Songs and Sonics

There are a few requirements I have for conducting a Songs and Sonics interview with someone. Beyond enjoying the artist’s music, an ideal interview subject should have most of the following:

An album to sell.

A real web site. (A MySpace page doesn’t count.)

A bio.

A history of interviews.

I recently stumbled upon The Sonic Executive Sessions, who had… none of the above. But after about ten seconds of listening to their music, my unwritten rules quickly evaporated. I had to talk with these guys!

Despite the jokey appearance of their MySpace page (complete with Anchorman references and monkey pictures), upon hearing what they do, it’s clear that the Executives are a musical force to be reckoned with. This is seriously accomplished pop, in a Steely Dan sort of way, with a strong Beach Boys undercurrent. Jellyfish fanatics, Ben Folds aficionados, and admirers of the artists parodied in the Yacht Rock video series take note: The Sonic Executive Sessions could very well be your new favorite band.

Christian Phillips (guitar, keys, vocals, and principal songwriter), Ryan Aston (drums, percussion, and occasional backing vocals), and Tim Hamill (recording engineer, guitar, and whatever’s left) are the studio assassins with the playing, singing, writing, and recording chops that even the most staunchly low-fi indie musicians secretly wish they had.

The Executives don’t play live. They don’t even have an album. Instead, they cut their tracks when there’s down time at Sonic One (Tim’s impressive recording facility in South Wales), and post the results on their MySpace page. In an alternate universe where the lowest common denominator doesn’t rule the mainstream, these songs would instead probably be at the top of the charts.

Christian was my contact for this interview, and he says that any plans to release an honest-to-goodness Sonic Executive Sessions album are up in the air. If an album does happen, I have only two modest requests to ask of the band: one, please get someone to build you a real web site with a good bio, and two, let me be the first in line to purchase your CD.

Christian: I got into session work purely by accident. Ryan and I were in a band (The Millionaires, and we were very Beach Boys-like) that got a lot of label interest. But instead of getting a deal, we ended up as a backing band for Sony. After that happened, the work just didn’t stop. But the writing stopped for a few years.

No. I play by ear (my dad was the original bass player in The Ivys, who became the mighty Badfinger). I wish I could read and had more knowledge of music theory — it would come in very handy for some things.

I’m just lucky that I’m able to hear and explode chord progressions in my head. But I’d much rather be able to write them out. I’ll record all the parts and give the separate lines to singers to learn. Some of them will write out their own parts.

Lots of children’s television. That’s fun to write for. Most of my work is writing music for TV: signature tunes, incidental music, that kind of thing.

My main instrument is guitar, and then vocals I guess. Anything else is a bit hit and miss, but I’ll try and play it if you need it — unless its violin, trumpet, or bagpipes!

Any time I’ve had the chance to work in Abbey Road. Studio 2 is a magical place. It still looks like the Beatles are there and have just popped out for a break. You won’t believe what it’s like to actually play the Mrs. Mills piano.

That’s becoming more frequent these days. Of course, it works the other way around too, where people who may have been inaccessible before are just on the end of these wires. For example, Tim recorded an album a few months back and the band had Dio to sing a few lines for them. They did it in their home studio and sent it over. Exactly like the Alessi Brothers did for us.

Yeah, how cool is that? I love the sound they make, and to have that happen on a song you’ve written… Amazing.

Best: Making a living out of what you do. Worst: Some of the awful stuff you have to work on for some of the rudest, most arrogant people you could ever meet.

About seven, I think. Not many. It tends to be like, “Tim’s got a few days free — better go write a song!”

I was listening to Born to Run. Somebody gave it to me and said, “You have to listen to this — it’s Phil Spector times ten.” Not being a fan of “The Boss,” I stuck it on reluctantly — and really liked it.

There are some lyrics in the first song, Thunder Road, that got me thinking how you can write about a person or place, and it gets frozen in that moment. Whenever we go and listen to that song at five or fifteen or fifty, the song never changes… but we do. Pet Sounds, for example, I was born listening to that. It has so many reference points in my life like when I was fifteen and used to run home from school every dinner break so I could listen to that and Spilt Milk and then run back. So that’s what made me want to write that song.

I wanted to write a song where the chorus was as for away from the verse key as I could get and then get back. And make it sound easy. I don’t know if I got the last bit. Brian Wilson did this all the time.

So that was the idea — to write a Smile-type tune with some nice modulations which turned into a Steely Dan 70’s slice of Yacht Rock. How did that happen? I guess I got carried away with the chords!

For the recording, we got Nigel Hopkins in to play Fender Rhodes and Pablo in on bass. I like everything to be real on our songs and there was no way I was playing those parts live!

