Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome back to the barb Left That's podcast,
Speaker 1: my yesterday as producer of Engineer Chris Kim's Chris. Glad
Speaker 1: to have you here, Bob. It's a pleasure to be
Speaker 1: seeing you and talking to you. Believe you, men, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've known each other for a long time.
Speaker 1: It was Peter Fampton that first introduced me to your blog.
Speaker 1: It must have been like two thousand and thirteen, maybe
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, I'm not sure. Ever since then,
Speaker 1: I've been religiously following you. UM. I never chirp up much,
Speaker 1: I never step in. I think I've only said one
Speaker 1: or two things ever, But I really I really respect
Speaker 1: your love of the music business and your care with
Speaker 1: the music business as well installing in a lot of
Speaker 1: people things that they don't know and should know. Thank you,
Speaker 1: good night, don't brother. Okay, what was the first record
Speaker 1: you ever worked on? The first record I ever worked on,
Speaker 1: UM would have been as an assistant engineer, a tea boy,
Speaker 1: or as an engineer where how far do you want
Speaker 1: to go back? All the way to the beginning, all
Speaker 1: the way to the beginning, right The first record I
Speaker 1: would have worked on, UM was It would have been
Speaker 1: a jingle for UM Martini Try a Taste of Martini
Speaker 1: any time anywhere, that one, which you might not get
Speaker 1: in the States. I don't know, but it was. It
Speaker 1: was for UK TV adverts and at Olympic we did
Speaker 1: a lot of those sessions from seven am until ten
Speaker 1: in the morning, the jingle sessions, and that would have
Speaker 1: been the first session UM I would have worked on. UM.
Speaker 1: Actually no, I tell a lie. The first session I
Speaker 1: ever worked on was the day that I arrived at
Speaker 1: Olympic to start work. I just remembered, so UM I was.
Speaker 1: I arrived at the studio my first day and the job,
Speaker 1: and I was told to go up to Studio one,
Speaker 1: introduced myself to the engineer, sit down and observe. So
Speaker 1: I walked into Studio one, introduced myself to the engineer
Speaker 1: who's still a very good friend of mine. Alan O'Duffy
Speaker 1: and Anna looked at me, startled, and he said, do
Speaker 1: you work here? I said yes. He said can you
Speaker 1: take over? Because the engineer at the assistant engineer that
Speaker 1: was working with me, he's suddenly turned really sick and
Speaker 1: he's disappeared, so can you take over? So I didn't
Speaker 1: tell him that, you know, I just walked in the building.
Speaker 1: So I sat down. And because I was familiar with
Speaker 1: tape machines, my mother and father bought me a tape
Speaker 1: machine when I was about ten years old, so I
Speaker 1: knew how to press record, stop, start, rewind, those simple things.
Speaker 1: And I looked at the tape box and could see
Speaker 1: what the log was, what people were writing in for
Speaker 1: the log. And the special only lasted like thirty minutes. Again,
Speaker 1: it was another jingle session. And at the end of
Speaker 1: the session and and said thank you very much, Chris.
Speaker 1: He said, They said, I haven't seen you before. How
Speaker 1: long have you worked here? I said, well about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes now, So that was off to a good
Speaker 1: start and A has been a dear friend every since. Actually,
Speaker 1: let's start from the beginning. Where were you? Where did
Speaker 1: you grow up? M I grew up in Battersea in
Speaker 1: southwest London, um um and in my school from the
Speaker 1: age of like eleven through fourteen. My school not said that.
Speaker 1: I was really interested in the school plays and theatrical stuff,
Speaker 1: so having a tape recorder was really handy because I
Speaker 1: was asked to do the sound for the school plays. Um.
Speaker 1: Anything to get off doing the actual lessons, but I
Speaker 1: loved English lit. I loved doing in the sound effects
Speaker 1: of the plays. And that took me to a really
Speaker 1: interesting place because the school were they they suggested that
Speaker 1: I go to a recording studio in in the middle
Speaker 1: of London, near Tottenham Court Road, which was in a school,
Speaker 1: a tiny little studio. It was a four channelvill Texian
Speaker 1: mixer and a stereo phareograph machine. UM. It was mainly
Speaker 1: for dialogue, mainly for drama. And I was sent there
Speaker 1: every second Saturday in the month. And I'm like twelve
Speaker 1: years old, thirteen years old getting on the tube going
Speaker 1: up to London. UM. And I met another young student
Speaker 1: in there who also became a very very dear friend,
Speaker 1: a gentleman called Ray Staff. And Ray was one of
Speaker 1: the best mastering engineers. He just retired about a year ago,
Speaker 1: but he's his last residence was air mastering, but he
Speaker 1: was at Columbia Sony in London Whitfield Street, tried and
Speaker 1: I think he started at Trident actually, and he was
Speaker 1: one of the best mastering engineers in the UK for sure. UM.
Speaker 1: And occasionally I have the nerve to the cheek to
Speaker 1: pull him out of retirements. Sometimes and say, you've got
Speaker 1: to master this one for me. So it's quite a
Speaker 1: strange that he and I were because he's from East London,
Speaker 1: so it was a very different part of London. So
Speaker 1: it was quite of wonderful that we met there and
Speaker 1: then we met in a later life as well when
Speaker 1: our careers that you know, kind of the following the
Speaker 1: roads and paths that we did. Okay, were you surprised
Speaker 1: when you saw the Battersea Power Station on the cover
Speaker 1: of the Pink Floyd album. Um? Yes, I was surprised
Speaker 1: by that, but I mean it's such an iconic building.
Speaker 1: Um it was, you know, it was fantastic to see.
Speaker 1: I just want to go to the the thing with
Speaker 1: Ray because there's another little wonderful at addendum to that story.
Speaker 1: So the teacher, the music teacher in that school who
Speaker 1: donated his saturdays to teaching young students, um, the two
Speaker 1: of us. Um. He was also a musician and he
Speaker 1: loved his jazz. So one afternoon he said to me,
Speaker 1: he said, Chris, would you mind staying behind? He said,
Speaker 1: I've got a little trio like to record. And we
Speaker 1: only had like three or four microphones, well four microphones
Speaker 1: because we had four knobs on the bull text in
Speaker 1: so so I stayed behind and recalled the Teacher's Little
Speaker 1: Jazz Ensemble. Well, many many years later I saw his
Speaker 1: face pop up because, um, his name is Ray Cooper,
Speaker 1: and I think you know Ray Cooper for the percussionist. Yeah. So, Um,
Speaker 1: there was a wonderful moment a long time ago where, um,
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen each other since I was fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: and I saw him. There was an event for um,
Speaker 1: what was the Elton and Bernie album, The Two Rooms?
Speaker 1: Was it? Yeah, there was a big Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a big event for that. U and I attended that
Speaker 1: event and we kind of, you know, I just kind
Speaker 1: of looked. We saw each other from a distance and
Speaker 1: we both started to cry as we walked towards each other.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. Um, And what a wonderful man he
Speaker 1: was and still is terrific gentleman. Okay, what did your
Speaker 1: parents do for a living and why did they buy
Speaker 1: that tape recorder for you? Well, I'm not sure they
Speaker 1: bought it, Bob. I think it might have fallen off
Speaker 1: the back of a lorry, as we say in London.
Speaker 1: That begs the question of what your parents were doing
Speaker 1: every day. Well, my my my mother worked as UMM.
Speaker 1: She was what you would call hr now. She was
Speaker 1: working in a bank UM and she was part of
Speaker 1: the accounts team. And then my father, my father was
Speaker 1: an under taker French polisher and carpenter, and he had
Speaker 1: a job at a big department store here called the
Speaker 1: co op Um repairing stuff that had come in broken
Speaker 1: or had to be repaired, furniture. But that's where the
Speaker 1: back of the lorry, you know, gifts would sometimes arrive. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you grow up exactly the right time the Beatles hit, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You talked about your theatrical interests as a result of schooling.
Speaker 1: To what degree were you interested in the popular music scene.
Speaker 1: I wasn't that interested in popular music, in fact, where
Speaker 1: even when I started working at the Olympicum, the kind
Speaker 1: of band scene didn't interest me at all. I mean
Speaker 1: I just missed Jimmy Hendrix by about a year. At Olympic.
Speaker 1: I think Jimmy was there when it first opened with
Speaker 1: Eddie Eddie Kramer, and I never met Jimmy. I never
Speaker 1: met Eddie, actually I missed him. Um. And my whole
Speaker 1: love of music was really it was film scores. It
Speaker 1: was musical films. Um and the only two tapes I
Speaker 1: had for my tape machine were Fates and Artra Songs
Speaker 1: for Swinging Lovers and Nat King Cole with George Shearing.
Speaker 1: Um and they were really my two introductions to the
Speaker 1: sonics of music, of recording. Um and they've stuck with
Speaker 1: me ever since. I mean, two of my favorite recordings ever.
Speaker 1: Um So in starting at Olympic um No, let's go
Speaker 1: back a little bit before. Yeah, so, how does your
Speaker 1: schooling end? How do you get the job? Little? Okay,
Speaker 1: the schooling ends? Um. I left school when I was
Speaker 1: sixteen and a half. I didn't go on to further education.
Speaker 1: I didn't go to college. And um I because of
Speaker 1: my love of recording. In a way, I missed quite
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons because of that, which I enjoyed
Speaker 1: missing because I got more involved in recording the music.
Speaker 1: So in leaving school, I didn't have any path or
Speaker 1: direction um and, apart from my love of of of music,
Speaker 1: and so I had odd jobs of like I had
Speaker 1: a job driving for Ferrari, not the race. There was
Speaker 1: your job driving with Ferrari, not not not the racing team.
Speaker 1: I was picking up spare parts for Ferrari because I
Speaker 1: passed my license as soon as I could. I passed
Speaker 1: my driver's license, so I was driving that Tina when
Speaker 1: I was like seventeen sixty and a half years old.
Speaker 1: So um um, and I had another job picking up
Speaker 1: spare parts for another factory. UM. So I was always
Speaker 1: traveling and then um um. I had two girlfriends at
Speaker 1: the time. One girlfriend lived in Barns around the corner
Speaker 1: for malmn Pick and the other girlfriend lived across the street.
Speaker 1: And whilst going to Barnes every week to see your girlfriend,
Speaker 1: I would I would just go into Olympic, into the office.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was in there. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what do we called. Your studio was really m
Speaker 1: apart from they recorded something and I would go in
Speaker 1: and just say if you've got your jobs and they
Speaker 1: said no, no. I go back the next week and
Speaker 1: same thing. Well after the third week, they sort of
Speaker 1: got fed up with me said okay, what's your name,
Speaker 1: what's your phone number? So I gave him that information
Speaker 1: um and then took up another driving job. And then
Speaker 1: I suddenly got a call for an interview with Keith
Speaker 1: Grant and went to the studio met Keith, who built
Speaker 1: Olympic studios who designed it and one of the best
Speaker 1: recording engineers ever. And Keith showed me around and I
Speaker 1: was in total or I mean it was it was
Speaker 1: four track, just moving into eight track and to see
Speaker 1: that equipment and the console, the Olympic console, and he
Speaker 1: took me to see the studios terrific and he said, well,
Speaker 1: I've got some technical questions for you. So I thought,
Speaker 1: I was ship, here we go. I'm gonna this is
Speaker 1: not going to happen. And he said, how do you
Speaker 1: wire a thirteen and plug? You know the words? How
Speaker 1: do you you know wire a main sac? Well I
Speaker 1: knew that that was simple and actually built my own
Speaker 1: little radio at home as well. So um, and that
Speaker 1: was it. That was the end of the test. So
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, well, wonderful to meet you. And they
Speaker 1: just said, well, well, you know, we've got a lot
Speaker 1: of other people were talking to and went home a
Speaker 1: week pass nothing, and then after that I thought, well
Speaker 1: I better look around for another job. So a girlfriend
Speaker 1: across the street, her brother had a company that were
Speaker 1: supermarket fitting. So you traveled around the UK fitting out
Speaker 1: supermarkets and the the overtime was really good. It was
Speaker 1: it was driving, which I like it's again. So I
Speaker 1: was about to start that on a Monday morning, but
Speaker 1: fortunately Olympic called on the Friday before that Monday and said, hey, Chris,
Speaker 1: can you come in Monday morning and start for eleven
Speaker 1: pounds a week? Um, and that was it. Okay, how
Speaker 1: long did you work, Jingles? How did you go from
Speaker 1: t boy to assist hto engineer? What was going on there? Um?
Speaker 1: Pretty quickly? Um, from te boy to tape operator because
Speaker 1: I had all the skills and knowledge really. Um. The
Speaker 1: great thing about Keith Grant was that he could see
Speaker 1: he was a people person, and I think in meeting
Speaker 1: with me, he knew there was someone there that would
Speaker 1: really um, would really lock in with other musicians and
Speaker 1: other engineers. There was a spirit that he, you know,
Speaker 1: knew was inside me and the love of music as well.
Speaker 1: So UM. I was an assistant engineer for maybe three
Speaker 1: three years, which at the time seemed like an eternity
Speaker 1: because another engineer, another assistant engineer, was doing sessions UM
Speaker 1: and Keith said, he said, the longer you can stick it,
Speaker 1: you know, being a taper on different types of sessions,
Speaker 1: you'll learned so much UM. And that became so true
Speaker 1: because um so I spent maybe a year and a half,
Speaker 1: maybe two years assisting Keith on a lot of the
Speaker 1: film music UM, the Thomas Crown Affair, the original one
Speaker 1: with Windbles of My Mind, michel Le gram Um. I
Speaker 1: was assistant on that UM, the Italian Job by Quincy Jones,
Speaker 1: the assistant on that UM, a lot of Jesus Christ Superstar,
Speaker 1: assisted on some of that UM, a lot of really
Speaker 1: good large session UM orchestral sessions UM. And as an
Speaker 1: assistant you had to set the whole room up UM.
Speaker 1: You know, if it if it was a fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty piece orchestra, you would have someone else to help you.
Speaker 1: But generally it was the assistant engineer's job to set
Speaker 1: up the whole room so that when the producer or
Speaker 1: the engineer walked in at like ten am, they could
Speaker 1: almost just sit down and push the faders up in
Speaker 1: press record um. UM. That taught me a great lesson actually,
Speaker 1: which I know still reflect upon today, is that I'm
Speaker 1: always prepared for anything on the session UM, and to
Speaker 1: the point where I'll prepare before the artist, before the band,
Speaker 1: before anyone arrives, because I like to kind of like
Speaker 1: to take the studio out of the recording process so
Speaker 1: that the musicians are there to create UM and you
Speaker 1: enjoy themselves really to you know, to give a great performance. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget that from Keith. So after about
Speaker 1: a year and a half, two years of working on
Speaker 1: those sessions, I was then asked if i'd like to
Speaker 1: work the evening sessions, which was the you know, the
Speaker 1: and the rock and roll music UM. And they said, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put you on a Glenn John's session. Now
Speaker 1: I've never met Glenn's. I didn't know who he was.
Speaker 1: And the other assistants had worked with Glenn, and they said,
Speaker 1: you better be really careful. Was Glenn suffer snow falls? Um?
Speaker 1: And um just beyond your guard. So I studied what
Speaker 1: he wanted, what he needed and the first session he
Speaker 1: walked in seven pm. Everything was ready to go and
Speaker 1: he loved it. And then he asked me to be
Speaker 1: on future sessions. Well, future sessions were things like the Eagles,
Speaker 1: Steve Miller band, Um Delaney and Bonnie Joe Cocker, UM,
Speaker 1: Joan Arber Trading UM, look kind of the Eric Clapton,
Speaker 1: the Kreme de La Krem of that time and period. UM.
