Adrian Sherwood — producer, mixologist, sonic innovator, dub technician and label runner joins Paul for an intimate exploration of his fascinating career, where they explore the profound influence of his dub techniques on the music industry, and his surprising contentment with remaining semi-underground. From working with Lee Scratch Perry and Prince Far I to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, you'll gain insight into not only his career, but also his recent work with African Head Charge, and his unique perspective on success.
Sherwood eloquently describes his early experiences with Jamaican sound systems, his perspective on the advancement of audio technology, and the undeniable power of bass in music. The conversation explores the influence of culture and politics on music creation. As Sherwood narrates his encounters with influential figures like James Brown and Keith LeBlanc. We discuss the joy of creating club tunes in mere hours, the human element in music, and the profound impact of Ecstasy on England. You'll also learn about the ever-evolving world of music production technology, the importance of character and expression for artists, and the challenges of monetizing creativity.
African Head Charge’s new album A Trip To Bolgatanga is out now on On-U Sound
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing here.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Adrian Sherwood — producer, mixologist, sonic innovator, dub technician and label runner joins Paul for an intimate exploration of his fascinating career, where they explore the profound influence of his dub techniques on the music industry, and his surprising contentment with remaining semi-underground. From working with Lee Scratch Perry and Prince Far I to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, you'll gain insight into not only his career, but also his recent work with African Head Charge, and his unique perspective on success.
Sherwood eloquently describes his early experiences with Jamaican sound systems, his perspective on the advancement of audio technology, and the undeniable power of bass in music. The conversation explores the influence of culture and politics on music creation. As Sherwood narrates his encounters with influential figures like James Brown and Keith LeBlanc. We discuss the joy of creating club tunes in mere hours, the human element in music, and the profound impact of Ecstasy on England. You'll also learn about the ever-evolving world of music production technology, the importance of character and expression for artists, and the challenges of monetizing creativity.
African Head Charge’s new album A Trip To Bolgatanga is out now on On-U Sound
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing here.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. Audio Technica are a global but still family run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio quality yet affordable products, because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to the old. This game. Hello and welcome to Lost in Sound. I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm a writer, author and university lecturer based in Berlin, where I'm speaking to you now from, and this is the show where, each episode, I have conversations with the musical innovators, the outsiders, the mavericks, the artists that do their own unique thing, and we talk about music, about life, about creativity, the stuff that makes us do the stuff that we do. Previous guests have included peaches, suzanne Chiani, jim O'Rourke, chilly Gonzalez, ghost Poet Cosy Funny Tutti, graham Cox and Sleaford Mods, mickey Blanco and Thurston Moore, and today on the show, I chat with a true sonic innovator, adrian Sherwood. Yes, and my book Coming to Berlin is available still available in all good bookshops, or at least most of them anyway, and you can also order it via the publisher, velocity Press's website. Yeah, so, adrian Sherwood, I had this chat about a week ago. Loved having this chat.
Speaker 1:Such an influential person, sonically behind the desk, someone that's always hidden out of the limelight, but whose sound, whose influence, whose stamp has had its mark on music culture since the 70s onwards. There's the side of him that was so key and influential in dub music, particularly in the UK, from the 70s onwards, as a live mixologist, as a producer, working with people like Lee Scratch Perry, prince Farai, setting up his own on-you-sound label at the end of the 70s, the beginning of the 80s onwards. Then there's the side of him that took dub techniques and played such a significant role in bringing them into the wider musical sphere, working with people like Mark Stewart, the late great Mark Stewart, with Primal Scream, with the Pesh Mode, with nine-inch nails. The list goes on and on and on and on. The mysterious art of using the studio as an instrument, using echoes and reverbs as paintbrushes, sonic paintbrushes as a form of expression of sound, and how sound can become something really psychedelic and transportive.
Speaker 1:Adrian Sherwoods had such a fascinating long career, long creative life, being right in the midst of this, so I was super, super, super excited to have this chat. Yes, so we're going to have this chat. We had this chat because of a new African Head Charge album, the psychedelic dub ensemble that Sherwoods played a key role in since 1981. Then we just got into this chat and this is what happened how are you doing? I'm good, thank you, I'm good. How about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a beard. Keep me warm, like you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely Is that a new thing?
Speaker 2:No, I just haven't bothered to shave. Where are you based?
Speaker 1:I'm in Berlin, berlin, okay. Yeah yeah, this is my little studio-y living thing. You can see there with the mezzanine bed, all of that. We're about to see you. We're in Ramgait in Kent. Is that where you've been living for a long time?
Speaker 2:It came here 13 years now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's good down here, it's near enough to London and everything's half the price.
