Mixing Toward the Magic Moment
Continuing the conversation with Robbie McGrath, sound engineer for The Rolling Stones, as talk turns to gear, history and the next generation
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During the course of covering the people and technology behind the current Rolling Stones tour, I had several occasions to talk with Robbie McGrath. In the November-Decent issue of Live Sound, Robbie didn't hold back in sharing his experiences of working with the band and his views of the music industry in general. In further conversations held wherever/whenever possible at tour stops in Washington D.C. (suburban Maryland), Nashville and Chicago, he continued to be very generous with his time and willingness to offer takes on a wide range of aspects related to the tour, gear and life in the concert sound business. |
Finding ourselves together on a new Prevost somewhere in Maryland prior to the Fed Ex Field show in early October 2002, we watched a re-energized db Sound crew go about their business in enthusiastic manner. There was one more arena show following to follow and then it was time for the tour's first break. This would be the last show for Harry Witz (at least for a while), departing after a month of overseeing one of the biggest projects his company has ever undertaken.
Robbie and I boarded a crew bus outside the stadium and after we got settled, he launched into a discussion about gear used on the tour. "We couldn't do all the different-sized venues the way we're doing them now without the gear we have. At least we couldn't do them nearly as slick as we're doing them now. Today everything is so smart and so well done. Just look at those XTA crossovers in the system's control unit - they're phenomenal and you can do so much with them.
"And the Midas XL4 (console) - the sound out of the XL4 is just so good. On top of that, you use it with these line array systems, which are phenomenal themselves in what they deliver to these big spaces. I'm just getting off on the fact that I don't have to beat up systems like I use to. And everything is at the tip of my fingers. The only thing is that there's no hiding place. If you mess up, really do mess up.
"You can put a feel into a system now. You can have a '60s feel or a '70s feel or a reggae feel, whereas years ago you had to get the type of PA for the kind of feel you wanted. They're also beating the environments we're putting them into, not exciting the halls, the reverberations aren't as bad, the systems are more directed to the crowd, where the sound should be going."People ask me all the time about when I'm going to retire. I always say 'when we get it right,' and we're getting pretty close to getting it right. What used to worry me was that I would get off the road and some young guy would come along and make this great breakthrough, and then I would be regretting that I didn't stay in for another five years. So, I'm glad I stayed in for all the new line array technology."
CUTTING TO THE QUICK
He paused, and I took the opportunity to ask about the concert industry. Was it getting stale or boring? Which way should we go with technology? As I've learned, his answers are always a treat due to his unpredictability. He sat up excitedly and cut to the quick.
"I think what we need is a new wave of musicians to come out and start writing music that's relevant to a its generation. We need the whole generation to come out and feel that they're relevant to themselves. We haven't had any of that. We haven't had a generation that has come out and said, 'I don't care what was done before, we're going to change things.'
"Okay, I know most of the hippies ended up wearing suits and ties and are now working for IBM or whatever. But when you look back at the '60s and you look back to the acid, the peace and love, it had a great effect on politics. It had a great effect on wars. People don't just run off to go to war now without thinking that the whole American population or English population won't end up on the streets going 'Hold on - we're not sending our kids to war.' That all happened because of the '60s, because of that whole era. I could be wrong. But I feel it was a very colorful time to live. It brought a lot to civilization.
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"I think the '70s were great - the whole glam rock thing. However, the '70s had a lot poured into it. There was the disco movement. There was glam rock. There were definitely two sides to the '70s - there was the early and then the later. In the '80s we had great bands like the Smiths, the Boom Town Rats, Echo and the Bunnymen, U2 and the list goes on." This opened the opportunity to ask who he's worked for in the last couple of decades. I knew of Simply Red, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Mark Knopfler and The Stones. He offered up the ones that he could remember and some of the highlights of his career. "Echo and the Bunnymen. For years, I was a Bunny person. They were great. I really thought they would have kept up with U2, but they didn't. |
Also Tears For Fears. I started off with them on their first album, and when they came up with the second, Songs from the Big Chair, it sounded great in the studio so they took it on the road. When we were touring America, we were doing clubs, and overnight it went from clubs to arenas. That was one great tour to be on because everyone was connecting and there was a huge buzz. Everything was getting bigger and better and more exciting by the minute.
"They were a great band to work with because they were sticklers for sound. After that, I can't remember - it's a bit of a blur. I think it was Sinead O'Connor there for a while. They're all great artists and deserve everything. People always ask me, 'whose the worst band you've ever worked for?' I don't think I have a worst band because once you've lived with these people for a certain amount of time and you get to know where they're coming from, you can't criticize them. The Clash was an amazing band. It's a real shame they broke up. But then again I think they broke up because they felt the edge was going, the energy was going, maybe. I don't think it was just musical differences. To keep a band going you have to have a certain edge. That's what's wonderful about The Stones. How have they done it for so long? I believe their relationships are real, and within their relationships, they express themselves. They're not afraid to say what they want to say. They can fall out, they can fall in. They are very real people."
MAKING THE COMMITMENT
So you see them getting on as old friends would get along? I asked. "Not as any family would get on," McGrath replied. "Sometimes around Christmas dinner, family can be the biggest pain in the ass. But The Stones go through all the various emotions and they don't run away from them. They're not like 'oh let's get divorced.' I think they're one of the few bands left that understand the word "commitment": commitment to rock 'n roll, commitment to their music, commitment to their life style, commitment to their friends and commitment to each other."
