RS: So Mike Rizzo came before Passengerz?
Josh: Oh yes, Mike came about a year and a half before the Passengerz. I had always been working with Omar who was in the Passengerz with me. We weren’t able to spend much time together initially because I had to make money and he was DJing a lot. We did do some tracks and remixes together. We actually did a filtered house remix of Pink’s “Get The Party Started” and a couple of jobs here and there. I think our first record that we did together was for Sandy B., a song called “Next To You”, that Henry Street Records picked up.
RS: So were you the Filter Inc?
Josh: Yes, we were Filter, Incorporated.
RS: Wow, I didn’t realize that was you, Let’s go back to something you just said, you said you were having to make money, what were you doing to make money during this time period?
Josh: That’s where I was very blessed. When I moved here I figured that I would just temp, do what most people do to find a day gig. I happened to meet Mike Rizzo through Ernie Lake, and my third week here my money was running out. The very first record I did with Mike Rizzo was actually a mix that didn’t get released but it was huge on KTU that summer. It was a remix of S Club 7.
RS: “Never Had A Dream Come True?”
Josh: Yes, that was my very first commercial, major-label remix.
RS: When you say you work with Mike Rizzo in the studio, how do you two collaborate?
Josh: When I met Mike, he had done a couple of remixes and had regional success with his mix of Tamia’s “Stranger in My House” which he did with Frank Lamboy. He was starting to get a lot of work at the time, so he wanted to pick up a second programmer and engineer to work with, so he was of working with me and Frank for a while at the same time. Basically when we first started working together he had already worked on his sound so he knew what types of keyboard sounds and bass sounds that he wanted to do and what types of drums he used. At the beginning it was really a lot about me trying to get in his head and help him get out what he was hearing. As we got to know each other better and did more work together, there were more situations where it was more like a straight up fifty/fifty collaboration. Mike has very specific ideas as an arranger, so I just sort of followed his lead on the early records.
RS: As it progressed over time, did it ever get to a point where you were handed an acapella and would do a remix and he would have nothing to do with it?
Josh: No, it was never that way. It was more a situation where sometimes we got so busy because he was working on multiple records and I was working in multiple projects where I might do a lot of a record by myself. I was always operating within parameters, so I wouldn’t do something that he would have no idea what I was doing. We would always discuss it upfront and talk about doing something kind of in the vibe of this mix that we did or that mix that we did. Then, I might work for a few hours by myself and he would come in at the end of the day, take a listen. We’d make some changes and then I would finish off the record and he would hear a finished mix. So there were never situations where I just did a whole record alone and Mike never had any input, and there was no ghosting to that extent. When you're working on multiple projects, you can’t always be there together and you kind of have to go on trust for a sound.
