Gabe: .Through the recent changes in
technology and the way music is delivered to an audience how do you feel
about P2P sharing and downloading as a whole?
Mark
Allen Miller: I'll be blunt. P2P as a technology is fine. All technology is
intrinsically fine. How it is used can really suck, though. And despite what
people say about the legitimate uses of P2P (NASA uses BitTorrent, for
example) the vast, vast majority of people use it for copyright
infringement. In other words, to steal music. And I've yet to hear a single
justification for not compensating artists for their work that holds up
under scrutiny. Not one. There are websites out there that try to defend
this, but every argument I've read falls apart. Some have even proposed
"solutions" - and all that I've seen also fall apart when you do the math
that they suggest will somehow compensate the artists. One such rather
idealistic proposal had a popularity-based compensation plan in place. As
best as their math could suggest, I could only surmise that the artist might
make about a penny at best per permanent download. Considering even a really
modest budget to record and promote a record of, say, $5,000, that would
require 500,000 individual downloads to even pay off the recording. Truly
preposterous, if not well-intended.
Those who know me, in person or online, know I'm a
very vocal advocate for the artist (or rights holder) to decide how their
music is distributed and how they are compensated for it. There are so many
myths surrounding the creation of music and how money is made with music (or
in reality, how much money isn't being made...) that the general public just
think that they're hurting no one by illegal downloading or copying CDs. I
do believe that very few people actually think they're causing any harm. The
reality couldn't be more different.
The overwhelming majority of my clients at my
studio have all seen first-hand the damage that is being done by the current
culture of "entitlement" to "free music". Some have had "fans" ask them to
autograph CD-R copies of their records. Others have had people say right in
front of them "I'll buy their CD and rip it for you" or "Hey, I love your
band - I've downloaded everything you've ever done off of Limewire!" - Don't
tell me for a minute that there isn't a whole lot of harm being done. You
simply cannot convince me.
On the other side of it, there is now a more level
playing field for musicians to release music. For better and for worse,
anyone can release something if they want to. Personally, affiliation with
CDBaby is a godsend, for, if nothing else, their very trustworthy
association with the new distribution channels: the legal digital download
services. (Some deride iTunes, but they are far and away the most used legal
download service, as far as my downloads go. Surprisingly, I've actually
seen a few dollars (literally) from streaming 'radio' play, too, through
Rhapsody and MusicNet (and their affiliates.)) This has allowed me to not
only get the new material to people in a variety of ways that suit them, but
also to make all of my back catalog legally available for those who want it,
without the prohibitive expense of having to press CDs for all of those
older titles again. (Which I'd love to do, but it's just not cost-effective
enough to justify, sadly.)
What do think about new artists giving away
their music to try and gather new fans?
That is totally up to the individual artist! And
that's something that's a great thing to do, to promote one's music. But
it's only the artist's choice. I personally have a few free things on my
website and elsewhere, and make two-minute samples of every single song
available for free, too (both on my site's download shop and on CDBaby.) I
think, in this day and age, that if people want to audition a record before
they plunk down their hard earned bucks on it they should have a easy, legal
way to do so. And by providing that, I also eliminate yet another
justification for illegal downloading; the 'try before you buy'
justification.
In any event, if an artist wants to give away
downloads, or CDs, or whatever, that is totally up to them. Giveaways are
always a great way to promote and spread the word.
Through your studio Slaughterhouse Recording
Studio and your personal tastes in music you have a vast amount of different
artists and genres that you listen to. What are your current influences and
is there anything new that is tripping your trigger lately?
Influences? What isn't an influence? (This is one
of those times the printed word doesn't properly display inflection...
insert a 'smiley' emoticon here.) Seriously, everything is an influence. If
I hear something I really like, it may influence me. I try hard not to let
those instances influence my choice in sounds or structures when I write,
but I'm sure they creep in.
If I hear something I really don't like, well, you
know I'm gonna be going in the opposite direction.
Working full time with everything from death metal
to acoustic rock to emo/screamo to industrial/electro to, well, name almost
any style, is wonderful. I recently recorded a full bagpipe and drum band!
That volume gave a "dimed" Marshall stack a run for it's money...
