Jenee: 0:06

Welcome to the Heartlight Sessions, a podcast about light working your way through dark times. I'm Janae Halstead. I'm a singer-songwriter, holistic vocal coach, intuitive guide and plant medicine facilitator. I'm also a survivor of childhood abuse, autoimmune issues and my 30s. I'm also a survivor of childhood abuse, autoimmune issues and my 30s. I'm on a lifelong healing journey and along the way, I want to share the ideas and teachings that rock my world. Every week on Heartlight Sessions, I call in artists, healers and thinkers to explore what's helped them live and thrive from a heart-centered place, because the heart, it's where the best things happen. If you've ever wondered how to unlock your biggest breakthroughs or how to come back from that stuff that tried to kill you, you know the stuff I'm talking about, the stuff that's supposed to make you stronger. Or if you've ever wondered how to just do you straight from the heart, you're in the right place. So join me, won't you? Let's turn on that heart light. Hello.

Dave: 1:19

Hey, how are you?

Jenee: 1:20

Good, how are you?

Dave: 1:21

I'm doing great. Great to see you.

Jenee: 1:22

Great to see you. I'm so excited. Today I have my producer, Dave Brophy. He's a Boston-based producer, musician, songwriter, and main instruments are Drums is the main thing, drums is the main thing, and then piano.

Dave: 1:43

Well, I only ever claim to be a drummer, okay.

Jenee: 1:46

So yeah, I just was thinking this week about. I was like who do I want to interview and I want to have a conversation about high creativity and art and music. And I was like, who have I not interviewed? It's just odd that like I've worked with you so much and I've never talked to you really about your own creative process and how you work in the studio. And I just absolutely adore working with you and I'm always like judging to my friends about how you're the best to work with.

Jenee: 2:25

And it's because you're so chill and you're so down for whatever and you're so humble and I'm not, and that's not like you know, but like that combination, and then just being brilliant musically at what you do and having a really broad language, You're like a deadly combination.

Dave: 2:51

Well, I really, really appreciate you saying that, because it really is a goal of mine always to, when I work with someone, to just make sure they're having the most relaxed, most expressive experience that they can have, you know, and just trying to like set up an environment where you know, like when I'm working with you, I just want you to feel like you can come up with any idea you want and we'll pursue it. There's no, you know, I never want to put limitations or constraints on what people feel like they can explore when we're trying to make something together.

Jenee: 3:27

So it's really nice to hear you say that yeah, I love. I mean, I'm like I could bring like a pile of garbage to you and you're like, yeah, that's great, that's great, we can work with that.

Dave: 3:38

You never have brought a pile of garbage to me. It's always. There's always good ideas in there. It's so funny because I mean and it does kind of speak to me it's always, there's always good ideas in there.

Jenee: 3:46

Yeah, for sure it's so funny because I mean, and it does kind of speak to like actually the, the, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, for sure, you know. And so just bringing even like ramadasa, I was like that was the simplest, silliest set of melodies but there's something so beautiful about it when it's simple.

Dave: 4:07

It's just like there's. It was. It just came out so beautifully and and sometimes the simplest things are the most accessible, you know, and the most intriguing I mean in terms of the approach to trying to make sessions feel free and creative and expressive is, I think a big part of it is trying to not go into. I feel like just being open to following where ideas lead you and always being open to exploring ideas, like there's no, there's no bad ideas, there are no stupid ideas, there's no. You know, I feel like a lot of times, um, you can shut down avenues by not just exploring everything that comes up, you know, because you never know.

Dave: 5:09

I always say, when I'm working with people, like I don't know what the answer is.

Dave: 5:13

You know, I'm not here to give answers, I'm here to facilitate exploring ideas, you know, and I could come up with something, but that's not going to be the same as if we come up with something together or check out what you want to check out on an idea or whatever. But yeah, I think being open and just reacting is a big part of it. Their most effective performances have been when they just go into a scene and they just listen and they're just open to going where it takes them, as opposed to walking into a scene or a session with a preset idea of how you want the day to go. You know you have all these tools at your disposal, but I think the main thing first is just sit down and talk to each other and listen to each other and say, okay, I think this is what you're trying to do. Let's, let's start working in this direction and see what happens and knowing you can always backtrack and start over and, you know, just explore different ideas. But I think that's a good part of it.

