WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 592 - John Agnello / Maz Jobrani

Episode Date: April 8, 2015

After The Rolling Stones called into the show on two consecutive episodes, record producer and engineer John Agnello gives Marc an idea of what happens on the other side of the studio glass. Plus, Maz Jobrani returns to WTF almost five years after his first appearance to talk about his new memoir, "I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One On TV." Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fucksicles what the fuckadelics what the fucksters all right how are you mark maron here wtf is the name of the show. Welcome to it. Welcome to it. I'm in your head.

I'm in your head right now. I'm plowing in. Tonight, as you listen to this, I'm on my way to Washington, D.C. I'm playing at the Warner Theater. If you are listening to this in D.C. and somehow or another you fucking didn't know that I was playing in D.C. and you're like, oh shit, I wonder if I can go to that. Yes, you can. There's some tickets left.

Sold a good number of tickets. It a big big place for me like 1600 or so there's a few left I'll just leave it at a few that's vague John Agnello's on the show John Agnello is a uh an amazing record producer music producer Done a lot of stuff. From Cyndi Lauper to Dinosaur Jr., my friends. Kurt Weill. A lot of stuff. Friend of a friend hooked us up. Good guy. I'm excited about this.

My buddy Matt Gibroni stopped by. He's got a book out. I'm not a terrorist, but I played one on TV. It's available wherever you get books he's also uh on wtf way back on episode 118 you can get the app get the free app upgrade to premium for a few bucks to hear the original mass chap before he became the guy who writes a book so mass is coming up another thing i wanted to hit you too i don't know if you're a robert williams fan he's a painter he's uh he's a great painter he's a mind-blowing painter he's a punch you in the face kind of

painter changed my brain Robert Williams well there's an amazing show the show is here in Los Angeles down at the uh Barnsdale Park that's right over in Los Feliz man it's in the gallery over there you can go to lamag.org to get the info it's robert williams slang aesthetics and it's it's it's it's also got 20 years under the influence of juxtaposed which is uh also in the gallery it's 20 years of juxtaposed magazine which uh mr williams uh created helped create the cover for appetite for destructionetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses. That's a Robert Williams painting. But this is certainly the most of his work, sculptures, paintings, drawings, amassed under one roof ever.

And I just wanted to give you a heads up if you're in the L.A. area because it just runs through April 19th. And it's worth seeing. through April 19th. And it's worth seeing. Okay, it's over there at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdale Park. So check that out.

I had some time to talk to Robert Williams. I will be sharing that conversation with you soon. But right now, let's talk to Maz, to Maz. Maz Jabrani. I actually remember having a conversation with you one of the first times I met you in New York. And I'd been working the store. And somehow the store came up. And you hadn't been going there for a while. Yeah.

And I was telling you, I was like, it's great. You've got to come back, man. And I remember telling you that. Yeah. And you were like, really? You think so? And I was like, yeah. I was like, trust me, like, it's great. You got to come back, man. And I remember telling you that. And you were like, really? You think so? I was like, yeah. I was like, trust me, Mark.

It's gotten better. Because when I first started, it was probably on the back end of what you'd experienced. Right, right. The crashing wave of, oh, my God. She used to make people regulars based on them reminding her of a famous comedian. So she had a guy that reminded her of Jim Carrey. There was a guy who reminded her of Richard Pryor. There was a guy.

So these people weren't good themselves. Right. They just kind of looked like that guy. So she was losing it. Dude, it was crazy. I think, I don't know, for whatever reason, it wasn't so much she was losing it. I think she was just like thinking, this guy's got something. He's got to find his Jim Carrey, his inner Jim.

But he would never find it. And it was one of these things where you would sit in the back of the room watching the guy and you're like, God, this is uncomfortable. And you would see the audience kind of looking at each other going like- What is this? Is this performance art or- Well, I think what's happening now too is that like, you know, it's just we're excited to work there.

Like it used to be like sort of like we're just doing our sets, you know, and just trying to get some work done. Yeah. But now because whoever got that Twitter thing going, it's like we're sort of like, yeah, we're going to be at the comedy store. And now we're seeing people who are like, I'm going to go to the comedy store. That never happened before. Whoever got active on the Twitter, it is Brenton, I think, is doing it.

He's diligent about it. And now all of a sudden you're like, yeah, I'll tell people. You didn't even fucking tell people. Would you ever tell people you're going to be at the comedy store? Not really, no. Right, why? It's like, I just want to hide out there and kind of do some work and you know it's kind of a weird place yeah but now you're like yeah i'm gonna be there and people are like i'm fucking going the comedy store yeah and it's funny the twitter thing you're

right whenever i go home i go to see what people are saying yeah and they do a great job those pictures are great yeah i don't even know who takes them yeah i'm like those are very frameable i'm like there's a little like, I look cool up there. Yeah. But I think that whole branding and just making it sort of accessible for like a new generation of people just to know that it's there and functional. Yeah. Do you know, like, I just think a lot of people are like, that place?

And I'm like, yeah, come check out the weirdness. Yeah. But still, like, last night I was like, oh, it's got that creepy, weird electric vibe. Like, out back on busy nights, you're like, oh, what's going on out here? Yeah. Something weird's going to happen. Well, the other thing is that at any given time at the conversation, you could be in a conversation with somebody you know.

Yeah. And some weirdo would just come and stand. Yeah, some guy with half a head of hair or some kind of weird outfit. Yeah. Some weird energy, like, what's up? Yeah. What? You don't know who they are.

No. I was there. weird outfit yeah it's a weird energy like what's up yeah what you don't know who they are no i was there i brought this this this this guy who's a friend and he brought his dad and the dad's you know they're english so the dad was visiting from england yeah he had no idea who's who yeah so comics would come up and i'd be like oh this is you know this is al madrigal this is whatever steve byrne and introduced and then this weird dude just came up and started hanging out so the dad assumed he's one of my friends right Right. Next thing I know, this guy is basically taking the dad hostage in the conversation. Right. Just getting into it.

And the dad was like, oh, that's great. You're doing it. And the guy's like, yeah, whatever. And then at one point, I tried to get him out of it. I go, hey, let's go. You guys, we got to go watch. My buddy, Chris Spencer, was like, hey, let's go watch Chris Spencer. And I took the dad and my friend.

And then this dude came with us. Oh, God. And he's just hanging out. How many times have we had that moment at the comedy store? It's like, I don't know that guy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, that guy.

I just don't know who that guy is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so is the book out, buddy? I'm not a terrorist, but I played one on TV. Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Funny Man. There you go. I'm excited and intimidated.

Why? Because, first of all, you know how it is. It used to be, if you went on one TV show, and you said, I'm going to intimidated. Why? Because, first of all, you know how it is. It used to be if you went on one TV show and you said, I'm going to be a such and such, the whole world sees it. Right, no. Now I feel like I'm advertising. I got billboards.

I got all kinds of- Calling people. Calling people. Can we tell everybody at the place to come? Yeah, and what's crazy is because the Persians, a lot of them are in Beverly Hills, that area. So the best advertising is when I go into,, I go to like Beverly Drive to like go to Pete's Coffee. Right. And I run into Persians there.

Yeah. And they're like, when are you going to be performing? And I'm like, I'm going to be at the Wiltern. And here's what's funny is I don't think Persians go east of maybe La Brea. Where? I know. I go to the Wiltern. Yeah.

Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? I swear to God. I've had this so many. They go, wait a minute. Western? I'm like, you know Wilshire Bull? Yes, I know. I go, the Wiltern. Yeah. Where? I swear to God, I've had this so many. They go, wait a minute.

Western? I'm like, you know Wilshire? Yes, I know Wilshire. Of course you know Wilshire. That runs into Westwood. Yeah. And then they go, but you got to keep going east. And then they're like, okay.

I figured it out. It's the funniest thing, dude. So, but is that the same in San Francisco too, that there's Persian communities? San Francisco, it's more probably just a liberal mix of, you know, like it's Francisco too that there's Persian communities? San Francisco is like it's more probably just a liberal mix of you know like it's Persians, there's Arabs and there's like white liberals. Right. You know I've been doing this NPR show called

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Sure. And that's listened to by a lot of like. No I know that. So you do that regularly? Yeah I'm a panelist. Oh really? Yeah. Has that made a big change in the It's interesting. I've had, you know how it is man. I mean we all have fans from different places. So when I'm at a show, depending on who approaches me, I kind of know- Try to figure out which world.

Yeah. You know, older white couple, I'm like, oh, here comes NPR. Yeah. You know, the Persians are the Persians. Oh, then it's overdressed. Yeah. Overdressed. Every night is, you know, the opera.

Yeah. And then Mink. Mink. I thought Mink coats were gone. Yeah. In LA, a Mink coat. opera. Yeah. And then Mink. Mink. I thought Mink Coats were gone. Yeah, in LA. A Mink Coat. Yeah, yeah. And then I've got like my black audience from the movie I did Friday After Next, which was

the Ice Cube movie. Right. So I got that. They come? They come. Uh-huh. And it's so funny. I could tell like if it's like someone who's like either black or Latino.

It's distinct. Different. Very different. Wow. Wait, wait. Don't tell me. That's interesting. How long have you been doing that? You know, I started, I think my son was one and a half. distinct difference very different wow wait wait don't tell me that's interesting how long you've

been doing that you know i started i think my son was one and a half so about four or five years what is that like three or four times a year how's that happen maybe like now i'm doing it like 10 times a year oh yeah it's great you're flying to chicago right you know i like that guy peter sagal yeah he's a good guy you'd be great if you're ever interested i've been a guest on the show yeah i well that's the first time i did, they had me as a call-in guest. Yeah. And it's funny because I used to listen to it once in a while driving back. I used to play soccer on Saturdays driving back.

I remember I heard Sarah Silverman on there as the call-in guest. Yeah. And I was like, God, I'd love to get in on this. Yeah. And then I just didn't think about it. And then I think that they started reaching out to get more comedians on. They heard your thought. They heard my thought, exactly.

