recording industry
Recording with the Big Dogs before You’re Ready, And the Longest Hour of My Life
It was sometime late in the summer of 2002 and I had already been in Nashville for a couple of months when I got a phone call from my friend “D”. He had been hired by a producer at a recording studio on Music Row to lay down some lead guitar tracks on a couple of songs and, as he was trying to help me become established in the Nashville music community, thought this might be a good opportunity to break me into the world of professional recording. Apparently there were two songs that would be in need of lead guitar, one being an original by a Nashville writer, the other being a cover of the Bonnie Raitt song “Something to Talk About”. As I had some experience playing slide guitar, and he had some pull with the producer, he thought it would be a good idea for me to learn the slide parts and sit in on the track. Piece of cake, right? I had a couple of days to prepare, so I began wood shedding the song.
A couple of days later I met D at his house and we drove into town, arriving at a large, nondescript looking white building on Music Row. We carried our guitars in and walked down a long hallway past several recording studios, the activity inside them visible through large plexiglass windows. Whatever small amount of the jitters I was feeling in the parking lot was now replaced with intimidation and a growing amount of “freakedoutedness” as we entered a large control room with several gold records on the wall. D introduced me to Greg (the engineer/producer) telling him “My friend Eric here is a decent slide player and I brought him along to play on the Bonnie Raitt song.” “Sounds good.” he replied. He then introduced me to Donnie, the only other person present in the studio, telling me that he was a great song writer and that I had probably heard some of his songs on the radio over the years. I was also informed that he had written one of the songs we were working on today and both songs were demos for a female artist he was working with. Can we add a little more pressure here please?
Greg led us into a large live room adjacent to the control room which was visible through a large Plexiglas window and pointed to an old Fender amp stating “After you tune up you can play through that.” After tuning my old Strat I plugged in and grabbed a pair of nearby headphones. By now Gregg and D had returned to the control room and I could hear Greg’s voice coming through the headphones “Play a little so I can get a level on you.” I started playing some slide licks and quickly realized the amp had little to no sustain. “Okay, I’ve got a level. Are you ready to make a pass?” “Okay” I sheepishly replied, and with that the count off to the song began. All the tracks to the tune had been previously laid down except for the lead guitar and I began playing the opening riffs at four bars in, just like the record. Or so I thought. The audio in my headphones seemed to stop almost as quickly as it had started, interrupted by the sound of Greg’s voice “It sounds like your intonation is off a little. Why don’t you check your tuning.”
“This is just great!” I thought as a little sweat broke out on my forehead, “Okay, give me a minute” and I proceeded to plug into a tuner and retune my guitar. “Okay, I’m good to go” and with that we were on to take two. This time Greg let me get a little further into the song before again shutting me down, “Your pitch is still off. Try it again.” Okay, this is getting ugly. After a couple more failed attempts ended in a similar fashion, D entered the tracking room to help me out. “Show me what you’re playing on the intro?” he asked, and I proceeded to play the intro. “No wonder it sounds out of tune, this song is in Ab. Let’s try putting a capo on the first fret.” Of course I should have known this, and this was perhaps the first moment I began realizing I wasn’t as prepared for this world as I thought I was. I put on the capo and D returned to his vantage point next to Greg in the control room on the other side of the Plexiglas window.
Apparently my attempts with the capo weren’t much better as take after take continued to end prematurely. One more time D came back into the room to offer advice. “Try putting a slow vibrato on the end of the long notes. It will help you be more in tune.” While his advice was correct, I was still unable to deliver what was needed and my passes continued to fall short. Each take continued to end abruptly with me looking up to see Greg lightly smiling and shaking his head saying things like “Intonation”, “Try it again”, or “Sorry, it still sounds out”. D was standing next to Greg at the control board with similar facial expressions, and while they both exuded great patience, the look on Donnie’s face from his seat directly behind them was that of annoyance and frustration.
Finally, after about an hour of this, probably the longest hour of my life, I had made one complete marginal pass on the tune. “I think we got it as good as we’re going to get it.” were the last words I heard through the headphones and, in a state of total defeat and exhaustion, I took off my guitar and walked into the control room to face what I expected would be an execution squad. “Don’t worry, you did the best you could, it’s your first time recording in Nashville and you were nervous.” said D trying to comfort me. “You could tell I was nervous?” I asked ignorantly. “We could see you sweating bullets in there.” he said with honesty. “Your asshole puckered up so tight you couldn’t have shoved a number two pencil in it.” Yeah, that about sums it up.
