Headliner Magazine #6

Made in the USA by a Bunch of Fanatics.

CONTENTS #6

08 THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC The first in a fascinating four-part series, brought to you by our friends at Sonic Vista Studios.

10 SWIVEL ON THIS Swivel hands over the baton to LA-based producer and manager, Jeremy Skaller, who asks the question: hit artist, or hit album?

12 THE BARON OF TECHNO This exclusive with legendary DJ, Dave Clarke, is one of our favourite interviews yet. Insightful, entertaining, and a must-read!

16 A VERY SMART MOVE Thanks to a staggering Kickstarter campaign, Wendy Schneider is making a movie about one of the world’s most iconic recording studios.

18 ROADBLOG Forty years after partying hard in New York with rock Gods, Nazareth, Jerry Gilbert picks up the phone once more to bassist, Pete Agnew.

20 THE GUITAR MAN Guitar loving rockabilly expert, Darrel Higham, talks about life on the road with his missus, and the musical complications that today's generation face.

22 KERRY ELLIS One of the West End and Broadway’s finest speaks out about her musical journey, and taking to the big stage as Elphaba once more.

24 COVER STORY MASTER OF THE HOUSE We go backstage at London’s Queen’s Theatre to find out what keeps the most popular musical of all time at the top of its game.

28 LONDON’S RISING STARLET The brilliant, and Über-likeable, Carrie Hope Fletcher reveals what it’s really like playing a principal role in Les Misérables.

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CONTENTS # 6 32 ROCK AGAINST TRAFFICKING World-renowned bassist, Andy Fraser, tells us why we should all stand up and shout about Gary Miller’s inspirational music charity initiative.

34 NIGHTWISH These charming guitar thrasing Finns talk technology, music streaming, and proven production techniques.

36 VALENS This young, energetic four-piece are going places fast. A frontman with attitude, and a story to boot, and musicianship to die for. One to watch.

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38 THE RAMONA FLOWERS This Brighton-based five-piece have made a great new album with top producer, Andy Barlow, whose presence has led to much dismantling and rebuilding.

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40 THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE Olivier Award-winner, Carolyn Downing, shows that you don’t have to be a musician, composer, or a man for that matter, to make waves on Broadway.

44 SONIC BOOM Cirque du Soleil’s Jeff Eben puts Lectrosonics’ wireless kit through its paces, and finds time to consume an elaborate sandwich in the process.

47 FRIENDLY FIRE The friendliest of sparks did fly when two top live engineers sat down for lunch in LA to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of pro-audio.

50 WHAT’S HOT? The KMR Audio team look back on that tricky month of August, and reveal which bits of kit flew off their shelves the quickest.

52 MASTERMIND We head to Covent Garden’s Hospital Club to quiz Alchemy’s Barry Grint on the art of mastering, and how he fell into the industry.

54 GRUMPY OLD ROADIE Robert is at his most McGrumpiest at the thought of what might have been, music-wise, had the Scots said yes to independence.

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M A G A Z I N E

FROM THE EDITOR

"IT WAS ONLY IN THE THEATRE THAT I LIVED." - OSCAR WILDE This issue of Headliner has a rather theatrical feel. We head into London’s West End to get up close and personal with the team behind the UK’s longest running musical, the incredible L E S M I S É R A B L E S , and get an insight into life on the big stage with the industry’s rising star, award-winning performer, C A R R I E H O P E F L E T C H E R , as well as the fantastic K E R R Y E L L I S , who not only appeared in the production as Fantine in 2005, but also starred in the 2012 blockbuster movie, and at the time of writing, is blowing away crowds at London’s Almeida Theatre for the second time as Elphaba in Wicked.

And our theatrics don’t stop there... We catch up over too much white wine in Soho with Olivier Award-winner, C A R O LY N D O W N I N G , who has proven her worth both in the West End and on Broadway, which goes to show that young women can be just as influential, creative, and brilliant at sound design as those more mature, often heavily bearded folk.

Talking of folk - well, more rockabilly than folk, we have a great interview with Imelda May’s guitarist (and husband), D A R R E L H I G H A M , a top session player and a top bloke, who fears that the art of music is being compromised by reality TV, and lack of musical awareness in

schools - and we think he has a bloody good point (two, in fact).

And talking of making points (see what I’m doing here?), don’t miss our exclusive with legendary DJ, D A V E C L A R K E , whose career has seen him adopt, fight, fuse, and even throw out all kinds of technologies and fads, all for the love of music. It’s proved a winning formula, as he’s still headlining festivals and making records today. Brilliant.

And on that note... Meet N I G H T W I S H , Finland’s most successful symphony rock band. We chat to this super-friendly bunch about their latest album, their proven production techniques, and how streaming services need to pull their bloody fingers out and start paying our artists properly. Hear hear!

All this and more, including a great insight into mastering (with the help of a few pints of Guinness) from the true gent that is Alchemy’s B A R R Y G R I N T ; the first part of a fabulous ‘The Origins of Music’ series from our dear pals in Ibiza; and a Friendly Fire right out of the top drawer courtesy of two legends of audio, J I M E B D O N and J O N L E M O N .

Enjoy the issue, and thanks for choosing Headliner!

Paul Watson EDITOR

CONTACT: PAUL WATSON paul@headlinerhub.com +44(0)7952-839296

NICK BECK nick@headlinerhub.com +44(0)7912-315139

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/ HeadlinerHub

TWITTER: @Headlinerhub

WEBSITE: www.headlinermagazine.net

CONTRIBUTORS: JERRY GILBERT JORDAN YOUNG PA U L M A C J O N AT H A N T E S S I E R COLIN PIGOTT LOUIS HENRY SARMIENTO II HENRY KAVANAGH ROBERT THE ROADIE ADAM RICHARDSON

SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS

P A R T // 1

THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC E A R LY M U S I C - PA L A E O L I T H I C R I T U A L S , A N C I E N T C I V I L I S AT I O N S , A N D MEDIEVAL MUSIC (35,000 BP* TO THE MIDDLE AGES)

SONIC VISTA STUDIOS PRESENTS THE FIRST OF A FOUR-PART SERIES ON THE FASCINATING EVOLUTION OF THAT THING WE CALL MUSIC. MUSIC IS ONE OF THE MOST RAVISHING FRUITS

of human civilisation. It makes us weep, and makes us smile, but most importantly, it has the power to challenge, comfort, and excite us! A civilisational landmark of emotional history; today it’s an international phenomenon! A significant medium for communication, escape, catharsis, and self-discovery. However, not that long ago, music was but a rare and feeble whisper in a wilderness of silence.

But in our day and age, listeners have become detached from the importance of its value, the complexity of its elegance, and the refinement of its history. Furthermore, because of our ability to access it at anytime, anywhere, and at any price, modern music consumers are now taking this wonderful pearl of joy for granted. We are here today to offer a gentle reminder of how music has come of age, starting from early civilisations, to the classical age, also known as the ‘Common Practice Period’, to the years of Ragtime and Jazz, until today’s modern pop formats.

“SINCE HUMANS BECAME AWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SOUND, THEY HAVE BEEN DRIVEN TO CREATE MUSIC...”

Re-examining history will allow us to make better sense of how it has evolved, and thus how it will continue to evolve.

B A C K I N T H E D AY Music can be traced back to prehistoric times.

In 1994, archeologists discovered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites in the world: The Cave of Pont d’Arc in the department of Ardèche in France.

Hundreds of animal paintings have been found, depicting at least 13 species dating back to 32,000 years ago. Scientists confirmed that the people responsible for the artwork came from the Aurignacian Culture (Upper Palaeolithic, dating back 45,000 years), who were one of the first to show evidence of religious practices in human culture Linked to these paintings and rituals was music. Since these paintings were very hard to access and were generally found in very deep parts of the cave, painters that ventured down there needed guidance to get out.

It was deduced that one method of orientation was the use of chanting, where a singer would be placed at the entrance of the

cave to help guide the illustrators out when they were done. Moreover, Aurignacian findings include bone flutes and whistles used for religious purposes. The oldest undisputed musical instrument being the ‘Hohle Fels Flute’, made from a vulture’s wing bone, and discovered in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany in 2008.

By the time tribal communities began settling in one place and farming, marking the beginning of the Bronze Age, music became an essential activity: helping along the rhythm of work, music was seen as something potent and magical. In Ancient Egypt (3000 BC*), the gods Hathor and Bes were credited with the invention of music, and it was said the Osiris used the art form as a way to civilise the world. Music formed an important part of Egyptian life, and musicians occupied a variety of positions in Egyptian society: temples, palaces, workshops, battlefields, and tombs. Those connected to royalty were held in high esteem, comprised essentially of gifted singers and harp players. Lower on the social scale were secular musicians who acted as entertainers for parties and festivals

9 HEADLINER

(frequently accompanied by dancers), or labour singers that would use music to motivate workers. So much music surrounding this culture can be found on murals and paintings, but since they didn’t know how to write it down, it has disappeared completely.

ANCIENT GREECE In 900 BC, when the Bronze Age collapsed, Greece had become one of the leading centres of trade, culture, and prosperity of the world. Ancient Greece is credited to have created the blue print to our modern civilisation, and if we look more explicitly into their culture, we can see that music was an essential part of their everyday lives. Firstly, in the Greek educational system of the time, there were seven compulsory subjects: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Hence being the first culture to acknowledge music as a science. Second of all, the word ‘music’ comes from ‘muses’, who were the daughters of Zeus that were sent to men for creative and intellectual inspiration. Thirdly, music was used in theatre during drama plays, religious rituals, festivals, parties, and important events such as the first Olympic Games. Musical instruments of the time include the lyre (string), kithara (strum), autos (wind), pan pipe (wind), and the hydraulis (a type of keyboard - forerunner of the organ). Although there are fragments of Greek musical notations, it wasn’t until the year 1000 AD* that the first comprehensible musical manuscript was discovered.

CHRISTIANITY At this time, before the birth of Jesus Christ, and before the fall of the Roman Empire, music was being played throughout the entire world. Civilisations in Asia, Persia, and Mesopotamia, for example, had all acknowledged the importance of music, and were developing it along with all their other intellectual endeavours. So, Medieval times came along, and Christianity was on the rise to become the most practiced faith in the western world, putting music in a back seat and making it exclusive to the elite and religious practitioners. In brief, when the Roman Empire fell, everything got lost.

Apart from one remaining link: 3rd Century Christian plain chant and mass singing (aka Gregorian Chant*), central to the Christian worship (1). Therefore music was being developed essentially around singing during the early part of the Middle Ages, focusing on singing techniques such as ‘Unison’ (singing the exact same thing), ‘Parallel Organum’ (singing with two different notes in parallel to what is being sung), and ‘Drone Organum’ (singing on one constant note while others sing in Parallel Organum). This is extremely

important in the history of music, as it was the first serious introduction to Harmony*.

The second serious introduction was the foundation of musical notation. Until now, singers had to memorise the melody, and only had latin texts with vague neumatic notations as reference. However, in the year 1000, Guido of Arezzo, an Italian musical theorist, standardised music notation (aka staff notation) that would solve the problem of musical notation forever. The third important step in music history was the introduction of chords and rhythm to Arezzo’s staff notation. It was a French composer from the newly built Notre Dame de Paris who brought this to the front of musical education, Pérotin The Great, during the 12th Century.

The fourth important stage in the evolution of music was the development of secular music. Strongly evolving during the era of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain and Portugal) between 1100 and 1492, it was a time when folk music and nonreligious composing began to flourish.

The troubadours, who were traveling composers and performers of lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages, introduced human and emotional topics to music, thus playing a big part in the democratisation of music. The fifth step, paramount to understanding music as an emotional medium, was the foundation of major/minor feel, and the concept of cadence (having a home note to start with and return to) by the english composer, John Dunstaple. He was also responsible for introducing the concept of the third note in music theory, vital for the construction and understanding of chords and the progression of harmony.

The 16th century marks the golden age of secular music: unsophisticated, yet catchy tunes. This period gave birth to a new breed of musical instruments, notably the organ, and the commoditisation of simple string instruments such as the lute, which gave common people the possibility to create music for their own communities.

However, secular music was only at an infant stage of development; it was learned

by ear, and transmitted by speech. So, to close up this section on musical history, we’ve understood that since humans became aware of the existence of sound, they have been driven to create music. Music has always been linked to mindful elation and soulful elevation, and was also considered a science with serious power; and the invention of the printing press in 1450 allowed music to reach a lot more passionate intellectuals and composers that dedicated their lives to pull music to a higher level.

Next time, we will focus on the Common Practice Period, a time when Bach, Mozart, and Chopin were superstars of the musical kingdom - an age of elegance and invention!

VOCABULARY * BP: Before Present (meaning before 1st of january 1950) * BC: Before the birth of christ (before year “0”) * AD: Anno Domini - Meaning the year of the Lord (After the birth of christ year “0”) * GREGORIAN CHANT: Ancient latin church singing * HARMONY: The use of simultaneous pitches, notes or chords.

(1) It is important to remember that the arrival of professional archeology only started to appear in the 19th century.

Making it very difficult for people during medieval times to access data outside the information transmitted to them through family and community.

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s i h t n o l Swive with

Jeremy Skaller

“I LOOK FOR RIPPLES ON THE LAKE’S SMOOTH SURFACE, A N D I L O O K T O T O U C H W H A T I D O N ’ T F U L LY U N D E R S T A N D .”

For this month’s article, I thought it would be interesting to take a step back and invite one of my close friends in this industry, Jeremy Skaller, to sub in for me and provide his own insight on one of today’s important topics in the music industry: a hit artist, or a hit song? Jeremy (or J Remy, as I like to call him) has seen his fair share of both. He’s a chart topping, Grammy nominated producer as well as talent manager for a number of great artists including both Jay Sean and the Janoskians. I met Jeremy back in 2006 when I first moved to New York, and got started in the studio scene.

He had an artist at the time who was signed to my mentor, Duro’s label, so we did a lot of work with each other while I was getting my feet wet in this business. Since then, we’ve grown to be close friends and have worked together on more projects than I can count. Currently, Jeremy resides in LA, and has built his career on zigging while others zag; he is one I look towards while seeking advice, as he’s seen it all, and done it all. Pay attention, because I know he’s got a lot to say...

I SPEND

a lot of time discussing with my friends what I think is wrong with the music business. I don’t think I’m unique in that regard. This industry is filled with brilliant, creative humans, most of whom care deeply about our future as songwriters, producers, artists, and labels, and we tend to talk about how we see things evolving, or not evolving, as it so often seems.

However, in an effort to illustrate what could be better, I will not dwell on what I see wrong, but instead focus on what is awesome, in the

hopes that more of said awesome happens!

I formed many of my ideas about music, culture, and fandom in the 90s. I watched Dave Matthews, Phish, The Roots, and Tribe Called Quest, all of which had tremendous success speaking almost exclusively to their core fan-bases. The general audience that (sometimes) came later via radio play, was usually ushered via a hit song. Suddenly they had access to an audience.

Today, when I take a screenshot of our global musical scene, I see a return of root and core fan-base success stories. I see artists telling their stories, building and growing their perspectives and legions organically, before labels and radio catch on.

Examples of ‘newer’ artists who have done this are Ed Sheeran and Drake. It’s quite simple really: these guys are hit artists that have hit songs as a by-product. That’s not to say they don’t write ridiculously catchy tunes, but in my mind, what makes them successful is themselves.

In fact, I wonder if a hit song for Drake could be a hit song for Justin Timberlake, or a hit song by Ed Sheeran could be a hit for any other artist? I believe the answer is no. What was a hit for Bowie was most likely not going to be a hit for Aretha, and what is a hit for Alicia Keys would most probably not be a hit for Pink.

Of course, there are examples of soon-tobe hit songs making the rounds, being cut by one artist instead of another, and going on to become huge radio smashes. There will always be exceptions, but a smash isn’t always sustainable, and what I’m interested in discussing is why fan bases emerge in support of particular artists; why their core fan base, that certainly listens to the radio, suddenly

focuses in on one artist in particular, lifts he or she onto their collective shoulders, and helps to usher them onto the world stage. What makes them stay there is that original fan base.

That idea is what we need to be focusing on: hit artists vs. hit songs. As an industry, we need to celebrate the weird and odd, the strange and awesome. We need to continue to look for Jay Z, (who, up until Empire State of Mind, had never had a #1 Billboard song) or The Weeknd, who sell out theatres in every city, but haven’t had a Top 40 radio smash yet, or Time Flies, who sell out 4,000-seater college shows all around North America, while waiting for radio to catch up. The axis around which success spins needs to be a human being, not a song. Fan-bases, armies, legions, movements - whatever you want to call them form around great humans. At that point, sure, an anthem can combine the core fan-base and general audience into a world-base. And that’s a beautiful thing.

To be clear, I am not saying that a hit song is a bad thing at all! Nor is it an easy thing to create or find, trust me. I don’t wish to demean the power of a great tune. Indeed, as a producer, I’ve spend much of my life trying hard to create that hit. I will tell you for certain, however, that it is far easier to write a great song with an artist that is already self-defined than for one that is waiting to be defined by an audience. These days, I look for whatever creates the most social disturbance. I look for ripples on the lake’s smooth surface, and I look to touch what I don’t fully understand. Sign the great artist, and the song will come; and if it doesn’t, the great artist will probably survive anyway, much to the happiness of his or her fans.

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THE BARON OF TECHNO UK-BORN DJ, PRODUCER, REMIXER, AND RADIO PRESENTER, DAVE CLARKE, NOW RESIDES IN HIS BELOVED AMSTERDAM – THE CITY THAT PLAYED HOST TO HIS FIRST INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN THE 1980S. CLARKE TALKS ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE ALBUM, AND HOW DANCE MUSIC HAS CHANGED DRAMATICALLY OVER THE YEARS – AND HE’S WORTH LISTENING TO... NOT ONLY IS HE AN AUDIO MASTERMIND, HE’S ONE OF THE VERY FEW THAT MADE IT ONTO JOHN PEEL’S LIST OF ALL-TIME FAVOURITE ALBUMS – AND LISTENING TO PEEL’S RADIO SHOW WAS ALWAYS HIS FAVOURITE WAY OF DISCOVERING MUSIC. IT’S LITTLE WONDER, THEN, THAT CLARKE CONTINUES TO GO FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH...

WORDS PAUL WATSON

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HEADLINER MEETS...

Dave Clarke

“I STILL LIKE THE OCCASION OF WALKING INTO A STUDIO THAT’S BUILT FOR MAKING MUSIC...”

How did it all begin for you?