No, but they brought, I think Alonzo Bowden started doing it. I started doing it. So they were looking for, for other panelists. Yeah. Cause they kind of maybe using the same people for a long time. Yeah. Oh,

that's cool. Yeah. So now the book is really, where does it start? So the book starts, the title, uh, first of all,

it's funny because, um, the title, I'm not a terrorist, but I've played one on TV. And then I put this picture of myself holding like, uh, uh, uh holding like an Acme. Old style fuse bomb.

Yeah. And you have the keffiyeh. Yeah, the keffiyeh, the whole thing. And a look of like, what the hell, how'd I end up here, right? Right. And the whole point being, how did I end up playing this part? Because actually, I played a terrorist in a Chuck Norris movie of the week. Right. And that's the story right there.

Because it starts with when I was first starting out, I was working in an ad agency. That was my day job. And I was looking for a way to get out. I was like, if I get a gig that pays me enough that I could just get out of this day job, then I could be a full-time actor, a comedian. Right. And so I got this thing to play a Chuck Norris movie, an Afghan terrorist who was in a Chuck Norris movie of the week who's going to blow up a building in Chicago.

Right. And he's working for an Osama bin Laden type. Sure. And this was in 2001. Who played the Osama bin Laden type? Some white dude. Some white dude with a beard. Yeah.

And it was funny because it was earlier in 2001, before September 11th hit. So I thought to myself, I go, you know what? As much as I don't necessarily want to do this part, I go, listen, if I take this part, it's whatever it was, like $6,000, $7,000. That helps. Because I was an assistant of the ad agency making nothing. Yeah. So I go, that'll go towards getting me out of here.

Yeah. And I said, maybe I can show through my acting why this guy's doing what he's doing. Oh, yeah, bring a different element to it. The humanity. The humanity. I'm going to go deep with this guy with the bomb.

Exactly. Yeah. And because the thing is, I'm sure a lot of times actors write their backstory. Right. It's not in the script, but here's my backstory.

Sure. So my backstory was like, okay, the reason this guy wants to blow up a building in Chicago is because when he was a kid in afghanistan his parents were killed by bombs provided by the u.s which right there the story's messed up anyway because the russians were in afghanistan so it's a messed up you know yeah anyway i go down to dallas to film this is where

they were filming it i show up and the lady's like here's your shirt here's your pants and here's your turban yeah And I was like, oh. I go, no, you know, actually Afghans in America don't wear turbans. And I go, I want to get this right. And she's like, well, no, they want you to wear a turban. I was like, no, but listen, we should really do this. And quickly I'm realizing, you idiot. You asshole.

You're a cartoon character. You're a cartoon character. This is a Chuck Norris movie. What are you talking about? And I get in an argument with the wardrobe lady and I go listen do me a favor you tell the producers

I've done my research we want to get this right I'm like let's get this right you know I'm like I don't think it's worth a turban and it's so funny so he goes okay

I'll talk to the producers so the next day I come in the trailer and there's a shirt there's a pants and there's a scarf and I'm like oh cool I'll wear a scarf

he's like no that's not a scarf that's a turban you gotta actually wrap it cool i'll wear a scarf yeah it's like no that's not a scarf that's a turban you got to actually wrap it around your head they'd unwrap the turban and just hung it there for me i was like are you serious i go what happened she goes i talked to them and they want the turban and so i put this stupid turban on and i felt like an asshole yeah and then i go on set i swear i got everyone first of all chuck norris's son eric norris was the director and he was younger right so after we rehearsed with the turban, I go, hey, can I talk to you for a second? He's like, yeah.

I go, listen, I shouldn't be wearing a turban. He goes, listen, man, I agree with you. And he goes, the problem is my uncle, who's the exec producer, Aaron Norris, he wants the turban. Right. So they were old school, the uncle and the dad. They were old school racists. Old school racists. Old school, like, listen, our audience needs to have you wear turbans.

They need to know the bad guy. Yeah, they know who the bad guy is. So that was that story. And here's the irony of it is that, so I've put this on the cover. Did you wear the turban? I wore the turban. It was stupid. I wore the turban.

Did you get any feedback for that? Were there any Afghanis that were like, you know, not that we support what you were doing there, but we don't wear turbans. Yeah, no, it wasn't even that. It was, first of all, this was in 2001, right? So it took a weird twist because, first of all, there was supposed to be a fight scene. So I thought maybe I could get the fight chuck, and there was no fight. They cut that out. He's like, I'll just shoot you.

I was like, all right. And the funny thing was when it came to the shooting thing, they had a guy on set looking like me in my outfit, head shaved. They brought a stuntman in to take the fall. And there was all these stuntmen there. It was like total testosterone set. But right before they're about to shoot my scene, they come over. They go, hey, we got a stuntman. But you want to do it yourself?

They kind of put the pressure on. I couldn't be a pussy. Come on, little man. Yeah, I couldn't be a pussy. So I was like, yeah, I'll do it. What's it take? I'll fall yeah and then they go okay no problem go here this is what it is and there was like a guy

one of the stunt dudes had like been a massad agent or something right like these guys were all like military karate yeah yeah so he's like okay stand okay he goes listen when somebody gets shot on screen actors an actor's instinct before you fall back a lot of times actors their instinct is to go forward before going back. He goes, don't go forward. Just go back. I go, I got it.

He goes, no, you get it? I go, yeah. So he starts punching me in the shoulder to go back.

He's like, just like that. I'm like, okay, ow. I'm like, take it easy. He's like,

let's do this. I'm like, let's do this. And they go, okay. They go, listen, by the way,

we're going to have a pad, a pad behind you, a little pad. You just fall on that. You'll be fine. Cool. They line up the shot and then the DP goes, the pad's in the shot. They go, okay, get, a little pad. You just fall on that. You'll be fine. Cool. They line up the shot and then the DP goes,

the pad's in the shot. They go, okay, get rid of the pad. I'm like, what? Now it's getting dangerous. They go, you can fall on the ground. I'm like,

what are you talking about? They go, but you got to make it look natural. I'm like, okay. And they go, bring in the pads. So they give me elbow pads. Under your shirt?

Under the shirt. Elbow pads, like a little back pad. And they go, listen, what you want to do, when you go down, you're going to go tuck your head in. I go, okay, wait a minute. So I'm running up.

Chuck's going to take a gun, shoot me. I got to tuck my head, fall backwards. I go, I think I got it. And they go, make sure you tuck, because if you don't tuck your head in, you're going to hit your head back, and you could crack your head. I'm like, oh, Jesus. I go, okay. And then they give me like this fake machine gun, and they go you're gonna be holding this gun they go listen this is a heavy gun whatever you do make sure it doesn't land on your hand or you

could break the bones in the back of your hand i'm like what the fuck get this dumb guy in here i'll be a pussy yeah they started they really like reeled you in you know it started so much easier and now like now you're on. Did they make you sign a release? I don't know what they made me do. Like, actually, I think afterwards I told my agents. They were like, we were supposed to get you a bump. You're not supposed to do that. Like, you're supposed to get paid more.

I was like, but I was being a man. You know? It was horrible. So did you take the fall? I took the fall. I tucked my head in. I did the thing. I fall.

I'm like, oh, this is going to look fucking great. The thing comes out. It's like less than a second. Like, if you blink, you wouldn't have known it was me. Right. It was some stupid shit. Like, they told me. Like, I come running in and I go, al comes out, it's like less than a second. Like if you blink, you wouldn't have known it was me. It was some stupid shit. They told me, I come running in

and I go, Aloha party! And he goes, I'm like, and I die. That was it. And here's the crazy turn of everything was,

so we filmed this in early 2001. Yeah. Before it comes out, September 11th happens. So then I'm like, okay, these guys are not gonna

release this stupid movie. Right. Because if you remember, people were shooting Indian Sikhs. And I go, the last thing I need is for someone to see this, forget that they saw this, and see me on the streets and be like, that's that fucking guy. So I wrote a letter to

Chuck Norris' company, to Chuck Norris, as well as Les Moonves, because it was a CBS movie of the week. I said, guys, it's a heated time. Please, whatever you do, don't release this movie. For my safety. For my safety, the safety of all the other terrorists in your movie.

And it was funny because then Chuck Norris came out in the variety going like, I'm trying to, this movie has to come out because the terrorists get what they deserve. Right. I'm like, no fucking way. So then I was freaking out. I really was.

And then I lied. You were paranoid. I was paranoid. I was like, someone's going to do something freaking out I really was and then I lied you were paranoid I was paranoid I was like someone's gonna do something so I sat down to watch the thing Mark it was the worst

movie ever made like I literally like if I weren't in it I wouldn't have waited to like this my scene and I was like no one's gonna

like I and jokingly I said I said someone should shoot me not for being a terrorist but for being in that movie and so that was that and but what's funny about the cover now is I put this picture on the cover,

clearly kind of going like, how did I end up here? And I've had a few Persians and a few Arabs criticize me. Persians are, the racism comes out. Some Persians go, why are you wearing Arab headgear? We're not Arabs. This is not right. And one lady was like, you've been writing this terrorist thing for a long time for your career. And I go, what are you talking about? She goes, we're not terrorists. And I go, and I first tried not to

engage on Facebook. I'm not going to engage. Then she started arguing with one of my fans. She was like, you're not getting it. And then she's like, no, you're not. And I go, let me get into this. So I go, listen, I'm making fun of the thing. And by the way, you're saying we're not terrorists. I agree we're not terrorists. That's the whole point. But I go, Americans, unfortunately, see us all as brown. And they do see us as terrorists. She goes, well, we're not.

I go, we had a hostage situation. Remember the hostage? I go, that was an act of terrorism. I go, we took Americans hostage. And she's like, that's water under the bridge. I'm like, what are you talking about? Argo won the Best Academy Award two years ago. What are you talking about?

