RARE: Rodney Mills: Engineered Skynyrd, 50 Gold & Platinum Classic LPs - STORIES FOREVER!

hey everybody this is craig garber welcome to everyone loves guitar man i've got such a special guest today with rodney mills and uh he is an engineer and he's worked on so many great records i mean so many great records and his career has expanded over time that he's worked on extremely successful records in multiple genres which is extremely interesting you don't usually have that a couple of quick announcements i want to thank our mutual friend jeff carlisi also known as jeff carlyle those in the know no and uh thanks for hooking us up chef and also make sure you go to everyonelovesguitar.com forward slash subscribe if you're already watching us on youtube please hit the subscribe button and the little emoji that looks like a bell that helps us get recommended by youtube and thank you for that okay let me tell you rodney's background it's pretty extensive he's an engineer he's been in the music industry for over 50 years he's earned over 50 gold and platinum records for engineering producing and mastering he's originally from georgia started playing bass in a local band and began pursuing a career as an engineer back in 67 in 68 he became the chief engineer at lafave it's like milan the fever sound studios in atlanta georgia during his three years there he engineered records for local and national acts including joe south billy joel royal the meters james brown the winstons on what turned out to be one of the most important records certainly in rap history mylon le favor and scores of other projects i only got turned on to milan recently um i can't i wish i could tell without my but another guy from the south though in 1970 rodney was approached by buddy bewey to build a studio for him and become the chief engineer there so rodney co-designed and oversaw the construction of the famous what became studio one outside of atlanta and for the next 16 years rodney worked almost exclusively there on loads of different projects as an engineer as well as a producer clients here included bj thomas at the atlanta rhythm section where he worked on 11 albums leonard skinnered on four albums all seminal in their career 38 special same things seven albums the outlaws and others in 86 rodney left studio one to become an independent producer an independent producer engineer and mastering engineer of uh on his own without affiliation any specific studio since then he produced records for 38 special again greg allman the radiators the doobie brothers and several other projects in 89 rodney produced billboard magazine's number one adult contemporary song of the year that was second chance by 38 special in 94 rodney formed his mask what he calls rodney mills master house which is a mastering agency or mastering service in atlanta since then he's mastered literally thousands of projects for national and regional acts including pearl jam the wall flowers collective soul kentucky headhunters man you know greg martin's one of the nicest human beings i've ever met in my life from the headhunters what a sweetheart man uh the atlanta rhythm section now this is where this is where you're not gonna expect gucci mane bob marley sugarland bone crusher the drive-by trucker zac brown band soldier boy cheryl cro i was showing this to my daughter she was like you're talking to this guy and i'm like yeah because a lot has some music she listens to keith sweat irene cara george clinton and p funk glenn danzig amy ray who was on this show we had her on here shooter jennings and loads of others uh here's some of the specific records that rodney's left his imprint on the winston's there was a big hit they had called color him father and the backs the b side to that was called amen brother and it generated something called the amen break which we're going to talk about for sure for leonid skinner he worked on tuesday's gone simple man free bird sweet home alabama street survivors what's your name that smell and you know all the songs in those records atlanta rhythm section he was working on he worked on moonlight feels right spooky imaginary lover so into you and i'm not gonna let it bother me tonight alicia bridges he did i love the nightlife man i grew up in new york city that song was played on that was non-stop back in the day 38 special rocking into the night hold on loosely caught up in you uh and second chance uh journey he co-mixed that with kevin ellison they he worked on the live captured album worked on greg allman's record i'm no angel and before the bullets fly was ricky hirsch on one of those no no okay uh and the doobie brothers he worked on cycles and brotherhood rodney's a member of the georgia music hall of fame and he's also which is this is really cool he served on the board of governors for naras which is the national academy of recording arts and science and that is the group that sort of oversees the whole grammy process ronnie thank you so much your time man i'm so happy to hang out with you thank you that was quite an introduction i've got one correction yeah yeah please one correction is uh the moonlight feels right was a group called starbuck oh man you know that let me tell you how stupid i am i saw i saw that and you think i'm like what are you talking about starbucks i was like maybe he was ordering coffee or something thank you very much i said starbuck and then the one kind of one and only time i ever recorded marimba solo for a hit song that's cool man well you made it work that was a great track really great track really good hey uh thanks again for your time i appreciate it and i i'll say this to you again because i said it before you already made so much music that's impacted me and i know tons of people listening to this so thank you very much for all the great work you've done you're welcome uh i i read somewhere that you either grew up on a tobacco farm or you used to be a tobacco farmer before you got into music uh from when i was born 1946 uh i think it probably took me about four four five years to get my bearings on the farm but right after that i started working in our family's farm and tobacco was our main cash crop that we grew every year my dad was an excellent farmer and tobacco was during the summer months primarily and that's that's when we made all the money we were basically going to make for the entire year so that was an important thing in craig that was the dirtiest nastiest nastiest messiest stuff i've ever worked in in my life and it's kind of like as a kid and i'm getting on up in my teens and everything and it's kind of like you know if it's one thing i'm not going to do in my life is the tobacco yeah but man what a work ethic your dad must have had and then passed on to you that is not eat that's that's hard living man it was intense it was uh it was the one time seven days a week working that stuff and just going at it as hard as you could and towards the end of it my dad actually took on a second job uptown at a farmer's mutual exchange so rodney at the age of about 14 15 was in charge of the whole production of gathering the tobacco and and putting it in a barn and and doing all the processes with it and dad would just drive out every now and then to the fields yeah but what a great yeah yes when you grow up like that though you appreciate i i mean work ethic is i to me i i really think you could tell a lot about someone by their work ethic people that have a good work ethic are generally good with everything for the most part you know for the most part i think so too reliable because because people that don't have a good birth work ethic you can't force them into having a good work ethic right you either have that or you don't right yeah exactly and it's kind of like something and you know i don't know whether it's uh passed on from generation to generation but uh i was certainly exposed to hard work and everything uh those first several years and until i kind of uh got a hold of music and that that was kind of like a freak accident that happened how did that happen i'll tell you exactly yeah man when i was a sophomore in high school this is 1962 all right my cousin uh second cousin john adams we called him junior he uh he was a year older than me and we were best friends growing up because our family our families were really tight and we did lots of stuff together and he and i became very good friends the best friends and so just one day out of the clear blue he comes up to me and says rodney tommy and i which was another guy that was in our band to start with he says we're going to start a band and we want you to be in our band and i looked at him i said junior i could play two chords on the ukulele that's it i took two years of piano lessons which i'd totally forgotten at that time and he said no he says tommy's got a guitar you got an electric guitar and he's going to show us some chords and stuff and everything so that you know and that began that process was just as a hobby you know it's something we kind of got together and you know the drummer the band at that time didn't have a set of drums he had a set of bongos and would practice over tommy's house and uh his dad was the first baptist preacher in uh in our hometown down in douglas georgia and so we practiced them so we worked up six songs that were kind of new and my church which was the mormon church we had a youth group and everything and so we decided they had a stage inside the church there and they said so that was our first gig and we played those six songs craig we played those six songs and everybody just loved it so much we said well let's play those six songs again [Music] [Laughter] i've heard this before and this is the deal at the end of that my uncle uncle olin he comes up to us and he says boys y'all did a really good job and he takes out his wallet and he gives us five dollars a piece that's a lot of money well okay up until that point we're not even thinking money and so he people will pay us to do this so that right there kind of changed from it being something we could do as some kids and everything to something maybe we could pursue that maybe we could get a little bit better and uh kind of do uh shows when dances back then dances were big things and proms and stuff like that and so that that one day he asked me that question and i agreed to do it that was that was it craig that's cool it changed your life man literally changed my life and here i am gosh 50 golden platinum records later man that's so cool that's a great story man did how was your dad as far as being receptive when you when he saw that you know tobacco farming is not your passion i think he always knew that you know my my dad was the kind of dad though that uh you know even when we got to play we got to playing some gigs and everything and i would come back in the middle of the night and we were supposed to work in the back of the next morning i still had to get up work in the background so my dad i don't you know start with i don't think he ever said you shouldn't be doing that and but and it wasn't one of these things where rodney totally supports you and everything but uh but the deal was i needed to buy a an electric base i didn't have an electric base and based on what i wanted to play so i taught my dad i said can we go down to jacksonville and uh maybe get a something that's a base a little amp or something and so daddy agreed we went went down there together and so we're going to this music store and we wound up buying a fender precision base and an ampeg nice 18-inch uh b18 and your flip top uh base cabinet and everything and my dad spent 600 and something dollars what a guy what a good guy man and it's kind of like you know he wouldn't wow and there's like in our hometown there will be the recreation center before we play gigs like on friday night or saturday night and i can still remember being on stage and and every now and then i looked up and i see my dad back in the back and it was like wow i think he does uh he's pretty supportive of you like extremely support man it dropped 600 bucks in that time that that's probably about 3 500 four grand now all right and i think about it i said you know i guess i should feel bad because i never paid my daddy back but i got to remember all those years i worked in the back and i never got in you paid him back about a hundred times man no but that was cool he said that he was like supportive and he said look as long as you still you do your thing i'm not you know basically i'm not getting involved that's like great that's man now i'm gonna sound like an old man but that's how people that's what i did with my that's how people should do things with their kid everybody's like oh go ahead now you don't have to do anything i'll hire someone to do i'm like what you know and i never i mean what are you teaching your kids you know that's not how life works you know you're going to go to your boss hey this is too much of work no problem i'll spread it out for you that ain't going to happen right man well you know by that same time it became a part of thing my my dad actually quit farming and bought a restaurant oh my god he went from bad to worse as far as difficulty well difficult but he was very successful in the restaurant business and i did really well what do you what kind of restaurant it was it's like a southern food kind of uh thing and it was the best of the best that's cool man and uh and it was kind of like so i started college grade away from my school started college there and so it's kind of like at that time you know i didn't have to work on the farm anymore yeah and any potential date i got just kind of like let's go out the restaurant get something to eat why not absolutely man absolutely that's cool man so you have real supportive parents that's nice um how did you get like what was compelling and interesting for you about engineering that you because like it seems like in reading your bio and background that once you got turned on to that you knew pretty quickly that was your thing i think it started uh pretty early on maybe before i got into playing in a band or anything i was always kind of fascinated that radio fascinated me how radio worked and then uh and then later on a little bit later on tape recorders kind of like wow those are pretty cool and everything so when i started playing the band i spent a lot of my extra bucks on buying tape recorder i bought a tape recorder roberts crossville 7770 something like that tape recorder and it was it was pretty nice for quarters so i would get the we do rehearsals so i try to record the band and everything and it's kind of like and i was the guy in the band that kind of i could hook up the pa get all the microphones working if i needed to fix a mic cable i could do that and everything and then along the way we actually got were able to record in a studio a few times and it's kind of like and i was totally blown away with that and uh so that was still not the opportunity to get into recording until 67 and so as a band we moved to atlanta georgia and in 67 and we leased a little two-track recording studio and you guys did this on your own on our own that's pretty we did we did pretty well as a a band that never really made it so to speak and uh this is the bushman the bushman yeah we uh leased the recordings to you thinking we're gonna make the next uh sergeant pepper's uh album that's all right on our two track yeah but everybody you know it's kind of like we've got this studio we're going to record and i said i want to be the engineer and there was another guy with us that wanted to engineer too so we both engineered and kind of shared those things and that lasted that leasing the studio lasted a total of about eight months and during that eight months i kind of felt like that was my calling and uh and so at that time and that was sick you know 68 was coming around my wife was graduating from college right and she was not my wife at that time but she was graduating college so you still with the same woman yes 53 years dude god bless you man that is really cool that's cool to hear oh yeah it is it is and uh we uh i said well i'm not real go about you know i'm getting on close to 21 22 years old you know i've had a long run in this music i've played in the band for seven and a half years we're not when i don't think we're gonna make it and that's kind of like so i started hanging out at another recording studio there in town which i already had developed a few little skills in that little studio we had and everything and uh and there again i think the thing you sent me is like i was the quintessential would-be engineer that i did everything that they asked me to do and it was right it was just a process you know it's kind of like you know if you talk about work ethic i showed up on time or ahead of time every day anything they wanted me to do i would do it and then it expanded to the point of the guy that owned the studio of maurice lefevre mylon's dad a brother i'm sorry and uh and so maurice was the engineer owner and so he would engineer all the sessions and so so then he'd say be in a session you say right go out there and move that microphone so and so and and i'd go out there and do that and then and you'd say right now i gotta take his phone call can you kind of watch the console and everything and it's kind of like and he tells a story he says i came in one day and he said uh roddy come out here and help me i got set up for this session we're going to do and he and i said uh maurice i've already set up everything and they're kind of gotten sounds and everything and it's kind of like at that point he said wow and he said a few a little short uh distance past that he said ronnie i'm going to hire you as an engineer but you got to quit that band [Music] oh so it went uh full circle that seven days a week thing so it went for me uh it said the back of patch i went to work for maurice got married mary and i got married in 68 and uh and uh i started working in the studio seven days a week yeah but that's that's a breeze compared to tobacco farming good lord oh it was and and once i got into it craig it was kind of like this is it this is it this is this can't that you know this is what i want to do and it was uh at that time there was only about three recording studios in atlanta per se that you that you would call professional studios and and so there was uh if you wanted to do any kind of recording you had to record book one of those recording studios so each day and maybe four or five times a week i'm doing four or five different kinds of music that i'm engineering oh wow that's okay so that gave you that basic that's really cool so you had a ton of experience early on even yes because it went from you know like somebody playing playing piano and somebody singing to like there being uh a a chorus in there and it's kind of like and then the next day it's r b session and then uh it just it just every day sometimes two times a day you're doing two different things and you were not doing very many album projects at all it was mostly that single kind of stuff and uh but the work ethic my wife graduated from college with a teaching degree and she taught the first two years and we finally came to the realization that we never gonna see each other if we don't make a change right so my wife she uh i talked to him to quit stopped teaching and then that was that was a a major decision and uh one that i think has uh sustained our marriage all these years and me being in the music business is her being uh flexible to what i was doing even though it was tough sometimes you know because it was that that that thing you know it's got i'll be home for dinner at seven o'clock yeah i think it's gonna be eight o'clock yeah and back you know just over and over and over again and uh but she's hung in there with me thank goodness and yeah man and uh so so that transitions to that full-time engineering that took place in a short amount of time 67-68 i was chief engineer at a major recording studio there in atlanta and i was not only doing demo sessions i was doing major record label projects engineering for people and you're not even 30 at that point 30 you're not even 30 years old with that no i'm 20 uh 22. yeah that's amazing that's so good that you got to on the fly you had to make all those adjustments real quick because you know now you learn okay r b this necessitates this you know whatever the subtleties are gospel necessitates this electric guitar i mean that was like the best tuition you could have got man it was because you know that time 68 you got to realize that was the time of the hippie movement when then the real rock and roll bands first started and everything and marshall lamps came out and stuff like that and in the south there were a lot of really really good guitar players just in the atlanta area alone you know it's kind of like and and just so many times a week maybe i would be doing a session with one of those bands and everything and it's kind of like and it's kind of like me as an ex bass player and everything i could kind of identify with the band and kind of understand what they were wanting to do as far as recording and everything and and my ambition back then was just to kind of help them try to do what they want to do even though they have no idea what they what they can and can't do in a recording studio so it uh so it's kind of like uh kind of got thrown in the fire and say that's the best way to learn though man you