With six Grammy Awards and credits on iconic records by Michael Jackson, Lou Reed, B.B. King, and more, Jimmy Hoyson has quietly shaped some of the most influential music in history. I had the privilege of sitting down with him at The Vault Recording Studio in Pittsburgh, where he serves as Chief Engineer, to discuss his journey from assistant engineer to industry heavyweight, the nuances of working with superstars (including the late Quincy Jones), and how he’s managed to stay fresh in an ever-changing industry. As his mother lounged in the room next door, Hoyson shared invaluable insights on everything from combating ear fatigue during grueling 30-hour sessions to breaking into the world of film-scores. Balancing family and a high-octane career isn’t easy, but Hoyson does it with a playful sense of humor and a generosity that’s as warm as his legendary mixes.
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As an assistant engineer, you found yourself working 12 hour days, 7 days a week for long periods of time, expected to constantly deliver without any meaningful breaks from a project. How did you combat the infamous onslaught of ear fatigue?
Part of my theory is that we’re always listening through really good equipment. The more distorted the music, the more damage it can do to your ears.
I try to mix as low as I can; at a conversational level. If you monitor too loudly all the time, your ears will naturally compress it, so you’re not getting a true listen. The key is to listen at all different levels and on many different playback systems.
Usually people with hearing loss make really bright mixes. Because my mixes are warm, I think that my ears must still be ok!
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You’ve worked on music from all across the board in terms of genre. How does your approach change depending on the style? What elements of your process stay the same regardless of the sounds you’re working with?
When I first started, I worked on the tail end of the hair metal era in the late 80s (think Cherry Pie by Warrant). During that time I learned how to use a lot of drastic effects. When Nirvana hit, it killed the careers of the hair metal bands overnight. All of a sudden they were out of style, as well as all of the producers associated with them.
Later on, I transitioned to more organic stuff. Through happenstance, I connected with the Blind Boys of Alabama. They introduced me to Ben Harper, Charlie Musselwhite, Tom Waits, Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples, MeShell Ndege Ocello, Michael Franti, Lou Reed, and others.
Although I have occasionally produced/engineered more poppy stuff, I personally tend to lean toward stuff that’s more blues-based and organic; where there’s not a lot of tricks being done.
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Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said, “In the beginners mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s, there are few.” How did you keep it fresh as you became more and more experienced?
Throughout my career I would go backwards, regressing to the role of assistant engineer in order to learn stuff. I’d already had multiple platinum albums under my belt, but I became a novice again assisting film composers like James Newton Howard and Danny Elfman. Scoring film before Pro Tools was a whole other level. We were working with three 24 track tape machines – one had the orchestra on it, one had synthesizers and a rock band, etc. Locking multiple machines through timecodes while super famous film directors looked over our shoulders was high pressure…
I also made a point to not just work with rock bands, and learned how to record orchestras and stringed instruments. I thought that by crossing genres I would be more employable, and eventually sought out experience with punk, jazz, rock, gospel, folk, and bluegrass. Working with different kinds of musicians for each project poses unique challenges, so it’s always fresh.
This past spring, I produced an off-broadway play with partners at The Cutting Room in NYC based on the legendary Gaslight Cafe, a countercultural ground zero for beat poetry and folk music that was frequented by Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Peter Paul and Mary, Mama Cass Elliott, and other folk legends. The beat poets were there too, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The play tells the story of the Cafe’s owner, John Mitchell, a Pittsburgh-native who was constantly juggling the clashing forces of mafiosos, cops, and beatnicks. We’re going to do more shows in the future.
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The story of your career trajectory is stuff for the movies. Moving to LA with $100 bucks and a guitar, then getting your first job at Village Recording Studio as a result of a chance encounter while cleaning yachts in Marina Del Rey… Do you think in the era of social media it’s still necessary to move to an entertainment hub like NYC or LA to find a career?
It’s not necessary. You can still create, and if everything aligns you could be successful anywhere in the world. You could have something go viral and become a big star out of Pittsburgh. But for someone like me, during the pre-internet days, it was necessary to go to New York, Nashville, or Los Angeles. Having said that, even now I still leave town to do big projects.
