Alan Parsons

From high school dropout to EMI to Abbey Road to Pink Floyd to the Alan Parsons Project and the new album...we cover it all!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Bob left St podcast.
My guest today is the one and only Alan Parsons. Alan,
good to have you on the podcast. Thanks, but it's
great to be you. Thank you. So how's your back? Oh,
you heard? Yeah, I've, I've had I've had some back

(00:29):
problems over the years and my my doctor Orthopedist suggested
that I do this procedure because it's suddenly fed up
a month ago and sadly I had to cancel an
entire European tour, but I got I got the I
got the surgery it was. It's now been three weeks

(00:51):
and I'm slowly getting better, but it's nice of you
to ask. What was the surgery? It was called decompression
of L two, l three and l three to l four.
If that means anything, which does? Oh, it does. and
Are you in pain now? Are you okay? Little, just

(01:14):
a little bit? I'm not. I'm not using pain colors
and I'm I'm fine when I'm like sitting down or
lying down. But yeah, I'm comfortable, perfectly comfortable right now.
So when might we see you back on the road?
We have we have gigs in November. Uh, I don't
think we're going to make anything happen before then, just

(01:35):
to be safe. But plenty, plenty of going on in
the in the new year as well. and Are you
working now primarily just to have fun or do you
need the money? Everybody needs the money. That's true. There's
never enough money. Um, I've I've I've been keeping busy

(01:58):
in the studio. Um, I just had delby atmos installed,
installed in my studio, so I've been experimenting with that
and hoping to do some remixing. I'm hoping that the
I robot album we will be the next from the
APP cattler. I'm also working with David Pack from Ambrosia.

(02:21):
He wants a Delby atmos mix of his first two albums.
And I've also been working with the drama of Lenny
Kravitz's band. His name is Franklin Vanderbilt and I've done
a whole album with him and we're just we've just
got some touch ups to to do on that and

(02:44):
then it will be finished. Tell me about your take
on Dolby atmos. It's a little soon for me to
say because I've literally only had it here a week
now and I was I was pretty happy with with
five point one and got got very used to it.
I mean, it's just more speakers to think about. That's

(03:07):
that's really what it's all about. I mean we've got
to speakers and you've got four speakers in the ceiling
and you know that that makes a difference, and two
side speakers. I'm pointing right. We don't have a video,
but you can see. You can see me that nobody
else can. Yeah, we've got two four speakers and sitting
on two new speakers at side. So I mean, you know,

(03:29):
it's infinitely variable how you how you play sounds. Um,
I I found that with five point one, you is,
you quickly ran out of ideas about where to put things.
You know, what you put in the back channels and
what you'd keep in the front channels and so on.
But I've I've come to enjoy, you know, multi channel
sound generally. So I'm very hopeful that the atmos will

(03:51):
work for me. Well. You know, if you listen to Apple,
which most people are listening to to channel, the remixes
so far sound in most cases radically different from the originals.
Now I'm like, unlike with you, doesn't tend to be
the same mixer that it was originally, but the vocals
are down in the mix. I mean, we've lived through

(04:13):
so many iterations of Saman Mono. Dysteria was a big jump,
but quad and all these other things they never seem
to ultimately gain holes. Will be interesting to see what
happens with autmost. Yes, Um, I'm I mean it's the Buzzword.
I mean everybody in the industry is talking about it.
It seems to be the new the new the new

(04:35):
fashion and, interestingly, I I'm curious to know why Americans
call it at most, because you don't use the word atmosphere,
you don't say at most fear. So I'm on. I'm
on a a kind of a quest to get people
to say atmost, not at most. You can, you can

(04:59):
be the first, you can me the first, absolutely okay.
So you have album. Repeat after me, atmos almos close.
I'M gonna leave in it that. We'll see what the
public decides on if they continue to use at wilser
at Muss as sound irrelevant of the moniker and how
you pronounce it. So you have a new album from

(05:22):
the new world. It's entitled why Now? Why a new
album now? Well, I was. I think I was reasonably
overdue for it for another album, that the last album.
The secret came out. I think it wast so three
years Um and you know, frankly, the the the covid

(05:43):
outbreak actually helped because, you know, everybody that I worked
with on the new album was was, you know, fully
vaccinated or had already got over Covid, and so I
was able to work in person with the and so
that that worked out, that we worked out really well, whereas,

(06:04):
of course, we could not play live. That was absolutely
to be in the particularly in one just was a
disaster for everybody. It might might as well not have existed. Okay,
reading the credit to the album. You know, multiple studios
are used us, blackbird in Nashville. So did you actually

(06:25):
go there or were these done remote? We we did
the stuff in Nashville remote. There's this h great program
called source connect, which allows us to interact as if
they were in the room. All we have to do
is send them the track and they control their own transport.

(06:47):
But it works out really well and you know, we
can point a camera at them on you know, do
facetime on a phone whatever, but it's Um, it's great
because you save. You Save on Holt Hotel rooms and
and hotels, hotel rooms and their fairs. Sorry, and you
know that they don't have to travel, so I think

(07:08):
they're better off for it. But you're traditionally an analog
guy and that's inherently digital. So how do you feel
about that? What do you say? I'm a inherently analog guy.
I've been supporting digital ever since ceed first started. Um,
I went from you know, mixing in in in digital too, uh,

(07:33):
Sony Twenty four track digital, which became Sony Forty eight
track digital. No, I've I've been recording essentially digitally for
quite a while now. Um. But, having said that, my
studio now is although of course I use pro tools
like most people, which is a digital recording format. It's

(07:55):
very high very high resolution digital format, but I use
an analog console and that's that's a joy for me
just to just to do everything like it used to be,
you know, setting up mikes and having each each mic
on its own analog channel and then then committing it
to pro tools. And when did you stop, or did
you ever stop, using tape? Oh, yeah, I think we

(08:21):
I think a valid path would have been the first
time there was not a tape machine inside, even a
digital tape machine. But yes, that that was a good
while ago. That was ninety four. So I haven't seen
a tape machine basically since ninety four. And what's the
difference between your knee analyze, so I'm told? Sorry, I
mean two thousand four, not that sounded pretty early very

(08:44):
much right. Was Two four. So it was a practical matter.
What's the difference between your analog Nive and a digital board?
It's Um, you know, it's just a little more tactile.
Every every channel has its own controls, its own sands,

(09:06):
its own accues and whereas digital tend to digital consoles
tend to group things together and you have to hit
a button to to go to a particular channel that
you want to modify, whereas on a on an analog board,
it's not so much a control surface, but it's a
it's a it's an information giver. It tells you what

(09:28):
you're doing at a glance, whereas it on a digital
console that's almost impossible to assess. What what every every
channel is doing at the same time. And what about
the quality of the sound? Well, believe it or not,
digital audio is still in its infancy and it gets

(09:49):
better every day. Analog to digital converters, digital to analog
converters get better every day. Um. And you know, I think,
I truly believe, one day we will just look back
on analog tape recording as as a piece of history

(10:10):
because we can duplicate it exactly in digital and we'll
say what, what, what was? What was wrong with digital
in the first place? But it did get better, it
really did get better. And what's your take on the
vinyl renaissance? It's that's that's really interesting. I mean that
that's clearly a move towards the public favoring uh, a pure,

(10:36):
pure signal path to to to the to their systems. Um.
Vinyl is Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's the
thing you hold in your hand and you can read
the cover notes and and but the sound is great,
especially the the mastering that's been going on at tough

(10:57):
speed to improve the quality. Yet again, I'm all in
favor of it and I I just came recently came back,
before I went into hospital, from Munich in Germany, where
there is clearly a move towards the final the game.

