August 28, 2023 • 22 mins
With Jordan traveling to Los Angeles for exciting recording session opportunities, he is joined by famed producer Adam Lasus and actors Charlie Saxton and Tim Jo to discuss their journeys and shared thoughts about art.
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(00:11):
Ninety seven one, The Freak ninetyseven one, The Free Welcome in everyone,
They're back Culture Hour. It's yourhost, George's with me as always
is TC Fleming, but this isnot always. This is a very special
episode as you might know, asyou probably don't know, because who knows
(00:32):
if you listen or if you don't, you know if you listen. I
don't know if you listen, butyou know if you listen. So if
you do listen, you will knowthat I haven't been around for three weeks.
I've had some health conditions, I'vehad some ailments, I've had some
issues. But I'm back and withme is not TC. This week,
(00:53):
guys, this is a very specialweek. We're coming to you hot and
live, semi live from Los Angeles, California, Hollywood, baby and here
with me this week makes it veryvery special. There's a long time compatriot
brother, just soulmate, really oneof my best friends in the entire world.
(01:15):
We have producer extraordinary Adam Lass withus. Hi, Adam, how
are you hey, George, I'mdoing great, happy to be here.
It's gonna be fun. Yeah,it's gonna be real fun. Not only
do we have Adam in the mix. And first off, I guess I
should say that it's a pretty remarkablereally when you have when you have a
(01:37):
world class music producer like Adam Lassesbeing your boardop for your lowly scrub two
to four Saturday radio show. Wehave him, and we're coming live from
Studio Red in Los Angeles, Burbank, California, and he's running around patching
microphone cables in for us and everything. And you know, this guy's made
hit records. There's gold records liningthe walls in here, and he's patching
(02:02):
in mike cables for our for ourcrappy little radio show. But you know,
we'll try not to make it toocrappy. Not only is Adam here
this week, we also have starsof the silver screen, the big and
the small screen with us and musicians, accomplished musicians in their own right.
My buddy, my brother, CharlieSaxton. Hi Charlie, Hi, George,
(02:25):
thanks for having me. Yeah,thanks for being here. How's it
on that couch over there? Thiscouch is very comfortable. I'm lounging quite
nicely. It feels like the besttherapy session. Good good, It is
about to happen. The best therapysession is about to happen. Not only
is Charlie here, not only isAdam here, We're also joined by Tim
(02:46):
Joe. Hi, Tim, Hi, Hi. Guys. Like I said,
it's a special week. I'm ona whole cocktail of pain meds and
all sorts of things. So it'sgonna get weird, but it always is
weird here on the Dirt Back CultureHour on ninety seven one the Freak.
But we thought we thought we'd giveTC a break this week. He's chilling,
(03:07):
probably on a jet ski somewhere ina lake in North Texas. But
I thought it'd be fun. Wecame straight from a recording session, and
not we didn't even come from arecording session. We just basically turned off
the microphones that were on all theinstruments, the drums, and we just
moved them into the control room.And now we're doing a radio show,
(03:28):
because that's how it works in Hollywood. Always always, Adam, we're at
your studio, studio read here inlovely Burbank, California, Beautiful Burbank.
Do you mind filling us in alittle bit just what it's like. He's
over there, He's over there twittlingturning knobs, twisting knobs, getting it,
getting it totally right, totally right. Like I said, it's probably
(03:50):
the best board up we'll ever have. No offense to a JJ or AO
back in Dallas, but Adam tellus a little bit, if you don't
mind, introduced the world to StudioRed, or at least introduced like seventy
five to one hundred people in theircars in the Dallas area right now to
studio read happily, happily. Let'ssee, Studio Red started probably in my
(04:13):
bedroom when I was maybe fifteen sixteen, I had a band, and uh
like four or five years ago,closer to twenty yeah, yeah, yeah,
and n you know, I wasin a band. It was like
four tracking and doing stuff and juststarted in my bedroom. My dad let
(04:34):
me like punch holes through the walland have like a snake and drums and
making noise and four track turned toan eight track and it wasn't called Studio
Red then but it was just astudio. And then my cousin who kind
of got me into music. Iwas in an amazing band called Miracle Legion.
His name is Jeff Weitershaw, hada four track and taught me had
(04:55):
a four track and kind of taughtme how to play bass and guitar.
And he decided, because my nicknameis Red, because of red hair,
that the studio would be called StudioRed. So he made a sign one
day and brought it into the studioand put up a sign and that said
Studio Red and that was it.I was like, I don't know about
that name. He was like aStudio Red man, that's it. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like a true nickname. You can't give yourself your own
nickname. You can't name your ownrecording studio exactly, so it's stuck.
(05:19):
That's awesome. We talk about Electricberry Land on the show from time to
time, my recording studio, andthat's our buddy Steve Steward that you know.
