November 9, 2024 • 28 mins
Chris Birkett is a world renowned musician/record producer who has worked with such top shelf artists as Sinead O'Connor (he produced Nothing compares 2U) , Mel Brooks & Def Leppard.
His own music has often taken a back seat to his work helping others to create hits, but now he has a brand new album of his own to celebrate.
"She's my guitar" is a blend of neo soul/Latin flavoured original material.
He told me that the guitar has saved his life more than once.
We discussed this and a lot more in this episode.
Sit back & enjoy the ride.
Check out Chris' new album at the following site:
https://chrisbirkett1.bandcamp.com/album/shes-my-guitar
Help me to keep producing more episodes like this one at this site:
https://buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tommy-solo-s-famous-friends--4318572/support.
His own music has often taken a back seat to his work helping others to create hits, but now he has a brand new album of his own to celebrate.
"She's my guitar" is a blend of neo soul/Latin flavoured original material.
He told me that the guitar has saved his life more than once.
We discussed this and a lot more in this episode.
Sit back & enjoy the ride.
Check out Chris' new album at the following site:
https://chrisbirkett1.bandcamp.com/album/shes-my-guitar
Help me to keep producing more episodes like this one at this site:
https://buymeacoffee.com/tsolobandq
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tommy-solo-s-famous-friends--4318572/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is where I get to chat with people I've
connected with over the years in the world of arts
and entertainment, and today I'm very pleased to have with
me producer singer songwriter Chris Briquette.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Chris, Thanks Tommy, thanks for the invite, the real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
To be well, it's my pleasure to have you. So
I know that you are a renowned producer and you've
got a lot of credits to your name. You mentioned
before we started recording Buffy Saint Marie, and that's quite.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
The feather in your cap.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I also know that you've produced Shinead O'Connor with nothing
compares to you, so that's quite another huge feather in
your cap. So let's get started and go back to
England for a minute. I understand that you started playing
guitar when you're eight years old.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, So briefly, the story is that I came from
a very poor family. My mother and father broke up
when I was four years old, so me and my
sister kind of grew up on our own in the house,
and my dad was a long distance truck driver, so
there was no money to or no encouragement to play music,
obviously in a place where I grew up. In fact,
(01:33):
my peers and my friends are all getting up to
really bad stuff. So what I did, I was desperate
to play music's instead of getting into trouble. So I
actually managed to get some banjo strings off somebody second
hand ones, you know. So I thought, well, I've got
to try and build something to put these on. So
I found some wood in the garbage and some nails
and built a box guitar in my first instrument. And
(01:55):
it's kind of sounded a bit like a koto, you know,
so kind of sound. I could make harmonies and music
on it. So I just dedicated myself to learning. I
was actually left handed when I was born, so I
learned left handed the other way around. But when I
was twelve, I've managed to save rough enough money to
get my first proper guitar. It's a Japanese it's called
(02:16):
the Top twenty. It's a Vender Strato caster copy. It
was read and it was a proper guitar, you know.
I could tune it up properly. And I decided then
and there to switch to right handed because I couldn't
afford to the left handed model. Left handed model was almost
twice as much, you know, supply and demand sort of stuff.
So I just switched over at the age of twelve,
and I'm really glad I did, because you go to
(02:36):
a jam session these days, which I do quite often,
the chance of finding a left handed guitar is like
really remote. I mean, Paul McCartney and Jimmy Hendrix did
pretty well, but I think that for me, I was
just glad that I changed to right handed. I played
drums left handed and I played bass still the right handed,
but keyboards doesn't matter, which My left hand is very
(02:57):
strong on a piano obviously that's my hand. Yeah, So
let's get to.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The reason that we're doing this call today. You have
a brand new album ote and it's called She's My Guitar.
Now I've had to listen. These songs are great, and
we hope that you do really well with this album.
But from what I understand, this album was inspired by
an acoustic guitar project.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What was that all about?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
An acoustic guitar project is an international project where they
go to various cities in the world and find a
musician in that city and they give them the guitar
for one week under the condition that you write a
song and perform it on video within that week and
then sign the guitar after. So Roseanne Baker Thorney is
(03:43):
a friend of mine. She brought the guitar over to me.
They chose me for Toronto for some reason. Then, so
I grabbed the guitar and this song just came out
of it. It's funny because some instruments have songs in them,
so I find that certain pianos and certain guitars they
actually sent to is which if you listen, and this
song came out literally within ten minutes, it's done finished.
(04:05):
So I recorded little video and send it off. Then
they published it and I signed the guitar alongside a
lot of other really well known guitar players. So I
was pretty chuffed about that. So that's the song, She's
my Guitar. I decided to write a love song to
my guitar because guitar has saved my life many times
during my life as an adolescent and a teenager and
(04:27):
an adult. It's been life saving my son Meto f
(04:53):
I'll give you just one example. When I was twelve
and I got my first electric I was so excited.
I was just sat at home with all my records
and I was learning the guitar solo for a Highway
Star by Deep Purple. Richie Blantmoll came from my town
and at the same guitar teacher, and I saw them
at my college and I was so impressed. It just
it made an epiphany. I was standing right in front
(05:15):
of Richie and he's playing this solo Highway Star. At
that point in time, I said, right, I am not
going to be an electronics engineer, which I was studying
at the time. I want to be that guy. And
I literally ran away from home the week after. So
the story I wanted to tell you is that while
I was learning that solo, which is one of the
best guitar solos ever, my friends and peers were all
out getting into trouble. They're robbing a Chinese restaurant and
(05:37):
then they got caught and went to prison. And if
I hadn't I hadn't been for my guitar, my passion
for guitar playing, I would have been in that group
of people. That's the people I was hanging around with.