Speaker 1:You get to leave London as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I can go to London. I was there yesterday. It's only an hour 10 minutes down the road on the train. It's quite handy. Here's beautiful. The whole area is lovely because it suits me at my age. I see my kids all in London, they all come down here, so it's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh, that's nice. Well, thanks so much for chatting with me today. I'm so happy this is happening. You're genuinely, if you don't mind me saying, a seminal artist, everything from on-you-sound attack head to working with Lee Scratch-Perry to not-by-inch nails, but mostly as a producer, and this has allowed you to duck out of the limelight. Has that always been quite an intentional thing to stay out of the main spotlight?
Speaker 2:Well, to be honest with you, I would have always rather been like the restauranteur who washed the dishes that no one knew about. If you know what I mean, that would be what I'd have liked to have done. I never saw myself being on a stage or anything like that, but I think I got a little following. Originally just doing live mixing, I was aware at the height of it I used to have hundreds of people watching me mixing and things. And then you get people start noticing you a bit. But it suits me to be semi-underground rather than a big, hit-orientated producer who's got loads of money or loads of success. I preferred the route that I've created for myself, but it wasn't consciously because I thought our records would be a lot more successful than they were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and is there something about being out of the main spotlight that is helpful in terms of your processes and how you go about your work?
Speaker 2:Well, running your own label, you can do what you like and all the years I've always done little jobs to prop up my own things, really to enable me to make the records for the label and do what I wanted to do. But, like I said a minute ago, I was always convinced that, be it African head charge or Mark Stewart or the Lee Perry, I thought they'd all sell 10 times what they did. They did OK, but it wasn't a conscious plan to stay like in secret or something. I thought it would be much more noticed. But, having said that, one thing that I have got is respect and the most important thing is we're not dead. Lee Perry said I'm glad I'm not dead, we're still here and still doing good work. So that's the key. Rather than going back, back, back, back back, I'm trying to look forward to what we're doing next and what excites us now.
Speaker 1:I mean talking about moving forward. I mean, and as you're saying, the stuff hasn't been as maybe successful as you imagine, but you have built up this legacy and the work is. There's a lot of notable classics. Now Do you feel like, in terms of wanting to move forward, do you feel like, how do you relate to the back catalog and all of the stuff you've done? Do you ever go back and listen to stuff, or is it always about moving forward?
Speaker 2:Briefly, I don't and I don't play it. I mean, if I? Suddenly we work closely, we work with Matthew and our other crew up there, albert and all our other good friends they decide let's do a reissue campaign. When they reissue them, I listen to them, but some of the records I haven't listened to for 25, 30 years. So I listen to them and I think, oh wow, that sounds great.
Speaker 1:Oh God, that's not quite as good as that.
Speaker 2:I don't sit around and listen to it. When you're making a record, you're playing it every day over and over in a microscope and what you're doing Then, when you're mixing it, you listen to it many times until you get it. Hopefully you get it right quite quickly. But then you listen to it a lot when you play out some of the tunes, a lot when I'm doing my little live dub shows or DJing or whatever. Then after that, to be quite honest with you, I want to hear something else. I don't want to be sitting at home listening to our old records.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it sort of about the journey as well, then? So like when the record's finished, it's like that is done, it's complete.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah, I mean when it's done. It's like I've listened. You know I'm sat with Matt, my engineer. Say hello, matt.
Speaker 1:Hi Matt.
Speaker 2:Matt just arrived, we're starting the day, but you know we've listened to the tune so many times by the time it's out. And then what you want to do. Then you want to hear it on a big rig or you want to hear it on a really good system. That's because you're proud of it. And then it's next case, really what you want to do next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there must be like those nice moments on a big rig where you hear it sort of in the proper place. Must be also equally weird hearing it on like a shitty car stereo or something.
Speaker 2:That's how you should test the tune I mean they used to have. You know we used to call them horror tones in the studio and over one speaker and people used to do an horror tone playback to make sure it sounded good for the radio. You know you've got to allow for the fact that now so many, particularly you know the kids, you know kids and youngsters they listen on a phone. They're not really for us. We're like how I find nuts. You know we want to hear it properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there is because there is so much detail that kind of comes about throughout your music. You know so many sort of specifics of you, know things that work in a very auditory sense.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, back in the day there was, you know there were high, fine nuts. You know people 60s, 70s, 80s, you know even to now. You know people who would spend a fortune wanting to hear their vinyl really well or whatever they're playing it back on. And you know, listen to music on a great system. It's a proper experience and right now I'm more excited than I have been in decades with the advent of Dolby Atmos. It's absolutely mind blowing. We've been mixing in it and we did the first ever kind of live surround sound dub show recently and it's so exciting.
