Paparazzi Proofing
You can pull your car into the parking lot, shut the gate and it’s photography-proof. You don’t have to cross the sidewalk. And we can do that with 60 cars. We built a fence and put Eugenia on the other side. What happens? The cameramen stick their hands through the iron gate and break the Eugenia. I put what’s like a shower curtain the whole length of the place. You can’t move that, so the next thing they do is climb up the trees. I greased the trees so they couldn’t climb up. Finally, they have to come up ladders. If you’re going to carry a fucking ladder, I’m going to give you the photograph.
Expensive Lessons
I tell interns, “When you leave Conway you can get a job anywhere in the world.” And if they can’t do the job, they’re gone. One kid didn’t know how to clean a table. I ask them to get a wrench and they come back with a screwdriver.
Recording studio school is a rip-off. Another kid’s going to Northwestern to learn audio engineering. I said, “Are you out of your mind?” Four years, $300,000. I told his father I could teach his kid this shit in three months for free.
Every Style Imaginable
I’m an analog guy, but we do so much varied work. Even though we have analog machines, it’s mostly Pro Tools. We do a lot of major motion pictures, so we can mix 5.1. We have 21” subwoofers so the guys who want to change your heart rate can do that. We can do anything. Digital, analog, throw it at us. We’ll eat it alive.
Wish Fulfillment
We get a wish list of what [artists] want. Jellybeans, a certain potato chip or what they like to drink, cookies, whatever they want. We fulfill that wish. We have a room that we keep stuff and everybody’s stuff is different. The only thing I don’t allow is crack. That is never going to happen. Nobody can smoke crack in the studio.
The better we take care of what they want and the atmosphere they want, the better chance they’ll come back. If you don’t take care of them, they aren’t coming back.
All Middle
No top, no bottom and all middle—that’s the trend. Compress the fuck out of it. When you look at something that was mixed before you compressed it, you see all these lines that go up and down. Now, you take something off the radio and it’s a block with no highs and no lows. It’s a block of color, like a felt pen making a solid line. Music is five blocks wide. What you’re listening to is the center block—the top two and bottom two don’t exist. That’s what people want to listen to. But I will never accept that.
Go Back to Basics
Don’t give up the good fight. Try to make stuff sound better. The biggest problem with up-and-coming people is when they don’t have the right song they add more shit. More echo, delay, harmony...when really you have to go back to basics and make that better. It’s like they’re covering up the deficiencies with more crap instead of spending time on getting the basics right—the right vocal, bridge and instruments.
Organization Helps
It’s maddening to mix some of this stuff. In the old days, you’d have a track sheet with everything written down. Now, they come in with nothing. Here are 200 tracks—mix it. Make it sound good. The level of professionalism has dipped down to unprofessional. But that’s what we do. We take all this crap and make good music out of it. Everybody expects us to do that.
Still Rockin’
I’m 72. I’ve had offers on the property, but I have no desire to sell. What would I do? I’m used to being busy, creating, being in the studio. I go in there and fuck around—I like that. I’d go out of my mind to go back to all that shit I quit in the ‘80s.
Clients: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ray Charles, Korn, Christina Aguilera, Green Day, Guns ‘N Roses, Black Eyed Peas, Stevie Wonder, Seal, Whitney Houston, No Doubt, KISS, Dave Matthews Band.
Years with Company: 39
Email: Booking: Stacey@conwayrecording.com; reception@conwayrecording.com
Web: conwayrecording.com
