Say Yes Before You’re Ready: Inside a 25-Year Journey Through Music, Failure & Reinvention

In this episode of Artists Unveiled, we sit down with Pier Giacalone, producer, engineer, musician, and a 25-year veteran of the recording industry whose journey moves from tiny club rooms to mixing at Radio City Music Hall, and from college studios to creating records with icons like Regina Spektor and Zayn Malik.

From turning down Sony because he was on a family trip, to accidentally becoming Zayn’s go-to studio neighbor, Pierre’s story is a reminder that the career you dream of doesn’t unfold in a straight line, it unfolds in the chaos of real life. A phone call in the middle of a Radio City soundcheck changed everything: “Whatever you have to say has to be more important than this.” And it was. “I’m pregnant.”

Pierre opens up about learning to say yes before feeling ready, the truth about the music industry, why soft skills are more important than gear, and why the artists who survive are the ones who keep reaching even when it’s terrifying.

This conversation is for anyone trying to create a life around their art without waiting to be chosen, for the ones building their dreams from scratch, in real time, with imperfect steps.

🎧 Listen to Artists Unveiled: Pier Giacalone “Say Yes Before You’re Ready: Inside a 25-Year Journey Through Music, Failure & Reinvention”
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Transcript

Pier: The detail I can't leave out was that it was the very night that she was doing Radio City Music Hall that my wife called me. And we were sound checking and I'm in Radio City Music Hall and we're sound checking and my phone rings and I'm like, whatever you have to say to me has to be more important than me sound checking at Radio City Music Hall. I'm pregnant. It's like, God damn it, you win. I said, jump in a cab. You know, they have everything in Radio City that is unionized. They have union masseuses in the back. Go get a massage. We'll talk about it later.

Holiday: Hello, welcome to Artists Unveiled, a show where we bring on exceptional creators to not just tell you their story, but to give you real insights into how they went from striving to thriving. My name is Holiday, and on today’s episode, I am proud to introduce producer, engineer, musician, and intellect Pierre Jacquelin, a 25 year veteran of the recording industry, having worked with such artists as Regina Spektor to Sloane Wainwright. Pierre runs a unique boutique recording studio in the great city of Doylestown. Hey Pierre, how are you doing today?

Pier: Good. How are you?

Holiday: I'm all right. It’s good to see you.

Pier: Yeah, it's been a while.

Holiday: I know. How’s it going? Are you at the studio?

Pier: I am at the studio, yep. Actually, I had to borrow my wife's podcast gear, even though I'm in the middle of Star Trek here because it's not what's behind me... So over here is just the main mixing setup, mixing board. Of course, I just moved my mic and that's where I do 98% of everything I do.

Holiday: How's Doylestown?

Pier: Doylestown is very cute. It's great. It's a wonderful little hamlet about an hour north of Philadelphia, two hours west of New York City. We've been very happy here. We came here for the kids, for the schools. But the funny thing was, I ended up working with Zayn from One Direction because I was here.

Holiday: Oh, how did that happen?

Pier: So basically, his fans know this, he was dating Gigi Hadid, the supermodel at the time. And Gigi and her sister Bella, the two biggest supermodels in the world, I think, their mother, who was also a model, had bought a place close to us. And so he was staying with them in their compound. And I was literally five minutes, three minutes away from where they were.

And so it was actually, it was funny. I was on the Jersey Shore with my family and I got a phone call on a weekend saying, “Hi, I'm the Senior Vice President of A&R at Sony and I want to bring in a VIP tomorrow.”

Holiday: And you declined.

Pier: Yeah, I did. I was on the shore with my family. I said, “I'd love to do this, but I'm not there.”

Holiday: Wow, you really did decline.

Pier: Well, I did. And I referred them to another studio, a guy that I knew locally. I said, “Look, you can go to this other studio, actually give him a shout out: Sweet Creek Recording Studio, and I wish I could help you.”

So we finished our time on the shore. We came back home. And I was texting my friend at the other studio. And I said, “So who was it? Because they didn’t tell me.” They said it was a VIP. And he said, “Nobody ever came.”

And right then, my phone rang. And it was, “Hi, this is Sony. Are you ready now? We want you. We want you.” They waited.

So it ended up being Zayn.

And in the very beginning, they were very cautious and they were just renting my studio. It wasn’t even me producing. And it was like, “You can't be there.” And I was like, “Well, that’s not a good idea. I know how it works.”

So we worked a compromise so I could tech support at least and sort of concierge for him. And he came and he loved the space. I think he loved that it was isolated, no paparazzi, and B, I only had one room so there weren’t other people working in other rooms. So it was all to himself.

