Sculpting The Sound of Death: An Interview with Greg Wilkinson

Greg Wilkinson stands as a foundational architect of 21st-century extreme music. Through his dual roles as a prolific musician in bands like Brainoil, Deathgrave, and Autopsy, and as the driving force behind Oakland’s legendary Earhammer Studios, he has indelibly shaped the sonic identity of underground metal, punk, and sludge for over two decades. His work transcends mere production; it captures the visceral urgency of the Bay Area scene and beyond, forging a legacy where raw authenticity meets technical ingenuity. Wilkinson’s journey—from teenage experiments with cassette decks to engineering genre-defining albums—reflects a dogged determination to serve the often-overlooked corners of heavy music, making him a revered figure among bands seeking both brutality and nuance.

The genesis of Earhammer Studios, as revealed in this interview conducted by J. Donovan Malley, epitomizes Wilkinson’s unwavering DIY ethos. Partnering with Salvador Raya, he transformed a West Oakland warehouse into a creative sanctuary during a challenging time for Bay Area music, when venues were scarce and affordable recording options were nearly nonexistent. As he recounts, the motivation was deeply communal: "I’m from the punk and metal scene. I understand what people were trying to do and that we’re all broke as hell.  We can do this only if we do it together." This ethic of accessibility—offering high-quality engineering at rates struggling artists could afford—became Earhammer’s bedrock, directly countering an industry where recording was often a "luxury."

Wilkinson's approach in the studio features intuitive collaboration and a rejection of over-polished commercialism. Having recorded over a thousand bands (a statistic met with an astonished "Holy Shit"), he prioritizes interpreting a band’s vision rather than imposing his own. "I’m just there mainly to help document it," he insists, though he openly navigates the delicate balance of offering creative input when invited. His philosophy avoids the "horror stories" of heavy-handed producers, focusing instead on preserving the energy and intent of performances, even when that means embracing the "abstract" or "lo-fi." This artist-first mentality, forged through early "trial and error," ensures Earhammer remains a space where extreme music’s spontaneity thrives.

Ultimately, Wilkinson’s impact extends far beyond technical craft. Earhammer emerged as a vital "connective hub" during Oakland’s cultural upheavals, documenting a fragmented yet resilient scene and fostering what he calls a "shared vision." His commitment to affordability and community stewardship—rooted in punk’s egalitarian spirit—solidified the studio as both a creative forge and a bulwark against gentrification. As this interview explores, his dual identity as musician and engineer fuels a unique symbiosis, allowing him to solve "death metal problems" with death metal solutions while ensuring the underground’s unfiltered voice endures.

J. Donovan Malley for Frozen Moon Promotions (FMP): Beyond the bands you’re in, I'm fascinated by the way you've helped define the sound of extreme music with your studio work. Could you share the backstory of Earhammer Studios, if you don't mind?

Greg Wilkinson (Wilkinson): Yeah, so long story short, my friend Sal (Salvador Raya) and I were both recording engineers, but we each got our feet wet in different spots, so to speak. We started hanging out, and he said he wanted to move back to Oakland. He told me he had found a warehouse there, and he asked me if  I wanted to do a studio. I was thinking to myself, “Hell, that sounds cool.”

I always thought we would do something at some point, but why wait? Plus, I got into recording because I wanted to record my own bands, and this would be perfect. Back then, recording was almost a luxury, something many people could not afford.

However, I was in love with the apartment I was living in at the time. It was dirt cheap. I thought, 'I'm never leaving this place unless something amazing comes up.'

Then this warehouse became available for rent, allowing Sal and me to build out a small studio space, and I couldn’t say no. The landlords were super supportive of the arts and everything. The landlord asked us what we were going to use the space for, and I replied, "We're going to set up a recording studio, and I run a record label, so we'll use it for warehousing. Plus, we're going to live there." And he said that's precisely what he was looking for.

We got the keys, and then we moved in and began expanding it immediately.

FMP: What year was that?

Wilkinson: It was January 2004, and we started building out the studio right away.

Honestly, we were recording and making records at the same time we were building it. Stormcrow’s Enslaved in Darkness was one of the first records to be released involving us. It was a significant milestone, as one of the first full-length records made at Earhammer, marking the beginning of our journey in the music industry.

And we didn't even have the walls sealed or anything. We were just installing the floors. It was a collective effort, a shared vision that we were all working towards, including a lot of the bands that came through.

People were screwing in sheetrock and stuff as a trade kind of thing. I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking much about it. There was no grand scheme or plan in place. It was very organic and in response to the situation we were in.

