Why go down, start, don go do show shops. That's why I
start my show, not side shows. SI you're listening to do wal humin
ate very far? Come here, God, don't get so friendly, maself.
Good morning, everybody, Welcome, Here we go. It is that
time again, Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w
m n H ninety five point three FM in Manchester, New Hampshire. And
of course you can go to my website Matt Connorton dot com for all your
live streaming options, social media links, contact and folks show archives, et
cetera, et cetera. It is Saturday, April six, twenty twenty four,
and I am not alone. Jenny, Jenny is here. Fine,
Welcome, Welcome. We've got a great show for you today. We have
an amazing guest we're going to introduce in just a moment. Plus we have
Warhog coming up later in the show and Conduit, and we have Eric Pilcher's
classic film review. Last week was the making of Citizen Kane. This week
Eric reviews Citizen Kane the movie itself is all time favorite. Also want to
mention because I almost forgot since we went to Saturdays. This week is the
seven year anniversary of Matt Connorton Unleashed here at w M and H. Oh
my gosh, this is the first year I actually like zoned it. Yeah,
it's because of the change in our schedule. We kind of just forgot.
But yes, but we've been super busy seven years, super busy seven
years. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, isn't that what's number seven? What
is seven years? I wonder what that is? What do you mean?
Well, is it like the paper anniversary? I don't know. I think
I mean, you have to get me a gift. This lucky number seven,
No, lucky number seven seven supposed to be in something. I also
want to mention too, just briefly, of course, we have a brand
new sponsor we can make the official announcement. Morgan Self Storage is now an
official sponsor of Matt Connorton Unleashed and w M and H ninety five point three
FM. So so very proud of you hearing that. Thank you. You'll
be hearing that commercial spot beginning on the station soon. Just need to get
final approval on the commercial itself from the sponsor, of course, but because
we don't do anything until they've approved it and said yes, but they said
yes, yes. I just need them to say yes to the ad itself
and then we'll be able to we'll be able to start running it. But
very excited about that. So uh but what we are all so excited about
this morning? Let me get that mic up. We have a gentleman whose
name has come up on this show so many times. Eric Sotter of Blackhart
Sound is here. Hello, Eric, Hey, Matt, that's going Am
I saying your last name correctly? As the Solder? You've got it right?
Okay, people say like soute or right right now. The reason your
name has come up so much on the show is a lot of the artists
that we've had on the show that I've interviewed over the years have mentioned you
and recording with you at Blackheart's Sound. Yeah, I know, Slim Volume
been on here recently, the Night Blinders, to name a few, I
mean even today a Conduit It's going to be on yes, which is kind
of a coincidence. It was not even planned. Julia was telling me about
that. Yeah, we just we had finished up some stuff I want to
say, last year and they're putting out a single soon. So yeah,
yeah, yeah, looking with some people in Manchester for a little bit,
that's for sure. Yeah, Dank Sinatra, right, yeah. In fact,
I yes, pictures of Fredo on I think it was on the Facebook
page for the for the studio. I think Fredo and they're playing guitar.
Oh yeah, yeah, Jesse came in the friend Jesse took a bunch of
pictures and some great ones. Yeah. Yeah, see Fredo all over there.
Yeah yeah, absolutely. How long How long has Black Heart Sound been
open? It's been it's been in the location it's been in, which is
on Elm Street behind the Music Mill for I want to say, we're going
on five years at this point. I think I did my first session in
twenty nineteen, like April or May, okay, but I've been operating,
you know, working with bands for quite a bit longer than that. I
grabbed a bunch of equipment when I was I want to say, probably around
like twenty sixteen and just started like doing it from there. And it's a
long story, but yeah, it's been going on for a little bit,
but officially about five years. Excellent, excellent. We should mention too before
we go any further than that opening song, that's your band Magnetar in a
track called Event Horizon and really good stuff. I listened to that whole album
crushed. I listened to that yesterday and just loved it. Yeah, we
did a record. We put it out with this label, Seeing Red Records
in twenty twenty two. Yeah, in June. It's a great album.
It's great for you know, fans of like like heavy metal stuff. It's
like I was saying, you know, definitely like adjacent to like post metal
stuff mastedon. If you're a fan of Macedonia, you like it. Yeah,
yeah, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, really good, really
good. Yeah. I think I'd mentioned this U off air before the show.
I've been aware of Magnetar for a while, but I hadn't made the
connection that you were in the band. And I assume you recorded everything yourself,
right, you were the engineer and did it all there. I did
the I did the recording, I did the mixing. I had it mastered
by my friend Zach who works in Salem at God City. Did a great
job with it. So yeah, yeah, uh, do you have any
plans for more more? Almost said mastered on for more Magnetar coming? Yeah,
you know we uh, we didn't do a lot between like twenty twenty
two and uh and now. But I'm just getting back and starting to write
some more music with U, with the you know, a couple of the
couple of the members, and we've got some stuff brewing. It's not like
nearly the same sort of music. It's definitely gotten to be a little bit
more tame really, not not as heavy, yeah, not as heavy as
you know. I'm just kind of feeling something a little bit different these days.