As it would turn out, the tracks I laid down that day were completely useless, and they re-recorded them after I left. Looking back on that miserable experience, by far one of the most difficult and embarrassing moments of my musical career, I now know I was far from ready to work in a professional recording studio. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to look back and know what could be done differently. On the other hand, that recording session was a great teaching moment for me as before that day I had very little experience in recording studios. That day taught me that I still had a lot to learn and made me all the more determined to learn it.
Playing for free or getting paid to play; What is playing music worth to you?
Anyone who has ever gigged in Nashville knows that it is hard to make any real money by playing in the clubs around town. Aside from a very small handful of gigs that might pay $75-$100 per player, most offer minimal to no pay – some offering a base pay $20 to $30 plus tips, a lot more offer tips only (which often means essentially playing for free), and a few are even pay to play. Even on the base pay plus tips gigs quite often a player will only take home $25 or $30.
So from time to time the “playing for free” debate rears up in conversations. Some say that performing music in public for free is the only way they can gain experience, obtain exposure, make connections, and have any sort of musical life beyond practicing in the basement. Others claim that playing for free makes it harder to receive fair (or any) compensation for their services. Why would clubs and venues pay for bands and players if most will do it for free?
While both are legitimate arguments, to understand why things are the way they are I think it is important to consider the overall role of music and musical performers throughout history, not just in today’s world.
Daniel Levitin, in his book “This Is Your Brain on Music” talks about music being at the heart of human evolution.
“No known human culture now or anytime in the recorded past lacked music. Some of the oldest physical artifacts found in human and protohuman excavation sites are musical instruments.”
He continues
Even more so in non-industrialized cultures than in modern Western societies, music is and was a part of the fabric of everyday life. Only relatively recently in our own culture, 500 years or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners. Throughout most of the world and for most of human history, music making was as natural an activity as breathing and walking, and everyone participated. Concert halls, dedicated to the performance of music, arose only in the last several centuries.
With that, I state my case that music has always been there and is an important and crucial part of our being. It is perhaps the earliest form of communication. Somewhere along the way this art form, this way of life, morphed into a product, or a commodity.
In the book “Muse Power: How Recreational Musicmaking Heals Depression and Other Symptoms of Modern Culture” by Cheri D. Lunn writes:
Prior to the 20th century, the concept of selling music wasn’t really commonplace. One of the very first to consider music as a marketable commodity, was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. “In the mid-to-late 1700s, performers and composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began to seek commercial opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public.” (5 Wikipedia /Dear Constanze The Guardian) Before that, in more traditional cultures, the Griots, bards, and musicians were cared for by their communities, as equals in the tribe doing their part to contribute. In Europe, up until the 1700’s music was supported by patronage from the aristocracy, or the church, and so there was no need for artists to sell themselves; and so the concept of selling music had just not yet come to be.
A crucial change in the history of folk music began during the twentieth century with folk artists adopting the very western concept of “marketing for money,” or “selling” the music of the people. In this time, a new genre of popular music arose that basically became an imitation to the original traditions of folk music as it was sung by ordinary people. These “folk” artists marketed themselves alongside more popular and modern emerging artists and created a niche for themselves by performing traditional music and songs in amplified concerts, and disseminating their work by recordings and broadcasting.
But along with the commercialization of music and musical performers, especially now in the digital age, comes somewhat of a desensitization to music, or what I call a ‘dumbing down’ of the masses in this regard. In today’s world, music is heard everywhere – from traditional advertising like TV and radio commercials to ring tones and ring backs, from video games to iPods, today’s Internet generation is saturated with digital music overload. In many situations, recorded music is now free, and with the advent of software like garage band, millions can now make homemade recordings to further flood the airwaves. In the midst of this oversaturation, TV shows like “American Idol”, “Nashville Star”, and “America’s Got Talent” have perpetuated the false reality that the masses can also now obtain superstardom.
Put all this together, and you’ve got more people than ever trying to get into the “music business”. But as millions more each year try to enter this world, the opportunities for them will inevitably shrink. There are only so many bars and nightclubs that need live music.
If you consider this history, it is fair to say that the concept of being paid for your music, or paid to play your music, is relatively new and largely an invention of our modern capitalistic society. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we abandon this concept, this is how I am currently earning the bulk of my living. What I am suggesting is that the evolution of the paid musical performer may have been accidental, and is not necessarily a sustainable vocation in this modern world.
Music belongs to everybody. We need to better understand the role that music has played in our history, and how the cultivation of music as a part of our culture can benefit our world as well as the futures of our children. Does our future hold a world in which musical performers are paid for their ‘services’, or will the performance of music one day return to something that is shared by everybody? Did society really benefit when music was turned into a product? Do we deserve to be “paid to play”? I don’t know if I’ll always be able to earn a living from music, but even if one day I can’t, I’ll always play music, doing so enriches my life.
