“Even on this, his first album, Ted was a total pro in the studio. He was extremely focused, fairly dictatorial and knew every part he was going to play. I served as quality control. I didn’t have much to do with the structure of the songs, the length of the songs, the solos, what he played – I just told him when he had to fix something.

“I learned so much making the record. I learned how you start with the drums, do the bass, get the guitars – the layering. Despite what people might think, very few records are made truly live, and there’s a reason for that: they sound terrible.

“We finished the album, and Lew, Ted’s manager at the time, decided to mix it on his own. It wasn’t great, so I asked my boss to give me $5,000 dollars to go and remix it. I had never mixed a record before, but I had a blast – and made the kind of album I wanted to hear. On Stranglehold, I used delays to create this really wild guitar duet with Ted – it was like two guys were playing.

“I sent it off to Ted for his approval. He called me up and said, ‘I love what you did with Stranglehold – but don’t ever do that again without asking me.’”