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Interview with Michael Harris, Belfast, 2008 09 26, page 2 ibth - Is there anything you pay specific attention to.. the guitar, the vocals ? harris - Anything that's happening at the moment i pay as much attention to it as i possibly can. Trying to give a kind of attention to it,.. like there's a kind of quality of Mike's bass tone that i don't think was realized before. In a lot of the recordings we did there's quite a bit of clarity so to speak in all the string noises, and the mids and the high mids and the trebble, but there's really very little characteristic bass. ibth - I think it's got some materiality.. it's nearly as if you could touch and grab it. harris - i'm glad you say that, cause that's one of the things i've tried to get out of his tone. Because he has it, it's there all the time, but it gets lost in a wash unless you record it properly. I try to do that, i try to pay particular attention to what it is that draws me to a sound, and then i try to exploit that.. ibth - Are there any records, and you'd say that on a mere sound production even, it's your favourite record of all times, maybe even with the songwriting or the songs not being that stellar ? like something where you woud just say.. whenever that producer or that engineer is involved it's awesome ? harris - Yeah..i mean George Martin, (laughs) George Martin is like this of course.. but again, i think maybe that's why i like some of Neil Young's stuff so much, maybe because it's so much not produced. A record like "On The Beach", is like something like.. there's no record that even comes close in regard to its austerity and depth. There are certain records that are like that to me.. again, any of the Beatles catalogue is like that to me. I think "Abbey Road", especially the 2nd half is absolutely amazing. ibth - And among more effect-heavy producers ? Since you've been mentioning Alan Moulder, or Butch Vig.. i don't know, i'm just throwing names.. harris - Maybe i'm a weird person in that way. I think a lot of people are like .. they read the back of the cd, they read who the producers were and they think about it and they think, that person has done this and that's great. I mean, Brian Wilson, he's the best producer as far as i'm concerned, and i think that George Martin and him are battling at the time in my mind as to who is better.. ibth - How about Kevin Shields ? harris - I love all of My Bloody Valentine, but something about that music.. i don't hear the production. I hear the music and i think it's great.. but in something like the Beach Boys i hear the production, it's like right there played out in front of me.. ibth - Which do you like better in that case : when the production hides behind or when it sticks out ? harris - I like it when it sticks out. I like it when i hear someone has tried to make a decision to do something. ibth - So do you try to do that with Jubilee, do try to convey that idea that someone's been trying to make a decision in there ? harris - No.. i don't. In a sense because it's not.. it's my place to give my opinion, and discuss with them what i think is best, and i do, believe me, i'm sure they'll tell you, but in the end it's them, it's their music, it's what they decide. I fight for my opinion, but ultimately, it's them who make the final decision cause they're the artists. ibth - Do you guys argue a lot ? harris - We argue and critically analyze and those sorts of things. You'll hear on the record a lot of things that we've decided to do that make it a certain way, and you'll hear that they come out. ibth - Do you have any examples of points on which you were disagreeing very hard with the guys ? harris Oh man, they a blur together.. let me think.. you'll hear on the full length, you'll hear a track that has trombones on it, and there's a point where a 3 part harmony comes in and i think it's great, but i thought it could have been executed better, and so i was almost pushing to have the 3 part harmony come in after, as opposed to where it does. It's little things, probably to the normal listener, it's minutiae, but those are the things i think, again, because i think i pay such close attention to the detail. And Aaron's the same way, so it's perfect in that sense. ibth - In the recording and producing of Jubilee tracks, apart from you as recording engineer, you've got on the producing and mixing side other people involved like Alex Newport, you've been mentioning Alan Moulder, you've got Joe Barresi, Ed Monsef, Pete Lyman mastering it.. are they on the same page as you when it comes to how Jubilee should sound ? harris - I think.. Alex definitely is. There's no doubt. I have a complete and utter respect for Alex and i've never met him. I don't know him. But i know the sound that we get back from Alex, and i'm always thrilled with what he gives us. He brings a clarity to it that i really appreciate. And also because To bring a clarity to that, it's so hard, because it's