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The Voices In His Head
Philly's top indie-rock producer Brian McTear meets yet another challenge: his first solo album.
-Brian Howard photographs by michael t. regan

December 19-25, 2002

cover story

Across the 'Board

Local artists dish on McTear the producer.

compiled by Patrick Rapa

Bret Tobias, singer/guitarist (The Bigger Lovers, The Diane Linkletter Experience)

I think [mine and bassist Scott Jefferson's] old group, The Diane Linkletter Experience, was one of Brian's first customers. We were all ridiculously wet behind the ears, not to mention completely loaded, and whenever someone who had a clue would stop by they'd offer advice like, "Duuuude, you can't set up your monitors so close to the tape machine or the frickin' speaker magnet'll erase yer tape."

Over the years I would stop back to record with Brian on other projects, and each time he'd have acquired some interesting new gizmo and a slew of new skills. Since I'd known him for so long, it took me longer than most people to wake up to the fact that this was no longer something he did for fun -- he was becoming a pro in every sense of the word.

Shai Halperin, singer/guitarist (The Capitol Years)

Apparently we stumbled upon Brian during his notorious "homemade vegetable soup phase." Every day he would bring us another batch of his own personal vegetable stew. He must have been recording The Capitol Years for 16 hours of the day and then going home and preparing some broth before sleeping for a couple of hours.

Jonathan Vital, guitarist (Swisher, Los Angeles, Darling Comet)

I first met Brian when I joined Swisher in 1999. He and Sara [Weaver, singer/guitarist] were housemates and I ended up moving in with them when I started dating Sara. The best memory I have of working with Brian was when he wanted Sara to record back-up vocals for his Bitter, Bitter Weeks record. Sara was really sick and we were living at her parents' house. I don't know, it was just really touching to me to be a small part of something that two of the best people I ever knew were creating. They loved working together and it was great to be a witness to it.

Joey Sweeney, singer/guitarist (The Trouble With Sweeney)

That's him on the banjo in "$500-a-Day Hall of Mirrors" [on Dear Life] and in most places where it sounds like a girl is singing. On the last day of the record, we pulled an all-nighter to finish mixing; the two of us fell asleep on the couches in the control room. At about five in the morning -- too early to take the train, too late to start drinking -- we were snapped out of slumber by what I perceived to be a parade of obese rats running wild inside the control room's drop ceiling. I screamed like a 3-year-old girl. Brian woke up, and in seconds flat, we had trapped the "rat" -- which turned out, in the end, to be a squirrel -- and Brian stood outside the door with a giant rubber mallet, ready to pulverize the poor thing. We hadn't slept in days. We stunk. We were so wired on soda and Reese's cups that we were just shy of being flat-out deranged -- but the record was done, and it was beautiful. With the rat trapped, we put on our coats, turned out the lights and walked out into the flat Manayunk dawn. That was when I knew: Brian and I were bonded in blood. Last night, those fucking squirrels woke me up again.

Andy Williams, singer/guitarist (Lefty's Deceiver)

As good as Brian's ears are for recording, he has on more than one occasion misheard lyrics as we were recording, which always leads to a good yuk. When we were recording "Ten for My Friends" on Conversations on Favored Nations, Brian once confused the lyrics "his back in knots entwined" with "his blackened nuts in twine." Ouch!

Greater than anything else he has the patience of a saint. Brian is incredibly empathetic to all of the insecurities that go along with a non-seasoned crooner giving it the ol' college try. On this most recent record he helped rig up a mic configuration that allowed me to stand resting nearly all of my body weight against a mic stand in order to steady the sound of my voice on the quieter parts. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but hell, it worked.

Diana Prescott, singer (Eltro)

There were nights when we would wrap up a session at 2 a.m. or later with plans to commence again at 10 a.m. that same day. By the time we straggled in at 10, Brian would be yelling from the top of the stairs excitedly that he already had two great mixes to show us. In other words, the man does not sleep. He values great sound much more than sleep. His dedication to sound knows no boundary.

When Brian showed me his songs, I marveled over his songwriting, but even more so over his voice. I mean, how could he stand to hear the rest of us sing for so many years?