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Unless you have HubSpot's AI-powered marketing tools to help you do all that more. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Talkies Jericho Baby. Talkies Jericho. Talkies Jericho Mama. Talkies Baby. Welcome to Talkies Jericho. It's the Pada Thunder and Rock n' Roll. I got a great guest today. Super producer Bob Rock returns to Talkies Jericho.
He's telling some great stories about producing Metallica's Black Album. He's always got good ones. What it was like to work with them in the studio from getting that classic snare sound on the drums with Lars to the suggestion he made to James about Andrew Sandman. He talks about getting the guys to play together live in the studio and helping James to really sing in the studio as well.
Bob also worked on the Cardiversal St. Anger record of some great stories with those sessions too about that snare sound, a very judged snare sound. And why his focus was completely different from this album than it was in the Black Album. He's got a great story about what led to the guitar player Jimmy Page had to say about St. Anger.
Bob was working so many great artists and bands including Motley Crew. He was just in the studio game with him recently and discusses what it was like with new guitar player John V in the mix. Also talkies Jericho alumni.
Great stories what recording with Share. Tales from Bond Joe user, recording sessions in Vancouver with Bob and Bruce Faber and Lakegrave Bruce Faber. And if you didn't already know, Bob worked with Canada's own tragically hip did two records with him and did a solo singer with the late great Gordownie. This is a combination of Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vetter and Jim Morrison. I want to Canada's biggest heroes.
They worked under for years. It was finally released a couple weeks ago. It's called Luster Parfait and it really is a great record. I can't wait to hear Gord sing on this with Bob's music. Gord's lyrics, Bob wrote the music and they have a great chemistry here. Bob explains that they ended up doing the record together. Why it took so long to put out after Gord's death.
What it means to him and the hip family and the fans that has finally out. I'm super excited about it. So so many great rock and roll stories with the legendary Bob Rock right here right now on Talkies Jericho and he's also from Winnipeg.
All right, so returning to Talkies Jericho, I'm being honest to Bob is Bob Rock from about probably eight years ago and you might not remember this, but we're also fellow Winnipegers. Yes. So I understand. And you are related to one of the girls that I went to high school with, Floraline Oliver. Oh my God. Really? Yeah.
I think she was out your wedding or you're out one of the weddings that she was at or something like that. Yeah. Wow. Small world. Yeah, exactly. Small world. But so where did you grow up in Winnipeg? I grew up in St. James. I went to Westwood, Collegiate. I grew up in St. James too. Where did you go? Well, I left. I went to Golden Gate and then Banna time and then we moved to the West Coast. I was born at Grace Hospital in St. James, right? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, that's probably about 15 minutes from where I grew up. Maybe 10 minutes to get rid of your bike there.
Yeah. At least to work at a grocery store that was right beside that place. Yeah. So and here we are all these years later on Talkers Jericho to talk about many things. But just to jump right in, you want to talk about being from Winnipeg and talk about being Canadian. Biggest and greatest rock and roll band in Canadian history. That's not called rush is of course the tragically hip featuring the late great Gourd Downey. Who is a Canadian icon? Yes.
Much to my surprise. I found out about a week ago that there is a new Gourd Downey solo record Gourd passed away in 2017. That's basically a Bob Rock Gourd Downey collaboration called Luster Parfait. And I've been listening to it all morning. It's great dude. Like it really is so great. Like where has this album been and what?
Well, okay, I did two records with the hip world container and we we are the same. I guess at the end of doing the second album Gourd just as as if I had any music to start off basically. I met Gourd. He came to see me before a world container in Maui here. We went to this small restaurant in Paella and the North Shore of Hawaii. And we talked about maybe working together and then we talked about being Canadian, being like fathers growing up in Canada and hockey.
And so we became kind of instant friends. You know, and then I did the hip albums and he says you have any music being in the pale is I've always kind of written tracks. I put together tracks so to speak like a whole song and record it. And then I'd handed to Paul to write to Paul Hyde of the pale is right.
And so I had a whole pile left over so I started sending him tracks and he started sending him back written and it just blew my mind. You know that I think it's the hardest thing to do to write to music that is actually there. But for whatever reason it took us many, many years to complete because he was on tour and I was working. Unfortunately just finished just before he got sick. Yes, it was tough.
Was it hard? I mean obviously a gourd, you know, being such a close friend of yours because for people that don't know we've had we've talked about the tragedy hit before on talk as Jericho. Gourd basically announced that he had terminal brain cancer and did a final tour of Canada with basically all this fans knowing that this was this was it for him.
Gourd is Springsteen Bob Dylan Michael Stipe Eddie Vetter, you know all rolled up into one Mick Jagger for in Canada. He's one of the biggest names of all times. So what was that like for you and Gourd first told you that he was sick. How did you find out. I actually heard through his brother Patrick, you know, because he was already hospitalized, et cetera. I went out to see him. Me and my friend Jamie Cashew helped me produce the album. We flew out and spent a couple days with him.