He named that because there was ElectricLady Land that Jimmy Hendricks had in
Manhattan, and then there was ElectricLarry Land, which was the Butthole Surfer
studio in Austin. So it hadto be Electric berry Land here. But
(05:42):
I guess it makes sense that it'sStudio read. But you had fireproof in
Brooklyn. We'll get to all this. We got two hours. We got
a cover here. Yeah, yeah, you had studio red and then you
moved to Brooklyn from Philly right rightin ninety six, I decided it was
time to try to go kind ofmake it in the Big Apple as it
were loved Philly, but was attractedto New York with the indie scene in
(06:04):
the nine Was Brooklyn? I'm sorry? Was was Brooklyn? Like? What
it? Would? You know?At what point did things kind of move
from that Lower East Side, whichI guess it's still kind of you know,
the village over to Brooklyn and that'skind of where bands started popping.
Was it that area or era orwas it even before then? It seemed
(06:26):
like actually the timing was pretty good. I moved in ninety six and started
the studio kind of right away Januaryninety seven, and Brooklyn bands were just
kind of seemingly starting to take overin a way. I don't know if
that takeover, but there were justa lot of Brooklyn bands and had a
lot of mix of both. Youknow, it was cheaper to rehearse in
Brooklyn, It was cheaper to recordin Brooklyn. I had an I had
(06:47):
a thirty twenty five hundred square footfirehouse near the Battery Tunnel in Red Hook
and it was nine hundred dollars.It seems unimagined in nineteen ninety seven.
Now the DA was there and Snapplewas there, and it was scary.
You know, you had to becareful at night. But snap is terrifying.
Yeah, it was. It was. It was awesome. It was
(07:11):
being in this cool space, andbecause I was affordable for me, I
was able to charge a lower ratethan than Manhattan studios. And I started
attracting a good amount of indie bandsfrom other stuff I'd done in Philly and
people I knew in Brooklyn. Mygood buddy uh Spike Priggan let me live
in his loft while I was gettingit together before I found the studio and
requirement, and a lot of peopleknew that I was just starting up again
(07:38):
in New York and kind of eithercame my way or send people my way.
Bands from Philly, like a bandBuzzeemer, who I did a lot
of work with, came up fromPhilly and kept recording with me. So
it was a cool time. Itwas also challenging because it was the end
of studio read in the beginning ofthis new Fireproof. It was called Fireproof
because of the firehouse and indie rockwas changing. You know, the early
(07:58):
indie days of the early nineties wasincredible, but already ninety six, ninety
seven stuff was getting. The atmosphereis changing in a radiohead had okay computer,
flaming lips had soft bulletin and youknow it was things are different,
right right, And it's Adam won'tbragg on himself and we'll get into it
a little bit, but the guywho is on our radio should a show
(08:22):
today on the Dirrorback Culture Hour isa legend, a lot of people would
say. Many people would say inthe indie rock world and beyond, you've
made records that have been on theradio. You've made records that have made
top one hundred song lists and RollingStones and like Billboard charts and college college
charts and all of that. Andyou've made our crappy bands too, which
(08:46):
is so hey, I wouldn't saythat. I wouldn't see you know.
Yeah, so it's really cool.We'll probably get into some of those records
and some deeper stories about that,but it's really special to have Adam on,
especially because you're a best you're abest bud, and uh, it's
cool to be able to bring theradio show to you this week. Just
like I said, just coming fromfresh off of a session. It's kind
(09:09):
of why our brains are all mushy. We've been setting here in recording studio
all day, which essentially means orderingtakeout and recording every fifteen minutes. But
we're here. Another unique part ofthis week show is that we've got two
uh you know, Hollywood stars.I'm gonna say, but we got it
(09:33):
got two kinds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, two two guys who know
their way around this town, bothin the in the record industry and uh,
like I said, from film andTV. But we're in the middle
of something called Can you even saythe word strike right now? Or is
that not okay to I think wecan say the word strike. Yeah,
I would, I would. Iwould say, yeah, absolutely, we
should say that we're on strike rightgood. We stand and saw the word
(09:56):
yeah dirtback. Culture Hour stands insolidarity, in solidarity with the Writers Guild
and with SAG always and with everyunion. So but you know, some
of the stories and some of thedetails that we'd like to uh you know,
kind of dig deep into we haveto kind of I don't want to
say dance around. But these guysare definitely gonna lead me on the correct
(10:18):
path and keep me in line.Yeah, we don't want to upset anybody,
so we certainly don't want to.But yeah, we can at least
say why we are in the studiotoday. Yeah, yeah, I think
so. I think so. Whyare we in a studio? A bunch
of us, me and my goodfriend Gayle and Draper are making a movie?
