like audio interfaces like you know, Universal Audio
makes the most popular audio interface around now, the Apollo
and various versions of that. But built within that there
is a kind of finite way, like the way that
the thing processes the plugins that this company makes. It's
a company that's been making hardware, you know, audio, outboard

(52:59):
audio studio.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Gear for generations.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
You can only use so many and then you run
out of processing power. And there's something to that that
I think is inspiring where it So, I know I
can't have fifty of these. I know I can't have
you know, indefinite numbers of these. So it does feel
like there's almost a backlash, not a backlash, but a
return to that type of thinking that you're describing in

(53:23):
modern production. Obviously, it's a very rich and varied world
out there in terms of what kind of music there is,
But can you talk a little bit about how maybe
the esthetic or the kind of inspiration of an exile
on Main Street type record is now maybe a little
bit more in the forefront in terms of the way
people are making records, and maybe limitations are a good thing.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
Yeah, I think it does.

Speaker 6 (53:46):
I mean I think it has certainly has an influence.
I think that mostly like things like working like records
like exal Mator, everybody wants to make records like that.
I mean not everybody, but like rock bands, it's like
they want to make records like these old records. And
I think a lot of people, though, don't realize the

(54:10):
benefits of limitations until they experience it. And I just
had a conversation with an artist who has made a
few records so far, and their records are good, their
songs are good, but it's a little more modern and sterile,
I think than they want it to be. They're description

(54:32):
of their own recordings, and I've been encouraging them to
just like, you should try doing this thing on a
tape machine where you can where it's like, you just
can't sterilize it.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
It's not one of the options, you know.

Speaker 6 (54:46):
And it's funny because they want to do it, but
they're also a little like, well, we like to be
able to fix everything. I was like, well, you know,
you can't be a vegetarian that each stay. I mean,
you're gonna have to pick you can. You know it's
you don't want to be uh, you just have to

(55:09):
buy in and accept the reality of it that you
just have to be right in to the reality that
in a rock and roll records sometimes the wrong thing
is the right thing.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Do you feel that exile impacted you more as a
as a producer or a.

Speaker 6 (55:29):
Songwriter as a producer, and the reason is that as
a songwriter, I want to write from my own inspiration
number one, number two. Every time in my life that
I've tried to write a song that would be like

(55:55):
a Rolling Stone song or a Beatles song here, plus
when you're young and you have like really obvious influences.

Speaker 5 (56:03):
I listen to those songs now and just all.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
I hear is like, this is like if The Clash
made their worst song of all time, this song that
I just wrote is like a song that would not
be on eggsile on Main Street if it will have
like forty songs. Because again it's like you're it's not
you know, you're trying, you're aping somebody else's stuff. But

(56:31):
as a producer, yeah, because of the tangle and there's
a lot of records I've worked on. If you listen
to them, it's like there's just this like tangled stew
of guitars and it's and it's like or whatever, and
it's like I just dig that sound. The minimalist approach
of micing things up, which I kind of came to

(56:55):
via my first recording format of my own. Well, I
mean it was like one microphone into a quartering state
machine when I was a kid.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
But by the time I was like in.

Speaker 6 (57:04):
College and had like a fancy four track cassette recorder
that it's like, yeah, I can use like two mics
when a drum kit, and then I gotta that's I
just got to move them around and make it sound good.
And but just over time also an understanding of I'm
not going to go into like a deep science nerd here,

(57:25):
you know, deep dive about phase relationships and sound, but basically, uh,
the more and more mic microphones you add to a
sound source, the greater the likelihood of some sort of
cancelation of frequencies. And so I've just always veered towards
these relatively simple mic techniques. And then over time when

(57:50):
I would see and then I would hear Miguel like
that sounds like drums to me, that sounds good, and
then later on I see these pictures of them, like
recording Excell on Main Street and realize, Man, I have
stump asked backwards into the way that they did those records,
and have realized that's because that's what sound normal in
my head. Because I had, especially in my formative years,

(58:12):
like I talked about getting a copy of the whole
album when I was in my freshman year in college,
and so by the time I'm a freshman in college,
like I'm already very actively playing in bands and recording
and telling people that I was a record producer because
I believed I was one because I had a four
track cassette recorder. So but like the vibe of that

(58:33):
record I think is just so ingrained in me, and
I've also used it as an example in the studio,
as I probably did with Malwich Puppy is why you
knew that I love it so much, which is try
convincing people the thing I just said a few minutes ago,
which is that sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing,
and sometimes just like somebody is like, well, that's not
what I planned on doing, It's like yeah, but like listen.

