DALE PENNER
From Iconic Bands Like Loverboy and Nickelback to Tik-Tok Sensations SM6 and Audio Post Mixing and Sound Design for Indie Films, The Canadian Mixer/Producer and Juno and Gospel Award Nominee stays on the Cutting Edge.
Dale Penner gets it. He knows that perhaps the most famous band on his expansive, ever-evolving, and coolly eclectic 35-year resume as an engineer, producer, mixer, and post mixer/sound designer for films isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
To this Penner usually says “If GM had a car that was selling better than any they had made previously do you think they stop making it?”
Nickelback
In the late 90s, three years before the Alberta based band led by Chad Kroeger hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their breakthrough, decade-defining hit “How You Remind Me” and about a decade before Billboard declared them the most successful rock band of the 2000s, Penner produced The State, which laid the groundwork for Nickelback to become a six-time Grammy-nominated, 12 time Juno Award-winning artist – and one of Canada’s most commercially successful bands ever.
Originally released independently in 1998, The State achieved mainstream success once Penner and his management in Los Angeles shopped their agreement with the band to Roadrunner Records, which signed them for a re-release in 2000. Both the lead single “Leader of Men” and the third single “Breathe” hit the top ten on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.
“I kind of discovered them when they had a record out in Canada called Curb that had sold a few thousand copies,” says Penner, whose home base for years had been between Vancouver and Toronto. “Their manager sent me a demo of three songs, and I immediately saw great potential. Looking back, it’s reassuring to know that I had the insight to see something there. I knew they were going places. It was also very cool to be driving down the street hearing a song I produced and know that people were out there jamming to it. That kind of thing validates everything I’m doing.
“I’m grateful that Nickelback’s success opened the door for me to work with so many other amazing bands and artists, but more importantly I have great personal memories of working with and hanging out with them. So when they’re maligned for being too commercial or supposedly for every song sounding the same, I can look past that partly because I know how hard they worked to get where they are. I helped them raise the $2000 or whatever they needed to do the video for ‘Leader of Men’ which took place in Chad’s house and featured a woman in a nurse’s uniform that we hired because she had done a fire breathing act at Burning Man.”
Top Gun and Loverboy, Jamie Walters and The Heights, Mushroom Studios, and more…
In addition to Nickelback, Penner’s worked over the years with several other mainstream pop household names, including Loverboy (his very first engineering session at Mushroom Studios in Vancouver, for their Top Gun soundtrack song and Top 15 hit “Heaven in Your Eyes”), k.d. lang and Michael McDonald. Back when he was engineering regularly, he also contributed to Jamie Walters/The Heights’ #1 hit “How Do You Talk to An Angel.” Over the years, even as he’s worked with countless artists in the U.S. and Europe, the producer has also racked up an impressive series of Juno Award-winning and nominated projects by top Canadian artists Holly McNarland (whose album Stuff also earned him P.M.I.A.’s Producer of the Year), Jonas & The Massive Attraction and Econoline Crush. He also produced the debut album of future Juno Award winners, alt-rockers the Matthew Good Band. Some of the U.S.-based musicians and bands he has worked with are Boston’s The Winefield (for Priority Records), The Red King (Sony Publishing), Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago and most recently, emerging Nashville artist Darby Shaun and tracks for King Cole ft. Xavier Keyes and Geist the music/video/multimedia project by Martin Nethercutt and McCartney Studios in LA. t
Focus on the Future
Despite 35 years of hit-helping and hit-making, Penner’s never focused on his accolades – only the adventurous sounds and dynamic contemporary crossing his console or through the Session Wire online music collaboration app, which allows him to hook up his studio with artists anywhere in the world. These days, he’s most excited about the ten tracks he recently helmed for SM6, a Chicago area originated pop/rock band of six siblings (ages 14-22) who became global TikTok sensations (2.7M followers, nearly 200M likes, 980M total social media views) and whose latest single “Oddity” has over 1M Spotify streams. Penner is also currently working with two prominent female indie artists, Dallas-based musician Sydney Harte (whose band is named after her) and L.A.-based singer/songwriter Natalie Patton.
“I typically work in the independent music world, and except for meeting some artists and managers at conferences, most of my clients come from people emailing me who have heard good things or liked my previous work,” says Penner. “One of my strengths is that while I got into production from an engineering/mixing background, I have always recognized the power and potential of great songs. When I make a record, I’m going to work with an artist or band to help them create the sound they want. I start off by listening to their songs, and if they need help or further development, I can give guidance or if necessary, suggest some people on my team to help with co-writing.
“Before even going into the studio,” he adds, “I am also part of the pre-production process, making sure to get to know the artist or band, working on arrangements with them and fine-tuning the songs in a rehearsal space. It’s all about input, commitment and having a dialogue with each other. Many producers take the reins where they pretty much play every instrument themselves and put their own stamp on the music. My position on that is, this will only make you sound like every other band. I prefer to play the hand I’m dealt, make the artist the best they can be and if necessary, supplement what they’re doing but never replacing them outright. I tell my artists, if I feel strongly about something, I’m going to push it hard. The end result is that on all the projects I produce, I capture the essence of the band.”
