When John Baccigaluppi and I interviewed Trevor Horn [Tape Op #89] in 2012 at his SARM West Studios, the name Stephen Lipson continually came up. For six years Trevor and Stephen worked together on many sonically groundbreaking and top-selling albums, with Stephen contributing production, engineering, mixing, programming, and guitars as well as a variety of other instruments. With records by Paul McCartney, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, Simple Minds, Annie Lennox, and Mike Oldfield under his belt, youâd think that Stephen could relax, but work carries on. Soundtrack mixing and production with Hans Zimmer led to producing this yearâs Billie Eilish James Bond theme âNo Time to Dieâ for the film of the same name â plus mixing the score and soundtrack. He is also in the process of producing a new Lionel Richie album, as well as mixing the soundtrack for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 film.
I found a fun news video from your SARM era in the â80s; the duo was called Act.
Oh, yeah.
You had MIDI running, and everything was sequenced and coming through the console from samplers and synthesizers. That was a great snapshot of you in that time, where youâre saying, âLook, we can change anything. This is how records are being made now.â What caused you to dive in and embrace new technology in the early â80s?
When computers first became affordable, there was a guy in the U.K. called Clive Sinclair. He made this computer called the ZX80. It was really small, with one of those keyboards where you press the membrane.
Oh, yeah. Little bubble tops?
Yeah, thatâs it. It had no RAM, no hard drive, nothing. But I was intrigued by it, and I programmed something; a game from a magazine. I copied the code into it, and it worked! I thought, âThis is remarkable.â I backed it up onto a cassette, and then loaded it up. I was always intrigued by the idea, the concept, of computing, because it was fascinating. This is all aside from being a musician; a parallel interest. When I started working at SARM, I canât quite remember why, but Trevor Horn bought a Synclavier [sampler]. For a few months it sat in the room. Every time we moved, it moved with us, and it was a huge rack!
Right, it wasnât small!
No, it was over 20U [rack spaces high] and obviously needed two people, up and down the stairs, from the studio upstairs to the studio downstairs. It had a big keyboard. Weâd be plugging the rack up and nobody used it. One day I said to him, âLook, why donât I see if I can get a noise out of this?â It became a quest. I ended up using it. I could say âprogrammer,â but Iâm not really a programmer. But thatâs sort of what I had to be to get what was in my head out of the machine. I hated it, absolutely hated it. But it was there. Then I found, as it got easier, it was such a great, convenient, spontaneous way to make music using this technology.
Right. To be able to control from sequencing and MIDI.
Not to replace musicians, but to have an idea and to realize it by using a computer. Thatâs what drew Frank Zappa to the whole idea as well; being able to have an idea and realize it exactly how you imagine it.
Right. He was doing quite a bit with that.
Yeah, big time.
Thatâs an interesting parallel to your production and engineering; being a musician and songwriter. That instant idea, or quicker creation of sounds, would make sense to me.
Actually, yes. But funnily enough, that gear is a curse when it comes to writing. I am guiltier than most, because I canât sing. I can help with top lines, so Iâll come up with an idea, and generally that will be created by a soft synth. Iâll hold a note. âOh, I like that.â That will inspire me to do something; I donât know what it is. We call it writing. I donât know. What Iâm saying is the gear is responsible for me not picking up a guitar and playing or coming up with a tune on the guitar. Itâs a bit of a curse, I would say.
Yeah. This was a fascinating time, where there were engineers, musicians, and producers who were pushing back against the way that records had been made. Now look where we are, where weâre assembling samples, loops, and bits and bobs and making a song.
Yeah. Now this is completely open for debate, and please strike me down when I say this, but from that era to now, it seems to me that the only progress weâve had is smaller, faster, and cheaper. Thatâs it. I donât know what else thereâs been. If you think about it, technology leads the arts. This gear, a laptop, can be in the hands of anyone, hence four bars that repeat and get louder and softer. I get it. Iâm as guilty as anyone, Iâm sure. We are the consequence of that, maybe.
Yeah. But any time the technology leads the way, there are people who donât take advantage of it in a creative way and do something very simple and uninteresting. Then there are people like you and Trevor Horn and such who take it and go, âHow can I make this compelling, emotional, and musical?â
Yeah, thereâs a saying for it, âThe tail wagging the dog.â The gear is there to be used, but not to command anything, one would hope. Of course, I contradicted that by saying how Iâm writing now. Iâve just done an album with some people, and my job was to come up with the tracks. Thatâs how I came up with the tracks; by getting a noise. The technology, the gear, did lead me into the writing mode, but thatâs what it is. Ideally the gear should serve us and not need us, I would like to think.
