EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER SHANE FRISBY: “DEATH TO LAPTOP METAL!”
Producers are the silent contributors to the albums of your favorite artists; their role is incredibly crucial to the final product, but their contributions are rarely recognized.
Many music fans don’t know exactly what it is a producer even does, or they’re under the assumption that producers direct from afar and check-in occasionally — almost like a spiritual album-creation adviser — ala Rick Rubin. In the vast majority of cases that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’d liken a producer’s role to that of a movie director’s; whereas as a director’s job is set up each shot perfectly and get the best performances out of his actor’s, a producer’s is to set up the conditions in which a band records and to get the best performances out of the musicians. To be specific: which band member records when, how many tracks they lay down, mic selection, mic placement, types of amplifiers and guitars, which pre-amps, compressors, processors and effects to use, etc, etc, etc — the producer has a say in all of that and works tirelessly on setting it all up until it sounds just right, a way more difficult task than it may seem. Many producers also help with song arrangements by making suggestions to the band for ways they can improve their songs by making small — or drastic — tweaks. Some producers also serve as mixers, the film analog of which would be the editor. Mixers do a whole lot more than just adjust sliders to make the levels of each instrument right; getting each instrument to “cut” through the mix so they’re all audible and clear is no easy task, and requires hours upon hours of relentlessly making minute adjustments to EQ settings, outboard effects (reverb, compressions, etc) and more. In short, producers are really fucking important and they rarely get the credit they deserve.
I find the art of production absolutely fascinating, and I love speaking with producers, getting inside their head, and finding out what makes them tick. Their vantage-point of music is much different than musicians’, and it’s a fresh perspective we don’t often hear much about.
Shane Frisby has been producing and mixing bands since he was a teenager on a 4-track in his bedroom, and he’s since graduated to owning and operating the Brick Hithouse in Massachusetts where he’s produced records by Bury Your Dead, The Ghost Inside, Sentinel and many more. When I catch up with Shane one Friday afternoon he’s in the middle of installing patch bays into his control room, a necessary evil he’d been putting off for eons. Read on to find out what Shane thinks about tips for getting started as a recording engineer, his own career trajectory, mixing and producing “transparency,” his favorite all-time producers and mixers and his thoughts on the new generation of so-called “laptop metal” producers.
The hype would have you believe that Bury Your Dead’s self-titled new release is a fresh start for the band, but as is so often the case, the hype is bullshit. So what if the songs no longer have tongue in cheek titles? They sound exactly the same as anything that appeared on the group’s last album, Beauty and the Breakdown.
