Interview by Lindsay Miller.

You're known for being comfortable working with such a wide range of musicians, from Sonic Youth and Andrew W.K. to Nada Surf and Jennifer O'Connor. Do you feel you have a decidedly different approach to working with harder, more experimental rock bands vs. singer-songwriters or acoustic, indie bands?

My approach to working on a record is defined by what the artist requires or where the artist is at that specific time. I try to approach every record a little different and different records bring different situations, including budget, amount of time to make the record, what we are trying to achieve on the record and what I need to focus on to give the record it's own special something.

For example, on the Jennifer O'Connor record, I walked in the studio the first day knowing I wanted to capture her vocals live. After living with the demos for a couple of months, I was captivated by her voice and the way she sang. So I thought, if she could sing that great on the demos, why not get her to lead the band during the tracking sessions with what would end up being the master vocal take? It enabled the band to play around the vocal and eliminated unnecessary clutter on the tracks. I think it also helped the guys connect with the mood of each song to hear her sing her heart out.

Strictly in terms of engineering, I pretty much set things up a similar way, the way I can get the best sound out of the instruments and let the music dictate the vibe. Sometimes I will alter the approach to recording for conceptual reasons, but I do have a starting point that gets me off and running.

In general, on a personal level, I try to keep things light and get the best of everyone or the situation. My mantra has been and still is, "Beats Working!"

How did you first get interested in engineering?

I was in my second year in college and I started to get bored. I wasn't that into my major and I was a total rocker. I loved going to see bands, I worked at a company called Eventide, that made gear for recording studios on my off time and I loved listening to what made records cool.

I got an interview at one of the major recording studios in NYC, called The Record Plant. It was an awesome facility. Before I worked there, Aerosmith, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Patti Smith, among others had made records there.

I took the job and left school. I was a "general" there. My job was to log in and be responsible for all the tapes, clean and stock the control rooms and account for all the gear and microphones among other things. There was also a fair amount of running errands to do for sessions. I quickly learned that if I came in and worked hard all day, certain assistants would invite me in to observe in the evenings. So I found myself looking in on Meatloaf and Blues Brothers records.

I got to see some great engineers and producers work on records. Guys like Rick Chertoff, Mike Chapman, Jack Douglas, Jimy Iovine, Dave Thoener, Bill Wittman, Geoff Workman, Jay Messina and Shelly Yakus were all very influential to me.

I'm sure you've seen a lot of crazy things in your days, especially as an apprentice engineer when you had to do all the dirty work. Any really rock-and-roll stories you can share?

Not many. I assisted on an Aerosmith record called "Rock In A Hard Place." There was a lot of crazy shit going on during that record. Lotsa partying. I'd get in at noon and wait for everybody. People would show up in the evening and then they would work all night through the next day.

I remember opening up the tape copy room and seeing Steven Tyler and Rick James sitting on the floor smoking something. I immediately said, "Excuse Me! " and closed the door and got away from them. Another time during vocals, I baby-sat Steven while he was writing lyrics for a weekend. I was supposed to make sure he spent the weekend writing. As if I could actually make him do anything.

I once had Iggy Pop light a towel on a music stand on fire. He almost set the sprinklers off. I burned my hands trying to put the damn thing out. That was a long night.

I once got arrested on the roof for shooting rockets at The Milford Plaza Hotel, which was across 8th Ave in Times Square. We were in the middle of mixing the first Outfield record. They held me until 5:00 AM and then released me and then I had to go back to work.

There are many stories, but I can't tell many of them. I actually break them out when I've gotten a few in me. Look for me at HiFi, my favorite bar in Manhattan and buy me a few and look out! Ha Ha!

You kept a studio diary for Paste when you were recording with The Hold Steady. The experience sounded amazing--and completely exhausting. Do you need a recharge before you can even approach a new band and songwriters? Is there an internal "reset" button you have to press?

No such button exists. I'm pretty cool going from one project to another, but a real determining factor has been Bella, my 3-year-old daughter. To avoid never seeing her I try to take as much time off as I can. I also have stopped working insane hours. Since I get up with the baby every morning at 8:00 AM, I try to quit work around 10:00 PM. I still travel a bunch for work so when I'm home, I try to be home as much as possible.

Are you still living in Brooklyn? Are there any upcoming local bands there that you're really excited about?

We actually live in a rowhouse in Jersey City. It's pretty awesome here. We're minutes for NYC and I spend a lot of time at Water Music in Hoboken, which is 5 minutes away. This is a neighborhood that's getting younger and hipper.

Our favorite new band is J Roddy Walston and The Business. I think they are from Baltimore. Tad from The Hold Steady turned me onto them. We saw them play live and they were pretty amazing. And they have a self-released record, which is pretty cool. They are a fun band to see live.

I also love The Fleet Foxes, but they are pretty high profile now. A friend of mine sent me the record a while ago and it blew my mind.

There's a cool band in Jersey City called The Black Hollies. They are kinda psychedelic and garage rock. They are really cool.

There's a band from Scotland that I worked with called The Hazey Janes. Great pop/rock band in the vein of Teenage Fanclub and The Posies. They all sing great and write wonderful songs. We saw them play at SXSW last year and they packed out and blew up the venue they played at.

You seem to really, really love seeing live music. Is that live energy and sound something you try to capture in your work?

I have always loved seeing bands live. As a kid, I spent many summers going to shows by my favorite bands. And when I am asked to work with artists, I usually check them out live. And in the cases where I'm psyched and I think they are great, why would I want to mess around with what makes them special?

When it comes to working with bands, I've always found the signing of bands curious.