Speaker 2:But my fear is just I'm hoping it doesn't end up like quad, where you know a few people get to hear the possibilities of surround sound and then it doesn't. You know, unless I wanted to get the speed, you know the headphones up and more people working in it and more drastically, like we, like we've been doing, that's really got me excited and there's a few other things at the moment like that. So, in answer to your thing, a telephone is like OK, I can hear why someone can appreciate the art of a rapper. You know, spitting out the telephone at you that I get If you want to hear the sonics and the tonality and the subtleties of really well produced dub dub stuff. In my case. You know you want to. I want people to hear it properly. But you know the young crowd, I want to try and get more of a young crowd.
Speaker 1:And I don't.
Speaker 2:The youngsters are quite. There was a time in the 90s when every youngster had, you know, a 30 kilowatt rig in their car. I love that. I loved that. I was like kind of, oh wow, these, these is like proper nuts. You know, I'm a ready mate called Colin he was like a kind of lad from Topham and he was a. He had this mad rig and he pulled down the. You know, I think you look at yourself in the mirror you know, above your screen. You know you pull.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, to protect your son from the eyes, and in the top of it he had a parametric EQ. Wow, I couldn't sit in it, for my ears are blowing up in his car. They seem to have lost. They seem to have lost the love of like super sub and things in their vehicles and the high fives at home it's all like. Can you listen to in a different way now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and essentially because yeah, because what you're saying with like a rapper spitting, is that there's such a, you know, vocal element that people can kind of get a lot out of and there's rhythms within that. But with dub and, I think, a lot of club music, there's something that you really need to feel as well. Has that always been important to you, the sort of element of like you actually kind of feel it in your body?
Speaker 2:Completely. I mean going back to the first times I ever heard a Jamaican sound system or went to a house party and they had to think much bigger systems than I'd ever heard at my house, no. And then and now those are going to one of the great techno clubs in Berlin, you know you, you want it to blow your mind the Sonics. So I guess they still get it, but they maybe on a night out when they're hearing on a you know one of the great rigs. Now, but I think when it comes to maybe, maybe it's down to space and people having their own apartment and then limited amount of space, they don't see the importance of a record collection and, you know, a big home high file something. Time, time change, things change. But I'm hoping that the, the, the, the, the, the um, what's the word? Matter? The surround sound, the whole thing. What's it called Immersive audio? Immersive audio, yeah, the immersive audio. Headphones like you've got on.
Speaker 2:Well, you think you're here, you know, like now you're talking to me, you can make it be that you literally feel it's coming 10 foot, you know, place it around you and the psychedelic potential of it is just amazing. So I hope Apple and everybody really do keep pushing to get the the some more music made, like we've been making, and get it in the headphones and really, really up the ante on it.
Speaker 1:Is that? Is that so you've started using this technology and recording yourself?
Speaker 2:We've been. We've made a few records in it. Now we did a first gig recently. You know we had 700 people hacking the earth and it was the first ever, like I said, live surround sound dub show and it just um, I can see. I can see what could happen. I could see surround sound cafes and all sorts of potential, but it needs some more people who want it to leap out of the speakers, like I was working on it, not some safe kind of just positioning it, whatever. That's my. That's my thing that I was most excited about in recent times. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you know um Monom in Berlin?
Speaker 2:That's a club that's got the surround sound.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2:Isn't? It is a man there. I can't remember his name. Yes, I do know of it. Yeah, but I think we're in communication with Monom and we're hoping to do an event there. Yeah, that would be really good.
Speaker 1:I'd love to see you play there. Is it's a good, it's a good, good space, I mean. But you've, you've. I mean I've read that you kind of voice considered yourself musically tone deaf. Is that, is that a true for? Is that like one of those?
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, if I'm, if I'm humming or something, and it's in the key of a, I'm pretty accurate. But when it comes to everything else, no, I'm not very. I can hear it. It doesn't sound right. I'm not that bad. I'm not a proper musician. I've just, like a you know, a kind of chance. So who's who's made all these records? I do, I am obsessed with, I like the sound and I see the sound like a picture. So I try to make it move around and pulse and breathe, and as a producer I also minimalize things to make space for other things and I have my own ways of doing things. But in answer to your thing, I'm not completely tone deaf but I am Really my tuning's not anything like a musician's.
Speaker 1:So so when that was said, is it more like about the idea that the focus as an artist has been on the making of sounds and arranging of sounds, rather than being the singer songwriter type?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, I do. I do write B lines, little melody bits, lyrics, but I've never called myself a songwriter, like a lot of people I think are pretty good at part songwriting. You know the art songwriting. Now I work with Jeb Roy, nichols, lee Kenny LSK and other people who are, regardless, really good songwriters and obviously we've lost Mark Stewart this year and the art of writing lyrics and melodies and everything is very special, you know, and I tried with the label to keep a good roster of apart from the musicians, good, you know decent songwriters around us and try and make the lyrics conscious. And if I was writing lyrics or things or we did, you know I wanted to make it, you know, thought provoking, sensible, just, you know a lot, not a load of old Tosh.
