A Look Inside Billy Bob Thornton's Recording Studio - With Marc Daniel Nelson

[Music] welcome Mark Daniel Nelson here with make m music today we have one of my favorite episodes that I've done in the last five years my good friend Billy Bob Thorton and JD Andrews from box Masters has their Studio out here and we are doing a special Studio tour so let's go take a look hello Mark oh my God what are you doing here what is happening here I can't believe it JD and I always come to the door together we're like The Beverly Hillbillies coolest part about the studio that you showed me JD was how you guys track and how you were able to do music so fast there's guitar is everywhere every instrument you could ever imagine is set up but your process is you have everything miked up and set up at all times ready to go so you can record yeah come in push the button everything's connected you know it's a it's a nice way of doing it Billy had a studio at his house when we first met it was maybe half the size of this place the control room was very small so once we got this when we walked into it it was all ready for us we were able to kind of start fresh and like oh how would I want to set this up so we already had the console and so the thing that I hit me instantly was I don't want to have to use the console for tracking I didn't want to have to run headphone mixes or use the mic PR in it I wanted to be able to just be like I'm mixing all the time in here and kind of the place that gave me the idea for it was uh we went to Barefoot one time and tracked uh a few songs there and they had their mic PR out in the live room and the console was just set as it's a line mixer and I was like first off it sounded amazing there and two it was just like oh this is a great way to work because you're not you know you're not rech you're not repatching you're not changing you know switching out um you know the pr for you know mixing and stuff like that so you're just always mixing in here always recording in here right so so we set up our mic PR are all in the room but it was kind of like let's just have it so everything is going to tape all the time we got the headphone system so it's just coming straight off of tape and you can kind of mix your own and it's set up completely at all time totally set up yeah exactly Billy this is your drum set mhm what year is that set those are pretty new probably five six years old something like that maybe yeah what what color would you call that well what happened was I played uh I started out as a kid with lwig it was my first actual drum kit you I had you know stuff from Sears that had like cardboard heads on it and stuff but when I was I guess 12 or 13 something like that I got a red sparkle lwig kit I always I was a lwig fan simply because you know when we were kids Ringo played lwig so everybody wanted that because we were all Beetle fans I was playing slingerland and then we made a few records with those drums and had a couple of Slinger kits and then we got this endorsement thing with a fender and uh they had Gretch and so I became a Gretch guy which are awesome some drums but I just always have this place in my heart for lwig and we talk to Mike over there at lwig and he uh got me set up with lwig again and uh I saw that wrap on there that's really just a Ringo kit it's all it is right it's just different colors o his is like the the sort of black and silver oyster you know it just goes with your logo too so well yeah it goes great with it this is like Olive and blue and uh I saw that WP somewhere and I asked him about it and I said how about this he goes well we don't make that anymore that's not one of our colors and he said but let me make a call and evidently there's some older guy in Italy who does that for them and uh he said but he's kind of grumpy he never gives it to anybody but let me see if he's got any and he talked to him and the guy I guess was a fan or something anyway he said yeah I'll do it I'll do it for you guys so they said us this stuff and uh so it's not a color that's out there uh these never leave the studio of course live I'm just out front singing I don't you know I don't uh play drums live much anymore but uh I have a blue sparkle lwood kit that we took on the road for our live drummer for several years and then he decided to get fancy and have some dude he knows with some company he works with Boutique company so uh but we're we may make him you know take a l logo and paste it on the front of them yeah this thing here uh what's awesome is we had used an old parade drum on a concept record we've done I guess we' done like three concept records none of them are done yet one of them's done two of them we've been working on for years and they're like you know rock operas the score didn't we get it for the score yeah maybe we got it for a score or something but we needed something well no we got it yeah we got for the stranded what size is this it's a 40in drum so um I was looking around you know see I was going to get like an old parade drum but uh you know we couldn't really find one and uh so I called jort Pro Drum Shop which is they're the best you know and I I said hey dude you got a big giant base drum and this is a 1990 uh 40 in and so what I love for this aside from making the logo bigger is when you hit it really softly it sounds like thunder so that's what we've used it for except for see there's a little bit of it and then but if you knock the out of it