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Kira Roessler – Bass Player, Roadie, Fan, Academy Award Winner

protools selfieKira Roessler might not view herself as a groundbreaker and even downplays the fact that she has been paving the way for women in male-dominated fields for most of her adult life. She is a bass player, singer, and songwriter and is best known for her work with Black Flag and Dos. During the period that she was the bass player for Black Flag, she was also attending UCLA and majoring in Economics and Engineering. She has since gone on to become an Emmy Award-winning dialogue editor and part of an Oscar-winning team.

Kira was born in Connecticut and started taking classical piano lessons at six years old. Her older brother Paul also took lessons, and being three years older than Kira was better. Kira, who is competitive, became frustrated and quit.

When Kira was 14, her brother’s progressive rock band lost their bass player, and Kira was determined to replace him. She was able to borrow a bass and practiced 6-10 hours a day (six on school days and ten on weekends). She even kept a log. She was never good enough, but when she was 15, Paul discovered punk rock through friends of his who were in a band called The Germs. So she followed Paul into the vortex.

Kira and her brother moved into a house with a garage converted into a rehearsal space. They jammed with people and started their own punk rock band. They went to gigs and met other people who played. Kira’s first gig was at age 16 at the Whisky A Go-Go.  By the time Kira joined Black Flag in 1983 (replacing founding member Chuck Dukowski), she had played in several bands in Los Angeles.  a838454c16c89845b6b1870c65cfba9c

When Kira joined Black Flag, she had already completed three years of her BS degree at UCLA. She informed the band that she needed to finish, but that she would take quarters off school to tour. It took her two years to complete her last year at UCLA because Black Flag did four US tours and one European tour in ’84 and ’85. It was madness. Kira would literally get dropped off from the tour at UCLA for classes. It seemed like every time the band was recording; she was studying for midterms or finals. So when she would drop to the floor exhausted from playing, she would get the books out.

As with many musicians on the road, Kira faced some difficulties. The hardest part about the touring for her was her right hand. She suffered an injury a week into joining Black Flag that never really healed. When the gigs were over, you could find her backstage with her hand in an ice bucket. She never let the injury stop her, but it certainly made her grumpy at times. The second hardest part of touring for Kira was the feeling that life is going on without you back home and the lack of stability. Relationships of any sort were affected, and there was no ‘home’ when she got back. She concludes this is why she’s a relative “homebody” now.

13f14519ef432f736a9dbf7769fe1638Kira’s tenure and life on the road with Black Flag ended with the 1985 tour. With only two gigs left on the tour, she called home and found out that a tour had been scheduled in the fall concurrently when she was to be attending UCLA to complete her degree. She knew at that point that she was going to be asked to leave. When the band returned home, she was indeed asked to leave.

Kira was featured on five of Black Flag’s studio albums. She left the band at the conclusion of In My Head Tour and graduated from UCLA in 1986. After Black Flag, she went on to form the two-bass duo Dos with Mike Watt, whom she was married to from ‘87 – ‘92. She contributed songs to the Minutemen’s final album and now works as a dialog editor, recently being part of an Oscar-winning sound editing team for work on Mad Max: Fury Road.Dos (1)

Kira credits include several films and projects: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), and The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009). She won an Emmy for her work on John Adams episode “Don’t Tread on Me” as well as one for an episode of Game of Thrones during Season Two. She has been featured in the documentaries We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen and American Hardcore.

 

 

The following Q&A was conducted by Greg Cameron. He is the former drummer of a few bands on Black Flag’s label SST Records – SWA, October Faction, and Chemical People. He is a former tour-mate of Kira’s during her time with Black Flag.  Currently, he is the house sound engineer for Miner’s Foundry Cultural Center in Nevada City, California as well as a QA engineer for video technology company AJA Video Systems, Inc. in Grass Valley, California. Greg is also a SoundGirls.Org Member and Supporter.

