Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Richard Russell on Building the Greatest Indie Label Ever

Transcript

Richard Russell on Building the Greatest Indie Label Ever · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. The London based XL Recordings is one of the
0:14
Speaker 1: premier indie labels in the last few years. Along with
0:17
Speaker 1: their offshoot Young Turks. They've released music by Adell, Radiohead
0:21
Speaker 1: and Tom York, Kamassi Washington, Ktronata, F, Gay Twigs, and
0:26
Speaker 1: this new release, Richard Russell's Everything Is Recorded. Richard Russell
0:32
Speaker 1: is the head of XCEL the boss Man, but he
0:35
Speaker 1: loves producing tracks. He's been doing it since the eighties,
0:39
Speaker 1: but there's a period of time when he gave it
0:40
Speaker 1: up to focus on developing the label, and it was
0:43
Speaker 1: a good move because once XL got off the ground
0:45
Speaker 1: in eighty nine, they quickly established themselves with big releases
0:48
Speaker 1: from The Prodigy and later releasing some of the earliest
0:51
Speaker 1: records from The White Stripes, Vampire Weekend and Tyler the Creator.
0:56
Speaker 1: Richard and Rick Rubin first met thirty years ago when
0:58
Speaker 1: Richard was trying to get a distribut uan deal for
1:00
Speaker 1: XCEL in the US. A deal didn't happen, but they've
1:04
Speaker 1: remained good friends. So when Richard was in LA recently,
1:06
Speaker 1: he and Rick sat to record an episode of Broken Record.
1:10
Speaker 1: They talk about Richard's return to making music when he
1:12
Speaker 1: produced the last album by the late great Gil Scott, Heron,
1:16
Speaker 1: Rick and Russell. Trace XL's evolution from its beginning as
1:19
Speaker 1: a dance label to its release in Dizzy Rascal's first album,
1:22
Speaker 1: A Widershed Moment in British Rap, to their success with
1:25
Speaker 1: indie bands and adele. This is Broken Record Season three
1:32
Speaker 1: liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's
1:39
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin's conversation with his friend Richard Russell from Shangra la.
1:43
Speaker 1: Oh when do we meet? Do you remember what year
1:45
Speaker 1: we met? I think I was out here and meeting
1:47
Speaker 1: year in ninety one? Wow? And what year to do
1:50
Speaker 1: start to label? Eighty nine? Yes. So there was a
1:54
Speaker 1: record store in London called Groove Records in Soho in
1:57
Speaker 1: Greek Street. Soho in London us to be full of
2:00
Speaker 1: record stores. That was a fantastic grassroots scene, the kind
2:05
Speaker 1: of record store scene. So the Yeah, there was the
2:10
Speaker 1: record stores. There was Groove Records. There was a guy
2:12
Speaker 1: called Tim Palmer. There was a producer. There were two
2:14
Speaker 1: Tim Palmers. This is not the producer Timparma. This is
2:16
Speaker 1: the record store owner, Tim Palmer. In London. Groove was
2:19
Speaker 1: the best shop. It was the smallest shop. It was tiny.
2:22
Speaker 1: They had all the hip hop records used to come
2:24
Speaker 1: in from New York, used to sell them in their
2:26
Speaker 1: dance records from Chicago and Detroit. It and it was
2:31
Speaker 1: to me that was a portal, magic, mystical portal. How
2:37
Speaker 1: often did you go? I used to get the tube
2:40
Speaker 1: up there. I actually remember once when I was meant
2:44
Speaker 1: a bit of synagogue on Yom kipor getting the tube
2:46
Speaker 1: up to Groove Records and feeling a fair bit of guilt.
2:51
Speaker 1: That's what That's what I was meant to be doing.
2:56
Speaker 1: So Tim had Groove Records. He was selling huge amounts
3:01
Speaker 1: of certain imports, and he was introduced to the idea
3:06
Speaker 1: of licensing in that if you're selling thousands of copies
3:12
Speaker 1: of one import twelve inch from New York, you could
3:14
Speaker 1: potentially do a deal whereby you have the rights to
3:17
Speaker 1: press it yourself. And that just makes more sense than importing,
3:21
Speaker 1: of course, And there was a burgeoning kind of cottage
3:27
Speaker 1: industry for labels in the UK, licensing records from independence,
3:34
Speaker 1: mostly in New York. And he was introduced by his
3:41
Speaker 1: brother to Martin Mills, and Martin had Beggars Banquet, which
3:49
Speaker 1: was a label, the label of going newman in the UK. Who.
3:55
Speaker 1: I guess you would have been making records for not
3:57
Speaker 1: long after this, right, you'd have been making a cult record. Yes,
4:02
Speaker 1: that was the first album I ever produced, was the
4:05
Speaker 1: cult Electric for Beggar's Banquet, first non hip hop album.
4:10
Speaker 1: It may have been the first first period because i'd
4:13
Speaker 1: only done I think i'd only done singles up to then.
4:17
Speaker 1: I can't remember if the cults Electric or if he
4:20
Speaker 1: Little Cool Jay's Radio came out first. I cannot mind you.
4:24
Speaker 1: You you are not the best historian of your own history.
4:27
Speaker 1: I've noticed this with you. No, I don't. I don't
4:29
Speaker 1: remember much. I think it's very healthy. Yeah, well I
4:31
Speaker 1: don't look back at all. I know I've noticed that.
4:33
Speaker 1: I think it's healthy. I listened. There was a very
4:35
Speaker 1: funny moment. I don't know if you noticed how funny
4:37
Speaker 1: it was in when you did one of these with
4:39
Speaker 1: T bo Burnett where I've not listened back. So you
4:42
Speaker 1: talked about the but he was sitting right where you're
4:44
Speaker 1: sitting right. You talked about that. Yeah, sort of. This
4:47
Speaker 1: is like a self referential moment and referencing back. Yes,
4:50
Speaker 1: I'm always referencing back to things. There was a moment
4:53
Speaker 1: in the show where you talked about the wonderful Robert
4:56
Speaker 1: Plant and Alison Krauts record Yes, I love that record
5:00
Speaker 1: spectacular And you said to him, have you worked on
5:03
Speaker 1: any other records where you've got two unlikely people? Yes,
5:08
Speaker 1: and he said, have you ever done that? And you
5:10
Speaker 1: can remember if you ever had done that? And then
5:12
Speaker 1: somewhat later in the show he mentioned the run DMC
5:15
Speaker 1: and Eira Smith record yea, and of course you had
5:17
Speaker 1: done that, and that's one of the most famous examples
5:22
Speaker 1: of that being done ever. Yeah, and you did that,
5:25
Speaker 1: but you can record it in that minute. No, and
5:26
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I don't think of it in that context,
5:28
Speaker 1: but yes, it does fit. Yeah, absolutely. That must help you,
5:32
Speaker 1: right with you with what you do, to not be
5:36
Speaker 1: all down in what you did before. I guess I
5:39
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think about it at all. It's
5:41
Speaker 1: not a it doesn't come into the doesn't come into
5:44
Speaker 1: the thinking at all. But it must be. There must
5:48
Speaker 1: be some philosophical reason for not looking back. We'll usually
5:53
Speaker 1: just take so long to make things. And you know,
5:56
Speaker 1: if I listen as a fan, I mean listen to
6:00
Speaker 1: something a thousand times, but probably not a thousand and one.
