PopTones Interview UK
Interview of Gordon Raphael speaking with Alan McGee's www.poptones.co.uk music website
****Tell us about the Seattle days: (Quick Views of Gordon's Seattle Music History:)****
From 1978 till 1986 there were many amazing bands and freakishly expressive musicians performing regularly in the very few venues that would allow original music. One of the most interesting and famous of these performance spaces was called The Bird, though many bands booked their own shows at the old Masonic Temple, Oddfellows Halls and little hell holes hidden away in the night.
I am a vocalist, ARP Odyssey synthesizer player and somewhat guitarist- my first original band was Mental Mannequin and then I started Colour Twigs. We played alot of shows at the Showbox when it was a new and important punk-rock cultural center featuring many of the early UK, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco bands. Other Seattle bands I liked from that time period were The Telepaths (later morphed into The Blackouts), The Lewd, Clone, The Fags, Sleeping Movement, The Romans, and The Knobs. In the early punk scene in Seattle, though I went to many shows and partys- I didnt really think the bands were that cool or talented, even in a punkish way. I liked the really twisted fashions at these clubs and parties: aluminum foil outfits, clear plastic suits, 1940's dapper suits, amazing hairdos, killer shoes etc. There were loads of really intelligent and unique individuals then (it seems hard to find those kind of people anymore with the modern conservative conformist society I see in both the USA and UK) and people were really forging their identities through the music they listened to, talked about and played.
Around 1985-6, when I came back from my first exploratory missions to UK and Europe- there was a noticeable explosion of really talented bands that I was quite blown away by. I saw some very early performance by Soundgarden, which resembled a gothic "Doors" kind of vibe, slow and spooky with profuse and totally freaky screaming by a very young skinny Chris Cornell. He'd put the mic into his mouth, down around his throat and bellow from his guts- the speakers would almost pop out of the PA...it was so cool. I worked with Andy Wood (later the tragic star of MotherLoveBone who overdosed on heroin right before his historic first album was released) running sound at a Malfunktion show in a trendy Seattle shoe store, and had him open up shows (under the moniker of Landrew The Land Whale!) with my band The Tears of Gloom at The Vogue and Wrex clubs.
Green River (later to morph into Pearl Jam and Mudhoney) was the first band to ask me to record them, though I made a rough live video of Soundgarden at an amazing Halloween party at an Artist's (Carl Smool) studio in Belltown. I recorded Feast, Bundle of Hiss, Colour Twigs, Janus, Serious Dark Angels, and The Goblins. These bands were so good that I put all their cassettes (yes, tape cassettes) into a briefcase and tried as well as I could to start a record label called The Ars Divina Netwerk.
Walter, Debe and I found an old abandoned church with a recording studio, 10 bedrooms and a stage with 100 wooden seats circa 1917, and rented it as a home/ cultural center and record label headquarters. It became a drop in homeless center, quite unplanned- by accident - and filled with drugs, beer, heroin runaways, traveling rock bands, strippers, empty bottles, rubbish and fighting. There were some good times too- in a hazy way- but after a year it burnt down due to an electrical fire supposedly. The flames were so hot they cracked the firefighters helmets, and all my stuff- old love letters, Hammond organ, synthesizers guitars and such- were turned to ash. The neighbors cheered and it made the local TV news for 1 minute. The Red Cross gave me a voucher for one pair of Levis 501's and some cowboy boots which I wore as I went to try and live in New York City in the year 1987.
I thought that certainly when the New Yorkers heard my fantastic tapes (that miraculously did not burn in the fire!!) that my songs I Said, Wakehouse and Ring of Gold would blow them away with that special "West Coast-ness". The gloomy rains of Seattle clearly perceptible with every note. I had over 1000 songs already written and recorded by that point, and I truly believed I was an stunning star, about to be discovered!
To make a long book chapter short, I got the East Village flu (heroin/cocaine addiction) just like all my other friends from Seattle who had moved to NYC before me. I laughed at them as one by one they had to return home to Seattle and live with thier mothers, cuz after all- didnt they have the example of the one before them, and the one before him....? So yes, I was probably the last to move to NYC, and the last to have to come home to go to rehab and try to get my life back together. One interesting thing happened though, looking back on it; My friend Jon Poneman who was president of Sub Pop records told me to check out an unknown, recently signed band called Nirvana at a tiny hole-in-the-wall club called Pyramid on Avenue A. I saw them and loved their show alot. Each day for the next week as I went on my well worn route down 7th Street (to cop drugs) I saw the boys from Nirvana drinking beer and smoking something on the steps in front af an apartment building.
The 12th time they saw me go by that week (day and night), one of the boys called out to me and said "Hey, arent you from Seattle?" I said yes, and they said that they thought I was from a band out there, that I looked familiar. Kurt asked me what instrument I played and I told him keyboards and guitar. He then asked "what kind of guitar do you play?" I explained that I used alot of echo and effects and played space guitar sorta like Pink Floyd. He then told me that they needed a second guitarist to join the band for an upcoming UK and European tour that was starting a week later, and asked me if I wanted to do it. I though for a second, and realized that I had better not leave the safety of my well established narcotics supplier in the state I was in, and also didnt want to stop progress on some songs I was composing and working on. Funny moment, that! After rehab I escaped to Hollywood to become a different type of star. I imagined me driving a convertible car down a sunny road with 3 gorgeous bikini clad starlets laughing and waving to people...
I did meet Dave Allen from Gang of Four and he asked me to write songs and get ready for a label he was starting with Nirvana and The Beastie Boys' manager called World Domination Records.
