Kevin Paul:  Welcome to the Sound On Sound People & Music Industry podcast channel with me, Kevin Paul. In this special episode, we bring you a live recording from the GearFest Festival in 2025. On the panel we had Tim Brand, Danton Supple, Julian Kindred and Shelby Logan Warne. We talk about how we got into the music industry and the studio business, what it's like to be an assistant and many other things. We hope you get some joy from it and thank you very much for listening. First of all, I'm just gonna go along and ask everyone just to introduce themselves very briefly and then we'll go from there. Like I say, my name's Kevin Paul. Tim Bran: My name's Tim Bran. Danton Supple: I'm Danton Supple. Shelby Logan Warne: I'm Shelby Logan Warne. Julian Kindred: And I'm Julian Kindred. Kevin Paul:  When we all decided to want to work in the studio there was probably many, there's many ways that you can do that, right, there's many ways that you can go and work in the studio. Though it’s changed a lot since I started, but really what I would like to know from the panel is what were your ideas of how easy or difficult that would be when you initially said yeah, you know what, I think I want to have a career in the studio. Tim, how did that work out for you? Tim Bran: I grew up in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and it was occupied during the war and there's lots of German bunkers over there and I found one and there's not many things you can use a German bunker for, you can either store wine in it or my idea was to put a studio in it and it's underground, it was a communications bunker, so it was £40 a month I think, to rent, because storing wine would be about £40 a month. So I went in and said I wanna make this into a studio. It had been used as a studio before, a guy called Barry Gray had it who did all the Thunderbirds themes and all that stuff, so there was weird old gear down there. So I was in bands at the time as most of us probably have been involved in other parts of the music industry and I was always the one in the band that wanted to record the band. So I, first of all I had a kind of four track portastudio set up, which I'd just use in my bedroom and decided I needed a space, whatever space that is I think, you know, find a space that you can record either the band you're in or other artists and yeah, so I went in and made my own studio and I think that kind of applies these days with everyone's got a laptop that is your studio, so where do you wanna set up and record and you know, whether it's your bedroom or, you know, find a collaboration space somewhere, I think. That was my first entry, so I had my own studio, then I discovered people would pay me to record them, so it was a win-win, I was experimenting all these ideas on these other bands and it was everything from doing voiceovers from TV to heavy metal bands, you know, literally it was right across the board, so I kind of learned a lot of genres and applied the same techniques to all of them but yeah, just learnt my craft really. Kevin Paul:  So there was no real formal training for you in terms of, because a lot of us started out in maybe smaller studios or if we were lucky we got into a big studio. That would be like a dream. Tim Bran: Yeah I did, I did after that. Kevin Paul:  Yeah, so initially though, you were just... Tim Bran: No initially I just studied. I was lucky enough to meet a producer called Laurie Latham, who produced a lot of bands, Paul Young and the Christians and bands like that, Ian Dury And The Blockheads back in the day and they were recording in Guernsey, I think Paul Young came over and Christians came over and they had a little studio set up in a house and he, dunno why but he let me kind of hang out and just watch, literally watch silently in the corner and I kind of learnt a lot off him and I'd literally go back to my own studio because in those days it was the end of tape, so I was, he was like recording backing vocals onto quarter inch, marking the place the beat before and then hitting them and flying them into the next chorus, probably most of the people, some of the people in this room might understand all that, but it's like you'd literally mark a beat before and hit play and you could then, the old copy and paste I guess, fly them into the next chorus and so I'd literally go back and try that on the heavy metal band who I was working with at the time and just kind of formulated, that was before YouTube and all that so I had to just experiment, listening to records as well, like really listening to records and going, how did they make that sound and working it out, probably not with the same instruments, but trying to figure out how they did that reverb. A lot of Trevor Horn stuff actually, I know you worked with, he was one of my go-tos for great production ideas. Kevin Paul: Well, maybe we'll ask Danton. Danton Supple: He's a natural lead on that. Kevin Paul: How did it all go, how did it all start? Danton Supple: For me it was a complete tangential jump into music, I had no plans to do music production whatsoever and then after sixth form I had an introduction to it by going to a studio which belonged to a girlfriend's uncle and all of a sudden there was technology, music, sort of late nights, a certain creative lifestyle and that all appealed. So I then tried to figure out how you get into here and because I'd been planning to go down a more academic route, the only thing I could find was Tonmeister, but for Tonmeister you needed to be a grade eight musician. I had the maths and physics, but I didn't have the, even though I was in bands, I wasn't a, you know, a classic player and so I just tried to look around and see, how do you get into this, realised it was a progression system back then, you'd come into a studio as a runner or a receptionist, they were all pretty insistent on that in the day and work your way up. So I wrote… Kevin Paul: Can you explain that a little bit for like maybe some of the younger people. Danton Supple: Yeah, I’ll come to it straight in a moment because I wrote, I found a list of London studios, sadly there were loads then, of all big studios which had multiple rooms and a whole employed staff group and