The player is loading ...
Struggling to set your rates? Follow the link below to get your FREE Rate Calculator Worksheet and watch the episode about how to confidently define your value as a music freelancer.
Howard Benson is a Grammy winning rock producer who has made records with My Chemical Romance, Three Days Grace, Daughtry, All American Rejects, POD, and Hoobastank.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
Connect with Howard Benson:
🌐 Website: https://judgeandjuryrecords.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howardbenson/
⬇️ FREE 2025 PLANNING WORKSHOP ⬇️
https://www.travisference.com/2025plan
📺 WATCH THE SHOW ON YOUTUBE 📺
https://www.youtube.com/@progressionspod
Connect with Me:
📬 Newsletter: https://www.travisference.com/subscribe
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/progressionspod
🎵TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@progressionspod
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/progressionspod
🌐 Website: https://www.travisference.com/
🙏 Leave a Review or Rating 🙏
Apple: https://www.progressionspodcast.com/apple
Spotify: https://www.progressionspodcast.com/spotify
📢 Our Sponsors 📢
Listen to Secret Sonics!
Sign Up for Complete Producer Network!
Credits:
Guest: Howard Benson
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Stephen Boyd
Theme Music: inter.ference
00:00 - Intro
01:13 - How Rock Production Has Changed Over the Past 30 Years
09:20 - Are DAWs Bad for Artist Productivity
16:03 - The Role of AI in Songwriting and Production
19:34 - The Value of Having a Production Team
21:20 - How Social Media Can Mask Authenticity
25:24 - Can You Convince an Artist to Co-Write?
28:10 - How Different are Royalties in the Streaming Era?
39:57 - How Getting Fired from a Gig Changed His Life
49:03 - Howard's Next Goal
Howard Benson
I approach all of rock music as pop music. All of it. I say we make pop records and disguise them.
Travis Ference
That's Howard Benson, the producer that dominated the rock charts and shaped the sound of rock radio for decades to come.
His productions have amassed over 100 billion streams and include artists like My Chemical Romance, 3 Days Grace, the All American Rejects, and Daughtry. Today we talk about how the business of production, including royalties, has changed over the past 30 years and how he would start out now.
Howard Benson
To me, if I was a producer, I would sign my own acts and do them myself. I would own it. Why?
Travis Ference
Daws and our obsession with tweaking tiny technical details will never make a hit.
Howard Benson
That doesn't sell records. That's not what we're doing here. We're selling feelings. That's what we sell. Our feelings and emotion. Those. This stuff is garbage.
Travis Ference
His approach to recording, the most important part of a record, vocals.
Howard Benson
Your point of harmonies is not to make something pretty. It's to make the lead vocal better.
Travis Ference
And what the unspoken role of a producer might be.
Howard Benson
My job is to make money for the artists. They want to sell records. I don't care what they say to.
Travis Ference
You, any producer or engineer working with bands is definitely not going to want to miss this one. So stick around for my interview with Howard Benson.
So I wanted to start out talking about how the career path of producer has changed from when you started to today. Right. It was late 90s, early 2000s. Very much the CD era. Right?
Howard Benson
Yeah.
Travis Ference
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like it was more about discovering artists doing production deals and then trying to get those people signed because labels were still like, the thing. You needed the label.
Howard Benson
Yeah. My job was not to do any of that, though. I never did any of that. I was kind of an A and R guy.
I worked for Giant and I worked for Warner Brothers, but I kind of sucked at it, and I was much better in the studio.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, it's like, this is the career path. Just get hired by the artist, hired by the record company. Here's a budget. Go produce 10 songs, 15 songs, whatever. Hand it in. Next. Next. Next. Next.
Like, I did 10 albums a year. Some of the. If you look at the resume, we. I sort of came from an aerospace engineering background, so my degree is in.
Travis Ference
I know, it's interesting.
Howard Benson
And so I came up with this sort of philosophy of not having to do it all myself. You know, I farmed a lot of it out. I had an engineer, a Pro Tools guy, you know, guitar tech, Drum tech.
So we had, you know, multiple studios going at once with different albums. So I could. I looked at it as. I mean, it sounds kind of, you know, messed up to say this, but it was all about quantity for me.
You know, I knew I was going to make good records because I'm a good song guy, and I learned from Clive and the best A and R guys. So as soon as I had the songs I believed in, it was all about songs and vocals.
The rest of it I left up to the artists and a lot of times my engineers that worked for me and people like that, because I knew there wasn't going to be much difference whether it was a Stratocaster, a Telecaster, or a Les Paul. It wasn't going to change the outcome. The outcome had a lot to do with the vocals and the. And the songs.
So once I figured that out, I was like, okay, I could do this really quickly, and I can just, you know, if I spend more time on the songwriting, getting the songs in free pro. The minute I start to produce it, that's not going to be that hard. So that's how I kind of, like, started. And then I.
You know, you can spend a whole year on one album, but that's your. You're sitting at the table. That's the chips. You have that one album. Yeah, I want to have a lot of chips.
So I was like, I'm going to just do as many as I can. And I figured that I'm not the arbiter of taste anyway, you know, like, the kids are going to tell me what's great.
All I know is I'm going to put out quality product, you know, whether it sells or not. Like I always say to my artists, I'm going to put you at the plate and I'm going to give you a swing. It. You're going to swing at that ball.
Now, whether it goes over the fence or it's caught by the guy, I don't know. Augusta Wind could catch. It goes over the fence, and we're all geniuses, you know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
Or it gets caught and we're all idiots. But you're gonna give you a good swing, you know. So I kind of had a more of a. That type of statistical approach to it, you know.
Travis Ference
That's interesting and that.
Howard Benson
Because I would see other producers just produce two albums a year, but my mixer, Chris Sword Algee, would mix like 100 albums a year. He was. And he would have hit after hit after hit, but he also had a ton of stiffs So I would say, you know what? Nobody knows about the stiffs.
Who cares? It's the hits they care about. Right?
Travis Ference
Right.
Howard Benson
So I always joke around. When bands would come into my studio, they would say, oh, you have so many hits.
