FEATURE eskimoRecording joe It’s all about the beer Eskimo Joe pulled out all stops to produce its latest commercial hit Black Fingernails, Red Wine and the results have taken the country by storm. AT talks to the album’s engineer, Matt Lovell, about beer and, to a lesser extent, recording.

Text: Andy Stewart

AT 44 My first encounter with Eskimo Joe’s latest superbly realised from conception right through album, Black Fingernails, Red Wine was a couple to the pressing plant. of months ago now. I had the telly on in the Confident of their arrangement skills and vision background late one Saturday morning while for the album (as well as being pretty technically I was whipping up a ‘big breakfast’ – as my savvy), Kav, Joel and Stu decided to produce partner always calls them – and through the the album themselves, which is unusual for a sizzling white noise generator of bacon in a band with the luxury of a substantial budget. frypan, I was struck, from the moment Black Most often, a producer is called into action if Fingernails, Red Wine began, by the size of the funds allow it (usually for good reason) but, in drum room that had apparently been used to this case, the band was utterly convinced that record the kit – a classic engineer’s reaction to a they could manage without one. So the band song I s’pose. hooked up with Matt Lovell and headed to The I had no idea at that stage that it was Eskimo Grove Studios (formerly Garry Beers’ Mangrove Joe’s new single; I assumed it was some dudes Studios, which is located on a farm near from the US. Regardless, my attention was Gosford) in the height of last summer to sink immediately piqued by the kick drum sound, their teeth into an extended recording session. which instantly reminded me of U2’s rendition In anticipation of the Eskimos suffering terribly of Unchained Melody (which came out as a single in the summer heat, Matt brought along a keg B-side long ago). That track had possibly the of his own beer! Literally! And, I mean, what biggest ‘stadium rock’ kick drum sound I’ve engineer worth his salt wouldn’t? ever heard on a recording. It’s so enormous it actually messes with the rhythm of the song, but LOVELL’S LAGER THAN LIFE as a sound it’s quite something… at least that’s Andy Stewart: What’s the story with the beer how I remember it. Matt; I hear you have your own label? The new Eskimo Joe album is painted with Matt Lovell: That’s right, it’s called Lovell’s a similar brush. According to ARIA Award- Lager, which I’ve been brewing commercially winning engineer Matt Lovell, who recorded for a couple of years now. It’s on tap at the Black Fingernails…, one of the main ambitions Annandale and The Cricketers’ Arms in Surry for the album was to “emulate that stadium Hills [in Sydney] but I’m about to venture into All hands on deck: rock vibe by placing some big slap echoes subtly bottles and cases… Matt Lovell (far), Stu behind the sounds” and it’s worked a treat. The Macleod (fresh from AS: So do you do a lot of the taste testing the pool, it would seem) single had only been playing one second before yourself? and Joel Quartermain I was tricked into imagining such a space, even (foreground) get into some concentrated knob through the din of my morning fry-up. ML: Yeah, a shitload of testing. Last week was twiddling on The Grove’s all testing… (laughs) 4000 G-Series SSL. The new Eskimo Joe album, which almost everyone in the country is surely aware of AS: Hard work by the sounds of it… by now – it was No.1 for about three weeks, ML: Very hard work! Bottles will be a big step slipped back a couple of places for a brief time up financially, though. But it’ll be worth it, before resuming the top spot again – has been because kegs are a nightmare to be honest… one of the biggest selling Australian records of the year, and it’s not been by accident. AS: Hard to get through you mean? Demos and pre-production started some ML: Nah, delivering them is the problem. For time ago now, with Kav Temperley, Joel each keg on tap you have to have five kegs in Quartermain and Stu Macleod [collectively a loop; one getting cleaned, another one filled, Eskimo Joe] developing the songs at home in one on a truck… etc. Perth on their ProTools rig with a clear vision AS: Where’s the beer brewed? and ambition for the record: “an album of three ML: At the moment I’m making it in Cessnock and a half minute epics!” was the fundamental in the Hunter Valley, but I’m just about to move aim. It would seem this ambition has been

