Look at the history of UK pop music over the last twenty-five years and you will invariably come across popular singles and albums that have seen the touch of producer/engineer Stephen Street. Bands like The Smiths, Blur, The Cranberries, New Order, Morrissey, Kaiser Chiefs, Babyshambles, The Pretenders, Sleeper, Ordinary Boys, The Psychedelic Furs, The Zutons and Feeder have all benefited from his studio savvy. He has produced albums for Durutti Column, The Triffids, Lloyd Cole and The Promise Ring that are held in high critical regard. Stephen was kind enough to offer us some time to talk with him in the modest studio space he shares with engineer and sometimes cohort Cenzo Townshend, located in the famed Olympic Studios in London.
For twenty-plus years you've had a track record of staying busy and, especially in the U.K., keeping things in the charts.
I think the thing that's kind of amazing is that I've always chose to work on things I believe in, instead of working on things to just fill the calendar. I think if you try to take work simply to keep yourself busy, you usually don't do a good job. I generally take on things because I like it; I feel a certain empathy with it that I can do a good job. Some things I've heard and I think they sound great, but then I think, "What do you want me to do? I can't think of a thing to do with it." [laughter] I have a certain natural empathy with bands. I've done an occasional singer/songwriter thing, but I'm much better working with bands. I like to see that chemistry of four or five people working together and see what makes them tick. I like to keep it oiled. I like making every person feel positive, important and not just focus on the front man. So much of producing is band management — it's much more than knowing how to twiddle the knobs correctly.
Oh, absolutely!
It's like being a big brother — not in the [George Orwell's] 1984 sense [laughter] — but in a "put your arm around someone" kind of way. I've been there before; I want to make them feel comfortable for the session. I'm working for them, for the band. I worked with The Cranberries in the late '90s, and those kids were seventeen to twenty years old. They were so young. So, I had to tread carefully with them. Especially someone like Dolores [O'Riordan, lead singer of The Cranberries]. I made the best possible record I could make for them. But at the time, when it first came out, it kind of stiffed. It wasn't until the record came to America that people started to take notice. They re-released it in this country and then it finally took off. But, it was the same record. I didn't really think I'd make The Cranberries sound like Blur or vice versa. It's the band's album, not mine. I'm there for them. I want to make sure I transfer what they have in mind. I count myself very lucky though. I've kept going in this industry for twenty years plus — that's not bad by anyone's standards.
Do you still have your ear to the street? Or are people coming to you? Do you go to clubs?
I don't go out too much. It's like a busman's holiday. I don't usually go from the studio and see gigs. [laughter] If a new band gets signed to a label, especially if it's a guitar-based thing, hopefully I'm one of the producers on that list. I am fortunate. I've had access to some good acts over the years and it's a good calling card. A lot of bands come looking, and the first thing they want to know about is The Smiths and that was twenty years ago! [laughter] They are still asking how I got that guitar sound. The guitar sound comes from the guitar players. [laughter]
How did the Kaiser Chiefs end up working with you?
They were Blur fans. I produced a band called The Ordinary Boys, they are no longer together but they were quite popular about five years ago. Their first album created a little bit of a buzz. The Kaiser Chiefs were touring with them at the time. I met Nick [Hodgson], the drummer — he's the one who instigates things in the band. I met him backstage, although I had missed the Kaiser Chiefs, but I heard from The Ordinary Boys what a great band they were. Nick gave me a CD of their demos. They didn't have a deal and B-Unique, the label The Ordinary Boys were on, decided they were going to give them a deal. They said, "Could you give them a little test session?" I recorded a version of a song called, "I Predict a Riot." It really kick started their career and it was recorded here! It was a new band that needed to make their debut album. Sometimes I think that's one of my strengths.
Is the drum sound kind of cool in this space?
Yeah. It's snappy — it's a nice tight drum sound. We leave the door open and leave a mic out [in the hall]. It catches a bit of it.
It's like your little clubhouse down here.
It's one of the few studios that get daylight. I think it helps. I love a bit of daylight, if I can. It helps with my version of reality. [laughter]
With a band like the Kaiser Chiefs, are you examining their songs before you start sessions?