What is music, and the art of performing it worth to you?
My interview with the record company dude
Last week I posted a blog in which I asked you (the reader) what questions you would ask somebody from a record label if you had access. That blog prompted some pretty interesting questions, and when I conducted my interview today with EJ Bernas, Senior Director of Southwest region of Universal Music Group, those questions made up the bulk of what I asked him. The interview was lengthy and informative, and a lot of work lies ahead (transcribing, editing, proofing, etc.) before this fascinating conversation will be print ready. So for now, I would just like 
to share a few high points of this unique experience.
I arrived in downtown Nashville just before 1 PM and found a parking spot in front of the Bridgestone arena. After feeding some quarters into the meter (three dollars only got me two hours) I walked a couple of blocks over to the UMG headquarters, located on Commerce street. After taking the elevator to one of the top floors of an otherwise unsuspecting office building, I emerged into the lobby and found my way to the receptionist. The friendly young lady informed EJ that I had arrived, and a moment later he came out to meet me. We retreated into a large comfortable conference room which had a spectacular view of downtown Nashville.
I could write an entire article just about what I saw in those few short seconds gazing out that window. The roof of the Ryman Auditorium just below us, the hustle and bustle of people milling about on Broadway, the Bridgestone arena, the controversial new skyscraper still being constructed, the Cumberland River in the distance – a city truly alive in so many ways. Behind every window of the hundreds of buildings visible from this spot was a story. For every car that passed by on the streets below, another story. Some say that this is a city built on dreams, and from this vantage point I could literally feel that kind of intangible element that fuels such a mysterious place.
“This is an amazing view. Do you have a view this cool from your office too?” I asked. “You bet, my office is right next door. You can see the roof of the old church (Ryman) below” he said as we both gazed across the vast expanse. With that, we each took a comfortable spot at the table and dug into an hour and a half discussion about the state of the recording industry, radio, and how today’s aspiring artists fits into that world (at times the discussion became more like how the recording industry and radio fit into the world of the aspiring artist.) Like I said, 
the contents of this interview still need to be transcribed and reviewed before I can share any of it, so for now you’ll have to just settle for me simply bragging about this day.
At one point during the interview, EJ’s boss walked through the room and I received a brief introduction. A little while later another man walked through, and I was again introduced, this time to the head of A&R. EJ explained to me that UMG (Universal Music Group) consists of MCA, Mercury, and Lost Highway Records and represents artists like Billy Currington, Julianne Hough, Reba McEntire, Randy Rogers Band, George Strait, Sugarland, Jamey Johnson, Josh Turner and Shania Twain, among others. Even though I’m not aspiring for any sort of success as a radio star, it did occur to me just how fortunate I am to know someone like EJ – a warm and open individual gracious enough to give this glimpse into a world in which so many aspire, yet so few ever travel.
After the interview was over, he walked me back out to the lobby where I had the receptionist snap a quick picture of the two of us. I thanked him again and made my way back to my car. It was definitely a learning experience for me and I know this interview will add much valuable perspective to all the aspiring artists and musicians who will eventually read it. Thanks again EJ for making my day, and my book.
If you had an hour with someone who works at a major record label what would you ask them?
Next week I’m conducting one more interview for my book project ‘The Nashville Musician’s Survival Guide’. Upon a recent review of the book’s manuscript I realized I haven’t thoroughly addressed the role that record labels play in the Nashville music industry. So this has prompted me to set up an interview with one of my colleagues at MCA/Universal Group. I’ve got a full hour to discuss the current state of the ‘record industry’ and would like your input.
I have a few questions I already plan on asking;
- In regards to signing new artists and acts, what are record companies looking for?
- Are solo artists more attractive to the label than bands?
- How important is it for a prospective artist or band to have a following prior to signing with a record label?
- How does an obscure startup artist in Nashville gain the attention of the labels in a community that is so oversaturated with talent?
- Do you think FM radio has any future?
These are the first questions that come to my mind, but as I’m not interested in pursuing a record deal I may not be as tuned in to this world as someone who is. I want to know what you want to know. Pretend for a minute that you have the ear of someone at MCA for five minutes. What three questions would you ask? And please, no smart aleck questions like “Will you come see my band next Wednesday at the Cadillac Ranch?” or “Can I give you one of my CDs?”
If anyone out there can present me with some intriguing questions, I’ll include them in my interview next week and post the responses.
Thanks for participating!
