If you’re looking for DIY heroes, look no further than Butch Vig, the glue behind Nirvana’s Nevermind, the instigator (and drummer) for Garbage, and one of the only people Billy Corgan seems to like. From Sonic Youth’s Dirty to the Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream to L7’s Bricks Are Heavy toAgainst Me!’s White Crosses, the list of contributions Vig has made as a producer are limitless. A gearhead from birth, Vig and Garbage bandmate Steve Marker refused to be limited by their surroundings in Madison, Wisconsin. Obsessed with figuring out how to record, they opened Smart Studios in 1983 and ran the “pile of junk” (Vig’s words) by the skin of their teeth. Eventually one record—Killdozer’s Twelve Point Buck—sparked the attention of fellow fringe champions Sub Pop, and the duo found an influx of Seattle bands coming to Madison in pursuit of the “Smart sound.”
Smart couldn't survive the 2008 financial crash and closed its doors in 2010. In the years since, former Smart engineer and Madison filmmaker Wendy Schneider convinced Vig and Marker that there was a story here worth telling. Schneider funded a documentary via Kickstarter, then shot it, distributed it, and is touring it all over the States like a traveling TED talk you actually wanna see. Now The Smart Studios Story is due for digital release in the coming months. The film takes the audience into a pre-digital era, a time when community relied upon the sanctity of physical spaces, when wanting to make a record with a specific producer always necessitated traveling the distance. Bringing it all to life are talking heads such as Krist Novoselic, Shirley Manson, L7’s Donita Sparks, and Billy Corgan, whose quote at the film’s opening credits speaks to the lengths Smart would go: “We want to make great rock‘n’roll records and if that means we have to throw a piano off the roof, then that's what we’ll do.” For more than 30 years, Vig hasn’t changed his outlandish methods. Speaking with Schneider from his Los Angeles home, he shares his insights on how to build studios from nothing, and they both stress the need for communal musical spaces in our digital world.
Butch Vig: One of the reasons Steve [Marker] and I started Smart in the first place was to empower ourselves. I wanted to make records and kept finding obstacles. Even in high school, recording seemed like this mysterious world inhabited by rockstars and mega-producers. It was untouchable. When punk rock and new wave broke, I felt a kinship. That was my peer group. If they could make records, I could make records. Steve and I were doing it by the seat of our pants.
Wendy Schneider: Still today in Madison’s DIY scene, it’s a struggle to find communal spaces, more so than it was 30 years ago. Yet artists gravitate towards safe spaces where they can be encouraged, validated, and inspired. When I started at Smart, the first thing I gained was access and that led me down a certain path. In Madison we have a lot of outlets for community, so we’re different from other small towns, even larger cities where the scene is too big and splintered off. A scene can’t survive in separate basements. But we’re driven by different priorities now. With Smart, the community that emerged was raw, organic, unpretentious, and so attractive. Cities aren’t putting energy and finance behind incubator spaces. It doesn’t make money.
Vig:There’s going to be less when Trump’s in office. Arts funding will be cut from government budgets. Everything will need to be even more DIY. Garbage have been all over the world for the last 20 years and we meet young, aspiring artists. Their stories are similar to how Steve and I felt when we started. They're looking for creative outlets. Now technology’s made it easier for musicians to get music out via the internet. Communality, however, is still something artists search for. Collaborating, feeling a sense of community is nurturing. Young artists need feedback and a local scene. I’m sure you’re as saddened as I am by the Oakland fire. That was a counterculture that was necessary because those artists couldn’t find places to work. Scenes like that in funky warehouses exist all over the world. When you go into a club, it’s a thousand times more powerful than watching a band’s YouTube clip. You can send emails until you’re purple in the face, but you can’t replicate physically seeing art in a room. Humans need emotional attachment.
Schneider: Now young people may see Smart as a gateway to an era when people approached things with zero influence from digital culture. The purity that people connect with is powerful. It makes you want to start a studio or produce a body of work along those lines.And the studio still inspires people in Madison. Look at the economy that existed around Smart—the cab drivers, the thrift stores, the bars, the hotels, the pizza delivery guys. They were connected to the studio for 30 years. When it closed, some people thought it should be a museum. Smart has become a respected point of reference for how to approach making music. The studios in Madison now all use Smart and the sounds that came out of the space. It’s part of our identity. I think now more than ever, it’s an important time to find a space and an affinity group. Art will be just one reflection of the Trump presidency. It’ll get very honest in a way that it hasn’t been before.