(11:18):
I mean I was looking at looking at vinyl turntables
costing a hundred and sixty thousand euros. I mean it's
just unbelievable. Let's be very specific. If the path is
a digital path and you end up with a digital master,
I'm not talking about old stuff for sixties and seven
it's not modern stuff. What's the logic in cutting it

(11:40):
in vinyl? That's a very good question. I mean, Um,
I think it's just that people are getting back to
having a really good stereo system in their homes and,
you know, a good a good turntable is part of that.
Out of that equation, I think. I mean they might,

(12:03):
they might have a CD player as well, but audiophiles
are definitely sort of moving towards finyl. There's no question. Well,
as an engineer and an expert here, Um, although I
still have all my vinyl, I have multiple turntables, etcetera. It.
I talked to the professional community and they say inherently

(12:24):
there's distortion and the record for no other reason, the
needle moves from the outer groove to the inner groove
and it's more of an affectation than the sound being
better than digital today standards. Your take on that? You
say it's just a fashion thing. Let's go back in

(12:45):
the early days of digital and you heard. I mean.
I use this example. I remember having the original back
in black, a C D, C C D, and I
have a lot of power. I never want to hit
the storeship in my system and I turned it up
and my ears would bleed. I put on Thet I
put on the vinyl and you could feel it in

(13:06):
the house would shake. Okay, people, people might say that
was distortion, but it was palpable. But now when I
listen to things, you know resolution certainly of nineties six,
never mind CD quality. All the experts say that. You
know that. I talked to said you like the sound
a vinyl, great, but it's not more accurate and the

(13:28):
digital original is actually better. But I'm asking you that
question for your take. If if the digital original was
done at High Ras, like K or o high or
even Um, yes, I would argue that that that's the
that's the highest quotity you're gonna get. Uh, but uh,

(13:49):
for you know, for older recordings, I think I think final.
I think the final wins out, despite the pulps and crackles.
You know, we can, we can put up with us.
I agree. If it's if it's kind of analog to
begin with. That's a whole different thing. Yeah, but a
lot of people buying vinyl today, or younger people, were
just buying something cutting digital that's been, you know, transferred

(14:12):
to vinyl. I don't get it. Yeah, that that is
a bit that is a bit weird. But needless to say,
the landscape is different in the recording industry than it
used to be. I'm talking about the commercial and the
marketing and we used to have a major label. There're
a limited number of albums out there. You know, a
lot of older acts it's a disincentive. They don't even

(14:35):
record new music anymore because they're fearful it won't reach
their customers. Is that something that interduce your brain? Very
much so. But I'm pleased, I'm very pleased that I
seem to have enough lasting power to to at least
make albums. I don't sell albums anything like how I
used to. I mean all the Alam Passer's project albums

(14:57):
went to at least gold, most amount platinum or even
double platinum. But you know, I'm still here. I'm still
supporting the Alan Parsons Project by playing live, UH and
enjoying it very much. So, I mean it's it is
a warrior. I mean there's a lot of British bands

(15:18):
in particular who who just are terrified to put out
another album in case it completely stiff h but I've
done okay in that respect and the playing live really
really does help keep the name, the name alive, even
though we don't call it the Alan passons project. We

(15:38):
call it the Alan Parsons Live Project, Um, which is
kind of a salute to Eric Wilson, who who was
the other half of the Alan Passon's project. It was
just just the two of US really. So how do
you plan to market the records so your people are
aware of it and we'll hear it? I'm much reliant

(16:02):
on the label, which is frontiers, frontiers records out of
out of Italy. Um, they have a lot of a
lot of rock acts on their on their roster. Um.
I'm also very aware of the power of social media
these days. I mean if if if we post on
on our own facebook site, you know it'll get it

(16:25):
will get some attention and we can make it reach
other other websites as well. That that that's great. You
know that that that's the way to promote something these days.
It's it's, it's all. It's all about the Internet. And
to what degree you personally active? You have other people
do it for you. I do most of the time.
I have other people do it, okay, one of one

(16:48):
of whom is my wife, one of whom is my
son in law. So you have this album with the
Italian company. Did they pay for the record? Did you
pay for the record? Um, they paid me an advance
and I paid for it. And at the end of
the day you're going to be in the black or
the red on the record. That remains to be seen.

(17:11):
I haven't done the accounts yet. I'm I'm hoping it
will be close to break even at least. And what
about your royalty stream? How's that doing? Really good. Um,
you know, the the analysis project catalog, both both for
sound recording and publishing, is very much alive and doing

(17:33):
well and it's become it's become something I rely upon. Uh,
it's it's strong, it's great. Do you still own your
own publishing? I never did. I never did. It was
assigned to two publishers and of course I I own

(17:54):
rights to receive royalties on those, on those entities. But
know that that I don't own any of my copyrights.
So if there's a hundred cents in the dollar, how
much that it goes to you? Mm Hmm U. based
on a record sale? No, no, no, based on based

(18:17):
on a song. If there's a hundred, uh, freak. You know,
an artist might own their publishing, paid administrators somewhere between
three and ten percent, the other nineties them. Uh. An
artist may have a deal with a publisher and the
publisher owns the copyright. They take fifty, the artist who
wrote a gift fift also, if they co wrote it.
They ends up with so in the in this publishing

(18:41):
and a song, how much do you ultimately get in
the revenue drink? I think we're I'm publishing. Okay, so
that's good. That's a good number. How about the issue
of regaining the Copyright of your Alan Parsons Projects Records?
If you go on that road, we've we've done it.

(19:01):
We've done what what is called termination, which means that
we we we ultimately get get rights to it at
a certain point. But I don't think I'll ever literally
clawback that all the copyrights. I don't I don't think

(19:22):
that's going to happen. But I know it's fashionable to
to sell one's one's rights these days. I mean everybody's
doing it and I've been thinking about it. But no, no,
no firm decisions yet. What would be your motivation to
do it or not to it? Well, it's that it's
that big m word again. I mean it's it's money

(19:44):
in your pocket. You know. Um, I'm living very comfortably,
you know, now, with with the current live shows and
the current record sales. But you know, there's a if
there's a way of uh supplementing that income overnight, that

(20:07):
would be very nice. I'm not getting any younger either.
I mean, you know, I'm seventy three. A Nice little
a nice little few million dollars, you know, back in
the bank would would be very nice. I might consider
buying a second home or something, although, of course, if
you'd sold them uh recently and invested the proceeds, with

(20:30):
the market crash, you know, that would have worked against you.
But okay, so let's go back to the beginning. What
were you growing up? Circumstances like? I I was an
only child. Both my parents were musical. My My dad
played piano and flute and my mother played a Celtic

(20:55):
up and there was always it was always music in
my household. My Dad was always playing classical music, which
is why my knowledge of classical music is is pretty good.
And you know, I I went to good schools in London,

(21:15):
prep school called the hall and went on to what
the English would call a public school. Uh, but it's
very it's very much a private school. That was Westminster,
Westminster School, which was adjacent to Westminster Abbey in London,
so very sort of prestigious location. But I left. I