So it really you know, one example of how guitar
has really been a savior for me. And that's why
I wanted to call this album She's My Guitar. Every
song on this album came through the tell.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well that's a fascinating story. But you know what's running
through my head right now.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Beautiful Sun.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, that is a brilliant solo. And I was also
inspired very much by Richie Black Marlin. Will see the
guitars behind me here?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's slightly jealous.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Well, and I'm looking at what you've got behind you.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, guitars down here, which you can't see when this
is a nineteen eighty Eric Clapton model strack caster and
it actually has the same pickups as smart not fully
uses on a die straight guitar player. Okay, really nice sound.
And I put on a rollerball nut. I see because
I'm a big fan of Jeff Beck, who is one
(07:20):
of the best whammy bar players in the world. And
I phoned up to Steve's music here in Toronto and
I said, how do you How does Jeff Beck do
all that whammy barring and it's not going out of tune?
They said, Well, the trick is I was going to
put a Floyd Rose on it, and they said, don't
do that, becausely you ruined the guitar. Rose locked and
got on some of my other guitars. So they said,
it's just a rollerball nuts. So when the strings start move,
(07:42):
they move right back to where they came from, because
it's it's not on a nut that squeaks and slips.
It's on a rollerball nuts. It's always fluid and it
works perfectly. So I can actually whammy bar till the
cows come home without going out of tunes. That's pretty sure.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So back to the new album. I'm enjoying this album.
She is my guitar.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I would consider that like a Caliente style, And as
I listened to the whole album, it's got kind of
a smooth Latin fuel overall, I.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Think, yeah, that's because I'm half Greek. So in my
collection of guitars, I have to show you here. I've
got a couple of berzuki's from Greece, and we can
see it's here up there on the wall. It's right
next to it is an Irish berzouki. It's the same instrument,
but flat model. So I'm actually half Greek. My mother
was born on the island of Siros. And then you'll
(08:30):
notice there's a song called sis album which I vote
for her a long time ago, but I just decided
to put it on this album because it's a guitar
album and the berzuki is a guitar really, but it's
a Greek guitar. So that's why a lot of my
songs on this record are Latin, have a Latin toper
feel to them. I just love you know. I've worked
in Cuba. I recorded with the Buena Vista Social Club
(08:52):
in Harana, and I'm just a big fan of those
kind of grooves. You know, there's Latin groups. It's just wonderful.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, it's a truly wonderful album. I'm really enjoying it.
And as I was giving it a kind of a scan.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
My wife walked by and said, who's that. I could
learn some of that music. So thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's very nice. Thanks you made my day.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, so again, you're renowned as a producer and you've
produced some really top notch acts. I wonder what was
shand O'Connor like to work with.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yeah, I've been interviewing a lot about, you know, especially
when she died. Everybody was funny me and she had
some kind of what i'd call personal issues, mental health issues,
like a lot of artists do actually, and music tends
to be a therapy in a way, which means it is,
you know, I call it the universal language. But it's
(10:04):
also very therapeutic to be involved in music, especially if
you can express yourself. So she used music to express
her feelings and also some of her history, which is
very strong. You know, she grew up in a kind
of very strong Catholic family in Ireland, with all the
trappings of that particular teaching, in other words, the sin
(10:25):
and hell and dam nation and all that stuff. Does
some religions talk about she I don't believe actually exists.
I won't get into that right now, but she was
a victim of a lot of cruelty and that kind
of stayed with her really. And the funny thing is
one of her best friends, this is what she told me,
one of the only people that was really kind to
her as a kid was her grandmother. And when her
(10:48):
grandmother died, it happened to coincide with doing the video
for Nothing Compares to You, and hence the tear, the
real tears from her eyes when she was singing the
song which she was about as he managed to cry
on screen. That's pretty good. That's like a professional actor thing,
you know, she said, I wasn't acting, I was thinking
about my grandmother. That video actually made the difference between
(11:10):
a hit and the mist and they were you aware
of it when that record was released. Nothing compares to you.
It was the BBC who had all the power in
those days, you know, British Broadcasting Corporation. Showfled top of
the pops, It got to forty two in the UK charts.
Then they decided it wasn't going to be a hit,
so it started going out and that would have been
the end of it and nobody would have ever heard
(11:30):
the song, but they did the video, and the video
was so strong it picked up the sales and then
suddenly just like snowboard and there's number one in every country.
So thank heavens for the video.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What you know, interesting how the music business has changed
so much over the years and how much of an
impact video had on the industry.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, it used to.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, MTV was a very strong force back in the
eighties in the nineties, but to.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Feel like for a while it was more important and
how you looked and how you sounded. Classic example Millie Vanilli,
it was in the end, right freak.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, there's all studio musicians. A lot of records are
done by really great studio musicians, and that when people
were just you know, miming performance.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
When we think about the Wrecking Crew for example, and
all these you know, the motown artists that played on
all these records, you know, and a lot of these
bands that were given the credit for the hits never
toured because they frankly couldn't play.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, it was kind of going on today as well,
actually in a different way. But it's kind of a
criminal thing to steal people's intellectual property. It has been
happening a lot, right from the days of W. C. Handy,
who actually was the first person to write down the Blues,
so of course he's got all the royalties from those manuscripts,
but the people who made the blues were still living
on the street and starving, you know. And that's been
(12:55):
going on in various forms all the way through and
it's still going on now. There's people people who don't
know anything about music and never put the effort in
to learn to play an instrument, they know, using AI
to make songs, and they're going out on Spotify. It's
just nuts n So the same kind of theft is
going on even now in a bigger way, a broader sense.
(13:17):
So that's a negative for music as far as I'm concerned.