It was a big space too. It was like a 3,000 square foot facility. So he was very comfortable and he ended up setting up camp and staying for three months. And it was interesting. He loved it.

And then he ended up, we ended up getting about five tracks on the CD that he put out where they credited the studio and very kindly credited me as Assistant Engineer, which, you know, I helped. I helped here and there. But it was fun having him and it was work and it was interesting seeing that level of stardom and how that all works.

And just for the fans, he’s a nice guy. He’s a truly sweet guy.

And then the relationship continued. He shot a video at my place the next year. And that has 6 million views now on YouTube, which is really fun. It was a duet with Ingrid Michaelson, and it was her song on her label and her thing. And I think in the video there’s a total of about four seconds of Zayn, but all four seconds are in my space. And you can see that tapestry he’s standing in front of in one of the shots.

And it was fun. It took them four hours to shoot that four seconds.

He has since, he lives here now in this area because he and Gigi had a baby. And he built his own studio. But every so often I get a phone call like, “We can’t figure out why this thing isn’t working. Can you pop in?”

Holiday: Oh, that’s sweet.

Pier: Yeah, I have a nice neighbor. A cup of sugar for Zayn.

Holiday: So, you said you produced your first, your first pro album for Sloane Wainwright? Or Sloane Wainwright’s first pro album?

Pier: It was both, actually. So when I was, I did this when I was in college at SUNY Purchase. And I was working with a lot of different students at the time, and I was sort of running the recording studio at the school. And a lot of those students have gone on to be pretty well–known artists in their own right.

But with Sloane, a good friend of mine knew her, and she was making her first CD. And this was, she already had three kids, and that’s Rufus’s aunt. No, yes. Rufus’s aunt, and Loudon Wainwright’s sister.

Holiday: Gotcha.

Pier: They have quite a clan over there. Very talented. Lucy is also related, like Lucy Wainwright.

So it was her debut album and my friend referred her to me. And then I had been, I wasn’t hired, but I was sort of haunting a studio nearby the school called Acme Recording Studios. And it was a pro studio. The Spin Doctors got started there. And the owners were really sweet guys and very talented.

And one of them had kind of taken me under his wing and even though I wasn’t really working there, he would let me sit in on sessions. And so I went to them and said, “Look, I have this artist, she wants to make an album, and I’d like to engineer it.” Even though honestly I didn’t have any, I wasn’t qualified, to be quite honest.

Holiday: Not to know better.

Pier: Yeah. Well the funny thing about that, that’s real. That’s so real. Because the owner gave me a grand tour of the studio and I was furiously taking notes. And what it boiled down to was, no, I didn’t know what I was doing. But I had an idea which microphone to put on which instruments, how to get the signal clean. And really what it was, was I didn’t get in my own way or theirs.

And she brought in a talented band with good arrangements. And to this day, not every song, but there are songs I look back on and I’m like, “Wow, that really sounds amazing.” And I wonder if I would have made it that, if it would have been that good if I did it today, knowing everything I know. Because it was just, all the fundamentals were there. Great music, great players, great room.

Holiday: Right, because it was so simplistic you could actually mess it up if you added too much.

Pier: Right. Yeah. And the funny thing is, to save money they did half the album live in the studio, direct to digital audio tape at the time. No mixing, everything was live. And I’m proud you can’t tell which tracks were live and which weren’t.

Sloane is a sweetheart.

And there’s a little story here that I learned a huge lesson on those sessions about the way bands interact in the studio and the way production people interact. Big lesson: stay neutral.

When the band came in, they told me, “The guitar player thinks he’s producing. He is a know it all, don’t listen to him.” And they said he wasn’t allowed to come to the mixing.

And being young and inexperienced, I was like, “Sure, okay.” And they started recording and I didn’t feel that he was doing that. The keyboard player, on the other hand, was the one doing what they accused the guitar player of doing, but I agreed with him. And I sided more with him.

And I walked away with the lesson: don’t do that. Stay impartial. Stay out of band politics.

When the album came out, Sloane got offered a record contract. The label wanted two more cover songs. When they came back to record those, the guitar player said he didn’t want to work with me. Politics. And that stung.

But later, like 20 years later, Sloane wrote a very sweet post praising me publicly. Full circle moment.

Holiday: That’s so nice.

Pier: It was. And to this day, I still tell young engineers: your job isn’t the gear. It’s navigating people. And I learned that on day one.

Pier: And actually, I left a detail out, I wasn’t originally hired to produce. I was originally hired to be an engineer. When they told the guitar player that he couldn’t come to the sessions, it was like, oh now we don’t have a producer. And so then they asked me to produce.