Speaker 5 (58:56):
To what it sounds like.

Speaker 6 (58:57):
It's like, I know, as fuck up, but it's great
and there is that, you know, there's there's that, And
I just think that that has been like ingrained in
me of listening to these records like that, and maybe
there's also something about it to me as a producer

(59:17):
that makes it seem more reachable, that is, if you've
got true inspiration, Like I've always been more into greatness
than perfection, and I think that people make a mistake
between the two and they're not the same. That uh,

(59:37):
you know, greats never great's not always perfect, and perfect
certainly is rarely great. And it's i mean, an airbrushed
photo of a human being versus the natural beauty of
a human being.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
It's like it's just like a different you know, it's
a it's a different thing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:00):
And to me, Exeler mainStreet is just like totally like
the sound of it is just like a totally real thing.
The production of it, the fact that it's kind of loose,
the fact that it's not all the same, the fact that,
like different people play different instruments, the fact that Jimmy
Miller not only plays the drums on Happy, Jimmy Miller
just plays the drums on the jury ending of Tumbling
Dice because Charlie just couldn't quite get the timing. There's

(01:00:23):
a lot of people who would say, like, well, that's
gonna sound strange, we can't do that. But in the
mindset of these guys in the basement making this records,
like hey, give me.

Speaker 5 (01:00:31):
The I just want to take the sticks and just
show me what you have in mind.

Speaker 6 (01:00:34):
And then they listen back and I'm you know, dramatic
recreation of my own imagination here.

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
But it's uh, you know, it sounds good. I just
keep it. Want Charlie mind. I don't think he's in mind.
That's fine, it's funny.

Speaker 6 (01:00:47):
I've actually had that happen here working on a dexa
teen's record ride was the drummer had gone to the
beer store and they were like, what do you think
he should do here? And I played this little part
on this song. I was like, I think it like
something kind of like that. And I came the control
room and they're like, we're keeping that. I was like, well,
he could play it himself. No, no, no, he's we don't.
He wouldn't want to waste the time. And it sounds file.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Let's just use that. I was like, okay, is that
own thing?

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yes, there's a blog called Welcome no called Don't call
it Nothing, and they love Exile on Main Street. And
they went and they for every track on Exile on
Main Street they put a song that they really liked
and that they thought was like a compliment to the
exile track. And for Sweet Black Angel, they took own

(01:01:36):
Thing and they had that as the correlating song.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
I got to send you the link to it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
So this is arguably the greatest moment of my entire life,
knowing that somebody thinks that something that I had something
to do with somehow is worthy of comparison with exile mains.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
I'll put it in fourth place behind my three children.

Speaker 6 (01:01:55):
But other than the three of them, this moment clearly
that owned things that I played drums onto and I
had to play in Sweet Dog's drums or he's lefty,
so I had to put a brick on the high
hat pedal to hold it in place, and then had
to play it backwards and played it once and then
Elliott and John Smith when I came in to the
control room were.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Like, dude, don't change it.

Speaker 6 (01:02:17):
It's perfect, And I was like, I'm again paraphrasing them.

Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
I'm not suggesting they sound like that.

Speaker 6 (01:02:22):
But anyway, Yeah, that's uh, that's a remarkable moment in
my life. Check that one bucket list. All right, Well,
f and anvil falls on my head when I walk
outside the day, I'm gonna be cool.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
I will I will send that along. No, it's a
cool piece.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Amazing, I mean, speaking of influences, I mean with this
this interview is going to follow an episode that's set
in New Orleans where I'm at. Erdigan throws a party
for the Stones and he he hires a bunch of
blues legends to play for them. He hires a Professor
long Hair, who else, Roosevelt Psychs, Snook Egg Glynn, I think,

(01:02:58):
I think looks one more. And the Stones loved it
because I'm sure to them they saw it as you know,
paying their respects to the people who really made them,
made the music that made them want to make music.
But some of the people that we talked to today
who are also at that party, admitted that it was
kind of an awkward pairing between these you know, authentic

(01:03:19):
blues men and these white kids who made a fortune
off of their sounds, and that led us down this
whole really interesting discussion of appreciation versus appropriation. I was curious,
did the Stones lead you to seek out blues artists
like Holland Woolf for Muddy Waters or Professor long Hair
for that matter.

