Post by rockinronnie on Feb 28, 2014 20:48:35 GMT
www.louciferspeaks.com/interview/statusquopipwilliams.htm l
Steve didn't give me an introduction for this interview, but I think the following words from Pip Williams (record producer for Status Quo) will be explanation enough. From here on in, the following is written by Pip Williams himself.
OK. I guess Rocking All Over The World (RAOTW) is a good place to (re) start! These days, I also teach on a BA degree course. I don't do this immediately for the money. I do it for the same reason I've returned to this board [the Status Quo message board]- i.e. To put something back in to people that might be interested or might benefit. I've had a wonderful time in this business, made a few mistakes, but continue to enjoy what I do, remain very tongue in cheek and retain a very strong friendship with the guys in the band.....so:
I initially got a call from an old friend, David Oddie. He had supervised an album I'd done with Graham Bonnet in 1976 (GB was later to join Rainbow, Michael Schenker and Alcatraz). David Oddie had also been co-producer on a single recorded by my old semi-pro band The Sovereigns (around 1965 I think). He called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in working with Graham, who I knew well as the voice of The Marbles (Only One Woman). The subsequent album, which was recorded in various locations and engineered by John, my great friend and the person who was my regular engineer, was immense fun and highly acclaimed critically (I'm still pretty proud of it and him!) Did very well in Australia.
(On another note, I'm currently talking to Graham, with a view to possibly doing something together again.)
Graham was then managed for Quarry Productions by David Oddie, part of the Quo management team. Anyway, David passed me over to Colin Johnson, the bands' personal manager. He told me that the guys had loved Graham Bonnet's album, particularly the guitar sounds, and would I be interested in producing Quo? Well, who wouldn't be?!! I had a meeting soon after, at Francis' new house in Surrey, with Frame and Rick. (It was a wonderful house, and I remember Frame saying he hoped he could afford to stay there. It had cost over 50k!!!) The initial meeting was supposed to be for about an hour, but after 3 hours, the guys suggested I send my driver home! We really hit it off. We just chatted, made jokes, played verbal cat and mouse, and I realised we had the same (sick?) humour and it was obvious we could get along and work together. We talked about music and influences, but very little about the album to be. The idea of this meeting was purely to see if we could connect personally. I think this aspect is so important and often overlooked. If you can't get along on a personal level, then you've got a bloody hard time ahead!!
My manager David Walker and I then had a meeting with CJ (Colin Johnson), to establish what was required of the new album. Bear in mind that at this stage, it was just "the album". RAOTW came much later. It was made very clear to me that we were going in with a totally blank canvas. They wanted the sound cleaned up, a more commercial slant and if possible, something that could appeal to the as yet unconquered US market.
The next meeting I had was at Alan's house in Coulsden. Just me and him. Again, we got on really well. Just played demos and favourite records. Not long after, a further barnstorming session was arranged at Alan's. We set the band up, half in and half out of his garage, which overlooked his pool. This was the first time John (Eden) came along, to check out what he was in store for!! I remember that after they'd set up, they just jammed for a while (I've a feeling it was one of the early shuffles, like Don't Waste My Time). I just thought "F--- me what a great feel". I'd loved Quo as a punter, but it was interesting to see at first hand EXACTLY what makes a Quo shuffle so unique. And believe me, the subtle interplay of techniques between Rick and Frame in a shuffle is what does it! We then ran through a few of the demos and the guys offered up songs to be considered. I also began to suss the politics here, but that's another story! I pointed out to CJ that we would have severe sonic problems trying to fit everyone's songs onto the album, but....... I remember that John (Spud) particularly liked playing Baby Boy, because it was not the norm, and he just loved playing that laid back, almost half time feel. RAOTW was not even in the frame at this stage. After that, we agreed that we had to work together and the arrangements started to be made.
As PP has said, we started the saga by going to Dublin. The location was great- Guiness and such a bizarre sense of humour!