And she was like, whatever. And then finally I go, by the way, I just want you to know the more you write, the more you write back, the more material you're giving me for my stand-up. And she just came back with, you're welcome. Oh, yeah, of course. And it ended. Now, from those days, from from 2001 i mean a lot has changed for you as a performer and as an actor as well yeah so so you go through the whole arc i

mean so like obviously the perception of persians and or just lumping persians in with brown people in general some of that has changed i imagine not a tremendous amount across the culture, but there is sort of a respect and a differentiation. A little bit. I always say it's like two steps forward, one step back, right? So it's like- Well, with the Persian thing, you got the double whammy of like, are you Iranian? No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I used to do a joke about that, about how we don't say we're Iranian, we say we're Persian because it sounds nicer and friendlier. And I think a lot of people, in all honesty, used it during the hostage crisis to just differentiate. Separate themselves, yeah.

To just confuse people and get away from the hate. Right. But what happened career-wise, I did that. Then I came back and I told my agents, I said, no more terrorist parts. I really started feeling bad doing it. And then 24, the TV show 24, they go, we have a terrorist. And I go, no. And they go, well, he changes his mind halfway through the mission.

I was like, oh, the ambivalent terrorist. I go, that's kind of interesting. So I did that as well. And then after that, I said no more. I stopped doing it. And it's interesting, though. Throughout these years, I've played cab drivers. I don't mind playing cab drivers.

I don't mind playing deli shop owners. I don't mind all those parts. I even just recently signed on and I played Jafar from Aladdin. Disney is doing something called Descendants, which is about the kids of the Disney villains. And I played Jafar in that. I don't mind playing Jafar. This terrorist thing is what really bothers me yeah and the problem is because we both know like 99.9999 percent of middle easterners and muslims and arabs and people from that part of the world are not

terrorists right and yet we constantly see those parts and it's constantly in the news because that's the shit that's going on we make people afraid of those of you people constantly people constantly i mean when i see no and there's regular white people like there's one of them absolutely yeah i mean listen mark it's funny because two. I mean, when I see- And there's regular white people like, there's one of them. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, listen, Mark, it's funny because two things. First of all, when I see Bill Maher go like after the Charlie Hebdo shootings and he's saying like something, he says something like, probably he's like 100 million Muslims supported that, like the killing.

And I go, what are you talking about? Because he looks at these statistics that say like 100 million Muslims have said that they would be offended by, or it's okay to kill someone who offends the prophet muhammad or whatever yeah well somebody broke it down for me they go the a lot of this research that was done was research where they went and asked people who associate themselves as being radicals or fundamentalists right and then they go out of those people like 80 of those people have said yes it's okay to kill someone who offends the Prophet Muhammad. Right. So that's like going to like the Christian right, like the extremists.

Sure. And going like, is it okay to kill gays? And they go, yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. So when you do the research like that, then it's easy to go, oh, they're all like that. But I've been to the Middle East. I just talked to a guy who lived in Egypt for four years. He's like, an American dude.

He's like, I was there for four years. He goes, I didn't find a single jihadi he's like i didn't find he goes people were cool doing their thing right and it's funny because sometimes i think maybe i'm being paranoid maybe these people don't exist but this happened to me over the holidays our uh our neighbors uh black dad white wife my my kid my my kids are half indian half Iranian. My wife's Indian. And the neighbor had his cousin come, little six-year-old boy, came to visit, hanging out from Wisconsin. Full white. Yeah. From Wisconsin.

And I guess he probably doesn't have as much diversity around him. I took them to go see a movie. Yeah. And we're all in the bathroom washing our hands. An Indian Sikh walks in with a turban. Yeah. Washes his hands, walks out. The six-year-old turns to me, his jaw drops.

He goes, that guy was ISIS. Oh, no. I go, what? He goes, the guy was ISIS. I go, what are you talking about? I go, the guy with the turban? He said, yeah. I go, no.

I go, that guy, he's Indian. This Indian Sikh. I go, Dara, my boy is half Indian. And it's funny because my boy was confused. He's like, that's right. I was born in India. I go, you weren't born in India. Your mother's Indian. And I go, that guy's Indian. And it's funny because my boy was confused. He's like, that's right, I was born in India. I go, you weren't born in India. Your mother's Indian.

And I go, he's half, I go, that guy's Indian. And the whole movie, this Indian Sikh was sitting behind us and every time we'd get up

to go to the bathroom, this white kid from Wisconsin, he would turn and like his eyes would just go wide. I was like, I was like,

oh my God. This kid, whatever happened, I mean, I'm not saying that his parents He saw part of the video. He saw part of a video. Those videos are scary. They are scary. Oh, my God. This kid, whatever happened, I mean, I'm not saying that his parents- He saw part of the video. He saw part of a video.

Those videos are scary. They are scary. It's like headgear is headgear. Headgear is headgear. He's only six. I know. That's terrible. It's crazy.

But I mean, it's somewhat forgivable in a six-year-old. Of course. Because all he's seeing is the headgear. Yeah. What is it? Yeah. What is it? Yeah. Or like the thing that happened

like after the whole Charlie Hepto thing, Fox had some analysts on doing some thing and they were like, it's so funny because so one of these guys goes, yeah, there's no go zones

in certain parts of England and in France where even the police are afraid to go in because it's Muslim and Sharia law and blah, blah, blah. And the Prime minister of England, he said there was a quote or a tweet where he goes,

I saw this and he goes, I spit my porridge out. Because he was like, what are you talking about? There's no no-go zones. What are you talking about? But suddenly everyone on Fox is going like, see, Sharia law is happening. talking about right but suddenly everyone on fox is going like see sharia law is happening there's places where even english people will not go because it's so scary the muslims are it's like gang warfare right there's none of that shit right but people start believing that stuff and and then the next thing you know so that's why i i really have a hard time now like even

going on audition like i don't i don't even accept auditions for terrorist parts but those parts are continue to be written but how do you feel like in terms of when you go out on the road and and you know in outside of uh persians getting mad at you because i imagine their argument is like you know not only is it not not persian headgear it's arab headgear but you're sort of like uh uncle toming it somehow yeah well that's the point though the point is first of all if they if they look at the material, if they see the act, it's very different. And secondly,

this book is trying to, it's a play on, you get it, a lot of people don't get it, it's a play on, I'm not a doctor, but I've played one on TV. Sure.

And it's, I think the story, there's a lot of self-deprecation in there, there's a lot of like, I made this mistake of playing these parts. So I told, actually I told a few of these people these people i said you're literally judging a book by its

cover right you haven't even looked at it and also i think like i think the important thing is it's just even for someone like me to acknowledge that you know there's a persian community yeah you know and the there's a huge persian community and that like another thing that happens in america is that we're all very separate we know we're all living here yeah but it's like well the Armenians are over in Glendale yeah that's Armenian land yeah and it's not racist but it's just you know there's part of the things like I'm not welcome there really I mean we go yeah like where did the Persian community hang out but but I think that because you know you have this ability to sort of cross over and and disarm a lot of that I I think it's great I think it's like it's good for to get out of the persian community even

absolutely like you know because because that's another thing that happens is when a culture or an ethnicity you know settles here they insulate themselves yeah and they you know they create their their neighborhoods and their stores and it's just like like the chasidic jews it's like yeah where where do those guys work yeah I don't know where they work yeah and I don't want to be it's funny I run into those people I ran into a guy like that yesterday very nice guy at the laugh factory came to the show Persian guy Persian guy yeah and after the show he's like um if I wanted to do a private show can you do that I go yeah I mean to get in touch with my agent with he's like can you

do it in Farsi and I go no I don't do it in farsi he's like you should do jokes in farsi i'm like i don't want to do jokes in farsi i go my audiences are mixed i grew up in america there's a rhythm to it you know what i'm saying i always the way i explain it to people i go it's like i go it's like somebody who's a jazz musician right you're saying play classical right i can do it but it's gonna sound shitty you don't have the timing right the timing isn't right there's different listen the persians tell jokes yeah they tell there's a lot of regional jokes yeah so like whereas like we have like the polacks are dumb and so for persians like the guys from the north right called turkish they're turks they're dumb and these people are like these people their wives so they have their own little

racist horrible jokes all this stuff but it's like so this guy and that guy and his wife said this it's jokes yeah and and i love hearing them yeah but i said this. It's jokes. Yeah. And I love hearing them. Yeah. But I'm not a joke teller. Right. I'm a stand-up comedian. Yeah. And I got to talk about my life.

Right. And in talking about my life, there's a lot of- You don't think in Farsi. I don't think in Farsi. Yeah. But no, but it's interesting because it's like, first of all, irony is not big in the community. So if you say-

It's all very broad. Very broad, but it's also very like literal as well so whereas like if you're watching a stand-up comedian who goes yeah so i was at the bar and it was 2 a.m and the lights came on and the only person and by that point it was just me and this little asian boy yeah anyway i'm banging the asian boy right yeah you get that he's not banging the asian right you do that in farsi they they're like, he fucked an Asian boy? I'm like, what? Right.

The weird dark twist does not read. It doesn't read. It's just another, the next part of the story. What is he? Yeah. That doesn't exist in the culture.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, it's probably better off actually. Yeah. You can't, you don't do any questionable jokes

along those lines. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't want to questionable jokes along those lines. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't want to do a punchline in Farsi. I've seen young guys do that. Or roll your eyes. Yeah. I've seen young guys do that.

I go, listen, dude. I'll tell them. I go, listen, you just isolated. Because they'll do it at the regular clubs. You just isolated. But I think it's really weird. It's a very organic way of like, you know, because I think it does make a big difference to somebody just to see a Persian person or even if you identify as Iranian

for a white guy from the middle Midwest who might never, never see a Persian guy. Right. Like, oh, that guy's just a guy. Absolutely. It makes a big difference. And that's why with my act, I try as much as I can. First of all, whenever I talk about Irananians or my own background my parents i i throw in the

word immigrant parents because right right there i think a lot of people here shows the immigrant here the immigrant here yeah so i think a lot of people that had parents that are immigrants or grandparents they associate so whether you're russian or you're you know the experience is the same it's very similar you constantly have to separate yourself from the terrorist absolutely or grandparents, they associate. So whether you're Russian or you're, you know. Right, the experience is the same. It's very similar. You constantly have to separate yourself from the terrorist. Absolutely. Like that's the whole agenda now.

