We recentlly contacted respected Producer Tommy Hansen (Mixer of Helloween, Jørn Lande, Circus Maximus, etc.) for and interview, here it is!:

1.- Wat's the first thing you consider when mixing a band?

The sound design is the first decision. Should the drums be wet or dry?
Back in the eighties the drums used to be very wet - now a days they are normally a lot dryer.

Next decision - should the guitars be loud? (Yes - always) If there is a lot of keyboards going on,
maybe the guitars will come down a bit.

Next decision - Will I need to re-amp the bass?
Very often it brings out the bass better, if it gets distorted. However, the bass will always suffer from
the loud guitars, so you may not hear the bass very clear and loud, but you'll miss it if it went out completely.

Next decision - Vocal sound. Should it be wet or dry? I always use some delay and reverb and harmonizer to get a great
vocal sound. The question is more like how much effect should be added. The eq and compression is very important too.
Getting those right, brings out the magic of the vocal performance.

Finally the master eq/compression shall be set. These days everybody expect loud records, so the only way to get that loud,
is by use of limiter and booster. I use several of them to get there, rather than using one unit a lot, I tend to use more units with less effect.