Headliner 13

ISSUE 13

MUNI TY

How the world’s favourite songstress turned the industry on its head (again)

OM

ADELE

AT I V E C

P SUP ORT

G THE C

RE

MAGAZINE

IN

ENTER SHIKARI

A rare acoustic treat from the pioneers of electronicore

THE MACCABEES A new album, life after CDs, and keeping up appearances

GREG WELLS

Songwriting with Katy Perry, Mika, and Adele.

RRP $6.95 USA/$7.95 CANADA

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DANCE MUSIC TITAN

Hardwell

JAN/FEB 2016

Know No Bounds

CHECK OUT HEADLINER MAGAZINE ONLINE | HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

Contents #13 Cover Story P28 / Hardwell: Know No Bounds

06 SWIVEL ON THIS

Grammy-winning record producer, DJ Swivel, gives us his thoughts on Adele’s recent amazing musical milestones.

08 SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS

10 ALISON WONDERLAND

This pint-sized Aussie DJ talks us through her crazy and at times emotional life behind the decks.

12 THE MACCABEES

We sit down with Felix White and look back on a decade of making music, plus the band’s latest album, Marks To Prove It.

16

GREG WELLS

Coffee in New York with one of the nicest songwriters we’ve met - just ask Adele or Katy Perry.

20 ROGER HODGSON

Behind the scenes with the former Supertramp frontman on his latest world tour.

22 THE HOOSIERS

Goodbye Mr A, hello new-look music industry, with a stonkingly good album to boot.

24 AC/DC

These Australian rock legends are still doing their thing, and breaking records along the way.

26 ADELE: 25 Our take on the latest and much talked about record from the UK’s finest songstress.

HEADLINER | ISSUE #13 | JAN-FEB

28 HARDWELL: KNOW NO BOUNDS

An exclusive with the world’s number one DJ, whose attitude is as admirable as his record-breaking achievements.

32 EDM POWERHOUSE

We chat to those Canadian gents over at PK Sound, who are making waves in the electronic music scene.

35 ON BROADWAY

The life and times of a theatre sound designer, by 25-year stalwart and industry expert, David Patridge.

38 ENTER SHIKARI

We are exclusively invited to a very rare acoustic gig by electronicore pioneers, Enter Shikari. What a show.

42 GOTTHARD

Backstage with Leo Leoni, co-founder of Switzerland’s biggest rock band, and an insight into Gotthard’s latest live recordings.

50 WEB SUMMIT 2015

Could this be the best technology conference on the planet? Quite possibly, actually.

46 MADI TO MEASURE

52 U2 LIVE AT THE O2

We’re off to Norway to find out exactlty why Optocore is the perfect audio solution for Biovisjon Studio.

The megastars from Dublin strip it right back for their Innocence and Experience tour - and it really works.

48 LOZ UPTON

54 GRUMPY OLD ROADIE

The good, the bad, and the downright problematic: a great insight from one of the industry’s leading lighting designers.

Robert’s on tour currently, but ‘Dan the Man’ steps in this issue to share his own grievances about the lack of coffee on British motorways.

PHOTO : DJ HARDWELL IN THE STUDIO

Our Ibiza correspondents invite the Mambo Brothers over to chat about a blossoming DJ career, and life on the Island.

FROM THE EDITOR We’ve got a bit of everything in this issue of Headliner. We begin by diving deep into the world of electronic dance music, chatting exclusively to Hardwell, the world’s number one DJ. His rise to fame has been somewhat astounding, yet he’s as humble as he is successful, and has just broken a world-record, which you need to read to believe.

We also invite Ibiza’s entrepreneurial Mambo Brothers into Sonic Vista Studios to talk business and pleasure; and in London, we share tea and honey with Australian powerhouse, Alison Wonderland, whose sets from behind the decks are so energetic, she literally has the marks to prove it.

And so do The Maccabees. We chat to the band about their latest record, Marks To Prove It, before heading to North London to meet electronicore pioneers, Enter Shikari, who treat us to a very rare acoustic show in Alexandra Palace’s old theatre. Great stuff.

We have a show review from U2’s latest tour, Innocence and Experience; and because we couldn’t get Adele’s 25 off our playlists (and still can’t), we had to review it for you: her achievements in such a digital age where, apparently, ‘albums don’t sell’, are beyond staggering.

All this, and much more inside. Thanks for choosing Headliner.

Paul Watson

SOCIALISE WITH US: headlinermagazine.net @Headlinerhub HeadlinerHub headlinermagazine www.tsu.co/headliner_magazine HEADLINER | ISSUE #13 | JAN-FEB

CONTACT Paul Watson paul@headlinerhub.com +44(0)7952-839296

Graham Kirk graham@gkirkmedia.com +44(0)7872-461938

Art Director Eimear O’Connor

Contributors Colin Pigott Jordan Young Jonathan Tessier Louis Henry Sarmiento II Robert the Roadie Dan the Man

Open & Closed

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Swivel on this Adele

MUSIC HAS VALUE. I’ve

been seeing this written on t-shirts recently. It’s a phrase that’s been championed by Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, and many are taking note. Scott has been on the front-lines, fighting for artists

destroyed? Like any other industry, when technology innovates, the industry must respond by improving itself – not by fighting a losing battle with innovation. Just look at the taxi business: ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft offer a better

figures, but moving past Adele’s incredible success, others have had great years too. Taylor Swift’s latest album, 1989, was released a little over a year ago, and remained in the top 10 for 52 weeks; and Drake sold over a million on a mixtape! The point I’m trying to make is, if the music is quality, people will buy.

This isn’t to slight artists in any way who aren’t selling. Lots of artists make great music that doesn’t sell. It’s more than just great content; it’s the amalgamation of quality content, a strong marketing effort, and great radio promo. And this

“What a historic week.

Adele’s highly anticipated album, 25, moved 3.38 million copies in the US alone...” and the industry, and I thank him for it. Having said that, I don’t like the statement. With all due respect, Scott, I propose rephrasing it: good music has value. That’s better.

What an historic week. Adele’s highly anticipated album, 25, moved 3.38 million copies in the first week in the US alone. This betters the previous first week US sales record set by NSYNC with No Strings Attached (2.4 million units). What does this mean, though? The industry has been telling us for years that the Internet has destroyed the record business. I have to disagree. Disrupted, sure. But 06 HEADLINER

experience. This always wins with consumers.

Bringing this premise back to music, what Adele has shown us is that if you create high quality content, people will support it. And support it they did. Let’s look at the numbers (borrowed from Billboard): she sold more than double the combined sales of the rest of the top 100 albums (2-100) in its first week; was responsible for 41% of all albums sold across the US, with 1.71 million physical CDs and 1.64 million digital albums: 49% of every download sold.

These are unbelievable

is where artists and labels have been failing.

When the music business was disrupted by Napster 15 years ago, it started a chain reaction.

First, the industry didn’t know what to do, and fought technology: mistake number one. Once labels realised fighting it was a losing battle (some still haven’t realised), they were forced to play catch up.

Shareholders don’t care about this though, they care about returns, plain and simple.

So what’s the easiest way to make sure profits remain high?

Cut costs. That’s been the de facto strategy. When I started

my professional career 10 years ago, things were different.

Labels would book the best studios, they wouldn’t hammer us on our rates, there would be a food budget every day to make sure the talent was happy and fed. All of this meant one thing: the talent creating the record was taken care of in such a way that the only worry was making sure we made great music. The same corner cutting has happened in the offices, too.

Labels have cut so much staff, they’re operating at the most anaemic levels possible. This leads for very little bandwidth to get things done. It also means everyone is scared of being next on the chopping block, and prevents anyone from taking a risk. We make music! We’re supposed to be innovators, risk takers, challengers of the status quo!

When I listen to Adele’s album, what I hear is a group of incredibly talented people, working their asses off to make something of quality - of value.

I can hear it in the pianos, in the reverbs. These aren’t cheap records to make. This wasn’t producers emailing files online, and engineers mixing in their bedrooms. Money was spent.

Once the product was ready, marketing and radio had the ammo they needed to go and do their jobs, which is just as important. There’s a correlation between the albums that do well, and the rest. All of the albums that are doing well are firing on all cylinders. Great content. Great marketing.

Great radio team.

If 25 has proven anything, it’s that good music has value. www.djswivel.com

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SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS Q&A

MAMBO BROTHERS The Mambo Brothers are a perfect representation of the Ibiza party, and have been gaining the attention of music promoters across the globe.

One half of this entrepreneurial duo, Christian Anadon, drops into Sonic Vista Studios to talk music, Café Mambo, and a blossoming DJ career.

Words Louis Henry S arm i ento II a nd Jonathan Tessier

08 HEADLINER

Christian, you just came back from India, where you were playing for Corona Sunsets, and we also saw you perform at the Corona Sunsets festival in Ibiza this summer. How was your experience with these types of festivals?

For us, it’s all beautiful. We love travelling, meeting people, and playing in festivals and bigger format parties. And because we’re from an island, we don’t get to leave Ibiza in the summer too often, so it’s great for us to do these kinds of festivals.

What do you think of the representation of the island internationally?

Ibiza is now seen as the mecca for the electronic music industry, like the Hollywood of the film industry. That’s amazing, but there is also so much more for people to discover, and see the other side of this incredible island in the Mediterranean. It’s

a music destination, but it’s also a hippy, free-spirit destination, too. I’ve been living here all my life, and I’m still discovering some of its magic everyday.

How would you illustrate the spirit of your music?

Well, we like to play solid house music, but it’s eclectic. When I say eclectic, I mean we will not draw a straight line; we’ll take it through another path suddenly, and then bring it back up. It’s happy, uplifting, but not too dreamy; at the same time, we put a few tracks in that remind people of other music periods: maybe a classic house track, or something that gives a happy vibe, like something Balearic.

You know, being born in Ibiza, people here are always happy, so it naturally makes us ‘be’ quite happy, so whether it’s summer or winter time, our sets are always joyful.

SONIC VISTA INSIGHTS Q&A

Does that make Mambo Brothers different than other DJs? We’ve been listening to music for 20 years, and admiring DJs like Frankie Knuckles, Pete Tong, John Digweed, Steve Lawler - you know, we’ve learned from all of them, and obviously we’ve been listening to sets of the older DJs from Ibiza like DJ Pippi and Alfredo. We understand what the Ibiza vibe is, so we always like to keep it not too serious, and not too square; and sometimes even put a totally different song in our set, like Talk Talk, or an ‘80s track, or a house track that seems completely random; and if it works well, it becomes a memorable night.

We remember some DJ sets from the past that have changed our lives.

Was there a moment where you and your brother just realised, ‘ok, this is going to be our path’?

Yes. When we were teenagers, we used to go see Roger Sanchez, when he used to have his residency at the El Divino nightclub, which is now called Lio, and for us, those sets were just incredible. We have always really admired him. That was the beginning; we were probably 16, so this was around 1999. He used to do these incredible sunrise moments. Back then, I used to DJ myself, and Roger Sanchez was a massive influence for me. That’s probably when we realised that’s what we wanted to do.

Yet Mambo Brothers only launched a couple of years ago... [smiles] Yeah, but I’ve been DJ-ing for the past 10 years, and I’ve always wanted to create a music duo with my brother. I’d done my duties in the family company, and then we finally began DJ-ing as Mambo Brothers.

We try to represent all the hours we’ve spent clubbing. Sometimes you’ve got to incorporate several elements to be able to do what you want to do in life, and now here we are.

Tell us about the Mambo brand...

Café Mambo is a bar on the Sunset Strip in San Antonio where people come to watch sunsets. Basically, 21 years ago, when we opened, it was just a bar next to a popular bar called Café Del Mar, where 500 or so people used to come and watch the sunset.

Now, it’s more like 25,000 people that come to watch the sunset in the area. [smiles] As you can see, it has evolved a lot! Back in ‘94, the biggest DJs 09 HEADLINER

used to come and hang at Mambo, and used to ask us if they could play a few tracks, so we used to say yes. Back then, I was 13-yearsold; I didn’t really know what a DJ was, and my dad was kind of learning what being a DJ meant and represented. There were no mobile phones or Internet, all the promoters used to be in Ibiza, so they used to network and organise their PR teams here, so it became a club-owner hang-out spot.

That’s how it all started.

You’re a bar owner, restaurant owner, and a serious entrepreneur.

And now you have a beautiful new hotel! Whatever next..? [smiles] We are a family business that loves looking after people. We love the hospitality business, and we are passionate about it. Café Mambo is a very successful bar, so little by little, we’ve been experimenting with restaurants; and now we have a beautiful new hotel with sunset views.

But we want to keep it really authentic, like Ibiza was back in the day. The hotel is in a really magical area, and we’ve been behind this project for 10 years. We would love to open a Café Mambo somewhere else someday, but it would have to be very special.

What is the most memorable event you’ve done in Mambo?

Our first ‘Mambo in the Mix’ was very special; it’s a charity event we do at Mambo where DJs come and serve the drinks behind the bar while the guests play the music, so for a donation, you can get a drink served by a big DJ like Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Roger Sanchez, Nervo, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike. Very cool, basically!

How have you seen Ibiza change, and where do you see it going?

Back in the day, it was really raw; we didn’t even know what was going to happen the next day. Now, Ibiza is a place with great opportunities if you are a hard-working person. It’s on the top of the scale right now; no matter where we go travelling, everyone is like, “You’re from Ibiza? Wow, you are so lucky!”. This is all great, but we want Ibiza to maintain its rawness, its hippiness, its charm, and its old fincas

“IBIZA IS NOW SEEN AS THE MECCA FOR THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC INDUSTRY.” (Spanish traditional homes). It’s important to remember that it’s the spirit of Ibiza that has made it one of the most famous islands in the world.

Why do you think EDM is so important for Europeans?

Electronic Dance Music has been big in Europe for 20 years, and it’s been a beautiful 20 years seeing it develop.

In Ibiza back then, mainstream dance music was called trance, and all the big DJs were trance DJs like Paul van Dyk and Tiësto. It all has its period.

Now, house and techno music are getting really big in Ibiza, and I believe the same will happen in America in a few years time. In fact, the transformation that America is going through right now in term of electronic music is pretty incredible.

And your first release, Momento, is due out pretty soon, right?

Yes, it will be out for Winter Music Conference 2016 (Miami, USA), and we’re really looking forward to it. It’s been getting good feedback from DJs; Pete Tong’s been playing it as well as Eric Prydz and Hot Since 82, so we’re very excited for our first release. It’s coming out on Toolroom Records.

And where do you see the Mambo Brothers five years from now?

Making people dance and have fun, and doing what we love: DJ-ing! www.sonicvistastudios.com www.mambobrothersibiza.com

DJ INTERVIEW

ALISON WONDERLAND She may be little, but Alison Wonderland doesn’t do anything by half measures.

This very likeable young Aussie is wowing audiences on a global scale with her raw, explosive, and often emotional performances from behind her DJ decks. And there’s more.

Lots more.

Word s PAU L WATSO N

A

lison Wonderland (what a name, by the way) is not only a successful DJ and producer, she is a classically trained cellist, and aspires to one day score music for movies. She possesses this rare musical-emotional drive that I’ve only seen in a handful of artists; perhaps this is why her audiences are so engaged in her performances?

She smashed it in 2015 at Coachella, EDC Las Vegas, and Lollapalooza; and her self-made Australian festival, Wonderland Warehouse, is going from strength to strength. She hopes to grow that internationally sometime soon. And why not?

Then there’s Run, her debut album, released on Virgin EMI back in March 2015. Not only did it debut at the top spot on both the iTunes and Billboard Electronic chart, but such is her respect and organic growth within the DJ circuit, she has also released a deluxe edition: a major collaboration project with a string of recognised names in record production, each of whom has put their own touch to a track from the record. Run showcases Alison’s songwriting prowess as well as her production skills which, I’m about to find out, is what she is all about.

Emotional. Energetic. Engaging.

As I sit down with Alison in the newly refurbished club lounge in London’s Langham Hotel - way too grandiose a venue for the both of us, we decide – I quickly learn that even spying a pot of honey can be an emotional experience.

“I have to do this, because my mum’s not here, and she would do this if she was here,” Alison smiles, grabbing a mini honey pot and pouring it out into a tablespoon, then into her tea. “Oh, and I can talk music to you for hours, I’m just warning you.”

“I’M MORE OF AN ARTIST THAN A SCIENTIST.”

DJ INTERVIEW

Fine with me. A couple more things worth noting before I continue: one, Mixmag recently did a live DJ performance with Alison which achieved a recordbreaking one million views; and two, this girl is seriously jet lagged. Although baffled by the latter, she remains in good spirits.

“Bloody Europe,” she beams, eyes wide.

“I’ve never suffered [with jet lag] before, but it’s a real killer, isn’t it?”

Alison is immediately charming, and entirely humble. She starts talking about how ‘super-fortunate’ she is to have met so many cool people in this business, and laughs at how ‘they’re all very nerdy’, including herself.

“I am totally geeky. I am, like, best friends with my computer,” she laughs, taking a sip of her honey-glazed tea. I ask her about her European tour. “A year ago, I didn’t think this would be happening. Even in America. If you pre-empt that kind of stuff, it’s the worst. It’s amazing that I even have an opportunity at all, here in Europe.”

