In Conversation With Grammy-Winner Marc Whitmore

The following interview is a conversation with Marc Whitmore, a Grammy winner and two-time nominee, an engineer and a multi-instrumentalist with a second solo album, Mirages, out on the 19th January 2024. I’m going to talk with him about his musical background, his influences, and how that’s got him to where he is today.

From the Nashville indie and rock scene to his own studio set-up in Santa Fe, Marc Whitmore has exemplified experimentation, vintage practices, and an uncanny ability to find collaborators in every corner- amongst them, Jon Batiste and The Black Keys.

Hi Marc, thank you for joining me and I would like to start first of all with your background- where you grew up, your hometown and if you could shed a bit of light on how that's influenced you today.

Thank you for having me. I started out from Ohio, I quickly moved to Nashville, where I started interning at Blackbird [Studio] and from there went to some more indie rock studios. I found my path through some indie producers, who wanted to use their tape machines and not look at the computer too much. I learned that I’m really into analogue - that’s what projected me into the style that I’m used to today.  

I spent 10 years working in Nashville at all different studios- my last thing there was working with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys. So, I got to do some cool stuff! Whenever [Patrick Carney] was producing, I was engineering [and] we also did a Black Keys record. After Nashville, I wanted to get out of the city. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Santa Fe but it's pretty cool- it's really beautiful here, there's a good artist vibe and it’s a good place to make music- it’s just a relaxing place! 

How did it start with the instruments, how did you learn to mix and how to engineer? 

I picked up guitar when I was a teenager but I didn’t like it. I had guitar teachers telling me to learn this song and […] it wasn’t cool. I didn’t really have the right people to jam with.

Once I moved to Nashville, I started playing bass and I was way more into that. Everybody was a better guitar player than me, and I was like ‘why would I bother to be a guitar player in Nashville?’. Every other instrument, I picked up by being around it. Seeing a hundred different people play a drum kit, you figure out the way they sound, the motions, the way they’re playing. [Playing instruments is] definitely more recording based; I consider myself a studio musician… improvising. I don’t expect to be hired [as] a traditional musician.

It sounds like you were doing pretty well on your [first] album, though!  

I was trying to mimic that old country session on my new album. The last one, [Analytic Inverter], was made over a couple years. Wherever I’d have time in the studio as an engineer, I’d arrive the night before [or] the night after a session. I’d get on some drums and work on a song. It was more of an experimental thing. This one is also experimental but I have enough space to do it in. 

If I could take you back to Nashville because that seems like a really formative experience. How would you describe that time and what do you think it did for your career? 

I did a lot of DIY recording. No rock bands have money to book a studio […]- it was a Tascam 8-track [mixer] in the living room type of recording set-up. Nashville did teach me how to use a big studio and to get comfortable in that vibe but […] it’s a luxury to work in a really nice room in Nashville. 

How did it all “happen?” Can you talk me through when you met Patrick Carney? 

[After] Blackbird Studios, I went to this other [little] studio called Alex the Great, owned by Brad Jones, this cool indie producer. [Alex the Great] was next door to a cool studio called Club Roar, which is owned by Robin Eaton. [It’s] this big Warehouse with a bunch of amazing instruments and gear […] there's broken chandeliers all over the place!

[Robin] hooked me up with a guy named Roger Moutenot, who did Yo La Tengo, and [had] worked with Grandmaster Flash and Lou Reed. I worked with him for a while, engineering, and Patrick Carney would come and use his studio when he had to. Pat had a studio but it wasn’t big enough to do a full band of five. If he needed to do big drum sounds, he went to the studio where we met. And so, the three of us did two or three records together and I just worked really well with Pat. He was getting more into producing at that point and he wanted to put some more into it. 

 That’s really interesting- was it a sort of instant chemistry, where you went straight into the studio, or did you have a couple of meet-ups first and see if the vibe was right? 

We did a few records together before I actually became his engineer officially. [He chuckles]. We did have [a] trial situation! But we were both into the same sounds and the same producing so that was part of it too- we were both going for the same thing.

Would you say that you influenced each other in a way?

He's [into] traditionally DIY garage recording but he also really likes fancy stuff- I'm kind of the same way. His studio was cool when I started working there but we definitely built it out over a couple of years, and I’d say I had a lot of influence [on] designing the sound- what to get, what type of vibe. 

[Your relationship with] Jon Batiste sounds really important as well [Marc: yeah]. Talk me through that- how do you work together? 

Roger Moutenot [was] tight with T-Bone Burnett, [who] asked him to come to New Orleans over Christmas to record Jon Batiste. But this was years ago so nobody really knew who [Jon Batiste] was. Roger said I could have this gig, because he want[ed] to stay home. It was me and T-Bone and Jon recording Jon just playing piano and singing a little bit. No one really knew why. It was just ‘let’s get in the studio and record, I guess.’ I didn’t hear anything until a year later on.  

Jon called me, again at Christmas, and he said “Verve [Records] wants to put an album out but they need three more songs” [...] “can we go back and set up the same way?” So [around] a year later- it was really last minute at Christmas- Jon and I went back to the studio and recorded some more material. We clicked well and he was down to experiment. After that, I started working more with him in New York, where he was based at the time. 

