Episode 03: Anna Laverty

Podcast Credits:

Produced and Presented by Chelsea Wilson | Editing by Chelsea Wilson and Amy Chapman | Transcript by Britt Raine

Transcript: [Chelsea]: Hi and welcome to Control, the podcast where we speak to incredibly inspiring women in the music industry who have taken control of their music and control of their careers.

I’m your host Chelsea Wilson and in this episode I’m chatting to award-winning producer Anna Laverty.

The USC Annenberg report, released in 2020, titled “Inclusion in the Recording Studio”, revealed the ratio of male to female producers across 500 popular songs was 37 to 1 – which indicates that only 2.6% of producers identify as female. The report listed the main barriers to career success for women in studios include objectification and stereotyping.

So defying the odds - Anna Laverty has forged her own career path as a producer, engineer and writer. She’s worked internationally with artists from Lady Gaga, Florence and the Machine to Nick Cave and Courtney Barnett, developing her own sound and studio techniques and her own philosophy on making records.

Anna joined me in our digital podcast studio during lockdown to talk about tech education, songwriting and so much more. So here’s my conversation with Award winning producer Anna Laverty.

[Chelsea]: Anna Laverty welcome to the control podcast.

[Anna]: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Chelsea]: I wanted to say, firstly, congratulations on your nomination for the producer of the year award for Music Victoria. I hope that's put a bit of a spring in your step during this insane time.

[Anna]: Yeah, it really has. I mean, I, you know, obviously it was a new category this year. And I, for years, I really wanted there to be a category that recognized producers because they just contribute so much to this crazy industry of ours, and there's not, there's really not a lot of acknowledgement anywhere for, for that. So it's really nice to have the category. Of course, it's really nice to be nominated always. And not only that, just to kind of see who else is making great records as well. You know? It's cool.

[Chelsea]: Yeh do you think there's a reason why there isn't more awards of that nature is because people are a little bit unsure of what producers do? There's just a little bit of mystery around it?

[Anna]: Um, maybe. And also I think, you know, the, the definition of a producer is changing a lot as well, has been changing for the last, however many years, because now a lot of producers are also, um, musicians who produce their own music. I think there was a period in the UK, like where they have the, you know, the music producer awards there, and they just introduced new categories this year, which is like writer/producer - so, because the industry like job descriptions is changing so much so where it used to be you'd be a producer only - now, especially in Australia, you're a producer engineer, mixer, writer, you know, you're all the things because, because of a lot of things, not least, you know, budget shrinking, and so one person having to wear a lot of caps, but it's fine. It's it is what it is. It's just in flux and we're just trying to chase it.

[Chelsea]: I wanted to go back to the beginning of your career. I read that you really got interested and excited about the idea of working in audio production as a teenager, going through records, reading the credits on the back of records and that you did some work experience during high school in studios, which must've been amazing - I wish I could have done that. I wanted to ask you if you remember your very first recording session and what that felt like and, and what the experience was like.

[Anna]: Yeah, for sure. So, um, bearing in mind, I'm a little bit older - so we did like music in schools back then was like, everyone, either played like the trombone or the flute or something, you know, extremely un-rock and roll. And that was my experience of music. So I actually dropped out of music and I didn't do it in high school, um, for the last couple of years, which is the most kind of important years, but I did drama. And so in my drama class, I was a terrible actor. I never wanted to act, but I basically I ran the lighting and the sound.

So I did all the technical stuff for those productions that we had at high school. And from there, my music teacher said – uh sorry - my drama teacher said,” uh, you know, there's this college” and because I was in WA “there's a college here called the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. You should go and check out their courses and they've got some amazing technical courses”. And so I went and I did sound. When I went to the open day, the guy, the guy that was running it was like, “I'm just going to be honest with you - you're not going to get in next year because, um, we never take on, we almost never take on high school graduates because we like people to go and have a little bit of life experience and, and part of the application is based on you having experience”. And it's like a percentage of the application is based on what experience you have. And so I was like, okay, cool. So I went in year 10, like two years before the end of school to the open day. And I got told that. And so then for every school holidays after then I went and volunteered in a studio.