Just played music and just hung out. It was amazing. Played music like records actually. Oh yeah. Yeah, Gourd just was putting on records and we just hung. It was great. And then when he got he got really sick, I tried to mix this record and I kind of mixed it. He heard it. He basically told me make sure everybody hears this. You know, I really couldn't listen to it for quite a while. And I guess year and a half ago the hips new manager Jake Gold says we're we kind of like to hear this.
I think everybody wants to hear it. Narts and crafts, the label in Canada. They wanted to really said so actually after along period of time, I kind of looked at it from a different perspective. And I felt I could finish it. I basically looked at it as what I do as a producer, a different perspective and I realized that Gourd and his lyrics were the most important things. So I pushed him right out to the front.
And I could finish it. It's really cool to listen to like I said because obviously Corda done a lot of solo records in the past and he was very much into indigenous issues and that sort of thing. But this at his core is rock and roll record. And it's really interesting to hear him singing riffs that aren't tragically hit written. You know, these are Bob rock riffs. And that's why I think this really stands out to be because there's so many different styles of music on here.
There's a couple of tunes that have a real YouTube vibe to it for me. Is there nowhere else to do like this is like such a YouTube type, bono landscape and then something like, you know, Camaro or or or luster parfait. They're just great rock and roll songs. You put horns on there. I don't think I've ever heard horns before in a Gourd downy joint.
So we say it really does kind of run the landscape, the musical landscape. The thing is is, you know, we didn't want to do the hip and you know where I come from basically it led to the fact that we could do whatever the we wanted. You know, so we just leaned on you know, all the music is all my influence that I wear and sleep. There's Bolly. There's everything on it, right. Yeah. And he just reacted is so there was no history, you know, in terms of what the music could be.
So it was a whole pile of freedom. So he could wear all the different voices that he always wanted to do. He was inspired by the music and I just can't believe it to be quite us to this day. Because what he did was turned into some music that he just changed it all as a matter of fact, the one song, Gray Boy, he was so good at it. The music was not as good as what he did. So I raised, I rewrote the whole song to his voice. That's where he ended up because he took it to a higher place.
Is this something that you do that after he passed away rewrote? Yes, the wow. It's amazing. It's almost it's almost kind of like what what they had to do with the Beatles anthology where you're just taking the voice that you know that's already existing for a guy who's not around and writing music around it at that point.
Yeah, well, just the melodies he did the music didn't really didn't really support the melodies. I kept the same feel, but it's way better. Actually, someday the demo might come out and you'll see what the difference is, but he took everything to a higher level. Let's put it that way.
What did you think of as a lyricist, obviously, one of the all time greats and just like I said, the titles when you're reading through are always cool, but then you get something like, for example, like the moment is a wild place, which is gosh, it's got to be about eight minutes long. Amazing lyrics. How is it for you when you're sending Gord your music and he send you back these wordscapes of these classic Gord down, he lyrics, we kind of amazed at what he was coming up with.
Oh, yeah, basically the first time I got definitely choked up music's important and what I do is important to me and when somebody gets inspired by it, it's just the best feeling in the world and that good. I mean, literally, there's no turkeys on this record. There's no bad songs. It's just a great record. I actually, I like the full version of the album. The full version of the album tells the story.
No, but like you're saying, because and usually we hear this with post humus records of the prince has had them and so many different people have passed away with the materials left over, but this sounds like it like you guys wrote this over the last year. It's all very, very great stuff. You mentioned it took you, excuse me, a long time to want to listen to it again, get into it again. Was there any issues getting it released because it's been six years since Gord passed.
Yeah, I can't say too much about what I'm about to say, but some other people were blocking it. They didn't want it to come out. But when they changed management, the hip and Gord's estate, then Jake Gold said, let's do this. Yeah, so it was held up by other issues. Gotcha, gotcha. I mean, once again, I know Jake, I'm glad that he allowed it because it really is here that he's here that voice of Gordowny so distinctive. Nobody ever sang like he did. He's got that little kind of yodel in there.
It's his goady style. Yeah, just to hear that voice again, it just made me happy. You know, like it's, yeah, I'm glad it's, it's exists. There's the ending of Hellbreak's loose. If you ever get to the end of it, all of a sudden his voice stored and that was one of the last vocals he did. And to me at the time, I was going, oh, I didn't know he could sing like that.
If you listen to the end of it, you'll hear this bono type. He just goes for it. So I was going like, I was saying to him, oh, that's the next record. You're going to sing like that through the whole record we laughed at. We had a lot of fun. This is the whole thing is this was built on friendship. And we're just like really, you know, like growing up in Winnipeg, him growing up in Kingston, et cetera. You know, like in Winnipeg when I was younger, there's a song called in the fields.
And we talked about how I would go out at the beginning of the day, like nine o'clock and I would just wander the prairies of St. James, you know, all the, because we lived on the heads of St. James, I'd be gone the full day. Am I parents, you know, what was what was going on there? I'd never let any of my kids do that.
