Howard Bilerman

Todd Burns

I have the great pleasure to be joined in Montréal by someone who knows the city better than almost anyone from a music point of view. He’s worked on records by the Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Leonard Cohen recently. Please help me in welcoming Howard Bilerman.

(applause)

Howard Bilerman

Thank you, this is the closest I’ll ever get to talking at the UN. I need to come clean about something before we start.

Todd Burns

Please, go for it.

Howard Bilerman

I’ve done a lot of interviews and I’ve held a lot of microphones, but I’ve never done an interview holding a microphone before, so yesterday I was like, 'I’ve got to get my game going.' I practiced all day. First with an electric tooth brush and then a cucumber and then a badminton racket. Then I finally... I think there’s the tight grip, and then there’s like this grip.

Todd Burns

But is your arm tired?

Howard Bilerman

Right now it’s ready to go to sleep.

Todd Burns

Balanced.

Howard Bilerman

That segues into: the next thing is, once I figure the mike grip, is then it’s the position. So I Googled a lot of the videos and I thought Questlove had the best. He sort of like sunk into the couch nicely, so I just plan to hold this position for the entire interview.

Todd Burns

We’re going to start with you comparing yourself to Questlove?

Howard Bilerman

I would never ever compare myself to Questlove.

Todd Burns

Okay, why don’t we listen to a couple of pieces of music that you’ve worked on, because you’ve worked on more than 400 records.

Howard Bilerman

About that, yeah.

Todd Burns

I feel like maybe just to situate people – to see kind of the breadth of what you’ve done. Why don’t we just take a listen to this little snippet of stuff.

(music: Howard Bilerman medley / applause)

That’s a lot of different types of music.

Howard Bilerman

That’s a lot of different types of music, yeah.

Todd Burns

What’s the through line to all of that, is there something that ties all of that stuff together in your mind?

Howard Bilerman

Well there’s one thing that ties all those things together, which is me. And I spend a lot of time in my mind, so I imagine that that’s the through line. That’s a lot of different kinds of music and actually if you say, what is the thing you’re most proud of in your twenty-something years of recording bands? It’s not the number of records I’ve recorded, it’s not the specific few records that I’ve recorded that resonate with people. It’s the fact that I’ve been able to record so many different kinds of music in French, in English, in Portuguese. That I don’t have to keep on making the same record over and over again, because I think that would get really boring and I’m fortunate to get to work with a lot of people who sound different, and that’s the thing I’m most proud of in this all.

Todd Burns

When you got your start was that the aim, was it to do as many different types of music as possible?

Howard Bilerman

I think the aim when I started was just to be able to keep on doing it and pay rent until the next month and eat. Just to stave off having to get another job for a little longer, and I was really lucky that I had a lot of friends who were in bands. You know there’s that shampoo commercial? Like I told two friends and they told two friends and then you have 70 people washing their hair on the, that’s my career really in a nutshell. Which is I recorded one band and they shared a practice space with someone else and that band said, “Oh we need recording. Doesn’t sound that bad and he’s not that expensive.” And then, I just haven’t stopped. I haven’t stopped recording bands professionally since 1995.

Todd Burns

This all started in Montréal?

Howard Bilerman

This all started in Montréal. The first experience I had recording anything was recording bands live. I had a friend when I was in college who needed his band taped and I was 17 at the time, so I was underage and he was 20 and it was in a club here called Foufounes Électriques. I had to be super cool about it because I didn’t want to seem like I was nervous, that a) I was underage and b) this was the punkiest of punk clubs in Montréal. I arrived with my microphone and tape deck and I recorded a show and there was something really intoxicating about it, about just being in that environment and then eventually I got more equipment and more microphones and the cassette deck was replaced by a four track.

Then I bought studio gear. But really and actually if you want to talk about through line, recording bands live for many years greatly informed to me what bands sound like and by extension what records should sound like. You know, a band is one stage, they’re playing to an audience. There’s a direct line of communication between the band onstage and the audience. It’s happening in real time and most records don’t reflect that. After seeing so much live music and listening to records and feeling let down by the records, not feeling like they represented the bands. I thought, ‘What’s the problem here that needs to be solved?’ The problem that needs to be solved, when people make records I thought, they need to think of it as a live performance delayed by space and time.

You’re in a studio, you’re singing, you’re playing music and you can’t see your audience and your audience won’t hear this for six months. But you really are throwing a message in a bottle and the bottle washes up on shore six months later and someone hears it. But you need to play with the same sort of intensity and the desire to communicate something when you’re in a studio as you would if you were onstage playing for people and that, that lesson was learned from years of just showing up at clubs and watching bands play and getting to record them.

Todd Burns

Tell me about Montréal back around that time when you first started going out. What was the scene like? I think a lot of people think about Godspeed You! Black Emperor and that it was this magical sort of time of unbridled creativity. Was that the way it felt?

Howard Bilerman

My involvement precedes Godspeed to about eight years, when I first started paying attention to bands in Montréal. I grew up listening to all the classics, listening to Rolling Stones, Neil Young and The Beatles. Then around 1986 or 87, I started paying attention to bands from Montréal, the Sons of the Desert and 3 O’Clock Train and other bands from Canada like the Cowboy Junkies and bands from here like the Asexuals. I realized these bands are just as good. They make me feel just as good listening to this music as any of the records that I grew up listening to, but these bands are here in my backyard. The infrastructure wasn’t there, there weren’t really that many clubs to play in. There weren’t really any artists around recording studios. There were a lot of commercial high-end recording studios that you needed a record deal to be able to afford to record in and there were a lot of people who had things in their basement. There wasn’t really what we have now with the Hotel2Tango and the studios like Breakglass in Montréal. There wasn’t professional artist-run facilities that would be sympathetic to artists.

Then ’87, ’88, ’89, I really got knee deep in the bands that came from here. There was something immediate about being able to see a band and knowing they’re from your hometown and converse with them and become friends with them and see them get bigger and wait for their next record to come out. The city was financially depressed. This neighborhood, old Montréal, was like, you just didn’t want to be in this neighborhood when the sun went down. Half the buildings were vacant, the businesses had just left, it was really...

Todd Burns

It’s this idea of the referendum was hanging over the city a little bit...

Howard Bilerman

Yeah, kind of messed stuff up for a bit, but also...

Todd Burns

If you don’t know what the referendum is, can you describe that and ...

Howard Bilerman

Yeah, the referendum was basically Quebec, which is a province in Canada, there’s a portion of the population that believes in sovereignty; that believes that Quebec should be its own nation. The referendum was a public vote, I think the first referendum was in ’76, then another one was in ’94? Basically just a simple question, should Quebec separate from Canada? It really made a lot of people antsy. Anyone who was looking for some sort of financial stability just got up and moved to Toronto. I’m really happy that my parents chose to stay here and that I grew up here. I grew up with multiculturalism. For me, the economic instability of this town opened the door for me to be able to rent a 2,000 square foot loft for $800 and learn about what recording was. Those opportunities don’t exist anymore in this city like that. For me, I was super fortunate, you know?

Todd Burns

Your first recording studio was Mom and Pop, was it Mom and Pop?

Howard Bilerman

Mom and Pop Sounds, which was a tribute to the fact that it was literally in my parents’ basement and it lasted one recording session. My parents were really generous with me, both with lending me some cash to buy some recording equipment, and then being like, “Hey, can I set up a recording studio in your basement?” They were like, “Okay, at least he wants to do something.” You know, we’d record in the basement and then realize, “Fuck, the drums sound great in the garage with all the concrete, so let’s put the drums in the garage and we’ll put the rest of the band in the basement.” Then my dad was like, “We need to park the... we’ll just park on the street, it’s fine.” Then the kind of last straw was they had gone to Costco I think and they’d filled the cupboards with food and they came home and the band was in the den snacking on the food they’d just bought. My dad pulled me aside and was like, “We need to find another space.” It was easy, it literally was easy. I tried to find people to partner with, to share the rent and that’s what we did.

I had a friend who had a loft, just right near here actually, the building is gone now, they tore down the building. He had this beautiful loft, 1,800 square foot loft and he was in a band and needed to record and he knew that I had recording equipment. He’s like, “Listen, I’ll make you a deal, you have this recording equipment and you just got kicked out of your parents basement. I have a band and we need to record, but we have a space, so why don’t you move in your stuff for a month and for two weeks I’ll record my band with your equipment. Then for the other two weeks you can record all the bands that you have to record.” I stayed there for four years.

