"Okay, you ready?" "Yep." "We're rolling." "1, 2, 3, 4." "We were just kids... with nothing to lose and nowhere to call home." "But we had these songs..." "And we had these dreams." "So we threw it all in the back of an old van and just started driving." "Our destination" " Sound City." "Watching the world through a windshield, there's no looking back." "We left everything behind." "When you're young, you're not afraid of what comes next." "You're excited by it." "We were driving a van that could break down at any moment..." "Going on tours that could be canceled at any moment..." "And playing music with people who could disappear at any moment." "We had no idea that the next 16 days were gonna change our world forever." "But I remember pulling into the parking lot and thinking, "Really?" "This is Sound City?"" "You know, it's weird, like, when you walk into Sound City, you either love it or you hate it." "Looks kind of dumpy." "It's a shit-hole." "Everything was secondhand." "It was something of a time warp, I think, or something." "Brown shag carpet on the wall - that's the kind of thing that you would do to your van." "It was like, "Well, the place is already kind of trashed, so anything goes, you know?"" "It was dirty." "Didn't really feel like I wanted to sit on any of the furniture." "You could record there and not come back for 15 years and walk in, and it's the exact same as the last time you were there." "The parking lot used to flood, and it used to make a wave that came up the hallway of Sound City." "Sound City was like, you know, you could put your cigarette out on the floor." "A bottle of Jack Daniel's got spilled all over the carpet." ""Who cares?" "It's Sound City." "Who cares?"" "I always say, you could, you know, piss in the corner and nobody would complain." "It was just a little more fucked-up than I thought it should be." "But walking down the hallway and seeing all of those platinum records on the wall..." "Tom Petty." "Fleetwood Mac." "Rick Springfield." "Neil Young, man." "Cheap Trick." "The Chili Peppers." "Rob Halford." "Pat Benatar." "Kansas." "Guns n' Roses." "Nine Inch Nails." "Nevermind." "♪ Hot-blooded" "Foreigner." "Slayer." "Ratt." "Johnny Cash." "Carl Perkins." "Metallica." "R.E.O. Speedwagon." "♪ Time for me to fight" "Michael McDonald." "Mick Fleetwood." "Buckingham Nicks." "♪ Like a rainbow in the dark ♪" "Stevie Nicks." "Masters of Reality." "Frank Black." "Brisbane." "Rick Rubin." "Kyuss." "Weezer." "Dude, how many fucking amazing albums have been made there?" "Vincent Price, Telly Savalas." "We would record anything." "Anybody would walk in the door that could pay the bill." "Tom is this big, tall, lanky, gomer-y kind of guy that just fell off the turnip truck." "He wants you to think that, anyway." "First time I was ever walked in a recording studio." "First time I'd ever even seen one." "♪ Southern man" "I was with a west Virginia holding company that was buying little businesses." "Joe Gottfried and another guy had started Sound City in 1969." "He was actually the vocalist for the U.S. Army." "When he was in the army, he was stationed at a hotel in" "Manhattan." "A friend of his, Joe Leahy, who was a big-band leader and had done music for CBS, and they were the two main guys in the studio when I came in, in 1970." "Keith Olsen was the chief engineer." "The only reason why the studio business survived was because the building ownership was Tom, and Tom would not foreclose on them." "They were about one week away from being closed by the IRS." "They owed taxes." "It was kind of chaos, to be honest with you." "But there was an opportunity to get into the entertainment business." "This is Beatle land, formerly known as Britain, where an epidemic called "Beatlemania"" "has seized the teenage population, especially female." "The big pot at the end of the rainbow is signing an ex-Beatle." "We'd have had a zillion dollars, you know?" "Hi-fi and stereo equipment created an industry with an annual income today of $2.5 billion." "Somebody at Sound City came up with this idea - "We could start a record company"." "So that was my goal, to produce some records and have a hit record and make a lot of money." "That was the whole reason we bought it." "Sound City - it was funky." "It was in the Valley, but we only used the Valley to get to" "Hollywood." "The Valley was just this flat expanse of too many houses already." "You know, so it was, like, kind of not happening at all." "Neil Young pulled in fast in a very old car, smoke billowing out of every window." "Behind him was two L.A.P.D." "officers, guns drawn." "You know?" "Okay, move over to the rear of the car." "Place your hands on the trunk." "I attracted police a lot because of the cars that I was driving." "And I didn't have a license, you know, because I was Canadian." "I wasn't even supposed to be there." "About five minutes later, they just got in their cars and drove off." "I made the record in my house." "Most of it, I did in my house." "And then we went to Sound City with Briggs, my producer, and we put down a piano song called" ""Birds" there." "Then, we did the vocals, and then they sounded so good that I said, "Well, hell, let's just sing everything"." "So it's really a hybrid record." "♪ I can love" "♪ I can really love ♪ I can really love" "My dad and Joe were partners in crime." "They were very close." "They were thick as thieves." "Tom was, like, the business guy and stuff like that, but Joe was the heart of it all, really." "Sweetest guy in the universe." "Absolutely one of the nicest, truest people I've ever known." "He wasn't a guy in a suit who was counting money and just trying to rip off as many musicians as he could." "That wasn't his thing." "He loved the fact that bands were coming in and making great records there." "Joe was always, like, positive, more optimistic." "Always, "The next big thing's gonna be out there"." "Joe gave me time to learn and to hone what I do." "He was quite a guy." "When we bought the studio, we were struggling for a year or two, and we could see we couldn't just get the premier acts." "You needed state-of-the-art equipment to get the top acts with the top budgets." "So it was my goal to do that." "This guy, Rupert Neve, designed these next-generation consoles." "I had flown to England, and I saw one once, and they were like this, you know, built like a brick shit house." "He was, you know, a genius engineer." "There's only four like this in the world, and this is the only one that was custom-ordered from the factory by Keith." "There is something about the Neve sound that my ear has always been attuned to." "They're mathematically crisp and very, very good." "They're just very solid." "It's like a tank or something." "The Neve thing is - there just weren't that many made, because they're so handmade." "This Neve board that you talk about, you know, this is not my world." "Engineers have to spend, like, hours on the kick-drum sound." "Please, I would rather have a blood transfusion." "But I do remember that there was something different about the sound of this board." "And then of course, everybody " ""Oh, my god, it's a Neve board,"" "I'll never forget them saying." "A recording console is like the center of the spaceship." "If you're gonna fly to Mars, you got to have something with all the master controls." "It looks like, you know, the" "Enterprise on steroids, from a long time ago." "A desk that's like a giant stereo, except instead of doing bass, middle, and treble, it's, like, you can do that on each drum, you know, each mike, each thing." "All the microphones in the studio are routed into that console." "From there, you can change E.Q., add effects, change the levels." "And that goes into the tape machine, where it's recorded." "This board, if you put a fader up and turn the mike pre up, and somebody hits a tom-tom or a snare drum, it sounds great." "It sounds wide-open." "It sounds huge." "If you turn the mike pre up too loud and it distorts, it still sounds great." "That's analog." "It's how it sounds." "Especially Neve's, you know." "I mean, everything is just better." "The human voice sounds better." "When you got harmonies going together, they kind of meld together." "♪ You come on with a come-on ♪ ♪ You don't fight fair" "The Neve console really embellishes things in the context of rock 'n' roll." "It's good on drums." "It's good on bass." "It's good on guitars." "It's the facilitator." "It's a pretty badass console." "♪ Hit me with your best shot ♪" "It's unlike any other Neve console that I have ever worked on, and I've been lucky enough to work on a ton of them now." "It would always be the greatest-sounding desk I've ever tracked on." "There is a large number of modules about which look the same, but which are marginally different." "The circuit was a microphone amplifier circuit." "Cross-talk between circuits and between buses was absolutely paramount." "The way that transformer