know sink or swim and you gotta and you wind up swimming and you're that's great great lessons there man yes it is yes it is and it was and uh uh it's kind of like that that you know variety of music going around and around and around even though later on i become became kind of uh pigeonholed into rock and roll music and doing rock music and this and everything but when i went to the uh mastering and everything it was back to the 1968. right where you had up something every day every day i'm doing something different that's cool did you ever come across someone coming to the studio and like as a guitar player or whatever instrument and say man this guy or this guy was really good and then it turned out later in their career they they were like massive not not so much um probably more rap artists than uh than rock and roll there was a lot of there was a lot of uh guitar based uh bands back then i thought were gonna do great they had the talent i thought they had great songs and everything but it's still craig it's it's not very often you see somebody start out something you know very on a rudimentary level like i did and make it all the way yeah it's very very rare and very seldom even though like you and talking about my career and all this stuff that i've been associated with and everything it's to be involved with that many different people that were successful and everything it's kind of like that it's like putting a if you think that everybody could do this a lot more people but it's just not so i mean it's kind of like take the for instance the group starbuck yeah moonlight feels right right they were a bar band in atlanta and uh bruce blackman wrote this song called blue moonlight feels right and so we had the opportunity to go into studio one where i worked and recorded that well they were not known on a national level at all but they played during these clubs and bars on a weekly basis and make great money okay they finally get a record company to sign them and mainly just for that song and it became a hit so then they had to go out and tour and they'd almost starve to death oh because nobody would show up they had no following you know that that was a radio hit and everything so it wasn't like they've been doing all this touring and everything so it's like months went by and this kind of they couldn't sustain themselves on the road then uh but why wouldn't how is that possible because it was i remember hearing that song all the time it was a great song really cool song well they had a run there i would say that around there and and bruce blackmon was the leader of the band the guy that wrote wrote the song and the lead singer and he was the a very smart guy yeah and he has made an entire career off that one song oh wow but hardly anybody else in that in that band or anything sustained a music career all this time anywhere close to what he has sustained yeah he's but uh that was the instance where somebody came in we didn't think about that wow that's a really good song now i was involved in recording a few things just like that i didn't pay i didn't think it's kind of like sweet home alabama it wasn't like when i heard the first the first guitar figure i said this is going to be one of the biggest songs of all time no no you didn't say that yeah that's i think it's a weird song this is not it's not a boy girl song it's uh it's got the governor of alabama in it and it's putting down neil young yeah and it talks about the session about musicians in muscle shoals alabama it's like how does the public in america gonna hook onto this think it's uh all that doesn't matter yeah it's right the dominoes fall or they don't and it's really hard to tell what pushes them forward to fall yeah it's just really weird al cooper getting the sweet inspirations to sink uh sweet home alabama and the courses on that and the guitar solos and all the all the little things in that thing i give al cooper a lot of credit for that and uh but the bandit already you know we got they got we got through with the first album and it was in the can to be released and everything and they wrote sweet home alabama and so before the album was even released they booked the studio to come in and record just that song because they were getting such favorable response in clubs they were playing that's interesting and so i think they did it thinking okay the album's not released yet maybe we'll pull them back and put some but all so many things had already taken place for the release of that first album it was actually putting the can for the second album that's amazing you know what you when you said that song by starbuck uh moonlight feels right you know who else has done that the guy who wrote brandy yes looking glass that guy's made a whole career out of that one song i'm mixing a song for that guy right now you're kidding me that's like one of the greatest songs ever that was such a cool song i remember just listening to that yeah still listen to it over and over man it's a great song some friends of mine and everything has gotten involved with him uh at uh at kennesaw state university in atlanta and and somehow i know he wound up recording this song and did it for this girl and everything it's kind of like so they knew me real well then they sent the song to me and so which now we're going back and forth you know with uh me mixing and and uh his suggestions and everything which makes a lot of sense and still a very talented guy how random is that that i mentioned that song and you're working on it i mean just think of that that's pretty weird of all the songs out there oh i'm working it is weird yeah especially the that's the only huge hit they had yeah great but you know i know leslie west has passed but i had um a guy named rich eckhart he's toby keith's guitar player in nashville real good guy and he told me he was uh opening or something for leslie one day and they were talking backstage and something about writing a song and leslie said you only need one so there you go man it happens a lot yes i want to talk to you about some of the artists you've worked with and man i could spend hours on this you've had such a great career but for each one of them if you could tell me how you found how you wound up hooking up with them and if you have any cool or interesting stories about working with them and let's talk about augusta georgia james brown oh gosh man that's one of my favorite stories oh that's cool okay and 66 uh i'm still playing in the band i've got a brand new uh pontiac gto convertible oh good nice car and my wife and i we're dating not we're not married at that point but but uh james brown's performing in 66 over in jekyll island georgia and it's a little uh uh center there they think they use for conventions and stuff like that so we decided to go see james brown and we get there and it's kind of like right down the center of the of the room it's white people on one side and black people on the other side that's fun and i that show blew me away because uh once the whole show started there was three different acts it never stopped the music never stopped that he had two drummers two bass players and two guitar players and they alternated like one drummer plays for so many songs and it gets kind of stand up and the other drummers sit down play for so many songs it never stopped and it was a so the last thing was the flames played and everything that performed and everything and then they did the intro for the hardest working man in show business james brown so he comes on stage and he is he is at the top of his game what a performer man what a performer he's doing all those turns and drops and get throwing the mic out and catching bring it back to him and it's it's like we're just blown away and um i still know i'll never forget that night and everything and uh so that's 66 and 68 at 69. james brown is booked the fever sound oh wow to record one song and so the preamble to the session was he sends a he sends a group of guys in before this way before the session to kind of like the president's crew that goes in and kind of like tells everybody what to do and how that everything's supposed to go down it was exactly that you're like mr brown's going to come in make sure you say this make sure he's got a coffee ready or something like that it was uh when uh when mr brown comes in you do not speak to him unless he speaks to you and you don't call him james don't call him anything but mr brown and he uh and he'll do this thing live with the man and everything and you only really only usually does one take and that's it so make sure you got your act together and it's just sure you got your act together that's why i'm sitting there i'm scared to death yeah by far and away is the biggest uh person i'd uh recorded at that time the idea of it and uh so the preparation for you know the the musicians all get there everybody in his band and everything james brown goes out there mr brown goes out there sit down with the guitar player to start with and it's just kind of changed just this thing over and over and over the name of the song is uh i don't want nobody to give me nothing i'll open the door and get it myself okay maybe in competition for the world's longest title for us yeah man i'm gonna i don't want nobody to give me i got to look that up i won't i can get up i don't know uh the guitar player the guitar starts this thing he goes to the drummer drummer starts playing this beat he goes to the bass player and then the horn section is standing over there i can't remember it's like four guys and so i've got microphones on everybody you know and all this is going on it's just kind of like you know hour turns into two hours how many people was that were in like how big was this band well we didn't record oregon and it was only one guitar player so i'd say that's probably six to seven people and then there was him he did a live vocal track to everything so i had plenty of time without each musician telling him to play so and so as they were kind of rehearsing all this stuff i could get all the sounds everything and so i i dialed in all the sounds there i felt pretty good about it and everything and so he finally uh get ready to record you know and he says okay let's do it and so i hit record on tape machine and they go through the whole song and everything and it's one of the songs i think the first minute and a half the song they're only on one chord change all right and so when he raises his hand they go to the next chord change the horn's got horns come in at that chord change that's the first time you hear the horns a minute and a half goes by so record everything a song and everything so i get through it and mr brown says let me come in and let's do it so he comes in the control room so i play the thing back and everybody's grooving and everything and it was cool and everything craig when it gets to the chord change there are no horns oh my god so it's kind of like i look back i look back at the taking machine and they're supposed to be on track six and track six the needle needles is not moving and um so go and he turns and he looks at me and he says wear my horns where are my horns and i went i said just a minute so i went back to machine and so the night before i'd done this cross patch thing on the back of the tape machine to get some echo delays and all this stuff and the input cable into track six never got pushed all the way in oh my god so i had to sit there and say mr brown we don't have them you must be scared to death i was i said you know can i get a job back into the back of patch [Laughter] this is going to be the end of it and without without hesitation he didn't say anything but let's do it again and uh how relieved were you i was like i was still scared to death you know like because all that time getting sound everything i saw the meter on the console but i never thought to look around and look at the meters on the tape machine sure this time i made sure everything was going everything so they did it again and it and i tell everybody it's kind of like the first time the band had had a break when they got through with that first take so it's kind of like when they got a kind of a breaking everything so let's do it again they actually did it as good or it's not better the second time and not was not one of those things man this is all right but man we lost the best tape we ever could ever do on that it wasn't that that was kind of like it was good oh that's great i'd ever take i'd ever take machine running we had in the controller he must have been like exhausted of stress and worry after that session man oh it was it was kind of like you know it's kind of like that was a big responsibility yeah and i only mentioned engineering for a year you know it's kind of like and i've got no assistant engineers i got nobody running out there and changing microphones and doing this i mean maurice gave me that job he uh hit the office well hey at least you were smart enough not to say mr brown i've only been doing this for a year imagine what all kind of hell would have broke loose if you would have told them that man but that was the kind of the worst nightmare and the most relief i've ever had in one session and that's amazing that i got to look up the song i don't want nobody give me nothing right i'll open up the door and get it myself i'll open it wow i'm going to i think that's that's i think that's it and it was a what they must have had like a 78 to how do you fit that on a label they probably said i don't want nobody to give me nothing and then parenthesis yeah that's funny man wow what was so uh as far as the performance goes like watching him was it like watching art being created because the guy's so talented it was it was that you know it's kind of like and he held had total control of that whole band just in the palm of his hand they it was always and i've watched all the live performances and everything it's kind of like the band kind of knows what's going on they know the songs real well but they better be on the lookout because if he uh gives a signal to him they better be able to adapt to it he was just like totally in control i think you know we did the diversion with him singing and then for the uh for the b side of the record i don't think the band played again he went over to the organ and played a instrumental track with him play with him playing organ in studio level sound on didn't own a cool thing like a b3 hammond organ we had a ball in church organ um and so he went and played on jammed on the ball with the oregon what was that i'd like to check i didn't know he even played keyboards he played at keyboards okay i played that keyboard gotcha that's so cool man what a great story man thank you for that is awesome yeah that was that was a momentous occasion all right let's talk about the winstons they had a hit called color him father it was one of your early mixers that you worked on a great song and the record was i thought i was just i'd assume i'm just a few years behind but i'd assume that was a pretty bold record lyrically for the times it was because it addressed the fact that uh this was somebody that had a person in their life was not their real father but uh he totally took the place of his real father and he uh was in the songs about him uh uh recognizing that and uh and it was it was different everything but it was r b song of the year it's a great song man and uh and that was uh the band came in to record that one song because he had richard spencer who had just passed away recently they wrote that song and everything he had the band the winstons and everything uh and so they'd played that song and some people heard it there in atlanta and some people i know that kind of gotten together and got the band to come down and recorded that song so and it's kind of like recognize that was this could be a hit record even though it was not your normal r b song it wasn't about the blues it was like a real story something uh something that really uh pertained to real people it's very it was a very moving record lyrically yeah so so you thought that would be a hit right there after you recorded it well the it just so happens i knew all the people around that was involved in it okay one of the guys johnny b was my ex-manager when i was in the band okay and there was a record promotion guide that i knew real well uh wendell parker he was part of that thing and then don carroll who was the uh producer on the thing that i'd known and got got to know him real well he was the producer on it so i kind of knew everybody and it's kind of like everybody was thinking before we go around this is a hit song so it's kind of like i thought pretty well this might be a pretty big hit song too and you got to remember this is 1969 also and uh and it just seemed like uh i did a lot of stuff in 1969 and starting off we did that by the way we did that early in 69 so we just had a four track for that record that's it and i tell people the story i said you know we recorded the band the rhythm section and everything and it was like on one or two tracks and then we bounced those two tracks down to one track and then added some overdubs vocals and so we got it to fall down to the final thing and we had one track open we'd opened up one track everything else has had all this stuff all over so we invited there there was a string section that came in of like seven or eight string players there was a horn section that came in like four to five guys and we had four background singers in a vocal booth and one of the background singers played tambourine behind the back that's amazing and it all all that went down on one track on one that's amazing man and so it's kind of like you got to get a blend on this when it gets the course when everybody's playing you can't separate the vocals out background vocals out from the horns or the strings it's all there and to this day when i hear that record i just i don't know how we did it the fact that great training well that was the only way that's why you did things back then it's kind of like you had to make those commitments on thing and everything of course there were things like you know somebody messed up in the course they of the uh background singers didn't hit their note right well we had to start back at a point where nobody was playing or singing and go forward from there or go back to the top of the whole song and start over because you couldn't fix their thing outside of a track and uh it wasn't until later on i got to think about how complicated a process was that yeah to make that scene sound like it's not complicated yeah that's incredible that you did all that i mean that's like the whole kitchen everything in the put the kitchen sink in there and the kitchen sink rather yeah uh talk about now the b side to that track and for the for everybody listening doesn't know again the band was the winston's the a side was color him father one r b song of the year but the b side was amen brother okay and uh there's an eight bar drum fill in there that has since become the most sampled drum riff in the history of music primarily a lot in the rap genre but talk about that and i read i read about it the the drummer kind of had a sad life he sort of fell into obscurity and passed away homeless or broke or something he never never really got any notoriety too much or compensation for that that break beat was kind of sold and put on so many records and everything and uh and towards the end he got some recognition and there was some money gotten together for him a little bit of money but uh but how that song happened it was a song the band played live okay so after we recorded coloring father there was no more original songs that was it richard spencer sat down and wrote that one song and it's kind of like that was the impetus for the whole thing you know we got a single okay so the singles got a b side it's got to be a different song so he's sitting there like oh my god i need a b side right now and getting a b side b side so finally i think it's johnny b my ex-manager he's in the control room he says he said why don't y'all do that tune that i heard y'all play live the other night that's kind of uh instrumental and it's kind of like and uh because they'll do they said yeah we do that every night we play and everything so it's basically one of those things where they went out there and it's kind of like i've been asked so many times exactly how i mic the drums what kind of microphones i use on the drums what kind of processing and all the stuff and it's kind of like i didn't know any of anything about this break we recorded that song it's kind of like one take done over with put leader tape on it it's that's done and uh and about ten years ago maybe nine or ten years ago this guy called me out of clear blue and he says uh is this rodney mills i said uh yes he said are you the guy that engineered the coloring father by the winstons i said yeah i think i'm thinking it's pretty cool somebody kind of recognizes that song he says mr mills do you know the significance of the b-side of that record i said i can't remember the b-side of the record and so he said uh could i interested could i interest you in allowing me to come down and interview you do an interview with you on that song he said i don't want you to try to listen to that song ahead of time he said i'm gonna bring down uh some material to play for you and everything and uh and so so he made an appointment and everything and so