Jenee: 6:14

Yeah, it's. It's interesting too because, you know, songwriters are such characters and you know we're often like terribly insecure and insecure about our musicianship and I don't know I mean it's just artists in general or can be. So you know, and yeah, I've been in studios before where, like I felt that there was an agenda or just a lack of flexibility in that way, and and that's fine, you know, that's totally okay. But for me, when I'm working with you, I feel completely empowered, completely empowered. You know. Yeah, even even in times where, like I'm like okay, I'm feeling really insecure about I remember one day I had like really bad brain fog.

Jenee: 7:13

I came into the studio and I hadn't had any coffee yet and you were like why don't you play the, the piano part on this? And my brain like exploded. I was like I can't do my God, I can't even like think straight right now. And it wasn't even like you just like stepped up and you were like you know it's like okay, well, for one, we don't really have time to waste, and for two, like you know, wasn't like a conversation, you just took over, you know.

Dave: 7:40

Well, and I feel like you're talking about sometimes walking into sessions and have it feel like there's an agenda. I feel like a lot of times that agenda can be a time constraint and can be okay. We have to be efficient, we have to get this done For sure, finished. But I feel like, more likely than not, in those situations when, at the end of the day, it ends up taking up more time trying to do something fast, because a week later, invariably, the artist calls and says, hey, I don't really love that version, the tempo is too fast or the key is wrong, or that you know, and, yes, you got it done in time, but was it the right thing?

Dave: 8:22

I would rather, I would rather be inefficient in, to a certain extent, in the studio and explore things and make sure okay, is this key right? Is this comfortable? Are we cool with this idea? If we're not cool, don't worry about it, let's go into something else, or let's let's try it in a different way, you know, because I would rather, at the end of the day, have something that we're going to keep, as opposed to five things that we may or may not keep or that I then have to convince an artist exactly keeping you know because it's I just want everyone to feel like the thing you leave with is absolutely the right thing, and you're totally psyched about it and and you're armed with the knowledge that if in a week you don't like it, we can do it again.

Dave: 9:01

You know, like it's, it's not a big deal, we won't stop until we get it right.

Jenee: 9:05

Basically, you know I mean that's huge. You know I I know so many artists that have like well, especially in their early albums, you know you don't really have self kind of self-awareness or you don't have the confidence. And then you go in and maybe you're making an album like maybe you're making an album in nashville with a bunch of studio guys and maybe you're making an album like maybe you're making an album in Nashville with a bunch of studio guys and like you're just completely like nothing is yours, you don't have artistic autonomy, and then you don't want to put anything out because you like get it back and then you hate it. And you know, I feel, I feel grateful in that way, like moving slow to get ahead. You know.

Dave: 9:43

Yeah, exactly, and it's like we get to move slow. But I think we are more efficient in the long run because we move slow and because it gets it gets the artist into a mental state where they're no longer worrying about whether or not we're on the same team, and that eats up a lot of energy sometimes. So it, by taking that barrier down and freeing up that energy, you also become more efficient in your decision making as the artist, because you know that I'm not going to do anything that goes against what you're asking me to do, you know. So it ends up being, I think, a faster way of doing things in the long run and people are more satisfied by it, I think.

Jenee: 10:31

Yeah, how do you see studios kind of changing? And I think this is part of an interesting conversation about, you know, like being autonomous and being able to own your own space, have your own space and work you know, work as a producer, producer, engineer and having all that skill set because it just it, it allows for a breadth of um you know, time and creativity to happen that maybe wouldn't happen if you're renting space or totally, totally.

Dave: 10:58

I mean, yeah, and I feel so lucky to um have wound up in a space that functions well, as a studio that I own, that I can be in charge of, because it does take that that stress out of the equation of when you're working on a project and and maybe you start off in the wrong direction, you have to backtrack and make some different decisions. You're not looking at the clock and saying, well, okay, okay, well, that that two hours costs us 300 bucks or whatever. You know like, you're not ticking away. Each minute isn't costing you a ton of money. Um, because you have the freedom of owning the space that you're working in, and I think that's so many people are doing that now just for that reason. You know, I think um, studios are super expensive, but there is, it's just a different mentality.

Dave: 11:48

I I, if I had my way, I would love to be in someone else's studio with someone else being the engineer and and I get to just produce.

Dave: 11:57

Because there is, it is a lot of uh, um, mental strain to wear the hat of the engineer and be playing instruments on things and be producing, because something, uh, something is lost when you're doing that many things and if you can set it up where someone else is engineering and you're just producing, it just frees up energy and brain space. You know to totally pay attention to different aspects of things, so it comes at a cost, but it is easier and and a lot more uh, affordable, obviously. But. But when everything lines up right and um, and you know budgets align and and it feels like you're prepared for a record and you can go into a studio space, that that is kind of an ideal setup. But but when you're just exploring ideas and trying to be really, uh, flexible, having a space of your own to work in this is really beneficial. At least I have found it. It works really well yeah, yeah.