The longer you're in this game, the better you get at making arrangements and decisions. I don't like to do too much pre-production. I'll do a little bit, but I don't like bands that go over and over and over it. Sometimes it really doesn't hit me until I hear the song coming over the speakers. I'll realise, "The bass drum pattern is wrong here," or something similar. I like to get a certain amount of preparation done, but I like to leave it open for when we start tracking. Then I can play it back to them and say, "Listen. You can tell this is not working." In rehearsal, it's hard sometimes to find what's wrong. I don't get too hung up on pre-production. It's nice to do some, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you get these demos and the sound is so cool. Like with the Kaiser Chiefs, there was no way to really recreate it so I said, "Why don't we just lift it?" [laughter] Why go through the whole thing again? Let's use it! The cool little sounds came right through. I pasted them where I thought they sounded best in the track.
That's great! [laughter]
Back in the '90s, when I was working with Blur [on the self-titled album, 1996-7] they had always recorded on 2-inch [tape]. We were beginning to see the first signs of Pro Tools popping up. I sighed and thought, "I don't want to be pushing a mouse around all day." I went to [iZ Technology's] RADAR. This was great; to me it gave the sense of still working with a tape machine. It also gave me so many editing possibilities. Not as many as Pro Tools, but I was really able to let bands play live and just cut the best bits out. It was a real boon. I bought a RADAR system, which cost a lot of money in '96. I think it was about £20,000 for 16-tracks. But it still sounded great. Now Pro Tools has become the standard. We use RADAR for the ins and outs. But now we mainly stay in the domain of Pro Tools.
When did you start working with Cenzo Townshend?
I think around 1996. He had been working a lot with a bloke, Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds. He's also a producer/engineer. Cenzo used to engineer all his records. Ian put being a producer on hold for a bit to be an artist. It turns out his manager at the time spoke with my manager and he said, "You know Stephen is looking for someone to engineer with." We did a session together, working with a band from the UK called Sleeper, and that went well. He's a very nice, easygoing character. I'm a little bit more fire. [laughter] He's much more technical-minded than myself. I tend to botch things; I don't look into things very particularly. It turns out to be a good combination. Neither of us gets bogged down. I don't get too carried away.
Kind of a division of labor?
Yeah, a little bit. I used to engineer myself. My inspiration, when I first started, was the likes of [Steve] Lillywhite [Tape Op #93], Martin Rushent and Martin Hannett; all those guys who were doing post-punk. That's what I wanted to do. I quit the band I was in. I learned to be an engineer at Islands Records' Fallout Shelter Studio — a studio below the label [offices]. And I was very fortunate, as it happens in this game. I met The Smiths and they were on the ascendance. I worked with them on quite a few records. That was my passport to getting into production. So, at one time, especially when I was working with The Smiths, I would be engineering. That gave me the co-production thing and then I moved forward to full production.
Did you start working with The Smiths with John Porter producing?
The first session I did with them was with John producing and I engineered. It was "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", but the band then decided they didn't want to work with John on the next record, which became Meat Is Murder. They wanted to do it on their own; with an engineer they thought they could work with. Bit-by-bit, I started taking on certain production responsibilities. I started dictating the way the drums would sound, that sort of thing. It was natural. The first album I did with them was engineering credit. The next album was co-production credit. That was an eventual kind of thing.
That turned into working with Morrissey on his solo album and co- writing [Viva Hate].
Yeah. Well, I don't want to go into that too much. I had recorded Strangeways, Here We Come [The Smith's final album]. When they split up, I thought it was going to be some kind of short argument and then they'd get back together in a few months.
Apparently not! [laughter]
Exactly! There were no tracks left in the can to use as b- sides on the singles. They had been scraping around, using some very dodgy covers and those sorts of things. I had a little box of ideas — recordings I had thought of over the years. I sent off this cassette of ideas that I had [to Morrissey]. The way he used to work with Johnny [Marr] was Johnny would prepare complete backing tracks and Morrissey would sing the words. I sent off the tape and said, "I don't want to be presumptuous, but if there's anything here that you'd like to use for b-sides, or whatever, please feel free." I couldn't see whether Mike [Joyce, drums] and Andy [Rourke, bass] were making any effort. They'd tried a session with another guitar player and that hadn't worked out. I got married and came back from my honeymoon and there was a little postcard from Morrissey saying, "I want to make a solo record with you. Would you do it with me? I love what you sent me." So, that was it, really. That was in August and we started in September. We did a couple of weeks, went back and wrote some more songs, and by Christmas that year the whole record was recorded, mixed — everything. That was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I made myself feel pretty ill by the time the whole thing was done.