I started off DJing and then, in the late ‘80s, the whole rave scene came through, which really killed off club land, which is where I was based. It became a really cheesy rave manifesto, and I think we’re seeing the same thing sometimes now as well. At that point I didn’t want to DJ at raves, nor was I being offered to DJ at raves. It was at this time that I started putting some more money into kit for a studio, which I’d done before, as I come from the days of a four-track. I was breaking the four-track, as I was using it as a sampler, cutting stuff in, and wondering why the pause button didn’t work anymore! I was working in a shoe shop, saving up for Yamaha drum machines, and linking them up together with MIDI, but when the rave thing started, I got more serious, so got a sampler, and an Atari computer. I had a hacked copy of Cubase from ‘Mike Hunt’... You get the idea... [laughs] And I also used to use C-Lab Notator as well – that was a proper copy... And I started making music, then my first record came out on XL Recordings in 1990.

You’re from Brighton [UK]... Was there a scene there, back then?

There was a great gay scene happening in Brighton, which enabled me to go to clubs, and there was a club on the seafront called Coasters; it allowed teenagers to come in, and they played very good music; so you’d hear Jean Carne’s Was It All That Was, some Trevor Horn material, and things like that. I made friends with the people that worked in the lighting booth, and they had a cassette recorder in there which they used to record sets. They gave me the tapes so I could listen to how they were made, and that’s when I got interested in everything about DJing.

You live in Holland, also the home of your first international gig...

Yeah, I had my record out on XL, and I used that as an international calling card to come to different places, and I’d always wanted to go to Amsterdam. I don’t know why, as I’m certainly not into drugs at all, but I came over here, and a club allowed me to come and play, and I fell in love with the place. I always wanted to live here, but never did; then I got divorced, lost my studio, and met someone in Amsterdam. I kept coming back and forth, then I moved here in 2008.

Do you ever worry that DJ decks will one day make guitars extinct?

Well, I’ve heard that before... Probably in Mix Mag or DJ Mag, some 15 years ago, when all of a sudden, Technics DJ1210s were selling more than guitars. In those days, people used to learn to use decks as well, which now, a lot of people don’t; they want to be able to push a button on a pre-programmed set, and take the fame, raising their hands in the air, and looking fantastic. In EDM at least, anyway. Every single day, I am listening to guitar music; I just had breakfast, and listened to The Fall, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. There will always be a place for guitar music, no matter what Tom Petty says... It’ll be fine [smiles].

You currently work with Pioneer CDJs, and also Serrato...

I’ve been working digitally since 2003, perhaps earlier. I could see what was about to happen, so I had a friend of mine digitise all my music onto CDR and DVD-ROM, as I knew that eventually the hard drives on computers would become a lot bigger, and the processing power would be a lot more relaxed, and eventually everything would be done on the computer. So in the meantime, I got everything digitised. I moved into Serrato around 2004, and have been using it ever since; it’s at the stage now where the evermore oppressive airport security regimes are taking place, and destroying any chance of being treated like a human being in certain airports, because of different peripherals and computers

being swiped for explosives, switched on and off again, and you’re getting asked what each thing does... That loses its appeal after a while, I can tell you.

How do you label yourself, musically?

It really depends on the circle of people I am around. If I feel that, when I tell them I’m a DJ, they’ll say, ‘Oh really, do you know David Guetta?’, then I don’t say I’m a DJ! Sometimes I just use the blanket description of: ‘Yes, I’m in the music biz, and I create music.’ It’s a strange thing, isn’t it?

What’s your core production setup?

It’s taken a long time to get the Dutch one up to the standard of the one I had in the UK. I had to get rid of so much outboard when I moved to Amsterdam, which made me very sad; and only recently, about four months ago, I felt I had got it sounding even better than in the UK, so I am now very pleased. It’s just taken such a long time to get it there.

I’m not someone that can make music on a laptop wherever I am in the world, as travelling is not a creative experience for me; it’s about reading magazines and catching up on sleep. I still like the occasion of walking into a studio that’s built for making music. I have a high regard for outboard – I do the hybrid production of in and out of the box, and Logic is my main DAW. On my last album, Devil’s Advocate, I was using Cubase, just as it was coming into VST; and to me, I’d used it on the Atari, and it was a very good and easy program to use, and my computer was a massive Atari with 192 MIDI channels! I have some hardware compressors now, which is why you don’t really find compressors in my plugins of choice, and that’s the way I like it.

I have a 120 Volt mixing desk, and quite a convoluted chain before it goes back into the computer from analogue, and I love using Waves plugins, as their flexibility is fantastic. Back in the day, I would have a Roland JD-800 synth, which had all the knobs on when it came out; I would program [Roland] System Exclusive in there to access all the effects inside, and try to automate them, only to be disappointed with the zipper noise, as the definition wasn’t very good at all if you tried to do it live. Now, I have a mad computer with 24 cores, which is almost like a Hackintosh, so things have changed somewhat!

Tell me about the Waves EMP Toolbox you’ve just brought out...

Sure. I’ll get the meters out the way first though, as people find it funny that I get excited by them! I was very happy when Waves brought out the Dorrough Stereo Meter; it’s really good as a ‘quick look’ energy meter, where you can just see and feel what’s going on instantly.

For me, they’re that good, so I had to have those. Then I have the LoAir [Subharmonic Generator], which was a really good one for me also, because back in the old days, when I used to work just on a sampler, if I had a synth line on top that was going to be the hook line, I would duplicate that, and then heavily go into the LFOs of the sampler, filter that down, and then back it up on another channel before bringing it out on the mixer. That was like parallel processing, and the LoAir does that for me instantly. I use that as a real subharmonic support, and it’s a fantastic, fun plugin to have.

The Kramer Master Tape I use a lot on synthesisers. There’s a group called My Bloody Valentine, and I think they would have done anything to have been able to actually automate with precision, wow and flutter, which you can do with this plugin. Having that there is great, and having it on buses is also fantastic; using it at different speeds gives you different tonal characters, so it’s a very good tape machine that I use mostly for

14 HEADLINER

HEADLINER MEETS...

Dave Clarke

“I CAN HAVE 500 WAVES PLUGINS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY ON MY SYSTEM AT ANY ONE TIME...” the wow and flutter, and just gelling drum buses together.

Then there’s the Waves Aural Exciter... I’ve always been wary of using them since going to Italy’s AVC Studios back in the day, and just before it went to DAT, they used to have the aural exciter shine the shit out of everything. Luckily, in those days, there was another engineer before it went to the consumer called the record engineer, who probably used to tame it down a little bit, but it sounded so brittle when they recorded it onto DAT, and then it transferred quite well to vinyl after the mastering engineer had it. So it’s easy to get suckered in by their shininess, but an aural exciter is still important in the right context. I have different types of EQ in my studio, and I have a Kush Audio Clarifonic, which in a way isn’t an aural exciter, but it kind of is – but with this Waves one, the cycle acoustics are fun, and it has an antique vibe, so it’s not so harsh that it’s disgusting. It’s great on percussion, and it can be great on synth lines, so that was important for me to have in my Toolbox.

I then have the API 560 which allows me to find out an EQ balance very quickly, just going straight in there – bang, bang, bang, so it sits tight. Then I’ll try to analyse why it sits tight, and maybe get another EQ later on afterwards to be not so brutal on it. It’s a very quick way of EQing, and sometimes you need that. Then I have the MetaFlanger [Modulation Flanger Phaser Plugin], which is just great fun. It’s like being back with my physical Lexicons and physical Eventides, as the MetaFlanger has a kind of 13-bit characteristic that makes it feel just like your old sampler, or a really old effects box, and has that old school future vibe – great juxtaposition there! And then I have the Scheps 73, which is a great, ‘dirty as you want it’, channel processor, which is on a par with some of the Abbey Road plugins, which I think Waves do very well at.

Plugin technology has come on a long way in recent years...

Yeah, I remember the first time I tried to use Waves on my ancient G3 which had more noise than a Dyson vacuum cleaner, and loading one plugin actually took a long time, whereas now, I can have 500 plugins running concurrently on my system at any one time, which is fantastic.

Also, I made the decision a long time ago to stay at 44.1 [kHz]. In an ideal world, everybody should have maybe switched to 48, like in the old days of the DAT machine, because it’s above CD quality, and of course you should always record at 24-bit. But I thought, ‘Fuck it, 44.1 across the board’, because it makes everything easier, project to project, and ultimately, even though it hurts to say this, 95% of the people who are going to listen to it are going to dither down to far less than 44.1, so what’s the point going to 192, or even to 96, for that matter?

John Peel named your first record, Archive 1, in his Top 20 albums of all time. Since then, has your approach to making music changed?

That was quite something... And I’m a huge John Peel fan, too. I actually still approach music production the same way, and that’s with a clean slate, even though the technology has changed massively. It was the same when I was a little kid, building Lego; as opposed to building onto something else that I’d built, I would just break everything down to its basic core bricks, and build from scratch, and that’s exactly what I do with making music.

Every time I start a new project, I will have nothing at all: no bass drum to turn to, no hi-hat, no synth, no bass synth lead, nothing. Then I just see what happens. It can be very frustrating when it doesn’t work, by the way, but it’s still the best way! Also, don’t work the same way every time, because that’s boring, too. Sometimes EQ before compression, sometimes compress before EQing; mix it up a bit. It’s

important to just work the way you feel like working; do it efficiently, then tighten it up afterwards. I do have templates when I work, but it’s more of an aural signature sound than anything else.

Is the album dead in our industry today?

I think the album is dead, yes, but it’s not because it’s a creative thing that doesn’t deserve to be around. The album is dead because of consumer combined ADHD; they don’t have the patience anymore to listen to an album from beginning to end. The benefit I’ve often found from albums is the track that suckered you into that album then doesn’t become your favourite anymore because you found something else, which is exactly what I found with an artist called Scout Nibbler, who I heard on Jarvis Cocker. He was playing that album, and played the cover of No Scrubs from TLC, and that was what suckered me in, but although I love it, it’s not my favourite on the album.

Also, the album for dance music I never really understood; it never worked, because it was mostly the same vibe throughout. Why not just be honest, and do a collection of great singles? An album should be all about mood, and different mood directions, and they never really were. So for dance music, the fact that the album is dead should be seen as a blessing, actually, as you don’t have these shitty albums anymore! But for guitar music, I think it’s really sad that the album is dying.

Can you share any other industry bug bears with me?

Yes, I can’t stand the complete overrunning of the industry by PR, and fake buys on digital aggregates to boost a track up into a position on the chart to then claim something else which doesn’t really exist [takes a breath]. Fake buys on Facebook and on Twitter, to then boost their artist into a position where they look like they’re more important than they really are; and then the stupidity of some of the promoters from some of these emerging markets that actually believe it, even though their instinct is telling them it’s not true! That’s destroying the opportunity for new talent to rise up, which is a real shame.

Do you think there is still a place for vinyl in dance music?

I still have my record decks, and I go out there and buy vinyl, and I enjoy that it takes me away from my computer every 23 minutes to change the side, for a start! I also like that it suckers you in and you listen, listen, listen, and you get a different vibe. I listened to Wu Tang Clan’s W album a long time ago on CD in the car, and it’s great, but listening to it on vinyl has a different feel, and I think vinyl for analogue music makes a lot of sense, But sadly, vinyl for dance music makes no sense anymore, whatsoever; I think it’s tragic that people are not going to accidentally find music that they like anymore, because that’s the music that you cherish the most – by not tuning in to look for it, but it finds you.

That’s why John Peel was so important; you’d tune into his programme, and go, ‘What the fuck are you playing, John?’ And then all of a sudden, three weeks later, you’re looking for that same piece of music because it touched you in a way that you wouldn’t have allowed it to touch you if you tried to search for it, because you wouldn’t have searched for it! That was always my favourite way of finding new music. www.waves.com www.daveclarke.com

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Y R E V A E V O M T R A M S RECORDING STUDIOS HOLD MANY SECRETS, AND ARE OFTEN AS IMPORTANT AS THE ARTISTS THAT MAKE THEIR MAGIC THERE. ABBEY ROAD AND THE BEATLES; SUN STUDIOS AND ELVIS; NIRVANA AND SOUND CITY. THESE ARE JUST A FEW FAMOUS EXAMPLES. BUT WHAT ABOUT KILLDOZER AND SMART STUDIOS? 'WHO ARE KILLDOZER?' I HEAR YOU ASK... ONLY THE MOST IMPORTANT BAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE MIDWEST; THE BAND THAT LED NIRVANA TO BUTCH VIG'S DOOR, AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT. SADLY, LIKE MOST LEGENDARY STUDIOS, SMART CLOSED ITS DOORS IN 2010, BUT IT HAD A PHENOMENAL 28-YEAR RUN. SO PHENOMENAL, IN FACT, THAT FORMER SMART PRODUCER, ARTIST, AND NOW FILMMAKER, WENDY SCHNEIDER, IS MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT IT. THROUGH POPULAR CROWD-FUNDING PLATFORM, KICKSTARTER, SHE HELD A 30-DAY CAMPAIGN, AND RAISED $120,000, SO SHE CAN TELL THE STORY YOU NEVER KNEW YOU DIDN'T KNOW...

WORDS PAUL WATSON

You’ve done something pretty special here... Tell me about the journey so far?

The Kickstarter campaign was the most intense experience I’ve been through professionally, but it proves that people really want this film.

We’ve engaged and enticed the audience with the nature of the project, and the intention behind the film. The incentives are laid out; if you pledge $25, you get a download of the movie when it’s out, and the awards increase with the money that people give. In the end, Butch [Vig] went into his archives and pulled out some magnificent awards; it substantiated the campaign, and pushed it forward, and it was really successful.

You raised over $120,000 in thirty days...

Well, actually, the morning of the last day of the campaign, we still only had $60,000! The last

six or seven hours, we went from 400 supporters to almost 800!

And people were doubling their pledges, which could be anything from $10 to $10,000, from people like you and I. It was extraordinary to see it go high so quickly.

That’s incredible! How important is it to make people aware of what Smart was all about?

I think it’s hugely important. I worked at Smart - I had my own studio, and I engineered and produced; and when I started talking about the studio and its history, I hadn’t realised at the time that the band Killdozer was this missing link to Nirvana. The film will look at that connection to the Midwest, and how Nirvana were drawn to Smart after hearing the

huge sound that Butch captured there on the Killdozer recordings. It’s the story you never knew you didn’t know, and I love that there is a missing link to the history of rock, through a band that Butch did countless records with. He was able to develop his aesthetic using them as a partner, as they gave him so much freedom to be Butch Vig back in those days. When I interviewed Jonathan Poneman, the founder of [Nirvana’s record label] Sub Pop, he said the Killdozer sound was inherent in the Seattle scene purely because of Butch Vig. What’s the current Madison scene like, and how important will the film be for the town?

It’s interesting, as Butch and I are about to do a panel at a conference in Milwaukee, where we’ll play the trailer of film and talk about the film in production. My focus, and I am still an active musician, is to be aware of the feeding grounds today: how do we feed

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S( GM RA AR ST S S RT OU OD TI OS S)

"IT'S THE STORY YOU NEVER KNEW YOU DIDN'T KNOW, AND I LOVE THAT THERE IS A MISSING LINK TO THE HISTORY OF ROCK..."

film can do. Because we did a Kickstarter, I take people along the process of what I’m doing. For example, people know that three days ago I was overwhelmed with all the footage and how amazing it all is. I’m not trying to be too intimate or get people too engaged with the film, but there’s an audience out there that cares, and I also feel a little less isolated that way.

off each other to move music forward as a community? And they’re somewhat underground, you know? In Madison there is a strong diverse community, but in the ‘80s, there was just a sort of camaraderie with bands that were really feeding off each other, and Smart played a role in that. And with the loss of studios, you lose that ability to influence others. It’s understood, and we are all aware of where the industry has gone, and that the environments don’t exist as they did; the record stores are gone, the small shops don’t exist. The film is a testament to the importance of that, so I think that to have a consciousness around that will sort of manifest itself into happening. I think a story on Smart will paint that picture, because its history makes a point. That’s what’s exciting about it for me.

How do you go about doing a film like this justice?

Well, I need to keep that in the centre of my work every day. It’s about not rushing to please people that want a movie about Nirvana.

What I’m doing with this film is trying to encapsulate an accurate picture of what one studio represented, what it meant to people, and why. What does it mean to have a place like this in a small city in the Midwest of the US; and how does that story of perseverance and creativity parallel with other stories? I’m not necessarily showing those parallels, but how can we all relate to this as a testament to the DIY ethos that is really important in the making of art, and how does Smart contribute to that? I have to make sure I have all I need, and be able to assess what I don’t have, and who I have to speak with to fill in the gaps. I’ve done about 70 interviews so far, and it’s been a tedious task at times, getting all the footage on the table in some way, and it’s then a real exercise eliminating what’s not necessarily important in the film.

Butch really understands the film I’m making, and he is so articulate in telling the story, but without dictating the film, if you know what I mean? Butch and Steve [Marker, former co-owner of Smart with Vig]

I’ve known since 1993, and I’ve been involved with Smart personally for that long, so we’ll be treating this project with a lot of personal care and attention. It’s not about what the day to day runnings of the studio were, it’s how has the studio contributed to the shaping of our music culture?

It must be quite something to be making a film about your former workplace...

It really is! And my approach when working with any media in my career has always been to let the content drive the audience, so I’m not trying to impose a story, I’m trying to put all the pieces together, and that’s what the

What’s the next step?

Well, I have ten more interviews that will seal the deal, and I want them done by the end of the year, so we can pull the film together in early 2015. Then, it’s possible I might have a cut of the film or certain sections finished. I’ll be involving Butch and Steve, asking them if we are nailing it, and what we need to do to complete the picture. Right now I am editing the film, but when I find the right person who can bring a certain aesthetic, I am sure we will start to move in that direction a little bit more. It’s a loose timeframe, and I know some people would like to see scenes of the movie, so it’s likely I’ll work on a 10-minute section for a third party that is interested in supporting the distribution of the film. It’s not quite ready to have its own life yet, but it’s moving, and it will... I’m just realising that it does not move fast, though!

At some point the film will make itself, I just have to make sure it happens. It’s a matter of keeping it to a certain length. Butch was in last week, which was fun, looking at all the archives, and the Midwest music history; creating that has been an epic task, and now being able to access it and use it to sell the story is exciting. Smart had a 28-year run that was magnificent, but at some point, you let it go, and this is about what it represents and what was significant about it, and does that still exist? Nobody’s going to cry at this movie, and I don’t intend to lament about the death of Smart, but if we love it more than we miss it, then that’s how we move forward. www.smartstudiosdocumentary.com

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ROADBLOG

LOVE H U R TS (OR HOW I GOT THE EDGE OVER AXL)

BACK IN OCTOBER 1974, TWO members of durable Scottish rockers, Nazareth, attended a wedding in Edinburgh, leaving the remaining two musicians to take advantage of the studio time they had pre-booked — little realising the consequences. They had laid down the backing track for the classic Love Hurts, using as a reference model the stupendous version that Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris had recorded on Grievous Angel.

