“They sound kind of s**t… but it doesn’t f**king matter”: Incubus guitarist on Van Halen’s poorly-produced early records
It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a bad album – if a record is poorly received, it’s poorly received. Fancy production can’t save an uninspiring project. Take Guns N Roses’ infamous Chinese Democracy; while the 2008 release is the most expensive rock record ever produced, costing over $13 million to record, it’s notoriously loathed.
On the flip side, strong tracks will always prevail, regardless of your financial capacity. A strong example of this is Van Halen. From the band’s 1978 debut right up to 2012’s A Different Kind Of Truth, the band’s talent has always stunned.
READ MORE: “Producers don’t do anything that’s not safe”: Slash has a bone to pick with modern production techniques
In a recent interview with Jeremy White, Incubus’s Mike Einziger reflects on Van Halen’s earlier records. Being a producer himself, he’s well aware that the production isn’t perfect – but he insists it doesn’t detract from the records whatsoever.
“I don’t really care [how they produced their debut] – it just sounds insane,” he says. “It wouldn’t be less good if [they] did it in a different way… it was what [Eddie] was playing, you know what I mean?”
Einziger has always felt the magic of a record in this way, swayed by the quality of the performance rather than the production. But it’s not something he realised until Incubus’s former bassist, Ben Kenney, made him reconsider the production on Van Halen’s earlier records.
“Ben was making jokes about how bad certain Van Halen recordings sounded,” Einziger recalls. “I always was kind of like ‘What are you talking about? Those recordings sound amazing!’ But he’d be like, ‘No, they don’t. They sound like shit.’”
It encouraged Einziger to listen back to his favourite Van Halen records. Shockingly, he had to admit that the production was absolute garbage. “Some of them sound really shitty,” he admits. “But it doesn’t fucking matter! It really doesn’t matter!”
He emphasises that the quality he admired was never in the production: “It was the quality of what was being played!”
The guitarist’s words are sure to inspire budding musicians out there. If you’ve got strong ideas, it doesn’t matter how you get them out into the world. “A lot of people hate me for saying it, but I don’t give a fuck about recording methods,” he concludes.
“I worked in recording studios my whole life, cut tape with a razor blade, sat there and ran shit through every analogue piece of gear you could ever imagine…” he explains. “And then when plugins came along, I was like, I know I can make this sound great. And if it’s easier… Who cares?”
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