Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Barbed Left Sides podcast.
Speaker 1: Like yesterday is the Record Producer explordinare Steve Uli Steve?
Speaker 1: Hello there, Bob. Now you called me a record producer.
Speaker 1: I always say that people over the age of sixty
Speaker 1: know what a record is, people over the age of
Speaker 1: forty called it a CD, so I was a CD producer,
Speaker 1: and then people over the age of twenty only know
Speaker 1: as streaming. So I would rather call myself a music producer.
Speaker 1: I almost said that, but hey, shows my age. A
Speaker 1: second thing. You are speaking to us from Jakarta, where
Speaker 1: you now live. Let's start, especially for the ignorant Americans.
Speaker 1: Where exactly is Jacarta? Where is Jacartia is? Jakarta is
Speaker 1: the capital city of Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth largest
Speaker 1: country on the planet, with about fourth largest by population
Speaker 1: after China, America and India. It's about eight Muslim uh
Speaker 1: seven or eight percent Christian. The rest are sort of
Speaker 1: scattered between Hindus and Buddhists, and they've got a couple
Speaker 1: of atheists, of which I am one of them. But
Speaker 1: the great thing about it is that that everyone lives
Speaker 1: in perfect harmony together, you know, and that's great because
Speaker 1: there's not many places on the planet where Christians and
Speaker 1: Muslims live in um, you know, in in UH next
Speaker 1: door to each other, and they're fine with it. So
Speaker 1: how did you end up in Jakara? I was living
Speaker 1: not very far from you, Bob, really in just off
Speaker 1: sunset in Hollywood, and and I was thinking, there's something
Speaker 1: about my life here that I don't know. It was.
Speaker 1: I wanted some my my My thing has always been
Speaker 1: my enthusiasm for life. And I was I was living
Speaker 1: in l A and I you know, I just got
Speaker 1: a Latin Grammy for for my album with j one Is,
Speaker 1: and you know, things were okay, but I felt I
Speaker 1: wanted a new, um, a new challenge in life. So
Speaker 1: I was invited to go to Singapore to give a
Speaker 1: speech at UH Music Matters, which of course you're familiar with.
Speaker 1: And I was so excited. I thought, Southeast Asia, this
Speaker 1: is going to be fair. The moment I got to Singapore,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, this is like going
Speaker 1: to Disneyland. I mean, it was very nice and it
Speaker 1: was very clean, but where is the Where's the excitement
Speaker 1: of the of the East, you know? Um? Although I
Speaker 1: I got some great friends in Singapore, and I love
Speaker 1: it now actually, but I I then sort of went
Speaker 1: to China and went to to to career and and
Speaker 1: and these places. None of them really made me feel great.
Speaker 1: And then a friend of mine said there's a band
Speaker 1: in Indonesia want an English record producer, and that I
Speaker 1: googled them. They were huge over here, and I came
Speaker 1: out and did some songs and and I just fell
Speaker 1: in love with the place. It's a it's got its
Speaker 1: own I mean, I mean for me, I I've learned
Speaker 1: so much about a whole different musical culture and that's
Speaker 1: really um And and he gave me a new lease
Speaker 1: of life. To be honest, I have a great lifestyle here.
Speaker 1: I now. I came over here as a music producer
Speaker 1: and I now worked for KFC. Okay, before we get there.
Speaker 1: Deep the last time we spoke, you were playing the
Speaker 1: field and never anticipated getting married again, but reasonly you
Speaker 1: did get married. Tell me that story. Oh, it's so
Speaker 1: funny you you and I. I don't I don't mean
Speaker 1: to be disrespectful to any culture, and I believe it,
Speaker 1: you know. And as I say, I am not a
Speaker 1: believer in and afterlife or or any you know, I
Speaker 1: believe in a higher power than me. But my higher
Speaker 1: power than me is basically a group of us. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything outside, and that's quite a
Speaker 1: prevalent view in the West, but over here it's not.
Speaker 1: And and my and my girlfriend Um and her parents
Speaker 1: felt that it was sort of wrong that we were
Speaker 1: living together, and so so I said, okay, well we'll
Speaker 1: do a you know, I will convert, not that convert,
Speaker 1: because I'm not anything. So it doesn't matter if i'm either,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll do what anyone says if it makes
Speaker 1: them happy. So I did. I did acquire a Muslim name.
Speaker 1: And apparently when you become a Muslim or acquire a
Speaker 1: Muslim name, you can choose any name you want. So
Speaker 1: guess what I chose, Bob, I am now in Muslim world.
Speaker 1: My name is Mohammed Ali. That is the fantastic denly
Speaker 1: quite a sense of humor there. Okay, how did you
Speaker 1: meet this woman who's now your wife? She is Um,
Speaker 1: just just mutual friends and and we got on grades
Speaker 1: and she's far too young for me, and it's perfectly
Speaker 1: acceptable over here, you know. But but but I've realized, Bob,
Speaker 1: the difference between. You know, it's it's not age gap
Speaker 1: that that that makes problems. It's the fact that one
Speaker 1: of us is male and one of us is female.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's that's the main difference. It's
Speaker 1: nothing to do with how old you are, is to
Speaker 1: do with one is male and mine is female. But
Speaker 1: we got on great, We've got a great life. Her
Speaker 1: family are lovely and yeah, and at the moment, COVID
Speaker 1: is sort of bubbling here. But but but you know,
Speaker 1: as I say, most of them are Muslims. If if
Speaker 1: anyone dies of COVID, they shrug their shoulders and say
Speaker 1: it's God's will and they bury people here within twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, which is the Muslim tradition. So there's not
Speaker 1: really any autopsies to see what they died of as well.
Speaker 1: So it's it's you know, but but but the good
Speaker 1: news is that people in Asia have been wearing masks
Speaker 1: for a long time, you know, so so that there
Speaker 1: is no political divide over anything like that. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone deals with with mask wearing, everyone deals with you know,
Speaker 1: they're all the same. So I wouldn't think of leaving
Speaker 1: the house, and no one thinks of leaving their house
Speaker 1: without wearing a mask, and we all wash our hands,
Speaker 1: and we all get temperature tested if we go anywhere
Speaker 1: we go, you know, everywhere there's a guy with a
Speaker 1: little temperature thing to to take your temperature. About probably
Speaker 1: three or four times a day. I get my temperature done.
Speaker 1: I get tested once a week for my job. U.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's all good. Okay. To what degree
Speaker 1: is there an expact community there? I well, when I
Speaker 1: came here six years ago, there was a fairly big
Speaker 1: expact community. It's shrunk a bit. And and to be honest,
Speaker 1: the oil business was huge even before I came, so
Speaker 1: I sort of got the end of that at But
Speaker 1: there isn't so much of an expact community. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't bother me because I'm not really I don't need
Speaker 1: to be with ex pats, you know. I when I
Speaker 1: enter a culture, I love to to dive right in,
Speaker 1: you know. So I've learned the language to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and I love the food. I love the music, you know,
Speaker 1: because the music is my job. I put these CDs
Speaker 1: into into KFC and I sell you know, up to
Speaker 1: a million CDs every month, So I have to know
Speaker 1: what the what what the businesses in Indonesia, So so
Speaker 1: you know, there's not I have some expact friends obviously,
Speaker 1: but you know, because I don't drink alcohol, so I'm
Speaker 1: not one of those people who goes to the bar
Speaker 1: and get drunk. And you know, and and and the
Speaker 1: typical expact that you hear about in Bali and places
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, how long has it been, if always
Speaker 1: that you don't drink to ety three years and nine months,
Speaker 1: I think, And what was your motivation to start one
Speaker 1: day at a time. And by doing it one day
Speaker 1: at a time, I've realized I couldn't get to twenty
Speaker 1: three years, so you know, it was relatively easy. And
Speaker 1: you know, I work, I produced the Rolling Stones, Bob.
Speaker 1: You know, I and I lived, and many people didn't live.
Speaker 1: So I've you know, I understand the pitfalls and I
Speaker 1: I didn't get to a place where my life collapsed
Speaker 1: or anything, but I got to a place where I
Speaker 1: thought I crossed an invisible line, which was basically, it'll
Speaker 1: probably get me eventually. And when you come to that
Speaker 1: realization that your lifestyle will will will probably get you eventually,
Speaker 1: it sort of takes all the fun out of it.
Speaker 1: So I dealt with it in the way that so
Speaker 1: many people in our business deal with it, and I
Speaker 1: and I love it. You know, my life is a
Speaker 1: lot more open now, you know. Um, you think you're
Speaker 1: free when you're living that sort of lifestyle, but actually
Speaker 1: you're much freer when you're not. Your life becomes a
Speaker 1: lot wider and a lot bigger. You're preaching to the converted.
Speaker 1: But in this particular case, the KFC thing is still
Speaker 1: going on. Explain from my audience the whole period. I
Speaker 1: just threw in KFC that. Okay, let me start. The
Speaker 1: KFC in Indonesia is a destination restaurant. It's um. It's
Speaker 1: because there's no pork and beef is is not really
Speaker 1: that that that prevalent here. Chicken rules, and chicken here
Speaker 1: is not pumped full of full of chlorine. It's not
Speaker 1: washed in chlorine. It's not pumped full of um steroids
Speaker 1: and stuff to make it big. So they're really small,
Speaker 1: they're really tasty, and chicken here is great and KFC
Speaker 1: franchise has really become the thing here. People love KFC
Speaker 1: and honestly, I I love it here. It's it's exactly
Speaker 1: how you remember it as a kid, you know, when
Speaker 1: you first heard it and it was great. But you
Speaker 1: now go and have KFC and it's like you walk
Speaker 1: in and it just smells stale of stale. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not good. Whereas here we have you know, there's
Speaker 1: coffee shops in the in a lot of the KFC s,
Speaker 1: they're very clean. Our flagship restaurants have stages where there's music.
Speaker 1: And basically I didn't start it but my um, but
Speaker 1: my predecessor decided to start bundling c ds with chicken. Now,
Speaker 1: this started to take off and when record stores closed,
Speaker 1: it was the only place people could get their CDs.
Speaker 1: So it's become a sort of tradition when you go
Speaker 1: to KFC, people buy CDs. So it's a very prestigious
Speaker 1: thing to have your CD for sale at KFC because
Speaker 1: you know, I I say, pre COVID, I would my
Speaker 1: My biggest month sale was one point one million in
Speaker 1: a month post COVID. I'm at about five fifty, so
Speaker 1: it's it's but it's improving again. And I have ten well,
Speaker 1: I have eight c d s now at any one time,
Speaker 1: and two DVDs because I felt that I can give
Speaker 1: a you know, I do a DVD for kids and
Speaker 1: a DVD for family, um and and you know it's
Speaker 1: it's nothing to do with my taste. Producing was always
Speaker 1: to do with my taste. That was how I became
Speaker 1: a producer, because you know, it was all too I
Speaker 1: would never do anything for money. I did it because
Speaker 1: whether I liked it or not. But you know, now
Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting older. I have other people who helped me,
Speaker 1: but it's not my taste. I choose things for all
Speaker 1: the family, you know. I I put a CD in
Speaker 1: for the teenage girls because you know, they always love
Speaker 1: these these these soppy you know, and it's great fun.
Speaker 1: And I've got this, you know. And I'm enthusiastic about
Speaker 1: my job, and being enthusiastic about what you do in
Speaker 1: life may exit so much more exciting. And and you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've I've always been lucky. I've never had a
Speaker 1: job because the definition of a job is you can
Speaker 1: complain about your job. That's one of the things about
Speaker 1: having a job. What I've always had is a vocation. Now,
Speaker 1: a vocation is great, but you're never allowed to complain
Speaker 1: about it because you would not be as as enthusia
Speaker 1: you would not be true to that that that young
Speaker 1: seventeen year old boy who walked into a recording studio
Speaker 1: full of wonder. I think the sense of wonder is
Speaker 1: something that used to abound in the music business, and
Speaker 1: that sense of wonder is something that now, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't see that with the young artists. It that
Speaker 1: there's the sense of innocence and wonder. You you know,
Speaker 1: homogenization is a great thing, but maybe not for truly
Speaker 1: great creative people. Okay, let's flow down for a minute.