What field of engineering were you studying at UCLA? Did it have any bearing on your current field?

My major was called Economics/System Science. Basically, half economics and half computer studies. After college and being booted from Black Flag I needed to get a job, and I went into a computer job at Yale. After 11 years of computers, I met someone who was in post-production sound. It seemed the perfect marriage of my music and my computer background. In retrospect, the confidence I have in computer software is probably the only asset from my education and computer career.

Can you discuss what led you to post-production and dialog editing? Was it something you had aspired to do or was it something that you “fell into?”

Oh – I guess I kind of answered that. It was a fluke that my brother was writing music for this student film that this sound guy was doing post sound on. They asked me to come in and lay down a bass guitar track. He was using ProTools (very early days for digital sound editing by the way), and I was interested in the process for sure. I stayed in touch with him and eventually, ended up working for him.

What type of training did you receive as far as post-production audio? Were you self-taught or did you have formal training?

It was definitely trial by fire. The company was a four-person team when I joined it, and the guys seemed to lean towards the sound effects arena. That left an opening on the dialogue/ADR side of things. So I began trying to fill the void as best I could, sometimes taking a beating when I turned in reels to nasty mixers, but learning each time.

Did you have a mentor?

At first, this young man who ran the company, Bryan Franklin showed me the ropes. Eventually, I met a guy who had been doing it for years and years (he had been the dialogue/ADR supervisor on ET), and he became my mentor. His name is Curt Schulkey. I did about eight films working under him and then began getting offers (often with his recommendation) to do other projects.

What would you find to be the most satisfying aspects of your job?

Hmmm. Dialogue editing is kind of like how many problems you can solve before the mix. And there is generally a lot to be solved. ADR and group (where we go into the studio to record) are more about honing my limited people skills. Both are positive – but both can also be frustrating. When I am editing in a room, it is just me, and the sounds and my anti-social nature is soothed. But one cannot be truly successful in my field without also tackling the people stuff.  

What would be some of the most challenging parts of your job?

As mentioned above, I find some people’s interactions difficult. Clients can be very demanding. Schedules can be extremely challenging. One can feel very squeezed in terms of delivering quality, and also in terms of keeping that smile on your face. Often the tightest schedule demands the highest quality somehow. ADR involves a significant amount of paperwork and phone calls which make it difficult to actually do the editing. ADR and group involve being pretty organized, and that is not necessarily natural to me.

As a woman in this field, did you encounter any issues regarding getting jobs or issues being on the job?

Of course, it’s hard to compare my experience to what it might have been like if I was not a woman. I do sometimes get the feeling that someone is reacting to me for no reason, and that may be related to my gender or the combination of my gender with my assertive personality. Learning to keep one’s mouth shut is probably useful for everyone. I do think a man may be able to get away with more.

If so, how did or do you deal with them?

In my opinion, the only way to battle any people issue is to contain reactions and propose solutions. “How can I help?” “Ok, let me try to find another way to tackle this” Phrases like that diffuse tension quickly because I am no longer pushing back. Showing emotion (of course) is the worst thing because any preconceived notion about women will be confirmed.

What advice would have for young women trying to break into your field?

It is a tough time for this industry. Budgets are tighter, and teams are smaller. Being multi-faceted is a must. I believe you will have to present yourself well, learn a great deal on your own, and then get lucky or have an “in.” I would not recommend it as a career because people are being squeezed out all the time. Mostly because they aren’t learning the new technologies and demands fast enough or are resisting working as hard as we are expected to. There have to be industries that are growing right?

Let’s talk a bit about the technology you work with. What are your preferred tools or platforms in audio post?

Well – it isn’t like I had that much of a choice. I worked at that first company on ProTools 3 when it was just starting to become a tool being used in film. And what I do is work in a continuum. I am handed material from the picture department and have to deliver to the mixing room. This puts me in an agreed-upon context, not in a vacuum.