6:04
Speaker 1: You know, there's a certain point where you've played it
6:06
Speaker 1: out and you don't listen to it again for a
6:08
Speaker 1: long time. Anything I've worked on, I've listened to it
6:11
Speaker 1: enough for my whole life before anyone else has ever
6:14
Speaker 1: heard it. And I'm good with it. And there's so
6:17
Speaker 1: much music to hear, and I love music. Why would
6:19
Speaker 1: I want to spend more time listening to things that
6:22
Speaker 1: I made when I can listen to things that other
6:23
Speaker 1: people made and maybe that I've never heard. Well, I
6:27
Speaker 1: could suggest a reason why you should do that? Tell
6:29
Speaker 1: me how sort of evolutionary paths as people? So much
6:34
Speaker 1: of it is about self awareness as people. Right, Yes,
6:39
Speaker 1: So any therapy we do whatever, we're kind of exploring
6:43
Speaker 1: stuff that happened. So I wonder if there's an argument
6:46
Speaker 1: that if by examining previous work we do and seeing
6:52
Speaker 1: what we did and seeing what happened, I think it
6:54
Speaker 1: is potentially it can. I suppose it depends how the
6:56
Speaker 1: individual works, but I think that can be a way
6:59
Speaker 1: of learning things about ourselves now and for what we do,
7:03
Speaker 1: like why we made the decisions we made when we
7:05
Speaker 1: made them. Yeah, I mean I went to something called
7:09
Speaker 1: a pitch black playback where they take an album and
7:15
Speaker 1: they blindfold you and you sit in a black room
7:17
Speaker 1: and listen. That sounds great. And they were doing an
7:19
Speaker 1: event for the album I'm New Here I produced by
7:23
Speaker 1: Gil Scott heron Beautiful and invited me to go. Initially,
7:26
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm not going to go. I'm
7:27
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna do that. And then I thought,
7:29
Speaker 1: it is ten years ago I made that record. That
7:33
Speaker 1: was actually the first record of this era of record
7:37
Speaker 1: making for me. It's kind of that was the start
7:39
Speaker 1: of a ten years what's so far up in ten
7:41
Speaker 1: years of making records in an active, studio based way,
7:45
Speaker 1: and I thought, I think I probably should do that.
7:49
Speaker 1: I mean, the record was only twenty nine minutes long.
7:51
Speaker 1: I thought why not. So I went along and listened
7:53
Speaker 1: to it and it was extremely revealing. Yes, one thing
7:57
Speaker 1: I realized is that I've learned a lot about producing
8:01
Speaker 1: records since then, and whilst that might be helping me
8:03
Speaker 1: in some ways, I also think it's causing me to
8:07
Speaker 1: that there's a risk of losing some of the spontaneity
8:10
Speaker 1: it was occurring then, partly because I just didn't know
8:13
Speaker 1: what I was doing. Yes, I think it was helping me. No,
8:15
Speaker 1: for sure, that's true. That's true for everybody. By the way,
8:18
Speaker 1: that that idea that when we start doing things, there's
8:22
Speaker 1: this naive energy where we may make some terrible mistakes,
8:26
Speaker 1: but very interesting things can happen. And then as we
8:29
Speaker 1: do it for a long time, we kind of learn
8:32
Speaker 1: our craft and we replace that naive energy with wisdom
8:37
Speaker 1: that we didn't have before, and we just make different things.
8:39
Speaker 1: It's not better or worse. But I don't know that
8:41
Speaker 1: you can put the genie back in the bottle, do
8:43
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think it's just I
8:47
Speaker 1: do a lot of things in my work to not
8:50
Speaker 1: know what's happening. I tricked myself in different ways to
8:55
Speaker 1: experience something as if it's the first time. Yes, I
8:58
Speaker 1: suppose I've never quite articulate to I do that as
9:01
Speaker 1: given an example of how you do that. When we're
9:03
Speaker 1: working on a project, I never take anything home with me,
9:06
Speaker 1: so I don't have the thought of listening to it.
9:11
Speaker 1: I try to work on different things at the same
9:13
Speaker 1: time because I'm if I get completely absorbed in a
9:17
Speaker 1: different project, even for two hours. There's been this palette
9:23
Speaker 1: cleansing effect of working on something else and really focusing
9:28
Speaker 1: on it that when I'm coming back there is a
9:29
Speaker 1: little bit of a reset. So if there was something,
9:33
Speaker 1: if I was getting any tunnel vision before from working
9:36
Speaker 1: on it in a straight line for a long time,
9:41
Speaker 1: I might start losing perspective by working on something different.
9:46
Speaker 1: And it could even be by listening to other things.
9:48
Speaker 1: It's happened sometimes with a band, like for working on
9:51
Speaker 1: a song and playing it over and over and over again,
9:53
Speaker 1: and it starts it starts sounding like they're not as
9:59
Speaker 1: interested in it, Like even though we're getting closer to
10:01
Speaker 1: the correct arrangement, you can see that the life of
10:06
Speaker 1: it's going away. I might say, hey, play a different song,
10:09
Speaker 1: you know, just play one of your favorite songs, and
10:12
Speaker 1: just shifting out of the mood of the song could
10:16
Speaker 1: be enough that when we come back to it it
10:18
Speaker 1: has kind of a freshness again. That's extremely interesting, and
10:23
Speaker 1: I think I've ended up adopting the opposite approach, and
10:29
Speaker 1: I do question it sometimes in that I've established this
10:33
Speaker 1: rule for myself of working incredibly strictly on one thing
10:36
Speaker 1: at a time and only one thing at a time,
10:39
Speaker 1: and I take stuff out of the studio and listen
10:44
Speaker 1: to it and all sorts of other places, and I
10:47
Speaker 1: get so immersed in the project I'm lost in it.
10:53
Speaker 1: In some ways, I think I like being lost in
10:55
Speaker 1: it because it's almost like oblivion or something. I'm so
10:57
Speaker 1: sort of in it, almost like I'm in it and
11:00
Speaker 1: I'm asleep when I'm doing it. But it's um, it's
11:05
Speaker 1: probably good. It's downside, And I think one thing is
11:07
Speaker 1: that I think there's something about the taking out of
11:10
Speaker 1: music from the studio and listening to it that does
11:12
Speaker 1: have a slightly can be stressful when you do that,
11:17
Speaker 1: and stress is never really helpful. There's something about that
11:20
Speaker 1: because it's like you something you're in the middle of
11:23
Speaker 1: working on. If you listen to that, you you're really listening.
11:28
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not like someone listening to a tune
11:30
Speaker 1: on the radio. And so because I take it with me,
11:33
Speaker 1: I will do that at home. And so suddenly you're working.
11:37
Speaker 1: You're working, and you're working intensely hard, and you can't
11:42
Speaker 1: really take action on what you're working on because you're
11:45
Speaker 1: not in the studio, so you can't make the changes
11:47
Speaker 1: you're hear. Yeah, and it's almost something that might make
11:53
Speaker 1: sense to do if you were in a tremendous rush
11:55
Speaker 1: to get something done, but I never am, so I
11:57
Speaker 1: slightly wonder why I've got into that. Okay, well that's
11:59
Speaker 1: a very useful, so useful things come out today. I'm
12:03
Speaker 1: going to have to I'm gonna have to ponder that.
12:04
Speaker 1: And my theory in general is if you have a
12:09
Speaker 1: method that works for you, try something different. So that
12:13
Speaker 1: means for me, I'm going to try a project where
12:17
Speaker 1: I just think about it all the time and see
12:19
Speaker 1: what happens. We'll be back with more Richard Russell after
12:22
Speaker 1: the break. We're back with more from Richard Russell. So, yeah,
12:30
Speaker 1: when I when I met you, I think it was
12:32
Speaker 1: shortly after the Weed license Prodigy to Electra, and it
12:35
Speaker 1: actually might have been the other way around, because yeah,
12:38
Speaker 1: because I didn't know if Prodigy was right for us,
12:42
Speaker 1: because I knew we had the opportunity to do that,
12:44
Speaker 1: so it probably wasn't signed yet. I think we talked
12:47
Speaker 1: about I don't even know if you had albums because
12:49
Speaker 1: I thought it was just twelve and when we first
12:52
Speaker 1: could it could have would have been that. But you know,
12:55
Speaker 1: the Electra, the Prodigy, Electra, they all was short lived
13:00
Speaker 1: than maybe it was. Yeah, maybe that's right, it was
13:02
Speaker 1: that we got you know, signed and dropped really quickly. Yeah,
13:06
Speaker 1: so that may have been. It was that that experience
13:08
Speaker 1: of kind of walking into like a corporate American kind
13:13
Speaker 1: of shiny record company, everyone being really pleased to see you,
13:16
Speaker 1: and then like smash cut to like the record is
13:19
Speaker 1: not a hit, Yes, and it's like and I do
13:24
Speaker 1: think it's one of the one of the things I've
13:26
Speaker 1: identified as the sort of the shortcomings that if you
13:30
Speaker 1: have to deal with corporations, it's like there's these there's
13:33
Speaker 1: these modes of dealing with you whereby if you're like
13:37
Speaker 1: the objective desire or you're someone who's generating money for them,
13:41
Speaker 1: like you can, they'll kind of treat you a bit
13:43
Speaker 1: like a god. But if you're like not of interest,
13:47
Speaker 1: they're sort of like nothink. Yes, And really the correct
13:52
Speaker 1: way of dealing with someone is neither of those things. Yes,
13:54
Speaker 1: it's just to deal with a person as a person.
