12 Questions With

It's time to find out what all the secret fuss has been about at The Boulevard! This installment of "12 Questions with..." turned into a bit more than just 12 questions, but you can't stop a great conversation when it comes spilling out. It's pretty close to the mark, but who's going to complain when they're reading an interview with Anthony J. Resta?

Yes, kids. Emmy Boyce had the opportunity to chat with the one and only Anthony J. Resta, most widely known to Collective Soul fans for his work on "Dosage" and "Blender", though, his involvement with the band extends beyond those two albums. Continuously managing a hectic schedule and life both in the studio, and around the world, Anthony J. Resta was excited and eager to talk about his work, Collective Soul, and the industry for everyone at collectivesoulblvd.com!

His excitement and eagerness are surely direct results of his enthusiasm for music and his work, and are also due to having one of the most incredibly genuine and pleasant natures to be found. Read on for a glimpse into not just the mind of a producer, but into the insight and experience of the man himself.

Okay, I suppose I'll just dive in here. I want to know, is producing what you had always intended to do, or did you morph into it from another avenue?

I morphed into it definitely from another avenue. I started off in the 80's doing programming for people, keyboards and drum machines in the dawn of the digital age when everything was being - a lot of musicians were being - replaced by machines. That was in the hey day of, MTV you know, '82, '83, right in there where the Fixx's "Red Skies at Night" was hitting the radio. There was just a lot of work for programmers like myself. In Boston, I worked for a number of different producers who had hired me to help them with records, and then as time went on I started getting my hands more and more involved with the projects. One day, one of the key engineers (Grammy award winning Bob St. John) pulled me aside and said, "You know, you should be doing this." So, I quit my bartending job and bought a briefcase. I've been a producer ever since (laughs).

We've all quit our bartending jobs. When you are busy producing, what do you daydream about doing all day with your life?

Oh, I don't have time to daydream about anything. I'm just really focused on what I'm doing. It's sort of an obsessive compulsive behavior. I mean, I can often spend literally 100 hours on a song. It's just very focused work. I'm just so involved in the details I don't really have time to daydream. Maybe on the way to work I daydream about fishing.

Fishing... Minnesota's the perfect place to go fishing.

For musky.

We have musky, and walleye, and whatnot.

I grew up with that kind of fishing in Canada, but now I go after everything from big stripped bass, to sail fish, to... I'm a big salt water guy now.

Wow, that sounds like fun.

Yeah, but I definitely would enjoy musky fishing in Minnesota for sure.

You have mentioned things now and then about what it's like working with Collective Soul, namely Ed Roland. Can you reiterate those things for our readers?

Sure! He's super gracious, very meticulous, and a great filter of ideas. I can give him thirty things and out of those thirty things he's going to find three or four that really fit. He's definitely about economy and space. Actually, he's a true genius about it. I've grown a lot from the time I've spent working with him for that reason. He's just a great guy to work with. He's relaxed. I mean, it's intense because it's important, but at the same time the atmosphere he creates is always kind of a team spirit. It's never super stressful. Ya know what I'm sayin'?

That's kind of the way, in all the times that I've met Ed, kind of how he strikes me. I mean, I really don't know him, but he just seems like such a mild person. Not mild like boring, but mild like a nice spirit to have around.

Ed's got a big heart, and he's very generous. What's the word? There's a better word. I'm having trouble coming up with the word. I guess down to earth and sincere is the best I can come up with right now.

What is Collective Soul like in the studio? Do they goof around, or are they serious about getting down to business?

You know, it's an interesting question. It's been different on every record we've worked on. In the beginning when I started working during the "Dosage" era, we were in a very expensive studio in Miami, so there was a lot more pressure and everybody was around. As things went on, it started to be more like whoever was directly needed for the session would be there. If we were working on drums it would be me and Shane, and Ed, and maybe Will. Everybody's not there all the time, but Ed's there all the time. So, it's not like everybody's hanging around for 100 hours a week. It wouldn't make sense anyway.

They want their free time as well.

Sure. They're all great. They're all easy going. I enjoy working with all of them. And I love Joel. He's a really talented writer and guitar player, too.

Yeah, Joel. He's a very nice boy.

He is a way cool person, too.