uh to come down of course i the curiosity got me and so i looked it up on the internet and it was amen brother and it's kind of like so there's the song was not i remembered it uh instantly after i heard that and so he come down came down with a guy did a video and a guy that a couple of kids that were working in this genre of music called jungle and the only piece of music they worked with in the jung jungle genre is that eight bars break in uh amen amen brother they only work with that in sampling cutting it up and make it sound different speeding it up slowing it down taking the end trying to get the individual and so he played me 50 something recordings that had that beat in there some of them some of them i had no idea they were in there once that was pointed out to me it that beat is so identifiable once you hear it and everything and uh and so he also brought a guy he also bought a guy that was like a scientist and this guy had had figured out the uh fundamental frequencies of everything in that eight eight measure thing even the cymbals the snare drum the kick drum and everything and he started explaining how this one frequency supported this frequency and it's kind of like think thankfully you don't have to do that to actually make good music you know it's like but yeah it's kind of like surprised me like this this was that big a deal yeah and uh and and it's kind of like so at the end of the thing he says what do you think is going to be your uh legacy of uh sweet home sweet home alabama or uh or the uh amen break i said i don't know i said i've been living with sweet home alabama for a long time the amen break is this is all new to me yeah and it's kind of like and since then i you know i've mentioned it to people my clients would come in and everything and every one of them you know it's like oh yeah they may break yep you know they all all knew about it and everything uh have you have you ever had to re-mast re-engineer or remaster one of your clients using the amen break yes so if you are male that's pretty cool yeah they didn't probably know you engineered the original no they and after and some of my clients you know that when i first started the mastering stuff there was a little bit of uh i don't know kind of question mark about whether uh rodney mills could actually do this rap rap music and stuff and everything so so it's kind of like after i kind of got to go in and i and then this happened several years guys from then on i was kind of people i'd never worked with for it i always said y'all ever heard this thing called amen break and they say oh yeah i said you know i recorded that back in 1969 and they look at me like that's instant credibility now yeah seriously that wipes away any question mark anybody we gotta go we're good to go now yeah yeah no seriously that's like landmark stuff man that's really cool i cannot believe the success you had early on like that that's like you could have scripted that there was a lot of music going on in atlanta and to be associated one of the top three studios in there and then 69 it's like started working there full-time 68-69 beginning or even before 1970 buddy bowie [Music] changed studios where he worked at did all the recording he was the guy that wrote spooky okay stormy and traces for the classics iv back in the 60s and so betty was uh affiliated with bill lowery and uh in atlanta there and had they had a publishing company together and bill had a studio recording studio somebody had recorded all those songs at that that studio we had a falling out with the owner of that studio and he came over to uh to lefevre sound and he's and after we've done a couple of things together he says i'm going to do all my recording over here from now on so after he'd been over there several months and everything he said rodney i got this idea that i want to build my own studio he said i spent so much time and so much money in a studio year i could build a studio and uh would you uh be interested in uh and building studio and being the engineer for me and i said because at that point i loved the sessions i did with him it was musicians i knew guitar players bass players drummers and it was the cream of the crop there in atlanta and everything and i said if i could do this on a consistent basis this is what i want to do and to be honest with you i've just gone previous to that being offered to me i'd just gone to my boss maurice so i was working non-stop seven days a week i said maurice is there any way i can make any more money because they didn't get any bonuses no no overtimes or anything like that he said and maurice was a great talker and by the end of my little session with him there begging for more money and i came out of there thinking you know i'm lucky to be working for this man that's a good salesman man that's a great sales dude why in the world would i be asking for more turn the positioning around oh man so when he did that and then it was like literally a week or so later buddy offered me that uh that thing and uh and then and we discussed money and everything and it was more money and it's kind of like so so i had to go back to maurice and say i've decided to take this job i'll be here for several months because we're going to build a studio but he said well well doc they always called everybody doc and he says what if i doubled your salary and i'd already give everybody my word yeah and it's kind of like maurice i can't do it i'm gonna have to go and that that was one of the better decisions i ever made as far as i know i don't know what what i would would have done if i had to stay there but certainly when i had the opportunity to build a recording studio for somebody at the age of 22 or 23 it uh it was it was quite a task and everything but but how cool is that you're building a studio to your specs based on your i mean mary and i my wife we had to go downtown atlanta to the library and me check out some books on acoustics and stuff like that and fortunately when i was working for maurice lefevre he built a whole new addition to the studio which was a full-blown studio like 20-foot ceilings uh it was like 50-something feet deep and it had all these policies in their polysyndrical diffusers in the thing and i was able to look at the plans and look at all this stuff and see how he so when i took that job on i kind of had a little bit of an idea about it and everything and uh and i had a friend of mine was a carpenter okay and a painter painted houses okay i said shaq shaq was his stage name and i said jack you're gonna uh get a crew together and help me build this uh recording studio and we agreed to it and everything and uh and uh and it was kind of like one of those things it's kind of okay this is what i want to do we got to figure out how to do it go didn't go to an architect or anything we just started building out the studio in this open space in this uh warehouse complex and got through the thing and actually you know we uh 1970 we opened the doors to that place and started recording in there and that was kind of where i did the kind of remainder of my atlanta-based uh recordings and everything was done in that one studio and that became one of the biggest and most successful studios in atlanta at the time southern southern rock took off really started doing well the lantern section had actually formed out of the group of session players that buddy bowie used on all his recordings okay and so at the end of sessions they just stick around the studio and jam for a while and it just instrumental stuff like that so i got that's where i got to play them with those cables on the on the thing because i've created a delay on the guitar i'd have to take the playback on one track and feed it into another and get the slap back on the guitar and everything and kind of create this mood stuff and i could do enough of it i could kind of control the feedback and everything so we did this stuff you know and buddy put a singer on one of the songs and everything and they sent it off to a record company and it got signed that was during the tenure there at the lefevre sound so we built studio one with they had gotten a record deal and we did completed the first album at studio one so everything really worked out in every way possible there so it was it was like that you know when i see things like this it's like the universe was supporting every bit of your decision to do this one of the you know like you say you know that and i say it a lot to people i say you know you can get chances in your life where you come to a point where you've got to make a decision to go one way or go another i said and at some time and i think it's totally by chance you make a decision and it's the perfect decision later on that you can look back on or you could decide to go this other way and nobody ever hears of you again yeah and it's just fortunate when you get to that point make sure you do everything you can do to make the right decision and sometimes it's like okay so you get a little bit of notoriety that's all these managers come out of the wall works you know and they want to be your manager and i've seen so many acts get tied up with the wrong people that it kind of ruins their career but uh yeah studio one was i lived ate and breathed in that studio with no really no influences of working in any other studios really other than lefevre sound capricorn was out of atlanta weren't they nope out of macon making did they funnel work it's not close i know that but did they funnel work over there it being such a big successful studio they uh there again they were on with all my brothers and everything and several acts and everything marshall tucker they had it going down in capricorn also and i don't know how to how much i should divert from the story here but the alma brothers are doing really well and i get a call from dickie betts you get a call i get a call from dickie beth because in 1968 right after mary and i got married i got this call from a friend of mine to go down to jacksonville and record this band that had dickie betts and barry oakley in it and barry oakley was in atlanta i'd done all these sessions with barry oakley and he played in a band with the romans and i knew him really well and everything so so i said wow that'd be great we're going to record a couple songs so we'll go down to jacksonville record two songs uh with a dickey bats band uh gosh i'm trying to think of it was it now joyous this is and this is pre almond brothers pre-almost so this was dickies almond joys were when i was playing the band the almond joys were out then dickie was not even known by them okay second coming was the name of the second coming yeah and so they were banned down jacksonville and and so i didn't know dickey but i knew uh barry oakley real well and so we go decide to okay we go down to jacksonville we basically make nothing and i sit there in that little studio which was a converted gasoline station [Laughter] and for two days two days mary said in the little control room with me and everything and we recorded two songs with the second coming and uh so wouldn't make any money so about 15 years ago 12 13 years ago they've decided to put the grey the almond brothers anthology album together we get a call about those two songs they were recorded with dickie betts that's that dreams package correct is that what you're talking about yeah okay i think so yeah and it's and in that thing is uh they make us an offer of thirty thousand dollars for those two songs and i'm gonna tell everybody something it's too late now to do anything about it but the uh universal whoever had signed that project has released this uh anthology and everything wanted to buy the masters from us so my friend that went down to jacksonville with me and everything he says right now we don't have a tape copy or a master of this thing he says i've got a few of the vinyl records that were released that uh not been played he said i'm going to take these things to transcribe them to tape put some leader tape on them i probably should not have said this but we've got 30 statute of limitations nobody nobody's ever said you know that uh anything to the effect like this sounds like a a record a 45 rpm record that's what it was but that's all we had i do have in my storage at my house in atlanta i run across a couple of tape copies of that original session that i could not find at that time hey for whatever it's worth i've listened to that many times that whole set it sounds great and when it sounds less quality i listen to it i'm like well it's 1969 and what you know it they didn't have the technology and these guys probably didn't have the money even if they had the technology i mean they weren't recording in in l.a with you know something thing about second coming dickey best they had no original songs yeah we did two covers that's great man and dicky's wife played keyboards on it uh barry oakley was on it i don't know who i can't remember who played drums on i know it wasn't butch trucks but uh but it was on that at that time where it was kind of like 68 and we got into 69 70 and all of a sudden 70 alma brothers start really breaking out and uh and so it's kind of like studio one was at the right place at the right time and roddy had made a really good decision because it took us a while at studio one to get rolling with everything and uh literally we were depending on atlanta rhythm section making the album about once every year or a year and a half to kind of pay for things because we got a budget to record all this stuff and some an al cooper new york guy he decides to come down to atlanta he'd gotten a deal with uh with uh mci records to to have him to have his own label okay sounds of the south okay and he signed two bands one i've been leonard skinner then the other band mo jones and uh most jones never made it but skinner right out of the box it's you know the first album everything they get through the album they decided to sign management with i cannot remember his name now but he was the guy was in charge of the who uh uh tour manager for the who stadium tour okay in the united states so he said we'll get leonard skinner can open up for the who for the who and they wound up pretty much blowing the who off stage almost unbelievable because they were playing they were playing free bird at that time and uh and and it just became such it's nobody ever seen or heard anything quite like that guitar playing and stuff like that that was just extraordinary at that time he was and to me it's kind of like you know okay you were there and you worked on a pretty pretty good bit of stuff on that first album not everything by any means but uh you were privy to what's going down on this album it's kind of it's kind of like i listened to uh free bird and it's kind of like wow this is a long song it's all that it really gets you going and it's great but who is going to play this not thinking you know it's kind of like that was the beginning of the time when radio didn't necessarily have to play it there are radio stations that would play at uh adult oriented uh rock fm started coming out then yeah that's what saved a lot of bands like that i bet so bands didn't have to have a hit song and they didn't even get stuff really to the 38 special stuff 38 special were perceived to be a rock and roll band but they were a kind of a pop band so it was kind of like i think that was that was the uh magic of what we did together was finding a formula that worked on both sides uh that did they definitely didn't copy uh skinner even though they were totally intertwined yeah but uh just uh in a lot room section 76 finally hit it and so that was um that was a deal to me that done everything with them until that point and we uh work on this album and uh it's got the song and it's so into you crazy and it's kind of like it's a really good song but we had other songs i haven't thought was really good too but during the latter part of that uh when we're finishing up the album and everything i pressed uh buddy bowie and his wife gloria let's get this new thing called a harmonizer and i said you know ronnie hammond's having to do all these harmony parts and everything i'm in my dumb way of thinking i said we're going to be able to get this thing would save some time and effort and everything i just dialed the harmony to a thing and and and it'll be take place well that didn't work so so it's kind of like one day and now i'm fooling around with a mix on so into you and i add the harmonizer to the dean daltrey's uh wordless or keyboard electropediana and just instead of trying to harm a final harmony just i detuned it just a little bit and it's like what is this sound and it's kind of like and then it i don't know where's the mix or everything we've done but that automatically just kind of like made that song go to the front of everything that's so cool that's got to be like a pretty good feeling well and something that a little bit of inspiration you know or whatever it is and everything it it does happen you know you make a contribution to something you feel like you have made a con contribution something when something like that happens and everything yeah the song to be released and we were so used to releasing all these albums and singles that were mediocre at the best and uh and the band really didn't tour that much you know we released an album we'd go out and do a tour to support the album and everything and it kind of nothing really happened to go back in the studio were they still playing sessions even though they were still playing sessions and i was uh so when they went out for the uh album promotional tour and everything i went out too and mixed from a house oh man that had to be nice because uh i knew every note they played yeah yeah who better to mix it than you and so that kind of like con that yeah i didn't ask for the job to go out but because the people that own the studio or the people that manage the atlanta rhythm section produced the atlanta rhythm section published all the songs and they paid my salary so rodney you need to go out and mix from the house so but so i'd done that on the previous albums and everything so when that album came out and that single was doing so well we started uh being on the road 20 something days a month which is that's a lot plus you got to come back plus you got to come back and mix studio stuff when i get into it get back home it's not like rest just go straight to the studio and work on cause they're still paying me a par a salary at studio one and atlanta room section is paying paying me a salary so together i'm kind of doing okay not doing great but i'm doing oh i'm doing okay yeah and so i'll just kind of like cut to the chase of this my life story so uh so unto you and the lion rhythm section is doing really well and skinner just started street survivors than in miami florida at criteria studios and uh and not thinking anything about it uh so i'm on the road and i'll throw some kind of hearing what's going on kevin nelson who worked with skinner was the front of house mixer for skinner from the very beginning he uh goes down to miami after the group have been down there recording some and everything so he came down he said the group said let's play you some of the stuff we've been doing and tom dowd was producing the album and everything so i don't think he was in the control room when kevin heard this stuff for the first time but they played kevin two or three songs and they said what do you think kevin he says i think it's the worst sounding stuff i've ever heard you know what he says you guys you need to go back up to atlanta georgia studio one where you started and get rodney mills the engineer album so it's like that so they were kind of in favor of that so he he he wasn't saying the songs were bad he said the way they got put together and recorded was bad the sounds on the and drum sounds were not good wow drum sounds were not good so kevin calls me up and he says rodney i've got to talk the band into let me make some safeties of uh two or three songs on 24 track and uh at that time we were still 16 track okay 16 tracks so he had to he had to actually combine some stuff and he says artemis pyle and i'm gonna fly to atlanta then we'll bring the tapes out and everything and we'll have artemis to re play the drums over the top of some of the two or three songs and make a rough mix on them so they fly up and uh artemis plays robert nix who is the drummer for the atlanta rhythm section drums are in the studio they don't fly or miss the whole drum kit up so i i'm very comfortable getting a sound on robert's drums because that's what i did all the time and so artemis overdubbed drums on those three songs and we uh made a rough mix of them i made as good a mix that i could possibly make and uh so kevin and artemis get on playing go back to miami and they play them for the band and so ronnie vanzant said that's it we go we're going to atlanta wow so how did uh like where you have i don't know how this works was there any concern of yours that basically man i'm going to piss tom dowd off that might not really be a good career move or is it is not not relevant here no i think the deal was tom did not want to come to atlanta and he was very comfortable there in uh criteria but he had he'd let a like an intern type engineer get sounds and uh okay and it was not not happening and now the deal was okay so so the rhythm section without hitting everything and then the period where