Interview with Bob Rock - By Bud Scoppa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Rock -- it sounds like a brand name, and that is precisely what it has come to be. At any time during this decade, if you wanted your rock band to sound big and powerful, and you had a big enough recording budget, you hired Bob Rock, flew up to Vancouver, and figured to spend several months holed up with Rock in his studio of choice, Little Mountain. Among the bands that have received the Bob Rock Treatment are Metallica (the self-titled Black Album and Load), the Cult (Sonic Temple, The Cult), Motley Crue (Dr. Feelgood, three tracks on Decade of Decadence: Greatest Hits, Motley Crue) and Bon Jovi (Keep the Faith), for starters. Rock has been producing records for nine years. Prior to that, he fronted the Payola$, a Vancouver-based punk band who recorded four albums and had a hit with "Eyes of a Stranger" before morphing into Rock & Hyde and cutting one more album. At the same time, Rock also functioned, and more lucratively at that, as a recording engineer, working alongside producer Bruce Fairbairn on a string of big albums, including a pair from Loverboy (remember the goofy guy with the headband?), Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet and Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation. Those successes inevitably led to record production, beginning, quite successfully, with the self-titled 1988 debut from German Led Zep sound-alike Kingdom Come. While he was becoming wealthy, Rock was also doing his part to build a family. As his family grew, so did his desire to bring up his children in the safest and most appealing environment possible. So it was that three years ago, Bob, his wife and their seven kids moved to a hillside spread in Haiku, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. In 1996, while putting together his state-of-the-art home studio, Rock produced the first of what he hopes will be many albums in his new location, Veruca Salt's Eight Arms to Hold You. It was an uncharacteristic experience for both parties: Rock producing a pop band, and Veruca Salt getting a tan. IT'S LIKE A DREAM... ADDICTED TO NOISE: Living and working in Maui sounds rather appealing, I must say. BOB ROCK: From my recording studio, I look down on this huge surf break. The studio is just being finished up now, and today is my first day doing the new Metallica album. We're doing the first three months here. Most of the tracks are already cut. We cut them when we tracked the last album in San Francisco. We actually cut a double album at the Record Plant. A lot of music was cut -- another 12, 13 songs that are going on this new album that'll be out before Christmas. ATN: Did you and the band try to figure out which batch went together best as opposed to putting out the strongest ones first? ROCK: The strongest ones definitely weren't put out first. There were some pretty strong songs on Load. It was really what the band wanted to put out first; it was a matter of choice. We were going to do the whole thing, but we discovered it was just too much work for the band to cut, overdub and finish properly. So we were either going to spend another year-and-a-half in the studio or these guys were going to get on the road and play. They just took the songs that they wanted to release and put it out. The good thing is that a lot of the work is done. Oddly enough, some of the songs that they picked were the songs that we hadn't even worked on, so some of the songs that are going on this album are just about done. We're going to have it all done in about four months. ATN: You haven't done a large quantity of albums over the eight or nine years that you've actually been a full-time producer. I suspect that some of these projects have taken a long time to finish. ROCK: If you look at my whole career, I've done a lot of work. But as a producer, I've done two Metallica albums, both took a year. I've done two Motley albums, one of which took a year, the other six months. The Bon Jovi album took six months. They just happen to be albums that take a long time. On the Bon Jovi album, they'd never worked six months on an album before, but then again, they'd never cut 32 songs for an album. Thank God they're not going that way anymore. The Veruca album I did in four months. That's kinda where I'm at. With the bands that I've worked with, and just the way I approach the whole thing, it's definitely a lot more band-oriented rather than me coming in and dictating what to do. I'm pretty much committed to anybody that I'm doing an album with to do whatever I have to do to make that album work, whether it takes a year, two years or two months. GOOD SONGS ARE NOT ALL SLICK ATN: Are you a guitar player? ROCK: Yes, I am. ATN: I imagine your experience as a musician factors into the role you play as a producer. ROCK: Yeah, I guess so. I guess you kinda bring everything to the table as a producer. I guess there's other guys, like Bruce Fairbairn, who's not a player. He plays trumpet -- that's why there are always horns on his albums. He doesn't bring that kind of songwriter thing to an album. I've been a songwriter and guitar player for so long. I don't think it really factors into anything to do with the songs on the songwriting level, but I think I bring a perspective in that maybe some guys don't have. It can be good and bad. ATN: Why? Do you sometimes have an insight that you feel uncomfortable about sharing? ROCK: That kind of thing. When I was an assistant engineer, I had an experience with a