behaves with DC flowing in it can vary according to the material of the core and the gapping of the core." "If those things are properly controlled, you get a very sweet sound." "Rupert Neve is a fucking genius." "At the time, that Neve console cost $76,000." "To give you an example, I'd just bought a house in Toluca Lake, and I paid $38,000 for the house." "My wife would've killed me if she'd known I was doing that." "I thought, "If this place ever goes under, that's the thing that will pay all the debts"." "The first track we cut on this was "Crying in the Night"" "with Buckingham Nicks." "Very first thing done on that was that session." "That's how it started." "♪ She was that kind of lady" "♪ Times were hard, whoa" "We signed them to a production deal." "They write their own songs." "So all we'd provide would be the studio, the engineer, and the tape." "Tom Skeeter and Joe Gottfried were almost like parental figures to us." "But Keith's the one who got us out to Sound City." "♪ Crying in the night" "♪ She's back in town" "When we first moved to L.A., we didn't have a place." "We stayed at Keith's house." "They're starving and they're broke." "Lindsey was painting, and Stevie was cleaning Keith Olsen's house." "I'd walk through with my broom, and, you know, Keith would go, like, "That's the maid"." "And I'd be like..." ""I'm not gonna be the maid for long, just so you know." "Just so y'all know"." "♪ But she'll leave you" "♪ Cryin' in the night" "♪ She will leave you" "♪ Cryin' in the night, whoa" "It was obvious that Lindsey and Stevie were really special." "Buckingham Nicks came out in '73 to great critical acclaim and then got dropped by Polydor." "The record label dropped them, so they didn't have a record deal." "So they were just hanging around here." "♪ She's a come-on lady" "It was like our home." "It was like our home away from home." "I was living in Laurel Canyon, and I went to the country store, which is exactly the same now." "And someone I vaguely knew was there." "He said, "Well, what are you up to?"" "I said, "Well, I'm actually in town to find a studio and cost it out and see if we can afford it"." "And he goes, "I'm just the guy"." "This rock 'n' roll guy came to us one day, and he said, "You know, I hang out with all these rock bands, and I go to the clubs and all that." "If I can bring a band in here, will you give me 10%?"" "We said, "All day long." "Bring them in"." "Mick Fleetwood came in to see the studio." "I played him a couple of tracks from Stevie and Lindsey." "Stevie and I were in studio "B", in the back." "And I took a break, and I wandered out." "And I hear our song," ""Frozen Love," coming out of studio "A"." "I open the door, and here's this 6'6" guy just - just grooving on the solo." "And I'm going, "Who is that?"" "I met Lindsey literally in passing." "And I went off, not even thinking anything other than," ""I've heard some good music that was made in the studio that I'm gonna use"." "We made a deal to do" "Fleetwood Mac's next album at" "Sound City." "Joe was thrilled - "God, we're gonna make our payments!"" "Everything was good." "Fleetwood Mac had had a few albums with Peter Green in" "England that had been successful." "Then after Peter left," "Bob Welch, who then joined the band, was more of a jazz guitarist." "Mick called me." ""Bob Welch just left the band"." "I phoned Keith Olsen." "I said, "You know the tape that you played?" "Tell me, we're looking for a guitar player"." "And Keith's like, "Well, there is a problem there, because you will never get him without taking her"." "He's gonna have to take my girlfriend, too." "And that was the beginning of it." "We joined the band the first day of 1975." "And then we go straight to" "Sound City." "The first days in the studio were just amazing." "Really exciting, completely fresh, because Christine," "John McVie, and myself came from a whole different sensibility musically, really." "♪ Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night ♪" "♪ And wouldn't you love to love her ♪" "John McVie said to me, "You know, we're a blues band." "This is really far away from the blues"." "And I said, "I know, but it's a lot closer to the bank"." "♪ All your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind ♪" "It became pretty clear right away how this all fit together." "And that isn't just musically." "It's just as people." "Something is translated, and it is real and it is profound." "Just, in truth, out of necessity." "It's powerful." "It's like true love." "Absolutely." "But what if that Neve board hadn't have been there?" "The main reason it was important was so that we got a fantastic drum track." "It's the drum sound." "Let's start there, 'cause it's something we all love." "The drums and the feel of a song are like the heartbeat of the song." "It can be the backbone of the song." "It can be the foundation of the song." "So that's the first thing you do." "You set up your kit, and you start putting up your microphones." "A room like this has a really nice decay." "So, you put mikes around the room to capture that." "You put close mikes on the drums." "You have all of those individual mikes spread over a number of tracks - 16 tracks or" "12 tracks." "So then you can bring the faders up or down and balance those tracks." "Once you get a good drum take, then it's like, "Oh, okay, great." "Now we got the beginning of a song." "Now we can actually start putting more shit on it"." "♪ With the lights out, it's less dangerous ♪" "♪ Here we are now, entertain us ♪" "♪ I feel stupid" "The way to pick studios is through blind-testing drums, because you can record the guitars pretty much anywhere, and they could sound pretty much like your guitars." "But drums really change from room to room." "That room shouldn't, on paper, be a great drum room, because it's like a big old square room." "Sound City was a Vox factory in the '60s, I guess." "They built Vox amps there, and then they built the "A" control room in '64." "It's one of those spaces that just randomly, haphazardly turned out to be fantastic to record a drum set in." "That room is the space." "It's, like, what happens between the notes, what you're playing." "There's a sound that's pretty magical." "Every room has their sweet spot for that sound, you know?" "This, I think, has always been" "Sound City's real sweet spot." "And the freaky thing is, no one designed it." "A lot of people claim they did." "But no." "It's just luck." "Luck and magic." "Not meant to be." "And you can't control those things." "Selfishly, the drum sound was probably why we went there." "I confess." "♪ 'Cause when the lovin' starts and the lights go down ♪" "♪ There's not another living soul around ♪" "None of it is planned." "Sound City was welcoming, and we knew that we had a home there." "It's a church." "By the luck of whatever, I have the ability to open that door." "♪ Say that you love me" "From that Fleetwood Mac album, then we'd get Santana and" "Grateful Dead." "Once you have big hits like that, that was huge." "♪ Dancin' in the streets" "♪ Dancin', dancin', dancin'" "The first real Heartbreakers jam to just feel each other out was at Sound City." "The studio was fine, but we just didn't have our shit together." "We weren't ready." "We didn't have the songs." "We didn't know how to play that well." "This is how you make a record." "It was cruel, 'cause it sounded so real." "And you'd go into the control room, and they'd crank up the speakers, and you go, "Man, I just" " I suck"." "I think the vocal mike is just a little bit loud." "That no-frills, no effects, no place to hide - everything coming out of an amp or everything coming right out of a speaker or right off a microphone - that approach, that was Sound City." "By our third album, we wanted to get, you know, somebody that could make a good-sounding record." "So we hired Jimmy Iovine." "He'd been a recording engineer, and he'd worked with" "Lennon and with Springsteen." "And they were recording live tracks." "They weren't overdubbing a ton of stuff." "You had to learn how to play, and you'd go in and play it." "I hired Jimmy as an engineer to do "Damn the Torpedoes" there, but he showed up with an engineer without telling me." "He manipulated his way into being the producer of the record, along with me." "Jimmy is brilliant." "I mean, he now owns the music business." "When we showed up with Jimmy at Sound City, he was just horrified." "Just horrified, like, "What is this place?"" "And the first thing he said to me is, "I don't know that we can make a record in here"." "Somebody should firebomb this fucking place." "I said, "Yeah, I think you'll be surprised"." "We tracked live, and we didn't edit from take to take." "So we had to get it right from top to bottom." "When you're tracking live, pressure's on the drummer big-time." "Until you get that, you've got nothing." "I just thought I should play straight." "Throw it where the shaker's trying to