That's how I got that experience up in my application and I got in straight out at school. And when I got there, I was 17 and everyone else in the course was quite a lot older than me and I was also the only girl. And so it was just very overwhelming. [laughs] Yeah.

[Chelsea]: And what was that first kind of work experience gig like?

[Anna]: It was really cool. So I went and worked - my dad is an electrician and he worked, um, in East Perth and next door to his, the business where he worked, was this like brick building in the middle of a car park and on the front it said Hampton Sound Studio. My dad was like, “I’ve got a recording studio next door to my work, I'm going to go and ask them if, um, you know, you can come and do work experience”.

And I was like, “Oh my God Dad that’s embarrassing”, and you know, he went and knocked on the door and it was just this guy and he was like, “yeah, sure”. She can come and do work experience. So I like went into a studio, did all the stuff, learnt how to roll cables and, you know, make tea and all the glamorous stuff that you do when you're an intern in a studio.

And, um, it was truly, truly amazing, like listening to the same thing over and over and over again. And I was, I was sold. That was me. That's all I wanted to do.

[Chelsea]: Do you remember what kind of gear he used? Was he using dat or tape?

[Anna]: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was DAT. And ADAT. And it was, you know, it would have been in like 2000, 99, something like that. So it was a long time ago. And honestly, I can't even really remember what he used because I didn't know anything about audio at that stage. And so, I had a lot to learn. But I remember there was another girl there that was, I think she was doing work experience as well at the same time. And I remember she said to me, you know, he said to both of us, “What kind of music are you into?”

And I was like, “Oh, I really love Powderfinger”. You know? And she was like, “Oh, my favorite artists is Cat Power. And I was like, “Oh yeah, I love Cat Power too”. And I'd never heard of Cat power. So I went home and like, not Googled, but looked up Cat Power and - that then sent me on this journey of music that I had never heard before, and it was so, so good and just made me want to do it even more and everywhere I went, I would meet people and they would tell me what kind of music they were into, and, that would send me off on another spiral of listening to different records and it just never ended. Just, that time, that formative time where you first get into music is so cool.

[Chelsea]: In terms of your experience at WAPA and being one of the few women or the only woman doing that program, did it ever kind of knock your belief in yourself that you could actually achieve the goal of becoming a producer?

[Anna]: No. There was, there was actually another couple of women. One was in the year above and she was amazing and I was Haley and I'm pretty sure she went on to do theater sound. Then there was another girl in my year, but she was into different stuff to me anyway, but, it kind of didn't, and I don't know why that is. I just had really good experiences with men, in the industry and they were very, well, not, not even welcoming because they are not the gatekeepers. I just, I never felt like I was less than - even throughout my career when I did experience, um, some sexism and some sexist comments or like, uh, you know, systemic sexism. I kind of just got pissed off about it and tried to confront it rather than be put off by it or upset by it.

[Chelsea]: I did some audio engineering study when I did my undergrad, I did the bachelor of popular music at the Queensland Conservatorium. So you went in as an artist, but you had to also learn producing and engineering and you had to produce other people's tracks and mix other people's tracks and that kind of thing. But I remember my first class with the audio engineering teacher in the third grade. He started talking about compression and he started talking about this and that. And then he just looked at me and said, “Don't worry. I'll make sure I spend some special time, just one-on-one with you because I know the girls really struggle.”

[Anna]: All I can say is that women, um, generally have to work harder, prove themselves more, be, you know, more accommodating - all those things they have to just be better. They have to be better than everyone else around them to even be considered in the same league. And I've seen that over many years, multiple times.

[Chelsea]:  I really wanted to chat to you also about your time in London, you know, you really paid your dues working in studios in London, and you worked with, uh, you know, quite a range of different producers and artists. What do you think some of the main differences in the approaches of some of the producers you worked with, what did you learn from them?

[Anna]: So in the UK, there was usually always, well, there was always, always a producer and then a separate engineer, different person who was an engineer. And then I would be there as like an assistant engineer, just sort of learning it all and not least learning that relationship between the producer and the engineer, which of course has helped me because I'm now both [laughs].

