Dave Fridmann has developed a legendary reputation amongst the musical community for his production. He is essentially the “fifth Flaming Lip,” having co-produced most of their records, and spent several years as Mercury Rev’s bassist and co-producer where he developed and honed his distinctive and unique sonic assault.
(Dave continues to serve as Rev’s co-producer and remains a member of the studio band, even though he has left the touring band in order to spend more time with his family.) Dave has garnered his greatest notice for his production and orchestration of The Lips’ groundbreaking Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots which was featured on the year-end best-of lists of numerous publications including NME, Mojo, Blender, Uncut, the Village Voice, etc., and their prior release, The Soft Bulletin, which Q magazine selected as one of the 100 Greatest Albums of all-time. Dave has now worked on eight full albums by The Lips, including their most recent acclaimed albums, At War With The Mystics, the score to the full length film Christmas on Mars, and Embryonic. And most recently, Dave has been receiving overwhelming acclaim for his work on critically lauded and international hit, Oracular Spectacular by MGMT. The MGMT album was heard everywhere: on the net, on radio, on TV and film soundtracks, and cafes all over the globe, and had significant sales on the basis of the tracks “Time To Pretend,” “Electric Feel” and “Kids.” Other notable releases include Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs, which Entertainment Weekly called “the art rock album of the year” along with Café Tacuba’s Grammy Award winning Cuatro Caminos, Weezer’s Pinkerton, “So What,” the single from the Jane’s Addiction Kettle Whistle album, Mogwai’s Rock Action and Come On Die Young, Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, Low's The Great Destroyer, Phantom Planet's Phantom Planet, Sparklehorse's It's A Wonderful Life and Thursday's A City By The Light Divided. Gemma Hayes’s Night On My Side, The Delgados’ The Great Eastern and Ed Harcourt’s Here Be Monsters were all nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize.
Dave and the Lips were nominated for a Grammy for Best Surround Sound album for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards for The Lips’ AWWTM, but lost to George Martin et al, for The Beatles’ Love. Dave received a Grammy for The Lips' AWWTM at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical). The Lips won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "The Wizard Turns On..." from AWWTM, and that album received a nomination as Best Alternative Music Album. Dave was selected by the UK’s Mojo magazine as one of the “100 Sonic Visionaries” of all-time, along with the likes of George Martin, Phil Spector, Brian Eno and Prince. Dave was selected as “Recording Person of the Year” in 2002 by professional audio magazine Pro Sound News. The Lips’ Fight Test EP was nominated as the best alternative music album at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards. And the prior year, The Lips’ “Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)” received the grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The Soft Bulletin and Deserter’s Songs were chosen as NME’s #1 album of the year in 1999 and 1998, respectively. Dave was selected as Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Hot” Producer for 1999, and was runner-up as the Rolling Stone’s critics pick for producer of the year.
Dave has moved into the world of film with his sound design and mixing work on The Flaming Lips’ movie, Christmas On Mars. In the upcoming independent film Waiting For The Son, he was involved with Scoring (as performed by Saxon Shore), Sound Design, Mixing, Sound Mixing, and the Composition of the Orchestration. Dave has worked on numerous tracks that have appeared in films including Mercury Rev’s “In A Funny Way” which appeared over the opening credits to the film Laurel Canyon. He has worked on several Lips’ songs that have appeared on the soundtracks to Spiderman 3, Spongebob Squarepants, Batman Forever, Good Luck Chuck, Heartbreak Kid, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, 50 First Dates, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Batman Forever and Suburbia. In addition, Grand Mal’s brilliant Stay In Bed appeared in the film Jawbreaker. Dave produced the music from a Mountain Dew/Pepsi Free TV commercial which featured the Wallmen. Dave produced the music from a Mountain Dew/Pepsi Free TV commercial which featured the Wallmen. The Lips “Do You Realize?” appeared in several commercials including those by Mitsubishi and Hewlett-Packard.
Dave works almost exclusively out of Tarbox Road Studios, based outside Buffalo, N.Y. The studio is a state-of-the-art fully automated unlimited track residential studio featuring Neve and Otari boards and is equipped for 5.1 surround sound mixing. In addition to playing bass, Dave writes, sings, plays keyboards and guitar, programs and arranges strings.
As you can see by some recent projects, Dave continues to create a varied yet focused discography: the debut album of wonderful pop rock by the UK’s Wolf Gang (Elektra/ Atlantic) and OK Go’s The Blue Colour Of The Sky (Paradute/ Capitol), the rock of Thursday’s No Devolucion (Epitaph) and Brandon Boyd’s Solo album (Epic), the indie art of Quasi’s American Gong (Kill Rock Stars) and Parts and Labor’s Constant Future (Jagjaguar), the psychedelic stylings of MGMT’s Congratulations (Columbia), Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker (Modular/ Universal), Neon Indian, and the collaboration between The Flaming Lips and Neon Indian.
Dave continues his longtime collaboration with Mukai Shutoku (ex-Number Girl) on the latest release by his new project, Zazen Boys. Toshiba-EMI Japan created a contest around Dave called “The Road To Tarbox,” where the winner (The Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs) got to record with him. And he received acclaim for the surround sound mixes of The Lips’ Yoshimi, Soft Bulletin and AWWTM (Warner Bros.). Dave has also combined with The Lips on remixes for Epic’s Modest Mouse (which appeared on the platinum The Good Times Are Killing Me), Koch’s Chumbawumba, Toshiba/EMI Japan’s Penguin Noise and Mantra’s Six By Seven. And because there isn’t enough time in the day, Dave and Doug Rogers of East West Sounds created The Dark Side, a virtual representation of Dave’s sonic sounds.
