- Due to language and adult situations,
the following film is intended for mature audiences
and is not suitable for children.
Viewer discretion is advised.
[upbeat music]
[hard percussion]
- I'd never even heard of Madison, Wisconsin.
- It's a nice college town,
but, I mean, not a lot to do there.
- It was far enough away where it was like away .
- The Cramps would stop only in Wisconsin long enough
to try and scoop up some ashes
from Ed Gein's burned down house.
- Starting a studio when Butch and Steve started a studio
was unheard of.
- What's going on in that building across the street?
- We just made it up as we went along, really.
[ Killdozer "King of Sex"]
- Killdozer is the sound of Smart Studios
and the sound in the Midwest.
[Smashing Pumpkins "Tristessa"]
- What are you listening to?
And he's like, "This band, Smashing Pumpkins."
And I'm like, "Why are the drums so loud?"
- When "Gish" came out, people were comparing it
to the Black Crowes .
- What the f#ck is he doing?
"Well, he hasn't finished the Smashing Pumpkins record."
Like, "The who?"
- Well, you can never know if something like that's
going to happen.
You know, a band like Nirvana .
- Everyone thought I had some magic button
I could push and turn them into a superstar grunge band .
- We're connected by this thing
that changed our lives profoundly forever.
- "Pretend You're Dead" comes on the radio, and I'm like,
"I wish something could make me sound like that."
- But at the time, he was just some shmoe up in Madison.
[electric guitar]
[electronically-distorted buzzing lyrics]
- 100% of your commitment and your relationship
was with the sound.
- If the band doesn't feel comfortable it's not going to be right.
- It's hard for a lot of people to understand,
but you lose money.
- The equipment doesn't make the record, ever .
- If just being here was possible,
then we wouldn't have had to close.
? ?
- They went outside their box, I think,
to make it happen for us.
- What they have in common is they're both so easygoing.
- Shirley Manson: We couldn't go to a single town, I think,
in America, when we were touring,
where there wouldn't be somebody who leapt out of the woodwork
who they'd worked with.
I mean, it was crazy.
- It is the name from that era.
It is the one studio. There is no other.
[rock music]
[audio recording played backward]
[ His & Her Vanities "Alfonzo"]
- Steve Marker: There was some kind of geeky appeal
from early on in my life about recording stuff
and listening back to it.
I had two cassette decks back home in New York
when I was a kid.
And you could take one of those and record a drum beat onto it,
and then hold that speaker up to the microphone
and play it back as you recorded, say, a guitar.
I didn't know it at the time,
but I guess I was trying to multitrack--
even back then as, like, a 10-year-old kid.
[ Negative Example "It Ain't Pretty"] ? You're a kid
? Waiting for something
? To hit you in the head
? And offer you a clue
? On what you're supposed to do
[ The Hussy "Demon Claus"]
- Butch Vig: I was probably in eighth grade
when I asked my parents for a cheap tape recorder.
I started recording albums, dubbing them onto tape
and then editing them into new sequences,
because it was something that I could control and manipulate.
It seemed like there was this whole possibility
of being able to change things.
It was really cool.
[ The Hussy "Demon Claus"] ? I've got a dream too
[recording played backward]
[punk song with driving beat]
- When I first met Steve, he had a four-track
in his apartment on Broom Street.
- I had a reel-to-reel tape deck, which was really Hi-Fi,
that I bought with money I got from mowing lawns
in the summers.
- I used to go over to Steve's apartment.
And before we would start recording,
we would go downtown to the Plaza Bar
and buy these dirt cheap pitchers of beer
and drink beer until bar time.
And we would get a hell of a buzz on.
And then we would look at each other and go, "Let's get smart."
That meant: let's go back to his apartment,
plug in guitars and drums, and
start rocking on his four-track until the sun came up.
To be honest, neither Steve nor I
are very proud of the fact that that's where we got our name.
- It really was more about the recording of it.
That's what was fun.
And the songs were just kind of something
we made up to have something to record.
? ?
- We had no gear.
We had like four microphones.
I think he had a Peavey mixer.
We ran everything through the Space Echo.
Didn't matter if it was vocals, drums, guitar.
So everything had this sort of
murky, cramped-style, slapped echo on it,
which actually sounded kind of cool.
- There were the people in the big cities that made records
that went in the record stores.
And here, it was more like we just wanted to have something
that we could give to our friends
and maybe, if it was really cool,
sell it for $5 down at the record store.
[ Appliances SFB performing "Head Culture"]
? Today the sun was predictable
? Everywhere telephone poles
? Yesterday I think that show
[cheering]
- The way you found out about other scenes in other cities
was really word of mouth.
And a lot of that happened from touring bands.
They would come through and play a gig
at one of the local all-ages shows.
There'd be like five or six bands
playing in the afternoon at some funky little space.
- There was so much influence going on nationwide
from obscure places like Madison, Wisconsin
or Minneapolis or Seattle.
I mean, those are backwater places.
- There were two things that really influenced us back then.
One was what you heard about from other people.
And the other thing was like reading
the NME and Melody Maker , finding out about bands
who are from the UK kind of doing the same thing
that we were all trying to do in the Midwest.
Our music was like a weapon.
[Imminent Attack "Laugh"] ? Yeeeaaaaah
[Laughing Hyenas "Wild Heart"]
- There was coverage just through fanzines, really--
Flipside , Maximum Rocknroll.
Those were fanzines, but they were also national
so you can get those at any punk record store in the country.
[ Laughing Hyenas "Wild Heart"]
- You would hear about people,
but sort of from a great distance.
And even if you had the records,
you had no context by which to even understand what it meant.
- Vig: It was a very counter-cultural way of living
for bands back then.
Because, I think, they were rejecting mainstream music
and also, to a certain extent,
rejecting mainstream lifestyle living.
- You couldn't escape it.
I mean, everywhere there was a poster with Ronald Reagan
with a huge penis coming out of his ear
or something, you know, that Reagan was doing.
Ronald Reagan was a good target for punk rock.
? ?
- The Midwestern music scene, over the last 40, 50 years,
has made a significant contribution to world music,
but because we don't control the media in the Midwest,
our musical contributions often get overlooked.
- The media centers are in LA and New York,
and they love examining themselves
and ignoring the rest of us.
And they never want to admit that, you know,
guess what, guys?
Frank Lloyd Wright wasn't from New York.
- Frank Anderson: A lot of friends on the coast
think we live in the tall pine trees,
like the Laura Ingalls Wilder
"Little House in the Big Tall Woods,"
and that we don't have sidewalks.
- Most of the people in the Midwest
have a working class mentality.
Your families are all working class.
Your grandparents were working class--
in most cases, immigrant class.
- It's easy to go to that cliché about hardworking.
You know, that's not true at all, really.
Some of the laziest sh#ts I've ever met are from the Midwest.
- We don't grow up going to school with, you know,
the guy the guy from Toto' s kids.
We might know, "Oh, yeah, my third cousin played in,
you know, the guy from Cheap Trick 's side project."
That was about as close as you came to anything.
We're Americans, but we come from other places and
'How the f#ck did we end up in the cornfield?' kind of thing.
You know?
I remember asking Butch where he came from.
And we were like, "Where? What?
"What city?
Vidalia or some whatever-- huh?"
- Butch Vig: Viroqua. - Yeah, exactly.
See, I know it's a 'V'. Viroqua.
- There were always cool bands here.
In some cases, those bands really only played
right around the area, you know?
They didn't go to New York or the West Coast.
They played in Chicago or Minneapolis or Milwaukee.
You know, it was sort of this little scene
where you could find enough gigs to play around here
to make a living.
? ?
- This is day one.
- You learned pretty quick
that if you didn't really work at it and tour,
to get out of the Midwest would be a chore basically.
I think you were overlooked pretty readily.
- All we really cared about
was that we could add another town
to our sort of six-hour radius
dream that we had.
St. Louis to the south was included in that.
Maybe Lawrence, Kansas was a little bit further away.
But everybody wanted to play Lawrence
because it was a college town.
- That was huge, to get out and play
and then to have actual audiences that were into it.
[in cheerful, patronizing voice] - Are you bored?
Do you feel you're missing out on something?
There must be more to life than slaving away,
raising a bunch of whining brats and groveling in church.
[chuckling] [ Scott Fields Ensemble "The Plagiarist"]
- The coasts are really about money.