Speaker 1: You're so CD s a KFC. A lot of questions. First,
Speaker 1: can you buy a CD at a place other than KFC,
Speaker 1: not the CDs I sell. The CDs I sell. We
Speaker 1: have a we have an exclusive deal with our artists
Speaker 1: and they come in and we we asked them to
Speaker 1: do certain not promotional things for for KFC, but we
Speaker 1: asked them to to to do some store visits. Uh
Speaker 1: and the you know, there's no branding involved. It's not
Speaker 1: like they sell our CDs and they have to hold
Speaker 1: KFC and say I love it. I mean, to be honest,
Speaker 1: most of them do really love KFC, so they feel
Speaker 1: they don't mind going to a store. But the idea
Speaker 1: is go to the store, do a little meet and
Speaker 1: greet with some fans speak to the staff. Get you know,
Speaker 1: it's to keep the staff. You know, take a couple
Speaker 1: of photos with the staff. So the staff two things
Speaker 1: keeps them happy and it and it's um and it
Speaker 1: makes themselves the seat, you know, it makes them want
Speaker 1: to sell the CD more. And it's it's all around
Speaker 1: the glimp thing. Okay, what is the company you work for?
Speaker 1: What's the name of that? Well, my my company is
Speaker 1: called jms R Jagonian Music and Sport Indonesia. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. It's just a it's a shell, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a part of KFC Indonesia. But you know,
Speaker 1: my my boss owns all the franchises of KFC UM
Speaker 1: and KFC and and unlike other big worldwide corporations like
Speaker 1: Disney have such you know, you cannot do certain things
Speaker 1: worldwide with Disney. With KFC, they've been very good because
Speaker 1: they've allowed my my boss and his team to to
Speaker 1: to tweak the the KFC the product for the Indonesian market.
Speaker 1: So most people eat KFC with rice. Um. They they
Speaker 1: love spicy food here, oh my god. Everything you know,
Speaker 1: they the chili is is so they do the spicy KFC,
Speaker 1: so you know, and that's what I like. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they're always doing you know. But I'm not here too
Speaker 1: to promote KFC in general. But I would say, if
Speaker 1: anyone does visit Indonesia, it's a trip to KFC is
Speaker 1: it's not as outrageous as a trip you know, it's
Speaker 1: not as weird as a trip to KFC in the West.
Speaker 1: And in fact, just very quickly, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: heard about this when I was in New York working
Speaker 1: on the last U two album. He said to me, Steve,
Speaker 1: do you think he was a journalist? He said, Can
Speaker 1: I pitch your story to the New York Times? I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they he said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're dying to do this. So I was actually on
Speaker 1: the front cover of the New York Times Arts section
Speaker 1: at the weekend, holding a bucket of KFC and you know,
Speaker 1: telling my story about what I do. Now KFC, big
Speaker 1: worldwide corporate is called the Young Organization and believe it
Speaker 1: or not, and you know, they have never been on
Speaker 1: the front page of the New York Times in their life.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden they got like this, Q
Speaker 1: dos that you know? Um, so so they are very
Speaker 1: proud of of the Indonesian KFC on on the worldwide basis. Okay,
Speaker 1: a few questions in terms of landscape of music, KFC
Speaker 1: has what percentage of the overall market or how many competies?
Speaker 1: Well pretty much ninety. Well that since KFC did it,
Speaker 1: other chicken outlets have done it. Their California Chicken Company
Speaker 1: and is one and there's one other one but there,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have six hundreds at six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty outlets. They only have about two or three hundred,
Speaker 1: and they they don't, you know, they're kept there. They're fried.
Speaker 1: Chicken is like a level below ours, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's it's it's more like American case. So we have Okay,
Speaker 1: So what you're saying essentially is there are no record stories.
Speaker 1: Everybody buys their music and a a chicken store, yes or
Speaker 1: they yeah, it's I mean a lot of people what
Speaker 1: YouTube and stuff. So my job is becoming harder and harder.
Speaker 1: And what I do is, you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: and to be honest, I'm selling them something that they
Speaker 1: can get on YouTube for nothing, you know. So so
Speaker 1: I'm forever trying to think of new ways to bundle
Speaker 1: it all together. Like compilations of styles of music, and
Speaker 1: you know, because playlist mentality is is happening more and more,
Speaker 1: even if you don't subscribe to any streaming service. The
Speaker 1: idea of the album is I once wrote to you, Bob,
Speaker 1: and you ignored it. But I actually in the West Side,
Speaker 1: I read it. I get replied everything because I know, no, no, don't.
Speaker 1: He was slightly flippant, which is no, you always do.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're very good to me. But I
Speaker 1: actually had this, this this idea that the only thing
Speaker 1: that will save the album in the West is the
Speaker 1: legalization of marijuana, because you know, you know, when you
Speaker 1: were fourteen or fifteen and you had your first joint
Speaker 1: and you listen to Dark Side of the Moon, there
Speaker 1: was a whole new thing happening, all right, And I think, maybe, if, if,
Speaker 1: that's the only possible thing that will save the album
Speaker 1: is the legalization, But I don't think it probably will
Speaker 1: because the technology has no need for albums, and technology
Speaker 1: will always lead the art form. Okay, what is the
Speaker 1: price of v CDs? You said they are They're priced
Speaker 1: at a point where Indonesia, you know, people here are
Speaker 1: very poor, so they're like five bucks each okay, and
Speaker 1: to what But it doesn't. Doesn't everybody have a morbile phone.
Speaker 1: That's why my job is getting more and more difficult.
Speaker 1: But yes they do, but they have cars and they
Speaker 1: and and well they do, but it's more the a
Speaker 1: lot of people have have well, yes they have a
Speaker 1: mobile phone. What you're talking about, Bob left sets is
Speaker 1: a smartphone because a mobile phone will not play music.
Speaker 1: A smartphone is the one that plays music. And yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have smartphones. But but but the
Speaker 1: problem is is the broadband. There's not much broadband and
Speaker 1: there's no five G or uh. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of the rural areas don't have very good reception. So
Speaker 1: you know, it will all change in the future. And
Speaker 1: Spotify numbers are going up here. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm getting to the point where I mean, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying my job, but it's not gonna last forever. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, and okay, let's just assume it
Speaker 1: ends somewhere in the next five years based on your
Speaker 1: need for excitement. Will you then continue to work or
Speaker 1: will you get into lifestyle sale under the sunset? Now,
Speaker 1: i I've actually just invested in a house. I've just
Speaker 1: bought a house in Bali, so I I shall, I
Speaker 1: shall probably move to Balley. But you know, I'm also
Speaker 1: writing a book and I do a sort of U
Speaker 1: and I've written my own life story in a stand
Speaker 1: up form and actually it's with music and I've you know,
Speaker 1: it's two It's a two hour show with a with
Speaker 1: a gap, with a break at at one hour, and
Speaker 1: it it goes. You know, it's just a lot of
Speaker 1: self effacing stories and I play music. I've got about
Speaker 1: twenty segments of music where I paid little bits of songs.
Speaker 1: I tell funny stories, I tell sad stories. Um. And
Speaker 1: I had this all done. I did one show in Jakarta,
Speaker 1: which was fantastic, and then I my plan was to
Speaker 1: take it around locally Asia, Southeast Asia and then go
Speaker 1: around the odd with it doing my show and because
Speaker 1: a lot of people when they heard about it said
Speaker 1: oh I come to see that, you know, and then
Speaker 1: COVID hit So everything is. It was about a year
Speaker 1: ago in February that I did my first show. Um,
Speaker 1: and I've still got the script, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: it all ready to go and it's okay, this beg
Speaker 1: this begs a question. You've made your rep on the
Speaker 1: other side of the glass, Yes, sir, So did you
Speaker 1: always want to be a performer, your reluctant performer. Did
Speaker 1: the light bulb just go off? No? I never wanted
Speaker 1: to be a performer, and I never even wanted to
Speaker 1: be a teacher, because I I always, um, I always
Speaker 1: subscribed to the idea that those who can't teach, you know,
Speaker 1: and and in fact, actually my kids school in New
Speaker 1: York there, their teachers at the school had a band
Speaker 1: and they actually called the name of the band those
Speaker 1: who Can't, which is which is a great name for
Speaker 1: a band, right, especially if you are all teachers. They
Speaker 1: called it those who Came. But I've subsequently come to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that that if people like me who actually
Speaker 1: um who who who have been both old school and
Speaker 1: modern recording techniques, you know, I have something I can
Speaker 1: give back to young people. Uh, And so I I
Speaker 1: quite And also my story is it's quite funny. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you know you went to see the Jeff Emmerick. You know,
Speaker 1: it was very good, but it was all a little worthy.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, he was he he was fantastic, but
Speaker 1: you know, and and his work speaks for itself. But
Speaker 1: but I'm you know, I'm one of those produced. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of brilliant producers in the world. But
Speaker 1: I'm a people person and I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty good at speaking and and I enjoy
Speaker 1: it and that's the sort of thing that gives me
Speaker 1: more excitement at the moment. So okay, yeah, we'll have
Speaker 1: to wait for covid M. Let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: What kind of circumstances did you grow up? In? White,
Speaker 1: middle class um post war possibly the greatest example of
Speaker 1: socialized life the planet has ever seen. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean everything. You know, it was socialism in the
Speaker 1: greatest way. It was. The BBC is an institution that
Speaker 1: I will defend forever because it has it has been
Speaker 1: impartial through various different governments. Musically, it was completely um.
Speaker 1: You could not bribe anyone at the BBC to get
Speaker 1: your song on the radio, you know. So we got
Speaker 1: the best of what America had to offer. You know,
Speaker 1: I we got the best American music. Now it sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm being snobby. How do you do find the best?
Speaker 1: I never ever heard Kansas, you know, I had funny Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to what did your parents do for
Speaker 1: a living? Oh, my god, My my dad was an accountant.
Speaker 1: My mom was a housewife. You know how many how
Speaker 1: many kids in the film? Oh, there's three of us.
Speaker 1: I'm the eldest. Never had any chance. I never finished
Speaker 1: high school, let alone go to college. I I managed
Speaker 1: to get a job in a recording studio at the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen as a tea boy and U and
Speaker 1: even then I wasn't there was no you know, I
Speaker 1: was just one of those people that punk rock was
Speaker 1: my was my entry point, really, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: you know, to be a producer. It's like a catch
Speaker 1: twenty two situation. You know, you need the work to
Speaker 1: get the hit. But the only way you get the
Speaker 1: hit if you have the work. So you know what
Speaker 1: comes for the hit or the work, you know. And
Speaker 1: and I was lucky that there was this sort of
Speaker 1: wave called punk rock. And we don't get waves of music,
Speaker 1: you know, as you've always said, it doesn't mean so
Speaker 1: much anymore. And when it doesn't mean so much, you
Speaker 1: don't get waves. Um. But punk rock was a wave
Speaker 1: in the UK and on the eastern West coast of America.
Speaker 1: It was only when Green Day came many years later,
Speaker 1: that that punk thing actually traversed to Middle America. Funnily enough,
Speaker 1: the sex pistols in the clash never meant anything in
Speaker 1: Middle America. Um, but I wrote this wave. And I
Speaker 1: always used to say, what better than having bands who
Speaker 1: couldn't play than having a producer who couldn't produce? And
Speaker 1: so that was my that was my thing. And of
Speaker 1: course I got a hit record. And once I had
Speaker 1: a hit record, um in a September nine band called
Speaker 1: Susie and the Banshees with a song called Hong Kong Garden. Um,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, I've got a hit. Now.
Speaker 1: You can look at your life in two ways. Once
Speaker 1: you have a hit. You can either go, aren't I brilliant?
Speaker 1: I can turn turns into gold? Or what I did?
Speaker 1: It was like, oh my god, I've had a hit.
Speaker 1: I can just work with really good people. That's how
Speaker 1: I looked at it. You know. So because I was
Speaker 1: a fanboy, you know, so I and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're very young, you have many many people you were saying,
Speaker 1: oh what boy a fan boy. I was just loved music,
Speaker 1: and I was very opinionated, and I and nowadays, when
Speaker 1: I ever I talked to young people and I'm either
Speaker 1: interviewing someone for a job or you know, I can
Speaker 1: learn a lot from them. If I say, you know,
Speaker 1: what sort of music do you like? And if a
Speaker 1: young person says, I like all sorts, no good? You
Speaker 1: know you shouldn't like all sorts of music. You should
Speaker 1: be opinionated when you're young, because when you get older,
Speaker 1: you you start to understand that everything has a value.