producer. Oddly enough, Bryan Adams was in the band -- a band called Sweeney Todd -- quite a popular band in Canada. Brian was very, very young, and this English producer treated everybody like shit and made everybody uncomfortable. He made it more about him than the band. I'm always so conscious of that, to make sure that my influence is not too much. Sometimes being a guitar player and songwriter, I have certain tastes. I really watch that I don't put too much of my influence on it musically. ATN: I would think that people who want to work with you would value the collaborative aspects of your helping to come up with optimum arrangements for songs. Does that happen? ROCK: Yeah. Like I say, I think I bring a lot of things to the table. If a band gets stuck on something, maybe I can offer some insight. With most of the stuff that I do, I think the main rule that I set is really, "Hey, let's be open about this; let's check the egos." If I suggest something, if it doesn't work, then fine. It's not just an engineering thing. The more I produce, the more I dislike the engineering aspect of it all -- the sonic thing. Even to the point, like Veruca Salt for instance, I'm constantly amazed at some of the reviews that say I "slicked them up." I think it's hilarious, because I recorded it in a house -- compared to what I usually do, it's like a hack job. It sounds great; I'm really happy with it. But it's far from slick. I guess most people perceive good sounds as slick. ATN: Not only that, but I think there are certain perceptual presumptions that people make simply by virtue of seeing a certain production credit or having certain expectations for a band. I think one o= f the things that's valuable from the standpoint of your own career, in term= s of this Veruca Salt album, is that it flies in the face of typecasting. You'v= e been associated primarily with hard rock bands, and in a way, there is tha= t element playing on the Veruca Salt album as well. But certainly to focus o= n that would be to miss a great deal of subtlety, in terms of the poppy, hoo= ky, song-oriented element that really predominates the album, I think. ROCK: I would agree with you. I think if anybody really just looks hard at what they perceive and they use that as the judgment=C9 Those are the silly kind of reviews and outlook on the album. Unless they listen to it, they won't get actually that there is some really great stuff on it. I really enjoyed it. That's a lot more what I really enjoy; not that I don't enjoy recording Metallica. It's a different challenge. I guess I'm known a= s a hard-rock producer because my successes are hard rock. When you have a car= eer, you go with what is put in front of you. Over the past 10 years, it's been mainly hard rock. The wonderful thing about Veruca Salt album is that now = some different people are interested in working with me, which really makes me happy. It brings me back to where my roots are. As a musician, the band I = was in Canada, I recorded most of the punk, power- pop bands of the early '80s= , late '70s in Vancouver. That's how I got my start. I was in one band like that. Generally, to feed my kids and make a living, I always had to engine= er. Out of engineering, the hard rock came out. It kind of stuck. ATN: So you were engineering at the same time you were in Payola$. ROCK: I had to. I've always been this kind of guy that's always had a couple things going. I think musicians generally always have to have two o= r three things going in their lives just to try to make things work. That's = what I did and I guess over the years, basically, what I got better and better = at was helping people to make records, which brought me to where I am now. AT ODDS ATN: It isn't generally considered, but in my mind Vancouver has been a kind of musical hotbed for a long time. It continues to produce more than its share of really interesting, and quite often, offbeat artists. I used to do A&R for Zoo, and worked on the first two albums with - ROCK: -- the Odds. ATN: Right. And they're an extraordinarily talented band. ROCK: Really talented. ATN: But from spending time up there with them, I realized that there's a different standard for players in bands in Canada than there is in the States. The Odds and other Canadian bands I've seen wouldn't walk on stage if they didn't have their shit together. It seems that in Canada that's quite often the case -- the quality of performances is generally at higher standard. Do you find that? ROCK: Yeah, in Vancouver especially. Unfortunately, none of the bands that were really exceptionally talented when the Payola$ were around went on to do anything. A lot of that scene was the same scene that spawned some of the Seattle-based bands. All of the bands came up to Vancouver to play the same clubs - the whole West Coast thing. We didn't do it a lot, but the K-Tels, the Pointed Sticks, the Dills, they all toured around. It was a great scene back then, but nothing happened until it finally did explode with the Seattle thing. It's definitely a great town for music. ATN: It seems like a great town to live in too. Are you from Vancouver? ROCK: Originally from Winnipeg, but moved out to the West Coast a long time ago. I lived in Vancouver to 20 years. I love Vancouver. ATN: I do too. Splitting your time between Vancouver and Maui sounds like an ideal combo. Is your new studio actually in your house? ROCK: My wife and I built this house three years ago. Basically, I said if I'm going to build a house here, I'm going to build a studio. It's