Track Record: Kevin Billingslea on Mixing Quality with Client Loyalty in Music

Kristy: Welcome back to another episode of the Free Dive podcast I’m your host Kristy Billingslea and today I have a very special guest for you, my brother Kevin Billingslea. Thank for being with us, Kevin.

Kevin: Absolutely. Happy to be here.

Kristy: Um we wanted you to be on the podcast for several reasons uh what you do is pretty cool and um you work in the creative field so uh maybe you could start by telling everybody some of the things you do I learned a lot of what I know how to do from audio because of you um why don’t you give everyone just a little bit of a background on on where you work what you do.

Kevin: So, I am a record producer, audio engineer um I work at a studio called The Halo studio in Windham Maine, um before that I had a little home studio and I was kind of quasi starting out, and then before that I spent a little bit of time in New York learning under a buddy of mine um and I’ve been doing it since I was probably 15 like recording friends bands in high school um very poorly.

Kristy: Um but you taught yourself.

Kevin: Yeah, for the most part. I definitely had some help along the way from like people who know more than I do which is obviously a good thing um but and this is probably aging myself a little bit but in the beginning when I was first learning how to do it there was no there was like kind of Internet forums but like YouTube wasn’t a thing yet like you kind of just figured stuff out by trial and error like the first things I ever recorded were like those little crappy like computer microphones that came with your old like compact Presario things and it would just be that microphone into like Windows sound recorder and then mixing was like do it again the guitar is too loud move the Amp back yeah and then slowly just trial and error figuring stuff out along the way so I’ve been doing it full-time professionally for 14 years now yeah 13-14 years so long time but…

Kristy: And working primarily what you said with bands.

Kevin: Yeah, occasionally like I get hit up all the time to do like voiceover stuff but like I don’t love doing it.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um it’s not creative for me and there was there was a period of time where you know when you’re first starting out you got to take every gig you can get.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um but I’m fortunate now that I can kind of be a little more picky and choosy with what I want to do and voice over stuff like I don’t know it feels too desk jobby for me like there’s no there’s no creativity to it and then you’re dealing with like you know Publishers and you know all the other red tape bureaucratic stuff it’s like if I wanted a desk job I’d get a desk job.

Kristy: Right.

Kevin: So I kind of just turn those down now um but they do come up every now and then.

Kristy: So um that’s a long time to be working in that field and you know you’ve learned from a lot of different people along the way and like there’s so many different things in the creative process that like like we could ask you I want to ask you. One of the things we’ve talked about through the years is one of the things in the struggle of the creative process is when working with clients um your vision versus their vision and how to kind of get in alignment with that both um with the with the final product both with um uh getting it done in a timely fashion and in- in the right budget. How have you how have you like found um how have you found the right way to reconcile those things through the years like I’m sure it’s taken time to kind of figure out how to do that but how have you gotten there.

Kevin: So and you know these are lessons I learned the hard way and the the painful way at times um.

Kristy: Yeah, I think about how people want a good product for cheap money like we’ve talked about that before.

Kevin: Yeah and that’s there there’s an old like I forget what the name of the chart is but it’s like it’s the three it’s the three totems like you want it to be good you want it to be free you want it to be fast right like any two of those is like not impossible but it’s not going to yield good results and all three is just like don’t even bother so I think working if I’m working backwards mentally where I’m at now is what I’ve learned is that if I’m getting the sense from a band or an artist that comes through and you know I always ask for demos up front I want to know what they’re working with like what their starting point is um and then you know have a little bit of a back and forth on what they want to get out of it okay and this doesn’t happen too much these days and I’ll explain why in a minute but if I’m getting the that like either what I see as the end result doesn’t align with them and it’s like too far off or I just don’t get it I’ll turn the project down.

Kristy: Okay.

Kevin: Because I would rather them find someone who understands what they’re going for then
take their money and wind up with a product that nobody’s happy with that is always like a compromise on.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um.

Kristy: And you can generally tell that that from the beginning?