Every producer is really different in the way that they approach things. Okay. So I worked with a guy called Ben Hillier, who was an amazing producer and he worked with Blur and a few other amazing bands. But when I was working with him, we did a Depeche mode record and a few other records. And - so one main takeaway from that for me was that he was a percussion player. He had studied percussion at university. And so every record had these really complex, thought out, incredibly supportive percussive parts in them, that he had written. And that was just, that was such a trademark of his, and I've never worked with anyone since who was that good at doing that in songs.

And so I guess I kind of took a lot away from that in like, don't just at the end of the day, be like all let's just chuck some Tambo on a song because really percussion can be so much more than that in a song and it can change it, change it. It's not just an end thought. It's actually part of the composition.

So that was something I took away from him. And then like, I worked with Paul Epworth a lot. Um, we did a Florence and the machine album, and a few more. And he, you know, during that session, I remember Florence was really, she was very young and she was very self-conscious, especially about how loud her voice was - she thought that was a bad thing. And so she was really nervous about singing in front of, so bear in mind, there's like a producer and engineer and then me in the room. So she's singing in front of three people, she's like an 18 year old, young girl who's self-conscious. And so Paul, what Paul would do was turn out all the lights, bring in a projector and turn the room into an underwater scene - so that she can stand there and sing and not see anyone. All she can see is like whales floating around, you know, like he just made the singer so comfortable in that environment that they were able to perform at their best. And that's something I've taken away from working with him. So with every person you work with, you just pick up little things. And then, you know, after fricking 10 years of being a, um, assistant engineer, you learn a few things, you know.

[Chelsea]: What do you think you learned about yourself from your time in London?

[Anna]: I'm a quick learner. So, but I never, I never lie. So if I genuinely don't get something it's so much better to ask them to show you again, rather than pretend you know how to do something and then break someone's really expensive gear. That's definitely something I learned from watching other people - also that I cannot and should not lift road cases on my own.

I was working with a band called Travis and they, they came in off tour and throw it in a huge, huge, uh, all their touring road cases. And, um, the, the producer said to me, “Are you cool to set up the drum kit so that in the morning when we come in, you know, the drums will all be ready to go?”. And I was like,” Yeah, of course, no problem”. So like, I didn't realize that the touring guys were going to come in and just leave everything stacked on top of each other in big road cases. And so I had to like lift them down and get the drums out to set up, to mic it up. I lifted it down on my own and I did it and I was all good.

But then that, after that session, when I was walking to the bus stop to the night bus, I thought I was having a heart attack and I like collapsed on the floor in the middle of Southeast London. And of course, no one came and helped me. And so I called, called an ambulance. I was like, “I think I'm having a heart attack”. And they were like, “How old are you?” and I said, “Oh, 23”. And they were like, “You're definitely not having a heart attack. It sounds like -” they were like, “Have you lifted anything like that?” And I was like, “Yeah”, they said, “Oh, it sounds like you've torn a muscle in your rib cage”. And I had, I tore my Plavia. And so, and it still plays up sometimes. Like when I lift heavy things, I feel it like, start to hurt again. So don't lift heavy things.

[Chelsea]: [laughs] Well, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'd love your determination that you're like “I'm setting this drum kit up. Nothing's going to stop me!” [laughs].

[Anna]: It really shows what my focus and my determination was like in those early days, I was like, I couldn't call someone to come and help me because again, like I was the only girl and I was like, I don't want to be seen as the person who can't lift a road case, but the fact of the matter is no one can lift over a case on their own like off the top of some huge stack of stuff - and neither should you, I mean, if it falls on you, you'll die. And so I guess it's just gaining confidence as you get older, that things actually genuinely, genuinely don't [BH4] have to be gendered. It's just dangerous.

[Chelsea]: I wanted to ask you, what did it feel like when you finally, for the first time saw your name on the back of a record?