And I would show them a board of all the stiffs, and I would say, okay, that looks cool, but these are the ones that didn't sell. This is your reality, you know, Your reality is you're probably not going to sell any records, but we're going to give you a big old swing at it.
I never lied to anybody about anything. Like, told him the odds were like, 0.5% that their record would go gold. That was the Billboard odds at the time.
Travis Ference
That's crazy.
Howard Benson
It's crazy. So I made a decision at that time.
I would say, okay, let's take this $300,000 recording budget and we can go to Vegas where we have a 50, 50 chance, or we have a 0.5% chance of recording this album and making money. Which one would you rather do? They always took the 0.5% chance, you know?
So, yeah, I was like, fine, I'm in with you guys, you know, But I'm not going to just depend on that album. Yeah, I gotta do, like, 10 of these things, you know?
Travis Ference
So, like, take gambling to the next level there.
Howard Benson
Totally. You know? And so with judge and jury, we kind of do the same thing. We're signing a lot of bands, making a lot of albums.
Sometimes the albums we make, we don't. We think they're the best things we ever heard, and they don't sell a copy, and then we'll get a song that we think sucks, and it goes huge.
So that's the thing is you have to accept that you're not the genius in the room. Yeah, I think I have a pretty good idea, like, of what a great song is.
But again, like, with the label, we sometimes we try to add value by bringing features in and doing things like that. That didn't happen back in the 2000s. We didn't have to do that. We weren't competing with social media.
Now we have to use analytics and, you know, bring in other groups of people to help sell more music. And that's something that I don't like doing that. Honestly, I really hate calling an artist up and going, will you be a feature on this song?
And, you know, I don't know. I think that's just kind of like, not where I'm from. But the artists have those relationships, so they can do that, you know?
Sometimes an artist will go, well, I'm friendly with this guy, and he wants to feature on this song. That's great. But then you have to drill down into how the analytics are presented on Spotify. Like, is it a feature track level? Is it.
Is it track level? There's all kinds of stuff.
Thank God other people deal with that for me, but, like, you know, I'm still just about making the music and signing the artist. So, yeah, it's a completely different business.
I mean, I used to never have to think about any of that stuff, you know, it was just like making the records. That was it.
Travis Ference
You know, it's interesting to hear you say that. It was like a numbers game back then, because I feel like everybody thinks it's a numbers game now, especially if you're an artist.
You're like, oh, I'm gonna put a song out every three weeks.
Howard Benson
Oh, it's still a numbers game.
Travis Ference
Yeah. I never thought of it like that back then, but I wasn't in it then either.
Howard Benson
So let's put it this way. I wanted to have a career in it, you know, I just didn't want to do it as a hobby.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
So I would look around me and go, okay, who are these? Who are the people doing well right now? It was the mixers that did really well. Why did the mixers do really well? Well, because they had more shots.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
Every two weeks they'd mix another record so they could mix 25 records a year. So they had more shots. So they were selling more records. Right.
The guys who had the worst odds were the A and R guys, because they would sign one band here and. Or two, and then they were screwed. If they didn't sell, they were out of a job, you know?
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
So I thought, why can't I apply this to producers? I just have to work faster, you know, and I have to. And the speed of the studio is not me. It's the actual.
When you get into the studio, it's tuning guitars, it's getting drum sounds. If I can have that all set up ahead of time. Okay. You come in, the drums are ready to go. Okay. We don't have to spend two days getting drum sounds.
Okay. We just took two days off the project. Right. Then, okay, I'm going to do vocals in my home studio.
While you're cutting rhythm guitars, Mike cuts them listening to tuning, going. You know, that's not in tune. Do that bar again. That's not tune. That's bar again. Oh, my God, I'm going to kill my Fucking self stop.
Like, I can't stand it, you know? I'm going to go do vocals where it matters, you know? Because that's what matters.
You know, when you're in CBS and you hear a song over that little speaker, what are you hearing? You're not hearing the Les Paul. You're hearing the vocals, you know? So to me, I simplified it.
It was again, another engineering part of my brain that works like that, you know? So I was like, simplifying it, going, oh, it's just vocals, songs. The rest of it, I'll get it right.
I know what a good song arrangement is, you know, Now I'm co. I think a lot of people copy it, but they don't have to anymore because they have dogs and they could spend all day. You know what I mean?
The whole workflow is different because you're not locked into a studio and pay studio time.
Travis Ference
Totally.
Howard Benson
Yeah. Yeah. It's a different world, you know?
Travis Ference
Would you think that's better or worse for productivity, for artists? The fact that you can obsess for a year easily on your laptop? Is it good or bad?
Howard Benson
I think it's horrendous, and I'll tell you why it's not. Because I think they shouldn't be doing that. I absolutely think everybody should go make as much music as they want. But I would have this argument.
I still have this argument. I'll get a demo. I'll get something. And the artist will say, okay, this is the song. I want you to use all the tracks I've given.
And I'm like, these tracks sound great, you know, Like, I don't even have to do anything. I'll just give it to mixing. But you know what? You haven't said shit in your lyrics. Your lyrics suck and your melodies go nowhere.
But you spent a lot of time on that Howard Benson compressor. You tried every. Turned every knob on there, you know, like, that doesn't sell records. That's not what we're doing here. We're selling feelings.
That's what we sell. Our feelings and emotion. Those. This stuff is garbage. You know, it's. I gotta do it, obviously, but you gotta feel things.
Travis Ference
Totally.
Howard Benson
You know, I was watching the Emmys last night, and that crazy. That crazy. What do you call it? Thing. Reindeer Baby reindeer one. Right. Which. I don't know if you've seen that show, but it's the craziest show.
Guys stalked by this woman and all this stuff. And it's really a stalker. It's a stalker thing.
But I could see why it won because it emotionally scares the shit out of you and you feel something, you feel terror and anger and all that. And it was done on a shoestring, you know. And same with. Look at Beating hearts, baby. Beating hearts, baby. Like you like had automatica.
