Rate this story

Related Articles

• Nov 05 - The Ordinary Boys
• Dec 05 - Interview with Pure Reason Revolution
• Aug 05 - Lock up your Sons & Daughters
• Jun 06 - Interview with The Feeling
• Nov 05 - Revolver

More by Stephen Thompson

• Jun 06 - Interview with The Feeling
• Apr 06 - Elbow live at Southampton Guildhall
• Feb 06 - The Pogues at Brixton Academy
• Feb 06 - Music DVD: Muse
• Feb 06 - England Expects

Do you consider yourself as a musician who can produce or a producer who can play music?
I started off as a musician, and got into production next, just because I was interested in how the records sounded. I was always the person from the band who hung around in the studio during the mix, making suggestions. I seemed to make suggestions that worked, and that got other people asking me to work on their records.

Mick Harvey from the Bad Seeds worked with you and PJ Harvey on the ‘Dance Hall at Louse Point’ record. How did he influence your music?
Mick is a great musician, but everyone I have worked with has influenced my music, so I cannot think of a specific thing. But, for example, with Howe Gelb, from the band Giant Sands, he showed me it was possible to make great records in chaotic situations. Lack of control can sometimes lead to more exiting things happening. It is better to produce an album without a fixed idea of what you want.

Whose idea was it to put the video for the song ‘Is That All There Is?’ on the film ‘Basquiat’?
We recorded the song to be on the soundtrack. I was a big fan of John-Michael Basquiat [a New York artist from the 1980s]. We recorded that track at the same time as we did ‘Dance Hall at Louse Point’ , so we just felt it fitted in really well. It was never a single so they made a video as part of the film.

On the PJ Harvey album ‘Is This Desire?’ you played an instrumental role. Is it hard to work as a musician under a producer after having done so much producing yourself?
When I played for that record it was very much a case of "do what you want". Flood was the producer. He always plays to people’s strengths, like any good producer should. Having said that, it was frustrating as my favourite songs that Polly has ever written were on that record, but I was not crazy about the way some of them turned out.

Your first real solo album was the film soundtrack for ‘Rosie’ directed by Patrice Toye. How did that come about?
I was approached by Patrice. She used ‘Girl’, the instrumental on ‘Louse Point’ , to set the atmosphere while directing the film, so she knew what she wanted. She talked me through the film scene-by-scene, as it is in Flemish and sometimes I was not sure exactly what was going on in the dialogue, and I didn’t want to do anything inappropriate. I watched that film hundreds of times before I really started to put things together.

How did Alison Goldfrapp come to do the vocals on ‘Pretty Baby’ from the ‘Rosie’ soundtrack?
She was a friend of mine and Patrice wanted one song with words and female vocals. She was angling for me to ask Polly, but I always work with Polly, and I felt it would be nice to work with someone else. Polly is fantastic and I love her work, but I didn’t want to be ‘the bloke who works with Polly’. There are much worse job descriptions I could have, but there are other people who are also good. At that time Alison had not really done that much and I knew she was a beautiful singer. She was intriguing and arty.

After winning the Special Jury Prize in 1999 for the ‘Rosie’ soundtrack, were you tempted to do more film soundtracks?
I got asked to do several films immediately afterwards, but they were all gangster/detective films. They were all pretty lame. I have written the music for an American film, but it has not been released yet and I am currently working on a Dutch drama. The director of photography is the same guy who did ‘Rosie’, so there is definitely a connection there.

You wrote all of your new album ‘Once Upon A Little Time’, except ‘Somebody Else’. Why is that the odd one out?
That was one of the first songs we started playing. It was a song I really liked written by Kevin Hunter. We were at a writers’ workshop together, where producers send feckless composers. We had to write a song every day and record it before they let you go home. We hit it off and he told me most of his songs were written about his wife leaving him. His songs were amazing. Bitter, but also very funny. Very sparse and stripped back. His record never got released and I always wanted to cover it.

Once you nearly lost your sight through an eye infection. Did you ever contemplate going completely blind?
It was a very interesting experience. It was coupled with a hellish journey up a mountain in Colorado. It was the scariest thing I have ever done. When we got to the top, I felt so relieved. Then the next day I got the infection and came close to losing my sight. Having experienced nearly dying and killing my family the night before, losing my sight did not seem as big a deal, in a strange way. Events like that do make you revaluate your priorities, which can be good for us as a species, as we can get very tied up with trivia. I am glad I didn’t go blind, but I am glad it happened. It was a good thing.

You produced the ‘SoulJacker’ album for Eels. What was it like working with Mr. E?
Mr. E is depressed, but like a lot of people who are depressed, he is actually really funny. He is happily depressed, it is not an act. He had a lot of bad things happen to him, he deserves to be depressed. He has got a savage sense of humour, which is very cruel. I really liked him and would work with him a lot more if he didn’t live in Los Angeles.

Which musical project did you like the most and who was easiest to work with?
I like them all. I feel I have a particularly strong relationship with Polly, E and the band Giant Sands.

Share this story

Email to a friend   Printable page
Delicious   Digg   Facebook   Reddit   StumbleUpon

interv,film,produced,polly,rosie