Speaker 1: And then the first time I met the Stones was
Speaker 1: with Glynn. Okay, wait wait before you go, before you
Speaker 1: go back that you're working with Glenn, what did what
Speaker 1: did you learn from him? Specifically? Um? I learned UM
Speaker 1: I learned are the professionalism in terms of how to
Speaker 1: inspire and get musicians to deliver U without without them
Speaker 1: really knowing that they were being kind of you know
Speaker 1: that was happening to them. U. Encouragement um uh. You know,
Speaker 1: encouragement come come in different forms. It can um. It
Speaker 1: can also come in the form of like someone say,
Speaker 1: well that's a part of crap. You know you can
Speaker 1: do better, um, which you know it's true. UM. So
Speaker 1: people take that on boarding and then they lift up
Speaker 1: their games. So UM. And Glenn just had a great
Speaker 1: finesse UM and style about his approach to being an
Speaker 1: engineer producer because he was one of the first freelance
Speaker 1: engineers term producer UM. And the reason he worked at
Speaker 1: Olympic a lot was because well, not only did it
Speaker 1: sound amazing there, but abbey Road wouldn't not let engineers
Speaker 1: in from outside. If you were an abbey Road engineer,
Speaker 1: you couldn't work there. And Glenn had grown up working
Speaker 1: in IBC Studios, which I think it might have still
Speaker 1: been going, but you know, his career had moved on
Speaker 1: and he found this wonderful temple of sound that he loves. So. Um,
Speaker 1: So I learned a lot from Glenn and we're still
Speaker 1: really very good friends today. Um. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Glenn's a no bullshit guy, um and doesn't suffer any fools. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm quite as hard nosed as that,
Speaker 1: but um, I've got my ways. So um, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful education between So. Then you say
Speaker 1: you were talking about how your metap Stones. Yeah, that, though,
Speaker 1: was was an interesting session. The first session so it
Speaker 1: was brown Sugar, the early days of Brown Sugar. Wait wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: before we get to brown Sugar, you were involved and
Speaker 1: you were involved and leeds up when three correct? Yes,
Speaker 1: I was the assistant on that. Yeah. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: a lot of sessions with Andy Johns as well. I
Speaker 1: was flip flopping between the two brothers. So um, two
Speaker 1: very different styles of producing and recording. Um, both you know,
Speaker 1: getting incredible results. Um. So Andy I worked with ten
Speaker 1: years after who I later worked with myself. Um um
Speaker 1: oh gosh, um more of the heavy m West Bruce
Speaker 1: and Lang Um Spooky Tooth, Humble Pie, um who else
Speaker 1: with Andy? I can't remember much else with Andy actually,
Speaker 1: but quite a lot. You know, people are very interested
Speaker 1: and leads up in three because of course it was
Speaker 1: a left turn concerning what came. It had come before
Speaker 1: any stories, any inside because people you know, whover that
Speaker 1: stuff up. Yeah. Well I knew the first album obviously
Speaker 1: because that was recorded Olympic. I wasn't there at the time,
Speaker 1: but I was in the building, so I knew of
Speaker 1: the album. And and also that's the album that Glim
Speaker 1: made with Jimmy so um um led Zeppelin to um
Speaker 1: Classic and then let's have been three there was. I
Speaker 1: mean it was a little bit of a missmash in
Speaker 1: terms of it. Eddie Kramer doing some engineering, Andy John's
Speaker 1: doing some engineering um um. So but for me that
Speaker 1: experience have been with them, I've never been impressed by
Speaker 1: rock and roll stars. I mean the only person that
Speaker 1: I've ever been kind of not impressed. That's like not
Speaker 1: the right word. I've um. I'm very easy going in
Speaker 1: meeting musicians, um. But the only person I've ever been
Speaker 1: nervous of meeting with Sean Connery. UM. So UM. In
Speaker 1: working with Zeppelin, it was it was another band, UM,
Speaker 1: and you know, fantastic to work with. UM. I actually
Speaker 1: heard the squeak on the bass drum, and since I've
Speaker 1: been loving you, there's a squeaky bass drum which never
Speaker 1: got old, and I cherished the thought that it's still there. UM. UM.
Speaker 1: Working with Jimmy, actually I could you know, I could
Speaker 1: see Um a genius. But they were all so in
Speaker 1: tune with each other. And the fact that Jimmy's background,
Speaker 1: Jimmy's background, you know, came from session in a session musician. UM.
Speaker 1: Same with John Paul Jones. So, UM, that was an
Speaker 1: exciting thing to happen that you've got basically the session
Speaker 1: musicians who get together from you know, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest bands in rock and roll. So let's go back
Speaker 1: to Brown Sugar. Okay, So the session for Round Sugar
Speaker 1: seven PM. I've got the whole room set up. I've
Speaker 1: never worked with the Stones before. Glynn gave me the
Speaker 1: line up, set it all up. UM. Stew had arrived
Speaker 1: to you know, put the amps up and set them
Speaker 1: up in Stuart. UM. I didn't realize that Stew was
Speaker 1: in the band at that time, I thought he was there,
Speaker 1: you know, the roadie UM UM and seven o'clock, no
Speaker 1: one arrived. Seven thirty eight o'clock, no and arrived. So
Speaker 1: I just sat there waiting and about quarter past eight,
Speaker 1: UM two people walked into the recording area. Now the
Speaker 1: control room is quite away from the entry to the
Speaker 1: recording area, so I see these two characters come in.
Speaker 1: I did not think they were to do with the band.
Speaker 1: I thought, then they look a bit shifty. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: So I called security and said that there's two guys
Speaker 1: have just walked in. I don't think they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be here. It turned out to be Bill and Charlie UM.
Speaker 1: So that was my first introduction to them, which was great.
Speaker 1: And then Glenn followed him behind UM and everything was
Speaker 1: fine after that. UM and then UM and working with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Miller was an inspiration. UM. I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about the feel of a record, the feel of a
Speaker 1: band playing together, because I'm all, you know, this is
Speaker 1: all I'm like a big sponge taking all this information
Speaker 1: in because coming from the love of of U film scores,
Speaker 1: musical scores, freights and Archer nat King Cole coming from
Speaker 1: that area of music. This is very very different, very different,
Speaker 1: but just as powerful, UM and just as illustrating. So UM.
Speaker 1: So in starting assisting on the Brown Sugar Sorry that
Speaker 1: the Sticky Fingers album, that was it the Sticky Fingers album. UM.
Speaker 1: Some of those tracks have been recorded in the States,
Speaker 1: some mixed house at Star Groves, UM, some in the
Speaker 1: Olympic m I kind of I got the impression that
Speaker 1: Glenn um Glim was kind of interested still in the sessions,
Speaker 1: but not much with the band. And I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that he you know, he'd been working with the band
Speaker 1: from day one, you know, from before they even got signed,
Speaker 1: so he had a long tenure with them, and and
Speaker 1: that the next thing, you know, after after they finished
Speaker 1: working with Glenn, then they worked with Keith Harvard on
Speaker 1: Black and Blue. And Keith Harvard was an Olympic engineer,
Speaker 1: so we were good friends. Keith also worked with Zeppelin,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of Zepplin stuff. UM, we were
Speaker 1: very close. And then I think it was on that album,
Speaker 1: on the Sticky Fingers album that UM I ended up
Speaker 1: doing overdubs with Mick, but did vocal overdubs with Mick.
Speaker 1: I recorded the saxophone on Brown Sugar with Bobby Bobby
Speaker 1: Keys Um and I think at that that moment in time,
Speaker 1: Stut and Glenn, who were very very close they had
Speaker 1: been for years, I think they kind of had a
Speaker 1: little chat thinking about in the future who might work
Speaker 1: with the Stones, okay, and what they decide. Well, what
Speaker 1: happened was later a few years, some years later, after
Speaker 1: Black and Blue and what else came after that. It's
Speaker 1: only rock and roll, like, um, I was. I just
Speaker 1: got back from the States doing Peeda Frampton's Frampton Comes
Speaker 1: to Live album. Um And I arrived home and just
Speaker 1: got in the front door and about to unpack my
Speaker 1: suitcase and the phone rings and it's Stey and Stuart.
Speaker 1: He said, Chris, what you're doing? And I said, oh great,
Speaker 1: Stu just got home, gonna I'm back and check out
Speaker 1: for you know, a few weeks. He said, no, you're not.
Speaker 1: He said, don't unpack, You're coming to Paris on Monday.
Speaker 1: You're doing the next Stones album. And that was some girls, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back. So you work on Sticky Fingers. Do
Speaker 1: you end up working with Frampton? Okay? Um. I was
Speaker 1: the assistant on a French artist called Johnny Halliday, and
Speaker 1: Johnny Holliday was the that the French elvis huge, huge
Speaker 1: in France. Um, if you're with Johnny you can't go
Speaker 1: out anywhere you get mobbed. I mean he was a
Speaker 1: serious star, bless him. And I was the assistant on
Speaker 1: one of the albums that he was making, the Olympic
Speaker 1: and on on the second day, the staff engineer never
Speaker 1: turned up because he didn't like the French. So there's
Speaker 1: Johnny and the producer and the band turning up with
Speaker 1: no engineer. So they said to the management, well who
Speaker 1: can we use um And a few names were mentioned.
Speaker 1: They said, well, we really like Chris. We've only worked
Speaker 1: with him one day, but we really like him. Can
Speaker 1: we use Chris? So that was kind of my launching pad.
Speaker 1: That was my first session in the hot seat, as
Speaker 1: it were. UM. And that session, the band that Lee
Speaker 1: had a Johnny's producer had assembled was Gary Wright, Hugh McCracken,
Speaker 1: Ringo Star, Klaus Worman, Peter Frampton. Um. You know, it
Speaker 1: was a dream session, UM for Johnny and for me.
Speaker 1: So I got to work with those musicians at a
Speaker 1: very early age and UM, and that kind of started
Speaker 1: my friendship with Peter. I'd know him, Peter and Humble
Speaker 1: Pie UM and UM from the Johnny sessions we became
Speaker 1: really really good friends. UM. We used to hang out
Speaker 1: a lot together. We both I discovered a love of
Speaker 1: two things in that time of Tamila Motown music and
Speaker 1: the Scar music as well. UM. I actually used to
Speaker 1: go to a Scar club down in a surbiton um
Speaker 1: Chessington actually um about ten miles out of London. I said,
Speaker 1: loves of ska music and Pete and I would you know,
Speaker 1: we start for you know, ages listening to Stevie Wonder
Speaker 1: listening to Tamla Motown UM and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: get so excited about the drum sound, the vocal everything
Speaker 1: about it um UM. And so that was a really
Speaker 1: introduction to a lot of key musicians that I went
Speaker 1: on to work with later. I worked with Gary Wright
Speaker 1: later on with Spooky Tooth. As I said Peter, UM,
Speaker 1: so that was that was a big break for me actually,
Speaker 1: UM and I went on to produce I think six
Speaker 1: albums with Johnny Halliday in my career UM and some
Speaker 1: big big records UM Live at the Park, the Prince
Speaker 1: UM two. I think to live albums or three live albums,
Speaker 1: and to studio albums, and we were really really good friends,
Speaker 1: really good friends. Apart from the music, we we just
Speaker 1: really enjoyed each other's company. Um So, I missed him
Speaker 1: a lot. At one point, you leave staff at Olempic
Speaker 1: and go independent. What are the decisions in there? Um?
Speaker 1: I can't remember which year it was, but I was
Speaker 1: becoming as a an engineer, as becoming, you know, I
Speaker 1: had so much work I would obviously I would always
Speaker 1: do Olympic because of the Olympic staff engineer. But then
Speaker 1: opportunities came along with bands who wanted to do it
Speaker 1: at other studios. So I decided I would leave Olympic
Speaker 1: as a staff engineer and become freelance, which I did.
Speaker 1: Um and then then I discovered the joy of you know,
Speaker 1: working in other studios, other environments, which I loved doing.
Speaker 1: Um So. I used to work a lot at Basing
Speaker 1: Street Studios, which was Island Records that became PSALM years later.
Speaker 1: UM I used to work at Rack Studios. UM I
Speaker 1: worked at a place in Kent called Escape Studios with
Speaker 1: a band called Marmalade and Jeff Beck lived around the corner,
Speaker 1: so Jeff was always popping in UM and then Alvin
Speaker 1: Lee Halving had his own studio in his house at
Speaker 1: Hook and Manner. I worked there, um, and then working
Speaker 1: with Johnny. I was in Paris a lot, doing sessions
Speaker 1: with Johnny in Paris as well. UM, so became almost
Speaker 1: like a gypsy, which I really enjoyed. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: only like my early mid twenties now m seventy one, um,
Speaker 1: and really moving around quite a lot. And then of
Speaker 1: course Paris with the Stones, which was I mean collectively
Speaker 1: maybe seven years of my life working with them and
Speaker 1: doing you know, the three albums. Um, actually not seven
Speaker 1: years of my life in Paris, but we would have
Speaker 1: spent collectively maybe two two and a half years making
Speaker 1: those albums in Paris. Okay, let's go back a chapter three.
Speaker 1: Frampton announces he's leaving Humble Pie just before the PM
Speaker 1: breaks pick. Then he puts out four solo albums before
Speaker 1: he has the live album. First album. I just love
Speaker 1: that with you know by your side, when to change, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite. That's the first album
Speaker 1: that I worked with Peter on and um he very
Speaker 1: kindly gave me an associate producer credit, which I didn't
Speaker 1: didn't understand what a producer credit was at that time,
Speaker 1: but it certainly helped. Um um Um. You know he
Speaker 1: was very nervous making that album, very excited but nervous
Speaker 1: because he was solo that the songs on the album.
Speaker 1: And I remember getting Jim Price and Jim Horn to
Speaker 1: do the horns on on the Stones song that he covered. Um,
Speaker 1: and that that version I can't remember which song is it.
Speaker 1: Do remember what jumping Jack JUMPI Jack fashicles is Yeah,
Speaker 1: ba ba ba ba, but yeah, um that version is
Speaker 1: still one of my favorite versions of a Stone song actually. Um.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of magical moments on that
Speaker 1: album that I could talk about forever. There was one
Speaker 1: where we recorded over another day. We recorded it in
Speaker 1: the stairwell at Olympic. Um. Um, you can hear a
Speaker 1: seven four seven flying across about I think two minutes. Um.
Speaker 1: It's that, you know, we couldn't get rid of it obviously. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was only when you had like one one
Speaker 1: jone bell jet every half an hour, not every three minutes.
Speaker 1: So um um that that was a beautiful moment. Um.
Speaker 1: And Peter's guitar sound as well. Um, that's when I
Speaker 1: discovered quite a unique way of recording his little Ampeg
Speaker 1: amplifier with two microphones, one at the front and one
Speaker 1: at the back. Um. And yeah, that that was just
Speaker 1: the absolute, um wonderful journey with Peter. And then and
Speaker 1: then after that was what was it? Well before we
Speaker 1: get I know that the album. Before we get to that,
Speaker 1: you mentioned I M pig. Tell me about since we're here,
Speaker 1: tell me about your feelings of the sounds of different amps,
Speaker 1: different microphones, different boards. How deep into that are you?
Speaker 1: You have favorites, things that don't work. Um. I do
Speaker 1: remember when the SSL desk came out that a lot
Speaker 1: of people were either you know, excited about it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't like it. They didn't like the
Speaker 1: sound of it. Um. I made some great records on
Speaker 1: the SSL desks. Although I'm um, I use any piece
Speaker 1: of equipment to get what I want from it rather
Speaker 1: than expecting it to do something. UM that the Nave
Speaker 1: console has a terrific sound. I mean every console has
Speaker 1: a sound to me. UM. The Olympic console, the nine
Speaker 1: console and the console which were built at Olympic for
Speaker 1: Olympic by Olympics. They were two of the best sounding
Speaker 1: consoles UM I've ever heard. They musicality was really impressive.
Speaker 1: The same with the NAVE, but the controls are very
Speaker 1: different and you have to know how to add or
Speaker 1: subtract um the EQ that you're using on those. The
Speaker 1: problem with the SSL was you only had to turn
Speaker 1: the game NB just even on, and you had three
Speaker 1: dB barking at you. So you have to be very
Speaker 1: very careful, and I think a lot of engineers, lot
Speaker 1: producers overcooked the records and they started to sound a
Speaker 1: bit skinny and thin. Um. But the advantages of the
Speaker 1: SSL soon became that with you know, with with lots
Speaker 1: of multi track happening, with for the eight track happening,
Speaker 1: you could alternate the faders, so that was pretty handy
Speaker 1: rather than um all hands on deck. Although I was
Speaker 1: never a fan of faulty eight track recording, I'm still
Speaker 1: not UM. I still apply my discipline and my creative
Speaker 1: discipline in recording as if were an eight track or
Speaker 1: a sixteen track, or maybe a twenty four track, because
Speaker 1: it's so much easy to mix anything when you've only
Speaker 1: got to deal with sixteen faders or twenty four the
Speaker 1: most you know, when you've got like forty eight seventy two,
Speaker 1: it's um it's yeah, it's okay, but it's it's not fun.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a performance mix um everything. It
Speaker 1: becomes very linearized and very controlled. And a lot of
Speaker 1: records that I like, and a lot of records that
Speaker 1: a lot of people love. You know, we all talk
Speaker 1: about their um the great sounds and the recording some
Speaker 1: of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and they're they're they're
Speaker 1: full of what people would say today, well they are.