[Anna]: I look, I don't know if it was the first one, but one that really, really got me was, um, I did a block party, a few block party sessions for that album..that was really big. I can't remember what it's called, but I had previously done work experience at a record label called Cooking Vinyl in London. And I had got to meet a few people through that in other labels. And I'd become friends with this guy called Ben Wildman, who was really lovely and he ran this cool little record label and - anyway, really long story short - when I did the block party record, he was one of the A&R’s on it for his record label. And he came to the studio. He's like, “Oh my God Anna, I'm so happy to see work in the studio. This is really great”. So he knew I'd been working on the, um, session and then anyway, never saw him, you know, again. And then the record came out and he had made it his business to make sure that I'd been credited because often assistants get forgotten, especially on those really big records. And he sent me, dropped me an email and he was just like, “Hey”, I said, “Oh my God, thank you so much for the credit on the record”. And he's like, “Oh yeah, no worries, you know, I made sure that that happened” cause he'd seen how hard I'd been working on it. And, that was a really big one for me. And that that was probably one of the first big records that I had my name on. My husband was working at HMV on Oxford street at the time. And so they got the record in and he, and he like got it out of the box and my name was on there. And that was, that was pretty cool.

[Chelsea]: Was that I bring out the Moët kind of night?

[Anna]: No, I was making six pounds an hour [both laugh].

[Chelsea]: Okay. Not quite, not quite Moët. So when did you decide you wanted to take the helm as producer?

[Anna]: Yeah, so that came much later. I, it was really funny because I, um, I've been doing it for a really long time. Really, really, really, really long time - really paid my dues. And there was a few things that happened all at once.

One was I was working on, I was working a little red record, and Damo from liberation came in to see how everyone was going, you know. We had a really amazing, lovely chat actually just one day at the kitchen table. And he was like,” So what, what's your story? Where have you come from?” And I started telling him what I'd done. And he was just like, “Oh my god, why, why are you an assistant engineer? Like, why aren't you making your own records?”

And he just said some really lovely things to me like, “Oh, you should be, you know, you should be doing your own sessions and stuff” and that was really cool. I've been working with Steven Schram a lot - who's another producer. And he really said to me, one day, “I'm not booking you as an assistant anymore. You need to go out and get your own gigs”.

Because I was just at that point where I had, I was running sessions, I was doing everything and I was still the assistant engineer. And so a few people's - a few of my kind of mentors or older colleagues side kind of said to me, like, “It’s really time for you to go and get your own gigs”. And so I really needed that kick up the ass to do that.

And then there was, you know, there was also that thing where at that time there was a few kids coming out of college, like they'd gone and done sort of like an, 18 month course at SAE or something like that and were coming out and graduating and calling themselves producers. And I was like, “Hey, hold up, you know, back of the line” kind of thing. But then I sorta realized that was on me. It was my own fault that I wasn't being called a producer because I wasn't calling myself it. And then also around about the same time Cath Haridy who's my manager basically came into the studio one day and was like, “Oh, I want to take you out for coffee. Let's go and have a chat about your career”. And I was like, “Oh shit. I think I need to start calling myself a producer”. You know, if someone wants to represent me as a producer, I should probably start calling myself that.

[Chelsea]: So, how do you go about as a producer choosing what projects you want to work on? I mean, there's so much responsibility in being a producer. You know, you're really, you're interpreting compositions for a recorded context. You're creating this kind of sonic world for the album in terms of how it sits with textures. You know, I kind of think of it as this sonic portrait of compositions, you know? People come to you “I want you to record my album” cause they want the Anna Laverty sound and you kind of think, “Well, those songs don't fit my sound. So no”? Or do you go about creating this new sound for each artist you work with?

A: That's a really good question. No, I, I definitely would never let me wanting to put imprint on a record affect what I work on. The only thing I really - cause I actually didn't realize I had like a sound. I think that kind of only really came about after I'd done, you know, a bunch of records in the same genre. And they did all have a kind of feel about them, but I also do other stuff like, I guess what I'm talking about, it's like that Melbourne kind of post-punk scene, you know, like the Pepe temples and the Shepperton airplanes and, and that kind of vibe, that's definitely a certain feel.