that uh artist was kind of artemis comes up and uh and overdubs of drums and everything we buy all new equipment for the studio oh we get a 24 track we get a harrison 32 uh 32 console you get all new speakers we get everything and everyone and it says so the conversation was you know that uh we were just a 16-track studio no we became a 24-track studio and based on the fact they wanted to come up in court so that that process was already going on anyway right so i'm on the road 20 something days a month and really and all this is kind of getting put together and everything and so i'm picking equipment for the console the tape recorders for all the outboard gear that we're going to purchase for the thing and and and skinner kind of knows we're doing that tom dowd he knew mci consoles but he did not know harrison console and um so all that comes about so the big decision another major decision in my life craig came with me going out on the road with the land rhythm section becoming tour manager road manager for the atlanta rhythm section which means i settled up with all the promoters i checked the venues out made sure all the uh the uh trays the liquor the sick cartons the cigarettes and everything was for everybody get the bands to the airport get them boarding passes find them in the bars get them to the hotels get their luggage checked in book their rooms and do everything go to the gig find out when we do a sound check come back get the band going it it was more work it was like being in the back of field again i said i'm thinking you would have been better off being in this tobacco i'm killing myself out there you know plus you were coming back and doing mixing in studio one and doing work there and doing work there and it's kind of like okay so i said and skinner wanted me to engineer their record and uh and i said let me know one second normally two i would imagine the process of basically having someone write a blank check and you picking up all that's a fun process it's like someone's saying hey man just pick some guitars out to a guitar player right but under all this stuff with everything else you had it done i would imagine that sort of the joy of that got taken away in a sense because this is all like extra work for you too well it was just it was a lot of work it was a lot of hats to play plus you know i'd go out and we'd go out for like two weeks and i got took all the money in that sometimes with cash sometimes it was checks and and i was doing daily expenses out to the band and there were prodigiums and stuff and all that and at the end of two weeks i had to check up to the penny back home that's a lot of work man that's a that alone is a lot of work so we got so the thing came i said i got to stop this thing on the road so i i told buddy and gloria bowie i said i'm going to come back in studio and do this album with skinnard and uh and that you know the reason we're getting the skinner thing is because of the sex success we just had on the atlanta rhythm section album and that's why skinner's coming back plus the fact that they they had great success at studio one you know and um so they cut my salary off from being on the road which was two hundred dollars a week in my studio at i think my studio one salary was 250 so they're coming back to 250. they cut your salary and uh but i went in really i went in with a band a rod of apprehension tom dowd coming in tom dow comes in he's like he's like a a genius scientist that's got soul and uh and he sits down at the console and he starts going through the all this stuff testing the console out and doing all this stuff and you know i haven't done enough work on the console to kind of like i feel totally comfortable with it and so here's tom he's kind of like making these notes to himself and all the stuff and and so we go ahead with the commencement of doing taking the stuff that was started in miami finishing that up cutting some new tracks and then the deal was that tom dowd was going to mix the album because that was the deal tom dowd produced and he still he didn't necessarily engineered everything but he mixed the albums whoever he was producing and because the original stuff had done a criteria and those mixes they had made and that kevin nelson heard they didn't sound good so ronnie he basically says to me and says rodney you're going to mix this album and says uh we really love the way that record sounded with ars and and we want you to mix this record so well plus the demos you had just done with artemis that like kind of like sealed the deal well they wouldn't be there what happened we're in the midst of cutting that album in time there's a couple of songs that kind of get semi-finished uh so tom starts doing kind of like final mixes on him and it's kind of like i'm sitting there and listening to him and says this stuff sounded pretty good before tom sat down good for you and it's just i i didn't say that out loud i'm just myself right and i'm thinking somebody somebody i can't say this someone needs to tell him this yeah yeah and so you know so off to the side this is uh uh growing concern of the band again and the main concern of ronnie ronnie vanzant so ronnie vanzette to the side says rodney you're gonna mix this album he says i just got to tell tom that he's not going to mix out and we're not we're no we're near finished with album it's just but that had to come to a point because there was no sense in wasting that time yeah well ronnie got a little bit of jack daniels in him and uh and he i don't he didn't tell me ahead of time it's just one night at the studio kind of he comes in the door in the studio and he starts talking to tom dowd and he says tom the work you do for us is you know it's i there's no way we can thank you enough for what what you do and how you help the band and everything and he says there's other people that do good work too and one of the main reasons we came up here was take advantage of that and uh and so he went the whole thing and i'm sitting there and it's kind of like so i kind of get in the tape room yeah you don't want to be there for here and that you know what you don't want to see tom's reaction as he looks over the side once he drops the bomb on it well i kind of like you know only there for part of it and everything so what happened there was that conversation that night the next day we all come to the studio except for tom dowd and so tom's not there a couple hours go by he's not there so somebody calls the the hotel and to speak with him and everything and he said mr dowd checked out this morning oh wow he's not here anymore he was offended i don't know tom tells a distorted different story about that and everything but the fact was uh he left the project and there's the band and me and uh and it's kind of like well it's kind of like somebody and one of the guitar players said i got this part i need to put on so and so and so let's just go in and do the stuff we know we're going to do and we just finished the album ourselves and you know it sounds like ronnie approached him extremely like respectfully and tactfully it didn't sound like he was the slightest bit like inappropriate i mean he was really kind he was kind but he was and al cooper always had tremendous respect for ronnie not to get him too irritated and but uh but yes he ronnie didn't approach it like you know you're fired from doing this job and we're going to do this and but ronnie told me once his mind says right now i'm going to tell you one thing in this band i do all the hiring and i do all the firing [Laughter] nobody else in the band steps up to take part in all that and it's kind of like uh so it's his job to kind of get that point over and it's kind of like you know i didn't i didn't didn't at that point say this is wow this is my opportunity i'm you know i'm gonna get in here and tell these guys what to play and how to do it or anything like that nope we just kind of work together doing stuff the back the girls at saint backgrounds farm came in we put background vocals on all the stuff we cut a new track on a song this and that and uh all the stuff went back and forth and on uh what's your name we uh wanted to put horns on it i said well only i know one guy played saxophone he's really good at j scott he came out and brought another player with him and we stacked some tracks together and made a horn section so when in the end time honey that you say that those horn lines are pretty significant they're pretty stand out in that song man well there's two horn sections on there tom dowd heard the original thing that i did with the little two piece the horn section i did he said why don't you send me the tapes out here and i'll let me put a for real horn section on there so sent tapes out and so he got a horn section to play replace the horns i did and played new parts not and they weren't bad in anything but he made a rough mix of it and the bam was out there doing stuff for universal whatever whatever that time and and tom goes in to play them to see how they like the horns and they said we like we like it and everything so tom took that as they okayed the final mix on that and so the next thing it gets back to me is they're uh in the process of uh mastering the record and uh this is gonna be the final mix on the record which this rough mix of time did because tom took there saying yeah it sounds great it'll sound great and i heard it i said i didn't know who to complain to so i complained to their manager right peter rudge and i said peter that's right that mix does not sound good this is gonna be the first single on the record that mix does not sound good so they sent the tapes they stopped everything as far as the pressing and everything and they sent the master of two inch masters back to me so i made the final mix on that thing and i used part of this part of the horn section i did and part of the horn section that tom dowd did that's a part of me just to the ego in me i worked so hard to get the to get those horns on there i said no there was a couple things they played that sounded better than what tom dow did that so there's a combination it wasn't any kind like we've got this horn section here we got it was not separated like that they were kind of i figured out a way to uh blend them together that's cool man so wow you know the one thing about skynyrd is the bottom line was they had great songs absolutely you know i mean they were great you listen to the the retrospective there's just so many great songs there man and the method that uh ronnie vanzant wrote songs was unbelievable to me you know it's kind of like he just kind of like introvert in the practice room and and he kind of points out he likes this guitar riff and he likes this and and he sits over in the corner and he's writing lyrics in his head and everything and and it's kind of like you know what the song is melody words or anything until he finally steps up in the mic and starts singing jeff mentioned that crazy said that he wouldn't write anything down he never wrote anything down yeah which is unbelievable because he's got some lines it's kind of like you need to write those down no he remembered him uh but it's totally unique in the way that he wrote songs and all of his songs just like jeff i still jeff a little bit too it's kind of like you can pick any 10 of their songs and kind of hold them up against anybody almost as far as the quality of the songs and what they're saying in the songs and uh and the uh and the uh emotion that ronnie uh does with the songs as far as the lyrics and everything and that's that's another thing that i liked about skinner is uh they you know three guitar band and everything and they all were very different from each other and i have to say that alan collins is the main guy that he knew how to uh make his guitar speak and uh it's all that ending of uh we did what was the song uh it's one of the songs he did and he did the solo live in the control room which is where i did most all of my guitar work jeff carlisle's same way not out in front out with a marshall amp blower in the control room and uh that smell alan collins they played the middle solo on that thing such a good solo man we thought everybody in the control room like and it's kind of like you heard that solo you all wanted to cry it was so good a lot but a lot of their song like you listen to a song like curtis lowe man you talk about emotions i mean that i mean i'm getting goosebumps now thinking about some of these tracks you know there i mean they wrote some great songs they really and very moving very emotionally powerful man yes uh you know the i worked with all three of the vanzant brothers and uh ronnie was a very the best lyricist uh by far and i'm not saying donny and johnny both had uh talent and everything and uh i love working with them too sure but ronnie it wasn't until that street survivor so i actually got a chance to kind of like because we got through the album the whole band went back jacksonville ronnie decides to stay and see the mixing of the album which kevin elson and i did together okay and uh and i i owe kevin quite a bit and uh never giving him his his props and everything but if one for him saying let me get artemis go up to atlanta and put these drums on they would not have they would have probably stayed down in miami and cut that whole album down there but he did that and uh and so about halfway through the mix of the album ronnie you know when they hear the kick drum like uh two hours and i'm trying to re-tweak it and everything and it's kind of like and a few days goes by and he says i'm going home if i stay healthy i'm bored to death and i'm gonna get in all kind of trouble so i'm going home and so we mix the album here the deal was we mixed the album and the band's out in california doing the photo shoot for the album cover in front of that fire in front of the set and everything so i mastered just one of the few projects i did not master with bob ludwig that i mastered with uh i can't remember the guy's name out at capitol records and uh when that's the first time the band heard any mixes or anything so we make a ass state and everything so the band's out there so we go in this executive board room at the universal and play the entire record for the band and it's kind of like well universally it's like a member of uh uh washington campaign he says there's not enough guitars on the record and everything so that's what i want to hear after before after you mix it yeah so it's kind of like okay so i went back home and basically remixed the album by myself you know and that was the final thing on the album what happened to those original mixes i'm not i don't know what happened to those i'm sure the universal found them somewhere released you did a hell of a job well thank you thank you you know dog i still listen to some of the songs on that thing and it's kind of like wow it's pretty cool it's awesome man that's that's like that that smells it's kind of like uh record is a you know one thing is totally uh down song you know it's not a positive thing about his solo in theirs well the solos and the lyrics and and the little things we did and the mix and everything and the background singers and everything is uh it's like no it was not me i didn't make that record but i was a part of that record and i contributed to that record and in the end when that record was released tom dowd would not allow the record company to put his name on the record the whole thing is really weird that he was that offended well he said he didn't have final say so the final mixes so he didn't want his name on there that was that was his thing he wanted yeah and it's kind of like i didn't know that that happened until i got a copy of the album oh you didn't see tom i looked at the credits and it says special production rodney mills and i'm the only one that got any production credits i'm sure he gave them his money back right you know oh gosh all the records that tom dowd did if he received the royalty on them all it had to be astronomical but i have a feeling you know back in the 60s and everything he was kind of just on staff at uh criteria no at uh universal that uh not uh for jrx or and uh their label and everything so they sent him down to most shows to kind of get everything together down there sending the criteria and this stuff and that and he's kind of doing all stuff not when he but when he started producing almond brothers yeah he got a piece of all that and certainly you'd think of most of the biggest records that he did as far as rock and roll stuff and everything uh clapton almond brothers and uh going back to aretha franklin and stuff like that i have a feeling he didn't get any uh money for that so to speak but uh but there was a guy i had the most respect in the world for tom dowd sure and he and i crossed fast passes again when i'm doing greg allman's first record down at criteria studios tom's doing an album next door was that weird when you saw him totally weird but tom was totally cool oh that's good that's cool totally cool he was not it was kind of like uh wish me the best and everything and we talked a little bit about the skinner's record he didn't say anything negative about that i didn't try to go into it too deep because i didn't know how he actually stood on that and i didn't want to get in that i'd rather uh not be too confrontational with somebody if there's a possibility of that well it's just not necessary no no what record have you done and maybe it was that record that like career-wise that's the phone was just ringing off the hook after that for you well i have to say the atlanta wrestle section rhythm section so into you that album kind of brought a lot of stuff to the forefront and uh southern music was doing really well and everything and um and uh after i did the atlanta rhythm section album you know it's kind of like all of a sudden we're doing we did the outlaws and i and i engineered the outlaws record sitting next to mutt lane wow before he ever made it big time which outlaws record playing to win was that what that wasn't with green grass and high tides was it no no as that goes after that yeah i don't think there was a hit on that album but but bottom line that mud lane comes to atlanta georgia's studio one and uh before he was mutt lang before his muttling it only it only produced two he would produce one album for the boomtown rats yeah they were i remember them yeah and he had that was kind of his first thing then he'd produce the band up and out of chicago the stanley i can't think of a guy's last name to produce a record on him because he was still doing edits on psalms when he was at studio one and then uh how he got the gig with outlaws i don't know but it was kind of like i first time i'd sat next to a producer that uh buddy bowie who i sat next to for 20 years betty didn't play really an instrument he could play a few chords on guitar and stuff like that but mutt could play guitar and he could sing all the little subtle things and all and the first thing like the first week we were there there were the outlaws we take the weekend off and come monday muk comes in and he passes out brand new lyrics to all the songs all the songs changed the lyrics on all the songs and it's kind of like i could tell bandits have not been too happy about it they didn't know what to think of that that's not what they signed on for and but that's the way it was but it's gotten mud was kind of like in the studio you know play the guitar this way play the drums this way every instrument he kind of he had a knowledge that and suggestions that were really really good enough at the end of it i said this most talented guy i've worked sat next to and worked with and everything and uh and so i knew my i had a feeling mutt was going to be super big and he liked me he liked me too well enough to kind of semi offer me a job and everything and it's kind of like no but i'm going to stay here and stick it out so in the and so in the process of all that kind of going together and uh doing a few bands and then doing uh doing the loud rhythm section record and then doing uh skinner's record and there were some records in between like you know that i engineered like uh moonlight feels right and then alicia bridges i love the nightlife and there was a few other things i was constantly working just working all the time and doing demos with bands and everything and all of all sorts and uh and a good friend of mine made him a 68 guitar player john fristo and he all time had all these songs and everything and he comes to you and he was the most he taught me things as an engineer if you when somebody suggests something you say they ain't gonna work and john had all these ideas and everything to kind of push you push you and it's kind of like and it would work and you'd say wow i would have never come up with that so i did a lot of stuff for him people that never got heard of and then the thing with the 38 special came out because of the thing with skinner talk about that how did you hook up with those guys uh jeff i think ran through that with you and they had done two previous albums and jeff when we were doing street survivors and everything definitely come out of the studio a pretty good bit and uh and he got to have a chance to come out when the rhythm section was doing some stuff out there and he got a chance to hang out and saw the way he worked with uh barry bailey and it's probably after skinner was working on a rhythm section