The only reason I left was because the city had condemned the building because the slumlord refused to put fire escapes. The building didn’t have fire escapes. The slumlord’s like, “I’m not going to do it.” The city was like, put little stickers on everyone’s door saying, “You have to leave. This building is unsafe.”

There was a weird series of break-ins, like armed-robbery in the building. Our neighbors were DJs and got broken into in the middle of the night. It was like, “Oh, I think it’s time to leave.”

Todd Burns

Where did you go?

Howard Bilerman

I went, where did I go, I went to a loft on Saint-Laurent, just for a very short period of time. Then Godspeed, this is I guess 1998 or ’99. Godspeed had practice space on Van Horne street which they called the Hotel2Tango, which they were running shows out of and rehearsing there. At that point, all of the bars you had to pay to play. If you wanted to do a show, you’d pretty much lose money unless you sold out the show. You have to pay the sound person, you have to rent the room, they’d charge you like $5 per towel, you want lights, that’s an extra $100. It’s like a make work project for clubs, it had nothing to do with the community. Thierry and Efrim had this loft, called the Hotel2Tango, and they heard that I was looking for a space. It was kind of a similar situation where they’re like, “You have all this equipment, we want to actually set up a studio here, so why don’t we do that? Why don’t we put up a bunch of walls and make a recording studio?” I think we opened that in 1999. Then we stayed there about nine years.

Todd Burns

Why don’t we take a listen to a side project of Godspeed, this is Silver Mt. Zion.

(music: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-la-la Band – “The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes” / applause)

Todd Burns

What are the challenges of recording a band like Godspeed and their various projects, where... You know, we listened to that kind of megamix earlier. A lot of it’s very band oriented. You’re capturing the band. Seems like this, in particular, might provide odd situations that you don’t run into normally.

Howard Bilerman

I realized, a few years into recording bands, that making a record is a dance, really, between what’s good for the band and what’s good for you as a sound engineer or producer. Bands are used to performing together. They rehearse in a jam space together. They go on stage. Everyone plays at the exact same time together. When they go make a record, they should feel most comfortable doing that.

A show isn’t, let’s play the drums first. Then, we’ll do the bass on stage. Then, the guitarist and the audience will understand. That’s not how shows are played. That shouldn’t be how records should be made.

A band is really comfortable, I think, playing together and being able to see each other and hear each other in the room, sometimes, as opposed to headphones. That’s a fucking disaster for a sound engineer, especially a band like that, where you have acoustic instruments, you have strings, you have acoustic bass, a cello, two violins. If those people are in the same room with a drummer, the drums are probably going to be louder in all the string mikes than the strings are.

I also learned that I didn’t want to be the person that asserted that it needed to be good for me to record your band. “No, I can’t work with this.” I’d seen enough sound-checks, actually, where the sound person would be, like, “Hey, can you turn down your guitar,” and would say it so condescendingly, like, look, this is all about me.

The only way to survive, really, if you’re going to proceed, saying, “I want the band to be as comfortable as possible,” is to just learn how to make it work. That involves a shitload of mic technique, from the choosing of what mics you use, to where you place them, how you baffle people, which angles you face things.

When I listened to that, when I listened to your question, that’s really what I think about, is the culmination of a lot of learning, technique, and just making concessions.

Sometimes, you’re recording a band, and they’re all playing live in a room. You just think, ‘The drums aren’t going to sound as good as I want them to be.’ Is that the end of the world? Would it be better for the drums to sound amazing, but the drummer to be so uncomfortable that the playing is awful? No.

Really, I think it’s important to learn how much you need to make it about you, and how much you just need to let the band do their thing and just stand back, as if you were taking a picture of them, really.

Todd Burns

That particular song was recorded at Hotel2Tango, I believe.

Howard Bilerman

Actually, that particular song started at the loft on Saint-Laurent and got finished at the Hotel, and mixed at the Hotel. It was one of the first things in the original Hotel2Tango.

Todd Burns

Tell me a little bit about the original.

Howard Bilerman

Let’s see. The original Hotel2Tango was a 2,000 square foot loft with wood floors and wood ceilings, that was an amazing space, which had the misfortune of being above a garage. The extra misfortune was that the person who ran the garage, owned the building. They were uncompromising in the fact that from 8 AM till 5 PM, they were going to work, which is fine. I understand. From 8 AM to 5 PM you heard vrrr, vrrr, cacacac, vrrr. It just sailed through the floor. We couldn’t work. We couldn’t work until 5 PM.

By that time, enough exhaust from all the cars that they’re working on had accumulated in the top floor of the loft. Maybe that’s the secret to all of those recordings. You had to be concerned, really.

It was a bit of a flawed space. But it was, originally, $893 a month. You know, what you pay in rent directly correlates to how much you have to charge your clients to record there.

Again, in the late ’90s, we were paying nothing to rent this space. It meant that we could charge not that much to record, which, really, meant that we recorded a lot of interesting things, because, for me, generally, most of the big-budget stuff that I’ve worked on, isn’t that interesting. It’s always the people who are, like, “This is our first record. We’re still, sort of, finding out what we sound like. Can you guide us through it, and help us find who we are as a band?” Those are the really interesting projects. You don’t get those projects unless you can charge people affordable rates.

Todd Burns

I think, for a lot of people, Montréal and Hotel2Tango takes on some sort of mythic quality. Did it feel like you were doing something important at the time, or was it just, like, I’m just here?

Howard Bilerman

It was an exciting time. It was an exciting time to... When I was 17, 18, 19, I listened to a lot of Fugazi. I loved that band. I loved that band, not just for the music. I loved that band for everything they stood for. For the fact that they would do live shows for under 10 bucks. For the fact that I went to this shitty record store here, that everything was marked up on. A Fugazi record was $20, or something. It had a little sticker on it, saying, “Postage paid, $7.99 from Dischord Records.” It was just, like, we’re going to do this on our own terms. It just, it really opened my eyes up to how you can participate completely on your own terms.

Then, Godspeed did that. Godspeed, in 1995, ’96, ’97, played around the world, became interviewed in humongous magazines, refused to send out press photos, or bios, did it completely on their own terms. It was really exciting to be aligned with that, even tangentially. Did I think we, at the Hotel, or did I think I was doing anything exciting or worth talking about 15, 20 years later? Not really, but I knew I was extremely proud of my friends. I got to see, first hand, that you can do things on your own terms, and make a living, and that you don’t have to make concessions. That felt very exciting.

Todd Burns

Let’s take a listen to another band that appears in that list of things that you’ve worked on, a little bit higher than others. This is Arcade Fire, with “Wake Up.”

(music: Arcade Fire – “Wake Up” / applause)

Howard Bilerman

I have to tell you, just as an aside. You don’t see this, but Todd has a playlist, and it’s very distracting, because it’s called “Howard Bilerman Short,” which I feel a little self-conscious about.

Todd Burns

It’s the short version of the longer.

Howard Bilerman

I know, but, it’s just like, you know.

Todd Burns

We’re not trying to make...

Howard Bilerman

It just plays into a whole bunch of insecurity, really.

Todd Burns

Okay. During the next song I will change the name of the playlist to Howard Bilerman tall?

Howard Bilerman

Howard Bilerman average, I think, really would be the...

Todd Burns

Average? Okay. So, who’s playing drums on that record?

Todd Burns

That’s Arlen Thompson from Wolf Parade, and me, doubling him. We’d recorded Arlen playing it. Then we played the song a bunch live, and I wanted to throw myself on it, so I threw myself on it.

Todd Burns

How’d you end up playing drums for the Arcade Fire?

Howard Bilerman

I ended up playing drums for them, they’d come to record a 7" with me. That song and “Power Out.” The previous version of the band had imploded, and they had lost their drummer. Quite dramatically, I understand. I think they broke up on stage is the story that I understand.

They came to record this record, but they also had all these shows booked. In the middle of recording, Win was like, “Hey, do you know anyone who plays drums?” They were really great to hang out with and I liked the songs, so I was like, “I’ll think about it.” That night I was like, “Should I do it? Should I do it?” I was like, “Dear Win, the only person I can think of who would play drums would be me.” He was like, “Great, so here are our shows, are you free? Can you do these shows?”

Then it just sort of snowballed. There were more shows booked based on those shows, and then there were more songs to record, and then a year later we had Funeral recorded. The 7" never came out. The version of “Power Out” got re-recorded. Yeah. That’s it.

