Song and Vocal First with Howard Benson - Music Production Podcast #432

podcast
Written By Brian Funk

Howard Benson is a Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum producer. With 15 platinum records, 10 gold records, and over 150 billion streams, Howard has shaped the sound of modern rock and alternative music. Howard has worked with Hoobastank, POD, My Chemical Romance, The All-American Rejects, Daughtry, and many more. He is also the co-founder of Judge and Jury Records. 

Howard spoke to me about his work with some of the biggest names in modern rock, and the importance of songwriting and vocal performance and production. 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:00.238)

Howard, great to have you here. Welcome aboard. Yeah, thanks for taking the time.

Hb (00:00.957)

Yeah.

Hb (00:05.661)

Good see ya. All right. My pleasure.

Brian Funk (00:11.63)

You've got quite an impressive history to yourself. Just the who's who of modern rock that you've worked on and put so many great records together. It's, I could imagine, right? Because it seems like it happened pretty quick after a long buildup, but then suddenly kind of found your niche.

Hb (00:23.525)

Yeah. Kind of a blur.

Hb (00:31.984)

Long build up. Yeah. I think that's yeah, I think that's just my story. I think some people hit it out of the park right away. They get, you know, in their twenties and they hit it out and then they maybe don't have any more hits. But I certainly paid my dues, as they say. So, you know, I'd like had about fifteen years of just struggling after I left my aerospace job. And that was, you know

I probably would have stayed at the aerospace job. I liked it, actually. But just, you know, but my degree was in that so I was doing good and making decent money, but I was kinda bored with it and you know, not that bored, but bored enough where I said, I'll just take a year off and see what happens, you know. So I had a couple of local bands that wanted me to work with them and I worked with them and nothing happened, but I got addicted to it as we all do. And I just kept at it. And

You know, in our business like a little bit of success is enough to keep you being addicted to it. So, you know, I kept having enough, you know, demos, minor league records, you know, a couple of sniffs at the big time, but then they didn't happen. So it was just you know, I like I feel like when it had my first hit, I was pleasantly surprised and I was glad that it happened, but I was almost like

Okay, I'm happy for the rest of my life, I don't care if that happens again, you know. But then it did. And so it just kept going. It was kinda weird, you know, like somebody turned a light switch on or something. But when you look back at your career, you always realize that you have been building up to those things. You know, all the time and effort you put in that eventually pays off, hopefully.

Brian Funk (02:03.949)

you

Brian Funk (02:09.282)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (02:20.685)

Yeah, yeah, sometimes the dots are easier to connect. Looking back.

Hb (02:25.908)

Absolutely. Yeah. We're all heroes in our own story, so you know what I mean.

Brian Funk (02:33.45)

What do you think was the difference? And where do you consider that point in your career where something finally clicked, like the light switch turned on, as you said?

Hb (02:42.007)

Well, I think it was a few years in a row that one major thing happened is when I met a guy named Keith Olsen, who was a producer who produced a lot of big records like Fleetwood Mac and he produced Scorpions and he was just a LA producer with a lot of hit records. And I was producing on my own at that time and i it never really happened before, but a band actually fired me. And it was well manager fired me.

And I sort of needed to be fired, actually. And when I look back on it, I just didn't have I didn't have a there there when I was producing. I was going into the studio each time and starting a record in a different manner. Like I didn't have a process down. And when I met Keith, Keith was the producer of the band that took over he took over for me actually. And I endeared myself to him enough and I just I remember

The next day I kind of put my tail between my legs and came back to the studio if they didn't expect to see me. And I just said, hey, I'll audit this session. You know, in other words, I'll just watch. Because I knew I needed something, like I wasn't doing something right. And I had already done about ten, fifteen albums at that point, but some of them are great, some of them sucked, and they weren't that creative. And I was just following a template that other producers had done. And then when I weren't met with Keith,

It was a whole other approach to producing that I had not noticed, I had not been aware of, you know, just the way he handled the artist, the way he was the guy. He had the, you know, respect of the artists. And also his approach to vocals. And it was funny because the band didn't expect to see me that day. They thought I had like was gone forever. And I showed up the next day and they're like, What are you doing here? And I said, Well, Keith has been nice enough to let me watch what he does because I just want to see some stuff. And

It was probably the best like two months of my life. Like I learned so much from I was a sponge. And he was happy about it. I mean not happy, I was the wrong word, but he respected me for actually doing that. You know, 'cause most producers would not do that. They would just say, you know, fuck you, you know, go do another record. But I knew I needed that, you know, like I was aware enough. And so after that, I got a job at Giant Records.

Hb (05:05.416)

And that taught me the other side of the record business, because now it was an A and R guy. That had a lot to do with I won't get into it, but and then after that I discovered Pro Tools. And Pro Tools I got hired to do a Sepultura record because I had made five four Motorhead albums and the same manager had managed Sepultura. They liked Lemmy liked working with me. Again, none of those albums sold because Motorhead just didn't sell music. But they were he was a iconic artist.

And I did a body count record with Ice T, but again, no sales. These records weren't selling at all. And when I got into Pro Tools, it was a like a I o it was that was probably the flashpoint because there was a technology that I understood. Like I got the studio technology, but it all seemed a very bit like black magic in there. Like nobody really told you what was really like you could you knew what was going on, but a lot of it was kind of like,

just happen stance stuff. Like I and I got what was going on ahead, engineers and all that, but I wasn't as in touch with the music as I wanted to be. And when Pro Tools came along, and again, I was a really early adopter, like like five to six, maybe seven years before it took off. Then I realized, wait a second, all these things that are the pictures I'm painting in my head that I want these records to sound like, I can do this really fast. And I know how to do it really fast.

And I have all this tal I hoped I had the talent to do it fast. And plus I didn't need the bands to do it fast. I could do it by myself. I could just take the music home, which I bought a I I literally spent the last dime I had and bought a Pro Tools rig. And it was like those old ma Apple Mac clones, Apple IBM clones. And the thing barely worked because back then it was a joke. You know, if you breathed on it, it crashed, you know. But I made a

Brian Funk (06:49.772)

Yeah.

Hb (06:55.611)

Record and then I kind of ran into a band called POD that and I still hadn't had any really hits. And then I just convinced them somehow they bought into it. And you know, the AR guy did. And he was a forward-thinking AR person, and this was like 1998. And I said, Listen, I think your band really would benefit from this computer stuff. Like, you know, I was thinking, well, the band would the Sigar would benefit from Auto Tune, which I had actually the first.

Not the first, I'm sure the guys got it, but I had the floppy disk out of tune one point which was amazing. Like I couldn't believe it was working. Like it was a shock. Because all these years you're doing, you know, punching and punching and punching, just you know, over and over and over. And all of a sudden there they are, they're in tune, you know? So that benefited everything. Like all this it it all I found the I was ready, but the right project hadn't come along yet. And then Lesson Jake and POD came along about the same time.

Brian Funk (07:30.93)

hehe

Brian Funk (07:47.52)

Hmm.

Hb (07:52.601)

And those records exploded, you know, and all of a sudden I was hanging on for dear life. You know, like I didn't know what happened. You know, I got platinum or gold records and platinum records and the next record went platinum and the next record winum and the next record went platinum. Then I became the guy, all this I became this unknown guy, which was so funny because I was not unknown to me. I had been s knocking around Hollywood for fifteen years, you know. But like people are and back then without the internet, they didn't know about my hairband records, you know, they couldn't find them. They're like, who's this guy? you know?

Brian Funk (08:20.812)

Dig up the pest.

