The other big component alongside that is that the album has a looser feel overall. There's an avant-jazz influence to it that reminds me some of latter-day Fugazi. I imagine some of this is a mixture of your natural progression as a songwriter as well as the influences around you, but I think it's also due in part to the studied approach you've been taking with your music.

Alex: Yes, exactly. Ches has a lot to do with it -- he definitely brings that edge to the music. We will start a song and Ches will do things that don't sound quite right, and oftentimes David and I will argue with him about making it simpler, or whatever, and he'll say, "No. I'm not going to do that." And what are you going to say? The guy is the best drummer around. Then when we finally record the song and listen back to it I go, "Ahhh...now I get it!" Ches has the power of doing stuff that is not obvious but that makes sense in the big picture. If he had done what I had wanted him to do it wouldn't have sounded as good, and it certainly wouldn't have sounded as different.

That puts you in an interesting position because you're both the musician and the person behind the board engineering what's being recorded. As the one who's leading the band from the client side as well as directing the band from the production side, do you find it hard to keep a critical ear at times?

Alex: Not really. I never really have had a hard time applying a critical opinion to anything. [Laughs] At some point I would like to work with somebody else, but right now it's a question of money. I'm not opposed to it, but at the moment it's the only way to get things going in a decent way with the money we have.

Do you feel like you get your money's worth out of yourself?

Alex: [Chuckles] I think I'm undercharging myself...as usual.

As both a musician and a producer/engineer, are you satisfied with how Counter-Culture Nosebleed came out in terms of the strength of its songs and the quality of its production?

Alex: Yeah, definitely. Any time you do a record and you get some hindsight things will change, but I think this album is a very accurate representation of where we were at at the time. For the new album I want to do some of the songs are a little bit different -- maybe even a little bit more weird, and at the same time more upbeat.

Counter-Culture Nosebleed is a great representation of the period during which it was recorded. A lot of the songs on the album are over three years old and written before David was in the band. The new stuff we're doing is obviously a complete group effort, so it's going to be interesting comparing the two.

I was looking at your discography as a producer/engineer before this interview and it's quite lengthy. How many projects do you take on in a given year? Are there particular artists who seek you out and, conversely, are there certain artists you wish would seek you out?

Alex: Within a year I probably do between 12 and 20 albums. Maybe more...it depends. This year, for example, all of January was spent with The Locust, but in the three weeks that followed that I did three more albums with three other bands. So it varies, but on average between one and two albums a month.

There's a lot of bands out there that I do really want to work with. One of them is The Icarus Line, who are getting ready to do an album. I would love to do that album and I'm talking with them right now about it.

You've also worked with them previously, correct?

Alex: Yes. I did their last album. There's a band from England called Icara Cult. I think they're one of the best bands I've heard. I'm talking to them as well, so that's a possibility, and I'd be really excited if it happens.

A lot of the bands that I really admire I get in touch with them and see if we can do it. In the case of the Polysics, it worked out. There's a few other bands that didn't work out. A lot of times I'll get e-mails from people about sending along a CD and getting together and I think "yeah, whatever," but a lot of times what I get is great.

What kind of criteria do you require of a band wanting to record with you?

Alex: They have to be good. They just have to be good at what they do. I don't really care what kind of music it is, with the exception of metal, or country and western, or electronic music...because I don't like working with those styles. I like listening to them, but it's not my thing in the studio. They just have to be good at what they do, or there has to be some kind of spark there or something original in their sound that I can enjoy working on. If I'm going to be in a studio 12 hours a day for a month I have to like the music and I have to like them as people, to a degree.

You've worked with some well-known bands, like the previously mentioned Icarus Line, as well as band like The Melvins and, most notably, At the Drive-In and one of its two off-shoots, Mars Volta. You're well known and well respected in circles in the music business, but you're not a household name like Steve Albini or Jack Endino, although you have the same credentials, experience and a similar aesthetic in your approach to recording.