They really are.
And in the Midwest, it's never really been about the money.
Because you didn't need that much money here to stay alive,
and you could focus on the other stuff.
- Vig: Being in the Midwest, you're sort of
left to your own devices.
And because of that bands, in particular,
would sort of come up with their own unique spin
on how they wrote songs, and how they performed them,
and what kind of sound they were going after.
[ Die Kreuzen ]
[heavy drumming, guitar feedback]
A band like Die Kreuzen who, to me,
were ahead of the pack in a way with a band like
Jane's Addiction -- You know,
they were metal, they were punk,
they were glam, they were psychedelic.
And they had all of those things,
sometimes all in the same song.
And yet, they were in Milwaukee.
- No one had come up with the term
"modern rock" or "alternative rock."
It was just "college rock," and it could mean everything
from Die Kreuzen , which was very heavy, very metal,
to The Dead Milkmen , which was kind of like goofy punk music.
[ The Dead Milkmen "Punk Rock Girl"]
? ?
A lot of the indie stores not only carried the local music,
but they championed it--
B-Side on State Street or Mad City Music,
Atomic in Milwaukee.
- We didn't have coffee shops, and tattoo parlors,
and all that stuff like we have today
that you might hang a poster up.
Only record stores.
- You had that devoted mom and pop shop
where those guys really gave a sh#t.
And it was the only place you were ever going to find
new releases from anything underground.
That's where everyone met.
That's where you put up your flyer
like, we need a drummer for this band.
That's where you had to find out where
the shows were, what the new bands were, what was happening.
Walking in there and hearing stuff for the first time.
[ Paul Westerberg , The Replacements "Kids Don't Follow"] ? Can't stop choking
? The kids ain't saying
- Bands like The Replacements and Hüsker Dü and R.E.M ..
And they were all doing their own music,
putting out their own records.
And they were actually getting away with it.
[plucking deep bass guitar]
- There was a very vibrant do-it-yourself punk rock scene
in Madison like there was in Washington DC, New York City,
Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles.
[ Cattle Prod "Don't Mind Walking"] ? I don't know why that'd be okay
? I feel darkness turn to day
? I don't know why
? But I feel like I am taking a ride
- It was like all these freakers in a small town, you know?
It's like those are the best situations, I think.
- ? I don't know why
? But I feel like I am taking a ride
? On life
- Kind of just show up at this house and like, you know,
one of your bands would practice at 1:00.
Another one of your bands would practice at 3:00.
And like your third band--
There wasn't one particular style that was really sticking.
You know, like Tar Babies had this sort of
groovy punk thing going on.
I mean, Bucky Pope is an amazing guitarist,
and Dan was great in drums.
And they had their own kind of sound and style.
[ Tar Babies "Economy Pact"]
- The Tar Babies .
You know, they were basically the Chili Peppers
before the Chili Peppers.
[ Tar Babies "Pig Relevance"]
[percussion intro to Appliances SFB "Mr. Ugly"]
[shriek] - Ahhh-ha!
- Initially, before hardcore happened,
every band that you would have called punk
was doing something really unique.
- I think that all of us
were avoiding being influenced directly.
You didn't really want to
invade each other's territory.
- Our bass player took it upon himself to go and find venues
for this to happen, like the Wil-Mar Center in Madison
or putting it in a public park.
[punk rock]
- Green Bay had a scene.
There was kind of weird factions.
- The Kenosha punks were ones
that you did not want to invite to your party.
- Come on, they were fine. [laughing]
[upbeat music]
- Are you ready, Sheil? - Uh-huh.
- Mark? - You bet.
- All right, then.
Let's go.
[ Cattle Prod "Don't Mind Walking"]
- We all know each other.
We played shows together.
We put on shows together.
That was the Madison scene.
We played with bands
that we'd otherwise have nothing in common with
other than, "Oh, we all practice in the same place.
"We know each other.
Oh, they're great guys. Let's play a show together."
- The phone would ring, and I'd be talking to Dave
from Millions of Dead Cops .
And he'd say, "We're coming through town."
We heard that you guys do shows there.
So we'd have to go out and find VFW hall or bar, or something.
Like, physically go out and walk the streets
and find a place to play.
- ? One, two, one two.
Yeah, check, one, two.
- There was a vital club scene in Madison in the mid-'80s.
There was Headliners
that got a lot of sort of traditional rock shows.
There was Bunky's that got more showcase things
like jazz and folk music.
There was the Club de Wash and O'Cayz, which had punk rock.
And then Merlyn's sprung up on State Street.
And Merlyn's catered to the whole
sort of new wave punk explosion
that came out of New York and London.
That was like the cool, de facto place
to go see up and coming bands.
For some inexplicable reason,
Steve Marker got hired there as a security guard.
He is the least likely person to be a security guard.
He had to like search people when they came in to make sure
they weren't bringing anything illegal into the club.
- In those days, the drinking age was 18.
So it only took a little while for us to be able to play.
And there were a couple bars that would book original music.
I played at Merlyn's with the Tar Babies
and my mom had to come to the show.
You know?
[ Appliances SFB "Captain Nemo-Freud"]
- I heard bands that, in some ways, were as cutting edge,
and maybe almost leading the pack
in terms of sort of
new genres and music that were popular.
But because we were out here, no one knew who they were.
- We were really expressing music from Madison, at least,
or Wisconsin in general.
We always tried to have kind of a rural look
to our album covers and things like that.
A lot of bands were doing the same thing.
Look at Spooner .
You know, Spooner, Wisconsin.
[ Spooner "Like A Vagabond"]
- I had been working at Meriter Hospital and
got fired for taking home one of the surgery scrub uniforms.
Got pissed off.
I walked down to Ray Ketner Music on State Street,
and there was a "wanted" ad for a drummer
in a band that was recording original music.
I called up. It was Duke Erikson.
And I had one practice with them,
and they called me the next day and said,
"Do you want to join our band?"
The band started writing a lot of original music,
and I wanted to record it.
[ Spooner "Away and Away" aka "Looks Like Rain"]
- We really didn't know anything about making a record,
but we figured it out.
We just decided we were going to go
and record in a studio these songs.
And we rehearsed them like crazy
and just went in and laid them down,
and just did it all on our own dime--
designed the covers ourselves, stuffed the records ourselves,
and put them on sale, whoever would take them.
It somehow legitimizes you in people's eyes
when you actually have a record.
[ Spooner "Away and Away"]
- Boat was just Spooner 's label.
And we were all involved.
Duke was very involved in the design of the jacket.
Butch was very involved in the recording and mixing
of the music.
- It was just our own label,
but I think people thought we actually had a deal, you know?
- To me, it was a learning experience
about how to actually make drums sound good,
and make guitars sound good, and to mix a record.
But the whole time I kept thinking,
we can do this ourselves.
And rather than saving up our money
and going into these studios,
what if we just bought our own gear?
And at that point, Steve Marker was our roadie.
And he had been to some of the sessions
that we'd been recording in other studios.
And somehow--
I don't really know where that conversation took place--
Steve and I decided,
"Let's actually open up our own recording studio."
It probably happened at The Plaza
after we drank three or four pitchers of beer.
[ Spooner "Away and Away"]
[percussion]
The very first space that we moved into,
the Gisholt building on East Wash,
was this giant warehouse.
And we rented about a 900 square foot, maybe 1,000 square foot
space on the second floor.
We felt like there were no rules.
You know, we really felt like,
we're just going to go find bands
and bring them in and start recording them.
[rhythmic guitar plucking]
We went to the Mazo Egg Company out in Middleton
and bought 1,000 egg flats for $50.
And then Steve and I and our friends
super-glued them to the walls, all 1,000 of them.
- They'd get maybe one six-pack of beer
and a bag of some potato chips
and then call like 20 people and say,
"We have beer and chips!
"Why don't you come over and help us out
with our cool new recording studio?"
And so people would go over there
and there'd be no beer, and there'd be no chips.
- I applied many egg cartons to the walls of Gisholt.
That's where I--
I was actually a carpenter at that point, I believe.
Or was I? No, I wasn't.
Was I?
[music playing backward]
- The control room in the original studio in Gisholt
was pretty bad.
It was a small, L-shaped room with a tiny little window
to look out into the tracking room.
Acoustically, a nightmare.