(21:41):
left at sixteen. I was considered by a vocational guidance
person to be unsuitable to to continue to the age
of eighteen in order to go to college or anything.
So I left at sixteen, went went to well, before
you go there, what'd your parents say when the guy
we got into said get out of here? I think,

(22:04):
I think they're supported me on it. When my my
school reports were dreadful. You know, he he has no
interest in this subject. You know he's he's slacking, he
will not, will not do his homework and all that
kind of stuff. So yeah, it was. It was. It
surprised me. I thought, Oh my God, Oh my God,
I'm going to be hating school for at least another

(22:28):
two years. But I really hadn't considered the option of
leaving school. And I mean Americans use the expression high
school dropout. I suppose. I suppose that's what I was
really but I was a dropout from a public school,
prestigious English Public School, you know, right up there amongst Eaton, Harrow,

(22:52):
St Paul's, or big public schools as we call them. Um.
So I was an unusual was an unusual dropout. What
kind of kid were you growing up? Popular, unpopular, loner,

(23:12):
into your own things. Usually single kids have their own
unique perspective in life. I had a good childhood. I
wasn't bullied at school, if that's what you mean, but
I I mentioned I was. I wasn't an only child
and I had lots of friends. I did okay. We,

(23:36):
my my parents, lived in in an area of London
which was was fairly upper middle class, actually a very
Jewish area. I'm not Jewish myself, but we lived in
a substantially Jewish area and I generally had a good childhood.
I I enjoyed my my my father had a sort

(24:03):
of passion for gadgetry and building things and I think
that's kind of rubbed rubbed off on me as well,
and I I learned. I learned a great deal from him.
Needles to say, music was revolutionized with the Beatles in
the British invasion. To what degree were you growing up
paying attention to popular music and what was your experience?

(24:27):
I was very, very into part music. I started taking
a really interesting about Ah. Distinctly remember a friend of
Mine Picking Up Oh Carol by Neil Sadaka, whatever year
that is. I think that's probably around that time. I

(24:48):
was a huge fan of cliff and the shadows, Richard,
that is Um and in terms of American music, I
was listening to Chat Berry, Buddy Holly, of course. So yeah,
I was there. I was there at the beginning of
at the beginning of Pop and, to what you know,

(25:10):
it was a seismic event when the Beatles came to America.
What was your experience in the UK? I was still
at school. Um, I mean I was the biggest beatle
fan you could you could ever imagine. I really was very, very,
very into their music right right from the beginning, right
from from me to you and love me do through

(25:33):
to the through to their ultimate breakup. So did you
play a musical instrument growing up? Uh, I took piano lessons.
I didn't particularly enjoy learning, learning piano from a teacher,
I was I was more interested in playing by here
and I did the same for the flute. The good

(25:55):
thing about it is it taught me musical notation which
I was I might not have been able to to
use in later life. I mean I use musical musical
notation now to substantial degree, especially for orchestral arrangements and
so on. But yeah, it was it was a good

(26:18):
thing that I did. I did have piano and flute lessons.
Played in an orchestra at school as well. Um Plenty of,
plenty of musical events going on in my chilter. So
you pushed out of school at Sixteen and one level
your thrilled you don't have to go two more years.

(26:38):
What goes from your head then? What you'RE gonna do?
I somehow knew that I would be in the entertainment
industry somewhere. I given consideration to sound. You know, I
didn't really know what what a recording engineer was back then,

(26:59):
but I said I to work with sound and I
also considered television. I I actually filled in forms for
the BBC, you know, to become a TV cameraman, you know,
to be trained as a TV cameraman. But that that,
that just went by the wayside and I did a
similar thing with e m I that I knew em.

(27:21):
I was a big record company. So my first job
after leaving school was with the M I was. that
a hard job to get because from the outside, you know,
people are salivating for jobs like that. It was actually
an apprenticeship scheme, it wasn't you know. I started in

(27:41):
a in a research lab which was making television camera tubes,
a very technical job. I learned how to do glass blowing,
which was interesting, and that that that, you know, just
taught me what industry was like. I mean every everybody

(28:03):
else in the in the department, that TV Camera Tube Department,
was at least ten years older than me. So I
was the youngster, you know, but I got on well,
I got on all right. And how did you get
from there to the studio? Well, there are two more stages.
That the the TV research lab was was in haze

(28:27):
in Middlesex, which is west of London, about fifteen miles
west of central Lona. Um. I then transferred to a
to a department called tape records, which was which was
great as far as I was concerned. They were they
were they were, you know, very involved with listening to

(28:48):
EMMI product, duplicating EMI product. Um. The Department is actually
devoted to manufacturing mono versions of the of their their
product on tape on the little three inch or five

(29:08):
and little five inch plastic schools, and they were actually
very good sounding, very good sounding products. But I worked
in that department, you know, helping to maintain tape machines
and so on. But then I got into a copying
room where Abbey road would send there the latest efforts

(29:33):
down to us to be duplicated for foreign countries. So
I was literally one of the very first people to
hear sergeant pepper from the master tape, before anybody in
the great wide world had had ever even heard of it,
and alone listen to it. So how do you end

(29:56):
up in the studio? Well, the studio was, thankfully, Um
a department associated with this tape records department. That where
I was working, and I simply wrote to the manager
said I've been working for em I since I'm now

(30:18):
in tape records. I would very much appreciate a visit
to Abbey Road to see what see what goes on
and if, if there were any vacancies, I'd be very interested.
That same week he received a letter. I was invited
to an interview and two weeks later I went walked

(30:42):
up those steps for the first time and I became
a trainee, trainee engineer at happy with the studios. Well,
you know, as time went on that was the first
step in most studios was the tea boy, but you
were part of a larger system. What was you? What
were your duties? into what degree were the instructing you
when store in there? I, like most of the bureaud engineers,

(31:06):
I started in the tape library, literally just logging in
tapes that derived and logging out tapes that people ask for.
Fairly mundane tasks, but it taught me the importance of
of correctly identifying what's what's on on the on the
tape box, what's on the tape, because it's it's terrifying

(31:32):
sometimes to see how how little detail goes into marking
up a tape box and I actually ended up writing
a book called the Master Tapebook, which which emphasized that
that particular importance. So literally, probably only a month in
the in the in the tape in the tape library.

