The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 40: Looking Through The Lens of a Session Player with Rich Watson
Guitar virtuoso Rich Watson takes us on a fascinating journey through the evolving landscape of session musicianship. From touring with major artists to recording remotely for clients worldwide, Rich offers a masterclass in musical versatility and career adaptability.
The conversation explores Rich's work across multiple domains – from the technical demands of theatre pit work (where sight-reading is non-negotiable) to the efficient workflow of modern remote session platforms. Rich provides exceptional insights into Musiversal, an innovative platform where musicians undergo rigorous auditions to join a curated roster of session players, offering subscription-based access to high-quality recordings.
What makes this episode particularly illuminating is Rich's historical perspective on session musicians. He traces a fascinating lineage from the legendary Wrecking Crew through to the LA session wizards of the 80s and 90s, explaining how technological evolution has transformed the industry. His analysis of how Pro Tools changed the game – reducing the need for flawless first-take performances when multiple takes can be compiled – helps listeners understand why the golden age of session players has evolved into today's more democratized landscape.
For aspiring musicians, Rich offers invaluable advice balancing technical mastery with personal identity. Rather than trying to become a musical chameleon, he suggests embracing your unique characteristics while still developing comprehensive skills. His YouTube success exploring vintage session guitar techniques has become both creative outlet and client magnet – a perfect example of content creation serving dual purposes in today's digital music economy.
Whether you're a working musician looking to expand your opportunities, an artist wanting to collaborate effectively with session players, or simply fascinated by the business of music creation, this episode delivers profound insights wrapped in engaging stories from a true professional. Subscribe now and join our community of music creators seeking to understand both the craft and business of music!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/richardwatson
Website: https://www.richardwatsonmusic.com/
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy Hello and a very, very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, ebook format. I'm also a music creator with a variety of credits I'm a consultant, an artist manager and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in today's episode, I am interviewing session musician and content creator, uk-based Rich Watson. Now Rich is a touring and studio guitar player with a portfolio of work for theatre productions and major labels and independent artists, people like Beth Ditto, becky Hill, many more. He's also been on television and performed on the likes of MTV, brand New and later with Jools Holland and various others. He's also toured the world playing with different artists, whether that would be theatre productions or on tour with artists, and he's also a very, very innovative remote session player and that's something that I'm going to be talking to him about in this interview is his approach to his work, in particular, with Musiverse, which is a remote, online collaborative platform for people to be able to work with musicians at a very, very high standard. It differs a little bit from the kind of platforms like AirGigs and SoundBetter in as much as that you have to go through a rigorous audition process to be able to be on that platform. So I'm going to talk to him about that. I'm going to talk to him about the intellectual property that is or is not attached to it and various other things.
Speaker 1:He is a wonderful guy, a very enlightening, wonderful person to be around. He's also my go-to person for anything kind of guitar tone related. He's brilliant. I think you'll really enjoy listening to him, so I will hand over to the interview now. Brilliant, I think you'll really enjoy listening to him, so I will hand over to the interview now. Here we go, rich Watson. Welcome to the music business, buddy. It is good to have you here. How are you?
Speaker 2:Pleasure to be here. Johnny, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 2:You know you live like just down the road, literally five minutes away.
Speaker 1:This is brilliant, just the other side of the graveyard appropriately. I've tried to make it very, very convenient for you. Um, for those that don't know, so, a podcast out of the jewelry quarter region in birmingham and, uh, it's a lot, it's a nice part of the world, rich, right, you live here, it is, and I do. Yeah, that's nice. Well, I'm glad to have you here. I wanted to talk to you on this podcast for ages rich, um and so, um, I'm so intrigued by what you do and how you do it Right, so let's get into it. So let's start by talking about the range of your session work. Do you find that there's a kind of seasonality to the type of work you get? You know, when you compare sort of the studio side, the live side, the remote side, thinking about festivals, that kind of stuff, how does that kind of? How do you?
Speaker 2:balance all that very much so, and it happens on a yearly basis in terms of the literal seasons. So you have periods where they are, of course, busier with festivals, like the summer. But with me it's also changed year by year as well. So there's been seasons of life where I've been doing pop session work and that's morphed into theater shows or pit work or touring shows. That's morphed into recording work, so literally every kind of. Usually about every two or three years I seem to make a little bit of a shift in terms of where I'm spending more time.
Speaker 1:OK, so the term pit work. Yeah it's always. I mean mean, I know what it is, but for those that don't know rich, you don't go down to a pit, or or I don't know, fight in a cage.
Speaker 2:You do go down to a pit, but it's uh, it's. It's not as scary as it sounds. No, this is uh with musical theater and it's in situations where the band are not part of the show in the sense of being visible on stage. With some shows now, for example, there might be we Will Rock you type shows, where they might want to bring band members out, musicians out, and have them actually be part of the show. Pit musicians are generally obscured, so they're either sometimes in old theatres they are literally kind of under the stage and then more common these days is that they have the band in a separate room via like a video link.
Speaker 2:Really yeah yeah, so, and you might notice sometimes in theatres that there'll be like little monitors high up near the ceiling so that MD can see cast members, and that links in with the band and oh, wow, okay, so.
Speaker 1:So presumably then for that, that line of work, the ability to sight read, is everything right, pretty much yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:This is something that we talk about a lot at bim when I'm, when I'm trying to sell students on the idea of you need to learn how to read, okay, um, and I, the way that I explain it to them is if, if you don't want to learn how to sight read, that's fine, but someone else will and they'll get those gigs. So if you, if you're viewing it as simply like another potential string to your bow, another income stream, there's never a disadvantage to learning how to do it, because those gigs that is the gateway skill if you can't read, you're not doing any kind of theater stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, yeah, okay, um, so there are other types of session, but obviously things that you do but those that are less willing to want to do the sight reading stuff are going to be restricted to the other areas, because the nature of a lot of theater shows like that is it.