That we talked about like, kind of wandering being, you know, just being aware of everything, you know, I saw all sorts of things, old cars and it that was the beginning of kind of like, I don't know, just recognizing things. So that was a seed we talked about growing up and just being interested, you know, in everything.
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You know, in terms of the material, obviously Canada is a big subject for him. He's one of the greats. I mean, he's obviously one of the greats in Canada. I'm lucky that I work with, to me, the best two. My generation is Paul Hyde and Gord Downey. I mean, I'm a very blessed guy in terms of that.
Not I said my generation. Not all the icons from Canada, right? But yeah, I mean, he's a lot like Hetfield and Nina Asperg and all the guys that I've worked with where, you know, music and lyrics are their lives, you know. Like the stacks of paper for each song. There's 30 rewrites on some of these songs. To get it right. That's why it took so long.
Do you think that's one of the reasons why the hip never really exploded anywhere else in the world? I mean, once again, if you're listening to this and you haven't heard the tries to get there a band that could play, you know, the Winnipeg Arena, the Calgary Saddle Dome, Toronto Sky Dome, multiple nights, super huge.
Hundreds of thousands of fans and then they go to first Avenue in Minneapolis and play in front of 700 people. What didn't translate with the hip that that did with other bands of that genre and that era? I can't criticize. There's so many things that happen in, you know, in a band's career. But the best thing about the hip working with them is they're kind of like the stones. They have a sound, which is very rare.
They have this sound when they play together individually. You know, you can't hear one influence, but they're sound in the feel that they have and Gord were just sing over top of it. I don't, I don't know why maybe they just didn't go down to the States enough. A lot of people, you know, when you have success, there's other artists in Canada that have all been successful in Canada.
Because, you know, they just tour Canada. It's a way to make a living. And when you go to the States, you actually have to invest. So maybe that's the thing. I don't really know I'm guessing, but even like with the payholders, you know, we went to the States and we had moderate success. I mean, we did really well up here. Right. Well, actually, I mean, Maui right now, but we did really well in Canada, right? And it didn't translate.
There were certain bands like that. If you talk about like, lover boy made it huge street heart did not and street heart coming from one of the big. They were to me like one of the best Canadian bands. Yeah, but they just never were able, you know, it comes down to songs, radio, you know, the record company touring, all that stuff.
You know, a lot of success, especially has to do with management as you know, management record company. Of course, I was lucky enough like lover boy Brian Adams, you know, BTO, it's Bruce Allen, Bruce Allen, manages me also managed your wrestler. Yes, Bret Hart. Yeah, Bret Hart.
Yeah, we got to get to wrestling by the way in Winnipeg because I was a fan when I was a kid. Well, let's talk about that. Well, it was a AWA that you were watching. Well, what is it? Was it also wrestling in Winnipeg? Was it called? Yeah, it's weird because so, so that be Vancouver. Yeah. Yeah, you know, killer Kowalski, Don Liel, Jonathan, Hey, Stakka, Luna, I remember that.
Dad now used to watch it all the time, you know, growing up in Winnipeg. Well, Winnipeg's always been a huge wrestling town. Yeah, and a huge rock and roll. And we just had a show there at the, whatever it's called now, the MTS Center about two months ago. It was jam packed. So that's always kind of been in the lineage of the town. It's pro wrestling. Yeah, when actually I was talking of Bruce the other day and I was trying to remember everybody and he's just an encyclopedia about wrestling.
Yeah. And he told me that there was this great thing with Minneapolis and the Per and Manitoba. There was this whole scene that had, which is why we got those wrestlers to come up. It was called AWA. So that was, it was based out of Minneapolis and they were one of the big stops on the tour was Winnipeg, obviously being eight hours north. So that's kind of how I cut my teeth on wrestling as well was, was with AWA. Yeah. That's Winnipeg's talent.
You mentioned earlier Bob about, um, Gord's lyrics and how guys like Hetfield and Ann Aspery were very much lyrical. How would you help those guys when you're producing them? Would, would their lyrics go 100% from the printed page into the song? Did you help arrange like, for example, with James's lyrics? Did you ever have to kind of help him edit? Well, you know, all of the guys that we're talking about here are our top shelf guys.
Something that I've said before the probably the one thing I did with Hetfield was the original lyric was on Sandman was about crypt death. And basically what I said is you might want to take another turn at this, you know, because I'm and I talked about great lyrics. Lyrics, lyruses like Bob Dylan, Bono, I said, all these guys, I've Leonard Cohen, they all update their lyrics. They don't just write it and they always look how it can be better.
So I said, why don't you take another stab at it and maybe look at it in a different way and just try and he rewrote the lyrics. But that's the only thing I ever said to him. And that took a lot of courage on my part, but it kind of worked out. In terms of Gord, the only thing that I had anything to do with the lyrics was when I sent him the music to Camaro, I said Camaro because my wife's favorite car is a 68 Camaro. And this movie called a law, how Bobbie and Rose about a car.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I always thought Camaro would be a great name for a girl. So I said, that's what I called it. So he ended up writing a song about a girl named Camaro. And he killed it. I didn't expect them to do that. He came back and he wrote the song about Camaro. It's an amazing song. This is a story of the one. As a maintenance specialist for university housing, he knows college students can major in wear and tear.