I could do my music in whatever tool I wanted, but since Pro Tools can be used for my work (pretty much the industry standard), I may as well use it for music. If the industry shifted, so would I. The tools are the hammer – we are just trying to get the nail in the wood.

What’s your general or even specific workflow?

The picture department – where the director and editor create a version of the film selecting takes within scenes and building scenes within reels – will then generate material to send to the sound department (and the composer, and the visual effects department). For the dialogue, there is a track-by-track layout which is the little bits they selected and cobbled together for me to then work with. My job is to make that cobbled-together reel, scene by scene, line by line sound smooth and clean with as few audio issues as possible. If there are lines that are utterly unintelligible, I will recommend we re-record them in the studio. I also have to record what we call “group” or “loop group” which includes background voices and additive material for non-principal characters on the screen.

During this process (right while this is going on) we usually have to generate material for quick temp mixes so the filmmakers can preview the movie to a test audience. They will then change things (new takes, pulling out or adding in material) and send us a new version which we then have to adjust to.

At some point, the final mixing dates arrive, and we jump off the hamster wheel. That is where the final music and tracks are mixed into what you will hear in the theater.

Do you have experience with other platforms than your preferred one?

I do not. But I am confident that I can pick up whatever alternate tool I need to when the time arises.

Do you have any inclination to venture into other fields of audio production or post-production?

I am not particularly ambitious really. I find this level of insanity plenty challenging. The money is decent. If anything I would like more time to spend on my musical ventures, my dogs, or whatever which often get shoved to the side.

What advice do you have as far as dealing with technology in your field?

Do not be rattled by the tool. Concentrate on what you are trying to do. You will have to continue to adapt and adjust as you go, so don’t get attached to things working in one way. Use forums ask people who are good at it for help.

Can you share any anecdotes about your time working in post?

It can be disconcerting how much schedules change and how much we are at the bottom of the totem pole and the end of the process. Everyone wants to feel valued, and do good work, but sometimes you just gotta be fast and figure out what has to be done rather than what should be done. Your schedule is really not your own while you are on a project. And while you are off, you tend to want to be available to get on one. So it is hard to plan anything.

Oh yeah – anecdotes – “we are giving you a new version of the movie Wednesday or Thursday for a Saturday temp mix.”

“We have decided to create two versions of the movie and mix them both, then play them for two audiences and see what people like.”

“well yes we are doing the final mix, but let’s do a temp mix of this new material and also re-record all of that character’s lines” (or how to be in three places at once)

How about your time in music & Black Flag?

Being in Black Flag taught me about endurance. At the time I didn’t realize much about people politics and because of that, I wasn’t necessarily very good at that end of the business. Being in a band is like a marriage of several people and demands work, just as a marriage does. It demands acceptance of each other, supporting each other even in disagreement, and all sorts of things I did not get then. I thought it was about playing well and surviving. I guess that is important too, but not nearly enough.

Specifics are tricky. It is a blur at this point of gigs, practices, recordings, pain, exhaustion, sadness, regret, and fond memory. I gave it all I had, as I had promised myself I would. At times it did not seem enough. I was physically and emotionally ragged from it. And I behaved badly more than once. But I learned and grew musically and in other ways. I met people who would go farther at music than I knew anyone could.

I have been asked many times what it was like being a girl doing this. How would I know? Stupid stuff happened. Wake up in the night in the van with someone looking at you, whatever. But aside from that stuff, my experience was just one of fighting off the doubts within me, not from the outside. Is that because I am female or are we all like that?

Did your time in Black Flag have any influence at all on what you do now?

I don’t think so. I am not the starving artist type. I always intended to work, if not touring then at a job. I had some hard times early in terms of being broke and was pretty determined to do what I could to avoid going hungry at least.

Are you still performing?

Interesting question. I have not in a little while. I play my bass often and still record, both my own stuff and sometimes for other people.  I do not know if the occasion will arise or not. I am not actively seeking it out.