Returning to the studio after the festivities in the Scottish capital, lead singer, Dan McCafferty, shook his head as he attempted to overlay the vocal track, saying the key of G was out of his register. But then he had a brainwave, and tried singing an octave higher… and the rest, as they say, is history.

The song was scheduled as a B side, but when A&M Records co-founder, Jerry Moss, heard it, he insisted it replace the band’s cover version of Randy Newman’s Guilty on Hair of the Dog (the band’s sixth album). The result was their biggest selling single.

Forty years on, I remembered that event when switching onto Radio 2’s Sounds of the Seventies just as Johnny Walker was interviewing Nazareth bassist Pete Agnew. He related the story about how he and McCafferty had attended a music journalist’s wedding — for as

I gaze down the muzzle of my own 40th Wedding Anniversary, I was that journalist.

So I decided to contact Pete for a long overdue catch-up, and it was fitting that when he returned my call he should be ringing from Germany. For that’s where this story begins — and my first meeting with the ingénue Scots band at Frankfurt’s legendary Zoom Club. Until that time I had only associated ‘Nazareth’ with the birthplace of legendary guitar makers, C.F. Martin & Company (in Pennsylvania)… and, er, Jesus Christ.

Prior to that, Nazareth had enjoyed a press launch at the infamous Nell Gwynne strip club in Soho. And however much fun it was watching the Nazarenes embarrassingly holding a prostrate topless lady for the photocall, it paled besides seeing them play the late show at the Zoom in the Spring of 1972.

I had been invited to Germany for a gig in Heidelburg with Atomic Rooster, who had been newly joined by Chris Farlowe. Farlowe met me at the airport, and we then embarked on a bizarre drive around the Main’s notorious militia shops in his hunt for Nazi Memorabilia to furnish his own emporium in London. After the gig, someone suggested we swing by the Zoom.

Nazareth were a well funded band who, as the Shadettes in their home town of Dunfermline back in 1968, had aspired to little more than playing at their local Kinema Ballroom. Certainly they didn’t seem

ROADBLOG

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"IF NAZ HAD BEEN BORN 130 YEARS AGO, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN THE STRING QUARTET ON THE TITANIC 'S TOP DECK. TROUPERS TO THE END, AND THE LAST TO GO DOWN." destined to become Rock Gods. But backed by Bill Fehilly’s Mountain Management, they were ready to hit the big time via that explosive press reception in Dean Street. The band became a brand (whatever that was at the time) as soon as their own death metal logo was created. I warmed to them instantly.

I must have written some nice words, for their manager, Derek Nicol, (who now runs Flying Music) was soon on the phone offering to fly me out to Florida to see them open for Deep Purple, with Buddy Miles sandwiched in between.

It starts badly when we land in Miami, where I am supposed to be met. An hour after landing, there’s still no sign of Willie the roadie and I’m frantically phoning every Holiday Inn in the city trying to find them. In desperation, I buy a copy of Rolling Stone, and discover that tonight’s gig appears not to be in Miami at all, but somewhere called West Palm Beach (OK, I know, I know… but this was 1972, and it was my first Stateside trip). Figuring it to be a tiny suburb of Miami, and concerned with the lateness of the hour, I flag a yellow cab and ask the driver to take me to WPB’s Colosseum.

Seventy miles later, with growing suspicion etched across his face, we arrive. I am potless, and so my survival depends on me being able to locate Derek Nicol backstage, and have him spring for the ride. Fortunately, I find him!

By the end of the gig, I decide that I’m beginning to like this American shtick, and decide to stay, picking up funding from record companies like A&M on the West Coast — based on the lot later taken over by Jim Henson’s Muppet Factory. (My first day in LA was memorable, as within hours of arriving I was busted by the local Highway Patrol — for jaywalking on Sunset Blvd — and issued with a citation).

Before that, we trip our way up the Eastern Seaboard in a scene reminiscent of Cameron Crowe’s account from the same period in Almost Famous. We learn a lot of things during that coming of age, the most important being that dry counties still exist. We are somewhere in North Carolina when we run into the Impressions (I think it was) at the hotel, and they invite us to their gig at the Midnight Sun (or somesuch).

The beauty of a 20-minute opening act like Nazareth is that they are offstage by 8.30 and ready to party. After the Midnight Sun show, we end up fighting for cabs in the middle of nowhere — the only white hands, vying with the Harlem Globetrotters to flag down non-existent taxis. Days later, we arrive in New

York City, hit the rock and roll hubs of the City Squire and Gorham Hotels, and the real fun begins. Unlike Grumpy Old Roadie, who can hide under the cloak of anonymity, my name’s on the packet. I have not been victim of identity theft and still have what’s left of a reputation to preserve. Decency prevents me from divulging all the gruesome details of that sybaritic cauldron of happiness known as the Big Apple, with people like Todd Rundgren and Bebe Buell leading the party scene.

YET THE MEMORIES

that are mostly seared into the brain are all back in the UK. When Nazareth played a gig at Liverpool State, management decided to hire a private plane to take the band and a few journalists.

The hippy pilot is fairly stoned, as you would be with a wingman permanently spliffing up for you, and after the gig is over, Fehilly’s motorcade spends an hour trying to locate one of the several bingo clubs he owns in the city for “afters”. He eventually remembers where one of them is. Ironically, Bill Fehilly himself died in July 1976, when the Piper Aztec in which he was flying crashed.

Bands like Nazareth just go on touring forever (they are true knights of the road who are now on the second generation). On the phone last month, Pete tells me that the biggest downer of late is having dates in Russia and Ukraine cancelled.

“It’s not like we haven’t toured war zones before,” he states matter-of-factly. “We’d have been quite happy just to play West Ukraine.”

If Naz had been born 130 years ago, and been classically trained, they would have been the string quartet on the Titanic’s top deck; troupers to the end, and the last to go down.

Today, Pete’s son Lee is the drummer, and lead singer, Linton Osborne, has replaced Dan McCafferty, who was tragically diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) a year ago, and was forced to retire from touring (although not from singing). He had to cut the Canadian tour after he collapsed onstage with a burst stomach ulcer.

“We came back and we finished the [Rock ‘n’ Roll Telephone] album, and he sings a verse at a time. We then did a festival in Switzerland — he did three songs, and couldn’t continue. But he was the sound of Nazareth,” says Pete. And so he was.

Pete informs me that the band will be playing South America before returning to Europe, and that Rock ‘n’ Roll Telephone, comprising all new material, has been one of the band’s

most critically acclaimed records ever, before bemoaning the fact that “albums don’t make money anymore.”

Although the Fife born band spend virtually no time in Scotland, I can’t resist asking Pete about the impending secession (it was before the referendum took place), and he informs me that he is not a separatist: “No-one knows what difference it will make, so why are they doing it? As far as most people are concerned, we just consider the Scottish Assembly as a town council; it’s this Braveheart thing. The difference was, the Act of Union in 1707 was voluntary; there was no pressure.

This is traditionally a Labour country — they opened the door for SNP, and if it hadn’t been for them we wouldn’t be having this referendum.”

But these days, Nazareth are almost strangers in their own land: “We are hardly ever in Scotland. I have played in Moscow 60 times but have never played in Oban. We’ve played Mongolia and Greenland, but never Berwick.”

In fact, the band still has huge pockets of fans in Central and Eastern Europe… and, of course, Germany. We talked about that Zoom Club show before Pete gave me an insight into the poverty of touring in a tale every gigging band will recognise. Shortly after that 1972 show, they had just played a gig for bugger all money in Wurzburg, and to recoup the costs, they hired out their WEM PA to another band before driving like a bat out of hell up the autobahn for a late night date back at the Zoom in Frankfurt.

“We made more money from the PA hire from the gig but then picked up two separate DM100 speeding fines along the way. We eventually arrived at the club and it was closed. That was our profit gone!” And so the conversation rolls on. “Love Hurts wouldn’t have been a hit if it hadn’t been for your wedding — it was all recorded just because we weren’t there,” he confirms. “Dan always said he considered this to be the first real rock ballad.”

We raise a glass to Jerry Moss for his perspicacity and I secretly note that the band had once turned down Axl Rose’s request for the band to attend his wedding to Erin Everly so that Dan could sing Love Hurts (the marriage lasted nine months). Instead, Guns N’ Roses went on to record a cover version of Hair of the Dog... Sorry Axl, you’ve either got it or you’ve not.

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DARREL HIGHAM

THE GUITAR MAN DARREL HIGHAM IS ONE OF BRITAIN’S FINEST ROCKABILLY GUITARISTS. HE BEGAN LIFE AS A SESSION MUSICIAN, AND HAS A KEEN INTEREST IN EVERYTHING ANALOGUE, BE IT TAPE MACHINES, VALVE AMPS, OR OLD EDDIE COCHRAN RECORDS. TODAY, HE STILL DABBLES IN THE SESSION SCENE, AND IS A SUCCESSFUL WRITER, PRODUCER, AND PERFORMER; WHEN HE’S NOT TWIDDLING KNOBS IN THE STUDIO, HE’S ON THE ROAD WITH HIS WIFE, THE SUPERBLY TALENTED IRISH ROCKABILLY-ETTE, IMELDA MAY. HIGHAM REFLECTS ON THE FUN, THE FRANTIC, AND THE DOWNRIGHT FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THIS WEIRD AND WONDERFUL THING WE CALL THE MUSIC INDUSTRY...

Is rockabilly still in high demand, would you say?

Yeah, I think so. I was a session guy for many years, and I only really do rockabilly, so I can make it work. When people want that style of playing on a song, which might not necessarily be a rockabilly song, then that’s where I come in, I guess. I think people still want the real thing, but on the flip side, there are a lot of people that are quite happy to make do with a sample if it will save a few bob. But generally, I keep myself busy.

I work with a small indie label called Foot Tapping Records, and we own a recording studio, so I can go in whenever I want to, and work with bands.

You’re a dab hand at production, and a big fan of analogue...

Well, I enjoy it very much, that’s for sure, although I don’t get much time for it anymore. It’s a happy medium, really, as we’ve got a Fostex G16, which we bought as soon as the studio was up and running. We originally wanted a big analogue studio, but it wasn’t practical, and we couldn’t get tape for love nor money back then, so we ended up also getting an Alesis HD24, which was great, as Imelda’s second album was done on the G16, all analogue, and then I transferred it over to the HD to mix it. Working on tape is something I have always done, and I much prefer it; and that’s not a snobby ‘muso’ thing, it’s just a lot easier to record things properly.

I guess that’s natural for someone who loves so much old music... [smiles] Yeah, that’s right. But a lot of people are going back to tape now, because the natural compression and distortion you can get from it sounds lovely. Even Imelda’s last album, Tribal, which was done in Livingston Studios in Wood Green [London], that was all done on Pro Tools working in conjunction with a two-inch tape. It all went onto tape so we could get that sound. I do think Pro Tools has its uses, though, and if you have a band that aren’t quite together, having Pro Tools is a good way of getting the session done quicker than you would have done.

You’re on the road a lot with Imelda, all over the world. How does rockabilly go down across the globe?

It’s funny, I have always found American audiences to be great, because as long as they like what you’re playing, they’ll get up and dance, whereas over here in the UK, it’s a little different, and they’re a little harder to win over unless they know the material beforehand. Imelda didn’t come from any specific roots scene as such; she played a lot on the jazz scene, and did a lot of blues festivals, but she never really did much on the rockabilly scene, whereas I did. Rockabilly always turns the head of an audience, but if Imelda was to do an hour and a half of rockabilly to an audience that really aren’t into it, they’d be uninterested in 20 minutes!

However, if you throw the odd song in over the course of an hour and a half, it will really stand out. It’s the same with blues and jazz – any type of roots music. If you mix it up and do it well then you’re always going to be in work, but if you’re just working in one specific genre, you’re only playing to people that are into that; and that’s what I did for 20 years

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DARREL HIGHAM

when I was in the rockabilly scene.

You founded Kat Men with Slim Jim Phantom of Stray Cats a few years back, which you recently reformed. Will we see more of the band, or are your priorities still with Imelda?

We started that a couple of years before things started taking off with Imelda. We did a couple of tours, Slim Jim and myself, in the UK, and it was starting to pick up, and then Imelda’s career took off. This was around 2006. We then reformed Kat Men when Imelda fell pregnant and I had a bit of time, but Imelda is my priority, so Kat Men will always be a fun band, I would say.

Tell me about your guitar making... [laughs] Yeah, that was when Ken Ashard was running Peavey. At the time, we were struggling; our PA was ancient, and was letting us down, and I had a ‘59 Fender Bassman which kept blowing up!

I really wasn’t quite sure what the future held, and then Peavey offered to endorse me. They gave me an amp, and they let us have a PA as well, which was great; that in itself got us a lot more work, and we were able to play bigger venues as a result. Then I said to Ken one day, as we are both fans of Eddie Cochran, ‘Why don’t you make a Gretsch style semi-acoustic?’ And he said, ‘Well I don’t know, we’ve never thought about it.’ And he said if I could come up with a design, he’d try and push it through. That ended up being the [Peavey] Rockingham. It was a really good guitar, too, well made for its price; and I think it sold pretty well initially.

I probably played it for nearly 10 years, so I was very happy with it.

You still use your Peavey Delta Blues on stage and in the studio. What is it about that amp that keeps you loyal to it?

I just find it very, very versatile. When you’re playing in a pub one minute, and in front of 10,000 people the next, it’s very handy!

I have never been a fan of having loads of kit anyway; I have always wanted one guitar and one amp, and that keeps me happy.

I bought my Delta Blues many years ago when I was en route to a gig in Devon [UK]. I saw the Delta Blues in the window and thought, ‘That looks nice’, so I bought it. I thought it might be good for the studio, as it was small, but then over time I liked the sound of it so much, I realised it was a real piece of kit. Because I use single coil pickups, the 15-inch speaker really does bring the best out of them, and I like the drive channel on the amp, and its tremolo is decent, too. Overall, it’s just a very simple amp to use; and in the studio, it’s a dream to work with. It’s one of those amps that when you listen back to it on the recording, it sounds like it’s four times the size that it actually is! The power and sound it can kick out is amazing, and it’s never let me down in all the years I’ve been using it, either. I’ve never changed a speaker, and I’ve never changed a valve. It’s like a tank!

“FIND FOUR LIKE-MINDED SOULS, AND GO OUT AND GIG, THAT’S MY ADVICE!”

Being such a live music fan, does the increase in popularity of electronic music and kids asking for DJ decks for Christmas rather than a traditional instrument bother you at all?

Well, I don’t take any notice of that, really... And if that’s what is happening, that’s sad. But people have always found ways of trying to do what a musician does without putting in the effort, and then eventually they realise there is no shortcut! [laughs] There will always be kids that want a guitar for Christmas, and honestly, I don’t understand the whole DJ thing, and the electronic stuff. A lot of it is just the world we live in; everything is instant. People can say what they want, and do what they want a million times a day because of the Internet. But I am a true believer that music always wins; and there will aways be people who want to listen to music or play music and want to sing. It’s just so fragmented now, and that’s the way it is. It’s a different world to what it was 20 years ago, and when it comes to technology, it’s frightening. I wonder what it will be like in another 20 years? That’s where you have to have faith in human nature...

I remember with Imelda, the label said at the beginning, ‘We can either throw you out there and plaster you about everywhere, and you might have a year or two of extreme success, or we can do it really slowly, and you can have a long career’. She opted for the latter, and that’s what we’ve done, because we’re musicians, and we still want to be playing in 30 years time.

It’s a nice attitude to have, because after all, that’s what it’s all about, right?

That’s always what it’s been about. We just wanted to pay the mortgage! Front cover of NME doesn’t interest us, and you have to be practical and realistic about it. The success we have had

is extreme by our standards, because we didn’t have any standards. We always managed to make it work and pay the rent. We didn’t have any left over for holidays, but it didn’t matter, as we loved it so much. It’s doing it because you love doing it, and it’s in you, and you have to get it out. What I find sad is, due to music reality shows, kids now think that’s the only route in. There is another way, and it’s longer, and yes, you might not get anywhere, but you’ll get a tremendous amount of pride, and you’ll have a lot of fun along the way. Find four like-minded souls, and go out and gig, that’s my advice! People need to concentrate on that a bit more, rather than instant fame, as that’s very fleeting. I also think if kids were exposed to a greater diversity of instruments when they were at school, then maybe we’d see a few more musicians come through, as I think you have to learn early on in life if it’s going to really soak in and stay with you. That’s what I’d love to see more of. www.peavey-eu.com www.imeldamay.co.uk

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HEADLINER MEETS...

Kerry Ellis

IT WAS BACK IN 2002 WHEN KERRY ELLIS’ CAREER IN MUSICAL THEATRE GOT A REAL KICKSTART. AFTER MEETING QUEEN GUITARIST, BRIAN MAY, SHE BECAME THE LEAD IN WE WILL ROCK YOU, WHICH LAID THE FOUNDATIONS FOR WHAT HAS BEEN A PHENOMENAL RUN IN THE WEST END AND BROADWAY, PLAYING THE LEAD IN MONSTER SHOWS SUCH AS WICKED AND LES MISÉRABLES. WITH A NEW SOLO ALBUM UNDER HER BELT, A SOLO TOUR BECKONS, BUT NOT BEFORE SHE HITS THE BIG STAGE YET AGAIN...

WORDS PAUL WATSON

You’re about to go back to doing Wicked... Excited? [smiles] It’s been a bit of a crazy whirlwind, to be honest! Willemijn Verkaik, who I know a bit, and is playing Elphaba at the moment, is an absolute machine in the role. She’s done Broadway, Europe, and London, but she’s got to go for back surgery, and I got a call off the producer of Wicked asking me if I’d be up for coming back in for a few weeks. It was a funny one really, as my time on Wicked was so great, and my exit day was so memorable, so I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back. Could I beat it, or at least match my time there before, you know? But I thought, ‘You know what? It’s a limited period, it’s perfect timing with the release of my new album, and I’m about to go out on my own tour’, so it’ll be a perfect lead up into that. I have to say, I’m a bit nervous, but yes, I’m excited, too!

I can understand that... You won awards for Wicked, as you did for We Will Rock You, which was a massive success for you. What will this solo project entail?