13:57
Speaker 1: Both both are unhealthy and neither of them support the
14:01
Speaker 1: best artistic work. Those experiences, though, with the licensing records
14:12
Speaker 1: to US Majors, which we did throughout the nineties and
14:18
Speaker 1: into the two thousands, although I was seeing a fair
14:24
Speaker 1: amount of stuff out here where I was like, you know,
14:29
Speaker 1: I was thinking, that doesn't doesn't seem that great, what's
14:32
Speaker 1: going on? I was also seeing this whole kind of
14:35
Speaker 1: ambitious way of looking at game music out there. Yes,
14:38
Speaker 1: it's kind of unique to America, and I do think
14:42
Speaker 1: I took some of that back with me. Yes, And
14:45
Speaker 1: I think I sort of developed this idea that that
14:49
Speaker 1: was really not It wasn't anything new about it. It
14:51
Speaker 1: was a combination of existing things. Where I was like,
14:55
Speaker 1: independent record labels are often especially the classic ones in
14:59
Speaker 1: the UK, they're often got really integrity, musical integrity, artistic sensitivity,
15:08
Speaker 1: genuine respect and support for the artists. That that was
15:13
Speaker 1: their big advantage. Majors had drive, ambition, they were competitive,
15:21
Speaker 1: they wanted to get the music to the biggest possible audience.
15:24
Speaker 1: Those were like the respective strengths and then there were
15:26
Speaker 1: respective weaknesses. And I just had this sort of it
15:32
Speaker 1: was almost like an epiphany of like, well, why can't
15:35
Speaker 1: we just be both of those things, the sensitivity of
15:39
Speaker 1: an independent in the integrity of it, and the drive
15:43
Speaker 1: of a major. And the next thing I thought was
15:46
Speaker 1: there must be a reason people don't do that, and
15:48
Speaker 1: there must be some part of the formula there must be.
15:51
Speaker 1: And the thing that struck me was hardly put any
15:53
Speaker 1: records out because otherwise it's not going to be possible.
15:57
Speaker 1: It's going to be there's not you know, you're not
15:59
Speaker 1: gonna have the power or the funds to do that
16:02
Speaker 1: a lot. But you could do that a bit, and
16:04
Speaker 1: so then it was like, okay, but then it needs
16:06
Speaker 1: to be. There needs to be real heart and soul
16:09
Speaker 1: in what these things are, absolutely and what we do,
16:12
Speaker 1: and even in the most sort of earthly mainstream thing
16:16
Speaker 1: we've ever done, which is Adele Yes, I think she's
16:19
Speaker 1: got that yes, because it's in HER's if you've met her,
16:23
Speaker 1: she's got it. She's not sweetness and light. That's not
16:26
Speaker 1: how she is. She's telling it like it is, you know.
16:28
Speaker 1: And the joke I made after I first met her
16:31
Speaker 1: to Jonathan, who's her manager, as I said, I think
16:34
Speaker 1: she's a punk Barbara Strident. She is, and she is,
16:37
Speaker 1: and it's like, I don't think anyone else has ever
16:40
Speaker 1: combined punk and Barbara Streident. So again it's like a
16:45
Speaker 1: I don't know what her I don't know what her
16:46
Speaker 1: takers along I'll ask, I don't know what her takers
16:48
Speaker 1: on that that idea that that's what she don't know
16:51
Speaker 1: how she feels about punk music, but unquestionably she's got
16:55
Speaker 1: that ability to say, mmm, fuck that we're moving on,
17:00
Speaker 1: and it's such a big part of her building what
17:04
Speaker 1: she's built. So I think that kind of character, I'm
17:07
Speaker 1: very dawned to that kind of character, you know, the
17:10
Speaker 1: sort of it's characters who who are often seen by
17:13
Speaker 1: people as difficult, but they're not really difficult. They're only
17:15
Speaker 1: difficult if you're sort of trying to mess with them
17:20
Speaker 1: and stop them doing what they know they should be doing. Yes,
17:22
Speaker 1: But actually working with that type of character, it's it's
17:26
Speaker 1: really the easiest thing, isn't it if you if you're
17:28
Speaker 1: a believer, Yeah, because they know what they're doing and
17:30
Speaker 1: you support what they do. It's they're only difficult because
17:34
Speaker 1: people trying to get them to do something that they don't,
17:36
Speaker 1: that they know is not right for them to do. Yeah,
17:38
Speaker 1: And then it's God help you exactly, God help you
17:41
Speaker 1: know trying to do that. So I think those, you know,
17:43
Speaker 1: those type of characters always and I always get a
17:46
Speaker 1: sort of you know, Jack, whyite is that type of character?
17:50
Speaker 1: Damon albarn Is that type of the first artist. So
17:54
Speaker 1: it started as a dance label. Would you call it
17:56
Speaker 1: a dance lay What would you describe the early excel
17:59
Speaker 1: a rave label, rave le ray label? Yeah, so it
18:02
Speaker 1: was elected. Was it all programmed? Yeah? Oh yeah, so
18:05
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't there was a live instrument or
18:07
Speaker 1: one of our records. Program based electronic music. It would
18:10
Speaker 1: be the precursors of edms. Could we say that, well,
18:15
Speaker 1: m M, what was it the precursor of or is it?
18:20
Speaker 1: I mean ADM to me was a bit like if
18:24
Speaker 1: you had hippie parents and they had a child who
18:28
Speaker 1: became an investment banker and they were sort of looking
18:30
Speaker 1: on a ghast. That's how I felt about ADM. Okay,
18:33
Speaker 1: but so so then it is then it is what
18:35
Speaker 1: I That is what I mean. So it was the
18:40
Speaker 1: That's how the blues guys probably felt hearing led Zeppelin,
18:45
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying? Possibly there was a
18:48
Speaker 1: I think there was a there was a materialism. It
18:53
Speaker 1: was the sort of Las Vegas materialistic aspect of it
18:57
Speaker 1: that seemed felt to me. I don't think that that.
19:00
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's about the culture of it. But
19:03
Speaker 1: the music, I don't think the music was made with
19:05
Speaker 1: Las Vegas and man, that's probably true. Yeah, that's that's
19:09
Speaker 1: probably fair. I mean that the rave scene in the
19:11
Speaker 1: UK was you know, I've been I've been traveling back
19:17
Speaker 1: a little bit recently because Keith Flint passed away from
19:21
Speaker 1: Prodigy very recently. Yes, and so that's led to us
19:27
Speaker 1: just talking about that period, which we really talked about
19:30
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, you know, it was an amazing,
19:31
Speaker 1: amazing time and I think when you were in it,
19:36
Speaker 1: you were just in it, aren't you? You're just doing it.
19:39
Speaker 1: I had the same experience here going to raves that
19:44
Speaker 1: I had going to the early hip hop clubs. It
19:47
Speaker 1: was the same feeling. It was the same energy and excitement. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: so I mean the early parties at home where there
19:59
Speaker 1: was a combination. I mean, it was. One thing that
20:01
Speaker 1: was interesting was it got the outdoor events, the unlicensed
20:06
Speaker 1: outdoor events. They were really big, the thousands of people.