He has no second name.

No. Ryan went in first with Pablo. Nigel came in later to replace my keyboard with the real thing. You have to appreciate that I’m spoiled when it comes to these guys. They really are amazing musicians, and I’m so lucky that they live a phone call away.

Eventually, Probyn Gregory from Brian Wilson’s band will be playing the brass on it. Can’t wait to get it finished, but he’s kind of busy at the minute.

Nope, it’s all me triple tracked. Takes about one to two hours to do, but Tim’s a patient and fantastic engineer.

Ah. You really have done your homework. That’s a bit more involved. That’s more than me. You’ve got to have four of you to recreate that sound! It takes AGES.

OK, here’s the secret. Take a four part harmony. Start on the lowest notes you can sing. All (at least three) of you sing the first part in unison. Triple track it. Sing the next part and the next and the next and the next until you can’t sing any higher. You’ll have about sixty parts or so. Play them back and its Queen. Dramatic vibrato on some parts help with the sound, but not too much because the harmony will become a bit unstable.

Oh, and try to do it with an English accent — something us Welsh guys struggle with!

The Gabe Dixon Band… and LOADS of John Williams soundtracks. I’m scoring a film at the moment — it’s a Christmas TV movie. The budget for the music is small, so it’s just me at the Mac trying to make it sound like the London Symphony Orchestra in Abbey Road.

Perhaps the Eagles/Steely Dan episode when Michael McDonald gets a rock chucked at him. They’re all VERY FUNNY. Please don’t make me choose, Jeff!

No, but I bet they are out there.

Well, maybe. I guess Toto and their ilk were and/or used a lot of studio players. So if there is a thread, it would be there on tunes like Cold Front, where I had to get guys in who can play like that.

But it was Roger Manning from Jellyfish who dubbed us ‘Yacht Rock.’ I was a bit offended at first because I didn’t know what it was. But when we went to find out what it was, everyone I loved was there, so it stuck. I’m glad we have a bit of the Yacht in us.

The sun (we don’t get it much here)

Anything that makes we want to try harder (Rufus Wainwright does this a lot)

Anything that makes me think there’s no point — may as well give it all up now (Brian Wilson does this a lot)

A good biography by someone who’s old enough to write one (David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon is a good start)

The fact that there is music out there that I’ll never get to hear that’s probably amazing (so I have to find it and hear it)

Standing on the Empire State

A new chord

Singing harmony (There’s something very special about singing with people)

An old cliché, but you can learn something new every day

Writing a list about the ten things that inspire you (A cop out… Sorry, but I ran out of ideas!)

The Sonic Executive Sessions MySpace page | Christian Phillips’ MySpace page (contains a couple extra songs) | Ryan Aston’s MySpace page | Tim Hamill’s MySpace page (contains a couple more Sonic Executive songs) | Sonic One recording studio

Count me in among those who really like The High Llamas‘ particular brand of licorice.

Over the course of eighteen years and twelve albums, the Llamas have cast a dreamy sonic spell. ’60s California pop, Steely Dan-like studio perfectionism, Moog synthesizer albums, Steve Reich-style minimalism, thrift store vinyl soundtracks, and a bossa nova beat mingle in surprising ways and are wrapped in a distinctly British sensibility.

Some are resistant to the Llamas’ spell, and the various controversies in the music press sometimes threaten to overshadow the band’s accomplishments. Certainly, what The High Llamas do is good enough for Bruce Johnston, who hired Llamas mastermind Sean O’Hagan to produce an eventually aborted Beach Boys comeback album in the late ’90s. A number of other artists have employed Sean’s arranging and session skills to more fruitful ends: Stereolab, Will Oldham, Cornelius, and Louis Philippe, to name a few.

While The High Llamas’ music might not be played in shopping malls around the world, Sean’s influence has certainly spread far and wide: the majority of artists already interviewed for Songs and Sonics have acknowledged his musical influence on their own work. Heck, he’s one of my influences! So it’s definitely a thrill to have him here.

Sean was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to chat about 2007’s Can Cladders, the Llamas’ well-received and most accessible outing yet. In fact, if you’ve never heard The High Llamas, Can Cladders is the ideal place to start. (Sean O’Hagan photo by Kev Hopper.)

Sean: I start on nylon string guitar usually, then go to the piano. The arrangements are already taking shape as I write. They kind of arrange themselves in a way. I write chords that lend themselves to arrangements.

I write in fragments sometimes and record these to MiniDisc. I then review the writing, and put these fragments together in a way that I hope defies convention.

A lot later, I start to arrange, even though I know what the arrangement might be.

