This is the full transcription of an interview I did with Ed Ackerson. A legendary musician and producer in Minneapolis, Ed has been on the scene 20 years playing pure, exciting power-pop. Ed’s band, Polara, found success in the heady days of the mid-’90s, back in the days when bands actually got signed to labels. Cool. At the time of this interview, Nov. 2007, Ed was just releasing his first solo record on his own Susstones label. Highly recommended. Here’s a video for the song “Wired Weird” (ah, that good old grey MPLS sky).

 

ED ACKERSON TRANSCRIPTION 

 

I have to tell you, I love the album.  You’ve gotta be really happy with it too.

 

Yeah, I think it turned out alright.  Bit of a departure, but I think it’s a good statement.  Definitely a different type of record for me.

 

How so?

 

The last bunch of records that I’ve done with Polara are all very much oriented toward what that band does: it’s a group of people that make a very noisy and highly, densely-layered sort of thing.  [Polara] is also very orchestrated in a sonic sort of sense.  I’ve really gotten used to writing for those people, for the band, like for what Peter (Anderson) is going to play drums like and what Jennifer (Jurgens) is going to be doing vocally and keyboard stuff.  So as I’d be writing songs for Polara, I’d always be thinking in the back of my head about what those guys would be contributing. 

 

This record is totally different because it’s not like that at all.  This record is really like I was writing songs and going in and recording them immediately.  Just with nor preconceptions at all. 

 

That’s cool.  So one thing I was wondering if you had these songs tucked away, if this was something you’d been thinking about for a while and you had been saving things up, that it was a coming-to-a-head type of thing,  Was there some of that to it?

 

No, not really.  I think a couple of songs had been rattling around for a while but not very long.  The bulk of the writing – I think I wrote fifteen or sixteen songs – for the record, of which there are eleven or something on it, happened within a two-month period.   

Wow!  When was that?

 

Late 2007.  A couple are from early 2008.

 

So you’d write and then go in and record immediately?

 

Yeah, that’s kind of how of how I was doing it.  I mean the way that I’ve generally done it with Polara was to write and do some sort of a demo and then start working on the stuff at some point when everyone was available.  But for this record I was so busy—actually I’ve been really busy for a while—but I was super, super busy at the end of last year and I was excited to be working on stuff but still at the same time I felt like I wasn’t doing any art myself at all, ever.  I didn’t have anything to show for what I had been thinking about doing. 

 

So I decided that when I came out with an idea that I would literally go in that morning or that night after sessions and whack out the tune, not as a demo but as a completed thing.  So a lot of the songs were done in one four or five hour session.  Just really sitting down and doing it top to bottom.  And whatever wound up being on the multi-track was whatever the song was (laughs)!

 

So it’s kind of a process of jamming with yourself: putting down the acoustic guitar and vocal track and then whacking down some kind of drum arrangement, and another guitar.  I just really felt like if I didn’t do that I was just never going to get it done.  And in the meanwhile we had another Polara record we were working on, too.  So I just got this notion that if I could just do these songs as compete as possible, immediately, and let the thing stand as this sort of work, that could be an interesting approach.  Instead of just throwing songs on the pile which is the Polara approach. 

 

So for recording yourself do you have a different setup or do you use the Flowers studio?

 

Yeah, I just work it entirely in the same studio area.

 

Do you work both sides of the glass, or are you tracking in the booth?

 

Most everything is done in the control room except for, like, drums or piano, stuff that’s out in the room I’d basically run out there, and either set pre-rolls or just run out, you know.  A couple songs drums come in late, I would have to start the drums at bar sixteen so I would have time to run out.

 

It’s that kind of approach, very ad hoc.  I mean, so of the stuff is kind of funny-sounding because I’d take a pretty minimal approach as far as miking goes, on drums and stuff.  When you engineer for yourself and you work it fast it’s not like you can be very methodical about it.  In certain places the drums sounded just like whatever was up at the time: what ever snare that’s up is the snare, whatever mic happened to be near it. 

 

In a couple places I didn’t even get levels on things, so it was more just like whatever was like not distorting in the room, and sounded ok, that was the drum sound.

 

The immediacy comes though.  None of the songs, none of the production sounds labored.  Did any aspects of that “immediate” process just not work for you? 