20:13
Speaker 1: But it was something that just started existing so very quickly.
20:17
Speaker 1: It was just this sort of I suppose you know
20:18
Speaker 1: now people you talk about something going viral, that was
20:22
Speaker 1: that was the viral, pre pre viral viral. Yeah, and
20:25
Speaker 1: it's obviously always been possible for things to go viral.
20:27
Speaker 1: I suppose the Internet is just a means of that
20:29
Speaker 1: occur amplifier. Yeah, so you know, we beat those of
20:33
Speaker 1: it and they were quite a spectacle, those events because
20:35
Speaker 1: there were thousands of thousands of people and you know,
20:39
Speaker 1: dancing to music that was mostly from Chicago and Detroit.
20:45
Speaker 1: And then you know, we started making these records where
20:49
Speaker 1: we were kind of taking that sound. Of course, a
20:53
Speaker 1: lot of that sound was like a European synthesizer influenced sound.
20:55
Speaker 1: So they'd already been such a great dialogue. It's beautiful,
20:58
Speaker 1: isn't it. So there's you know, they're being influenced by
21:01
Speaker 1: like European dance records. They're making these more soulful techno records,
21:07
Speaker 1: and we were all frustrated be boys. We wanted to
21:11
Speaker 1: be making records like you made. You know, that's what
21:13
Speaker 1: we want, and it just did. We all did, and
21:15
Speaker 1: no one liked them. You know, we all made British
21:17
Speaker 1: Sure where recor was. Liam was in a group called
21:19
Speaker 1: Cut to Kill. You know, I used to work with
21:21
Speaker 1: this MC called Lord Jat. I mean, we really tried
21:24
Speaker 1: to do that, but no one was really interested. And
21:26
Speaker 1: then when we used those breakbeats and sped them up
21:31
Speaker 1: on the wrong speed, added them to the the techno sounds,
21:35
Speaker 1: and you know, we were making this this breakbeat rave sound.
21:39
Speaker 1: It's hard called breakbe rave sound. Suddenly everyone wanted to
21:43
Speaker 1: know about it. I made that song The Bouncer in
21:46
Speaker 1: an hour, and it was a top ten pop wreck.
21:48
Speaker 1: I mean, it was insane, but it was. They weren't
21:50
Speaker 1: on the radio, but the movement was so big, The
21:53
Speaker 1: grassroots movement was so big. If you had a song
21:56
Speaker 1: that was big in those parties, big on pirate radio,
22:00
Speaker 1: so many people will go out and by the twelve
22:02
Speaker 1: inch you'd find yourself. And so you know, I was
22:04
Speaker 1: on top of the pops. How did this happen? You
22:06
Speaker 1: know my name and my synth? Can I find the
22:09
Speaker 1: Bouncer right now on the streaming service? It could just
22:11
Speaker 1: be a question. That is the This was actually a
22:19
Speaker 1: mix that was on the B side, but it was
22:20
Speaker 1: still pretty good. I get this do it all day.
22:24
Speaker 1: That's nice. The thing that strikes me from from hearing that, though,
22:28
Speaker 1: is that we were you know, we were making records
22:30
Speaker 1: to DJ with. That was that was the only aim,
22:33
Speaker 1: and you couldn't really get it wrong. And the records
22:35
Speaker 1: we were putting out, and so we were making records
22:37
Speaker 1: and we were we were putting out other people's records,
22:39
Speaker 1: but they were they were for our DJ set, and
22:44
Speaker 1: you couldn't get that wrong. But there was a weakness
22:47
Speaker 1: in that approach I've worked out in retrospect, which was
22:51
Speaker 1: I got the first thing aphex to've never made, and
22:55
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, klenge thing, I can't look at. I
22:58
Speaker 1: get this in my DJ said, though, I can't work
22:59
Speaker 1: out where the spits. And I kind of put it
23:01
Speaker 1: on the shelf, literally on a shelf where I used
23:03
Speaker 1: to sort my records out because he put out a
23:04
Speaker 1: white label and I got it from Zoom Records in Camden.
23:08
Speaker 1: I tried to get it in my set. I can't
23:09
Speaker 1: get this in my set. I knew there was something
23:11
Speaker 1: interesting with it, but it was like constructs didn't It
23:13
Speaker 1: didn't fit the framework exactly, which was a limited framework exactly.
23:17
Speaker 1: And so I think the next phase for the label
23:20
Speaker 1: was like, well, let's now work with some things which
23:23
Speaker 1: don't fit. And what was the first don't fit? Um?
23:29
Speaker 1: There was a guy called Badly Drawn Boy who was
23:31
Speaker 1: from Yeah. So his debut was really really very very
23:35
Speaker 1: good records well, you know, there was a there was
23:38
Speaker 1: a ground, a sort of DJ ground there, and that
23:40
Speaker 1: he was working with a guy called Andy Votel who
23:43
Speaker 1: was like a kind of digger in Manchester, and they
23:47
Speaker 1: had a label called Twisted Nerve. So they had their
23:49
Speaker 1: little kind of scene going there that their culture and
23:51
Speaker 1: Andy was into like crout rock soundtrack movie Italian soundtracks.
23:57
Speaker 1: He was a beathead um. He did the artwork, he
24:01
Speaker 1: played an important but so it wasn't like completely removed,
24:06
Speaker 1: but it was definitely a leap somewhere different to someone
24:09
Speaker 1: who was clearing an album artist a live artist. I mean,
24:13
Speaker 1: we had one artist called sl two which was in
24:15
Speaker 1: the early which was two DJs called Slip Matt and Lime,
24:19
Speaker 1: and they had a couple of huge rave singles. They
24:23
Speaker 1: were monsters, these songs. And I remember when I tried
24:28
Speaker 1: to discuss making an album with them, they were absolutely
24:34
Speaker 1: not going to make an album. And the reason for
24:36
Speaker 1: that was they said, well, the songs we record at
24:39
Speaker 1: the start, by the time we get to the end
24:43
Speaker 1: of recording, they're old and this is DJ music like this,
24:48
Speaker 1: I'm making this and it goes out now it's just current. Absolutely,
24:52
Speaker 1: So they were kind of not making an album as
24:56
Speaker 1: an ultimate statement of sort of DJ solid there or something,
25:00
Speaker 1: it's amazing. So there's no sell two albums. And you realize,
25:03
Speaker 1: because you don't make an album, you do slightly slip
25:07
Speaker 1: off of historical absolutely, And you know, it's funny because
25:11
Speaker 1: in the early days of hip hop, I never would
25:14
Speaker 1: have guessed there would ever be hip hop albums. I
25:17
Speaker 1: thought for sure that it was going to remain this,
25:21
Speaker 1: this twelve inch format. And it was my partner who said, no,
25:23
Speaker 1: we're gonna make albums, Like, how can you make an
25:26
Speaker 1: album that's not what this is? So it's interesting I could.
25:32
Speaker 1: I completely understand the perspective of and my reason was different.
25:38
Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily the immediacy of it. It was just
25:41
Speaker 1: that the format of these of a long track on
25:48
Speaker 1: one side and then maybe an instrumental or a variation
25:52
Speaker 1: on it on the b side. And it really did
25:56
Speaker 1: function in a way where if you were a DJ,
25:59
Speaker 1: you needed all stuff. So if you put that on
26:01
Speaker 1: an album, it won't be a good album. If you
26:04
Speaker 1: put all those those DJ tools on the album, it's
26:06
Speaker 1: not so good, you know. I I returned to that
26:11
Speaker 1: kind of eighty six era hip hop and it's not
26:15
Speaker 1: nostalgie of this. I think it's very inspiring. There's something
26:20
Speaker 1: still very inspiring in it for me. I've also been
26:23
Speaker 1: listening to a lot of been, that kind of crowd rock,
26:26
Speaker 1: that sort of German progressive stuff of the seventies, and
26:29
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something about both of those types
26:31
Speaker 1: of music for me which just feels it says a
26:34
Speaker 1: kind of rawness and a spontaneity going on there. And
26:40
Speaker 1: there's you know, I've got I suppose you know, they've
26:42
Speaker 1: got the drums in common a lot of it, but
26:43
Speaker 1: there's a yeah, I've got a deep abiding love for that,
26:47
Speaker 1: for that era of music, it just hasn't gone anywhere.
