Several of your most recent albums have been very successful, at least commercially speaking, do you have any albums that you consider to be your “big breaks”?
The Receiving End of Sirens was the record where I really learned how to do this. I don’t know if you’ve heard that record, but it’s just crazy, it’s like 70 minutes of completely intertwined music and there’s like 64 tracks on every song and they’re all coinciding and gelling together. That was the record where I was like, “Oh my god, I have to learn how to make all this stuff work in the mix.” And then, from then on, the challenge was to learn about vocals and I think Panic! was a success in that respect because the vocals are so important to that record. It’s all like musical steps for me – if Receiving End of Sirens was about learning how to make 20 guitars cut, then Panic was about vocals and style, and I think that was the success. And then after that, my goal is to feel like every record is a new step for me. Cute Is What We Aim For is all style, it’s all sass, and it’s not necessarily about musicality as much, or at least not technical musicality, so that was a challenge, to kind of make it cool. Boys Like Girls, like I said, I felt was a tremendous success because we went even further into the vocals and the stuff that we did on that record vocally was pretty intense. So, I’m trying to feel like everything is a new step now, but there’s definitely those pivotal ones that make me think that I became a much better producer after that record.

Over the years you’ve progressed from producing independent to major label bands, what is the biggest change you’ve noticed in that shift?
There’s way more people who care, which was kind of a shock to me. When I first started this, it was just me and the bands and it was about making all five or six of us happy. Now, there’s a label guy involved. John Janick from Fueled by Ramen and I work really, really well together because when we’re making records, we’re on the phone every single day talking about the record. Then, a lot of bands have managers and managers like to get involved too. I think the biggest difference is that there’s way more people to make happy. I like that, I like leading the team or being a part of a team, the only difficulty is that there’s that many more people who care and you have to address what they want from the record. It usually keeps me in check. Jonh’s not going to tell me anything that he doesn’t absolutely feel he needs to sell the record. Like, he’s going to call me on Cute Is What We Aim For and say, “This is the single and I need it to be this,” and he’s not going to put his foot down on a song that is a little less apparent. So, I usually trust it and I look forward to having a bit of direction.

But when you’re trying to make so many people happy, how do you know that you’re ending up with the best alternative instead of some diluted compromise?
At the end of the day, and I learned this on a couple of recent projects, I have to be pretty intent on what I see. I have to know what I want first, before I start talking to the bands or the labels, and I have to be sure. I find that at the end of the day, if I’m super adamant that the chorus has to go like this or this has to be in this key, nine times out of ten, band and label agree with me. I find that if I’m on the fence about something and somebody in the band feels strongly about it, I’ll usually go with that. It’s just different in every situation. I’ve been in situations where a label called me and was like, “This song needs to be fast,” and it’s a slow song, there’s no way it’s going to sound good fast. But what they’re really saying is that they want a fast record, so you have to interpret what people are actually looking for and then go for it. When I was in that situation I was like, “I’m not going to mess this song up, we’re going to keep it the way it is, but the band will write another fast song to add more of that element to the record.” And you can call that a compromise, but it’s not really a compromise at all, it’s more of a growth. So, it’s just about whether you can turn the compromises into great music.

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