Music industry professional with decades of experience in recording studio management. She is the Director of Studio Operations at The Hideout in Las Vegas, where this interview was recorded, and started her career at the famed Power Station Studios in New York City. There she met producer, musician, and actor Little Steven Van Zandt, who hired her to work for him as an engineer and as a musician in his band Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, going on to work with him for eleven years through many recordings and tours. She later returned to Power Station to become their studio manager and eventually president of the company. She continued as manager of Hit Factory Studios in New York City, overseeing nine studios and 75 employees, before the Palms Casino Resort courted her to Las Vegas to build and operate the Studio at the Palms where she worked for 15 years.
“Artists will come here because they want to be out of major music markets sometimes. Simply because, people perceive Vegas as having too many distractions, where for the recording community it's quite the opposite – because the other industry things aren't there, managers, artists, A&R people, etc. So, they're kind of escaping from that and coming here. The second thing that really lends Las Vegas to kind of the schedule and the lifestyle that artists are on when they're recording is it's a true 24-hour city. So, when they do finish at three or four o'clock in the morning, they can still get a really good meal, wind down somewhere, etc.”
“New York is not the city that never sleeps but Las Vegas definitely is.”
“That’s part of my job is to create the environment to allow the artist to feel as relaxed as possible because the only way those creative juices are going to come out is if they feel safe and relaxed.”
“I was one of those nerdy kids that from a very young age wanted to play whatever instrument I could get my hands on.”
“I really wanted to go to Power Station. I was lucky enough to get an internship there. And I was being mentored by some fantastic engineers and producers; Bob Clearmountain, Neil Dorfsman, James Farber, Scott Litt, just this incredible environment to start learning the craft of engineering.”
“I was working my way up started assisting on records and that's when I met Little Steven… he was branching out and starting a career as Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul… he calls and he goes, ‘Do you want to go on tour? … if I'm going to perform these songs I need someone to do those songs that there's oboe on.’ I was only 22 years old.”
“The death of the large commercial recording studio has been talked about for the last 30 years. Yes, we've lost some amazing studios, I acknowledge that. However, there is still a place for us, and I also think the whole Pro Tools killed the recording studio thing got overblown.”
“I think there's a way, a hybrid way, to make records that incorporate both working on your laptop and coming into a major facility, which we see every single day here.”
“It's not unheard of for someone to call and they had downloaded a beat off the internet, and they want to come in and do the vocal. And they want it to sound like a Drake record, and they don't realize that we can't do anything with a track that you got off the internet. You can't unbake a cake.”
“Keep an open mind especially about your career. Everyone, when I meet young people, they think they all want to be in this environment because, you know, you're hobnobbing with big stars and blah blah blah. But the truth is, this lifestyle might not suit you.”