really loud music, and in some senses not too dynamic.. and he carves and he gives it such clarity.. and that's the same with Alan. They carve and they make all these subtleties in the tone pop out, come to life. I feel like the best mixers are the peope that make it almost hard to tell the difference between what left and what came back, aside from that there is that kind of difference that is almost subliminal. Not like all of a sudden the guitar is way too loud.. you can make moves like that, that end up resulting in just a different song, but when they do that and it's perfect it's a beautiful thing. I remember when we got "Fuzz Are Down" back, for example, and we were just all sitting there, and we were like.. hair flying back, just like "Goddamn, here it is !" ibth - Are there any tricks or special means that you use during the recording process to bring that clarity ? harris - Yes.. there are several pieces of gear, of which i knew before, but had never really used. I started working with them and they bring that to the sound. But i think people put way too much weight on gear. Right now in my life i'm the kind of person that almost thinks that the less you give in, the harder you have to work and the better the result is.. ibth - Just because you need to focus ? harris - Exactly.. for example there's one song that may or may not be on the record, called "Honour Among Thieves." I don't know if the title will change,if it'll be on an EP, on a single, or on the full length, or a 7-inch, who knows. But the point is, i got a tone with Jeff, that had nothing to do with anything aside from mild compression, correct mic placement, and a lot of thought as to what was coming out of his amp.. a lot of thought and critical thinking between him and i. Cause i remember that night when we were by ourselves and he had to write his part, cause there was no part, and we sat there, and we were like "what are we gonna do" and we kinda tweaked things.. moved things around and finally this sound came out and we tracked it and it was unbelievable front to back just like, every time that comes on for me. It's the same with Robi who plays on that song, and the drums are just perfect. Just beautiful clarity you know, and a uniqueness in tone. I think that's what i really like too, when something is really a unique tone. You can do it the obvious way, you can throw a bunch of stuff on a normal sound and then make it different.. or you can really, as Jeff says so often, make the correct decision to do a certain thing and really bring it to life that way.. And when you stumble upon those things, that's the brilliance of recording. ibth - Since you mention the thing about super precise microphone placement and a stripped down approach, it sounds a lot like stuff one would read of Steve Albini, when he describes how he recorded The Pixies in the basement, and basically getting effects with fairly stripped down means ? harris - And you know, i admire him so much. And yet, some of the stuff he's done.. it's hard for me to listen to Big Black, honestly. But then, the new Shellac record, "Excellent Italian Greyhound", the sound on there is incredible. ibth - The whole analogue recording stuff.. harris - He's all about and there's a huge merit to that, i really do, but i kind of continually change my opinion about that. ibth - While you guys have - and i'm sure you know what's coming now.. harris - Yeah, (laughs)i'm sure i do .. ibth - ..while you guys have a Pro Tools rig in the studio, so how do you feel about that ? Especially given that a lot of of the amps and the guitar effects you use are all tube and all analogue. harris - Everything is. I don't think we've laid down one track that has to do with bass or guitar that ahsn't been run through a tube amplifier..at all, nothing. ibth - Is it weird to have in one part of the chain all the analogue gear, and then run it through the highly digital..? harris - Well, here's the thing, if you want to go all analogue, you have to do what Steve Albini does, which is record to tape, do it really well, mix it on an analogue console too, and then kinda write the vinyl, and find a plant that's still willing to do that, and still does that. And that's hard, and the expenses are just mindblowing, when it comes to buying a 2-inch tape machine, if you multitrack on that kind of level, even a 1-inch tape machine is quite a bit of money. Suffice to say a Pro Tools MD rig is a lot less money, and it does the job really well, so.. i don't know. It's a strange thing. Again, i think there's a lot of merit to using an all-analogue rig, but i think if you do it right, you don't need it. And i don't know if i've done it right at all, but i know that you can do it right without it. Because you hear it daily.. a good percentage of what you hear now may have been run to tape, but immediately was dumped into Pro Tools.. So immediately it was digitized. I guess it's a point to also realize that if it goes to CDs or mp3s or mp4s, one way