Does working with people like that impact your own music differently than working with younger artists, people who are closer to the music business?
As a producer, I would tell these guys, like, “Less is more, we just need this.” I found that a lot of my ideas that I wanted to kind of enforce on other people’s records, I was not doing myself. It’s a good kind of learning tool in that regard.
I have tried to produce records by a couple younger artists and they’ve kind of backfired, because the younger artist, immediately they want to talk about who is going to put it out, and who is going to review it, and who do you know? The older musicians that I work with, they care about those things, but they really care about making a great record. They believe in the history of records and the permanence of records, that this is a forever document, and they’re aware that the records that they admire are great, whether they’re R&B records, or country records, or rock, whatever. That’s what they’re up against, so they don’t give a shit about blogs, or stuff like that.
They’re just like, “Is this going to be good?” and that’s the focus of the conversation. When you have that type of energy in the room, it makes everybody else kind of respect each other more. It’s a total thrill, and I always feel lucky when I get to do it.
It must have been so cool working with Gary Mallaber on the new album.
When I needed a drummer, and Super Secret, the label putting out, gave me a little bit of a budget to play with, I just called him up, and we talked for like an hour, and he was like, “I’ll do it.” I’m like, “What? Just like that, you’re going to fly out to middle of nowhere, West Texas, and meet up with a bunch of people that you don’t know for five days?” He’s like, “Jerry, I’ve been doing this since I was 19 years old. I know how to figure out if a gig’s good or not.”
In the studio, I would run down the songs and he’d be like, “Do you want me to use a click crack?” I’d go, “Did you use a click crack for [Van Morrison’s] Moon Dance? He’s like, “What, are you fucking with me?!” I’m like no. “Then don’t use a click crack, you know? We’re not making that type of record. This is going to be just on the floor, we’re doing this.” It was really nice to have somebody of that level of record making to kind of glue everything together.