hierarchy which you can work your way through. So I wrote to every single studio, got rejected by every single studio and then I sort of realised that it doesn't matter where you go into, as long as you can get in somewhere, it's much easier to move around laterally afterwards. So I found a job in a jazz studio in Hoxton Square, this is when Hoxton Square was far from desirable as it is now. So I got into that and then another studio Strongroom was just being built around the corner and Dave Formula from a band called Magazine, who I was a big fan of, came into work in Wave, liked the effort, whatever I was doing there and invited me back to Strongroom and then in my first year at Strongroom, an engineer producer from Sarm Studios, Trevor Horn's place said, you know, you're working really hard, you've got a good headspace on why you wanna be here, you should come and work for us. But then going to Sarm, I had to go into this system of going into night reception. No matter where you came from in your previous life at Sarm, you had to start at night reception. So when I was on night reception, one of the other guys had been a mining manager in South Africa and the other one had been an officer in the Merchant Navy, but both wanted to get into music and they had to go through the same route and it was a bit of a lottery because when you went on night reception it was like sort of dead man shoes, you could only move on when someone else came out. So I didn't have too much of a bad time, I did about three months and it was in the Summertime so it was great, work all night, sleep in the sun all day and it wasn't like you kind of launched into the world of engineering after that, you went from night reception into the tape store and general runner and then up into assisting, but Sarm was… Tim Bran: How long did that take? Danton Supple: It took me about six months I think before, I think there'd been a few departures and I was lucky in many ways to then end up working for Trevor and Steve Lipson, as well as a lot of other people that came through the studio on a freelance basis. But that was kind of the way most people I knew got into studios. Kevin Paul: Yeah, sure. Danton Supple: I'd realised I hadn't thought about production at all as a child but once I started doing it friends were like yeah, you are always obsessing about Hi-Fi and you'd buy records, which everyone would say, why do you want that record and they'd be like no, I hate the music but it sounds amazing, this particular song. So I must have had some interest in production without knowing what production was at that point. Kevin Paul: Yeah, of course. Danton Supple: And the other great thing about Sarm in those days, there was a huge amount of money in the industry. The amazing producers from all over the world were coming into the studio, so you were sitting constantly behind and it was just up to you to look and learn and but it was very lucky to learn off a lot of great people. So that was the journey. Kevin Paul: Cool, thank-you. Yeah, initially. Danton Supple: And then after that the next stage I guess is going freelance. I didn’t actually want to become an engineer for quite a while because I realised once you started engineering, you stopped assisting other people, so your learning curve plateaued slightly. Kevin Paul: Yeah, we'll come to that. Danton Supple: So I was really, and the, I was working with so many amazing people, I wanted to do that a bit longer and I think in hindsight it was a good idea because even now you'd be doing something and I think where did I learn to, or someone would ask you, where'd you learn to do that and I have to think, I have no idea but it was probably someone in that crowd over those years and then I did become like a house engineer at West Side Studios and then a producer, Steve Lillywhite was working there and asked me if I wanted to go freelance and so I took that bold jump into being freelance then and that was probably… Kevin Paul: We'll come to the future after we sort of go down the line here. Shelby, tell us your little story as to how you are here today. Shelby Logan Warne: So first and foremost I'm a musician and I feel like I kind of got into this whole industry originally as a means to an end to try and get myself to, you know, record myself in a pro way with enough knowledge to do it, quote unquote properly and then I kind of accidentally realised how much I enjoyed producing and recording and getting into the tech and you know I grew up surrounded by electronics and tech because my dad is a electronics engineer, but he also introduced me to the whole world of Trevor Horne and all the stuff that ZTT was doing. So I grew up on the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Propaganda and Seal but then he's also big into his Prog as well, so I also listen to a lot of Genesis and, you know, combine that. I kind of just like had this desire to get into engineering and one day found myself being like, you know what, I think I can do this and with that sense of arrogance and hubris I very quickly realised that I couldn't but I still tried anyways and somehow managed to land an intern job at Old Street Studios over in Hoxton and for some reason I have this weird sense of tenacity and drive where I just won't stop until I just keep getting to that next level up. So I was an intern, then I was an assistant, then I was an engineer, then I was the chief engineer there and then next thing I know I'm managing the place. Left in 2023, wanted to do more, wanted to own my own studio, one thing led to another, friend of mine says well rather than building somewhere from scratch, why don't you take over an existing studio, buy out a business, so I did exactly that. So as of last April, myself and my partner Grace, we took over Sensible Music, which is the next street over from here on Brewery Road. Kevin Paul: Yeah, it’s just down the road, isn't it? Shelby Logan Warne: And it's a large eight studio complex and yeah, it's very cool. You should all come down at some point. But yeah, I kind of just, I stayed persistent, I kept on hounding people and I was being that voice that was just annoying in the corner always and just kept pushing. And here I am. Kevin