AT !" welcome to jingletown

Green Day’s ‘clubhouse’ in Oakland, CA has been a secret warehouse hideaway for the band for some time now. But a new (second-hand) SSL console recently changed all that and now the place is a full-blown studio.

Text: Andy Stewart

Walking in o! the street through the razor inner sanctum of Green Day’s world, replete and how you play your instrument that matters wire fence into a car park that seems big with motorbikes, sur%oards, more instruments most. And they’re so on top of all that stu!. &ey enough to host go-cart races – which I later and amps than you can poke a fretboard at, and can play a song in the studio and just nail it, just discover it occasionally does – you might be three studios (at least two with their own control like they do every night when they’re on tour. But forgiven for thinking the industrial premises room). If you’re a Green Day fan this is Mecca. they’re also equally as comfortable cutting tracks you’ve just entered manufactures car parts or One room in particular is "lled to the ra$ers individually. Either way, they’re still gonna knock poker machines or something. Either that or it’s a with literally hundreds of guitars and drums – it’s every song out of the park. drug cartel that’s none too keen on visitors. You’d an impressive sight, and immediately my mind certainly never pick it as the home base of one of is drawn to how complicated the decision must TRACKING GREEN DAY the world’s biggest rock bands. be about which amp to use with which guitar AS: What’s a typical Green Day recording session and for which overdub. &e options must be like for you in terms of tracking. How do songs Just over the back fence is a frenetic eight-lane paralysing at times for Chris and the band. I had kick o!? freeway and all around you in nearby businesses, to ask… semi-trailers back into giant warehouses, with CD: Usually the guys have already worked on a little regard for people in cars. It’s not exactly Chris Dugan: Actually, not really. Billie [Joe demo at home, so most of the time they’ll come tranquil. But hey, this is Oakland, the industrial Armstrong] sits and listens to guitar amps for in with an idea already developed, show it to sister city of San Francisco. If a car comes hours on end and he basically knows all his each other, jam it out, play it, and then, if it’s crashing through the back fence I wouldn’t be instruments back to front. He has this crazy ear. something that they want to proceed with, we’ll st surprised. It’s the same with the other guys in the band. Tré have a crack at it. On the last record [21 Century [Cool] sits and tunes his drums like a madman. Breakdown] it was kind of a mix of both, whereas Right up the back of the warehouse is the "rst He knows what heads to use and always wants on the previous record [the smash hit American clue that all is not as it seems behind these his drums to sound awesome. He’s fastidious… Idiot] we were essentially living in the studio for impenetrable tilt-slab walls. Painted on the and a very heavy hitter. &e same goes for Mike a while and at one point or another everything modest doorway is a gra#ti-styled mural of the [Dirnt]. Nothing gets past these guys in terms of got miked up: the B3, the pianos… everything. guys from Green Day – with all three members their sound. When we get going in the studio all &at way it was easy to record anything, anytime. pictured sitting down like they’ve just stepped the sounds are already dialled up; I don’t have to &at’s the best thing about having your own space out of the warehouse for morning smoko. worry about any of that stu! really... it all comes too, of course: we can just set the whole show up Buzzing the door prompts a quick response. from the band. Everyone knows their gig – you and leave it. Suddenly the band breaks up – or at least the don’t really have to say anything to them. As an AS: Are things fairly set-and-forget once they’re mural does. Billie Joe and Tré Cool disappear engineer it’s hard to make sure everything sounds set up or are you constantly moving things behind the opening door and Mike Dirnt is le$ good sometimes – especially instruments – so around and changing things? on his lonesome wondering what happened. having fantastic players and great instruments to CD: It depends. &ese guys have a di!erent Standing next to him in real life is Chris Dugan, mic up makes my life just so much easier. the band’s engineer. approach to each instrument, depending on Andy Stewart: Would you say the band and their the song. Having said that, for the most part “Come in man,” Chris motions politely. “I’m just raw instruments are essentially ‘the Green Day it’s guitar, bass and drums so we’ll generally cut in the control room doing some editing.” sound’? those "rst, starting with the drums. While we’re With that I enter the Jingletown ‘clubhouse’, the CD: Absolutely, it’s what you bring to the table doing that, Billie’s always laying down a scratch guitar track. When the drums are "nished we