Speaker 1: They're full of mishaps, mistakes, They're they're full of you know,
Speaker 1: some tuning problems, some timing issues. But that's what makes
Speaker 1: the record human. That's what makes it possible to listen
Speaker 1: to it again and again and again. When you know,
Speaker 1: when I hear records that have all been quantized and
Speaker 1: they're all just snapped to a grid um, that music
Speaker 1: goes in, you know, in one ear, and you know,
Speaker 1: after about two or three plays, it's like, Okay, don't
Speaker 1: really even to hear that anymore because I'm not getting
Speaker 1: anything from it. Okay. In terms of ems and Mike's UM, well,
Speaker 1: growing up in studios in the in the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: I mean, all you had was you just had you
Speaker 1: sixty seventhsmen sixty sevenths you forty sevens A KG four
Speaker 1: one fours m A k G D thirties, which is
Speaker 1: the best past Dr Mike ever. Um so um, you
Speaker 1: were really you didn't know that these microphones were but
Speaker 1: well as good until many years later and you kind
Speaker 1: of figured out, well, that's why that sounds so good,
Speaker 1: because you've got that beautiful valve microphone going into a
Speaker 1: tape machine and analog tape. Um. So um, they're my
Speaker 1: favorite microphones, but I must say that Sure also on
Speaker 1: the top of my list. Some time ago I was
Speaker 1: invited by Sure with Eddie Kramer to beta test the
Speaker 1: k S M forty four, which is Sure's kind of
Speaker 1: version of a U eighty seven but a fraction of
Speaker 1: the cost um and Eddie and I spent a good
Speaker 1: year or maybe two years in beta testing different versions
Speaker 1: and helping them get it right. So only I think
Speaker 1: it was three years ago. Two years ago I had
Speaker 1: a master class at Kingston University UM and as part
Speaker 1: of the session UM I picked out four microphones and
Speaker 1: we had a blind shootout test with myself and the
Speaker 1: students as to what microphones sounded best and on the
Speaker 1: selection of instruments, not just one instrument. And this was
Speaker 1: a semi classical recording, so it was an electric guitar.
Speaker 1: There's nothing electrical, it's all it was. Remember it was piano, celestue,
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, violin um, clarinet, um. And I was so amazed.
Speaker 1: I mean I really couldn't believe it that the Shore
Speaker 1: beat are you eighty seven? It beat a four one
Speaker 1: four everything we put up, but there was one other
Speaker 1: I can't remember the other one one was but um
Speaker 1: they were old new versions of old microphones with this
Speaker 1: shure O case forty four and the Shore one. Every
Speaker 1: time it was like surreal. So I think sure for
Speaker 1: doing that. And amps and outboard gear, guitar amps yeah, um,
Speaker 1: oh gosh wow, I think small old fenders. There's too
Speaker 1: many now, I mean I don't have any. I like
Speaker 1: the amps that the guitar player gets a great sound
Speaker 1: and he knows the the fire. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: working with musicians who don't have an app that they
Speaker 1: love and they know how to play and get a
Speaker 1: result from um so um. Usually I'm working with people
Speaker 1: that have got terrific amplifiers, UM an out ball gear
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question because I'm in the middle of
Speaker 1: building a new studio at Olympic now when we've got
Speaker 1: We've got a nineteen seventy one leave console that's been
Speaker 1: completely restored. I've got eight of the sorry twelve of
Speaker 1: the original Olympic nineteen sixty six and nine Mike and EQS,
Speaker 1: Mike pres and EQUS, so we've got that covered. And
Speaker 1: I was looking at our balls stuff and there's so
Speaker 1: much out there now. But really all I need is
Speaker 1: a couple of compressors, maybe a notch filter, an echo plate.
Speaker 1: That would be great, UM, because everything else is you know,
Speaker 1: it's unplug ins. UM. You know I I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem, UM with digital at all, although I do
Speaker 1: know that some of the most enjoyable records to work
Speaker 1: on and to mix and to live with have been
Speaker 1: recorded on analog and then put into pro tools. UM.
Speaker 1: I did this on two of the master classes that
Speaker 1: I was talking about, where UM, the the university has
Speaker 1: a twenty four track student and I'll only teach a
Speaker 1: UNI where they have analog tape machines because that's where
Speaker 1: it all comes from for me. UM. Talking about the discipline. UM,
Speaker 1: wonderful times with the students and the musicians. Because these
Speaker 1: musicians are young musicians, they actually haven't recorded on analog before,
Speaker 1: so to give them that experience was quite fascinating. UM.
Speaker 1: In terms of like, um, where you can't tell me
Speaker 1: now that you want to over another xylophone because we've
Speaker 1: only got one track left, so I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: bounce down the violins and the viola onto one track.
Speaker 1: They go, yeah, but we can change it. They can't.
Speaker 1: We say no, that's it. It's and at first they've
Speaker 1: very nervous, and then two hours later they can completely
Speaker 1: forget about it. Yeah, because it's done. And and that's
Speaker 1: another thing about you know, making great records, is that um,
Speaker 1: with all the options in digital world now, where people
Speaker 1: aren't committing to a balance UM, it's um. I think
Speaker 1: that makes for very strange sounding records. And the beauty
Speaker 1: of bouncing something down isn't really a restriction because you're
Speaker 1: committing to it and you're building your sound around that sound,
Speaker 1: rather than trying to build a sound collectively from a
Speaker 1: hundred tracks or whatever you've got. And in terms of electronics,
Speaker 1: studio amps make a difference what speakers you listen to,
Speaker 1: what speakers you mix on UM speakers. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: wonderful question. Um um I I I like PMC speakers.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in front of a pair now, I of Proact.
Speaker 1: I've got three bears of pro Act. I traveled all
Speaker 1: around the world with pro Rex. There might go to
Speaker 1: little speaker with a Bryson amplifier. UM. I've also um
Speaker 1: um amphion speaker. UM. I was introduced to them maybe
Speaker 1: five years ago, I think when they when they first
Speaker 1: appeared in the UK, and I was working with a
Speaker 1: artist from Norway. UM great blues guitar player called Um
Speaker 1: Area Linton. UM. I think that's happened outside the last day.
Speaker 1: We can't remember. Area An Area knew the the the
Speaker 1: the guy who made these speakers. So this they sent
Speaker 1: them over for me to listen to, and I didn't
Speaker 1: get on with them. But then four years later I
Speaker 1: was doing a show with a p I UH and
Speaker 1: they had the new versions of the speakers, and they
Speaker 1: blew me away. I mean I preferred those two putting
Speaker 1: anything I heard that day because I could listen to
Speaker 1: them for hours and hours and not get fatigued. Not
Speaker 1: that I listened allowed volume um anymore. Um but they
Speaker 1: were just really beautiful to listen to. And I like
Speaker 1: a speaker where I can close my eyes and not
Speaker 1: think of the speaker or know what a speaker it is.
Speaker 1: You know some speakers, I go, that's a JB L.
Speaker 1: That don't like that, that that's a Genelect Jenna lets
Speaker 1: are great, but they've got their own sound, so if
Speaker 1: you know that, you can work with them. Every speaker's
Speaker 1: got its own identity. Um. Although a speaker, like a product,
Speaker 1: is so flat, it doesn't have an identity, but people don't.
Speaker 1: Some people don't like that, so you have to work
Speaker 1: harder to get a good mix out of that. Which
Speaker 1: brings me back to the Yamaha, the black NS ten
Speaker 1: that we all used to use, um and a p
Speaker 1: over the over the twitter that was Bobby clear Mountain's discovery,
Speaker 1: an antissue paper over the tweeter. Um and um, and
Speaker 1: sure they you had to really work hard to get
Speaker 1: something to sound good on those shitty little speakers. But
Speaker 1: once you've got it sounded great, it would translate everywhere. UM.
Speaker 1: So I'm very I'm always not sure of speakers when
Speaker 1: someone says to me, it's the best sounding speakers. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you play something UM that you've mixed or recorded
Speaker 1: and you know, sure it's gonna sound big good because
Speaker 1: it's already good. But if you're working on that speaking
Speaker 1: from scratch, it's a different you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: a different Kettler Fish. You mentioned the brace and the amplifier.
Speaker 1: Are you someone who uh you know different the amplify
Speaker 1: amplifier types, different brands are not as specific on that,
Speaker 1: not so specific, but I do. I've worked. I've been
Speaker 1: working a lot with you know, dsp amplifiers built into speakers,
Speaker 1: and I find that my ears I get fatigued a
Speaker 1: lot quicker than I do with as if I'm using
Speaker 1: a analog amplithia UM with speakers on the end of
Speaker 1: it UM. So I don't know if that's my age
Speaker 1: or it's just my brain. Let's just while we're on
Speaker 1: this topic, let's just go to the digital analog in
Speaker 1: terms of okay, you know they have now playback at
Speaker 1: a much higher resolution even then c D, whether you're okay,
Speaker 1: And then we have this analog revolution with vinyl, with
Speaker 1: things cut digitally whereas opposed to something that was originally
Speaker 1: cut analog. What are your feelings about all this well
Speaker 1: it it seems to me that it's all going to
Speaker 1: end up on digits anyway. Even if you record it
Speaker 1: on analog, you mix it on analog, it's going to
Speaker 1: get into digits. I need to be on you know,
Speaker 1: to be on streaming on Apple Spotify, or if if
Speaker 1: you're making a vinyl record only, you're still okay, you'll
Speaker 1: have the stereo, you have the stereo mixtape to take
Speaker 1: to have the mastering done for your vinyl. But there's
Speaker 1: not any other situations. I don't think where you're going
Speaker 1: to use that stereo tape to create an analog master
Speaker 1: for an analog source like a vinyl record. So um,
Speaker 1: I think that's a very limited, very niche market. Well,
Speaker 1: we're an agreement on that, But the question would become,
Speaker 1: if we're going with digital or vinyl, where do you
Speaker 1: come down on that argument? Can I just stay with analog?
Speaker 1: You could stay with the analog. But but you're saying
Speaker 1: we're living in a digital world unlike when we grew up.
Speaker 1: Music is a portable one of the you know, I
Speaker 1: think you know, the sound has affected what music we get.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the compression wars, the loudness wars,
Speaker 1: and then of course we have Spotify equing everything. And
Speaker 1: this is all affected. If you go back through the
Speaker 1: stereo revolution of the sixties and seventies, people had great systems,
Speaker 1: people mix for that. Now people are listening on earbuds,
Speaker 1: we have beats with you know, push base. So I
Speaker 1: agree we're really living in a digital world. And as
Speaker 1: you stated earlier, analog you know, is a minor factor,
Speaker 1: but it punches above its weight in terms of inc
Speaker 1: You know, we have this a lot of society, not
Speaker 1: only in music. We're constantly reading about vinyl, even though
Speaker 1: you and me know it's a very small part of
Speaker 1: the marketplace. We also know that the average person doesn't
Speaker 1: have the playback equipment of a quality that they could
Speaker 1: even tell the difference. But if you have a typical
Speaker 1: this point three thousand dollar system and it's the it
Speaker 1: starts as digital, what do you prefer the end digital
Speaker 1: product or the analog product? Or is it subtle? Do
Speaker 1: you hear a difference? Now? I can hear if a
Speaker 1: record has been recorded on analog tight and then put
Speaker 1: into digital and release as opposed to a digital digital.
Speaker 1: I could actually hear that um and also I can
Speaker 1: feel it as well. Uh, I kind of it resonates
Speaker 1: in my mind and my body in a different way. Um,
Speaker 1: I am. That's funny you mentioned that because I feel
Speaker 1: my example was, you know, the early days of c
Speaker 1: D s. I put and I got I never want
Speaker 1: to have any clipping, any distortion. I got plenty of power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I got the A C D C back in
Speaker 1: black c D and I crank it. My ears are bleeding, Okay.
Speaker 1: Then I put on the vinyl LP and your ears
Speaker 1: didn't lead. You know, it's like in the whole house
Speaker 1: shakes and you feel some people might say you're hearing
Speaker 1: the distortion, but it's night and day. It is night
Speaker 1: and day. I totally agree with you. And if I
Speaker 1: have so many c DS that I never played anymore,
Speaker 1: now I've got thousands upon thousands my vinyl which I've
Speaker 1: got about six thousands. I played them every day. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's always something out on the turntable. But
Speaker 1: the CDs, it's only the you know, the quick availability
Speaker 1: of them. Um that uh yeah, and um so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where alive with this one. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just love the sound of analog. I know it's going
Speaker 1: to end up in the digital format. Somehow, because no
Speaker 1: one's going to be listening to analog real to real.
Speaker 1: No one's gonna be listening to cassettes. No one's going
Speaker 1: to be listening to a analog tape that goes straight
Speaker 1: onto vinyl. But um, I think if you can keep
Speaker 1: analog in the chain somewhere, you know, you're preserving some
Speaker 1: some part of that magic, some part of that thing
Speaker 1: that you and I hear and love so much. Um.
Speaker 1: So let's be black and black, black and white. If
Speaker 1: it's digitally from beginning to end, Does it make any
Speaker 1: sense to put it on a vinyl record? No, I
Speaker 1: don't think it does. Now you might as well be
Speaker 1: split on the CD. Um. Yeah, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: find it's to finish it makes more sense. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: in fact, put it on vinyl, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: roll off everything below fifty sides, so and to say
Speaker 1: at the top end as well. So it's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not working at all. I recently I do a lot
Speaker 1: of mastering as well. But mastering I would never pertain
Speaker 1: to be the mastering engineer like Bob Ludwig or my
Speaker 1: friend Ray stuff. But I do do a lot of
Speaker 1: mastering to help UM people who you know who have
Speaker 1: kind of would I say, problem albums um or need
Speaker 1: some real lifts, something different in it. And I do
Speaker 1: things like I'll add rever to the whole mix in
Speaker 1: the chorus. Because the mixes flat, the mixesn't happening. They
Speaker 1: don't have the money to go and remix it or it,
Speaker 1: but I can help it by doing that. So UM,
Speaker 1: I love doing the mastering. And and I actually mastered
Speaker 1: something a few months ago that was from cassette and
Speaker 1: it sounded amazing. I mean it really did sound warm
Speaker 1: and beautiful and of that moment um. You know, there
Speaker 1: was a bit of hiss, but you can you can
Speaker 1: get rid of that easy enough. UM. And it was
Speaker 1: just sound enjoyable to listen to again and again and again.
Speaker 1: I really have to thing about analog tape. I can
Speaker 1: listen to any recorded performance UM that's been recorded the
Speaker 1: originally an analog, even if it's gone into digital later,
Speaker 1: and it pleased me a lot more than listening to
Speaker 1: something that's digital digital digital. Okay, when do you start
Speaker 1: mixing records as supposed to just recording them? Um? When
Speaker 1: did I start just mixing records? UM? I don't think
Speaker 1: there's many records that I've only mixed. Actually I think
Speaker 1: generally i've I've always recorded and then mixed everything. Um.
Speaker 1: It was the opposite way round where Um, I do
Speaker 1: remember fondly um when it must have been. It was
Speaker 1: Missed You with the Stones, and i'd mixed the album.
Speaker 1: Um and Earl McGrath, who was the president of the
Speaker 1: Stones label at that time, lovely man not with us anymore,
Speaker 1: but true gentleman, his best man at my at my wedding,
Speaker 1: um um and um sorry not the best man he
Speaker 1: was at the wedding. And a he had this um
Speaker 1: young kid at the power station that was just started
Speaker 1: to mix people's records who he's really a champion him
Speaker 1: and his name was Bob clear Mounting. So there was
Speaker 1: an The first time I heard that someone else was
Speaker 1: going to mix my recording, I got really piste off
Speaker 1: and I was really like, well, what the fun's going
Speaker 1: on there? And then a one the full thing happened. Um.
Speaker 1: A few months after that record came out, after Miss
Speaker 1: You came out, I was working in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: I was driving down pc H as you would do,
Speaker 1: maybe not now, but then you could. And I remember
Speaker 1: it fundly. I'd have rented Mustang and I had the
Speaker 1: hood down. I was blasting the radio and Miss You
Speaker 1: came on and I'm listening to it. I'm going, ship man,
Speaker 1: Bob is a genius. This sounds freaking awesome. This is fantastic,
Speaker 1: really really excited. And and then um, the difference between
Speaker 1: Bob's mix and my mix was is that Bobby's mix
Speaker 1: was the edited version and my mix was the unedited version.
