Ryan Dahle

0:03So what what are you up to these days? What are you doing? You just you just won a couple of awards over the WCMA's So you're the producer in demand I would think now. Yeah, you think Yeah, I've been I've actually got more calls. I think trophies are good for getting more calls. Yeah So I kind of have a pretty full schedule just with the band that I've been that I've been thinking about doing before Everything happened as well. So who is that you want to shed some details or a cubic secret? Well, uh? I want to keep secret Anything, you know, I just don't want to jinx anything that I do have have going on and some people don't like to get things To announce before they actually happen. So right I'm working on I'm definitely working on the new hot-hard heat record We've already started

0:49Another one already. Yeah, they they want to get a head start so that when they get back off tour at the end of the whole album cycle they they're ahead of the game so so they've been writing a ton of songs and You know, you kind of got a strike. Well, you're excited about Playing and you're excited about music and they're they're really they really are right now. So wow they've just written a ton of songs They came into my studio last week and we just recorded tons of things. So where's the studio? Where are you? Thank you, man. Yeah in Vancouver at It's a place called song City which has greenhouse studios, which is pretty legendary studio It's the same owners that used to own little mountain studios back in the 80s and 90s and they had Vancouver studios and then greenhouse studios

1:35And then they moved their greenhouse studios from Burnaby into Vancouver and it's a huge complex with about 15 different studios in it So I have a big studio with a mastering lab as well nice Are you enjoying the roles producer more than then I guess frontman and songwriter? No, you put out the solo disc last year, but seems you're behind the board more these days Well, you know, I would enjoy playing more live But I just don't really get the opportunity to do so. I mean my records come out and with not a lot of fans fair now time so You know, I I know that people appreciate them So I keep making them and I like I always like writing songs and but you know, I I just want to stay busy no matter what it is So it I end up being more into the producer role and the engineer role

2:23Right now, do you think you said like a fanfare? Do you think it's just because it's under a name and it's not limblifter or something? Oh, absolutely not. I released a limblifter record in 2004 and I Didn't get didn't get a lot of notice for that So I mean the reason I kind of switched it to a name is just because a lot of people said well If you're gonna release a record with your name on it someday, this should be it because it sounds more like a solo record Hmm. So I just felt like that particular record wasn't quite a limblifter record I think there's songs on it that sound like that they could be on a limblifter record So and a lot of the songs I've been writing now has been more a little bit more towards what you'd think a limblifter record Would sound like so I might call the next one that I'm not sure I see interesting We had taught on the show last week you said he'd be game for an age of electric reunion

3:10Well, I don't know if he told you but we've been writing songs and we recorded a few and I just had my my my my brother Who played who played drums an age of electric? He just came down and recorded some on some of the tracks So when Todd gets back from Las Vegas in December, he's gonna put some final vocals on everything too. So oh wow So we've been slowly Writing together a lot. So sooner or later, we might do something that That's awesome a lot of mites there. Hey, yeah a lot of mites, but that's okay. You never you never know you can't promise anything right because Who knows? Yeah, we don't really do anything for any good reason We just sort of you know the fact that we're interested in writing with each other You know it's gonna pan out or it won't you know, we're not really thinking about

3:57Big age of electric union reunion and you know, there's I think there's people out there that want to hear it But it's not like you know, we'll make a million dollars doing it or anything So we're kind of either gonna do it because we really want to or not do it at all right No, I think I'd just be fun right to write with a friend again kind of thing and it seems like you have been so So that works Pretty busy he's playing with flash and my brother plays drums and the new pornography right and I'm producing a lot of records So it's just a fun thing to do when we when we get the hankering back to the producing that that brings me to an interesting question About ha ha heat because that's very different the sounds on that record are very different than then what I'm used to hearing out of you Well, I mean just to be clear I mean that I technically I didn't produce that record. I engineered it and I mixed it and okay

4:43And so, you know, I did do a lot of the production work But I think that it was more a representation of and they asked me if I wanted Production credit and I said no because it's it's the whole idea of what they did was they recorded it themselves for the most part Mmm, I recorded a lot of the drum tracks and a lot of vocals and guitars and even played some guitars and bass on it Which is great. They allowed me to do that But I think that a lot of it was their brain storming in their own studio that really led to it So I think it was it's produced by them. Where's the new record? I'm taking more of a production role. So it'll maybe sound more like you're you're you're thinking it would sound like if I Produced it. Mm-hmm. Can I get a couple of song like storyteller sound clips from you about some of the tunes that we play?