26:50
Speaker 1: Well it again, it's like listening to the Beatles. It's
26:52
Speaker 1: like it defines, it defines a style of music. And
26:57
Speaker 1: the music that's made since in pup is really different
27:01
Speaker 1: than that. I wouldn't say it's worse, it's just different, yes,
27:05
Speaker 1: And if you want that, that's where you go to
27:08
Speaker 1: get it. It's like there's there isn't anything else that's
27:10
Speaker 1: specifically that flavor. Yeah, yeah, but it feels to me
27:14
Speaker 1: like there's maybe I mean, I guess this is why
27:18
Speaker 1: hip hop has maintained it's relevance. Is I think it's
27:25
Speaker 1: to do with a lack of deference to what went before. Yes,
27:29
Speaker 1: and I think that's really healthy. Yes, And I don't
27:32
Speaker 1: think see one thing I started noticing with with rock
27:36
Speaker 1: bands it's a little while ago. None of them When
27:42
Speaker 1: I was when I was talking to like band new bands,
27:46
Speaker 1: there was a moment where I thought, none of these
27:48
Speaker 1: bands think they're going to be better than the Beatles
27:53
Speaker 1: or even the Stones. They don't think that. Now, rappers
28:00
Speaker 1: and R and B artists are in no way looking
28:03
Speaker 1: at the people who went before them and saying I'm
28:05
Speaker 1: not going to be better than them. That's true, and
28:09
Speaker 1: that puts you in a completely because really, if you're
28:12
Speaker 1: if you're saying I'm not going to be better than
28:15
Speaker 1: something that happened fifty years ago, yes, I would argue,
28:17
Speaker 1: you're a little bit screwed. And I think what we're
28:20
Speaker 1: seeing there is you know what we're what we're seeing
28:23
Speaker 1: in I mean, I was thinking, you know, who's the
28:26
Speaker 1: greatest female R and B vocalist of all time? One
28:31
Speaker 1: strong argument is that it's Beyonce and that's happening right now.
28:35
Speaker 1: So we are in the sort of peak and maybe
28:40
Speaker 1: there's more peaks, but we're definitely not going down. Um,
28:45
Speaker 1: I don't think she would tell you that she's better
28:46
Speaker 1: than Aretha Frank No, No, absolutely, I understand that. But
28:51
Speaker 1: she's occupying a very very different space in culture and
28:56
Speaker 1: in commercial terms, staggeringly different. Yes, because my understanding is
29:01
Speaker 1: that Aretha was not competing with the biggest commercial things
29:03
Speaker 1: of her of her era. Depends in different moments. She
29:07
Speaker 1: did okay, but as a rule not always the case. Yeah,
29:13
Speaker 1: and you know, Beyonce, that feels like an artist where
29:18
Speaker 1: on a sort of creative level, on a commercial level,
29:21
Speaker 1: things are at such a kind of high that that
29:24
Speaker 1: affects everything in its genre, isn't this Everything's kind of
29:28
Speaker 1: higher because of that. And Yeah, and rap artists they
29:31
Speaker 1: just they just don't have that. I mean, it's amazing.
29:34
Speaker 1: We'd like the British thing. No current British rapper knows
29:38
Speaker 1: any British rapper in the past, and they are moving forward.
29:42
Speaker 1: That seems great. What's happening healthy Right now, We'll be
29:45
Speaker 1: back with more from Richard Russell and Rick Rubin. We're
29:52
Speaker 1: back with more of Richard Russell. After a badly drawn
29:55
Speaker 1: boy who was the next in the well. I think
30:00
Speaker 1: then we kind of hit our stride, like something was
30:03
Speaker 1: sort of unlocked then. So there was like a run
30:09
Speaker 1: where we worked with completely different artists and like basically
30:14
Speaker 1: we got to do the opposite of what we did
30:18
Speaker 1: in the first place, which is what I really wanted
30:20
Speaker 1: because no question, those scenes scenes are a great place
30:23
Speaker 1: to start, but you know what starts as the platform
30:27
Speaker 1: kind of becomes the jail, you know, and you get
30:29
Speaker 1: typecasts really easily. So we were doing in fairly quick
30:35
Speaker 1: succession Dizzy Rascal, who was a very very significant game
30:42
Speaker 1: changing artist in the UK in terms of he was
30:44
Speaker 1: the start. He made the defining masterpiece of crime, the
30:49
Speaker 1: Boy in the Corner album, astonishing album, and there was
30:52
Speaker 1: something going on there where I was like, because badly
30:55
Speaker 1: John Boy had won this thing, the Mercury Prize in
30:57
Speaker 1: the UK, which had really helped him. But Dizzy was
31:01
Speaker 1: a British rapper whish rap was a dirty, dirty word, yes,
31:05
Speaker 1: but he had made a masterpiece. I knew he was
31:07
Speaker 1: making a masterpiece, and I felt like, what this artist
31:10
Speaker 1: needs is something like that, yes, And I remember actually
31:15
Speaker 1: putting them under time pressure and saying this should be
31:18
Speaker 1: submitted I mean yet they might totally ignore it, but
31:21
Speaker 1: this needs to be submitted to that thing. And he
31:23
Speaker 1: ended up winning that prize. Wow, yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,
31:27
Speaker 1: and it was a huge thing I think for this
31:31
Speaker 1: world where he was coming from a pirate radio, proper
31:34
Speaker 1: street music in the UK and he was tell people
31:40
Speaker 1: about the Mercury Price because many people in the in
31:43
Speaker 1: the in America don't know about that. Well, it's a
31:46
Speaker 1: very healthy thing. I mean, obviously we all have to
31:48
Speaker 1: be a bit circumspect about awards because it's not it's
31:52
Speaker 1: not a reason to be doing things. But the Mercury
31:54
Speaker 1: Prize they basically say every year they say these are
31:58
Speaker 1: the ten best British albums. This year they name the
32:04
Speaker 1: ten records. All of the records kind of win. Yes,
32:07
Speaker 1: and it's and it's always by a first album. It's
32:10
Speaker 1: not it's not debuts, it's just British records. What I'm think,
32:14
Speaker 1: does it have to be their first album? Could be,
32:16
Speaker 1: it could be any from any point in their career. Yeah,
32:19
Speaker 1: so that I always think of it as a new artist.
32:20
Speaker 1: So when skept one a couple of years ago, so
32:23
Speaker 1: so they name ten records, but then one is named
32:26
Speaker 1: on the night they have a panel and they're in
32:28
Speaker 1: a room, yes, and they argue about it on the
32:31
Speaker 1: night in some secretive way, and then they come out
32:34
Speaker 1: and say, this one's the winner. It's obviously it's always
32:36
Speaker 1: a bit controversial, but then that's fine. You know that
32:39
Speaker 1: it makes people talk about albums absolutely, So the year
32:42
Speaker 1: that Skepto one the other most the other. The argument
32:47
Speaker 1: that evening I was told obviously between should the Skepto
32:49
Speaker 1: album win or should that final David Bowie album Black
32:52
Speaker 1: Star when? And that's just a really healthy, absolutely sort
32:56
Speaker 1: of dialogue. And my own record, which is called Everything
32:59
Speaker 1: is Recorded, It got was in it last year, so
33:02
Speaker 1: that was great and we performed, you know, I got
33:03
Speaker 1: everyone who was on the record and we all agree,
33:05
Speaker 1: you know. So that was a that was an exciting thing.