In terms of musical taste, Alison sits somewhere between The Beatles, jazz, punk, pop, rock, dance, and electronica.

Quite a mix.

“Once, my mum made me a paper mache costume of the octopus from Octopus’s Garden, so I think it’s a shame not to mix things up! [smiles] The people that are closed minded and don’t want to open themselves up to other genres are missing out. I started off doing genre-free stuff at the beginning; I was DJ-ing at indie nights, and back in the day, that meant electro, hip hop, everything. So that’s where I started as a DJ, but as an artist, I started producing because I fell in love with [Swedish electronic duo] The Knife. That’s the first electronic thing that really spoke to me. LCD Sound System is one of my favourite bands, too.”

Limiting herself to a certain genre would be detrimental artistically, Alison explains: “If you’re just going to stay in one little musical zone, what’s the point?” Fair point. “There are many amazing musical things out there, and they constantly blow my mind. I am a highly emotional person, so I take my influences mainly based on my emotions and what I am observing around me; I am very driven by my feelings.”

When making music, Alison turns to Ableton Live. She uses a couple of soft synths, and has various bits of hardware, too: Access Virus, T12 Polar, and a Juno 106, to name a few. Some of her recent projects include remixes for Duke Dumont, and Justin Bieber. With the Duke Dumont remix she even wrote a string quartet using MIDI strings.

“If you listen to my extended remix on SoundCloud, it’s two minutes of strings 11 HEADLINER

without even a beat yet,” she smiles. “It depends how I’m feeling, but when I’m doing my own stuff, I’ll start with a beat, then get into this whirl; it’s so weird, I can’t explain it, but you get into this crazy zone, then play around with sounds. Then if I’m in a studio and with another person as well, it’s different than when I’m in my bedroom.”

And what about the songwriting?

“I feel that the best songs are the ones I’ve written in one day,” Alison explains. “If you can live for 90 years, and experience one day that was nothing like any other in your life... [pauses]... if you can catch that, then that’s crazy. And so, I feel things that intuitively and primarily fall out of you musically are the ones that will really

“ONCE, MY MUM MADE ME A PAPER MACHE COSTUME OF THE OCTOPUS FROM OCTOPUS’S GARDEN.” happen quickly.”

Alison professes that you don’t need a fancy studio to make music: “just your ears, and your mind, and you can create anywhere,” which brings us onto her previous alias, Whyte Fang.

“When I was writing under Whyte Fang, I didn’t have any money, and a lot of the vocals – the finals – were recorded using voice memo on my iPhone, straight in,” she says. I laugh. She doesn’t. Really? “Oh yeah, Run, You Don’t Know, Ignore, Back It Up, about 70% of that album was done that way. That’s where I started. I didn’t have microphones or synths. I didn’t have drum sounds. I would do this [picks up spoon and whacks it on the table] and record it on my iPhone. I’d email it to myself, and drag it into Ableton. That’s my percussion, right there.

I’m serious! I was eating tuna and baked beans back then.”

Not together, surely?

“Oh, at one point I’m sure I did!”

When making this latest deluxe edition, however, Alison was in cahoots with a number of great musical minds: “It was something I was tentative to do at first, but then I was working with Djemba Djemba, Lido, and GANZ, and it really opened my mind that when you have a

really strong creative partnership with someone, it can really push you, musically.

I also tried extra hard to impress them, I noticed! [laughs]” As a producer, Alison considers herself more of an artist than a scientist. So the artistry comes from those classical genes?

“Yeah, it does,” she says. “If you go on my Whyte Fang SoundCloud, you can listen to my brain from four years ago, and see what you think of it yourself. You’ll get it.

It’s interesting that I really didn’t want to collaborate with anyone, but when I finally opened my mind to do it, it was amazing, and such a positive thing.”

I ask Alison about her live shows, and what her audiences should expect.

Clearly excited, she takes a deep breath, and says: “I am a raw performer, and the best thing I ever decided to do was never worry about what I look like when I’m on stage. So in any photo, I’m always like [raises arms in the air, closes eyes, grimaces, then laughs]. It’s the most comfortable I feel, being on stage.

At a party, I’m always the one at the side, near the catering, the quiet kid in the corner; but on stage I’m all ‘rahhh!’, and I’ll wear a t-shirt that has a conversation starter on it.

“I’m quite a technical DJ, so when I play, I have Go-Pros above my hands a lot of the time. I don’t use a laptop or anything.

Once there is a lit-up Apple screen next to you, that’s an automatic barrier between you and a crowd.

“The thing that gets me off a lot when performing is the communication I feel between myself and a crowd; I give everything. I would get bored if I wasn’t hands-on, and besides, it’s like cheap therapy to me [smiles]. It’s me and my three of four decks. I started out as a scratch DJ, so I still do a lot of that, and I change tempo and genre quite quickly, in a way that I hope is not too obvious.

I play things from different genres and different eras, because good music is good music forever.”

So what’s next for Alison Wonderland?

“I want to make sure I never become a dick head,” she says, with a chuckle. “I just want to keep everything rolling, really. Just before I played Coachella, I found out my album was number one on the Billboard chart, which was crazy for me. I texted my friend in the crowd, as there were only five people there, 10 minutes before I went on, and I was like, ‘what the fuck am I going to do?’; and my parents had flown all the way from Australia! But I ended up having the biggest crowd at the Sahara [Stage] before 6pm of any other act. That was special... I cry pretty much every time I’m on stage, so of course I cried then, too!” www.alisonwonderland.com.au

ARTIST Q&A

The Maccabees Imagine it’s 2007, Rihanna is soaring through the charts with her first single, Umbrella, and Radio 1 DJ, Steve Lamacq, is championing a new, up and coming indie band who have just released their debut album, Colour It In. Fast-forward to 2015, and each new album has seen The Maccabees go from strength to strength.

2012 saw the release of the number one album, Given To The Wild, with the single, Pelican, winning Best Contemporary Song at the Ivor Novellos. The album was The Maccabees’ first to go gold, and saw this once little known indie band develop a deeper, darker sound, winning over critics and fans alike.

The South Londoners are back on the road touring their fourth album, Marks To Prove It. Recorded at their own studio in Elephant and Castle, the direction for the new album was inspired by the inner city. We caught up with guitarist, Felix White, to discuss the new release, and get the low down on their journey so far.

Ph otog raph s JO R DA N H UGHES

You released your first single back in 2005. How the band has evolved musically since then?

We have basically spent our entire adult lives in the band. During the early years, we couldn’t really play! [laughs] We used to share one tuner between us, and learn by playing one note each, really, really fast. It was a very genuine ‘beginning of a band’ when you are literally just putting together anything you can. That’s how we used to form songs. As we developed, we found our own dynamics, and as a band, we have recently become much more interested 12 HEADLINER

in production. Given To The Wild was extremely reliant on production, and different kinds of sounds - that was the total antithesis of how we wrote, originally. The new record is a kind of summary of all of the methods and characteristics we have used up until now, so it’s a nice place to have reached, really.

Reading around in the press, it seems like the album took a little longer than expected. Did you guys keep ‘raising your own bar’ when putting the new material together?

That definitely used to be the case, but in all honesty, this time we just found it hard to get anything going. We decided to write and record in our own studio, so we had to redo everything to be able to do that; from putting new carpets in, to new equipment, it kind of became a project in itself. It was something we always wanted to do; we wanted to have a lot of ownership over the album and the studio, but you run the risk of heading down a wormhole, as you don’t go anywhere else, so you don’t get the opportunity to see things differently.

That was definitely something that held

ARTIST Q&A

“THE AVENUES FOR FINDING NEW MUSIC ARE MUCH MORE CONFUSED NOW; YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THEM THROUGH PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM.” up the process, but it has also given the album the personality it has. It has a real inner city feeling, and it does sound like what the room looks and feels like.

Could you tell us a little more about the recording process, and what kit you couldn’t live without?

Cenzo Townshend, who mixed the record, loaned us quite a lot of gear; and my brother, Hugo, who produced it, is really in charge of that side of the things. There are so many bits of kit we use, and I have no idea what they do! [laughs] We recorded everything on Pro Tools, then ran it back through a tape machine, in an effort to make certain tracks have more character than they would if you had just recorded them through an interface. The process of running tracks back through the tape machine ended up being a bit of a blueprint for the record.

For Given To The Wild, we did quite a lot of home recordings that we could never seem to recreate, so we were sort of bouncing demo projects into the final recordings - it ended up as a weird mishmash of a lot of things. This time, we really wanted to avoid that, as you start to make something that isn’t really tangible.

I was actually told off for using too many Waves plugins on Given to the Wild. In my mind, they make everything sound better, but because we were trying to do new things this time round, I was told I wasn’t allowed to use them as often. It was ‘too comforting’ for me to use them, apparently [smiles]. But all of the guitar parts forGlimmer have been tracked using Waves.

The last two albums have seen you develop a really unique sound; it’s a bit deeper, and a little darker. Was there anything in particular that inspired this?

I guess being in that particular studio had a lot to do with it. There are elements of the new album that sound quite claustrophobic; there is something about it that sounds like the city in the evening, for some reason. We weren’t totally conscious of it at the time, but it completely makes sense, as that’s exactly where we were writing from.

13 HEADLINER

What inspires you as a band, musically?

Many, many artists. I’ve often listened to Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk. That is an important record for me in terms of its character; it doesn’t sound like anything else. For this album, we went back to records that we loved when we were much younger, like The White Album. It’s so honest, and it’s recorded in quite a raw way, but there is something in it that just lives because of that. We were trying to get across a sense of authenticity - that it was just a band playing in a room and there weren’t too many tricks involved. We wanted it to be exposed and vulnerable, as well as being diverse, and that’s what’s great about The White Album, really.

And what about new talent - any bands that have caught your eye recently?

Yeah, definitely. I like The Magic Gang a lot. I saw them supporting Wolf Alice maybe six months ago, and I thought they had a vibrancy and a natural joy to them that was super-cool. Not every band has that.

Being in the music industry for the last decade, what do you think has changed...

Or should that be hasn’t? [laughs] Exactly! It’s changed almost beyond recognition since we have been a band. When we first got a record deal, MySpace was the thing; everyone used MySpace, which we reminisce about now in quite a romantic way. We had four songs on rotation, and eight friends; that led you on to other music and artists. I don’t really know what happened to MySpace, but I thought it was great! I think the avenues for finding new music are much more confused now; you find out about them through photos on Instagram, whereas MySpace seemed like quite a concise way to discover new music. But anyway, it shows how long we have been around for, and how much things have changed.

When we first started, I was constantly asked, ‘why are there so many guitar bands? Now it’s, ‘why aren’t there any guitar bands?’ [laughs] I haven’t found a convincing answer for either question, really. Obviously we have been lucky enough to sail through this transition while the music industry has shrunk, in a way.

How do you deal with the immediacy of today’s industry, with regards to social media and digital sales? Is it a good thing?

It’s difficult, because you spend three years making a record that you put a lot of detail in, and then in order to keep up with the arms race, you have to post something every day, so people don’t lose track of you; there is a much shorter attention span. You are always trying to balance what your focus is on: you don’t really want it to be on a flippant photo that you have posted, you’d rather the focus be on the record that you have made. But the world is changing, and that’s the way it is. It’s something we realised was necessary, as it’s the world we live in. How do you find out about anything in the world these days? You look it up on the Internet. So it seems foolish for us to not utilise the power of social media to frame who we are, and what the record is about. That is what we are trying to do.

So what’s next for The Maccabees?

I don’t really know! We are going to be touring well into next year. Last time, we definitely made the mistake of being so keen that we went in too soon and tried to make a record, then a year later, realised we had nothing, and were totally shocked.

So I think, even though we haven’t yet acknowledged it verbally to each other, everyone knows it would be best to give ourselves a bit of breathing space before we start up again.

Finally, Felix, is there anything that you can’t live without on tour?

Well, at the moment, touring is something I could live without! You spend so much time on tour just waiting... [pauses]... You wait 23 hours to play a one-hour show. So the latest thing since I’ve been in America is that I’ve fallen in love with baseball. I’ve always got a baseball on me, practicing different grips and stuff in an effort to find a new way of killing time!

The Maccabees’ latest album, Marks To Prove It, is available now through Fiction Records. www.themaccabees.co.uk

ARTIST MIXING

MIXING THE MACCABEES This Summer, Simon Lutkin took to the road with one of the UK’s hardest working bands, The Maccabees.

And he’s got the marks to prove it.

Tell us how this all happened, Simon?

Well, I started with The Maccabees this summer, but I was actually put forward for the gig by the drum tech, who I'd worked with before. I also knew the long-term monitor engineer, who is currently out with another band, so I spoke to him about it before the first rehearsal and got some very useful info! Now I hope the band feel they can ask for anything at anytime. They are a great bunch, and have been doing it quite a long time, so they know what they want.

You're working from a DiGiCo board, running at 96kHz, right?

Yeah, I had been using another platform almost exclusively for the last five or so years, but I'd been more and more interested in DiGiCo as various features were added. I just decided to go for it after playing with the Offline Editor for a while - getting used to the automation, and what was possible with the macros. I've now built the Maccabees’ show to fit on an SD9, so I can move up and down the range depending on availability and budget.

The DiGiCo file conversion utility is great; all I need to do is re-assign fader banks, depending on the surface. I've got an SD10 out currently, and I've 14 HEADLINER

been very happy with it. I think for the price versus features, it's probably the strongest system out there. I also work with snapshots as well as macros; it's great to do the house keeping, allowing me to concentrate on the band during the show!

How many monitor mixes are you running?

On this current Maccabees show, we have the five band members plus three extra musicians and a tech mix, so that’s nine stereo IEM mixes, as well as sidefills, four wedge mixes, and a drum sub. This takes it to 25 or so outputs.

What should you always do, and never do, when working monitors? [smiles] The most important thing is to be relaxed and confident around the band. Taking time to explain things is always good, and knowing when to stop is equally important! [laughs] And make sure that there is no chance of anything feeding back any time the band are onstage; know how much you can push things ahead of a soundcheck or show, and have filters ready to drop in, should you need to get louder. Then, when you do run into a problem, don't be afraid to stop things and sort it out.

It's important to know how the line system is put together, and how it is patched at every show, even big festival slots. It seems okay blaming someone else when things are going wrong, but you will never get those minutes back on a changeover at a festival. And this might sound obvious, but know how things work: spend a bit of time reading a manual or even just looking at pictures of a mixing desk, and thinking about how you would set it up; it really makes a big difference when one day you have to use one. It's also good to know a bit about RF, and get an analyser. Most shows nowadays involve some wireless element. But most importantly, have fun!

Lastly, what's the best show you've ever worked on?

Bombay Bicycle Club at Earls Court with David Gilmour guesting was pretty cool, as it was the last show at Earls Court, and a culmination of a solid year of touring. Also, Don McLean on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury was nice.

People as far as you could see singing American Pie... I remember thinking how amazing it was that people that far away could be so involved in the show. www.digico.biz

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Greg Wells Greg Wells hails from a rural farming factory town in Canada. Or in his own words, “I grew up by a cow field”. A preacher’s child, he became obsessed with the church organ at just two-years-old, and was playing it by three. His grandmother would let him tinker with pots and pans on the kitchen floor when he went to visit, but his parents weren’t so keen on the noise, so decided not to buy him that drum set he so desired, “which is probably why I give away a set of drums every three months now on Twitter, some crazy overcompensation,” Wells jokes, with a smile. Although he never saw himself as a songwriter, many a Grammy-winner would beg to differ. In the last decade alone, he’s penned some gems with some of the industry’s most acclaimed songstresses including Katy Perry and Adele, and he was effectively the whole band on Mika’s stunning debut record, Life In Cartoon Motion, which sold close to six million units.

So how did that happen? And when did he realise he could write songs just as well as he could play piano (and guitar, bass, and drums for that matter)?

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Greg Wells photographed in the studio

Adele. Katy Perry. Mika. Just three of the superstars that Greg Wells has written songs with.

We sit down in New York to hear his story.

Word s PAUL WATSON

“I think I viewed the church as a stage, with my dad being the star of the show,” opens Wells, with a half-smile, adding that the church organist was particularly encouraging even when he didn’t really know what he was playing. He was only three at the time, after all. “You only get one set of roots, and I remember as I got a little older, dad would sometimes play the radio in the car, and I’d hear Carole King or The Jackson 5, and I’d freak out - start drumming on the car! There was no video taping or documenting of something that was on air back then.

If you missed it, you might never hear it ever again.”

At this time, Wells had a sense that he was in the wrong place. He craved music, but had no idea where to go, or how to do it – whatever it was - and there was no money to go there – wherever that was. With this in mind, from the age of 10, he joined every band that would have him, and by the time he entered his teens, he was fortunate enough to find an amazing music teacher in his hometown, who really set the musical ball rolling.

“I got really deep into classical piano around 13-years-old,” Wells recalls, fondly. “Then I remember taking the

two-hour bus ride to Toronto, to study with some badass teachers there. My heart was never fully into classical, and I had already become a church organist, bought myself a bad drum set, and not received much encouragement from anyone, so everything felt like a ridiculous pipe dream, to be honest!”

Did this make him rebel against the cause? In a word, yes.

