By Jason Songe

Photos by Eric Martinez and Dan Fox

 

Traveling down LA 21 towards Bogalusa, I stopped into a convenience store to get a six-pack for Ben Mumphrey as a thank-you for the time he was giving up for our interview about Studio in the Country and his sound engineering work there. The early twenty-something clerk with a mangy beard was buried in his beverage orders, and when he looked up and spoke his country accent soothed me. It was a sure sign I’d crossed the line into a simpler, slower dimension, and probably because I spent many vacations as a child on a Mississippi farm it felt like cold water on my head after a long run. It makes sense, then, that as I got closer to the studio and further into the country, my heartbeat slowed.

I saw the two huge cedar pylons marking a driveway entrance and I turned between them onto the gravel road that led down to a geometrically edgy structure that looked like a student of Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in the ‘70s. “This has to be the place,” I said. I stepped out the car, took in the pine trees, ponds and open land that went on for acres. The feeling of calm reminded me of a retreat I took in Convent, Louisiana, which has got to be one of the most beautiful places you’ll find mid-state.

Studio in the Country took six years to design and was finished in 1973. According to an old studio brochure, a country location was chosen to minimize earth vibrations. It has been used by Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Professor Longhair, The Neville Brothers, The Gutter Twins, Kansas (“Carry On Wayward Son”), Marilyn Manson, etc.

“It was built by A-grade sound architects with a soft ceiling,” Mumphrey said as he took me on a tour of the studio. Mumphrey was telling the truth because I heard my ears ringing in the large recording room. The only time I can normally hear my ears ringing is when I’m going to sleep.

Next Mumphrey walked me outside and down to the studio’s cabin-sized echo chamber, which is used to naturally capture reverb. Two lines come from the control room and plug into two mics for a vocal sound that’s “richer and creamier than computer reverb.”

Mumphrey started engineering music in ‘97, and since then has engineered, mixed, or produced records for The Pixies, Frank Black and The Catholics, The Breeders, The Gutter Twins, Fu Manchu, Mark Langean, Auf der Maur, Anders Osborne, etc., and he was the monitor engineer for The Pixies on all of their reunion tours.

Mumphrey and I ended the tour back in the main building, inside the control room. There, ANTIGRAVITY asked him questions about the studio, his work and the bands he’s recorded. This interview starts with an answer, as Mumphrey discusses the differences in studio taste over the decades and how that ultimately affected The Pixies.

 

Ben Mumphrey: Equipment started changing in studios. Solid state versus tube equipment started to become the norm. Digital started taking over towards the later part of the ’80s. And tastes just [changed]. The fresh sound was heavily affected snare drums and bright sounds versus—it was bright and thin as opposed to thick and fat. In the ’70s it was hard to find a bad-sounding record. Go find any crap record from 1975 and it sounds like there’s a groove on it. I don’t know what people were thinking. Donald Fagen made Steely Dan records that sounded truly amazing in the ’70s, but then he started to sound thin in the ’80s. It had to just be an aesthetic thing. People liked the heavily affected sound. They liked gear that wasn’t heavy, was easy to deal with and didn’t have tubes in it. And so The Pixies get caught up [in technology] from 1986 to 1990, and if you listen to their records it sounds like it. There’s tons of reverb on the snares. They’re still great records because the songwriting matters most. But, seeing them live, where everything was dry rockin’ right there without all this stuff on it, you could really hear it. Did you see them live?

ANTIGRAVITY: I saw them six times.

BM: Yeah, and it was killer, right?

AG: Yeah.

BM: Especially when they’d go into their fast stuff, it was just like this wall.

AG: And it’s a testament to them because they didn’t move at all onstage. It was just the music and their performance still blows you away. When you’re engineering, do you like to hear demos beforehand so you can kind of figure out what direction you’re going to want to take once the recording starts?

BM: I do, if I have the luxury. With local bands, like Narcissy and Morning 40 Federation, I did go to their rehearsal space to get an idea and gave small amounts of input. But it was good. If it’s just some band I’m recording…

AG: Right, right, but like if it’s some stuff that needs some atmosphere…

BM: Like The Breeders stuff. I went to Stagg Street with them. I don’t think any of it got used. That was after doing a bunch of demos. [Doing demos] can get in the way sometimes. Most of the time people get demo-itis. They get used to how the demo sounds of something, and then when it doesn’t sound like that it’s hard to appreciate what you’ve done. [Alternately] part of the reason that some of the worse [masters] get used instead of the demos is because of the fear you’re having demo-itis. You don’t realize until later, sometimes, like the ones I played you, that maybe the demos were, in fact, better.

AG: Do most artists you work with trust your approach, or is there some shoulder-hovering?

BM: These days, people are pretty confident around me. They feel like they’re in good hands. If there is shoulder-hovering, it’s usually the amateurs who aren’t paying attention and haven’t done their homework, so you’ll see some bum decisions and foolishness go down, but I’m very serious about not overstepping my boundaries and knowing the rules of who’s working [in] what [capacity].