Hb (08:22.85)

I forgot to pass, you know. Now of course people look at those records and go, aren't they great? I'm like, you didn't think so at the time, but you know. So like it's it started I you know, and f what I learned from Keith was the process of making records. You need to have your own way of doing things, and that's part of your strength because the chaos around you is enough chaos. You don't need more of it. You don't need to bring more in into it. Like I always say it's like flying an airplane. You're the pilot. They've

depend on you to fly the plane. In the back of the plane is the chaos. You know? When I was making records originally, I was part of the chaos. I was like, yeah, we'll party, you know, we'll go out tonight and we'll do this and you know, we'll do four reels of tape and we'll maybe we'll do it differently this way. Maybe we'll set the guitar cabinet stuff this way. When I got a process down, I found the guys I like to work with and I found a Pro Tools guy and an engineer and a Chris or Algae as a mixer. I realized I was not a great mixer as a better record producer than mixer. So

And I learned a lot of that from engineering too, because in engineering, in aerospace engineering, a lot of it's process oriented. But as a person coming out of engineering, you think, well, I'm gonna throw that all to the wind and make it all chaotic because it's music. Well, that's not how it really works as a good producer. You want to be the steady influence. You want to be the steady hand in the in the studio. And I watched how Keith was the steady hand in the studio, you know. Keith didn't take shit from anybody. So like you you develop that sense of gravitus, you know, like

You know, you hired me, now it's you know, you're gonna do a I'm gonna negotiate with you, but if you want a hit record, you know, and the more hit records you get, the better. Because then you can point I mean, I used to watch Keith do this. When he didn't get his way, he would bring the bands in the room with all the platinum records and he would just go, What do I know? You know? So I have a room like that. I call it the intimidation room, you know. And like, but if you don't have that room,

Brian Funk (10:13.632)

Huh. What do I know?

you

Hb (10:21.273)

The artist won't believe you because it's subjective, so much of it. You know, like we don't really, you know, am I gonna go verse verse course or verse course? Like, which way is it? And I'll I will use my knowledge I've built up over time to give them an idea of what I think is going to be better for the, you know, the result. Consequently, I became a hit record producer, not just a record producer. I started having hits. So that was part of the reason people hired me, you know. And if they hired me to make

Really great records without hits, I denied the project. I just wouldn't take it. Like I wanted to be have I said to the bands, You're gonna love me in a year when you have a hit. You may hate me right now, but I'll be sitting in this chair next time if we have a hit. And that's what I'm aiming for is for you guys to have lives and enough money to buy all the gear you want and have families and send them to private school, whatever you're gonna do, you know. Because if we don't have a hit, you're gonna be slogging it out for the next two years. And

You know, you're gonna be pissed off. You may be pissed off at me now for the decision I just made to take out your precious bridge, but you're gonna be happy a year from now. So I just didn't I got to that point. I think a lot of it was because of all the failing failures early where I didn't give a shit anymore. Like I just said, I'm doing this for me. Like I want hit records. And if you don't want hit records, don't hire me. Like I got to that black and white part, which is comforting in a way, because you're at the point where you

You know that that's the most important thing you're doing. You know? Like you you're there to shoot, you're the you're like Kobe Bryant. You're there to hit baskets. You're there for the scoreboard. They want like Ross Robinson to go make a record that's cool but doesn't sell anything. Hire Ross. No offense to Ross. I love Ross. But you know what I mean? Like there's guys out there who will do those type of records. Now, I don't see that as much anymore because people need to have streams and they need to have that stuff.

But back in the day there were a lot of producers who just didn't really care that much about selling records. They just wanted to make cool records, you know. There consequently, a lot of bands failed, you know. So I think I'd been so done with failing that once I had hits I was like, I like how this feels. You know, I like this. I like watching hearing my shit on the radio all the time. It's it's a it's a buzz, you know, like like I don't want to go back to that, you know, struggling.

Brian Funk (12:34.412)

Yeah.

Hb (12:44.627)

Again. So yeah, I mean I think the years of struggling were actually the best thing that could have happened to me personally. Not for everybody. You know, everybody's different. But for me it really toughened me up and it made me appreciate my career, you know. So like I bless I give thanks to the music gods every day, pretty much, you know. So there it is, there's your whole interview. You're frozen by the way almost.

Brian Funk (13:00.48)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (13:09.066)

Yeah, you had a chance. Yeah. Thank you. But you had, yeah, I'll try to move it around or something. you can hear me okay though. Okay. I'm wondering what kinds of things, were there specific things you changed that you noticed made a difference or was it just more as all vocal production you think? I've heard you say this before that.

Hb (13:14.698)

My screen. So yeah. Yeah. It's okay. I don't need to see you. Yeah, yeah.

Hb (13:33.173)

Vocal production. well yeah.

Brian Funk (13:37.868)

because the vocal is the key of the song and that's what people hear.

Hb (13:41.226)

You know, I after I sort of had hits, started having success, I came up with my own worldview of how I make records. And it's my it's the way I look at it. And I remember like I first of all married to a music publisher. My wife is done very well and she sold her company. She signed Julia Michaels, so she's like got good ears for that stuff. But she would always say to me, Your records sound really great, but all the songs suck.

And I was like, who cares about the songs? You know, it's the guitar tone and the drum tone, because that's what the bands were telling me. So this is where the Keith part came in in good, because Keith was like, who cares about that stuff? It's all about the songs and the vocals. And once and you can say that to a producer as much as you want or anybody, but until they internalize that. Because that's not easy, that stuff. That's hard. And it only made it more obvious to me when I worked with Clive Davis on a bunch of records. And that's hardcore AR.

Brian Funk (14:10.859)

Yeah.

Right.

Hb (14:38.513)

stuff. You're not even listening to the songs. You're just looking at the lyric sheets. And if it the lyrics sheet doesn't work, we're not going to hit play on the c on the you know, or stream it or whatever he did back then. It was cassettes back with him. So we just didn't do that stuff. And I became so addicted to getting great songs that I didn't even let the bands go in the studio. I turned down the first All Market Rejects record. They six months they hired me six months later because I said don't think you have the songs. You know, I just didn't care enough.

I mean, I cared enough, but I didn't care to get turned down, is what I'm saying. But I cared enough about the project that I didn't want to make anything that I couldn't deliver. And if I it wasn't like me being angry with the artist, it was like, look, you want me to make a hit record, you need better material. So, and I think I became known for that and also just a lot of delegation in the studio. I have an engineer that I trust Mike with all my guitar recording. like the way our sessions go, I go in the first day.

We put together the arrangements, we have the songs sorted out. This is a lot of pre-production before this. Way a lot. You know, songs being like our lady piece I'm doing right now, and Rain is sending me songs, and we're negotiating over the phone for a lot of things at the moment. But, you know, once we go in the studio, then we'll work out the arrangement. But once the arrangements are worked out, as far as recording the drums and the guitars and the bass, I'm out of there. So I'm here doing vocals in my home studio. So I'll start vocals like the third day.

Brian Funk (15:58.636)

Hmm.

Hb (16:04.419)

Something like the fourth day, I don't wait for vocals because that determines, you know, like I've I've said in other interviews, if I can hear my song at CVS coming through that little speaker, and I'm just hearing vocals, that's all I'm hearing. And if it's a hit there, I did my job. You know, if it's like a great sounding track that I can't remember, then I didn't do my job. In fact, when they talk about their production in an interview, if they review my albums and go,

What a great album. The production's amazing. That I didn't do my job. That's not the you don't want that. You want them to talk about the artist and how great the material is. I'd rather not be mentioned. Yeah. So, you know, I think that there's a lot more producers I think are better at this now than they used to be. But it's become harder to do because the artists tore so much now that you don't have this pre production time that you used to have.

Brian Funk (16:39.115)

Yeah.

You want to fade into the background. Yeah.

Hb (17:02.245)

Where artists would just go away for six months and you would work on music and then you make a record. Now you're doing it between tours. So you're having to kind of like find songs, help write the songs, you know, get them to make demos on the road, which they never do. They always say they're gonna do it, but they're always too busy, you know. And so with a band like Three Days Grace, which I've had so much success with that band, because they look at music like I do. They're very that's why Neil's my partner, you know, because he's a song guy.

And it's like they take time off from their touring to write this record. They just don't write it during the tour. And that's a huge thing. That that makes the music so much better because you're, you know, you can stop, you know, tell the band do this, they go home, they work on it, or whatever. They're not going out and playing a show that night, you know. So there's a lot of things that are harder about it, but a lot of things that are easier about it because the artists do know how important the songs are.

They're now looking at streaming numbers. You're not the record company saying to them, nobody likes it. And they go, Well, how do you know? Well, I know because I put the the records out and the streaming sucks. You know? So like you're you you know, the a lot of the stuff is, you know, you don't put a full album out, you put out like pars parts of albums, you put out one or two songs, and they don't happen. You go to the band, well, look, we know the songs aren't strong enough. You know, of course you get the usual argument, like the right it's the record company's fault. No, it's not the record company's fault. The song is the song, you know?