Well, Brian [May] is being a rock star at the moment, on his Queen tour in the US for a few months, so I’m doing something a bit different. I did a show at the London Palladium last year, which was my first ‘one woman’ big show, and it was a big deal for me; and I didn’t think to film it or record it... But after the event, a lot of the fans were saying, ‘Did you do an audio?’, and that started the ball rolling. I thought to myself, ‘I’ll record the Palladium tour’; and my manager said, ‘Shall we do it with Pledge Music, and make it a natural fan album?’ I hadn’t heard of that before, but it seemed the perfect way to do it. We got together with Pledge, and the pledges started coming in. Making the record has just been amazing, and it’s also kind of liberating having the control, and being able to make choices. Plus, the fans have their input in terms of what they want to hear on the record. Some of them hang out in the studio, listen to some of the stuff being made, and that’s great; I feel very hands-on with it all.

“LES MIS IS ONE OF THOSE SHOWS WHERE EVERYBODY HAS A LINK TO IT; WHETHER THEY’VE BEEN IN THE MUSICAL, THE FILM, OR THEY KNOW THE MUSIC; IT’S WORLDLY, AND IT’S BEEN A MASSIVE PART OF MY LIFE.” I’ve spoken to bands before about Pledge Music. For readers that don’t know, it’s fan-funding, essentially; and having fans dig deep into their pockets really does show a loyalty, doesn’t it?

It does. I think with how the industry is changing, and the domination of social media, the fans have such a big say in everything; and to be able to say, ‘Let’s make this album together’, is I think just a different way to do it, without having to go to a label and rely on them.

Are there also more opportunities on the theatre side, these days, compared to when you started out?

Definitely. My first big musical was My Fair Lady; that started my journey in shows, and the West End, which was wonderful. I went to a performing arts college at 16, and trained for three years, and that was that. Today, there are so many more colleges, and at different levels; they offer you different things, too. I mean, the Brit School wasn’t even around when I went to college, and I think that’s fantastic. Another one is LIPA. There is now something for everybody out there, whereas they used to be a little bit more all under one umbrella. You’ve now not just got musical theatre colleges, dance colleges, or acting colleges; there are songwriter colleges, and plenty more opportunities up for grabs. It’s up to the individuals to go for it, because it is all out there.

But it’s a cut-throat industry, isn’t it? To be blunt, it riles me when I see former soap stars take lead roles in some of these major West End productions, when often the chorus line, let alone the understudies, are far more talented... [pauses] I think it’s just the way our industry is. The older I get, and the more stuff I do on my own, the more I start to understand sales and figures, and have a bit more sympathy for producers. It’s such a risk for them to put on a new show; new writers find it so difficult to get funds to put out new material, and that’s because it’s such a risk. Even big West End shows with all the right ingredients, the right producers, and writers - some of those shows fail, even when the whole machine is behind them. So I do see where they’re coming from sometimes, and they think a certain face might sell a certain amount of tickets. I do understand that – but it’s tough. I know people out there that are very talented, and that do deserve roles, but it’s a really tricky one. And it’s happened to me; I’ve gone up for auditions and not got the part, and somebody else has got it, and it’s often a familiar face... But that’s the business, and that’s how it works.

You were in the Les Misérables film... How was that?

Yes I was, briefly – you do miss me! [laughs] But no, I was thrilled to be in it – and anybody who has been involved in Les Mis at some point was in the film, and it was really nice of the producers to involve everybody, as Les Mis is one of those shows where everybody has a link to it; whether they’ve been in the musical, the film, they know the music, they’ve done it at school – it’s worldly, and it’s been a massive part of my life. It was the first musical I ever saw as a child, and I then went on to be in it, playing Fantine in London, which was wonderful, a real childhood moment, and one I looked up to and strived towards; and of course I had a fleeting moment in the film, and it was just brilliant to be a part of it.

I know there are a lot of people who have got quite heavy views of what they thought of the people and the film, but I thought it was great, and was really well done. I mean, Les Mis has been done before several times as a film, but there is scope for it to be expressed differently; trying to do Oliver! again I think would be trickier, because everybody knows and loves the one version. There are different versions, but the one we all know and love would be hard to recreate, whereas with Les Mis, there are different versions of it, so I think it’s more acceptable. It’s an incredible production.

What’s your career highlight to date, would you say?

It’s a tough one, as there have been so many, but Broadway was a big deal for me, because I never thought it would happen; and also doing the Festival of Remembrance was really special – I did that with Brian May, and it was just amazing. More currently, following up my new album with a solo tour, as although that’s on a slightly smaller scale, it’s quite special too, as it’s the first time I’m venturing out on my own! Then, I’m sure we’ll get back in the studio and do it all again!

Are there any rule of thumb to stick by if you’re going to try and climb that theatre ladder today?

God... [laughs] Well, for me, it’s about belief; you have to believe in yourself and your talent; and just don’t give up, as we all get knock-backs.

I get turned down every day, but I think you just have to keep going, and eventually it will happen. www.kerryellis.com

“IT’S POWERFUL, AND IT’S MOVING; IT’S HILARIOUS, AND IT’S HEARTBREAKING...

IN SHORT, IT’S A BLOODY MASTERPIECE.”

M AS T E R THE

OF

HOUSE WORDS PAUL WATSON

LES MISÉRABLES IS NOW OFFICIALLY LONDON’S LONGEST RUNNING WEST END SHOW. IT CELEBRATES ITS 30TH ANNIVERSARY NEXT YEAR, AND IS WITHOUT DOUBT ONE OF THE MOST METICULOUSLY RUN, WELL OILED THEATRICAL SHIPS IN THE BUSINESS. THE AUDIO SYSTEM AT SHAFTESBURY AVENUE’S QUEEN’S THEATRE (LES MIS’ HOME FOR THE LAST DECADE) WAS THE WORK OF RENOWNED SOUND DESIGNER, MICK POTTER, AND THE KIT WAS DEPLOYED

BY LEADING RENTAL HOUSE, AUTOGRAPH, SO IT’S HARDLY SURPRISING THAT THE SOUND IN THE AUDITORIUM IS JUST AS IMPRESSIVE AS THE SHOW’S UNBELIEVABLE, 40-STRONG CAST. HEADLINER GOES BEHIND THE SCENES TO FIND OUT MORE...

Although many of you will have undoubtedly seen this magnificent production, here’s a quick summary of the plot: Set in early 19th Century France, Les Mis is the story of a French peasant, Jean Valjean, and his quest for redemption, after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child. After breaking parole and starting over, thanks to an inspired act of mercy from a particularly understanding Bishop, Valjean is then hunted down by the ultimate bad cop, Javert.

The story jumps through a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists decide to make their last stand at a street barricade, and there’s even a love triangle intwined in there to boot.

It was Cameron Mackintosh, in cahoots with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) that first brought Les Mis to the UK. After listening to [Les Mis songwriters] Boublil and Schönberg’s concept album in 1982, he drew inspiration to bring [Les Mis writer] Victor Hugo’s story to the stage; and on October 8th 1985, it debuted at London’s Barbican Theatre.

Despite some initial bad press, ticket sales immediately soared, and it’s now arguably the most loved musical of all time. After the West End, similar heights of success were achieved on Broadway, and Les Mis has now been seen by more than 70 million people in 42 countries, and in 22 languages around the globe. It’s still breaking box-office records everywhere, 29 years on. And if you need more convincing, just

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are a lot of ways of doing it, so you can find your own little style when working with DiGiCo.” Cobey is also utilising QLab at FOH, which talks to the SD7T, and vice versa: “On this show, QLab is remarkably simple, really; it’s running a lot of sound effects. Each battle isn’t just a sound effect piped out of every speaker, though; it’s running a series of them at the same time, so they’re rebounding all over the auditorium to get that ‘in the middle of the battle’, epic feel going on. The SD7T is sending MIDI messages to QLab, to update and do what it needs to do, and then that comes back and updates the desk. This is so you can step through the sound effects, and the DiGiCO isn’t stepping through the scenes, it’ll just do the sound effects it needs to do, and when we’re ready to change a scene, QLab and the SD7T are always on the same page, so to speak.”

B E A U T I F U L LY O R C H E S T R AT E D

look at the phenomenon that was Tom Hooper’s 2012 movie adaptation: it won three Academy Awards (was nominated for eight), and grossed close to half a billion US dollars worldwide. Enough said.

KEEP CALM AND GET DYNAMIC Sitting down to watch Les Mis in a quirky old auditorium like the Queen’s Theatre is a fantastic experience; it has that effortless ‘olde worlde’ vibe, and although acoustically it’s pretty unforgiving, Adrian Cobey does a tremendous job at mixing the sound, especially considering the amount that’s going on at any one time... So what’s his secret?

“Staying calm, and riding the faders... All the time!” Cobey smiles, giving a demonstration on his DiGiCo SD7T at the back of the theatre.

I notice not even half the stage is visible from FOH, and ask him how much of an issue that is during the show. “Not much really, as the line arrays and the subs are all buried within the panels, so I get the bottom five boxes or so, plus the delays; some subs are buried in the ceiling here, too, which gives a great image in the room. Also, the surround plays a big part. It’s never a point of source; the big moments just happen around you, which is great, as you can just drop them away at any time. A show like this, where there are so many intimate moments, but also a lot of big battles, means the dynamics are enormous.”

Despite the console’s fantastic bells and whistles, as Cobey puts it, he works with the SD7T in a surprisingly manual fashion. Most of his previous experience in mixing theatre has been with analogue, and he says it’s virtually the same in terms of operation working with the DiGiCo. “It doesn’t work any other way Les Mis - and it’s a very delicate beast.

We don’t have click tracks, so there’s nothing to hide behind; it’s all about the cast, the band, and the FOH operator. So all we’re doing scene by scene is using the control groups, and just recalling what we need on those faders at any one point,” says Cobey, who started out on stage himself, playing in bands, before fusing his love of electronics and music, and hopping behind the console. “Sure, I’m sending various MIDI messages out to other bits of kit to change for individual scenes, but beyond that, it’s line for line all the way through, and then I’m using all the DiGiCo’s internal effects and processing, which are great. All I’ve got outboard-wise is one external reverb.”

Cobey, who started out on a DiGiCo D5, says one of the key reasons for using DiGiCo consoles is their simplicity and configurability.

“I love the SD7T; the fact anything can be anywhere means it really is a truly blank surface, and as a sound designer and as an operator, it’s extremely easy to move things around,” he says. “If you want things grouped together, it’s very simple; and let’s say you suddenly need to do a Sunday concert here, which is the day off for the Les Mis show, there will never be much replugging involved, just soft patching, so you can find it all very quickly. And being a Windows-based system, there

The Queen’s Theatre has quite a shallow orchestra pit, so a fair bit of the sound “just comes straight out”, Cobey says, which can make the intimate moments quite difficult to deal with.

“Once you get to a certain point, you really don’t have any control.

Every instrument has a DPA mic on it – there are 25 DPAs in total in the percussion room, which is buried under the stage, so it’s very well isolated,” Cobey explains. “They’re such high fidelity microphones, and we’ve been using DPA here for years. We’ve got everything close miked with DPA 4061s, which are superb for capturing the detail of the instruments; and we’ve also got everything miked with overheads, which we use DPA 4011s for. The overhead mics are going straight to the surround mix, and that’s all part of Mick Potter’s design: making it bigger as opposed to making it louder.

A plethora of string instruments are utilised on Les Mis: violin, viola, cello, bass, and a keyboard to back up the string section; and there are three woodwind players, who also double up on clarinet, flute, and sax. Furthermore, there is a trumpet player and trombonist, the latter of which doubles up on the french horn.

“They’re all on the DPA 4061 and 4011, in one combination or another, and we wouldn’t use anything else, as the combination of high fidelity and clarity is unbeatable,” insists Cobey. “I don’t crush much, compression wise, either; and sometimes, because of the arrangement of the show, I end up doing some backwards mixing: when it dies away, you still need to keep the ball in the air, as it were; it’s all about following the dynamic of the show, but also just keeping that energy up, so it doesn’t die away. The dynamics of the show are immense, and it doesn’t run like a typical musical. The principles singing these songs are all the same shape; it’s a sung through musical, so there’s never time to rest.”

HATS OFF TO DPA For the performers, foldback is non-existent. They rely on the sound of the mic, and the mix out front; and from my seat, bang in the centre of the stalls, it sounded incredible.

“We’ve got all 40 cast members on DPA mics, too; they’re so discreet, and the capsules are tiny. We close-mic everyone with a 4061, and the principles each have a pair, one is a backup,” Cobey explains. “It’s a tricky balance, really, as in the ideal world, you want a mic here [mimics singing into a handheld], but that’s just not possible in theatre, as all theatre producers want them hidden. Thankfully, the DPAs are not only durable, but they really do deliver; the quality of audio is fantastic, and in this environment, you’re as strong as your weakest link, so that’s crucial.

“There are also an extraordinary amount of hats being used on this show, and we put a 4061 on each of them, too. It might sound strange, but often, as soon as a cast member puts on a hat, the mic on their forehead becomes covered, so that’s the end of that! So we just add them to the hats, and then we paint up the 4061 capsules to suit the respective performers’ hairlines, so we have every base covered!”

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“THE COMBINATION OF DPA’S HIGH FIDELITY AND CLARITY IS UNBEATABLE...”

ANDREW BRUCE

PEOPLE PERSON Cobey says the crew on Les Mis are also phenomenal – and it sounds like they have to be!

“Les Mis is an oiled ship; there are lots of contingencies, but it’s a strict plot, and the whole team know the show so well. We always keep a dialogue open with the cast and the musical director, and although with musical theatre, there is always a compromise, there are no standoffs or Chinese whispers here; it’s a great team, and it’s very transparent,” he insists, very matter of fact. “And having been a musician and performer here and there myself, if there ever is a problem, I can usually see it before it becomes apparent; working in confined spaces with orchestras, I can always tell before the musicians arrive that there won’t be enough room, for example, so I can be ahead of the game for soundchecks, which is very useful.”

It’s a tough job, mixing for theatre – no doubt about it. So what advice can Cobey offer to any wannabe theatre engineers? “[smiles] Don’t dive into Les Mis as your first job in theatre, as it’s a big ask! I’d say get involved in amateur theatre, and bug people; keep on their case, and watch what they do. As a friend of mine says, be a sponge – but without making a nuisance of yourself. Ask to dep on shows, certainly. Being at the desk comes a bit later, but being involved in musical theatre is about learning the radio side of it, and then being involved in the cast; and there are a lot of departments you have to liaise with. Mics travel through wigs and wardrobes, so being a people person is a big part of it.

“You also have to love it to do it, as it’s different every night. People are always on holiday, and the nature of how the Musicians’ Union works means we never have the same set of musicians in; we can have up to eight deps per performance, and that can really affect the show.

Not in a bad way, but you end up building up a database of things in your head, really; that’s how I treat it as I come in the building when I see who is on, who is off, and who is covering what, and so on. It’s your job to have that snapshot in your head out there, and do your best to recreate what the designer wants on that day.”

SHOWTIME I was genuinely gobsmacked throughout this Les Mis performance.

It’s powerful, and it’s moving; it’s hilarious, and it’s heartbreaking. In short, it’s a bloody masterpiece. What was also evident was the work of the crew, as Cobey had told me about earlier. The scene changes were entirely seamless, and to me, it looked like the whole production went without a hitch. Audio-wise, it was just magical, and although it wasn’t loud, it somehow filled the auditorium; when the chorus sang, they were bang on the money, and some of the solos were mesmerising.

A shout-out must go to the brilliant Tom Edden for his portrayal of Thénardier, and to the awesome vocal talents of Carrie Hope Fletcher, who has clearly made Eponine her own. To the whole cast and crew, a big thumbs up. The only question left is: When can I come again? www.lesmis.com www.digico.biz www.dpamicrophones.com www.autograph.co.uk

ANDREW BRUCE, AUTOGRAPH SOUND LTD: ORIGINAL SOUND DESIGNER FOR THE LES MIS PARIS PRODUCTION IN 1980, AND THE CURRENT PRODUCTION (1985-2011).

My history with Les Misérables began in the summer of 1980 when my company, Autograph, was contacted by Europe 1 (French radio station and original co-producers) who asked me to travel to Paris at 12 hours notice to help a group of technicians who were in rehearsals, and struggling to use just 10 radio microphones to mic the principal actors. This was the first incarnation of the show at the Palais des Sports in the southern suburbs of Paris, and I was expecting a leisurely three-week job with no strings attached; it turned out to be anything but. Whilst I couldn’t have imagined at the time that what started in a flea-infested boxing arena would still be running 34 years later, it was clear that it was unlikely to simply fade away after its initial six-month run.

I had learned a lot about the use of radio mics in the theatre during the ‘70s, and from my involvement as associate sound designer on Evita in London in 1978, and it was this that had caused Europe 1 to seek me out. Five years later, when Cameron acquired the rights, I was again engaged as sound designer for the ‘new’ English language co-production with the RSC. By this time we had managed to expand the usable number of radio mics to 16, but with a cast of well over 30, we needed two sound people endlessly swapping radio transmitters back and forth between performers. Only in 2004, when the show moved to the Queen’s Theatre, did we finally manage to get everyone their own transmitter, with several principal performers carrying a spare as well.

At the same time, the show has gone from a 55-input special adaptation of an analogue studio console to a 120-input, state of the art DiGiCo SD7T digital console which occupies half the space. Whereas originally, all mixing was entirely manual, and sometimes required the use of a specially shaped piece of wood to assist the mixer to get all the chorus mics up in time, the current console is programmed to provide the mixer with a huge amount of assistance – everything except the relative balances.

Over the course of the 29 years of this version of the show, theatre sound has truly come of age, and just about everything has been changed over to digital apart from the radio mics and loudspeakers.

The show has occupied a huge part of mine and the company’s life, and has kept us busy designing, supplying, and maintaining systems for countless productions all over the world. Les Mis will leave an enormous gap if it ever finishes.

CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER

LONDON’S RISING STARLET CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER IS NOW ONE OF THE MOST TALKED ABOUT YOUNG ACTRESSES IN LONDON’S WEST END – AND FOR GOOD REASON. THIS BUBBLY 21-YEAR-OLD IS A REAL BREATH OF FRESH AIR, TOTALLY UNAFFECTED BY HER SUCCESS, DESPITE WINNING THE PRESTIGIOUS WHATSONSTAGE AWARD FOR ‘BEST TAKEOVER FOR A ROLE’ FOR HER ADAPTATION OF EPONINE IN LES MISÉRABLES, AND ACCUMULATING A ROCKSTAR-LIKE FOLLOWING ON SEVERAL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS. ON THE STAGE, HER PERFORMANCES ARE INSPIRED, AND AT THE SAME TIME HEARTBREAKING; SHE HAS A VOICE THAT CAN MELT YOU AS EASILY AS IT CAN KNOCK YOUR BLOCK OFF, AND THAT’S A FRIGHTENING TALENT. I CAUGHT UP WITH HER AT LONDON’S QUEEN’S THEATRE, HOME OF LES MISÉRABLES, TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE GIRL BEHIND THE CHARACTER...