I lived with him in Malibu and was unceremoniously fired after 3 months of work. I returned to Seattle, quite crestfallen, but had the good fortune to join Sky Cries Mary, a seven piece space rock band with a dj and a male and female singer and a travelling multi projector light show as well. Ivan Kraal from the original Patti Smith band was the guitarist then, and we were signed oddly enough- by World Domination Records out of Hollywood! I was in Sky Cries Mary for 7 years and got nice publishing cheques and record advances which funded my lust for old keyboards and gorgeous guitars. We toured all over the USA and once to Tokyo, making several very good sounding records in the process.
***When The Strokes second demo E.P. almost fell into the hands of Gil Norton and others, were you frightened that it would be another Green River situation,where, you could have played a key role in an emerging scene of rock'n'roll, but were about to "miss out!"?***
Well....Julian took me out to dinner (after the original flurry of press and interest in The Strokes "The Modern Age" EP) and told me that Gil Norton was offered to them through Rough Trade to produce the next set of music that they would record. He asked me if I considered myself a "better" record producer than Gil, and IF SO he would use me, but if I didnt tell him then and there that I was indeed the "better producer"-then he would need to use Gil to give his band the best chance to succeed and do well. I had never sold one record as a producer, and yet Mr. Norton is a legend who (in my mind) sold 6 million of everything he touched! So I said to Julian "We had a great time in the studio together, and the world seems to like what we created, and I want to work again with The Strokes- but theres no way in hell I would tell you that I'm a better producer than Gil Norton!".
Julian walked away saying "Fuck you Gordon, now we have to use Gil, cuz I have to do whats best for the band". I thought my only chance at ever being noticed or talked about, or even having enough money not to work all day every day in New York had just walked out the door, and only because I wanted to tell the truth, as I saw it. I was so sad and I replayed that scene in my head for a while until I got lost in recording other bands and working on my own obscure material with my band Absenthee in New York with the astounding singer Anna Mercedes who I met in Seattle. Yes, In Seattle I lost my chance to have a record company cuz many of the bands I wanted to work with, and who were even in my proposals for my own label got snatched up first by Sub Pop who were way less stoned, and far more organized than me. I thought again when The Strokes were with Gil, and late with Nigel Godrich, that they would be truly impressed and overjoyed at the musical results; and that I would be left far behind.
*****The NME was one of the reasons that the Strokes got so much coverage - why do you think they backlash against you?*****
James Endicott, Geoff Travis and NME will forever be in my mind as the ones that first nurtured The Strokes music, and therefore my career as a "known" or recognized musician/producer. James Endicott even has my love more cuz when we recorded New York City Cops for Is This It, he came to my studio and heard the playbacks. Whereas the American label RCA threatened to replace me and questioned me and didnt like the sounds we were using, Endicott got really excited and yelled when he heard that song. I was so happy with that crazy sound, especially on New York City Cops and Take It Or Leave it, which are so live and technicolor sounding, just like many of my all time favorite records ever!
I moved to London in 2002 to live where my favorite rock and roll was largely from, and as a thank you for discovering not only The Strokes- but Hendrix, my big-big hero! Without London I believe Jimi would have died unnoticed, and The Strokes would have been ignored by New York, as the people who work in the music industry there (and in California) appear to be largely idiotic grey-suits who have no clue about life, humanity or music. (Do I sound bitter?) My first friends were The Libertines who were just signed then to Rough Trade. We had been communicating with since I met them at The famous Heaven London Strokes show in 2001, asking me to produce them.
I fell in love with their live sound and individual talents, and they took me all over London when I arrived setting me up with alot of friends and many connections that I still appreciate. I ran live sound for them on their first UK mini tours, even some shows supporting The Strokes; because I was asked by Peter and Carl to produce their first single, a job I thought I could do amazingly well, and was very happy about. As I was remixing some demos on my laptop for them, and really getting to know them, I was told that the job was given to someone else, Bernard Butler! I almost cried, seriously- for I knew that they were going to be well loved in England, and I wanted to do such an amazing job for them. They stopped hanging around with me as much after that, though Gary and John- two very intelligent and wonderful human beings, have always maintained a friendly open closeness with me.
Carl has also been very nice when I've seen him out and about, but I certainly lost track of Peter, whom I really enjoyed alot during my first 2 years in London. When I first started showing bands to labels and the press in London, I got a funny mixed reaction. People dug the fact that I was the guy whos picture was inside Is This It, but they had no reaction and certainly not any encouragement for all the other bands I love and have produced- many of which are on my website. NME surely slagged my early releases on Shoplifter, and started saying that there were rumors that I was "asleep on the couch" during the first Strokes recordings! ouch, babe- that hurt!!!