That was done in five seconds, that song. That guy comes into the studio and says, I have a song beating hearts, baby. I'm like, oh my God, we got to record it. Boom.
Record done songs out of it. And we spent like a year like dealing with the rest of the that came along with it, you know, which didn't sell any copies.
All the stuff they, you know, there was a lot of issues in that band, but one song comes up and that's, that's, that's the beauty of our business, you know.
But if you can write your feelings and you can transmit your authenticity to your listener, as Bob Dylan would say, three chords in the truth, that's all we're looking for here.
Yeah, you know, we're not really trying to over complicate it, but everybody, when you get these dolls at home and you got those plugins and you get your universal audio and you get all the way stuff and you know, plug in alliance, it's like a big old video game. And people just sit and obsess and obsess and obsess and you know what? They blame everybody else. Oh my God, I can't make money in the music business.
Nobody buys my music and I sold 100,000 streams and I don't get any money. Well, maybe you suck. You know, maybe you just shouldn't be doing this as a job. If you want to do it as a hobby, all for it, you know.
But if you think you're going to make money doing this, you know who you're competing against? Taylor Swift. That's what you're competing against. You want to say what it is, but that's, that's taking all the air out of the room.
Taylor Swift, if you're a pop artist, I'm talking about, oh yeah, she's taking 99 of the air out of the room. You better be better than her. If you're not, you ain't getting those streams.
Yeah, I always, by the way, on Facebook, I have to say, I usually don't like this, but what I respond every time somebody says, oh my God, Spotify and Apple Music, I can't make any money. And I always respond and go, you know what, I'll tell you what, you go back to the old days of a cd, go ahead and print a cd. Now try it.
You see how long that's going to take you to do the four color separation, to go to the plant to get the stuff all to have it mailed to mail it to your artists. The biggest part of our label, the hardest part is the physical part.
Trying to get the stupid shit made, you know, trying to get it out to the right people, getting it, then they send it back, you know, and good luck trying to do that. Spotify free for you artist. It's free. Here's the music. You know, it costs you nothing to do this. Oh my God, I'm such a. You know, I can't.
I hate that stuff. Drives me crazy.
You know, Write a great song, sit on the edge of the bed and talk about your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your significant other and tell me how much you're hurting because she left you or didn't leave you or how messed up your life is or how great your life is. Tell me that story. That's the story. Yeah, that's what I want to hear.
Travis Ference
I always like talking to artists. I tell them, like, I feel like you should want people to either absolutely hate hearing your music or absolutely love it.
The worst thing that could possibly happen is absolutely. And nobody says anything.
Howard Benson
I couldn't agree with you more. I say that exactly. It's funny, you're one of the few people that actually understands that.
When I hear something and I hate it, the first thing that goes through my mind is I gotta find out why I hate this so much. And there's probably something there that I'm not. I remember when I heard Korn's first record, I went, oh, my God, this is like noise.
This is tuned down to B flat. I can't even hear chords. This. I don't know what this guy Jonathan Davis is even saying. I hate this music.
And my assistant goes, you know, you're going to be making records like this in about four months. I said, I know, but I got to figure out why it's hitting me so sideways, you know?
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And I respected Ross Robinson a lot at the time for coming up with that sound. Like that was something different, you know? But if you're an idiot and you don't learn from that, you're not going to learn anything.
You got to learn. You got to. You got to be open minded to this stuff. It's really.
It goes against our egos to accept the fact that somebody's doing something much different and better than us, but you have to be that kind of, you Know what I do is I have a process. I don't listen to records every day or music every day. New music.
I listen to it once a month because I lift new music Friday, once a month, or I listen to music once a month because that way I can hear the changes of the incremental changes. It's not in increments. It's more of a, oh, okay, that happened. Or that happened.
Sometimes I can't hear it as when it's all the time, you know, I'd like to hear it sort of. And it also doesn't mess up my own vision of what I'm trying to.
Travis Ference
Do, you know, that's true. You start chasing things.
Howard Benson
You start chasing things.
Travis Ference
I've worked with so many songwriters and producers that they just, like, are copying things and you're just like. But if you're copying the thing, you're not going to make the next thing. And that's the part.
That's why we're all in the studio right now, is to make the next thing, not the last thing.
Howard Benson
That's right. That's why AI. I'm not too worried about AI at all. Not at all.
Travis Ference
Well, okay, so I had a question about that because. I know.
Howard Benson
I know you do. Everybody does, right?
Travis Ference
We have to. If we don't talk about AI, nobody will watch this. Right. You were an early adopter of Pro Tools, probably first rock producer using it.
I think I heard you say that you had autotune version 1.0 somebody gave you on a floppy disk.
Howard Benson
Yeah.
Travis Ference
So obviously you're down with tech. You were an aerospace engineer. What do you think about AI?
Do you think it's going to find a place or do you think we're all just going to push it off and we're going to.
Howard Benson
No, it finds a place where we're using it. You know, pseudo AI, Great program, you know, gives you. It's a tool. That's it. It's like, you know, somebody said, what's this like?
I said, well, if I don't have an idea for a song, I used to go back and listen to some of my old records or listen to, like, the radio, and I would come up, I would go, oh, that's a cool chord change. This is cool. This is cool. Now I have something that does it a lot faster for me, so I can go, hey, write a song that sounds like this, this and this.
And it's basically influenced by all the stuff that has come before it, which is what I'm doing. So what's the Difference between that and me having to just sit around and listen to a lot of music for hours.
Well, maybe this shortcuts the process a bit.
Travis Ference
That's okay.
Howard Benson
I'm not going to use it. I mean, I'll use some of it maybe. Maybe I won't use any of it. But it's kind of like a tool in the toolbox.
But it's certainly not going to think into the future and know where the artist is at in their lives at that time. And it's the authenticity. It's looking backwards.
Travis Ference
Yeah, it is looking backwards.
Howard Benson
We're looking forwards. So that's a big difference to me.
Travis Ference
That's huge. I've never actually connected that. Yeah, it's trained on the past. There's no way it could, like, make the future.
Howard Benson
That's right.
