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July 3, 2024 26 mins
Abbey Road was more than just The Beatles and the British Invasion, it was the symphony and Star Wars, too; but thanks to their wild success, the Beatles SAVED the whole studio.

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(00:00):
Two, It's kendash It's Beetle Revolution, Bunk two Faith all on the IHOG
Radio kendash out Q one A fourpoint three New York's classic rock. This
past August was one of the greatestthrills of my entire professional life is going

(00:20):
to abbey Road Studio two to goinside for the first time and not only
just see it, put to workthere for a weekend to host a party
for Billy J. Kramer's eightieth birthday, and it is breathtaking. If I
was given the choice, if KingCharles said to defancy a Kappa or going
to abbey Road, It's just noquestion. Of course I'm going to Saint

(00:40):
John's Wood. So with me,Brian Ku and Kevin Ryan, who literally
did write a book, great bookabout abbey Road and the history of the
studios. Guys, welcome to Qone to four point three. Thanks good
to be here. Okay, soold beatlegeeks. What made you say,
hey, let's write a book.Well, I mean, Brian and I
were both fascinated by the you know, the recording side of the Beatles,

(01:06):
story about how the technical side ofhow those records were made, and we
wrote this book called Recording the Beatles, which was you know, a deep
dive into all of the technical aspectsof the studio and you know, what
was used on the Beatles' recordings,what microphones were used, what you know,
tape machines, et cetera. Andin the process of writing that book,

(01:30):
in order to really understand where AbbeyRoad the studio was in the sixties
while the Beatles were there, wehad to go back and understand where it
was in the fifties and the fortiesand the thirties, and then you know,
moving forward in the seventies and theeighties and beyond to follow what happened
to the gear and what happened tothe studio. And because of that,
for the past well over a decadenow, Abbey Road has been inviting us

(01:55):
into the studio to give these seriesof lectures about the broader history of this
studio because there's so much there inthe studios, you know, almost one
hundred years old now, and sowe've been fortunate enough to come in and
do that. And it's good becausethere is so much to the history of
the studio that people aren't familiar with. You know, most people when they

(02:15):
hear the name Abbey Road or theword abbey Road. They think there's one
or two associations they make in theirmind, usually the Beatles, maybe sometimes
Pink Floyd, and one or twoothers. But the goal of the talks
is to make people aware of thisbroader history. And our hope is that,
you know, after someone attends oneof the lectures that we're giving at

(02:39):
the studio, they'll walk away andthe next time they hear Abbey Road,
they'll think of more than just theone or two things that immediately come to
mind. It is an amazing Imean, you think of one hundred year
history here in New York. Somany legendary studios are gone. You know
when you think of Jimmy Hendricks anElectric Lady Land and places are around the

(03:00):
country, that donky funky studio outin California that created the history. And
Dave Grohl charted it, you know, in his documentaries the Big Band era,
comedy records, the rock era,and it's gone through you know,
it waned and waxed, and youknow, I think for a while,

(03:20):
one of the biggest things I didn'trealize how critical Star Wars was to the
history. To give Abbey Road anew life that until like the big movies
got mixed there, it kind ofwas outray. You know, it's like,
oh, it's old and tired,it doesn't have the newest equipment.
Is that a fair assumption that thatreally revived them in the seventies into the

(03:42):
eighties, There was a period therewhere, you know, in the beginning
of the studio, classical music waswhat really drove the studio. That's really
why it was built to record classicalmusic. And as pop music really took
over, the demand for classical musicand classical music recording just dwindled, and
like you were saying, you know, by the end of the seventies,

(04:03):
the studio was facing a bit oftrouble. And this is one of the
things we talk about in the lectureis how the introduction of movie scoring to
the studio really turned things around andsaved the studio. I mean in a
real way, in a real sense, saved the studio and gave it this

(04:27):
injection that it needed, and it'sthe reason it's still around, thankfully.
I was just stunned when you goin. For those who are doctor who
fans there, it really is likea tartist. You see this house as
you're walking down the Abbey Road andit looks nice and it's quick, and
you go inside and it's ten timesbigger inside it when it's outside. It's

(04:50):
remarkable. As I said, Iat this point in my life, I
don't know. I've done a coupleof hundred interviews with musicians and performers.
I've been on stage in front ofEarth Day one hundred thousand people. Billy
J. Kramer and I personally betweenthe fest for Beatle fans and on the
radio, must have done thirty interviews. I'm invited there to do a Q

(05:13):
and A his eightieth birthday party.I'm going to record his recording a new
album that day. And I walkin there and my heart is pounding.
I've done this so many times.My heart I was shaking walking around there,
and I said to everyone there andour dear friend Sam Samantha, I
said, listen, I can't pretendto be cool. I'm trying to keep

(05:35):
it together. But I'm a twelveyear old boy walking around here, just
screaming inside, just looking at theherringbone floor, looking at the baffles,
looking at the headphones, looking atall the machines outside, and as opposed
to being here's the thing about AbbyRoad and hopefully we're giving away trips and
you guys can join us there forthis great talk. Is nobody snobbish?