Speaker 2:On the lyric side, see, if you've worked out, the bulk of the on-you catalogue is original. It's not. There's quite a few cover versions of great songs. And when he was alive I had Bim Sherman who was a brilliant songwriter, and then all the other great Jamaicans I worked with. Little Roy, what a wonderful songwriter, on and on and on. And Horace Andy, good songwriter, wrote some great songs. Lee Perry, great lyricist. So I like it and for my part I write lyrics sometimes and melody and B-lines and things, but it's more a contribution. So you have a part of a tune or a part of a tune and work with some of my other mates a brilliant part. Songwriters you know I did an album with my daughter Denise. She's. She's a good part. Songwriting you know as well and it's like the great songwriters they are. You know you're Bill Withers and you're Bob Marley's.
Speaker 2:You know, your Curtis Mayfields and you know, joe Higgs, is that they're very, very special to write. So you know I could go all over, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and like I think one of the things about dub production that I feel, anyway, is that it becomes like you know, it's the whole idea of the studio as an instrument and I wanted to know how you first, how that first kind of came to you. You know, what was your sort of first experiences with stepping into that?
Speaker 2:The first one I ever did was doing a gig. I was basically organised a gig with Prince Farai and cobbled together a band and it was all last minute thing. We did it for Ron and Nanda down at the Hunder Club and I was telling the sound man, look more of this, less of that, more of this. And he just literally said to me you do it, you do it.
Speaker 2:I hope you know where things were After about three or four shows just by using my ears and hearing it how I thought they sounded on the records and the placing of the bass and the hats quite shiny and touching. I had one reverb and one delay and after about a handful of gigs people go oh, that's just the best sound I've ever heard. I'm thinking is this person joking? You don't realise that at the time nobody was doing it. And then I just got more confident and then I started running sessions and that's how I started and I kind of blundered my way into it. I got more and more obsessive and indulged myself by experimenting late nights in studios. And you know, like Dennis Parvel said, when the musicians have finished recording and you're coming to mixing, that's the engineer's time. And I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know, using the word dub music, I think it's dub techniques should be used more than dub music, because they've now applied the things that were at the time really limited to a few things outside Jamaican mixed studios like Tubbys and Lee Perry's and Keith Hudson, et cetera. But there are other people using great effects in America. They're using, like, a lot of the wonderful things on their productions, the soul ones and everything, but not in the same way. But the drastic application of dub techniques that's now in techno, it's in everything, absolutely everything, and that's why I think people say dub music. But I don't think I'm making dub music. I think I'm using these outboard effects and EQ sweeps and certain things that we've worked, honing in the kind of finite little bits and touches that just there's a horrible American saying ear cookies. I don't like it.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not a fan of that. I've not heard that before, but I'm immediately not a fan of that.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a fan of it, but that's why I used to hear the ear and good ear cookies and all this stuff. It is a little bit like you're doing the slightest little ding, little touches Overall make the whole thing shine, and that's how I'm viewing it. And then, obviously, if I'm doing a specific dub mix, it's of an existing song where I'm treating it like they would have done 50 years ago. You know, I'm king, you know, okay, we take the song, we strip the voice out, we take the rhythm out, we have the guitar and it's then we bang it back in. That's a traditional kind of dub mix, you know. But the dub techniques that everyone's going on about, like it's a genre of music, I think it's more a. It's a different term, differently.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, is he one of the first people to use the dub techniques in other genres or, you know, in a wider sphere? And I mean, I was listening back again to the early TAC head music last week and I think, because I remember it when I was really young, listening to it at the time and loving it, but like going back and listening to it, thinking this is really kind of revolutionary at the sort of time of like mixing dub techniques with hip hop, with like industrial and all of these elements. You know, how did that come together?
Speaker 2:Well, I just met the guys in New York Tommy Boyd, I made a record called Watch Yourself with Ackaboo and it was the first channel I'd ever done with a drum machine, with Steve Beresford and then Neil Cooper at ROIR Cassettes in New York. He played it to Tom Silverman. Tommy started a new label called Body Rock and he started with Agent. Would they like I'd like to release it? I think it's really interesting. And I went to New York and when I was there I first met Keith LeBlanc and then Keith introduced me another trip to Dug and Skippy. That day I met James Brown actually the mad night that was.
Speaker 1:Right, what happened when you met James Brown?
Speaker 2:Well, I met On that day. I was on a panel and they were working with James Brown in Africa, bambata, and I was at Connie Plank that evening as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, Because what a trilogy.