Every day, every week there is something new
crossing my path. Some say I'm blessed or whatever to have the ability to
hear something good in everything that crosses my path. It's true, though. I
can find something to get into with pretty much every single band or artist
that comes through my doors. Some things, of course, resonate more deeply
with me, but I guess that ability, or lucky gift, makes me love what I do
all the more.
Lately I've been digging on a bunch of different
stuff. Almost always it's the band(s) that I'm working with, whether it be
the jazz trio I'm mixing this week, or the screamo/emo band who's doing
overdubs, or the acapella groups from the local colleges, or whatever. I've
just had several albums I've worked on mastered, and I've been reviewing
those masters - that's really exciting to hear, when something is at that
state of polish.
And stuff outside of what I'm working on, well,
I'm always buying music. (I put my money literally where my mouth is and buy
a lot of stuff.) So, with no particular preference to be implied, I can
rattle off a few things seeing repeated spins lately: Like 2-Bit Pie's
"Nobody Never" 12" (perhaps 'song of the year' for me!) Locust's "Morning
Light" CD. Todd Rundgren's "Runt" LP. X-Dream's "We Interface" CD. Fluke's
"Puppy" LP. Laika's "Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing" CD. Mark Schwaber's
"The Killing Card" CD (okay, I recorded some of it and mixed it..) The
Rolling Stones "The London Years" CD. A handful of Cure and New Order
singles I've recently re-bought (stuff that went missing from my collection,
mostly post-high-school...) And on and on and on. Ask me next week, get a
different list!
It's been almost ten years since we spoke the
first time. I was a college student and you were the professional doing what
I wanted to do. IN these ten years what has changed for you? What have you
learned and what would you have done differently?
"Professional"! Thanks! That's a compliment. Well,
since then I have become sole owner of Slaughterhouse (well, my wife and I
own it) and, well, I wouldn't change that. It's good to have full control of
my career that way. And it took as long as it needed to for it to happen...
I think I would have tried to manage myself a
little better a little earlier on. Back before 1999 I worked way too many
hours a day, way too many hours a week. I burned out. I nearly gave it all
up. It was depressing, honestly. There's this myth that if you're in the
studio business that the hours have to be long and grueling. I wish I
learned earlier that that's a lie perpetuated by bean counters to squeeze
more hours out of engineers and studios in the misguided attempt to maximize
budgets. The reality is, when you burn out the engineer, and you burn out
the band, you actually pass into a zone of severely lowered productivity
which goes against the 'maximizing the budget' concept of all-day lockouts
in studios. In other words, I went from doing sessions 12-14 hours or more a
day for 10, maybe 20 days in a row, to working no more than 6 days in a row,
at 8 or 9 hours each day. What happened? In the first year after that we
recorded about 50% more music than the prior year, in fewer hours. So people
spent less, I didn't burn out, and everyone was happy. Penny-pinching A&R
reps/labels/agents who try to bully studios, engineers/producers and artists
into lockout marathons are misguided at best.
I also, for those who don't know, saw my tenure
with Metropolis expire. A good run, with good folks who really do c
are
about the bands they work with. (Same should be said about Axis!) After a
respite, a break, a reprieve, as it were, I pulled together a 2-CD
retrospective of those first 10 years of Out Out, with a CD's worth of
alternate mixes of songs that I thought might be served well with a new
perspective, or might be considered by some as my equivalent of "hits", and
a second CD of remixes that I'd socked away for such a project. Also, during
that time, I wrote Virtual Sound Images and Assumed Outrivaling. And formed
Radio Valkyrie Records to release them under. Anyone wanna distribute Radio
Valkyrie releases? (insert another 'smiley' emoticon here.)
What other projects are you working on as a
musician besides Out Out?
That depends on how you look at it. I play a
little keyboards, percussion or bass, or sing backing vocals here and there
on various client's records from time to time. I do some remixes as well. I
hope to be doing a guest vocal on a project pretty soon, too...
My recordings of my own material all come out
under the Out Out name now, even though Virtual Sound Images, and it's
darker, slower follow-up Assumed Outrivaling were originally conceived as
side projects.
Remixing in my book comes in two camps, too. These
days, most remixes are "new school" where people make pretty much entirely
new tracks, new productions around key element of the old version. My
preferred method, although I do both, is "old school" where the source
material is exclusively, or nearly exclusively, the original multi-track
master recording, manipulated, mamngled, edited, rearranged, sliced, diced
and distorted into something new. The studio as a tool, as an instrument.