(31:54):
Then I was allowed to be a fly on the wall.
will fly on the wall for sessions. The Very First
Session and I sat in on, was a band called
the gods, and musicologists will tell you that, oh, yes,
the gods, that was Ken Ken Hensley's first band, which
it was, but he was a keyboard player, not a

(32:18):
not a guitarist, as he was in your eye heat.
So how long was it before you got to touch anything? Oh,
quite quite a while. Um. Well, no, actually I mean
you say touching the I was allowed on to touch

(32:38):
a tape machine because that's essentially what I was training for,
to be a tape operator, assistant engineer. So I got
to know, you know, the workings of a of the
studio four track machines. Most most sessions were four track.
When I first arrived, the Beatles were there doing the
white album, just as I right, some of which was

(33:00):
eight track. But it was very, very much a lash
up too to use an eight track machine with a
four track console. But I got I got to I
didn't really get to see any of that. Um, it
was sometime later that that I actually got to a

(33:24):
record record with Paul McCartney. That was that was years later.
But the Um the experience of of of of training
under you know, great engineers like Jeff emeric and Petere Vince,
Peter Bawn, Peter Mu Ken Scott who, of course, you

(33:46):
will know, went on to be a very successful producer
with David Bowie. Um, just just watching, just watching them.
And then, you know, I was let loose probably probably
two and a half years into my employment at at
at Abbey Road with the hollies. I've done a bunch

(34:09):
of sessions with the hollies as as their tape operator,
as their second engineer, but their engineer was double booked
and they offered me the job for the first time,
you know, my first real engineering, engineering GIG, and it
went okay. I mean I I listened back to it

(34:31):
now and I think, Oh, if only, if only, if only,
if only. But it came out pretty good. And were
you thrilled just to be in the belly of the beast?
Are Very quickly did that fall away and you were
just doing a job? Oh, no, I was. I was
totally totally into I know it didn't feel like a

(34:51):
job as well at all. I was very, very much
into what I was doing and I would I would work,
you know, crazy hours in order to just just to
enjoy myself. It was the best job in the world.
And had anyone taught you how to use the border?
You just observed and when the other guy who's double

(35:13):
book you, sat down to do it. Yeah, I mean
I I had a pretty good idea how how the
console effectively worked. But the Abbey road engineers used to
be known as balance engineers, and that's that's really what
what the balance engineers did? They deal with the mix

(35:35):
between instruments. So it was right to use the word balance.
But I yeah, my my, my first ventures into engineering
all came from the experience of watching others. Okay, I

(35:57):
have a question. You know, when the Beatle CDs first
came out in the eighties, the early albums, everyone was
shocked how good they sound, but if you look at
the equipment it seems so primitive. Why was the sound
so good? Good, good engineering, just solid, good engineering. That's

(36:18):
that's what it was all about. I mean it's it's
extraordinary that those early albums were done on four track
at at best. I think the first album was done,
done to track. So they would record, you know, a

(36:39):
backing track based drums, guitars and then they would add
the vocals and that was it. That was the that
was the master tape. And I'm sure you've heard the
so called Stereo versions, early Stereo versions of those albums.
All the music is on the left on the vocals
are on the right and they call it stereo crazy.

(37:02):
So what happened after the hollies? Well, I started to uh,
you know, get more, more work with the hollies, plenty
of work with with them, Um, and it was wasn't
really very long until H I had until, you know,

(37:27):
the dark side of the moon sessions. Really, that was
that was pretty pretty soon after that period. Um. But
you know, the the the important, the important step that
happened between me being a tape up and being an
engineer was was being sent down to the Beatles studio

(37:51):
in Savo row to tape up for them. So that
was the that was the first Beatles experience, Um, and
I was, of course, on the roof for the for
the rooftop session, which was magnucent day. I will never,
never forget that, um. So I continued after that. I

(38:12):
was I was. I spent a period engineering and and
tape hopping. You know I did. I wasn't considered a
fully fledged engineer really until probably until until that Sut
the moon. That's when it that's when it all came together. Okay,
so you're there at the Beatles studio. We just had

(38:34):
this exhaustive get back movie. To what degree did you
like it, not like it, and did it conform with
your remembrance of what happened there? UH, the the letter
B movie was was. I found it really sort of depressing. UH, I.

(38:57):
I don't think it rep entered what what was going
on very well. But I think Peter Jackson's movies is
it's not only complete, but it's uh, it gives a
much brighter picture of of what went on during that period.
And I'm in it. I'm in get back. You see

(39:18):
me credited on screen as Alan Parsons, tape operator. Um.
So I was very, very pleased about that. I actually
met Peter Jackson a few months before the release and
he showed me a couple of clips. It was great.
He's he's a lovely guy and very talented and you
can't believe the the improvement in quality that he managed

(39:40):
to get between the the sixteen mill film and what
you see in the in the get back series. And
what was your involvement with the Abbey Road? UH, at
the time of the Getty Road, the Abbey road album
by the Beatles. Oh, I see, Um, I was tape up. Um,

(40:00):
there were two two main engineers, Jeff emeric and Phil McDonald. Um.
But you know, I was there interacting with the band occasionally.
You know, uh, Paul or John might you know, say
can you play that again, or whatever. So I wouldn't

(40:21):
call it establishing a huge friendship, but we we, we
were business associate, but a great experience to watch them
at work, see how their their minds worked and what
they what they could achieve. It was actually interesting that
on on Abbey road they weren't often all there together.

(40:46):
In tended to be a one, one beetle at a time,
coming into Polish off their own their own compositions, and
they would have they would have had to be there
together to do the backing tracks. But all the well,
the later overdos tended to be solistry, experiences by experiences
by one beatle alone. Diesles to say, these are legendary

(41:10):
records that the audiences contemplated literally for decades, half a century,
and you watch the get back movie and they seem
to be so fanciful just writing in the studio and
we'll see what goes on. What was your experience of
the creative process? Well, you know, I didn't really see

(41:33):
them songwriting. I mean I don't know what their process
was for the songwriting. I mean I think it was
well established by by Abbey Road that that John was
writing his songs and Paul was writing his songs. It
wasn't was no longer a genuine Lennon McCartney situation, even
though the credits continued to say Lennon McCartney. Um. So

(42:00):
I can't really answer what they uh, what, you know,
the processes they went through to to write a song.
But I certainly got to see, uh, you know, the
ideas they had to make each song different, or two, two,
you know too, to make it sound, you know, as

(42:21):
good as it does on the on the final mix.
I mean there was a lot of work, a lot
of work after the basic tracks, on on on everything,
including a orchestra for the first time. I think they've
never had a really full size orchestra perform on their
music before. So how did you get the GIG on
dark side of the Moon? I had been previously working

(42:44):
with them on atom up mother. I tape opped the
whole the whole thing, until it was mixing time. Um
Peter Bawn, their engineer again, very very great engineer. He
was unable to do mixing sessions and they very graciously

(43:08):
just said, Alan, would you like to have a go
at it because you know, you know the music, which
I did. You know, I knew, I knew every every note.
If they've brought in one of the other engineers it
might have been a more complicated process. But yeah, I
mixed it. They were happy with it and that ultimately

(43:30):
led to me getting the GIG for dark side of
the Moon. Okay, they were had singles, hits. Originally Sidbart
was in the band. That didn't translate to America. Then

(43:50):
they had all these records on harvest, M A, Gumma,
Adam Hart mother. From a outside perspective it seemed the
dark side of the moon was definitely a different direction.
was that the perception in the studio? Was this just
another pink floyd album? It turned out to be such

(44:11):
a Gargagean success. I think everybody recognized it was. It
was different and I think at the end of the day,
everybody thought it was, without a doubt, their best work today. Um.
But I didn't, I don't think any of us, myself included,
I thought that would still be talking about it fifty

(44:32):
years later. I mean it's it's really unbelievable. And other
than operating the board, what were your contributions? Well, Um,
a few bits and pieces. I I came up with
the clock's idea for for time because I had previously

(44:53):
recorded the clocks in a in an antique shop not
far from the studios, Um, which was ostensibly for a
sound effects record which which I think got released but
sold about ten copies. Um. So that, yeah, we we
took all these chiming clocks and ticking clocks and synchronized

