Thom Russo

Life and education

Thom Russo was born December 31, 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied percussion and music theory at Northwestern University, in Chicago. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Career

Russo started his professional career as a musician but became already as a college student interested in engineering and recording for record production. He worked first at River North Studios in Chicago, then at Larrabee Sound, one of the largest recording studios in Los Angeles, and later on his own under the Nettwerk Producer Management.

As one of the first projects at Larrabee in the early 1990s, Russo mixed vocals for Michael Jackson's album Dangerous (1991), Bobby Brown's album Bobby (1992), Cher's Greatest Hits 1965–1992 (1993), Diana Ross's Take Me Higher (1995) and Paula Abdul's Head Over Heels (1995).

That early work laid foundation for Russo's later career. Over the years he has worked with a variety of well-known musicians, in addition to the ones named above,

and others; full listings are available.

Since 2000, Russo has been specializing more in Latin rock and pop music and has worked with Juanes, Mana, and other Latin artists from Latin America, Central America, and Spain.

Russo's mixing techniques include the commonly used audio filtering with different microphones and equalizers, reduction and amplification by DRC, sound fading, and a range of more unconventional approaches. He adapts his methods to accentuate the idiosyncratic features in the music he records, citing the record producer and colleague Rick Rubin as one of the main professional influences.

Awards

Russo has received 12 platinum record awards for his work in the music industry, and won 2 American Grammy Awards and 12 Latin Grammy Awards (listed below in chronological order).