 

“Ben is such a professional. He could be a dick. He was like an older brother. I could ask him stuff about the process, and he was my Pro Tools advocate when the band had that argument.” —Dan Fox, drummer for Big Baby, a local rock who recently recorded at Studio in the Country.

 

“It’s not just the studio. It’s the combination of the engineer and the studio. Ben anywhere is a good engineer, but a crappy engineer can make a great studio crap. Hanging with Ben was the ticket. His easygoing demeanor made mixing a pleasure. Most engineers try to force their producer-wannabe issues on you. Ben stayed out of the way, but when I got stuck he dug me out. Not only that, he made me feel confident about my own decisions. I got what I wanted out of the project. He’s extremely knowledgeable and efficient. The previous studios captured some decent sounds, but Ben took it up ten notches or so.” —Ruby Rendrag, who mixed her last album at Studio in the Country.

BM: When I was working in Los Angeles studios, you could see the chain of command and how it was really supposed to work. Because you had [on all sessions] an assistant engineer, an engineer, a producer and the studio would also have the runners. In New Orleans, it [often] all gets combined into one job. I still don’t produce stuff (give input) unless I’m asked to. I can usually find something worthy about anything, but the hardest part is when you see people making bad moves…

AG: And you can’t say anything because you’re not the producer.

BM: Knowing that they’re going to waste time and knowing you know.

AG: Is that the difference between being listed as a producer and an engineer—that a producer offers insight?

BM: It can mean a number of things. Sometimes it’s just the person making sure that it happens. There’s got to be somebody making sure that the record is scheduled and that it gets delivered. A savvy band should be able to do that. Then there’s the producer that digs in, that sees himself as having the license to make calls about the arrangement and stuff like that. I never assume that role as producer.

AG: You wait for the artist to give you the okay. Do you think the people, when they built this place, they were thinking it was an advantage that it’s so far removed from the city life?

BM: I think that must have been the M.O. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting William Evans, who built the joint. I have a feeling I’ll meet him soon ‘cause he lives here, still. He was the guy who engineered “Carry On Wayward Son” and whatever was going on. He did a lot of what was going on in the ’70s. He was from here, but lived in LA for a couple years and made connections there. The idea was to build a comparable place out here, and the plan was always to have housing on the grounds and have a little retreat space. That never got realized, the full vision. That’s one goal I have—to have a house and make it feel like a vacation spot. If you look out there, it’s like paradise. It’s twenty-six acres. So, if I could have a swimming pool and a house, open up some space and have some golf carts…

 

“It’s a vacuum unto itself. It’s in the woods, and there are no distractions. The main room is great. It’s a place that’s obviously cared for. It’s clean, organized, and everything works. If they had lodging, it’d be perfect.” —Fox

 

“The studio has a great ’70s-ish atmosphere, fantastic (updated as well as vintage) gear and a main recording room that, when you walk through it, you can feel the pressure change in your head. A friggin’ gem is sitting out there. I’ve recorded at some of the best studios in the city but never came away with a feeling of having had a truly (good) memorable experience like I had there.” —Rendrag

 

AG: Have you seen what (Living Room Studio owner) Chris George is doing?

BM: I have, but not recently. I was there a year ago, but I think it’s going to be killer. I’m real excited about it.

AG: I know it’s something he’s getting bunk beds.

BM: Yeah, well, Dockside Studios does that, and I know that people love it. It’s one thing this place needs. It’s a tall order to ask people to hang in Bogalusa. I know what the top-notch people want and what you have to deliver to people who are used to every convenience. It’s doable—I’m trying to get the operation in place right now—get some sessions rolling, get the word out. I just need people to come and track stuff here. Mixing is great, too, but I mixed that Narcissy record mostly in my fuckin’ car. Initially we came here to mix it, but I didn’t like the way it came out because I did it all in one day. So, I went home and took my time to carve out some killer mixes, and I thought the most reliable control room was my Honda Civic. Some Japanese dudes probably designed that thing meticulously, and considering my lack of faith in the control rooms around, I went with that.

AG: So, why is it better to have people track instead of mix?

BM: My point was that with mixing, you could stab in the dark in a room that doesn’t work until you get it right. You can tweak and tweak and chances are that you’ll eventually get it right. If you’re tracking, it’s when you record drums. That’s what you need a good studio for—drum sounds. What sets a good-sounding record apart from a crappy one is usually in the drums. You can tell some amateurs from the drum sounds. Guitars are such a subjective thing. Drums—people can tell if the kick and snare don’t sound right. Here I’m finding that the sounds we get are so rich and heavy. Everything you want out of a drum set you’ve got.

 

Studio in the Country is located on twenty-six acres of pine forest and is sixty miles from New Orleans. For more info, go to myspace.com/studiointhecountry2 or contact Ben Mumphrey at (985) 735-8224 or studiointhecountry@gmail.com.

 

This interview originally appeared in ANTIGRAVITY Vol.5 Issue 9 (July ’08).