Kevin ‘The Caveman’ Shirley

Miles Roston hooks up with to chew the fat about his studio work with the giants of the world of Rock and learns what makes ‘The Caveman’ tick.

first met Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley in a bar called on the equipment, and never has been. He listens to Rupert’s on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. We the sound, the song and the performance and matches Iended up drinking together and yakking until four them as efficiently and beautifully as he can. I caught o’clock in the morning… and continued to do that for up with the Caveman recently and we talked about quite a few years. Back then, Kevin had moved over music, recording, his career, the industry and anything from to the for the first time, else we could shake a stick at. As always, the Caveman and had already recorded and engineered the highly was entertaining, dead on, and provocative. successful ’ which was sonically (and otherwise) a fantastic record, especially Painless. How Does One Become a Caveman? Like a lot of us trying to make it in New York City, he Miles Roston: So Caveman, how did you learn went through his ups and plenty of downs, all this while engineering and producing? having umpteen credits in Australia and South Africa, Kevin Shirley: I was always interested in the sonics and raising a son on his own. Then Kevin got the call of things. Growing up in South Africa, when I was to engineer a Rush album; later still, when the work at school, I was in the band to avoid doing military seemed to dry up again, he moved back to Australia, training. And I continued that by enrolling in the music and within a few years produced ’s debut school in Cape Town to avoid conscription. Music was album ; then back to The States, where his really what I wanted to do, and I always liked to be in career has been on an upswing ever since. The man charge. I was the conductor of the school orchestra, has recorded, mixed and/or produced some of the and later, at university, I conducted a lot of forays… to most enduring artists: , Journey, the pub. After about 18 months of university and not , , and recently, the previously unre- really achieving anything, I went to work for the South leased live recordings of . But he’s also African Broadcasting Corporation, the SABC, a govern- mixed and/or produced a variety of artists, from my ment-run, very tightly controlled and manipulated radio own band’s record, Miles station. That’s where I High, to Jonathan Butler learned - and Olivia Newton-John. “I can’t make a Britney Spears album. I ing and it wasn’t long His main recording would much prefer to do ” before I had my own tools are a Neve 8068 studio there, compiling console, a Studer all the music A800 tape programs. machine, Urei I left there 1176 compres- after 13 months sors and now and went travel- ProTools. The ling around Caveman (what Europe for he calls himself) a while, and doesn’t believe in when I headed a lot of the hype back to South that goes into Africa I got a recording – that job at a studio you have to use called Spaced this particular Out Sounds. ribbon mic or After about five that old tube records there, compressor to I moved to get a great sound. Australia where They're fascinating these knobs... Kevin 'The Caveman' Shirley at home behind the console. His focus is not my parents had

36 already settled. all that time? MR: So apart from the KS: First and foremost, radio station you had I don’t care about no formal training? the market. I don’t KS: That’s right. I care what people produced my first are listening to now records early on because tastes are without any training. so fickle. I mean, I In South Africa, I can’t make a Britney learned on-the-go, by Spears album. I would listening to records. much prefer to do The When I moved to Datsuns than Britney Australia in 1986, it Spears any day. So I was very tough to get don’t get burned out work. But I finally got on what’s hip and a job at a 16-track happening. I don’t studio in Newcastle listen to the sonics called Rock City, making “I don’t care about the market. I don’t of records that are records for minuscule money happening now. for bands like Vegemite care what people are listening to.” MR: So what do you , the early stages of listen to? , DV8, KS: I listen to jazz; I Tony Johns and a couple of other things. Then I started listen to classics. Every now and then something comes doing some records for an independent label in out that I really like. I really liked the Norah Jones called Timber Yard. We did a lot of punk bands: The record that came out recently. It was really fresh. It’s , the , lots of independent indie got a sexy take, which makes it a little bit different – it’s acts. Then I hooked up with a young band called the not hard edged. Baby Animals and did live sound for them. MR: You listen to jazz, but you’re considered a hard Around that time The Angels had a single coming rock producer. How does that work? out from a new album, and on the B-side they wanted KS: Yeah, I’m a hard rock producer, but it’s a job. I to have a couple of bonus tracks from unsigned Aussie understand rock really well. It’s like being a house bands. I suppose they were doing their bit for Aussie painter; a painter doesn’t have to like all the houses