Francis and I still talk about being in Jury's Hotel restaurant, when I asked the waiter what the duck was like, and was told in all seriousness "It's a little bird, a bit smaller than a chicken.....!" And the Maitre D' setting fire to a young trainee who he was teaching to make Irish Coffees!! It was a constant barrage of jokes and rhyming slang, but all this served to forge a very strong personal rapport. Shame about the studio!! Let's just say it was basic. The monitors were very difficult to adjust to (can't even remember what they were), but I actually got my assistant Keith to collect my JBL 4320's and drive them over. Anyway, it still wasn't happening, so we abandoned things and went back to London to reconvene.
(Further note: I often think, in retrospect, that Dublin might have produced different, more favourable results- rawer sound, less "production". But then, that wasn't what the brief was about!)
As JE has explained, we'd done a lot of work at The Manor (Richard Branson's lovely country home residential studio) and also, I had privileged access to Threshold, the Moody Blues' lovely private studio in the Decca building in West Hampstead. (I'd done a lot of work for Decca, and it's ironic that I later got to do a couple of albums with The Moodies). The common denominator with those studios was the Tom Hidley, Westlake Audio design. Tom had been designing studios all over the USA (The Record Plant, Westlake Audio etc) and a few of his rooms were cropping up in Europe. The Manor and Threshold were the first. The fashion then (particularly in the States) was for very dead, good separation environments. (As a sidebar, remember that I'd had it drummed into me the need for a US friendly recording!) The rooms were all set up (voiced) to give as near as possible, a flat frequency response. As echoey (very live) rooms could add so many other elements into the equation, this deadening down of the recording areas and the control room served to create a situation where you could build similar facilities anywhere in the world, and they would be compatible with one another. In other words, using a Westlake studio, we could record in Sweden, yet mix in London and still recognise what was on the tapes!
Enquiries were made, and eventually, we booked time at Bohus Studios in Gothenburg. As PP has stated, the owners were lovely, lovely people, and the studio was well up to scratch. At this point, I'd like to say that my first choice studio was Olympic in Barnes. This was a great studio technically, yet still had an open, live and vibrant main recording room. As I've said on many occasions, there were several more suitable locations to record in the UK (including Marquee, where PP worked and I'd had much success), but the option was not there. Quo had to record out of the country, and that was that. Given this caviat, we all mutually decided to go where we could at least guarantee uniformity, and Bohus was booked. Remember, I wasn't in any way briefed to reproduce EXACTLY the previous Quo sound- this was a whole new ball game.
The commencement date was firmed up, flights, studio and hotels booked........then Spud got appendicitis!!
When we eventually got to Gothenburg, we checked into the Esso Ramada Hotel, had a day to settle in, then, on the day of the first session, I got the morning wake up call from Bob Young- "Morning Pip, it's 9 o-clock and Elvis is dead!!!" Oh yes, the wake up call! Morning Pip. It's 9 o'clock and Elvis is dead! It took a while for everyone to take that fact in. But we still convened at Bohus, with the lovely red carpet!
To tell the truth, I don't think PP and I particularly noticed it at first- we had much more important considerations. Not least our concern that Spud had had an operation for appendicitis only a very few weeks before. Ideally, the poor guy should have had six months off. As an observation, I'm sure only Spud's adrenaline carried him through. I'm sure songs like Who Am I would have benefited from a fully match fit Spud, but he deserves a medal for his positive work on RAOTW.
Anyway, back to the first day. John Eden and I spent a lot of time sussing the best areas to set things up, and we decided to put JC in the drum booth. I was aware that the band had always set up in a more open fashion. I was also aware that Spud would possibly feel a little detached from the rest of the band. However, we needed to gain instrument separation for this venture, so into the glass doored isolation room went Spud. I constantly asked John if he was happy in there and he indicated complete satisfaction. So, we spent a few hours tuning, subtly tweaking and getting a general drum sound as a starting point. The first song on the agenda was Rockers Rollin'. The rest of the band eventually arrived, got settled in and relaxed and we got some basic sounds and a rough headphone balance. At this point, I'd like to explain that it's a bit of a vicious circle getting a can (headphone) balance with Quo. They all want to hear something slightly different, which means that the poor engineer is subject to much abuse! It's a vicious circle because you can't give them their preferred balance until they play the track, but they don't like playing the track until the cans are right, so then they just stop before you've had a chance to set their balance!