Yeah, but the idea is though, it's like, look, we had the same experiences. Your parents didn't get it the same way my parents didn't get it. Right. And so I like to do material like that, and I reference it as immigrant. And then the other stuff I've been doing, because I got kids, I do a lot of kid material.

So ultimately, like you said, if some guy comes from the Midwest that's never seen an Iranian, I reference it as immigrant. And then the other stuff I've been doing, because I got kids, I do a lot of kid material. Yeah. So ultimately, like you said, if some guy comes from the Midwest that's never seen an Iranian. Right. I think they can walk out going like, oh, yeah, I had, you know, I knew what he was talking about with the kids. Yeah. Oh, yeah, whatever. Sure. You know.

Sure. Whether it's like black comedians or Latino comedians or whatever, you don't want to isolate so much where that guy from the Midwest feels like. Feels alienated. Yeah, feels alienated. Yeah. Well, good, man. I wish you best of luck with the book thanks man good to see you man good to see you thanks for having me yeah man all right mark maz very nice fellow straight up dude funny guy so uh i wanted to talk to somebody another person i haven't really talked

to too many music producers john agnello comes highly recommended as one of the sweetest and most talented guys working in that area i tweeted that he was going to be on the show tomorrow fucking jason isbell just uh said good guy and retweeted that shit musicians love this dude and that's saying a lot for a guy on the other side of the business so uh let's talk now to john it's a night for the whole family be a part of kids night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a dan Dawson bobblehead

courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day they embody calgary's dna a city that's innovative inclusive and creative and they're helping put calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place

where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges calgary's on the right path forward take a closer look how at calgary economic development.com now the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Well, you've done a fucking million records. I've never talked to a hands-on kind of producer guy. Right. You're the first guy that I talked to. I talked to John Cale. Right. But, you know,

I don't know, where did he start with that guy? And then when I asked him about the big records, this dude's just like, yeah, they were all set. I didn't have to do anything. I mean, a lot of those guys

are just big picture guys. They're vibe guys. They're there just to inspire and, you know. So, to add to the vibe? So, him sitting there in a cape with a cat or whatever the hell he did in his dracula outfit that was like to create ambience for the well for the

fellas no i'm sure he added you know to it but the point is like there's there's probably another guy in the room who's really doing a lot of the work also you know i've been the engineer for a lot of producers who are musicians and it sometimes ends up being more collaborative anyway yeah but where do you start man let's go back because i mean you've got sort of a rich history in the in music you grew up where i grew up in benson hearst brooklyn oh yeah okay yeah so in the before brooklyn was hip this benson hearst was never hip i mean benson hearst was literally the land of saturday night fever right you know so you grew up in that. Oh, yeah. I grew up a hippie in an immigrant Italian family, and me and my hippie friends were the fastest hippies in the world

because we spent all our teenage years being chased by guidos. Yeah. Like, we got shit kickings all the time. How old are you? I'm 55. So I grew up in the 70s. Yeah, a little older than me, but we missed the 60s. So it's sort of like the crashing wave of the 60s

and the fashion was there and the music was left. Right. But it wasn't, we weren't 69. Well, I have an older brother who's 10 years older than me. That helped. And he, when he hears this, he'll be annoyed that I say, but he was literally a hippie. Yeah.

But he was wonderful. A smart guy, went to CCNY and was an electrical engineer. And I could probably say that the reason, one of the main reasons I got into music was because of him. And definitely one of the reasons I got into recording was because of him. Isn't that amazing? The older brother power. You need that guy, that guide to sort of like, this is what's good.

Yeah. And what did he lay down on you? What did he lay on you? Well, he worked for a company called Eventide that made recording gear for studios. Right. And now they do pedals and they do a bunch of stuff. And he's come full circle. Now he runs the company.

Oh, really? Yeah. So he's been there that long? Well, he left to start his own company and he was away for like 10 years. Yeah. And then he basically got out of the company and then went back to eventide and and continued and because he had long tenured when the owner retired he took over the company right he's really he's the best but um so when i was a kid in high school my summer

job was working at eventide and i put together delay lines and flangers and all kinds of flangers yay back when they were like single rack mount and big and everything was big back then. Nothing was small. So I did that summer job. And as a 16-year-old working all summer, I made enough money to buy my own kick-ass stereo. So I was the only kid on my block. Do you remember what it was?

Pioneer 737 was the receiver. And I had two AR speakers. But anyway, point being, so I'm a kid now. I'm a hippie kid with a really bitching stereo like blowing up my neighbors in brooklyn and in the world of saturday night fever and you know kind of working at eventide eventide has a recording studio above it called sound exchange so every now and then i peek up there and look at sessions and be like wow this is cool yeah uh end up going to college and who were in those sessions anybody it was nobody it was not like a famous studio it was just a you know and what music were you listening to what was your

brother listening to um well you know he ushered me through the beatles the stones and a lot of garage rock yeah um and then i have a middle brother who ushered me into alice cooper and a lot of that stuff and then i got full training full training. Yeah, it was crazy. But were you going into the city to see bands and shit with your brother? My older brother, the first concert he took me to was the Joni Mitchell Court and Spark Tour, which was pretty...

I know. But they were hip. That was cool. No, I know. It's like I respect Joni Mitchell. I think she's amazing. Can't listen to it, really. I try. I mean, I know. It's like I respect Joni Mitchell. I think she's amazing. Can't listen to it, really. I try.

I mean, I listened recently because I saw this rough cut of a Jaco Pastore's documentary. Well, okay. And I was like, I'm going to go check that shit out again. I couldn't get... Still, I couldn't do it. Couldn't do the whole thing. Love her, though. Yeah.

No disrespect. Not a huge fan of the later jazz days so much. But in that time, and I still go back and listen to Blue and For the Roses, and they're just beautiful records. I mean, they are what they are, but they're certainly beautiful. So you go see Joanie.

Yeah, but then I go see The Kinks with them, and then I go see Sparks with them. Sparks. See, I don't know about them. Are they great? They're great. They're really wacky pop, but super wacky. They're kind of a cross between a pop man and queen.

Okay. They ushered me, and then I just became a show rat. I mean, I went to every show. Like, the summer, we'd go to shows every night. What years were this? I would say 77 through 80. 76 through 80. So punk's over.

Yeah, I was like, I missed the whole punk thing. Like, no tats, no piercings. No CBGBs? I went to CB I missed the whole punk thing. Like, I never, like, no tats, no, you know, no piercings. It was like, I kind of... No CBGBs? I went to CBGBs to see certain shows. I saw, you know, Patti Smith there. But I didn't, I wasn't a punk. You know what I mean?

I just wasn't. I was like, you know, I was actually a prog rock kid, which they hated anyway. So I was better off not going there. You know, I was like Pink Floyd, Genesis, yes. Really into Todd Rundgren really into Gentle Giant

to get really more obscure Nectar which was really obscure you like that math rock huh my thing is like I think everybody has

a bunch of music they listen to as a kid that when they reflect on it yeah it's like oof yeah you know I guess I have some of that

but some of it I still listen to like I went back and replaced a lot of it. I mean, like, I got all the Skinner records. Right. And that's just growing up in America. Right, right, right. Like, a townie rock was like,

that was part of my past. I can't really do Bob Seger. I wouldn't go out of my way. I couldn't do, like, Foreigner. That came out when I was in high school. I don't need it. I don't need to pick that stuff back up again. That's one of the things that I go back and go, you know, yeah.

I can't do it. Some of the mixes on that stuff was just, you know, it was like that one, the big production keyboards I don't love. Synthesizers, if not done well, I don't. I'm more pro-synth than I used to be, but not generally speaking. So you're not a big fan of the synth saxophone dueling solo? Oh, man, that just put me to sleep. I just went to sleep for like three seconds speaking so you're not a big fan of the synth saxophone dueling solo you don't oh man that just that just put me to sleep yeah i just went to sleep for like three seconds in the middle of

you saying synth saxophone dual solo i took a nap so all right so when do you start getting involved with uh with being a guy behind the board there well i mean i guess it was, I ended up going to Brooklyn College for two years. Sociology, anthropology, start aiming that way my second year. So aimlessly aiming your way into anthropology and sociology? No, into music, basically. Okay. That's really what I was doing. But by my second year, my grade point average had dropped from 3.7 to 2.6. And I was like know i just wasn't

into it right so my brother got me an interview at a studio and i was still working at eventide you know on off hours and sometimes landers building whatever they you know whatever they sold but um but literally my brother got me an interview at the record plant studios in new york uh which is a famous record famous record plant. And the studio manager was like, you know, if you're anything like your brother, you'll be fine. And they hired me on the spot. No, they didn't ask you like,

do you know what this knob is? No, I didn't know shit. It was crazy. It was also back in the day where there weren't recording schools. So you kind of learned from the ground. They built you up. You know what I mean?

Who was the manager then? Anybody that we know? Probably not. His name was Paul Sloman. Now, the record plant had been around for years before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They opened up in the late 60s, right? Right, right.

And Hendrix recorded Electric Ladyland. Well, that's the thing. They were building Electric Ladyland, but they didn't finish it in time, so he did it at the record plant. Okay. Yeah, because they ended up building it on 8th Street in Manhattan. The studio.

Yeah, the studio. Oh, so that was going to be Jimmy's studio. That was his studio. And they finished at the record plant, but there were some other big names in there too, right? I mean, John Lennon did a bunch of shit there. Before you got there. Yeah, Kiss did a bunch of shit. That was the studio where Springsteen and Patty wrote Because the Night Together.

Really? Yeah, Springsteen was in B doing... Wait, Springsteen was in A doing Darkness, and Patti was in B doing... I want to say Wave, but maybe not that. That's not the name of the record. But Bruce had the song, he had the music. He couldn't finish it. He had a roadblock.