Paul: Thank-you. Julian. Julian Kindred: My foray into all this was similar to all of these stories to some degree, but different in as much as I come from a part of Canada which is very cut off from any kind of a regular infrastructure of music opportunity and you had a sense enough as a young man to know that, to realise that and but I was very determined about wanting to get into record production. I didn't know how, I didn't know where to begin. There wasn't really any opportunities where I was from one. One individual had a, you know, a 2” tape machine and a deck and was hiring, a desk and was hiring people to come in and play, my father being one of the guitar players who would do sessions. But anyway, listening to records with my father as a kid, I was very determined to find a way to, while confident about my musical ability as a keyboard player, I wasn't really interested in performing live or being on stage, I knew I wanted to get into studio and very similar to the way everybody here has described, but I had to figure out a way to get someplace where there was heavy traffic. So a friend of a friend who knew another friend who, one of those things, I got an opportunity to be in a function band which then allowed me the opportunity to be in the United States, so I was in Nashville suddenly and over an initial really heavy period of time of writing charts and everything for this function band would do numerous business, you know, entertainment things and stuff, lots of Beatles and Motown and the occasional Beach Boys thing, but organising all this and everything, I had enough time and enough time on my hands to knock on doors in Nashville, on Music Row and I just was desperate to get in. I wasn't confident enough to present myself as a musician. I know now that I was reasonably all right enough to be a musician and enter in that way, but I decided I'm gonna learn something else that gets me in the door and I decided that would be engineering. So I took the opportunity to knock on doors and was rejected for an entire year, everybody said no. Finally there was this one studio which dealt with the demos for publishing companies and I thought it was gonna be a very shall we say, C rate gig you know, but what I quickly discovered, they let me in the door and I was supposed to clean the toilets and clean the studio and I didn't think I was gonna be anywhere near entering the main room until two weeks later, the main engineer yelled at me. My name was Hey for about a month. Hey. So I went into the control room and after two weeks I got a lucky break, I was not out of the control room for three years, so it was really, really great moment of fortune. But what I was suddenly confronted with was that all the musicians that did the sessions for these publishing dates were the A-list players who weren't doing A-list dates and so I mean, it would go on and on and take too much time now for me to mention the people I was suddenly working with, but it was mental, you know. So Reggie Young has played guitar on like Dusty in Memphis right, it was insane, it just went on and on and on. We don't have the time for it here, but so suddenly I was in this situation where I was like okay, be on time, be here whenever we call you and everything, you know. I lived an hour outside of town, no car, skint, completely you know and so I made a deal with the engineer who referred to me as Hey, that look if I crash here at the studio and promise I arrive clean and in the morning and everything, can I stay up and work with the console, he said, knock yourself out, fill your boots, do whatever you want, you know, so a really cool studio, it was one of those sort of RCAB studio type, checkerboard tile floor type vibes right, the desk was a Trident 90, does anybody know that one? They were trying, Trident was trying to go beyond the 80, anyway, but still signal flow was there, everything was there enough to teach me and everything, so I had to work all night you know and I just had to make sure that I was there the next morning fresh, even though I only slept one hour, but that was my beginning, that was the opportunity that I just, you know, seized to turn into something substantial. Kevin Paul: So, thank you. I've forgotten to tell you my short journey. My journey started by looking at records and records that I loved and seeing the credits on the records and the credits said sound engineer, recorded by, producer and I had no idea what those terms meant. But eventually I found out and I thought sound engineer, that sounds like something I could do because I loved plugging stuff up and like Danton said, I got a list of recording studios from the APRS, which was like the governing body for recording studios at the time and I went through all of them, all the ones in London, writing letters or phoning up or paying visits, until I got to one called S, which was for Soho Studios. Now, Soho Studios was not a glamorous studio, it was far from it, we had maybe one session that paid for the studio time in six months. But what it did allow me to do was to learn how a studio worked. I could learn signal flow, I could learn how a desk worked, a patch bay worked, I could learn how a sampler and a computer synchronised together and essentially that information allowed me to get my next job, which was in a much bigger commercial studio called Konk Studios and you know, that was the beginning of my journey. If it wasn't for those six months, I wouldn't have got a job at a commercial studio because I knew nothing, you know and Danton mentioned something about Tonmeister courses. Well, at the time there was one course in the UK where you could learn sound engineering and it was the Tonmeister course and it was for the best 10 musicians in the country, not engineers or anything, musicians like Danton said, you had to be like, you know, grade eight and above and I realised listening to everyone here, how there's a lot of variety in how people have come to get into a studio, but there's also a lot of similarities and I think one of the biggest similarities is the determination to want to be in a studio you know. I think we appreciate nowadays that it's a very different system, there's not so many