Speaker 6 (01:03:38):
Yeah, Yeah, A lot of music I did listen I
listened to as a kid absolutely sent me back to
check out older blues guys. Because I would read books about,
you know, all the English classic rock guys. It's all
Elvis and American blues guys. I knew about Elvis obviously,

(01:04:00):
the Allman Brothers, same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:04:02):
It's like. And so, you know, growing up in the South,
certainly huge presence on the radio here.

Speaker 6 (01:04:08):
That all these guys that was their stuff. And you
read these books about uh uh Mick and Keith as
teenagers trade you know, it's like he's got the newest
you know record by you know, Wolf or Muddy or
somebody you know and John Lee Hook or whatever, and

(01:04:31):
it's and so yeah, absolutely made me go back and
check it out, and which you know, definitely led me
to halland Wolf, who is you know, that's my favorite
of that of those guys. And uh, but knowing there
that the influence and the fact that it's so interesting
to me that early on, like the Stones didn't uh like,

(01:04:53):
we're not a rock band, We're.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
R and B group.

Speaker 6 (01:04:57):
And then it's really it's interesting. It's like by the
Jimmy Miller era to me, is the beginning of they
just sound like them. I mean, the mid sixties psychedelic
records totally sound like them, but they also are of
the time, right, and all their records are kind of

(01:05:19):
of the time. But Exile Main Street is a thing
that seems like it's of the time now because of
all this other stuff that came after it. But there's
nothing before it that is really that. I mean, the
only thing that kind of leads up to that is
other Rolling Stones records. I mean, by that time, it
is like the Blues Lane, the R and B Lane,

(01:05:41):
the Sixties Lane. It's like all they've all merged onto
the Rolling Stone, Rolling Stones Freeway and I Keith and
have just become like its own thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
It's just interesting now to consider the perception of these
British bands like the Stones and the Beatles, who were
very vocal about their influences. I mean, the Beatles came
to America in sixty four. There's the famous Masles Brothers
footage of them calling into radio stations and requesting Marvin
Gay and Laron Etz. They're not requesting their own songs,
they want to hear the music that again made them
want to make music. And at the time this was

(01:06:18):
considered very you know, progressive. But these days, you know,
these white kids from England covering a miracle song or
covering a Cherelle song or something is tantam out to
theft in a lot of ways, and you think of
the Stones with the early Willie Dixon songs and Chuck
Berry covers and stuff. Robert Greenfield, who's the Rolling Stone

(01:06:39):
magazine journalists that we were talking to on this show,
and we based most of it on his book STP.
When we talked to him last summer for the interviews
for this show, he remarked many times about how little
musical crossover there was in seventy one, seventy two, seventy three,
at least in a mainstream sense, between black music and

(01:06:59):
white music. I was wondering if you would agree with that.

Speaker 5 (01:07:07):
How old is Robert. He's older. He's older than me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Were in forty seven.

Speaker 5 (01:07:11):
I think, oh yeah, way older.

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
Okay, So he's got I mean as in nineteen seventy two,
Roberts twenty five and I was about, you know eight,
about to turn nine. So he's got a much clearer
perspective of this than me. I mean, there is I mean,
on AM radio in Atlanta, there's a cross you know,
it's like Motown and there and rock and Roller on

(01:07:33):
the same station. But there's not a ton of you know,
I mean, there's like there's not a ton of like
of crossover in terms of people working together. When you
hear the stories about the Beatles and Jimmy Hendrix partying
and you know, going to record you know in the

(01:07:54):
middle of the night, which is amazing, the Stones and uh,
you know you see the Stones on you know, playing
with black artists, but there's really not nearly the crossover.
Of course, the Stones, I guess it's maybe this seventy
five tour that Billy Preston and Olie Brown are on.

(01:08:17):
But yeah, there's not you know, I mean there's white
people making music and there's Black people making music, and
there's not a ton of crossover. I mean the record
business there is, you know, there's white guys that work
in the record in the three that work with black artists,
but there's not in you know, the sixties and seventies,
but the early seventies but.