Because you were too involved?
Because of depression. I've always had [a problem with] a build up of acid in the stomach. The stress of it — I chose the song, the drum and the bass sound and the musicians. I would set-up, mic them, record them. The control was upstairs — there was a camera just to connect with the live room. Come downstairs, play it again. It was just so exhausting. But, you know, I'm very proud of that record. We did some songs afterwards that went on the b-sides, the Bona Drag album and stuff. I think we were writing stronger and stronger material. But Morrissey is a strange character.
I know things ended up going sour on that.
Yeah. It's one of those things. But I'm very proud of what we did together. After that, I went back and really worked at concentrating on engineering. In the mid-'90s I did start to delegate a bit more, instead of trying to do everything myself. I was working with Blur and they had a really good engineer, John Smith of Matrix Studios, that they liked working with — he had been recording their demos. I was happy for John to be there too. It was nice. It enabled me to see the overall thing more.
Was that the first time you'd been able to step back from the console more?
Yeah, a little bit. Not getting so hung up on the technical side of things so much. I worked with John for quite a few years and for the duration of the Blur albums.
Did you have to kinda figure out who did what?
No, it was good. The way I worked with John is very much the way I work with Cenzo. Neither one of them would have gotten upset if I had reached over and started messing with the EQ myself. When it came to mixing it would be a case of, "Get the track back up to where we had it." Then I'd leave them alone for a little bit. Nine times out of ten, we'd be mixing on an SSL console. John would fiddle with it for a bit and then I would sit and mess with it for a couple of hours. Then the band would come in and hopefully everyone would be happy. It was a nice, natural kind of progression there. John went on to do more things and Cenzo got involved. There was a period where I was working with one or the other and then John moved overseas for a bit. I started to use Cenzo more, so it was a nice, gradual swap-out at that point in the mid-'90s. Cenzo and I don't work exclusively together — he's so busy nowadays. In the genre we work in, which is alternative guitar-based music, there was a period where it was pretty hard. It wasn't until The Strokes came along that it kick- started the whole thing again. Cenzo had been working with me on a lot of things that I had done and he was getting quite a reputation for mixing guitar-based stuff. He started going off and doing work for Snow Patrol and things like that. He's now doing a lot more mixing for people rather than being my engineer, as it were. I'm pleased for him. For the Babyshambles album I did last year, Cenzo mixed about 2/3 of it and the other third I was quite happy to mix myself. Especially for a radio-type mix, it gave Cenzo a little push over the finish line.
That sounds like a good relationship.
Yeah, it's good. Because of Cenzo's ascendancy in the mix market, rather than tracking, he's here all the time. We have a good rack of gear here. We have this DDA desk that Ian Broudie sold him — he didn't need it, so we got a good rate. We pretty much had everything we needed to get the ball rolling as a small recording studio. I've got some MIDI stuff over there, not a huge amount, but the usual [Roland JV-1080], [Apple's] Logic and computer stuff. We're not in here all the time. Sometimes other people come in here and use it. But it's a useful workspace.
What do you see as the advantages of having your space in an existing studio structure as opposed to renting a space and putting this together?
It turns out when we first started looking for a space it was quite scary. We'd go looking around these industrial estates and we'd think, "God, how are we going to get anybody to come here?" [laughter] Olympic caught wind of the fact that we were looking for something and knew we could convert the downstairs space here. It works because it means nearly everything I bring in comes in to Olympic Studios — they get good use because I'm often off using their other rooms. It's a really good working relationship. We've got a good space here, which we can use for certain parts of projects.
Do you get any kind of technical support?
We do. I mean, again, Cenzo tends to do more on that side of things. The maintenance guys here are helpful. Yeah, a nice bottle of wine — it depends on the size of the job. Cenzo has his own maintenance guys in from time to time if something needs complete rewiring. But if it's general, if something needs a tweak, they're very happy to help out. It's a good setup.
Do you find it's more of a community vibe too? Like, other projects coming through — you bump into people?
Yeah, you get to know everyone here. The good thing is, say you want a particular mic, if they're not using it, as long as you okay it, you can borrow a mic from someone else or one of the rooms. Everyone is here to try and make music.