detached from the house; it's a mix room, mainly. I've got a 72-input SSL that's coming in the summer. It's styled after my favorite mix rooms, which are Little Mountain and the mix room at A&M [in Los Angeles]. I just wanted a facility where I didn't have to travel all the time. I wanted to be close to the house and my kids. And owning your own studio takes the edge off studio budgets -- I'll be able to do whatever I want. If I want to spend an extra month to get it right, I can do that, whether the money's there or not. ATN: You're not putting up the bands, are you? ROCK: You see, the great thing about where I am in Haiku is that, because it such a windsurfing/surfing mecca here, there are tons of places to stay -- really reasonable, great houses. The bands can stay really cheap here and it's kind of a cool lifestyle on this side. It's not the Hawaiian thing, not the traditional, like luaus. It's kind of a normal neighborhood and a beautiful place. I also converted my garage to a cutting and tracking room. ATN: You didn't have your studio together when you did Veruca Salt, right? ROCK: Well, no, I didn't. I got this Mackie console -- the same as Bryan Adams has; he cut his last album (done) in Jamaica and France on it. It's basically a 56- input Mackie console. It's put in a road case; it slips up; it's got a patch like an SSL; it's all wired and DL-connected to a 48-track and a 24. So when he got his made by the guys from Little Mountain, I said, "Make me one too." So they did. I have a 40-input console that came from Little Mountain, a Neve console. I have all the modules mounted in boxes and I've got some bussing modules too. So, basically, I have a 40-input vintage Neve console in boxes. So what I did is I recorded with all the Neve stuff and monitored on the Mackie, which is how Bryan works too. We rented a house here in Haiku; the girls stayed in it; and we set up in the living room and did it. It was amazing. FROM TOURIST POPSTERS TO TANNED ROCKERS ATN: I guess having a non-studio atmosphere and not being on the clock is going to have a certain positive affect on the state of mind of the musicians. ROCK: Absolutely. In the grand scheme of things, there was kind of a clock -- a time limit when the band wanted to be done. Nina even told me that she thought it would be three weeks and they'd be gone -- they wouldn't be able to stand it here. They didn't want to leave. They saw the side of Hawaii that I already know exists. They came off the plane and you needed sunglasses to look at them, they were so white. It was pretty funny. A month and a half later, they were all surfing. They'd surf in the morning and record in the afternoon. The house they were staying in was amazing. It was a pretty cool experience. They were really happy. It was a great thing for me too. I brought all my equipment over here. I've been collecting amplifiers, keyboards and guitars since the Payola$ days. I've got a warehouse here full of pretty much every vintage keyboard around, and guitars. So, during the Veruca album, every day I'd just get the guys to go pick up the Mellotron, etc. They'd just plunk around on these instruments and that would inspire them to put some stuff on the record. It was a great thing. ATN: You said it was a four-month project from beginning to end. Did they spend the whole time in Maui? ROCK: We spend three months here; then we went to Chicago for a month and did a few mixes at the A&M mix room. ATN: Did they have the songs written when they got there? ROCK: Yes, they did. ATN: How did the time break down on the process? ROCK: The first two-and-a-half weeks was just them playing the songs. They'd done demos, and you don't play the songs once you demo them. They just played through the songs; I got them to try different things. Some things worked; some things didn't. It was a breaking-in period. Much like most bands, to have somebody come in and make suggestions on their songs always seems so threatening in the beginning. In the end, as soon as they saw that not everything worked, and I was fine with that, they were cool. Then we cut drums and bass for three weeks; then we started putting things together. After we had everything tracked, we cut a few songs; we started overdubbing and singing. Actually, when we got finished with all the drums, it was really clear what kind of album it was, which is the album that your hear -- a really high-energy power- pop album. There was a lot of stuff left over. ATN: How many tracks did you cut? ROCK: We must have cut 23 or 24. Bands do that now. I think every band I've worked with in the last five years has done that. ATN: So a lot of the time you spend on projects has to do with the quantity of material that you process. ROCK: Well, yeah. I think everybody's forgetting about that. During the '80s it was a lot different. The album that comes to mind where everything was done before we cut it was Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. These guys had it rehearsed, all the songs were written, it was just recording. The whole album took six weeks. They were great players, it was all decided, everything was there, there was nothing left in the studio. That was pretty much that. Now they want everything from their strongest material to making a great album. They write more songs, especially with Veruca Salt, considering there are two writers. I think any writer will accumulate a good 12 songs over a couple of years. We had to be fair and cut everything. It seems to be that way with most bands. With The Black Album, though, Metallica