You’ve been around since the ’90s… How has the music business changed? What have you noticed since technology took over?

Well, first of all I am not an expert on the music business in any way. I try to learn about it as much as I can but it can take a lifetime and the truth is that it is changing rapidly right now and probably will continue on that course of constant change. So what you learn about now may be completely obsolete in five years.

I think it’s safe to say that the old business model is either dying or it’s already dead, depending on who you talk to. Getting “signed” doesn’t necessarily mean what it used to mean to a band. I can’t really say that it’s better or worse now but it’s obviously much easier now to get your music recorded and very quickly up on the Internet. I don’t think that’s always a great thing. I think it overwhelms people when they realize just how much music is out there, and there really are only so many hours in the day and only so many consumer dollars to go around.

As for technology in the studio, I think it’s something that has to be used but not abused. We have to acknowledge that it’s there but we also have to resist the idea that we can create “perfection” when the whole idea of perfection in musical performance is really completely unnatural. There have been times when a beautiful accident has created such a unique moment in a song that had we gone back in and “corrected” the mistake we would have literally ruined that little moment in time that was captured in a recording.

I like music that sounds like it’s professionally done but I do not like music that sounds sterile or devoid of emotion and/or over-corrected with studio trickery. The great thing about working with a great musician, like Amy Whitcomb for example (vocals on Oceans) is that we really hardly had to do much at all with her voice during the mixing process. She’s just a great vocalist and she can sing on pitch and she can sing with feeling and emotion all at the same time. We had her sing every verse and every chorus three times and then we just went in and found the best performance that she gave at each one of those moments and then we just put in the best of the best.

Is that cheating? I don’t think so because it’s still not 100% perfect. Believe me, I’ve seen much worse. We literally have “singers” these days who just really have no business at all stepping up to a microphone. It’s a façade. I can understand people being in love with the idea that a studio engineer can make them sound like they can actually sing but eventually, sooner or later, the truth will come out.

Look, even I can hold a tune when it comes to singing but I am no vocalist. Juliet will tell you the same thing. We’re just not lead-vocalist material and we know it. There’s no reason to act like we are and then just have someone doctor us up in the studio just to make us sound like something we’re not. There has to be at least some value left in the honesty of musical ability.