Speaker 2:It isn't like, uh, learning a set of music like you would in a band it's. It's more like a kind of an orchestral piece and that the pieces can be very long. They're changing all the time. It's not the type of thing that you can really commit to memory. You have to be following a score and you have to be following your conductor with it. That's kind of the new way of doing it. But there are other shows that tour around in theatres where maybe, yeah, it's more of like a traditional set type thing, where it's easy to internalise the tracks and therefore reading is not so essential.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, but I guess things like knowing a song structure you can't just kind of improvise when you're in a pit, right.
Speaker 2:No, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, if you did, you wouldn't work again.
Speaker 2:No, not quite yeah.
Speaker 1:Rich. There's many, many things about you and your musicality that are fascinating. One of the things is your ability to evolve. Right, you are very active in the online world. Let's say, let's go, and we want to talk about youtube as well. Right, because you've got a lot of success through youtube. But well, if we come back to that one, let's talk about your, your role in the world of remote session recording. Um, have you been on or are you on platforms such as like sound better, air gigs, those kind of places?
Speaker 2:I am, uh, I did quite a lot through air gigs specifically, although they're all good for different reasons, and then some through just people reaching out via email. The platforms are good because there's uh in infrastructure. You have some degree of protection, I guess, on both ends, yeah, in terms of payment, um, and it can, it can just help ease the process along. For example, with a lot of those platforms, you'll be able to set how many series of revisions you you are willing to do before, like a final submission, whereas, of course, if you didn't have that there, it could be an ongoing uh more drawn out kind of process a year later, can you?
Speaker 2:please change as a producer.
Speaker 1:You know this as well as anybody, right, I do I wish I didn't, but I do um, let's um sachi, just um. What are the sort of key differences between air gigs and sound better from your perspective?
Speaker 2:um small, small differences in interface. I think their offering is very similar Um same client base or different? I would say so generally. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Um, I think you have some similar offerings with platforms like Fiverr, which are not specific for musicians, but certainly it seems like the price range varies more with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You, you would still have certain musicians on there that will charge the same rate as they would on something like air gigs. But, as with a lot of other services on fiverr like graphic design or seo, whatever it may be, there are also some people who are working, you know, for much more reasonable rates. Maybe they're based in different parts of the world where that still works for them. Um, so for sort of younger, up-and-coming artists, something like fiverr can be a little bit more accessible in terms of finances yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of very, very good, resourceful people on fiverr really are. Yeah, yeah, I I don't know what I've heard people kind of criticizing I think why there's there.
Speaker 1:There are brilliant people in every corner of the earth on there doing all sorts of different things and, yeah, OK, it might be a slightly different price point, but you can tier things in a way where you go, there's the kind of price that made you click on this and get you here, but if you want this, you have to pay this, and by the time you work it out and you go oh actually, yeah, that's kind of around the same as AirGigs, actually, if you really want three-minute recording, Exactly. But I guess it's good to have the flexibility for people Rich. Let's talk about Musiversal, because that seems to me like a very pioneering company. Could you explain a little bit about how it works for the consumer and how it works from your side as a session musician and kind of what it is for those that haven't heard of it?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, so, uh, in some ways it is a remote session service, similar to something like air gigs, but I suppose the first thing that's different is that it is not open to everybody. On the musician side of it, by default, there is an audition process to become one of their session musicians oh really, so, yeah, periodically, when they're expanding or when they're wanting to bring on a new discipline, they'll hold auditions. They're pretty rigorous. The one that I went through was a three stage audition to get the role as one of their session guitar players, and so, in terms of the amount of musicians on there, it would seem small compared to a platform like air gigs.
Speaker 2:But I guess the idea is that they're getting the best possible people they can find to fill those roles, so there's people they can find to fill those roles. So there's maybe there's more of like a consistent kind of bar in terms of, uh, people's experience. So usually they want people that have, um, done stuff within the industry, that have been doing this specific thing for a long time. They're very specific about, um, the facilities that the musicians have in terms of having, like, a really good array of gear, but also having rooms that are treated so that when you get your files sent to you, um, there's no coloration from like reflections or anything like that and really actually while you're going through the audition process, if they notice something like that, if you do an acoustic guitar recording for them as part of the audition and they notice some kind of you know reflections that they don't want in there, they will recommend that you invest in.
Speaker 2:You know this particular um, you know sound treatment for your space and kind of help you get to that point where you really are providing, um, the most neutral kind of studio recordings as you can wow, okay, so there's.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of standards there.
Speaker 2:That must be yeah, so that they end up with a really interesting diverse pool of musicians. And then, um, you know how it works on the client side. Um, the best way that I could probably describe it is that I think it's optimized to be like a modular ecosystem. So there are, there are people to aid artists with pretty much every stage of the process, so this could be from pre-production to getting any instrument discipline recorded on your track that you can imagine, to mixing, mastering, beat making.
Speaker 2:Uh, even big orchestral sessions is something they do multiple times a year as well really yeah, orchestral sessions, yeah which is which, in terms of uh price point, it's still expensive, but it's way more affordable than if you were trying to sort of orchestrate this as a freelance thing.
Speaker 1:Okay. So how that differs then from, let's say, soundbetter is that I'm all right in saying there's a monthly fee that people would pay. So they pay X amount per month and then they can have a limited number of musicians per month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have different tiers, I think. So you can, depending on your membership, you'll either have like a certain number of sessions or they'll have, uh, like an unlimited service which, um, I think logistically it can't be completely unlimited because of just various reasons but, uh, essentially yeah, they have access to a high number of sessions per month which they can use as they will, so yeah, it it some.
