February 16, 2025 • 62 mins
Step into the vibrant world of the music industry with our special guest, seven-time Grammy-winning producer / engineer Vance Powell. From the quiet beginnings in Missouri to the bustling music scene of Nashville, Vance's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, he offers a fresh perspective on the evolving landscape of music production, emphasizing the significance of traditional studio training amidst today's fast-paced digital revolution. Vance's transition from live sound to studio recording showcases the nuanced art of sound engineering, where the authenticity of live performances meets the enduring quality of studio work.
Tune in as we explore the intricate dance between the fleeting magic of live shows and the meticulous craft of studio recordings. Vance unpacks the pressures and rewards of live-stream mixing for dedicated fanbases, contrasting these with the careful scrutiny of every detail in a studio session. With stories from his time on the road as a production manager, Vance provides a candid look at the high-stakes environment of live sound, where every moment counts, and the lessons he carried forward into the studio setting. His experiences underscore the delicate balance of capturing the ephemeral essence of music while crafting something timeless.
In a delightful foray into the world of vintage audio gear and studio setups, Vance shares his experiences at Blackbird Studio and beyond. His passion for top-tier equipment, like the legendary Neve 8078 console, illuminates the impact of quality tools on music production. From humorous road stories involving country music legends to working with up-and-coming talents like Daniel Donato, Vance's tales offer an entertaining glimpse behind the scenes. This episode promises a fascinating blend of humor, technical expertise, and heartfelt reflections on the unpredictable yet rewarding journey of life in the music industry.
Links
- Jay Franze: https://JayFranze.com
- Sputnik Studios: https://sputniksound.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tony Scott (00:05):
Welcome to The Jay Franze Show, a
behind-the-curtain look at theentertainment industry, with
insights you can't pay for andstories you've never heard.
Now here's your host, JayFranze.
Jay Franze (00:33):
Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the show.
I am Jay Franze and this isyour backstage pass to the music
industry.
This week we get to talk with aseven-time Grammy-winning
producer-engineer.
We get to talk with VancePowell.
We'll talk to him about how hestarted in Missouri and ended up
in Tennessee and what thosedifferences are, what it was
(00:56):
like to win his first Grammy andwell, we'll discuss how he came
to build Blackbird Studios forJohn McBride.
Now Vance, he is an amazingtalent and I can't wait to talk
with him tonight.
So if you would like to join in, comment or fire off any
questions, please head over tojayfranze.
com.
Now let's get started.
(01:17):
Let's start with the differencebetween what it was like
starting your career in Missouriversus when you moved to
Tennessee.
Vance Powell (01:25):
Well, the opportunities are the big thing.
You know, the big thing aboutmoving to Nashville is that in
Joplin I was the one guy thatran the studio and then in
Springfield I was one of fiveguys who ran a studio.
And then I moved to Nashvilleand there were 700 people the
thing with Nashville, especiallyback in those days there were
(01:46):
probably 10 guys making all therecords.
There's probably eight or 10producers making all the records
and there was maybe 12 or 15musicians tops in 10 or 12
studios.
Then there was the undercard,which is all the people doing
demos, and those people wouldrise.
Chris Stapleton was a demosinger for a while and he saying
background vocals.
He met his wife singingbackground vocals on her record.
(02:07):
You know he didn't have arecord deal, he just happened to
meet morgan.
She had a record deal.
So I think that's the story.
I think that's great.
But he was a demo singer intown.
Trisha yearwood is a demosinger in town.
So when I got to nashville, Igot to nashville as a touring
engineer and I was like, oh well, I didn't know there was a
(02:28):
difference.
I started going around studiosand it was just like you know,
they looked at me like I was outof my mind.
You're a Lifesound guy.
What do you think?
You can come in here and do asession.
And I'm like you know dudes, Iran a studio for four years and
then I ran another one for acouple of years.
I worked at Luz for a couple ofyears and since, like the last
five or six years, I've beendoing this all the time.
(02:51):
Well, you have to be an intern,take out the trash, work the
desk, and I was too old, I was awhopping 28.
I was too old and too pridefulto do it, so I just didn't.
And then I sort of understoodto some degree all the things
that I should have learned, buta lot of it is very nashville,
(03:14):
but a lot of it is not.
It's just good studio etiquette, and one of the problems with
our industry at the moment isthe coming up through the studio
working under somebody, workingunder multiple people.
That is immensely, immenselypowerful.
That is not happening now.
Somebody wants to be in a studioengineer.
(03:35):
They buy a laptop and they plugin there, you know in the,
their quarter-inch guitar cableon the side and open garage band
.
You know, in a couple hoursthey've recorded a song, and
then a couple hours after thatthey've sent it up to lander and
then they send it to you knowsomebody and it's on itunes, you
know, or spotify or whatever,and so and all of that you know,
(03:57):
learning from doing andlearning from watching and
learning from being yelled at,which happens for sure, is kind
of missing.
I missed a little of that, butwhile I was missing that I was
on the road as productionmanager, front of house mixer or
(04:17):
crew chief, depending on thegig.
I was always sort of the guythat knew all the answers, and
so I kind of learned that thisworld that I'm living in here
right now is relatively safe.
Now, if I open up you know oneof these, you know two
(04:37):
compressors back here behind mesomewhere and I stick my hand in
it, you know I might getshocked and killed.
But the road is way, way, waymore dangerous when you've got a
70 000 pound hang hanging aboveyou and you've got a lot of
people underneath it.
You need to make sure you gotyour.
(04:57):
You know all your i's dottedand your t's crossed, and so
it's kind of a different thing.
It's relatively easy to get ahurt, injured man killed on the
road and it's really hard to doit here in the studio.
Jay Franze (05:12):
You mentioned a lot of things in there.
I want to make sure we cover.
Let's step back to Missouri forone more quick second.
What was the difference betweenthe studios?
Do we have to?
I just want to know what thestudios were like in Missouri.
Vance Powell (05:23):
The studio I came up in had an Allen Heath Burnell
Syncon B console.
It was a 32-channel, 24-businline console, very British,
think, like a little higher-endSoundcraft.
Jay Franze (05:41):
So was it intended to be a live console.
Vance Powell (05:44):
No, no, no, no.
No, it was a studio, is studiostudios too, because it was.
It was the inline desk.
So it was 24 buses, 30, 32returns, but 32 cents.
So really 64 channel back inmix, uh, in that mode.
But when I say like a soundcraft, it's because I'm talking about
the Soundcraft, it's becauseI'm talking about the innards to
(06:05):
get into the nerdy stuffTLS-74s, tls-72s, there's a
whole bunch of chips that areall in a lot of those English
desks.
Therefore they have a similarsound Soundcraft, allen Heath,
(06:25):
for that matter, neotex, ssl,all of those are all kind of the
same chip-based format, notNeve's, not until later, not
until the 5 Series, these andall that.
So it was a very cool, verypowerful desk.
We had a pair of 1-inch16-track MX-70s.
We had a Cypher Digital Shadowsynchronizer which from the time
I came on there in 86 to thetime I left a9, I got it to work
(06:47):
one time.
So that was a that was reallysmart.
Dbx compressors we had onereverb to start out and that was
the dn780, which I have one ofright there because I love it so
much.
And then we had a?
Um, a roland reverb, which Iactually have one of.
(07:09):
It's just up front it's in myrack, sd 3000 or something.
It's the reverb, not the delay.
And then we had some corkreverb with a remote.
It was terrible, but it was hada remote.
That's the only way you couldchange.
It was with the remote like atv right, stupid.
And then we had a couple.
(07:29):
We had like four, five, four,fourteens and some 421s and so
was it a semi-pro clientele itwas not, it was, it was all pro
clientele but it was a lot oflike sudden gospel and local
rock bands, that kind of vibe.
And then I went from there toSpringfield, missouri.
I worked at a club for about ayear.
I was moving there to go towork at Column One which was Lou
(07:53):
Whitney's studio and that had aSoundcraft TS-2440 desk, a pair
of Otari MTR-90s, studer A80radio compact and a b67 radio
compact tape decks and cool outboard has scamper act, which I I
really love and you can findthem around now but we used it
(08:13):
all the time.
It was great.
Some good mics, nice piano,what was the recording platform
there the recording platform wastape, all tape mtr 90.
Everything at this point is tape.
There is no such thing as Imean.
There's a thing called digital,but it's not yet in my purview.
Jay Franze (08:34):
Right.
Vance Powell (08:37):
So I left Springfield in 1992.
I worked there from late 89 to92 is somewhere in there and I
moved to nashville, actuallytill 93.
I moved to nashville here in 93but I started working here in
nashville in 92.
I got a gig as the productionmanager for an house mixer for
(08:57):
timmy winette.
So I moved here and that's whenI started trying to work into
studios here.
I did one session here.
It went really great with a bigA80, you know the big one.
It was great, but it was just alittle studio.
It was up above Dean Cropper'sstudio here in town.
(09:19):
It was upstairs.
I remember where we had tocarry everything upstairs.
Jay Franze (09:23):
So thank you, yeah, it's fun so you moved to
nashville just before I did.
I moved there in 99 from newyork, but what a big difference
now it's definitely a bigdifference.
Now.
I spent 20 years in nashvillebefore before I moved to north
nashville here.
you mentioned something elsethat I want to talk to you about
(09:44):
as well, and that was thetransition between live sound
and studios that used to carry avery big stigma, where, like
you said, people who were on theroad weren't very well accepted
in the studio and vice versa.
Yeah, and I hear nowadays thatthat's changing.
Do you find that change to betrue?
Vance Powell (10:05):
I think it's changing because the live sound
world has moved into our world.
It's very common for artists inlive sound to be recording
background vocals and things fortheir tracks.
You know that's real common tohave Pro Tools operators playing
tracks.
I do the radio broadcasts forlike any TV show, most any TV
(10:28):
show, most from Chris StapletonIn the 10 years that I've been
doing the CMAs.
Or am I go sit in a truck withwhoever's in there and Jay or
Eric or any of the guys that arein there, and every year
they're like you're the only actwith no Pro Tools playback.
(10:49):
I'm like, yeah, never going tobe, not going to happen.
Even doing the Grammys orsomething big.
Chris was on, it was a TV show.
They're like, okay, roll ProTools.
They're just okay, roll protools.
And you know they're justtelling somebody to roll pro
tools assuming it's going tohappen.
(11:10):
And, and you know, like duringthe rehearsals, they you know,
the director calls that andthey're like oh, there is no pro
tools here, she goes.
Well, I don't care, I'm goingto say it to every time.
So roll pro tools.
They're like right, it is whatit is, don't want to miss it on
somebody who has it.
Yeah, don't miss it on somebodyelse.
I don't want to write it down,I'm just going to say it's going
to happen.
So so, yeah, I think it has.
(11:31):
You know, I I was a front ofhouse sound guy first and got
into recording because I likedthe permanence of it.
I I do a lot of like, I do allschooling for the Blackbird
Studio and I went and did alittle run of master classes
down in South America and then Idid one at Sweetwater.
(11:55):
And one of the things I'm alwayssaying is you know, like the
two worlds can interact reallyeasy, but one world has a
different mindset interactreally easy, but one world has a
different mindset.
And, um, the the big deal isthat if the show is not terrible
in other words, the show isgood, the band is good, the mix
(12:15):
is good, the lighting is goodpeople will go away and every
single thing was perfect.
Now you and I that have satbehind the desk know that all
kinds of cues get missed, thingsare wrong.
The guitar was too loud comingout of the chorus, you know, and
it's out of the solo, butnobody remembers.
And the best part is, nobodygets to play it back.
(12:37):
Right, they can only play itback in their head.
And I always find there'sanother thing too like records
that I love sound amazing in myhead, like the experience of
listening to Abbey Road on a$50,000 set of speakers in a
really nice room or any greatrecord is so much ingrained into
(13:00):
my head, how that I feel of itinto my head, how that I the
feel of it.
But no life sound, man, if youwere there and it was there, it
was the best show you've everseen.
You know you don't get to playit back again, period, you just
don't.
But on records it's.
Everything is about thepermanence of it because you're
going to play it again andyou're going to play it again
and you're going to play itagain, you're going to play it
(13:20):
again, you're playing.
And the client, the punters, aswe say, we don't save it, the
english say they're going toplay it over and over and over
again and over again and overagain and over again and form
opinions about it positively ornegatively, like they may really
love this song live and hatethe studio version, love it in
(13:40):
the studio.
The band sucked playing it live.
So I love the studio where wecan work on it and work on it,
but budget's not the way budgetsused to be too, and sometimes
we just can't.
You know, we have to turnrecords in.
At some point somebody's got tostop paying me and stop paying
for the studio and stop payingfor things and then start suing
(14:03):
me if I don't just turn in therecord.
You know what I mean.
But the beauty is that once allthose problems, you've worked
your way through it, you'vesweated, you've done all the
things you do, then the recordcomes out and all is forgotten,
all the little tweaks that wemade that you know we have to do
this Right.