I’m from the punk and metal scene. I understand what people were trying to do and that we’re all broke as hell.  We can do this only if we do it together.

Back in the early 2000s, it was a challenging time. There were only a few venues around, and Burnt Ramen popped up. That really started helping the underground scene. There were a couple of other spots, but Gilman was declining. Everything was declining at that time. It was a tough period for the music scene, with venues closing and the underground community struggling to find its footing.

Around that time, the fact that people could record demos and albums and document their work helped, because there weren't many affordable studios around. That made a big difference, because then all those jaded bookers could finally hear what you actually sound like.

It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, obtaining the keys to that location, and developing it. And then Sal and I were both recording bands for a couple of years. He ultimately had to leave the studio. He's a live sound technician now and travels for that work. He's definitely succeeded as well.

FMP: Approximately, how many bands have you worked with?

Wilkinson: You know, even with the internet and everything, that isn't very well documented. I'm not very good at documenting myself. I've had other engineering friends who, back in the mid-2000s when we were all starting, were really good about using Discogs and the various Wikipedias and similar sites. They documented everything and made sure it was all correct.

I never truly did that or had anyone do it officially.

But, you know, at least a thousand bands at this point. At least.

FMP: Holy Shit.

Wilkinson: Yeah, I know. Many times, people will have a band and then they'll have side bands, and all of a sudden, you start a network. You work on one band, and then, you know, that year, you get about four bands out of that one band.

FMP: I understand there's the practical side of saving money recording your own work when approaching the studio and engineering, but what else drew you to that kind of work?

Wilkinson: You know, I started playing music when I was 15. I got my first bass guitar and had a Magnavox stereo with two tape decks. And so I could plug my instrument line into my bass and record, then just go tape over and over and multi-track. I fell in love with it, and I didn't really socialize with other people much.

I would always dork out. I would get home from school, work, or wherever I was, and I would just do that until I got really into it. I loved it. I was so engrossed in my music that I often found myself lost in it, spending hours perfecting a track or experimenting with new sounds.

And, you know, I was in a band while in high school where we bought a cassette four-track, pooling our money since we didn't have a band fund, but we all had jobs. Let's consider that the four-track was around the same price as those Tascams and others back then, so you could get it for a pretty reasonable price. It was about 150 bucks. It's a brand new box. So, we decided, “Hey, let's all just chip in.” There were four of us. Let's all contribute our fair share and pass the unit around.

So, the drummer ended up with the unit most of the time because we used to practice at his house. And, all of those people have stopped playing music and stuff from that band. But then the drummer slowed down on playing music. He handed me the four-track and said, Here you are, it's your turn now—that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, while that was happening, my mom had a friend who was a musician. They had a device, similar to a Fostex, which was a smaller tape machine unit, but it was a four-track model. He would use real studios, since he was in a working band, and he said, 'Here, let your son use this, you know. So I wound up having that. And then I had two.

I would bounce and re-bounce tracks, sometimes getting all crazy ping pong’ing things in and out and around. It never really sounded great, but it was cool. So, I fell in love with the creative process of recording and the creative process of songwriting.

And I love playing shows and all that, but I've always really enjoyed the creating part of it. I never thought I would become a recording artist. I never aspired to be one. And then, in 1998, I was in a band called Lana DaGales. It was a two-piece, and the drummer and I were talking to Jeff Evans from Asunder. He was going to recording school, and he said they recorded stuff such as the Like Flies on Flesh split at that school.

And so, we were discussing it with him. He was like, "Hey, you know, you should check out the school if you guys are interested." Because my drummer and I wanted to record our own stuff, and we were working on a track. It was good enough, but it never really felt great. Jeff introduced us to the school and the studio connected to it. Then we went to the school, and they rented me the spot for 15 bucks an hour. It was off-hours, between 10 PM and 8 AM. But it was affordable. I could rent it.

Not only could I rent it, but it had a 48-channel Harrison console and a two-inch tape machine. It was all really nice. I was renting that space, and we recorded ourselves there. I also recorded a few other bands in that studio. One band was called Brain Blood Volume (later they became Laudanum, whom I eventually joined).

I did the Fleshies there. They were starting then. I got to do a couple of things on campus right from the start. This was in 1999. I was able to access that stuff cause I graduated from the program.

And so, I was doing that for a bit, but it was still a hobby. I still worked a day job. I later started working at Burnt Ramen or with my friend Nate (Smith) from Brainoil, who had a more current mobile recording device. We'd work together, go into the basements of people's houses, and record demos and other material. Fuck, we'd do stuff with Born Dead and Desolation and old bands in that weird zone from around 2000 to 2004.