He gave it to Patti. She wrote the lyrics, and he said, yeah, just fucking take it. He had a roadblock. He gave it to Patty. She wrote the lyrics and he said, yeah, just fucking take it. And it became like her song. It was like, and if you watch the Darkness documentary, which is about the year and a half it took him to make Darkness on the Edge of Town,

it's actually called The Promise. He talks about it and it's really amazing. So there was so much great shit going on there. Do you believe in magic spaces um i believe spaces can be magical but i think with without the right ingredients it's just a space it's just a space yeah i mean the the people who made the records and the artists back then and just the and the environment was just so off the map incredibly crazy yeah that of course you had amazing things happening like how so like what do you mean crazy just because there were so

many people recording there at any given time you know you got you you know you got uh phil specter waving his gun around at the record plant i think it was at the record point where he did that but but he did stuff there and you know you just basically had guys who were almost feral and unemployable in any other way of life making records um no producers and engineers more and maybe all of them i don't even know i can't right i just and but these guys were obviously the top-notch dudes you know back then if you worked at the record plant you were a great engineer right i mean you know jimmy ivine came through the record plan he just made a fortune didn't he he did pretty good for himself but didn't he just partner up with dre on yeah yeah and the beats and the apple and all that he but he was a producer before that right

he was an assistant yeah he became an engineer was he there when you were there no oh well yeah he was i mean he started way before i when i when right before i busted into assisting i did this function for certain sessions called i was a second assistant which meant i was a glorified runner right but i'd hang around and when you know somebody needed a bottle of wine i ran down the block and got it somebody who's somebody whoever the artist of the was it where'd you draw the line at what you brought back oh no it was never like drugs we didn didn't do, like it was all legal. They had to bring their own drugs. Back then they had guys. They had a guy.

They had a guy in it. A guy or two. The guy on the couch. Yeah, yeah. Our buddy. But I second assisted on a meatloaf record where Jimmy was producing. It was just a mix phase.

But you know, he got to know me and he was from brooklyn and he was italian and you know his mom used to cook him dinner like 24 7 whenever he got home and i had the same thing and he kind of took a little bit of a liking to me because i was almost like a mini him but super fucking nervous yeah and um that was kind of a little bit of my dealing with him he was fucking awesome and awesome. And he was a real... What were his big records? Well, I mean, the one that I remember they did partially there, he did Damn the Torpedoes.

He produced that. He produced a bunch of Stevie Nicks shit. He did a great Motors record. He worked on a bunch of Springsteen stuff. I mean, he engineered Darkness in the Yidgetown, which was amazing. It's a great record, huh? You know, it was amazing.

But I wasn't there for that phase. I started 79 and was thrust into this thing of really not even getting in a control room for like two or three years. I was like a tape librarian. You know, back in the old days of tape, and if you see the Promise documentary, there is like a montage in the beginning, all these different shots, and there's a shot of mountains of two-inch tape.

Yeah. And I swear I saw the number 178. And I remember how we logged them in then. Yeah. And there were at least 178 reels of tape they recorded on. Oh, my God. That's a lot of fucking tape. Yeah.

It's weird. Just the storage issue of analog is yeah yeah profound profound yeah well what we would do is after a while when the record came out we would get the record company to take them so that okay so you're sitting there you're okay you're a kid and you're you're a tape librarian now how does one like if you're up in that number of 178 reels and like like any given song could have you know multiple reels of tape how do you catalog what's good and what's bad and how do you what is the process of i mean i have to assume not unlike when people had to use a typewriter right that that at some point you're

like uh it's gonna have to be that way right like there's not this like there's not this infinite cutting and pasting and and dubbing and everything else like at some point you're like i think number 80 was the one. Is that how it worked? Well, for me, the tape librarian, all I had to do was notate, like on these little cards, what was on each reel. The assistant engineer was in charge of making sure they knew what the master take was.

On the tape. Yeah, but ultimately, when you got a master take, you would take it off of reel 140 and put it on what you called a master reel. So you would end up with like four or five master reels of takes. So what's a master take versus whatever else is on that reel? The master take is the take that is the one that is going to be the record. Okay.

You know, like if, you know, Jimmy says, that's the take. And it's like take, you know, 130, you know, the assistant would write it down. And at the end of the night, he'd pull that off onto its own reel. So you'd know, there'd be like, you know, 180 reels of outtakes. Right. And, you know, five or six reels. So sometimes the master take would be buried,

or was it usually the last take? You don't know. You never know, right? It could be the first take. Yeah. But they just keep doing it over and over again just because? Well, you like well we're

you know we're talking about springsteen so i mean he did spend a year and a half making the record so i mean obviously they did things a lot you know what i mean oh my god it's just it's hard work right i mean a lot of times if stuff like for me if i like to use the headphones to like manipulate the take yeah you know if you're kind of not like in if you're playing like behind or ahead i'll maybe goose the drums up and so you can hear more of the rhythm. You know what I mean? Because maybe it's something like that

or maybe the vocal's throwing you off because it's a roughened vocal and it's not really in time. Right. So there are different ways of doing it, you know, just to make someone comfortable. Or you can have them sit in the control room. Sometimes the control room's a little more fun

because you're just sitting there listening. Yeah, yeah. So you're a tape librarian for three years? Two years, something like that. But you're watching, right? You're watching the knobs. Well, after a year, they let you in the control room. What they do is it's a ladder.

So the assistants eventually, if they don't get fired or have nervous breakdowns or whatever you know or whatever if they get good enough they become engineers at one point so then that's when a tape librarian if he doesn't have a nervous breakdown or just run out of the building screaming they he becomes an assistant yeah and usually they meant the you know the guys right above you mentor you and what would happen is and this is like i said it's way different from how things are now because you know everybody comes out of school a producer and engineer i'm not like are they doing it at home well they're doing it at home right yeah and i'm not you know i'm not saying no judge i'm just

saying this is how the difference um so as i got a little more comfortable in in the place assistant engineers would then be given free time on the weekends to bring bands in and learn how to engineer they can bring their own friends in or whatever for like a day yeah for nothing and just you know and then but in turn they had to bring me as a tape librarian in to be the assistant and they had to teach me how to assist so i would work five days a week being a tape librarian and then ultimately work like every weekend where an engineer would bring some of his buddies in where his big idea these guys are going to be big and then as i was an assistant, I did the same thing where I just had a bunch of friends in Brooklyn

who had cool bands and I was like, get a free day. And then I'd have to train this fucking kid who was under me to teach him how to edit and all this bullshit. This was the record plant system. It was, yeah. But it worked great. I mean, they generated a bunch of really good people, you know, a real good group of engineers.

I mean, the list of people who come out of there are really pretty phenomenal so what was the first one that you were actually working on the first record i worked on uh i assisted on um was a guy named ellison chase for columbia that the record never came out it was just one of those things that it just didn't happen didn't happen for that guy right didn't happen. Didn't happen for that guy. Right, didn't happen for that guy. Got right to the edge. Right. But the good news about that record was

I got hooked up with a team of a producer and an engineer, and both guys ended up being very significant in my life. The producer was Rick Chertoff, and the engineer was Bill Whitman. Yeah. And then after that, we went on to do, they went on, I was the assistant, they went on to do the first Cyndi Lauper record.

That was huge. That was pretty fucking crazy. She was something, huh? She was incredible. She's still pretty good. Yeah, I just saw her. I took my kid, his full circle, I take my kid who loves that record, who at that point was seven, to see her in some state theater in New Jersey.

And she was fucking awesome. Yeah. And she was super awesome. Yeah. And she was super gracious after the show. She gave my kid a hug. She signed her tour laminate, whatever. She remember you? Oh, dude, she was so funny.

I was like 1230 and I was trying to get the kid home. Yeah. And I was trying to do the Irish exit. Yeah. And we got down the hall and I hear, John! Yeah. I'm like, are you leaving? And I was like, I had to go up and give her a hug

and say, congratulations, I got to get the kid home. I'm going to get my ass kicked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, she's really wonderful. And unusual. But what was the difference? Because that was before CD, right? That, I think, was right around the CD time.

Now, was that like some sort of an insane shift in the way everyone thought about things in the studio? i mean it was more like the production thing because it was but i guess cd didn't i mean the technology digital technology was not in the studios completely you're still doing production yeah that's right because you made your records analog but right i mean the real shift in cds um what for the record companies because they were able to take all their back catalog and spend virtually no money remastering for CD, and then everything they made was overhead. Right.

So that caused this whole boom of just money. But some of those first CDs were remastered poorly, right? I mean... Some of the first CDs, and I think if I remember correctly, the Who catalog specifically caught my attention. What happened was when they went back to do a lot of these old records, they didn't always find the right master tapes. They'd find safety copies, which were copies a generation down.

But they also did these things where they used to be Dolby Masters, and you need to encode and decode the Dolby. But on a lot of these early CDs, they didn't realize they had to do that, so they just took a Dolby Master and didn't put it through a Dolby machine and mastered through that. So it sounded muffled? Just bad. Yeah, muffled and low.

I mean, it took a while for them, and that's why they ended up doing a lot of the remastering is because a lot of people realized, this sounds like shit. How'd that happen? What the fuck is Dolby? Dolby is this noise reduction unit doing a lot of the remastering is because like a lot of people realize this sounds like shit. Yeah. You know, what's going on? How'd that happen? Yeah. So. Yeah. What the fuck is Dolby? Dolby is this noise reduction unit

that when people started getting tweaky about tape hiss. Yeah. They decided we're going to put this thing and the same thing on cassettes and shit. I don't know if you remember

like my cassette deck had a Dolby button. Yeah, yeah, it had a Dolby button. But you had to put the fucking Dolby in and it was just this thing

where, you know, instead of not worrying about fucking a little tape noise, you know, they. I never liked it well it it took top end off yeah it took the high end up i mean hiss is top end i mean so it would roll off the top i like treble i like yeah i mean treble you know jay says treble is excitement jay mascus all right so you do cindy whopper and then when do you what's your first what's, and then what's the first one you produced?

Like, who else did you work with? So it was, once again, getting back to the record plant pecking order. As I was there long enough, I became the, I guess, the head assistant. I was the most tenure guy. So I ended up getting all the good gigs. So, you know, I worked on the Cindy record early on, but then I worked on, like, Iggy Pop Party record. You did? Yeah. Yeah, that was a trip. That's a good record. It's record early on, but then I worked on like Iggy Pop Party record. You did?

