Enthusiasm as Strategy
I am fortunate to have many very talented friends. Some of these I consider my foils (read this post to know what I mean). Enrique Gonzalez Muller is certainly on of these friends. If I had to choose one single person responsible for getting me into music, it would have to be Enrique, with his toy Casio keyboard when we were 9.
Enrique took music seriously and has made it his way of life. He works in San Francisco and Italy and has been producing amazing albums for an amazing array of artist. I probably shouldn’t say this, but he even smuggled out of a studio the original lyrics sheet, printed out and handwritten, of Dave Matthew’s “Grey Street” from the album “Busted Stuff”, in which Enrique recorded the voices.
I have never seen Enrique work professionally, but we made a lot of music together throughout high-school and I think I know him well enough to imagine him in action. Enrique is disciplined, schooled, a perfectionist, and a lot of all the other things one needs to be successful in anything. But above all, I would saw Enrique is entusiastic. You can see this in everything he does, from the way he greets to the way he writes emails with caps and !!! and eeeeven very expressive, even EXPLOSSSSIVE acsi art. In music listening this enthusiasm translates to a very eclectic taste. Enrique has the wisdom to find something worthwhile in everything he listens to. He picks up on it and gets inspired. I am sure that when he is producing records, working closely with artists and bands, he finds a way to GET not only their music, but their groove and their vibe. I can see Enrique getting excited not only by what he hears them do, but by what he imagines they can do. This entusiasm, of course, is contagious. So his “clients” end up trusting Enrique, absorbing some of that enthusiasm back and drilling it into their music.
Enrique has had the luck to meet and work with many of his heroes: Metallica, Les Claypool, Joe Satriani, Desorden Público, Tina Turner, and the list goes on. Recently, Enrique worked with Kronos Quartet on this album. Later on, when Kronos got a commission from Trent Reznor to remix a NIN track from Year Zero, they turned to Enrique. It turns out that Kronos don’t compose their own music, so they asked Enrique not only to produce, but to write, arrange, and produce the song they would record. The song, Another Version of the Truth, eventually came out in the album Year Zero Remixed, with Enrique’s credit in the track list!
Here is the original NIN song:
Here is the Kronos + Enrique González Muller version (in my opinion, the best part starts at 1:46):
Aren’t you proud of my friend? I am.
An aside, here is a very interesting post on enthusiasm.
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