(14:23):
We made that you know we haveto do this right.
You know, on the eighth bar ofthe second chorus, the hi-hat is
to come up a db and then comedown because there's a figure
I'm playing like okay, sure,great, here you go.
How about that?
Oh, that's great, perfect, yeah, so much better.
Now, two days later, I'm likeuh, hey, do you remember that
hi-hat thing?
And they're like no, what doyou mean?
(14:46):
You know what I mean.
So you know it happens.
It's one of those things.
But live, sound guys had itgreat, because they just get to
walk away.
Jay Franze (15:00):
And tomorrow's a brand new day.
Vance Powell (15:02):
Well, with that said, which one of them do you
find to be more challenging?
Well, I'm not doing life soundnow to save my life.
It's too loud, I don't want tobe deaf, it's too much.
I have this little side hustle.
I'm a live stream mixer for theband fish, my side hustle.
Now, all those things I justsaid about how permanence and
you know, and people forget, letme tell you, mix a live stream
(15:25):
for a rabid fan base.
Right, because they don'tforget anything.
They're like.
You know there was mike, soundwasn't right through the whole
that doesn't sound like it didin georgia it doesn't like.
And then like yeah, it's justlike.
And then you know there's thisgreat show in hartford in 98 and
they just they're not really itdoesn't sound like that.
(15:47):
And you know, you're just likeokay, yeah, you know it's, it's
the dead head tapers concept ofthat.
But now more immediate,obviously, and you know we don't
, you don't get to go back, Idon't get to go back and remix
something if I screw it up, it'sjust there it is, it's warts
and all there it is.
(16:13):
What's the workflow like doing alive stream?
Well, it's exactly like doing ashow.
I'm just at the end of athousand foot piece of copper
out in a truck 100 feet, 10 feet, 70 feet, thousand feet away.
So we all have comms between usall.
I am literally just the guytaking what's coming off the
stage microphone wise, try tomix it like a record, but live,
(16:37):
like a live, live record.
We don't go back and fixanything unless something really
exploded or a microphone stopsworking or something.
It's a very, very complex show.
It's going to sound crazy, butwe have 460 microphone preamps
under our deck Because each oneof us has 160 channels patched
(17:04):
on stage.
So there's four consoles.
Each one has 160 of the sameinputs split, and then I have on
top of that another probably 15.
I see no hold on two, four, Ihave another eight that are
(17:25):
audience mics just for me.
So there's talkbacks, there'scomms, there's all this stuff.
There's little tones that shutoff microphones when they're not
standing in front of themicrophone, vocal mic, there's
all kinds of stuff.
So it's very complicated.
Jay Franze (17:43):
So what was the most challenging setup you had on
the road?
Vance Powell (17:49):
Well, this is probably the most
technologically challenged Darksof Clay in 2002.
2002, I was carrying a MidasXO4.
Very big, very heavy.
We started out.
One of the first things we did,we played a show I think in
Knoxville that's a soft seat,what they call a continental
(18:18):
style theater up another set ofstairs, up another set of stairs
into the building, then laid onits back and lifted over a wall
and down on the seats and thenall the way out in the middle.
That took two hours.
So yeah, that's the kind ofhard that I don't want to do
anymore.
Jay Franze (18:38):
No, I don't blame you at all.
That seems crazy to me.
Vance Powell (18:41):
I worked for Tammy Wendat until 1997, and I left
Tammy just a few months beforeshe passed.
That was a great gig for greatstories.
Someday maybe I'll write a bookand there's some really fun
stories in there.
But I went to work for Martinathe summer of 1997.
John was traveling, still withGarth, and that summer he was
(19:06):
going to be in south america andaustralia, and so I went out.
Uh, I filled, I did two jobs.
I was the set carpenter and thefront house mixer for the
summer.
Some days I did one of themreally well and the other one
not very good, and sometimes Idid one of them really badly and
the other one really great.
So, um, you know I didn't getfired or anything.
(19:27):
That was.
That was complicated, a lot ofwork.
It was a lot of work and I wentto work for john and then I
left martina, went to charge ofclay, then came back to martina
for a short period of time, gotfired best thing that ever
happened to me all rightliterally explain got fired.
I got fired and went back towork for charles clay.
I got fired because it was notthe gig for me.
(19:49):
I was doing monitors, not amonitor guy.
Martina and I are great.
I I love her, she's awesome.
I just wasn't.
I wasn't good enough at thatjob to do her.
Basically, yeah, the band, theywere great.
Band was awesome.
They're like, yeah, it was bestever.
But martina was, she was toogood a singer.
(20:09):
And then there's a wholehusband wife thing there, like
when the husband turns things upanderson db from soundcheck,
right you know, and it's likenow the pa's outrun the monitors
.
So, um, yeah, I just, it justwasn't the gig for me, it was.
It was rob bull's gig.
He did it for 22 years.
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
I have either got the biggestthings that's ever happened in
(20:32):
my career are because I got laidoff, I got fired, or I just
defied the odds to get fired andbecame successful out of it.
I mean, I think part of thedeal with this business, you
have to take chances from timeto time.
My good friend Reed Shippenlikes to say if you're not
(20:55):
getting fired every now and thenyou're not trying hard enough.
And every time I get fired froma gig I learn something Like I
learn oh, I shouldn't do that,or I'm glad I did that.
I went back to work for chargeof clay and later that year we
(21:15):
started doing recording like Iwould just call it guerrilla
recording.
We had a little like high 12track on the jazz drive you know
, like digital recorders.
And so we started doing demos,like in showers and things, and
recording samples and just doingall kinds of stuff.
And then, I guess about a yearlater in 2000, they asked me to
(21:37):
make a Christmas record withthem and I did that for 11
months and that was my firstGrammy award.
So record called the 11th Hourand you know it was great.
Jay Franze (21:52):
What was it like to win your first Grammy.
Vance Powell (21:54):
Well, you know, the Grammys were yesterday, by
the way, right, yeah, and I lostone yesterday.
Jay Franze (22:02):
So you'll have to tell me what it's like to lose
one as well, then.
Vance Powell (22:05):
Oh, I've lost a whole bunch.
I've lost a lot of them.
I've lost way more than winning.
I've got a wall of losingplaques back there.
Yeah, I think I've beennominated like 22 times and won
seven.
So there you go.
The story is, I was at home onthe Sunday of of the grammy says
(22:26):
before they broadcasted on theinternet, right, and I got a
phone call and it was the leadsinger for jars of clay dan has
some time and he said to me hegoes.
Well, from this point on,you're a grammy award-winning
engineer.
And I was like whoa, wow, sothe record won, he goes, yeah,
he goes.
So I want you to think aboutwhat you're doing right now and
(22:46):
remember it for the rest of yourlife what were you doing?
I go, okay, he goes.
So what are you doing?
I go, well, I'm spraying dogshit off my porch there you go.
Jay Franze (22:58):
It had snowed.
Vance Powell (23:00):
Puts it all in perspective right there our
little, our little, uh, trousersdo not like to go out in the
wiener, deep snow and poop, andso they had just gone over and
pooped on the porch, and now thesnow had melted and I'm
spraying it off.
There you go.
Well, my first one.
Jay Franze (23:19):
So so it puts it all in perspective.
Vance Powell (23:21):
So there you go, it definitely.
I mean, the reality is man,that's the, you know, that's,
that's a really great one.
Jay Franze (23:27):
Uh, my second was for a best engineered album
before you get to the second oneokay, let's follow up on what
it was like to lose one oh well,see, that's the deal.
Vance Powell (23:38):
I didn't lose one until I won the next one, all.
And then I lost three in oneday.
So I won one, the big one,which is Best Engineering Album
for the Raconteurs.
I lost one for Best Rock Record, which was the Raconteurs
Consolers.
I lost one for Buddy Guy, andthen there was one other one.
(23:59):
There were four.
I was up for four that year andwon one.
So yeah, you go.
Oh well, consolation prize, hey.
Jay Franze (24:07):
So at that point did you expect to win.
Vance Powell (24:10):
No, no, no, no, no , no, not at all.
You never expect to win Ever.
Jay Franze (24:18):
So if you're not expecting it, then it probably
doesn't hurt as much.
Vance Powell (24:22):
Or does it?
I got to be honest with you,man.
You win one After that.
What do you I mean?
The best part about it is thatthe Grammys, unlike some other
awards that will remain nameless, are peer-reviewed.
Your peers are voting for you.
(24:44):
That's a big deal.
It's not just random people whocan buy a ticket or some sort
of America's Got Talent.
People call in.
You know it's nothing like that.
You have 11 votes for theGrammys for 100 categories, and
you have to pick threecategories to put your 11 votes.
(25:07):
So you know I can't vote onbest tihano record.
First of all, I don't knowabout it and secondly, I can't
do it because I'm not going togive up my vote for something I
care about.
But winning is awesome.
It's, it's a great feeling.
Losing is like I'm glad,somebody you know, hopefully
(25:29):
it's somebody you like.
Jay Franze (25:30):
Yeah, a friend of yours.
Vance Powell (25:33):
Or a band or an artist you like.
I have lost one to somebody Iwas not a big fan of.
I won't tell you who it was,but you know, and it was one of
those ones you go really Lostone to Taylor Swift, so can't
argue with that.
And I lost one to Adele.
Jay Franze (25:53):
I was surprised, taylor Swift didn't do too well.
Vance Powell (25:59):
You know, some years are people's years.
It's just one of those things.
Jay Franze (26:04):
Yeah Well, let's go back to Blackbird for a second,
because it started, you know,small.
It was John's pet project thatblew up into a complex.
Vance Powell (26:18):
So originally it started out while I was working
on the Jar of Clay record.
He started calling me andsaying hey, on your way home
from the studio, come by thehouse.
So I'd go by the house, he'dhave some amazing bottle of wine
, and sometimes martina wouldcook and we would sit out back
by his pool, which is gorgeous,and we talked about building the
studio that he wanted to buildand first of all it was going to
(26:40):
be on his tennis court, it wasgoing to be a pool house, and
then no, that's not going towork.
He found this building, whichwas a studio called creative
recording, and he bought it onhis birthday and then we started
.
You know, he started, he boughtthis console, started getting
it together and then he calledme.
(27:05):
I was on the road with George'sclaim.
He's like I need you to come towork here, I need your help.
You know you got to build thisroom for me.
So I did.
I had kind of done some of thisanyway, studio building part of
it.
Not at that level, believe me,but you know, once you build one
, you just keep.
You know, just keep bigger andbigger and bigger.
It was supposedly supposedlyhard word for me to say
(27:25):
supposedly supposed to be a 1.5million dollar build.
He paid $500,000 for the studio,I think the building, and then
a couple hundred thousand torenovate the building and he had
bought this console and allthis.
And at some point we boughtthis beautiful arnoir to put in
(27:49):
a closet to hold microphones.
So he'd started to buy somemicrophones.
That arnoir lasted three monthsand then we had to build a room
with cabinets in it and then wehad to build another room with
cabinets in it and then weexpanded on the studio and built
(28:11):
it on the mic block that yousee now, which is half of it,
because the other half is upfront where we built the
original cabinet.
So yeah, it just kind of gotout of control.
You know, it was crazy time I Icame off the road so I wasn't
away from home and I ended upworking 80-hour weeks.
Yeah, nearly killed myself andthose around me, but you know it
(28:35):
was a good learning time.
Jay Franze (28:38):
The killing yourself part.
I can definitely understandYou're working 80 hours a week.
It takes you away from yourwife and your family probably
puts a strain on all of that.
Vance Powell (28:46):
I worked 63 days straight.
Once my wife told john, likehe's going with me, we're going
on vacation.
Oh, he won't be back tillmonday, and so we went, and we
went to this cabin up in themountains in pigeon forge or
whatever at gatlinburg yeah andI think we never left it.
We walked down the hill once toget dinner and then we had
(29:10):
bought some steaks and thingsand had a grill and all that.
And when I got back on Monday,by Monday evening, I was driving
home.
I was so sick, I had fever andit ended up I caught pneumonia.
I was just so run down that uh,uh, you know it got me.
So I was out for another week,which is great.
Jay Franze (29:32):
got some sleep, right but um, and you know what,
the studio didn't blow up.
Vance Powell (29:37):
It didn't blow up, it didn't die.
It's not.
It's not not the greateststudio in the world, because I
was gone for a week, but there'sa lot of pressure there to make
sure everything is, you know,best to best, to best to best
you know.
Jay Franze (29:51):
Well, let's talk about that for a second.
Did you realize when youstarted that this was going to
be one of the best studios inthe world?
Vance Powell (29:57):
I knew that's what John wanted.
Jay Franze (30:00):
Did you think you were capable?
Vance Powell (30:03):
Oh, yeah and no, you know what being capable
means.