 

Well, really the success ratio was pretty high.  There were a couple things where I sort of backed myself into weird territories.  If you’re recording extremely quickly after you write, sometimes you find that you’ve got something in the wrong key, there were a couple of songs like that where I had it in B and I probably should have done it in A or something because the vocals were too high or something.  I think on Little White Lies I had to re-record it for that reason.  I had originally had it in A and that was too high so I had to move the whole thing down to G.  It wasn’t that big of a deal because there’s not that many elements to the song. 

 

One of the songs on the album that really stands out as very unique and with really delicious production is Tablets.  That’s a song where you put yourself way out front, and it’s very intimate and it’s got certain aspects of production that are very interesting. 

 

The thing that’s interesting with that song is that there’s really nothing to it, until the end of the song when a twelve-string comes in.  It’s really one acoustic guitar, one vocal, one backing vocal and then tape echo. 

 

What did you use for the echo?

 

That’s a Space Echo.

 

201? 301?

 

Probably the 301.  It’s the Chorus echo.  I’ve got that, a couple of 201s, one works one doesn’t, and then an Echoplex.  I’m pretty sure it was the 301 because it has that reverb on it, too, that really nasty, short spring reverb that those things have. 

 

Tablets is also mono, if you listen to it. 

 

Really?

 

Yeah, there’s nothing in there, just guitars, vocal, Space Echo, maybe a little bit of plate reverb.  The performance is all mono.  It’s very minimal miking, too.  If I recall correctly it’s just one mic. 

 

One mic for guitar and vocals?  What mike?

 

I think a 414 EC or something.  A lot of the stuff that’s on this CK-12 Capsule, 414, using like Telefunken e-72 pre’s.  I made different choices than I would tend to do on a Polara record, where you would go more Hi-Fi as far as the signal path go but on this record I kind of wanted to make things a little more unique, experimenting a lot more with dynamics, too.  A number of these vocals are done with EV stuff, like PL-15 or RE-15 kind of EV’s. 

 

Those for vocals?

 

And guitar.  I’m kind of fascinated with the idea of dynamics on acoustic guitar.  It depends on the mic, of course.  I’ve always used small-background condensers on acoustics.  If someone sets up an acoustics you’re generally going to go for a C451 or a TM84, something like that.  That’s kind of what I would do as a first choice, and that’s usually a safe first choice because if you have a modern rock arrangement where you have bright, loud drums and all that kind of stuff if you want your acoustics to have a lot of detail and a lot of attack, to actually get them above the racket in the mix. 

 

On this record, it’s very much not arranged like a rock record so you don’t have to worry about sounds being competitive.  It’s not going to be like a real clicky kick drum and loud hi-hat and really whacking snare.  A lot of the drums on this record are one overhead mic, or kick plus one overhead, that kind of stuff.  Like really, really simple drum miking. 

 

It’s a lot more like a ‘60s record.  So in that way you can put a 57 or SM-7 on an acoustic and get that type of mid-range spectrum to it that not as stinging as on a condenser of some sort.

 

And I was going for dark acoustic sounds which is again something I had never really even thought about trying in the past.

 

Were you matching the mood of the material?

 

I wanted to have it not be that pretty acoustic sound: hi-fi, stinging, crystalline acoustic sound that you go for in a lot of modern concepts.  I wanted to have a grimier, more like what you would hear on American records in the mid- to late-‘60s.  Which in a lot of cases would have been done using dynamic mikes, as opposed to European records of the time which would have been done using condensers.  American records of the time used dynamic microphones much more extensively.  It adds woodiness, a midrange tone to it. 

 

Is this an acoustic album?

 

It was supposedly going to be! 

 

It’s weighted toward acoustic, but there is a power to it. 

 

When I started the record, the intention was for it to all be more along the lines of “Talk about Your Tablets.”  The whole thing was supposed to be much more professional and super-strict on three elements per song.  But then, inevitably, I started adding drums to things, then I’d put a bass on it—more like pop music.  But this record is very much acoustic. 

 

Another philosophical question on the record was to try to use acoustic instruments and acoustic textures where I would normally use electronic stuff.  Like using ouds instead of synths for droning purposes.  I started getting other weird instruments involved like sitar and Indian banjo.  Harmonium or melodica instead or organ. 

 

Bass tones—there’s a number here, from Beatles to clicky.