studios as there was for a start. Everyone's got a studio in their laptop anyway and a lot of people attend colleges or universities or colleges online to learn what they believe is sound engineering and production. What's interesting is that when you step into a studio environment, well let's ask the guys here, how different is it from that environment of being in a university and then coming into a commercial environment, what's the kind of differences there? Danton Supple: I don’t know if they teach you any of the social things because the first thing that jumps to mind for me is, you know, being in a studio is a very fragile environment, especially if you're assisting or whatever job you're doing, I think you've gotta realise if you are in, you know, even literally if you're making the tea, you are as important in that environment as the producer and the artist. You could say one wrong thing, I've had it on a session where the assistant has said oh this sounds like Radiohead and then the band don't like Radiohead. I mean, I've literally had that and it's like oh, so we're doing the wrong thing you know, one comment can break a whole… Julian Kindred: And the lead singer of the band is mad at the producer because the producer just said that's too much like Radiohead already. Danton Supple: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So it's, you are as important in it, I think realising your role in a room, which is the same as general life anyway, realising your role and I mean I had a kid in my studio a couple of weeks ago, a friend of a friend who's 15 and no offence but don't speak in the, we were writing as well so it was a even more delicate thing when we started with nothing, you know and he was great for a couple of days and you know, if we chat to you and you know, ask you stuff or what you think of it, then even then tell us what you think and then, but that's on that opportunity. So I think, yeah, just think yeah, know your role in every room you're in and that'll change obviously, we all do various things each day, you might be only writing, you might be producing, you might be engineering, I think know your role in those environments. Kevin Paul: I think as Danton said, he had a chain of progression. When you guys got to certain places, what did you initially think of, did you think it was as easy as you thought it would be, or did you think this is really hard. Danton Supple: I think the journey's got quite blurred edges between each of those points, assisting, running, engineering, producing and one of the things that really makes people stand out is if they understand the delineation there and they can work within it because it will change that point quite often, depending the project you're on. If you're employed as an engineer on this one and there's a producer, then there's a remit which you have to stick within and the same with an assistant and seeing people who lasted, because when we were talking about having a character to be comfortable in a room, we're not talking about office hours, we're talking about studio hours. It's 14 hour days, six days a week quite often on certain projects and that would filter out certain people, just having to deal with the hours themselves, but also dealing with those hours and still remaining, you know, happy and doing what you had to do and getting along with things. One of the things which took a little while, as we moved into a phase where there was fewer and fewer studios but more and more courses offering training in this world, it was kind of quite difficult. It was bad enough as it was, but then the amount of applications we had coming to the studios kind of started going through the roof and when we are interviewing then or when you have people in either as a personal assistant for me or with the studio, you are almost not as interested in their CV as you are in how is this person in this room, can they deal, are they a people person, can they communicate, do they know when it's time to be quiet, when it's not? Kevin Paul: Speaking of that, Shelby, you obviously employ people. Shelby Logan Warne: Yes. Kevin Paul: How do you approach the person coming, you know, maybe there's many people here that want to work. Shelby Logan Warne: Well, that's the thing. I can see it from both sides of the fence now. I mean, I know from my personal experience when I was getting into this world, I had to be just annoying enough to make sure that the previous studio that I worked at didn't forget about me so I was able to, you know, be called in for sessions because I think there's a lot of consistency in, there's a lot of people in this industry that are very just tunnel vision focused on stuff so will forget object permanence, but with people, because everyone is so laser focused on their role, their task, that if you don't kind of nudge someone and remind them that you exist, they will forget about you and I had to be just annoying enough to keep persisting so I would able to, you know, just be there sitting in on sessions and then eventually doing sessions but then on the other side of the fence, finding someone that has that level of persistence whilst also not being too persistent is such a delicate, fine line and you know, there's a lot of passion and just drive and energy in this industry, but there can also be the wrong type of passion and drive and all it takes is for someone to just, I mean, it's like you say, all it takes is for someone to say the wrong thing once and wouldn't want them back ever. Kevin Paul: Well, I'm sure you've had that in interviews right? Danton Supple: Sarm with Trevor used to have such a high turnover and it wasn't just for the wrong word, it was for a number of singular wrong things. Shelby Logan Warne: Back at when I was working at Old Street there was, when I got to the management level we took on an intern, I'm not gonna name any names obviously, but he was very enthusiastic and he would be very chatty with the clients and sometimes this was a good thing but most of the time it was very, very distracting and you know, when we're trying to get on with the job it's kind of not really appropriate to be talking about certain things and be very you know, but for me