(05:58):
I was expecting maybe you have theright to be snobby. A hundred years
and everybody's open and friendly and totallyprofessional about what they do. But Bill,
here's I love that. Billy saidto me, you're nervous, Ken,
and I said, I'm terrified.I'm not and I said both And
he said, Ken, the firsttime I had a record, and I

(06:19):
thought, I'll do do you wantto know a secret? Sung it eight
hundred times from Hamburg to the clubs. I thought, two minutes, easy,
start with the easiest thing. Ken. Took me thirty four takes to
get that one down because I wasjust shaken, like right wow. And
if you guys have seen the picturesof Abby Road Studio too, there's this

(06:40):
giant staircase going up to heaven tothe control room. And Billy said that
was the most intimidating part is thathe had done, you know, little
recordings and things, but you're inthis giant room and when you get on
the talkback, come up and havethem listen. You're walking up these stairs
to God to find out what youknow, what George Martin thinks. And

(07:01):
then he said and he looked likehe looked like Prince Philip to me.
And I never even thought of thatbefore. So everything was against this little
kid, shy kid from Liverpool whojust wanted to turn tail and run back
north and go forget it. Thisisn't for me. And he said,
you know, he said to me, quote you never really get used to
it. It's nice that you hadthe experience that we've had coming in as

(07:27):
an outsider, because you know,every year, probably hundreds of thousands of
people stand in front of that building, and we've done that too. When
you're just a tourist in London,you can go to Abbey Road and walk
across the crossing and then stand outside, but that's all you're allowed to do
because it's still a working studio.I mean, they're making major movies there,
making major records there. So toget to walk in and up those

(07:48):
steps into the building is an amazinglyrare and special experience. And we still
feel that when we get to gocross through the gates and the parking lot
and go in the building. Thoughwe've done it so many times before,
it still has an incredible thrill.It's really just the one place you want
to go to if you're a Beatlesfan, because you think about Blackbird recorded

(08:09):
there. You Know'swestern Shout recorded there, you know Abbey Road recorded there,
and so you get to be inthe space where those actual notes were recorded,
and it feels very strange but reallycool. I mean, when we
talk about the Beatles, there aretimes I can wax, we all can
wax, you know, poetically aboutthe content, but just doing it quantitatively.

(08:33):
So I had to nerd out andlook Beatles' recording career in nineteen sixty
two to nineteen seventy, two hundredand twenty one individual tracks recorded on nineteen
albums, from Love Me Do sixtytwo to I Me Mine in nineteen seventy.
There are some other studios as Paris, there's you know, some others,

(08:54):
but two hundred and twenty one tracksrecorded in eight years, and that's
cy Young and bay Ruth together.There will simply never be another band to
do that again happen. I can'timagine that there will. I don't know
what. I can't imagine the circumstancesthat would allow that you know, and
even since those days. Since thosedays, people travel around. If the

(09:16):
Rolling Stones make an album, theygo and use four or five studios per
album to record their parts. Butthe Beatles were just consistently going back to
the same home ground over and overagain. And so aby Road, deservedly
so is the most famous studio inthe world. And it's still nice that
they've kept it historic looking and feeling. So while they have very modern things

(09:39):
like fiber optics in the walls andstate of the art computers, they still
have equipment from the nineteen thirties,well before the Beatles, nineteen fifties,
before the Beatles, nineteen sixties inthe Beatles era, and then on through
the Pink Floyd and Kate Bush andAmy Winehouse and all that stuff since then.
You know, it's funny for thelucky ones who are gonna go.