AT !" usually remove everything, then typically go back Breakdown record I double-miked the toms, and knock out guitars. which was certainly di#erent to what I’d done before. It was an experiment really, just to see AS: Does the band ever track whole takes how it sounded. Turned out I absolutely loved it. together? I’ll probably continue to run with that idea for a CD: Yeah, we do. Although, we’re now getting while. into the habit of going back and getting right into AS: Keeping the bottom skins on I assume? recreating unique sounds at that point anyway. So o!en the original guitar performances aren’t used. CD: Yep, Tré’s a big double-head kind of guy, so A!er we listen back Billie will o!en say, “Hey you they were all miked much like you would a snare know what? I think I might use the other amp for drum. You just %ip the phase. "e di#erence that.” So yeah, even when the band tracks as one, in the double-miked sound was particularly most of the time we still re-cut Billie’s part again noticeable on the %oor tom. It was just huge anyway. sounding, almost too big – so much more sustain, particularly when the drum was in tune. Actually, AS: You never run several amps together so you in reality, it was a bit of a problem because the have choices later? note was o!en too long for the speed of the song. CD: No, we’ve never really done that. But that’s "e %oor tom was just going boooooom and by not to say we won’t in the future! "e guys have the time the sub $nally calmed down it was like, this little side project band called "e Foxboro “Wow, that’s a lot of low end!” No need to EQ-in Hot Tubs and on that record we did everything extra bottom-end that’s for sure. completely live in the studio. "at was really cool AS: I guess it’s the same sort of mentality as two and spontaneous. "e guys basically wrote the mics on a guitar amp, where you can pretty much songs right there and then and tracked them live, EQ the amp with just fader positions… which was a blast. CD: Exactly, and that’s how we do the guitars too. AS: "ey’re all obviously great players. I can’t If there’s no reason to use EQ, I don’t. On guitars, imagine that they couldn’t just get in there and I’ll always put an SM57 up. It’s my standard nail most things pretty easily. reference mic, like NS-10s in speaker land. I just CD: "ey can and they do. "ey absolutely do. put it on and go, ‘Oh okay, if I put a [AKG] 414 or a [Sennheiser MD] 421 on this I won’t have to CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, (BANG!) touch a thing!’ I typically do that with the snare AS: Can we talk a bit more about your typical drum too just to get going. recording process for a Green Day song, assuming there’s such a thing? For instance, do ROOM TO MOVE they usually start with click tracks etc? AS: Does Tré’s drum kit get miked to hell in CD: Yeah, I mean if it’s a song they know the terms of room mics? tempo of, we’ll usually setup a click… feel it, li! CD: Certainly on this last record I kind of went it up or down a few notches and get it right. A overboard because we had the space. We were at lot of stu# on the recent record [21st Century Ocean Way in LA. It was my $rst time working Breakdown] was played to a click track, but not there so I sel$shly put up more room mics than right the way through ’cause the tempo o!en I $gured we’d ever need. It was more about me changed in the chorus. Butch Vig [who produced listening to the room really than needing the the album] had a little metronome app on his ambient channels, but I didn’t go completely nuts. Mac that was really cool. He would just sit and But funnily enough, when I eventually gave Chris tap it while we were playing the core tempos for [Lord Alge] the three stereo pairs to use in the di#erent parts of the song. mix, I think he used all of them in the end. For AS: So how do you record the famous Green fun we %ew some RCA ribbon mics way up in the Day drum kit? Do you have a re$ned approach air just for an e#ect, which was kinda cool. by now or is the sound of it still open to "e main recording space at Ocean Way is interpretation? deceptive – where you put your mics in the room CD: I don’t really go for ‘a sound’ but perhaps isn’t where you might expect. It’s a great drum what you’re referring to – what you’re hearing room, almost the perfect room. It just sounds so – is just Tré beating the drums the way he does. good – live and big. "e funny thing about it is, He’s got the heaviest hands I’ve heard in my life. listening to the drum kit, I almost got caught o# "ere are certain drums we just can’t use because guard because it didn’t initially sound as big to he hits so damn hard, which is a good thing and me as it did later. My $rst reaction was to stick my a bad thing… bad for his snare drums that’s for mics at the back of the room, against the advice sure. We use Dunnett drums these days that are of my assistant who was going, “Umm… I don’t just amazing. "ey’re perfect for him. My general think you want to go that far.” He was right… approach to the kit is simply to capture it as a the $rst setup sounded god-awful – just too big. whole. About halfway into the room was the sweet spot. AS: With conventional mics and setups? AS: Were the mics always facing the kit? CD: Pretty much. On the recent 21st Century CD: All apart from the two RCAs that faced