“It was my rocket fuel,” Wells confirms, eyes widening. “And in retrospect, I’m glad, because it built a weird monster, too – one that I had to keep in the cage [smiles]. We’re all plugged into our own roots, and I wanted to become a musician, and to get out of my hometown. I didn’t know what to do, until this one high school student, four years older than me, told me about this modern music school in Toronto called Humber College. She saved my life - and not just once. When I joined Humber, she was already in her third year, and she told me over lunch about this thing called the Canadian Government Arts Council, where you can apply for a grant for almost anything; and if they think it’s a good idea, and you’re good enough, you might get it.

ARTIST INSIGHT

“If I work on music I don't feel compelled by, I won't touch it. It drives my managers crazy, but I can't work on stuff unless I feel it's really something.”

“I’d never heard of it, but I thought it would be great if I could study in LA with this guy called Clare Fischer. He died recently, sadly, but among the many things he did, he wrote and conducted the string arrangements on every Prince record. He and Prince never even met! Prince just sent the analogue tapes to Clare and said, ‘do your thing’. So I applied for the grant, then forgot I applied for the grant, and a year later I got this letter saying I had been given $14,000 - enough to stay in LA for a year and live simply, and pay for these lessons...

So that’s what I did.”

What Wells didn’t foresee happening was Clare recommending him for studio work – and a lot of it.

“I started doing these sessions for cash, and ended up getting hired to play for KD Lang - a beautiful, amazing singer,” Wells explains. “We toured in England all the time; we’d do three nights at the Royal Albert Hall, three nights at Hammersmith Odeon.

This was my first break in a big band.”

It was Wells’ ability to multi-task instrumentally that helped secure him the KD Lang role, and that’s effectively become the catalyst to his successful songwriting collaborations. Lang soon asked Wells to become musical director of her band, but he politely declined; he wanted to make his own music, stay in LA, and become a record producer.

“I remember she just said, ‘you know what, that’s exactly what you should do’, which was a huge validation; she’d just won the Grammy for best female solo, after all,” Wells says. “So I became a studio musician for a lot of older producers towards the end of the ‘90s, and by now I was playing a lot of instruments. I worked with a great English record producer called Steven Lipson who did Slave To The Rhythm with Trevor Horn, as well as most of Annie Lennox’s solo stuff. I did a record with him in Nashville, and they wanted me to play bass and drums. I knew everything about Lipson, career-wise, and we really hit it off. Then he started hiring me to come to London and be the band for some of the records he was working on. He didn’t care it wasn’t four different people, which was another big validation, and it’s a master 17 HEADLINER

class in production every time. After that, people started asking me to co-produce songs on a record, and co-write with artists that had small deals.”

Songwriting still didn’t feel like second nature to Wells, but that was all about to change.

“I was getting asked to a songwriting camp, which I now happen to run in France,” he laughs, admitting that the first time he went, he felt totally at sea, and the second time was the best experience of his life. “I could demo songs, but there was no real instinct. I was too much of a muso; that was my language. Then something clicked.

I realised all my years of accompaniment, that was my role as a songwriter. I accompany the story teller. It’s the same as me playing for the church choir; it’s the same muscle. I am certainly not the great storyteller, but I can direct it.”

FINDING MIKA Wells cut his first record for record executive, Tommy Mottola’s record label, and although it wasn’t a commercial success, Mottola saw something in Wells’ work, and encouraged him to work with a brand new artist from England called Mika.

This was in 2007.

“Tommy called me and said, ‘you should meet this kid, Mika; he’s 20, and I just signed him’. A couple of weeks later, he called again saying he was recommending me to everybody as a writer,” Wells recalls.

“All these guys were asking Tommy, ‘who is Greg Wells? Have you even met him?’

And he said, ‘no, I haven’t’, and they said, ‘maybe you should, because you’re cutting everyone else out of the running!’ It was really strange. So he then asked me to New York; I had a one-hour meeting, we got Mika on the phone, and Tommy told him to come to LA to cut a song with me. He then said, ‘what you doing this weekend?’, and that was that [smiles].”

So Wells found himself back in LA, and Mika flew in a few days later. At this stage, all he had was a video of a showcase Mika had played in New York, and no copy of any of his music.

“I showed up, I’d rented a drum kit, had a bass and a guitar, and they had a piano

and an engineer,” smiles Wells. “He had this one song called Grace Kelly that really jumped out at me. I suggested working on that, but he wasn’t sure, as he’d demoed it six times, and it was problematic. I said it spoke to me, so we tried it. We then cut it in one day, and everything on it is first take except the vocals. I played everything else as there was no budget to hire anyone else!

We were under the gun, didn’t have much time, and it was Mika that said, ‘Greg, you play the piano’, even though I love how he plays. And that is exactly what got released, and it’s his biggest song ever. He really liked how it turned out, and he asked if I could do a second song - a really fun song called Lollipop - and musically it was very different to anything I’d worked on. Mika’s music is hyper-happy, and exaggerated, but he’s had quite a hard life as a child, so his lyrics are kinda messed up. All I know is, I just saw he was a special talent.”

Wells’ management were unconvinced.

With two Mika songs in the bag, they wanted him to leave the project and move on. But Wells had other ideas.

“I wanted to make the whole record with Mika, so we spent about six months on it, and then when Grace Kelly came out as the first single, it went to number one within a week, and sat there for seven weeks! We were freaking out!” Wells recalls, with a beaming smile. “His MySpace went from 300 to 25,000 or so overnight, and record sales amounted to almost six million. That’s like 20 million sales, 15 years ago, and that changed everything for him and for me.

Labels were suddenly offering me so many projects, whereas before I always felt like I had my hat out, asking what I could do for them, you know? My perception within the industry changed so much.”

KATY Throughout his career, Wells has made music from a string of genres: death metal, jazz, rock, pop. But in principle, it’s all the same: storytelling.

“All I need is to get the music; if I don’t, I shouldn’t be working on it,” Wells states, with a shrug of the shoulders. “It’s a bit like leaning in to kiss someone you don’t really want to kiss. It’s gonna be an awful kiss that you do not want to repeat. If I work on music I don’t feel compelled by, I won’t touch it. It drives my managers crazy, but I can’t work on stuff unless I feel it’s really something.”

Which brings us on to Katy Perry. Wells first met this acclaimed songwriter some 10 years ago, and has worked on every record she’s made ever since.

“We just hit it off. We’re both preachers’ kids; her dad was a travelling minister, a little different to mine, but it’s still a thing, so we had that in common; and I still have the

ARTIST INSIGHT same click with her now that I did the day I met her. She’s just a really smart, talented goofball,” Wells says. “She has a lot of heart, great ears, and she is a better A&R person than anyone at any label.”

Although Wells has penned a couple of big hits with Katy, it’s not always about going for radio jugulars: “With Katy, it’s emotional; we’re getting out the things she really wants to say. The Grammys have asked her to perform the songs we’ve written together twice now which weren’t mega-hits, which shows someone out there is listening. The last one was By The Grace of God, then we did Not Like the Movies. I am very proud of the stuff I’ve done with Katy, and she is a tremendous singer. She actually used to come from a singer-songwriter vibe, and at one stage we thought the last record would be like that, but it didn’t become that. I’m not sure realistically that she can do that now, as she’s such a great entertainer and front-person.”

ADELE Another of Wells’ favourite artists to work with is Adele, who dropped by his studio for three days during the making of her second record, 21.

“I remember when I drove in, I had two ideas come into my head, and played them both to her, and she liked them both, thankfully. One was a big band drum beat which became Devil On My Shoulder, but it didn’t fit the 21 Album, as it was a different vibe,” Wells reveals. “She has emailed me since then saying she loves that song though, so maybe one day! Then we did One and Only, and that one did make it onto the record. I always knew it would be Rick Rubin producing it, as he recommended me, but the experience was amazing. She is a really great songwriter, really funny, and totally self-deprecating, which is immediately charming. She was only 21-years-old, but she really wasn’t; she was very wise, and very aware.”

During the writing process of One and Only, Wells was somewhat taken aback

by Adele’s performance. He was looping a chord progression on the piano, which she asked him to keep playing, as she wandered around his vocal room searching for a riff. And then, boom!

“She was working on this chorus idea for some 10 minutes, and when she had it, she said, ‘this might be complete shit, but tell me what you think’; and actually, what she did there and then is exactly the same chorus that is on the record. She belted it out in full voice right at me - a high C, too: ‘I dare you to let me be your one and only’.

And it was really overwhelming! I was trying to keep it together, and I just cracked up. I was like, ‘I think we might have something’. [smiles] I am so happy for her success, 18 HEADLINER

because she made a very brave record. She told me the only criteria she looks for on a record is that her mother likes it and she likes it; she doesn’t really care what anyone else thinks.

ALWAYS IN GOOD VOICE Our conversation turns technical, and Wells’ techniques when recording vocals. He has recently finished developing a very cool plugin with Waves, the VoiceCentric, which essentially allows anybody to recreate a Greg Wells vocal sound with the turn of a virtual knob. Right, Greg?

“Yeah, that’s about right. You know, it took me a long time to learn how to record a vocal well, then even longer to learn how to mix a vocal and make it sound like a record - and that phrase means something different to everyone,” he explains. “It’s about adopting techniques that are kind of surprising. I soon realised that some of my favourite EQ on a vocal is not EQ at all, it’s compression; and that there is a way of using compression - sometimes two compressors in a row - on a vocal, that will EQ it in a very intuitive natural way that sounds great through the speakers. It just manages it, controls it, balances it, and keeps it at the front of the mix; and this plugin is the product of those 20 solid years I’ve spent in the studio.”

Wells admits that 20 years ago, he didn’t understand how to use compression at all, and it was only after years of asking mix legends such as Spike Stent, Chris Lord-Alge, and Tony Maserati, ‘how are you getting that?’, that he started developing his own techniques: “Once these guys realised I wasn’t a total idiot, they were all very generous and specific! I would try these techniques hundreds of times before I figured out little bits of each person that really worked for me. I like a vocal to sound full, so I go with a big frame most of the time, and I have figured out ‘a thing’, basically. There is a lot going on behind the curtain with this plugin; it’s deceptively simple, which is what I wanted. I wanted it to be for someone like me, 20 years ago.”

Wells began working with Waves on VoiceCentric in January 2014, and has always been a fan of the company’s ethos.

“Waves is about creating, not just modelling older pieces of gear. If you look at the C6, the Renaissance Axx guitar compressor, and the L2 - these things haven’t existed before, but you can immediately tell what’s great about them.

I always have the Linear Phase Multiband Compressor on my mix buss, very subtly, and it’s magical; and the H Reverb is beautiful, and very musical. So I couldn’t possibly put my name to a plugin unless it was perfect, which for me, VoiceCentric now is,” Wells explains. “Rather than turn

15 knobs to get to where I want to be, I can now turn one knob, so it’s a thing I can use, my friends and my competitors can use, and also my kids can use, and get a vocal they recorded in their bedroom sounding like a Katy Perry vocal. And that’s what they’re looking for.”

And the further you crank it, the more exciting it becomes..?

“Pretty much, actually! When you’re on zero, nothing is happening, but when you start to crank the knob, some EQ shapes start happening, which gives you more of a natural vocal, a little more clarity, and nicer presentation,” Wells explains. “Some things don’t even come on until you’ve turned the knob to 60%; that’s when the compression starts to kick in, in a very musical way, and the tube compressors kick in. And then all this stuff is happening with the EQ. Then at 80%, things start to go bananas. It doesn’t sound bananas, but it would look bananas if you could see what was going on! It was very important that we achieved a smooth transition from setting to setting, with no road bumps; and that it was very easy to use, which it is.

“The reason I love Waves, and working with talented artists, is that everything else gets out of the way, and you can get to the music. The better the gear is, the more invisible it becomes. A certain school of people might well look at this plugin and say I’m helping these kids cheat; and yes that’s true, but who cares? The hardest thing to do is make a great song, and it’s harder still to make a great record. If they can get to that sound quicker, they can just focus on the art, which is a great thing, in my opinion.

And I’m using it on all my mixes now, as it sounds better than what I was doing before!”

As our conversation comes to a close, I ask Wells to leave us with a tip or two for the future generation of musicians, songwriters, and producers. He pauses for thought, then says: “Make a playlist of your favourite songs, and while you’re working on your own music, whether it’s a mix or a production, hit stop, and play something from your playlist.

Then go back to your own project, and listen to it. That will teach you more than any school will teach you, or anyone can ever tell it. Then do it the next day, week, month, and year after that, and it will always improve you. By the time you’ve heard the song three or four times, your objectivity has shrunk from 100% to 25%; if you listen 10 more times, it’s really getting small; and after 50 times? It’s the head of a pin! [smiles] This will give you a perspective that you can’t really get any other way.” www.gregwells.net www.waves.com

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On tour with...

Roger Hodgson

Former Supertramp frontman, Roger Hodgson, has been responsible for some of the catchiest, most uplifting numbers we can think of: Dreamer, Give A Little Bit, Breakfast in America. The list is long. The band was due to reform last year, but sadly, fellow bandmate and songwriting legend, Rick Davies, fell ill, and it wasn’t to be. However, Hodgson is still extremely active on the live circuit, and is still writing songs. Furthermore, he is always in search of the next great sound. With that in mind, we sit down with his long-time front of house mainstay, Howard Heckers, to talk multitasking, new technology, and how he almost missed getting this gig altogether!

H

oward Heckers’ musical journey began behind a drum kit, and on the keyboards, but it was during some early band recording sessions that he realised audio was perhaps his one true love.

“We would go and make an album, and for some reason, I was never happy with my drum sound, so I sort of dived into that world there and then, really,” Heckers recalls, with a smile. “I then got into the live arena, and people began asking me to do sound in little bars. Gradually, I got better and better, worked in bigger venues with better systems, and more established artists.”

Heckers never worked with Supertramp – and if it wasn’t for his other half, he might never have worked with Hodgson, either.

“About 12 years ago, Roger asked me to do sound for him. It was funny, really, as I almost deleted the email; it was marked as spam,” Heckers laughs. “Thankfully, I told my girlfriend that this guy called Roger Hodgson – whoever he was – had asked me to do his live shows, and she said, ‘hold on, that’s the guy from Supertramp!’ So I was like, ‘oh, ok, I’d better reply!’ So he invited me to do four shows in Holland, Germany, France, and Spain; I did those, and he was happy, and I am still here, so I must be doing

something right. In the first year I worked with him, we didn’t even do 20 shows; the next year we did 40, then the following year it was 60; and for the last five years it’s been between 80 and 100 each year, so it’s really grown, you could say!”

Loving how blasé Heckers is about almost never getting the job, the Supertramp fan in me comes to the surface and I begin asking what numbers Hodgson plays at one of his shows.

“Oh, all the big hits,” Heckers smiles.

That’s what I wanted to hear! In my head, I’m already planning a route into Hodgon’s Royal Albert Hall show next April. Best not mention that yet. “There were two songwriters in the band: Rick Davies, and Roger. Supertramp were planning a tour in 2015, but Rick cancelled as he had cancer, so Roger was entirely devastated about that.”

Tragic. What a show that would have been. I ask Heckers about his front of house setup. “It’s kind of front of house and monitors, actually,” he says. Do divulge.

“Basically, Roger has a stereo house mix on his in-ears, so the first time we did this, I was a little scared, to say the least, and thought it wouldn’t work like this, but actually it works very well, and is probably the main reason I still have the job,” Heckers explains. “He likes to

“THE BAND ONLY EVER USE THE COMPUTERS FOR TRIGGERING SOUNDS, SO ACTUALLY, IT’S JUST A PHENOMENAL LIVE SHOW.”

20 HEADLINER

ON TOUR INSIGHT

“ROGER IS FOREVER STRIVING FOR A BETTER SOUND; THAT’S WHY OUR STAGE IS FULL OF THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY.” hear what I’m doing, and sometimes after a show, he’ll come up to me and tell me the bits he loved and the bits he perhaps didn’t like so much. [smiles] But it’s great that we can communicate like that, really.”

Heckers has two master busses on his console: one for Roger, and the other for the PA system.

“Because we fly a lot, we don’t take our own console everywhere, but it always has to be DiGiCo; that’s actually in the contract – seriously – we literally won’t do a show without one,” Heckers reveals, adding that they own one DiGiCo which stays in Europe, and in Canada, they either use an SD7, SD8, or SD10. So why DiGiCo, then?

“The number one reason is always the sound. That is everything. We used to tour a [Yamaha] PM5D in the old days, as it was the only console available worldwide, but now that’s all changed. I decided to switch over to DiGiCo, and Roger was really amazed how much better the sound quality immediately was – this was five or six years ago. Another 21 HEADLINER

reason is that it’s pretty complicated what we do out there. I mean, I am literally doing in-ears and monitor mixing from the front of house console, so I am wearing a few hats!

And it’s not so easy to switch over to another console. In fact, it would take two days to program another one, and I can tell you it wouldn’t sound the same.”

Another crucial element to the Roger Hodgson production is the RME inventory: UFX cards, and the new Babyface interface, which Heckers and Hodgson himself are big fans of.

“Roger was using a Motu soundcard, and Richard DeClemente at RME offered to change that to a UFX; and again, the quality was immediately so much better,” says Heckers. “Roger has three positions on stage - keys, guitar, and piano - and a lot of time we trigger the piano with MIDI. That’s now going to the UFX in his computer, which is running some plugins - and the same for his keyboards. I was already using the RME MADI face for recording, too, as we record every show to multitrack. That’s how we made [Hodgson’s] Classics Live album, which we recorded all over the world, so each song is recorded in a different venue. Roger likes every show recorded multitracked.”