Kevin: Yeah and I think that just comes from years of doing it because like I said earlier like when you’re starting out you take every project that comes your way and you figure out in those days you figure out halfway through the project that like oh we are not on the same page with this and it it never turns out good either you’re going to be unhappy with it and like don’t want to put your name on it or they’re not going to be happy with it which is even worse yeah um the advantage that comes with doing it for a long long time is bands that hit me up now know what my sound is they know how I operate so they’re coming to me because they like what I do.

Kristy: They already know what they’re going to get.

Kevin: They already know what they’re going to get they’ve heard other things I’ve done they’re like cool we want something like that so that’s the guy for that when you’re starting out you don’t have.

Kristy: That backlog of…

Kevin: Brand for you know whatever it is so you’re kind of just making it up as you go right um and that’s that’s a thing to navigate and it’s one of those things where the only way out is through you just got to go through it a few times um but it’s you know dealing with a band or an artist or a client whatever you want to call it is it’s no different than a relationship and it takes communication like every step of the way don’t assume anything like if you’re unsure about something have that dialogue with them cause otherwise you might steer the project in a totally different direction what they want um so just keep keeping that open line of communication will- will get you through to at least a place where everybody’s happy with it um and that’s the other tough thing too is I get I get so invested in the projects that I work on I become almost kind of Drill Sargenty.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: And I- I can sometimes lose sight of like what they want like I have my vision for it and I’m so tunnel visioned on it that it’s taken me a long time to figure out like don’t go too deep into that tunnel without being like are you cool with the direction this is going in.

Kristy: So that was one of my questions is- is how do you handle those creative differences when- because you’re the professional and knows what will sound the best ultimately but they’re the client and have this idea of what they want and so if they’re asking for certain things or for changes that you know won’t sound good or won’t work. How do you how do you deal with that?

Kevin: I think it’s just a accruing enough knowledge to explain to them in not condescending terms of like why that won’t necessarily work or why it might not work um a big thing there I forget who said this um it’s like another producer who said any idea that somebody has is worth seven minutes of trying it.

Kristy: Okay.

Kevin: Like if they have a weird idea invest 7 minutes into it and you’ll know then and there if it’s if it’s it’s going to be fruitful or if it’s a waste of time.

Kristy: Okay.

Kevin: Um and you know when I was younger and not as seasoned in like the intrapersonal side of things I would just be like no that’s stupid that’s not going to work but that you know that doesn’t that’s not how a good relationship operates.

Kristy: Right.

Kevin: So you can explain to them like this is why I feel it won’t work I’m happy to try it but these are the pitfalls I- I see in going down that road um so again comes sound of communication that’s the biggest thing um and the other thing too and I think this is something that sets. Not I mean not entirely but sets apart like the music side of things is you know the the the client is the artist they have their vision for things and even if they have things that are weird but they’re like married to them…

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Like you can’t shoot down all the ideas and it’s always it’s always some level of compromise.

Kristy: Right.

Kevin: And depending on who the client is you know it’s a sliding scale of how much that is you might be perfectly lock in step with their vision or it might be a little far apart and you got to bend here and they’ll bend here um I forget what we were talking about.

Kristy: No yeah no that’s that is what we were talking about so how how have you found that working that way like has created like client loyalty like clients coming back to you is that something that has worked well?

Keving: Yeah oh big time um I I think it’s just a level of trust that they have um cause any any new artist, client what however you want to term it um there’s always that like you know they they come to me because they like what I do but they don’t have that that interpersonal relationship yet so when I’m offering up suggestions or like potentially shooting down some of their ideas they’re like not entirely used to that process yet but the more they come back the more they’re like oh yeah you we did this before and it didn’t work because of this so we trust you more so it becomes smoother as you go and they know that like at the end of the day I want them to win like I want the artist that I work with to have success so like I’m not going to let them fail as far as like the product that I’m putting out like what they do with it in terms of their career I you know I don’t really have a stake in right but in the product that they’re releasing to the world like I’m not going to let them fail right um so I think you know again relationships that’s just trust that’s that’s built over doing it well the first time, treating them well, and then it turn like I’ve I have bands that I’ve been working with for five years bands that I’ve been working with for 10 years like and also one of those things where you know bands are individual people and sometimes bands break up and those guys go and form new bands so I get you know their new projects with guys that they don’t know and then it’s it’s very much like a not spidering…

Kristy: I can’t think of the word either.

