FOREIGNER
Mick JONES & Lou GRAMM's interview
Monday, October 3rd, 1994
We hadn't heard from Foreigner for a long
time...
MJ : Yes, after 1990, and the "Inside Information" album, we just had
to have some space from each other. We had been working very hard,
closely and intensely, for the last two years. The whole band was in
a strange situation. So we broke up, I kept a band going with other
guys, we did one album and another single, and basically Lou and I
got back together on the telephone in the middle of 1992.
LG : We were asked to put some new songs on a "Best Of" collection,
and we thought it was a good time to test our new partnership, and
see if we still were able to write the way we used to write. We were
pretty pleased with the result, we were very encouraged by the
prospect of touring again and doing a complete studio album, so we
formed the group with a new line-up around us.
You are the two only original members of the group now :
where do the other musicians come from ?
MJ : I met Jeff Jacobs (on keyboards) when I worked with Billy Joel,
he did all the keyboard stuff out of Billy... Jeff really wanted to
be in the band, he had enough of playing as a background
musician.
LG : I knew Bruce Taggen (?)(on bass) for a number of years, even
before I was in Foreigner ! He was a friend of mine, and we had
already been in bands together. He helped me quite a bit on my solo
albums. It was natural to have him as part of this new line-up.
MJ : We discovered Mark Shilman (on drums) when we were doing the
three new tracks on the "Best Of" album : he played on those tracks,
we had a good relationship with him, and he joined us later on the
new recording.
Did you tour before recording the new album, or did you
record it and then tour ?
In fact, we rehearsed, we toured, we recorded, and toured... We
started the album at the end of '93, we were just writing then.
During that time, we had put together the new group. The recording of
the new album began in Miami, Florida, at Criteria studios, where we
spent two months : we did most of the tracks there. Then we moved to
Nashville, for three weeks : that was mainly for vocals. Then we
moved up to Woodstock, to Baseville Studios, and we completed the
album there. We did a little mixing in New York City too. So the
whole process took four months, in different places.
Do you always proceed like this ?
No, we used to book the same studio for months before... In that
particular case, it was very cold in New York when we were writing
and rehearsing, and it was nice to get into a better climate.
Have you personal, home studios ?
We both have little studios in our apartments, I have a small
building in my hometown, where I can go, hide out and no one can find
me, I have a little equipment there, basically simple stuff.
MJ : Lou lives in Manchester, NY : I live in NYC, one week we'll be
in NYC, one week we'll be in Manchester. We throw the ball back
between each other, we look around.
Do you work with computers, Cubase or thing like that
?
The young guys in the band know how those machine work : we are the
only two who don't ! We are the only two retired's, you know... I use
the drum machine, stuff like that, but I don't really plan out
patterns and things, I don't construct songs like that. I think it's
important to get that construction by physical playing.
We do use those computers at certain stages, Jeff the keyboards
player has always his sequencers, but we don't base our songs on
them. That's usually something we add on if anything. We usually play
to clicks in studio, but sometimes we don't, we just say "Maybe it's
a better feel without the click". Then we may have problems if we
want to put something sequenced in top of that, but the tendancy in
this band is letting the music take its own direction, more than
letting the effects control the music.
When you record the definitive tracks, do you play all
together ?
Yes, and we're trying to keep as much as we can if it's good. And
then, if there's room for improvement, we just drop in and make
things a little better. I usually end up doing some guitars again,
but sometimes I leave the original guitar, it depends on the song,
really. We try to keep certain vocal performances, too : we actually
kept some on the new album.
LG : We made an effort this time in the writing process to get as
much lyrics done as possible, so there would be something meaningful
to sing while the other ones were playing, and there was a fair
amount of it that sounded good : it helps to have a mental picture of
what I am singing, everyone feels in the mood.
Going from a studio to another, did you keep the same sound
engineer ?
Yes, we worked mainly with Mike Stone, and he helps a little bit in
the production process, he came in with us everywhere. It was the
first time we worked with him, he was from a school of engineers that
we know very well, he worked on the first album we made, back in
1977. He did all the Queen stuff... He's a very competent engineer,
he's very good.
Are you the only producer of the group ?
No, we worked together on that album. When it comes to the end, to
the mixing, basically everything was recorded pretty purely, and the
sounds were good, so we didn't have really to do that much to change
the things we recorded properly. Really, it's the sound of the band,
we didn't have to spend a lot of time in production.
I heard you've already worked with Trevor Horn ?