Speaker 5 (01:08:36):
Not so much.

Speaker 6 (01:08:38):
And this isn't too like belittle the contribution to people
like John Hammon, who of course you know, signed many
black artists and going back to the nineteen thirties, but yeah,
there's not the crossover. And as far as like the
uh you know, appropriation versus you know, paying homage to things.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
That is.

Speaker 6 (01:09:01):
Taking a modern standard and going backward. I mean, there's
some things you go backwards in history that are clearly
terribly wrong that we're done.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
We know this.

Speaker 6 (01:09:10):
But there's other things, like saying that people in the
sixties that were heavily influenced by black artists shouldn't have
done that because its cultural appropriation is taking a twenty
first century esthetic and marching backwards sixty years and telling

(01:09:34):
other people they're wrong for something they don't know it's
And the influence I mean, and you know, in any
kind of art, you know, influence is good. Now, the
taking of songs from old blueskuys and nobody getting paid
the right money off of it totally wrong, never should

(01:09:54):
have happened.

Speaker 5 (01:09:56):
But you know, people are influenced.

Speaker 6 (01:09:59):
By different kinds of u music and it's I understand
the sensitivity to it. I appreciate the sensitivity to it.
But the Beatles and the Stones made amazing music that
was influenced by R and B and soul and older
blues artists that they made great music because they were

(01:10:22):
influenced by this stuff. And as somebody that loves all
of those things that were original and the things that
were influenced by it.

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
Yeah, I am.

Speaker 6 (01:10:33):
I mean, I'm glad they were influenced by it because
it made great records.

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):
I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Well, talking about the music that influenced the Beatles and
the Stones and specifically Exile on Main Street, where do
you see Exile's influence on the future generations Poststones of artists.
Would you hear fragments of Exile cropping up on albums
and artists today?

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Oh yeah, all all over the place.

Speaker 6 (01:11:01):
It's there's you know rock, you know, two guitar rock
bands like Black Crows for example. You can clearly hear
it's like these guys love this record Cheryl Crow. Listen
to the guitar on If It Makes You Happy Jam,

(01:11:23):
which is a great song, but you listen to that
and it's like Cheryl loves the Stones. Obviously when you
hear that that guitar, it's like totally influenced. I mean
in a way that's like her tumbling Dice. I mean
it's like it's this mid tempo swagger with this open
tuned guitar lick and this little double stop part that

(01:11:48):
is extremely similar to a song on Rolling Stones album
A couple of albums later, but I'll leave that to
the listeners to discern which song it doesn't. Just keep
that inside my brain. But as soon as I heard it,
I was like, oh, man, she loves that record as
much as I do. I bet she and I are
about the same age. I don't know her anything, but
I love that song. But as soon as I heard it,

(01:12:09):
I was like, dang, she loves them too. There are
my guys to drive by truckers, you know, with whom
I've made a zillion records with.

Speaker 5 (01:12:21):
It's patterson Hood.

Speaker 6 (01:12:23):
One time, referring to his main partner in crime, Mike
Cooley and myself said, you know, all three of us
fancy ourselves to be exhile on main street guys. He said,
I really want to be an exile on main street guy,
But deep down inside, I'm probably a sticky fingers guy.

Speaker 5 (01:12:43):
Patterson being raised in Muscle Souls. His dad owned Muscle
Soules down Sound.

Speaker 6 (01:12:47):
His dad has a bunch of amazing black and white
snapshots of the stones in the studio recording Brown Sugar
and Wild Horses, and you gotta move and about me,
he said, Man, you want to be an exhil main Street.
But when I listened to your bands, you probably were
more as a kid, like more of a Let It
Bleed guy. I was like, oh man, one of the
very first albums I ever owned is uh, Let It Bleed?

(01:13:11):
And he said, but Cooley, he's just an exile on
main Street guy. And when you listen to Mike Cooley's songs,
if you go through the Drive By Truckers catalog and
listen to three Dimes Down and Shit Shots Count and
Gravity's Gone, these songs are like, Okay, that's somebody that
writes great songs that's obviously heavily influenced by this album.

