If you’re reading this chances are you know who Andy Prickett is.
He’s COOL, that’s what. But you probably already knew that.
He’s worked on more awesome albums than you’ve probably listened too. (Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but he HAS worked on some really cool records.)
He was in The Prayer Chain, a band that helped define my teen/college years. (Andy also was involved in the violet burning, another life-changing group for me). Seeing him play on stage, with sparkling gold guitar and nails, and huger-than-life sounds coming out of a stack of speakers, was part of my development as a musician and a fan of music.
Andy knows his guitar. He knows his pedals. I was always jealous of how well he knew his sound and his tone. I have tried, Lord knows I’ve tried. But, I know I will never be The Doc of Sound like Andy is. I tend to plug in to one sound that works and create using that.
I first got to meet Andy Prickett as a fan-boy side stage looking at his guitar pedal-board during one of the shows I worked in high school. (Probably Rock of Love put on by Reality Rock in the late 80s or early 90s) I never imagined one day I’d be working with Andy in a peer-to-peer musician relationship later in my life. But that chance eventually came.
Inspired by the bands I was seeing I picked up a guitar and started writing music in high school. It wasn’t until college that I joined my first proper band as a guitarist (EEG/The Vegas Nerve). My experience with EEG then led to me branching out and forming my own band Pushstart Wagon with college friends Eric Shouse and Ben Eggehorn.
It was in Pushstart Wagon that I was first able to work with Andy in real life. He helped produce, engineer, and mix our first full-length, Squeaky Clean at The Green Room with Gene Eugene. He listened to cool bands like The Verve (Northern Soul) and My Bloody Valentine. He also loved pop music. Which blew my young mind.
His work with our band really helped us focus on our sound and taught me quite a few things about what makes a good song.
I was able to work with him again a few years later with a band I played in called The Vegas Nerve. Andy set us up with a small tape reel recording machine (1/2 inch I believe) and got us some basic levels and then left us to it. Later we were able to overdub some vocals and guitars in the same loft that Lassie Foundation was tracking (which record I can’t remember). I trusted his ears and his sensibility. *EDIT* I believe Andy probably mixed and mastered the entire final project.
Andy went on to play in, produce, record, and mix many great bands: Starflyer 59, The Lassie Foundation, The Violet Burning, One Republic, Michael Knott, Joy Electric, and many others. He still does this to this very moment. Because he’s rad.
I want to be Andy Prickett, but I know I can’t. There’s already one of him out there. And he’s awesome.
So, I work to be the most awesome version of me I can (inspired by Andy Pricket, among others).
Thanks, Andy, for being awesome and cool and introducing me to The Low End Theory. Thanks for telling me to cut out an unneeded third verse. Thanks for making so many great works of art. Thanks for shamelessly dancing to 80s music like a teenage girl. Thanks for doing what you do so well that you inspire others around you.
Sincerely,
A fan
p.s. Andy is also just a really nice guy. But not so nice he won’t tell you a part of your song needs to be cut. 🙂