the harder you hit it the less low end you get yeah so when you're cranking a preamp up and you just tap it it's like oh yeah unreal 20 it just shakes yeah that right there is huge yeah and uh so when we're mixing and when we're using this thing it's a it's a trick you know but uh got to put on every album we just put it on a thing that's GNA it's in our pre-show music that JD and I been working on for this tour for a video that before we come on stage stuff and I hit it as hard as I could and that's how the music ends and then the lights come on and we play and all this stuff so the downbeat yeah yeah when when we hit it hard it's uh it's pretty big it's the big Point okay so I'm seeing it's almost Century overload in here obviously the guitars there's got to be so many different stories we' got this what is this a Stam it's a 2 Stam 251 is this the Mike you use for your vocals on the vocals great most of the guitars I hear not all of them uh are I mean some of them are relics but uh most of these out here are the ones we don't really use very often the ones we use are actually in the control room it's not that we don't ever use these but the the ones in the control room are used more often and then and there's some stories to some of these here Dusty Hill gave me this cheetah base for my birthday this Robin and this here my brother Jimmy who passed away in 1988 he was a great guitar player and played every instrument so this is a 57 Les Paul Jr and Jimmy actually painted this himself just with he was he probably had a few and just she took a brush but it was white originally this was his guitar that he played on a lot of songs uh in particular you know all of our songs are songs we written in in our set you know but uh we always start our show with a song Jimmy wrote We End the show with a song he wrote and those were done on this and so this is special to us and it's only been played on a couple of songs JD played it on the song and then Raymond our bass player played it on song it's beautiful I don't know if a lot of people know this but you were telling me last year that you started music way before you wanted to be an actor you wanted to be I never wanted to be an actor right I sort of accidentally became one but your brother and you were playing music yeah we played but we were my brother and I were in rival bands we were never in the same band he was two and a half years younger than me so I was you know uh I got a fight with their drummer one time say didn't didn't you have fist fights with yeah yeah with the other bands yeah there was a lot of competition in our little town you know a lot of bands his first guitar my brother's first guitar my first one was just a little nylon strike thing from Sears uh with you know picture of Roy Rogers or something on it but uh my brother's first one was a tysco uh that was the 335 knockoff he got it at Gibson's department store for like $29 and I think the reason he could play guitar so well is cu it was so poor and so strange BEC he played really strangely but he it the action on that guitar it was literally like I for me to push a string to the neck was like I had to go like this you know it's like go get a damn you know wrench or something to get it down there and somehow he played it I don't know I strings are like that high off the neck and like I said Dusty Hill gave me that Basse friend of mine from Australia gave me that digy do that's amazing and this hat was given to me by Sir nose who's the dancer in Parliament with George Clinton those guys that and then you know of course we got the old uh Ser the amp in the case thing you know the silver tone mhm those guitars growing up no one wanted them because they were considered cheap right junk but now every everyone wants and they sound awesome yeah cuz they're so unique we've used it a lot and we've got the we've got the amp in the case the whole thing you know it's right over there yeah it's over here yeah and uh so we all had those when we were kids you know and uh you know part of your life as a musician in those days you're just having piss shocked out of you all the time and this still does still do it you got your amplifiers I see you got your external preamps you were talking about some audio escape the golden PRI which are incredible yeah that's all my guitars run through those it's basically a Royer through the the audio skap pre um and the way you're tracking are you usually you're obvious you're tracking stuff from the control room and then sometimes reamping back no not usually reamping I just do it you know if if I if I want a different sound I'll just record it again I it's I'm not that precious about you know right oh that take was the best I can ever do it's not like we have to go somewhere and really work hard to get a new sound it's all right here and everything is ready everything's ready I've run two I got a B15 and a B18 on the base and these are both early 60s I think that's a 63 B15 it is actually a 62 B5 was it a 62 yeah I only remember that because I put a piece of tape on the case that said 62 B15 NB I don't know what year the B18 is but it's more of a 60 mid-60s so most of the time you're just taking you know six amps at once and then choosing no no I use one I've got a switcher in the room so I can switch between the cabinets got it and then a you know and choose the heads in there so I just go d d doop doop and all these are vintage amps except for the new matchless