We inherited that space when we went in there.
There was never any acoustic design.
But that room really did suck.
[ Tar Babies "Economy Pact"]
- One, two, three, go!
- We were the first band to record at Smart in--
I want to say in 1982.
- The glue on the egg cartons was still drying
when Tar Babies came in to do their first session.
It didn't smell very good.
- We were wiring, like, the last 48 hours
before they came in to start the session.
Steve would wire something in, we'd start listening to it,
go, "Sounds pretty good, right?"
I'd look at it and go, "Yeah, I think it sounds pretty good."
But we weren't quite sure, you know?
Those first couple of years, the recording chain we had
was so crude and Low-Fi
that I don't think it would have mattered
if we had a really Hi-Fi sounding control room.
[ Tar Babies perform ending of "Caleb's Getting Mad"]
- Are you ready to rock?
[hardcore punk rock]
- It was good timing when we started Smart
because there was a scene bursting in Madison
of all these indie bands
that also had a "Do It Yourself" spirit
and did not care about getting signed to major label.
They wanted to record a 7-inch 45
and put it out on Bone Air records
or whatever one of the local labels were.
A lot of them had barely practiced enough
to even learn their craft on their instrument.
But it didn't matter, you know?
They wanted to write a song, and make a noise, and capture that.
Steely Dan wasn't coming into Smart Studios.
Mecht Mensch , Killdozer , and Tar Babies were coming in.
And they were raw, scruffy, grungy, dirty sounding bands.
- We've got some CDs and T-shirts to sell.
Come sign our mailing list.
Come talk to us.
[contemplative guitar strumming]
- It was big.
Ceilings were low.
There might have been a piano in there.
? ?
- We had the run of the whole building,
so we were able to put up mics kind of anywhere--
down the hallways, in the ceilings.
You know, there wasn't anybody around at night.
[The Weeds "Easy on the Eyes"]
- In one room was this artist who I just read about
named Dennis Nechvatal.
- We kept the same hours.
Start late, work late, and carry on, you know?
And it was exciting, new energy.
More interesting energy than another artist coming up there.
And it was active, and so I was quite excited.
- If you were out on the street,
you could hear what was playing there.
We were lucky that across the street
was just a big parking lot, so we never really got
any complaints from anyone around there.
There were no residences in that block.
- You know, a lot of professional acts
might have complained about the lack of soundproofing.
But we kind of considered things like
squealing bus brakes and diesel truck engines roaring--
because it was a red light right outside--
that, you know, that just adds some good ambiance.
[ Poop Shovel "One Pass Away"]
- Remember how long it took
to get to the bathroom from the studio?
- No. [laughing]
- If you had to take a pee, you had to go
out through the control room,
take a right, go down the hallway.
And it was probably about 300 or 400 feet,
all the way to the end of the building.
So we would bring our skateboards.
Because it would take you a few minutes
to walk down there and back.
So we would just be like--
- If you're drinking a lot of beer--
- Yes. [overlapping voices]
And we thought that that's what rock people did.
- Butch was driving a cab, and I was just trying to do Smart.
And, you know, we'd get people to come in.
And I think it was $25 an hour.
We gave away a lot of hours.
We were making no money.
Steve couldn't even afford to pay his rent.
So at one point,
he moved out of his apartment on Spaight Street
and, literally, moved into the studio.
And there was like a closet back in the boiler room,
and he just threw all his clothes in there.
And he was sleeping on the floor at night.
So he would never leave the studio.
And about every three or four days, he'd go,
"Uh, Butch, can I go use your shower?"
[energetic music]
- Every penny that we made, we would save up
and buy another microphone,
or we would go to these rummage sales
and see if we could find something.
You know, "Oh, here's another pair of headphones.
Let's see if they work."
We would buy them for $5 or $10.
- We weren't trained professionals.
We just were reacting to the era
where you had to have the guy in the disco suit
with the coke spoon telling you how to produce your records.
- We just said, "Screw that.
We're going to do it ourselves and just figure it out."
- They were our friends.
We trusted them.
Just by using them as our base to record,
gave us a better product, and we didn't sound like crap
like we could have, you know?
- We'd be staying up all night making these crazy records.
And then, to actually get a piece of vinyl
that you could take down to the record store,
and they would sell it, was really exciting.
- I never thought of it, for them, as being a hobby.
Because they were there all the time.
One could think it was a clubhouse.
- Anybody could walk through the door and record.
They didn't happen have to always have money.
If they had money, great.
If they didn't,
we usually figured out a way to make it work.
There was no sign on the door.
They just showed up.
- OK, the first song I'm going to do
is a nineteen-hundred-and-four hit,
which is a very, very famous one.
[ The Singing Irishman a cappella] ? Give My Regards to Broadway
? Remember me at Herald Square
- One of the most intriguing and interesting characters
to ever grace the studio
is Madison's "The Singing Irishman."
He literally went around town collecting cans.
And then he would take them to the recycle center.
And I think he did that enough
to where he got about $20 together.
And he came and knocked on our door, said,
"I would like one hour of recording time, please."
- Thank you.
- Of course, we spent a lot more time than that.
But I think we only charged him for the one hour.
[The Singing Irishman "Balloon Man"]
? There once was this balloon man
? From the Windy City of Chicago
[imitating sound of wind]
? Selling his balloons of all different colors
- The Singing Irishman was a big part
of what made this studio unique
because he was completely and truly original.
- I've been at it for over 40 years, and I love it.
I sing whenever inspiration hits.
- Butch and Steve were way ahead of the curve in the fact that,
even though they were musicians,
they didn't stop themselves from getting their hands dirty
with the gear.
A lot of musicians had enough problems
getting their hands dirty with the instruments.
- They didn't adhere to the typical way of making records.
Reason one, we were willing to try anything.
And reason two is we didn't exactly know
what the typical way was, except
from what little experience we'd had in other studios.
- Bands were willing to let me experiment and then--
It was a learning curve for me
and sometimes for the bands, too.
[ Ivory Library "Through You"]
- My first recollection of Smart was just
how he was able to conjure, like, a actual sound out of us,
who weren't that skilled.
? You're so far
- He was very accommodating and very excited about our music,
and that was kind of contagious.
- The only thing that Smart got increasingly better at doing--
Butch and Steve-- was making their ideas sound better.
- Whether it be The Weeds ,
Honor Among Thieves ,
Swamp Thing .
And we played so many shows with them.
And eventually, they all had--
The center point was that they were connected to Smart.
[ Ivory Library "Through You"]
- We had reggae bands.
We had country-Western bands.
We had punk bands.
It wasn't just the punk scene.
It was a very healthy place to be for everybody,
other than the drinking.
[ Ivory Library "Through You"]
- Steve and I were possibly the two stupidest businessmen
to walk the planet.
We didn't know anything about marketing,
how to successfully run a real business.
We just wanted to have a studio, open 24/7,
where we could go and record music.
That's all we cared about.
- There was no business model.
That's an understatement.
If you came in and you had a few hundred bucks,
boom, we'll record you.
And there never was money here.
And of course, that never was what it was about.
- And we finished up with Fun With Atoms and "Killing You."
We're here with Steve Marker and Butch Vig of Smart Studios--
the big honchos, as they say.
- Hot honchos on W-O-R-T.
- We wanted to get some of the artists who were
coming through Smart exposure, and there was no way--
There wasn't a chance in hell
that they were going to get any commercial airplay.
Harry Rag had a cool, new wave punk show
and he was a massive record collector.
And I would listen to his show to hear new stuff.
Especially, he was really into the British invasion--
whatever was coming out from the UK.
- The show that I did was New Needles ,
and it was a new music show.
It was W-O-R-T's only new music rock and roll show.
So we were really carrying the banner for
what new music was coming up.
And one of the things that I really carried on
was encouraging local bands to submit cassettes,
and then we'd play them on the radio.
And some were truly awful, but some were really good.
They got their exposure,
and they'd call up and tell their friends to listen.
So it's kind of a secret way to get more people
to listen to the show.
- Steve and I had the idea, why not put together like a show,
like an hour-long show?
And we'll feature the best stuff that we've done the last month.
Not even the best stuff, but the most interesting bands
that have come through.
- They had some names that people would recognize,
like The Appliances doing a song about The Packers.
And who knows what cover they were coming up with.
