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M A G A Z I N E

The Hoosiers

Goodbye Mr A, hello new music

industry and a brand new album

HardwellAn exclusive with the world’s number one DJ

Greg WellsSongwriting with Katy Perry, Mika, and Adele

I N T E R V I E W W I T H M P G ’ S O U T S T A N D I N G C O N T R I B U T O R T O M U S I C

I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H

EVERYTHINGYOU LOVE TO HEAR IS MADE WITH WAVES

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Before we take you through the contents, we would like to first thank the MPG for continuing what

has already been a great media partnership with Headliner, and long may that roll into next year and beyond. Also, a big thanks to our Headliner partners: DiGiGrid, Waves, Prism Sound, DPA, and Genelec, for their respective contributions in this issue.

So. It’s a big night for a lot of people tonight, with a string of musical accolades up for grabs, but it’s a particularly big night for one man: Youth, who kindly invited us

into his abode a little while back to chat about his fascinating musical career, and what it means to him personally to be credited with the revered Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award this evening. This guy is as humble as he is successful – a real inspiration, and a thoroughly deserved winner... Although he’ll likely disagree! We can’t wait for his live performance tonight.

Also in this MPG Awards Special, there’s a series of [hopefully!] interesting studio-centric features: an exclusive with superstar DJ and producer, Hardwell, who’s just set a world-record for the biggest

ever guest list at a live show; a thought piece on the value of good music from our Grammy-winning columnist, DJ Swivel; a great insight into songwriting from Katy Perry’s long-time collaborator, Greg Wells; and a tale of two drummers: how meticulous preparation before recording sessions isn’t always a no-brainer. We also review Adele’s latest record, 25, because we’re still playing it every day, three months after its release!

All this and more inside. Have a great night, everyone, and best of luck to all the nominees. Paul WatsonEditor

Welcome to this special MPG Awards edition of Headliner.

CONTACTPaul Watsonpaul@headlinerhub.com +44(0)7952-839296

Graham Kirkgraham@gkirkmedia.com +44(0)7872-461938

Art DirectorEimear O’Connor

ContributorsColin PigottJordan YoungJonathan TessierLouis Henry Sarmiento IIRobert the Roadie

headlinermagazine.net@HeadlinerhubHeadlinerHubheadlinermagazinewww.tsu.co/headliner_magazine

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editor’s letter

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ContentsMPG Awards Special

H E A D L I N E R | M P G AWA R D S S P E C I A L I S S U E

08SWIVEL ON THIS DJ Swivel gives us his thoughts on why only good music has value.

10MPG SHORTLISTA full rundown of this year’s MPG Awards nominees.

12 HARDWELLWe are exclusively invited inside the new studio of the world’s number one DJ, whose attitude is as impressive as his recent record-breaking achievements.

16 SONIC VISTA INSIGHTSProducer, Henry Sarmien-to, looks forward to a busy summer season of recording in Ibiza.

18 REVIEW: ADELEOur take on the latest instalment from the world’s favourite songstress.

20YOUTHThis year’s Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award-winner takes us down memory lane. His work with Richard Ashcroft, Sir Paul McCartney, and Dave Gilmour, and why getting behind new talent is the ulti-mate winning formula.

24 GREG WELLSAdele. Katy Perry. Mika. Just three of the artists Greg Wells has helped pen hit records with.

28 FROM THE GROUND UPThe ethos of Prism Sound, the art of remixing, and how with B-Side Project, you never now what to expect.

32 TO THE BEAT OF THE DRUMA tale of two drummers: we chat to ELY about his unique approach to record production.

36 THE HOOSIERSGoodbye Mr. A, hellonew music industry,with a stonkingly good album to boot.

38GRUMPY OLD ROADIEOur ranting columnist explores what he describes as the coffee conspiracy.

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UK PRODUCER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by The BRIT Awards)

Charlie AndrewMark RonsonMike CrosseyTom Dalgety

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by Pro Tools Expert)

BjörkMax MartinRobert John ‘Mutt’ Lange

BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by Focusrite)

Catherine MarksFKA Twigs (Tahliah Barnett)Neil Comber

RECORDING ENGINEER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by AMS Neve)

Dan CoxGuy MasseyOlga Fitzroy

BREAKTHROUGH ENGINEER OF THE YEAR

Ben BaptieBrett CoxDrew Bang

MIX ENGINEER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by SSL)

Cenzo TownshendCraig SilveyDavid Wrench

MASTERING ENGINEER OF THE YEAR

Barry GrintJohn DavisMandy Parnell

RE-MIXER OF THE YEAR (sponsored by Prism Sound)

Four Tet (Kieran Hebden)UNKLE (James Lavelle)Jungle

UK ALBUM OF THE YEAR

‘LP1’ - FKA Twigs‘Uptown Special’ - Mark Ronson‘Royal Blood’ - Royal Blood

UK SINGLE SONG RELEASE OF THE YEAR (sponsored by Shure)

‘Regret’ - Everything Everything‘Pendulum’ – FKA Twigs‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’ - Royal Blood

STUDIO OF THE YEAR (sponsored by Avid)

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THE A&R AWARD

Chris BriggsOllie HodgeTic

MPG Awards 2016 Shortlist

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MUSIC HAS VALUE. I’ve been seeing this written on t-shirts recently. It’s a phrase that’s been championed by Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, and many are taking note. Scott has been on the front-lines, fighting for artists and the industry, and I thank him for it. Having said that, I don’t like the statement. With all due respect, Scott, I propose rephrasing it: good music has value. That’s better.

What a historic week. Adele’s highly anticipated album, 25, moved 3.38 million copies in the first week in the US alone. This betters the previous first week US sales record set by NSYNC with No Strings Attached (2.4 million units). What does this mean, though? The industry has been telling us for years that the Internet has destroyed the record business. I have to disagree. Disrupted, sure. But destroyed? Like any other industry, when technology innovates, the industry must respond by improving itself – not by fighting a losing battle with innovation. Just look at the taxi business: ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft offer a better experience. This always wins with consumers.

Bringing this premise back to music, what Adele has shown us is that if you create high quality content, people will support it. And support it they did. Let’s look at the numbers (borrowed from Billboard): she sold more than double the combined sales of the rest of the top 100 albums (2-100) in its first week; was responsible for 41% of

all albums sold across the US, with 1.71 million physical CDs and 1.64 million digital albums: 49% of every download sold.

These are unbelievable figures, but moving past Adele’s incredible success, others have had great years too. Taylor Swift’s latest album, 1989, was released a little over a year ago, and remained in the top 10 for 52 weeks; and Drake sold over a million on a mixtape! The point I’m trying to make is, if the music is quality, people will buy. This isn’t to slight artists in any way who aren’t selling. Lots of artists make great music that doesn’t sell. It’s more than just great content; it’s the amalgamation of quality content, a strong marketing effort, and great radio promo. And this is where artists and labels have been failing.

When the music business was disrupted by Napster 15 years ago, it started a chain reaction. First, the industry didn’t know what to do, and fought technology: mistake number one. Once labels realised fighting it was a losing battle (some still haven’t realised), they were forced to play catch up. Shareholders don’t care about this though, they care about returns, plain and simple.

So what’s the easiest way to make sure profits remain high? Cut costs. That’s been the de facto strategy. When I started my professional career 10 years ago, things were different. Labels would book the best studios, they wouldn’t hammer us on our

rates, there would be a food budget every day to make sure the talent was happy and fed. All of this meant one thing: the talent creating the record was taken care of in such a way that the only worry was making sure we made great music. The same corner cutting has happened in the offices, too. Labels have cut so much staff, they’re operating at the most anaemic levels possible. This leads for very little bandwidth to get things done. It also means everyone is scared of being next on the chopping block, and prevents anyone from taking a risk. We make music! We’re supposed to be innovators, risk takers, challengers of the status quo!

When I listen to Adele’s album, what I hear is a group of incredibly talented people, working their asses off to make something of quality - of value. I can hear it in the pianos, in the reverbs. These aren’t cheap records to make. This wasn’t producers emailing files online, and engineers mixing in their bedrooms. Money was spent. Once the product was ready, marketing and radio had the ammo they needed to go and do their jobs, which is just as important. There’s a correlation between the albums that do well, and the rest. All of the albums that are doing well are firing on all cylinders. Great content. Great marketing. Great radio team.

If 25 has proven anything, it’s that good music has value. www.djswivel.com

08 HEADLINER

“What a historic week. Adele’s highly anticipated album, 25, moved 3.38 million

copies in the US alone...”

Adele

Swivel on this

MPG AWARDS Opinion

HORU S

A4 HAPI HORUS AD FINAL.indd 1 21/01/2015 17:20

Hardwell: Know NoBoundsWords PAUL WATSON

MPG AWARDS Interview

IT’S A CRISP NOVEMBER AFTERNOON IN BREDA, Holland, about an hour outside of Amsterdam. This is the hometown of Hardwell – the place where he grew up as a lad. After the DJ extraordinaire greets us at his door with a smile, we make the descent down a staircase which leads to his main living quarters. Passing a pair of Pioneer CDJs and a plethora of awards along the way, we find ourselves at a purpose-built room which houses his brand new, state-of-the-art recording studio. It’s got more than a hint of the futuristic to it, with its bright white walls and floors. In fact, I’m half expecting a stormtrooper or two to march in.

“[laughs] Yeah, it is a bit like a spaceship, isn’t it? But I love that,” Hardwell says, and perches on his mixing chair. “Everything is always clean in here, and I like it that way. I went to Afrojack’s place recently, and it’s very homely, carpeted, and warm feeling, but I am so easily distracted, I needed white, so that my only distraction is my speakers; and that’s a good distraction!”

Hardwell played his first ever show here in Breda when he was just 12-years-old. It was somewhat unconventional, but it was enough to convince him that music was the future.

“It wasn’t even in a bar, it was in a dancing school! There were dancing lessons the whole night, except for the last hour, where I was allowed to play freestyle,” he laughs, reclining in his chair. “Then by the time I was 18, I was studying at the Rock Academy, so I was always working on rock bands and singer-songwriter projects. That was nine years ago.”

Rising StarAnd a lot has happened in that time. Especially since 2009, when his bootleg of Show Me Love vs. Be raised more than a few eyebrows in the industry. The following year, he launched his own label, Revealed Recordings, which is the hub of his musical operation today, and caters for a whole string of musical genres. In addition to his own material, he mixes for bands, masters records, and works with many up-and-coming ‘bedroom’ producers. With all that in mind, I ask him if he fell into the EDM scene, and whether the long-term focus was somewhat broader?