go." "Whoa!" "It was emotional." "But, at the same time, I mean, we all wanted to learn." ""Refugee," we played like 150 damn times or something." "You're trying to get lightning in a bottle." "That was great." "Yeah, I'm still not comfortable for some reason." "I'm not quite on my thing here." "I think we should do one more and listen." "Okay." "Then, you go back and play the damn song again." "♪ You don't have to live like a refugee ♪" "♪ You don't have to live like a refugee ♪" "It might look easy, but if you're trying to go for greatness - and a lot of times you're gonna fall short, and you got to live with that, that night - it's brutal, you know," "on your soul." "God damn you!" "You're driving me crazy!" "You are gonna drive me fucking crazy!" "♪ Ohhhh" "It's a tough room." "You know, music really isn't supposed to be perfect." "It's all about people relating to each other and doing something that's really from the soul." "You know, it must come from the soul." "♪ Oh!" "Oh!" "Oh!" "Tom was great." "You know, his whole approach - low-key." "He'd come in like it was his own garage studio." "Paula - she was kind of like the field general." "You know?" "She was in the front lines, you know?" "Paula - she's great." "She was just unflappable." "You know, just nothing bothered her." "Paula, I think, took over from" "Jemima when Jemima left." "Jemima Eddy, aunt Jemima, had this assistant who was a little girl named Barbie who ended up being Rick Springfield's wife." "She actually was answering phones when she was, you know," "16, 17, getting hit on by all the bands, of course." "And then, after Jemima, there was Paula." "I took one look at her, and I was totally in love." "She was smoking-hot and as sweet as can be." "♪ Do you know where your woman is tonight?" "♪" "Think about it." "Paula Salvatore, italiano." "Yeah, italiana, italiana." "Every musician that went in there thought that Paula was in love with them." "I think." "Or maybe it was just me." "But I don't think so." "Do you remember Paula?" "Yeah, I do, actually." "The girl that ran the studio?" "Paula - dark-haired girl?" "Curly?" "I was "Paula at Sound City"." "That was my last name for years." "Paula was, like, a one-woman audience, you know?" "♪ Do you know where your woman is tonight?" "♪" "Whenever we'd get a mix or whenever there'd be a performance that I was really proud of, I'd always go and say," ""Paula, come on." "Check this out." "Check out what we just did"." "Paula would say, "I really like this one," you know?" "That could lift my whole day, because I knew she didn't have to say that and that she heard music all day long." "But it made me think, like," ""Well, wow." "Maybe this one's good"." "Paula sang on the first Masters record, actually, yeah." "She and a friend did some backup vocals on it." "A lot of girl backup singers ended up, like, working and being secretaries in studios." "When you need a backup singer, just, you know, call the front desk, and there's one sitting there." "That was my dream, to play music." "And I didn't get that." "You know, and before I knew it," "I was kind of in the thick of it." "It's totally attitude." ""I want to do this." "I'll do whatever it takes." "And I'm here"." "It's a training ground." "You know, six months driving a car, and then six months being the night phone-answering guy." "And when someone above you quit or got promoted or moved on, then everybody moved up a step." "I hired Nick 'cause he could make guac." "Very important, you know." "I did." "I made guacamole all the time." "As a runner, I would go in there, you know, and empty the ashtrays and dust the console and vacuum." "And that's when I started to learn the board." "We had runners that became engineers." "Then, they became producers." "Lot of people that hung around here became really successful in the record business." "You know, recording - it's a different art form." "♪ Down on South Street, Philadelphia ♪" "When we came to Sound City, the producer, Gary Lublow, would say, "No, man, slow it down so they can hear the fuckin' song"." "We'd say, "This is punk rock!" "We don't slow anything down!"" "You know?" "♪ I don't care about you ♪ Fuck you" "You're getting 50 seconds' worth of music with the same amount of fucking notes, 'cause we play them faster." "♪ I saw a man that was sleeping in puke ♪" "♪ And a man with no legs falling' down Fifth Street ♪" "♪ Tryin' to get something to eat ♪" "♪ I don't care about you" "♪ Oh, no" "One of the greatest punk-rock albums - they made The Record at Sound City." "That sound comes out of his face, man." "That's actually his voice." "♪ I don't care about you" "Gary Lublow had been the producer on the" "R.E.O. Speedwagon record." "But what he wound up being was the engineer who fought with me every day." "I became a producer by default, because nobody knew what a producer was." "The old definition of "producer" was more watching the budget, scheduling musicians, scheduling studio time." "That's not what they did at" "Sound City." "A producer works with the songs." "♪ You don't know how it feels to be me ♪" "A producer says, "Hey, I think this could be better." "I think that could be better." "I think that's amazing." "Why can't the rest of it be as great as that?"" "That's not easy to do." "Everything I try to do is from a fan's perspective." "I can listen and go, "Hmm, this part really speaks to me." "This part doesn't speak to me so much"." "It sounds like you're aiming a little lower today than you should be." "What balls, you know, to tell rock stars that they got nothing." "♪ But let me get to the point ♪" "♪ Let's roll another joint" "I like to push it during the songs, you know?" "Like, I'll hit the guitar and, like, mess it up." "I want it to be on fire." "Working with Ross was intense as shit." "We did 12 songs the first night we were there." "And the whole time, he is throwing potted plants at us." "I grabbed one of the candles, and I threw it against the wall as hard as I can." "Wax went across his face, and he's like, "Aaaaah!"" "Screaming into the floor." "It was so good." "♪ You don't know how it feels ♪" "The way I love the term" ""producer" - it's someone that puts, you know, a cake dish over the bat phone, you know?" "They protect you from the outside world, and they help you actualize the sounds in your head." "Producer's job is really easy." "He's the vehicle to get the artists' creativity onto tape in a way that is accessible to your marketplace." "♪ To be me" "What you have to do is get the listener to claim what you've done as theirs." "A girlfriend - an ex-girlfriend - it's always an ex-girlfriend - hooked me up with this guy that knew Joe at" "Sound City." "And he said, "Joe's looking for artists to sign"." "I think we signed him, like, in the middle '70s." "Joe's office was under the car ramp that took the cars up to the parking lot on the roof." "I actually thought about not signing because of that." "♪ Love is all right tonight" "He was turned down by RCA for about five years." "I got into the studio when the paying clients had bailed." "You know, "Tom Petty just canceled." "We got studio 'A' for four hours"." "Joe took Rick Springfield under his wing, and he kind of developed him." "Got him acting lessons." "Got him an apartment." "Got him some little car." "Got him the "General Hospital"" "thing that started his career." "Here's Bobbie, one of our best nurses." "Bobbie Spencer, this is" "Noah Drake." "How are you?" "I'm very happy to see you again." "The first steady money I'd actually seen in my life was 500 bucks a week." "That was the first regular money" "I'd ever had." "Joe came to me and asked me to do these couple of songs." "Keith Olsen picked" ""Jessie's Girl" out of the demos they gave him." "I didn't get why he picked it." "I thought there were stronger songs." "Rick didn't think I knew what" "I was talking about." "♪ Well, Jessie is a friend" "♪ And, oh, he's been a good friend of mine ♪" "Keith didn't like my guitar playing, so he had Neil Geraldo play guitar on "Jessie's Girl"" "and bass." "Being a record producer, there's a time when you have to say, "It would really be good for your career if you let this go that way"." "Keith never liked my guitar playing." "He's a prick." "Patricia had just finished the "Crimes of Passion" record at Sound City." "Then I just met him one day, and that was - we just did it." "I mean, I probably knew him for 15 minutes before we did the song." "He had this pit terrier, so he would bring the dog into the studio, and he goes, watch this." "And he'll throw it a basketball." "And it would take the basketball and go pghh!" "And, you know, puncture it with his teeth." "With my dog, Ron, the sound guys would get this laser light and run it up and down the walls of studio "B"." "And he'd take chunks out of the wall, and put holes in all the walls." "So, we get ready to do the take." "All of a sudden, the dog comes into the studio, sits down, puts his