PS: For “Slip Away” by Perfume
Genius, it sounds like there are a
lot of sonic layers to this song.
How did it get built up?
SE: So basically, there is this instrument that
Blake Mills, who produced the song, has.
It looks like a guitar but it doesn’t actually
have strings on it. It has these kind of metal
paddles. He ran that through some amps
and stuff and that was the kind of foundation
layer and it’s actually what starts the song.
That was kind of the main building block,
and then from there a lot of what the song is
about is these drums, and so we spent a ton
of time just building up drums. There was an
initial, sort of, drum machine beat that was
laid underneath, and I think that was even-
tually stripped away by the end. But then we
had a guy come down and he was kind of
recreating what was the initial drum machine
beat. So we did that and then a lot of it was
just overdubbing layers of drums, but pretty
much for months [laughs]. It was like different
layers of drums and patterns and stuff like
that. Even when I was mixing the song we
were still adding layers of drums and tiny little
percussion elements and stuff like that.
Because of how much stuff we kept
putting on it, there were so many drum lay-
ers and stuff at the end that, I think, it was
kind of the hardest to mix, sonically, on the
whole record because I was just trying to fit
all that stuff in there. It just kind of kept turn-
ing brown. You’d listen to it and be like, “Oh,
it just sounds like a wash again.” Then we’d
have to go back in. I think I’d finished mixing
the record and then that song was mixed
and I think it was still bugging us a little bit.
It wasn’t quite there and then I went and
remixed it again at my studio. That time it felt
a lot better, but it was definitely one of the
harder ones on the record to do.
PS: What I love about The War on
Drugs’ sound is that it’s classic,
but it’s not pastiche. It sounds
classic and contemporary at the
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same time. How do you achieve
that sonic balance?
SE: I think there are a lot of people who do an
amazing job of recreating a past sonic experi-
ence, or something like that, but I don’t know
if I’m really good at it [laughs]. A lot of times
I think I’ll aim for that and I think that people
hear that in it, maybe, but the problem is I
feel I get excited about modern bigness and
modern tonalities and the way that, say, hip-
hop mixes sit and stuff like that. So even if I’m
not trying to be influenced by something like
that, it’s in my brain. So a lot of times, if I’m
aiming for one thing, the other stuff will still
leak in.
I know on that record I was really aim-
ing for the way a lot of Bob Clearmountain
or Daniel Lanois mixes and stuff sound. But I
think that by even aiming in that direction, it
never quite hits that. It maybe touches on it,
but it doesn’t really ever go there completely.
So I think that’s the answer. It’s an accident.
Like I’m aiming for one thing and accidentally
hitting some sort of modern thing as well.
PS: What was the mixing process like
on “Pain”?
SE: I had like a week or something by myself
and I was supposed to be mixing a bunch
of songs and I kept coming back to this one
because I just had a certain idea of how I
wanted it to sound and it was really impossi-
ble to get there. So I think I spent a few days
on it, trying to get it to that point but it was
really hard. I think there was a moment where
I had the feeling like, “OK, I think this might
be it.” Then we were working in New York,
we were working on a bunch of songs, and I
had something to the point where I wanted
to play it for [band leader Adam Granduciel]
but I didn’t want to play it for him while I was
in the room because I was kind of nervous
about it because I’d been working so much
on it. So I ran a couple of things through
some cool gear that was in New York when
Shawn Everett
Nominated for:
“Slip Away” by Perfume Genius from the album No Shape
“Pain” by The War on Drugs from the album A Deeper Understanding
he was out of the room, because I wanted a
few of the effects that were in there, and then
I printed a final version and sent it to him and
was like, “OK, I hope he likes this.” He heard it
that night when he went home and he was
really excited. That was the first time where I
was like, “Oh thank god.”
PS: What were the effects at the
studio in New York you wanted to
add to it before Adam heard it?
SE: When we went to Electric Lady, they had
this whole rack that was pretty much older
‘70s and ‘80s modulation gear. Any time I
saw a piece of gear like that in a studio, like
some kind of weird old Marshall time delay or
something like that, I would get excited about
it. It was specific to the period I’m aiming for,
so I try to find little moments or places where
I could use a piece of gear like that inside of
the song. I was just kind of screwing around
with different effects like that on his voice
and I think I was running it through some
combination of modulation effects that they
had at that studio.
Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of
Professional Sound.