10 Years on the Road and 10 Years in the Studio: A Conversation with Max Rauch
Max Rauch went on the road when he was 15. In the 20 years since, he's become a much sought-after producer. What has he learned along the way?
Max Rauch couldn’t stop making music if he tried. Before he even had his license, he was touring with Tourmaline, his older brother’s band that was signed No Milk Records and had an album distributed by Universal. After a decade on the road, he got the itch to make records and opened Domestic Bliss Recording. Since its founding, Rauch has become one of the most respected rock producers in New Jersey.
We sat down last week to talk about his journey from punk rock road warrior to studio proprietor, his philosophy on recording drums, being embarrassed about old recordings and embarrassed that you were ever embarrassed about that, and how to push through writer’s block.
A Conversation with Max Rauch
In an interview on the podcast It Came From Basement, you said, “One of the coolest parts about [recording] is the time capsule aspect of it. Like this is what our lives sounded like in 2017. The songs reflect it all.” I’ve picked a song from some of the bands you played in. I want you to tell me what each of the songs brings you back to.
This sort of sounds like a test, but let’s do it.
Let’s start with the 2016 track “Fear and Greed” by NGHTCRWLRS.
That just reminds me of the practice space I used to have in Clifton, New Jersey. It was LKFFCT, Ken De Poto’s band France, and Holy City Zoo. What became NGHTCRWLRS just started out as us jamming in that practice space for fun. So, that song reminds me of making music in that room and becoming really good friends with the guys from NGHTCRWLRS. Some of those guys ran the label Sniffling Indie Kids, which put out a couple of LKFFCT’s records.
I also oddly associate it with Pokémon GO. That game was a big deal around then. I remember someone found a Pokémon right next to me while I was playing drums. I hadn’t played drums for years when I started drumming for them.
I think that leads us nicely into the next song, “Blank” by Tourmaline, a song that takes us back to 2005.
Oh my God. How did you find out about that?
Mostly from Tourmaline’s Wikipedia page.
Oh, yeah, I forgot that existed. None of the music is online, though.
There are some reviews still around from back then.
I mean that reminds me of being a teenager. It reminds me of Drive Thru Records and tons of local shows I played in high school. I was only 16 when I recorded drums on that song. We recorded it at Portrait Recording Studios in Lincoln Park with this guy Chris Badami. It was my first time in the studio, and I was blown away by the whole process.
Is that when you got the recording bug?
No. I was blown away, but I really didn’t enjoy it. I’d practiced the songs a bit beforehand and played with a metronome, but I froze up a little when we recorded. Tourmaline was my older brother’s band. This wasn’t said exactly, but I could feel him wanting to be like, “Don’t mess this up. You’re lucky I let you into the band.” That dynamic added to the pressure.
[Note: Because not all of the Tourmaline catalog is available on streaming, Rauch was kind enough to send me “Blank”. You can listen below.]
It’s crazy how when you were that young that you weren’t only recording but also touring across the country.
That’s what drew me to music. I spend all my time recording bands now, but I didn’t care about that at the beginning. I was all about going on tour. I wanted to be playing shows every night. As soon as the record was done, I wanted to know when and where we were playing next.
Let’s jump forward 16 years to when you released “Buzzin’ by the Clementines” as MAUCH, your solo project.
It’s sort of cliche, but that came out of the pandemic. Everything was shut down, so you had a lot of time to sit with yourself and be introspective. I was writing a lot of lyrics trying to deal with what I was feeling. Musically, I wanted to experiment, though.
As a guy that has lived and breathed playing in bands was it weird to do a solo project?
Yeah. I mean that was as solo project-y as a solo project can be. I wrote everything. I recorded everything. I played everything. It was all just me sitting in a room by myself.
Let’s go back to Washington Square Park’s 2011 release “Material Hell”.
I just recently put all of the Washington Square Park material back online. That was from the middle period of the band. I wrote it outside of my mom’s house in Verona just riffing on the acoustic guitar. I think the words were kind of about living up to some sort of like societal expectation, something you’re very concerned with when you’re younger. I probably thought I was saying something really profound.