And you can tell by the data. Thank God I have other people doing that shit. Cause I don't if I hear the word algorithm anymore, I'm gonna shoot myself. You know? But other you know, you have other people telling you, hey, look at the numbers, it's not happening. You know, we have radio and this r this, you know, in Phoenix and the record's not reacting. Well then you know your song's not happening. So you can fight that with the artist all you want. Kind of a tough fight, you know, for the artist to win that one. So I'm there to make the artist happy.

And give them lives. You know, I take that kind of part really seriously. You know? I know what it's like to struggle. So when I can get an artist off the ground, like we're having a lot of success with Butcher Babies right now, even though she lost her other singer, but her career is really we've had two or three really strong songs with her. And I love that sh they're so happy. They they love us because their career is like starting to happen again. That to me is like it's not the money. It's the it's the satisfaction that there's like

Hb (19:26.902)

People that are getting their art out there, that they're getting themselves heard, you know? So I don't know. I guess that's kind of I know it's very aspirational thinking, but I I I that's funny, I'm all my friends I play golf with and I hang out with are real estate agents, are real estate guys, and they think I'm crazy because like I don't look at it at dollars and cents. I look at it like we're painting this big picture, this movie of this band's career and their lives, and we have these great set pieces that were our singles and stuff, and they're like,

Yeah, but how much does it cost? And how much is who cares? The story, we're telling stories to people, you know? If that happens, then you'll get paid. But I never did this for the money. Like ever. Like my parents were completely shocked that this happened because they were like, Well, you never cared about money. You're the one guy in the family that never even talked about it. And I was like, Yeah, I never thought about it. You know, I just wanted to make good music. You know, that would that was really it. Like the fact that this happened is kind of like

Brian Funk (20:18.712)

it.

Hb (20:26.785)

I feel like in an alternate universe somewhere that, you know, the other Howard is still at the aerospace job. So yeah. It's kind of a I feel pretty blessed by the whole thing, you know.

Brian Funk (20:33.214)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (20:39.166)

Yeah, well, you said before, I don't care, but really it's because you do care. You want to get it right. You don't want to get involved until it's ready, until we're going to do it so that it makes an impact. And as you said, like tells that story.

Hb (20:46.944)

Yeah.

Hb (20:52.894)

yeah. But the money part I never cared about. The money part was like I always said to the artists, if we make great music, you guys will make money. But if we don't make great music, you're not gonna make money. So we can't worry about the money part. You know, just forget that. Like it's kinda like a football team, like you want to go out and play the game. That whenever out on the field it's no time to be writing songs at that point. You know, when you come in the studio, we better be ready to go. Like that's like the magic. Like we could depend on some studio magic, but like I wouldn't depend on it that much.

Like it happens at times, but I know when I've heard a song, if it's gonna be competitive, I can't tell you if it's gonna be a hit or not, but I can tell if it'll be competitive or not. You know, like I can't tell if the p if the public is going to go bonkers over it. But like I always tell the bands, I'm gonna put you up at the plate, you're gonna swing the pick bat, and what happens after that? You know, nobody knows. A gust of wind could put it into the bleachers and we're all brilliant, you know.

We're like stars of the game, and then a gust of wind will take it, knock it to the catch it, we're out, we're idiots. So a lot of times it's that's unpredictable, that part. But I want to put the bands up at the plate. I wanna give a good swing, you know. After that, who knows? Up to the music gods after that one.

Brian Funk (22:11.978)

So when you're looking for good songs, I mean, you're also saying you're getting into the vocal parts very early. I'm kind of curious how that works. How are you working on the vocals as the other parts of the song are being tracked?

Hb (22:23.069)

Yeah.

Hb (22:31.494)

We in front of demo.

Brian Funk (22:33.875)

Okay.

Hb (22:35.387)

Yeah, if the demo bones are good enough, I don't need the rest of the song. I could I could do all the lead vocals on just the demo. You know? I might have to go back and retrack a few things, but if I know that demo, that 180 seconds is close enough, then I'm gonna bring the singer in my vocal booth over here and just let's go. You know? Now the singer might say to me, I really want to hear the real drums and I'll be like, Okay, so we'll wait for that. But most of the time our demos are pretty good.

Like I've got a working a working demo that we've put into Pro Tools that they are playing to. So, you know, I'm not gonna go in without that. You know.

Brian Funk (23:11.528)

Okay, so you cut a decent demo and then you kind of restructure it around that.

Hb (23:17.403)

Yeah. yeah. I mean I don't think I've cut vocals to a a full done track in like a long I mean, I would say it's half done. You know, the maybe the drums are still drum programmed and we haven't done the drums yet at the end. We usually use the drums at the end. So sometimes that's not done. Sometimes the bass isn't the real bass. the guitars I mean, we're we're always in tune. Like the one thing we don't do, it it's a funny question you asked, but our

Brian Funk (23:26.366)

Yeah.

Hb (23:44.91)

Our Pro Tools editor will not do any vocal tuning or pitch correction until the guitars and bass are done because he tunes to that. But I know I'll deliver him a comped vocal. That is what I want. Like it's not maybe a tune, but it's the performance I want. That's what I want. I don't care about the tuning or any of that. Like I couldn't care less. You know, that's his problem. It's Paul's problem. So like when he sends it back, it's funny, like we gently tune over. This is something that's happened the last 10 years.

Brian Funk (24:08.158)

Yeah.

Hb (24:14.054)

We'll gently tune the vocals, especially because I work with really good singers, so I don't really have pitch pitch problems, but nothing too drastic. we'll tune the vocals and we'll play it back for the singer and they'll go, Why didn't you put more auto-tune on it? And like it used to hear the other way. Like, why did you not auto-tune it? Why did you auto-tune it? Now it's like, no man, I want it more pitch corrected. So we leave ourselves a little gap, actually, that w I can slap auto-tune on there in regular stupid mode.

And that'll just jam it right into place. And if they like that, they like that. And if they don't like that, it's good and it's where we want it, which is like close enough, you know, still has the vibe to it. But singers have really gotten used to tuned vocals, man. It's amazing, you know?

Brian Funk (24:46.09)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (24:57.448)

Hmm. Yeah, listeners, singers, everybody. It's just what you hear. You don't even know you're hearing it anymore. You're so used to hearing it.

Hb (25:02.124)

It's what you Yeah, and when I play a vocal with Al Autotune, it's like I put up something recently with Chris Cornell. I put up a I soloed one I did a vocal with him or of a Led Zeppelin song. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put that up. And and the on my Instagram feed, I got the usual people saying they loved it and all that, but on the I put it on what's Reddit feed, right? And three, you know, haters came on and were like

Brian Funk (25:16.714)

whole lot of love, I think I saw. Yeah.

Hb (25:31.947)

It's so auto-tuned. I can't even listen to it. Sounds like somebody's sitting. It's like, dude, it's not auto-tuned at all. That's the raw vocal. You're hearing compression a little. I put a little compression on it so it was evened out. But it's amazing how dumb people are, the outside world. They think it's auto-tuned. But because now you can hear him missing notes in there, right? Because he misses notes. Everybody misses notes, you know? But they think that's bad auto-tuning. So, like, I don't even bother.

I was ready to respond and my my son Grady goes, stay out of it. I Yeah, I know, I'll stay out of it. So, you know.

Brian Funk (26:05.161)

Save some of your life from that poison.

Hb (26:09.879)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (26:13.585)

So it makes a lot of sense actually because once you have the vocals, you can build around it. And I think a lot of times we build everything else up first and then try to fit the vocal in there. with your philosophy of we're going to hear the vocals at CVS or on the iPhone speaker that half the listeners are using anyway, this stuff has to fit a good vocal rather than.

a good vocal will fit into a good performance with the band. Good tones, good...