AT !" sideways, with their nulls facing the kit. cymbals for a good portion of the songs, when they’re hit, the toms need to be absolutely crystal AS: Do you compress the kit while you’re clear. tracking, or is Tré more of a Dave Grohl-type drummer, where there’s so much consistency AS: How do you control cymbal spill into other in his performance you don’t need to compress mics during the recording – Tré seems to be things much? really smashing some of that stu". Does that ever pose a problem? I’m presuming you’re not putting CD: !at’s exactly what it’s like. I used to try to fake cymbals up or anything like that? compress the kick and snare drum but there’s actually no need to at all. !ere were a couple of CD: No, though it would be fun to try that with slower songs on 21st Century that we compressed him. But it works out. Tré – and this goes for “If the phase isn’t quite for e"ect, but only a#er the recording. For the all the guys – really cares about the process, so right in your two mic most part, given the nature of Green Day’s songs, if something hinders it or crosses the line I’ll Tré plays like a machine so I tend to just let the typically say something like, “Hey, I think that setup, my trick is to drum kit do what it does. cymbal’s just too hot,” and he’ll go, “Cool, I’ve got nudge the cabinet a quieter one… try this.” AS: What about signal chains for the kit? I around. It’s easier than noticed a Neve BCM10 in the other room Again, like the guitar collection out there in the earlier… is that ever called into action? next room, Tré’s cymbal collection could quite messing with your mics literally $ll this room, and in all honesty and CD: BCM10s are usually involved, for sure, all the time. on a very serious note, he’s got a reason why whether it’s here or at Ocean Way. Let’s see, on he buys each one and he knows how each one the last record I used a Vintek 1073 preamp for sounds. He’s got quiet cymbals and even quiet the snare drum, the kick drum chain was just hi-hats, which he needs because when he plays he a Chandler TG channel, overheads were 1073s generally murders them, and they used to get into run through these crazy solid-state Pultec-styled ” the snare mic constantly. EQs called Lang Peq-2s. Toms were all API pres. Room mics were all through 1073s. I found a really great mic to eliminate the hi-hat spill though, which you should try yourself: the AS: Why APIs on the toms? Telefunken M80. It’s a vocal mic: it’s super tight, CD: !ey’re punchier – at least that’s how I it’s bumped on the top end – though not in an hear them – and they’re nice and clear. I know obnoxious way at all – and it’s nice and smooth. everyone’s got their own take on all that stu", We did a shootout one day and Tré was like: “Hey but with Tré, because his performance is usually let’s try this one with the fancy grille on it.” It dominated by hi-hat, kick, snare and a lot of

AT !" The ‘Trident’ control room has lots of toys including a ProTools HD rig with Apogee converters, Focusrite, Neve, UREI, Langevin, Altec, Avalon and dbx gear in the racks, and Ampex and Otari tape machines. There’s also an immaculate Neve BCM !" (pictured left).

was the obvious winner on the day and I haven’t BILLIE JOE’S GUITARS looked back since… AS: What about guitars? Some of the sounds Generally I !nd spill is less of a problem when you and Billie get are pretty huge. Is there a lot of you don’t try and close mic everything too complexity to what you do to them? much. I know that sounds ironic, but my general CD: No, I don’t do much. #ere’s no science approach with his kit is not necessarily go for a behind it – nothing weird going on as you’ve very close mic sound where everything has got probably surmised by now. It’s all about his amps. its individual sound and you have to worry about #ey’re amazing. He’s got these old Marshalls bleed. I tend to go a bit more aerial with my mics that we’ve been running of late: a 100W cab and and overheads become more like spot mics. If a 300W cab. On the 100W cab I’ve been running you hear him playing, he’s taking all these weird a [Shure SM] 57 and a Royer 121 together, right contraptions and forming a balanced sound from next to each other, doing what we talked about it, and that’s really what I’m trying to reproduce – earlier; blending the two together to get the RECORDING IN CANS a balanced sound. tone we wanted. On the last record I was also Chris Dugan: We always track with cans. We did a AS: What do you do with that remarkable kick summing the two of these together to tape. And funny thing with U" at Abbey Road once. U" – as those two were going through the Chandler you probably know – like to record with wedges, drum of his? which was completely different for us. We tried it Germanium stu". Bitchin’ EQs those. but quickly discovered that we’re definitely die-hard CD: I do an inside mic (a Shure Beta 52) and headphone fans. It just was a very odd experience for an outside mic (a Neumann U47FET) – pretty On the other cab were a C-414 and a 57 amp’ed the guys. They weren’t into it at all! Live they now use standard stu". I also use one of those Yamaha through Neve 1073s, and on that particular in-ears too, so wedges are completely off the scene [SKRM-100] sub-kick things… the 47 is usually cabinet I lucked out. I didn’t have to use any EQ, for Green Day… the last world tour was the first time just the two mics. #at was it. #e sound was everyone wore in-ears and they loved it. back about four and half feet from the kick drum. bigger and heavier… I used to look at guitars In the studio they’ve got little mixers but to be honest AS: Four and a half feet? I’m not too sure who likes what in their cans now. when I was younger and think, ‘you’ve gotta Billie likes a lot of guitars, I know that much, and lots CD: Yep, and with no ‘tent’ protection or shape the sound and stu"’. #at’s what got me of drums. It’s usually up way too loud for me to even in trouble in my early recording days. When I put their cans on my head. anything like that. It works out !ne. #e kick drum Tré used for a great portion of the last listen back to that stu" now I go, “Oh, what was record was this big 24-inch Gretsch, with no I doing?” I was overcomplicating a sound to try front head. I’m not a fan of doing that; I love front and achieve something. heads on kick drums. I like the resonance they Basically, if the amp’s good enough, all you’ve got produce. But this particular drum just had this to do is make sure you’re hitting the speaker right, magical quality. It was enormous sounding. capturing the notes right and getting a big sound. I certainly don’t want to take what Billie plays and make it sound smaller. You just want to recreate