Yeah. Yeah, this the last album, Crushed is a very very
heavy, oppressive, but like kind of beautiful album. Yeah. I wanted
to go in a little bit more of like a rock to around action while
still keeping those sorts of elements. So we're kind of feeling that out,
figuring out how that's gonna materialize. And we got like, I think we're
like halfway through an album right now. Oh really in regards to like,
you know, just demoing it out, yeah, and getting the songs ready.
So yeah, hopefully later this year we'll we'll start you know, getting
those down and hopefully have an album again soon. Excellent. Does magnetar ever
play out? The last time we played out was the was the release show
that we did for that LP. We did it as a benefit show over
at the the Alpine Club on the West Side. Yeah, oh okay,
I mean I want to say, like a lot of the shows we've done
of generally around like some sort of like fund raiser benefits show. So yeah,
that was the That was the last one we did, and we we
haven't really been been doing much since. I would imagine a Magnetar show is
pretty intense. It's a lot. Yeah. I mean, like we we
have from like the get go, we were known as like this the band
that just like brought out like all these ridiculous amps and cabs. I remember
I would literally just collect like as many amps and like high wise amps cabinets
as I could and just play out. It was a for a while it
was a two piece. It was me and a drummer, uh Johnny Funk,
And yeah, I would just show up with like a split a line
splitter plug into as many like you know, one hundred two of the watte
heads as I could and just like make this like really oppressive live sound.
That was kind of our reputation, and it's not to that degree anymore.
We actually have like a dedicated bass player second guitar player, so you know,
we we toned it down a little bit, but it's still a lot
to bring out. You know, been playing with like full stacks and you
know, big six twelve guitar cabinets. So it's like it's a lot I
have to van in order to do that. That's that's really cool. I
respect that a lot. That's great. Now as far as you had posted
something on social media recently and congratulations, you're you're doing uh producing and doing
black arts sound more as like a full time I mean, I imagine you're
already working a lot of hours doing that, but you're you're really going to
the next level with it, right yep. You know, for uh,
for the first uh, first few years of this venture, it was just
like it was kind of I did this in between my full time job,
yeah, which you know it was it's pretty taxing, you know, having
to do that because you know, I'd be taking you know, my weekends
and then like working with bands. Yeah, it was great. It was
a you know, I wouldn't take it back at all. But there's a
certain point where you know, you got to you gotta like really have some
free time in your life because I was like, you know, doing things
like having like between two to four days off a month, which isn't sustainable
in the long run, that's for sure. So yeah, I made the
decision to go full on into and kind of like just have a have a
part time job. I saw I do work at the Manchester Music Mill.
Yeah, currently, but just it needed more of my attention in order to
grow. Yeah. Yeah, No, that's a great place. I wanted
to work there, but I didn't get the call. No, but it
is a great place. How long have you worked there, I've worked.
I've been working for Joe since twenty thirteen. Oh, I moved to Manchester,
like I want to say late twenty twelve. Yeah, and I I
think I was like working pizza delivery then. And one day I just decided
I wanted to work at that store. Yeah, and I was. So
I went in and you know, I knew who Joe was. I had
shot there for a while. Yeah, And I went up to him and
asked him, Hey, do you got any openings, Like yeah, maybe
go shoot me a resume. So I shot him a resume. Yeah,
and I went in like a couple days later, Hey, do you look
at the resume? No, I haven't. And then I went in,
like you know, a few days later, and a few days later I
bugged him, yeah, yeah, heavily, and then he to the point
where he was just like, dude, just okay, yeah, come in,
come in next Tuesday. Yeah, excellent, excellent. What did you
start out doing there? Just sales on the It was just sales, yeah,
I mean it was the It was a pretty small staff at that point.
It's grown exponentially since they started to like a wild operation. I mean
it was just that one building. We had all of our storage for everything
inside of there. All of our backstock was in that one building. Yeah,
and it was like me, him, another manager, and like maybe
one other sales guy. So it was pretty small. I was kind of
just did everything there. Yeah, at that point, you had your hands
in a little bit of all that sort of stuff. So and uh,
you know, when you're in a small staff, eventually you just start getting
more and more responsibility to you, whether you need you're you're ready for it
or not. Right right stile by fire at that point, a very small,
small place. So you know, eventually I'm holding keys Eventually, like
you know, I'm doing like trade deals quoting out like you know, prices
with people and that just kind of like grew from there and I was a
I think I was managing, uh like had some sort of like manager role,
but like like a couple of years after that, so and I've been
doing that ever since. It's a great place. I I love working there.
It's it's a fantastic organization. And Joe's an amazing guy to work for.