AT 45 production to a new place in Camden. These It’s a slow growth business. I see it almost like are the new bottle labels and cases… [Matt starting a band: you start playing gigs at The shows me the artwork for the labels, etc and Hopetoun, then a gig at the Annandale, then on the bottom of the slab artwork is a ghetto with any luck you get a song on Triple J and blaster!]. I’ve got that there for when you’re organise a tour up and down the east coast. carry the slab on your shoulder… You slowly build it up like that. It’s taught me a AS: Dare I ask what has prompted this foray whole new set of business skills, that’s for sure! into, what I can only imagine is an occupational AS: So was there free beer during the Eskimo hazard of heady proportions? Joe recording session then? ML: Dunno, I guess it’s something I’ve always ML: I did take a keg up to The Grove actually, been interested in – beer, home brewing etc. but the problem was we didn’t have very good I wasn’t very successful at it though. The idea refrigeration up there and it was the middle came to me when I was doing the last Jebediah of summer so it went off very quickly, because record over in Perth and I went down to a Lovell’s Lager is all natural with no additives brewery in Fremantle called Little Creatures or preservatives in it. I tried to keep the keg in a and realised that there was nothing like it on really cool spot but the thing went off in about Matt Lovell mics up Joel’s acoustic with a ‘garden the East Coast. And it was just like, ‘Well, f**k three days… variety’ Neumann U47 tube. it, I can’t rely on the music industry for the rest of my life – or the next six months’ [more GETTING BACK ON TRACK hysterical laughter] – so I adopted the old punk AS: Sorry to digress from the beer making for rock ethic of doing it yourself… and now it’s a a minute, but how did Black Fingernails, Red reality. Wine come to be made at The Grove? AS: So how do you decide on the taste? ML: The whole idea was that the band were going to produce the record themselves… which ML: A lot of testing. I thought was really cool. The demos sounded AS: Are you kidding me? It’s not just someone fantastic; they’d worked really hard and long else’s beer with a different label on it? on the songs and they knew exactly what they were doing and exactly what they wanted. They ML: No! We’ve got a recipe – it’s a heavy, sweet didn’t need a producer to come in and take lager at the moment, but I’m actually changing things apart or change parts up or do anything, it a bit now into a lighter, more ‘Becksy’-type really. It was all there in the demos, so the vibe. It’s not meant to be the world’s greatest sessions were basically about re-recording the beer, it’s supposed to be a ‘drinking, get amongst ideas they’d already clearly defined. it’ beer. The band had already decided to record at The Grove before I got the call, but I’d coincidentally worked there and helped Garry Beers set it up, way back when. I worked there for the first year of its operation; I was the in-house guy there. AS: So it was like a homecoming of sorts for you? ML: Yeah, and it was really good to be back. It obviously has a different vibe now, because no one lives at the house any more; you’ve got the whole property to yourself. We were playing cricket every afternoon in the driveway this time around and swimming in the pool. Whereas before you couldn’t really play cricket in the driveway… What’s great about The Grove is you can live there while you’re recording, do your own hours and get stuck into it at your own pace. AS: Did the tracking process go fairly smoothly? ML: Yeah, we had a great time. The band are such great players – they can all play everything, they know one another’s strength and weaknesses intimately and there’s no bullshit between them, which just makes the process so much easier. So, for instance, during the tracking session, if Joel got a part on a guitar but couldn’t really nail it for whatever reason, Stu would be able to sit there and work it out, The Grove Studios where and then play it – or vice versa. Whoever could the stadium rock illusion was created. play it the best just went ahead and recorded it, which is a great way to be able to work…