Todd Burns

The interesting thing to me about that record is, obviously, it’s like an indie rock classic, but the influences of all of the people in that group are just about as far from indie rock as you could imagine.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah. In the whole history of music, I think the most interesting music is when something meets something else and births a new thing. For me, the records I like to listen to, I don’t like to be like, “Oh, this sounds just like this.” You know? I kind of like to scratch my head and be like, “There’s this, this and this in it. You wouldn’t think it would work, but it works! That’s crazy!” I think that’s where sort of special records come from. It’s like how do we make all of these things fit together?

Todd Burns

It seems like Win and the rest of the band are pretty hands on in the studio, and especially with the production side of things?

Howard Bilerman

Yeah.

Todd Burns

I guess they’re credited as producers on almost all the records.

Howard Bilerman

I mean everyone could have produced that record. Certainly everyone did have a hand in the democracy of, well we should do this, we should try this, we should try that. In the same way that all of those people are multi-instrumentalists, they all have really great ears for production, and things like that.

Todd Burns

What do you remember about those sessions? What really stands out to you as being...

Howard Bilerman

On a technical level, what’s cool about that record is that we, we’d go play some shows and then the studio would be really booked, and they’d be like, “Okay, look. We have Saturday and Sunday free at the studio. Let’s go record one song.” Then a few weeks later it was like, “We have five days. Let’s record two more songs.” Because of it, sometimes I would just use the mic set-up for whoever just left. I would just leave the drum mics up, and slide my drums in and record. Every, I think every single song on that record is recorded completely differently. Sometimes the drums have 10 mics. Sometimes there’s one mic on the drums. Sometimes it’s three mics on the drums. Sometimes the bass has a DI, sometimes it doesn’t have a DI. Different vocal mics used for each song.

I think it really sort of played into the result of it. Which is that the record kind of sounds a bit like a good mixtape. It doesn’t necessarily sound like 10 of the same songs recorded in the same place at the same time. There’s some movement in it. That wasn’t the intention to do it, but the fact that we had to take two days here and two days there whenever there was a hole in the studio calendar sort of forced the issue of having to do it that way. Having there be not much consistency between the way each of those songs were recorded.

Todd Burns

You kind of fell into being the drummer for Arcade Fire, basically. It was like, show, shows, “Okay, I’m here now.” You left the band, at a certain point. What happened, and why did you decide to do that?

Howard Bilerman

There’s that joke... I don’t actually think it’s a joke, I think it’s true, but apparently someone asked John Lennon, “Do you think Ringo’s the best drummer in the world?” John Lennon’s answer was, “Ringo isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” I feel like, I was probably the third best drummer in the Arcade Fire. Maybe even the fourth best drummer, which, if the band is six people, is not great numbers. Really. You know. You’re kind of floating at the bottom.

I don’t know, I kind of felt like when I joined that band, you know it’s like, you know when the coach of a sports team gets fired? There’s like 10 games left in the season? They’re like, “Well, we don’t have time to hire the coach for next season because no one’s available. So we’ll just get the assistant coach, or whoever takes care of the locker room and he’ll just coach the rest of the season.” It’s sort of known that this is not going to be the guy who’s going to be the coach next year. My position in that band was kind of always like a sort of stand in. I wasn’t sworn in. It was just like, “He’ll stand in.”

Then circumstantially, the band took off. Most of the songs on Funeral were written before I joined the band. Really, I was just learning someone else’s drum parts. We wrote the song “Rebellion” while I was in the band. Then once it was all recorded, and we’d sort of come down to the other side of the hill of having this record finished. We started to practice, and it just didn’t feel like there was chemistry there. It was sort of frustrating. Win and I had a lot of talks. Three or four talks about well, “What do you think we should do?” Eventually we just decided, we should probably find a drummer. Because shit’s going to get out of hand, really quickly. I don’t know. I don’t necessarily know that way. That’s the sort of medium length answer of it.

I have to say, I don’t think I have the constitution to be in a band.

Todd Burns

Why do you say that?

Howard Bilerman

At least at that time. I just had these incredibly uncompromising morals or beliefs about how you should proceed. I would get these weird fight or flight responses about things. Just stupid things, like, we were supposed to play this festival. It was a nine band festival, and we’d signed the contract. On the contract it said, you’re fifth headliner. Which means headliner, one, two, three, four, we were there. We kind of talked about it, "Well, it’s kind of shitty, at least it’s not in the middle of the afternoon. The sun will kind of be going down." We agreed to do it. Then a week before the festival, they added another band. The band was bigger than Arcade Fire, so they became the fifth headliner and we got bumped down to the sixth. Everyone was kind of like, “Well, whatever.” I was just literally, fight or flight response. Like, “No, this isn’t right. You can’t just be pushed around like that.”

It would just put me in a bad mood for days. Saying this now, it’s kind of like that’s a little strange, but I really felt like you’re either in this together and you stand up for yourself, and you do it without any compromises, because every band that I ever dreamt of being in seemed that they proceeded that way. Fugazi and The Clash, they seemed to just do everything uncompromising and not let anyone do anything that would fuck them around. That’s kind of the band I wanted to be in, so I just felt like I couldn’t really roll with things. There’s a bunch of other silly little examples, too, but ultimately...

Oh, here. I’ll tell you this little silly example, and then we can move on, or we can just talk about this all day.

Todd Burns

Let’s just dwell on these.

Howard Bilerman

This magazine from Toronto wanted to do a cover story about Arcade Fire, and so they were sending a journalist and the photographer from Toronto. While they’re en route, it comes out that this magazine has a policy of only putting one person on the front cover of the magazine, and so we were kind of bummed. It’s like we’re a band. We’re a band. We put Win on the cover, but we’re a band.

I was kind of bummed. Regine was kind of bummed. We talked about it, and we each saw the pros and cons of it. We saw, “Well, it will be good for the band to have this cover story,” but there’s something kind of yucky about it. We talked about it, talked about it. Win had called the magazine, and the magazine said “No. This is our policy. This is our only policy.” I said something kind of self-righteous, something like, “Well, do you think they would tell U2 that they would only put one member of the band on the cover? Why don’t we proceed with this interview the way we want to be treated?” There was a long fight. Then, the journalist came. Sorry. It wasn’t a fight. I don’t mean it was a fight.

Todd Burns

You were in a great mood when the journalist came.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah. Well, that’s part of the story. It wasn’t a fight. Everyone was very respectful of everyone’s point of view. It was just the situation we found ourselves in, you know? Didn’t really know how to proceed, because we wanted to do the interview, but we wanted to do it on our terms. The journalist and photographer arrive, and Win is on the phone with the publisher or something like that, and, finally, they give in. They’re like, “Fine. We will break with tradition, and we will let the whole band be on the cover of this magazine,” but the whole thing just put me in a horrible mood. Literally, it felt like this is a life and death situation, which it wasn’t, you know? That’s what I mean about just not feeling, like I didn’t have the constitution to be in a band.

Then, to add insult to injury, the interview comes out. We’re on the cover of the magazine, and the journalist writes... The intro is “When I showed up to the Arcade Fire loft, they’re arguing about where each of the members should be sitting in the band photo.” I was like “No, we weren’t. We were arguing about your stupid magazine only wanting to put one person on the cover. Why would you...” That put me in a horrible mood for two days about, you know, like “Well, we’re never doing interviews again.” You know?

That, really, isn’t the best way to become a successful band. I see now, you do need to sort of just roll with it and make some concessions.

Todd Burns

You talked earlier about how being a producer and engineer, you need to pull yourself out of it in some ways, let the band be as comfortable as possible, and it’s not about the way that you want it to sound, necessarily. Have you found a little bit of...

Howard Bilerman

Well. No, that’s... When I’m recording a band, it’s their record. It’s their thing. If I make it my thing, I’m not doing them... It cannot be overstated how important Steve Albini is to independent music, to recordings in the past 25 years, because Steve Albini politicized recording. Steve Albini politicized do it yourself. Steve Albini politicized being an independent band, and Steve Albini insisted that if you’re going to record a band, you must be sympathetic to that band. You must be in service to that band, and you must treat them as if they were the most important part of the equation. It cannot be about you. When I record a band, it’s about the band. It’s not about me. When I’m in the band, it is about me. We’re all up there together on stage, so it should be about us.