nose right in my crotch." "It's like, if I screw up, he's gonna bite me." "What the hell is going on here?" "♪ And she's watching him with those eyes ♪" "I made it through the take." "Might have even been the one we used." "It was pretty funny." "Never moved." "He sat right there." "It was fantastic." "♪ You know, I wish that I had" "Jessie's girl ♪" "♪ I wish that I had Jessie's girl ♪" "We signed a lot of acts." "Every one you signed, you thought, "This is gonna be the big one"." "You know, "This is gonna be it"." "I was the only one that really finally paid off for him, you know?" "Nominated for best male rock vocal performance, singing about" "Jessie's girl, is" "Mr. Rick Springfield!" "The first check we got from RCA was over a million dollars." "It's mind-blowing." "I think Joe had pretty good karma, and this magic studio sprung up out of this ass-ugly complex in Van Nuys." "And all these people just started coming." "It was amazing." "All during the '80s, we were booked solid." "You listen to one of these stations where they played rock 'n' roll, 7 or 8 out of the" "10 songs were recorded at" "Sound City." "Describe Hollywood in the '80s." "Hollywood in the '80s - I don't remember." "It was all, like, you know, the hair bands." "It was all the makeup, all the pretty boys, you know." "♪ 'Cause I'm a wanted man" "I was wondering who ever used the board after us if they had a burning sensation the next morning." "Then they'd know we were there." "♪ Some kind, some kind of friend you turned out to be ♪" "I only did one record at" "Sound City." "It was more family than any studio I've ever been to." "You know, "family" might be a bit heavy, but it was a warm feeling between us and the people that worked there." "Dio, "Holy Diver"." "Yeah, you know that record." "♪ Stand up and shout" "♪ Let it out" "♪ Stand up and shout" "Paula was Italian." "That's an in." "Ronnie and I are Italian, so we got on with her great, and they just let us do whatever we wanted." "It was so cool." "We were having such a good time at Sound City, almost like it was a hang, and we just had to play." "I think it was a lucky thing," "I think, for all of us." "I met Barbara there" " I met her for the first time in front of that board." "♪ Baby's got the cold feet" "♪ Oh, baby, stay" "♪ We got all night" "I have a lot of stuff that formed me in that place, in" "Sound City." "You know, you're in your 20s and you don't realize that this might not last forever." "♪..." "On my knees tonight" "♪ Tonight" "You don't know what's coming after." "Considering its quality and size, the compact disc most certainly will become a part of our lives in the future." "It's all based on something called "digital sound," an innovative technique that uses lasers." "We've been sold a bill of goods about digital being so great." ""You can duplicate it forever, and you never lose anything"." "The industry is behind it unanimously. 11 companies, from Mitsubishi to Sony, have all agreed on using the same compact disc and the same equipment." "Everybody thought that was great." "But the thing that was wrong was they'd already lost everything when they did that." "It plays, theoretically, pure, perfect sound forever." "In the beginning, when they created the algorithms that decide how music is recorded into the digital domain, there's a mistake in it." "So, of course, you can duplicate this." "You know, it was kind of a mirage." "The official company spokesman, Mr. Spock," "Leonard Nimoy." "The sound is great." "We've been using it on the" "Enterprise for decades." "It's about time it got to earth." "Everything changed." "You had a lot of things coming at you at once." "The techno side of it..." "This guy named Roger Linn, who is a friend of ours, I remember Tom and I once went over to his house, and" "Jim Keltner was there." "And there were all these wires and gadgets out on the desk." "Roger was tinkering." ""What are you doing?"" "He goes, "I'm building a drum machine"." "All the drum samples were my own drums." "You had to be a drummer to sample drum sounds in those days." "♪ Hey" "I got really, really good at it, and I really loved it." "And it's just a tool." "It's just another way to make music." "♪ Don't come around here no more ♪" "Digital was in its infancy." "In the '80s, everybody was trying to be state-of-the-art." "People were saying, "You only have 24 faders, and we want 32," "64." "We want 72"." "Whoop-de-doo." "♪ Getting stronger" "♪ Don't come around here no more ♪" "Keith Olsen left Sound City and built a studio right next door." "That was the weirdest thing, you know?" "You'd go out in the parking lot, there'd be Keith Olsen." "I did this thing with" "Rick Springfield." "I told Joe Gottfried, "I want you to build me a studio." "And I will give you the specs, and I'll put in the gear"." "He told me one day, "You got to see this studio I built"." "You know, and so I go in, and he's got a board with one fader." "And I said, "Well, what do you do with that?"" "He goes, "That's all I need"." "You know, "It's all in the computer"." "He goes, "Wait till you hear what I'm doing"." "You know, and I thought, "Well," "I don't give a fuck"." "♪ Hey" "I want some shit to play with." "You know, I want to turn knobs, and I can't trust this." "Keith Olsen clearly had a lot to do with making Sound City what it is." "But then, if you went to his studio next door, it was nothing like Sound City." "It was the precursor to the digital studio." "That was an interesting time in music, where sequencers were starting to come out." "Now you can record audio into the computer." "Wow." "We could manipulate it in ways we never could've done on tape before." "And then you can think about stuff in different ways." "It was a whole new world." "♪ Here I go again on my own" "♪ Going down the only road I've ever known ♪" "♪ But here I go again" "In the '80s, everything was a lot more digital." "Things started to get more processed." "Everything started sounding really overproduced, with a cannon-shot snare." "♪ Here I go-o-o-o-o" "Sound City couldn't keep up." "Joe was way over his head, and not just with the studio." "At that time, we made a lot of mistakes." "We'd spent a lot of money chasing other acts." "And then, one day, Rick decided he wanted to go with the younger, better manager, in his opinion." "I was kind of talked into switching managers." "And, um, I didn't do it very well." "It was supposed to be that" "Joe was like Colonel Parker, and" "Rick was Elvis, you know?" "That's the way we all thought about it, you know?" "Rick Springfield made some money for Joe and stuff, but Joe became like a second father to him." "Rick was his baby." "This guy talked me into, you know, dumping Joe." "And there was a lot of untruths told, you know?" "Joe was completely shattered when it happened." "It shattered me, too, but not personal like it did to him." "It was really a bad day for him, you know?" "That happened, then drum machines and all that stuff." "And, you know, synthesizers and stuff like that started taking over." "It just got a little haywire." "By the late '80s, Sound City, it just couldn't compete." "I guess there was a time when studios got nicer and nicer." "Like, some studios had hot tubs." "But, at Sound City, you just wanted to work and get the hell out of there." "It was not a place you wanted to spend time." "And it seemed like it would've been so easy to clean it up." "But just no one took it upon themselves to do that." "♪ Aaaaaaaaaah" "I got up, after nine years at" "Sound City, $29,000 for the year, no health insurance." "Joe took it away." "He couldn't afford it." "And then when Joe wouldn't give me my second week vacation, that's when I said, "I'm leaving"." "By the time I got to" "Sound City, it was really dying." "We had a tech who was dealing drugs, receptionist who wanted to hang out with Keith Olsen more than be at the studio." "So I got rid of her." "I remember Keith telling me" "I was wasting my time and the studio would be closed in six months." "I told him to go fuck himself and get out." "I took the last 200 bucks out of my checking account and bought paint, and we painted the walls." "Sound City was dead." "It was dead." "To be honest, I don't even remember how the fuck we picked" "Sound City." "It's a gritty place, but we were used to living on the edge, so it's just like - it was roomy." "It was comfortable." "I think it was like 600 bucks a day." "16 days in the studio, and then accommodations." "I think maybe $60k was the budget for the whole record." "We had these songs, and we busted them out." "We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do." "♪ He's the one who likes all our pretty songs ♪" "As much as we loved noise and we loved crazy-ass punk-rock shit, we wanted to be a good band." "We loved The Beatles." "♪ Don't know what it means" "One of the craziest songs that we recorded was "Lithium"." "For whatever reason, the band and Dave kept speeding