Hi Tom!
Hey, sorry I'm late! I got a new modular rack setup, and I was deep in re-patching my clocks and resets.
Did that system just get dropped off?
No, I’m moving the studio. I had all these little cases, and I just ordered this big case. It showed up, and we spent five hours putting it all in. I'm excited. I can actually use it today, so that's good!
You were working out of your house before this, right?
Yeah, I was. The last few years I've been in here – I rent this house here as a studio. I've got young kids and my son would come in – we had everything running from a power strip. I'd be working and suddenly the whole thing was powered down. This is when he was about three, and he'd switch it off. Really pleased with himself! I'd say, "What did you do?" And then I’d get the slow cry, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." [laughter]
Yeah. At the studio a couple of years ago, a little grandchild came in and flicked off one of our power conditioners!
Yeah. Now I run everything off a battery setup. The landlord here sucks, so I’m moving the studio. I have a spot that I'm building out a studio in. It's needed a lot of work, and it’s been two years of permitting and getting everything sorted. A lot more than I bargained for! But that's going to be ready in about six or seven months. So, I'm preparing. I got my board set up to test out here, ahead of moving in there.
You've been busy lately.
Yeah, it's been fun. It's been funny, because I started as an artist and then a songwriter. I was coming up with rough productions and then I'd be at the mercy of whether or not people could finish them for me. Then I thought, "I need to get good at finishing." The last six years has been working on that and becoming more of a producer. I've been busy, but it still feels relatively new being on more of the production side.
I know you did a solo album, Once, with Trevor Horn [Tape Op #89] in 2009. I've interviewed Trevor before. He's fantastic.
Yeah. He'd signed my publishing deal, and then I made a record. I had a bit of a punk kind of ethos. "I'm going to do this punk acoustic album." The record I made with Trevor is quite different to what I was doing live, which was more like Gogol Bordello – that punky gypsy vibe. Initially, I said, "I want to make my own record. I don't need big producers." I got an engineer friend of mine, we made a record, and I said, "I want to cut it to tape." When it came time to mix, it was all really hissy. I took it to Trevor, and I asked, “Why is everything hissy?” He said, “Because you've recorded it like you would to Pro Tools. Now you've boosted all the levels up and you're bringing all the hiss up.” He said, “You're going to have to redo this. This isn't going to work." Trevor then said, “I'll tell you what; I'll do your record." We made the record and, I think truth be told, the momentum had probably gone. Art is all about momentum, and the momentum started to dip. I didn't make the record that necessarily represented what I was doing. It didn't work out, but it was a blessing in disguise.
How so?
When I worked with Trevor, I was seeing someone do something where it's so natural to them. I thought, “Oh, that's how you do it." I saw his attitude, and something switched on. I realized, "Oh, I could be good at that." To be an artist, you have to be so solo and singularly focused. The problem with me is that I just love making music. If you said to me, "We're going to make a metal album today," I'll say, "Fuck, yeah. Let's go." People with that kind of brain are much more suited to this side of the glass than the other way around. I know it's like that with David [Byrne, Tape Op #79], just a singular vision. The guy is laser focused.
I've talked to David Byrne about making demos at home. He's just writing and writing.
He does a drum loop and a guitar. I said, "This keyboard sounds crazy!" And he said, “Oh, I used a MIDI guitar." He has one of those cheap Casio guitar synths [DG-20]. That's how he does his keys! Awesome! But there's a subtlety in his drum loops. He'd pull in a drum loop and when we'd go to do it, people would interpret the loop. But I'd be, "No, no. You're missing it. There's a slight variation here." There are a couple of songs on that record where they'd missed ghost hits. David's demo would be just that drum loop, and he'd be so locked into it. His natural understanding of rhythm is unreal. He's not a dancer in the way that Michael Jackson was, but I feel those musicians who want to dance and move on stage are in tune with the rhythms. That was amazing, watching him do his thing.
His rhythm guitar playing in the Talking Heads was always so core to what they were doing.
Yeah, exactly. So straight, not really as funky as you think. In a way that it becomes funky again, which is so crazy.
Like how Kraftwerk grooves.
Yeah, exactly.
Part of your journey is looking for sounds. Songwriting is so different than it was 50 years ago.