Speaker 1: So my mix had the sax solo at the end,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the sax solo came on
Speaker 1: and I went, oh, ship this isn't Bobby's mix, It's
Speaker 1: my mix. And that at that point I dropped all,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of hostility to was anyone who had
Speaker 1: to remix something that I would recorded, because I figured
Speaker 1: out as long as i'd recorded it and got the
Speaker 1: groove and the sound and got it in the pocket
Speaker 1: from the you know, from the get go, it would
Speaker 1: you had to be stupid to fuck it up in
Speaker 1: mixing it, in remixing it. And I've always stuck by that,
Speaker 1: although I won't stick by that now with Dolby Atmos mixing,
Speaker 1: because I've had some experience with that which we might
Speaker 1: get too later. I don't know, I definitely do want
Speaker 1: to get to that. But but reversing the question, what
Speaker 1: was the first record or when did you start not
Speaker 1: only recording the records but also mixing them. Um, well,
Speaker 1: thee the Fountain albums that would have been would have
Speaker 1: been one period, that would have been one set of records. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking at my cv nows um. I had
Speaker 1: to print it out because I appear on seventy seven albums.
Speaker 1: I think it was something ridiculous. Um um okay, so
Speaker 1: killing Joke, Love like Blood, night Time, Brider than the
Speaker 1: Thousand Sons, recorded them, mixed all of that, although although
Speaker 1: some years later and brighter in the Thousand Sons, the
Speaker 1: record company got Julian, the Australian mixer Julian. What's Julian's
Speaker 1: last name? Um? M hm uh and Julian was a
Speaker 1: very good mixer, but kind of flavor of the month
Speaker 1: when the album came out. So and then many years
Speaker 1: later my mixes were released um on another version and
Speaker 1: it was just nice to see that the fans appreciated
Speaker 1: my mixes as much as Julian's mixes. UM Marillion Um
Speaker 1: Diesel part West, Johnny Halliday, the Proclaimers Bill Wyman ten
Speaker 1: years after UM I recently recently remixed the Spacing Time
Speaker 1: for Chrystalist Records because it's the fourtieth anniversary of that album.
Speaker 1: UM And that album was a real special special experience
Speaker 1: for me and Alvin as well in terms of it
Speaker 1: was kind of Alvin. It was there almost like their
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper. It was the first album that they used
Speaker 1: string arrangements on UM and Alvin and I were like
Speaker 1: sonic fairies. We would really we wanted to push the
Speaker 1: boundaries of of sound. Um So in in mixing the
Speaker 1: album again forty years later, um So it was recorded
Speaker 1: in seventy nine, I think I think it was UM
Speaker 1: and it was on sixteen track so um it was
Speaker 1: in pro tools. You know, the analog had been dumped
Speaker 1: into protols. UM And There's two ways that one can
Speaker 1: mix an album or even produce some recording an album.
Speaker 1: One is you record it faithfully, honestly of what you're
Speaker 1: hearing in the studio. There's nothing much to do with
Speaker 1: it other than capture an incredible performance, you know, instilling
Speaker 1: that in the musicians great rhythm section, or get the
Speaker 1: band to a level where they're performing at their best
Speaker 1: and you press the re call back with the write
Speaker 1: microphones to right console and you get it. Then there's
Speaker 1: the one where UM, you capture that same those same ingredients,
Speaker 1: but knowingly that when you mix it, you're gonna mess
Speaker 1: with it, You're going to really experiment with it. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's what I discovered in remixing the Space in
Speaker 1: Time album because UM, I loaded the multi track in
Speaker 1: the sixteen track and we didn't even use all sixteen
Speaker 1: tracks either, so it wasn't as if there was a
Speaker 1: a pilet of information there. But what we did, what
Speaker 1: Alvin and I did with those mixes was unbelievable. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: It took me. It took me about three days to
Speaker 1: mix each song to try and figure out what the
Speaker 1: hell I'd done because they just sounded so good. UM.
Speaker 1: And we only had a e M T echo plate,
Speaker 1: two compressors. UM. We had the Olympic console, which thankfully
Speaker 1: Eddie Cramer did a clone e q U of the
Speaker 1: same desk that I recorded on the HLS Cramer e
Speaker 1: Q and also a pie a limitter because we have
Speaker 1: PIO limits there. UM, the echo plate, tape delay. Anna
Speaker 1: Leslie now that Leslie I used to great extent because
Speaker 1: I was I think I'm really right in saying that
Speaker 1: when I mixed, I'd love to change the world. It
Speaker 1: was the Leslie that gave it the identical, identifiable sound
Speaker 1: um that you know, added to the atmosphere of the record.
Speaker 1: UH created that you know, that great song that hit
Speaker 1: um and other Leslie sounds had not been heard really
Speaker 1: as prominent as that before. So um it was a
Speaker 1: real challenge and quite wonderful to go back um um.
Speaker 1: I could actually I got into a position where I
Speaker 1: could almost remember how I was mixing it um because
Speaker 1: mixes them were a performance, you know, they weren't all
Speaker 1: um on the computer, so you could nudge this little
Speaker 1: bit there, that little bit there. It really was like
Speaker 1: you'd start from zero and then you'd end up at
Speaker 1: plus eight or somewhere in riding the faders um um,
Speaker 1: and and even arranging the mix on the go. Of course,
Speaker 1: the other way to do that would be to mix
Speaker 1: it in sections and edited together as well, which I
Speaker 1: did with the LP. So um that was it was
Speaker 1: a really good journey to go back um um you know,
Speaker 1: um test my knowledge of how I made that sound,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to sharing that with students as well.
Speaker 1: Actually it was really good. Okay, let's stay on that point.
Speaker 1: Remixing professionals learned how to get the most out of digital.
Speaker 1: Record companies wanted to milk the audience for more money,
Speaker 1: so they were constantly equeuing records remastering them on digital.
Speaker 1: But then it became an issue remix. There's this guy,
Speaker 1: Steven Wilson did Jo throw tall, a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: He literally remixes to sound exactly like the original, only cleaner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know Stephen, I know Stephen, and in fact he's
Speaker 1: I mean that's a real task because he's remixing something
Speaker 1: we know. He wasn't there any original sessions. He's got
Speaker 1: no notes, he's got a multi check, he doesn't know
Speaker 1: what solo was used, what vocal was used. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a month's worth of detective work before he can
Speaker 1: even in, you know, at the leaves sting of mixing it. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's um. I wouldn't have the patients to
Speaker 1: do that, Okay. So in any event, they sound Donna
Speaker 1: called to the originals, but cleaner you go to the
Speaker 1: Beatles remixes and not good with Giles but I find
Speaker 1: it's offensive. These are classic records one of the other,
Speaker 1: and I'm worried that the remixes will take over from
Speaker 1: the originals as time goes on. Well, the only take
Speaker 1: over if that that's the only thing is available. UM
Speaker 1: and And I totally agree with you about I really
Speaker 1: I've had some big wars and problems with with record
Speaker 1: companies remastering a record I've recalled him mixed produced um and.
Speaker 1: It's gone from label to label to label over the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, and each time it ends up with
Speaker 1: the new label they remastering, It's like, we got it
Speaker 1: right the first time, Why are you fucking with it again?
Speaker 1: One big problem for me was when UM, I think
Speaker 1: this was about five years ago, UM them Some Girls
Speaker 1: was reissued and remastered UM and UM. I wasn't sent
Speaker 1: anything to approve it. Um. The only time I got
Speaker 1: to hear it was when I bought it or downloaded it,
Speaker 1: and I was terrified at what I heard. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was really in shock. It was terrible. It had
Speaker 1: been compressed to death. It was that whole a loudness
Speaker 1: war thing, and it didn't even it didn't sound like
Speaker 1: the same record that I made I mean, it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe that remastering can screw screw something up so much,
Speaker 1: but it can. So I complained to The Stones, to
Speaker 1: the management, um, and I just got a reply back saying, well,
Speaker 1: it's got a five star review. You know it's okay.
Speaker 1: And then three months later I looked on Amazon and
Speaker 1: everyone was saying this is atrocious. I want my money back.
Speaker 1: It's a load of crap. And every review was the same.
Speaker 1: So you know, I stick with my original statement. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, remastering. There's only been a few remasterings that
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed. Mom was the Peter Tosh album that
Speaker 1: I did, and that was we mastered. Um. Um Abbey
Speaker 1: Road that did sound really really good. Um. And Jimmy
Speaker 1: Cliff album Um Special that we master sounding good, but
Speaker 1: Old Merillian sounding good too. Um. It's um yeah. Mainly
Speaker 1: the Stones is quite it's quite atrocious. Okay, go back
Speaker 1: to space in time the ten years after album. What
Speaker 1: is your goal in remixing it? If I know the original, Well,
Speaker 1: how will I hear the remix? What might be different? Um?
Speaker 1: A little bit like what you said about Steve Wilson
Speaker 1: is that there's a there's more clarity, especially on the
Speaker 1: drum sound um and the vocal sound um. Trying to
Speaker 1: get the guitar sounds the same as the album that
Speaker 1: was a Allen's as well, um um. But definitely the
Speaker 1: drums because um, we would have mixed those songs maybe
Speaker 1: well definitely like to maybe three mixes a day. I mean,
Speaker 1: we didn't spend a lot of time that one does
Speaker 1: or or went on to do in mixing. Um. So
Speaker 1: the drums, I think, of anything, will possibly suffer because
Speaker 1: the drums were recorded on either two tracks or three
Speaker 1: tracks um um. So it was quite limited at the
Speaker 1: time with what you could do with that if you
Speaker 1: really wanted to mess with it. So um, there's definitely
Speaker 1: a lot more clarity all around, I think. Um. And
Speaker 1: also there were a couple of tracks on the album
Speaker 1: the original mixes why I always felt that the vocals
Speaker 1: were a little bit too low. UM. So I did
Speaker 1: push those up a tiny bit, but I respected and
Speaker 1: I think any anyone who has asked to remix anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was fortunate because I recorded the original,
Speaker 1: so you know, at least I had a clue, well
Speaker 1: the big clue of course of me. So um. But
Speaker 1: in sending something an album that to a mixer who's
Speaker 1: not been involved with it at all, who doesn't even
Speaker 1: really know the music, but it's just been asked to
Speaker 1: remix it was the label, you know, the copyrights running out,
Speaker 1: and they want to you know, remix it to reissue it.
Speaker 1: I think that's really dangerous and I think the major
Speaker 1: record companies, if they're going to continue doing that, they
Speaker 1: should actually form like a consultium of of producers and
Speaker 1: mixes from that period who, you know, at least have
Speaker 1: some consultation with whoever they're farming it out to to mix,
Speaker 1: you know, to make sure there's respect to the original record. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Frampton. He puts out the first
Speaker 1: record most people have no idea who Free Empton is,
Speaker 1: makes some impact, then forms the band Camel. Not as
Speaker 1: good as a first record, but very good. You talk
Speaker 1: about Tamla Motown. There's a great cover of I Believe
Speaker 1: When I Fall in Love with You will Be Forever
Speaker 1: Ward album. Something's happening, artistic and commercial disappointment. Fourth album
Speaker 1: when many people have given up, an incredible home run
Speaker 1: Fampton and Yeah, and then all of a sudden there's
Speaker 1: the Comes Alive double album, explain what happened there. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: the live versions are faster than the album the studio versions,
Speaker 1: so there's a you know, obviously there's that incredible injection
Speaker 1: of adrenaline on the live performance. Um um. And also
Speaker 1: I think with I think with a lot of artists,
Speaker 1: then when you're a solo artists coming from a rock
Speaker 1: and roll band to go out on your own and
Speaker 1: make a solo album, UM, it takes maybe a year
Speaker 1: or two for you to really know the songs that
Speaker 1: you're performing. Um. And they obviously changed quite a lot
Speaker 1: from the recording in the studio to what they actually
Speaker 1: go out on the road and sound like. Um. Just
Speaker 1: in terms of you might have the same musicians that
Speaker 1: you use in the in the study video recording, and
Speaker 1: when you go on the road, you've got the group
Speaker 1: musicians that you're playing with year in, year out, so
Speaker 1: it's it's more honed down um um UM. I think
Speaker 1: when Peter went out on the road and did that
Speaker 1: huge slog around which you know, the Fampton comes a
Speaker 1: live album came from where when they went out and
Speaker 1: did that, um, just put the pro tools so it
Speaker 1: didn't stop. It's okay, just screen up, um. When Um,
Speaker 1: when Peter went out on the road and slogged around
Speaker 1: for for ages doing those performances. Um, two things happened.
Speaker 1: I think one was that the band were really really
Speaker 1: tight and Peter had his act down. And Peter had
Speaker 1: also moved away from this musician songwriter didn't really think
Speaker 1: of himself as a singer, but say uh, and I
Speaker 1: think it was always holding himself back from the singing.
Speaker 1: But when he got front of stage in fact of
Speaker 1: the audience, that's changed all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: he broke through that barrier, um and just put his
Speaker 1: heart on the line and his voice on the line,
Speaker 1: and it connected with people. Um. The most wonderful thing
Speaker 1: in mixing that album was that you could actually you
Speaker 1: could just push up the four two or four. There
Speaker 1: would have been two I think maybe three audience mix
Speaker 1: and just from listening to the audience was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you would get the adrenaline as well. And they weren't
Speaker 1: huge gigs, whether they were like the film or East.
Speaker 1: They were you know, pretty small rooms per se um.
Speaker 1: But wow, what sound and what a joy to mix.
Speaker 1: I mean, um, you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: stories about all a lot of stuff has been replaced.
Speaker 1: We never replaced anything except for a piece of world
Speaker 1: It's Them where the words of the lead had come out.
Speaker 1: And there was one other thing, a technical break where
Speaker 1: something was missing, and we replaced that. But that was it,
Speaker 1: and we definitely didn't double up on the audience either.
Speaker 1: Um you know, it was what it was. And there's
Speaker 1: a great story about that album, which I'm sure you
Speaker 1: may have heard. But um so d Anthony, Peter's manager
Speaker 1: at the time, said okay, you know we're going to
Speaker 1: do a single album. That's it. Let's get it finished,
Speaker 1: and were presented to the label. Um and so finished
Speaker 1: mixing the first album as it were, Jerry Muss came
Speaker 1: down to the studio, listened to it all back. He's
Speaker 1: sitting there. After we played side one, side to he said,
Speaker 1: where's the rest? We were what do you mean? He said,
Speaker 1: what is it? Where's all the where's the rest of
Speaker 1: the concert? Where the other songs? They said, it's got
Speaker 1: to be a double album, so we had to go
Speaker 1: back in and mix the rest of the album. So,
Speaker 1: um yeah, d you got that one really wrong. Um
Speaker 1: so yeah, that was and after that, you know, Peter's
Speaker 1: life changed dramatically. I mean the the start and that
Speaker 1: he had to endure and he wasn't really prepared for
Speaker 1: it either. I mean it really it really hit him
Speaker 1: by surprise. Um, and his manager didn't help us, as
Speaker 1: he has told me. Um, did you have any idea
Speaker 1: Frampton Comes Alive was going to be the phenomenon that
Speaker 1: it was? No? Not as big as it was, No way,
Speaker 1: I did feel that it was. It was at the time,
Speaker 1: maybe one of the best live sounding records ever, because
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of you know, live albums at
Speaker 1: the time, and nothing seemed to come close to it
Speaker 1: sonically or as an experience as well. Um, it was
Speaker 1: almost like the whole songs on this kind of I know, UM,
Speaker 1: this plateau, this air, they were like floating around, but
Speaker 1: they were so positive sounding, and that was the audience.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when Peter did not use you
Speaker 1: on the next album, Mom and You and it was
Speaker 1: a disaster? Well he did use me on that album.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know. I thought you just came back
Speaker 1: and they returned to form the one after that. Tell
Speaker 1: me your experience of arming you were it was a
Speaker 1: disaster and it wasn't. I think I came Did I
Speaker 1: come back? Under force I might have with D. I
Speaker 1: don't know. D was a very vicarious manager, not a
Speaker 1: very nice person actually, um and UM. I think I
Speaker 1: came back more out of support of Peter, But I
Speaker 1: was pretty bitter at the time because I've been promised,
Speaker 1: you know, to be part of Peter's career. If it
Speaker 1: was successful, I would get a percentage, you know, a
Speaker 1: producer percentage. I never received any of that. D D
Speaker 1: threatened actually to UM. Yeah, he he made some comments
Speaker 1: that if I ever approached Peter for any money or
Speaker 1: anything like that, I'd never work in New York City again,
Speaker 1: which is a young twenty four year old terrified the
Speaker 1: ship out of me, um and and it was very
Speaker 1: difficult for me to go back and work with Peter.