(45:14):
them all together. Each each clock was recorded separately and
just literally pressingly play buttonet at a particular moment to
make them synchronize, um striking at the same time. So
that was one little contribution which, yeah, fairly major, fairly

(45:36):
fairly memorable section of the album. Um, the the loop
on the loop on money was quite painstaking. The assembled
we we amassed a number of sounds like dropped, dropping

(45:59):
a bag of coins on the on the on the
wooden floor in number two studio, tearing up paper the
Cash Register, of course. And we we made these continuous loops,
but they sounded when the first couple of loops we
tried sounded terrible. There was no sort of rhythm to
it and we discovered that the only way to make

(46:23):
it rhythmically correct was to actually take a ruler and
measure a precise length of tape that would be spliced
on to the next similarly measured splicing tape. That's what
that's how it ended up. What you hear on the
intro and ultimately what they played to. They played to that, that,

(46:45):
that that loop. There was no there was no click
track or anything or any metronome. They literally just played
to that, to that loop, although it faded out um
soon after the intro. They then went free form. Now,
if you go online there's pushed back from Roger Water

(47:05):
is relative to your contribution by the same talk and
he pushes back on everything. Yeah, I mean, you have
any thoughts about that? What's saying? Saying that actually saying
that my my contribution was was limited or ill or
or or essentially that you were just doing what you're

(47:26):
doing would have been successful with anybody. It was really
much is about them and that you've been treading on
your work there thereafter. Yeah, that's that's that's Roger. Um,
I think. Um, I can safely say that David and

(47:49):
David and Nick have always been very supportive of of
my my various exploits. They've always they've always maintained that
I did a nice job on that side man, and
so much so that David actually played on a on
a one of my on my first solo album. So

(48:12):
what was the experience of being involved in such a
successful record? You're a guy who's unknown and then all
of a sudden you have the biggest album in the world,
and how did that affect your career? Oh, it was
very positive on my career. I I was actually offered
a job. I mean I had been when the when

(48:33):
the album came out, I was on the road with him.
I was doing their lives sound as well as occasional
studio sessions. We went back into the studio to do
the famous household objects album, which never happened, which never
never really went anywhere. But yes, I the phone started
to ring. People wanted to work with me and I

(48:56):
was getting into production at at that time seventies, early
early seventy, so not not long after the success of
dark siloment and thankfully my my earliest productions met with
considerable success, and that that was that was the path

(49:19):
to producing further acts and ultimately the Alan Pasmer's project.
And how did you end up working with McCartney on
red rose speed? Yeah, that was just essentially a an
extension of you know, we knew each other from from
an Abbey road he he knew of my my work

(49:44):
with with Pink Floyd. I think, although I'm not I'm
not very good on on comparing dates, but I think,
I think I'd probably already done a dark siderment by
the time I started working with him. But we were
we always got on well. Well, like on Red Rose Speed,

(50:04):
with big barn bed etcetera. To what degree? Because this
is a guy who cut records totally by himself. So
what was your role on those records? He he, he
looked towards his engineers. You know, he worked them hard,
or any engineer that's worked with ball will tell him.

(50:26):
We'll tell you this. You know he'll he'll he's not
particularly technical. He can't, you can't describe in technical terms
what he's looking for. He would just say, Oh, let's
let's make the snare drum sound better and how I
would have moved the MIC. Try a different MIC, try
a different Eq, you know. And Yeah, I think ultimately

(50:50):
he probably got the result he wanted. But yeah, he
was pretty demanding, pretty pretty you know, working his working
his engineers hard. So how did you meet Eric Wiles?
Eric had been coming in and out of Abbey Road

(51:11):
as a UM as a producer. He, uh, he, and
I I mean I worked on a couple of sessions
he was involved with and I sensed his great expertise
on the music business and we got chatting and he said,

(51:37):
you know, what you need is a manager, and I went, oh, really,
I didn't know engineers had or producers even had had managers.
But yes, he, he, I was. I became one of
the first engineer producers to be to have a manager.
So that's that's how it all started. And then literally

(52:00):
in no time after we signed the management deal. Ah,
we were looking towards making an album of a gland
post stories. A little bit slower heart you okay, you're
making managery deal. How do you end up making an
album about Edgar Allan Pole story? Where does that come from?

(52:21):
It was it was very much Eric's idea where he
had had a passion for for the work of Poe
as as a child, as as had I, I mean
I i. I read it a whole bunch of his
short stories myself and I thought it was a great
idea to to make a concept album based on the

(52:43):
work of Po Um. We we really didn't anticipate at
the time that it would be known as the Alan
Pasta's project. The Alan Pastor project was literally just a
descriptive term for what, for the album we were making.
I didn't, I honestly didn't think it would become the

(53:05):
name of the act. But that's what that's that's what
Russ Reagan, the president at the American label, he said. No,
I think the act is the Alan paster's project. We're
gonna we're going to call it tells a mystery imagination,
the Alan paster's project. Yeah, and what did Eric say
about that? Well, he in later life he said that

(53:29):
was the the best, best decision he ever made to
put my name as the as the artist and he
also said it was the worst decision because he he
didn't get the the attention or the accolade that that
I did. But yes, he often said that in interview.

(53:51):
It was my best decision, also my wifet decision. so
you decide to make a record. I think it's on
flying careers metal label in U K. It's on twentieth
century in uh the US. Twenty Century was not a
good label. How did you end up on twentieth century? Um?

(54:14):
That was because the band Ambrosia had had signed with
Twentie Um. There was also another connection. Twentie signed Carl Douglas,
who was the Kung Fu fighting guy. Uh So, essentially,
ambrosia Carl Douglas and Eric going to talk to the

(54:39):
president at the label and he that was that was
good enough for him to to to sign sign us
for for the for the first album. Yeah, hits with
Carl Douglas, hits with Ambrosia. Okay, so you were involved
with the Ambrosia before the tales of mystery in the
marriage nature. How did you get involved with the Ambrosia? Um?

(55:04):
That's an interesting story. The the the first I knew
of Ambrosia was was a phone call from a guy
called Gordon Parry who had been there sort of protege Um.
He was a classical music engineer at Decca and I
just happened to be passing the telephone at the commissionaire's desk,

(55:29):
the Security Guy's desk, and I picked up the phone
said Abro Studios Canna help you, and this voice from
Gordon Perry said I'd like to speak to Alem pass
and he said yeah, this is ourn and ended up
being a fifteen minute conversation, that he would invite me
to come down, come over to to Los Angeles to

(55:54):
work with this band. And it just so happened that
that phone call came when I was already booked to
go to l a for the grammys because I've been
nominated for the dark side of the Moon Uh to
get an engineering grammy, and during during my visit, I
want to hear their album and I love liked it

(56:14):
very much, and then the offer came into not not
to stay on and mix. Mixed their album. Then it
was a few months later that it was still working
progress at that time, but I loved it and mixing
their first album led to my producing their second album.
Somewhere I never traveled. So the first album again, I

(56:36):
think that's their best work, the iconic song of course,
just holding on too, holding onto yesterday. What did you
do in the mix to make you know, to make
it sound so good? Yeah, I I give credit to
the engineers that recorded it. I mean I think it's
a nicely, nicely executed mix. Um, I I really can't

(57:01):
tell you in tangible expressions what what I actually did.
I mean I didn't have any magic magic buttons or
magic equipment. The equipment was still fairly primitive in those days.
Digital delays and so I'm still still hadn't really hit
the hit the market, but it was, it was. It

(57:25):
was a nice recording. You know, the violin part it's
lovely and David Pack did a great vocal. so you
decide to make this record with Eric Wilson about Edgar
Allan Poe. What are the next steps in terms of
creation of the music, getting a record deal, casting the record?