Um, but then I also do, like, I do jazz things and folk things and all that, and that doesn't have like a, a stamp that sounds the same. I guess how I find work is I have a really, wide taste in music. I like all different types of music. And I guess it's just about if I like it and I want to do it. Usually um, you’re kinda shooting yourself in the foot if you take on a project where you don't, if you don't like the music, because you're not going to get it, you're not going to understand it, you know, you're not gonna be able to help.

[Chelsea]: I think it's important, you know, as an artist to have that integrity that, you know, if you feel that you can't add to it or, you know, shape it. Cause I guess as a producer, you want to nurture these songs so they can be the best possible recorded versions.

[Anna]: I mean, you don't want your name on something that's not that you're not proud of. Yeah. I mean, it did take a while to say no to learn how to say no. That's probably something you get burnt on as well, you know, a couple of times, and then you sort of never do it again.

And also like, I'm kind of not, this has changed over the years cause I've, you know, I've got other priorities in my life now as well, where like, I don't want to go and work on something long hours, long days, not, not a huge amount of money and be like away from my family if I'm not enjoying it. Yeah - If you're not in love with the project. So that's a, that's a big part of it too.

[Chelsea]: Can we talk a little bit about working with artists? So you know, how you, how you go about making that relationship if it's an artist you haven't worked with before and making them feel comfortable. Yeah, because we spent so much time in the studio making records is really, really hard. [laughs] It's so hard. So many hours. It's really stressful. You're in a small, contained environment with this small group of people for long, long hours. Do you do the Florence and the Machine underwater scene? I love that story.

[Anna]: Sometimes! Yeah, sometimes if, if that calls for, I pulled out all the tricks, you know, if I have to, like, um, I've said - I've done things where I've like set a singer up in a little tiny cupboard on the side of the studio, because I know they're not going to want me sitting there looking at them. And it's, it's really awkward for them. They can't turn around to me and be like, “Hey, can you not look at me while I'm recording vocals?” But I just have a kind of, just have a sense about that stuff. Like, um, you know, I can tell when people are feeling really awkward. And so I'll kind of acknowledge that and well, not even, not, not verbally acknowledge it, but just within myself, acknowledge it and kind of try to work out how we can get around that barrier because literally all a producer's job is, is, something going wrong and you fixing it. And just till you finished a record, that's what it is. That's what being a producer is. Um, there you go. And ha, and being a psychologist, that's it.

[Chelsea]: So bringing out the best in the artists let's - can we talk about that kind of emotional, emotional part of it? Because I think what you're sort of talking about, if I may, is just that emotional intelligence around, you know, how you can sensitively guide, coax, make the artists feel comfortable so they can bring out that most intimate part of themselves, which is their story through their own song. Have you had any moments where there's been a kind of emotional, real moment for that artist and you've had to kind of support them? How do you manage that?

[Anna]: Every gig yeah, that happens. And, um, it also goes the other way too. And, um, so yes, people are very vulnerable and very, and can feel overwhelmed, and have like breakdowns and stuff, but actually sometimes it goes the other way, and this is all, it's the same thing. When people are overwhelmed, uncomfortable, vulnerable, some people react and they cry. Some people react and they put their guard up and they're very bravado and they become combative and you have to manage those egos as well. It's people, people management, emotion management, and, and that's a huge part of it. And honestly, that's the kind of stuff that I was so grateful that I had done years and years and years of being an assistant engineer, because I had seen people manage that and I'd really taken away some tricks on how to deal with those things, you know, how to deal with band dynamics, and then also like, um, just egos and also, you know, there's also the actual, very serious thing of like people who are really struggling mentally with things and it's coming out in their music and they’re not - they need support in that way.

[Chelsea]: I'm really glad that there's more conversations happening at the moment in the music industry, around mental health for artists and industry workers. We love, you know, I mean the general public, you know, more broadly, you know, love this kind of 27-year-old, sex, drugs, rock and roll, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, people that are pouring their heart and soul into these records and this raw nurse we're so attracted to. And it's exciting and it makes for great music, but it's like, well, clearly, these people were suffering, you know, with so many other things. And they had record producers, they had touring managers, they had booking agents, all these people that just kept booking them work, even though they were clearly in a lot of pain. So I'm really glad those conversations are happening more and more, but yeah, they don't teach mental health or interpersonal issues as part of an audio engineering course that I know of.