Speaker 1: Um and I'm in you because of that, um And
Speaker 1: that actually in going back and working and I'm in you.
Speaker 1: UM after that, I don't think we worked together after that,
Speaker 1: but I think you worked one more time, Oh yeah
Speaker 1: on Churchill. Yeah yeah, not not. But also we're you
Speaker 1: saying the album where I should be, Where I should be? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So but after where I should Be, it was still
Speaker 1: not a very good you know, not very good atmosphere
Speaker 1: all around really um, still with D you know, in control.
Speaker 1: UM and this this kind of relationship with Peter where UM,
Speaker 1: I felt like, hey, come on, step up to the plate.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like I've paid my jewes with you.
Speaker 1: Um and UM and not realizing that he was being
Speaker 1: completely you know, ripped off by D, that his life
Speaker 1: was a mess UM and D was also part of
Speaker 1: that UM. And so after that it was almost like
Speaker 1: my friendship, my love for that man, you know, stopped
Speaker 1: and it really really hurt me in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure he did Peter. And then many years
Speaker 1: later we got back together. We took all the ghosts
Speaker 1: at the closet, UM, and we kind of made up,
Speaker 1: hugged and it was back to the music again. It
Speaker 1: was fantastic. You know, he's a genius. I love him
Speaker 1: to bits and he's been such a good friend you
Speaker 1: know since we did all that so um, and he
Speaker 1: was a part of my career and my whole you
Speaker 1: know success story. Really, so I can't you know, I
Speaker 1: can't knock him for that. I never knocked him for anything.
Speaker 1: It was just it was just sad that you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't really guided and advised right yeah to um
Speaker 1: to look after himself, to support himself and to support
Speaker 1: his friends around him. Um. So, but that happens okay.
Speaker 1: You talked about the producer's percentage on the Frampton albums.
Speaker 1: At what point did you start getting a producer's uh percentage?
Speaker 1: And this was in the development I mean this is
Speaker 1: varied from zero to five cent for a long time.
Speaker 1: The standard was for who negotiated your deals and and
Speaker 1: how or did you do it yourself? And when did
Speaker 1: you start getting a percentage? Oh? No, I didn't do
Speaker 1: it myself. I had a couple of managers at the time.
Speaker 1: One was Rick Aliberti, American manager at would Stop Now.
Speaker 1: Another one was Mims scala Um out of London. Um.
Speaker 1: They were two oh Satha Jeffrey as well at one
Speaker 1: time in London. UM. And I think um um, I
Speaker 1: think the first voti the first valty check with the
Speaker 1: first producer agreement was with Johnnie Halliday. UM and boy
Speaker 1: was that a good yeah, good one to have um.
Speaker 1: And it was respect from both sides, so that was wonderful. Um.
Speaker 1: And then Marillion, kidding joke actually got a contract with
Speaker 1: Peter Tosh, which was amazing um and Jimmy Cliff psychedelic
Speaker 1: first Um. Um what else? Um, there's a band in
Speaker 1: the Australia that I produced with Noise Works. We were
Speaker 1: quite big um so um yeah, yeah, you get a
Speaker 1: percentage of the Stones records. No, no, I did get
Speaker 1: I did at one time. I got half of a penny,
Speaker 1: half of the US penny and I kind of cashed
Speaker 1: it in, um because well that's my next question. Did
Speaker 1: you sell it back to them and all your royalties
Speaker 1: do you still own or did you cash those? Now?
Speaker 1: I keep I still don't know my royalties. But a
Speaker 1: long time ago, UM, I just got into such a
Speaker 1: bitter place with the Stones for not being offered or
Speaker 1: given a worldy apart from that half of any um,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get rid of the kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just wanted to get rid of
Speaker 1: that feeling, um that I hadn't been kind of respected
Speaker 1: or I was respected, but I didn't feel as if
Speaker 1: I was really part of the team as it were.
Speaker 1: I think they, you know, they realized the new I
Speaker 1: brought a lot to the table for them in terms
Speaker 1: of sound and production, you know, capturing it and keeping
Speaker 1: it going when time was really hard for them, like
Speaker 1: tattoo you when they weren't talking to each other, um,
Speaker 1: and and there was no one really there, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting for me. I mean I was, you know, just
Speaker 1: in love with my profession what I did, and um,
Speaker 1: it was only you know, after the fact, you know,
Speaker 1: you sit back and go, well, hey, those guys are
Speaker 1: getting three percent, they're getting a percentage, and they're doing
Speaker 1: bugger all. I've done twice as much more than they've
Speaker 1: ever done, and I'm not getting anything. So but I
Speaker 1: learned to kind of, you know, just ditch all that
Speaker 1: and forget about it, because that's not That's not what
Speaker 1: it's about. It's about making the music. And if you
Speaker 1: live with that bitterness and that contempt around you, you're
Speaker 1: a miserable person. And a lot of books that I've
Speaker 1: read by producer engineers, that's that's the basis of the book.
Speaker 1: Um um um. I am going to write a book.
Speaker 1: My book will be nothing like that. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: got so many great, great funny stories about every album
Speaker 1: I've ever made. I think that are really just fun
Speaker 1: to talk about and to rediscover. Okay, other than investments,
Speaker 1: does enough money come in from royalties to live on UM. No, no,
Speaker 1: definitely not not with streaming UM and UM, I mean
Speaker 1: I I started my own little digital label earlier this
Speaker 1: year because during COVID, I I did, you know, I've
Speaker 1: always been a little bit of a writer, So I
Speaker 1: did in writing with Robert Hart Gary Granger some years ago,
Speaker 1: maybe ten years ago, which we never came out. And
Speaker 1: then during Lockdown there was a musician who got in
Speaker 1: touch with me. Funny enough, he was a fan of
Speaker 1: Peters UM and that's how he found me on my
Speaker 1: website and I kind of nurtured him and helped him
Speaker 1: in songwriting, and then he got to the point where
Speaker 1: I went, who I really like where this is going
Speaker 1: out lyrically? UM. So we kind of joined together and
Speaker 1: we would co write you know, the songs, UM. And
Speaker 1: then we actually we made about and this is just
Speaker 1: the two he's he's programming and playing everything. I'm adding
Speaker 1: some stuff over here. But it's the type of album
Speaker 1: I've never made before. UM. But I did enjoy doing
Speaker 1: it because you know, I couldn't go to a studio,
Speaker 1: so I had to do something keep it in so
Speaker 1: UM and then UM, you know, we've actually finished about
Speaker 1: four albums and so a very good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Robin Miller said, rob is that she said, just do
Speaker 1: your own digital little label, do it with a wall.
Speaker 1: So I set it all up and it was very
Speaker 1: lucky to come up with the name Undercover Music, so
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a link to the Stones, which
Speaker 1: was cool. Um, and then started releasing stuff on that
Speaker 1: and then I was I just found how hard it
Speaker 1: is to be a musician out there today, because unless
Speaker 1: you've got some kind of link to someone who's got
Speaker 1: such a huge social network presence, it's like you might
Speaker 1: as well be basking. I mean, it is really tough.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I've got something like two thousand
Speaker 1: Facebook followers, so of course they were all alerted. But
Speaker 1: even so, the streaming income is just, you know, it's
Speaker 1: quite sad, and I kind of thinking, I was thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: if I've just you know, there's been a thousand streams
Speaker 1: today that could have related to maybe like back in
Speaker 1: the day, like maybe four hundred singles sales, you know,
Speaker 1: physical sales. So um it sets them my wondering about stuff.
Speaker 1: But um um, but I do think that the musicians
Speaker 1: do have a better chance of getting their stuff out
Speaker 1: there now there's so many more platforms, but how they
Speaker 1: get it noticed and picked up is another thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not a Twitter, I'm not on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not in that. I have a young
Speaker 1: student from Kingston University who said, I'll do all that
Speaker 1: for you, so he does it for me. Bet him.
Speaker 1: But it's still, you know, it's very low key compared
Speaker 1: to everything else that's going on. But but the satisfaction
Speaker 1: of doing it and getting it out there is much.
Speaker 1: You know, it's bigger and better than anything. Um. And
Speaker 1: I enjoy doing the videos. I enjoyed doing the the
Speaker 1: artwork for the covers because I always do a digital
Speaker 1: booklet upload um. And then and then the last album
Speaker 1: I released was my wife's album, which we discovered in
Speaker 1: Lockdown because she made some recordings back in nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: seven and seventy nine. UM and I put those together
Speaker 1: and put that album out and one of the tracks
Speaker 1: on there with with Alvin and Mick Ralph's Salving the
Speaker 1: Mick Ralph's Um. The rest of the album is with
Speaker 1: musicians from a band called Carrillo Frank Carrillo at the
Speaker 1: time a long View Farm. We recalled it a long
Speaker 1: View farm UM and I also discovered six thousand and
Speaker 1: thirty five minute meter slides as I was really keen photographer,
Speaker 1: so used a lot of those photos from the sessions UM.
Speaker 1: And we also had a track where UM, Christie and
Speaker 1: Keith did a duet together. UM. We were in Compass
Speaker 1: Point working on Undercover and Keith wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: Did this version of UM, Let's Go Steady Again, which
Speaker 1: was Sam cook it back in the day. And and Keith,
Speaker 1: you know new Christie's was singer because he'd heard the
Speaker 1: thing before and and he said, you get your wife in,
Speaker 1: she's got a sing on this, and as she did. UM.
Speaker 1: And it was a wonderful moment actually of Keith when
Speaker 1: I approached his management and said, look, Christie's putting the
Speaker 1: album out, we'd love to include that duet on it.
Speaker 1: It's been you know, it's on bootleg, it's been out
Speaker 1: there on YouTube. At first management said no, and then
Speaker 1: two weeks they did. Keith piped in and said yep,
Speaker 1: you could use it. So that that was a wonderful
Speaker 1: thing that he did for her really, quite specially now
Speaker 1: mentioning her engineers not to mention everybody on that side
Speaker 1: of the desk or afraid where they're going to get
Speaker 1: their next gig, and they tend to work around the clock,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to have relationships and hard to maintain relationships.
Speaker 1: How many times have you been married, And you've been
Speaker 1: married to this lady for a long time, how do
Speaker 1: you sustain that doing all your work? Tend to be
Speaker 1: well not now people work during the day, but in
Speaker 1: the old days were working at night. And do you
Speaker 1: have any children? How did you maintain a family life? Well,
Speaker 1: we've been married forty one years, but um, that's a
Speaker 1: success story. Yeah, yeah, that's a platinum album there. And
Speaker 1: I've only been married once. We have two children, a
Speaker 1: son and a daughter. Um, and we're a very happy family,
Speaker 1: very happy. And um, I was blessed because the woman
Speaker 1: that I married it was my biggest fan, um and
Speaker 1: is still my biggest fan today. And of course I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of hers as well. I mean, we
Speaker 1: did meet in the studio. We met at Hook and
Speaker 1: Alvin the studio because she was staying with Alvin and
Speaker 1: Susanne at the time doing some vocals on some Mick
Speaker 1: Ralph's stuff, and so of course I fell in love
Speaker 1: with her voice as well. Um. And then she's from Minnesota,
Speaker 1: but she she was living in England a long long
Speaker 1: time ago, and that's never never moved back to Minnesota.
Speaker 1: UM and so UM, yeah, it's been it still is
Speaker 1: an incredible journey with the woman that I met all
Speaker 1: that time ago. And and what's really special about it
Speaker 1: is actually is that all the bands that I've ever
Speaker 1: worked through, UM, they know and love her as well,
Speaker 1: you know, they there's a respect for both of us there.
Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate in so much as every every band
Speaker 1: of musician I think I've ever worked with, UM, there's
Speaker 1: never been a really ugly falling out moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not that type of person. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing with the business side is a little
Speaker 1: bit different sometimes UM, as I discussed earlier. But even so,
Speaker 1: you get through those moments and you're still you know,
Speaker 1: when you see friends, even if I was to see
Speaker 1: Mick or Keith in the street, you know, it's still
Speaker 1: a good feeling. It's a good vibe. But I actually
Speaker 1: bumped into Do and event last week because they were
Speaker 1: Olympic doing some interviews for their new album, and it
Speaker 1: was so it was as if I just saw them
Speaker 1: about two weeks ago. I mean that's it's nice guys anyway,
Speaker 1: they really are um, um, you know, really sort of
Speaker 1: the earth guys and uh, and just a lot of
Speaker 1: love and respect of what we do. That's the main thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the stone to come back from recording
Speaker 1: and finishing for him. It comes alive. You get the
Speaker 1: call for some girls, you end up working for them
Speaker 1: for you know, for your stuff comes out, like for
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen years. So what was the experience working
Speaker 1: with the starts? UM? Well, I was actually I was.
Speaker 1: I was surprised how little um they were coming into
Speaker 1: the control. In fact, Charlie never came into the control,
Speaker 1: when Bill hardly came into the control and mc keith
Speaker 1: well occasionally come into control. And but after I set
Speaker 1: up in Paris, um, you know, like the first week
Speaker 1: and got a sound together UM and had things as
Speaker 1: I wanted it, and um, they came in to listen
Speaker 1: for one playback and then they just looked at each
Speaker 1: other kind of like nodded. I didn't say really anything
Speaker 1: to me, UM, And then I just kept recording UM
Speaker 1: and logging everything, and you know, I talked to them
Speaker 1: about sounds. You know, guitar sounds sometime or parts or whatever,
Speaker 1: but not a lot. But it was really keeping my
Speaker 1: eye on the ball to make sure everything was going
Speaker 1: down when it should go down, or or if I
Speaker 1: felt that a track was really not happening, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd say, guys, I think you should change and try
Speaker 1: something else now. Um. But um it was. It was
Speaker 1: a really like a big football team in a way, um,
Speaker 1: because it was only as strong as you know, the
Speaker 1: whole team on the pitch really um and some girls.
Speaker 1: Was a really interesting period because because of keith situation
Speaker 1: with the Canadian um um. You know he might have
Speaker 1: gone to prison um so and he was still using
Speaker 1: at the time as well, So there was a there
Speaker 1: was interesting shift of power. I realized now where Mick
Speaker 1: was was, you know, could have in control a lot more.
Speaker 1: But but incredibly supportive to Keith. Incredibly supportive. You know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't stripping him down that you know, he because
Speaker 1: Keith would disappear for a couple of hours to the bathroom, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in the middle of a session and then
Speaker 1: come back, or you know I did see him might
Speaker 1: nod off a few times with the guitar sound, so um,
Speaker 1: so Mick was incredibly supportive. And then then kind of
Speaker 1: Keith suddenly woke up from it all and but that
Speaker 1: the thought that that might be the last Stones or
Speaker 1: the last recording with Jaggon and Richards for quite some
Speaker 1: time him. I think that really gave the album a
Speaker 1: special energy um which and being in Paris was wonderful
Speaker 1: as well. It's a great city for them to work in.
Speaker 1: And the studio um was it was very basic, but
Speaker 1: in a great year my t G one two three
Speaker 1: four five console um which is a great sounding old
Speaker 1: console um and that helped a lot. That is the
Speaker 1: sound of those records act. Okay, now there are all
Speaker 1: these stories about the Stones. They right in the studio,
Speaker 1: they might excavate something from years before. How did the
Speaker 1: songs ultimately come to be on some girls? Uh? Well
Speaker 1: some girls all the songs with it in the studio
Speaker 1: pretty much. That's why I took about a year to recall.
Speaker 1: So what's what's that actually like? Never mind the cost, Well,
Speaker 1: the cost wasn't that bad because make had done a
Speaker 1: deal with the studio. He got the cheapest studio in
Speaker 1: Patio Marconi. There were three rooms and he picked the
Speaker 1: cheapest one. Um, until it got to the point where, UM,
Speaker 1: where he thought it would be better if we moved
Speaker 1: into the NIV room because there was a more expensive
Speaker 1: need room. But I loved the sound of the ear
Speaker 1: my console. The control room in the ear my room
Speaker 1: was tiny. You couldn't get more than four people in there. Um,
Speaker 1: and I quite like that too, So UM, I really
Speaker 1: stuck up to stay in that studio. And Keith loved
Speaker 1: the sound in that studio too, so we didn't move.