Part Two:
***What is the origin story of your new band, Black-Light?****
After my first year in living in London and recording 30 bands, meeting more people than ever before and generally having the best time (as in fun!), I was really tired and decided to go to New York and Seattle to visit for Christmas and take a break. I had a very intense jet lag in NYC- almost like a lucid dreamstate, or a mild tripping sensation, and I did my best to keep that state of mind going as long as I could. From this fluid perspective I asked myself "if I could do anything I wanted in the coming year, what would it be?". The option of recording another 30 bands (30 times 4 or 5 guys and their managers equals alot of musicians to work with in one year- around 180 different human beings were in the studio with me in 2002!) seemed not as interesting as really focusing and working with the few bands that I really truly felt as the ones that spoke to my soul with their music. Also I felt the urge to use whatever small notoriety and minor celebrity status London had conferred on me to push my own creative agenda as a composer, singer, guitar-guy and keyboardist. My dream emerged as a directive to start my own band, and to begin a record label to really help some artists I believe in. I wanted to dedicate my label to 5 bands that year: London's Kill Kenada, Anna Mercedes' band- Miss Machine, The Satellites (from Mallorca), Regina Spektor- the Russian born Bronx raised marvel that I had just met and recorded in NYC during what was meant to be a Christmas holiday!, and whatever band I was going to assemble to perform my own songs with. Using the time honoured tradition of NME ads, I shamelessly used my name and the fact that I was The Strokes producer to attract the best musicians I could possibly find. I secretly wanted to discover a fabulous, jawdropping female guitarist. I imagined a 17 year old girl walking out on stage and just tearing the roof off the place. I have seen many female musicians, but rarely if ever a girl guitarist who was really blazing new trails. And believe me I looked. I encouraged female musicians to apply, and also mentioned something in my ad about wanting the musicians who responded to have a sense of the "beyond" in their playing. I really have almost no patience or interest in bands or players that sound "normal". The standard guitar sounds and standard abilities that I see in 99.9% of all modern rock music just bores me to death. Most pop music ---I dont even know why its called that cuz Andy Warhol's POP art was original, and quite well done, like masterful!! Especially when compared with the bland toast and corporate drivel that most people in Western societies tap their foot to, play in their cars, clubs, restaurants, dentist offices, what have you. I wished to assemble a band of players that have spent enough quality time with their instruments to discover the mystery that yes: new things can be done, new sounds can be made, and there is a power in music beyond what commerciality and hype portray. I got 180 responses to my ad which I put in little folders marked Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, and Girls! I called back the most interesting of the responses, and of course auditioned the Girls first. They were cute and nicely dressed and sweet, but not much sense of the beyond or even amazing came from that. Many of the guys who came with their guitars were sure they were on their way to the beyond, but in reality (my tiny warped reality of course) their skills were limited to the normal, "yes we've heard it a million times before and its boring" level. There were some pretty good ones actually, but after properly auditioning 5 ladies and 12 lads, I found what I was looking for in Matt Ingram- drum superstar from London, who was happy to demonstrate what having my own personal John Bonham was like. Plus he came pre-packaged with Tim Smyth the Bass player already locked in sync from years of musical comraderie with Matt. One of the demo CD's I was sent (again, most were tossed through the air towards the bin, as is , sadly, often the case) perked my ears up and spun my head around during the first guitar solo. A guy from Nottingham called Jason Hart, or Jay depending on his mood. He arrived to the studio and floored us all with his limitless guitar skills and a perfect singing voice to boot. This gentleman lasted 4 shows with us, and contributed some of the best moments to our upcooming single and album before jetting off to USA with Spiritualized and returning to find his own record deal in the UK. Aparrently I wasn't the only one to notice this man's superior musical abilities! The line up for Black-Light was completed when a young man from Sheffield, Pete Chenery walked in and played the piano and organ wonderfully well, also able to sing anything I could throw at him. A joyous day when the band was all together, and we locked into 12 hour rehersals for 4 days at a time, due to travels and trains and members living in diverse regions of England. When Jay got called away, I was lucky to use Toni Ha-Iommi, the Finnish superstar of the guitar and voice that was previously in Miss Machine. I had picked him from across the room at a London club when I first moved here, and walked straight up to him and said "Do you play guitar?" He replied "Yes" and I told him that we were likely to be working together soon, and it came true. Intuition can sometimes be so spot on!
Our first show was at the monthly club in Islington that I run with TobyL of Rockfeedback.com. It was sold out, and CNN came to film our soundcheck (thanks Toby!) and interview me. People clapped and cheered even before the first note we played, and they were really paying attention, getting into our brand of rock. I have been in bands for years that didnt have such a fun show ever, and my singing and guitar playing seemed to rise several notches in quality because of the obvious support the audience had been giving us. I have used many compositions from various parts of my life as songwriter in our band. Some are as old as 1980 (my first recorded song ever- Substitute Music) to 1986 when I lived on Corfu, the Greek Island in a recording studio/mansion surrounded by olive trees, grapevines and a deserted Greek Orthodox monastery (the song Ring Of Gold). Some songs were written in Seattle during my tenure with Sky Cries Mary, Some in NYC in my first studio Chateau Relaxo, and my second Transporterraum NYC. Two songs- Free To Lie and The Big Stuff were written very recently in London.
What is the sound of Black-Light?
The overall sound of Black-Light is quite a fusion of all my favorite influences from The Rolling Stones, Hendrix, T-Rex, and The Stooges with an unhealthy dose of space rock via Piano, Organ and Mellotron sounds as well. I am singing my best ever and have 3 other voices in the band to create harmonies with. One of my most complex pieces with, like 3 distinct movements is called The Lifeboat. Originally when I wrote and recorded it all by myself in Seattle, I thought it was so obscure that I basically hid it away for years. I guess I tried it out on the band just to see if they could actually play all the changes and parts, never guessing that they'd take a shine to it, or even improve it with their abilities. Now its one of the most commented on, and well received pieces in our set, usually the ending song. Its a bit of an apocolyptic vision (yes one of space rock's finest themes) where everything on Earth is put on pause, but it has a dramatic happy ending. Our single 2 Track Mind, with its sexy video which I love (directed by Tim Mattia) is dedicated to Iggy and Bowie when they were a killer team. The album from Black-Light is called The White Album and has 12 songs that blend together to form(hopefully) a bit of an adventure in listening.
*****Do you think the significance of Sky Cries Mary was passed by in the Seattle Grunge Explosion of early ˜91.*****
Sky Cries was so well loved in Seattle. I would hear our songs in cars going by, in restaurants whe I walked in they'd immediately play one of our albums,- fantastic times. Recently Dave Grohl was at Death Disco, Alan's club at Notting Hill Arts- and he and his label president came running over to me, not because of The Strokes- they had no Idea I'd produced 3 records so far with them! They came to ask what the keyboardist from Sky Cries Mary was doing in London. Yes that made me feel great, cuz I never even knew he had seen us. I prefer to be known as a musician cuz its alot more ballsy and risky to go out onstage where there is no rewind or edit functions. Just live animals on display! When I left that night from Death Disco, Dave Grohl told everyone there who would listen that Sky Cries Mary was actually the best band from Seattle at that time...yes I was shocked when my friends there told me that!
