Dad Talks #3: John Agnello
In conversation with the most excellent record producer and most excellent dad
Before John Agnello became my friend, he was one of my rocknroll heroes. As a kid, teenager, and eventually a young man, John’s was a name I noticed on so many of the most beloved albums of my youth.
As I pored over my CD collection’s liner notes, as I always did, I read his name on albums by Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Mark Lanegan, Jawbox, Chavez, and so many others.
Years later, in my time working at Matador Records and the Beggars Group, I became friends with John. Most of our time was spent out at night, at parties, bars, or shows (as most time in the record business is spent). But as we got closer, I also saw a different side of John. That is, John as a dad to two daughters; Sara, the older of who is just a few years younger than I, while Bella, the younger, is just finishing high school.
John recently relocated to from his longtime home in Jersey City to North Carolina and we don’t hang out nearly enough (my fault, as I’m the one with babies).
John took the time to talk to me about balancing fatherhood with a career in the business of rock and roll.
Your work has always taken you all over the place. How do you prepare yourself emotionally for being away from your family for such long periods?
The process has always been “This is what I do. This is my job.” This is how I put food on the table. But the last night at home before I leave for a job is always melancholy. You know, when Bella was born, I took two, maybe three months off. And then the work I did after that, I just stayed local for a while.
This is my third marriage, and I know my job led to the demise of at least my first marriage and partially my second marriage. But the nice thing about my third marriage is that my wife (Mike note: the most excellent and truly badass Sharon) manages bands, and she knows that bands and artists go on the road. She’s way more understanding. She gets it.
But now it’s a bit different. Sara’s grown up, she lives up in New Jersey. Bella, she just got her license, so she’s out the door.
One of the things I loved about playing in a band and touring around the country was that when you’re working, you’re working. But when you’re not working, you’re home. And you can be home and be fully present.
Yeah, totally. But you also can’t really control when you’re working and not working. You have to work when you can work. I can’t be like, “I’m not gonna do this Alice Cooper record because I gotta watch my kid.” You have to work if the work is there.
Your job is an objectively cool job. But your dad’s job is always going to be lame, to an extent, even if your dad’s job is making records with Sonic Youth. Have your daughters taken an interest in your work? Or have their musical paths veered away from your own?
The two kids are very different stories. Sara would come by the studio and hang growing up. She’s into the music, she’s into hanging out. She became good friends with Kurt Vile when I was doing those records. She’s really into the music.
Bella’s into country music, she’s into Pitbull. She’s at that age when she’s rebelling against her parents. But she really likes that stuff, she’s into what she’s into, so who the fuck am I to tell her what to like?
It’s funny though because there are a handful of Bella’s friends who are like, “Mister John, you’re the coolest.” And Bella’s like, “No. He’s not.”
You’ve been self-employed for three-and-a-half decades now. Was there ever a point when you were like, “Fuck. I’m not working hard enough. I could be doing more.”
In the beginning it was really rocky, but also because there was the divorce thing. What happened quite a bit was like, a Friday night, I’d be finishing up at the (NYC recording studio) Magic Shop at 4am and I was supposed to pick up Sara from the train from her mom’s at ten a.m. and whoops I’d oversleep. And I’d get there late, I’d get yelled at by the ex, and Sara’s crying because of all the stress. And that happened a lot. But still, like I said before, I had to work.
But then, when Sara got a bit older, I started taking her on these vacations, just the two of us. Trips to Spain and stuff like that and we really bonded over these trips, and she started realizing that I’m not a total asshole. I just have a weird lifestyle. And in the end, she realized that I’m just making rock records. It’s just a job. And once we broke through, me and Sara, our relationship has been great ever since. We’re like best friends.
You come from a traditional, old school Italian-American, Brooklyn family. When you were younger, did you envision yourself as a father?
In my family, the whole thing was, “You’re twenty when you get married, you have your first kid when you’re twenty-three, twenty-four.”
So having kids, being a dad was always in the cards.
How would you describe your father? And what have you carried on from him, intentional or otherwise?
My father was Sicilian. He came to Brooklyn, became a longshoreman, and he took in the American lifestyle so much, that he once explaining to my uncle, who was born in America, how baseball worked. He wanted American kids so bad, he raised three hippies. We didn’t speak Italian, we all had long hair. He just wanted everything to be about the United States of America.
But with that, he was always super strict, you always had to help out. He was tough but he was great. He was the nicest guy on the block, everybody loved him. He was a wonderful man to grow up with because I learned how to deal with people just by watching him.
Bella’s leaving the house in two years to go to college. How do you feel about the idea of not having a kid at home?
She’s a teenager, you know. She’s already out of the house all the time. So it won’t really be too different.
You know, rewind for a second. There was a time a few years ago when Sara just finished college and Bella was a young girl and all four of us lived together and that was amazing. But now, yeah, Sara’s grown up, Bella’s already out of the house all the time. So it won’t be too different. Also, she wants to go to North Carolina State, which is right here in Raleigh. So we’ll hopefully see her all the time.
And I think that’s why I’m not having separation anxiety… yet.
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