Well, when you talk about how it's grown too, I I because
I remember going in there years ago and it was much smaller. And uh
when I when I went there for my interview, Craig gave me a tour
of the whole place and it's I I was stunned actually at how how huge
it is. That warehouse building. Yeah, we put that that's that's the
building that the studio is in. Joe purchased that in twenty eighteen and completely
renovated it and that really allowed us to like take our stock to a certain
degree, have a dedicated shipping department, have a dedicated receiving area, so
it really allowed us to grow even further. Yeah, So yeah, it's
it's unbelievable. Joe is I I don't think I would I would be able
to do what I'm doing right now if I didn't work under someone like him,
because he is just such a hard worker. He knows what to do
and with a business and just so dedicated to you know, seeing that growth,
making the business succeed, and also taking care of his employees. It's
it's h you don't get many bosses like him in this life. And then
so when you started Blackheart Sound officially, did you start recording there or were
you recording at home at first? So, yeah, I started by I
had a spot down in Morgan celf storage and I think our there we go
small. I was there for a while actually, and I had I think
I wanted to record like demos for for my band at the time. And
uh so I got myself, like I think I had like a small,
little like two track interface and I had like a barringer mixer that I would
run the mix down and two tracks into that. So I would start by
doing that sort of stuff. And then word got out that, oh Eric
can record stuff. So bands I would like you know, start working with
like punk bands and doing stuff. And I didn't really know what I was
doing, but like you know, they'd come over. Hey, here's twenty
bucks in the a six pack. Let's go for a few hours and see
what we can get. So that started, and I'm and uh. Then
I got like a like an eight track setup, like some sort of like
personas thing, and I was like, wow, I really like this.
I want to I want to learn how to actually do this. Yeah,
so I just went full in, not really knowing what I was doing.
I went out and bought a bunch of equipment, took out when went and
got like a personal loan which sounds crazy, and bought a bunch of like
nice mics, like you know, some decent pre amps. And I was
just like, I'm gonna learn how to do this. I'm gonna try and
find spaces in which I can do this. The second space I had was
in the Varick buildings, the buildings that they tore down across from the market
Basket and oh, okay, yeah you're familiar with those. I mean that
a lot of people had studios in there, a lot of people had practice
spaces, and I had a practice space in there at one time before before
Morgan's, before I had a practice space at Morgan's. Yeah, so I
know exactly the spot. Yeah, I got in there and I was I
ended up taking over this like giant space that was uh it was called the
fuzz Hut. It was. It was like a I y venue that a
bunch of people I know had run and they ended up getting out of there
and I took it over and it was like three thousand square feet. It
was huge. Wow. And I just started, uh like you know,
doing more bands out of there and kind of like cutting my teeth there and
learning how to do this. I think one of the uh, one of
the first records I did was for Mit and the night Blinders. I'd known
my ten you know, I'd from like the shaskiing and everything, and hit
me up, Hey, can you can do my band? I was like
sure, gave him like you know, I was recording for basically nothing then,
and he's like okay, day, He's like all right, we want
to do it live. And I'm like, I've never done this before,
Like I've never recorded a live folk circle. So I'm literally, you know,
they're an hour to coming in and I'm sitting there on Google. How
do you make up a folk circle? Like That's where I was. I
had all this equipment I'm just like learning how to do it practically. I
never went to school for any of this stuff. So I just threw myself
in there. And you know, I I love that record still. It's
a it's a great ones, very uh, very raw. But yeah,
that's that's really where I started. So at a certain point that that space
become became kind of like unusable. I wanted to find a place where I
could put money into. It was a spot that only would give me a
month to month lease, which I'm looking at putting twenty five to forty grand
into a spot to build it out, right. You don't want to do
that, right, Yeah, no kidding, Yeah, So I started moving
around. I ended up finding a place over at Candy Road, right next
to Candy Road Brewing, and rented from them for a while. I know,
I know all those people really well, they're they're great, and operated
out of there for a little bit, did some shows there, tried to
you know, kind of foster a little bit of that uh that that DIY
space for shows with people that that was fun. And then when Joe bought
the building behind the music, Millie is like, hey, I'll give you
a whole quadrant of this place, do you want it? And it was
like it was perfect. I could rent from my boss. I can uh,
I'll have like a full it was. It was just like a full
blank rectangle to build from the ground up. Wow. And that was like
the golden opportunity. It was like yep, do it. Wow. So
and uh yeah, that's where I've been for uh for the past the past
five years. Yeah, it really really uh struck good luck to get in
there, because I'll tell you, finding spaces to do this it's extremely difficult.
I have bounced around, I have done It's not easier either finding places
where you uh you know that that are like somewhat affordable, but like you
have to deal with people around you being noisy or like them being upset with
you or that was that was probably a problem with Morgan's right. Yeah,
that was That's why I like, as soon as I started, like,
you know, being like, hey, I'm gonna charge bands, even though
it wasn't much like I'm gonna charge people a little bit, I had to
get out of there because, you know, I'd start doing stuff and then
suddenly up band next to you's rehearsing exactly. It's a rehearsal space. Of
course, I can't get upset about that, but you gotta know where you're
at. Yeah, so I had to find find places. So yeah,
or you're just like doing you know, really expensive commercial space and you know
that that'll allow you to do that. It's it's it's tough. Yeah yeah,
yeah, No, you're in a You're in a great situation. And
uh yeah, that couldn't have worked out any better. Huh, I say,
yeah, that's that's amazing. It was just it was a no brainer.
