Joel M. Brown on producing "The Fall Of Troy" (2003)

I reached out to Joel M. Brown, engineer and producer of one of my favorite albums of all time, The Fall Of Troy's self-titled debut on Lujo Records from 2003.

He was so nice to answer all of my questions in video format and even agreed to me posting his response online for others to see.

Here are the questions he's responding to:

00:16 Here's all I know [about the album's production] so far. Let me know if there's anything that seems wrong to you:

It was recorded at the Hall Of Justice studio in Seattle, in a few days during spring break in April of 2003, it was recorded to tape without the use of computers, the basic tracks were done with the whole band playing together, the secondary guitars, organ and vocals were overdubbed, tape edits were executed by the band, according to pictures from that time Thomas used a cherry red Epiphone SG G-400, a Boss DD-3 or DD-5 delay pedal, an Ernie Ball volume pedal and a Marshall JCM900 SL-X amplifier (it was before he started his relationship with Orange amps). That Marshall is a single channel amp so for clean tones it either has to be set differently, or the guitar signal has to be attenuated (with the volume pedal?). The guitar tone is quite consistent across the record. For most of the time the guitar sound seems to be a stereo mix of a more aggressive sounding, more overdriven guitar track on the right, and a less overdriven, darker sounding guitar track on the left. It seems to me that the right, more overdriven track is the one that was tracked together with bass and drums and the darker, less overdriven one was overdubbed later.

What I'd love to know:

02:36 How did you first heard of the band, how did you meet them, what was your first Impression, how did the session come about?

01:35 / 02:14 / 12:56 You are credited as the producer. Was there any pre-production for the album or meetings prior to the session, discussions about the songs/sounds, did you have any creative input on the music? Or did it all come from the band/Thomas and you were just acting as Steve Albini capturing them?

04:12 Did you or the band have any specific inspirations for how the record should sound like? Are there any other records that have a similar sound? What were you going for in terms of production? Did you record any other albums that you would compare to this in terms of sound?

06:22 How difficult was the making of the record? Were there any obstacles along the way? Was the band easy to work with? (they were very young at the time and are known to have difficult personalities)

07:00 Were you aware at the time that you were involved in creating a timeless classic? A piece of music history that will forever have fans all across the world?

07:27 Is it true that many if not most of the basic tracks were one takes?

08:02 Did Thomas have a clear idea for his overdubs when he entered the studio or did he come up with those parts on the spot?

07:54 Was the aforementioned Epiphone SG used for all guitar tracks or were there different guitars involved?

08:22 Was the Marshall JCM900 SL-X used for everything or were other amps used aswell? How were the clean tones achieved? The JCM900 SL-X is a single channel amp and it is a veeery dirty one (I own one myself). One of the biggest mysteries about the sound on this record is how quickly Thomas switches between pretty clean and highly overdriven tones. I know he uses volume pedals a lot and there's evidence for this on the record (during the transition from the verse to the chorus of FCPSITSGEPGEPGEP you can hear the delay repeats getting louder and more distorted, which can only be achieved with the volume pedal after the delay). But I find it hard to reproduce myself without the clean tone sounding thin or muddy. Any information about amps and pedals used for clean and distorted sounds would be much appreciated.

01:11 / 09:43 Was a lot of time spent setting up the amp(s?) / getting tones or was it more like finding one good setting and sticking with it?

10:00 What microphones were used to record the guitars? Do the differences in tone between the left and right guitars also come from different mics being used?

01:54 / 12:30 Do you remember what mixing board, outboard gear, tape machine etc was used for the album?

10:43 Do you remember how the bass was recorded? DI, amp (what amp? what mic?) or a mix of both? Did Tim play his red Fender Jazzbass?

11:10 Do you remember how the drums were mic'ed?

11:47 Do you remember what organ/keyboard was used for overdubs (breakdowns of FCP... or Reassurance Rests In The Sea)?

12:23 Do you remember what microphone(s) the vocals were recorded with?

13:37 Do you have any other memories from the sessions you could share with me? Or maybe even pictures If there are any?