Speaker 1: But when you're young, that that that that narrow minded focus.
Speaker 1: You know, you're like a boxer going into the ring.
Speaker 1: You know, you you're focused on your career. And that's
Speaker 1: what I was. So I I just you know, I thought,
Speaker 1: what God EXTC I love extec, I'll go and produce them.
Speaker 1: And you know, I wanted to work with the creative,
Speaker 1: talented people. I had no ego that said I wanted
Speaker 1: to turn your rubbish act into a great act. So
Speaker 1: you know, every time I, you know, I had a hit,
Speaker 1: I would be offered all these bands who sounded like
Speaker 1: the band that I produced. You know, I've got nothing
Speaker 1: against a flock of seagulls. But just because I produced
Speaker 1: you two doesn't mean I should have produced the alarm
Speaker 1: or a flock of seagulls, you know, and I love
Speaker 1: them both, but it's just like, why so I used
Speaker 1: my success with one artist to expand, which is why,
Speaker 1: you know, at the height of that sort of era
Speaker 1: in n I went off and produced Joan Arma Trading
Speaker 1: and Peter Gabriel, which had nothing to do with punk rock,
Speaker 1: you know, but it was like, Okay, I've had success,
Speaker 1: these are creative, great artists, are going to work with them. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're talking about being opinionated. Needles to say, I am opinionated,
Speaker 1: and especially now and you're old, okay, but now more
Speaker 1: than ever, people don't like opinionated people. So when you
Speaker 1: were growing up, were you remember the group or people
Speaker 1: either love you or hear you? What was it like? No,
Speaker 1: you're you're, you're you're You're supposed to be opinionated when
Speaker 1: you're young, you know, you're you know. I would never
Speaker 1: let guitarists bend notes because that was not you know,
Speaker 1: that was from that era before us. That was from
Speaker 1: the sort of you know, even though I produced Peter
Speaker 1: Gabriel that was sort of Genesis and all those the
Speaker 1: Eagles they all did, you know, it was long boring
Speaker 1: guitar solos. It was not what we wanted, short, sharp,
Speaker 1: angry songs, you know, And of course that's dismissing everything
Speaker 1: that Dave Gilmour ever did by saying, don't bend notes. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course I love all sorts of things like that,
Speaker 1: so you know, um, and actually no, I'm not as
Speaker 1: a pinion. You know you are, and you're very but
Speaker 1: you are more the exception, Bob, because I think I
Speaker 1: hated the Eagles growing up, I hated the Eagles. Now
Speaker 1: I actually have Hotel California on a playlist. I listened
Speaker 1: to it for fun. You know, who would have thought, okay,
Speaker 1: why and how did you get a gig as a
Speaker 1: tea boy For those people don't know that essentially the
Speaker 1: lowest below you low even a second engineer. And sometimes
Speaker 1: what drove that I drove that fear. Fear has been
Speaker 1: my driving force throughout my career. Fear has been the
Speaker 1: thing that has has has kept me not complacent. Fear
Speaker 1: has been the thing that uh enables me to do
Speaker 1: to overachieve, because I know if I don't overachieve, my
Speaker 1: natural talents will only enable me to flip burgers at McDonald's.
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, because I know I didn't go to college.
Speaker 1: I didn't even finish high school. I didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: so when I got that job in a recording studio,
Speaker 1: it was like my, my, my. It was fear joined
Speaker 1: with wonder. You know. It's that wonder of of of
Speaker 1: the of of what it was, the thing that you
Speaker 1: would do. And I still have that, you know, those
Speaker 1: moments and this doesn't happen so much anymore because you know,
Speaker 1: records are made by committee, records are made one person
Speaker 1: at a time. You know, it's just and the reason
Speaker 1: for that is is technology. Because technology enables you to
Speaker 1: do that. So and I've said this before and I
Speaker 1: always say this technology will always lead the art form.
Speaker 1: The people who make the technology they don't know how
Speaker 1: the artists are going to use it, because artists take
Speaker 1: the technology and they abuse it. That's how it should be.
Speaker 1: You know, That's how distortion came about. You know, distortion
Speaker 1: didn't come about from the from the from the people
Speaker 1: who invented amts. It came about through people turning it
Speaker 1: up to loud. Okay, but why did you get a job.
Speaker 1: What was your motivation to work in a recording studio
Speaker 1: to begin with, because I didn't want to fucking flip Burgers.
Speaker 1: I talked to you, did you have that incredible sense
Speaker 1: of wonder about music? Always? When I was a bass
Speaker 1: player from the age of twelve, I I, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a musician and I loved playing the bass.
Speaker 1: And then when I got the job in the studio,
Speaker 1: my bass playing became less and less and and now
Speaker 1: I don't even own a basse, which is a bity
Speaker 1: because I do love just that love just sitting there
Speaker 1: playing it. You know, do you do you have natural
Speaker 1: music ability? I mean, I know after the Beatles, everybody
Speaker 1: I knew bought a guitar, but it was clear who
Speaker 1: could do it. I mean the story I always tell
Speaker 1: I was playing with a friend who is now we're
Speaker 1: going to change keys, and I said, I'm out. Okay,
Speaker 1: So do you have natural ability at music? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think I do. I think I do, but but so
Speaker 1: many people do. I have a great analogy about about
Speaker 1: about the way the music businesses. Now. You know, there's
Speaker 1: because there are the gatekeepers are I mean, you can
Speaker 1: argue there's no official gatekeepers anymore. You know, the gatekeeper
Speaker 1: is just and an artificial algorithm based on people, you know.
Speaker 1: But the way I've always looked at it, I've I've
Speaker 1: I've looked at it. It's like the you know, the
Speaker 1: New York Marathon. You know, there's forty people running, and
Speaker 1: I would never stop those forty people running. You know,
Speaker 1: they doing it for fun, right, that's the music business.
Speaker 1: Everyone's running for fun. There are on a fun run.
Speaker 1: I would never stop them. But the ones I'm interested
Speaker 1: in are those five Ethiopians at the front. Those are
Speaker 1: the ones I really because they want to win. Those
Speaker 1: are the ones I want to help with their career.
Speaker 1: And that's how I see. You know, my job is
Speaker 1: to is to always recognize those five Ethiopians at the front.
Speaker 1: You get the analogy, don't you. Boy? Of course, how
Speaker 1: good an engineer are you? I was never a great engineer.
Speaker 1: I was. I was a taypop. But you know, my
Speaker 1: instincts were always just too but maybe not being taught,
Speaker 1: not being a very good learner or a slow learner.
Speaker 1: I tended to to only learn the things that I needed,
Speaker 1: and I think that's probably a good thing. And I've
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are very clever, they don't
Speaker 1: they learn everything. And I could never learn everything. I
Speaker 1: just had this I had this thing where I I
Speaker 1: was just clever enough to learn the things that I
Speaker 1: needed to learn, even though I didn't know what they
Speaker 1: were at the time. It was just a natural thing,
Speaker 1: you know. So how did you decide you were going
Speaker 1: to be a producer? What what pushed you internally other
Speaker 1: than fear. Well, my my my recording studio. My boss
Speaker 1: allowed us at weekends to take in if the studio
Speaker 1: was empty, we could take in our own projects, you know,
Speaker 1: and just to go and learn how to become a
Speaker 1: better engineer. So the first project I took into the
Speaker 1: studio was was a new wave band who were called Ultravox.
Speaker 1: Now this was the Ultravox, the first version of Ultravox,
Speaker 1: who had a different singer actually and a guy called
Speaker 1: John Fox. They were much more like Punky Roxy music.
Speaker 1: And and I did their demos in the studio and
Speaker 1: it was through those demos that they got a record
Speaker 1: deal and and uh, and that's how I got my
Speaker 1: first ever production, you know. Okay, so when the world
Speaker 1: opened after Susie, uh, the next record was what Well,
Speaker 1: So Susie came about through Johnny Thunders actually from the
Speaker 1: New York Dolls. I produced his album, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people still like, but that wasn't a hit, So
Speaker 1: Susie was the first hit. Then I did UM, I
Speaker 1: did XTC, I did a bank called the Members, I did.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of punk rock in those days,
Speaker 1: and oh well, I didn't do I seem to remember
Speaker 1: that by the time I got the call for you too,
Speaker 1: I'd already I was already a name for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was you two second well good needles to say
Speaker 1: you could close anybody in a meeting. But for yourself
Speaker 1: at that time, why you were you? What skill were
Speaker 1: you bringing into the studio that major projects for success? Well,
Speaker 1: as I say it was it was my enthusiasm, it
Speaker 1: was my being. Okay. I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: ever saw my name in in in uh In in
Speaker 1: the Enemy, I think it was or melody Maker. I
Speaker 1: was called omnipotent, and I thought this was fucking great.
Speaker 1: And then I looked it up and I realized it
Speaker 1: wasn't actually that that great word, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: what it meant. Um. Basically, I would go to the
Speaker 1: Marquee Club, I would go to all these gigs. I
Speaker 1: was around town looking at these bands, and even though
Speaker 1: you know, not all my records were hit, but but
Speaker 1: you know the Johnny Thunders album and the Ultravox album,
Speaker 1: and the and and the Susie and the Banshees album,
Speaker 1: and then the Members and XTC and there were more.
Speaker 1: There were more. I'll have to okay with I'll be
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't need an exhaustive list. But when
Speaker 1: you went into the studio, needless to say, can't some
Speaker 1: come with the songs written, Some can play their instruments,
Speaker 1: some do not. So what was your skill in taking
Speaker 1: the raw talent of the performer and ending up with
Speaker 1: a recording? My skill, I will instincts I I and
Speaker 1: I like to think that when I I've always said
Speaker 1: there are two sorts of producers. Let's let's just take
Speaker 1: I'll say let's say, well, I won't say you too,
Speaker 1: I'll say Dave Matthews Man, for instance. You know this
Speaker 1: came way way further down the line, But there's two
Speaker 1: sorts of producers. One will look at Dave Matthews Man.
Speaker 1: They'll see Dave Matthews He's the guy. He's like, obviously
Speaker 1: the main guy. I'll go and and work on him.
Speaker 1: I'll work that he you know, I'll make sure he
Speaker 1: me and him have this this this thing. I'm the
Speaker 1: other sort of producer. I look at the band and
Speaker 1: I go, Okay, where are the wheat links. Where's the
Speaker 1: person who's not feeling that confidence. I'll go and talk
Speaker 1: to them, because I know that the Dave or the
Speaker 1: or the Bonno or whoever will always you know, they
Speaker 1: don't need to ingratiate myself with them. They have the ego,
Speaker 1: they're fine. But maybe that bass player, he's quiet. He's
Speaker 1: the one that the rest of the band are slightly
Speaker 1: mocking or something like. You know, Mike my I've become
Speaker 1: so good at this, Bob. I can almost tell who
Speaker 1: plays what instrument in a band just by meeting them,
Speaker 1: because I see this sort of you know, I love
Speaker 1: the village. I love the the infrastructure of of of
Speaker 1: a of a working of a working organism, you know
Speaker 1: I I see it not as a Okay, So you
Speaker 1: find the weak link and you work with them. How
Speaker 1: other than they're one particular skill, How does that trans
Speaker 1: lead to the others and make the project better? Well,
Speaker 1: they don't need the others don't need well, because you
Speaker 1: are only as strong as your weakest linked right, So
Speaker 1: if I work on the weakest linked, then the whole
Speaker 1: thing will become better. Um, and you know one thing
Speaker 1: I didn't. It's just common sense, you know, for me.
Speaker 1: And this sounds fucking stupid to say, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't think of this, is that a record
Speaker 1: has to get better the longer time you work on it.
Speaker 1: And that sounds stupid, well, of course, but so many
Speaker 1: people their records go off courts. You know how many
Speaker 1: people have you met After the first week they go, oh, Bob,
Speaker 1: the album sounding great. We want a great drum sound.
Speaker 1: And then after two months they're they're saying, Bob, something's
Speaker 1: gone wrong. They're pulling their head, they're pulling their hair out.
Speaker 1: And you know, my job as the producer is to
Speaker 1: see that and to realize when that's happening. You know,
Speaker 1: it's your I always say, it's like I'm the I'm
Speaker 1: the captain of the ship. My job is to steer
Speaker 1: that ship safely to port. Now, the Titanic was a
Speaker 1: fucking great ship, but look what came to that. Let's
Speaker 1: assume they come into the sort with a song. Might
Speaker 1: you say, need another verse, change a lyric? Would you
Speaker 1: go into those specific creative elpments. But of course I would.