I had this realization like, I don’t know, a decade ago, that if bands stopped playing music, bands stopped writing music and performing, there would be so many people out of work. Clubs would go bankrupt. Magazines would go bankrupt. Agents, publicists, managers, tour managers, touring companies, record labels, press people, they would all be out of a job. That, to me, intimates that the most important of the equation, the center cog of the wheel, is the band, but the way that the industry has manifested itself, the band is not treated like the most important cog in the wheel. Really, I feel like, if anyone is going to be in a band, and if I’m going to be in a band, there needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that all of this is happening because of the band. I still believe that, so I don’t think that I’m able to remove myself from it in the way that you’re saying.

Todd Burns

Why don’t we play a song from someone who’s maybe eclipsed this deal that you’re talking about a tiny bit. This is Leonard Cohen with “You Want It Darker.”

(music: Leonard Cohen – “You Want It Darker” / applause)

Howard Bilerman

Really, the applause for that one should go to an engineer named Michael Chavez from LA, and Adam Cohen, who produced that. I recorded the choir that you hear on that record, but those guys produced it, and Michael recorded the rest of it and engineered it and did a fantastic job. The record sounds amazing.

Todd Burns

The record’s coming out Friday, I think, if I’m not mistaken.

Howard Bilerman

Yes. This week, sometime.

Todd Burns

You met Leonard Cohen years before, actually, this came out.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah. Leonard was born here and lived here for a bit. It’s kind of like in the same way that you would go to the forest and, eventually, one day you see a moose. It’s like anyone who lives in Montréal long enough, at the time, would see Leonard Cohen walking on Saint-Laurent or having breakfast somewhere. I, like 20 years ago, was like, “I want to record Leonard Cohen,” and so I wrote this really poetic letter. Everyone also from Montréal knows where Leonard Cohen lives. It’s like, that’s where Leonard Cohen lives. I wrote this really poetic letter, like, “Dear Leonard, I have a recording studio...” I don’t know, some ... It’s ridiculous, this letter. I would be so embarrassed if I saw this letter now.

Todd Burns

You were writing poetry to Leonard Cohen?

Howard Bilerman

I was writing poetry to Leonard Cohen, which is really the worst possible thing you could do. I wrote this letter and I made a little CD of some songs. I slipped it through his mailbox, and he didn’t call. Then, a few years later, I was like, I think my poetry is better, so I’m going to write another letter. We had moved studios, so this was... Some of the bands that I’ve recorded, actually people have heard, maybe even he’s heard. I wrote another letter to Leonard Cohen and made another CD. I slipped it through his mailbox. He didn’t call. Now, the funny thing is, having been to Leonard Cohen’s house, and having gone to the other side of that door, there’s a fucking mountain of letters on the other side of that door. He probably has a shovel by that door, just shoveling them into the backyard.

But then, I was like, well whatever. There is a lot of other people to record. One of them being Vic Chesnutt. Amazing record and an amazing person. Vic loved Leonard Cohen so much. It’s like, Vic, you want to see where Leonard lives? We drove there. Vic do you want to have breakfast where Leonard eats? We just talked about our favorite songs. He kept on making Leonard Cohen references. “Leonard Cohen should record here.” It’s like, I know. I know.

Then the review of that record came out. Said, “This record that Vic did at the Hotel2Tango with these people is one of the best records he’s done in a long time. Someone should get Leonard Cohen to that studio.” Then, about 12 hours later an email comes into my email account that says from Leonard Cohen, “Can I see your studio? Leonard.” Of course this is a practical joke from Vic Chesnutt. Right? Because Vic also got sent the article of his review. I was like, alright, Leonard Cohen. I asked him some skill testing questions, which only he would know the answer to, which is we have this mutual friend. I went to school with his son. I was like, “What’s the last name of this person?”

Then, we have another friend, his cousin. “I recorded his cousin, and you know his uncle. He lives in New York. For bonus points, what’s his name?” I was like, all right, Vic, go ahead. 4:30 AM the next morning, an email comes with huge bold letters, and it just says, “De Salvio, Lack.” I was like, fuck me, it’s Leonard Cohen. Holy shit. You know, it’s quite an honor, we’re recording tomorrow at 4:00. He said, I will be there at 4:30. We’re recording Silver Mt. Zion at the time. We’re all just looking at the clock, and the hand is moving slow motion. Then, it hits 4:30 as if you’d set your alarm to say 4:30. The doorbell rings. We all looked at each other, like, “Who’s going to answer the door? We didn’t even figure this out.” I was like, I’ll answer the door.

I go to the door and I open it and there he is. His suit and cap, and he says, “If you’re busy I can come back.” It’s like, “Dude if you wanted salt I would scrape it off my arm somehow and give you salt. Please come in.” He stayed. He came. Stayed for like an hour and a half, and he was just watching us track. Then, he said, “Would it be okay if I came back sometime?” This is before comeback Leonard Cohen. This is, "My agent stole all my money and I’m in Montréal just trying art and reading and writing" Leonard Cohen. This isn’t third act Leonard Cohen yet.

I said, “Yeah, sure. Come back any time.” Then, I was like, this is weird because he didn’t really say why he was coming. I’m just going to put it out there. I was like, “Leonard, I’d like to propose an experiment.” “What is the experiment?” “I think you should try coming to record a song here with all the people that you saw at the studio.” I made what I thought was a convincing case for it. Said, it’s just an experiment. In science, if you have a science experiment, you combine a bunch of things. Nine times out of 10 they explode in your face and you’re like, we will not do that again. Then one time out of 10, you find a cure to some disease. It’s just an experiment, if it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t work, no one will hear it.

He didn’t answer, but he came back. He came back on Tuesday. At this point, I was perplexed. And there was never any discussion about it. Then, he came back, the world tour. He had this amazing comeback. First time I had ever seen him live. I saw at Place Des Arts. It was amazing. It was truly incredible. In the middle of that, he visited a third time, and then he said, “About that experiment, one day.”

I was like, okay. Okay. One day. But at that point, it didn’t even matter. I got to hang out with Leonard Cohen and see how articulate he was, and how hilarious he was and how generous he was. He never made me feel like less than him. He always gave me room. He listened, he answered. He asked me questions about my family. It was just wonderful. That was, really, that was the exceptional thing that came of it.

Todd Burns

How did this recording come to be then?

Howard Bilerman

Then, I met a bunch of people associated with him, including one of his booking agents, who then suggested that his son, Adam, get in touch with me for a recording. Adam and I started recording a record together, and we had these amazing talks about music and about music production, and about what records should sound like. We recorded a bunch of songs, and he would fly in from LA. Then he texted me and said, “Hey is the studio free Monday to record a song of my dad’s?” I was like, huh, well that’s an interesting choice that Adam is going to do a cover of one of his dad’s songs. Sure. Of course the studio is free. Then, he’s like, “Well how many sets of headphones do you have? It’s this choir. The Hashomayim Choir.” I was like, wow. Then sort of everything came into focus, and I realized oh you mean record a song of your father’s at the studio? Then that’s what happened. The choir showed up. We recorded one song, and then the choir came back twice. We recorded another song.

You know, the best part about the experience is I’ve recorded 400, 450 records. At the beginning, beginning, beginning, you really just have to put on your game face and be like, “I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing.” The band is paying to be there. They don’t want to see someone be like ... you’re just like, you know? If there’s feedback somewhere or somebody’s not sounding good, you’re just like, “I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing.” Then eventually you make so many records that you literally are like, I know what I’m doing. Yeah. I know what I’m doing. Oh, we’re doing that? I know what I’m doing.

It was really refreshing then to have this session come about and have the only thing that was going on in my head being, ‘Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up.’ For like, six hours. Just that was on repeat. ‘Don’t fuck it. Don’t fuck it up. This is important. Don’t fuck it up.’ Hopefully I didn’t fuck it up.

Todd Burns

You didn’t fuck it up. It was a huge choir that was in the studio. What were the challenges of recording the choir? I assume the mic placement just takes hours to get right with something like that.

Howard Bilerman

You know, what I learned a long long time ago in recording is that if you take too long setting up mics, people get fucking bummed. People are coming to perform. In some cases, they’re spending their own money. Some cases a lot of money. They have a limited amount of time. They show up, and if you’re spending three hours trying to get the perfect drum sound when their adrenaline is waning, now they need to eat. Now they’re tired. They’re bummed that four hours has passed and nothing has happened. That’s a shitty situation for everybody.