You’re living a bit of a fairytale here, aren’t you? [laughs] I really am! When I was seven, my mum won tickets in a competition, and my dad is not the biggest fan of Les Mis, so she took me, and I fell in love with it then; it was the first musical I ever saw.

The first job I ever had was in a Honey Nut Cheerios commercial as Little Red Riding Hood, so I had done auditions, and then Les Mis came up. I can still remember standing on stage at The Palace; they lined us all up and said, ‘Eponine, Corsette’ over and over; I then remember running out and telling my mum that I’d been picked, and she didn’t believe that I had got the part, so she called up my agent and had her confirm it!

And you were only seven! Was theatre always your natural path?

Well, I always wanted it since I was a kid, yeah – not because I had pushy parents in the slightest; in fact, I was the pushy child, from when I was three! That was the unspoken deal in the family. And that’s the thing I have a passion and a natural flair for... I’m pretty crap at everything else!

Your singing voice is quite beautiful, and for me, it sounds like it would sit equally well on a record than on the stage...

Thank you! Well, it’s funny you should say that, as we had a big rehearsal with Claude-Michel Schönberg, who is the guy that wrote Eponine’s song, and he said it was originally a pop song that he wrote, so going for a poppy sounding voice was maybe a good thing. I never

CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER

“THE ISSUE PEOPLE HAD WITH ME WAS, I’M BLONDE, AND IN THE BOOK, EPONINE’S NOT, TO WHICH MY COMEBACK WAS, ‘WELL, I’M NOT FRENCH, EITHER’. I MEAN, YOU NEED SOME KIND OF CHANGE AT SOME POINT...”

had training, either; mine is very much an untrained voice. My only real training was singing along to CDs, or wailing in the shower!

But your family are all very musical, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Both my parents work in schools; my dad is a caretaker, and my mum is a learning support teacher, but dad particularly is very musical. He plays guitar, and played in pubs and clubs with bands when he was younger. And obviously my older brother is in McFly - well, McBusted, now - and he has always been very musical. He was Oliver when he was 11, so yeah, my house has always been full of music and singing and performing, that kind of thing.

You recently won ‘Best Takeover in a Role’ at the What’sOnStage Awards, and you beat off some pretty fierce opposition...

God, I felt such an idiot... I was the only one without a prepared speech!

I mean, being up against the likes of Willemijn Verkaik... Well, I was like, ‘It’s nice to be here’[smiles]. It was bizarre... She is with the same agent as me, and we had performed together at St James’s Theatre a few months before, but then to win, I was like, ‘Whoaaa, man!’ [laughs] I could feel myself getting emotional, as everyone else had these great speeches, and then there’s me! I was telling myself off in the back of my head: ‘Don’t do this now – cry later! Don’t do this on stage!’

An accolade like that in your first adult role... That’s not bad!

I know! It takes me back to when I left school at 16, and I was writing a musical with my brother and a team of people, and I was offered a job with Universal Records to go and start building that, as they signed the soundtrack first. So we then went and pitched it to film and TV companies, and worked on that for four years, and I actually got the chance to go and meet Steven Spielberg in New York, which was just... [pauses] the most insane thing!

From sitting in the lobby of a hotel following my brother around on tour, then saying, ‘Let’s write a musical, that’ll be fun’, to a year later sat in front of Mr. Spielberg listening to you sing! So we pitched to amazing people, and then along the way a director came on board, and a producer, and then script writers, and once it was on its feet to the point where we had to get legal involved, I was like, ‘OK, well while all that’s going on, you don’t need me to write songs anymore, so I am going to try out for shows, if that’s alright?’ I didn’t have an agent at the time, and

it had been a long time since I left my childhood agent behind. I’d been in this in-between type space for a while, and then the producer said he’d help get me in touch with agents. I went round about 12 agencies, all of whom said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do with an actress that sings’. I just said, ‘Erm... Musicals, maybe?! That’s what I’d like to do!’ And all of them said no, apart from Curtis Brown, who originally weren’t sold on the idea. They thought I’d be a good presenter because of my YouTube videos! And they said they’d call me if anything came up. So I thought, ‘Well that’s a no, then!’ And then a couple of months later, they called me up and said they’d got this musical film, and none of their actresses could sing, so would I go for it. I didn’t get it, but the feedback was good, so they decided to take a chance on me. And now they have the most amazing musical theatre department...

Which you pioneered, by the sound of it! [smiles] Ha! Well, there’s now me, Anton Zetterholm, Willemijn, all sorts. Curtis Brown are incredible, I can’t even begin to start singing their praises enough...

That’s nice to hear about an agency, as you do hear horror stories...

Oh my god, you do! I was worried, especially with all of these people, I’d heard some huge horror stories. But they don’t even act like agents – Alastair Lindsey-Renton is my musical theatre agent, and he literally stands there by the stage door shouting ‘Bravo!’ as soon as you walk out.

He is absolutely amazing!

Your musical journey is already incredible, but what does Les Mis mean to you on a personal level?

That’s a big question... I was kind of terrified at first when I was told that I had the role, because as soon as I was allowed to announce it, suddenly everyone had an opinion – what sort of Eponine was I going to be, and so on. I got to tell everyone the news, and for the most part, people were really pleased for me, but then there were some people who were very vocal in the fact that they didn’t want me to be in a role that they loved just as much as I did. Les Mis has been going for almost thirty years now, and it has the most hardcore fan base; it’s just incredible that people come dressed up as the characters to the show, and it makes you think this is the best show in the world to be a part of, so then when they don’t like you... then there’s an issue! It’s

30 HEADLINER

CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER

“THE DIRECOR, JOHN CAIRD, SAID THAT THE CHARACTERS HAD TO FIND US AS MUCH AS WE HAD TO FIND THEM, AND THAT REALLY RESONATED WITH ME...” not a personal thing though, but they have an idea of who that character is, and if you don’t quite fit, then they’ll be vocal about it. The issue people had with me was, I’m blonde, and in the book, Eponine’s not... To which my comeback was, ‘Well I’m not French, either’[laughs]. I mean, you need some kind of change at some point, right? But it’s one of those things where you obviously have to look back at the wealth of people who have played this part before me, and they’ve all been cast incredibly, and are amazingly talented women. Look at Lea Salonga and Frances Ruffelle; I got to meet Frances the other week, and do a photo shoot with her, which was incredible. But they all had their own take, and it was amazing to do research and find out whether I could get bits of their Eponines into my performance. Then the director, John Caird, said to us in the rehearsal process that the characters had to find us as much as we had to find them, which really resonated with me, and it’s made me unafraid to be the kind of Eponine that I want to be, and the way that I’ve imagined her for 13 years of my life. If I played it the way that everyone wants me to play it, I’m going to get to the end of my run, look back at it and go, ‘That’s not how I wanted it to be’. You just have to do it the way you think it should be done, and if people have an issue with it, maybe when their dream comes true to play Eponine, they can do it the way they want to do it. But right now, Eponine is in my care, and I have to do with her what should be done with her. Since I was in the show at seven-years-old, I was always saying I will come back and play Eponine one day... And I did!

You did indeed... How important is the stage sound during a show?

It’s very important, but when we’re up there, we don’t actually have onstage speakers pointed towards us; it’s very much just our voices. It differs from day to day, but what I love about here is, it’s such a well oiled machine – everyone knows what they’re doing, what each other’s jobs are, and how everything should run; and everyone is so, so nice. Adrian [Cobey, FOH operator] is so good; I love him, and he is always around when you need to speak to him. And I am not very technical, so that really helps sometimes!

It’s a nice fusion then, and one that allows you to just get on with it...

Yeah, exactly. I can speak on my level to him. I mean, there is never a problem with the sound here, but if I was to say to him, ‘Was the orchestra a little bit quiet today, or was that just me?’, then Adrian and I will have a normal, non-technical conversation, and he will explain to me why that was, or what the issue is, or whatever. It’s so easy to talk to him, and then I know it’ll never be a problem again.

You’re using a DPA 4061 microphone – whether you know that or not! How do you find it to work with? [laughs] Yes, I have two of them, in fact – we have one spare each. They are sitting there on my forehead, and I hardly even notice they’re there; I just check them before I go on, and off we go. But yeah, I’ve never had any issues, and the sound we get from them is always really lovely, which is important for all of the cast, as we all use them, and it helps us feel comfortable on stage.

You’re doing eight shows a week... How do you warm up your voice?

We all have a 10-minute physical warm-up, and then a vocal warmup. At the beginning I was like, ‘Wow, this is what real singing is like’, suddenly realising that warm-ups are very important. When your voice is your job, you learn quickly that it’s what you need to do. Your first week is the most difficult to get through; you’ve done five weeks of rehearsals and adrenaline is on an all time high, and you’re performing with a new

cast, and it feels like you really have to show them what you’ve got; and then you’ve got West End Live at Trafalgar Square on the Saturday, and then you go and do two shows! So by the first Sunday, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I can do this!’ Well I was, anyway! I was panicking inwardly; I was like a duck: my flippers were going crazy under the water, but on the surface I was like, ‘this is great, I’ve got this guys’ [laughs]. But yeah, it is SO important.

You’re a bit of a blogger too, aren’t you, with an unbelievable following on Twitter (350k), Facebook (70k), and YouTube (500k)... How on earth do you find the time?!

It’s a little bit mad, yes... At stage door, it’s pretty crazy, too. When I announced I was going to be in Les Mis on YouTube, lots of people who’d watched me on there for a year and a half bought tickets to come and see me in the show, and they all come to stage door. There might be 50 or so out there at one time! On YouTube, the demographic is 13-16, so suddenly when the holidays hit, they’re all here at once!

Finding the time to do the YouTube stuff is trickier, as I’m filming, editing, and uploading video, but of course I can tweet from my phone.

I never want it to feel like a chore; it’s a hobby, and that’s what it’s always been, the social media side of things. It was always, ‘Let’s see what happens if I put a video up online’, and then it went crazy, basically!

There is a whole YouTube community of bloggers, musicians, and people who do special effects, stunt videos, and it’s overwhelmingly brilliant.

As a songwriter, do you do any acoustic gigs?

I do, every now and again. I have been asked to do a lot of YouTube gatherings, and if it’s a Sunday or on a day that I’m not on a matinee show, then I’ll be there! I want to find a way to do my own little performance, but it will take some thinking through.

So you’re Eponine until June next year... What happens then?

Well... I am the biggest Disney fan ever, so I have my eye on Frozen on Broadway at the moment. I know that their workshopping that and I would reaaaaaalllllly love to be a Disney princess at some point in my life! My agent is already on it, so we’ll have to wait and see! If I could be a part of Frozen on Broadway, that would be another dream come true.

It’s been a hell of a start to your career, and I’m sure you’ll be on Broadway in no time... Do you have any advice for anyone trying to make it in the world of musical theatre?

Well, I was the theatre fan that used to stand at stage door, and hope that someone would come out and sign my programme; and if I can now look back at that and think, ‘Oh wow that used to be me’, then there is absolutely no reason why anyone else can’t also get to this point and look back. I always say be cheeky, which is something my mum taught me to do, and it’s always kind of worked for me; don’t be afraid if you meet someone who you feel is influential or who you look up to, don’t be afraid to tell them your name and who you are or ask if they have any tips for you. Something else I used to do was write letters to casting directors when I knew that there were films coming out, or musical theatre projects being worked on! There would be smoke coming off the keyboard, as I’d be finding all these agents and casting directors and musical producers’ information, and I’d be sending off pretty looking letters so they’d pay attention as they came through the postbox! Obviously it’s all email now, so it’s quicker and easier, but just don’t ever be afraid to make your name known. www.lesmis.com carriehopefletcher.com www.dpamicrophones.com

32 HEADLINER

ROCK AGAINST TRAFFICKING THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING GLOBAL STATISTICS MAKE STAGGERING READING. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, 27 MILLION PEOPLE ARE SLAVES TODAY, EIGHTY PERCENT OF WHICH ARE WOMEN AND GIRLS, AND FIFTY PERCENT OF WHICH ARE MINORS. EVERY YEAR, TWO MILLION KIDS ARE EXPLOITED TO THE GLOBAL SEX TRADE; IT’S THE SECOND LARGEST CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE AFTER DRUGS, AND THE FASTEST GROWING. TO ATTEMPT TO COMBAT THIS THROUGH MUSIC, RENOWNED RECORD PRODUCER, GARY MILLER, CREATED ROCK AGAINST TRAFFICKING (R.A.T). HE HAS RALLIED TOGETHER A PHENOMENAL COLLECTION OF INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS, ALL OF WHOM ARE DOING THEIR BIT TO RAISE FUNDS AND AWARENESS FOR THIS HORRIFIC GLOBAL PROBLEM. HEADLINER MEETS THE INFLUENTIAL ANDY FRASER, FORMER BASSIST FOR FREE, WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PENNING THE GROUP’S WORLD-FAMOUS HIT, ALL RIGHT NOW. TO SAY FRASER IS BEHIND THIS CAUSE IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT; HE LIVES AND BREATHES IT. WORDS PAUL WATSON

What does it mean to you, and how did you get involved in RAT? The whole RAT thing – we’re very excited about it – but it’s like herding cats! [smiles] And most of the managers we deal with have bigger egos than their artists, but that’s a whole other story! But seriously, when I became aware of the numbers, and the reality, and that human trafficking is actually going on in your local town, I was just staggered. I’ve heard horror stories about places just a couple of villages away, and I think it’s our job to raise awareness and funds to fight this. Let’s create a public demand, and let something be done. Right now, it’s so under the rug, it just continues. It truly is a world problem.

I’ve known Gary [Miller] for about a year now, and when I met him, his enthusiasm and his commitment for the cause was so strong, I just had to get onboard. Apart from the fact that he’s a great guy, and an unbelievably talented producer, we get on well, and we share the same commitments.

You’ve had a phenomenal influence in music, especially during your time with Free; and there are so many eclectic and influential artists already involved in R.A.T: Joss Stone, Slash, Julian Lennon, just to name a few...

Yeah, it’s a great start, and we’re now looking for country artists and Christian artists, too. We wanted it to be well rounded, you know?

Music covers the whole sphere, and for a cause like this, I don’t think it matters what you play, you’ve just got to get behind it. I have to say

though, I do wish there were 36 hours in a day rather than 24! I have to be very disciplined with my time as far as sleeping regularly, eating properly, and exercising at least two hours a day, so really it’s a case of cramming everything into fuck all, basically. I keep a laptop in the bathroom, so I don’t waste a minute!

RAT has partnered with IJM (International Justice Mission). That sounds like a nice fusion...

Oh absolutely. They’ve definitely been the most successful at clamping this down. We’re also in with the Kennedy Foundation, as it’s important to have a good presence in Washington, But IJM really are the leaders.

The first RAT music project involves the creation of a double album, which is a series of Sting & The Police cover versions, right?

Yeah, each artist chooses their favourite track from the catalogue, and records that, with Gary producing each one. I’m doing Every Breath You Take, but I’m not opposed to playing on anyone else’s track, either – I’m quite up for that, in fact. So basically, I’m doing whatever I can to make this happen. My neck is on the line as much as Gary’s is here.

And the end goal, at least for this chapter in RAT, is to hold a big concert in London next year, on the 30th Anniversary of Live Aid...

That’s right. I’ve brought in a company that will not only put the concert on, they will simulcast it to theatres globally. We intend to run it through

ROCK AGAINST TRAFFICKING

live streaming on a pay-per-view basis around the world, and then we will take the footage of that concert, add behind the scenes interviews and what have you, and there will be a DVD available shortly thereafter.

The album comes out in the Spring, and on Grammy night, we intend to have an album launch in LA, with a number of artists present. We have also approached the Grammys to try and organise a wrap charity bash with some more artists, and we’re awaiting the decision, so potentially, that could be a great night for RAT. And you’ve still managed to find time to record your own new album, too... [laughs] Yes, somehow! I’ve just released On Assignment, and I expect to be in England next month to sort out all manner of things – one being the promotion of that album; and two being the motion arm of our label, McTrax, releasing a movie called Tears of a Mermaid, and NBC Universal are very interested in doing a 90-minute global theatre release on it, so I’ll be tying all of that up, and cramming in as much as I can when I’m over there. My daughter, Hannah, is in it – she dances with sharks, which many people assume is CGI, but I can assure you it’s not!

I’m the official producer; I do the music, kick ass, and pay the bills! Her commitment is perfectly on show, so mine has to equal it! [smiles] RAT sounds like it’ll also have to be an ongoing commitment, considering the height of the trafficking problem around the world...

It will indeed. Once we’ve done this album, Set Them Free, the next album will begin; and the album after that might be world music, or we could do an opera album. What I’m trying to say is, it’s a total ongoing commitment, and we’ll keep it in your face until the authorities that are supposed to be taking care of this get off their duff. And the only way to do that is to keep making a noise, and keep the public aware. It’s our job to continually raise awareness and funds. www.rockagainsttrafficking.org

“I'VE KNOWN GARY MILLER FOR ABOUT

A YEAR NOW, AND WHEN I MET HIM, HIS ENTHUSIASM AND HIS COMMITMENT FOR THE CAUSE WAS SO STRONG, I JUST HAD TO GET ONBOARD.”

HEADLINER MEETS

NIGHTWISH WITH EIGHT MILLION RECORD SALES, 4.3 MILLION FACEBOOK LIKES, 60 GOLD AND PLATINUM AWARDS, FIVE NUMBER ONE ALBUMS, AND THIRTEEN NUMBER ONE SINGLES UNDER THEIR BELTS, I THINK IT’S FAIR TO SAY THAT NIGHTWISH ARE FINLAND’S MOST SUCCESSFUL EVER MUSICAL EXPORT. HEADLINER CATCHES UP WITH TWO OF THE SUPER-SUCCESSFUL SYMPHONIC ROCKERS, SYNTH PLAYER AND COMPOSER, TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN, AND BASSIST AND VOCALIST, MARCO HIETALA, DURING THE RECORDING OF THEIR NEW ALBUM...

Your symphonic rock is obviously catching on... You’ve been going since the ‘90s, and you’re still going strong...