Dave: 13:01

I think that really is the key is having you know, having the band prepared, yeah, being armed, and before you're setting foot in a space like that, you have to have, essentially, made all your decisions beforehand, you know so that then it's just a matter of physically doing the things, setting up the room and getting the sounds that you want, but you're not trying new things necessarily in the studio, because that could eat up a lot of time and that represents a lot of money.

Dave: 13:43

So it's just two different approaches. You know two different approaches to the process and I don't think either is better or worse. It's just. It's just how. What is your schedule allow? What does your budget allow? What kind of music are you trying to make is? Are we tracking it all live, with six or seven people playing at the same time, or is it just you and I in a room figuring stuff out and building layers and then having people come by and add things? You know. So it's just different ways of creating, you know.

Jenee: 14:13

Yeah, it's really fun watching video clips of like you and Will Daly being in the studio and played with each other for years and played with each other for years and you know he's so profound in his musicianship and has a real like presence and kind of way that he goes about his thing. His thing is like solid you know, so being able to step into a space like that, and just you know.

Dave: 14:42

Yeah, and that was an interesting experience because it was a combination of the two things we're talking about, in that we had the luxury of of being at q division for an extended stay. Um and he and I had worked out a lot of that material for the record just the two of us, but without having worked out bass parts or other guitar parts necessarily. We just had the basic idea of everything, and so we hired the guys we wanted to hire, and then every day we wouldn't let them hear the songs until the day we were recording the song, so we would play them the demo. That was usually just me and Will on the demo. We'd listen to the song together and then we'd just go out and start playing it.

Dave: 15:25

Because in that instance the result was not pre preordained. We didn't know exactly what we wanted. We just knew that it was going to be a cool version of the song, you know. So part of that was being open to whatever happened and not being too nitpicky about oh, I want the bass part to be this, so I want the base.

Dave: 15:43

You know things like that. So, uh, being open um to the result was a big part of that process and I think it turned out great and it was such a good energy and such a such a neat process.

Jenee: 15:55

When did you? Oh, go ahead, Were you going to?

Dave: 15:58

say I was going to say it felt so luxurious too.

Jenee: 16:00

Yeah, totally it was.

Dave: 16:01

I forget what it was 10 days or something like that, so it was great.

Jenee: 16:05

I know I really enjoyed watching the footage. I was like, oh, this looks so fun.

Dave: 16:09

So much fun.

Jenee: 16:12

When did you decide that you wanted to produce music?

Dave: 16:18

It was actually, you know, I had always messed around with recording when I was younger, like you know, in college, and I did a lot of recording in high school with bands and stuff, um, and then over the years, you know, had like an eight track recorder that I messed around with a lot and and then garage band when it came out, did a bunch of stuff on garage band just kind of by myself, just trying to learn about things. And then when I moved to boston I started doing getting a lot more studio work as a drummer and the first thing I ever really produced or got credited for producing was a Will Daly record called National Throat.

Jenee: 17:01

Oh wow and um yeah.

Dave: 17:01

And yeah and thanks and uh, yeah it it did really well for an independent record and won a couple like album of the year awards and stuff like that and so it was really nice to have produced that um, because it led to a lot more work with other bands, um, so, um, yeah, that was kind of the beginning of it and it was more the experience of spending so much time in studios as a drummer and watching producers and how they went about things and and being really interested in the technical side of things and microphones and preamps and you know different drum setups and things like that Um, it always really intrigued me. And then also just the spending a couple of decades only being a drummer like a live performance drummer, performance drummer um, it started to wear on me in terms of just spending that much time away from home and traveling so much and and carrying a drum set from place to place, you know, packing up a drum set every night and just living the kind of late night lifestyle and being on the road a lot.

Dave: 18:04

that started to, uh, appeal to me less and less. And then the notion of like, oh, maybe I could set up my life where I do that a little bit, but I mostly work in studios and mostly work on records. So, thankfully, so far I've been able to do that, and so that was really one of the motivating factors to have. Just, I don't love being on the road all the time, so if I could figure out a way to avoid that, that'd be great, and I also love making records. So, yeah, I think it was about 2015 was probably when I really started producing mostly and kind of weaning myself out of playing live as much. But yeah, it's been. So it's been pretty, pretty busy since then, pretty busy since then. And yeah, I'm just always trying to hone the craft and learn, you know, as much as I can about mixing and producing and, all you know, every aspect of it is really intriguing to me. So I'm just always trying to practice it and get better at it.