Being capable means I'm okaywith taking the blame.
That's what capable is.
Can I do the job?
I believe I can, and I believethat if I fuck it up, I can say
(30:24):
I'm sorry I didn't get that done.
That's what being capable is,you know, and not pointing
fingers.
So, yeah, sure, I'm pretty smart.
I mean not to sound like asmarty pants, but you know I'm
pretty well versed in a lot ofthings, and even my time not
(30:47):
working in the Nashville systemto some degree, my touring
experience meant that I couldsolve problems very fast.
A very fast problem solver andin the studio business, a mime
is money, as Billy Crystal oncesaid.
But yeah, time is everything.
So you don't want to be down,you don't want anything.
(31:09):
I worked at Blackbird from 2002until 2010.
And in my time there, thateight years, there was never a
single day ever given to aclient because a Pro Tools
system didn't work, a consoledidn't work, a piece of gear
didn't work, or we had to justgive them the day.
Now, some of that was the factthat we had 25 and 47s, you know
(31:36):
, and some of it was the factthat we built infrastructure
that allowed people to throw uscurveballs, and then some of it
was we had crazy but relativelyaccomplished tech until we had a
great and accomplished tech.
So you know, those things arereally important.
Jay Franze (31:56):
You mentioned those microphones.
How important was that miclocker to the clients that were
coming in?
Vance Powell (32:02):
It was very important.
Yeah, the mic locker, the space, the console.
I mean the 8078.
It's funny because when the8078 was bought we had a little
powwow with some of my friendsjekir king and I and a couple of
(32:22):
people in town because therewas a guy in England who was
modding, doing a little bit ofmods on the 78.
Now Fred Hill had done a lot ofgreat mods and Fred Hill was a
great guy.
We did not bring Fred in.
I have worked with Fredbuilding the Jack White desk and
(32:44):
Fred's great.
He's crotchety, kind of anasshole, but he's really great
at what he does.
We didn't bring him in.
We should have.
I wish we would have.
Fred had a lot of mods, but oneof the mods was that the uh, the
8078 had a front rear panner.
It's just part of that era ofdesk that people thought that
quad might happen or that quadwould get used in film, which
(33:08):
you did later, sort of.
But we want to take the frontrear panner and change it into a
send to tape and then make thebait fader a return to tape.
I now think in my opinion,that's a mistake.
That was a mistake.
We shouldn't have done it.
Some of the other mods thatwere done to the desk were
(33:29):
really great.
Direct out of the preamp wasgreat, replacing all of the chip
modules in the console, becausethe 8078 is not all discrete,
ours is, ours, blackbird is, itis all 440 modules, all discrete
transistors.
Those are were all really greatmods.
But I'm not sure now, havingworked on a bunch of 68s and 48s
(33:54):
and 38s, that that data mod wasa really smart idea.
Jay Franze (33:59):
But it's too late, it's done, but why?
What changed your mind?
Vance Powell (34:14):
Well, getting away from blackbird and working in a
bunch of other studios aroundthe world, I'm going oh this was
a good idea, I should have justleft it like this.
And then having to go back inthere and work.
So you know, I always freakthose guys out the kids, as I
call them because I flip thefaders over on the api, on the
(34:35):
legacy pluses, so that the smallfaders are monitors and the
large faders are sent to tape,because when I'm making a record
I'm sort of mixing to therecorder, because that's how we
used to do a tape machine rightright and so.
But that blows their mind.
They're like don't you want thetape back here?
I'm like, no, I don't want itup there.
(34:56):
Well, what if you bump it?
Like, okay, what about bumping?
You know it's right, you knowthis ways people work.
I have my SSL here.
This is a SS SSL 6000.
When I record, I record withthe main faders to tape, so
small faders for the direct lineor whatever.
Jay Franze (35:16):
I like the SSL boards.
The 4000 was always my favorite.
Vance Powell (35:21):
This is a 6, but I've modded the shit out of it
so it doesn't have the filmmatrix anymore in it.
It has an API summon.
Oh nice, nice.
Api 2520 is the whole wholedeal.
Jay Franze (35:33):
Transformers, all that well, before we leave
Blackbird, what can you tell meabout what I know of as
Massenburg's room?
Vance Powell (35:42):
well, I, I wired all that.
That's an idea that George hadhad forever, first of all when
george was working with littlefeet and, uh, linda ronstadt,
little feet rehearsed out atlucas sound uh, not lucas sound,
skywalker ranch, sorry.
And um, george built somegantonio, you know, like skyline
(36:05):
gobo's.
He made some gobo's out of themso they could sort of close off
the sound stage a bit, and sohe wanted to build a room of
just that massive diffusion.
Basically, he and john johnsaid I want to build the
greatest mixer I've ever made.
He's like I got an idea for youand then they off to the races.
(36:27):
And so the big thing I can tellyou is that room is very heavy.
There is 90 tons of MDF on thefloor that's floating on the
floor, which is rubber, that'sfloating on a one-foot-thick
(36:54):
concrete slab, that's floatingon a foot of rock wool and
plywood that's floating on topof a concrete slab on top of
nine inches of lime gravel.
So that whole entire room is aroom inside itself, it's.
It was a 40 by 30 room and thenthe walls came in.
(37:19):
The roof diffusion is uh, uh,extension.
Basically, just, he just pickeda piece of that, the big wall
diffusion, and then scaled itand then they built it like a
cabinet and there's probably aton of rock wool in that ceiling
which is crazy to think about.
And then in the corners abovethe sea in blackbird, you can
(37:45):
see these sort of these roundpieces.
Those were vinyl mat, like theweighted mass diffusers, where
they they vibrate at a certainfrequency.
They absorb a frequency becauseit's found in the corners.
There was a, a bump at 93cycles, so they tuned those to
(38:06):
those.
You take the bump out and thenoriginally we had a big icon, a
Digi icon, in there.
Right and it was a 16 channelcenter section, 16 channel and
after about five minutes ofbeing there, george was like
this is the dumbest thing ever.
You know like I have to gocompletely out of the sweet spot
(38:36):
to mix on faders be so muchbetter from just all you know,
like just this piece.
So I knew these guys who doconstruction work or metal work.
They build sets.
They came in and they built acustom wheels and carts for the
center section.
Then we built a custom cart andwheels for the two fader banks
and we made it so the wholething could just roll around,
because it's just Ethernet cable, right, it's the whole thing.
(38:57):
It could just roll around.
And that's how George's roomended up being.
It's a brilliant room forlistening to music.
It's the best listening room intown period.
It takes a little bit ofgetting used to to mix in
because it has no compression.
(39:20):
Now, what I mean by that is ifI come in here and I have ATC
110s right and I crank thesethings up, I can feel the room,
the air, the volume in the roomcompress.
We know that big monitorfeeling right.
Yes, sir, that room doesn'thave it anywhere, doesn't matter
how many speakers you put in it, either it just gets really
(39:42):
loud, you get the low end, youjust don't get the sensation of
it pressing on you, and that'sbecause it's just so broken up.
Jay Franze (39:52):
So, with that said, did the room accomplish what you
wanted it to accomplish?
Vance Powell (39:57):
It's still there, still working.
Jay Franze (40:01):
Well, you say it's the best room to listen to music
in and it's a tough room orchallenging room to mix in.
Vance Powell (40:07):
Now I haven to been in there since they've done
the utmost.
The only complaint I ever hadand this is not a complaint is
that there was too much floor.
Too much floor because it's ait's a big room, you know, it's
a pretty big room.
There's a lot of floor.
So whenever I mixed in there, Iput carpet in, I put a couple
(40:29):
big rugs.
Now, that being said, I don'tlike hardwood floor studios.
I have carpet in here.
I just, I just don't.
I don't like that reflection,right, but it's just me you know
I everywhere I go, I'll say hey, do you know this kind of area,
right?
Can we put it down?
Can I roll around?
Do you know that it's got anarea rug?
Can we put it down?
Can I roll around on it?
You know, like I just don'tlike it, but when you put the
(40:51):
carpet down in there it made mefeel a little more.
It didn't feel like there wasso much energy off the floor
behind me, because there is noenergy behind you.
I mean, if I was to turn to myback wall here right and talk to
it, I can hear it.
That wall here right and talkto it, I can hear it.
(41:12):
That doesn't happen atblackburn, yeah, so I'd have to
like you know it's a big bunchof back here, right, but I can.
If I talk to it, I can hear it.
If I turn to my console andtalk this way, I can hear it.
If, blackbird, you don't hearit, it just disappears, it just
goes away.
Jay Franze (41:31):
Yeah, it's a freaky feeling.
Vance Powell (41:33):
And that is a little.
That's a little weird.
It's not like an anechoicchamber, though I've been in one
of those.
That is really weird, but youhear it.
You just hear it broken up intopieces.
It's crazy.
Jay Franze (41:49):
The first time I stepped in that room.
It made me feel a littleclaustrophobic too.
Vance Powell (41:54):
Yeah, there's an eye thing that happens with the
MDF, because they sealed it andthe MDF soaked up the sealer and
it looks like there's twoshadows and your brain goes, I
don't know.
Jay Franze (42:13):
But you don't have to be in there very long to get
used to it.
Yeah, I've never mixed anythingin that room, but I've been in
the room.
I was there for the grandopening of the room.
It was.
It made me feel a littleclaustrophobic, but yeah, the
original grand opening in like2004 yeah so was I one more time
that her paths have crossed ohyes, I'm sorry and George.
Vance Powell (42:33):
He's a genius too he is, he's a, he's a piece of
work, that one you know he'sfunny yeah, he's great, he's
really great.
I I worked with him so much forso long there and then when I
left blackbird he had sort oftaken the gig at mcdill and we
(42:55):
didn't see each other for likesix years.
And uh, this is one of thosecrotchety george things.
I ran into him at as maybe 2017, maybe 2017, maybe something
like that.
I said, hey, george, it's sogood to see you and he goes.
You need to make bettersounding records.
And I said, well, at least I'mmaking records.
And he goes touche how are youYep?
Jay Franze (43:22):
that's George.
Vance Powell (43:23):
And I was like I'm good and you, ah, I'm just.
You know I'm doing this andthat you know.
Jay Franze (43:28):
And I was like I'm good and you, ah, I'm just.
You know I'm doing this and, ah, you know I spoke with George
on a platinum panel over at.
Vance Powell (43:35):
Webster College or .
Jay Franze (43:35):
Webster University over in St Louis.
St Louis, thank you.
And we were talking on thatpanel and he was busting my
cookies because my wife was justabout to have our first baby
and he's like why are you here?
Yeah, you shouldn't be here.
Wife was just about to have ourfirst baby and he's like why
are you?
Here you know, yeah, you should, you shouldn't be here, yeah
well, says the guy that you know.
Vance Powell (43:53):
And right, yeah, we can't.
Yeah, I, I saw him.
Uh, I saw him.
The last time I've seen him isat uh mark rubles, a memorial
service, and uh, yeah, yeah thatwas sad.
And yeah, very sad.
Jay Franze (44:10):
Mark was on the show right before that.
Matter of fact I was justgetting ready to go see him
perform in Chicago, I think theweekend it was supposed to be.
I think that weekend or theweekend before.
Vance Powell (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, you know George, george was really
shell shocked because you knowGeorge and Albini had a famous
conversation at Tape Op one yearthat I happened to be at.
It was unbelievable.
They were just going after eachother.
It was crazy.
But they had grown to be prettygood friends and he spoke to
(44:46):
Steve on Wednesday and thenSteve like passed on Thursday
night, thursday morning you knowhe was coming to, he was coming
to, he was a speaker on thememorial because he knew Mark
really well.
I don't know that one, you knowlast year was a tough one man.
Yeah, trust me, last year, lastyear, for me, I mean personally
(45:06):
, was a lot of loss.
I lost my dad, I lost Mark, welost Mark, I should say Another
good friend that I've known mywhole life, dancer got him of
(45:33):
records for me.
It was a fun guy, had a coupleof funny uh, austin, um,
southwest together, uh, passedaway.
I could just I didn't even knowbecause, you know, not in his
world and our dog.
So you know it's one of thosethings.
My dad obviously was thebiggest one, but but you know
it's that time.
I mean I hate to say it, I'vejust I've come to that time in
my life, that friends and familyare going to are going to pass
(45:55):
and uh, you know, when you'reyoung and run around acting
stupid and they're the onestelling you to be, be careful,
be careful.
I'm that guy now you know.
Jay Franze (46:05):
I only laugh because I'm right there with you, buddy
.
I am getting older and olderand older.
Just had another birthday andI'm thinking to myself man, I've
now become that guy, I'm I amthat one I am that guy.
Vance Powell (46:17):
I have a 40 year old daughter.
Jay Franze (46:19):
You know like yeah, you want to hear crazy I.
I have a two-year-old daughter,two a 10 and a 14.
Vance Powell (46:30):
I started late.
Yeah Well, best of luck.