the thing that really knocked it over was there was a sense of overconfidence and so I asked him one day to set up a kit for a client, mic it up because he insisted that he could do that, he knew exactly what he needed to do, so I was like okay go and do it and came back through to the control room and said Shelby, all done, do you wanna come take a look and I was horrified. I mean, the toms were like almost vertical facing and like that far apart and like for some reason all of the mic stands were like, they're all boom stands, but the actual like column was way over here and obviously everything was beginning to sag and I was like, is this, is he joking, is this a joke? But no, he was being serious and in that moment I was like, yeah, I can't really, I can't have this guy on sessions anymore, this is just embarrassing. I had to quickly reset up the kit, re my kit with the client arriving in about 20 minutes. Kevin Paul: What I've really noticed about the last talking discussion points is that we all spoke about him, we didn't mention her at all and now obviously studios are full of women and rightfully so and personally I think they really, really help the studio environment, you know, prior to women becoming employed on a regular basis in studios it was a high testosterone fuelled environment where men would run wild and… Danton Supple: I don't remember that. Kevin Paul: No genuinely, genuinely, you know… Danton Supple: Especially if you make those residential sessions where you are putting that big boiling pot of testosterone into a country house… Kevin Paul: With alcohol. Danton Supple: With a big budget and leaving them for two months. Kevin Paul: With alcohol and god knows what else. I mean, it was just like chaos. How do we, well you spoke earlier about Rack and… Tim Brand: Yeah Rack, well you've got a studio at Rack haven’t you. Danton Supple: Well the thing with Rack is it's now a majority of women engineers and for myself for the last 10 years, I've normally employed female assistants. I know this is a different bias, but it needed to happen because it was so out of place. My mother, who was a big pusher of executive positions for women in publishing back in, not in music publishing in written publishing, visited me at Sarm Studios in 1988 and was absolutely horrified. She was like, where are all the few women? I was like, and the thing is, all of that glass ceiling wasn't from blokes necessarily, it was a mindset at the time because there were female studio managers because I had asked, why don't we ever have any women working here as assistants? It's like oh it'll be late at night, they'd be getting cabs on their own, not sure we can put 'em in a studio with all these guys. It’s like, they've done okay outside for the rest of their lives, why not? And now that would seem a bizarre thing to say because it seems so normal now to have a very mixed environment and also as people are coming on, the years are going past the say upper echelons, it's kind of the people we know and we read about and we hear about, it's becoming far more mixed now which is, it's taken way too long, but I'm glad it's somewhere there now. Kevin Paul: Yeah, for sure. Now you guys have obviously started your careers. Was that the reality that you expected? Like did your journey as you initially started in the studio, was that kind of exactly how you thought it would be or… Shelby Logan Warne: Not at all. Kevin Paul: Okay, so why not? Shelby Logan Warne: I didn't think I'd end up in a position where I'd be owning a recording studio. Kevin Paul: Why did you decide to own a recording studio? Shelby Logan Warne: Foolishness but also, I don't know, I guess I just chase risk. As an interesting FYI when I was applying for studios to work at back in 2018, applied for a whole load of studios, must have been about 50 or 60 all across London and one of them was Sensible Music. So going from applying for a job there to then now owning it feels like a very full circle, cathartic moment but… Kevin Paul: So your journey's quite short isn't it, really? Shelby Logan Warne: I guess it is, yeah. Kevin Paul: Like if you started in 19, sorry 2018… Danton Supple: He’d have still been on reception. Kevin Paul: He would yeah, he would still be, I would still be knocking on doors, like genuinely. Danton Supple: I’d be in my bunker. Kevin Paul: And Julian's like not even here, he’s in America, he's in Nashville. Shelby Logan Warne: Yeah I dunno, I kind of, I suppose just luck, right place right time, tenacity. I don't know. Kevin Paul: Tenacity, yeah, Shelby Logan Warne: I just, I always made an effort outside of the studio to come to things like this and meet people and network. Julian Kindred: And you're a very good networker. Shelby Logan Warne: Thank-you Julian. Julian Kindred: Yeah, you are. Shelby Logan Warne: I mean, coming from you especially that means a lot because I feel like you… Julian Kindred: Hey man, I'm here for you. Shelby Logan Warne: You know everyone in like the world, you know, like… Julian Kindred: Yeah, yeah. No, but seriously you have to do that, you have to have as much tenacity about being determined to excel at your craft, really know your craft but I've seen a lot of really, really great people, incredibly skilled and like far more mightier than me in terms of like actual capability and capacity who are timid and shy and you know and reticent and you don't have to change your personality to do any of this stuff we're talking about, you don't have to be a sanguine like socialite like myself, but at the same time you do have to assert yourself you know and I think that everything everybody here is saying, everybody's been deliberate about, our stories are all different, it’s very interesting to hear how we're contrasting and comparing, but the reality is there's one thread and that is assertion, you know, a determination to not give up, to not stop, to not say no. Shelby Logan Warne: And kiss goodbye to sleep. Kevin Paul: Sleep, entertainment. Shelby Logan Warne: Yep, social life. Kevin Paul: People. Julian Kindred: I told you about my beginning that literally one hours sleep. I mean, I didn't sleep for three years, literally. It’s amazing I'm alive. Danton Supple: And