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You know, here you are as Bob Rock once again, one of the legendary producers of all time. And it's still, I don't want to talk too much about it, but there's still a great story about when you basically were just becoming the Bob Rock and you had done feel good.
And then you connect with Metallica. How abrasive was that trying to connect with those guys because they didn't really want you there. Even they might have wanted you there, but there was a lot of kind of biting of heads. How did you deal with that is kind of, you know, you're a young producer, you've done records, but you're still kind of like, hey guys, like what are we doing here?
Well, a couple of things. I saw Metallica, I bought justice and you know, all the skaters around Vancouver basically in Surrey. They all had Metallica shirts on. So I bought justice and I listened to it and I kind of went, hmm, I'm not sure about the sound. There's no bottom, whatever.
So the cold warmed up on the justice to it, right? So actually, I saw the cold and hung with them and I stayed in watch Metallica when I saw them, I heard this huge monstrous, you know, heavy, weighty band and I'm going like, what happened? The other thing is is that because of Dr. feel good, they wanted me to mix the record, but I actually said, no, I didn't want to mix it. I said, I wanted to produce it. And I guess they thought, oh my God, this guy's got a lot of balls to say that.
They came up to Vancouver. They played me the cassette tapes of their demos and I knew I could do it because the tempos and everything. I knew I could do it basically, you know, sabbatru. They were all there, the tempos and stuff.
And then we just started talking, we had dinner, started talking and they said, let's go. And the thing is, is that really what you see in the movies, etc. The videos, etc. You know, there was a lot of great times, you know, there was a lot of connections, but it took a long time to break all those down all those walls.
Like for instance, when James actually pretty much the way he recorded his vocals, he'd do one line double, I'd move on to the next, you know what I'm talking about, right? Whereas I go like, I go for performances. He basically said, you know, I've never really sung before and nothing else matters and what's the other one? Unforgiven?
Yeah, the two songs, you know, never really sung. I said, well, I'll do multiple takes and I'll comp it. And I said, what vocal sound do you like? And he said, I really like Chris Isaacs, we're good game. And I said, well, okay, that's sound and then you won't have to double it. And therefore, you know, people are going to hear your voice in the emotion. And so we just worked on it. So I opened that door to him and he never went back.
See, those are the things by making a whole pile of records because I'm so old is that I've made a lot more records than them. So I just brought all the things I learned, you know, and just those doors open. They had only known the records they had done with the other guys that produced the records. You know what I mean? That's all they knew. Sure.
They never played in the studio together ever until the black album. Never. There's a trust element to like even with my band, we had a song that just went gold called Judas. And we originally started working with the producer who also is a great lyricist. There's a little bit of adjustment like I'm the singer of the band. I'm supposed to write the lyrics.
And then you realize who gives a shit who writes the lyrics, all that matters is the song. And you have to learn to trust each other when you're working with somebody like our guys Johnny Andrews or Bob Rock or Bob Ezron or whoever it may be my Lang. And once you get that trust, then you're like, OK, dude, like what do you got? And obviously you had that with Metallica because you did six, seven records together, but it just takes a little time to get to that place.
Trust is a big thing. And I had to earn it to be quite honest. It was like they weren't let's up into me. They were a heavy band. And I knew about them. But it wasn't like I was in the room with Jimmy Page or whatever. You know what I mean? So it was about making a record with them. And being around them and what I've learned by I don't know, being around great people like Mic Ronson when he produced the pales albums.
Wow. He taught me a lot about perspective and stuff. I just sat there and just, you know, it's a different perspective. A lot of people maybe even yourself, you write a song. And it's your perspective because you wrote it. But somebody that can come out, maybe can see, well, this is great, but this could be better. And or you're not really doing enough of this type of thing. That's an outside perspective.
So slowly, I built that trust. Let's talk about when they did the load record, obviously. So it's five years later. How do you follow up such a massive record like the black album. And there was a style change and there was a fashion change. What was kind of your thoughts when they came in with this new idea of where they wanted to go? Were you behind that? Were you all for it? Did you understand they had to go somewhere different? Because it is a real different sound for them.
We knew you see records like the black album, you can't recreate it. You really can't. We could go in the same building and it's not going to be the same. It's got a lot to do with the timing where they are personally. I mean, I think the black album is probably James is most personal record. He wasn't in the same place. We cut like, I think it's 36 tracks took us like almost 10 months.
Basically, we were going to make a double record. And James had written maybe four lyrics. And I realized this this was going to take probably five years to do, right? So we decided to make two records. So we and I knew that they had just, you know, started their lives, wives, kids. I knew that it was going to, I said, let's go to New York and just be alone.