5:31Sure. What are you guys playing and thank you for playing stuff by the way? Oh, yeah, no worry. Well, we have to man I love those tunes some of them. Oh, thanks man. I wake up to the Sun. Oh wake up to the Sun the video was fun to do I guess we did on a beach and With these massive backdrop so it looked like we're in front of these tear mids or it looked like we're in front of these farmland and then at the very end of it we drop it and it's you know just as beautiful of a scene The real scene that we're in so but uh, yeah, so I like that video cool Screwed it up screwed it up It kind of came from that first record. I don't really even remember writing I wrote it so quickly they were I Get we're still in the age of electric and we're you know

6:17I was just writing demos like mad and I guess in about ten rehearsals we put together that first record So I'd just written all these Ideas and so it it was really great to write in that way like just without even thinking about it. So is that a better way to write? Oh, yeah, I Think so. I don't know if it it it yields The kind of result that it yields, you know, you maybe don't get as thoughtful and intricate of arrangements and things but It it sure is good to just have a bunch of songs without even thinking about it, you know Well, and they seem to have worked as well. So yeah, I mean and whenever I can write that way I do and you know So some of my new record is written that way, but a lot of it is labored over as well, you know You got to get good at both ways of doing it. Mm-hmm. I think as a songwriter

7:08aerial versus Lotus ever so Lotus was I think largely due to The co-producer John McLean just really liked getting this baseline that I'd written and recorded so he really loved the baseline that it played and and We tried to replace it a couple times we got we got a couple of studio guys in like a Doug Elliot who plays my odds, which is who's amazing base player and he came in and replaced it and we never used it We ended up sticking to that first Rough kind of bass track that I that I'd recorded through my marshals Really? Yeah, so and I mean from then on I used marshals for a lot of bass tracks You know like guitar amps old guitar right just really

7:53Cranked up and really loud and distorted Are you doing all the guitar parts then on those records like the bass and guitar everything? Not everything but a lot of the the base on based on the first album was mostly Ian Summers, but I played on a couple songs like Cordova and cellophane and then the next record. Yeah, I played most of the bass cool then IO Meagan Bradfield played the bass. I'm going back to Age of Electric. Let's go with ugly. Oh ugly That's one that we labored over for a long time. We we moved we were in the Bob Ross Basement with his big huge neve console that was in disrepair So we we'd constantly be banging it and trying to make it work It was my first Exposure to like an all this amazing old vintage gear and it was definitely acting its age

8:40And then we moved all that gear into a small Part of little mountain studios, which was called studio D It was basically an empty room when we moved in and so it took us a long time to get Everything together and we were recording that song over and over again at the beginning So I think I played the guitar part at the beginning of that that song a couple million times We literally spent probably a week trying to get guitar sounds before we could make the room sound proper. I Mean and which is pretty unheard of for what we Normally did and normally do now because everything is just pretty instant You know, but it was one of those learning processes where we spent a ton of time experimenting with that song I don't know why it made me think of this from what you just said, but do you prefer analog digital?

9:27Well, definitely I'm an old analog guy like I own a lot of neve strips and like neve channels and old Old analog gear. I also I also master a lot of records and I'm mastered to an old half-inch studio tape machine Huh? So I mean, it's good to keep up on the digital side of everything as well. I mean we always have you know the of line Apple computer to make things run properly and and I you know, I have the best Apogee converters that we can get and So it's important to stay, you know up on the digital side as well But definitely I'm an old-school analog guy and of course remote control remote control That was amazing because we we mixed with a guy named Phil Niccolo. So I flew down

10:17with these big two-inch tapes Right on the plane and carry these two-inch tapes into this guy named Phil Niccolo who was the butcher brothers He was one of the one of the brothers and the butcher brothers who produced tons and tons of great records and they actually owned the label that the Fuji's were on at the time and when we were mixing we mixed two songs that we'd recorded with Gil Norton and then if we had enough time we were gonna mix remote control and And so he mixed that song for us and you sort of on a bit of a financial high I think because he had they just received their first check from the Fuji's the Fuji's record had just been big and It was about a year and a half into that cycle and they got their first huge check for that label and it was millions of dollars And it literally happened like the day before you mix that song

11:03I think he was really excited and happy and and I think that's kind of part of what made made made the song great He just did amazing That's great industries not like that anymore though There's no million-dollar checks coming halfway through we do something on the show called five questions five quick questions one word answers One word answers. Yeah, rotor studio studio. Leninger McCartney Most important thing in a song lyrics melody or rhythm lyrics this one doesn't need to be one word song you've written your most proud of alarm bells and one word Ryan doll I'm keeping that that's good