James Brown Lives. In New York. And He Mixes Records.

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN: We know what you’re thinking. You’ve seen this name somewhere before. And not only on the marquee of the Apollo or littered among the best of your old soul 45s: this James Brown‘s engineering credits appear on records alongside iconic producers including Butch Vig, Alan Moulder, Flood, Kevin Shields, Daniel Lanois and Gil Norton.

James Brown, the engineer

Since starting his career in London, Brown has moved stateside and worked with an impressive roster that features some of the most recognizable alternative acts the major-label world has on offer. He’s engineered and mixed records for Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Arctic Monkeys, U2, Bjork, The Bravery, The Killers, and Brazilian Girls.

As of this week, Brown’s most recent credits include a new release from one of the moment’s most -referenced independent bands, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

We talked to Brown about working alongside his heroes, building a studio for Foo Fighters, and joining Flood to help the Pains re-interpret their quirky “twee-pop” sound as something decidedly more muscular and hi-fi.

ON LIVING AND WORKING BICOASTALLY

JC: You started making records in London, moved to New York, and regularly work in L.A. as well. Can you give us a sense for how the studio culture varies between these three major hubs?

JB: I can’t say I’ve really noticed much of a difference between these places. I think it’s a very specific sort of person that makes a good studio manager, much like it’s a very specific sort of person makes a good engineer or producer. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel all that different.

So with all this experience in these other cities, why call New York home?

Well it really is the greatest city in the world. I’ve felt a deep connection to New York ever since I first visited in the early 90’s. It’s also extremely convenient since my wife is American!

You recently spent a lot of time with the Foo Fighters out west helping them build a studio. Can you tell us a bit about that process?

I first talked with Dave [Grohl] about recording Wasting Light at the end of 2009. He said he wanted to make it at home, and that he was keen to replicate some of the sense of accomplishment they’d felt making their third record [There Is Nothing Left To Lose] at his old house in Virginia.

He had a room in his current home that they wanted to change from a Pro Tools-based studio to an analog one. All of the major construction work had already been done for the room’s previous incarnation.

Brown at Foo Fighters' converted garage studio "607" with Butch Vig

There was an existing control room and an iso booth, and there was a small room directly beneath the control room that we could use to house the tape machines. So it really it came down to us adapting what was already there, finding a way of fitting enough of what we needed to handle recording a pro-grade record, and adapting as best we could to things like the shape and acoustics of the control room.

Then, in March, I put up a handful of mics, got a quick drum sound and recorded some rough demos with Dave and Taylor [Hawkins] just to see what we were dealing with in terms of the sound of the garage.

To our surprise it sounded awesome: aggressive, present, punchy – basically perfect for the kind of record they envisioned making. So we didn’t do a thing in terms of treatment to the garage. All we did was put three large gobos up on the inside of the garage door to stop some of the noise escaping and annoying the neighbors.

From the beginning, we had a pretty clear idea that this was going to be a straight-ahead, balls-out rock record: no ballads, no acoustic guitars, no strings, etc., so the pre-amps, compressors and EQs were chosen with that in mind. We got an API 1608 console with an additional 16-channel extension. In part, we chose it because of its compact size, but mainly, it’s because I’ve loved the sound of API gear for years. Their EQ is just so musical.

It worked out pretty well I think. All of that stuff saw a lot of use. Even though it wasn’t part of the plan, I’m really happy knowing Dave can sit down in that room and feel like he could figure out how to turn stuff on and start recording, and that in a few years time we won’t have to worry about him looking around wondering why we wasted all that money on a bunch of stuff he’s never going to use again!

ON WORKING AS AN ENGINEER, ALONGSIDE AND UNDER OTHER PRODUCERS

You’ve had the privilege of working with an impressive list of truly singular producers. Which ones have left the biggest impact on your workflow and style?

Brown at Metalworks in Toronto working with Placebo

Honestly, they’re all inspirational on some level. And everyone works differently, so that’s always fun.

