Panelists: Rob Chiarelli, Robina Ritchie-Barker, Ron Harris
Moderator: Michael Laskow
Ron: You know, back in the day, my process was—because I also worked a day job—I had equipment at home; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, evening, seven-to-nine, I’d work on music. Thursday, I had off, because I wanted to watch Hill Street Blues, La Law, right? I had put this process together so I could psych myself out, right, so I could finish, because you have to learn how to finish, and it's the biggest struggle we have. How do you finish? So, once I got that process down, then it became faster, faster, and faster. Now, working through it, the time spent, you think that you're a perfectionist, and when I started working with [label executive] Ron Fair, he taught me that imperfection can be more beautiful…
Michael: And just so everybody knows, Ron Fair is like one of the 10 greatest label guys ever in the industry.
Ron: Yeah, and so he signed Christina Aguilera, the Pussycat Dolls, the Black Eyed Peas, and the list just goes on and on. And I didn't understand it at first, because I had spent my whole time in my career thinking that perfection was it, and it happened. And it happened on the Christina song; I just sent in this demo, and he called me up and goes, “It's great!” And so, the first thing I said to him was, “Okay, great. I want to go in to the studio and redo the drums. I want to bring in this guitar player.” And I started running, running down the list of what I wanted. And he goes, “No, no, no, I don't want any of that. I just need you to change the key and keep it just like it is.” And I was devastated. On one hand, I go, “Well, wait, this was just my demo,” but, he said, “No, I need it just like it is.” And so, I was like, “Wow!” That was my first run-in with him. And the second one was in the Bratz movie, and I had done these songs and I was playing around with the drums on the Kurzweil keyboard, a little out of sync, and whatever he heard, he said, “I want to put this on.” And I go, “Oh, great. I want to bring in this drummer.” He says, “No, I need it imperfect like it is, because it's a young group [in the movie], so you can't slick it out.” And I had to learn these things. I thought, “Oh my God, right!” So now, at this point in my career, it's really about looking for imperfections. Sometimes you can have an accident—a happy accident on that record, and it's the thing, right? And, after you've done so many records, so many projects, when that happens, you're like, “I love that part.”
“So, you've got to learn your process, and learn when to let it go, right? Your best is going to look different on different days.”
And, you know, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are big on imperfections… really, really big on it. So, you've got to learn your process, and learn when to let it go, right? Your best is going to look different on different days. So, if you're not feeling well, your best may look different than if you're 100%, but do it, let it go, because that's the that's the only way to make your dream come true. Perfection is not going to make your dream come true. Letting it go and saying, “You know what, I've done my best.
Rob: So now there's one other big piece, though, and that is you. Many people are afraid because it will be judged, yeah? And that is a killer. And the funny thing is, that we'd be in the studio—you (Ron) and I, many times, especially the second project we did, and I’m sweating, and he’s sweating, and the lights have been dimmed. Oh my God, because I was afraid of the mix and the record of being judged.
Ron: Oh boy, he (Rob) was more afraid of being judged than I was.
Rob: Who me?
Ron: Yeah, you were more afraid. I wasn't. I wasn't…
Rob: But it gets to a point where I said, “Screw it. You know, we’ve got to just let it go and move on to the next one.” You’ve got to continue. It's a journey, and it's not that one song. You know what? You’ve just got to say, “I’ve got more songs to write, and I'm going to improve every day.” You’ve got to commit to improving every day. And if you've improved 1% every day, yep, and took weekends off. That's two-and-a-half times better at the end of the year. That's unbelievable.
“Allow it to be judged. Allow yourself to be humble enough to hear what is being said, and to take in that information that can help you produce the next one, and then the next one, and the next one… it certainly helps me.”
Robina: Yes, we understand. Quality is critical, but quantity ultimately begets quality, because you're learning through the process. And, if you’re able to get to the place where you're not identifying who you are, or your quality, or your talent with an individual song, and allow it to be judged, separate yourself from that. Allow it to be judged. Allow yourself to be humble enough to hear what is being said, and to take in that information that can help you produce the next one, and then the next one, and the next one… it certainly helps me. The ancient Romans never thought that somebody was a genius. They thought that people had a genius. In other words, they were communing with something that was giving, that was visiting them and giving them their creativity. This is kind of a double-edged thing, here. It's like, okay, well, if your song sucked. It had a bad genius. You know, my genius was no good. Or if the song was fantastic, well, you know, you're sharing, you're sharing it with the creative force that came through you. So that sounds again, very, very woo-woo. But it's a way to kind of step back and go, “It's I am not this song. I’m a contributor in this song. I’m part of the creative process, and the more I can learn, the more I can hear, the better I can make the next one.