up." "Not subtly, but a lot." "It would start out a certain tempo and then keep going faster and faster." "Racing along, basically." "I said, "Dave, have you ever played with a click track before?"" "My heart just went crack!" "Aaaah!" "I was fucking" " I just felt like someone had stabbed me in the fucking brain." "When you're a drummer, you don't want anyone to ask you to play to a click track, you know?" "That human feel is what gives a player their personality." "Some drummers don't really know how to play to something that's keeping them in line like a click track." "♪ I'm so happy 'cause today I found my friends ♪" "Lo and behold, the first take, man, he locked in like he'd played to a click a thousand times." "And I think we got the song, like, the first or second take." "♪ Yea-ea-ea-h-h" "♪ Yea-ea-h yea-ea-ea-h-h" "And then, when I listened to it, I'm like, "Well, now it sounds like the fucking chorus is slowing down." "It's okay to speed up a little, isn't it?"" "♪ Yea-ea-h ♪ Yea-ea-ea-h-h" "I remember, every night, we'd bring a cassette back from" "Sound City to the Oakwood apartments, where we were staying, and listen to what we had done that day." "Those imperfections, that's cool." "And it makes it sound like people." "And Kurt was entirely about performance." "To us, it was most important that there was an honesty and truth to what we were doing." "♪ I don't care" "♪ I don't care ♪ I don't care" "♪ I don't care ♪ I don't care if it's old" "The music came through the speakers in a way that was primal." "You could hear the sweat in the tracks." "You could hear Kurt's vocal cords." "♪ If you have, if you need" "Looking back at Sound City, I realize so much of that record is about performance." "When we tried to record" ""Something in the Way," the band tried to record it live in the big tracking room, and it was just too, kind of, big and bombastic-sounding." "That song had to be right because it was such a delicate, fragile composition." "♪ Underneath the bridge" "♪ The tarp has sprung a leak" "Kurt came into the control room, and he started playing the song." "He laid in front of the Neve on this couch, and I turned off the fans and the phones and everything, and he played the song just barely mumbling, barely singing, and barely playing that 5-string guitar." "♪ And the drippings from the ceiling ♪" "You had to focus on making it correct and the way it should be, which isn't necessarily perfect." "It just feels right." "♪ Something in the way" "♪ Mmm-mmm" "That was when I first saw a computer used with music, because it was so hard to play to that guitar." "I couldn't really figure out how to get the performances locked together without trying to do crazy edits with him." "Somebody had told me about this new digital machine." "So, this technician brought in a computer and a screen, and it was like the - it was basically like Pro Tools or something." "♪ Mmm-mmm" "It was archaic." "It was incredibly slow." "You can't do what you can these days in Pro Tools." "You had this "render" button, and it would take like two hours." "We used to call it" ""Slow Tools," 'cause it just used to just slow everything down." "And then, when you finally listened to it, if you didn't like it, you had to hit "undo"" "and try another one and hit" ""render" again." "It would take, like, another two hours." "The computer was such a pain in the butt." "It's just like, this will just - this is a gimmicky thing." "Good thing we have tape." "This will never take off"." "When I hear" ""Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the radio, I remember those really simple moments of being in the studio." "And those 15 days or 16 days, whatever it was, that board - totally changed my life." "Nirvana!" "Nirvana!" "Nirvana!" "Nirvana!" "♪ Here we are now" "♪ Entertain us" "Sound City would not have survived if it was not for that record." "You know?" "Nobody had ever heard of" "Nirvana, but it went right up to number one." "We knew right after that we'd get a lot of business." "♪ A denial" "It was like Fleetwood Mac all over again." "Joe was always really good to me." "There was a plaque that he had brought over to me when" ""Nevermind" hit number one." "And we hung it on the wall, and it was just a couple weeks later that Joe actually passed away." "He was absolutely a beautiful person, so absolutely a doll of a guy." "And I didn't" " I didn't treat him very well." "You know, with the separation." "And, um..." "So I'm really glad we made up, you know, before he died." "It was a sad day." "He helped a lot of people do a lot of things in their career." "I remember coming back to Sound City." "I hadn't been there in a while." "And the record had gotten big." "And they sent them a platinum record." "I remember opening the door and seeing that." "And it was such a huge moment for me." "I was just like..." "Because I remembered walking in there for the first time and seeing all of those other records." "To me, Sound City represents some sort of integrity like a truth, which is very human." "Actual people doing this thing that inspired millions and millions of fans all over the place to do the same thing." "That September, the phones just blew up." "I mean, you come in the morning, there'd be, like, 50 messages." "It's like this tidal wave of interest, and it was a no-brainer" " Sound City." "We chose Sound City because "Nevermind" was recorded there." "I had never been in a studio before." "There was a lot of time spent, like, cutting a tape at an angle and taping it together." "It just, to me, seemed crazy." "Like, that didn't make any sense to me." "♪ Killing in the name of" "We did our record at" "Sound City like a live show." "We brought monitors in, and we invited a bunch of our friends down." "I think we got half the record in that one night." "♪ Killing in the name of" "Things got a lot more raw and down-to-earth again." "I had started to get into simplification and analog tape and vintage equipment and that kind of thing." "And so, obviously, all roads led to a place like Sound City." "It became the center of my life." "♪ I had a date for the 11th hour ♪" "♪ Ohhhhhhhh" "All the Catholics stuff, that was all live to two-track, no overdubs." "After making records in the '80s and working towards perfection and click tracks, and all this kind of stuff, suddenly to just do, like, rocking out and have it recorded, and it's all done," "it just felt really right." "♪ Well, who needs that now?" "♪ Ah, who needs that now?" "I kept working there pretty much into the '90s with Rick." "All they kept on saying about was, "Ah, there's no Paula." "This is really weird"." "And I was just, like, "You know, seriously?"" "Shivaun was great." "She didn't take no shit off nobody." "♪ Yeah" "♪ You wreck me, baby" "♪ Yeah, you break me in two" "Then, right after that, Rick did a record with Johnny Cash." "He was the coolest guy in the world, and he was really humble." "He was sick during the making of that record, and there were times where we would have to take breaks, but he loved recording." "He loved being an artist." "♪ Too cold to start a fire" "♪ I'm burnin' diesel, burnin' dinosaur bones ♪" "We kept on calling him "Mr. Cash," and he would get upset." "He said, "No, call me Johnny"." "So we all started calling him" ""Mr. Cash" behind his back." "Johnny wanted to play with a band, and he picked us, which was totally off the map for me." "It was never like" "The Heartbreakers playing their normal stuff, because, for each song, everybody would pick up different instruments." "♪ Gonna break my rusty cage" "♪ And run" "One of my greatest nights was when Carl Perkins came down." "I was the runner, and I'll never forget sitting at the front desk at Sound City and" "Tom Petty and Carl Perkins and" "John Fogerty walked in, and it was just like..." ""Wow"." "♪ Come on, go with me, babe" "♪ Come on, go with me, girl" "Tom Petty never loses his cool, and he walked out of the control room totally calm, and he just, like, slammed his hands down on the table and goes," ""It's Carl fucking Perkins." "Can you believe it?"" "Good ol' Sound City came through for us again." "Other rooms in other studios all around town started to shift because more and more people started to use Pro Tools." "Everybody just jumped on this bandwagon of, you know," ""Everything's got to be digital" - digital consoles, digital tape machines." "I mean, they hadn't decorated since 1974." "They sure as shit weren't gonna spend 20 grand on a fucking" "Pro Tools rig, you know?" "When you came to work at" "Sound City, you knew what you were getting." "It was a tape-based studio." "At some point, it became cultural - "We're against that"." "Starts from the runner all the way up to all the engineers and the studio manager." "They were just against it." "Like, digital sucks." "You know, bring them in the room and mike them up and just let tape roll." "♪ Well, I've got a secret I cannot say ♪" "♪ Blame all the