Canadian Musician November / December 2019 | Page 11

CM: How do you go about picking and
choosing what you’d like to work on
these days? Are there still a lot of es-
tablished acts knocking at your door?
David Bottrill: I think I’m actually very
lucky that people are still calling. I’m get-
ting to what you might call the back half
of my career, but I get calls every few
days from people – both major projects
and up-and-coming acts. I like to split
my work between production and mix-
ing projects; I mostly keep the two sepa-
rate so that I keep myself interested.
As far as artists, I’m going to Califor-
nia to do some work with Chris Corner
of IAMX. He was also the founder of the
Sneaker Pimps in the ‘90s, but then I
also take on projects with up-and-com-
ing indie acts like DoubleSpeak from
Chicago or Elsiane [from Montreal] that
are self-funded but still have a strong
fan base.
I love developing new things, be-
cause I’m learning more and more
about how our industry is changing, so
being able to reach fans on a direct ba-
sis with artists that are switched on and
building and engaging with a fan base
on their own, there’s a lot of excitement
and discovery in that for me.
So yeah, when it comes to choosing,
it’s always down to this: if I feel I have
something to contribute, then I will. If I
don’t, then I won’t.
CM: Are there aspects of today’s in-
dustry and creative climate that you
like better than what you experienced
in the ‘80s and ‘90s, before the file-
sharing disruption? And conversely,
are there disadvantages or challeng-
es inherent in today’s landscape that
weren’t there before that are particu-
larly relevant to your work?
Bottrill: Well, a pro, I think, is the ingenu-
ity of young artists. Music is a constant-
ly-changing, developing process, and
younger artists are doing things in ways
we never would have thought of years
ago … I find that there are still great art-
ists writing new things and approaching
music in a really fresh and creative way,
and that’s very exciting to me.
The cons, for me, are that we’re less
about developing what we used to call
catalogue artists and ending up with
what I call disposable artists. We have
much less development at the major
label level, and that means artists are
trying to develop themselves, or it falls
to producers and managers, and there’s
less funding and guidance and support
for artists to develop properly. Major la-
bels are essentially curators now, or li-
brarians. An A&R with great taste used
to be able to sift through all the stuff
out there and say, “This is going to go
somewhere and this is not,” and then
invest in making that happen. Now, it’s
just sort of a barrage of new music, and
trying to find the little golden nuggets is
often quite difficult, and we’re left with …
I don’t know, we’re left with disposable
artists and artists that probably could
have used more mentorship to develop.
CM: If I understand properly, using the
metaphor of a good A&R person being
something of a filter to identify which
acts have potential, and then help
nurture and develop that potential,
how much of that has fallen to you
and your peers at this point? When
you’re deciding which projects to
take on, to what degree do you need
to consider the long-term potential
for something, and what you might
need to contribute to help it get to
a level that you can all be proud of?
Bottrill: That’s a huge part of it. It’s fallen
now to more experienced band manag-
ers and producers to do that very work,
and we find ourselves in a position of try-
ing to help an artist develop even more
than we did.
In the “olden days” [laughs], when
you were given a baby band to work
with, there was a lot of other support
out there to help them with their devel-
opment and to have stronger mentor-
ship, both from the labels and manage-
ment. And there were often arguments
and battles within that, but that kind of
process helped in a way. They’d be able
to take advice from different sources
and be able to come up with their own
conclusions of where they wanted to go,
and it would be sort of an amalgam of
all of this proven expertise, and the band
would develop something for them-
selves with the advice and consent of
all parties involved. Now, it’s down to me
and maybe a young band manager to
shoulder most of that.
When it comes to developing bands
or producing or anything, I don’t make
all the right decisions all the time and
don’t have the best insight all the time,
but I have some, and if you’ve got a
group of people with certain insights
that can work together, that can be re-
ally strong; you can parse between all of
them. But as a producer, you can only do
so much, and then have to let them go
and move on to something else.
CM: Then specif ically to the less-
established artists you might be
working with, what are some of the
boxes they need to check for you to
get excited and think you could bring
something to that project and help it
realize at least some of its potential?
Bottrill: I think it’s important, if you can,
to actually see somebody live; that’s a
real indicator for me. These days, you
can do demos and polish them and
tune them and time them to where, if
you’re just hearing a demo, you really
don’t know what you have. I still like the
demos that come from a tape recorder
in a corner while the band’s playing. If
you’ve got that, there’s no hiding.
Then, I think it’s important to at least
start with some pre-production via Sky-
pe, where you talk to people, hear some-
thing real, give feedback, and find how
they respond to that feedback. Do they
try things out, or are they resistant to
change? Are they coming up with better
ideas once you’ve given advice? That’s
even more exciting to me – if I say, “Hey,
why don’t you try this chord progression
here?” and they try and say, “Well, that
didn’t really work, but how about this?”
and it’s better? Man, that’s a real strong
indicator for me.
It’s all down to musicianship and
character and originality. You’ve got to
be able to stand out and have some-
thing that sets you apart from the rest.
For more from our in-depth chat with
David Bottrill in the October 2019
issue of Professional Sound, visit
www.professional-sound.com.
Andrew King is the Editor-in-Chief of
Canadian Musician.
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 11