Penner makes a final point about his process with the musicians and projects he takes on: “Obviously, I’m a fan and champion of artists with great songwriting chops, but just as important is that they have a strong work ethic and will work diligently once a project is done to get it out to the public. I’m not going to produce something that I think is just going to sit in someone’s closet.”
Evolving Times and Technology
Because of the evolving technology in the decades since he began his career behind the boards, as the industry’s gone from LPs to cassettes to CDs to downloads to streaming, Penner admits that he’s had to re-invent himself a few times to stay fresh. His embrace of the latest software and plugins, among other groundbreaking tools, has led to him becoming a much sought after speaker on producer panels at the CMJ, Canadian Music Week and Indie Week conferences and been a regular participant and panelist at Springboard Music Festivals, some of the industry’s most innovative festivals and conference events, founded by MusicSupervisor.com’s Barry Coffing.
In recent years, Penner has used all of the latest sonic bells and whistles he has accumulated to create audio for film, TV and online content. “Expanding into mixing, sound design, ADR and voiceovers in those worlds is a natural fit,” he says. “I have all the latest software and plug-ins for audio post. It’s a good complement to what I’m mixing in the pop and rock world these days.” His credits include numerous projects doing Final Mix & Sound Design and Foley for Farpoint Films (the series “Alive” and “My Misdiagnosis” and films “Sorry For Your Loss” and “Perfect Match”); Final Mix & Sound Design for Fosca Features (“After the Ashes,” “Technical Difficulties”; voiceover on “Aboard the Namao” from Sogo Films/MTS on Demand, final mix on “Double Date” and “Intersection” for Theia Entertainment; and voiceover, final mix and SFS on the series “Live Well Winnipeg” for GALB Productions/Snow Angel Films and MTS On Demand.
Penner is currently working on audio post mixing for “Friday I’m in Love”, a documentary film that explores the history of the legendary Numbers nightclub, a counterculture landmark in Houston and one of the longest-running alternative music venues (43 years) in the United States. Its director Marcus Pontello says, “I want this film to be an anthem for those of us who have felt rejected; those misfits, queers and weirdos who craved a world of belonging where one could be whatever the hell they wanted to be and not be bothered, ridiculed or hated for it.”
Penner says about his involvement in the project: “I joined the part when all the editing was done. They send me the track layout, maybe seven or eight dialogue tracks from different interviews. My job is to go through and clean up the audio, fixing some of the problems that occur recording audio on set. There is obviously a lot of music in there by some of the bands who have played at Numbers, and I’ve been able to draw from my experiences of mixing music and how it reacts in the visual format. It’s more of a technical job but there are moments where I enjoy some creative input.”
Penner very much enjoys those serendipitous occasions where the knowledge he’s gained doing sound design and audio post mixing allows him to create unique vibes when he’s producing songs for artists. On SM6’s “Talk to Me,” released as a single in spring 2021, there’s a breakdown a few minutes in where the music stops with just the line “Talk to Me” being audible as we hear the audibles one of them typing, sending and then receiving a text. In the video, this creates a dramatic moment where a girl gets a text saying “Go to the backyard,” where she sees the band jamming and a guitar solo in full swing.
Small Town to Globe Trotting Music Maker
Growing up in the small town (population less than 1,000) of Plum Coulee, Manitoba, Penner took piano and trumpet lessons (his mom was a piano teacher) but had a greater passion for the overall sounds of his favorite recordings, including those by Lucinda Williams and anything produced by Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Foreigner, Def Leppard). He hung around his friends who were in bands and frequently trekked the hour or so north to Winnipeg to see AC/DC, Rush and Heart, among others. Others on his all-time favorite concert list now include Roger Waters and Bruno Mars. At 19, he got his first job in the audio world selling equipment for Western Sound, and when they went into receivership a year and a half later, he saved his ten months of unemployment insurance and went to study at the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio.
After finishing the two-month program, he hightailed it out to Vancouver, where he did the proverbial “beating down the doors” at local studios and scored his first learn on the job gig at Mushroom Studios, where he had the chance to assist British engineer and record producer David Tickle. While still the low man on the totem pole there, Penner got a chance to assist on the Loverboy “Top Gun” track when the main engineer wasn’t able to come in one day.
After working at Mushroom for a number of years, he became a freelance engineer and producer, mostly working on sessions at Little Mountain Sound, where the legendary Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock helmed sessions for the likes of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi. Pre-Nickelback, he built his resume with the aforementioned Econoline Crush and the Matthew Good Band. Before setting up his Paradise Alley Productions in his home base of Winnipeg, he lived and worked in Toronto for seven years and traveled extensively in the States working with various artists.
“The aspect of my career that I’m most proud of is the way I have evolved and not only kept up with but embraced new technology to stay cutting edge in all my work both with artists and bands and in my TV and film projects,” says Penner. “I came up in an era where we were recording on tape and have now had my own Pro Tools rig in my studio for 20 years. I bring to every project a unique mix of experience and innovation and am fully in touch with the music being made now. Thanks to remote hookups, it’s also great to be able to work with artists anywhere in the world in real-time.
“The most gratifying thing is being able to work with and develop relationships with so many different artists over the years,” he adds. “Recording projects are not like widgets. You’re actually creating art that will hopefully touch and influence countless lives and endure. You’re getting together with groups of creatives and, without any preconceived notions, helping bring their incredible visions to life.”