Yeah, get in there. Yeah. How long how long did it
take you to get to a point where where you felt like, you know,
really because you talked about when you were starting and kind of learning on
the fly, you know, which is a is a really good way to
do it because obviously it works. How long did it take you to get
to a point where you felt like, Okay, I've really got this,
like I'm a I'm I'm a legitimate engineer and producer. And I think it
was like about the time I had gotten into that space maybe like you know,
uh, right around there, because it was having the space where I
knew how to get the sounds I wanted to do what I was able to
do. I was able to have much much more of a controlled environment because
I was kind of flying by the seat in my pants and most of the
places, you know, anyone I know it's seen, any of the places
I was before be like yeah, these places were these were whack eric Like
you know, I wasn't dealing with like great sound isolation, and you know,
I didn't have like ISO rooms. I didn't have like well treated places
to mix. Yeah, So being able to have a good control room that
was that was spected out and designed to to mix in, having a live
room that I could work in and kind of just like learning how that space
worked. That that really got me to where I was at. And you
know, learning this by yourself is a hard thing to do because you always
have there's always the sense of like imposter syndrome where you're like am I doing?
Am I good at this? Ye? Like through that the whole way
and then but like at a certain point it takes a long time. You
just the silence that you got to be like listen, I'm working with people,
they're coming back, you know, we're doing records time and time again.
The business is going good, Like yeah, you know, what you're
doing. Yeah, that's interesting what you said about doing it by yourself,
because it sounds like, you know, because a lot of people who I
talk to who do what if you do, they had kind of a mentor
who helped them and kind of taught them. But it sounds like you didn't
have that necessarily. I wouldn't necessarily say that I didn't have any mentors.
I would say that I definitely did have some people who were like decent resources.
Biggest one my good friend Derek Blackburn, who runs a mixing a mastering
studio out of Bedford, mass From the time I was like from the Morgan
Storage times, I was like, I kind of found him on Instagram.
He was a mastering engineer and I was like, cool, you know,
I'm gonna follow these people, and we would always have dialogue and I remember
like he was always a great resource for me. I remember when I first
did like the first, like one of the first mag guitar demos back in
like twenty fifteen. I had sent him a track to master and like,
I didn't know what I was doing then, and I was like it was
very loud, and he instead of you know, coming to me and being
like, hey, idiot, turn it down, Like he explained to me,
why, Like here, this is too loud. Here's what you should
do, you know, blah blah blah. And and he was always super
helpful, so I could always go to him with any if I ever had
a question. Hey Derek, I'm running into this problem. What can you
give me some advice? Yeah? And I love that because you know,
he was just so humble, had no problem giving me any sort of information
that I needed. And you know, we still we have a working relationship
to this day. I send a lot of people his way from Mastering.
We just worked on a really great record together by this band, Crippling Alcoholism,
and it's a fantastic record. And you never know what those relationships are
going to turn into eight years, ten years down the line. You have
no idea how that's gonna it's gonna work. And I'm really lucky to have
someone like that. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Oh that's cool,
that's cool. What is uh? Is there a particular project that you've
recorded there that was especially challenging or just really unique and kind of outside of
your comfort zone? Is there anybody like that? I wouldn't say that there's
much outside of my comfort zone. There's definitely projects that like, you know,
really put me to the test in regards to like, you know,
to how far am i'd like, how far can I take my skills?
And actually the project I just mentioned this band, Crippling Alcoholism out of Boston,
we did a record together. They're very, uh, it's very avant
garde, kind of like poppy dark music kind of in their vocalist is kind
of in the vein of like Peter Steele, very like yeah Low. They
sound a lot like like Swans or like you know, early like you know,
like new wave, kind of like dark gothic stuff. And they also
mix like these interesting elements of like kind of like off to off metered.
Like they call it like math rock, or we call it mathcore. So
this record was really really unbelievable. They uh, it's it's about an hour
long, and there's all these ridiculous elements in it. There's probably, I
want to say, there's in each song there's probably like three or four guitar
parts, individual guitar parts on top of like a few layers of guitar synthesizer
with keyboard synthesizer and all these other ambient elements. So I think by the
end of the the session when we started to mix, we were looking at
like probably two hundred and fifty individual tracks. Oh my god, yes,
uh you know it was it was not like individual songs, but just like
tracks. Yeah, we're mixing, and that is like, yeah, it's
doing that. It was almost like like like mixing in like an orchestral piece
or mixing like a score. Yeah, so that was really cool. We're
and the what helped out is they had a really great idea as to what
they were going for for the vibe and what the end product was. Yeah.