Have you guys mixed records on the console here?
I mixed [Kaiser Chiefs] "I Predict a Riot" here. We haven't got computer-assisted recall in here. Sometimes b- sides, where you're not worried about recording it for a record company or anything like that. I'm still a bit old school. I still like to bring up things individually. I like mixing out of the box. I'm a big believer of it — there's something about the air. Everything sounds a bit more separate. The perception of depth is better, I think. I find nowadays I use far less effects than I used to. Back in the '80s I used to reverb the snare, put a bass drum on its reverb. [laugher] Now it's one plate, one room reverb.
In your mixes I always feel like the snare is front and center, with guitars wrapped around and vocals up front.
I think stereo placement is very important. I like to feel like you're in there — like things are coming out around you. In the last few years, it seems people are getting hung up on the compression thing. I guess what we're trying to do now, with compressors, is to get the air that we've already got in the recording, instead of relying on the snare through a big reverb plate, like we used to in the '80s.
To get an increase of the actual ambience?
Exactly. I think it's more creative. It's more gratifying if you get a good ambience.
There's a great quote from Wikipedia. It says, "Stephen Street has a reputation for producing commercially viable music." [laughter]
"Commercially viable?" That's horrible! [laughter] It's like I'm at K-Mart or something. I mean the main thing is that I like a good vocal. There's something there that grabs me if I like the melody. There's nothing more boring than verse, chorus, verse, chorus. There's nothing wrong with that, but you might not want to hear every single track on an album that way. But it's not a bad way to start when it comes to getting together an idea for an album. [laughter] I grew up on [Marc] Bolan and [David] Bowie. Those two guys were my heroes when I was a kid. In '73, I was thirteen years old. To me, all the heavy rock-stuff that was out back then — I didn't like that. I liked melody. I've always been that way. I appreciate the heavier rock artists that have come around, but when I was that age I wasn't much into [Led] Zeppelin or [Jimi] Hendrix, as much as I can appreciate them now and how good they are. I like that pop sensibility that Bowie and Bolan had. I think that's still at the heart of what I do, really. I mean good pop. Sometimes the word "pop" is a dirty word! [laughter]
That's kind of interesting to think that Tony Visconti [Tape Op #29] ended up working with Morrissey a few years back.
I smiled to myself when I thought of Morrissey working with Visconti. Morrissey and I were both huge Bowie and T-Rex fans.
Tell us about albums you have made that didn't get enough attention.
Did you ever hear that album [Wood/Water] I did with a band called the Promise Ring?
JB: I was gonna ask you about that.
They were a really good band. I came across it the other day on my iTunes and I thought, "This is a good record."
JB: It bombed. And that's their best record. It's my favorite record of that band, and I have all the records before that one.
It's funny, sometimes you make a great record and for whatever reason it just doesn't happen. The label sat on that album for months. I finished it and they sat on it and sat on it. You could just tell that no one knew what to do with it.
JB: It was a huge departure for them.
Yeah. It was quite melodic and soft in places. It wasn't quite as punk.
JB: How much did you work with them on taking their music in that direction?
Well, it was natural. They were already going that way. They were exploring different dynamics. They had put themselves through the Pro Tools system and it was making them think of writing differently — more texturally and experimenting with sounds. Instead of plugging in the guitars and writing a few punky/poppy songs. It was an interesting record. There's another band called The Triffids, a band from Australia, with a record called The Black Swan. Some of it is electronic and some of it is kind of a stripped down, folky acoustic thing. That got re-released recently. I hadn't heard that in years, but it was really gratifying. Those two records there, I personally really love and am very proud of.
You worked with Vini Reilly too.
Yeah, I did two Durutti Column albums [The Guitar and Other Machines, Vini Reilly].
He's someone who's just fantastic, but has never gotten dues commercially. I'm curious about the tracks you did for New Order's Waiting for the Sirens Call. You did eight songs total.
We did quite a few songs and there were a few left off. The idea was, I think, to use them as a starting point for another record. We worked on a bunch of songs and while we were tracking Bernard [Sumner] was working on stuff that was more electronic based. He decided he wanted those to go on the record. So, the rest [of the songs] got pushed to one side. They've admitted that they shouldn't have done that now. Warner Brothers [Records] contacted me the other day and made moves to perhaps finish off another album. There are five great songs that should have been on the last record that weren't used. If you can get Bernard and Hooky [Peter Hook] to start talking to each other again. There are some bridges to be rebuilt. But the fact that they've been talking about it fills me with some hope that we may actually do it.