Yeah. But when you stumble across an accidental sample, synth patch, or a loop, thatâs only going to happen because of advances in technology.
Yeah, of course. Youâre absolutely right.
Recognizing those moments and looking back, I went and listened to Annie Lennoxâs Diva, and I thought, âDamn! It still sounds great!â
Yeah, but the technology didnât lead it. We used it, but it didnât lead it. Annie would sit with a keyboard, write the songs, and notate what she was coming up with.
A lot of times these days people are expecting recording gear to do more for them than it really does. To impart some kind of âmagicâ to the audio.
Yeah, of course. Itâs that thing, isnât it? We want it to sound like the â60s or the â70s. There was an artist who I spoke to the other day who wanted me to work on her record. She kept using the word âanalog.â I was very quiet, and then I said, âBefore we decide to jump into this, Iâve got to tell you I hate analog!â She said, âWhat do you mean?â I said, âI canât tell you how long Iâve only been inside Pro Tools. I donât use analog gear. I donât like it anymore.â She got back to my manager and said, âCan you find someone else whoâs into analog gear?â I thought, âThis is amazing! Talk about missing the point.â
Theyâre coming to you because they like the sound of a record youâve made.
Youâd think.
Itâs like saying that the only way youâre going to make a good record is to use this magical equipment, and none of what they liked about these albums came from you.
âItâs going to make the difference.â
Coaching somebody through a great vocal is far more important than putting it to tape.
Well, on a scale of 1 to 100, using tape wouldnât even touch 1 for me. It makes no difference. The only difference it makes is that itâs much harder, more expensive, super inconvenient, and noisy. Apart from that, the sound difference doesnât bother me.
How do you proceed on a session with collaborating with someone these days?
Iâm currently working with a Canadian artist in Toronto. She works with a programmer/engineer/producer guy whoâs really good. Theyâll send me a track, and I will give them feedback. It might be very little. It might be, âStart again.â Thatâs what will happen; it suits me fine. The only downside is the time it takes, and also getting an idea across isnât so simple. When youâre in the room, you can be vague but still get your point across. Sometimes Iâm pretty vague. Like, âItâs not hitting me. I donât know, maybe youâve got the wrong harmony.â Or, âThe rhythm isnât right here. I canât give you specifics.â But if youâre in the room with someone, you can say, âWell, how about this?â Or, âNo, thatâs not right.â Thereâs a flow.
Right, definitely.
Otherwise, I like it. I do a lot of film work at the moment; thatâs been remote for a while.
With the film mixing for Hans Zimmer and others, whatâs the process?
Okay, so itâs hard to explain. Every situationâs different. Iâm not going to specify a movie, but letâs say Hans has asked me to work on a movie â several of which Iâve ended up with a score âProduced Byâ credit, but also several have just said âMixed By.â Iâm never quite sure what the difference is. I get whatâs called a synth master. Now what a synth master is, is itâs a cue. You know what a cue is?
Yeah, a piece of music written for a spot in the film.
For a scene. Iâll get a synth master of a cue, which could be two tracks or a thousand, depending. It could be five seconds long or 15 minutes. Often scores are hybrids now. Theyâre synth-based with a fake orchestra, hopefully with a real orchestra thrown on top at the end. Thatâs the pattern of a lot of scores.
Yeah, we hear that a lot.
A synth master is everything apart from the real orchestra. Letâs say Iâve got six weeks. Sometimes a lot more, sometimes a lot less. In those six weeks, Iâll be getting these cues through. Iâll have a template. The template is a key item, one I can spend a week figuring out for each movie. When these cues come in, they have a sound palette. Iâll know what sounds theyâre going to use, so itâs all split into stems with reverbs, delays, and whatever. Ready for action, so this audio can be dragged into the template. Ideally, and often, I have an assistant who deals with that for me. I get anything up to 70 or 80 pieces of music, and each one â depending on the content â I will sit back, listen to, and â itâs not right to say that I do what I want, but ultimately, Iâll do what I want. It can be nothing. It can be replacing all the basses with one bass. It can be augmenting the bass. It can be putting a kick in or putting a whole different rhythm element in, removing parts, and changing the storyline of the piece. The melody; the top line. What youâre focused on. Iâll listen to it and produce the cues. Not really, but kind of. Iâll do whatever I feel is needed to make the cues speak as well as they can and deliver the emotion itâs supposed to deliver. The actual mixing, ah⌠but then that goes back to everything. Mixingâs a funny one for me. Iâm confused about where the line is.
