
Dirk Jeffrey: The Prolific Polymath Piloting Wasteland Records
Interviews
Dirk Jeffrey is the founder and record producer for Wasteland Records, but he’s more than just a sound engineer and entrepreneur. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist, a computer programmer, a burlesque performer and a contributing member of Wasteland Caravan — an art collective that stages immersive concerts and festivals. Additionally, he plays in nearly a dozen bands, including Body Horror, Alec Bang & the Cult Classics, The Smokin’ Yogurt, The Polyamorous Disaster Band and The Godfrey Daniels. He even helms a few solo musical projects in genres as diverse as jazz and folk.
I met with this prolific jack of all trades at his home — which has served as the de facto recording studio for Wasteland Records since the tragic demolition of Odd Star Studios — to discuss his many projects and ask what it’s like to be a record producer in Salt Lake City.
“The more of my life I spend making music the better I feel.”
After he gives me a tour of the various rooms he records in, we settle in his living room to talk. Before the fireplace, he’s set up several amps and a few microphones for an upcoming studio session with The Smokin’ Yogurt. On the couch between us, a fluffy cat named Soup purrs contentedly while we talk.

Jeffrey was born in Boise, Idaho, but after high school, he moved to Salt Lake City to study computer engineering and applied mathematics at the University of Utah. It was during his early college years that he got into music production by way of an unfortunate constant of dorm life: no privacy.
“I took piano lessons as a kid,” he tells me, “and quit as soon as my parents would let me. Then, I picked up guitar after high school, but the amps were too loud for my tiny little dorm room. And I thought, ‘Oh no. This is too loud and I’m not good. I need something quieter while I learn how to play.’ So I plugged the guitar into my computer and downloaded Reaper so I could get the free amp simulators and pedals.”
“From there,” he continues, “I pretty much immediately knew that I wanted to do what French Kiwi Juice does with live looping in Ableton. But it wasn’t until 2021 that I started playing in a lot of bands. By then, I was working as a software engineer, so I had the disposable income to buy microphones and set them up to get practice demos. While listening to those, I would mix them. I also took a mixing course. It all kind of snowballed from there.”
It was also in 2021 that Jeffrey discovered Wasteland Caravan when he and his first band played a set at a party the collective was throwing in collaboration with Comets Menagerie, another performance group. “It was this totally renegade DIY thing out in the middle of the desert,” he says with a smile. “That was the first time I played music in front of anybody. The whole experience was so liberating. It was also my first time seeing burlesque. And I realized, ‘This is the group of people I’m supposed to work with.’ So I started hanging with those folks.”
Jeffrey says his involvement with Wasteland Caravan has given his bands much more exposure and support than they otherwise might have enjoyed. “I just think they are such an inspiring group,” he says. “I’m very grateful to have met them and to have produced so much art with them, and I’m excited to do more of it.”
It was actually from the collective that Jeffrey derived the name Wasteland Records. And while many of the musicians who record with Wasteland Records are also members of Wasteland Caravan, the two are distinct creative entities. Jeffrey is open and eager to record with musicians of all sizes and genres, whether they’re part of the collective or not.
“The more of my life I spend making music,” he tells me, “the better I feel.”
At this point, Soup saunters over to the front door and meows cartoonishly, so Jeffrey gets up to let her out. “Have fun,” he calls after her. When he returns to the couch, I ask him to tell me how he approaches music production.
![“I’m very grateful to have met [Wasteland Caravan] and to have produced so much art with them, and I’m excited to do more of it," says Jeffrey.](https://www.slugmag.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Dirk-Jeffrey-SLUG-10-267x400.webp)
He sips his coffee and ponders this for a few seconds, then says, “I really believe in trusting my collaborators. And not just the artists I’m recording. More broadly, the environment that we’re in is a collaborator. The medium that we’re working with is a collaborator. And by leaning into the place and the environment that I’m in, I immediately take on the flavor of that environment. As a record producer, my main job when I’m working with bands is to help them get into the right state of mind to give the best performance they can, and then get out of the way and capture it. Let the performance speak for itself.”
“That was the first time I played music in front of anybody. The whole experience was so liberating.”
Jeffrey also shared his thoughts about Salt Lake City as a musical environment. “Salt Lake is a really special place. It’s really fucked up and there’s a lot wrong with it. But in many ways because of that, there’s also this super cool scene of artists, queers and punks. And our counterculture has such an intensely interesting and unique flavor. Cheese is the same way,” he says, broadsiding me with a culinary comparison. We both laugh, then he goes on, “So many cheeses are named after the cave or city that happened to have the bacteria that made that cheese happen. And I think art and music are much the same way.”
This is very poetic and even a little mystical, which is well and good for an artist, but Jeffrey also understands the math and physics of what he does. During his degree, he spent a lot of time studying electrical engineering, and he’s able to explain to me how music production works from a highly technical and scientific perspective. Unfortunately, most of it goes over my head by about a mile.
I then ask him to tell me what makes being a musician and record producer difficult, particularly in Salt Lake. “Okay, well, first there’s a silly thing,” he says. “There are just so many goddamn cables. They don’t tell you how many cables there are going to be. I don’t know why I keep having to buy cables. But here are some things unique to Salt Lake: having a space to rehearse, for one thing, and finding drummers, for another. My theory is that good drummers are difficult to come by because of how hard it is to find rehearsal space. Drums are loud and take up most of a small room, and musicians don’t make a lot of money, especially here in Salt Lake. So it’s a small circle of people who can afford rehearsal space for drums, who are dedicated enough musicians to be really good at drums and who are also able to respond to text messages.”
To wrap up, I ask Jeffrey what releases we should expect from Wasteland Records in the next few months, and he rattles off a long list.
This spring, he will release a new album of his own titled Lady Muerte, and that album will come with a release show. The Smokin’ Yogurt will also be releasing an EP soon, and the first album from the Polyamorous Disaster Band will potentially come out in April. He also hints at new work from Alec Bang & the Cult Classics who just released a hauntingly psychedelic single titled “Devil in a New Dress.” Finally, and particularly exciting for me as a Body Horror fan, he says there will soon be an expanded version of the band’s 2023 album, is reality, that will include live recordings from their album release show.
When I ask him if there’s anything else he wants to mention, he quickly says, “Free Palestine.”
Wasteland Records is open for new clients. In addition to producing singles, EPs and records, Jeffrey is able to collaborate with bands and videographers to create Tiny Desk-style performance videos on location. To book a session with Jeffrey, email him at wastelandrecordsmedia@gmail.com. If you want to be notified about upcoming concerts and events put on by Wasteland Records or Wasteland Caravan, subscribe to the monthly Wasteland Records newsletter.
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