Hb (26:46.741)

Yeah, and the well the artists like there's two types of artists I work with. One, the heavy rock bands that write from the guitar riff album. So they're gonna write a guitar riff and they're gonna write vocals over that. The pop artists I work with strictly write from the vocal performan vocals and the songs in. So like when I did country records with Rascal Flats, it's all about the songs. They couldn't the rest of it we deal with lay it it's also formulaic there. So, you know, Nashville's different. Here, like

With with a three days grace, a lot of time the guitar riff is just as important as the vocal riff. So if we don't have a guitar hook, you know, we're not even gonna get beyond that because that guitar hook is sort of them, you know. So if you listen to AC D C they're the same way. You know, the guitar hooks are are paramount. But there's some songs where, you know, you're just hearing strumming. That vocal better be good because that nothing else is carrying that song, you know? So,

Brian Funk (27:33.001)

Mm-hmm.

Hb (27:44.362)

Clive, that's one of the things that Clive was funny about because Clive didn't really relate to hard rock music very much. So we had to sometimes convince him of things. you know, like, hey, I know this doesn't make much sense, this vocal, and it doesn't add, you know, A plus B does not equal C here. On the other hand, like with Daughtry, these vocals don't always like there's a song, there's a few songs in there where the vocals don't make that much sense. They're a little bit obtuse.

But the guitars are great and the riffs are awesome and the performance is great. So but he would still make sure that we had the basic chorus locked in. What's the story? You know, like what are we what story are we telling? If we didn't have the right story, we wouldn't even get past that part, you know. So I love working. I mean, I was very saddened that two weeks ago I, you know, watched the funeral and it was a huge loss to our business. Like people don't realize what this guy did.

And the average, we don't expect the average person to do that, you know. But he sort of invented the modern pop record business, you know, single-handedly, you know, with all the bands he's signed. You go back to Janice Joplin all the way to the future, you know, he was still working up until about maybe five years ago. But his way of AR was very interesting because he never really upset the artist that much, but he could still get his way.

He had a really classy way of dealing with things. He always had the jacket and the you know, the handkerchief. And he would just be I he learned a lot from watching a guy like that get his way through a Kelly Clarkson or a Whitney Houston. You know, it didn't work with Kelly, it got sticky, but you know, he eventually got her back on track, you know. Actually I was brought in for that next album to work with her and we made a great record with her, you know, but and every artist has their

Brian Funk (29:13.01)

Okay.

Hb (29:39.614)

you know, off ramps sometimes if they hit. That's just the way it is. You know, I I always say everybody's every artist has their Paul's boutique in there somewhere and you're just gonna have to deal with it, you know? So, but yeah, some artists, you know, it's funny, they knew what he was up to though when I did I met with Dave Matthews and I lunch with him at the peninsula and he goes, Clive had brought me into the meeting and he said, Meet Howard. Howard's gonna make a hit record for you. And I said, Okay, I'll meet you know

Brian Funk (29:47.497)

you

Hb (30:08.013)

I wasn't a really a Dave Matthews fan at all, you know? And I went to the show the night before at the Hollywood Bowl and my god, the fans were just fanatical, not this guy, you know, like just like the Grateful Dead show or something. And I walked I there was something going on and I was sitting across from Dave and Dave goes, Clive brought you in to make hit records with me, right? I said, Yeah. He goes, Tell him I don't fucking care. I'm gonna do the records for my fans. And I went, Okay, let's have lunch.

Brian Funk (30:20.369)

Yeah, something going on.

Hb (30:37.552)

You know? I get it, like that's you know, I respect that. Like you're y I and you know what, for someone like him, that's not a Clive project. Do you know what I mean? That's a Vibe project. But for like a guy like a Gavin de Gras or just Whitney Houston or something like that, any of those records he touched, in fact if you look at American Idol, all the good music and the great stars were when Clive was running the show. And as soon as he left, that was it. Though you can't remember anything after like Kelly Carrie Underwood. You know?

Brian Funk (31:06.737)

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Hb (31:07.194)

You can't remember anybody. So it shows you the power of songs. The whole show went down the whole show became about the presenters, you know. It stopped being about the artists because the songs were shit after that. You know, there wasn't anybody driving the the train anymore. So, you know, so I still am you know, when I do records, even the smallest records I do, I put up such a fight about the songs. You know, like I'm just not gonna record it unless we have songs.

that are hit that are I think are competitive, you know. So I'm not as big of an asshole as I used to be. I used to be a big bit of an asshole about it. But I've calmed down in my late in little getting older, I was like, I think I can get the same result without getting into a screamy match. Yeah. Anyway.

Brian Funk (31:44.841)

you

Brian Funk (31:50.953)

Yeah, tone it down a little. Yeah. A little wisdom there. You found new methods, I suppose. And you've also got the background to support yourself, to say, well, this is what I think. I don't need to yell.

Hb (31:58.863)

Yeah.

Hb (32:04.292)

Well, you what's funny, the artists want me to tell them now. It used to be that I had to like even after you have hits, you run into artists that are like pushback. Now it's the other way around. They're like, Is Howard happy? What's Howard think? You know? And like half the time I'm like, wait a minute, I need to focus here, you know, on this project and do my research before I even listen to a song. Like, what is this band about? So lot times you have to really find out what they're really trying to say. A lot of that's

so important what's the context of this lyric? You know? And all that remains record is gonna be way different than a calculation, you know, what the lyrical context is gonna be. So

Brian Funk (32:45.928)

But it sounds like you're still looking for some kind of thematic idea, some kind of thing that we can follow. When you said like, I think you were just talking about Dautry, the lyrics might've been obtuse. You were referring more like, more lyrically abstract kind of thing, but then something comes together.

Hb (33:05.547)

Yeah. Yeah, something like like there was a few songs on there like Feels Like Tonight, right? You couldn't I remember my wife said to me, You're frozen again.

Brian Funk (33:17.992)

Hmm. I hear you,

Hb (33:18.953)

but you can still hear me, I guess. I thought Riverside didn't freeze up as much as Zoom.

Brian Funk (33:25.734)

Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe it's our internet. Maybe it's all this heat and smoke coming from the wildfires here in New York.

Hb (33:31.342)

Yeah.

you're in New York. okay. I had no idea where you were. I I when it says Riverside, it's funny, my brain just goes, that must be riverside. I didn't even think about it, you know. But yeah, the smoke is bad. I mean, we you know, welcome to the party. This is what we deal with out here all the time. You know, it's not pleasant. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? You get a little bit of a storm and some wind and rain. You need rain and

Brian Funk (33:35.901)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (33:49.136)

Yeah, I know. I first experienced it out there.

Hb (33:59.673)

put out the fires, a little bit of wind it'll be gone in two seconds, you know. So just hope that it happens. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't even know where we were talking about, but you can go back to the

Brian Funk (33:59.817)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (34:09.612)

about the, so I'm kind of digging into what you're looking for in a song, I suppose. You mentioned the Daughtry thing, the lyrics might be a little obtuse here and there. I think you're speaking lyrically.

Hb (34:23.627)

Yeah. Well it feels like tonight was a really strange lyric. We got that from Dr. Luke and Max Martin said that to us. And I remember listening to the song and I thought, man, this feels like a hit song. I don't really know what it's about, but it sounds like a hit to me. And my wife was going to me, That song means nothing. Like the lyrics are completely ridiculous. And I was like, I know, but there's something about the way he sings it, it's very joyful.

And all that, and I liked the way he did the demo. Fast forward about a year, and I remember Dr. Liu called me and he goes, I heard feels like tonight. I said, Yeah, are you happy with it? Like, did did we do a good job for you? And he goes, you know, those weren't the real lyrics. I said, Well, what were they? He goes, those were just scratch lyrics. I said, Wait a second, we recorded scratch lyrics? Like they were just like placeholder lyrics, and yet we kind of got it somehow.

You know, and but it I told my wife this and she was like, I told you they didn't mean anything. But like sometimes it means something. Like you don't really know why. Like I couldn't put my finger on it. But the way it was performed, it that that's the mystery of music, you know what I mean? Like you just don't know what's like who would have thought that, you know, stairway to heaven would have meant anything to anybody. So I mean again, that's why you have to sometimes, you know.

Jack Holtzman's book, Follow the Music, is a great book to read. Because it's just about letting the music take you, not trying to insert yourself too much into it sometimes. Like, almost like Phil Jackson coached the Lakers. Just let the game flow. You know, don't call too many timeouts. And I think I've gotten better at that as my career went on. Like, not inserting myself too much into the process. Like, I'll just let it go. Like, it feels like tonight I remember going.

