5 minute read
CLEAN CUT KID / FINDING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS
TOOLBOX FINDING YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS
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WITH CLEAN CUT KID
For this month’s edition of Artist Toolbox, we had the pleasure of talking with Mike Halls, front man of Liverpool’s Clean Cut Kid. A band with an expansive way of recording, writing and producing their music, we asked Hall all about his creative process, and the recent success of their documentary debut in support of their album Mother’s Milk.
YOUR ALBUM MOTHER’S MILK JUST HAD ITS DOCUMENTARY DEBUT THIS MONTH- HOW DID YOU FIND THE PROCESS OF CREATING A DOCUMENTARY THAT FELT REPRESENTATIVE OF YOU AS A BAND?
The process was kind of governed by a couple of things. We had lots of footage of writing, recording and our trip to Nashville, but most of this footage was never going to be visually sufficient to carry the narrative- mainly because a lot of the album’s composition and creation was done in our little flat and tiny studio, plus I don’t find digital film or music very inspiring at all and all the footage was shot on iPhone. So I knew from the start that this was going to have be something very unique. The formula was to use hand drawn animation to give the images some dimension, and then heavily lean on foley and sound design to inject all the emotion into the story. What emerged was something much more akin to the way we make records.
"FINDING A UNIQUE APPROACH TO RECORDING AND ARRANGING A RECORD IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING AFTER THE SONGS..." YOU’VE JUST SIGNED TO ALCOPOP! RECORDS FOR YOUR NEW ALBUM, TELL US ABOUT YOUR PLANS FOR THIS.
The 4th record was a very different process to Mother’s Milk. MM is about 50% recorded on tape, and 50% digital; but this one is completely tracked on 8 track 1/4” mastering tape. What that translates to is a much
more lo-fi record, completely built from live performances of every part in every track. The new record is also only written by me and doesn’t feature Evelyn in the writing, unlike our last few records. If you want a picture in your head for album 4, it’s me, alone in a tiny studio for months, painstakingly doing hundreds of takes of every single part until they were all perfect. It’s devastatingly personal.
HOW WOULD YOU ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO EXPLORE A DIFFERENT CREATIVE PROCESS THAT ALLOWS THEM TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW?
I’d say finding a unique approach to recording and arranging a record is the single most important thing after the songs themselves. Sonics don’t matter at all. Something sounding ‘good’ or ‘right’ or ‘well recorded’ is completely irrelevant. You must focus on performance first and foremost in my opinion. World class playing can be recorded on an iPhone and it will move people regardless. What’s happened in our industry is we used to have thousands of world class players and a handful of incredible producers. And slowly we’ve shifted to thousands of incredible producers with so few people out there who you’d ever want to even capture raw. My advice is don’t ‘fix anything later’, capture all the magic when it happens and if it’s not happening; go fucking practice until it does.
Oh, and fuck digital. Tape for the win.
WHAT EQUIPMENT AND PROCESSES HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR IDEAS WHEN MAKING MUSIC?
I have a 1” 8 track tape machine, a lovely ex-BBC little side car desk, and a purposely limited compliment of gear that I know inside out. I use a Valve U47, into a Valve REDD pre-amp, into an old 60s Pultec EQ, into a Valve RS124 limiter. 90% of everything you’ll ever hear on our records comes along that chain. On top of that I use 100% analogue effects: an Echoplex EP3 tape delay, a real plate reverb and real springs and Moogerfooger units. It’s hard to make a ‘generic’ or ‘cold’ record when you’re dealing with those tools.
I can’t stress enough that this gear and the analogue approach to recording actively shapes every creative move I make. Adding a tape plug in is nothing like recording on tape in any way. Not because of the sound of it, but because when you record on tape you carefully plan every part and every bounce down. Then you work on those parts for days on end until you can play them in your sleep. Our gear makes every stage much more time consuming, but you can hear that care in the recordings.
WE’VE SPOKEN TO VARIOUS PEOPLE ABOUT HOME STUDIOS, ESPECIALLY OVER LOCKDOWN, BUT TELL US ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THEM AND HOW YOU UTILISE YOURS?
Our last few records were recorded in ‘home studios’ and I just can’t ever see how I’d be able to get my vision right in a commercial studio. Regardless of the pressures of being ‘on the clock’, it’s also the fact that each new room, microphone and piece of recording gear is a learning curve to truly master. I realise that one big factor in building our studio was having the privilege of a great budget for some of our dream equipment; not all home studios are created equally.
IN THE DOCUMENTARY YOU SPOKE ABOUT FEELING LONELY RECORDING MOTHERS MILK ALONE INITIALLY- HOW DID THIS FUNCTION OVER THE PAST YEAR IN A HOME STUDIO SETTING?
With record 4 I decided to embrace the loneliness. In our home studio I’m never more than a few feet away from my wife Ev, but it’s the creative solitude that kind of sets the scene on the new recording. I’m writing all the songs myself, and playing 90% of all the parts live to tape. I was lost in a little world for months, and even though [my wife] Ev was there physically; she kind of had no part in that world until it came to tracking her vocals and cello parts. It was hard work and I had a mini breakdown where I almost erased the tapes, but I’m so glad I persevered because I’ve never been prouder of anything.