Speaker 1: We stayed in the cheaper studio. So I don't think
Speaker 1: the cost was that, you know, was what It wasn't
Speaker 1: anything like, you know, two thousand bucks a day. It
Speaker 1: was more like that two hundred bucks a day, and
Speaker 1: it's really cheap. So but it was a situation where, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Keith would come in with a song
Speaker 1: that you know, the basics of a song, a bit
Speaker 1: of a verse riff and a chorus riff, and then
Speaker 1: you know, just played them through with the other members
Speaker 1: of the band, played them through and through and through
Speaker 1: and try different fields, different grooves on them, different tempos,
Speaker 1: until you know you'd find one that's all of a
Speaker 1: sudden everybody went, oh, that's it. Let's stick with that
Speaker 1: that way, that's the way to do it. Um. Um.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: logging from my point of view, to log every song,
Speaker 1: every song title, every take um. Um. So but it
Speaker 1: was a long process. It was a really long process.
Speaker 1: Um Um. I think we must have been there for
Speaker 1: some Girls Gosh, I think we might have been there
Speaker 1: for that four months, maybe five months. It was a
Speaker 1: long time. Um. But in doing that, you know, not
Speaker 1: only did we recalled some Girls album, but we recorded
Speaker 1: a lot of tattoo you as well. Um. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of tracks from that period um ended up
Speaker 1: on other albums. Okay, So are you keeping the tape
Speaker 1: machine running the whole time or only when they're doing takes?
Speaker 1: Oh no, there's no discussion of are we doing a take?
Speaker 1: They're just performing and I'm recording. There's there's never no
Speaker 1: one ever says, okay, let's do one. No, that didn't happen. No,
Speaker 1: It's just you keep your eye on the ball. You
Speaker 1: get a feel for what's happening in the room. Um,
Speaker 1: and you have to kind of really be connected with
Speaker 1: it and second guess it so that you know that Okay,
Speaker 1: somebody's gonna happen. Make sure we're running UM and you
Speaker 1: get it. So, if you're recording everything, you know, tape
Speaker 1: is big and expensive. Do you ever say, well, there's
Speaker 1: nothing on this real I'm gonna record over it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit, but it wasn't very often that
Speaker 1: there was nothing on it UM. And I was running
Speaker 1: at fifteen i p s. So you know that that's
Speaker 1: a lot of minutes. It's not like thirty ips. We've
Speaker 1: only got eighteen minutes. It's more than that. So but
Speaker 1: we did. Yeah, I think we must have elected about
Speaker 1: four hundred ls of tape UM, which was which was
Speaker 1: quite interesting when you'd have to ship it all to
Speaker 1: New York to work and do some overdubs. Obviously you
Speaker 1: wouldn't ship the whole four hundred rills, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely like eight riels that you chip over UM. So
Speaker 1: there's a big trunk of tape coming over to the
Speaker 1: States for sure. Okay, at the time, Miss You was
Speaker 1: seen as a disco song playing to disco. What was
Speaker 1: going on? How did that get created? Well? Um? Bill
Speaker 1: loved UM. He loved the club scene in Paris regimes.
Speaker 1: Glad of remember the name of the club. There was
Speaker 1: a club called Regimes that he would go to. Um
Speaker 1: and you know it was it was it was at
Speaker 1: the good time of what I called disco before I
Speaker 1: think before it became digitized, and it was musicians playing
Speaker 1: a lot of it. Um and um, I know that
Speaker 1: I fondly remember that Bill Um. You know, that whole
Speaker 1: baseline was Bill's invention and that was really that was
Speaker 1: the driving force of the song really. Um. So that
Speaker 1: was a great you know, it was a great moment
Speaker 1: for Bill um. And yeah I missed Bill. I mean
Speaker 1: I missed him in the Stones ex it um. So
Speaker 1: yeah that that record was one of the type and
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a cheesy disco song either. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um when whenever whenever, Mick you know, adds a
Speaker 1: bit of narrative in the song, like talking like he
Speaker 1: did it just exactly. It just adds, you know, this
Speaker 1: wonderful imagery to it without a picture, and that's what
Speaker 1: he does. So well, that's what you know, that's always
Speaker 1: what I loved about his his lyrics and his performance
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, working with Miking the studio is working.
Speaker 1: It's like watching a prize fight about on the microphone
Speaker 1: because he you know, he'll he'll do his warm up exercises.
Speaker 1: He makes sure he's fit before he sings you know,
Speaker 1: one word um, because he has the pair and the
Speaker 1: energy to keep going. And also he's dancing all the
Speaker 1: time he's singing, you know, until it's time to be
Speaker 1: on mike, and then he's right in front of the
Speaker 1: microphone on it. Um. Yeah, kind of the opposite the
Speaker 1: key Keith let's straight all over the room singing so um.
Speaker 1: It's quite funny. The two of them is lovely. Okay.
Speaker 1: My favorite other other than Issue on that album is
Speaker 1: rarely mentioned when the Whip comes down, but the track
Speaker 1: that constantly you know, goes on there's Waiting for a Friend.
Speaker 1: But forget that Shattered. How did Shattered come back? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that's the first because at that period, I
Speaker 1: remember Keith getting two guitar pedals. Um. So I remember
Speaker 1: that the guitar amps. Everyone was playing through boogie the
Speaker 1: fires which were really loud, I mean really loud um,
Speaker 1: and I would have to go down and turn them
Speaker 1: down sometimes because um, the way I set did up
Speaker 1: was like in a semi circle, and and I put
Speaker 1: a small p a up so people could hear mixing
Speaker 1: to get an idea of you know, where the vocal
Speaker 1: was and the melody, rather than news headphones which worked
Speaker 1: to treat but if the guitar has got too loud
Speaker 1: and you couldn't hear the p a um. So. But
Speaker 1: Keith got two pedals at that time. One was an
Speaker 1: m XR phaser and the other one was the m
Speaker 1: x R analog delay, and that's what's on Shattered and
Speaker 1: it was that that whole kind of you know, he
Speaker 1: was kind of messing around with that riff, and then
Speaker 1: the pedal came along and we said, oh, let's try
Speaker 1: the pedal on this, and he went, wow, I let
Speaker 1: you know. And I think in a sense it took
Speaker 1: him back to maybe like um um, the Everly Brothers
Speaker 1: sound or something you know of his favorite you know,
Speaker 1: records in his past that because he was he would
Speaker 1: give you the most amazing mixtapes, mainly of reggae, a
Speaker 1: lot of reggae stuff or Hank Williams, you know, a
Speaker 1: mixture of reggae, Hank Williams Everly Brother's buddy Holly. And
Speaker 1: he was always giving me mixed mixtapes, which is fantastic. Um,
Speaker 1: I kind of could hear that from the Shattered riff? Um?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, because it's quite It's a very different song
Speaker 1: in every way in its arrangement and mixed vocals on it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's um but it was a song that's um.
Speaker 1: I mean it always you know Jagger Richards, but um,
Speaker 1: some are more Richards than Jagger, some are more jagged
Speaker 1: than Richards. Um. And that to me was more of
Speaker 1: a Keith song. We're mixed singing on the top. Okay,
Speaker 1: I made a mistake waiting on a friend is on
Speaker 1: Tattoo You. Tattoo You, of course has the iconic start
Speaker 1: me up, but you were saying it was a fraud
Speaker 1: experience as the Dagon Richards had issues. So tell me
Speaker 1: about the making of Tattoo You. Um. Well, UM, I
Speaker 1: can't remember now what the circumstances were. More likely that
Speaker 1: Mick had dona solo album or he was getting into
Speaker 1: being a film producer. Um. But Mick and Keith were
Speaker 1: not on talking terms, not on good terms at all,
Speaker 1: and it came to the point where they needed an
Speaker 1: album and Prince Rupert Lowenstein, who was the manager at
Speaker 1: the time, approached me and said, Chris, you know of
Speaker 1: any tracks that might be around that we could use
Speaker 1: to put out. And I said, well, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: because I still got like a photographic memory. I knew
Speaker 1: a lot of tracks that I'd recorded on the Emotional
Speaker 1: Rescue and some girls that hadn't been released and hadn't
Speaker 1: been used. So UM, I said, if I know of that,
Speaker 1: there's six or seven that I know of. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure there'll be some others in the vaults.
Speaker 1: So UM, I spent three months going through all of
Speaker 1: their all of their tapes and kind of put together
Speaker 1: a selection of songs to send them to listen to. UM.
Speaker 1: And it took a while to get the feedback, but UM,
Speaker 1: over a period of time it came back that we
Speaker 1: honed it down to you know the songs that are
Speaker 1: on Tattoo today. Um. The only thing I had to
Speaker 1: do really was to get Mick to finished vocals because
Speaker 1: on a lot of them the vocals weren't complete. Um,
Speaker 1: there were vocals, but lyrically they might not be complete,
Speaker 1: or is just repeating the same verse because he hadn't
Speaker 1: written the verse or whatever. So UM, Mick did take
Speaker 1: It took a while to get him to complete the
Speaker 1: vocals and and we ended up doing most of the
Speaker 1: vocals in the strangest situation. Um. We had the rolling
Speaker 1: Stones mobile in Paris and I remember it being winter
Speaker 1: for sure, um. And for some reason, UM, he chose
Speaker 1: to do them in a warehouse next to a like
Speaker 1: a train depot station where they washed all the trains
Speaker 1: on the edge of the periphery. So we're at in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere doing vocals in the stones mobile. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we finished all the vocals, we got those done, um.
Speaker 1: And then Charlie had the idea to put sunny ronnings
Speaker 1: on neighbors um and got that finished. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: but I think I can safely say if if if
Speaker 1: it hadn't been for me knowing where the things were
Speaker 1: and knowing what was there, um and putting it all together,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have happened. Well. The funny thing is, but
Speaker 1: that I'm an agreement that is considered to be the
Speaker 1: last great phenomenal album. It's gotten a lot of respect
Speaker 1: forty years. Hence it's kind of interesting it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of and what I love about
Speaker 1: the album is that you don't get the impression that
Speaker 1: it's songs from different albums. It's he It sounds like
Speaker 1: a purpose written album, which in a way always bugged me.
Speaker 1: I think you know, he, you know, Meet never likes
Speaker 1: to go back anytime, so you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was it was a bit of a chance to get it,
Speaker 1: get it, you know, for him to to finish it
Speaker 1: in that way. So, but it is. Um. I wish
Speaker 1: I could remember whose genius idea it was to have
Speaker 1: the fast side and the slow side, because that really
Speaker 1: adds to the album. I mean, it's that's a it's
Speaker 1: almost like a concept album in that way. It really
Speaker 1: adds to it. Um. And also it's a buzz for
Speaker 1: me because I get to play on one song. I
Speaker 1: get to play on Heaven as well. Um. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, a moment of waiting for the rest of
Speaker 1: the band to come and there's me, Mick, Um and
Speaker 1: Charlie and no one else, and so I just walked
Speaker 1: out and start playing the electric piano with Mick while
Speaker 1: he's you know, putting down Heaven. How did you know
Speaker 1: how to play the piano to take lessons as a kid,
Speaker 1: I taught myself. Yeah, what age twelve? And you did
Speaker 1: you ever play in bands? No? I never played in bands. No,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I've played on some records, not many,
Speaker 1: and I've written quite a few songs as well. Um
Speaker 1: so yeah, okay, so start me Up. That was sitting
Speaker 1: down the floor from the Some Girls album. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that that song had been around in black and Blue
Speaker 1: time as a reggae song. I mean, Keith, that was
Speaker 1: Keith's song. That it was, it was, you know, I
Speaker 1: found out in Uncovering Everything that it started life as
Speaker 1: a reggae song. But the day that we recorded it
Speaker 1: in Paris as the version that we all know and
Speaker 1: love today, quite a remarkable thing happened because it wasn't
Speaker 1: very often. In fact, I can't think of another occasion
Speaker 1: where you would recalled a song with the Stones and
Speaker 1: that was the master. So because you know, it was
Speaker 1: a big, big lead up to getting a final master.
Speaker 1: As I discussed earlier about different arrangements, different dempo's, different styles.
Speaker 1: So this day we actually nail miss You, that's the
Speaker 1: day we'll recalled miss You. And then Keith launched him
Speaker 1: to start me Up, but with a completely different rhythm,
Speaker 1: not reggae at all, and it's the rhythm that we're
Speaker 1: here today and that song, the version the Master of
Speaker 1: Startup was recorded the same day as Miss You. Um.
Speaker 1: It was never known that to happen before. Um and
Speaker 1: so um. They did come in and listen to it,
Speaker 1: and Keith said to me, he said, he said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't like it. It reminds me of sorry I've
Speaker 1: heard on the radio he raised it. Of course I
Speaker 1: didn't raise it. I wouldn't raised anything. Um and um. Um.
Speaker 1: There's been a few times when I've been to a
Speaker 1: live concert and they will start with that song and
Speaker 1: Keith plays the wrong card, and I'm sure he doesn't
Speaker 1: because he knows I'm in the audience. I think he
Speaker 1: always wanted the reggae song to be the one. But whatever, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic song to start an album with. Okay,
Speaker 1: needle to say seventy eight some girls huge tour. There
Speaker 1: are tours, but undercover is a disappointment. But all of
Speaker 1: a sudden everything's rolled up for Wheels, which I think
Speaker 1: is quite good. Tell me about the recording of Steel Wheels, Well, Um,
Speaker 1: I've been invited back to to recording produced the band
Speaker 1: the Game because I think previously that Steve Steve Dinnyway
Speaker 1: did dirty work, um, which um, I purposefully stayed away
Speaker 1: from because after Undercover, the relationships on that album refraying.
Speaker 1: I mean my actually one of my greatest achievements is
Speaker 1: the mix of Undercover. I loved the mix of Undercover
Speaker 1: of the night. If you heard the actual multi track
Speaker 1: is nothing like what year it was. I had this
Speaker 1: whole vision in my head of how to mix that
Speaker 1: song UM and create it. And when I did it,
Speaker 1: Micke and Keith heard it separately because they wouldn't come
Speaker 1: in the room at the same time. UM and UM,
Speaker 1: and they both said to me on the separate occasion
Speaker 1: and said, great, mixed the rest of the album like that,
Speaker 1: And it was like, well, no, you can't. That's you
Speaker 1: can't do that with the rest of the songs. Although
Speaker 1: too much blood was a little bit right. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so UM not wanted to get involved in dirty work.
Speaker 1: UM UM. Steel Wheels came along and UM we had
Speaker 1: a discussion that instead of going in the studio and
Speaker 1: writing everything in the studio, that Micke and Keith should
Speaker 1: get together, and actually right before we went in the studio,
Speaker 1: so that happened. They went to Barbados to Eddie Grant's
Speaker 1: studio and hung out there for I think a month
Speaker 1: um um you know, writing the bones of the songs
Speaker 1: that we're going to be on steel Wheels, um and um.
Speaker 1: I was actually working in Monsterrat at the time with
Speaker 1: Anderson Wait for Buford Now um. So it was great
Speaker 1: because I would go over to see them in Barbados
Speaker 1: to see how they were doing at the weekend, and
Speaker 1: then come back and work with Anderson Wait for Boofing
Speaker 1: and Out. And after a couple of visits, I figured
Speaker 1: out that they needed some new blood in there. Um.
Speaker 1: And there was a young keyboard player who was working
Speaker 1: on the Anderson Wait for Booth and Now album called
Speaker 1: Matt Clifford. Matt was like John Anderson's programmer um and
Speaker 1: helped John, you know, make all the demos. So I
Speaker 1: took Matt over with me and introduced him to Mick
Speaker 1: and Keith. Uh. Mick instantly got on with Matt, loved
Speaker 1: him to bits. Keith wasn't a short um and um.
Speaker 1: So Matt would go over at weekends, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to to help them with piano barts or just you know,
Speaker 1: to get a bit more of a vibe going on.
Speaker 1: And so I remember the first weekend that Matt went over,
Speaker 1: I called him up, quite nervous, you know, saying how's
Speaker 1: it going, what's been happening, what's been happening? He said,
Speaker 1: he said what he said, I've been here twenty four
Speaker 1: hours and he said, we've met Prince so and so,
Speaker 1: Lady so and so. We haven't been to the studio yet.
Speaker 1: I've been socializing with Mick. So, Um, they were after
Speaker 1: a good start. Um, and Matt's been a true friend
Speaker 1: to make ever since. Actually, I mean he's really stayed
Speaker 1: the course with them. But yeah, so it's nice to,
Speaker 1: you know, put people together. I enjoy doing that a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean I do put a lot of people together.