AT 46 AS: How long were you all ensconced? ML: There were a couple of songs where the ML: We didn’t have a lot of time pressure on demos had some kind of specific delay guitar us – six weeks just to track it, which was great. effect on them, like the start of New York for And we recorded the album one song at a time. instance, where in the demo’ing they’d hit We’d start by getting about three drum takes the right delay on the Line6 pedal, which we down and then attack the overdubbing of one of couldn’t really replicate, so in that instance them until we’d finish off all the vocals, guitars, we just imported that part from the original keyboards… everything – before tackling the ’Tools session and placed it into the new one. next song. We recorded all the drums, bass and There was also a keyboard part at the start of whatever the main instrument happened to be Setting Sun where, again, we couldn’t get the to The Grove’s Studer A827 tape machine and same sort of distorted keyboard sound, and then banged it into ’Tools and went from there. even though it was a slightly different tempo on the original recording, we just nipped and AS: No parts from the original demo sessions tucked it and in it went. were kept then? AS: Was there much room for experimentation or had all of that already occurred in the demo phase? ML: Basically, all the parts for the album were there, there was a little bit of experimentation but mainly the recording was about getting the right tones and sounds, rather than inventing parts. For instance, a lot of the keyboards and any sort of pads and lead lines often went through pedals or an amp. We were never complacent or tempted to use generic sounds. We’d put one side of a sound through an [Electro Harmonix] Micro Synth and the other side through a blue Line6 [MM4 Modulation Modeler] pedal – that sort of thing – so you’d get that width by twisting it a bit and making it more analogue sounding. It made the sounds unique.

DISCIPLINED AMBITION AS: The album sounds very refined, very controlled… was that discipline evident right from the start of the project? ML: Yeah, it was. The guys had a real vision for where they wanted to take the record, and they’d planned it out very early on. They said to me a few times they wanted ‘three and half minute epics’ and a ‘stadium rock’-type vibe, so that’s the direction we headed in. AS: How did you go about getting that vibe in the studio? ML: Well, for starters everything on the album is played. By which I mean ProTools was used as a tape machine and not as an editor. I never cut and paste choruses, things like that… it really kills me to even contemplate that stuff. So everything was played and at no point M I X P R E PA R ATI O N S Matt Lovell: There was And of course, it was instruments placed in did we get lazy about that. All the vocals are a Lo-Tel song I worked my joke vocal! It really groups and fed out of the sung wherever they were required – there’s no on years ago that taught taught me to prepare the same channels as much as AutoTune, it’s all performance-based – and that me a good lesson about sessions so that there are possible. This allows the preparing sessions for no extraneous tracks or mix engineer to call up the brings a lot of the vibe and feel to the record. others to mix. I’d gone in oddball bits that you have next song easily and not AS: And yet it’s very tight and polished… and during one of the sessions no real intention of using. have drums coming up old and recorded a joke vocal, You’ve got to make it easy guitar lines, and guitars at the risk of comparing them to other bands, where I intentionally sung for the mix engineer. And where the vocals used the album reminds me very much of bands like this appalling take. Of any effects and spatial to be. Obviously it can’t INXS and even Billy Idol at times. There are a course, it was then left stuff that are important to always be exactly the same few real White Wedding moments… The drums, on the tape and basically the track need to be there setup, but I try and keep it forgotten about. Later as well, so the mix engineer fairly consistent. This gives for instance, are very up front and powerful. the tape was sent over to is essentially just balancing whoever is mixing it a lot ML: Yeah, the drums are a good example Jack Joseph Puig to mix in things. And that way more time to listen to the LA and when we got the they’ve also got something song, as a song, without of how we typically tracked things on the mix back Luke [Hanigan of to immediately vibe off. having to spend all that record. I used about 18 tracks of drums – lots Lo-Tel] came into me and I tend to prepare my setup time trying to find of room mics, distorted room mics, close mics. said, ‘what’s that crazy files pretty cleanly instruments and a direction Essentially all the distorted room sounds on vocal in the background?’