And please throw in anything else you might what to impart or just share.

Greg – I remember you as one of those who fought so hard at music. You have also grown and expanded sound into a career right? There are lots of ways to skin that cat if one is in a band and wonders what is next. I find I have to be willing to let the answer be something totally unexpected (as post sound was for me).

Me n sweet KoalaMore on Kira

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Profiles of Women in Audio

‘Let’s Change the Record’: A Report on the Women in Music Business

‘Let’s Change the Record’: A Report on the Women in Music Business Workshop at Westminster University

‘We want to change the record, we don’t want to rewind it, scratch it, whatever – we want to change it completely’ Sally Gross

By Cinnamon Ducasse

On Thursday the 19 th of May, Sally Gross of Westminster University, Andy Inglis (5000 mgmt) a music manager and music business consultant working in conjunction with Daniel Nordgård from the University of Adger in Norway, invited five accomplished and experienced music business professionals to come and share their wisdom with eleven younger aspiring music business people. The difference between this workshop and almost every other event in the music industry, however, was that no men were invited, so the only men in attendance were the two who had instigated the event. As Andy stated, the rationale for the project was that since ‘people who look like him’ (middle aged men) dominate 95% of the industry and, until recently, there had been no initiatives which address the specific problems – or rather the realities – of working in the music business as a woman-identifying person as well as no special provision for those who enroll on music business courses – they thought it might be a worthy experiment to create a female-dominated environment in a university classroom for a day. So they joined forces with Sally Gross’s Westminster-based initiative, Let’s Change the Record, to make it happen – and this is how it went…

Sally Gross, who is the program director of Westminster’s MA in Music Business Management, opened the day with a short discussion of inequality in the music industry, explaining the project and its intention ‘to change the record, we don’t want to rewind it, scratch it, whatever – we want to change it completely’ to a party of eagerly nodding heads. She then opened the session with an ice-breaking game that engaged three groups in a collective, creative activity. Each wrote a poem, a song or a story together, and performed their product to the rest of the class. Afterwards Sally asked the groups how they felt working together, if they had any conflicts, and if they felt that they all contributed equally to their production. Some said they divided up parts equally, others worked spontaneously; but the whole group smiled and laughed affirmatively when Sally double-checked ‘so you all collaborated equally and peacefully?’ We couldn’t help but notice how excited, open and supportive the group seemed together, and it didn’t seem surprising that they managed to create something together without feeling dominated by each other. As one speaker said, ‘how exciting to be in a room full of so many women!’ And it seemed that sentiment was shared.

Once the ice was broken, we got to serious business with Sally Gross giving a no-nonsense lecture about one of the most notoriously complicated aspects of selling music: copyright, ‘the fundamental system of making money out of music’. She gave a history of copyright that also served as a history of the industry, linking it to the history of contracts – which, she pointed out, is of course the history of marriage. Sally’s history situated women’s long struggle for equality within the history of the music industry, as well as showing how that struggle also manifests today. We talked about how women get dominated in creative scenarios, particularly when male producers claim to have specialist technical knowledge. We acknowledged that Bjork has recently come out about this, and that other successful female artist such as Grimes has also come out about sexual abuse in studio settings. This led one participant to ask about Ke$ha’s sexual abuse case, and a long group discussion about sexual abuse and misconduct in the music industry followed. Sally commented that Ke$ha’s case was very badly handled and that bad lawyers were again taking advantage. She gave serious advice to anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation to speak out about it as soon as possible and try to create as much of an evidence trail, from as early on, as possible.

Emily Moore, founder of international management company Southern Bird, then gave a seminar on management. She began by telling us how excited she was that this was the first time she’d ever spoken to so many women and, pointing at Andy said, ‘you old men, you’re on your way out!’ She then gave us her story and talked about being intimidated at first, but just going for it and finding that ultimately ‘it’s not that hard’, and that we shouldn’t let anyone tell us we can’t do it. She gave some general advice about managing, which Sally pitched into as she herself is an experienced manager, and then Emily opened up the discussion to the floor.

