"Joe Zook began his career in music, playing guitar in bands while he was in elementary school and junior high. At age 19 where he began playing guitar for the band House in Orbit. The group toured for a time, but Joe's heart was in recording. At the University of Miami, he studied music theory, jazz, music business, and digital audio. He played guitar in the Stevie Wonder Ensemble and the James Brown Ensemble. At the legendary studios Sunset Sound and Sunset Sound Factory he learned the craft of producing from among others Quincy Jones, and Greg Wells. As a recording engineer he later worked with artists such as Mick Jagger, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Vanessa Carlton, No Doubt, and dozens more. In 2002, Joe began free-lancing. Since then, he has mixed and/or recorded albums totaling woldwide sales of over 50 million. (Experts form artist's homepage)
Joe has worked with – among others - multi-platinum artists AJR, Thomas Rhett, Grace VanderWaal, Walk Off The Earth, Hey Violet, One Republic, U2, Rachel Platten, Katy Perry, P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Colbie Caillat, Andy Grammer, Olly Murs, Cassius, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ella Henderson, Serena Ryder, Keith Urban, Dan Tyminski, Clare Dunn, Hunter Hayes, Jamie Scott, Modest Mouse, The Hives, New Politics, Plain White T’s, One Direction, Echosmith, The Score, Scott Helman, Magic Giant and Butch Walker. In 2020, Joe mixed the #4 Billboard Rock/Alternative song, AJR’s “Bang”. It has been one of the most charted hits of that entire year!
(Short profile on his managements website: jdmanagement)
Joe now (2020) has his own mixing room in Studio City, just north of Hollywood. He very much flows the vibe of the song and the artist when he does his productions:. ”’Everything in context’ is my motto. The old, ’What would you use on a kick drum’-type question is too vague because there are so many different types of kick sounds that would require very different types of treatments depending on its function in the context of the song. The same goes for any instrument, actually. For example, my EQ treatment for, say, a female vocal singing gently in the mezzo-soprano range, will be different than if she’s singing in a harder, full voice, or if she’s belting in the alto range. The EQ I choose also depends on the singer’s tone and articulation, as well as how the performance was captured — is it distorted with tons of compression, or maybe is it bone dry with just a piano? The context of what you’re working on matters so much. Is it an aggro rock song, or a pop or dance track? You also need to take into account what the song is about and what is the attitude of the performance? It’s not simply a matter of, ’Here’s a piano track so I’m going to use my piano signal chain.’”
“The point of having technical skills is to use them in an expressive way. People skills are always important no matter what you do. But clients come to a mixer because they are looking for someone to interpret the artist’s point of view, and do it in a way that is artistically satisfying and also commercially appealing. All of my favorite artists have put expressive over technical. Much like playing an instrument, just because you know every scale or chord inversion and can play with virtuosic precision, it doesn’t mean people are going to pay to see you play — it has to mean something.”
(Excerpts from interview at
” target=_blank”>uaudio.com The article goes into MUCH more detail on production and equipment)
Another quite technical article about Joe in Soundonsound.com Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Joe Zook
As a rule, we only have bios on artists that Grace has worked with or who have had a part in the creation or production of her music. The amount of information on each of these artists varies greatly, dependent on how much has been readily available. We have tried to identify the artists correctly, but sometimes it has been difficult to determine who exactly is behind the name. Unless otherwise stated, the bios are based on data retrieved at the start of 2021.
Burned
Role: Mixer
Gucci Shoes (Intro)
Role: Mixer
Insane Sometimes
Role: Mixer
The City
Role: Mixer
The City
Role: Mixer