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Jake Berry is known for putting together some of the largest productions in history. So I turned our conversation in Jake's direction by asking the simple question: "what's it like to work with Jake?" McGrath paused a moment before going on. "I suppose its like working with the top of anything. First, he's great at what he does, the best at what he does. He's got a mind like a steel trap - you just have to make sure you cover your ass. He won't take any shortfalls, wants 110 percent out of you. Just getting 110 percent out of yourself can be a pain, and it's much harder when someone else tries to get it out of you. |
So if you're going to work on his level, yeah, he'll press your buttons. In the long run, he gets something out of you that you normally wouldn't give to most people."
Noting that I'd been watching the crew pretty closely at several stages of this tour, I mentioned how it appears every single person is giving 110 percent, but that I've also noticed some fall-out from that because of the pressure an ambitious tour like this can dish out. So I asked about how a group of people can keep up with this type of grind.
Solemn for the first point in our discussion, he took his time in forming his reply. "Crew burnout hurts me so bad," he said in a hollow voice. "It really hurts my inner soul - I just hate to see these great guys walking around half-dead. I've seen it happen before, and it always gets better. What happens is they walk in and everybody tells them 'this is going to be the hardest thing you ever done in your life.' They obviously look at whatever's been the hardest thing in their life and they try to compare it to that. But nothing compares to this kind of tour. It's a 24-hour-a-day kind of hard, and then there's a lot of pressure on top.
"But it has to be done this way because every day the band doesn't play a show, it's costing a fortune. Every extra day a crew has to be hands on, especially union hands, it costs so much money. Why do it in two days if you can do it in one day and it's a lot cheaper and a lot more efficient? That is what we have to strive for. Another aspect: if bands don't make money on the road, if bands can't go to all of this great expense and lavishness and commit with the money, nobody's going to do it. If they don't do it, then we don't have a job. It's a Catch-22 situation. You've got to be able to have the band put on a great show; otherwise, they won't come out on tour. They'll decide 'well, we'll just do an album, we'll do a couple of videos, and leave it at that.'
"Of course, The Stones are unique and the fact is when it comes to live performances, they're very, very good at it. They realize that they create a lot of energy and they generate a lot of cash flow through their live work. As long as we people on the road get paid, we'll be doing this work. You see, it's one thing to go through torture but then when you get home, you see a big chunk of money in the bank and see there's something you can do with your life. You can invest it into a new house, you can buy the car you never thought you would have, you can take your family on holiday, you can become human and really enjoy yourself."
WHERE ARE THE YOUNGSTERS?
"There are not a lot of young people coming into this business like they used to, because it's not as attractive as it used to be," he continued. "By the time you start earning what I'm earning, man, you're burnt out! If I was starting all over again, I don't know if I could start at this level. You hear some people complain that ticket prices are too high. Well, look at what we're doing here! You don't hear them complaining when they've just seen and heard one of the best shows of their lives, now do you?"
I point out, in general, that the db Sound crew is mixed in age, with some first-time hitters and seasoned veterans working along side each other. "Like this kid D.J.," he laughs, referring the youngest member of the crew. "One of the things he has going for him is he's young enough to take the beating. Now he has to make up his mind as to whether he wants to stay in or not. What area he wants to go into. With us, with me, nobody asked me what area I wanted to get into. What area? We did everything! I did production. I did tour management. You automatically fell into tour and production management and a lot of that stuff because that's the way it was, so that's what you did.
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"You would look after the flock, you ended up booking the hotels, and then bit by bit, it got bigger and bigger and bigger, until you'd have four trucks and a crew of 50 and you were looking after everything. That's what happened to me. Then all of a sudden, I found myself away from mixing sound. This was awful - all I wanted to do was mix sound. So, I stopped everything. When I received phone calls asking for a tour manager or a production manager to work for whomever, I would say no. I just wanted to do sound. "Then everyone was saying, 'he can't get away with that.' I didn't get a job for a whole summer, so I worked on building sites, mixing cement, carrying rods. |
This was back in the middle '80s, before the Tears for Fears tours. That was the first time I was just the sound engineer. But trying to get that to happen, I had turn down jobs and go mix cement, waiting for my little world to change. But I'm glad I did it.
"You have to look at this business and just take what you want of it. Somewhere along the line you get too old to take the beating. But you really need to focus on where you're going and what you're doing. Get the best out of it. There are a lot of people like me that would love to load trucks and pull feeder, but now at this age, I don't want to do that even if it means I don't get a job offer. That's for the young kids now.
"However, how many of them would be able to do a disco mix if they had to put one together? How many of them could look at a band that came out of the late '60s and put the right feel to them? It's great to see young D. J. coming into it, because it's the second generation. It's in the blood. It's in the gene pools or however you want to put it. That's good. He's young but he's able to handle it. He's got the backup from family, and that's a great thing to have. That will help the whole thing develop."
"I'm glad we're talking about everything - I get so fed up listening to people rap on just about gear. Why are you really in this business? Why did you get into it? What was it that attracted you? The MUSIC. It's like anyone who gets into books, poetry. Music is the same thing. It's great for that moment when you've got the whole place happening and it's all just cracking off. The band is great. The temperature is perfect. The crowd is into it. Magic moments. That's what it's all about."
Nort Johnson is traveling with The Rolling Stones to present behind-the-scenes coverage of sound and production for the Licks concert tour.
January 2003 Live Sound International