But there's are positive to it as well. It's not
all you know, every stick has two ends, I believe,
so that's true.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
It's refreshing to listen to an album like your new album, because.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I played everything on that record set for the flute.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And yeah Kodles for that as well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I mean, I spent a lot of time working on
guitar and my vocals and keyboards, but I can't sit
down and play drums to save my life. And my
wife says that's because drummers are wired differently.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you know, it's the standard musician joke, right, We've
got how many people in your band? We've got four
musicians and the drummer. But actually I was born a drummer. Actually,
I guess I'm fortunate gratitude for that. When I was
a kid, I was in the CE Cadet and I
didn't want to be a sailor, but I wanted to
play military snare in the band. I went into the
class and the guy showed us the first rudiments. You know,
(14:11):
it's called black bears. One of the first things I learned,
and I got it straight away. And all the other
kids were like twenty weeks and weeks trying to learn
this rhythm. I just thought I just jammed straight into it.
So I'm fortunate that I have a natural gift of rhythm.
I don't know where it comes from. My dad was
not rhythmic or couldn't sing or anything, but it probably
comes from my Greek dna. Some of my cousins play
(14:33):
bazooki and you know sing so at.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Your bass playing is solid too, and I find that
a lot of times when you hand a guitar player,
especially a lead guitar player, a bass guitar.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Much Yeah, yeah, a lot. It's a very common thing.
Bass has got to be my probably my second favorite instrument,
next to guitar, because it's so I see it as
a crossover between drums and harmony. And one of my
favorite bass players is Chris Squire. I'm so into his
playing because he never sticks on the tonic it's a
bit like John Paul Jones from led Zepp as well.
(15:07):
The bassline and ramble on is beautiful. It's not you're
not hanging around on the tonic. It's moving. It's playing
thirds and beautiful melodies. But as you said, if you
start playing it like a guitar, it's no longer holding
the bottom down, so you keep that groove in there.
On some of tho songs, I do like three or
four different bass tracks. Sometimes it's a keyboard bass because
(15:28):
I don't have not fortunate enough to have a fretless bass,
which I'm saving up for one, so i use a
threatless based on keyboard with pitch bend and stuff right,
But then i'd put it like you know, like I've
got this Fender base at k as well, so it's
like one of my favorite basses. It's an end of light.
It's called sort of a precision format, and I play
(15:48):
that sometimes with your fingers, but sometimes with a pick.
Combine that with keyboard bass sometimes and if you listen
carefully to the album, you'll hear sometimes the bass sounds change.
And the trick is to get sit all in the
track and sound steel same because the tendency. If you
put a keyboard based on it's gone naturally big fat sound,
and then it's sometimes why string bass may not have
(16:10):
the bottom, so you're going to really mess around with
the EQ and everything to get it sit properly.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, yeah, that's something a lot of musicians don't really
have the concept of where things sit in the track. Yeah,
And I've just released a new single myself, and one
of the things that we did, we had one bass
player in mind, and then he got injured, so we
brought in my go to live player for this track.
(16:36):
And one of the complications was that my producer had
me play sixteenth notes on the guitar all the way
through the song for basically four minutes and now let's
double it, and so my forearm was felt like it
was going to fall off. Yeah, yeah, So we had
to figure out how the bass was going to sit
on the track.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With all these sixteenth notes.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And so as it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Happened, we recorded i think three different versions of the bassline,
and we recorded too, and we thought the second one
was it, and then my bass player is a very analytical,
expressive personality, and so he was basically doing the math
in his head as we were sitting there in the booth,
and I said, well, when you listen to that, is
there anything that you feel like you would have done differently?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yes, yes there is.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
We recorded the bass, but it's again how things sit
in the track, and it might not be that you're
dealing with sixteenth notes on the guitar.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It might be how the high hat is.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Fitting in and whatever you're going to do with the
bass or the keyboards there. So it takes a special
brain to be a producer.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Well, I've been doing it for a long time. I've
been making records professionally for over forty years now, So
I won't tell you howld I am. But one of
the things I have learned is the importance of relativity
in sound. So I'll give you an idea and you
have like two pieces of paper, you know that's why,
And then I could put something next to it that's whiter,
something that wouldn't look white anymore. It's the same with frequencies.
(18:05):
Like one of the dangers is if you put something
in your track that's very bright, there's a lot of
high frequency, it will make everything else sound dull. Then
you're going to have to start cranking up the high
frequencies on the other things to sit in with it.
That's a problem. Then you're going to run away problem
where the thing's getting more and more squeaky. You know,
it's the same with bottom man. I use pro tools
these days to listen my recording. Used to be a
(18:27):
logic man before that, quease on a twren before that
twenty four track analog tape. But I find that protols
gives you a lot of bottom before you start mixing.
You've got to go through it almost every track and
fill off everything below fifty cycles.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Because it's all there, but you can't hear it, but
it's there, and that really muddies up your perspective and
your mixes. So, you know, there's a little tricks I
learned over the years. You have to adapt to digital
recordings a different process to analog recording.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I mean I got really good with my little four
track tape recorder, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, and that sport a studio, right, Yeah, I had
one of those.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, Well, I got quite good at using that, and
then all of a sudden it went digital and I
was scratching my head trying to figure out, well, how
am I gonna splice this or whatever?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I grew up in the analog thing, you know, And
like one example I'll give you is I made a
couple of records with Mel Brooks, the filmmaker, and they're
both kind of minor hits. Well, one was called to
Be or Not to Be aka the Hitler Ramp, and
it went along with the movie History of the World movie.
There's two movies I did for him, the music for it.
So mel came in the studio and he couldn't wrap
(19:56):
in time. He's never wrapped before. So we had a
really cooking track is like real musicians before the days
of programming. It was like really hot drummer and it's
kind of a soul funk record. So in the end
I gave up trying to record him onto the twenty
four track with the band because it's all over the place.
So I just said, well, look, why don't you just
(20:17):
free form and I was just going to stick it
on a quarter inch tape. So we did that, put
the voice straight onto quarter inch tape, and then then
he went on and I had to spend days getting
into times and don't know where to do. That was
to put a China graph mark on the quarter inch
and then put it in pause and then you go one, two, three, bang.
You hit it on four before the time beat, and
then if it's late, then you have to put a
(20:38):
new chinagraph mark on it's late, if it's earlier, same thing.
