PRODUCTION

Like many jobs I’ve landed in my life, I kind of backed into producing for other artists. A couple of years ago I crossed paths with G.C. Hellings, a truly phenomenal Belgian guitarist. We struck up a friendship and after G.C. shared some demos for his upcoming debut record I started offering ideas about how to enhance the tones and textures of his material.  The suggestions resonated with G.C. and soon enough he offered me the job of producer. Although I’d never really considered the possibility of producing other artists, I agreed to give it a shot.

Thankfully this was no trial by fire. G.C. assembled a truly phenomenal group of artists and we locked ourselves into a studio in Nijmegen, Holland for two weeks, digging deep into the sonic landscape of our shared vision, creating a lush, compelling debut record for his Antwerp band, Stanton. Along the way we visited the ghosts of Serge Gainsbourgh, Dire Straits, J.J. Cale, and more.  Based on the strength of the finished record, G.C. was signed to Pias, a well regarded European label.

I thoroughly enjoyed the process of collaboration, and reveled in the role as facilitator rather than first mover. I’ve been fifty years in the wilderness of self, making art of every shape and form—most recently as a musician—and am familiar with the lay of the land of my imagination. I know how to make a unique sounding record and find great satisfaction to start helping others start to find their voice. It’s deeply rewarding helping young artists lay hands on their dreams!

Bolstered by the success of G. C.’s maiden voyage I began considering splitting time between my role as a performer and as a producer. I put the word out that I was producing and soon thereafter other collaborative offers came in. I released a record in the middle of that period and so for the last two years I’ve juggled my own career with producing the works of other artists.

I enjoy any kind of work that helps others create something meaningful and feel like I’m at my best in the post production phase, doing what might loosely be described as remixing. It’s exciting to take a track that is unadorned, or not quite working and find a way to reveal it’s potential.

With each of the records I’ve produced I’ve done a fair amount of remixing of the tracks. Last year I was approached to remix a single for Dutch wild man Mark Lotterman. He sent me a track with just vocals and guitar and cut me loose.  It was lovely to be given a relatively spare palate to work with.

Production list is forthcoming.