. and predictably with for the mix. AT 48 the album were generated during the tracking for some sections and all the front-end mics cut rather than mixing, and that was typical of out in another so that Tim didn’t have to make our approach to the whole album. We weren’t all those arrangement decisions himself. He was relying on the mix stage to ‘create’ the sound; able to boot the sessions up and there they’d be, we did it all during tracking. largely arranged both in terms of instruments and dynamic mic choices. AS: Including establishing the ‘stadium’-like vibe? How did you manage that? INTELLIGENT DESIGNER ML: Basically, every record I do these days – not AS: Can you tell me more about the various just Eskimo’s – involves a lot of room recording recording setups? and we paid a lot of specific attention to this on ML: Well, for drums I recorded clean room Black Fingernails. I had room mics up for just mics – you know, standard compressed room about everything. I fed a lot of sounds through mics – and I had an RCA ribbon through an amps that were then recorded by room mics – a SPL Transient Designer. Actually I had three lot of keyboards and backwards effects bits and room mics through the Transient Designer: “ We spent a lot of time pieces – so you’ve got that natural space of the one in front of the kick, another that would studio embedded in the sounds. I much prefer move around the place and a third mic that putting vocals through that to artificial reverb spaces, whether it’s a I’d put up in the corner. And I’d move them guitar amps after the takes [Lexicon] 480L or whatever. A lot of sounds around for each song so there was a lot of were recorded with effects and spaces because variety in the ambient mics. The thing about were finished. On Comfort we always knew that someone else would be the Transient Designer is that it’s capable of You, for instance, just mixing it. We wanted to make sure that all the giving you everything from an enormously far about everything is going effects we intended a sound to have went with away over-compressed sound, to a dried up, the sounds during tracking. gated close mic sound. It only has attack and through amps” AS: So were these spaces and effects captured so release functions and that’s it. I have no idea that mixing was effectively a fait accompli or so how it really works but it sounds amazing the mix engineer had options? on room mics! [See box item for a brief explanation of the Transient Designer.] ML: Both really. Tim [Palmer, who mixed it at Paramount studios in Hollywood] definitely AS: I assume you had basic front-end drum had a lot of options on the drums, but the idea mic setups as well as these ambient mics. Were was to provide the mix engineer (whoever that any of the ribbons facing across the room with was going to be) with finished ‘songs’ and that the null point facing the drumkit, or were they included every aspect of each instrument’s sound. mainly facing directly at it? AS: You can hear that Tim Palmer seems to ML: Most of the ribbons were aimed directly at have done a lot of switching between mics in the kit, down low about four metres away from intros and choruses; bombastic front-end power the front of the bass drum. There were a few from close mics and room mics that explode times when I stuck a mic behind Joel’s head for into choruses. Big snare, big kick drum… he a different drumkit balance. clearly had lots of options to work with. AS: What about the things you were running ML: That’s right. Although, a lot of those through amps? decisions were edited on the ProTools files by ML: We spent a lot of time putting vocals us. For instance, I’d have the room mics muted through guitar amps after the takes were

THE SPL TRANSIENT DESIGNER – HOW IT WORKS The SPL Transient Designer regardless of the input and used to control the acoustic space, shortening offers level-independent signal’s dynamics. The VCA through which the the sustain setting can be shaping of the dynamic attack and sustain controls signal passes. The sustain very effective in removing response of a sound, use separate, parallel circuit operates in a similar unwanted ambience controlling the attack and processes, to prevent manner, with one envelope to create a dry sound. sustain behaviour of a interaction. The attack generator tracking the Although the Transient signal to allow transients to control circuitry uses signal exactly, but the Designer is most at home be accelerated or slowed, two envelope generators. second having a longer working with percussive and the sustain of a sound The first of these tracks sustain time, determined by sources, it can be used to prolonged or shortened. the envelope of the input the setting of the sustain good effect on a variety Attack can be amplified signal, and