One-on-One with SAM GUAIANA
The next generation of recording icons is well on its way
By Andrew Leyenhorst Session Photography by Wyatt Clough produced , recorded , and mixed , was nominated for Rock Album of the Year at the 2021 Juno Awards . This interview has been edited for clarity and length .
PS : For starters , what have you been working on lately ?
Guaiana : Honestly , wrapping up a boatload of mixing right now . I ’ ve got three or four records that aren ’ t really backlogged , but they just kind of all happened at the same time . There are three full-lengths I ’ m wrapping , and then maybe a handful of singles . I start back in with a band in two weeks ; so , there is so much down the pipeline , I ’ m just trying to plan it all out accordingly !
PS : As far as your work goes , I know you ’ re a producer , you also write , and play drums in your band July ; but it seems like mixing is very much what your work is centralized around recently . What led you in that direction ?
“ Rock and roll ain ’ t gonna die ,” sang Brian Johnson back in 1980 . Luckily for us all , it still hasn ’ t . It ’ s taken on many different forms since those days , but the truth of the matter is that there will always be a place in the world for heavy music ( that has progressively gotten heavier ); and wherever you find heavy music , especially nowadays , you ’ re bound to come across some of the most talented producers , engineers , and mixers in the game .
Professional Sound sat down with Sam Guaiana , a Toronto-based freelance producer , engineer , mixer , and co-owner of Room 21 Sound , whose work with artists including Silverstein , Intervals , Like Pacific , Rarity , and the UK ’ s Trash Boat has amassed over 50 million streams on Spotify alone . Having been tapped for work by labels including Hopeless , Pure Noise , Rise , and Victory , Guaiana has quickly become one of the most in-demand hitmakers in the heavy scene . To boot , Silverstein ’ s 2020 LP , A Beautiful Place to Drown , which Guaiana
Guaiana : A few different things . One , it kind of accumulated over the last two years of my career ; I realized that if I ’ m producing a record , I don ’ t want to give it to anybody else to mix . That ’ s sort of a more recent thing of mine that I didn ’ t realize was important to me until I started noticing my production style didn ’ t stop in the mixing phase . Unless you have the right sort of vibe with somebody , I don ’ t think in the modern scope of making a record , you can give up something as gigantic as mixing anymore . And then on top of that with the pandemic , because I was just doing so much remote work , bands were recording at home and stuff like that . It just happened that people started sending me piles and piles of stuff to mix ; I ’ ve been honing in on my mixing for the past year straight .
It ’ s funny . To me , production and mixing play together . It just also made sense in terms of a career move . I prefer to take on almost any mix work , whereas I ’ m a bit more selective on
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