There were lots of young managers in the room who shared their experiences and advice about asserting themselves in companies of older men, and asked Emily for hers. We discussed the importance of trust and intimacy in managerial relationships, and that women can get pigeonholed as better managers because of their ‘maternal’ instincts. While no one wants to be pigeonholed, Emily talked about owning those skills and the fact that a manager, whatever their gender, should be looking after their artist(s) because the record industry is a brutal landscape and artists’ mental health often suffers. However, we discussed that when working with other business people, you are also required to be assertive, even intimidating – as Sigríður, a participant from Reykjavík said ‘the older guys I work with, I think they’re all scared of me’. We all laughed, but the point stands that women in the industry have a difficult balance to strike when dealing with men’s expectations.

Our next speaker was Hannah Overton, general manager at Secretly Group for the UK and Europe, who came to give a lecture about record labels. She told her fascinating story of writing letters to record labels while studying Physiology at university, until eventually she got a secretarial job at Beggars, which eventually led to her working in A&R and ultimately where she is today. She talked about the major changes in the industry throughout her career and we discussed the effects of streaming and Daniel chipped in with some insights from his own research.

Like Emily, she wanted to stress that the skills and knowledge required to work in the industry are not mysterious or special, but easily learnt. She explained that after getting a job doing A&R for a publishing company, she bought some books about publishing and taught herself at home. She also confessed that her biggest regret for her early career was not asking enough questions, and she urged the group to keep asking questions and thinking creatively rather than being intimidated into silence, ‘because you’ll never know everything and no one does’.

We then heard from Rosie Arnold, executive producer and music programmer at Norwich Arts Centre as well as director, programmer and production manager of Norwich Sound & Vision Festival. On top of this she also runs a small label, Gravy Records and plays in the band Graceland. Rosie’s story was equally fascinating and hilarious, involving her strolling directly out of a dead-end desk job in an insurance company and into the Norwich Arts Centre, where she went from bar staff to lighting technician to executive producer and programmer. A pattern was definitely emerging of young women taking bold risks to get what they want out of life – Rosie’s best advice was ‘if you want to do something just ask if you can do it’, because that’s how she got to do what she loves doing.

Rosie told us all about the Norwich Arts Centre and running venues. She explained how arts funding can help venues take risks with new artists and experiment with new possibilities, and give them the space to take good care of artists and keep standards high. She told us that she makes a big effort to book women artists and particulary electronic ones, and when asked if it was difficult to find them she answered ‘not at all, they’re out there and they’re just being ignored’.

Our final speaker was Jess Hamilton, a songwriter with a long history working in publishing, who is very happy to have recently signed a publishing deal herself and pursue a more creative career. She was able to talk to us about being on both sides of a publishing deal, and explains how publishing deals can benefit artist but how publishers can also be hard to deal with because they look for certain generic models for success, which can also perpetuate sexism and male dominance in the industry. She gave the example of male publishers privileging bands made up of four white men, giving them massive publishing deals even though they aren’t producing interesting music and unsurprisingly they don’t actually see any success.

She also talked about women receiving less money in publishing deals, and less respect as artists in general, for example Taylor Swift having been taken more seriously as a songwriter after Ryan Adams covered her work – as Sally said, ‘it’s as if only now we can say that she can write a good album’. We also talked about how there are relatively more women working in publishing than in other areas of the industry, and Jess said she felt that it had become a kind of ‘designated area’ for women who wanted to work in music rather than a more accessible industry.

