Judging by the "Earthworks" demo I got, it was crunchy, riffy stuff, sort of punk and sort of metal. I thought I could do a good job with it.

What was it like working with Kerbdog?

Wonderful guys, really nice, not rock stars at all. We were all total workaholics. The studio, Rockfield, has been there since the sixties; the owner, Kingsley Ward, and his wife Ann have some amazing stories to tell. The studio is a former farm, actually there still are some horses and the surrounding land is all farmland still. There are woods nearby and enough room to take a walk for hours and hours; great for relieving the pressure. Since it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere there's no distractions. One of my all-time favorite studios.

How does the sound on "Kerbdog" compare, contrast with your other production work with bands of similar genres?

Probably a bit more metallic than most of my stuff but that approach seemed to fit the music they were doing at the time.

What did you like about the album? What did you dislike?

Liked almost all of it. Thought the intro to EOG should have been half as long, but band disagreed; and in retrospect I would have turned up the vocals on EOG just a teeny bit, though no one ever complained. Didn't like Xenophobia much but that didn't make the album. Thought Clock should have been a single.

How long did the album take to record? Were there many problems, disagreements in the studio or did the process go smoothly?

If I remember right the whole thing took five weeks. No problems except that Cormac was still writing lyrics right up to the next-to-last day of mixing. Dummy Crusher was literally the last thing finished, we cut the vocal and then I mixed it next day. We had about run out of time at that point.

How much freedom did the label give you and the guys? Any hassles?

They were great, no hassles. It helped that we were out in Wales, far from London. The A+R guy Paul Flanagan basically trusted us to deliver, and we did.

After the album was recorded, what were your commercial expectations?

I didn't have much, frankly; I'm a realist, I knew this was not "pop" music. I figured if they worked hard and toured, it would be a solid record to build, say, "the foundation of a career" on. I believed in their talent but it was obvious that they were going to evolve into something even better; already, their newest songs were better than the older ones. Incidentally the 3 newest songs were EOG, Dry Riser and Dummy Crusher. EOG was especially striking for the vocals, I figured this is a hint of what this guy could do more of in the future. Its too bad it took so long for them to do a second record, 'cause they lost whatever momentum they might have had.

What was Kerbdog listening to at the time?

At the time I remember they were way into Helmet, Therapy and Fudge Tunnel, plus Nirvana and some of the other stuff I had done. In general we shared an appreciation for most forms of modern Heavy Rock (or whatever people are calling it this week)...

Do you have any interesting Kerbdog stories?

Toward the end of our stay at Rockfield, Sepultura showed up to work at the other studio (Rockfield has two complete separate studio complexes) with Andy Wallace, working on what would be their "Chaos A.D." record. Also very nice folks. What was most amusing to me was watching Kerbdog and Sepultura playing football ("soccer", to us Yanks) together; these pale Irish guys and these tough-looking Brazilians - I don't know, it cracked me up, and reminded me how much better soccer is than our stupid American football. Everyone in the world knows this, it seems, except us.

What projects are you currently working on?

Just so this answer doesn't go out of date, I'll refer you to my page Jack Endino's Web Page



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