MICHAEL WAGENER - KING'S X Is "One Of My Top Three Favorite Albums Ever." Page 2
Special report by Martin Popoff

Is there a Michael Wagener sound?

"I hope not! (laughs). I hope that I do with each band their own justice, and get it to the point where it sounds like that band. Of course, if you engineer your own stuff, then there is always the thing that you probably use very similar tools to do your records, and by that, there might be a little similarity here and there. And obviously taste is the thing. But I hope that I can do every band justice by doing exactly their sound, not mine (laughs)."

Looking into the future, Michael reveals that, "Right now I'm working with a band called CROOKED X. All the band members are 14 years old. They're from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We just did seven songs for the game Rock Band for MTV, and they are going on tour with KISS, managed by Doc McGhee and Spencer Proffer, and they are a very, very cool band. 14 years old. I mean, they started when they were 13 (laughs). But they are just raw rock 'n' roll. There is no drum aligning, no auto-tuning - there is nothing with that band. They just play and it's just very, very cool. And they don't sound like they are 14. They have real songs, real lyrics and real vocals, and he sounds like he's 40. I'm also doing a lot of workshops, production workshops, where people come in from all over the world, and we record and mix one song with a live band. It takes nine days, and people come from South Africa, Hawaii, England, all over the world, and so that's a pretty cool thing. It's a lot of fun and it's education for me, and it's just like passing on the word..."

See www.michaelwagener.com for more.