[Anna]: I take it really seriously, and I'm really happy to see that Support Act is there and available to people. Unfortunately, you know, when people are in that state, they often don't reach out for help and so I think there needs to be, you know, other ways of accessing that help, rather than just relying on someone to call up. You know, I think we need to support each other.

Moving onto a bit of a different topic - I wanted to ask you a little bit about your ears. I think listening abilities are kind of a real spectrum. When you listen to songs, are you hyper-aware of too much compression there? I'm hearing the EQ there, you know, or, or can you switch that off and enjoy the song?

[Anna]: Yeah, yes. I can switch it off and enjoy the song. And I'm so grateful that I can, because like I said before, I really love music and I listen to a lot of music. So if I, if I couldn't enjoy it anymore and it was all just business, I think that would be a real shame because music's been the biggest thing in my whole life ever, you know?  So, love live music. I can go to a gig and get totally immersed in it. And even if something sounds rubbish like a certain thing or, or, you know, you can't hear the backing vocals because, you know, they either, they haven't turned them up or they can't get them over the band or whatever. Um, I can still enjoy that for what it is and I'm really grateful for that. In terms of recorded music, yeah. And it's really funny because like, when I've done a record, I tend to listen to it a lot after. So like, I won't listen to it until it comes out pretty much. And then it comes out and I'll just play it on Spotify over and over and over again. And sometimes I'll will, I will have forgotten, like how we got sound or a tone, and I'll be like, “Oh, that sounds really cool. I wonder what that is”. And so it's like, I was there. I did it. I made it. But I could - I can't, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, you can listen to an album and there'll be all these cool, new, different elements or guitar tones, or different keyboard parts or whatever.

And you just have to enjoy what they do in the song. You don't have to know how everything works and that's part of the mystery. And the beauty of music is, you know, you have to feel it music isn't about dissecting. It. It's about feeling it.

[Chelsea]: I love that. Well for musicians, how do you think we can improve our hearing and our kind of broader knowledge of recording concepts so we can better work with producers.

[Anna]: Okay a really good way of communicating with producers, a really good way of communicating with producers is - when you, so I do a lot of pre-production. And so before we do a project, we'll get into a room together. So say we were going to make a record together and you were going to send me your demos, which is like your iPhone recording of you and your bedroom playing guitar or piano and singing. And you probably want the lyrics just so I can have a look and see if there's anything that can be improved on. And the other thing I will always ask for is references. So I want you to send me a song that you love the drum sound in. Right? And I want you to send me a song that you love the vocals in. And so, because even if you know the language, so even if you say like, “I really love, um, you know, the reverb on this vocal”, right. Or “I really love how this, um, this snare is just really driving”. That could mean something completely different to you, to what it means to me. So then we get in the studio and I'm trying to make the drum sound driving to what I think driving is. And I'm like, I've got it. I'm happy. And then at the end you are like, “I just really don't like the snare sound. This is not what I was going for at all”, but if you can give me a song, I can interpret that, I can recreate that. I should say.  Me creating a sound on your, your dialogue is probably not - It's a slippery slope, you know.

[Chelsea]: It's so easy to keep working on a record, I think. You know, more time than, you know, I guess in the fifties, we're not restricted by tape or this whole idea that you've got to do an album in one day. So it's so easy to kind of keep adding, keep editing. How do you know when it's time to stop? And how do you have that conversation with artists?

[Anna]:  Yeah, there's a pretty famous saying in the producer world that says, um, “A record is never finished - you just stop working on it”, you know, and I guess part of a producer's job is having a goal. And once you've met that goal that you stop and start working on it because you've finished, you've done what you set out to do, but a big hint in that area also is to have a plan, have an idea of what you're trying to get to, because if you just sit down and go, “I'm just gonna, um, start with drums, then I'll put bass on it, then I'll put guitar on it, then I'll sing on it. Then I'll be really cool with some horns here”. And then you just, you just keep going, you just keep, keep going and you over cook it, you know?

