Dan Weller

Having worked with a number of hotly tipped and intelligent young bands over the last few years, Dan Weller and Justin Hill have carved out a reputation for themselves as one of the country’s top production and mixing teams. Rock Pulse headed along to their current base of operations in Fortress Studios, London, to talk WellerHill productions, the duo’s new band Minutes, and the lessons learned from their time in Sikth, with Dan Weller. 

Thanks for your time, it’s really appreciated. How’s it going, are you currently working on any projects? 

Dan: Yeah: We’ve just worked with Young Guns, did their new single... what else, a mini album for a band called Rise to Remain, they’re really good. We’ve just been doing some more tracks for Bury Tomorrow this week, they’ve signed to some people in America so we’ve done some bonus tracks for their album. A band called Sharks, just did their new single... also Martyr Defiled, did their new song, just about to work with a band called Cyclamen, and in the New Year we’ve got Thoughts Collide, Young Guns again and a load of other stuff basically. So yeah, it’s really busy at the moment. 

Yeah sounds it... You’ve been working together, producing and mixing, for about five years now... 

Dan: Probably a little bit more than that now; I guess we started it earlier than that to be honest, but we’ve been doing it a bit more seriously since 2004. 

So how did it initially come about, formally, as WellerHill? 

Dan: Well Justin (Hill, partner) and I were very good friends in Sikth, and he was always very interested in the electronic side of things. He was quite interested in Pro Tools and learning that stuff, he gets his kicks from learning how to do something, whereas I was into the production side of it to a point, early on. When we were doing the Sikth albums I got very hands on, so did he, and we used to do a lot of work together. And then on the second Sikth album I was very involved in the production side of it, manned the helm if you like, while Justin would take the lead as I was recording my parts. So we became heavily into the production side of music, and frankly you accept that a band can’t last a lifetime; we didn’t know how long we were going to be doing it, and wanted to develop the skills that we’d learned in Sikth. We’d had the privilege of having someone pay for us to be in the studio, whether it be record labels or whoever, and basically had a lot of free lessons. We worked with Colin Richardson... it was a really good situation so we learnt from good people, took on those skills and tried to make it our own, make a living from it. We just started working in our families’ homes, we’d use our parents‘ living rooms, or we’d go to bands’ and do it in their living rooms/bedrooms on a little G3 laptop with an Mbox. We’ve done a couple of albums on an Mbox and a G3 laptop, so we did it that way, but it started to wear a bit thin when we were constantly travelling after having toured for years. It was always like ‘when are we going to settle somewhere?’ So we looked for a studio and we knew Fortress Studios, from both having worked here on the first Sikth album. Some rooms became available and we snapped them up, we’ve been here for about two and a half years now and are about to expand in about three weeks to a studio of around twice the size through there, (points to his left, past the bar). To answer as to when it all came about, I guess 2004, just before we did ‘Death of a Dead Day’ the second Sikth album we were working with bands and doing it pretty much all the time, and we decided on WellerHill just because we couldn’t be arsed to think of anything else and it’s our names (laughs.) It does the job really. 

Could you tell us a few of the band’s that you’ve worked for... with, in addition to the ones that you’ve already mentioned? 

Dan: Recorded for and with, (laughs) they are paying us to be their slaves I suppose. Well we’ve done both Malefice albums, Viatrophy’s album... Jettblack, No Made Sense, Haunts, like I say Young Guns and Sharks. We’ve mixed a Gallows live show, a Taking Back Sunday live show, I worked on the second Enter Shikari album doing all the guitars and other additional stuff. Bury Tomorrow’s album, Exit Ten demos, Shy of the Depth’s EP, Johnny Truant’s last album, Cry For Silence’s album, EPs with Blakfish and Piano... loads, I’m struggling to remember. 

Cool, no worries. You’re currently based here at Fortress, (near old Street, London) what kind of set up do you have in terms of equipment etc? 

Dan: Well we’re running Pro Tools HD, at the moment HD 3, and we’re about to get some other stuff in, we’re kind of in a transitional period at the moment. We’ve got a 48 channel analogue console, some KRK VXT8s, for the geeks out there. And gradually gaining lots of stuff, when you’re a small business effectively and there’s two of you, you’re investing in lots of rent; we’re in zone one in London so it’s not cheap, there’s more gear that we could do with and we’d prefer to have a lot more than we have, but it’s the same for everybody. We’re all battling having to make a living and investing in your business at the same time. Gradually on each project we try to invest in something, and gradually as we get a bit more popular hopefully and more business comes in, bigger business in America, there’ll be more money to be made and we can keep investing in more and more gear. But at the moment we’ve got a good set up, I’m really happy with it and we’re getting the results that we want, people are going away happy, so it’s good. 