And that's how we finished the first half of the load. And it is a different sounding album. Like I said, you can't do the same thing. It's got the elements of yes, but that are the same. But they just move on. I mean, you can't go back. That would be like karaoke in a way. Right. All of a sudden, you know what it's it? You know what I mean? All of a sudden, Leonard Schinnard was a big thing.
And some of their influences, when they discovered playing together, like load was the first time Kirk ever played rhythm guitar. He never played any rhythms before that. Wow. Never. It was always just James tripled. So that was the first time he played rhythm guitar. That's a change in the sound. They were to not change. They didn't want to change.
The same, but different is a great phrase from Bowie. It's the same, but different. It can't be the same. Well, you go back to what you mentioned about Bowie. Like, for example, I mean everything about Bowie was always different, but they still had anchors in the foundation of who Bowie was as an artist. Exactly. And all the greatest artists are like that. Yes. I think one of the thing that I got with working, those guys have so much integrity.
I couldn't believe their commitment and their integrity to who they were. I got them at a perfect time. And I learned tons from them. But at the end of the album, I never wanted to see them again. Absolutely. We felt feeling was ritual. We're in New York after we mastered and, hey, it's been nice. Don't call. It was just like, and I was serious. Randy Sabin, I was just like, no way. Never again.
Unfortunately, it became huge. So what do you do? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Last but tell us a question. I have so many questions about some of the great artists you work with. Tell me about, and I love about half or maybe three quarters of the same anger record. I think it's a great record. It's very raw. It's very dirty. It's very healing. Tell me about the mindset of the snare sound of this very tinny metallic, maybe echoey snare sound. What was the mindset of that?
There was no mindset. What it was is that we went to Oakland with the fan club. And we went to the house in Oakland that they practice with Cliff Burton. So when we got back to their studio, I asked the drum tech to drag out the drum kit from that. And he dragged out the drum kit this time of set. And it just sat there in the studio for probably two months. And Lars started when he started to play. He says, give me a snare drum. I just bought that snare drum in a local music store.
And he put up the snare drum for whatever reason. He says, let's let's just use this. And I put up four microphones for one on each kick, one on top of the kit. And on the snare. And he said, that's it. I was going like, what do you mean that's it? Yeah, this is the sound we're going to do. Because basically, and really all I can say is that there was this great album by the stooge is again, this dude is called raw power. And if you think about it, St. Anger sounds like the band in that house.
Do you know what I mean? There was no harmonies. There's no no fixing anything. It's just raw solos. That was a rule that I didn't make, by the way, but I'm not going to say what happened there. But basically what it was about is like there was a band called the Champs from San Francisco. All they did was put riffs together. Right. So that was the basis of that. Also, James wasn't there for a long time. We had to punt. You know, we had to keep it going and moving.
So that record wasn't the best for my career, but it was the best in terms of I had to be there for those guys because they broke up. I just put a couple years and just concentrated on being a friend. And if that album didn't happen, I don't think they would have lasted. I agree. Do you know what I mean? That they had to do that album so they could just go back and be them.
No, and that's the thing like every band you talk about the greats have a journey of 30 or 40 years. And that was a raw bandaid record. And people that don't understand that at the time, that was the best record for them to make. And the record they had to make. And nothing could be changed about it. It's very personal. It is. The great stories, though, two guys in the whole world, Jack White, when it might get loud at the premiere, it happened to be in Toronto when it happened.
It came up to me from the cross room. He says, by the way, I love St. Andrews, an amazing album and left. The other thing, Jimmy Page, not to drop names, but he's kind of a friend. Anyways, at the Sunset Marquis, he was sitting eating breakfast on the other side of the pool. And somebody walked by and said, I'm here seeing Bob Rock.
Jimmy said, Bob sir, he came over and talked to me, which blew my mind coming from Winnipeg. Yeah, Jimmy Page even knows my name, you know, and he said, by the way, I love St. Andrews. It's a great album. So I'm okay. Those two guys bought the record. That's good. No, it's those two. I'm fine. Right. I'm going through kind of your discography. And there's a couple guys I want to bring up to you. Actually, my favorite David Leroth solo record is a little in enough.
What do you remember about making that record? How was it working with Diamond Dave? It was fantastic. Yeah. When he played me in songs, we were in a hotel room, a conference room in the hotel, you're standing there was a ghetto blaster in the middle of the room. And I had a chair in front of me. I sat down and he did his whole stick and sang all the did all the moves and sang all this. So I was in right from the word go. We had the best time.
Talk about Jason Becker because Jason Becker was the guitar player on that record who was kind of the heir apparent. A great combination of Van Halen and Steve Vy who then was basically diagnosed with MS during the recording of that record. It was never never played guitar again. How did you track with him? Did you know? Did you know something was wrong at that point? Absolutely.
Yeah. He was suffering the whole time. It was tough. It was tough. Yeah. He's one of the all time greats that never got a chance to really show that. Still still alive to this day. Yeah. Great guitar player was great. Working with Steve Hunter too. He was a big fan from all the stuff he did with Lou Reed and all the other stuff that he did. These guys that would come to town obviously with in Vancouver and they always talked about going to hang out the strip clubs and stuff.