(57:45):
Walk me through that. Well, we, uh, we did the
deal with with Rassrigan of Twentieth Century at the Music
Conference in Cannes in France, which is called me dam,
and essentially we had we had a meeting with Russ
and told him, told him that we had this idea

(58:07):
to make a record based on ground post stories, and
he loved the idea and essentially said yeah, off you go,
here's a check, which is great, and it's it's, it's
it's interesting when he when he first heard the album,
I think he was which we also did in France,

(58:30):
that was in Paris. He he actually used the words
I like it, but I don't love it, but that
was that was on the first hearing. And then after
hearing it a few more times, he said, Oh my God,
this is the best albumue best album I've ever heard.
You know, he totally changed his stance on that. I

(58:51):
did one and half the album of being instrumental, on
the other album being a traditional slam based rock record. Um,
that was probably more of my my influence than anything else.
I mean, historically I've I've been, you know, much more
responsible for for instrumental tracks than than vocal tracks. But

(59:14):
of course a lot of a lot of that time
is taken up by the fall of the House of Usha,
which is a purely orchestral piece. Um, that's that's something
I I really enjoyed, you know, putting a classical org
strip together for music I'm I'm responsible for. So that
was that was really that was a big moment Um. Yes,

(59:38):
you know there there are various orchestral and instrumental interludes
in the album which, in commercial terms, they they're not
they're not considered necessary in commercial terms. And when we
eventually signed with Clive Davis, he was always looking for
hit songs. You know, you were never of considered an

(01:00:01):
instrumental track for a single. But yeah, I think in
the early, early periods of the APP tells Mry I
robot pyramid, I did make a a more substantial contribution
as a as a as a composer, particularly for the

(01:00:21):
for the instrumental tracks. And on that album you have
Arthur Brown, of the crazy world of Arthur Brown. How
does he end up singing? A partner of a business
partner of Eric's, knew him. Um It was. It was
a great, great afternoon when he came into to sing

(01:00:43):
the tell tale heart he uh, we played we played
him Eric's guide vocal, which is incredibly simple. That you
should have seen him running it alone. But then the
night you know, and he heard it and it's very
down to earth and so yeah, I think, I think
I've got it, goes into the studio, goes onto the mic,

(01:01:04):
we played the track and then suddenly it's wow, it was.
We were really worried that he wouldn't he wouldn't find himself,
he wouldn't find his crazy world for our track, but
he very much did and I think it's a standout,
standout track on the first album. Love it. And then

(01:01:24):
how did you end up using John Miles? He'd have
a pre existing relationship with him. I did. Yes, we
had a big success with his his first two singles
and his first album. UH, sadly not in America, but
we did incredibly well with John and in the UK

(01:01:45):
and the rest of Europe. Incredibly talented his singing. Sadly
we lost him a few months ago. He died of
cancer just, Oh, I don't know, three or four months ago, um.
But I always regarded him as a great singer and
that's why I invited him back on several occasions to

(01:02:07):
sing other songs and tell me about the use of
the vote order on the Raven. The vote Codea was
actually an e m I creation. Um, there was a
big audio research department at as where I where I

(01:02:27):
worked had worked earlier, um in that TV camera department. Um,
they they came up with this box that we had
kind of asked for. We said, how can we, how
can we add a vocal to an instrument and make
it sound like it's one thing, and there was this Um,

(01:02:51):
there was a series of stories on on record. That
was called sparky's magic piano. I don't know if you
I don't know that one, though it was it was
an American productive, but there was literally a talking piano.
It's very it's very cleverly done and I think we,

(01:03:13):
we all hoped that that that's what it would achieve.
But in the end it it just made a voice
sound very electronic and it worked well for the Raven.
I mean we we spent a long time touring and
throwing trying different buttons, different settings and so on. But Um,

(01:03:33):
I think it I think it was pretty much the first,
first foe CODA used on a on a on a record.
So you have this very extensive cover, hypnosis, cover, uh,
in the UK. In America, I don't think there's a
gatefold at all, and then shortly thereafter the album just

(01:03:56):
says a cover of you on it. Yeah, well, I
was furious about that. That really was. And when when
people give me that set, that second simplified sleeve, to sign,
I I kind of go a grunt, grunt my disapproval.
You know that you should have the original cover, not
this cover. But no, that the the the gate, the

(01:04:21):
gate field did exist, I think, worldwide. It was very extravagant,
chasing paper between pages and stuff, and it wasn't it
a very lavish package, but it was great. I loved it. Okay,
I love that album. I bought it originally as a
Provo and they had an unlimited supply at my store

(01:04:43):
and I would buy them for other people. Huh, what
was the perception of success on that first album for
your from your viewpoint? I mean I was I was
amazed and I thought it, you know, we thought the
album was good, but we thought it literally fall by
the wayside, you know. But you know, we're a new act.

(01:05:04):
We have high hopes and but the success of tales
of mystery and the sect, the continued success of the
act through, you know, several other albums with with Arista,
I I have never ceased to be amazed at the

(01:05:25):
success and was always slightly trepidacious shall we say, but
it was always great news that, you know, it was
getting on playlists and that it was it was, you know,
actually shifting copies out of record stores. It was always
it was always a great relief and and you know,

(01:05:50):
I was proud. I was very proud. So you have
one record on twentieth century. How do you end up
bouncing from there to Aosta? Well, the first album deal
much too much to Russ Reagan's Chagra, I think, was Um.
It was just a single album deal. So we were

(01:06:11):
we were free to go go to anyone. Um. You
know you don't, you don't, you don't take a called
meeting with Clive Davis Likely, but that's what happened. He
invited us to dinner in London, famous, famous restaurant called Lorenzo's,

(01:06:32):
and essentially he he said he wanted to sign us
for a multi album deal and not soon after that meeting,
I think, Eric flew to New York and did the
business and there we were. We were signed to Aristair
for our for our second album, I robu so. At

(01:06:56):
the time he Arista was still just starting. He had
Patty Smith. There was a lot of goodwill, even though
he gotten fired he'd written his book, but his time
went on. As you referenced earlier, he was all about
hits and he was famous for meddling with the music
of artists. Now ultimately ended up being with, you know,

(01:07:19):
top forty artists who may not have even written the songs.
What was your experience working with Clive Davis? He he
always wanted to, you know, a single of every album.
He want wanted to make sure that it was commercial
in his eyes. He would always suggest edits. He would
he would even have his own people do do edits,

(01:07:44):
some of which worked well, some of which sounded absolutely horrible.
But he yes, he liked he he liked to be
close to the music. You know, really, you know, identify
buying the structure of a song and saying, you know,
the the chorus, the chorus doesn't happen until a minute

(01:08:08):
and a half in. We needed to happen less than
a minute in, and stuff like that. But you know,
you can't, you can't argue. He knew what he was doing.
He had he had the ear for hits. You ready
do so you would listen to him, you would change
the songs. will be okay with that. It was usually
a compromise. I never, I never put anything out that