And regarding side projects, I decided (with some
encouragement and input from several cool people and bands) that to try and
market this stuff under another name would be like completely starting over,
and that it, while different than older Out Out material, still had plenty
of 'signature' texture. One of the best decisions I've made, I think. I
cannot imagine how few people would even have found out about Virtual Sound
Images if it wasn't under the name Out Out!
You recently moved your Slaughterhouse
Recording Studio, how is the moving going? Are you finally getting settled
in and getting back to business as usual?
We're in! Well, there's a lot to do - lots more
wiring and troubleshooting, more painting and aesthetic stuff, we need more
furniture badly, too. Also, some more acoustic tweaking will likely continue
for a while - but that's normal in any new space. But, we're up and running,
and have been going almost full-blast for a month now, with myself and
another engineer doing day and night sessions, respectively. I feel lucky to
be in such a position, to shut down for six or seven months, and reopen the
doors to a full schedule. Lucky, and I admit, a little proud.
You are currently on your own label. Do you
have any desire to get back into the game and pursue a record deal or are
you content to do it yourself?
Running one's own label is as 'in the game' as
anything, from what I've seen... (!)
Unless something terrific literally is dropped in
my lap, I'm done with other labels. That is, I'd consider offers, but I'm
not pursuing them. Right now I have 100% creative control, no one dictates
what I have to do or shouldn't/can't do, and I reap 100% of the (small)
rewards. Even though I'm spending far more than I'm making back, I love it.
It would be nice to sell more, but not playing live of course makes that
very difficult...
I know your not a big fan of touring, is that
something you would ever consider doing with Out Out in the future?
I actually love being on stage. It's the fact that
touring is generally a money pit to pursue, and when I've got three or four
or more other folks and their monetary needs to consider it's very hard to
do. (This is another myth that people use to justify illegal downloading or
CD copying - that most bands make most of their money touring. Most bands
are actually lucky, and consider it a success, if a tour even pays for
itself!)
I refused to do any 'extended touring' going all
the way back to the Pepperbox days without assurance that myself and my
bandmates wouldn't come home to eviction and/or shutoff notices, without
promise that we wouldn't be sleeping in a van every night. No one could or
can promise that so far, and I don't think anyone is going to look at Out
Out and make such an offer. It's just a huge investment, and Out Out isn't
really 'mainstream' enough to sell the kinds of tickets at the kinds of
ticket prices needed to make it worth it for someone to do so.
And I am not a fan of 'laptop' bands, generally,
even though that can be an economical way of playing live. Some folks can do
it and make it interesting, for sure. I've seen a few! But most look like
they're fiddling with an iTunes playlist and checking their email. Some have
suggested I tour "solo". I'm not going to do that. Pre-Pepperbox Muzzle I
played live by having my gear on stage, hitting play on the sequencer,
singing, firing off some samples, and jumping around a lot. Really dull for
me, after a while, and I'm sure not too exciting for most to watch, either.
However, I've recently been thinking about the
follow-up to Assumed Outrivialing. I think I want to write another
vocal/song-based "rock" oriented record, more like the pre-Virtual Sound
Images stuff, perhaps. If I do, I think I'm now in a position where the
risks and expenses of putting together a live
band are more manageable than they were back in the 90s. I've got many
friends who are musicians with superior skills, so rehearsals could possibly
be fewer to achieve what we busted our humps to do in the pre-Nisus live
show days. (Not to knock those folks at all! - That was a tight, tight,
tight band! But it took tons of rehearsing, which took a lot of everyone's
time. I've learned a lot since then and think I could meet or beat that
tightness in less time...) Then, perhaps, if it's fun and affordable for
everyone, periodically we could take it on the road. Mini-tours or
something. Don't hold your breath - it's more a fantasy than anything.
When I first interviewed you, I was just
starting out in the industry. I had a lot to learn and you provided me with
some valuable information. I would like to ask you that same question again
today, what advice would you give to someone who is just starting out?
Be prepared to spend much more than you make back.
The odds are good you'll never actually make a living solely doing music.