movement to give it away ♪" "That's what Queens was all about." "We were not only analog." "It needed to be live." "It needed to be something you could be proud of that you had done, you know?" "It was just what you had to do if you were a real musician." "♪ Whatever you do" "♪ Don't tell anyone" "Sound City was a place where real men went to make records." "It wasn't gonna be easy." "But, you know, all good things take an effort." "And make a mark on the tape." "And that is gonna be where I'm gonna cut." "When you have to record on tape, it's pretty difficult to manipulate the sound." "We do the same thing there." "You have to really focus, one, on how it sounds going in, and then, two, the performance has to be amazing." "Okay." "Part of making it in the record business back in the old days was that there was something you could do and nobody else could do that." "Pro Tools has enabled people - any average, ordinary person - to achieve those sorts of results now." "To do that same thing with" "Pro Tools - there we go, done - it's really that simple." "When Pro Tools came in, it freaked me out when I realized that you could drag music onto the grid and make it sound perfect." "The good thing about the digital technology is if somebody makes a mistake, like the bass player hits a wrong note or something, you might be able to fix it much easier than we used to." "The not-so-great is, it's kind of enabled people that have no business being in a band or the music industry to become stars." "I heard some young guy in a band say, "Well, you don't have to practice anymore." "You know, you just slice it up in the machine," meaning the computer, "and it comes out perfectly"." "Somebody like Andrés Segovia, you know, who played the guitar beautifully." "There's no machine is gonna do that." "I am not a Pro Tools fan." "But Trent and Atticus, they really use it as a tool, and a real creative tool." "I never went into the kind of fear of, "It's cheating"." "I never use samplers as a way to sound like the real thing." "It was really amazing, 'cause here's a thing that can record sound like tape, but you can fuck with it in million different ways." "It's just a wildly inspiring tool, really." "♪ I believe I can see the future ♪" "I like to record it in analog at the highest level and listen to it that way." "But that's not what's happening on the street." "That's not where our audience is." "You want them to live their lives the way they want to live it." "I think it makes a lot of independent music right now possible." "It's one of the reasons why we're able to make records for a couple hundred bucks." "I think one of the big tape manufacturers went out of business, so that really pushed everybody into the digital world and the Pro Tools world." "The days of moving into the studio and writing your record and recording your record and mixing your record, those days are gone now." "They used to have $200,000," "$300,000 $400,000 budgets to do an album." "Now the money is just not there the way it used to be." "Budgets were so small, we'd be tracking late five days," "10 days." "It was always last-minute," ""Can you work this afternoon?"" "or whatever." "So..." "In the end, it was a little hard to swallow." "You know, we started selling off the gear in studio "B", 'cause the studio was way behind on bills." "♪ Lover, there will be another one ♪" "♪ Who'll hover over you beneath the sun ♪" "Most of the great studios have gone out of business, and a lot of what you hear on the radio was made on people's laptops." "I think Pro Tools just really was, to a lot of people, was the death knell." "It always was an insider place - always." "But it could not survive against" "Pro Tools." "You know, the internet's cool for some stuff, but, like many things, there's no bookstore, there's no music store, and there's no Sound City." "♪ And show you the way to go ♪" "♪ It's over" "♪ It's over" "I had heard that Sound City was about to close." "Someone said, "You should call" "Shivaun"." "And I talked to Shivaun, and she was in tears, man." "It was - it was heavy." "Sound City was my home." "And, basically, after all those years - after 19 years, laid off, no severance pay, no medical, nothing." "Shivaun was like - she was like a mom to me, you know?" "I" " I left my mom." "My mom was in Tennessee and then" "I was out here, and Shivaun was so cool, man." "I love her so much." "♪ Shadow on the things you know ♪" "Sorry." "♪ Feathers fall around you" "Yes, it's been hard." "It still" " I try to move on, but it's - it's hard." "♪ It's over" "♪ It's over" "♪ Ooh, ooh" "Looking back, I was just a kid when I walked into" "Sound City, and that board is the reason I'm here right now." "I'd do anything for it." "This big room and that Neve console is what got us all the big rock 'n' roll bands." "We're digging out all this stuff, and I never dreamed, in a million years, I could find this." "Here's the original order for the Neve console." "Oh, my god." "Really?" "Wow!" "And whose signature - is that" "Rupert Neve's signature?" "Who's that?" "I'm gonna give that to you if you'd like it." "Tom, thank you so much, man." "You're welcome." "Historic document, there." "It really is." "Thank you very much, my friend." "Thank you." "Tom, that's great, man." "Wow!" "That Neve console, we sold to" "Dave, and that's how all this all started." "All right." "Let's do this." "To me, it's, like - it's a living, breathing piece of the music that we've made." "It's just as instrumental as any instrument that's run through it." "It's the sound of the records that were made at Sound City." "This thing is a piece of rock 'n' roll history." "I thought that board would just go straight to the" "Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame." "I thought no one was gonna get that board." "I think they knew, like, I wasn't just gonna bubble-wrap it and stick it in a warehouse." "I was gonna fucking use it..." "A lot." "Trying to pull it through a window." "I spent so much time sitting over here, playing with these things." "Well, was it still sitting there, Dave?" "Yeah, you know, it had been working." "So, the first thing I really wanted to do was invite everyone back to make this new record." "Giving that old board this new life with new music." "Telling the story of Sound City is one thing." "Plugging in and actually putting it through the board and putting it on a 2-inch reel?" "That's what I'm talking about." "♪ They don't talk much about it ♪" "♪ It goes back so many years" "♪ All the times we almost didn't make it ♪" "♪ We stayed clear" "♪ We walked through the darkness ♪" "♪ And made a pact not to dance with the devil ♪" "♪ Even when the devil seemed to have a heart ♪" "♪ He said we'd never be sorry" "♪ For what we've done" "♪ And we never allowed the devil to come to the party ♪" "I messed up." "It's amazing." "Want to do another?" "Sure." "You want to take it up through verse one and verse two, up to that first chorus?" "Yeah." "What we're hoping to do on this album is to catch a little bit of that vibe that was captured when all those classic records were made at Sound City." "We'll try to put some of that into this album." "♪..." "Sorry" "♪ For what we've done" "♪ And we never allowed the devil to come to the party ♪" "♪ You can't fix this" "♪ You lost a friend" "♪ Hearts breaking" "♪ Right and left" "Fuckin' "A"." "That girl can sing." "Any input from the foos?" "Just go." "I'm not - just do what you do." "I am kind of radical, you know." "♪ Never dance with the devil" "♪ Keep running, yeah" "There's a reason why these people have achieved these things that they've achieved." "You can hear it." "You can see it." "♪ Don't ever dance with the devil ♪" "♪ He will burn you dow-ow-n" "♪ You can't fix this" "That's rad." "Sounds rad." "And I get to do my snake dance." "I'm just feeling very wonderful to be in your studio with this board and know that this board was the first place that we did" ""Buckingham Nicks"." ""15458 Cabrito Road, Van Nuys," "California"." "This is a letter that I wrote to my mom and dad and my brother in the middle of the making of" ""Buckingham Nicks"." ""Dear mom and dad and Chris," "Well, here I am once again at the famous Sound City recording studio"." ""Sound City, Inc. "" "Ta-da!" ""I'm getting very tired of sitting around listening to" "12 hours of music per day." "Oh, well." "I know it will pay off in the end." "It will all be worth it." "I hope that all of my little family is doing fine and not working too hard." "Moving right along, I just want to say that I certainly do miss you all and wish you could be here to hear some of this stuff." "Lindsey may go down in history as one of the greats in guitar playing." "It really is quite amazing." "Well, no more news as of yet." "So much love to you all, and hold good thoughts about this thing." "I love you." "Stevie"." "I think it really is a testament to how many people actually did love Sound City