Do bands generally approach you for work, and is there something that you look for in bands that you work with, a particular aspect or approach? 

Dan: Often it’s bands approaching us. Occasionally there have been times where we’ve gone after a band because we’ve really liked them, but we’ve been really lucky in that we always seem to do well business wise. I think it was helped by the fact that we were in Sikth originally, bands that were into Sikth came to us so that gave us a really good kick-start. But we wanted to get rid of that kind of ‘guys from Sikth’ tag, like often in Kerrang! if a band we’ve produced has a review it’ll say ‘previously of Sikth ,Justin and Dan,’ which is kind of cool but at the same time almost implies that producing is our sideline. For us now this is very much a priority, something that we take seriously, so... Once you get going and if you’re creating good stuff, the good thing about producing is that effectively every album that you produce or mix goes out there as a free advert of your work, and you know that it’s an advert that’s going to get pimped out by everyone because every band is trying to expose themselves... not physically but musically (laughs). Down the line it helps us greatly. Often at this level you’ll do a project where a band won’t have the budget that you’re looking for or something, and if it’s a small band and you’re just doing one track then you try not to cut down too much, try to help a band out. It’s not a money grabbing game, producing: bands don’t often have to money to pay for what they’re getting, but at the same time you take a calculated risk. You say ‘hang on, these guys are great, we love their music and believe in them, we’re enjoying it anyway and it’s fun for us,’ and if the band go on to be successful down the line it’ll pay dividends. It’s like a loss leader, there’s lots of that in producing because, even if a band’s got a deal there’s not always a big budget...it’s a big misconception, if you’re Beyonce it’s a different story but on the British underground... 

There’s not a lot of money floating around in the whole scene. 

Dan: People invest in what they feel that they can get their money back on, and a lot more, and metal traditionally isn’t a lucrative market unless you break out of the underground, which is reflected in the levels of investment. But we make a living from it so we’re happy, it works for us. 

Awesome. In addition to your work with WellerHill, you’re part of a songwriting partnership with Ciaran Cahill, under the name ‘CahillWeller.’ Could you tell us a little more about this? 

Dan: Well, collectively me, Justin and my writing partner Ciaran are in a band called Minutes, and me and Ciaran write lots of stuff, we’ve got a handful of artists that we’re writing for. It’s kind of on hold at the moment while we concentrate on Minutes because we don’t want to spread ourselves too thin, we’re already really busy with producing and so on. But we’re concentrating on Minutes, and we’re hopeful that once that comes out, which is very soon, we’re currently negotiating with managers, labels etc, we’re hoping that will display our songwriting skill other than Sikth, opening up the door for lots of other writing. We’ve written for children’s BBC, and we’ve written some short film scores, some things for corporate companies, but our long term aim is to be writing pop music. That’s our passion, to be writing for other people and to be writing for Minutes, though for me at the moment it’s the beginning of a long journey. It’s kind of like, we’ve had Sikth and we’re producing records, we’ve got a studio, we’ve written a bit for TV, we’re writing for Minutes and want Minutes to succeed now. It’s like backing horses: unfortunately when you’ve got the ambition bug you can’t sleep at night without doing something, it screws with your head. But anyone who’s in music and reads this will know exactly what I mean, if you’re a songwriter you’re born with this persistent nagging in your head for ‘must succeed must succeed’ in inverted commas, and it’s a really hard thing to live with. Because you literally can’t sleep at night without thinking about music, about how you can show off what you think you’re good at, in a way that you can live from, you know? It’s a tormenting problem, but it’s fun at the same time. 

Very much the proverbial double edged sword then... 

Dan: Yeah. Often people who’re in music are doing what they love, but if they were honest they could probably go work in Somerfield stacking shelves and earn more of a consistent living. It’s ironic really, but that’s just the way it is... everyone’s in the same game. 

What advice might you give to those who’re thinking of moving into production and the more technical side of music? 

Dan: Um, I guess that this probably counts with everything. Play to your strengths, and it’s easy to think that you can do it all, and often if you do a bit of everything you’ll be the jack of all trades as it were. There are lots of producers out there and lots of people competing with each other, so for you to fit in and be relevant, to make a living out of it, you need to find that gap that suits you and play on it. Try to work as cheaply as you possibly can, because people don’t have a lot of money, and if your work is good, and you can do good work for little money, more work will come in. People will hear your work and think ‘wow, that’s great,’ and when you start you don’t have the right to ask for anything... you have to do whatever the hell you can do just to get your name on those recordings. 

