Matt Connarton Unleashed: Eric Sauter of Blackheart Sound

A gentleman whose name has come up on this show so many times. Eric

Sotter of a black Heart sound this here? Hello, Eric, hey man,

that's going. Am I saying your last name correctly? As the Solder?

You got it right? Okay? People say like Soute or so right

right now. The reason your name has come up so much on the show

is a lot of the artists that we've had on the show that I've interviewed

over the years have mentioned you and recording with you at Blackhart Sound. Yeah.

I know, Slim Volume been on here recently, the Night Blinders,

to name a few. I mean even today Conduit's going to be on,

yes, which is kind of a coincidence. There was not even planned.

Julia was telling me about that. Yeah, we just we had finished up

some stuff, I want to say, last year and they're putting out a

single seon and so yeah yeah yeah, looking with some people in Manchester for

a little bit, that's for sure. Yeah, Dank Sinatra right uh yeah.

In fact, I yes, pictures of Fredo on uh. I think

it was on the Facebook page for the studio. I think Fredo and there

playing guitar. Oh yeah, yeah, Jesse came in the friend Jesse took

a bunch of pictures and some great ones. Yeah. Yeah, see Fredo

all over there. Yeah yeah, absolutely. How long How long has Blackheart

Sound been open? It's been, it's been in the location it's been in,

which is on Elm Street behind the Music Mill for I want to say,

we're going on five years at this point. I think I did my

first session in twenty nineteen, like April or May. Okay, so,

but I've been operating, you know, working with bands for quite a bit

longer than that. I grabbed a bunch of equipment when I was I want

to say, probably around like twenty sixteen, and just started like doing it

from there. And it's a long story, but yeah, it's been going

on for a little bit, but officially about five years. Excellent, excellent.

We should mention too before we go any further than that opening song.

That's your band Magnetar in a track called Event Horizon and really good stuff.

I listened to that whole album crushed. I listened to that yesterday and just

loved it. Yeah, we did a record. We put it out with

this label, Seeing Red Records in twenty twenty two. Yeah, in June.

It's a great album. It's a great for you know, fans of

like like heavy metal stuff. It's like I was saying, you know,

definitely like adjacent to like post metal stuff, masted On. If you're a

fan of Macedonia, you like it, Yeah, yeah, stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, really good, really good. Yeah. I I

think i'd mentioned this u off air before the show. I've been aware of

Magnetar for a while, but I hadn't made the connection that that you were

in the band, And I assume you recorded everything yourself, right, you

were the engineer and pre did it all there. I did the I did

the recording, I did the mixing. I had it mastered by my friend

Zach who works in Salem at God City. Did a great job with it.

So yeah, yeah, uh, do you have any plans for more

more, almost said masted On, for more Magnetar coming? Yeah, you

know, we uh, we didn't do a lot between like twenty twenty two

and and now, but I'm just getting back and starting to write some more

music with with the you know, a couple of the couple of the members,

and we've got some stuff brewing. It's not like nearly the same sort

of music it's definitely gotten to be a little bit more tame really not not

as heavy. Yeah, not as heavy as you know. I'm just kind

of feeling something a little bit different these days. Yeah. Yeah, this

the last album, Crushed, is a very very heavy, oppressive, but

like kind of beautiful album. Yeah, I want to go in a little

bit more of like a rock direction while still keeping those sorts of elements.

So we're kind of feeling that out, figuring out how that's gonna materialize.

And we got like, I think we're like halfway through an album right now.

Oh really in regards to like, you know, just demoing it out,

Yeah yeah, and getting the songs ready. So yeah, hopefully later

this year we'll we'll start you know, getting those down and hopefully have an

album again soon. Excellent. Does magnetar ever play out? The last time

we played out was the was the release show that we did for that LP.

We did it as a benefit show over at the the Alpine Club on

the West Side. Yeah, oh okay, I mean I want to say,

like a lot of the shows we've done of the generally around like some

sort of like fundraiser benefit show. So yeah, that was the That was

the last one we did, and we we haven't really been been doing much

since. I would imagine a Magnetar show is pretty intense. It's a lot.

Yeah. I mean, like we we have from like the get go,

we were known as like this the band that just like brought out like

all these ridiculous amps and cabs. I remember I would literally just collect like

as many amps and like high wise jams and cabinets as I could and just

play out. It was a for a while, it was a two piece.

It was me and a drummer, Johnny Funk, and yeah, I

would just show up with like a split a line splitter plug into as many

like you know, one hundred two of the watt heads as I could,

and just like make this like really oppressive live sound. That was kind of

our reputation, and it's not to that degree anymore. We actually have like

a dedicated bass player, second guitar player, so you know, we we

toned it down a little bit, but it's still to bring out, you

know, playing with like full stacks and you know, big six twelve guitar

cabinets. So it's like it's a lot yea to fan in order to do

that. That's that's really cool. I respect that a lot. That's great.