(01:08:29):
I was actually, you know, actually unhappy with. No, we, we, we, we, I.
I don't know what's how to put this really we. Uh. Oh,
I think we just kept each other happy. I mean we,
we would come if they were compromise was necessarily on

(01:08:51):
a on an edit or. Uh. He never, never sought
to have US Remix, which, of course, labels are famous
for telling acts to remix their songs, but he never
did that. Just just the structure, just, you know, when
the chorus happens, when the Solo. We had a long solo,

(01:09:14):
for example, on Games people play, and we cut that
down and I was I was fine with that and
it was. Yeah, it was mutual decisions on on the
edits and I think both of us were happy in
the end. I don't think. I never put anything out
that I was seriously unhappy with. Now, it wasn't like

(01:09:35):
every album I had hits on it. There were ups,
there were downs. was He ever angry with you or
lost faith in you or you felt like a second
or third class citizen? No, no, I always had a
great relationship with client. H Never, never a harsh word. Okay,
and then ultimately serious becomes the Chicago Bulls the anthem,

(01:10:02):
it becomes sports the anthem. Did that happen totally independent
of you? And what did you think of that? I
had absolutely no idea. It certainly wasn't written as a
as a sports team. It was. It was written on
a fairlight computer instrument which was very high tech back

(01:10:25):
in the early eighties, Um, and it was just an
intro to tow eye in the sky. Ah, that somebody
at the at the Chicago Bulls said this will this
will make great walk on music for Michael Jordan. And
if that happened and several other sports teams followed, it

(01:10:51):
baffles me. I mean I think I think it works great,
but it certainly was not the last thing on my
mind that it would be used for sports. But it
continues to be used to this day. It is that lucrative.
The fact they do. It's lucrative in terms of TV advertising,

(01:11:12):
use on TV shows. American idol, for example, use it occasionally, um,
but sadly when it's used in in sports games, in
stadiums and so on, no, there is no there is
no record of it, there's no there's no money change
hands because it just goes into a big pot which

(01:11:33):
is shared by all, all musicians and writers. No, B
M I as cap so on, um C sack, which
is the society I'm with. They would be angry if
I hadn't mentioned that. Um, yeah, it's just just goes
into this general pot. It's not considered a a sink license.

(01:12:00):
That's what that's what's valuable to to a writer and
a musical act to get what is known as a
sync license. That means pictures. The sound has to be
licensed to go with a picture and considering that the
you know, ball game really is all about the people

(01:12:21):
on the court, not not, not, not a video. So
you're making all these records. They come on under the
moniker Alan Parsons Project. What do you do and what
does Eric Do? Well, we we both. We both came
to the studio in the early stages of each album

(01:12:43):
with with what we worked on on our own leading
up to that first day. Um Eric would usually usually
have a cassette with a rough version of the song
as he saw it at the time. Um, I also

(01:13:05):
made demos. By the time, by the time I and
the sky came along, I was I was back in London,
having lived in Monaco for a couple of years. Um, yeah,
we just came in and sort of say here's what
I've got, what have you got? And then we would
collaborate and I was famous for changing the structures of

(01:13:28):
his of his songs, you know, or changing the key
or changing the temple or whatever. Um. That's sort sort
of borne out by the recent releases of box sets
which include Eric's songwriting diaries, as we call very sort
of basic piano and vocal versions of songs, almost bearing

(01:13:50):
no relationship to the final products sometimes. So would one
say that he essentially wrote all the songs? I'm slightly
reluctant to say that he wrote all the songs because
there were there were occasions when I made very definite
co Co writing compositions, Co writing contributions. But yes, I

(01:14:16):
mean he was. He was a talented songwriters, he um,
and part of that talent as a songwriter was the
the ability to write lyrics. I wasn't strong lyrics. So
I would I would say that, if you want to

(01:14:37):
break down the music and the lyrics into proportions, I
would say Eric was, you know, maybe the musical composer.
Maybe maybe the musical composer but of the lyrics would
would be composed by him. I probably contributed one line

(01:15:00):
or two during during the course of ten albums. So
like when you talked about the first album, you talked
about the instrumental second side. That was your thing. Did
you actually compose that, or did he compose that, or
did you do it together? It was I think I
could give Andrew Powell who. Who? Who actually orchestrated it

(01:15:24):
and made it, made it performable. It was designed to be.
It was designed to echo a piece by Claude Debussy,
who had written a piece called the House based on
the same story on the foot of the house of us.
I think it was unfinished and we we kind of
borrowed from from Debussy in a couple of places and

(01:15:48):
I think it's magical. I think it's a it's very debussy,
if you if you know, if you know his music. Um,
but it was we took a risk. Were, you know,
seven or eight minutes of orchestral music opening the second
side of an album. That that was pretty risky. I think. Now,
ultimately there's a dispute with Erasta and you deliver a

(01:16:12):
quick album to get out of the contract, which ultimately
doesn't come out at that time. What went down around then? Um,
Eric was always, always the businessman and you know, I
I told you I never had a harsh word with
Clive Davis, but I think, I think carrick probably did

(01:16:32):
with Clive and with the business affairs people, and that
the relationship went somewhat sour after the after the EV album,
and the guy probably the gaudy album as well, and
we just made an instrumental contractual obligation album and that

(01:17:00):
ultimately resulted in a lawsuit which got settled out of
court and we resigned. So there was a happy ending
to it. But the album in question, the Sicilian Defense,
is quite definitely my least favorite album of all time

(01:17:20):
by any artist. Okay, so you make tales of mystery
and imagination. To what degree you are you still getting
calls to produce an engineer, and how do you handle those?
I get get a lot of calls. I get I
get sent, you know, CDs or sometimes a little memory

(01:17:43):
six with people's music. All the time. There's there's no
shortage of work for me. It should should I choose
to take people up on it, but I keep busy
with just the things I generate and but even back
in the seventies, same thing. You were making the transition. Um, yeah, well,

(01:18:04):
I was. Yes, I I had a couple of production
acts that I was successful with. Pilot was one John Miles,
who we've already mentioned. I also did the three albums
with El Stewart, which did very well. So I kept busy.
I was never, never board. But you weren't saying now

(01:18:27):
I'm an act, I don't want to produce records anymore,
or did you eventually say that? Oh No, no, no,
I was always even with the Alan Passon's project, I
was the producer and that that was that was a given.
I'm talking about third parties, third parties. Yeah, I was,
I was. I was happy to be to take on

(01:18:48):
production work with with other artists, but I couldn't take
on everything that was offered, clearly because the project kept
me busy and things like pilot, John Miles and Al
Stewart took up a lot, a lot of my time. Okay,
so we hit the twenty first century, you end up

(01:19:08):
releasing a course for engineers. How does that come together
and what exactly is it? It's called the arts and
science of sound recording. We spent two years assembling a
DVD course. The DVD was the was the format of

(01:19:29):
choice as we prepared this, this series of videos. Um.
It stemmed from a similar project that my partner in
the in the venture, a British guy called Julian Kolbeck,
who who I first met as a as a musician

(01:19:53):
on a session for a band I was working with.
Um He had done a similar um educational project on
on VHS tape, probably probably a full ten twelve years
earlier and he just came to me and said would