Speaker 2:Some folks will just use it because they need that one guitar overdub on their track and they just want somebody that I don't know. Maybe they can, they can play lap steel or something, and they don't know anybody that can play lap steel. So they come to musiversal, find one of the specialists in that style and get them to record it, send them files remotely, or, yeah, it can be a completely from start to finish process where, from the very kind of seed of the song, it is nurtured, taken through the whole process of layering your different musicians on the track right through to mixing, right through to mastering and completion wow.
Speaker 1:So for people that that write songs but don't have a band or want to put together the best quality recorded music products, yeah, it's a brilliant solution yeah, yeah, it works really really well for people you know and they get.
Speaker 2:When you compare the monthly subscription to what it would cost to go and hire each of those musicians independently, it's very economical in terms of finances for the artist. So it opens up a lot of doors, you know, especially if you're, if you're not living in a music city, if you're in like a rural part of the states where you don't have like a community of musicians around you, it's an amazing resource because you can get a percussionist from brazil or you can get a, you know, a drummer from london, whatever it may be well, yeah, and, and even if you are in a big music city, there's the advantage of the sort of, you know, that protection you talked about earlier, the sort of e-commerce protection that you get when you buy something from I don't know just.
Speaker 1:It's just safer to buy off eBay than it is Facebook Marketplace, for example. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to buy off Facebook. It's just there's a transaction in place that comes with a set of rules right that have to be adhered to, and if they're not, then you can chase it up. So if you're working in a more and I don't want to say rogue way, but if you're working in a more kind of casual way, let's say, oh, let's hire this person, let's pay this person to come and do this, and they come to a studio like this, for example, or wherever. If there's no paperwork in place there, you're not going to be able to get clearance on those musicians, whereas if, presumably, that is all built into what Musaverse will offer.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:So you, as one of the creators on that platform, you get paid and remunerated for your time, but do you keep any sort of intellectual property on?
Speaker 2:No, it's really. I suppose the model is similar to what it would have been for a lot of studio musicians in the day, in that your fee is really you're releasing that work into the world, so you're kind of relinquishing other rights for your salary, essentially.
Speaker 1:Right, Okay, and do does the? Because the musicians, the people that have hired you, they're online with you in real time. Right, they are, yeah.
Speaker 2:Most of the time, yeah. So how this works is because, obviously, I've never used the service as a client, only as a musician. But generally speaking, you know you book your session, so you specify whether you're wanting a guitar session or a pre-production session. You then have your option of who you book your session with. Everybody has profiles on the platform so you can see who's a specialist in what style of music. They basically book out sessions in 50 minute blocks. That's that's what we work with 50 minutes, 50 minute walks.
Speaker 2:So how this works for me on the musician side is I have a 50 minute window. The first 15 minutes of that window are not with the client. It is downloading the resources that the client has uploaded to the cloud and what this should be is basic info like key, BPM, sample rate of files to be delivered, things like that. They should also upload a chart. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't, and then they upload instrument stems so usually four or five stems for us to lay out our project. In that 15 minutes we are downloading everything, building our project, so importing all the stems, importing markers into it and sometimes charting the song in that period as well.
Speaker 2:If we haven't got a chart, or if the chart could use a little bit of work um, usually I would kind of use that time to to start having a couple listens through it and to jot down some ideas for parts. Client joins you, then um 15 minutes in and you have roughly kind of like I would say, 25 minutes of working with each other face to face, and then the last 10 minutes of that session we will usually use to package up, export their files and then upload them to the cloud and then, as that session ends, the next one begins on the minute really yeah wow, so that's when your next 15 minute prep period begins, and so on and so forth, for however many hours you work that's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so talk about music. Talk about musicians that have good timing yeah but you know, as you and I both know rich right, you know project management, time management, it's all a big part of all this, right. So, um, that's sorry, I'm just thinking about the things you said.
Speaker 2:That does sound intense it is, it's a baptism of fire. Uh, I mean and this to to give them credit, they're such a nurturing company and they're so nice to work with, because one of the things that, um, I suppose the audition process is it, it has a dual function in that, apart from the fact that they're assessing you, they're also getting you acclimatized to their, their way of working. So, um, you know, they are the first kind of audition you do they're quite relaxed about the time frame that you're doing it in. So I think I went over by like 10 minutes the first time I did it, but then, as you go into stage two, there's much more pressure to kind of adhere to their time frame.
Speaker 1:That's necessary to keep sessions running without you know anything, running late, basically but but what about if you've got, like a fussy musician, that kind of I'm trying to say, I'm trying to word this nicely but that kind of um, uh, procrastinates? A little bit too much and and you think, oh, you're eating into the time here like that must be quite difficult to manage yeah it.
Speaker 2:It happens for all sorts of reasons, you know um it you get all sorts of extremes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people are not very organized. I mean, how I would generally organize my day was that I wouldn't. I wouldn't simply wait until it was that 15 minute window to start downloading resources, because sometimes you can find yourself with something really complicated or something. Simply wait until it was that 15 minute window to start downloading resources, because sometimes you can find yourself with something really complicated or something that it takes a little bit. The prep of everything takes a little bit more time. Maybe you need to set up a particular rig, maybe you need to do something in like an altered tuning. So I would generally spend like my morning before I was going to have any of sessions just going through client files and having to have a listen through everything, just to get mentally a little bit prepared for what's coming up.
Speaker 2:The clients that are most organized and they send you stuff in advance. So I actually have it that morning and send you their charts. They have their stems nice and organized. That usually means like the workflow of the session works really really well.
Speaker 2:Okay, some clients they're a little bit less organized, so maybe you're not getting your files until two minutes before the session begins. Maybe they haven't thought so much about direction to give you, whereas other clients might give you actual audio references or they might give you like a really a really strong kind of written description. So, yeah, there's, there's a lot of variance, but the more organized folks are and the more clear they are about either they know they want something really specific or they are just willing to trust the process and they've researched you and what you do enough to go. I kind of trust your sensibilities in this and I want the choruses to feel like this, or I'd like an instrumental section here, and then they just kind of leave you to it. And those generally are the sessions that work really well, deliver the best results for the client and leave everybody feeling happy and good about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, wow, well explained. Okay, god, I want to try it now. It sounds fascinating. Do you know one of the Okay? So I'm just thinking there Rich about, because I know how incredibly efficient and brilliant you are at your work, right, your knowledge of tone and amps and pickups and all these things that you have grafted out for years right, just a big nerd, that's all Big geek.
