"What did we have before ProTools..."
"What did we have before ProTools..."
"...pros!"
Like the photo above, lack of concern for approval is crucial when crafting a new musical vision. Sturgill Simpson described the process of creating “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” his second studio recording (and his first Grammy nomination) years back on a JRE episode. For Sturgill, the progression from his first studio release, “High Top Mountain” to “Metamodern…," was the typical story of record industry charlatans, war stories from the road, and Nashville’s musical soul grinder. “High Top Mountain” cost Sturgill $50k in studio fees. The producer ran off, leaving Sturgill with the recording bill. Sturgill and the band had to hit the road and play every gig they could to pay down the debt. The tour was relentless. They played everywhere that paid. Failure wasn’t an option.
Sturgill on Austin City Limits "Listening to the Rain"
When the tour was complete, the band came back to Nashville and Sturgill began planing “Metamodern…” The way Sturgill describes the process on JRE, Sturgill was looking to emulate the sounds from the albums he had listened to in his formative years. He wanted particular players’ styles. He wanted specific recording studio techniques. In the case of “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” Sturgill was looking for the studio musicians that had played on the albums of his childhood (that were still living and playing). In the process of searching and interviewing musicians, Sturgill interviewed an old timer. I searched to find the clip on JRE, but I couldn’t find it to reference here (but it’s there). Perhaps, it’s time for a JRE search engine?
Either way, the old timer turns to Sturgill and asks, “Do you know what we had before ProTools (industry standard tracking software)?” Sturgill says “no, what?” The old timer says, “Pros.” The line stuck with me. I’ve often used it with the musicians I’ve worked with, as it perfectly illustrates the paradox of creating music in the modern age.
The temptation is always present to lean back on the digital tools like amp emulators, or microphone modelers, or lock yourself alone in a room to write your masterpiece. My thesis is this practice only takes a musician so far and in the end it’s a trap to be avoided. Music needs to be played constantly to master and it needs to be played with other musicians of all types and sorts. As early as possible it needs to be played live for an audience. Something happens when music is a group endeavor that never happens in solitude. The examples are everywhere. Every great musician has clocked hours and hours of group practices and live performances. Sure there are examples of great solo musicians with incredible technical prowess. But are these the records we all remember as the soundtracks of our loves and life adventures? Rarely.
Think of the Prince albums of his early years compared to the Prince albums of his later years. The main difference between the albums is in the beginning of Prince’s career he rehearsed and recorded with his band, whereas in the latter years Prince would track everything himself and often play most of the parts himself. My point isn’t that one technique is better than the other, rather that something is lost emotionally when it is produced in a vacuum. Music needs something to push against to forge it into something great and magical. Music becomes repetitive and shallow when it only comes from one human.
More importantly, the Sturgill interview epitomizes the ethics of the National Music Sanctuary. Don’t ask for permission. Don’t wait for approval. Don’t second guess your instincts and definitely don’t listen to industry insiders! “Why a Content Creator is not a Producer,” is both the title of this Substack feed, but also a personal battle cry. A reminder to myself that nothing creative has ever followed the rules of the industry, and it won’t be realized by listening to the logic of content creators as defined by Google either.
Born in 1969, I’m a Gen X’er. The culture of my era was the culture of punk rock and Home Depot. Strange group of ideas to clump together, I know, but hang with me. Both entail of spirit of DYI. American punk rock was birthed in NYC by a handful of artists. They didn’t like school and they didn’t like music lessons. They liked drugs. They liked sex. And most importantly they didn’t want to be told “you can’t do that!” Early punk rock acts could barely play an instrument or write a song when they started. They just wanted to play their music. They wanted to play the sounds that sounded good to their ears and the sounds that made their bodies move. In short, they wanted to write songs that expressed the lives they lived. They were obsessed with playing. From their maniacal acts of creation, an entirely new genre of music was born.