Jenee: 19:03

Yeah, were you self-taught initially in just some of the basic engineering, or were you taking? Were you taking courses or no, complete, totally self-taught.

Dave: 19:14

And then, um uh, I mean I went to one uh mixing camp in france I remember that was like right when we. It was much later on, yeah, it was much later on. It was like I had kind of, you know, learned, learned from friends and taught myself and again just being in studios a lot you get to pick people's brains and get to. You know, luckily I have a lot of good engineer friends and anytime something goes wrong I'm calling, you know, pat DeCenzo, or somebody and be like.

Dave: 19:43

Hey man, so this thing just happened in Pro Tools. What do I do? And when you're under pressure like that, you learn pretty fast. You know you have people in the room that are that think you know what you're doing, right, right you're like I'll be right back I know I'll be right back.

Dave: 19:58

You're in the bathroom making a call totally, um, but no, mostly self-taught and and taught through friends. You know, didn't have any any formal uh engineering training. You know, um, i't have any any formal engineering training. You know, I had gone to school for music, gone to undergrad for music and grad school for music, but not for production, just for performance.

Jenee: 20:21

Yeah, and how? Because we started my album like right when you got back from France, I think yeah, and how much of that, how helpful was that it was really helpful.

Dave: 20:35

And I think actually I went to France right after we tracked your record, I think, because I brought some of your sessions to that thing and so some of the tracks were used over the course of the class, you know, to mess with drum sounds and stuff like that. It was really helpful. I mean, it was really. It was with a guy named Chad Blake, who's one of my favorite mixing engineers, and it was just a beautiful experience to have a week of waking up every morning, having breakfast with a group of people all going into the studio and just spending the entire day and night in the studio listening to mixes, talking about mixes, working on mixes, and having this guy, chad Blake, who is, you know, one of the top mixing engineers in the world and he's such a humble, sweet, open guy, sweet open guy, um and so, uh, you could, you could imagine someone like him, who has such a unique process, being very secretive about how he does what he does, and he's not at all. He's completely open about it, he's totally transparent with what he's doing and he, he, his philosophy is I can tell you every single thing I'm doing on a mix, and you're still going to do it differently, like the result will still be different than if I did it, versus him doing it.

Dave: 21:55

You know, and it's true, it's just you can't replace the personal aspect of that, and that's one of the things about mixing I like too. It's like you can say a mix is good or bad, if you want, but the mix is an expression of the person that's doing the mix or or where they were mentally that day, you know. So it's, it's a cool uh document kind of of how that person was feeling that day or what they were hearing. And and it is a it's a strange art too, because I'll I'll work on mixes and think that it sounds really good and then I'll go back and listen the next day and think what, the what? This is terrible, you know, or my god, it's great, you know it's just, it's a, it's a mental game.

Dave: 22:32

You know, it's very strange. It's unlike any other part of music.

Jenee: 22:36

I feel like yeah I've heard that from a lot of producers and it's interesting too, because a lot of it has to do with like negative space as well, like what's not coming through.

Dave: 22:48

It does it does, and it's a strange, um, it's a strange art form in that music, essentially, is meant to be a fleeting thing. You know, you, you, you hear it when it's being created or when it's coming at you and it washes over you and it's good and it's gone. It's meant to you experience it once and so to then repeat it over and over and hyper scrutinize a performance. There's something unnatural about that, really, fundamentally, and so, as a result, you end up getting very nitpicky about some very strange things that you know, I can listen to a song a hundred times when I'm working on a mix and I'll play it for you and you'll be like, yeah, that sounds great, like none of the nuance will matter on one listen you know and it's part of.

Dave: 23:32

there's an interesting thing you can do, like if you think of a Motown song, think of a classic song that everybody knows, you know post Mr Postman, or something like that, my girl.

Dave: 23:44

Yeah, and you're, when you think about it right now, you think of this majestic, beautifully recorded, rich sounding thing. But then if you sit down, you know, at a computer or something, and you really scrutinize what's going on, you think man, those hand claps and that tambourine are so loud and there's like no low end and the bass and that is that vocal, a little bit out of tune, like you can. Even these classic, beautifully recorded things, if you get into the right mindset, you can be really critical of them and you wouldn't necessarily make them better by mixing them again. It's just this weird mental thing that happens when you're asked to give an opinion about something. You're going to come up with an opinion about it, whether it's good or bad. Yeah, totally, it's a tricky, tricky thing to, I don't know, not to master, but just to put yourself through, you know.