The the vocalist and I want to say main songwriter, Tony you know
from the from he came in with full pre produced tracks like here, we
have the sound down, we know what we want to do, and uh
yeah, mixing stuff like that is uh. I had done a couple of
projects like that before, and the first time it was like, man,
that was tough. But once you do a couple of those, you kind
of get in the method of here, you know, I know how to
approach this. I'm not gonna get overwhelmed by this ridiculous track count. Yeah,
because I did like a post rock band like that. One time web
they were like importing like I think it was like thirty to the twenty five
to thirty synthesizer tracks per song. Yeah, and I remember that was the
first time I'd ever done that, and I was like, oh my god,
this is wild. But after you do stuff like that, it becomes
very very easy, you know how to manage it. Yeah, and it
makes the stuff like the other stuff, like the more simple stuff just like
that much easier. Like wow, yeah, this is we're just doing dealing
with like guitar, drums and bass, right, I know how to mix
this right right right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, because I I have
a little bit of recording experience and just just hearing about that all those tracks,
it makes me feel just just the idea of it, you know,
it's like, oh my god. Wow. Have you ever been in a
position where you've had to kind of say to somebody, I think you're doing
too much, Not because you don't want to do it, because you're obviously
up for the challenge, but just do you ever as a producer, do
you ever have to say to somebody, I think, you know, sometimes
less is more and you're trying to put it more into this than you need
to. It really depends. I am a I'm a big fan of excess.
I love adding a bunch of elements. Yeah, and if people are
down to do that, then like, let's go for it. I'm going
to try and and figure out how we can make the space and the mix
for this. You know, if it's something that's like obviously jumbling up the
song where like we're getting too many elements, like this piano part sounds disjointed
in this rock song, like what are we doing here? It's like off?
Then there's like there's things where I'll be like, I don't know if
this fits really well. But you know, I'm always willing to entertain the
idea of excess because I think that that's what helps in like producing it and
making something interesting. Like I want people to add in elements. I want
to foster that creativity and that that desire to add more, right, because
the worst thing is we try it out and it doesn't work. You know,
Hey this this sounds bad, let's not use this right, or hey
this the synthesizer part sounds great, let's get let's keep it in here.
Yeah, I think that is what helps make songs, uh progress and have
movement and uh and be uh be like very very accessible to people. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Interesting. I I'm always asking people about their influences,
but usually it's uh, I'm asking about musical influences, which which I'm
happy to ask you about too, But I'm also very curious about a producer
influences. Is there is there anybody who is really who you kind of look
to as I mean, obviously you know you've made connections like with the Afriata's
name now from Bedford, mass Derek Derek Blackburn, so he's Derek Blackburn.
So he's obviously an influence of yours. But are are there any producers kind
of legends in the business who you really look up to or take inspiration from.
I'm gonna go, I mean my initial one, one of my first
ones was was definitely Steve Albini. I love his approach to getting sounds in
his studio. His studio is just very interesting and like astonishing. It's it's
seriously a wonder in regards to like recording studios, electrical audio. It's it's
so cool. It's just such a legendary place. And what his approach to
his approach to recording is a little bit more hands off than I like to
be. But because his his approach is, Hey, you come in here,
we're gonna record your music. I'm not gonna do anything to you know,
I'm gonna mix it. I'm gonna make it sound as good as possible.
I like to be a little bit more involved. But I just I
love his approach and like how like well thought out his approach is to tracking
music. Yeah, in the sounds that he gets, so he was.
He was a big one for me for sure. I find that like a
lot of the music that I listened to like influences what I like to do
or like like how I like to get sounds as well. So, uh,
you know, I like to find influence in the in the music as
well. Yeah, yeah, well, so let's talk about musical influences.
Who who does influence you? Oh jeezuz my musical background. I mean there's
like, there's so much. I definitely kind of I have a pretty eclectic
taste of music. My and I I gotta, you know, give some
credit to my parents. My parents. My dad grew up in Long Island
in the in like the sixties, and he had seen like a lot of
rock concerts. He went to the place called the Film Moore East seeing like,
you know, all the all the classic rock bands, Zeppelin, you
know, Hendrix, the Who, they were all playing there. All the
playbills you should see that he has. You would you would die. They're
they're unbelievable. What a great place to grow up in the sixties. Yes,
good for him. It taught me about like taking his h his four
horse power boat out to Manhattan and just like going to see these shows.
So I definitely had that sort of background there. And my dad was also
like really uh really into new music as well. He was always listening to
stuff that was fresh, like you and I remember when I was h when
I was younger, he would like throw on like the Offspring ye so and
stuff like that. So like he always like he kept this music taste evolving.
Yeah, so that's like the rock portion of things. Like I would
blame him from getting me into like rock and metal. My mom definitely,
uh is the reason why I love pop music. She was you know in
the nineties. Car rides with her were like a lot of you know,
nineties catalog Madonna share things like you know, I remember like hearing a lot
of like Alana's more set. Yeah, uh, there was a there was
a sting solo album that was like pretty pretty big their Car. So like
she she gave me the love for pop music and you know, the those
hooks, those those songs that kind of rely on that that songwriting and then
making hits. Yeah, So I've always kind of drifted between those realms.