Speaker 1: But I go back to what I said earlier. I
Speaker 1: wanted to work with the best people. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a Svengali. Well, i am in my own way,
Speaker 1: but I'm not this, you know, it's it's not for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not like a film director. A film director is dictatorial,
Speaker 1: you know. A record producer is all about collaboration. And
Speaker 1: if I feel when I meet them and see them live,
Speaker 1: that there's enough wiggle room between the creative and me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not the sort of producer who who
Speaker 1: is proud to say I had to fire the drummer.
Speaker 1: Who the funk am I to say I had to
Speaker 1: fire the drummer that band? Maybe the drummer his job
Speaker 1: was not just the drumming. His job was to tell
Speaker 1: the singer your ship write better lyrics. You know, did R. E.
Speaker 1: M Ever have a hit record after Bill Berry left? No?
Speaker 1: They had the best drummers in the fucking world, but
Speaker 1: they never had a Yet. There's a reason why the
Speaker 1: greatest musician is not always the best, because it's the
Speaker 1: infrastructure of the band and what their job is. And
Speaker 1: who am I to say, you know, fire the drummer.
Speaker 1: You know, it's that's that's my punk ethic. Still, would
Speaker 1: you ever bring in ringers? Would you ever bring in
Speaker 1: studio players to play parts? And maybe the part of
Speaker 1: you know, completely of one of the band members, Na
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger brought in Anton fig to play the bass drums,
Speaker 1: because I mean, Charlie Wats is fantastic and his and
Speaker 1: his and his snare drum is always great. But but
Speaker 1: but this was in the days where you you know,
Speaker 1: there was no sampling or anything, so we literally brought
Speaker 1: in a bass drum to um to to to to
Speaker 1: replace the bass drum. But you know, his foot was
Speaker 1: sometimes not so good. But in general, no, I would
Speaker 1: you know, I have the patience of a saint. I
Speaker 1: mean I will sit with someone for hours and hours
Speaker 1: and hours to get the performance, and I will train
Speaker 1: them and I will make sure that they can do it.
Speaker 1: So before I enter a project, I would make sure
Speaker 1: that I can get an acceptable performance out of this musician.
Speaker 1: You know, so replacing a member of the band has
Speaker 1: so many unforeseen consequences. You know, you are not you're
Speaker 1: destroying the weakest link. You are not building the weakest
Speaker 1: link on left sets, Okay, do you have a preference
Speaker 1: and what's the difference between working with a solo act
Speaker 1: and a band. Well, my history just speaks itself. I'm
Speaker 1: I've had many more. I'll veer towards bands much more
Speaker 1: because for me, a band has this thing that that
Speaker 1: you know, I mean. But even when I work with
Speaker 1: with solo artists, I like to make, you know, a
Speaker 1: band idea. I like to I like to to make
Speaker 1: it seem like a band, you know, because that that
Speaker 1: that's But that's in the days of working with musicians
Speaker 1: who interact with each other. Now people don't do that.
Speaker 1: Is it's just a different world. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: saying the world was better before or worse. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a ludder when it comes to that, because
Speaker 1: technology will always lead the artful. Okay, so you say
Speaker 1: you were driven by fear at the beginning. You've worked
Speaker 1: with literally the biggest acts in the world. They don't
Speaker 1: get any bigger. Do you have any fear you're meeting
Speaker 1: anybody now? And would you still have anxiety and fear
Speaker 1: making a record with anybody? Or have you've done so
Speaker 1: much success, so much confidence of the anxiety and fear
Speaker 1: of disappeared. No, no, no, I still have the fear.
Speaker 1: I'm not really making records at the moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've sort of retired without even knowing it, weirdly, you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't been into the student, you know. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be one of those jobbing producers,
Speaker 1: you know. I I there's other things in life to
Speaker 1: do than you know. And I've done it for forty years.
Speaker 1: And as I say, my enthusiasm coupled with my fear.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, it's it's this sort of balance between
Speaker 1: fear and enthusiasm. Um, and as my fear has slightly gone,
Speaker 1: so is my enthusiasm. When I and I moved to
Speaker 1: Indonesia and and my you know, it's just a whole
Speaker 1: new set of music to learn, you know. And I
Speaker 1: know all about their local styles of music. I know
Speaker 1: they're their stars. I know that gossip. You know. I'm
Speaker 1: completely you know, I love it. It's it's a whole
Speaker 1: new thing for me. But but but yeah, fear, fear
Speaker 1: is something, but yeah, and my enthusiasm is Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go to some of these famous records. How did you
Speaker 1: get the job with Peter Gabriel and What was it
Speaker 1: like recording that record? Oh, well, Peter Gabriel was That
Speaker 1: was the first time I had been I mean, it
Speaker 1: was so left field that when I got the core
Speaker 1: from his manager, I actually thought it was one of
Speaker 1: my friends, um telling me, uh to, you know, making
Speaker 1: a joke, you know, because Peter Gabriel was definitely from
Speaker 1: the the the era that we were all um rebelling against,
Speaker 1: you know, because you know he came for you know,
Speaker 1: he wore a horse's head and you know, it's like
Speaker 1: Genesis were considered that the hippiest, dippiest, you know, boarding
Speaker 1: school type type music, you know. But but then I
Speaker 1: realized it wasn't someone phoning me up for a joke.
Speaker 1: So I had the meeting with Peter, and when we talked,
Speaker 1: it was like, wow, he sounds like he was you know,
Speaker 1: he was into the sort of records that I've made,
Speaker 1: um he And there was one thing that he said
Speaker 1: that really got me. He said, Steve, I want to
Speaker 1: make an album without any symbols, you know, and and
Speaker 1: because of the sorts of person I am and my enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some producers who would go that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You can't make a run record without symbols, you know.
Speaker 1: But for me I and I see a problem and
Speaker 1: see that as a challenge, you know. So it was
Speaker 1: like my enthusiasm clicked in immediately and I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: no symbols, that means I can do this, I can
Speaker 1: do that, and I can you know, And and that
Speaker 1: got me enthusiastic, the fact that he wanted to do
Speaker 1: things that were not like normal, you know. So even
Speaker 1: though that album was you know, when you listen to
Speaker 1: it now, it sounds like one of the darkest you know,
Speaker 1: it's songs about being in the mental hospital and you know,
Speaker 1: very very worthy songs about Steve Beaco, which I thought
Speaker 1: was about Phil Silver's by the way, umkay, you know
Speaker 1: I wondered. Okay, but let's let's stop for a second.
Speaker 1: When you work with Peter Gabriel, not only did he
Speaker 1: have experience, he's opinionated himself. So when you work with
Speaker 1: somebody like cam Or Jagger and Richard et cetera, do
Speaker 1: you your roles shrink or does it stay the same? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I am you know you have to be if you've
Speaker 1: worked with so many different look. I have read interviews
Speaker 1: with my contemporaries who have so many set rules it
Speaker 1: absolutely astounds me. I have no rules. I mean, my
Speaker 1: job is the captain of the shape. As I said,
Speaker 1: it's you know, I mold myself off to what the
Speaker 1: artist wants. Keith Richards wanted to start work at midnight,
Speaker 1: one o'clock in the morning. That's what time we came
Speaker 1: to the studio. I mold myself around what the artists needs,
Speaker 1: and my my job is to work out how to
Speaker 1: get the best record within the parameters of what they
Speaker 1: you know. And also they must love their album. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they must. They at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they must. It's their arts and they always you know,
Speaker 1: my artists always think of it as art. You know,
Speaker 1: they're artists, so they have to love the end results.
Speaker 1: And my job is to help them realize their vision.
Speaker 1: You know. As I say, I'm the worst producer. If
Speaker 1: someone says to me, Steve, I'll do whatever you want,
Speaker 1: I don't want that. I want someone to come up
Speaker 1: to me and say, Steve, I've got these ten ideas.
Speaker 1: I say, Okay, give me the ten ideas. Take a
Speaker 1: bit of that, take a bit of that. That one
Speaker 1: there that's great, but expanded, do this and then you know,
Speaker 1: um and uh yeah, that's that's that's how I do it.
Speaker 1: I need you know, I I can help grow the seed.
Speaker 1: I am not the seed. You know my job. Let's
Speaker 1: let's go back to Gabriel fan. I was not a
Speaker 1: big Genesis fan before that. There were so many prog
Speaker 1: rock bands, couldn't be into all of them. But I
Speaker 1: certainly was involved from the beginning of the solo career
Speaker 1: as a fan. Uh you know. I worked with Ezrin,
Speaker 1: then he worked with what's his name from King Grim's
Speaker 1: and Fripp, then he worked with you a couple of things. Hey,
Speaker 1: how did you feel did you think you should have
Speaker 1: been hired for the next record. Secondly, don't forget I
Speaker 1: have an American perspective. In America, the buzz on his
Speaker 1: solo career was not high. Two albums that come out
Speaker 1: Atlantic dropped him, came on Mercury, which is the worst label. However,
Speaker 1: and I know all the records. I firm he believed
Speaker 1: that is his best work. So when the record came
Speaker 1: out and it didn't immediately shoot to success, did that
Speaker 1: did you know how good it was? And how did
Speaker 1: you feel that he moved on from you? We loved
Speaker 1: making that album. I mean we it was in a
Speaker 1: way we had this, especially as Colodna used to come
Speaker 1: to the studio and because Colodna signed him to Atlantic
Speaker 1: and eventually dropped him and then re signed him to Geffen,
Speaker 1: as you know the story. But but but you know, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we we we were. He used
Speaker 1: to come over from l A. And when when we
Speaker 1: knew he was coming, we would turn the air conditioning
Speaker 1: up so so high in the studio that it was
Speaker 1: fucking freezing just about ten minutes before he came into
Speaker 1: the studio. So when he came in, you could see
Speaker 1: him flinch because he was like Mr. California guy, and
Speaker 1: it was so cold, and but we pretended that it
Speaker 1: wasn't that cold. So we sat him down and played
Speaker 1: him the songs and we were freezing, but we wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it because we wanted that, you know, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't and it was childish, you know, but but we
Speaker 1: wanted our thing, you know. And Peter was fearless, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, he wanted it to be
Speaker 1: different and m and we knew we had something good there.
Speaker 1: But but but but it came out of joy, even
Speaker 1: though as I say the album is very dark. Um
Speaker 1: and I no, I never thought about working with him again.
Speaker 1: In those days, there was you know, there were so
Speaker 1: many records, and I never thought it was my job
Speaker 1: to stay with an artist forever. You know, you can,
Speaker 1: you know, you can argue that the George Martin model.
Speaker 1: But I liked the idea In those days. I used
Speaker 1: to think that I can work with so many different artists.
Speaker 1: It's why shouldn't you you know. I had sort of
Speaker 1: idea with you too. I I after every single album
Speaker 1: of theirs, I said no, I don't want to do
Speaker 1: the next one, and they said, okay, but can you
Speaker 1: do the next one? I went all right then, Literally
Speaker 1: I gave them an out after every time I worked
Speaker 1: with them, and they always asked me back for the
Speaker 1: first three. Um. But but no. With with Peter, it
Speaker 1: was yeah, it was that that air conditioning. That's a
Speaker 1: true story. We used to do it just for fun, really,
Speaker 1: because we wanted because you know, Colodner's idea of the
Speaker 1: best record in the world was the one that sold
Speaker 1: the most, you know, I mean that was literally his
Speaker 1: way of thinking, and and we tended to disagree with that.
Speaker 1: Graciously we disagree with that, Mr Colodna, the best record
Speaker 1: in the world is not the one that sells the most.
Speaker 1: Now I can understand what he was talking about, but
Speaker 1: I as it was such a a a a an
Speaker 1: idea that he that he when he said that, it
Speaker 1: was like, how can you say that? It was so
Speaker 1: against what we were doing for us? You know that's
Speaker 1: that that you know we immediate I immediately lost any
Speaker 1: respect for him. Okay, how did you en they're poking
Speaker 1: up with you two? With you two? They that there
Speaker 1: was you remember Factory Records. Factory Records. Tony Wilson was
Speaker 1: a good friend of our What a lovely man, What
Speaker 1: a lovely lovely literally the most educated man in the
Speaker 1: music business. You would walk through me and Chester he
Speaker 1: would point stuff out. It's like unbelievable. I would just
Speaker 1: be quiet. He was a fan of information, Yeah he was.
