MAY 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM PRODUCER How do you see your role? Was there a learning curve? Projects never end for me. I started off in I recorded Less Than Jake [Hello Rockview, this business trying to be a different type of 1998] with Pro Tools, but I had to convince producer than many of my predecessors. them to let me use it. Also, Digidesign I wanted to stay involved, so when the had sent me a floppy disc with some new recording process was over, I’d still do all program called Auto-Tune. I knew about sorts of remixes and edits. I work on both Fourier transforms from physics classes, so sides of the fence a lot. I’ll produce and I knew it had something to do with pitch. help with songwriting and arranging, but When I put the band’s vocals through it, then also be very involved in the business and it changed the sound from a rough end—lobbying the record company, calling out-of-tune singer to a rough in-tune singer, the A&R guys, complaining to people that it was like seeing the future. I overused the album isn’t doing well enough. (laughs) Auto-Tune on that album, though—I tuned I’m very involved, and I think bands like that. Kelly Clarkson everything, including the horns. I got carried It’s just the way I’m built. I want projects away with it, but it still sold well. I also had to succeed, and a lot of times my extra How did you find Pro Tools? to convince P.O.D. to let me produce them effort has really helped. I went down to São Paulo, Brazil, to work using Pro Tools, but it worked. The computer with Sepultura [on 1998’s Against] and ran leveled the playing field for bands like them, For example? into a computer running this thing called Pro who were great live but hadn’t been able With Hoobastank, I was listening to the Tools. Nobody had used it much in the rock to pull off records. finished album [The Reason, 2003] in the world. Given my background, I was familiar Philadelphia airport and thought, “We don’t working with computers and had been using What do you look for in an act? a two-track editing program called Turtle Star power. If an artist has star power and is Beach—but Pro Tools was different. Seeing it willing to co-write songs, then I’m pretty much was a moment of clarity. I knew that’s where in. When I don’t see that compelling element the future was. I had sold some records, in an artist or an artist’s message, that spark but was still pretty much starving at the you need to be an entertainment star, it can time. I used the last penny I had in the bank be hard. You can fix everything else, but to buy a Pro Tools rig. you can’t fix that. My Chemical Romance apitol Studios C had messy songs and messy writing, and What was the reaction? they didn’t understand arrangements. But I A lot of people wouldn’t hire me because knew that [singer] Gerard Way was going of Pro Tools. They insisted on tape—no to be a star, and I knew that he could take computers. They thought it would make instruction about how to put songs together. P.O.D. music sterile, and some people did mess Chris Daughtry is another great example. up and edit things to death. But great artists When he walks in, he fills up the room. That’s HOWARD BENSON have the record.” We had a couple of big have made tons of computer-generated the kind of thing you look for. From aircraft to songcraft and from aerospace to star power singles, but we didn’t have the taking-off records that still sound emotional. I’m point. I went back into the studio with them, certain if Mozart had had access to Pro Did you always look for that? By Michael Gallant recorded a couple of songs and we came Tools, he would have loved it and created In my early days as a producer, I produced up with “Out of Control.” Suddenly we had amazing music with it. a band called the Ernies. Their songs were FOR MULTIPLATINUM, GRAMMY-NOMINATED PRODUCER industry. He began moonlighting as a producer at Hollywood’s a single. It went up the charts and the rest Howard Benson, the crucial skill that led to success in the music Sunset Sound studios, which eventually became his full-time gig. is history. It was worth taking the extra time business was … aerospace engineering? “Music has a math He built a production career throughout the late 1980s and ’90s, and going back to the well on that one. component to me,” Benson explains. “It’s complicated and fun, becoming one of Pro Tools’ earliest major adopters along the way. Daughtry’s current single “Outta My Head” and I’m blessed to do it every day. Plus the same organizational Benson’s major commercial breakthrough came with P.O.D.’s triple- is another good example. I wasn’t happy with skills apply. Just instead of making turbines and airplane platinum 2001 album Satellite. Since then he has worked with how it turned out on the record. That version wings, I’m making records.” Santana, Kelly Clarkson, Bon Jovi, My Chemical Romance, Gavin was rock, and we wanted it to be more pop, Mind you, his musical foundation came first. Growing up in DeGraw and Daughtry, among many others. He’s recently been busy so I went in and re-produced it. I changed Philadelphia, he learned the technical side of music from his music- in the studio with acts including Flyleaf, Daniel Powter, Halestorm, the guitars, added some keyboard elements, teacher mother while digging deeply into his father’s wildly diverse BOY, We as Human, and Skillet. “My engineering background some loops and some dubstep, and put out record collection. Before long he was making music himself. “Disco taught me how to keep things straight with mental and physical a song that was a bit more pop. I also used or pop, I didn’t care what style I was playing,” he recalls. “As long as it lists,” he says. “I also surround myself with very talented people. a different mixing engineer. Even while we was music, I was into it. But when I was in bands that were recording, My job is to stay creative and ahead of the curve. Their job is to were working on that album [Break the Spell, I always wanted to be the producer. I wanted to be in charge.” make sure I don’t screw anything up.” Benson discussed with us 2011] the market had changed, so I drove He earned a degree in materials engineering from Philly’s Drexel the secrets to finding the right sound in the studio—and making sure the process to keep his sound current. I was University and moved to California to take a job in the aerospace that sound reaches its audience once it’s released into the world. prepared for nobody to like it, but I played it for [frontman] Chris Daughtry and he loved it. I don’t think many other producers would ‘It’s about great songwriting and star power. Who have gone that far on their own. cares about the other stuff?’ P.O.D. Jeff Fasano, Clarkson; Leann Mueller, Howard Benson; Harper Smith, Kelly Daughtry 48 49 M mag 19_cs5.indd 48 5/17/12 7:32 PM M mag 19_cs5.indd 49 5/17/12 7:32 PM MAY 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM PRODUCER My Chemical Romance ‘Seeing Pro Tools was a moment Chuando & Frey of clarity. I knew that’s where the Hoobastank future was.’ about physics, molecules and stardust. As a lightbulb moment for me. I remember it’s big. We sell a lot of albums to women an engineer by training, I loved it—but it being intimidated by those guys but I knew because there are so many male bands out turned out to be the worst-selling record I I had to produce them. The only thing they there. You have to think to yourself, is the girl My Chemical Romance; PRNeil Krug, Brown, Hoobastank ever did. I don’t even know if it sold a single needed help with was their songs. They were in the audience going to want this singer in copy. I thought the record [Meson Ray, rapping certain parts, and I got [vocalist] her life? Does she want to meet him? Is he 1999] was awesome, so how could I have Sonny Sandoval to start singing them speaking to her? Does she want to take care been so wrong? My biggest problem when I instead. I’d sold maybe 100,000 records of him? Rock music has always had a lineage was starting was that I was looking for bands total before that point, but Satellite was of sexuality at its core. A lot of records I was that weren’t stars and trying to turn them into selling 100,000 copies per week. That’s what doing before P.O.D. just didn’t have that. stars. I realized that the only way to do things it’s about—great songwriting, great vocals You also have female superstars like Adele, right was to start with great songs and star and star power.