Now as far as you had posted something on social media recently and congratulations,

you're you're doing uh producing and doing Black Hearts sound more as like a

full time I mean, I imagine you're already working a lot of hours doing

that, but you're you're really going to the next level with it, right

yep. You know, for uh, for the first uh, first few

years of uh of this venture, it was just like it was kind of

I did this in between my full time job, yeah, which you know,

uh it was, uh it's pretty taxing, you know, having to

do that because you know, I'd be taking you know, my weekends and

then like working with bands. Yeah, it was great. It was a

you know, I wouldn't take it back at all. But there's a certain

point where you know, you gotta you gotta like really have some free time

in your life. Because I was sure like you know, doing things like

having like between two to four days off a month, which is sustaining in

the long run, that's for sure. So yeah, I made the decision

to go full on into uh uh and kind of like just have a have

a part time job. I saw I do work at the Manchester Music Mill.

Yeah, currently, but just uh it needed more of my attention in

order to grow. Yeah. Yeah, No, that's a great place.

I wanted to work there, but I didn't get the call. No,

but it is a great place. How long have you worked there, I've

worked. I've been working for Joe since twenty thirteen. Oh do. I

moved to Manchester, like I want to say, late twenty twelve. Yeah,

and I I think I was like working pizza delivery then, and one

day I just decided I wanted to work at that store. Yeah, And

so I went in and you know, I knew who Joe was. I

had shot there for a while. Yeah, And I went up to him

and asked him, Hey, do you got any openings. He's like,

yeah, maybe go shoot me a resume. So I shot him a resume.

Yeah, and I went in like a couple of days later, Hey,

look at the resume. No, I haven't. And then I went

in, like, you know, a few days later, and a few

days later I bugged him heavily and then he to the point where he was

just like, dude, just okay, yeah, come in come in next

tuesday. Yeah, excellent, excellent. What did you start out doing there

just sales on the It was just sales, yeah, I mean it was

the It was a pretty small staff at that point. It's grown exponentially since

they started to like a wild operation. I mean it was just that one

building. We had all of our storage for everything inside of there. All

of our backstock was in that one building. Yeah, and it was like

me, him, another manager, and like maybe one other sales guy.

So it was pretty small. I was kind of just did everything there.

Yeah, at that point, you had your hands in a little bit of

all that sort of stuff. So and uh, you know, when you're

in a small staff, eventually you just start getting more and more responsibility to

you, whether you need you're you're ready for it or not. Right right

stile by fire at that point. Yeah, very small, small place,

so you know, eventually I'm holding keys. Eventually, like you know,

I'm doing like trade deals, quoting out like you know, prices with people,

and that just kind of like grew from there, and I was a

I think I was managing, like had some sort of like manager role,

but like like a couple of years after that, so and I've been doing

that ever since. It's a great place. I love working there. It's

it's a fantastic organization and Joe is an amazing guy to work for. Well,

when you talk about how it's grown too, I I because I remember

going in there years ago and it was much smaller. And when I when

I went there for my interview, Craig gave me a tour of the whole

place and it's I I was stunned actually at how how huge it is.

That warehouse building. Yeah, we put that's that's the building of the studio

is in. Joe purchased that in twenty eighteen and completely renovated it and that

really allowed us to like take our stock to a certain degree, have a

dedicated shipping department, have a dedicated receiving area. So it really allowed us

to uh to grow even further. Yeah, so yeah, it's uh,

it's unbelievable. Uh Joe is Uh. I I don't think I would have

I would be able to do what I'm doing right now if I didn't work

under someone like him, because he is just such a hard worker. He

knows what to do and with a business and just so dedicated to uh you

know, seeing that growth, making the business succeed and also taking care of

his employees. It's it's uh uh. You don't get many bosses like him

in this life. And then so when you started Blackheart Sound officially, did

you start recording there or were you recording at home at first? So yeah,

I started by I had a spot down in Morgan self storage, and

I think there we go. I was there for a while actually, and

I had I think I wanted to record like demos for uh for my band

at the time, and U So I got myself, like I think I

had like a small little like two track interface and I had like a barringer

mixer that I would run the mix down and two tracks into that. So

I would start by doing that sort of stuff. And then word got out

that, oh Eric can record stuff. So bands I would, like,

you know, start working with like punk bands and doing stuff. And I

didn't really know what I was doing, but like you know, they come

over, Hey, here's twenty bucks and a six pack. Let's go for

a few hours and see what we can get. So that started, and

I'm and uh. Then I got like a like an eight track setup,

like some sort of like personas thing, and I was like, wow,

I really like this I want to I want to learn how to actually do

this. Yeah, so I just went full in, not really knowing what

I was doing. I went out and bought a bunch of equipment, took

out when went and got like a personal loan which sounds crazy, and bought

a bunch of like nice mics, like you know, some decent preamps.