Every line on those two records I made for him
were done like that, and it just took forever. And
it's all destructive too. So I had to had one
hand on the twenty fourth track remote control to drop
in the other hand on the quarter inch to start,
so you had to go three four and then drop
just at the last minute. If you dropped early, you
(20:59):
were raised the previous line. You've got to do it again, right.
So that's how analog recording was. I have to tell
you I don't miss it at all. It was so
time consuming because they had the budgets in those days
to do it. Like I worked on the Pyromania or
Death Leopard. I programmed the drums digitally on that record.
Not many people do that, and I wasn't allowed to
be credited as drum programmer for obvious reasons for the fans.
(21:23):
But that was done on a fair Light the same thing.
It was a monophonic sampler, first machines and laying and
phoned me and said, I want the latest technology on
this record. I want to use samples which is painstaking
and recorded like the best snare sounds of us to
kick drums I had before put all that into the
fair Light, and now to write it all out in
music compositional language. It wasn't before MIDI and it took
(21:45):
six weeks of work to get that drum tracks on
that album done. So wow, So I don't really miss
it all that because it's Matt was very very particular
about timing, so literally sometimes we'll be there for twelve
hours listening to a click with a high hands, see
which way you have to type in a new code
to move it.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You mentioned that there used to be budgets to do records.
I spoke with carmina Piece a few days ago, and
I don't know if you've heard the Temple of Blues
record Cactus Temple of Blues, but it is something else.
It's an all star album that I mean, he's got
everybody from Billy Shean to Joe Bonamasa and so on.
But what he said he talked to Cleopatra Records and
(22:26):
he said, well, they suggested he do this album. And
he said, well, I'm going to need a budget, and
I thought the budget? Who gets a budget?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Ely? Well, what we were talking about earlier, you know,
why should people The logic is, why should I pay
for recording when I can get someone to do it
for free, you know. And that's a big problem. I
think it's lowered the quality of music a lot because
a lot of it's just done on laptops and b
there's no teamwork anymore. There used to be when I
(22:57):
was making records in the eighties in seventies, there was
a team of people. There's a band who all like
my band, Omaha Sheriff was signed to Tony Visconti's Good
Earth Records, and Tony was our producer. He's David Bowie's
(23:45):
producer too. We would rehearse for like a whole year
before going into the studio, and then when we got
to the studio's a team. There's a great engineer, there's
Tony producing it, and that's how things used to be done.
But there's hardly any team spirit now in modern music.
It's all just one person on a laptop, which is
a little bit hol up in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So yeah, no kidding. It's interesting you mentioned that rehearsing
for a year. I had the original drummer from thundermug
Ed Prascas was my drummer for a few years, and
we were rehearsing in pre production for an album, and
I think I looked at the clock.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And said, well, it's four thirty. I've got to hit
the road.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
He says, no, We've got to practice the songs until
we're sick of them.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, that's what my favorite prog rock band. Yes, that's
what they used to do. They were just like practice forever.
And Bill brufor the original drammer of you, it's actually
quit the band because he said it's just too aintal
He couldn't stand it anymore. You know, it's been forever
going over and over. But what great records though you Yeah, personally,
where you get that? My go to favorite track when
(24:45):
I feel like being inspired. Its close to the edge.
It's like a whole side of an album. It's just
beautifully composers performance amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So back to your new album from minute, She's my guitar,
it's out now where can people get she's my guitar.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Oh, if you go to band camp and just type me.
Band Camp is my favorite platform because platforms like ceed
baby and dispokid and all those people, when you put
stuff out on those platforms, what they do is they
stick a block on it. So if you try and
put a video out of the song, to say you
can't use the audio even though you've written the song self,
I've had so much trouble with that, so I just
(25:22):
use band camp now. And the other thing about band
camps they pay a lot more than the other platforms.
I've sold quite a few albums and I get twenty
dollars an album, so I was slightly less a small percentage.
But I never got anything like that from iTunes or
Apple or anything like that. So I'm quite happy I
don't put my stuff out on the stores because I've
never got anything from that. Anyway, I got to band camp.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I've been flying the band camp banner for years myself. Absolutely,
for any new artists out there who are unsigned whatever
I mean, band camp is your go to choice because
if you're selling, you're getting paid.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, it's right. You have the option of listening for free.
You can set how many times you can listen for
free on it. I think I've got three times online
in default, and then after that you have to buy
it if you want to hear it again. So I
think it's pretty cool. It's working for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Right, Yeah, So what's next for you, Chris?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Oh, good question, Gradu. You asked that well. As you know,
I've been making records since the seventies with really big artists,
and during the eighties I was constantly in the studio,
sometimes forty eight hours a day. But all the time
I was doing that, I was always writing songs because
I was so busy producing, and never released any of
those songs. So I thought it'd be a great thing
(26:37):
to actually get the songs done that I wrote in
the eighties and put them out on an album next
year called New Hits from the Eighties. And that's my
next project, so look out for that one. It's going
to be released next summer. I've already got all the
stuff practically finished. There's eighteen songs, so I have to
whittle it down a bit, probably to twelve, all written
in the eighties and all having that eighties vibe, which
(26:58):
is kind of in fashion game these days. So I
think it's going to be a really interesting album. It's
going to be really powerful album. The songs is so strong.
You could hear one of the songs which is out
a non soundcrowd. It's called the Voice. It's about the
voice that talks to you when you give is your
good advice. We never listened to it, but you're here.