Speaker 1: He was brilliant. And of course he had Factory Records,
Speaker 1: which had Joy Division. Now Joy Division had a producer
Speaker 1: called Martin Hannett and Martin Hanne. He was all parts
Speaker 1: of Joy. He was almost like a fifth member of
Speaker 1: Joy Division. He he was their sound. He put them
Speaker 1: all to He was a bit older than them. Obviously,
Speaker 1: and so you two when they were looking for their
Speaker 1: first producer, they chose Martin Hannett. And you know in
Speaker 1: those days when you and and Martin Hannet went and
Speaker 1: recorded one single with them and they loved it, song
Speaker 1: called the eleven o'clock TikTok, and they asked him to
Speaker 1: produce the album. Well, what happened was that Ian Curtis
Speaker 1: from Joy Division committed suicide and Martin Hannitt um decided
Speaker 1: it really affected him in a bad way. And and
Speaker 1: you know, because he was like really close close to
Speaker 1: Joy Division, and so he said to YouTube that he
Speaker 1: couldn't produce their album. So you two then went back
Speaker 1: to their list of producers. A number two on the
Speaker 1: list was Steve lily White. So I got this is
Speaker 1: a funny story. I got flown to the West coast
Speaker 1: of Ireland to see a gig and I was told
Speaker 1: I would be met by a Mr McGinnis. Now in
Speaker 1: those days, in those days, if you are if you
Speaker 1: in you're met by a Mr McGinnis at Cork airport.
Speaker 1: I was really expecting a guy on a tractor with
Speaker 1: with straw out of his ears. You know, get to
Speaker 1: the airport, come off, Hello, Steve, Paul McGinnis here as
Speaker 1: you know him, right, And I, oh, hope Paul, and
Speaker 1: come with me. So we got in his car and
Speaker 1: we drove forty minutes to the gig, during which point
Speaker 1: he started to play the worst sounding demos I had
Speaker 1: ever heard. I mean, honestly, they were just so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: But for him, he was in salesman mode. You know,
Speaker 1: Paul McGinnis is a fantastic salesman. And he never once
Speaker 1: came to the student. He never gave an opinion on
Speaker 1: his artist's art because for him, why would he question
Speaker 1: his artists art if he was their manager. They do
Speaker 1: the art, he does the business, you know very much.
Speaker 1: He was that sort of a manager who I as
Speaker 1: a producer I love because he never questioned what we
Speaker 1: were doing in the studio. So anyway, he was like
Speaker 1: selling me on this terrible sounding demo in the car
Speaker 1: on his terrible shitty car speakers, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was my heart was starting to sink um. And then
Speaker 1: we we we got to the gig and it was
Speaker 1: in a in a in a school hall, and literally
Speaker 1: all the boys were on one side and all the
Speaker 1: girls were on the other side, and and I'm and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm standing in the middle, and I have only
Speaker 1: twenty three years old, but I feel old, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: So the band came on straightaway into I Will Follow,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh great, you know. So then it
Speaker 1: was a good gig. And there was something, you know,
Speaker 1: like everyone in those days, was that there's something about
Speaker 1: this band, you know, So we went to meet them
Speaker 1: stage afterwards. They had the personalities of teenage boys, which
Speaker 1: is basically mumbling, you know, but when they were on stage,
Speaker 1: they were not. You know that Borrow very much became
Speaker 1: out of his body, you know, he he um, he would.
Speaker 1: He's very able to get to a place that other
Speaker 1: people get to only with drugs, you know, that that thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, drugs can get you to a
Speaker 1: very creative place. But I mean, I'm sober. I told
Speaker 1: you twenty three years I only got my Grammars after
Speaker 1: I got sober, and so you can be creative without that.
Speaker 1: But some people but but it's all but it's more difficult,
Speaker 1: you know. You can, you can to get to that
Speaker 1: place and and and Bono manages to get to that
Speaker 1: place without without external stimulation. And I think that maybe faith,
Speaker 1: you know, it may maybe a god belief that that
Speaker 1: that gives him that ability to just because he's the
Speaker 1: most cat handed person, you know. He's like, he's famously
Speaker 1: a bad a bad driver. Everyone says, don't get in
Speaker 1: a car with borrow, you know. But but he's like
Speaker 1: a ballet dancer on stage. But he's the most clumsy
Speaker 1: person you'll ever meet outside, you know, So he has
Speaker 1: this ability to just just become this uh, this swan
Speaker 1: when he's on stage. Now, living in Los Angeles, we
Speaker 1: had k Rock, which immediately when and I will follow.
Speaker 1: I certainly bought the album for a long time until
Speaker 1: our two baby. I was convinced it was the best one.
Speaker 1: Did you know what you had after making Boy? No?
Speaker 1: And you know what, they didn't either. No one really
Speaker 1: knew it's only and it was funny twenty year anniversary
Speaker 1: of Boy and and it was remastered and the band
Speaker 1: had to listen to the remastering and and and I
Speaker 1: think they've never heard the album obviously you don't, you
Speaker 1: know you you live, but they had to check the remastering.
Speaker 1: And I got a phone call from Bono's Steve our
Speaker 1: debut album, it's fucking great, you know, And I went well, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you Bow, you know, because he didn't know, and
Speaker 1: he listened to all the production values and all the
Speaker 1: like weird little things that I did, and you know,
Speaker 1: and and for him it was like just you know, fantastic.
Speaker 1: And he actually went out and really gave you know,
Speaker 1: he truly believed it was a great album. Only on
Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary, but he did say to me, Steve,
Speaker 1: it's really great. But there is one thing I don't like.
Speaker 1: I said, what's that? Mosis? I don't like the singer
Speaker 1: good Now, the Edge is famous for creating sounds with
Speaker 1: effects in the studio. How much time did you spend
Speaker 1: getting those sounds? Oh? Well, you know, Edge Edges famous
Speaker 1: for spending of his time getting the sound and one
Speaker 1: percent of the time recording it. You know, I mean
Speaker 1: that's his thing. I mean Edges a sonic. Uh. You know.
Speaker 1: Edge is the scientist of the band. He's the one
Speaker 1: he wears a white coat with with with pains in
Speaker 1: his top pocket and and and his slow and methodical
Speaker 1: and and and that's him. He's never perturbed. You know,
Speaker 1: very rarely does Edge get incredibly enthusiastic, And very rarely
Speaker 1: does he get incredibly down. He is the steady turtle,
Speaker 1: you know. He he's slow but steady. Botto is the
Speaker 1: fucking headless chicken, you know. As you know, Okay, you've
Speaker 1: had those guys right, you made these three record it,
Speaker 1: then they move on with you know. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of like Godfather three. They always pull you in. What's
Speaker 1: that about? And it seems like every recordgend to working
Speaker 1: out anyway. It's it's true. And and this is thanks
Speaker 1: to Mr McGinnis, who is very very very black and
Speaker 1: white in his thinking. Because it was on the Joshua Tree.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything on Unforgettable Fire, you know, but
Speaker 1: but when the Joshua Tree was being made, they basically, um,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're eighteen months into the album. They've they've
Speaker 1: you know, and they had a meeting with Paul and
Speaker 1: so so legend has it. Paul said, look, you know,
Speaker 1: you're a big band, but we've got everyone on salary.
Speaker 1: We need to get out. We need to finish this
Speaker 1: album because we can't keep recording forever. And and he
Speaker 1: said when you you know, and he said, when you
Speaker 1: were recorded with Steve, you made records in like three
Speaker 1: months maximum, you know. By war took about three months.
Speaker 1: I think boy took six weeks October two months, and
Speaker 1: he said, why don't you get Steven maybe he can
Speaker 1: he can help finish off the album. So the band went, okay, great,
Speaker 1: so they invited me back and um and basically they
Speaker 1: were they were. They gave me the songs that they
Speaker 1: felt were the most For some reason, with them, I
Speaker 1: had this sort of reputation as the guy who would
Speaker 1: do the singles, you know, I was the guy. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just mixing it says mixed by but that
Speaker 1: that is not much. It's much more like a relay race,
Speaker 1: you know, a YouTube. And now many people make records
Speaker 1: this way, funnily enough, but this was probably the first
Speaker 1: relay race that that um that in recording it. So basically,
Speaker 1: but Brian you know, and Danny Lanoir said to me
Speaker 1: they were they were burnt out on where the streets
Speaker 1: have no name. So they basically handed the baton to
Speaker 1: me and my job was to just carry on the
Speaker 1: production while they went and worked on One Tree Hill
Speaker 1: and some you know, some of the more obscure songs
Speaker 1: on site too, which still had to be finished, you know.
Speaker 1: But but I was like the guy I was ready
Speaker 1: dare I've always thought that that was my um my
Speaker 1: job with you two, okay, but what it like working
Speaker 1: on tracks that you didn't cut, that aren't finished and
Speaker 1: it was fine? You know. It's like I'm as I say,
Speaker 1: I'm there's no rules in my book, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm never confident enough to to to to have any
Speaker 1: specific definite as to what I do. I mean, I
Speaker 1: had this drum sound, you know, in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and I used to pretty much try and do this
Speaker 1: drum sound on all my records until I did an
Speaker 1: album with Marshall Crenshaw and I did that drum sound
Speaker 1: and completely fucking in the album, you know. So so
Speaker 1: I realized that that's not a rule, you know. So
Speaker 1: I don't have any rules about anything. I just I
Speaker 1: use something in the back of my you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a faith I have, you know, even though I
Speaker 1: have no God God belief, I have a faith in
Speaker 1: humans and that if me and people get together, we
Speaker 1: can make something greater than what they can make on
Speaker 1: their own or what I can make on my own.
Speaker 1: Just some magic that that that we can come up with. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell us about the drum sound that that's just a
Speaker 1: load of you know, it's well with you two, And
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of this fact that that that Ireland
Speaker 1: had made rock stars before you too, you know thin
Speaker 1: Lizzie boomtown Rats, Rory Gallagher and Taste, you know, some
Speaker 1: very good artists, but they'd all had to they'd all
Speaker 1: gone to London to make their records. No one had
Speaker 1: made a rock album in um, in Dublin or in Ireland.
Speaker 1: And you two wanted to do their first album in Ireland.
Speaker 1: And and I remember walking into Windmill Lane Studios and
Speaker 1: in the actual studio area it was made for recording
Speaker 1: Irish folk music. It was very dead sounding um you know,
Speaker 1: so if you clip your hands it would you don't
Speaker 1: hear any echo. There was nothing. It was like not
Speaker 1: exciting sound and it's shit, I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: a great sound out of this. But actually when you
Speaker 1: walk through reception to get into the studio, there was
Speaker 1: this big area where the receptionists sat with the uh
Speaker 1: you know, there's no mobile phone so if you wanted
Speaker 1: to get and there was also winbill Lane was not
Speaker 1: just a recording studio, it was a video editing thing.
Speaker 1: There was three floors. The studio was in the in
Speaker 1: the ground floor, in the basement, so she sat there
Speaker 1: and the phone calls would come in and she would
Speaker 1: direct it off to different departments. You know, you remember
Speaker 1: the states right when when um so and I clapped
Speaker 1: my hands out there and it sounded like they had
Speaker 1: these stolen things on the on the waters handed great
Speaker 1: and I said, oh, so I got the studio manager.