 

I don’t think I used the same setup for bass on two songs ever on the record.  Since I wasn’t trying to make it sound like a band, I just let it be whatever it was going to be.  And also because I was working so quickly, in many cases it’s what was already set up that got used.  There’s a lot of Hofner bass on it, but there’s also a mid-sixties shorthorn Danelectro that’s been in the family since high school, and a Rickenbacker 4001 that I’ve used forever.  Also a Gibson EB-O.  There are a lot of those kinds of funny-sounding basses on this record; it’s not so much like a Precision bass.  Again, if you’re doing a modern-rock, this-could-be-on-the-radio kind of track then you’re going to have everything be all bright, cracking, and you’re probably going to have a Precision bass because you kind of know where that sounds, where it sits in the mix already, to match the drum sounds.  On this record it’s really more like maybe use an unusual-sounding bass and see how that sets up with the acoustic, then place the drum track based on how that stuff is sitting within the mix.

 

Sort of slightly inverted criteria for deciding how to mix things.  And so that I guess is why there is a variety of different kinds of bass sounds on it. 

 

When you say inverted you mean going from guitars through bass through drums rather than the other way around?

 

Yeah.  You in the hegemony of commercial pop production, where the center of the whole thing is a kickin’ snare and vocal and then you just kind of set up around it.  This record is like totally not like that.  It feels a lot more like how you would make a record in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s where the performance was the singer with guitar and other things hung on that. 

 

I agree with that, especially in regards to where you have the drums in the mix. 

 

Bass direct or miked?

 

Really it depended.  If there was an amp up that had a mike on it…a lot of these songs I was doing in two or three hours.  So really it was just whatever was up.  And so in certain cases it would be DI.  The Manley Voxbox got a lot of use.  That thing is on at least three songs on the record, it works really well.  Wherever the Hofner is, that thing is too.  Or I could be going into a Rotel RSX-1056, whatever was around.

 

Another thing I used, if there was an electric guitar on the song I’d run the bass through that amp as well.  All of this is just literally down to, like, if I was working at midnight after a session was done and that same session started the next morning I didn’t want to go and change settings on stuff so you just wind up kind of plugging stuff in until you have a combination of amps that are actually sounding good without having to change levels or whatever (laughs)!  Kind of funny, really because I was going along with the idea that the way that the record was going to turn out would kind be dictated by some of those limitations and that was kind of exciting, actually.  Like what’s available today? 

 

That’s got to be really stimulating to say, “What do I have to work with, let’s make something with it.”

 

Right, that’s definitely the idea.  Like if one mike was tied up on something that was going to be used for an overdub and I didn’t want to move it, didn’t want to change the position, I would have to use a different mike. 

 

So it begs the question, whose gear were you using?  Who was in the studio over the period you were recording these songs?

 

Ah, God, there was a lot of stuff going on in that period.  This would be like during mixing sessions, maybe the last Golden Smog record, and that last Brian Setzer record that was done here.  Really, there was so much happening late last year, early this year that I don’t completely remember all of it. 

 

Did anything from the immediate approach carry over into other projects?

 

To some extent.  It was just a very different approach that I’ve used a lot more with other clients than with myself.  When Blur recorded, it was like you set everything up, get everybody in there and do it.  I’ve done a lot of work for other clients that went that way and it’s a lot more happenstance where things are just kind of happening and they happen.  Particularly when you work with singer-songwriter type of people, where it’s not like a fixed band.  Which is kind of a fun thing.  You might add instruments as needed but there’s no bass player sitting on the couch reminding you that maybe you should do a bass track now.  Kind of fun to be able to react that way.  Do just whatever needs to happen as opposed to what ever is supposed to be happening. 

 

This record was ProTools?

 

Yeah, this whole record was ProTools HD. 

 

Any tape?

 

No.  With everything happening in a very ad-hoc way there was no way possible I could have possibly done it to tape.  I would have liked to.  The character of the record was “to tape” in that there was not much editing.  With ProTools you can open up a session and work for four hours and close up, do something else, whereas with tape you have to go and set up the whole console and everything else so it’s not very feasible for this kind of project.  This project really couldn’t have happened if we had done it that way. 

 

How much mixing time went into the project?

 

Depends on the song.  “Talk about Your Tablets” is the mix from the night I recorded it.  That whole thing, top to bottom, was done in one evening.  “Got Your Message” is about like that, too.  That one is the first rough mix I ever did of that and I like that one a lot. 

 

I like that too.

 

A couple other ones were a little bit more labored, but not nearly as much as you would on a conventional pop record because there’s not generally that many elements.  Couple vocals, couple acoustic guitars, a bass, some percussion stuff.  It’s not like a 48-track or 60-track endeavor.