It's got a real eighties ribe to it. And that's
(27:20):
a preview of the next album. So New Hits from
the Eighties by Chris Burkitt's coming out in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Very nice.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We'll all look forward to that. Chris, I don't want
to take up your whole day and all you're basically
busy man. Listen, I want to thank you so much
for taking the time out of your day to do
this with me today and until next time.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Cheers.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, I'll see it for the New Hits from the
Eighties album the interview on that we'll.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Do Tommy Solo's Famous Friends is a one man production,
meaning that I've done all the work, including recording, editing,
guest acquisition, et cetera. Don't forget to look for the
accompanying articles based on these interviews at five one nine
mag dot com. The theme song for Tommy Solo's Famous
Friends is a clip from my original composition.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The Burn.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All rights reserved. If you enjoy the show and you'd
like to help us keep it going, why don't you
click on the buy me a coffee link in the
show notes, hit the like button, subscribe all that stuff,
We really appreciate it. You can find me on Facebook
and Instagram, and until next time, cheers,
Welcome to Tommy Solo's Famous Friends.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This is where I get to chat with people I've
connected with over the years in the world of arts
and entertainment, and today I'm very pleased to have with
me producer singer songwriter Chris Briquette.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Chris, Thanks Tommy, thanks for the invite, the real pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
To be well, it's my pleasure to have you. So
I know that you are a renowned producer and you've
got a lot of credits to your name. You mentioned
before we started recording Buffy Saint Marie, and that's quite.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
The feather in your cap.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I also know that you've produced Shinead O'Connor with nothing
compares to you, so that's quite another huge feather in
your cap. So let's get started and go back to
England for a minute. I understand that you started playing
guitar when you're eight years old.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, So briefly, the story is that I came from
a very poor family. My mother and father broke up
when I was four years old, so me and my
sister kind of grew up on our own in the house,
and my dad was a long distance truck driver, so
there was no money to or no encouragement to play music,
obviously in a place where I grew up. In fact,
(01:33):
my peers and my friends are all getting up to
really bad stuff. So what I did, I was desperate
to play music's instead of getting into trouble. So I
actually managed to get some banjo strings off somebody second
hand ones, you know. So I thought, well, I've got
to try and build something to put these on. So
I found some wood in the garbage and some nails
and built a box guitar in my first instrument. And
(01:55):
it's kind of sounded a bit like a koto, you know,
so kind of sound. I could make harmonies and music
on it. So I just dedicated myself to learning. I
was actually left handed when I was born, so I
learned left handed the other way around. But when I
was twelve, I've managed to save rough enough money to
get my first proper guitar. It's a Japanese it's called
(02:16):
the Top twenty. It's a Vender Strato caster copy. It
was read and it was a proper guitar, you know.
I could tune it up properly. And I decided then
and there to switch to right handed because I couldn't
afford to the left handed model. Left handed model was almost
twice as much, you know, supply and demand sort of stuff.
So I just switched over at the age of twelve,
and I'm really glad I did, because you go to
(02:36):
a jam session these days, which I do quite often,
the chance of finding a left handed guitar is like
really remote. I mean, Paul McCartney and Jimmy Hendrix did
pretty well, but I think that for me, I was
just glad that I changed to right handed. I played
drums left handed and I played bass still the right handed,
but keyboards doesn't matter, which My left hand is very
(02:57):
strong on a piano obviously that's my hand. Yeah, So
let's get to.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
The reason that we're doing this call today. You have
a brand new album ote and it's called She's My Guitar.
Now I've had to listen. These songs are great, and
we hope that you do really well with this album.
But from what I understand, this album was inspired by
an acoustic guitar project.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What was that all about?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
An acoustic guitar project is an international project where they
go to various cities in the world and find a
musician in that city and they give them the guitar
for one week under the condition that you write a
song and perform it on video within that week and
then sign the guitar after. So Roseanne Baker Thorney is
(03:43):
a friend of mine. She brought the guitar over to me.
They chose me for Toronto for some reason. Then, so
I grabbed the guitar and this song just came out
of it. It's funny because some instruments have songs in them,
so I find that certain pianos and certain guitars they
actually sent to is which if you listen, and this
song came out literally within ten minutes, it's done finished.
(04:05):
So I recorded little video and send it off. Then
they published it and I signed the guitar alongside a
lot of other really well known guitar players. So I
was pretty chuffed about that. So that's the song, She's
my Guitar. I decided to write a love song to
my guitar because guitar has saved my life many times
during my life as an adolescent and a teenager and
(04:27):
an adult. It's been life saving my son Meto f
(04:53):
I'll give you just one example. When I was twelve
and I got my first electric I was so excited.
I was just sat at home with all my records
and I was learning the guitar solo for a Highway
Star by Deep Purple. Richie Blantmoll came from my town
and at the same guitar teacher, and I saw them
at my college and I was so impressed. It just
it made an epiphany. I was standing right in front
(05:15):
of Richie and he's playing this solo Highway Star. At
that point in time, I said, right, I am not
going to be an electronics engineer, which I was studying
at the time. I want to be that guy. And
I literally ran away from home the week after. So
the story I wanted to tell you is that while
I was learning that solo, which is one of the
best guitar solos ever, my friends and peers were all
out getting into trouble. They're robbing a Chinese restaurant and
(05:37):
then they got caught and went to prison. And if
I hadn't I hadn't been for my guitar, my passion
for guitar playing, I would have been in that group
of people. That's the people I was hanging around with.
So it really you know, one example of how guitar
has really been a savior for me. And that's why
I wanted to call this album She's My Guitar. Every
song on this album came through the tell.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well that's a fascinating story. But you know what's running
through my head right now.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Beautiful Sun.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, that is a brilliant solo. And I was also
inspired very much by Richie Black Marlin. Will see the
guitars behind me here?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's slightly jealous.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Well, and I'm looking at what you've got behind you.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, guitars down here, which you can't see when this
is a nineteen eighty Eric Clapton model strack caster and
it actually has the same pickups as smart not fully
uses on a die straight guitar player. Okay, really nice sound.
And I put on a rollerball nut. I see because
I'm a big fan of Jeff Beck, who is one
(07:20):
of the best whammy bar players in the world. And
I phoned up to Steve's music here in Toronto and
I said, how do you How does Jeff Beck do
all that whammy barring and it's not going out of tune?