That was a bizarre time.

You either did stuff on your own or for your friends, or you could go to Bart Thurber, who was great, and he was the only affordable engineer. Dan Rathbun was an outstanding recording engineer, but his rates were really high; it was around $55 an hour. For people working for five or six bucks an hour, it was almost impossible to shell out that kind of money.

I wanted to offer some quality for less.

FMP: Can you discuss where that desire came from and connect it with how vital a DIY ethic and approach have been for you in running the studio?

Wilkinson: I have a big punk side as well. I grew up with punk and metal, and there are different theories about how things should go. The music is extreme and not meant to be commercial or marketable, but that doesn't mean the quality of the music and recording shouldn't be good. You need people who understand that part.

And when I was recording, I was doing it in a way that was affordable for people. I was getting paid, but not a lot of money, so it was something they could afford. We were trying to design our own “sound”, you know. Some of the frustrations bands experienced when they'd go to these nice studios, and these guys would be working with some bigger budget engineer, and the engineers are great, for sure, but they don't always understand that kind of music.

I wanted to help bridge that gap.

And so, when the studio emerged, it was cool because we now had a facility where punks and metalheads could use a space designed for extreme music, instead of forcing some engineer who maybe didn't want to listen to this stuff to do it. At best, they’re just here to collect a paycheck, just a job. It's a job for someone they don't know, and they're qualified enough. However, there’s no passion for the style or approach to music.

That's when I realized that's what I wanted to do. The Bay Area scene had a profound influence on me. Other engineers in the Bay Area during that same time were exploring different aspects of music that were still more extreme than what was commercially accepted. A group of engineers came together around 2004.

That has become a form of documentation of the Bay Area sound, at least for a specific period. The nineties had a lot of documentation and stuff. And you know, you'd always have Billy Anderson there, and you'd get Melvins, High on Fire, and tons of other things happening, as well as the documentation involved with Neurosis. Around 2000, much of that faded away, and it was a strange time. I think we had the “Dot-com Bubble” in '99 that basically self-imploded. And I believe it had a significant impact, causing ripple effects across everything, probably.

It really hurt because everyone was saying that was the first wave of rent hikes, more expensive food, and all that stuff. Absolutely. It scared a lot of people. In the nineties, I was paying $100 a month for a studio apartment that could fit four adults and a baby. But hell, I was sleeping under a coffee table. 

You can't do that anymore. It's too hard to find anything similar to that at all anymore. It's crazy. It's a really different world, you know, a damn different world. But I don't want to get heavy.

FMP: I know you do mastering, engineering, and mixing—different roles you take on in the production process. Which one do you prefer? I understand mastering can be tricky since you're finishing the product without seeing the entire process. Do you like to be involved early on and see it through, or are you comfortable jumping in at a later stage?

Wilkinson: I can do it anywhere along the process. But, ideally? The best is to do it from start to finish.

Unless it's a project that might take about a year to finish or has long gaps in between, I prefer to complete the entire process through to mastering. I enjoy diving into a project and immersing myself fully in it. Ideally, I would gather everyone together, record everything at once, then take a break, and later handle the mixing and mastering.

That's my favorite.

Wilkinson w/ Necrot, who recorded their second album Mortal at Earhammer Studios

FMP: Do you try to line that up with bands? Do you present that as the way to do it from a process perspective?

Wilkinson: Yeah, totally – at least in some way. Bands such as Mortuous, Necrot, Ulthar, Vastum, or Vile Rites, are examples of this. When we book studio time, we do so with those kinds of intentions.

I prefer to be wholly engrossed in a project, capturing it correctly, and so on. However, some projects can become overly lengthy, and a detachment from the original vision can occur over time. When you enter, you don't necessarily need a completely solid vision from day one. But there needs to be some direction, and I do encourage creativity. If you don't have these guitar layers written out and want to explore, then let's do that. That's fine. But sometimes, when it goes on too long, people start second-guessing themselves and then trying to change and replace things.

FMP: Do you find it helpful sometimes to step in and offer guidance in those moments?

Wilkinson: I do feel comfortable weighing in on that sort of thing – usually (laughs). I mean, it depends on how approachable people seem, but in most cases, it's through word of mouth or by being approached in a way where I know the people.

I'm not dealing with divas or people who are going to fly off the handle or act crazy, luckily. They're coming to me most likely because they already have that respect. If I do have input, sometimes it doesn't align with their vision, and they'll say, “No.” I'm totally fine with that. It's always supposed to be a conversation, especially when it comes to music in general. I'm just there mainly to help document it.