Yeah, 100 percent. Sometimes we'll write a whole song and figure it out. But I feel like people's brains are so locked into production now. Back in the day, people would write a song on guitar or piano, then take it into a band and a studio, and then they'd pick what vibe they were going for with that. But in the studio now, usually the people writing the song end up recording the song. They get tied to their parts. As soon you're playing a piano or a guitar, it kind of leads you in a direction. I feel like I need to throw off that direction. Also, songwriters aren't always the best players. It’s not necessarily their job to be. But it also tends to lead to slower songs. If people aren't quite as good, they don't move as quick. If we're going to work on a song for weeks on end, I'd way rather it be an upbeat song that I can dance around the studio to.
Give me some rhythm!
Yeah. I love doing upbeat songs. I love aiming for rhythm. We have a lot of singers who don't necessarily make music in the same way. They don't necessarily hear production until it's there in front of them. I'll need to maybe say, "Oh, you want to do something like that? You could do it like this." I have to give them confidence. Everyone's got pressure on them. Anxiety is such a huge part of every part of music. The quicker we can make something sound like a complete record and give someone confidence, it really helps. If they think it's cool, then they want to get their parts right. There's so much anxiety around silence and the unsure. I think that's what causes what people call writer’s block. It's just that anxiety overwhelms the fun part.
Do you give yourself exercises? You've got all these modular synths in the rack. That's probably going to create some ideas, right?
Yeah. I have a whole concept of, "Things need to pay for themselves. I'm going to have to force them on records to justify it." [laughter] You know where they say, "Yoga is a practice. It's not a thing that you do as work"? Do it every day, and it's a good thing to have in your life. Rather than feeling like, "This is my big moment to write my big song. If I don't write my big song, I'm going to get dropped." Instead, if you make music a practice, everything will fall into place. Athletes don't get their careers and then they win every day for the rest of their lives. It's just a practice. I feel that takes the pressure off a bit. The hard thing in the pop scene is a lot of "auditioning sessions." It’s two days here and two days there. I try to get involved in projects. It was a big shift for me; I like to be able to sit with someone, give them confidence, and make them feel relaxed. We all know that sometimes within an hour you've suddenly got the song that changes your life. It's not necessarily the one that you spend weeks on, though it can be that too. Rather it's about the whole picture of your career. A friend of mine got me into a bunch of new age music that I didn't know, and there's this guy I've been listening to. I looked him up on Spotify, and he’s not got that many streams. But I was like, "This is it." His name is Don Slepian. I don't know if you've heard of his music?
Yeah, I have actually.
It's fucking awesome. It's new to me, and it's so cool. Years and years of records. This is a guy that's deep in the music communities, but it's the same ethos. That's what you should be doing. Just make records. You're here to stay, so have that confidence and make those records! If it works out in the biggest way, great. If not, you're going to be happy because you're making music.
You're known as a songwriter/producer who comes in and co-writes. But recently there are a lot of records you don't write on that you've produced, like Kings of Leon, Inhaler, and David Byrne.
I think David was slightly paranoid that I was going to try to co-write! [laughter] But, no. Like I said, I had the journey where I was a pure songwriter and then had a transition. After Harry [Styles], I felt the beauty of Harry is he puts you in the hot seat and he's like, "Figure it out for me. I trust you."
You guys really got to muck around for Harry's House, and there was time at Shangri-La [Studios, in Malibu] because of Covid.
