Brad Wood was born in Rockford Illinois. The Wood family business would be in Funeral Homes. It was the profession of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
Brad Wood: "For a while, it was extremely lucrative. But for most of my adolescence I've seen his (dad's) money slowly vanish. Demographics control where you're buried, and Rockford's shrinking pool of Waspy Presbyterians means a shortage of stiffs."
Brad would get his start in the band Shrimp Boat. Shrimp Boat originally consisted of Sam Prekop, Eric Claridge and John McEntire. They would bring in Brad to play the drums (Brad didn't know how to play at the time and had to learn). The Boat's two albums Duende and Cavale would have CMJ hailing them as "the best band on the planet", but tensions between members would lead to Brad leaving the band and the band breaking up soon thereafter. Wood also be a founding member of Chicago noise rockers Tortoise.
Brad Wood founded Idful Music in 1988. Its location on Damen Avenue in Wicker Park, Ground Zero for any hipster worth his salt in the Chicago Metro area. Wood was also a regular at the Rainbo Club on Division and Damen and socialized with that scene, including Jim Ellison, and members of Urge Overkill.
Brad Wood: "I own 2/3 of Idful and a partner owns the rest. I bought out a third partner, Brian Deck (drummer for subtly named Chicago grunge band Red Red Meat). We built Idful for less than $60,000 in 1988. Another $10,000 or so invested through 1993, then I plowed another 70 grand into it. We deliberately built Idful to be a facility that worked well for whoever was using it. Lots of people assumed that Idful was my studio and that if you wanted to work there you'd better be willing to work with Brad. If somebody didn't want to work with me, they'd x it off the list, so there was a downside to being "the guy who recorded Liz Phair and Veruca Salt."
Working a hundred hours most weeks, Wood earned a reputation as a team player, and the fact that he looked just like his Ramen-eating clients helped. His going rate was whatever the band could afford and he learned the art of recording as he went. He mostly recorded the kind of tough-guy, wallet-on-chain, one-word-name bands for which Chicago isn't famous -- Tar, Table, Tool. Idful and brad would come to be a Mecca for the hip indie Chicago bands. Working on albums by local favorites like Tortoise( for which Wood was a sometime bassist), Shrimp Boat, Loud Lucy, Jesus Lizard, and Red Red Meat were just some of the bands that eastablished Brad as the go to guy in Chicago Indie scene. It was through this omnipresent status that Brad was introduced to Liz Phair. Wood was acquainted with John Henderson who was owner Chicago's Feel Good All Over Label.
Wood produced, played drums and bass, wrote and sang most of the harmonies on Liz Phair's debut album, "Exile in Guyville." Clearly a touchy subject -- "I didn't sleep with her," he volunteers before being asked -- it's equally clear that the album's surprising success marked a new chapter in the way Wood's career developed. Other hits followed, including Veruca Salt, but Wood's bent over backwards not to let success affect the way he records -- or the way he does business. Brad tried to retain some of the indie ethos while still being able to put food on the table.
Brad Wood: What I personally make is separate is separate from how the studio does. If I take percentage points on a record, it's actually called an advance, where a flat fee is treated like salary. I always take points on major label stuff. On indie rock, maybe 10-20% of the time. Something like Liz Phair on Matador Records is not an indie label. You don't buy the real estate those guys have and still get to call yourself indie. Which their owners deserve, they're intelligent and run a good business. I mean, they still own the majority of their record label, but they've got the taint. If it's on a major label, they pay. I don't try to soak'em, like some steal from the rich give to the poor thing. My eyes aren't clouded by any romantic notion about redistributing the wealth. It's basically based on ability to pay. I finished a record in Ireland for three months then spent two weeks back in Chicago doing a band called No. 1 Cup for almost nothing. That's why you own a business, so you can make a lot more of those decisions without asking anybody's permission.