cabinet here yeah uh and he's got the matchless head in there in the control room oh so that's just a combo got it and uh and these here uh we got a we bought a bunch of stuff from a guy who was selling all of his stuff and uh I think because he wanted to I think it because he had to is this the the keyboard guy yeah he told me about yeah and uh so these over here are Selmer is that spinning yeah this one here it's got two Leslie speakers in the in the cabinet wow and uh so that's yeah one of them has an amp and one of them you have to drive with an amp so you can use one for guitar yeah you the preamp for the yeah yeah yeah exactly what we do a lot of times like we just made this record that sounded a little too much like a rock record for us and we were going for more of a psychedelic 60s sound so what we do is we'll just if B3 is on it wipe it out and use the Jaguar the for harisa or the supercontinental and these are all mid-60s you know uh organ I think they're all 65s aren't they I think I'm I'm not but you the Jaguar the farfisa and the supercontinental and the supercontinental came with that deal where we got the Selmer and that old upright piano over there and and this Pro Reverb also yeah was in that deal yeah which also you got these two goofballs here oh yeah look at that that's a that's a poster from somewhere yeah this was a while ago yeah yes back when we used to wear Beetle suits yeah yeah true I think that was an ad for VX wasn't it yeah yeah the other thing I noticed the last time I was here Billy was you have such amazing photographs everywhere just inspiring old studio session photographs but they all have stories for you most of them yeah yeah this Almond Brothers tracking session actually Connie my wife she got she and Bella my daughter they got me that for my my birthday it's cuz I had a real connection to the alond brothers cuz in the 80s Phil Walden who ran owned Capricorn records was my manager okay this is in the early days of Capricorn and you see you know Butch is in the little box over there and Dicky is in the corner and that's Phil actually on the right hand side yeah they're in on the session and then one of my favorite bands is traffic and they're they're over here and uh well aside from the almonds aside from the almonds and then here's uh Greg and Dwayne at fil morce backstage you know sound check you know getting all ready to go and uh that's I love that one uh I collect black and white photography especially Rock photography some other stuff but I was good friends with Jim Marshall who's probably the most famous rock photographer ever he and Henry DS you know who I were also a friend of ours and I just love those guys stuff and uh so the hallway back there on the way to the lounge and studio is full of a lot of Jim Marshals and I I did some sessions with Jim myself I'm noticing on your set it's so low yeah you've always played a low drum set always always you know I one of the worst things in the world to me the look and also just the way you have to play is in starting in the late '70s to ' 80s everybody had symbols like up here somewhere right and it's like you know you have to stand up to hit the things and it's like you know uh but also when you see the cool guys in the old days like Buddy Rich or Jean Kupa that's what they did uh and so I just like that look and Al and by the way JD got me this 18inch floor tom uh for my birthday right or for Christmas I don't remember which one it was but he said he had a big surprise for me so he called lwig and they used the same found the same rap so now I have the two floor toms which is great because I never liked two rack Toms I just you know something about it makes me feel too normal and uh right now I've got different symbols up than I usually have this is always the ride symbol th this is a paragon It's Kind Neil per used you know he plays completely different thing than I ever have but these high hat symbols actually I have two sets of high hat symbols that were given to me by people that I cherish and these high hat symbols were given to me by John French and those are the high hat symbols they're signed under the bells there and uh those are the high hat symbols that were used on trout mask replica wow uh and what size are those uh these are 15s awesome and then Frank beard of zzy TP who we opened for from time to time and I've known those guys forever and I gave Frank some stuff one time and signed some things for something he needed it for and he gave me the high hat symbols and two crash Sy symbols that were used on the first like three zzy top albums so we got you know some pretty famous symbols lot of vibe yeah I mean you see the microphones are pretty traditional 421s koh's but then you got like the tape recorder microphone right JD this guy which I'm not totally sure what it even is it is an RCA Arrow pressure mic is what it is called amazing I just like having something uh awful sounding yeah you know just we just record it on every song and like I might use it one time in you know five records but that one time you know you totally get something that is you know funky and weird that's you know not just using a Plugin or you know using something that's just straight off The Source One of a Kind and unique which is so important by the way this is our talk back system yeah that's yeah that's my talk back Mike and uh yeah it's uh kind of rigged up you know uh but uh it's different than what we used to have but