So it kind of cascades? 

Dan: Exactly. If you’re good, it’ll snowball. And we’ve been lucky because it’s snowballed a bit, though whether that’s because we’re good or not is someone else’s opinion. At least it shows that we’re not shit, which is always a good start. It will take investing in a bit of gear, but it can start out very cheaply, like I said we’ve produced albums on a laptop and an Mbox, and that was before really good laptops, on formative Pro Tools, Pro Tools 5, which to some people isn’t even formative as there are people who’ve been in it a lot longer than we have, but it’s quite primitive compared to the more modern Intel Macs and how powerful they are. The point I’m making I guess is that you can make a lot with very little these days. Just think logically. Think about also, which is very critical, how do people listen to music these days? They listen on IPods and on MySpace more often than not, they don’t slip a record in a record player, and often they don’t put a CD in the CD player so, when you’re referencing a mix these days, you have to use those formats as a reference in approving your mix, not just listen through the speakers. You need to listen to it like everyone else listens to it. That’s probably quite good advice. 

On another note then, you’ve been working on Minutes for quite a while now... since the dissolution of Sikth? 

Dan: Kind of... it was something that me and Justin always talked about, because Sikth had a real melodic element to it and there was always some poppier stuff trying to creep out. We did a couple of songs on a couple of albums... 

Like ‘Peep Show’ from the first album perhaps... 

Dan: Exactly, some fans really liked them and some really didn’t. It depends on how you viewed Sikth really. In hindsight I would probably say that in the context of how I imagined Sikth they didn’t really fit in, they were cool in their own right but they didn’t really fit in. It was more the poppy rock side of us trying to creep out. So at the back end of Sikth we thought ‘we need to do something here;’ me and Justin had always worked well together and he’s got a fantastic voice, so we thought that we must be able to take this melodically into something more mainstream. Something that would appeal to a more mass audience as opposed to just the metal underground, which is a scene that I’m really proud of anyway, but... something that we can break out and do something really big, play some really big shows and be really successful, so we set about writing music. It started to come about really nicely, and there was a guy called Ciaran Cahill who was in a band that we’d produced. 

He played drums in the band, Piano they were called, but aside from that he was actually a grade eight pianist, and his melodic ear was the best I’ve heard for years, I was absolutely blown away. Not to mention that he’s a fantastic guy, so I said to Ciaran one day, ‘me and you need to work together on our own project, so why don’t you come on board with Minutes?’ The three of us set about creating music, and we got the studio, Ciaran owns the studio with us too, and from then on it’s been writing writing writing. We’ve started to get involved with a producer that we’re massive fans of, who is based in LA; we sent a track to him, he called me up and then came to the studio in England. He’s really helped us with the music, and we’re now working with another producer, hopefully it’ll all come together in a big master plan where we all get to work together on a great record. We’re rehearsing regularly now, three times a week, and in the New Year we’re taking it Live. 

Oh right, so it’s very much coming together at the moment then? 

Dan: Yeah, we’ve written as a studio project , and we’ve always been told that we should just stick to the three of us and employ session players, but we were finding it very difficult being in the studio all the time producing other bands and then trying to write for our own band. We needed a bit of outside involvement. So we went on a mission, we went to Drumtech and ACM (the academy of contemporary music) and auditioned, in total with the auditions that we held here too, fifty musicians. We found Darren and Pete, who for my money are the best rhythm section that I’ve seen for a long time, both young and both incredible. They’ve been in the band for four months and it’s become a proper band, we’re not a studio project anymore, we’re a live band and are gagging to get out there. But we don’t want to come in at the very bottom and play tiny pubs... we’ve done that and I don’t think we’ve got the enthusiasm to do that anymore, so we’d like to come in at a slightly higher level than that without shooting above our weight. We’re going to be really ambitious with it, we’re not settling for anything but success, and if it doesn’t succeed we’re not going to waste our time. Something big or not having it at all, which is the mindset that we’re all in. It’s a really good feeling, because I like setting my sights a little further than is easily reachable, because if you reach the goal it’s a really satisfying feeling. 

So, a different kind of audience than the substantial cult following that Sikth had? 

Dan: I guess, though credibility is really important. You can sell your soul to pop music, and yeah you can have the last laugh financially, be on every music TV channel like many bands are. But I much prefer having more respect from other musicians, for me that’s more important. I think that music should last and stand the test of time; it can be part of a movement or a generation, and it can do very well in that generation, which is success of a certain kind, but to me success has to be long term. I know that Sikth isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but even now I get emails every day from Sikth fans, and people who respect it. I know that it’s going to last a long time because we worked hard at making it unique, and Minutes in very much the same in its uniqueness, we’ve worked hard at it. But it’s far more mainstream and commercial, it’s basically like proggy rock pop, if you like, they’re big radio singles, it’s not obscure prog metal at all. But we’ve done that, there’s no point doing that again. 