Another bit of RME kit that Heckers has adopted – as have some of Roger’s band members – is the Babyface interface.

“I carry Babyface in my suitcase, and I am very happy what RME has done with it, as I

had the old version, which was a real hassle to use,” he admits. “But Babyface has XLRs in the unit itself, as well as the quarter-inch jacks and MIDI capabilities, and I am now using it mostly for two-track recording for front of house. But Roger uses it a lot, too, for recording in his hotel room to try out his rig. He thinks it’s awesome, as do I, because it’s solid, the sound quality is amazing, and you don’t need any cables, just a USB, and you’re hooked up to your computer. It’s a very easy to use piece of kit, and it’s so easy to transport, plus it does the job great.

“Roger is doing a lot of recording in his hotel room, and out on the road. He’s working on a new song now, so is probably hooking up a piano or guitar and a vocal and using it to record. What’s nice about everything RME makes is you just download the driver, plug it in, and it works. I’ve had other gear in the past - especially with multitrack recordings where I’ve been halfway into a two-hour show, and the whole thing has crashed! Now I’m recording 56 channels on a USB 2.0, and it’s never crashed. It’s just an awesome product.”

And the rest of the band think so, too: “Kevin Adamson, who’s on keys, and Aaron Macdonald, who’s on keys and sax, are both using RME kit. Aaron has a Babyface, and Kevin has a UFX; then Roger has a UFX as well as his Babyface. So we’re all hooked on this gear, basically! Everyone has a computer and an RME soundcard, and all the sounds come from the computer, hooked up with MIDI, and triggered from the computer. Rig up any keyboard, and it works perfectly.”

But the show is still fully live, and there’s no playback, right?

“Oh yeah, completely. We use a lot of great technology, but it’s all live music, and there are no tracks running during the show,” Heckers confirms. “People say to me, ‘it sounds great, but it’s a shame it’s all playback’, because they see the computers. I am always explaining, ‘no it isn’t!’, as the band only ever use the computers for triggering sounds, so actually it’s just a phenomenal live show.”

And what next then? Any chance of coming to that show at the Royal Albert Hall?

“Most definitely,” smiles Heckers. Result.

“Next year in production rehearsals, we are looking to do everything digital on MADI, so Roger will be sending a MADI stream to the DiGiCo rack, and the same for Kevin and Aaron, so we’ll have all the keyboards going digital into the DiGiCo. Roger is such a tech freak, and we don’t do normal sound checks: it’s 10 to 15 minutes at the most, and then the tweaking starts! [smiles] He tweaks his sounds the same way on stage as he does in his hotel room with his instruments and laptop, and is forever striving for a better sound. That’s why our stage is full of the latest technology.” www.rogerhodgson.co.uk www.rme-audio.com www.digico.biz

T

THE HOOSIERS Many of you will remember The Hoosiers, but for those that don’t: they hail from Reading, UK, and their well-crafted, foot-tapping tunes earned them a number one debut album in 2007 with The Trick To Life. Two more followed, one of which made the top 10, and now they’re back with a fourth, The Secret Service, which we at Headliner like rather a lot.

22 HEADLINER

he big Hoosier songs were Goodbye Mr A, and Worried About Ray, and as good as they are, the material on this new record has a little something extra, and has caught us somewhat unawares. Yes, there are some great, catchy, upbeat numbers on there, which you’d expect, but there is a level of maturity and depth in the songwriting that wasn’t there before: the very touching acoustic ballad, Don’t Make Eye Contact, genuinely wouldn’t look out of place on The Beatles’ Revolver; and Dancers In The Dark is an absolute delight. So where did this come from?

“It’s funny,” smiles frontman, Irwin Sparkes. “I think we’ve just got a bit better at it all, really.”

We’re in a bar in London’s West End with Sparkes and the band’s drummer, Alan Sharland. Before taking to the stage at The Borderline club around the corner, they agree to chat about The Hoosiers’ rise to fame, some eight years back. We start with those two big hit singles, and Sharland immediately looks like he wants to say something. He does.

“It’s actually three top 11 singles,” he smiles. “That’s how we prefer to look at it.”

This summarises The Hoosers: they’re not the type to take themselves too seriously, which is always so refreshing with any successful artist. They’re affable, warm, and amusing blokes, who just love writing and playing music, despite having had to cope with a few bumps in the road along the way. They parted with their label, Sony, a couple of albums ago, and in recent years, have funded pretty much everything they’ve done themselves.

“A lot of times, bands no longer with a major get chewed up by the grinder and spat out, and we appreciated that we’d be clinging to the vestiges of it all through social media,” Sparkes admits, openly. “We are able to have a constant relationship with our fanbase; a pattern of dialogue that we haven’t dropped at any time. If we didn’t have that, people would have assumed we’d vanished into thin air.”

Which they certainly have not done.

The Hoosiers recently passed the 20,000 follower mark on Twitter, and have never stopped writing music. It’s testament to their hard work and their music, especially when you compare the way the industry was then, to now.

ARTIST INSIGHT

“But we were fortunate that we had the muscle and the market from Sony to break through at all,” points out Sharland. “We’ve maintained a love, and eked out our own existence through the live circuit, as we need to exist. And we’ve made a little money, too.”

“But it all took a lot of adapting,” insists Sparkes. I ask him to explain. “You think, ‘great, it’ll continue after the first album’, which it didn’t, largely due to pressure on creating hits. It’s ferocious. We wrote our own stuff, and the label wanted us to do co-writes, and we were one of the only bands not doing that at the time. They always relied on co-writes, but we thought, ‘no, we’ll do it ourselves’. Maybe that was a little arrogant, but look where it got us... [pauses]... So the moral of the story is, do co-writes, people! [laughs]” Without major label support, a little thinking outside the box is often required, which had a real impact on the songwriting and overall creative process on The Secret Service.

“We’re trying to reshape as we go, really,” explains Sharland. “With the first album, we spent £100,000 on just the physical recording, and on the second one, maybe more. Now, we’re eking that right down, and when you hear Vampire Weekend recorded their first album for a grand, you think, ‘fuck!’”

“And as we’re doing it ourselves, it’s about investing in the songs, and what feels like a Hoosiers song,” adds Sparkes.

“It occupies more of a part-time space, as although we’re full-time touring, we have to do other things out of necessity - even creatively - but that’s also inspired us to write the fourth album [leans into our voice recorder] which is out now on Hoosiers dot com!”

The first album was a whirlwind experience for the band, and then a massive learning curve. It’s now about trying to stay afloat, essentially.

“It’s a simple equation: if we wake up, still up for doing this, then the rest works itself out,” says Sparkes, with a shrug of the shoulders. “We’ve gone from being a big business model to a much smaller business model, and that’s an interesting thing. We do everything – or a lot of it, at least. We now spend £10,000 on an album, and if we sell 1,000 albums, we’re happy; whereas before, including promotion, we spent £500,000 and had to sell one million records to be happy. That’s almost impossible for anyone, now.”

It is, indeed. I ask the pair if there was a pivotal moment when they realised things had really started to change.

“Probably where it became about the writing, second guessing what the public 23 HEADLINER

wanted,” reflects Sparkes, sounding serious, all of a sudden. “You’re not gonna be on a major if you’re not on Radio One; you might have a short window, but if they’re not gonna play you, you’re on a windmill to nothing; it’s your lifeblood.”

We all seem to take a moment, and Sharland kindly breaks the silence: “And if you’re not getting on Radio One or Capital [Radio], you won’t be signed; you’re buggered, basically. And that is minging. You can’t write a song and say,

‘WE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE PROLIFIC, BUT IT'S LIKE AN OCEAN LINER: IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME TO TAKE COURSE.’ ‘oh let’s listen to Radio One and see which frequencies we’re hearing, where the bass and treble sits within each track’. It’s ridiculous to even think like that, but some people do, incredibly.”

Pre-The Secret Service, The Hoosiers were always thinking, ‘why write another record?’; and the departure of bassist, Martin Skarendahl, in July 2015, helped move things along, somewhat.

“We knew we had more to say, and the lease of life we found with the exit of Martin, who had been in the band for eight years, was a pretty big thing,” Sparkes explains, adding that it was a very amicable decision. “We always wanted to be prolific, but it’s like an ocean liner: it takes a lot of time to take course. We toured our first record for 18 months, for example.”

“So this time round, it was like, ‘let’s write songs, agree on them quickly, and get them out’,” says Sharland. “We wanted to do an album a bit more pure in that sense,

and that is what this album is about. We’ll reflect on it – we already have, actually – saying we could have had another week on pre-production, or whatever, but overall, it’s been really refreshing.”

Sounds like a very good thing to us: musicians doing the thing they love, making music, and delivering it to the masses. Right?

“It’s total freedom compared to a major, that’s for sure,” Sparkes smiles.

“Oh, we’re definitely pleased with it, but we have to be open minded,” admits Sharland. “Next time we might do an old school studio album, and mull over it for two years. But yes, the main thing is, you wake up happy and want to write music.”

“And also, in pop music, people don’t tend to stick with a band over a journey as there isn’t one, but hopefully we are different: we want to take them with us for the long haul,” Sparkes enthuses. “There are through-lines from this album to the first, and lyrically and melodically we are progressing and developing our sound.

There are even some sexy songs; we’ve -” Suddenly, we are interrupted by a loud thud. It’s a power cut. A waitress heads over with several candles, and some red wine. Sparkes suggests to her that it must have been something he said, which we find amusing. “Huh?” The waitress says, blankly. Even funnier. Er, where were we?

“You know what, necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s what we’re finding out,” Sparkes announces, as we tuck into the round of drinks. “We have huge budgetary constraints, but also a new co-producer on this record, who Al knows.

He’s worked with Mumford & Sons and Ed Sheeran, so was able to bring a certain set of ears and skills. The difference now compared to back then is, we are learning the craft to writing songs. It’s something we panicked on before, and got lucky with early in our career, but like any other craft, you will improve, and we have.”

Well said, Irwin. It’s nearly showtime for the boys, so we ask them to leave us with a comment on the state of today’s industry.

It’s our final question, which is met with Sparkes’ best answer of the night: “Not even the record labels know which way this industry is going because it’s led by the public, which is interesting, scary, and weird... like a herd of zombies.”

An hour later, we’re in a packed-out Borderline club, witnessing a phenomenal set. It’s a venue we hold close to our hearts for many reasons, and now there’s another.

Let’s hope another eight years down the line, The Hoosiers still have more to say. www.thehoosiers.com

TOUR INTERVIEW

ON TOUR WITH...

AC/DC Ph otos SA R A H RU S H TO N-REA D

It’s been a hell of a year for AC/DC. This legendary Aussie rock band have been going for more than 40 years, and are still setting concert attendance records. After massive European and US tours, they’re back down under, presenting their massive production to a a string of Australian stadia - and they’re going down a storm. We managed to grab a few minutes with monitor engineer, Jon Lewis, to find out how he tames one of rock and roll’s loudest stages, and manages to stay on tea-drinking terms with the band.

When we last spoke to Jon Lewis, it was in LA, and he’d just finished touring with P!nk. He then went out on the road with Cher, before taking a job with AC/ DC working monitors. He’s just finished two monster legs with these hard rocking entertainers, and has been somewhat blown away by not only their professionalism and energy, but the sheer volume that ‘slaps you in the face’ as you walk across the stage. Tell us more, Jon. “The European leg was huge. Some of the shows were way over 100,000 people, and in Austria they broke their own record at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg with a crowd of 127,000. It’s been crazy,” Lewis says, with a sigh. Feeling tired? “Oh, it’s just been non-stop. They’re so popular, particularly in Germany and Scandinavia, which have always been huge markets for them; and they’re continuing to smash it in these territories.”

Lewis joined AC/DC at the beginning of their last tour, and was reacquainted with a few old chums including Paul McCartney’s long-time engineer, Pab Boothroyd, who’s currently working front of house.

It’s also a very old school setup in terms of console technology: this is analogue through and through.

“These guys are very much traditionalists, and we only use wireless when we need to,” Lewis smiles, adding that a DiGiCo SD7 is ordinarily his go-to.

“No digital desks here, though; it’s a case of, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”

But isn’t it a good thing for any live sound engineer to go back to basics, remind themselves about gain structure and channel strips?

“Oh definitely, and everyone should do it at some stage, in my opinion,” Lewis replies. “When you’re turning a dial, it feels as if you’re physically doing something, as opposed to telling a computer to do it. It’s something as engineers you don’t get the ability to do that often, because when you’re working with artists that use a lot of tracks or keyboards, you absolutely need the flexibility of having scenes and snapshots, to be able to get the best out of what is being inputted to you. That’s why I use an SD7. But 24 HEADLINER

“ANGUS IS STILL RUNNING AROUND LIKE A 20-YEAR-OLD...” with something like this, when you get a guitar plugged into an amplifier with a microphone in front of it, you can go back to it, and it does really work.

“We’ve met a few people coming through here with support acts, and they’ve never been on a large frame analogue desk ever, which is absolutely crazy. The SD7 is always my first choice because of the quality of the audio from it, and the redundant aspect of the dual engine, but I have to say, it’s also nice to go back to a piece of history.”

IT MIGHT GET LOUD Lewis is referring to what he calls his ‘dinosaur’ Midas 4000. Boothroyd is also in the analogue domain with a slightly younger Midas XL4. It’s not all old school though. To counteract the massive wall of sound coming from the dozens of Marshall guitar amps, stage wedges, and sidefills, a little modern day clarity is brought upon proceedings courtesy of some JH Audio Roxanne in-ear monitors.

“It’s a big old stage with about 28 wedges as well as a load of sidefills, and there are 12 Marshalls per side; it’s honestly the loudest stage I have ever worked on, by far,” Lewis says, with an understandable wince. “So a large contingent of the band are on in-ears as well, thank God! The drummer, bassist, and rhythm guitarist are both on two ears, and they absolutely love it because it provides respite from the onslaught of noise coming from the back and the sides, but [lead singer] Brian needs the foldback in the monitors as well, so he wears one ear in, one out. My main challenge is to get the vocals and the drums above that wall of sound, and that’s where the Roxannes come into play.”

AC/DC only moved onto JH Audio in-ears for this tour, and because some of the band hadn’t used in-ears before, Lewis felt Roxanne would be the easiest option.

“I wanted to go with something natural, that would be a simple transition from the wedgebased environments they were used to,” he explains. “Considering the newer members [drummer] Chris Slade and [rhythm guitarist] Stevie Young hadn’t ever used ears of any sort, I’m really pleased at how they’ve adapted to them. I mean, a kick drum on that stage feels like somebody is kicking you in the stomach,

and the snare feels like you’re getting smacked across the eyes. It’s proper!”

Although the Roxanne in-ears benefit from a solid low end as well as HF clarity, the former is really not something that AC/DC are lacking..!

It’s all about control, Lewis explains: “The crowd’s reaction is a major part of the performance, which is why Brian always wears one ear in. It also means he can work off the noise and energy on stage from the guitars and the drums in the sidefills, but he also receives the information through Roxanne to keep his pitching and timing right on the money. It just lifts his vocal over what is going on outside, basically.”

Another reason for going down the JH Audio route, Lewis says, is the customer service he receives while on the road.

“It’s still always very personal, despite how large the company has grown.

And a lot of the products themselves - because they come from Jerry [Harvey], who has worked at a very high level himself across the industry - are purpose guided towards live performance, not hi-fi or audiophiles,” Lewis insists. “These are products that are meant to be on stage, particularly these Roxannes. Yes, if you listen to them on your iPod, you’ll say, ‘oh, that sounds pretty good’, but the whole thing comes into its own when you plug it in with real instruments coming into it – it just comes alive, and you really feel that they’ve been designed around the live environment as opposed to an mp3 compressed file.”

In terms of musicianship, Lewis says these guys are still knocking it out the park: lead guitarist, Angus Young, is 60; Brian Johnson is 68; and they still seem to have the same energy as they did four decades ago.

“Angus is still running around like a 20-yearold,” Lewis chuckles. “And this tour still has everything you would expect it to: the inflatable strippers; the cannons; the big bell for Hell’s Bells. And it doesn’t feel corny, as that’s what it’s always been: balls out rock and roll with the gags thrown in. They’re very normal, down to earth people, which is amazing when you consider their stature in the rock and roll community. I often sit down and have a cup of tea with the guys after a show, which is great, really, isn’t it?” www.jhaudio.com

ALBUM REVIEW

Review: Adele / 25 JUST IN CASE YOU’VE BEEN ASLEEP FOR HALF a decade, Adele reached superstar status in 2011 after a memorable rendition of her hit record, Someone Like You, at The Brit Awards. The following year, she went viral: flying the Union Jack proudly, she cooly landed six Grammys in LA, before hopping back across the pond in time to deliver an equally jaw-dropping performance of Rolling In The Deep at The Brits, a week later. I was lucky enough to have been there for that performance, though I’ve never been asked back.

“This is Adele at her very best, and most heartbreaking.”

Not sure why. Perhaps it’s something to do with stumbling over a couch heavily under the influence and launching a large glass of red wine over a music executive in the process?