[Jon] was from a traditional music world in New Orleans [and] he was in a by-the-book, academic recording situation in New York. He’d only really recorded in Manhattan in really nice Studios that aren’t the most vibey, if you’re not doing it right! I was a little more Nashville vintage. Whenever we would work together, that would be what we were going for. 

We clicked the most [on] distortion and weird reverbs. His first album that we made is solo piano and jazz. If I’m making an album like that, there’s no point in making it sound like a pretty, perfect piano. How many records are out there that are just a plain piano sound? Why not make it sound like something different? He was into that. 

You’ve mentioned the word experimental a few times and you’ve dealt with lots of different aspects of music. When you start with projects, do you decide them ahead of time, or do you see the opportunities around you and decide when the time is right? How did your first album come about? 

Just when the time is right- even on other people’s stuff. It’s hard to force yourself to do music or art. 

I didn’t have any plan as of last Winter to make an album. I was listening to John Frusciante[‘s] album To Record Only Water for Ten Days from 2001. It’s really distorted [and it has] loud, loud acoustic guitar and electric guitar, stripped down with [few] drums. For 2001, it’s one of the loudest, biggest things I’ve ever heard.  

I was really inspired by that kind of sound and I also spent a lot of time driving around New Mexico. There’s such crazy sh** to see here; the rocks are so psychedelic with weird patterns and crazy, colourful reptiles. It’s a really inspiring place to be. I was getting the itch to make some sort of spaghetti western, desert psychedelic thing. That all came together. I love country music from the 50s but I felt like ‘why would I want to try and compete with or match what’s already out there?’ I wanted to make this blown out, loud cowboy record- and it’s mostly instrumental.  

It sounds like where you are and space is a really important influence for you. Talk to me about the move to Santa Fe and the impact on your music. Did it spark a new opportunity for you? 

The first time I visited here, I felt the washed out, hot vibe, [and] it’s also really pretty. I would say that I found that Santa Fe fits me and the vibe that I like to go for. 

You created your own studio [there] which, I believe, was a dream of yours [Marc: yeah]. What is it when you’re working with artists? I read that you like to make them feel very comfortable. How [do] you like to interact and get their creative juices flowing- and yours too? 

I have my studio and it’s more dialled in for me because I’m mostly mixing and recording in there. I have art, lighting, and interesting things around that I feel will get people on the same page as me. I’ve had people who really connect with a certain piece of art and I can see what part of our personalities might [inter]act. A bigger, blank studio is a bigger playing ground and they need to work for everybody but if there are no windows in my studio, it totally changes the way I play or mix.

It sounds like your process is really personal [and] hugely about the personalities involved- does that get difficult? 

It does. I’ve worked with a lot of musicians- I wouldn’t say it’s the personalities as much as everybody talks about music in a different way. It’s hard to establish a language with a lot of people and sometimes it takes a whole album and [it’s only by] the second album you’re really on the same page. The hardest thing is going at their pace and trying to meet in the middle. 

You also started to diversify and get out of the studio- working on tours with Tennis as well. How is that experience different and what do you like about each part? 

I definitely love the studio more. I do like live, but [not] the chaos of it. I want a controlled environment. With Tennis, it was really cool because we were travelling with our equipment and console so we were able to really dial in each night.  

When I record, I spend a lot of time sound checking like you would a show, [so] when the band does the first take or the first jam, they're like ‘oh sh**, this is done.’ There’s no ‘when we fix the kick’ drama […], I want them to feel comfortable with it in the headphones so they're not even thinking about the fact that they're recording. 

I try to work at [live] pace in the studio and I think of that when I'm doing a show. It’s the same thing except there's thousands of people around and [you’re] trying to do that really quick board mix that makes everybody really happy and rocks. My favourite part of recording is where you’ve just captured the song and you're maybe adding one or two overdubs. Most of the time, I just want to stop there. That’s what I like about live, because it’s just that. 

I just have one more question for you and it’s kind of a big one so feel free to take it as you want[...]. What are your hopes for 2024 […], your ‘New Years’ Resolutions?’ You’re up for a Grammy and you’ve got your second album out in a couple of weeks.

I’m always looking to work on something totally different. I’m working with a Turkish vocalist who just records her vocals and sends them to me. They’re not necessarily in any key or pitch and I’m coming up with an instrumental that works to that. 

[Experimentation] is something [in] my [second] album. It’s mostly just three different [guitars]- one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar and one bass that I have. They’re all old guitars and the intonations are a little bit weird. I decided not to use a tuner on the whole album and tune everything by ear. It just sounds more crazy and more interesting. Nobody had guitar tuners before 1980 so they had to tune by ear. I feel like that’s where there’s some magic in old music- that little bit of dissonance. Everybody’s trying to tune their guitars to the grand piano in the room and- it is what it is! I’m looking to work with more people who are down to experiment that way.

That’s awesome. I can’t wait to hear the new album, I loved the first. Are you able to give us some insight on collaborations? 

I have one other thing in the works- a collaboration with two other musicians in Santa Fe. They both moved here when I did, called Disco Dial. It’s electronic [with] a drum set, drum machine, sampler, synthesiser. Everything’s going into a VTM Mixer and I’m mixing it so it has a bit of a DJ vibe but all improvised rhythms. We’re going to try to make a record but that’s something that’s still in the works.