I don't know, man. I just like this. I'm not gonna overanalyze it. You know, Clive didn't really pay attention to that song that much. And it was kind of like it then it became a big hit. You're just like laughing because you go, What the hell? You know? But then there's other songs that you just go, This song blows and it becomes a big hit. Like I I had a song Bad Girlfriend with Theory of a Dead Man. And it's one of their bigger songs. And the opening line is my girlfriend's a dick magnet. That's the opening line, right? And I said to Tyler, that sucks, that one.

Brian Funk (36:43.592)

you

Hb (36:46.856)

That I'm not doing a song with my girlfriend, so Dick Magnum, as the opening line. And he goes, Well, my girlfriend wrote this opening line. I said, I don't care. Like, that's cheesy. It's like his biggest song. So, like, you just don't know what you know. That's why our we our batting percentage is if you're batting 200, 300, you're like in the Hall of Fame, you know? So again, that's why I did so many records every year. I did 10 albums a year for a while.

Brian Funk (36:58.344)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Brian Funk (37:08.444)

Yeah.

Hb (37:15.421)

My percentage went up because I had more shots at the plate. I had more st I had more hits, you know, like like if you only produce one album a year, you're depending on maybe three or four songs to be hits out of one album. If you produce ten albums a year, you have a hundred and twenty songs. Now you your odds just went up quite a lot. So Ahmed Erdogan always said you can't do this unless you're at the table. You can't play the game. So you gotta be at the table. So I always said

Brian Funk (37:19.592)

Mm-hmm.

Hb (37:43.773)

Hey, if we have the songs, recording it's gonna be easy. Let's just go and record them. Like we can if I believe in the songs, I'm not too worried about the recording process. I'll take care of the vocals. Guys, let's bang out the album, you know? And that's what we did. And bands they were happy, you know, they had hits. So, you know, I kind of like was the first one to really do that. The speed recording. Almost I called it like we were just we would take every project, and we didn't say no to anything. In fact, producers were pissed at us.

They would call their managers would call my manager, go, Howard said yes to that project. He has no time to do it. And my manager go, he's gonna do it. Like the next project. Howard said yes to this project. He's doing four projects. And I said, Don't turn anything down. We're gonna do them all. We're gonna find out, we're gonna. In fact, we were so vicious at the time. I remember it was so full of like hits that I would say, I wanna like crush every producer. That's was my mentality. Like you get into that zone where you just wanna win. So you're almost like a

sports figure, like a you feel like you're in the in a sports game, you know. And you have to have that ego to do this. It's too competitive, you know? It's too hard. You wanna go into the studio every day and go, I'm gonna like fucking win, you know? And I'm not letting so and so take that record from me. I'm doing that record, you know? And I'll do it somehow. We'll open two studios, which is what we did. I'll be doing the vocals here while you're recording the f next record over there, you know.

Or I'll be a pre pro while you're doing the recording here and I'll be doing the vocal you know, we were just flying around different studios. That's why I built a vocal booth in my house, so I could keep doing vocals as fast as I could do them while Mike kept recording projects. It was crazy, you know. I can't do that anymore because bands are on tour. It's just hard to do multiple projects at once. You can't like you're stuck you're basically at the tour at the whim of their touring schedule.

In fact, everything I do is based on their ban I have to get their touring scheduled to p to schedule studio time with artists, you know. But I get it, that's where they make their money. You know? Not making it from Spotify, that's for sure. And nothing against Spotify, but you know what I mean, it's a different ballgame. It's singles.

Brian Funk (39:45.82)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (39:53.562)

Yeah, well, yeah, that's, they have to make a career out of it too. So, but I wonder if that approach also makes the decision-making a little more instinct, instinctive where you kind of trusting your gut and you're moving forward, making decisions and probably learning a lot more in the process by going through the process.

Hb (39:58.82)

Yeah.

Hb (40:07.855)

Absolutely.

Hb (40:14.469)

See, that's a big point. This is a really good point I used to point out to the artists. Because you're doing lots of records, every band you're working with is bringing something to the table that you didn't know about. It's new information. Like we would do records, and the bands would bring in some sitars. I remember there was an electric sitar, a choral, and I was like, my God, I love this thing. Like I would never have even thought about that if I hadn't worked with that band. And then we did the All American Rejects, and one of the guys played mandolin on one of the songs on Move Along.

I was Mandal, yeah, the mandolin's so cool. Let's use that on this, you know. Or the, you know, a band will come in and go, I don't want to do this third harmony. I want to go parallel force. And I'd be like, I can't do parallel force. Bach would kill me. And he goes, No, we're gonna do parallel force. And I would be like, okay, let's try some parallel force. And I was like, hey, you know, that's actually kind of cool. Like I didn't think of that, of doing that, or let's flip the the sixth to the third underneath. Let's try that. And what I would say is you know, but with one band, you're limited to like a couple guys.

Brian Funk (40:56.583)

You

Hb (41:13.624)

Here where there's people coming through the studio constantly, there's new information constantly. And I felt that that was a really big part of how we learned quickly. You know, the bands were really, really back then really good at stuff because they had to be. There wasn't as much fixing of it. You know, there was a at around two thousand eight, two thousand nine, I remember the bands got worse because the studio they realized they started buying their own Pro Tools rigs. And then, you know, they realized,

To really play the drums. I can program this whole song, or you know, I can loop all this kind of stuff. The stuff we were doing in the studio, but they were better at we used to do all live rehearsals for every project before we even went in the studio. You know, the the at mates over in North Hollywood. So they'd set up on a sound stage and I would sit with a pointer point at a chalkboard. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, you like that kind of thing, and just kind of go through the songs. But then it gradually went into better demos and better demos and better demos.

And the artists became technocrats. You know, they start writing songs. They started worrying more about Pro Tools. Their songwriting went like this, you know, 'cause you're like, can you write a song? Hey man, I don't really want to write a song, but I want that new plug-in you're using. And I'm like, yeah, but that's not gonna help you help us. Like you need to write songs. I don't care about the plug-in. That's my problem. Like, you know, your problem is to tell me what happened today emotionally. You know? Sit on the edge of this couch and write about your your girlfriend that you just broke up with, you know.

That's what I need. So it just but then, you know, you can't help it. It's kind of becomes like a video game in a little way to the artists. Like they love being in front of the computer, you know. The artists I work with that do the least amount of Pro Tools work are sometimes the best songwriters. You know. They're spending more time on the lyrics and the melodies. So, you know, but that's you can't stop that from happening. It's just a natural progression of things, you know.

Brian Funk (43:08.699)

Hmm. That's interesting though, because you would think it would help in a way because you're creating stuff, you're arranging it, you're playing around with it in new ways on the computer. But yeah, the story gets left out and all. guess you wind up crafting your program kick drum for four hours a night.

Hb (43:22.91)

Where's the story?

Hb (43:27.592)

It's left out.

Hb (43:31.476)

Yeah. I it's funny, I do a lot of these type of things we're doing now. with quick Q and A's from the audience, right? And the audience is always the same questions. You know, I really want to know what the guitar sound on my chemical romance was. You gotta tell me what it was. Okay, so this is what we did, you know. I said, but really what made that project work was Gerard's vision and the

intensity of how those guitar players came in like it was life and death, you know? And the way I sort of got them to rearrange a lot of the material, got, you know, I put it in a form that worked, you know, an easy to hear form. And that's I don't want we don't want to hear about that. We want to know what was the EQ on the kick drum. Like, my God. Like you guys are fucked. Like if you can't understand what is going on here.

Like if you go see a bad movie, it's because the script sucked. It's not because the acting sucked or the you know, you know, the special effects sucked. I mean you could see a great movie that costs look look at all look at those two movies, obsession or whatever those two really cheap movies are out right now, those two horror films, and they're doing great. They didn't cost anything. Because the the so the story's great, you know? And and the and and the vision's great. So that's what's really important. I went to the songwriter's hall of fame.