derives a control. The difference of other program sources: or attenuated by up to voltage corresponding to signal derived from the two shaping attack, and adding 15dB while sustain can be the signal envelope. The controls the VCA. sustain to guitars and amplified or attenuated by second also tracks the What can be achieved basses the more obvious up to 24dB. signal, but with a slower with the SPL Transient examples. It is very simple The Transient Designer attack, dependent upon Designer on live drum indeed to set up and uses envelope followers the setting of the attack signals, for example, is operate, performing it’s to track the curve of control. A difference signal little short of miraculous. unique task extremely well. the natural signal so the is then derived from the Where drums have been results are guaranteed, two envelope signals, recorded in a very live

AT 50 finished. And on songs like Comfort You, for AS: The Grove obviously has recording rooms instance, just about everything is going through that you’re happy with then… amps. But funnily enough, the bass never went ML: Yeah it does. It doesn’t have a really high through an amp on the entire record. It was ceiling, which is a little odd, but it works. For only ever DI’d. guitars, I had the amps in the main room facing AS: How were the guitar amps miked up? into the back corner where there’s a smaller ML: I had a Rode Classic II valve condenser room that has a wall of white volcanic stone. I and a Shure SM57 up close. The Rode copes had the U67 in there switched to ‘omni’ and the well with life in front of an amp, and of course sound was enormous. the 57 needs no explanation. When I needed MORE STADIUM ROCK the sound to be pokier I pushed the 57; and AS: Can you tell me more about realising the when I wanted the sound to be rounder and ‘stadium rock’ sound in the confines of the fatter I pushed the Classic II. I also had a room studio? mic set up – usually a Neumann U67. For me the part dictates the sound and I’ve almost ML: The stadium vision was essentially about abandoned EQ on guitars, it’s more about slap echoes. You know that slap that you hear percentages of the different mic tones these when you’re at a big gig? That was the illusion days. I often bus all three mics together too, we were trying to create. There’s a lot of it into either an [ELI] Distressor or a [Urei] 1176. placed subtly on the record. Black Fingernails And tonally, instead of punching in EQ, I is a good example of that. I think that song prefer to change the guitar, change the pickup has three kick drums making up the kick or change the amp. And there’s no AmpFarm drum sound. There’s the real kick, a tighter, anywhere on the Eskimo Joe record, only real sampled kick underneath it to improve the guitar amps and effects. front-end clarity and another third bass drum that was sent out to a Matchless amp, distorted AS: Were effects printed to separate tracks or and recorded back into ’Tools via a room integral to the guitar signals as well? mic, so it’s a bit smaller but more ambient ML: We used a Line6 pedal on everything as sounding. And because there was an inevitable well as the Micro Synth and all of it was tracked delay created by the re-recording chain, the as part of the sound. So the enormous guitar new sound was slightly behind the beat – if sounds that are common throughout the album you looked at the ProTools waveform it was were performed and recorded with that scale in obvious. My first reaction was, ‘well, we can’t the first place. have that, I’ll just slip that back into time’, and then I thought, ‘No no, hang on, let’s listen AS: So Tim Palmer’s mixing didn’t transform to it first’. When I heard the effect of it, it dinky little guitars into massive stadium guitars sounded like a slap back and it just worked. then? It was one of those serendipitous things that AS: No, he certainly helped it along a bit, but he we hit on and kept. It gave the track a really hasn’t transformed sounds from chalk to cheese. powerful darkness. I tried taking it out at one The boys had a real vision for the sound, as I’ve stage, but as soon as I did, the kick lost a lot of said, and the process for me was really about its power. And if that third bass drum hadn’t helping them achieve what they heard in their been distorted through the air or was just the head. And I’m a great believer in recording all same kick delayed, it wouldn’t have worked. effects to tape anyway. I like building a finished AS: Did you come away from the process sound and saying, ‘that’s it, that’s the sound’. having learnt any new tricks?