Travis Ference
And I also never thought of it as a tool in that sense because, like, when I think of Suno AI, I'm like, oh, my God. It's the end of, like, music sync and so many people are screwed or whatever.
Howard Benson
But some of that'll go away.
Travis Ference
Yeah, yeah.
If you're a topliner and you don't play music and you can just have beats delivered to you that you can write over and send acapellas to other producers to actually do something with, that's all of a sudden a pretty awesome tool.
Howard Benson
That's exactly right. And you're gonna have to be really good at data input at that point. You're gonna have to be good at telling it what to do.
You know, your instructions are gonna be part of the. Your talent is like, how do. Okay, how did you get that out of Sino? What did you tell it? I mean, I am telling you that stuff.
You know, that's the secret sauce, you know, so in a way, it's still the same kind of idea, just done a different way. I'm all for the thing.
Travis Ference
Cool.
Howard Benson
Why not? You know, I still don't think it's going to look, the AI is not going to tour. The AI is not going to talk to the fans.
It's not doing a podcast like we're doing. Yeah, it's not doing any of that stuff. So it's still going to take people to do that.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
To interact with your fans. Fan interaction is the whole game. Anyway. Now, you know, you can write great songs, but you still have to have fan interaction.
I actually talked to Warner Brothers about this. I said, are you guys freaked out about this? They're like, no, but.
But they are going to, I think, create some stuff using AI I'm not sure how they're going to monetize it, but it's certainly not. It's. I don't think it replaces great artists.
Travis Ference
No.
Howard Benson
You know, it might replace average artists and low level artists, so. But I'm not competing on that level. Do you know?
Travis Ference
Right.
Howard Benson
That's not. Who. Who cares about that? You know, I want to win the super bowl every time out. I just don't know whether the AI will ever win the Super Bowl.
That's the difference, you know? So.
Travis Ference
Okay, well, I'm glad that that came up and I asked because I. Both of those perspectives, I really think are great. You talked a lot about your team, and I know a lot of producers now, they kind of just.
Maybe because of budgets or just because the daw is on their laptop in their living room at all times, do everything themselves. What is the biggest value for you to have Mike and everybody around you working on records?
Howard Benson
That perspective.
Travis Ference
Perspective.
Howard Benson
Oh, absolutely. A lot of times Mike will call me up and go, this. I like this song better than that song or something like that. Or say, tell me.
I think the chorus is taking too long in this song. Like, who's going to tell you that? If you're sitting in your bedroom, you know, Nobody.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And you need people to. That you trust and sometimes that you don't like. I remember David Foster, when I came up, said something to me that I took to heart.
He said, I sometimes just ask the runner what they think in the studio, like, the guy who gets the coffee. And I went like, boy, you're David Foster, man. Like, you don't have to do that. But then I said, that's really interesting. That's why I do that.
Sometimes I'll just run stuff by people that I don't even know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And just say, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? You can kind of tell sometimes, you know, like. Like when people are.
I'm not asking them to jump up and down for joy, but if they're, like, listening or they go, yeah, I think that's pretty cool. Like. Or that's not what I. I don't know. I don't. I don't really know. Like. Or something.
Like, there's nothing like auditioning your music for somebody when you're sitting in front of them. There's a whole.
You can read people really easily like that, you know, like, everybody's used to visual clues and things, and I don't think you get them when you're sitting by yourself.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You don't you know, and we are trying to get people to react. Right. That's the point.
Travis Ference
You're talking about authenticity. Right. And like finding the emotion and like connecting. I feel like it sounds like you maybe battle with this a little bit with the label.
You have to play the social media game these days and you're always looking for artist analytics. How do you. I guess, what do you think about how social media kind of masks what is authentic? Do you think some artists just, like, fake it too much?
Is the question make sense to understand what I'm saying?
Howard Benson
You know, it's a. It's always something where I think about, is that thought because I know what you're talking about.
Is that thought something that matters or is that something that I think matters because I'm not 20? In other words, is that the perspective of a 20 year old? That is just the perspective now. And we have to accept it. That's just the way it is.
Well, let's put it this way. We can tell by looking at social media.
Like if somebody has a million Instagram followers and their Spotify numbers are 20,000 monthly listeners and they're making music, something's not connected.
Travis Ference
Yeah, that's true.
Howard Benson
Something.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
So we could say, well, we'll sign you because you have all these Instagram followers and you can sing, but there's something about you, you yourself, that's not able to translate that into listeners. And it could be because you're such a huge Instagram follower and people just don't care about you any other way.
You know, and we've run into that, by the way, early in our life of judge and jury, we signed some Instagram people.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And we couldn't translate the music. We just couldn't do it. We could, we couldn't. And you know why? Their followers didn't give a shit. They just didn't. It wasn't what they're known for.
They're not known for that kind of music. You know, in fact, one of our artists we finally parted ways with because he said, you know what?
The more music you put out, original music of mine, it hurts me actually on my YouTube channel, because people just don't want to hear original music. They want to hear me do cover songs. They don't care. And so that's like go. That was a rude awakening for us a little bit.
Like we decided to stay away from that stuff.
Travis Ference
Yeah, yeah.
Howard Benson
That's why we still have to be honest A and R people, where we sign things that we fall in love with that maybe don't have any following. That's pure A and R. Yeah. You know, that's the kind of stuff you don't see that much anymore.
In fact, I would say Universal Records destroyed it because they started doing everything with statistics, you know?
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
It was like, okay, let's look at the statistics and sign those artists. Well, I guess that kind of works because you're seeing if the following is there.
But now with Instagram and, you know, TikTok, you go, well, look at all these followers. Oh, my God, let's sign this person. They have 100 million followers, but they can't make music. It just doesn't work.
You know, that's the magic of music. Sometimes it just doesn't work. I mean, look at Jennifer Lopez. She can't make a great record. She's a million people. Everybody knows who she is.
Travis Ference
Yeah, yeah.
Howard Benson
Huge star can't make records.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know?
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
Adam west tried to make a record too. You know, he is Batman. It's considered the worst record ever made.