Speaker 1:It's cool to be a nerd now, isn't it? Um, so, um, I'm sure, within that sort of creative half an hour period, uh, you can nail it right, um, if you're kind of left to your own devices and given the space to do so. But I suppose, I suppose it's one of these things whereby and I suppose this is applicable to all sorts of different session work areas is that you know it's like, do you want to tell me exactly what you want or do you want me to do what I do? Because they're two really different things, right?
Speaker 1:yeah that's tough to get right yeah for.
Speaker 2:And again, it probably comes down to how much trust the client has in just the process and it generally. It seems to be the more experienced people that have the more trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know also, some people have good enough awareness and sort of foresight that if there's something where they know they're not sure what they want, um, they'll sometimes book a double session. Or I've even had people book four sessions with me back to back, just because they know that they're searching for something and they're trying to get there within the confines of effectively kind of 25 minutes of tracking time is going to be um untenable or it's not going to. It's not going to potentially deliver the best results, and I used to love those sorts of clients. You know where you've got literally kind of the best part of three and a half hours together to work on something. It's great because you can explore all sorts of avenues together. You can get really dorky with sound design and you know that's good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so some people do that they'll book multiple sessions so that they have longer with you which is is always super fun.
Speaker 2:Those sessions were always a little bit more like a kind of creative collaboration yeah you know you're really you're really building something together and there's a dialogue and there's discussion about it, whereas other folks are super focused and they know exactly what they want and they go I want a guitar solo between bars, this and this, or I need three overdubs in the chorus and that's great. You know, that works really well too.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, okay, that's interesting. Can I ask you then in that case about and I know I alluded to this briefly earlier but when you've played on someone's recording, whether it's through a remote or through other types of studio work, for example, do you expect that the rights holder that's registering that recording puts in there rich watson guitars you know is? Is that because there's a lot of people that don't do that and should, right, so that you can kind of get like your neighbor?
Speaker 2:it's very true yeah, it's um, it's easier to manage, I suppose, when you are working freelance and you're managing your own session, simply because you're probably dealing with a lower volume of clients and there's probably a little bit more time spent on each project, so you develop a bit more of a relationship with a client and you can talk about stuff like that. If you're doing 10 sessions in a day back to back with 10 completely different artists, it can be tricky to keep track of that stuff, to be honest, because a lot of the time, um, they might have an artist, um, alias, uh, that is not obvious when you're dealing with them face to face, just as like a person so trying to kind of follow up with all that sort of stuff and seeing if they're crediting you or not, I choose kind of at the moment not really to invest the time in doing it because there are other things that are important.
Speaker 2:But the ones that are conscientious and they're aware of the kind of reciprocal benefit of crediting and sharing each other's work will do that without being prompted, just as a matter of course yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So actually some of that sits in kind of education and rather than people kind of being negligent.
Speaker 2:It's more so that they don't always know the correct procedure and they're just excited and sometimes people just they just want to get their song out and and that's it, and they're not, they're not kind of thinking about. Uh yeah, that that back end of stuff, and I get that completely yeah, yeah, no good point, okay.
Speaker 1:So, um, just for the benefit of listeners, what I'm referring to there are neighboring rights, which featured in uh in last week's episode, um, where I talked about collectible rights, so, um, so, let's talk about the? No, actually let's. Let's talk about youtube. Can we do that? Sure, because you're so active on youtube, rich, you do such a good job, um, and actually, in regards to your sort of content creation, a lot of your remote work has actually come through your uh, through your youtube channel. It has, um, could you tell us a little bit about how that's worked for you, sure?
Speaker 2:I mean, uh, my, the whole youtube thing. For me, it focuses around something fairly niche and specific, which is that I'm exploring the playing styles of the session guitar players from los angeles from the 80s and 90s yeah, which is but it's a super specific sound. So just from exploring that in depth in a kind of I'd say, there's an educational spin with most of what I do in that I'm trying to either illuminate the musicians that people maybe are not as aware of as I feel like they should be or highlighting particularly like interesting or musically nourishing parts of their uh discography or showing people how to recreate the sounds, because it was a lot of like rack systems back then.
Speaker 2:So that stuff is kind of an obtainium these days, just to to cost and the fact that it's it's old it's like four years old. So sometimes it's how you recreate those sounds with like modern equipment.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's um breaking apart the multiple overdubs within a song and then recreating them as accurately as possible to show people how it's done and to talk about the thought process and wow, things like that um, but as a result, it means I'm demoing that style all the time in what I'm doing and it's it's been sort of fairly frequent that folks have stumbled across me on youtube and then decided that they want that sound on their recording project and then I've got in touch with me independently to work with them on like an album or something, which is always super fun because it's a dream, because nobody gets you know booked to sit and record 30 second guitar guitar solos anymore really. So to have people come in and book you specifically for that stuff is great, and I've yeah, I've been really lucky to meet some producers in different parts of the world and work on some really, really fun projects, just because they found my YouTube or found my Instagram and ended up contacting me through that.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's good to hear, Rich. Have you ever had one of those?
Speaker 2:Sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm going off script, by the way. These are the questions I'm going to answer.
Speaker 2:I'm going into all sorts of things Okay good, thank you.