I'll say that about Joel. So, the recording process..... I see the recording process to be a battle of wills between a producer and the artist. Am I really off base by that? Is that kind of harsh?

Well, that's definitely not necessarily right. There are a lot of people, you know, who have musical relationships like that, but I'm not really known for that kind of chemistry. It's funny, when I did work with them on "Dosage", I contributed a lot of different things and it just felt natural. It's the kind of thing where if you have to fight about everything all the time, then you really shouldn't even be there. You know what I mean? Ed and I, for instance, have certain similar tastes in music. We both love ELO, Tom Petty, The Cars, and the Beatles, of course. There's nothing musically for us to battle about. We've got the same sort of gene, or something. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I don't think I've ever battled with Ed about anything. I won't say that I haven't had clients that I've battled with. That would be silly to say, too.

With that in mind then, I suppose that it's different with every artist you work with, but how much of what John Doe listens to on a CD is the artist, and how much is the producer?

Well, I suppose it varies from project to project. I'm not the kind of person that runs around blowing my own horn saying, "Oh, I did this, and I did that." It's a team thing. Working with a band versus working with a solo artist, a producer can't get credit for every single thing he does, just because he's there to be supportive of the whole team. If you want to be a team player, you're not there to blow your own horn. People that follow my career know exactly what I did as soon as they hear the record. I just saw a review saying that with industry gurus like Anthony J. Resta and Tom Lord Alge, "...these guys don't mess around when it comes to production and mixing." And you know, I didn't really even get production credit on this record. Just a very fair all programming credit. I put in a fraction of time on this record [Youth] compared to "Dosage" and "Blender" and the credit was more than fair. People that are familiar with my work will hear my stamp in certain places. I'm just there to help make the music the best it can be. They are always going to sound like them because of the song structure, Ed's voice, the type of sounds they gravitate toward.

I noticed that right away. To everybody's ears as the listener "Dosage" was the first album that was distinctly different.

I think I may have had a little something to do with that. Ed's been quoted as saying on more than one occasion that I basically pulled the project together and kept the band from killing each other. I was really good at being a mediator at that point and was able to merge Ed's incredibly concise vision with the band's. I guess I'm just good at smoothing things over. But it is funny you mentioned that because "Dosage" was definitely a departure for the band. I think it's probably the first record that they really had a lot of programming. They'd dabbled in it before, but after bringing me aboard, the Pink Floyd-esque things like "Crown" started to emerge. Two of my big influences are definitely Floyd and The Beatles. When you hear those things on "Dosage", it's definitely coming from Ed letting me inject some of my thing into it. As I said before, Ed has similar taste so it's not even like he would need me to do that; he just let me.

Well, it seemed to me off of "7even Year Itch" that "Next Homecoming" and "Energy", I don't know if you worked on those at all, but maybe like you're saying Ed could do that himself, those two songs sounded like they could have come right off of "Dosage" or "Blender".

No, I didn't work on those two extra songs. That was basically Ross and Ed doing their own thing post-"Blender". I would have done something completely different. I mean, maybe to you it sounds like something off of "Dosage" or "Blender", but to me it doesn't really. You know what I mean? I guess I have a different pallet of paints I reach for.

Speaking of your stamp then, you're saying how "Dosage" was definitely a departure. With the drum loops and whatnot, do people tend to come to you, Anthony J Resta, as a producer for that kind of feeling?

You know, at one point that was one of the things that I was known for. Techno and hip hop and even drum and bass remixes are very program-oriented styles, and for a long time I was associated with that, but in the past several years I've definitely been doing more and more organic sounding things that are completely from another planet. I've got clients coming to me and I'm working on records that have nothing to do with electronica. They come in with more of a songwriter perspective, more organic. Say, an Elliot Smith, or a Jeff Buckley. You know, that kind of flavor. More organic and acoustic things. I guess it's nice to be becoming known for some new and different things!

Do you think that's because people can open their minds about what they hear coming from a producer, or because you have evolved as a producer?