Jay Franze (46:37):
Thanks, buddy.
Well, hey, as we start to winddown, I need you to go back to
something you said earlier, andcan you tell us just at least
one story that you said wascrazy from the Tammy Wynette
days?
Vance Powell (46:50):
Oh my gosh, Some of them.
This is by far not the craziestone, but it's pretty crazy.
Every 4th of July Tammy Wynettewould play this little tiny
stage in the corner of abaseball field in Malden,
missouri, now Mal malden,missouri, you don't have to go
look it up, it's it's kind ofabove the booty.
(47:12):
All right, it's above thearkansas border.
It was the home of her husband,george ritchie, so we played
that show one year with jerryreed.
Now we played a bunch of showswith jerry reed year.
They had shared the samebooking agent, so Jerry would
open and then Tammy would playand whatever.
So Jerry Reed came and openedthe show.
(47:33):
Now this ball field and it's aball field, like a Little League
ball field People would justbring their chairs and set up
(47:55):
and then watch the show and thenafter it, behind the ball field
, behind the stage, was aracetrack, not a racetrack, an
airfield, like just airstrip.
They'd shoot off fireworks,okay.
But to get in there there'sbasically two roads in one runs
right by the ballpark and oneway down that the police don't
want you going down to go there,so they're not letting people
go down that way.
There's one way in and one waydown that the police don't want
you going down to go there, sothey're not letting people go
down that way.
There's one way in and one wayout.
Parking was over across atanother ball field, all right.
(48:16):
So after the show we get done,we throw our junk under our oh,
I think we had a truck thenThrow it in the truck and then
we went to go find the runner,to go to our hotel to clean up.
Now the hotel is down the sameroad that everybody else is
trying to come and go, but we'retrying to get out of there
before the fireworks happen,okay, or while the fireworks are
(48:38):
going on.
So I go, hey, where's therunner?
My tour manager says, hey,runner's up, back van door's
open.
I go, great, I go out there andsure enough, there's a van and
the driver door is open.
I get in this backside door, mymonitoring engineer, my tech
and lighting guy get in.
We slow the door and about twoseconds later Jerry Reed jumps
(49:03):
in the front seat and goesyou're going to the hotel and
we're going.
Yeah, it's good.
Puts in in gear, closes thedoor and out the back we go.
And I'm thinking, becausejerry's bus wasn't there, I'm
thinking it must be a hotel,whatever.
Now on the radio at this momentin time he's got like wsm and
it's the news and they're like.
I don't remember the singer, soI'm going to paraphrase I think
(49:26):
it was genie sealy.
But they're like country singerJeannie Seeley was hospitalized
tonight for exhaustion andJerry's like oh, that's the
biggest fucking shit ever.
This is the easiest job ever,because what we do, we walk on
stage, we sing for 30 minutesand then we walk off.
It's the easiest job ever.
She's on drugs or drunk orsomething.
That's the deal.
You know.
You're not canceling a showbecause you're exhausted.
(49:46):
That's BS.
He's just railing and we're justsitting in the back going.
Okay, sure he goes.
How the hell do I get out ofhere?
We're like down that road.
He goes.
Well, there's too many cars.
He goes.
What's that over there?
I go.
Well, that's a golf course.
He goes, perfect, goes off-road,cross the golf course, cross
the cart path, cross the littleroad, another little road onto
(50:06):
the golf course to the next one,and he's coming up to there's
like a creek.
He pulls over onto where nowhe's bypassed maybe two blocks
it's not that much Two fairways,but he's driven across them,
which is awesome.
He rolls down the window and hepulls up to this line of cars
and he goes hey, I'm Jerry Reed,let me in.
The guys are, oh Jerry.
They kind of pull over.
(50:27):
He squeezes in and goes rightover this little bridge, right
down the road, kind of in thishalfway, ditch down this
driveway, pulls up in front ofthe hotel and he says you guys
out, we get out, close the door.
He leaves.
I guys out, we get out, closethe door, he leaves.
I never saw him again in my life.
Actually, true story.
He leaves.
Okay, we go to the hotel, we goupstairs, we get a room, we
(50:48):
shower.
I come out, my radio's goingoff.
So my tour manager goes where'sthe van?
I'm like, well, I don't knowit's.
What do you mean?
You don't know, because whereare you?
I'm going to hotel, how'd youget there?
I got jerry reed drove us therunner's still.
Jay Franze (51:00):
Jerry reed, take the van.
Yeah, he goes.
Where are you?
I'm going to hotel how'd youget there?
Vance Powell (51:02):
I got, jerry reed drove us.
The runner still.
Did jerry reed take the van?
Yeah, he goes.
Oh, man, he goes.
The runner saw somebody get inthe van and leave and it's got
the police looking for it.
I go.
Well, jerry took it.
He goes.
Your time, jerry took the van.
I go.
Yeah, he goes.
All right, he goes.
Can you go see if it's out back?
I go look and out back.
Sure enough there's the van,not locked up it's keys on the
seat.
He just got in his bus and left.
(51:24):
So you know that was fun that'sawesome I saw some interesting
stuff, for sure what are youworking on now?
right now I am finishing adaniel donato record.
He's a young kid from here inNashville that I first saw
playing on the street inNashville at 14.
(51:46):
He is a gunslinging telly speeddemon kid but he's got a little
band called Daniel Donato'sCosmic Country.
They're kind of a country jamband.
They play pretty cosmic country.
You know what cosmic means.
They play three-hour sets andthey're really good.
(52:07):
So I'm working on that.
I worked on that today.
This last year I did a LittleFeet record.
I produced a Little Feet recordthat was cool.
That'll be coming out hereMarch.
I did the 10th record for one ofmy favorite bands and group of
people in the world, a bandcalled the inspector clouzot.
(52:27):
They're from gascony, france,and they play rock music with a
drummer and a guitar player.
They're on the bass playerrecords.
That's their record label.
It's pretty, pretty hilariousand they're really good.
They're also organic farmers,which is a whole other part of
their thing, and they're thebest hosts ever.
(52:49):
My wife and I and my daughterspent a week with them in France
and we ate some of the bestfood ever and it all came out of
their farm.
You know, just like fresh.
Jay Franze (52:59):
All right.
How did you get hooked up withthem in the first place?
Vance Powell (53:04):
They wrote me a letter and they were like we
really like what you do withJack White and wonder if you
would work with us.
And I played one song and Iliterally wrote them back like
immediately.
And then they wrote back likeoh, we didn't think we'd get an
answer.
I'm like okay, let's do it.
Jay Franze (53:24):
Because it was cool and so, yeah, love them, so does
france put out good music.
Vance Powell (53:29):
In general, they make better wine all right, fair
enough and cheese and bread.
There's a bunch of great frenchbands, I mean, there's the
inspector clouzot you just don'thear much.
Jay Franze (53:41):
Yeah, beyond that I meanouseau.
You just don't hear much.
Vance Powell (53:43):
Yeah, beyond that, I mean.
Jay Franze (53:45):
Or at least you don't hear much that makes it
over to here.
That's why I'm asking what'sthe scene like there?
Vance Powell (53:51):
They're French, Actually, to be honest with you
all.
Kidding aside, Phoenix aregreat.
My favorite French band is Air.
They do a lot of coolsoundtrack stuff.
They're great.
You've heard them.
You just didn't know you'veheard them.
Jay Franze (54:06):
All right, let's talk about your room there.
I mean, you've got your ownstudio now, right?
Vance Powell (54:10):
Yep, well, I have for 20-some years.
I built this, not this room,but the old Sputnik.
I moved into it in 2006.
So next year will be 20 years.
Jay Franze (54:24):
All right, so we see the SSL 6000 there and we see
all that gear behind you.
Yeah, what kind of live room dowe have?
Vance Powell (54:34):
My live room is it's like 19 by 22.
It's got a 15-foot boltedceiling.
Then there's a couple of boothsthere's one, two, three booths
here and then I use my hallway.
I have a B room up above thisover here, over there, over
there, and we use it.
(54:54):
You know, when we're trackingif we need ISOs.
Yeah, there's more gear overhere.
You can't see a bunch of tubegear 300, 610s, rcas, old
bertrand berlant sorry, mike pre.
And I've got this cool old 1969pv pa600 mixer with big bake
(55:18):
light knobs and old germaniumtransistors.
Yeah, I got a whole.
I got a whole lot of big grabbything and there's some you know
, my priest rca mic pre's rightthere from uh, late 40s.
Those are ba11s neves.
My console has no pre's ohreally it's a film desk so it
(55:40):
only has dual line, which isactually great because I get two
inputs for one all the time,like, if I want to use a like
perfect example is like b3 andwe're and roads.
Okay, well, I have a submixerover here, I have a neotech
mixer right there.
Uh, I submix the b3 into twochannels.
(56:01):
I put it on the A input and Iput the Rhodes on the B, so I
use the same faders on the deskand switch between them.
So it's kind of cool, but mostof the time, you know I figured
out, you know the SSL theinteresting thing you've used
one.
You know you put it in mix tomix right.
It's not really the coolest wayto do it at all.
(56:29):
The only thing you gain byhitting the mix button is the
panner down here at the bottom,this channel strip.
It's the only thing you gain.
What you lose, without jumpingthrough hoops, is the ability to
send things to buses, becauseyou have to float and all that,
which means you lose the channel.
Now, if I leave it in record,or basically I put it in replay,
(56:52):
which is like record, but youget the studio monitors right,
you can talk to the studiomonitors and you can send things
right to the studio monitors ifI put it in replay and then I
flip the inputs.
So the tape inputs now see theline input and then a second
input which is normally the micpre.
(57:15):
Mics don't have any mic pres, soit's all lines, those I patch
into and I get another 32 or 64inputs.
So these faders, the mainfaders now, will send to the
buses and stereo.
It'll send to all three stereosand all 32 buses, any of those
(57:37):
buses, right.
And all these returns are nowparallel returns or aux returns
that don't get automation.
Really, really, really great.
And I've gone through thelisting tests.
There's not enough differenceto hear the difference, not
really.
Jay Franze (57:57):
That's very, very cool.
Vance Powell (58:00):
So I re-switched the whole console.
We recapped it two years ago.
Yeah, it's got a lot of mods.
Jay Franze (58:09):
What part of the city is it in?
Vance Powell (58:11):
We're in Berry Hill.
Jay Franze (58:12):
Okay, so you're right over there.
Vance Powell (58:14):
Peter Frampton's, my neighbor.
Jay Franze (58:15):
Oh nice.
Vance Powell (58:16):
Paul Moak three doors down Frampton across the
street.
Jay Franze (58:20):
So what street are you on?
Vance Powell (58:22):
I'm on East Iris.
Jay Franze (58:24):
Okay, so you're right there.
Vance Powell (58:25):
I'm by the police station.
Yeah, I'm just by the policestation.
Jay Franze (58:31):
Just so everybody knows.
Vance Powell (58:33):
Just so everybody knows I'm right by the police
station.
Jay Franze (58:39):
I love it.
All right, sir, we do thisthing here we call Unsung Heroes
, where we take a moment toshine the light on somebody who
works behind the scenes orsomebody who may have supported
you along the way.
Is there anybody you would liketo shine a little light on?
Vance Powell (58:51):
all the guys who have assisted me do you have any
regular assistant?
I do.
I am blessed by having fivereally great assistants.
My first one is a young kid,actually he's six.
I am blessed by having fivereally great assistants.
My first one is a young kid,actually he's six.
Jeremy Cottrell, who is now oneof the chief educators at
Blackbird, was my firstassistant.
He's been there now 25 years.
(59:13):
My second assistant is a youngkid named Joshua Vance Smith.
He worked with me with JackWhite for a long time.
He's a grammy winner.
Uh, after I uh stopped workingwith jack because I was too busy
which is actually the truth uh,he stayed on for quite a while
until the, the last record hedid, which I think it's called
(59:33):
boarding house reach.
That was.
That was josh's last record,and now he's building studios
for a guy here in town and hashis own and all that.
My third assistant was MarkPatacci, who's a really great
guy still making records, but hedid Jason Isbell's Southeastern
, which is a Grammy winner.
(59:54):
I had a young kid from Englandcome for a couple of years with
me named Eddie Spear.
He's gone on to do a lot of bigstuff.
Brady Carlyle he's a multipleGrammy winner.
And then Michael Fahey was myassistant for eight years and he
left a couple years back, twoyears ago now, just now, he has
(01:00:14):
been working on his own, youknow doing the thing, building
up the you know doing the deal,and he's worked with warren
treaties, worked a whole bunchof other people.
And then my current assistantis, uh, cohen terry, and uh,
I've asked more of him in someways because I took him on the
road with me when we go do fish,so you know him, and I just got
(01:00:35):
back from cancun yesterday.
So, yeah, which was you?
know, not bad gig for him yeah,we, we worked four days, well,
we were five days.