So, 25. I was a fan of Adele at 19 and 21, and when I heard Hello on the radio, the opening track on this third record, I warmed to it instantly.

It was, well, Adele. But it was only when my American mate, Will, posted a live version of When We Were Young, recorded at The Church in London on his Facebook page that I really woke up to what Adele was doing.

It was her delivery that astounded me more than anything: engaging, emotional, and totally remarkable.

And what a song. I downloaded 25 there and then, took a deep breath, and dived right in.

And then this happened.

Normally when I hear a record for the first time, I skim through (we all do, right?) and stop when I’m feeling something. But that didn’t happen with 25. And the last time that didn’t happen, in fact, was in the late ‘90s when Radiohead released OK Computer. I was in a band at the time, aspiring to 26 HEADLINER

be another Radiohead, so they could do wrong in my eyes. But Adele?

I wasn’t expecting that.

After listening twice through to 25, Hello had already dropped down to perhaps my fifth or sixth favourite song on the album, and that’s when I knew I was absorbing something special. I had discovered Remedy, one of a handful of beautiful piano ballads, with that effortless trademark Adele vocal; the beautifully produced Water Under The Bridge and River Lea, in both of which Adele wears her heart firmly on her sleeve; and by the time I got to track nine, A Million Years, my heart was sat firmly in my mouth. Adele is so open, lyrically, which I love; and she proves that her baritone quality is just as strong as her powerful high range. The vocal sits beautifully with the song’s Spanish sounding acoustic guitars, and what a creative chord structure, too.

Emotionally exhausted, All I Ask takes me even closer to the edge!

This beautiful piano-led ballad wouldn’t have looked out of place on Christina Aguilera’s excellent 2002 release, Stripped. There’s more than a hint of the great Linda Perry about this track,

so it came as no surprise to find out that another world-class songwriter, Bruno Mars (and his Smeezingtons crew), helped pen it with her: ‘Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do, it matters how this ends, ‘cos what if I never love again?’ I think I’d better sit down.

It’s right up there with the best on the album, but for now, the track that drew me to 25 in the first place remains my favourite: When We Were Young.

It’s lost love at its most hopeless; Adele at her most vulnerable; and vocally, she manages to turn purity into grit, guts, and aggression. And which is more, how can the lyric, ‘let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time’ not speak to someone who’s felt any heartbreak in their life? It’s melancholically addictive, and plays tug o’ war with your heart strings throughout. It took me back years, places I thought I’d never go again, so Christ alone knows what it does to the artist herself.

This is Adele at her very best, and most heartbreaking. 25 truly showcases her songwriting skills - and my, has she chosen her collaborators wisely.

Although there’s sweet soul music in abundance throughout this record, the most outstanding instrument on display is her unmistakable voice which, somehow, keeps getting better with age.

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COVER STORY HARDWELL

WE GET AN EXCLUSIVE INVITE INTO THE HOME OF ROBBERT VAN DER CORPUT, AKA HARDWELL, FORMER TWO-TIME NUMBER ONE DJ, WHOSE HUMBLE ATTITUDE IS AS REMARKABLE AS HIS SEEMINGLY ENDLESS LIST OF MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS. PRODUCER, ENGINEER, ARTIST, MOVIE-MAKER, RECORD-BREAKER - AND HE’S STILL ONLY 27.

BUT WE CAN’T HELP FEELING HE’S ONLY JUST GETTING STARTED.

IT’S A CRISP NOVEMBER AFTERNOON in Breda, Holland, about an hour outside of Amsterdam. This is the hometown of Hardwell – the place where he grew up as a lad. After the DJ extraordinaire greets us at his door with a smile, we make the descent down a staircase which leads to his main living quarters. Passing a pair of Pioneer CDJs and a plethora of awards along the way, we soon find ourselves at a purpose-built room which houses his brand new, state-of-the-art recording studio. It’s got more than a hint of the futuristic to it, with its bright white walls and floors. In fact, I’m half expecting a storm trooper or two to march in. “[laughs] Yes, it is a bit like a spaceship, isn’t it? But I love that,” Hardwell says, and perches on his mixing chair. “Everything is always clean in here, and I like it that way.

I went to Afrojack’s place recently, and it’s very homely, carpeted, and warm feeling, but I am so easily distracted, I needed white, so that my only distraction is my speakers; and that’s a good distraction!”

Hardwell played his first ever show here in Breda when he was just 12-years-old.

It was somewhat unconventional, but enough to convince him that music was the future.

“It wasn’t even in a bar, it was in a dancing school! There were dancing lessons the whole night, except for the last hour, where I was allowed to play freestyle,” he laughs, reclining in his chair. “Then, by the time I was 18, I was studying at the Rock Academy, so I was always working on rock bands and singersongwriter projects. That was some nine years ago, now.”

RISING STAR And a lot has happened in that time.

Especially since 2009, when his bootleg of Show Me Love vs. Be raised more than a few eyebrows in the industry. The following year, he launched his own label, Revealed Recordings, which is the hub of his musical operation today, and caters for a whole string of musical genres. In addition 28 HEADLINER

to his own material, he mixes for bands, masters records, and works with many up-and-coming ‘bedroom’ producers.

With all that in mind, I ask him if he fell into the EDM scene, and whether the long-term focus was somewhat broader?

“To be honest, I was always a fan of dance music, and the more melodic stuff,” Hardwell explains. “I grew up listening to Tiesto and Armin van Buuren, and then took a direction from there. I started producing my own music, and in the beginning, people couldn’t name it; and that’s one of the reasons why we are all EDM now. I wasn’t electro, I wasn’t progressive, I wasn’t techno, yet I was still groovy. It was like, ‘what is it?’ [smiles] “But I like the term EDM, as it’s clear what we do, especially for the larger crowd, as people had no idea what we were really doing. The older generation still think we are those DJs in the corner of the club in a dark room, you know? But it’s quite simply electronic dance music; it’s what we do. If there’s one synthesiser involved, it’s still electronic dance music... [pauses] So then you could ask the question, ‘is the new Coldplay album electronic dance music?’”

A fair point. And if it is, EDM has done Chris Martin and co. no harm; reviews suggest A Head Full Of Dreams is their best work to date. I ask Hardwell about his own debut album, United We Are, which was released in March 2015. What took him so long, I wonder? “[smiles] I suppose I really wanted to release it three or four years earlier, but at that point, I really broke through as a DJ, especially in America, so my touring schedules were enormous,” he explains.

“I was doing up to 300 gigs a year, so no studio time for me! All the instrumental singles I’d been releasing from 2007 to 2013 were made on the road and in hotel rooms, and I just finished them off back home. It was just me and my MacBook, as I was always on the road.

“But I still had the feeling that I was growing musically; my taste in music was

HARDWELL: KNOW NO BOUNDS Words PAUL WATSON | Photographs LARS-OLOF JANFLOD

"EDM IS A WORLD PHENOMENON, AND IT WILL STICK." growing, and I was still trying to reinvent myself; and that’s one of the reasons I started working with vocalists. Most of the stuff back in the beginning was instrumental club tracks, and for an album, I wanted to make it more crossover, so I went to LA to work in the studio with singer-songwriters. You have to find your direction, and it all evolved organically, really.”

INSPIRED We regress some 18 months, when Hardwell put on a show in New Delhi, India. It ended up being the catalyst to him creating his own charity, and planning a record breaking show in Mumbai that would turn heads across the globe. It also shows just the kind of bloke Hardwell really is.

“I’d just arrived in New Delhi, it was pouring with rain, and the first thing I noticed was this really fancy big billboard of myself, and homeless kids were seeking shelter beneath it,” he says, and pauses for thought. “I felt really weird about it, and knew if I was going to come back to this country, I’d need to give something back, because they were so in need of it. Then, when United We Are was released, a lot of people came up to me and asked how I came up with the title. I was like, ‘music is uniting people; it’s the most universal language on earth; and that’s where I want to be with my music’, because I wanted to be as universal as possible. And the reaction was, ‘yeah, but that title is so much more than just uniting 30 HEADLINER

people through music’. I thought about that for a while, and decided to start my own charity, the United We Are Foundation; and India was number one on my list to give something back to.

The support from the people in India has always been really great to my music, and it’s a buzzing scene; India and Japan are probably the number one and two for the next step in electronic dance music, so it made sense on all levels.”

The event, which took place on December 13th in Mumbai, boasted the world’s biggest ever guest list – 100,000 - and is part of a global endeavour to educate young children in different communities around the world. That sounds like a hell of a challenge.

“To reserve a spot on the guest list, you had to sign up on the website; we had over 700,000, and could only pick 100,000,” Hardwell explains, almost bashfully. Christ, so you’re already sold out seven times over? “[smiles] Yes, and that’s why we have a Pledge website, where you can donate your money now to the event, even if you’re not there. That’s gone really well. My foundation is teaming up with the Magic Bus Foundation, a charity in India which stands for the education for kids, so we are going to build schools and raise money, so parents can afford to get their kids into school. We have raised around 300,000 Euros so far, which is a great start.”

Staggered, and still trying to compute that information, I ask Hardwell what it means to him on a personal level, seeing his monumental fanbase back his every move. And what a move it is.

“Well, the whole situation in New Delhi literally broke my heart; I’m the guy getting put in a fancy hotel, being police-escorted to the event, and then you see that; the whole world is upside down,” he says, with a hint of melancholy. “But the feedback and support has been overwhelming, and this is just the first step I’m making with the charity. I have much more to do, and say.”

During the Mumbai event, aside from playing music, Hardwell played games with the kids, and handed out prizes in abundance to the competition winners. What a legend, and now a local hero.

MONITORING THE TREND As Hardwell pulls up a mix he’s been working on, I notice that there’s a certain softness to the whole sound. It feels easy on the ear. I quiz him about it.

“When I was a bedroom producer, I always worked on the small Dynaudio speakers; and then I switched to the Focal SM9s, which were very good for me back then. But recently, Jan [Morel, studio designer] played me the Genelec 1034s for the first time, as we were building this new room, and I fell in love with the sound right away,” Hardwell says, and turns the volume up a little more, allowing his Genelec 7073 subs to kick in a little. “I wanted to have a main monitor system, but not too big, because if you’re producing day in, day out, your ears will get tired. I spend 12 hours a day in this studio, and I can tell you I never switch back to my nearfields, because my ears never get tired. It’s a main system, but it still feels really close to you. The only things you crank are your ears!

“Also, these Genelecs are the most honest speakers I’ve ever heard. Besides being a DJ and producer, I am an engineer who does a lot of mixing and mastering for a lot of guys, so I want to have a speaker I can mix a really good pop record on, and a hard style record on; and when using these speakers, when you play your track, you can tell if the high end is not right in the mix, or if the kick is fighting with the bass line. It doesn’t matter if it’s a

really dark underground track or a Britney Spears track, you can hear everything here.”

Hardwell doesn’t mix loud, yet he doesn’t mix quiet: “It’s listenable, but not at crazy club level,” is how he puts it. I ask him about his vocal production, as I felt the lead vocal on his latest single, Mad World (feat. Jake Reese), sounded particularly good.

“I use the Waves PuigTec EQP-1A plugin when I am EQ-ing my vocals; it’s really important to me,” Hardwell reveals. “First, you tune the vocals by Melodyne - it’s what everybody is using – and then it’s about EQ-ing the low end. I use the PuigTec to boost the vocal around 100Hz, and I also boost it a little bit around 8k. That makes it very warm in the low end, and crispy in the high end – and you really get the presence across in the vocals.

“Some plugins are definitely better than analogue, as you have more options. Look at the threshold on plugins like the Waves C6: the digital has a way bigger range; and the same goes for the [UA] Shadow Hill. Then for maximising, I use the iZotope Ozone 5, and the Waves L2 Ultramaximiser is also a very popular one; that’s actually my favourite transparent limiter.”

We move onto Hardwell’s life on the road, and the love he has for his four Pioneer CDJs. He doesn’t know where he’d be without them, he admits, and explains that he is working closely with Pioneer on developing the new CDJ model. I ask him where he finds the time and the energy, which brings us on to his all-important diet.

“It’s definitely a lot of coffee, but you have to get the right amount of sleep, too,” he says, with a smile. “When I’m on tour, especially when I do my first couple of days, it’s not about doing the after-parties, it’s about doing your gig, and going straight back to bed; and I always nap before my show, too. Food is also really important. You have to skip fast food; your body thinks you gain energy for two to three hours when you eat that stuff, and then you’re hungry again! It can be sushi or maybe steak, but I just try to eat as good as possible all the time.”

AND... ACTION! Incredibly, there is yet another string to Hardwell’s bow: making movies. He’s made two to date, both of which tell an important and inspiring story: “With my first movie, I worked with Robin Piree, who is also from Breda. He made a lot of short movies back in the day: small bar parties, skateboard movies; and they looked really good. So when I needed footage for my YouTube channel, I was like, ‘hey, join me on the road and film a couple of gigs, make a compilation of it, we can put a new track in there as a teaser’, and so on. And he did that. He was on the road with me for some time, during which I went from ‘that guy from Breda’ getting more popular in Holland, to breaking into the UK, and then all of a sudden, I broke through in America, and Tiesto picked me up. It sounded like a movie, you know? This random guy from Breda in a brand new world!”

So you just wrote your own Hollywood script, basically?

“Yes, and directed it! [laughs] It was movie-worthy to put this whole dream of mine onto film, as he was always with me on the road, so why not, you know?” Hardwell says, laughing. Why not, indeed. And the next movie? “That was during the first I Am Hardwell world tour, where we had such an impact on different cultures and different cities. For example, I was the first DJ to play an EDM show in Vietnam; we had so much amazing footage, we wanted to capture how it felt to be the number one DJ in the world.

People still think we are pressing play on a CDJ and [lifts arms in the air, tilts head back and closes eyes, smiling], but you get to see a team of 40 people building shows - stuff like that, you know? Even the backstage stuff, too. We do meet and greets, which gives the viewer a snippet into my daily routine: what it’s like to be me. Fans love it, and it’s great fun to do that, and give something back.”

I applaud Hardwell once more for his humble, grounded attitude, 31 HEADLINER

“INDIA AND JAPAN ARE THE NUMBER ONE AND TWO FOR THE NEXT STEP IN ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC.” and he just smiles, modestly. ”Before I leave him to prepare for his next show, I ask Hardwell him how much bigger and better the EDM scene can get, now that it’s on such a global scale. In his eyes, there are no limits, it seems.

“EDM is a world phenomenon, and it will stick. It’s so big right now, and four years ago, nobody knew what it was in America, except in the underground. EDM nowadays is pop-crossover, radio friendly, a bit of everything,” Hardwell enthuses. “Nobody can predict the future, or where it’s going genre-wise, but what I know as a producer is that dance music keeps evolving. Four years ago, everyone was blown away: ‘Who is this guy, Skrillex?’ ‘dubstep – what is it?’ Then last year, future house arrived, which is a variation of big house; it’s not super-big room, but it’s not underground. So as long as genres keep evolving, it has a future.

“Just watch Asia. Dance music is doing exactly the same now there as it is in America. It just keeps growing. And with that being said, dance music has been in Europe now for 20 to 30 years already. It’s an endless wave that keeps coming up and going down. I am really happy to see - especially in America - that the more underground genres are getting more appreciation now.

You see people throwing drum and bass parties, more deep house parties. I don’t know why, but traditionally, the mainstream is always hating on the underground and vice versa, but we can’t live without each other, and that’s why we should respect every single genre. It makes us both stronger, and we need to keep the balance right.” www.djhardwell.com www.genelec.com

We take an exclusive, in-depth look at two recent hi-res recording projects involving Gotthard, one of Europe's premier hard rock outfits.

EDM Powerhouse PK Sound is an audio company with a twist. Every employee has personally invested, therefore owns a little piece of the PK pie, be it a carpenter, fabricator, engineer, or company director; and this has helped create not only a modern day musical ethos, but some pretty mind boggling technology along the way, especially suited to the EDM sector. Headliner goes a little deeper.

PK SOUND was incorporated a little over a decade ago, but everyone within its ranks has been around a lot longer.

These guys are lovers of sound, and thanks to what they cite as a fresh and unique approach, their product – loudspeakers – are apparently more 32 HEADLINER

than just black boxes.

“The industry has been so stale for so long,” insists PK’s Casey Hughes. “We built our own speakers at a time where electronic music and other genres that demand more from their sound systems were becoming popular. We put our own gear through its paces, and now today, we have an opportunity to become this loudspeaker brand, where we could go one of two ways: make black boxes, or go for broke and go unique, and the latter is what we have chosen to do.”

A bold move. And Hughes concedes that there are plenty of great systems out there today. What PK is proposing, however, is the world’s only fully remotely

adjustable line array. Really?

“Absolutely. And what we do that no other company does is remotely adjust the audio in the horizontal plane, so the horn flares move. As opposed to beam steering and FIR filters, we physically steer that sound so they move. It’s 3D wavefront control. You can adjust it in real time, build your show, then hit the go button and the whole PA moves.

“Stage two is the realtime analysing: this will take Smaart or something similar, and feed back into the algorithm what’s happening in the room. The system will then automatically react; it’ll rake itself, and the horns will move. It’s pretty crazy, to be honest.”

Powersoft’s DigiMod3004PFC4 + DSP4 provides all the ammo for PK Sound’s Trinity loudspeaker system.

