You're currently sitting in your studio but there have been several Swamps over the years, haven't there?
Yes, The Swamp has been the name of my home studio everywhere I've moved. In the '70s, in my hometown of Suffolk, "The Swamp" was originally one of my teenage mentors; a really good lead guitarist who was the brother of Johnny Hates Jazz member, Mike Nocito. He figured out how to use two 2-track machines and overdub. That was probably '74 or '75, when we had a band and did cover songs of the Eagles and bands like that. The Nocitos were Italian-Americans, and their dad was the principal at the high school on this US Air Force base. That's where a lot of my musical influence came from, those guys getting Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, or albums that weren't necessarily on the radar for British radio at the time. These Air Force bases were incredible; it was a real culture shock going into those places. That's where I got my first bass guitar, a fancy Fender Precision, from the PX [post exchange].
How did that American immersion affect you in the mid-70s, while the punk rock explosion happened all around you?
It actually divided a lot of people. There were the people who were still listening to the Eagles and Steely Dan, and then there were guys like my best friend Chris, who bought right into the Ramones and threw all the other records out. I sat on the fence and thought, "Well, I still like those old records too." I liked the punk records, and I was in a punk band where we would cover the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, but then I was also in a nine-piece soul band that played the American Air Force bases.
Do you remember the first moment you became aware of recording gear and that recording was a "thing"?
Yes, absolutely. I had all the studio gear in my bedroom, like TEAC and ReVox tape recorders, and it would move from one guy's house to another, depending on when the parents would say, "That's it! Get that stuff out!" We'd rehearse, and I had a tiny bedroom with a piano and a set of drums in the corner. I had a go with these 2-track machines. You know that Todd Rundgren tune, "There Are No Words," where it's improvised, multitrack singing? I tried that. I started by singing the bass note, sitting at the piano going, "And then I'll sing this note, and then I'll sing that note." It was totally out of tune, but in a way it was like looking in a mirror and thinking, "Wow. I look good!"
And with recording, you can overdub.
Yes. Our band owned one pedal, which was this amazing phase/flanger thing. You know how Electric Light Orechestra's "Strange Magic" had this [flanged guitar]? I would put the mic through this phase pedal before it got to the tape machine. I'd use it on the piano and the drums, and it made it sound exotic. I'd be thinking, "Oh, I wonder what that would sound like?"
One of your song titles from Astral Drive is "Summer of '76", which is around the time you had discovered Todd Rundgren, right? What happened when you started to hear what Rundgren was up to on those records?
I was hanging around the Nocito household with Mike. We both loved Burt Bacharach and all kinds of "uncool" music like Jimmy Webb. One time Mike said, "You've gotta hear this!" I put on my headphones and he played me Todd's "Useless Begging." That was my big epiphany. From there I wanted to know how you could make a record sound like that. Of course now I can deconstruct it and hear that he'd borrowed some Beach Boys influences in the percussion, temple blocks and echo, the drum machine, and that he was probably playing a synth bass. There's also a very inaccurate clavinet or piano just about playing some chords. Yet it all adds up to a beautiful song, and it moved me. It still does.
How did you end up apprenticing with Mickie Most at RAK Studios?
My mum could see I was going nowhere academically, but that I was quite passionate about music and recording. RAK's studio manager was a friend, of a friend, of a friend, so I got an interview and I guess he liked the cut of my jib. At that time, the studio was very much that of, "you sit in the corner, you operate, and you shut up." The chief engineer on the first session even told me something to the effect of, "Don't talk. Do what you're told, and you'll get on." At a very young age, I got to see the recording studio as a career, first as a tape op, and as a tea boy at RAK Studios. Within the space of the first six months, I'd worked on orchestral recordings. I was the assistant on the sessions for Barry Manilow, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Jam. I'd done pop, punk, new wave, middle of the road, and all the music that came in. For the first two days I thought, "What is this crap?" Then, two weeks later, after the producer or whoever worked his or her magic, I'd realize, "Oh, actually yeah. I see what this is about."
Mickie Most made his name in the '60s with acts like The Yardbirds, The Animals, Donovan, and Herman's Hermits. Does that make you kind of a bridge to another era?