Well, we worked six days, butwe were there seven, so we
worked a little bit on two ofthe days.
Um, then the other four dayswere shown.
But yeah, so he goes out anddoes this little weird road
(01:00:55):
thing that I've been doing alllast year, last two years so,
and we don't work a lot maybe 30, 40 shows a year.
Jay Franze (01:01:03):
A big thanks to Vance for taking the time to
share his stories with us and,as always, thank you for taking
the time to hang with me here.
I really do appreciate it.
If you know anyone that wouldenjoy this episode, please be
sure to share it.
You can do that and find thelinks to everything mentioned
over at jayfranze.
com/ episode 118.
(01:01:24):
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you next week.
Tony Scott (01:01:30):
Thanks for listening to The Jay Franze Show.
Make sure you visit us atjayfranze.
com Follow, connect and sayhello.
Welcome to The Jay Franze Show, a
behind-the-curtain look at theentertainment industry, with
insights you can't pay for andstories you've never heard.
Now here's your host, JayFranze.
Jay Franze (00:33):
Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the show.
I am Jay Franze and this isyour backstage pass to the music
industry.
This week we get to talk with aseven-time Grammy-winning
producer-engineer.
We get to talk with VancePowell.
We'll talk to him about how hestarted in Missouri and ended up
in Tennessee and what thosedifferences are, what it was
(00:56):
like to win his first Grammy andwell, we'll discuss how he came
to build Blackbird Studios forJohn McBride.
Now Vance, he is an amazingtalent and I can't wait to talk
with him tonight.
So if you would like to join in, comment or fire off any
questions, please head over tojayfranze.
com.
Now let's get started.
(01:17):
Let's start with the differencebetween what it was like
starting your career in Missouriversus when you moved to
Tennessee.
Vance Powell (01:25):
Well, the opportunities are the big thing.
You know, the big thing aboutmoving to Nashville is that in
Joplin I was the one guy thatran the studio and then in
Springfield I was one of fiveguys who ran a studio.
And then I moved to Nashvilleand there were 700 people the
thing with Nashville, especiallyback in those days there were
(01:46):
probably 10 guys making all therecords.
There's probably eight or 10producers making all the records
and there was maybe 12 or 15musicians tops in 10 or 12
studios.
Then there was the undercard,which is all the people doing
demos, and those people wouldrise.
Chris Stapleton was a demosinger for a while and he saying
background vocals.
He met his wife singingbackground vocals on her record.
(02:07):
You know he didn't have arecord deal, he just happened to
meet morgan.
She had a record deal.
So I think that's the story.
I think that's great.
But he was a demo singer intown.
Trisha yearwood is a demosinger in town.
So when I got to nashville, Igot to nashville as a touring
engineer and I was like, oh well, I didn't know there was a
(02:28):
difference.
I started going around studiosand it was just like you know,
they looked at me like I was outof my mind.
You're a Lifesound guy.
What do you think?
You can come in here and do asession.
And I'm like you know dudes, Iran a studio for four years and
then I ran another one for acouple of years.
I worked at Luz for a couple ofyears and since, like the last
five or six years, I've beendoing this all the time.
(02:51):
Well, you have to be an intern,take out the trash, work the
desk, and I was too old, I was awhopping 28.
I was too old and too pridefulto do it, so I just didn't.
And then I sort of understoodto some degree all the things
that I should have learned, buta lot of it is very nashville,
(03:14):
but a lot of it is not.
It's just good studio etiquette, and one of the problems with
our industry at the moment isthe coming up through the studio
working under somebody, workingunder multiple people.
That is immensely, immenselypowerful.
That is not happening now.
Somebody wants to be in a studioengineer.
(03:35):
They buy a laptop and they plugin there, you know in the,
their quarter-inch guitar cableon the side and open garage band
.
You know, in a couple hoursthey've recorded a song, and
then a couple hours after thatthey've sent it up to lander and
then they send it to you knowsomebody and it's on itunes, you
know, or spotify or whatever,and so and all of that you know,
(03:57):
learning from doing andlearning from watching and
learning from being yelled at,which happens for sure, is kind
of missing.
I missed a little of that, butwhile I was missing that I was
on the road as productionmanager, front of house mixer or
(04:17):
crew chief, depending on thegig.
I was always sort of the guythat knew all the answers, and
so I kind of learned that thisworld that I'm living in here
right now is relatively safe.
Now, if I open up you know oneof these, you know two
(04:37):
compressors back here behind mesomewhere and I stick my hand in
it, you know I might getshocked and killed.
But the road is way, way, waymore dangerous when you've got a
70 000 pound hang hanging aboveyou and you've got a lot of
people underneath it.
You need to make sure you gotyour.
(04:57):
You know all your i's dottedand your t's crossed, and so
it's kind of a different thing.
It's relatively easy to get ahurt, injured man killed on the
road and it's really hard to doit here in the studio.
Jay Franze (05:12):
You mentioned a lot of things in there.
I want to make sure we cover.
Let's step back to Missouri forone more quick second.
What was the difference betweenthe studios?
Do we have to?
I just want to know what thestudios were like in Missouri.
Vance Powell (05:23):
The studio I came up in had an Allen Heath Burnell
Syncon B console.
It was a 32-channel, 24-businline console, very British,
think, like a little higher-endSoundcraft.
Jay Franze (05:41):
So was it intended to be a live console.
Vance Powell (05:44):
No, no, no, no.
No, it was a studio, is studiostudios too, because it was.
It was the inline desk.
So it was 24 buses, 30, 32returns, but 32 cents.
So really 64 channel back inmix, uh, in that mode.
But when I say like a soundcraft, it's because I'm talking about
the Soundcraft, it's becauseI'm talking about the innards to
(06:05):
get into the nerdy stuffTLS-74s, tls-72s, there's a
whole bunch of chips that areall in a lot of those English
desks.
Therefore they have a similarsound Soundcraft, allen Heath,
(06:25):
for that matter, neotex, ssl,all of those are all kind of the
same chip-based format, notNeve's, not until later, not
until the 5 Series, these andall that.
So it was a very cool, verypowerful desk.
We had a pair of 1-inch16-track MX-70s.
We had a Cypher Digital Shadowsynchronizer which from the time
I came on there in 86 to thetime I left a9, I got it to work
(06:47):
one time.
So that was a that was reallysmart.
Dbx compressors we had onereverb to start out and that was
the dn780, which I have one ofright there because I love it so
much.
And then we had a?
Um, a roland reverb, which Iactually have one of.
(07:09):
It's just up front it's in myrack, sd 3000 or something.
It's the reverb, not the delay.
And then we had some corkreverb with a remote.
It was terrible, but it was hada remote.
That's the only way you couldchange.
It was with the remote like atv right, stupid.
And then we had a couple.
(07:29):
We had like four, five, four,fourteens and some 421s and so
was it a semi-pro clientele itwas not, it was, it was all pro
clientele but it was a lot oflike sudden gospel and local
rock bands, that kind of vibe.
And then I went from there toSpringfield, missouri.
I worked at a club for about ayear.
I was moving there to go towork at Column One which was Lou
(07:53):
Whitney's studio and that had aSoundcraft TS-2440 desk, a pair
of Otari MTR-90s, studer A80radio compact and a b67 radio
compact tape decks and cool outboard has scamper act, which I I
really love and you can findthem around now but we used it
(08:13):
all the time.
It was great.
Some good mics, nice piano,what was the recording platform
there the recording platform wastape, all tape mtr 90.
Everything at this point is tape.
There is no such thing as Imean.
There's a thing called digital,but it's not yet in my purview.
Jay Franze (08:34):
Right.
Vance Powell (08:37):
So I left Springfield in 1992.
I worked there from late 89 to92 is somewhere in there and I
moved to nashville, actuallytill 93.
I moved to nashville here in 93but I started working here in
nashville in 92.
I got a gig as the productionmanager for an house mixer for
(08:57):
timmy winette.
So I moved here and that's whenI started trying to work into
studios here.
I did one session here.
It went really great with a bigA80, you know the big one.
It was great, but it was just alittle studio.
It was up above Dean Cropper'sstudio here in town.
(09:19):
It was upstairs.
I remember where we had tocarry everything upstairs.
Jay Franze (09:23):
So thank you, yeah, it's fun so you moved to
nashville just before I did.
I moved there in 99 from newyork, but what a big difference
now it's definitely a bigdifference.
Now.
I spent 20 years in nashvillebefore before I moved to north
nashville here.
you mentioned something elsethat I want to talk to you about
(09:44):
as well, and that was thetransition between live sound
and studios that used to carry avery big stigma, where, like
you said, people who were on theroad weren't very well accepted
in the studio and vice versa.
Yeah, and I hear nowadays thatthat's changing.
Do you find that change to betrue?
Vance Powell (10:05):
I think it's changing because the live sound
world has moved into our world.
It's very common for artists inlive sound to be recording
background vocals and things fortheir tracks.
You know that's real common tohave Pro Tools operators playing
tracks.
I do the radio broadcasts forlike any TV show, most any TV
(10:28):
show, most from Chris StapletonIn the 10 years that I've been
doing the CMAs.
Or am I go sit in a truck withwhoever's in there and Jay or
Eric or any of the guys that arein there, and every year
they're like you're the only actwith no Pro Tools playback.
(10:49):
I'm like, yeah, never going tobe, not going to happen.
Even doing the Grammys orsomething big.
Chris was on, it was a TV show.
They're like, okay, roll ProTools.
They're just okay, roll protools.
And you know they're justtelling somebody to roll pro
tools assuming it's going tohappen.
(11:10):
And, and you know, like duringthe rehearsals, they you know,
the director calls that andthey're like oh, there is no pro
tools here, she goes.
Well, I don't care, I'm goingto say it to every time.
So roll pro tools.
They're like right, it is whatit is, don't want to miss it on
somebody who has it.
Yeah, don't miss it on somebodyelse.
I don't want to write it down,I'm just going to say it's going
to happen.
So so, yeah, I think it has.
(11:31):
You know, I I was a front ofhouse sound guy first and got
into recording because I likedthe permanence of it.
I I do a lot of like, I do allschooling for the Blackbird
Studio and I went and did alittle run of master classes
down in South America and then Idid one at Sweetwater.
(11:55):
And one of the things I'm alwayssaying is you know, like the
two worlds can interact reallyeasy, but one world has a
different mindset interactreally easy, but one world has a
different mindset.
And, um, the the big deal isthat if the show is not terrible
in other words, the show isgood, the band is good, the mix
(12:15):
is good, the lighting is goodpeople will go away and every
single thing was perfect.
Now you and I that have satbehind the desk know that all
kinds of cues get missed, thingsare wrong.
The guitar was too loud comingout of the chorus, you know, and
it's out of the solo, butnobody remembers.
And the best part is, nobodygets to play it back.
(12:37):
Right, they can only play itback in their head.
And I always find there'sanother thing too like records
that I love sound amazing in myhead, like the experience of
listening to Abbey Road on a$50,000 set of speakers in a
really nice room or any greatrecord is so much ingrained into
(13:00):
my head, how that I feel of itinto my head, how that I the
feel of it.
But no life sound, man, if youwere there and it was there, it
was the best show you've everseen.
You know you don't get to playit back again, period, you just
don't.
But on records it's.
Everything is about thepermanence of it because you're
going to play it again andyou're going to play it again
and you're going to play itagain, you're going to play it
(13:20):
again, you're playing.
And the client, the punters, aswe say, we don't save it, the
english say they're going toplay it over and over and over
again and over again and overagain and over again and form
opinions about it positively ornegatively, like they may really
love this song live and hatethe studio version, love it in
(13:40):
the studio.
The band sucked playing it live.
So I love the studio where wecan work on it and work on it,
but budget's not the way budgetsused to be too, and sometimes
we just can't.
You know, we have to turnrecords in.
At some point somebody's got tostop paying me and stop paying
for the studio and stop payingfor things and then start suing
(14:03):
me if I don't just turn in therecord.
You know what I mean.
But the beauty is that once allthose problems, you've worked
your way through it, you'vesweated, you've done all the
things you do, then the recordcomes out and all is forgotten,
all the little tweaks that wemade that you know we have to do
this Right.
(14:23):
We made that you know we haveto do this right.
You know, on the eighth bar ofthe second chorus, the hi-hat is
to come up a db and then comedown because there's a figure
I'm playing like okay, sure,great, here you go.
How about that?
Oh, that's great, perfect, yeah, so much better.
Now, two days later, I'm likeuh, hey, do you remember that
hi-hat thing?
And they're like no, what doyou mean?
(14:46):
You know what I mean.
So you know it happens.
It's one of those things.
But live, sound guys had itgreat, because they just get to
walk away.
Jay Franze (15:00):
And tomorrow's a brand new day.
Vance Powell (15:02):
Well, with that said, which one of them do you
find to be more challenging?
Well, I'm not doing life soundnow to save my life.