In 3 or 4 US cities Sky Cries was well loved and had great attendance at shows. We got alot of cool press in USA and exposure on Conan O'Brien show and Dave Stewart - major night time TV shows at the time. But overall we were not nearly in the league of some of our peers, most notably the all male grunge guitar bands ( I loved Pearl Jam's first album, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains as well as an obscure band called Suicide Bride). We had electronic sounds, a DJ and both a male and female singer. The singers wore crazy costumes including big twisted velvet horns and giant mirrored heads etc. Also our light show, especially the early Stray Voltage shows by Cam Garrett were absolutely out of this world! The band were happy together, but wished we could have gone more international and sold more records. They have reformed now (in fact I used the entire cash income from recording The Modern Age EP to attend the Sky Cries Mary demise party held in Seattle!) and are joyously re-releasing all the old albums. I think I made some cool parts on those, and developed my interplanetary sampling and synthesizer techniques alot during those 6 years.
*****Though originally from Seattle, you established yourself in New York City but now live in London - why the transatlantic change?*****
The whole story? Well as you know I feel a huge debt of gratitude to England for almost all of my musical influences and favorites. I have been lusting to experience London life ever since I was a young teen when my record collection was my best friend. I was asked , after Is This It came out, to go to Oxford to record a band of brothers who lived on a farm, and were going to take me to Wales to a big studio there to record and produce their album, then master it at Abbey Road. I jumped on this opportunity- my first to work in the UK and start giving back to the musical culture that nurtured my ears and heart. I did a week of pre-production including re-writing lyrics with the guys, inventing new basslines, just genrally tightening up and improving on what I already thought was a cool project. For some reason I will never know (anal retention? control issues? trust issues?) I was fired from the project the day before we were to go to Wales! I was so upset and freaked out, that I wanted to leave their home immediately, though I had nowhere to go and knew only 2 people in London, period. I called my main friend, Julien Tigre-Boy the wonderful singer- but he didnt answer. Then I pulled out an old phone number for a girl called Banny, that I'd met at the Heaven London show after -party for The Strokes. I had 3 emails with her and had talked to her at the party for about an hour. I called her up and said (in a worried tone) "Hi, ummm, I've just been fired from a job, and am in England, can I please come to your house and stay for a day til I find my other friend Julien?". She laughed and said yes, thank god- and I went via train with all my bags to Paddington Station, and then to Banny's.
Well unbeknownst to me, Banny had become The Libertines' manager, and they had just signed to Rough Trade. She cooked me a lovely dinner, and proceeded to play me 20 songs that they had recently recorded as demos. Banny had sent me some earlier recordings of The Libertines when they wore white shirts and had clean faces and the cutest smiles. The original stuff I heard (in Mallorca when I was recovering from the making of Is This It) was like old time accoustic oriented Vaudeville music from Englands charming past. I had heard that and thought that I know nothing about this kind of music and therefore couldn't see how I could possibly work on it . The new demos I heard at Banny's were suddenly rough shod garagey rock, and I was greatly offended that the exact sound that I'd used for The Strokes records was being attempted here. In fact they had all of the distortion and none of the clarity that we had worked so bloody painstakingly on in New York. I heard nothing cool or charming in those 20 songs and told Banny so straight out. Those demos really annoyed me, and again I had written off The Libertines as somthing that did not interest me at all.
The next day Banny wanted to introduce me to the band, and I agreed just as a thank you to her for saving my ass, and putting me up for the night at her home. I went the The Libertines' tiny rehersal room at Roose (spelling?) studios. They had just finished a song when I walked in with Banny. Peter, whom I had met at Heaven London (and in fact I remember very vividly this boy from the Heaven party, because he was very pretty and had given me a little solo show down on one knee with his cap in hand, dressed in a dapper suit- singing for me a beautiful old English song! My heart definitely melted a little while he was singing for me, I remember that) walked up to me with his guitar on, and smiled. He offered me some hashish and tobacco and said the most dreamy voice ever- "Would you like to skin up?". I had never heard that expression before but I understood perfectly well, and rolled a spliff while they launched into several songs. When I heard Peter and Carl sing together, and watched Gary on the drums, John on bass, I was blown away. Freed from the constraints of bad recordings- the band was like a young The Beatles, and I felt like I was face to face with a new John Lennon and Paul McCartney aged 19!! I thought for sure I had just discovered the next biggest band in the world, and quicky told them so. I began taking notes and talking with the band as if it were a fact that I was their producer getting them ready to record the best album ever. Carl took me to Filthy McNastys and I found a place where he said Merlin was buried in the basement. I saw The Libertines perform at Cherry Jam in London on a Rough Trade Night. That was my first night out ever in London, and I met 10 of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen, made a bunch of friends and was approached by 3 bands and two managers with cd's in hand for me to consider for production jobs! Where I come from, that is considered a damn good night out!! Just when I thought I'd met the girl I was going to take home, there came another one that distracted me and made me forget about the one before. Actually I was so confused and excited by the whole night, that I went home alone and just meditated on the repercussions and ramifications of making hasty decisions. That night, and many others at Filthy McNastys, and a French beauty named Miko were all reasons I decided to stay in London and never go back to the USA.
