Headliner Issue 35

ISSUE 35 / DEC 2020 SUPPORTING THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY

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LESSONS IN LIFE

LEANN RIMES ARLO PARKS

COLLAPSED IN SUNBEAMS

AMY MACDONALD THE HUMAN DEMANDS

JAKE BUGG

ORGANIC COMPOSITION

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ISSUE 35

Headliner Magazine

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35 Welcome to Issue 35 of Headliner.

We’re seeing out 2020 by chatting to country music star LeAnn Rimes as she prepares to celebrate 25 years as a recording artist; a fact that’s almost as hard to believe as the year we’ve all had! This year also marks 20 years since the iconic movie Coyote Ugly was released – a film which LeAnn provided the soundtrack for. We find out about her stories, motivations, love of music, and humble attitude towards success as she revisits the soundtrack with long time collaborator, Dave Aude.

While this year has been a challenge, to say the least, it’s also been an incredible year for music; with aspiring, emerging and top tier artists all over the world working hard to bring new music to the ears of those who’ve needed it most: the people.

We catch up with Jake Bugg about getting creative with production during lockdown, working with Rick Rubin, and his upcoming fifth record; and find out why making music is a fun, liberating, albeit very personal experience for London-based singersongwriter Arlo Parks, whose muchanticipated debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams is out in January.

Meanwhile, Amy Macdonald reveals why her latest record - which she says captures the nostalgia of her debut album - is her favourite to date, and Welsh techno/dream-pop sensation Kelly Lee Owens gives us an insight into her world of spiritual and physical healing.

This month also saw the release of Cyberpunk 2077 - arguably the most hyped-up video game of all time.

Check out our bumper feature to learn how a crack team of composers forged an extraordinary soundtrack for one of the biggest and most complex games ever created.

In production, Andy Sneap reflects on the moment he was asked to join Judas Priest; Pete Martin gives us the lowdown on the “ultimate” Genelec monitoring setup in his new London studio; and Flux Pavilion explains how he uses Steinberg’s Cubase to turn fantasy into music.

In our Spotlight section, we explore the potential of D’Angelico’s Excel Bowery acoustic guitar through Scope Labs’ unique Periscope mic; take a deep dive with Leapwing’s RootOne plugin; and road test Sennheiser’s new mic range at a live and socially distanced comedy gig.

Enjoy the issue - and a very Merry Christmas from all at Headliner

Colby Ramsey Group Editor HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

20 / LILLA VARGEN 14 / ARLO PARKS 08 / OZ

38 / JAKE BUGG

28 / CYBERPUNK 2077

24 / OLI JACOBS

34 / CAESARS FORUM

54 / DAVE AUDE

44 / SCHITT’S CREEK

48/ leann rimes

72 / JON LEWIS

58 / JOHN BROWNE

76 / AMY MACDONALD

64 / ANDRE JACQUEMIN

86 / PETE MARTIN 82 / KELLY LEE OWENS

90/ WHITE TAIL FALLS

102 / ANDY SNEAP 98 / EUROSPORT 94 / FLUX PAVILION

106 / ASTRÆA

132 / EASY LIFE

136 / MARTY WILDE

112 / SPOTLIGHT REVIEWS

146 / FOR KING & COUNTRY 142 / GLASS ANIMALS

152 / BLANKS

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OZ

Me, Myself and I

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ME, MYSELF AND I

OZ Growing up in her family’s pizzeria in Soho, Oz spent a lot of time mingling with its clientele of actors, gangsters, drag queens and sex workers. Just like them, Oz has a story to tell, and she’s not afraid of getting a little weird.

The alt-pop artist’s music – like Oz herself – is headstrong, provocative, fierce, and as I learn, is never anything less than honest.

“Growing up in an environment like that, you learn very quickly that no two people are the same,” she says, speaking to Headliner from her flat where she’s hanging out with her little rescue dog in an eerily quiet Brighton.

“There is literally no normal; normal doesn’t exist. I think it was a great way to grow up, because straight away your eyes are open to all different people from all different walks of life, so there

is nothing that frightens you. People are always afraid of the unknown; they are afraid of things they don’t understand.

But when you grow up somewhere like that, you are immediately accepting of everybody, and that makes for a much more fascinating world when you can be surrounded by different cultures and people from entirely different walks of life. If everyone was the same, that would be the most boring thing in the entire world.”

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OZ

Me, Myself and I

Oz has always been an inquisitive person, and her unique upbringing went on to influence her songwriting.

A fascination for hearing other people’s stories gave her a broad palette to work with when it came to penning her own tunes.

Oz has been a songwriter since her early teens, after her father’s passion for music inspired her immersion in the worlds of bold musicians like The Clash, Dolly Parton, No Doubt and Kate Bush.

“When it comes to songwriting, I have far more to say because it’s my perspective on other people’s stories that they’ve told me, and it’s me retelling them in my way.”

Her early demos resulted in her working with established writers and producers when she was just 15 years old, quickly establishing herself as an in-demand songwriter before she forged her signature style during sessions with Biff Stannard (Ellie Goulding, Kylie, Spice Girls).

She even signed a major label deal as a teenager, but ultimately their aims clashed: the label wanted a pre-packaged pop star, while Oz felt closer in spirit to Alanis Morrissette.

“It just snowballed really,” she reflects.

“I signed a record deal when I was 16 and a publishing deal when I was 17. The music industry is a bit like that saying that men are like buses: when you want one, there’s none around, and then when you’re not looking, three show up. The music industry has HEADLINER MAGAZINE

this weird alchemy where everything suddenly aligns and it all just comes together, so I think my career so far has been a happy accident,” she laughs – although she’s being serious.

“I know that sounds weird to say, but in and out of music I’ve been working in retail. I think just through pure stubbornness, I’ve managed to stay in music since I was a tween.”

Aged 18, Oz realised that her label was only interested in packaging her as a pop artist (and potentially one that would have to wear a lot of pink). Feeling that it was unlikely that she would be dropped, she asked to leave the label.

“I didn’t know that it was going to be the right decision, and there was always that part of me that was going, ‘Am I gonna shoot myself in the foot here?’ But one of the things that’s really important for artists is to be authentic. Even if I had stayed at the label and done music that I was comfortable with, or aesthetics-wise what I was comfortable with, I still think further down the line it wouldn’t have worked out because the general public that buy records are not stupid people. They can see through the crap and the bullshit, and if a person isn’t being their authentic self.

“Now in 2020, it’s a time to be your authentic self and embrace who you are,” she asserts. “I just knew that if I’d stayed on the label and made music that I didn’t believe in, I would have been miserable. I wasn’t prepared to play that game and I’ve always been

encouraged to be who I am. That was something that has always been really important to me, so I wasn’t prepared to let that slide.”

Unsurprisingly, Oz has always been drawn to artists that push the boundaries and have something important to say: “I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of music,” she agrees.

“You often find deeper messages with artists that push the boundaries a little bit more. I’ve always been drawn to that, because I’m quite an inquisitive person, and I’ve always wanted to find out lots of information about weird things. I guess I have a slightly macabre taste in things, and for me, music has been a way to expand my horizon in every aspect of my life. I think it’s really interesting when you listen to an artist that talks about something that somebody else necessarily wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about, or explores an issue that the media tries to avoid.”

ASPIRING HEADLINER

She’s quick to point out that she loves a cheesy ‘80s love song as much as the next person: “Big cheesy ‘80s fan – I love all of that stuff! But I’ve always found it really interesting when an artist goes, ‘I’m not going to play by the rules; I’m going to say something a bit more out there’. It’s inspiring when people put their careers on the line to say something that matters.”

She recently shared the biggest statement of her career so far with her debut EP Jupiter, which is uncensored, all-out Oz. The EP’s title track (“a call out to the bad bitches”) sees her pay tribute to one of her best friends, an ex-stripper who does and says exactly what she wants, while Foot Down is a song about being the master of one’s own destiny and not letting anything stand in your way.

“I think I’ve always been one of those people who reacts to the word ‘no’,” she admits with a grin. “When someone says, ‘no you aren’t good enough’ or ‘no you can’t’, I immediately make it my mission to prove them wrong.

Foot Down is about lighting that fire in yourself and going after what you want no matter what anyone says. I’ve had an interesting journey in my musical life and I’m in a place now where I feel ready for anything and Foot Down is my musical expression of that feeling.”

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And her choice to record as Oz rather than her real name?

“The part of me that’s Oz is my weirder side,” she explains.

“Oz has always been the nutter. Oz is my Sasha Fierce – she’s the part of me that isn’t afraid to be dark and weird.

I write songs that maybe don’t make sense to everybody, but I know what I’m all about. I’m the one that isn’t afraid to push boundaries. Then I have my songwriter side which knows the formulas of writing pop music and that knows how to work with an artist to get the best out of them. I figured if I can work with an artist to get the best out of them, then I should be able to apply those skills to myself to get the best out of me in terms of who I am as an artist. It’s been a journey, but with the EP I was really able to dig into the things that make Oz special and make her different.”

She immediately notes that she is very aware how odd it sounds to have just referred to herself in the third person: “It sounds really pretentious, but that’s how I separate my songwriting and my artist side,” she laughs. “They’re not completely different people, but they’re from the same family, because it’s all from me. When you write pop music, you’re not always free to bend the rules, so I wanted to really push the boundaries with myself and make something that didn’t sound like anything else.”

Oz shares that she has albums and albums worth of music that will likely never be heard, but she was determined to let this track see the light of day: “If people tell me what box I fit into, I go the other way.

That’s how this song came about really; it was definitely fun to make a ‘middle finger in the air’ track.”

HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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OZ

Me, Myself and I

When it comes to imparting her wisdom onto other aspiring artists out there, Oz stresses the importance of having a manager that believes in you: “I have had the same manager since I started; our relationship has lasted longer than most marriages! We’re like family, and I think if I hadn’t had her as my manager, I may well have given up a long time ago because she pushes me through. Also I think it’s good to read a lot of biographies and autobiographies of other artists to learn where we’ve been musically before we know where to go. One of my most valuable teachings is to stay true to yourself. It sounds cheesy, but if something doesn’t feel right, trust that.”

Through writing for other artists, Oz was able to find her way to her authentic self when it came to songwriting: “When I was writing songs for other people, I was very much trying to make music that I thought would show everybody that I can be successful and I can be a big pop star, but I was

just making music for the sake of trying to stick it to the man, I guess, which was silly. Working with other artists really drilled home that it is okay to be who I am. I really did discover what made me special, and having lost that for a while, it was nice to get it back.”

Oz says that being unashamedly herself has become more and more important to her over the years: “I’ve seen too many of my friends lose themselves or feel that they had to hide parts of themselves in order to fit in or be accepted by society, and I just accepted that that’s something that we have to do as human beings.

When writing the EP, I wanted the message to be: look, I’m weird – which I am. I’m really weird, and I like weird stuff. I like to write weird music, read weird books and watch weird films.

And that’s okay – go nuts! You can do it too. That was an important part of myself that I wanted to give to other people.”

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14

ARLO PARKS

The Little Details

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ARLO PARKS 2020 has been a mega year for London-based singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, who wrote and recorded most of her latest album, Collapsed In Sunbeams, during lockdown. Listed as one of the BBC’s breakthrough acts of the year, Arlo recently told Headliner how poetry has influenced her songwriting process, and why she feels making music should be a fun, liberating, albeit very personal experience.

“It’s been very, very busy actually,” reveals Parks when I quiz her on the year she’s had so far, and it’s certainly been nothing short of that.

She’d recently returned from Rome where she was involved in the filming of Gucci’s eponymous seven-part mini-series, as part of plans to present its upcoming OUVERTURE

of Something that Never Ended collection.

While it’s clear that Parks has got her fingers in many pies, the fashion world being just one of them, she’s also been spending lots of time on the creative and visuals for her own upcoming project, Collapsed In Sunbeams.

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ARLO PARKS

The Little Details

“I’ve also been reading lots of books, and doing lots of interviews like this,” she says as we share a laugh. “The first lockdown was very productive, and I felt very inspired by ideas of nostalgia and what events in my life have shaped me; I felt very fulfilled by writing about that and creating an album around that world.”

comfortable with. I felt that initial sense of wanting to create something that’s vulnerable, and that has depth to it. I didn’t really think about it too much though - I was still at school so that was my priority. It just felt like a statement of intent I guess; I was aware that I was going to grow and change as an artist.”

During the second lockdown however, Parks allowed herself a break from the unabated writing, using it as an opportunity to recharge and consume some of her favourite art.

Through her clear passion and mature attitude towards music, I get the impression that Parks has a head on her shoulders that’s wise way beyond its years. I’ve also seen her posting some of her beautiful poetry on social media, and I’m curious to know how much of an effect this has on her creative process when it comes to songwriting.

Her debut was in fact almost exactly two years ago when she released her single Cola through Beatnik Creative and announced her debut EP Super Sad Generation, a particularly important record in communicating her musical identity when first coming onto the scene.

“I was very aware of the fact that that record is a time capsule; it was just the beginning of the journey,” she offers. “I didn’t really expect much from it to be honest. I just made it with people who I was very

“THAT’S MY FAVOURITE THING AS A MUSICIAN TO BE HONEST, BEING ABLE TO VISIT ALL THESE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND TALK TO FANS AND HEAR THEIR STORIES AND SEE THE WORLD.”

“All of my lyrics come from poetry,” she confirms. “I started putting poetry and spoken word over beats that I made on GarageBand when I was 14 or 15, and I just always gravitated towards the imagery and the sensory nature of poetry. For me it was quite an organic evolution, putting poetry to music, and then I started experimenting with singing.

I still like incorporating spoken word into my songs and having these little interludes - like on my track Hurt there’s a little stripped down moment.

I still love doing that.”

From a very young age, Parks was subjected to the smooth sounds of jazz and soul, two genres which have quite obviously influenced her own sound: “My mum would also play a lot of Prince and ‘80s French pop, but guitar music was always the focus for me growing up,” she shares. “I really love people like the Arctic Monkeys, The Pixies, and King Krule, whose first album came out when I was around 13 and I just loved the kind of grit and the rawness of it. I also got really into hip hop for a minute - listening to a lot of Mos Def and MF Doom and Biggie stuff - so while my taste and influence has always been quite broad, I’ve always gravitated towards lyricists.

“The process for me is that something will happen or I’ll think of something, and then usually I’ll write about it for 10 minutes or so in a stream of consciousness. I’ll then pick parts or phrases that I like, and make that into a poem. Those poems then form the basis for the lyrics, so for me it is always words first.”

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ARTIST

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EYES OPEN After releasing Cola, Parks signed to Transgressive Records - a pivotal moment that caused her musical journey to start snowballing: “It happened very organically,” she reveals. “I took a meeting with them, and immediately they were talking about literature, about film, and I could just tell there was this genuine passion and excitement for what I was doing, which felt amazing. I just had this gut instinct that they were the right family for me.”

Despite this fact, Parks always wanted to start off as an independent artist.

Much like some of the artists she looks up to - including Radiohead, Kamasi Washington, and Adele - who started their journeys as independents, she was keen to retain that sense of creative control.

I segue into the live performance side of Parks’ music, something she has been missing a lot after gracing the BBC Music Introducing stage at Glastonbury in 2019, which to her must seem like a lifetime ago now.

She had in fact embarked on her first headline tour of Europe just before the pandemic struck back in the spring: “I was supposed to be doing something like 36 festivals this summer, and supporting Hayley Williams in the States, and so I was very much prepared to have a livebased year,” she says with some sorrow. “That’s my favourite thing as a musician to be honest, being able to visit all these different countries and talk to fans and hear their stories and see the world.

“We just announced the European tour again which will hopefully be around April time, and I’m crossing my fingers that it can go ahead. I’ve been doing some live streams, and although it’s not as fun, the fact that people are getting something out of it, and that fans can still be connected to the live element of my work in some respects makes it positive.”

After the initial sense of disappointment faded, Parks quickly realised that this was an opportunity that she would probably never get again. With nothing to do other than “sit, write, think and play guitar,” she immediately threw herself back into that world, releasing two singles; Eugene and Black Dog, in May. “I’ve just suddenly clocked that time is moving so weird - I totally forgot that it was actually this year that I put out those songs!” she laughs. “They had actually been written for a while, I think since I was at school, and when we released them I felt a strange sense of serendipity. When Black Dog came out especially, people were in need of something that spoke to those difficult feelings that many were experiencing during this pandemic.

I’m glad that it managed to touch so many people and help them in a deeper way than maybe it would have otherwise.”

More recently, Parks announced her much anticipated debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams, which is set for release early 2021 (I for one am very excited). One of the singles, Green Eyes, is a beautifully vulnerable track that captivates raw and honest

emotion, while retaining that feeling of a soft, spellbinding end of the summer song with intricate guitar melodies and smooth lyrics set against a lo-fi beat. It’s fair to say that it’s quintessential Arlo.

“My tracks generally have quite a different range of influences, and the way they’re put together often varies,” she explains. “With Green Eyes, we were really inspired by the album Blonde by Frank Ocean, and by shoegazing stuff like Beach House.

I wanted something I could stand at the sink with, with the bubbles in it; something that has a sense of nostalgia, and to me it felt quite playful and summery.

“I’d also been listening to a lot of DJ Shadow, so drums were super, super important for me. The way that I wrote the lyrics was very fluid, almost like an emotional outpouring. It did just feel like I was telling the story of the summer that I had a few years ago, and it all came together very naturally.

I definitely think that the environment always has an impact on the art, and I think in general I’m quite an observant person.

“I write things down all the time, so it means that I’m often documenting the little details. It’s just a habit that I’ve got into. I’ve been journaling since I was young and I usually go back and mine that for inspiration at some point or another.”

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ARLO PARKS

The Little Details

“THE VALHALLA VINTAGEVERB IS SOMETHING THAT I REALLY LOVE TO USE ON ALL OF MY VOCAL TRACKS...”

CALCULATED While many singer-songwriters have been using lockdown this year to really take a deep dive into the technical aspect of their craft, Parks has been involved on the production side for quite some time: “I started off making all my own beats because I didn’t really know how else to make songs! I had Garageband and I had YouTube, and that was basically how I figured it out. In terms of production, I’m always very, very specific about what I want, whether it’s about the type of reverb we use on a guitar, or how resonant the kick drum is. A few of the tracks on the album are demos I started by myself in my room, and finished off later.

“The Valhalla VintageVerb is something that I really love to use on all of the vocals on my tracks,” she adds. “To be honest, a lot of the presets in Logic are pretty good, and there’s also this Soft Piano plugin on Spitfire Audio LABS which I love and have been using so much.”

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Parks has also been involved in some incredible collaborations in her relatively short career, including recent partnerships with Glass Animals and Fraser T. Smith, but are there any particular projects that have really stood out for her?

“Probably my favourite is on a track called Sunrise by this band from New York called MICHELLE,” she reveals.

“I tried my hand at rapping again, and some spoken word inspired by Noname’s Telefone album. It was so freeing to express myself in that way and it felt so familiar, because I remember when I was 15 that’s basically all I did. It felt so natural, and it was such a fun process as well, just to be recording from my room again.

“I really don’t like being in studios; I like being in houses, Airbnbs, apartments, bedrooms. For me it’s just so much more comfortable, and I think there’s often a sense of discomfort or pressure that comes

from being in a studio environment. I know some people love it, but it’s just not for me.”

Juggling multiple projects and keeping busy comes as a joy to Parks, who is now laser-focused on laying the foundations and building up a sense of excitement for Collapsed In Sunbeams: “There’s going to be some singles coming out between now and then,” she teases. “I’m working on the music videos, and I’m going to continue writing my poetry collection which I’m hoping to publish next year, as well as trying my hand at acting and a few other bits.

“I’m excited to see where my instincts take me in terms of the next project, and I can’t wait to be able to travel when we can, to collaborate with more people from overseas in person.”

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20

LILLA VARGEN

Making Blueprints

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LILLA VARGEN Having accumulated 30 million streams and completed a huge arena tour supporting Dermot Kennedy, Lilla Vargen is one of Ireland’s fastest rising new talents.

Speaking to Headliner from her home in London, Lilla says that leaving Ireland was one of the biggest decisions of her life, admitting that living in the UK capital took some adjusting to: “It was a decision that I had come to after a lot of deliberation with myself for a couple of years,” she says.

“There comes a point where you just say to yourself: ‘It’s now or never; If I don’t go now, I’m probably just gonna stay here and I’ll forget about all this’. I gave myself an ultimatum.

I really like London though! The first few months were difficult because everything’s faster here. Back home, everything moves a bit slower.”

Lilla distinctly remembers her last live performance, as it was at the very end of the Dermot Kennedy tour where she performed in front of 12,000 people.

“In December it will be a year since I played my last show, which is crazy to me.”

On joining Kennedy’s tour, Lilla says it’s one of the greatest things that has ever happened to her: “At first it was hard to come to terms with, because before that I would play in front of 300 people, maximum. To go from that to a few thousand a night was a big step!

But I was getting used to it...I just love his fans because they actually want to listen to music, and they’re so supportive – they even put their torches up and everything for me,” she says earnestly.

During the course of the tour, she spent a lot of time with Kennedy and his team. This reminds her of the time she got tonsillitis: “I was freaking out about the show that night, and Dermott saw me in the corridor as I was about to cry, and he brought me into a room and he just said, ‘Look, the doctor is on the way; it’s absolutely fine. Just do whatever you can do and don’t worry about it’.

He was just so nice about it.”

Luckily, the medication the doctor prescribed and “lots and lots of hot drinks” helped Lilla make it onto the stage that night: “It was fine!” she says, sounding relieved all over again. “I really pulled myself together that night; I whacked a load of makeup on, got my outfit on, fixed my hair, got my antibiotics and I just went out and did it.”

After a break this summer spent writing and recording, Lilla is currently building towards next year’s release of her debut album.

Devastatingly beautiful new single, Blueprints (‘The cards are on the table, if you don’t know by now’ will hit you like an emotional gut punch), is already established as a fan favourite and is a regular set-closer at Lilla’s live shows. It’s easy to see why: the heartbreaking pop ballad is both theatrical and candid in its intimacy, while Lilla’s evocative vocals surge with the emotion of someone who has lived through every single thing she is expressing.

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LILLA VARGEN

Making Blueprints

“We all tend to plan ahead so much, but sometimes life can send us in a different direction. Blueprints is about making sure you plan for yourself as well as for those you love”

“Blueprints is a song I wrote during a time of change in my life,” she shares.

“I was saying goodbye to someone I loved and starting a new adventure on my own. We all tend to plan ahead so much, but sometimes life can send us in a different direction.

This song is about making sure you plan for yourself as well as for those you love. Life is unpredictable and HEADLINER MAGAZINE

people can either stick with you or leave you.”

Why does Lilla think this song resonates with so many people?

“I think it’s because in one way or another – it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman, if you’re a teenager, grown up, or elderly – no matter who

you are, in your lifetime there will be a point where you probably planned for something and it didn’t work out,” she answers. “This song is about putting somebody else first, and then all those plans around them just crumble. You have to realise that you matter most.”

EMERGING HEADLINER

The inspiration for the song goes back to the time Lilla was making her decision to move away from Ireland.

“The relationship I was in just fell apart, and I had all these plans. I was really devastated because I had missed out on times I could have been spending building my own career or building my own life. I could have moved over here sooner; I could have done all these things.

I really enjoy singing this one even though it’s so sad! I think that’s a good thing because it’s one thing to go through something rubbish, but you need to learn from it. Being able to sing this song and knowing what it’s about was me moving on from it.”

This is one of Lilla’s favourite songs of hers, although she’s reluctant to praise herself too much: “It’s probably up there,” she says modestly. “Okay, maybe it’s my favourite one I’ve written; I don’t know if I should say that! I do really love it and I look forward to singing it at the end of the set, because it always gets such a great reaction.”

Produced by Phil Cook (Birdy, Lewis Capaldi), Blueprints is Lilla’s first release since she shared Love You Twice back in April 2020.

“Phil is such a nice guy, and an amazing producer so I thought that he would be a great choice for this, because I didn’t think he would take away from the song. A great producer will do what the artist needs

them to do,” she adds. “He wasn’t pushing ideas on me whatsoever, or trying to force me into making it sound a different way. We listen to each other; I think that’s what makes a great song.”

After listening to the finished track (and weeping, I’m assuming?) Lilla says they high-fived each other: “I wish there was something more exciting I could say,” she laughs good naturedly. “I wish I had popped a bottle of champagne!”

For someone that has released fewer than a dozen tracks, Lilla has already achieved seven Top 15 New Music Friday adds on Spotify, plus numerous key playlists at Apple Music. Radio is rapidly gaining traction too, with Radio 1 airplay from Phil Taggart, Huw Stephens and Best New Pop alongside support from Radio X and Ireland’s RTÉ 1 and 2.

Lilla is finding it all a bit surreal:

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Lilla is looking forward to making a long-awaited return to live shows, and her biggest headline tour to date has been rescheduled for autumn 2021. In the meantime, she is looking forward to her debut album release, although she doesn’t want to give too much away just yet: “It’s going to have a mixture of sounds,” she shares. “I want to have those amazing vocals that you might find in a Sam Smith or Adele track, but I also want there to be lots of amazing textures on the big, hardhitting songs that you’ll want to hear live. You know when you listen to a song and you’re just like, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t wait to go to a live show and hear this’? That’s what I want it to be. I want it to have those moments of simplicity and beauty.”

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“I was somebody who didn’t think that I could actually do this for a job,” she admits. “I was just living in the countryside and writing songs in my room, so to have millions of streams is just insane, and to have Spotify, Apple Music and radio stations recognising me is just crazy. I can’t really believe it sometimes, but at the same time I’m just trying not to think about it too much. Yes, I’ve done well so far, but there’s so much more I want to do.

I just want to keep going and keep writing music.”

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OLI JACOBS

Lost In Space

LOST IN SPACE

“The studio has been quite busy and we’ve had a lot of fun projects come

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Head engineer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, Oli Jacobs has been as busy as ever this year, particularly with one of the studio’s initiatives, WOMAD at Home. A collaboration between Real World and the WOMAD international arts festival, the project has seen a number of artists record intimate tracks in lockdown using d&b audiotechnik’s immersive Soundscape system.

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through,” Oli Jacobs tells Headliner during lockdown number two in the UK. “We took on more remote mixing stuff when we went into the first lockdown which was great, but then you quickly remember that you need musicians to make records, so we started to miss them all.”

The situation led the Real World team to come up with a number of initiatives, one of which being WOMAD at Home, a collaboration between the studio and its sister companies: WOMAD Festival and Real World Records.

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“And then the studio got busier because artists weren’t able to tour, so we saw a massive uptick in bookings in maybe the busiest six months we’ve ever had,” Jacobs adds. “Being a residential studio outside of London, people could come down and stay the night and not have to touch public transport, so it became an ideal location for them to record.”

Real World Studios’ surroundings are truly stunning. Set in idyllic countryside within the small village of Box just outside of Bath, it’s no surprise that artists started to flock there to isolate and focus on making records: “When you come here, all the distractions are taken away, and I think that’s why we’ve become busier in the last few years as people have gone back to that way of recordmaking, which we’re really happy about.”

Jacobs studied classical singing, drum and piano on the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey, and always knew he wanted to get into the recording and engineering side.

“Being in the studio was always the

obvious thing, because it combines music and technology, which are two things that really excite me,” he shares. “I spent my placement year working for Peter Gabriel, the owner of Real World Studios, as his assistant engineer. And then in a turn of fate as I was graduating, a space became available in the main studio as a junior assistant, so I started working under the senior engineer at the time, Patrick Phillips, and learned a lot from him.

“When Patrick left to work out of his own space in Bristol, I stepped up to head engineer, and now we’re quite a big team at the studio: There’s four or five engineers and a technician, and so more recently I’ve started to take on more projects outside of Real World.”

Having become a stalwart of Real World, Jacobs has fine tuned his mixing techniques and creative process over the years, but admits that his approach often varies depending on the project. For most projects he mixes in the box, and has been using Pro Tools since day one.

“When it comes to making pop records, we set up all the instruments in the room so that people can jump

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on one instrument at a time, and build up songs and write in that way,” he explains. “On the flip side of that, especially in the Wood Room, there’s the ability to do more intimate recordings with a group of people, so a lot of jazz records are made in there.