And then there'd be these really strange bands
that were basically Butch goofing around
and just giving them a dumb name
like Knerble Knerble or Rectal Itch .
And so you didn't know which ones were legit
and which ones were just fun.
- The DJs, the people who worked there,
were really pulling for us and pulling for
the bands that we brought in.
They were all excited to do that kind of show, too,
because they were all interested in new music
and wanted to hear whatever was bubbling up
from the underground.
- Do we have anything new coming out on vinyl
that you've recorded down there? - Oh, lots of stuff.
We have-- The new Fun with Atoms album
will be out probably in about three weeks or four weeks.
The Other Kids have a new EP that you may have--
- We got a notice from our landlord
that we had 30 days to vacate the Gisholt building.
And that felt like a blessing and a curse
because I think Steve and I
felt like we had started to outgrow that space.
Luckily, the space across the street
had been vacant for several months.
So we called the landlord, and he said,
"I would love to have you guys in there."
And a few days later, we moved everything
across the intersection of East Washington at 1254.
I think by about 4:00 am,
we had pretty much pulled everything out of there.
So when the landlord came around at 8 o'clock the next morning,
it was a mess, you know?
We left all the egg cartons on the wall.
We let him deal with that.
[driving rock music]
- I think I knew that I wanted to get seriously into recording
when we started doing some of the Spooner albums.
I had gotten very frustrated
with some of the recording sessions I'd done
when we first went to some major studios to record.
- Butch was going to real studios and making real records,
you know, that were actually going to come out on vinyl
on multi-track, professional recordings.
- Gary Klebe from Shoes was the guy who said to me,
"I can tell you're interested in the studio.
"I think you're more than just a drummer.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
I think that's one of the things early on
that sort of prompted me to want to take control
and be able to learn how to do it yourself.
I think it was really life-changing for them
because they got exposed to all these different things.
And I think Butch came back and was like,
"We've got to do this here."
? I'm waiting to take that long walk
[tape rewinding]
- 1254 East Washington was one damn ugly-looking building.
It was a two-story, red-brick
pile of junk,
and it looked like a crack house.
It looked like a crack house.
[instrumental in a minor key]
When we moved into 1254, we had a lot of acoustic experts
telling us what we needed to do.
And at some point, we just decided, screw it.
We're just going to do it ourselves.
? Tell me where we draw the line
? How far can we go?
- I couldn't believe how lucky we were
to have a real studio in Madison.
I mean, a real studio.
Not, you know, "Tell the dog to be quiet
because we're going to overdub now."
- I think they'd come into their own when they moved out
of the un-air-conditioned warehouse space
and bought their own building
and could set it up exactly how they want.
- Walk this way.
- These are a lot louder.
Right in here.
It's some loud stuff, I tell 'ya.
I don't know how much money they spent
on building that studio,
but it couldn't have been a lot.
Smart had like industrial carpeting, bland white walls.
It looked like somebody just sort of threw it up in a day.
It was very roughly done,
and there were all these weird angles,
[ Laughing Hyenas "Life of Crime" intro] and it was deafeningly loud.
It was so loud it was uncomfortable.
[percussion]
? I'm a fool for romance
- We always wanted bands
to feel like whatever they needed to get done,
we would help facilitate that.
And whether they needed other session players to come in,
there was always a great local, supportive community
of other musicians and artists in Madison
who would, at the drop of a hat, come in and play drums,
or sing backup vocals, or put down strings,
or piano, or whatever it was.
They were friends of ours, you know?
So it was like a no-brainer to call them.
They'd be here in 20 minutes.
- I always keep a steel guitar and an accordion
in the trunk of my car, especially in wintertime.
It weighs down the back end.
I have rear-wheel drive,
and it was hard to get through the snow sometimes.
And a lot of times, I'd drop by Smart and,
"Do you have your steel guitar?" Of course.
And, you know, "Play on this." Sure, I'd play on it.
Very informal.
- There was never any sort of business relationship like
that, where people said, "Well, I need--"
You know,"How much money am I going to get paid?"
That was the last thing
that would come out of someone's mouth.
They didn't really care about that.
They just wanted to come down and play in the session.
- You're surrounded by people you know, friends.
It's no big deal.
It was very, very easy. Very enjoyable.
Never was I nervous,
never was I-- did I feel pressure.
- It didn't have that studio clock,
sterile doctor's office thing going on.
You're here. Let's get it done.
Let's make it right. Let's make it happen.
It was a collaborative thing.
? ?
- Bands were coming from Milwaukee.
They were coming from Chicago, Minneapolis.
Unloading a station wagon, unloading a U-Haul,
unloading a van.
I mean, it's all these people showing up
in different states of existence.
- Sure, let's go record a CD. - OK, let's go.
- Looks like a good day to rock and roll.
- Barely alive, half of them. You know?
- You pull up in the van.
You're on a nondescript street.
There's nothing around.
There's a bar next door with some food.
You load your crap out.
Maybe somebody from the studio comes and grabs your stuff.
It was an innocent time,
in that you had no understanding other than,
you just had to get something done.
- When bands came into Smart, they were able to
shut the rest of the world out
and just focus on making music.
I think that's one of the reasons
that people love to come there.
- There wasn't anything to think about at Smart
except for the sound, the old sound machine,
and the grilled cheese sandwich, right?
I mean, and that was it.
I mean, that was all you needed to think about
to get through the day because that was all there was.
- I vividly remember the soda machine
that had the special thing,
where it would dispense beer. [laughs]
That was nice. We liked that.
If they would have let us, we would have slept there.
They were like, "No, I'm sorry. You can't stay here."
[ Marques Bovre and the Evil Twins "Take Care of My Soul"]
- I was always amazed at how intimate it is.
Like instantaneously,
you're working with people really closely
with something that's very important to them.
It becomes close really fast.
"I don't know you.
I'm going to behave for a little while,"
and then it all got stupid.
And then it just all goes out the window
when you turn into yourself, and they are themselves.
And everybody's a little crazy,
and you're there all the time with each other.
So all the barriers are broken down super-fast.
So it's hysterical and wonderful
and then they leave.
- ? I have felt the tunnel light
- We always kind of hung out in the neighborhood.
When bands would come in from out of town,
we were make a point of taking them
to the local taverns around there.
Right across the street was the Friendly Tavern.
- Jan's Friendly Tavern.
- In the state of Wisconsin, there literally is
a tavern on every corner.
It's expected.
The Friendly filled that role.
It was the tavern on the corner.
- With some of the bands, if they needed backing vocals,
we'd just go over to The Friendly.
Who was around?
"Hey, man, you want to come and sing in a song right now?"
And sometimes Marty, the bartender,
and whoever was sitting around in there
would just put down their beers.
And we'd march across the street and go, "OK, here's the song.
"Here's the back vocal part.
We need a good gang vocal."
And we'd take 10 or 15 minutes, and we'd go, "OK, thanks, man."
And they would all march back to The Friendly.
- Butch was the first one to say, you know,
if things got to a tense spot,
or we were getting a little stuck on something,
"Maybe it's time for an ice cold frosty,"
I think were his words. [laughs]
[ Young Fresh Fellows "Sittin' on a Pitchfork"]
- I remember when we finished that Young Fresh Fellows record,
Scott sent me like a 7-inch,
and I took it across the street to The Friendly.
For a while, the most played single on the Friendly's jukebox
was "Sitting on a Pitchfork" by Young Fresh Fellows.
- ? Ah-ha
? I never knew the sun could shine all night and day
? Hey, hey, hey, hey ? I never knew
- We never really wanted to get away
from that clubhouse feeling,
but I still wanted to make records
that would be ambitious and adventurous
but could get played alongside anything else on the radio
and sound just as good.
? ?
- Butch would send me Smart Party tapes,
and they were amazing.
They had that sound
that became huge five, six years later.
- It was the Smart sound, and it was--
It's the Bitch Vig sound.
Overall, it's Smart.
- It was dirt cheap in the Gisholt building.
But moving into 1254,
we realized we sort of had to take the business side
a little bit more seriously.
And Steve and I were always terrible businessmen.
So basically it just meant we've got to keep this place booked.
? ?
- Moving, expanding,
spending some money.
You know, two guys are running it.
They probably need a little bit of help.
So I went over and I said, "So, I want to work here."
And they said, "Well, we're not really hiring anybody.