and do love that Neve console and want to be part of history." "I was bragging to everybody." ""Guess who I'm calling tonight?" "Rick fucking Springfield"." "I've always just been a big believer in the power of the song." "To me, the highest I ever feel is in the middle of writing a song that I think I've hooked into something, you know?" "I had an idea." "I don't know if it would work." "But would you want to try something?" "So, if we played over the riff, it goes..." "That'd be really cool." "Let's try it from the top and see how that sounds." "Yeah." "I think it's a great part." "It's got "Rick Springfield"" "written all over it." "It's awesome." "I love it." "It's got that stress rock." "I like that." "I just want to go hang out in the studio." "I just like the process." "I love doing things on the fly and in the studio..." "I'm just trying to think what would be nice to - if we - to get back into that section." "...And just kind of play arrangements in a repetitive fashion over and over and over until some little change happened." "What did you just do?" "You did something kind of cool." ""D", "A"." "A little happy accident or whatever, and it's like, everyone, "Oh, what was that that just happened?"" "That's part of the arrangement now." "Oh, that'd be so great, and then right out of there, you just fucking go, "Aah!"" "It's the perfect pair of pants." "It really is." "But the good thing about learning while you're recording, what you sometimes accidentally get is something good if you don't have any idea what you're doing." "And the sense of discovery, like, is a big part of it." "Everybody gets it all at once, and that's the first time you ever played it, and it's got everything new for the first time." "It's like your first anything." "And that's the cherry of all time." "What if we tried doing the" "Rick part as a pre-chorus?" "Yes!" "Ha!" "That's so good!" "'Cause then it goes into the chorus." "That's awesome!" "Better be good now, Pat." "I know." "2." "♪ I can't say that I like her manner ♪" "♪ I can't say that I like her face ♪" "♪ I'm carved up on a silver platter ♪" "♪ Serve warm" "♪ She's a real head case" "♪ I won't wait for an invitation ♪" "♪ I can't stand for the sacrifice ♪" "♪ I won't die as an unknown soldier ♪" "♪ I won't even try" "We came in, we practiced the song, played it a few times - kind of a bunch of times - and we did it live." "How special was that?" "♪ Just like the man that never was ♪" "♪ Just like" "♪ Just like the man that never was ♪" "♪ Just like the man that never was ♪" "All the elements of it - the playing, the writing - it's something that will pull you out of bed every morning and make you resist going to bed at night, 'cause you want to keep working on it." "Music's been that for me." "♪ I am the man that never was" "Great." "Thanks." "There's darkness in you, boy." "Oh, yeah, a lot of darkness in me." "It's dark and so cool, man." "I've spent a lot of time in front of that board." "Thanks, Dave." "It's a great enabler." "Great, man." "Anybody that's been to" "Sound City knows exactly why I'm making this record." "They get it." "I have an idea." "Why don't we just start it" "Lee Ving style where you go... 1, 2, 3, 4!" "1, 2, 3, 4!" "Oh, I'm on it!" "1, 2, 3, 4!" "1, 2, 3, 4!" "♪ Your wife is calling ♪ Tell her I'm not here" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Just having one beer" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Da uber frau ♪" "♪ Your wife is calling ♪ Be home in half an hour" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ You say something, dear?" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Just having more beer" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ You've not to fear" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Lift your voice, sing for beer ♪" "In the studio, you're trying to boost your own performance from the energy that you're feeding from in your partners." "♪ Your wife is calling" "You can't do that if you're standing there alone." "♪ Your wife is calling ♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Your wife is calling" "♪ Your wife is calling ♪ Your wife is calling" "Fuck, yeah." "It's a conversation, and that's a musical relationship that I think everybody searches for." "I think the downside these days is thinking that, "I can do this all on my own"." "Yes, you can do this all on your own, but you'll be a much happier human being to do it with other human beings, and I can guarantee you that." "How would you define "feel"?" "Feel is - is just a part of who you are." "It just comes from where you - where you're coming from." "It's just the way your heart beats, you know?" "Everybody's heart beats a little different." "Everybody's got a little different feel." ""Feel" doesn't mean you're in time." "You know, 'cause something might have a really out-of-time kind of feel." "It might be gloriously out of tune and just be awesome." "It's a chemistry - something that happens between people." "Feel is not something that you learn in a book." "Feel is something that you find as a musician." "It's like when you take in a breath, your body swells up." "When you exhale, it collapses a bit, and sometimes music does that so subtle." "But feel is being human." "No two musicians are the same, even if we're playing the same song." "No two musicians do it the same way." "It's so hard to be understood in life, and that's why, when you meet someone where you understand each other at that moment, you sort of want to hold on to it, you know?" "When someone has great feel, whether it's a drummer or a guitar player, it kind of makes you fall in love with their personality." "You realize what a beautiful person they are, you know?" "There's a lot of people growing up now that won't do studio time and have never touched a compressor that's the one that's being emulated as the picture on their plug-in on their laptop." "They're missing out on something." "You know?" "Trent is using technology as an instrument, not as a crutch." "He doesn't need it." "He's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my entire life." "He's the person that could inspire the digital end of this conversation." "Hey, you guys, no fucking way with the smoke machine." "There's no fucking way that's gonna go down." "I'll take the smoke machine in here." "My grandma pushed me into piano." "I remember, when I was 5, I started taking classical lessons." "I liked it, and I felt I was good at it." "I knew, in life, I was supposed to make music." "Feels like a need a differentiator there - a cool bass part." "The sound I have is not right." "That's not helping things at the moment." "I could do better than that." "Are you hearing something you want to try with the bass here?" "You're not stepping on my toes." "I practiced long and hard and studied and learned how to play an instrument that provided me a foundation where I can base everything I think of in terms of where it sits on the piano." "I sort of liked that, at one point, it kind of got there, and then it backed off." "It can kind of brood and be really simple and empty and sort of kind of like lift the curtain on it, and it can expand." "All right, can I just say that that is fucking awesome?" "That, right there, sounds so fucking beautiful." "I really like the sound of these three things together." "I think it sounds really cool." "Okay, then let's keep doing it that way." "This whole thing should just sunrise." "It would make it beautiful, you know?" "It sort of, like, evolves until it hits this point and maybe goes zoom!" "When I'm writing music today, rarely do I sit down and think," ""Oh, this should resolve to that suspended... "" "You know, I don't think of that shit." "But, subconsciously, I know I do." "And just when you've sold that enough, that's the time to change to an ending and sort of like let it rip a little bit." "You know what I mean?" "I like having that foundation in there, and that's a very un-punk-rock thing to say." "But understanding an instrument and thinking about it and learning that skill has been invaluable to me." "Ah." "That was pretty good." "Sounded pretty good to me, too." "I've found now, as processors have gotten faster and programmers have gotten smarter There's some pretty music tools that are showing up in the digital world." "Yeah, take me to the top of the drop." "The tools are better." "You know, tools are much better today than they were five years ago - certainly, 30 years ago." "Now that everyone is empowered with these tools to create stuff, has there been a lot more great shit coming out?" "Not really." "You still have to have something to do with those tools." "Rad." "Yeah, just, you know..." "You should really try to have something to say." "It all started with this idea that I wanted to tell the story of the board." "The conversation became something much bigger." "Like, in this age of technology, where you can simulate or manipulate