Is there an album recently in your career where during the process, you recognized the band was doing something unique, and you were excited to be apart of it?
The one that really exemplifies this, that may be outside of your average viewer, is Sufjan Stevens’ album, Illinois. I’ve done records with him before, but with Illinois, Sufjan played me rough mixes, and I was completely wowed. It was amazing. Everyone recognized it! 15 years later, people still recognize how amazing it is. When I was working on the track John Wayne Gacy, Jr., I stopped working on the song to just listen to it. It was easily one of contemporary music’s best songs. Again, for me, it’s never about what’s wrong. It’s about what’s right. What can drive the project to full fruition.
It’s good to know that even with bands that want to mimic a sound, you can pull out something that’ll give them a bit more character.
Right, and part of that now is that there’s just this really strange thing happening, which is recording studios are decreasing and artists are doing it themselves. For an artist, it’s awesome to be able to save that money and do everything yourself. However, the sense of teamwork is lost. As bands are all in the guitar player’s basement doing it on their own, nobody else is there. We’re no longer really making records as a team, so now mastering is sort of mystified.
So there, bands will pass [their record on] onto a mastering engineer, and then we start taking on the other roles. When this happens, sometimes, the band puts their best song as the second to last track. I get surprised to see them do this, and then I will suggest they change this. This isn’t mastering, but because they’re coaching themselves, they don’t make the best choices for themselves. There’s a little twist going on with mastering where it’s become more of a sense of feedback that bands need.
Have you ever worked with a band where it was going all well until you got a call from the label or administrative folks, going over their heads?
You always hear the horror stories where the A&R guy wants to add reverb to the mix or just to remold it into what they need. If you’re working with an A&R or manager or producer, why would you work with someone you don’t trust? If you disagree with them, they aren’t going to push your record. If we aren’t all on the same page, the record is doomed. The A&R guy is only thinking of the first four weeks of the record’s release. That’s how it happened then. They’d get together, playing records in a conference room, and whichever one left the biggest impression was the one that got the most marketing.
Okay: I’m as green as a musician as possible, and we’re recording our first album. Do you have any initial advice?
Trust your feelings. If you become successful, you’re going to be asked to do it again. If the first time you became successful, you were copying or guessing, then you aren’t going to know what you’re going to do. If you trust your feelings, you are going to know what to for the future. Because as time progresses, we find the albums that were iconic. When Converge releases another record and we see how iconic it is, they trust their feelings. It’s not about their equipment, even though Kurt will be the first to show you all the high tech stuff he has. The band trusts what they do, and the results show.
To contact Alan about mastering your album, go to West West Side Music's website.