Gary James' Interview With Record Producer/Recording Engineer
Ron Nevison



Ron Nevison has worked with some of Rock's best-known names in the studio. We're talking Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, KISS, Chicago, and the list goes on and on. How did he get to be the guy in the recording studio, masterminding the sound of all these top groups? We'll let him explain.

Q - Ron, when a group like KISS approaches you to produce their album, they are looking for what? Another set of ears to make sure the sound they want is perfectly captured? Gene Simmons, with all his experience in and out of the studio, could probably produce KISS, couldn't he?

A - Yeah. (laughs) That's complicated. There's no quick answer to that, but each situation is different. Each group might be looking for a different thing. There's some groups that might be having trouble writing and they want a producer who helps them write. Some groups might want a hit single and they want to go that route. So that's more in my wheelhouse where I've brought songs to projects. You want to talk specifically about KISS?

Q - As long as we're on the subject matter, sure. Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, they probably know everything about the business.

A - I think they know a lot, that's for sure. One thing they do know is marketing. They do know how to keep themselves going. Taking their makeup off. Putting their makeup back on. Coming up with the concept originally almost like a Kabuki theatre with the makeup and everything. Creating personalities. Each one having a different personality. As far as knowing how to make a record, they've been through it, but they need somebody to guide them through the process, to tell them what's good, tell them what's not good. Be honest with them. Help arrange the music. Bring in outside people. Get the right studio. All those things is what the producer does.

Q - Has it ever happened when someone wants you to be honest with them and they don't take your advice?

A - Well, that's all it is, is advice. They hired me and yeah, I can advise them if I think they should be doing something differently. They usually take my advice or maybe they take part of my advice, but I offer it.

Q - When a group comes to you, do you have them run through the songs they intend to record?

A - Usually I hear the material in a demo form before the project so I get an idea and they might enlist my help in picking the songs. I might give them my opinion on that. Then usually we go into a rehearsal just to kind of change little things like the endings or extending solos or moving verses around before we go into the studio to save some time and to get more of a performance. So, occasionally we'll just get into the studio and rehearse and do it like that in the studio. I prefer to do it outside the studio before we move in there.

Q - Do you have your own studio or do you travel to a studio where the artist wants to record?

A - Well, I have a studio at my house, but it's a project studio. I mainly do editing and mixing there. I don't do much recording there. I'll take a project and go somewhere. I'm in the Northwest, in the Pacific Northwest. So, I work a lot in San Francisco area or in L.A., mostly those areas. So, I'll bring a project back and do the editing and mixing at my house. So it's kind of both.

Q - How has the technology of home recording cut into the work you do or has it not cut into the work you do?

A - Well, it changes the work I do because in the old days I couldn't have done what I do now. I kind of mix for other people. They send me files, computer files. They send me Pro-Tools files from all over the world. I can mix songs at my house and send the mixes back. I couldn't do that before. I would have to have big, analog machines and they'd have to send me the twenty-four tracks. Having the technology these days, the digital work station is a great asset.

Q - Did you get your start as a recording engineer?

A - I actually got my start doing live sound in the '60s. I was from Philadelphia. There was a company there called Festival Group. It was formed in the late '60s and they were tied in with Electric Factory Concerts, one of the big concert promoters and still is in the Philadelphia area. So, they were tied into a lot of big bands. So, I was out on tour with a lot of big bands in '67, '68, '69, '70. Mostly '68, '69, '70. From there I got a job at Island Studios in London from the owner of Island Records, who was Traffic's manager, Traffic with Stevie Winwood. I was their sound man for a couple of tours. I was talking to Chris Blackwell and told him I wanted to move into the studio. I was tired of the road and he said, "Well, come work for me." I moved to London in 1970 and started working at Island Studios and just went on from there. Stayed in London for five years.

Q - You had to learn the ropes so to speak, didn't you? You already knew the board.

A - I knew microphones. I knew pre-amps. I knew outdoor gear. But, I didn't know how that related to recording. When I got into the studio I knew a lot about the signal path and all those kinds of things, but as it related to recording... Also, the quality of the gear was better, the condenser microphones were better. All the stuff was better. But I had a heads-up on somebody that started with no knowledge that's for sure because I had this performance kind of thing for mixing live for a couple of years. Yeah, that helped me out greatly when I started and made the transition to the studio.

Q - Are there any guys you know of who didn't have your background and went right into the studio and became producers?

A - No. I don't know of anybody that's really become a big career producer that started like I did, but there's a lot of musicians that have gone into the studio and become producers. I'm a musician. I was a singer when I was a kid, but not professionally.

