How did you get started in music?
At age 15, through my mate, Clive Franks. In later years, he became Elton John's front soundman. London in 1967 was a bit of an amazing time. We were in bands, and I wanted to be a singer/songwriter in a band. Clive was being promoted, and there was a job available at Dick James Music as the office boy. It was £6 a week pay, but compared to what I'd been getting, it was amazing! And just to be in London, you know? I might be asked to take some stuff to Paul McCartney's house. It was very, very glamorous, even though it wasn't a glamorous job. We had a demo studio there, but as the office boy I wasn't allowed in. It was quite a strict regime, in some respects, and then in other respects it was very laid back. There were a lot of characters in this place, and one I met early on was a guy called Reginald Kenneth Dwight, who was a pretty outrageous dresser. We sort of became friends. We all know him as Elton John, but he was completely unknown then. He was writing songs for the publishing company.
How did you get involved with Elton John?
You would go from office boy to disc cutter, which was cutting demos. I cut demos for The Beatles and for Elton John. We had an amazing band there called Hookfoot, and Caleb Quaye was their amazing guitarist. He was actually Elton's first producer. Pretty much every day was just amazing. I went from disc cutter to studio engineer in this little demo studio we had. We'd have all sorts of bands coming in; people off the street could book the studio. Elton was making piano and voice demos. After hearing his music, I was totally mesmerized by what he was doing. So, although I got the job as an engineer, I had my eye on working in the office in A&R, promotion, and getting into that. Steve Brown came to work there and got along with Elton very well. He convinced Elton to write fewer poppy songs, and he produced Elton's second single ["Lady Samantha"] as well as his first album, Empty Sky. Steve and I got on very well, even though he was a lot older than me. I think he was 26 and I was only about 17! We started DJM Records, and I was assistant to Steve Brown, who was the head. All I was doing was working. We were working on the record company and on Elton John's career. I booked the studios for the Elton John album, which was a mega undertaking. It was going to be the best album ever made. We were given £12,000 to make it, which was a ridiculous amount of money for those days. We had Gus Dudgeon as the producer, with Paul Buckmaster as arranger, and all the session guys that were on it. It's a very, very structured album, and we thought the result was incredible. Gus became this big hero who had transformed Elton songs into these amazing productions. Sound-wise and production-wise everything really was ahead of its time. And that continued. The Tumbleweed Connection album was different because it was now a band, rather than session guys. While this was all going on, Elton went to America and played the Troubadour; the historic start to Elton's rise to fame. I toured with Elton on the second American tour as his personal assistant. It was the 1974 tour that I did with Elton where we had Kiki Dee as the support, and we played Madison Square Garden.
How did you end up at The Mill Studios?
Coming back from that Elton tour, I'd had enough. I thought, "I'm 23, and I'm gonna retire." [laughter] But I went to see Gus, and he told me he was building a studio in Cookham, Berkshire. I started working for Gus as his assistant, and then we built The Mill Studios. When we built The Mill, it was the most sophisticated and probably the most expensive studio on the planet at the time. It was like an ‘80s-type studio. It wasn't a big live room like Abbey Road, but very dead. I was wondering how we were going to do that, technically. I got back into recording. We had all this incredible gear, so I then became Gus Dudgeon's assistant engineer at The Mill. We produced Chris Rea and started his career. We did an album with a band called Voyager that had quite a lot of success, and then we did an American band called Shooting Star. It was mainly [a place] for Gus to work with new artists. There weren't any megastars that we recorded at that time in this five-year period. Gus wanted The Mill to be the most up to date, amazingly equipped studio on the planet. He wanted to make everything correct that he thought was wrong in any studio he'd ever been in. He wanted an MCI desk, because he used them before. So rather than having the off-the-shelf MCI, he went to Florida and had one designed. It was an MCI 42 channel desk – a beautiful desk.
How did you become Jimmy Page’s engineer?
Gus ran into financial problems, had to sell The Mill, and he sold it to Jimmy Page. I didn't know him, but he obviously thought he should keep me on in the studio. I became Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin's engineer and studio manager. [Jimmy renamed it Sol Studios. -Ed.] When Jimmy bought the studio, he was quite happy to use that MCI desk. All he did was bring in his own 3M tape machines and a lot of Eventide Harmonizers, because there weren’t many effects around in those days.
What projects did you engineer for Jimmy?