I listened to the record and skipped through your songs and thought, "Oh, those are the songs that I really, really liked!" You're making Stephen [Morris] play the drums, instead of just letting him press the start button.
The start button, yeah! [laughter] That's just it — it was one of the key things I wanted to do. When we did that session I really wanted Steven to play on it. We tracked on RADAR and then we put it into Pro Tools. I was really happy with the way it was going. Then Bernard wrote this new bunch of programmed songs and decided to put them on the record. I think it did cause a bit of a disagreement between him and Hooky at the time and that's grown.
I always thought that Stephen's drum style and Peter's bass guitar are the foun- dation of Joy Division and New Order.
Yeah, exactly. I remember being at Jane Seymour's place [the St. Catherine's Court Tudor mansion near Bath, England] and working with Tom Stanley engineering. We're playing back this drum and bass track and Bernard started singing. I sat there and smiled and said, "I can't believe this. I'm sitting here listening to what was three-quarters of Joy Division." [laughter] I was a huge New Order fan. Joy Division as well, but more New Order because they were slightly poppier. [laughter] I could really connect with them. I really loved what they were doing.
I think the Power, Corruption and Lies era was just fantastic, you know?
Yeah. Bernard is not the best singer in the world, but there's something about his tone — he's fantastic. It was a good project. When you work with New Order you've got to put a lot of time into it. "What if we do it this way? What if we do it that way?" Sometimes you've got to put your foot down. [laughter] That was the only reason I didn't do the whole Kaiser Chiefs first album. I did all their singles, but not the album because I was still working with New Order. I didn't have time! [laughter]
What was the impetus to do the New Order sessions in a rented mansion?
They wanted to go residential because they're spread out all over Macclesfield and Manchester. They wanted someplace where they could come together and focus. They wanted to use Jane Seymour's mansion. Cenzo and I had this mobile setup. Radiohead had recorded there. So had The Cure. It was a great room, a library, so you had natural acoustic bafflement straightaway because there were books all around. Cenzo initially had an idea of a mobile studio setup where you could go to different locations. We did the New Order record with that. Basically it's one of these DDA desks in a flight case and Cenzo's got two other cases full of Neve preamps and compressors. The idea was that it was going to be out on location all the time. We took this place at Olympic so we had somewhere for it to be when it wasn't on location. But to be honest, the mobile side of things hasn't really taken off so much.
Why do you think that is?
I don't know. It's really difficult to find the right properties that allow you to do this. We can't use Jane Seymour's place anymore because she's moved back in. It was a lovely building. It was atmospheric. Bernard was working in the production suite, which was the front room. It had a huge Gothic fireplace. It inspired "Dracula's Castle" because it was really quite spooky. It was a great project and I really enjoyed working with them. Hooky is a great character and he had this great chair. You know those chairs where you push the button and there's a space for your drink and for your feet?
A La-Z-Boy recliner!
He said, "That's my space" and no one else sat in it. Six o'clock, he'd go and make himself a cocktail and sit in the chair. [laughter] Great character.
What was the working schedule?
Five days a week. I still do that. I've always been into that — even in the '80s and '90s. I don't think there's any point in being a martyr to the studio. "I work every day of the week for two to three weeks!" You start losing perspective. I know people don't think of it as a job, but it is a job. I like to have some balance in my life. I was coaching a kid's football [soccer] team. I was doing other things. That kept me fresh — ready to go again on Monday. I like to work a ten to twelve hour day and then get the hell out of there! That's sufficient, I think. Go home, watch TV for a couple of hours and then go to sleep. There's nothing worse than getting off work and trying to go directly to sleep after coming out of the studio. Your brain is still going.
JB: Your ears are ringing. [laughter]
Yeah, exactly! When I was an assistant I had to do all the late night sessions. I remember thinking, "If I get in charge of a session, I'm not going to do this! I'm gonna make sure we get things done at a good time of day." That's the way I've always conducted my sessions.
Do you find some people balk at that initially?