MJ : He worked with us only for a short time. The problem was he had
been working with Yes for a long time, almost a year in the studio
for the album "90125", he was kind of really tired, and he had
problems with members of the band. We began the recording in New
York, then he decided to move to England, we went back to New york
and decided to change the producer ! In fact, he didn't produce
anything... He worked on some songs, but we changed halfway and
worked with Alex Sadkin. We didn't even mention him on the record
sleeve.
The sound of the album is very precise, we can hear every
word Lou sings : even the electric guitars have that acoustic
dimension, the sound seems very natural...
That means we were very clever...
We have the impression the songs were recorded with two mikes
in the room !
MJ : That's exactly how we did !
LG : He found out our secret...
Seriously, did you record on digital or on analog
?
MJ : We went analog, without noise reduction : we recorded on
hi-level Ampex tapes, on a Studer A 820. We ended up with two of them
synchronised for the mixing, 48 tracks. We record everything on
analog. I've worked with digital, but there's still something about
tape... Analog's still warmer, I like analog tape, it just seems to
suit us better I think. Maybe it's just old fashioned as well... What
do you think ?
LG : I think there's really a difference. Regardless what technology
is, I like analog too. I like the tape compression, when you push it,
it gives some warmth, it gives something you never can achieve on
digital. Some people say you can, but I don't think so. If you were
to play/record on both machines and play back to me, I don't even
know whether I would hear the difference, but I probably would I
think. I think I could tell.
The album is due to issue on October 26th : will you make a
big world tour ?
For the moment, we've just finished the tour in America, which was a
three-month tour. We had a little time off, because we had been
working constantly all through the year, with the album, then on
tour... We're working now for the promotion of this album, we're
gonna be travelling around the world for ten weeks, we've a lot of
countries to go to. We've had a lot of success in many countries in
the world, and really to announce that we're back together, we want
to go to all these countries. There's a lot of work ahead for that
part. And then we start to tour in February, in Australia, and we'll
do Europe after that, then America. So you can expect hopefully we'll
be playing here in March or April '95...
You toured this summer in America with the Doobie Brothers :
how did that idea come ?
There were a lot of big tours going out this summer, which were all
very expensive : Pink Floyd, Eagles, Rolling Stones... even Billy
Joel and Elton John together ! those shows costed hundreds of $, you
know. We knew that that was gonna be happening a bit, so we thought
it would be a good idea, as we were coming back as well (we hadn't
been touring for a long time), that it would be much better value for
the people to get a real good three-hour show of very recognizable
music. In 1977, when we had started touring America, it was our first
tour, we were opening up for the Doobie Brothers : so it's like an
old reunion, in a way. It was nice, we were very close, and there was
a great feeling on the tour, and we may be even gonna do that tour in
Europe as well, we'll bring the Doobie Brothers with us...
Two concerts for the price of one !
Yes, and I think a lot of people in America had a great time and
really enjoyed these shows in summer. We played outdoor theaters,
maybe twelve to twenty thousand people every night... At the end of
the summer, we had played in front of seven hundred thousand people
!
Was the line-up the same as for the recording of the album
?
Yes, we had one other musician with us : Scott Gilman, a saxophone
player, who was actually on the album as well, and did also some
backing vocals and played here and there. So there are really six
persons on stage, which basically has been our normal line-up on tour
since the early eighties...
Do you play keyboards on the albums ? And Lou, do you play
some instruments as well ?
LG : I play some percussion...
MJ : I just play some rhythm keyboards on the albums, the basic
chords, if it's a song that I've written on the keyboards. Then I
leave the rest to Jeff.
On the CD single, we can listen to two different mixes of the
same song, "White Lie" : whose idea was it ?
That was our idea. The first mix was done by Mike Stone, we were with
him in the studio : that was during the mix sessions of the whole
album. The other mix was done by ###@@@, we sent him the tapes
because we felt we could perhaps get a little more zip, a little more
motion in that song. So we gave that song and "... Rain" to the
Nicholas Brothers, a couple of lunatics, you know, they live in
Philadelphia, and do a lot of remixing for the people. We talked a
lot, they did some mixes for us. We couldn't be there with them to do
it because we were actually on tour at that point. So we had to do it
by telephone, they would send us the mix and we would say "No, this
is wrong, go back..." We kind of were there, from the distance, on
the telephone. Finally, we got some really satisfying results,
they're very good at what they do, we're looking for to maybe even
working with them in the future.
LG : They were fans of the band, and they thought it was really
challenging to be put into this situation of mixing a track they knew
nothing from, how it had been made... they enjoyed it a lot !