music, so I went into the studio and recorded the Baby he paints, but he can still make them look good. A Animals’ B-side single called Break My Heart. Soon mechanic who’s wonderful at repairing Ferraris doesn’t after that they got signed to Terry Ellis’s (Chrysalis have to drive a Ferrari. He might prefer a Volvo. The Records’ founder) new label, Imago Records, in The point is you don’t have to be married identically to the States. They sent all their demos to the producer Mike job. Music is music – whether it’s jazz or rock. If it’s Chapman (Blondie) who liked the sound enough to hard rock, it’s a matter of capturing a different energy, keep me on the project! So I came to The States to which I’m able to do. And it’s that energy that’s the dif- do the Baby Animals. That was 1989. For the next ference between country and rock, because sometimes few years I travelled back and forth to record various the instrumentation can be identical. I mean, a band bands. I did a Bon Jovi single. I did a track. I like is called a heavy-metal band, but to did a Rush album in '92. I did your record, Miles High. me they’re just a pretty melodic band that likes distor- And then when poverty set in deeply enough, I moved tion, really. back to Australia where I could have my house on the beach and go surfing every day and have my son in Gear Envy school and have a whole lot less money than I needed MR: As an engineer/producer, I’ve never known you to survive in NY. And then Silverchair! to go on and on about how you need this piece of MR: And that marked the next stage of your career. gear or that. Do you get caught up in that side of the KS: Silverchair sold bucketloads in the United States. process? And that’s the way it goes because The States is about KS: There’s equipment that I like to use that I’ve sales. John Kalodner, the ultimate A&R guy, thought I gotten comfortable using. But I try to capture the was perfect for doing Journey and Aerosmith, and I did performance, capture the song. It’s not about gimmicks a couple of punk bands like , and fads. I still like the sound and the music first and and , who I really enjoyed working foremost. with. Since then it’s been a plethora of acts, culminating MR: Do you have specific miking techniques that in Led Zeppelin – my all-time favourite band. you use or special outboard gear that you can’t work MR: How did you keep your ears tuned to the market without?

37 KS: No I don’t. I think, in many respects, engineering is KS: I just find what’s driving it – the essence of the an overrated gig. I think the basic concept of engineer- song. An example is the Divinyls track I’m Jealous, ing is that you capture the source sound, and that’s where Chrissie Amphlett’s voice was mixed really dry usually as simple as putting a microphone in front of to complement the delivery of her venomous, sad and the thing you want to record. There are some people bitter story. The vocal is so in-your-face that you can that know how to process the sound after the event and feel her pain, and that became the focal point. make it larger than life, but actual engineering itself is a There’s a song on the new Zeppelin album called very basic skill. In the Evening, where Jimmy [Page] plays this whacky MR: What about recording formats? Do you ever whammy bar thing, and the best way to mix that song track straight to digital for example? was to make the keyboards drive it instead. And the KS: Yeah, why not? I don’t track rock ‘n’ roll digitally keyboard was a very reedy sound. We had to work hard 'cause I like to go to tape. But then I always transfer on that mix. You’ll find the guitar is almost incidental into ProTools as soon as I can; I especially like the in that song; it’s different from the studio version. So new HD rigs, they sound fantastic. Transferring into sometimes mixing choices aren’t about an ideal, but Tools means you get less sonic degradation from the what will simply make the song work. analogue tape passing over the heads repeatedly, which MR: Is that what makes your mixes sound different? can vary depending on whether or not you get a good KS: I think I have a knack for making very loud and batch of tape. aggressive records; very present, very stripped down MR: As a producer, how much of your focus is song, and to-the-point records – they’re the kind I like to how much is per- listen to. When I formance and how say stripped down, much is the sound? I don’t mean one KS: The song is guitar; I mean always the most uncomplicated. important thing. I love AC/DC, The performance especially the Mutt is the second most Lange records important thing, – Highway to Hell, and the sound is Back in Black – for actually the least that reason. important. That MR: Having done said, I love to mix a lot of records, everything from many of them Olivia Newton- loud rock , John to Slayer – how do you keep who I just finished. yourself fresh? I love the sound of KS: Well, I try things. I love the At the helm of the SSL during production of Iron Maiden's Dance of Death album in 2003. and not burn effect of the mix myself out. A lot of and creating moods. I love listening to engineers and producers work long hours and for very or Roxy Music because Bob Clearmountain mixed the extended periods. I make sure I retain some semblance hell out of