"But, you know, you want to bring a band in or something,
you know, that'd be cool."
So then I brought this band in a few days later,
and I managed to make it happen.
And I was in.
They just started throwing everything at me.
- During those years there,
it seemed like there were just ideas flowing all the time.
A lot of ideas, a lot of creativity
every time you walked in the door.
- For the percussion,
Butch suggested that we use beer bottles.
So we went through 24 beer bottles,
and this was before sampling.
And I remember standing there with my headphones on
and breaking beer bottles and wearing gloves
so I wouldn't get shards of glass embedded in my fingers.
- I remember one time we drove 90 miles
with these orchestral chimes in the back of a pickup truck.
And it was about a 200-pound unit with damper pedals,
and we hauled it up three flights of stairs
and just to hit one chime.
It was really stupid. [laughing]
- Exploding star sound to get us into death of a star
from out in space.
- [La-la-la- la-la-la-la-la- la- la-la- la-la- la-la-la]
- Banging on the reverb plate. - [imitates propulsion sound]
- We threw rocks at buckets that had bottles.
[imitates "ka-schhhh", "ka-schhhh", "ka-schhhh"]
- [quivering "yooouuuwww", [vibrating "raaaaghhhh-aghhh"]
- [oscillating "whoooo-ooo-oooow"]
- [frenetic hard rock riff on electric guitar]
- [doot, doot, doo, loo, a, loo, neener, neener, neener]
- [tick-a-too, tick-a-too]
- Take a drum machine, and run it through a cheap guitar amp
and record that.
Stick it all together on a tape, chop it up, loop it together.
- Steve had-- not only did he have a method.
Whatever he recorded that you did,
he would slice and dice and reuse.
It was very modern at the time.
It's so easy to do now in the digital world.
Steve was doing that back then. - Steve, what's on deck?
[ Rousers "Rainbow's End"]
- Steve and I went to South by Southwest one year,
and we took cassettes to give to people.
You know, basically trying to give them to anybody we'd met
from an indie label or a cool band.
We'd say, "Hey, man, come and record our studio.
We'd love to have you there."
- It was the first time we started forming relationships
with some of these indie labels
that led to so much work that we did later on.
- A lot of the indie labels
are influenced by the people who start them,
like the guys at Sub Pop, Jonathan and his partner,
Corey Rusk, at Touch and Go.
It's very much the bands that he likes.
That's who he wants on his label.
He wouldn't necessarily sign something because
he would think, "Oh, I can sell 50,000 copies of this."
[Killdozer "New Pants and Shirt"]
- ? Enter the 49 gates of uncleanliness
- We'd heard about Smart Studios from--
I think it was Robin Davies and Bucky Pope from the Tar Babies .
They had said, "There's this cool new studio.
It's being run by the guys who are in this band, Spooner ."
- They were very good, but we were trying to be punk.
Or we thought we were punk, and we thought that we were
really sort of hardcore and gnarly.
? Enter the 49 gates of uncleanliness,
said she hoisting up her skirt
I held my breath--
- Our biggest concern was just that Butch and Steve
knew how to record, that they were professionals.
- We ended up being shocked at how cool they were,
and how good they were, and how great the sound was.
- At the time, they were very affordable.
[ Killdozer "Never Gave Me a Kiss"]
- There were no rules with Killdozer ,
no commercial expectations.
And Corey at Touch and Go would just say,
"You guys do whatever. You've got a week.
That's what we have in the budget."
And then, that's what we would do.
- Before he recorded with us,
he actually sort of thought about things he wanted to do
which was sort of nice because we all thought,
"That's great, sure. What the heck?"
- Knowing that we could work it out in the studio,
and Butch would have some ideas,
just was the excuse for our being lazy.
- You guys would just go,
"Cool, man.
Whatever you want to do."
It was like, I'd go, "What if we did this?"
"What if we flipped the tape over,
"ran this little drum fill backwards,
"and then, we'll run some backward reverb
"on your voice mic.
"And then we'll come back out and we'll do a blunt cut,
do the song at a completely different tempo?"
They were like, "That sounds pretty cool. Let's try it."
- That means, we can each have a beer while you're setting it up.
- That's right.
[recording played in reverse]
- We thought of him as the fourth Killdozer.
- I always looked forward to making the record so much.
Case in point, one of the bands I was in, Fire Town ,
we did a record on Boat, a local label.
Put it out. Did well.
We got signed to Atlantic.
And then the thing that happens with so many bands
that get assigned to a label,
it was like everything bad happened.
Our management team split up, the A&R guy who signed us left.
We had to go in the studio
with a producer who we did not like at all.
It cost a fortune, and we were in New York
for like four months or four-and-a-half months.
And the day I got home, we started 12-Point Buck .
And I was like, "I'm free! I'm free!"
[ Killdozer "Lupus"]
? Lupus took the life of Flannery O'Connor
? She wrote many books before death came upon her
- Butch was excited we were coming in again.
And he said he wanted to make this his "White Album."
And I'd rather it be the "White Album"
than the "Sgt. Pepper's album."
- I remember we went to a bar a couple blocks from the studio
the day before we were going to start recording.
And Mike was like, "Well, we don't really have any songs.
We've got some riffs and things, and I've got a few words."
As we drank more and more beer, we started writing things down
like, "stock market reports, radio broadcasts,
tuba, accordion, disco."
- The spinning of a six-shooter: We better use that on something.
- Let's get the sound of a toilet flushing.
Tin can, firecrackers, guns.
- Trumpets, tuba, baritone horn.
Like I said, "accordion, a dog."
When you needed something to sound like a fist fight,
he said, "Well, you know,
if you punch a head of iceberg lettuce with your fist--"
- Damn, we got them all into the record!
- We did, including the radio-- the farm reports.
- Farm reports.
- Which, Butch got up at-- you got up at?
- The crack of dawn to record--
To record the farm reports
about, you know, corn futures and pork bellies.
- Farm Commodities Radio Report: From $68 to $70.50.
And slaughter cows were generally steady.
[ Killdozer "Lupus"]
- When Sub Pop first approached Butch
to do some production for them,
it was the Killdozer 12-Point Buck album
that caught their attention,
the way that album sounded.
- People started really taking notice.
And they were like, "This sounds awesome.
Who did it? Where did they do it?"
And that was better advertising
than anything we could have done.
- I had no idea who was hearing it or not hearing it.
And then all of a sudden to realize that
it had sort of reached its tentacles out
and was filtering all around the country, it was cool, man.
- Killdozer was one of those bands
that really shaped the musical identity of Seattle.
They were a universally- respected and beloved band.
Their sludginess and sense of humor
was inadvertently absorbed into the Seattle sound.
[ Tar Babies "Out in Space"]
- There were these little fires.
And it was sort of around 1989 that I started to notice
the little fires sort of getting brighter.
Of course, you had Sonic Youth in New York
getting to be more and more nationally-known.
You had Jane's Addiction 's first album
coming out in Los Angeles.
Right there, toward the end of the '80s,
you had this glimmer that there was something happening.
[ The Fluid "Black Glove"]
? I wonder where I'd be without you
? Without you there's no one else--
- In Madison, Wisconsin,
you're in between Minneapolis and Chicago,
which, in the era of time that we're talking about,
both had pretty vital scenes.
- Seattle was a universe unto itself.
- Seattle was really insular.
And a lot of bands didn't come up here on tour, I think,
because it was too out of the way.
If you left Seattle, usually, as a musician or a band,
it was to move to LA or New York or something--
to make it, to take your music somewhere.
It was felt that you had to leave Seattle to do that.
[ TAD "Wired God"]
- I don't know that I was really aware of a Seattle sound,
other than the Sub Pop singles collection
that Dave Benton from Mad City Music
was bringing by to check out.
That's where I first heard bands like Mudhoney , Nirvana , TAD .
- We wanted to do all these records
because we were fans of all these bands.
We didn't have the money.
So by creating a subscription series,
we had people finance the singles club.
We didn't see it from an industry perspective.
We didn't go, "Hmm, these bands are all
going to get signed and make millions of dollars."
We were like, "F#ck, yeah."
That was what it was all about.
[ Die Kreuzen "Shake Loose"]
- Two bands: Die Kreuzen and Killdozer .
There's Butch in the middle, and it's part of both of them.
That's the sound.