records so jeff kept kind of coming out the studio and and uh because of the success of the line of rhythm section and skinner and everything so jeff just out of the clear blue i get a call from jeff and um and he says rodney we we've done two records the first record did didn't do real well and then the left second record didn't do well didn't do to anything and so he said we're looking to make a change and uh and because the way uh we liked your engineering on the couple of these records you've done and everything want you to engineer our next album and we haven't found a producer yet and uh but we're working on that and i don't know why i got the fortitude in me to say jeff i'd love to engineer but i liked a shot at producing it too and so jeff i think he kind of like thought about it for just a little bit he says i think he said i think that'd be a really good idea let me run it by the other guys in the band so he makes a call back to him we call back and forth and everything and uh and he says the band wants to do it and everything so the next step was they ran it by the record company and uh record company said no way yeah because you're a first-time producer yeah he said we we know the records he's engineered and everything but uh he has no credentials as a producer so jeff and i we said maybe we can get buddy bowie to say he's gonna produce his record and he just got to do it and let me do it let me do it and buddy wouldn't do it and i can understand why if he wasn't going to do the work he didn't want his name to be on there so so even though at that point you know i've done all this stuff for betty and everything and it's kind of like why can't he do this for me and blah blah blah so jeff and i we kind of came up with this idea well why don't the band come to atlanta and we do some demos on a few songs and so i said yeah we could do that i'd get the studio be no charge or anything like that and run it by the wreck company and they said no we don't have any budget for that kind of stuff to do in that kind of stuff and jeff basically told him we'll be free just let us do it and so they came up and we did three songs i think it was and i made mixes of them and supposedly it was just demos you know and that i worked my butt off on those things so it's like an audition for producer basically absolutely craig it's exactly that and that's what it was so it's kind of like i presented as a thing to the record company a m records like this you think we just threw this down last weekend in a couple hours and what do you guys think so mark spector who was working the band's manager later was their manager and everything he was still at a m records and uh and he got the cassettes sent up to him and uh listened to him and he called jeff and said this is this is the best sounding stuff you guys have ever done hallelujah so it was kind of like on one hand it was like it was the biggest step one of the biggest steps that paid off then decisions then that i said i always kind of like tried to put myself as trying my ambitions not exceeding my abilities right and i and always perceived my and thought of my abilities as rodney you're very lucky to be hanging on here instead of out front leading the pack you're you're you you work really hard i work really hard and everything and so it's kind of like my thing is i can keep up with this because my due diligence your child is trying to make this stuff everything sounds good yeah and uh and we made it work made it work and recorded that first album and everything and and it was kind of like and it's like jeff already knew that you know him doing all his solos he was going to do him exactly like barry bailey in uh in the atlanta rhythm section in the control room sitting next to me and this thing where jeff is coming up with all these ideas and everything and he's kind of playing stuff and you kind of reinforce you know okay i really like that and it's kind of like we go through the song a few times then we start putting together a track of just his jam stuff to to add to the track and so jeff said make me a cassette of that and uh so i'd make a cassette he'd go home and practice along with all this stuff and places where i'd punched in and kind of just kind of made stuff work and jeff come back studio he said let me try it let me try it now and it's kind of like wow that sounds a lot better and he's got a tremendous workout i'm not saying this because he's listening to this but he's got a phenomenal work ethic man he's got to do the things he's done and yeah he's fitness and he's a bright bright guy he's uh is one of my very best friends uh and you know i owe him a lot too you know i remember we did a celebration my 70th birthday party well when was that four years ago [Laughter] jeff emceed the whole thing and uh oh that's cool really special and everybody played from bands i've worked with to the atlanta rhythm section played and and it was a special everything jeff we don't talk every day or every week but once we do connect with each other it's hard to turn loose he comes over to our house here in fernandina beach and for a few days every now and then so we still kind of stay in touch to a certain thing and i'll tell you there's been a few times when opportunities come for jeff to sit down and play on something next to me in a control room whether it be in my studio at home or wherever wherever and it's immediately it's just like it was back then that's awesome man that's just like it was back then what a couple of things i just wanted to uh comment on when you said i've always felt lucky to just be hanging on i'll tell you something really interesting the most successful most talented guys that i've spoken to and mind you i'm coming close on 800 interviews so that's a pretty good population are all like that i don't know it's a very the humility in this industry now i'm sure the guys that are awful and think they're wonderful but by and large most of the people i've encountered anyway and maybe it's just because most people refer people and usually birds of a feather flock together but is everybody's really mellow man about their talents yeah to think i didn't i didn't have this vision of being working on a farm in south georgia to to this is what i'm going to be when i grew up so to speak i did not have that vision it's just like one thing led to another and it's kind of like not that i made perfect decisions all the way but it's kind of like things kind of just every now and then fall in place would fall in place and uh and you yeah i kind of really didn't feel like i was glad to be i'd be there and it's kind of like you know one of the uh most uh important things to happen to me is all that work i've done with the atlanta rhythm section and nobody there's no way to ever describe in detail the work that i did on those records and everything um and robert nicks the drummer for the and uh just a few months before he passed away he called me out of the clear blue and he never said anything like this he said rodney i just wanted to call and uh thank you for all the stuff that you did on our records and what the contributions you did and how you made our records uh sound and everything and that that just went all over me because yeah i never heard anything from him like that before then and uh and uh it's i always felt like i did everything but many times you know you don't get recognition for it or people they get caught up in what they're doing and stuff like that and so it doesn't go back because basically what i was doing on all the records was kind of very low key as far as just being the engineer you know and everything and and uh and that conversation i have with him was very important to me and remains that way me mean barry bailey and i have uh spoken back and forth to each other because jeff talks extensively of our method of recording to the fact you know that jeff bought a less ball just like barry bailey yeah you know a lot of the 38 records that's the guitar he'd uh choose to to play and uh and barry and i talked about that and then and it's kind of like we never really talked to each other about the work we did together to kind of like buddy bowie was the producer of the band but there were so many times that buddy would just kind of like get us started on a song and he'd go out and go to a restaurant or just separate himself from being involved in barry and i would sit there and and do all this recording now the genius part of that barry bailey is one of the best guitar players i ever i've ever worked with and was a very creative guy and and just totally stoic jeff says the same thing about him what a great player is very just and he can emotionally make his guitar just pull you into things that he's doing it's kind of like yet he's a stoic guy how weird is that it i don't know i don't know he just found a way found a way to make that's that's his instrument that's his voice yeah that's his emotional tool man he communicates through that yeah there are people like that and sitting there and sometimes would do stuff you know and just and very kind of play out stuff too you know you kind of like well kind of doing solo stuff and and early on with barry and everything you know i noticed that that wouldn't be totally in tune and then just didn't sound like barry was hitting the strings right and it took me almost a few years to realize that barry bailey would have this idea in his head but he'd never played this before so several passes we're doing on this thing we were rewinding the tape over and over again he's kind of getting his act together to figure out what he's going to play and everything and then finally he gets that together and all of a sudden everything's in tune everything is this the pic against the strings is great the sound is great and everything so the headstate tried to get a sound on him before we got serious you know about find him fine-tuning what he was going to play before i was kind of like say let's add do this to the sound a little bit mary bailey was uh the history that i spent with him is totally positive on my end that's right so the same way with jeff those are the two two uh most important guitar players that i work did so much work with that uh i know that if i if if tomorrow had the opportunity to be yesterday and we could go into the studio and everything it would be exactly the same that's cool except this time i could do a little bit more putting together solo tracks and stuff like that than i could back uh then but uh but it would it would still fall back on the same uh what gave you the um motive what motivated you to suddenly tell jeff hey man i'm i'd love to engineer your record i really love to produce it so the question is what motivated me to do that yeah i don't know i don't know i think i think a little bit of my wife always uh thinking that i had pretty good bit of talent and uh you know not not at the point that i uh could be and uh and the fact is i was coming off a couple records that uh i'd worked really hard on and that they sounded real good and would and they'd done really well so but there's that point you know i don't know where it was a thing was motivated by okay if i produce i get a royalty i don't how much of that came into it i'm sure it did because i know that when the atlanta rhythm section made it big they all they all got royalties i didn't i didn't get bonuses or anything yeah but i don't i get this i don't get the sense that that would have been your main motive i would have got that just from this conversation we've had your motiva that would have been like you know the ice the cherry on the cake or the icing on the cake that was like a bonus i think i think the thing i got to tell you this just two little things here then i got through with the atlanta rhythm section album uh that had so unto you on and everything so that was a traditional thing we ended the album did the promotional tour and that went on the big bigger things and i've been told for years if i'd we're not doing well when we finally do something from work out rather you're going to be compensated for it well when he got that point there was no there was not enough money to compensate so i didn't get anything so there was not bitterness on that end but i realized if i was going to do anything i had to do it myself and you had to do it ahead of time and get it in writing so skinner's street survivor's record at the end of the record ronnie comes in the control room sits down next to me he says rodney i want to give you some money for the work you've done on this record and i want to give you some uh royalties and i'll look at him both those those are those are two foreign words [Laughter] bonus and rules royalties yeah right i've not heard those before he says i want to give you a thousand dollars a song for working on his record and the thousand dollars a song happened but the royalties didn't and then it became okay we can't give you royalties but we'll give you bonus money as the album sales this was all word of mouth and between me and ronnie and peter rudge and so that ever 200 000 copies the album sells will give you x amount of dollars and so of course the plane crashes yeah and the record's selling good i don't have a contract that says that so here's rodney trying to say uh i'm supposed to be getting my and i think i got one bonus check and i just said no this is not not what i'm going to do but that that made you know it went from one thing to another so after then working all the uh subsequent ars albums always got bonus money for working on them and eventually buddy and i co-produced the band together so you had a history leading up to that of i guess what not to do and we've all had it in our yeah this career of where you man i didn't know i should have done this i didn't know how to yeah so you had a history of that so it was really like the natural evolution for you to just like make it official say hey i'd like to produce your record because you knew based on history you're going to produce 50 to 75 percent of it anyway well yeah i mean my or 100 maybe even you know might as well get get paid for it there's nothing wrong with is everything right with that well i'll tell you the the proof proof was in the pudding when the when that 38 came to atlanta and we did those three songs yeah and everybody looked at each other and said this the whole band this is what we want to do yeah and it's kind of like uh it's like i can hang with this i think i can hang with if if i'd have gotten negative feedback from the record coming at that point i don't know what would have happened but yeah so you know it's kind of like definitely the rocket in the night we did and mark spector was instrumental in picking that song for the band to do and because i got we got through making the record and everything i go to new york and master the record with bob ludwig and i go to uh to mark spectre's offices at a m records in new york and we play the album and uh play the a side play the b side we're jamming it then he said man that sounds great right you did a really good job do you think we got a hit single on here it was like uh i think we got a single mark i don't know whether it's a hit or not and it's kind of like that was before the elevation of don barnes the lead singer in the band and so we talked about it and everything he says that he says he thought how important it was that they have a single that did well in this next album as far as their future with adm records and that stuff and i said he says can i play you a song and he played me rocking in the night jim peter could really tim peter wrote that yeah yeah i had him on the show man he's a talk about a bald fire and ball of energy man he he is uh and uh and it uh he played song for me and i said that is not anything like what we've just recorded on this album he says i know it he said do you think they uh the man could do it i said i don't know i said uh it seemed to me not donny would have a problem singing it and uh because you peter writes everything that you got you got to be a opera singer to be able to cover all the melodies and stuff he does and uh so he said you might do you mind if i sent it down to the band and i said nope go ahead and uh sent it down the band jeff and uh and don heard it and uh and it's kind of like they realized immediately if if they were going to do it that dom was probably going to sing it and so i think donny heard it after that and he wasn't into it i think donny was intimidated by the song okay because the versatility you would have to have to really make the song come out and so we determined that dom's going to sing it and i was i was a van's aunt believer you know i never gave up on donny uh being able to sing a hit song we never made that happen and never could get it happen but and on the final version of that i had donnie to go out there and ghost vocal almost the entire thing and i could still i could hear donny in the song and everything um and they sang the courses and stuff didn't sing all the verse stuff don did all that but uh but his voice is in there and uh and so it's kind of like i felt like i didn't totally exclude him from that and i worked with donnie so hard and everything that uh you know because i owed him not only for the fact they gave me an opportunity to work with they haven't produced them or anything but but for his brother for his brother yeah i figured that was in the back your mind yeah always always was in there so you just painted forward yeah and and i got to tell you working with donny and johnny both of them there was it was a happy thing it was just a really it was so much fun and everything and uh and no not so much doom and gloom and the in the whole process and everything and uh and both those two brothers donny and johnny just got the greatest laugh in the world and uh and uh johnny was always pushing me johnny would push the dickets out of him we just had a 24 track and he want to put 48 tracks on that 24 track but you know i enjoy that whole thing thing you know i don't think it i don't know how could it have been any better for me you know it's kind of like uh what was around at that time maybe the opportunity of working with a couple of different bands and stuff like that but uh just the way everything kind of fell into place man are you kidding leonard skinner 38 special i mean almond brothers i mean well let's let's go back over on my brother i should have made some notes on that i did not do the almond brothers as the almond brothers i did those two songs of dickie bets oh it's second coming yeah and then on some of the auburn brothers record well some of the dickey's solo records dickey called me up studio one and he says can i come up here and do some guitar over dubs because capricorn is booked and we had that little bit of history going back to 1968 and so he'd come up and spend a few days up in atlanta and we'd work on guitar parts on his solo album stuff so work with him again and then did you work on the he had one solo was a pattern disruptive i think i i do not know the songs that i worked on okay because he was kind of in out then come back do a couple songs and i never heard the end the ending thing of the end result of all that and then greg i didn't really know greg greg came out studio one a couple of times because he was kind of friends with uh robert nicks and uh and met him and everything and of course i kind of followed his career and he'd done one of my all-time favorite songs uh silver dollars and uh and uh i just loved that song i loved greg's voice and everything and i met when i was in the band with the bushman we met the almond joys down in jacksonville did you the alma joyce greg and dwayne had gotten on a greyhound bus and come up to jacksonville to the biggest music store there in jacksonville and for dwayne to buy an amplifier and so these two guys come in they got greg's got pretty long blonde hair and both of them and and we got talking and everything and then they said who they were and everything while they were there and uh talked for pretty wild and uh they gave me one of their cards they had almond joys on there wow you still have that i do not know where that card is oh man and i've kept it forever and uh but anyway i'm out in uh california what album did he what what empty my just curious i think it was uh i think it was like a twin fender twin okay yeah and so that seemed like that was like the perfect size amp they could get back on the bus and get it back home and kind of what he was playing back then uh marshalls were not kind of uh big time at that point marshalls had not even come out yet this was probably in 65 66 so right before they started coming out yeah did you know a guy sorry in jacksonville did you know doyle dykes no okay acoustic guitar incredible player he was from jacksonville as well but i'm out in california working on a working with a band out there called cruzado i got this gig with a telephone call it's a tex-mex band and uh and they listened to some of the stuff i'd done so they got on conference call with me and everything and so the lead singer the bill was tito lariva and uh we talked together on the phone and uh and just generally in the high approach recording and doing stuff and everything and he signed me up on a phone call on a phone call i'll go out and do it i get on a plane go out to california the first time i've seen these guys and uh so we actually worked really well together but while i'm out there i