So after a couple of run throughs, a huge clatter indicated that Spud had kicked the kit over! I had been warned that JC was known to get a bit impatient when setup procedures took a while, so I calmly said to him, "That was clever John, now we'll have to start all over again!" I can't remember if we relocated the kit after that. I've a feeling we made a compromise and left him in the booth, but with the sliding glass doors open, so there was some feeling of contact with the others. Anyway, we eventually got into Rockers Rollin'. The origin of this song was from a mad comedy tape that Jackie Lynton had made for the band. He was a close mate and had made this tape of bizarre tunes, very suited to Quo's equally bizarre humour! One such song was March Of The Slugs (Rolling our way back home). Rick did a masterstroke and turned this into Rockers Rollin'. It was maybe optimistic starting with this. I thought we should maybe ease into things more subtly, particularly given Spud's recent surgery. Remember, this was my first experience of Quo going full tilt.
We recorded a take to listen back to for reference. Up until now, I'd never experienced this quality of rock band performance in the studio and was grinning like mad at the playback, only to have Rick say "This song needs to Rock and that ain't f---ing rocking!". So now I had a yardstick for what was expected and what they were capable of. I remember that on the final master take, I'd wanted it to go on for ages, but the best overall take broke down quite quickly at the end. My memories of the rest of the sessions is that they went pretty smoothly. The material was very varied. I was even encouraged to submit a song (Who Am I) and I'll talk about that one elsewhere. The band were 100% enthusiastic and all into it (regardless of what was stated later, after the event!)
Spud honestly loved playing Baby Boy- just listen to some of the great fills. Both he and Rick were turned on by my electric sitar, which I'd brought to Sweden and Rick played on Baby Boy.
I remember a lot of time was spent on For You, but it was surely worth it. Francis and I worked through the guitar solo and he played it brilliantly. The song was so different and it required a very structured solo, rather than a busk. So we both sat down with a guitar each and looped the playback of the track, over the solo section. We each traded licks and the solo was constructed. It was played by Frame on my 1973 Fender Tele De-Luxe (2 x Fender humbucking pickups. I think I swapped that guitar with Rick for one of his Travis Bean guitars. Alan now has that Tele.) Incidentally, Alan did a superb job on For You too. Again, a carefully constructed bass part.
Blondes don't lie demo
I believe Blondes Don't Lie was one of a whole batch of songs written by Rick and myself in my home studio around '88/'89. It was probably not considered good enough at the time for the PR album, but as you observe, some might consider it a darn sight better than some of the material that did make it! To be honest, I don't remember anything about Rock 'n' Roll Floorboards!!
Unfortunately, all I have to hand is an old cassette of the Recorded Delivery album. I may well have a copy master tucked away in storage somewhere. I can't be sure where the bootlegs emanated from Ally. Copies get sent out to various territories and it's hard to keep track of them. These then get copied and before you know it, the copies get copied and are three or more generations circulating. Certainly, the final mixes I delivered were as close to finished as damn it- ready for Rick and I to live with them and make final decisions.
After that, when the issue of Quo doing another album came along, the album was shelved, probably to focus all attention on any subsequent Quo release. It was a bit of a shame that so many tracks were lifted for B-sides etc. Nice from a songwriter's financial point of view, but this effectively put paid to any chance of it being released as an album intact. As to the girl backing vocals, there were three. One was definitely the late, brilliant and lovely Vicki Brown (wife of rock and roll guitar legend Joe Brown, and mother of Sam Brown- she who had a hit with Stop and who now works with Jools Holland's band, I think). Also, there was Stevie Lange- amazing singer (remember the Bodyform ad) and now very respected as a vocal coach- particularly of the manufactured boy and girl reality TV groups. I'm pretty certain the 3rd lady was Katie Kissoon. With her brother Mac, they had hits in the 70's.