With film, you have to deliver a multitude of stems for the actual soundtrack mixing, as opposed to a stereo mix.
For the soundstage.
Thatâs quite a different delivery than an album.
Itâs a huge technical achievement to deliver a film score. Itâs quite extraordinary; the amount of skill that everyone involved has is mind-blowing. Itâs amazing going between that work and songs. I love working on songs, but then I get so bored because theyâre all the same structure, in a way. The same elements. Again, another generalization. A film score is a constant surprise. Iâve just done a movie where one cue went through so many different flavors of music, from salsa to rock to orchestral to half-time. Mixing one cue, a big cue in a movie, is like mixing an album.
Right, with that many changes.
Yeah. Also, not only do I then get the orchestra to integrate, but âaddsâ constantly appear. Iâll get an email or a phone call. âOh, weâve got this guitar player. Heâs going to play on half the cues.â Someone will send me guitars that I integrate, or donât integrate. Itâs this huge beast that needs taming.
When did you first start getting into the film score work?
About 10 or 11 years ago.
Who approached you initially?
Hans Zimmer. Iâve known him since I was young; I met him while playing at a gig. It was a Buggles gig, actually. After the gig, he came up and we had a chat. He said, âOh, we must work together.â I was thinking, âYeah, right. Okay. Whatever. Weâll work together.â Then he called me! He got me over and explained as much as he could the process of film scoring. He gave me a lot of time, which in retrospect was extraordinary, because heâs busy. Then back I went to London. A couple of months later, he said, âIâd like you to mix the movie Iâm working on.â I went, âOkay! Whatâs the movie?â He said, âItâs The Dark Knight Rises.â Of course, I messed it up completely, because I didnât know what I was doing, but he persevered with me, which is amazing of him.
I love that you feel freedom to take it where you see it working best, as opposed to being hands-off and nervous about making any changes.
I donât know how else to be. Hans is funny with me. Whenever weâre in meetings, the first time I meet a director or something, heâll always make some remark like, âOh, this is the guy whoâs going to tell you how bad everything is.â Thatâs how he introduces me, which I never know what to make of it. What Iâm saying is, if I donât think somethingâs good, Iâm going to tell whoever it is [my opinion], and Iâm going to try and help and do something about it. Not ânot good,â but if it could be better.
I think you defined a record producer right there.
Kind of.
I was fascinated to find out youâd built a studio in your early 20s.
Yeah, Regents Park Recording Company. I knew nil. I knew absolutely nothing. No knowledge whatsoever.
What was the process of building a studio at that point for you? Were you having to go and ask a lot of people questions and figure out what gear to get?
Yeah, thatâs exactly right.
There was a limited type of gear.
It was a limit of 15,000 pounds. That was it. Only 15,000 pounds to do the building work, acoustics, and equipment. I got a cheap builder. Acoustics; there was not much I could do. I met some guy who built me a console for very little. We bought a tape machine that was useless, and very few microphones. I had one key microphone, which was a [Neumann] KM 84. And off we went. But it started doing well very quickly. Because of that we could lease a load of good gear. As all of this happened, I learned how to engineer.
Is that where you did âDriverâs Seatâ for Sniff ânâ the Tears?
Yeah, that was very early on there.
I was probably a teenager, 16 or 17, when that was a hit. That record jumped off the radio.
I had a major breakthrough on that record; I discovered the mute button. I know that sounds strange to say, but there were two guitar players. They played their riffs all the way through the record, and I had this idea of muting the guitar when the guy sang. To me, this was revolutionary. I couldnât believe that I could cut the guitars when he sang. What was interesting is that the riffs needed to be muted at weird points, timing-wise. Because I was primarily a musician, I could figure it out. While we were mixing, in my head I could hit the buttons at exactly the right moment and then open them up at the right moment, and thatâs how we mixed it. The other big deal was â my god, Iâve never thought about that â putting a big reverb on the snare when the drums come in. I canât remember if it was before or after Bob Clearmountainâs mix of [the Rolling Stonesâ] âStart Me Up.â That was the gag on âStart Me Up.â
It was before âStart Me Upâ.
