Producer Brendan O’Brien has established a level of reverence for himself among Pearl Jam fans, having produced some of PJ’s finest albums, from 1993’s aggressively explosive Vs. to their upcoming tenth, Lightning Bolt (details here). He’s even taken to the stage with the band from time to time, standing in for Boom Gaspar on keys at select shows.
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With the October 14th release of the band’s hotly anticipated new album, O’Brien sat down with Classic Rock Magazine in London to discuss the process, the new material, and how things have changed over the years.
A few excerpts:
Brendan, you’ve worked with Pearl Jam over a period of 20 years now. What are the pros and cons of having such a well-established relationship with a band?
I think the first cons of making four albums together was that they got tired of being told what to do, which happens to all good artists. Some time after we did Yield, I just think they wanted to do it themselves for a while. The pros are, when they’re ready to do something a little more outgoing, significant – whatever you want to call it, that’s what I call it, I can’t help myself! – they call me again.
You’ve said that some Pearl Jam records are more difficult to make than others. How would you place this one on that spectrum?
The difficulty for me was trying to get them back into the studio. I think that’s probably my value to them, I’m going: “Let’s keep going on, let’s stop fucking around, let’s go.” Thinking of some of their earlier records, Vs. was hard for me to make because I didn’t know any of the guys really. Especially Eddie, and Eddie was very stand-offish in those days. He was just very protective. He would tell me: “You’re Stone and Jeff’s friend” [laughs], when we would get into discussion. That was his defence mechanism. “Alright, man, whatever…”
Where did you record the album?
Henson Recording in Los Angeles, which is the old A&M Studios – the We Are The World studios. We wanted a We Are The World vibe, man! There’s still something about going into a studio, not into a house, not into someone’s fucking garage, that makes people feel like they’re going to work and going to do something significant. I do like that submarine mentality, and everybody going into the ship together. It’s only worked well once for me, recording in houses. That was Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I engineered that, and had the time of my life.
Read the entire interview at Classic Rock Magazine.