More Links
More Links: Interview with John Eden (2008), Scooter vs Status Quo forum thread, Status Quo thread, Status Quo - "In Search of the Fourth Chord" thread, Status Quo Exclusive thread
Steve didn't give me an introduction for this interview, but I think the following words from Pip Williams (record producer for Status Quo) will be explanation enough. From here on in, the following is written by Pip Williams himself.
OK. I guess Rocking All Over The World (RAOTW) is a good place to (re) start! These days, I also teach on a BA degree course. I don't do this immediately for the money. I do it for the same reason I've returned to this board [the Status Quo message board]- i.e. To put something back in to people that might be interested or might benefit. I've had a wonderful time in this business, made a few mistakes, but continue to enjoy what I do, remain very tongue in cheek and retain a very strong friendship with the guys in the band.....so:
I initially got a call from an old friend, David Oddie. He had supervised an album I'd done with Graham Bonnet in 1976 (GB was later to join Rainbow, Michael Schenker and Alcatraz). David Oddie had also been co-producer on a single recorded by my old semi-pro band The Sovereigns (around 1965 I think). He called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in working with Graham, who I knew well as the voice of The Marbles (Only One Woman). The subsequent album, which was recorded in various locations and engineered by John, my great friend and the person who was my regular engineer, was immense fun and highly acclaimed critically (I'm still pretty proud of it and him!) Did very well in Australia.
(On another note, I'm currently talking to Graham, with a view to possibly doing something together again.)
Graham was then managed for Quarry Productions by David Oddie, part of the Quo management team. Anyway, David passed me over to Colin Johnson, the bands' personal manager. He told me that the guys had loved Graham Bonnet's album, particularly the guitar sounds, and would I be interested in producing Quo? Well, who wouldn't be?!! I had a meeting soon after, at Francis' new house in Surrey, with Frame and Rick. (It was a wonderful house, and I remember Frame saying he hoped he could afford to stay there. It had cost over 50k!!!) The initial meeting was supposed to be for about an hour, but after 3 hours, the guys suggested I send my driver home! We really hit it off. We just chatted, made jokes, played verbal cat and mouse, and I realised we had the same (sick?) humour and it was obvious we could get along and work together. We talked about music and influences, but very little about the album to be. The idea of this meeting was purely to see if we could connect personally. I think this aspect is so important and often overlooked. If you can't get along on a personal level, then you've got a bloody hard time ahead!!
My manager David Walker and I then had a meeting with CJ (Colin Johnson), to establish what was required of the new album. Bear in mind that at this stage, it was just "the album". RAOTW came much later. It was made very clear to me that we were going in with a totally blank canvas. They wanted the sound cleaned up, a more commercial slant and if possible, something that could appeal to the as yet unconquered US market.
The next meeting I had was at Alan's house in Coulsden. Just me and him. Again, we got on really well. Just played demos and favourite records. Not long after, a further barnstorming session was arranged at Alan's. We set the band up, half in and half out of his garage, which overlooked his pool. This was the first time John (Eden) came along, to check out what he was in store for!! I remember that after they'd set up, they just jammed for a while (I've a feeling it was one of the early shuffles, like Don't Waste My Time). I just thought "F--- me what a great feel". I'd loved Quo as a punter, but it was interesting to see at first hand EXACTLY what makes a Quo shuffle so unique. And believe me, the subtle interplay of techniques between Rick and Frame in a shuffle is what does it! We then ran through a few of the demos and the guys offered up songs to be considered. I also began to suss the politics here, but that's another story! I pointed out to CJ that we would have severe sonic problems trying to fit everyone's songs onto the album, but....... I remember that John (Spud) particularly liked playing Baby Boy, because it was not the norm, and he just loved playing that laid back, almost half time feel. RAOTW was not even in the frame at this stage. After that, we agreed that we had to work together and the arrangements started to be made.
As PP has said, we started the saga by going to Dublin. The location was great- Guiness and such a bizarre sense of humour!