Speaker 1: I said, look, I'd like to record the drums out here, please,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me like I was smoking crack
Speaker 1: and he said, no, this is where the all right, Steve,
Speaker 1: this is where the you know, tried to bad Irish accent.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this is where the receptionists. I said, well,
Speaker 1: what time did she go home? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: she goes home at six o'clock. I said, okay, well
Speaker 1: we'll set the drums up after six o'clock, at which
Speaker 1: point I got into trouble with Larry Mullins dad, because
Speaker 1: Larry was only seventeen and his dad used to come
Speaker 1: and collect him from the studio every day, so I had,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to placate his dad. And but
Speaker 1: we set the drums up outside and they sounded fantastic
Speaker 1: and and I and I'm very proud that I made
Speaker 1: this this sort of you know, punk It was sort
Speaker 1: of punk psychedelic tyme album. But but even then, you
Speaker 1: know that the Clever Money was not on YouTube. The
Speaker 1: Clever Money was on Julian Cope with Teardrop explodes. The
Speaker 1: Clever Money was on Echo and the money Men. You know,
Speaker 1: no one really put their money on YouTube. But you know,
Speaker 1: a mixture of of of dedication, a mixture of of
Speaker 1: mcguinness's vision of seeing the world rather than seeing the
Speaker 1: front cover of Enemy. I think, you know, to be honest,
Speaker 1: a lot of these artists once they got you know,
Speaker 1: for instance, Echo on the Money Men especially, you know,
Speaker 1: once a one once u their singer had been on
Speaker 1: the front cover of The Enemy, It's like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: the biggest star in the world. You know. It's that,
Speaker 1: It's that mentality you two have, that sort of you
Speaker 1: know again had the fear of it. I think they
Speaker 1: had fear as well, you know, fear is it? Is
Speaker 1: it great driving force? Is there any you two album,
Speaker 1: whether the Unforgettable Fire that you didn't work on. I
Speaker 1: didn't work on Pop, I didn't work on one of
Speaker 1: the songs of something or other, They all they will
Speaker 1: mix up to me, Roy Roy, Roy Ray, So what
Speaker 1: did you What do you do? Because my other favorite
Speaker 1: is like Couldn't Baby, which is really on many levels
Speaker 1: of left field record from what came before? What do
Speaker 1: you do on that? I worked on? Oh god, my
Speaker 1: least favorite of all you two songs is Who's going
Speaker 1: to Ride Your fucking Wild Horses? I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: great story about that. Apparently, you know, they've had Joshua
Speaker 1: Tree and act on Baby and it was very successful.
Speaker 1: So it seemed like and they were still having trouble
Speaker 1: with acting Baby, similar thing, you know, to you know,
Speaker 1: eighteen months into recording. Oh my god, it's not finished.
Speaker 1: What can we do? We have to you know, one thing,
Speaker 1: it was like, it couldn't be anything like Joshua Tree.
Speaker 1: The idea was, you know, it had to be a
Speaker 1: complete you know, Bollo said this, we had to chop
Speaker 1: down the Joshua Tree. Very melodramatic, but you know, the
Speaker 1: idea was, we had to make a record that was
Speaker 1: not that was not like the Joshua Tree. And so
Speaker 1: I got invited in again to come and do my
Speaker 1: thing to the Redder. Dare come and pull it in,
Speaker 1: come and finish off the the important songs, you know.
Speaker 1: So I did even better than the Real Thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a great song. I love that song. But
Speaker 1: I was given Who's going to Ride Your Wild Horses?
Speaker 1: And and I have to say I I worked a
Speaker 1: month on that song, and I and I there's not
Speaker 1: very many songs that I twitch when I hear, you know,
Speaker 1: like you can see me. But the listener, if they're
Speaker 1: still listening, they've probably gone by now this one. And
Speaker 1: I'll believe they're riveted. Oh maybe they're not. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I would twitch when when I still do
Speaker 1: whenever I hear it, because you know, for me production wise.
Speaker 1: But but but let me go back. The reason there
Speaker 1: was so much emphasis on that song was that they
Speaker 1: were having a meeting with Jimmy Irvine and they were
Speaker 1: playing rough mixes of Acting Baby, and like Jimmy, Jimmy
Speaker 1: was just a friend, you know, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think he was there, or maybe he was their their
Speaker 1: A and R guy at the time, But anyway, they
Speaker 1: were meeting with Jimmy Irvine and and he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, confused because you two had become a rock
Speaker 1: band and that in America at the time was considered
Speaker 1: the most, um the greatest thing. They had no problem
Speaker 1: with rock bands. YouTube always had a problem being a
Speaker 1: rock band, you know. They didn't want to be a
Speaker 1: rock band. They wanted to to be an arts band,
Speaker 1: you know. So um So, Jimmy, I think was a
Speaker 1: little bit confused. I think when he heard Acting Baby
Speaker 1: until and they were they were listening to the songs
Speaker 1: and and they were talking about this new thing called
Speaker 1: house music. Right, And as they were talking about house music,
Speaker 1: Who's going to Ride Your Wild Horses? Came on the
Speaker 1: stereo and you guys, hey, yeah, that's some hart of
Speaker 1: the music. That's fucking house music. You can buy a
Speaker 1: new fucking house with that song, you know. So it
Speaker 1: had got the blessing of Jimmy Irvy because it was
Speaker 1: a house music, meaning you could buy a new house
Speaker 1: with that right as opposed to Manchester. Okay, that record
Speaker 1: was famously cut in Berlin. Does location effect the recording? Okay,
Speaker 1: that record was not cutting Berlin, of that record was
Speaker 1: cut back in Dublin. But the idea, and this is
Speaker 1: where you too succeed for me, is when they have
Speaker 1: a big idea, the big idea of the Joshua Tree
Speaker 1: was the desert, and I think that you feel that
Speaker 1: when you hear that album. The big idea for Acting
Speaker 1: Baby was Eastern Europe. They sort of stole it from
Speaker 1: Bowie and you know, but that's okay. That was the
Speaker 1: big idea for that album. The big idea for Um
Speaker 1: All that you Can't Leave Behind was retrospection. They absolutely
Speaker 1: managed to get that right. You know. Now, some big
Speaker 1: ideas don't work, you know. The big idea for No
Speaker 1: Line on the Horizon was North Africa, was belly Dancers,
Speaker 1: was hookers. They went to North Africa to record the album.
Speaker 1: None of that is you know, they were chasing a
Speaker 1: hit instead of keeping to their big idea, you know,
Speaker 1: the big idea when they when they get it right,
Speaker 1: they nail it. Okay, let's just go back to the
Speaker 1: drum sound. I think he said, let's just load back
Speaker 1: more times with me than everything my talk to with Crenshaw.
Speaker 1: What was the specific drum sound you use that clap
Speaker 1: brings up. Oh, well, he had his first album where
Speaker 1: he was considered you know, like Buddy Holly with the Glasses,
Speaker 1: and it was all there for his second album. You
Speaker 1: know that the album I did was called field Day,
Speaker 1: and I basically recorded I mean, I just put this
Speaker 1: really big ambiance sort of sound on it. And and
Speaker 1: he will still he he will defend that album. And
Speaker 1: subsequently I've had people say to me, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: special little gem that album. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever heard it called field all right, Well, the song
Speaker 1: if ever You're on my Mind, whenever You're Whenever You're
Speaker 1: on my mind. Yeah, it's got a great sound, like exactly.
Speaker 1: But at the time I think people were slightly confused
Speaker 1: by the sound because they expected Marshall Grenshaw to come
Speaker 1: out sounding a lot less sort of cluttery. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: something I don't know if cluttery is a word. Sticky.
Speaker 1: Sticking with the drum sound, though, legend has it that
Speaker 1: you invented the gated drum sound. Is that true? Would
Speaker 1: you agree with? Well, I I certainly can lay claim
Speaker 1: to that, even though you know that it was a
Speaker 1: team effort like anything. You know, I only work as
Speaker 1: a team. I'm not you know, I've said this all along.
Speaker 1: You know, team efforts are what what I believe in.
Speaker 1: And yes, I it was certainly refined on the on
Speaker 1: the Pieter Gabriel album. But a lot of people call
Speaker 1: it gated reverb. It's actually just it's a gated ambience.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever used a gated reverb on
Speaker 1: anything in my life. I use a natural sound of
Speaker 1: a room, and I gate that. But you know, no
Speaker 1: one wants to hear technical stuff. They want to hear
Speaker 1: stories of drug taking with Keith. Okay, okay, so speaking
Speaker 1: and so tell us the story of working with the
Speaker 1: story of the Stones. Well, you know, basically, a real
Speaker 1: man never turns down the rolling stones, you know, And
Speaker 1: back in those days, I considered myself a real man,
Speaker 1: even though I knew the moment I got in there
Speaker 1: and I heard and well, okay, they they they auditioned
Speaker 1: a handful of producers. Basically, I think Mick Jagger called
Speaker 1: up this is how I heard the story, called up
Speaker 1: Elton John and said, who is there? We need a producer.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's there's a lot of tension in
Speaker 1: the studio at the moment. We need someone to diffuse
Speaker 1: the situation, you know. And I'll tell you why there
Speaker 1: was tension when I get to it. We need to
Speaker 1: diffuse the situation. Who is there? And Elton John, who
Speaker 1: you probably know still gets the top ten every week.
Speaker 1: He's an absolute because he's you know, the great thing
Speaker 1: about Elders that he's never written a lyric in his life,
Speaker 1: so he never feels like anyone is his competition because
Speaker 1: he's just a fan, you know, because really, a lyric
Speaker 1: writer is the one who shows their dirty underwear. No
Speaker 1: one else shows their dirty underwear, right, it's a lyric
Speaker 1: writer who shows their dirty fucking underwear. So Elton is
Speaker 1: completely oh, listen to anyone's lyrics because I have nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, I will never think something. There's no Carton,
Speaker 1: will never think anyone's lyrics are better than mine. So
Speaker 1: Elton said, well, there's this guy, you know, Steve Lillywhite.
Speaker 1: I like the sound of him. And there's so and so,
Speaker 1: and then said so I went and and the audition
Speaker 1: was to hang out with the Stones in Paris for
Speaker 1: the night, you know, in the studio, so they were
Speaker 1: working only you know, no one got the studio till
Speaker 1: about one in the morning, you know. So I remember meeting.
Speaker 1: When I arrived for my session, it was just as
Speaker 1: Rupert Hein was leaving. Who's a mate who was a
Speaker 1: mate of mine and lovely rightly man. And I hear
Speaker 1: from his widow. Yeah, probably I used to. I used
Speaker 1: to hear from him, but now I hear from the
Speaker 1: widow and he um, he's one of the He was
Speaker 1: one of the nicest guys. I don't think he would
Speaker 1: have lasted with not right for stones. But but I
Speaker 1: somehow managed to get the job, you know. And but
Speaker 1: but from from the moment I walked in, I realized
Speaker 1: when where you know, it was just after Nick's first
Speaker 1: solo album had been released, and you know, which was
Speaker 1: affectionately known as that fucking disco album by all in
Speaker 1: the studio. So I thought, oh, oh, now I know
Speaker 1: why they need to They want someone else to an
Speaker 1: arbitrator at least, you know. So I um, so my
Speaker 1: job was as much Henry Kissinger, you know, because I
Speaker 1: would have Mick going go and tell it because they
Speaker 1: never spoke to each other. Literally, they didn't speak, you know,
Speaker 1: even when they were out jamming, and they would jam
Speaker 1: a lot, and and you know, but I mean we
Speaker 1: did Harlem Shuffle, which was okay, I mean it was
Speaker 1: a cover version of an old Bob and our song
Speaker 1: we did. I mean, there was a song called one
Speaker 1: hit to the Body that was acceptable, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a great album. They never toured it. And I always
Speaker 1: said I did the worst Rolling Stones album ever until
Speaker 1: the next one. You know, I don't I I you
Speaker 1: know they but you know, the Rolling Stones were, yeah,
Speaker 1: hey that I don't put them in one of my
Speaker 1: greatest bands. I think they you know, they were a
Speaker 1: great blues band, but I don't, you know. And they
Speaker 1: were very true to the roots, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: Keith richards Is is like as faithful to his music
Speaker 1: as he is to his wife, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: a very honorable that's a very honorable thing. Tell me
Speaker 1: the story of doing the Times and Twins in the
Speaker 1: Name of Love. I'm a huge Times and Twins fan,
Speaker 1: and I remember hearing that radio immediately had to buy it.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't really sound like they're big records thereaft No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And it doesn't sound like what they were
Speaker 1: like before that as well, because um I spoke to
Speaker 1: Tom Bailey the other day actually he was in in
Speaker 1: quarantine in Auckland. He's such a lovely man, such absolutely
Speaker 1: lovely man. Um. Because you know, as you get older,
Speaker 1: you realize that if you don't speak to various people,
Speaker 1: you probably will never speak to them again. Because listen,
Speaker 1: when our contemporaries are dying, it is so strange. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, when you can see if the end is
Speaker 1: in sight, you say, well, what do I want to comment?
