Unfortunately, that's a lot of people in general on the business side, and not just producers.

Alex: How can you possibly relate and interface with musicians if you don't play something? Just a little bit, even. It doesn't make any sense to me. I've done stuff in ProTools where I've just made a couple of small edits, or have moved something around like a little vocal or keyboard part, and it sounded fine. But I hear these records where people put everything in ProTools. They quantize all the drums, they auto-tune the vocals, and it's just horrendous. It's just terribly horrible.

So then, what makes a good album sound good to you?

Alex: A good band. It's usually that simple. People talk about the recording of At the Drive-In, and the production, and blah-de-blah, and the fact is you'd have to be an idiot to fuck up one of their records. The same goes for Mars Volta and Sparta. Both are really good bands that pretty much anybody could record. They're simply great bands.

Sometimes you can have great bands that are a little unfocused, and that was definitely the case of At the Drive-In, so it's simply a case of getting people focused, making sure they're on the same page, and getting the music down. And it varies from band to band. Every band is totally different. I'm about getting the best performance out of a band, however that becomes necessary.

You spend a lot of time traveling to various studios near and far to record bands. Do you have the desire at all to construct a studio of your own at some point and cut down on the number of frequent flyer miles you're accumulating?

Alex: You know, I think about it all the time. But at the same time, everybody I know who owns a studio is a basket cast. It's such a headache. You get in so much debt, you have to have insurance, you have to deal with getting paid all the time. It's a very, very complicated thing, and my fear is that it's just going to take me away from the music. When I have to start worrying about tape machines that break down, computers that don't work, or microphones that go bad, it gets in the way of the music. So I don't know if I'll ever get to that point.

Do you take any gear of your own to a studio, or do you go to a studio depending on what they have to provide you?

Alex: I have a few things of my own that I use. I have a lot of amps, a bunch of snare drums, and stuff like that. I don't really have too many microphones of my own these days, usually because most of the studios I'm working in at this point have pretty good mikes. The other reason is that flying these days with boxes of things with a lot of metal and wire is not such a great idea, you know? So I usually take a case full of pedals, a little sampler I use, and amps and snare drums. That's pretty much what I use.

What kind of advice would you give to somebody who was thinking about going into the music business and becoming an engineer or producer?

Alex: Probably to seek out some really good bands. [Laughs] That's the main thing. It's like I said before: if you work with good bands and stick to that, you can't go wrong. Basically, that's what I've done. I've been broke for years because I would only work with bands that were good, and most of them had no money. So I was broke, and I turned down a lot of jobs that would've paid good money because I thought the bands were horrible and I didn't want my name on it in any way. My reasoning at the time was that it would eventually pay off. Just build up a high quality list of things I'd been involved with and everything else would follow.

Have you ever had a session that you were dissatisfied with?

Alex: No, I don't think so. Not necessarily. There's been a couple of time that I've co-produced with bands, which I now do not do anymore. They weren't unpleasant situations, but doing it that way really slows things down to a huge degree. Most bands need producing, whether the producer simply gets the same people in the same room at the same time and gets them playing, or whether it's completely tearing apart their songs and helping them with vocals, and even lyrics. But most bands need somebody from the outside with a respected, objective opinion. I always think it's good to have someone from outside.

Nothing I've done I feel really bad about at all. I do care about which bands I work with. I'll meet with them to try to figure out if it's going to be a good working situation, and if it's not I won't do it. I'll suggest somebody else, or I'll suggest a different way to do it. So I've been pretty lucky with that.

Are there any bands at the moment you'd recommend to our readers?

Alex: There's a band from LA called Distortion Felix, that I think are great. Polysics are the band from Japan that I just worked with who I think are just fantastic. There's a band called Big in Japan who are from Reno, Nevada, who I think are great. They just put a CD out on Honest Don's. The new Primal Scream is also very, very good.

Coming back around to your band, you were talking about another Theory of Ruin album in the works in the not too distant future.

Alex: We're planning to record in the summer. We have six or seven songs right now, so we need a couple of more. Basically, as soon as possible. We're really excited to do it. It's just difficult finding the time, but that's the way it goes. I just did ten days on this session. I've got five days off at the moment, but I'm going to band practice tonight. We just cram it in whenever we can and set up things ahead of time as much as possible.

I'm glad that you and the band are still making music.

Alex: I wouldn't change it for the world. It's really hard sometimes to find the time and do it in-between my other work. When I was doing the Locust album we worked solid in the studio for two weeks, and I took one day off between the recording and mixing and flew back to Oakland to do band practice. And the next morning I got up at 5am and flew back down to LA to mix. A lot of times it's not easy to do, but I'm totally dedicated. That's the way it goes, and I wouldn't change it at all.

On the web:
Theory of Ruin
Alex Newport

Inside Earpollution:
Counter-Culture Nosebleed album review
Live review (18 December 1999, Seattle, WA)
Interview (April 1999)