A gentleman whose name has come up on this show so many times. Eric
Sotter of a black Heart sound this here? Hello, Eric, hey man,
that's going. Am I saying your last name correctly? As the Solder?
You got it right? Okay? People say like Soute or so 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 Blackhart Sound. Yeah.
I know, Slim Volume been on here recently, the Night Blinders,
to name a few. I mean even today Conduit's going to be on,
yes, which is kind of a coincidence. There 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 seon and so yeah yeah yeah, looking with some people in Manchester for
a little bit, that's for sure. Yeah, Dank Sinatra right uh yeah.
In fact, I yes, pictures of Fredo on uh. I think
it was on the Facebook page for the studio. I think Fredo and there
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 Blackheart
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, so,
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 a 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, masted On. If you're a
fan of Macedonia, you like it, Yeah, yeah, stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, really good, really good. Yeah. I 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 that you were
in the band, And I assume you recorded everything yourself, right, you
were the engineer and pre 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 masted On, for more Magnetar coming? Yeah, you
know, we uh, we didn't do a lot between like twenty twenty two
and and now, but I'm just getting back and starting to write some more
music with 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 want to go in a little
bit more of like a rock direction 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 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 the generally around like some
sort of like fundraiser benefit 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 jams and 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, 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 watt 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 to bring out, you
know, playing with like full stacks and you know, big six twelve guitar
cabinets. So it's like it's a lot yea to fan 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 Hearts 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 uh of this venture, it was just like it was kind of
I did this in between my full time job, yeah, which you know,
uh it was, uh 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 gotta you gotta like really have some free time
in your life. Because I was sure like you know, doing things like
having like between two to four days off a month, which is sustaining in
the long run, that's for sure. So yeah, I made the decision
to go full on into uh uh 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 uh 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 do. 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
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. He's like,
yeah, maybe go shoot me a resume. So I shot him a resume.
Yeah, and I went in like a couple of days later, Hey,
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 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. Yeah, 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, 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 love working there. It's
it's a fantastic organization and Joe is 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 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's that's the building of 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 uh to grow even further. Yeah, so yeah, it's uh,
it's unbelievable. Uh Joe is Uh. I I don't think I would have
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 uh you
know, seeing that growth, making the business succeed and also taking care of
his employees. It's it's uh uh. 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 self storage, and
I think there we go. I was there for a while actually, and
I had I think I wanted to record like demos for uh for my band
at the time, and U 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 come
over, Hey, here's twenty bucks and 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 preamps.
And I was just like, I'm gonna learn how to do this. I'm
gonna try and uh find spaces in which I can do this. The second
space I had was in the Verick buildings, the buildings that they tore down
across from the market basket and oh, okay, yeah, you're familiar with
those. I mean 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 DIY 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 Mike and the night Blinders.
I'd known myked and you know, I'd from like the shafskiing and everything,
and me, 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 of 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 folks 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. Yeah, and you know, I I
love that record still. It's a it's a great one. It's 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.
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
Candya 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 uh, 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 for shows with people that that
was fun. And then when Joe bought the building behind the music, Millie's
like, hey, I'll give you a whole quadrant of this place. Do
you want it? And it was like it was perfect, I can 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, really really
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 a band next to you's rehearsing exactly,
it's a rehearsal space. Of course, I can't get upset about that,
but you got to 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
and it's it's uh, 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 it was 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 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, right around there, because
it was having the space where I knew how to get the sounds I wanted
to, I knew 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 had seen any of the places I was at before and 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.
So being able to have a good control room that was that was specked out
and designed 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?
Yeah? 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 you
do, they had kind of a mentor who 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. Yeah. Biggest one my
good friend Derek Blackburn, who runs a mixing and 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 playing Alcoholism, and it's 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 have 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,
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 metered, like
they call it like math rock, or we call it mathcore. Yeah.