Speaker 2:When I spent the evening with Connie this mad party where all these sniffed up mad lawyers were at and James, I was stuck in a room with him for about 20 minutes because he'd had a big row with his wife Tommy said come up here, come up here. Anyway, that's another whole story, but that was the same day I met Skip and Doug and then in turn. Then I said I told Keith I'd been running my own label. I've been involved since I was 17. And he, you know, I was only 26 at the time and he kind of couldn't believe it and I said you want to come to England? We'll have a try something.
Speaker 2:And he'd done that Malcolm X tune, which I thought was a brilliant tune, no sell out. And then we did it and we just were experimenting using, you know, those dubbing up his beats and all that stuff. And we just then the next trip, okay, you know. Then he overdubbed Dougie and Skip in America. Then we developed Fats Comet and then Trackhead and then when we started doing gigs, to start with it was just Doug, keith LeBlanc and Steve Beresford and myself with Mark Stewart just going mental, and they were in gigs. They were great. And then Skip joined us the next tour.
Speaker 1:And when you say going mental, do you mean, like you know, there was a lot of free reign, a lot of chaos, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we'd locked down the groove and then it could be, you know, doug could solo, mark would step back and he'd like to come in screaming and I'd like lay back, keep it tight and then dub the life out of it. And then those early some of the Mark Stewart, the Matthew Trackhead gigs were incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was such the sort of hybrid of these styles because I guess at that time as well, you know, hip hop was emerging and like people are kind of really getting to kind of grips with the idea of the possibilities of what you could do with a sampler as well. And did you feel like I mean, I think as a lot of the time it's more things like critics that talk about things like zeitgeist and you know and like summing sort of stuff up in a kind of cultural way and I think a lot of the time more artists just do you know, but we kind of aware of the time of all of these different sort of influences and that sort of cultural importance, like like the way sampling was becoming a kind of generation or tool.
Speaker 2:Well, I learned most things off Mark Stewart. Mark introduced me to you know things and so I was a bit ignorant. I left school at 16. I was like learning. I was immersed in the reggae world. So when I started getting introduced to things like Brian Gison, william Burroughs you know, the beat poets and the you know and also the other producers coming out of Germany, I was. It was all new to me.
Speaker 2:And then you know the cutting up of tapes, the tape manipulation, tape saturation, all that. I wasn't so present in the reggae. So I then also met people like Mark Smith. From the fall I became friends with he, went in the studio with him and did a session and his was totally against everything. There was no reverb, no delay, nothing, and that made it really dry and had attention. So I started, you know, and this is Jamaican saying each one teach one. I was learning from Mark Stewart, observing people like Mark Smith, listening to things like Link Ray, and then I heard I remember hearing for the first time Jesus a Mary chain, and it was mad because the drums seem to be about this big, really, really tiny you know, and the guitars up for this wash of reverb and everything.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking. Well, I quite like the out of balance things. When something is misbalanced and then you amplify something really to the forefront in the mix, then you switch it round and bring the things from the back to the front of the mix and all this movement that I started experimenting with that and that fascinated me. Then I was learning about tape editing, then I was. Then I went to New York and I saw I met Steinsky and then he had a thing double DN Steinsky and George Deshera and these people doing tape editing and people doing window edits.
Speaker 2:This day I haven't seen anybody doing window edits on half inch tape. What is window edits? Window? You've only got a tape, that big Cross.
Speaker 2:These guys were cutting in the middle, so part of the outside came in, reversing bits to kind of together and creating mad sounds out of it. That was only for a minute but it was just like kind of. You started opening your, your mind to the possibilities of corrupting the sound, distorting it, twisting it inside out, then messing around with the final thing at the end, going a mile further where we would have completely distorted things, running that back in the multi-track, overdubbing that, singing on that, re-editing it and then cutting it back with the first generation. So levels jumped drastically from one to another, like on the song we did breaking down the pressure. Congo, shanti Roy sings and plays ten inch where it was just leaping up and down and it was just, you know, attacking you. All those things you learn from people.
Speaker 2:And then Connie Plank. I remember Connie was sat panel on this time in New York's how we met and he's just rummable of Americans. He's on, listen to what you like to do, connie, and he says well, I like to get the microphone and play a true dollar tube the sun and have a telephone at the end and a microphone down to the other end, like this. I like this bloke and we are.
Speaker 2:I spent the evening with him that night, the party blessing, and then I started investigating the importance and greatness of Connie and it was like it wasn't my world. My world was just the had been that the reggae world, and I started meeting the likes of Mark and Ari up and then on and on and on. I started meeting Howard Devoto and all his other people. I'd chatting to people and then just other ideas coming along and I was quite stubborn, sticking to my reggae world, but if I'd ventured into the other one, that had been fantastically successful. I think I embraced those things to a degree and took off each one what I wanted, you know what I appealed to me and applied it to my productions well, that's the role of an artist, though, isn't it?