I think it's because I've evolved a lot. Now I think the people that come to me for what I used to be known for are the very few that recognize the difference between what I do and what you can do with a simple program like Apple Garage Band, or Acid. With programs like that, anybody can start cutting and pasting these prefab audio bits and make their own thing out of it. The problem for me is that it's public domain, so you're going to hear your drum loop in a hair spray commercial and on your record. You know what I mean? In my opinion it's prefab and has no personality whatsoever, whereas the old gear from the 60's and 70's, and even 80's that I use, has a character that you can't invent on a laptop. It takes a certain level of engineer, producer, musician, artist to discern that. The ones that can discern that are the ones that will actually call and insist that they use me. The rest will just go out and use their PC and think they're doing a perfect job on their own.

Tell me about one of the most frustrating experiences you've had recording with Collective Soul, be it a technical issue, or just a day that wasn't going right, or whatever. If you can remember anything.

Frustrating?

Yeah.

Geez, you know what? Well, I guess coming up with the right tempo for "Perfect Day" was really hard because we re-cut that song at least 2 or 3 different times trying to fight to find the right feel for it. That was frustrating because we had to re-cut tracks in different keys and different tempos to finally get it right. That gets a bit frustrating because you get attached to certain elements of older versions and have to recreate them, but in the long-run I feel it ended up working out.

Okay, let's move on to a slightly different topic here. You have what I like to call your "classroom"... I don't know if you know what I'm talking about... where you send out an article to a group of people, they all read it, send back their thoughts, and then you compile the substantial parts into quotes and re-send those back out to the list.

Yeah. I do that Once in a while. Not very often, but occasionally.

It has been a while.

I do that because it's interesting to get other people's opinions on things that may have an opportunity to influence other people's decisions within the industry. Especially when it comes to things like file sharing, free downloading, and the internet. I'm interested in hearing from 13-year-old kids who say, you know what, I listen to nothing but Lenny Kravitz, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and everything that MTV puts out is crap, I hate some of the bands that - I'm not going to use any specific names - just the cookie cutter "I'm pissed off at my mom" rock. It's interesting to see this whole new revolution unfold, not before our eyes, but kind of like subversively. That's what I'm kind of interested in tracking and I've seen a huge shift in the way the industry is going because the majors have been firing thousands and thousands of people over the past few years who had tons of experience building up the record industry the old way, which was find people who can really write, perform, play, entertain, and build their careers. If The Beatles came out today they would have never gotten past "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". We would have never got to hear "I Am the Walrus". There's not enough nurturing and development of artists today. I find that really frustrating. But they are making their own opportunities by putting out their own records and developing in their own time and using the internet to gorilla market themselves. Now you see all these cult bands that you don't really see on MTV or on the radio blowing up in the underground.

How do you think they really can emerge, or be successful? Because to me, if a band is going to be successful they have to obtain that level of airplay.

That's just on one level. Other things are going on. How about a model like Victory Records in Chicago? Every title they put out sells between 10 and 50 thousand, and if you're only spending thirty or forty thousand dollars to make a record, you only need to sell 3 or 4 thousand records to break even!!! But if you sell thirty thousand of them, that's three hundred thousand dollars. There's enough money for everybody in the band to survive for another year and make the next record. It's not like the current model of the industry where you go and spend a quarter of a million dollars recording then go out and spend another couple million dollars promoting it. If it falls flat on its face with those kinds of dollars being lost they just kick you out the door. Like I said before, there are thousands of guys that have mortgages, and families, and houses that built up the industry to its hey day... now they are fired, but not going away!!! They will be back and using downloading and future technologies to advance the careers of long-term artists.

That brings two thoughts to my mind. One is that the big wigs that remain in the industry, they must have people who grew up like me in the last 20-something years, there's just been this standard, traditional way that the industry has been, and I guess they just must have me duped into being conditioned to "this is how the industry is" and "this is how it works", so I'm the kind that sits there going, "Well, uh, if you're not signed to a label, then how can you get that success?"

I see what you're saying. Of course being signed to a label gets you to a wider audience which makes you more famous, but will you have lasting success? That's the part that I see disappearing. There are people like Aimee Mann who was signed to a label in the 80's, and now she's got an illustrious career on her own. Would she have had the same solo career on her own if it hadn't been for the "Voices Carry" video? That's impossible to answer 20 years later! There's no question that the money the majors put into artist promotion and videos, etc., can make someone famous and quickly, but it's the economics that are the dinosaur equation here. You're starting to see companies saying "Okay, we'll give you fifty per cent of sales, but we're only going to spend fifty thousand dollars to make the record" And then all of a sudden you sell five thousand records and you're already making money.

