Alternative Raw : Steve Albini likes to record edgy bands--including Nirvana and PJ Harvey--with an in-your-face, unadorned bite. His credo: ‘I want to make better, cheaper punk-rock records today than I did yesterday’

In the realm of big-bucks rock, success not only talks, it sings in a resounding fortissimo.

So you’d think that a hot producer who had just helped shape two of the year’s most acclaimed albums--Nirvana’s “In Utero” and PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me”--would have his phone ringing off the hook with offers. One of the albums--”In Utero”--entered the national charts at No. 1.

But those calls haven’t come for Steve Albini, the furiously independent 31-year-old who produced both albums.

“I’ve gotten exactly one phone call out of a No. 1 record,” he says with no trace of surprise. “It shows how packlike these major-label people are. They all think the same thing: ‘That Albini guy is trouble. Stay away.’ ”

Staying away from Albini has never been a problem for major-label executives. As a musician and producer, the ultra-slender Chicago resident has been working for more than a decade at making some of the harshest sounds in the punk-rock world.

Besides fronting the clangorous Angst -rock band Big Black in the early and mid-’80s, Albini has left his raw, edgy production stamp on albums by such alternative-rock heroes as the Pixies, Helmet, the Breeders, Jesus Lizard and Killdozer.

But it’s this year’s Nirvana project that has brought him the most mainstream attention--not all of it pleasant.

Even before the album was released in September, there was a public debate between Albini and the band over the final sound of “In Utero,” which he claims was “sweetened” for commercial reasons. The band says it simply prefers the finished product over the raw Albini tapes.

The producer, who is surprisingly personable despite his grating musical style, still seems a bit rankled by the Nirvana experience, but he can now joke about one positive aspect of it.

“When my mom saw my picture in Newsweek, it made my last 10 years legitimate,” he says, referring to the magazine’s story about Nirvana. “She’s proud that I’m scratching out a living doing something I enjoy, because I honestly don’t think she had any real expectations for me.”

Taking a break from his production schedule, the very busy Albini is now on tour with his new band, Shellac. It’s another raw, underground group whose abrasive tones aren’t likely to soften his image among major-label executives.

“I suppose I scare them, and that’s fine by me,” he says. “That kind of (Top 10) success is meaningless to me. What matters to me is that I do things in a way that I feel is--for lack of a better word--righteous. Everything that I do, I do basically with the same goal: I want to make better, cheaper punk-rock records today than I did yesterday.”

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Given the industrial aggression of his music, you’d assume that Albini was the ultimate urban kid. But he grew up in the wide-open, picturesque spaces of Missoula, Mont., the son of a scientist for the Forest Service.

He’s not interested in trying to figure out what factors shaped his musical vision, but does cite the primal rock ‘n’ roll charge of the Stooges as an early influence, and he later developed a taste for the crafty art-punk of Wire.

At Northwestern University, Albini became something of a campus crank, reviled and celebrated for the inflammatory columns and cartoons he contributed to the campus paper.

Tapping those strong reactions, he once designed an art class project in which he stood in a plexiglass booth and allowed fellow students to throw miscellaneous objects at him. He was eagerly pelted with food, rocks and canine excrement.

“I got a B-minus,” he recalls. “The professor thought I was too cavalier in my attitude toward art.”

After playing bass briefly in a Chicago band called Stations, Albini tapped his savings to buy a four-track recorder and a guitar. He turned his small apartment into an impromptu recording studio and set about creating what would become the first Big Black album, “Lungs.”

The inventive, low-budget snarl of that 1983 record and subsequent self-produced works made Albini a cult figure in Chicago’s explosive mid-’80s underground scene. Big Black toured nationally, then internationally, becoming an important and influential band in punk circles.

And Albini began to record other bands that wanted him to help them capture the same ferocious energy that Big Black delivered.

“I’ve always had a fairly standard method,” he says of his studio work. “I have a straightforward, documentary approach to recording music, and I’ve never been tempted with my own bands or with anyone else’s band to suddenly go production-happy. If you let the band sound natural, then the record will sink or swim on its own merits.”

Albini often prefers to have his work with a band go unheralded. He asks to be anonymous on some of the smaller projects he takes on, and on larger projects he often takes the credit recorded by rather than produced by.

“I think producers and production have ruined far more records than they’ve elevated in the last 10 years,” he explains. “Producers have come up with a lot of cheap tricks to try to mask the fact that a record sounds terrible, and production effects have become so heavy-handed that often every ounce of character that’s on an album comes from the process of making the record rather than from the creative impulses of the band. The things I like most about rock bands are simplicity and straightforwardness, and those principles guide my recordings.”

That musical philosophy may not cause many record executives to put his name and number in their Rolodexes, but many of the most acclaimed artists on the alternative-rock scene certainly have longed to go into the studio with him.

Following the 1991 breakthrough success of Nirvana, major labels have rushed to sign highly regarded independent bands. Among the ones gobbled up: the Melvins, Butthole Surfers, Bad Religion, the Breeders, Tad, Urge Overkill, Cop Shoot Cop and Afghan Whigs.

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While some see that as a healthy development, Albini worries that the major-label interest could destroy a lot of careers.

“Labels are snapping up underground bands, and I think the majority of them will release one album that won’t be profitable,” he says. “They might be allowed to do a second album, and then the band will be destroyed by any means necessary so that the labels don’t have to fulfill any further obligations. That scenario plays itself out so many times every year with so many bands, I can’t believe that anybody still thinks that the record companies are on the side of the musicians.”

Despite Albini’s iconoclastic perspective on the music business, he admits that he is thrilled when exciting music is the end result of his work.

“It gives me great satisfaction to make records that I am proud of for myself and for other people. And, as far as business goes, I think I do things in a way that’s honorable. Nobody’s getting taken advantage of when I deal with them.”

As grumpy as Albini can sound, he occasionally becomes great friends with the people he works with, even if it is for a major-label project. He has nothing but kind words for Polly Jean Harvey and “Rid of Me.”

“Polly and I have become fast friends. We get along famously, and whenever either of us has a dull moment, the other will probably get a phone call. I think she’s pretty amazing as an artist and an intellect. It’s my job to record a band accurately and flatteringly, and I’m very proud of the job I did on ‘Rid of Me.’ Of course, a lot of people in the industry felt it was a totally inappropriate collaboration. They can’t believe we ended up liking each other.”

Plenty of bands make raw noise these days, but Albini’s gut-level caterwaul remains distinctive. Where some pile on layers of production to turn their music into a frightening clamor, Albini insists on making an emotionally naked, brutally honest statement. He’s an artist on the fringe, but the noise he makes helps to keep rock ‘n’ roll vital.

And behind all the iconoclastic philosophy, there’s a rock ‘n’ roll heart.

“It’s possible to turn music into a completely intellectual exercise, but I’m not interested in doing that,” he explains. “If the music doesn’t kick your ass, then there’s just no point to it.”*