33:08
Speaker 1: But I think it was it was seismic for Dizzy
33:11
Speaker 1: and for grime because because it was it was shedding
33:14
Speaker 1: a light on something that people were brushing under the
33:18
Speaker 1: rug absolutely and that you know, it was in the
33:21
Speaker 1: in the raids and in the you know, it was
33:23
Speaker 1: it was bubbling. There was stuff going on, but it
33:26
Speaker 1: needed it needed something like that. So yeah, that was
33:30
Speaker 1: that was kind of seismic. So there was there was Dizzy, Um,
33:35
Speaker 1: there was the White Stripes. You know, I still worked
33:38
Speaker 1: with Jack White and so that was a very very
33:41
Speaker 1: interesting thing of like they were you know, they were
33:47
Speaker 1: some way into it already to what they were doing,
33:50
Speaker 1: because they've been putting albums out over here, but I
33:54
Speaker 1: think somehow people are sort of bracted them. Was like
33:58
Speaker 1: a blues act, a sort of odd act, and kind
34:02
Speaker 1: of like initially there was a feeling about the White
34:05
Speaker 1: Stripes because they had two albums out of like we
34:08
Speaker 1: just don't need to bother with this for some reason.
34:11
Speaker 1: But then then there was just that moment where things
34:13
Speaker 1: seem to kind of click yes, and suddenly people were
34:16
Speaker 1: seeing how exciting and unique this potentially was. And you know,
34:21
Speaker 1: Jack's one of these polymath figures. Is very unusual, you know,
34:25
Speaker 1: to have all these abilities of virtuoso guitarist, vocalist, writer, producer,
34:33
Speaker 1: does the artwork. You know, it was a furniture maker,
34:37
Speaker 1: you know, like almost like a prince like spread. So yeah,
34:42
Speaker 1: the White Stripes was like it was. They were very
34:45
Speaker 1: very successful in the UK. We didn't put their records
34:48
Speaker 1: out in America, but they were really like a sort
34:53
Speaker 1: of um they just caught on in a huge way
34:59
Speaker 1: doing something really original and outside of the mainstream that
35:05
Speaker 1: became the mainstream. And then there's this amazing sort of
35:08
Speaker 1: seven nation army thing when this has become like I
35:13
Speaker 1: actually wonder if that is now the biggest guitar riff
35:16
Speaker 1: of all time. I know that's a big claim, but
35:18
Speaker 1: it's up there. I mean, you you hear it everywhere.
35:24
Speaker 1: You hear you hear I don't even mean I mean
35:27
Speaker 1: you people sing the guitar riff everywhere. Yeah, I mean,
35:33
Speaker 1: because it became this huge sports thing all around the world, Yes,
35:37
Speaker 1: where soccer fans sing that riff. I'd say it's definitely
35:42
Speaker 1: the last great guitar riff. Probably not say there never
35:47
Speaker 1: be another one, but since um so and then m
35:54
Speaker 1: I A where you know this was my A was
35:57
Speaker 1: an artist who people really could not get their head
36:01
Speaker 1: around in the UK, but we always kind of had
36:04
Speaker 1: a feeling that here somehow, and there was an you know,
36:10
Speaker 1: I'd had these experiences of coming out here and licensing
36:13
Speaker 1: records to people, and we did her record with Interscope
36:15
Speaker 1: out here, and that it was pretty helpful, you know,
36:18
Speaker 1: to sort of help really show people out and working
36:21
Speaker 1: with Diplo. This was the first thing Diplo did, so actually,
36:24
Speaker 1: I think Diplo and Maya was a bit of a
36:26
Speaker 1: two Alpha's combination, like that wasn't going to last forever,
36:30
Speaker 1: but it was fireworks while it did. It was really great,
36:33
Speaker 1: and they both had a sort of similar approach to
36:38
Speaker 1: like a bit of the clash, a bit of dance
36:42
Speaker 1: all you know, a bit of Brazilian music, and that
36:49
Speaker 1: was this this Yeah, it was very very exciting. And
36:51
Speaker 1: then so then we were sort of into this other
36:55
Speaker 1: phase where I was wanting to get back in the
36:58
Speaker 1: studio and I made this record with girls Apharent so
37:00
Speaker 1: then this so this started a kind of other sort
37:04
Speaker 1: of another lane open. Yes, and I'm back in the
37:08
Speaker 1: studio and I'm making a record with Gil and this
37:09
Speaker 1: leads to making a record with Bobby Womack and then
37:11
Speaker 1: the Damon albarn Sola record, and uma that Gil was
37:17
Speaker 1: going to be the first one, Like did you how
37:20
Speaker 1: did it work out that Gil was the first one
37:23
Speaker 1: you chose to do? So I was, you know, Liam
37:28
Speaker 1: from Prodigy. He was always very good at saying to me,
37:32
Speaker 1: are you making beats? A you're making records and you
37:34
Speaker 1: were you used to say that to me as well? Yeah,
37:37
Speaker 1: and I really know you really like it, y, because
37:39
Speaker 1: I love it. I love doing that, I really know.
37:42
Speaker 1: And when I didn't do it, it really wasn't good
37:44
Speaker 1: for me personally, I mean, you know, I mean, I
37:47
Speaker 1: think the label got some benefit from like me being
37:49
Speaker 1: one hundred percent folks on a while, and that was good.
37:52
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like I wasn't being constructive in that time.
37:55
Speaker 1: But I think what happened was in that time I
37:57
Speaker 1: built something, Yes, and I also and I populated populated
38:03
Speaker 1: it with really great people. And I think at the
38:05
Speaker 1: time I didn't even know why I felt we needed
38:08
Speaker 1: I need such great people there, but I knew I did.
38:11
Speaker 1: And then so Liam had said to me, have you
38:15
Speaker 1: got a laptop, an Apple laptop with reason on it?
38:21
Speaker 1: You're going to like this. This is good beat making stuff.
38:24
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, well, okay, this is sort
38:26
Speaker 1: of interesting. So I got the laptop and I learned
38:29
Speaker 1: how to use reason and that led into me learning
38:31
Speaker 1: how to use logic, and suddenly I was like making
38:36
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of beats. I spending all my time
38:38
Speaker 1: doing it, really loving it. These like very sort of clunky,
38:43
Speaker 1: sample based things because I was listening to a lot
38:45
Speaker 1: of grime and making all these like little things in headphones,
38:48
Speaker 1: all obsessed like a teenager with it. And then Kanye
38:58
Speaker 1: had a song on his second album called My Way Home,
39:01
Speaker 1: which was sampling girls Home is Where the Hatred Is
39:04
Speaker 1: with common wrapping over it, and I remember hearing it
39:08
Speaker 1: and thinking, I want to hear a new Girls Got
39:11
Speaker 1: Home record. I'm going to make a new Girls Got
39:14
Speaker 1: Home record. That's how it's gotta work. So and almost
39:20
Speaker 1: straight away I started putting songs together because I thought, well,
39:24
Speaker 1: it's probably not been writing before you even reached out
39:26
Speaker 1: to anything. I stop puting the songs together. Yes, why
39:29
Speaker 1: not arm myself with that? And then when I was
39:31
Speaker 1: listening for songs for him, I was so alive to
39:35
Speaker 1: the music I was hearing. It was like hearing music
39:37
Speaker 1: for the first time. And then I managed to get
39:42
Speaker 1: in touch. That's a really interesting point, is that when
39:45
Speaker 1: you're listening to music for a particular project, you listen
39:48
Speaker 1: to it beyond the excitement of it. You listen in
39:52
Speaker 1: a different way. If the parameters are different. Yes, fascinating,
39:58
Speaker 1: and this is why I think a lot of time
40:00
Speaker 1: times people lose their excitement and connection to music is
40:04
Speaker 1: because they're not listening to it like they were when
40:06
Speaker 1: they were a teenager. Yes, they haven't got the newness
40:09
Speaker 1: and the excitement. Yes, I think if you've got a
40:11
Speaker 1: reason now, I think if that reason is you're trying
40:15
Speaker 1: to have hits and make a buck, that won't work,
40:17
Speaker 1: That doesn't that doesn't happen. But if you've got whatever
40:20
Speaker 1: the reason is, you're trying to find a cover for someone,
40:22
Speaker 1: or you've got a theme in mind to explore and
40:24
Speaker 1: you want to play someone some references, Wow, you're so open.
