Wright & de Botton
The Long and Winding Road
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
Headliner spends the morning with prolific music producer, Andy Wright, and singersongwriter with a message, Miel de Botton, at Abbey Road Studios. de Botton shares her difficult journey from Oxford law student and professional psychologist, to singer, while Wright reveals that the secret to perfecting Simply Red hit, Fairground was Mick Hucknall’s dental appointment.
Music producer, Andy Wright is a selfprofessed ‘8 O’Clock kind of guy’, preferring to start work in the morning. Although it wasn’t always this way: “I used to get up late in the morning, go to work, come back, bath the kids, put them to bed, then go back to work and get home at 5am,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t really have the physical ability to do that now [laughs]. That was my routine for a few years, and it was great! There was a bit of pub time factored in there… it’s all part of the job though. You’ve got to discuss the work you’re doing!” Getting his first break in the music industry in the ‘80s, Wright progressed from keyboard player and programmer, to indemand music producer, going on to work with Massive Attack, Simply Red, Tom Jones, Imogen Heap, Jon Bon Jovi, Alisha’s Attic, Eurythmics and guitar legend, Jeff Beck, to name a few. Most recently, Wright has been writing and producing music with Swiss singer, Miel
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de Botton, whose recent single, Yes! stresses the importance of wellbeing and listening to your body. Meeting Wright and de Botton at Abbey Road Studios, the pair fill Headliner in on their individual journeys that led to them working together. Bold Moves Before working as a producer, Wright took the risk of setting up his own studio in London’s Primrose Hill in the 90s, although he admits that he was in quite a bit of debt: “I was really skint! I had one of those angel experiences, I think. I went to see the bank manager, who was this really adorable man who was close to the end of his career, and somehow he took a bit of a shine to me and said: ‘I think that the only way we can sort you out is to give you more money,’ which is basically what he did. He gave me another £10,000 to sort out the problem. So I went and spent it all on studio equipment and paid for rent on a little room, and that was the first studio.”
After a time, Wright discovered that his landlord wasn’t paying his landlord, which saw him move to another studio in London. “That was the studio that things really started to happen in,” he reflects. “Over the next few years, I was in there every day – all day, all night.” In 1995, Wright took the first steps on a long journey with Simply Red, creating the unique sounds and beats featured on the phenomenally successful, Fairground. The band’s first UK number one single, Fairground went onto spend four weeks at the top, and 14 weeks in the Top 40. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: Wright received production credits on every Simply Red album since. So what’s the secret to producing this hit track? A dental appointment, apparently. “I remember the night before I went to meet Mick Hucknall. I had a really strange dream about meeting on a stage in a farm in Wales, and him hating me,” Wright remembers. “I went there the next day and we got on really well. Mick is a year and a