Yeah, totally. After Harry's Fine Line, me and Tyler [Johnson, co-producer] both turned around. I felt almost like The Avengers: I looked at my hand, I had all the rings, and I thought, "Whoa, I can produce records now. This is crazy." Then I wanted to try that. I come from indie music. That's where I feel most comfortable, and Kings of Leon are one of my favorite bands ever. When they asked, I was like, "Fuck, yeah! I don't know how I'm going to do this, but let's jump in." I went down there and it was a little bit of me figuring out their vibe. I was maybe being a little polite because I was trying to figure out, "How involved do I get here?" My instincts were telling me to go pop, but I didn't want to lose the gig. Through coincidence, I'd met Brendan O'Brien at Henson [Recording Studios] and had a chat with him. If there's one person in the world that knows how to do a band record, it's fucking Brendan O'Brien. That guy's unbelievable. He's made some of my favorite records. I said, "Dude, can I call you quickly and ask your advice?" I laid out what was happening. He said, "Everything I do with all the bands I work with, I'm exactly the same. I'm like, 'Cut this, move this here. This bit goes here; let's rearrange.' What bands will want is your input on structures and arrangements. All the stuff that is part of writing, but it's not classed as writing in that sense." So, I went back to Nashville and I hit a groove. I took on what he said and started getting more active with the tracks. I could feel a relief in them, that they were like, "Oh, we've got this." That record [Can We Please Have Fun] was made in a bit of a mad studio [Dark Horse Recording]. They were really comfortable there. When there's a good vibe, just hold on to it. I didn't want to move them because I felt like they'd done big rock records. I felt like it was time for them to be indie again. I love them as an indie band. Then I got asked to do Inhaler's third album, Open Wide, and I was like, "Oh, yeah. I got this." It's always different with everyone I work with, but it's similar variations of the same thing, "How much do I get involved?" You just get comfortable in it. David Byrne was similar, but he's a solo artist. We had the Ghost Train Orchestra; that was the bomb. I loved learning about arrangements and scoring. We scored everything before we went in the studio. I was working alongside the arrangers and getting to know sheet music. As an indie punk guy, I grew up thinking, "Fuck, I don't want to read fucking music. That's real music. Fuck that." At my school, they always looked down on guitarists, but if you played the oboe you were amazing. But to go in there and realize that they're all such cool people and they're like jazz musicians. They were so awesome. Sheet music is amazing in what it can unlock. It makes communicating ideas really clear. I can say, "Bar 43. I don't like how we're doing that pushed dotted note there." Everyone says, "Oh, yeah. I see what we should do here." It was awesome learning about that world.
One of the things you keep hinting at is that you love making music, but you also love new challenges.
Yeah. There's a Steve Albini [Tape Op #87] quote – maybe from a Tape Op interview – where he says something along the lines of, "I try and do something I haven't done before in every session."* That's brilliant, because then you have your own personal challenge. I realized recently, there are so many big things I haven't done. Recently, I did some songs for a Broadway show [Yasmina Reza's Art]. I had to learn loads doing that. There are little things that they do. Then I did a custom soundtrack for a fashion show [Calvin Klein Collection by Veronica Leoni]. I want to do some more scoring and also movies. But within it, I'll do pop sessions and I'll be like, "Man, today I'm going to try and use this modular synth because this is chaos. If I can land this in a pop song, it's going to be cool."
I hear that on Maggie Rogers' Surrender. Buzzy, gritty synthesizers. It could have been more sterilized, with softer tones, but this gave it such a fun edge.
Maggie is an artist in the way that however she's feeling at that time, that's the only way she can feel. She'd come from being a sort of folk indie girl. On that record, she wanted to punk out. She was listening to The Strokes, and she was saying, "I want to make an album that's big for touring and feels live and raw." That was a conscious thing. "Let's fuck everything up and make it really tough."
It worked.
I'm so proud of that record, because there are some amazing sonics on it that are not obviously Maggie. It felt like a collaboration. She wanted to do a lot of it in New York. You're right, it could have been sterilized. I look at some records and I'll think, "Maybe it should have been different," but I love that we did that.
Both of you got challenged on a record like that, and that's when it's probably going to get more of a response from listeners.
Like we were saying earlier, it's a practice. They talk about 40,000 hours or whatever you're meant to be doing. But if you go in and play C-F-G and write a song on that for 40,000 hours, you're only going to be good at writing songs in C-F-G. If you want to get that 40,000 hours, maybe you want to spread it out and try other things. I feel it's important to do that. One thing I've gotten good at is collaborating and trying to hear what people want when they can't necessarily articulate it. On that record, Maggie had a lot of anger. She had a lot of rage, and it came out in the music. I think we represented that. I really felt it. And yeah, it was fun!
Someone like Shawn Mendes is more set up for this marketplace. But do you see how much you can push it when you're in the middle of a Shawn Mendes record too?