(10:41):
And uh, we are making amovie about a band. And we've
been recording the songs that the bandplays in said movie, and uh yeah,
yeah, it's been a lot offun. They are so gracious to
ask me to play the drums onthese sessions and it's real cool. It's
(11:01):
a real modern way of doing it. Galen. Uh, you guys,
you guys co wrote this thing together, right, we did. Yeah,
And and I guess I should Ishould reiterate as an independent production. Absolutely,
it is not in any way affiliatedwith any sort of AMPTP and all
that stuff. It is a truelabor of love and a mom and pop
operation quite literally. Yeah, that'sawesome and that's a that's a very special
(11:26):
thing to be a part of.Yeah, So, Galen, who's at
the helm directing it right, isyes, he's in France. Yes,
so you know we couldn't we couldn'thave him call in, you know,
it's probably it's yeah, it's fourin the morning, Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. We met all, allthe four of us met working on something
a decade plus to go something.You know, there there are these things
(11:50):
that you can go to these specificbuildings in and they have large screens and
there, you know, a lotoff there's an auditorium and you set there
and you watch the thing being projectedonto a screen. Right. We all
worked on one of those together afew years back, and that's how we
all met. And it's really specialthat we could all come together now with
a little more gray in our beards, yeah, and can continue the party
(12:15):
a little bit. And so youguys, you guys have written some of
the songs for this movie. Andalso a really unique, a really unique
thing happened, which as you wereable to gain the license from a couple
of other bands or is it justone singular it's it's it's one singular band.
Galen grew up being a huge fanof Jets to Brazil and we reached
(12:39):
out to the man himself, BlakeSchwarzenbach and kind of explained the situation and
he could not have been cooler andgave us his blessing to to kind of
rearrange and re compose some of ourfavorite Jester Brazil songs. That's super cool.
So when you have like like punintended full license of someone's body of
(13:01):
work, does that mean that youguys can reimagine the songs how you want
to and make them fit narratively intothe film and stuff like that you have
or do you have restrictions on whatyou can do with the music? You
know, it depends on the artist, I guess, but Blake was super
awesome and super just gave us hisfull blessing and free range to do whatever
(13:26):
we wanted with the song, whichis quite rare. So yeah, we're
we're very blessed and fortunate that hewas just so cool and so down to
participate. That's awesome. Yeah,So, Tim, you guys kind of
you kind of take the the originalsongs and rework them how you want to
do it. And then how didthat process go? Do you guys,
(13:48):
do you guys set in a roomand flush it out together or did you
just kind of listen to the youknow, the classic Jesture Brazil songs and
learn them before you started tracking themhere in the studio. What does that
work a little bit? I thinkthe way it worked is the very first
step was Galen recording, and hecan do everything. He can write,
he can sing and direct, hecan play every instrument. So he sent
(14:13):
us a demo track of the basicskeleton and you know, pretty full arrangements
of what he was thinking what thesongs should sound like or what will they
will sound like? And I thinkthe beauty of this process is because we
do have like more than fifteen yearsexperience of relationships, Like we all met
(14:33):
like fifteen, I don't know howmany years ago. Yeah, so we
we have a good like banter andwe know how to collaborate really well together.
So I didn't grow up listening toJust Brazil, but I do play
the guitarist in this movie. Soknowing that I get to put my you
know, knowing that I was giventhe permission to put my personal spin,
(14:56):
my personal artistic spin on Just Brazil'ssongs, Uh, yeah, it was
cool. I didn't really go backtoo much to like delve into just Brazil
music. I just built off whatI heard Galen was doing and thinking how
would I play this? And thenI think that from there we added more
musicians and then today we get toadd you. Yeah, so this whole
(15:20):
flat sist has been like so awesome. Yeah, full circle and that was
killer. By the way, thedrumming today that Jordan did was Jans happened
things We've been working really hard onthem and then it was like, wow,
now they sound amazing, So thankyou Jordan. I mean, get
someone like Jordan on on these tracks, that's a true well to get Adam
and Jordan, like Charlie and Iwere just ecstatics, that's cool. It
(15:43):
was yeah, yeah, yeah,it was enough for them to just stick
around and do a radio show.Thanks, and we are very grateful.
No, it's it goes both waysand it's really cool and it's a testament
to Adam's acumen and skill to saythe absolute least that like, what is
it you like to say about drumsounds in the studio, which a little
(16:03):
bit of background is usually notoriously ifyou're in the studio making a record,
you come in on the first dayand you set around. You don't get
to do it as much anymore becausepeople don't have the time nor the budget,
and also the technology in quotes hasgotten some better where it's not like
it's not like this exactly, buta lot of the times you would know,
(16:23):
the day one of a record,you'd come in and you'd just hit
a snare drum for maybe like anhour to make sure they get it right,
and you work out notch out allthe nasty frequencies and get it perfectly.