Kevin: It grows, it does this.

Kristy: It grows, it does this.

Kevin: It does this.

Kristy: So you feel like you work a lot on like referrals like how like how are you getting your work?

Kevin: Uh it’s pretty much entirely Word of Mouth um bands hear one of their friends bands like a different band and they’re like hey that sounds really good who would you go too and then that goes that way like I’ve never put a dime of my own money into like ads or anything like that and…

Kristy: Because you’ve never needed to?

Kevin: I’ve never needed to and when I first started out like I and I think I recognize this and I think a lot of people struggle with this is I was doing a lot of bands for like free or pennies on the dollar when I was starting out because I needed to get a catalog of work out there to show people, like no amount of like clever advertising is going to entice people to come work with somebody that has no…

Kristy: Portfolio.

Kevin: Body… Portfolio, body of work to show.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: So my investment was doing records for free or for very cheap for the first couple years I was doing this but then those bands have friends and they need stuff done and it’s a it’s a very slow burn doing it that way but I think it it yields a lot better.

Kristy: so circling back to thinking about uh like you know talking about can’t do it cheap can’t do it for cheap can’t do it fast can’t do it well thinking about how much you charge um how do you kind of make those decisions on what your pro- like what your time and your product is worth
like how have you figured that out through the years initially you’re doing it a lot for free and now you’ve been working doing this professionally for for so many years how do you figure out how to um how to set your how to set your rates.

Kevin: Very painfully um I think the biggest hurdle for me is when I moved out of my little basement studio where I had no overhead um and moving into a professional studio that I didn’t own um and paying rent for every day that I was in there like my costs doubled like my my rates doubled yeah um and I lost a lot of bands at that point like the first six months to a year that I was at the you know professional studio I work at now it was like slim pickings for a while because a lot of the bands I was working with before that were like younger like self-funding bands who just wanted to record for cheap yeah um and I I realized shortly after that that like those those bands who all they really cared about was a cheap record that they didn’t have to pay for. They were it wasn’t always super great to work with like they didn’t have the work ethic like you know there there there’s an expectation or not an expectation there’s a uh there’s an expression where today’s miracle is tomorrow’s expectation we like you get abandon they the drummer can’t play In time the guitar player can’t play in tune the singer can’t you know do sing and you use all these little tips and tricks to like try to get it to you know a good level and you know pull rabbit out of the hat.

Kristy: You’re doing twice as much work.

Kevin: I’m doing twice as much work for half the money and then the next time they come around they’re less and they’re less motivated to work hard cuz like he fixed it last time.

Kristy: Right.

Kevin: So it like the I think the people who were so focused on being the cheapest one around it’s a race to the bottom.

Kristy: That’s exactly it.

Kevin: Um and you you don’t ever want to be the guy that people come to work with because you’re the most affordable.

Kristy: I so agree, so agree.

Kevin: That’s so that’s not sustainable like financially or mentally um so what I realized when I when I moved up in studios that I basically just lost all the weight of bands that were like…

Kristy: Not serious.

Kevin: Not serious and you know and what I gained was bands who were serious who worked hard who like wanted to make a proper go at this.

Kristy: They’re investing this money for a reason.

Kevin: Yes and that’s and that’s what I always tell bands is it’s like if you know let’s say their goal is to get a booking agent or a manager or a label and they hear the songs that they’re putting out and they can tell that like oh you know these were kind of cheaply done nobody is going to invest in you if you’re not investing in yourself.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um.

Kristy: That’s a great point.

Kevin: And that’s that’s a that’s a tough lesson to learn.

Kristy: Yeah, that’s a great point with anything.

Kevin: With anything.

Kristy:With anything

Kevin: With anything. Um so you know then that’s like if I’m thinking about my costs my operating cost now or just you know what I charge it’s probably five or six times what it was when I started but and a lot of bands you know can be spooked by that like I lose some albums you know whatever because they’re so used to working with more affordable producer studios that that’s all they know that they see a bigger number than that and they’re just like no we can’t we can’t pay that which is totally fine yeah but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the amount of bands who have come to me said that like this is a bit of a sticker shock and then at the end they go I get it that makes sense.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: And they’re return clients all the time.