(10:01):
And please, if you don't winyour way in, just go. This
is bucket list of bucket list tripsto get into hear this lecture because you
get to walk around you know you'renot you're gonna see it. But in
the hallway outside the studios is allof the analog equipment, the reels to
reels, and I've shown the pictureso many times on our social media.
There's a three band he q thatlooks like the size of a carry on

(10:22):
piece of luggage that and I pickedit up because I had to must weigh
about sixty pounds big bake like knobsfor treble chunk chunk, And I kept
thinking, if I was making analbum and I know Pro Tools and it's
a giant board, I would tellthem I want all of this put back
in the studio, because if amic was put into that three band equ

(10:45):
into that reel to reel through theboard, it could anything sound better than
a long and winding road or Blackbirdevery Jeff Emerck may rest in peace,
the longtime engineer, and Ken Scottdid it too. But I said to
Jeff, every little diddly filter onpro Tools, every button that you press,
most of them you created with tissuepaper and a sidering iron and rubber

(11:09):
bands and tape loops and everything that'sthere. So much of it came from
you and the guys mechanically just screwingaround in the studio with nothing else but
what was laying around, and youmcguy Ford these albums by yourselves Yeah,
it's a nice thing that they're youknow, as we said, one foot
in the past and won the present. We do like to bring out as

(11:31):
much of the Beatles era equipment andput it on the floor. So we
have a mini museum that we putinside the room while you're there. So,
as you said, people do gettime to walk around, they into
Studio two and they can take theirpicture on the staircase or up in the
control room looking through that big window. The window's still there. It still
looks like it did roughly, youknow, when the Beatles time was there.

(11:52):
And we don't even know of astudio that's like that which has old
tape machines just available to use,an old mixing boards right next to the
new ones too. Yeah. Andanother amazing thing about it is that the
some of the same instruments used bythe Beatles are still there in the studio.
The pianos, you know, thepiano that was used on Full in

(12:13):
the Hill or Penny Lane, stillthere, still still available for use,
and you get to see those there'sthere still there, and there's just no
studios like this place left in theworld. When we were recording what Billy
was doing a performance. We're rehearsingin the afternoon. My dear friend from
Brooklyn, John Colbert, was thepianist, flew over to do it.

(12:35):
And John Colbert played with John Lennon. He was in a plastic ono band,
playing with him at seventeen years old. You know, a memory that
will that's forever. And he's playingthis piano and they asked him what pianos
do you want? And he's playingit, and one of the tech guys
came over and he's in the middleof working out the songs. I said,
is this, missus Mills, isthis the piano? He said,

(12:58):
oh, yeah, and took hishands off it, like suddenly, you
know, he was he was touchingsomething he shouldn't have been, like you're
touching something in the museum. Andthey said, no, no, you
could play it. Yeah and John. I looked at John. He had
this smile on his face and likehe said, you could play it.
Well, I could play it,but now I'm thinking, who am I

(13:18):
to play it? Like John,roll your sleeves, take a deep breath,
and play the damn piano. Andhe said, how can you not
think of what this piano created?Now? On the I was fine until
you asked that. I wish youhadn't asked. Yeah, and when you
think about the fingers that have alsotouched those keys, you know, it's
amazing. Yeah, exactly, it'sit's a remarkable place because you couldn't have

(13:43):
said it better. One foot inhistory, one foot in the present,
you know. And I'm so gladyou bring some of the equipment down.
The first the mode synthesized it thatGeorge Harrison brings in and like Jeff Emrick
said, we had never seen it. I didn't how to mic it,
but that's who they were. Paulstarts screwing around with it, just walks

(14:05):
over to it like a kid playingwith the knobs and things, and just
goes, hey, Lenn, here'sthe opening to the song. And he
said, I'm running. I hada run into Studio one to grab extra
mics because they just would grab itand they and Jeff I still remember him
telling me the story. I ranin and they said, now see,
yeah, you've got the proper numberof microphones for your studio. And he
just ran into the orchestra and said, here share with the you guys share

(14:28):
and pulled the microphones out. Becauseeven by sixty six sixty seven. I
maintain they still how could you stillnot understand what the Beatles meant to you?
If nothing else financially, how couldyou still like, what do you
mean you can't take extra mics?They definitely had challenges. As popular as
they were, they were from anew avant garde kind of young thing,

(14:52):
and Emi, the company that putout the Beatles records, the company that
built that studio, was a veryold comp very slow to move. So
if you think of the stip upperlip kind of older person's attitude back then,
they were, you know, longhaired people to them, and they
really thought that they were going togo away tomorrow. But of course they

(15:13):
were paying for everything. They've solda thousand times more records than anybody else
was doing, and so really itdid become where they were be allowed to
dictate a little bit. But therewas still resistance to the Beatles, and
there are people that worked with them. It's remarkable. I mean, my
other dear friend Rod archent that JeffEmerck produced that famous album Odyssey and Oracle,