Jenee: 24:32

It's a weird experience. It's very subjective. And I think there is something about like it's interesting because there's definitely like the aesthetics and what you know and something being good and all of these intangibles you know good and these, all of these intangibles you know.

Dave: 24:55

but it can be like small tweaks that make or break a song. You know, I know it's really interesting and it's, it's, yeah, it's, uh.

Dave: 24:59

It's a difficult thing not to become like super neurotic about because you at some point you have to say this is totally fine you know, yeah, I mean there's a great story about which a lot of people know now, but about Michael Jackson mixing I think it was beat it and he's with the engineer Bruce, with Dean who tracked all that stuff, and they had worked on something like 96 mixes of the song and Quincy Jones came into the studio and they played him the 96 mix. They said this is this, is it? So check it out. And he listens to it and he says, okay, play me mix number two. And they play a mix number two and he goes that's the one and that's the one that came out. You know, it's like you can get really nitpicky and at the end of the day it doesn't really make that big of a difference with a lot of the decisions you make it's.

Jenee: 25:47

It's similar also to scratch vocals, like, or, you know, recording and like going back and being like, oh my god, I actually like the scratch vocals. They're the best because the pressure, the pressure isn't there, you know exactly, yeah, and and it's.

Dave: 26:03

It's really interesting, yeah, especially with the vocal thing, because you can think there is a natural uh emotion that comes out when you're singing and not thinking about it, and then think there is a natural uh emotion that comes out when you're singing and not thinking about it, and then there's kind of a false emotion that can come out when you're thinking about oh, I know what this is supposed to be yeah, and you're going into it with kind of a preset idea of how to react to something or how to emote something, and sometimes it doesn't work, as well as when you're not thinking about it.

Jenee: 26:27

Yeah, or you're hyper-concerned about technique, or you're hyper-concerned about vowel placement, or, you know, as singers, it's just like it's crazy and I love working with you as a singer. You know, it was funny because Jess, my friend Jess, is starting to work with you. And she, you know, I think she had one session or I don't know how many sessions, but she texted me and she was like like that was the best vocal session I've ever had. Did she sing?

Dave: 27:00

She did yeah.

Jenee: 27:01

Yeah, she was like that was hands down, Like and she's worked a ton in Nashville and like she's made a lot of albums and that's really sweet you know, I mean I.

Dave: 27:11

The only thing I can say about tracking vocals that I have found to be helpful for singers is, I think, um, with a lot of producers or engineers, there's a tendency to have a person do one or two takes of a song and then immediately start giving notes yeah. Hey, okay.

Dave: 27:30

So on the first line, let's do this, and maybe on the second line we get, and then it always seems to me that the singers just kind of shut down a little bit or it becomes too many things to keep track of, and it's, it's just not then then they're doing a different job. Suddenly they're fulfilling a checklist that you've given them. They're not singing the song. I tend to like to let someone sing full passes four or five times. Let them, you know, because generally singers will make the corrections they're supposed to make if you just let them go because they know what they're doing, but I think, sing it, sing it four or five times, come out, listen to a couple takes, see how it's translated.

Dave: 28:05

Okay, go on and do a couple more and you, I feel like that's generally, you get what you need, and people tend to correct their own, not mistakes, but the variations that may or may not work. They tend to correct those themselves without you having to. You know, sometimes you have to make notes and say, okay, there's this one thing that I think would be better this way. Great, let's get that, you know. But in terms of overall, a full performance, I think letting people guide themselves is a big part of it, you know, and not, um, not stressing them out with a bunch of notes all at once.

Jenee: 28:42

Yeah, and I love you know, like you're saying, it's sometimes it takes four or five times before you're even like warmed up. Even if you've been singing, even if you've been singing now it's like a new song or a new take and you have to get into the feel of it. You know, and then it's like, okay, if the approach isn't working, let's like let's step back, maybe we can.

Dave: 29:06

You know we can approach this differently, but yeah, and I think you at least want to get to the point where you're not thinking about it actively as much. When you're doing it, you know, the first couple takes. You're always. You're in front of a new mic, you're getting your headphones set, you're, you feel weird about it because you can hear yourself so well through the headphone. You know, and it takes a couple passes to get become a little bit mindless about it, which I think is the sweet spot of you kind of forget that you're tracking, you're just listening to the music I mean I have I remember on you, on your, record.

Dave: 29:38

We ended up using a lot of the early vocals. Yeah, from early takes and takes of you laying down on the ground in my old place, and you know just like things that were so casual. But there was something about those performances generally that was just so heartfelt and had so much nuance to them. You know just it was. It was such a nice, such a fun process.