“And then the really cool thing is that on a really big session, you can set up across both the Big Room and the Wood Room, so you get the best of both worlds. We’ve recently installed loads of video links across the whole room so you can record everyone together even in isolation, so it’s an amazingly flexible place to work. The same goes when it comes to analogue versus digital; there’s so much kit in both rooms that we can cater for most requirements.”

One of the key things Jacobs learned from Peter Gabriel himself is that Real World was designed to be a musician’s studio, not an engineer’s studio.

“Engineers either love or hate having everything in the room together,” he says. “Obviously it’s very different to a traditional studio in that the control room and live room are one space.

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OLI JACOBS

Lost In Space

“One of the other things I learned early on is that you can have all this amazing gear and an amazing studio, but ultimately if the music’s not good, then none of it matters. Hence, Real World is really focused on making sure musicians and producers are comfortable and happy in an environment they love.”

And it’s the sheer variety of work that comes through Real World that keeps Jacobs on his toes. Some of his highlights include recording and mixing two live albums for Madness - the first of which was at Kenwood House with a 40-piece orchestra - collaborating with Paul Woolford and Diplo on a track that went to number four on the UK Singles Chart, and mixing Sub Focus and Wilkinson’s energetic album project Portals.

“Sub Focus and Wilkinson is a great example of how you don’t have to fit into a mould,” he asserts. “Those guys predominantly work in the box, so this was a great opportunity to come to Real World, split that up as much as possible with loads of inputs and outputs, and set up all the gear around the room. What that meant was I was able to help them come up with new stuff that they wouldn’t have been able to do just in the box. Not only was that really fun, but it helped set that record apart for me sonically, with so much interesting stuff going on.”

Jacobs goes on to tell me how this year’s WOMAD at Home project first found its feet: “Basically we came across a government grant that was offering some money to do something innovative in the world of arts. With WOMAD unable to happen, and the links we’ve got with the record label and the studio, we thought it’d be a really good opportunity for us to bring some artists into the studio as lockdown started to ease.

“We brought eight artists into the studio and recorded them as live. It was different to the hundreds of other live stream concerts in that there was no video, and it was all about creating a 360° listening experience.”

Utilising their strong links with d&b audiotechnik - who have had their own Soundscape stage at WOMAD Festival for the last five years - Real World were able to harness the company’s immersive technology in creating the WOMAD at Home performances.

“Soundscape has two parts to it; one is about being able to localise where the sound comes from on the stage, and the other element is a 360° array, which we tapped into,” Jacobs explains. “We had eight to 10 speakers wrapped around a binaural head in the Wood Room, and were able to use the object based system and really amazing reverbs to localise stuff around the head.”

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The aim of the whole project was to make it sound like listeners were actually in the studio with the artists.

“We started with Sarathy Korwar who’s a drummer in the UK jazz scene.

We set him up with a full band in the Wood Room, and they were really excited to play together for the first time in ages so they just jammed for five or six hours. They’re such amazing musicians that we were able to take sections of that and turn it into a performance.

“Another one of note was 9Bach who are a Welsh alternative folk band. My colleague and friend Ollie Middleton went to Wales and they did a lot of recording in caves, the whole idea being that we could take people to spaces that they couldn’t go to, which was just really fun. And obviously we were able to support musicians who didn’t have any gigs at that time as well, which was a win-win.”

Another important element of the project was about encouraging people to turn off their screens: “Lots of people are spending whole days on Zoom on a computer, so this was trying to be the opposite of that.

Turn off your screen, put on some headphones, close your eyes and enjoy the music.”

With many of the performances being recorded at Real World as the first UK lockdown eased, Jacobs is grateful that they were able to use the studio’s large spaces to operate in a safe, socially distanced manner.

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system and called it the Soundscape tent.

“The d&b guys are based just up the road from us so it was destined to happen in some way. Soundscape has amazing localisation capabilities and being able to make stuff fly around the stage with the 360° element is a lot of fun. A lot of artists use that and the reverb to take their audience to a whole different space.”

And Jacobs believes that WOMAD Festival visitors are the type to truly appreciate this innovative exhibition of sound: “We have an SSL L300 at front of house which feeds into the 64 by 64 matrix, and then we have five or six stacks across the front, and a ring of 22 speakers around the outside of the marquee.

“It was really fun to be able to pull that into the studio as well. As far as I’m aware, we’re the first people to actually use Soundscape in a studio environment. It just made sense at the time, with no gigs happening, to try it out.”

While WOMAD at Home provided an exciting alternative to this year’s cancelled WOMAD Festival (albeit without the extortionately-priced beer and sweaty crowds), Jacobs says there are plans in place for it to go ahead as normal from the 22nd to the 25th of July 2021, while Real World also continues to develop the WOMAD at Home concept into the future.

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He proceeds to explain why d&b audiotechnik was such a natural fit for the project, and for WOMAD as a whole:

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“For the last seven or eight years we’ve had a tent that’s been focused on really high quality audio, and about four or five years ago d&b provided a

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CYBERPUNK 2077

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Inside the Score

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Gamers have been patiently waiting for the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 since 2012, and it’s finally here. Composers Marcin Przybyłowicz, P.T. Adamczyk, and Paul Leonard-Morgan explain how they packed more attitude than a Keanu Reeves franchise into the most hyped-up open world RPG release of all time.

“Cyberpunk, for me, was intimidating as hell, because it’s big, it’s complex, and it shines with the whole palette of colours,” admits Marcin Przybyłowicz, who joins Headliner on a slightly chaotic Zoom call with P.T. Adamczyk and Paul Leonard-Morgan – all three scored the music for the most highlyanticipated AAA video game title in recent memory: Cyberpunk 2077.

Przybyłowicz (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt) and Adamczyk (Gwent: The Witcher Card Game) join from Poland, while British-born LeonardMorgan (Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III) joins from L.A. Although they’re clearly used to interviews by now, and I can only assume have been doing them back to back in the run up to Cyberpunk’s release, their enthusiasm for what they’ve achieved and their excitement for gamers to finally get to experience what they’ve been working on for the last three years is palpable.

Despite the early wakeup call for Przybyłowicz and Adamczyk, the trio’s banter is still sharp.

To coincide with the game’s launch, CD Project Red very recently dropped the Cyberpunk 2077 Original Score EP, which Adamczyk likens to a concept album.

“I can’t believe you just called it a concept album, you pretentious wanker!” teases Leonard-Morgan.

Adamczyk holds firm: “I love using this! To me, it’s the most suitable description for something like this. Okay, there are probably better ways of describing it, but to me a concept album is probably the coolest. We curated the soundtrack and edited the cues to give listeners the best Cyberpunk listening experience.”

Leonard-Morgan insists he is joking, and points out just how different it is to compose music for a game of this size when compared to a film, where composers score to picture and audiences experience the end result in the same way.

“In a game, people play at their own pace. There’s over 100 hours of gameplay in Cyberpunk – well, it’s probably 900 for me if you factor in how shit I am. When you’re playing it, it’s all about giving people the atmosphere and emotion.

“The idea of a soundtrack album is to give people an idea of the world that we’ve created; you can immerse yourself in that without the game, and you can actually hear the different layers coming in the tracks that we’ve done. People can listen to it and take that Cyberpunk journey with us.”

Cyberpunk 2077 was developed using the REDengine 4 by a team of around 500, exceeding the number that worked on the studio’s previous game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt actually launched a new division in Wrocław, Poland, and partnered with Digital Scapes, Nvidia, QLOC and Jali Research to aid the epic production.

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CYBERPUNK 2077

Inside the Score

“the music in cyberpunk 2077 is written for a dangerous, dirty world that doesn’t play fair...”

The gaming equivalent of the biggest blockbuster film you can think of, anticipation for the new offering has been building since its announcement in 2012, promising an expansive open-world game with industryleading graphics, gameplay that would span driving, first-person action and stealth, with deep RPG dialogue and character systems.

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On top of that, actual John Wick promised the world that it would be breathtaking, and if there’s one thing that I won’t tolerate this year, it’s being lied to by Keanu Reeves.

Przybyłowicz and Adamczyk are both in-house composers at CD Projekt Red, and have been working on Cyberpunk the longest, while

Leonard-Morgan was the most recent addition to the composing team, having ‘only’ worked on the game for a mere three years.

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Dystopian Beginnings The game’s story takes place in 2077 in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat.

As desperate as you might be to be transported to another place right now, Night City won’t be on your fictional bucket list (and yes, Hogwarts is on mine). The dystopian megacity is controlled by corporations and is ravaged by conflict from rampant gang wars.

Reliant on robotics for everyday aspects like waste collection, maintenance and public transportation, the city is rife with homelessness, although that doesn’t put its poorest inhabitants off of a bit of cybernetic modification – they’re all for cosmetic addiction, although it does tend to up their penchant for violence. Happily (or unhappily, depending on whose side you’re on) these threats are dealt with by the armed force known as Psycho Squad. Oh, and because of the constant threat of physical harm, all citizens are allowed to openly carry firearms in public.

“There are so many different decisions you can make in

Night City,” says Leonard-Morgan, “and writing dark music is relatively easy. Writing dark music like nobody else has ever written before, is a little bit harder.”

Night City consists of six regions: the corporate City Center, immigrant-inhabited Watson; luxurious Westbrook; suburban Heywood; gang-infested Pacifica; and industrial Santo Domingo. Its surrounding area, the Badlands, can also be explored by gamers.

“Our game is unconventional in that we didn’t really score the environment,” says Adamczyk on the different zones.

“We focused on the quests. We wanted to make sure that whenever you hear a piece of music playing, you know what piece of music it is, and it’s there for a reason. For the different districts, it’s more about following the journey – we have to tell the story.

“The city itself is a very important protagonist (or antagonist), but the districts are not that important, musically to us. It’s 100% about the story and about quests, so we tried to create a custom score for every play scenario. Players will always feel like we scored this game especially for them, and we try to suit their play style as much as possible.”

One Game: Three Composers The ‘hugging a tree phase’ behind them, where did they even start with tackling a game with over 100 hours of gameplay? They decided it would be best to divide the music up between them, rather than all try to collaborate on the same track together – although there are various quests and scenarios where all their work comes together.

Was there any aspect of the game they felt they absolutely had to nail?

“I hate the phrase, but we did a bit of blue sky thinking,” cringes Leonard-Morgan. “You’ve got to start somewhere.

Is it EDM? Rave? Rock? What is it? After a while, we thought, ‘fuck pigeonholing it’ – let’s just actually start writing some music, because you can talk all you want about ideas and sound, but the proof’s in the pudding when you actually start doing it.

Paul Leonard-Morgan is in L.A. now, and insists that he can brag for the three of them:

“It’s mental when you think about the technical practicalities of putting all these tunes in,” he reflects. “One of the things that I still find fascinating is that the whole thing is pretty much in one key. It’s all in A, and then you’ve got all of these different tempos and time signatures, different places where the loops are going into another loop, and different trigger points which then take you into different directions depending on what you want to do. It’s bloody hard to keep that interest up! Inside those loops and tracks you have three or four different layers, depending on what’s actually going on.”

“Isn’t saying what we’ve nailed unnecessary bragging?” asks Przybyłowicz. “It’s also unusual for a Slavic person to unnecessarily brag…”

“Sod it! Three years is a long time to work on a project, and we’ve had a quiet period this year while it’s all being implemented. I listened back to some of the stuff a couple of weeks before the EP came out and thought: ‘This is really good!’ And you don’t necessarily feel like that when you’re working on it.”

Przybyłowicz concedes and says he will allow himself to brag about one thing: attitude.

“That was the key word for our work on Cyberpunk. It doesn’t matter from what genre tracks are borrowing elements from, that music has its own fucking attitude.

And even if you are talking about these more subtle, tentative tracks, that attitude is still there. The music is written for a dangerous, dirty world that doesn’t play fair.”

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CYBERPUNK 2077

Inside the Score

BACK TO THE ‘90s While Cyberpunk tropes may instantly bring to mind such scores as Blade Runner or Deus Ex, the composing trio drew from all sorts of music styles, ranging from jazz, through downtempo, hip-hop, metal, industrial, to various incarnations of ‘90s techno.

Adamczyk says that a lot of the music is beat-based, so it naturally feels like it belongs to the dance genre: “It was difficult to preserve the idiomatic nature of this music and try to tell the story; sometimes you feel like you need a jackhammer to crush this genre, take the bits that are left, and try to make something out of that. We were building on this while still thinking about the production techniques of EDM, techno, or industrial music.

It was a battle between the initial goal of trying to take the ‘90s and reconstructing and repurposing that for a game, and trying to stay true to the genres that we were messing with. I think people will get a kick out of this music while playing this game; they will feel the music changing depending on the quest.”

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Leonard-Morgan agrees: “We knew we were heading in the right direction. The whole ‘90s feel is something that people wouldn’t necessarily associate with Cyberpunk.

We took that energy and that attitude and put it into the music. The thing I’m probably the proudest of is the fact that this isn’t a soundtrack or score that people will necessarily be expecting. It has elements of Blade Runner, but in general it’s something really fresh. The general reaction from the EP has been: ‘Fuck! I wasn’t expecting this, but man, it’s cool’.

That reminds him of one of the tracks that Adamczyk composed: “I’m shit with names...I can never remember the names of the tracks.

Sorry mate! It’s got such energy.

I hate the word ‘rave’ because it reminds me of things that I did in the late ‘80s... It’s not a rave track, but we’ve tried to get across the energy of raves.”

Listening to the soundtrack, it’s immediately obvious that the track

name that momentarily escapes Leonard-Morgan has to be Chrome Shamans, an exhausting, feverish, adrenaline-fuelled come-up of a rave track. Relentlessly pulsing, the surging tune leaves the listener feeling slightly crazed: if this is any indication of the game play (my copy of Cyberpunk 2077 has literally just arrived in the post as I write this), players will be hyped.

Although not all the tracks are like this – others are subtle and murky, filled with dread or making use of epic Muse-esque guitar riffs (which makes sense as smashing the shit out of the drums is Nine Inch Nails’ very own Ilan Rubin). Basically, this soundtrack slaps.

“It’s got that ‘90s attitude for sure!” says Leonard-Morgan. “When I listen to The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, or Beastie Boys, it’s all about the pounding drums, the electronica, and that feeling of energy. In the end, people aren’t gonna go, ‘oh it sounds like an EDM track’. It’s about being soaked up in that journey. That P.T. track I mentioned – I listen to it

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running! People will listen to this outside of the game, and I think that’s what gives the score authenticity.”

On a serious note, Adamczyk says that they are very proud of the way they created custom assets for the story:

The trio are confident that this sounds like nothing else:

“There’s no random exploration cue playing or underscoring an important dialogue scene; every scene that’s important in the story has been scored. There’s no right way to play the game because this is an open world, story-driven RPG, but I’d say to get the best out of the game, you have to play the quests.”

“For instance, with Ilan on the drums, we’ve processed and chopped that up,” says Leonard-Morgan. “We’re not using synthesisers to replicate someone else’s sound, we’re taking that as the base and then going off and doing your own thing. No one else in the world has these sounds that we’ve created. We’ve got all these loops, we’re putting them through processors, through distortion, we’re reversing them and putting them through synths.”

Does this mean Leonard-Morgan hasn’t played the game yet?

“Nope! Because I don’t work at CDPR, there’s no way they would bloody let me play anything over here,” he laughs, looking pointedly at Adamczyk and Przybyłowicz. “My team played a very early version about a year ago in my studio by connecting to the CDPR servers over in Warsaw while I was here in L.A. I was just a: gobsmacked by the technology; and b: it was already looking pretty damn good then. It’s been amazing seeing how far it’s come just in terms of being polished. Those two play it every day though.”

“Suddenly seeing it all come to life is a brilliant thing – that’s my favourite part,” stresses Leonard-Morgan. “Again – without bragging – I’m proud of what we’ve achieved because the scale of this game is insane; it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Then you multiply that by the fact that the music is not typical and you won’t find those sounds anywhere else. We’ve tried to create this new pop culture that goes with it. It’s not your bog standard soundtrack, and this is something that’s really special and close to our hearts.”

With Cyberpunk 2077 currently installing on my PS5, it remains to be seen if my breath will indeed be taken, although if the score is anything to go by, I might be about to develop a severe attitude problem.

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“Yeah, we’ve played it a ton of times already,” confirms a nonchalant but definitely-not-bragging Adamczyk.

“Marcin, can we get him a physical copy?”

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CAESARS FORUM

Caesars Means Business

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What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. This includes Caesars Entertainment’s brand new stateof-the-art conference centre, which employed the skills of local firm, National Technology Associates to install a first-class BroaMan technical infrastructure.

Anyone that has been to Vegas will likely remember (used in the loosest sense of the word) snapshots of frenzied gambling, entertainment, nightlife, shopping, fine dining, and the sensory overload of neon signs and dancing fountains along the eight-mile Las Vegas Strip. But it’s not all hotel lounges full of giant lizards and locating missing stagdo members; do you know that some people go to Vegas to actually conduct business? We know that sounds crazy, but stay with us...

Caesars Entertainment, which operates Vegas’ world-renowned Caesars Palace has announced its new expansion phase in the form of Caesars Forum, a brand new stateof-the-art conference centre.

The 550,000 sq. ft. conference centre is the newest addition to the Caesars Entertainment family, boasting 300,000 sq. ft. of flexible meeting space and the two largest pillar-less ballrooms in the world.

Caesars Entertainment wants planning a successful meeting to be an easy and rewarding experience, and helping solve this is Caesars Forum’s close proximity to its many hotels, eliminating the need for transportation.

The forum’s website states that ‘no matter where you are, you’re never far from Caesars Entertainment’, which seems to be literally true

in Vegas. In fact, Caesars Forum has direct access to Harrah’s and LINQ hotels through the Forum Sky Bridge, while the Flamingo Las Vegas is accessible through the LINQ Promenade. In addition, the conference centre is within walking distance to eight of Caesars Entertainment’s Las Vegas properties.

Everything Caesars Entertainment offers must be fit for an emperor, and its latest conference centre is no exception: a first-class technical infrastructure for site wide multisignal transmission was needed for this large facility.

Locally based design and engineering specialist, National Technology Associates (NTA) has a long track record working with the Caesars Entertainment family, including LINQ promenade, the High Roller, and various restaurants and venues.

NTA was again contracted, and the firm’s project manager, Shane Snell, recognised at once that the building was way too big to run traditional SDI cabling, leading him to turn to a BroaMan fibre solution.

BroaMan offers customised fibre solutions as well as standard devices for every application that requires IP/SDI/HD/3G video transport or routing, no matter the scale or complexity. In the BroaMan environment, all open standards can be integrated: digital video, audio and data, and on the same low latency fibre infrastructure.

Snell explains that the original design had “tons of SDI cabling” – running to a total of nine IDF distribution frames.

“With 400 floor boxes going to nine comms rooms, none of them connected; there was no way to tie them all together and certainly not by using coax point-to-point cabling.

“We needed a way to tie these isolated comms closets together – without a bunch of loose gear, adapters, boxes, or anything that could be less than reliable. It also needed to be easy to use by Encore Productions, the in-house productions team who live in the world of event production where flexibility, speed and ease are key.”

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CAESARS FORUM

Caesars Means Business

A BroaMan 40x40 Route66 video router sits at the hub of the fibre network design, with 32 3G-SDI I/Os freely routed to eight Repeat48 WDM in different locations throughout the facility.

“They can then patch out of the closet to anywhere within the facility. In total, we created a 40x40 matrix switcher that is decentralised and covers the entire space,” says Snell.

There are also eight local fibre I/Os on the Route66, which a Repeat48 interface in the hub room converts to SDI. An external WDM frame, connected to the Route66 multiplexes 32 x 32 channels in the central location, combining together the desired video channels and sends the mixed streams down a singlemode duplex fibre connection to each remote Repeat48 WDM. Between each of the Repeat48 WDMs and the Route66 there are also two generic fibre tunnels that can be used to tunnel in optical data.

Optocore North America’s Brandon Coons assisted with the overall system design, using all conventional ‘off-theshelf’ products, while at the manufacturers’ HQ in Munich, technical sales manager, Maciek Janiszewski, was also on hand to assist with the overall design.

“What we have is nearly 400 SDI cables split among nine AV closets, with a 4-input / 4-output node in each closet,” Snell elaborates. “This is tied together by a Route66 and WDM frame in the main AV head-end and operated under Crestron control.”

All audio and video runs on a hyper converged AV network using networked audio (a Q-SYS environment) with JBL speakers.

The NTA project manager said the implementation of the Optocore control protocol for BroaMan had been straightforward: “We only had to acquire comms with the Route66, and it handles the end points. Once we had all of the patching in place, it took minutes to load that portion of the control.”

Typically, a user will patch a camera or SDI device into a floor box, and this in turn is patched into the node in the associated comms closet, before being routed to another IDF – some over 1,200 feet away.

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“Most of the other SDI over fibre solutions had felt like a glob of pieces and parts,” Snell admits. “On the other hand, the BroaMan setup was nice in that it felt like a built-to-fit solution. Instead of having point to point converters and an extra matrix with all the additional little bits and pieces, we ended up with exactly what we needed as a system, rather than a series of parts. Also, the modular design of the nodes made it easy to get the number of ins and outs we were looking for.”

The rest of the AV integration utilises Creston IPTV distribution, while NTA also installed a 35ft x 50ft corner high res LED wall with 2mm pixel pitch – the largest of its kind in the country.

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Genelec RAW

Easy on the eye.

Easy on the environment.

Introducing RAW, an eco-friendly reimagining of our most iconic studio, AV and home audio models. Featuring a distinctive, recycled-aluminium MDE enclosure design, RAW loudspeakers require no painting and less intensive finishing than standard models. The result is a unique design aesthetic that allows the raw beauty of the aluminium to shine through. And because it’s Genelec, you know it will sound as good as it looks – in any setting.

We will be donating a percentage of every RAW speaker sold to the Audio Engineering Society’s fundraising initiative – helping this much-loved organisation continue its valuable work throughout the current COVID-19 crisis.

For more information visit genelec.com/raw

For the People

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JAKE BUGG Revered British singer-songwriter, Jake Bugg sits down for an exclusive chat with Headliner about his musical journey so far, and reveals how he’s been getting creative with production during lockdown. Here, the bluesy indie folk lad from Nottingham - whose attitude to music suggests he’s way beyond his years - talks BBC Introducing, organic recording and composition, working with Rick Rubin, and teases his fifth studio album.

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“IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO BE WORKING WITH NEW PEOPLE AND LEARNING THE NEXT SET OF TOOLS. IF I DIDN’T HAVE MUSIC I’M NOT TOO SURE WHAT I’D DO WITH MYSELF!”

Jake Bugg has become somewhat of a household name now after bursting onto the scene 10 years ago. Gigging right up until Coronavirus halted live events in the UK, he played a handful of warm-up shows ahead of the release of his new as-of-yet untitled album, including gigs at London’s Roundhouse and Nottingham’s legendary Rock City.

Bugg grew up listening to the likes of Neil Young, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan, who have had “big influences on me,” he says. “I just try to take as much as I can from those great artists, and then try and do something that I enjoy myself, and make what I can of it really.”

Since then, he’s been cracking on as normal, playing a lot of guitar (and computer games!) and of course releasing records, admitting that it’s been nice to stay in one place for a little while.

After playing that first Glasto as a teenager, Bugg signed to Mercury Records and his musical story truly started to unfold. Rather amusingly, his formative musical moment came when he first heard Don McLean’s Vincent on an episode of The Simpsons:

These days, Bugg’s unique, edgy vocal can often be seen and heard at some of the biggest festivals, but it was back in 2011 when he first appeared on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury when he was just 16 years old.

“I was probably about 11 or 12, and all I was interested in was football. When I heard that song I just started listening to music a bit more, and then when I got my first guitar, all that stuff started coming into the fold.

“I originally auditioned for Glastonbudget before and I didn’t actually get the gig,” he tells Headliner.

“But then I got a phone call from the BBC the next day, asking if I wanted to play the real thing!”

“I had a crack at studying music tech, but that side of it wasn’t much for me.

I did a couple of courses, but for me personally it was all about writing, getting onto the stage and developing my craft out in the city. From when I was about 14 or 15 there were a few local venues that gave me the opportunity to play and get a leg up, which I’m very thankful for.”

For those who are unaware, Glastonbudget is an annual threeday music festival that takes place in Leicestershire, which initially started as a festival for tribute bands and has expanded in recent years to include a showcase for new acts.

Bugg’s eponymous debut album was a massive success - certified double platinum - but it wasn’t until his second album that he started working

with legendary American record producer Rick Rubin in L.A.: “When working with Rick, I met a couple of new musicians like Chad Smith from the Chili Peppers who played on the record, and my friends Jason Lader and Matt Sweeney who I also ended up writing a couple of songs with for the record.

“To be honest, I didn’t have much knowledge of a lot of the stuff he’d done, being as young as I was, but the experience itself was phenomenal.

It’s something I look back on now, and I just can’t believe I had that opportunity.”

Subliminal or not, the time spent with Rick Rubin must have had an effect on Bugg, because it was soon after this point that he started doing a lot more self-producing. He acknowledges that keeping himself busy on the production side during lockdown has been one of the things keeping him sane: “I’d worked with a lot of different writers and producers, so probably from my third record onwards it was a little more experimental. I just wanted to take that time to develop everything I’d learned and get to know my capabilities as a writer - it’s always nice to be working with new people and learning the next set of tools. If I didn’t have music I’m not too sure what I’d do with myself!”

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JAKE BUGG

For the People

Bugg is known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, yet has there been any change in his style since he found himself in this sort of solitude?

“Not so much in terms of the music that I release, but I like to experiment a lot and mess around with things like samba guitar now, and always try to learn new things.

“In the afternoons I’ll usually work on the songs that I think are going to be better for audiences to hear, and if it’s late at night then I’ll do something a bit more soft and instrumental. And then after I’ve cracked a couple of beers the electric comes out and I’ll just rock out for a bit.”

Bugg tells Headliner that he’s got about two albums worth of songs in the bank, and has probably written more songs for his upcoming record than any other, “but obviously with everything that’s going on now it’s hard to judge the best time to release,” he says. “Me and my label decided that it was best to keep releasing tracks early, which I’ve never done before. It’s always been the more old fashioned way of putting the record out, then the singles, but I just wanted to keep putting music out there for people to enjoy.”

While Bugg has been touching up on his production, he is recognised for his raw, unpolished vocal and guitar skills that are second to none: “I think that is something that’s just come along with modern production. I feel like with a lot of the music we have today, the production a lot of the time is the song. Sometimes it’s a battle of who wants to be the loudest, but I just care about the song itself, and to be honest, I like recording songs in different styles, and just trying to pick whichever genre is best for the song.

“By the time I left Mercury it wasn’t Mercury anymore - it was Virgin EMI, and a lot of the people I’d started working there with weren’t there anymore,” he recalls. “It can be a difficult decision of which new label to choose, but for me it was relatively easy. A lot of the people at RCA [to which Bugg has been signed since the end of 2018] are the ones that I originally worked with at Mercury, so it’s nice to be in with the same HEADLINER MAGAZINE

people that see your vision and know your worth, and put trust in those who you think are going to do the best for you. I’m just glad for the situation I’m in now really, with hopefully new and better things ahead.”

At the end of last year, Bugg shared a new country blues track Kiss Like The Sun, his first since penning a new deal with RCA, but does he feel like his sound has evolved since he first started out in music?

“There’s definitely a core, but I feel like things are evolving in terms of sound with these new records,” he offers. “I’ve been wanting to incorporate something modern with the fundamentals of what I’m about and what I do.

I worked with Andrew Watt - who’s an incredible producer mostly in the pop world - on Kiss Like The Sun, and I feel like we achieved that.

“At home, I’ll build my ideas up to a point and then decide if I’m going to go and write with someone, and work on those ideas with them.

Sometimes I’ll have a fully formed song, and sometimes I’ll get a bit tired of what I’m doing at home and just want to make something on the spot with whoever I’m working with, and that’s great as well because you usually end up with something that you perhaps wouldn’t normally.”

Bugg says that having worked alone on his last album, it’s nice now to be collaborating more for the next record. In fact, there’s a lot that’s changed in the decade that he’s been around: “People were still buying CDs when I put my first record out! Everything’s built upon the social platforms now as opposed to the more organic ways of before. It’s great because it gives people a platform to put their music out, but it also means that it’s become very congested. As much as the industry has changed, I think platforms like BBC Introducing who are so supportive of young artists have only got better and stronger.