Q - What did you have, a garage band?

A - I had a Doo-Wop band in Philly.

Q - What were some of the groups you went out on the road with in the late '60s?

A - Jefferson Airplane, which were really big in the '60s, one of the biggest. Traffic. I did the Joe Cocker "Maddogs And Englishmen" tour. In fact, I mixed Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock. We were on tour that Summer. I did Derek And The Dominoes, Eric Clapton's band on the "Layla" tour. I did many more. Those are the main ones.

Q - Did you ever cross paths with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison?

A - I did cross paths. I was at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia in 1968 when Hendrix and Janis came there for concerts within a month of each other. That was my hangout, the Electric Factory, because we were doing the sound there too. I wasn't the sound guy at the Electric Factory, but I crossed paths with them. I was in the dressing room with Jimi, hangin' out a little bit with him. I remember Janis walking in to the Electric Factory being pissed off that her name was in smaller letters outside than somebody else. I don't remember who it was.

Q - And Jim Morrison?

A - I never hooked up with Jim Morrison.

Q - Is the job of a record producer everything you thought it would be?

A - It's an evolution. If you look at my career getting in as a mixer to engineer to an engineer/producer, it's a learning process. I didn't really think about it before hand. I didn't really know where it would go. I didn't really aspire to anything. I just let it go and it developed. Moving to London, which was a big move for a twenty-five year old in 1970 to by 1973 I was engineering The Who's "Quadrophenia", Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" and the first Bad Company albums. Thin Lizzy. By the time I came back to Los Angeles in 1975 I was the chief engineer at the Record Plant Studios, which was probably the biggest studio on the West Coast.

Q - As you look around, do you see any of the Rock groups today that can equal the concert attendance and CD sales of the groups you worked with in the past?

A - Those are two different things. Live performance ticket sales and CD sales are totally separate things. There's no question that Classic Rock bands like Grand Funk, The Who, and KISS are all wildly successful on tour, but they're not selling a lot of records. No one is selling a lot of CDs anyway. If they're selling anything they're selling downloads. But it just shows you the popularity of Classic Rock. I just took my eight year old daughter to see KISS in Portland, Oregon in April (2019). I was stunned by the KISS show. It's been thirty years since I worked with them in the late '80s, the "Crazy Nights" record, but I was stunned at their age that they could get out there and be so powerful and so exact and it was such a great show. I was really thrilled to see them. It looked like they were at the top of their game.

Q - Did you ever get to see the original KISS?

A - Not live.

Q - I got one over on you. I saw them perform in October, 1975 in a 10,000 seat arena. They drew 1,500 people.

A - (laughs) It just shows you. I did have an interview with Paul Stanley in the late '70s when they did their solo albums. I remember I was dong an album at the time with Dave Mason called "Let It Flow", which turned out to be a Platinum record. And I went to Casablanca Records to meet with Paul and Neil Bogart, the head of Casablanca (Records) about doing that. Nothing ever came of it. That happened a lot. I'm not sure why I didn't work with people I had interviews with. If you look at how long it took to make a Classic Rock album, like three months, I can only do maximum four albums a year. If I had a meeting with somebody in April and they said, "Can you work in June?", I'd say, "No, I can't work until September," and they'd go, "I can't wait that long." A lot of times I'd meet with people and it just didn't work out. Either they wanted to use somebody else in the end or I just couldn't fit it in. So, I'm not sure what happened with Paul Stanley. I do know he called me up in the '80s for "Crazy Nights".

Q - When you were starting out in the late 1960s, did you ever think you'd have a career in music? Were you even looking that far ahead? did you think you'd only do it for a couple of years?

A - No. I thought of it as a career. When I was a kid I was into electronics, even as a nine or ten year old. I was saving up my allowance and getting Popular Electronics magazine and building radios. At the same time I was a soloist in the Temple University Boys Choir. So, it doesn't surprise me. And my mom was a piano teacher at the Philadelphia Conservatory Of Music. It doesn't surprise me that I have managed to get a career that involved music and electronics. It was almost a natural thing for me.

Q - In the very beginning of Rock 'n' roll there were people who didn't think it would last. You probably saw it differently

A - Well, you know I grew up with The Supremes and Motown and all of that and the early Beatles. By the time the late '60s rolled around, the Flower Power days and the Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out time, I was already in my early twenties. I am writing a book about many of the topics we talked about today, yet untitled. It should be out later this year. (2019)

Official Website: www.RonNevison.com

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