Speaker 1:Have you ever kind of Like what's your music right? This is something I often ask to music creators is because you have to do so many different things right and you're happy to do so many different things, because that's what it's all about. I'm the same as a producer, you know, but you know your music right when you sit down and you do what you want to do. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, I always had a bit of a split personality on that front because there was always the kind of the conflict, I suppose because the between the music that really resonated with me emotionally from like a songwriting perspective and then the stuff that I found really interesting from a guitar player's perspective, you know. So I was split between two roads of. Down one road you have a lot of 90s alt rock, you know, nine inch nails, stone temple pilots, jane's addiction, a lot of film music, because that stuff is like highly emotive. So I'm a big thomas newman, nut, um, and similar composers within that kind of area, like max richard or like brian, you know, when he was doing his kind of ambient stuff back in the 70s, and but the problem is is that you know, you're looking at a lot of, a lot of bands like that um, they're so incredible at doing what they do.
Speaker 2:But as a guitar player I would always be a little bit disappointed seeing guitar players from that band thrust into like a different context because it's like, oh man, you like you're amazing at your thing, but you fall down in these other areas, which kind of led me to session musicians, to to looking at the guys from the 80s and 90s because they were these like just ninjas. They could do everything. They could sight, read just about anything, they could play any style. I've never seen any any one of those players and I'm talking about michael landau, dan huff, paul jackson, jr michael thompson, tim pierce, all of those cats you just never see them slip. They never miss a beat that and you can throw anything at them and they'll just handle it and knock absolutely out the park. You know I'll listen to like a huff solo and it'll be like man, it takes me like a week to just get my hands around this and you just put this down in like one take in the studio. It's insane. They're just, they're just complete black belts.
Speaker 2:So I was always kind of split between those, those two roles and, um, yeah, I suppose that's kind of reflected in like the way that I write as well. So in terms of like original projects that I have, it definitely leans more towards the alternative side of stuff and it sounds a little bit like some of those bands that I mentioned. But then I'm lucky that because of the youtube channel and because I sometimes get people coming and asking me to demo gear for them as well, I get to write muso stuff and I get to write stuff that is a little bit scott henderson or a little bit this or whatever it may be, which is super fun, and I I used to be really conflicted about where I sat with that okay, um, but I'm not now. I'm just I'm quite happy to do both and I really enjoyed doing both.
Speaker 1:Yeah good for you. It comes with maturity, I guess as well.
Speaker 1:A little bit right yeah yeah, okay, um, rich, can I ask you something right? So, um, a few weeks back I think it was episode 27, I had a guy on wonderful guy called Keith Jopling and he's a consultant strategist very, very impressive guy and he and I were talking I was talking about the differences in UK A&R compared to US A&R, right, and how the sort of typical route into sort of UK A&R is through networks and university graduates and scout manager, director kind of role, and it's great, it works, it has done for a long time. But in America it's so different because there are just so many more creatives in A&R because they kind of come from like a producer background writer producers that get their own labels or writer producers that become A&Rs that then can talk the musical language. Now, the reason I mentioned all that is because he then countered to me and said that he thinks that the standard of average recorded music, standards of musicians, is higher in America than it is here.
Speaker 1:Massive generalisation. But it really captured my imagination and I've kind of got thinking a lot about it since in the recent weeks. What I just said then perhaps falls in line with what you were saying there about those session musicians from that time. Yeah, um, because a lot of the big bands and groups and musicians from the 80s and 90s it's just sounded a lot better, with the exception of maybe sort of Def Leppard, right that that you know who are amazing, of course, but so much of that was coming out of America. Yeah, do you think Keith is right?
Speaker 2:I think it's um, in some ways it's difficult to compare the music industry of the 80s to to what it is now, because so many things have changed. Um, I think the reality of why so many of those guys were so good there's probably a few things that come into it.
Speaker 2:I think one, la unquestionably, was probably the recording city at that point I think nashville has always worn the songwriting crown, but I think particularly LA was such a fertile place for artists in the in the late seventies, eighties, early nineties um, that people were kind of flocking to it like a kind of Mecca. Also. I think Hollywood has always had that kind of draw in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um. So I think that you you probably getting some of the best and brightest migrating towards that town. You had a lot of recording studios and I think that the the ability of the session musicians was was largely necessitated by it was no small investment, you know, to hire out a place like that. I mean, you were still at the point then where you really needed kind of record company intervention and support to actually hire out a studio. Um, you want the guys that could get the job done as quickly as physically possible to the best possible standard.
Speaker 2:I think that's why these guys came up and there was that that's a lineage that pretty much went back to the wrecking crew. I would say they were the first like contemporary um version of what we think of as being a social musician these days. Before then it would have been guys who were more um, you know, absolute reading ninjas, but there was a limited creative input into what they were doing. Wrecking crew sort of 50s, 60s um were the first that were transforming people's music through their own expertise. So they weren't just playing what was written, they were writing all of their own parts, and that was a big change from like the 40s, for example.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:And then that kind of became the model for session musicians and then, decade by decade, you seem to see an advancement. So you know, after that you had guys like, I guess, larry carlton in the 70s, um jay graden, playing on a lot of like steely dan stuff, and every like new generation of session musicians would, it seems, intently study the generation that came before them. So they would study, amalgamate and advance. And then by the time you got to like the 80s, you had these guys that had this lineage of like almost like you know, 20, 30 years of this, these incredible session musicians from generations before them. They would go and learn all of those records and then blend that with the kind of modern 80s rock stuff that was coming up within the original band scene at the time. So you had these guys that had the? Um, the mental chops of a jazz musician but the physical playing chops of like a high octane 80s rock player.
Speaker 2:You know, which is that's a good combo yeah, it's pretty cool right, which is why I think we we kind of hit like a little bit of like a peak of musicianship in terms of studio guitar players in like the 80s and 90s it was that point and then what happened?
Speaker 2:well, obviously, when pro tools came in, suddenly we had an easier mean. Well, not initially. I think everyone called it slow tools at first, didn't? Uh, an easier means of of editing audio. And as computing got better, that became more and more efficient. And of course you reach a point where you don't necessarily need the best musician in the city. You know, you can get your mate to do it and it doesn't matter if he does 60 takes. From that you can comp together a usable guitar part for your record. You know, obviously I've jumped forward quite a lot this is brilliant.