only had whatever songs we cut. They wrote 11 songs and they cut 11 songs. That doesn't happen very often anymore. ATN: When you did the basic tracking on the Veruca Salt album, you mentioned recording bass and drums. Do you just record those two instruments or are the other instrument playing scratch parts as well? ROCK: They all played together. I think what I look for more than anything, unless it works out -- like with Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, it worked -- it's just to inspire a great rhythm track, the bass and the drums, to get a great feel. With Metallica, The Black Album was the first time they ever cut together in the studio. With the Load album, they got more used to it. The first single, "Until It Sleeps," came out of a jam, which is something they never do. They were just fooling around in the studio, came up with this riff and it developed into the song. With Veruca, it was trying to get a great-feeling track. We tried all the songs at different tempos, found that magical tempo, and got that great track where everybody felt good. ATN: You mean you were experimenting with tempos during the tracking? ROCK: Yeah, and in rehearsal. Every song seems to have a tempo initially that works good. Some songs have a tempo that's pretty consistent through the whole song, some don't. There always seems to be a point where a song feels good. You can do that during pre-production, but once you get great sounds and everybody starts playing, sometimes that can change. ATN: In terms of my own expectations, I was surprised by the harmony vocals, which there are a lot of on this record. "The Morning Sad" sounds like The Bangles or something. ROCK: If you listen to the first album, there are harmonies too. ATN: They just didn't seem as adept. ROCK: I think that just happens. But really it certainly wasn't me egging them on. I had to hold them back sometimes. That's part of what they're about. You know, we added some things here and there, though. "Morning Sad" in particular is pretty cool. They wanted to make that kind of record. They didn't want to follow in the kind of alternative, low-fi thing that was going on. They wanted to be different, for the album to have some power. They don't mind going for it. I know there was a brutal review in Rolling Stone. To me, it just sounded like the guy just couldn't accept that two girls were actually being this forward with what they wanted to do. They're not ashamed to do that. They're kind of stepping into what is considered man's territory -- being that forward -- except for bands like the Bangles; but I think Veruca rocks a little harder than that. ATN: Oh, yeah. I was just talking about the vocal blend and how crisp it sounds. But how did you come to produce this album? Was it the band's idea, the record company's or your own? ROCK: I think they were on tour with Live. The engineer used to set up the PA with The Black Album and there was talk around about producers and they all said, "That's the guy that we want -- Bob Rock." Because they're the same management as Metallica, Peter [Mensch] had talked to me. To be quite honest, the last thing I wanted to do was another rock band. Once you do Metallica, where do you go? They are the band -- I don't want to say something that'll get me into trouble. So at that point, I was definitely more open to doing something that was different. The girls sent me their demos, and when I heard the songs, I kinda went, "Yeah, this is cool." It actually reminded me of one of my favorite bands that I ever worked with, the Cult. I really liked working with them. From there we got together and talked. I said that I'd just finished Metallica. "If we do it, this is where we've got to do it. I'd like to work with you and I think we can have a lot of fun." I guess they fell for it I met them in San Francisco. They'd flown out to meet me -- that was pretty important to them. Right from the initial meeting, I said, "Let's do something different -- let's do it in a house." ATN: When you listen to the record, I think what you hear more than anything else is a surprising level of delight. It just strikes me as a really life-affirming album. And coming from a bunch of white-skinned kids from Chicago who are steeped in melancholy, it's quite surprising. Perhaps the album is more than an indirect result of the environment in which it was put together. ROCK: I think too much can be read into it in terms of Maui and how beautiful it is. It's not without its faults. Here there just weren't the phone calls every day that they would get in Chicago -- all the stuff going on in their lives. They were like six hours away from that. So all they had to do was play their music, which is always the best environment. Maui offered enough stuff to keep them occupied. Had it gone on for a year, I'm sure they would've definitely wanted to get out of here, but because it was just three months, it was perfect. STOKED ON METALLICA ATN: So your next four month are booked with Metallica. ROCK: Yep. Then, who knows? There are a few things on the horizon. It's kind of tough to know what to do. ATN: Maybe not a rock band again? ROCK: Don't get me wrong about the rock thing. It's just that not only was I perceived as just this rock guy, I started feeling like this rock guy, too. The time that I've had off since the Veruca album is probably the best thing I've ever done in my whole life -- a great opportunity to just not buy records and listen to them four times and then go on. It was great to buy CDs and records