So if before you even start, you have an idea of what you want to sound like - based on, you know, references and all that kind of stuff. Got a goal. You work towards that goal. And then once you hit it, you can stop.

[Chelsea]: What do you think makes a great song?

[Anna]: Oh a good song. If there was a strategy, then everyone would be, computers would be making songs.

[Chelsea]: [laughs] I think they already are. Aren't they?

[Anna]: Well, yeah but they are, yeh, yeh they absolutely are already making songs like didn't want just win the award for the Eurovision song, a computer made a song. Anyway, a good song is like emotions and math.

[Chelsea]: So you, I know you're a songwriter as well as a producer, as well as engineer – there’s many strings to the bow. How are you going at the moment in terms of your creativity within the kind of COVID environment? Have you been writing? Do you feel like writing?

[Anna]: Yeah. Yeah. I have been actually, and it's really funny because normally I, normally, I absolutely do not ever have time to sit down and do writing sessions unless they're like scheduled in, put in the diary and I've got like two hours to sit down and do a writing session with someone, but since this has happened, I kind of I've felt really creative, um, and I’ve, really enjoyed writing. And actually, like I attended a, um, online, so one of my like favorite songwriters in America, Laura Viers she, she started doing, online songwriting workshops, but they're in American times, so I had to get up at like three o'clock in the morning and do it, but it was with maybe like six other people and they were all American actually.

I asked a question at the end, which was like, how do you find people, um, who are committed? Cause with songwriting, the thing is there's no upfront like payments. It’s just based on them wanting to do it. And it's really hard. Cause if you commit all this time to like doing a co-write and then you're not finished the song, and then they're like, “Oh, I don't really want to do it anymore”. Or like, “I'm going on tour and I can't finish it”. It's like, it's really hard to find someone who can commit to finishing a song with you because there's an investment in time, which, you know, time is money for, for people like me. You know, I'm trying, if I could be mixing, you know, where I get an hourly rate so that, that's kind of what I'm trying to say.

So anyway, one of the girls who was on that thing from LA, she contacted me and she's like, hey, I'll write a song with you. Like, especially during COVID when I can't play any gigs or do anything. So we've been writing heaps together and that's been really cool and it's all on like, um, you know, um, online virtual stuff and we've got like Google docs going and it's just, it's been really inspiring.

And I've had like, actually APRA sent me out with like a three to one session. I did been riding with someone through that. I've been loving it. I've been really enjoying it and it's really, it's tricky cause you know, I'm not a good player at all. So I, um, I'm really relying on the other person to play the song and I'm just trying to, you know, work on lyrics and structure and all that kind of stuff, but I've loved it. I've actually, I've loved having the time to do it.

[Chelsea]: in terms of kind of moving forward with. You know, in light of COVID and so on. Um, has it made you kind of think a bit more broadly about the music industry and you know, is there any changes you'd like to see in the industry?

[Anna]: Oh my God. Where do I start? I'm absolutely astounded at how we are regarded by the government and by, you know, the prime ministers, um, kind of list of priorities. I cannot believe we were left behind the way that we were actually gets me really emotional because I just, I think there's so many people out there - people in this industry work harder than people in a lot of other industries, and I know that firsthand and they do it for life, you know, and they make really not a lot of money. And then when there's a crisis and our industry is the first one to be shut down, there's no support. I just find that… we pay taxes as well. You know, I would really like people to remember that the music industry is an industry of business. It's, we're not all sitting here around a campfire singing songs and having a great time. This is actually a business. And so that that has really driven me to, to, to make change in our industry in that way. How I do that. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm working on it, but then it's also, it's also been really inspiring.

Like, you know, within a couple of weeks of us all being completely dead - industry being completely decimated - things like it's like after a fire, you know, you start getting little shoots of green grass come through again. And it's like, we will always come back. We'll always regenerate because we have to do this. This is in our DNA to be musicians and producers and music workers. We love it. That's why we’ll always do it.