Avalon! It’s such a good sounding record. of a life. I only work eight hours a day in the studio. I Steely Dan’s Gaucho, those are records that sound great work hard those eight hours and then I’m out of there. to me. I also take my weekends off. It’s a job, you know? MR: So how do you approach a mix? When you forget that, and work long hours, eventually KS: It’s always different. It just has to feel right. you just wear yourself out. I’ve been doing this for 24 Sometimes I have to bring the vocal up first and get years, and there’s just no point in doing 18-hour days a nice vocal sound, and build the instruments around – you can’t expect to have a life and do that. Nor can it. Sometimes I start off with the drums and get them your ears be expected to endure those sorts of hours. going, but it’s always pretty quick. It usually only takes Occasionally when I’m really psyched about a project, about a half hour to get the basic feel of the song. And or there’s a deadline, I’ll work longer hours. The new then it’s just about tweaking that basic template. I see Page/Plant DVD, the remix Unleaded DVD, was a guys spending hours on a kick drum and then de-essing case in point, because they had a limited budget, and I and all that. I don’t do that. The mixing comes pretty really wanted it to be spectacular. So I had to put in a easily for me. lot of extra time to bring it up to scratch to do all the MR: Do you have what I’d call ‘the glue of a mix’ – surround sound mixes and new stereo mixes. that certain something that makes each song different MR: What was that like, mixing the Led Zeppelin live – in the first half an hour? performance DVD?

38 KS: It was totally brilliant. Working alongside , who is one of the genius producers of all time, was a real thrill. And it’s fascinating to watch the great producers at work. They’re not always hands on. Great producers want the best out of everybody, and sometimes they achieve that by simply picking the right person. Apparently, when Chris Thomas produced the Kick album for INXS, there were a couple of tracks that were copied straight from Andrew Farriss’ four-track cassettes. Chris Thomas thought it captured the right vibe and printed it onto the digital multitrack, and a lot of people said, “well, is that producing?” – if you take what somebody else has done and don’t enhance it yourself? And I think so. When you’re responsible for seeing a song reach its potential, or created something special and you stop there, that’s just as important as production – as reconstructing choruses and adjusting vocal keys and whatever. Perfection is knowing when to compromise! MR: On the Led Zeppelin DVD, what elements did you have to work with? KS: Different formats, everything from eight-track to 24-track formats. The concert was an eight-track recording. Track one was the kick drum, two and three were the drum kit – which required a huge amount of work. Track four was the bass guitar. Track five “Perfection is knowing when was the electric to compromise!” guitar, track six the vocal, and track seven was the audience. Eight was some kind of sine wave; but it wasn’t time code! MR: So could you just throw the faders up? KS: No, there was a lot of work to do on the tapes including the occasional repair here and there. The performances have been enhanced a little but not to the point where they misrepresent the band. In the end it’s an entertainment package so there was some stuff that got cleaned up. For instance, on the end of the solo of Stairway to Heaven, if you watch the performance from Earl’s Court 1975 on the DVD, you’ll notice that halfway through the guitar solo, the high E-string on Jimmy’s guitar breaks. So when it comes to do the fanfare, which leads into the final verse, he doesn’t have the high string. So he plays it down the octave. There are purists who say it should have been left down the octave, but we felt it was important to have the octave-up fanfare riff. So we took just that isolated part from another performance. That decision was based on anticipating what the listening public expects from the band, what’s expected of the product, and what’s enjoyable to the ear. I expect to hear that lead break in the right octave. We all know the song so well; it’s the most played song in radio history. Why let a broken string dampen an otherwise stunning performance when it’s just as easy to repair it? MR: When you mix alone these days, do you get a lot of records that you have to tidy up? KS: The production is part of what makes a record presentable. As a mixer who gets lots to mix, I’ve noticed that when people don’t know what to do, they tend to just throw everything on. I mix lots of records where guys have gone to the wall with overdubs. Every guy in the band has a ProTools system at home and has performed 24-tracks of overdubs. So when you get that to mix, there’s nothing to hold onto. So part of mixing these days is effectively producing, because you have to develop the song, up to and including overdubbing and editing. It’s virtually never the case these days that all of a song’s recorded tracks end up in the mix. MR: You can’t do those mixes in half an hour. KS: No, you can’t do them in half an hour. That’s only when something’s ready to go. I did a Keith Urban track the other day – the