TH: [laughs] Yeah, it’s probably because there is such an abundance of elements in our music! We made our first demo in December 1996, so we’ve been going 17.5 years so far, which isn’t bad, I guess! It was just supposed to be a side project at the beginning, and no-one in the band expected it to take off in the way that it did. We all had different ambitions: I wanted to be a biologist; the drummer wanted to be a computer engineer; and it was just a hobby that grew much, much bigger than we expected.

MH: I should point out that I joined the band in 2001, when it was all going quite well, so I

knew exactly what I was jumping into! I’ve had musical ambitions since I was a kid, but as Tuomas hinted, we do all come from different musical backgrounds.

Is that important, do you think?

MH: I do, yeah, or the music risks becoming inbred. We have classical influences, rock influences, and we like certain pop songs too, so there’s a lot of open-mindedness in how to approach our music here.

What’s your take on digital technology?

TH: When everything went digital, we had to do everything cheaper, as suddenly we weren’t getting as much from the labels! But what digital does do, is provide immediacy; it brings everything to your home. I’ve been buying

albums from iTunes, and haven’t thought of going to a record store, but what I’d really like to see is the quality of digital recordings to improve, and to see more digital albums where you get a digital picture and get to see the lyrics, too. These are the things that I’m really missing from digital downloads, so they should be made easier to get hold of. Also, something should be done about Spotify and other streaming services; we need more competition in that sector, a company that carries out this service, and actually pays the artists correctly!

Spotify and Pandora in particular have been exposed for this kind of thing recently...

MH: Exactly. But that is definitely something

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that I would like to see changed, so these services would have to pay for the stuff that they’re using, the right way, and the right amount. I hope there will be some kind of clarification on this, sooner rather than later.

Tuomas, do you still compose most of the band’s material? It’s pretty rare seeing a synth player write songs for a metal band...

TH: Yeah, it gives a different perspective to the songwriting, and it certainly brings a certain edge to the sound. I do write most of the songs and lyrics, because originally they started as a solo project of mine, so it came naturally, being the main songwriter in the band.

But there is a lot of contribution from Marco especially when writing, and I want to emphasise that Nightwish is still very much a band. I studied classical piano for 12 years, starting when I was just six, and I played in a classical orchestra, and my main instrument was clarinet. Then I also played saxophone in a jazz band, but I haven’t touched those instruments for the past 20 years!

You’re busy making a new album at the moment; how has your approach to production evolved?

MH: Actually, we have always produced the albums ourselves as a band, and we have had the same engineers since we started out for mixing, mastering, and recording. It’s never really been our thing to go to LA with a high class producer and try and find a new sound. I think over the years there is a big confidence in the band that we can do this ourselves and take hold of the ropes, keep it together ourselves and preserve our integrity. First, we have to like the record, and then it’s great that the people have continued to like the songs, too.

TH: It’s also super cool that we have never had any pressure from the record labels. They have never suggested that we should use a specific producer or studio.

Do you think building a relationship from scratch with a label is still possible today?

TH: There’s a big reason to be thankful of the status we’ve managed to build in the past, because it gives us this freedom; and these days, in terms of record companies, I hear about young bands getting deals that include giving away percentages of the merchandising and the show revenue. We didn’t have that when we signed our first deals, so these days, for new bands, yes, it’s way, way harder.

You’re all Genelec users. Can you tell me a bit about your relationship with the brand?

MH: Well, here’s the thing. At the end of the

HEADLINER MEETS...

Night Wish “THERE IS NO BETTER WORD TO DESCRIBE A GENELEC SOUND THAN HONEST; IT TELLS YOU WHAT IS THERE, IF THERE IS SOMETHING MISSING, OR EQUALLY, IF THERE’S TOO MUCH STUFF GOING ON.”

Genelec, the other band members have also taken an extra interest in the audio, and have now realised that if they take the time and listen, they can also hear the difference, and therefore they appreciate how Genelec kit is really working. That’s really cool. Also, Troy Donockley [pipes, flute, and whistle player] was really pleased when he got a set of Genelecs for his own studio.

Which models do you use?

MH: We have an 8040 DSP set as our nearfields, and then the Genelec guys brought us some 1037s, and they are HUGE babies! Sometimes, when the evening goes long enough, it’s very nice to hear stuff out of those speakers, as you can feel the huge sound pressure that comes out of them.

TH: And all the neighbours really hear them as well... From miles away! [laughs] I can imagine! With such a powerful sound, you must need to crank it up now and again, but I guess you can’t do that all the time...

MH: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, the longer you can go with easier volumes is always better for control, and what you track down, but now and again we use the big ones for some nice sound at really high volume. The other nice thing about Genelec speakers is, they are also very non-fatiguing, which comes in very handy for our band!

‘80s, I went to train in a recording studio, and at the time, I really fell in love with the Genelec stuff. Also, the guy who mixes our albums is a sworn Genelec user, as is our mastering engineer, as is our recording engineer! [laughs] I had the luck of living in a town in the middle of Finland, just 90 kilometres from Genelec’s HQ, and some of the Genelec workforce were actually my neighbours, so we got to talking about the equipment, and ended up doing a kind of collaboration. It’s one of those deals that is really welcome, as Genelec is a brand that is respected for an actual reason. You hear the sounds perfectly out of any Genelec speaker, and the clarity when you’re mixing with Genelecs is just unparalleled. There is no better word for a Genelec sound than honest; it tells you what is there, if there is something missing, or equally if there’s too much stuff going on. I find it very important, but I am an audio freak anyway, so... [smiles] Are you all audiophiles?

MH: It’s pretty much me and the guitar player...

Who also has Genelec speakers! We are the most sound-oriented guys, but saying that, ever since we got into the relationship with

What needs to change in today’s industry?

TH: For me, the biggest downside of the music industry today is that people don’t listen to albums anymore. I mean, the kids out there are not buying them and listening through; they’re not reading the lyrics out of the booklet, because there often is no booklet; and this reflects that people perhaps are not making albums either, anymore. They’re concentrating on single songs, and filling the album with crap.

So this is a very concerning trend for me both as a musician and as a songwriter.

MH: Again, it’s the technology that gives you more and more ways to quick satisfaction. You can listen to one song on your smart phone on the move, through often lousy headphones, but I would love people to take the time to listen to an album through good equipment, and feel all the warmth and all the atmosphere. I really hope that the younger generation will eventually get that... www.genelec.com www.nightwish.com

VALENS

UPCOMING UK ROCK BAND, VALENS, HAVE DEVELOPED QUITE A FOLLOWING SINCE THEY STARTED OUT JUST OVER A YEAR AGO. THEIR ENERGY-FUELLED LIVE PERFORMANCES ARE DYNAMIC AND ENTERTAINING, AND ITALIAN-BORN FRONTMAN, JULIAN SOLLAI, IS AN INSPIRATION (MORE ON THAT LATER). HEADLINER CATCHES UP WITH THEM AT RENOWNED CIRCUIT VENUE, THE HORN, IN HERTFORDSHIRE [UK], TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK...

PHOTOGRAPHS NEIL MCCARTY AND IO5 PHOTOGRAPHY

The one word I’d use to describe Valens is dedicated. For a bunch of lads in their very early twenties, with just 12 months gigging experience, what they’ve achieved is pretty staggering: a hardcore following; the ability to craft intricate recordings from a modest bedroom studio; and musicianship to die for.

So what’s their secret?

“We have taken different approaches when putting material together, just to see what works best; we’ve hit the rehearsal rooms with

and piano lines are tracked, and Ali [Gibbons, drummer] plays to a click.”

All of this is done in their home studio (well, guitarist, Leigh Wyatt’s bedroom), where they create remarkably strong recordings, with modest kit. “It’s all about the performance,” says classically trained frontman, Julian Sollai, who plays all the backing tracks into Reason via a MIDI keyboard. Wyatt adds guitar lines and samples to the backing tracks via his Line 6 POD Farm. He and Sollai are clearly the

very easy; in fact, now, I can’t imaging playing without one, which is handy in this band, as I don’t really have an option!”

Although Valens’ sound is huge, they do benefit from Sollai’s subtle production techniques, which were ingrained in him from a young age, when studying at an exclusive music school in Rome.

“Sometimes, I feel we are so much closer to classical than rock,” Sollai reflects, searching for an explanation. “It’s almost scripted, or

“WE WANT THE LISTENER TO BE IMMERSED IN THE FULL VALENS EXPERIENCE.” nothing but an idea, and walked out with the finished article, and we’ve demoed as we’ve been writing, which, actually has proven the right formula of late,” explains Tommy Pool, bassist, and grandson of The Artwoods’ Malcolm Pool. “We record the demos in detail, and backing tracks are really important to us, not because we can’t play, but because we want the listener to be immersed in the full Valens experience. A lot of the harmonies, melodies,

tech-savvy two – the rhythm section are much more about ‘just getting on with it’, even if that does mean that Gibbons’ drum parts are laid out before he’s had a chance to set his kit up!

“Leigh and Julian map the drums out on Reason or EZdrummer, so I’ll have the part sorted in my head, and then they’ll screw me over in the studio,” Gibbons laughs, sinking a fifth pint of Stella, and shaking his head. “But adapting to playing to a click I actually found

choreographed, I guess; I studied music at one of the best schools in Italy, and as a result, I always try to put something particular and different into our music, hence the string parts and the piano. We always have six or seven backing tracks, and they’re very prominent and important in our music. We need backing tracks to play the songs, so we need to demo them first. It’s our method, and it works, because we have such a big sound.”

VALENS

37 HEADLINER

“I’VE GOT THIS THING INSIDE ME, A KIND OF FAITH, THAT MUSIC IS WHAT I NEED TO DO, BECAUSE IT SAVED ME.” PAIN KILLER He’s not wrong. Onstage, even in The Horn’s 200-capacity live room, you do get the feeling that this band would be better suited on a festival stage, or in an arena. Sollai’s stage presence is extraordinary, so it was a shock when his demeanour in the flesh, so to speak, is almost bashful. But he has a story – a quite horrifying, yet totally inspiring one.

“I have so many scars, literally,” he says, openly, remembering a time when he weighed just 30kg, and had just been diagnosed with Leukaemia. “It all happened so fast when I got ill, and all I wanted to do was die; in fact, I decided that I was going to die. I was spending all my days looking out my bedroom window, and one day I realised that all I wanted to do was music, which is when I began my road to semi-recovery. In the mornings, I started wanting to get up, and going to the piano and trying to play something, making myself do this. I was so skinny, you could see not just my bones, but basically my guts, so when I sat down by the piano it really hurt.

“I’d sit there and play for as long as I could,

and then I got a little better, I started going to school again. A little after that, I lost my brother, too, so now, every time I go back to Italy, it’s like the land of pain. On the other hand – and this may sound strange - it’s still kind of cool, as you realise how much you did to get to where you are, and that helps sometimes. I’ve got this thing inside me, a kind of faith, that music is what I need to do, because it saved me.”

THROUGH THE BARRICADE Sollai’s experiences are shocking, certainly, but I find myself questioning how much of that raw vocal talent would be there if it wasn’t for his tainted history. For that, then, we must be grateful, as the musicianship, determination, and downright talent of he and this young band is right out of the top-drawer.

Valens’ 30-minute set tonight is outstanding.

At times, there’s a bit of early U2 to their sound, but then I feel like I’m watching a young Brian Molko, James Dean Bradfield, or Matt Bellamy, even. And I’m not sure who wears the most make-up! We can always find comparisons in music, and in bands, but really, Valens’ sound

is their own, and for me, that’s rare, certainly in today’s game. If there is one constant, it’s quality of performance: flawless. So what’s the next step, Tommy... Glastonbury? “[laughs] For me, it’s about turning our current group of supporters into fanatics; Ali and Leigh hand out flyers to our shows, and word-of-mouth is still king, and the promoters seem impressed with that. We do the ground work, we perform well, and from that, people ask where they can see us again. And that’s a good place to be. We supported Natives, who have been going for years, and they told us we were the best band they’d had on their entire tour, so that was some praise. We’ll continue to hone our live performance, keep writing and practising, and improving our set. We want to deliver a show, and create an atmosphere, not just play a gig... [pauses] Glastonbury would be cool though, wouldn’t it? [smiles]” www.facebook.com/valensuk @valensuk

38 HEADLINER

THE RAMONA FLOWERS ELECTRONIC ROCK FIVE-PIECE, THE RAMONA FLOWERS, HAIL MAINLY FROM BRISTOL, EXCEPT LONDON-BASED FRONTMAN, STEVE BIRD, A SINGER THAT’S BEEN LIKENED TO THOM YORKE AND BONO, PERHAPS FOR HIS ABILITY TO REALLY NAIL A FALSETTO VOCAL. THAT’S IN MANY WAYS THANKS TO RENOWNED PRODUCER, ANDY BARLOW, WHOSE PRESENCE IN THE STUDIO WITH BIRD AND THE BOYS HAS LED TO THE CREATION OF A QUITE MASTERFUL ALBUM, APTLY NAMED DISMANTLE AND REBUILD...

39 HEADLINER

THE RAMONA FLOWERS

“YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY SONGS; THAT’S YOUR CURRENCY.” I loved your recent single, Vultures, because there’s so much going on... What’s your writing process?

Thanks a lot. We had a great response to that track, which was really nice. In terms of writing, we all have our own different music tastes, though we all also like similar things.

Ed [Gallmore, drums] is into jazz, I’m into electronic house music, so we all put our two pence in, and add a bit of a twist, which I guess is where our band ‘sound’ comes from, really. We work with Ableton for pretty much everything. Sometimes we might throw a drum beat down, then if we like it, we build the song up from there, adding guitar lines, synths, and then vocals. Then sometimes, we also jam in a rehearsal room, and if we find an energy that we’re really into, we’ll take it back to our home studio, dismantle it, and rebuild it; that’s our writing process, basically.

Dismantle and Rebuild... Also the title of your latest record, which was produced

by Andy Barlow. He has built a hell of a reputation for himself in the studio. How was he to work with?

Yeah, that’s right. Andy is unbelievable, actually. He’s in the band, Lamb, and has been a big part of how we have progressed as a band, and now we are fortunate enough to be good mates with him. We met and toured together at the end of 2012, and then recently they had a new album out, and asked us to go and support them again, which was amazing.

There’s a lot of interesting panning on the vocals, and some great falsetto work. How much of that came from Andy’s influence?

Well, we wrote a lot of demos, and then he came in. We had worked with producers before, but what was great about Andy was, he forced us to improve lots of pieces that we thought were fine as they were. He took us up a gear, and he worked massively with me, and to be honest, opened my eyes to singing.

I had never sung falsetto before like that, and he definitely improved us as a band. Andy is more than just a producer; working with him was a true collaboration, and now we have a great relationship with him.

Is it important for you guys to be able to replicate your record when playing live?

Well, yes, because I know from watching some bands in the past, I’ve loved the record, and when I’ve gone to see the live show, it just

hasn’t lived up to it. For us, playing live is the best part, and we absolutely love it; seeing people enjoying listening to our music is the best part by far, and we like to get the crowd involved. It’s not a case of just standing there, playing our songs, and walking off! OK, there’s a lot going on in our music, so occasionally we have to adapt, but we play everything as live as we possibly can, as we don’t want to just sample stuff again and again. There has to be an organic element to the show.

You’re building a serious following on several social media platforms, yet as a band, you haven’t been together that long...

How important is it to embrace that side of things in today’s industry?

Yeah, we’ve only been going two years. The rest of the band were friends around college time, and have been in lots of different bands. They were putting a new band together, and David [Betts, keys/guitar] knew me as he’d lived in London for few years. He gave me a call, and I came down to Bristol. In terms of social media, for me, it’s essential for any new band. It’s such a hard business we’re in, thats for sure, but you have to, in terms of music, keep writing... You can never have too many songs; that’s your currency. So it’s important to embrace the social media side of things, be it Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and even preparing your playlists on Spotify. Each of these platforms is so powerful now. You end up wanting to do it too, of course, as these people are fans of your music, but keeping up with things on the social side is a very big part of it, today.

Do you have any advice for bands trying to replicate your success?

I’d say, try to get your songs and demos to as decent a standard as possible, and then get them out there to the people that you’d like to work with... And you never know, they might want to work with you, too! You can do that anywhere these days, with not a lot of equipment, as long as you know roughly what you’re doing... Whenever we are in the mood to write or record, we can, and that’s a great thing.

Headliner wishes Steve Bird and the rest of The Ramona Flowers the best of luck on their current tour with Kaiser Chiefs.

“IF WE FIND AN ENERGY WE’RE REALLY INTO, WE’LL DISMANTLE IT AND REBUILD IT...”

THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE THE WORLD OF THEATRE SOUND DESIGN ISN’T EXACTLY DECORATED WITH FEMALE ENGINEERS, LET ALONE THOSE THAT HAVE WON THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED OLIVIER AWARD. HOWEVER, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO CAROLYN DOWNING, WHO IS AS COOL AS SHE IS SMART, IS OBSESSED WITH THE PERCEPTION OF SOUND, AND IS A BIG FAN OF ORGANIC AUDIO...

WORDS PAUL WATSON

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CAROLYN DOWNING

“FOR SOME REASON, I GET A THRILL FROM ACOUSTICS, AND HOW THEY CHANGE HOW YOU PERCEIVE THINGS.” Although from a gender point of view, Carolyn Downing ‘wouldn’t call herself a feminist’, she admits that she might be getting there, after several awkward situations with male counterparts.

“I think overall, I’ve have been pretty oblivious to it all really; I was young and naïve, and jumped into things, then worried about survival afterwards,” Downing admits, with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. “I remember once in Germany, I had asked for a lot of kit for experimenting during a rehearsal: mics, speakers, and bits and pieces; and this guy couldn’t grasp that. I had 12 weeks of rehearsals to come after this, and I said to him, ‘I want to do this because’, and he finished my sentence for me with, ‘Because you’re a woman?’ [laughs]. And I’d only met him 10 minutes before! Funnily enough, in the end we got on famously, but you have to be brave and come back at them if they give you hassle.”

At just 26, Downing found herself living in Manhattan for three months while co-designing the sound for All My Sons on Broadway, with no significant prior experience – this is not normal. It was a full-on experience for her, and a phenomenal learning curve.

“It was a crazy time... I hadn’t had to tune or organise a system for that kind of space before, so I was reliant on the engineers, because I hadn’t had the technical experience, but I did have the knowledge.

It made me adrift a bit,” she reflects. “But it worked, and was very successful, despite being a complete emtional roller-coaster! I remember the production manager sat me down at the start and said, ‘Look, you will have trouble here because of your gender and your age’. He told it straight, I’ll give him that! In America, it seems they look up to people that have done their time, so to speak; and they don’t like to be responsible, liability wise. I don’t profess to know everything, but I believe people need teams, and I like working with people. What they needed over there was absolute instruction on everything, and I had to go to every dressing room and tell them exactly where I wanted every radio mic, which was quite intense. They got uppity with me, so I was the same with them.”