Speaker 2:well, I guess. So I never. I never think about. I was thinking of people.
Speaker 2:A lot of the best artists I met were really kind of troubled a bit. You know they had that's what and but it was also when we started. You want the artist, so that's him, as I was not a similar self as a producer and you know I'm proud of myself, you know, I know what I do but the artist to me was always like, you know, wearing a mad suit, you know, or look, was larger than life, yeah, you know, and really creative and flamboyant and exciting. You know you don't want some bloke off the street on stage and you see a lot of it now. It's like some twit, but from college just jumped on the stage and I like the nutcases, you know, and you look. You look at the great ones, you know Iggy Pop, bob Marley and the Whalers, you know they, they look like stars, they look fantastic, they look like artists.
Speaker 2:Nina Simone, and never thought that an artist is the front person, that the people behind the scenes, like Oslo, the engineers, who are largely unsung heroes. You know, the one of the best producers in Jamaica ever was really Errol T and, but the person credited with the productions was Joe Gibbs. Errol T was the best engineer and largely forgotten, except amongst those who know. You know I'm working with great engineers. You know my engineer for the last few years who's playing with his phone at the moment. He's very busy. They're unsung heroes, really, and they're and then. So for me, I'm like I said, I'd rather be the one in the background. The restaurant owner owns the place but cleans up and don't really get noticed. It's nicer to be like that in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I got hurled to the front because I was going for a bad time of life and started doing gigs at the suggestion of my dear friend Bobby Marshall. He pushed me to do some live shows, otherwise I'd have just stayed in a studio and popped up doing a handful of gigs a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like. And then my on-new sound. I mean I believe that started around 1980.
Speaker 2:End of 1988, the very end. Yeah, 80 going into 81, it was yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and because I mean I always felt like there was a. I mean I always felt like Doug Reggae was sort of inherently political or had like political aspects to it and on-new sound, you know, started at such a sort of political time as well. Was that something that you felt at the time? You know, back in 1980 was there? I mean, we live in like really kind of hyper political times now as well. But do you, was that important for you to kind of bring forward that element, or is it? Was that just like naturally just going on and that's?
Speaker 2:just, I gotta be honest, I can't claim. I mean I was amongst some people and Mark had already written for how much longer we tolerate mass murder and all these these. You know he was very political and he was always in rough trade shop ranting and raving about, you know this, that and the other one one, you know, one injustice globally after another. And listen, listen, he was. Mark was really big influence on me, but I was just recording. You know the people I was meeting. So I'd met the Slits and the pop group and there were people around like members of the raincoats and other really good people and Martin who had been working as a Sam and with this heat and that and on and on.
Speaker 2:I can name lots and lots and lots. We kept eating in rough trade. Rough trade was like the hub. And I met Daniel Miller. He put his first record out and was living with his mums. I've known Dan since then. We are mates since those days. And then I met the Northern lot, chris Joyce, you know, and pink military stand alone. And then then Chris had been my friend. You know his original, simply red drummer. But he's what he's a great friend to this day. And we did Mothman and all that and things that were obscure, but they were really influential and good. Nor part. Everyone plays their role, so I don't know if I've got sidetracked from the original question.
Speaker 1:Now, that's alright. Is that the whole thing is about being sidetracked really sometimes, isn't it?
Speaker 2:or you're just going where it goes.
Speaker 1:I remember what you're saying.
Speaker 2:I never thought, oh, I am going to make them, because I didn't really understand the intricacies of geopolitical things, and you know I am. I had to learn about all the world politics because I was a bit of an you know, a bit of an ill-educated lad from. You know, comprehensive school in High Wycombe, that's what happened to me and I learned through friends.
Speaker 2:You know all about the history of everything, from Palestine to. You know what had gone on the sand and nisters, everything. That's what explained to me. I wasn't very well read and I started getting turned, introduced and shown. You know what happened.
Speaker 2:You know the history of the Windrush generation in just one injustice globally after another. And you know, because you brought up in England to think you know Britain's a centre of the universe and how we helped, not how we were compliant in. You know the depths of tens of millions of American Indians, aboriginals, the you know, occupying India, east India, all that stuff, you know. You know I didn't know anything and then you learn it all. And at the time of starting on you I was lucky. I was just drawn to people like Mark and you know the stamp, his power, he put on me and then making sure, you know obviously being amongst the likes of Prince Farai and you know they made. You know we had a very, very good mix of people around, extremely talented and it's maverick and interesting and bright people and it was. It was good, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think my first encounter of that was when I was a kid hearing Gary Clale do human nature on top of the pops, and that just sounded like you know, I was just, I was probably like listening to I don't know a brass at the time and that just sounded so confrontational to me and I really loved it. But I was also a little bit like you know, that kind of feeling of going I don't know what the fuck this is. I mean, what do you remember about that kind of era? What kind of sticks out to you?