“To be honest, I was always a fan of dance music, and

the more melodic stuff,” Hardwell explains. “I grew up listening to Tiësto and Armin van Buuren, and then took a direction from there. I started producing my own music, and in the beginning, people couldn’t name it, and that’s one of the reasons why we are all EDM now. I wasn’t electro, I wasn’t progressive, I wasn’t techno, yet I was still groovy. It was like, ‘what is it?’ [smiles]

“But I like the term EDM, as it’s clear what we do, especially for the larger crowd, as people had no idea what we were really doing. The older generation still think we are those DJs in the corner of the club in a dark room, you know? But it’s quite simply electronic dance music; it’s what we do. If there’s one synthesiser involved, it’s still electronic dance music [pauses]... So then you could ask the question, ‘is the new Coldplay album electronic dance music?’” A fair point. And if it is, EDM has done Chris Martin and co. no harm; reviews suggest A Head Full Of Dreams is their best work to date. I ask Hardwell about his own debut album, United We Are, which was released in March 2015. What took him so long, I wonder?

“[smiles] I suppose I really wanted to release it three or four years earlier, but at that point, I really broke through as a DJ, especially in America, so my touring schedules were enormous,” he explains. “I was doing up to 300 gigs a year, so no studio time for me! All the instrumental singles I’d been releasing from 2007 to 2013 were made on the road and in hotel rooms, and I just finished them off back home. It was just me and my MacBook, as I was always on the road.

“But I still had the feeling that I was growing musically; my taste in music was growing, and I was still trying to reinvent myself; and that’s one of the reasons I started working with vocalists. Most of the stuff back in the beginning was instrumental club tracks, and for an album, I wanted to make it more crossover, so I went to LA to work in the studio with singer-songwriters. You have to find your direction, and it all evolved organically, really.”

InspiredWe regress some 18 months, when Hardwell put on a show in New Delhi, India. It ended up being the catalyst to him creating his own charity, and planning a record

We get an exclusive invite into the home of Robbert van der Corput,

AKA Hardwell, the world’s number one DJ, whose humble attitude is

as remarkable as his seemingly endless list of musical achievements.

Producer, engineer, artist, movie-maker, record-breaker - and he’s still

only 27. But we can’t help feeling he’s only just getting started.

breaking show in Mumbai that would turn heads across the globe. It also shows just the kind of bloke Hardwell really is.

“I’d just arrived in New Delhi, it was pouring with rain, and the first thing I noticed was this really fancy big billboard of myself, and homeless kids were seeking shelter beneath it,” he says, and pauses for thought. “I felt really weird about it, and knew if I was going to come back to this country, I’d need to give something back, because they were so in need of it. Then when United We Are was released, a lot of people came up to me and asked how I came up with the title. I was like, ‘music is uniting people; it’s the most universal language on earth; and that’s where I want to be with my music’, because I wanted to be as universal as possible. And the reaction was, ‘yeah, but that title is so much more than just uniting people through music’. And I thought about that for a while, and decided to start my own charity, the United We Are Foundation; and India was number one on my list to give something back to. The support from the people in India has always been really great to my music, and it’s a buzzing scene; India and Japan are probably the number one and two for the next step in electronic dance music, so it made sense on all levels.”

The event, which takes place on December 13th in Mumbai, will boast the world’s biggest ever guest list – 100,000 - and is part of a global endeavour to educate young children in different communities around the world. That sounds like a hell of a challenge.

“To reserve a spot on the guest list, you had to sign up on

the website; currently, we are around 700,000, and we can only pick 100,000,” Hardwell explains, almost bashfully. Christ, so you’re already sold out seven times over? “[smiles] Yes, and that’s why we have a Pledge website, where you can donate your money now to the event, even if you’re not there. That’s going really well; we already have nearly 20,000 people signed up. My foundation is teaming up with the Magic Bus Foundation, a charity in India which stands for the education for kids, so we are going to build schools and raise money, so parents can afford to get their kids into school. We have raised around 300,000 Euros so far, and we will see what the result is at the end of the event.”

Staggered, and still trying to compute that information, I ask Hardwell what it means to him on a personal level, seeing his monumental fanbase back his every move. And what a move it is.

“Well, the whole situation in New Delhi literally broke my heart; I’m the guy getting put in a fancy hotel, being police-escorted to the event, and then you see that; the whole world is upside down,” he says, with a hint of melancholy. “But the feedback and support has been overwhelming, and this is just the first step I’m making with the charity. I have much more to do, and say.”

Monitoring the TrendAs Hardwell pulls up a mix he’s been working on, I notice that there’s a certain softness (if that’s the right term) to the whole sound. It feels easy on the ear. I quiz him about it.

“When I was a bedroom producer, I always worked on the small Dynaudio speakers; and then I switched to the Focal SM9s, which were very good for me back then. But recently, Jan [Morel, studio designer] played me the Genelec 1034s for the first time, as we were building this new room, and I fell in love with the sound right away,” Hardwell says, and turns the volume up a little more, allowing his Genelec 7073 subs to kick in a little. “I wanted to have a main monitor system, but not too big, because if you’re producing day in, day out, your ears will get tired. I spend 12 hours a day in this studio, and I can tell you I never switch back to my nearfields, because my ears never get tired of a system like this. It’s a main system, but it still feels really close to you. The only things you crank are your ears, believe me!

“Also, these Genelecs are the most honest speakers I’ve ever heard. I initially wanted to try a couple of sets, but we never had another set make it into the room! The thing is, besides being a DJ and producer, I am an engineer who does a lot of mixing and mastering for a lot of guys, so I want to have a speaker I can mix a really good pop record on, and a hard style record on; and when using these speakers, when you play your track, you can tell if the high end is not right in the mix, or if the kick is fighting with the bass line. It doesn’t matter if it’s a really dark underground track or a Britney Spears track, you can hear everything here.”

“EDM IS A WORLD PHENOMENON, AND IT WILL STICK.”

14 HEADLINER

MPG AWARDS Interview

Hardwell doesn’t mix loud, yet he doesn’t mix quiet: “It’s listenable, but not at crazy club level,” is how he puts it. I ask him about his vocal production, as I felt the lead vocal on his latest single, Mad World (feat. Jake Reese), sounded particularly good.

“I use the Waves PuigTec EQP-1A plugin when I am EQ-ing my vocals; it’s really important to me,” Hardwell reveals. “First, you tune the vocals by Melodyne - it’s what everybody is using – and then it’s about EQ-ing the low end. I use the PuigTec to boost the vocal around 100Hz, and I also boost it a little bit around 8k. That makes it very warm in the low end, and crispy in the high end – and you really get the presence across in the vocals.

“Some plugins are definitely better than analogue, as you have more options. Look at the threshold on plugins like the Waves C6: the digital has a way bigger range; and the same goes for the [UA] Shadow Hill. Then for maximising, I use the iZotope Ozone 5, and the Waves L2 Ultramaximiser is also a very popular one; that’s actually my favourite transparent limiter.”

We move onto Hardwell’s life on the road, and the love he has for his four Pioneer CDJs. He doesn’t know where he’d be without them, he admits, and explains that he is working closely with Pioneer on developing the new CDJ model. I ask him where he finds the time and the energy, which brings us on to his all-important diet.

“It’s definitely a lot of coffee, but you have to get the right amount of sleep, too,” he says, with a smile. “When I’m on tour, especially when I do my first couple of days, it’s not about doing the after-parties, it’s about doing your gig, and going straight back to bed; and I always nap before my show, too. Food is also really important. You have to skip fast food; your body thinks you gain energy for two to three hours when you eat that stuff, and then you’re hungry again! It can be sushi or maybe steak, but I just try to eat as good as possible all the time.”

And... Action!Incredibly, there is yet another string to Hardwell’s bow: making movies. He’s made two to date, both of which tell an important and inspiring story:

“With my first movie, I worked with Robin Piree, who is also from Breda. He made a lot of short movies back in the day: small bar parties, skateboard movies; and they looked really good. So when I needed footage for my YouTube channel, I was like, ‘hey, join me on the road and film a couple of gigs, make a compilation of it, we can put a new track in there as a teaser’, and so on. And he did that. He was on the road with me for some time, during which I went from ‘that guy from Breda’ getting more popular in Holland, to breaking into the UK, and then all of a sudden, I broke through in America, and Tiesto picked me up. It sounded like a movie, you know? This random guy from Breda in a brand new world!”

So you just wrote your own Hollywood script, basically? “Yes, and directed it! [laughs] It was movie-worthy to put

this whole dream of mine onto film, as he was always with me on the road, so why not, you know?” Hardwell says, laughing. Why not, indeed. And the next movie? “That was during the first I Am Hardwell world tour, where we had such an impact on different cultures and different cities. For example, I was the first DJ to play an EDM show in Vietnam; we had so much amazing footage, we wanted to capture how it felt to be the number one DJ in the world. People still think we are pressing play on a CDJ and [lifts arms in the air, tilts head back and closes eyes, smiling], but you get to see a team of 40 people building shows - stuff like that, you know? Even the backstage stuff, too. We do meet and greets, which gives the viewer a snippet into my daily routine: what it’s like to be me. Fans love it, and it’s great fun to do that, and give something back.”

I applaud Hardwell once more for his humble, grounded attitude, and he just smiles, modestly. Before I leave him to prepare for Mumbai, I ask him how much bigger and better the EDM scene can get, now that it’s on such a global scale. In his eyes, there are no limits, it seems.

“EDM is a world phenomenon, and it will stick. It’s so big right now, and four years ago, nobody knew what it was in America, except in the underground. EDM nowadays is pop-crossover, radio friendly, a bit of everything,” Hardwell enthuses. “Nobody can predict the future, or where it’s going genre-wise, but what I know as a producer is that dance music keeps evolving. Four years ago, everyone was blown away: ‘Who is this guy, Skrillex?’ ‘Dubstep – what is it?’ Then last year, Future House arrived, which is a variation of big house; it’s not super-big room, but it’s not underground. So as long as genres keep evolving, it has a future.

“Just watch Asia. Dance music is doing exactly the same now there as it is in America. It just keeps growing. And with that being said, dance music has been in Europe now for such a long time, 20 to 30 years already. It’s an endless wave that keeps coming up and going down. I am really happy to see - especially in America - that the more underground genres are getting more appreciation now. You see people throwing drum and bass parties, more deep house parties. I don’t know why, but traditionally, the mainstream is always hating on the underground and vice versa, but the one thing we have to keep in mind is that we can’t live without each other, and that’s why we should respect every single genre. It makes us both stronger, and we need to keep the balance right.” www.djhardwell.com www.genelec.com

“INDIA AND JAPAN ARE THE NUMBER ONE AND TWO FOR THE NEXT STEP IN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC.”

15 HEADLINER

MPG AWARDS Interview

This summer, Sarmiento is set to record the famous Ibiza Rocks concerts for MTV UK. Past artists include Ed Sheeran, Rudimental, LCD Soundsystem, and Tinie Tempah; and this year’s run of shows promises to feature the same level of high-end performers across the board. For all these performances, Sarmiento will be turning to his DiGiGrid kit to capture all the audio.