(01:20:13):
you like to make a you know, a video recording course,
and I said Yeah, I'd love to do that. He said,
I don't think it'll take very long. We'll probably we'll
get an advance from somebody and it will take about
three months to put together. We didn't realize that it
would be two years and nine hours of of educational stuff,
but it was fun to do and it's still very

(01:20:36):
much alive. It's still being used not only by interested
individuals but by bye by schools, colleges you know, that
have engineering courses. So if one watches it, what will
they take from it? Hopefully, um give them a better

(01:20:57):
idea of what goes on in a recording studio. Uh,
I mean, I think a lot of people think the
recording studio is this mysterious place where you you go
and play your song and then out pops a CD
out of a slot, you know, at the bottom of
the studio equipment. You know, people, people just don't really

(01:21:18):
don't really understand what goes on. Uh, it's it's very
difficult to represent a recording session in such a way
that it's that. It's but it's interesting. I mean, being
a fly on the wall in a in a studio
recording is it's incredibly uninteresting. It's it just seems that

(01:21:41):
the tape keeps rolling and everything sounds the same and
it goes on and on and on. But we we
try in this series, I think, to to you know,
to take to lift the veil and show people and
what really happens. You know, how how a vocal is
recorded and compiled, how you achieve certain drum sounds, keyboard sounds,

(01:22:05):
guitar sounds, um it's and it's it's designed to be
useful to two novices as well as experience engineers. So
we we, we, we worked quite hard to try and
make it entertaining as well as informative. How did you

(01:22:32):
end up living in the United States? When did you
come here and how did you end up in Santa Barbara?
I had bought a house in Montesito, which is a
adjunct to to Santa Barbara, back in the nineties, with
my ex wife and my two sons. Um It became

(01:22:53):
clear that my ex wife was not was not comfortable
in America, so we went back to the UK. Yeah, AH, then,
and soon, soon after uh, we got back. I I
met Lisa, my my my now wife, and we I

(01:23:19):
decided I wanted to to live with her and she
had to two daughters and she came to she came
to the UK for a while. We we lived in
a house just outside London. You met you met her were.
I met her in Maryland. Maryland, a big shard there

(01:23:46):
in Mary Maryland. I'm trying to think of the name.
It merryweather post. Merryweather Post, you got it, that's the one.
That's where we met. And so when we decided we
were going to live together, we we considered all the options.
I think we all said California was the most likely

(01:24:08):
and because of my previous experience in Santa Barbara, I
really liked. I really liked Santa Barbara and and do
to this day. So in two thousand and three we
got married and the rest is history. And how did
you end up deciding to build a studio? I really

(01:24:31):
did not build a studio to the same specification as
the one I now have. Until until I did build
this one, I I was just working in rooms in
a in our in our house. A valid path was
just literally done in a two adjacent bedrooms and I

(01:24:57):
think I resisted because I knew, I knew how expensive,
you know, building a studio is, and the one I'm
speaking from now is, no exceptions, cost a great deal
of money. But I'm I'm really glad that I did
do it because the the work that I did in

(01:25:18):
the early, early years of my solo careers Um I think,
suffered through not having a decent studio. But I'm really,
really delighted with the results I'm getting in this in
this new studio. Now, if one goes online there's a
whole website for the studio. It seems like it's in
the middle of nowhere in Santa Barbara. How did you

(01:25:41):
end up with that property? Is a continuous with your
home property what's the story there? Um, the home studios
have always has always been. Yeah, Home Studios Really, really
not very not very extravagant equipment wise at all. If
I if I, if I needed a proper studio, I would,

(01:26:05):
I would go go to a commercial studio to work.
So it became it was more of a sort of
environment to listen to stuff, composed stuff. Um. But yeah,
I'm really glad that I made the decision a couple

(01:26:25):
of years ago to build, to build this new studio.
I'm very, very, very happy with it and it's now
state of the art because I've put this new system
which everybody in the industry is talking about, Delby atmos. Okay,
but the property. That's fun. Did you already own that property? Yes, yeah,

(01:26:46):
we bought. We bought this House in Oh five and
we've been been there here ever since. But seventeen years
in the same house. I've never done that before. The
studio is not attached to the house you live in. Correct, correct,
it's it's an outbuilding. You know, if you go online,

(01:27:06):
it seems, and I've got another email, seems like you're
looking for third parties to book your studio. Are you
into what degree or people using it and I regarded
as being fairly, fairly new as a as a commercial studio. Um.
I've I've had one or two clients in here, um

(01:27:28):
that seemed to enjoy themselves. It's Um, I I don't,
I don't let anybody in. I like to meet them
and talk to them and find out what they want
to do rather than just do it on a on
a strictly business basis. I won't do that and I'll

(01:27:49):
only I'll only have clients in here, if you can
call them clients, when I know that I'm not not
in need of studio time myself. Now, you know, so
many studios have gone out of business. There's not only
the song costs of the building and equipment. You have
to continue to update the equipment. There's ongoing equipment costs.

(01:28:12):
Has that been your experience? How you know you have
to budget for that? Yes, I mean it's not just
recording equipment, it's musical equipment. There's always a new scent,
there's always a new microphones to check out, which baffles
me because you know I've I've been making perfectly good,
good recordings with with my existing mic collection. I really

(01:28:36):
don't need any new ones. Because they're they're never substantially
different from the best microphones in my in my cupboard. Um, yeah,
there's a there's a certain need to budget for new stuff,
but I'm just as likely to buy a new scent
or a new guitar as I am to buy a

(01:28:57):
new preempt for the studio. So, prior to the Internet era,
the business was cohesive. There were a limited number of labels.
If you were on a major label you were far
down the food chain. So at this point in time,
do you feel part of the larger business or you
really just in the Alan Parsons Business? MHM, I've I've

(01:29:21):
kind of lost touch with the industry. I Um, when
I was making albums with Ariston, we were constantly in
touch with press people, marketing people, so on and so Um.
Having said that, I'm I'm doing the occasional interview to
promote the album which comes out this week. Um, but

(01:29:42):
really it's not not, not a strong relationship with with
labels anymore. Of course, for live shows I have to
deal with agents, promoters and that kind of stuff, but
in terms of the recording industry, not, not, not very

(01:30:02):
in tune with it, with what's going on. Don't don't
spend a lot of time listening to modern music and
you keep in touch with all the people from the past,
or you're pretty much a homebody just doing your own thing.
I tried to. I try to stay in touch the
people I've worked with in the past. John, of course,

(01:30:23):
I've already mentioned, died sadly a few months ago. We
were we were always good friends, always in touch with
each other. Um, David Pat from Ambrogier has been a
good friend ever since the ever since the first album,
or my first album and his first album, which were
released close to each other. Colin Blunt Stone, I bumped

(01:30:44):
bump into now and again. Last time I saw him
was on a cruise, you know, music cruise. Um, I
never saw Arthur Brown again after after tales of mystery,
but there we are. Um, yeah, I mean I I

(01:31:05):
try to try to keep in touch with people who
are ultimately responsible in part to my success. So I
would always be grateful for that. Well, you have this
new album, Alan. I wish you continued success and thanks
so much for taking the time to talk to me.
You're very welcome, Bob. Thank you. Look forward to hearing

(01:31:26):
this on the you bet. Until next time, this is
Bob leftslet's h