Yeah, never really trying to get myself all stuck in one in one thing
that I'm listening to all the time. So I would say, yeah,
I listened to like an eclectic mix of like you know, pop rock,
metal stuff, electronica, lots of things. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting
to what you said about your dad because Jenny probably already knows where I'm going
with this. But my father, he lives on the Sea Coast and he's
in his seventies and he still listens to new music, and it's just it's
it's really cool because like he listens to w U n H, which is
which is such a great station on the Sea Coast. And it's just interesting
because it's been a topic on the show on many occasions. How so many
people they get to a certain point. I don't I don't know what the
average cutoff is, maybe thirty, maybe maybe younger. I think it's like
twenty five. Yeah, yeah, where they just stop, where they just
kind of decide, not consciously but subconsciously, they just kind of decide,
Okay, I've I've heard all the music I ever want to hear, and
anything after this point, I don't like, you're just like Leonard Skinner.
Yeah yeah, and like you live and die by that. But it's uh,
which is fine, But you know, there's so much out there.
There's so much to discover. I feel like I'm discovering new bands all the
time. Yeah, and uh, well that's the thing. There's more music
than ever, and it's easier to find than ever. So there's no reason
for anybody to be getting stuck. But people just do yeah, you know,
which is totally fine. You know, if you have if you have
bands you love and you yeah, and you have a genre music you like,
go ahead. There's so but you know, there is so much to
discover. There's so and as as someone who's recording music, I want to
be able to to appeal to, uh, what someone wants to produce.
I want to be able to be well rounded I don't want someone to come
in and be like, hey, I have this this, this hip hop
track, and I'm just like, well, I don't know any of that,
right, right, Yeah. I like to keep up with that,
with the the individual sorts of culture that are surrounded in each genre of music,
and like what's relevant there? Yeah, but you know what's relevant and
pop what's relevant? And hip hop these days, what's relevant and like,
you know, heavy metal, what are we doing? Yeah? Yeah,
because so many people from all sorts of different walks of music come to me,
yeah, and it's I want to be accessible to all of that.
Yeah. Yeah. Do people typically bring you demos or I mean, or
do you have artists who come to you to record and they're just they're they're
sort of just coming in cold and that they don't have anything recorded, but
they know what they want to do. Obviously they know their songs, but
but they're not they're not necessarily providing anything for you prior to that, so
you're just kind of starting from scratch. Does that ever happen? It's like
it's fifty to fifty. Yeah, a lot of people come in with with
pre produced tracks. Yeah, these days, it's it's really easy thing to
do. Everyone has access to an interface. Everyone's got access to like at
least a couple of microphones or even the ability to plug into an interface and
use like amp simulators they have for doing that sort of stuff. So yeah,
a lot of times I get the people who come in with like,
you know, fully produced, like kind of like demos or like pre product.
I call it pre production, which is so important because it gives me
an idea of what they're looking to do for their sound. The aforementioned Crippling
Alcoholism band, they came in with individual tracks for like drums, guitars,
and vocals during the pre production process, and so I had a full on
idea as to what they were going for, what the progressions were going to
be in these songs, what we were doing like somewhat roughly in the vocals.
And that was great because we were able to to kind of like sit
down and be like, okay, let's look at the song. Okay,
maybe this is too long here, maybe this bridge goes on for too long.
Let's chop this up. It was also like a grid, so we
could just like it was so easy to do, so I would say that's
a huge thing for bands to do. It's really important to when you go
in to have an I like, at least somewhat of an idea, comprehensive
idea as to what you're going to lay down there. It's the most important
thing. It saves a lot of time. That's expensive. Yeah, exactly,
it's not cheap. And if you're and if you're sitting there like you
know, it's like you know, I always like, like I said,
you know, I love when we're sitting there trying out stuff and trying out
things, but it's it's better for their time if you try those things out
beforehand, you see what fits. So yeah, I I I could not
suggest more to bands to be doing that sort of stuff and trying to tackle
as much of the pre production process as possible. I do it every time
when I'm even me, you know, and I've I've have a studio at
my disposal where like I said, for the new Magnetar stuff, we're doing
pre production tracks. We're demoing things out, so that way I'm not spending
all the all of my time in in the studio trying out these vocal things
before i've you know, we go in. Yeah, I'm doing this stuff
now so I can figure out what we're gonna do, and then when we
go to record the record, I know exactly what we're doing, what the
harmonies are, all that stuff. Yeah, it's super helpful. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. Now what's the process like as far as UH, bands
or solo artists or whomever approaching you, do they because obviously, I mean,
you don't just work with everybody, right because your time is limited.
You know, you can't just work. I mean, I'm sure there's there's
probably some people who maybe approach you who aren't ready, you know, and
you have to kind of tell them, well, I don't know if you're
ready to to record. I mean, is that something you run into you.