I think you’ve covered this to a point already, but alongside taking Minutes to the next level do you have any ideas about what might be in the pipeline for 2010 on the production side of things? 

Dan: It’s hard to know really, it’s dependent on the success of Minutes. We’re in talks with quite a few people, a few people in America, so we may sign a record deal, we may sign a publishing deal and try to get some revenue to fund the project ourselves... we may do none of the above and be told that we suck, you just don’t know in music. So there’s a lot depending on that. We’ve got a studio and a production reputation now, we’re booked up until May as producers, it’s hard to know. I suspect that we’ll work up until May, and Minutes won’t affect our schedule, and then after that we’d like to be spending all of our time on Minutes for a period. Being able to produce bands less frequently, but spend more time on one band rather than constantly ‘working with a band, working with a band, working with a band, working with a band,’ it’s quite difficult. 

With one band’s gear coming in another’s is going out... 

Dan: Yeah, I mean don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love working with bands and we put maximum effort into everything, but it would be nice to kick back and focus on Minutes for a while, because it’s something very personal. 

When producing an album, to you generally contribute to the music itself, take a hands on approach, or more of a hands off, just capturing the music? 

Dan: It can vary dependent on how talented the band are, how unique the band are. And not even dependent on that, sometimes people are paying you to put your experience in. But you have to judge it as you see it, and not overstep the line. It’s not my band, so I might not have that riff in my song, but that’s not my fucking point to say, it’s your band. You have to learn how to find a balance between getting the best out of what somebody’s done and being honest when they’re doing something that’s just not good. If it’s not a subjective thing, it’s just quite obviously not good, then you need to fix it. It’s your job and your responsibility to put a cat among the pigeons and piss a few people off because they are effectively paying you to do that, to be honest. But it’s very much a play it as you see it type of thing. 

I suppose as well it’s not a situation where you want to get into a ‘yes men’ situation of always saying that it’s awesome, because that’s not good for the record... 

Dan: Well you’ll never get anywhere either, because in bands, traditionally you don’t really want to take notice of someone, you don’t really trust anyone and you think that you know best almost all of the time... that’s an inherent trait among band members. If you do work with someone who’s been in a band, that you can trust, and I hope that Justin and I are, we like to form a good relationship with bands, I find that that service is almost as important as the musical side of things, because I longed for someone that I could trust and knew what they were talking about when I was in Sikth, and I never really found that. I’d like to think that at least on some level, we understand what’s going on, that a band can actually talk to us. We know what they’re saying, what they’re going through and are trying to achieve, we’ve been there, so I think that if anything is the most satisfying thing about production, the fact that you’re... not like some kind of music guru passing on your knowledge, but you’re using what you’ve learnt constructively, it’s not going to waste. I could look at Sikth and go, ‘ah it’s done now, it’s split up, what was all that for?’ ‘Seven years of my life for what?’ But I don’t feel that, I feel really proud and like it’s spawned a production career, and I’m passing stuff on that I’ve learned, it’s a really good feeling actually. 

Awesome. Finally then, what would you say are the best and worst aspects of the production/mixing game? 

Dan: The best is meeting new bands and becoming friends with bands all the time, and feeling like you’re in the middle of something exciting. When you’re making a band’s recording it’s a really special moment for a band, and it’s a significant moment in their lives, because it is; when you release an album, that album is going to be in your CD collection forever, so being involved in that is something that you don’t take lightly, you take very seriously. I enjoy the kick that I get from that and I know that Justin does too. The bad side of it is probably dealing with the people... not all managers and not all labels because that’s harsh, a lot of people have really great intentions in the industry, but there are a select few who are out to make money out of a band and have no decency running through their bodies. They’re there to get as much off you without paying you, and it’s happened a lot. And that’s the worst side about producing, in that there’s lots of having to be an arsehole to get what you deserve, and having to say ‘no, you’re not getting this until you’ve paid us,’ that kind of stuff. But that’s nothing to do with bands, that’s labels and investors and whoever, it’s a big problem and a really sad situation. I mean, no one likes to pay in life but if you’re getting something you need to pay for it, so that’s probably the downside, and I would warn anyone getting into producing, be aware: if someone says that they’ll pay you this, make sure that you’ve got some kind of guarantee, because you will get royally... sodomised by someone otherwise. 

That’s great, thanks a lot. 

Dan: No problem, thanks.