Would you just go home for the day or would you ever go out with the guys? I tagged along sometimes. I mean this is the thing. You know, as you know, especially with the producer in a way you're just in a room with people and you've got to kind of make friends right away. You know, and you got to hang with the guys. So they're comfortable with you. Right. So yeah, I did. It was fun. But you know, a lot of times I had to leave because it got a little carried away.
Bon Jovi broke down all the barriers. They were the first ones that discovered the strip clubs in Vancouver. And then everybody knew of course. That was just the place to go, right? It was. Yeah. It was little mountain studios and it was some Bruce Fabren who I worked with for many years. It just had a great sound and it was a great city. It was affordable and it's Vancouver. It was fun.
Was Bruce kind of your your mentor for a lack of better term? I'm not sure that's quite the best word. But the fact is is. I'd known him through the band prism. I guess doing jingles. You know what jingles are commercials. They used to cut. We used to cut bands live. Everything was cut. There was no pro tools and stuff.
And all the guys that were in connected with prism. They were all session guys. So basically I think through that connection. They heard all those guys were saying you got to hear this guy from that mountain. It's young guy. So he gave me a shot and I did prism. The Armageddon prism album. I was the first kind of record. He gave me a shot and then we just started working together.
I learned a lot from him. He gave me my shot without Bruce. I wouldn't I wouldn't be here talking to you. There you go. That sums it up. That sums it up right. He ended up you know because he wasn't a sonic sky. So basically I was a sonic sky. And then the combination obviously works.
So what about working with share obviously very legendary different different approach to vocals with her. I would how would you help produce her record when she's been doing this for 30 odd years or whatever it is. First of all what a sweetheart. Fantastic woman. I just did the vocals that electric lady in New York and she you know just like everybody record is do multiple tracks.
Comp it go back and touch it up and she's approached you knew what she was doing Richie and Jonathan written the songs so they were there you know it's really easy to do. I'll tell you one thing though that was hilarious. I got walking up to an early phone call from share high Bob it's chair by the way that Evan Evan Evan whoever did block that Evan Evan we have fixed it for me and I said yes. Yes I will share.
Where's like a trucker. Where's like a trucker. I love that kind of woman. Yeah great amazing. And I got a beautiful handwritten note from her. Yeah great lady.
What is your your approach to producing you know I've had Rick Rubin on I've had a couple of the producers on and obviously Rick is more of just to vibe and a feel and for you. I mean obviously we've seen a day in the life of Metallica and all of this up but all these other bands like are you just I take guy you want to hear the vocal you
know I'm helping craft songs ranging all the above none of the above one of the things that I learned I mentioned MacRonson I did a demo eyes of a stranger it's a demo and MacRonson came into the room he listened to all our songs and he heard that song and he says well we're not going to get better than this that's actually a demo he put the keyboards we sang it I did it and
wow yeah so what I learned by that is that you've got to recognize what's best in a band it's not my record as a producer a lot of people have a certain sound like mud laying as a certain sound what I discovered is I just try and help the band make the record that they want to make there's one interesting thing I worked with this band maybe eight years ago and I was mixing it they're called Cadillac three they were called American bang before
and I was mixing the single in my studio and I thought I wonder if I've got any better so I put on working for the weekend and compared to the song that I just did and it sounded exactly the same so either I didn't learn anything or basically I have a perspective to music and people like my perspective you know where it ends up that's how I hear music
growing up in Winnipeg growing up in Vancouver in Victoria and listening to the radio and being you know just all my influences you know comes out to my perspective that's what I figure anyway how about when you working with I mean obviously didn't some stuff with Michael
Bubley who is huge huge use is more of a crooner is there different style we're working with with him than other than working with a rock and roll singer not really you know what I learned is for one there was a guy that was working with Michael and had this song called everything and Bruce manages me and Michael Bubley he asked me to he was playing in Maui just go see him and listen to this song and so we talked about the song and I said well you just got
to fix this the bridge isn't good enough we write the bridge blah blah blah and you know Michael's going this is a guy that did the black I don't get it well the thing is as I told you I did jingles I did a V's and jiggles with strings I've done this home my whole life so wasn't really like Bruce knew that Michael didn't know that but basically when we cut everything he went oh I get it and then it was great you know we had a lot of fun he like all
the records I did with him other guys did some songs but I always get the kind of greasy which I like that's kind of your your because what people don't realize is obviously all the great records you produced but you mentioned you've engineered and mixed just as many I mean the list your your discography of classic albums is is ridiculous man so you're kind of a
lot of all trades you can mix it you can engineer you can produce it whatever you need is there any records we've done all three of those are just trying to balance it well I think I did that with when I started really producing kingdom come and I realized that I couldn't be a great producer if I was always like he can't wear those two things to me right so that's why I found Randy stop which helped me from then on I actually work with my
Fraser for a while and then he went on to do other things but I found Randy stop I stopped backing off that but it get my hands into it I can't help myself but you can't do both I don't think you can do both explain to people because nowadays you're comping tracks you mentioned which is basically you take you know you sing six versions and Bob decides which parts on best you do it