 

And the mastering process? 

 

It was mastered by Bruce Templeton at Magneto.  I think he does great work.  But it didn’t really change much from the mixes. 

 

Do you have a philosophy on mastering?

 

It would depend on the project.  I like to get the mixes so that they are pretty well sorted out.  You definitely don’t want to be in a damage control situation.  I would never like to hand something off unless there are adjustments for db.  And dynamically I tend to do a lot of processing on my own.  I think that is very much part of the process of mixing. 

 

Usually for mastering it’s getting the balances right, getting a good flow and timing between songs.  Maybe getting the whole thing a little louder.  But I’m really past the period of being loud.

 

You are past your period of being loud?

 

Uh, yeah.  The early Polara stuff, which was all done analog, pre-ProTools, we worked really hard at getting stuff as loud as we possibly could with the analog tools.  I think a lot of people think—I think it’s definitely out of control these days, as far as levels and db’s and stuff.  It is really fatiguing if you listen to things that are really, really loud.

 

 

American Idiot is a real standard-bearer for how loud an album can be.  Fantastic songs on that thing, a really cool record all around.  But sonically, really pretty challenging to listen to.  It’s great when you’re standing in line at the supermarket or you hear it on a boom box someplace, but to actually put on headphones and try to listen to that album, it’s like “oh boy.”

 

You just can’t do it.

 

Exactly.  And anybody in their home studio with an L-2 can crank up their rough mix so that it is as loud as anything a “commercial” outfit can do.  I think it’s kind of done now.  For me, I’m much more interested in making records that have some depth and are rewarding to listen to repeatedly. 

 

I make things louder if I have to.  But I really don’t think you have to make things as loud as they are.  I run into that occasionally with clients where they’ll send out mixes that are pretty loud and the mastering comes back and they’ll be like, “Yeah, I was listening to it up against the new U2 record…”  And, I’m, like, whatever.

 

Ata certain point you have to say to them what kind of record do you want to make.  What statement do you want to make?  I work on a lot of indie music that is not destined to be competitive in a corporate rock kind of way.  I’ve done a lot of roots-type music—which I think is extremely un-corporate—and when you hear a singer-songwriter record that is cranked to me it is even worse than when you hear a rock record like that because so much of the dynamic in a small ensemble or a solo performer is lost if you really smash stuff up.  You get that horrible feeling like the entire thing is pressed up against some invisible barrier.  Like when you stick your face on a Xerox machine.  It gets very uncomfortable. Like looking at everything through a fisheye.

 

Give me some adjectives for what you are trying to achieve when you track.  What are the general concepts and pieces of you that float across every recording? 

 

I always work with things that I like.  When I don’t like projects a lot, like I don’t like what is happening with it I don’t take the project.  So the first thing that I always try to do is

 

I feel like my job is to translate the feeling I had when I first heard a ghetto blaster recording of the band or in a rehearsal space doing some songs.  The thing that made it click for me, if I can translate that into something that’s like nice and HiFi and presented in a way that’s dynamically pleasing, then I think I’ve done my job. 

 

I definitely don’t have any particular agenda as far as “drums should sound like this”, “vocals should be like this.”  I really would like to think that I present The Artist, like their sort of trip but my job is to help interpret and transfer that from their performances to the ultimate format, CD or file or whatever you listen to. 

 

Does the project determine the gear?

 

Um, yeah, very much. 

 

Do you find yourself in client situations where gear is just inadequate or mismatched to the project?

Not really.  It doesn’t really happen because we’ve got forty amps at the studio and fifty guitars.  Drums, keyboards, all of it.  So if somebody comes in with an amp that sounds bad, we’ll eventually move them into one of ours.  And sometimes it will take a little while for it to be clear that should be happening.  All our stuff here is pretty well maintained and there’s a wide range of sounds available.  And so it winds up that more often than not they’re using one of our amps. 

 

As far as the types of sounds that a band would use, I definitely try to preserve their instincts, unless there is an obvious problem.  Like if you see a band that is really cool and the guitar player is using a Line 6 or something…then you have to do a little negotiation. 

 

Along those lines, with all the bands and clients that you’ve worked with how often do you find yourself getting in between a band or working within a band?  How far do you go as a producer to keep everybody behaving?