What I learned a long time ago was just get everything in the ballpark of good, because once they start doing what they need to do, they’re going to take about another hour to get good doing what they’re doing. You can just tinker in all that time. It doesn’t have to be... things don’t have to sound perfect. The mics don’t have to be perfectly placed and then you flick a switch and you go, now go. Things are very fluid, and worst case situation is things aren’t perfectly set up and they do an amazing take. Well you have an amazing take. Great. So, it’s not recorded perfectly. You won’t win a Grammy for the recording of that take. Big deal.

The choir came. I had set up the mics before. There was an MS, mid-side mic in the middle and there were room mics on the side. The thing about recording with a choir is you don’t want to hear individual voices, you want it to sound like one instrument. The same way that a piano, you want it to sound like a piano, you don’t want it to sound like a bunch of different strings. A choir, you want just to sound like one mass. That involves mic placement, that involves person placement to the microphones, that involves the choir master, Rohee, who is amazing on this recording, being like, “Back up, come forward, quiet, loud.”

He would point to people, the choir was singing and he’d just be standing and be like, like he was tuning strings on a guitar, he’d be like, “You’re flat, sharp.” I don’t know how, it’s like laser ears to be like that guy’s not singing well. Really like, it was kind of a breeze because all I had to do was just use the right microphones, get the right levels and then just make sure I was recording when we needed to be recording. Which sounds like an over simplification but it isn’t.

Todd Burns

I guess it’s much easier in the digital age but you've done a lot with tape through the years.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah, true. I only touched Pro Tools in 2008. There was like 300 records done before that exclusively to tape, half inch 16-track, 24-track 2-inch. That taught me so much because when you record to tape, you have very limited means and you need to get things to sound good without needing much to any intervention later. Everything that gets recorded, you have to be content enough with it, if you couldn’t do anything to it, in terms of the sound or in terms of the performance then you can live with it. Recording with tape is very front-end loaded to performance, which ties directly into what I think records should sound like, which is performances to people. There’s the age old quote of limitations make better art. What does that mean? I believe it’s true first of all. I believe that recording to tape embraces the fact that you have limitations and the records are better because of it. That’s not to say you cannot record to computer the exact same way, but somehow you don’t.

When I was a kid, when you’d get a box of crayons, it would have eight colors in it. Just as much as you need to make a drawing and you’d make drawings. When my brother was a kid a few years later, there’d be like boxes of 24 crayons, you have 24 colors to play with. Now I have a son and I’m looking at Toys "R" Us and there’s barrels of a thousand different colors of crayons. What happens is you have art that has way too many colors in it, colors that clash, way too much. To me that’s what recording on computer enables. Records to me, they become a bit over baked because you can have an infinite number of tracks so you’re not questioning arrangement while you’re recording. Do we need to triple track the tambourine? When you’re recording to tape you cannot, you cannot. It’s like if you triple track the tambourine, “I’m sorry band, there’s no lead vocals on this record.” (audience laughter)

The Grammy award for best tambourine goes to... The other thing is in pro-tools you have the ability to have 5 different plug-ins on each track. When I started recording, outward gear was corrective. If the dynamics are a little crazy on that, you’d put a compressor on it. We’ve been recording this record for six months and all the high end is gone from the snare because the tape has just been played to shit, we’ll use the EQ to put back some high end. Now it’s this weird thing where you’re forced with all these options. You have 1,000 crayons, your impulse is to use them. I didn’t learn how to record like that, I learned how to record with very... To me, limited means recording to tape taught me what punk rock was. Punk rock is not an aesthetic, punk rock is not a sound, punk is doing the most you can with what you have. That’s true if you’re a band and this is as much talent as you have or this is the best instruments we could afford. Doing the best, absolute best with what you have and trying to make a record on 16 tracks, you have to be implicated in every decision from the beginning.

There’s no, “I’ll fix it later.” I think it’s an incredible way to be present in recordings. Reels of 2-inch tape now is $500 for 33 minutes of 2-inch tape. If you told the band you can only afford two reels of tape, you can only have 66 minutes of audio recorded, they cannot do 12 takes of a song and then comp them together later and figure it out. They literally have to do a take and say, “That was pretty good, I think we can beat it. Should we keep it? No, no, tape over it.” It’s gone. Then they get one that’s really good. If you’re lucky you have the luxury to say, “Let’s try and beat that take.” If you do, you use that take and you erase over the other one.

Todd Burns

Your dedication to tape runs pretty deep. Is it true that Hotel2Tango is one of the few places in Canada or at least Montréal where you can buy tape?

Howard Bilerman

Yeah, I import tape from the States, from two tape companies, one is called ATR and one is called RTM, RecordingTheMasters, it was an off shoot of M-Tech and BSF. We use tape and I wanted to have a steady stream of tape so I made a deal with both of the tape manufacturers. “Look, you send it to upstate New York, I will drive across the border. I will bring the tape across. I will use it and if anyone else in Montréal needs to buy tape, just send them to me and I’ll sell them tape.”

Todd Burns

The tape’s in our studio actually upstairs.

Howard Bilerman

I have sold you tape, yes.

Todd Burns

I bought from you.

Howard Bilerman

Which might be the only reason I’m here today.

Todd Burns

Why don’t we play another tune? You want to...

Howard Bilerman

Do I?

Todd Burns

Sorry go ahead.

Howard Bilerman

No, no you.

Todd Burns

I was wondering if maybe you could introduce this track, you spent a little bit of time in Mali.

Howard Bilerman

Oh yeah.

Todd Burns

Do you want to introduce, I guess the idea of what you were doing there and we can listen to the track.

Howard Bilerman

Okay, there’s this guy named Bassekou Kouyate who is a legend in Mali. He’s the godfather of the electric ngoni. Ngoni is the predecessor of the banjo and Bassekou electrified it and then made a formation of bands where you have the bass ngoni, the tenor ngoni and two lead ngonis. Bassekou had some time off in Montréal in between shows and they needed to record a song. Through Josh Dolgin, Socalled, they ended up at our studio, and it was amazing. It’s really dangerous to enjoy the music you’re recording because then you sort of take a side and you get a little lazy, but I was, boy did I enjoy that, the music that was coming out.

(music: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – “Jama Ko” / applause)

Todd Burns

That was “Jama Ko.”

Howard Bilerman

Close.

Todd Burns

I tried. You said, when you like band, when you like the music a lot, actually you might get a tiny bit lazy, by accident.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah.

Todd Burns

Did that happen here?

Howard Bilerman

No. This was actually recorded in Mali. There was a huge extraneous circumstance that brought a whole other level to this record, which is, I got stuck in a coup d’etat while recording this record.

Todd Burns

As you do.

Howard Bilerman

You know what, as far as coup d’etats go? If you’re going to get stuck in a coup d’etat, that coup d’etat was an excellent coup d’etat to get stuck in. Because really, there wasn’t that much bloodshed. Let me go back.

Bassekou asked me to come to Mali to record his record. After we recorded some songs at the hotel, he said, “Howard, you come to Mali to record.” I was like, “Fuck yeah, I’ll come to Mali to record, absolutely.” I didn’t even think about what it meant to go to Africa, at all. I started reading like, malaria? They haven’t cured malaria yet? Fuck! Alright, so I got a bunch of shots. My yellow fever shot, and this shot, but I’m like kind of freaking out. Like, “I’m going to get malaria. I am absolutely going to get malaria. What have I gotten myself into?”

Then there were a bunch of Al-Qaeda kidnappings in the north of Mali. We were in the south of Mali.

Todd Burns

I would have been a lot more worried about the...

Howard Bilerman

Well. It was far enough away. Also, Bassekou was always a personal friend of the President of Mali. He played the President of Mali’s wedding. I was like, our entourage is going to be fine. We’ll be fine. I bought my ticket. Now I’m in the airport, and I’m at the gate and my phone rings, and it’s my mom. My mom’s like, “Did you know that, I thought Timbuktu, was just imaginary: 'he went to Timbuktu.' Do you realize there is a Timbuktu, and it’s next to Mali? You’re going to Timbuktu.” She was pleading, “Please. Please. Don’t go.” I was like, “Mom, look. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I need to go. We’re going to be fine. Bassekou is personal friends with the president. It’ll be fine.”