Speaker 1:I've never heard anybody explain it like this before. It's brilliant um that shift there. I know honestly rich, I've never really thought about that before.
Speaker 2:I mean generally speaking, that that seems to be the the kind of consensus of what happened, and there are still musicians from that period who are still working all the time. Michael landau, every year has like a series of new album credits, so he's maintained an incredibly prolific recording career since the 70s up until now, still playing on modern pop and rock records. Um, but he's a he's in a small pool of people I think that are still doing those big studio gigs again.
Speaker 2:You have a few other guys in nashville. You know there's some incredible guitar players over there tom bukovat comes to mind, of course. Um, but uh, yeah, that's kind of my theory anyway. So there are a few guys who are still doing the big sessions, but it's a very, very small amount compared to the sort of fertile ground of 80s los angeles, where there was also a lot more money, arguably budget for those sort of projects um, compared to now where, yeah, technology facilitates, that's not such a necessity, it's, it's a luxury probably, which is why it's probably reserved for some of the bigger budget kind of projects yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:um, no wonder you're such a good uh educator as well as everything else you do rich that that was just an absolutely superb explanation. I'm so glad I asked you about that. You mentioned the Wrecking Crew there. By the way, for anybody that's not familiar with them, there are some great documentaries about them called the wrecking crew by tony tedesco's sorry, tommy tedesco's son.
Speaker 2:Uh, he was. He was like the grandfather of all session guitar players and, um, I think, yeah, as his health was declining, his son wanted to document as much of his life as possible.
Speaker 1:That's the one I've watched. It's really good. It was on netflix, I think. Yeah, that's great, and it's just literally called the wrecking crew it is yeah okay. So that's kind of uh wow, if we erase those from time that the landscape would have been very different than going forward potentially yeah wow, that was uh. Who was that bass player? The lady. She was great oh, carol k.
Speaker 2:That was it. She was so cool oh my god it's.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating, and the thing that the one takeaway well, one of the takeaways from that documentary that's so interesting is this idea of turnover in terms of these guys. You know, they were working with the most incredible artists in the world, multiple sessions every day, but they thought it was going to last forever, um, and it it didn't. You had a new generation come in that were hungry and hot on their heels and, as I said before, they kind of assimilated everything those guys could do and then blended it with the modern music of the time and all of a sudden a lot of the guys from the wrecking crew found themselves not being called anymore, you know, and they're declimatized like a very, very like, um, in some cases quite lavish kind of lifestyles, because their income was incredible in their heyday.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden the new cats come in the original wrecking crew ceased being called so much and all of a sudden it's like this big tail off an income interesting and the ones that thrived and survived were the ones that migrated. They migrated into production, they migrated into being artists. Glenn campbell obviously started off as being a guitar player within the wrecking crew then became huge country and western kind of artist yeah, good point.
Speaker 1:It's weird because it's kind of gone the other way again. Now, where things have gone, niche again, right? Definitely you know, there's a lot of session players, um, and even sort of mix engineers where it's almost, it's almost too much for people to comprehend that. You know, let's say, someone like you that can do a lot of different styles, and it's like it makes it algorithmically.
Speaker 2:It's almost easier to be pitching your whole pigeonholing yourself into I'm the rock and metal guy, I don't do anything else, which is not true at all, but actually it helps to sell you for sure, no for sure, no, you're absolutely right, and this is this is something I talked to um my guys at bim a lot about, which is that you know when you're and it was a misconception I had when I was younger which is that you know, I suppose I thought that session musician meant you had to be a chameleon, and there's a truth of that in terms of and I heard magic said the same thing on your podcast, which is which is that being hot, as he would put it, that that's a prerequisite.
Speaker 2:you know that's just in place before you even get in the door. And actually I think being a session musician in some ways is a little bit akin to being an actor, in that, you know, you can be the guy that blends in everywhere, which would be the equivalent of being like an extra on a movie set. Or you can be Willem Dafoe, and it's like Willem Dafoe is going to be wrong for many roles Father Christmas perhaps you know, but but he's amazing at being Willem Dafoe, you know that's his thing. So sometimes it's actually advantageous to be a really strongly defined character and have a thing that you do really, really well and have a look that is really defined, because it will make you perfect for that one gig, make it wrong for loads of other ones, but it'll make you perfect for something and arguably that can be better than than trying to make it homogenize yourself, make yourself too inoffensive in the hope that you'll fit into everything does that make sense?
Speaker 1:yeah, it does, it makes perfect sense and actually acting is a great example. Uh, great comparison there you know?
Speaker 1:um, I mean, it's quite jarring, isn't it? Even just as watching, let's say, an actor or actress that you really, really enjoy watching, and then you see them in a completely different light and you're like, oh no, I want you to be that character, which is silly, isn't it? We don't expect that of music. Oh no, why are you playing slow-down tempo music? Come on, we've seen you jumping around. It's like you can do both. It's just it's you know, um so, um, we've talked about your youtube. Um, what about the live side of the work? Rich, because you're very busy there as well. Um, how much of a flexibility is there in the creative aspect of the live work? You talk about pit work earlier and that's kind of, as you would expect, much more kind of, uh, linear in its approach to is the job you know yeah, prescriptive, that's a much better word.
Speaker 1:Um, what about some of the other aspects of live work that you do? Is there more of a kind of right?