*****Why did you tour with the Furs during 2001...?*****
During the recording of Is This It, I was evicted from my studio by a man named Rick. This man had sold me the rights to make a recording studio in a burnt out basement on 2nd street and avenue A. The rent was ridiculously high, and the place was filled with old dirt, broken bottles abandoned radiators, spiders and piles of old furniture stacked to the ceiling. I told him, that since I had just been previosuly evicted from a recording studio (Chateau Relaxo) for noise complaints- that I would only sign the lease if i could make about as much sound as a jet taking off, for 24 hours a day every day- to pay the giant rent bill. He sweatily agreed to this and I signed a lease. No sooner did I have my first Absenthee band rehearsal there inTransporterraum NYC, my new gorgeous purple glitter walls studio that I shared with Anna Mercedes- but he comes down and pokes his bald and bearded head into my space complaining that its too loud!! Later during Is This It someone told him to fuck off, and some old flourescent tube lights were smashed in the street in celebration....and I was evicted. After September 11th I wasnt so keen on living my life in a basement in NYC anyway, so I left peacefully. En route to putting my last equipment into storage, Richard Butler- singer of The Psychedelic Furs, a man I'd never met, and had idolized since his first record swept Seattle in 1980- called my mobile phone and asked me to join his band for a huge USA tour, as a keyboardist, guitarist and backing singer. I was so happy and amazed, I could just retort "But I've never even met you before!". So yes, after recording Is This It, living through September 11th, and getting evicted, I was on the road to end that year as a touring member of one of my all-time favourite bands, I pinched myself onstage each night as I sang backups on President Gas, and spent an evening in Toronto watching the first Harry Potter film with Richard and Tim Butler. Jesus lives.
******Do you feel that the mighty influence of the Furs has been criminally overlooked?*****
The Psychedelic Furs were massively loved and influential in the circle of musicians and cool people I hung out with in Seattle. It was only while touring with them, that they told me how they had to move to USA because they were getting very little love in the UK, their homeland. That shocked me alot, because I imagined they ruled in England in the 1980's. We toured with Echo and the Bunnymen, and Mr. Ian McCullough was very kind and friendly to me as well. All the shows were huge and pretty much sold out, and we stayed in fabulous hotels and had gorgeous tour busses and salaries. It was the greatest and most fun tour I'd ever been on before, though some of the Sky Cries Mary tours were also very wonderful.
*****Why do you think the Strokes backlashed with 'Room on Fire'?*****
I don't understand that too well, I didnt really perceive a backlash, but noticed that sales and enthusiasm for that record wasnt as fevered as the first. Many people have told me that its better sounding and a better album, but that doesn't translate into excitement, in this case. I only just saw my first article (in NME) saying that The Strokes ahd better prove themselves this summer at the festivals, cuz Room On Fire wasnt that hot. It suprised and saddened me alot to read that, if thats what some people's perception is. I know that Julian was in a very heavy mood during the making of that record, you can hear it in the lyrics for certain. I know from experience that the pop-pop world prefers to mostly embrace the parties and beer swilling; models and cocaine imagery, whereas the other real human emotions such as sadness or loss or confusion, are swept under the carpet in favour of throw away pretense. Have you noticed that? I, and many people notice that there are at least 3 guitar solos on that album that are as astounding as any in rock and roll. There are also the issues of Fab's completely freakishly mind-boggling drumming- almost 100% unedited and un- tweaked by me, Julian's historic voice, which is so rare and powerful, like a storm of true human feelings and the fucking guitars that came so far in their mastery since the first album. Nicolai Fraiture performed almost every single track perfectly in the first or second try, thats unheard of, really. I guess people have not been noticing that stuff, but to me its as clear as daylight.
*****Do you feel that the pressure is on within the Strokes camp?*****
As I've said so many times, The Strokes put more pressure on themselves than anyone I have ever met in music. Julian sweats blood over ever single note he writes because he's has to make sure there could not possibly be a better note, or harmony or tone or attitude. I have seen him having Olympic games style competitions with himself to see which guitar note works best against Nicolai's bassline, or which hi-hat pattern underscores the vocal the best!
*****You were connected with Wendy Carlos, who scored The Clockwork Orange flick amongst others how did that connection come about? *********
I was mesmerized and trasformed the first time I saw A Clockwork Orange in the movie theatre. I was 16 and on LSD combined with Mecaline, tripping my balls off, and that film put me into an orbit that I've never really come down from. It was the brilliant music; electronic synthesizers singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in German that really did it to me. That and the fact that I'd never seen a naked lady on screen before! Wendy's synthesizer explorations and discoveries combined with her incredible musical ability as a keyboard player and historian, really changed my thoughts and the direction of my life. From then on anything Moog or Arp in the synthesizer world of music was capturing my attention and showing me a new way to focus my life's energies. I was kicked out of many music shops because I would go there to try out the blessed machines that would later become my greatest musical strength. I had no money and looked a sight with my long curly hair and spaced out hallucinogenic eyes, "Out you go boy, come back when you get a job, lad"- that sort of thing. A friend of mine Serge, from Seattle sent me in 1997 to meet Tom O'Horgan (Outrageous Broadway director and genius behind Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1960's, as well as a key founder of New York's experimental theatre company La Mama). Tom's apartment, which is an entire floor of a building on Broadway, downtown in NYC, is filled with about 2000 musical instruments from around the world and back in time. He has a Glass Harmonica which is a keyboard invented for Mozart which plays spinning glass bowls submeged in water!! A Hallway of Gongs in various sizes, wooden frogs from Polynesian islands which are percussion instruments, 3 pipe organs and on and on. I was hypntotized by his home, and the man is a true sweetheart. He told me that his neighbor was named Wendy, who also played electronic music (I had told him about my musical interests). My ears burned and I said.."Is that Wendy Carlos??!!"