It’s a Thursday night in February and a slightly nervous Bruce Soord is about to chat to one of his musical heroes, Alan Parsons, over Zoom. Prog sits in to chaperone The Pineapple Thief producer frontman and The Beatles/Floyd producer-performer legend in case either one faints, but once conversation has commenced – focusing on the 1980 Alan Parsons Project album, The Turn Of A Friendly Card, just released as a deluxe three-CD and one Blu-ray box set with book and poster – the pair are swapping trade secrets and away. As Alan holds up the latest issue of Tape Op mag to debate musical terms with Soord, and Soord admits, “As a 14-year-old boy, the Alan Parsons Project was my little secret, which made me a bit of a weirdo at school,” (thankfully, Alan laughs), it appears today’s interview is a gamble that’s paid off…
Bruce Soord: In 1979, when The Turn Of A Friendly Card was recorded, studios were a very different place. For a start, you had to use tape! Is there anything about that time that you miss?
Alan Parsons: Very, very little. The tape machine had to be lined up every day, and so much time was spent winding back from the end of the song to the beginning. I don't miss that much. I did enjoy the period, and, of course, I enjoyed the sound of tape.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/0TPutm9mm1682596740619/fSRaUCAIG1682597080962.jpg]
BS: In 1979 the primary format was vinyl. Was the album formed with the concept of an A-side/B-side in mind?
AP: Very much so, and cassettes were two sided so you knew that the gap was crucial and a part of the decision-making process for how long, and in what order, the songs were.
BS: I read that the record was recorded in two weeks, which seems incredible!
AP: You’re the second person to say that in an interview! Had it been continuous, it would have been about eight weeks, but we never did more than a couple of weeks [recording] at a time. Eric [Woolfson, co-founder of the Project] and I were both living in Monaco with our families [because of UK taxation issues] and commuting between there and Paris, staying in a hotel in Montparnasse. We’d work during the day, go out to amazing restaurants in the neighbourhood, have a few drinks and return the next day. Then we’d come back home, recuperate, or work on further demos and new material for the album.
BS: One of the reasons you agreed to engineer Steven Wilson’s The Raven That Refused To Sing album in 2013 was because they were recording as a live band. Was this something you always did with the Alan Parsons Project? Did it feel like a band?
AP: Yes, it did – although apart from Eric and myself, they were all hired session players. When we were doing the backing tracks it was David [Paton] on bass, Ian [Bairnson] on guitar, Stuart [Elliott] on drums and Eric on piano. I always liked to have the band playing just to feel how the structure of each song was working. They were fun to work with and all really great musicians, particularly Ian, who was responsible for the overall sound of the Project. It would’ve been substantially different if it hadn’t been for him.
BS: What was it like to be in a room with Alan the producer?
AP: I regarded it as a team effort. If you’re too much of a dictator in the studio you make yourself unpopular. You have to encourage everybody to pitch ideas, and you filter them to keep the good ones. And even if it’s my idea, you have to make them think it was their idea.
BS: One thing I loved about the Project was the use of so many different session players. To hear Chris Rainbow’s solo vocal [overdub] mix of Nothing Left To Lose on the latest edition was a revelation. You called him the “one-man Brian Wilson”?
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/0TPutm9mm1682596740619/WZeIKnUfv1682597054265.jpg]
AP: The one-man Beach Boys. He was remarkable, considering he had a really bad stammer. He was note-perfect, but when the tape stopped he’d [start stammering]. We got used to it. He was such a talented singer and he came up with incredible parts. I think Nothing Left To Lose was a moment of glory for him.
BS: One of the interesting things about the special edition is the whole disc of Eric’s early piano and vocal demos. Would Eric turn up with a bag full of cassette tapes?
AP: The cassettes were for himself. When he played the song for us for the first time he’d sit at the piano and sing it – probably just to me at first, then we’d get the band involved. I would say, “Oh, this bit goes on too long, we need another chorus” and all that stuff. Sometimes we’d turn the song inside out and sometimes it would be very close to the demo. I remember with Time, his second chord made it sound very similar to Floyd’s Us And Them, so that had to go. That was the process.
BS: The special edition also features The Gold Bug demo. Is this you jamming with a drum machine?
AP: Yeah, I did that in my apartment in Monaco.
BS: It’s only when you add the delay to the keyboard that it turns into the part we all know.
AP: That’s a sort-of trade secret of mine. You find a part then you put the delay on and it changes it completely. That happened on Sirius, believe it or not.
BS: The triplet delay?
AP: Yes – I stole that trick from Pink Floyd. Their song One Of These Days uses it. The bass part is really simple but with the delay it becomes something else.
BS: It must have been really nice to see and hear the songs come together with everyone involved.