it it's really funny I it works great and but matter of fact recently we were working on this song and I was playing this drum beat and when when he's got the talk back open and I'm out here playing before we started cutting the song you get this delay on it right right not a delay like you could find in a a unit you could buy I mean this is a weird sing thing it is awesome it's just latency off of a mut Matic plugin and so we just thought all it's like gosh damn this sounds good a tape so uh we wanted to use it and JD figured out a way where we could it took a minute but to where we could actually record that and that's on the record now the only way you could actually hear it was through the headphones right and so I was like well then tap off the headphones so I pulled yeah exactly I pulled the cord out and went off the headphones and plugged it in but first it didn't work cuz I had muted the the actual going through the speakers part yeah but you had it's it's like oh wait it's not working so then I had to put it back through the speakers and uh and then it was like oh there it is and so we were able to record the headphone sound that he was hearing extremely unique delay it's yeah exactly and again is matching the set yeah and dght Yokum gave me that as a gift uh that's a 1970s you know it's a reissue but that was the 70s lwig Throne you mentioned something the other day R symbol and somebody didn't know I I called a music store I won't mention any names kid answered the phone and I said yeah you guys not a music store where you have a giant photo of yourself in the front window is it it's another location but anyway anyway so I asked this kid I said uh you know you got a Sizzle symbol and he goes uh well we got zilon and we go I said no no no not the brand but a Sizzle symbol and he goes um well like uh what size do you want and I said I don't know I'd like an 18 that's what I'd like or a 20 something like that and he goes oh yeah we got plenty of 18s 20s I said of Sizzle symbols right and he said uh well it's like I said do you know what a Sizzle symbol is he goes it's like a you talk about like a zilon I'm like no and it's again it just kind of It kind of made me sad you know but anyway I said no a Sizzle symbol has rivets in it and I said back in the day it had rivets about every inch or every two Ines all the way around it so they were really sizzly these days they only put a couple usually in two or three where you just you take some gaffer and tape your pennies on it oh yeah and we also used to use chains like a little you take a chain and wrap it around you know up there by the felt and uh just drape it across the symbol we would do that too of course I drew grew up in the time so yeah see sizzly sizzly so once again I call Pro Drum Shop you know the only reason I didn't to begin with is cuz we live on way on the other side of town called over there once again Jerry was very helpful and uh put that in the mail to me people think tambourines don't mean anything it's just like all the guys got a tambourine we got this tambourine years ago where was it I don't remember where it was but oh I got that from Pro Drum Shop too oh you got this from Pro drum of course he did yeah so we hang on to this tambourine it says box Masters BBT on it you know we hang on to this thing we don't take it on the road it's the best sounding tambourine either one of us have ever heard it's like how different kind of tambourine be it is and so when I have to use another one somewhere else I it's so disappointing but it's just like you can hear like check this out it just sound sounds like a record yeah sounds like a record it's it's awesome and so we toot CU surgery every so after using it people think tamarine is easy but not no that what was the movie standing in the shadows of mtown oh the one guy that was just SM that was the highlight of the whole movie yeah oh no he was great so behind you you have the PRI for the drums yeah some and 160 compressors and Dusty Hills boots it's just so those you know they're I don't really use them to compress I just make sure that there's actual signal I don't have anything with meters really so I just make sure that there's signal going I can tell me a little about the lyrics on the wall cuz I'm spotting some names oh actually those aren't lyrics uh those aren't pillows no uh so years ago I did a a duet uh you know I for some reason I know a lot of people in the country music business even though I was never a country music guy but I knew all those guys coming up you know whan and Willie and Johnny Cash and and Christof offerson and John pran who's not really country but still you know singer songwriter type so cash said that he and I should do a duet together and I was always terrified of cash I knew him really well but I just I was always afraid of him and CU like it's like knowing Benjamin Franklin or somebody you know what I mean it's like that every time he comes in the room it's like Benjamin Franklin's here you know it's like so anyway he and I cut a duet on a song of his we did I still miss somewhat it's never been put out I just I'll play it for friends sometimes but I I I don't know what I would put it on but at that point cash wasn't really in his full voice you know and he said well what if you sing it and I'll do a recitation and I said wellow sounds great I did two of those I did one with Porter Wagner one time when he did a recitation near the end of his life