40:27
Speaker 1: And also what I find happens in it, It leads
40:30
Speaker 1: me into new things. And when I say new, either
40:33
Speaker 1: newly recorded or old, but new to me, because there's
40:36
Speaker 1: a whole world of that out there still, and I'm
40:39
Speaker 1: discovering things that to other people are like the most
40:43
Speaker 1: important music of their lifetime. I'm just hearing it now
40:46
Speaker 1: in so much fun. Hearing music that you've not heard
40:51
Speaker 1: before and you're looking for a particular thing for a
40:55
Speaker 1: particular reason, And when just that deep dive in that
40:59
Speaker 1: vicinity is super fun and we get to learn so
41:03
Speaker 1: much about music through the process. Amazing. Yeah, it is
41:07
Speaker 1: it is amazing and girl was Girl was incarcerated at
41:12
Speaker 1: the time. So we started writing letters to each other
41:16
Speaker 1: and he was a I mean I like I like
41:18
Speaker 1: writing letters. I like writing yes, and he was an
41:22
Speaker 1: amazing letter wasse And we used to write these nice
41:24
Speaker 1: letters to each other. And I was kind of saying,
41:26
Speaker 1: I've got this idea and he was like well, but
41:29
Speaker 1: we were kind of writing letters to each other. And
41:31
Speaker 1: then I went and visited him in Ricaus. I am wow,
41:35
Speaker 1: and I see in prison for it possession I mean insane. Really,
41:42
Speaker 1: you know this is a it's political, isn't it. I
41:46
Speaker 1: mean three strikes and out kind of thing. Possession of coke.
41:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I would argue there was nothing sort of
41:53
Speaker 1: ethically or morally any more wrong with that than possession
41:55
Speaker 1: of a bottle of gin. And there you are in jail.
42:03
Speaker 1: And when I went to see him, he said the
42:07
Speaker 1: first thing he said to me was there you are.
42:11
Speaker 1: And it was like, yeah, I don't know. He's like
42:15
Speaker 1: he was expecting me to turn up in some slightly
42:18
Speaker 1: deeper well I'm not exactly sure what I made, but
42:19
Speaker 1: there was something about it. There was something about this
42:25
Speaker 1: sort of very free conversation. I had with him, and
42:30
Speaker 1: I thought they didn't have a very strict sort of
42:33
Speaker 1: thing there about like right, you're done now, But they
42:35
Speaker 1: just didn't really seem that bothered. So we were just
42:39
Speaker 1: sitting there having this conversation, and it somehow felt very light.
42:43
Speaker 1: It's like a very light energy. Although we were in
42:46
Speaker 1: this insane we weren't it. It's like hell, isn't it,
42:50
Speaker 1: And yet it seemed light. And at one point I
42:52
Speaker 1: said to him, you don't. I've noticed you haven't complained
42:57
Speaker 1: about anything in this conversation, because I was slightly surprised
43:03
Speaker 1: by that because I thought, you know, and he said,
43:07
Speaker 1: if you complain, no one wants to hang out with you.
43:12
Speaker 1: I kind of took that with me. Yeah, And he
43:17
Speaker 1: did have a he had an immense amount of very
43:23
Speaker 1: deep and resonant wisdom, beautiful and that he was happy
43:30
Speaker 1: to share. And in terms of making a record, he
43:35
Speaker 1: was like he was pretty nonchalant about it. You know,
43:40
Speaker 1: he'd had one of those runs of records like the
43:43
Speaker 1: Beatles or Bowie. You Beatles in the sixties or Bowie
43:45
Speaker 1: in the seventies. He had that in the seventies. You know,
43:47
Speaker 1: he made thirteen records in like it was ten years.
43:53
Speaker 1: He was never a huge commercial artist. It had a
43:56
Speaker 1: massive amount of impact, lasting impact, the kind of between
44:02
Speaker 1: the politics and the jazz and the jazz aspects of it.
44:05
Speaker 1: You know, it's very resonant in music now. I think
44:08
Speaker 1: Elscott Harron he's very resonant, very present in music, and
44:14
Speaker 1: he was he saw I really wanted to make a
44:18
Speaker 1: record with him, and he was like, all right, okay,
44:21
Speaker 1: let's try it. So happens so and how long had
44:25
Speaker 1: it been since his last album? Well, so he did
44:27
Speaker 1: all these records up until eighty two. Then he didn't
44:31
Speaker 1: make another record until one in the nineties called Spirits
44:36
Speaker 1: Whi's actually really pretty good on TVT ninety seven ish,
44:40
Speaker 1: and then no records until this one, so, you know,
44:46
Speaker 1: and people have suggested things to him, and he just
44:47
Speaker 1: didn't fancy it. He was performing live though he was
44:49
Speaker 1: active live all the way through. He saw that as
44:51
Speaker 1: more his jobs was to perform live. And when people
44:57
Speaker 1: used to ask him when have you got a new
44:59
Speaker 1: record coming, he would say, have you heard all my
45:02
Speaker 1: old records, because if not, there's a new one for
45:06
Speaker 1: you there. Yes, good answer, yeah, I mean it's a
45:09
Speaker 1: fair point and it is quite a catalog to study
45:12
Speaker 1: his catag There's a lot of very very interesting stuff
45:15
Speaker 1: in there. Still reveals itself to me, actually, especially if
45:18
Speaker 1: you do the vinyl listening with it, because there's all
45:21
Speaker 1: the sleeve notes and stuff. He used to write a
45:22
Speaker 1: lot of sleeve notes, and there's a lot of very
45:24
Speaker 1: you know, he used to talk about the environment a
45:26
Speaker 1: lot in the early seventies, which, you know, you really think, Wow,
45:30
Speaker 1: people were onto this fifty years ago. How is it
45:34
Speaker 1: that this has happened? You know that we've got here
45:38
Speaker 1: and we're kind of just getting alive to it. Yes,
45:41
Speaker 1: because you know, went to an America. I mean went
45:43
Speaker 1: to an America. Sounds like it's about now, so prescient,
45:47
Speaker 1: unbelievable really. So when he got out, we started recording
45:55
Speaker 1: initially in what was Philip Glass's studio, Looking Glass You
46:00
Speaker 1: ever worked there? It was nice in Soho and then
46:05
Speaker 1: it closed. I guess it was that era of studios closing.
46:08
Speaker 1: And then we moved to Clinton in Hill's kitchen and
46:11
Speaker 1: that was good. And I would come out to New
46:15
Speaker 1: York and record him and then I'd go home. I
46:19
Speaker 1: had his Clinton stuff there. Anymore, It's like the doors
46:23
Speaker 1: were closing behind us everywhere we left as we as
46:26
Speaker 1: we went, like I will be back, I'll come back
46:28
Speaker 1: in a month, and it was gone. It was a
46:30
Speaker 1: very interesting phase of like something old phasing out and
46:33
Speaker 1: I guess some new things coming in, but I would
46:37
Speaker 1: go home and work on it. And also what I
46:40
Speaker 1: was doing was I was presenting him with material, a
46:44
Speaker 1: lot of which was his material, because I had his
46:46
Speaker 1: old poetry books beautiful, and I was suggesting parts that
46:51
Speaker 1: I thought might be relevant for the piece we were making,
46:54
Speaker 1: and he would do, yeah, it worked really well, and
46:57
Speaker 1: he was doing readings of stuff. So like the into
47:01
Speaker 1: and outo of the album we made, it's called Oncoming
47:05
Speaker 1: from a Broken Home, Part one and I'm Coming from
47:06
Speaker 1: a Broken and part two. That was a poem that
47:09
Speaker 1: was in I was a long piece of a long
47:12
Speaker 1: poem that was in his poetry book, which was called
47:15
Speaker 1: Small Talk at one fifth and Lenox, same as the
47:18
Speaker 1: same as his first album that came out in nineteen seventy.