So this record was really really unbelievable. They 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 then all these other ambient elements. So I think by the
end of the session when we started to mix, we were looking at like
probably two hundred and fifty individual tracks. Oh my god, yes, yeah,
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 and like an orchestral piece or mixing
like a score. Yeah. Uh so that was really cool. We were
and the uh 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 them, He came in with full pre produced tracks like here,
we have like 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 I
know how to approach this. I'm not gonna get overwhelmed by this ridiculous track
count. Yeah, because I did a I did like a post rock band
like that one time. We remember they were like import 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 anxious,
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 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 in 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 offre 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 a track and making something interesting, Like
I want people to add in elements, and 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 sounds
bad, let's not use this, or hey this the synthesizer part sounds great,
let's get let's keep it in here. I think that is what helps
make songs 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 I Frida'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 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
approaches to tracking music 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 h 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 jeez, 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 uh, I gotta, uh, you know, give some
credit to my parents that 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 Philmore East, so seeing
like you know, all the all the classic rock bands, Zeppelin, you
know, Hendrix, the Who, they were all playing there. 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 taught me about like taking his U 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's always listening to stuff, stuff
that was fresh, like and I remember when I was when I was younger,
he would like throw on like the Offspring 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 that. 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. Uh, there was a there was a sting solo
album that was like pretty pretty big that your Car. So like she she
gave me the love for pop music and you know those hooks, those those
songs that kind of rely on that that songwriting and then making hits. So
I've always kind of drifted between those realms, 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 I I, yeah, I listened to like an eclectic
mix of like you know, pop rock, metal stuff, electronica, lots
of things. 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 there's 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 the seventies.
You're just like Leonard Skinner. Yeah, yeah, it's 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 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 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, whoa,
I don't know any of that, right right, Yeah. I like to
keep up with that, with 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, have you metal? What what are we doing?
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 demo or I
mean or do you have artists who come to you to record and they're just
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
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. Oh yeah, 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, yeah, which is so important
because it gives me an idea of what they're looking to do for their sound.
Right, the aforementioned Crippling Alcoholism band, it 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 like 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 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 idea, 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. You know what. I'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 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. No, I do it every time when I'm
even me, I'm 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 the studio trying out these vocal things before
I've you know, were we go in. 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. It's super helpful. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Now what's the process. Like as far as UH bands or or solo artists
or whomever approaching you, do they because obviously, I mean, you don't
just work with everybody, right because you're 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 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.
Yeah. It's good to uh, it's good to pump the brakes on things
when you're like pushing, uh, when you're running up against the wall.
Yeah, that can be very uh, 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, it's just like you know, you're just going at it and
uh yeah, so I I I will like, you know, tell Avance,
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. Yeah, 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'm I try to be as much of a buffer on that end as
possible. You know, I've never I've heard so many stories of people go
like, you know, recording with people who are just like, yeah,
that sounds great. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, great, take
there, and you never you never on 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 Magnetar 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 where where 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, 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 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 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 a I think
it's in reference to like a book, Oh, okay, familiar. Yeah,
I 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 of
the 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 the based and the size of down just a hair like and we
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 in
the next 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 I'm working right now.
I just finished a record with a Boston based band called Coffin Salesman and yeah,
oh I love it. They're uh main songwriters. Uh 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 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 seeing 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 time and uh and send it out.
So that was uh that one. Uh yeah, about about year year and
a half, 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 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 the time to that, it's 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, you
know, I've dropped a bunch of times, but that that The Crippling Alcoholism
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 Okay, I'm gonna listen to that today.
It's really near it 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 Uh, they really trust me
with that, and it feels good when you're 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 Uh it is the story of
I think it's like ten songs and each song is about a uh 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. Yeah. 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's it's everything,
yes, 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 gonna 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 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
uh, 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 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, 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 yeah,
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? Blackhart Sound? Is there any significance to the name or there?
No. I I remember thinking of coming up with it one one day
and I was like, I like how this sound. 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, like 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 Brendon Curtio engineers all their stuff. They did, They
did some they recorded some stuff out of my studio. Oh okay. Brendon
Curtier is a good friend of mine. Okay, 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
that Dank Sinatra 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, 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 yeah, really they're great.
I can't wait to get the get those tracks out of me. I think
we worked on those a little while ago. So yeah, yeah, here's
yeah. They they sent us a bunch of stuff and uh, I had
to make some radio edits. Yep. Didn't have to do that with Magnetar
though. No, I mean there's much you 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. We'll we'll definitely have to do this again in the future.
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 sell. Officially, we're going to 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 going
to play it. This is Loving You was killing Me from magnetar Eric.
Thank you again, Thank you.