Three M's to Taking the Gig : Paul Moak
If you’ve been in Nashville’s Recording Studio Scene for very long, then you’ve probably met Paul Moak. If you haven’t, well then you should go meet him.
My tried-and-true method over the years has been to look at a record or any project from a three-tiered angle. The three M's, which we still haven't figured out yet. Music obviously, do I dig the music? Is this something I'm into? Money, do they have any? How are we gonna budget this record? What has become more important to me in later years is the hang, which there's no m for. But, am I gonna get along with this artist? Is this artist at a point in their career where it matches the point that I'm at in my career or am I just making another record that's gonna sit on somebody's mom's hard drive. That was mean, wasn't it? I want to line myself with people that are doing something, that can hopefully bring me more work because they're going out and being great at what they're doing.
So, the rule is if I can get two out of three of those, I'm gonna have a good time and it's gonna be a good experience. The only time I've ever broken it is because the money is there but there's no hanging or the music sucks. I've fallen for that trick a number of times. It's always a disaster. Usually what ends up happening is the music's awesome, the hang is awesome, and the money sucks, but at least you're having fun. I feel like for every one project that has a good budget, there's probably four that I'm really just kind of grinding it out and working as fast and as hard as I can, looking for the next decent budget to help bridge the gap.