David Motion interview

2 Aug 02

(and a bit on 15 April 03 cos some of the original tape didn't come out properly)

You know how it [Since Yesterday] became a hit do you? You know the process politically at Warners?

No, not at all.

Well, I think it was released in late September or the beginning of October, but it was very slow to build.

It hit the chart in mid November

And then the Christmas thing all swung into view but it was high enough up in November that Rob and Max thought it could come and go before Christmas. It was showing enough build in the charts that it could've had a longer life. Basically, I heard this story that Rob had had a look at what was potentially doing stuff for WEA that Christmas and Strawberry Switchblade were there and he said, 'we're going to keep this record alive come what may over Christmas and then hit it hard, because it's the only thing for us in terms of new stuff that's even bubbling around'. So that's why they did TV advertising, do you remember that? There was a short campaign in between Christmas and the new year which is why, as the Christmas sales came and went, it survived and came again in January.

All the pluggers and everything just dropped everything else and it caused a lot of frustration around the A&R department, because other people had things coming out and yet they said 'we're withdrawing support from everything else and this is the one we're going to go for'. And so all promotion and budget kept it alive for that period, and then 'bang' in the new year. [Since Yesterday had an uncommonly long period in the charts, 17 weeks, about twice as long as most records that only got to the mid top ten].

It's impressive to see when they really decide to go for it, from a commercial point of view it was very impressive.

Let Her Go comes out two months later, which is similar sounding enough to surely sell to the same people but different enough that it doesn't sound like Since Yesterday Part Two, and it died, absolutely bombed. That makes sense now, hearing how Since Yesterday was pushed so hard.

Obviously I could argue it was because it was the wrong producer, but other people could argue it was other things! There you go, that's ego!

The 12 inch remixes. What were they all about then?

Well, I don't remember doing one. I don't know if I did, did I? Not to my knowledge!

They all go uncredited except for the Let Her Go one, which didn't actually come out on the Let Her Go single, it was on the Who Knows What Love Is 12 inch.

It's around that time there were all those 12 inch remixes, but I never really got the hang of that.

So no-one knows who did these! Jill says she wasn't even there for them.

Sounds like Balfe and Drummond.

The Let Her Go remix is the only one that's remotely listenable, and that credits Drummond and Youth - you can hear good creative musical minds working on it. But all the other ones are really dreadful, no musical merit except for the remnants of the original track. They don't make it any different or better, just longer. 'Not Guilty' on your part, then.

Absolutely.

Do you remember the David Bedford album that Strawberry Switchblade sang on, Rigel 9?

No I don't

The contact was through the sessions you produced.

David Bedford's done loads of stuff, he was involved with Tubular Bells and all that. I'd come across him cos I admired a piece he did, I think it's called Twelve Hours of Sunset or something like that, and I really enjoyed it.

So it was you who brought him in to work with Strawberry Switchblade?

Yeah, I said I think he's the right person for this, and he did what I thought was a great arrangement, the orchestral stuff on Being Cold, and I think he did a little string thing on Another Day, just a string section thing that was pretty easy [also on Poor Hearts]. I also got Andrew Poppy in on 10 James Orr Street as well.

I used David Bedford for one little section on Orlando as well - you know, the movie [Motion did the score] - he did a section on that.

After the album there was only one more single that came out in the UK, Jolene, which Clive Langer gets the production credit on

Oh really?

Do you find it odd that they went with someone else after you?

No. That's a lesson that you learn over time. It's not something that makes it any easier. I don't feel bitter about it or anything, that's just the way that the industry is. There was this feeling at WEA that my sound is too bright, there wasn't enough bass, all that sort of stuff and they wanted something smoother. That's what they thought, so they'd just go to the people who do that sort of stuff. They were basically still obsessed about the idea that something could be a hit outside the UK, preferably in the States, and I think that drove a lot of their choice of producer. Obviously it's disappointing, but I'm not sure I could've done a job on Jolene anyway, it's not my cup of tea really.

It smelt of desperation, the previous single not having charted, so throw out a cover version. Drummond's idea, apparently.

Ha! When in doubt, do a cover.

But it's funny the kind of impact and the echoes that it has, it's almost like a full cycle because I'd been listening to a lot of YMO [Yellow Magic Orchestra] before I worked with Strawberry Switchblade and I really liked that kind of techno thing, and I liked what Japanese music that I'd heard. It was great that it [Strawberry Switchblade] did so well in Japan - as a result of that over many years I've worked with quite a lot of Japanese artists. A lot of them have gone 'oh, Strawberry Switchblade was really important to me'.

There's one artist in particular that I work with, I think I was brought in because of the Strawberry Switchblade connection rather than she was influenced by it - the record companies are very powerful there - a woman called Chara, she's monstrously big there. I've done stuff on eight albums with her, maybe two tracks on each album. A lot of it does have some of those kind of sounds, it's just interesting that that's why it should have connected. I know in Japan they loved the whole image, that was an important thing as well. It's kind of cute but they can see it's slightly dangerous as well.

When the album was finished was everybody happy with the result?

I think so, yeah. I was very happy.

Rose and Jill?

Yeah, they seemed very happy.