Holiday: Oh, that’s an interesting story.

Pier: Yeah, and that’s how I fell into producing. And the most important thing is that I did produce Sloan through her vocal recording.

Holiday: Well, I was gonna say that, which is obviously important, yes.

I was gonna say before you gave that very important nugget, that you can never do the right thing, you can never do the wrong thing. Because you just don’t know why things are happening or why they’re not happening. And sometimes you make a mistake and everyone gives you accolades— and other times you do everything perfectly and no one is even clapping. And it’s just a matter of going on the road and keep going because you never know what’s going to happen.

Pier: Yeah. Well, you learn. And navigating people is such the biggest hardest part of the job. You start this and you have this wall of tech you have to learn and you think that’s what it’s all about. And if I learn the tech really well and if I produce great quality recordings, then I’ve done my job.

But yeah, the much bigger part of the job is the people.

Holiday: Right. The soft skills.

Pier: Yeah. And I think, people that have the people skills are the ones that excel. You know, I know several people who are incredible technicians but they haven’t done as well as the people who knew how to get along with people. Particularly if you’re working with artists. Artists are artsy. They’re feelings. It’s a feeling world.

And the adage goes, people remember how you made them feel.

Holiday: That’s true. People do remember how you made them feel. It’s so important. And the other thing is, literally anybody can learn the tech. If you’re committed.

Pier: Right. If you’re committed. Believe me, if I did, anybody can. I’m not that kind of head. But I had to. And if you want to, you can. But the people's side is different, that’s the gift.

Holiday: There’s a gift, but there’s all kinds of people. It just depends. People get into their niche, and in their niche, they have really good people skills. You never know.

Pier: Well yeah, that’s funny because we have Barb in common. Barb Morrison, the producer.

Holiday: Yes, we have Barb in common.

Pier: I can’t think of anybody who’s got the people thing down better than Barb.

Holiday: Yeah, Barb’s great. Everything is fascinating about Barb. How do you pick a thing?

Pier: Yeah, you’re right. Barb really leaned into the people side of producing. Barb is knowledgeable about engineering but made the decision to have engineers so they could focus on the people's side. I think that was brilliant.

And that’s what makes Barb so special, the same way Rick Rubin is so special. He doesn’t do the tech side, he lets others do that, and focuses on the human side. Different breeds of producers. And the people–side producers tend to do well.

Holiday: So how about Regina Spektor, what was that all about?

Pier: Oh, that was amazing. What a whirlwind. And one of the things I’ve seen is that these artists tend to be who they appear to be. I’m sure some artists put on personas but I haven't run into them. Regina and Zayn, they’re similar in that they’re genuine. Authentic. And they both have gorgeous fandoms.

And Regina is an example of why someone might choose to move to a big city like New York, because that’s exactly how that happened for me. It was very by chance. A neighbor I used to have in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, like six months after we stopped being neighbors, called me out of the blue.

And at the time I was working a day gig at a bank doing PowerPoint, hating it. And she calls me and says: "Hey, I’m tour managing for this artist on Warner Brothers, do you want to go on tour with me and be the sound guy?" And I said: Yes. Yes I do.

Pier: And I didn’t know who she was, because I’ve never been hip and I’ve never been up on the latest greatest thing. I should have known who she was. You just have good luck.
 Yeah well, she made it in my hood. She made it in the Lower East Side.

But yeah, it was very good luck. And so we went on, Regina had just been signed to Warner Brothers and they, to warm her up as a headliner, did a small national tour of clubs. And so I did that. And the plan was that when we got to L.A., I would go home and my friend would go to Europe with her. And it flipped.

And, you know, she got sort of attached to me being her sound guy. And so I went to Europe with her and they got a tour manager in Europe. And I don’t know if she regrets that now, but it's… you know. And I ended up doing the rest of the year with her. About nine months.

And during that time, my wife got pregnant, and I decided I didn’t want to tour with a baby, so I ended up walking away. Which was crazy. I don’t regret it, but it was still like, it was a big decision to have to make.

Holiday: I think that’s the unseen world. The career vs. the life. Where they intertwine and where they diverge.
What advice do you wish you had been given?

Pier: The way anybody succeeds in anything is so customized to who they are and their personality. It’s like life, as you get older you realize you were always your biggest impediment. Your insecurities and how you feel about yourself were always the biggest things in your way.

Holiday: When you look back on your interactions, you mean?

Pier: No, I mean in life in general. The decisions you make. The one thing I don’t regret is that I was always a “Screw it do it” kind of person. The cynical side would say fake it till you make it, but like, when I was with Regina, I had never mixed a room bigger than 600 people. And in the middle, we did clubs that size and then Europe was theaters, not that big. Then we came back to the States and suddenly it was Radio City Music Hall. Suddenly it was a seven thousand seat arena. Opening for Keane, when they had just had their big hit.