Was it? Oh, well there you go.
See? The less in the mix, the better everything sounds.
Yeah. I had a funny one not long ago. Ultravox got together to make an album [Brill!ant]. They asked me to produce their album. We made this really good album. I have a room at Battery Studios, and I was mixing it there. There was a song, I canât remember the name, but it was based around Billy Currieâs beautiful keyboard part. I had the idea of muting this keyboard part when the verse happened. Everyone was into it, apart from Billy. Billy freaked out. He said, âYouâre muting my keyboard part!â I replied, âYeah, but Billy, it sounds so great when it comes back in!â
Right.
I had to approach it like a bit of reverse input there. Rather than saying that it sounds great when it goes out, I said it sounds great when it comes back in. He said, âLook, youâre gonna have to give me a day or two to process this one.â It worked out.
If somethingâs in the mix all the way through a song, the listener tunes it out.
Yeah.
The Producers (Trevor Horn, Ash Soan, Lol Crème and Stephen Lipson)
Musicians always want to fill up space. They want their ideas in there all the time.
Itâs funny. They want to be louder. It always amuses me. For a few years, Trevor and I had a band. In this band, we made an album, and it was fascinating, the whole dynamic of people who know what theyâre doing, as anyone does. There was none of that âturn me up.â Everyone had a bit of an overview of what was happening.
Was that The Producersâ [a.k.a. The Trevor Horn Band] Made in Basing Street?
Yeah.
Well, theyâre all supposed to be producers, so theyâd better behave!
It was interesting and quite refreshing. âYou donât have to turn me up. Use it how it should be used.â
Iâve heard you say itâs very rare you pursued a project or worked on anything that you didnât prefer to be working on. Iâm finding myself dealing with this, having to say no quite a bit more often at this point in my career.
Let me ask you, do you have to work, financially?
Yes, but not constantly.
Okay, so youâre reliant on some work.
Some work, and Iâm doing quite a bit of remote mixing. Iâm wondering for all of us on this path, whatâs the graceful way of saying no?
Itâs funny how it comes quite naturally for me. If I was a young kid, I wouldnât want to work with me. So thatâs that. As far as tracking a band is concerned, Iâve gotta be honest, it doesnât really interest me. It feels like hard work to me. I said this the other day, and I regretted saying it⌠I need to figure out how to couch this. But I find working with bands quite hard. I find singers easier. When Iâm working with a singer, I can pick the musicians I like. The idea of tracking has, to an extent, lost its appeal to me. I know, I get the whole interactive angle; itâs a great vibe thing. Iâve been there and done it. But I enjoy the jigsaw puzzle just as much. Is it fair to say that I find it more satisfying? I find it satisfying. Itâs like something out of nothing. I did a record not long ago for Mike Oldfield and we put an album together [Man on the Rocks]. We recorded a 4-piece [band], live at The Village; it was fun.
That record sounds amazing. It was not what I would expect from Mike Oldfield.
No. It was really hard to do. He lives in the Bahamas and wouldnât come to L.A., so it was lots of screens everywhere â cameras, microphones, and speakers â so that he could give his input. Weâd get in and have a song to start the morning with, and weâd all be looking for a good angle on the song. He would tune in at that point â not realizing that we were fishing â and think that we were wrecking his music. So, every day it was a little bit of, âMike, calm down. Itâll be fine. Weâre on the hunt. Itâll all be okay.â It worked out okay. But that was a band. They were really good, hand-picked guys, and I knew them all. They were friends, and it was a luxurious [session]. But with a band in a room, I donât know. Iâd find it quite challenging. For me the whole process of making something sound like a satisfying, emotional journey out of a bunch of noises is pretty gratifying for me. The other thing is, and this â apart from one or two specific examples â has never, ever been an issue or driven me, but thereâs no money in making records and no sales at the end. Actually, itâs more about the acknowledgment. Itâs hard to feel thereâs much acknowledgment anymore for the work. Maybe if Iâd made Taylor Swiftâs last album, I wouldnât be saying that. But sheâs not going to ask me to make her record. [laughter]
You never know! Have you been working from home quite a bit over the last year during the pandemic?
Oh, yeah, Iâve worked from home. The studio at Battery, I canât remember the last time I used it.
Youâre keeping it and paying rent.
Yeah, yeah. But I canât let it out at the moment, because itâs so personal. Iâve got to re-jig it. Iâm a quarter of a way through that. Then Iâll let it out, maybe, to some people.