Very short answer: Listening to records. No training, just listening and trying to work out what is going on. I taught myself to read music only recently and am still a very slow reader. Marcus Holdaway (piano) is trained and helped with the strings. He also helped with my sightreading.

I used old 4-track machines to demo parts. I crudely noted parts and worked with either Marcus or Andy Robinson as I dictated the harmony from piano or guitar. Yes, I suppose I used pencil back then. But the 4-track was essential.

Just getting older and wanted to be absolutely instinctive. I thought I went through a period denying that I loved pop (Carole King, Laura Nyro, Neil Sedaka, The Flamingos), and with age you just stop the fooling around and get on with what you are good at. I know Becker and Fagen are hated by some, but the early LP’s are full of crack pop tunes, as were The Specials, The Beach Boys, The Zombies, ELO, 10cc, Dion and the Belmonts. You can go to any era or style and find great pop — even today. I just wanted the pop I wrote to be a bit different.

Yes, it was happy. I worked at home a lot. But as a process draws on it, it becomes somewhat frustrating as well. I was determined to capture my pop positivity that I had rediscovered. Formerly, I think I was denying the instant melodic ideas I would churn out, mistaking the ease of writing with poor quality. I am glad for any idea now.

I really cannot say what the next record will be like. It’s not in my head, and will not be for a while. I have to do some other stuff before that time comes around again.

I often wonder whether the world can cope with another High Llamas record. We don’t exactly set the world alight when we release a record, and it is hard putting in a real commitment to writing and know that a great number of listeners will stare blankly at the product and wonder why we make this music. I always have to get over that image in my head.

OK.

That’s a chap we know who was a tour manager and gave up touring, preferring the land locked middle England to constant driving for ferry departures.

Aluminum cladding salesmen (tin men… no prize for guessing) and beat poets, sort of meeting up in my little invention. I think it works very nicely. Who needs love.

I was DJing one night and playing Dorothy. The reaction of the folk in the club prompted the second verse:

They were rich kids. Then I brought Dorothy into it as a living person. I imagined the harp as a means of travel for her and the listener.

If there has to be one, lets say Clarion Union Hall. I love the girls’ voices on this tune and the ooh refrain at the end is as close as I got to a classic 60’s girl sound, which chuffs me up. Its my favourite moment on the record.

Once when I was robbed, and once when the good old US border guards really did not want to let me back to the US in El Paso. I had to give them a big load of cash to get over the border.

The line was born to be sung. It was always going to be that. I think the rest of the song wrote itself around that line.

I know what you mean, but do not agree with the premise. I will answer in spirit. How about Queen, You’re My Best Friend.

But that’s a good song! OK… I’ll let you off the hook for that one. What’s next for you and The High Llamas?

Right now, I’m in Rio making an LP with Kassin Kammal (Kassin + 2) . We are co-writing an LP. I hope it works and people like it. It is an experiment, really.

We spent time wondering whether there should be a name. I think it will be Kassin + Sean.

The Llamas have a big show in Ireland where we are doing the music for a narrative written by the wonderful UK novelist Jonathan Coe. The soundtrack is Llamas music from the last eight LPs played live with strings, July 20 in Dublin.

I started out as a construction worker at the age 15 before working in UK car plants.

I suppose they did. As you know, I write about everyday stuff in a narrative way, and an assembly line can produce a storyboard every bit as poetic as a love tragedy.

That’s pretty much where I am, standing on street corners looking up at architecture that most people miss and wondering who drew this stuff up. From there, a story begins.

Pembrokeshire

Birdsong (I’m a recent convert… it happens when you get to 45)

Architecture

Marcos Valle

Anything I hear that makes me rush to the piano

Paul Auster

French movies (1967-1978)

BBC Radio 4 (Embodies England)

School singing. When you hear your own children sing it’s quite wonderful.

Great pubs. Because they usually host great conversations, which in turn inspire.

Thinking about LA and New York as they were in 1968-1971…

The High Llamas’ official web site | The High Llamas’ MySpace page | Order Can Cladders from highllamas.com (UK) | Order Can Cladders from Amazon.com

Some artists make recordings. The Brigadier (a.k.a. Matt Williams) makes records.

The Brigadier’s albums sound as if they were meticulously assembled in a 1979-era world-class million dollar studio. Electric Light Orchestra, 10cc, and Queen are all sonic reference points, as well as more recent artists like Teenage Fanclub.

Except that Matt doesn’t utilize a world-class studio. Instead, he uses a computer, a keyboard, and a guitar in the corner of his living room. And he posesses a very interesting microphone preamp, as you’ll discover in the following interview. If The Brigadier isn’t a great example of imagination triumphing over gear, I don’t know what is.