get a call that greg's manager and greg's out in california and they're looking for greg to do a solo album and he hadn't recorded it in either nine or ten years at that point and uh so would i be uh opening a meeting with them at the record company and so at epic records so you got it i'm feeling pretty good after getting that call here you are flying out to california from for a new client that like yeah okay come on out and then your everything's paid for you're doing the record and then while you're there great that's got to be like oh my god it's this is pretty cool yeah it's kind of like you're feeling your cheerios and everything so you know i go in and greg and i never said a half a dozen words to each other [Laughter] i go in and i sit down you know it's kind of like i found you know getting that gig with the croissant was crew rosados was a big deal because they didn't know me yeah so when they got on the phone with me it's kind of like you and i already know you just try to be who you are and people that are perceptive and everything can pick up on that and it's kind of like you don't try to tell them that you know a lot more than what you know you try to tell them kind of what you do and kind of how you approach things and so i said they were greg and i talked to him and everything and and about you know the alma brothers what they'd done and everything and i told him how how i kind of worked and everything and uh and he had heard some of the stuff i'd done at that time and uh and at the end of that conversation the conversation of finding a producer for greg was over that's great so he hired you he hired me there on the spot oh my so you're thinking i'm pretty good at this phone call i'm pretty good at this stuff man i need to get some more leads in i don't need to be going to meet anybody face to face really i can just do it on my phone it's a waste of time this in person stuff cruzados you may know them from the movie uh from dawn from dusk till uh dawn oh yeah of course yeah but the band that plays that turns into monsters yeah that was them that was the cruzados that's pretty cool that's pretty cool i did i did two albums with those guys and uh they had it was a different thing you know they did one spanish song that i had no idea what he was singing is that weird to be doing a song and you're mixing it you don't know what like because no but this is this is a ballad and you could tell the words okay he kind of hung on to and everything he put a real emotion into it and everything i'd say what are you saying right there and he would interpret it for me and everything okay and it's kind of like we so we work pretty well together and uh it's neat to say i got the gig with greg then the process of uh okay before we're gonna record record greg because this time that this time i'm out of studio one i'm going around you're freelancing yeah and so greg wants to do down in miami his management thinks that miami is probably not a great influence on greg and uh so i talked to uh i can't remember his name guy up in memphis at his studio and uh and that seemed pretty good and but wound up in criteria in miami this was for the uh i'm no angel angel when i heard the song they sent the song i'm no angel to me and i thought this is a hit it's a great track and uh greg didn't write this but greg should have written this because this is a this is greg and uh and uh so i heard that song i said yes i could do this and everything so we did we did some kind of traditional stuff for greg and we did some kind of new stuff and i know angel was kind of a different for him by all means but it was a hit record great great record did really did really well and uh and got to i got the opportunity to work with another one of my favorite guitar players uh danny toller dan taller i was just going to ask you man yeah oh man we did the same thing craig we cut the tracks so he comes and comes into control sets them by me i said this is gonna do it and he got his amp right next door in the vocal booth on the side of the control room and put mocks up in there and everything and so so dan sits there with me and we we do all his overdubs that same same way that's awesome and and here's the thing you know it's kind of like you know you know you can say i'm by the seat of my pants and it's kind of like i'm kind of guy too that i didn't sit in there and kind of study what we listened to what we had done the day before and figured out this is what we needed uh this is what this needed to that i kind of generally felt like we needed to do some things not exactly what it was and i just felt like when you get the studio it'll all work and 90 something percent of the time it all worked that's awesome man and it's kind of like uh so dan but you know what when you're sitting next to somebody there's a vibe yes and that's uh just as important well you get that it's exactly what you just said it's a vibe and you kind of lock in on each other you know i'm doing one thing and they're doing another but i know i can sit there and watch them playing and and listen to what's coming out and everything i can tell when they're playing the right stuff or that didn't quite hit a note right and just instantly know what that is and everything and where it is and say we need we need to punch in right here and it's kind of like i said start playing along what you were playing with right before then and i'll punch you in and we'll fix that spot and keep on going and ninety percent of time it was just like punch in fixed go on the thing maybe okay we're going back up here we got to do this part over again because something a lot of times guitar tracks you didn't have a lot of tracks to put different tracks of guitar down you had to kind of make this part up as you were going and as far as you know there was not going to be another track okay especially solo stuff and if i had the tracks i would put solo stuff together but there was that uh kind of locking in on what's going on and everything and trying not to get in the way of somebody trying because uh all those guitar players are trying to feel not only play but also to feel get the uh the vibe inside them the soul in them the emotion in them to come out through their hands in their amp and everything and it's kind of you don't want to be the guy sitting there just kind of making them do something other it doesn't mean anything so it's kind of like so you you learn just how far you can get into what they're doing without getting too far into it and making it in golly same way i you know i got the opportunity to work with the doobie brothers on two albums when they decided to get back together and uh and guess what tommy johnson and pat simmons they're right there in the control room not together but uh but they woke up basic tracks they would both be in the control room but we did overdubs and all that right in the control room pat simmons was one of the best human beings i've ever worked with as far as his enthusiasm and uh and just wanting to play all these parts way too many of them sometime but he always was never lacking for an idea and uh and any kind of contribution he could make to what was going on uh and i that was a thing to me it's kind of like i was a big fan of the band from their beginnings you know i mean they that first record they did hit my heart you know listening to the music was uh couldn't get much better to me great song and the whole thing and and there again they started making this reunion album after they hadn't recorded a long time they get two producers from new york and they get in there and these producers start going off on on these guys and uh especially tommy johnson just like a player's not good your lyrics suck this and just and they get about i don't know somewhere between a third and a half way through the album and they all had a meeting and said is anybody having any fun dude they fired them they fired them how'd they get ahold of you i get a call that uh and uh they're looking for somebody to complete this album with them in the meantime i've started buying macintosh computers and i started learning how to sync up stuff and a little bit of midi stuff and so i fly out to san francisco and uh in some hotel out there sat down and and i've got copies of stuff and i start playing and i said this is what i think we could do here and and add here and if we could maybe start this song where the whole band's not playing and everything so ever so everything i kind of chose my words carefully and everything and spoke to them and everything and it was done they said won't you come out and finish this record with us and it's so i come back to atlanta and uh i'll take every bit of the equipment i got which is not enough because i had done a record with midi and syncing to uh time code and all that stuff so i'm kind of thrown in the fire with a band that i totally admire with a cl with a very successful band and it's like most people that i've met in my life and i think you you know this too stars of stars but they're also people a hundred a hundred percent and uh once you sit down with somebody and it's like we sit there in a hotel out in california and sit there and start playing music just talking about their music and everything then you just kind of you know you're talking to a person and they're talking to somebody that's not saying i'm going to do this for you i'm going to do that for you but this is what i think we could do and this is kind of like uh and it that that's a that's the biggest part to me is kind of like i never was like all the rap stars that i've worked with and everything that come in my place and they got this they got this professional wrestling persona about it yeah i totally equate it to professional wrestling it's like when when they're around their peers and everything they put on this uh act and they talk a certain way and they act and they're doing all this stuff and everything but i found every one of them that came out and sat down in my little studio at home in atlanta to do work on their uh album or whatever they're there about an hour and we're just talking like normal people yeah and every now and then i did some of the lyrics go by and i said i look around and some of them bring out their little kids to do that to come out to the sessions they come out come out of session so they're kind of babysitting back there and i'm playing this stuff and it's kind of like wow oh yeah something that little kid should not be hearing well they're actually they're actually too small to pick up on that but when i turn around and i look at him and he said one guy i remember one guy said i know mr mills i'm just trying to figure out a way to make some money that's so funny wow yeah no i i have is somebody once we i've been very fortunate with this show i mean so this is you know and uh someone said why do you think that the show is done well and i said for that reason i said because i think everybody's the same i don't people don't i mean just because somebody was an expertise in a field they still everybody's worries about their kids worries about their family their health no matter how much money you got you got too many bills to pay not enough time we're all like got these basic things in common and so i've never i've never been like everybody's the same man you know it's like you don't have to do it when it gets down to it if you get an opportunity to get to know somebody just a little bit you realize they're just the same you know what uh they're it's like you're talking to real people you're doing these things you know and it's not not like we're not in here to die to do something heroic we're trying to get in here trying to do the best thing that we can do you know yeah it's not anything to uh and i don't think most of people ever work with this that never approached too much about their ego a few people but uh but the ego's not so much involved as you're in there making a record and you know how important this is and so it can't be anything but really doing the best you can do perform the best you can do and me as well as uh the bands or musicians or guitar players that i work with that's what it came down to but you know in a way too a lot of it was fun especially 38 special i do that first record with them and it sells three times what their their first record sold yeah it's kind of like and so wow and we do the second record and we hear the hold on loosely demo with jim pedrick and don and jeff and it's like i remember i remember get a phone call from mark spector their manager he said rodney we got to hit record here try not to screw it up and we all we all felt that way but you know they're but after we did that record especially after we did so actually the first break rocking tonight we there's a lot of pressure taken off because okay there's a promise here there's some real promise here and everything so the second record the wildlife southern boys takes off and i know uh and one of the highlights of my life is uh i'd done some gold records before then but i had not produced the records have been an integral part of it and 38 specials mark spectre there again called me up uh one night he says rodney uh while our son boy has just been certified gold ria certified gold and it's like it's almost like uh your wife having a baby yeah it was that that much of a celebration i remember i'm sure i remember uh well you got it wasn't just you got validated because you had done this work before without any without not even without any validation without any credit so i totally that like well that that that that was one of the best feelings obviously to me and my wife you know it's just kind of like we've worked so hard to make all this work and everything and finally we get something that works here i'm buying cigars buddy bowie's at the studio doing some vocal stuff with ronnie hammond the singer of the atlanta rhythm section i walk in i'm passing out cigars and see buddy would not do that deal where he was lend us his name in order for me to get that production job right so i walked in the studio and i said 38 records just went gold he said they're probably sending it back so now i'm half i'm back i said no it's been alright double a certified then you know it was gold then it went platinum and it's kind of like after then we never heard from the record company yeah they let you alone right they left us alone you know there'd be a couple phone calls every now and then uh but they left let us make the records we wanted to make and uh and and we had a lot of fun making those records and a lot of a lot of fun a lot of tears and hard work and stuff it's just kind of like you don't tend not to dwell on anything like how hard you worked on you just kind of listen to the end result i can go back to the atlanta rhythm section records the first ones i did and i haven't listened to them in three years and i listened to them and it's like wow i could i could hear all the parts there i could remember recording all those things i couldn't remember robert nixon's uh the uh tip of his stick trying to get that certain ping out of the riding symbol for it to sound just right and if i lost you getting know you there no i'm here i'm just listening but but just to hear all that stuff and everything and you kind of like well no they didn't achieve a lot of success on those early records but those records are really they're well made they sound real good the songs are good uh and uh so that i get pumped up it was a couple years ago i was out walking a lot and so i got into listening all the all the old records you did so i could just put them on my at that time my ipod i think i find it put it in random play and it's kind of like man i've done a lot of stuff oh no no doubt man uh it's pretty cool though you know you talk go back to uh liberty devito yeah oh yeah that's right yeah that was it was sorry i have not been face to face with liberty devito since he was at studio one in atlanta georgia and i won't say this was around 1971 or 1972. and uh so he did two albums there when the guy named richard supa and i can't remember super's real last real name uh richie supa um like scarletto maybe or something yeah yeah scar no yeah yes it is like that at that time we still thought the other day it's like at that time his mother lived down in miami and he was flying down there and he was going back up north but he uh richard super he was in the original cast of i think jesus christ superstar it was some big play on broadway i remember a big play on broadway hairspray uh that hair it might have been hair i don't think it was jesus christ superstar might it was something similar in that genre sort of and a pretty big pretty big deal yes so he came down and he's just a great guy to work with and everything and liberty devito uh sets up his drums and everything and it's one of the first uh things that i did outside of our fabricated drum booth he set up his drums outside in the actual studio and uh and i totally enjoyed recording those albums that he played on and everything a great player and everything but i've got a story about richard richards super let me just tell you this go ahead ask me what you're gonna learn well i'm just gonna say he must have thought a lot of you because you didn't work together like yet he mentioned you in his book as you know i sent you that i was shocked i'm reading i'm like oh my god everybody's related almost we're doing vocals with the with super one night out studio one and super wants uh he wants all the lights off out into the studio and so i'm in the control room and the children's got a lot of glass in it so he said i didn't have any uh uh window coverings or anything so he said i want it dark so i'd cut out all the lights in the control room and you know i got the lights on the equipment the tape machine they're they're there but it's dark and so he's singing the song all of a sudden he says rodney uh stop the tape i said what is it what is it he says you need to stop the tape and he told me slap the tape and so my immediate reaction was to some i knew something was wrong so i was going over to where all the light switches were and he was trying to tell me no no don't and he wasn't a wave tell me to leave the light switched off because the cops had come around the back and discovered the back door was open and they had come through the back bay and then came into the back door of the studio into the studio and they see a guy in the dark and he's got on headphones there and he's dancing around singing everything they can't i got these little tiny speakers on the chrome and that's all they see is this guy jumping around out there singing so one guy has got his rifle down on his gun down on his knee and he walks up to soup and taps him on the back he thought he was broken into the place he thought he was dead or something and then he turns around and realizes cops and he tells me to stop the tape but he realizes he's got his weed all out on the piano oh and that was a big deal back then if they caught you with some weed they didn't say anything about this guy this policeman says we just thought we didn't know what to think says we we thought we had a we had us a wild somebody wild totally wild and crazy oh we didn't know what we were getting into and it they didn't do anything about that the cops finally learned you know we were a studio and there was a few times we'd put a marshall cabinet in that back thing and go out to this in it to get a ambient sound and neighbors would call them we left turn it down everything but okay about fainted and everything but uh made sure that back door is closed after that but wow that's a funny so cool the only other time i ever saw him was at the airport atlanta airport mary and i were going somewhere and he just came came through on i think going down to miami and uh that's the last time i saw him and and really that second album that he did that uh liberty played along that was the last time i saw liberty face to face that's wild yeah he must have thought a hell a lot you got to thank a lot of someone 40 50 50 years later to put them in your book that's pretty cool man they're pretty cool yeah and then jeff tells me they're playing together and i it's the first thing it hit fits my mind i know this guy is not knowing but i know him yeah how did you uh so how did the first like how did you get into the rap thing okay so and i shouldn't say the rap thing how did you get into the genre of math yeah crap uh yeah trap music yeah so the uh at one point i broke away from studio one because it was sold to georgia state university oh okay they made it a teaching facility and everything and i still continue to mix stuff in there but but i kind of got away from that and and so and i was going out to california to do cresados doing this going down to miami and i was basically living in you know two albums of radiators in new orleans i'm staying from i love that band man i saw them in the ritz in new york city i wish they had made made it bigger man they were a great man they were great band and everything so i'm working with these and meanwhile i've got two daughters that are in high school and i'm not participating in anything they're doing and uh and to the point that i didn't know exactly what i was gonna do because at that point the west coast uh grunge music took off and uh and it did not take off with me so this was like in the 80s yes late 80s yeah late 80s late 80s and i continued on into the early 90s