“DiGiGrid has created an incredible ecosystem of audio interfaces,” Sarmiento insists. “The ability to connect via Ethernet has changed the game when it comes to system configuration, too. I am already using the DiGiGrid IOX, DLS, and MGB, and that entire system will be used for Ibiza Rocks throughout the summer season.

“I can record up to 128 channels of audio via MADI to the DiGiGrid MGB alone, and I can then connect [via Ethernet] the DiGiGrid IOX, which will give me 12 channels of analogue inputs for crowd mics, and so on. When you tally that up, 140 channels of audio recording in such a small rack is pretty unbelievable, to be honest.”

Using an Ethernet hub, Sarmiento will record to multiple devices: in this case, his MacMini, and MacBook Pro.

“I will be using WAVES Tracks DAW to record all of the shows, and back at the Sonic Vista Studios villa, the same system will be used in Studio 6 for recording sessions, then the DiGiGrid DLS will connect to the Pro Tools HD 3 system to run extra DSP,” he continues. “It’s amazing to think that I can put the DiGiGrid IOX into the main villa room to record drums, and just

Sonic Vista InsightsHenry Sarmiento heads up the idyllically situated Sonic Vista Studios in Ibiza, where he has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, 50 Cent, Akon, Ne-Yo, The Ting Tings, and many more. Summer looks like being a hectic one for the New York-born producer, but with a new collection of DiGiGrid audio interfaces in his inventory, things will be that little bit easier.

MPG AWARDS Sonic Vista

16 HEADLINER

run a single Ethernet cable, and suddenly I have four amazing sounding headphone outputs for the musicians! It really is that easy.”

The DiGiGrid system will allow Sarmiento to record pretty much anywhere within the Sonic Vista grounds: “even on the roof,” he smiles. And we wouldn’t put it past him.

“DiGiGrid has created new ways for engineers and producers to think on how to record, removing the limitation of previous infrastructure,” Sarmiento enthuses. “We will also be recording a new series of the Sonic Vista Tent Jam, which takes place in a large six-metre tent, and will feature unplugged live performances in a very unique environment, which we also stream live on Periscope to the world.”

The 2015 Sonic Vista Tent Jam featured two super-talented artists: Emma Hewitt, and Elijah Ray; and it all

went rather well.“We had thousands of people

viewing the streaming on Periscope, plus our own studio tent audience of 15, up close and personal,” Sarmiento explains. “And this summer, we will be using the DiGiGrid solution for the whole event: to record the audio, and distribute it back to Studio A at the villa; and also to mix the audio for the sound system with a MacBook Pro and the SoundGrid software. The DiGiGrid DLS will be handling all of the Waves plugins used for the live mixing of the event in realtime, all connected via Ethernet, which is just perfect for me. Perhaps the most important, though, is time: entire setup is under 10 minutes. DiGiGrid is a company of innovators; music is clearly in their lifeblood.” www.digigrid.net

“DIGIGRID HAS CREATED NEW WAYS FOR PRODUCERS TO THINK IN TERMS OF RECORDING.”

“THE ABILITY TO CONNECT VIA ETHERNET HAS CHANGED THE GAME WHEN IT COMES TO SYSTEM CONFIGURATION.”

MPG AWARDS Sonic Vista

17 HEADLINER

Just in case you’ve been asleep

for half a decade, Adele reached superstar status in 2011 after a memorable rendition of her hit record, Someone Like You, at The Brit Awards. The following year, she

went viral: flying the Union Jack proudly, she cooly landed six Grammys in LA, before hopping back across the pond in time to deliver an equally jaw-dropping performance of Rolling In The Deep at The Brits, a week later. I was lucky enough to have been there for that performance, though I’ve never been asked back. Not sure why. Perhaps it’s something to do with stumbling over a couch heavily under the influence and launching a large glass of red wine over a music executive in the process?

So, 25. I was a fan of Adele at 19 and 21, and when I heard Hello on the radio, the opening track on this third record, I warmed to it instantly. It was, well, Adele. But it was only when my American mate,

Will, posted a live version of When We Were Young, recorded at The Church in London, on his Facebook page that I really woke up to what Adele was doing. It was her delivery that astounded me more than anything: engaging, emotional, and totally remarkable. And what a song. I downloaded 25 there and then, took a deep breath, and dived right in.

And then this happened. Normally when I hear a record for the first time, I skim through (we all do, right?) and stop when I’m feeling something. But that didn’t happen with 25. And the last time that didn’t happen, in fact, was in the late ‘90s when Radiohead released OK Computer. I was in a band at the time, aspiring to be another Radiohead, so they could do wrong in my eyes. But Adele? I wasn’t expecting that. After listening twice through to 25, Hello had already dropped down to perhaps my fifth or sixth favourite song on the album, and that’s when I knew I was absorbing something special. I had discovered Remedy, one of a handful of beautiful piano ballads, with that effortless trademark Adele vocal; the beautifully produced Water Under The Bridge and River Lea, in both of which Adele wears her heart firmly on her sleeve; and by the time I got to track nine, A Million Years, my heart was sat firmly in my mouth. Adele is so open, lyrically, which I love; and she proves her baritone quality is just as strong as her powerful high range. The vocal sits beautifully with the song’s acoustic guitars, and what a creative chord structure, too.

Emotionally exhausted, All I Ask takes me even closer to the edge! This beautiful piano-led ballad wouldn’t have looked out of place on Christina Aguilera’s excellent 2002 release, Stripped. There’s more than a hint of the great Linda Perry about this track, so it came as no surprise to find out that another world-class songwriter, Bruno Mars (and his Smeezingtons crew), helped pen it with her: ‘Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do, it matters how this ends, ‘cos what if I never love again?’ I think I’d better sit down. It’s right up there with the best on the album, but for now, the track that drew me to 25 in the first place remains my favourite: When We Were Young. It’s lost love at its most hopeless; Adele at her most vulnerable; and vocally, she manages to turn purity into grit, guts, and aggression. And which is more, how can the lyric, ‘let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time’ not speak to someone who’s felt any heartbreak in their life? It’s melancholically addictive, and plays tug o’ war with your heart strings throughout. It took me back years, places I thought I’d never go again, so Christ alone knows what it does to the artist herself. This is Adele at her very best, and most heartbreaking. 25 truly showcases her songwriting skills - and my, has she chosen her collaborators wisely.

Although there’s sweet soul music in abundance throughout, the most outstanding instrument on display is her unmistakable voice which, somehow, keeps getting better with age.

Review:Adele / 25

“THIS IS ADELE AT HER VERY BEST, AND MOST

HEARTBREAKING.”

MPG AWARDS Review

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Freedom to connectJoe West – West Barn Studio

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YOUTH is a one-off. Not only has the charismatic Killing Joke bassist produced some of the uber-albums of all time, he was asked personally by Kate Bush to play on her seminal Hounds of Love record, and he’s in a band with Sir Paul McCartney. Tonight, Youth will pick up the revered Outstanding Contribution to Music accolade at the MPG Awards, which he considers to be ‘the greatest honour of his career’. It’s quite a statement, considering he was the bloke that convinced Richard Ashcroft not to scrap Bitter Sweet Symphony, The Verve’s most recognised single of all time, and the go-to for Dave Gilmour when searching for a production partner on Floyd’s latest record. We popped round for afternoon tea to find out more about Youth’s staggering journey, his musical ethos, and why choosing the right pair of jeans and haircut can be just as important as learning your musical scales.

ON arrival at Youth’s abode, I’m handed a

hot brew by a friendly young chap, who ushers me towards the living room. I am soon to discover there are several more of these fellas hanging out within the building. Some are working on mixes and edits, others are setting up bits of kit or discussing projects. It’s a bit of a musical tardis, actually. Although there’s no actual time travel taking place, you’d be forgiven for assuming you’d regressed to the early 1970s – and in a good way. It’s got that super-cool hippy feel, and as I take a seat next to the cat in the lounge, I’m mesmerised by the musical memorabilia oozing out of every pore. And there’s Youth on his MacBook, mixing what sounds like some kind of orchestral piece.

Within a few seconds, the music’s stopped, Youth is up on his feet, smiling, and we’re exchanging pleasantries. And what a pleasant fella this man is. We chat a little about music, the décor of the room, and a

few of the interesting bits and pieces that surround us.

“Dear Youth... [pauses] This was an incredible experience,” smiles Youth, handing me his signed copy of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. “I played bass on the single. I remember her calling me saying, ‘do you want to play on my album?’ I was all, ‘are you sure you’ve got the right person?’ How she made Hounds of Love is almost a template of how everyone went on to make records. She totally pioneered that, her, Peter Gabriel, and Trevor [Horn]. That was a big honour, and a big break, too. But being in the room with those cats, that’s the biggest honour.”

ASHCROFT

If I had to pick a favourite record from Youth’s catalogue of work, it’d have to be Urban Hymns by The Verve. It’s my era, I guess that’s why - and it’s brilliant, of course. That’s another reason.

“Weirdly enough, that [project] came about from Spiritualized coming over to my studio in Brixton

and playing me demos of Ladies and Gentlemen,” Youth explains, lighting a cigarette. “They wanted me to produce it, but the demos were so fantastic, they were like masters, so I suggested they just get someone like Spike [Stent] to mix it, and that’s what they did. It was a classic album, but my manager was furious I let it slip! But you have to have integrity, and I couldn’t think of a single thing I would have changed.”

An admirable attitude. It was Kate Radley, keyboard player for Spiritualized, who introduced Youth to Richard Ashcroft, and before long, Youth found himself working with The Verve – well, almost. Ashcroft was technically solo at the time, as he’d decided to sack the band, and reemploy a few as session guys. As you do.

“They were so loyal to him,” Youth recalls. “I remember we were having an argument; I was saying, ‘This is The Verve, let’s get Nick [McCabe, guitarist] back in, too’, but he was having none of it. He didn’t even want to do Bitter Sweet Symphony,

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MPG AWARDS Interview

Visionary

would you believe? We had big disagreements about that. I remember having an argument about something else one time, and I said, ‘why did you ask me to produce this record?’ And by then, he was with Kate, and he said, ‘Kate said you had a lot of integrity, and when we met, I liked you’.”

Youth laughs loudly, admitting that it was as good a reason as any, so he ‘deferred to Ashcroft’s sovereignty’.