47:22
Speaker 1: There's stuff he'd written when he was twenty, but it
47:25
Speaker 1: felt so alive to me on the page. So I
47:30
Speaker 1: would like ediot bits out and say what do you
47:32
Speaker 1: think of that? And he'd go, yeah, that bit, but
47:35
Speaker 1: actually there's another bit, and he pulled some more stuff out,
47:39
Speaker 1: and then I would sometimes I'd take him like little
47:43
Speaker 1: musical sketches I've made, and we had this word spartan.
47:47
Speaker 1: I'd suggested we made a record that was quite spartan.
47:51
Speaker 1: And he used to then pull me up using that
47:54
Speaker 1: word because when I played him stuff. So I would
47:57
Speaker 1: take home and work in my studio at home in
47:58
Speaker 1: the basement, scribe spoken um containing nothing that is not
48:05
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary, just the minimum um. And I think I
48:14
Speaker 1: found I found early hip hop records to be that, yes, right,
48:17
Speaker 1: that's what that's my that's my mission in life, right, spartan.
48:23
Speaker 1: So I would occasionally playing things and he would say
48:25
Speaker 1: what about spartan, because I'd have done a bit too much.
48:28
Speaker 1: So he was kind of he was a and R
48:30
Speaker 1: and me yes as well, and I've been making all
48:33
Speaker 1: this stuff, and so I was like, you know, he
48:36
Speaker 1: he'd sort of freed me up. He given me permission
48:39
Speaker 1: to like make music properly beautiful, you know, and kind
48:43
Speaker 1: of get it. I mean, I was making musical ready,
48:45
Speaker 1: but I was in the dark on my home and
48:48
Speaker 1: he was kind of saying, let's do it together. And
48:50
Speaker 1: also what was quite interesting was he said, I took
48:55
Speaker 1: a photo of him one day and I said, I
49:00
Speaker 1: think that's a I think that's a that's like a
49:02
Speaker 1: that's a cover shot. And he said where are you?
49:09
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I'm not on the cover and
49:12
Speaker 1: he said, well, it's going to be strange though, isn't
49:16
Speaker 1: it when people see the name Girl scot Heron and
49:18
Speaker 1: Richard Russell but they only see me. Don't you think
49:22
Speaker 1: it's going to confuse him? And I was like, yeah,
49:24
Speaker 1: it's not going to say that on it though, it
49:26
Speaker 1: would say girlscot Heron. And he said, oh no, we've
49:29
Speaker 1: made this together. Why would you not have your name
49:31
Speaker 1: on it? That's what I do. And he referred me
49:34
Speaker 1: back to his albums used to make with Brian Jackson.
49:36
Speaker 1: They are all built to Girl scot Heron and Brian Jackson.
49:39
Speaker 1: And I remember the feeling I got when he suggested
49:41
Speaker 1: it was actually terror, Yes, doing that your Gil scot Aerin,
49:47
Speaker 1: I'm not betting my name. But of course, actually what
49:50
Speaker 1: he was suggesting was it was boy. It was very generous,
49:52
Speaker 1: but it was also entirely logical and reasonable. The other
49:56
Speaker 1: thing was that he was he was he really want
50:00
Speaker 1: there to be photos of everyone who's involved in the record,
50:03
Speaker 1: in the artwork, which we ended U'm not doing. I
50:05
Speaker 1: don't really believe in regret, but that, you know, that
50:08
Speaker 1: should have happened because he did suggest it. For some reason,
50:10
Speaker 1: it happened. But he was like the engineer. So I
50:13
Speaker 1: played guitar on the song I'm new here. All these
50:17
Speaker 1: people should be they should be pictured, and that is
50:19
Speaker 1: a lovely, you know, way of looking at it. I
50:22
Speaker 1: can remember we were recording one of the later Johnny
50:25
Speaker 1: Cash albums and we were doing the song that he suggested,
50:29
Speaker 1: called We'll Meet Again, and he insisted that everyone who
50:37
Speaker 1: worked on the project sing on the choruses We'll Meet Again,
50:43
Speaker 1: and he wanted everybody's voice to be with his. And
50:49
Speaker 1: I think he was thinking it was his last album, right,
50:54
Speaker 1: So I guess that's similar. And was it his last album.
50:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was his last album, but
50:58
Speaker 1: it was near the end. I mean, I did start
51:01
Speaker 1: to wonder if there was something because I've ended up
51:06
Speaker 1: making two records for people where it was their last records,
51:09
Speaker 1: and I did start to wonder if the So if
51:16
Speaker 1: you look at an artist making their debut, there's an
51:19
Speaker 1: urgency there. Yes, I wondered if that might apply if
51:23
Speaker 1: you're making your last record with me, and some part
51:28
Speaker 1: of you would know, right sure, some part of you
51:31
Speaker 1: wouldn't your last record. Um, and you know that Bowie
51:36
Speaker 1: Black style record. I suppose that's the most avert one
51:40
Speaker 1: where it seems it seems like he very specifically needs
51:43
Speaker 1: as well. And I think that's very valuable. I mean,
51:47
Speaker 1: there's obviously a lot of taboo around death, you know,
51:51
Speaker 1: in the West, and it's very counterproductive that. But I
51:54
Speaker 1: think you know, maybe you ushered in an era where
52:01
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the late career masterpiece and it's
52:03
Speaker 1: a great thing, yes, because you know, the sort of
52:07
Speaker 1: old fashioned music business idea of like you're washed up,
52:12
Speaker 1: you know, it's terrible, Yes, to the idea that people
52:14
Speaker 1: are like when they're past their commercial peak, we haven't
52:18
Speaker 1: got anything to hear from them. It's ridiculous. And I
52:23
Speaker 1: think it's always applied worse in music than in other fields.
52:26
Speaker 1: You know, And you know, you don't want the movie
52:29
Speaker 1: director to be in his twenties and it might be right,
52:31
Speaker 1: it might be great, but you definitely like you're not
52:33
Speaker 1: going to rule them out because they're in their fifties, sixties, seventies,
52:36
Speaker 1: or painters or writers. So I feel like that's the
52:40
Speaker 1: kind of area now where like you say, no to
52:43
Speaker 1: twenty year olds are the same, Yeah, no to seventy
52:46
Speaker 1: year olds are the same. And so you know, we
52:50
Speaker 1: can hear a great record from someone of any age. Absolutely,
52:52
Speaker 1: as that was one of the best things about the
52:57
Speaker 1: success of the Journy Cash records we did were I
53:00
Speaker 1: had other i'll call them grown up artists coming to
53:04
Speaker 1: me saying I feel like I have permission to make
53:07
Speaker 1: something good now before I wouldn't have even tried. It's
53:10
Speaker 1: a great thing. And I think that in hip hop,
53:13
Speaker 1: I would imagine that that last jay Z record is
53:17
Speaker 1: going to give people a bit of permission to think,
53:19
Speaker 1: oh I can grow older in rap. Yes, because I
53:23
Speaker 1: think that's a fantastic record. Forty four is brilliant and
53:26
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I mean, it wasn't even fifty
53:28
Speaker 1: when he made it, so of course, why shouldn't you
53:30
Speaker 1: make a great record. But I would imagine that's the
53:33
Speaker 1: first time that's happened for sure, right, but not the last.
53:40
Speaker 1: Richard Russell's book Liberation through Hearing is out now. You
53:43
Speaker 1: should also check out his album Friday Forever Under the Monitor,
53:45
Speaker 1: everything is recorded. You can check out a playlist with
53:48
Speaker 1: some of our favorite songs on XCEL. On our website,
53:51
Speaker 1: Broken record podcast dot com and why are You there?
53:54
Speaker 1: Sign up for behind the scenes newsletter Broken Records. Producers
53:57
Speaker 1: help from Jessica Brell, Miila Bell, and Lee Rose. Our
54:01
Speaker 1: theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
54:03
Speaker 1: for listening. H