Music

Butch Vig: Production Mastermind

17:00 pm on 23 June 2016

Garbage (L-to-R: Steve Marker, Butch Vig, Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson) Photo: Joseph Cultice

With his Garbage bandmate Steve Marker, production mastermind Butch Vig set up Smart Studios in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin in 1982, a no-frills recording space that would see records cut from the likes of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Sparklehorse.

"I am not particular in terms of what kind of studio I work in," he says. "In fact, in some ways I like it when you have to struggle a bit more to come up with sounds. If the vibe is cool, it doesn't matter what the acoustics are like – you can usually find a way to make it work for you."

Now working out of Grunge Is Dead, his basement studio in Silverlake, Los Angeles, Butch continues to deliver a big sound out of small spaces. He talks to Sam Wicks about Strange Little Birds, the sixth studio album from his American-Scottish electronic rock outfit.

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MUSIC DETAILS

Artist: Garbage
Song: Empty, If I Lost You, Magnetized, Sometimes, Even Though Our Love is Doomed
Composer: Garbage
Album: Strange Little Birds
Label: Stunvolume

Artist: Nirvana
Song: In Bloom
Composer: K.Cobain
Album: Nevermind
Label: DGC

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