Yeah. Yeah, that was a trip. That's a good record. It's a great record, but that was a trip. Like how many people, who did he travel with? He didn't travel with a million people. He really was, he was just full on Iggy. Yeah.

It was really amazing. Who was the band? Who was the band on that one? We did Overdub. So it was Overdub's and Mixing. So I didn't even know who was on the band at that point. But but i think ivan crowell from patty smith played guitar on it yeah so really so you just be in there with iggy singing the tape yeah yeah yeah he did this crazy thing it was so um the record was produced by two different people a staff engineer guy named tom

penunzio uh a lot of italians this record. Well, the record, you know, Roy Sacala, you know, Tom Panunzio, Jimmy Iovine, Jay Messina. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of... Jews and Italians.

Right, Jews and Italians. Yeah. Right. But, well, I guess the non-Cougine Italians went into recording. Uh-huh. You know,

the other guys went into construction. I don't even fucking know. I don't know how it worked. But, so literally, basically, the Iggy record was produced. Part of it was produced by Tom, and the other part was produced by Tommy Boyce,

who was half of the team that did all the Monkees records. Really? Yeah, and he was like an English jolly guy. He'd call everybody darling and just really be very, you know, he was a very funny guy wonderful um as an engineer do you have these guys on your back you know telling well once again i'm the assistant so i have everybody on my back you know right literally at one point and this is no exaggeration iggy's out there doing vocals and that was back in the old days when the assistant would do all the headphone mixes and stuff like

that we have to run the tape machine it was like really assistants were very busy what do you mean headphone mixes well like whatever you have running through your headphones, you have to dial in certain, you know, more guitar, more bass. Okay. Because they have to hear well to sing. Yeah. And reverb and stuff. Yeah. So at one point, I got my head down,

and I'm getting a headphone mix in the console, and the engineer taps me on the shoulder, and I'm like, wow, he points. And I look out into the studio, and there's this towel over the music stand so it doesn't reflect into the microphone because the music stands are metal. Right.

And Iggy's lit on fire. And I'm like, what? And there are like sprinklers in the fucking ceiling. It's a major building in fucking Manhattan. So I bust a move out there and I grab the thing, burn my hand and do like this hat dance on the thing and put it out. And it was just like, all right, let's go back to work what how did he set it on fire with a fucking lighter on purpose

he just did it i don't know i didn't want to ask him you know i'm like 22 years old he's icky pop i'm gonna say what the fuck are you doing why question his process exactly i guess that's something he has to do what's your motivation yeah yeah um no but i did that was you know that's what i say it was kind of like a little like the wild west back then when everybody was a little fucking nutty and we you know you just had to do you know did you see a lot of drugs yeah i saw a lot of fucking drugs yeah i saw enough drugs to know that like after 1984 85 like i was like so over the drug thing and like all my friends back in brooklyn were starting to get into the drugs and i was just just like, leave me alone. You never got fucked up, though. I mean, there were always inadvertent issues and things that happened.

Like if you made one bad decision, you would do a line of something that you thought was cocaine and it was heroin. And that was a bummer. It was a pukey bummer. Yeah. Not a lot of work after that, for that day. There was another issue at one point where when someone offered me a pill because I was too stressed out, I probably shouldn't have taken it because I took it and woke up like six hours later laying on the bathroom floor like 8 o'clock in the morning on a Monday and had to go home to my parents' house. You don't know what it was. It was probably a two and all, but whatever.

you don't know what it was uh it was probably a two and all but whatever but you know apart from that i mean once again i was we were working so you really had to work you know what i mean the bands partied more right and you know um and a lot i mean you know bands would spell their names in cocaine yeah you know and just everybody would do a letter the thing is like you know i did coke i haven't done anything in a long time, but by day two or three, you're fucked. Yeah, so they do more Coke. Yeah, but it's like, you must have just seen

people just wear down. I can't imagine this. There are some theories about certain sounds of the 80s in production. I hear that. Yeah, you think that was driven by Coke?

Well, Rockin' a Hard Place is all cymbals. I mean, when you listen to the record,'s like it's crazy um and cocaine symbols and then literally those some of those days were like 30 hours and people were exhausted but you know someone would be playing on a pump organ a part that would be the lowest thing in the mix and they'd work on it for like five hours and you would just be like you'd want to blow your brains out but you had to do it yeah sit on those knobs yeah yeah so all right so okay so you're doing this assistant engineering but when do you take the helm um well post the cindy

record yeah um two of the backing band with the uh two members of a band called the hooters from philadelphia yeah so the cindy record went so well that my engineering mentor Bill Whitman became a producer himself yeah and then Rick who was like my product one of my production mentors he needed an engineer and it's the same thing was the latter I just filled into the slot yeah to engineer for Rick and we did a Hooters record together and that was one yeah yeah, most of the first one. I was on half of the first one. Bill left halfway through. But they kind of were big for a minute.

Yeah, that first record did really well for them. I think it probably went platinum. That song, And We Dance, was kind of a hit. But so I ended up engineering from that point, which was 1983, 1984, and kind of never looked back and, you know, or looked back a bunch, but it didn't fucking matter, so. And what way, so like when it says,

like I'm looking at your website and you've got it coded, like what's the difference between recorded, mixed, and like, yeah, what's the difference? So recording is basically the band's playing and I'm putting it to tape or to digital, but they're literally playing. You're not on the knobs or you are? I'm on the knobs, yeah and I'm putting it to tape or to digital, but they're literally playing. You're not on the knobs or you are?

I'm on the knobs. Yeah, I'm on the knobs and I'm talking to them. Can you turn it up? Can you turn it down? The producer's probably hitting the button saying, hey, you're rushing or a little more feeling or a little less feeling. Yeah, what is that breakdown? So if you're recording it,

that means you have an engineer. If you're just a producer, I want to use Jay as an example, but I... You did a lot of work with Masked. Okay, I'll give you a perfect example. So Jay produces a Breeders 7-inch, and I'm the engineer.

So I literally get the sounds of all the instruments, and he listens, and he's like, can you put more something on the snare? And I make him happy, and I put more something on the snare? Yeah, yeah. And I make him happy and I put more something on the snare. And, you know,

adjust the guitar tones. And then we start recording and I basically make sure everything's going to tape and sounds good. And he makes sure that he likes what they're playing and maybe he'll suggest them

change a part or a drum beat or add a fill. So it's, he's more musical content and i'm more like sound content right um so that's producing and recording um and mixing when you're done recording everything it's like cooking you know you have all these fucking ingredients so now you've got to make the final product which ends up being the record that you hopefully buy well relative to um what he says like if he says more snare, more this, more that,

is that once you get into mixing, you can alter that again, right? Yes, yes. So then you've got your master, and then you're like, yeah, maybe I was wrong about the snare. Take that back down. My thing, maybe I wasn't specific enough,

but my thing is he would probably ask me to maybe make the snare brighter or fatter or add more room to it. Right, so it's not a level thing. Right, it doesn't have to be a level and a lot of times what you do is you do this stuff and then you just mix section by section yeah because there was so many changes you couldn't you couldn't do it all so you'd mix a verse and a lot of the cindy lawper record is mixed like that you mix a verse you get it right

you listen all right let's mix the chorus you cut that together that sounds great all right let's do the second verse let's go back to the verse settings. Oh, my God. Yeah, no, it was a real process. It was pretty intense. No wonder some bands have such a hard time recreating what they do for live music. There's no way you can do that stuff. Also, back then, yeah.

I mean, you'd think you'd be limited by tracks, but what ends up happening is you have the drums on four tracks, so you still have room for a ton of shit. So each drum gets its own track sometimes not sometimes you submix them you know maybe the drums are on six tracks you know whatever like a bass drum on one track snare and the other those are probably the most important tom's on another track and then room mics on another you know wow yeah and and it was rare that anyone played in real time in a way like a band like oh no i think bands you know the

the thing with technology for me is like it's as technology advanced music musicianship declined like back then when you had to record on analog people really fucking played yeah you know it wasn't like today all at the same time ever yeah yeah that's how people you know i mean a lot of times you know there's no absolutes obviously you would you could do either way but you know i experienced a lot of a lot of bands playing like um i'm thinking of what records twisted sister they all played live yeah um the cindy record no it was more layers because they were still like a lot of times they were still writing the songs in the studio which was kind of fun yeah it seems like that happens a lot.

It still happens a lot, yeah. And sometimes it could happen to the detriment of the song, but those guys knew what they were doing. And also I think once pop music redefined itself, it seemed like layers and this sort of heightened production is what it became about for a while there. It wasn't really about the performance of the musicians. It was almost like production took precedent over the music in a way.

So you worked, I'm just looking at, because you've been involved with so many things, but you did a few Alice Cooper things. Right. But that was later, right? Yeah, that was in the 90s. That was the last temptation of Alice Cooper. It was more like in maybe his later metal phase.

Not even metal. I shouldn't even say that. It was just like a later phase. It seemed like you really came into your own with the, I guess it was a little pre-alt rock. But it was like those bands like Dinosaur Jr., The Breeders, Buffalo Tom, Sonic Youth. The guys that I was into in college. That that was a whole new thing i loved buffalo tom yeah i love that guy yeah they sounded great yeah like i don't know why the fuck they weren't huge you know i i have like i live in jersey city and i have so many of my buddies who are like younger

than me are just so into them and they just now yeah oh yeah they're Oh, yeah. They're like huge fans. Like they are totally. When one of them found out I had produced Sleepy Eye, best friends for life. He loves me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's a bartender, which is great. Yeah. I mean, it's a rough game, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Like where you are behind the board, that's one thing. But these guys that have their life on the line, it's like it can get kind of sad. And it's random. You know, it's not like. No, if it wasn't random, everybody would be making hit records. You can't...