Yeah, sometimes you can tell that with when when people come in if
like maybe they need to like coach their vocals a little bit more. I
do it a lot with like I see it a lot with like hip hop
stuff. You know, sometimes people will come in and you know, they
they might need some vocal coaching or something like that, or or need to
work on the on their rhythm. Uh. And you know, I'll be
honest with people. I'll tell them like, hey, this these are things
that you should probably work on before we come back in here and do that
and it can show up and like that's sort of what we're realm. Or
like maybe a like if a band's trying out apart and we're doing you know,
like the guitar player just wrote like a lead in this section or something
like that, and they're trying it out, we're not getting the right take
of it or something. I'll be like, hey, how about next week's
session, Well, can you rehearse this lead and then next week's session will
come in we'll do that. Uh. It's good to uh, it's good
to pump the brakes on things when you're like pushing, when you're running up
against the wall. Yeah, So that that can be very u very defeating
on the on the morale when you're you know, on take number twenty and
you're not like, there's nothing worse than that when you're when you're just trying
something out, trying something out, and it's just like you know, you're
just going at it and uh yeah, so I I I will like,
you know, tell advance, Hey, let's rehearse this, let's try it
next time. We'll get it in like three takes next time. Yeah,
okay, yeah, so uh yeah, that definitely happens. Definitely happens because
you could just I mean and and some some people would you know, you
could just take their money and just and just go with it and not say
anything. But in the end, it doesn't help them to do it that
way, and it doesn't help you either, because you want anything with your
name on it that goes out there, you want it to be of quality
to exactly. I try to be as much of a buffer on that end
as possible. I've never I've heard so many stories of people go like,
you know, recording with people who are just like, yep, that's sounds
great. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah great, take a lot of
that out there. Yeah, and you never you never hear that stuff.
So when people say something doesn't sound right, I'm like, let's let's redo
it. Let's if it doesn't sound right to you, You're going to hear
this forever. That Magnutar record, there's like a part where I you'd never
notice this, but there's like a part where I like hit a different note
than I wanted to, and I was like, you know what, this
is fine, it's in key, it's right, it should be you know,
I'll just send it. I kind of like how it sounds a little
bit. Uh, And I hear that one note every time. Yeah,
like dang, yeah, should have just done that. Uh, should have
just done that quick edit. You've got to live with it now. Yeah.
Yeah, Well like once you put it out, it's out there,
exactly, can't there's no going back right right exactly? Yeah. What's uh?
Is there a particular project that's been what's the longest project you've done,
the most involved as far as I I, I suspect it might be that
crippling alcoholism? Man, I'm working with the band. Uh. One of
the members is from here in. One of them, a couple of are
from Tucson. H called Through a Glass Darkly. It's uh, it's very
I feel like I've heard that name. I want to I want to call.
I think it's uh. I think it's in reference to like a book.
Oh, okay, that might be familiar. Yeah, I haven't.
I haven't read it, but I think that's it. Uh. They're they're
kind of they call it, uh zimmer Gaze, very very uh the theatrical,
not not theatrical, but it's like what do you call It's like almost
like a movie score. Yeah, very cinematic the word I was looking for.
Yeah, and that was uh. That was one that, like,
the mixing process was like very very Uh. That one took a while because
we were going, you know, we're going back and forth on unbounced out
mixes, and they were very particular in regards to what they There was no
nothing spared in regards to like any note. He even thinks as minors like,
oh, move this base and the size or down just a hair like
and we've did like all these steps of that. Yeah, it sounds amazing.
We have a record that that is Uh. I think they're they haven't
talked about it yet, but I think they're they're planning on putting it out
on the next like year or two. It sounds amazing. It sounds unbelievable.
You could just like sit back and listen to this and just like it's
it's an unbelievable record. That one. That one was like about a year
year and a half. Wow. You know, I'm working right now.
I just finished a record with a Boston based band called Coffin Salesman and yeah,
oh I love it. There main songwriters this this guy named Aria,
great great songwriter and uh, you know that that process was about a year
year and a half. You know, what we're doing is you know,
but I think they had like a UK tour, they were doing like a
bunch of shows they were doing, but we were just kind of splitting the
production duties between myself and them. So they were doing like overdubs, like
piano overdubs at their practice spot, you know, adding in all this stuff,
which is a very common thing to do. Uh. You know a
lot of people have like decent recording setups at their house, so they will
they'll they'll get stuff recorded, send it out, I'll mix in the stems.
It saves them time in the studio they can kind of especially for like
overdub stuff, because that's where you spend a lot of time just like trying
things out and see what sticks and like throwing things and seeing what sticks on
the wall. And it enabled them to kind of keep the budget a little
bit lower. Instead of spending like three days like doing this stuff, they
could do it on their own own time and uh and send it out.
So that was uh that one, uh yeah, about about year year and
a half. Yeah, which is pretty typical for a record I would say
a record can take depending on like you know, how complex it is,
anywhere between like four months to a year. Yeah, in the process depends
on like everyone's schedule because everyone's busy, you know, unless you're like a
full time touring band, being able to like dedicate the time to that is
like, uh, you know, you got you gotta carve it out.