Jenee: 30:00

Yeah, it's like the over singing is a big one for me, and For everybody. Yeah, yeah and overthinking. And it's interesting with the mantra album because it was so different, like because you have to be really careful about the vowels, like you know the vowel, especially in sanskrit music, um, or you know prayer, the vowel is the sacred um, you know it. It carries the sacred vibration of the sound.

Jenee: 30:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah interesting and you get, you get into it and you're like you have to be so careful with, like your consonants and your breath and like how you're delivering, and so it was like, wow, that was just a huge learning curve in and of itself. In and of itself.

Dave: 31:03

And that's an interesting setup too for a vocalist, because in that scenario it is your voice but you're not being asked to be yourself necessarily. I'm not saying, okay, how would you say this line? It's like you have a criteria that you have to fulfill but then also impart a little bit of yourself at the same time. So it was definitely an interesting challenge. I remember, on a couple of those takes, getting really good takes and thinking, oh, that's the one. And then you come out and listen and say, oh wait, that one vowel is not, that's not the right oh sound or you know, and things that would be lost on me, not knowing intricacies of the mantras. So it was really great that you had that knowledge. But there were quite a few really great takes that we just didn't use because it'd just be a subtle thing, you know.

Jenee: 31:50

Yeah, the pronunciation is, and then the meaning is off and then it doesn't hold the vibrational code, it's so weird, but head explodes but, it was really fun, like and then to be able to be in your heart, because that's the other thing is, like with mantra you want to be able to actually express this vibrational music, like through your heart, to be heart-centered yeah and I love like. A lot of times you'd be like, okay, now smile through this phrase which is you know like and that's a great.

Dave: 32:31

I love that trick, by the way yeah, it's a great trick it works across the board. It always like when people are saying if someone sings a little bit flat or someone's not singing bright enough, it's like you can you really can hear that you can really hear when someone's frowning or someone's smiling Totally. It's an interesting thing, yeah, and just getting people like in the mask, you know, or whatever you want to call it.

Jenee: 32:54

But yeah, yeah, it was, it was super fun. I definitely want to, you know, make another singer songwriter album, but I'm like really on this kick of like, wow, I love the challenge of it.

Dave: 33:09

Oh, it's so much fun, yeah, and, and that that record was so much fun to make. I mean, we had fun, it was, yeah, it was just a great time it was. It was great, it was so relaxed and so creative and so yeah yeah, it just felt great. It was really a nice way to spend a bunch of days, you know yeah, and it's I love.

Jenee: 33:24

What I love about that music is it doesn't it's not like, okay, it's rock and it has to have like this kind of foundation it can be like whatever it can be, whatever yeah, anything you know totally, totally yeah, so we were, we were pulling out all the instruments and exploring.

Dave: 33:43

I love yeah.

Jenee: 33:44

Yeah, really fun. So when you're, when you're working, do you have like a specific set of? I know you're saying you kind of want to meet people where they're at you know, really be open? Do you have a mindset or a philosophy or a way that you go about working with quote unquote difficult artists?

Dave: 34:13

I think you know it's like there can be artists that are difficult to work with, I guess, but I think what it really is is it's not so much that people are difficult. A lot of times it's that people have things that they want to hear, but they might not have the vocabulary to express exactly what it is they're looking for. Or or they know, when they hear something that they don't like it, but they're not sure what it is they don't like about it. Or the opposite they really like something but they're not sure how to express what it is they like about it. The opposite they really like something but they're not sure how to express what it is they like about it.

Dave: 34:48

Um, so a lot of it, a lot of the time, when things become, um, like need extra effort or become a little bit harder to uh, get around, a lot of the time what it ends up being is just trying to decode what somebody is trying to say or what they're feeling, or a lot of it is just translating people's feelings into okay, what do they mean by that? Yeah, yeah, sometimes it's, you know, if people feel like things are getting beyond where they want it to be, a lot of times, what I'll end up doing is um, I mean, we had had this happen with a record recently, and I feel like a lot of times when things aren't going well, I just start muting things in a section you know, it's like okay, so if there's guitar, bass, drums, piano, vocals, I'll just take everything away, Like I usually.

Dave: 35:41

start with the drums, let's just mute all the drums, get rid of everything that I did.

Dave: 35:45

you know like, let's see what that does, because a lot of times things get too congested or things get pulled in a certain way or um yeah, but I feel like a lot of times things, some problems, can be solved by just opening up the session, mute half the things and see. See if, fundamentally, the track is still good and maybe it's just that it needs some breathing room. Maybe it's just, maybe there's too many things going on, maybe the message is getting lost because I got overexcited about oh, let's do this cool thing and this other cool thing, you know sometimes you can get carried away with that.