Yeah. Itâs hard to set a place up for other folks to work out of and make it universal as opposed to personal, as you say.
Yeah.
What monitors do you have in your space at Battery?
Dynaudio M4s. My small room at home thatâs nearly as good. Theyâre Dynaudio Core 47 7s, and Iâm putting an Atmos system in.
Do you have enough room at the home setup?
Iâll make it work! Itâll be fine. Iâll put four in the ceiling.
Iâve worked on some of the large Dynaudioâs before. I didnât have to think about them, so I knew it must have been working!
Iâve loved them since the M1 [monitors] in the â80s. Thatâs all Iâve used. I never get tired. The discrepancy between loud and quiet doesnât bother me as much as some speakers, and itâs never piercing. But then, the room is more important and this room Iâve got sounding really good.
I just listened to the Billie Eilish track [âNo Time to Dieâ] for the new James Bond film [No Time to Die] that you produced.
Oh, yeah.
Obviously, that came through Hans and working on the score. What was the process of that? I assume Finneas OâConnell and Billie were writing and recording their parts and sending them to you?
Yeah, of course. Actually, my introduction to the Bond movie was the song. That was the first thing he asked me to do, âWould you produce the song?â As you can imagine, hundreds of people send in songs for a Bond movie.
Oh, my god. Yeah, sure.
This was on the pile; obviously extremely high up the pile. The first time I hear something, Iâm not great. I canât go, âOh, thatâs fantastic.â Iâve got to hear it a couple more times. He played me the song, and I thought, âYeah, itâs nice.â Itâs not very âBond,â but thatâs not really the point. The thing for me was that it was Billie Eilish. I thought that was a complete no-brainer. âItâs got to be this song, because itâs Billie Eilish.â The connection of Bond and Billie Eilish was brilliant. I donât know if I had any input in it, but it was decided that that would be the song. Daniel Craig wasnât keen on it, all the way through until the very end.
Wow.
Of course, itâs his swan song, this movie. It was important that he was happy. He wasnât happy right until I played him a mix. It half turned out to be the final mix.
Did you get any feedback of what he wasnât feeling from it?
Yeah, completely. His feedback was that it had no climax. It involved two gags: The orchestra; I knew weâd figure the orchestra out. It was unbelievably convoluted getting the orchestra on the track for many reasons, which I wonât bore you with, but it was extremely painful. We got there in the end. We talked about how it needed a bit more of a climax, so she went up to a high note. Billie and Finneas sent me a vocal and said, âWeâve done this for the end.â I put that in, and knew it was the key moment and I could make it work. Then I got some feedback from Finneas that Billie wasnât keen on going up to this note. Somehow, we got over that one. I had the mix ready. I managed to get Daniel to come to my studio, at Battery in London, at 8 oâclock in the morning on a Sunday. He flew in from New York and landed at seven. He had a whole load of shit that he had to get done in London, but he came straight from the studio and gave me half an hour. I got there very early, like six in the morning, and put the mix up. I had this most ridiculous idea of jacking that moment up about 8 dB so that when she hit that note, the mix went ballistic. But, of course, you canât just do that. It had to get there.
Right. Youâve got to build to it.
Youâve got to build to it, and they canât know itâs happening. I figured it out, got a level for the song, and sat back before he and [producer] Barbara Broccoli arrived. I sat back in the hot seat, as you do, and hit play and listened through. The speakers in my room at Battery are unbelievable. I assure you; you wonât hear a better sound than this room. I donât say that lightly; Iâve worked in hundreds of studios. So, the songâs playing at a healthy volume. Then it hits this moment and fuck me! It pinned me. They arrive, and I say, âYouâve gotta sit here, Daniel.â I hit play, he had his head down as it finished, and Barbara Broccoli â who runs the show â sheâs freaking, because she thinks itâs all over. All he said was, âPlay it again.â I hit play, and it goes through again. Sheâs still getting the years on. Loads of the score incorporates these melodies. After the second run through he kept his head down, and then he looked at me and said, âI fucking love it!â Of course, Barbara lost ten years immediately. That was it. Done.
When I listened to it, I thought about Billie and Finneas; the way they write and the way she sings. She doesnât usually ever go for a belting note! This isnât Shirley Bassey.
Of course. It was hard work, but they â Finneas and Billie â are absolutely remarkable. Sheâs focused and has strong, good instincts. Theyâre lovely, lovely people.
