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Erik: What factors should a band consider when choosing a producer?
Conrad: Several lines of thinking. And I'm gonna start with what we look for. We want
someone we can get along with. We want someone that we can -- because you spend a lot of
time with this person. So the two times we've worked with a producer, and we're in the middle
of the second time right now, we knew the producer ahead of time. We were friends with
the producer ahead of time. And one of the positive effects of being friendly with your
producer is that it takes some of the pressure off, because when you go into the studio,
there is pressure when there's the microphone there. It's a different kind of pressure from
a live performance because you're in front of people there, but once it's done, it's
done. But for this, you know, it's being recorded for posterity. And the more comfortable you
can feel, the better. And I personally feel very comfortable having a producer that I
know, that I can go out and get a coffee with and joke around with. You also have to have
someone that can challenge you musically, and not challenge in the sense of like make
this more complicated or do this a different way, but more it's just like someone who has
ideas and someone who can listen to things that you're creating and hear things that
you haven't, that you can't hear because, A, he's a different person with a lifetime
of experience he's bringing, as well as you yourself have often listened to a song so
many times it's hard to hear the freshness in it. A new person can do that. He can suggest
ideas and not only suggest them but tell you how best to try and achieve them. That's what
we go for. Often, other artists, will work with a producer that they know nothing about,
but they just know that this producer has done records that they like and admire, and
they wanna work with this person to either get that, a similar sound or they just know
that this person can at least probably work some sort of magic and help them work as a
team. For us, what works is having someone that we're friendly with and also talented,
and luckily, for the two albums, these two albums that we've used producers, we've been
fortunate enough that the people have not only been our friends but have been very,
very talented.