Sadly, a chance encounter was the only persuasion my band needed to be led into the studio of the producer we're currently using. Needless to say, this is a terrible selection process and he's not the right fit for us at all. Due to the dynamics of my current group, (one incredibly strong personality who gets to call the shots, but doesn't really know what's what) the decision was made to book in with the studio before discussing anything with the band. I really doubted that he was the right guy for us. Looking at the extensive list of past clients, it made for an impressive but mismatched read; none were in the same genre as us, or even anything close. This was mistake number one.
Mistake number two? Don't expect the producer to do anything more than the job of a producer, and certainly don't allow them to either; it's a can of worms you'll never be able to close.
The big problem here was that our producer was invited into the fold of the band, acted as a sixth band member for a while before graduating into the position of band manager. Crazy, eh? Looking back on it, I can see how this situation came about.
This band's career has been like an exploding confetti canon; we each had different skills and levels of experience making a pretty colourful mix, but when we got together it just exploded. Within the first year we wrote over thirty songs, appeared at some pretty big music festivals and experienced a winning streak when we were on commercial radio at least once a week. It was incredible, but commercial success is no substitute for experience.
Half the band have no experience working in studios and so, walked into it completely submissively. The process turned on it's head and instead of the band holding the reigns and walking away with a product true to it's original concept, we've ended up with the producer's interpretation of our work - it's a million miles away from what we wanted and coming from somebody who doesn't work with artists of our genre, what should we have expected?
It all started when he came to one of our gigs, listened to us play and then spent the rest of the night being asked to comment on what he thought we should change. It all just snowballed from there; one minute he was making a suggestion on how to improve someone's drum pattern (totally acceptable and really helpful), the next he was sitting us all down to mentor us on interpersonal relationships (not really qualified, or even anywhere near appropriate!) and charged us for the time!
The most stark moment for me was when I turned up after a busy day at work to find my guitarist in the booth with the producer having a full on music lesson with him! By the time I arrived, they'd been in there for two hours while the guitarist played and the producer critiqued his right hand technique and the way his wrist moved while he played. Looking at the itemised bill, we could have paid for him to have almost eight hours of lessons with an actual guitar teacher for the same cost! He just didn't realise that this is NOT a routine part of studio work and that these issues really needed to be hammered out before we got to this stage.
I left the studio that day feeling exhausted. I called out for pizza and curled up on the sofa with my doubts spinning round my mind; I doubted he was the right producer for us, I doubted we were ready to even be in the studio just yet and I really doubted we'd come away with a product we were happy with. For fear of being labelled negative, stubborn, oppositionally defiant or a stick in the mud, I kept quiet, ate my pizza and watched reruns of Ink Master until it was time for bed.
Fortunately for me, I know when to pick my battles and keeping quiet was the perfect way to give the situation enough rope to hang itself.
The track was eventually finished and so was the itemised bill - it came in at a devastating three and a half times the original estimate. We had to delay any future recordings until we'd all recovered from the expense. Although it was a set back, it really gave us some time to contemplate the decisions we'd made and think about how to avoid this happening in future.
The good: next time we go into the studio we'll have straightened out the fine details and be really prepared, know what to expect and be able to keep the cost down closer to the original estimate. Every strange experience is a learning experience and I can certainly say that's true in this instance.
The bad: it's given half the band a twisted first experience of studio work. I still hear talk in the rehearsal studio of "running an idea past the producer" or asking the producer if it's ok for us to change this, that and the next thing. It'll take some effort to clear up the misconception that he's somehow in charge of us and get him back behind the sound desk, but I'm confident we'll get there.
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