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Issue #62 – Mentor News
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
In his many years working in the music industry as a producer/engineer, Recording Connection mentor Steve Sundholm built his career in the LA music scene (including a stint at the famed NightBird Studios), working with such clients over the years as Green Day, Carrie Underwood, Kesha, Madonna, Lil’ Wayne, Lady Antebellum and many others. A few years ago, Steve returned to his hometown of Portland, OR, where we works out of Kung Fu Bakery Recording Studios.
His years of experience, combined with acclimating to what many would consider polar opposites in music scenes, has given Steve a unique perspective to offer his apprentices. In a recent conversation with us, he shared a few insights that we thought would be helpful to all our students. We’ve shared a few of these nuggets below.
ON FINDING OUT WHO AMONG HIS STUDENTS IS SERIOUS ABOUT LEARNING: “The first question out of my mouth [with new apprentices] is, ‘What are you doing here?’ I’ve got to put them on edge a little bit if I’m honest…It shows me how they handle being put on the spot. It forces a neat amount of honesty…[And] I give them my own homework. Dude, are you going to do your homework. If it’s like, ‘Well, I just, you know, I didn’t have time this week. My girlfriend is in town,’ I’m like, ‘Why are you wasting my time?'”
ON WHAT KIND OF EXTRA HOMEWORK HE GIVES: “I give them a lot more Pro Tools stuff than what’s in the curriculum. I try to get them going on Pro Tools week one with their computers because that’s what they really need. I start with very basic Pro Tools stuff like how to add tracks and know what the tools are. Then I throw them right into the deep end of drum edits. It usually takes them two or three weeks to come out the other side on drum edits, but then they know how to use Pro Tools.”
ON THE ILLUSION OF BEING FAMOUS IN THE INDUSTRY: “I don’t know what is the value of being famous…In fact in some ways, you’d have more freedom if you weren’t. And the only way to really get famous is to be on TV. But success means different things for different people.”
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MUSIC SCENE IN L.A. AND PORTLAND, AND THE WHOLE “PORTLANDIA” VIBE IN GENERAL: “Well, ‘Portlandia’ is real…Portland prides itself on being the anti-LA…There is more desperation to pay the bills [in LA], so there is a totally different moral standard than what would be acceptable in Portland about how people deal with each other. In LA, you wouldn’t even approach someone unless you’re about to pay them, because it would be rude to expect them to do for free. So, somewhere in between is probably where the rest of America sits, especially in music scenes. Because it’s Portland, I just found that I have to do things differently. I tried to do it the LA way at first, and it just did not work.”
ON THE BEST WAY FOR RECORDING STUDENTS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THEIR APPRENTICESHIP: “My advice is you get from this program what you take from this program. So the more you do your own extra learning and come in with a million questions each week, the more you’re going to get from it…The people who have gotten the most out of the program – because I’ve had a lot of apprentices – the ones that get the most out of it are the ones that come in with the most questions and they have an agenda for what they want to get out of it that week. They come in just pestering me with questions, and I don’t mind because I’m there to answer their questions: That’s the whole point of the program.”
HIS BEST ADVICE FOR GETTING INTO THE INDUSTRY: “Number one, you’ve got to be really good. Number two, you’ve got to be cool—you have to have good people skills. And that’s it. But just people skills isn’t going to do it… there’s no point in trying to network and do your thing until you’re good.”
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