Did you take all of that music off the internet?
Yes. It sort of makes me cringe knowing that I did that. I just wanted to run from that identity. I didn’t want to be known for Washington Square Park. I wanted to be known for what I’m doing now. So, taking it down was very purposeful.
It interesting you did that because I feel like that’s a very important band in your story. When you were in Tourmaline, your brother’s band, you were just the drummer. By contrast, you were the frontman of Washington Square Park.
Yeah. That started as a solo project, but then it became a collaborative thing.
Was the goal there to have more creative control?
I wanted to be able to write the songs and express myself. I was still technically in Tourmaline when Washington Square Park started, but my brother and I weren't really getting along as much.
I officially left in 2009. We’d been a band since 2004. That’s a long time in rock n’ roll years. It’s funny because I was like 21 when I left that band, and I’d already been making music for five or six years.
Let’s leave the past behind and jump as close to the present as possible with the LKFFCT single “Shake me out of a dream” from 2023.
As we were just talking about, I took down all of that Washington Square Park music. But I realized that I had been running from something that was actually very meaningful and valuable. I just started asking myself, “Why am I running from part of my identity?”
“Shake me out of the dream” is sort of like a throwback song to that Washington Square Park sound. It’s me telling myself that everything is okay, and I don’t have to run from the past. I mean I guess that’s not what the song is about specifically, but that’s what it represents to me.
After taking a tour through your career so far, we can see that you are a guy that has worn lots of hats. You’ve been a drummer. You’ve been a songwriter. A producer. A frontman. When you are making your own music - say, “Shake me out of a dream” - how do you juggle all of those different personas that you’ve been?
With that song, I wasn’t really thinking too hard about anything. You hear people say this a lot, but that was a song that came to me in like 15 minutes. I wasn’t thinking of it from the perspective of a drummer or a singer or anything else. It happened too fast to do that.
Do you ever approach a song with one of those roles in mind?
It depends. Take “Buzzin' by the Clementines” as an example. As I mentioned, I played everything on that song. But it started with drums. I would just set a tempo and groove on the drums for 10 minutes. I’d then listen back and loop the things I liked. In general, I just ride the wave of whatever I’m feeling when working on solo stuff or stuff with LKFFCT.
I love the sound of the drums on “Buzzin' by the Clementines” and “Shake me out of the dream”. How do you like to record drums? I feel like producers and engineers can get super philosophical with how they capture percussion.
That’s a deep subject that I could go on forever about. Everybody does have their own philosophy on recording drums. I just think it's so important to use a technique that works with the song rather than something one-size-fits-all. There are certain times you want a mono overhead. There are certain times you want a wide stereo image. Beyond like making sure things are in phase and you’re getting the full frequency of each drum, I think my philosophy is to tailor the drums to the song.
It also goes without saying that if the room sucks or the drummer sucks or the drums are not in tune, then it will never sound good. No audio philosophy will save you from that. You're not going to be able to get blood from a stone.
We’ve talked extensively about your music, but given that you run Domestic Bliss Recording, you must spend more time on other people’s music than your own.
Way more time.
Does your production approach change at all when you are working on other people’s music as opposed to your own?
I’ve never considered that. I think the relationship I have with the person that I’m recording affects things. If I'm really close with someone, the approach is closer to how I treat the approach when I'm doing it myself. But I've also learned a slew of techniques over the years to be able to work with people who I don't know as well. I wouldn’t necessarily use some of those techniques with my own music. That’s not because they’re inferior. It’s just that some things work better for me personally.
Do you have an example of one of those techniques?
If it's a young band that’s never played in the studio and the drummer has never even attempted to play with a metronome, then maybe we will just cut it live. I’m especially keen to do it that way if I’ve seen the band live and know that they have great energy together. There are so many editing techniques to make things perfect, but sometimes it’s important to capture a group’s imperfections.
What techniques do you have to keep a session moving if the band gets stuck creatively or they just can’t nail a part? In other words, how do you get an artist through writer’s block?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Can't Get Much Higher to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.