You may not know him personally, but if you listen to local independent music on a regular basis, you have most definitely heard the work of engineer/producer Jeremy Ferguson. Working out of his studio, Battle Tapes Recording, he has manned the boards for Be Your Own PET, The Privates, Turbo Fruits, Apollo Up!, Hands Down Eugene, De Novo Dahl…. we could go on for a while, but surely you get the picture. In a city where recording studios are as plentiful as churches and liquor stores, Battle Tapes has become an important place for young, creative artists who want to make a record that doesn’t cost as much as a small SUV. We recently caught up Mr. Ferguson after a very busy year.
WOTT: So, how did you get into this mess of recording/producing bands? What is your recording philosophy? What do you do when you’re not recording bands?
I grew up in Southern Indiana where the total number of bands playing original music live in town could be counted on one, maybe two hands if you were lucky. I had friends that played music and who I knew from school or shows and I played some with them but they had their “serious” bands so I never got to play shows with any of their “side projects”. I used to take a little cassette boom box with me to shows to record them for my buddies and then we found out you could take a cassette deck and hook it up directly to their old mixing desk… that was amazing to all of us. Shortly thereafter, my dad’s friend recorded one of our side project bands covering some Weezer songs in my parents’ garage on his cassette 8-track. Kinda blew our minds… or at least mine. Then, I got it in my head that I’d get a 4-track to record demos with these friends and maybe even my own stuff some day. I got a Yamaha MT4X, Peavy mic, and a Radio Shack PZM mic and started going. Got a Roland VS880 8-track next. Went to school for advertising for a few years and realized it wasn’t my cup of tea. Moved to Murfreesboro knowing only two people and went to MTSU. I was already pretty burnt on school by this point and, though MTSU was really good for getting into “bigger studios” and using real gear, I found myself much less interested in having people tell me where to put a mic than going out and doing it myself around town in bands’ houses or practice spaces or with my old band, Mercator. Finished school with an internship at Alex the Great under Brad Jones, Robin Eaton, and Eli “Lij” Shaw, which really kicked my love of the studio up a few notches. A few years later, I moved up to Nashville and started Battle Tapes.
My recording philosophy is record as much as possible, try to make it sound as exciting or as interesting as possible, keep everyone having fun and feeling comfortable, mistakes aren’t always bad, tone is in the fingers or in the player, perform as if it’s the only take you’ll get, blah blah, more stuff. Basically, make the best record you can or don’t bother.
When I’m not recording, I like to do normal human things like read fantastic books, watch amazing movies or unbelievable television, cook delicious foods, and sleep.
WOTT: What have you been up to in 2009, and what are your plans for 2010?
2009 was much like the past number of years… a blur of records and wonder. I worked on some of the my favorite things yet, some amazing records were released that I’m really proud of, met new bands and people that I love, lost a few of the same ilk… 2009 was a very literal year in a number of ways.
2010… well, some stuff i started in 2009 will be finished. I can’t wait for people to get their hands on the new Tristen record, the new Bad Cop, and especially the new (final?) Hotpipes album. I have some fun stuff planned for the studio and a lot of improvements and ideas of improvements and ideas for releases in various forms that may or may not come to fruition based on time and economics and the sun (or was it the moon?)
WOTT: What are your favorite / not so favorite things about being an engineer?
My favorite things all revolve around making enough of a living to (mostly) survive by doing one of the things that fascinate me and that I love the most in the world: the creation/destruction of sounds/music/etc. Finding inspiration from the simplest things like how someone can move the air around just enough to make it feel like more than it should be. It’s all math and movement but it’s still pretty unbelievable sometimes.
The things i don’t like… any time i find myself complaining about the job, I try to remind myself that it’s a pretty great “gig”, compared to what i could be up to… but peeves i have are:
- + Bands not preparing for the financial side of recording. I understand if you have bills to pay but so do I, and this is how I pay for it. So, pay me. (though this is also the least fun part of running a business… and why I’d love to have a business manager)
- + While the job is the best thing I can think of, it doesn’t mean that it’s not really hard or very taxing. It’s not all fun and hanging out, and, unlike most jobs, I don’t leave this one at the office, it occupies 98% of my mind 95% of the time. (actual math.)
- + The part where you spend most of your time sitting down or feeling like the older you get, the more your body is breaking down from not jumping off walls every time you change the volume of a guitar.
- + What happened to all that big label money? Oh yeah… shit.
WOTT: What is your favorite recording, and why, and if you could record any artist, living or dead, who would it be, and why?
I really don’t think I could answer what my favorite recording is. I love too many in too many different ways. It’d be like choosing your favorite wife, and God knows that once you get wife number four pissed off, wife number ten is gonna be pushing her buttons to come at you in your sleep.
That being said, I seem to prefer recordings of the 1960s the most (really? shock!) and most of my favorite records are probably by these really underground bands called the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Bob Dylan. And, outside of those amazing musicians, engineers, and producers from Nashville ( Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding), Los Angeles ( Phil Spector’s records and Wilson’s Pet Sounds and Smile), New York (Highway 61 Revisited), and London (Abbey Road, Olympic, Trident), you can’t discount those amazing sounds from Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Chicago.
Any artist living or dead… I think being a staff engineer or producer at any of the big studios in the big cities in 1960s would probably cover a lot of ground so let’s go with that one… I won’t be too picky there.
WOTT: Do you have any advice for up and coming bands for recording, whether it be in their basement or in a studio?
Technology is in a place where you can easily record yourself. for not much money or investment in time, you can set up sometime that will adequately record your sounds or music. If you are so inclined, you can keep that going and learn the whole process and, the more you do it, the better you’ll get. This could be your unique perspective, like that of any artist. If that’s good enough for you, you’ve made yourself a record. Don’t listen to what other people tell you what a record should be. Some of the best records would have never been made had those artists listened to that sort of advice.
That being said, there are plenty of people out there, especially in Nashville, who would be more than happy to help you make that record if you don’t want to do it yourself or if you can’t figure it out. Listen to the records you really love and find out who made those, or ask your friends’ bands what they think… talk to different studios and have a meeting with the engineer you’d be working with and discuss what you’re going for or what you like about recordings… it could be that you end up talking to me, and wouldn’t that be nice?
Interview conducted by Ryan Ervin