How is Home Depot (HD) related to punk rock? Home Depot was the first “lumber yard/hardware store” that marketed itself as a place anyone could go to fix their house. Not sure if HD still has the same marketing campaign, but I remember when the first HD commercials aired, claiming they hired experienced tradesman to stock the shelves. The concept being that if you shopped at HD, you didn’t need to hire an expensive tradesman with years of work in the field. If you shopped at HD, you got the materials and the know how, one stop shopping! Not all that dissimilar to the false promises of Silicon Valley and the dream of a content creator.
True American hubris, as anyone that knows a trade will tell you. You can’t learn a craft from an orange apron wearing person paid minimum wage, because if he was a real tradesman he wouldn’t be working for minimum wage at a retail store. But that’s America, right? We are a nation that rarely builds anything anymore, but rather a nation full of the marketers of misconception, deceivers that proclaim that experience isn’t needed and knowhow doesn’t matter as much as desire and the moral high ground. We believe we are so gifted we can short cut the trials and tribulations of hard work by buying it. Silly, if you really think about it logically, but nonetheless a clear part of the current American DNA.
The fact that Americans like to think they can do anything, even if all their current knowledge points to the contrary, is both a weakness and a super power. I digress to make a point. Great music at its heart is an act of rebellion. It’s an act of repetitive surrender. All music starts with the belief that “I can make sounds that make me feel good” and progresses into “I can make sounds that will move an audience.” Great music is the culmination of the solitary practice of musicians, combined with the expertise of a recording engineer, honed on the stone of live performances, manifested at the right time. And although you start with a cavalier act of creation, most musicians aren’t writing the musical equivalent of Falling Water (or the Brooklyn Bridge) on their first attempt. It takes time, dedication, discipline and hours and hours of practice to reach the pinnacle of “Hallelujah” in the hands of Jeff Buckley.
The phrase “before we had ProTools, we had pros,” is a wise reminder that musicians don’t need all the fancy digital tools to make music. At the end of the day, all a musician really needs to make great music is a collection of professional musicians and hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears.
Perhaps it’s the last few years of living in California that have changed my thinking, but I spend more time than is healthy thinking about the future. Perhaps it’s the influence of the digital age and my natural repulsion to it. As we spend more and more time on our digital tools, I find myself drawn to mountains and wild solitary vistas. My sense is it’s my inner artist talking to me. It’s the belief that none of these IG posts or SMS messages, or the sharing some new viral video matters. It’s all a distraction to keep my mind focused away from the morons running this country. And morons is a polite way of saying what I really think of our ruling class.
Remember the times when we shared dances on weekends together? Remember the time you were madly in love? Remember the love in your Grandfather’s eyes when he opened the door for your Grandmother? Remember the smell of cut grass on your Little League baseball field? These concepts are what drive me, and draw me to men like Sturgill. It is in the attempt of trying to be more like Sturgill that I find joy. Plus the sounds of Laur Joamets’ telecaster (the lead guitar player on “Metamodern..”) are transcendent.
Sturgill if anything is an iconoclast. He’s a man that played music his whole life, but only decided to make it his career at 35 years old. Any success is the music industry is hard won, so the fact that Sturgill rose like a phoenix blasting off, makes his feats even more impressive. In this knowledge, I find wisdom. Nothing is ever set in stone in life and you are only as shackled as you allow your mind to be.
Sturgill on Conan "Living the Dream"
For Sturgill, once he focused on being a professional musician, the success happened quickly. His second album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Americana Album and his third album won the Grammy for Best Country Album. Those two stats alone should quiet the critics. But like any musician that isn’t easily categorized, Sturgill is still relatively unknown.
Americans love the outlaw myth. We love stories of heroes tested by life that don’t bend to mores. In my humble opinion, all art is borrowed art, but great art is stolen and reforged. Sturgill definitely fits that bill. He broke rules (and more specifically barriers to entry) as he dedicated his efforts to finding his sound. And like all great art, it’s rarely if ever recognized immediately. First the artist lives it, then maybe it’s recognized and heralded.
In the end, when you have a band as tight as Sturgill’s band is, the joy is in the playing. The rest is just whip cream and boat drinks. True story.
