Looking For That Charm: An Interview with a Producer's Producer, John Agnello

John Agnello’s best known as producer of albums by Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Son Volt/Jay Farrar, Screaming Trees, but I caught up with by telephone to talk about a recently produced debut project by the Sammies. When I heard the self-titled disc from MoRisen Records, I immediately heard the punch and energy in the guitar-led rock. When I saw that Agnello had been at the helm of the project, it immediately made sense that the Sammies were driving a rock sound that has the potential grab your full attention.

The Sammies have their groove on (listen to the disco beat underlying “Caretaker” with its Sonic Youth hints), but I mainly hear the Southern Rock/AltCountry flavor. The Sammies land with Sam Roberts, Adam Masterson, Anders Parker, and Jason Walker & the Last Drinks in the AltCountry section of the Spectrum—all artists who aren’t truly AltCountry, but there’s something organic, folk, country barroom in their sound that makes it as good as any other classification.

Perhaps The Sammies has some of these hints, because Agnello lets those qualities shine in how he approaches producing a project. While saying that there’s not a “John Agnello” sound (“I try to make every record have a different instrumentation. I don’t feel like I have a blueprint,”), Agnello did mention certain traits that run through all of his projects, “I do prefer analog. They are not auto-tuned to death. They have a natural sound. Sonically: bigger sounding guitars, not a lot of effects, so the sound is more immediate. More in your face, jump out of the speakers.”

It’s that “natural sound” that lends a Southern Rock tone to the Sammies even on the hard-rocking tunes like “Turkey Herkey Jerkey.” Yet, because of Agnello’s affection for big guitar sound, that’s always clearly at the top of the mix. The album kicks off with a nice lick (left channel only) with the rest of the band coming in stereo to pick up on that same rhythm.

Agnello also talked about the main ingredient he looks for in every project: “I’m constantly going for the charm. I smile when I listen to certain records, because I know they’re having fun.” That’s what he tries to capture on a recording, a “blueprint” of where the band is at, where the charm is.

When you hear the album, The Sammies, the charm is certainly there. However, Agnello wasn’t so sure about the band’s charm at first. “When I first saw them in concert, they didn’t have a great show. They really got their act together by the time we were ready to make the record.” The sessions needed him to do “some rearranging of some songs,” but the band was good as they “kind of figured it out on the fly.”

Agnello attributes the success of the Sammies’ debut album to the fact that they have “more poise than a young band. I really make the artists work to record, making them challenging themselves.” The Sammies lived up to this challenge, and it shows. In the end, Agnello says because the band totally trusted him, it wasn’t “difficult to get that charm on CD.”

What were the Sammies totally trusting? A producer’s producer. Agnello became a producer after years of working as a recording engineer at the Record Plant in New York, seeing some incredibly great albums being made (Aerosmith, John Cougar Mellencamp). Therefore, what the Sammies, and many other young bands, get when they bring Agnello on board is a producer who is “hands on, [works on a] vibe, [can] add parts, a big brother, a traffic cop. I’m not a guy who was in a band. I spent a decade in recording studio before being a producer, so I’m a nuts and bolts guy. I’ve seen so many different ways of making records, so I can identify different situations and deal with them as they happen.”

Chuck Morrison of MoRisen Records has been working with Agnello for a couple of years, and Agnello thinks it’s because Morrison knows that some young bands need the producer to be a “den father.” Agnello can do that—setting curfews, getting the band out of bed for the next day’s session, coming along with rock ‘n’ roll fatherly advice, and acting as a mentor. Besides, Agnello and Morrison are both huge Oakland Raiders fans (“Chuck’s even more of a fan than me”), and Agnello says, “I genuinely love hanging out with him.” Built on a common love for the Raiders, music, bands, and the Raiders, it sounds like a collaboration that is bound to last.

I asked Agnello about which albums he was most proud. The answer: “Don’t ask me that question.” He’s also known for adding parts instrumentally or vocally on projects, so is there a guitar lick that gives him great pride to hear on record?

He was working on Mark Lanegan’s Field Songs, and he was thrilled to have added a great harmony vocal to the song “She Done Too Much,” because “I’ve always loved Mark’s singing.” However, Agnello was called off to go start another project, and a different producer finished Lanegan’s album. Meanwhile, the song’s chorus was changed and re-recorded. However, Agnello says, “I still have that tape” to enjoy his brief moment of vocal harmony bliss.

Thank you to John Agnello for taking time to talk on the phone while waiting to pick up his wife from a haircut. Thank you to the Sammies and MoRisen Records for the review copy.