But as it could be hours snaredrums times, hours and hours go
by and you're losing your mind,and then by the end of the five
of six seven hours, it allsounds like crap, right because you've made
(16:47):
you got to change the drumheads bythe end, right, or you have
no idea anywhere because all hearing drumsaren't here any band. You're just hearing
ding ding boom boom. Lost it. So my motto here a studio read
is it's home of the ten minutedrum sound. If it's not sounding good
in ten minutes sessions free yeah,yeah, And I literally look at ten
I gotta get it in ten minutes, man, I gotta get and I
(17:08):
kind of get it. Yeah,I got it. It's truly beautiful because
it does. It was like tenminutes up and running, and our process
a little bit was like we hada big we had a big like zoom
meeting a few weeks ago to talkabout like what you guys' mission was and
how the movies the movie is aboutmusic, so you know, the discussion
(17:30):
was about music, and everyone's amusician who's a part of it. So
it's really cool, you know,Like multi media is sort of a cliche
or kind of just like a tacitword to describe it, but it is
like a true multimedia project in asense because the actors involved and the writer
of the film and the director andall of this are also the musician in
musicians in the movie, and soto be able to take it to a
(17:52):
studio and have it sounding like itdoes immediately is a really special thing.
And I feel like a lot oftimes, Adam, I'd love to ask
you, you know, without givingtoo many specifics, but you've worked You've
worked in a lot of film before, and it's it kind of depends on
each project, right, like howthe process goes of recording music for a
(18:15):
movie, right, Yeah, verymuch. So, Yeah, I've only
really done kind of two big filmsas music producer slash music director. But
it was really interesting because they wantedlive bands, and you do a thing
called a pre recorder record record everythingbefore you go on set, so you're
recording a band, preferably with theactors that can play. And in this
(18:41):
case, the way we did iton the movie that we worked on fifteen
years ago, we all got torecord together. And it's an interesting thing.
You know, you're bonding in thestudio and you're having fun and you're
making it sound live. And allthese movies. I was lucky where it
wasn't supposed to sound studio. It'ssupposed to sound live, right. The
challenges make it sound raw and nottoo good because of it sounds too studio.
(19:02):
It doesn't really vibe in the auditoriumwith the club that they're in or
whatever. Yeah, because you haveto make in a studio setting itself.
You have to make the music kindof sound like wherever it's appearing in the
film, right, correct, correct. Then you have some tricks. You
can make stuff sound trash, oryou can throw weird small club reverbs or
auditorium reverbs on. But the performanceand the getting everyone hyped and feeling the
(19:26):
right feeling and the right thing iskey. And we had a great time
on these tunes doing that where Ithink we got the feeling really good and
they're about to go film and acouple of weeks, so we had to
get it and have to have itsound right, and you know, kind
of the deadline was really helpful forus. It's awesome. It always makes
it that way. We were justtalking about before we started recording the show
(19:48):
today. Is like I've always bemoaned, you know, colleagues and friends who
have so much material that's like almostdone or you're afraid to release it,
stuff like that. And I realizeI have probably twenty five Son of Stand
songs now my my project that arelike seventy five or eighty percent done.
Yes you do, yeah, becauseI started a couple of them a couple
(20:10):
years ago. Like what happened ofthat song? Well, they're all real
good, Jordan. Yeah. Well, the cool part is that that's the
beauty of the deadline. Sometimes,you know, I like fall into this
this sort of mantra that deadlines don'tmatter, and they don't a lot of
times until they do, and whenthey do, it really pushes pushes you
(20:30):
to kind of get the best soundingthings out there or the you know,
just just do what you have todo to get it done and get it
done right quickly and usually it comesout. But going back to what you
were saying about the drum sound like, it really was like ten minutes and
we listen to the demos and weplayed along and like it's sure enough.
(20:51):
It sounds like a mixed record.It's like done. So it's a really
really exciting and cool thing. Andwe're gonna spend some of today kind of
exploring the process. And uh,like I said, we can't get too
specific because we stand in solidarity thestriking actors and writers here in Hollywood and
beyond, but we do. We'regonna try to bring you an interesting show
(21:14):
today. Hopefully it's interesting to youlistening where we can kind of like diverge
the paths of music and film andall of the things that are sort of
inside of that. Real quick.Uh, we're about to we're up against
the break. But I just wantedto ask Adam what his favorite color was,
Red, Charlie green, go birds. Okay, See that's that's how
(21:41):
you stretch it out in a radiosecond, sometimes when you have to time
it for your pre records, butanyways, you're listening to the dirt back
culture out here. On ninety sevenone the Freak, we'll be back and
uh, we're gonna have a we'regonna have a really fun show today.