Good for you! At 14, Downing was more keen on getting on stage rather than beyond it, but at 19, she realised she ‘wanted to work’, so went to drama school and did a degree in sound design. But where does her love for audio stem from?

“I honestly don’t know!” she giggles, as the white wine arrives. “We had a brand new theatre put in at school, and made a team of us that wanted to look after it, so I had a go at the sound thing, and I trained people on brand new desks, and so on. Then I went to the Royal National Exchange Theatre [in Manchester] and worked with the late Steve Brown. Working there was amazing, and really, I was addicted to the people. Steve made a massive impact in my life, and it went from there really.”

MIXING IT UP

Although there is no logical path to her audio obsession, Downing is passionate about technology, and has always enjoyed mixing.

“I don’t like the hours, but the rest is good! I just get excited about sounds; for some reason, I get a thrill from acoustics, and how they change how you perceive things. It’s funny,” she smiles, as the conversation turns to the demise of analogue technology. “I learned on analogue, and for me, gain structure and signal flow are crucial for any sound designer to understand, though I had a strange journey. I did a HND in music technology working with samplers, but as soon as I got to

college, it was onto MiniDisc, and then all my fringe type shows were on MiniDisc, so I only started working with QLab and SFX when I finished college. From a playback point of view, I went through all of that, whereas from a desk point of view, I was on only analogue until I went on tour.”

Her first confrontation with digital technology was a frightening one – but now she embraces all its elements: “It’s the way the world is now,” she admits, “so you could argue, why waste time learning analogue at all these days?”

“I was completely stuck when I first got behind a digital desk; it was horrid, and I felt like a baby,” she laughs, head in hands. “And then something happened... It was like a switch in my brain, and I suddenly got it. The thing is, in theatre, it’s not just about getting a show on, it’s the layers of sound design, and how they react, and it’s also about building a solid communication; that’s why I think everyone should do a show on a MiniDisc. However, some of the older designers that have been in the game say, ‘Nope, let’s move on – analogue is defunct’, which kind of surprised me. I don’t think people should go straight onto digital, where you don’t have to think the basic elements through, because I do worry about the whole layer thing – there are important nuggets of information that could be lost.”

In recent productions, Downing has become quite the advocate for TiMax – partly due to its versatility, and partly down to some serious persistence from her colleague and sound engineer, Hamish Bamford!

“In fringe venues particularly, it’s much cheaper to get an analogue desk onsite, but the problem is always with MIDI changes and programming, so it makes it difficult,” explains Bamford. “But with TiMax, it works, as it’s just a matrix, so you can send mixes and inputs direct into it, or you can send QLab direct into it; this means it frees up a load of channels, so you can take your analogue desk and any mics and compression and send those mixes to two channels on your TiMax, and it will send that audio wherever you want it to go.

“For me, that’s been very interesting. I came across this technology three years ago, and knew I wanted to work with it, and now this job has come around, and I’ve made it happen! I told Caz, ‘This is what we’re doing and using!’ The obvious challenge is, you just have the basic 16 ins and 16 outs, but the general ethos is, with Timax, you can have five people doing five different things on five different laptops, so it’s very efficient.”

Downing concurs, adding that on more significant productions, TiMax also works well in conjunction with digital consoles: “I wasn’t sure about TiMax initially, as it felt like the dark horse of the industry, but once I understood what it could do, and I used it, I thought ‘Yes!’ I don’t know why it’s not a real standard, come to think of it. I think for me, though, especially on a frantic show where I know there’s going to be over 200 cues, and it’ll be manic, especially content wise, where I’ll be creating content in the room over three days, I have to have a console! You don’t always want all your eggs in one basket in a theatre environment!”

WEIRD SOUNDS WORK

Downing recently worked on a production at the Royal National Exchange Theatre, using the new TiMax system – and the results were fantastic.

“Steve Brown and Robin [Whittaker, TiMax director] were always good mates, and the theatre always had an old TiMax, as it’s in the round, and it has a really complex speaker system, but when I went before, I

CAROLYN DOWNING

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“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN INTO LIVE BANDS, SO THE ORGANIC NATURE OF REAL INSTRUMENTS IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT FOR ME...” always turned TiMax down, but this time I was saying, ‘I really want to use your TiMax’, but they’d eked it out as it was pretty ancient.

“In the end, we did a version of Much Ado About Nothing demoing the new TiMax system; we had these big heads for masks, and a load of lighting whizzing around, and the venue is not only in the round, but it’s a huge stock exchange, so there is this natural 12-second reverb, which is beautiful, so I love doing work there. I did a sequence, and threw the audio around in a way that physically felt like it; and I found it so exciting to give people a serious theatre experience... Not in a nauseating, horrible way, like a theme park - it’s subtle. It’s like using sub bass, or real strange low tones, and I found it very cool.

“I always want to accentuate things, as I am interested in the whole perception of sound, so trying to emulate someone feeling manic, or drunk, or some kind of crazy state of mind is fun: how do we get a whole audience or space to feel like that? How do we get it to feel uber-3D? And with TiMax, I was like, WOW!” If there is such a thing, what type of sound designer are you?

“Well, I am very interested and excited about using real sounds, and manipulating them, changing people’s perception. I was never a massive fan of electronic synths as a person; I’ve always been into live bands, so the organic nature of real instruments is what it’s all about for me,” she replies. “Then messing around and abstracting real stuff, giving sounds character and voice. At college, we did a big puppetry performance called Night Hunter, which was an adaptation of a 1930s film, with big puppet heads, and I gave each head a sound. There was this evil minister guy who kidnapped people... He was a door! It sounds weird, but it worked; I gave him all of these squeaky sounds, which is the really experimental side of me coming out, and it was great. I like to be natural, but I always investigate... Then I got an old cello, and started scraping strings, and using instruments that wouldn’t normally be used like that, just to be a bit off the wall.”

Although Downing isn’t musical in the strictest sense of the word, that only adds to her flavour and audio personality: “It never bothered me until the last five years, where people generally assume I must be a composer, and I’m like...

No [laughs]. But some people say, because I approach sound design in a very different way, if I actually had a framework, perhaps I wouldn’t come up with these ideas. I’m not sure if it’s a style as such, but really, I’m into using sound to make atmosphere, not to a bit of music.

“When someone wants to work with music, I always feel myself retreating, as someone has already done that, and it’s not a challenge. I want to compose a sound, and although I’ve started to use synth bass sounds, and Ableton, I am always allergic to sounds that don’t have an organic quality to them.

But that’s just me...” www.outboard.co.uk

FRANTIC A SSEMBLY ’S “ THE BELIEVERS ”

“WITH TIMAX, YOU CAN HAVE FIVE PEOPLE DOING FIVE DIFFERENT THINGS ON FIVE DIFFERENT LAPTOPS, SO IT’S VERY EFFICIENT.”

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JEFF EBEN

45 HEADLINER

SONIC BOOM RENOWNED LIVE SOUND ENGINEER AND PA TECHNICIAN, JEFF EBEN, PUTS LECTROSONICS’ WIRELESS SYSTEM THROUGH THE MOTIONS WHILST ON THE ROAD WITH CIRQUE DU SOLEIL...

The Lectrosonics Venue receiver is a simple and unassuming rack on first glance, but that only means so much knowing that most of my favourite pieces of equipment have some of the most unassuming looks. The casing is lightweight but pretty solid, and has the option to easily add up to six receiver channels in a 1U rack space. To me, each of these points are a HUGE plus, whether you are a gigging musician looking to have a solid one- or two-channel system to take to day gigs, or a major world tour with 40 channels of wireless. In either case, it translates to less weight, smaller racks of equipment, more options, and expandability; and tour durability on what could be a bumpy ride after a load out in an arena in Spain, or having the drunk singer from the next band at some bar gig in Hollywood carelessly tossing your one prized rack off the stage after you finish playing!

SETUP One of the cool things about this little rack is the simplicity of navigation and the ability to go as simple or complex as you want. It’s easy for anyone that has a concept of wireless transmitters/receivers to get up and running with the absolute basics, but there are also some cool little options to nerd out on that go a bit deeper than some of the competition (like the little talkback output option which I could see coming in handy for pre-productions or rehearsals or, of course, just for a simple talkback). To start off, I ran a manual wireless scan all from the front panel to see what the wireless environment around looked like.

We actually had a win radio spectrum analyser on hand, so I was able to compare my readings on the standalone spectrum analyser with the one in the Lectrosonics rack to get a good idea at how accurate the reading was, and while the reading is small on the front panel, it does a pretty good job of telling you where you do and don’t want to be.

I manually chose the frequency that looked clear, and updated it to the receiver. I then manually synced the Lectrosonics mic/transmitter I had, and was off and running. The transmitter I had did have the ability to instantly sync via infra-red, but the receiver unfortunately did not have this option (I assume this is available as an expansion?). This is one of the only things I had a gripe about, but with all of the other options available, it’s hard to complain.

COVERAGE These tests were done in an arena that was crowded in terms of wireless frequency availability, but after scanning and syncing with the rack alone, I was able to walk with the HH transmitter/mic from the far up/backstage, where the wireless receiver was, all the way downstage, and well into the downstage bomb shelter-like area before we were able to pick up any breakup in the wireless signal. So, unless for some weird reason you’re putting your wireless receivers in a room surrounded by 10 feet of concrete, I would trust it to clearly and reliably transmit whatever you send through it.

From box opening to soundcheck was about an hour, and was more than enough time for me to unbox and scan through the manual, set everything up, plug everything into our system, do my scans and comparisons, a walk around test, and triple verification, before handing off to one of our artists... And make and consume an elaborate sandwich and a cup of coffee.

AND... ACTION! We handed one of our singers the HH mic for a soundcheck, and wireless transmission was clear as a bell - there wasn’t one hiccup or any interference. Everyone agreed that the sound of the HHC proprietary capsule of the mic transmitter got the job done in the same way some other well known utility mics do, perhaps with a little bit of extra crispiness on the top, probably most suited for a live vocal. That being said, I know there are other capsules offered from DPA, Shure, Earthworks, and Heil Sound that couple with this system nicely, and I would be very curious to hear the outcome of some higher quality diaphragms, because the wireless end and options associated are top notch. I would definitely trust going into any live environment with anything from the Lectrosonics stable. www.lectrosonics.com

Advantages of the myMix System •

Intuitive, easy-to-use monitor mixing

•

Up to 500 audio channels to select from

•

Integrated stereo FX to create a 3D sound image

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Integrated matrix intercom functionality

Scan the code for more info

www.mymixaudio.com +1 (952) 657-7889 ©2014 MOVEK, Inc.

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Local network inputs - available for all units on the network

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16 track multi-track recording and play back/ play along

22 HEADLINER

...JIM EBDON MEETS JON LEMON TWO OF THE MOST REPUTABLE ENGINEERS IN PRO-AUDIO WORLD MEET FOR A LIGHT LUNCH IN AN LA RESTAURANT TO DISCUSS THE EVOLUTION OF OUR INDUSTRY; THE LIVE AND RECORDING DISCIPLINES ARE ALMOST MEETING IN THE MIDDLE, IT SEEMS, THANKS TO SOME SERIOUS TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS, BUT IT’S STILL BEST TO KEEP EVERYTHING SIMPLE, NO MAT TER WHAT’S FREELY AVAILABLE...

48 HEADLINER

FriendlyFire

JE: I always remember you were the guy that flew business class, didn’t share a room, and had a bowl of fruit waiting for you in your hotel room... Then I heard you mix a few things, and I realised you were a great engineer; from Motley Crew, to Level 42, to The Cure, always right on the money. So tell me, how did you start out in this business?

JL: [laughs] When I was a teenager, in the ‘70s, I’d played uncoordinated bass guitar in friends’ bands... My sister ran a nightclub at the YMCA in Adelaide, and I went there once when I was 14. The guy there, Trevor Marshall, had a PA, and he was a professor of electronics; and in those days, they didn’t have tech schools, so I was very interested in how it all worked. Because he was a lecturer, he was very good at teaching, so I would work for him in the school holidays. Electronics and cable was very different in Oz back then – simple figure-of-eight electrical cable for speakers, so it was a great way to learn the basics. Around that time, I discovered I had a rare eye condition, which made it difficult for me at school, and that’s really when I turned to music. Then, from 18-21, I went travelling in Australia, and made money from working for bands. I then went back to Adelaide, met my current wife, and around 1978, started working for Jands.

They’d seen something in me from my work with local bands, and I ended up being a babysitter for many UK and US acts that came in.

“YOU SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD SOUND IF YOU CHOSE A DECENT MIC, WORKING ON THE ASSUMPTION YOU HAVEN’T CHOKED THE HELL OUT OF THE PA IN THE FIRST PLACE...”

JE: How much competition did you have at that time?

JL: In those days, there were only about 12 million people in Australia, but I had good mentors... A guy called Jimmy Mac at Novasound in Melbourne was one of those; he told me how phase worked, and speaker placement, using the correct amp for the right speaker, and so on. And when I was at Jands, Howard Page (now at Clair Global) took me under his wing. Howard was fundamental in making me grow up as an engineer; not only musically and technically, but he taught me that if you can talk to people, you will go places, and people will want to work with you.

In those days, as there was no Internet, you got stuff from magazines and word of mouth – and a lot got taken out of context. A bit like the fruit in the dressing room... Rotten fruit, maybe! But through all those contacts in the US and UK, I learned what was really happening at companies like Clair, Tasco, and Concert Sound, and met great engineers like Trip Khalaf, Dave Cobb, and Peter Grange. A different time and way of communication, really.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE JE: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned audio-wise from anyone in your career?

JL: Gain structure in analogue consoles. Never overloading something too much, and letting it flow, never choking it too much; in analogue world that was always gold, as you know. In some ways, it does float through digital, especially floating point digital, so it’s still as relevant as anything. And then from that, using minimal EQ, and choosing good mics. It all goes together.

JE: Mic choice and gain structure was always high on the list for me when tracking bands in the studio, but what I have learned since is not to over-EQ stuff. I took note from Gary Bradshaw; I looked at his faders, and there was very little EQ on anything. He literally had a

“I USE THE WAVES CLA-76 ON ALL MY VOCALS NOW, AND THE CLA-2AS ARE REALLY GOOD FOR GUITARS...” balance on the faders, and that was it - and it sounded awesome! I tried that approach, and my mixes became bigger and way more musical.

JL: Yep, you should always have a good sound if you chose a decent mic, working on the assumption you haven’t choked the hell out the PA in the first place, which we kind of all used to have to do more back in the day. Now, of course, the line arrays have changed all that; technology has changed it, basically.

JE: Talking of technology, you were first to get behind the DiGiCo desks...

JL: Lars Bogard and I had a prototype of the D5. I was out with Beck, and I explained to him that we could create scenes with it, change effects and EQ, and store the lot, and he was totally into the idea. He knew that there might be the odd problem, but once you got it going, it was fine, and you could stabilise it. The D5 then became a game-changer.

JE: Could you mix with any kit and get it sounding good?

JL: I think because you have the experience, the same as I do, anything we mix with should sound good; but if you want to take it to the next level, with what you feel comfortable with, then you want the same stuff every day on tour, which you usually get to do as an experienced engineer.

JE: But would you embrace new products because you’re confident in what you do? If I gave you a reverb unit right now, would you be confident enough to use it?

JL: If you said it to me, yes! [laughs] That’s how you get to things, through your peers. I was so stuck on a TC 6000 for years, and before that, a 480, and before that, a 224. I don’t use my 6000 now, because I have three Bricasti reverbs sitting in my rack; [FOH for Muse] Marc Carolan raved about them, and it’s newer technology. The algorithms are better, and it’s current processing. Everything still has its place, though.

A CHANGE WILL DO YOU GOOD JE: Do you go ever back to old favourites?

JL: In some ways, yes. I’ve used a Manley VOXBOX for 20 years, as you can make it do anything on a vocal. But I went away from that with Ray Lamontagne, as it just didn’t suit him, so now I’m using an Avalon 747 as my outboard compressor, then I have my faster Waves de-esser and compressor onboard the DiGiCo. The guy is so dynamic, I need to move his EQ around very quickly, you see. In our world, if you’re capable in both disciplines, you can start to cross reference that stuff more than ever now. A good example is all the Waves plugins that I use, which I can put on the DiGiCo board with the SoundGrid; and when you’re listening back to the recorded shows on your week off, you might find one plugin works better than another, save the preset, and shove it on the DiGiCo. Simple.

JE: When I was first introduced to Waves, I was like, ‘Great, there’s an SSL bus compressor, and there’s a channel strip’, as I know how they sound, and how they work. Then, I slowly started to use some of the other stuff, like the CLA-76, which is very useful to me.

JL: I use the CLA-76 on all my vocals now, I have to say; and the CLA2As are really good for guitars. Do you use the Renaissance AXX for guitars, also? For me, it’s just such a no-brainer.

FriendlyFire

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET THE SOUND OUT OF THE SYSTEM ANYMORE, AS MOST ARE GOOD OUT OF THE BOX, SO YOU GET TO HEAR OTHER PEOPLE’S TALENTS A LOT EASIER.” JE: Yeah, I love it. But it took me all that time, and I consider myself sort of privileged, as I get the console I want to use, and a nice set of Genelec monitors to listen to. Creating a mix and experimenting with Waves in that controlled environment is such a great starting point for a live mix.

how you build respect. A certain amount of training is great, but don’t expect to get there through great marks and expect to be mixing. You have to understand the industry, make friends, and ask local clubs if you can mix for free when you’re not working. It’s all about being involved.

JL: You’re right, and that leads me to one of the greatest lessons I ever learned in audio. It was from you! I was talking about a system you were using at a show, and I asked you what was in the loudspeaker box, and you said you didn’t know and didn’t care, and that you just liked the general sound - and that has stuck with me ever since! Often, the technical aspect is a distraction, and so many PA systems are good now; the key is, you’re mixing for people, and it’s about the vibe.

JE: Thank god I got older, wiser, and less stupid. I don’t think enough people on road crews realise how privileged they are; I’ve heard people moaning about food in catering, as they’re complaining about their third free meal of the day - and there’s probably a ‘per diem’ on top of that! I’m so lucky to do what I love, and I have no complaints.

JE: The signal flow is really important to me – I have to know where audio is coming from, and see it, and that comes from the studio days.

The whole way I set up a console, and how I cable my stuff up on a daily basis, is all part of the sound. If I see it well, I hear it well [laughs]. I am very meticulous when I mic up, and position my mics; everything has to be tight. I was taught this in studio, and I do it before every soundcheck.