The Brigadier’s brand new album, The Rise and Fall of Responsibility, is a solid collection of Teenage Fanclub-meets-Jeff Lynne studio pop goodness. And at precisely the point in the album when you think you’ve got his sound pegged, he throws in two superb electro-disco tunes (The Melancholy Days and This, is Why) that amazingly don’t feel out of place with the previous guitar-centric tracks.

If you’re looking for a good soundtrack to accompany this interview, look no further than The Brigader’s MySpace page. If you’re not won over by the end of Some Sort of Magic (from The Brigadier’s 2007 release, View from the Bath), you should probably have your pulse checked.

Matt: I did the usual route of playing in bands throughout my teens and all that, though just initially as a guitarist playing rock stuff. I’d always been able to come up with tunes since I was young, and by my late teens was able to form them into songs. Then I started recording them on a four track.

To cut a long story short, I went through some more bands but got fed up with all the stuff that comes with being in a band. So I decided to go “solo,” as it were. I didn’t want to go under my own name, as there were already several other artists called Matt Williams and I thought it would be a bit boring to go under my own name. The last band I had been in was called Brigadier, so I decided to keep the name.

When thinking of the name I wanted something a bit authoritative but also with a twinkle in the eye. All the regal names had been taken — Queen, King, Prince, Princess — so I decided to go with a military name. The only one which popped out as sounding interesting was brigadier. I just kind of found it funny!

Then I bought a computer to see if I could give it a go on the internet, largely because hardly anyone had heard my songs and I had no idea how they would be perceived. I went on loads of sites, but eventually settled down on MySpace, as I found it the easiest to use. Suddenly, I was getting a lot of feedback from people who really liked the stuff — which was a real boost to my confidence. Then, when I started making CDs to sell, people actually bought them! Which was the best thing, as it really validated what I was doing.

I kind of just picked it up by doing it again and again. I used to record everything on four track tape. When I moved over to a computer, I utilized it in the same way — just as a glorified four track. I used to be very sloppy with my recording. But the more I did it, the more my ears became attuned to hearing everything, and the better the sound became.

I like fuller productions, like what you would hear on mid ’60s Beach Boys and ’70s Queen records. I like to bring out as much of the song as possible in the production without suffocating it. Sometimes I try to strip things down and do something with just my voice and piano or guitar — but I don’t often get there!

I play live as often as I can. Some songs I just sing playing along with my guitar. For the others, I sing and play guitar along with backing tracks from my mp3 player. It’s basically the same tracks off my albums, but stripped of lead guitar and vocals — so it’s kind of like Karaoke!

It’s not ideal, but until I can find a band, it’s the only way. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sound that bad, and the songs seem to go down well in the live environment.

It’s quite a skeletal setup, I use one microphone (Beyerdynamic) for everything, mostly because I never got around to buying any other, then that goes into a Tascam four track tape recorder, which is sort of my preamp, as I don’t have a mixer.

The mic is a Beyerdynamic M300 TG. It’s one that my dad gave me years ago when I started recording. To be honest, I don’t know that much about mics, so I’ve never used any other!

The Tascam is a Porta 03 MkII. It has a stereo input that I use for my keyboards, which you can switch to a mic input for the mic. Then, I plug the output of that into the computer.

The audio is going straight in. I use an old Apple Mac G3, on which I’m running Logic Audio 4.7, an old but trusty program! I don’t use any MIDI instruments, as there’s a fault with my setup which won’t allow it. But I do have some internal synths on my computer which I can use, like Mellotron samples and old ’70s analogue keyboards.

I don’t have many sample instruments, but I bought some on eBay, like Mellotron samples which I use and ARP synthesizers. I use them inside the EXS24 sampler in Logic. Aside from that, all my keyboard stuff is played in direct from my Yamaha portable grand.

Most of my keyboards have to be played straight in, which can be annoying. If you make a mistake, you have to start again… But it makes you a better keyboard player!

I use a compressor inside of Logic on a lot of the vocals but not all of them, then I EQ them to make them a bit warmer. I don’t have any external processors, as I don’t want to get overwhelmed by too much stuff! Also, I’m currently trying to upgrade my equipment at the moment, but it’s not working as I keep getting plagued with technical hurdles!

Some songs derive completely from real-life situations and others are exaggerated somewhat. The rest are either fictional or songs about somebody else, so are not applicable to me. Generally though, there is a biographical and nostalgic element to a lot of the songs. In that sense it could be construed as self-indulgent, but that’s just the way it is!

