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ANDY THOMPSON / LIFE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GLASS FACULTY SPOTLIGHT ANDY THOMPSON C omposition and Songwriting faculty member Andy Thompson has carved a unique role for himself in the industry as an in-demand ”demo doctor,” a job that combines equal parts studio musician, technician and tastemaker. Working with established songwriter and former Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson, Thompson takes basic vocal-plus-accompaniment song sketches provided by Wilson and turns them into fully produced mixes, often recording, programming and mixing everything himself. These showcase-ready recordings are then shopped to major-label artists for LIFE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GLASS future album projects. To date, Thompson has helped develop demos for a number of Wilson’s co-writers, including Rachael Yamagata, Gabe Dixon, Natalie Imbruglia and David Cook. Recently this has led to instrumental session work on forthcoming album tracks for two current Wilson collaborators, Pink and Taylor Swift. Thompson’s work with Wilson is indicative of the current industry realities: Decision makers in the music business expect to hear highly polished and produced demos. Gone are the days of songs being pitched as bare-bones recordings consisting of little more than a vocal with accompaniment. In fact, these days it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish between the quality of the songwriting and a song’s production quality, which is why the ”studio BY magic” that Thompson adds is critical to getting songs SEAN McMAHON placed with established artists. We sat down with Thompson to discuss his active career and get the inside story on his life on both sides of the glass. 8 WWW.McNALLYSMITH.EDU / CROSSTALK ISSUE 1 / VOL. I 9 SPOTLIGHT ANDY THOMPSON / LIFE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GLASS ANDY THOMPSON / LIFE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GLASS INTERVIEW Sean McMahon How long have you been working with Dan Wilson and what’s all involved? FAVORITES Andy Thompson Dan’s trajectory as a Here’s a screenshot from one of Thompson’s demo sessions. Note the use of Guitar Rig, a go-to tone cabinet that Thompson turns to when working under tight deadlines. Also in view is XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums, a software drum module that features heavily in his writing. songwriter really started to take off in the last seven or eight years, which is when I started working with him. Even back then the stuff he was writing needed demos to give to the various managers and reps for different artists. Dan didn’t have the time to be producing all these demos, which increasingly needed to sound professionally recorded and produced, as opposed to just a simple demo. It started with him sending me guitar and vocal or piano and vocal F IG. A tracks, and he just said, ”Make it sound like SELF-PRODUCED Thompson frequently plays many of the instruments on his demo productions as well as functioning as the recording and mix engineer. a song. Listen to these other artists for SM You’re a multi-instrumentalist, an expe- muscles, but a lot of the composing I do is you’re turning around demos very quickly it’s an idea of what we’re going for.” He’d give rienced engineer and a classically trained more composing for clients, whether it’s TV not practical and doesn’t make sense to mic me specific style and artistic direction, and composer. It sounds like the studio work commercials or documentary films. I do that up a bunch of amps, so I use Guitar Rig for my job was to flesh out the sketch with an you do really requires a broad and diverse under the name ”Scribble Sound.” many of my guitar tones. [ Fig. A ] arrangement and turn that into something skillset. Did you start on the music side or that sounded like a ”real record.” engineering side? SM What is your studio set up like — is it SM What other projects are you working on more of a writing room or for tracking beyond producing demos? It’s exciting work because you have to work AT I’ve always seen myself as a jack-of-all- very fast. I usually only have a day or two trades. I grew up playing a lot of different to turn these around, and there’s a lot of instruments and got interested in song- variety with the styles. He works with a writing and composition pretty early, so I lot of different artists so I’m able to put on started in music, definitely. These days I different hats, musically speaking, and play do a lot of record production, not only the this or that part to make it sound current more conceptual production, but a lot of and authentic to whatever style he’s the technical aspects, too. I end up doing a going for. lot of engineering and mixing as well, and I Working on the demos has also been really good training for writing music for advertising, which I do a fair amount of. Ad music usually has compressed timelines as well. It’s all about being able to work quickly. find mixing to be a really good outlet for my musical background, whether it’s arranging or orchestration. And through the projects I produce I end up doing a fair amount of co-writing with other artists that I’m working with, whether its coming up with brand new songs or just helping them take their songs to the next level. As far as composing, I don’t put that many notes on paper anymore, although I did just do a choral commission. Every once in a while I do have a chance to flex those 10 WWW.McNALLYSMITH.EDU / CROSSTALK ISSUE 1 / VOL. I bands or what? Musically, my time is split between studio AT It’s more of a writing room, but I can do work and playing live. I sometimes play overdubs at my place, and I go to other drums with Dan for his shows. We’ve played studios for larger recording projects. I some- South by Southwest and the Sundance times use the studios at McNally Smith, Film Festival. I’ve also been working with and I’ll get students to help me engineer. It [acclaimed singer-songwriter and fellow depends on what the project needs. It’s rare MSCM faculty member] Jeremy Messersmith that I would set up my drum kit and mic it at on a new record right now and we’ve been in my place. That can end up taking the better the studio. I’m working with a couple other part of a day, so I use a fair amount of MIDI artists, too, and those projects should come for a lot of what I do demo-wise. For drum out sometime this next year. I also started a programming I use Addictive Drums [by blog — theDIYRecordist.com — where I write XLM Audio], which has some really usable about audio and music production. It’s a very sampled acoustic kits. As a drummer I’m recent development, but there have already pretty comfortable sitting at a MIDI keyboard been some insightful discussions and I’ve and recording drum parts as if I were gotten a lot of positive feedback. sitting at a kit. When Thompson isn’t in the studio or on stage, you I also use [Native Instruments] Guitar Rig can find him teaching MUS381 Songwriting III and a lot. Again, speed is important for the kind REC150 Sound Capture and Production at McNally of writing and production work I do. When Smith. To learn more about Thompson’s songwriting and production work visit www.andywho.com. 11