Joost van der Beork – Got Meghan's Blog

Hello!

Even though 2009 is the year that started my journey into the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, I would have to mention that the next year was just as important to me. In 2010, as I was failing to comprehended to understand my online class of Music Theory, I was busy dipping my feet into new waters. Once I made the decision of quitting my classes altogether, I dove down deep into the world of symphonic metal.

Now what you need to understand is that I was both heavily depressed and contemplating suicide so the fact that I still remember the origin story of how I got into the starting five bands from mid-2010 to early 2012 is a miracle in itself because everything else is a complete blur to me. I strongly believe music not only kept me alive but also distracted my negative mind. I chose to select a fairly large group of people to be apart of my story.

I didn’t find out about Joost until probably late 2011, which makes sense because by then I had decided to give Disturbed and Slipknot a try after years and years of being absolutely afraid to listen to anything that could activate my inner anxiety. In the same cycle, I had found the band Epica as they were just about to release their concert “Retrospect” concert DVD/CD. Once I started going through the band’s previous albums, I quickly realized that there was a common theme, Joost van der Beork was producing a good chunk of their albums!

After that, I decided to go through his music and found out that he use to be apart of another symphonic metal band called After Forever with Mark Jenson of Epica and Floor Jenson (no, they are not related!) of Nightwish. Once the band broke up, Joost went on to go behind the scenes and produce music instead. He has worked with Epica, ReVamp (Floor’s band), Delain, Leah, MaYaN (Mark’s solo project) and many others. He has a fairly large resume of a lot of bands you might not have heard before, so I think if you have a free minute in the time to look on Spotify or YouTube and check out some of the music he helped put together. Oh, and after going through with this post, I ended up finding out that Joost is actually a current member of a band called Ex Libris, which are very good too!

Have you heard pf any Joost’s work in the past? If you have, what was the first album you listened to and possibly enjoyed the most?

From early 2009 to late 2014, I knew of five producers in the metal scene. The first was Rick Rubin, second was Flood, who worked with Thirty Seconds To Mars, James Michael, he is the lead vocalist of Sixx:A.M. with Nikki Sixx and DJ Ashba but has produced several albums for other bands, Kevin – which I’ll explain more in a minute, and Joost van der Beork. Spoiler alert: he will be discussed in next month’s theme!

I came across Kevin Chucko in either 2011 or 2014; I know this is a big gap of time, but these were the years that my new love of music became very prominent. As I was into the genre for close to six years straight. I really made myself pay attention to various music producers just like I had in the hip hop world in my younger years.

I was actually introduced to Kevin Churko after the nu metal band Papa Roach worked with James Michael on their album “The Connection” in 2012. If you didn’t know, this is actually fairly common in music. Everyone, whether they are just a singer or in a band with more than the standard five members, can work with various people in the album making process. They are not just limited to a set and have to make it work that way. You could look at this as like playing the children’s game “duck, duck, goose” but I think it’s a smart thing to do and I feel like I played the same game in the very beginning of figuring out what I loved about the headbanging and mosh pittin’ lifestyle too.

Sometimes acts will in fact devote their time with only one composer, engineer, songwriter and producer for their work if the chemistry is there, but in order to keep things interesting and build a relationship, you can grow out of your comfort zone and do something new. Kevin Chucko has worked with prominently rock bands. He’s based in Las Vegas and shockingly not all bands want to have fun on the Strip. For most musicians, they make the choice to stay at home and work via online or relocating to wherever their record company sends them to, which is usually where their producer lives.

The first band that I fell in love with in 2009 was female fronted was In This Moment. Since they released their album “Blood” in 2012, they have exclusively worked with Kevin. Personally, it is my ultimate favorite but I think their newest “Mother” has cemented into a stable second place. While I tend to stop following bands in between albums, ITM has been in the same bag as other bands like Linkin Park and Within Temptation where I am always looking at my trustee sources so I don’t miss out on anything they release in the future.

Kevin has also worked with heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch on their album “American Capitalist” which I think came out the same time but I’m really not for sure!Now, for anyone who doesn’t know, this was my first and most beloved album by FFDP and it was also with this collection of songs that I found out that I could enjoy the harsher style of male voices in rock ‘n roll, thanks to Chester Bennington! A year or two later, after working with James Michael, Papa Roach started going to Kevin Churko and he has produced their music since probably 2014 and even though I have only really heard the singles from the last three albums, I usually love anything they put out to the fans.

A couple of things I learned while writing this post were: I have been spelling his name wrong, so I had to change the banner and everything else, so if you notice any misspellings throughout this post, I am so sorry! The next one is he has alongside another producer that was on my original list – Mutt Lange. My mom actually suggested him but once I decided on doing this as a miniseries, he was cut out of the lineup but I thought this was interesting (but odd) to include here. And lastly, Kevin’s son Kane Churko is also a producer, and generally works with the same acts but has done a few remixes here and there too!

Have you listened to anything produced by Kevin Churko? If you have, what are your favorite(s)?