JL: Me too. I was doing a festival at the weekend actually, and the changeover was all a little messed up. Because it was so quick, I couldn’t get there to mic up the drum kit, so the monitor tech did it; he does it every day anyway, but I always tweak, like any good engineer should do, and that night I couldn’t. As soon as the band started, I knew the snare mic was not where I wanted it to be!

JE: If the kick and snare are in the wrong place, my gig is fucked! I have two mics on the kick, which I’m anal about: they have to be just right, and the inner mic delayed just right to the outer. I also trigger a kick drum with Roland TD20, and the sensor that comes with it. It’s absolutely brilliant; I’ve never heard it over-trigger once. I hate that big clicky kick drum sound, and the TD20 allows me to use some modern sounds that a live drum doesn’t give me for certain songs.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? JE: We come from a different time of the business. How do twentysomethings of today become live sound engineers?

JL: It’s very difficult. Last year I started working with Waves on helping younger engineers; we’d get six to eight young guys down, and I’d explain how I set up my mix, and how I use Waves plugins. In the Q&A, one that always comes up is, ‘How do I make it as a sound guy?’

I always say, work for nothing, just to get involved; and if people see you work hard, they will take you on. It’s all in the work ethic. At our level, things become easier, as it’s not about packing a truck anymore, but you have to be able to understand the flying of the PA as well, as that’s

JL: That’s very true. The industry is still vibrant, even through all the changes around us, and it’s getting better and better as people design better and better stuff for us to use! All the rest is just froth; the only thing that pisses me off about this biz is dishonest people, but even after all these years, I just let a lot of the crap run off my shoulders.

JE: From a sound point of view, when you watch other shows, what are your criticisms and what are the positives?

JL: I can’t stand excessive volume, as there is no need for it! I know you get a big sound out of a system, not a loud sound, and that’s down to the dynamics. What’s great is, you don’t have to get the sound out of the system anymore, as most are good out of the box, so you get to hear other people’s talents a lot easier.

JE: In many ways, we are a recording engineer, a mix engineer, and even a mastering engineer. You might hear a great mix going on, but the engineer hasn’t taken a step back to listen to the sound system, and the overall treble, middle, and bass levels. Often the audio techs just say, ‘OK he’s happy, so that’s fine’. But often the mastering part of the job has been overlooked. What’s your take on this?

JL: I don’t mind them tweaking it a bit if I trust them, and I count on my system tech more than ever now to set it up. As far as a mastering chain goes, however long the Waves MAXX BCL has been around, I’ve used that on every show I’ve done; it’s got the Renaissance compressor in there, so you can hold your mix together, and sometimes I use the MAXX bass, and the L2 for taking peaks out. I think the two disciplines being closer together, live and studio, is a great thing. I’ve been doing a home mastering masterclass by Ian Shepherd, which is so useful back in the live world as well: metering, relative volumes, and so on. With all the laws with dB and volume limits, understanding the differences between Peak and RMS is crucial. It’s all coming down the same road at us now, and I would recommend it to anyone.

// K M R A U D I O //

50 HEADLINER

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T O H S ' WHAT KEITH MALIN AND THE BOYS AT KMR GIVE HEADLINER THE LOW-DOWN ON WHICH BITS OF KIT WERE FLYING OFF THEIR SHELVES DURING THAT NOTORIOUSLY TRICKY SUMMER MONTH OF AUGUST.

BETTERMAKER 502P

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ugust is typically a ‘slow’ time in our industry; kids off school, people away on holiday, and festival season, which means studios are usually a little less busy; this all contributes to the summer slowness. But, because we’re expecting it, and can plan for it, this usually works out well for us. Staff here can go away without pressure; we can catch up on work we’ve put off for the rest of the year (like counting the cables we have in stock); and we can prepare for when everyone gets back, and a busy final quarter.

But this year was atypical. Plenty going on: studio re-equips; new facilities being built; schools upgrading their facilities; and our ‘enthusiast’ customer base keen to invest in good gear.

So what have they been buying? Well, a huge number of Pro Tools HDX and HD Native systems with new Mac Pros - people will always want the fastest, bestest DAWs, and most professional facilities tend to need a Pro Tools system of some description.

In terms of outboard, which I guess is what KMR is most known for, we’ve seen a big rise in Bettermaker sales. Bettermaker is a brand we unearthed about four years ago at an AES show, and digitally controlled analogue is their schtick. It’s taken quite a while for people to get their heads around this concept; many still think Bettermaker is digital EQ, but it’s a very high class, pure analogue stereo parametric and Pultec EQ with digital control either via the front panel, where you can

STUDIORACKS MINIMASTER

A/B or save settings (hundreds of them), or via a free plugin that connects via the onboard USB socket. It is completely automated too, exactly like a plugin. It’s a beautiful piece of kit, well priced compared to units of comparable analogue audio quality, but with this unique feature set.

We figure that this kind of digital control over analogue circuits will be the future of outboard processing. With the release of their two 500 series units (the 502P and 542EQ), it has brought the technology into a wider market, as they are so much more affordable than the flagship 232P. And 500 series units have been allowing well established, but quite exclusive brands like Crane Song into more hands than ever before. The Crane Song Falcon is a single slot tube compressor, and the Syren is a tube pre. Both utterly world class, designed

by David Hill, and have been flying off the shelves over the last few months.

In terms of microphones, we recently agreed a deal with AES which allows us to sell their products for a similar price that you can buy in the States. That was never possible before, as a previous distribution agreement effectively added about 30% onto the price for UK customers. Now their microphones and preamps are finally affordable, they have been selling in huge numbers. Their range of handmade ribbon mics includes the studio stalwart, the R84, the extra versatile stereo R88, and the flagship KU4, all of which we now stock. They also do a fine ribbon inspired mic-pre in the form of the TRP (The Ribbon

Pre!). The preamp circuit can also be found with a ribbon inspired EQ in the RPQ and (naturally) a 500 series version, the RPQ500.

Having met Wes Dooley and his team a few weeks back, it’s lovely to be able to offer such well thought out and beautifully made products at competitive prices. We’re also seeing DPA’s excellent reference series of microphones, the 4011s, 4006s, and 4099s, as some of our top sellers.

Studio furniture is also one of those things that every studio needs... Many home enthusiasts use whatever they have to hand, but if you’re working somewhere every day (sometimes every hour), then the look and design of your studio furniture is very important.

There are some cheap and cheerful units out there, which are fine, but we specialise in Argosy, AKA, and StudioRacks. Argosy do some fine off the shelf systems, especially great when you’re integrating a console of some description, as their range caters for pretty much any console on the market.

Unfortunately, as it’s made in the States, the shipping can often be a similar price to the desk! AKA’s range is super slick and sexy, and it’s tough to find better looking furniture.

StudioRacks is another British company that makes some great, very well priced, off the shelf units, as well as take on custom jobs for us, so whatever the brief, we’ve got it covered. www.kmraudio.com

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52 HEADLINER

MASTERMIND IN HIS OWN WORDS, BARRY GRINT GOT INTO THE AUDIO BUSINESS “HORRENDOUSLY LATE”, AT TWENTY-FIVE-YEARS OLD. HE STARTED OUT ON HOSPITAL RADIO, AND THEN GOT A JOB AS A RUNNER AT LONDON’S TRIDENT STUDIOS, WHERE HE SOON REALISED THAT RECORDING DAY AND NIGHT WASN’T FOR HIM. INSTEAD, HE WENT DOWN THE MASTERING ROUTE, AND HE NEVER LOOKED BACK... AND WITH MULTI-PLATINUM CREDITS TO HIS NAME, WHY WOULD HE? WORDS PAUL WATSON

53 HEADLINER

MASTERMIND

“WHY TAKE SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS GREAT, AND COMPLETELY CHANGE IT JUST TO VALIDATE YOUR EXISTENCE?” How did you get your break in the biz?

OK... So I was doing hospital radio, and I took a guy on, and taught him what I thought I knew myself, then he got a job as a runner at Trident; and then, when they were looking for somebody else, he got me a job at Trident! [laughs] So I started in the business at 25-years-old, at £2,500 per year, two months before I got married. I wanted to be a studio engineer, and Flood [U2] was the house engineer at the time, doing a band called King, Love & Pride; and he did three days and nights nonstop in the studio. I thought, ‘I can’t do that, it would drive me mad doing the same thing over and over again!’ And then these two guys were doing one day in, one day off, up on the third floor, and I thought, ‘I wonder what they’re doing?’ I didn’t know mastering existed, to be honest, but I went up there, and got into doing the production copy tapes - the Dolby tapes to go around the world - and cassette duping; and they had the contract to do Warner’s international releases, so they built another mastering room, which Ray Staff [Trident’s first chief mastering engineer] insisted had to be foolproof... Except fool wasn’t the word he used... [smiles] So I learned my vinyl cutting craft with Madonna and Prince and ZZ Top, because WEA were really hot at the time.

Thrown in the deep end, then – the best place to learn?

Well, you either sink or swim, and it really is that – I love Ray [Staff] to bits; he is a really technical guy, and I wouldn’t have the view I have if it hadn’t been for Ray. He cut the first double cut groove album [The Monty Python] Matching Tie and Handkerchief. Then we did a Blow Monkeys 12-inch, which was double cut both sides - four tracks, but only looked like one per side - and that was a great learning curve.

Then Ray did this album for Ace Records where he just double cut the first track, then it all joined up, and the rest of the side was the same... [pauses] Obviously Ray is as mad as a hatter, in a nice way, but you know, all that sort of stuff I just love – the out of the ordinary!

What’s the best project you’ve ever worked on?

There are two, and it’s always the stuff that people don’t realise – the technical stuff. When I was at Trident, I cut the Free Nelson Mandela single. We set it up, went to cut it, and the cutter head tripped, so it wouldn’t cut. At one point in the whole song, there was a tom roll, and the mic that was on that one tom was out of phase, which made the cutter head pop. There’s a thing you can do called sum difference EQing, so I tuned the EQ into that one tom and flipped the phase, so it was round the right way, edited a corrected tom roll back into the master and then cut the track. Nobody would ever know! It’s terribly anal, but that would never have gone out, without a remix or it would have gone out mono, but just being able to do that was pretty cool.

The other one was a project for Demon Records – part of the BBC. It was a Dionne Warwick project that they were doing. Warner Bros had archived all their audio 24-bit, 192kHz, from the best master they had available. So anyway, when this one track came in, the left hand channel was lovely, and the right didn’t have anything below about 2k, and the rest was burbling noise and nastiness. So I took the left hand channel and made it mono, but then used the original right hand channel to create a difference signal, which is then combined to give you a stereo image – albeit only above 2k - so you have the stereo track, but without all the nasty artefacts.

Do you live with the record for a while, or is it impulsive to you, mastering?

I can’t find an eloquent way to phrase it, but a mastering engineer is, in a way, an educated punter! I don’t know anything about the history of the track, or that the band have been rowing all the time, or that the producer stormed out during the session; all I know is, I’ve been given this track, and have to make it sound as good as I can. Most of the time, that works

really well, and then sometimes, someone will come back and not like it for whatever reason – usually because they either want it louder, or less compressed, but people very rarely give you any guidance... Tracks turn up, and you’re expected to do it. Occasionally part of the job is to be confident enough in yourself to say, ‘This sounds great; it doesn’t need anything’. Why take something that sounds great, and completely change it just to validate your existence?

If you like the song you’re working on, do you do a better job? [smiles] I don’t think that you can be a mastering engineer if you haven’t got a pretty broad church when it comes to music. I don’t personally like country, but outside of that, I like most stuff. But every so often, something comes through that resonates with you; and I don’t think you necessarily do a job better or worse, you just enjoy it a bit more because it’s exciting you. Getting it right is getting it right.

In the studio, you find that over time you get used to listening to music over the top of conversation, because the band are sitting behind you talking and so on. As a result, and I think I’m not alone here, in the early days with the Warner work, as it was so popular, it was getting a load of airplay. I would be sitting in the pub, or restaurant with my wife, the music would be playing, and she would be talking to me and I just drift off listening to the background music, because I recognise a riff, or drum pattern, my eyes glaze over and she knows I’m not listening... she’ll stop, and I’ll think it’s just a pause in conversation! Then I use the line all mastering engineers use, ‘I cut that!’ [laughs] It still happens today!

But that’s the whole thing - music in an environment like that - there can be things in it that just catch you, and you drift off and listen to that rather than everything else that’s going on; it’s back to that energy thing and the emotion in it. There was a track I was working on today, for an Indian band called Pentagram, the biggest rock band in India; I quite like it as there’s that energy, and it was really nice, as there isn’t that much of that style of music over here at the moment. It’s great fun.

What’s your go-to kit, aside from your ears...?

A lot of stuff I do is in the box – plugins, and that sort of thing, but different tracks require different approaches and different tools, so sometimes you can go in the box, and then even if you’ve spent time working on it, if it isn’t working, you must come back out and try it in analogue, or the other way around. This is one of the great things about music; unless you’re cutting the same thing all of the time, nothing is the same; it sounds obvious, but you couldn’t use the same EQ or lathe setup, everything is up for grabs, and that’s what you have to do – you have to go: ‘OK, new job, new approach, what’s gonna get me to where I want to be?’ I am incredibly lucky in that I have two fantastic mastering engineers, Phil Kinrade and Matt Colton, as business partners at Alchemy. Sometimes, you can get too close to a track and there is nothing as great as having two very experienced mastering engineers to walk in and give a fresh ears perspective, that you know you can trust.

Do you have any advice from a professional standpoint to anybody that wants to get into audio at this level?

When I got into the business there wasn’t any training, and even then, there were so few studios that just getting in through the door was the biggest hurdle; you were constantly fighting to justify your place. Now there are lots of training courses, and I’m not particularly up on how good one is against the other. At the simplest level, it’s a question of whether you have got an ear for music, and also, not giving up. I was 25 getting into this biz, which is horrendously late, but I kept plugging away; and when I got my chance, I made sure I damn well stayed there! www.alchemymastering.com

54 HEADLINER

GRUMPY OLD ROADIE “IT’D PROBABLY BE A LOT EASIER JUST TO REBUILD HADRIAN’S WALL AND BE DONE WITH IT.” - Please note, this article was written before the Scottish referendum.

Some of the more observant readers amongst you will have noticed that I’ve been trying to get the ‘c’ word into an article for a couple of months now. It’s only through the sheer diligence, hard work, and occasional sharp observational skills of our editor in chief, that it’s not got through his editorial cleansing process. But time will tell, and if it appears, please don’t complain to him. His only mistake will be falling asleep during the proof read.

So, the big day is September 18th. I’m sure that you already know that this is the big yes/ no vote day for the people of Scotland, and their vote for independence, and potential southern cleansing.

I’m writing this on a tour bus in early August, just heading north of Carlisle on the M74 passing by historic Gretna Green.

So all you kids under 18 who want to get married may well now need your passports to get through the new border in order to get hitched without parental consent. And by then, the impulse might have subsided, no?

Might I suggest a Travelodge just inside the UK border as a base to relieve pent-up border control/sexual frustration? Maybe charging by the hour?

If the Scots vote ‘yes’, will this really mean border control? Will their little booths (McBooths?) be on all the main roads heading north? I suppose they’d have to introduce a fencing-off regime to do the job properly - a bit like East and West Berlin maybe? Even lookout towers, and the eventual armed guard? It’d probably be a lot easier just to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall and be done with it.

A quick Google reveals that there actually is a building firm called Adrian’s Walls - why not use them? Clearly they have the knowledge.

Will this mean the return of the ATA Carnet just to do a gig at the Hydro? I’m thinking that this’ll be the case, because automatic membership of the EU is by no means guaranteed for Scotland, and so, just like Switzerland, it’ll remain outside of the Union and so, again just like Switzerland, invoke the need for a Carnet just to drive through the bloody place. Great when you’re touring, having to stop at every border and go through the repetitive rigmarole of stamping an equipment Carnet that by its very nature, is always peppered with errors.

What about passport control? And work permits? Does this mean that every time Weller wants to play Barrowlands, or Kylie nips up to that dreadful place in Aberdeen, we’ll all have to apply for Visas at the Scottish McEmbassy? It’ll be tough enough for the Brits, but the Yanks will never get their heads around it!

The same applies when Scottish crew come to work in the South. They’ll need work permits too, and probably private health cover in case of accident, ‘cos one thing’s for sure the free prescription concession that Scotland currently enjoys will have stopped.

Will we get our PDs paid in groats, or whatever currency Scotland adopts? How many groats will there be to a pound, and will we still be able to by Walkers crisps north of the border?

It’ll have a massive effect on the touring industry in the south as well. I’m sure that the new regime will deter industry giants like Runrig and The Proclaimers from making their bi-annual raids into the rest of the UK. I don’t think that Wales will want to follow suit any time soon, probably because they haven’t got any oil, so Tom Jones can relax with the knowledge that his pension will stay intact.

What I’m really worried about is the Isle of Wight. Now, there is a real case for independence! It’s an island, for fuck’s sake, surrounded by sea! How will that screw the Isle of Wight Festival, then? It takes long enough on those old ferries to get there already, so adding customs control will make it impossible. They’ll need a leader/King so I’m suggesting John Giddings. He’s almost royalty there, anyway.

All joking aside, both for the sake of our industry and our unified country, I’m hoping that the people of Scotland vote ‘no’... And I didn’t even mention Ireland, which is more than halfway independent already!

C U Next Time, Robert

NEXT MONTH ON GOR: Tour bus flatulence The guilty stinkers named and shamed!

Tour relationships Is rigging and jigging really that safe?

ROBERT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS: Q: Robert, what were the best, worst, and most unusual gigs you’ve ever attended? And have you ever been given anything by a band member?

If so, what was it?

Thank you, Oliver Hey Olly (is that too presumptuous? I feel that I know you). The best gig I’ve ever done was in 1975 with Marc Bolan, now dead! The worst thing I’ve ever been given by a band member was a touch of syphilis, but a trip to the doctors soon cleared that up.

RtR Q: Robert, you’re a national treasure, spotlighting the great work road crews have done for so many years. Having watched the amazing London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony two years ago, what did you think of the World Cup opener?

Thanks, Weekend Warrior.

Many thanks for your message, Warrior.

I’ve go to say the Olympics was a good event, even though I didn’t work on it myself, although I did think the Paralympics was just a front to catch benefit frauds as they paraded around at their opening ceremony. The only good thing about football is that we get a chance to board their stadiums for shows during the year, but fuck knows what shows they’ll be putting on in Brazil now that the circus has moved on!

Keep on loading in!

RtR

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