Speaker 1: I was talking to my shrink today. It's like I
Speaker 1: can't read every book. I can't watch every movie, can't
Speaker 1: listen every record. I have to choose it. It It makes
Speaker 1: me crazy. Before he said, I'll get to it. I'll
Speaker 1: get to it. No, I'm never gonna get to it. No, Well,
Speaker 1: I I don't care about I'd much rather be I'm
Speaker 1: a people person. So I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: that I get to speak to my old friends because
Speaker 1: you know, I know there's going to be a point
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh wait, maybe it's me. You know,
Speaker 1: who's the next one to go? You know, m absolutely so. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in the name in the name of Okay. So, before
Speaker 1: that song, the Thompson Twins were a sort of rag
Speaker 1: tag and tale hippie dippy band, six piece, seven piece
Speaker 1: band who played sort of psychedelic long pieces, you know,
Speaker 1: And we were doing the album in Rack studios in London,
Speaker 1: and it was an okay album It wasn't great, but
Speaker 1: it was at the very end of that album um
Speaker 1: and this Rat Studios was owned by Mickey Most who
Speaker 1: was like a legendary British producer and he um and
Speaker 1: he just took uh. He bought this new thing called
Speaker 1: this new drum machine called a movement drum machine, and
Speaker 1: it was put in the studio. Tom suddenly started playing
Speaker 1: it and got this immediate like rush of creativity. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, for me as a producer, it
Speaker 1: was not like, oh it is I said great, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's where the enthusiasm comes in. You see someone
Speaker 1: being creative, you have to push them because you never
Speaker 1: know when they're not going to be creative, you know.
Speaker 1: So when they're being creative, my job is to is
Speaker 1: to to make sure everything is going well. So he
Speaker 1: started doing the drumbeat and then started you know, and
Speaker 1: he wrote the song there on the drum machine, and
Speaker 1: we did it and you know, and and and it
Speaker 1: was so different from the rest of the album. And
Speaker 1: I still think it's the only song I've ever had
Speaker 1: in the dance charts because in general, I didn't pick
Speaker 1: records with drum machines, and I you know, I much
Speaker 1: prefer a real drummer. But Tom's enthusiasm was so great.
Speaker 1: And when we made this record, and of course then
Speaker 1: you know they went on and and and and carried on.
Speaker 1: But but but you know it wasn't you know that
Speaker 1: that their music subsequently was not necessarily my style? You know,
Speaker 1: I loved because you know, I would not say anything
Speaker 1: bad about it, because you know, when you know someone,
Speaker 1: you give them the benefits of the doubt for their art.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know. Okay, okay, since you mentioned rack, Hey,
Speaker 1: does the studio make a difference? Be do you have
Speaker 1: a preferred studio? Three? Would you rather have the band
Speaker 1: live in their hometown or to relocate to make the rest? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god? Ay do I have a favorite studio? Well,
Speaker 1: in those days, the two prerequisits three prerequisites. One was
Speaker 1: that it was near where I lived, because I needed
Speaker 1: to get there. Two, I liked a good live area
Speaker 1: where I could if I wanted to, or some of
Speaker 1: the times where I always did make that drum sound.
Speaker 1: And three they had to have a table tennis table.
Speaker 1: Are you a good pink plank player? You know what
Speaker 1: I picked up about yesterday for the first time in
Speaker 1: about three years and I was useless, so I can't say,
Speaker 1: but I had the skills in those wis do you
Speaker 1: do you know that the big thing in Russian now
Speaker 1: and it spread around the world, is betting on people
Speaker 1: playing table tennis table you see, I called it table
Speaker 1: tennis rather than pin point. But as I said, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe this. These are not star players. But there's
Speaker 1: a whole thing. You watch it on YouTube. Your bet
Speaker 1: it's crazy. So anyway you want a table tennis that, honestly, literally,
Speaker 1: those are the three things U would I take a
Speaker 1: band look with U? I always said. With the first
Speaker 1: three Dave Matthews albums I did, we recorded them. We
Speaker 1: we went away to record them, you know, the first
Speaker 1: two in Bearsville in upstate New York and the third
Speaker 1: one at the plant in in Sorcelita. Now this was
Speaker 1: great because we we went there for a specific time
Speaker 1: to make the album and we and it was great.
Speaker 1: Now for the fourth album, they wanted me back, They said, Steve,
Speaker 1: we want to do this album. We built our own
Speaker 1: studio in Charlottesville. I said, okay, but let me warn
Speaker 1: you from my experience, it will it will go from
Speaker 1: making an album to going to work. Big difference when
Speaker 1: you're making an album because you're away from your home,
Speaker 1: you're somewhere else and you're making an album. If you're
Speaker 1: living in your home and you have a studio in
Speaker 1: your hometown, you are not making an album. You are
Speaker 1: going to work. And of course when you're going to work,
Speaker 1: you can start complaining about it. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the band members started, you know, there was it was
Speaker 1: going on longer, and I warned them, this album will
Speaker 1: take longer because you are in your hometown. You have
Speaker 1: other things going on in your life. And and of
Speaker 1: course I you know, I got fired. My rough mixes
Speaker 1: went on to Napster. At the height of Napster, it's
Speaker 1: still the most downloaded bootleg album in history, called the
Speaker 1: Lily White Sessions. You know, I always say I got
Speaker 1: heartfully aware of this from I downloaded these, the fact
Speaker 1: that they ultimately went to uh, Greg Glenn Ballard. Do
Speaker 1: you give a ship that your stuff, you know, wasn't
Speaker 1: releasing that time? You say here that to business. No,
Speaker 1: I got all the kudos and none of the cash.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, you know, when
Speaker 1: I die, I'm a legend in that world. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know that's that sounds very arrogant, doesn't it. But
Speaker 1: you know I got that band. You know, Glenn Ballard
Speaker 1: just wanted to make pop record and that's fine, you know,
Speaker 1: but um but I'm glad that that my album has
Speaker 1: been validated. That that that because because I did a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, with Dave Matthews band. They would I would
Speaker 1: allow them just to play and I would do everything else.
Speaker 1: I would edit, I would make them, you know, I
Speaker 1: you know, but that's look, I I did very well
Speaker 1: from them, and you know, but I don't feel that
Speaker 1: connection with them like I do with you know, with
Speaker 1: you two. You know, I got you know when when
Speaker 1: when when I meet them, it's hugs and like hey
Speaker 1: hey hey, you know, with with them, it's it's not
Speaker 1: such a lovely inning. But that's life. Okay. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about the money. Traditionally, a producer gets a fee and
Speaker 1: hopefully you get royalties from record one. You gotta earn
Speaker 1: back whatever you've been paid. How has it worked out
Speaker 1: for you financially? Have you gotten the money you deserve?
Speaker 1: Are you stay you're still fighting for their money? Well,
Speaker 1: you get a fee, you get an advance against a royalty,
Speaker 1: meaning that yeah, you get paid from record one if
Speaker 1: you're very if you if you have that in your contract,
Speaker 1: whereas sometimes the artists don't get paid from record one
Speaker 1: because they have a big advance that they need to
Speaker 1: pay back, you know. But yeah, I mean I I
Speaker 1: had my my very early records. I didn't get very
Speaker 1: much because you sort of it's more about I want
Speaker 1: to do it rather than you know, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to give to get, you know, in that way.
Speaker 1: But but also a lot of those um, those early
Speaker 1: certainly those early virgin contracts, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: they were very artists unfriendly because you know, Andy Partridge
Speaker 1: one of the most talented guys I've ever worked with.
Speaker 1: Just you know, he's up there with with we need
Speaker 1: just so intricate, such fantastic. You know, he hasn't got
Speaker 1: what he's deserved, you know. And that sort of rubbed
Speaker 1: off on my money as well from that, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's but no, I've I've made a great living. I don't.
Speaker 1: For me, it's not about money. It's about what you
Speaker 1: leave behind them. And you can only spend so much
Speaker 1: and what do you what do you do? Did you
Speaker 1: blow your money or you have it, what do you
Speaker 1: do with the money? Oh? Look, for some reason, my
Speaker 1: apple watch just said he didn't understand what you said. Yes,
Speaker 1: so they really are listening in everywhere, Bob oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh god? So, um did I blow my mind? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I've never had that, even in in
Speaker 1: the sorts of crazier days. I wasn't like one of
Speaker 1: those people who bought a Rolls Royce and because I
Speaker 1: never moved to l a and for me, it was
Speaker 1: like I always worked. It was always about the work
Speaker 1: and the art, you know. And I was just not
Speaker 1: stupid enough to think that if I earn a million
Speaker 1: bucks this year, I need to live a million dollar
Speaker 1: a year lifestyle because I probably won't be earning a
Speaker 1: million dollars every year, you know. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: like some some sports stars still don't get that they
Speaker 1: think they're going to be playing basketball at the age
Speaker 1: of sixty five. You know, No, certainly in sports, you know,
Speaker 1: very in sports, it's very, very bad. I think it
Speaker 1: probably has changed now. I think they have financial advisors
Speaker 1: and it improved, but you know, it's still a problem.
Speaker 1: But let's go back. You talked about losing the wonder
Speaker 1: in the excitement just before you moved to Jakarta. Well,
Speaker 1: I was losing. Losing it's a little bit. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but let's just apply that to the music itself. For you,
Speaker 1: you seem to indicate earlier that the music itself changed
Speaker 1: or maybe your reaction there too. Can you plat? I
Speaker 1: mean when I listen, the Beatles came along, music drove
Speaker 1: the culture, and then it faded at the end of
Speaker 1: the seventies, and the MTV came along and it happened again.
Speaker 1: And there's certainly music it's successful. People have no idea.
Speaker 1: You're talking about the BBC earlier, how we were addicted
Speaker 1: to the radio. So when did it change and why
Speaker 1: did it change? Oh day, was just the technology changed
Speaker 1: and and and it's enabled the technology enabled people to
Speaker 1: make records in their homes and and the sort of
Speaker 1: you know, the recording studio is my church, you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's my religion. You know, as I say, I
Speaker 1: have no rules, but I actually do have one rule.
Speaker 1: I will not let anyone eat in the control room.
Speaker 1: You know, I won't let anyone it because because I
Speaker 1: the idea of smelly you know, eating at your workstation
Speaker 1: is bad enough. And that's a very American thing, by
Speaker 1: the way, people eating at their desk. But if you know,
Speaker 1: if there's a rule I say to someone when they
Speaker 1: come in munching a fucking burger with onions, I said,
Speaker 1: excuse me, could you go out? Because it's like you
Speaker 1: walked into church eating a fucking hamburger. It's just not right.
Speaker 1: And for me, the studio is this wonderful place of
Speaker 1: mystery like the churches too religious people, So I don't
Speaker 1: that's my one rule. I tell people not to eat
Speaker 1: in the control room. Um. But but but the sense
Speaker 1: of wonder, I mean, you don't have the sense of
Speaker 1: wonder as much when your first thing that you do
Speaker 1: is to turn on a you know, is to is
Speaker 1: to have sequences and and no musicians, and everyone's looking
Speaker 1: at the screen, you know. I think that's when you know.
Speaker 1: I've always used my ears, you know, my ears have
Speaker 1: been my thing, not my eyes. And now I think, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of people look to see what's wrong rather
Speaker 1: than listen to see what's wrong, you know. And I uh,
Speaker 1: but also given the way record everything has to be
Speaker 1: so christine and perfect because it's easy for it to
Speaker 1: be christine and perfect, whereas back in the day, our
Speaker 1: favorite records were all this wonderful sort of connection of smudginess,
Speaker 1: that that that that you just listened to and was
Speaker 1: we're just amazed by and every time you heard it,
Speaker 1: you heard something new and some you know, and it
Speaker 1: was mysterious. Maybe kids now find music mysterious, but I
Speaker 1: don't know whether they do. You know, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think anything with any real profile is mysterious. Now
Speaker 1: today the biggest genre is hip hop, and there's still pop.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of those records who died in
Speaker 1: the wall? Rocker? Oh? I'm I was never really a rocker.