“I’m always going to try and experiment with new things and sometimes they will work, sometimes they won’t. But now I’m never going to stop doing what I do, because there wouldn’t be any point, and I wouldn’t be here today if I did.”

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JAKE BUGG

For the People

Having worked with some of the biggest names in music and with his own career reaching dizzying heights, Bugg has some advice for aspiring and emerging artists looking to carve their own routes into the industry: “It can and it will be difficult, but you’ve just gotta keep going even when you feel knocked back or when things aren’t going your way.

Ambition and commitment are key, but I’d say more importantly than anything else, it’s all about the songs.

If your songs come from a good place, then people will listen to them

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

and connect with them - that’s what’s gonna win people over.”

Most recently, Bugg released his spirited new single called All I Need, the third he has shared this year. He opens the song by explaining how he’s trying to fit into the modern day world of technology: “Call me cynical, but original / Trying to fit into a world that’s so digital”, singing over a set of plucky strings and thumping drum kicks. As the track hits the bridge, Bugg is joined by a choir who add a layer of motivational zest before he rips into the charged chorus: “Tell me

where the fight is / Tell me where the high is / Can you hear me now? / Can you hear me now?”

With so much more to come, including his fifth studio album in 2021, it’s fair to say that Bugg’s career is set to be a long and prosperous one, and Headliner hopes it won’t be too long before we can see him gracing stages once again.

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SCHITT’S CREEK

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Schitt Hot Sound

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SCHITT’S CREEK

“Let me say that we don’t have many ‘Oh, Schitt’ moments with sound, because Lectrosonics prevents them from happening in the first place,” says sound mixer, Bryan Day, who recalls being asked to join the production of Emmy-sweeping sitcom, Schitt’s Creek, whilst at the dentist.

“I am a fan of the show; a show of dysfunctional, inclusive, family love,” begins Day. “I hoped to work on the show, and that hope was realised when the previous sound mixer at literally the last moment, became unavailable. I was a last minute replacement!”

With the previous sound mixer suddenly moving on to another job, the production needed to find a competent mixer to come on board and join the team, ASAP. Having worked with Schitt’s Creek’s boom operator before, Day was recommended for the job – and it was an immediate yes from him.

“I got the call to do season six two days before production was scheduled to begin,” he stresses.

“It was literally: ‘Wanna do Schitt’s Creek?’ I said, ‘Schitt yeah!’ Since so much of the script is ad-libbed, we rely heavily on boom mics, for which we use the Lectrosonics HMa plugons. Then, every actor in the scene is also wearing a Lectrosonics SSM. If one of them says something that’s just priceless and the boom doesn’t capture it, the SSM does. I depend on them without hesitation.”

Schitt’s Creek follows the trials and tribulations of the formerly wealthy

Rose family when they are forced to relocate to Schitt’s Creek, a small town they once purchased as a joke. Now living in a motel, Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) and Moira Rose (Catherine O’Hara) – along with their adult children, David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) – must adjust to life together without money.

Given the Levys’ creative hand in the show (it was devised by them both), a key part of Schitt’s Creek’s appeal is its heavy use of ad-libbing, meaning the sound department needed to be ready for anything.

“The first challenge was to unpack,” laughs Day. “I was suddenly on my way out of town to do a location show at the end of winter in a forest, so I went from a tightly scripted ‘whodunnit’ to an ad-lib comedy show, which wasn’t tricky, actually – it’s fun! It keeps me on my toes, and it’s great to laugh out loud at the end of a take.”

To ensure the ultimate reliability, Day packed an arsenal of Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless equipment, including Venue and Venue2 modular receivers, four LR belt-pack receivers, three HMa plug-on transmitters, and eight SSM micro transmitters.

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SCHITT’S CREEK

Schitt Hot Sound

the settings. There’s this menu on it called the Bias menu. It’s easy to find, and logical: it tunes the bias voltage, the phase, and the polarity for a variety of popular lav mics. So, whether you have a Countryman, a Sanken COS, a DPA, even a line-level input, it’s going to sound perfect.”

Production realities on Schitt’s Creek make for crowded RF airspace, which Day navigates using Lectrosonics Wireless Designer software: Although fun to work with, extensive ad-libbing makes for unpredictable dynamic range in the actors’ voices.

The Venue and Venue2 receiver systems’ ability to host up to six dualchannel receiver modules keeps Day prepared for any such surprises: “I’ve had plenty of times where Dan Levy or another actor was shouting one second and then whispering the next, and again, it’s not scripted. First of all, the noise floor of the receivers is so good that amplifying soft-spoken dialogue is usually no problem. However, what I usually do is pair one transmitter with two receiver channels. These have different gain settings and I double-track everyone’s voice. This approach has never, ever let me down, no matter what the talent comes up with.

“WIRELESS DESIGNER MADE IT SO EASY TO SCAN FOR NEW FREQUENCIES AND RETUNE THE VENUES. WE DIDN’T SKIP A BEAT, AND THE REST OF PRODUCTION DIDN’T NOTICE ANYTHING.”

I ask Day to relate a specific crisis where the software played that role. for walk-and-talks where we’re not going to roll the entire audio cart down the street.”

The SSM has become Day’s go-to transmitter for two reasons:

LR receivers come into play for motion shots.

“The first thing I love about the SSM is the size,” he enthuses. “I can hide them almost anywhere. For example, the character Alexis [Murphy] is a tiny woman, and there are often scenes where her wardrobe is pretty revealing. With Catherine O’Hara, her costumes are so much part of her character that you’re almost scared to disrupt that. So, the SSM’s size is really a saviour.”

“The Lectro LRs are super simple and super reliable,” says Day. “They live in my bag, and we use them

“My other favourite thing about the SSM is that you can literally plug any type of mic into it and optimise

“The ab-libs are about the moment that presents itself,” he adds.

“Lectrosonics gear is well designed, expertly manufactured, and gives me absolute confidence that if ‘the Schitts’ said it, we would capture it – with fidelity.”

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“For big scenes, we might have up to 15 wireless mics going at once,” he points out. “On top of that, we’re on a soundstage next to other soundstages, so there might be 50 radio frequencies in my environment. Wireless Designer helps us coordinate with the other productions, so no-one is stepping on anyone else. Beyond just being a display tool, it also lets me tune the receivers in an intuitive, visual way.

It’s a saving grace.”

“[laughs] There was one time where we were in the same location about twice a week, with no problems.

Suddenly, the RF started getting really crowded. Wireless Designer made it so easy to scan for new frequencies and retune the Venues.

We didn’t skip a beat, and the rest of production didn’t notice anything.”

The most important thing about the kit is that it works when he needs it: “Lectro just does that,” Day confirms.

“The studio portion of the shoot was in a heavily populated radio environment and there were three other ensemble shows on all sides of us. The cast were all ad-libbing, and we were all using a radio mic per actor – and there were wireless video assists, also.”

SOUND MIXER

“Using Wireless Designer, not only can I calculate my 12 radio mics, I can see and calculate the other 24 radio mics in the other studios. To find an open frequency, coordinate it with the other gear around me and apply the settings to the gear was quick, reliable, and easy.

“To say to the talent and the producers: ‘we can make this work without you changing what you do’ – that’s the holy grail for any sound guy. Lectrosonics lets me proceed with absolute confidence that I can do that, day in and day out.”

Admitting that he used to use other manufacturers’ gear, Day points out that while they were great out of the box, Lectrosonics is great forever.

“My oldest piece of Lectrosonics is a 195 receiver. It’s older than I remember, and still going strong!”

Day also flags Lectrosonics’ people and service as key to his loyalty: “Again, it’s once in a blue moon that something goes wrong. But if something does, their turnarounds for repairs and loaners are almost instantaneous. One time, we had a concern about sweat around the antenna in one situation where an SSM had to be right on someone’s skin. Not only did they modify our SSMs with a new antenna gasket, but they incorporated that into their design from then on. How many companies do that with a smile on their face?”

Schitt’s Creek isn’t the only example Day has of a project where Lectrosonics kit has been essential:

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multiple cameras exposing every sight line, I have to quickly innovate. In this situation I use eight Lectro SSMs with DPA cardioid lavs, and Sanken BLMs in rigs.

The BLMs go on the windshields, the DPAs get fastened to visors behind seats. Then what? Are the actors unrehearsed, going soft or loud? I need to optimise the inputs. Lectrosonics SSMs do that.

“In the menu I can choose optimum values for different microphone manufacturers’ designs. Maximising dynamic range is important when you just don’t know what the actor is going to give you. And the range between transmitters and receivers is amazing: eight transmitters, all in a metal box, not interfering with each other while sending over a distance with confidence.”

At the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, Schitt’s Creek’s final season swept all seven major comedy awards (the first time for a comedy or drama series) including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing for Dan Levy (shared with Andrew Cividino), and a record-breaking four major acting categories (Lead Actor/Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress) for O’Hara, Murphy, and both Levys. At the same time, the series set a new record for the most Emmy wins by a comedy series in a single season.

“All the fuss about the show after we have finished is fun,” says Day. “It’s like the dessert after the full meal of filming the series.”

LECTROSONICS.COM

“Car rigs: I hate them! By the time I get out of the shot, am framed out of the shot, am cramped in a car, with HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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LEANN RIMES

Lessons in Life

leann RIMES HEADLINER MAGAZINE

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LESSONS IN LIFE

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It seems unfathomable that country music star LeAnn Rimes is about to celebrate 25 years as a recording artist. But it’s true. This year also marks 20 years since the iconic movie Coyote Ugly was released – a film which LeAnn provided the soundtrack for, thanks to a twist of fate phone call with revered songwriter Diane Warren, the artist responsible for writing LeAnn’s debut hit How Do I Live. Most incredible of all, Warren wrote that track “with LeAnn in mind” - she was just 14 at the time. But that’s the kind of life LeAnn Rimes has had. It’s been a rollercoaster ride: fast and wild, with twists and turns, but mostly exhilarating and, although a little scary at times, ultimately rewarding.

Deep down, she’s “just LeAnn, not LeAnn Rimes” - and that’s evident when listening to her stories, her motivations, her love of music, and her humble attitude towards her successes. LeAnn has recently revisited the Coyote Ugly tracks with long time collaborator and remixer, Dave Aude, reworking them for a new audience, yet retaining the core purity of that unmistakable voice. And she also has a new podcast on iHeartRadio dedicated to humanity and supporting those with mental health issues. LeAnn chats to Headliner from her Los Angeles home...

LeAnn has been “okay” during lockdown, she tells me – keeping busy musically for sure, and very much in LeAnn fashion, trying to do good for people in general.

“I guess I’m doing as well as everybody else is at this moment in time, taking it day by day; I haven’t been home this much since I was 13,” she says, with a smile. “It’s stressful at times - and so weird that we can’t tour. It’s an odd time, and has changed life for everyone.”

Indeed it has. We start to chat about LeAnn’s most recent project – a unique collab with producer and remixer, Dave Aude, who’s taken a deep dive into LeAnn’s Coyote Ugly soundtrack (which has just turned

20) to create a megamix mashup. Is that the correct terminology..?

“Yeah! [laughs] It was a total blast to work with him; Dave is a dear friend, and we have had a lot of success together over the years,” she explains. “He was my first thought; I wanted to do something of a mashup of all four songs [from the movie], and he also did a full remix of each song which we have been releasing as we go.

“It’s a very nostalgic soundtrack for a lot of people, and for me, the music was always great from the film, and people are digging it again, which is great, to kind of hear it as a mash up with me in the middle!”

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Lessons in Life

Aude is somewhat of a remix mastermind with some 130 number ones to his name (yes, you read that right) – but what’s lovely about this remix is that LeAnn’s big voice is still right there in the middle, pretty much as you’d remember it from the original tracks. It’s surrounded by deep bass, some excellent beats, synths, pads and more – but the core is still the song. Was that always the plan?

“Yeah, I didn’t redo anything – they are the original vocals - and I trust Dave completely,” LeAnn says. “It was really a case of me saying, ‘here is the idea, throw it together, see where you land with it’. I picked a few things apart, I had some notes, we went back and forth, and it was done. He knows what I like - we’ve worked enough together for that to be the case. And he is a genius - he really is.”

And humble with it. Headliner also chats to Aude in this issue – check it out for a deeper dive into the creative process. I mention to LeAnn that the songs feel timeless to me, and that the soundtrack – Can’t Find The Moonlight in particular – is such a big part of the film’s appeal. But did LeAnn think it was going to be as huge a success as it’s turned out to be?

“I don’t know if I did, you know,” she reflects. “I loved the music - and I approach all projects with passion - but even at that age, I learned not to have great expectations for things. We all hoped it would be, but you never know, so there was no real expectation for it to blow up like it did.”

The other tracks on the fillm - But I Do Love You, Please Remember, and The Right Kind Of Wrong – are all great tracks, too; and have really stood the test of time.

“They really are,” LeAnn agrees. “And 20 years later, people still love them, and they remind them of a specific and special time in their lives. Each track has its own beautiful story, and Diane [Warren] is a fantastic writer. We have HEADLINER MAGAZINE

always worked really well together.”

That’s an understatement, to say the least. It was a quick chat with Diane on the phone that led to LeAnn landing this now iconic Coyote Ugly soundtrack.

“I actually called Diane because the song Please Remember was a song she had played me before it was attached to the film, and I said I wanted it for my new album. She explained the attachment to Coyote Ugly, and said they hadn’t decided on all the music, and would I be interested in doing the music for the film. That’s how it came about, from that phone call,” explains LeAnn. “They were done filming the movie already - and all of a sudden they rewrote the end of the film to have that final bar scene included (where LeAnn performs on the bar). It all moved very fast – from working with Trevor Horn and Diane, to everybody on set – and it was my first foray of being this sex symbol with my half-top and tight jeans. It wasn’t a part of my image at all until that moment!”

And of course it was also Warren who wrote LeAnn’s first huge hit, How Do I Live – more remarkably, “with LeAnn in mind”. That’s insane, isn’t it, considering she was just 14?

What a nod.

“Yeah, that song is magic – I love it, and people still love that song so much,” LeAnn smiles. “And yes, it is insane! And to think it all came one thing after the other in such quick succession: Blue, How Do I Live, then the Coyote Ugly stuff.

Some beautiful moments there, and music that stood the test of time... I am so grateful for that.”

With soundtracks being such a huge thing now – people stream/download/buy them for their listening purposes, which didn’t necessarily happen 20 years ago – does LeAnn think that this will bring new listeners to the table?

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“I STARTED SO YOUNG; I WAS A LITTLE GIRL WITH A BIG VOICE, VERY MUCH PUT ON A PEDESTAL, AND I THINK MY HUMANITY WENT

BY THE WAYSIDE FOR A WHILE.”

“Yeah, I hope so. I’m also a huge soundtrack fan. I love the classics, such as The Bodyguard, and [Prince’s] Purple Rain,” LeAnn says. “There is something really beautiful about the way music supports visual; it can bring so much more emotion out of a scene that you may not have connected completely with if it wasn’t for the music. It’s such an important role in film and TV and I love creating for those mediums. It’s a very different thing when you are supporting a scene and the visual, and I enjoy that whole process.

“So I would love people to be transported back to some old memories with this mashup. I think it’s what this music does, and it’s very nostalgic for so many people, bringing back great moments in time; and in this moment in time, anything to bring some joy to people’s lives is good! I hope they feel the joy from this music, and that it makes them move – it’s a time when we need to be moving our

bodies and dance, and I hope all of these songs get people doing that.”

Conversation turns to LeAnn’s brand new iHeartRadio podcast, Wholly Human. It’s centred around health and wholeness, and for me, it’s a very admirable and indeed brave thing to do. LeAnn is very open about her personal healing on her social media, often posting poignant and emotive content that people can quite clearly relate to and respect. I ask her to tell me more about it.

“I feel like it’s such an important time for us to unite, and for our humanity.

I started so young; I was a little girl with a big voice, very much put on a pedestal, and I think my humanity went by the wayside for a while. It wasn’t the way people connected with me. I feel like I am just LeAnn, not LeAnn Rimes – and I have been putting myself out there in very vulnerable ways for a long time through my music, but I want to utilise

my voice in a different way, and the podcast and my new Chant album are both byproducts of my own healing, coming into my own wholeness from being so fragmented, and having to be many different things for so many people.

“My own healing over the last eight years, and me coming back into my own wholeness - I have this passion now to share what I’ve learned and help guide people into their own paths. That is me being a guiding light into their own healing and wholeness.

I am still healing – I love exploring spirituality and mental health and so many different things; and I want to take people on a journey, and introduce them to a lot of wise souls that I’ve connected with on my journey. The first season of Wholly Human is to introduce people to some of my favourites that I’ve learned along the way.”

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I ask LeAnn to elaborate on her new album: Chant: The Human and the Holy. Again, it’s about wellbeing and wholeness.

“Chanting has been something I’ve used as a tool for my own healing.

I feel I’ve used it for the world for so long; it’s the last thing I think to use for myself,” she admits. “I started thinking about how I could help people with this: utilise my voice in this way to connect with people, and bring light into their lives and help them find their own voice. And that’s where it was born. I’ve written modern day chants all my life because I’ve written choruses, so if I took that idea and became intentional about writing chants with powerful mantras attatched, how could I create an album from that?

“I have been doing that this whole time during this lockdown period of being at home, and people are in need of this more than ever. It’s something people can sing along with, put on and listen to; we are programmed so much by what we listen to and watch, and when people are listening, it’s reminding them of who they innately are, and it’s powerful and magical. And that is where The Human and the Holy was born.”

What a lovely sentiment - especially at this time. I ask LeAnn how it feels to be celebrating 25 years of Blue – that incredible debut record. She was 13.

Take a minute to let that settle in. So HEADLINER MAGAZINE

what was it like adjusting to something like that, success-wise, at such a young age, and how do you stay grounded?

much going on and it happened so quick, but it’s incredible really, looking back on it all.”

“I don’t think there was grounding - I was shot out into the universe,” she laughs. Good point, well argued. “So it was quite crazy. I think like I said, go back to the humanity... for me, I never lost sight of that. I don’t feel like people connected with me at that time - it was an otherworldy piece of me: little girl, big voice.

It is, indeed. And thankfully, there is more new LeAnn material on its way...

“Honestly, I talk openly about my struggle with psoriasis, and so many things humanly that go on are what kept me grounded. The success at that time no-one can prepare you for, whether you’re 13 or 30. From a few people to the whole world knowing your name... dealing with that is quite a challenge! I don’t remember a lot of that time in my life as there was so

“Oh yeah! I am definitely working on new music, starting at the very end of 2020 and into 2021, so keep an eye out for many new things coming your way.”

We certainly will. Go check out LeAnn’s Coyote Ugly 20th Anniversary Dave Aude Megamix if you fancy a dance around your living room; and listen to Chant: The Human and the Holy if you’re after a bit of ‘you’ time.

Headliner recommends doing so in that order.

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In The Remix

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DAVE AUDE

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PRODUCER

Dave Aude is somewhat of a god in the world of remixing: 135 number ones and counting – and a Grammy for his take on Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk. Recently, Aude produced and remixed a ‘mashup’ record for LeAnn Rimes – a close friend and collaborator of his for some time - celebrating 20 years of her soundtrack for the now cult movie, Coyote Ugly.

It’s upbeat, and has been put together to make you dance around your living room (so LeAnn told Headliner), but it’s also retained the magic of those original songs, including the massive hit Can’t Fight The Moonlight – and it’s also been a bit of a trip down memory lane. Aude takes us through his process...

“LeAnn is one of if not the most talented singers I’ve ever worked with,” opens Aude. “For this project she called me up, explained it was for the 20th anniversary of Coyote Ugly, and that she wanted to go back to those four songs from the movie and basically mash them up, and that’s what we did.”

Just to clarify: a mashup is..? “[laughs] Basically a way to capture the spirit of all four songs so it ends up like one song,” Aude smiles. “So it was fun, and I’d never actually done something like that before. I’ve remixed eight or nine of LeAnn’s songs; I produced her Christmas album last year; I worked on her recent album... So fortunately they like me... or I’m cheap... one of the two!”

135 number ones later, it’s difficult to argue the fact that Aude is at the top of his game – but he’s as humble as he is successful, and prefers to play down his accolades. When he started remixing, it was just at the time that doing a remix was becoming ‘a thing’.

“I was very lucky to be one of the first people [to remix],” Aude confirms. “The guy who in my opinion was the one who blew everything up was Todd Terry. I started remixing in the ‘90s and people started paying me to do it. I was the guy who would keep the whole vocal there and not chop it up into something completely unrecognisable.

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MUSIC MAKER Although remixing is arguably Aude’s forte, he prefers just making music.

“This year I’ve had two songs I cowrote and produced hit 10 million streams on Spotify, so that’s a new and exciting thing for me.”

“I wasn’t afraid to work on big pop records: Madonna, Rihanna, Katy Perry; and it took me 15 years to really get to where people were calling me fairly regularly, and as with everything in life, it took a lot of hours and time in the studio to figure out this thing called remixing.

Conversation turns to the latest LeAnn project, and how she told Headliner that it was nostalgic - like going down memory lane. Aude can certainly vouch for that: the original song files hadn’t been opened in 21 years, which gave him somewhat of a technological quandary:

“I woke up one day thinking ‘man, I’ve done a couple of thousand remixes’ – and I still do one each week because I just love producing records. Remixing is basically the same thing.”

“When you have a big label and you’re busy, you don’t always take care of your masters so well..! But Curb Records literally pulled out the hard drives that were delivered by Trevor Horn to the label 20 years ago with the master sessions on! They copied the hard drives and sent them over to me - and of course the Mac he was using 20 years ago... Well, those files were not gonna open! So I called everybody I knew that had old computers and had kept their old systems, and finally figured it out. And fortunately we could open the four songs; I consolidated everything, and figured out what I wanted to use in each song.

Aude has been quoted as saying that focus must always be on the artist and the song – and it certainly seems he’s stuck to that philosophy – he simply adds his colour to that original artistry: “I am fortunate enough to work on a lot of records, and there is a reason labels call me to do a record; it’s a song already doing well on the radio, but maybe it needs a little more gasoline, which is where I come in.

“So I want to be true to the song which includes a lot of the other people involved: the writers, the original producer, the label, and the artist. It’s never about me. A true producer really wants to promote and do well by the artist and the song.”

“In Can’t Fight The Moonlight I kept a lot of the great strings Trevor used – keeping the spirit of the original alive. It’s a nod to the song, really. I just wanna make the song cool – I did the same thing with Sting last year with If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free. One of my favourite of the four songs was But I Do Love You because it stands out a bit for me - and I was able to turn it into a kind of haunting sounding thing. It’s one of the fun parts of my job: taking things to a new place that nobody ever expected, and still keeping the vibe of the original.”

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DAVE AUDE

In The Remix

You must have a lot of creative juices flowing in that head of yours, Dave...

“God knows what goes on in my head – I honestly don’t know! [laughs] The question I get every time someone hires me is: ‘Dave, what do you think you’re gonna do with this?’ My answer is always that I have no idea!

“It’s a subliminal thing that happens to me when remixing: I go into the zone, start fixing and chopping and moving things, trying things, then before you know it there is a remix. It’s crazy.”

Staying with the technology, Aude reveals that such HEADLINER MAGAZINE

is the demand of his workflow and meeting deadlines, he’s moved pretty much away from hardware in favour of VIs and plugins.

“When I started doing this, it was all about keyboards and hardware. I just bought a Korg Prologue keyboard, used it on one song, and sold it yesterday.

“It just takes too long to reach over the desk and flick through patches! For me, it’s not about turning knobs on hardware anymore; it’s about arranging things in the computer that sound unique and awesome. I love technology!”

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PLUGGED IN And what are Aude’s go-to plugins?

“For me, Waves are still the kings – there is a lot of great stuff out there, and I use all sorts of plugins and VIs, but if you’re gonna get one thing, it’s Waves. For an aspiring producer, if you want to download your first bundle, make it a Waves one.

“I use Waves in every song, every day.

IM Pusher is one of my favourites – I use it when I need to push the low end. My go-to delay is H-Delay – because it’s so awesome. And when I use any keyboards, if I’m not using Soundtoys’ Decapitator, it’s one of the JJP signature plugins. Also, you can’t get any better than a Waves CLA-2A - it’s such a great compressor - and every session I do now has the Abbey Road TG on the master bus along with the Waves MV2. That is a great combo.

“And most recently – and probably the best thing from Waves in the last two decades - is Studio Rack, which means you can combine 50 plugins into one plugin on your master

fader or vocal chain and save it. So you can have crazy complicated chains on any channel. It’s like putting 50 plugins on one insert – it’s been blowing my mind. And there are some crazy AI things now available from Waves which are also mindblowing.”

Before we let Aude go, we can’t resist asking for some remix tips. He has several: “The first thing you need to figure out is tempo. It’s very important, and will send you in any direction whether it’s chill or big beat or ‘tropical’... whatever the hell that is [smiles].

Or an up tempo banger! Again, with technology you can time expand or compress a vocal to fit any tempo, but it’s very important you figure out the right tempo as it’s gonna be where you land. It’ll create the vibe.

many people mix on headphones, now – it’s crazy to think you can be sitting on a park bench making a track.

“I hate headphones, but that’s just me... I got the first Sony Walkman when it came out and that was an incredible moment, so in that sense headphones changed my life - but I really do prefer to listen to music on a pair of speakers.”

“I wish labels did more of that,” I suggest to Aude. He lets out a big DAVEAUDE.COM WAVES.COM

“Also, I like to start with drums – once I get a drum vibe, it’s easy to fill in bass and keys and things like that. And then create a basic arrangement.

Then just start filling things in. And so

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JOHN BROWNE

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Monuments Man

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JOHN BROWNE John Browne has had quite the eventful musical journey so far. A guitarist, composer and founding member of successful UK metal band Monuments, Browne recently told us about the inspiration behind his heavy rhythmic guitar sound, his exciting solo project that has been keeping him busy, and how he uses his array of AMS Neve gear to his advantage.

“I woke up a little bit late again, so I’m glad we decided to do this slightly later,” admits John Browne when joining me on yet another Zoom call.

Following a stint with previous band Fellsilent, Browne went on to record three albums with his current band Monuments over the last decade, as well as starting a fruitful solo project and his very own signature guitar line, so we’ll forgive him for having a lie in.

“When I was in school, the other Fellsilent guitarist, Acle Kahney, who is now the guitar player of Tesseract, was dating someone I went to school with,” Browne recalls. “I was really inspired by his guitar playing and instantly wanted to join his band, so I worked really hard, became good friends with him, and ended up joining Fellsilent around September 2004.

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JOHN BROWNE

Monuments Man

“The moment I picked it up I was like, ‘this thing’s absolutely insane’.

It’s almost like when you get a piece of Neve gear, you turn it on and put it through an audio source and you don’t even have to do anything. It just instantly sounds better - it’s kind of the same feeling.”

Browne believes that for musicians - what with people not buying as many records as they were in the ‘80s and ‘90s - it is important to keep busy and have multiple income streams:

“What really was the catalyst for the remaining members of Fellsilent - and whether or not they got a second guitar player - was that they saw Meshuggah, a Swedish metal band, live. It solidified that they wanted the second guitar player for that really heavy, aggressive rhythmic guitar assault, which Meshuggah are basically the kings of. Without [the band’s guitarist] Acle, I definitely wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.”

While Browne feels the lockdown period was a productive one, he hasn’t felt any more inspired than he usually would, and reveals that he in fact works better when he is under some kind of time restraint: “For example, I previously wrote an album for 8dio, who make sample libraries. That was 10 tracks in a three week period, but in the pandemic, I haven’t done anything like that. I’ve definitely written music, and recently started building my new studio, so I’ve been productive in other ways.”

It was just one week before the initial UK lockdown back in March when Monuments returned from tour: “I love being out on the road,” remarks Browne. “I think it’s the reason that I do all of this, but being HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“THE MOMENT I PICKED IT UP I WAS LIKE, ‘THIS THING’S ABSOLUTELY INSANE’. IT’S ALMOST LIKE WHEN YOU GET A PIECE OF NEVE GEAR, YOU TURN IT ON AND PUT IT THROUGH AN AUDIO SOURCE AND YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING...”

grounded, and just actually being able to enjoy the time at home as well is never a bad thing. So I think as far as coping goes, the only thing that really bothered me was just that I wasn’t able to go out and get a coffee!”

Having said that, Browne has used this time to focus not just on writing, but a bunch of different projects, including his own tutorial website called Riffhard and his own signature guitar series with Polandbased brand, Mayones.