It's gonna get weird if it's notalready weird enough. So we'll see you
in a second.
Ninety seven one, The Freak ninetyseven one, The Free Welcome in everyone,
They're back Culture Hour. It's yourhost, George's with me as always
is TC Fleming, but this isnot always. This is a very special
episode as you might know, asyou probably don't know, because who knows
(00:32):
if you listen or if you don't, you know if you listen. I
don't know if you listen, butyou know if you listen. So if
you do listen, you will knowthat I haven't been around for three weeks.
I've had some health conditions, I'vehad some ailments, I've had some
issues. But I'm back and withme is not TC. This week,
(00:53):
guys, this is a very specialweek. We're coming to you hot and
live, semi live from Los Angeles, California, Hollywood, baby and here
with me this week makes it veryvery special. There's a long time compatriot
brother, just soulmate, really oneof my best friends in the entire world.
(01:15):
We have producer extraordinary Adam Lass withus. Hi, Adam, how
are you hey, George, I'mdoing great, happy to be here.
It's gonna be fun. Yeah,it's gonna be real fun. Not only
do we have Adam in the mix. And first off, I guess I
should say that it's a pretty remarkablereally when you have when you have a
(01:37):
world class music producer like Adam Lassesbeing your boardop for your lowly scrub two
to four Saturday radio show. Wehave him, and we're coming live from
Studio Red in Los Angeles, Burbank, California, and he's running around patching
microphone cables in for us and everything. And you know, this guy's made
hit records. There's gold records liningthe walls in here, and he's patching
(02:02):
in mike cables for our for ourcrappy little radio show. But you know,
we'll try not to make it toocrappy. Not only is Adam here
this week, we also have starsof the silver screen, the big and
the small screen with us and musicians, accomplished musicians in their own right.
My buddy, my brother, CharlieSaxton. Hi Charlie, Hi, George,
(02:25):
thanks for having me. Yeah,thanks for being here. How's it
on that couch over there? Thiscouch is very comfortable. I'm lounging quite
nicely. It feels like the besttherapy session. Good good, It is
about to happen. The best therapysession is about to happen. Not only
is Charlie here, not only isAdam here, We're also joined by Tim
(02:46):
Joe. Hi, Tim, Hi, Hi. Guys. Like I said,
it's a special week. I'm ona whole cocktail of pain meds and
all sorts of things. So it'sgonna get weird, but it always is
weird here on the Dirt Back CultureHour on ninety seven one the Freak.
But we thought we thought we'd giveTC a break this week. He's chilling,
(03:07):
probably on a jet ski somewhere ina lake in North Texas. But
I thought it'd be fun. Wecame straight from a recording session, and
not we didn't even come from arecording session. We just basically turned off
the microphones that were on all theinstruments, the drums, and we just
moved them into the control room.And now we're doing a radio show,
(03:28):
because that's how it works in Hollywood. Always always, Adam, we're at
your studio, studio read here inlovely Burbank, California, Beautiful Burbank.
Do you mind filling us in alittle bit just what it's like. He's
over there, He's over there twittlingturning knobs, twisting knobs, getting it,
getting it totally right, totally right. Like I said, it's probably
(03:50):
the best board up we'll ever have. No offense to a JJ or AO
back in Dallas, but Adam tellus a little bit, if you don't
mind, introduced the world to StudioRed, or at least introduced like seventy
five to one hundred people in theircars in the Dallas area right now to
studio read happily, happily. Let'ssee, Studio Red started probably in my
(04:13):
bedroom when I was maybe fifteen sixteen, I had a band, and uh
like four or five years ago,closer to twenty yeah, yeah, yeah,
and n you know, I wasin a band. It was like
four tracking and doing stuff and juststarted in my bedroom. My dad let
(04:34):
me like punch holes through the walland have like a snake and drums and
making noise and four track turned toan eight track and it wasn't called Studio
Red then but it was just astudio. And then my cousin who kind
of got me into music. Iwas in an amazing band called Miracle Legion.
His name is Jeff Weitershaw, hada four track and taught me had
(04:55):
a four track and kind of taughtme how to play bass and guitar.
And he decided, because my nicknameis Red, because of red hair,
that the studio would be called StudioRed. So he made a sign one
day and brought it into the studioand put up a sign and that said
Studio Red and that was it.I was like, I don't know about
that name. He was like aStudio Red man, that's it. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like a true nickname. You can't give yourself your own
nickname. You can't name your ownrecording studio exactly, so it's stuck.
(05:19):
That's awesome. We talk about Electricberry Land on the show from time to
time, my recording studio, andthat's our buddy Steve Steward that you know.
