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“All Out Life” Slipknot

I am so excited to have engineered this recording with Slipknot. We have history from back in 1998-99 when I was playing guitar in Amen touring the U.S. with Machine Head and Coal Chamber. Then life put me at a crossroads.  I gave up touring and being a recording artist to sit at the runner desk at Sound City, where I started my life over on the other side of the glass, so to speak. Since 2001 Slipknot hasn’t stopped. They’ve overcome so many tragedies and obstacles and shown true resilience in the face of the universe trying to slow them down. Now here we are together in the studio with Greg Fidelman at the helm as producer, corralling all their energy into this crushing recording. I am so excited for everyone in Slipknot for this release. Enjoy!

Produced by Greg Fidelman, Engineered by Paul Fig and Mixed by Joe Barresi (All, Sound City guys)

As Tom Connick from NME says:

     ‘AllOut Life’, the Iowa nine-piece’s surprise new single, was released yesterday amidst countless claims from the band that their new album would be “‘Iowa’ levels of heavy” – a call-back to their genre-defining 2001 second LP. You’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes at those claims. The band are a full 18 years older than when they recorded ‘Iowa’– they’re now fathers and husbands, and have full bank accounts and back problems. Such things don’t typically lend themselves to the kind of nihilistic rage that ‘Iowa’ thrived upon (back problems aside).
      It takes just seconds of ‘All Out Life’ to burn away those doubts. An explosion of twisted riffs and the clattering, marching drums that defined their early years, it’s as searing and immediate as a shot of acid to the veins. The pace is unrelenting, even that oh-so-Slipknot percussive middle-eight surging forward. It’s the return to bruising form that they promised, and then some, with Corey Taylor’s rottweiler vocals perfectly summing up the sentiment: “Old does not mean dead,” he bellows, “New does not mean best.”
Read more at https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/slipknot-new-song-all-out-life-review-2395781#sP5xWF6riT6ZfzPJ.99

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Alice in Chains to Release “Rainier Fog” August 24, 2018

I have been working with Alice in Chains since I engineered “Black Gives Way to Blue” with Nick Raskulinecz as producer in 2008. We went on to work with the band on “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here” in 2011-12.

It was a long journey with AIC to get demos together for the new album especially when they were doing much of the writing between tours and travel. Its a privilege, and a hell of a lot of fun, to work with Nick, Jerry, Sean, William and Mike again to create this epic new album.  The band wanted to go back to their roots and draw on some of the organic energy that they used to tap when they were part of the Seattle grunge scene.  So we recorded this new album in Seattle at Studio X. From there, they went to Nashville to Nick Raskulinecz’s studio to wrap up overdubs and vocals. Then we were in Joe Barresi’s space (JHOC) in Pasadena, where he mixed every song. I’m really proud and excited of what we achieved with this album; it blends classic Alice in Chains with new sounds and moods. “Rainier Fog” gets released on August 24, 2018, until then enjoy these pre-released tracks!