We both worked on Moon Duo's record, Stars Are The Light, a few years back.
You did the recording for it?
Yeah. We tracked drums, vocals, and such to their synth tracks. Then they added to it.
I asked, "Is this record going to be a slightly different Moon Duo?" Ripley [Johnson] said, "I was thinking stoner disco." I was like, "I'm in!" He and Sanae [Yamada] were staying here, and it's a fairly psychedelic environment. Of course, we're trying to make this stoner disco. They then went and stayed at their manager's, Paul Carlin, flat. He Airbnb's a lot, so it was super neutral. They said when they listened to the music in that environment, it was shocking. Here it seems normal, but in there they were like, "What have we done?" It worked out for them. I thought that was a great record, and it was awesome to work on it, both sonically and musically.
I had fun on my end too. You're in Portugal now?
I'm in Sintra, outside of Lisbon. It wouldn't look unfamiliar to some of the places around Portland, probably. Lots of trees.
What brought you to Portugal?
I was working with Noah on the records Tomboy and then [Panda Bear Meets the] Grim Reaper. I was coming here to rehearse with him. We recorded Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper in Lisbon at Namouche Studios. It's a nice studio, with old-school gear. Neves and Neumanns. I liked the vibe here a lot. I'm not sure if every Portuguese person would necessarily agree, but many of them recognize that it's quite old-fashioned here, for different reasons. Both Portugal and Spain had fascist dictators. Both of them decided to keep their countries out of the modern world. I'm sure none of it was by design, but the spin-off was that they became a little bit of a backwater to the rest of Europe. The commercialization happened much later and at a slower rate. Whilst elsewhere one can drive down the highway and find big, modern, multi-story strip mall-type places, on the whole, it isn't like that here. The center of Lisbon doesn't have all of that. It might be starting to happen a little bit, but it's a beautiful old city.
England, where you grew up, has certainly got its problems these days.
Yeah. I left before the Brexit vote happened, and I was so happy to be away from that. I always felt more European than English. I always liked continental Europe a lot, and the short distances you travel. The culture, the language, and even the money used to change. I like the diversity and the different views.
Let's get back to something equally beautiful, like music. I'm amazed by your career. I knew Spacemen 3. In the '80s I'd listen to those records and loved those textures and the sound that your band had back then.
Thank you.
How did that shift into producing, recording, and working with others after the band broke up?
Well, for the first Spacemen 3 album, Sound of Confusion – which might be the least popular in general with people – we worked with a producer. We went to a studio and the guy was the producer. I didn't like the experience. I don't think he understood what we were trying to do. One of the biggest lessons I learned from that guy was if he thought something was right, he expected us to go with it. I think the band is always right. We can lead a horse to water, and if they don't want to drink, that's fine. In my production, I totally like to adapt to what each band or person is looking for. Everyone works differently. I did not see this in that guy. He wasn't a bad guy. Not at all. He was just more of a product of that era. After that record, when we realized the demos that we'd done were better than the re-recorded songs, we decided that we'd rather do the producing ourselves. Maybe we wouldn't be the best, but we'd always work with engineers, of course. I guess we wanted to learn through our own doing of it. Even if we fucked up, at least we were doing what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. The only time I worked with a producer, although he wasn't really a producer on the sessions [Indian Giver: Spectrum meets Cpt. Memphis], was with Jim Dickinson [Tape Op #19].
Oh, yeah. I knew Jim.
Yeah. He was a trip. He was awesome. He's Mr. Memphis, that dude. I learned a lot. Another reason why I liked producing is that I learned so much from working with different people and seeing the way they work. Him, for sure; nobody worked quite like Jim Dickinson did.
He would always say something like, "The producer's job is to finish, and basically steal it from the artist." For a year, I walked around thinking, "That's bullshit." Then one day I was on a session, and I was like, "Oh, I'm distracting someone to get what I want out of them. Jim was right."
He was such a cool dude. Such an interesting mindset. One of the things that I always repeat that he said is, "If you've got the song, pretty much any old way you record it, it'll be hard to fuck it up." It doesn't matter how much finessing we do. If the song isn't there, there is no saving it. It wasn't easy working with him, actually. He was one of the tougher people I've ever worked with. He had me in tears, at least once. But I liked the experience. We went and stayed out there on his Zebra Ranch. The whole place was a trip, with all the gear from Stax. He had seen so much of the Muscle Shoals world and being on Sun Records. The most awesome history. Playing piano on [the Rolling Stones'] "Wild Horses?" Definite points for that!
If all he'd ever done was produced Big Star's Third…
Yeah. The fact that he enabled Big Star to do those records is awesome. I'm not the biggest Big Star fan, but "Holocaust" and "Kangaroo" are some of the greatest songs ever recorded. Also, the Paris, Texas soundtrack, which he doesn't get as much credit for. Ry Cooder gets the glory, but it has a big dose of Jim Dickinson.
Memphis has its characters, that's for sure. What was your learning curve in the studio?
We always mixed our own music. I suppose I learned tricks. Working with different people and different engineers, I would always be picking up good ideas from them and different little tips and tricks. In the rearview mirror, it looks like there was some sort of career plan there, which there wasn't. [laughter] When MGMT asked me to do that record [Congratulations], it was a big moment for me. It was awesome to work with them, and I liked being in on their joke with the record company, after their massively successful [debut] album [Oracular Spectacular]. I like their way of thinking. They were relatively young at that point, but all the people that they work with were their friends. Billy Bennett was doing the engineering. He's a really smart kid, and good and generous. I guess I always knew what I was trying to do, sonically, and then slowly I found my way to doing it better and better. Finding these little tricks, like sidechaining and ducking. Cleaning up the low end on tracks that aren't really about low end. Simple things universally tend to work, particularly with bands and "band" music.
Where we need to keep elements in there to make people happy, but also have a good mix.
Yeah. Aural illusions, where we don't necessarily have to have the vocals super loud if I can clear a bit of space out of one or two elements. If it's done right, the ear doesn't detect anything. In fact, if the ear is detecting it, then I haven't done it right. These simple tricks that help improve mixes.
You've done a lot of remixes. Does that come back to inform production and mixing work?
Yeah. Sometimes when I produce, I don't mix. With a remix, they give it more rope, usually. It depends, from artist to artist, but people are clearly looking for a twist. I have my schtick, a little bit. I know I'll always be in love with tremolo. I'll always have this affection for certain fuzz tones and wah and filtered sounds. I explore sometimes and see what I can get lucky with. I try and keep it fresh. It's fun doing the remixes.