AT !" The Neve BCM !".

Chris Dugan at the J-series SSL.

an amp’s sound without colouring it. Just capture CD: He likes a lot of 1 – 2kHz. AS: Does Mike have much distortion in the amp it with a blend of two mics – works for me. And sound itself? AS: Is there a lot of distortion work going on or one thing, if the phase isn’t quite right in your not? CD: Not really, no. He overloads his preamp two mic setup, my trick is to nudge the cabinet through an SPT, and he’s got this old P-bass around. It’s easier than messing with your mics CD: It’s funny, when we demo I distort his bass, that’s super hot – a very loud bass. I make sure all the time. but when we track a record, I don’t. CLA [Chris the DI channel is as clean as possible; I certainly Lord Alge] told me he’s got this really cool trick AS: Do you compress Billie’s guitars much? don’t add to the distortion levels. He could be he does to Mike’s tone where he runs it "at overdriving his preamp naturally ’cause he plays CD: Not at all. Chris [Lord Alge] might during through a 1073 for some extra bite. I’ve heard it really hard in fast songs. #e guy’s forearm is the mixing, but I certainly don’t. I’ve never really soloed out during the mix and it’s never really size of my calf, he picks so hard for so long. Live been a fan of it. I know some people do and distorted, but it ends up working. he runs through a little booster pedal in parts totally love it. A good easy reference for me What I try to do is never go too far; that’s where it does get a little crunchy. is when you’re able to look at the tracking in always my concern. So I play it kind of on the ProTools and see the waveform of the guitar amp AS: It sounds like the band doesn’t really require conservative side. We’ll always have a miked sitting there chugging along and it’s all solid level. much in the way of preamp gain anyway! cabinet and a DI – a Vintek – and both these Mostly I don’t see or hear the need to compress, channels typically go through a Distressor. #e CD: We use a lot of pads! and I don’t want to make anything even remotely amp usually has a Neumann U47FET and a smaller than it should be. When a song’s slower [Sennheiser] 421 on it. Normally I don’t use a VOCAL CHAIN and mellower we might only put compression on two-mic setup on Mike’s bass cabinet but on the AS: What about Billie Joe’s vocals? What does he the guitars as an e!ect to create a neater sound. recent record it worked. #ere were a lot of phase sing into generally here? On the big, distorted, heavy sound though there’s problems with those two mics though. It was CD: On this last record he sang into a Neumann no real need to. It’s the same with drums. Unless tough getting them set to go. U47 going through a Chandler LTD-1 and the it’s for e!ect I don’t use any. AS: Because the 421’s capsule is set back Retro 176. BASS MIKE from the grille? AS: My favourite compressor at the moment... AS: What about bass? Is this yet another example CD: Yeah exactly, it’s a little deceptive… the 421 of a pretty straightforward setup? CD: Yeah, and I’ll tell you, since this record – and has this big housing but the capsule is actually we did this on another project too – I run bass CD: Mike has a very unique sound. He’s got a set back a bit. I had to pull the mic apart to $gure through it… I’m gonna forever run bass through tough gig man – he’s gotta cut through all those that out! When we $nally got it right, it sounded it, they’ve sold me on these. guitars and a wall of drum kit, so he likes a lot of great. Again, like how we perceive API gear to bite. operate; that 421 has gotta capture that bite, that !"ST CENTURY MIXING AS: Chris Lord Alge mixed 21st Century. Did you AS: He seems to like to almost pull the strings o! clack and clatter. I’m using the U47 to capture the converse or have much to do with him before he when he plays, from what I’ve seen… nice warm tone. It worked out perfectly on 21st Century. got hold of it?