and continued to do that stuff and i thought well i'm missing out on stuff they're both cheerleaders i love basketball i love football i can't i don't see them uh mary's having to do all the stuff and everything and so it's kind of like i need to find something that i can stay home and do and at that time i picked up a copy of mix magazine and uh digital design just come out with this new software called master list cd that you can make a master cd that was good for a cd duplication replication so i got thinking i've been going all these years up to bob ludwig and he's been mastering all this stuff and i said you know i'm gonna try to take i don't think i can take bob lovely's place by any means but i think there's a lot of music being recorded and in atlanta there were maybe maybe one other person that time doing any kind of mastering and so i kind of put in my mind and trying to figure out how much it would cost what kind of computers i need fortunately i was kind of up to date on all my uh computer stuff and uh and i said okay for x amount of dollars i can buy this a pro tool system make these master cds send them to the wreck to the cd plants and uh i think this might work i didn't it wasn't like one of these things where okay i'm gonna do this so i'm not gonna do anything else i thought i would i didn't have that all figured out but almost immediately i kind of hung it out that i was gonna do mastering i kind of got everything together it worked and i figured out how to make everything work and a couple friends of mine worked to the at a rap hip-hop label there in atlanta and they called me up and said rodney have you ever worked on any rap music and i said nope but uh i'm willing to give it a try and so almost immediately you know i went from working with rock bands guitar players to uh to rap music and uh that's what totally different genres different uh it's just it was all over the place uh but there again when i started the mastering stuff craig that uh lefevre sound thing came back and this was almost in a daily thing it was kind of like i'd do two or three things in a day's time and none of them resembled each other you just had to have the ability to kind of get your head in with what they were doing and try to make it sound as good as you can make it sound and uh and just not become a part of that music but be able to contribute to what they're doing and as far as uh make the final sound on what they were doing so it's kind of like i started doing that and it's then it all the other stuff started happening because my reputation as far as engineering and producing and everything i got to a lot of stuff but my my reputation for engineering and producing all this rock stuff meant nothing to these to the rap community in atlanta it was how how could you do quality work for them sure and at that time most everybody came out and it was that same thing you know it's kind of it was a little bit of push i said mr mills you know anything about his base music you know you know we like a lot of bass i said i was a bass player i'm gonna look out after your base that's funny man and um and they gotta you had enough enough of a little bit for them to at least say all right i'll give them a shot yeah yeah which is all you need man you know what what i always just say uh uh you just gotta get your foot in the door once it's in there it's up to you to keep that door open but just give me a foot and you know and especially atlanta on such a huge market yeah for hip-hop and it's kind of like word of mouth i've never advertised my business the the mastering business except for my website and stuff like that but i never made a push to do ads and anything like that so word of mouth just became it's more work than i could possibly get done and so i hired uh people to come in and kind of answer the phones and take care then finally it was the point where okay i mastered the songs i'm done with it and they would take it clean up the beginnings and then put them in the order they're supposed to be on the album where people work for me and we like a machine you know in a week's time i'd go through this stuff and it's like easily in a year's time i do a thousand different uh things wow i was used to doing maybe two album projects a year and that while you're doing like a thousand that's a mate that's a lot of work man that's a hundred that's 90 we call it 100 records a month and i'm assuming you weren't working around the clock again we're very late yeah okay and then then we started recording some of the stuff oh man well you know what but you're that guy man you're gonna you it goes back to work ethic man i hate to sound like but you know that you're gonna do something you're gonna do it right don't try that's just right right well right that but you're going to give you're going to say hey it should be done like this while you're here let's do it oh it's like uh even yesterday i'm doing this one song for this for this rap artist and everything so they get the end of the song and it just shuts off it just sounds like why'd they do that so i go in there and it gets to that last note and everything i add some little ambience and reverb tail to it and it sounds kind of not anything draws the way out but it just makes it sound like it ends you know just cuts off and so i'm not looking for anybody unless i get somebody said man we what'd you do to the end of the song so i take a little bit of freedom with the stuff sometimes sometimes people send me stuff and it's kind of like i don't know what they were listening to when they they were hearing this and everything [Laughter] but it doesn't need it needs to sound quite different from this and a lot of times that works really well and and you get known for doing stuff like that and sometimes the way it is nowadays people you know they've got pro tools and they've got everything instant recall on everything and they could work on stuff do you think that they've got it sounding pretty good and uh and a lot of the stuff does sound pretty good but they're you know the rap music and everything you got to find a way to make everything work you know the the bass sometimes especially atlanta is a it's a base driven or 808 driven a lot of times and so you've got to have room for that to be big in the song and you've got to find a way to make the vocals be understood too and and it's kind of like sometimes people see me stuff where the bass is way too high i know it's too high i can't i can't hear the vocals yeah i'll rebalance it and everything and get it at sound where it sounds like stuff that's on the out there that's doing really well and everything and uh and it's kind of like send that back to them and they're usually cool with it because in the meantime i've got my settings for rap music which makes it hotter than any other genre of music i work with and that's that's even backed off a little bit lately but but it's just amazing when i first started i was not expecting to get involved in that and uh and i found myself at some point proving myself for some of the artists who had had some pretty good success uh freak nasty was a guy that he had a multi-million selling album that he did on cassette eight track cassette and uh she comes to me wondering what what what are you going to do this stuff make me sad already i sold seven million albums on my thing i did on cassette that's amazing and uh it's kind of so it's kind of like i don't know we'll see and then but it worked out real well the you know those people i thought you had on a bone crusher yeah bone crusher is one of the guys this is this is a smart guy you know this is educated guy uh uh he came in and we matched that first song the scared song uh and uh he's got no record deal he's got not anything really going on so so it's basically he's getting out promoting this thing getting in his car and doing all these clubs like up in the carolinas and all over atlanta and in georgia and everywhere and so he kind of gets little stuff going on a little bit and so he gets on the next level where he's got some representation then he gets a record deal and uh and uh so i do i did where i did that first album for him it did really well for him and i know i'm watching the atlanta football one day and so he's doing that song at the beginning of the beginning of the game well he's doing the clean version of the song all the people up in the stands are doing the dirty version so he got banned he got really criticized for doing all this dirty lyrics live on live television well he didn't do it he didn't do it it's just the contribution of that and that was one of the first time things i know i remember doing his album and it and it was getting put out and everything and so my wife and i go on a trip over to savannah and i go to a flea market and there's his album it hasn't haven't even been released yet and there's already bootlegs on it that's crazy man oh well that is uh how funny was it the first time when when you were getting ready to go to the studio and your wife said oh who you working with today and you said oh freak nasty the first time you had to see something like that she must have been like what well i'll tell you one you know my master studio in atlanta is in my house up there and i've got uh george clinton booked yeah that's we're doing a big big project on him where he's kind of putting together all the unreleased stuff that he's done the extra takes they did on stuff and uh and i'm downstairs getting all that prep and everything i think his engineer's there but george clinton comes to the house like a limousine brings him up instead of him going around the back of the house and coming in my uh door down there which everybody does oh the studio yeah the garage door was up right [Laughter] he goes into the garage and knocks on the door and mary goes to the door and opens it up and there he is you know he's got all this colored hair and and everything he's just a lot bigger than life and yeah i think mary said i think you're looking for my husband that's fun man they made a documentary about it was not i don't know if you saw it it was pretty scathing you know i think that whole thing where he put all that stuff together and uh i don't think he included uh a lot of people he probably should have included with that and uh it was it was a lot of stuff it was a ton of stuff man and they had like it was almost like a jury trial they had like witnesses lined up one after the other i was like holy smokes so and look there's three sides to every story i don't know it's what but it was a i was it was it was disappointing as a fan to see that i don't know if there's any truth to it is it fake news who knows but it was like scathing i don't know i never got involved in that i know when we did the mastering on that it was like double album double cd maybe even more than that but uh getting that together and keeping up with all of it and the song titles were not correct they moved these songs around it was kind of like i like to never got through with the final versions of that stuff before i guess all that stuff started there might have been some songs we took off that was part of that uh he had not got clearance okay everybody involved because it was just him doing this project it was not not the whole uh ban so to speak interesting yeah that was sad to see that any other like gigs that you want to talk about that were significant to you i think uh we you know we talked to you talked a little bit about you know like the right atlanta scene as far as rap hip-hop and uh and and it's got this uh we don't call it trap music yeah i had that gucci gucci mane yeah what what are the what i want to know is what are the challenges that presents in engineering because that's got to be tough well i did mostly did mastering for him and it was uh and he was kind of one of the originators of kind of the atlanta sound and uh and the atlanta sound is basically uh all these guys discovered these uh roland tr-808s and they started making these beats with them and everything and uh and it was kind of like so that genre music by them it was kind of semi-laid back and it was kind of like definitely uh bass driven that 808 bass driven and everything and so there was and you know i remember we got one of those things at studio one and our thinking was okay it's supposed to sound like a kick drum it doesn't sound like kick grip that doesn't sound like snare drum put it over there we're not going to use that thing so there's a little bit of truth that all these guys uh found these things at pawn shops and for nothing right and started making beats with them and everything and so the deal was you know it's kind of like you get this semi-laid back a beat gordon thing it's got a groove to it and everything and and and it's kind of like a real exaggerated hi-hat sometimes that's still some of the biggest problems i run across they got these runaway hi-hats going on over the top end of the record and trying to tame that back just a little bit but but it's that thing now you know it's kind of like so you're not doing uh uh you're not doing trap rhymes or anything like that there is a trap kind of kind of rhythm to what you're doing and it's it's kind of a triplet or offbeat kind of thing they do a lot in the phrasing of what they do and everything it kind of enhances that whole overall thing now i get everything one song to be maybe it's uh trap next song it just sounded like plant i call it just rap music it's uh it's not really 808 there it's a lot more versatility and stuff nowadays you know some of my favorite stuff over just did the past few days this guy he actually had a really realistic snare drum no way but it was in totally in your face and uh that was what he wanted and everything and it it worked really good now that's probably got a nomenclature to it that people know but i don't right right i don't try to name the stuff for or uh i know generally what i'm dealing here with and i do get some stuff that's like okay it doesn't have 808s in there going [Music] and it's not in there on the low end at all and it's kind of like well did they forget to put bass in this no they intentionally did not want to do that and you get i get stuff from different parts of the country that it's exaggerations of one or the other like uh stuff up north is not 808 driven a lot of stuff out on west coast is not 808 driven but the atlanta stuff and what you want to call trap music is still 808 driven that's the thing about it that some of the the biggest uh even uh the snoop doggy dog has got a unique sound to his voice and uh you know so it's kind of come around you know i get uh gotten rap stuff where they've uh gotten snoop to do a verse on the song so these are guys that are fairly well known then no oh really got the money together they sent a track out to l.a and he's done a verse on it and he's charged him like 50 000 wow good for him and uh and so so there they sent me this song he's got he's on the first first so he sent me a song another song it's the same verse but it's on a different song hey man i spent 50 grand on this he's going to be on every song every song on my record every song on my album wow i actually got a rap client that got the license to use the intro of sweet home alabama that's interesting and they looped it and everything and and they did every version they could think of to do that yeah but that would probably do well because it's a hit song yes and instantly recognizable yeah instantly and uh i i think had some mediocre success with it but i have no idea what uh judy vanzant or any of the other people gary washington uh of course ed passed away now but uh those people are still doing well off that one song yeah i'm sure hey um let me ask you a few more questions yes sir i can't tell you how much i appreciate your time uh what are your top three desert island discs i know maybe that's one thing i was not gonna do you know what people this is a i get people emailing me or respond i love how your guests will pour their heart out to you and tell them like how they recovered from alcoholism or you know abuse or you know three divorces but when you ask them what are your three desert island disney because they all freeze in their tracks it is the most difficult question to answer and it is a tough question to answer it is so tough i think uh gosh i think just for now just for like right now i think hotel california be right in there i always like harmony so i've always liked uh that the band from the very beginning uh uh the song hotel california always listen to it all the way all the way through because it gets all the guitar stuff i can totally identify with all the work that those guys did to make that come off i can't imagine how tough that was to make those lines playing exactly spot on together that's you know they're good then you know you go back to listen to like skinner's uh uh free bird and it's kind of like and most of that was by chance it was not uh the double guitars on the end were not necessarily uh playing that way because they they've been playing that song and everything so i guess what variations that uh allen played on the solos on that thing they were all in the same they bought maybe they i was not there i was there on some of the overdubs for that but not all of it i was not there on the final choice of what parts were played where but also i do know that al cooper was capable that arrangement of that song is incredible the whole ending part i'm talking about and listen to it i can sit there and listen to that over and over and just hear the little difference the drums the different parts they played on those eight measures the acoustic guitars are actually valid in that uh end of that song and uh you know i've never listened for that now i have to listen for the acoustics it changes so much and everything and it's uh but the guitar stuff is kind of like bring up those two bring it back one track bring up the other and find out wow this actually worked real well together i don't know where it was a an ah now moment or not uh an epiphany that uh made all that uh come together on them but uh i i give a lot of that to alan collins he was that kind of player that kind of good too it's okay for our second album i think i enjoy uh fleetwood mac's rumors album quite a bit uh the the songs and the uh and i still can't get over just how mick fleetwood the drums you're just so solid behind those songs nothing is ever overplayed and the texture and the harmonies and what's his name's guitar player is plays stuff that lindsey is that lindsay buckingham yep that nobody else plays you know as a that guitar he's got whoever built that guitar for him he has got it down had to a science and it's kind of like wow that's some really really cool stuff and i also like steely dan quite a bit too yeah and it's not necessary albums but there's just particular songs here and there and i have to you know say three i have to go back beach boys uh you know and everybody says pet sounds and i love pet sounds but i like i i like some of the other records they did too they were they were just fun sounding records and and to this day when i hear all those harmonies that uh yeah great harm incredible because i grew up some of my favorite things to listen to was the uh four freshmen uh and there was there was three or four male trios or or four guys singing and everything and i love the way those records sound and everything uh like the letterman stuff like that yes exactly and and so when the beach boys came out they kind of took those uh modes of harmonies and stuff and everything and actually made them even better and everything and to this day i don't know how they pulled some of that stuff off i thought i saw just so recently saw a thing for brian wilson's in the studio you know and it's it's kind of like them doing multiple takes one after another and he's kind of telling how blaine you got no you got a on the intro you got to hit this and do that and it's kind of like just all this minute detail and then after they get the music track laid down then they go out there and he's got all these harmony parts figured out and it's not like you know every guy's got his own mic and they're all going to separate tracks and it's a blend of those guys and that it's a phenomenal the right you know just kind of we as a band uh could not could not get into some of the later stuff that they did at all but we'd love doing beach boys stuff and uh so from an engineering standpoint you could appreciate the workmanship that went involved in creating absolutely okay these parts to stand out you know to me it's like uh what's his name saying the bass parts on his thing love would do the space parts but instead me i'd probably exaggerate the low frequencies in his voice but those things were kind of like the low end rolled out it's just the those parts came through without it being [Music] you know it would be real distinct and everything and uh i'm still in love i still love all that stuff uh the most uh i still gotta say uh sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band was uh one of my favorite albums there's songs on there that you know the beatles are something that i don't have to listen to for a while and then it's all i want to listen to for a while right and um that was a good time to be in music and i was in some some of that stuff a little bit of that stuff i was playing when we first started out of the band we were playing ventures adventures