Who the hell knows why? You don't know. No, I know. Something happens. That's why it's funny you do all these records in a row. And a perfect example, you know, like it was great when Smokering,

the Kurt record, like... Kurt Vile. Yeah, it did well. I mean, it was like, it seemed like it was the right record at the right moment. He's your guy, right? I mean, I love him. I mean, I've done the last two records with him. Produced it and did everything. Yeah. like it seemed like it was the right record at the right moment he's your guy right i mean i love

him i mean i've done the last two records with him produced it and did everything yeah because that's a very specific sound he has yeah well i mean that's i don't really my thing is more like not i i don't i don't necessarily bring the sound i i make the sound better right you know what i mean i make it more like big and you better and more like facilitator with him. So as a producer and as an engineer, you don't necessarily have a style? I mean, I have a style. You know what I mean? What defines that?

Well, I guess how I record things and how I mix things and where I put things. I'm a very big left-right guy. I like things on the left and different things on the right. Some people hate that. People get annoyed at me. I had one guy say to me you know i go into a store and the right speaker doesn't work and i can't hear that other guitar and i'm like well don't go in that store i mean you know it's like i got to make the records like to be cool yeah that's

why they made stereo so um you know what do you think of mono i mean i like mono too i think mono as an effect is really good i i Sometimes you do the drums on one side. That's really cool, you know. What is mono? Why do people like mono mixes more than stereo mixes? Because they're not stereo. You know, it's like they got something different, I think. But is there a difference in sound?

Well, everything's in the middle. So, yeah, it's just a different way of things mix. But, I mean, the Beatles are a perfect example. You know, when they did those early records they came out in mono and then when stereo started becoming a fad yeah they went back to remix the records in stereo but they didn't give a shit about it so much because it was like a fad right so there wasn't as much attention um but as stereo became more of a thing i mean people really got into the fact that you can place things everywhere.

Sure. It was just a cool thing. So I think what people like now, when they go back to mono, is the oddity of how different it is. Right. I don't, you know, I won't qualify it being better or worse.

I don't, you know, who cares? It's just different. Yeah. But that's what it is. It's different. But, you know, as an engineer and as a producer, you've got to be pretty open-minded. Yeah, of course. I mean, what are fights that could happen?

Is there territory within that environment? I'll give you a specific example with a band you really like, Buffalo Tom. Okay. So they did the Red Letter record. Yeah. They felt like maybe they had spent more time on it than they'd liked, and it wasn't live enough. So they hired me to do Sleepy Eyed. And the caveat was...

They blamed the producer for that? They didn't necessarily blame them, but they wanted to do the next record in a different direction. Okay. It wasn't like, fuck those guys. It was more like, we did this record, we want to try something different. Yeah. We want to make it a whole live direction. Okay. You know, it wasn't like, you know, fuck those guys. It was more like, you know, we did this record, we want to try

something different. Yeah. We want to make a whole live record. Right. So we set up the band at an old church in Woodstock

and all live, PA and doing vocals live. So you bring a truck up there? No, no, it's a studio. It's an old church with a control room. Okay.

But literally, it's called Dreamland. It's a wonderful place. That's my plug. Is it your place? No, no. But I may get free studio time down the road because of it. But the point is they're set up all live, like everything.

It's like a show. And we record the songs. And, you know, a couple of the songs, I feel like Bill can sing better. Yeah. And the fight is that he wants to keep them live. But I think he can sing them better. So I really want him to sing better. And that's one of the battles, you know,

and I got to get him to sing it better. Cause I know he can. And you're producing that right now. So you have a little juice as an engineer. You can't really like, yeah, I guess if you annoy someone enough, maybe you can still get him to try it again. But yeah, as a producer, my thing is as a producer,

it's my responsibility that the record, when the record comes out you know um i don't know if tangerine has a shitty vocal on it you know and i hear it every time i'm gonna be fucking miserable like i didn't do my job so so that that's a perfect example and we met in the middle you know a lot of times but if i really felt like i needed something i really just had to get it, you know? Yeah. And, you know, you can even say things like, just try it again, and if it's not as good, we won't use it. Right.

Just to get them to do it. Sure, sure, sure. You know what I mean? And then you can have the next fight of using it or not. Now, when you work with somebody like the breeders, like what is, like, you know, what's that like? Because that's a pretty chaotic bunch, right? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Like, I mean mean how much chaos do you have to manage as an engineer or producer to to kind of you know i think jay managed that pretty well he produced it well he did the single yeah um i guess when i went on to do what ended up being the amps where that was started as a breeders record i was kind of alone in that but um yeah it was chaotic i mean she's a trip yeah you know i think she hates me at this point because i quit i quit a record because i just couldn't you know i couldn't get her to folk you know yeah and she just wait what was that fight uh we got to make

a record you're talking about stuff doing what everything Stuff doing what? Everything. Everything? But I'm serious. I'm not, you know, it was like, and I, trust me, I went in to Last Splash. When I heard that record, I fell in love with them and I fell in love with her. It's a hell of a production. Who did the, who produced it? Mark, Mark Goodall or some English. And that's sonically weird.

Yeah, well, they are sonically weird. Yeah. I mean, she plays the acoustic guitar through an amp and it has its own sound yeah they do all the effects on the vocals i mean listen i i'm you know sometimes you just can't that's just it goes down you know you can't fix it you know she's got to fix it herself and you know i had to i literally had to quit because i was like you know i can't you're not this is going to be a nightmare i'm not going to be a part of this right you know, I can't, you're not, this is going to be a nightmare. I'm not going to be a part of this. Right. You know, I just can't. Be dragged down with it. You know, it's like babysitting. It's worse than babysitting.

It's like, you know, like a cellmate, you know, like a prison guard or something. It's not like babysitting will be easy. You fucking put the kid to bed and like. This kid doesn't want to go to sleep. I have two kids. I can fucking handle the kids. Yeah.

So like when you, when you turn down something like that, you're looking down the line at like, well, we got to put a whole record together. That's going gonna be months of my life and what do I need this for well I'm looking like

it can't be done I can't do it I mean she's it's gonna or if it's done it might be terrible and I don't wanna be part of a terrible record

you know what I mean I just you know yeah who were some of the other big ones oh the Drive by Truckers you did the Dirty South

which is like a fucking masterpiece what a great record right there I mean that was but they're so different I mean it's interesting a great record, right? I mean, that was... But they're so different. I mean, it's interesting as an engineer and a producer. I mean, you know, you've got to just sort of like, you've got to wrap your brain around

the sound of these guys and what they want because they're so vastly different. Yeah. Like just going from Mascis to Drive by Truckers. Yeah. And you just, what'd you do on the Dirty South? Well, I mixed the Dirty South and the Blessing and the Curse. So they were back to back. Yeah. And you just, what'd you do on the Dirty South? Well, I mixed the Dirty South and the Blessing and the Cursed. So they were back to back.

They flew me down to Athens to mix both those records. On whose recommendation? They were on East West at that point. And there was a wonderful guy who lives here and still, I'm sorry, New West. Anyway, his name is Peter Jesperson. Wonderful guy guy he was kind of their anr guy and i think you know he suggested they might want to bring a new guy in um uh to to you know maybe an outside guy to maybe give it a different sound a little bit you know just a fresh perspective maybe and did you did you provide that um i think those records sound really good i don't't, you know.

When they say that, like a second, what gets stuck in the mud when that suggestion is made? When someone says a fresh set of ears or a different sort of sound, what drives that decision? Maybe they go back and listen to previous records and feel like they can sound bigger or more high-five. It's it all depends or maybe the vocals they don't like the vocals are placed you know how treated that you know mixing is i mean i won't say mixing is the ultimate part

of making a record but you know certainly mixing could make or break your record um i were i you know like i did i just did the latest phosphorescent or the last phosphorescent record and i know that record sounds really really good and i know that it got like a really cool sync for spider-man 3 for like a major scene i have a song for zulu which is a beautiful song and i think you know at a certain point if your record doesn't sound good you don't get that kind of stuff for example right you know what i mean that never gets in the movie if it doesn't sound good you don't get that kind of stuff for example right you know what i mean that never gets in the movie if it doesn't sound good but there's no like magical menu of like let's of what makes something sound good it's all relative to an artist or to what's going on well i guess so yeah but i mean i feel like there's i come in and provide a certain thing where i make it sound better than the roughs i make it sound bigger and i make it people like really how do you do that

i just have you, I use certain gear and I just have a certain ear. It's the way I hear things. It's not like, What's your signature? I mean, I like some

bus compression. I, I like using a lot of analog. Like, I use a lot of pedals. Yeah. Like,

to make effects. You know, I don't use all digital. Yeah. And I keep things kind of warmer and, I don't know all digital. Yeah. And I keep things kind of warmer and I don't know, like just bigger sounding

and I like going to mixing and taping. What was the compression thing you said? It's like, you know, when you used to listen to FM radio

and it had compression on it and that's why every song would sound the same level. Yeah. It's a similar thing that a lot of people do and I think it comes from more of an English style

where you have a stereo compressor on the whole song. Not drastic, but enough to just tighten up and make more musical. And I learned that from my Bill Whitman mentor because when I assisted for him, this certain compressor called a Compex was on.

We listened through it every day. And when I started engineering and he wasn't there, I would work on records and go like, ah, it sounds weird. And I was like and i was like oh i'm missing a compact so i went out and bought one of those and like i've had it on i've listened through that in the studio i you know for like 30 fucking years i mean i just love that thing yeah and you know it's just the way you balance things and where you put the snare and how you eq you know it's just everybody does have their style it's subtle maybe I mean, it is a style. Yeah. And I mean, that's why the Kurt records

sound like they do. You know, I kind of, at the risk of being too lofty, you know, I kind of like, I would kind of like the record I work on with whatever artist to be an improvement on the previous record. Right. And I feel like if I'm not doing that, it's not really, I'm not doing that it's not really

i'm not doing my job right so um and when you hear badly produced records what's you the most uh general what's the most um common complaint no i i well there are two things if i hear some records i i don't like the way they're produced but i love the band or i love the music and i'm like well it, fuck it, that's fine. The music is really cool. I do find that these days people really like saturating sound because of digital, making it so that it's so loud, it hurts.

And they call it ear fatigue. There was that whole thing about the Level Wars a couple years ago with Metallica, where the record was so hot, and they brought it to the mastering engineer, and he couldn't do anything with it. It was just crushingly loud and people complained.