 

It all depends.  It usually seems that the best bands will have their own personal dynamic worked out before they get in the studio.  Like, even if it’s an ugly interpersonal dynamic they know how to manage it.  So I don’t find myself doing a huge amount of babysitting, but sometimes with newer bands, particularly if you’re dealing with people who haven’t really recorded before you’ll have to do a certain amount of psychology with people to get things working smoothly.  I think I’m pretty good at the because I really try to work from a positive angle—I’d rather build up what’s good about a performance a figure out where to reinforce that rather than saying, “Your kick drum technique sucks!” 

 

It seems like there are some people who make very special records by really trying to “break the band down” as a matter of course.  Like they come in and beat the band down to make them think that is the only way they are ever going to make something that’s worthy.  I’m definitely not that guy.  I’m much more interested in try to reinforce the good aspects that are happening and find ways to work around the stuff that is a little bit weaker. 

 

Being in your position you are always, day-by-day, giving away ideas or pulling on your knowledge of what works which is something you have put together over years and years, that’s the real value of being in the studio with someone like Ed Ackerson.  Also being an artist, do you feel that you sometimes have to give too much away to help somebody through, or is that just your role in the process?  Have you ever suggested a riff or a technique and thought that you had given something away that you would have liked to use yourself?  

 

I’m totally a whatever-means-necessary character as far as that stuff goes.  I’d say that even if you wrote a part for someone and said here’s how to play it or here’s how to sing it or whatever or show them some technique and set up a bunch of effects or something…I mean everybody is so unique that you give one guy a guitar and they’re going to sound like what they sound like and you give the guitar to me and I’m going to sound like me.  I never really get very uptight about that.  Same thing with recording techniques: you can learn a lot by watching other people but you’re never really going to do stuff the exact same way because there are just so many variables.  Especially when it comes down to vibe.  I never really get very bothered by that kind of stuff at all.  I think that if I try to make it as cool as possible, everybody benefits. 

Aside from being an engineer, musician, producer, performing artist you are also a business owner.  Can you talk a little about the business side?  Positive experience, or is that part of the work that you hate?

 

It’s not my favorite aspect of the work but it is kind of a necessary evil.  The reason that I started my own studio in the first place was that I wanted a place that had the right kind of energy for what I wanted to do and have a place that I could work on my own schedule, nice environment, good neighborhood, good lighting.  And where I could set my own prices and create a place where interesting things could happen. 

 

So to do that, I knew it was going to cost a lot of money and it would be a lot of responsibility. Some times it would be kind of cool to put up at a studio for a month and leave and let the other owners take core of the rest.  But I use so much stuff and a lot of instruments and other gear and recording stuff and all of that stuff is so much a part of my process that when I go someplace and there’s just like one amp and a poorly intonated guitar and that’s all you have if you want to do an overdub it kind of frustrating as I’m used to having a huge palette of stuff to work from. 

 

It’s the way I chose to work, and thank God it’s been ongoing ten years at this location.  I’m not getting rich at it, but I’m also not losing my shirt.  It’s up and down and the industry is in a funny place right now, but the industry has always been in a funny place.  Just different ways of being funny. 

 

It’s never easy.  We go through periods like we did from the end of 2006 to the end of summer 2007 we were ridiculously busy.  I had a couple of periods where I worked for forty or fifty days straight, every day without a day off at all.  And it’s always 26, 27, 28 days a month where the studio is busy.  And that’s great.  This fall has been a little more relaxed w2hich allowed me to do some other stuff.  I have a bunch of outside engineers in here working to.  It all kind of balances. 

 

Part of the entrepreneur thing is that you have periods where you’re supper high-flying and periods where you’re skidding along the bottom.  You have to figure out a way to not have either of those things drive you crazy. 

 

Especially when they both happen in the same hour.

 

And they can! 

 

That’s the thing.  I like the challenge of it and I feel super-duper lucky to be doing what I’m doing after having done it for a pretty long time.  To still be able to be making a living doing alternative music is a pretty cool thing.  Even just thinking about that, if I start to feel sorry for myself, I quit whining pretty quickly.  Especially when I think what the alternatives are. 

 

First 27 Various album, September of 1987.  20 years down, what things have changed that you think are great?

 

ProTools is pretty great (laughs)!  I mean compared to how we were doing things back then…but those were pretty good records for the time in a completely seat-of-the-pants way, like “How are we gonna do this” kind of way. A lot of that of course had to do with Tommy Roberts (Zachary Vex); he was the creative guy for finding technological solutions to the word ideas that would come out of my head. 