Francis and I still talk about being in Jury's Hotel restaurant, when I asked the waiter what the duck was like, and was told in all seriousness "It's a little bird, a bit smaller than a chicken.....!" And the Maitre D' setting fire to a young trainee who he was teaching to make Irish Coffees!! It was a constant barrage of jokes and rhyming slang, but all this served to forge a very strong personal rapport. Shame about the studio!! Let's just say it was basic. The monitors were very difficult to adjust to (can't even remember what they were), but I actually got my assistant Keith to collect my JBL 4320's and drive them over. Anyway, it still wasn't happening, so we abandoned things and went back to London to reconvene.
(Further note: I often think, in retrospect, that Dublin might have produced different, more favourable results- rawer sound, less "production". But then, that wasn't what the brief was about!)
As JE has explained, we'd done a lot of work at The Manor (Richard Branson's lovely country home residential studio) and also, I had privileged access to Threshold, the Moody Blues' lovely private studio in the Decca building in West Hampstead. (I'd done a lot of work for Decca, and it's ironic that I later got to do a couple of albums with The Moodies). The common denominator with those studios was the Tom Hidley, Westlake Audio design. Tom had been designing studios all over the USA (The Record Plant, Westlake Audio etc) and a few of his rooms were cropping up in Europe. The Manor and Threshold were the first. The fashion then (particularly in the States) was for very dead, good separation environments. (As a sidebar, remember that I'd had it drummed into me the need for a US friendly recording!) The rooms were all set up (voiced) to give as near as possible, a flat frequency response. As echoey (very live) rooms could add so many other elements into the equation, this deadening down of the recording areas and the control room served to create a situation where you could build similar facilities anywhere in the world, and they would be compatible with one another. In other words, using a Westlake studio, we could record in Sweden, yet mix in London and still recognise what was on the tapes!
Enquiries were made, and eventually, we booked time at Bohus Studios in Gothenburg. As PP has stated, the owners were lovely, lovely people, and the studio was well up to scratch. At this point, I'd like to say that my first choice studio was Olympic in Barnes. This was a great studio technically, yet still had an open, live and vibrant main recording room. As I've said on many occasions, there were several more suitable locations to record in the UK (including Marquee, where PP worked and I'd had much success), but the option was not there. Quo had to record out of the country, and that was that. Given this caviat, we all mutually decided to go where we could at least guarantee uniformity, and Bohus was booked. Remember, I wasn't in any way briefed to reproduce EXACTLY the previous Quo sound- this was a whole new ball game.
The commencement date was firmed up, flights, studio and hotels booked........then Spud got appendicitis!!
When we eventually got to Gothenburg, we checked into the Esso Ramada Hotel, had a day to settle in, then, on the day of the first session, I got the morning wake up call from Bob Young- "Morning Pip, it's 9 o-clock and Elvis is dead!!!" Oh yes, the wake up call! Morning Pip. It's 9 o'clock and Elvis is dead! It took a while for everyone to take that fact in. But we still convened at Bohus, with the lovely red carpet!
To tell the truth, I don't think PP and I particularly noticed it at first- we had much more important considerations. Not least our concern that Spud had had an operation for appendicitis only a very few weeks before. Ideally, the poor guy should have had six months off. As an observation, I'm sure only Spud's adrenaline carried him through. I'm sure songs like Who Am I would have benefited from a fully match fit Spud, but he deserves a medal for his positive work on RAOTW.
Anyway, back to the first day. John Eden and I spent a lot of time sussing the best areas to set things up, and we decided to put JC in the drum booth. I was aware that the band had always set up in a more open fashion. I was also aware that Spud would possibly feel a little detached from the rest of the band. However, we needed to gain instrument separation for this venture, so into the glass doored isolation room went Spud. I constantly asked John if he was happy in there and he indicated complete satisfaction. So, we spent a few hours tuning, subtly tweaking and getting a general drum sound as a starting point. The first song on the agenda was Rockers Rollin'. The rest of the band eventually arrived, got settled in and relaxed and we got some basic sounds and a rough headphone balance. At this point, I'd like to explain that it's a bit of a vicious circle getting a can (headphone) balance with Quo. They all want to hear something slightly different, which means that the poor engineer is subject to much abuse! It's a vicious circle because you can't give them their preferred balance until they play the track, but they don't like playing the track until the cans are right, so then they just stop before you've had a chance to set their balance!
