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Death Cab for Cutie / 2002 - Present, Multi Platinum catalog, including 8 Grammy nominations.
Tegan and Sara’s “The Con” and “Sainthood”
Matt Nathanson’s “Some Mad Hope” and "Modern Love”
(Check AllMusic.com for a full list of Jason's credits)
As a full time member of Death Cab for Cutie, most of my time is devoted to touring, writing and doing preproduction with regards to our band. When I’m not on the road or doing preproduction for an upcoming album or tour, I do a steady amount of remote session work from my home studio. In the past year, I worked on records or tracks with Frank Turner, Lennon Stella, Noah Gunderson & Pheobe Bridgers, Luca Forgale and even some licensing and film work.
Most recently I did some work for Illuminati Hotties album POWER. I engineer, track and sometimes mix everything I work on remotely, so I have a solid studio set up, as opposed to a small project spot. People have come to know and trust my production style so I’m usually just sent tracks to work on alone: tracking, mixing and prepping stems or roughs with a quick turnaround.
I had a common public school band education to get started, playing drums from 6th to 12th grade, with time spent in the concert, marching and jazz bands. When I was 15, I started playing a local club as the drummer for a house band, which lead to some session work and a few bands on the side.
After high school I continued to immerse myself in the pacific northwest music scene and moved to Seattle. Growing up listening to Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam was part of my education, as was being a student at the Seattle Drum School of Music, where I eventually became a staff teacher. I was also working part time at a few music stores in town where a lot of my music heroes would come and hang. Most of those guys were accessible “Non-Rockstars” who would offer you a spot on their guest list, or would be willing to grab a cup of coffee or meet up for a meal.
I also started building a modest recording rig and found a real passion for getting good drum sounds, so I’d additionally spend time at the many recording studios around Seattle, whether I was playing the drums or just drum teching…. And not surprisingly, found the control room to be my favorite place to be.
Like I mentioned, being in Seattle in those mid 90’s was key to my building a career. I’ll never forget those tiny gigs where somebody famous would be in the audience, or I’d get called to a drum tech situation, working for a producer or an industry band.
Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam came out to see one of the bands I was playing with at the time and signed us to his independent record label. Stuart Hallerman was a guy who owned and operated a few of the greatest studios in Seattle where seminal records were being made. He always had time to share, advice to give, offered a place to visit. The legendary session drummer Matt Chamberlain lived in town long enough for us to become friends. I worked a lot with Phil Ek who was producing Built to Spill, Fleet Foxes, Modest Mouse and The Shins…. Seattle was a really important place for me to be when getting started.
In brief… When I was 17, I had my first real recording session with a band, at least I thought I did. But shortly into the session, I found out I was to be replaced by an older more skilled drummer. At that time I was obviously bummed, but I'd recently read an article in a music mag about being replaced in the studio and how to take away something positive from the experience. So I did exactly that. I sat on the floor in the tracking room and watched what it was this drummer did better than me and recognized where my blind spots had been and what I needed to work on. In this unfortunate case, I think I approached it exactly how I should have.
One other occasion more recently, was while working on a Death Cab record. The studio we were in did not have have a very great floor plan for a band that wanted to track live. So the drums had to be set up in an isolated room with no sight lines to anybody else holding an instrument. This meant that I had to be hyper focused on listening. And by doing that, my time got really deep and pocketed.
It also allowed me to have hyper focus on how the outcome of the signal path could change with subtle dynamics. Meaning I started to play more musically with compressors, filters and gates with a better understanding of their tonal outcome. In other words, hit hard and listen to the compressor clamp down, or play light and hear those quieter dynamics be lifted, and ultimately…. I understood how to play to a room full of microphones.
I consider myself a hybrid producer and engineer. By that I don’t just mean I use analog and digital, it also means I'm a fan of capturing both known and unknown performances, and on vintage and modern equipment, and I have both a creative vision and an outcome vision for the whole process.
My studio is set up in a way that allows me to sit down on any one of four different kits, always mic’d up with four very different treatments and outcomes. Usually the gear matches the kit, as in vintage 60’s Gretsch or Camco drums with Neumanns and 1073s, or a thuddy 70’s Ludwig kit going through my Quad Eight side car, or a wide open big kit tracked through Hardy 990s for punch, room ambiance and clarity. A prepared kit, a percussion station… Etc. Then add a slew of guitar pedals, outboard compression flavors like the Overstayer Modular Channel or the Chandler TG-1, and eventually a massive folder of plugins.
Go after and say yes to everything until you’re overbooked, then find a way to gracefully pass on what you can’t handle and share those opportunities with your peers, who may someday surpass your skillset anyways. Just be humble, a great listener, willing to do whatever people ask, whatever their vision, even if you don’t fully agree. Know and understand as much as you can about the environment and all the platforms that go with it, even if that means taking a class or being an intern. And mostly importantly, LISTEN TO EVERYTHING!
I’ve been using or wearing headphones my whole life. After graduating from whatever headphones came with my first Walkman, I discovered more dedicated headphone choices, like the Sony 7506s because they revealed so much more detail in the songs I wanted to learn. I’ve also been wearing In-Ear monitors on stage for the past 20 years.
As time went on, the same thing was happening in the studio with my monitors, as in constant change and evolution. But once I invested in a real high end monitor system, I saw the importance of needing the equivalent in a pair of headphones. Even with a measured, acoustically treated and calibrated room, there’s still some amount of environmental influence, unless maybe you’re in a mastering room. So being able to take to room out of the equation, to focus on individual sounds, stereo imaging, detail and placement of everything, headphones are the safest environment to make a decision.
I use the Audeze LCD-X headphones at home while mixing and editing. They were the first and only pair of open back headphones I bought and use, as in no need to search or listen any further! They immediately delivered unfathomable detail and sound quality, like I was sitting behind my instrument. The imaging is unreal, which is paramount when it comes to carving out space for your drum kit in a full mix.
I have complete faith in my ability to manage those difficult low mids in any mix, and they reveal the kind of phase and editing issues you’d otherwise miss with studio monitors. They’ve changed the way I reach for eq and compression, giving me confidence that I’m not being too heavy handed with any mix tweaks. All of that, plus my mixes translate to more listening environments better than ever before.
I would add that headphones have helped me work for longer hours at a much lower volume…. Which always seems to translate better in the long run.
I’ve spent the last several months doing a lot Death Cab preproduction, still doing remote sessions in between, and I’ve also been working towards a degree in Mixing and Mastering through Berklee Online, because I’ve got the time and I’m always looking to improve my skills on and off the road, even if I’ve been living this life for the past 25 years!
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