It's too loud, I don't want tobe deaf, it's too much.
I have this little side hustle.
I'm a live stream mixer for theband fish, my side hustle.
Now, all those things I justsaid about how permanence and
you know, and people forget, letme tell you, mix a live stream
(15:25):
for a rabid fan base.
Right, because they don'tforget anything.
They're like.
You know there was mike, soundwasn't right through the whole
that doesn't sound like it didin georgia it doesn't like.
And then like yeah, it's justlike.
And then you know there's thisgreat show in hartford in 98 and
they just they're not really itdoesn't sound like that.
(15:47):
And you know, you're just likeokay, yeah, you know it's, it's
the dead head tapers concept ofthat.
But now more immediate,obviously, and you know we don't
, you don't get to go back, Idon't get to go back and remix
something if I screw it up, it'sjust there it is, it's warts
and all there it is.
(16:13):
What's the workflow like doing alive stream?
Well, it's exactly like doing ashow.
I'm just at the end of athousand foot piece of copper
out in a truck 100 feet, 10 feet, 70 feet, thousand feet away.
So we all have comms between usall.
I am literally just the guytaking what's coming off the
stage microphone wise, try tomix it like a record, but live,
(16:37):
like a live, live record.
We don't go back and fixanything unless something really
exploded or a microphone stopsworking or something.
It's a very, very complex show.
It's going to sound crazy, butwe have 460 microphone preamps
under our deck Because each oneof us has 160 channels patched
(17:04):
on stage.
So there's four consoles.
Each one has 160 of the sameinputs split, and then I have on
top of that another probably 15.
I see no hold on two, four, Ihave another eight that are
(17:25):
audience mics just for me.
So there's talkbacks, there'scomms, there's all this stuff.
There's little tones that shutoff microphones when they're not
standing in front of themicrophone, vocal mic, there's
all kinds of stuff.
So it's very complicated.
Jay Franze (17:43):
So what was the most challenging setup you had on
the road?
Vance Powell (17:49):
Well, this is probably the most
technologically challenged Darksof Clay in 2002.
2002, I was carrying a MidasXO4.
Very big, very heavy.
We started out.
One of the first things we did,we played a show I think in
Knoxville that's a soft seat,what they call a continental
(18:18):
style theater up another set ofstairs, up another set of stairs
into the building, then laid onits back and lifted over a wall
and down on the seats and thenall the way out in the middle.
That took two hours.
So yeah, that's the kind ofhard that I don't want to do
anymore.
Jay Franze (18:38):
No, I don't blame you at all.
That seems crazy to me.
Vance Powell (18:41):
I worked for Tammy Wendat until 1997, and I left
Tammy just a few months beforeshe passed.
That was a great gig for greatstories.
Someday maybe I'll write a bookand there's some really fun
stories in there.
But I went to work for Martinathe summer of 1997.
John was traveling, still withGarth, and that summer he was
(19:06):
going to be in south america andaustralia, and so I went out.
Uh, I filled, I did two jobs.
I was the set carpenter and thefront house mixer for the
summer.
Some days I did one of themreally well and the other one
not very good, and sometimes Idid one of them really badly and
the other one really great.
So, um, you know I didn't getfired or anything.
(19:27):
That was.
That was complicated, a lot ofwork.
It was a lot of work and I wentto work for john and then I
left martina, went to charge ofclay, then came back to martina
for a short period of time, gotfired best thing that ever
happened to me all rightliterally explain got fired.
I got fired and went back towork for charles clay.
I got fired because it was notthe gig for me.
(19:49):
I was doing monitors, not amonitor guy.
Martina and I are great.
I I love her, she's awesome.
I just wasn't.
I wasn't good enough at thatjob to do her.
Basically, yeah, the band, theywere great.
Band was awesome.
They're like, yeah, it was bestever.
But martina was, she was toogood a singer.
(20:09):
And then there's a wholehusband wife thing there, like
when the husband turns things upanderson db from soundcheck,
right you know, and it's likenow the pa's outrun the monitors
.
So, um, yeah, I just, it justwasn't the gig for me, it was.
It was rob bull's gig.
He did it for 22 years.
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
I have either got the biggestthings that's ever happened in
(20:32):
my career are because I got laidoff, I got fired, or I just
defied the odds to get fired andbecame successful out of it.
I mean, I think part of thedeal with this business, you
have to take chances from timeto time.
My good friend Reed Shippenlikes to say if you're not
(20:55):
getting fired every now and thenyou're not trying hard enough.
And every time I get fired froma gig I learn something Like I
learn oh, I shouldn't do that,or I'm glad I did that.
I went back to work for chargeof clay and later that year we
(21:15):
started doing recording like Iwould just call it guerrilla
recording.
We had a little like high 12track on the jazz drive you know
, like digital recorders.
And so we started doing demos,like in showers and things, and
recording samples and just doingall kinds of stuff.
And then, I guess about a yearlater in 2000, they asked me to
(21:37):
make a Christmas record withthem and I did that for 11
months and that was my firstGrammy award.
So record called the 11th Hourand you know it was great.
Jay Franze (21:52):
What was it like to win your first Grammy.
Vance Powell (21:54):
Well, you know, the Grammys were yesterday, by
the way, right, yeah, and I lostone yesterday.
Jay Franze (22:02):
So you'll have to tell me what it's like to lose
one as well, then.
Vance Powell (22:05):
Oh, I've lost a whole bunch.
I've lost a lot of them.
I've lost way more than winning.
I've got a wall of losingplaques back there.
Yeah, I think I've beennominated like 22 times and won
seven.
So there you go.
The story is, I was at home onthe Sunday of of the grammy says
(22:26):
before they broadcasted on theinternet, right, and I got a
phone call and it was the leadsinger for jars of clay dan has
some time and he said to me hegoes.
Well, from this point on,you're a grammy award-winning
engineer.
And I was like whoa, wow, sothe record won, he goes, yeah,
he goes.
So I want you to think aboutwhat you're doing right now and
(22:46):
remember it for the rest of yourlife what were you doing?
I go, okay, he goes.
So what are you doing?
I go, well, I'm spraying dogshit off my porch there you go.
Jay Franze (22:58):
It had snowed.
Vance Powell (23:00):
Puts it all in perspective right there our
little, our little, uh, trousersdo not like to go out in the
wiener, deep snow and poop, andso they had just gone over and
pooped on the porch, and now thesnow had melted and I'm
spraying it off.
There you go.
Well, my first one.
Jay Franze (23:19):
So so it puts it all in perspective.
Vance Powell (23:21):
So there you go, it definitely.
I mean, the reality is man,that's the, you know, that's,
that's a really great one.
Jay Franze (23:27):
Uh, my second was for a best engineered album
before you get to the second oneokay, let's follow up on what
it was like to lose one oh well,see, that's the deal.
Vance Powell (23:38):
I didn't lose one until I won the next one, all.
And then I lost three in oneday.
So I won one, the big one,which is Best Engineering Album
for the Raconteurs.
I lost one for Best Rock Record, which was the Raconteurs
Consolers.
I lost one for Buddy Guy, andthen there was one other one.
(23:59):
There were four.
I was up for four that year andwon one.
So yeah, you go.
Oh well, consolation prize, hey.
Jay Franze (24:07):
So at that point did you expect to win.
Vance Powell (24:10):
No, no, no, no, no , no, not at all.
You never expect to win Ever.
Jay Franze (24:18):
So if you're not expecting it, then it probably
doesn't hurt as much.
Vance Powell (24:22):
Or does it?
I got to be honest with you,man.
You win one After that.
What do you I mean?
The best part about it is thatthe Grammys, unlike some other
awards that will remain nameless, are peer-reviewed.
Your peers are voting for you.
(24:44):
That's a big deal.
It's not just random people whocan buy a ticket or some sort
of America's Got Talent.
People call in.
You know it's nothing like that.
You have 11 votes for theGrammys for 100 categories, and
you have to pick threecategories to put your 11 votes.
(25:07):
So you know I can't vote onbest tihano record.
First of all, I don't knowabout it and secondly, I can't
do it because I'm not going togive up my vote for something I
care about.
But winning is awesome.
It's, it's a great feeling.
Losing is like I'm glad,somebody you know, hopefully
(25:29):
it's somebody you like.
Jay Franze (25:30):
Yeah, a friend of yours.
Vance Powell (25:33):
Or a band or an artist you like.
I have lost one to somebody Iwas not a big fan of.
I won't tell you who it was,but you know, and it was one of
those ones you go really Lostone to Taylor Swift, so can't
argue with that.
And I lost one to Adele.
Jay Franze (25:53):
I was surprised, taylor Swift didn't do too well.
Vance Powell (25:59):
You know, some years are people's years.
It's just one of those things.
Jay Franze (26:04):
Yeah Well, let's go back to Blackbird for a second,
because it started, you know,small.
It was John's pet project thatblew up into a complex.
Vance Powell (26:18):
So originally it started out while I was working
on the Jar of Clay record.
He started calling me andsaying hey, on your way home
from the studio, come by thehouse.
So I'd go by the house, he'dhave some amazing bottle of wine
, and sometimes martina wouldcook and we would sit out back
by his pool, which is gorgeous,and we talked about building the
studio that he wanted to buildand first of all it was going to
(26:40):
be on his tennis court, it wasgoing to be a pool house, and
then no, that's not going towork.
He found this building, whichwas a studio called creative
recording, and he bought it onhis birthday and then we started
.
You know, he started, he boughtthis console, started getting
it together and then he calledme.
(27:05):
I was on the road with George'sclaim.
He's like I need you to come towork here, I need your help.
You know you got to build thisroom for me.
So I did.
I had kind of done some of thisanyway, studio building part of
it.
Not at that level, believe me,but you know, once you build one
, you just keep.
You know, just keep bigger andbigger and bigger.
It was supposedly supposedlyhard word for me to say
(27:25):
supposedly supposed to be a 1.5million dollar build.
He paid $500,000 for the studio,I think the building, and then
a couple hundred thousand torenovate the building and he had
bought this console and allthis.
And at some point we boughtthis beautiful arnoir to put in
(27:49):
a closet to hold microphones.
So he'd started to buy somemicrophones.
That arnoir lasted three monthsand then we had to build a room
with cabinets in it and then wehad to build another room with
cabinets in it and then weexpanded on the studio and built
(28:11):
it on the mic block that yousee now, which is half of it,
because the other half is upfront where we built the
original cabinet.
So yeah, it just kind of gotout of control.
You know, it was crazy time I Icame off the road so I wasn't
away from home and I ended upworking 80-hour weeks.
Yeah, nearly killed myself andthose around me, but you know it
(28:35):
was a good learning time.
Jay Franze (28:38):
The killing yourself part.
I can definitely understandYou're working 80 hours a week.
It takes you away from yourwife and your family probably
puts a strain on all of that.
Vance Powell (28:46):
I worked 63 days straight.
Once my wife told john, likehe's going with me, we're going
on vacation.
Oh, he won't be back tillmonday, and so we went, and we
went to this cabin up in themountains in pigeon forge or
whatever at gatlinburg yeah andI think we never left it.
We walked down the hill once toget dinner and then we had
(29:10):
bought some steaks and thingsand had a grill and all that.
And when I got back on Monday,by Monday evening, I was driving
home.
I was so sick, I had fever andit ended up I caught pneumonia.
I was just so run down that uh,uh, you know it got me.
So I was out for another week,which is great.
Jay Franze (29:32):
got some sleep, right but um, and you know what,
the studio didn't blow up.
Vance Powell (29:37):
It didn't blow up, it didn't die.
It's not.
It's not not the greateststudio in the world, because I
was gone for a week, but there'sa lot of pressure there to make
sure everything is, you know,best to best, to best to best
you know.
Jay Franze (29:51):
Well, let's talk about that for a second.
Did you realize when youstarted that this was going to
be one of the best studios inthe world?
Vance Powell (29:57):
I knew that's what John wanted.
Jay Franze (30:00):
Did you think you were capable?
Vance Powell (30:03):
Oh, yeah and no, you know what being capable
means.
Being capable means I'm okaywith taking the blame.
That's what capable is.
Can I do the job?
I believe I can, and I believethat if I fuck it up, I can say
(30:24):
I'm sorry I didn't get that done.
That's what being capable is,you know, and not pointing
fingers.
So, yeah, sure, I'm pretty smart.
I mean not to sound like asmarty pants, but you know I'm
pretty well versed in a lot ofthings, and even my time not
(30:47):
working in the Nashville systemto some degree, my touring
experience meant that I couldsolve problems very fast.
A very fast problem solver andin the studio business, a mime
is money, as Billy Crystal oncesaid.
But yeah, time is everything.
So you don't want to be down,you don't want anything.
(31:09):
I worked at Blackbird from 2002until 2010.
And in my time there, thateight years, there was never a
single day ever given to aclient because a Pro Tools
system didn't work, a consoledidn't work, a piece of gear
didn't work, or we had to justgive them the day.