And I was just like, I'm gonna learn how to do this. I'm

gonna try and uh find spaces in which I can do this. The second

space I had was in the Verick buildings, the buildings that they tore down

across from the market basket and oh, okay, yeah, you're familiar with

those. I mean a lot of people had studios in there, a lot

of people had practice spaces, and I had a practice space in there at

one time before before Morgan's, before I had a practice space at Morgan's.

Yeah, so I know exactly the spot. Yeah, I got in there

and I was I ended up taking over this like giant space that was uh

it was called the fuzz Hut. It was it was like a DIY venue

that a bunch of people I know had run and they ended up getting out

of there, and I took it over and it was like three thousand square

feet. It was huge. Wow. And I just started, uh like

you know, doing more bands out of there and kind of like cutting my

teeth there and learning how to do this. I think one of the uh

one of the first records I did was for Mike and the night Blinders.

I'd known myked and you know, I'd from like the shafskiing and everything,

and me, hey, can you can do my band? I was like

sure, gave him, like you know, I was recording for basically nothing

then, and he's like, okay, day of He's like, all right,

we want to do it live. And I'm like, I've never done

this before, Like I've never recorded a live folks circle. So I'm literally,

you know, they're an hour to coming in and I'm sitting there on

Google. How do you make up a folk circle? Like that's where I

was. I had all this equipment. I'm just like learning how to do

it practically. I never went to school for any of this stuff, so

I just threw myself in there. Yeah, and you know, I I

love that record still. It's a it's a great one. It's very uh,

very raw, but yeah, that's that's really where I started. So

at a certain point that that space become became kind of like unusable. I

wanted to find a place where I could put money into. It was a

spot that only would give me a month to month lease, which I'm looking

at putting twenty five to forty grand into a spot to build it out.

You don't want to do that, right, Yeah, no kidding? Yeah,

So I started moving around. I ended up finding a place over at

Candya Road, right next to Candy Road Brewing, and rented from them for

a while. I know, I know all those people really well, they're

they're great, and uh, operated out of there for a little bit,

did some shows there, tried to you know, kind of foster a little

bit of that uh that that DIY space for for shows with people that that

was fun. And then when Joe bought the building behind the music, Millie's

like, hey, I'll give you a whole quadrant of this place. Do

you want it? And it was like it was perfect, I can rent

from my boss. I can uh, I'll have like a full it was.

It was just like a full blank rectangle to build from the ground up.

Wow, And that was like the golden opportunity. It was like,

yep, do it. Wow, So and uh yeah, that's where I've

been for uh for the past the past five years. Yeah, really really

struck. Good luck to get in there, because I'll tell you, finding

spaces to do this it's extremely difficult. I have bounced around. I have

done It's not easier either finding places where you uh you know that that are

like somewhat affordable, but like you have to deal with people around you being

noisy or like them being upset with you or that was that was probably a

problem with Morgan's right, Yeah, that was That's why I like, as

soon as I started, like, you know, being like, hey,

I'm gonna charge bands, even though it wasn't much like I'm gonna charge people

a little bit, I had to get out of there because, you know,

I'd start doing stuff and then suddenly a band next to you's rehearsing exactly,

it's a rehearsal space. Of course, I can't get upset about that,

but you got to know where you're at. Yeah, so I had

to find find places. So yeah, or you're just like doing you know,

really expensive commercial space and you know that that'll allow you to do that

and it's it's uh, it's tough. Yeah yeah, yeah, No,

you're in a You're in a great situation. And uh yeah that couldn't have

worked out any better. Huh. I say, yeah, that's that's amazing.

It was just it was a no brainer. Yeah, get in there.

Yeah. How long how long did it take you to get to a

point where where you felt like, you know, really because you talked about

when you were starting and kind of learning on the fly, you know,

which is it was a really good way to do it because obviously it works.

How long did it take you to get to a point where you felt

like, Okay, I've really got this, Like I'm I'm I'm a legitimate

engineer and producer. And I think it was like about the time I had

gotten into that space, maybe like you know, right around there, because

it was having the space where I knew how to get the sounds I wanted

to, I knew what I was able to do. I was able to

have much much more of a controlled environment because I was kind of flying by

the seat in my pants and most of the places, you know, anyone

I know had seen any of the places I was at before and be like,

yeah, these places were these were whack eric Like, you know,

I wasn't dealing with like great sound isolation, and you know, I didn't

have like ISO rooms. I didn't have like well treated places to mix.