(15:35):
and it was just as they werefinishing up the boys were finishing up
Peppers and the synthesizer was there andRod said what is that? And Jeff's
explained the synthesizer. He said,who's is it? It's studios. He
said, well, you know it'sthe boys. I think George Jones that
I'd better not, so could Iuse it? He said, well,
it's an instrument, it's in thestudio. You've booked the studio and it's

(15:58):
plugged in, so go ahead.And he said, so that was my
first experience that we put some synthesizeron the Odyssey and Oracle on some of
the tracks and it was theirs Andhe said, listen, we were there
and I'll tell you there was magicand making your record back then. And
he just said, I hope thegroups that come in now understand where they

(16:19):
are and what it means. AndI don't know, what do you think
about that question? It's interesting,Jeff has you know so many stories that
you mentioned Ken Scott. There werethese group of people that worked with the
Beatles, and one of our favoritesimple stories about working with the Beatles was
that they said the Beatles made themcreative. In other words, they were

(16:41):
kind of normal engineers. They hada tendency in some cases to try things,
but the Beatles said no, no, put that underwater, put that
in a plastic bag, put thatacross the room in the corner. The
Beatles were the ones saying, no, that's a good drum sound. Now
make a bad drum sound or aweird drum sound. Oh really, because
other people didn't want to try,the just wanted what worked, And the
Beatles said, we don't care.We want to move ahead of the Rolling

(17:03):
Stones. We want to be aheadof everybody else. Each year we're going
to make new sounds on every singlerecord. So if you think about it,
well, we think of the Beatlesas being normal. Every record is
a change from the one before it. Every record is a little evolution forward.
They never just said, oh,Sergeant Pepper was great, let's do
that again. They kept changing themselvesand trying to move forward, as Little

(17:27):
Steve and always said they were thefirst band to evolve, and they evolved
songwriting wise and creatively and technically,as you said, you know, sixty
four she loves you, Yeah,yeah, yeah, sixty six. Turn
off your mind, relax and floatdownstream. This is not dying. No
group makes that jump, no groupnow or before, and hopefully I hope

(17:48):
someone will, But you have somethingthat's not just working well, that is
revolutionized. You've changed the definition ofsuccess, and in two years you kind
of throw it away. They're nolonger the tops. And you know,
like you said, a teenager isnow your main engineer because the engineer went
to work with a crazier band downthe hall called ping Floyd and his first

(18:10):
day on the job, John Lennonsays, I want to sound like the
Dalai Lama on a mountaintop. Yes, well, let's go to the canteen
and get a couple and let Jeffsort it. Okay, what do I
have? What do I have?Hey, Leslie, that makes a weird
sound. As he said, Inever read the handbook. I didn't know.
I wasn't allowed to unsolder the Leslieput my feet into it. And

(18:32):
look look what he created. Lookat the magic that's still. I'm playing
it on the air today, andnot because we're a nostalgia station. I'm
playing it because an eighteen year oldin twenty twenty four things it's cool as
hell to hear strawberry fields like itwas back then. That's the most remarkable
thing in the world. Yeah,you know, go ahead, right,

(18:53):
I was just going to say,we haven't mentioned George Martin yet, but
he was there the whole time prettymuch, and he predated the Beatles by
ten years. He was one ofthe older generation, the old guard,
but he was in the end ascreative as they were, so he became
one of the main things that madethe Beatles the Beatles is George Martin brought

(19:15):
them along and understood that they wantedto be, you know, a progressive
kind of rock band. But healso brought in orchestras and harpsichords and French
horns to keep them relevant to olderpeople as well as young people. And
he also pushed them into backwards tapeand psychedelic experiments. He just perfectly said
he's the one who straddled both.He can write a string arrangement, but

(19:38):
as he said, you know,when John says, let's cut up tape,
play calliopes and get recordings of itand throw it on the floor and
tape it back together, a trueold school engineer would say that's nonsense.
But to be able to write pianolines, be able to play with him,
to blame him, show them structureas young men have had a structure
song and be willing, like yousaid, to go the good tars feeding

(20:00):
back. Okay, that's the takewe use, not the one we throw
away. That's such genius and openmindedness for a country and a studio,
and it's you know, the entirecountry for years was well it's just not
done, you see. The entireall of England sold for so long as
well, it's just not done,you see. And he did it.