Speaker 2:Well it was again. It was very driven by Mark Stewart and Mark writing the lyrics and the, the, the, the. We never expected ever to have a hit with, with Gary Clale Me kind of been DJing early in the evening for us on the Taked thing Use the name Taked Taked sound system going out playing the tunes about the band. But it was a bit of a conflict. It wasn't good for for Taked because it, you know, people would think they were getting the band when it was just Gary making a din, playing lots of sets and shouting and then so he became on you sound system and then we had a we had. The only reason that was a hit I can't even take the credit was the wonderful work of Steve Osborne with Paul Oakenfold that turned my really raw, raw gem into a hitch.
Speaker 1:But then I, then I also I grew up a bit and I kind of in my memory I kind of have this sort of sound of like the stuff you did with, like like you say, oakham Fold and Webberall and Osborne, and it kind of to me my memory all kind of sums together as this sort of connecting with like Acid House as well and things like that. Were you, were you like involved with like the rave scene at the time. Was that?
Speaker 2:was that something that you oh yeah, well, well say involved. I went to you know dungeons and loads of the dances and things that were held and discovered Ecstasy, which was just like it. Basically, I remember the times very well. There's like all the football violence Aggies, I think Ecstasy cured England. It made it. It made it a really nice vibe for a while there.
Speaker 2:It was amazing that's per usual of governments, obviously that Leah Betts, the young girl, died. All the press, as usual, jump on these terrible drugs. You know it's like mate. It was a much better than you know all the amphetamines they dished out in the, although it was nothing wrong in them either, but the you know that time was amazing. To be honest, I was going to die, but I think soon I did, when I was doing a four on the floor club tune. They all did really well. So there's obviously a massive demand for it. But creatively I could, sitting in a room hearing both, both, both, both, both, both, both, both for like eight, 10 hours, sending me around the fucking band. I literally I still do occasional step has tuned or something, but I try and mix them in like two or three hours because this is some swing or it's, or it's played by human beings.
Speaker 2:I'm a lot of folk love, that you know, but I was. It worked my world. To be honest, that I loved. I wanted to be making ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding like house piano. You know there was a formula that was going on. But if I had probably gone into that world with a bit more, been a little bit more divorced from it and said, right, let's do this and try and add a bit of style to it, I could have probably made quite a few more human natures. At the time I was more interested in doing something like songs of praise or something than I was for on the floor club tunes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then around that time as well, there was a petty hate machine, nine inch nails, and what was your involvement in that?
Speaker 2:All that happened was Trent Resne used to come to all our gigs and we're not all like lots of our gigs in America. He'd be next to me and then say we want you to produce. You know, I went really interested because I have too much of my own things on, to be quite honest, no disrespect and it just and then I wasn't. You know a lot of the imagery and things. I wasn't. I was like I mean, it wasn't, I thought I'd not, I don't really want to do it.
Speaker 2:And then Keith ended up doing down in it or down on it, whatever it's called. He programmed the drums and said look, please can you mix it for me. So I went down to the, to the roundhouse, and mixed it in about three hours. And from that day to this day everyone goes on about how I'd, I'd, I'd, you know, done Trent's first hit or whatever. And it's like it's not fair on Trent or Keith or anyone else. Keith programmed the groove, I did a quick mix on it and I did one or two other things for Trent over the years, one with Mark Stewart and I did a Halsey tune for him a couple of years ago. But I can't really take much credit for it. But people keep associating me with that tune because it was a big hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so weird that something you can do in just over three hours has that sort of ripple effect.
Speaker 1:Yeah too. Yeah, I mean. And then, like I mean, because I mean I'm loving the new African head charge album and I mean the the, the line that it starts with a bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can't go anywhere until you change it, and I mean, I mean the whole album has this kind of to me at least, anyway, has this kind of positive sound to it. I mean, are you a positive person? Do you? Do you feel like you're optimistic about things?
Speaker 2:I'm not a miserable kid, but I think I'm more prone to being depressed than I am to being optimistic. Optimistic I've got around me great friends like Doug Wimbish, perry, milius the drummer, who you know. Those guys have got this thing they lift other people up, so people are a bit in gloom. You need a Perry or a Doug around because they lift the spirits up of the others.