It was just like now that we have digital, people think louder is better. It's this weird thing where instead of better being better, it's like louder is better. Why? Because it's louder and it's like tuning vocals.

It's like, well, let's just put every note in tune. And it's like, why? Because then it's in tune. Or let's put everything on the grid, the grid being like the beat. Yeah. Let's move everything on the beat. Why?

Because we can. Yeah. And it's like, well, then it's not fucking music anymore. Right. You know what I mean? It's math. It's science. Yeah.

And I think for a while, because you could do it, people automatically did it. And I think now there's pullback a lot of pullback there's a lot of lo-fi stuff coming out right a lot of messy stuff and by the way i will say i'm you know i'm not you know i'm i'm guilty of it a little bit because i got i got into a phase where i tried to get people to tune vocals a little bit and um i mean i couldn't do it with kurt or thurston or farrarar or Mascis or those guys would fucking kill me you know I couldn't you couldn't touch that because they're they're obviously like singers I

mean they may all have unique voice yeah and why like alter their style but I did it for like a year maybe on records and I try to get it done subtly and then I just realized at one point it's like who gives a fuck like it's just a waste of time like you know what i'll punch a word in three or four times to get the guy to sing it in tune right you know just do it yeah so yeah so you work with sonic youth and thurston solo yeah um sonic youth um rather rather ripped was 2005 and i um it was the kind of thing you're doing the dino records for so long and they were all friends i'd met a bunch of those guys. Yeah, and I always was like, you know, when am I gonna get a chance to do it? Sonic, you know, what about me? Yeah. How about this guy? And eventually it fucking happened, you know, I think I did a record with Jay a side project called which who mask is here

Yeah, yeah, and Thurston was really into it. Yeah, and Thurston was really into it and then I think Jay at one point said well Why don't you just use the witch guy? Use John. And he was like, yeah, okay. I mean, to produce Sonic Youth must have been sort of a task. It was more, well, you know, they've made like 23 records. I mean, they definitely don't need me to help them.

You know what I mean? I was more like, it was more like tasking and making it sound good, but also making sure, like, we did all the Kim vocals and, you know, got the good performances from her and, you know, like, Thurston and, you know, it was more like just management, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, on a certain level, granted now I just mix the Damascus records,

so there's not even that, but at a certain point with Dino, it's like, you know, you don't really say to them, ah, that song needs a certain point with Dino it's like you know you don't really say to them ah that song needs a chorus he'll hit you in the head with his guitar it's like just that

it's not necessary the same thing with like Thurston those guys make the kind of records they want to make right and you gotta let them make it

and then you just gotta be there to make it sound good and make it go quick and make them comfortable and make sure like when Thurston picks up his fucking guitar and is ready to rock out a take it's ready to go right so it was it was a lot of that but it was

super fucking awesome i mean they they were so into tracking and like having to be like we want it to sound like it's going to sound live yeah because when we play it live we don't want to be missing anything right and and rather ripped had four of them, but on The Eternal, Kim went to guitar, and Mark from Pavement played bass. So that was even more fun, because it was more of a sonic wall. So when you look back on everything you've done, I mean, there's definitely bands that you helped define their sound. Like, I guess I would say with Kurt Weill you know I mean you were there for big records and right and you have a partnership with him a creative partnership on some level right right do you feel like you you were a big part of that when you think about the producing or do you sort

of let that be just you know well that's a it's my job to service the artist yeah I think I think it's for me it's more important that I'm just making the records as good as I can. And I try not to get too much like that because it really is about them. You know, without them, I'm nothing. Right. But there are egocentric producers. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got you.

Yeah, I can't. I've never been that guy. So I've been, I skew to the other side. Right, right. You know, thank you for letting me make your record. Like, I define that sound. Right, right. That's my sound yeah yeah i mean once again i i do admit there is a there is a maybe a common thread with

the records i work on but for example like when you listen to todd rundgren productions yeah they sound like todd rundgren records right you know I mean? They have a fucking stamp that is like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, XTC or whoever. Are you jealous of that? No. I think,

I mean, I'm, you know, I'm happy to be making records I like. I mean, I can't, I definitely do not

worry about other guys. But I mean, but what, what, what separates you from him in that way? Um, maybe because he's

like a super artist and it just, that's his thing. It's maybe, it's about his ego where it's got to be his he's making his record right you know i'm totally but he brings a sound to it it's like if somebody's gonna hire somebody they're like we need we need butch vig on this right because he did that thing right right so you're are you necessarily you know in that pool like you know aside from being a good guy to work with and jay recommend you know what i mean i mean it's different you know butch did do never mind and and you know that's one of those records where i got it on vinyl it's impossible to listen to it's

like it's so loud right everything's pushed way forward it doesn't matter what format it's a great it's a great sounding record and it's an iconic record so you know the bottom line is like it's like good for him you know i i don't really if i worried about everybody else making records and you know like my record you know what i mean i would drive myself fucking nuts but is it i guess also there must be that element of like if the producer sort of lucks into uh in a way right being the producer on a record that becomes huge right then all of a sudden the pressure's on him to probably define his sound. Like, yeah, that's what I do.

I can bring that to any situation. But I mean, for Butch as an example, is just fucking awesome. So it's like, you know, like George Martin's fucking awesome. I mean, I'm not going to lay awake at night wondering how come I'm not as popular as he is. Fuck that, you know?

As long as I can go to work the next day and work on a cool record and make some people cool record. Right. And make some people happy. Yeah. And do well. And once again, the whole doing well thing, we talked about it before,

it's really kind of random. I mean, I'm super fucking psyched that the Kurt records did well. I'm super psyched that the Phosphorescent record is doing well. And the Manchester record. So it's like, it's good, you know, that's great. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, on the other hand, I've worked on records where I really felt great about them and it's like yeah and it's yeah it's like what well I mean like you know throwing anyone under the bus I mean the record's a record you know okay here I'll give you a perfect example I've done the last two cymbals eat guitar records yeah the previous one I fucking thought was great yeah and Pitchfork gave it like a 4.2 and totally torpedoed it and they had other problems and it didn't do well which sucked and I felt bad for those kids because they really put their heart into it fast forward another two years we make this new record and all of a sudden Pitchfork loves it and the press is great and they're on tour opening up for either Bob Mould or Brand New and millions of people have seen them. People love them. So more power to them.

They hung in. They hung in. But the bottom line, it was the last, the previous record was a fucking bummer. Right. You know, because it was really great. And you can't explain it.

No, but I mean, you know. Yeah, and sometimes critics suck. Well, Pitchfork, I love them because, you know, if they give you the best new music, it's great for the record. But they can really fucking hurt you too. And you did Jagger's solo record?

Well, we did one song. Oh. Back in the early, in the beginning of MTV-ish type times, like they did a special version of that song. And it was like a digital video. It was like a groundbreaking video. Yeah. And we recorded it and mixed it in one day.

And he was there. It was pretty amazing. You got to have some sort of like that. Oh, chills. Dude, fucking crazy. Yeah. So the first thing I'll say is the band's playing in the studio, and he's singing into a mic,

and when he's singing, if you solo the mic, you only hear his voice. Like he's so loud and he projects so loud. And when he stops, all of a sudden the mic is full of drums. That's how powerful he sang. And my other favorite moment was when he came in to listen to the playback, he'd sit on the console with his arms like him and be like, oh yeah. And we fucking all were shitting bricks. It was just like, holy shit,

it's really fucking Mick Jagger. And you did the Thermals record. Yeah. I like those guys. Dude, that was a trip. We did that record. You know, that record's all about the end of the world, right?

Yeah. We did that record. Desperate Ground? Yeah. We did that record the last day of the record was right before Hurricane Sandy. The studio got totally destroyed the next day. Wow.

We ended two days early because we knew the hurricane was coming. They were staying at the studio and I basically told them Sunday, the hurricane hit Monday night. I told them on Sunday, I think you guys should come back to my house. Why?

This might not be so good here you know I said it could be really okay or it could be really terrible and sure enough the studio took seven feet of water

we didn't have power for like three days they stayed with us it was really amazing but the backdrop around that record and actually the apocalypse

kind of happening was fucked up well oh the Hold Steady shit I talked to Craig Finn I know yeah

and you did that big record well we did you know I did the two in a row that kind of was fucked up. Well, oh, the Hold Steady shit. I talked to Craig Finn. I know. Yeah. And you did that big record. Well, we did, you know, I did the two in a row that kind of, you know, made them kind of.

Boys and Girls in America stay positive. I mean, yeah, but Boys and Girls was another one of those records. They talk about a record

that was right for the time. Like, when that came out, that was, it was great for them. I mean, it really, they went from selling,

I don't know, 10,000 records to like 70, you you know and they went from playing little clubs to like bigger venues and yeah it was a really great it was just fun it was a fun time for them and but it's interesting that the the the sort of what determines whether something's a success now is so much different than it used to be yeah i mean it's unbelievable yeah like know, everybody used to talk millions of records, and now, like, 70,000. Good for them. You know, they found their audience.

Yeah. Well, also, the one thing I will say that I notice is people now are not spending $100,000 making a record. Right. So if you sell 50,000 records, but you spend 20,000... You win. You're making some money. Yeah, and you get to make another record.

Yeah. And you get to tour. Yeah. And then if you're playing like, you know, Webster Hall or Terminal 5 in New York, Yeah. you know,

you're doing good. Exactly. So, and then if you get a sink or two, you got, you know, it's all, it's a different ballgame for sure.

Well, all right, man. It was great talking to you. You too. Thanks for having me. Yeah, hell yeah,

man. Thanks for coming. See that? Did we learn? Go listen to some of those records with the new ears. John Agnello, good guy. Talented guy. Go to WTFpod.com.

Check the calendar. JustCoffee.coop has done some relabeling. Go pick up the WTF blend of that. Everything. Leave a note. Leave a comment. I don't know. Go pick up the WTF blend of that. Everything. Leave a note. Leave a comment. I don't know. Check for the tour dates, though, man.

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