Yeah. Is there a project that you're particularly is there one that you're I
know, I'm sure you don't want to play favorites with your clients, but
is there is there any one project that you're you're especially proud of where if
you were to listen to it today, you'd go, damn, I gotta
say, uh, you know, I've dropped them a bunch of times.
But that uh, that The Crippling Alcoholism. It was like, uh,
what was uh fantastic record? I really want to hear that now. It's
great. I think it's called Is it out? Is it already available?
Uh? With love from a padded room, Yeah, it's outright now.
It is oka. I'm gonna listen to that today. It's really weird now,
And I feel like it was because I was able to I was giving
a lot more freedom to be the producer role in that one. Yeah,
it was great. You know, I was able to make calls and like
here's how long, here's like how these structures of these songs should be.
Let's let's cut out like this stuff, Let's remove this part, let's add
this part. And they really trust me with that, and it feels good
when you're working with a band like that. Yeah, I think you'd like
it. It's it's it's very very earwormy. It's a very dark sounding record.
It's some it is the story of I think it's like ten songs and
each song is about Ah. It's like a you're walking down a solitary confinement
and you look inside of one room and it's like a story about this person.
And it goes from all this stuff from like you know these really sinister
like murderers to like you know, some some guy who's like you know,
addicted to pills, who who's goes to like a boxing gym. It's like
it it's everything. Yeah, yeah, and uh there's all these wonderful lyrics
and it's uh, very dark but catchy. Yeah, all right, Jenny
and I will listen to that today. Absolutely definitely, definitely, the time
goes so fast before we uh, because we're we're going to play another song
by the way too out at the end of the segment, and I'm gonna
play uh, I'm gonna play a Magnetar track Loving You is killing me.
Okay, it's like seven minutes, but I don't care because I love it.
It's so good. So so we'll we'll play that in a in a
moment. But Eric, what should people know about getting in touch with you?
Keeping up on everything that you're doing. I'm sure we have. You
know, a lot of musicians listen to the show. I'm sure there's people
who want to work with you, either because they know of your work or
they're learning of you for the first time, or whatever it may be.
So how how should people reach out to you, submit music to you,
et cetera. The best way to do it is through my website blackheart andh
dot com. I have a whole contact form there and you can email me
on there. Yeah, my emails on there, my phone numbers there,
text me call me like I'm I'm I'm usually available to answer. Yeah.
So I love I love talking with people about their music and like what they're
looking to do. So, you know, I can be Uh, I
can be reached out through there at any point. Excellent, excellent. Hey,
by the way, where does the name come from? Blackheart sound?
Is there any significance to the name or there No. I remember thinking of
coming up with it one one day and I was like, I like,
how this sounds. Yeah, And that was probably around like twenty sixteen.
There's no there's no romantic story about the about the name on that one.
Yeah. I just liked it. It rolled off the tongue for me.
So yeah, I figured, hey, let's go for it. Oh,
by the way, you're getting some love in the chat room. Casey Darren
just popped in and said love Eric. Yeah, we had Uh what was
that two weeks ago? Yeah? Yeah, two weeks ago Casey was here
played live for US Acoustic. It was really really good. Case is great.
Yeah. Yeah, oh that's right. You did the afterimage stuff,
right, I know? Or did you? Brandon Brandon curstio, Uh,
the engineers all their stuff. They did, They did some they recorded some
stuff out of my studio. Oh okay, Brandon Kurtchie is a good friend
of mine. Okay, Well he'll come in for some sessions and he'll rent
the studio for me some Oh I gotcha, okay, okay, So that
Brandon actually did a lot of work on the on that the that Dank Snatra
record. Yeah, oh he did. I would say, yeah, he
did a big portion of the tracking and mixing on that one. Oh okay,
that's that's great too. I love that there's a particular Dank Sinatra song
said air between Us. Was that recorded there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, because I remember Fredo, he's one of the guests
who has mentioned your name. Like I said, it's it's great to finally
have you on because your name comes up quite a bit here, which is
wonderful, and we have con to it coming in the in the third hour
and they recorded with you, and so uh yeah, really they're they're great
that. I can't wait to get the get those tracks out. I mean
I think we worked on those a little while ago. So yeah, yeah,
here's da Yeah. They they sent us a bunch of stuff and uh
I had to make some radio edits. Yeh. Didn't have to do that
with Magnetar though. No, I mean, there's so much you can't even
tell. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what he's saying here, but
whatever it is, he definitely means it. Eric Sotter, thank you so
much, my friend. This has been wonderful. Well, we'll definitely have
to do this again in the future. And Uh sick around second hour We've
got Warhog coming up, but we're going to finish off this hour with Uh.
Like I said, this is and I like this whole album. It's
a crush from the band Magnetar, but this is my personal favorite, so
selfishly, we're gonna end with this one. Oh I was wrong. It's
actually it's eight and a half minutes. This is a long song, but
I don't care because I love it, so we're gonna play it. This
is loving you was killing me from Magnetar. Eric, thank you again,
Thank you. I know my dad that nas n Dogs runs down, so
don't tell y'all do not when they're not no dial Dogs, Dia back,
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