We fly and we land. I’ve bought like the thickest mosquito repellent you could possibly. It was like, pure DDT. I was like, “Oh, they don’t like white.” I was dressed head to toe in white. It looked ridiculous. I had a little safari hat on. I landed in Mali, and I was like, “This is amazing.” We stood in line waiting for customs. Then there was Bassekou! Bassekou’s talking to like, the border guard, and he’s like [points with his finger]... and I’m like [points at himself]... and he’s like... does this. Suddenly I don’t have to stand in line for customs. I didn’t even give my passport to anyone. I’m in a car with Bassekou and we’re being driven to Bassekou’s house. I was like, ‘This is amazing. The air smells amazing. It’s so touching, just the people are so warm.’ I was like, ‘This is exactly where I want to be right now.’

We started making the record, and everything was great. We had lunch in the studio, outside the studio, in the front of the studio they had a bunch of picnic tables set up. We’re eating, and I was like, “Huh, fireworks. I wonder what they’re celebrating here in Mali.” Then the record label guy, Jay, who’s down there, runs out. He’s pale as a ghost. He runs out with his cell phone and he’s like, “Yenz called.” Yenz is a photographer who came down. “He’s in the city square! The military has taken over the city square! They’re firing machine guns in the air! They’ve started a coup d’etat!”

I was like, just had this sinking feeling. The first thing, I was like, I look at my phone. I’m like, “Okay. My parents will wake up in eight hours. If everything goes as everything normally goes, my father will start reading the news. Maybe not the top line item of the news, but probably the second line item of the news is, “Coup d’etat in Bamako, Mali.” Just this horrible sinking feeling, like, “Fuck my parents were right.” You know? They didn’t know why they were right, but they were right.

Todd Burns

Sorry, just for context, how old were you at this point?

Howard Bilerman

I was a fully grown adult! I was like, 40, or something.

Todd Burns

You’re still worried about your parents? Alright, I’m sorry.

Howard Bilerman

It’s hard to explain.

Todd Burns

I apologize.

Howard Bilerman

You know, kudos to them because they were actually kind of right, right? Now there’s a coup d’etat. Just to be clear, Bassekou’s friend, the President, who I was like, “I’ll be fine. He’s friends with the President.” Has now gone into hiding.

Todd Burns

Yeah.

Howard Bilerman

No one knows where the President is. There’s some talk that he got snuck out by the American Embassy. That he was on a plane to America. Military had taken over the streets. There was a curfew. I was petrified to leave Bassekou’s house. Everyone was like, “Should we go to the studio?” I was like, “We can’t go to the studio! There’s a curfew!” You know? Bassekou is like, “Ah, it’s fine!” You know? I was like, “It’s not fine! There’s a coup d’etat! There’s curfew!” Then after like, a day, I was like, “We should probably just go make the record.”

We’d drive on the back streets, and we’d work all day. The airports were closed. You couldn’t leave Mali. There was not a flight out of Mali. I was stuck in Mali. You couldn’t drive to the border. The military had secured all the borders. I was stuck. I didn’t really feel like I was in any danger, but it’s just not a good feeling to know that you can’t leave, you know? We made this record, and it was great. Then the airports opened, and I was on the first flight out. If you ask me again, knowing what I know about the experience, would you do it? I would totally do it. It was great.

Todd Burns

Some other artists that you mentioned, a long time ago, in this talk, was Vic Chesnutt. To me, he’s a very underrated guy.

Howard Bilerman

Yeah.

Todd Burns

He died a couple of years ago, right?

Howard Bilerman

Yeah.

Todd Burns

What do you remember about recording with him? Aside from all the Leonard Cohen stuff.

Howard Bilerman

Vic was a hilarious guy. So insecure about his songs. We started recording this record, and he was like, “Ah, I got these songs. None of them are very good.” We’re like, “Vic, just play us the songs.” He’s like, “Oh, I don’t, no. No. No.” He’d start playing something. “No, that’s shitty.” We were all in the studio, and he was there. We’re like, “Vic, just play it. Shut up, play the song.” He would just, song after song, would just slay you, with how awesome they were and how touching they were, and how poetic they were. That record, the second record that we did with Vic, which was called At the Cut I think is...

I have that theory about recording that a record is the sum of three parts. The songs. How they are played in studio, and how they are recorded. All the ducks lined up on that record. It was just, the content was amazing. The people who played on that record, most of them were in Mt. Zion and Guy Picciotto from Fugazi came. They were just, everyone was just at the height of their powers, and Vic just felt so loved and supported by them. We were all so honored to work with Vic. That record really fulfills that theory. Just knocks it out of the park. If all those ducks line up, it’s just a great record.

Todd Burns

Why don’t we take a quick listen to one of the songs, from that. This is “Flirted with You All My Life.”

(music: Vic Chesnutt – "Flirted With You All My Life” / applause)

Todd Burns

You said Vic was kind of almost reticent to play you songs. As an engineer producer, in the studio, how much of a psychologist role do you play?

Howard Bilerman

Every session is different, but having a skill set of being a psychologist or a cheerleader or a baby sitter or a guru or a meditation instructor, I mean, those are all skills that I can say I’ve used. Some even in the same session. Vic felt really intimidated by... It was really funny because he couldn’t believe that he got to make a record with all these people and we couldn’t believe we got to make a record with Vic.

Interestingly enough, the first day that everyone landed, we went to the studio and he played all these songs acoustically. We made the whole record and we mixed the whole record and then, we finished with two hours to go, which never happens. You never have extra time at the studio. Then, I can’t remember, it might have been Guy or Jessica said, “Let’s listen to the record.” I was like, “Let’s set up speakers in the tracking room.” Everyone sat in the exact same seat that they were sitting a few months before when Vic played the songs and Vic was even in the same spot and we listened to this finished record. Everyone got super chocked up that these songs went from these shy little ideas to a record. It was really incredible.

Todd Burns

You talked a lot about you’re a meditation guru, you’re a producer, you’re an engineer, you’re a lot of different things. If you had to describe what you do to someone, what would you choose?

Howard Bilerman

Well, actually what I would choose is... I recorded this band Sons of an Illustrious Father who actually credited me as such, which is “musical midwife,” is what I feel like is the most apt description. It’s like, I’ve been in this situation a lot, I’ve seen a lot of babies come out, they are not my babies, it’s not my job to name them, tell you what you should name them. I’m just here so that if shit gets out of hand, I’ve been down this road and we are going to do it holistically. We are not going to give a lot of intervention. I am your musical midwife.

Really, the talk of “Are you an engineer? Are you a producer?” Really it’s just about how much money you make and people, when you’re engaged, they are like, “Are you this or are you that?” I was like, “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I know that I’m the only person you need in the studio from the beginning of the process to the end. I can record this. I can tell you if some of your songs are similar and that you should ditch this one because this one says the same thing as that one but this one is a little better, or no we don’t need another guitar part, or yes we do need a back up vocal. I can mix your record. You don’t need to hire anyone else. I can make your record.”

The most successful records that I’ve made, having said that, are ones where the band is incredibly self directed. Where bands have a very strong identity of themselves and they don’t need that much intervention. I just like it when bands know who they are. In fact, I love to make records that only the people who are in that room could make. It’s like, not like, “Oh, this record sounds like anyone could have made this record. It does sound like a hundred other records.” I like to record bands that if you change one person in the band, one variable, that record would not sound the way it does.

Todd Burns

Was that what it was with this Sons of an Illustrious Father.

Howard Bilerman

Yes, Sons of an Illustrious Father, which sort of fell in my lap. It’s like most of the records I record I can trace why I got the call and this one was this band from New York... Actually, they loved that Vic Chesnutt record. Of all the records I recorded they are like, “That Vic Chestnut record.” They’re just sweet people from New York. Lila, Josh and Ezra, Ezra being Ezra Miller who is now The Flash. I can say I know The Flash which is kind of a nice thing in case I get in trouble. He’s an actor.

They are just wonderful people. They embrace everything that I would want to embrace if I was in a band. They’re political, they’re gentle, they’re humble and it was just a fantastic record to make. How did we get on this subject of this band? There was a question...

Todd Burns

They called you a musical midwife.

Howard Bilerman

They called me a musical midwife, yeah but there was another question I think that was about this. Anyhow, it’s a fantastic record. It came and went. It’s really sad. It just kind of got lost in the... I mean we live in a very over saturated time. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of music being made and I really...