Now, some of that was the factthat we had 25 and 47s, you know
(31:36):
, and some of it was the factthat we built infrastructure
that allowed people to throw uscurveballs, and then some of it
was we had crazy but relativelyaccomplished tech until we had a
great and accomplished tech.
So you know, those things arereally important.
Jay Franze (31:56):
You mentioned those microphones.
How important was that miclocker to the clients that were
coming in?
Vance Powell (32:02):
It was very important.
Yeah, the mic locker, the space, the console.
I mean the 8078.
It's funny because when the8078 was bought we had a little
powwow with some of my friendsjekir king and I and a couple of
(32:22):
people in town because therewas a guy in England who was
modding, doing a little bit ofmods on the 78.
Now Fred Hill had done a lot ofgreat mods and Fred Hill was a
great guy.
We did not bring Fred in.
I have worked with Fredbuilding the Jack White desk and
(32:44):
Fred's great.
He's crotchety, kind of anasshole, but he's really great
at what he does.
We didn't bring him in.
We should have.
I wish we would have.
Fred had a lot of mods, but oneof the mods was that the uh, the
8078 had a front rear panner.
It's just part of that era ofdesk that people thought that
quad might happen or that quadwould get used in film, which
(33:08):
you did later, sort of.
But we want to take the frontrear panner and change it into a
send to tape and then make thebait fader a return to tape.
I now think in my opinion,that's a mistake.
That was a mistake.
We shouldn't have done it.
Some of the other mods thatwere done to the desk were
(33:29):
really great.
Direct out of the preamp wasgreat, replacing all of the chip
modules in the console, becausethe 8078 is not all discrete,
ours is, ours, blackbird is, itis all 440 modules, all discrete
transistors.
Those are were all really greatmods.
But I'm not sure now, havingworked on a bunch of 68s and 48s
(33:54):
and 38s, that that data mod wasa really smart idea.
Jay Franze (33:59):
But it's too late, it's done, but why?
What changed your mind?
Vance Powell (34:14):
Well, getting away from blackbird and working in a
bunch of other studios aroundthe world, I'm going oh this was
a good idea, I should have justleft it like this.
And then having to go back inthere and work.
So you know, I always freakthose guys out the kids, as I
call them because I flip thefaders over on the api, on the
(34:35):
legacy pluses, so that the smallfaders are monitors and the
large faders are sent to tape,because when I'm making a record
I'm sort of mixing to therecorder, because that's how we
used to do a tape machine rightright and so.
But that blows their mind.
They're like don't you want thetape back here?
I'm like, no, I don't want itup there.
(34:56):
Well, what if you bump it?
Like, okay, what about bumping?
You know it's right, you knowthis ways people work.
I have my SSL here.
This is a SS SSL 6000.
When I record, I record withthe main faders to tape, so
small faders for the direct lineor whatever.
Jay Franze (35:16):
I like the SSL boards.
The 4000 was always my favorite.
Vance Powell (35:21):
This is a 6, but I've modded the shit out of it
so it doesn't have the filmmatrix anymore in it.
It has an API summon.
Oh nice, nice.
Api 2520 is the whole wholedeal.
Jay Franze (35:33):
Transformers, all that well, before we leave
Blackbird, what can you tell meabout what I know of as
Massenburg's room?
Vance Powell (35:42):
well, I, I wired all that.
That's an idea that George hadhad forever, first of all when
george was working with littlefeet and, uh, linda ronstadt,
little feet rehearsed out atlucas sound uh, not lucas sound,
skywalker ranch, sorry.
And um, george built somegantonio, you know, like skyline
(36:05):
gobo's.
He made some gobo's out of themso they could sort of close off
the sound stage a bit, and sohe wanted to build a room of
just that massive diffusion.
Basically, he and john johnsaid I want to build the
greatest mixer I've ever made.
He's like I got an idea for youand then they off to the races.
(36:27):
And so the big thing I can tellyou is that room is very heavy.
There is 90 tons of MDF on thefloor that's floating on the
floor, which is rubber, that'sfloating on a one-foot-thick
(36:54):
concrete slab, that's floatingon a foot of rock wool and
plywood that's floating on topof a concrete slab on top of
nine inches of lime gravel.
So that whole entire room is aroom inside itself, it's.
It was a 40 by 30 room and thenthe walls came in.
(37:19):
The roof diffusion is uh, uh,extension.
Basically, just, he just pickeda piece of that, the big wall
diffusion, and then scaled itand then they built it like a
cabinet and there's probably aton of rock wool in that ceiling
which is crazy to think about.
And then in the corners abovethe sea in blackbird, you can
(37:45):
see these sort of these roundpieces.
Those were vinyl mat, like theweighted mass diffusers, where
they they vibrate at a certainfrequency.
They absorb a frequency becauseit's found in the corners.
There was a, a bump at 93cycles, so they tuned those to
(38:06):
those.
You take the bump out and thenoriginally we had a big icon, a
Digi icon, in there.
Right and it was a 16 channelcenter section, 16 channel and
after about five minutes ofbeing there, george was like
this is the dumbest thing ever.
You know like I have to gocompletely out of the sweet spot
(38:36):
to mix on faders be so muchbetter from just all you know,
like just this piece.
So I knew these guys who doconstruction work or metal work.
They build sets.
They came in and they built acustom wheels and carts for the
center section.
Then we built a custom cart andwheels for the two fader banks
and we made it so the wholething could just roll around,
because it's just Ethernet cable, right, it's the whole thing.
(38:57):
It could just roll around.
And that's how George's roomended up being.
It's a brilliant room forlistening to music.
It's the best listening room intown period.
It takes a little bit ofgetting used to to mix in
because it has no compression.
(39:20):
Now, what I mean by that is ifI come in here and I have ATC
110s right and I crank thesethings up, I can feel the room,
the air, the volume in the roomcompress.
We know that big monitorfeeling right.
Yes, sir, that room doesn'thave it anywhere, doesn't matter
how many speakers you put in it, either it just gets really
(39:42):
loud, you get the low end, youjust don't get the sensation of
it pressing on you, and that'sbecause it's just so broken up.
Jay Franze (39:52):
So, with that said, did the room accomplish what you
wanted it to accomplish?
Vance Powell (39:57):
It's still there, still working.
Jay Franze (40:01):
Well, you say it's the best room to listen to music
in and it's a tough room orchallenging room to mix in.
Vance Powell (40:07):
Now I haven to been in there since they've done
the utmost.
The only complaint I ever hadand this is not a complaint is
that there was too much floor.
Too much floor because it's ait's a big room, you know, it's
a pretty big room.
There's a lot of floor.
So whenever I mixed in there, Iput carpet in, I put a couple
(40:29):
big rugs.
Now, that being said, I don'tlike hardwood floor studios.
I have carpet in here.
I just, I just don't.
I don't like that reflection,right, but it's just me you know
I everywhere I go, I'll say hey, do you know this kind of area,
right?
Can we put it down?
Can I roll around?
Do you know that it's got anarea rug?
Can we put it down?
Can I roll around on it?
You know, like I just don'tlike it, but when you put the
(40:51):
carpet down in there it made mefeel a little more.
It didn't feel like there wasso much energy off the floor
behind me, because there is noenergy behind you.
I mean, if I was to turn to myback wall here right and talk to
it, I can hear it.
That wall here right and talkto it, I can hear it.
(41:12):
That doesn't happen atblackburn, yeah, so I'd have to
like you know it's a big bunchof back here, right, but I can.
If I talk to it, I can hear it.
If I turn to my console andtalk this way, I can hear it.
If, blackbird, you don't hearit, it just disappears, it just
goes away.
Jay Franze (41:31):
Yeah, it's a freaky feeling.
Vance Powell (41:33):
And that is a little.
That's a little weird.
It's not like an anechoicchamber, though I've been in one
of those.
That is really weird, but youhear it.
You just hear it broken up intopieces.
It's crazy.
Jay Franze (41:49):
The first time I stepped in that room.
It made me feel a littleclaustrophobic too.
Vance Powell (41:54):
Yeah, there's an eye thing that happens with the
MDF, because they sealed it andthe MDF soaked up the sealer and
it looks like there's twoshadows and your brain goes, I
don't know.
Jay Franze (42:13):
But you don't have to be in there very long to get
used to it.
Yeah, I've never mixed anythingin that room, but I've been in
the room.
I was there for the grandopening of the room.
It was.
It made me feel a littleclaustrophobic, but yeah, the
original grand opening in like2004 yeah so was I one more time
that her paths have crossed ohyes, I'm sorry and George.
Vance Powell (42:33):
He's a genius too he is, he's a, he's a piece of
work, that one you know he'sfunny yeah, he's great, he's
really great.
I I worked with him so much forso long there and then when I
left blackbird he had sort oftaken the gig at mcdill and we
(42:55):
didn't see each other for likesix years.
And uh, this is one of thosecrotchety george things.
I ran into him at as maybe 2017, maybe 2017, maybe something
like that.
I said, hey, george, it's sogood to see you and he goes.
You need to make bettersounding records.
And I said, well, at least I'mmaking records.
And he goes touche how are youYep?
Jay Franze (43:22):
that's George.
Vance Powell (43:23):
And I was like I'm good and you, ah, I'm just.
You know I'm doing this andthat you know.
Jay Franze (43:28):
And I was like I'm good and you, ah, I'm just.
You know I'm doing this and, ah, you know I spoke with George
on a platinum panel over at.
Vance Powell (43:35):
Webster College or .
Jay Franze (43:35):
Webster University over in St Louis.
St Louis, thank you.
And we were talking on thatpanel and he was busting my
cookies because my wife was justabout to have our first baby
and he's like why are you here?
Yeah, you shouldn't be here.
Wife was just about to have ourfirst baby and he's like why
are you?
Here you know, yeah, you should, you shouldn't be here, yeah
well, says the guy that you know.
Vance Powell (43:53):
And right, yeah, we can't.
Yeah, I, I saw him.
Uh, I saw him.
The last time I've seen him isat uh mark rubles, a memorial
service, and uh, yeah, yeah thatwas sad.
And yeah, very sad.
Jay Franze (44:10):
Mark was on the show right before that.
Matter of fact I was justgetting ready to go see him
perform in Chicago, I think theweekend it was supposed to be.
I think that weekend or theweekend before.
Vance Powell (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, you know George, george was really
shell shocked because you knowGeorge and Albini had a famous
conversation at Tape Op one yearthat I happened to be at.
It was unbelievable.
They were just going after eachother.
It was crazy.
But they had grown to be prettygood friends and he spoke to
(44:46):
Steve on Wednesday and thenSteve like passed on Thursday
night, thursday morning you knowhe was coming to, he was coming
to, he was a speaker on thememorial because he knew Mark
really well.
I don't know that one, you knowlast year was a tough one man.
Yeah, trust me, last year, lastyear, for me, I mean personally
(45:06):
, was a lot of loss.
I lost my dad, I lost Mark, welost Mark, I should say Another
good friend that I've known mywhole life, dancer got him of
(45:33):
records for me.
It was a fun guy, had a coupleof funny uh, austin, um,
southwest together, uh, passedaway.
I could just I didn't even knowbecause, you know, not in his
world and our dog.
So you know it's one of thosethings.
My dad obviously was thebiggest one, but but you know
it's that time.
I mean I hate to say it, I'vejust I've come to that time in
my life, that friends and familyare going to are going to pass
(45:55):
and uh, you know, when you'reyoung and run around acting
stupid and they're the onestelling you to be, be careful,
be careful.
I'm that guy now you know.
Jay Franze (46:05):
I only laugh because I'm right there with you, buddy
.
I am getting older and olderand older.
Just had another birthday andI'm thinking to myself man, I've
now become that guy, I'm I amthat one I am that guy.
Vance Powell (46:17):
I have a 40 year old daughter.
Jay Franze (46:19):
You know like yeah, you want to hear crazy I.
I have a two-year-old daughter,two a 10 and a 14.
Vance Powell (46:30):
I started late.
Yeah Well, best of luck.
Jay Franze (46:37):
Thanks, buddy.
Well, hey, as we start to winddown, I need you to go back to
something you said earlier, andcan you tell us just at least
one story that you said wascrazy from the Tammy Wynette
days?
Vance Powell (46:50):
Oh my gosh, Some of them.
This is by far not the craziestone, but it's pretty crazy.
Every 4th of July Tammy Wynettewould play this little tiny
stage in the corner of abaseball field in Malden,
missouri, now Mal malden,missouri, you don't have to go
look it up, it's it's kind ofabove the booty.
(47:12):
All right, it's above thearkansas border.
It was the home of her husband,george ritchie, so we played
that show one year with jerryreed.
Now we played a bunch of showswith jerry reed year.
They had shared the samebooking agent, so Jerry would
open and then Tammy would playand whatever.