No. When I was doing New Order and we were in the residential space, if Bernard was singing and he was in a good mood I wasn't going to cut things short. [laughter] That was, "Christ! Let's get a few more takes." You have to be flexible. You've got to go with the muse if something is happening. For me, there's a peak time in the afternoon where everyone is really on top of it. That's when you get the best work done. I did the Babyshambles album last year with Pete Doherty. I had to grab my moments when I could. I don't want to go into too much detail of Pete's habits and such, but suffice to say he had a bad time of it.
It's pretty well documented.
Yeah. He was a junkie at that point and I was promised he would be in good shape. He was going to have an implant and everything. But that didn't happen, and in fact when he came in the studio for the first week or so, he was really quite a mess. There were a couple of times I had to fire some warning shots, in the sense of him sorting himself out or I'd be out of there. Fortunately, halfway through the project, he sort of pulled himself together a little bit and I managed to get some work out of him. He would do a vocal and I would say, "Pete, it's rubbish. You're singing something completely different every time, so you're not sure what it is yet that you want. I suggest you go home and write." [laughter] He refers to that in one of his songs. I think the words are, "Went home to write and no words came." [laughter]
Were you a little reticent to take that job in the first place?
Not reticent, but slightly nervous. I'm a huge Libertines fan and I said to Pete, "You're a songsmith. Take some pride in what you're doing. At the moment, you're just putting down anything to get the job done. That's not good enough. You're better than that." The moments of lucidity where I really got through — that's how we managed to finish an album. Underneath all that fog of drug addiction there is a very talented young man.
Do you feel like it could have been a better record? It sounds pretty good to me.
I'm pretty proud of it. I think it sounds coherent. I'm proud of it. It could have been better, especially if Pete had felt better. But I think, ultimately, if someone listened to it they wouldn't know he was as bad off as he was. This is not to put Mick [Whitnall] down, but I would have loved to work with the original guitarist. I think Patrick [Walden], with some of the more up-tempo songs, would have been really welcome. He's particularly good at that kind of thing. But Mick did a good job, when you consider that Patrick suddenly left and Mick was the guitar tech and he suddenly had to step into his shoes. The band is very good. I've got to say Drew [McConnell] and Adam [Ficek], the rhythm section; they were so strong and so positive. There were moments when I really doubted if I was doing the right thing. I only stayed because those two were so strong and so determined to keep the good ship sailing. I found that album to be gratifying. I don't sit there listening to my own work very often. [laughter] When you're doing it, you think it's the best thing you've ever done. Then you finish it and you can't listen to it again. You get sick of it.
You've had lots of instances with artists where you've had multiple records in a row, or taken a break and come back. I find that fascinating. Especially Blur.
It's gratifying. It's good to know that you've done a good job. Not only is the label happy and you've delivered something commercially viable, but also the band has enjoyed the experience enough to want to work with you again. [laughter] I've had a very long working relationship with Graham Coxon. We've got five Blur albums and three Graham Coxon solo albums together now.
You're not sick of each other yet? [laughter]
No, no. I think he's the best guitar player I've ever worked with. That's including Johnny Marr, too. We'll decide the tempo and put down a very basic drum pattern for him to do a rough rhythm guitar to. He will then play the kit to that. He's got some really good drum ideas. And then we'll just build up the track from scratch. Bass goes on, guitars, lead guitar and vocals — he does everything. He's very talented.
Is it more difficult, as producer, to get your head around the song because you're not able to hear it all played out at once?
No, because Graham always does a basic demo for me to listen to before we even start.
A little bit of drums or something?
Yeah. Basically the way Graham works is even stranger. He'll put down a guitar and then he'll sit there and play a drum machine with his fingers in time with the guitar. You think it's a really nice drum sound, snappy, but then you can tell it's all over the place — in a nice way. [laughter] But he physically plays it. It's amazing. I don't know how he does it.
That's funny!
It gives me a chance to have a listen. Sometimes I say, "It's great, but I think the key should change because it's too high, or too low, for you." So, well make decisions like that together.
It seemed like his vocals weren't really as strong on his early records.
That's what I pushed him on. Graham's always been a great guitar player, but vocally we worked on it a bit more to try and get the nuances, the character. I tried to make him think about what he was putting forth. The first album I worked with him on was [Happiness in] Magazines. I really pushed him to make him deliver his vocals. Graham can get quite moody about things. He's an intense young man. But, we've got a good relationship. Even if sometimes we come to a head, we can always manage to work out a compromise.