Well, there’s a song on there called Under the Influenza which is written about having the flu or colds and all that sort of stuff. That comes from always being ill when I was younger. I’m generally much healthier these days, but I had the flu earlier in the year. I wrote this song in bed when I was feeling pretty dire!

Rhythm is very important to me, and I try to give every song a different rhythmic feel. There’s nothing worse than listening to a collection of songs which all have the same groove. I think you should be able to move to most music, whether it’s “dance” orientated or not. That said, I do like “dance” music in a traditional pop way. I like a lot of disco, funk, and early 80s dance pop, as its quite fresh-sounding, and most importantly, full of groove — which I think a lot of dance music gradually lost over time.

I don’t know if I would do a whole disco album, but probably after a few more albums you could certainly compile a good dancing compilation!

Yes — I basically borrow a groove off a record that I like. Generally, when I’ve written something, I’ll write down next to it, “The feel is like this song by…” whoever it is. That’s usually the start off point. That’s why it’s good to listen to lots of music — even stuff you don’t like — because you might find something like a rhythm or groove that you can borrow!

It was just something I wrote on guitar. It was going to be a slow ballad, but I thought that might be a bit obvious, so I didn’t do anything with it for a while. One day, I was listening to a song I liked called La Dolce Vita by Ryan Paris, who was a sort of early ’80s Europop one hit wonder. I thought that I should do something with a similar beat, so I basically used the groove off that song, though compositionally they have nothing in common. Sound-wise, then I was just fiddling around with different synthesizer sounds. I had to keep relentlessly stripping it down until it was very sparse, though by the end of the song it gets quite busy again!

I’m quite quick at writing, but the recording takes time as I have a day job and have to fit it in around that. I’m always thinking simultaneously about loads of different songs at any one time. Some songs I finish and some I don’t. Some come back for another day.

Some songs literally are all completely recorded and mixed within a few hours (like This is, Why… off the new album) and others I might start at some point, and then burn off my computer — coming back to them weeks or months later. Usually if you record and mix something on one day, you go back to it a few days later and you want or need to refine it. After a few more times of doing that, it usually sounds finished. The more experienced you become with recording, the easier it is, because you know instinctively how you want it to sound and how to get there. But then that’s like anything, I suppose!

I abandon lots of songs in the writing stage if they’re not keeping my interest, but will usually just throw them into a pile for another day. With recording, sometimes I’ll do a backing track and decide I don’t like it or it’s in the wrong tempo or key — or basically, it’s not inspiring. So I’ll bin it. Then maybe a few months later, I’ll come back to that song and redo it in a different way. I have lots of songs like that!

The best things definitely are being able to do what I want when I want. I can write anything and release it and don’t have to teach someone how to play it. I have collaborated with people before many times on writing and recording, but would generally prefer to produce other people than write with them — but I’m not ruling it out.

The worst thing is that you have to be your own motivator and you have to really force yourself to keep your own morale up. It’s especially evident when I’m doing a gig. It isn’t as much fun doing a gig by yourself. I’d rather play with a band behind me in that capacity.

I think having strong self-belief is the only thing which you can use to motivate yourself a lot of the time. That, and getting feedback from other musicians and fans. You tend to feel validated when people like what you are doing, so it helps keep you on track. That said, there are many dark days where you feel a bit lost and directionless and what you’re doing is not worth anything. But you need to try and not let those thoughts hold much weight.

A lot of my tastes are quite mainstream and go from the mid 50s to the recent day, but that encompasses pop, rock, progressive rock, funk, heavy metal, country, bluegrass, country-rock, disco, electropop, etc. So as far as I can think the overlooked bands that I like did enjoy some success but not enough of it: artists like Saint Etienne, Stackridge, Salad, The Auteurs, Emitt Rhodes, and Mike Scott.

I think as well as bands that are underrated or unknown, there are also “lost” periods in famous artists histories that go completely overlooked, people like Nick Lowe, Dion Dimucci, Delmont Shannon and The Everly Brothers, even The Beach Boys too. People might only know them for a handful of hits, but if you delve in to their back catalogues, there are some really great albums.

My first priority is to try and upgrade my recording equipment to make things easier. I’m also working on an EP for release in the late summer with a loose theme of “Holidays,” but that will probably change. I’ve also started recording my next album for probable release next year. I’ve got so many songs that I’m just going to keep recording them because I can’t think of anything better to do. Thankfully, I have a good fan base who enjoy what I do, and I always sell enough to cover all my costs of making CDs — so there’s no reason to stop!

Food

The weather

Photographs

Nostalgia

States of mind

Going on trips

Films

Other peoples songs

Love

Not going to work

The Brigadier’s web site | The Brigader’s MySpace page | Order The Rise and Fall of Responsibility