[Chelsea]: How do you think the music industry can better support producers and engineers? Because I feel like, especially in this time, production staff have been really kind of left, you know, the artists kind of takes so much of that high profile media space. Do we need to make some cultural changes? So that in terms of, you know, what support is out there for producers in the first place is there?

[Anna]: I feel so much for the other producers, engineers, live engineers. I just. Oh, my heart breaks for live engineers at the moment, touring engineers who have been on the road for 10 years and all of a sudden, they're like sitting in their flat worrying, what the hell hit them? Um, I just, um, let's just put it this way. The way that this went down will never happen again. I think we will mobilize and things are going to change.

[Chelsea]: I hope so. I feel positive that there's a lot of conversations happening. It's just keeping that momentum going.

[Anna]: Like I really noticed sort of with all the other states. Um, and that's not to say that they haven't been affected cause I know that they have, but, um, I really noticed very quickly that people sort of forgot about the way that things went down. It was almost like, you know, it's almost like Lord of the Flies where like, s**t started going bad and immediately people started turning on each other and being like, um, all this camaraderie that we're been led to believe. Like we would all be looked after and no man left behind and all that stuff. It actually just turned out to be absolute rubbish and that people were just going to look after themselves and their own industries. Um, and, like I for will never forget that. And I think it'll change the way that I set, like structure my, my business and, um, the way that I protect myself, I just think that stuff's going to change.

[Chelsea]: I really wanted to say, you know, a huge thank you to you in terms of all your work that you do talking about your work as a producer and being so generous and sharing your experiences through mentoring and your work with APRA and the different sessions that you've done, because that saying you can't be what you can't see. I didn't see any female audio engineers, you know, when I was studying. And even though I was in a class studying it, it always felt to me like recording studios were places for men. Not having any kind of role models in that space, but it's not your responsibility to be the flag waver representing every female in audio production. And it must get so tiresome and just actually fucking boring to answer questions on what's it like being a woman producer, which is why I'm much more interested in actually talking to you about your approach to making records, because that's actually what you do. But I did want to ask you if there's any advice that you have for, you know, a 14, 15-year-old that might be listening to this podcast, or actually a woman of any age, it doesn't really matter who wants to get involved in production?

[Anna]: Yeah. Look, the fact of the matter is, it's a really hard industry. If it was easy, there'd be a lot of people that would do it because it's such a cool job. Um, so it is, it is hard, but if you're determined and if you really want to do it, you'll find a way - you really will find a way and you'll create a job for yourself within this industry and it'll happen.

And you know, I do - thanks for saying that as well. Cause I do, I do feel a pretty, not so much. At the moment, but definitely five years ago, I felt a real responsibility to do guest lectures at colleges, even though like, you know, I paid absolutely nothing for doing it. I just wanted to, like, I just wanted to walk in there and not have the one girl in the class feel like they were on the second tier again, I sorta wanted to lift them up a little bit. And I know that I did that a few times and that's, that's why, that's why I did it. It's fine. I don't mind talking about it, but I don't always say what people want me to say, which is, you know, I've had a really bad experience that it was very sexist. Cause it actually wasn't. I actually had a really good experience, um, at any time, you know, as I said before, any time I did come up against it, I just sort of challenged it, but I know that not everyone has that personality type and that's what I'm doing it for, I'm doing it for the people who don't want to confront it and don't, and shouldn't have to, they should be able to go to their place of work and not deal with this shit for like 100%.

Um, and so now there's just so many younger women who are coming up who are extremely empowered. Um, and I'm so, so happy that that's the case, you know,

[Chelsea]: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it.

[Anna]: Thanks for having me!

[Chelsea outro]: That was my chat with Anna Laverty. Please check out the show notes for Anna’s discography and some other resources and tech including the USC report I mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

Please rate, subscribe and review the Control podcast and check out our other episodes.

You’ve been listening to Control. This episode was produced by me, Chelsea Wilson and edited by Amy Chapman with support from Melbourne’s City Response CIVOD Recovery Grants. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Kulin nations with respects paid to elders past, present and emerging. Until next time, Chelsea Wilson signing off.