“Most people don’t understand what I do for a living, but the role of producer is very similar to the role of director on a film.”
Legendary producer Bob Erzin explained what a producer’s job actually entails, recalling how he transformed “Beth” by KISS from a “screw-you” type of song to a vulnerable ballad.
There have been many cases where albums lived or died by their productions, and most fans will know of at least one case where an otherwise good album got mauled somewhere during the production process. And yet, the technicals are but one part of music production, as Bob Ezrin, legendary producer behind Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, explained during a recent interview on CBC.
Ezrin, whose professional credentials also include “Destroyer” by KISS, Alice Cooper‘s “School’s Out”, Peter Gabriel‘s 1977 solo debut and many more, noted how there’s a lot of people skills involved in being a producer, as it is his job to bring out the best in a group of people who might not be the easiest to deal with (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):
“Most people don’t understand what I do for a living, but the role of producer is very similar to the role of director on a film. You’re dealing with extremely talented, often very high-strung or complicated people, and you’re trying to get the best performance out of them you possibly can, on every level, in terms of their writing, playing, singing, whatever.”
“So you have to deal with them as humans, as personalities. So there’s a component of like a psychologist to the role, and a confessor, protector, and all of that had to happen.”