Travis Ference
The original Batman.
Howard Benson
Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend that collects bad records. Steve Lindsay collects all these really, really crazy 45s, and he has Adam Batman singing a song.
They thought they would make money. Of course, nothing ever happened, but it's considered the worst single ever released of all time. So that's fine.
Travis Ference
Oh, my God.
Howard Benson
But you know what I mean, it's like, even back then they were trying to do this stuff and, you know.
Travis Ference
I guess it's not new, it's just. It feels new because social media is just so overwhelming.
Howard Benson
Yeah, the Monkeys, they were like that. Look at the Monkeys. The Monkeys were a TV show.
Travis Ference
That's right.
Howard Benson
But you know what they did? They actually had one guy that was pretty talented in theirs, Nesmith, who was an actual artist.
And they had Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the great record producers from the valley here in San Fernando Valley, who were writing all the songs. And Neil diamond came up with a song called I'm a Believer that was their first hit, and it was written by Neil diamond, of all people.
You know, Carole King. All these girl building people wrote their songs. They didn't try to pretend to write songs.
Yeah, you know, a lot of the YouTube artists, they want to write their own songs. Or a lot of Instagram artists, they want to try. Oh, I have something to say to the world. No, you don't.
Travis Ference
You know, what do you say to artists that. I'm sure you've encountered this in the 170 some albums you've made that don't Want co writers, but you know that they need help.
How do you bridge that gap?
Howard Benson
Well, we just wouldn't sign them.
Travis Ference
Okay, well, that's. That's one solution.
Howard Benson
Well, we can't. It's not good for them. It's not good for us.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, it only gives them false hope that something's going to happen. And it only gives us, you know, you know, pain into suffering, you know? You know, it's funny.
Ron Fair, who I worked with at Capitol, you probably remember him.
Travis Ference
Yeah, yeah.
Howard Benson
He used to have this funny saying. He said, I'd rather sign an artist that has an amazing voice, that knows they can't write anything and has nothing to say to the world.
He used to call them empty vessels. They had nothing up here. And he said, I'll give them the songs. I will give them the songs.
And if they know that they have nothing to say, I can make millions of dollars with them because the songs are amazing. Like, you know, he would find the great songs to them.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
But if you find somebody who thinks they can write songs kind of, but can't do it really and can't get those thoughts across, you're in trouble because it sort of looks like, why is this not working? Like, what's wrong? Like you're. You're caught in a no man's land, you know?
Travis Ference
Yes.
Howard Benson
You know who's really good at it is my partner, Neil and Three Days Grace. They're open for business.
Every time they make an album, they get the best writers in the world to co write with them because they're great writers already, but it takes them to the next level. And they have the most number one rock hits in history because they use co writers. They're not. They're smart.
And, you know, you have artists that will not do that. You know, I don't see that as much anymore, actually, frankly. A lot of artists want to be successful. So you say to them, you know what?
I got a song from this song from that. They're pretty willing to do this stuff now. It used to be they dug their heels.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, but also, I think there were better writers too, back then. Some of them.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
So many people. Just when they think of rock music, I think in general, they just assume that the band writes.
But I mean, people forget, like some of those big Aerosmith hits, those were.
Howard Benson
Those were all Desmond Child.
Travis Ference
Yeah, Desmond Child.
Howard Benson
So Desmond wrote a lot of that stuff.
Travis Ference
Yeah, I think, I don't know, I think I always think a good collaboration is better than double, you know, A great collaboration is 100 times better than, you know.
Howard Benson
Couldn't agree more. Nobody cares, by the way. Nobody cares. You're so worried that your little, you know, view of the world. Oh my God, like co wrote.
All these people are going to think. No, they're not. Yeah, it's not. They're not thinking about you that much.
Travis Ference
You know, they just care whether it clicks. Just care whether it.
Howard Benson
That's it.
Travis Ference
I wanted to talk about since. Since you. You were making records in the CD digital era now. Streaming. You own a label now.
I wanted to talk about kind of the, the business behind music production. Like, how different are royalties and budgets today versus early 2000s? And should producers, like, be worried about it?
Howard Benson
I guess absolutely.
I think that's why you look at, like, I won't name names, but there's a big band that just got back together that like, some of the people in that band are producers. Maybe they can't make it as a producer. Do you know what I mean?
There are other producers I know that have side gigs, that tour in bands, other producers I know that have other things. It's not just producing anymore. It's other things you're doing. You're signed to me. If I was a producer, I would sign my own acts and do them myself.
And I do. I would, I would own it, you know, you're going to make way more money.
Three points on a record now that kind of don't produce outside my label that much anymore because, like, I'll do. I'll do records for my, like, there's like three bands that are grand.
There's four bands in my 170 records that are grandfathered into my life because I've done four albums with them. And they'll. Anytime they ask me to do anything, I'll do it because they're, you know, I'm close to them. But most bands I won't.
Most bands I'm like, okay, so you want me to put aside two months for three points on a record that's going to have to recoup on one song where it used to recoup on 10 songs. I'm not going to get a check for the next four years, you know, and the check will be, you know, buckets, you know, won't be anything.
It used to be 10 times the amount. How do I make a living doing this? Yeah, you just can't.
You especially the pop guys, it's worse for them because they have to go make these demos and do work with the artists. They don't even know if the record is going to be recorded, you know, so all this stuff is on the. On the fly. On the. You know, like, Max could do it.
Max can dictate it, you know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, Luke, they can do that stuff. But most people in pop and, you know, it's a little.
It's different in rock because we have a different mindset about that stuff, but in pop, it's just. It's a really tough one. You better write this. Look at the credits. Okay. There used to be three songwriters. Now there's 20 songwriters.
Travis Ference
Yep.
Howard Benson
One producer. Now there's four producers. The money is not. The money is the same money from Spotify.
It's not getting bigger by the amount of producers, you know, so chopping it up. Just chopping it up, you know, and the artists want half the publishing half the time because they wrote, sang on the song.