basically all my computer and you're cutting and pasting all on pro tools or whatever you're using tell us about how it used to be back in the day when you're talking about Randy stop how did you used to edit tracks together when they were all on tape you see the thing we did the same thing people think that auto tune is when everybody started
tuning was we were tuning vocals I'd say early 80s you know all Michael Jackson all the big records everything has been tuned for like decades before auto tune it's just it took us a day to tune the vocal we put it into a machine bring it up a half a cent and put it back on tape it just took a lot
longer the edits we cut tape and we printed we were always trying to tune things we're always trying to get the best performances the thing is is when I first when I did the lover boy albums if Mike Reno thank God it was such a great vocalist never
hit a bad note but if you you basically had one track for vocals and to re-sing something you were erasing the vocal that was there oh yeah you didn't have a choice when it was 16 track and 24 so you just had to be good right yeah to be really good you know
yeah a couple times things went by the wayside that didn't get better but that that was part of the game back then when you're talking about cutting though you'd actually have to take a razor blade and cut the tape yeah and then cut the other tape and then like
scotch tape them together or whatever is that basically how it was well yeah it's basically well the black album yeah there's sometimes 175 edits we edit the drums up and back we put tape in to make him in time it was it was hell actually all the masters the tapes of all the drums the drum
tracks we transferred to a 24 Sony digital because we thought the tape was going to fall apart I believe yeah right 175 edits to be so brittle at that point in time oh yeah no wonder it took 10 months to make a record back then I mean oh yeah oh yeah
let's talk about another band that you've been synonymous with as far as making them into a huge band I know you just recently work with them this month even maybe is it time what Motley crew another band that you kind of took from one level all the way the next with Dr. feel good
what was the kind of relationship you had with those guys when they came in and what were they looking for from you from girls girls girls that you changed for Dr. feel good to make it such a giant record well they were sober when I did Dr. feel good I had a meeting with
they were all sober and they had burned a lot of bridges they sent me a tape in the first song on it was Dr. feel good and my wife Angie just said were you doing this record and then I met them I was a fan I like I like when I was younger I like the New York I got what they were doing you know I listened to them I thought they made good records and Doc McGee who managed brought Jovi managed some molecule so he hooked this up and they come up to Vancouver of course they destroyed Vancouver
but we you know it's great to get the matter LA sober and you know by the end of the record they all went into rehab because they slept as you do yeah as you do yeah they're great and it was actually the three songs that I just cut with them it was so amazing it was just the best time
so easy yeah whenever you get a new member into the band it always adds a lot more energy and obviously I know John five he's a great guy is a great player how was it having him in the studio and working with him as the new guy it was really easy I got to tell you story about Nicky 6 this is funny
so Dr. feel good he says to me goes I don't think I ever played on any of the multi crew records I think somebody came in at night and and I didn't replace all my parts he said so I don't really know how to play bass and I said too bad you're playing bass on it so I worked with them through Dr. feel good did a lot of edits and made him play every note but when we did the dirt the songs on the dirt I went to see him
and we started working on the demos he picked up a bass start playing and said whoa whoa whoa what's going on here he's been he had been taking bass lessons for five years all of a sudden he's an amazing bass player and I think that's so cool in that point of his career he wanted to be better you know what I mean yeah totally I admire that and so now on the dirt Nicky and Tommy played live off the floor both of them okay so I have John 5 Nicky 6 excellent bass player Tommy Lee it was easy
now that is pretty cool yeah it's like when you hear that Neil Peart worked with Freddie Roach the drum famous jazz drummer when he was like 60 or whatever that's kind of like pretty damn cool to still be learning your craft when you're already a huge rock star right yeah
yeah do you ever miss playing live do you ever do anything with the panels at all pull out the guitar and throw it on some riffs oh yeah we constantly do that I think we got five new songs in terms of playing live in Maui there's this charity that chef Gordon Alex Cooper's oh I was going to ask if he knows chef I love chef he's great yeah he puts together this everybody that lives here is Tyler the doobie brothers we all get together on New Year's Eve and do a thing for the food bank
and the arts and cultural center here and so the all those guys let me play which is amazing that's great one gig a year yeah yeah but Paul and I toured the last thing we toured was with Fogarty maybe about 10 years ago we did 10 dates with him and it was great met him you had the funny story last gig he wanted to meet me come back and meet his wife so I go back there everybody says the only guy that's gone back this tour was Paul McCartney
so they're all winding me up anyway go back to first thing out of the mouth how'd you get the cake drum sound on doctor feel good oh wow and I'm going like oh my god drum 40s listen isn't motley cool anyway how did you get that sound because for example Lars' snare is still the sampled snare to this day that bands use all the time that snare sound is like 30 years ago still one of the greatest snare crack sounds ever
that was a lot of work yeah just finding it I mean you just find the micr mics or do you set the drums up in different areas of the room or we found the best area and you know I would say that there's probably black I'm a great believer I don't really look at things like using too much or whatever there's probably maybe five or six EQs on that snare
