How Juno + Grammy Winner Shawn Everett Shaped Alabama Shakes' Album

UPDATE: On April 3, Shawn Everett received the 2016 Juno Award for Recording Engineer of the Year for his work on the Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color. This article originally ran following Everett's Grammy win in February. 

For the last couple days, Shawn Everett has been in the middle of “just a really great panic attack.”

“It’s like your world just turns black and white,” says the 33-year-old sound engineer, describing the moment he stepped on stage to accept his Grammy award Monday night.

Everett sounded tired on the phone the next afternoon, a bit on the mend after a night celebrating his win of Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for his work on Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color. (A celebration, incidentally, that started with a shot from the bar hidden behind the stage right after his acceptance speech — one of the secrets of the Grammys.)

Among those celebrating with him were his parents. The same people who unwittingly started his journey from a tiny Alberta town to a studio in Los Angeles with a single Christmas present: a 16-track recorder. Everett had wanted one so he could start recording the songs by his ‘wretched’ high school metal band.

From that moment on, Everett became obsessed with capturing sound.

“That’s the day I entered the studio. And I’ve never left,” he says.

Everett’s love of sound eventually brought him to Banff Centre, where he worked for several years as an audio practicum. Finally, the budding sound engineer had access to all kinds of equipment, the help of other audiophiles — and a lot of time to try weird things.

“I was living on campus at the time, so I would sneak into the studio at night and experiment. I would try everything,” he says.

“Mics in trashcans, in vents. Just so I could hear what it sounded like.”

Everett didn’t know it at the time, but those stolen nights in the studio would pay off. After several years, he decided to leave Banff Centre to strike out on his own. Everett packed up his old brown van and started driving south, trading the Rockies for California.

“I thought ‘there’s so much wild and amazing stuff down [in L.A.].’ So, that’s where I went.”

(Although it was not the last time Everett would see Banff Centre. He has returned nearly every year as faculty for the centre's indie music residency, most recently in 2015.)

After only three days in California, he met the man who would change his career: Blake Mills, who in Everett’s words is “probably one of the best guitar players in the world right now.” The two collaborated on Mills’ solo Breaking Mirrors record in 2010.

The record was criminally underheard, Everett says. But it was influential and respected by many other musicians. Among them was Brittany Howard, singer and lead guitarist from blues-rock group Alabama Shakes.

She liked the album's sound and Everett’s obvious willingness to experiment. So, when Alabama Shakes was looking for someone to mix their newest work, they knew who to call.

Sound engineering is an under-appreciated art form. Most people outside the music industry, Everett says, think of him like a technician — someone who simply records whatever sounds the band plays.

But Everett is more creative than that.

He sees a sound engineer as a movie editor mixed with a cinematographer. He’s in charge of controlling the final sound of the album, not to mention the feel of each individual track. The musician plays the notes, but the engineer is the one who finds the sound.

“It’s kind of sound sculpting. You are building a picture with sound,” he says.

“There’s a lot of weight on your shoulders.”

Everett’s obsessions with sound and his off-the-wall methods can be a bit intimidating for the artists that brave his studio. Sometimes, it takes a bit of convincing to get them to trust in his methods.

“I generally don’t mind scaring the hell out of someone,” he says.

Brittany Howard wasn’t frightened off. In fact, she embraced Everett’s mad scientist approach. Everett and Mills did everything from packing cotton balls into her mouth while she sang, to transforming a pair of headphones into a jury-rigged microphone attached to the top of a drum kit.

Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t. But in the end, it was Everett’s creativity that helped turn Sound and Color into one of the year’s best albums.

“You are just trying to enhance [the music.] Just a little cupcake swirl on top.”

There’s not much time to bask in the glory of the win, however. Tuesday was a rare day off to recover before heading back into the studio. While Everett can’t be specific about the records he is working on, he does let slip that he is juggling six different projects.

And many more are likely on the horizon after this year’s Grammy win.

“Brittany [said] ‘you know what a Grammy win means? Job security!’ And that’s how I look at it too.”