In terms of amplification, Hughes and co. are adamant that there is “no room for compromise, period”. PK prides itself on working with the best components and the best possible methods, Hughes insists, which is why they partnered with Powersoft when creating their flagship product, Trinity.

“It was a very easy choice for us, as Powersoft make very high end products.

Before we used them, we were using another brand in the US, and it was fine, but wasn’t near the quality of Powersoft in acoustic integrity or efficiency, so it was an easy switch,” Hughes explains. “What’s also great for us is we have pushed them to give us more of their R&D products which have not been commercially released, so we can also test them - and they’ll tell you we can pretty much put anything through its places! Powersoft was also one of the first companies to receive Enforce as a technology, and I think we’ve built one of the biggest, baddest boxes with that technology; and now we’re in the process of building the commercial version of a single enclosure.”

According to PK’s CEO, Jeremy Bridge, it’s the whole Powersoft package that really sets the tone: high power and efficiency; lightweight; the ability to provide considerably increased power to one channel; DSP processing; and reliability. Is that all..? “[smiles] Well, the whole Powersoft partnership is really great, to be honest; we love working with the gents in Italy, as they are always very helpful and positive to work with, and I think the relationship really started to grow after we went out there and spent a week at their offices,” Bridge explains. “We got to know everyone there, and we presented the Trinity 33 HEADLINER

“THESE ARE THE KIDS OF THE IPHONE ERA; YOU CAN’T IMPRESS THEM WITH A MEDIOCRE SOUND SYSTEM AND CRAPPY LED WALL.”

project to management, who seemed really interested in it. Since then, we have worked on a number of really exciting projects with them, and we are very happy to have them as a partner. I strongly believe in the philosophy to focus on what you do best and then create strong partners with other industry professionals that are the leaders in their respective fields, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

The EDM scene is a big scene for PK Sound. I ask the guys to break down how and why, exactly.

“Well, in the mid ‘90s, the UK and Europe were already exploding with electronic music, but North America was just blossoming. The EDM fanbase really is looking for a more immersive visceral experience as it’s not just audio, it’s video, lighting, better productions; these are the kids of the iPhone era, and you can’t impress them with a mediocre sound system and crappy LED wall,” Hughes insists. “They just expect quality, and EDM got the worse of it, as a lot of these artists are forced to perform on a laptop because they don’t have the resources to orchestrate a full live band, so they needed the support of large production as they wanted the same passion and experience

but with a lot of new kit. We knew our products could handle more punishment at higher SPLs, and we built it to cater for this kind of genre - especially bass-heavy music - so it was an easy fit, and it’s led us to a lot of other markets. Culturally, we understand our market very well; we know what they’re looking for, and we’re good friends with a lot of the EDM guys.”

Conversation turns to this issue’s Headliner cover star, Hardwell, the world’s number one DJ. Hughes is well aware of his work, and brings up a very interesting point: “Sometimes the disconnect is so grand,” he reflects. How so? “Well, as a manufacturer, we’ll help with some tours, but we litmus test our products, and it’s scary with an EDM production, especially if it’s Hardwell or Tiësto or Kaskade or Skrillex; we do these guys all the time as they trust us, but the front of house tech does not know the genre, let alone the artist, or even the PA system; and if that’s the case, there is no way the tech will get it sounding how it’s supposed to. And if they’re involved in selecting the PA? Well, you’ve already lost. It’s like sending a rock guy to do a hip hop show, or vice versa; I’d like to think they could all do all the shows, but it’s just not true.”

I ask Hughes what the answer is. He ponders for all of a millisecond, and concludes: “It’s 2016! We should have high-end, hi-tech systems everywhere, as technology drops out of your pockets on the street. That’s the way forward.”

A fair point, well argued! Thanks for an intriguing insight, guys. www.powersoft-audio.com

HORU

S

On Broadway People-skills, psychology, and a bit of technical know-how. Those are the key attributes to a successful career in sound design. Don’t believe us? Just ask David Patridge, who’s been working on some of Broadway’s finest productions for more than 25 years.

THEATRE LIFE began for David Patridge back in high school, where he ‘ended up doing the lighting’; and because theatre seemed like a bad career path, got into electrical engineering before eventually migrating back to doing lighting for theatre at university. Then, he made the plunge, and went to theatre school at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, where he got into sound.

“I remember taking a job at a facility with five venues, and that’s where I branched out into audio,” Patridge explains. “Immediately I wondered why I hadn’t made the move before. I had music training all through school, did some radio hosting and DJ-ing even, but never realised that sound would be such a good fit. From that point, I mixed bands in clubs, live events in theatres, arenas, and convention centres.

“Inevitably, I realised that to get to the top, unless I wanted to go on the road with a band, I would need to get into commercial theatre. My first Broadway 35 HEADLINER

show was in 1989, and was a transfer from London: Buddy, the Buddy Holly story; and I’ve never looked back, really.”

He can say that again. Patridge has held a pivotal role on a plethora of major shows over the last 25 years. His first love remains mixing front of house sound, but he finds sound design very rewarding, as it allows him to collaborate as a creative, being part of the process that brings new musicals to the stage.

For the past decade and more, he and his partner, John Shivers, have proven to be a pretty formidable team.

“My tasks centre around the system design, tuning, and the mix, and John takes on everything else,” Patridge explains. “From creation of the sound effects, to positioning lavalier mics on actors’ heads, to having meetings with the producer or director. He has a better bedside manner than I do!”

Patridge is adamant that his role as a sound designer is “probably about 80%

people-skills and psychology, and 20% technical know-how”. How so?

“It’s the one job in the professional theatre that interfaces with more aspects of the production than any other,” he explains.

“You need to be sensitive, and attentive to the needs of the performers both onstage, and in the band. You need to make sure that the words and orchestrations are all properly represented; be diplomatic and patient; and cope with almost everyone having an opinion on the sound - many of whom have no idea what it takes to do the job while validating their opinions - and exhibiting a can-do attitude!

“But ultimately, there is nothing better than feeling like you are part of the performance, and seeing the crowd enjoying themselves. That’s why we all continue to sit in the mixing hot-seat: for the times that the sound really comes together on every level.”

THEATRE PRODUCTION

“HAVING A SIGNAL PATH THAT IS UNCOLOURED

BY THE EQUIPMENT AND EQUIVALENT TO A WIRE IS AN AMAZING BENEFIT.” From a technical standpoint, Patridge says there is a huge convergence of concert touring and theatrical equipment, but some things will always be different.

“The big difference in mixing technique is that in theatre, the constraints of using omni mics versus handhelds dictate what we need to do: bring up the fader for a line, take it down, and so on,” he says. “You can’t leave two or more vocal faders open at a time without some trade-off sonically, due to the phasing effect of multiple paths between mics that need to be higher in gain than a handheld touching a performer’s lips.”

Conversation turns to his go-to kit, and he explains that in today’s industry, going digital is a complete no-brainer: “Digital may not be quite as warm, but programmability is king when doing a large musical; we may be managing 130 input channels and 64 output channels, and being able to accurately set and recall all of that routing, mixing, and DSP power is crucial,” Patridge explains.

“The DiGiCo SD7T has become the leading desk on Broadway and the West End, and will remain there at least for the next year or so. Outboard gear for us has been reduced to the TC6000 reverb system, and everything else is in the console, including Waves SoundGrid.

We started using Waves with the SD7T last year, and moving forward, we have made it a requirement for no other reason than it is a great problemsolving toolbox.

“We needed a vocal doubling effect on a show recently, so we added the ADT from Waves which emulates the tape-based vocal doubling done for The Beatles at Abbey Road. We also love the Waves API 2500 compressor, which has an amazingly powerful automakeup-gain feature to allow us to colour a vocal or instrument with loads of very musical sounding compression while not suffering wacky gain structure shortcomings.”

When it comes to wireless, Patridge won’t look further than Lectrosonics.

“On a Broadway production of Come Fly Away, Canadian sound designer, Peter McBoyle, had specified Lectrosonics for wireless, and I was very impressed by the sound of the Digital Hybrid design, along with the top build 36 HEADLINER

quality,” he recalls. “I then used 24 Lectrosonics radios out at ACT in San Francisco, where my friend Suzanna Bailey - who is the head of sound there - swears by them. I also have a system comprised of an HM transmitter and an R400a receiver, which I use for system analysis with Smaart.”

Patridge admits he is always a fan of ‘buying American’ when possible, as it’s always the best way to encourage job growth in your own country OK. But aside from patriotism, why Lectrosonics? “[smiles] The biggest plus - prior to the introduction of the SSM transmitter design - has been its Digital Hybrid system. The sonic artefacts of compander noise is something that we have been living with since the inception of portable wireless mics, and having a signal path that is uncoloured by the equipment and equivalent to a wire is an amazing benefit,” he insists. “And for me, The SSM is now a further gamechanger due to its small form-factor.

No other product exists with the high audio quality and small footprint, and this addresses the ongoing battle of how to hide transmitters on performers with something that will likely never be beaten.”

Like you did on Kinky Boots, right?

“Yes. Many of the performers in Kinky Boots wear their transmitter on their head under a wig, and it has always been a battle to avoid having a lump sticking up where the radio is placed.

The SSM makes that a thing of the past,” Patridge explains. “We have several performers in the show who wear two transmitters and mics for redundancy, and we did a true A/B comparison of the Lectrosonics setup versus another leading manufacturer. The vocal quality improvement was evident, as we knew it would be, and we really liked the small size coupled with the rechargeable battery setup.

“We then specified a system of SSM radios for use on Moonshine, which we did in Dallas; and SSM will be used on both the Japanese and Australian Kinky Boots productions.”

When miking cast members in any production, Patridge always turns to the DPA 4061, as it’s “simply the best sonic option available”.

“We have done many listening tests of the various capsules, and we think that the DPA is the best; we like to start with

the best sound at the source, and go from there,” Patridge explains. “We also have a number of the 4061 elements available for close-mics on instruments such as strings and guitars, and the range of mounting options - especially the string mounts - are really useful. We have also been fortunate enough to use the boundary mounts on pianos in the past, and of course we have also used the various mics in the 4099 line for a range of applications, and the 4011 in the pit on many different instruments.

“The 4011, in fact, is our go-to choice for overhead mics on strings, and for instruments like the flute, but that mic is equally at home doing any job suited to a small-diaphragm condenser, with a detailed accurate response. I also personally own a DPA 4007, which I use as an analyser mic with my Lectrosonics radio as well.”

We ask Patridge what keeps everything fresh from production to production, especially as he has worked on such an eclectic mix of shows.

“If you’re flexible in the approach, you can keep working solidly. Over the years, we’ve found ourselves doing a number of the more amplified sorts of shows working with the likes of Queen, Phil Collins, ABBA, Elton John, Cyndi Lauper, and Dolly Parton,” he reveals.

“It’s very satisfying to be the entire conduit through which a show is heard, rather than working with a combination of acoustic energy and reinforcement in the more traditional musical theatre style. And it’s always memorable when someone that only existed for you on the radio during your high-school years, like Phil Collins or Björn Ulvaeus tells you that your mix is great!”

We can imagine! Patridge has just opened a new show on Broadway called Gigantic, and will be on Tarzan next Autumn. He’s also about to do a buildout for the equipment for Paramour, an existing Cirque du Soleil show, which will open on Broadway this Spring. You sound busy, David! “[smiles] Like anything else in this business, there are busy periods, but there are also bouts with nothing going on, so you try to achieve a balance,” he admits. “The job requires a lot of travel, and sometimes I can be out of the country for up to eight months a year, but it’s important not to burn yourself out when you are lucky enough to be constantly working like that.” www.lectrosonics.com www.dpamicrophones.com www.waves.com www.digico.biz

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“WE TRIED TO BE AS FEARLESS AS WE COULD; IT’S ALWAYS BEEN OUR PHILOSOPHY.”

Enter Shikari: Unplugged and Personal Word s PAU L WATSO N Ph otos CO R I NNE C U M M I NG

38 HEADLINER

We always thought Alexandra Palace as a venue was one giant reverberant room which had to be rammed full to do it justice. We were wrong. If you survive the trek up the almost vertical hill, do a right at the ice rink instead of a left, you’ll discover the relic that is the old theatre, where today, electronicore pioneers, Enter Shikari, are cutting a unique video, totally unplugged. How could we possibly resist?

For those that aren’t aware, Enter Shikari began their musical journey some 12 years ago in rural St. Albans, Hertfordshire. It’s home to the world’s oldest pub, and more ale houses per square mile than most small British cities. It has also spawned a string of major artists including The Zombies, Argent, Pink Floyd, and more recently, Friendly Fires. A musical city with a buzz, which three of the band still call home.

Today, the lads have invited 20-something competition winners into their inner sanctum for an exclusive live acoustic performance. For Enter Shikari, acoustic sets are about as rare a sight as Donald Trump in a burkha, so it’s a

particularly exciting prospect.

It’s cold, dark, and almost empty in the old theatre: just the band themselves; an eclectic instrumental combo including a trumpet, a xylophone, and a cajón; and one dozen leather sofas, laden with super-fans. This couldn’t be more different from the band’s standard stage setup, though it could be, we are told, the last ever show to take place here before it closes its doors for a major refurbishment.

After some informal introductions, the band ease their way through a great little set of just four songs, and we’re struck not only by the overall musicianship throughout, but the extraordinary multitasking! At one point, Rob [Rolfe, drummer] was playing a shaker, xylophone, tambourine, and cajón, simultaneously. Impressive!

“We thought it’d be nice to do an acoustic set here in this incredible little forgotten theatre, as we’re coming back in February to headline the main room,” smiles frontman, Rou Reynolds, after completing a very relaxed meet and greet with his fans. “It’s a giveaway to competition winners, and I actually

EXCLUSIVE ENTER SHIKARI

recognise a few of them; people follow us around, and you find you meet them again and again, so you do get to know a few faces.”

Reynolds admits he is normally critical of bands doing acoustic sets, but this one, it seems, was a lot of fun.

“The classic E minor, G, E minor, and so on - it’s all a bit boring really, isn’t it?

So we wanted to mix it up a bit, and made sure the parts were properly put together; and actually, I really enjoyed doing it,” Reynolds admits. He’s not wrong, either: the guitar parts were intricate, the threepart harmonies were nicely thought out, and it sounded... Well, like a different band altogether at points! “[laughs] Yeah, well it is kind of like learning a whole new song every time, but it’s really rewarding at the same time,” says guitarist, Rory Clewlow. “It came together so nicely today, every last detail. And I love these sofas... and the free coffee and popcorn, of course.”

Conversation turns to the band’s beginnings, and I ask them about their musical evolution since their debut EP, Commit No Nuisance (a title borrowed from the little old door of St. Albans’ Clock Tower) first reared its head.

“That was before I was even in the band,” laughs Clewlow, adding that it was released as ‘Hybryd’, pre-Enter Shikari.

“I joined around 12 years ago, and that’s when we became Enter Shikari. Rou moved off the guitar and started focusing on electronics, and we just kind of felt our way in the dark until we found sounds we liked, and adopted them. We tried to be as fearless as we could; it’s the only way to create something that hasn’t been done before. It’s always been our philosophy, and has brought us to where we are now.”

Which is a very good place. Their latest record, The Mindsweep, received critical acclaim earlier this year from Alternative Press and Kerrang!, and has recently had a good going over from the guys at Hospital Records, a team of mix masters that Enter Shikari have admired for some time.

“We’ve had a great relationship with them since our second album, and always talked about them remixing a whole album, and then the stars aligned and we got it done with The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, and we couldn’t be happier,” Clewlow explains. “We didn’t do a lot, really; we just gave them what we did, and they made the tunes. And then people said, ‘great tunes!’, and we were like, ‘erm, thanks, but we didn’t really do anything’. [laughs]” When it comes to making music, it’s a meticulous operation. Even during rehearsals for this acoustic show, I watched them perform what seemed like 39 HEADLINER

“MUSIC IS THE ONLY THING IN LIFE THAT INDISCRIMINATELY BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER.” perfect takes, only to hear, ‘let’s go again’, in their undying quest for perfection. Right?

“Yeah, we’re meticulous and anal about every single aspect, to be honest,” laughs Reynolds. “The times we’ve been forced to try working with a producer in terms of ‘pop’ language, it just never works, but we’ve been very lucky to have a great relationship with Dan Weller. He’s amazing.

Not only is he the guitarist of a band called SikTh [also from Hertfordshire], but he’s a brilliant producer, too, so we work together and co-produce with him.”

And unlike a lot of bands out there, Enter Shikari have never been afraid to speak their minds. In fact, the social statements and messages within their music are crucial in the band’s makeup.

“It’s about trying to rekindle some kind of unity,” Reynolds says. “Music, and live music especially, is pretty much the only thing in life that indiscriminately brings people together just to celebrate life, to be alive, feel alive, feel vulnerable, as music is such a powerful tool. It can change your emotions just like that without you even having a say, and there’s a real beauty and shared sense of community in that; and that’s mainly what we try to do. The lyrics?

That’s just us using music for what we think it’s there for. Go back to the hunter gatherers, where flutes were made out of bone! Music was used as this communal tool, and we’re honoured to be able to continue that historic use of it, basically.”

It’s an interesting time to be working in the music industry, but very difficult to predict where everything is going next, Clewlow adds, to which

Reynolds responds: “I heard Tesco is bringing back vinyl.