anything, how do we retain that human element?" "How do we keep music to sound like people - that feeling that" "I got when I was young - "Oh," "I can do that, too"?" "Let's go do it." "My musical foundation was" "The Beatles." "Everything I know about playing guitar and song structure, composition, all of it, it all started with The Beatles." "I like the chandelier, too, man." "It's a nice touch." "Um, so, we don't know what we're doing so we can just do anything." "Just - yeah." "I think he knows how you feel when you play with him." "I don't know." "I can't really describe it." "I drop from the most nervous" "I've ever been down to like," ""Oh, this is - okay"." "Yeah!" "Yeah." "♪ Mama" "♪ Won't you set me free?" "♪ Mama" "♪ Let me be" "About halfway through the session, I kind of looked over at Krist when we were playing, and we were going for it." "And you know, Krist was moving the way he used to move, and you were getting into it and I was playing." "And I thought, "Oh, my god!" "This is like Nirvana!"" "And then, "Wait." "Paul McCartney is here?"" "This is the best way to make records, when you get people in a room together and you don't know what's gonna happen." "You just hit "record" and keep your fingers crossed that it's gonna explode." "♪ Mama!" "The limitations of this - it forces you to make decisions based on what's most important to translating that song." "If we start... ♪ Gah gah gah gah ♪ Gah gah gah" "One of the things, I think, that makes good music is some sort of restriction." "And then you want to go to the - should we - and then go into the..." "And that's where 24-track mentality comes in." "You commit to what it is." "With Pro Tools, you can always come back to it, or you can change it or you can add to it, to try and make it work." "You know?" "'Cause you're not being forced to make choices - creative ones." "Maybe then go to the... ♪ "A"" "♪ We don't know what's gonna come on top of this ♪" "♪ But something is" "♪ That, we'll find out later" "♪ And then go to the riff" "♪ Breakdown" "Like the intro." "I think you should go to that" ""A" maybe one more time." "It's such a lift." "Yeah." "After staying in that "D" for so long, it just has such a great impact when it goes up there, and it's so quick." "It's just four times through." "If this mike was in the room so it's live." "That's all right." "Do it." "Make it simple." "Make it fast." "Don't overthink it." "Let it, like, come straight out of you, and do it." "♪ Dear mama" "♪ Set me free" "♪ Oh, mama" "♪ Let me be" "♪ Oh, mama" "♪ Watch me run" "♪ Mama" "♪ I wanna have some fun" "♪ Whoo ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh" "♪ Whoo ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh" "♪ Well, mama" "♪ Don't let me down" "♪ Mama" "♪ Wanna go to town" "♪ Yeah" "Magical." "You didn't even know what the hell you were doing, but it's genius." "Exactly." "That's my autobiography." ""I didn't know what the hell" "I was doing"." ""I wasn't thinking:" "The" "Krist Novoselic story"." ""What was I thinking?"" ""I wasn't thinking"." "There's a lift." "Yeah." "It would be nice if this would sort of..." "Yeah." ""Ah"." "Maybe even if it came after the lift." "♪ Ah" "You let the lift happen." "And then take it further with a chord - vocal chord." "Yeah." "♪ Ah" "Whatever it is." "♪ Ah" "Who sings?" "You do?" "Me and you." "Krist?" "No." "No." "I'm just checking." "How long do you want to be here?" "Are you double-parked?" "Just checking." "So, let's just try it, and then you tell us what's wrong with it." "Yeah, let's tell" "Paul McCartney what to do." "♪ Ahhhh" "♪ Ahhhh" "Sounds pretty cool." "Should we do it in the other section, too?" "Okay." "Why can't it always be this easy?" "It is." "♪ Yeah-eah" "♪ Whoo-ooh-ooh" "♪ Ahhh" "♪ If you want to take a ride, you got to cut me some slack ♪" "♪ Don't get me wrong" "♪ I might not come back" "Getting a chance to play music with the person that is the reason why I'm a musician, and recording through the board that's the reason why I'm here today, it was a huge full-circle moment for me." "I think it's really important - and it's a lesson I didn't learn until in my late teens - is that whatever bands that you love, go find out what bands they love and what bands turn them on." "And then you really start getting into the human aspect of it, because the further back you go in time, the less technology you had and, consequently, the better records that you had." "There's this incredible library of music, thank god, that is still there." "♪ Ahhh" "♪ If you want to take a ride, you got to cut me some slack ♪" "♪ Don't get me wrong" "♪ I might not come back" "♪ Whoo ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh" "♪ Whoo ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh" "Be true to yourself and make the music that you love." "Go out and play." "Turn people on to your music." "Spread it yourself." "Don't think it happens any other way." "♪ Let me be" "Let's rock, let's play, let's record, let's play it back." ""Wait till you hear this"." "I can't wait to get in my car to hear it." "I'm gonna play it for my friend." "I'm making a copy." "I'm gonna blast for fucking 10 hours, and I'm gonna listen to it." "♪ Mama, ma-ma-mama watch me go ♪" "♪ Mama, watch me rock" "♪ Wanna have some fun" "♪ Just wanna have some fun" "♪ Yeah, set me free" "♪ Set me free" "♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah" "♪ Ohhhhhh, yeah" "♪ Whoo" "What was the name of your first band?" "The Icy Blues." "It was called Bloodfest." "Yeah!" "Good name." "My first band was called" "Fury, and we were a Kiss cover band." "Which was your favorite?" "My favorite Kiss record?" "Yeah." "Oh, I" " I could never choose." "What was your first band?" "My first band was Autocracy." "Huh?" "A band called The Senders." "The Pixies." "The Pixies was your first band?" "Absolutely." "No band before that?" "No." "Really?" "Yeah." "Wow." "I'd been in practically every other kind of band - blues bands, punk-rock bands, standard rock 'n' roll bands, top-40 bands, jazz-rock fusion bands." "In New York, I had a band called" "Daybreak." "Did you have a band?" "Had a band." "What was the band?" "The Pricks." "Made sense to me, too." "Okay, so, coming up on the right, you know, we have the" "Budweiser brewery, which... on a good night... smells like someone burping right in your face." "The thing that was cool about the brewery is, like, every band that came there always wanted to go take the tour." "So they would always go over there and come back with cases of Budweiser and then sit around and get hammered all the rest of the night." "But that smell" " I'll never forget that smell when the front doors of Sound City were open on a good, windy day." "The smell of hops would just fill the whole building." "It was just, "Ew, what is that?"" "Beer smells like poop." "You know, apparently, Budweiser smells like poops." "And the funny thing I remember, when Gladys Knight and" "The Pips were there, and they walked out and they went," ""Whoo-whee!" "Is that you?"" "You know, they were, like, kidding each other about it." "But it was pretty strong - pretty..." "See?" "Smell it." "Hmm." "There you go." "You got it." "Gonna be a good night." "♪ Heard a song on the radio just after school ♪" "♪ Back from the '80s, before Reagan was cool ♪" "♪ The band wore leather, and the boys were lookin' so pretty ♪" "♪ They rocked all the clubs down on Sunset ♪" "♪ Doin' all those things that we try to forget ♪" "♪ When they screamed out there, the guitars sounded so pretty ♪" "♪ If it sounds as good in your room as it does in your car ♪" "♪ You're on your way to be a rock 'n' roll star ♪" "♪ It's a good thing to say," ""Hey, boys, you're gonna go far ♪" "♪ I wanna play a song, everyone sing along ♪" "♪ Standin' on the stage with the lights turned on ♪" "♪ Wearin' those trends with all my friends ♪" "♪ Rockin' all night like it'll never end ♪" "♪ With all our dreams hangin' on one little ditty ♪" "♪ Yeah, we got it on 2-inch tape down at Sound City ♪" "♪ I wanna play a song, everyone sing along ♪" "♪ Standin' on the stage with the lights turned on ♪" "♪ Wearin' those trends with all my friends ♪" "♪ Rockin' all night like it'll never end ♪" "♪ I wanna play a song, everyone sing along ♪" "♪ Standin' on the stage with the lights turned on ♪" "♪ Wearin' those trends with all my friends ♪" "♪ Rockin' all night like it'll never end ♪" "♪ All those epic songs with a phrase so witty ♪" "♪ There's always room for two to a car that offers no pity ♪" "♪ All our dreams hangin' on one little ditty ♪" "♪ Yeah, we got it on 2-inch tape down at Sound City ♪" "♪ Oh, yeah" "♪ Got it on 2-inch tape down at Sound City ♪" "♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo" "♪ Got it on 2-inch tape down at Sound City ♪" "♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah" "♪ We got it on 2-inch tape down at Sound City ♪" "Subtitle ripped and processed by Contaminator"