AT !" The main recording room at the rear of the complex is tied to the ‘Trident’ control room (which is behind the photographer). Here, drinks are served at the bar under the stars and stripes.

CD: No. I don’t know what he likes actually, and American Idiot tour. We were just kinda all living here basically – amps and fancy guitars and frankly I don’t want to know. !at way I can just here at that stage and the Trident console that’s in stu$… that you don’t really want other people do what I do, you know? !ere’s enough pressure the studio up the hall replaced an SSL 4k. In the particularly having access to. It’s your own knowing it’s going to him already! It’s like, ‘Shit, I’ve control room we’re in here there used to be this personal stu$, you know? gotta make this sound good; I’m not gonna skimp tiny little digital board. So we were sort of kicking ourselves at the missed on anything’. To know that he likes a particular mic AS: So in terms of this place, is it your job to opportunity for them and us. It would have been on something would only drive me more nuts. organise what gear goes in here? great to let our buddies in and use the place and I was there for a lot of the mixes and hung out get something out of it. CD: Yeah, pretty much. !e guys have the with him. I was doing some last-minute editing ultimate say, of course – they’re the owners of the Before this place became a full-blown studio this while they were mixing in the other room and place a"er all. Anything that we get or install I was just our clubhouse you see. !at room next he’s a fun guy to work with and talk shop with – put to them #rst and they say yes or no. We try door had probably twenty motorcycles in it, two like we’re doing now. I thought maybe I’d given and not go crazy, but again it certainly helps that of which were dismantled. !e other room out him too many room mics – too much of the same they’re into the recording process – they love this there was the jam room and we even had cars out thing – but he was really into what I gave him. He place! You #nd some artists who really don’t care the front that we were working on. Now that we likes what I do, so it’s worked out great. about the geeky stu$ but we can geek out and talk actually use most of the space for recording it’s a JINGLETOWN’S EQUIPMENT LIST about this stu$ for hours! bit more of a business in here. !at’s not to say it won’t turn into that again at some point… AS: Are you mostly recording straight into AS: You mentioned the other day when we #rst ProTools here? spoke here that you’re going to open Jingletown Prior to us moving in here and setting up the CD: Yeah. Although the plan is to hopefully start to the public? I imagine that will change things clubhouse – when we were in here working using tape machines again [Jingletown has at least a bit. on American Idiot as clients – we kind of commandeered the place. We got so comfortable two Otari MTR-90 MkIIs]. We did on the last CD: Yeah! I’m pretty excited about it to be honest. record with mixed results. It’s a funny thing; I’ve here in fact that we even had go-kart races in the AS: What prompted that idea? always been a fan and always wanted to utilise carpark... it was pretty insane. tape but on this last record we did a shootout and CD: Well, when the guys are on tour for 18 AS: What? everybody chose the digital recording over the months at a time, and then take a break to CD: !e go-kart races were amazing. You’re so tape. I think the preference changes depending decompress for a while the place basically sits close to the ground: you’re fast, you’re sliding… on the song too. !ese were fast songs where we idle. !e option this time around was to either even the owner got involved. He’d bring all his needed transients and de#nition. On the slower shut down the power, turn everything o$ and interns out and make everyone move their cars stu$ we ended up using tape for the drums lock the place up again, or open it and, you and built these elaborate tracks. and bass. know… let our friends from the Bay Area have access to it. !ere was a time when we were Since it became Green Day’s clubhouse, we’ve AS: When did you get the J-Series SSL? tracking the last record in LA that some friends always included some sort of fun into our work CD: As soon as we got o$ the road from the !e of ours needed a studio but unfortunately we – some sort of release. We’re still doing that in just weren’t set up. !ere was stu$ everywhere here now with the motorcycles and everything. Everyone’s got a bike… AT !!