AT 52 ML: It was more of a distillation of ideas. It was one of those records that had a lot of very cool non-commercial sounds on it and the trick was making them work within the ‘epic’ intention of the overall sound. We were determined to record the album one song at a time, and we did. There are often times where you say you’re going to approach a record in such ’n’ such a way, but then the reality of the session takes over and the idea fizzles out. With this record we really followed through on our ideas. AS: Can you give me an example of how that helped? vocal sounds in ProTools; we recorded the amp’s ML: A good example was that Kav had set sound with room mics, grabbed it and reversed times where he felt really comfortable singing it. And we got these sounds to sit in the track and we stuck to that plan and it worked really by setting the amps up and taking our time well for him – and consequently I think his to get the room mics just right. That’s pretty vocals on the record sound fantastic. He was important. Some of those sounds also had a bit mostly singing into a Neumann M149 (because of the direct signal in them as well. that’s what he used on Eskimo Joe’s last record with Paul McKercher). And because vocals are NO RECORDING FOR RECORDING’S SAKE AS: Some of the songs have quite dramatic so vitally important I figured if he was happy sonic changes in them. Was this the result of lots with that mic, I was more than happy for him of editing after the fact or did this ‘discipline’ to use it for the sessions. I didn’t want to try you’ve talked about include only recording and reinvent the wheel for him; I wanted him sounds where they were planned? to be comfortable. Having a mic with a proven track record on his voice helped him relax and ML: A lot of those ‘scene changes’, as I like to not worry about his vocal tone. The rest of call them, were created by changing sounds the chain was a Telefunken V72 preamp into from intro to verse to chorus, etc. We’d never an 1176 and an LA-2A (the LA-2A not really stick with recording the one guitar or let one doing much… it was there just in case). sound play right through a song. There’d be a verse guitar sound, and then we’d pull it When we tracked vocals we’d do four or five all apart and get the pre-chorus sound, then takes and then comp. And because Kav had the chorus sound and the chorus B section this regular time frame to sing in, he’d spend sound. They’d all be very different sounds or the day really building up to it. He sang in variations on that sound. cans; The Grove has a really good monitoring setup that allows you to create your own AS: But was there a temptation to track headphone mix. There were gobos on either these specific guitar parts for the whole song side of him, and again, I generally prefer to anyway, just in case? record vocals in a space that’s not too shut ML: No, never. Not at all. We were totally down. But, more importantly, that was Kav’s disciplined. A verse guitar was a verse guitar preference as well, and, to me, him feeling and that’s the only place where we’d record it. comfortable was way more important than my But we also had enough time that we could thoughts on the matter. My attitude was simple: readdress stuff as well. There were times ‘If he’s comfortable doing that, then let’s do towards the end where I’d go: ‘This thing that. Kav’s the singer… Kav’s comfortable with has been in the back of my mind, did we nail that… so that’s what we’re doing’. that sound?’. Sometimes addressing these But of course there were some times when Kav ‘issues’ would be a matter of not necessarily would do a couple of takes and just go ‘Nup, it’s re-recording a sound but dealing with it not happening’. And I was like, ‘Cool, let’s move somehow, either by knocking a bit of the top on’. There was no need for me to be saying, ‘Oh end off or sending it out through something but mate, hey, it’s sounding great…’ There was else and bouncing the sound back in. There just no point trying to push that line. He knew were a few times when we’d get a rough mix when he was on or off; no one needed to tell up and say ‘Oh no, that sounds way too bright, him. And because we were recording one song we’d better sort that out’. And then we’d send at a time, if Kav wasn’t feeling it we’d just move it back out through a pedal or something like onto something else on that song, which simply that to tweak stuff, all the time trying to find meant there was no unreasonable pressure on unique sounds. him to perform. To that end, the band was always willing to do AS: What about some of the recorded the hard yards to find unique sounds. It was a embellishments that you can hear in the songs, genuine process of tonal discovery. like backwards vocal intros, etc. How did you tackle those? ML: A lot of those things are done through amps and room mics. We did the backwards-

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