Australian country artist. He wants to have more mainstream appeal, so he asked me to do a rock mix of one of his songs. It was a well-crafted and well-produced song. But it’s all mandolins, accordion, acoustic guitar, fiddle, one big Telecaster and some run-of-the-mill country instruments. I made it sound a lot more aggressive and tougher, which was difficult considering the instrumentation, but then the vocal didn’t fit in. It was too soft for the mix, so we had to re-cut the vocal – record it, comp it, add it into the new production, and then finish the new mix. MR: Do you mix to half- inch tape anymore? KS: I do sometimes, but it gets very expensive. Budgets are restrictive now. I always do umpteen mixes per song, but on tape you only get three versions per song at 15-ips and a couple of alternatives with louder vocal or louder guitar. ProTools makes it much easier – it’s going into a digital format anyway. I usually go through analogue gear in the mastering process, but things have gotten a lot more complicated of late. I do a lot of albums where we do stereo and 5.1 surround mixes as well. In that situation, I usually steer clear of tape. MR: Is that where a lot of your work is these days? KS: Most of it is there. This year, I have Slayer’s Reign of Fire coming out; I have Page Plant’s Unleaded coming out; ’s Live in Budokhan, I have Aerosmith and in London coming out. These are all DVD formats, all live shows. And then I have the new Darkness single, Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Motherf**ker – they’re a huge English band. MR: What’s the difference now in terms of the industry, in light of new develop- ments like downloadable MP3s etc? KS: I think the industry has failed to follow trends and keep up with the demands of listeners and keep enchanting people with music. They’re arrogant, with a misplaced sense of omnipotence and a feeling of self-importance. They haven’t furthered the cause of record-making at all, and technology’s moved forward with frightening speed. And yet the basic album format is the same as it was 40 years ago. What are record companies offering us that’s any different? They’ve got digital as opposed to vinyl, but the jury’s still out as to whether that sounds better. So what are they offering us? Kids are downloading MP3s because they’re savvy and the technology is there. In an attempt to curb their losses and maintain their big fat pay cheques, the industry has targeted the music as the first thing that needed to be cut budget-wise – not marketing, not promotion, not packaging… the music. They’re still trying to sell a CD for 20 bucks in the US, and they’re still arrogant enough to have breakage clauses and promo clauses in contracts. MR: How have these technological and industry develop- ments affected you in the studio? KS: Technology has affected me because we need to make records more efficiently and more cheaply. And in a way it’s played into the hands of people who like to mix, like myself, because we get handed so many badly recorded albums. I don’t think there’s as much care taken in the music these days. Even from the bands and the managers; it’s all about product and deadline. It’s terrible. Anybody can make a record now – technically speaking. The record companies expect everybody to do that. Their approach these days, if you can call it an approach, is to flood the market and see what sticks. The truth is the record companies don’t know what’s going to sell anymore. They’re bean counters. They’re not artists. They have no idea what audiences are listening to. They think if they hang out in bars in mid-Manhattan they can get a sense of what people want.

Production MR: There was a time when engineers and producers were two different animals. Has that separation disap- peared? KS: It gets back to budget. Great records are made by great producers – producers who know how to bring out the best in songs, who bring out the best in artists, who bring out the best in engineers. Good producers get paid a lot of money because they bring unique expertise to the position. They demand a lot of money, and they can make the label a lot of money. But when the labels are trying to discover new talent and they don’t know what’s going to sell because they don’t have the talent to discern the public’s taste, they drop the budgets. And consequently engineers who can record are given the job of producing, and it’s become an anomaly to have individual producers. MR: What would your advice be to young engineer/ producers just starting out? KS: Get a job. The music industry sucks! [riotous laughter]. MR: But seriously folks… KS: Understand that it’s a job and if you’re going to make your passion and hobby your job, you have to expect disappointment. Make it your job. If you love music, then don’t let the music get to you. You can let the industry get to you but don’t let the music get to you. I love to listen to Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell. I love to listen to Led Zeppelin – which is one place where the two cross over. But generally speaking, when I’m at work, doing the job I do, I’m not involved in the music. I’m involved in the work. If you want to raise a family, then you have to have a job. And if that’s something you love, that’s a pretty good way to make a living.