“Mayones have some of the most insane OCD level of engineering and construction I’ve ever seen,” says Browne. “The guitars are phenomenal, and I actually got sent three of my new models about a month ago just to do some video stuff and promotional activities.

“I think that’s just a product of, I hate to say it, streaming services. As long as musicians are productive, they’re constantly busy doing different things. You get something done and then two more things get added to the pile. When it’s your own business or your own band, I think that automatically you just want to be able to do everything at once, and it almost seems overwhelming sometimes. So when I say that I’m probably busy till the end of time, I’m not actually joking!

“That’s the main reason for this new studio - I wanted it to have a sense of going to work. I think that’s one thing that musicians are maybe quite bad with, the whole working from home. Sometimes it’s just hard to get into a routine, so for me, getting this room away from my house was kind of a precedent for me to set routines and only spend X amount of hours per day working.”

Browne’s new studio is very much a Neve-centric one, and he has been using the company’s products on and off throughout the years.

“I’ve got a friend who originally had a Neve 88R console when he was still in London, and then he moved his studio to Los Angeles and got an original 8078 console,” Browne remembers. “I recorded with him

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back when he was in London, and have not had the opportunity to record in the new location, but there’s always been some form of Neve gear present throughout all the times I’ve been doing this stuff.

there’s probably a piece of Neve equipment on 80% of all records between the ‘60s and the ‘90s - it’s got that instantly recognisable sound, and a low-mid thickness that isn’t really produced by any other equipment.”

“And then a friend of mine, Joseph Heaton, started working for the company. Joe comes from the same musical background as me, playing in progressive metal bands, so I hit him up one day, we got chatting, and obviously I’ve been a big fan of the Neve equipment ever since.”

When it comes to recording guitars, Browne either opts for the 88R or the 1073 preamp, depending on the source sound:

In his new studio, Browne has a 33609 stereo compressor, which he uses on his master chain, a couple of Neve 500 Series rack modules, and the 88R preamp, “which is really, really cool”.

He also has the 1073 EQ and 2264 compressor limiter, which he uses for “a bunch of different sources, and as a channel strip,” he reveals. “So I’ll go into the [10]73 EQ, into the compressor limiter, and it just instantly sounds great. You can almost do anything to it and it’s gonna sound great. Neve gear is just the standard when you want that really big sound. I’m guessing that

“I also have an Audient preamp which is really transparent, so quite different to the Neve,” he says.

“You can put really loud sources into it, and it’s not really going to quiver, so that’s great for certain applications.

“I also have a Stam Audio 73 copy, which doesn’t actually sound like the Neve, and instead focuses on the upper mids, which again is very useful depending on your source. I’ve experimented with lots of preamps, of course, but those are the ones that I seem to keep hold of.”

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then go from the Amari into the Neve 33609, which acts as the final polish.

I’ve actually been eyeing up the Neve summing mixer, the Neve Stereo EQ, and the Genesys Black recently.

“I only really record myself these days, because I’m just so busy doing Riffhard, writing for Monuments, and all the other bits and pieces, so getting the console would literally be a childhood dream,” he laughs. “I mean, there’s loads of people who own desks that don’t necessarily record other bands, right?”

Other bits of studio kit Browne uses regularly include an Antelope Audio Orion 32+ Gen 3 and Amari mastering converter: “I use the Orion for anything recording-wise, or anything that would be an insert on a channel or something like that. There’s so many ins and outs on that thing that the options are wherever your brain wants to expand.

“For my mastering chain, I go out of the Orion into the converters of the Amari and I use it as a loop. So I’ll HEADLINER MAGAZINE

In fact, Browne tried out the Genesys Black at the Neve headquarters around a year ago. He tells me how he mixed a Monuments track on it.

He turned up the faders, and was instantly blown away: “It’s like none of the harshness of the digital realm is there,” he insists. “It all just pieces together a lot easier. That would probably be my main reason for getting a desk, just the fact that it instantly sounds almost finished. It has the separation of the instruments that I find is very difficult to achieve in the digital domain. So I’m definitely looking at a lot of Neve equipment, but my bank account’s crying!”

Browne is confident that with his array of outboard gear, and especially with the Neve EQ and

compressor, he is able to add an analogue sheen to something that can end up being quite flat.

“I just notice that the moment you put it through a piece of analogue gear, it seems to widen the soundstage quite a lot,” he says.

“I’ve done loads of A-B tests over the years, and I’m convinced that it just sounds more real.

“I’m definitely going to try out the summing mixer - I want to see if it does the desk thing of the separation of the instruments. When it comes to the summing mixer versus the Genesys Black, I’ve got a feeling that the Genesys is going to win, which is scary really because you know, it’s a house deposit!”

Having spoken to his band members about doing some live stream shows, Browne is eager to continue adapting to the current situation: “The problem we have is that our singer lives in the USA, so it’s more complicated for us. But any bands that live within close proximity to each other, I’d say get active on the live streaming front. It’ll make a lot of your fans happy at the very least!”

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ANDRÉ JACQUEMIN

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

Monty Python’s Music Maestro

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ANDRÉ JACQUEMIN Chances are if you’re asked to name a Monty Python song, you’ll land on one co-written by André Jacquemin. The honorary Python gives a glimpse into what it was like to join the flying circus 50 years ago, and why he’s been working with the legendary comedy troupe ever since.

The first time André Jacquemin met the Pythons (John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Graham Chapman), he had no idea who they were. At 18, he was working as an engineer at a London recording studio when he was asked to man the desk while the receptionist was at lunch.

“I wasn’t watching TV at the time because I was too busy recording and earning a living as an engineer, so I wasn’t familiar with Monty Python at that time,” he admits.

“This guy came up and said he wanted to do a voiceover for a friend of his for a showreel, and asked if that was the sort of thing we did here. I said ‘yes, we can do that sir, no problem at all’.

“I looked in the diary, and there were two engineers (me being one of them), and the other was Alan Bailey.

On the date he picked, Alan was busy, so I ended up doing it.”

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Over the course of the next year, the various Pythons would come in to record parts for a voiceover reel, which Jacquemin found odd, as he couldn’t work out why it was taking them so long. It turns out they were working around Palin’s busy filming schedule. Impressed with Jacquemin’s work, he was asked to work on an album they were putting together (Monty Python’s Flying Circus), which is when he finally got to meet the entire Python ensemble.

“I thought to myself at the time, ‘why would anybody want to make a talking record?’ That seemed a bit strange. So I went down to Mike [Palin]’s place, and everybody was in the room apart from John Cleese.

I was introduced to Eric, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Graham, and then in walks John Cleese and the penny finally dropped about who they all were. The others were not as high profile as John at the time; he was the one that was used in any promotional pictures. It was a surprise when I found out who they were, especially after having worked with Mike for nearly a year!”

Looking back, Jacquemin thinks that was a good thing, as it only would have made him nervous: “I got quite scared at that point because these were all Oxford and Cambridge guys, and I was just a whippersnapper,” he laughs.

“Suddenly I’m in with this group of people that were a lot smarter than me... all I had was a swimming certificate and a bicycle proficiency test in terms of qualifications, so I thought, ‘oh crumbs! I’m in big trouble here!’”

Palin pointed to a two-foot high pile of scripts and explained that this was what they needed to record.

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Jacquemin was asked to scan through them and let them know what he wanted the Pythons to do.

“I was bricking it. But then I came up with the idea of booking a studio with my mentor, Alan – who taught me engineering and producing, so I thought, ‘nothing could go wrong!’ That’s how we did the first onslaught of recordings. I used Alan as my safety net, as it were.

I owe him quite a bit because he was a terrific engineer.”

Jacquemin went on to work as Monty Python’s sound engineer for five decades, and together with fellow writing partner, Dave Howman, he has won 150 awards for their work in film, TV and radio, including BAFTA nominations for their composing skills for Monty Python songs, Every Sperm Is Sacred and the opening title track to Life of Brian.

Jacquemin embodies exactly the kind of Pythonesque humour one would expect from someone that has worked with the comedy troupe for 50 years, and is nothing but humble about his extraordinary career – listing his and Howman’s skills as specialising in audio production, sound design, SFX, Foley, dialogue recording, editing, music composition, and waste bin collection – as well as being “quite cheap, too”.

“I think it cost us about £10,000 to do the Python album, whereas when they left the BBC, they did that on their own and it cost them £40,000, so I was a godsend because I saved them a lot of money. I got my production fee and it was £200, so you can see why they quite liked me! From that moment on, we were there. Over the years we did theatre, TV, radio, we went on tour – we even did the Hollywood Bowl – which was amazing. I’ve been blessed with all of that.”

And it wasn’t just Python projects he worked on – Jacquemin was the music producer for the 1988 heistcomedy film, A Fish Called Wanda, co-written by and starring Cleese as Archie Leach, with Palin also joining the cast as the stuttering Ken Pile.

“That was quite good,” he says modestly. And it was: the film holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, reached number one at the US box office, was the highest-grossing independent British film that year, and was the number one rental video in the US in 1989.

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“Okay, it was good,” he concedes with a chuckle. “It was quite interesting, because we were messing about with one of the scenes, and John said: [launches into an uncannily good Cleese impression] ‘Andre, do you think this film is any good?’ I said to him, ‘John it’s fantastic; you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s going to be massive; it’s got a good feel factor to it’. He said, ‘Oh I do hope so’. He genuinely wasn’t sure about it, and of course when it came out it stunned the world because there was nothing quite like that type of film before.”

Jacquemin says that Cleese “floats about two feet above the ground at any one time. He’s not quite on base level, as it were. He’s very, very intelligent, John. He’s a clever man. He sees things in a different kind of way: he either likes or dislikes something, there’s not really any grey areas. When we were doing A Fish Called Wanda we were thinking about the title music for it, so we were coming up with all these names.

We thought Freddie Mercury would have been quite a good one for that, or Phil Collins, and John would say, ‘Who are they? What have they done?’ He’s very detached with that particular side of the world, but that’s quite endearing, isn’t it? We ended up going with an instrumental song, so that got rid of that idea!”

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COMPOSER

LIFE OF BRIAN Brian Song was released as a single in the UK in November 1979 as a double A side with Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (I’ll never not find Idle’s shrugged delivery of the line ‘Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it’ funny). Composed

by Jacquemin and Howman with comically matter-of-fact lyrics by Palin [‘He had arms, and legs, and hands, and feet; this boy, whose name was Brian’], Brian Song was performed by 16 year old Sonia Jones with a string and brass accompaniment in the style of a John Barry, Bond film theme.

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“Terry Gilliam did the animation for that sequence, and he said that it would be nice to do it in an epic James Bond style,” he recalls.

“So it came to David and myself to actually put something together, and so we did. It took us about a minute to write – literally! It wasn’t too complicated, because when you think of those two chords, that gives the game away straight away.

Although the tune is nothing like a Bond tune, by putting that [sings] ‘bam bammm’ in there, you kind of get the feeling of it.”

With lyrics like “If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate,” sung by earnest-looking children in a Consider Yourself Oliveresque full-on musical production (director Jones actually spent most of the film’s budget on this one sequence), it’s no surprise that Every Sperm Is Sacred is one of the most memorable Python sketches.

From the film Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, the song’s music was written by Jacquemin and Howman, with lyrics from Palin and Jones.

Seeking a Shirley Bassey sound, they opted for the young Jones, who they saw as the next best thing. She was also Welsh, you see.

To appease the parents, the children actually sang the words ‘every perm is sacred’, and afraid they were pushing the limits as it was, on set Palin actually said, “those little rubber things on the end of my sock” when filming, which was dubbed over later.

“Sonia is Welsh, so she’s got to sound like Shirley Bassey. That was the complete motivation factor for getting her to do it: because she was Welsh, it’s not what she sounded like,” he deadpans. “Then we asked her if she could sound like Shirley Bassey. When we tried it out in the studio, she was amazing – she does sound like Shirley. She was just starting out as a session singer, and about two years later, Sonia actually became one of Shirley Bassey’s backing singers! I’m not sure whether Shirley was told this…”

After the demo was recorded, an orchestra was booked to record the proper mastered version in Abbey Road Studios, but when they played the slick new recording back to Gilliam, he didn’t like it. The unpolished demo version is what was used in the film.

Laughing at the memory, Jacquemin notes that this wasn’t their only obstacle: “It was quite a challenge because as you know, the song is very complex. It has many, many elements to it, and it’s actually quite a miracle because we recorded it on an eight-track recorder, so it was quite complex to mix because there’s about 50 different elements in that song and we only had eight tracks to play with! So we had to keep doing multiple bounces down and down and down, so it was a bit of a feat of engineering at the time.

Terry Jones was the person behind it really, in the way that he wanted it put together.”

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Monty Python’s Music Maestro

“Nothing was hidden with Terry; He would actually say what he was thinking at any particular time. He loved his social time with people; we would have dinner at his place quite often. it was fantastic...”

REMEMBERING TERRY JONES When Terry Jones passed away in January 2020 at the age of 77, the world lost a titan of British comedy, with Gilliam paying tribute to his “brilliant, constantly questioning, iconoclastic, righteously argumentative and angry but outrageously funny, generous and kind” friend, while Palin added that Jones was one of his closest, most valued companions, describing him as “far more than one of the funniest writer-performers of his generation, he was the complete Renaissance comedian: writer, director, presenter, historian, brilliant children’s author, and the warmest, most wonderful company you could wish to have”.

He made a similar impact on Jacquemin, whom he first met at Palin’s house that fateful day in the ‘70s. He last saw Jones in October 2019 at Camden’s Roundhouse venue, where the Pythons celebrated their 50th anniversary with a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed as Gumbys.

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“Nothing was hidden with Terry,” he says, fondly. “He would actually say what he was thinking at any particular time. He loved his social time with people; we would have dinner at his place quite often… it was fantastic.

“He did have a fiery temper, I’ve got to say! He was Welsh, so it didn’t take too long for him to lose it, but the thing about Terry was that you knew exactly where you were with him. I always remember the first album we were recording: we were discussing how we were going to do something, and Mike and I wanted to do something one way, and Terry wanted to do it another way. Terry got quite upset about this, and he storms out of the room and slams the door. I said to Mike, ‘I hope we haven’t upset him too much,’ and Mike said, ‘no, no, no, he’ll be back in five minutes’. And sure enough, five minutes later Terry pops in and says: ‘How’s it all going boys?’ Like it never happened at all. You kind of got used to that,” he smiles.

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REDWOOD RECORDING STUDIOS Jacquemin co-owns Redwood Recording Studios with Palin, and continued to work with the Pythons individually after their split in 1983. Gilliam once said that Jacquemin is the hardest person to sell in Hollywood, because he does everything himself, from the music, sound effects, dialogue, Foley, to the sound design.

“The sound industry has changed a lot,” he says, confirming that he’s a Pro Tools user. “Working on analogue and on those heady days of tape was great fun. With how things are now, I don’t think it makes things any faster to a certain degree. It’s a bit like you’re cleaning a house, and now we have Hoovers to clean the carpet, whereas if you go back 100 years you were probably sweeping up the carpet. The time difference is negligible in a way because we don’t buy ourselves any extra time.

So working on digital or working on tape doesn’t make that much difference, but it’s a bit more efficient in the sense that we have a chance to actually experiment a little bit more now. But then your time gets eaten up in more experimentation!

“I think it’s a great thing that digital technology has come on so much – the digital plugins available are unbelievable! For sound designers, iZotope plugins are fantastic to clean up sounds like clicks in your takes, and to get rid of background noises. So things like that are brilliant and help a great deal, so that has changed a lot.”

Jacquemin has recently finished working as the supervising sound editor for Gilliam’s somewhat cursed film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce – a film that Gilliam has unsuccessfully attempted to make many times over the span of 29 years. Some of the many stumbling blocks include funding issues, sets and equipment destroyed by flooding, the departure of Jean Rochefort due to illness, problems obtaining insurance, Johnny Depp backing out of the starring role, John Hurt leaving after being diagnosed with cancer, and even up until recently, a lengthy legal dispute with former producer Paulo Branco.

“There’s been so many starts and stops over the years, but eventually Terry managed to get the budget to make the film. Although it was a reduced budget, we managed to pull it off.”

One of the things Jacquemin notes about working with any of the Pythons – even in their various solo projects to this day – is that they have always listened to one another: “Whenever we had a discussion about the way that the sketch should go or how we do this or introduce something new, everything was resolved. There was never anything left out, unlike politicians where questions are left open and you never quite get a straight answer. They would always come up with a result. The Pythons would have been a brilliant political party; we would have got a lot more done!”

Circling back to The Meaning of Life, he questions who else could have pulled off the absurdity of that film: “I look at that film now and I think – whether you like it or not – they are genius comedians within that media of filming, and they’re the only people that could make that film work the way it works. It’s remarkable, actually, that their strengths still hold up today.

“But that was their amazing strength, though,” he says as we wrap up the interview. “When you look at the individual elements of what they’ve done, you understand how together they were such a formidable force. When I’m gone, these films will probably be shown in 50, 100 or 200 years time, so you have a lasting epitaph of something we left behind.”

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JON LEWIS

Taking Flight

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JON LEWIS Headliner chats to P!nk’s long-time monitor engineer, Jon Lewis about his route into the live sound industry, how he’s spent his time during the lockdown period, and why when it comes to consoles, it’s always got to be DiGiCo...

Like many sound engineers and musicians at the moment, Jon Lewis admits that while he’s been keeping himself busy with jobs around the house, he’s been dragging his feet a little bit this year, and wishing he was back out on the road touring.

It’s the first time he’s been routed in one place for such an extended

period of time, and he says that while he was initially like a fish out of water, he’s getting used to it now: “The garden’s looking fantastic,” he beams. “I take a lot of pride in my lawn, which the dog seems to want to dig up constantly. Besides that, I’ve just been pottering around the house, spending time with the family.”

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Alongside touring, Lewis has another side to his business which sees him looking after a number of new bands - facilitating their online sessions and getting them into the studio to record - something he’s been getting more involved with recently: “Initially people were doing [live streams] from their own houses, so it was a matter of scrambling equipment round to them so they could do little acoustic sessions, which was really cool as well. It was nice to go back to basics and put little packages together, and explain to people how to plug them up like going back to school in some respects!”

P!nk is one of those artists who is touring relentlessly for months, sometimes years at a time, which must be pretty intense for Lewis and the rest of the crew.

“For the Beautiful Trauma tour, we did six months of promo which went straight into two years of touring,” he explains. “Her promo shows are always quite spectacular with the theatrical and circus aspects. We’ve done shows where she would fly through the air, and even one where she was suspended from the side of the Hilton Hotel in downtown L.A, all while singing live.

“It keeps it interesting because you’re dealing with different things, from an acoustic set around a nice swimming pool in Malibu, to dangling from the side of a building. The technical constraints are interesting, but it keeps things fresh and helps me stay focused.”

Lewis joined P!nk’s crew halfway through the previous tour around five years ago, when the decision was made to move to a two-desk setup: “My fellow monitor mixer, Horst Hartmann has been on board for a long time and he looks after the band, along with any guests that we have coming in. My sole job is to purely focus on her, and her needs throughout the show.

“It’s a very family-based organisation, and some of the band members have been there since the very beginning when she was playing club shows, so it’s definitely something that’s evolved. There’s always a really nice,

“IT’S ABOUT CREATING THE BEST POSSIBLE MIX FOR WHERE SHE IS AT ANY GIVEN TIME, SO I ALWAYS HAVE MY HANDS ON THE FADERS.”

fun atmosphere and the hierarchy is not that prevalent; it’s good to be part of that.”

So what’s it really like working dayto-day with one of the world’s most active live performers?

“As I mentioned, P!nk is often flying through the air during her shows, so because of the safety aspects and technical needs required for those sort of stunts, everybody has to be supremely focused. They can be really long, full-on days.”

Lewis has mixed monitors for P!nk in some of the world’s biggest stadiums, arenas and festival stages, and I’m curious to know whether there’s been a standout gig that really sticks in his mind.

“We did an Oscars show when it was the anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, so we did Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” he recalls. “It was really interesting to go in and work with the orchestra, and it’s quite interesting to see how different, yet how similar these types of award shows are compared to what we’re used to with the Grammys or MTVs. “We also did the Super Bowl where P!nk sang the national anthem; it was fascinating to see the whole organisational effort around such a massive American event, and it was brilliant to be a part of that day.”

Lewis proceeds to summarise the details of his relatively complex monitor setup: “Obviously we have the desk split issue, with P!nk on one desk and the band on another. A Yamaha Rivage PM10 is used for the latter, and I use a DiGiCo SD7 for P!nk along with Dave Bracey at front of house, with whom I share a network. Being able to share inputs allows us to bounce stuff back and forth to each other at the click of a button - whether that be backups or FX - which is a great feature of being on the same network.

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“I used D5s before, and so it was a natural progression to move on to the SD7 - DiGiCo has always been my desk of choice. I’m used to the layout of the surface and its structure, and no matter how complex or simple you need things, you can always create a workflow that works for you. I use the internal FX on there, and normally have one or two external reverbs for vocals. I use the Bricasti M7 for that, and then everything else is done in the board, apart from a multiband compression on the output just to allow me to tidy and polish things up.”

Despite clearly having refined his workflow down to a tee on the SD7, Lewis feels he’s constantly learning new things about the desk: “I love being at a festival and looking over the shoulder of another engineer, and sharing tips about the way they approached a kick drum signal or whatever. I love being able to share information like this and learn new things every day.”

So what about P!nk’s vocal chain? She is often seen flying around performing spectacular displays of acrobatics during her shows, yet her voice remains resolute, powerful, and quite frankly spot on.

“That’s something that always surprises people. There’s no track, no miming, and everything is done live, which is crazy!” says Lewis. “How she can sing upside down while spinning around and not sound like she’s gasping for breath amazes me every time. We use the new digital Sennheiser system as handhelds,

and we’ve worked with them over the years to develop a custom inear headset mic combination piece.

The headset mic is connected to the actual inner-ear mould, so when she moves around, the microphone moves exactly with her. The arm is also detachable so when we need to move to a handheld, or when harnesses need to be affixed, we can do that and it just looks like a regular in-ear.

“The sound quality of it is unbelievable, and when she’s flying in front of the PA, the lack of potential feedback or anything like that is quite amazing.

P!nk only wears in-ears, so I have another 34 wedges around the stage.

The SD7’s ability to split vocal channels so that I have one for wedges, one for ears, and manage processing for all the different EQs makes my workflow much more streamlined.”

But what kind of challenges do these huge, bombastic spectacles throw up for Lewis on monitors? Frequencywise, being able to get coverage from a microphone or in-ear system to the back corners of a large arena or stadium often takes extensive planning, “and a lot of trickery,” according to Lewis.

“P!nk’s often in a different location for each song - whether it’s upside down above the main stage or on B-stages above the audience - so her needs vary. She might need more guitar for pitching or more drums for timing references and things like that, so it’s all constantly evolving. It’s about creating the best possible mix for where she is at any given time, so I always have my hands on the faders.

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“We moved to Quantum halfway through the tour, so getting deeper into some of the processing came later on other projects. Being able to create (sometimes overly complex) macros and make complex changes with one hit of a button in line with your needs for a particular song or position is really helpful.”

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that Lewis will be back out on the road with P!nk and her band until arena-level shows return. And while he admits that it’s going to be strange being back behind the desk, he’s confident that it’s going to be just like riding a bike.

“I love the spectacle of being in a stadium, whether it’s doing shows with P!nk or Cher or AC/DC or Paul McCartney, or any of those that I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years,” Lewis remarks. “It’s about those amazing moments when there’s 100,000 people watching the one person on the stage that you’re focused on, and everyone’s singing along.

“I think in a 100-seater club when everybody is drenched in sweat and everything is really loud and gnarly and in your face, the energy that you get from that is equally as thrilling, whether you’re mixing or performing, or watching as an audience member.”

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AMY MACDONALD

Teenage Dreams

TEENAGE DREAMS

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She’s completed world tours in front of 3.3 million people, has over 200 million Spotify streams, boasts four top five albums (including her #1 debut) and six million album sales, and her landmark hit This Is The Life topped the charts in 10 countries.

Amy Macdonald is back with her fifth album, which she says captures the teenage optimism of her debut release, and it’s her favourite record to date.

my first album! This was a collection of songs that I’d written in my bedroom on my own when I was a teenager. So I just thought, ‘this is what happens: you put your song out, they go number one everywhere and you sell millions of records’. And now I know that is not what happens,” she laughs.

“I loved being in that mucky field in Scotland,” Amy reminisces, thinking back to seeing Travis play Turn at T in the Park festival in 2000. “I don’t know why, but I just thought: ‘This is great. I need to be part of this’. I wanted to be on that stage one day.”

“Maybe I was a little bit spoiled on that first record,” she suggests, “but I look back and I just smile. That album changed my life, and continues to change my life. I have travelled the world and played gigs all over, and still continue to do so. The music industry is quite fickle – it’s all about the next big thing, but my fans seem to have stuck with me.”

This moment turned out to be pivotal for Amy, and a few short years later she found herself on that very stage, not believing it was happening. She still doesn’t.

Being just 18 years old when she was plucked from obscurity and signed, the usual pressures of creating a ‘marketable’ image of a pop star arose:

“I spent the whole time in my head going, ‘no way, this isn’t real’. And I still get like that. Sometimes I come out on stage and I’m surprised that there’s people there waiting to see me! It never feels normal to me, and that’s a good thing. I think the minute that it starts to feel normal, it’ll have lost its magic.”

“Yeah, but from day one, I was just myself,” she asserts. “I struggled at the beginning with all the stylists and photoshoots because it was just so alien to me. I would literally throw on a pair of jeans and a scabby T-shirt and that was me, and I was happy!

There were a few people that wanted to change that and give me more of an image, but I fought hard enough that eventually they let it go. It’s not who I am. I can’t think of anything worse than me doing risqué shoots in front of a bunch of people,” she shudders. “It’s just not my personality.

Thankfully, nobody ever pushed me down that road; I was always able to be myself.”

Her fast-track to the spotlight is all a blur to Amy, who despite only being in her early 30s, feels like she’s been doing this forever. When she was still a teenager she got signed, and in 2007 released her debut album, This Is the Life – the singles Mr. Rock & Roll and This Is the Life were instant hits with audiences, the latter single topping the charts in 10 countries.

“Sometimes I look back and can’t quite believe it,” she admits humbly.

“It happened so fast, and it was a complete whirlwind for me. It was

She’s still resolutely doing things her own way, and recently released her fifth album The Human Demands – her first release under a new deal with Infectious/BMG. From her now grown-up perspective, the album

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captures that magic of her first record and finds Amy reconnecting with her indie roots, while grappling with getting older, dealing with depression, and falling in love.

“A lot of the themes on this album are about getting older, which seems ridiculous given I’m only in my early 30s,” she chuckles. “I’m at the stage in life where parents are getting on, friends have faced depression to the point of not wanting to be

here anymore, and everyone has had ups and downs whatever their background. It’s okay to feel a bit crap, and it’s okay to talk about it as well.”

Amy has previously remarked that a few of her albums started to feel a bit like she was painting by numbers.

For whatever reason, she just wasn’t feeling it the way she used to: “It wasn’t me feeling like I’ve lost the spark, I think it was more the situation…” she trails off. “I didn’t feel there was that excitement that you get when it’s fresh and new. When you’re on the same label for a long time, it can just all roll into one. I think that’s more what happened. I don’t think I really realised until I changed labels and it all felt nice and new and fresh again.”

She clarifies, however, that songwriting has never felt like painting by numbers for her – she always puts everything into her craft.

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“I wouldn’t put out music that I wasn’t proud of. I think that this record is one of my favourites so far, if not my favourite so far,” she realises. “I feel really proud of it; it’s come at a great time for me personally, but also in terms of the situation we’re all in because it’s ultimately an album about life. It’s about trying to navigate this weird world that we come into as humans.

“We always put so much pressure on ourselves,” she stresses. “We’re always expected to go 100 miles an hour and we feel like we have to say yes to everything. It can be quite demanding and sometimes you can feel a little bit inadequate when you don’t feel great all the time. I just wanted to explore all of those feelings because it’s something that has happened to all of us where we feel a little bit fed up by everything. The album relates to all of that: the demands of trying to get by and tick off the HEADLINER MAGAZINE

days and months. It’s felt even more intense these past six months because these are times that we never expected to see.”