Dave: 36:19

Um, but I think at the end of the day, it's not. It's not about people being difficult or easy to work with, it's not. It's not about people being difficult or easy to work with. It's about just trying to make people happy, and sometimes that takes more work than other times. You know, it's just, everybody's feelings are valid when, especially when it's about their music and the result of their music. You know, and and I always say to people like we're not, the record's not done until you're so happy with it. You know, like that's that's my only goal is to.

Dave: 36:49

It has very little to do with me or what I want it to sound like, because I could make, I could make your record sound exactly how I think it should be, and you might be uncomfortable with it, or you might say, yeah, that's not really the vibe I wanted and so it has really nothing to do with me. No-transcript. Plenty of records where, when I listened to him, I think this doesn't sound like anything I would have made. But I really enjoy it, you know, because it's it's making decisions that, um, other people um, wanted to hear, and that's that's great. That's part of the job too as a producer. It's not all about my taste or my putting my fingerprint on something. A lot of times it's just about facilitating what people are hearing, you know so yeah, and and I do think there's something to be said about stretching an artist.

Jenee: 37:59

You know, like when I first started working with you, I, I, I wanted to work with you because I love the work you did and and it was so like edgy and neo soul and like I mean you make all sorts of stuff, but like I was really attracted to that and then, like the first song that we worked on, you know, the crying game and it comes back and the you know it's like double vocals and all this stuff and I'm like what?

Jenee: 38:30

yeah and then. But really like there is something I think as an artist, if you're gonna hire a producer and you are trying to go first, you know, I wanted to level up my sound yeah I wanted you know, and so it was like yeah, like you definitely made some concessions for me and like sure I don't know how many times went back to the mix. But um, which don't do that. People don't do that to your producer, but really like it was a super cool sound.

Jenee: 39:03

it's just like I had to attune my ears to a different you know, to a completely different way of coming from, like the folk world, and then you know yeah, yeah, and it's interesting because that that could have gone either way.

Dave: 39:20

I could have sent you that crying game rough idea and you could have been like no, this is not at all what I want to do. We got to do something, you know, and that would have been fine. No, this is not at all what I want to do. We got to do something, you know, and that would have been fine. We would have done something else, you know, or we would have done a different version of the crying game. You know that that would have been fine, you know. Yeah, um, but yeah, it's just interesting because it is a conversation, it is a back and forth and and the process always has to start somewhere, and it generally starts with me putting together a rough idea for somebody and saying, hey, this is what I'm thinking, what do you think, how do, and then, and then it just goes from there because you, you have to have a place to start, you know.

Jenee: 39:52

Yeah.

Dave: 39:52

Um, but the crying game. That just made me think. I just had a flashback to driving around Marguerite, nova Scotia and the. The eighties version of the crying game came on the radio and I remember writing in my phone a note to myself cover this song for Janae. Because, it was before we had started working on your record. No way, yeah, I was like, oh God, it's so cool. I just had a flashback to that.

Jenee: 40:16

That's so funny. It was the perfect song.

Dave: 40:19

Oh, I love that song so much. It's just so, and your version of it is the best. And your version of it is the best. It's good.

Jenee: 40:25

It is really good and it's like really it gets a lot of plays in Russia. Like we're famous in Russia. I'm like they love me in Moscow. Amazing, I had this like guy reach out and he's like it was so weird, it was like broken English, and he's like this is the best version ever and I was like where's this from? And then it had gotten like 5,000 Shazams in one day and I guess this well-known Russian radio host found it and played it.

Jenee: 40:57

Oh my gosh, amazing. I love that. You know this is so fun that it resonated with people. I was like, yeah, no, totally, it's amazing, it's amazing. I it's like, yeah, no, totally it's amazing.

Dave: 41:05

It's amazing and it's the and whether it's 5 000 shazams in a day or one shazam in a day, it's like the fact that someone heard it and was intrigued enough to bother yeah to shazam it or to you know it's like that's, that's the power of, of, of music and the whole communicative aspect of it.

Dave: 41:22

Is you you're it's out of your control who loves it or hates it? You know, and you're just putting it. Is you you're it's out of your control who loves it or hates it? You know, and you're just putting it out, and you can be really pleasantly surprised by who knew russian people were gonna love a cover of the crying game. But I'll take it whatever whatever it is absolutely positive or negative?

