Rising Stars: Meet Lance Powell of Santa Monica

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lance Powell

Hi Lance, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m a sound engineer originally from New Zealand, a country with a great music scene but not so much of an industry… After doing a couple of university degrees and getting what experience I could, I packed up at the end of 2011 and left for New York. I began working out of Platinum Sound Recording Studios, which was kind of a dream introduction to the music world in NYC. A week or two into the gig, one of the in-house engineers couldn’t make it in and I was asked to sub in on a session with Miguel. I didn’t know who he was at the time but we hit it off and I ended up working on the bulk of his debut album Kaleidoscope Dream, which was pretty universally acclaimed by the critics and got some Grammy nominations and a win and so my career really got it’s kickstart there. We worked largely in the pop, R&B and hip hop worlds at Platinum Sound, so I did sessions with just about everyone in that world. Akon, Macy Gray, Wu Tang Clan, Busta Rhymes, Jess Glynn, LL Cool J, Jennifer Hudson, Rita Ora, Fugees, Scott Storch, Salaam Remi, Raphael Saadiq, the list goes on and on. We were deep in the trenches doing regular 100+ hour weeks but it was exciting and hugely rewarding.

I was supposed to be in the USA for just 12 months on an exchange visa, but Platinum Sound sponsored me for a work visa so 12 months turned into three years which extended another three years and extended again and eventually the USA just became my permanent home, 12+ years later and I’m still here.

Eventually I left Platinum to go on my own journey and juggled touring work with Wilco and freelance recording/mixing, kind of the Chapter 2 of my career in the USA. Traveled the world and really found my feet as a mixer, before winding up working out of Woodshed Recording in Malibu, CA, the Chapter 3 era. Woodshed is an incredible studio, and clients included Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Leon Bridges, Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, Sabrina Carpenter and many more. I ended up becoming particularly close with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and traveled to Europe to complete the production work on their album “Ghosteen” before meeting them back in Los Angeles to mix it, which was the next stepping stone in my career really. Since then I’ve been working with Blxst, Mumford & Sons and one very famous but private R&B artist that keeps me busy that I signed an NDA for so I won’t mention here, as well as mixing for a lot of artists in my native New Zealand and also, peculiarly, China, which I love doing, in addition to all my regular US and European clients.

That brings me to today, where I have a reasonably transient lifestyle working wherever my clients need me. Tends to mostly be Los Angeles and New York but we’ll often travel to Miami, London, Paris, Berlin etc depending on the vibe we’re looking for or the people we are looking to work with. I spend a lot of time in hotels and living out of a suitcase but I really enjoy the excitement of every day being a fresh adventure and working with the most talented creatives in the world.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Has absolutely not been a smooth road! Moving all the way across the world with no financial support and no family near by really is throwing yourself in the deep end, but fortunately I managed to swim rather than sink and I have a tendency to land on my feet. I’ve had to reinvent myself a few times now with the various chapters of my career – New York then touring then California and now completely freelance – so despite things being reasonably successful nothing was ever a given, and a fe times I’ve wondered if the adventure was over. I had work visa troubles during the pandemic and was hours away from departing the country with my lease broken, belongings in storage and unsure of what the future held (pro tip for foreigners – always get a second legal opinion when it comes to work visa matters!). Like anyone in the industry I’ve had people do shady things behind my back, I’ve had projects fall through and experienced disappointments. But I try to keep taking one step forward and treat everybody with respect in the hope that it’s reciprocated, and so far there hasn’t been anything I haven’t been able to overcome.

It’s challenging to maintain friendships and romantic relationships in this industry, with the long hours, unpredictable schedules and constant travel that we do, so you need to have a good core group around you and you need to be very driven to do what people like us do and put up with the sacrifices. It helps that it’s an incredibly rewarding profession to be in.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a recording and mixing engineer that works primarily in the music world. I specialize in Pop, Hip Hop and R&B music but also work in soul, rock, reggae genres too. During recording sessions I’m knowing for keeping a level head when things get chaotic and stressful, as well as making things sound good while keeping the sessions moving and out of the way. All of this is really important when you’re in someone else’s creative environment. When I mix I’m known for paying close attention to the intention of the artist and realizing their vision, rather than stamping my own sound on everything.

When I was young I used to wonder what the recording sessions for my favourite artists were like, and how the engineers would navigate them. I would always wonder if I could ever be good enough to do what they do. Now that I find myself rubbing shoulders with some of the top artists in the world (including some of those I listened to when I was young!) I take great satisfaction when things go well and I realize that I can do what I always dreamed of doing.

Every few years I work on a bit of a landmark record for my career, Miguel’s Kaleidoscope Dream, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Ghosteen, Blxst I’ll Always Come Find You and the album I’m currently working on that I can’t discuss publicly. These projects are the achievements I’m most proud of.

My New Zealand accent is probably the thing that sets me apart from others the most!

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
There has been a huge shift in our industry, particularly over the last 5 years or so, where purist engineers are not needed so much anymore for many projects. The pop world consists of a recorded vocal over mostly programmed material, so paying a day rate (and commercial studio rate) for many artists isn’t so cost-effective any more when the typical producer can arm a track in their production software and get a vocal or acoustic guitar in there and they don’t need a specialist to get that done. With advancements in AI and production software, even having a specialist mixing engineer will become less and less necessary, as much as it pains me to say. There’s no point fighting it, us engineers need to embrace this and adapt. I’m becoming more proficient at programming, I watch producers and young artists closely to understand their perspectives and tastes and I find it much more useful to learn from them than I do learning from the dinosaurs of our industry (did I say dinosaurs? I meant industry veterans!). Gone are the days of trying to sound like Steely Dan and Dire Straits, now we have to embrace distortion and clipping and phase and intentionally break the ‘rules’ we learned 20 years ago. We’ll have to embrace the new tools in order to do this creatively too. In fact the day that I can tell an AI plugin to achieve what I hear in my head instantly rather than sift through 15 tools to get it close is a day I really look forward to!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.soundguylance.com
• Instagram: @soundguylance

Image Credits
Michelle Shiers