Speaker 2:I'm quite good at making things happen and motivating things to get them happening, but I wouldn't say that I'm the most optimistic person. I'd like to be more like Doug and Perry.
Speaker 1:But then it's interesting what you're saying. So it's quite important to just have a good balance of people around you, like some people doing this, some people doing that. I mean also as well. Like you know, you're kind of talking earlier on about the sort of elaborate techniques of tape cutting and the windows. You're saying, and like now, obviously music production is so accessible to everyone, ableton, all of these things. I mean, what was the sort of feelings about that? Do you feel like we're fundamentally losing something, or is it just great to have that kind of liberation?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's all down to things. Move on, you know those tape machines. You know, if I had a tape machine here it'd take up a quarter of my room. I mean, now, look at the room you're in. You could be in that room and you could make a record in your room, which you probably do or possibly do. You got, you know, and from Japan to Berlin to London, people living in small spaces and far more people make records now than they ever did or make recordings than they ever did. So you've got this situation where you can't be moan what's going on. You have to embrace it and to me, I'm optimistic on that.
Speaker 2:I love the RIPX technology and what that can do, and I love the Atmos and there's loads of other new plugins and new machines. And there's also lots of good new. You know, my favorite new analog machine is the Zen Delay. You know, matt from Ninja Tune, zen Delay is an amazing bit of a kit. I love loads of the old gear and you just have to use whatever tools you've got to make something interesting.
Speaker 2:The only problem we've got now is with the internet. Where there used to be, a scene could develop in a corner of Berlin or, you know, possibly in Ramsgate with us a lot down here, because there's a lot of musicians here. As soon as you do anything and anyone gets to hear it, it's available to be microscoped very, very quickly. So it doesn't give breathing space for something to nurture and develop so easily. So lots of people are calculated practitioners doing using their skills as a trained musician. Some of you were lucky enough to have music lessons and playing a game almost to get a result, and that's the only thing that I find a wee bit sad that you know it's only possibly places like Africa that are going to come out with something a bit innocent. But the Africans, they want, just like everyone else, to be successful and embrace what they hear is going on elsewhere.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean right now you just need some lunatic artists to come up. You know a great frontman or a great frontwoman, someone who's really good at writing songs. That, at the end of the day, is where it's at. You know, past the old whistle test, you know how good's the song, how good's the combination and the rest of it, to be honest with you, is like you know, the introduction of Malcolm McLaren said boom crack, boom crack, and how good you are at making that reach people and making them feel it. At the end of the day, the truth is it's like if you're a great artist, you will rise up, you know, and be that as a producer or musician or front person so many people pottering around in their room wondering how on earth they can monetize. They're in a genius. It's not that it's a good guy.
Speaker 1:Do you feel there's too much second guessing in the idea of like thinking, how to monetize your genius? Yeah, so what's the best way? For the people you've worked with that you've seen as artists, what is there sort of a commonality that you notice in terms of how they are able to be expressive in the way they are?
Speaker 2:It's character and you know it's just. Some people have worked very, very hard, like practice hours a day, to be great on their instrument. Other people sung since they were born and just got the unique, you know, a great singer. You can recognize their voice. So it's a one-off instrument. And then you know it's so rare finding great singer-songwriters to this day. It's an art form. So if you're a band, you've got to make yourself stand out from the pack. And I'd still, if I was left to it, I'd still rather be recording a live band timing mistakes and little you know, wonderful imperfections than a totally polished thing that we might be doing here using protools and everything. Rather people took up instruments again rather than learning to program, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you find it important to kind of, you know in terms of using protools and stuff, to, if there are mistakes, to try and capitalize on those? Or you know, because you know protools obviously clean so much stuff up, but are there ways that you find that you can keep it raw or allowed?
Speaker 2:Well, the only thing I do, which you know probably a lot of people do, is I get in players. So I've gotten, you know, really good people who live near me, really good people on the other side of the world. Get them to perform on things that might be programmed or part-programmed, because I still want it to fit. It's got to have the feel factor. If it's all programmed and hasn't got a thing, sure that's great, that's like you know techno-y or you know dance-all-y or whatever. But when you've got elements of swing and playing, it's much sexier. You know, I don't mean that, you know literally. I mean sex is just a better feel. You know, better feel, much better feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it definitely goes back to feel and it's tactile. You're going to sort of yeah, adrian, thank you so much. Thanks for chatting with me today.
Speaker 2:It's nice chatting to you.
Speaker 1:Okay. Thanks so much, adrian, for having that chat with me for Lost and Sound. That was Adrian Sherwood talking with me, paul Hamford for Lost and Sound, and we had that chat on the October, the 17th 2023. The 12th African Head Charge album, a Trip to Bulgatanga, is out now on new sound records. Thank you so much, adrian, for that chat.
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