A Sound Transplant

While Tennessee does suffer from an influx of Californians running from the mess they made and bringing it right to us, there are plenty of transplants from outside of Tennessee who bring cultural enrichment without the petty politics. These people, often fondly and comically called “refugees,” understand why they came to Tennessee in the first place and don’t mean to undo it. James Price is one of these people.

An audio engineer by trade, Price is originally from Massachusetts but now lives on a 12-acre farm with his father in East Tennessee. He spends the time he isn’t working tending to his slowly expanding flock of sheep, two English Bull-terriers, and perfecting the set of new skills required to operate a small farm. An absolute expert at what he does, Price has an extensive, well known portfolio of work under his belt—including nine years with the comedy group Million Dollar Extreme and three more with actor Noah Munck (another “refugee”).

STARTING YOUNG

Price’s skill in audio has been developed as a matter of course. He got his first tape recorder at age five, and very quickly began making pretend radio shows. His first-ever recording features Price, repeating the tagline, “My name is James, so beat it,” as his mother encourages him to sing Old McDonald Had a Farm. At age 12 he got his first guitar and soon after began messing around on the Digital Audio Workstation Fruity Loops. “I played around a lot on that and didn’t really make anything that great,” says Price, though one of those tracks was used by a client years later. 

He attended Northern Essex Community College, where he took music theory and sang harmonies in the music ensemble. Price explains that all of the above contributed to him becoming an audio engineer: “If something sounds amateurish and you’re a thinking person, you’d want to figure out how to make it sound different.” Networking through his college also allowed Price to hone his skills further—there were many people who needed their recording to be improved, and he would do it for free as he got started. Soon, however, he decided academia wasn’t for him. “I just stopped going, and I got a job at a full-service gas station,” he muses.

ALMOST DYING

At age 19, Price joined a band with Rhode Island-based musician Dustin Rooney and friend Keegan Martin called The Universes, and learned to play the drums. Also during this time, he was forced to embark on a journey that would change his life forever—four years of repeatedly facing death. He was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, but “still played shows while [he] was dying.” Price bought a kit to make an amplifier, assembled it, and taped it to the half-facepiece respirator he had to wear “so [he] wouldn’t get a disease.” That way, everyone could hear him clearly when he performed live. Martin and Price even began a second project, Boys’ List. “Keegan kind of guided me into synthesizers,” adds Price. “We just bought drum machines and synthesizers and plugged them into each other.” The two played even more shows together, and to this day Price has an extensive collection of synthesizers and modules.

After a year or two (“I was on a lot of benzodiazepines so I don’t remember when,” says Price), he got a bone marrow transplant that patched this particular problem. However, things then only became harder: he couldn’t play shows for a year following the transplant—he couldn’t even leave his house. During that year, Price went blind, his kidneys failed, and he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He says doctors didn’t know why, but “maybe it’s because [he] cheated and went to Best Buy to buy video games a bunch of times. Even though [he] wore a mask, which is supposed to protect you from diseases perfectly.”

Price was blind for six months, until finally, the oncologist who provided his bone marrow transplant referred him to a retinologist. His retinas were detached, and his blood vessels kept sheering themselves and repairing incorrectly. The retinologist treated him for macular degeneration, “a procedure where they put needles into your eyeballs a bunch of times.” Around the same time, his lymphoma was treated with an experimental procedure from a Texas university involving modified T-cells. “Students came and injected them into my arm and the lymphoma went away,” explains Price. He continued, however, to be on dialysis for three long years—until bandmate and dear friend Martin offered his own kidney, saving his life.

MAKING SOUNDS

Before Martin even offered his kidney, Price was already working with the internet comedy troupe Million Dollar Extreme. His music is featured in dozens of videos, but the vast majority of his work was in cleaning and tightening audio for their sketch comedy videos. “It’s a frustrating distinction,” says Price. “To this day everyone thinks I just made music, but most of the work I did was making sure everything sounded correct, which is a job people don’t notice if it’s done correctly.” 

When I first asked Price what he pays attention to that he finds other audio engineers often miss, his first answer was “Uh, everything.” He’s been in the industry for a long time, working with a multitude of artists outside of Million Dollar Extreme, including Noah Munck. There’s been a lot of time to develop his high degree of expertise and a sensitivity to common pitfalls. “I’m tired of talking about the standards and practices of audio engineering,” he says dryly. “Incompetence is everywhere, not just in that field, and it’s easy to get the information on how to do it correctly. I’m tired of explaining how important good audio is.” He adds, however, that there is one simple thing he wishes people would do when editing their audio: put fades on their clips when they edit a video. “At least do that,” he pleads, adding under his breath, “the fucking popping.”

Price’s perfectionism is all-encompassing: regardless of what he pursues, he makes a point to learn the finer details of that practice. The man has a skilled hand and broad knowledge in a variety of topics, including woodwork, auto-mechanics, putting together electronics, firearms, 3D printing, and farming (though he’s “still working on that”). He credits his father for the fact that he studies each new skill so thoroughly. “He’s probably why I try to be good at everything because he told me I did everything wrong growing up,” jokes Price.

MOVING ON

Currently, he is working with a newer internet comedy troupe with actor Noah Munck, filmmaker Julian Clark, and YouTuber Eric Bernhagen. Called God’s Abomination, the group’s work is largely of dark, absurd imagery that lends itself to subtle, biting social commentaries. Following his departure from Million Dollar Extreme, he connected with Munck and began working on sounds for his YouTube venture SadWorld. From there, the two became friends, and Price continues to be his audio man. Still, he is always open for more work.

Price (and his father) made the move from Massachusetts to Tennessee nearly four years ago now, and he has no regrets. He appreciates the cheaper property and lower taxes, among other things. “People seem more honest here,” he observes, “and now I have a dozen sheep and I can shoot my gun whenever I want.” He notes that people seem to take more care down here to maintain a higher quality of life and a more trusting society—and he aims to be a part of that culture. Price himself is an honest, hardworking man who has always preferred a simple and rural lifestyle. He is here to help make the state sound better and not leave trash along the road.

Seek out James Price's work and hire him yourself from here.

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