Butch Vig is extraordinarily talented in so many ways, but I think one of his biggest strengths is his ability to coax great performances out of people. Flood is like a painter in the fine-art sense of the word, and Alan Moulder is a genius at putting sounds together. All of them have impeccable taste.

I’d say Alan has had the biggest influence on me, because when I started out as an engineer, his sound was what set the bar for me on a personal level. I literally modeled myself on him as an engineer long before I even knew him, so when we did eventually meet there was kind of an instant rapport and understanding. I think it helps that we’re kind of made of the same stock.

Butch and Flood have been a huge inspiration, because lately I’ve been thinking a lot about production and whether that’s something I want to try my hand at again. With the exception of the work I’ve done with David Ford, in the past I always felt a little dissatisfied with the end result of the records I produced. So working with Butch and Flood still shows me a great deal about what I can do better on the production end.

Are there any other Producers whose work you’re really loving today?

Peter Katis. I adore his work with Oneida, and The National, but what he did with Jónsi [Birgisson, of Sigur Rós] is on a whole other level.

Regardless of how you might feel about the music, the sheer volume of musical parts and ideas that make up that record… I’m in awe of how he’s managed to take that mountain of information and still fashion a record that is not only coherent, but often stunningly beautiful.

I hear you there. I had the pleasure of mixing a record Peter recorded drums on, and those tracks were a dream to work with.

Can you articulate how the process of working as an engineer, under or alongside a producer, might be different from what some of our solo producers or home-studio engineers are familiar with?

With Gil Norton and Brendan Benson at Rak in London

Well, when there’s someone there who knows how to produce, it’s hugely liberating. They can kind of guide everyone and convey a clear idea of what the bigger picture is.

There’s still an enormous amount of room to be creative within the confines of just being “an engineer” if that’s the only thing you’re being asked to do.

But the job of engineering can be quite political at times. It’s important to know when to voice an opinion and when to keep it to yourself, when to impose yourself creatively and when not to, when to spend time experimenting and when to just get the ball rolling as quickly as you can.

I think the most important thing is to not get bogged down with the technicality of it all, and to always keep the session moving forward. That’s ultimately a huge part of the job. Obviously you want to make it sound good, but a large part of it is facilitating the vision of the people who are going to be responsible for it after the fact, whether that’s the artist or the producer. I think if you can do all of that as efficiently and as artfully as you can, then you’re doing an excellent job.

ON THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have a new release out this week. Their past records have been quirky, organic, thick-but-jangly “twee-pop.”  It’s a musical style and production flavor halfway between Belle and Sebastian and third-generation shoegaze.

This latest release is tighter, larger, with a lot more sonic power and immediate impact. As an engineer, how do you help them retain some of their emotional feel and indie charm on such a massive sounding production?

Flood and Kip Berman during Pains' sessions at Stratosphere Sound

The feel and charm comes from them. That’s who they are. In my humble opinion (and not to detract at all from Flood’s fantastic work) at the end of the day the production is really just presentation of the material.

You hope that it doesn’t interfere with the song in a negative way – that’s kind of a tricky thing. But to a certain degree, no matter how hard you might try to make The Beatles sound like Chuck Berry or Motown, they’ll always sound like The Beatles. My stuff will always sound like my stuff (no matter how much I want to make it sound like Alan Moulder’s!) and The Pains will always sound like The Pains. Or at least they should. You’re doing something wrong if that doesn’t come through!

The guitars on this record are still big and somewhat quirky, with a touch of a shoegaze feel; but they also have much more clarity and lean power than a listener might expect from the band. How did you help obtain that blend?

Kip has a pedal that a friend of his made, and I thought it sounded absolutely disgusting at first. I tried to replace it with some other stuff I thought might work, but we found that stopped the tracks from having this recognizable Pains quality.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere! There are certain sounds in a band’s make-up that you just can’t take away without losing the thing that make it unique to them. It turns out that pedal is a huge signature, and as vile as I thought it sounded in isolation, it turns out it sounds awesome in the overall picture.