They said, Well, the trick is I was going to
put a Floyd Rose on it, and they said, don't
do that, becausely you ruined the guitar. Rose locked and
got on some of my other guitars. So they said,
it's just a rollerball nuts. So when the strings start move,
(07:42):
they move right back to where they came from, because
it's it's not on a nut that squeaks and slips.
It's on a rollerball nuts. It's always fluid and it
works perfectly. So I can actually whammy bar till the
cows come home without going out of tunes. That's pretty sure.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So back to the new album. I'm enjoying this album.
She is my guitar.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I would consider that like a Caliente style, And as
I listened to the whole album, it's got kind of
a smooth Latin fuel overall, I.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Think, yeah, that's because I'm half Greek. So in my
collection of guitars, I have to show you here. I've
got a couple of berzuki's from Greece, and we can
see it's here up there on the wall. It's right
next to it is an Irish berzouki. It's the same instrument,
but flat model. So I'm actually half Greek. My mother
was born on the island of Siros. And then you'll
(08:30):
notice there's a song called sis album which I vote
for her a long time ago, but I just decided
to put it on this album because it's a guitar
album and the berzuki is a guitar really, but it's
a Greek guitar. So that's why a lot of my
songs on this record are Latin, have a Latin toper
feel to them. I just love you know. I've worked
in Cuba. I recorded with the Buena Vista Social Club
(08:52):
in Harana, and I'm just a big fan of those
kind of grooves. You know, there's Latin groups. It's just wonderful.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, it's a truly wonderful album. I'm really enjoying it.
And as I was giving it a kind of a scan.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
My wife walked by and said, who's that. I could
learn some of that music. So thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's very nice. Thanks you made my day.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, so again, you're renowned as a producer and you've
produced some really top notch acts. I wonder what was
shand O'Connor like to work with.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yeah, I've been interviewing a lot about, you know, especially
when she died. Everybody was funny me and she had
some kind of what i'd call personal issues, mental health issues,
like a lot of artists do actually, and music tends
to be a therapy in a way, which means it is,
you know, I call it the universal language. But it's
(10:04):
also very therapeutic to be involved in music, especially if
you can express yourself. So she used music to express
her feelings and also some of her history, which is
very strong. You know, she grew up in a kind
of very strong Catholic family in Ireland, with all the
trappings of that particular teaching, in other words, the sin
(10:25):
and hell and dam nation and all that stuff. Does
some religions talk about she I don't believe actually exists.
I won't get into that right now, but she was
a victim of a lot of cruelty and that kind
of stayed with her really. And the funny thing is
one of her best friends, this is what she told me,
one of the only people that was really kind to
her as a kid was her grandmother. And when her
(10:48):
grandmother died, it happened to coincide with doing the video
for Nothing Compares to You, and hence the tear, the
real tears from her eyes when she was singing the
song which she was about as he managed to cry
on screen. That's pretty good. That's like a professional actor thing,
you know, she said, I wasn't acting, I was thinking
about my grandmother. That video actually made the difference between
(11:10):
a hit and the mist and they were you aware
of it when that record was released. Nothing compares to you.
It was the BBC who had all the power in
those days, you know, British Broadcasting Corporation. Showfled top of
the pops, It got to forty two in the UK charts.
Then they decided it wasn't going to be a hit,
so it started going out and that would have been
the end of it and nobody would have ever heard
(11:30):
the song, but they did the video, and the video
was so strong it picked up the sales and then
suddenly just like snowboard and there's number one in every country.
So thank heavens for the video.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What you know, interesting how the music business has changed
so much over the years and how much of an
impact video had on the industry.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, it used to.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, MTV was a very strong force back in the
eighties in the nineties, but to.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Feel like for a while it was more important and
how you looked and how you sounded. Classic example Millie Vanilli,
it was in the end, right freak.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, there's all studio musicians. A lot of records are
done by really great studio musicians, and that when people
were just you know, miming performance.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
When we think about the Wrecking Crew for example, and
all these you know, the motown artists that played on
all these records, you know, and a lot of these
bands that were given the credit for the hits never
toured because they frankly couldn't play.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, it was kind of going on today as well,
actually in a different way. But it's kind of a
criminal thing to steal people's intellectual property. It has been
happening a lot, right from the days of W. C. Handy,
who actually was the first person to write down the Blues,
so of course he's got all the royalties from those manuscripts,
but the people who made the blues were still living
on the street and starving, you know. And that's been
(12:55):
going on in various forms all the way through and
it's still going on now. There's people people who don't
know anything about music and never put the effort in
to learn to play an instrument, they know, using AI
to make songs, and they're going out on Spotify. It's
just nuts n So the same kind of theft is
going on even now in a bigger way, a broader sense.
(13:17):
So that's a negative for music as far as I'm concerned.
But there's are positive to it as well. It's not
all you know, every stick has two ends, I believe,
so that's true.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
It's refreshing to listen to an album like your new album, because.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I played everything on that record set for the flute.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And yeah Kodles for that as well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I mean, I spent a lot of time working on
guitar and my vocals and keyboards, but I can't sit
down and play drums to save my life. And my
wife says that's because drummers are wired differently.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, you know, it's the standard musician joke, right, We've
got how many people in your band? We've got four
musicians and the drummer. But actually I was born a drummer. Actually,
I guess I'm fortunate gratitude for that. When I was
a kid, I was in the CE Cadet and I
didn't want to be a sailor, but I wanted to
play military snare in the band. I went into the
class and the guy showed us the first rudiments. You know,
(14:11):
it's called black bears. One of the first things I learned,
and I got it straight away. And all the other
kids were like twenty weeks and weeks trying to learn
this rhythm. I just thought I just jammed straight into it.
So I'm fortunate that I have a natural gift of rhythm.