Todd Burns

Must be really odd from your perspective to be sitting in a studio feeling like, “We killed that one.” That record is going to be the one and then, for it to come out and for it to not hit the right audience or something because you intimately know.

Howard Bilerman

Every step of making that Sons of an Illustrious Father record, I was like, “This record is going to be an important record. It’s going to be a record that a lot of people like.” It has all the trappings of being a really important record like Neutral Milk [Hotel’s] In the Aeroplane Over the Sea record was just such a special record and you really got the feeling like that Neutral Milk record was only a record that those people could make and the Sons of an Illustrious Father record I thought, “This is only a record that these people could make.” They were such interesting people and it really felt like... When it came out, I really felt sad that it didn’t catch. I felt really paternal about that record.

I don’t feel it that strongly very often like that record.

Todd Burns

Why don’t we take a listen to a little bit of one of those songs and then open it up to questions after that.

(music: Sons of an Illustrious Father – “Conquest” / applause)

Todd Burns

That was “Conquest” by Sons of an Illustrious Father. Do we have any questions? Does anyone want to kick it off?

Howard Bilerman

I have a question which is, will all of you accompany me home and just applaud every time I put on a piece of music? I think it really intensifies and ameliorates the listening experience.

Audience Member

You said earlier, in the beginning of the lecture, that sometimes the bands with six or eight people, like you said, it was kind of a nightmare to have them all record in the same room. Did you ever take a wall of sound approach, like Phil Spector, with it? Were there any bands that ever asked for that, or did you ever want to do that on your own accord?

Howard Bilerman

Yeah, I mean, that sort of happened by default. Recording a band, like Godspeed for instance, who are eight or nine people with more than one amplifier for each person, you just get... You know, a microphone picks up 60 percent direct sound and 40 percent reflected sound, let’s say. There’s so much reflected sound when you do a band that’s loud like that. That’s just the sound of the record. You can’t undo that. I do have a really fond appreciation for a lot of that Phil Spector stuff, for that just sheer bombasticness of being like, I can’t tell what’s going on. You read the liner notes and you see people are credited, like oboe. I can’t hear an oboe. It’s just, there’s so much lost, but because of that there’s a lot of tension.

You know, when you played the Bassekou thing... I’ve recorded a few records now that, derogatorily, you can say are “world music records.” There’s just some atrocious production choices on a lot of that kind of music. It sounds like figure skating music to me. Everything’s super neat and super cleanly recorded, and there’s this weird, shitty digital reverb. I don’t understand it. Then I get to record Bassekou, or this band, Black Ox Orkestar, who are, it’s klezmer music. In the room, everything is so loud. To me, it sounds like it’s some music of rebellion. It’s like punk rock, so why isn’t it recorded that way? Why isn’t the sound bouncing off the walls more? Yeah, that’s kind of the answer to that.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Howard Bilerman

You’re welcome.

Audience Member

Hi.

Howard Bilerman

Hi.

Audience Member

Earlier when you mentioned about how, when you were in the band, you often found it quite stressful and at times, when things wouldn’t go how you wanted them to or whatever, you’d get in very bad moods. Then, towards the end when you spoke about taking on the sort of multiple roles as a guru and a meditation and everything like that, have there been any times when you’ve been the producer of... Obviously not that degree of separation which prevents you from getting into a mood, but has anybody ever pissed you off, or has anything ever happened that’s made you slip back into that angry place?

Howard Bilerman

Yes, there’s two times that that happens. One is, I have no tolerance for anybody who thinks they’re better than anybody else. Obviously musicians have this weird combination of insecurity and ego. Sometimes the way that that manifests itself is, you sort of get treated like the hired help. I have no tolerance for that. I can’t really think of any time that I’ve said, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” but certainly, I’ve gone home and was like, “That was a shitty day at work and I can’t wait till this session is over.” If you’re painting someone’s house and they’re an asshole to you, it’s still an engagement. You still have to finish a job. Then you just know the next time they ask you to paint their new house, you’re like, “I’m busy.”

The other time that I get really just enraged, and this actually happens very frequently, is almost every session I do, at some point, everyone will just look a little bummed and will be talking about their record label. The music business is so predatory, and there’s so little equitable engagement. I see kids who are 20, 21, 22, who love playing in a band and they’re at a time in their life when they’re permitted to not have to make a lot of money, and to just have fun. Then a record label comes in and was like, “You guys are amazing. We want to help you.” That’s bullshit. They don’t want to help you, they want to make money off the backs of you. But it’s flattering, when you’re in a band, to feel like someone’s paying attention to you. Someone likes you. Someone wants to offer you money for what you’re doing.

More often than not, nine times out of 10, I see the shittiest record deals being offered to people that I really care about. It sucks to have to say, “All right, look, we’re turning off the clock. You will not pay for this hour because it’s going to take an hour to have this conversation. I don’t think you should sign this record contract. I know this is going to be a bummer, and I know that this is the last thing you want to hear, but do not sign this record contract, or try and get them to agree to these terms instead.” This happens almost every recording session I do. It’s surprising, actually, how often it happens. It gets me in a really bad mood.

Todd Burns

What are the things you’re seeing in those contracts that you could pinpoint as being very specific that might be something to look out for?

Howard Bilerman

Record labels want to own masters in perpetuity. Record labels want a sunset clause that says, “When you leave our record label and sign to another record label, we also make five percent of all the records you sell on that label.” Record labels want to get money from merchandise, from touring. This is the most fucked one, is that record labels want to be your manager, too. They’re like, “We’ll put out your records and we’ll manage you.” The bands tell me this like, “Isn’t this great? We have one person doing these two jobs, but they’re only taking a cut of one person.” I say, “That’s a horrible idea because A-1, the biggest responsibility of your manager is to protect you and tell the record label when they’re doing a shitty job. If the manager and the record label are the same entity, you have no protection against that.” Stuff like that just, it just drives me up the wall, you know?

Todd Burns

To be fair, you’re a pretty chill guy most of the time that I’ve talked to you.

Howard Bilerman

Thank you, Todd.

Todd Burns

Just for the record.

Howard Bilerman

Thank you. My anger is internal. It’s an internal, silent anger. A seething, silent anger.

Todd Burns

Well, I’m glad we were getting some of that out today. Do you have a question there?

Audience Member

I noticed on, I think it was the song that was recorded in Mali, there was a female vocal that was quite bright, but it was still really kind of yummy and not harsh ever. Do you have any microphone or recording tips for bright, female vocals that you can offer?

Howard Bilerman

Trying to think what that mic was, actually. That’s Bassekou’s wife. You have a whole spectrum of microphones from ribbon mics, which attenuate the high end, get rid of the high end, to some condenser mics which add high end. Really, you want to really quickly make a decision of, well, what frequencies does the source of what I’m recording have too much or too little of? Then you just have to know what your microphones then will add and subtract, and just pair them right away really quick, and be open to being like, “Nope, that’s the wrong choice. That’s the wrong choice.” You know, the thing about microphones is, especially cardioids, this, this, and this sound totally different because of proximity effect. The closer you speak to a microphone, the more low end you get. Oftentimes, you put up a mic and you’re like, “Eh, it’s a little shrill.” Don’t take ten minutes and swap out the mic, just say, “Can you just sing two-inches closer to the mic?” By extension, if it’s too veiled and muffled, “Can you stand back from the mic by two-inches?” Often, placement will solve a lot of your issues for sure.

Audience Member

Sorry, I just... One more part of the question.

Howard Bilerman

Sure.

Audience Member

Yeah, so do you have any specific mics that you might recommend for still getting quite a bit of detail, but, yeah, not so much high mids though. There’s, yeah, the harshness problem.

Howard Bilerman

I’m remiss to answer this question, and not because I’m being cagey. I really feel like the parallel question is, what color should I paint my house? I need to see your house. I need to know what color your neighbor’s house is. In a record, you have the sum of a lot of parts. Let’s say you were singing on two songs in a record. I can make a judgement call on your voice and what microphone sounds good on your voice when I press solo. One of the songs is super dense in arrangement, and one of them is very sparse. The same microphone with the same singer might not work on the two songs. Really, it’s just I can’t endorse one microphone for the application that you’re talking about. It really is a trial and error thing, and also, not sweating it too much.