“It was his record, at the end of the day, and ultimately you always do that – you can only suggest. But every time he wouldn’t show up [for a session], I’d pull out Bitter Sweet Symphony and get the others to overdub it,” he smiles, with a little mischief. “Until we got to a point where we got all the managers and publishers in to give them a bit of a playback. We had Drugs Don’t Work and Sonnet, and they were sounding great. I’d just got them working with my manager, Jazz Summers, who sadly died recently, as they didn’t have a manager. They were signed to Hut, and Dave Boyd was doing a good job A&Ring, but they really needed management. So anyway, they got the beers out, we played it, and people thought it was amazing. Then I said, ‘Richard, let me play you a

bit of Bitter Sweet; I know you said you didn’t want us to work on it, but it’s sounding pretty good’. He said, ‘oh, go on then’, so we played it, and of course they all went crazy and said ‘that’s your first number one’. After that, he took ownership of it. Timing is everything, isn’t it? [smiles]”

Evidently so! Youth is a great believer that to get the best out of an artist – or any musical relationship - you have to build up a sensibility, and be patient: ‘eventually, it will come’.

“Everyone was aware as we were making it that Urban Hymns was going to become a very significant record,” he admits. “It took a long time, but it was worth it. Richard panicked that there were no jams on the album, which there had been with the previous Verve offerings – and although it’d be churlish to say you could better Urban Hymns, when the 20th anniversary comes up in a couple of years, they might put out the other version... We did some rough mixes of the stuff that didn’t make the album, you see, which was pretty unbelievable, too.

BACK IN THE DAY

Conversation turns to Killing Joke, and how it’s a huge release from music production just being out on the road playing with his old mates, “who still tell me it sounds shit when it sounds shit”:

“We are the same as when we were teenagers; it’s a blessing, Some people spend their lives running away from that, and never wanting to work with those people again - they may even be brothers in a band that don’t talk anymore. But the reward is the shared experience you’ve gone through. But oh, the amount of water under the bridge, the betrayals, the women you’ve both slept with. But if you can

get past all and have a shared thing, it’s a beautiful thing. You know what, the first band I auditioned for as bass player, I’d never played bass in my life, and I got the gig. 15 other guys queued up, too. Sometimes it’s nothing to do with the music, it’s everything else around it that makes the music great; and that’s difficult to accept for some musicians who have spent all their lives learning their scales. It’s just as crucial to get the right pair of jeans and haircut, and get out there. You need a fearless arrogance when forming a band.”

The hardest thing for producers, Youth insists, is to have the vision for where you want the project to go, and for a long time, he thought everyone had those opinions. He was wrong.

“I remember once, a bass player was only listening to his part, and he asked the drummer what he thought of the song and the arrangement, and the drummer said, ‘well, I think my drums could be a bit louder’. [laughs] And it really would be like that. But I think there are a few cats, and the great producers have visions: that should go there, that should happen there; and I’m certainly from that school.”

In terms of technology, Youth embraces it all, but it’s key not to get carried away and lose the artistry. We head upstairs to Youth’s go-to room, which boasts a monumental pair of Genelecs that I’ve never seen before.

“They’re are from the late ‘80s, and they are discontinued models, but I just love the shape and the vibe they give you. I never saw anyone back in the day with them, and I have always loved Genelecs,” Youth explains. “In Spain, we’ve got the big 1036s, which are my favourite for ‘big, big’ speakers, but we use these for the vibe, really. They’re also great in the room when we’re

“McCartney creates a complete ecosystem of creativity around him, and that's been one of the biggest

influences on me.”

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jamming and writing... [pauses] They look vibey, don’t they?

“This is really my home studio, but it’s a little more analogue; we have some outboard, but tend to work within the box as well. It’s a balance. I also love what you can get out of a laptop. It’s enabled and facilitated my own creativity, and I’ve written some great songs out of that. But at the same time, I’ve got my state-of-the-art studio out in Grenada that I built, and that’s based on Studio 2 in Olympic. It’s a balance. I’ve always felt with technology, you have to be quite tough with it, harness it to what your needs are, and exploit it, otherwise it will exploit you, and get you using it the way it wants you to use it. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up making music that’s just lego.”

PINK FLOYD

I ask Youth about his co-production role on The Endless River, Pink Floyd’s 2014 release. Much of the material was recorded some 20 years ago, he explains, and although it was a complicated process, it was a very enjoyable one. “There had been three versions. The original one was out-takes - Andy

Jackson had done some ambient mixes of some incidental music from The Division Bell that had become known as The Big Spliff. And that had circulated around the Floyd camp for a while. It was okay, and interesting,” Youth says. “Then years and years later, David had brought Phil Manzanera in to go through all that, and all the other sessions, to see if he could pull out some unreleased, unfinished material. He came up with 90% of stuff other than The Big Spliff. So there was vast amounts, again!”

Manzanera ‘mapped it out in his head as a four part thing’, Youth explains, each part being 10 minutes long. He’d done diagrams, flow charts, and given it a kind of concept – and Youth loved it.

“David [Gilmour] said to me, ‘we’re stuck’. He said, ‘make it sound like us’ to me. He asked me to take it away, and come back with some ideas. So I took away part one, and I thought it was the whole thing! I radically rearranged it, took it to Spain, and it was like going back to me at 16, again. I remember vividly listening to Dark Side of the Moon when I was a kid; I remember the feel, and when I pick up those album sleeves, it brings back loads of stuff.

And Wish You Were Here is still one of my favourite albums, so I thought, ‘what would I have wanted to hear at 16 from The Floyd after Wish You Were Here?’ Not The Final Cut, that’s for sure! [smiles] So that’s what I did. Even within those first 10 minutes, there were about six songs, or ideas for songs; I’d take four bars, turn that into eight or 16 bars, and take little sections and arrange them in different ways. I turned it into

a 40-minute thing, and sent it off to David.”

And what did he think of it? “Luckily, David really liked it! But

he thought it was funny: ‘But that’s just the first part, Youth! But the best bits are great!’ Then he asked me

to work with him, Andy, and Phil on co-producing it. So we went down first to Astoria, and sometimes at his farm in Sussex, then later at his studio in Brighton. We just kept going back and forth, and I’d end up taking sections away and rearranging it.

“The big thing was to get a vocal, and David has this amazing thing when he writes vocals; he does this scat singing, which sounds exactly like a vocal but without words. McCartney is like that as well, but David tracks them, and harmonises. David’s wife, Polly, is a writer, and she’s been writing lyrics for a while, so it was going to be down to Polly. Finally, they got the lyric, and it was great. It was interesting how we did it, really. Once we got the thing arranged, we could get all the other extra bits down. We got Nick Mason in to do the drums on bits, Guy Pratt came in to redo some of the bass parts, as the original ‘90s parts were a bit busy, and we managed to EQ some of the basses out of DAT mixes, and keep some of the original parts, too.”

The big onus with this project was to try and keep as much of Rick Wright as possible, who had passed away by then; and it quickly became apparent to Youth that in fact, he was working on

“Everyone was aware as we were making it that Urban Hymns was going to become a very significant record.”

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what had become a homage to the late great keyboardist.

“It was his requiem, in a way, and that’s when I found that fantastic recording that Phil Taylor had in a back cupboard, of Rick playing the big organ at the Albert Hall in 1969 during a soundcheck,” he smiles. “He was running through his symphony that he was working on, which I don’t think has ever been completed. I managed to find 16 bars from that, which slotted really nicely in somewhere else. It was good detective work, and just trying to get it up to the unbelievably high production criteria standards of Pink Floyd. And that was a great learning experience working with David and his engineers, Damon and Andy, and Phil Manzanera. I am a huge Roxy [Music] fan, so it was big for me; and to be able to hang out with those guys in the studio and see how they come to their ideas and their creative process was just mind-blowing. We did it on the big SSL at Astoria, which gave us the width and depth, and big credit to David for the direction he gave us. We were all, ‘sound like Hank Marvin here, do this one through the Leslie gated thing you do’, and he did. I saw an interview afterwards where he said one of the good things I brought to that production was that I had a good sense of telling him who he was, which seems obvious, but I suppose as an artist, you can have such a wide spectrum that it’s hard to know what stands out at times.”

THE FIREMAN

Youth has a truly unique working relationship with Sir Paul McCartney, which started off with McCartney asking him to remix some tracks in the early ‘90s.

“I suggested to Paul that I go through the album, take bits from all these multi-tracks, and he said, ‘yeah, cool, that’s different’. So I started doing it, and then I wanted to get him in to do a couple of overdubs over the new things. He agreed, and he got Linda in

too, and did some percussion,” Youth explains. This was during ‘91 and ‘92, he estimates. “So Paul really enjoyed that, and then a few days later, I said, ‘okay, I am going to mix them now’. I was doing this in Paul’s studio down in Sussex, and they’d gone off to some photo show of Linda’s. He asked if they could pop in afterwards and have a listen to the mix and hang out. I said, ‘of course, it’s your studio!’ But he is clever, too - he is letting you know he is going to check it out, so it’d better be good! [smiles] So I thought, ‘let’s get these mixes sounding great’. At 11pm, the whole family turned up, pretty much; and they loved the mix. And I was doing all these other mixes: dub mixes, ambient mixes; and he said, ‘what are you doing?’ I told him I would edit all the best bits into one mix. He was cool with that, and they were there until the sun rose.

“I then gave all the mixes different names. I was going: Trans Lunar Storm, Sunrise, and so on. When we’d finished up, Paul asked for a copy of all the mixes, which I gave him. A few days later, he decided he wanted to use all the mixes, and release it as an album, under a pseudonym with me! And that became The Fireman. It was all, ‘would you be up for joining the band?’ and I was like, ‘yeahhh!’ [laughs] So that was the first Fireman album, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, and it was great. It’s developed into a relationship from there, and it’s been wonderful, really, as I haven’t had the pressure of having to deliver commercial Paul McCartney solo albums; we can just have fun and experiment. We get on really well, and it’s really a nice release for both of us when we do it. I hope it won’t be too long before we do another one.”

Youth goes on to tell me about field recordings, recording on different solstices, and recording Paul and Linda riding on horses on the equinox at sunset.

“We’d do things that were unusual, and experiment. It was inspiring for me to be able to work with an artist

as established as Paul that was as free as that. And also he did his poetry, his symphonic stuff, and he painted. He is an artist that really doesn’t give himself any limitations; he really creates a complete ecosystem of creativity around him, and that’s been one of the biggest influences on me. It’s encouraged me to create my own poetry and painting, and I think they all inform each other. It’s what an artist is – committing to that and doing it.”

Youth really is great company, and is himself a true inspiration, though he’s undoubtedly way too humble to accept that. Which brings me on to his MPG Award for Outstanding Contribution to UK Music. How does it feel receiving that accolade in this kind of environment?

“It’s the biggest honour of my career, and I am blown away. Though I feel a bit young to be receiving it, really,” he says, with a smile.

“The MPG does an amazing job of inspiring future generations, and also acknowledging current and past generations with the respect that they and their work is due. It’s an important part of how the UK has become one of the great production firehouses of the world for the last 30-40 years. It’s because we’re close-knit, small communities of musicians, artists, engineers, producers, A&R men, managers, who are fiercely committed and passionate about what they do with music – they encourage and pass it on, and sustain it.