You were mentioning earlier about having to have a recallable mix because of dealing with labels. What kind of scenario is that?
It's important for them to know that I can do a recall. To bring the bass drum up a bit or something. I laugh and think, "I'm producing." Things are tweaked because they can be, but I want them to be happy with it. You don't make music for you. People say, "As long as we like it, we're happy with it." But that's not really true. You make records to be heard by people. You do want it to be heard on the radio. I like to think, "This could be a really good single." Ultimately it's up to the A&R people. They're the ones that decide singles. When we did "Song 2", basically it was for us. Blur, who on every album had a short, punky song like "Parklife" — well, we did that and Damon only did the "whoo-hoo's" because he had nothing else to sing. He was just making up words. It was nonsense. He spent ages trying to think up lyrics and, in the end, a good chunk of that vocal was the vibe vocal. It just had a vibe to it when we were tracking the song. When we made the song, we weren't thinking about it being a single. There was no pressure — we just had fun with it. Again, the RADAR was the main reason why that song came about as it does. You know that little drum loop in the beginning? It was just a room mic. They were all just jamming. I recorded a bit and looped a bit. I just went "bang bang" and the band said, "This is cool" and started playing along with it. We had fun with that record. The whole album was the band having fun and letting go.
Were they writing in the studio a lot like that too?
Everything was a lot freer. They weren't so constructed. Things like "Essex Dogs", they just jammed on that for ages. I made a very basic drum loop and they jammed. I think the original recording is fifteen minutes long and I edited together the best bits. The final eight minutes was reduced from what it was originally with all the best bits live. The RADAR was a very big part of that album and the way the songs were constructed.
Do you find that it's different? Say how RADAR influenced how that record was being recorded, would tracking straight to Pro Tools influence a different way of working?
I think Pro Tools sounds pretty damn good now, to be honest with you. I'm quite happy to track to that. I couldn't sit there and listen and say, "That's RADAR or that's Pro Tools."
Do you feel that it changes the working process in any way?
Do you know what? Ironically, I find Pro Tools and RADAR enables me to record bands even more live than back in the tape days. Because, in the tape, days all those takes cost money. So I'd choose, "That piece of tape is what I'm going to record on." I wasn't really saying to a band, "Come on, play it. Play it." [snapping fingers] Whereas now, with Pro Tools and RADAR, I can get bands to play through the song and say, "Another take! That sounds great. That first chorus is great on that take, but let's change the tempo."
When you've got that running, are you keeping a notepad for a song?
Yeah. You can't beat a piece of paper and pencil when it comes to taking notes. [laughter] I mean my comp sheet is the same thing. I still draw out all my little lines, write out the lyrics. I find now, because I can fix it later or just push things around, that I'm allowing people to play even more live. I mean the Babyshambles CD is the perfect case in point. I took what I could get, literally. [laugher] I cut together the best takes and got the backing tracks. We'd just keep going. You can get down that avenue where you quantanize everything because you can, but you don't have to.
Do you stay pretty far away from that kind of thing?
Yeah. I mean, sometimes a little bit if you want a particularly rigid "bam bam". But, it's funny. Sometimes, when I first learned how to do it, there was something that didn't sound quite right. I'd rather capture it live, if possible. I'm fine grabbing chunks and putting it together.
Do you ever find situations where bands are rebelling against too much manipulation on the studio side?
I think, yeah. Sometimes they come in and say it sounds good and they're happy with it. If it's done subtly and tastefully, no one really notices. You don't advertise the fact, "Hey! I've just done all your drums and they sound great!" I play it back and ask if it sounds good. Crack on. I find I'm really doing it twenty percent of the time, at most. It's only occasionally. Even then it might only be for a chunk of the song. It depends.
What are you working on currently?
I just finished a Graham Coxon album. I'm going to be doing another session with a band called The Courteeners, a band from Manchester. I've just done their debut album [St. Jude]. They're a really good guitar band, very strong lyricist. Looking good, keeping busy enough. I can't complain. And as you said, it's been a very long time. I'm aware of that, so I'm just counting my lucky stars.
Gailforce Management, +44 20 7384 8989, gail@gailforcemanagement.co.uk