That's what Seattle people were coming here to get.
[rowdy crowd]
- CC: You're listening to W-O-R-T.
We are here with members of Nirvana ,
playing in town last night
[man coughs roughly]
at the Club Underground.
- Tyler: What an awesome show it was, too.
- CC: Along with fellow Sub Pop members, TAD .
- Tyler: Big guy. - CC: The big buy.
So, how has it been recording with Butch Vig?
- Krist Novoselic: Exciting, fabulous.
- Tyler: Do you all have anything else to say
about your record that's going to come out
in September, I think, is it?
- Kurt Cobain: If you like Faith No More , don't buy our record.
- Tyler: What if you don't like Faith No More ?
- Chad Channing: You'll have a chance of liking us.
[ Nirvana "In Bloom"]
- When I joined the band,
they had this demo that sounded amazing.
It sounded huge, and it sounded
different than the things that they had done before.
And everyone talked about, "Butch, Butch, Butch, Butch, Butch."
- There was something bright and explosive about his recordings.
An interesting juxtaposition seeing as the bands at the time
were coming up from a decidedly murkier place.
- There's this buzz about that band,
because everyone is bootlegging the Smart sessions.
- After I mixed Nirvana 's Sub Pop sessions at Smart,
I sent the tapes to Jonathan at Sub Pop and to the band.
And the band pressed up 100 cassettes
and sent them out to their friends.
They ostensibly DIY-bootlegged their own material.
Thurston Moore got a copy, passed it on to Geffen Records.
And all of a sudden,
the band was in a major label bidding war.
- The record companies used to be a sort of a gatekeeper.
The flood of material would flow to them.
They would pick through it and say,
"This is worthy. This isn't."
And then some percentage of that--
probably 5% or 10% of that--
would then become like the big name stuff.
- You had retail space owned by major labels,
radio time bought by major labels.
And everything that indies would do
was an insurgency that was usually short-lived.
[ Smashing Pumpkins "Tristessa"]
- Somebody suggested that we should work with
this guy called Butch Vig, who was up in Madison, Wisconsin
and had his own studio.
- And I got a call, and they said,
there's this band from Chicago who are great.
They're kind of psychedelic, kind of rock,
and they're really amazing live.
When they came up to the studio, you know,
I hadn't seen a picture or anything of them.
And it was just sort of like, "Wow, they look cool!"
[ Smashing Pumpkins "La Dolly Vita"]
- We went looking for tone.
I mean, drum tone.
We had heard those Die Kreuzen records, the Killdozer records.
And that was big news back then,
as far as drums, density, bass, guitar.
I mean, there was some real cool things going on sonically.
- This was the first time we were working
with like an indie producer in his home studio
doing things his way.
It was all a world totally, completely beyond us.
And that formed the relationship between Butch and I about
what he thought the Smashing Pumpkins should sound like
and what I thought.
And we sort of found this nice balance,
which you can kind of hear on that first single,
which is "Tristessa" and the back is called "La Dolly Vita".
- The Smashing Pumpkins getting a record deal
with Caroline, wow.
Somebody at a big record company in New York
figured out that this band is great.
Like, that's the most amazing thing ever.
[ Smashing Pumpkins "I Am One"]
- When we went in to make "Gish" with Butch,
we knew what we wanted to sound like,
but we knew we wanted a really clear version of it.
We spent a tremendous amount of time sort of
getting the exact right sound.
So the exact right drum sound, the exact right bass sound,
and the exact right guitar sound.
- I wanted to make great sounding records.
And I think it was the first time
I felt a kinship with someone who really
wanted to go the extra mile and was
willing to take the time, and hopefully patience, to do that.
- Once we started making the "Gish" record,
we immediately went into a level of perfection
that neither one of us had ever experienced
in a situation like that.
- I met my match in Billy Corgan.
He pushed me as hard as he could,
and I pushed him right back.
- We had a song called "Rhinoceros" where the chorus is
[Billy Corgan sings] ?She knows, she knows, she knows
I sang "she knows" for eight hours,
punching in every "she knows."
And then we'd get it, and I'd think we were done.
I would sit down, and he'd go,
"I think, buddy, we could fix that."
And it was like... [mimics explosion]
- We never really compromised at all
in terms of what we wanted to do.
It's like, there's no Top 40 commercial songs
on that record.
- Together, we sort of formed this partnership of trust
to really push ourselves to another level.
I didn't realize I was working with a world-class producer.
I just thought I was working with somebody
who I got along with really well.
[ Smashing Pumpkins "I Am One"]
? Down
? So down
[hardcore guitar]
I remember sitting in what was the de facto office with him,
and he gets a call from--
I guess it would have been Geffen?
Kurt Cobain has said that he wanted Butch to produce
the record, and Geffen said no.
And the only way Butch could work on the record
is if the other guy would be the key producer
and Butch would be sort of the secondary producer.
And Butch was on the phone saying,
"No, I'm not going to do that."
And so he hangs up the phone and we have this whole conversation,
"Do you think I'm an idiot?"
- I hadn't recorded with them yet, but the guys had.
And Kurt and Chris were like,
"Well, let's just do it with Butch.
"What are we thinking? He's the greatest."
[ Nirvana "Polly"]
? Polly wants a cracker
- He took two guys named Kurt and Billy
who were from the basement.
They were writing about being alienated
and about being f#cked with.
And Butch took their rage, and their alienation,
and their incongruity with the world,
and bloated it into this giant guitar and drum-fueled canon
and said, "f#ck you."
[heavy rock guitar] [ Nirvana "Breed"]
- The day hair bands died--
The day that no one returned hair band phone calls anymore,
that day has a lot to do with right here.
- I remember being at the studio,
and the "Spin" magazine arrived with Nirvana on the cover.
We all were just staring at this cover
like we couldn't believe our friends Nirvana
or another band from the underground
was on the cover of "Spin" magazine.
- The reason that band was so f#cking great
was a certain percentage or a certain chunk of their being
was new.
It was that weird punk rock guilt-conflicted intention.
We want to make an album that
everyone will think is a masterpiece,
but we don't want to be the biggest band in the world.
But we do, but we don't.
But we do, but we really don't.
But we did, you know? [laughs]
[ Nirvana "Breed"]
? ?
- Nevermind 's out.
And we were with Butch the day that it went to number one.
He just looked like somebody who'd woken up in a weird dream.
He couldn't believe that he was the producer
of the number one record in the world.
And we were congratulating him, and you could just
see him wrestling with like, "What does this mean?"
Because very much part of Butch's story
was that rock and roll had sort of passed them by.
They start this little studio.
They're just going to kind of make their little indie records,
and they're going to sort of ride off in the sunset,
and they're going to have their beers.
And next thing you know--
[ Gumball "Accelerator"]
- If you get associated with enough great stuff,
that has a magnetism all its own.
- Once Butch was successful, people started to say,
"Is there something to be found here?"
And he had a lot to do with what set up
to be a very successful run with the studio.
- Smart became ground zero for a moment.
Because of the Pumpkins and Nirvana ,
it was a place where a lot of bands wanted to go record.
And all the labels started calling,
and management and publishers.
Everybody wanted to come and book the studio.
- He was getting faxes while we were there.
It would be like from the manager of The Cult
like offering him $100,000 to do a record or whatever.
We were laughing our heads off. It was awesome.
[ Cosmic Psychos "Dead Roo"]
- After Nirvana , it was not the same anymore.
It stayed casual, but there was just--
You know, some money was coming in.
And bands who weren't local were coming in,
and bands whose names you recognize were coming in.
- The Jayhawks , Son Volt , right into Hey Mercedes ,
right into Rainer Maria , right into Paris, Texas,
right into something else.
And it was just--
Literally just work, work, work, work.
- We never had a down day, I think,
for probably seven or eight years.
- They'd check in at the Aloha Motel out there,
and they'd be here for three months.
- Record companies shelled out all this money and said,
"OK, go make a record."
And so there was an available kind of
funding source for studios, and engineers, producers,
bands, artists to tap into.
- It was like a gold rush mentality.
It stopped being about music and art and culture
and it became about getting rich.
[ Killdozer "Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People)"]
? Knuckles the dog what a very good dog you are
- We would tour, and the bands that would be opening for us,
their concept was,
"We want to get picked up
"by some A&R rep from Arista Records
or from Columbia."