Yeah. It's funny because with Shawn, that record [Wonder] was done during Covid. We'd written one song that we liked, and then he called and was like, "Look, lockdown is here. I need to do a record. Let's go in and camp up somewhere." We got tested and then all isolated together. That was my first record, outside of Harry, where I was like, "You've got songs. We just need to finish the production." We did push the envelope within some of that music, outside of the Shawn world, which he wanted. Like we were talking about, there's a lot of anxiety. It's hard to push yourself musically and then also know how to push yourself in all aspects of your artistry. I saw him pushing himself on that record. There are a lot of nerves around a big project. My gut feeling is he got talked out of pushing himself in other aspects. I feel like everything needs to line up. We could go in the studio and make a punk record. But if you don't lean in across the whole thing – you tour it like a punk record, and you really live the thing – then it becomes confused and it doesn't make sense. People will wonder what you are trying to do. Shawn's an incredible musician; he's talented and he comps his own vocals. It's unreal. He'll say, "I'm ready to do my vocals now," and then he'll ask us to leave. He'll record and comp them, and then we'll go back in. He'll say, "I've got it. This is it." Then we can give notes. I think he's in the process of finding how to do art within his sphere. He's on a journey of figuring something out, and it'll work out.
I've worked on records where we know they're going to sell 100,000 copies, and I'll feel a responsibility to those fans. But when you're looking at someone that's got millions of fans…
Yeah. Everyone outside of the studio is just some people who like it or not. If people believe in the artist, we have to let them be themselves and follow what their instincts are saying. I also trust that we're all evolving as listeners. If someone was pop when they were 18 years old, and then they're making their record and they're 26, their fans are going to be that much older as well. Harry taught me that. He was like, "The only thing I care about is if we love it in this room. If we love it, I trust other people will love it. And if they don't, we still love it." It doesn't matter. At least you have that. Making music for people ends up sterilizing you in the wrong way. I've seen that before, where people played me stuff and say, "You won't like this, but you know who's going to love this is all these people in middle America who like this kind of music." I'll listen to it, and yeah, it is terrible. Then they put it out and everyone says that it's not good. I know I can make music I like, that I know my friends will also like. And there are other people like them. You have to make music that you love, and trust it's going to work out.
We always hope.
Yeah, yeah, we hope.
You've done a lot of these records with Tyler Johnson co-producing. How did you guys meet and how does that work out with both of you, process-wise?
We met through Harry, on Harry's first [self-titled] record. I wrote a song with him called "Sweet Creature." He was working with Jeff Bhasker [Tape Op #130] and Jeff's team: Tyler, Alex Salibian, and Mitch Rowland. They were working with Harry on that album. Harry called me near the end and said, "Do you want to come in and try one song with us before we finish this record?" I went in, and we – me, Tyler, Mitch, Harry, and Alex – wrote a song called "Carolina." We got on, and we'd see each other at shows. I helped Harry MD [music director] his first tour, and we carried on writing. When it came to start the next record, we started with me, Tyler, and Harry. Jeff was out at that point because he was busy. It got to a point where I said to Ty, "We could do this record. Let's lean on each other and we can do it." We weren't sure if it was going to go to someone else at some point. We dove in at Shangri-La, and we made Fine Line together. We learned so much. There was a lot of stress around that record, and we never knew if it was going to work out. We got to the end, and that was the moment where we were like, "We can make records now." Something happened on that record, where we got put in the hot seat and had to go up a level. We rented a studio together, and then we went into Miley [Cyrus' Endless Summer Vacation] off the back of that. Then we went straight into Harry's House. We've done a bunch of projects together, and when you work with someone that closely you instantly love each other and instantly annoy each other. [laughter] Tyler's like my brother. We're so in tune. We know exactly how to divide the workflow, and it works really well.
Does that allow you a little bit of time to step out and step back in for each of you?
It does. We have a flow. I'm much more of a worker bee. I just work, work, work, work, work, work. Tyler's very good at perspective and saying, "No. We should try it this way." When we're not together, I have to slow myself down a bit. We can dip out, but it doesn't really tend to happen. We end up all in. Honestly, the best stuff me and Ty have done gets done in a day. We tend to crack things together. It's awesome, because I feel we got to go to that next level together. We always can work together, but we also can be quite independent of each other. We've learned together. The best thing about the whole Harry's House experience was that in a world where records at that level are usually done by a lot of different names, that record was essentially the three of us, and our engineer, Jeremy [Hatcher]. Going on stage with two of my best friends to receive an award is so much more meaningful, and we have that experience now to reflect on forever. We did that as friends. I feel blessed that that happened, because that's a unique situation nowadays.
You use [Mike] "Spike" Stent quite a bit for mixing.