and become a fan of music again; to listen to radio and just kind of hang and play guitar. I feel like I really want to do it again. It gets to be a bit of a job; so I took the time off and now I'm really stoked on Metallica and getting out there and making some great records again. ATN: Is there any band or record that you discovered over the last few months that really got you off as a fan? ROCK: One thing that's getting me off right now is the Wilco album [Being There]. I bought it when it first came out. Literally, it was like eight years of constant work. We're not talking about long holidays here; between some of these albums I had one day off. I got into this mode where I'd go to the CD store, buy all the new music and listen to it, and unless it's just immediately amazing, it gets filed. But the Wilco album, I kept listening to it. They have a decent radio station over here, and occasionally I'd hear it. They actually play the Odds too. Anyway, I heard it on the radio, thought it was pretty cool, and thought, "I've got to look into this. Wow! I'm knocked out." There are some great lyrics and music. ATN: You can lose yourself in that album. ROCK: Yeah, you can. (Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy) is very talented -- if it's him that writes all the lyrics. I love lyrics. ATN: I think he's a remarkable singer. He's got so much character and soul, you know. ROCK: What's great is that you can't pigeonhole the album. It's not one thing. From what I gather, people are calling it like a country kind of thing because they hear a banjo once in a while. It's definitely a rock album. It's got all these great elements. That's what I really enjoy about albums. Maybe it's not as obvious to some people, but even the Veruca album, there are no banjos or anything, but it gets out there some of the time. And I did like the U2 album. Those are the ones I'm listening to a lot right now. ATN: That's good. I'm so glad you mentioned Wilco. I don't think anyone would expect that. I talked with Jim Scott, who did mixes on a bunch of these songs, and he said that the basic tracks were a real mess. From a technical standpoint, it was probably a pain in the ass to try to put it together and make it sound good; but, my goodness, that stuff doesn't really matter as much as the level of inspiration that goes into the performances. ROCK: Absolutely. That's what it's all about. Like my relationship with Metallica, if all I did was make them sound good, I wouldn't be around. I think the thing I've brought to the table on both The Black Album and even more on Load, and hopefully on this one, is just opening their eyes to things like that. So we get to hear more of James Hetfield, and he's an amazing writer. That's what I try to bring to everybody. Even with the Verucas, it's like, "Forget doubling your vocals all the time, girls. Let's hear the difference between you and Louise." People appreciate the personal thing. Like with Wilco, that's what draws you in. It's his voice and the lyric. So that's what I'm going to continue to do. To me, even though I come from an engineering background, that's totally secondary to performance. Totally. As far as Mr. Scott saying that, I sympathize with him because that happens; but really he did a great job. The main thing is that the tracks sound great . There you go. ATN: It sounds like what you're inspiring as a producer in the artists you work with is a degree of self-discovery. I get that from what you said before about the two girls seeing the differences between their two voices, and the relationship between them. That's inner-exploring in a way, both within the band and within the personalities in the band. ROCK: Back when I started, the engineers and the producers had so much power because everybody wanted to be in the studio. There was like this whole magic in what they were doing, so they could control the situation. All along I've been about breaking down those barriers and making people comfortable. It's a learning process. I've been around it for such a long time now that to me a studio is like sitting in my front room or my kitchen, I'm just so comfortable in them. You have to break down those things for people, even if they've made a record. I just try and give them all the options, then you unlock the door to being able to do exactly what you want. Which is why today, with all the equipment and stuff, you get people making records in their homes -- you get some great performances. Sometimes when you try and repeat them, it's the classic situation where you can't get it to sound as good as the demos. The whole point is to get those great performances in the studio as well. That's what you do. Like the girls and Metallica, you try and inspire and open their eyes to all different kinds of things. I'm just not a big fan of this pigeonholing and categorizing music. Everybody's got their influences. You'd be surprised if you talked to James, Lars, Jason and Kirk. The differences in the taste in music is just unbelievable. They've opened my eyes to some great bands like Kyuss, the Gipsy Kings and Coltrane, which I really appreciate. Getting some of those things into their records is not such a bad thing. It never really sounds like you're trying to copy the Gipsy Kings, you know what I mean? It's always going to sound like Metallica. Anyway, that's kind of like what I do and I hope I'm going to continue to do it, because, like I say, right now I'm really stoked. I can hardly wait to get to work. - ---------- Transcribed by Mike Reinneman