And you're dealing with a lot, a lot. A lot of slices of stuff. I'm so glad I got in under the. I always say to my wife, I got.
We got it under the wire, you know, because the records I made are still selling really well because they're. There were less competition at the time, so people remember those albums more.
It's much harder to have a rock record where you go five years from now. Oh, that. You know, so and so record. It doesn't work like that anymore.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You're still looking at records from the 2000s of, like, when I was making them. Those are still the iconic albums, a lot of them, you know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
It's too bad, too, because the rock business is alive and well and healthy. Actually. Go to Louder Than Life or all these festivals, they're packed with kids.
Travis Ference
That's, you know.
Howard Benson
But it doesn't stream Taylor Swift numbers. That's the difference.
Travis Ference
You think to do well.
Howard Benson
Yeah, I mean, like, you look at. I mean, link it. Park will make money this year. They've already done, what, 60 million streams on this new record, this new song. That's a smart.
That's good for the business that they got back together. It's good for us, you know, it just brings more people in, you know.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm a big rock believer, but I'm also a believer to own your own masters. That's what I think. If you're my producer, I'd say own it all, fund it yourself, you know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
If you have a studio at home, how much funding do you really need? You know, you can do everything in the computer.
You just got to make sure the songs are great, and you're good at vocals, you know, You've got to be a good vocal producer. That's the big thing, you know, if you're not good at that, don't bother doing it.
Travis Ference
I've seen a lot of producers not even pay attention while I cut vocals in sessions. And you're just like, yeah, work on vocals. Are you here? Which is great. Which is crazy. Which is crazy.
Howard Benson
Yeah. It's only the most important thing on the track.
Travis Ference
Exactly.
Howard Benson
You know?
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
I love how bands go on tour, too, and they have a guitar tech, a drum tech, and a bass tech. And the vote. There's no vocal person. There's. The vocalist is left to get colds, the flu, no vocal coach, sore throats, and nobody gives a shit.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, but make sure that bass is tuned, the strings are changed. What about the singer, you know? Well, if he doesn't sing, you got no show, you know?
Travis Ference
Yeah, yeah. It's true, it's true, it's true. I want to ask you about vocals. One of the.
The technical questions I had for you, Your vocal chain, 10C 800, 1073 tube tech, I think right there.
Howard Benson
Pop.
Travis Ference
That's the first thing that comes to mind. And now that I know your chain and I listen to your records, I'm like, oh, yeah, no, the vocals are popping.
Howard Benson
They are.
Travis Ference
So you really approach rock vocals like pop?
Howard Benson
I approach all of rock music as pop music. All of it. I say we make pop records and disguise them. We disguise them, we make. We. People don't know what's going on. They go, that rocks, man.
But inside is a pop song.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
Imprisoned in a big rock production, you know, so that's how I look at. I've always looked at records like that. I love pop music. I was brought up in Philly. We just had pop music for the first bunch of years of my life.
And then MMR and YSP were the rock stations.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
But it was still pop music, really, you know, So I just love pop. I love melody, you know? My biggest problem as a producer is I have to take the melody out.
I actually have to make it a little less poppy so it doesn't come across being too pop, you know, so it's like a. It's a. Sometimes when I have a really poppy chorus, I'll put screens behind it to make it sound super aggressive.
And, you know, listener will be like, man, that's just so metal. Yeah. But you can sing it. Right? You know what I mean? Like, that's.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know that's my job. Kind of like my job is to make money for the artists. So they want to sell records.
I don't care what they say to you, you know, they want to sell music. Totally, you know, Absolutely.
Travis Ference
What's your process like in. When it comes to vocals? Do you do sections in comp. Do you like to let them perform? Does it vary?
Howard Benson
It's just me, the singer, and my engineer. That's it.
Travis Ference
Okay.
Howard Benson
And they're in a separate room with no window. I don't want them seeing me, and I don't want to see them.
Travis Ference
It's kind of nice.
Howard Benson
A lot of times I'll have the singer sing it through once just to get the feel of the arc of the song.
And I really like having a demo vocal there because a lot of times the demo vocal is kind of the initial vomiting out of the song, you know, like from the artist.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And there's something there sometimes, and I'll just go listen to it and go, well, it's obviously not recorded well, and there's problems everywhere, but here's what's going on. You know, this is the truth of the matter. So then I'll just. Sometimes I. Some singers can sing an entire verse all the way through.
And some singers have to do it line by line, especially fast rap music. Fast rap vocals have to be done line by line. You know, there's just not enough breath in there.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
I really let the artists decide. I'm very much about the artists making their minds up in the studio. I'll say to them, do you want to do the chorus first or the verse first?
Let me do the chorus first because that my voice will wear out too quickly on these higher notes.
Well, after they're done all that, I write out all the harmonies, and the harmony is a big part of the records I make because, you know, I love harmonies and I love secondary vocals. I love secondary hooks. I like at the end of songs to have other parts come in. I like giving gifts to the listener. I call them gifts.
You want to just keep giving them things. So they got. We have 180 seconds. That's it. That's the whole thing. 180 seconds. You know, to get that 180 seconds right, we're golden.
But we really only have about 30 seconds. Because the first 30 seconds, if we can't get that right, the rest of it sucks. So, you know, I try to keep it very simple.
My harmonies are very based on Bach 3 part invention stuff right out of the Hindu myth book. And you Know, music theory, just straightforward. No parallel force, no parallel fifths, unless I decide we're going to do them.
No crossing harmonies, a lot of octaves. Because we used to never do octaves, but that's kind of the sound that you notice more as things. So falsettos and verses. I do. I dress.
I dress them up. I dress them up. And then if I don't use it in the mix, I don't use it.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
At least I have it, you know, I don't generate any harmonies. Basically, I. If I miss one, I will, but essentially I just use, like Antares. What do you call it? Harmony engine.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
To generate guide vocals. So I'll go in there and make a four, give away some tricks here, but I'll.