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You said in an interview that people skills are an essential part of being a good music producer. In an increasingly remote world, what advice would you give to introverts who love music production but are nervous to branch out beyond the privacy of their own home studio setups?
If you’re gonna be around superstars, you better not be shy. I used to be timid myself, but I quickly had to learn how to tell very famous people things like, “we can’t do that yet,” if they didn’t understand the mechanics of the recording process. So my people skills had to be good.
I like to joke around and tease, to cultivate a light atmosphere where everyone’s laughing. Especially singers, because a singer can do a vocal pass that’s brilliant and the very next one, not so much. And that all has to do with their mind.
The problem is when they become too self-aware. So when you hear someone sing for the first time and think, “Oh my god, this is awful. What am I going to say?” you need to know how to gently guide them toward a stronger result. But if they’re amazing, then my job’s easy. And I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the best in the world.
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The world recently lost the incomparable Quincy Jones. What was it like working with him?
In the 90s, I was working at a CD-ROM company called 7th Level alongside Bob Ezrin (who produced Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” as well as other giant projects). At the time, they were developing games in collaboration with Monty Python. I’ll never forget walking into a back room in their headquarters to find Eric Idle getting his photos taken while handcuffed to a radiator. Anyway, they hosted a big event at a theater in Downtown LA with a full orchestra. Quincy was the band leader and I was the front of house mixer.
Years later, I was working a session in Studio A at Capitol Studios for legendary jazz arranger Sammy Nestico. There was a camera crew recording everything, and I was sitting on the couch with Quincy talking about Bob Ezrin. That footage is still out there somewhere… He was extremely kind.
I personally feel he is the single greatest music producer of all time. He truly has done it all: film scores, broadway, jazz, rock, pop, and the list could go on. Not to mention the glass ceilings he broke through as a person of color navigating a prejudiced industry.
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When asked about your process, you once said “I hold a mirror up to them and quite often find that they’re naive about their own sound and influences. Hopefully, I can help them rise to a new level and push themselves creatively.” Can you explain what it means to be naive about your own sound and influences, and how to go about transcending that?
No matter who I’m working with, I always say, “you’ll be best at whatever comes naturally to you without much thought.” You don’t want an artist to think along the lines of, “I need to do a country album because it’s charting well.” You can’t chase what you think is going to be popular.
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What was it like working with Rick Rubin? I read in an interview somewhere that you said he was extremely hands-off.
I first worked with him on a song called “Mother” by Glenn Danzig in New York. At the time, Rick was super hands-on; there every day. Years later, I worked for him engineering all the overdubs for an album by Trouble. The band was signed to his label, flown out to California to work with him, and he only showed up twice. We were really disappointed.
He’s a curator, and there’s value in that, of course. He’s good at helping bands pick songs, putting the team together, bringing in great engineers, and stuff like that. He’s just not a hands-on producer anymore.
Rick’s reputation is so strong that many artists desperately want to work with him, even though they might be better off with someone else. I’ve worked with producers who were there every minute of the recording process; going so far as to learn every song on guitar. I can guarantee you a lot of the production credit on the stuff Rick worked on should have gone to the engineers.
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A couple of weeks ago my dad told me he heard that Michael Jackson would lip sync to tracks that had breathing sounds in them to make it look convincing. Little did I know you were the one who put those breaths in! Is that really common in the pop world?
I can understand why he did it, because if you listened to his actual mic signal while he was dancing, his singing was accompanied by heavy breathing. I heard back that he really liked what I did; that he thought it sounded organic and real. It’s the same with the superbowl halftime show. The performers are almost always lip-syncing because the stakes are too high.
It’s not a new practice, either. Back when I was working with the hair metal bands, we’d record 8-track or 16-track tapes for them to take on the road and play against. Sometimes we’d record the lead vocal too, just in case something went wrong. But otherwise there’d be all the stacked background harmonies, synth parts, etc.
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What were the best and worst investments you made into your career as a music producer?
I’ve always worked at amazing world-class studios, so I never invested much money into gear. I did however go crazy buying nine custom guitars, though. As well as some equipment I use to record at home.
On the business side of things, personalized relationships were important because I always found my gigs through word of mouth, and was able to get repeat business with the same people. So I’ve never had to share a percentage with anyone.
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What’s your take on the role of AI and automation in music production?