In America, the performing arts are considered a poor choice of career and the compensation is such, except for the top 1%. So people embrace the lifestyle, and fluff it up a little. When I was dead broke until 1994, I wore it proudly. "This old Volvo's the way to do it, thrift store clothes are the shit." To buy a fancy house in Winnetka and carry a small dog and eat big slabs of red meat and undercooked lobster, that's pure folly.
Brad Wood make his name nationally with the success of two albums: Liz Phair's Exile in Guville and Veruca Salt's American Thighs. The two albums were a lethal one two punch that had folks throwing around the Genius label in mentioning Wood. Exile was the critic's darling receiving kudos by the bushel full. American Thighs, on the other hand, had more hooks and melodies than you could throw a stick at and was selling. Veruca Salt recorded their first album American Thighs in January, 1994 with Brad Wood at Idful Studios for Chicago independent label Minty Fresh. The band and record were both quickly picked up by Geffen. The debut went gold, largely due to the catchy single, "Seether." Much like Guyville, Brad was making the music everyone loved for a mere pittance, Recording American Thighs for under $5,000.
Louise Post of Veruca Salt: "I knew Brad through a friend. He recorded a demo for a friend of mine in a band called Squash Blossom, who just raved about him. He had worked with a lot of Chicago bands and we just met him as Liz Phair's album was coming out. We weren't even familiar with it yet. In fact, I was prepared not to like it. Of course, I ended up loving it, but at the time there was so much hype about it in Chicago, kind of like what we're getting now, that I was determined not to like it."
Brad Wood on American Thighs :"As far as I am concerned, we accomplished it quite handily. American Thighs, I think, was supposed to be a record like Highway to Hell, a dance record that rocks all the way through; great rhythm guitar, kick drum uber alles, hard-pumpin', uptempo pop-rock. Some people have a mistaken notion of what rock is. American Thighs rocks, but swings. The songs are dynamic. I think a lot of people have forgotten how to swing."
"The feel of Seether is the essence of what I love about the band: all the uptempo numbers they play in a vein that springs from the Pixies and the Breeders, that whole punk-rock/new wave thing. They have that on the new record, too. 'Seether' is really successful with that. Your ears turn toward the radio. It grabs you and make you want to listen."
"I like the scrappy punk-rock attitude. The one things we agreed on was, the guitar sound could have been a little more rock. That's where they wanted to go. That's what they've done with [Eight Arms To Hold You]. As far as I am concerned, I'm glad American Thighs came out first. Say it's 1982, and you've just discovered Elvis Costello, but his new record is King Of America and he's already on a tangent. You dig back two or three albums, and he's more punk rock. Fortunately, he was young and unsavory enough to make good records for a while."
"I don't like the idea that you have to polish something until all life is gone, especially on a debut record. That's pure idiocy. It leaves you with nowhere to go. I'm glad Veruca Salt made the record they did."
Wood and Phair would have a somwhat public parting of the ways after the release of Whipsmart. Brad had cleared his schedule of producing committments in order to tour with Liz for the accompanying tour only to have Liz cancel the tour at the last second and with little regard for Brad Casey and Leroy. Did Liz Phair can you guys in her band?
Brad: Absolutely not. She did not fire us. We kind of had a suicide pact, where if one of us quit or was fired we'd all leave. We did it to have a good time and hang out with friends. Once it became apparent that she didn't want to work with us live, she saw the band as a dead weight. I haven't spoken to her in two years, but I hear she just had a baby. She was never all that welcome a presence in the Wicker Park scene anyway, and would say an awful lot of disparaging things about the way we lived, what we wore, the women we dated, and the cigarettes we'd smoke, the whole musician-as-a-career-choice thing. I didn't appreciate this. I've been raised to do this since the third grade. It's my vocation and I'm quite proud of it
Wood spent time in early 1996 in Dublin, while producing an album by the British pop band Placebo.
