Several of your most recent albums have been very successful, at least commercially speaking, do you have any albums that you consider to be your “big breaks”?
The Receiving End of Sirens was the record where I really learned how to do this. I don’t know if you’ve heard that record, but it’s just crazy, it’s like 70 minutes of completely intertwined music and there’s like 64 tracks on every song and they’re all coinciding and gelling together. That was the record where I was like, “Oh my god, I have to learn how to make all this stuff work in the mix.” And then, from then on, the challenge was to learn about vocals and I think Panic! was a success in that respect because the vocals are so important to that record. It’s all like musical steps for me – if Receiving End of Sirens was about learning how to make 20 guitars cut, then Panic was about vocals and style, and I think that was the success. And then after that, my goal is to feel like every record is a new step for me. Cute Is What We Aim For is all style, it’s all sass, and it’s not necessarily about musicality as much, or at least not technical musicality, so that was a challenge, to kind of make it cool. Boys Like Girls, like I said, I felt was a tremendous success because we went even further into the vocals and the stuff that we did on that record vocally was pretty intense. So, I’m trying to feel like everything is a new step now, but there’s definitely those pivotal ones that make me think that I became a much better producer after that record.
Over the years you’ve progressed from producing independent to major label bands, what is the biggest change you’ve noticed in that shift?
There’s way more people who care, which was kind of a shock to me. When I first started this, it was just me and the bands and it was about making all five or six of us happy. Now, there’s a label guy involved. John Janick from Fueled by Ramen and I work really, really well together because when we’re making records, we’re on the phone every single day talking about the record. Then, a lot of bands have managers and managers like to get involved too. I think the biggest difference is that there’s way more people to make happy. I like that, I like leading the team or being a part of a team, the only difficulty is that there’s that many more people who care and you have to address what they want from the record. It usually keeps me in check. Jonh’s not going to tell me anything that he doesn’t absolutely feel he needs to sell the record. Like, he’s going to call me on Cute Is What We Aim For and say, “This is the single and I need it to be this,” and he’s not going to put his foot down on a song that is a little less apparent. So, I usually trust it and I look forward to having a bit of direction.
