There's a documentary film called Born Fighters that shows you and Dave Edmunds working on some Rockpile material at Eden Studios in the late '70s. There's a lot of drinking during the sessions, but the playing and synergy are fantastic. It got me wondering how your philosophy of studio work has changed over the years.
Well, quite a lot really. Back when the Born Fighters documentary was made, our philosophy was to get absolutely sloshed and go in and knock out a record! I used to record like that all the time, and some of the things we did were quite amazing, given the circumstances. But then I went through a period when it really just didn't work and I realized I had to rethink the whole thing. I suppose the main difference now is that I do much more pre-production than I used to do. I rehearse and rehearse the stuff I'm going to do — not to define a way of doing the song, but to know the song inside out. I work with very good musicians nowadays, and they know how I work. I find if I know the song really well, I can feel very free about changing it or trying different ways of doing it. And if the band doesn't know the song very well, you sometimes stand a chance of finding really fantastic little mistakes, because we record everything live, including the vocals. I mean, a mistake is a mistake. If something is bad then you do it again or you cut it out, edit it or do something like that. But the little flaws in the playing I think ought to be welcomed, and they can create a real atmosphere — it becomes more like a jazz recording. The trouble is that a lot of people don't like hearing that in records — it makes them really nervous. The general public has gotten used to hearing flawless recordings. You can make a perfect-sounding record in your bedroom, and unfortunately most people do. Even if it's a really dreary song, you can make it sound like it's all going on. If everyone's record is "good" it means that it all kind of sounds bad or bland. So if you hear a "bad" record, something that sounds really funky, it can sound like a work of art. Don't get me wrong, the new technology is great. It's not like I'm a Luddite — "Oh, we should all still be recording onto wax cylinders" — or something like that. I like the new technology, but I think one shouldn't be a slave to it. One should use it to make the music come alive as opposed to just making it sound perfect.
Neil Brockbank is a heck of an engineer. How did you meet him and when did you start working with him?
You're right, he is a heck of an engineer, because like all the greats he can combine a wealth of technical expertise with an acute musicality. He's a craftsman. Neil is a friend of Bobby Irwin, aka Robert Treherne, who has played drums with me off and on since the late '70s. In the mid '80s I was trying to find a new way of writing songs and recording. I don't know why it was such a problem, but back then I couldn't find any engineers who were able to help me with it. Some looked at me a bit pityingly when I said I wanted to make records live in the studio and that I wanted to do it so if felt good and soulful. I didn't want it to be just an experiment, whereby the mere fact that it was done live meant that everyone had to jump up and applaud and say, "How marvelously you rock." [laughter] Anyway, I just couldn't get anyone to help me with it, and now it seems just so simple. Bob said, "I know this guy who I think can help us with this." I met Neil and we talked about it and he got really excited about it. We sort of learned together how to bring this thing on.
How did you come upon the idea of recording this way in the first place?
For quite a few years I had been using a tape recorder to record my little demos just with guitar and voice. I could get a really great little demo just using a very cheap tape recorder, and it usually sounded really good. But it would be frustrating to take my new song to the studio, and as soon as I got there — where the song technically should sound much better — I began to lose control of it. The tempo would go first, and then the key would have to be changed because it didn't sound right — maybe it was too energetic, or whatever. Anyway, I'd start losing the original soul of the song. I got fed up with this and thought, "Well, this is stupid." I wanted to figure out a way where I could just use the studio like my desktop recorder and make a record that I was totally in control of and would actually have some rock and roll music on it. The first thing that goes is the roll nowadays, because people tend to play too loud and too hard. If you can get in the studio and play soft, but turn the mics up, then you can get the roll part to reconnect with the rock and it sounds much better! This was the thing we started to explore.
How did this affect your songwriting process?