In August of 97 Wood headed to Chicago's Trax Recording and Hinge in Chicago to work with the Smashing Pumpkins. Wood first worked with Billy Corgan as a co-producer on a 1990 single by Chicago band Catherine. Sessions with Wood were later scrapped. Wood also departed just before the band moved to Los Angeles. Brad's departure can be put down to Corgan's mercurial nature rather than any shortcomings on Wood's part.
Billy felt that Wood was used to working with someone "like Liz Phair, whom he can mold, and I'm not the kind of person you can mold". Corgan also stated He started to feel that Wood was taking on an engineer role and was dropped once the band moved to LA. Corgan seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. Wood takes a hands on approach and Corgan thinks that he is crimping his style. Wood takes a hands off approach and he "taking on an engineer role". Sounds like a politician's doublespeak to me.
Billy had said "I felt like he was not completely grasping everything that needed to go into making a Smashing Pumpkins record."
the death of idful
1997 would see the birth of Brad's daughter Olivia Asta. Brad is married to Maria Suarez, who worked in film and TV until the birth of their daughter.
In the fall of 1997, Idful Music�the venerable Wicker Park studio where co-owner Brad Wood recorded major albums by Liz Phair, Tortoise, and Veruca Salt�was forced out of its rented space in the strip mall at 1520 N. Damen. The mall had been purchased by developers, who would give it a new name, a new facade, and new tenants, including a Coconuts CD store, and even before Idful's lease was up, demolition crews were eagerly tearing away at the building. "The working conditions were awful," Wood says. "They had dug a six-feet-deep, two-feet-wide trench in front. They tore the roof off. There was no roof over our lounge; you could see the sky above you." -----Peter Margazyk, post no bills
After Idful closed, Wood remained busy with multiple projects�he worked on albums by Phair in early 98 and Smashing Pumpkins, and produced Diane Izzo's debut and Verbow's forthcoming sophomore effort�and national ones, including the cast recording of the Broadway rock musical Hedwig & the Angry Inch.
Wood also helped design Engine Studios�a state-of-the-art three-studio facility just a few blocks from the old Idful location, where he would not own the studio but be more of a Producer at large. Days after Engine officially opened in 1999, he, his wife, Maria Suarez, and their two-year-old daughter are moved to Los Angeles. "We don't want to be here because of the weather," he says. "I've lived in this area for 35 years. I want to go somewhere else."
life in California
Wood relocated to LA, buying a 1938 California Spanish house Studio City home. Brad was living in LA but still had a bit of the Wicker Park Mentality: Brad: I'm in LA now, and you see it all over. What is considered elegant and living large is tacky and grotesque and bad for you. I like my life better now. I'm glad to have some money in my pocket. But I remember how it felt for people to make judgments about me before I had any money.
"Everyone is really nice. In the supermarket, the bagger is really friendly. He's obviously an actor. He's nice to everyone, because you never know, the next customer might be a casting agent."
Upon moving to LA, Wood was able to rekindle a friendship with Liz Phair. This followed the detente that lead to his working on the whitechocolatespaceegg album. While not so much a business relationship anymore, it was more a kniship of Chicago ex-pats. "People from the music and theater scenes in Chicago maintain their friendships," is how Maria explains it.
Brad Wood: "Moving to LA will probably force me to confront the issue of my career. Either it's going to go to the next level, where I'm hopefully working on multiplatinum records, bigger artists, or it won't, but I'll be happy with either one. I think staying in Chicago has delayed that reckoning�it's like being stuck between two worlds."
The two most high profile albums that Wood has done since moving to LA have been The Bangles album"" and Pete Yorn's musicforthemorningafter.
Pete Yorn:"Me and Walt worked in the garage of his house. I knew we wanted to bring in another producer at some point. A lot of those songs, we weren't even signed yet when we started recording those. Brad was kind of like the clean-up guy. I remember he just really appreciated it. He wasn't anxious to put his stamp on it and change stuff just for the sake of changing it. He wanted to pretty much preserve what we were dong and enhance it."
"And he mixed it! We were ridin' him! `Come on, Brad, fix it up buddy!'