So being able to have a good control room that was that was specked out

and designed to mix in having a live room that I could work in and

kind of just like learning how that space worked. That that really got me

to where I was at. And you know, learning this by yourself is

a hard thing to do because you always have there's always the sense of like

imposter syndrome where you're like am I doing? Am I good at this?

Yeah? Like through that the whole way, and then but like at a

certain point it takes a long time. You just the silence that you got

to be like listen, I'm working with people, they're coming back, you

know, we're doing records time and time again. The business is going good.

Like, yeah, you know what you're doing. Yeah, that's interesting

what you said about doing it by yourself, because it sounds like, you

know, because a lot of people who I talk to who do what you

do, they had kind of a mentor who who helped them and kind of

taught them, But it sounds like you didn't have that necessarily. I wouldn't

necessarily say that I didn't have any mentors. I would say that I definitely

did have some people who were like decent resources. Yeah. Biggest one my

good friend Derek Blackburn, who runs a mixing and mastering studio out of Bedford,

mass From the time I was like from the Morgan storage times, I

was like, I kind of found him on Instagram. He was a mastering

engineer, and I was like, cool, you know, I'm gonna follow

these people, and we would always have dialogue and I remember like he was

always a great resource for me. I remember when I first did like the

first, like one of the first mag guitar demos back in like twenty fifteen.

I had sent him a track to master and like, I didn't know

what I was doing then, and I was like it was very loud,

and he instead of you know, coming to me and being like, hey,

idiot, turn it down, like he explained to me why, like

here, this is too loud. Here's what you should do, you know,

blah blah blah, and and he was always super helpful, so I

could always go to him with any if I ever had a question, Hey,

Derek, I'm running into this problem. What can you give me some

advice? Yeah? And I love that because you know, he was just

so humble, had no problem giving me any sort of information that I needed.

And you know, we still we have a working relationship to this day.

I send a lot of people his way from Mastering. We just worked

on a really great record together by this band playing Alcoholism, and it's it's

a fantastic record. And you never know what those relationships are going to turn

into eight years, ten years down the line. You have no idea how

that's gonna have it's gonna work, And I'm really lucky to have someone like

that. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Oh that's cool, that's

cool. What is uh? Is there a particular project that you've recorded there

that was especially challenging or just really unique and kind of outside of your comfort

zone? Is there anybody like that? I wouldn't say that there's much outside

of my comfort zone. There's definitely projects that, like, you know,

really put me to the test in regards to, like, you know,

to how far am i'd like, how far can I take my skills?

And actually the project I just mentioned this band, Crippling Alcoholism out of Boston.

We did a record together. They're very, uh, it's very avant

garde, kind of like poppy, dark music kind of in their vocalist is

kind of in the vein of like Peter Steele, very like. Yeah,

they sound a lot like like Swans or like you know, early like you

know, like new wave, kind of like dark gothic stuff. And they

also mix like these interesting elements of like kind of like off metered, like

they call it like math rock, or we call it mathcore. Yeah.

So this record was really really unbelievable. They it's it's about an hour long,

and there's all these ridiculous elements in it. There's probably, i want

to say there's in each song there's probably like three or four guitar parts,

individual guitar parts on top of like a few layers of guitar synthesizer with keyboard

synthesizer, and then all these other ambient elements. So I think by the

end of the session when we started to mix, we were looking at like

probably two hundred and fifty individual tracks. Oh my god, yes, yeah,

you know it was it was not like individual songs, but just like

tracks yeah, we're mixing and that is like, yeah, it's doing that.

It was almost like like like mixing and like an orchestral piece or mixing

like a score. Yeah. Uh so that was really cool. We were

and the uh what helped out is they had a really great idea as to

what they were going for for the vibe and what the end product was.

Yeah, the the vocalist and I want to say main songwriter, Tony you

know from them, He came in with full pre produced tracks like here,

we have like the sound down, we know what we want to do,

and uh yeah, mixing stuff like that is uh. I had done a

couple of projects like that before, and the first time it was like,

man, that was tough. But once you do a couple of those,

you kind of get in the method of here, you know, I I

know how to approach this. I'm not gonna get overwhelmed by this ridiculous track

count. Yeah, because I did a I did like a post rock band

like that one time. We remember they were like import like I think it

was like thirty to the twenty five to thirty synthesizer tracks per song. Yeah,

and I remember that was the first time I'd ever done that, and

I was like, oh my god, this is wild. But after you

do stuff like that, it becomes very very easy, you know how to

manage it. Yeah, and it makes the stuff like the other stuff,

like the more simple stuff just like that much easier. Like wow, yeah,

this is we're just doing dealing with like guitar, drums and bass,

right, I know how to mix this right, right right? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, because I I have a little bit of recording experience and

just just hearing about that, all those tracks, it makes me feel anxious,

just the idea of it. You know, it's like, oh my

god. Wow. Have you ever been in a position where you've had to

kind of say to somebody, I think you're doing too much, Not because

you don't want to do it, because you're obviously up for the challenge,

but just do you ever as a producer, do you ever have to say

to somebody, I think, you know, sometimes less is more and you're

trying to put it more into this than you need to. It really depends.