The first single from the album is The Hudson – an upbeat rock tune which was inspired by the stories Amy’s dad used to tell her about going to New York with her mum in the ‘70s.

“New York was dangerous back then – definitely not a tourist spot – which made me think about their relationship,” she says. “Growing up, mum and dad were at each other’s throats, but then so were the parents of everyone I knew. You go through your life with someone you shout and swear at the whole time, but if you ever parted you’d reminisce about them constantly.”

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“I WOULDN’T PUT OUT MUSIC THAT I WASN’T PROUD OF. THIS RECORD IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES SO FAR, IF NOT MY FAVOURITE SO FAR.”

Amy has always been a daydreamer, and this song started out with her doing just that: “I always find it very interesting when you think of your life and how it could have been different. Sometimes I spend ages thinking about this, and it’s really strange because I’ll never know the answer. I’ll never know what would have happened if I had done something differently. But nonetheless, I find it interesting to look back and reminisce in that way.

When my dad told me that story, it made me laugh because he said their hotel had a huge bolt on the inside of the door just to keep them safe.”

A few days later Amy thought about her dad’s story when she was in her dining room, which serendipitously happens to have New York artwork hanging on the walls.

“I was looking at the pictures, and The Hudson just came together like a melting pot of all these different ideas. I was thinking about my parents, thinking about myself, thinking about life and how you never can know where you’re gonna end up, and you never know where you might have ended up if things had gone differently. It’s an interesting concept because we’ve all been in positions where we don’t know if we’re making the right decisions and we agonise over things.”

Recording for the new album started early this year with Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian), an influential force and someone that Amy had an immediate connection with.

When Jim’s name came up, I got really excited because I knew his name because of the records that he’d made. I remember when the Arctic Monkeys’ album came out; it was the biggest thing ever. At the time I was going out with my friends and we were out until four in the morning in nightclubs, dancing. We would always go to a rock club in Glasgow, and whenever an Arctic Monkeys song came on, everybody went wild! I was thinking back to how I would have reacted if I told my teenage self that this guy that has made this album would be making my record one day – I probably would never have believed it!”

“It’s amazing,” she enthuses. “When I was talking to my label we were brainstorming ideas for producers.

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Teenage Dreams

Amy is feeling cautiously optimistic about the live events industry in 2021, and has a major European tour scheduled (her biggest shows since 2010), which will culminate with a London show at the historic Roundhouse.

“I just hope that it can all go ahead, but if anything, it’s nice to have something to look forward to,” she admits. “Through all of this, something that I’ve struggled with the most is not having any plans and not having anything to look forward to. As humans, we’re such social creatures HEADLINER MAGAZINE

– we thrive off of social interaction, plans and having holidays to look forward to, or gigs or theatre shows.

Having stuff in my diary and being able to work towards that has helped me immensely over the past few weeks; I’ve got this purpose and I’ve got something to work towards.”

my teenage years making my first record,” she smiles. “I think that has come across because fans have said that it makes them feel a little bit nostalgic and reminds them of the first record. It feels exciting again and I love what I’m doing now.”

By making this album, Amy feels she has come full circle, and has tapped into that excitement that she felt that muddy day at T in the Park:

AMYMACDONALD.CO.UK

“When I was writing and making this album it felt like I was back in

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KELLY LEE OWENS

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LADY IN RED

KELLY LEE OWENS Landing the cover of NME, getting Michael Sheen to star in the music video for Corner Of My Sky – all after a deep dive into the world of spiritual and physical healing; welcome to the world of Kelly Lee Owens, the Welsh techno/dream-pop sensation rapidly catching on as one of the most exciting names in British music. And with her excellent sophomore record Inner Song now out, Headliner grabbed a COVID-safe conversation with the singer-songwriter, producer, DJ and bonafide star.

Having been locked down in London, Owens is feeling a little homesick, and her plans to pop home and see family have been scarpered by Wales imposing a local lockdown.

“I was just going to nip up to see my family and check in with my grandparents,” she says. “Help out a bit, and also just feel connected to nature again. I feel very blessed

that I can go home and be in the forests next to my mum’s house.

It’s a place I can sort of disconnect from everything and reconnect to myself. But alas everything is quite unpredictable these days.”

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KELLY LEE OWENS

Lady in Red

I remind Owens what an exciting time it is for her – she’s recently been the cover star of British music bastion NME, she’s featured in an advert for Corona (the beer, not the other thing) on a Welsh beach, and of course, there’s the appearance of Michael Sheen in her latest music video. She notes that “it sounds pretty good when you say them all in a row! [laughs] I feel very blessed.

It feels like a combination of all the hard work and slog and all that stuff kind of coming together. And with NME, my 16-year-old self was just thrilled to be recognised in that sense, and getting a five-star review as well!”

The Michael Sheen connection began in that place where people recognised in their fields often meet – that place being Twitter, of course.

“He followed me on Twitter,” Owens explains. “And I thought, ‘cool!’ I kind of forgot to follow him back, I think I was in a studio or something. About a month later I thought ‘I should really follow Michael Sheen back and say hi!’ And so we started talking and connecting, and I sent him the album in advance. And he loved it and said he’d be willing to help if he could.

“I just said ‘well, there is something you could maybe do’. John (Cale, the Velvet Underground star who provides vocals for Corner Of My Sky) was supposed to be in the video, but because of the circumstances, he couldn’t fly over from L.A. So I just asked him if he’d do it, and asked him to say if I was being cheeky.

He replied, ‘you don’t get anywhere in life without being a bit cheeky!”

And with that, the star of Frost/Nixon, Twilight: New Moon, Tron: Legacy and many other fantastic films would star in the brilliant short that you really should spend six minutes watching. It mostly centres around Sheen in a kitchen, having an existential crisis as each time he puts bread in his toaster, the device pops up with no toast to be seen.

There’s also a very striking moment where the video switches to the beach (with Sheen also being Welsh, it’s all shot in Wales, of course), with Owens in an elegant red dress.

Owens often brings up death in interviews, which to many may come across as somewhat morbid.

But discussing the topic with her, you realise it’s a combination of her previous career as an auxiliary nurse

in Manchester, the loss of her beloved grandma last year, and her spiritual nature.

“I’d sent off my CV to several different hospitals,” she recalls. “And the one that came back was the cancer specialist one, but I was scared of the word ‘cancer’ for some reason, which I think a lot of people are. But it was the biggest blessing in disguise working in that place. Because I just got to meet the most phenomenal people who were strong and inspiring, even though their lives were being potentially threatened. They just had so much hope and sunshine and energy. But also it was the perspective that death gives you, which is how to live well.

And how to be true to yourself and your dreams and what you want, to not compromise on that. Most 18-yearolds don’t get confronted with death so much. But I feel fortunate that I was in a way.”

Owens had been mainly drawn to Manchester for its music scene, and as many of the patients she worked with encouraged her to follow the path of music herself, she then moved down south to London. She got a job at a record shop, working with the as-yetundiscovered Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture. I ask if she believes this was purely a coincidence, that three people who would go on to become the biggest things in British electronic music and produce stunning collaborations with each other, just happened to get jobs together? I’m not overly surprised when Owens says that “I don’t really believe in coincidences. And this is why I continue to trust in life.”

Knowing that Owens is the kind of producer who can get amazing results from both analogue synths, all the way to random sounds she feels she had to capture via voice memos in her iPhone, I ask about what plugins and studio goodies she’s been using recently.

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She starts by telling me how much she loves the “‘wonkiness’ of analogue synths – I just love how they can be a bit out of tune, but I don’t need them to sound perfect because they have such a depth of sound. But of course, I do use digital plugins too. The Crystallizer Soundtoys plugin, which you can hear a lot of on Re-Wild - I love that one. And the Valhalla Shimmer and Valhalla Echo and Reverbs are always fantastic. I’m always in collaboration with analogue and digital.”

Owens believes deeply in music’s power to heal, and if there is one record that is healing in its beauty, it would have to be her latest, Inner Song.

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Enter the Matrix

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PETE MARTIN South African-born producer and songwriter, Pete Martin, reflects on his 20-year stint in the UK, collaborations with A-list artists, and his newly acquired state of the art London studio with what he describes as the ultimate Genelec monitoring setup.

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“I’m a total nerd, as you know,” begins a cheerful Pete ‘Boxsta’ Martin, who catches up with Headliner after last speaking a few years ago. “My wife and my colleagues joke with me because on my bedside table, my reading material is just manuals! I’m technology obsessed.”

me, so I thought that I’d stepped over the line, and then suddenly he said, ‘Pete, I want to write more’, and we started forming this relationship.”

By the time he relocated to London in 2001, Martin had written over 15 number ones, and countless top 10s – becoming one of South Africa’s most sought after multi-platinum selling producers and songwriters. Soon after arriving in the UK, Universal Island signed him to his first international label deal, working closely with Darcus Beese and Nic Gatfield.

“A really good producer is like a good psychiatrist, almost,” he says. “For the longest time in my career, I would just get straight into the music. An artist would walk in and I was straight in with getting to the work right away, like ‘let’s go!’ But then I realised that this wasn’t doing the music a service.

When you’re younger, you see the artist through your eyes, whereas when you’re older, you see the artist through their eyes.

Fast forward to today and he’s an award-winning producer who has written, produced and remixed for artists such as James Arthur, Arrow Benjamin, Jessie J, Mali Music, Missy Elliot, Rizzle Kicks, Sugababes, Alexandra Burke, and Pete Tong.

“It’s been a very, very good couple of years,” he says. “I have worked with some really cool people. Working with high profile people does build your career, but I also really like working with up and coming acts; I love that blend.”

Since first working with James Arthur, Martin has forged a strong working bond with the artist, and worked with him on two tracks from his number one album, Back from the Edge.

“He did a couple of sessions with me and I think what clicked with him was, I didn’t let him off the hook. You put that guy behind the mic and that one take is the one that you could keep for the rest of your life, but I pushed him a little bit because I just thought, ‘I want to see what he’s capable of’.

“I know that sounds insane, but it was a lesson to me because I thought, ‘let me push him a bit and see what actually happens’. We did a couple of tracks and after that he hadn’t called

This reminds Martin of something that he has learnt through years of working as a producer:

“That was a great lesson for me; if sessions didn’t go well it was because I wasn’t really understanding what the person was about, or what they were bringing to the table. When I started talking to artists before the session about what they were thinking, where they got their inspiration from, and where they wanted the album to go, the music started to get better and I started to get way more releases.”

MATRIX STUDIOS Martin has recently moved into Matrix Studios in West London, which has been in existence since the late ‘70s and has welcomed everyone from The Clash, Coldplay, the Rolling Stones and Prince through its doors.

“I’m pinching myself at the moment, wondering ‘do I deserve to be here?’

If a room becomes available it gets snapped up so quickly! I came to see it and it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up – I had to take it. It’s one of the premier music hubs.”

Pride of place in his new studio space are his Genelec 8331As, 8351s and “massive” 1035A monitors. What

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else would you expect from a self confessed “Genelec freak”?

“And the sub – I’m looking at it now and you could bury me in it! It’s phenomenal. I’m using this Grace Design controller with it which is really sophisticated. Andy from Genelec – who’s such a G – he helped me set up the studio remotely because of the whole lockdown thing. It was incredible to see what he was doing; he spent a long time setting them up to make the room sound pristine.”

Martin has different setup options depending on what he’s working on: “I can have a more vibey setup, which is slightly brighter, or I can have a darker setup, which I really like because I like to mix darker so everything sounds a bit more present.

It’s the best mix experience that I’ve ever had,” he enthuses. “In this room, they are the best speakers I’ve ever heard in my life. Honestly, it feels like you’ve just stepped into the music; it sounds 3D, it sounds warm. I was so taken aback when checking the mix at home because suddenly it was much more present on the mid range and top end.”

What Martin really likes about the 8351s is that they show him exactly where, say, the kick drum peters out, or where the bass is clashing in a mix.

“They’ve very, very good speakers for that – they’re not forgiving! They show you so much detail in the mix, and they expose the wrong kind of detail in a heartbeat – and that’s what I want.

They’ll tell you exactly when something is clashing.

“I rely on them heavily for that, especially when I’m doing hip hop mixes or very low end mixes, because they are so detailed in those ranges – which is so important for that genre. I bore people with my Genelec stories,” he laughs.

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PETE MARTIN

Enter the Matrix

Raving about Genelec aside, Martin is also kept busy with Three Bears – a production company that he runs with producers Dantae Johnson and Emmanuel Ene. The company is dedicated to providing the best in production, mixing, engineering and songwriting for both major and independent artists and record labels, while they also see TV, film, commercial and music video projects from inception through to delivery.

“We have two studios now, and we’ll use this one as well,” he points out. “All the talent moving through the studios has created a lot of business in the past three years, which is the dream.”

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Martin is relieved to say that he’s got lots of projects in the pipeline, including working with various rappers and on some film work, which he’s excited to get stuck in to: “The film work has given me a whole new lease of life with music because I’m so honed in on my pop skills that this has given me something to think about. Because of the COVID period, we had three or four major projects lined up that we had to cancel, which gave me this opportunity to look inside myself and go, ‘okay, what else can you do?’ I’ve always been so inspired by film music, probably more than pop, to be honest.

“At the moment it’s re-evaluation time for everyone, because time is so precious,” he concludes. “It’s that ethos that I’m going to push forward with. I’m thinking about what I really want to do, and not just to pay the bills. I want to do stuff that I’m passionate about. I’ve clicked with the artists I’ve worked with; it’s choosing the people that connect with me on that real deep level, you know?”

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IRWIN SPARKES

White Tail Falls

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WHITETAILFALLS Four years ago, Irwin Sparkes’ world fell apart, leading him to experience something of an epiphany. Channeling his experiences into his new White Tail Falls project helped him return to making music that really says something. The Hoosiers’ frontman catches up with Headliner to talk about chasing approval, thoughts that keep him up at night, and fish.

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Feeling “effervescent as ever,” Irwin Sparkes admits that he is, however, reeling from the decision to release an album halfway through a global pandemic.

“Although that’s small fry in the grand scheme of things,” he begins. “So I’m just counting my blessings, and none of my chickens.”

The album in question is Age of Entitlement, released under the name White Tail Falls. Four years in the making, Sparkes put pen to paper following a protracted: ‘How did I end up here?’ moment.

“I can literally hear the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, just rolling his eyes at the idea of it taking that long to make an album,” he points out. “For me,

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it was a real learning process not knowing what the project was going to be, and having to create an overall sound. It took me a lot of time to settle on what I wanted to make and get the sound of the record right.”

For as long as he can remember, Sparkes has chased approval and sought out affirmation, admitting that for a time, music rewarded his efforts, and then very abruptly – it didn’t.

from another three-day hangover and the realisation that he had fallen out the bottom of the music business. Suddenly single, therapy no longer cutting it, and chasing writing credits for other artists – he refers to this as “a make or break moment”.

Channeling this “mini mental wobble” into music, he picked up a guitar and wrote the fragile, life-affirming Body Weight – which would go on to be Age of Entitlement’s opening track.

Hooked on chasing success, he suddenly found himself in the throes of withdrawal after The Hoosiers hit their peak. Four years ago, he found himself alone in New York – groggy

“I wrote [the track] Age of Entitlement very much from the heart,” he says – his characteristic humour and self deprecation momentarily making way for a vulnerable sincerity when

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reflecting on this difficult period of his life. “You take a look in the mirror, and you don’t really like what you see.

It was that petulant child that was asking, ‘When’s my turn? Why aren’t I there? Why haven’t I got the adulation I like to think I deserved?’ It was giving a voice to those nasty impulses.

“The whole spin on it was me being all ‘wow, what an entitled point of view’. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but I can definitely see myself in that thing of wanting more all of the time.”

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IRWIN SPARKES

White Tail Falls

Sparkes says that attempting to facilitate the dreams of others by writing pop songs that he felt weren’t saying anything worth hearing left him feeling hollow, leading him to question why he was doing it at all. This got him thinking: ‘why did I first pick up a guitar?’ He was hit with the realisation that it was important to vocalise what it is he wanted to put out in the world.

He started work on his album, seeing it as a raw return to the initial reason he bothered to pick up a guitar in the first place, even if that meant this turned out to be the last record he ever made: “In its rawest form, a song is communication – it’s trying to make sense of something that you are perhaps struggling with yourself. I thought, ‘what have I got to say?’ and I thought of writing what I knew: having gone through my early- to mid-30s, and having to put myself back together with the help of a very talented therapist, and a lot of love. I think it was making sense of those feelings, where you didn’t know quite how you’d ended up where you’d ended up. And this isn’t anything innately special to me. I think it’s a predicament that a lot of people are aware of, but I just wanted to write something that I really believed in. It’s that legitimacy that I am very drawn to in songwriters.”

Hearing Josh T Pearson’s 2011 album Last Of The Country Gentlemen when he was in just the right (or wrong) mood had Sparkes “weeping like a baby,” and reminded him of the power of music. Suddenly he saw it so clearly: chasing a chart position was futile.

Music should mean something.

“I won’t talk about my own tears too much, but it’s a good example of experiencing music in the context of where you are. We’ve all had moments like that where it catches you at a particularly vulnerable moment – psychologically – and you hear the right song for that moment. It can just HEADLINER MAGAZINE

stop you in your tracks, when some other time it might have left you cold as a freshly mongered fish.”

Happily, Age of Entitlement leaves the listener with no such feeling: it’s a wonderfully delicate, dreamy (and yes, melancholy) listen that acts as the perfect vehicle for Sparkes’ falsetto, all the while offering an insight into the kinds of troubling thoughts that keep people awake at night. The Hoosiers this isn’t – instead, White Tail Falls’ debut offering is a carefully crafted collection of songs that weaves layered harmonies, simple guitars and glorious violins together as a backdrop for Sparkes’ vulnerable and searching lyrics. Some of his most interesting work to date (which is ironic given that he’s making a conscious effort not to seek approval), Age of Entitlement gently asks the bigger questions, yet in a way, isn’t even seeking the answers.

“I got the fear that I appear seethrough, and I fell foul of a dream my life can’t live up to,” he sings on one track; and “stuck in a 10 year tailspin,” in another. The upbeat, radio-friendly hooks that helped The Hoosiers’ debut album, The Trick to Life, shoot to number one in the UK are nowhere to be found, and often the lyrics – bereft of metaphors - serve up frank confessions and numerous personal failings.

“Metaphor can be a coward’s way out,” he says of the confessional track, Other Kind Of Guy, while the opening track, Body Weight, is from the perspective of a suicidal person – although he’s quick to point out that he has never felt suicidal himself.

“I feel like I wanted to write an antisuicide…” he trails off. “Well, it wasn’t even that, it just sort of got written.

There wasn’t a grand plan to it, but it felt like it encapsulated a little bit of the beauty of finding yourself still here, and the fact you can still carry

on, regardless of any reasons to quit, or how easy it is to give up. You might be held by the thinnest of threads, but it’s really focusing on, wow, what a thread. Just turning up – that’s enough.

It still gets me sometimes, playing live, which is a ridiculously self indulgent admission to say about a song you’ve written! Sometimes my music just has a way of overpowering me, what can I say?” he laughs. “I think I’ve listened to nothing else this whole lockdown. That’s probably where I’ve gone wrong…”

“IN ITS RAWEST FORM, A SONG IS COMMUNICATION IT’S TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE PERHAPS STRUGGLING WITH YOURSELF.”

On the stark difference of White Tail Falls when compared with The Hoosiers, Sparkes has an admission to make: “Myself and Al [Sharland, The Hoosiers’ drummer] have played together since 1995, which is staggering considering we’re both in our mid-20s,” he insists.

“The truth is, he wrote most of the good songs – there, I said it! A lot of the upbeat, poppy wonderment came from his pen; Everything Goes Dark, Run Rabbit Run, A Sadness Runs Through Him, Money to be Made – they were more my bag of fish.”

Noting that this is his second fish metaphor of the interview, Sparkes suggests that he should have opted for “can of worms” or better still, “can of pilchards” as a way of referring to his early songwriting with The Hoosiers.

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things I’ve learned in the pop world – like a melody that was distracting from what you’re actually trying to say.”

By creating a body of work free from the constraints of chart pressure, White Tail Falls’ debut album holds a special place in Sparkes’ heart, and perhaps most importantly, he is happy with it: “But, I have to remind myself not to place such a weight of expectation on it. I set out to write songs to help me understand how I really feel, to tell me why I felt sad and disconnected from myself. Shining a light on what I’d gone through helped me figure out where I was going.”

Now, he sees the work itself as the reward:

“I tend to write those songs which are counterbalanced by our poppy optimism. With the new project, I really wanted to make an album that was something I would listen to myself. So I kind of felt ‘I would listen to this album’, and I do regularly, still.”

Circling back to why he embarked on this personal project, Sparkes says that his background and success with The Hoosiers conditioned him to expect a reward for his work, which of course is not always guaranteed: “With The Hoosiers, we were signed, and there’s an expectation to recreate past commercial successes. It’s quite an insidious change where your expectations rise, so you feel like you’re expecting something back from your music, like an actual return. With this album having moved away from those sorts of constraints, and by not having as much success with subsequent releases, I think this White Tail Falls record was about getting back to why I first picked up a guitar when I was seven. You’re trying to make sense of what you’re going through, and I think in that way, music can be a very pure form of catharsis.”

Sparkes discarded many ideas and entire recordings that he felt weren’t being authentic while making the album. Slipping back into old habits, he realised he was still subconsciously chasing approval by attempting to be overly hooky, which neutralised what he was trying to communicate.

“It’s making something that I felt was truthful, and it’s a representation of where I was at that time of writing,” he says. “I found myself having to discard choruses that I felt were trying to be a bit too manipulative by relying on

“You’re not owed anything beyond actually creating something,” he says. “I think if the song means something to you, there’s a good chance it’ll find an audience. I guess it’s all those ideas about legacy – we’ve got this one life, so what do you want to have made your aim?

What do you want to leave behind? If you’re going to make music – if you’re going to bother at all – you’re not guaranteed success. I had a taste; I think The Hoosiers clocked in approximately eight and a half minutes of fame, so we’ll be back for the other six and a half. [smiles] What I mean is, you realise it didn’t change anything. It’s very fleeting, is my point. So make something that you believe in. That’s the least you can ask of yourself.”

On using Age of Entitlement to reveal a more vulnerable frontman than his fans may be accustomed to, Sparkes realises that this may be the reason he released the album under the name White Tail Falls: “Maybe subconsciously that’s why I went for a name that wasn’t my own – to give it a little alias and somewhere to hide, perhaps,” he considers. “The truth is, I didn’t set out to write an album about mental health issues. I just wanted to write about things I was trying to figure out, like your place in the world, why you’ve ended up where you’ve ended up, and put that together to figure out where you want to go. And boom! There’s an album.

“I’ve got a bit more used to talking about the reasons behind making this, but it’s all a bit real,” he admits. “I’m not just hiding behind metaphor the whole time. Although there’s still room for it, because I think that’s important in songwriting – don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.

I’m surprised I didn’t get a fish metaphor into that one!

Don’t cut your fins off to spite your scales...”

WHITETAILFALLS.COM

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FLUX PAVILION

Epic Fantasy

EPIC FANTASY

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Joshua Steele - better known by his stage name Flux Pavilion - is a hugely successful British electronic music producer, DJ, singer-songwriter and label owner who has been performing since 2008. In one of his first interviews for a long time, Flux tells Headliner all about his life during lockdown, his fascination with sound experimentation, the dubstep days, and how he uses Steinberg’s Cubase not just as a regular DAW, but as an intuitive, creative tool.

“I’m flat out working on about three albums at the moment and I’ve been producing for a variety of people,” begins Flux, “but this weekend I decided not to do anything, and just lounged around reading comic books instead.”

Perhaps an envious lifestyle for some, Flux made the decision around 18 months ago that he wanted to do less live music, and jokingly admits that “I’m good at writing music, but travelling around and being friendly and enthusiastic and jumping around is something I’m not actually very good at, but somehow that became my full time job.

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“I’ve been slowly working on shifting that, and as a result I’ve been stacked with studio work, which is great!”

Flux also admits that he’s generally been more productive as of late, and started off building guitars with all of his new found spare time. What started as a hobby out of necessity during lockdown quickly turned into a deep passion; Flux was soon expanding his Eurorack by building his own modular synthesis tools, and even designed and built his own guitar pedal from the ground up.

“I’ve just been soldering, looking into electronics and learning so much more about my craft than I ever had time to do before, which is absolutely amazing and has been a great opportunity,” he says.

Having got to where he is now doing everything in the box, Flux felt compelled to delve further into the analogue side of production, and has done just that over the past two or three years: “There’s always another VST I can download, but I wanted to buy an analogue synth to see what it’s all about; it just felt like there was a whole part of musical experimentation that I wasn’t really getting into. I record a part, and rather than using filter automation, I now use my hands to move the filter myself, and just that tiny touch of humanisation in my music changes everything.

“I don’t really use digital stuff anymore - it’s all analogue, because I find I can play parts in or have them recorded in and I can just change all the parameters with my hands,” he admits. “That’s something that’s so human and so organic, recording it once or twice and picking the best one. And then I don’t fiddle with it afterwards and spend months trying to make my songs perfect, because I actually captured

that moment with a real piece of equipment. Learning about what is in the equipment and building it all myself, I’ve found a new level of geekery that I never expected I would have the time to do!”

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planet, and you’re quite hungry, but maybe you want to go explore, and you’ve got eight legs; you can make

Incorporating more of the physical element into his music has clearly added a whole new dynamic to Flux’s workflow: “I’ve always been plagued by this concept of electronic music not being ‘real’ music. I always used to get asked in interviews things like, ‘so you’ve made it in electronic music as a DJ, but have you ever thought about doing real music, like with instruments and singing and stuff that’s real?’ And I get it was probably a bad choice of words, but it’s still something I’ve never forgotten, because that tends to be echoed right across the general public who often look at electronic music as being something different to playing a real instrument.

“But in the moments that a piece of control voltage is going through my synthesiser, it’s real. It has mass.

It’s an actual thing. I’m carving the voltages in real space, and as far as I’m concerned it’s an analogue instrument in the exact same manner as a guitar, albeit obviously kind of a different beast. There’s something about electronic music to me that feels more organic.

Despite this sentiment, Flux feels like he hasn’t really known much about the actual grounding and foundation of electronic music until quite recently: “There’s so much more complexity that you can capture in synthesis.

With a guitar, you can get a sound and you can get a feeling across, but you can’t create a whole atmospheric location that you can with electronic music: carving in these spaces that make you feel like you’ve just woken up on another

someone feel like that’s happened with electronic music, and that to me is amazing.”

Flux’s mastery of electronic music is deep-rooted; he’s been doing this for quite a while now after all, since what most music lovers of the generation would call the golden age of dubstep.

“I got into producing when I was about 12 or 13 with a cracked copy of Nuendo; recording my electric guitar, plugging it straight into my computer and manipulating the waveforms.

Proper electronic music happened when I was about 15 or 16, when I discovered Reason, and all the synths and stuff that are in there.

“I’ve enjoyed DJing, but what I always really wanted to do was sit around and play with synthesisers, write music and record bands all day. That’s what I dreamed of doing when I was a kid.”

Flux first started creating electronic music with Doctor P, another dubstep producer and childhood friend: “He was the only person in my small town that could play drums; I’d go round to his house and he had Nuendo, through which we’d record our band,” he remembers. “We got into drum and bass and started messing around with breaks, and then when dubstep came about we set up a record label.

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FLUX PAVILION

Epic Fantasy

“During that period, anyone would host a dubstep night anywhere. They were a good few years. I remember going to Aberystwyth and thinking, ‘how did I end up here, playing this music?’ But all of these tiny places were great, and the energy was always through the roof.”

Two of Flux’s tracks, I Can’t Stop and Bass Cannon, are truly explosive dubstep anthems which set the standard, and epitomised the genre when it hit its peak around 2010.

“Sometimes I think I’m done with Flux Pavilion and start working on other projects, but then I’ll write something and it’s a really good Flux Pavilion song, so I think I just have to accept that I can’t help myself!” he laughs. “I put out an eight track EP called Blow The Roof in 2013, but there were about three singles that didn’t make it on to the EP; we combined them to make an 11 track album, so what I’m working on now is technically the third Flux Pavilion album.”

And over the course of those three albums, his production process, workflow and mindset has undoubtedly changed; developing and evolving “more dramatically than ever with this project.