or the other it becomes digital. Maybe the idea is to get it analogue all the way until it hits that, but ultimitaly you only have a certain amount of samples that you're gonna be able to jam into whatever system you're listening to it on, so you don't really have a choice. Ultimately it becomes digital. ibth - One specific song underwent a huge change between the recorded version and the live version. Where the recorded version is produced by Alan Moulder, whom you've been visiting yesterday.. Was the recording anywhere near the live version, that's all stripped down and bluesy.. so when did it get so effected? harris - A lot of that stuff was actually us. Alan decided what should be there, and what shouldn't. And bounced stuff back to Aaron and me and Mike and Jeff and everybody. But ultimately a lot of that stuff was decided before it got sent to Alan.. that song started as a completely different song.. it started as two songs that got merged together. The bridge from one part, the verse from another, everything kinda got pieced together from two different songs that lacked kind of the best part that the other had. And Trent and Aaron had been working on some stuff before, so Aaron had this beat that Trent had programmed and everything, and he had written a great guitar part over it, so they kind of figured that out, and Aaron recorded his guitar for it, Mike recorded his bass, and Julian from Liars came in and played drums over it, and it just became this.. in a certain way.. nightmare of tracks. Alan actually mentioned it to us, it was a nightmare of tracks, it was way too many, because we had so many people playing and so many different things, we had actually to extract certain parts, just kill certain parts, because there were just too many. ibth - It's a very thick-layered song.. 
harris - It is, it's huge.. and i think that turns some people on, that sound. But ultimately, the new version, the one they play live these days, is what they want to do i think, and i'm just dying to record it. It's really moody and thoughtful. I think it takes a lot more out of them as players, and a lot more out of me, because there's a lot of space that needs to be filled with the correct things, you know. So anyway, i think that transformation kind of happened on the road, and someone mentioned "what if we just do it in half-time," cause they were playing it in full time and it was just fine with the correct things.. It was fine and it sounded like the recording, but it was boring.Because it sort of kills the dynamics.. if they've had to play that fast and that heavy the whole time.. But now, you can hear Aaron's tone at the beginning, it's quiet as it can possibly be. As with Jeff.. ibth - The live version, we've been hearing it almost everyday of the past month, and the other day when the single came out, we've been throwing it into the car stereo, and it was almost impossible listening to it in comparison because of that density and just because.. harris - I know, and in a certain sense that's a regret all of us have. Maybe not a regret, that's a bad way to put it. But i guess it's gonna be really fun to actually record it that way, because that's the way that song should be. ibth - That song is on the second single. In january, the "Rebel Hiss" single got released.. and in between these two, it feels, at least to us, that there's quite a difference in sound quality between them. Because on the "Rebel Hiss" EP, you can hear a lot of stuff like ambient noise, or background pieces of conversation, that almost make it sound as if it was some live recording. While the second one comes across much more.. not produced, but cleaner, more polished ? harris - ..cleaner ? ibth - ..and also more effected, between this track and this "outer space" version of "Pioneers..". Is that some conscious decision, or did it just happened like that ? harris - I think their minds work in strange ways, and i think it's almost a happenstance that it has turned that way. This single went through a process of being many different songs on it, and it finally came down that it would be these ones.. For a while, we thought of putting a song that you heard today, and you've heard for a while now, called Those Poor Devils on it instead, but it wasn't quite finished, and we just didn't feel like it would be right, so.. but ulitmately that's a very ambient track, and everyone was very eager to put it on. So i think it's just coincidence that it happened like that, but maybe not. Maybe subliminally it should be that way.. |
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Jubilee (ju.bi.lee), n. : 1. A rock'n'roll band from L.A., Ca., currently composed of Aaron North (vocals, guitar), Tony Bevilacqua (guitar, vocals), Jenni Tarma (bass), Troy Petrey (drums.)2. Jubilation; rejoicing. 3. A season or an occasion of joyful celebration. 4.a. A specially celebrated anniversary. b. The celebration of such an anniversary. |
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