It was finished in summer, then it was released in September or October [the flagship single Since Yesterday was - the album wasn't released until early 1985] and they were hoping to get the autumn rush as I was saying, and I didn't really see much of them cos they were busy doing loads and loads of promotion. At the tail end of the recording of the album they were also doing a lot of stuff like photo shoots and general image things and beginning to do interviews. They worked very hard.

I remember I saw Rose some time later. It was all such a novelty to begin with, doing the interviews. And then after a while there were these rumours emerging, I think she said she liked mud wrestling or something like that in some interview. She said, 'yeah, we say the same thing day in day out, after a while I got bored and started making stuff up,' which is just brilliant. They were very much on a fast track for a while, preoccupied with the promotional side. I know that sounds very corporate, but that's the way it is.

They both say it exactly the same.

They were very good at hanging on to their integrity about what Strawberry Switchblade were, they were rock solid and they had a clarity and a presence which was great.

How does the album sound to you now?

I just listened to it this morning, I thought it sounded fantastic. It still sounds very fresh, sounds very modern to me and I'm pleased with it. It had a lot of ideas, I think that's the thing, it's just packed. From my point of view I'm very happy with the way it sounds. I'm not a big one for saying I'd do things differently cos I just wouldn't, you know? It's all part of a learning process. It sounds very assured to me, it sounds very clear and did exactly what we all wanted.

I don't know how it could have been done better. There was this sense - they had high profile management in Balfe and Drummond, they were connected right at the very top in WEA so they got all the promotional machine. Other than taking issue with some of the choices of singles or whatever, the actual production side of things, I don't know how it could have been bettered, really.

Once they were on a major label it was likely to go like that.

How can you fight against such a commercial machine? The whole point is to sell records, that's what everybody wanted to do, but then it's at a cost. And that's the thing - how do you hang on to your integrity while going through that machine? A lot of people describe those kind of record companies, particularly in the 80s, as being like machines. Maybe it became a little more honest later in the 80s where people basically wanted hits and it was kinds of cool to be pop. It may not be seen as cool now, but it definitely was, all the left of centre bands and people involved in the record industry earlier suddenly thought, actually it's OK to go for a straight down the line commercial thing.

The only way I could imagine it having gone differently is if they hadn't signed with WEA but stayed with the indie thing. I'm surprised they didn't put stuff out on Postcard. That was their mates and it was there.

If you look at Balfe and Drummond's credentials, they were from a left of centre background, an indie thing, and then they wanted to make money and sell a lot of records. Even people at Postcard. I did an album with Win, formerly of the Fire Engines and Postcard was involved with London. They all wanted to sell records.

It's always a problem in indie music, how do you find an audience and build an audience and be self-sustaining? Either you have to choose these channels which do function and do work but then there's the danger, as we've seen, that you can find the original motivation gets lost under the gloss.

Selling records becomes more important than making good records.

But what's a good record? Back in the eighties a lot of it was sounding exciting, and from my point of view as a producer at the time I was very interested in what peoples drum sounds were like, stuff like that.

It's just about developing a kind of character and an atmosphere and stuff like that, and having fun while you do it. I enjoyed it very much.

There is one other thing that I'm remembering, it was my girlfriend reminded me of this. It's completely unrelated. I don't know how I managed to swing this, but I made it one of the things with Warners about doing the album that I really wanted to try out a whole bunch of different studios and be in a different studio each week. This was because I was intrigued to know what they were like. I'd worked in a number of studios but there were loads in London I wanted to try so we went into eight that I can remember but there are probably more. There was a week in Chipping Norton out in the countryside. I'm not a big fan of the countryside, but it was nice to be there. That one was towards the end.

The studio that we did the orchestral sessions in called Angel in Islington, it's basically owned by a library company De Woolf, but it's a converted chapel and the main studio has got the old original organ and a view of the choir stalls at the back. Built in to it is a fairly traditional late 1970s/early 1980s studio, wood all around and booths and stuff, and this organ and these pews emerging out of the studio. It's almost like a movie set, when you come out of the studio to go to the loo you come out into the main church bit.

We were there late one night, probably about three quarters of the way through the album, and I was out in the main studio with Rose. I think it was a Saturday, maybe about ten or eleven o'clock at night, and she was showing me something, she was sitting down and I was standing up. Then all of a sudden there was this change in atmosphere in the studio. Things kind of went grey and it suddenly went really cold, and we looked at each other. I mean, I'm very sceptical about all that paranormal stuff. So, there was this change in temperature and atmosphere, and I said to Rose, 'did you just sort of sense something there?', and she said yeah, and we compared. It was like something passing. I wouldn't say a person or anything, but there was this strange presence that passed and it was really spooky. We asked the studio manager and he said people had experienced ghosts and stuff like that. It was an old church and there was obviously bones and stuff down there.

Do you remember what track it was you were working on?

No. I think we relaxing, she was just showing me something on the guitar. She was out in the studio, just knocking around, and I went out to talk to her about something or other. It was Angel studios where we did the orchestral tracks, but we were working on most of the tracks most of the time form the word go, in bits and pieces. It was fairly close to the end, final overdubs and stuff like that.

Just you and Rose, was Jill not there?

I think Jill was in the control room with Peter, I don't remember who else was there. I just happened to be in the studio at that moment. I can't remember if we were about to try something or just chatting. My only spooky experience ever.

David Motion's website

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