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“I think it’s since I’ve moved into the analogue gear side,” he ponders. “This album is a lot more explorative of atmosphere and ambience. I’ve always been influenced by thoughts and feelings and fantasy, but that track I Can’t Stop to me sounds like a Legend of Zelda final boss fight; a big epic moment on top of a volcano and that’s what I’ve always tried to do: capture this big, fantasy, epic energy.”

Flux reveals that he has further upped his fantasy repertoire recently, and now knows much more about fantasy fiction than ever before, something that’s had a dramatic effect on his writing: “It feels like my sphere of inspiration has got so much bigger. The new album is of course exploring sound, but for me it’s more about exploring fantasy and inspiration through fantasy environments, because now I know more about it.

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“EVERY FLUX PAVILION SONG THAT HAS EVER EXISTED HAS BEEN CREATED IN CUBASE...”

“As I mentioned, I started on Nuendo and Reason, and then bought a copy of Cubase SX 1. It was never that I didn’t like rack stuff, it just felt exciting to go and buy it myself and actually own a piece of music software, because it used to come in a big box and you had the CD in there.”

And he has bought every edition of Cubase ever since: “There was a point when I started thinking about other software and realised that some of my favourite producers, like Nero, Noisia and Pendulum all use Cubase, so I instantly knew that’s the way I wanted to go.

“As a producer, your DAW is like a badge of honour; everyone chooses one and you fight for that team - it’s almost like choosing a football team.

Like now if I meet someone else that also uses Cubase, we’re instantly better friends!”

While there’s been so many new versions of Cubase since its inception, with constant updates adding new virtual instruments and FX, the software has arguably hit new heights over the last couple of years.

“I’ve always just loved the sound of Cubase even when I didn’t know as much about it - like with Bass Cannon for instance, that’s the sound of Cubase being clipped because I wanted it to be louder. That master is in the red nearly the whole way through.

“And it just keeps getting better with all the algorithms that they use for time stretching. I can write a whole song, and then I select everything that isn’t drums and pitch it up a semitone or two, which you can do all in real time. I’ll pitch something around until it feels better, because sometimes I might want the sub to sit in a different place, or hear what a song sounds like in a different key.”

For Flux, Cubase is clearly the easiest interface to use, although this of course quite often comes down to personal preference.

“I’ve got whole songs that I’ve just stretched and bounced and mastered, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, which I think is a pretty wild thing,” he says. “If they sent me one, I could happily play shows in a Cubase T-shirt! I’m proud of the thing; they’ve made this piece of software that enables me to create fantasy worlds. Every Flux Pavilion song that has ever existed has been created on Cubase, and the wealth of stuff I’m working on now will be created on Cubase as well.”

FLUXPAVILION.COM STEINBERG.NET

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EUROSPORT

Rise of the Machines

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RISE OF THE MACHINES

EUROSPORT The introduction of IP technology to the world of remote sports production is having a profound impact on how major events are managed, providing opportunities for significant improvements in efficiency and a reduction in hardware needing to be shipped to the venue.

This program of change was ongoing before COVID-19 added to the momentum, although initially with major sporting events all being cancelled, it might be assumed that the rate of change would have slowed.

The recent Grand Slam tennis events in New York and Paris saw the Eurosport Cube introduced, accompanied by some major changes in the technical solutions employed.

One of these was the addition of auto-mixing from LAMA (Lean And Mean Audio), working with Virtual Machines which requires an ASIO driver that can synchronise all audio machines with low latency.

This system depends on additional hardware and some software from Merging Technologies.

The need for social distancing at all stages of the broadcast chain further emphasised the need to reduce the crew travelling to the event, but still provided the capacity for local commentaries and programming.

The Olympics and many other major sports events were either cancelled or postponed early in 2020, but there have been temporary peaks in demand for tennis tournaments like the recent US and French Opens.

The demands of these events in terms of their sheer size and complexity needs to be understood in order to realise why moving to this workflow not only makes sense, but is essential.

A major driver is the need to cater for more commentators in a flexible and scalable manner, without purchasing more hardware.

With the traditional hardware setup, Eurosport would have been faced with an extra challenge when commentators had to work remotely due to COVID-19. The need to be able to increase capacity on demand prompted the decision to start using Virtual Machines. VMs are more effective in terms of cost, while they can also be moved or recreated if there is a problem, and scaled for tomorrow’s needs.

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Rise of the Machines

There are other strong drivers for broadcasters to look at similar solutions. Although there are hopes for some return to normality in 2021, nobody can be sure under what conditions. Looking to The Olympics as an example, the need for a solution with a mix minus system such as the one provided by LAMA is paramount, so that commentaries and virtual crowds can be added remotely.

COVID rules next August may prevent having several commentators in one booth, meaning that if you have 300 mixes with two commentators who have to be in different booths – that would be 600 booths, which is of course impractical and too expensive.

It is also possible to control more mixes with just one operator. This is a logical development and not just because of medical advice; it is clearly a natural progression to increase efficiency without

compromising the viewer experience that is driving broadcasters as technology permits. The key is to provide more mixes without adding more operators.

Many broadcasters are now delivering content on digital platforms, with a selection of different events available continuously. There are also moves within the industry to improve the user experience with the introduction of immersive audio and new accessibility solutions, as well as a requirement to offer user selectable options. With sports, there is already a move to have more commentaries in one language.

Eurosport has also invested in Merging Technologies Hapi and Horus networked audio converters that are ST2110-30 compliant. There are now over 20 Hapi units deployed with a handful of the larger Horus units. More recently, Merging Anubis units are being added, as there are

an increasing number of Ovation Media Servers.

The AETA ScoopTeam commentary units also share the Merging ZMAN technology that is a central component of Anubis, ensuring that AES67 compatibility is guaranteed between these essential hardware devices.

What became clear was that some additional custom features would be required to realise the full potential of the system. ANEMAN Enterprise was tailored to suit the much larger facility but it was also necessary to develop an ASIO driver capable of working with Virtual Machines.

This driver technology is now employed in two Tech-Hubs located in the UK and the Netherlands with 36 VMs in each location, with plans for future expansion. The Merging units provide the ASIO clock derived from the PTP Grand Master and the audio VMs are running applications such as LAMA or Merging’s Ovation Media Server.

Merging recently introduced the Anubis SPS to add ST2022-7 to the NMOS and ST2110-30 capability shared by all Merging interfaces.

These protocols are also provided by the new Merging Audio Device (MAD) when the Infrastructure Pack is added. Not only does this provide multi-ASIO capability but it also adds WDM (Windows Driver Model) to the range of options to combine different media feeds.

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AUDIO IN SPORTS

Claude Cellier, Merging’s president and CEO, summarises the company’s outlook: “We have invested considerable time to ensure we kept abreast of the fast-moving developments of the IP world.

It is really stimulating to work with companies who are pushing the boundaries and Eurosport is clearly doing this.

This not only results in products that perform a function, it leads us to contribute key parts of systems that offer

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real benefits in cost and efficiency, resulting in a better viewer experience. Working in partnership with LAMA, we feel that the success of Roland-Garros demonstrated that particularly well. We are not done yet; there will be more products coming soon to improve the workflow and integrate more easily into the total IP infrastructure.”

MERGING.COM

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Revered heavy metal guitarist, songwriter and producer Andy Sneap reflects on the moment he was asked to join Judas Priest as their touring guitarist, and explains why Celestion’s Vintage 30s are always his number one choice.

Andy Sneap should currently be touring with Judas Priest, but instead has spent a lot of this year hunkered down in his studio in rural Derbyshire working on various projects, which HEADLINER MAGAZINE

thankfully have been in good supply.

“Production-wise, it’s worked out and it’s been quite a good year; gig-wise, it’s turned out to be terrible,” says a laid back Sneap. “There’s been a few albums, so it’s kept the wolf from the door. A lot of things are still being worked out with live stuff because that has to get planned around festivals next year - that determines a lot of scheduling for any gigs in between. I’m on a need to know

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102 ANDY SNEAP Highway to Hell

basis, and I don’t need to know,” he laughs. “Honestly when I’m on these tours now I don’t even know where I am. I’m just like, ‘right, where’s the stage?’”

Sneap is a musician, songwriter, guitar player and record producer with over 100 albums to his name, most of which have been produced at his Backstage Recording studios.

Some of his most critically acclaimed production work on albums include

PRODUCER

Deliverance by Opeth and Disarm the Descent by Killswitch Engage, for which he earned a Swedish Grammis and a US Grammy nomination, respectively.

happening time for metal. I met Dave, who was like an older brother to me. He took me under his wing, was giving me lessons, and it was just an inspiration seeing all these bands.”

Sneap got his first guitar and amplifier from his parents at age 12 as a Christmas present. He started learning guitar with fellow Hell band member Dave Halliday, who had a profound effect on Sneap and left him the rights to all his songs and equipment in his will following his death.

He knew he wanted to be part of the metal scene, and as a performer, he first built his reputation as one of the guitarists in the British thrash metal band Sabbat – playing with them until their disbanding. To this day he is still one of the co-guitarists in Hell.

“I got into rock and metal when my brother bought me a Status Quo single for Christmas,” he remembers.

“I just loved the energy of it. Then I got into AC/DC, Motorhead and Iron Maiden and all the bands that were around then. It was a really

“I wasn’t really very good at anything else! I just loved the vibe of putting songs together and the sound of it all coming together as well. When Sabbat split up in 1990, I carried on in the studio side of things because even though I wasn’t in a band, I was still being creative and doing what I enjoyed. It’s always been a natural

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stepping stone. I’ve just followed my nose really and gone with where it’s taken me.”

In 2018 his nose led him to joining Judas Priest as a touring guitarist following the band’s long-time lead guitarist Glenn Tipton being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“I’d worked with them already as a producer so we were good friends, and I knew of Glenn’s health issues.

I was in a rehearsal room with them and Glenn asked me if I could do the tour, which started in three weeks time. I was like a rabbit in the headlights, but I came home, learned 25 songs, had three days of rehearsals with them and played the first show for 6,000 people. No pressure at all!”

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104 ANDY SNEAP Highway to Hell

Sneap distinctly remembers being in the hotel lift before being picked up for that first show: “It was like being taken to the electric chair,” he laughs. “I was thrown to the internet lions, really. With any band that’s been going for 40 or 50 years, there’s chemistry there, so for me to just step into Glenn’s shoes, it was like, ‘What do I do? Do I move around? Do I do my own thing? Where do I need to be on stage at this time?’ We didn’t know, so it was a learning process as it went on. We went through the set three or four times before we did the first show; I don’t think people realise how close to the bone the whole thing was!”

Although he was racked with nerves when he was asked to join, Sneap knew he’d regret it for the rest of his life if he passed up the opportunity: “These are my heroes, so it was a really big task when I got asked to do it. The next morning I woke up and I felt physically sick just from the thought HEADLINER MAGAZINE

of doing it. But I knew if I didn’t do it, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

So I had to jump on board and get match-fit. You don’t want to be on your deathbed going ‘what if?’ – that’s the worst thing possible. If you don’t try and take advantage of situations, what’s the point in being here? You’ve got to embrace it.”

His touring career aside, Sneap is one of the most active music producers in the metal music genre, and has worked with bands such as Judas Priest, Accept, Blaze Bayley, Saxon, Opeth, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Exodus, Megadeth, Kataklysm, Kreator, Nevermore, Testament, Carcass, Fear Factory, Overkill and DevilDriver.

Sneap holds the distinction of having been credited as a producer, mixer or engineer on all six of Testament’s albums since 1999’s The Gathering, as well as all seven of Exodus’ releases since the 1997 live album, Another Lesson in Violence.

He set up Backstage Recording Studio in 1994, which he used as a small demo facility for himself and local bands from the Midlands area. Later relocating to larger premises, the studio went on to welcome some of the biggest names in heavy metal through its doors.

“In the ‘90s I was probably spending about six months of the year in the US doing albums out there, and I could see that we were spending a lot of money on studios, and the bands were paying me. The bill was pretty pricey for a band to do a full album with accommodation, so I started thinking about having a place at mine where I could have accommodation, do the whole package, and I could cut the band a deal. I knew I could actually earn more money if I owned the studio as well. It was for everyone’s benefit, really.”

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“IF YOU DON’T TRY AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SITUATIONS, WHAT’S THE POINT IN BEING HERE? YOU’VE GOT TO EMBRACE IT.”

celestion Sneap only uses Celestions on his records, his longtime go-tos being Vintage 30s and 12” Greenbacks paired with Marshall cabinets. It’s been this way for him for as long as he can remember:

same character, so the cab is so important. I’ve got lots of different cabs, but the Marshalls with Vintage 30s just direct it a certain way – it’s the cab that everyone aspires to, and the combination just works for what I do.”

“I’ve got about eight Marshall cabinets from the ‘80s, which were actually the dummy cabs that were in one of The Cult’s music videos. I went down to see Ken at Marshall to buy some cabs for Sabbat, and there were all these cabs in the corridor,” he recalls. “He said he was getting rid of them, so I said, ‘well, you can get rid of them in my van!’ I paid £35 each for about 12 of them!”

Sneap produced American thrash metal band, Testament’s 10th studio album, The Formation of Damnation, which he used Greenback-loaded EVH 5150 cabs on:

Slowly over the years, he loaded them up with Celestion Vintage 30s and Greenbacks, although he prefers the V30s.

“I find the Vintage 30s work better just because of the way the midrange is so pronounced in them. The Greenbacks are a little bit softer and they break up a little better when they’re pushed – they saturate a little harder. The Vintage 30s have got an all round low end response and the mid range is in the right place. I have the G12H Celestions in my EVH cabs,” he points out.

“If the musician is after a certain thing, I try and roll with it rather than saying, ‘we’ve got to use this, or we’re gonna use that’ – it’s always nice to have a bit of an input from the player to try and capture their vibe. I’ve got a couple of EVH capsules with those speakers in and they do sound quite different to Vintage 30s – but not different in a bad way, just a different texture. You could record with Greenbacks or Vintage 30s and they would sound great on a record – there’s no rules to this. I was able to get what I wanted out of the Greenbacks even though I lean more towards Vintage 30s.”

CELESTION.COM

Sneap says he knows where he is with his Vintage 30-loaded Marshalls: “I always say that changing the speaker is as big a deal as changing the amp, if not bigger in a way. If you take an impulse response of a cab and apply that to any amp, the amp doesn’t sound identical, but it’s got the HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

VIEW by R E

RUNNING WITH IT

ASTRÆA

GUST ICE A AL

IN T

Running With It

ON FS

106 ASTRÆA

You’ve heard her voice before, but perhaps can’t quite pinpoint where. That’s because Astræa is the voice behind the emotive version of You’re Not Alone from the Lloyds Bank advert (yes, the one with the horses running on the beach), which sold 45,000 OCC units and racked up five million streams while it was at it.

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Speaking to Headliner over Zoom, Minnesota-born Astræa (who has lived in the UK for six years and only occasionally betrays a hint of a transatlantic accent) says that she’s still trying to make sense of the lockdown period and the current state of the world. Happily, she does most of her production from home, and has been able to fully dedicate herself to her most recent project, which she wrote, recorded, and independently produced.

“When I was a kid, there was this computer game called Super Duper Music Looper, and my little brother was obsessed with this game,” she says brightly.

“Looking back at it now, it was almost like a DAW for kids. You could find all these different types of loops and throw them into the DAW and make pieces of music out of it, so I would often make orchestral pieces out of these loops.”

Despite being musically-inclined since childhood, Astræa says that she only started taking a serious interest in music production five years ago when she wanted to record some of her piano compositions, but didn’t have the budget for a producer.

“It was a lot of trial and error and figuring things out as I went along,” she admits. “It definitely took at least two to three years until I finally felt like I could call myself a producer, because I think every producer goes through this whole phase where everything sounds crap! It can be so frustrating at first, but you just have to push through that time period and keep trying things until you can get to a point where things start to sound better.”

Before releasing her own music, Astræa’s classical background and studies in music and psychology led her to practicing music therapy with people with schizophrenia and children with learning difficulties. Astræa has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and music, and a master’s degree in music therapy.

“I’ve always been fascinated by psychology,” she says, “and at the same time, I’ve been obsessed with music since I was a toddler. I wanted to explore this other area of interest of mine and see how I could combine music and psychology. Writing and performing music has always been a form of therapy to me, so having that first hand experience of knowing how powerful music can be when you’re going through something made me want to learn more about that, and how I could use that to help other people.”

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108 ASTRÆA

Running With It

“No matter how difficult or dark life can become, we will always have the power within ourselves to overcome those hard moments.”

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TONIGHT I RUN

Tonight I Run is the culmination of years of hard work and sees Astræa, for the first time, telling her own story. Made up of atmospheric and cinematic soundscapes that fuse her background as a classical musician with modern, electronic pop elements, her debut EP draws upon influences from the strong female artists and producers who’ve come before her (the classical training of Tori Amos, as well as the imagination and independence of Kate Bush), alongside her love for big pop producers like Max Martin and Guy Sigsworth.

The EP’s single, Tonight I Run was written as an anthem for the underdog: “I’ll be completely honest, the music industry is a really difficult place,” she says when asked about the inspiration behind this track. “I’m sure that’s nothing new, and especially if you are a woman. When you’re facing extra hurdles, it can make it difficult to deal with and I wanted to be honest about that in my songs. Tonight I Run is all about those elements; about me questioning myself and doubting what I was doing. Writing that song helped me come back to realising the strength that I had within myself – knowing that no matter how difficult or dark life can become, we will always have the power within ourselves to overcome those hard moments and come out the other side stronger and more resilient people.”

Inspired by a belated interest in Pink Floyd, “they weren’t a band that I grew up listening to, but within the last couple of years I’ve become obsessed!” Astræa says their song Time had a big impact on her: “The lyrics really spoke to me because it was all about how we let our lives pass us by without even realising it, and I didn’t want to be one of those

people. It kicked me in the bum a little bit and made me feel a lot more motivated to go after my goals. That’s what inspired a lot of the lyrics: ‘I’ll chase the sun, ‘til I run out of breath in my lungs’ – we’re always chasing after the sun, almost pointlessly. But you know what? I will keep chasing after it until the end of my days. I’m not going to be giving up on anything that I want to be achieving.”

The song has an unmistakable cinematic, orchestral feel to it – which prompts Astræa to gush about That Sound’s drum sample libraries; she always starts at the piano and then builds up her drums and percussion.

“Oh my gosh, their stuff is so good,” she enthuses. “I use their Cinematic Pop library [known for its set of kicks, snares, claps, toms, hats, snaps and effects] on practically everything that I create. Everything sounds so epic, being both electronic and cinematic.

I used a couple of snare sounds from this library – there’s this [sings] ‘doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo’ sound, which is almost like a Latin beat in a sense – the toms in that are from the Cinematic Pop library. I usually mess with the sound a fair bit; for this song I wanted the beats and the synths in the verse to feel a bit submerged.”

Asking me to picture an Imagine Dragons-type of production, Astræa explains how she also made use of That Sound’s Mammoth collection of thick, unruly kicks, messy, distorted claps and disheveled snares to command attention on the track – specifically to layer kicks together to create a deeper, “more stubby” kick.

A 14-year old Astræa was inspired by piano and film composers like Ludovico Einaudi and Hans Zimmer, so it’s a no brainer that she was drawn to Spitfire Audio’s Hans Zimmer libraries to add a cinematic flourish to her drum sounds:

“Spitfire is one of my favourite companies,” she confirms. “On this track I used quite a few Hans Zimmer drum sounds, as well as rims just to give even more of an orchestral feeling in the choruses. I wanted it to feel as huge as I possibly could get it, so I used a couple of gong sounds as well. I don’t always like to use very typical sounds in my production because I come from a classical background and used to play in a lot of orchestras growing up. That really seeped into my consciousness and just comes out in my production I guess! I also used Spitfire’s Chamber Strings library in the last chorus to add some extra string textures and make it sound a bit bigger.”

The UAD Studer A800 multichannel tape recorder plugin, known of course for its ability to mimic and reproduce every nuance of analogue tape compression, helped Astræa to bring a real vintage warmth to the song – and was of particular use on the drum bus: “When you’re using samples, I think a really good way to avoid them sounding too cold or fake is to add more depth and make them sound even more authentic,” she shares. “A really good way to do that is using these kind of vintage emulation plugins; it’s a really great way of adding that extra depth.”

The quest to capture an authentic, analogue feel saw Astræa seek out Soundtoys’ Decapitator, which she also put to use on the drum bus.

“It just adds even more tube warmth to things and it makes them sound unique and original. When you’re using presets, it’s really important that you mess with it because there’s a lot of people that could have those exact presets, so you want to make sure that

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ASTRÆA

Running With It

things are going to sound unique and original to you as well,” she points out. “Decapitator is a really great plugin to use for that when you want to mess with something and make it sound really cool. I often use that on vocals as well to add even more bite and grit.”

Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere software synth is Astræa’s go-to for synths, and she notes that she could happily spend weeks going through all their different sounds, and still not work her way through them all: “There’s just so much stuff in there!

I used Omnisphere mainly in the verses of this song, and then I messed with it by adding a chorus plugin with a low pass filter to make them feel a bit further away. I also had quite a few of them sidechained to the kick because I really wanted them to feel like they were pulsing and quite rhythmic. The kick is quite stubby in the verse, so there needed to be more room for it to come through. I layered up around 10 different synths and effects from Omnisphere – especially in verse one because I wanted to have these weird twinkly sounds.”

Wanting to introduce a touch of the ‘80s to the chorus, Astræa put u-he’s Diva retro-sounding synth to work: HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“I wanted it to sound a bit nostalgic, so I thought it would be the perfect thing for that. I really like to have things that sound great out of the box, especially if I’m working quickly – sometimes you just want to make sure you get an idea in and can move on and have it sound great right away. Diva is one of those instances where stuff sounds great, cool and vintage right away.”

For her debut EP release, it was important for Astræa to be honest about the personal experiences that are woven into it, which is why you’ll pick up on themes of anxiety and imposter syndrome, the healing nature of relationships and the light they can bring in moments of darkness, and depictions of moving on after difficult moments.

“Thanks for noticing that – the more honest I can be, maybe other people might be able to hear my story and relate to some of the things that I say, and feel less alone in what they’re struggling with. Music is always something that I turn to to hear somebody else singing about exactly what I was feeling, and has always been something that’s helped me push through and deal with it. It’s quite cathartic, really.”

This reminds Astræa of her anxietyinducing classical music recital days: “This always induced extreme anxiety in me because the classical world can be quite tricky when you’re performing; it’s very much based on perfection. One time before a performance, my teacher said to me, ‘You are your own worst enemy; this is all in your head and you can deal with it and turn it around’. That has always stuck in my head, and I think it’s something that a lot of people can relate to.

Sometimes we hold ourselves back when we don’t need to.”

“It’s always been one of my goals to use my music to connect with people and be there for them when they’re going through difficult moments,” she says as we wrap up the interview. “I’ve had people confide in me about how my songs have helped them through really tough times. It’s an honour to be able to do that for people, and it’s why I do what I do.”

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ENDLESSS STUDIO

Getting a Kickstart

REVEAL

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ENDLESSS STUDIO

GUSTAFSO CE

GETTING A KICKSTART

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SPOTLIGHT REVEAL

N

The company that brought music-makers Endlesss is back with the brand new Endlesss Studio, a powerful cloud-connected looping instrument designed to cut out the admin of traditional DAWs for lightning-fast composition.

In a year that has seen musicians, artists and producers mainly self isolating and collaborating on projects remotely, creatives are turning to tech more than ever before to ensure they can carry on working, regardless. One such company offering up a solution to facilitate creatives to, well, create, is music-making platform, Endlesss, which has used 2020 to ramp up its efforts to bring its creativityinducing collaboration app to more platforms and workflows, including pro-grade DAWs. Enter Endlesss Studio, a MacOS app and VST / AU plugin which

expands the company’s awardwinning lockdown-busting iOS app into the world of desktop DAWs and hardware.

during June in 2020. Endlesss raised £141k, impressively becoming the seventh most-funded software campaign in the history of Kickstarter.

The new MacOS app adds deep integration with all major DAWs such as Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, and more, while VST and AU plugin versions, MIDI controller support and instant audio drag and drop connect the Endlesss workflow to the heart of the professional music creation environment.

Founded in 2017 by musician and technologist, Tim Exile, Endlesss was formed after Exile moved on from his successful career as a recording artist to develop tools which would bring a performative approach to electronic music creation. And this ain’t Exile’s first rodeo – he’s created a number of influential VST plugin products in his time, such as The Mouth in partnership with Native Instruments, and SLOO (Shed Loads Of Oscillators) under his own brand.

Development of Endlesss Studio was funded by backers of the company’s Kickstarter campaign, which ran

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ENDLESSS STUDIO

Getting a Kickstart

“Studio is Endlesss’s next step in building a home for creative musical culture where creators of every skill level can connect, learn and build communities around creativity,” explains Exile. “As the lines between artist and fan erode, Endlesss is building an ecosystem where anyone can forge their own creative path.

Whether that path leads to a tightknit community of like-minded friends or rising to the top of the Billboard charts, Endlesss aims to put purpose and culture at the heart of musicmaking.”

Endlesss is a cloud-connected multitrack looper with a large collection HEADLINER MAGAZINE

of performance instruments and effects designed to facilitate a quick create flow for music-makers. Since its launch in spring 2020, the Endlesss iOS app has been used by a long list of notable creators including Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Imogen Heap, electronica giants Underworld, Kevin Drew from indierockers Broken Social Scene, and US comedian Hannibal Buress.

Endlesss Studio kicks things up a notch with a broad collection of performance-optimised instruments designed to inspire creativity straight out of the box. Boasting 23 creative performance effects with instant

recursive re-sampling capability, sculpting complex and dynamic sounds in Endlesss Studio reportedly takes seconds – a process which the company says would usually involve hours of detailed automation and expensive plugins.

Endlesss Studio integrates seamlessly with the iOS app to enable instant handoff of the track-building flow between mobile and desktop, allowing multiple collaborators to contribute live from anywhere in the world with an instrument, their voice, hardware or software – on smartphone or in a high-end studio.

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Endlesss Studio is available now until March 31 2021 for £79 / $99 / €99 – a 50% introductory discount of the usual price of £159 / $199 / €199. A Windows version is under development and will be available in the summer of 2021.

ENDLESSS.FM

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LEAPWING AUDIO

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

RootOne

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by P AU ew i v

L

how low can you go?

WATSON

REVIEW

re

SPOTLIGHT REVIEW

LEAPWING ROOTONE Leapwing Audio is a young and innovative brand that started out in 2015 with an ethos of putting innovation in the hands of musicians. I’m a musician first and publisher second, so that’s a tick in the box right away. DynOne was Leapwing’s first release – a multiband compressor with simplicity at the core (and great sonics, I should add – I had a play with it before embarking on this review). Just browsing the Leapwing site gives you a real flavour of not only the brand, but the people behind it: in 60 seconds, I have discovered that Jeroen, Robin, and Emiliano all met in Belgium, all like very different music, have evolved into an award winning trio of plugin developers, and all love pizza – particularly from Bleecker Street Pizza in New York City, apparently. Marvellous.

So, the plugin I’m diving into today is RootOne – it was launched at the end of August to critical acclaim and, according to Leapwing, it’s “the new way to get the perfect low-end tonal

balance” - which immediately sounds intriguing. Furthermore, I can expect it to be “effective across a far wider range of sources” than I might initially think. Excellent.

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LEAPWING AUDIO

RootOne

First off, let’s look at the GUI – simple, slick and intuitive, just as I expected.

There is a subharmonics section, a harmonics section, and an input and output section. Subharmonics is set across three faders: Sub, Thump, and Punch, each of which comes with its own Drive, Dynamics, and Attack / Decay parameters. And Harmonics has one fader to Drive, Colour or Low Pass Saturation. Furthermore, each fader represents a frequency range: Sub spans 8Hz to 30Hz; Thump is 32Hz to 56Hz; Punch is 62Hz to104Hz, and Saturation is 114Hz to 196Hz. Each of the faders can be soloed or muted (either individually or together in any desired configuration), and there are a number of presets available – but I’m not going there... yet.

Although this plugin isn’t just for kicks and basslines, I decide to start there, and bring up a multitrack with one of my favourite groove-making duos: James Trood (MD and drummer, Dua Lipa, Zara Larsson) and Andrew Misuraca on bass.