How did you choose to become a producer ? Did you learn from
Keith Olsen for example, who produced the second Foreigner album, or
was it a natural evolution after all those years as a musician
?
I think I had had a lot of experience to that point, when I came into
this, into Foreigner. I had learnt a lot from working gradually on
the first album with the engineer, Garry Lines. I think when I was in
the Spooky Tooth band, before Foreigner, I was in London at the
times, I worked with Eddie Kramer, Glyn Jones who were the first
engineers that I learnt from, and Jimmy Page and people like that,
and that's where my experience started. Then, with all the Foreigner
albums there has been a coproduction thing basically. I think
probably the one that stands out as an experience from another
producer is the "4" album with Matt Lann (?). I think we both learnt
a lot from that album !
You mentioned Spooky Tooth : was it before you went to
France, or after ?
That was after, I joined Spooky Tooth in 1971.
You are a kind of celebrity in France because every Johnny
Hallyday fan knows you played with him during the sixties. Did you
compose for him, did you produce...
J'étais guitariste et chef d'orchestre ! C'était mon
titre. I played with Dick Rivers too, I made sessions, I worked with
Françoise Hardy a little bit, ou avec Sylvie... Johnny kind of
stole me away from Sylvie ! That's the kind of relationship they had
at the time. That was a very good experience in those years for me,
because Johnny would like to record in London, which gave me a lot of
experience in recording. But I recorded in Paris too, with
Françoise for example.
In recording studios, recording process was quite simple at
the times, and all sounded very acoustic, as there were no DSP's or
multitracks. Does your way of working come from those times
?
Yes, engineers at that time knew precisely which microphone they
would use and how they would place it : they knew perfectly how to
mike a drum kit and make it sound great using the room. Most of
today's engineers have completely lost that aspect of picking up
acoustic sounds, they just plug machines into others. There are not
very many people who really know how to use mikes in a correct way.
That was one of the strong points with Mike Stone on this album, he
knows how to position mikes. I prefer that approach : using big rooms
is for me the art of recording, that's where I learn. Not small
little things with huge digital reverbs added during the mix.
Do you set your guitar amps at very high levels to get the
effect of acoustic compression in the studio ?
Extremely high levels, excruciating the eyes when you go into the
recording room... The walls are moving !
And you, Lou, where were you during the sixties
?
I was in the United States, I never came in England or in France.
Actually, I was losing my virginity and learning how to drive... I
was a drummer, and I did a little singing too. It's only in the
seventies that I put the sticks down and I moved to the front.
How did you meet together ?
MJ : I was touring with Spooky Tooth, and the person who worked for
the record company at the time was Lou's manager. Lou and some of the
band came to the show, so we met two or three times, I got hold of an
album of Lou's, just when I started to write the songs for the first
Foreigner album. I didn't know what I was gonna do with the songs,
and I had the idea of putting a band together. Then I was writing a
song called "Fills up at the first time", and I auditioned fourty or
fifty singers, and nobody was quite right. Then I put this record of
Lou's, and I heard the timbre of his voice, and I thought "He's the
one". I called him, and Foreigner began.
Did you record some solo albums ?
LG : I recorded a couple of them,
MJ : There is one Mick Jones solo album, but it's hard to get one...
I recorded it in 1990, after "Inside Information". It was for
Atlantic, but it's a collector's album ! I enjoyed making it, and
there's some interesting stuff on it.
Will you record another one when you have some time left
?
Yes, it was funny to do that. I think I'll do something different
next time.
How did Billy Joel decide to hire you as a producer for his
last album ?
Billy just called me up one day. We had lunch, and that was it. We
get it off immediately, and we remained good friends, which is
unusual sometimes when you produce somebody ! Eventually, Billy told
me he'd like to work with me again, but at that moment the focus is
basically for both of us we made really a commitment to each other,
to everything we have in common. Once we reach the point fullfilled
that way, there'll be something else for change.
You will go to "Top Bab", which is a successful TV music show
about the 60's and 70's : what do you think of that worldwide
movement of musical nostalgia for those years you once lived in ?
Were things so different compared to what they are now ?
It was all brand new at the time, it was the beginning of rock... I
think things go in cycles in life, quite a little. People start to
have the same feeling about the 60's and the 70's... Probably they
will feel the same about the 80's in a few years, that nostalgia will
translate itself.
Copyright © 1994 Franck Ernould
(franck.ernould@sfr.fr)
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