Catching Up With…Jamie Siegel: On Working With D.M.C., Matthew Morrison & Blondie
Chelsea, NY: We stopped by Jamie Siegel’s JRock Studios in Chelsea last week and caught up on some of the producer/engineer’s latest projects, including a song he recently co-wrote and produced for Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels’ upcoming record. For Siegel, a lifelong rock and hip-hop conspirator – as musician and later producer and engineer – working with D.M.C. felt, understandably, climactic.
JRock sessions with D.M.C. (l-r): JRock assistant engineer Tony Lenoci, Jamie Siegel, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Ralph Roundtree.
“I remember walking to elementary school, listening to Run D.M.C. on my Walkman,” Siegel shares.
“And I’ve worked on a ton of hip-hop and R&B in my career, but I came up playing guitar and have a live band background. This track, and working with D.M.C. — who’s really into that fusion of rock and hip-hop — was the perfect combination of those two worlds.
“He even came in wearing a vintage Guns N’ Roses t-shirt that I think I still have,” he adds (with infectious Jamie Siegel laugh).
The D.M.C. song grew out of an instrumental track Siegel produced with writer/producer Ryan Kinelski.
It’s a simple, and somewhat somber piano progression over minimal beats, building through the verse with electric guitars and melodic textures into a modern rock chorus, sung and co-written by Kendal Naughton.
“D.M.C. has been working on his record out in LA with some heavy rock dudes, like Travis Barker and Mick Mars, and a friend of mine [Ralph] Roundtree ran into him out there,” Siegel relays. “He was still looking for more songs, so Roundtree set up a listening session here. We played him a dozen tracks and he totally picked the one I didn’t expect, the ballad. It was the emotion of the track that he gravitated towards. The lyrics he wrote are about finding out he was adopted and what that’s meant in his life. He came in and knocked it out in like half an hour.”
Like his rock and beats-driven approach to pop production, Siegel is also a true hybrid in the studio — both a musician’s producer (Taking Back Sunday, Janita) and skilled engineer who has recorded Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, Joss Stone, The Brand New Heavies, Del Amitri, Smashing Pumpkins and (many) more. His production aesthetic derives from his chops as a guitarist, beat-maker, sonic texturist and sound engineer. Clients may come into JRock to record or mix with Siegel but end up benefitting from his commercial-yet-inventive pop production sense.
Case in point: when we visited JRock, Siegel was mixing a track for Matthew Morrison’s (Mr. Schue on Glee!) upcoming record, being produced by multi-instrumentalist/arranger Rob Mathes. Obviously Mathes is hugely capable, but comes to Siegel for a different production POV.
“The Matthew Morrison record is singer-songwriter-pop. My production role has been to ‘hip it up’ wherever I can,” Siegel notes. “Rob Mathes is amazing. He plays every single instrument under the sun. What I’ve been bringing into the production is a lot of ebow textural stuff and drum loops, supplementing sounds that Rob might not go for on his own.”
Siegel records, builds his productions and mixes within Pro Tools HD3 using a combination of live instruments (guitars, mostly) and programmed sounds. “I do a lot of it with [Native Instruments] Battery,” he says.
Siegel on the board at Mission Sound in Williamsburg
“I have a library of sounds that I’ve mostly recorded and sampled myself, I don’t really use any stock sounds. The guitar sounds I do using mostly real amps, although sometimes I’ll use Amp Farm if I want to do something quick and dirty. And then there’s a lot of sound design involved — taking a guitar or string part and flipping it into something you can’t quite identify. The SoundToys plug-ins are my favorites — EchoBoy, Decapitator, etc.”
Morrison also cut vocals at JRock. “We’ve kind of been starting and finishing the songs here,” says Siegel, who’s recorded some of the best vocalists in the biz (Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Joss Stone, etc.). ‘I’ve been getting the songs as MP3 demos and creating a lot of the instrumentation – programming drums, adding guitar parts and textures – before we start working with any musicians. Then Rob comes in and we add more music before going in to track with a live band. And then we’re cutting or at least comp’ing vocals back here, taking care of any additional production and doing rough mixes for the label.
“It’s been really fun working with Rob on this record. I feel like we bring different things to the table and it really seems to gel.”
Earlier last year, Siegel had the chance to record another legendary vocalist when Blondie came through the studio. “Matt Katz, who’s playing keyboards in Blondie, brought Debbie Harry in here to re-record vocals and add instrumentation to a song for her new record,” Siegel shares. “We ended up adding a bunch of stuff and re-cut a lot of elements including her vocals. It was great working with Debbie, Tommy Kessler, who’s now playing guitars with Blondie, and Chris Stein.”
And the resulting song, “What I Heard,” is awesome — a punchy, modern electro-pop Blondie! You’ll have to take my word for it though (or listen to this live version); Blondie’s new record, Panic of Girls, is still a work in progress, reportedly due out later this year.
And a more recent project put Siegel in touch with another musical legend — Ron Alexenburg, founder of Epic Records and the A&R behind Michael Jackson among others.
“I recently produced an EP for a new artist, a singer/songwriter named Jamie Bendell,” says Siegel. “She said she wanted to bring her manager/consultant, and the next day, in walks Ron. He’s an incredible guy. We finished her 3-song EP right before Christmas and it’s already charting on radio. Totally looking forward to working more with Ron. As you can imagine, he has the most amazing stories!”
Visit Jamie Siegel and JRock Studios at http://www.jrockstudios.com. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jrockstudios.