Below that you’ll find in depth descriptions of some of my past projects.
One of the first tracks I ever got the privilege of working on, “messy,” has a charm I am constantly thinking of and trying to recreate in different ways. It was recorded before I even had treatment on the walls, giving it a very bedroom feel.
This is also the first track I used my fretless bass on, and the fretless has come back so many times our group chat was once named after it.
Currently the most popular song I’ve produced, “messy” sits at over 690,000 plays on Spotify alone.
Nicotine was one of my all time favorite tracks to work on. On a Friday night the gents came over and we worked together to shape the song into what it currently is. Having multiple members of the band with a knowledge of mixing and production, it was very fun to toss ideas around and see how each person could take the song one more step towards where it needed to be. With Griffin already having a great mix when the group arrived, after a few hours the final product was ready to come off the burner.
Working as a co-producer with Milo Mordhorst, this song came to me already in great shape. I feel that it’s always hard mixing music that you are a part of creating, but being able to work with Milo takes a huge amount of edge off, and makes the process a lot more fun.
On this track I took a lead on the bass and vocal tracks, with Milo shaping the drums and guitars. Shooting for a Midwest feel set in the 90’s, this song was made as dry and “real” as possible, and was a fun challenge. The style was out of my comfort zone, and I love reaching out of my comfort zone.
Living Room was a blast to produce with some very unique challenges. Stepping into a more electronic realm at times, but also featuring some beautiful string parts by The Accidentals, there was a lot of variety to cover.
Building the arrangements had me switching from bass, to drums, to synth, and several other instruments as well. We took the time to take each song fully in the direction it needed to go, and I think it shows in this diverse collection of songs.
Vanilla days was a very fun project to work on, and was the first time I ever got to work with Cami Proctor after meeting The Blank Stairs at a local music festival. After hearing the demo she sent me, I knew we could bring this song together quickly. After a day of tracking and a few days playing with my new (at the time) synth, we had a fun pop tune with lots of drive and attitude.
“Gum Wrapper” was another tune where I tried to push myself into a different sound, this time around trying to think as little as possible. I tried my best to let the song tell me what to do, and never second guessed a move. I ended up with a tune that sounded like a ray of sunshine, and I still consider it one of my favorite mixes.
Plus, I got to add some fun guitar parts!
Once again mixing tracks recorded in multiple locations, this project also included a lot of live drum recording. To add more difficulty, we wanted the arrangements to stay as true to the three-piece as possible. This meant writing bass/synth parts to blend in with the other parts seamlessly, and to not stand out on their own. I had a lot of fun trying to copy sounds I’ve heard on my favorite records, as well as capture some sounds I heard at local concerts during the recording period. To cap it all off, we wanted to make sure the album played as an album, which meant it had to be mixed in its entirety as opposed to song by song.
Jealous Lot’s “Casino Buffet” was a large project focused largely on variety. With a track count of twenty, we knew the album had to change things up a lot in order to keep interesting throughout. I worked hard with Milo and Jake to create an album that jumped from Midwest-Emo, to Cult-Metal, to electronic breaks, and even comedy skits while still feeling like one consistent record. The end result was a creative and energetic record with an unique and signature sound.
Eddie first came to me with a demo of this song, and the idea of making a bigger full band arrangement that was easy to sing along with. After re-recording acoustic and vocals, we had his cousin lay down some drum tracks (and tambourine of course). In order to get a good “join in!” feeling, we layered lots of imperfect backing vocals and harmonies that build throughout the song. I think there is something special about the imperfections in this song, which leans into the overall message. This was one of the more fun arrangements I’ve done, partially because it came together so quickly and naturally.
Delta is the most difficult album I’ve worked on to date. Thankfully co-producing the songs with Silas Gillman and mixing with Kevin Rendleman made the process easier. This album is full of complex parts and fun features from some heroic artists including Thomas Lang and Josh Martin.
I recorded the entire project in the studio minus drums and features, and after one round of mixing we took the tracks for further drum processing/mixing at Hive Mind Studios.
The biggest challenge of the album was definitely keeping the album as true to live performance as possible, while still hitting as hard in the car as in person. We used a combination of odd recording techniques and arrangement adjustments to achieve a sound both big and true.