AP: Yeah, it was a fun album to make. We would start mid-morning, work on through, get a takeaway for lunch and then we’d all go out and have a sumptuous dinner [in the evening]. Towards the end, we would have to go back in the studio because the deadline was approaching, but generally we’d have a few drinks and hit the sack.
BS: One thing that defines APP for me is the strings of Andrew Powell...
Bruce Soord: In 1979, when The Turn Of A Friendly Card was recorded, studios were a very different place. For a start, you had to use tape! Is there anything about that time that you miss?
Alan Parsons: Very, very little. The tape machine had to be lined up every day, and so much time was spent winding back from the end of the song to the beginning. I don't miss that much. I did enjoy the period, and, of course, I enjoyed the sound of tape.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/0TPutm9mm1682596740619/fSRaUCAIG1682597080962.jpg]
BS: In 1979 the primary format was vinyl. Was the album formed with the concept of an A-side/B-side in mind?
AP: Very much so, and cassettes were two sided so you knew that the gap was crucial and a part of the decision-making process for how long, and in what order, the songs were.
BS: I read that the record was recorded in two weeks, which seems incredible!
AP: You’re the second person to say that in an interview! Had it been continuous, it would have been about eight weeks, but we never did more than a couple of weeks [recording] at a time. Eric [Woolfson, co-founder of the Project] and I were both living in Monaco with our families [because of UK taxation issues] and commuting between there and Paris, staying in a hotel in Montparnasse. We’d work during the day, go out to amazing restaurants in the neighbourhood, have a few drinks and return the next day. Then we’d come back home, recuperate, or work on further demos and new material for the album.
BS: One of the reasons you agreed to engineer Steven Wilson’s The Raven That Refused To Sing album in 2013 was because they were recording as a live band. Was this something you always did with the Alan Parsons Project? Did it feel like a band?
AP: Yes, it did – although apart from Eric and myself, they were all hired session players. When we were doing the backing tracks it was David [Paton] on bass, Ian [Bairnson] on guitar, Stuart [Elliott] on drums and Eric on piano. I always liked to have the band playing just to feel how the structure of each song was working. They were fun to work with and all really great musicians, particularly Ian, who was responsible for the overall sound of the Project. It would’ve been substantially different if it hadn’t been for him.
BS: What was it like to be in a room with Alan the producer?
AP: I regarded it as a team effort. If you’re too much of a dictator in the studio you make yourself unpopular. You have to encourage everybody to pitch ideas, and you filter them to keep the good ones. And even if it’s my idea, you have to make them think it was their idea.
BS: One thing I loved about the Project was the use of so many different session players. To hear Chris Rainbow’s solo vocal [overdub] mix of Nothing Left To Lose on the latest edition was a revelation. You called him the “one-man Brian Wilson”?
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1681379403/articles/0TPutm9mm1682596740619/WZeIKnUfv1682597054265.jpg]
AP: The one-man Beach Boys. He was remarkable, considering he had a really bad stammer. He was note-perfect, but when the tape stopped he’d [start stammering]. We got used to it. He was such a talented singer and he came up with incredible parts. I think Nothing Left To Lose was a moment of glory for him.
BS: One of the interesting things about the special edition is the whole disc of Eric’s early piano and vocal demos. Would Eric turn up with a bag full of cassette tapes?
AP: The cassettes were for himself. When he played the song for us for the first time he’d sit at the piano and sing it – probably just to me at first, then we’d get the band involved. I would say, “Oh, this bit goes on too long, we need another chorus” and all that stuff. Sometimes we’d turn the song inside out and sometimes it would be very close to the demo. I remember with Time, his second chord made it sound very similar to Floyd’s Us And Them, so that had to go. That was the process.
BS: The special edition also features The Gold Bug demo. Is this you jamming with a drum machine?
AP: Yeah, I did that in my apartment in Monaco.
BS: It’s only when you add the delay to the keyboard that it turns into the part we all know.
AP: That’s a sort-of trade secret of mine. You find a part then you put the delay on and it changes it completely. That happened on Sirius, believe it or not.
BS: The triplet delay?
AP: Yes – I stole that trick from Pink Floyd. Their song One Of These Days uses it. The bass part is really simple but with the delay it becomes something else.
BS: It must have been really nice to see and hear the songs come together with everyone involved.
AP: Yeah, it was a fun album to make. We would start mid-morning, work on through, get a takeaway for lunch and then we’d all go out and have a sumptuous dinner [in the evening]. Towards the end, we would have to go back in the studio because the deadline was approaching, but generally we’d have a few drinks and hit the sack.
BS: One thing that defines APP for me is the strings of Andrew Powell...
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 139