 

In a lot of ways the whole process has become a lot more democratized.  I think it’s really awesome that people can work in their own houses and places where they feel comfortable to do stuff that is real.  I think that’s really exciting.  And I’m a beneficiary of that myself because If I’ve got someone coming in for a couple weeks to work in the studio I’ll be at the house working on stuff.  I have another solo record that’s just about done right now that’s been done almost entirely in my dining room and living room while other people use the studio for sessions.  The first record was all about stealing time in the studio around other schedules and things.  The new one is abut not working in the studio at all.  Kind of fun.  I haven’t done a record like that for a long time where it’s all done in weird places. 

 

How is the Polara record shaping up?

 

It’s done, basically, it’s not mastered and we’re still making a couple decisions about song selection but it’s pretty well done.  I think it’s good. 

 

I’d there a type of project that you have never worked on but would love to, like archival or orchestra or jazz?

 

That’s interesting.  I’ve done a little bit of everything, but that’s interesting, I’d have to think about that. 

 

What would you say if someone came to you with all the masters of (‘60s Minneapolis garage rockers) The Litterer or The Castaways?

 

Oh, God, I’d love to do that.  That would be really exciting.  There are some friends of mine involved in a big archival project that I may get involved in which has to do with a large amount of live recordings from the ‘60s and ‘70s from a famous broadcaster and doing new mixes.  I’m hoping to gets my mitts on some of that stuff.  That would be really, really cool. 

 

Would that be Timothy D. Kerr?

 

No.  This is a really be project.  I can’t really talk about it, but I’d sure love to be involved in that one.  I’d like to be able to do more archival stuff and that kind of thing because I know a ton about rock history and it would be cool to be part of the custodianship of that.  I think I do a part of that right now by making good quality recordings, because bands break up and go away and to a certain extent of you are recording someone you have a responsibility to do a good job of it so it exists for the future. 

 

What are Ed Ackerson’s Three Immutable Laws of Recording?

 

Hm. 

 

Don’t let your preconceptions get in the way of the reality on that day.  Maybe you really think something needs to happen a certain way but sometimes you have to be willing to get out of the way of the moment.  That could be simple stuff like letting the tape go even if there were some technical faults, but really great energy. 

 

Like on that replacements thing I did (“Message to the Boys” and “Pool & Dive” from Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was?: The Best of the Replacements, Rhino).  The lead vocal to both those songs wound up being cut live with the band and Paul (Westerberg, lead singer) had an Orange half-stack about a foot away from him, and he’s singing into an (Neumann) M149!  But knowing that guy, you’re probably not going to get him to do it again.  He won’t want to because he’ll want to keep that real thing.  Sure enough, that’s what happened.  You have to be prepared.  One of the things I try to do is not get in the way of the process. 

 

Don’t get so invested in how things ought to be that you can’t appreciate them for what they are. 

 

Another one is don’t doubt the artist.  I’ve had a lot of circumstances where I’ve thought that somebody was crazy for wanting to try a certain idea, then an hour later I’d understand why it was really awesome.  As a producer, you have to be able to step out of the way of that and let something that seems wrong happen, give it a shot.  Something that seemed ass-backwards at the time and then you realize why it had to happen. 

 

Sometimes I hear somebody and they’ve got a guitar part or they’ve got a harmony and I’d thin that doesn’t make sense, it’s not musical and then a lot of times artist have a whole thing going in their head and it takes a little while for them to get it out so you understand it.  You have to be prepared for them to be totally right and you be totally wrong.  And be gracious about it.  A lot of times they’ll make a decision that you would have vetoed that just makes the record a success.  Ad, of course, as the producer, you look like a genius anyway, however it was that it got there.

 

Trust the artist.  That is something some people do enough of.  Some people, like the whole documentarian mindset like, “I’m just an engineer and I take snapshots,” that’s one approach.   And the other approach is to be like the modern pop producer where it’s like everything the artist does is terrible and we’ll replace the drummer and we’ll replace the guitarist and have somebody else sing the backing vocals, and whatever else.  I think that neither of those extremes is best for me.  I always sort of find myself someplace in between there.  You have to trust that there is something special about what the artist is getting at, you just don’t know what it is yet.  You have to figure out how to interpret it, you know.  And that’s what you are there for as a producer.  The artists’ job is not to realize the product, but the artist’s job is to have these ideas.