Taylor Swift was inducted two two three weeks ago in New York City, and she had Steven Spielberg inductor, which was really amazing. And she said, I wanted someone to induct me who knows how to tell stories better than I can tell stories. That's what it's about. You know, she knows Taylor Swift. She's not an idiot, you know. Like, I've got to tell stories. The rest of it, I'm telling you, Taylor Swift is not sitting in front of a computer making Pro Tools. I can almost guarantee that. She's

trying to create a vision that she wants her audience to hear. Now Jack Antinoff is probably doing that, you know, or other guys are, but like the there's it's so much more important. And by the way, I had to learn this. This didn't come naturally to me. Like I like the technical part. I'm an engineer. I'm an aerospace engineer. I loved all the dials and the stuff. I was like at home in that world, but I had to unlearn all that. You know, I had to kind of like

Hb (45:52.88)

knock it out of my head and just go, okay, what do I'm feeling what do I feel right now? That's more I'm selling feelings here. That's what my trade is, you know, like it's not selling perfection at all. What is somebody when somebody hears a fly leaf song, what are they hearing? You know, it's it's Lacey's ability to to get across her spiritualness. That's what people are relating to. And Gerard's vision of how he looks at the world.

You know, or p or Sonny's vision of how he looks at the world. That's what people they they don't may not know that on a subconscious level, but that's what our job is. And Spielberg as a movie director, at least on his really good films, knows that better than anybody. You know, like again, that's what business we're in. You can't let you can't lose sight of that.

Brian Funk (46:44.718)

Yeah, because without that, they wouldn't be asking about the guitar tones. And with it, it almost wouldn't matter if you did a totally opposite guitar tone or kick drum, they'd be asking about that because it's just, that's how the story is created. That's how the feelings are made.

Hb (46:51.035)

There you go.

Hb (47:03.94)

Yeah. Michael's I always say to the bands, Do you want us to bring our Les Paul or should we use your Les Paul Junior? Or should we bring our teller I I don't give a shit, but bring it who cares? If you don't go up there in the studio and play like it's the last day on earth, it's not gonna fucking matter what you play. So you gotta play I always tell my singers when you go in that vocal booth, don't worry about pitch, don't worry about timing, nothing. Just deliver for me

the energy and the s and the make me believe what you're singing. If I don't believe it, we're fucked. The listener's not gonna believe it. You're not gonna send them a a synopsis of the song, you know. this is what I was really trying to say. None of that happens. You better get that across. That's why again the great the greats, the Beatles, the Taylor Swifts, the Zeppelins, I mean the you know all the be I can name a million hit records, you know.

And if you can't write it like Whitney Houston couldn't write, then you get a good song. You know? It's better to get outside songs if you can't write than try to write if you can't write. If you can't write, think you can write. You're really in trouble, you know, because you've talked yourself into it. It's like Dunning Krueger's bias, you know, you think you're an expert at something, but you're too stupid to not know you're an expert at something. So, you know, that's something I run into in the studio all the time with writers.

It's like I just wrote this great song. Okay, you know, well, I have a great song that someone else wrote that is a really a great song. Like this is something that will connect with your audience. I don't want to do it. Like this song I I just wrote this song yesterday and you read it, you're like, my god, this is about nothing at all. Just because you felt good writing it doesn't mean it's good. You know? Like that's just what you felt. Like you have to get that across to the audience. It's a hard pill for artists to swallow sometimes.

So I don't know. If we all had this the answer, you could put it into your AI and it would tell you how to write a great song, but it still hasn't done

Brian Funk (49:10.234)

Yeah, yeah, thankful.

Hb (49:12.043)

Suno is funny as hell too, 'cause that's like you can put as many prompts as you want in that thing and it still writes garbage. I just read that Spotify took down like seventy five million songs today. Did you see that?

Brian Funk (49:19.533)

you

Brian Funk (49:23.672)

I've been seeing that from a lot of them. Tidal was recent, right? They just totally said none of it. I'm wondering where they're going to draw the line, how much AI assistance they'll allow. Because I imagine there's got to be a lot and it varies.

Hb (49:26.777)

Yeah.

Hb (49:44.898)

Well everybody uses it and even in my world. You know, they may not admit it, but they do, you know. And that's like a third rail that you really don't want to admit that. But the artists, I've I mean I won't say who it is, but I know the artists use it, I wouldn't say to write songs, but to help with the demos. You know? That's actually a really good use of it because you're just trying to save time and get something generated quickly. But in the real world in the studio, we don't use it.

And not because of any other reason, but it's better to have somebody play it. Sounds better. It's a human, you know.

Brian Funk (50:21.574)

Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I could see for generating some ideas. mean, sometimes I'll go to a thesaurus or I'll go to something. If I'm looking, if I have a certain topic in mind for a song, I might want just words that have to do with outer space. And then I'm looking for kind of just ideas to pull off of, um, and that I think can be very useful, but yeah, as far as, um,

Hb (50:42.177)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (50:49.062)

actually stringing together full ideas. Hasn't really been that interesting. And something happens, I guess as soon as we realize it's been generated that we just stop caring too.

Hb (51:02.238)

Yeah, it's we're again we're trying to connect with another human is what makes it feel good. And my again, my real estate friends are convinced that being myopic about it, like, it's all gonna take over. You're just like seeing it from your perspective and I'm like, Nope, it's not gonna take over because the AI is not gonna go out and play the whiskey tonight. And that's where the rubber meets the road, you know? So you're

Brian Funk (51:25.401)

Yeah.

Hb (51:30.153)

band is still gonna have to go out there and tour. I'm interested to see how some of these AI movies work. Like I know there s somebody's making one with that girl who they claim is like AI actress, like they're film they're actually gonna make a full on AI film. I just don't see anybody really caring, I mean, about it. I mean it's almost like watching a cartoon in a way, you know, or animation.

Brian Funk (51:49.445)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (51:56.26)

Yeah, not even quite because I think one of the first things we say when we hear a song that strikes us is, who is this? Who we want to know about the person. And we want to get the story behind the story. And there's none of that. I think back to being a teenager and wearing flannels and ripped jeans because I love Nirvana, grunge, you know, all that stuff. That's not going to happen.

Hb (52:05.237)

Exactly.

Hb (52:11.675)

Absolutely. There's none of it. But the creators

Hb (52:22.717)

yeah. I went to my my camp show, like I saw him at Dodger Stadium. I hadn't seen them play in a long time, but the merch line was three deep all the way out to the ring road. And I was just like, my god. Like like I was kind of unaware of how big it got just because I'm blo sort of still locked in the studio doing things. But

Brian Funk (52:24.52)

It was so much more than...

Brian Funk (52:28.965)

Mm-hmm.

Hb (52:47.113)

People have bought into them so much that you can never imagine an AI doing that. Or or what's that crazy microtonal band? you know.

Brian Funk (52:55.097)

yes, the costumes.

Hb (52:57.649)

Yeah. Hey, I couldn't come up with that. You know? So I always say that there's your limits right there. Like, you know, but it's so funny because that's become something that my session friends who play in Sunset all Sunsets, they're always doing sessions for movies. Now, like Hans Zimmer and they all want microtonal things now. Because it's like of the moment, you know what I mean? Like so like people are buying microtonal guitars and all that. So I don't know. I don't mind it actually. I think it's kinda neat.

Brian Funk (52:59.957)

Nah.

Brian Funk (53:21.541)

Yeah.

Hb (53:27.558)

I don't think it if I'm not really sh yeah. Maybe our ears will adjust to that.

Brian Funk (53:27.845)

It's interesting. In electronic music too, there's a lot of that going on with very interesting, because I guess a lot of that kind of music is very sound design driven and it's just another way to make the sounds a little weird, a little different.

Hb (53:43.879)

Yeah.

Hb (53:47.376)

Yeah. I i and it's funny, I think that's kind of why like you know, EDM worked because you had DJs coming out and showing up and you could watch the DJ. I think without the DJ, I don't think the music would have caught on. But they became personalities, those guys, you know. I was a huge fan of that Swedish guy, guy who killed himself. what's the name again? Eviv Avici, yeah. I loved his stuff.

Brian Funk (54:05.721)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (54:11.417)

Mm-hmm. Vinci was it? Or... Vici, Yeah. yeah. Mm-hmm.

Hb (54:17.316)

and so well put together and you know it's very sad. But yeah.

Brian Funk (54:24.355)

Yeah. Are you seeing any sort of musical revolts to this kind of stuff? Like things have become very slick and you can generate things that sound, you know, good. are we finding, I'm wondering if we're going to start seeing us kind of looking for the human side of things.

Hb (54:45.709)

I I haven't seen it.