“The MPG and PPL - they are small little villages, and they only work with people cooperating together, and helping each other out. Nevertheless, they are fiercely competitive; and now we look forward to another 30-40 years of the highest criteria of recorded music. Being music pioneers, leading the way with innovation, is how we come together and encourage each other.”

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MPG AWARDS Interview

“I THINK I VIEWED THE CHURCH as a stage, with my dad being the star of the show,” opens Wells, with a half-smile, adding that the church organist was particularly encouraging even when he didn’t really know what he was playing. He was only three at the time, after all. “You only get one set of roots, and I remember as I got a little older, dad would sometimes play the radio in the car, and I’d hear Carole King or The Jackson 5, and I’d freak out - start drumming on the car! There was no video taping or documenting of something that was on air back then. If you missed it, you might never hear it ever again.”

At this time, Wells had a sense that he was in the wrong place. He craved music, but had no idea where to go, or how to do it – whatever it was - and there was no money to go there – wherever that was. With this in mind, from the age of 10, he joined every band that would have him, and by the time he entered his teens, he was fortunate enough to find an amazing music teacher in his hometown, who really set the musical ball rolling.

“I got really deep into classical piano around 13-years-old,” Wells recalls, fondly. “Then I remember taking the two-hour bus ride to Toronto, to study

with some badass teachers there. My heart was never fully into classical, and I had already become a church organist, bought myself a bad drum set, and not received much encouragement from anyone, so everything felt like a ridiculous pipe dream, to be honest!”

Did this make him rebel against the cause? In a word, yes. “It was my rocket fuel,” Wells confirms, eyes widening.

“And in retrospect, I’m glad, because it built a weird monster, too – one that I had to keep in the cage [smiles]. We’re all plugged into our own roots, and I wanted to become a musician, and to get out of my hometown. I didn’t know what to do, until this one high school student, four years older than me, told me about this modern music school in Toronto called Humber College. She saved my life - and not just once. When I joined Humber, she was already in her third year, and she told me over lunch about this thing called the Canadian Government Arts Council, where you can apply for a grant for almost anything; and if they think it’s a good idea, and you’re good enough, you might get it.

“I’d never heard of it, but I thought it would be great if I could study in LA with this guy called Clare Fischer. He died recently, sadly, but among the many things he did,

GREG WELLS hails from a rural farming factory town in Canada. Or in his own words, “I grew up by a cow field”. A preacher’s child, he became obsessed with the church organ at just two-years-old, and was playing it by three. His grandmother would let him tinker with pots and pans on the kitchen floor when he went to visit, but his parents weren’t so keen on the noise, so decided not to buy him that drum set he so desired, “which is probably why I give away a set of drums every three months now on Twitter, some crazy overcompensation,” Wells jokes, with a smile. Although he never saw himself as a songwriter, many a Grammy-winner would beg to differ. In the last decade alone, he’s penned some gems with some of the industry’s most acclaimed songstresses including Katy Perry and Adele, and he was effectively the whole band on Mika’s stunning debut record, Life In Cartoon Motion, which sold close to six million units. So how did that happen? And when did he realise he could write songs just as well as he could play piano (and guitar, bass, and drums for that matter)?

Greg Wells Adele. Katy Perry. Mika. Just three of the superstars

that Greg Wells has written songs with. We sit down in New York to hear his story.

Words PAUL WATSON

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he wrote and conducted the string arrangements on every Prince record. He and Prince never even met! Prince just sent the analogue tapes to Clare and said, ‘do your thing’. So I applied for the grant, then forgot I applied for the grant, and a year later, I got this letter saying I had been given $14,000 - enough to stay in LA for a year and live simply, and pay for these lessons... So that’s what I did.”

What Wells didn’t foresee happening was Clare recommending him for studio work – and a lot of it.

“I started doing these sessions for cash, and ended up getting hired to play for KD Lang - a beautiful, amazing singer,” Wells explains. “We toured in England all the time; we’d do three nights at the Royal Albert Hall, three nights at Hammersmith Odeon. This was my first break in a big band.”

It was Wells’ ability to multi-task instrumentally that helped secure him the KD Lang role, and that’s effectively

become the catalyst to his successful songwriting collaborations. Lang soon asked Wells to become musical director of her band, but he politely declined; he wanted to make his own music, stay in LA, and become a record producer.

“I remember she just said, ‘you know what, that’s exactly what you should do’, which was a huge validation; she’d just won the Grammy for best female solo, after all,” Wells says. “So I became a studio musician for a lot of older producers towards the end of the ‘90s, and by now, I was playing a lot of instruments. I worked with a great English record producer called Steven Lipson who did Slave To The Rhythm with Trevor Horn, as well as most of Annie Lennox’s solo stuff. I did a record with him in Nashville, and they wanted me to play bass and drums. I knew everything about Lipson, career-wise, and we really hit it off. Then he started hiring me to come to London and be the band for some of the records he was working on. He didn’t care it wasn’t four different people, which was another big validation, and it’s a master class in production every time. After that, people started asking me to co-produce songs on a record, and co-write with artists that had small deals.”

Songwriting still didn’t feel like second nature to Wells, but that was all about to change.

“I was getting asked to a songwriting camp, which I now happen to run in France,” he laughs, admitting that the first time he went, he felt totally at sea, and the second time was the best experience of his life. “I could demo songs, but there was no real instinct. I was too much of a muso; that was my language. Then something clicked. I realised all my years of accompaniment, that was my role as a songwriter. I accompany the story teller. It’s the same as me playing for

the church choir; it’s the same muscle. I am certainly not the great storyteller, but I can direct it.”

FINDING MIKAWells cut his first record for record executive, Tommy Mottola’s record label, and although it wasn’t a commercial success, Mottola saw something in Wells’ work, and encouraged him to work with a brand new artist from England called Mika. This was in 2007.

“Tommy called me and said, ‘you should meet this kid, Mika; he’s 20, and I just signed him’. A couple of weeks later, he called again saying he was recommending me to everybody as a writer,” Wells recalls. “All these guys were asking Tommy, ‘who is Greg Wells? Have you even met him?’ And he said, ‘no, I haven’t’, and they said, ‘maybe you should, because you’re cutting everyone else out of the running!’ It

was really strange. So he then asked me to New York; I had a one-hour meeting, we got Mika on the phone, and Tommy told him to come to LA to cut a song with me. He then said, ‘what you doing this weekend?’, and that was that [smiles].”

So Wells found himself back in LA, and Mika flew in a few days later. At this stage, all he had was a video of a showcase Mika had played in New York, and no copy of any of his music.

“I showed up, I’d rented a drum kit, had a bass and a guitar, and they had a piano and an engineer,” smiles Wells. “He had this one song called Grace Kelly that really jumped out at me. I suggested working on that, but he wasn’t sure, as he’d demoed it six times, and it was problematic. I said it spoke to me, so we tried it. We then cut it in one day, and everything on it is first take except the vocals. I played everything else as there was no budget to hire anyone else! We were under the gun, didn’t have much time, and it was Mika that said, ‘Greg, you play the piano’, even though I love how he plays. And that is exactly what got released, and it’s his biggest song ever. He really liked how it turned out, and he asked if I could do a second song - a really fun song called Lollipop - and musically, it was very different to anything I’d worked on. Mika’s music is hyper-happy, and exaggerated, but he’s had quite a hard life as a child, so his lyrics are kinda messed up. All I know is, I just saw he was a special talent.”

Wells’ management were unconvinced. With two Mika songs in the bag, they wanted him to leave the project and move on. But Wells had other ideas.

“I wanted to make the whole record with Mika, so we spent about six months on it, and then when Grace Kelly came out as the first single, it went to number one within a week, and sat there for seven weeks! We were freaking out!”

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MPG AWARDS Interview

“IF I WORK ON MUSIC I DON’T FEEL COMPELLED BY, I WON’T TOUCH IT. IT DRIVES MY MANAGERS CRAZY, BUT I CAN’T

WORK ON STUFF UNLESS I FEEL IT’S REALLY SOMETHING.”

Wells recalls, with a beaming smile. “His MySpace went from 300 to 25,000 or so overnight, and record sales amounted to almost six million. That’s like 20 million sales, 15 years ago, and that changed everything for him and for me. Labels were suddenly offering me so many projects, whereas before, I always felt like I had my hat out, asking what I could do for them, you know? My perception within the industry changed so much.”

KATY Throughout his career, Wells has made music from a string of genres: death metal, jazz, rock, pop. But in principle, it’s all the same: storytelling.

“All I need is to get the music; if I don’t, I shouldn’t be working on it,” Wells states, with a shrug of the shoulders. “It’s a bit like leaning in to kiss someone you don’t really want to kiss. It’s gonna be an awful kiss that you do not want to repeat. If I work on music I don’t feel compelled by, I won’t touch it. It drives my managers crazy, but I can’t work on stuff unless I feel it’s really something.”

Which brings us on to Katy Perry. Wells first met this acclaimed songwriter some 10 years ago, and has worked on every record she’s made ever since.

“We just hit it off. We’re both preachers’ kids; her dad was a travelling minister, a little different to mine, but it’s still a thing, so we had that in common; and I still have the same click with her now that I did the day I met her. She’s just a really smart, talented goofball,” Wells says. “She has a lot of heart, great ears, and she is a better A&R person than anyone at any label.”

Although Wells has penned a couple of big hits with Katy,

it’s not always about going for radio jugulars:“With Katy, it’s emotional; we’re getting out the things she

really wants to say. The Grammys have asked her to perform the songs we’ve written together twice now which weren’t mega-hits, which shows someone out there is listening. The last one was By The Grace of God, then we did Not Like the Movies. I am very proud of the stuff I’ve done with Katy, and she is a tremendous singer. She actually used to come from a singer-songwriter vibe, and at one stage, we thought the last record would be like that, but it didn’t become that. I’m not sure realistically that she can do that now, as she’s such a great entertainer and front-person.”

ADELEAnother of Wells’ favourite artists to work with is Adele,

who dropped by his studio for three days during the making of her second record, 21.

“I remember when I drove in, I had two ideas come into my head, and played them both to her, and she liked them both, thankfully. One was a big band drum beat which became Devil On My Shoulder, but it didn’t fit the 21 Album, as it was a different vibe,” Wells reveals. “She has emailed me since then saying she loves that song though, so maybe one day! Then we did One and Only, and that one did make it onto the record. I always knew it would be Rick Rubin producing it, as he recommended me, but the experience was amazing. She is a really great songwriter, really funny, and totally self-deprecating, which is immediately charming. She was only 21-years-old, but she really wasn’t; she was very wise, and very aware.”