Overall sales have come down, and CDs have plateaued, but now there might be a mainstream market for vinyl, which would be cool, wouldn’t it?

It certainly would. Before I leave the guys to continue their filming, we chat a little about the upcoming 2016 tour, which begins in the UK, and how they feel their music will be received overseas.

“In February, we play the UK shows, which includes the headline show here at Ally Pally, and then in March, we head to Europe,” Clewlow reveals. And America? “[sighs] America has already broken us!”

Really?

“Well, we have toured a lot there, and we do have a solid fanbase in the States, but probably only half what we have here and in Europe, and even Australia,” explains Reynolds. “I guess they just don’t quite get it; they like their metalcore: beat downs, blast beats, big vocal choruses, rah rah rah, but because we have a load of other stuff chucked in there, perhaps it’s a little confusing to them.”

“Yeah, it’s really a cultural thing,” decides Clewlow. “There is a different kind of cynicism in our society that is seeped into the way we make music, and maybe people in other countries don’t get that?”

Maybe so. Whatever the case, it’s been a pleasure, Enter Shikari. Look out for our Ally Pally show review in February, where I doubt I’ll get quite as comfy a seat. www.entershikari.com

MIXING ENTER SHIKARI

The Mindsweep We catch up with AJ Sutherland, who landed the role of monitor engineer for Enter Shikari at the end of 2014, while chatting on a social media crew forum.

“I guess I technically met the band through Facebook,” smiles AJ Sutherland, from his hotel room in Ireland, where Enter Shikari are doing a few shows. “I was talking about an indie job in Dubai, and at the end of the thread, I got, ‘do you want to work with Enter Shikari?’ I realised I was talking to Andy Russell, the band’s long time front of house engineer, and I went to shadow their Christmas show in Liverpool – this was 2014. And since January [2015], I’ve been full time on The Mindsweep tour.”

The power of social media, eh? After landing the role, Sutherland immediately delved into the band’s back catalogue, and really got into the music.

“I’d heard of them, of course, but I didn’t realise they had made four epic records; and you can see their development, both musically and politically, through their discography,” Sutherland says. “If you look at the hip hop genre in the early ‘90s, artists like Tupac were very political, and then the whole genre descended into sex and drugs in the Millennium, which was a little disappointing; but rock music is a more modern outlet for that sort of thing, and Enter Shikari are a good benchmark for that.”

Sutherland’s setup has developed significantly this year: the band are all on stereo in-ears, and the wedges that are on stage are used predominantly for stage props..!

“I have a mix coming through the wedges, but very low, and as a backup; really, they’re there for the band to throw around! Because they move around so much, in-ears are the obvious choice,” he explains.

“What’s also interesting is Rob Rolfe, the drummer, has no sub or buttkicker, just his ears. Any small change I make, he will notice, which is incredible, actually.”

Enter Shikari use Kemper profiling amplifiers, a neat digital system which breeds musical creativity, allows for greater control, and leads to a much quieter stage.

“They don’t have to worry about hitting guitar pedals to make sounds, and it’s not just for convenience, it helps creatively,” Sutherland reveals.

“They’ll swap patches, which is too fast and accurate to do with stomp boxes; and they’ll use pitch shifting setting on the Kempers so they don’t have to change guitar. Of course, from a traditional perspective, 40 HEADLINER

guitar amps can be very destructive, so at some of the smaller shows in particular, it makes my life and Andy’s out front way easier, too.”

Sutherland is a big fan of Audio-Technica.

He uses the AT-M50 headphones for referencing, and a number of AT mics on stage, which have made a major impact on the live shows.

“The band had found their old mics were disintegrating around them,” Sutherland smiles. “At the end of the show, there’d be bits sticking off, and Rou [Reynolds, singer] would end up with bleeding lips from singing into them, so we got them to try the [Audio-Technica] AE6100s.

They’re really durable, and they have lasted way longer; we have a whole box full of old grills that are destroyed, and I think we’ve only gone through one AT one this entire year!”

While on tour in the US, Sutherland asked Reynolds to try and physically break his AT mic, and really put it through its paces. He rose to the challenge, but couldn’t destroy it: “Rou uses a straight tripod mic stand. He puts his foot under it, and then kicks it up in the air, and usually it comes down upside down on the drum kit or on the stage; and in tall theatres, you really get some height on it. But the AE6100 just survives! He leaves it hanging off the truss after shows, and we’ve never had a problem with it.”

And what about the sound?

“WITH ENTER SHIKARI, FANS FLY IN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO WATCH THEM PLAY.” “Well, a few people took a bit of time to come round to them, but now they’re really happy with the performance,” admits Sutherland. “Especially for [bassist] Chris Batten’s vocal; he has quite a deep voice, so it’s hard to get some of the higher end [around 6k] out of his voice, which these mics are great at. You have to be fairly close up to them to get a really great sound, and they tail off quite quickly, which is very useful when using them with Rob on drums, too.”

Sutherland deploys AE6100s across the board on Enter Shikari: all four band members, and a total of six vocal positions. He also uses AE3000s on the overheads and hi-hats. So how is life out on the road with the band?

“Put it this way: I come from pop world, where fans wait for 45 minutes to hear one song, whereas with Enter Shikari, fans fly in from other countries to see them play,” Sutherland says, with a smile. “They are so modest about what they do, and they know many of their fans by name; they’ll spend time hanging out with them until no-one is left. This week, Rou got a human pyramid going, and sung from the bottom of it! At the end of the show, he said, ‘This whole room is us. This experience is what we call Enter Shikari’. And that pretty much says it all, really.”

www.audio-technica.com

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Thinking. Inside the box.

RECORDING GOTTHARD

RECORDING GOTTHARD We take an exclusive, in-depth look at two recent hi-res recording projects involving Gotthard, one of Europe's premier hard rock outfits.

GOTTHARD ARE A FIVE-PIECE HARD rock band from Switzerland, whose last 11 albums have, remarkably, all gone to number one in the Swiss album charts.

The band have sold more than two million records to date, which has seen them reach multi-platinum status in a string of global territories.

Gotthard takes its name from the Saint-Gotthard Massif, a Swiss mountain range in the Alps, and was founded by guitarist, Leo Leoni, and vocalist, Steve Lee. Lee tragically lost his life in a motorcycle accident in 2010, and in 2011, the band announced Nic Maeder as their new lead singer, and released Remember It’s Me as a free download.

2011 also saw Gotthard record their live album, Homegrown - Alive in Lugano, mixed by renowned German 42 HEADLINER

“A COUPLE OF NUMBERS HIT 200BPM, AND THAT CAN BE VERY DIFFICULT TO CAPTURE.” producer, Charlie Bauerfeind, whose credits include Saxon, Motörhead, and “too many German bands to mention,” he says, with a smile.

He revisited Gotthard last year, teaming up with live recordist, Claudio Kernen, for the band’s 2015 release, Live & Bangin’ – a very thoughtfully put

together live record from the BANG tour.

“Although Gotthard’s music isn’t quite as dense as some of the other stuff I work with, there are a couple of numbers that hit 200bpm, and that can be very difficult to capture, in terms of clarity,” Bauerfeind admits.

“However, when Claudio sent me through all the files [from the live shows], I was shocked at how clear, clean, and high res they were. It was another level to what I’m used to.”

Kernen recorded nine Gotthard shows from the BANG Tour: two in Germany, two in Austria, and five in Switzerland.

The key to achieving these extraordinary results, he says, was in the kit he used to capture the audio. It was, essentially, a Merging Technologies backbone.

“I used one Horus frame fitted with six mic premium

cards to achieve 48 mic inputs; and then one Merging frame with a fully-licensed Pyramix [with a MassCore 256+], connected via Ravenna,” explains Kernen, with a little techie flair. He’s also been using Merging’s Ovation sequencer for seven years in his TV production work. “For all the shows, we recorded 48 tracks in DXD256 – that’s 352.8kHz at 24-bit, so pretty unbelievable, to be honest! [smiles] And all the mics we split directly on stage because we wanted to use the Merging mic preamp.”

The band had the final say in terms of which recordings to use, and went with 75-minutes worth of their two-hour show in Barr, Switzerland. At this point, Kernen pinged the files over to Bauerfeind.

“When I heard what the Merging kit did to the Gotthard

RECORDING

GOTTHARD

recording, I was astounded. You can really pick the dynamics out of every signal, and when you look at the setup, really it was very compact,” Bauerfeind says. “When you add keyboards, and all the classical elements, you need to give everything a specific place in the mix picture; and I found it very easy to do this with these live recordings, which made me think, ‘ok, how did he do it?’ So I got in contact with Claudio, and he explained it all. I’d heard of Merging, but I wasn’t aware of how good it really was. Now I am an addict!”

He’s not kidding. Bauerfeind may have mixed the live record on his Pro Tools rig, but he now has his own Merging setup which he uses for testing purposes, incorporating Horus and Hapi.

“In addition to the pristine audio, Horus gives me an incredible amount of flexibility, and basically puts my four [Avid] converter rig into one,” he explains. “I also hybrid a lot of stuff, so I need a lot of good converters to do that. When we come to mix the LAC [Auditorium] show that we recently recorded, it’s definitely going to happen using the hardware side of Horus.”

We’ll get onto the LAC show in a little while, but let’s have a little more detail on the Merging setup first, Charlie.

“I’ve been using Pro Tools for some 25 years, so it’s second nature, and it’d be tough to switch over completely, but now I have the Horus, the Hapi, four cards, and two Pro Tools cards, I can use the maximum capability of the Horus, which is pretty phenomenal,” he reveals. “Basically, I want to replace the Avid converters. That’s the thinking behind it. When Avid went AAX, some plugin firms didn’t, so I still have my old rig - an HDX3 with three cards - hooked up with AES/EBU cables to run stuff back and forth to use some plugins that are not available on AAX. With Merging, I can replace that with my laptop and a Ravenna connection; it’s perfect for me, as right now, I am carrying two computers and two rigs, including five interfaces!”

We move onto the second Gotthard recording project at the LAC, a new auditorium in Lugano, Switzerland, which opened last September. This involved a full orchestra, and Kernen again used Merging kit throughout.

“The LAC is a special place, because it’s modular. There is a removable acoustic shell on stage, so it’s very easy to transform the auditorium to a theatre, and change the acoustics,” Kernern explains. “So the band decided to arrange some songs with the G String Quartet, and Zurich Konzert Orchestra. We opted for theatre mode, with gave us less reverberation time, and more space on stage.”

The one big challenge for the guys stemmed from the two monitor desks and two front of house desks being used to cater for the band and the orchestra’s needs. They wanted to use the same Merging equipment as they did on the BANG tour, but realised the input list was way too big. The orchestra was miked up with a combination of DPA 4099 miniature microphones and some Schoeps mics, to get the most natural possible sound; the input count was at 96; and every mic was taken in parallel, so no active or passive splitter.

“It was dangerous, but the best solution, in my opinion, as no noise was added from the electronic balanced outputs or transformer losses,” Kernen insists.

OK, and what about on the stage?

“Well, right near the split-box, we put two Horus with 12 mic cards – to give 96 mic inputs – and ran Ravenna via one [DELL 2808] switch and a Nevion GbE Converter; and in the control room, which was located in a cool position, overlooking the stage, 43 HEADLINER

“YOU CAN REALLY PICK THE DYNAMICS OUT OF EVERY SIGNAL.” we had two Merging frames with Pyramix - again fully-licensed and with the MassCore 256+ - and one laptop, just for monitoring the peak-meter on the two Horus, connected via Ravenna in the same way. Both machines were recording the same: one was the master, the second was the backup. So the configuration was 96 tracks in 96kHz (24-bit), and the gain control of the preamp was done remotely via the Pyramix software. Charlie worked on the orchestra levels on the main system, and I was on the band levels on the backup, but the controls were parallel, which was very cool!”

After taking a little time to compute that information, I ask Bauerfeind what he took from the whole process. A lot, it seems: “I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities, to be honest.

I do quite big productions in the studio that add up to 200 or more tracks, but not so much on live recordings. I’ve miked a lot of orchestra stuff over the years, and this is the best ever I have worked with and heard. The [Schoeps] shotguns in the back of the hall were great, and as for the DPAs, I went up to the main front of house guy during rehearsals and asked him how he made them sound so good, as I didn’t have much experience with that kind of mic technique. He showed me how he shelved them off at the high end, made them dip a little, so that’s all I did when we came to setting it up. We used the straight sounds, and they sounded fantastic. I thought the DPAs would be screechy, being close mics, but not at all, they were absolutely incredible.”

As our conversation comes to a close, Bauerfeind concludes that Merging is now, quite simply, a way of life for him in the studio: “I just did a shootout in Funkhaus, Berlin, with a couple of converters - it’s a very popular studio in the pop scene at the moment - and the Merging stuff came out just so pristine, precise, and really fast. Because I do a lot of speed metal stuff with percussive impulsive signals, I got hooked into Merging; it brings way more clarity into my working field.” www.merging.com www.dpamicrophones.com

ARTIST Q&A

Leo Leoni: Never Give Up Gotthard guitarist and co-founder, Leo Leoni, is all about performance, giving the fans what they want, and living for the music, no matter what the world might throw at him.

So, you’ve had 11 number ones in a row, Leo. Kind of speaks for itself, really, doesn’t it? [smiles] Yeah, it’s not bad, I guess. Could have been worse!

We have always tried to make great records, and when we’re not doing that, we’re touring. It’s been a case of one year making a record, and one year production.

And you’re about to complete your BANG tour, right?

Yeah, the last show is on Saturday, in San Moritz. We think it’s going to be a pretty hot show, in a very cold place! We’re looking at temperatures of -12 to -15 Celsius, but we’re lucky enough to have tube amps, so we can always use those to keep our hands warm if we need to!

You guys had to pick yourselves up back in 2010 after the tragic loss of your talented singer and co-founder, Steve Lee. How do you recover from something like that?

It’s not easy, but we have to always remember that we are blessed to do something that we believe in, and it was our dream as kids. Steve and I lived that dream, and were so lucky to do what we loved as our profession, and somehow tour it around the world. Life is not nice sometimes, but you have to pick up and keep going. What happened with Steve was shocking; we had reached that dream, and it was important to continue his legacy, and never give up. It happens.

Life is hard. And thankfully, we found Nic Maeder, and he suited what we were looking for. We had to go on. Luckily enough, 44 HEADLINER

“IT’S A GOOD LESSON IN LIFE: WHATEVER STANDS IN YOUR WAY, TRY AND MAKE IT HAPPEN.” we have a loyal fanbase, and it’s a great thing for us and the fans to see a band keep going when the going gets as tough as it did.

It’s a good lesson in life: whatever stands in your way, try and make it happen. Or as one famous songwriter once said, ‘take a sad song and make it better. [smiles] I’m sure you know who that was.

Indeed. Credit to you for pushing through the barricades, so to speak. Could we talk a little about the recording process, and the new kit you’ve adopted before I let you go to this gig? [laughs] Sure. I think what we noticed when working with the likes of [producer/mix engineer] Charlie Bauerfeind is that the quality of kit is getting closer to whatever analogue was.

He introduced me to Merging

Technologies, which is basically a company which delivers through its products very high-res protocol. Now, when you have this kind of resolution, it is a true eye-opener. Back in the day, we’d use analogue Studer tape, and we’d be like, ‘let’s sketch the moment and if we’re lucky, we’ll get the best take ever’. Now, Charlie has set me up with Merging’s Horus, which is giving me the most pristine, beautiful sound; and for me, it’s what everyone is looking for. As a musician, you constantly experiment – with me, it’s guitar, as I’m a guitarist – and the way I’ve got Horus set up means whenever I pick that guitar up and press record, it’s going to catch the best possible take, with the best possible quality. When I heard the results for the first time,

I was like, ‘oh wow, this is far ahead of anyone else’s technology today’. We found that out on playback when we listened to the last two productions we recorded and mixed with Charlie and Claudio [Kernen, recordist]. And now, we are going to use this new technology to help us take an old school approach, back to our roots, and go and nail the best possible performances in one or two takes, without using and abusing it. We come from the old school where performance and the vibe of the song is everything; and in the end, the most important thing is the song and the melody. It’s always been our trademark, and it’s what people always remember. www.gotthard.com

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BROADCAST

TECH AUDIO

Biovisjon: MADI to Measure One of Norway's leading subtitling TV production facilities, Biovisjon, has just had an audio makeover, which has helped expand its live studio capabilities, and improve overall workflow. The key? MADI. Headliner digs a little deeper.

Biovisjon is a sizeable production company whose clients include Norwegian TV channels NRK, TV2, and TVNorge, as well as a range of other companies that are in need of digital media services, be it content for TV, video, WEB, or IP-TV. Recently, its studios in Nydalen, Oslo received a serious audio

upgrade, courtesy of Optocore’s new M8 and M12 MADI bridges. The installation was carried out by Danmon Norway, and has provided Biovisjon with state-of-the-art, super-powerful audio routing: a massive 700 x 500 channels of I/O. Danmon and Biovisjon each boast more than 25 years’ experience in the field, with a relationship between the two companies existing for much of that time, so they were eager to explore all possibilities. This investment proved to be a ringing endorsement of the MADI standard.