BUT: make that music. Spend what you have to to do it. And do everything you
can afford to do, both with time and money, to promote it. If you're
passionate about it, it will pay you back in the satisfaction of meeting
those goals alone. Learn everything you can, and keep your mind open to new
ideas. Don't worry about trends, don't worry about whether or not anyone
will like what you make, just make what you really want to hear, and focus
your energy on trying to get what you want to hear in your mind to come out
of the speakers - never stop trying to get that. The best music is made that
way.
What did I say back then?
Here's a couple of techy questions for you. Do
you prefer working with Soft synths or the classic synths?
Classic synths. I hate latency, and so far no
computer I've used can get that latency down enough to not bug me. I hear
delays in single-digit milliseconds very easily. That being said, I do use a
couple soft synths now in Studio Vision Pro (yes, I still use that sequencer
and have a Mac running OS9 to keep it around...) However, I still like
hardware better (yes, MIDI has latency, too, and other issues) and am
thinking about picking up a few more modules as soon as I am a little more
flush from the studio build. Man, that wasn't cheap.
Do you record digital, analogue, or both? What
do you believe the pros and cons to both forms of capturing a recording are?
Both. These days most sessions are digital. But we
use two stand-alone hard disk recorders (48 tracks) with full analog I/O.
Our console, and the whole infrastructure of Slaughterhouse is analog. We
also have 1" and 2" 24 track machines. Once in a while a session is analog
all the way, still. Some sessions get tracked analog, then bounced to
digital for overdubs. Some records get mixed to 2 tracks of ProTools, some
also see 1/4" analog tape at mix. The advantage of analog is the inherent
imperfections. Depending on tape speed, biasing, tape formulation and other
factors, you can sculpt the low end, open up the top, warm tracks up, or
package sounds with a little tape saturation... The advantage of digital is
speed of editing, the fact that the sound you get (listening through the
converters) is the same on playback and never degrades or changes... and
these days digital isn't "harsh" like it used to be. I used to avoid digital
for Out Out multi-tracking because it simply sounded really bad with a lot
of the textures I use. Bright, 
overtone
heavy FM synth sounds, for example, simply spat and hissed in the wrong ways
on ADATs. Blecch. Our current machines sound great, and coupled with our
console, well, it's lovely. I got some criticism for Out Out's recordings in
the late 90s because, compared to the majority of lower-budget records in
the electronic 'scene' being made then on digital equipment, and the
resulting top-end overkill and hash, my records still had warmth and a
balance spectrally. So they were often called 'dark' or 'dull' - one
reviewer even called Voiceprint "fairly amateur" because of this. Oh well.
That record holds up very well today, I believe.
What does the future hold for Mark Miller and
Out Out? For Slaughterhouse Recording Studio? How about any future projects
we might expect from you as well?
Out Out is back. (How corny does that sound??)
How prolific I will be, we'll have to see. I'm
gonna be a dad in a few weeks, and that of course is one more very important
thing that will vie for my time. Slaughterhouse is my daily thing, so as far
as my involvement with music goes, it's a priority. But now that it's next
door to our house, I have combined my
home studio, Radio Valkyrie, right
into the control room. Kinda like a mecca for me.
Like I mentioned, there is a new CD coming,
hopefully sometime this summer or fall. I also plan on releasing the "lost"
second Vein Cage CD soon, which I culled from demos in various states circa
1993-1995. It would have been the follow-up to Feral Din. It's really cool,
I think, and I'm excited to release it. Both of those will be on Radio
Valkyrie Records, too... And, although there's nothing official set yet, the
Evolutionaries and Collapse Into Reason are both considering doing something
collaborative with Out Out, like split singles (on vinyl!) or something. No
promises, but a lot of fun to consider.
My famous last question. Is there anything you
would like to say to the people reading this? This is your soap box or
pulpit use it to talk about what ever you would like.
As always, thanks to everyone who supports
independent arists and labels. Heck, to everyone who supports music.
And, a plea to the world: stop and think about
what harm you might be doing if you participate in or support illegal
downloading or CD copying. If you don't know the facts, don't assume you're
not hurting someone. "Real Fans Don't Steal From Bands".
A special big thanks to all who have supported Out
Out and Radio Valkyrie Records over the years. You all rock.