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. So so the album, okay, so the album. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was quite interesting going to Monteret because, um,
Speaker 1: although I love the studio, I love the island. I
Speaker 1: loved everything. I was a bit nervous about the Stones
Speaker 1: going there, knowing that they thrive on the city life,
Speaker 1: you know, their social life, Um is part always part
Speaker 1: of making a record in a way, So to be
Speaker 1: on an island for a month or six weeks or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then it was I wasn't sure I was going
Speaker 1: to pan out. It was a total opposite. It was amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, Bill, I think I just married Mandy
Speaker 1: young Mandy, so he was only too happy to be
Speaker 1: away from the paparazzi because they never got on the island,
Speaker 1: so that was a plus for him. Keith was with
Speaker 1: Patty um. Um. So the family everyone had their own
Speaker 1: little villa and the families rule with them. Um. And
Speaker 1: it was Keith who said, right, we're not working weekends. Um,
Speaker 1: We're just working Monday through Friday weekends off barbecue and swimming. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. And there was a terrific work
Speaker 1: ethic as well. We started like midday work until about
Speaker 1: seven o'clock, stopped for dinner and then go back in,
Speaker 1: but only go back in for a few hours, you know,
Speaker 1: not too two or three in the morning. Um. And
Speaker 1: we got so much work done. It was absolutely a dream. UM.
Speaker 1: And I already had a I've always been working on
Speaker 1: every Stones album. I've always in my mind, in my head,
Speaker 1: I have kind of a vision of the sound, the
Speaker 1: sonic sound that I want for the band. There some
Speaker 1: girls album. Um, the Desk helped me with that No End.
Speaker 1: I mean it gave it that bite, that punk, that
Speaker 1: that kind of aggressive and electric kind of almost firework
Speaker 1: sound about it. Um. Undercover an emotional rescue. Emotional rescue
Speaker 1: led on from that, UM, but a bit more toned
Speaker 1: down because the songs were a bit more toned down.
Speaker 1: Still some great sounding songs, and Undercover was just a
Speaker 1: big challenge and I had to pull something out of
Speaker 1: the bag when undercover with the night. So when it
Speaker 1: got to come in when I got the invitation to
Speaker 1: Steel Wheels, I already had it in my mind that
Speaker 1: I wanted Steel Wheels to sound very cinematic, not like
Speaker 1: a rough and dirty Stones album, but very polished, for
Speaker 1: want of a better word, but a very you know,
Speaker 1: a very wide sounding record. UM. And the songs that
Speaker 1: they wrote for that album gave me that opportunity. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of backing vocals and a
Speaker 1: lot of horns, you know, as becausion. It's it's for them.
Speaker 1: It's a big production. But it doesn't sound like a
Speaker 1: ton of people. But it sounds it sounds expensive in
Speaker 1: one way. It's got a nice kind of sheen about
Speaker 1: it all. UM. And the reason I did that, it's
Speaker 1: because I was looking ahead to the next album, and
Speaker 1: the next album I wanted to do. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make it sound like Exile on Main Street. I was
Speaker 1: already planning ahead, but I never got the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do the next album because they changed labels, they changed producers. Um,
Speaker 1: and that was that. But that was my kind of
Speaker 1: focus on steel Will's. You know, the amazing thing is
Speaker 1: they're playing Slipping Away pretty much every night on this tour. Christie,
Speaker 1: I mean Christie was a big Christie. We used to
Speaker 1: sit at Key's house and I mean Keith would play
Speaker 1: that song over and over and over again and he
Speaker 1: never finished it. And I remember Christie sitting with him
Speaker 1: one night and and really kind of you know, I know,
Speaker 1: just like pushing him, saying, Keith, you've got to finish that.
Speaker 1: You've got to finish that. And then he came up
Speaker 1: with the bridge on the song and it got finished.
Speaker 1: So that's a yeah, that's a beautiful song, really beautiful song.
Speaker 1: And his vocals love you on that song too, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So how does it really end with you? In the start? Um?
Speaker 1: It ends um in a good place because so we're
Speaker 1: still really good friends with them all um, more so
Speaker 1: with Ronnie. I mean Ronnie went on to work with
Speaker 1: some solo stuff from Ronnie Um, which is great. Um.
Speaker 1: Ronnie has been a great supporter of the Olympic Cinema
Speaker 1: and studio. But he did some great artwork for me there, Charlie.
Speaker 1: I missed so much Charlie. I mean, yeah, Charlie. I
Speaker 1: just have so many wonderful memories of Charlie Um making
Speaker 1: the albums. And there's a good friend as a lovely man. Um. Bill,
Speaker 1: We're always in touch. Still love Bill and Keith. I
Speaker 1: don't see enough of because you know it's in the
Speaker 1: States nearly all the time. So um, it's very fleeting
Speaker 1: when I see Keith. But still great Mick. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen for ages um so um. But yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: very Yeah, it's all good. There's no well, I mean
Speaker 1: you do Steel Wheels, which is a real comeback tours,
Speaker 1: unbelievably successful. They just don't call you for the next record.
Speaker 1: Is that how it goes down? Yeah? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think Mike had already, you know, because
Speaker 1: because the businessman of the band, so he decided that,
Speaker 1: you know, change of label, because I think they went
Speaker 1: with Virgin then um um um Don you know connected
Speaker 1: with Virgin. Don's wife was connected with Virgins, so you know,
Speaker 1: kept it all in the Virgin house as it were.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, I went to see them when Don
Speaker 1: was in l A working with them, which was which
Speaker 1: was interesting different, but they were enjoying himself, so you know,
Speaker 1: what the hell? Okay? You know you mentioned that. I
Speaker 1: got to ask what what was don style different from yours? Um?
Speaker 1: What was done style different from my? Um? What? Don
Speaker 1: was definitely in awe of working with the band. You know,
Speaker 1: he was amazed that he was there working and producing
Speaker 1: the Holding Stones. I was never amazed I was working
Speaker 1: with him. I was just amazed when we finished an
Speaker 1: album that was great. Okay, you mentioned McK Ralph's a
Speaker 1: couple of times you work with bad Company. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, wow, Um that was on the Burning
Speaker 1: Sky record which we recorded that set out Errville in France. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the BGS did a documentary recently and they
Speaker 1: said the Shot tour was a dump? What was it
Speaker 1: really like? Yeah? It wasn't that impressed if I got
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, it was. Yeah. It was nothing like
Speaker 1: Long Review Farm. It was nothing like Umu Ridge Farm.
Speaker 1: It was nothing like um um oh, what's the one
Speaker 1: in rock Field? It was nothing like rock Field equipment.
Speaker 1: It was pretty basic. Yeah, it wasn't yeah, Um, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that technically, it wasn't that together at all. I agree,
Speaker 1: Um and um that album, Um, that was. It was
Speaker 1: quite a difficult album actually, Um. I think Paul at
Speaker 1: the time wasn't very happy. Um. I seem to remember
Speaker 1: a lot of yeah, a lot of uncomfortable moments. Um.
Speaker 1: Mick was always a gentleman and always trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: keep things calmed down. Um and um I remember fondly
Speaker 1: with Mick. We actually on a Saturday night we'd have
Speaker 1: a disco for the local is just um, just to
Speaker 1: get them involved. Um. Um but um, I mean I
Speaker 1: went on to work with Paul again with the Law
Speaker 1: with Kenny Jones. Um, that was really fun because Paul,
Speaker 1: Paul reminds me a lot of Mick in terms of
Speaker 1: his professionalism in performing a vocal. I mean, Paul is
Speaker 1: one of the most gifted singers. Um that well, I'm
Speaker 1: very fortunate to work with a lot of gifted singers.
Speaker 1: So um, but Paul has that just incredible voice and
Speaker 1: it comes from a very special place his voice and
Speaker 1: he's singing so and he's still got it he's still
Speaker 1: got it completely. Yeah, so it was always you know,
Speaker 1: to record him was just a dream as well. It
Speaker 1: was a bit like recalling Sinatra. Um, he's got that
Speaker 1: tone and that that delivery. And you know, I was
Speaker 1: very good friends with Simon. I haven't seen sim of ages,
Speaker 1: but um. It was nice because a lot of the
Speaker 1: bands that I worked, but you did become really well.
Speaker 1: Obviously you become very close to them for a while.
Speaker 1: So for maybe four or five months, that's all you
Speaker 1: see as those people. Um, and then then you you
Speaker 1: go off and do other things. Sometimes you work together
Speaker 1: again with him. I mean, it's quite interested in my
Speaker 1: career that I've worked with Peter Fampton and the Stones
Speaker 1: as many times. I think I've done seven albums with
Speaker 1: both of them, which is quite strange. I've never never
Speaker 1: thought of that until someone mentioned it to me. Um. Um.
Speaker 1: And then my relationship with Merillium, which was really good too.
Speaker 1: That was a great relationship and kidding jokes still so um.
Speaker 1: But Paul yeah, I mean a wonderful voice. And I
Speaker 1: knew of Paul Free because of Andy Johns. Was Andy
Speaker 1: Johns would recorded the Free albums and that's when I
Speaker 1: met This is interesting. That's so when Backstreet Crawler came
Speaker 1: along podcast yeah know, but the replacement football Cosso was
Speaker 1: was Stuffy Walden and interest emailing was Snuffy yesterday. No wait, okay,
Speaker 1: because Stuffy and I have really dear friends because I
Speaker 1: produced Snuffy's first band called Stray Dog. They were signed
Speaker 1: to Manticore Records, to E L P S label, and
Speaker 1: Snuffy at the time was a hell raising text and
Speaker 1: you know, blues guitar player with a powerhouse trio in London.
Speaker 1: Um and made the album. I think they made another album,
Speaker 1: but then the band imploded and and I was sure
Speaker 1: that Snuffy wouldn't live to see the other side of
Speaker 1: twenty five years old. And then and then many years later,
Speaker 1: I was I was living in Manhattan and I'm watching
Speaker 1: the TV one night and thirty something comes on and
Speaker 1: I'm going like, wow, I love the music on this
Speaker 1: is really nice. So wait for the end credits and
Speaker 1: then it says music by um was it W G
Speaker 1: W G Walden? And I said to Christie, I said, ship,
Speaker 1: that can't be the same Snuff. He can't still be
Speaker 1: around anyway. It was him, and I tracked him down
Speaker 1: and um we we saw a lot of each other.
Speaker 1: About four years ago he was in London a lot.
Speaker 1: In fact, I invited him to perform at Olympic because
Speaker 1: I was doing before COVID, I was doing live music
Speaker 1: Olympic once a month. Um to like a small it's
Speaker 1: just a small forty five seater room, and I put
Speaker 1: on these wonderful evenings with with really really different artists,
Speaker 1: I mean from all different areas of music, mainly unsigned
Speaker 1: artists or new emerging artists or you know, kind of
Speaker 1: legendary artists. And Staffie is one of those. So um.
Speaker 1: I had Charlie Door on another night as well, and
Speaker 1: David Noffler. But but Snuffy and I really connected in
Speaker 1: a big, big way. And Snuffy said the most wonderful
Speaker 1: thing said Chris. He said, I want you to produce
Speaker 1: my next album. I said to me, your next album,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm I'm really winding down from the TV
Speaker 1: music is said, I want to make an album again.
Speaker 1: So um, we're you know, hopefully we're going to be
Speaker 1: doing something in the new year. That begs a question
Speaker 1: you talked to earlier about Frank Sinatra movie soundtrack. Did
Speaker 1: you come to love the sound of the music you
Speaker 1: were making or are you still at home playing the
Speaker 1: soundtracks and coruners of your No. I've come to love
Speaker 1: the sound of the music that I'm making, um and
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly proud of it. And I think one thing
Speaker 1: that I've always um, I've never been an engineer or
Speaker 1: a producer who puts a stamp of my sound on
Speaker 1: a record. I like to think, you know, I bring
Speaker 1: the best of any artists out of them. Um. But
Speaker 1: what I'm doing more now actually is um I love
Speaker 1: doing arrangements, like horn arrangements or string arrangements. I'm going
Speaker 1: back to that part of my sonic ear um um.
Speaker 1: And also I'm doing a lot more um um orchestral
Speaker 1: semi classical acoustic work. Um not jazz yet, I haven't
Speaker 1: fallen into that area, but um more acoustic work. UM.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is not kind of you know,
Speaker 1: rock and roll anymore. Um More. I still love blues,
Speaker 1: but it's like how many blues records can you make
Speaker 1: in here? Um? So I'm searching for something new. I'm
Speaker 1: always searching for something new. So I've been working with
Speaker 1: a young artist called James Passing recently, who who I've
Speaker 1: done one song with him and the reviews have been
Speaker 1: like James Taylor meets Bert back IRAQ, which is like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll settle for that one. I like that. But the
Speaker 1: the guy's got a great voice and he you know,
Speaker 1: he's got the James Taylor style. But the way I
Speaker 1: raised the track was you know, quite orchestral as it were.
Speaker 1: So UM, I'm I'm leaning more towards that now. But
Speaker 1: I'm doing that mainly because I've been really since I've
Speaker 1: been working with Olympic Studios. UM. I met the new
Speaker 1: owners about twelve years ago by an accident. UM where
Speaker 1: is my wife? Actually she wanted our thirtieth anniversary there,
Speaker 1: so she tracked down the new owners, who nobody knew
Speaker 1: who they were. UM and UM. They asked me to
Speaker 1: to join in, and they wanted to keep the great
Speaker 1: Olympic sound in the cinema. So I was like consultant
Speaker 1: and designed the sound for the cinemas there, in choosing
Speaker 1: speaker systems that no other cinema has, and we were
Speaker 1: the first cinema to have Dolby atmos, so a very
Speaker 1: you know. UM. At that point in my life and career,
Speaker 1: I was totally absorbed with AMOS, became really good friends
Speaker 1: with um the Oscar winning Paul Massey, U film mixer
Speaker 1: who did Bohemian Rhapsody. Paul also, i mean does all
Speaker 1: of Ridley Scott's films he's doing you know, he did
Speaker 1: Marsha and he's doing just finished Gucci. Now we're great friends. Um.
Speaker 1: He spends half his life here, all those in the States,
Speaker 1: and but we see a lot of each other. Um.
Speaker 1: And at one time we were going to build a
Speaker 1: Dolby Atmos mixing film score set in Olympic and so
Speaker 1: Paul and I Paul educated me a lot about the
Speaker 1: mixing technique, the consoles. We went to Paris to look
Speaker 1: at some new build atmos cinema UM sound stages there. Um,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen because we turned it around and we're
Speaker 1: building the studio there. But um, it introduced me to
Speaker 1: atmos at the very kind of you know, at the
Speaker 1: start of it. Um. And if a film it's like
Speaker 1: an album. If a film is mixed well in Dolby Atmos,
Speaker 1: it sounds amazing, you know. If it's mixed poorly, it
Speaker 1: can sound like gimmicky. Um it can. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like a record in my mind. So Gravity was the
Speaker 1: first film that we showed at Olympic in atmosph course
Speaker 1: the atmosphe and that is absolutely incredible. So for the
Speaker 1: last ten years I've been living with ATMOS, well eight
Speaker 1: years living with ATMOS, and then the whole thing with
Speaker 1: Atmos music comes along, um and I find myself involved
Speaker 1: with the speaker company PMC, who um Um, I've become
Speaker 1: very good friends with he. Whereas who's like the consultant
Speaker 1: for PMC and getting their stuff out of there. He
Speaker 1: used to work with Steve Lipson, um, you know, who's
Speaker 1: also an old friends. So it's always, you know, this
Speaker 1: close network of friends and people you know. Um. And
Speaker 1: in listening to ATMOS music mixes, I discovered you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about the analog digital situation earlier. Well,
Speaker 1: the terrible thing that's happening, I think, um, is that
Speaker 1: record companies are now pushing stems out to mixes to
Speaker 1: mix everything in ATMOS because Apple the demanding Atmos um um,
Speaker 1: So stems are going out to mixes. The stems are
Speaker 1: usually got all the compression, all the EQ and everything
Speaker 1: that originated from what they mix the stereo track as
Speaker 1: sent to them to mixing ATMOS. Now ATMOS the dynamic
Speaker 1: range of ATMOS is huge. That's why it sounds like
Speaker 1: it does in a cinema because there is no compression.
Speaker 1: So when you're given compressed files to mixing atmos, it
Speaker 1: already makes your mix sounds like eight times smaller than
Speaker 1: anything else which doesn't have compression, because you're limiting the
Speaker 1: headroom in it. UM. And I'm really frustrated with this
Speaker 1: because RELD companies don't understand that they're pumping out all
Speaker 1: these stems to people. Mixes are coming back. They're in atmos,
Speaker 1: but they sound that ship. Um. You know they have
Speaker 1: no dynamic range. Um. There's a whole issue with me
Speaker 1: with reverb in atmos mixes. Um engineers are putting reverb
Speaker 1: upon reverb on vocals and that in atmos you have
Speaker 1: to be in a really good room to know what
Speaker 1: it's going to fold down to. And that's the other
Speaker 1: issue is that people are mixing in the atmos and
Speaker 1: then when it's actually folded down into spatial sound, into
Speaker 1: into by normals sounding the headphones, it can sound like crap.