No, it's a and I think it's just because we don't sign bands like that. So we sign bands that are not young bands, they're like bands that have had track records and they're used to doing things the way they do them. And that's like I would say their recording vision is with what happened between two thousand and two thousand and ten. That's where they were signed. So none of think about that stuff. You know, I d I don't just don't say it, you know. Not yet.

I'm sure I will at some point, like some new band. But even some new bands that have been signed, there's a band on Mercury, I can't remember their name now, but they came to me to produce and I just couldn't do it. I was busy with shit. And they were it sounded like the old American rejects a little bit. And it was, you know, I asked the AR guy, they really played all this, right? They're Yeah, you play, yeah, they'll come up and play for you. And I was like, good, okay, but I just couldn't do it. But it was current encouraging to hear that that was them playing. I do think the musicianship has gotten better in some ways.

Some people have learned how to play really well from watching i YouTube videos and have gotten really good. there's this guy Lachlan what's his name? Lachlan Lockheed or something. He's a B three player from Australia. my god, is this guy good? And I thought B three players had gone out the door like you couldn't find a good one. But man, there's some guys who are great. And they were guys who watched Emerson play or like Jimmy Smith or, you know, you know

you know, Oscar Peterson and they would learn from those videos watching guys and I think it's great that you have that happening. They you don't need music teachers as much, really.

Brian Funk (56:22.682)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:29.349)

Well, yeah, you can pull up how to play pretty much anything on YouTube, whereas when I was younger, was either you figured it out yourself or you found the guitar world that happened to have the tab for you, if you were lucky. you know, that information was, it was almost like secret. And maybe you knew a friend that had learned it and he'd pass it around.

Hb (56:36.023)

Drop your needle. Yeah.

Hb (56:44.474)

yeah.

Hb (56:54.967)

Well what's funny, I realized that when I I I played in so many cover bands before I was even an Aboriginal band. And I knew how to play every song back in the seventies, eighties and I could play anything. Somebody would say, yell a song out to me. I used to play beauty shows, what do you call it? fashion shows. So I'd sit at the piano and I would just play song after song after song. But I never played the songs right. I only played what I thought the song was. And now when I go online and look at it,

Brian Funk (57:11.695)

pageants kind of thing. OK.

Yeah.

Hb (57:23.585)

Like he used play Easy Lover, right? And I would play it and I was like, this is this, you know, like B flat, C, D minor, and like and I'm looking at it, Well, wait, it's not that. Like, there's like some major sevenths in there. they actually go to A minor once in a while, and then they kind of do and I was like, Man, I was way off. But in a strange way, it didn't affect anybody 'cause the melody was still the melody. And, you know, like I hashed it I you know, I I murdered the songs a lot, you know, but nobody really cared.

So, you know, now of course when you hear a guitar player play like a a a Van Halen song, they literally play no for note, you know. They don't miss anything. So I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I don't know. You know, it's probably not it's probably not either, actually.

Brian Funk (58:00.453)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:08.874)

It proves your point though about the melody and the lyric and the vocal. Really, like that's what we're listening for. And even the harmonization under it is secondary.

Hb (58:14.56)

Yeah.

Hb (58:18.603)

So we listen to. Yeah, it's about the story. And it's, you know, I think that's if you were the your original question is when did it really snap into place for you? And I think that's when it snapped into place. When I internalized that and really believed it and didn't just say, okay, it's about the vocal. But I would actually stop projects and go, No, we don't have the songs. You know, no, we have to take a break. We're only gonna do half the record. You're gonna have to write the other half.

So when you start making those hard decisions, I remember there was one record I did, Wubistanks The Reason, which is one of my bigger tracks. We didn't have a first single. And I remember I got a call from the record company at Mercury, and he goes, they went, are you happy with the record? I said, It's a great record, but we don't have a first single. Well, wait a minute, we're releasing it like in next month. I said, You're asking me to tell you what I really think. We don't have the first single. So they went and did a song called Out of Control.

which is the first single. But we needed that song. And that's when I remember my feelings about songs became really crystallized because it worked, you know, like it worked. So I started believing in it. I went like, yeah, man, I'm definitely on the right track here. I heard Youth of the Nation for the first time or alive for POD records. And I remember thinking, those lyrics matter. They matter. I don't care what they do after that. The story this guy's telling

The opening line, the last day of the rest of my life. I wish I would have known because I would have kissed my mama goodbye. It's money. Like, that's money. I could visualize it, you know? And it's about school shootings, and he tells this whole story. And then the band does something different. They t they they make a big picture. We are the youth of the nation. Then he goes back to telling a personal story again. Then he goes back to the big picture. And it's just a to me, it was a masterpiece of songwriting.

And I called my manager up and I said, I can't fuck this song up either. Like this is so good that like I could do anything, it's gonna work. And then we had fun with it because we knew it was good. Like I remember that Marcus, the guitar player, was like, I think it's gonna be one of our biggest songs. So I'm like, Yeah, it is. Let's put some big toms in it, let's put some Tim Finnies in it, let's just go full on b kids choir and the you know, like let's go for it because we know the song's great. We're just gonna have fun. So that's when you're working with like

Hb (01:00:44.509)

two loaves of bread under your arms, like you got the whole thing, you know? You can't screw it up. That that's a producer's dream is to have stuff like that. You know? I remember I was talking to Richie Podler, who produced Three Dogs, Three Three Dor Three Dog Night. He was a because I had done some records in the studio and he was an old guy at the time and all. And I said, what did you think when you heard Joy to the world? And he said, well the band hated it. They were like, who wants to write up a song about a bullfrog? And

I'm not saying we're not singing songs about bullfrogs. He goes, But I knew that song was a hit. Like that lyric was so good. And it was about, you know, a bullfrog. But then the chorus was Joy to the World. Then it's back about the frog again. Then it's back about joy to the world. He goes, it couldn't miss. So that night he went in and played the drums, he played all the instruments, and he just had the singers come in and sing it. And it went and won the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year. So but those are the kind of things that you just pray you get them, you know?

So I'm not okay. My chemical romance was a song like that. I remember hearing that I'm going, my god, that's the whole project right there. Like we can't fuck this up. That guy singing that lyric, I'm not okay, is money. You know? And when you're in that zone as a producer, it's such a great feeling. Because you're so you're connected to the audience, you're connected to the artist, you're connected to yourself. Your team is running on a hundred, everyone's on eleven, or whatever you want to say.

You c you know, you just have to enjoy the moment. Like when you're winning the Super Bowl, you have to enjoy it because it may not come back again. You know, I remember when I was nominated for Grammys for Producer of the Year, I said to my wife, I just want to remember what this feels like because I know it's temporary. Like I know that my career has an arc. I just know it. You know. as been said before, it's like in the beginning of your career is who's Howard Benson? Then it's get me Howard Benson.

Then it's get me the next Howard Benson. Then it's who's Howard Benson? That's your career arc. That's the circle, right? So when you're at that point, you just want to re feel it and remember it because it's so hard to do this job. You know, I was just so thankful that that I had some hit records and all that. Made them. And my kids, you know, have a legacy for my kids to, you know, keep going with. That's why I'm not selling my royalties, because my kids are in the music business and they love.

Brian Funk (01:02:45.06)

Full circle.

Hb (01:03:11.426)

That whole part of it. They love, you know, watching the mechanism behind all of it. What's behind the curtain, the guy pulling the the levers, you know, like how does it all work? And it's only gotten more complicated. Way more complicated, collecting money for the stuff. I mean, that's a whole nother part of the music business. We could have another two hour conversation about that. You know, if you're well, yeah, if you're not getting paid, what are you doing? I mean you gotta get, you know, this is your job.

Brian Funk (01:03:30.18)

Right.

Hb (01:03:38.06)

A lot of artists and producers go to me, well, I don't make any money doing this. Fuck Spotify. Fuck all these guys. Okay, do you have a do you have an account with ASCAP? What's that? do you have a publishing company? No. do you collect the money from Sound Exchange? I didn't sign up for that yet. Well, okay, so you're bitching and moaning to me about this, and yet you have none of your accounts set up.