but anyway uh we we cut the the the duet over at Gary Bell's place over at the house of blue Studio here in Nino so went over there and John and June were there and we go in we cut the song and before we started he said what do you think we ought to do I said well I figure I'd sing that first verse in bridge and then you could do the recitation then we'll do a solo and I'll come out and do the last Bridge you know like that and he said uh all right he goes uh uh I might even have an idea or two myself son I wrote the son of a I was like yes sir anyway at the end of it at the end of it he he and I both were from Arkansas right right and uh so he wrote this story of the day that we did it and it was it's it's like partly truth partly fiction kind of story it was like a little short story wrote I mean it just says BB and JC uh there were some apples in a basket between between us I offered him one where you from B Southern Arkansas and all this kind of stuff anyway just goes on and on and on and he ends up where at the end of the day uh I tossed the Apple into a basket you know said I'll see you later had a handshake and we go so it's a nice little story cash wrote but at the end of it he sign his papor three times you know it's like I saw that Johnny Cash Johnny Cash John cash and I said I said just out of curiosity John why did you sign it three times he goes son if you ever go broke cut that in three pieces and she'll be all right so that was pretty pretty awesome that's slick yeah that's pretty [Music] awesome yeah so uh this is the sort of little hallway photo gallery most of these are Jim Marshalls not all of them and you know Jim got a lot of great he's just so many famous photos you know the famous Cash photo where he's given the finger yeah was that was Jim but so Jim did this one of me what year was this this would have been Jim just signed them he never put anything on them but it would have been at early early 2000s would have been that one and what he said he said look I'm going to give you this picture no he said I'll give you this Robert Mitchum picture that Timothy White took Timothy White's another great photographer who was a mutual friend of mine Jims and he said I give you this thing if you'll do the same pose sort of and and let me shoot you so we did that and then this is Louis Armstrong backstage with somebody lighting a cigarette Fred Neil with his cigarette and his headstock and you see the smoke there also a Jim Marshall uh so it's kind of the smoking wall other than the Leon Russ here which was actually done by a guy named Van Ren from Texas who's a great photographer great and then the I had a deal with Jim he would say if you buy one picture from me I'll give you another one yeah so you this is the very famous all Brothers live the Filmore East album cover which was actually done in mon Georgia it wasn't even at the Filmore East they didn't get a picture at the Filmore East so they set up all the road cases in the alley behind Capricorn records and uh and shot this uh picture like it's back of the film where is this an outtake no this is the back cover which was the road crew it was the uh all the Ries and we still know this guy here Willie Perkins was their was their tour manager and willly still comes to our shows when we play in Georgia in that area and so it was red dog Kim Payne jodan Petty Mike Callahan and Willie Perkins and I was a red dog was Red Dog yeah yeah yeah and I I knew a couple of those guys hey brother and Willie and uh I was a roie myself when I I was you know my late teens early 20s so Ries I always do the Ries too flatten scrubs I I'm assuming I'm not sure maybe Columbia Studios looks like colia I think it might be Columbia Studios so flat scrubs and we do Earl very well and uh here's Steve McQueen and with Miles Davis whispering in his ear that Jim did somewhere and God knows what they're saying to each other and uh this one and I can't remember the photographers name it's embarrassing but court spark session ATM Court spark session at A&M which was given to me Joanie Mitchell uh in uh Studio C I believe uh at A&M where we recorded for years and uh fariel uh who is the manager of A&M or Henson you it's now called but now it's not going to be called Hansen again uh she gave me that she and her husband bill from uh my birthday one year and then Jim did this of me he did a book called proofs and so it's all proofs right and so he wanted me to reenact the cash picture you know and Jim would only take 36 frames when he did a photo shoot with you he had a Leica an old one you know and he didn't worry about lighter he just go stand over there okay and he would take 36 frames he goes if I can't get it in 36 frames then I'm shouldn't be a photographer and he always he said I need one and there's always one and I can still show you it was that one right there that he used I recognize that so yeah that was that's the way Jim did things that was me before I went on stage this is before the Box Masters this was uh uh uh with the old solo band I was just about to go on stage in Montreal and I had the flu and I'm drinking uh tea with cayenne pepper and honey and lemon in it and ginger and you and Daniel and W could be brother in this part I know those look like n a lot and this was at fade back in 200 three or four somewhere in there and Jim took that of me and Dennis cassin Dennis cassin remember was like a senator or governor of Ohio or something he was the guy that