I made this realization about gear a long time ago. I’m walking along a beach, and there’s a bottle. I pick up the bottle, and a genie comes out of the bottle. The genie says, “I will grant you one of these two wishes. Wish one, you could spend this whole year recording only bands that you want to record, or wish two, you could spend this whole year recording in any recording studio in the world. You give me a laundry list of every piece of equipment you want, and it will be in that studio.” I would absolutely choose the first option.

The equipment that you use, really should be secondary. They’re tools. You need to know how use your tools to get the job done, but you could hammer at a nail with a $200 or a shitty $5 hammer that came in a 100 piece toolkit, that was only $200 for a hundred tools. I don’t embrace the notion that you need to have one specific piece of gear. I think the notion that we need specific gear comes directly from gear manufacturers who plant this seed of insecurity, that unless you have these specific tools, you are not a professional. When I started recording, I went to the music store, and I was like, “I would like to buy that used tape machine.” The guy said, “Why would you want to do that when there’s this ADAT machine here?” ADAT is a now antiquated format, where they recorded 8-tracks of digital, in sixteen bit, on a VHS videotape.

It was like $5,000, the used tape machine was $1,200. I was like, “I don’t want to do that. No one’s going to be recording on that in five years.” He said, “You have to be competitive.” I said, “It’s not a competition, A, and B, that’s a ridiculous investment. That format has not proven itself, the tape machine has proven itself for 65 years at this point.” I used that tape machine for 12, I still have that tape machine. I really feel it’s important if you’re a record producer, or a recording engineer, to not get caught up in insecurity that you don’t have what you need to do that job. I’ve always believed that.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Howard Bilerman

You’re welcome.

Todd Burns

Are there any other questions?

Audience Member

Hi there.

Howard Bilerman

Hello.

Audience Member

How are you doing?

Howard Bilerman

Good, how are you?

Audience Member

Good, thanks for sharing everything today, it’s really interesting to hear about the approaches of the different bands. My question is more geared at the fact that I’ve actually always been a fan of Albini’s work as well, and I can hear some similarities, and what you’re getting at there. Albini really shies away from the question of artists, that in this day and age, are not conventional bands, and maybe do not conventionally see their vision before they enter the studio. He tends to, I’ve heard him say that’s just he doesn’t want to really answer it I guess, he feels it’s not his place. But I wondered, with some of the similarities that you had, and also differences, how you felt about artists who come to you with an unrealized vision?

Not unrealized in the sense that they’re looking for a producer, but maybe they’ve never had the chance to utilize the studio, or a thought about... Maybe what I’m referencing here is artists who are self-sufficient to some extent. I think that might include a lot of us here, and it might be interesting to riff on that, as a bit of a broad question, I’m not sure if that comes through.

Howard Bilerman

I think I know what you’re getting at. I think the approach I’ve always taken in the studio, is don’t speak, unless you’re spoken to. That’s an oversimplification, obviously. I hear people playing their songs, and sometimes there are things that are questionable. Sometimes it’s as simple as the guitars are out of tune, and you have to point that out. Sometimes it’s more complicated, like this song is way too long, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’ve always thought I just need to proceed very gently, and just say, “Listen, I know this is not my song. This what I hear. I totally respect you if you feel like you can justify having a song as long as this, or as repetitive as this, or as out of tune as this. If it’s important to you, and you can justify it, I respect that, but here’s what I’m hearing.”

Sometimes I’m totally wrong, like I’ve recorded records, and fought for certain things, and been bullheaded about it, and then deferred to the artist, because at the end of the day, it’s the artist’s record. I’ve listened back to those records ten years later, and been like, “She was right. She was absolutely right.”

Sometimes I listen to stuff, and be like, “Why didn’t I say something?” Maybe I was doing this band a disservice by not saying something. It’s hard, it really is hard to know when to speak and when not to speak. Ultimately, after a few days of recording, you do feel like, “Look, we’re all in this together," and if there’s enough trust, and communication, then you address some of the issues. We’ve all seen photographs of ourselves, and been like, “Why did I wear that? What’s with that look on my face?” Sometimes bands listen back to their records, and have been like, “That was a horrible song.”

I just don’t feel like I’m the gatekeeper, sometimes people hire me... I read a really interesting interview with Shawn Levy, who’s a producer, and a movie director who actually went to my high school. He just produced Stranger Things, and he said something really interesting about directing. He said, “Actors just want somebody who has an answer for them.” Record producers, sometimes it’s the same thing, sometimes people are just like, “Just tell me, is this good or not? Just tell me, should it be faster, or slower? Just tell me, I need someone decisively to say something.” That’s where you come in, and you say, “It’s a little slow.” That’s just me, and I’ve made these 400, 450, and they all sound different. Maybe they all sound different because I didn’t intervene, and I let the bands just be the bands. I don’t know, I don’t want every record I record to have my stamp, my endorsement. I endorse every choice on this record, because it’s not about me. I hope that answers your question, I’m sorry.

Audience Member

Thank you so much.

Howard Bilerman

No problem.

Todd Burns

Are there any other questions?

Howard Bilerman

I just want to address something about the tape issue, and tape and computer. One of the things... I’m not going to take sides. Honestly, there’s amazing things about recording to computer, there’s some dangerous things about recording to computer, there’s some amazing things about recording to tape, I’m not going to take sides. One thing that is lost, I feel, is this authorship that records used to be recorded in one place by one person. Frank Sinatra would go into Capital Record studios, and Nelson Riddle would arrange the record, and it would be produced, it would be recorded, and mixed there. It had the authorship of being done in one place.

With computer recording, the positive is you can send tracks away, and so and so could add a guitar in Berlin. Someone could do backup vocals in Africa, and someone else is mixing it, but what’s lost is this notion that this record was recorded in a place. I record records, now they start at my recording studio. I’m recording the drums, and the bass, and the guitars, and then the band will take the tracks home to Toronto, because that’s where they live, and they’ll spend two weeks recording piano and guitar. Then they’ll come back and do vocals, and then they’ll go somewhere else to do backup vocals, and someone else will mix it. I listen to these records, it’s like, you know firing squads? There’s eight people, but one person has a bullet? It’s done that way so that all people fire, there’s seven blanks and one bullet, and the person who actually killed the other person, doesn’t know if it was them.

I listen to records now, and I’m like, “I don’t know what I did on this record.” I know I was involved somehow, I think it was the drums, but I don’t know what I did on this record. I feel like, again, not taking sides to say one is better or worse, but I feel like that’s one thing that computer recording enables, is that records are made by committees now. You look at the credits of people on, and it’s like this person pressed the space bar on the record, and then this person... It’s insane, that’s one thing that had come up before that I thought I would stick out there. The other thing is, if you ask me, “Howard, what records do you want to make?”

Todd Burns

Howard, what records do you want to make?

Howard Bilerman

Let’s just cut that part of the interview out, Todd, do you have any other questions?

Todd Burns

Howard, what records do you want to make?

Howard Bilerman

It’s funny you ask that, Todd, because I just want to make honest records. They don’t have to be recorded to tape. They don’t have to be recorded on Pro Tools, like they were recorded on tape. I just want them to be honest. That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave mistakes in, because mistakes were made. No, I’m going to punch in, I’m going to fix the mistakes, but I want the records to express a certain honesty, and have a connection with the people listening to them. In the same way that, you know the Patti Smith record, Easter? The album cover, she’s looking down, her hands up in the air, she has like, a little unbleached mustache, and her armpit is unshaven. Every single time I see that record cover, I just can’t stop staring at it, and there’s no one reason.

It just engages me in looking at it, and I want to make records that are the equivalent of that. I want people to be engaged by what they’re hearing. There’s a certain way that I think bands should proceed to make their records, to get that end result. For me, I know that if a record is super glossy, and if I can’t find the humanness in it, I don’t engage. I just flew to LA and back, and listened to two bands repeatedly. Titus Andronicus, I made a playlist of Titus Andronicus, I think honestly, it's my favorite band over the past 10 years. There’s something about the intensity by which they play, and specifically the way Patrick sings, that just draws me in.

It makes me connect with the music. The other one was Rihanna, which is her super Anti record, the new one. Super slick, but her voice is such an incredible instrument. Within all this super slickness, it’s just given this place to be this incredible voice. I think it’s possible, it’s not a question of, “That’s too slick, because that was all Pro Tools, or that’s real, because there’s mistakes, and it was recorded to tape.” It’s just really like a connection to the listener idea.

Todd Burns

Thank you, Howard.

Howard Bilerman

Thank you.

(applause)