(01:13:34):
And I think you hear it. I think you hear
it all over the ways. Blood Can certainly has songs
like this too.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
You mentioned my last question.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
You mentioned Alabama muscle showls, like I can't think of
muscle shouls without thinking of the Great Spooner Oldham and
album a couple of years back, Love It, Don't Choke
It to Death, which I believe is a quote from
the Great Spooner Oldham h during a session I think
with Dry By Truckers. It's such a great succinct ethos

(01:14:04):
for recording. I was wondering if you had any similar
stories from the Stones, from the Stones history that you
keep near and dear to your heart, just either stories
from the making of the album, a quote you've heard
from Mick er Keith or Jimmy Miller or Andy John's
or anybody that is kind of something that's on your
personal you know, personal list of credos.

Speaker 5 (01:14:26):
Oh, for sure. And it comes from Glenn Johns.

Speaker 6 (01:14:30):
I had this incredible Glenn John's interview from a recording
magazine from about nineteen eighty and Mitch Easter gave me
a copy of this because Jay Farrar and I were
mixing wide swing tremolo at the Fidelitorium, Mitch's amazing studio,
North Carolina. And actually it's old location where he used

(01:14:50):
to have a board exactly like this one, and nobody
else just listening to this can see that thing.

Speaker 5 (01:14:56):
I just patted behind me. But trust me, folks, it's awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:15:00):
He but this article nineteen eighty is at the height
of Glenn John's fame. Now in retrospect, we know he
has the greatest swath of his careers behind him, but
it's right now the height of Lebron James fame. In
twenty twenty three is right now, even though at thirty
eight or thirty nine or whatever, the best years of

(01:15:21):
his basketball play might be behind him. But because we
know this legacy and it's the same thing with Glen
John's in nineteen eighty. He is the only person who's
engineered sessions with the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and
the Who kind of like the four horsemen of English
classic rock right, but mostly built his reputation by working

(01:15:45):
with the Stones on virtually all of their records from
the mid sixties up through the mid seventies. And he
talked about in this interview the fact they asked him
about how long it takes to pull a mix together, and.

Speaker 5 (01:16:00):
He said, usually it takes me.

Speaker 6 (01:16:03):
You know, they have about forty five minutes to get
us sounding good, and I'm usually done, you know, maybe
about two three hours. And they said, is that how
it worked and mixing Stones record?

Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
He goes, yeah, I do my mixing like that, and
then Mick and Keith would come in and they would
spend about uh two days on the song and then
the one that goes on the record is the one
that I did in like two hours. I never lose
sight of that.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
So the advice is print the two hour one, hide it,
and then let the band pick one apart for a while,
and then when you play them the original one later
and they think it sounds better, tell them it's the
one they work two days on.

Speaker 5 (01:16:38):
Maybe kidding.

Speaker 4 (01:16:41):
Wow, that goes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
So counter to the episode where you know it's like
them obsessing the snares gotta crack. They sound like dustbin lids,
That's what the Creamfield Robertfield was saying.

Speaker 6 (01:16:55):
But yeah, like the thing is that you obsess over
that stuff when you're recording, you obsessed forget any exactly right,
and you do obsessed over that stuff. But Glenn John's
the guy that has hands on the faders on all
these records.

Speaker 5 (01:17:06):
That is his approach.

Speaker 6 (01:17:07):
And I know people that have worked with Glenn before
and they said, like the speed of him making decisions
was incredible, which was like inspiring to me to realize
it's okay.

Speaker 5 (01:17:21):
To move like that.

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
Incredible, David, Great, Well, thank you guys, This is so
much fun, Jordan.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
Pleasure to meeting person Noel.

Speaker 6 (01:17:34):
Always a pleasure to engage with you on the deeper
confos about rock and roll, which.

Speaker 5 (01:17:39):
We have had many and I'm sure will in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
Stone's Touring Party is written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk
Co Executives, produced by Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk, Edited
and sound designed by Noel Brown and Michael Older June.
Original music composed and performed by Michael Older June and
Noel Brown, with additional instruments performed by Chris Suarez, John's
Cooper and Josh Thay. Vintage Rolling Stones audio courtesy of

(01:18:04):
the Robert Greenfield Archive at the Charles Deering McCormick Library
of Special Collections in Northwestern University Libraries. Stone's Touring Party
is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Host

Robert Greenfield

Robert Greenfield

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