Alex: Yeah, but both of those guys have been doing it a lot longer than me, you know? And they've also done records that have been big. Nirvana's In Utero is the obvious one that springs to mind. I've done a lot of albums, and a lot of those albums have gotten critical acclaim, but I've not done a record that has sold a million copies. And that's the simple fact right there.

Both you and Ross Robinson -- one of the most recognizable producers out there -- have worked with At the Drive-In. What do you hear in his work that you don't in yours, and vice-versa?

Alex: I hear a better quality in Robinson's mix because of Andy Wallace. The record I did with At the Drive-In probably cost $5,000, whereas Relationship of Command cost something like $300,000 or $400,000. So I would expect the quality of the mix to be better.

Would you like to be able to command that kind of salary?

Alex: Um... sure. [Laughs] Obviously if the band has the budget available, then yes. That's what people get paid so there's no reason why I shouldn't be paid that as well. But at the same time that's obviously not why I do this. I don't have any real concern about that.

What are your expectations as a producer and engineer, and where would you like to see yourself go in that role?

Alex: Everything! I learn from every single thing I do. I look forward to every single session I do. I work with bands that have bigger budgets and are well known, but I still enjoy working with really small bands. I just produced a record working inside this small studio for a band called Leopold, who don't even have a label and are paying for it themselves. Working with them was a hell of a lot of fun.

I always learn something during every session, so I try to keep it as varied as possible. I would like to vary a little in regards to the music I produce. I mean, I love loud guitar bands and everybody knows it [laughs]. Which is why those bands call me. But once in a while I would like to do something different.

Can you give me an example of a band or artist that's different that you'd like to work with?

Alex: A little while ago I was talking to Tom Waits, which would have been fantastic. But it was a catch-22 for me. I sent a CD of my work to Tom and he was basically like, "Well, this stuff sounds great but it's totally not what I do. This is not how I sound." But, you know, I'm really not worried about it. All of the bands I work with are great. It just seems like a matter of time before other things will start to work out.

It sounds like you've been steadily getting busier. Every time I speak with you you've got more work lined up with bands you like working with doing sessions that turn out well for everyone involved.

Alex: That's why I'm not really worried about the big budget salary records or whatever, because at this point I couldn't be happier. I'm working with bands that are all great. I look at my discography and they're all great; they're all bands that I would go out and buy their records were I not involved with recording them. And I don't think anyone could ask for much more than that, you know?

This is very true.

Alex: I look at other people's discographies and I'm sure they got paid a lot of money for recording the bands they worked with, but the bands are just garbage. I mean, I wouldn't really want to have them listed myself.

You come from the old school of album production where less is more in the studio. Your focus has always been on quality microphones, using analog tape, and no computer gimmickry. I'm wondering with the prevalence of software packages like ProTools that's given a person without much skill or knowledge the edit mistakes or auto-tune off-key vocals, and do things like overdub entire orchestras with a couple of mouse clicks, do you see any place in the recording studio for this type of technology?

Alex: I'll use ProTools when I need to, but it really depends on the band. That's the thing, it really depends on the band. I hated ProTools for so many years and I hated digital recording for the wrong reasons. I was blaming the system itself which, these days, I'm starting to realize is not really the problem. When I do stuff on ProTools it doesn't sound so band. It doesn't sound quite as nice as tape, but it's not that bad. And the thing that I realized is it's the system itself that's the problem. It's the people that use the technology that's the problem.

You just brought up the point that with computer software pretty much anybody can be a producer or engineer. On one hand that's a great thing, because it's such a hard business to get into and there are people with talent who cannot get into it because they're not given the right breaks. At the same time you get people that are totally useless amateurs making records.

Computer software recording allows pretty much anybody to say, "Okay, I'm engineer. Okay, now I'm a producer." And they don't understand... One thing about a lot of those people is that they're not musicians -- they don't understand music. I could never understand someone who produces records and is not, or hasn't been, a musician to some degree, at least.