- They wanted that deal.
And it was a bad deal, but they wanted that deal.
Because that deal meant PR.
It meant, "Oh, God, somebody knows who I am.
"When I drive those forlorn miles in this pathetic van
to that next gig, someone may actually know who we are."
- Nirvana didn't just send the tape to Geffen Records.
They did it themselves.
They put out a single on Sub Pop.
[ Killdozer "Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People)"]
[cheers and applause]
[mellow acoustic guitar]
- We used to give Butch sh#t when we would work with him
because he would wear a vest.
We were like, "What's up with the f#cking vest?"
And he goes, "I look a little more official, don't I?"
It's a little more like, you know,
"I've got to produce the record. I come to work.
I wear my vest over the f#cking t-shirt."
He wasn't-- like, he wasn't your vision
of a rock and roll producer, let's put it.
But he did have the best.
- We all knew about Butch Vig.
But none of us knew who he was or where he came from.
Like he was just sort of
this weird sunglasses-wearing wizard.
- He could take a band like Nirvana and make Nevermind .
He could take a band like Sonic Youth and make Dirty .
And so you have these bands
that are teetering on the brink of chaos,
and there's a beauty inside there somewhere.
And Butch knows how to target that
and just yank it out and blow it up.
[ L7 "Freak Magnet"]
- Killdozer and, you know, the Sub Pop bands
were working with Butch.
And then, of course, Nirvana was working with Butch.
And I think I heard the Nirvana Demos.
- They were like, "Do you want to work with us on the next record?"
It was literally that casual
because they were hanging out at the studio with Nirvana .
- You could tell the guys working there just were not
impressed with us or something.
Like, we came in and it was just like, "Hi."
I couldn't figure out if they were intimidated,
or just quiet, or what.
- They were crazy.
It was just a fun, energized record.
And it's a total different energy
when you have four women feeding off each other in a room,
and then just how they interact.
- British reporter: Tell me about your producer, Butch Vig,
and what he brought to the band.
- Oh, he's a masturbating animal.
- I really try to figure out what the band
is trying to achieve and then
figure out a way to work with them to get to that level.
Everybody I'd run into goes, "What are those L7 gals up to?"
They had drug dealers coming by the studio, bookies.
I don't know how they got involved with bookies.
- On one level, he's very comfortable
being the guy from the Midwest.
You know, he still maintains his Wisconsin accent.
He loves his football team.
But yet he has a world-class level of talent.
The fact that Butch Vig became Butch Vig,
nobody knew that at the time.
You know, he had a reputation, and you'd meet him and say,
"Oh, that's the guy?"
He was more like the guy to come clean your pool or something.
"Hey, how's it going, buddy?"
[ Chainsaw Kittens "Flipped Out in Singapore"] ? What about babies born dead?
- Dave Grohl: Die Kreuzen or bands like Sonic Youth ,
I'm sure had a love of some sort of pop music
but couldn't really recognize that element in what they do.
But Butch managed to find it and say like, "Oh, it's OK.
"No, it's OK.
"Do that four times. Don't just do it twice.
And simplify, and make it sweeter."
- "Double that."
- "Oh, let's try to add a backing vocal."
"Oh, yeah, let's-- you know, let's add another guitar part."
-"You should try and repeat that
or make it more of a chorus-y kind of thing."
- "No, you can do that better. Try it again."
- He was able to bring a little bit of that pop passion
to those records.
Those records rock like hell, but they're really clear.
- There's the guitar.
There's the bass guitar.
There's the drums.
- The way that his records were organized--
the way that they are trustable and believable--
makes them durable.
- I had heard that Steve Albini used to criticize
my production, saying, "Butch Vig
just wants to make every band sound like The Beatles ."
And there is a little truth to that.
- He was never the fast-talking producer.
He was never the guy who was going to pump you up for a take
or anything like that.
He was just very sober, very even-handed, and very steady,
very working class.
? ? - One, two, three, four!
- Butch was one of the first producers
to come out of the underground
that wanted to turn your noisy garage band
into something that the whole world would love.
- After the success of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins ,
I started doing a lot of production outside of Smart.
I worked with Soul Asylum in Los Angeles,
Sonic Youth in New York, the Pumpkins in Atlanta.
And what I found frustrating is when I came back to Madison,
Smart was booked, and I couldn't get in to work.
- Seattle bands are coming in, all these different bands.
And Smart was gaining a certain national notoriety
as Steve and Butch decided one more time to remodel it.
[electric guitar feedback]
[heavy rock]
- We were able to fix the studio up
in some ways that I never dreamed even possible.
Finally, we had two control rooms
that sounded very accurate,
and I could hear really well,
especially when it came to mixing, what was going on.
The old design of Smart was almost specifically designed
for recording bands live
and getting this really, really intense sound.
And there had never been any design for those rooms.
It was haphazard,
and it was kind of an out-of-control sound.
But it had a vibe. It had a really intense sound.
- I remember we went back up there at some point
to do some B-sides after "Gish" came out.
And Butch was all proud--
"Oh, look, we've got this new design."
And it was never the same.
It was like they had taken the perfect mistake
and tried to make a real studio out of it,
and made the studio be not what it was, which was very unique.
I really regretted that they had gone ahead and done that
when they became very official
and more of a real studio
and suddenly had, like, stationery and stuff.
It felt very opposite of the place that I grew up in.
[ Freedy Johnston "This Perfect World"] ? This perfect world
? Something I can't begin to say
[tape played in reverse]
[upbeat percussion]
- You couldn't get that out-of- control drum sound anymore.
Consequently, I started to spend most of my time
in the control room and not in the studio.
It became sort of a different approach to recording,
because it was more experimental
and a little bit less traditional.
We got an amazing sound in the control room,
but we lost a bit of the vibe in the tracking room.
- I remember showing up for an interview,
and it smelled like fresh wood and fresh paint.
And everyone was bubbling about the new place,
and they needed an assistant engineer,
and that was going to be me.
? ?
- We became a professional studio.
We had a lot of people to pay, a lot of gear to pay for.
The rates had to go up.
- This was right after Nevermind,
and that was a big deal for this whole area.
- Before, Smart was kind of this hidden gem
that no one knew about.
Suddenly, everybody knew about it
and there's tons of attention.
- A humble building putting out some not so humble sounds.
- We were still trying to be awesome to Wisconsin bands.
But if there was a band coming in from overseas,
or from across the country,
they needed to think that this weird little studio in Wisconsin
is just as cool, or cooler than, the LA studios
or New York studios that they'd been to also.
- Play that back. That was really good.
That was six, right? - Yep.
- Listening. [ Marques Bovre and the Evil Twins "Take Care of My Soul"]
- After the success of Nirvana
and the Pumpkins and Sonic Youth ,
I felt like I was getting a bit pigeonholed,
and the only kind of records I could make were rock records.
[ Freedy Johnston "Evie's Garden"] ? In the middle of Evie's garden
I started getting interested in other types of music
that I wanted to record.
One of those artists was Freedy Johnston .
I fell in love with his songwriting,
and I had to produce him.
I just-- I had to.
- "This Perfect World" was Butch's first big record
at Smart-- at the new Smart.
Getting to know the new room, getting to know the new studio.
It was admirable to see somebody
step out of his comfort zone and succeed.
[rap song dance remix]
- Somewhere in '93, '94,
you started hearing all this music using samples
and just using the studio as the way to make music,
not simply using the studio to record a band.
There was this phenomenon over in England
where, if you didn't have a remix accompanying your single,
it affected your chances to get in the Top 10.
Bands like U2 , Depeche Mode .
There were a lot of bands that were requesting remixes.
I think it started with House of Pain .
[ House of Pain "Shamrocks and Shenanigans" (Boom Sha Lock Lock Boom) (Butch Vig Remix)]
- All right now.
? Boom sha lock lock boom
- A lot of people who did remixes
turned them into a four on the floor dance experience.
But we would just kind of rewrite a song.
It was through this whole process
of using the studio not to record a band,
but to just create that spawned the idea for Garbage .
- Duke and Steve and I started doing
a lot of crazy sonic experiments in the studio
using samplers, filters, tape loops, stomp boxes.
Sometimes, we would just come up with a crazy idea.
I'd get a sound in my head.
Why can't the guitar go "zhu zhu zhu zhu zhu zhu zhu zhu?"