Jenee: 41:41

it's a reaction so it's good I definitely want to do a covers album with you.

Dave: 41:46

I'm like that's next on the docket let's do it like let's do it we could start dreaming into the songs absolutely that'd be so much fun it's gonna be amazing I'll get started today. Let's all right, I'll send you some rough spice tonight.

Jenee: 42:02

I love it, I love it so I'm so glad I got to talk to you. I feel like I could talk to you for hours about the creative process.

Dave: 42:10

It's so much fun, I hope. I hope I'm answering your questions in a sensical way, but so fun, yeah, If.

Jenee: 42:17

What if you were talking to like a new producer?

Dave: 42:23

yeah.

Jenee: 42:24

What advice would you give to them? Someone, someone young, maybe they just got out of like school or they've got like a few albums under their belt well, I would say, um, it's tough to know.

Dave: 42:36

I guess it would depend what what kind of music they were trying to make. If they're, if they're producing their own music, if they're producing music for other people, let's say they're producing music for other people yeah, well, I think I think even part of producing music for other people is to start by producing for yourself.

Dave: 42:56

Like have, have a folder of tracks that you've made for nobody. You know, like I have hundreds of songs that are just instrumentals, that might have like a rough vocal of me singing an idea, but but it gives you, it gives you practice building, uh, this kind of soundscapes and and working on song forms and things like that. And most of the things that I've written as instrumentals will never get used for anything, but elements of those tracks will get used in the future.

Jenee: 43:27

Yeah.

Dave: 43:28

Um, and, and it's also nice when you're going into a session with an artist to have some instrumentals at the ready, because you never know you could, you know you could, uh, work on a song and now it's just not working. And you, you know I've had in a lot of sessions I'll say, well, hey, check this out. And I'll just play a rough idea and be like, oh whoa, what's that?

Dave: 43:53

And then, all of a sudden, you're co-writing a track with somebody or you're, you know, I mean, I'll be your man and heartlight is a good idea, Like that track. That was just an instrumental track that I put together and you had those lyrics written down.

Jenee: 44:03

That's the podcast intro.

Dave: 44:05

That's there you go. So yeah, that that instrumental was just. That is funny.

Jenee: 44:12

That instrumental.

Dave: 44:12

I actually wrote that instrumental. I was going into a session To. I wasn't really sure what the session was. It was for an artist named Cliff Notes and I was going into the session but I didn't know if I was playing drums or if we were just getting together to work on stuff. So I wrote that track just to have a track, in case. He was like, hey, do you have any track? You know, and I just went in and I played drums on a couple songs and that was it. So I didn't use that track for anything.

Dave: 44:42

But then it got used on your records, so perfect, and use that track for anything. But then I got it got used on your records, so perfect and obviously the track changed a lot and it got edited and the form changed and stuff.

Dave: 44:51

but the, the, uh, the essential idea was there yeah, but I think, for advice to a young producer, that like having just always be working on music, whether you have an artist in mind or not, and I think um, uh, just being open to um, trying to produce as many types of music as you can, it's, it's no different than being a musician you want to learn. If you're going to be a drummer, you want to be able to play any gig you get called for, or guitarist, you want to. You know, you know um, you want to have as much vocabulary at your disposal as you possibly can. And I would say, do a lot of uh analysis of recordings.

Dave: 45:34

Listen to songs and try to figure out how they were recorded and what you know. How did they get that drum sound? Imagine where the mics are and do a lot of style analysis. You know. I think it really is helpful because a lot of times you go into sessions and people will say I want this to sound like X, Y or Z and you have to have some point of reference for those things. You have to know what people are talking about. You have to have at least a vague idea of where to start to get those kind of sounds, you know so.

Dave: 46:07

Or be able to at least listen back and be like, okay, oh, I have some yeah some semblance of what they're doing there?

Jenee: 46:11

yeah, exactly exactly, um.

Dave: 46:14

So yeah, I think as many, as many types and styles of music as you can have at your disposal, the better off you'll be yeah, all right my. All right Good to see you. I know all there is to know about the crying girl. I've had my share of the crying girl. The Queen Gave First. There are kisses.

Jenee: 46:53

Then there are sighs and then, before you know where you are, you're saying goodbye. It's edited, mixed and mastered by me too, and that theme song you hear it's called Heartlight. And yep, you guessed it, it's from my record. Disposable Love. Got questions about a certain healing modality or about heart-centered healing, or maybe you just need some advice on life, love or creativity. Send it my way, email me at letters at heartlightpodcastcom. Until next time, I'm Janae Halstead, and thanks for listening to Heartlight Sessions.