“Fraze” with Satch and some Chickenfooters
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC. 22, 2010
By Steve Newton
Langley-based producer, engineer, and mixer Mike Fraser has worked on a lot of records over the years—including hugely popular discs for AC/DC, Metallica, and Aerosmith—but the one artist he keeps coming back to is Bay Area guitar hero Joe Satriani.
Fraser has lent his talents to the Satriani albums Crystal Planet, Engines of Creation, Live in San Francisco, Is There Love in Space?, Super Colossal, and the new Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards. And according to Satch, who called in from a gig in Denver yesterday, it doesn’t look like the relationship will end any time soon.
“He’s an incredible human being, first of all,” said Satriani. “If we didn’t love him dearly we wouldn’t call him back. But he’s just a really cool person to be around, and that’s maybe 75 percent of making a good record. A lotta guys out there know how to turn the knobs and all that kinda stuff, but synergy happens when you’re around the right kinda person.
“I made lots of records with Mike over the years, dating back to ’96—solo records, live records, Chickenfoot records—and he’s got fantastic ears and great talent as a nurturer in the studio, and producers have to know how to do that. Sometimes they’ve gotta push and shove and sometimes they’ve gotta walk very lightly, ’cause they’re trying to manage not just one but maybe a whole handful of volatile, creative, sensitive people, who run around like chickens without heads.
“So he knows how to keep it together and keep a band focused, and he just elevates everything that I bring him—he makes it sound bettter. He makes it happen, which is his main job: make it happen, get it done, you know.”
Fraser’s role in the Satriani camp has varied over the years. On Black Swans and Super Colossal he coproduced, engineered, and mixed; on Is There Love in Space? he just mixed; and on Crystal Planet he engineered, mixed, and got the sole producer credit. According to Satriani, Fraser wears whatever hat is necessary for the job.
“It depends on how much help I think I need,” said Satch. “So there are times when we’ve hired Mike simply to mix something, other times it’ll swing the other way, where we’ll have a conversation and it’ll start with ‘Help!’, you know, ‘Help me make this happen!’. In which case, when you give a producer full credit, you’re giving them the license to direct you.
“When you coproduce you’re saying, ‘I have a strong set of ideas about where I want this to go, but I need help finishing them,’ and so then you enter into a partnership and you knock things back and forth to see where you can benefit from two different ideas—or maybe like ideas.”
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