was trying to legalize pot and so uh Willie of course Willie Nelson loved him and Jim got this shot of us there and then uh right this right here we were recording over at A&M one time and Paul McCartney was recording there at the same time and he and I had lunch together a few times because we both eat healthy stuff and uh so this friend of mine had given me the motherboards of revolver that he had bought at auction you're kidding and so I own those but they're just like these silver you know flaps I so what are you going to do with them and I thought yeah I should give these to Paul so I gave them to him and he really appreciate it so he wrote me a note and you know it says Dear BB drew a British flag thank you so thoughtful of you to give me the metal mothers thanks a million Paul so I thought I got a frame a a letter from Paul mcartney on the Henson stationary this was a band I was in called hotlanta this would have been in 1970 4 or so and uh James Pierce that's me and Brian Wingo Rex Ral Tim Ross and Joe Murdoch and uh yeah we were we were a kind of a combination rock and roll uh funk [Music] band here's the old control room and these are the guitars here this r that we use mostly most mostly yes yeah mostly any favorites in here bud well these are all favorites they're all favorites you know um this is like my newest favorite guitar this is a 60s uh zeros or some sort of Italian accordion maker guitar so you get the nice whatever they made that toilet seat stuff out of incredible and drum Sparkle wraps this is a Fender Custom Shop one that they made for us so it's got beautiful got our box Masters logo JD 001 so I guess that means I need to get 999 more or something can't go wrong with a turquoise Sparkle Gretch ever no what about this rickenbacher you were explaining the neck is smaller so this is yeah these are the Rick and Backer 660s so it has a slightly wider neck so it's like you know much easier you can actually play it the old ones or the other Ricks are just pretty narrow at the nut now behind you you got a handful of nice mixing toys yeah exactly so pretty much all the stuff in here is is mixed stuff so you know that rack got filled up so I started this other rack um audio audio AIO Escape audio Escape spring reverb basically goes on every track it's like just put it on the whole mix it's great the audio Escape Pull Tech on my base just non-stop I'm a big fan of Loft delays they're old analog delays that really only go up to about 160 milliseconds but they're just nice to put on stuff we have the keyboard section of the control room and so these things mainly we use the melron a lot but then I also have it running through a bunch of pedals and a switcher so I can just switch between keyboard whichever one I kind of feel like using at the moment um our old keyboard player Teddy andreaus brought this organ and he had it doctored up so it just has a direct out so you don't have to use it with a lesli so we just kind of use it more as a an effect organ so like run it through a bunch of effects and what about this Moog base pedal Contraption thing well that's what it is Taurus pedals yeah that's amazing Billy and Dan lall used one of the those we lot sling blades score a lot and so once they when they came out with the reissues we I showed it to Billy I said hey look they just came out with a new tourus pedal you like we must get one now what makes it unique well it's I mean you can just get really low tones it's it's like perfect for like scores or when we do the spooky kind of pink floydy things you know it's great for that the only thing with it is you have to really know how to play it and move in between notes because because it because it stop doesn't sustain you know like you something a keyboard or a guitar anything else it you let off of this thing it stops so you have to learn how to go between them you know smoothly but they come in really handy for certain things you know certain sounds that you need and you know in the old days they used to in movie theaters that was a scientific thing that low noises like subsonic noises make you nervous and so I mean even like subsonic ones you can't even hear they're low and in some of the old horror movies they would actually pipe into the audience really low sounds wow that they weren't aware of that made them be more afraid of Boris carof or whoever but before we leave the guitars I just want to have to show you one thing maybe my favorite guitar in here is my new favorite this is a guitorgan my favorite guitar is a Gibson 335 in here which in 1964 which is also this same kind of finish but but this is an old guaran and they made these in the 70s it has a computer in it and so and it's got different sort of organy Sounds here with these switches so when you play it you can actually it you can put run two table Yeah but you can run two into separate amps and what you do it's got a regular guitar sound which you got you say you got running to one amp and the other amp you have the Gorgan part the organ part so if you're playing this thing all you have to do is make the chords and it makes the sound and how does it know how to do that with that technology got some sort of it's got some kind of weird because you can see that it has the holes covered for dampening oh well that's I think that's just to hide you know there's a circuit board that's this big inside and this just but this is all it's kind of it's like the draw barss on organ okay