Holiday: Oh wow, I love their hit.

Pier: Yeah, they were the nicest guys. Again, authenticity. Sweet guys. But yeah going from mixing the Bowery Ballroom to Radio City in three months, with the President of Warner Brothers standing over one shoulder… The pressure was insane. And the detail I can’t leave out
 It was the very night that she was doing Radio City Music Hall that my wife called me. We were sound checking. I’m in Radio City Music Hall. My phone rings. 

And I’m like: “Whatever you have to say to me has to be more important than me sound-checking at Radio City Music Hall.” She answered “I’m pregnant.” It’s like, God damn it, you win. I said: Jump in a cab. Everything in Radio City is unionized. They have union masseuses in the back. I said: “Go get a massage. We’ll talk about it later.” Regina was so tickled that a baby was born on her tour. If you look on the liner notes of the CD “Begin To Hope”, the first Warner Brothers album after the tour, in the thank-yous it says: “To Pierre, Jen, and baby Ben” And he was a fetus at the time. And she did an entire press thing once with her hand on Jen’s belly trying to feel him kick. She’s very family. Very warm.

Holiday: That’s so sweet.

Pier: Yeah. It was sweet. She’s sweet. And yeah, we did van tours through France and the Alps and Switzerland and three times in the UK and festivals. It was incredible. I met a lot of people. I met Obama in 2005 when he was Senator Obama. That was amazing. It was a Rock The Vote thing. Speakers were Obama and John McCain. Before the election. But yeah, it was a life experience I’ll never forget.

Pier: And again, if I didn’t know, I don’t think I misrepresented my experience, but I think again, it was reaching. It was like I don’t know if I can do this… and doing it anyway. That’s the biggest thing. I don’t know if anybody ever gave me that advice, but coming from New York City, you grow up rough and tumble. You just do it. You go.

So yeah, that is the advice for young people: Don’t undercut yourself. Reach. Put yourself in situations where you have to stretch. You always have more potential than you think.

Holiday: That’s true because other people also see things in you that you don’t see in yourself. And authenticity is important, sometimes the thing you hide is the thing that would’ve gotten you the job.

Pier: Exactly. And you never know what’s going to shine. There were crazy times on the road. And I don’t know if Regina regrets hiring me or not, but we’re good. She gave us backstage passes when she was on Broadway, she was lovely. I like her. I like her husband, Jack. He’s a delight. And again, it’s just doing it.  The first pro playing gig I ever did was guitar in a cruise ship band. I was 20. Answered an ad in the back of the Village Voice. Two weeks later I’m meeting a band in Utica, New York at a hotel. Things are so careful now you can’t imagine someone doing that, but back then? You just did it.

Holiday: That’s how we used to do it. You just do it. You just go.

Pier: Exactly. The world is crazy now, but it’s always been crazy. People say it was safer before, I don’t know. But I do know this: People hold themselves back because they’re afraid to fail.

Even if you fail, you learned. You gained something. You’re further than when you started.

The first recording studio I opened in Chelsea, I worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Next to impossible. Very competitive. Very expensive. I had to close it after 4 years. Was that failure? No.
 It’s the reason the next studio worked. You carry the knowledge forward.

And I think that’s the most important thing: Don’t be afraid to fail, especially when you’re young.i It’s the people willing to risk failing that accomplish something.

Holiday: Any last things you want to say before we wrap?

Pier: Yeah. Something for artists and musicians: Right now, it feels bleak. It feels like there’s no industry. And honestly? In some ways that’s true. But that’s the challenge. Make it from scratch.

Punk rock came from collapse. Art comes from turmoil. Do you let destruction stay destruction?
Or do you alchemize it into something better?

Holiday: Isn’t that what art is? Turning raw material into meaning. And getting someone to believe in it.

Pier: Exactly. And I worry sometimes, there’s no singular villain to fight now. It’s not a direct target. But the reaction needs to come. The artistic response to this dystopia.

Maybe it’s already happening and I’m not hipi enough to see it.

Holiday: Sometimes when you’re in the middle of something you don’t see it.

Pier: Exactly, look. Resist. Persist. Be strong like penguins. When they tear off your penguins, fight back.

Holiday: Thank you so much, Pierre. I appreciate you being here.

Pier: Thank you. I really enjoyed this. Anytime.

Holiday: Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Artists Unveiled.
Check us out on Instagram at dimi.app.og. And on our website godimi.com.