just finding it just keep adding and doing I don't take away things in terms of like EQ I'm more like I add it because when you take away things you're taking away transits blah blah that's very technical right but you know you just work it to get it right you know that was the thing with everything on the black album you know it took us a long time to get the drum sound
it took even a very long time to get the guitar sound right but once you get it it's it and that's where a lot of respect came to and Jason basically he was just playing the riff with the guitars that's what his thing was and I said well you know you should play more with the drums like as a bass player counter rhythms and like a bass player
so we went we rented every bass every amp and went through them all and we ended up with a precision bass and an SVG and that's the sound on the black album basic and he was playing bass there he breaks away from the rep he's more of a bass player there that's what I brought all the stuff that I've learned you know and that's amazing too because that bass sound is so good on the black album
Metallica was notorious for having great bass players you can never hear them even Cliff Burton you can hear him under the surface and obviously you mentioned justice for all with no bass maybe that's the reason why because he was just playing along with the riff and those guitars were so crunchy there's only so much real estate he was getting lost
yeah there is a reason why there's no bass on justice James doesn't like compression on his guitars the guys that mix them I forget their names I should remember because they're great basically in a NSSL console there's this compressor and back then the sound was hitting that compressor really hard it was part of the rock in the 80s right
anyway James when I started mixing he says I don't want any compression on my guitars and I'm going like because basically on the justice album they kept turning down the bass because it was interfering with the bottom on the guitars right right basically when they ended up there was you couldn't hear the bass in James yeah that sounds great I sound great
anyway so that I had the same problem and I figured out a way through the console to separate the drums and get the drum sound with the compressor and everything else and James no compression that's the sound of the black album that's why they are sound like that too that's just working around something that's wrong right sure trying to figure that out of solve the problem right
last few questions for you Bob is there any bands that you they always wanted to work with that you didn't work with that you still hope you can work with let's have something that's not going to happen yeah yeah everybody I love but you know I'm fine I'm happy with what I've done and whatever lands comes my way I just enjoy doing this I really do I just love making records
well it's funny to you because you have bands like the cult that won't make a record without you which is great there there there stuff is always good I mean this like Michael Bubley stuff is good the crew stuff is always good so you're still a working producer probably taking as many or as few projects as you want at this point right at this point I think covid taught me to slow down it was 15 months here on Maui which was great it was tough for a bit and then I started to enjoy it
but I learned I'm not ready to retire but also I I realized that you know it's time to kind of just take the things that I really want to do right now I'm working on all the offspring oh nice yeah just finish that finishing up that the crew and then I'm going to be working with Willie Nelson son Lucas Nelson in the new year all fun stuff is there a record that you made that you thought should have been bigger or is one that pops you that you really like that people might not know
God that means I'd have to remember one record that I thought was would do better was the tonic that record that I made it was great record and it did okay nominated for a Grammy but it never really did what it should have I was that the choir boys could have been bigger as well that was a killer record when it came out yeah they might have got caught up in the grunge kind of shifting of the whole musical style maybe
yeah on lustre parfage is getting back to the new new gourd Danny record which what song stand out for you and obviously all your children it's hard to pick just one but is on today is there one or two that stand out as your favorites I really like gray boy that's the one that I rewrote I love the moment the long one yeah I like kind of those long songs that move you
and I go I go through the album now because I know it's so much I kind of pick two or three and I played nonstop for about a month and then I pick another three so it's really hard right now we'll just leave it at the moment in gray boy oh no sure ah that's a great one that's a really great great lyric and yeah I really like that I can listen to that all the time because it's vocal all his vocals make it very
listenable every time I listen to it even though I recorded it all I still am amazed what I pick up the nuances that he has and his lyrics gets better and better with age do you feel like it's one of the best things you've ever worked worked on yeah definitely wow that's saying a lot yeah last question for you Bob you got a favorite gourd Danny memory something funny something point in something stands out to you yeah he was staying at this place in paeabay
and he met up with the centipede and he's going I think something just bit me and my foot is swelling up am I going to die and I said no it's just going to hurt like crap for about two days there you go that's all I got gourd getting bitten by a centipede I have a memory of gourd when I used to go to Red River Community College when it pegs finest and I was working as a bouncer to make some extra money
19 years old or 18 years old and they brought the tragically hip in when they were just a bar band I remember the lady said the the talent shakes goes these guys going to be cat is version of the Rolling Stones and I went down to the dress room to help organize the dress room and they had some beer in there and gourd offered me a beer so there you go I got a beer from gourd
Danny before he was famous okay you got to get them help him with his centipede bite so that's not too bad yeah Bob it's been great talking to you man and once again one of the all time greats much respect for all the work done and I'm excited to hear what you do in the future I appreciate that absolutely thanks man say hello to Winnipeg for me well Bob Rocks does a low okay