Speaker 1: And the other issue is is that the if you
Speaker 1: mix the stereo file stereo mixed file that's been compressed
Speaker 1: for stereo like they all are. Um, if you mix
Speaker 1: that with an al with a song that's been mixed
Speaker 1: in ATMOS on your album, the ATMOS song will sound
Speaker 1: eight eight times quieter than the stereo co best file
Speaker 1: because you can't compress metadata, which is what ATMOS music is. UM.
Speaker 1: So there's I mean, I think atmos is an incredible thing.
Speaker 1: It's great in cinemas, Um, it's great. UM. I believe
Speaker 1: it's going to be incredibly successful in cars because then
Speaker 1: you've got a captive audience. You can put eight speakers
Speaker 1: in the car, you put them over your head, um,
Speaker 1: and it will sound great in a car. Um. But
Speaker 1: for the whole thing with you know which Apple are
Speaker 1: pushing now with the the spatial music in headphones, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like what you were saying earlier about when
Speaker 1: you hear a remix of the Beatles and doesn't even
Speaker 1: sound like the Beatles, and it's like the same thing
Speaker 1: that happening in spatial It's like, what's the point of
Speaker 1: doing it for headphones? So, I mean, you know who
Speaker 1: wants I don't know. If you're in a room in
Speaker 1: an environment where you're totally you know, you're totally covered
Speaker 1: with sound. That's one thing when you've got a pair
Speaker 1: of headphones in, you know, and things coming out the
Speaker 1: back of your neck, the back of your head, It's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's not a very good experience. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I'm really pushing to get ATMOS music played in sin
Speaker 1: miles because cinemas have atmos or an auditoriums that also
Speaker 1: have ATMOS. There's there's a whole you know, there's a
Speaker 1: whole new way to get ATMOS music to people, apart
Speaker 1: from earbats. Okay, a couple of things. The remixes are
Speaker 1: beyond defensive. There are songs where the vocal is so
Speaker 1: far down it's just really crazy forgetting the fact that
Speaker 1: we've had so many failed formats quad you know, s A, C, D, etcetera.
Speaker 1: If we start a new with new records, is there
Speaker 1: a future in mixing those for headphones? And is the
Speaker 1: learning curve too steep for engineers? What do you think? Now?
Speaker 1: Don't think the only curve is too steep, But it
Speaker 1: goes back to think of that. Okay, if you're recording
Speaker 1: from scratch and I'm doing this, actually I'm I'm recording
Speaker 1: music for atmos. But my my game plan is that. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to be called all real instruments. I don't
Speaker 1: and the recording these synthpads um and he at eates,
Speaker 1: it's all real instruments. So it's it's in that term.
Speaker 1: It's classical. Now this sound, um, and I've done this
Speaker 1: already that just putting that into a Dolby atmosphere is amazing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, acoustic guitar, marimba, violin's, clarinet, piano. Because sonically
Speaker 1: it works. I mean it's like listening to a Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra album or the George Shearing album. It really works well. Um.
Speaker 1: When um, when it changes for me is when it
Speaker 1: becomes all programmed music, which okay, UM, I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan of program music, so it's not fair for
Speaker 1: me to diss that music. But um, if it's written
Speaker 1: for Dolby and conceived before it's on a stereophile, then
Speaker 1: it's great. It can down terrific um. So I think
Speaker 1: there will be music. There is music being written for atmos,
Speaker 1: for Dolby atmos um um. But my fear, of my
Speaker 1: worry is that it could it could go down the
Speaker 1: toilet because the record companies are jumping on the bandmag
Speaker 1: and of the gimmick of it, um And most of
Speaker 1: it is a gimmick. In my mind. The whole headphone
Speaker 1: thing is a gimmick. Um. If you if you experience
Speaker 1: it in an auditory in a I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: no one can hear Dolby Atmos like we can in
Speaker 1: a recording studio. You know, it's like, but you can
Speaker 1: hear in the cinema. You can hear it in an
Speaker 1: environment where you know that speaker capability is in there.
Speaker 1: So that kind of makes sense to me. Um And
Speaker 1: one of the best Atmos mixes I've heard is Rocketman
Speaker 1: Elton John, I mean, and that was mixed by um
Speaker 1: or Andy I can't going to be his name now,
Speaker 1: but it was mixed by one of the original engineers.
Speaker 1: It wasn't farmed out to someone. It sounds incredible. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing stuff that I've never heard before. The placement of
Speaker 1: it is beautiful. Um And then I hear other stuff,
Speaker 1: which is just I heard Marvin Gaye, what's going on exactly?
Speaker 1: That's the worst. I mean, that really turned me off. Well, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I've got the stems for that
Speaker 1: at home. I could do a better mixed up for sure.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually digging of you know, getting an ATMOS
Speaker 1: system and starting off on headphones because you can start
Speaker 1: off mixing your headphones. You don't need the studio. And
Speaker 1: the great thing about Dolby is they're helping engineers and producers.
Speaker 1: So you know, I could mix something at home in
Speaker 1: atmost all my headphones and take it to Dolby play
Speaker 1: in there in there at my studio and go, oh, actually,
Speaker 1: you know that vocals too high in relationship to the
Speaker 1: speakers over your head and stuff like that. And once
Speaker 1: you get that together that you can set a template
Speaker 1: up at home. So you get a template going and
Speaker 1: it's easier to you know, to mix at home without
Speaker 1: the expense of all the speakers. Um So. But then
Speaker 1: the other issue is folding it down into by noural.
Speaker 1: That's that's a problem that's hasn't really been sorted out.
Speaker 1: I've I've heard mixes where, um, I know the mix
Speaker 1: really well and say, for instance, like a guitar, it's
Speaker 1: coming out over your head, over the top speakers, and
Speaker 1: when it gets folded down from atmost into seven point one, um,
Speaker 1: the guitar, sorry, the guitars on the left side, the
Speaker 1: guitar suddenly coming out over your head, so the fold
Speaker 1: down doesn't happen. The software seems to estimate where it
Speaker 1: should be. Um, So there's got to be some engineering
Speaker 1: where you know, it knows exactly where it should be
Speaker 1: if you're doing it hard left or hard right, rather
Speaker 1: than simulating where it should be. But I think the
Speaker 1: format could be really really interesting. But it is really interesting.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of stuff, but it's still in
Speaker 1: its early days, of of of of being treated with respect. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite amazing, um. Bruce Bruce, Bruce Bochnick has actually
Speaker 1: the storm um for at most it's as incredible, I
Speaker 1: mean amazing. And it's so simple. I mean that compeable
Speaker 1: in night tracks, ain't that? Um, Well, there's a long history.
Speaker 1: He made it in five point one. He's been through
Speaker 1: so many iterations. I think, you know, not to put
Speaker 1: him down. But it's not like he came from stereo
Speaker 1: and went there. They've done a lot of versions in between. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying about having the respect
Speaker 1: for the music, and they understand exactly that's so important,
Speaker 1: you know, he could I just have to ask you
Speaker 1: about one more band. I remember going to k Rock
Speaker 1: Acoustic Christmas in two and there's ten bands. The headliner
Speaker 1: is Duran. Duran. Half an hour, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they come out and play this song called Ordinary World.
Speaker 1: I got it immediately. This was before the band the
Speaker 1: album was released. There are two tracks on that album
Speaker 1: like that that and come Undone. How did you get involved?
Speaker 1: How did you make those records? They haven't done anything
Speaker 1: quite at that level since so and they were seen
Speaker 1: as you know eighty six. The fact that all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they had this incredible material which was very successful,
Speaker 1: was astounding. Well, I Um, I was always a fan
Speaker 1: of Dround Around. I loved A Round Around ever since
Speaker 1: they appeared on the scene. As it were, because of
Speaker 1: my friendship with Peter Rudge, who was to a manager
Speaker 1: for the Stones for a long time. UM. Peter introduced
Speaker 1: me to the band because he was managing the band
Speaker 1: at that time and asked me if I'd like to
Speaker 1: have produced them. I said, well, I'd love to produced
Speaker 1: Rounder and I love them, so I got together with him.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the Dround Around. It was um So
Speaker 1: Um Rodgers, the drummer had left the band. Um and
Speaker 1: the guitar player had left the band, so when I
Speaker 1: met them, it was Sterling who was the drummer in
Speaker 1: the band, and Warren Um the guitar player who played
Speaker 1: with Missing was it Missing Person? Yeah? I think he
Speaker 1: played with Zappa as well. Warren was a tour of
Speaker 1: the False I mean, he was such a great guitar
Speaker 1: player and a good songwriter, and sonically his sounds were like,
Speaker 1: you know, so different to what I've ever heard before.
Speaker 1: So it was a strange album for me experienced wise,
Speaker 1: because there were two brand new members in the band.
Speaker 1: So it would have been it would have been good
Speaker 1: if they had come along maybe like eight months later, um,
Speaker 1: because you know, then they really were integrated into the band.
Speaker 1: So UM, I did the album before the one you're
Speaker 1: talking about, Ordinary World. I did the album before that,
Speaker 1: so I was like the Um. I was like the
Speaker 1: opening act for the next album. But we did record
Speaker 1: some amazing songs in the album that I did. There's
Speaker 1: one sort called Antarctica, another one called Serious, and those
Speaker 1: two songs were much more. They weren't kind of pop
Speaker 1: rock songs. They were you know, almost ballads, you know,
Speaker 1: they were. They were beautiful, laid back around songs, and
Speaker 1: the course the record company didn't want that. They wanted
Speaker 1: all the you know, up tempo stuff, which was a
Speaker 1: shame because that wasn't that wasn't the good stuff on
Speaker 1: the album. That was the weaker material of anything. UM.
Speaker 1: But in working with them, durround Um, Nick and Simon
Speaker 1: and John we became again. We're still great friends to
Speaker 1: this day, I mean really good friends. And considering it
Speaker 1: was an album that was one of their poorest performing UM,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's always good to see them UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so happy that you know, they're still
Speaker 1: doing it UM. And you know, they signed up with
Speaker 1: BMG now they got you know, new label, UM and
Speaker 1: they're doing things and and Nick is incredible. Nick's always
Speaker 1: looking for, you know, something new sonically and musically and
Speaker 1: in collaborations as well. He's a very smart man. Give
Speaker 1: me you were a picture of what's going on in
Speaker 1: the music business today. There's two pictures I'm seeing. There's
Speaker 1: one is I'm very futunate that I'm still working and
Speaker 1: involved with a lot of young talent, young musicians, some
Speaker 1: incredible musicians as well. Really really um just playing instruments
Speaker 1: all day long, writing all day long. UM. COVID has
Speaker 1: been a nightmare for them, but it's been a nightmare
Speaker 1: for all musicians, but the good ones, you know, that's
Speaker 1: what they know and love. So I'm still surrounded by that,
Speaker 1: and people are still sending the emails to work with
Speaker 1: them and help them on stuff. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. And I love to share, you know, my
Speaker 1: fifty four years of knowledge and making them, recording great
Speaker 1: albums with them and to to help them get to
Speaker 1: you know, what they want to achieve and what they
Speaker 1: want to hear um UM. So that's one great picture
Speaker 1: and you know, and they can get it out there,
Speaker 1: they can easily release it. Then then it's up to
Speaker 1: them to you know, do the social network thing um,
Speaker 1: you know, which is that's another job in its in
Speaker 1: its own, but you know, so it is possible for
Speaker 1: an unknown artist if they really die hards, if they're
Speaker 1: going to perform live as well, they can get it
Speaker 1: out there. So that's good. And then I also see UM,
Speaker 1: I see labels like BMG who are supporting you know,
Speaker 1: the vintage, the older acts um and helping them preserve
Speaker 1: their heritage, preserve their catalog UM and you know, keeping
Speaker 1: them going into the future as well without you know,
Speaker 1: crazy deals where they're you know, forever paying back the money. UM.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of encouraged by the business at the moment.
Speaker 1: Um Um. I'm not going to get into the streaming
Speaker 1: thing because that's another area that's um um in a
Speaker 1: sense I don't know enough about. But I know it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's not given the artists back their jews,
Speaker 1: you know, which they're really owned at all. It's it's
Speaker 1: a fragment of um of what they should be getting.
Speaker 1: And that's the deal done with the record companies and
Speaker 1: the streaming companies. You know. I understand the business of it,
Speaker 1: but I don't respect it at all. Okay, now, as
Speaker 1: it's transition from big studio to small studio, a lot
Speaker 1: of people of an older vintage are complaining there's not
Speaker 1: enough money to do it right. At best, you can
Speaker 1: you know, cut the basics in a big studio. Do
Speaker 1: you think the ship has already sailed and you can
Speaker 1: work with the new technology and make is big or
Speaker 1: you lamenting just not enough money to make the record? Um.
Speaker 1: I think there is the money to make the record, um.
Speaker 1: But the money should be there only if the musician,
Speaker 1: the band, the artist is ready to go into a studio.
Speaker 1: You know, I've made records where I've done a whole
Speaker 1: album in three days. So um, if anyone's that good,
Speaker 1: they can easily raise the money to go in with
Speaker 1: a band or whatever to make an album in three
Speaker 1: days of high quality if they're of the high quality
Speaker 1: as well. So I um, there's yeah, okay, there's there's
Speaker 1: no money coming from the majors for for new artists
Speaker 1: in that respect. Um. It's more it's turned out that
Speaker 1: the A and R, that the publishers are becoming the
Speaker 1: A and R people, and they're the ones who are
Speaker 1: giving money to the artists, the unknown artists because they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're signing their their publishing and bedding on that.
Speaker 1: So I think that's where the money is coming in from.
Speaker 1: But there's also money coming in from fans. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: quite a few records have been made have made, have
Speaker 1: been funded by the fans by well pledges no longer around,
Speaker 1: but you know, um of that type of funding. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really good too because the then
Speaker 1: the fan base is involved in the making of the
Speaker 1: record and Meridian we're really one of the first man's
Speaker 1: to start that, and they've done so much from it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if anyone wants to look at a template
Speaker 1: a how to do it, we're really in a shining
Speaker 1: an example. I mean the fact that you know a
Speaker 1: band that was dropped that was you know, the change
Speaker 1: of seeing a change of everything all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: They're playing at the Albert hall Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're they're making great records still and setting out. But
Speaker 1: you've got to go on the road as well. That's
Speaker 1: that's the other I think a lot of music now,
Speaker 1: a lot of music is connected, um with It's always
Speaker 1: been connected with fashion, but even more so fashion orientated
Speaker 1: music made in bedrooms. I'm sick of hearing that old story.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been making records where someone sent me
Speaker 1: the vocal on the guitar recording an iPhone and it
Speaker 1: sounds great. I've actually done backing vocals on the night
Speaker 1: phone and put them into a track. So it's more
Speaker 1: about what you get down on tape as its well
Speaker 1: what you get down rather than where you do it.
Speaker 1: Although I do still believe and I know that if
Speaker 1: you're a group of musicians or you want to create
Speaker 1: something so special with a group of musicians, even if
Speaker 1: you're a solo artist, you have to do it in
Speaker 1: a recording studio, in a in a real professional recording studio. Um,
Speaker 1: so you capture that moment um, Yeah, in that way,
Speaker 1: and something special happens when you when a group of
Speaker 1: musicians getting the room and played together, as opposed to
Speaker 1: I'm doing the drums at home, I'm doing the guitar
Speaker 1: in someone else's room. I'm doing you know, putting it
Speaker 1: all together from different rooms all over the world or
Speaker 1: different parts of whatever country you're in. Um, that's that's painful.
Speaker 1: Christs has been hotterly fantastic. I got so many more questions.
Speaker 1: We gotta leave shore for now. Maybe we'll go another
Speaker 1: deeper another time. You know, I'd love to b I
Speaker 1: was just blown away, you know, when you hit the
Speaker 1: mic running. You were just unbelievably great. The stories you
Speaker 1: were telling, amplifying all the issues. I can't thank you
Speaker 1: enough for doing Bob. It's really been it's really been
Speaker 1: a pleasure to told you because I've yeah, I've known
Speaker 1: you for a long time, so it's great to see
Speaker 1: you and to talk to you. And yeah, i'd love
Speaker 1: to come back and do a part two and talk
Speaker 1: about lots of other stuff. It's okay, this has been
Speaker 1: great until next time. This is Bob left stuff.