He named that because there was ElectricLady Land that Jimmy Hendricks had in
Manhattan, and then there was ElectricLarry Land, which was the Butthole Surfer
studio in Austin. So it hadto be Electric berry Land here. But
(05:42):
I guess it makes sense that it'sStudio read. But you had fireproof in
Brooklyn. We'll get to all this. We got two hours. We got
a cover here. Yeah, yeah, you had studio red and then you
moved to Brooklyn from Philly right rightin ninety six, I decided it was
time to try to go kind ofmake it in the Big Apple as it
were loved Philly, but was attractedto New York with the indie scene in
(06:04):
the nine Was Brooklyn? I'm sorry? Was was Brooklyn? Like? What
it? Would? You know?At what point did things kind of move
from that Lower East Side, whichI guess it's still kind of you know,
the village over to Brooklyn and that'skind of where bands started popping.
Was it that area or era orwas it even before then? It seemed
(06:26):
like actually the timing was pretty good. I moved in ninety six and started
the studio kind of right away Januaryninety seven, and Brooklyn bands were just
kind of seemingly starting to take overin a way. I don't know if
that takeover, but there were justa lot of Brooklyn bands and had a
lot of mix of both. Youknow, it was cheaper to rehearse in
Brooklyn, It was cheaper to recordin Brooklyn. I had an I had
(06:47):
a thirty twenty five hundred square footfirehouse near the Battery Tunnel in Red Hook
and it was nine hundred dollars.It seems unimagined in nineteen ninety seven.
Now the DA was there and Snapplewas there, and it was scary.
You know, you had to becareful at night. But snap is terrifying.
Yeah, it was. It was. It was awesome. It was
(07:11):
being in this cool space, andbecause I was affordable for me, I
was able to charge a lower ratethan than Manhattan studios. And I started
attracting a good amount of indie bandsfrom other stuff I'd done in Philly and
people I knew in Brooklyn. Mygood buddy uh Spike Priggan let me live
in his loft while I was gettingit together before I found the studio and
requirement, and a lot of peopleknew that I was just starting up again
(07:38):
in New York and kind of eithercame my way or send people my way.
Bands from Philly, like a bandBuzzeemer, who I did a lot
of work with, came up fromPhilly and kept recording with me. So
it was a cool time. Itwas also challenging because it was the end
of studio read in the beginning ofthis new Fireproof. It was called Fireproof
because of the firehouse and indie rockwas changing. You know, the early
(07:58):
indie days of the early nineties wasincredible, but already ninety six, ninety
seven stuff was getting. The atmosphereis changing in a radiohead had okay computer,
flaming lips had soft bulletin and youknow it was things are different,
right right, And it's Adam won'tbragg on himself and we'll get into it
a little bit, but the guywho is on our radio should a show
(08:22):
today on the Dirrorback Culture Hour isa legend, a lot of people would
say. Many people would say inthe indie rock world and beyond, you've
made records that have been on theradio. You've made records that have made
top one hundred song lists and RollingStones and like Billboard charts and college college
charts and all of that. Andyou've made our crappy bands too, which
(08:46):
is so hey, I wouldn't saythat. I wouldn't see you know.
Yeah, so it's really cool.We'll probably get into some of those records
and some deeper stories about that,but it's really special to have Adam on,
especially because you're a best you're abest bud, and uh, it's
cool to be able to bring theradio show to you this week. Just
like I said, just coming fromfresh off of a session. It's kind
(09:09):
of why our brains are all mushy. We've been setting here in recording studio
all day, which essentially means orderingtakeout and recording every fifteen minutes. But
we're here. Another unique part ofthis week show is that we've got two
uh you know, Hollywood stars.I'm gonna say, but we got it
(09:33):
got two kinds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, two two guys who know
their way around this town, bothin the in the record industry and uh,
like I said, from film andTV. But we're in the middle
of something called Can you even saythe word strike right now? Or is
that not okay to I think wecan say the word strike. Yeah,
I would, I would. Iwould say, yeah, absolutely, we
should say that we're on strike rightgood. We stand and saw the word
(09:56):
yeah dirtback. Culture Hour stands insolidarity, in solidarity with the Writers Guild
and with SAG always and with everyunion. So but you know, some
of the stories and some of thedetails that we'd like to uh you know,
kind of dig deep into we haveto kind of I don't want to
say dance around. But these guysare definitely gonna lead me on the correct
(10:18):
path and keep me in line.Yeah, we don't want to upset anybody,
so we certainly don't want to.But yeah, we can at least
say why we are in the studiotoday. Yeah, yeah, I think
so. I think so. Whyare we in a studio? A bunch
of us, me and my goodfriend Gayle and Draper are making a movie?