I'll make a track of thirds, I'll make a track of fourths, and then I'll do a contract where I put the fourth and thirds together above the lead vocal. Because usually 90 of the time you're dealing with thirds and fourths moving around, depending on what note you're at. If you're major, minor key.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
So then I'll comp it together and I'll put it through the headphones of the singer and I'll say, okay, I. This is the arrangement.
Sing this, you know, and that'll be the easy way for them to do that, you know, and then we'll obviously tune that later, you know, that stuff. Or I'll play it on a piano. I'll just plunk it out. Like, a lot of. It's half and half, depending on how much time we have.
Travis Ference
Yeah, that is a great tip because I think a lot of producers shy away from harmonies because they don't know how to find them. And so that's. Oh, yeah, that's. That's gold right there.
Howard Benson
I would say that when I get song from a band and they give me. It says demo, Vocal harmony, demo. Those harmonies are always bad. Always. They have no idea what they're doing. None. It's so fucking horrible.
And you know what happens is, like, the lead vocal will do this and then they'll sing a low part and they'll sing an octave. Yeah, the octave sound. It's. It's. But it's a. It's a one note, right. And there's parts where it's just bouncing into minor seconds and like that.
And you're just going, well, this sounds like, you know.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
If you're trying to do something, at least be. Understand what you're doing. If you're going to Break the rules. Break the rules.
You know, your vote, your point of harmonies is not to make something pretty. It's to make the lead vocal better. It's the lead vocal that still matters. It's not the harmonies that matter.
The lead VO So the harmonies have to add to the lead vocals. So when you have a lead vocal and harmony, and the harmony crosses the lead vocal, your ear gets pulled to the harmony.
So you don't want to ever cross. But you see people crossing them like this, you know, and you wonder, well, I don't know why people can't sing this song.
Well, because they don't know what the melody is.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know. Yeah, the harmony became the melody here for two bars or something like that.
So, you know, I think there's a lot of experience that you get in the studio that, you know, especially in Nashville. I did. I did a Rascal Flats record, and that's a real harmony. But that's. That's like. You got to be frigging great.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
To do that record. Because those guys, they know their shit, you know, and their harmonies were amazing. You know, to come up, watching them do stuff and all that.
Travis Ference
That's awesome. Yeah, I. My thing has been doing vocal sessions for most of my time in L. A. And every. Your description right there.
For anybody that, like, struggles, just go back and listen to that a couple times. Because you lay out exactly how great vocal sessions go down when it comes to harmonies. So those. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I know you gotta go.
In a second. I've got two questions that I close the show with, so I'll hit you with those.
Howard Benson
Sure.
Travis Ference
And let you get back to your day. The first question is, was there a time in your career that you chose to redefine what success meant to you?
Howard Benson
Yeah. I think in 19, I would say it was 1997. I had made a lot of records, but they were hair band records. Like, I did Bang Tango and Pretty Boy Floyd.
These were like the tail end of the hair band eras I was first starting. And I remember thinking, well, I'm not selling any records right now, and maybe I'll get a real estate license. I was in trouble. You know what I mean?
I remember that.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
And I remember thinking, I'm avoiding. I'm avoiding the issue here. I need to have hits. I need to be the hitmaker. That's the only thing that's going to make me survive this.
So I had a guy come into my life, Keith Olson, who was a great producer from the past. I was Let go of a record, which never happened to me, but this band fired me from a record. It was 1994, 95, and it was a wake up experience for me.
I was like, oh, my God, what's going on? And I said to the guy Keith, and he had platinum records everywhere. And I said, I'll just audit the project.
Let me just watch what you're doing, you know, because I'm really losing. I'm really lost right now a little bit as a producer. And I watched him produce and all we cared about were hits.
He wasn't distracted by guitar tones, by any of this stuff. And I thought, this guy's got it simplified, man. Like, he's the hit maker. I want to be that guy. I don't want to be the cool guy in the room.
I don't want to be the critical guy in a room. I don't need people to love my albums because there's. They sound great. I want to have. I want chart position, you know?
So I had to reinvent my thought process because I realized if I don't have chart position, I'm not going to be hired. I may have a good career, like, people still use me and all that, but I want to be the top guy. So I started going after this.
I started paying more attention to songs and vocals. And then I got POD to do. And that was like my big breakout record because it all came together on that record. I had this. I figured out the computer.
I had a great engineer, and I was focused only on songs. And then I said, after I had my first hit, I was like, I want. I want to dominate this business for 10 years. I'm not going to say no to anything.
I'm going to say yes to everything. I'm going to knock all these guys out. Like, I was brutal. Like, I remember. Like I was. I turned into a different person after I had a hit.
I remember Kobe. Kobe is from my hometown in Philadelphia. I went to Lower Marion High School, and so did he.
And I remember how vicious he was as a player and how he kept shooting the ball. I was like, I'm going to keep shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting. I don't care if I miss a few.
But my mantra is going to be, I want the last shot. Give me the ball, Give me the ball. I'll do the hits. Like, don't shy away from that stuff.
And I remember being on a panel with a couple of producers, and I remember I knew I was on the right path because they were all talking about yeah, you know, the record company sucks. You know, I have to be. We have to be close to the artists. It's all about the art. And I was the fourth producer in the. To talk in this panel.
And I said, I love these guys, but all I care about is having hits. Because if I have a hit, I guarantee you that band will hire me next time. I don't care how much they hate my guts or I don't care.
I will be sitting in that chair. And it worked like that. Yeah, it worked because every time I had a hit, I was there the next time. And the publishers, I remember it was a publisher.
They all came up and they went, thank God some producer had the guts to say that. And I was like, you know what? I'm on the right track here. You know, it got down to my team, and they all wanted the same thing.
You know, we wanted to be at the top of the charts. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger. It was. It was weird because I didn't have any hits up until pod. I was so unused to it. Like.
Like, all of a sudden, the phone calls, instead of making them, I'm taking these phone calls. Yeah, it was a. It was a mind. You know, I struggled for so many years. I really did. I paid my dues, man.
I was 14 years of no hits, you know, and then finally I got it, you know, So I always tell people, stick to it, man. You just got to keep at it. You gotta have a. You gotta have a brutal attitude towards it, you know, don't shy away from making hits. Yeah, don't.