I am a I'm a big fan of excess. I love a bunch

of elements. Yeah, and if people are down to do that, then

like, let's go for it. I'm going to try and and figure out

how we can make the space in the mix for this. You know,

if it's something that's like obviously jumbling up the song, where like we're getting

too many elements, like this piano part sounds disjointed in this rock song,

like what are we doing here? It's like offre Then there's like there's things

where I'll be like, I don't know if this fits really well. But

you know, I'm always willing to entertain the idea of excess because I think

that that's what helps in like producing a track and making something interesting, Like

I want people to add in elements, and I want to foster that creativity

and that that desire to add more, right, because the worst thing is

we try it out and it doesn't work. You know, hey this sounds

bad, let's not use this, or hey this the synthesizer part sounds great,

let's get let's keep it in here. I think that is what helps

make songs progress and have movement and uh and be uh be like very very

accessible to people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. I I'm always

asking people about their influences, but usually it's uh, I'm asking about musical

influences. Which which I'm happy to ask you about too. But I'm also

very curious about a producer influences. Is there is there anybody who is really

who you kind of look to as I mean, obviously, you know you've

made connections like with I Frida's name now from Bedford, mass Derek Derek Blackburn,

So he's Derek Blackburn. So he's obviously an influence of yours. But

are are there any producers kind of legends in the business who you really look

up to or take inspiration from. I'm gonna go I mean, my initial

one, one of my first ones was was definitely Steve Albini. I love

his approach to getting sounds in his studio. His studio is just very interesting

and like astonishing. It's it's seriously a wonder in regards like recording studios,

electrical audio. It's it's so cool. It's just such a legendary place.

And what his approach to his approach to recording is a little bit more hands

off than I like to be, but because his his approach is, Hey,

you come in here, we're gonna record your music. I'm not gonna

do anything to you know, I'm gonna mix it I'm gonna make it sound

as good as possible. I like to be a little bit more involved,

but I just I love his approach and like how like well thought out his

approaches to tracking music in the sounds that he gets. So he was he

was a big one for me for sure. I find that like a lot

of the music that I listened to like influences what I like to do or

like like how I like to get sounds as well. So h you know,

I like to find influence in the in the music as well. Yeah.

Yeah, well, so let's talk about musical influences. Who who does

influence you? Oh jeez, my musical background. I mean there's like there's

so much. I definitely kind of I have a pretty eclectic taste of music.

My and uh, I gotta, uh, you know, give some

credit to my parents that my parents. My dad grew up in Long Island

in the in like the sixties, and he had seen like a lot of

rock concerts. He went to the place called the Philmore East, so seeing

like you know, all the all the classic rock bands, Zeppelin, you

know, Hendrix, the Who, they were all playing there. The playbills.

You should see that he has you would you would die. They're they're

unbelievable. What a great place to grow up in the sixties. Yes,

good for him taught me about like taking his U his four horse power boat

out to Manhattan and just like going to see these shows. So I definitely

had that sort of background there. And my dad was also like really uh,

really into new music as well. He's always listening to stuff, stuff

that was fresh, like and I remember when I was when I was younger,

he would like throw on like the Offspring so and stuff like that.

So like he always like he kept this music taste evolving. Yeah, so

that's like the rock portion of things like that. I would blame him from

getting me into like rock and metal. My mom, definitely, uh,

is the reason why I love pop music. She was you know in the

nineties. Car rides with her were like a lot of you know, nineties

catalog Madonna share things like you know, I remember like hearing a lot of

like Alana's more Set. Uh, there was a there was a sting solo

album that was like pretty pretty big that your Car. So like she she

gave me the love for pop music and you know those hooks, those those

songs that kind of rely on that that songwriting and then making hits. So

I've always kind of drifted between those realms, never really trying to get myself

all stuck in one in one thing that I'm listening to all the time.

So I would say I I, yeah, I listened to like an eclectic

mix of like you know, pop rock, metal stuff, electronica, lots

of things. Yeah, it's interesting to what you said about your dad,

because Jenny probably already knows where I'm going with this. But my father,

he lives on the Sea Coast and he's in his seventies and he still listens

to new music, and it's just it's it's really cool because like he listens

to w U n H, which is which is such a great station on

the Sea Coast. And it's just interesting because it's been a topic on the

show on many occasions. How so many people they get to a certain point,

I don't I don't know what the average cutoff is, maybe thirty,

maybe maybe younger. I think there's twenty five. Yeah, yeah, where

they just stop, where they just kind of decide, not consciously but subconsciously

they just kind of decide, Okay, I've I've heard all the music I

ever want to hear and anything after this point. I don't like the seventies.

