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Early in his career, Thom Russo experienced sessions with some of the giants in pop and R&B…Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Cher, Babyface and Prince to name a few. Then in 1997 he worked on his first Grammy-winning track, Eric Clapton’s “Change the World,” which won for both Record and Song of the Year. Johnny Cash’s “Man Comes Around” also snagged a Grammy nomination for Thom, while his work with Juanes has secured four awards overall at the Latin Grammys. These days you can never tell where Thom might leave his mark: on a rock supergroup (Audioslave), on a soundtrack for the biggest movie ever (Sum 41’s cut on “Spider-Man”) or on a bona fide pop music AND pop culture phenomenon (Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”).
THOM RUSSO: Well, every project has its own unique way of working and creating
its own personal sonic space and environment. Think about it: every rock band
sounds a bit different, and even pop divas have a bit of a different technique.
Therefore, you have to approach everyone and everything differently. What's
best is to have all your knowledge and tools ready and at hand, and then approach
each artist or project openly, prepared to use whatever you find the most applicable. BLUE: How often do you actually track with EQ and compression? BLUE: In a broad sense, and then perhaps in a little more detail, how do you
go about choosing microphones? BLUE: We like to ask about happy accidents in the studio… THOM: I can sight one that happened recently, and it wasn't from an instrument at all, actually. Listen to this: I was mixing a record and had a stereo pair of compressors patched into the console. Some way or another, my assistant threw a bad patch, and the compressors' outputs were routed to themselves, causing a feedback. But this was the most unique feedback I had EVER heard, and was unbelievable when I began to tweak it. Basically, I started to control the level of its own output that it was receiving to feed itself back by riding the faders of the compressor returns, and the feedback would actually CHANGE and morph into INSANELY cool tones as I moved the faders up and down -- changing pitch, changing tone, changing mayhem. It was simply indescribable, and something that was certainly serendipity at its best. I used it on that record, and sampled it for future use, too. Those kinds of things you have to capture and store/freeze, because you'll never see it again. BLUE: Anything to report that seemed like a good idea at the time, but… BLUE: Have you ever tried something crazy that ended up really great but totally different than you expected? THOM: There was one piece of music/montage that may be the weirdest and coolest thing I've ever created and worked on, and it was actually on a major label release. On Macy Gray's second album "The Id," the last track on the record is called "Forgiveness." Well, if you don't know [about Macy], she is certainly one of the most experimental artists I've ever worked with, and digs trying all sorts of weird stuff. She wanted that song's ending to be something never heard before; she described it as “something that kinda sounds like God hanging out on a space ship, thinking about new stuff.” Well, that was our license to go absolutely nuts, and we made the trippiest "sound collage" you could ever imagine. Feeding-back delays, strange drum outtakes patched through guitar pedals, and even small pieces of tracks from her previous records were cut in and tossed around in pure "Sgt. Pepper's" manner. Really, we never expected it to work, or for anyone at the label to ever let it get on the record. But lo and behold, everyone dug it a lot, and it’s still something I love to check out and try to figure out what exactly we did, and how we did it!!
THOM: Well, I have to say that my most memorable experiences are certainly not ones that are related to issues I may be facing; they're more about the incredible honor of working and being in the presence of amazing musicians and artists. From hearing Eric Clapton work up a guitar part, to Johnny Cash singing a vocal take, to Tom Morello figuring out an approach to a guitar solo, to Billy Preston cranking out a B3 riff -- these are the most memorable experiences, and the ones that make you realize that after all the tech talk, all the tweaking, and all the adjusting, the only thing that really matters is THE MUSIC. (For more information on Thom Russo, please contact Alia Fahlborg at Nettwerk
Producer Management, 310.855.0668.)
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