Speaker 2:we need rich to come in to do what rich does, and I I will echo magic's sentiments, uh, that again he mentioned when talking to you, which is that, um, if you're hiring the right guys, I think there is a natural intuition in terms of how much flex there is within the music. Okay, so it's not necessarily always about being perfectly to the letter, um, but if you are deviating, there should be a really good creative reason why you're doing that, and you need to be careful with it as well, because you know you need to have an inherent sense of what is important to the song and what, what an audience and an artist is expecting to hear. Right, I think magic kind of talked about this and said you know, if this is this one guitar lick, it's like that needs to be there and you don't mess with that. If that's a like an ear candy moment within the track or it's something that a vocalist is is going to be very used to hearing, you don't change that. You stay with the program kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But there might be other situations where maybe there's two guitar parts that are really cool and maybe you want to comp that simulator into being one part or or do something that has the characteristics of both of them, because you're now serving the function of um, kind of two guitar parts rather than one, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So a lot of it, I think, is just experience and intuition, um, and it's also gonna it's gonna vary depending on the artist. Sometimes you will get artists, of course, that are very, very, very attached to exactly how it was on the record. It needs to be exactly like that, um, others will welcome a slightly new dimension to stuff. So I think learning this stuff completely authentically is the starting point. I think going into a session or a touring rehearsal situation armed with a handful of new ideas that you already have prepared, so new overdubs, or maybe you've transcribed one of the keyboard parts and moved that over onto guitar, having all that stuff ready, so that if it's asked of you or if there's an opportunity where you think it would enhance things, you're ready to go and you've got it and you can be efficient and okay productive yeah, that makes.
Speaker 1:Uh, that makes sense. Yeah, I suppose it's difficult to generalize as well, because so many different artists are so different and you know, um, um, rich. There's just sorry. Just going back to youtube again just for a moment, we talked earlier, you know, when I said, oh, I wish we were recording this, and then we talked about visibility on youtube yeah um, you mentioned about a change, an algorithmic change that you're aware of, for, uh, lesser known content creators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think most people have noticed this when they go on their homepage on YouTube and that all of a sudden, you'll have lots of videos suggested to you that sometimes have like less than 20 views or 150 views or something like that, and apparently this is a conscious change, choice of youtube in terms of a shift whether it will be a permanent shift, I don't know in the algorithm, um, to promote new creators, um, which is I I mean, I've noticed this happening for a little while I'm not entirely sure exactly like when, the chain which was implemented, but this is I mean one.
Speaker 2:This is potentially like an exciting thing for people that are just starting to do the youtube thing because, um, if you're doing something great but your battle is with visibility and numbers, which is often the case, I mean, we all know that you can be doing something amazing, but getting eyes on it is a real challenge sometimes and it's very slow burn kind of process.
Speaker 2:With this change, I suppose there's potential to sort of maybe shortcut some of that. You know, if you're being promoted to a lot of people's homepages and you are doing something generally great, there's a real opportunity there, I think. So that's kind of one trend I'm aware of, and the other one that we mentioned was that apparently there is a gravitation in some cases away from such highly produced content. Apparently people are investing more interest in kind of slightly lower production value stuff that's not really edited, that is just documenting sort of more authentic human experience, which I think makes perfect sense, I think. I think there's probably a fair percentage of people that are fairly fed up with social media and um aspects of social media anyway, the less productive, the ones that are maybe a little bit more detrimental to people, um and uh yeah, so yeah seeking authenticity again and not something that's hyper cultivated, hyper perfected, you know, because that could be a real problem.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes you have, you know, uh, stuff which is so edited that it's really not even a reflection of the person's ability. You know, it can be, people can be miming to their stuff and all sorts of stuff and it. Yeah, so I get it. I think I understand people's desire for like you know, something they feel is more real, more honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I guess, and you know it's I. I talk about youtube, of course, on this podcast. How can you not right?
Speaker 1:it's a absolute cornerstone of this industry it's still, um, an absolute heavy weight and it, you know, it has been for a long time and I dare say it will be for a lot further time ahead, but in regard to its influence, I really like that. I have also noticed the same thing about kind of visibility on less engaged content, let's say, which actually falls in line with the heart of why they started it right. Because the algorithm, yes, it is good for music, it works for music and tastemakers and consumers, but it's an algorithm that's designed for content creation and if it puts more of a sharpness on that, that helps other people to achieve what you've achieved, which is that YouTube presence into a working opportunity. So, yeah, let's hope that that continues. So, yeah, let's hope that that continues. Finally, rich, what? I suppose it does fall in line with that a little bit, but what tips can you offer to anyone wishing to either become or use session musicians in the future?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's a big one, sorry that is that's cheeky? Because that's kind of two questions, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Let's simplify it. How about if we look at it through this frame? He said um, let's take the younger version of you right, and you, let's say you were not you. It you a younger you in the modern times. What would you be telling yourself?
Speaker 2:it's funny, because this is exactly what I want to write a book about, actually really. Yeah, something to my younger self kind of thing, a guitar method book that I would hand to my younger self, but, um, in terms of oh right, okay, that's good in terms of oh, you'll be so good at that.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you'll be so good at that, oh my god okay in in terms of the session thing.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, I suppose I'll I'll repeat what I will say to a lot of people we deal with at pym you know a lot of students who are 18, 19 or something.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think the first thing is that you need to make yourself as as literate and as highly skilled as you can be within the confines of your craft you know. So you need all of it. You need your music theory. You need great fretboard knowledge. You need to be able to improvise. You need to have a great grounding in lots of styles. You need to know your gear. You need to have gear that works for lots of different situations fly rigs, ie modeling stuff, or direct to front of house. You need to understand the different architecture of different tube amps.
Speaker 2:You know what you would use when for what kind of sound, and it's a. It's a pretty deep pool, but I suppose one of the reasons why I'm I'm so into these like 80s, 90s guys is that they're such exemplars of all of that that a lot of the time now I just try and direct younger students to those types of players to go look, this is the bar, right, that's that's what you should be aiming at and you shouldn't really be content until you've risen as close or even surpass that if possible. You know that's, that's what you're shooting for, okay, and if, if you're not wanting. If it doesn't sound interesting to you and you're not wanting to the work, it's cool, someone else will right and they'll get your gig yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 2:You know, it's as simple as that and it that that is the reality of. It is like cool, you don't practice sight reading.