Sigh. I don’t know the full extent of what it can do. I have used AI in writing situations. But with music, I can’t imagine people becoming big fans of a computer generated track. People are never going to stop playing instruments and writing songs. Fans latch onto the artists behind the music as much as the music itself. When I mix, an integral part of the process is emotion. Humans do things that AI will never be able to do.
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Working on 24 track tape machines was obviously highly limiting, but the infinite options in Pro Tools are paralyzing in their own way. How do they compare?
Working on tape forced us to make decisions. You couldn’t have 30 tracks of background vocals. You had to bounce stuff down and condense it to the first couple tracks before you could record more. Now, you can record thousands of tracks in a session. I never want to work on analog tape again. I love Pro Tools and what I can do with it; being able to fly stuff around, cut things up, and all the manipulation I can do nowadays.
At the same time, the manipulation can be taken too far. Sometimes it’s disappointing how much artists rely on autotune. That’s not to suggest that pitch-correction should be avoided altogether. Singers are only human, and correcting subtle imperfections is usually part of the process. In the days of tape, our only option was to manipulate the speed of the tape machine while recording. For example, if we knew a singer was going to hit a certain note too sharp, we would change the speed of the tape at the moment we went into record for a particular vocal line. This forced us to choose our battles. There is power in restraint.
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Loud Reed had a reputation of being a curmudgeon, but I heard you had a different experience.
Lou was nice to me because he had brought his own microphones (he was known to be very controlling during the recording process), and I immediately said, “Great let’s get ‘em set up!” When I’m in the studio, I’m not trying to make myself happy. I’m trying to make the artist happy.
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Can you share a story about a happy accident that shaped your creative direction in the studio?
I’m always recording, because some of the best happy accidents happen when the artists don’t know they’re being recorded. At the end of a recording session, another trick I use is to tell the artist that we’ve got it. I then casually ask them to have one more pass at it, “just for fun.” Lo and behold, we get the strongest take when all the pressure is gone. Music production is about psychology as much as it is about the technical stuff.
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What’s it like working with superstars and record execs? Did you ever encounter a dark side of the industry?
I have no doubt many artists have been taken advantage of in this business. Generally speaking, I barely had to interact with industry execs, and the ones I did meet were always friendly and enthusiastic. I never experienced A&R people trying to control the artistic process, either.
99% of my experiences working with major stars were wonderful. They’re successful, happy, and doing what they love. They have fans. They have money. Why would they be mean or negative? The only time artists would misbehave was if they were lacking self-confidence.
When you’re working with an artist, you’re part of the team. You’re on their side. You’re not acting like a fan. You’re there to help them. So they treat you differently. I spent two weeks or more with Eric Clapton, and the thing we talked about most was our shared love of cars.
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What’s It Like Working at The Vault Recording Studios in Pittsburgh?
I hit the jackpot meeting Bob McCutcheon and developing my connection to The Vault. Not only is he a wonderful man, but his whole family is a delight as well. Our partnership has been extremely fruitful, and I couldn’t be more honored to work as The Vault’s Chief Engineer.
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Are there any lessons that you learned as a producer that you’ve applied to life more generally?
Be nice to people. The music business is a small industry. Don’t be a jerk, because everyone finds out. I would much rather be thought of as fun to work with than as a tough guy.
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If you had to give one piece of advice to a total beginner who has no idea where to begin, what would it be?
I always ask young people, “What’s your passion?” I feel bad for kids who don’t know the answer to that question. You’ve got to go crazy. Learn as much as possible. Even now, I’m reading articles every day about guitars and amps. I’m obsessed.
Recording and production schools, however, are a money making scheme. You pay a fortune, and then you can’t afford to accept an entry level position because you’re drowning in debt.
As soon as I got into a recording studio, I never looked back. I’ve never had a 9-5 job; never had to turn in a resume. No one has asked me if I have a college degree. Never. It’s been all music. It makes me so happy.
At the same time, my marriage failed because I was in recording studios all the time. I have no children. If I did, I would have had to get a “real job.” So I made the choice to work a million hours. Honest to God, a million hours. I don’t know how I did it. I guess it was youth. But I had no social life. It wasn’t all glamor. It was a huge sacrifice.
Would I change anything? No.