Kristy: Yeah and that makes you feel more like respected like self-respect because it it does feel like you get what you pay for.

Kevin: Right.

Kristy: And so if you’re if you are if you’re selling a cheap cheap product it makes you feel like you’re giving out a cheap cheap product.

Kevin: Yep.

Kristy: And for what.

Kevin: Like you said yeah to make a quick buck and that’s and I’m I’m very fortunate that I am to the point in my career that I can kind of dictate within reason what my time is worth.

Kristy: Yes.

Kevin: Like if I get the sense that like somebody’s coming across my desk and they’re going to like haggle and nickel and dime me I get the thing on well everything’s negotiable no it’s not.

Kristy: No it’s not.

Kevin: Like I can just easily say no at that point like this is what my time is worth um and it it’s another thing too where so I can- I can mix a song in a quarter a third of the time it used to take me okay um when I was first starting out it used to take me days to mix a song and banging my head against the wall um if I have all the files like prepped and ready at this point I can get a song mixed in four or five hours so people are always like why is your why is your price so high for mixing like if you you know if you’re doing that that fast and I was like you’re not taking into account the years…

Kristy: That’s what you’re paying for.

Kevin: Of experience I have that allow me to do it that fast um.

Kristy: That’s what you’re paying for.

Kevin: Yeah so like know what you’re worth if you’re starting out at tougher because you don’t necessarily know what you’re worth yet like it’s it’s a weird line of knowing your own value but also knowing that the market kind of dictates the value as well.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um in the sense that you can set your price for what it is but if you’re getting no work at that price the market’s telling you like nope you’re not worth that price so it’s a it’s a it’s a bal- balancing act for sure yeah um in trying to figure out like what’s going to make you satisfied um but what’s also going to be tenable for artists and clients to work with it’s a it’s a it’s a balancing act that is constant trial and error.

Kristy: So what does like your work- your workflow look like because you you what you do has so many different elements to it you do recording you do mixing and you even work into different locations you know how do you manage all of that how do you decide how many new clients to take on and manage them all at the same time and you know have time to go to home at night and chill like how do you figure how have you figured that out.

Kevin: Um it’s still something I’m figuring out.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um because it’s you know in in the in any creative field or honestly self-employment field it’s it feels like it’s sometimes feast or famine like.

Kristy: Yes.

Kevin: You’re- you either have like nothing going on for a month and then you have six months for like I haven’t had a day off in forever.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Um so a lot of it for me is being a little bit more um delicate with my with my calendar like if I were to get a band in um like if I were to get an email right now saying like Hey we’re a band we want to do six songs I could probably honestly fit them in in late July because I don’t really have any sessions going on then but what I’m not taking into account is the sessions I have for the entire front half of July I have to edit and mix all that stuff so I got to figure out all right how much time is that stuff going to take and that’s probably going to push me into August so I could do August one but then that leaves me no free time between when I get all that other stuff mixed and send out the door to when I start the next one so just for like keeping yourself from getting burnt out I might go cool probably we’re looking at you know and this is assuming that I have stuff in August too but let’s pretend I didn’t. I would say cool we’ll do mid August um it’s it’s more of a question of scheduling yourself time off than it is time to book stuff okay um.

Kristy: And so do you spend part of your time in the studio part of your time in your office mixing is that.

Kevin: Yeah so the- the studio the the Halo that I work at in Windom that’s where I do all my production and tracking um that’s where the bands go uh my mix room is just a spot that’s closer to home I can’t really do any tracking there I probably could but I’d rather not um and that’s you know it’s just me in there there’s nobody else coming and going I can just be like lock the door be left alone.

Kristy: Yeah, and you do that like certain days of the week or just.

Kevin: It varies week to week um yeah it entirely depends on when my tracking days are and yeah it’s it’s constantly in flux like I never know what day it is because every day is like kind of the same but also completely different.

Kristy: So is there any like particular project uh that you’ve been like like really like proud of or um a challenge you’ve overcome or anything that you could share with us.

Kevin: Um I’d say the thing the one that stands out to me the most in a recent history um it probably have to be the Lamb of God record.

Kristy: Okay.