I don't know where it comes from. My dad was
not rhythmic or couldn't sing or anything, but it probably
comes from my Greek dna. Some of my cousins play
(14:33):
bazooki and you know sing so at.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Your bass playing is solid too, and I find that
a lot of times when you hand a guitar player,
especially a lead guitar player, a bass guitar.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Much Yeah, yeah, a lot. It's a very common thing.
Bass has got to be my probably my second favorite instrument,
next to guitar, because it's so I see it as
a crossover between drums and harmony. And one of my
favorite bass players is Chris Squire. I'm so into his
playing because he never sticks on the tonic it's a
bit like John Paul Jones from led Zepp as well.
(15:07):
The bassline and ramble on is beautiful. It's not you're
not hanging around on the tonic. It's moving. It's playing
thirds and beautiful melodies. But as you said, if you
start playing it like a guitar, it's no longer holding
the bottom down, so you keep that groove in there.
On some of tho songs, I do like three or
four different bass tracks. Sometimes it's a keyboard bass because
(15:28):
I don't have not fortunate enough to have a fretless bass,
which I'm saving up for one, so i use a
threatless based on keyboard with pitch bend and stuff right,
But then i'd put it like you know, like I've
got this Fender base at k as well, so it's
like one of my favorite basses. It's an end of light.
It's called sort of a precision format, and I play
(15:48):
that sometimes with your fingers, but sometimes with a pick.
Combine that with keyboard bass sometimes and if you listen
carefully to the album, you'll hear sometimes the bass sounds change.
And the trick is to get sit all in the
track and sound steel same because the tendency. If you
put a keyboard based on it's gone naturally big fat sound,
and then it's sometimes why string bass may not have
(16:10):
the bottom, so you're going to really mess around with
the EQ and everything to get it sit properly.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, yeah, that's something a lot of musicians don't really
have the concept of where things sit in the track. Yeah,
And I've just released a new single myself, and one
of the things that we did, we had one bass
player in mind, and then he got injured, so we
brought in my go to live player for this track.
(16:36):
And one of the complications was that my producer had
me play sixteenth notes on the guitar all the way
through the song for basically four minutes and now let's
double it, and so my forearm was felt like it
was going to fall off. Yeah, yeah, So we had
to figure out how the bass was going to sit
on the track.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With all these sixteenth notes.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And so as it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Happened, we recorded i think three different versions of the bassline,
and we recorded too, and we thought the second one
was it, and then my bass player is a very analytical,
expressive personality, and so he was basically doing the math
in his head as we were sitting there in the booth,
and I said, well, when you listen to that, is
there anything that you feel like you would have done differently?
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yes, yes there is.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
We recorded the bass, but it's again how things sit
in the track, and it might not be that you're
dealing with sixteenth notes on the guitar.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It might be how the high hat is.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Fitting in and whatever you're going to do with the
bass or the keyboards there. So it takes a special
brain to be a producer.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Well, I've been doing it for a long time. I've
been making records professionally for over forty years now, So
I won't tell you howld I am. But one of
the things I have learned is the importance of relativity
in sound. So I'll give you an idea and you
have like two pieces of paper, you know that's why,
And then I could put something next to it that's whiter,
something that wouldn't look white anymore. It's the same with frequencies.
(18:05):
Like one of the dangers is if you put something
in your track that's very bright, there's a lot of
high frequency, it will make everything else sound dull. Then
you're going to have to start cranking up the high
frequencies on the other things to sit in with it.
That's a problem. Then you're going to run away problem
where the thing's getting more and more squeaky. You know,
it's the same with bottom man. I use pro tools
these days to listen my recording. Used to be a
(18:27):
logic man before that, quease on a twren before that
twenty four track analog tape. But I find that protols
gives you a lot of bottom before you start mixing.
You've got to go through it almost every track and
fill off everything below fifty cycles.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Because it's all there, but you can't hear it, but
it's there, and that really muddies up your perspective and
your mixes. So, you know, there's a little tricks I
learned over the years. You have to adapt to digital
recordings a different process to analog recording.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I mean I got really good with my little four
track tape recorder, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, and that sport a studio, right, Yeah, I had
one of those.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, Well, I got quite good at using that, and
then all of a sudden it went digital and I
was scratching my head trying to figure out, well, how
am I gonna splice this or whatever?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I grew up in the analog thing, you know, And
like one example I'll give you is I made a
couple of records with Mel Brooks, the filmmaker, and they're
both kind of minor hits. Well, one was called to
Be or Not to Be aka the Hitler Ramp, and
it went along with the movie History of the World movie.
There's two movies I did for him, the music for it.
So mel came in the studio and he couldn't wrap
(19:56):
in time. He's never wrapped before. So we had a
really cooking track is like real musicians before the days
of programming. It was like really hot drummer and it's
kind of a soul funk record. So in the end
I gave up trying to record him onto the twenty
four track with the band because it's all over the place.
So I just said, well, look, why don't you just
(20:17):
free form and I was just going to stick it
on a quarter inch tape. So we did that, put
the voice straight onto quarter inch tape, and then then
he went on and I had to spend days getting
into times and don't know where to do. That was
to put a China graph mark on the quarter inch
and then put it in pause and then you go one, two, three, bang.
You hit it on four before the time beat, and
then if it's late, then you have to put a
(20:38):
new chinagraph mark on it's late, if it's earlier, same thing.
Every line on those two records I made for him
were done like that, and it just took forever. And
it's all destructive too. So I had to had one
hand on the twenty fourth track remote control to drop
in the other hand on the quarter inch to start,
so you had to go three four and then drop
just at the last minute. If you dropped early, you
(20:59):
were raised the previous line. You've got to do it again, right.
So that's how analog recording was. I have to tell
you I don't miss it at all. It was so
time consuming because they had the budgets in those days
to do it. Like I worked on the Pyromania or
Death Leopard. I programmed the drums digitally on that record.