The other thought that comes to mind is that if things aren't the way that they have been, if they're going to change, I'm freaking out because I find some sort of comfort in the fact that people can obtain some sort of level of fame, like the iconic Metallica and Aerosmith.

You know, Em, I don't think that's ever going to completely change.

You don't?

I think you're still going to have certain things stand out and have longevity. That's bound to happen, but where is our next Led Zeppelin? Collective Soul is probably one of the closest things to it we have! Is it Velvet Revolver? A super group? Audioslave? These are industry attempts at trying to create legends.... The talent is there for sure, but the people sense something contrived. I mean, where are our rock stars? I'm with you. I mean, when Lenny Kravitz walks into a room he's a rock star. I understand your fear. I still think that those people will somehow emerge. They seem a little scarcer these days if you ask me, though.

I do think so. You know, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Iron Maiden were all emerging from the same era. The era that we're in now, who's emerging that's going to be there still in another twenty years?

That's a very good question and I don't really know the answer to that.

That just scares me, but I'll trust you.

I'm hoping that it will.

We only have a few questions left here. When you're just hearing music day to day, do you listen with your producer's ears? How do you scrutinize when the radio is on?

Oh, it's really frustrating. It's like a disease. I can't really enjoy music. So much of today's music has so much autotune on the vocal, which is a thing they do to make it perfectly in key. What happens when you put a vocal perfectly in key in a rock tune? Well, because the guitars are not perfectly in key, the perfectly-in-tune vocals often make the guitars sound out of tune. It drives me crazy. There's so much music I hear on the radio that I can't even begin to enjoy it because it just annoys me. I have to shut it off.

(laughs) That's what you get for being good. There's no equal temperament when you start messing around with things.

With guitars, for sure! It's an untempered instrument.

As a producer you work with all kinds of genres, but as Anthony, what is home to you? What do you typically reach for?

Wow. That's a weird question. You know what? I'm so friggin' far out, I mean, it's like as far as my musical taste goes, I can be listening to Patsy Cline one day and Bartok the next. My gamut runs from the most avant garde like John Cage and Frank Zappa all the way to Madonna. I love lots of new wave stuff (bands like The Killers and Franz Ferdinand have that spirit, too, I think). I love early Police. I love "Zenyatta Mondatta" and "Reggatta de Blanc". Every Beatles record I'm just fanatical over. I go through periods where I'll listen to nothing but "Magical Mystery Tour" for 3 days. And I never tire of it. Then I might go on a Bjork kick and listen to everything she's recorded for a month. I just love Bjork. I like fearless people who are not afraid to do what they want. And it's funny, it doesn't have to be abstract to be fearless. I think in a lot of ways Collective Soul is fearless because they make the music they want to make and they don't feel like they have to be following any trends. I think that's what makes them fearless. I think that's why a lot of people gravitate towards them because they still do what they want to do even though some people might say it's not in fashion. They make their own fashion.

You know, I saw them recently. They did a free show at the Mall of America here. Any passerby stopped and listened. It was just amazing the amount of people that stopped all the way four floors up looking down onto the rotunda. They just drew so many people in that just had to listen. They just had to listen because it was that good.

I think they're amazing. I think that they're one of the... I think that they have the elusive "it".

We kind of sort of touched on this, but my last question is what do you see as the most dire area in the industry that's in need of reform?

Dire?

Yeah.

Artist development. I mean, it's almost non-existent. We need to be nurturing artists. Bands that come out with one record that doesn't do well don't have the chance to try again anymore. I think in the 60's and 70's and even the 80's, labels would stick with artists for a longer period of time and help them develop. Now it seems like if they don't sell X amount they're just over. I think that's really sad. The amount of money they spend on one Britney Spears album could fuel 20 great rock bands for five years. Maybe I'm just being idealistic here. And the world economy is different, but it's food for thought for sure!

Food for thought, is right. There's a lot to digest from the mind of a producer, and of someone who has worked in-depth with Collective Soul. He has also worked with other well known names such as Megadeth, Nuno Bettencourt (most notably of Extreme fame), and Duran Duran. For more information on Anthony J. Resta visit his official website at http://www.bopnique.com. It was a great pleasure to work with Resta and we certainly wish him the best in what he does.

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