A record company employee (A & R Man) finds a band he loves. He goes to see them live and is really excited about them. The band is signed and then they go into the studio with big name producer. Then they take the vibe that the band has and replace it with artificial perfection. So then you have a record that sounds nothing like what the band sounded like live.

And frankly, most of the new records I hear sound so much like "product" and not like music that it leaves me cold. I think that's one of the reasons that the record business is sucking wind. How many bands put out three records and then become huge. The last one might have been Radiohead. Now, artists put their first record out, it's promoted like a motherfucker and it either does great or fails and the band is dropped. There's not a lot of middle ground.

We've unfortunately reduced art to commerce and it's a pity. What was the last CLASSIC that came out? Maybe OK Computer? I dunno, it seems to me that the days of the "classic record" are gone.

You still like to work in analog, and I read an interview where you said ProTools can be a dangerous thing, letting people get too comfortable with the "I can fix that later" idea. How do you think the new technology has maybe harmed music?

I'll give you a true-life scenario. A few years ago I engineered for a popular band with a really good producer for a major label. It was an important record for them. They needed to have this record do well or be dropped by the label. So insecurity led to the avoidance of committing. So songs we're re-re-re arranged in pro tools. They had a hard time making any decisions and digital enabled them to prolong any decisions until the last minute. The record ended up being unfocused and it tanked and the band was dropped like a hot potato.

You know the saying, "First instinct, best instinct." That's good to keep in the back of the mind. It's not a hard rule. But it should be appreciated.

Quantizing and auto tuner has really been a negative influence on rock music. Who cares if a drum track is exactly on the metronome the entire song? And why does every vocal note have to be drawn entirely in pitch. The bummer about auto tuning is that it destroys the way a singer gets to note. It takes any personality away. Listen to 20 emo records. Most vocals sound alike. My older daughter loves the stuff and she's always playing me songs and they really could be any other record.

Now with that in mind, let me point out that I am not a Luddite. I do use pro tools and do vocals in there and do edits for drums and sometimes tighten drum tracks up, but I hate when the medium sucks the life out of the final product.

What the digital workstation does is turn engineers from professionals to hobbyists. Anybody can buy a 002 system from Digidesign and then be an "engineer." That's why I get a lot of calls with people asking me to fix their records. When you're half way through recording your record and it's a mess, you need to bring someone else in to fix it.

You recently reunited with Norwegian band Madrugada. What was that experience like? How did the loss of friend and band member Robert Buras change the experience or the sound?

That was the most intense moments in my working career. I'll never forget the day I got the text from one of the band's managers. July 12th, 2007. I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. We had just reconciled and worked on a couple of records together after having a rough time working on the Madrugada, "Nightly Disease" record around 2000. After that record there were some hard feelings on both sides and they went in another direction for the next few records.

Then one day in early 06, my phone rang and it was old friend, Robert Buras. We butted heads the most on "Nightly Disease", but he was not too proud to call me. We had a great conversation and I ended up helping finish his side project, "My Midnight Creeps." We had a great time and some of the pictures during the session exude the happiness of working together again.

And then in May of 2007, the Madrugada boys came to Hoboken to start recording their new record. And the vibe within the session was off the map. They were super productive. They played great and the new songs sounded awesome. It was a pleasure for me. We've really had some highlights working in the studio together.

They left New Jersey for home and there was talk about me coming to Oslo to help with overdubs during the summer. And then I got that horrible text.

Well after the remaining members did a bunch of mourning and soul searching, they decided to continue on with the record. We convened in Gothensburg, Sweden so they could get away from the press in Oslo, but still be close enough to bring extra players in from home.

It was hard working on Robert's tracks. The idea was to use most of Robert's tracks and thankfully, we had spent a few nights in Hoboken in May doing guitar overdubs. So he had some great performances on the record. And there was one song that Robert played on with just acoustic and he did a reference vocal on it. It was chilling. There were many tears and my last night in Gothenburg was really sad. We went out and reminisced about him and many stories and tears were shed. In their press release for the record, they said the nicest things that any artist has said about me. It was a real bonding experience, except it came as a result of real adversity.

Looking back at this record and the first one, I see a band that could be very popular, worldwide. It's too bad labels in the States are so clueless about them.

If you had to look back on your entire career, what album are you most proud of? (Either for the finished product or what you lent to the album.)

I've been working on records for over two decades, so there are a lot of records to choose from. It would be easier to pick the records and artists I didn't enjoy. Really, I've been lucky to work on some records I would have been into as a kid. One of my favorite times was the 6-month span when I worked on The Screaming Trees' "Sweet Oblivion", Dinosaur Jr's "Where You Been", and Mark Lanegan's "Whiskey For The Holy Ghost."

I'm really lucky to have worked with bands I've been a fan of. Dino, The Youth, The Hold Steady, Patti Smith, Jawbox, Drive By Truckers, Turbonegro, and more. I've also worked on records with people I had never met and ended up having friends for life. Like Jennifer O'Connor, who I adore as a person.

Jesus, I spent two days mixing a Bob Dylan song and spent a day in the studio with Mick Jagger! I assisted on "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The first time I walked into a control room, I handed a microphone to Shelly Yakus, who was sitting next to Tom Petty, during the Damn The Torpedos record. Gene Simmons showed me one of his Polaroid scrapbooks on both coasts!

Anyway, I have some great memories. I've worked on some cool records. And every now and then some kid or adult will introduce themselves to me and say something nice about a record I worked on. I've worked with bands that my daughter and nephew both really like and they've gotten to hang with them.

And I've managed to not piss off too many people along the way. And the ones I've pissed off probably deserved it.