During the writing process of One and Only, Wells was

“WITH KATY, IT’S EMOTIONAL; WE’RE GETTING OUT THE THINGS SHE REALLY WANTS TO SAY.”

26 HEADLINER

somewhat taken aback by Adele’s performance. He was looping a chord progression on the piano, which she asked him to keep playing, as she wandered around his vocal room searching for a riff. And then, boom!

“She was working on this chorus idea for some 10 minutes, and when she had it, she said, ‘this might be complete shit, but tell me what you think’; and actually, what she did there and then is exactly the same chorus that is on the record. She belted it out in full voice right at me - a high C, too: ‘I dare you to let me be your one and only’. And it was really overwhelming! I was trying to keep it together, and I just cracked up. I was like, ‘I think we might have something’. [smiles] I am so happy for her success, because she made a very brave record. She told me the only criteria she looks for on a record is that her mother likes it and she likes it; she doesn’t really care what anyone else thinks.”

ALWAYS IN GOOD VOICE Our conversation turns technical, and Wells’ techniques when recording vocals. He has recently finished developing a very cool plugin with Waves, the VoiceCentric, which essentially allows anybody to recreate a Greg Wells vocal sound with the turn of a virtual knob. Right, Greg?

“Yeah, that’s about right. You know, it took me a long time to learn how to record a vocal well, then even longer to learn how to mix a vocal and make it sound like a record - and that phrase means something different to everyone,” he explains. “It’s about adopting techniques that are kind of surprising. I soon realised that some of my favourite EQ on a vocal is not EQ at all, it’s compression; and that there is a way of using compression - sometimes two compressors in a row - on a vocal, that will EQ it in a very intuitive natural way that sounds great through the speakers. It just manages it, controls it, balances it, and keeps it at the front of the mix; and this plugin is the product of those 20 solid years I’ve spent in the studio.”

Wells admits that 20 years ago, he didn’t understand how to use compression at all, and it was only after years of asking mix legends such as Spike Stent, Chris Lord-Alge, and Tony Maserati, ‘how are you getting that?’, that he started developing his own techniques:

“Once these guys realised I wasn’t a total idiot, they were all very generous and specific! I would try these techniques hundreds of times before I figured out little bits of each person that really worked for me. I like a vocal to sound full, so I go with a big frame most of the time, and I have figured out ‘a thing’, basically. There is a lot going on behind the curtain with this plugin; it’s deceptively simple, which is what I wanted. I wanted it to be for someone like me, 20 years ago.”

Wells began working with Waves on VoiceCentric in January 2014, and has always been a fan of the company’s ethos.

“Waves is about creating, not just modelling older pieces of gear. If you look at the C6, the Renaissance Axx guitar compressor, and the L2 - these things haven’t existed

before, but you can immediately tell what’s great about them. I always have the Linear Phase Multiband Compressor on my mix buss, very subtly, and it’s magical; and the H Reverb is beautiful, and very musical. So I couldn’t possibly put my name to a plugin unless it was perfect, which for me, VoiceCentric now is,” Wells explains. “Rather than turn 15 knobs to get to where I want to be, I can now turn one knob, so it’s a thing I can use, my friends and my competitors can use, and also my kids can use, and get a vocal they recorded in their bedroom sounding like a Katy Perry vocal. And that’s what they’re looking for.”

And the further you crank it, the more exciting it becomes..?

“Pretty much, actually! When you’re on zero, nothing is happening, but when you start to crank the knob, some EQ shapes start happening, which gives you more of a natural vocal, a little more clarity, and nicer presentation,” Wells explains. “Some things don’t even come on until you’ve turned the knob to 60%; that’s when the compression starts to kick in, in a very musical way, and the tube compressors kick in. And then all this stuff is happening with the EQ. Then at 80%, things start to go bananas. It doesn’t sound bananas, but it would look bananas if you could see what was going on! It was very important that we achieved a smooth transition from setting to setting, with no road bumps; and that it was very easy to use, which it is.

“The reason I love Waves, and working with talented artists, is that everything else gets out of the way, and you can get to the music. The better the gear is, the more invisible it becomes. A certain school of people might well look at this plugin and say I’m helping these kids cheat; and yes that’s true, but who cares? The hardest thing to do is make a great song, and it’s harder still to make a great record. If they can get to that sound quicker, they can just focus on the art, which is a great thing, in my opinion. And I’m using it on all my mixes now, as it sounds better than what I was doing before!”

As our conversation comes to a close, I ask Wells to leave us with a tip or two for the future generation of musicians, songwriters, and producers. He pauses for thought, then says:

“Make a playlist of your favourite songs, and while you’re working on your own music, whether it’s a mix or a production, hit stop, and play something from your playlist. Then go back to your own project, and listen to it. That will teach you more than any school will teach you, or anyone can ever tell it. Then do it the next day, week, month, and year after that, and it will always improve you. By the time you’ve heard the song three or four times, your objectivity has shrunk from 100% to 25%; if you listen 10 more times, it’s really getting small; and after 50 times? It’s the head of a pin! [smiles] This will give you a perspective that you can’t really get any other way.” www.gregwells.net www.waves.com

MPG AWARDS Interview

27 HEADLINER

From The Ground Up

MPG AWARDS Insight

RISM SOUND got in very much at ground level with the MPG, and has been headline sponsor for all bar one of the MPG

Awards. Supporting the cause in itself is something the company has always wanted to do, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

“We definitely went in all guns blazing, because we knew from the beginning, ‘this is gonna go somewhere’,” admits Prism Sound’s Jody Thorne. “These guys are the unsung heroes, so it’s an opportunity to give them a damn good pat on the back.”

Prism Sound as a firm is one which strives for perfection and ultimate performance,

Thorne says. He thinks the MPG is much the same.

“Not only is the MPG a great organisation, it’s one of the few that seems to be embracing and moving with the times,” he explains. “Be it marketing opportunities, incentives to up its membership, trying to reach new audiences, or creating new environments for current and also up and coming producers. Without them, where do a lot of people in this industry turn to? There aren’t that many organisations, I’m afraid!”

It’s a fair point. This year, in addition to headline sponsor, Prism Sound also has its name attached to Remixer of the Year: a bit ofa curveball, perhaps, but a smart one:

“A lot of people said, ‘why didn’t you go for recording engineer of the year?’, but it’s quite straightforward: these guys don’t get the recognition they deserve. Okay, remixing has been going on for donkeys’

years, but now it’s getting seen more and more as an art form in itself, and we want to be part of that new breed. Every part of musical creation has its own skill set, and it’s just as important as producing and engineering. I am impressed that the MPG has also recognised that category, and they also look at the new young engineers and recognise them. Unless we instil this sense of responsibility, this industry could fall down around our ears, but by embracing new people and members and talent, we’re instilling it into the next generation, which is fantastic for our industry as a whole.”

In the MixTying in nicely with Remixer of the Year is

the latest musical incentive Prism Sound is getting behind: B-Side Project. In a nutshell, it’s an opportunity for musicians and producers to get their work noticed through a really unique model: everyone registers online; the musicians submit their tracks to be remixed; and the producers are then allocated a track each at random to remix. So technically, a guy playing the hurdy-gurdy in a field in Yorkshire could have his track remixed by an R&B producer out of Compton... Right?

“Yes, and that’s one of the things I love about it! Producers are allocated the tracks at random, and then have four weeks to complete their remix,” Thorne confirms. “We got involved in B-Side Project, as we saw an opportunity for reaching a new target audience. Also, although we have been a

The MPG as an organisation is even more important than we might all realise, according to long-time supporter, Prism Sound. Without its forward thinking philosophy, technical know-how, and continued support for the next generation, where would our industry turn? And they have a point. Headliner digs a little deeper.

“By embracing new people and members and talent, we’re instilling

it into the next generation.”

P

B-Side Project Platinum Remix Collection

1. Get Around - The Outs (Hugh Hardie remix)

2. Games - Ken Urbina (Dj Mashdup remix)

3. Katey Laurel - All The Way Home (AudioGoblyn Remix)

4. Lost- JimJam (Stride remix)

5. Heartbreaker- Fortnight In Florida (Anthony Huttley remix)

6. Tribal Girls - Twelve Clay Feet (Paddy Thorne remix)

7. Threads - Tomorrow We Sail (Speculum remix)

8. Lifeline - Bispatial (Says Simon Remix)

premium brand historically, we can reach a new demographic, and inform people of the benefits they might receive by utilising Prism Sound kit in their setups. In this sector of the industry, people associate us with mastering and large orchestra type products, but more and more we’re into dance, remix, and EDM; and to reinforce that by supporting a ground level project such as this is a great thing. Rather than be seen as a company at a distance, we wanted to get in on the ground floor – like we did with the MPG – and show that we now manufacture a series of products that are in that range.

“A lot of people look at these kind of events and think they’ll never win, or that it’s a waste of time, but here is something that does evolve into something; B-Side Project has proven in previous years that many of the winners have continued to have successful careers, which is great.”

Although B-Side Project has progressed naturally since its inception in 2009, the clout Prism Sound has added in less than six months’ involvement has already provided a wider reach, and way more opportunity.

“It’s bigger and better, but the ethos has to be maintained. This project is not for the Mark Ronson type character; it’s for the

aspiring with the skill set, that just need to be given the opportunity,” says Thorne. “Anyone could get with anyone, that’s the thing; and that’s the reality of our industry today: you need flexibility as well as talent and creativity to adapt.”

Breaking BoundariesSo we’ve established that B-Side Project was set up to encourage emerging musicians, bands, and songwriters around the world to submit material and connect in a unique way. But what do these guys get out of it artistically?

“It’s really about encouraging the artist to let go, and not be such a control freak,” smiles Yvette Chivers, who’s been behind B-Side Project from the get-go. “And actually, for them to be open to any outcome. It’s another take on their track, yet at the same time, the producer gets a load of stems land on his or her plate that they would perhaps never have chosen to work with before.”

B-Side Project has been largely an underground operation, and self-promoted. A small, dedicated team, but a confident one, that knew when the time was right, support would be there from a serious brand. And now it is.

30 HEADLINER

The team that manage B-Side Project, and reflect the live broadcast aspect.

Moonbeeva - Bones(remixed by Dopekick)

Pura Luz - Fantasy(remixed by Herr Spiegelhauer)

“We knew it would be of interest to someone of high regard like Prism Sound that could tap into it and support it more,” Chivers insists. “We’ve been working with between 50 and 60 artists and producers entering since 2009, and this year, we’ve already jumped up to 160, so that really is massive growth.”

To summarise the process: the tracks were allocated to the producers last month (Jan 2016), then from there, they each had four weeks to complete their respective remix. In March, a panel of judges will cast their scores over the remixes, and on April 14th, an awards event will be held at Metropolis, where the top 10 remixes will be announced, and the artists are showcased. The latter is also streamed live on the web, so anyone can watch and engage through a live Twitter feed. Then, the top 10 tracks will be mastered by Metropolis, and released in May/ June time.