Michael: “That brings up a really good point, which is, art is very personal. I can't think of anything honestly, other than maybe a love relationship or relationship with your kids, that's more personal than that. So how do you break free? Because you are your art, and your art is you. So, having your acting background [Robina], by the way, do you know that we are sitting in the presence of a real, live Disney princess? Robina was the live action Jasmine for the animated film, Aladdin. So, she acted it out, physically. Then, the animators animated to her.
Robina: It was great fun being around actors and actresses. I mean, that's their job is to be who they're not. It's harder for actors, honestly, because it's you, right? It's your face, it's your voice, it can even be your personality. So, I found that acting is much harder, and getting judgment as an actor can be much more brutal because it feels like the judgement is kind of coming at you. At least with the music it can be, “Oh, I had an off day,” or “It's a thing,” or “It's subjective,” and subjectivity is a huge thing, right? One person is going to think, “This is never going to work. You suck.” And the other person is going to have an incredible moment with it and say, “Oh my gosh, where have you been all my life? This is, this is an incredible piece of music.” So, you just can't buy into something having a fixed value. You want to do your best. You want to bring everything that you've got to it, but you can also recognize that you have no control over how it's going to be received, and so take in any lessons that you can learn from it, and throw out the stuff that you go, “Yeah, you know what? That doesn't that doesn't sit with me. That doesn't work.”
Ron: I just want to go back to something that you asked about, Michael, that I think is really, really important. When you were talking about, you know, in just that hamster wheel of life, how do you get that time to focus back? Yesterday, Rob and I were talking about how you have to learn how to steal time back, because life will do the life thing. We all have the same number of hours. So how do you steal time back? And that's important. So, for me, it didn't start at 4:30 in the morning, right? I used to get up at seven, then it was like 6:30, then it was six o'clock, then it was five, and then it was 4:45. Now, what time do I go to bed? I go to bed by 11, usually. But, if you learn how to steal the time back, then you will be even more productive, because you only have that amount of focused time. And when my kids were little, I was like, you know, seven o'clock, all hell is about to break loose. So, I gotta get done what I need to get done. And it didn't matter, you know, saying, “Oh, I don't have the time.” That doesn't matter. We all have the same number of hours. So, like I said, for me, I still steal time every day. It's important to me. I can meditate. I can read. I watch videos on how to mix, or how to be like Rob. [Audience laughter] I'm just saying those things, and you can find those right anywhere he's like, “Wait, what?” But nevertheless, that's what you have to do. And I wanted to add that because you asked, “How do you get your time back,” right? Like, what do you do? So that's what I do, and I do it every single day, like clockwork.
“The people who don't join TAXI get to live as “rock stars” for the rest of their life because they've never put themselves in position to be judged because they never finish anything.”
Michael: I know several TAXI members who are among our most successful—Randon Purcell is one that comes instantly to mine. He starts his day at 4:30 in the morning, and he gets his TAXI-related music work done before his family comes down for their Post Toasties. And then he would start his day job. And he did that for about five years and became very successful. So, I completely subscribe to that theory.
Let's go back to judgment for a minute. I have a theory, and I am so proud of you guys in this room and everybody that's here this weekend, because a lot of people, after 33 years of running TAXI, I figured something out a few years ago. The people who don't join TAXI get to live as “rock stars” for the rest of their life because they've never put themselves in position to be judged because they never finish anything. “I'm working on a song. It's great!” Nobody hears it. Their friends, family members probably don't even hear it. Certainly, TAXI’s screeners don't hear it. Labels don't hear it. Sync companies don't hear it because they haven't finished it, and therefore they can't be judged. So, they live in this immortal state of perceiving, “I'm a rock star,” because they've never been judged. So, the perfectionism aspect goes along with that, because you think you're being a perfectionist. But really, you're just putting off the inevitable Judgment Day. But, if you get past the fear of being judged, you might actually get somewhere.
Robina: I was right there. I literally kept my music in my headphones just for me. I didn't even want to share it with anyone. I did this for a decade, and because, because, yeah, I wanted to, like, live in the fantasy that my music was brilliant, and I didn't want to dare take the chance of finding out that I was wrong. And when I finally did, decide to kind of creep out of that little closet, and kind of open it up to the judgment, a really surprising thing happened when I started getting constructive criticism, and I suddenly discovered I wasn't God's gift to composing, and this was one of the most freeing things that had ever happened to me, because now I was free to just create. I didn't have to reach some kind of standard I had for myself that I was impervious to something, it really did become a way for me to just let it go and start having fun, which also made it a lot easier to finish my music. It's like, okay, “Let's have fun with this. Let's let it out. Let's have fun with this. Let it out! And, because I thought they were my babies, but I realized, okay, let's be realistic about this. So, I named my publishing company UB Originals, which stands for Ugly Baby Originals. [audience laughter] I figured they may be beautiful for me, but not necessarily for the rest of the world, but I'm going to have fun, and it served me well.
Don’t miss Part 3 of this interview in next month’s TAXI Transmitter!