(10:41):
And uh, we are making amovie about a band. And we've
been recording the songs that the bandplays in said movie, and uh yeah,
yeah, it's been a lot offun. They are so gracious to
ask me to play the drums onthese sessions and it's real cool. It's
(11:01):
a real modern way of doing it. Galen. Uh, you guys,
you guys co wrote this thing together, right, we did. Yeah,
And and I guess I should Ishould reiterate as an independent production. Absolutely,
it is not in any way affiliatedwith any sort of AMPTP and all
that stuff. It is a truelabor of love and a mom and pop
operation quite literally. Yeah, that'sawesome and that's a that's a very special
(11:26):
thing to be a part of.Yeah, So, Galen, who's at
the helm directing it right, isyes, he's in France. Yes,
so you know we couldn't we couldn'thave him call in, you know,
it's probably it's yeah, it's fourin the morning, Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. We met all, allthe four of us met working on something
a decade plus to go something.You know, there there are these things
(11:50):
that you can go to these specificbuildings in and they have large screens and
there, you know, a lotoff there's an auditorium and you set there
and you watch the thing being projectedonto a screen. Right. We all
worked on one of those together afew years back, and that's how we
all met. And it's really specialthat we could all come together now with
a little more gray in our beards, yeah, and can continue the party
(12:15):
a little bit. And so youguys, you guys have written some of
the songs for this movie. Andalso a really unique, a really unique
thing happened, which as you wereable to gain the license from a couple
of other bands or is it justone singular it's it's it's one singular band.
Galen grew up being a huge fanof Jets to Brazil and we reached
(12:39):
out to the man himself, BlakeSchwarzenbach and kind of explained the situation and
he could not have been cooler andgave us his blessing to to kind of
rearrange and re compose some of ourfavorite Jester Brazil songs. That's super cool.
So when you have like like punintended full license of someone's body of
(13:01):
work, does that mean that youguys can reimagine the songs how you want
to and make them fit narratively intothe film and stuff like that you have
or do you have restrictions on whatyou can do with the music? You
know, it depends on the artist, I guess, but Blake was super
awesome and super just gave us hisfull blessing and free range to do whatever
(13:26):
we wanted with the song, whichis quite rare. So yeah, we're
we're very blessed and fortunate that hewas just so cool and so down to
participate. That's awesome. Yeah,So, Tim, you guys kind of
you kind of take the the originalsongs and rework them how you want to
do it. And then how didthat process go? Do you guys,
(13:48):
do you guys set in a roomand flush it out together or did you
just kind of listen to the youknow, the classic Jesture Brazil songs and
learn them before you started tracking themhere in the studio. What does that
work a little bit? I thinkthe way it worked is the very first
step was Galen recording, and hecan do everything. He can write,
he can sing and direct, hecan play every instrument. So he sent
(14:13):
us a demo track of the basicskeleton and you know, pretty full arrangements
of what he was thinking what thesongs should sound like or what will they
will sound like? And I thinkthe beauty of this process is because we
do have like more than fifteen yearsexperience of relationships, Like we all met
(14:33):
like fifteen, I don't know howmany years ago. Yeah, so we
we have a good like banter andwe know how to collaborate really well together.
So I didn't grow up listening toJust Brazil, but I do play
the guitarist in this movie. Soknowing that I get to put my you
know, knowing that I was giventhe permission to put my personal spin,
(14:56):
my personal artistic spin on Just Brazil'ssongs, Uh, yeah, it was
cool. I didn't really go backtoo much to like delve into just Brazil
music. I just built off whatI heard Galen was doing and thinking how
would I play this? And thenI think that from there we added more
musicians and then today we get toadd you. Yeah, so this whole
(15:20):
flat sist has been like so awesome. Yeah, full circle and that was
killer. By the way, thedrumming today that Jordan did was Jans happened
things We've been working really hard onthem and then it was like, wow,
now they sound amazing, So thankyou Jordan. I mean, get
someone like Jordan on on these tracks, that's a true well to get Adam
and Jordan, like Charlie and Iwere just ecstatics, that's cool. It
(15:43):
was yeah, yeah, yeah,it was enough for them to just stick
around and do a radio show.Thanks, and we are very grateful.
No, it's it goes both waysand it's really cool and it's a testament
to Adam's acumen and skill to saythe absolute least that like, what is
it you like to say about drumsounds in the studio, which a little
(16:03):
bit of background is usually notoriously ifyou're in the studio making a record,
you come in on the first dayand you set around. You don't get
to do it as much anymore becausepeople don't have the time nor the budget,
and also the technology in quotes hasgotten some better where it's not like
it's not like this exactly, buta lot of the times you would know,
(16:23):
the day one of a record,you'd come in and you'd just hit
a snare drum for maybe like anhour to make sure they get it right,
and you work out notch out allthe nasty frequencies and get it perfectly.