Not many people do that, and I wasn't allowed to
be credited as drum programmer for obvious reasons for the fans.
(21:23):
But that was done on a fair Light the same thing.
It was a monophonic sampler, first machines and laying and
phoned me and said, I want the latest technology on
this record. I want to use samples which is painstaking
and recorded like the best snare sounds of us to
kick drums I had before put all that into the
fair Light, and now to write it all out in
music compositional language. It wasn't before MIDI and it took
(21:45):
six weeks of work to get that drum tracks on
that album done. So wow, So I don't really miss
it all that because it's Matt was very very particular
about timing, so literally sometimes we'll be there for twelve
hours listening to a click with a high hands, see
which way you have to type in a new code
to move it.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You mentioned that there used to be budgets to do records.
I spoke with carmina Piece a few days ago, and
I don't know if you've heard the Temple of Blues
record Cactus Temple of Blues, but it is something else.
It's an all star album that I mean, he's got
everybody from Billy Shean to Joe Bonamasa and so on.
But what he said he talked to Cleopatra Records and
(22:26):
he said, well, they suggested he do this album. And
he said, well, I'm going to need a budget, and
I thought the budget? Who gets a budget?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Ely? Well, what we were talking about earlier, you know,
why should people The logic is, why should I pay
for recording when I can get someone to do it
for free, you know. And that's a big problem. I
think it's lowered the quality of music a lot because
a lot of it's just done on laptops and b
there's no teamwork anymore. There used to be when I
(22:57):
was making records in the eighties in seventies, there was
a team of people. There's a band who all like
my band, Omaha Sheriff was signed to Tony Visconti's Good
Earth Records, and Tony was our producer. He's David Bowie's
(23:45):
producer too. We would rehearse for like a whole year
before going into the studio, and then when we got
to the studio's a team. There's a great engineer, there's
Tony producing it, and that's how things used to be done.
But there's hardly any team spirit now in modern music.
It's all just one person on a laptop, which is
a little bit hol up in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So yeah, no kidding. It's interesting you mentioned that rehearsing
for a year. I had the original drummer from thundermug
Ed Prascas was my drummer for a few years, and
we were rehearsing in pre production for an album, and
I think I looked at the clock.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And said, well, it's four thirty. I've got to hit
the road.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
He says, no, We've got to practice the songs until
we're sick of them.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, that's what my favorite prog rock band. Yes, that's
what they used to do. They were just like practice forever.
And Bill brufor the original drammer of you, it's actually
quit the band because he said it's just too aintal
He couldn't stand it anymore. You know, it's been forever
going over and over. But what great records though you Yeah, personally,
where you get that? My go to favorite track when
(24:45):
I feel like being inspired. Its close to the edge.
It's like a whole side of an album. It's just
beautifully composers performance amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So back to your new album from minute, She's my guitar,
it's out now where can people get she's my guitar.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Oh, if you go to band camp and just type me.
Band Camp is my favorite platform because platforms like ceed
baby and dispokid and all those people, when you put
stuff out on those platforms, what they do is they
stick a block on it. So if you try and
put a video out of the song, to say you
can't use the audio even though you've written the song self,
I've had so much trouble with that, so I just
(25:22):
use band camp now. And the other thing about band
camps they pay a lot more than the other platforms.
I've sold quite a few albums and I get twenty
dollars an album, so I was slightly less a small percentage.
But I never got anything like that from iTunes or
Apple or anything like that. So I'm quite happy I
don't put my stuff out on the stores because I've
never got anything from that. Anyway, I got to band camp.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I've been flying the band camp banner for years myself. Absolutely,
for any new artists out there who are unsigned whatever
I mean, band camp is your go to choice because
if you're selling, you're getting paid.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, it's right. You have the option of listening for free.
You can set how many times you can listen for
free on it. I think I've got three times online
in default, and then after that you have to buy
it if you want to hear it again. So I
think it's pretty cool. It's working for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Right, Yeah, So what's next for you, Chris?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Oh, good question, Gradu. You asked that well. As you know,
I've been making records since the seventies with really big artists,
and during the eighties I was constantly in the studio,
sometimes forty eight hours a day. But all the time
I was doing that, I was always writing songs because
I was so busy producing, and never released any of
those songs. So I thought it'd be a great thing
(26:37):
to actually get the songs done that I wrote in
the eighties and put them out on an album next
year called New Hits from the Eighties. And that's my
next project, so look out for that one. It's going
to be released next summer. I've already got all the
stuff practically finished. There's eighteen songs, so I have to
whittle it down a bit, probably to twelve, all written
in the eighties and all having that eighties vibe, which
(26:58):
is kind of in fashion game these days. So I
think it's going to be a really interesting album. It's
going to be really powerful album. The songs is so strong.
You could hear one of the songs which is out
a non soundcrowd. It's called the Voice. It's about the
voice that talks to you when you give is your
good advice. We never listened to it, but you're here.
It's got a real eighties ribe to it. And that's
(27:20):
a preview of the next album. So New Hits from
the Eighties by Chris Burkitt's coming out in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Very nice.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We'll all look forward to that. Chris, I don't want
to take up your whole day and all you're basically
busy man. Listen, I want to thank you so much
for taking the time out of your day to do
this with me today and until next time.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Cheers.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah, I'll see it for the New Hits from the
Eighties album the interview on that we'll.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Do Tommy Solo's Famous Friends is a one man production,
meaning that I've done all the work, including recording, editing,
guest acquisition, et cetera. Don't forget to look for the
accompanying articles based on these interviews at five one nine
mag dot com. The theme song for Tommy Solo's Famous
Friends is a clip from my original composition.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The Burn.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All rights reserved. If you enjoy the show and you'd
like to help us keep it going, why don't you
click on the buy me a coffee link in the
show notes, hit the like button, subscribe all that stuff,
We really appreciate it. You can find me on Facebook
and Instagram, and until next time, cheers,
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