when I, after Guernsey I moved to London, I got an opportunity to work at Island Records back in the days when they had the Fallout Shelter studios and they had a studio opposite as well, so it was like a demo studio as well, but I made a lot of records in there as well. So I was just, the studio engineer is kind of the opposite of your Sarm experience where Trevor Wyatt who ran the studios down there, within two weeks I was doing a remix. He said can you do remix, I was like yeah because I'd done lots of remixes in my studio in Guernsey and I was like, yeah. He said right, here's the master tape, go and do it and what it reminded me of is that I worked with a guy called Groucho who did a lot of… Tim Bran: Yeah, he stayed at Fallout Shelter for years. Tim Bran: Yeah with, he made a lot of Grace Jones records and he was legendary bringing in his own sound system and mix. I mean, he was incredible but I didn't sleep one session. It was, I think it was three days I hadn't slept and he was still going and I watched him doing a ride on the SSL, on the vocal, fall asleep halfway through and then wake up and finish the ride. I was like this guy, I mean this is just like, so I had to ask him to go home. Julian Kindred: 84 hours is my record, still mixing. Tim Bran: It's not a competition, but well done. Julian Kindred: It wasn't just me. Danton Supple: 84 hours! Julian Kindred: It was a team, it was a team of us. Tim Bran: I like it was down to the 84. Danton Supple: Week in, week out. Tim Bran: As you put your head on the… Julian Kindred: Because it became so stupid that we started counting foolishly. Danton Supple: But listen, that's stopped now I'm glad to say. Kevin Paul: Yeah I mean you know, thank God technology has changed that. Danton Supple: I think COVID stopped it. We had all went home and actually looked back at our careers and thought, what are we doing, it’s crazy hours. I mean at Sarm as an assistant doing an 130 hour week and do the math, was not hugely uncommon. Yeah and that now would just be, a. the assistants now would say no, they're far more empowered as young people coming in. Going back to the thing about how we get people in and that characteristic side of it, you almost expect they're gonna have a technical knowledge and they know their music and they know their gear, so much is put on that character side. So for all the people who do an intern week at, when I used to be in a studio with Flood and Alan Moulder, two big producers, there'd be a week where an intern would come in and they just didn't know what they were being assessed for because it'd always be about they wanted to do the studio stuff and do this and a few would even complain that, well I'm not in the studio, they’d been on reception or they cleaned out the fridge in the kitchen. Kevin Paul: Yeah or making some tea. Danton Supple: Or we'd come back and they'd be on the sofa lying down as we're trying to get in it'd be like, but the kids who just come kept knocking on the door, do you want tea, do you want tea, go downstairs, the place would be immaculate, people would say oh that's a nice kid you got on reception. Everyone would then be fighting over having this kid as their assistant because, you know, they could exist in the long hours and it was the same at Strongroom, a lot of people would come in. One person actually had a bit of a shouting match at the studio manager saying I didn't come here to do reception, I came here to be an engineer and a producer and so… Kevin Paul: Okay, how did that turn out? Danton Supple: I think it ended there, but it was knowing that and knowing that, you know, as I say, what you're supposed to be doing, but all the people who did so much outside of the expected were the ones where you thought, well they're excellent. Kevin Paul: Well there's obviously the famous Flood story, right? Danton Supple: Yeah, Flood and Drought. Kevin Paul: Flood and Drought. Okay, does anyone know that story? Okay so there were you know, Flood was the assistant at the studio and there were two people. Flood's obviously not his name, it's a nickname that was attached to him, so there was Mark and another guy and Flood made constant amounts of tea, constant tea, tea, tea, tea, tea. Drought… made no tea. Okay. Danton Supple: And one of them became known, yeah. Kevin Paul: Flood became the best producer in the world. You've never heard of Drought, you know, so… Julian Kindred: I believe that right there sums up our entire panel, doesn't it? Kevin Paul: Generally, you know, as far as I know, that's the folklore. I mean I'm, you know, I'm not sure how embellished it is, I'm sure Flood will tell you himself. Danton Supple: No, that's true, yeah. Kevin Paul: But it is true right, yeah and you know I was always told in the studio, make yourself indispensable, make the session, make you so much part of the session that when you are not there, they notice that you are not there, you know, because that way they'll ask you to come back and sometimes different sessions have different requirements. Sometimes they just want you to make tea, sometimes they want you to be alert and know what's going on in the studio and that character thing and that understanding of your environment is so important you know, especially when you're starting, you want to be able to draw attention to yourself. I'll tell you a quick story, when I was at Konk, I'd only been there two or three months and when I walked in the studio I thought yeah, this is the studio for me, I've made it. I was on one session and I spent most of the time upstairs in reception talking to the ladies and the engineer and the producer kept coming out going, Kevin, Kevin and at the end of the day he pulled me aside and he said look Kevin, you can be really good, but tomorrow if you are not here in the studio with me and I turn around and say Kevin can you and you don't go, it's already done, you won't be coming back the day after and I went home and thought, yeah it was like a serious wake up call. Danton Supple: Yes that is, they are the good assistants, the ones who are listening to the conversation in the room the whole time and the conversation, they’ve already charged out and started setting something up. But then you