Originally, the lyrics to "Girl" were really upbeat, and then it didn't work for me somehow. You need the dichotomy. If you're doing something happy and light, you need the shadows.
There are certain records from the 80s and early 90s that you love because the songs are great, but you don't go to them as an example of great production. Over the last 20 years, myself and a lot of other musicians my age have tried to discover things in 50s, 60s, and 70s recording techniques that were lost or discarded. We've all been trying to crack this code. It's been an important period in the last 15 years, reclaiming some of those lost approaches to making records.
When I pull out vinyl - which isn't that often anymore - it's undeniable that I get a different feeling. There's a different physiology happening between the sound waves and the body that doesn't happen with music playing off the computer.
I'm always looking for older equipment and ways of recording, but you can't escape the fact that it's all going to be digitized and reduced. I do think music sounds better when it's on tape and more simply recorded. I've been arguing with people for 10 years about tape versus digital, and I believe tape is absolutely essential in getting the sound that's conducive to the enjoyment of music. I wonder if it's going to go back to that. Sometimes I think it has to. As music becomes more computer-based, it's lost some emotional impact.
It's hard to make music knowing that it's not going to be received by the listener in the way that it should be.
You just want to go back to those 70s albums. Even a lot of the 90s indie records were still done on tape, and you hear the difference.
It's so easy to criticize your own time, and I see that as a problem, even for myself, as a listener.
It gets a little bit troublesome when you have something that's overcompressed that shouldn't be.
For the records I've work on over the last 10 years, I get sent the really compressed version and the non-compressed version, and oftentimes you end up going with the more compressed one because it's what people's ears are attuned to. I think the bigger problem is saturation and people being desensitized.
There's a different physiology happening between the sound waves and the body that doesn't happen with music playing off the computer. About five years ago, I got a turntable that hooks up to your computer, and I put the vinyl in there and I listened to it back-to-back with a CD, and it didn't even compare. But people don't have time to go track down vinyl, lower it in, all that. And they probably don't care. It's hard to make music knowing that it's not going to be received by the listener in the way that it should be.
You spend so many months and years in the studio, and you see the clock ticking and so much time spent on the minutiae of technical things. And I just thought it'd be fun to do something extremely fast and get that rush of something that had some energy, something that you weren't tired of when you finished it.
When I did "Top of the Pops" for the first time, Ace of Base was one of the other bands, and I have a memory of them on a small stage next to me in the TV studio. A memory of their performance is burned into my mind. Seared.
I'm more critical of my songwriting than anybody, but I've worked really hard in the last five to 10 years to improve. I didn't take it all that seriously when I started. It was a little bit of a stigma to being a songwriter or a folkie back then. I did a lot of send-ups of sensitive singer-songwriter stuff when I was starting out, which limited my development as a songwriter in a way. I wasn't really fully given license to explore that until the mid-90s. I'm still working on it; I'm a little bit of a late bloomer.
Technology was something I avoided when I started out - I didn't even have electric guitars. Only played acoustic. But after a while, I realized that it's important to embrace things that are available in your time, and try to do something different with them.
Maybe certain aspects of what I was doing were reacting against what was happening or what people said, too. That's something that happens when you're starting out. After some time goes by and you get a little perspective, you realize that you don't need to react. You can just carry on with what you're doing. That took me a long time figure out; I've only gotten to that point in the last five or 10 years.
It was disturbing to me that an idea or a song could become something so different from what you originally intended. It's like if a friend took a stupid picture of you at a party on their phone, and the next thing you knew, it was on every billboard.
The only way I was allowed to play was by convincing bands to let me do a few songs while they set up. That went on for years.
I didn't want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.
Eventually, if you're experimenting with a sound that's unfamiliar, it gets absorbed, and somebody comes and does it better, and it becomes part of a vocabulary.
I didn't even have a computer until like 10 years ago. I was still using a typewriter until 2002.
Sometimes, reissues can be revelatory, or put the original record in a different light, but those are rare.
There's a perception that if an artist produces another artist, they're going to imprint on them. But I'm the opposite.
There are a lot of technical studio things I've learned or figured out, and I feel like I could use those things to help other people with what they're doing.
There are certain records that you love because the songs are great, but you don't go to them as an example of great production.
I'm always looking for older equipment and ways of recording, but you can't escape the fact that it's all going to be digitized and reduced.