“It’s very much encouraging what would happen in the real production industry world, and we have a great panel of judges which really helps in terms of promotion: Roni Size,

Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk), and lots of other well known musicians,” Chivers reveals. “We also have someone from Metropolis, so we have the industry back-end side covered as well. They judge it in terms of scores, we add it all up, and the end product is released through Rocstar Recordings.

“Running this project has made me realise I can’t judge it on genre; it really opens your ears up, and you have to be less judgmental – we’ve had everything from classical opera groups to bands and singer songwriters. And working with Prism Sound really has added that bit of kudos to proceedings, as well as financial support. They helped us produce the promo video that came out before Christmas to encourage people to enter B-Side Project, plus the equipment, which perhaps as an aspiring producer, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford. To put their name to this brand in front of those producers who can’t yet warrant a big spend on a studio is a very good fit.

“We also run live radio. We thought because we had all this music coming through, rather than send it to loads of

radio stations, why not start our own? So four years ago, we started a radio show on local station, Cambridge 105, and since then, we have grown it to live outdoor broadcasts from festivals as well as a new show on Hoxton FM. We are able to promote the artists and producers that come through the project on these broadcasts, giving them reach and airplay.”

And long may B-Side Project continue.

For those interested in entering next year’s event, registration will be open between July and September 2016 at www.b-sideproject.org; and in the meantime, why not have a listen to the [previously unreleased] eight-track ‘Best of B-Side’ CD that comes with this special MPG Awards issue? It’s a fine showcase of the best remixes from the past six years, and will be released officially this summer. www.prismsound.com www.b-sideproject.org www.soundcloud.com/b-side-project/sets/prism-sound-presents-b-side

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MPG AWARDS Insight

aving worked in bands since he was 15, and signing with the likes of PS and BMG,

Henry Walton has a lot of touring experience. However, as time passed, he became disillusioned at the way bands operate. This musical epiphany, perhaps, was instrumental in the creation of ELY and ELY Collective, which allows musicians a unique level of freedom when it comes to creativity.

“I wanted to protect my vision, if you like, of what I wanted to create, to allow the musicians that I work with to get their true character out,” Walton explains. “What I have always done is play them what I am working on – but just once – and that’s all they get. Part two is recording time. I might give them a few pointers after several takes, but it’s nearly always that first part I go to. It’s the vindication of that process that’s always interested me most: and when I do give more direction, it feels like more spontaneity is lost. I don’t know whether that’s an abstract thought, or whether it’s because I know it’s the first part!”

Essentially, through ELY and ELY Collective, Walton gets lots of musicians in to do the stuff that he can’t do: namely cello, brass, and drums, the latter of which is what this Red Bull session is all about. Then, he will take that ‘early sketch’, and spend time editing and embedding into that what he sees fit using Logic and Ableton: “It’s about throwing a load of

MPG AWARDS Insight

To the Beat of the Drum Henry Walton (A.K.A ELY) recently descended on London’s Red Bull Studios armed with two drummers and not much of a musical brief. But he wouldn’t want it any other way. Headliner investigates.

H

32 HEADLINER

stuff at it; a lot of it is formed within the editing process. It’s normally a massive mess, and I will try to reach for the apex, and then build backwards,” Walton explains. And it works. “What I really like is that people aren’t so attached with what they’ve done,” he says. “There’s none of this, ‘where’s my part gone?!’ [smiles] And that’s because there is a complete understanding that what I do with it in the end is completely down to me. So the musicians get to express themselves fully, and I get to bend it.”

Interesting stuff. Today is a tale of two drummers, both of whom don’t really know what to expect. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“When I did the last EP, I only did it with one drummer, but we did the live show with two drummers, and as soon as I did that, I knew that would be the basis of the next EP, which we’re working on here today,” Walton reveals. “And Sarathy [Korwar, percussionist] is a classically trained tabla and jazz musician, so he really brings something to the table from my indie band background that I have never been connected to at all. I really like that, and want to build on it, and his relationship with Tom Rapanakis, the other drummer, who is a more traditional player. It’s going to be an instrumental EP, and it’s about the relationship between these two, allowing them to express themselves fully. Then the normal process resumes: I edit that, and build on top of it.”

Both drummers will be in the room together, looking at each other while they’re playing; and in terms of direction, there really isn’t much..!

“We’ll have a few drones, a few chords, a few motifs, I guess, that we’ll play around with to start things off; and then from

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

The drum recording session used a few different miking techniques, most notably binaural: using a dummy head and two of DPA’s d:screet 4061 miniature omni mics mounted in its ear canals. A third d:screet 4061 was used as an omni room mic, mounted hanging from the overhead gantry. On each kit, a stereo pair of DPA d:dicate 4015C wide cardioid mics were placed as overheads (in X/Y configuration), and a single d:dicate 4007A omni was positioned above each drummer’s head, aiming at the centre of the kit. The kick drums were miked up with Neumann U47s. The mics went straight into a rack of Meris 440 mic pres in the control room.

MPG AWARDS Insight

“I WANTED TO PROTECT MY VISION, TO ALLOW THE MUSICIANS TO GET THEIR TRUE CHARACTER OUT.”

33 HEADLINER

that, a couple of more conceptual ideas – a bit of abstract. That’s what I want them to play around with,” Walton says. “But to get them playing around with grooves, feels, and BPMs, and letting them express themselves, is key. And from my side, again it’s just jumping in with small points: push this, lessen that, break it down to core components, and so on.”

I Got Rhythm Sarathy Korwar grew up in Pune in India, and has been playing the tabla since he was seven, before picking up the full kit at 16. Both instruments are primary to him, but he would describe himself as a percussionist rather than a drummer.

“I’ve been playing some shows with Henry since March, and I also played on the last EP, which I love; today is about getting a whole bunch of textures and

rhythms, basically,” Korwar explains, adding that playing alongside another drummer can actually release the pressure. “The roles change a lot, and you get a lot of freedom to focus on the musicality and texture, or loose sounds. It means you can approach the instrument, and not be limited to being the one person in charge of keeping the groove down. One of us can both lead, while the other moves back and experiments while he keeps the groove, which is really cool.”

Because the parts he’ll be playing aren’t set in stone – quite the opposite, evidently – does this mean he is more or less invested in the project emotionally?

“Oh, a lot more, because I am investing so much more of my own musicality than I would in a pop session, where I know what I have to do,” he says. “It’s far more open, and this style is very interesting to me. It’s

a certain amount of ambience and textures, but laid down with some nice grooves.”

But what about isolation? Two drummers in one room face to face. That’s a lot of noise, no?

“Isolation isn’t a concern; I record a lot like this, as it’s more organic, and more human. Yes, there is far more room for error, but not in a bad way,” Korwar explains. “And you end up with spontaneity that you would never get if you recorded in a more traditional way. I love recording a whole band together, too, as there is less post-production to worry about. It loses a lot of life if you’re more clinical, which is not always a bad thing, but I come from a jazz and improvised music background, so spontaneity matters more than precision to me; and that translates to the audience, or anyone who is listening to the song as well.”

MPG AWARDS Insight

“THERE IS FAR MORE ROOM FOR ERROR, BUT NOT IN A BAD WAY.”

34 HEADLINER

rachtenberg tells Headliner that he “kind of rolled into this record”, having collaborated

with Henry Walton on the recording of his first EP.

“Henry experimented with two live drummers for his live show, which is how this all came about. Red Bull Studios is cool, and that was our given space for this experiment; and then it was all about being able to commit to performances rather than isolation, yet still make it easy from a recording, editing, and mixing perspective,” Trachtenberg explains. “I wanted to explore the whole binaural head thing – that’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time - and I spoke to Caleb [Hill] at Sound Network about it. Caleb had a head anyway, so we used his as a kind of centrepiece, with a pair of DPA [d:screet]

4061 microphones.” Trachtenberg taped two 4061s

around the ears [of the binaural head], placing them just inside the ear canals. One ear was facing one drummer, and vice versa, so from a listening perspective, it was as if you were sitting in the middle of the room.

“Basically, perpendicular to each drummer,” Trachtenberg confirms. “And that’s how we would use it in the mix: drummer hard left, drummer hard right. We knew it was an experiment, so we wanted more options for mixing, so we also went with a single omni [d:dicate] DPA 4007A mic over each kit, plus a stereo pair of DPA 4015Cs [set up X/Y] on each, to offer more perspective when we came to mixing it.”

Kick and snare mics were also applied, and a scattering of DPA 4061s were positioned at various points in the room to see what sense of space might be achievable. The results were interesting, and surprising, but most of all, pleasing.

“Initially with the head, we had a big spike at 2-3k, which is a normal thing for binaural heads, but we played around with it, raised the head, and then it sounded a lot better,” explains Trachtenberg. “We played with the height, and some return effects and processing after recording, and made

it really interesting sounding; and what was really lovely was the sound of the DPA mono omni 4007As hard panned left and right. The clarity was staggering: wonderfully clean and clear, and you can literally hear everything you want with just a single omni on top of a kit. Amazing.

“The stereo pairs were interesting, too – and we didn’t pan them traditionally, either. We panned each kit left and right, to give it a bit of width, then some of the stereo image we panned to the centre, which gives you a complete hemispherical spread of each kit across the stereo image. It’s a very interesting way of listening to drums, and taking on the experience of two drummers.”

Although unusual for a rock record, Trachtenberg says the miking techniques helped create a bizarre sense of location and space; and without instrumentation, it’s helped Walton move his thoughts forward as to how and what he will add to it for the EP.

“The session lasted 12 hours from setup to leaving, and Henry got heaps out of it; we spent a day going through it all! He wanted moments, grooves, and rhythms, which he’s definitely got; and now he’ll fill in with incidental stuff,” Trachtenberg insists. “The session just seemed so free, and both drummers enjoyed the setup of seeing each other as they played. Henry wouldn’t have been able to direct it and be in the room at same time if we hadn’t done it this way; and sonically, the DPA mics provided consistency and quality. Furthermore, running them through Meris 440 mic pres worked very nicely. Smooth, warm, and on a workflow level, it just made everything very streamlined. And most of all, it was a lot of fun to do. I’m sure Henry will make a great EP out of what we captured.” www.dpamicrophones.com

Recording ELYAfter a long day’s recording, we caught up with Dan Trachtenberg, who engineered proceedings for ELY and co. at Red Bull Studios, and made some interesting discoveries in the process.

T

“SONICALLY, THE DPA MICS PROVIDED QUALITY AND CONSISTENCY.”