go actually, no, we won't do that now and they don't make it, they go and put it back down again. Tim Bran: It’s no big deal, yeah exactly. Danton Supple: But they've just been ahead of the game and it makes such a difference to your working day. It's the stops and starts that are the bump to creativity a lot of the time for me, the more seamless it is as a working day, the better the sessions. Tim Bran: And everybody is as important, everybody of the team, not only the assistant, but the producer, everybody. It's gotta feel like it's flowing. You don't wanna feel like you're stopping running, you know. Kevin Paul: Yeah, no-one wants to wait 30 minutes while you warm up a valve microphone because 40 minutes ago they spoke about using that microphone. Danton Supple: And getting an idea down, yeah exactly. Kevin Paul: Yeah, you don't wanna stop that creativity so a lot of young people who go into studios, they think that the role of the assistant is a nothing role. It's far from that. A good assistant, as we've all said, can actually make a record, a good record. Danton Supple: You've also got a huge amount of responsibility. That was the double-edged thing about, as an assistant you can destroy a session very easily, you know, with drives, in those days tapes. Your ability to wipe something, you're so tired trying to keep on top of it, but at the same time there was no balance to that with regards to your remuneration in any way whatsoever, so one minute getting shouted at because the tea's not got sugar in or got sugar in, but the next minute you’ve also got responsibility for tens of thousands of pounds worth of recording. Tim Bran: Yeah, I think I heard somebody at Island Records wiped over some, I think it was Eric Clapton guitar solo or something. Kevin Paul: Yeah we've all got those. Danton Supple: I think that might been Drought actually. Kevin Paul: Drought, yeah. Just to come back to my story, so I'm just gonna finish it off. So the next day, literally I was right there everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. At the end of the evening he said Kevin, that's what you need to do for the rest of your life in the music business, you know and it was a harsh lesson and you know what, I can't lie, I was really upset when I went home but tenacity, determination, don't think take things too personally. A lot of people might shout at you, maybe not now so much, but you know what, back in the day, people would get upset with you, you know and then you just gotta brush past that and that's as engineers as much as assistants or producers, you know. So having that sort of determination and… Shelby Logan Warne: And always being ready. Kevin Paul: Always being ready. Shelby Logan Warne: Always being ready. Kevin Paul: A very good way of saying it. Tim Bran: And that's the same for a producer I think, as well. I mean on the other end of the scale I try and never let, like we were saying, don't let it ever stop. If you're kind of floundering around on an idea or writing a song and it's not really going anywhere, start something else or, you know, I try, I'm always aware and I learned a lot off Youth, actually. I used to work with a producer called Youth and he would say I'm never gonna let their feet, the band's feet, touch the ground, that's how he put it and I think that's a real valuable lesson. Danton Supple: With assistants, saying that, if there's a technical issue it's between you and me, okay. It doesn't have to come into the room. Tim Bran: Don't let it come into the room. Danton Supple: The artists don’t need to know. Tim Bran: Exactly, keep it moving. Danton Supple: It's like the great technical people… Tim Bran: You know, give, hand them a guitar to get a new idea or you know, keep it moving literally. If you're sitting around playing with a hi-hat for half an hour it's just like what, you know. Julian Kindred: The other thing is that some people don't know how to regain traction when they've been through a mundane few hours, right and so many bands, bands, particularly bands that come to me, there's a lot of people who come and they are like wait, maybe if we just do it like a couple, you know, three takes through and just get the hottest, most vibiest one and then yet these same people are all talking about like, they're all cinema fans and movie fans and everything and I'm like, do you know how movies are made? It's stop, go, stop, go, stop, go, camera here, camera there, camera there, camera, you know, it's like, it's not a live performance. It involves a live performance, but it's Lego building, it’s blocks, it's Tetris. Kevin Paul: Let me just, I realise that it's already quarter past five, what time have we got until Matt? Whenever. Okay, great. Tim Bran: We've got the rest of our lives to talk about, it’s gonna take a while. We've got the rest of our lives to talk about. Julian Kindred: They're not throwing stones or booing us yet. Kevin Paul: You guys can't go nowhere for a while. Shelby Logan Warne: Make this a marathon, let's just keep going. Tim Bran: Yeah, see how long they last. Shelby Logan Warne: Yeah. Kevin Paul: We are here to sort of really talk about how to get into the business and what to do when you're in there. So you guys have found your positions, found your places, or multiple places. What's happened after that? Let me hear how you've got to here today. Tim Bran: I’ll be quick. Kevin Paul: Yeah please. Tim Bran: Well I mean, it’s… Kevin Paul: For everyone. Tim Bran: I think as a, you know, an arc of my career, I think determination has come into it a lot. I think that and within a track as well. I want to get this, if I'm gonna write a song, I want to get this sounding good by the end of the day otherwise what's, you know, if it's not working move on or do something else. So I think just where I am today, I think it's collaboration, looking for artists, like you said being social, getting out there, meeting people, I've met these great people I've met, I've got other people here, you know, artists reaching out. I still reach out on Instagram and find somebody who I like, who might not even be signed but I'm like, this person's really good. Kevin Paul: The music industry's changed a lot. Tim Bran: Well, that's