[ Garbage "Vow"]
- ? I can't use what I can't abuse
Yeah, I was in Scotland when I got a phone call.
Butch Vig has been inquiring after you.
Would you be interested in taking a meeting with him?
And I was like, "I don't know.
Who the f#ck is Butch Vig?"
And as far as I was concerned, anyone who was called Butch
was worthy of complete disdain.
And I expected him to have like, you know,
receding hair and a mullet.
I mean, I just thought he would look like a sort of rock saddo.
[ Angelfish "Trash It"] ? Bang bang trash it
? Superman Bang bang trash it
Well, the first time I came to Smart,
I was on tour with my band Angelfish .
And I was on tour in America, and I took a couple of days off
to go and meet the band.
They brought me into the studio,
and I felt like I was maybe being scammed a little.
If the truth be told, I was like,
"OK, this is-- This is not right.
Something's going very wrong here."
Ernie and Mike worked there,
and they were all scuttling around in the background,
and really acting very strange,
and didn't really take me on much.
It was really odd.
- I was doing my best to do what needed to be done,
stay out of the way, speak very little.
And if I needed to say something,
make sure it was funny.
[ Garbage "Stupid Girl"]
- It was the place where you could shut the doors
and feel like everything was safe,
and we could make music and not be bothered by anybody,
and I could stick up posters and pictures
and just create a little haven to make music in.
It sounded fresh, and it came out of a grunge movement
where everybody was just plugging guitars in
and making a racket.
And then we came in and took all these little elements
and carefully shoved them and crafted them together.
- For so long, this new project was making this record
that no one knew about.
I was one of the few people who knew what was going on,
and how exciting it was, and how potentially-- you never know,
but it seemed like it was going to be pretty awesome.
[ Garbage "Run Baby Run"]
? Love can be so strange
? Don't it amaze you?
- Garbage being the main client in Studio A or Studio B
was a blessing and a curse.
We did four records there, spread over 10 years.
And each record took about a year.
But then, we would go on tour.
The tour took Duke, Steve, and me away from the studio.
So Mike had to really hustle to get bands in when we left town.
Not a good business model.
If you don't have rooms open,
bands will look for other studios.
[ Garbage "Run Baby Run"] ? Life can be so cruel
- Butch and Steve were not really the managers.
They didn't run the studio.
They owned the studio.
But they were also the main clients of the studio.
And there's a lot of levels of complexity
that most people didn't understand.
We knew what had to happen to keep working.
We just had to keep doing it.
[tape playing in reverse]
[traffic noise]
[strumming guitar]
- What happens in the cycle of a studio
is sort of dependent on the success
of some of the bands that record there.
And this is sort of a never ending cycle
because it keeps bringing in
fresh perspectives and new music,
and it brings in that "Do It Yourself" attitude.
Because whenever something gets popular
and becomes the mainstream,
there's always going to be a section of people
who want to kick against that.
- People who would come to Smart would learn about a studio.
And they would look around and say,
"I can put this together too,"
or "I'm going to try and do this myself."
Starting your own studio
was becoming easier and easier over the years.
Where, I think when Butch and Steve started,
no one even knew what a studio was in Wisconsin.
[acoustic guitar]
- There were bills to pay.
They were looking for work in video and in commercials--
any way to keep the place running
and to keep the room full.
- I remember hearing from a few different people like,
"Maybe you should get more ad clients,"
and "Maybe you should do more corporate work."
And I knew that that was a possibility
and that it would be a big change of direction,
but I also knew that everybody who liked working there
would no longer like working there.
- Smart was always this analog beacon to me.
Being fresh out of school, it was kind of
the mindset that when you are, like, a martial artist,
and you get your black belt,
that's really the beginning of your training, you know?
It's not the end of it.
And getting to Smart was really the beginning for me
to start my training.
And although it's getting cut significantly short
for what I was hoping,
at the same time,
there's just this weird energy in the back of my mind
that has a good feeling.
[ Poop Shovel "One Pass Away"]
- Spaces can become a little conduit to your favorite band.
So if you walk into Smart like I did,
you feel immediately somehow a conduit to...
That's just what happened in my brain,
and I'm sure that happens to a lot of musicians.
They step into a space, and they're like,
"This is where these amazing records were made."
Somehow this gets me closer.
Somehow this is one step towards intimacy
with these amazing artists.
And I think that's why we do claim hallowed ground
around certain studios.
- The incubator of a whole generation--
a couple generations of music.
Not just alternative rock.
Not just angry, loud rock.
- The reason was to make music, and the love of records.
That's all it was.
If we had thought of it as a professional recording studio,
it wouldn't have happened.
- When Smart finally closed, I didn't feel like,
"Oh, it's the end of an era."
I felt like the era had moved on with the culture.
- I think that things work in cycles.
And the last season was ready to burn out,
and it was time for something else, you know?
- Smart Studios was never made to be a f#cking museum.
Smart Studios was about present moment.
It's as compelling and critical
to the history of recorded music as anything.
- Out of this ugly little brick building
in the middle of nowhere, we were able to make something--
us and all these amazing musicians--
something that reached out and touched the world.
- People felt like this was their home.
It was their clubhouse.
They could get away from the rest of the world--
from their record company, from their families
if they needed to, whoever.
From their crazy boyfriend or girlfriend.
They could just come in here,
and it was a sanctuary to a certain extent.
Everybody who worked here was always conscious
of trying to make sure that they were taken care of in that way,
that they felt like this was a place that was theirs,
that they owned that when they were here.
- There is something holy about it when you get it right--
when you get the synchronicity between the gear,
and your inspiration, and your intuition.
There's a lot of magic moments to be had.
It's pretty fascinating, when you think of Smart Studios,
all the magic moments that happened
in this, basically, little sh#thole.
[ Against Me! "New Wave"]
? We can control the medium
? We can control the context of presentation
? Well is there anybody on the receiving end
? Reaching out for some kind of connection?
? Come on and wash these shores away
? I am looking for the crest
? Looking for the crest of a new wave
? We can be the bands we want to hear
? We can define our own generation
? Well is there anybody on the receiving end?
? Are you ready to brave new directions?
? Come on and wash these shores away
? I'm looking for the crest
? Looking for the crest of a new wave
? Let breathe new dawn
? This art is dead!
? No signs of original thought in the mainstream
? So is there anybody on the receiving end?
? We can eclipse all that came before us
? Come on and wash these shores away
? I'm looking for the crest
? Looking for the crest of a new wave
? ?
[ Killdozer "King of Sex" (Butch Vig Remix)]
[cheeky instrumental]
[suggestive moaning and groaning]
Whoohoo!
? I am the king of sex
? And I come from the state of Texas
? I am the king of sex
? They make us big down in the state of Texas
? Neither Christ nor the Holy Ghost
? Can quite satisfy a woman's soul
? I know what a woman craves the most
? There ain't no man alive
? Can make a woman as whole as I can
? He can.
? As I can.
? He can.
? Yes, as I can.
? He can.
? Yeah, baby, as only I can.
[apathetic moaning and groaning]
Oh, God.
Slap me.
Hit me.
Harder.
Tighter.
Harder.
Thrust me.
I'm hot.
I'm nasty.
[moaning]
Hot and nasty.
Whoohoo!
[moaning]
? I am the king of sex
? And I come from the state of Texas
? Yes I am the king of sex
? From the mighty and glorious state of Texas
? Every night, I have a tryst
? I know how to set hearts on fire
? I'm the one that women cannot resist
? I am the object of their burning desire
? Neither Christ nor the Holy Ghost
? Quite knows how to satisfy in my soul
? I know what it is that a woman may crave the most
? Ain't a man alive can make a woman quite as whole as I can
? He can
? As I can
? He can
? Yes, as I can
? He can
? Yeah, baby, as only I can
[moaning and groaning]
? Here I come
? I'm the king of sex
? I am the king
? Yes, I am the king
? There's no man alive-- I am the king
? Spread your legs
? Here comes the king
? Pull up your shirt because here comes the king
? Lay down in my bean bag chair
? I am the king
? And it will be nice I am the king of the sex
? I'll make you feel good, baby
? Let me show you some loving, baby
? Let me show you all my loving
? Because I am the king of what feels good
? Yeah!
- The Smart Studios Story
is available for download at
the Smart Studios Story dot com.