Gear Gods posted a fascinating interview with producer Joey Sturgis a few days ago. Sturgis has worked with a lot of names you might be familiar with, but might not neccessarily be a fan of like Asking Alexandria, Emmure, Attila and Born of Osiris to name a few.
Most of the interview focusing on Sturgis' production of plugins and AxeFX presets, which he sells. During the interview, the questioning veered more into actual production work and Sturgis stumbled into a fascinating revelation:
Have you ever had a band come in where you said “I know you’re looking for this sound, and I know I’m famous for making this sound, but why don’t we break the mold on this a little bit here and do this or this instead?”
I would love to do that, but it’s just not in the cards because most of the time a band will get off a tour and they didn’t have any time to write the album, so they’re scrambling for a week before the studio to write a whole record. Then they come into the studio and they only have 1 month to finish it. You can’t really get comfortable and experiment with anything when you’re on a schedule like that. I don’t think booking agents and managers are ever going to let that happen because they make less money when the band plays less shows. That’s just the real side of it. If bands had more time to write and experiment, then I think you would hear more interesting records. The more interesting records don’t necessarily make more money for the band or for the management. It seems like the fans don’t really care if it’s experimental or not. The ones that do care about experimental records will just go look for the bands that do those kinds of things, and that’s a completely different market in comparison to modern metal records that are churned out every year.
So basically, the labels he works with aren't too concerned with quality, they are more concerned with product. If you look at the release schedules and turnover rates from some of the bands he produces, you can absolutely believe it. These bands aren't selling music, they're selling lifestyle.
I highly recommend reading the rest of this great interview which delves more into the nerdier side of production and selling effects and presets.