Vig: If you’re doing something DIY, you have to be madly in love and totally obsessed. Art isn’t defined by monetary success but by the amount of time you put into your craft. You have to be naïve, almost stupid, and not think rationally, otherwise you’ll be daunted and you’ll realize it’s too hard to make a living so you’ll become an accountant instead. If you want to create art today, you have to dive in and not think about what payout you’ll receive long haul. It has to be something that makes you feel alive while you’re working on it. If we had hired someone who had business acumen, maybe the studio would still exist. But I don’t think that would have allowed us to have the creative space we wanted. At one point we brought in a manager—it didn’t work out. We wanted to record bands so we had to keep it loose. Steve and I didn’t make any money. After four years we paid ourselves a meager salary, but any money we made at the end of a year would pay for new gear, microphones, maintenance…
Looking at the current climate, I’d say you’re a bit crazy to open a facility. More bands want to record on their laptops at home for free. Whether indie or major label, the money has fallen through the floor for bands to go into other facilities. That being said, the technology has leveled the playing field so if you can find a dirt cheap place you can put some good gear in for not much money. The gear has got better and cheaper, and you can record unlimited tracks on your laptop for free. Keep your overheads low, look at what your bare minimum is per month to keep the doors open.
When we started Smart, we had no money and bought used gear. We’d go to garage sales, drive to small towns, go to schools and churches, bang on the door and say, “Hey, do you have any electronic gear lying around?” We’d find mics, compressors, pieces they had for PA systems they'd never used. They’d give us a box of gear for $50. We sound-proofed with egg cartons. They were ugly and not as good as acoustic foam but we got 1000 egg flats for $50. That’s a lot of sound-proofing. I spent more on the glue! Even when we remodeled, we looked very closely at expenditure. We didn’t wanna have massive loans or increase our overheads to the extent we’d price ourselves out of the market. Make smart decisions, then go out and hustle at local shows, find and talk to your friends, tell people, “Hey I just opened up a studio, come let us record you.”
Even when Nirvana took off, it was just business as usual. I got a call from [Nirvana’s manager] John Silva: “‘Nevermind’ is going up the charts!” I asked him if there was any chance it could go to No. 1. He said, “Not a chance, Butch. Michael Jackson’s No. 1.” Next week ‘Nevermind’ was No. 1. I remember walking into the studio mindblown, but as soon as I got there it was just, “This snare drum sounds like shit! What am I gonna do?” I was recording Cosmic Psychos, this insanely great Australian band who decided they were going to break Killdozer’s record for beer consumed in a week [22 cases]. Cosmic Psychos drank 23. I don’t know that I ever had a clear view of our success until a year or two later.
You don’t need to go into a state-of-the-art studio to make a great recording or get started. I’m sitting here in my home studio, which is a bedroom I’ve modified. I do love going into temples of sound in Hollywood, but I can go into any space. Nowadays you can put ideas in a computer and manipulate them like crazy. Early Smart didn't have computers or good gear. We had to figure out ways to come up with background effects. When bands wanted to do that, I was over the moon. There are all sorts of tricks I’ve learned with tape edits—cut it, flip it around, splice it back together carefully. I’d even stretch tape. You couldn't predict what was gonna happen. I’d tell a band, “I’m gonna fuck with this and it’s either gonna be cool or it’ll be gone.” And they’d go, “Go for it, man!” Sometimes I’d fail. When it worked, it was eureka! Again, it’s about winging it by the seat of your pants, and the inspiration to make great music. Tools are just one part of that. Limitations can create unique sounds, and the studio is an open canvas there.
When the world arounds us gets more complicated, art reflects. I hope more bands get socio-political. There’s been a complacency and great bands haven't been out there trying to turn the audience's head. There’s gonna be an uprising of strong statements by young bands—I hope.
This interview has been condensed and edited.