You're just like Leonard Skinner. Yeah, yeah, it's like you live

and die by that. But it's uh, which is fine. But you

know, there's so much out there. There's so much to discover. I

feel like I'm discovering new bands all the time. Yeah, and well,

that's the thing. There's more music than ever and it's easier to find than

ever. So there's no reason for anybody to be getting stuck. But people

just do. Yeah, you know, which is totally fine. You know,

if you have if you have bands you love and you yeah, and

you have a genre music you like, go ahead. There's so but you

know, there is so much to discover. There's so And as as someone

who's recording music, I want to be able to to appeal to what someone

wants to produce. I want to be able to be well rounded. I

don't want someone to come in and be like, hey, I have this,

this, this hip hop track, and I'm just like, whoa,

I don't know any of that, right right, Yeah. I like to

keep up with that, with the individual sorts of culture that are surrounded in

each genre of music and like what's relevant there? Yeah, but you know

what's relevant and pop what's relevant? And hip hop these days, what's relevant?

And like you know, have you metal? What what are we doing?

Yeah? Because so many people from all sorts of different walks of music

come to me. Yeah, and it's I want to be accessible to all

of that. Yeah. Yeah. Do people typically bring you demo or I

mean or do you have artists who come to you to record and they're just

they're sort of just coming in cold and that they don't have anything recorded,

but they know what they want to do. Obviously they know their songs,

but but they're not they're not necessarily providing anything for you prior to that,

so you're just kind of starting from scratch. Does that ever happen, It's

like it's fifty to fifty. Yeah, a lot of people come in with

pre produced tracks. Yeah, these days, it's it's really easy thing to

do. Everyone has access to an interface. Everyone's got access to like at

least a couple of microphones or even the ability to plug into an interface and

use like AMP simulators. Oh yeah, they have for doing that sort of

stuff. So yeah, a lot of times I get the people who come

in with like you know, fully produced like kind of like demos or like

pre product. I call it pre production, yeah, which is so important

because it gives me an idea of what they're looking to do for their sound.

Right, the aforementioned Crippling Alcoholism band, it came in with individual tracks

for like drums, guitars, and vocals during the pre production process, and

so I had a full on idea as like to what they were going for,

what the progressions were going to be in these songs, what we were

doing like somewhat roughly in the vocals. And that was great because we were

able to to kind of like sit down and be like, okay, let's

look at the song. Okay, maybe this is too long here, maybe

this this bridge goes on for too long. Let's chop this up. It

was also like a grid, so we could just like it was so easy

to do, so I would say that's a huge thing for bands to do.

It's really important to when you go in to have an idea, like

at least somewhat of an idea, comprehensive idea as to what you're going to

lay down there. It's the most important thing. It saves a lot of

time. You know what. I's expensive, Yeah, exactly, it's not

cheap. And if you're and if you're sitting there like you know, it's

like you know, I always like, like I said, you know,

I love when we're sitting there trying out stuff and trying out things, but

it's it's better for their time if you try those things out beforehand, you

see what fits. So yeah, I I could not suggest more to bands

to be doing that sort of stuff and trying to tackle as much of the

pre production process as possible. No, I do it every time when I'm

even me, I'm you know, and I've I've have a studio at my

disposal where like I said, for the new Magnetar stuff, we're doing pre

production tracks. We're demoing things out, so that way, I'm not spending

all the all of my time in the studio trying out these vocal things before

I've you know, were we go in. I'm doing this stuff now so

I can figure out what we're gonna do, and then when we go to

record the record, I know exactly what we're doing, what the harmonies are,

all that stuff. It's super helpful. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

Now what's the process. Like as far as UH bands or or solo artists

or whomever approaching you, do they because obviously, I mean, you don't

just work with everybody, right because you're time is limited. You know,

you can't just work. I mean, I'm sure there's there's probably some people

who maybe approach you who aren't ready, you know, and you have to

kind of tell them, well, I don't know if you're ready to to

record. I mean is that something you run into you? Yeah, sometimes

you can tell that with when when people come in if like maybe they need

to like coach their vocals a little bit more. I do it a lot

with like I see it a lot with like hip hop stuff. You know,

sometimes people will come in and you know, they they might need some

vocal coaching or something like that, or need to work on the on their

rhythm. UH And you know, I'll be honest with people. I'll tell

them like, hey, this these are things that you should probably work on

before we come back in here and do that, and it can show up

and like that's sort of what we're realm or like maybe a like if a

band's trying out apart and we're doing you know, like the guitar player just

wrote like a lead in this section or something like that, and they're trying

it out, we're not getting the right take of it or something. I'll

be like, hey, how about next week's session, Well, can you

rehearse this lead and then next week's session will come in we'll do that.

