He has made a career of 40-plus years in music on the non-performer side of the glass. His time in recording studios has included sessions involving some of the biggest names in music, from Billy Joel to John Lennon to Frank Sinatra. He built and designed a recording studio in Manhattan that he ended up owning, with an office inside there being home to the personal management company for the legendary Keith Richards. Another studio that he built was included in a cover story that Mix Magazine did on the ten best studios built in the world at the time. Present day he is Product Specialist for Equi=Tech.
“I believe that there are many, many different disciplines that you bring to a job… And I believe if you're intuitive enough, that you will be able to bear fruit from that. And you know, over my career, that's been my mantra. I've always been able to pull a rabbit out of a hat when I need to.”
“You just keep your eyes wide open and make sure you only speak when you know it's a good idea. And also good people skills.”
“The door was open and a young lady who was working there said, ‘Oh hi’ and we introduced ourselves and it became obvious that by all the Stones regalia in the office that this was not just your average advertising place and it turned out that it was Keith's (Richards) office.”
“Knowing Phil Ramone, I used him as a sounding block about what he would like the place to have, so he was kind of like my mentor over the years and this studio in particular was something that I really relied heavily on his nod. He knows everything and I took a lot of influence from him.”
“Most of Billy's (Joel) work was, 70% was written in the studio on the studio clock. He came in with ideas all the time and depending upon the album and what the genre was it was the same band for the most part, so they really really worked together as a unified collection.”
“This particular session with (John Lennon) and Yoko was done at A&R for one evening, just one night. The tapes came over and I believe it was even a 16-track recording, which means that we had to switch the heads on the tape recorder from 24-track to 16-track to accommodate John's session. So, it was a real big deal to put this room online and literally it came in overnight.”
“The next day (Frank) Sinatra shows up and believe me when I tell you it's like when this happens it's like an event. People are just in awe… all these guys all just showed up and everybody dropped everything because it was Sinatra.”
“I'm in an airlock passing some wires through the airlock to be able to allow the door to close for the film guys’ wiring, and I hear this voice behind me, ‘Excuse me, may I get through’ and it's Michael Jackson followed with a bouncer the size of a refrigerator.”
“The level of availability of audio in this today's market … there's so much that you can do with minimal money.”
“I was the first person at A&R recording to bring a CD, it was a Sony Discman … and I walked in with this thing with a mini jack and plugged it into their console and everybody said, ‘What just happened here’?”
“When you get to go into one of these hallowed places that we all want to be in, take it very seriously and take notes and do whatever it is you got to do to make sure that people remember you.”