But as it could be hours snaredrums times, hours and hours go
by and you're losing your mind,and then by the end of the five
of six seven hours, it allsounds like crap, right because you've made
(16:47):
you got to change the drumheads bythe end, right, or you have
no idea anywhere because all hearing drumsaren't here any band. You're just hearing
ding ding boom boom. Lost it. So my motto here a studio read
is it's home of the ten minutedrum sound. If it's not sounding good
in ten minutes sessions free yeah,yeah, And I literally look at ten
I gotta get it in ten minutes, man, I gotta get and I
(17:08):
kind of get it. Yeah,I got it. It's truly beautiful because
it does. It was like tenminutes up and running, and our process
a little bit was like we hada big we had a big like zoom
meeting a few weeks ago to talkabout like what you guys' mission was and
how the movies the movie is aboutmusic, so you know, the discussion
(17:30):
was about music, and everyone's amusician who's a part of it. So
it's really cool, you know,Like multi media is sort of a cliche
or kind of just like a tacitword to describe it, but it is
like a true multimedia project in asense because the actors involved and the writer
of the film and the director andall of this are also the musician in
musicians in the movie, and soto be able to take it to a
(17:52):
studio and have it sounding like itdoes immediately is a really special thing.
And I feel like a lot oftimes, Adam, I'd love to ask
you, you know, without givingtoo many specifics, but you've worked You've
worked in a lot of film before, and it's it kind of depends on
each project, right, like howthe process goes of recording music for a
(18:15):
movie, right, Yeah, verymuch. So, Yeah, I've only
really done kind of two big filmsas music producer slash music director. But
it was really interesting because they wantedlive bands, and you do a thing
called a pre recorder record record everythingbefore you go on set, so you're
recording a band, preferably with theactors that can play. And in this
(18:41):
case, the way we did iton the movie that we worked on fifteen
years ago, we all got torecord together. And it's an interesting thing.
You know, you're bonding in thestudio and you're having fun and you're
making it sound live. And allthese movies. I was lucky where it
wasn't supposed to sound studio. It'ssupposed to sound live, right. The
challenges make it sound raw and nottoo good because of it sounds too studio.
(19:02):
It doesn't really vibe in the auditoriumwith the club that they're in or
whatever. Yeah, because you haveto make in a studio setting itself.
You have to make the music kindof sound like wherever it's appearing in the
film, right, correct, correct. Then you have some tricks. You
can make stuff sound trash, oryou can throw weird small club reverbs or
auditorium reverbs on. But the performanceand the getting everyone hyped and feeling the
(19:26):
right feeling and the right thing iskey. And we had a great time
on these tunes doing that where Ithink we got the feeling really good and
they're about to go film and acouple of weeks, so we had to
get it and have to have itsound right, and you know, kind
of the deadline was really helpful forus. It's awesome. It always makes
it that way. We were justtalking about before we started recording the show
(19:48):
today. Is like I've always bemoaned, you know, colleagues and friends who
have so much material that's like almostdone or you're afraid to release it,
stuff like that. And I realizeI have probably twenty five Son of Stand
songs now my my project that arelike seventy five or eighty percent done.
Yes you do, yeah, becauseI started a couple of them a couple
(20:10):
years ago. Like what happened ofthat song? Well, they're all real
good, Jordan. Yeah. Well, the cool part is that that's the
beauty of the deadline. Sometimes,you know, I like fall into this
this sort of mantra that deadlines don'tmatter, and they don't a lot of
times until they do, and whenthey do, it really pushes pushes you
(20:30):
to kind of get the best soundingthings out there or the you know,
just just do what you have todo to get it done and get it
done right quickly and usually it comesout. But going back to what you
were saying about the drum sound like, it really was like ten minutes and
we listen to the demos and weplayed along and like it's sure enough.
(20:51):
It sounds like a mixed record.It's like done. So it's a really
really exciting and cool thing. Andwe're gonna spend some of today kind of
exploring the process. And uh,like I said, we can't get too
specific because we stand in solidarity thestriking actors and writers here in Hollywood and
beyond, but we do. We'regonna try to bring you an interesting show
(21:14):
today. Hopefully it's interesting to youlistening where we can kind of like diverge
the paths of music and film andall of the things that are sort of
inside of that. Real quick.Uh, we're about to we're up against
the break. But I just wantedto ask Adam what his favorite color was,
Red, Charlie green, go birds. Okay, See that's that's how
(21:41):
you stretch it out in a radiosecond, sometimes when you have to time
it for your pre records, butanyways, you're listening to the dirt back
culture out here. On ninety sevenone the Freak, we'll be back and
uh, we're gonna have a we'regonna have a really fun show today.
It's gonna get weird if it's notalready weird enough. So we'll see you
in a second.
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