Jerry Finn

Jermone Gregory Finn (March 31, 1969 – August 21, 2008), sometimes credited as "Huckle" Jerry Finn, was an American record producer and mix engineer.

He worked with numerous punk rock and pop-punk artists such as Blink-182, AFI, Sum 41, Alkaline Trio, Green Day, MxPx, and Rancid.

Finn was known for the warm guitar tone present on albums he produced as well as the "punchy" sound of his mixes.

Jerry Finn was born on March 31, 1969, in Ventura, California.

When asked about his ancestry in a later interview, Finn did not know, noting he was adopted.

The first music he remembered hearing was the soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof.

He attended Dick Grove School of Music.

He was instrumental in developing the polished sound of pop-punk in its second wave of popularity between the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

A graduate of the Dick Grove School of Music, Finn began his career in the early 1990s as an assistant engineer at various Hollywood-based studios.

He became an assistant at The Music Grinder in Hollywood in the early 1990s, and he was later hired as a second engineer.

Finn then moved to Devonshire Sound Studios, where he met Rob Cavallo.

Finn forged a particularly strong bond with Blink-182 in the late 1990s.

He first worked with the band to record "Mutt" for the American Pie soundtrack, after which he produced their breakthrough album Enema of the State and they chose to "never work with anyone else again."

According to writer James Montgomery, "[Finn] served as an invaluable member of the Blink team: part adviser, part impartial observer, he helped smooth out tensions and hone their multiplatinum sound."

When recording sessions became contentious, Finn would often smooth over differences with humor, advice, and a new perspective, according to bassist Mark Hoppus.

"Recording can get pretty monotonous, but at least we could laugh with Jerry. A pretty typical day would involve multiple takes for one part of one song, and then everyone would get naked and jump on Jerry," he said.

He began an association with producer Rob Cavallo, with whom he engineered and mixed Green Day's Dookie (1994).

Finn's career subsequently prospered, as he moved from being an engineer to producing albums with the likes of Pennywise and Rancid.

He became a "right-hand man" to Cavallo, who at the time was producing Green Day's major-label debut, Dookie (1994).

When the band declared themselves dissatisfied with the original mix, Finn and Cavallo set to work again and came up with a brighter mix.

"Anyone who heard Green Day's first two records knew the breakout potential was there, but it took Cavallo and Finn to draw it out," wrote Alternative Press.

Afterwards, Finn worked as an assistant at Conway Recording Studios, which he regarded as his favorite studio to work in.

He left the job after several months to pursue work independently because of the success of Dookie.

Soon, Finn began a fruitful association with Epitaph Records, and he co-produced Pennywise's About Time (1995) alongside the label's founder, Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz.

Finn's first solo production endeavor, Rancid's …And Out Come the Wolves, came the same year.

He mixed the "landmark punk album" Dear You by Jawbreaker in 1995 and The Suicide Machines' Destruction by Definition in 1996, the latter described by Alternative Press as "a watershed moment for ska-punk."

Finn forged a strong bond with Blink-182, producing four albums with them, beginning with Enema of the State (1999).

He also worked extensively with Sum 41 and Alkaline Trio.

Over the course of the 2000s, Finn worked on numerous albums with Morrissey before his sudden death in 2008.

Known for his kind manner and technical expertise, Finn was valued by engineers and musicians alike.

Scott Heisel of Alternative Press wrote that Finn often "helped rough punk bands refine their sound, and helped them discover the power of a good vocal hook."

He subsequently returned to produce The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show (2000), Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001) and Blink-182 (2003).

He also produced the 2002 self-titled debut album by Box Car Racer, which featured guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker, and co-produced and mixed When Your Heart Stops Beating (2006) by +44, which featured Hoppus and Barker.

Finn co-produced AFI's major-label debut Sing the Sorrow (2003), which has been called a "landmark in the post-hardcore genre."

Alternative Press wrote that "None of it would've been possible had Jerry Finn not manned the boards and polished the band's previously metallic sound into spike-covered punk-rock candy cane."

In his later years, Finn worked with Morrissey on his best-selling You Are the Quarry (2004).

Morrissey was introduced to Finn via a mutual friend and was effusive about his work: "He made me feel very confident. He's not easily pleased and he's not prepared to be overwrought. He knows exactly what he wants to do."

"Being realistic about the music business, I thought I'd have a red[-]hot career for six months and then be back assisting, so when I left I made them promise that when my career fell apart they'd hire me back as an assistant," Finn joked in 2006.

According to engineer Ed Cherney, Dookie 's success made Finn "the great hope of every assistant engineer everywhere."

Finn characterized the massive change in his life thanks to the success of the album: "Before [Green Day], I was an assistant making eight bucks an hour. I was producing gold records less than a year after them."