I never want to rip on someone’s vision or, on the other hand, create their vision for them. I've heard horror stories about producers getting too involved with that. They become overbearing. I've heard horror stories of producers recording parts on records and trying to insert themselves into the music. And the band wonders who the hell this album is for? Or what specific decisions were made, and why were they made? I've heard crazy stories about heavy-handed things, and I would never do anything like that unless somebody asked me, "Can you do that for me?"

However, I also work with many bands that ask me for input from the start.

I usually ask bands a very general question first, something along the lines of, “So, what do you think?” That's a great open, transparent question. Not judgmental. Let's answer that simple question first. Then I adjust based on what the performers are seeking. If they don't want input, I won't give it to them.

The creative process can be very touchy for folks.

There are some engineers who also just press buttons and do nothing else. Everyone's different.

So if they don't want that input and you give it to them, it could appear that you’re stepping on the band’s process. Or you could actually maybe knock them off their vibe – push them off the wall. If they were unsure about something, it would make them start second-guessing other things.

FMP: Is that one of the biggest things you have to fight against in the studio when you're recording – somebody starting to second-guess themself and the creative process.

Wilkinson: Sometimes, but it depends on the band and the individuals involved. There are certain bands where they do second-guess themselves, whether it’s in composition or performance, and other related aspects.

Sometimes people have insecurities, and a person may struggle if they feel they have to perform a lead section repeatedly, for example.

There’s this psychological aspect where you kind of have to figure out where the barometer for each person is, you know. If you repeatedly ask people to do the same thing over and over again, to the point of frustration, then the experience isn't enjoyable. And then, sure, you might get better performance, but you might also get a really frustrated one. As an engineer or a musician, you may know that a fan might not notice it, but there will be people out there who will sense it and be aware of it.

I've definitely heard recordings where they sound forced. You can almost feel some tension behind the note. It's overworked. There's a sense of frustration or something.

On some rare occasions, that kind of tension and vibe can lead to incredible stuff – but usually not.

FMP: You don't want it to turn into a Fleetwood Mac Rumors thing where there's way too much drama and tension going on amidst piles and piles of cocaine.

Wilkinson: Exactly….(laughs).

Greg Wilkinson's journey—from teenage experimentation with cassette decks to becoming a cornerstone of the global extreme music underground—epitomizes the transformative power of passion fused with unwavering community values. His dual legacy as a foundational musician in bands like Brainoil, Autopsy, and Deathgrave (who just released a ferocious split with Japanese powerviolence outfit Black Ganion), combined with his visionary stewardship of Oakland’s Earhammer Studios, transcends technical achievement. It represents a lifeline for a scene often marginalized by commercial pressures. Earhammer, born out of necessity and a shared DIY ethos during the Bay Area’s cultural upheavals, stands as a testament to Wilkinson’s belief that brutal, authentic art shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for the well-funded but a collective endeavor forged in solidarity.

Beyond shaping iconic sounds across over a thousand recordings, Wilkinson’s true impact resonates in the profound personal connections he fosters. His studio isn’t merely a facility; it’s a sanctuary built on mutual respect and understanding, where artists find not just technical expertise, but a collaborator who speaks their musical language. This artist-first philosophy, prioritizing the raw energy and intent of a performance over sterile perfection, has made Earhammer a vital creative forge. As drummer Chad Gailey (Necrot, Mortuous) powerfully articulates, "Greg Wilkinson has single-handedly influenced my life’s path for the better through his engineering and production work...Greg is one of my closest friends and mentors, and I am so appreciative of his existence." Gailey’s words underscore that Wilkinson’s influence extends far beyond the mixing console, shaping careers and fostering deep, lasting relationships within the scene.

Ultimately, Greg Wilkinson’s significance lies not only in his exceptional skill as an engineer and musician but fundamentally in his character. He embodies the egalitarian spirit of punk and metal, transforming Earhammer into a bulwark against gentrification and artistic homogenization. His commitment to accessibility and community stewardship has nurtured generations of artists, ensuring the underground’s unfiltered voice endures. As Chris Napolitano (Endorphins Lost/Paralysis Expletive) simply yet profoundly states, "he’s been one of the most fun and genuine dudes I can call a friend." This genuine connection—forged through shared stages, countless recordings, and unwavering support—cements Wilkinson’s legacy. He is not just a sculptor of sound, but an incredible person whose integrity, camaraderie, and relentless dedication have irrevocably shaped the heart and soul of extreme music.