y but it's these are touch sensitive Frets so when you touch the string to it that's what makes the sound so it's totally bizarre like when Billy was like I think I'm going to get one of these and he started sending me videos about it it's like what is this thing what's this red on the top here that plays all strings or whatever you have it so if you want to play aord where it has open strings you push that button it's it's like flying a helicopter it's almost like playing a steel guitar but you have to be really careful you can't touch other strings while you're playing something just you know it's really sensitive so you have to be very disciplined when you it sound so dang amazing so Billy tell me the story about this ADB Trident this board was uh in the old Studio of the cave which used to be called the snake pit so I bought this board from slash so we've had this for 24 years and uh we love it the way you have this set up again you were mentioning you you have all the preamps and everything tracking and but you're just just mixing always set up for mix it's just set up as a line mixer and it it doesn't touch the headphone system and it doesn't touch the mic PR it's just the returns of the Protools which we have to use because we you know just record constantly did you mix this new record to tape like the last one yeah so yeah we we typically mixed to quarter inch running at 15 IPS uh ATR machine this is your stereo mix down rack yeah it's uh got a couple of effects here um you know a couple of delays a couple more Loft delays some d5000 and then um you got the Kush claric and then the two audio Escape compressors on the stereo bus this is pedal pedal effects land um so it's like use guitar pedals for you know delays and reverbs and you know there's a sand zamp in here a couple other you know random boxes that it's like just keep playing with noise you know just I like to try different stuff that maybe people aren't using and JD would go to Italian restaurants sometimes and would always be upset by the small portions of pasta they would give you so so he created his own world he thought that's the way that is plate of pasta ought to come out you don't get any more patch cables that's it no more patch cables can you I know it was pedals he he has a problem I mean like uh I mean this is like buying shoes it's like every day there's another Amazon thing that arrives at the gate what's this oh it's called a you know x14 Muff Diver 11 or whatever and I'm like what in the world and so yeah and then he uses those three well that's that's the thing I mean in in this guitar recording setup you know got pedal boards it's like this is the front end then it all goes up here to this amp speaker switcher so I can switch between any of the cabinets out there with any of these heads and then I've got the the the effects stuff that's on the effects Loop separate this is going separate to those this is a separate yeah separate section of stuff way cool I've got you know like Drive stuff down here and fuzz pedals and then got some weird uh just fun things you know the these Game Changer audio pedals I have no um it's like a connection to them no it's like a it's like a Bigsby this one's a Bigby it's a pitch shifter but it's like um magic and then this sustain pedal thing that you can just make pads and stuff out of just I don't know what they're doing that's the thing though when I was in bands when I was you know 16 to 20 something you didn't have the access of all these unique creative tools when I started you had a fuzz face or a big muff and a crybaby right those were that was it yeah every little piece of uniqueness that is not yet another plugin that sounds like everything else the more you create music or whatever with these unique processes it's the more engaging it is anytime we don't have to stare at the computer you know that's that's a win for only $39.99 you can get this record on uh on your store which one was this was this the December one oneing with oh great comes out August 30th you got to hold it and uh yeah it's uh so my daughter Bella she's done three or four of our album covers and we always want something abstract and she's really great at this I said look it's called love hate in Desperate places meaning that love and hate are both very intense emotions and there's a thin line between them sometimes and it's like and the songs really reflect you know life in in a way that's about the intense feelings of anger or or desperation or love or whatever it is so she Drew this sort of creature like Sasquatch like man Beast kind of deal like a bear yeah and and and cuz we we know we said make it abstract right she did and and it's holding a heart squeezing this heart and the blood's dripping out of the heart so it's like wow how do you even come up with this stuff anyway so that's the uh yeah the idea the new one and this is coming out August 30th so it's coming out now yeah coming out now and then and the back is fairly simple but she took the old 60s idea and let like this was the muted kind of purpley color they used to use back then and Drew some sort of off-kilter sort of uh p Ley and things like that to go along with the man Beast and the Heart the man Beast you name man Fred this has been an absolute blast guys I think we could make easily another four-part episode of the amount of stories and stuff um Billy hi JD I'm excited to see the new album and exactly keep on mixing everyone [Applause]