So of course you're gonna complain, you know? Like you have to set it up. I know it's hard, I get it. Setting up a BMI account is harder to get it's easier to get a driver's license to get a BMI account set up. If you look at their paperwork, it's insane. You know? Like you have to prove you're a US citizen and send them passports and all kinds of stuff. And I can see an artist not wanting to do that stuff. There's a real big barrier to entry when it comes to collecting your money in our business. It's not fair to the artist, but once you get it right.

Then you'll start seeing street you know, i y you know what neighboring rights are? Half the people I know don't collect neighboring rights. In fact most of the people I know don't collect neighboring rights. So, you know, there's a lot. There's a lot of stuff.

Brian Funk (01:04:50.305)

Hmm. What are neighboring rights?

Hb (01:04:54.262)

Neighboring rights are, if you're an American record producer, there's certain countries that will pay you your royalties based on certain aspects of the record, whether you in Canada, for example, if you produce a Canadian record that has Canadian artists, which I do, Three Days Grace, Theory of a Dead Man, Phoebe Fifi Dobson, then you are entitled to a portion of the royalties paid from that country, but you can't get it unless you sign up with a company that does neighboring rights.

So if you're not signed up with that, I I have a company called Premier Music that you that's in Canada and they collect my neighboring rights. So is it a big check? It's about ten thousand bucks a year, my neighboring rights. So it's a good check, you know? So I wouldn't get that if I didn't know anything about it. Sound exchange. Half the producers I know don't collect sound exchange. What is sound exchange? It's all internet radio. Anything gets played on the internet, for example, Sirius XM or Pandora.

They pay only through sound exchange your producer royalties. They bypass the record company. That's what's great about them. You don't have to recoup anything. So if your record gets on Sirius Octane, they pay $35 per spin. That's a lot. You're not paying them, they're paying you. So they're paying the artist. But if you don't have a deal with the artist that says to the artist, Howard is entitled for his percentage, pay him directly.

Sound exchange will collect the money and send it right to the artist. It will not send it to you. So plenty of p of producers are going, how come I don't make more money on this airplace stuff? Well, first of all, you don't get paid on terrestrial radio, so forget that. But you do get paid on internet radio, so you better have a sound exchange account. What's sound exchange? You know, by the way, sound exchange is a lot of money if you have hit records. A lot of money. It can be a quarter to a half of your income just from that. So you know

I've done plenty of these type of conversations for Drexel University where I went to school. They have the music business. I don't even talk about music with them. It's all about this stuff. Because the kids don't know how to c they don't know anything about it. You know. Like they want to get in the music business but don't know how to collect their money. You know. What's an LOD? Better have an LOD with the artist that you just produced or else the artist is gonna be paying you your royalties. You don't want that. Good luck chasing the artist around for a hundred years, you know.

Brian Funk (01:06:55.875)

Yeah.

Hb (01:07:14.941)

You want Sony Records to pay you your money. So you do a letter of direction. What's a letter of direction? Well, you want a non refund a non-revocable one so they can't take it back. You want Sony to pay you your money forever. You know? You don't want the artists absconding with it when they go sign with another record company. So that's again the details. And you a good lawyer can help you with that, but a lot of artists don't want to pay a lawyer. So they don't get any of this stuff done.

Brian Funk (01:07:41.252)

Yeah, it's a very unknown part of everything. And it's so few people are getting to that point where it even matters that, you know, it's not like you're stepping into your office and everyone knows about all these things and can tell you about it. And you can talk to your union rep and have like all this information broken down.

Hb (01:07:53.812)

Yeah.

Hb (01:08:02.662)

Yeah.

Hb (01:08:06.555)

No. Well even the musicians union's a whole other thing. If you play on somebody's record and you're a side man, you're actually due if you belong to the local forty seven, then you should be able to be paid if you went through the union your money forever. For like for on the reason I played the intro, ding ding ding ding ding, right? That is money that I get paid every year from the musicians union as a residual. Now that was something that

Brian Funk (01:08:28.024)

there.

Hb (01:08:35.313)

Thankfully my management knew about that and s we got to do those contracts. But a lot of people don't do that stuff. They go, I don't want to do anything with the union. Well, okay, don't do anything with the union. You're not gonna get paid for the rest of your life. But it's up to you. I'm not mad at people who don't do that. Believe it or not, if you don't do that, it's more money for me.

Because they pay you based on there's a certain amount of money per song. So if you're the keyboard player, you get them all. If there's a keyboard player in the 20s sections string, they get you split it. So if they don't want to get their money, okay. You know, don't get it. But that's stupid, right? And then you can't bitch and moan about it. If I was an artist, a mid level artist, I would be signed up for every single thing because if you added all of them together, you can make a good living. You know, it's not just one thing.

Like we're in a we're a business of pennies, right? Like we get paid point one three cents per Spotify or something like that. It takes a long time for that to add up into anything. But if you put that with your sound exchange and your neighboring rights and your publishing and your musicians union and then the your AF a s AFM AFTRA stuff for vocals, all that stuff can add up to something. But, you know, people just don't want to do it for some reason.

Brian Funk (01:10:03.446)

Well, yeah, I guess that's been the story the whole time of the music industry, A lot of that. People not getting paid. Yeah.

Hb (01:10:09.711)

Well, that's the sad thing about our business. You have to sign up. They just don't pay you. That's where it gets that's where our business is a bit fucked up. You know, it's always been like that. Like you said, like people are just not gonna pay you your publishing money. You better sign up to get it. You know, you would think they would pay you because you earned it. If you have a hit song on the radio and you earned a half a million bucks on it, you're not getting it. Unless you sign a publishing agreement, you know, have a BMI account and

Brian Funk (01:10:13.698)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:10:19.586)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:10:26.283)

Yeah.

Hb (01:10:39.641)

Make sure you audit, as Irving Azov said, my f first boss at at Warner Brothers. I ran into him like right after I had a hit with POD. I ran to him at the Staples Center. And I said to Irving, Hey Irving, like I finally had a hit record. Like I was so proud to tell him because he was like my first guy I worked for in the music in the record business. And this first thing he goes is, Audit the fuckers. And he was right. We audited them and there was all this money that

The record company didn't pay us. They cheated us on their foreign royalties. So yeah, I still audit record companies with Papa Roach. We're auditing Universal again for the third time. And guess what? There's gonna be money there. You know? So it's just the way it is. It sucks.

Brian Funk (01:11:29.034)

Yeah. Yeah, that's a shame. But it's good you're spreading that around, though, letting people know, speaking to the kids in college and giving them.

Hb (01:11:40.299)

The kids in college are really important because that's you realize that when they get ten years into their career they're much smarter about it. You know. They're they've you know, remembered what somebody said to them about this stuff. So yeah, I think it's really important. If they still in the music business, but who knows. Anyway, I'm kind of at a like stop. I have to get stopped in a minute. Did we cover everything?

Brian Funk (01:11:57.834)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:12:04.096)

Yeah, I think so. This has been, I mean, there's plenty to talk about obviously, but it's been great speaking with you. We should just mention, yeah, a couple of spots. It'll be no problem. We want to tell people to check out Judge and Jerry records, you know, make sure we get that in there. So we'll send them that way.

Hb (01:12:13.879)

You you have to edit a lot.

Okay. I hope it didn't get confusing.

Yeah. And you'll send us something that ch just like a we can look at. This this is this a print thing or how do you guys do it? Like I don't know, I've any idea.

Brian Funk (01:12:29.174)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:12:33.762)

Well, it goes on the podcast platforms and then YouTube. That's pretty much it. All there. Yeah, if you want to see something before it goes out, I can certainly get that for you. No, no, I think it was all gold. Yeah, another gold record for you.

Hb (01:12:39.466)

okay. Great.

Hb (01:12:45.036)

Okay.

Hb (01:12:52.307)

I don't think I said anything wacky.

Hb (01:12:57.727)

Okay.

We didn't talk about anything political, so

Brian Funk (01:13:04.896)

Nah, nah, that's usually a good thing.

Hb (01:13:08.158)

Yeah, yeah. Would have stay away from that live wire.

Brian Funk (01:13:11.618)

Yeah, I really do appreciate you taking the time to talk and being so open about everything. I learned a ton. You've had such an awesome career and I get a really clear sense of why speaking to you. And I can tell there's a lot more success to come.

Hb (01:16:03.3)

thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Okay.

Brian Funk
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