I drop in an instance of RootOne on the Kick (In), play the drum multitrack, and begin to raise the first plugin fader as I go: Sub. I get to about 70% (I haven’t yet dialled in, so to speak), and the impact is quite striking. I drop HEADLINER MAGAZINE

“HAVING NEVER DIVED QUITE THIS INTRICATELY INTO THE WORLD OF SUBHARMONICS, I’M ASTOUNDED HOW I’VE IMPROVED THE SOUND OF THE KICK IN A MATTER OF MINUTES, BEING WAY BOLDER THAN NORMAL...”

it down a little and punch it in and out, moving from 8Hz to 12Hz, driving it around 40%, and leaving dynamics at 100, with a low attack and decay. My Genelec sub is working harder than it has in some time – and when I isolate the frequency (I don’t recommend this at high volume!) it’s a pretty terrifying experience. But I’ll give RootOne this – that is definitely sub! Saying that, I’m surprised I can still have audible control this far down in the frequency range – it certainly feels like I do, anyway!

Rather than go back to the full kit sound and mix the kick signal in as I go, I’m intrigued to see what the other frequencies sound like in isolation and together. As I bring them into play, the simple ethos is evident once more: they do what they say on the tin, so to speak. Thump absolutely generates a

thumping sound – which I really like at around 70% drive and 50% decay; it starts to add meat, and as I drive it harder, I realise there is room for a touch more sub. Then I add Punch to the sound – again, ‘punchy’ – and understandably, as there is less low in there, I am careful not to push this too hard, or it can sound like a note/tone, so around 30% drive and 30% decay does the trick.

Bear in mind, by the way – this is a real drum I’m working on. If I was using my Arturia DrumBrute (which I will get to!) then these parameters could actually help me tune a drum rather than create sub and presence, like I’m trying to do to this real kick. I move onto Harmonics, and the Saturation effect – and this ups the game further (we’re still in solo mode within the plugin here, by the way) – I move up from 110Hz to 120Hz, and drive it around 50% - as long as there is enough Sub frequencies in the ‘mix’, you can create the bite using Saturation and retain the hugeness of the whole sonic image.

Still in solo mode, I decide to experiment with decay and drive on each of the elements, and with a few little tweaks, I think there is a subharmonic energy here that should really complement the kick.

SPOTLIGHT REVIEW

Sure enough, as I unsolo the plugin elements and play the kick first without, then with the plugin, it’s a real treat.

I know the idea is – make this simple, so I’m not after a pat on the back here – but having never dived quite this intricately into this level of subharmonics, in areas frequency-wise that I’m not 100% au fait with, I’m pretty astounded how much I’ve improved the sound of this kick in a matter of 10 or so minutes. I unsolo the kick and there is suddenly a real vibe.

To see how quickly I can make the Kick (out) work, I drop the same settings into channel two. The result: too much sub, and understandably so, as the first kick is so much tighter – but as soon as I dial back the sub, I engage and dial in some punch, and some Saturation, and I’ve got a solid, fat sounding kick drum.

I tend to lead with the Kick in within my mixes, and that’s also the case here - but the two signals have both improved vastly, and my gain isn’t so far different from

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one to the other, such is the way they clearly complement each other using RootOne. What this plugin has managed to do is not add the same ‘sound’ to each kick (despite some fairly similar energies being dialled in across the frequency range), it’s somehow managed to enhance the best bits in each. Impressive.

I move onto the snare (top) – and drop in a new instance of RootOne. I leave the Sub dialled in, but way down, so it’s just there – but I do dial in about 50% extra drive, 50% attack and 25% decay on the Thump at 40Hz which really gives it some balls. Then I hit the Punch a little harder at 75Hz, with similar drive, attack and decay, and get a little of the snare crack brought out with some pretty harddriven Saturation at around 120Hz. When I unsolo everything and play the kit back – RootOne in, RootOne out – it’s actually amazing to listen to the enhancements this plugin has allowed me to make in such a short period of time, and with such accuracy.

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RootOne

I give my ears a little break, and return about 15 minutes later – and play the track. Thankfully, barely any tweaking is needed at all. Admittedly, I do dial the sub on the kick, but it’s marginal – and let’s be honest, if I’m going to overdo anything on this plugin, it’s going to be the Sub (clue’s in the name, and all that).

tell myself, as I drive it harder. And I do it purely by ear and feel this time, bringing the bass in with the full band mix, A/Bing both bass tracks. I have to say, there is no comparison. I’ve used some cool plugins before to add sub to a track, but normally they’re one fader, and I’ll admittedly work from a preset and tweak from there.

I mix down a stereo drum track from the multitrack, duplicate it, and on v2.0 I take out RootOne – allowing me a simple A/B – and this is where I really notice it. The whole kit feels warmer, more pronounced, and dare I say it, more profound. This whole process – ear break included – has taken about 90 minutes. And what I’ve also noticed is, I want to exaggerate some of the EQ I had on the kit prior to the RootOne to accentuate some of the dynamics and saturation that it has given the track. And that in itself is great fun.

But what RootOne does is somehow put you at ease – which is crazy really, considering these frequencies we’re daring to tamper with are without question the toughest to get right.

And I really do find myself feeling my way, if you like. I guess spending some time on the kick gave me a good benchmark – but even still, I’m there quicker with the bass, no question – and only when I’m happy with my bass sound do I take a proper look at the settings I’ve settled on. I must admit, I have hammered the Saturation - which perhaps explains the presence that the bass now has within the track, and why it sits so well with the way fuller kick sound. Yet the subharmonics section is providing all the solidity – the guts and depth that I need in the bass guitar, and has ultimately allowed me to go a bit wild on the harmonics, with the notes jumping out at you, now with serious oomph to back it up. And let’s be honest, although there are some rules you shoud try to follow in audio, sometimes it’s the ones you break and the mistakes you make that end up being your favourites.

Next – bass. If ever I’m going to overdo it, it’s now!

I pull up a different project for this – the same players but with a full band behind them. I listen to Andrew’s bass in isolation, duplicate it, and drop in an instance of RootOne – for my A/B test.

The original sounds nice, if a little over compressed (must have been a loud mix session, oops!) So I dial everything back a touch and begin building the subharmonics subtly, then a little more aggressive. “Don’t be afraid of a subwoofer – it is your friend” I

HIGHLIGHTS ++ Extremely Accurate Control of Sub Frequencies ++ Exciting Harmonics Section ++ Simple to Use

LEAPWINGAUDIO.COM

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While I was at it in this mix, I tried some of RootOne’s presets out on some of my groups: Guitars Thick (unbelievable difference to a pair of Telecasters, instantly); Synth Beef on a Moog Subharmonicon was a treat; and Vocal Chest - which I did admittedly tweak for a few minutes - certainly added a presence on a lead vocal (of course from the harmonics, not the subharmonics). All of these presets are fantastic – and clearly tried and tested. Kudos indeed, Leapwing Audio.

So who would benefit from this plugin? I think everyone can – but most definitely those aspiring and emerging creatives that struggle to get that all important low-end fine tuned in their mixes. It’s pretty damn surgical, this plugin – but at the same time, because you’re working in frequency ranges that are deliberately limited, it’s impossible to lose your way entirely when working in these parameters - and when you do come unstuck, it’s a learning curve: you know what not to boost next time you touch that fader.

And if you try to use your ears as much as possible, RootOne can be very educational. People tend to be afraid of sub – and subwoofers, certainly – but this plugin allows us as creatives to embrace those fears and dive in head first, safe in the knowledge that you shouldn’t go too far wrong.

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LIVE COMEDY

Return of the Craic

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NEW SENNHEISER DYNAMICS ON TEST

by Ric k ckerson Di

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REVIEW

RETURN OF THE CRAIC Last month, 200 comedy lovers piled in (socially distanced, of course) to witness another round of ‘Return of the Craic’ – a regularly sold-out, outdoor comedy event which Headliner has exclusive access to. This time around our A-lister is Irish stand-up, Ed Byrne, with host and warm-up comic, Jarlath Regan kicking off proceedings. And this evening, it’s a Sennheiser/Korg combo running the show. Let’s dive in...

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SPOTLIGHT

Ed Byrne is set to continue his If I’m Honest tour which was disrupted as a result of the current pandemic from February next year. As he treats us to a taste of his one man show he says: “While I wouldn’t normally play a shithole like this, I’m just pleased to be out of the house!” A line which prompted the first bout of much needed hysterical laughter. A line made even funnier by this venue’s classy aesthetic: The Plough is an idyllic space, boasts a great little stage, an amazing woody campfire aroma, fabulous food, and a wine cellar stocked with some of the finest wines in all Christendom.

A feature of all of the Return of the Craic events so far has been the regular wet and windy weather but our robust compact sound system has had no problem making sure every word and those all important punchlines have been clearly and consistently delivered.

As with all previous events at The Plough, the core sound system remains the same featuring coaxial dB Technologies LVX XM15s which don’t seem to mind being rained on; and the very compact and fullyfeatured Korg Soundlink MW-1608 console. This is such a reliable and transparent little system; it requires very little EQ, and can be set up from car boot to show in under an hour.

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vocal microphone and has a supercardioid pickup pattern; and the MD 435 is the new cardioid flagship dynamic.

overlook and probably the first thing I noticed when I started reviewing them is the large diaphragm format, and just how good these mics sound.

Comedians often use mic technique to emphasise points, or to create a particular voice or character - and when making use of the proximity effect and coming in close, it’s not unusual for some dynamics to break up or distort. Sometimes it’s down to the correct gain structure, other times it could be the capsule’s inability to cope with the high SPL. Again, sometimes this is caused by the mic being cupped, and there being nowhere for the air to move over the diaphragm and through the capsule; sometimes it’s a combination of both.

The detail and transparency is more reminiscent of a quality condenser than a dynamic, and while it might not have quite the sparkle of a condenser, it also isn’t picking up all those off-axis high frequencies that condensers are famous for. It does, however, pick up plenty of sparkle from the voice that’s just in front of its large diaphragm.

These possibilities are reduced in these two Sennheiser mics by their ability to cope with SPLs of up to 163dB, their incredible off-axis rejection - even more noticeable in the MD 445, which forces the performer to stay on the mic allowing for far easier gain setting.

These make for a couple of pretty high-end, abuse-proof microphones.

When it came to the show, I hadn’t actually planned for any one person to use any particular mic as there had been no soundcheck, only that whichever mic they went to first would be their mic for the entire night, as under current conditions (for obvious reasons) there would be no mic sharing.

I was really pleased that I finally had the opportunity to sit back and really listen to these mics and get a clearer picture of what they’re all about - in a real live setting.

The next point I couldn’t possibly

Readers of Headliner’s new Spotlight Journal publication will know that I recently had a look at and reviewed Sennheiser’s brand new MD 435 and MD 445 dynamic microphones; and with live events being particularly thin on the ground (and with this event giving me free reign on equipment selection), what better opportunity than to use them in one of the vocally harshest environments available?

Just to recap: the MD 445 is Sennheiser’s flagship dynamic HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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DANGEROUS MUSIC LIVE COMEDY Return of the Craic

transparent response gain from reduction the compressor. (alight). When Again,inthis level (unlit), the second is a feature I personally meter have button not switches seen on another from input comp to output level. The - and I’m keen to hear thirdjust button how is it differs to attenuate in operation. hot signals. In operation, The second button down the VUselects metersthe are‘Soft quite Knee’, slowwhich and seem to hover at again gives you a gentler their average slope of-attack; I kind of and found by it’s myself looking at the very nature is generally little more greentransparent LEDs that presumably in operation. light up every time And lastly the ‘Manual the Att/Rel’ threshold which is breached. engagesThey the were very helpful in attack and release rotaries. understanding The meter exactly section whathas was the going on. choice of VU/Comp which switches between level and

I just used the same gain for each from my previous experience of the review and testing, left them flat but with high pass, colour-coded them, cleaned and disinfected them; and left both on stands either side of the small stage. Jarleth had his own radio [mic] which I’d used on previous occasions and that he kept with him, and was open at all times so he just had to mute and unmute himself.

isn’t it? If you’re not aware there’s a PA system, then it’s a good PA system.

I love my work - and don’t really consider it work, as such - but it’s very rare that I sit back and actually forget I’m working. I did on this occasion.

I enjoyed using these Sennheiser mics; they sound lovely and with their other great attributes, namely off-axis rejection and high gain level before feedback, using them is a complete doddle. I’m all for using kit that sounds The warm-up act, Iain Stirling, was great and makes your life easier first up, and just picked the mic at the same time – and I’m hoping nearest to him and moved it to the Sennheiser will let me keep hold of this centre; this turned out to be the pair until I get a chance to try them MD 435. After he had performed, on some singing talent. If you’re in I disinfected the MD 435 and put it the market for a high end vocal mic away so Ed Byrne ended up with then I strongly urge you to give these the MD 445. a try; and if you’re thinking there’s not much call for wired vocal mics The stage was small, and tables were these days, both are available as an spaced through 180-degrees, so to impressive thatinterchangeable you can create capsule (mic module) keep clear sight lines“It’s thehugely speakers compression effects but without any of the MM 435 and MM 445. were to the back and side of the stage colouration you would normally expect...” which meant that during previous While these microphones may be shows there had been the odd close considered by some to be on the call as someone had strayed just a pricey side, it’s important to remember tad too close to a speaker and a little that in terms of quality, these compete fader tweak had been required. sound quality-wise against top quality This week, however, I could relax; while condensers, but with none of the drawbacks of bleed and feedback. I it was loud enough to hear clearly all think with that in mind, they’re actually over the site, there was not a hint of great value for money. impending feedback - even when Ed walked over to the side and started to pick people out, waving the mic like he SENNHEISER.COM was trying to amplify their answers...

Nothing! Just clean, controlled and crystal clear audio. I almost forgot that Ed was being amplified through a PA - and I suppose that’s the ultimate test, HEADLINER MAGAZINE

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET merging.com/anubis

Merging Technologies SA, Le Verney 4, CH-1070, Puidoux, Switzerland T +41 21 946 0444 E anubis@merging.com W merging.com

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D’ANGELICO

Excel Bowery

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SPOTLIGHT

D’ANGELICO EXCEL BOWERY I spend a couple of hours with D’Angelico’s Excel Bowery acoustic guitar – examining its architecture, strumming some chords, exploring its playable neck, and tracking it in Headliner’s studio using Scope Labs’ new and genuinely unique Periscope microphone.

Today, I’m reviewing a D’Angelico Excel Bowery acoustic – and I’m going to be keeping it simple, but with a bit of a twist. The D’Angelico brand is a family business based out of New York City. The instruments it makes look super cool, with a strong reputation for build quality and playability. And rightly so; after spending some one-on-one time with this guitar, I will also add ‘inspiring’ to that list.

The Bowery’s C-shape neck is as good a place as any to start: it’s slimline, remarkably easy to get around, and smooth to the touch with a great aesthetic. You look at it, you want to play it.

The Bowery’s intonation is also stunning; the strings sit nice and snug to the fretboard, and as I strum out some chords with a pick, the volume of the instrument – especially

considering how light it is – is surprising. It also has that natural body to it, tonally, and the resonance of this guitar is extraordinary – that dreadnought shape lends itself to this kind of character, of course, but even so, this feels pretty special.

And I soon find myself beginning to compose something – as is so often the way when I tinker with a new instrument for the first time.

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Excel Bowery

I can also see really quick players enjoying this guitar – it’s so simple churning out lead lines on the Excel Bowery compared to most acoustics, largely due to its slimline neck, which is quite the confidence builder - and means your wrist is getting a much easier time of it.

For the touring guitarists out there, I should also add that the Excel Bowery’s Fisherman pickup is spot on – although I won’t be focusing on that in this review because we’re miking up the instrument, it’s worth pointing out that when I briefly plugged it into my Vox amp head, it produced

a gorgeous clean sound without any hassle whatsoever and no EQ or processing dialled in.

Ultimately, plugged in, you get a tone that’s as close to unplugged as could be expected, which really does justice to the natural sound of the guitar.

“THE INTONATION ON THE EXCEL BOWERY IS STUNNING; AND THE RESONANCE OF THE INSTRUMENT IS EXTRAORDINARY...”

RECORDING Recording acoustic guitar is a really subjective thing, and the results can vary dramatically depending on the approach. I often position a mic around the twelfth fret, six to eight inches away from the neck – but I’m sometimes tempted to shuffle up nearer the soundhole for that extra warmth, provided the guitar (and indeed microphone) are up to the job. A negative on either of those two criteria and you’ll be left with a wooly, muddy recording that becomes a real pain to fix in the mix.

Of course some people dive way deeper than this: two mics (one either end of the neck), X/Y setups, and so on. I’ve even seen five mics on an acoustic guitar setup, including a pair positioned behind the player. A bit overkill for me, but each to their own.

Today is a first for me – I’m recording the Excel Bowery using Scope Labs’ new Periscope mic. And this thing HEADLINER MAGAZINE

is different, to say the least. Firstly, it looks like a periscope. Secondly, there are no polar pattern options. Thirdly, and most extraordinary of all, it has a built-in compressor.

The Periscope is an omnidirectional condenser designed for creative recording; signal is sent to its built-in compressor circuit, which is where it gets its flavour, Scope Labs says.

But any compressor I’ve ever used has adjustable threshold, ratio, attack... and the most difficult thing to get my head around initially when setting the Periscope up was the fact that there are no compression controls - the way you drive or tame this compressor is through mic position. And when you adopt a less technical and more ‘let’s create a vibe’ approach, you will soon start getting fantastic results out of this excellent little microphone.

I begin strumming with the Periscope positioned pretty close to the twelfth fret and stick on my headphones – I guess by default I am treating it like a pencil condenser, which I soon realise is my first mistake, because the gain from this thing is sizeable – and the compressor is kicking in really hard as the signal of the Bowery hits it.

Rather than dare move this mic closer to the soundhole, I realise it probably makes sense to do a left, heading down to the ninth fret - and this is where it gets interesting. The sound isn’t losing any thickness, and the compressor isn’t being worked as hard - and there is something cool happening. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but as I continue to experiment with mic positioning, I start to understand what Scope Labs is getting at: if you’re going to create with this mic, you may as well chuck the rulebook out the window.

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Excel Bowery

DITCHING THE RULEBOOK About 30 minutes later, I play back several short recordings I’ve created using the Periscope, and here is what I find: when strumming, and Periscope is positioned over the twelfth fret, you’ve got to back off to about 12 inches or even a little more to avoid a super-compressed sound; and when you do, it’s fantastic. For a less weighty sound, drop Periscope down to the ninth fret: you’ll get clarity, and the guitar will cut through a mix better.

But it’s when I start to fingerpick that the magic starts to happen.

When recording picked acoustic guitar, I used to get very tempted to move the microphone closer to the soundhole for additional warmth – albeit perceived warmth because when you actually play it back, there’s always that bit of work that needs to be done rolling the ‘mud’ off at the bottom end.

However, with the Periscope, because the compressor is automatically dialled in, it’s reacting to the bold bodylaiden notes of the guitar quite differently, and creating a sonic that I have never experienced when tracking something like this. It’s as if I’m recording with a full signal chain dialled in – no doubt due to the Periscope’s compressor circuit - and as I move the mic left, right, up and down – closer and then further away from the instrument (including right over the sound hole) – the Periscope is giving me an array of different results. All of which are interesting and exciting.

On playback, not only is the sound clear and pristine – largely thanks to the quality of the guitar, of course – but I notice that what the Periscope is actually doing is complementing the signal it’s receiving, and doing something that makes not only the dynamics stand out, but provides a warmth without the woolliness.

Is it taking just a little of the top end away? Probably, due to the compressor. But I dial in a couple of dB at 14kHz (which is all I’m having to do in terms of EQ), and that extra sparkle returns. And let’s remember, Scope Labs isn’t

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trying to recreate the air of a U87 here; the company is telling us right from the start that Periscope sounds and behaves like nothing else out there. And they’re absolutely right.

What I’m also noticing about the Excel Bowery is its ability to stay in tune during this entire process. That may sound strange, but during this experimental review, I’ve put my capo on and taken it off several times, and had it clipped on as high as the ninth fret, which is normally asking for trouble with pretty much any guitar. But no such issues here, which is really impressive.

At this point – and this is not to play one mic off against the other – I pick up my Austrian Audio OC818 large diaphragm condenser, which is one of my favourites on pretty much everything. I know it’ll sound extremely different to the Periscope, and they’re not meant to sound anything like each other, but I want to hear how pure this Excel Bowery sounds through a totally clean sounding mic and pre (everything is going through a Merging Technologies Anubis interface, by the way).

On playback, my suspicions are confirmed – it’s the sparkly top end and also the way the high mids cut through with such ease that makes this Excel Bowery such a fantastic sounding instrument for recording with.

Not to mention the overall warmth it delivers. Furthermore, the sound of the instrument itself fills my control room, which is a joy to behold.

As we move into a new and hopefully more fruitful year, let’s hope that the guys and girls at brands like D’Angelico and Scope Labs continue to create such excellent instruments and tools that can help inspire the creative community – and in the Headliner studio, I’ll be excited to see what some of our aspiring artists can put together using tools such as these. Watch this space.

DANGELICOGUITARS.COM SCOPELABS.EU

Using amp modellers or IRs? Then check out the revolutionary new Celestion F12-X200. It’s the first and only guitar speaker to combine the Full Range performance your modelling amp requires with the Live Response you need to feel connected to the music. Find out more at celestion.com

celestion.com

Indulgent Vibes

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INDULGENT VIBES

EASY LIFE

HEADLINER MAGAZINE

BY RAMS OL

IN T

EASY LIFE

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ARTIST

British indie RnB group Easy Life were due to play some huge international headline tours and festival slots this year before the pandemic struck. Headliner catches up with Sam on bass guitar, saxophone and backing vocals; and guitarist Lewis to learn how they’ve been honing their production techniques in lockdown, using their time to focus on a new album, and why they can’t be without their trusty Fender guitars.

“I’ve just been doing some gardening and working on the house, to be honest,” replies Easy Life’s Sam when I ask what he’s been up to recently. “But mostly we’ve been locked away in our studio during quarantine.”

The Leicester-based studio - where the group’s guitarist Lewis joins us from - is where the boys have been working on their much anticipated album following the release of their successful Junk Food EP earlier this year.

With Leicester being one of the UK’s first cities to be slapped with a ‘local lockdown’, it’s no surprise that they’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, as well as developing their own home recording setups and honing their individual production skills. I’m quickly told that Lewis especially has been “producing his arse off” constantly.

“From March until around June I was just looking for things to do because obviously everything got completely cancelled, and our schedule was left empty,” reveals Lewis. “I started producing all sorts of music, anything from techno to proper old school hip hop stuff - one thing that has come out of lockdown is that my production skills have grown massively.”

Rather reluctantly, Sam goes on to fill me in about the massive year they had planned: “We had a beautiful summer of festivals and our first couple of big headline slots lined up. We were meant to be heading to Japan for the first time, we had our first big American and European tours, and a couple of big London shows at the start of the year.”

And off the back of winning Best New British Act at the 2020 NME Awards, it was certainly looking like the start of a very positive year for Easy Life, although it’s refreshing to learn that they remain ever the optimists, as their name would suggest.

“We’ve literally had so much useful time to be writing, and we’ve made so much more progress on the album than we would ever have made doing live shows and festivals and stuff,” says Sam. “We would have been chasing ourselves to put a record out that we’re happy with, so I’m glad we’ve got the time to sit down and focus solely on that to be honest.”

Lewis adds, “I’ve kind of forgotten about all the things we could have been doing and accepted the fate that we’ve received - we just look for the positives in it.”

Easy Life - consisting of Murray (vocals, synthesiser, keyboard, trumpet), Ollie (drums, percussion) and Jordan (keyboard, percussion, backing vocals) along with Lewis and Sam - have enjoyed some huge success in music over the last few years, despite not actually having been together for that long.

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Murray went to secondary school together, and from the moment we met we started playing in big brass style bands. A few years later, we started forming our own self-written music kind of band.”

Lewis and Ollie were also friends from a young age, and grew up making original music together.

“Then Jordan is like a local Leicester legend - he was a drummer in a reggae band called By The Rivers, who were literally our heroes at one point. You can’t walk down a street in Leicester without someone shouting at him.”

The two separate bands played a show together, and while nothing immediately came of this initial meeting, they soon started looking for willing members to come together to form the Easy Life project.

“Jordan happened to be a percussion soloist that we wanted to come in and essentially be a Bez on stage for our shows. He just stuck with it and picked up the keys and everything else that we threw at him.”

“In the early days of Easy Life there were no real rules, especially when we played live,” Lewis recalls. “We’d just go off and play 15 minute long jazz instrumentals, and then Jordan would come on stage and play percussion for 10 minutes and then go to the bar and Sam would play saxophone for 10 minutes - we would basically just mess about on stage for an hour, but there’s a bit more structure now.”

“We’d all been sort of circling around each other for years to be honest,” reveals Sam. “Me and HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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The group’s first single, Pockets, blew up as soon as they put it out as a free download on Soundcloud: “It was the first thing we’d written without trying to actually find the single - it’s kind of lazy and sloppy in places, but that’s just kind of who we are, and it’s a track that makes us happy. People just picked up on the vibe and it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us.”

Originally putting music out via Chess Club Records, the group were soon poached by Island Records with whom they released their debut mixtape, Creature Habits.

“Chess Club were very supportive of us doing exactly what we wanted, and pushed us to be as wacky as we could be,” remembers Lewis. “People want music that’s slightly weird and unique, and our first EP definitely was that. I think that’s probably why the labels started showing interest. Chess Club opened up some big opportunities for us.”

Subsequently, 2018 was a bit of a whirlwind year for the boys. They released four singles, appeared on Later with Jools Holland, played South by Southwest and completed their first UK tour.

“We expected this nice methodical plod upwards, and instead everything just came at us really quickly - to be thrown into SXSW was at the time ridiculous, but incredible,” describes Sam. “We owe a lot to the BBC

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Introducing scheme because they were the ones who sent us out there, and they’ve helped us in our careers from the very beginning.”

In fact, one of the last big benchmark shows that Easy Life played was headlining the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2019, which to the boys must seem like a lifetime ago now.

“I think this period of no shows has really helped us reevaluate just how amazing all those experiences were, and maybe how we took them for granted,” offers Lewis.

“We’re all raring to get going again, as most people are, because there’s no better feeling than playing to thousands of people who are singing your lyrics back to you.”

Sam adds to this sentiment: “Things all feel a bit disconnected at the moment, but I feel like we’re all definitely going to benefit from having had this time to work on our own things. I’m developing all of my instrument skills and building a little home studio.

“While I feel we probably needed a little bit of time away from each other, there’s literally not a single member of this band and the crew who we don’t love, so we’re very much looking forward to getting back on the road and just feeling like a little family again.”

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“I LIKE THE SINGLE COIL OR THINNER SOUNDING TONES AS OPPOSED TO BIG, THICK, MEATY TONES, WHICH IS WHY I LOVE THE MUSICMASTER SO MUCH.”

on-stage bass guitar setups through the same channel, for which Sam has been dubbed the ‘pedal master’:

While a lot of Easy Life’s sound is based around synthesisers with everything produced on a laptop, Sam and Lewis are both big fans of using Fender guitars to bring a real sense of musicality to their live sets.

“I’m actually working on a guitar at the moment which was my first ever guitar I got from Fender back in 2011,” reveals Lewis. “It’s a Mexican Standard Telecaster that my great grandma bought for me just before she passed away. So I’ve been playing Fenders for the last 10 years now, and there’s a reason why I’ve never really been trying to play anything else.

“I recently acquired a Jazzmaster, and it’s got so many tonal variations that I can get everything out of it. When I first started, I thought it would be awesome to be playing loads of different guitars, but then as we started touring more, it just became quite tedious swapping all the time because I was on a Stratocaster, a Gretsch and an old Fender ‘70s Musicmaster. With the Musicmaster it sounds like the pickups need rewinding or something, but I like that really thin sound. It just sounds like there’s a filter taking all the lows out it’s awesome.”

He goes on to explain how they use a Fender ABY Footswitch to put both their

“As a complement to the massively produced synthesiser aspect of our music, the Fenders bring it back to the classical jazz route which we originally started from - which was very much in the indulgent, experimental sort of realm with that classic, oozy bass tone,” Sam explains. “I want zero treble, and I just need to have a feeling in my gut when I play the bass.”