Yeah. It's good to uh, it's good to pump the brakes on things

when you're like pushing, uh, when you're running up against the wall.

Yeah, that can be very uh, very defeating on the on the morale

when you're you know, on take number twenty and you're not like, there's

nothing worse than that. When you're when you're just trying something out, trying

something out, it's just like you know, you're just going at it and

uh yeah, so I I I will like, you know, tell Avance,

Hey, let's rehearse this, let's try it next time. We'll get

it in like three takes next time. Yeah, okay, yeah, so

uh yeah, that definitely happens. Yeah, definitely happens because you could just

I mean, and and some some people would you know, you could just

take their money and just and just go with it and not say anything.

But in the end. It doesn't help them to do it that way,

and it doesn't help you either, because you want anything with your name on

it that goes out there, you want it to be of quality to exactly.

I'm I try to be as much of a buffer on that end as

possible. You know, I've never I've heard so many stories of people go

like, you know, recording with people who are just like, yeah,

that sounds great. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, great, take

there, and you never you never on hear that stuff. So when people

say something doesn't sound right, I'm like, let's let's redo it. Let's

if it doesn't sound right to you, You're going to hear this forever.

That Magnetar record, there's like a part where I you'd never notice this,

but there's like a part where I like hit a different note than I wanted

to, and I was like, you know what, this is fine,

it's in key, it's right where where it should be. You know,

I'll just send it. I kind of like how it sounds a little bit,

uh, And I hear that one note every time. Yeah, Like

dang, should have just done that, Uh, should have just done that

quick edit. You've got to live with it now. Yeah. Yeah,

Well, like once you put it out, it's out there exactly, can't

there's no going back right right exactly. Yeah, what's uh, is there

a particular project that's been what's the longest project you've done, the most involved

as far as I, I suspect it might be that crippling Alcoholism? Man,

I'm working with the band. Uh. One of the members is from

here. In one of them, a couple of are from Tucson called Through

a Glass Darkly. It's uh, it's very I feel like I've heard that

name I want to I want to call. I think it's a I think

it's in reference to like a book, Oh, okay, familiar. Yeah,

I I haven't read it, but I think that's it. Uh.

They're they're kind of they call it, uh zimmer Gaze, very very uh

the theatrical, not not theatrical, but it's like, what do you call

it's like almost like a movie score. Yeah, very cinematic the word I

was looking for. Yeah, and that was uh, that was one of

the like the mixing process was like very very Uh. That one took a

while because we were going, you know, we're going back and forth on

unbounced out mixes and they were very particular in regards to what they There was

no nothing spared in regards to like any note. He even thinks as minors

like oh the based and the size of down just a hair like and we

did like all these steps of that. Yeah, it sounds amazing. We

have a record that that is. Uh. I think they're they haven't talked

about it yet, but I think they're they're planning on putting it out in

the next year or two. It sounds amazing. It sounds unbelievable. You

could just like sit back and listen to this and just like it's it's an

unbelievable record. That one. That one was like about a year, year

and a half. Wow, you know, I I'm working right now.

I just finished a record with a Boston based band called Coffin Salesman and yeah,

oh I love it. They're uh main songwriters. Uh this this guy

named Aria great great songwriter and uh, you know that that process was about

a year year and a half. You know what we're doing is you know.

But but I think they had like a UK tour they were doing like

a bunch of shows they were doing. But we were just kind of splitting

the production duties between myself and them. So they were doing like overdubs,

like piano overdubs at their practice spot, you know, adding in all this

stuff, which is a very common thing to do. Uh. You know

a lot of people have like decent recording setups at their house, so they

will they'll they'll get stuff recorded, send it out, I'll mix in the

stems. It saves them time in the studio they can kind of especially for

like overdub stuff, because that's where you spend a lot of time just like

trying things out and seeing what sticks and like throwing things and seeing what sticks

on the wall. And it enabled them to kind of keep the budget a

little bit lower. Instead of spending like three days like doing this stuff,

they could do it on their own time and uh and send it out.

So that was uh that one. Uh yeah, about about year year and

a half, which is pretty typical for a record. I would say a

record can take depending on like, you know, how complex it is,

anywhere between like four months to a year in the process, depends on like

everyone's schedule because everyone's busy, you know, unless you're like a full time

touring band, being able to like the time to that, it's like,

uh, you know you got you gotta carve it out. Yeah, is

there a project that you're particularly is there one that you're I know, I'm

sure you don't want to play favorites with your clients, but is there is

there any one project that you're you're especially proud of where if you were to

listen to it today, you'd go, damn, I gotta say, you

know, I've dropped a bunch of times, but that that The Crippling Alcoholism

was like, uh, what was uh, fantastic record. I really want

to hear that now. It's great. I think it's called is it out?