Kevin: Um and you know I was just an engineer on that I didn’t mix it I didn’t produce it my buddy Josh did um who was kind of my mentor coming up um but what was super cool about it in addition to the fact that like all the Lamb of God guys are great I’ve known him for a long time um there was a studio in Van Nuys California for years it was called Sound City um and tons of bands worked there it was everything from Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac all the way up to like Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine like super famous Studio that eventually closed down you know as the the music industry changed um but the the main console they had in there that they recorded everything through um Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters purchased it and he put that in his own studio that he built in I forget what part of the valley it’s in um but that’s where
we recorded the Lamb of God record um so it still had all the like signatures from like everyone who had signed the desk over the years like Stevie Nicks, I think Johnny Cash was on there so like we lost the whole first day of recording just nerding out.

Kristy: I’m sure.

Kevin: Over like how many albums were made coming through that desk that we all came up on that’s one that I always think about.

Kristy: Yeah wow.

Kristy: So what advice um would you give to other uh business owner creative types who are getting started like you did especially if they’re kind of teaching themselves along the way is what what advice would you give to yourself your- your past self.

Kevin: uh be very honest with where you’re at in your path your career and be humble about it um my buddy my buddy Darren has an expression that I don’t know if he came up with it or if it’s from somebody else um but he always says nobody cares about how much you know until they know how much you care so like like invest in yourself and go all in with the the projects you’re working on early and be very honest with yourself and with the artist of like this is where I’m at this is what I’m capable of I’m going to do my best for you and that’s how you build that sort of loyalty and trust with people like don’t the whole fake it till you make a thing like it’s kind of true but it’s also it’s not tenable for a long period of time unless you’re like very seriously putting the work in.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Because there’s a when I when I talk to especially younger bands like late teens early 20s something that I think a lot of them don’t necessarily know or at least not aware of is people who aren’t into music production at all they’re just like music fans like your average musical listener they can listen to a record and in their head articulate whether that’s a like a local band or whether it’s a professional band now they may not have the capability to explain why.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: Like they can’t go through the minutia of like well there it sounds like there’s like home filtering on this they recorded in a garage like all this stuff but in their head they can usually tell like that sounds like it was recorded in a garage that sounds like it was done professionally.

Kristy: Right.

Kevin: So in their head once they’ve chocked you up to like local band it’s hard to break out of that and the same thing kind of goes with young engineer producers like bands will hear something and know kind of what caliber it is a lot of the time some of them don’t um so if you’re
if you’re a young producer audio engineer trying to be like I’m the best around and they hear your work and they go it doesn’t sound like it that’s that’s a disconnect that’s going to do nothing but breed a little bit of distrust so just be open with where you’re at it’s…

Kristy: Okay. yeah that’s a great point.

Kevin: It happens all the time where you know young guys hit me up they’re like I want to produce but like how do you get clients without having clients I like you got to do stuff for free like when I was first starting out I think even before the the basement studio was a thing I had a mobile rig and I was recording bands in their practice space for like 50 bucks a song and like
driving like hours and hours and then spending a whole day like unpacking all my stuff and setting it up in their practice spaces like do what you have to do to get someone to take a chance on you even if you’re not going to make a lot of money on it or make no money on it it starts with building something to show people like this is what I’m capable of.

Kristy: Yeah.

Kevin: And if you’re not looking back on the things that you like you did like even two three years ago and going oh I could have beaten that now.

Kristy: And learning from it.

Kevin: Some- something’s wrong like I still listen to stuff I did like two to three years ago and I was like I could I could smoke that now.

Kristy: Yeah I get that.

Kevin: That’s- that’s a good thing that means you’re getting better.

Kristy: Yeah, yep.

Kevin: So just be just be humble and be honest.

Kristy: Yep that’s good advice nice. Well thank you very much.

Kevin: Of course.

Kristy: I feel like this was all like we learned so much very very helpful.

Kevin: Sorry if I just rambled.

Kristy: I- I loved it, I loved it, I feel like you I feel like you gave us a lot of good stuff to to listen to and to learn about so thank you for being here.

Kevin: Yeah ma’am.

Kristy: And uh maybe come back again another day I feel like we can do this again.

Kevin: Anytime.

Kristy: We thank you very much for being here and uh we’ll see you all again next time.