what I was trying to yeah, it’s like me stating this might not be the same as somebody else. Kevin Paul: How we had careers… Tim Bran: Back then. Kevin Paul: 15 years ago to how you have a career of longevity, how has that changed and what have you had to do? Tim Bran: I think, well collaboration is always the key. I've been lucky enough along the way to have some significant bands and artists who have done really well when I've worked with them and that obviously brings in the future work and people still refer something. It's like being a band, you only need one hit. There's bands who are still playing something that they wrote 30 years ago. It doesn't matter if they can go into huge gigs because people want to hear that song and see them live and they love them. So I think it's the same being a producer or an engineer, you know, you've gotta still be relevant of course and I think you will be by working with new artists and bands all the time but I think it's, you just gotta work with as many people as you can I think. I make a lot of records and it's like having loads of horses in the same race and all it takes is one to take off. They, you know… Kevin Paul: How do you motivate yourself continuously when you're not having those hits, when you're not having that work. Tim Bran: Determination and wanting to make great records. It doesn't matter. I don't think of after it leaves the studio, I just think when we're in that moment, I wanna make this sound as good as it possibly can in not too long… Kevin Paul: And not worry too much about after or before, just enjoy that moment. Tim Bran: I’m making it for me and the artist in that room and if we love it, then that's it, that’s all… Julian Kindred: Yeah can I jump in on that? Tim Bran: Please. Kevin Paul: Of course. Julian Kindred: I’ve had a completely different career than I ever thought that I was going to have you know. I mean I've had some great successes, but they've been thin on the ground at points where I thought they wouldn't be and they've been accentuated where I was like oh wait, what, that? So you’re not in control of the results, you know, all you can control is the output and what you do, you know and this is exactly the same for anybody who's in a bedsit with a laptop, same, what's coming outta the speakers in the end, right. That, combined with integrate, be open, learn from other people. Look, I can't believe I'm on the stage with some of these dudes. I've been listening to this guy for like, your head's gonna be like this big when you're done right? I love this guy, Tim too, Shelby. I've known these people for a while thankfully but it's amazing to have arrived in this position because there's been points where I've had no idea if I would, right, you know. I was driving a long, long trip and I heard a record called Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp and that man right there is responsible for it, you know, so the fact that I'm here, you know, not giving up, it's getting back to the tenacity thing, that's the reason I'm saying all that, you know. Danton Supple: I'm still as excited going into work in the morning as I was 40 years ago and I think if you lose that or lose an interest, it's evolved so much over the years, there's so much to keep you constantly having to learn, music aside, just keeping up with the gear and how that's progressed and what it enables us to do and how it lets you play differently with things. But when I've heard contemporaries kind of moaning a bit about the way it is, it's like, well stop it, you know. I'm actually really enjoying it, so I'm not part of that argument. You don't have to do it, you're not sentenced to being a producer. At the start as well, I wanted to be an engineer, so that's my thing, I didn't even know about producers, I just wanted to be a really good engineer and work my way up. I realised that producers drove better cars than engineers, so I figured this would be something maybe I need to learn about production and then you eventually get drawn into it and as a producer for the last 25 years, it's keeping that interest up and you know, if you're not excited, don't do it. Kevin Paul: Shelby, you said something there that's quite relevant. Shelby Logan Warne: We're all nerds, that's why we're passionate about this you know, like if we at the end of the day still get to go into the studio and work with amazing artists and play with all of this amazing tech, all of this gear, at the end of the day, that's what we love doing, you know and the fact that there is the possibility of making money off the back of that is a massive bonus and a massive privilege. Kevin Paul: Yeah, someone… Danton Supple: I didn't even realise you could when I came into it. Shelby Logan Warne: Yeah. Kevin Paul: Someone once said to me, can you make a lot of money, like being a studio engineer? I said, if you wanna make a lot of money go and work in the city. If you want make great records, become a studio person, you know. Julian Kindred: I became at ease with it when I realised that I didn't want fame, I didn't want riches. I'll welcome any of them, but I wanted transcendence. Kevin Paul: Yeah and look… Julian Kindred: I wanted experience, I want to play back transcendence, my God, that's it right. Kevin Paul: Yeah and look, you know, that's easy to say when you've had very successful careers, but we know that when you're starting out it's hard. It's hard to command that decent salary, that decent daily rate, that decent work even, you know. But I think as Julian and Danton and everybody else has said, the tenacity to keep going, this is what separates the good from the great. I really appreciate everyone taking their time to sit with us for the last hour or so, but really I want you to thank Julian Kindred, Shelby Logan Warne, Danton Supple, Tim Bran and myself, Kevin Paul. Thank-you very much. Thank-you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information, along with web links and details of all our other episodes. And just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound/podcasts website page where you can explore what's playing on our other channels. This has been a MixBus production by me, Kevin Paul, for Sound On Sound.