(20:22):
You're right. Yeah. There werea few other producers at Abbey Road,
and Brian Epstein had approached them firsttrying to get this new band, the
Beatles from Liverpool signed, but otherthree producers had turned him down, and
those were the pop record producers thathe was supposed to go to, so
he was kind of stuck and hewas unable to get to Decca Records to

(20:45):
sign them. So he had onelast chance in the world and he went
to go talk to the guy atAbbey Road that wasn't making pop records,
and that was George Martin. Butit was so lucky for the world that
he did, because George signed themand also became the person that was more
experimental, more interesting than the otherpop producers were. So we really absolutely

(21:07):
was the perfect match. I've saidit so many times on the air,
guys, and I think you wouldagree with me. It is so harder
to believe that a thousand coincidences linedup perfectly for the Beatles to become what
they were. Then I'm not toget too new agy, but for this
guy, for Ivan Vaughn to bringhis fourteen year old friend Paul McCartney to

(21:29):
the church, fet and being classedwith John Lennon introduced them. And there's
this guy George Harrison who gets onthe bus two stops later, and then
Hamburg Pete can't make a show.So the guy from Rory Storm and in
the Hurricanes plays drums and it's amazing. And then they finally get anoder,
and every real producer that they neededturns them down. So the comedy producer

(21:51):
the goon show, Peter Seller's guytakes a shot but says, you got
to change the drummer. Oh,we know a guy. Over and over,
every little thing that had to happenjust seemed to happen. And that,
like you said, who was atDick Rowe, the man who turned
down the Beatles In a way,thank god he turned down the Beatles.
Your worst crushing thing. But thenwe don't get George Martin, we don't

(22:14):
get maybe we don't get Abbey Road. It's a remarkable journey of everything that
needed to happen at the exact righttime happens. Yep, that's right.
And the studio is that studio tobring it back around is one of those
vital pieces of the equation, especiallythat room and you know, like Brian
was saying, we still walk intothat room and it's sort of like,

(22:37):
oh, what an amazing place.And part of what makes that room and
that complex and that entire studio sospecial is that it was designed during a
time when you didn't have sophisticated electronics, yet you were making sound in a
space, and the sound that wasmade in the space had to be good
to start with because you couldn't changeit. So Studio two was designed to

(23:03):
sound good just right from the start, with no embellishment, with no electronic
enhancement, and when you're in thereyou can hear it has this very specific
sound, and that also contributed tothose records. You know, that room
is one of is part of thatthe magical combination of those of those records

(23:25):
and some if you know your listeners. Some of your listeners get to go
there, they'll get to hear thesound of that room. It's incredible.
You have to find a way todo this, guys, and join us
in August. Brian ke and KevinRyan. What is the name of the
book again? Recording the Beatles?That was our original book and we're going
to rebuild it soon. But firstwe have a project we started with George

(23:48):
Martin that we're going to put outa book four and with George Martin about
his orchestra work, and then recordingthe Beatles. We'll be back in a
year or two. Fantastic Brian,you and Kevin Ryan, and can't wait
to see you in August at AbbeyRoad and hopefully pulling along a few key
one to four point three Beatle fans. Thanks so much for your time and
your insights and sharing your love withthe guys. Yeah, thank you.

(24:11):
This was perfect. Is there anythingwe didn't hit that you really wanted to
get in or is that okay?I think that works. I don't know
right, yeah, I think that'sgreat, beautiful, terrific. Thanks so
much. I'm glad we finally didit. I'm so sorrylations didn't work.
But this was a blast and Ican't wait every little part of it.
Just sitting in the canteena just goinginto lunch and there they are on the

(24:33):
wall behind him, like, oh, it's an amazing place. I love
it. Steve Holly joined us,Steve cameen to play, and Lawrence Stuber
was there. He was the producerof the sessions for Billy J. And
you know, I said, likeup the stairs going up to the control
room outside the first picture and obviouslyPaul chooses it. There's the last iteration

(24:57):
of wings. I said, SteveLJ. Here it is. It's Paul
Linda Denny and you guys, it'sthe first picture everybody sees and he's like,
and you know, Steve said,I'm not going to be pretending to
be cool and British. It's fuckingawesome. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

(25:21):
I will see you there. Iwill all good. Yeah, definitely
take care, Thanks again, byebye. We will talk to you.
We'll talk to you when our nextbook comes out too, because we've got
this big George Martin project and whenwe finished that one, we should we
should get out there and talk toyou again. It's going to be we
went to George's house. We spenta few days with George at his house

(25:41):
before he passed away. And it'sall of his orchestra work, which is
really cool, awesome, never beenheard. Yeah, and there are lots
of things hidden in there that aresurprises, but Beatles Beatles fans are going
to find it very interesting. Coolcool, cool, Wendy, what's a
timeline for that one? It shouldbe should go on sale later this year,

(26:02):
toward the end of the year,toward the end of the year.
That's fingers crossed. Great, I'myours, let's do it all right?
Sounds good.
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