“It was a perfect opportunity for them to look at a more powerful option,” explains Danmon’s key account manager, Jens Vik, adding that the original upgrade was to have 46 HEADLINER

been built around multiple Optocore DD2FR-FX and DD4MR-FX MADI devices. “Not only is this a more cost-effective solution, but it provides so much more in the way of I/O.” This new routing matrix has helped tremendously in Biovisjon’s expansion of their live studio capabilities from a single small studio to a second larger one, including a second control room.

“Both studios needed control capabilities from either room, so to give them as much flexibility as possible between their new Studer Vista 1 desk and the old Yamaha DM1000, it made perfect sense to install Optocore,” Vik explains. “Not only does it make cabling as easy as possible, but the Optocore X6R mic preamps can also be controlled by both mixers.

It’s a real no-brainer.”

The Biovisjon topography comprises M8-OPT and M12-OPT/ BNC standalone switches, which provide single-channel routing and bridging. In the central machine room, the M12 connects the Yamaha console to Optocore’s Cat5 SANE protocol via the Y3R-TP card; and in the audio control room, the M8-OPT is used exclusively for the Vista 1

interface. Also, for future productions where a PA-mixer is required, the system is ready for expansion into DiGiCo. And for the real techies amongst you: an Optocore X6R-TP-8MI/8LO is also connected by Cat5 SANE to the M12, providing 8/8 analogue connectivity in one studio, while a 32/32 stage box in the second studio houses an X6R-FX-16MI, and X6R-TP-16LO. “We use Neutrik opticalCON QUAD to feed the box,” Vik continues. “A

“Both studios needed control capabilities from either room, so to give them as much flexibility as possible, it made perfect sense to install Optocore.”

redundant ring going both ways through the stage box is also future-proofed.”

The M12 also interfaces with other broadcast kit such as embedders and de-embedders, and audio I/O to a Clear-Com intercom system.

“These are MADI I/O, so it makes the system very clean,” insists Vik, adding that a Fairlight editing system is also fed with MADI from the M12. “With node based routing like Optocore, the 47 HEADLINER

physical footprint in the machine room becomes much smaller, which was vitally important.

“The ability to share all inputs throughout the system proves that Optocore is 100% capable of handling any production: from easy recordings to large live TV shows, which also include live audience and PA-mixing.” www.optocore.com www.biovisjon.no

Inside Optocore’s M8 and M12 With four MADI ports, Optocore’s M8 offers 4 x dual BNC or 4 x duplex fibre, 2 SANE ports (which support MADI over Cat5), and 2 Optocore high-speed fibre uplinks; The M12 has 8 x MADI ports (providing 8 x dual BNC or 8 x duplex fibre), which function as standalone routers or can be integrated with any other Optocore interface.

LIGHTING

INSIGHT

Loz Upton We chat to acclaimed lighting designer, Loz Upton, about the ever-changing landscape of the music industry: trends, technique, technology, and tomorrow’s next big thing.

“I’ve been really busy: four rock and roll acts this year, and we’ve literally just stopped,” Loz Upton tells Headliner, adding that ‘it’s nice to turn the tap off now and again, and spend some time at home’. “It started with the Smashing Pumpkins rebuild back in November 2014; we tried out a few new members, and that culminated in Jimmy Chamberlin coming back into the band.”

At the same time, Upton was also bouncing between Jane’s Addiction and The Offspring, as well as his corporate business.

“Just like anybody else, the sophistication level of our shows is up and down; it’s very hard these days to get a rock and roll band to spend money on a set,” Upton admits. “You can’t compare these bands to Muse or Radiohead, because they’re really big earners, but a lot of the smaller theatre artists just don’t have the money to spend on sets and sophisticated lighting.

Although the festivals are doing a great job providing interim income for people, as a whole, it just becomes more of the same. It doesn’t matter how big the lighting rig is at a festival, you’re always hampered by the time you’ve got to program, which is very limited.

“And what’s happening is, it’s getting worse, because now anybody with a few bob is putting on a festival, and they shouldn’t be, because some of the production values are awful. But at the same time, it’s an enticing thing, too; if you really want to go barebones, just use the kit at the festival, you know? Strange situation, really.”

“Bands are emotional people,” Upton insists, which can make things a little tricky at times when working directly with them: “The last thing I want to do is to talk to the leader of the group, because a lot of the time he doesn’t know what he’s talking about! [laughs] Half the time, I’ll say, ‘what was it you saw that you liked?’, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember, it was just something’; 48 HEADLINER

and that’s why often you’ll see people chosen to come in and do the lighting, and bands can’t explain why, as it was just a vibe, or that they were caught a moment, somehow.

“It’s about finding a connection between the visual element, and whatever the band is trying to achieve, and sometimes the artist is heavily

“IT’S ABOUT FINDING A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE VISUAL ELEMENT, AND WHATEVER THE BAND IS TRYING TO ACHIEVE.” involved, sometimes not so much. And it doesn’t always work... But that’s life!”

Rather than ask for full tech specs, as each show Upton works is so different, we ask him about some of his favourite bits of lighting kit, and his philosophy when it comes to illuminating any show.

“You’ve only got to go to any lighting convention, and it’s like schoolboy soccer; the ball goes up in the air, and 20 players run onto it,” Upton says, with a smile. “But I’m personally very interested in what GLP has done as a manufacturer. They’re producing real game-changers by following their instincts and imagination, so that all of a sudden you find yourself saying, ‘well, that’s definitely the way to go’, because you want something that’s powerful, high quality, and basically won’t fall apart! And a lot of times when you look at stuff, you find yourself saying, ‘really?’ because you can see that some brands really do cut corners with their equipment: that might be their choice of power output, casing, or whatever, but it’s always about cutting down on manufacturing money. I don’t see that whatsoever with GLP.”

Upton likens GLP’s ethos to that of a producer making a great record: sometimes you have to wait a bit to get it exactly right: “It’s just the same with a quality moving light, as there is a lot of rubbish out there.

The difference with a brand like GLP is, I really like their philosophy, and I like what they’re doing; they were the first people to come out with a large LED fixture, and I’ve also known the guys for a long time.

They genuinely listen, and they know what they’re talking about. I basically use the whole GLP range in my designs.”

Budget is still very much an industry buzz-word – no surprises there – and in Upton’s opinion, the bottom line remains, “money and attitude”. So what happens next, Loz? “Well, the reality is, 90% of the bands out there are trying to make money on tours. They don’t care about the idealistic notion of idealistic things; they’re in it to pay the mortgage, and pay the bills, so

“GLP PRODUCE REAL GAME-CHANGERS BY FOLLOWING THEIR INSTINCTS AND IMAGINATION.” as an LD, you’ve got to have a damn good reason coming up with stuff,” comes the reply. “Let’s not jump ahead and run away with the technology, though. For me, the next thing has to be that every festival should have a 3D programming facility. Let’s consolidate, use this great technology, and get this in as industry standard. Today, it’s all about the dollar, you’ve got to figure shit out.

It’s just the way it is.” www.glp.de

GLP fixtures illuminating Smashing Pumpkins

Web Summit 2015 H e a d l i n e r g o e s b e h i n d t h e s ce n e s i n D u b l i n to d e s ce n d o n w h a t i s re p o r te d to b e t h e b e s t te c h n o l o g y co n fe re n ce o n t h e p l a n e t .

“Artists are smarter today than they have ever been.”

Web Summit 2015 is a huge and rapidly expanding conference for business and digital entrepreneurs. Its subject matter is centred on internet technology, and its attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to the world’s most exciting tech companies such as Amazon, Pixar, Google, Facebook, and Uber. The 2015 event was hosted at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), for 30 years the leading venue for conferences in Ireland.

For the second year running, Irish company, Sound Design was the audio rental supplier, providing systems for five stages within the RDS venue.

The largest of these was Centre Stage, with capacity for 5,000 people.

“This space was designed for showjumping competitions and exhibitions, not for perfect acoustics,” smiles Sound 50 HEADLINER

Design’s John Vickers. “Although Web Summit is a conference, the stage content is geared for a young, tech-savvy audience, so it’s very dynamic with lots of music and video as well as lively speeches, discussions, and presentations.”

To keep the audience satisfied from an audio perspective, Vickers and co. deployed Nexo line array and point-source systems in abundance: STM Series, GEO Series, PS Series, and RaySub Series cabinets were all on hand to provide the range and scale of sound reinforcement required for the nine-stage talk-fest that featured over 1,000 speakers addressing 42,000 delegates. And for those that took to the stage, Nexo’s 45N-12 wedges provided perfect foldback. And what about the sound, then?

“We found that the STM main arrays were loud enough to throw speech over 70 metres,” Vickers explains. “And dispersion was perfect for every seat in the [55-metre wide] hall and up into the tiered seating at the back, which had a 20-metre rake.

The top end sounded fantastic,

and in the low frequency range, even with clip mics, the throw was equally impressive.”

So what about the Summit itself, was it all it was cracked (or craic’d?) up to be? We asked SKIO Music CMO and co-founder, Darcy Hughes, and here’s what he said: “Music Summit only scratched the surface of the challenges and opportunities engulfing the industry today, but we sensed the overall vibes were on the optimistic side of things. For battle-weary soldiers having earned a living in the music space for decades, there was certainly some scar tissue showing within most of the presenters; and it was clear that these warriors believe their peers who hadn’t succeeded in making the transition into the digital era were not so much celebrated as they were brushed off with a sigh of relief.

“Artists are smarter today than they have ever been, and labels have less leverage, unless they

are willing to adapt. The tools and insights available are at an all time high, providing solutions and confusion all at once in a disconnected landscape.

“Those who engage entrepreneurial culture, and are willing to move out of analogue business workflows, and into streamlined services - like SKIO Music - will benefit greatly. We concluded the Irish leg, and our founding team went off to the next respective missions. I went on a surf trip with some execs on the west coast of Ireland; DJ Swivel flew back to LA for artist meetings; Omri jetted to SF MusicTech in San Francisco; and our CEO ripped across the pond to New York to get in front of some of the industry’s heaviest hitters. We were inspired by Music Summit’s unique opinions, dialogue and trends, and will continue to confirm SKIO’s offering and place in the industry by injecting our ethos into each and every corner.”

We’ll take that as a yes, then... www.nexo.fr www.websummit.net

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U2, O2 ARENA 26.10.15.

Show Review U2, O2 ARENA, LONDON Words COLIN PIGOTT

NORMALLY, WHENEVER U2 ROLL into town with their latest tour, its hype and anticipation has already been cranked up to, well, quite frankly, 11! For more than 20 years now, U2 have pushed the envelope on scale and visuals like no other band. We’ve had Trabant cars, satellite television, phone calls to The White House, giant glitter-ball lemons, and a 100-foot high structure, to name but a few, so it’s become expected from a U2 show to have something to dazzle and amaze us. I guess it’s a kind of big, electronic musical circus!

This time, however, they somewhat slipped into London through the side gate without much fuss, and pitched up their tent in London’s O2 Arena (which, ironically, is a huge tented structure), to deliver us their latest instalment.

This was a very different U2. Dubbed their Innocence and Experience tour, it was a stripped back and mellowed out. Bono had left the alter egos at home, and this one seemed to be more about the music. That’s not to say it wasn’t visually stunning and spectacular - it was - but it was clever and smart, this was U2 all grown up.

The set up was simple enough: a main stage with a walkway dividing the standing crowd leading to a small second stage; two huge see-through video screens ran alongside the walkway, in between which stood a platform for Bono and The Edge to wander around during a couple of numbers, and it was used to great effect. During The Fly, the band had completely disappeared, and it felt like an intermission until the next song, Invisible, began, where a soundwave broke the on-screen graphics, and began to reveal all four band members inside. Very cool indeed.

Bono still remains the ultimate showman, and knows just how to have an audience eat out of the palm of his hand, but he was more toned down, open, and emotional. He delivered a very touching and personal rendition of Iris – a song dedicated to his 53 HEADLINER

mother – where beforehand, he revealed how he felt when she died when he was only 14, and so turned to rock and roll and the band to fill the hole in his heart she left behind. Also, an incredible version of Every Breaking Wave (with Edge on the piano) nearly brought me to tears. It was a raw and powerful performance all night from all of them, and the sound in the O2

Gallagher join them for I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and an impromptu snippet of The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love, which closed the night.

Hands down, they were utterly phenomenal. It was two hours of total joy which left you breathless and wanting to see it all over again.

For me, they still do this better than

‘IT WAS CLEVER AND SMART, THIS WAS U2 ALL GROWN UP.’ was really on point: so clean and crisp, and better than I’ve ever heard them before.

The night was more special for a couple of lucky fans who were pulled up on stage, the now standard dance with a woman to Mysterious Ways this time around; and then two brothers came out the audience to play guitars on Angel of Harlem.

“The Edge always gets nervous when we try this!” Bono said, with a smile. He even swapped jackets with another guy he dragged up for City of Blinding Lights, and handed over his sunglasses. He had them back a song later insisting that, “we would have let

anyone else. They blend great music with a stunning visual distraction, which works incredibly well. U2 somehow continue to capture our imagination, yet at the same time constantly steal our hearts and minds!

As I made my way outside to queue for the tube, I was spoilt for choice on my favourite track of the night to hum all the way home. Out Of Control won out in the end over Miracle of Joey Ramone, in case you were wondering!

Sadly, we only get to see them about every five years. The wait makes it all worthwhile, but you really want to see them perform more regularly because they are a great live act.

‘BONO HAD LEFT THE ALTER EGOS AT HOME, AND THIS ONE SEEMED TO BE MORE ABOUT THE MUSIC.’ him keep them, you know, but they’re running a tight ship in wardrobe now, and I’ve promised to stop giving these away because they can’t get them anymore. It’s not the expense, it’s just we can’t get them!”

There was a good mix of the new and old songs blended together. I really like their early stuff, and with such a rich back catalogue to draw from, you never know what you’re going to get, plus they’ve varied the set list up every night on this tour.

Happily, though, some old classics were still in there. You’d feel a bit cheated if you went to a U2 show and didn’t hear Bullet the Blue Sky, Pride, With or Without You, and Streets; and I certainly wasn’t going home disappointed!

On this night, we also had Noel

Taking a huge outdoor stadium tour worldwide is understandably arduous and expensive, and naturally it coincides with a new album release, but there’s enough material to take an Innocence and Experience style tour out on the road and shake it up every year or two, and I’m sure no U2 fan will be complaining.

Hell, if they wanted to repeat exactly what I saw tonight and bring that back every year, then count me in – take all my money now!

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the big, brash, mega stadium monster, but if this is how it is from now on: intimate, low-key and indoors, then you won’t find me complaining.

ROADIE RANT

THE COFFEE CONSPIRACY A COUPLE OF NIGHTS AGO, I

stopped at a Deli-to-go, with the intention of putting myself in the right frame of mind for the long drive ahead. Remarkably, I was told that I could not be served coffee at this time of night as it fell under their license for alcohol restrictions! The whole ethos of a service station is to provide the right fuel to see the motorists safely on their way, and while I can appreciate that alcohol may well be hazardous to road users, I failed to see how coffee could possibly be heading the same way.

Some years ago, I took it upon myself to try and persuade motorway services to serve a decent cup of coffee; it’s the life blood of us road crews across the world. Particular focus fell on Road Chef, who seemed to use a leading coffee brand’s logo as a means of attracting motorists into their service stations. Great during the day, but at night, these were always closed, and very few had an alternative on offer from a machine or a human. After dozens of letters to Road Chef about their false advertising claims with regards to this brand, I was very pleased they took notice of a growing body of disgruntled customers, and started to staff the coffee shops overnight; it was now possible to get a good cup of coffee when you needed it most.

Well, not exactly. You see, things have recently taken a turn for the worse. Now, you rarely find a coffee outlet open, or you’re forced to buy coffee from an express machine, or worse still, you head over to a burger chain and try your luck there. I tried a latte at one such place recently, only to discover it had subtle overtones of cardboard, and a stewed metallic taste throughout.

54 HEADLINER

When I asked if the machine was doing its job properly, and suggested it might need cleaning, the spotty teenager remarked: “You probably don’t know, but these machines are self-cleaning.” Hmm. If you are lucky enough to find a coffee outlet open, it’s very likely to be staffed by somebody who is unable to read the temperature gauge of the steaming milk, uses milk which has already been steamed, or is desperate to use up the skimmed, no matter what your preference. Or worse still (again), a coffee which gives you the impression you just paid somebody three quid to heat up a pint of milk.

In my time, I have seen it all.

From the girl in the burger joint who took three attempts to vend the correct coffee from a machine with a choice of two, to the two morons who were sitting drinking coffee from branded coffee cups in a motorway service station who, when politely asked if they could get me a coffee, informed me that the coffee outlet was closed at night, as was the shop that also sold coffee, while sporting the uniforms of these two respective franchises, and name tags to boot! After a little discreet photography and letter writing, I was quick to enquire as to their whereabouts on a subsequent visit, only to find that sadly they no longer worked there.

I believe we in the UK don’t speak out enough when things are not what they should be.

We seem to accept and, dare I say, expect mediocre service.

We should perhaps in this respect be a little more like our American cousins whom, at the very least, expect to get what they pay for.

“I TRIED A LATTE RECENTLY, ONLY TO DISCOVER IT HAD SUBTLE UNDERTONES OF CARDBOARD.”

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