Is it already available? Uh? With love from a padded room,

Yeah, it's outright now it is Okay, I'm gonna listen to that today.

It's really near it now. And I feel like it was because I

was able to I was giving a lot more freedom to be the producer role

in that one. Yeah, it was great. You know, I was

able to make calls and like here's how long, here's like how these structures

of these songs should be. Let's let's cut out like this stuff, Let's

remove this part, Let's add this part and Uh, they really trust me

with that, and it feels good when you're with a band like that.

Yeah, I think you'd like it. It's it's it's very very earwormy.

It's a very dark sounding record. It's some Uh it is the story of

I think it's like ten songs and each song is about a uh it's like

a you're walking down a solitary confinement and you look inside of one room and

it's like a story about this person. Yeah. And it goes from all

this stuff from like you know, these really sinister like murderers to like,

you know, some some guy who's like you know, addicted to pills,

who who's goes to like a boxing gym. It's like it's it's everything,

yes, yeah, and uh there's all these wonderful lyrics and it's uh,

very dark but catchy. Yeah, all right, Jenny and I will listen

to that today. Absolutely, definitely. Definitely. The time goes so fast

before we uh because we're we're gonna play another song by the way too out

at the end of the segment and I'm gonna play, Uh, I'm gonna

play a magnetar track Loving You is killing Me. Okay. It's like seven

minutes. But I don't care because I it it's so good. So so

we'll we'll play that in a in a moment. But Eric, what should

people know about getting in touch with you keeping up on everything that you're doing.

I'm sure we have you know, a lot of musicians listen to the

show. I'm sure there's people who want to work with you, either because

uh, they know of your work, or they're learning of you for the

first time, or whatever it may be. So, how how should people

reach out to you, submit music to you, et CETERA best way to

do it is through my website, blackheart andh dot com. I have a

whole contact form there and you can email me on there, my emails on

there, my phone numbers there, text me, call me like I'm I'm

I'm usually available to answer. Yeah. So I love I love talking with

people about their music and like what they're looking to do. So yeah,

I can be Uh, I can be reached out through there at any point.

Excellent, excellent. Hey, By the way, where does the name

come from? Blackhart Sound? Is there any significance to the name or there?

No. I I remember thinking of coming up with it one one day

and I was like, I like how this sound. Yeah, And that

was probably around like twenty sixteen. There's no there's no romantic story about the

about the name on that one. Yeah, I just liked it. It

rolled off the tongue for me. So yeah, I figured, hey,

let's go for it. Oh, by the way, you're getting some love

in the chat room, like Casey Darren just popped in and said love Eric.

Yeah, we had uh what was that two weeks ago? Yeah,

yeah, two weeks ago. Casey was here played live for US Acoustic.

It was really really good. Case is great. Yeah. Yeah, oh

that's right. You did the afterimage stuff, right, I know, Or

did you? Brandon Brendon Curtio engineers all their stuff. They did, They

did some they recorded some stuff out of my studio. Oh okay. Brendon

Curtier is a good friend of mine. Okay, he'll come in for some

sessions and he'll rent the studio for me some oh I gotcha. Okay,

okay, So that Brandon actually did a lot of work on the on that

that Dank Sinatra record. Yeah, oh he did. I would say,

yeah, he did a big portion of the tracking and mixing on that one.

Oh okay, that's that's great too. I love that there's a particular

dank Sinatra song said air between Us. Was that recorded there? Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, because I remember Fredo, he's one of the

guests who has mentioned your name. Like I said, it's it's great to

finally have you on because your name comes up quite a bit here, which

is wonderful, and we have con to it coming in the in the third

hour and they recorded with you, and so yeah, really they're great.

I can't wait to get the get those tracks out of me. I think

we worked on those a little while ago. So yeah, yeah, here's

yeah. They they sent us a bunch of stuff and uh, I had

to make some radio edits. Yep. Didn't have to do that with Magnetar

though. No, I mean there's much you tell. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what he's saying here, but whatever it is, he definitely

means it. Eric Sotter, thank you so much, my friend. This

has been wonderful. We'll we'll definitely have to do this again in the future.

Uh. Like I said, this is and I like this whole album.

It's a crush from the band Magnetar, but this is my personal favorite

so sell. Officially, we're going to end with this one. Oh I

was wrong. It's actually it's eight and a half minutes. This is a

long song, but I don't care because I love it, so we're going

to play it. This is Loving You was killing Me from magnetar Eric.

Thank you again, Thank you.