So Jerry Reed came and openedthe show.
(47:33):
Now this ball field and it's aball field, like a Little League
ball field People would justbring their chairs and set up
(47:55):
and then watch the show and thenafter it, behind the ball field
, behind the stage, was aracetrack, not a racetrack, an
airfield, like just airstrip.
They'd shoot off fireworks,okay.
But to get in there there'sbasically two roads in one runs
right by the ballpark and oneway down that the police don't
want you going down to go there,so they're not letting people
go down that way.
There's one way in and one waydown that the police don't want
you going down to go there, sothey're not letting people go
down that way.
There's one way in and one wayout.
Parking was over across atanother ball field, all right.
(48:16):
So after the show we get done,we throw our junk under our oh,
I think we had a truck thenThrow it in the truck and then
we went to go find the runner,to go to our hotel to clean up.
Now the hotel is down the sameroad that everybody else is
trying to come and go, but we'retrying to get out of there
before the fireworks happen,okay, or while the fireworks are
(48:38):
going on.
So I go, hey, where's therunner?
My tour manager says, hey,runner's up, back van door's
open.
I go, great, I go out there andsure enough, there's a van and
the driver door is open.
I get in this backside door, mymonitoring engineer, my tech
and lighting guy get in.
We slow the door and about twoseconds later Jerry Reed jumps
(49:03):
in the front seat and goesyou're going to the hotel and
we're going.
Yeah, it's good.
Puts in in gear, closes thedoor and out the back we go.
And I'm thinking, becausejerry's bus wasn't there, I'm
thinking it must be a hotel,whatever.
Now on the radio at this momentin time he's got like wsm and
it's the news and they're like.
I don't remember the singer, soI'm going to paraphrase I think
(49:26):
it was genie sealy.
But they're like country singerJeannie Seeley was hospitalized
tonight for exhaustion andJerry's like oh, that's the
biggest fucking shit ever.
This is the easiest job ever,because what we do, we walk on
stage, we sing for 30 minutesand then we walk off.
It's the easiest job ever.
She's on drugs or drunk orsomething.
That's the deal.
You know.
You're not canceling a showbecause you're exhausted.
(49:46):
That's BS.
He's just railing and we're justsitting in the back going.
Okay, sure he goes.
How the hell do I get out ofhere?
We're like down that road.
He goes.
Well, there's too many cars.
He goes.
What's that over there?
I go.
Well, that's a golf course.
He goes, perfect, goes off-road,cross the golf course, cross
the cart path, cross the littleroad, another little road onto
(50:06):
the golf course to the next one,and he's coming up to there's
like a creek.
He pulls over onto where nowhe's bypassed maybe two blocks
it's not that much Two fairways,but he's driven across them,
which is awesome.
He rolls down the window and hepulls up to this line of cars
and he goes hey, I'm Jerry Reed,let me in.
The guys are, oh Jerry.
They kind of pull over.
(50:27):
He squeezes in and goes rightover this little bridge, right
down the road, kind of in thishalfway, ditch down this
driveway, pulls up in front ofthe hotel and he says you guys
out, we get out, close the door.
He leaves.
I guys out, we get out, closethe door, he leaves.
I never saw him again in my life.
Actually, true story.
He leaves.
Okay, we go to the hotel, we goupstairs, we get a room, we
(50:48):
shower.
I come out, my radio's goingoff.
So my tour manager goes where'sthe van?
I'm like, well, I don't knowit's.
What do you mean?
You don't know, because whereare you?
I'm going to hotel, how'd youget there?
I got jerry reed drove us therunner's still.
Jay Franze (51:00):
Jerry reed, take the van.
Yeah, he goes.
Where are you?
I'm going to hotel how'd youget there?
Vance Powell (51:02):
I got, jerry reed drove us.
The runner still.
Did jerry reed take the van?
Yeah, he goes.
Oh, man, he goes.
The runner saw somebody get inthe van and leave and it's got
the police looking for it.
I go.
Well, jerry took it.
He goes.
Your time, jerry took the van.
I go.
Yeah, he goes.
All right, he goes.
Can you go see if it's out back?
I go look and out back.
Sure enough there's the van,not locked up it's keys on the
seat.
He just got in his bus and left.
(51:24):
So you know that was fun that'sawesome I saw some interesting
stuff, for sure what are youworking on now?
right now I am finishing adaniel donato record.
He's a young kid from here inNashville that I first saw
playing on the street inNashville at 14.
(51:46):
He is a gunslinging telly speeddemon kid but he's got a little
band called Daniel Donato'sCosmic Country.
They're kind of a country jamband.
They play pretty cosmic country.
You know what cosmic means.
They play three-hour sets andthey're really good.
(52:07):
So I'm working on that.
I worked on that today.
This last year I did a LittleFeet record.
I produced a Little Feet recordthat was cool.
That'll be coming out hereMarch.
I did the 10th record for one ofmy favorite bands and group of
people in the world, a bandcalled the inspector clouzot.
(52:27):
They're from gascony, france,and they play rock music with a
drummer and a guitar player.
They're on the bass playerrecords.
That's their record label.
It's pretty, pretty hilariousand they're really good.
They're also organic farmers,which is a whole other part of
their thing, and they're thebest hosts ever.
(52:49):
My wife and I and my daughterspent a week with them in France
and we ate some of the bestfood ever and it all came out of
their farm.
You know, just like fresh.
Jay Franze (52:59):
All right.
How did you get hooked up withthem in the first place?
Vance Powell (53:04):
They wrote me a letter and they were like we
really like what you do withJack White and wonder if you
would work with us.
And I played one song and Iliterally wrote them back like
immediately.
And then they wrote back likeoh, we didn't think we'd get an
answer.
I'm like okay, let's do it.
Jay Franze (53:24):
Because it was cool and so, yeah, love them, so does
france put out good music.
Vance Powell (53:29):
In general, they make better wine all right, fair
enough and cheese and bread.
There's a bunch of great frenchbands, I mean, there's the
inspector clouzot you just don'thear much.
Jay Franze (53:41):
Yeah, beyond that I meanouseau.
You just don't hear much.
Vance Powell (53:43):
Yeah, beyond that, I mean.
Jay Franze (53:45):
Or at least you don't hear much that makes it
over to here.
That's why I'm asking what'sthe scene like there?
Vance Powell (53:51):
They're French, Actually, to be honest with you
all.
Kidding aside, Phoenix aregreat.
My favorite French band is Air.
They do a lot of coolsoundtrack stuff.
They're great.
You've heard them.
You just didn't know you'veheard them.
Jay Franze (54:06):
All right, let's talk about your room there.
I mean, you've got your ownstudio now, right?
Vance Powell (54:10):
Yep, well, I have for 20-some years.
I built this, not this room,but the old Sputnik.
I moved into it in 2006.
So next year will be 20 years.
Jay Franze (54:24):
All right, so we see the SSL 6000 there and we see
all that gear behind you.
Yeah, what kind of live room dowe have?
Vance Powell (54:34):
My live room is it's like 19 by 22.
It's got a 15-foot boltedceiling.
Then there's a couple of boothsthere's one, two, three booths
here and then I use my hallway.
I have a B room up above thisover here, over there, over
there, and we use it.
(54:54):
You know, when we're trackingif we need ISOs.
Yeah, there's more gear overhere.
You can't see a bunch of tubegear 300, 610s, rcas, old
bertrand berlant sorry, mike pre.
And I've got this cool old 1969pv pa600 mixer with big bake
(55:18):
light knobs and old germaniumtransistors.
Yeah, I got a whole.
I got a whole lot of big grabbything and there's some you know
, my priest rca mic pre's rightthere from uh, late 40s.
Those are ba11s neves.
My console has no pre's ohreally it's a film desk so it
(55:40):
only has dual line, which isactually great because I get two
inputs for one all the time,like, if I want to use a like
perfect example is like b3 andwe're and roads.
Okay, well, I have a submixerover here, I have a neotech
mixer right there.
Uh, I submix the b3 into twochannels.
(56:01):
I put it on the A input and Iput the Rhodes on the B, so I
use the same faders on the deskand switch between them.
So it's kind of cool, but mostof the time, you know I figured
out, you know the SSL theinteresting thing you've used
one.
You know you put it in mix tomix right.
It's not really the coolest wayto do it at all.
(56:29):
The only thing you gain byhitting the mix button is the
panner down here at the bottom,this channel strip.
It's the only thing you gain.
What you lose, without jumpingthrough hoops, is the ability to
send things to buses, becauseyou have to float and all that,
which means you lose the channel.
Now, if I leave it in record,or basically I put it in replay,
(56:52):
which is like record, but youget the studio monitors right,
you can talk to the studiomonitors and you can send things
right to the studio monitors ifI put it in replay and then I
flip the inputs.
So the tape inputs now see theline input and then a second
input which is normally the micpre.
(57:15):
Mics don't have any mic pres, soit's all lines, those I patch
into and I get another 32 or 64inputs.
So these faders, the mainfaders now, will send to the
buses and stereo.
It'll send to all three stereosand all 32 buses, any of those
(57:37):
buses, right.
And all these returns are nowparallel returns or aux returns
that don't get automation.
Really, really, really great.
And I've gone through thelisting tests.
There's not enough differenceto hear the difference, not
really.
Jay Franze (57:57):
That's very, very cool.
Vance Powell (58:00):
So I re-switched the whole console.
We recapped it two years ago.
Yeah, it's got a lot of mods.
Jay Franze (58:09):
What part of the city is it in?
Vance Powell (58:11):
We're in Berry Hill.
Jay Franze (58:12):
Okay, so you're right over there.
Vance Powell (58:14):
Peter Frampton's, my neighbor.
Jay Franze (58:15):
Oh nice.
Vance Powell (58:16):
Paul Moak three doors down Frampton across the
street.
Jay Franze (58:20):
So what street are you on?
Vance Powell (58:22):
I'm on East Iris.
Jay Franze (58:24):
Okay, so you're right there.
Vance Powell (58:25):
I'm by the police station.
Yeah, I'm just by the policestation.
Jay Franze (58:31):
Just so everybody knows.
Vance Powell (58:33):
Just so everybody knows I'm right by the police
station.
Jay Franze (58:39):
I love it.
All right, sir, we do thisthing here we call Unsung Heroes
, where we take a moment toshine the light on somebody who
works behind the scenes orsomebody who may have supported
you along the way.
Is there anybody you would liketo shine a little light on?
Vance Powell (58:51):
all the guys who have assisted me do you have any
regular assistant?
I do.
I am blessed by having fivereally great assistants.
My first one is a young kid,actually he's six.
I am blessed by having fivereally great assistants.
My first one is a young kid,actually he's six.
Jeremy Cottrell, who is now oneof the chief educators at
Blackbird, was my firstassistant.
He's been there now 25 years.
(59:13):
My second assistant is a youngkid named Joshua Vance Smith.
He worked with me with JackWhite for a long time.
He's a grammy winner.
Uh, after I uh stopped workingwith jack because I was too busy
which is actually the truth uh,he stayed on for quite a while
until the, the last record hedid, which I think it's called
(59:33):
boarding house reach.
That was.
That was josh's last record,and now he's building studios
for a guy here in town and hashis own and all that.
My third assistant was MarkPatacci, who's a really great
guy still making records, but hedid Jason Isbell's Southeastern
, which is a Grammy winner.
(59:54):
I had a young kid from Englandcome for a couple of years with
me named Eddie Spear.
He's gone on to do a lot of bigstuff.
Brady Carlyle he's a multipleGrammy winner.
And then Michael Fahey was myassistant for eight years and he
left a couple years back, twoyears ago now, just now, he has
(01:00:14):
been working on his own, youknow doing the thing, building
up the you know doing the deal,and he's worked with warren
treaties, worked a whole bunchof other people.
And then my current assistantis, uh, cohen terry, and uh,
I've asked more of him in someways because I took him on the
road with me when we go do fish,so you know him, and I just got
(01:00:35):
back from cancun yesterday.
So, yeah, which was you?
know, not bad gig for him yeah,we, we worked four days, well,
we were five days.
Well, we worked six days, butwe were there seven, so we
worked a little bit on two ofthe days.
Um, then the other four dayswere shown.
But yeah, so he goes out anddoes this little weird road
(01:00:55):
thing that I've been doing alllast year, last two years so,
and we don't work a lot maybe 30, 40 shows a year.
Jay Franze (01:01:03):
A big thanks to Vance for taking the time to
share his stories with us and,as always, thank you for taking
the time to hang with me here.
I really do appreciate it.
If you know anyone that wouldenjoy this episode, please be
sure to share it.
You can do that and find thelinks to everything mentioned
over at jayfranze.
com/ episode 118.
(01:01:24):
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you next week.
Tony Scott (01:01:30):
Thanks for listening to The Jay Franze Show.
Make sure you visit us atjayfranze.
com Follow, connect and sayhello.
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