Speaker 1: I've no, I never really. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: done power chords on a record in my life. I
Speaker 1: don't like power chords. It's the most uncreative way of
Speaker 1: making power. I've always tried to do other cover of dogs,
Speaker 1: working on UM. I've always tried to look for other
Speaker 1: ways to get the right sounds. So you know, I've
Speaker 1: I've always turned down those artists. You know, if we
Speaker 1: had time, I would tell you my Guns and Roses story.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna tell it? Did you brite it up? Oh? Okay,
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why I'm telling you this story. Okay, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: you know guns and roses, they are rocked royalty to
Speaker 1: Americans especially, and to many many people. So when I
Speaker 1: got the phone call that Axl wanted to meet me
Speaker 1: for Chinese democracy, and this was only a couple of
Speaker 1: years into it, you know, so it wasn't like this,
Speaker 1: you know, no one really knew that the red flags.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so they flew me to l A, you know,
Speaker 1: to meet to meet me, and and and we went
Speaker 1: to dinner, uh that one mccassie Japanese restaurant just over
Speaker 1: the hill of the Fame. Yeah, anyway, absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: I've forgot the name. So and you know, we get
Speaker 1: on great, you know, me Axel and his manager of
Speaker 1: the time. I can't dug someone another's gold team. So
Speaker 1: we're chatting and we're great, great, we got on. Well,
Speaker 1: we and he says, look, I've got the studio book
Speaker 1: for the next six months. Do you want to come
Speaker 1: to the studio? I said, yeah, great, So we went
Speaker 1: to the studio and we're in there and and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll play a few tracks. So he played me a
Speaker 1: few few tracks and and actually I thought, oh, I
Speaker 1: understand why he might want me on this album, I think,
Speaker 1: And I started to get excited. I said, but but
Speaker 1: all that they were just backing tracks, none of them
Speaker 1: had any vocals on. I said, do you have anything
Speaker 1: with vocals, because yeah, I have one song. So he
Speaker 1: played this one song with singing, and I suddenly went,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I've just realized I literally could never press
Speaker 1: the talk back and say that sounds really good, because
Speaker 1: for me, it would always sound better without singing, because no, no,
Speaker 1: and I and I and I'm and I'm honest about
Speaker 1: this and I and I and and my heart sunk
Speaker 1: because you know, I've forgotten that that, you know, for
Speaker 1: for some people, as I say, they loved the sound
Speaker 1: of his voice. For me, I didn't, And I maybe
Speaker 1: should have said that before I went to the meeting,
Speaker 1: But anyway, whatever, I just had this sinking feeling in
Speaker 1: my heart, but I didn't say anything. We finished the evening,
Speaker 1: I went back to the to the hotel. Next morning,
Speaker 1: Doug called me, Steve, you're in Axel things. You're fucking great,
Speaker 1: and well, actually, Doug, I I don't think I'm the
Speaker 1: right man for your album, and he goes, oh, really, blah,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah art. But you know you can't force
Speaker 1: someone to have sex with k so um so we
Speaker 1: I didn't go, and that would be the story. I
Speaker 1: would never have told this to you and your millions
Speaker 1: of adoring listeners, except the next issue of Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: comes out and it's axl Rose turns down Steve lily
Speaker 1: White and I got you. You should have just said nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, And so that's why I tell
Speaker 1: the story, because you know, if if I hadn't, if
Speaker 1: he hadn't said that, and they can set the record straight. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're obviously working. Are you working all day or
Speaker 1: is there anything else that fills the rest of the day,
Speaker 1: Your reader, your TV streamer. I'm a huge football soccer fan,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that's my thing. I well, Indonesia
Speaker 1: right now, Jakarta is is in what they call semi lockdown.
Speaker 1: I can go to my office at KFC, but I
Speaker 1: can also do a lot of work from home, you know,
Speaker 1: which everyone's a lot of people have realized they've realized
Speaker 1: that they don't have to go. But you know, I
Speaker 1: am a people person, so I do like to be
Speaker 1: with people. Um I restaurants here are open til eight
Speaker 1: o'clock in the evening at thirty capacity. But you know,
Speaker 1: I take a lot of I have a test every week,
Speaker 1: COVID test. I wash my hands, you know, I know
Speaker 1: lots of it. You know. It's the cases are starting
Speaker 1: to slowly, slowly built here because it's always you know,
Speaker 1: it's always centigrade thirty thirty two degrees. So I don't
Speaker 1: think you've double that. They have thirty two. So that's
Speaker 1: basically ninety six degrees. Yes, something is in ninety six Yeah,
Speaker 1: during the day at about twenty five at night. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's lovely and it's a little polluted,
Speaker 1: although less polluted now because of because there's less industry,
Speaker 1: you know, there's less going on, but less cars on
Speaker 1: the street. But I mean, I think I have to
Speaker 1: after it's right now, it's for you, it's what seven pm,
Speaker 1: right exactly seven pm? It's ten am for me, so
Speaker 1: I will yeah, I don't know yet, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a you know, okay, what do you what do you
Speaker 1: think about what's going on in Britain with Brexit, collvid, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And now that you live in Dakarda, well the whole
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so sad that, you know, Brexit
Speaker 1: was a problem that we didn't even know we had.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a problem. You know, David Cameron
Speaker 1: was actually not the worst Prime minister we had, but
Speaker 1: he did the worst thing ever to the British people.
Speaker 1: If you give if you only have a two horse
Speaker 1: race and you give them a choice this or this.
Speaker 1: I mean you look at American politics, Actually what happens
Speaker 1: is it normally splits very close to whatever, whether it's
Speaker 1: like the devil or gods. You know, it's um So,
Speaker 1: you know, no one really hated it wasn't a big deal. No,
Speaker 1: no one hated Europe. But you know Brexit comes about
Speaker 1: and all that, the lies being told about. You know,
Speaker 1: it's got to be done. We need our own sovereignty.
Speaker 1: It's bullshit, you know. All I all I know is
Speaker 1: that if you're in a storm on the ocean, would
Speaker 1: you rather be in a little rowing boat or would
Speaker 1: you rather be in the Queen Mary? You know, And
Speaker 1: that's pretty much where Britain is now. We're a little
Speaker 1: rowing boat. Now. Everyone goes, oh, yeah, but we've got
Speaker 1: far more vaccines at the moment. Yes, that's true, but
Speaker 1: you know, Um, it's because we're you know, you look
Speaker 1: at the huntries that have vaccinated the highest population are
Speaker 1: the ones with the you know, I mean Israel doesn't
Speaker 1: have a large population really, you know. So it's um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm very proud to be British, but
Speaker 1: I am a European as well, you know. Now I'm
Speaker 1: paying Okay, prior to COVID, how much did you get
Speaker 1: out of Karna? And where did you go? Oh? Well, Bali,
Speaker 1: of course is part of Indonesia, but there's that's only
Speaker 1: one of thousands of islands, and they're these fantastic places
Speaker 1: to visit, you know, which are sort of weakendable for me.
Speaker 1: So um. But also you know, I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I live to eat. You know, I don't eat to live.
Speaker 1: I live to eat. So for me, one thing that
Speaker 1: my lifestyle has enabled me is the ability to eat
Speaker 1: at probably the most expensive restaurant in the world. You know,
Speaker 1: how often, Bob, can you afford what is considered the
Speaker 1: best in the world of everything? I'll never be able
Speaker 1: to afford the best car in the world, now that's
Speaker 1: what I say. I use a much baser thing. I
Speaker 1: talk about chocolate chip cookies. If I'm meeting chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 1: Why I take the ones off the shelf. I can
Speaker 1: get the best chocolate chip cookie for fire under ten dollars.
Speaker 1: I can live like a king. Well, that's true, you know.
Speaker 1: And and one of the great things about food as
Speaker 1: a general art form is there are no um there
Speaker 1: no one owns the copyright on anything. So you know,
Speaker 1: you can go to a little village in Colombia and
Speaker 1: eat something, and you can take it to your restaurants
Speaker 1: in Ohio and tweak it, and then someone can come
Speaker 1: to your restaurant in Ohio and then take it to
Speaker 1: a restaurant in l A and then tweet. You know,
Speaker 1: So you get this wonderful getting better and better because
Speaker 1: it's all different people working together. You know, there's no
Speaker 1: copyright on any food, so I I you know, even
Speaker 1: in Jakarta we get great food. Indonesian food is pretty good.
Speaker 1: But the thing I love at the moment is my
Speaker 1: air fryer. Are you familiar with? What are you cooking
Speaker 1: your air fer anything? It's great for heating up, it's
Speaker 1: great for chicken, it's great for oh god, chicken livers
Speaker 1: in there are delicious. Um. Are you familiar with so
Speaker 1: not only do you eat, you know how to cook
Speaker 1: well a little bit, A little bit, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: really cook it off. Okay, one can cook with an
Speaker 1: air fried bob by yourself an air fryer. Okay. What's
Speaker 1: the best meal you've ever had? The best meal I've
Speaker 1: Oh god, I don't know. I mean, depends how hungry
Speaker 1: I am. But but have you eaten some of the
Speaker 1: great what is it normal? Have you eaten this ill bully?
Speaker 1: Is the is the best one? And I've been to
Speaker 1: a two mission. There's only three Michelin stars, right, And
Speaker 1: apparently someone told me the difference between a two Michelin
Speaker 1: Star restaurant and a three Michelin Star restaurant is only
Speaker 1: the service is the silver stood the actual quality of
Speaker 1: the food between the two and the three stars about
Speaker 1: the stay right. So I've been to a two Michelin
Speaker 1: Star in Singapore. Um, but you know, I'm always just
Speaker 1: you know, when I find something that I like. You know,
Speaker 1: the same with the chocolate chip cookies, I artias and
Speaker 1: all like. You know that the big thing in Indonesia
Speaker 1: at the moment, and I don't know about l A,
Speaker 1: is that is that people they sort of advertise on
Speaker 1: Instagram and stuff. You know, on this day we are
Speaker 1: doing a batch of this and if you wanted to
Speaker 1: order it, order it now and we'll deliver it to
Speaker 1: you on that day, you know. So you know my um.
Speaker 1: So there's one place that that does this clam chowder,
Speaker 1: but you know it's only every two or three weeks.
Speaker 1: So I always they have clam chowder in Jakarta. Yes,
Speaker 1: on sour dough. It's delicious. I loved a huge clam
Speaker 1: chowder fit And you don't have to give you three
Speaker 1: what's the clear? Okay? So what's your last meal? What
Speaker 1: kind of cuisine do you want? Oh? Oh? Japanese, followed
Speaker 1: by Italian. They are followed by Indian. I think those
Speaker 1: are my top three, I think, and then the Japanese.
Speaker 1: Would it be sushi, sushimi or would it be good dishes?
Speaker 1: So it would be sushi. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: greatest sushi in the world. I mean, you know those
Speaker 1: places in on Sunset which which are like which you know,
Speaker 1: not romantic at all, and you sit at the sushi
Speaker 1: bar and I love that you can spend a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred bucks in half an hour, you know, I
Speaker 1: just feed me for me, you know, I don't go
Speaker 1: This is the trouble with America is too much choice.
Speaker 1: If you have too much choice, you can hide. Mediocrity
Speaker 1: hides behind choice if you have Wow, that's a great statement.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before. Well no, I've never said
Speaker 1: it before, but it does it well. This is my
Speaker 1: idea that that that if you have less choice, it
Speaker 1: has to be good. Otherwise you would you would um,
Speaker 1: you would, you would go out of business. So if
Speaker 1: ever there's a restaurant that only serves one thing but
Speaker 1: it's busy, I would go there because I know if
Speaker 1: there's ever a business that only does one thing but
Speaker 1: it's a successful business, I know that it's it's great,
Speaker 1: you know, and Amakassie is pretty much that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's only what they find that day. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't tell someone how to cook my food.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like I don't tell someone how to
Speaker 1: cut my hair. I just don't go to that barber
Speaker 1: or I don't go to that restaurant. Again, great philosophy.
Speaker 1: You know, when when I talk about you the third parties,
Speaker 1: I say, Steve is completely opposite of what you think
Speaker 1: of a record producer, certainly Phil spector recently. Not someone
Speaker 1: who's introverted, lives the dark. Whatever. You're a guy who
Speaker 1: could be playing on the football team. As you say,
Speaker 1: you are a people person. Uh. You know, there's so
Speaker 1: many other sub next we could talk about, but I
Speaker 1: think we've come to the end of the feeling we've
Speaker 1: known for today's styes about if ever you need anything else,
Speaker 1: And look, it's been great. I loved it very good
Speaker 1: and I loved it too, and I know people love
Speaker 1: listening to it. Until next time this time, Okay,