Yeah. I find mixing very daunting. It's also about how well you know the person, to where the notes can help translate . If you call them up and say, "I don't know why, but I just don't love it," some people can have an ego with that and be like, "Well, it sounds great to me." Me and Spike have become close, and our families are close. I know I can call him at any point, mention any problem, and we can talk it out. I understand him. Sometimes he can knock it out of the park the first time. But again, no one does that consistently. The thing about Spike is that he can pivot at a moment's notice and figure out the second mix with whatever notes I give him. He mixed the Maggie [Rogers] album. Maggie's very emotional, and she can't always describe in words exactly what she's hearing. She'd say, "I'm feeling really fuzzy all over and I don't like it." I don't know how to fix that, but it's almost easier than someone being too technical. I'd be watching Spike go, "Oh, I got you." He'll pull up his SSL channel and do this and that. Then he'd say, "How's that sound?" She'd say, "Oh, that's it. It's way better." I watched him do that several times on a couple of records, and a lot on the Maggie record. It was like watching David Beckham take a free kick. That's next level. He's a genius. He's someone who's developed a passion for it, and he has an incredible skill.
I do tons of mixing. It's a technical job to a degree, but you've got to be listening to the emotion in the track.
Yeah. If you're getting tracks from producers like me, I spend a lot of my time thinking, "I'm going to fucking get Spike with this one." I told him, "I'm trying to get you, where you can't beat my mix." [laughter] But, every time, he manages to send it back and it keeps the essence of exactly what we've got on the board mixes. Somehow it makes me feel like such a failure as a producer because it sounds so much better! There are other people that might be more suited to certain records off the bat, but it's more Spike's ability to get into the music and pivot and work with artists that is, to me, the greatest. I've worked with a ton of mixers, but it's hard to go anywhere else after that.
I have a mastering engineer I use all the time. Because we’ve worked together so much, I don't have to call him up and guide him through every nuance.
Exactly. Once you know that someone does their thing well, it's great. Also, you get the ability to then experiment a little bit. I called Randy Merrill [Sterling Sound] when we were mastering the Kings of Leon record, and I wanted to try some tape mastering on some of those songs. He said, "I think these ones would lend themselves to it. Let's try it." We did a few experiments. "This one sounds awesome. This one's not so good." Because I'd worked with Randy a bunch, and we had a rapport, we got somewhere special with it. I was so chuffed. He's awesome. When we did Maggie's, Emily Lazar mastered that. She just got Maggie; it was unbelievable. She was incredible on that as well. When you can say, "Hey, can we try this?" and you've got that relationship, it's a lot easier.
Yeah. I find with all my repeat clients, we jump right back in.
Yeah. You'll jump in and know instantly, like, "They're not going to like that. I'm going to fix it."
Your management told me you were doing the first Abbey Road "Producer in Residence" series.
Yeah, they announced it a couple of weeks ago. It's good, because I'm based in the U.S. and based in L.A., but I have a presence back home. I go back to the U.K. quite a lot. I'm a big Arsenal [F.C.] fan, so I try to see my team playing! The U.K. is obviously where I came from. But it's a breeding ground for interesting music, and it's often been a trendsetter ahead of the U.S., because it's a smaller industry. It's hard to break new music in the States. The U.K. has a real chance to make interesting things happen.
It happens faster there.
Yeah. At this moment in time, I have a certain status where I feel I can be beneficial to bridging that gap and helping the U.K. realize that it doesn't need to compete off the bat in America. It needs to do the opposite and invest in more of its interest in electronic and dance music. I saw Abbey Road as a real opportunity for me to help bridge that, as well as to work with some new artists, new producers, and new songwriters in the U.K.
And they've got Guinness on tap downstairs. It’s awesome!
The Inhaler boys worked that out from day one! [laughter]
A little taste of Dublin.
Exactly.
I got an Abbey Road studio tour once. We popped into every room and went upstairs to mastering.
Studio Three to me is probably the best sounding room. You set up your drum mics and it sounds amazing.
Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon…
There was a moment where I was working with Florence [+ the Machine] and I was still an artist. I was in that room, and Paul Epworth said to me, "You're quite good at this side of it. You should do this." That was the moment. He was flying at the time. He had [Adele’s] "Rolling in the Deep" and everything. When someone like that says that to you, you listen. I felt that about being in Abbey Road. I was thinking, "I might say something to someone that puts them on the right track." You never know!