So anything that we added in terms of overdubs, whether it be a Les Paul through a Marshall JMP Lead, or a Stratocaster through a Fender Twin, it basically all had to sit with “that” Fender Jaguar, through “that” home-made pedal, through “that” Roland Jazz Chorus amp.

By the way, making the Roland Jazz Chorus popular again has become a bit of a personal crusade.

A noble mission! It definitely has its own sound, and many have found it can be a really cool base for layering effects.

We’d also love to ask a little bit about drums. That’s another place where “Belong” feels different than their prior records: The percussive elements have a metronomic quality that gives them a drum-machine feel; but at the same time, many of the individual tones sound like a hyped-up natural kit. Can you tell us about what inspired that kind of treatment, and how you helped get it?

Stream “Belong” at The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s website

Nearly all of it is natural kit, played by [Pains Drummer] Kurt [Feldman].

We took a bunch of different approaches on the album. “Strange” has live drums that were looped and treated; “Too Tough” uses more than one drum kit and a slap back delay on one of the snares, and I think “The Body” had a programmed machine part that we laid the real drums over.

Even on the songs that had a more conventional drum sound we’d often feed individual mics through guitar pedals. They would get fiddled with during takes to give the drums an “other” quality.

One day Flood put a [SoundToys] FilterFreak on the main drum ambience, and he set it up so the filters would only open on the snare back-beat. Over the course of the sessions we refined that. He said he’d been wanting to bring back the Phil Collins drum sound, but with a twist.

A lot of the fun in making a record like this comes from those collaborative aspects – you feed off of each other. If you have a creative producer, a creative engineer, and a creative band who are willing to try things, and there is a give-and-take in those relationships, that allows you to find yourself in some pretty unique places.

Speaking of unique places: your name is James Brown. We have to ask something about that. You don’t use a middle initial? Nothing? Has it ever led to any confusing moments?

I do get some funny looks when I walk into R&B and hip-hop sessions but I’ve stopped taking those bookings now… the disappointment on their faces was too much to bear!

It’s the name my mother gave me, so why would I not use it?

I figure it could have been worse. I could have been called Englebert Humperdink.

…Next question !

Is there any artist or producer living or dead, who you wish you could be making a record with tomorrow?

Brown at Sound City tracking Arctic Monkeys

Peter Katis’ work is genius, as already noted. There’s John McEntire, and Chris Walla. And Joshua Homme, too. Not only is he an extraordinary musician, but he has a unique production sensibility that would make him a hugely interesting person to collaborate with.

I’d also love to do something with Rich Costey again. I learned a bunch from that guy. He has a viciously sharp sense of humor which sits very well with me. And of course, I’d work with Butch [Vig] any day of the week. He’s really one of my favorite people in the world.

As for artists, I’m a massive fan of Tom Waits, but I think working with him might be too intimidating for me. I’d love to do something with Harvey Milk, or Sunn O))), or Low. And Queens of the Stone Age. That’s an obvious one for me.

Even if some of those artists stay aspirational, you’ve worked on a lot of projects anyone would be proud to be part of, and managed to team up with some of your favorite producers already. What advice do you have to younger engineers who hope to see themselves in the same kind of place someday?

Just stick at it. There’s really no substitute for experience. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s whether you’re able to learn from them that sorts the men from the boys. Hang in there, even if it feels like you can’t catch a break.

I’ve met many excellent engineers who haven’t made it because for whatever reason they fell out of love with it. The ones that found a way of hanging on when the going got tough are, generally speaking, still working. From what I’ve seen, if you’ve been around long enough, and you’ve continued to learn and evolve at the job, someone will eventually recognize that fact.

Get in touch and stay up with James Brown via Just Managing.

Justin Colletti is a Brooklyn-based audio engineer and music producer who’s worked with Hotels, DeLeon, Soundpool, Team Genius and Monocle, as well as clients such as Nintendo, JDub, Blue Note Records, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visit him at http://www.justincolletti.com.

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