- he answered yes, and that she'd been after him for a while to come and visit to discuss something related to sounds. I begged him to set up a coffee date with me, him and Wendy, and he set about doing just that. On the night that Tom, myself, Wendy and her friend Anne-Marie were walking towards a Jamaican restaurant in Manhattan, Tom introduced me to Wendy. I had been rehearsing all of the questions from my entire life that I needed to know the secrets of: The German voices, the huge Moog's custom made for her, the hows and why's of her knowledge. "Wendy, this is Gordon- he's from Seattle and also plays Synthesizers" said Tom. "Well, dont come to me with your problems!" retorted Wendy Carlos. She said it rather irritatedly and as if to say "back off son!". I didnt like that at all and noticed that all through dinner she seemed only interested in Tom, and probably wished I hadn't tagged along. I heard her talking about how she travels everywhere in the world she can to photograph Solar and Lunar eclipses. She had just returned from the Sahara Desert, and she was in fact wearing an "Eclipse-T-Shirt" with her skirt. I tried to make a joke about not thinking the electrical power in the Sahara was stable enough to run her synthesizers, and she shot me a look that could have frozen hell! I was crestfallen and felt like I was never going to connect with this person and learn all I wanted to about her work. After dinner Tom and I were invited back to her apartment and studio. I walked into a space laborotory like I've never seen or imagined. She designed and built it herself, and all the historic Moogs were there, and a C3 organ and 4 giant handmade speakers in the air , surround sound stylee. A hand built mixing board and more keboards than I could count, some with Peacock feather in them, and some with strange looking beautiful exotic cats lazing about on top. Her mission was to ask Tom O'Horgan to help her identify sounds in a computerized library that someone had given her. Tom, being an expert in world instruments and a historian himself was the perfect choice for this, and I sat in the "back of the class" while they went to work. I recognized many of the sounds from my extensive sampling work in Seattle with Sky Cries Mary. I knew that these were mostly normal drum sounds, Tom-Toms, snares, etc, slowed down and played lower in pitch. I spoke up a few times to identify the noises, and sometime during my third correct answer, it was as if bells were going off, in a magical fairy tale way.....Wendy looked at me for the first time, and said "Well, Gordon, your really do seem to know your stuff!". Tom made an excuse to leave and I stayed with Wendy in her space-lab studio. I pointed to everything I could see in the room and asked "What is that?". She graciously explained many things and seemed to enjoy our conversations. I saw a Russian Dragon, a machine that tells you with lights if you are speeding up or slowing down your rhythm! I saw a keyboard that she invented that automatically re-tunes all the keyboards in her studio to ancient and exotic tuning systems, like the ones Bach used. I saw her hand built Theremin that has a controller shaped like a circular keyboard so she can pinpoint exact pitches while controlling that ethereal Theramin sound. Now here's the really magic part, pay attention please. I saw a Kurzweil advanced Sampling Keyboard laying against a wall. I asked her what that was. She said it was a gift from the Kurzweil company because she had designed a Wendy Carlos tuning system for them. She said she had never used it, and said that she believed that Sampling was pretty much a non-musical gimmick. After all, real instruments permit expression and variations, and sound a whole lot better than any simple sampling device. I told her that I wanted to check it out and see how good the Kurzweil was. I wanted to impress her with my knowledge of samplers, and I tried to turn it on. Well, I couldn't figure that machine out, and I was a bit frustrated. So I asked if I could borrow the instruction manual and return the next evening to give her a demonstration of that keyboard. It was only a matter of a few minutes of page turning and I found out how to operate the Kurzweil, and sure enough I went back to her place to try it out. Wendy had set up an Autoharp with a good microphone to send into the sampler. I quickly started it up and we recorded ONE STRUM of the Autoharp. When we pressed the Kurzweil's keys and played back the sample, she was very quiet, and said "Oh, my god, I had no idea they'd taken it this far!" She noticed the clear overtones and wonderful full sound with which the Kurzweil had captured the Autoharp. We were on the way to becoming friends then, and I sent her a sample library that my friend Scott Levitin in Los Angeles had created using the finest orchestral instruments from around the world. Wendy showed me large books filled with scientific printouts of different instrument's overtone series when played at different volumes. She then proceeded to spend 4 years creating a digital orchestra in her Kurzweil that could mimick as closely as possible the behaviour of real ones. She added choir voices, priestly orations, and theremin sounds to this and released "Tales of Heaven and Hell" as her CD around the year 2000. Much to my delight and suprise, she put my name in the credits as a thank you for the original night with the Kurzweil. My dreams had come full circle, and I am still positively misty about it! ***And what is that person like?**** Wendy has been remastering and polishing up her many original recordings that she's made in her life, releasing them in expanded and new versions one by one, sometimes in sets, like the Bach Box. She has a work aesthetic that is maniacal, and impressive- spending almost every night from 6 pm til 6 am working away like crazy on her music and inventions. This has been her pace for most of her adult life! The last time I visited with her, about a year ago- she had invented a multi layered pipe organ and theatre organ based on multiple Kurzweil samplers running in tandem and some sort of stunning old Organ footpedals retro-fitted with midi controllers under each one. No one has ever done anything like this before, and she performed for me several pieces she was writing for this new thing. She just keeps on going and breaking new ground at every turn. Wendy has an extensive website WendyCarlos.com for those truly interested in more.
****Would you ever work with her?****
In my dreams!! I have asked her before about collaborating with me, and she has said that if the right project came along, she would not rule it out! ****Do you think this pioneer would ever release something again?***** As I said she is working on new songs, and simultaneously preparing her entire back catalogue for release to the public. Many titles are already out there, check it out, for sure.