Lewis adds: “We’ve started using mutes which is literally just a sock we’ve tied to the base of the strings because we love that dull kind of flat bass tone with ‘50s motown vibes. We had such a busy 2018 and 2019 and we were gigging relentlessly. I’ve chucked guitars around and they’ll still play amazingly the next day, and I’ve found that only Fenders can do that.

“When we first started, there were more guitar-based tracks, but now we use them more to complement the piano and synth lines. I like the single coil or thinner sounding tones as opposed to big, thick, meaty tones, which is why I love the Musicmaster so much. And I’ve always played a Strat because I can get a similar tone out of that. My Jazzmaster seems to do the best of both worlds - I can get ridiculously warm, thick, luscious rhythm parts if we’re doing a slightly jazzy song.”

Sam highlights that they don’t want to lose their grounding in “classically-

oriented” music, and don’t want to turn into a synth pop band, “which is why when we play live we’re constantly trying to shoehorn in as much musicality as possible in a more controlled way, for the set length of time that we’re given.”

Easy Life’s music treads the line between indie pop and hip hop, weaving in mellow vibes and some real catchy hooks, perfectly demonstrated on their debut EP, Junk Food, which they released earlier this year.

“We wanted to do something that’s a little bit more hooky and melodic,” explains Lewis, “but still with lots of wackiness to it.”

Sam elaborates, “Junk Food is a bit more of an overall package that has a story and narrative running throughout, and a lot more variation within the sound. It’s more of a complete picture of what Easy Life is about. Two of the songs were actually written in L.A. so they were kind of inspired by our American adventures.

“And then Arlo Parks hopped on Sangria and her voice is just incredible.

I think that is our first official feature, and we couldn’t have really asked for anyone else. There’s a few little producer collabs that are gonna come to light very soon, but I’m not going to spill any beans!”

EASYLIFEMUSIC.COM FENDER.COM

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MARTY WILDE

Running Together

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RUNNIING TOGETHER

MARTY WILDE Marty Wilde is most definitely a one-off. After the release of his latest record, Running Together, 2020 marks not only eight decades of rock and roll for this musical icon, but eight consecutive decades of charting albums, which in turn makes him a British record holder – and ahead of his old pal, Cliff Richard. “It’s always nice to beat him,” Marty says, with a smile. He got his big break at 17 years old and, along with Cliff and Tommy Steele, was soon one of Britain’s leading entertainers, producing a string of top-five hits between mid-1958 to late 1959 including Teenager In Love, Sea of Love, Donna, and Endless Sleep. In a nutshell, he took the nation by storm.

“I’d always wanted to be a singer since I was a small tot, but I didn’t realise it at the time,” Marty reflects. “I used to sing and play ukulele when I was 10 or 11 I’d sing funny little songs for my father’s friends, and at that age, music was the only thing I could concentrate on.

At school, I was always tapping away, making jokes and singing songs... writing things down, you know?”

Marty was first spotted at London’s Condor Club in the 1950s – but he wasn’t aware until the day after his show.

“A famous songwriter – Lionel Bart – had seen me, and he told Larry Parnes, who was Tommy Steele’s manager - that there was a rock and roll singer who was pretty good. He and Parnes arrived the next day at my home with a contract, which was outstanding, really. I remember my mother saying ‘A man at the door wants to sign you up!’.

I remember thinking ‘here we go’, and asking ‘what’s his name?’ ‘Larry Parnes’, she said. And that was like saying Simon Cowell at the time. And I knew from that moment that it would change my life.”

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Running Together

In his first year on the road, Marty performed for more than 40 weeks of the year. He adjusted fairly quickly to being a star - “whatever that means,” he laughs – and declares it “almost a natural process”: “Girls screamed, and you got a hit record, and that was it – but I was always looking for the next thing. But all the way through, I never felt I was something special at all. I just felt I was doing a job; I wanted to sing and play and please people, because I got a tremendous buzz just as much as they did – I think it goes back to underachieving as a tot, and never getting much praise.”

Songwriting also became as great a passion as performing for Marty, and he’s penned some great ones over the years – though he admits he still doesn’t find it easy.

“If you asked someone to write a song to stand the test of time, they couldn’t do it... [pauses] They could do it, but they would never even know they’d done it. I bet Freddie [Mercury] couldn’t envisage at the time that some of those huge songs would

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one day fill stadiums – the same for Lennon and McCartney. You write songs, and you just don’t know.

“I remember Jesamine – which was a hit for a group called The Casuals. It’s one of the best songs I’ve been a part of. I got the name [Jesamine] from a restaurant in Liverpool just because I thought it sounded nice. I then wrote the song on a tiny tape recorder, and never thought anything about it. The chap I was writing it with - Ronnie Scott, who was a great writer - said we should finish it, so we did. And the next time I heard it, it was number two or three in the charts. So you just don’t know. I’ve always said, if you think writing hit songs is easy, I’ll put you in jail and I’ll let you out when you’ve written a hit song. You’d be there for quite a few years I’ll tell you - if you ever got out at all!”

81 years young Marty has always enjoyed writing for other people – particularly women – perhaps that’s why he surrounds himself with so many strong and motivated women?

“I am surrounded, bullied, and

motivated by strong women,” he smiles – but he means it. “I have a wonderful guiding light in my wife, Joy, and now that’s been added to, which is unfortunate [smiles]. One’s bad enough, but when you get another one, like Kim... [laughs] She domineers me and tells me what I’m gonna do, and my daughter Roxanne does the same, and there are some very strong women in my team. But I love it - as I’m at a time now when I need to be pushed; I need that kick up the back to get me moving.

I recommend it. To any guy who’s unsure about life, wondering what to do in life even: try to meet some really strong, motivated women and it’ll change your life - my god, it will.”

It was Marty’s sixth sense, in a way, that led him to write Kids In America for daughter, Kim [Wilde] in 1980 – the hit song that would make her a star.

“Kids In America was written [for a girl] in 1980. I wrote it about the new kind of girl that was surfacing different to the subservient woman or young girl that was around in our country – it was happening particularly in America. They frightened the life out of me as they were so strong minded: she would tell the guy, not the other way round.

‘I’m in charge!’ So I wanted to write for teenage people - going in a very different way to the way I was used to writing. I felt women were coming along that were going to be incredibly different, and powerful and I was 100% right.”

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“I’ve always said, if you think writing hit songs is easy, I’ll put you in jail and I’ll let you out when you’ve written a hit song. You’d be there for quite a few years I’ll tell you - if you ever got out at all!”

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Running Together

HERE COME THE GIRLS Marty’s new album, Running Together, is very much a family affair.

He’s put it together with daughters, Kim and Roxy, with some help from his son, Rick, who’s forged a successful career in music production in his own right.

“Most of it’s happened during lockdown,” explains Kim. “The first song I was introduced to from the album was Running Together, so we had to work out how to do a lockdown video for the song! Roxy and I had to do our own takes in our respective gardens, and mum had a few problems filming dad, so I came over and helped. It was kind of cobbled together, but actually both videos for Running Together and [Marty’s nod to the 1960s] 60’s World have come together spontaneously, joyously, and inventively. Lockdown has meant we have been able to focus beautifully on this project.”

“Yeah, it’s given us time to sit back and look at what we did on the album,” concurs Roxy. “Remembering things that we may have ordinarily skipped over that are actually important, and also how to plan the album and get it out in the right way – and really concentrate on it.”

“I remember when dad played [the song] Eddie to me in 2016 – on the sofa at Christmas. He was all ‘yeah,

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it’s a nice little song’, which is so dad! And I said it was beautiful.

The same thing happened with Running Together.”

Marty’s modesty is clearly a trait – he introduced these new songs on a tour he did the following year (2017), and they fitted into the set seamlessly.

From there, he continued to write, and Roxy got to sing lead on most of the new record.

“Doing the arrangements and backing vocals has been great – adding lyrics, and things like that. It’s been really great working with dad,” Roxy smiles. “When he played me Don’t Want To Fall In Love Again, he said the same kind of thing as Kim said, and I said it was really lovely and beautiful and he said ‘yeah, well who’s gonna sing it?’ And I said ‘Errrr, me, please!’ So we went in and did it, and it was such a pleasure to sing it – it’s a real treat to be able to get your teeth into a lovely ballad like that.”

And Marty wanted Roxy to shine on this album: “Kim and I have had our fair share of being out front – Roxy had been pushed forward by Kylie in her time working with her [as backing vocalist] but I thought ‘no, push further - you go out front and I’ll play guitar’.

She’s sang for me at the [London]

Palladium before - several tracks and she has toured with me several times, and when she does it, the audience love her. If it’s gonna be your last album then let’s do it for the family.”

And a quick word on this record, Marty – eight decades of charting albums... How does that feel?

“Eight decades, my goodness me...

And to beat Cliff [Richard] is always a pleasure,” he reiterates, with a chuckle. “He and I have been friends and rivals for years, he has had a wonderful career and he’s a good buddy - a good man - but it’s lovely to beat him, as I’m very ambitious as well, you see!”

MARTYWILDE.COM

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GLASS ANIMALS

Into Dreamland

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to produce an organic feel, taking inspiration from mixed media artist, Nam June Paik.

Both Hill and Squib refer to Bayley as “one of our most creative clients. What he wanted was a video game element, moving between analogue and digital, organically merging screen with nature.”

Cassius Creative has used GLP tools regularly over the years, and despite the short time frame did have the luxury of a few days of pre-viz (using Depence 2 lighting visualisation, which has the JDC Line in its fixture library).

One of the more widely acclaimed and viewed virtual concerts during lockdown has been the recent live internet performance from psych-pop stars, Glass Animals, which made use of GLP’s new strobe hybrid.

The popular Oxford-based quartet were all set to tour their chart-topping Dreamland album this Spring until lockdown came along.

When their lighting team, Cassius Creative, was eventually called into play by tour/production manager Simon Lutkin, it was to produce a viewable online show Live In The Internet – a dynamic audiovisual concert experience masterminded by the band’s inventive frontman, Dave Bayley.

Set up nearly five years ago by Chris ‘Squib’ Swain and Dan Hill, Cassius Creative dipped into its armoury of GLP fixtures and at the same time became one of the first adopters of the new JDC Line hybrid strobe batten - a powerful linear white strobe element combined with two separate RGB LED pixel mapping lines, all in a slimline format that complements the classic JDC1. To Swain and Hill it simply seemed like “a natural extension”.

The virtual venue chosen for this unique showcase was the LH3 rehearsal/ prep space at Neg Earth, the lighting hire company who would have been delivering the tour inventory. During the hour-long performance, the band reimagined their live show for streaming, and were joined along the way by Arlo Parks and Denzel Curry.

Using inspired video content from Russian company Sila Sveta to create an ever-changing immersive environment, the show tested the lighting artists’ ability to combine the dynamic impact of a pop video, or TV promo, with a full length concert: “The band didn’t want it to feel like a music video – they wanted it to be as live as possible,” state the two LDs. Cassius Creative explained how they helped convert performance space into what was described as a “vibrant paradise” to represent Dreamland, with the aid of 14 JDC Lines on the downstage edge on the floor and 36 JDC1 in the roof, with the visuals constantly transforming the stage scenically via a number of “miniature sets within a set,” as Bayley put it.

They also suggested the use of foliage, working in conjunction with the lighting

“We’ve always had a good relationship with GLP and used a lot of their products, particularly the JDC1 strobes,” confirms Hill. “These are great fixtures and were perfect in the overhead rig.

“We didn’t want to use beams and moving lights really, but instead the JDCs act as a ‘roof’, forming an extension of the video screen which mimics the light source.”

As for the JDC Lines, they were deployed as a downstage border, helping to frame the edge of the stage.

“We chose them for their colour element, making it a great and interesting product. What you can achieve with pixels made it a really good fit with the musicality.”

Having access to the JDC Lines also gave them a versatile alternative to GLP’s X4 Bars, which had originally been specified for the tour: “We were given an introduction to the product virtually from David and Simon [at GLP UK]. One advantage is, because of how it’s set up, it sits nicely alongside the strobe. And in terms of what it can do with pixels, colours and dimmer effects, it’s very easy to rig as an architectural extension of the JDC1. We tried to mimic the mode of the JDC1.”

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Into Dreamland

“RATHER THAN EYE CANDY AND LIGHT CURTAINS, WITH PRODUCTS LIKE THE JDC LINE, WE CAN REALLY SEE THE IMPACT IT CAN NOW HAVE...”

Squib states that GLP is one of the companies redefining the solutions for the modern era, believing there has been a gap in the market for too long: “Rather than eye candy and light curtains, with products like the JDC Line, we can really see the impact it can now have.”

It is a credit to the versatility of GLP’s advanced LED fixtures when Hill explains, “We have never set out to make a light show. These lights were supposed to feel a natural part of the world that was created [onstage] and only be called on to provide impact when needed; HEADLINER MAGAZINE

the more subliminal the better.

“In fact for the TV world it looked great, and read brilliantly to camera.”

Other credits for Live In The Internet include James Barnes (director), Marcus Domleo (DoP), Amy James (producer), Daniel Richardson (lighting programmer) and Sam Henderson (video programmer).

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FOR KING & COUNTRY

Rescuing Christmas

RESCUING CHRISTMAS

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Headliner recently spoke to Luke Smallbone, one half of four-time Grammy Award-winning christian rock/pop duo For KING & COUNTRY, to discuss the musical chemistry he has with his brother Joel, collaborating with Dolly Parton on the band’s hit, God Only Knows, and their new Christmas album that has been eight years in the making.

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Australian-born, Nashville-based sibling duo For KING & COUNTRY are currently out on the road with “A Drummer Boy Drive-In: The Christmas Tour” in support of their first holiday album, A Drummer Boy Christmas.

“Obviously we’re there in person and we have a live PA, so you can roll down the windows if it’s not too cold and still have a really nice experience,” says Smallbone. “The most important thing right now is that it’s safe and socially distanced, so we’re very grateful to have a little bit of work and be able to share the music that we’ve made on the Christmas album with the people.”

At least one positive about 2020 is that the pair have been able to use technology to their advantage. In fact, it has been quite the boon for their creativity: “With the Christmas album, one of our producers who lives in Bath, UK was able to record a little bit there. It was mixed in London, we had some strings played in Copenhagen, we had some horns done in L.A, it was mastered in New York and then our band was in Nashville!”

Smallbone actually started out in life wanting to pursue sports, but that dream quickly faded when he tore his ACL playing basketball. Going into music with his brother Joel then seemed like the perfect alternative; the pair wrote some songs and did a couple of projects together, “but nothing ever really hit all that hard,” he says. “It was during those years that I think I fell more in love with music; I could see its power and maybe saw some of my talents beginning to form.

“During those six or so years of very little success we were finding ourselves and trying to figure out how to work together, and they were probably the bedrock of everything that we do now.”

From a creative standpoint when it comes to the songwriting process, there’s a lot of chemistry between the brothers, and they’re able to combine their talents in a truly meaningful way.

After all, teamwork makes the dream work.

“We know each other so well, so when he’s resistant of an idea I can usually understand the reason why, and we can get to the bottom of it. Joel and I have very different musical talents.

I usually start a lot of songs whereas he is more of a finisher, and I tend to usually be a little bit more of the driving force behind a new idea.

“To be honest we were arch rivals growing up, but now we have become dear friends. We’ve spent so much time together and worked with each other for so long that sometimes we can finish each other’s sentences, and in some cases finish each other’s songs! I’ve often joked that when Joel and I are separate, we’re just a leaf in the wind, but together we can do something that I think is special.”

a song about the strength of pulling together in the face of adversity, making for quite a pertinent topic this year. The track went on to spend a number of weeks at number one, and the duo also hosted a live stream event ‘Together: A Night Of Hope’, which received 2.5 million viewers across their social media platforms.

“We actually started writing Together about two years ago, and then when we went into quarantine we both knew it was the song that we needed to finish,” Smallbone reveals. “We did it all digitally; I never actually saw any of those people in the same room together. For want of a better word, it came together really brilliantly. I think that when we were writing it a couple of years ago, the intent was always for it to be released now, we just didn’t know it at the time.”

Earlier this year, For KING & COUNTRY debuted their single Together, featuring Kirk Franklin and Tori Kelly: HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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“I write the songs to comfort my own soul, and in turn I’ve realised that there’s millions of other people that have a soul very similar to mine.”

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GOD ONLY KNOWS The duo’s trackm, God Only Knows, won two awards at the 2020 Grammys, and they also collaborated with Dolly Parton to release a version that reached number one.

“Having Dolly on it is a special thing in itself, but when you hear a voice that’s been around for 65 years singing those lyrics (God only knows what you’ve been through / God only knows what they say about you / But God only knows the real you), it’s a really powerful thing. What she did to it took it to far greater heights than we could have ever achieved ourselves, purely because there’s something about putting the weight of her vocal behind it that represents something quite significant.”

The track won Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song, while For KING & COUNTRY’s third album, Burn The Ships, also won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album.

“God Only Knows and the songs on that album were written about very specific things that we had experienced,” Smallbone reveals. “I write the songs to comfort my own soul, and in turn I’ve realised that there’s millions of other people that have a soul very similar to mine. I think that when Burn The Ships won, that was a very satisfying moment of ‘I don’t feel quite so lonely in this world.’”

More recently, the pair released their first full-length Christmas album, A Drummer Boy Christmas, which debuted on the iTunes chart at number four overall, and number one on the holiday chart. Their unique, explosive cover of Little Drummer Boy has become somewhat of a staple in their live repertoire, perhaps because they’ve done exactly what it says on the tin.

“The thought was, why has nobody ever done a drum-centric version of a song called Little Drummer Boy?” he laughs. “We literally just took the song for its word; we thought it was the lowest hanging fruit of all time!

We love big, boisterous drums and I grew up playing them, so we went and played it at a few shows and it created a bit of a buzz.

“Fast forward quite a few years, and we’re becoming a little bit known for Christmas music, even though we’ve never actually done a full length Christmas album! This year the challenge was to go into the studio and do just that, just to see how it goes. When you think of drums, you think loud. I always loved Bing Crosby’s Little Drummer Boy, but it’s got bells in it, which made me chuckle to myself, because that’s not what the Little Drummer Boy would be doing; he would be playing the drums!”

For KING & COUNTRY went into quarantine with the understanding that they would still do the Christmas album, despite pressure from record labels suggesting it is the wrong year to release it. Naturally, the boys took the opposite approach: “I thought ‘are you kidding me?’ Of all years that we need Christmas, 2020 is the year, and so we just ploughed ahead. It did create some complications in terms of recording because obviously we had some rules to follow, but at the same time, I think when you have some confinements, it usually ends up making you more creative. This album is one that I’m really, really proud of.

“The Little Drummer Boy version that we played eight years ago is very similar to the one that we played on the record, along with Angels We Have Heard On High and O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Those three are the

ones that we created eight years ago in 2012.”

They’ve also been involved with a number of charitable initiatives in the lead up to Christmas which have been very much in tune with the holiday spirit, one of them being a drive-in concert in Spring Hill, Tennessee, where they raised over $50,000 for Well Outreach, a local food pantry and meal distribution charity. And their reasons for doing so are very heartwarming indeed: “My dad was a concert promoter back in Australia but there was a tour that didn’t go very well, and we lost everything; the house, the car, the savings, and so he was looking for a fresh start for us. When we first came to the States we actually didn’t have anything at all, and during our first Christmas people from the community would bring us gifts and drop off food on our doorstep. We still, to this day don’t know who paid for my little sister to be born in a hospital. We were given a car; I mean the list went on.

“And so I think when it comes to 2020, there’s a lot of hurting people out there, and people with much more difficult stories than my family’s.

We’re at a point now where we can contribute, and use our platform to raise the money for things like this. We’ve got a toy drive at every event that kind of represents that first Christmas that we had here in America where people gave so much to our family. Everybody that comes to the show is bringing toys and putting them in a little bin that will all be donated to the Salvation Army, as part of its mission to rescue Christmas this year.

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Rescuing Christmas

“I’ve often joked that maybe God allowed us to create music for the byproduct of some of these other special things that we’re getting to do. You always hear the old saying that it’s far better to give than to receive, and we’re getting to live that right now. I think the show represents making a joyful memory for families in 2020, and it’s very humbling to be a part of.”

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BLANKS

An Internet Sensation

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AN INTERNET SENSATION

BLANKS When YouTube sensation-turned-pop star Blanks’ ‘80s version of Post Malone’s Better Now went viral on TikTok, he never could have imagined the way it would change his life. This year he released his debut EP, Cheap Sodas And Ice Cream Kisses, which includes a song co-written with his Instagram followers – which once you get to know him, isn’t as strange as it sounds.

Having amassed fans all over the world with his astute lyricism and unwavering sunny disposition, singersongwriter and multi instrumentalist Blanks (real name Simon) released his first EP this year. Named Cheap Sodas And Ice Cream Kisses, the EP features some of Blanks’ most beloved and successful compositions so far.

Speaking to Headliner from his studio in the Netherlands, the self confessed “overexcited music boy” is on top form, and his enthusiasm and boundless energy is both endearing and infectious – and is a big part of his online appeal, which is intimidating, to say the least.

The YouTube sensation-turnedpop star has 1.22 million YouTube subscribers and just under 300k

Instagram followers, which he has rapidly built up with his production videos and unique covers of well known songs.

“I’ve had a lot of time to reflect this year, and a lot of time to create stuff, which I really like to do. I’ve also been writing a lot for my own project and for other people. Plus I’ve made a lot of videos for my YouTube channel,” he says brightly.

Even a recent fall on his skateboard and the resulting crutches he needs in order to get around can’t dampen his glass-half-full spirit, which is still riding high after his successful summery EP release, which draws heavily from ‘80s pop and dance influences.

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“I spent one summer listening to a Spotify playlist with only ‘80s songs after the second season of Stranger Things was released,” he explains. “I was like, ‘this music sounds amazing’, so I started listening to it. I fell in love with a feeling of fake nostalgia [he’s a ‘90s baby]. The music just feels so real though, like there’s a memory attached to it – even if I have never heard the song before. I really like songs that make you think of a memory or think back to a summer with friends. That’s the magic of ‘80s music for me.”

Blanks’ EP is led by Favorite Nightmare, a characteristically upbeat exploration of the confusing and disorientating feelings experienced in the fallout of a breakup. He tells me that he wrote the song in just over a day with the help of his Instagram followers, giving them control over everything from song themes, to riffs and melodies.

That may sound strange, but Blanks has been letting his fans have their say for a while, even using their descriptions of him on his Spotify bio: “If a golden retriever was a person and made music,” suggested one fan, while others offered, “‘80s, indie, poppy, authentic music in one very enthusiastic and fresh package,” and “very tall, very excited boi”.

“They love it and I love it too, because everyone has a say in the song, and they feel like they are a part of it,” he enthuses. “They vote for things out of two options that I give them. On this song I really hoped they would vote for option one for something, but they voted for option two. Still, it’s interesting to see how people that are not in the studio with you listen to the song.”

With 278K Instagram followers (which is sure to be higher by the time this HEADLINER MAGAZINE

goes to print), the responses can be overwhelming for Blanks: “Exactly; when I asked for lyric ideas, tens of thousands of people sent in suggestions. I can scroll for hours!

There’s a certain point when I just have to pick something. That’s the

hardest part because there’s always this thought: ‘What if I scroll a little bit further and there’s an even better idea?’ So it’s kind of stressful,” he laughs.

Blanks is pleased with the way the track came out, which ended up being a breakup song with a twist: “A lot of people were requesting a love song, but I feel like if you write a love song like this, it’s really hard to make it heartfelt or authentic. If you listen to Favorite Nightmare it sounds like a dreamy, good-vibe song with nice lyrics about a relationship.

But the pre chorus [Oh wait, I do remember, that night you broke my fender] is a screaming reminder of how the relationship ended. It’s like you wake up from the good vibes you had in that relationship and you realise, ‘Oh man, it’s over. It made me feel good, but now I’m awake, and it’s not making me feel good’. So it’s my favourite nightmare: you still think back to it with joy, but then when you wake up, it makes you feel sad.”

BETTER NOW You’ve probably already heard Blanks’ debut single – an ‘80s version of Post Malone’s Better Now. The music video (complete with jazzy ‘80s windbreaker) went viral on TikTok, and it’s not outside the realms of possibility that if someone hadn’t heard the Malone track, they would assume that Blanks’ take on the song was the original.

“That was just me having fun,” he says happily. “I heard Better Now and thought it was so cool. I was in the studio one day and I just opened up a synth, and it was like a happy accident. Before I knew it, I had a synth riff, so I added a bass loop, a drum loop, and started singing over it. At the end I thought, ‘this sounds surprisingly good; maybe I should do something with it’ – and the rest is history. People seem to like it, still! I had contact with Post Malone’s team and they said he loves it, and he follows me on Twitter, which is cool!”

Keeping his YouTube followers tuning in is a mixture of videos of his unique takes of other well known songs, and his slightly manic ‘song in an hour’ videos – where he takes a track (voted for by his followers, naturally), and – impressively – records it (vocals, instruments, light production) all in under an hour, working out the chords as he goes and reading the lyrics off his phone. The artists selected (Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa) give a hint to the age bracket his fans likely fall into.

“I started with Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, which I remade in one hour, and it just blew up. It got about 3 million views in no time and then I got 100,000 new subscribers in a week, which is insane.”

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Watching someone create a track in one hour aside, his fans get a real kick out of watching his genuine enthusiasm for doing what he loves – on his most recent challenge video one person commented, “This challenge doesn’t challenge him anymore...HE’S ON ANOTHER LEVEL”.

For Blanks, finding the perfect melody, lyric or sound gives him the best feeling in the world: “I get so excited! And strangely enough, people seem to like that. I’m just doing what I like. So it’s really cool to hear that people enjoy watching that.”

I imagine that Blanks was a musically-inclined kid trying out all sorts of instruments and making his own radio shows, but actually that’s not the case.

“I actually always wanted to do something with computers,” he shares. “My father is a programmer and I always thought that sounded like so much fun. I wanted to do that too, so I studied IT and I stumbled upon making music. That changed my career path.”

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comes to making his own music, combined with the pressure of recreating songs in an hour, Blanks has to know that his production gear will get the job done.

“I have really honed my production skills, because I have to listen to a song and quickly dissect the layers to be able to come up with something new in one hour.”

Blanks uses Logic with a Universal Audio Apollo interface, which he’s upgraded to in the last year, hooked up to Yamaha HS8 monitors.

“I switched to an Apollo and I learned all these new things by watching YouTube tutorials. In my home studio, I’ve set up a few drum mics, a compensator mic, a guitar cable etc, and everything can go in at once with the Apollo. It’s got about 16 inputs, while the previous audio interface that I used has two so I had to switch around the cables all the time. Now, I can just select an input and record it.

It sounds better, it works faster and I’ve got more control of the inputs and the outputs, and more control over the sounds when I’m recording.”

Inspired by the likes of Charlie Puth, Blanks started to get into music production when he was around 18, learning everything he knows from YouTube tutorials. When it HEADLINERMAGAZINE.NET

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Naturally, Blanks makes use of Logic’s stock bundles, although when he branches out from those he more frequently than not opts for Waves’ CLA-2A compressor limiter and Doubler plugins.

“I use CLA-2A on most of my vocals and guitar takes to even them out a little bit, and to get my vocal a little bit more in your face. I use Doubler on backing vocals a lot to make them sound a little wider. They just provide subtle details that make songs sound a little bit more interesting, and they give them a little bit more texture.”

Blanks uses a Neve 1073 preamp for recording vocals, guitars and drums, and helping sprinkle on a bit of that nostalgia are Roland’s JV-1080 sample-based synthesizer/sound module, and Juno-106 software synth – the latter which he says he uses on everything he makes now.

Blanks is most pleased with the fact that his EP demonstrates the way his music and production has progressed (“my first attempts years ago were awful!”). On top of that, when he listens to it, it makes him happy: “It makes me feel good, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Productionwise I’m learning more about ear

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candy and how to keep it interesting with more layers so that it’s more diverse and has a bit more texture. I’m getting better at what I do.”

Blanks reveals that he is thinking about releasing an album at some point, although he can’t say too much about it just yet. For now, he’s enjoying the reaction to Cheap Sodas And Ice Cream Kisses: “I get messages from people every day telling me ‘this song means so much to me because it was the soundtrack of my summer’, and that’s exactly what I hoped for with this project: to be the soundtrack of someone’s memory with friends, loved ones or of a great holiday. When I think back to my favourite songs, it’s always songs that have got an extra layer of meaning because of the memories attached to them.”

MUSICBYBLANKS.COM

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