 

Finally Daniel asked the group for general feedback on the day. Participants said that they felt comfortable, intimate and informal, and that they felt they could ask questions. We also discussed trying to invite a more diverse group of women in future. A few participants also said that it was a lot to fit into a day, and it could have taken place over two or more days, which was echoed by a resounding ‘yeah’ from the group. Everyone was very tired by this point and more than happy to head to dinner together where they could get to know each other and swap Facebook details – in fact, a Facebook group was set up by participants who wanted to create a platform for them all to share wisdom and continue to support

Afterwards, we asked speakers and participants to comment on their experience of the event, how it fits into their careers and how it made them think about the future for women in music. We were not surprised that they had a lot of insight on this matter, and felt that in future we should give them more control and space, by opting for more of a colloquium or seminar format for example.

Jess said that she found record companies to be masculine environments with few opportunities for non-white people, who are boxed into ‘urban’ spheres, said that she was relieved to leave, but that she really hopes she can work with more women in the future of her career.

Kiera, who plays in a punk band, also said that in her experience of smaller and more DIY labels, the same structural inequalities based on class, race and gender seemed to play out, and she had felt disempowered by ‘professional’ men. She said she felt overwhelmed by learning about the realities of the industry, but was also inspired to meet so many women getting on with it and making changes.

On the other hand, Anne, a participant from a Danish record company said that she had worked in female-dominated environments, found her gender didn’t play into a lot of her day to day business interactions, and reflected that the situation may be better in Denmark, though she did find that ageism was a big factor.

Lyra, however, found that in the world of venues and promotions in Copenhagen she had to deal with a lot of overt sexism regularly. In response, she co-founded collectives which challenge this directly and work towards creating safer spaces for women, queer and non-binary people and felt that these initiatives had immense impact on those peoples lives. She also felt that racism was a big issue, which needed to be dealt with simultaneously.

The general response was excitement and optimism towards the creation of exclusive spaces for women to go through their problems together, but some, like Anne, felt that young men should also be included in these discussions and made aware of the problems that women face and how they can and should participate in solving them. So we have a lot to think about in terms of how to proceed, and know that we have a lot of enthusiasm and support from young women who are ready to change the record completely.

‘I think it’s always encouraging to meet people who share similar interests and them all being female too is just another thing in common which made it that little bit even more special! Super initiative and great speakers and really interesting discussions!’ Bettina, Westminster MA Audio Production Student.

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Occupying Both Sides of the Glass

When I’m working with other artists in the studio, my main concern is emotion. I start by recording as many instruments as possible live, preferably with minimal metronome use, to keep everything sounding organic. I keep the emotion of the song at the front of my mind, with technique taking the side burner (not completely top priority, but still important). I’m in the business of tugging heartstrings, of helping to create impactful art that is also something that the artist can feel proud of. However, when it comes to developing my own music, it’s a totally different story.

I had an interesting realization recently: In all my time being involved in the music world, never once have I entered the recording studio as simply an artist. Every time I entered that space to record my own music, I was either the engineer, the producer, the intern, assistant, mixer, writer, or a combination of all of them, in addition to being the one recorded. As such, when I am developing my own music in the studio, I am very much in a production state of mind.

I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be just the artist in the hands of a producer (though I’d imagine that it’s something like going to the auto mechanic when you know next to nothing about cars). Becoming an educated listener and engineer has definitely impacted the way I look at my own music when developing my songs in a recording session. For one thing, not only am I analyzing the way everything sounds, but I end up becoming so nitpicky that it’s darn difficult for me to ever call a mix, “finished” (though I’m sure that’s true for most sound engineers, no matter who you’re recording). Instead of viewing my songs as stories, I start using them as a sonic playground, blank canvasses to experiment with different mics and instrumentations.

It’s always a significant challenge to take a step back and to try to “hear the full picture,” as it were. On the one hand, it’s a great way for me to unleash the experimental side of myself without worrying about paying the engineer’s hourly rate. On the other, however, is a risk of never finishing anything. But it’s always an excellent exercise in letting things go as they are completed, and in keeping the overall goal in mind.  

 

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