******Any comment on the Momus lawsuit that Wendy brought against him?*****
Yes, as an inventor and genius and originator of so many musical things, Wendy detests the act of stealing part of her soul and identity by those who lack the imagination to make interesting things by themselves! period. Also its stealing money from her, from performances that she laboured over in earnest and inspiration. Part Three:
******When did you establish your record label - Shoplifter Records and what are the plans for it?*****
My label Shoplifter Records (www.shoplifterrecords.co.uk) was a carry-over from the original idea I had in Seattle, to start something that would present and promote unique powerful artists, and cool music. Right after my first year in London, when I discovered so many bands that really sounded brilliant- and especially after I met and originally recorded 5 songs with Regina Spektor, I knew that I could kick in and really do it this time. The 10 songs, 2 singles and 2 videos from Miss Machine featuring Anna were the first things that I really finished and put out into the world. Her record All American Girl was pressed onto 7 inch Pink Leopard vinyl, and the video is so very "the definition of rock" its not funny. I have no idea why this stuff didnt just floor people, as it did knock me out again and again. I bet I will be able to get people to listen to these records once we get a bigger profile as a label. Regina has been dazzling the world and getting written about all over the place, most recently in New York Times in a huge column going really into depth about her views, life and music. They even toured the Modigliani exhibit at The Jewish Museum in New York with her! Ms. Regina Spektor has been signed in the US by Sire, an unknown little company that signed The Ramones, Talking Heads, and some chick named Madonna. Me excited? yes very. Regina's musical abilities and vision are a once in a lifetime kind of thing. I have also had a huge burden of dreams and love for a band from Mallorca, yes that gorgeous remote Island off the coast of Spain. The Satellites, they are called, and I recorded their second album (10 months before I met The Strokes) in the Transporterraum NYC studio. Their singer/guitarist Jordi defy's gravity onstage as it seems he can practically fly through the air, and his voice has no limits at all. The Satellites have moved to London now, and for the first time in their long history, are inside of a culture that can really support their music and help them take off. I cant say enough about how incredible this band is, and their brand new third album, produced in my London's Limehouse area as well as their riveting live show, are wonderful beyond words. I have to say that I am quite happy that my friend John from the Libertines really likes the music of The Satellites, and perhaps that can help open some doors for them as they start a new life in London. My band Black-Light are readying artwerk and plans for our debut cd The White Album. I am totally pleased with the way it came out,I hope that people will see very clearly how and why we rock, Many things that I have wanted to express for years are there in day-glo colour on that record, and I cant wait for human ears to hear it. Kill Kenada was well on their way, with many many headspinning tunes which I have produced over the past 3 years. Two singles have been released, and the last one- Masachusetts Murder Medallions was TV in England. Zane Lowe was an early supporter of theirs, and he saw and heard what I did in them- the fastest craziest band in the world. Future superstars of avante-gard ear bleeding rock, with sickly awesome lyrics and singing atop music that i would describe as the sound of hundreds of cars smashing into concrete walls simultaneously, at 200 mile per hour! I have been after this band for several years, and perhaps soon we'll bee agreeing to release a 10 song punk rock album. In the meantime I have been tirelessly promoting Kill Kenada anyway, because I truly love their dastardly freaky approach to unforgettable rock. They have always been on my website, and I have the most amazing film footage of them performing in my studio, with fake tatoos, Black Gaffer-Tape brassiere and beard on Tim the bassist/singer who is also naked, wearing a leopard G-string as well, all whilst playing the coolest thrashing song...... On the horizon is super gifted young performer/songwriter called Char Johnson. She is from New Paltz, New York and combines Hip-Hop, Hippie-Folk, Rock-n-Roll with a delicious taste of lesbianism and sheer style!! Oh Oh, what does that sound like? Well, we've had her in London 3 times, and I saw her in her hometown at a jumpin' show- and all I can say is "hit after hit after hit!". There's political stuff in her lyrics, and dark emotions that everyone can understand. Char's rolling party grooves as well as her eye-widening co-vocalist/dancer Danielle make her an obvious choice to expand Shoplifter Records' pallette of colours.
*****Do you feel, as a producer, that you have a signature sound?*****
I like to think that my best quality as a producer is in listening to each bands spoken and unspoked desires for their own sound and ideas. Because I am a composer and musician myself, I dont feel the need to stamp my ID on anyone's song at the expense of what they have in mind. If anything is the same from all of my productions, I hope its the impact of the individual sounds and the way the emotions and thoughts of the vocalist are so real and vivid as they come through the speakers (or headphones) seeming to lick your ears! I have alot of agression and frankly, anger about the world, people in it, and especially the music world. The established channels for music, from the crappy beer, bleach and ashtray smelling venues with their dodgy PA systems and "could-care-less" sound engineers, to the programmers of radio and music television, to the mentally retarded men who guard the record labels and churn out pap-rock, fake feelings and glossy shite year after year: man I want to punch them all in the face and puncture the tires of their shiny new cars. But I dont know how, so I make kick drum tones and guitar buzzes and screaming, crying vocal sounds that do it for me! Especially with recording on computers, man- the dynamics and range from quiet to loud is so severe and fun, that I can get knockout punches delivered from every instrument, and when a band and singer is really stunning, we can really create a massive impact. I think even with gentle gorgeous subtle music, like some of the Satellites rare quiet songs (often sung in Mallorcan, and the ones in English with such heart rending lyrics!)- we achieve a kind of pure beauty thats so damned pretty that even that feels like its "in your face!". So maybe the vividness, lack of commercial additives (fluff) and emotional piercing throughare what I try to bring to each song I record and produce.
******What were your feelings when The Strokes abandoned Nigel Godrich as the producer of Room on Fire' and took you on board again?*******
I couldn't believe it, really. I truly belived that when Nigel showed Julian and Fab what kind of powerhouse drum sounds he can make, among other things- that they would fall in love with his abilities. I tried to immerse myself in my band and in Shoplifter Records cuz I truly thought that they were going to be happy with him. I was of course overjoyed and suprised when I got the call to go to New York and work on Room On Fire. Not quite as tearfully thankful to the divine heavens as I was when I got The Strokes back from Gil Norton, for after all, I really was unknown and struggling so hard at that point. After they called me for Room On Fire I just marvelled, as I very often do, at the wierdness of the multi-dimensional universe.
