Now that Rick Beato has become the face of music YouTube, with over five million and counting subscribers to his main channel, it is sometimes easy to forget that he is a producer by trade. Brent Smith hasn’t. But then the Shinedown frontman and Beato go way back.
Beato was one of three producers whom the Jacksonville, Florida rock band worked with on their 2003 debut album, Leave A Whisper, and shared writing credits with Smith on tracks such as Lost In A Crowd, In Memory and Stranger Inside.
Speaking to MusicRadar on hot London morning – a conversation you can soon read in full – Smith explains why Beato is such a good producer, and what it’s actually like when you’ve got him in the control room.
And many of those qualities are the same reason why so many people tune into Beato's YouTube show to avail themselves of his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things music – from chord progressions and electric guitar intros to the “beautiful cascading effect” of plagal cadences.
“Oh, my God, man. He’s the best! I have so many fond memories from working with Rick,” says Smith. “I’m so proud of Rick Beato. That guy, dude, that man! When you talk about just knowledge of music and of instrumentation, he is a literal genius on a lot of different levels.”
One of those levels is how he thinks about the guitar, where it sits in a mix, and more fundamentally where it fits in a composition. This, of course, is evident in his online instruction, and it was plain as day when Beato was directing traffic with Smith and Shinedown guitarist Zach Myers in the studio.
“It’s so interesting, because writing songs for him, he has this theory and this musical knowledge that is profound, but at the same time, he was really just a great innovator, especially on guitar,” says Smith. “He had so much knowledge of the guitar. He was very eclectic. He just knew how to use the instrument.”
Smith needed that. Not all songwriters welcome collaboration from their producers but Smith says he “100 per cent” welcomes their collaboration. On Shinedown’s debut album, on which Beato was joined by producers Bob Marlette, and Tony Battaglia, everyone pitched in.
“Our first album, Rick and I wrote Lost In The Crowd. On that record, we wrote Stranger Inside together. We wrote In Memory together. He worked on the song All I Ever Wanted,” says Smith. “He was a producer and a songwriter on the first record, but there were three producers on the first record.
Rick was so childlike in a lot of ways, like, he was a kid… I have nothing but the most amazing memories of working with him
“There was Bob Marlette. He had material on the album. He probably had the bulk of the record. Tony Battaglia, who ended up being the producer for the second album, [Us And Them], he was a producer on Leave A Whisper, and then Rick Beato was a producer on the record as well.
“And also, Randy Staubs mixed all the Rick Beato stuff, which was cool. Bob Marlette, all his stuff was mixed by Andy Wallace, and then, I think, Tony, that was his own mix. Tony had 45. The version that went on Leave A Whisper, Tony had that.”
Although Shinedown went with Battaglia for their sophomore album, Smith and Beato rekindled their collaboration for 2008’s The Sound Of Madness, co-writing Son Of Sam for the deluxe edition of the release.
It’s funny to read that Beato was initially unsure whether YouTube was the medium for him. He feared he was too old. As Smith sees it, it is the opposite. Beato is more like a little kid, and that is one of the secrets of his success.
In the music business, you have to retain that awe for the art form as you did when you started out – a bit like what Quincy Jones told Johnny Marr, that whenever you walk into the studio, treat it like it’s your first time ever.
“You know what, Rick is? Back in the day, when we were writing with one another, Rick was what we call a great hang,” says Smith. “He really was. Rick was so childlike in a lot of ways, like, he was a kid… I have nothing but the most amazing memories of working with him, and hopefully, later this year will be able to reconnect with one another.
“But, man, he has carved out many, many lanes for himself now. He’s also put the work in… Just tenacious, man. The guy works really hard.”