You know, you can leave the other stuff to other producers. You want to have a cool record, here's this guy's number, you know, here's a cool record.
Travis Ference
Actually, there's a common thread between where we started and where we're. We're ending, where you're just talking about the.
Just the numbers game and just wanting to have hits where it's like you're very tapped into something that I think a lot of people just forget about, which is the fact that the only thing you can control is the work that you put in. You're never going to control whether somebody, like, whether a song is going to be a hit. You can just do the best you can.
Howard Benson
You're absolutely right.
Travis Ference
And. And it's just doing the. As many records as you can with the intention of making them as great as you can is kind of the only thing you can do.
So that's it.
Howard Benson
You cannot control the public's.
Travis Ference
You Never know response. Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, but you can use all.
Travis Ference
You'Ve learned Billie Eilish could put a bomb out.
Howard Benson
She.
Travis Ference
She could make a bad song. It's possible.
Howard Benson
I have. Oh, my God. I mean, I.
You know, I did this artist when I did My Chemical Romance, I remember thinking, huh, five guys from Newark who have, like, you know, they look like they just got off, like a bus. And their guitars don't play well. They're screaming everything. But you know what this band looks. Singer looks like.
I think there's something about this guy. If we can get the right lyric for this guy, just the right lyric, right? The A and R guy was so great.
I had such a great AR guy, Craig Aaronson, who passed away, but he signed My Chemical Romance. He signed Vengeance Sevenfold. He calls me up one day and he goes, listen, at the end of this cassette is this lyric, I'm not okay. I'm not okay.
I said, dude, that guy singing that lyric is a winner. I know it in my heart. I feel it. That guy singing I'm not okay, it's money now.
We have to make a song around it, you know, because I could feel that he would resonate him, Gerard. He had that look about him. He had this. You could tell he wanted to be that misanthrope, the outcast, you know? And him singing, I'm not okay.
I'm really not okay. And then you go in the studio and you use everything you've learned and you go, okay, I've gone to the bridge.
How am I going to make this interesting? Well, the band or my engineer, I don't remember, says, let's put a guitar solo in there that's harmonized, and we'll do something like that.
And all of a sudden, people think they're queen, but I can't control that. That's not something we were thinking at all, right? We just had nothing else to put there, right?
So he put that in and we get to the breakdown and he's singing, I'm not okay. I'm not okay. And something goes to my head. We got to be a little bit funny here, because it's a funny song. I'm not okay. You know, like, he's a.
You know, the whole lyric is about, you know, being, like, a loser, right? And I went, what if he thinks I'm okay in the. In the breakdown? And he goes. And he does, I'm okay, but he thinks it like, he's not okay.
That's the joke, right? So he goes, I'm okay. I'M really okay, you know, and, you know, he's not okay. Right.
So those are the things that all your experience that you start getting the feeling that you're starting to hit everything on the nose right at the moment. And it's such a great feeling. Yes. I hope every producer that watches this gets to experience things like that.
Because, you know, you know, sometimes, you know, not every time. Yeah, but sometimes you just know. Like, I knew with that project that kid was a star.
I just took one look at him and I was like, oh, my God, I'm so glad nobody else knows this but me, you know? And I saw the video to Helena. Oh, my God. Like, I couldn't believe it. Like, he was not that guy.
He really made his immortal metamorphosized in three months into this rock star, you know.
Travis Ference
That's awesome.
Howard Benson
You don't get those all the time in your life, those things. Maybe three times, four times.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, thought she was the same way. I didn't see that coming, you know, at all. I didn't want to produce them.
Travis Ference
That's funny.
Howard Benson
You know, I passed on them so many times. My wife was the one who made me produce them. My wife's like, he's so hot on American Idol.
I'm like, yeah, but it's all, I don't want to do an American Idol project. I just did My Chemical Romance. People that kill me.
Travis Ference
You know, those records were close together. That is a pretty hard juxtaposition.
Howard Benson
They were pretty close together. Yeah. Like two. Two years. I was still running off that other album and I was like, you know what?
Like you said earlier, all I have to do is do my job and make sure the songs are great. The rest of it, I can't control, you know, and give the artists all the credit. The artist has to go out and sell this stuff. I don't.
Thank God, you know, I mean, it's like summer camp making records for me. You know, weeks in, weeks out, goodbye, you're out. Probably never see you again until you come back the next year, you know, Amazing.
Travis Ference
So last question for you real quick before you go, is, what is your current biggest goal and what's the next smallest step you're going to take towards that goal?
Howard Benson
I just want to build the catalog of the business up. That's what I'm thinking about with judge and jury. And we want to build it with good music. And this is the mantra of our label.
Even when all the analytics we talk about all the marketing and all the sales and all this Stuff. I keep reminding our staff, it's all about the music. We have to get the music right. The music isn't right. The rest of this shit, nothing matters.
So I. I hope that that gets through to these guys.
And once, you know, I back off the label at some point in my life that they keep a music label going, not just a analytical label going. It's really easy to have the bean counters. Bean counters run the company. As you know, at Capital.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
I mean, I remember making records of capital where there was, like, bean counter. They were.
They didn't want to make new records because they realized they could make more money by not making new records because they had such a catalog.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, and their bonuses were tied to that. That might be before you got there, but I remember there was. They were late. Late 90s, early 2000s. They weren't even signing anything.
They're like, hey, we have a Beatles catalog and a Beach Boys catalog and all these catalogs. But every time we sign something, we spend all this money and lose it. What's the point? Let's not sign anything.
You know, so that's when the beat counters screw it up.
Travis Ference
Yeah.
Howard Benson
You know, like, you can't have that. We still have to make art. That's what our. You know, if you put it all together and you find a great artist and you make a great record, it's magic.
You know, you talk about it the rest of your life.
Travis Ference
If you enjoyed this conversation and you want to hear from another producer whose sonic identity has shaped Indian alternative music, then be sure to check out my interview with Tony Hoffer.
Here are some great episodes to start with.