******You are listed as one of the best keyboardists of all time'on certain websites,do you think your musical prowess is often overshadowed?******
Well I was happy and doubtful whan I saw that listing, but glad that someone noticed what I can do. I am not a very technically muscular, chordally intelligent pianist. I have suffered from intense insecurity about my playing since I was a kid. I cried alot cuz I couldnt figure out how to read music well, and I swear I heard my metronome speeding up and slowing down, so how was I supposed to play in time?? I got kicked out of all my first bands, which has scarred my soul and I have to try so hard to find my true musical voice. I had some real breakthoughs when I was about 19 and 20 years old. It was then, after 11 years of practicing and being just plain hoplessly terrible, that I accomplished a very good synthesizer solo on a recording in a band called Medusa. The main writer, vocalist and bassist (Brian Phraner) of that band patiently sat with me for about a year, every day and coached me untill I could really begin to see the light in music. I had a previous important breakthrough at the age of 18 that has forever changed my life and abilities (its rather strange): I was in a hotel room after a gig with a band called The Sorceror's Apprentice, the number one top band in Seattle that year (1976!). I thought I was a true rockstar at 18 years old, cuz I was accepted into this band as a keyboard player, and got to buy the Arp Odyssey, and Solina keyboards of my dreams, as well as a Hammond M-3 with Leslie speaker 147 and Fender Rhodes through Jet Phasor! I had custom made silver suits, groupie girls who brought me chocolate Easter bunnies and nail polish...you name it, but I sucked in my musical skills. I couldnt even get any good sounds from my precious ARP Odyssey, they were all just crap! I had the brilliant idea that while the other band members went to sleep, I would sit in the dark with headphones on, plugged into the ARP Odyssey and drop a giant hit of acid! Yes, Gordon- great idea. While the others slept peacefully, I sat on my bed in total darkness and began to move the many knobs faders and switches on my synthesizer as these massive lights began to flash and hallucinations started to creep from my stomach, up my spine and into my head. As I moved the faders and switches, playing the keyboard blindly in the dark hotel room a voice, apparently coming from the synth started talking to me in a tone that was a combination of a wise alien, a bird and a wind! The eerie voice announced "Gordon, I am your ARP Odyssey synth, and I am going to tell you the secrets of how I work, once and for all" For hours I sat moving things on that machine and hearing one million of the coolest, most astounding sounds I'd ever heard before. Sounds like an opera singer practicing vocal scales in a room far away. Combinations of outerspace and animal noises. Tribal drum rhythms as heard whilst flying across the sky, A mouse morphing into a bird, Whispering and talking in strange unknown languages etc. I even went down the hallway into the stage area at 4 in the morning and turned on the rest of my keyboards and wrote my first ever song. I had been trying to write a song for 5 years, and never could before. Ironically I forgot the song when I awoke the next day- and it wouldnt be for another year til I really wrote my first song that stuck with me! However, ever since that day, as proven time and time again, with many bands and in front of many people- I can get the most stunning and evocative sounds from that ARP Odyssey synthesizer. It has no computer memory, so there are an infinite number of sounds it can make, but never the same sound twice! Perhaps its the sounds and feelings the sounds bring that make people like my own music. I have written 3-4 thousand songs, as recording my own stuff is really all I ever did with my days since January first 1980. The first and last song on our new Black-Light album is really tryuly the first song I ever finished recording from beginning to end, "Substitute Music". I invented it as a kind of thing to listen to when music isn't appropriate, I also designed this song with a hypnotic one note pounding all the way through it, because I wanted to make a kind of song that would be very hard for people to talk over while its playing, especially loudly. I hate when people talk while great music is playing, its so stupid. Background music? Musical wallpaper? Thats what alot of songs are, and I dont like it.
*****It's been mentioned that you've been doing production sessions with Ian >Astbury of the Cult? What is happening with them?******
Alan Mcgee was kind enough to introduce me to Ian Astbury, legendary lead singer with The Cult and now fronting a little band from America called The Doors!!! This man, Ian was so responsible for kickstarting a kind of rock music that blew people's minds in Seattle. The first 2 The Cult videos came on in our local club The Vogue, and girls left their boyfriends to stand in awe of Ian dancing and singing on the huge wall sized projection thing there. That was it. The first long haired musician to dare and appear after the punk rock, new wave - mandatory short hair scene. The girls were gone over him, lost forever, and the boys just sat back and watched the future of rock dance before there eyes in She Sells Sanctuary and Revolution. So when I met Ian it was a pretty misty-exciting event for me, I think even Nirvana named themselves after one of his songs, really! Ian came to my studio 2 days after we met, and listened to some recordings I had made. He gave me generous compliments on the Black-Light stuff, and asked to record some new songs of his own with me, using my own band members and sweet Becca from C33x on guitar as well. It was one of the most joyous and energy filled recording experiences I have ever had, and I felt more awake and happier after we finished working those days than when we began. He aced the singing in first takes everytime, and jeezus that voice could melt iron! I really liked all three songs we did together, and am especially proud that I got to sing some backups (little high choir parts) as well. I tried to put some synths on, but I think those really didnt help. Also I believe we found Ian a really terrific vocal sound with my small Amek BC II mixing board's pre-amps and the Distressor Compressor. It rips. Now he's off with the Doors again, and I hope something great comes of those demos we made together.
Hey Poptones! Alan and Paul- thank you so much for taking the time and letting me speak my mind!
Gordon Raphael New York City /September 8th 2004