Speaker 2:It's boring, fine, someone else will and they'll take those gigs and that's that and that's more income. You know to be mercenary about it. That's, that's the truth of it. So I I suppose I would just give myself a big list of things to work on. I would encourage individuality and not try and not try and neutralize yourself. You know, like, if you've got a look, if you're like a bit of a rock guy, cool, be a rock guy, own it. Own it. You know, um, make yourself a character. Take, take the most interesting parts of your look or your personality and exaggerate it. Um, so that's part of it.
Speaker 2:I would say learn, learn stagecraft, you know. Learn what looks good on a big stage, because that's part of it as well. You say learn stagecraft, you know, learn what looks good on a big stage, because that's part of it as well. You know it's like if you're going to be put on TV or you're going to be put on massive festival stages, you better look great as well as sound great. So that's like the thing I always say to BIM students is move slower and bigger movements. Right, slow things down, move bigger movements.
Speaker 2:You know, especially being a top or a bass player, you've got this big appendage, which is the guitar neck that inherently makes you look a lot bigger. So learn how to use it, learn how to occupy space effectively, you know. So it would be that sort of stuff and it would also be in the book. It would be general, general mindset, which is, you know, always have like a learning and a growth mindset, be easy to work with, just inherently be a problem solver, not someone who is bringing problems to the working environment. And if you're going on tour buses and stuff like that, or if you're on a rolling show or going away for three months at a time, you're going to be in close proximity with people all the time. So just be relaxed, relaxed, be respectful, um, understand you know when to give people space, just all those kind of social skills that mean you're not going to great on people and that you're going to build really good relationships within your working environment.
Speaker 2:You know that's really important yeah, and also like, just don't have excuses about stuff, nobody cares. So don't turn up to rehearsal saying, oh you know, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't learned these songs. Or or you know, oh, this is broken or I'm late because of this, like nobody cares, just just just do your job. Basically. And that's a difficult transition for students sometimes because they're coming from a school mindset.
Speaker 2:Right Like oh, and that's a difficult transition for students sometimes because they're coming from a school mindset right. So like, oh, I'm sorry I haven't been in for like seven weeks of the semester. I've had this and that and it's like it's cool, I'll listen to it, but it's like that, that's not gonna fly well in like a working environment so the sooner you can break yourself of those kind of that mindset, I think the better.
Speaker 2:So all of that stuff that goes into the session musician bucket In terms of artists hiring session musicians, I think there's probably like a sweet spot between having a clear idea about what you want to achieve and being able to communicate your ideas clearly and being well prepared in terms of you know. And being well prepared in terms of you know, just give your musicians as much guidance as you or as much help as you can in terms of preparing your files properly, um, making sure they all start and end in the same place, uh, being clear about how you want files delivered in terms of sample rate, file type, um, potentially providing, uh, some references, uh, all of that sort of stuff. It all helps, it's all useful, um, but then, yeah, finding that sweet spot between you know, knowing what you want, but also being open to the process and trusting in the process a little bit. The most unpleasant sessions I've ever had are with folks that are very, very.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they're not even entirely sure what it is, but they're very attached to something yeah and to the point where it's a really stifling and it can become quite unpleasant sometimes, you know, with some situations where people are so rigid.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I'd advise not being like that yeah, you know, and try and, try and find like a with your musicians.
Speaker 2:Try and find a language that makes sense. Uh, you know, and a lot of the time, I think what is more useful to musicians, rather than going like trying to be too prescriptive and saying I want you to play exactly this or these voicings, or it needs to be exactly like this, I think maybe communicate in terms of feelings is more useful.
Speaker 2:I know that sounds fluffy and lame but, you know it's saying like okay, this needs to feel uh kind of like somber and reflective, and I kind of want it to be more ambient in this section.
Speaker 2:And you can throw in a couple of like artist references as well. You know, like, think like our daniel lanois kind of slide, but really haunting and ethereal stuff. A combination of that is really, really useful, having a degree of specificity in terms of throwing me enough reference points. I can go away and put together a little playlist and listen to that for like a couple of days before I do the recording session, to just get in the right headspace and get into the same, um, influential kind of ballpark as the artists themselves, uh. But then also, yeah, having like a, a nice dialogue where you can communicate things in a bit, a bit more of a less specific musically but talking more about what you want your listener to feel in those moments, and then helping the music, just letting the musicians get you to that point. You know chorus needs to be really uplifting, or this means to be this, or I wrote this about this.
Speaker 2:You can even give them insight into like what the song is about, so that they can, you know, get on your wavelength with it creatively.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, now that I know that I can think this way and do this exactly exactly it's.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the most useful things. I mean, if you think about how like a film composer is going to work, it's all about that it's all about the marriage of image with the emotion that music provides. You know, that's why I think film is such an incredibly incredible thing, because I think that everything has more weight and more emotional, uh poignancy, with music framing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah music's so visual now yeah rich. Thank you so, so much. You are a wonderful musician, a wonderful human being and, uh, I've loved talking to you here today.
Speaker 2:My pleasure man. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Top stuff. So there you have it, the great Rich Watson. It was brilliant to have him in the studio. He's just got such a thoughtful approach to the way that he does things. He's such a reliable professional. He is admired by many and is useful to so many people. The attention to detail in his work is second to none. He's brilliant. So I hope that you enjoyed that conversation and feel free I always say this, but I mean it feel free to reach out to me if there's a topic that you want covered, if there's something that you need help with. I am here to serve you and to help you in your quest to achieving your goals in music. Please feel free also to rate the podcast and all that good stuff. I will let you get on with your day until next time, everybody. May the force be with you. The Music Business Party.