instrumental stuff and then beach boys came out and their songs were kind of like you know about cars and all this stuff but the harmonies and that thing so we learned a lot of their songs and uh and we were we were doing r b stuff you know little anthony imperials we were doing flamingo stuff we we did lots of songs that had a lot of harmony but never on a comparable basis with uh any of the people i'm talking about you know fleetwood mac i always loved the sounds of their harmonies on stuff and everything uh but you know that i could probably instead of three i could probably put about five together you already gave me you gave me five you've exceeded your quota already mr mills well that to me it's like today that's good to borrow i'll be thinking oh and then by tonight it'll be different tonight it'll be it's this you can't pick that and here's the deal you know what the biggest thing what grooviest thing nowadays is you go on youtube and you're going to look for one specific thing and you look on the side over there and say i really like that and that takes you somewhere else and that takes you somewhere else and it's kind of like so you don't have this little record thing of all this paths you've taken in in the last two and a half three hours on these individual songs and but it's cool to get on there every now and then kind of get lost in the uh haze and the days it's like last night it's wonderful trying to look up uh when i bought my first record i looked up the best songs of the uh say 1956. i knew every one of them because it says go to 1955 i know a lot of those songs i know also go back 1954 and we start getting into some of the big band stuff and the mcguire sisters and and the drifters and not the drifters but uh i can't think of the name now but but just old stuff old stuff might and then we finally get back down the almost uh early 50s and everything before elvis came out and there's still stuff in there that i i just got my mother and dad had that record player and we played records all the time and they had these records that was kind of like a generation before me and i got to listen to those quite a bit you know there was a big lee dorsey and the big band stuff and and uh and uh well i remember just uh learning to dance to end the mood uh you know my cousin had a record player at her house and we'd gather up over there and uh alias my wife and i still you know that's one thing the good thing i think about uh xm radio is as you can go from that 10-year bounce oh yeah one channel to another and it's kind of like wow and and mary and i bad we get back to the 50s and we know all the songs we can sing along with all the songs you get in the 80s and 90s and maybe we don't know the songs as well as we do but we remember those old old songs um i think you know the main thing to me i like a lot of music i think the main thing i got into music and got into uh doing what i do is how much the emotion of a song can get to you oh yeah that's i think that's everybody's and you uh even going back to the 50s you know it's like they sing these songs and it's kind of like you got you hear it on the radio and you look across it the girl you got on a date and you say this is what i'd like to say to her but turn it up a little bit maybe that feeling but and getting on into the music i was involved in it's still everything that you try to i try to do to try to get a little emotion into it and it's kind of like even when i'm mastering stuff i'll i'll try to make put a slant on some things where i think this maybe put a little bit more edge on this and make it sound a little bit more forceful because it's what this song is about and everything so this is what you wanted to come across you don't want it just to lay there and and the lyrics are really something that's kind of in your face and the music's not supporting that and that's one of the best things i found about guitar the foundation of every song to me is like bass and drums and the guitar is the thing that always adds to the emotions like it's the match re-enforces that song and the the lyrics are really important but the guitar can make the lyrics even better and if done the right way and uh and just uh be involved in music sometimes you know you're doing that and everything and you kind of like uh it's like uh when you're doing that and it comes and it turns out the way you didn't think it was gonna necessarily gonna turn out but it turns out even better yeah that's about as good as it gets and i remember sitting there next to danny tore dan told her one night and he's playing this thing and it's just awesome he's done his work and everything and we've done all this punch in and we've done this thing i do and everything where fix this and do that and he looks over at me says rodney you're the best producer best producer i've ever worked with it's kind of like i don't think i'm doing anything that's that's pretty cool that's that was uh later on that was actually really special you know it's kind of and it's kind of like when he said that i just kind of threw it away you know it's gonna but later on it's kind of well you don't get much better than that when uh you think oh that's really cool man but you know the thing is you've got to be motivated by ego to hang on to something like that in the immediate moment like you're gonna you know most people are not again mostly yeah so i mean that's really nice though hey uh it's a tough one what do you like most about yourself speaking of which besides that you're the best producer dan told ever i like uh i like the fact that uh that i'm persevere in things that uh that destin doesn't necessarily make sense to anybody else but me and sometimes i work on stuff and somebody's get say this is my budget and uh and i know that i'm not going to be satisfied with what i do at spending that budget so i just go do what ever i think it takes to make that what i want it to sound like and yeah and just have you know something that doesn't make any sense but but if it does come out the way you want to sound like you know i can't tell person you know that i know they've got 250 bucks to spend and i'm gonna do you a five thousand dollar mix and and so that's just not a possibility i like the fact you know those years that i would sit in the control rooms or sit with people and everything and would work on stuff that was not easy and just persevere through it and just try to be supportive and uh and and kind of go the extra mile with people and and with myself too i like that about myself even though it drives some some of my people kind of crazy sometimes you're still working on that but that's the guy you want to work with man to be honest with you yeah then it's yes that's the guy i want to give my money to anyway no seriously i mean you know the guy was like are you still working on it oh thank you you know [Laughter] silly but uh tell me toughest decision you ever had to make or most difficult thing you had to do i thought about this i i don't know the most difficult thing most one of the most difficult thing was to take that positive thing that was going on between me and the atlanta rhythm section and i'd stuck with them so many years yeah to see the end become a reality that we'd always dreamed of and to uh and to say do i want to stay with this or do i do want to go back in the studio with skinner and work on their album and that was probably one of the toughest decisions i made doing the thing from not pursuing more music production things and starting this mastering stuff was a tough tough decision uh one thing i just did i had no skill set that i knew of that it would directly relate to mastering and uh and i knew that if i wanted to do that to any degree uh it would keep me from doing it was not like you get the point where you're getting 15 projects a week and somebody offers you a month gig doing a record project well those what are you going to do i tried that on tried that on one thing i went to nashville do a thing for a week and i try to come master stuff with a little set of speakers to try to master stuff and it's kind of like i finally just said no this is my first this is what i got to do i think that those are kind of like hard decisions and everything that uh turned out pretty well bad decisions we all got those man let me tell you i think one of the when the 38's record while our southern boys went uh gold and especially went platinum and i knew how much money i was gonna get on my first royalty check i became the rookie baseball player the signing his first big huge mega contract i went to buying cadillac fleetwood brahms and bass boats there you go man you fish are you fisher do you fish uh not so much anymore but i used to fish all the time we had a when 38 was doing really well we had a house down here on the beach and i had a pretty big boat and we'd go out in the middle of the ocean i loved all that uh now i'm kind of like a guy guys go out and fish catch something we can cook for a meal that night instead of spending hundreds of bucks going offshore and that kind of stuff was a lot of fun bass fishing is so much fun man i got into it oh i got in that buddy bowie and i got in at the same time we had these big high-powered bass boats and uh we'd run all over these lakes uh never catch any fish so many nice lakes here in in florida and georgia that's yeah yeah there's really good places here man uh and last question and man again i just want to say thank you so much for everything and i could talk to you for three times this amount of time but yeah it's been really great hearing all this experience you have and i appreciate you sharing this well thank you craig for you you know you push this in a good way i read all your bio stuff and everything i said man this guy has done a lot and uh and it kind of explained how you're able to kind of uh promote this thing yourself and everything stay enthused about it because it sounds like you've done a lot of promotional stuff before in your past and everything but this is something you really love doing and everyone got you yeah it's essential and there's uh yeah i think there's a lot of people if you talk to a lot of people and everything and it's all cool i my problem is a lot of times is uh i'm not the guy that goes out and hears live bands all the time and does does all that everything it's kind of like i think i got full no man i was about 68 or 69 no this is great this is oh thank you this is very cool last question what is it going to be it's going to be name a car no no it starts with the letter l what are those silly questions i ask on these tv shows right uh tell me the biggest change in your personality over the last 10 years rodney and how much of that has been intentional and how much is just a natural part of aging uh i'll tell you but the decision i made to to kind of stop pursuing all the recording projects and everything is it really allowed my personality to be a lot more laid back and uh and not to uh to get over the top about most everything because what i'm doing at this mastering point and everything is uh does not require you getting into an extreme excitable uh state like always comes in a recording project yeah so my my personality has become more laid back and and that's because it had to i've had uh open heart surgery twice holy smoke how are you doing now you're right great wow that's that's heavy stuff man craig i had my first i had my heart attack when i was on a plane going to san francisco to work with a band called y and t yeah i know them i was to start in connection with them and uh on the plane coming down to san francisco and the plane landed pulled up the gate and i passed out and uh so the long short of it i went up in the hospital and i had a minor heart attack if there's such thing but uh came back home and they did this uh balloon thing the angioplasty thing in atlanta and uh then they wound up doing quad bypass surgery quad bypasses after that because i was starting to feel bad and [Music] i was going getting ready to go up to nashville to do a recording session and the doctor i knew bill mayfield who uh jeff carles was very good friends with he was out of town and uh and i was having his problems with my heart and everything went to see a doctor and everything gave me all his pills i went home felt terrible so bill mayfield came back into town and called me up and he said uh rodney i want you to come by and i said they they went into the catheterization and took film you know my heart and he says i want to go over this film way that these guys did and talk talk to you about it and everything i said bill i'm i'm on my way to nashville i've got i got seven musicians in a recording studio booked and the artist is already up there and his words to me was he picked the right ones he said well i'm going to give you the names of a couple of doctors at vanderbilt university because you may need them while you're there wow i said okay what do i need to do and i'll be right over this is 9 30 at night he says i want you to beat back down here at six o'clock in the morning and i'm gonna fix this for you man what a good guy they got me pre-admitted i didn't have time to get thinking what are they going to do the the life support thing you know where they stop your lungs because they can't they can't have all that stuff going in and out so they you in a respirator in you and they stop your blood and put you on a machine that oh i'm not realizing any of this stuff especially the respirator part so i go under and everything and and i come too and i feel like i'm under water and i can't get a breath that's scary as well that's that respirator and they got that thing out on me right away and i i recovered from that pretty quick bill you know it's kind of like he said you need to do this for so many weeks and do this for so many weeks and then you could do anything you want to and he put those bypasses in they and they stayed good for close to 17 18 years where he told me several years later after he'd done his rodney those things usually only last about 10 years what wow is this like uh congenital did your dad have anything like this yes oh man but he never would have any kind of surgery or anything but it wound up that after the second time i went out to my mother's funeral and walking real fast through the airport there came that feeling again and uh i had i'd had two stints put in after the after the first one to go to the them you know we did two stints okay i got these stands this is great four months after getting the stance in i'm going to walk through the airport and i have to go and take a uh one nitroglycerin pill for the first time wow and that fixed it and coming home from california it seemed like going and this was my mother lived out close to san francisco all this stuff seemed to happen to me around san francisco coming home to atlanta got atlanta going through the airport had to take another one so they uh stance closed up in four months and so they had to do to open me back up put two stints two bypasses around where the stents were as and they're still there they're there you can't get them back out and so since then i'm done good you know it's kind of they tried to fix the stents the doctor's supposed to be the whiz kid of atlanta and that whole area and everything and he's the one that put them in so i went back there for him try to open them back up and after they tried that they came in and said well we could couldn't make it good we could make it a little bit bad no they didn't do that they actually looked at the film my fir my regular doctor cardiac cardiologist he tried to go ahead and open him up he couldn't do it so he sent me back over this other hospital where they'd put them in and they looked at the film and they came in the doctor came in my room said mr mills we the best we could do is go in there and make them a little bit better so immediately me and me mary and i are thinking the same thing so it took four months this time so next time it's gonna be two months from now yeah and then it's gonna be one month and yeah so me my wife thank goodness uh she has seen me through all my mishaps in my life like my third degree burns all my hands when we were not even engaged but she asked the doctor she says if this is your dad what would you do he says i would see a surgeon that's gonna they're gonna open me back up and then they'll find out they gotta open you back up in the same incision you already have through scar tissue and all that stuff so the surgeon that actually did the thing he came in to meet me uh his name is dr myung myung yeah and i heard his name i said he's not gonna be able to speak english and but he came in he's from california and he said he says uh mr mills i've done i've done 400 of these he's the rodney mills of of stan he says he told me all the negative things that it's really hard you know going back through all that uh all that uh scar tissue in there he says but i can do it i could do it i just want to tell you i could do so he came over and shook my hand craig and his hand was about half as big as mine that's the guy oh god so how long ago was the last one uh between two and three years ago and you're okay now you feel good i'm okay i'm okay i walk down here and that uh my dad golly he was those nitroglycerin pills he was just doing them all day long towards the end tried to talk him into uh he wouldn't do it he wouldn't get surgery yeah but you know that was probably so many years ago who knows if even you know what medicine technology it's like like the internet man the medical technology so rapidly advances you know so quickly so wow i'm glad you're okay that's heavy stuff man it is heavy stuff it is heavy stuff and it's the things that you know i think of some of their things the hardest things i've kind of gone through you know i walked into a house when i was young and and i thought there was they'd put the gas propane gas in this tank outside and so i was going to check this heater to see if they'd done it and there was somebody taking a heater out of another room in the back of the house and just left the open pipe oh my so it's full of gas i walked in and started over towards this heater and i struck a match and the whole place blew up holy smokes and i was still playing in a band at that time and and that was 30 days in the hospital with that and so you walked away from an ex a house that exploded while you were in it it the front door the place it blew it clean across the highway to the other side i walked out where there was a wall that's like a miracle man seriously seriously if if when that thing went off i just went it would have gotten all sucked down in my lungs and everything of course my uncle the same guy that gave me the five dollars he was telling everybody he ain't gonna make it [Laughter] oh man so holy smokes yeah i've been through a lot a lot of stuff a lot of uh stuff that the health stuff and everything it's kind of like i don't really need to be in those situations where it's kind of like you've got agitated people you got come some people expecting this they want to do that and you're trying you're just all the time it's trying to stay on top of everything and and make sense and and all that uh i think this is the decision i made to do this stuff has prolonged my life you know yeah it sounds like it it's a good decision on your part maybe well listen man i i want to hear the rest of the story in about 25 years you got a lot more records to make man listen thank you so much for everything i i you're really a this has been a treat for me thank you very much jeff carlisi and jeff carlisle thank you both uh if you are i'm rodney don't need this but if you're interested in working with rodney and have him master your music go to his website it's rodney mills rodneymills.com reach out to him through there and you'll get a job extremely well done um anything is anything else any final words of wisdom no you know it's kind of like i feel i feel like i've lived forever but i still want to live a lot longer you ever spent this much time talking with the yankees oh god hey man hang on let me wrap this up thank you for everything hang on a sec everybody thank you so much for listening if you enjoyed this please share it on your social media channels we appreciate your support thank you very much to rodney mills for all the all the lifelong of wonderful music you've contributed to my life and i know to everybody else's life who's listening if again if you want to work with rodney go to his website rodneymills.com and most important man especially nowadays remember that happiness is a choice so choose wisely be nice go play a guitar or mix or whatever the hell you like doing and have fun till next time peace and love everybody i am out brother thank you so much for everything you're welcome thank you craig you're welcome

Channel: EveryoneLovesGuitar

Views: 114,545

Keywords: rodney mills masterhouse, rodney mills producer, rodney mills interview, rodney mills engineer, rodney mills lynyrd skynyrd, rodney mills 38 special, rodney mills atlanta rhythm section, 38 special interview, lynyrd skynyrd interview, studio one atlanta, lynyrd sjynyrd engineer, 38 special producer, atlanta rhythm section producer, doobie brothers, 38 special, lynyrd skynyrd, atlanta rhythm section, the outlaws, rodney mills, jeff carlisi, lynyrd skynyrd documentary

Id: -a1_ZO2K2ls

Length: 195min 8sec (11708 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021