MPG AWARDS Insight

35 HEADLINER

he big Hoosier songs were Goodbye Mr A, and Worried About Ray, and as good as they are, the

material on this new record has a little something extra, and has caught us somewhat unawares. Yes, there are some great, catchy, upbeat numbers on there, which you’d expect, but there is a level of maturity and depth in the songwriting that wasn’t there before: the very touching acoustic ballad, Don’t Make Eye Contact, genuinely wouldn’t look out of place on The Beatles’ Revolver; and Dancers In The Dark is an absolute delight. So where did this

come from? “It’s funny,” smiles frontman, Irwin

Sparkes. “I think we’ve just got a bit better at it all, really.” We’re in a bar in London’s West End with Sparkes and the band’s drummer, Alan Sharland. Before taking to the stage at The Borderline club around the corner, they agree to chat about The Hoosiers’ rise to fame, some eight years back. We start with those two big hit singles, and Sharland immediately looks like he wants to say something. He does. “It’s actually three top 11 singles,” he smiles. “That’s how we prefer to look at it.”

This summarises The Hoosiers:

they’re not the type to take themselves too seriously, which is always so refreshing with any successful artist. They’re affable, warm, and amusing blokes, who just love writing and playing music, despite having had to cope with a few bumps in the road along the way. They parted with their label, Sony, a couple of albums ago, and in recent years, have funded pretty much everything they’ve done themselves.

“A lot of times, bands no longer with a major get chewed up by the grinder and spat out, and we appreciated that we’d be clinging to the vestiges of it all through social media,” Sparkes admits, openly. “We are able to have a constant relationship with our fanbase; a pattern of dialogue that we haven’t dropped at any time. If we didn’t have that, people would have assumed we’d vanished into thin air.”

Which they certainly have not done. The Hoosiers recently passed the 20,000 follower mark on Twitter, and have never stopped writing music. It’s testament to their hard work and their music, especially when you compare the way the industry was then, to now.

“But we were fortunate that we had the muscle and the market from Sony to break through at all,” points out Sharland. “We’ve maintained a love, and eked out our own existence through the live circuit, as we need to exist. And we’ve made a little money, too.”

“But it all took a lot of adapting,” insists Sparkes. I ask him to explain. “You think, ‘great, it’ll continue after

T

The HoosiersMany of you will remember The Hoosiers, but for those that

don’t: they hail from Reading, UK, and their well-crafted, foot-tapping tunes earned them a number one debut album in

2007 with The Trick To Life. Two more followed, one of which made the top 10, and now they’re back with a fourth, The Secret Service,

which we at Headliner like rather a lot.

“WE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE PROLIFIC, BUT IT'S LIKE AN OCEAN LINER: IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME TO TAKE COURSE.”

MPG AWARDS Interview

36 HEADLINER

the first album’, which it didn’t, largely due to pressure on creating hits. It’s ferocious. We wrote our own stuff, and the label wanted us to do co-writes, and we were one of the only bands not doing that at the time. They always relied on co-writes, but we thought, ‘no, we’ll do it ourselves’. Maybe that was a little arrogant, but look where it got us... [pauses] So the moral of the story is, do co-writes, people! [laughs]” Without major label support, a little thinking outside the box is often required, which had a real impact on the songwriting and overall creative process on The Secret Service.

“We’re trying to reshape as we go, really,” explains Sharland. “With the first album, we spent £100,000 on just the physical recording, and on the second one, maybe more. Now, we’re eking that right down, and when you hear Vampire Weekend recorded their first album for a grand, you think, ‘fuck!’”

“And as we’re doing it ourselves, it’s about investing in the songs, and what feels like a Hoosiers song,” adds Sparkes. “It occupies more of a part-time space, as although we’re full-time touring, we have to do other things out of necessity - even creatively - but that’s also inspired us to write the fourth album [leans into our voice recorder] which is out now on Hoosiers dot com!”

The first album was a whirlwind experience for the band, and then a massive learning curve. It’s now about trying to stay afloat, essentially.

“It’s a simple equation: if we wake up, still up for doing this, then the rest works itself out,” says Sparkes, with a shrug of the shoulders. “We’ve gone from being a big business model to a much smaller business model, and that’s an interesting thing. We do everything – or a lot of it, at least. We now spend £10,000 on an album, and if we sell 1,000 albums, we’re happy; whereas before, including promotion, we spent £500,000 and had to sell one million records to be happy. That’s almost impossible for anyone, now.”

It is, indeed. I ask the pair if there was a pivotal moment when they realised things had really started to change.

“Probably where it became about the writing, second guessing what the public wanted,” reflects Sparkes, sounding serious, all of a sudden. “You’re not gonna be on a major if you’re not on Radio One; you might have a short window, but if they’re not gonna play you, you’re on a windmill to nothing; it’s your lifeblood.”

We all seem to take a moment, and Sharland kindly breaks the silence:

“And if you’re not getting on Radio One or Capital [Radio], you won’t be signed; you’re buggered, basically. And that is minging. You can’t write a song and say, ‘oh let’s listen to Radio One and see which frequencies we’re hearing, where the bass and treble sits within each track’. It’s ridiculous to even think like that, but some people do, incredibly.”Pre-The Secret Service, The Hoosiers were always thinking, ‘why write another record?’; and the departure of bassist, Martin Skarendahl, in July 2015, helped move things along, somewhat.

“We knew we had more to say, and the lease of life we found with the exit of Martin, who had been in the band for eight

years, was a pretty big thing,” Sparkes explains, adding that it was a very amicable decision. “We always wanted to be prolific, but it’s like an ocean liner: it takes a lot of time to take course. We toured our first record for 18 months, for example.”

“So this time round, it was like, ‘let’s write songs, agree on them quickly, and get them out’,” says Sharland. “We wanted to do an album a bit more pure in that sense, and that is what this album is about. We’ll reflect on it – we already have, actually – saying we could have had another week on pre-production, or whatever, but overall, it’s been really refreshing.”

Sounds like a very good thing to us: musicians doing the thing they love, making music, and delivering it to the masses. Right?

“It’s total freedom compared to a major, that’s for sure,” Sparkes smiles.

“Oh, we’re definitely pleased with it, but we have to be open minded,” admits Sharland. “Next time, we might do an old school studio album, and mull over it for two years. But yes, the main thing is, you wake up happy and want to write music.”

“And also, in pop music, people don’t tend to stick with a band over a journey as there isn’t one, but hopefully we are different: we want to take them with us for the long haul,” Sparkes enthuses. “There are through-lines from this album to the first, and lyrically and melodically we are progressing and developing our sound. There are even some sexy songs; we’ve -”

Suddenly, we are interrupted by a loud thud. It’s a power cut. A waitress heads over with several candles, and some red wine. Sparkes suggests to her that it must have been something he said, which we find amusing. “Huh?” The waitress says, blankly. Even funnier. Er, where were we?

“You know what, necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s what we’re finding out,” Sparkes announces, as we tuck into the round of drinks. “We have huge budgetary constraints, but also a new co-producer on this record, who Al knows. He’s worked with Mumford & Sons and Ed Sheeran, so was able to bring a certain set of ears and skills. The difference now compared to back then is, we are learning the craft to writing songs. It’s something we panicked on before, and got lucky with early in our career, but like any other craft, you will improve, and we have.”

Well said, Irwin. It’s nearly showtime for the boys, so we ask them to leave us with a comment on the state of today’s industry. It’s our final question, which is met with Sparkes’ best answer of the night:

“Not even the record labels know which way this industry is going because it’s led by the public, which is interesting, scary, and weird... like a herd of zombies.”

An hour later, we’re in a packed-out Borderline club, witnessing a phenomenal set. It’s a venue we hold close to our hearts for many reasons, and now there’s another. Let’s hope another eight years down the line, The Hoosiers still have more to say. www.thehoosiers.com

MPG AWARDS Interview

37 HEADLINER

Grumpy Old Roadie

couple of nights ago, I stopped at a Deli-to-go, with the intention of putting myself in the

right frame of mind for the long drive ahead. Remarkably, I was told that I could not be served coffee at this time of night as it fell under their license for alcohol restrictions! The whole ethos of a service station is to provide the right fuel to see the motorists safely on their way, and while I can appreciate that alcohol may well be hazardous to road users, I failed to see how coffee could possibly be heading the same way.

Some years ago, I took it upon myself to try and persuade motorway services to serve a decent cup of coffee; it’s the life blood of us road crews across the world. Particular focus fell on Road Chef, who seemed to use a leading coffee brand’s logo as a means of attracting motorists into their ser-vice stations. Great during the day, but at night, these were always closed, and very few had an alternative on offer from a machine or a human. After doz-ens of letters to Road Chef about their false advertising claims, I was very pleased they took notice of a growing body of disgruntled customers, and started to staff the coffee shops overnight; it was now possible to get a good cup of coffee when you needed it most.

Well, not exactly. You see, things have recently taken a turn for the worse. Now, you rarely find a coffee outlet open, or you’re forced to buy coffee from an express machine, or worse still, you head over to a burger chain and try your luck there. I tried a latte at one such place recently, only to discover it had subtle overtones of cardboard, and a stewed metallic taste

throughout. When I asked if the machine was

doing its job properly, and suggested it might need cleaning, the spotty teenager remarked: “You probably don’t know, but these machines are self-cleaning.” Hmm.

If you are lucky enough to find a coffee outlet open, it’s very likely to be staffed by somebody who is unable to read the temperature gauge of the steaming milk, uses milk which has already been steamed, or is desperate to use up the skimmed, no matter what your preference. Or worse still (again), a coffee which gives you the impression you just paid somebody three quid to heat up a pint of milk.

In my time, I have seen it all. From the girl in the burger joint who took three attempts to vend the correct coffee from a machine with a choice of two, to the two morons who were sitting drinking coffee from branded coffee cups in a motorway service station who, when politely asked if they could get me a coffee, informed me that the coffee outlet was closed at night, as was the shop that also sold coffee, while sporting the uniforms of these two respective franchises, and name tags to boot! After a little discreet photography and letter writ-ing, I was quick to enquire as to their whereabouts on a subsequent visit, only to find that sadly they no longer worked there.

I believe we in the UK don’t speak out enough when things are not what they should be. We seem to accept and, dare I say, expect mediocre service. We should perhaps in this respect be a little more like our American cousins whom, at the very least, expect to get what they pay for.

“I TRIED A LATTE RECENTLY, ONLY TO DISCOVER IT HAD SUBTLE UNDERTONES OF CARDBOARD.”

The Coffee Conspiracy

38 HEADLINER

A

MPG AWARDS Rant

HEADLINER is a UK-based lifestyle magazine dedicated to supporting the music and creative arts communities. We speak to headline performers and creatives about their musical lives, and use the talent to tap into the technology where possible, bringing to the forefront the importance of their working relationships with their touring teams and studio professionals. We also strive to report on live shows and events across the globe, and have music columnists based in London, NY, LA, and Ibiza.

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