That was a new period for me, and I started producing more. Through Jimmy, Atlantic Records brought people into the studio like Vandenberg, a Dutch band, and Twisted Sister, from America. Ironically, I wasn't a massive Led Zeppelin fan, but I was quite happy that he bought the studio. I was thinking that we were going to record a new Led Zeppelin album. Unfortunately, it was not long after Jimmy bought the studio that John Bonham was found dead in Jimmy's house. The first project I got to do with Jimmy was Led Zeppelin’s Coda album. He was pretty eccentric – there were other things involved in his personality, as you might imagine. But he was very gentle and very nice. The first track we worked on was “Bonzo's Montreux.” It was difficult, because we had to edit that down. Jimmy reckoned it was too long. That was bloody difficult cutting. It's not an easy track, because it’s 24 tracks of drums and each drum track is live. There are about four takes of drums. It's all these crazy noises; he's got drums going through Harmonizers and a timpani and congas. They went through all sorts of different effects. It's a mad track. It was the first thing I did with Jimmy, and it was murder. I thought, “I can't believe I'm doing this. I wish we were doing something a little bit easier. He's Zeppelin’s producer, and he'll tell me what sort of drum sound and what to do with the cymbals.” But he didn't. He just let me get on with it. Then we did the Death Wish II soundtrack, which was quite a hefty project. It was pretty off the wall stuff he was doing with the [Roland G-707] guitar synth. When Jimmy does something, he puts a lot into it and his ideas were very inventive. We would do backwards piano, record with the Theremin, and use the Roland guitar synth. He played all these swooped down notes. I shouldn't tell you this, but he was very out of it most of the time. He would turn up at three in the morning. He wasn't in the best shape, physically, but one way or another we did these projects. With the Death Wish II film, he would watch a scene and then think of the music to put in. He would record four guitar solos and then he'd say, “Put them up on the speakers.” I thought he meant one at a time, but he didn't. He meant put them all up at once. He’d work out the solo in his head. He would take a bit from here and a bit from there. Sometimes he'd have two going. I must admit, when we were doing it, I was thinking, “This is terrible. This is going to be a mess.” But then he’d say, “Right. That's it.” We’d listen to it, and I would think, “Blimey, it sounds amazing. It sounds like one solo.” He got Chris Farlowe in to do a bit of singing on it as well. Jimmy is thorough and passionate with everything he does. It was a tough time for him because he lost his drummer. That really did him in. He’s an inventive guy, and he obviously wanted to keep playing and loved being on stage. I think people were trying to help him. He did put another band together. They were called XYZ, which was Chris Squire on bass and Alan White on drums [both from Yes]. They came in for a week. There are some tracks out there that we did. Some of it was Chris Squire’s material. I suggested a keyboard player, so we had the keyboard player come in. All they really needed was a singer and then we'd have had a great band. But a singer was never really found. I suppose the best project we did was The Firm because Paul Rodgers, who I had worked with in the past, is my favorite singer of all time. Jimmy formed this band with Paul, and it was just totally brilliant! Jimmy on guitar, Paul Rodgers on vocals, Tony Franklin on bass, and Chris Slade on drums. Amazing! I set them up live in the studio and they went for it like the old, traditional way. I think the guide vocals became the final lead vocals. The Firm album [The Firm] was probably the highlight of my time with Jimmy at The Mill.
How did you record and mix Led Zeppelin’s Coda?
There was just one Vox AC30 amp that he used, and we couldn't seem to get another one that was better. He would turn that up to 10, and we'd all run into the next room because you couldn't be anywhere near it at that volume. He never used a [Gibson] Les Paul [guitar] in the studio; he always used a [Fender] Tele[caster]. He used a [custom-made] string bender. It sounds a bit country-ish when it's got that bend in it. His rhythm playing was amazing. He had such a great feel for rhythm playing when he was doing rhythm guitar, bass, and drums.. They're great tracks. I had a great time putting that album together. “I Can't Quit You Baby” was a live track from the [Royal] Albert Hall. Later, I realized that they owed Atlantic [Records] another album, and it had to be [studio-]recorded tracks. So, we couldn’t use any of the audience mics or the ambient mics. I hired one of the early Lexicon reverbs, and I must admit it was an amazing piece of equipment. I recreated the ambiance from the Albert Hall concert with this giant machine for “I Can't Quit You Baby” and for “Wearing and Tearing.” On “Poor Tom” there was something missing, either Robert’s voice or a harmony. Robert came in and recorded some tracks, along with John Paul Jones, so it was nice meeting them. Thinking back, they were quite posh. It's not like some big hairy rock band who swore all day long. They're all very-together guys. I could see why they did so well; they knew what they were doing. It’s awful that we didn't have John and that he died, ‘cause it's terrible. I would have loved to have worked with that whole band. I suggested a drummer for Jimmy, Dave Mattacks [Tape Op #43], who played on the on the Death Wish II soundtrack. But I understood that Bonham wasn't replaceable because they had this great feel between them. Jimmy, Bonham, and John Paul Jones were a great unit. We're talking about a band that just about every other band on the planet still wants to copy. It’s lasted all this time. It's hardly been bettered.
What other artists did you engineer at The Mill?
We had Mick Fleetwood come in and I worked on his solo album. George Harrison popped down during these sessions. And Stephen Stills came over because he wanted Jimmy to play on his album Right by You. I couldn’t believe I was there, doing something with these guys. Unbelievable legends! In this period as well, I recorded this crazy album, Ice on Fire, by Elton John which had George Michael on it, as well as Queen’s rhythm section [John Deacon and Roger Taylor]. Bill Wyman was another person I worked with for 20 years. Jimmy must have told Bill about the studio. Bill was extremely methodical, even when his wife would ring up, he'd enter it in a diary somewhere. He's a great bass player, though his heart wasn't really in the Rolling Stones any longer. He was more into blues. He formed a band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, with Georgie Fame and Gary Brooker. I engineered all their albums. That was a great period, working with Bill.
After leaving Sol Studios, where did you continue your career?
I then found this absolutely amazing place called Wheeler End [Studios] which had been Alvin Lee's private studio. There was a Helios desk in there, but I moved that out. I moved the MCI in and built this into a brilliant studio. It had a lot of space. The control room was quite big, and the studio was very big. It wasn't a commercial studio, so I had to really work on putting the word out, but eventually I did. I was lucky to get Bill Wyman in to record. Then Oasis came in, and we worked on an album with them. Robbie Williams came in to record as well. John Leckie [Tape Op #42], a famous producer from Abbey Road, came in as well. This is when the internet was being invented, and people started recording on computers. I started doing that, and I was editing albums for Billy Connolly the actor/musician/comedian. I was also doing African tribal albums and all sorts of different projects. I started using a studio in Stoke-on-Trent in the north of England. To be honest when I'm producing, I don't really like to engineer any longer. For producers, it's good not to be concerned with switches, dials, limiters, compressors, and equalizers.