So after a couple of run throughs, a huge clatter indicated that Spud had kicked the kit over! I had been warned that JC was known to get a bit impatient when setup procedures took a while, so I calmly said to him, "That was clever John, now we'll have to start all over again!" I can't remember if we relocated the kit after that. I've a feeling we made a compromise and left him in the booth, but with the sliding glass doors open, so there was some feeling of contact with the others. Anyway, we eventually got into Rockers Rollin'. The origin of this song was from a mad comedy tape that Jackie Lynton had made for the band. He was a close mate and had made this tape of bizarre tunes, very suited to Quo's equally bizarre humour! One such song was March Of The Slugs (Rolling our way back home). Rick did a masterstroke and turned this into Rockers Rollin'. It was maybe optimistic starting with this. I thought we should maybe ease into things more subtly, particularly given Spud's recent surgery. Remember, this was my first experience of Quo going full tilt.
We recorded a take to listen back to for reference. Up until now, I'd never experienced this quality of rock band performance in the studio and was grinning like mad at the playback, only to have Rick say "This song needs to Rock and that ain't f---ing rocking!". So now I had a yardstick for what was expected and what they were capable of. I remember that on the final master take, I'd wanted it to go on for ages, but the best overall take broke down quite quickly at the end. My memories of the rest of the sessions is that they went pretty smoothly. The material was very varied. I was even encouraged to submit a song (Who Am I) and I'll talk about that one elsewhere. The band were 100% enthusiastic and all into it (regardless of what was stated later, after the event!)
Spud honestly loved playing Baby Boy- just listen to some of the great fills. Both he and Rick were turned on by my electric sitar, which I'd brought to Sweden and Rick played on Baby Boy.
I remember a lot of time was spent on For You, but it was surely worth it. Francis and I worked through the guitar solo and he played it brilliantly. The song was so different and it required a very structured solo, rather than a busk. So we both sat down with a guitar each and looped the playback of the track, over the solo section. We each traded licks and the solo was constructed. It was played by Frame on my 1973 Fender Tele De-Luxe (2 x Fender humbucking pickups. I think I swapped that guitar with Rick for one of his Travis Bean guitars. Alan now has that Tele.) Incidentally, Alan did a superb job on For You too. Again, a carefully constructed bass part.
Blondes don't lie demo
I believe Blondes Don't Lie was one of a whole batch of songs written by Rick and myself in my home studio around '88/'89. It was probably not considered good enough at the time for the PR album, but as you observe, some might consider it a darn sight better than some of the material that did make it! To be honest, I don't remember anything about Rock 'n' Roll Floorboards!!
Unfortunately, all I have to hand is an old cassette of the Recorded Delivery album. I may well have a copy master tucked away in storage somewhere. I can't be sure where the bootlegs emanated from Ally. Copies get sent out to various territories and it's hard to keep track of them. These then get copied and before you know it, the copies get copied and are three or more generations circulating. Certainly, the final mixes I delivered were as close to finished as damn it- ready for Rick and I to live with them and make final decisions.
After that, when the issue of Quo doing another album came along, the album was shelved, probably to focus all attention on any subsequent Quo release. It was a bit of a shame that so many tracks were lifted for B-sides etc. Nice from a songwriter's financial point of view, but this effectively put paid to any chance of it being released as an album intact. As to the girl backing vocals, there were three. One was definitely the late, brilliant and lovely Vicki Brown (wife of rock and roll guitar legend Joe Brown, and mother of Sam Brown- she who had a hit with Stop and who now works with Jools Holland's band, I think). Also, there was Stevie Lange- amazing singer (remember the Bodyform ad) and now very respected as a vocal coach- particularly of the manufactured boy and girl reality TV groups. I'm pretty certain the 3rd lady was Katie Kissoon. With her brother Mac, they had hits in the 70's.
More Links
More Links: Interview with John Eden (2008), Scooter vs Status Quo forum thread, Status Quo thread, Status Quo - "In Search of the Fourth Chord" thread, Status Quo Exclusive thread