Stephens squared: star (stephen) Duffy and producer (stephen) Street chat to reporter (jon) Lewin about Life and their collaboration on the former's new 'Cocksure' LP.

TINTINY

Stephen Duffy: "I come from a very musical background: my grandfather was a jazz drummer, my uncle played drums in beat groups in the Sixties, my father played guitar. I first picked a guitar up at the age of seven, and ended up strumming behind my brother, who played fiddle with this cajun band in Birmingham. The first song I actually sang was Dylan's 'Spanish Harlem Incident' with the cajun band, at the Birmingham Rep. I was 13. Then came punk, and I started playing bass. I went to art college where John Taylor was; we just did a couple of gigs, with me on bass and singing, John on guitar, and Nick Rhodes on synth, but unfortunately, they had the same name then as they do now, which meant that ever since, I've been labelled as ex-Duran Duran. If they'd been called Delicious Afterbirth..."

PRODUCTINTIN

SD: "I'd recorded 15 or 16 demos for my first album, and was looking around for someone to help me mix it on to half-inch. Then I got this message saying Stephen Street could do it without an SSL desk — anything I want at half the price, and in half the time."

Stephen Street: "We recorded 'Icing On The Cake' together which sounded really good. Then Stephen said let's make another album, even though we'd only just finished mixing the last one. We recorded and mixed this new LP in just 40 days, working five-day weeks."

SS: "I've also been working on other things. After I did their album 'Meat is Murder', The Smiths asked me to help out on their new single, 'The Boy With A Thorn In His Side', which I'm doing at the moment. It's going to put them back in the charts. Oh, and it's got keyboards on it — Johnny's playing."

"KISS ME", TINTIN?

SD: "There were two versions. Firstly, I met Mulligan in Rockers, a record shop in Birmingham. He was in Fashion, and had all this gear, so I teamed up with him and Dik Davies (also from Fashion), and Stoker (who came from Dexy's and is now in General public), and Bob Lamb (who did UB40's first LP). We recorded 'Kiss Me' and 'Love Duet' in 24 hours.

"That was a proper project that went under the name Tintin; but I was the only one not under contractual obligations, so it was my picture that appeared on all the posters. The first version was quite a big dance hit in America.

"The second version came about at the Manor Studios. I was in there to remix a single called 'Quiver' which hadn't had much impact. We were in the studio, and we thought, 'This is a waste of time, let's do something new.' But I didn't want to give Virgin another song as part of the contract. So I said, 'Let's do "Kiss Me".' There was JJ from the Art of Noise, Nick Froome, who's house engineer at SARM, me, and a few others I can't remember... it was just a total accident, and it went straight in at 22!"

WRITINTING

SD: "I'll use anything — guitar, piano... I write a lot in my head. I never have to force it, as it's a kind of vocation for me. It comes and goes in waves, though I've been writing a lot of tunes recently. I wrote a song at 2.15 last night, and we're recording it at the moment — fresh!

"When I write, I use a recording Walkman. That's all you need. Portastudios are the death of songwriters — I'm very anti-Portastudio. People just start pretending they're engineers. It's just a jerk-off for writers."

SS: "Let's go through a song from the new LP..."

SD: "'Sunday Supplement', for example, started with the idea of the colour magazines — I just picked up the guitar and sang: 'In the Sunday magazines.' I had it half written for a long time. Then I was listening to a Dave Brubeck track on 'Countdown Time & Outer Space' — y'know, drummer in 6/8, bass in 14/3, sort of like 'Take Five' — and I picked up on this rhythm. I tapped it out for Jake (the drummer) when we were in the studio, played it on my thighs. Then with just an acoustic guitar and a guide vocal, he went in and did this really wild drum part, just right."

SS: "Up till then, we'd been recording all the up-tempo songs, and we were using the famous Stone Room up at the Townhouse, going for this good heavy drum sound. Then suddenly Stephen says we should do this one with brushes, and just jazz through it. Immediate, total rethink.

"So I just forgot all the close mikes, and used the overheads, and a lot of bass drum mike (but losing the EQ so it was all soggy and heavy again). It was done in half an hour.

"Then Guy (bassist) got this acoustic bass. He's using a Steinberger all over the rest of the album, so we thought we'd go for a different sound with this big huge acoustic."

SD: "It was really wanky and rattly!"

SS: "I just left the rattles in. They add to it."

TINTINNERS

SS: "We put together an actual rhythm section for this album. Stephen's already mentioned Jake and Guy. Jake is Jake Le Mesurier, who's the drummer, and has played with Central Line and Rod Stewart; Guy is Guy Pratt, the bassist from Icehouse — great player. With the Steinberger, and someone as good as Guy, you get a very powerful sound. You don't have to use an amp to beef up the DId signal. With The Smiths, I've miked up the bassist's amp as well, but this project doesn't need it. I sometimes use a little Roland Dimension D to enhance the bass in the mix, spread it out a bit."

SD: "Our keyboardist is Danny Schooger, who's been with Nick Heyward and Hot Chocolate, amongst others. He's a big session player — he drives a Porsche. But he's a very nice guy."

SS: "Danny uses a DX7, but with all his own sounds."

SD: "It's a very un-snobby instrument to use. He MIDIs it to a Roland 106 — great strings. And he also uses an Oberheim OBXa. That's all, with a bit of Hammond, and a lot of piano."

SD: "Leroy Williams of Hi Tension does the percussion."

SS: "And the vocals.

SD: "I can't sing!"

SS: "We got Jane and Julie from Loose Ends and Working Week, and P P Arnold, and Maureen Gray."

SD: "Pat — P P — and I are very friendly, and because I'm not confident about my voice she's really been helping me out, telling me to open up. It's got a lot better."

SS: The vocals weren't all done in a week — we spread them out. If after a couple of hours it wasn't working, we'd forget it, and have another go later. Next time, it might just take half an hour."

SD: "I'm the guitarist for the band, and I'm a real one-chord wonder. I used an Aria acoustic, which had to have an Ovation dubbed over it to make it thicker. Leonard Cohen-y. And I use a Stratocaster. Nick of the Dream Academy had been working with Dave Gilmour, and they'd all gone mad about these vintage Fender Strats. There were a few made in the American factory before they closed it down, and apparently they were as good as the originals. Gilmour had been buying them by the truck, but we managed to find one in a shop in London.

"For amps, I've been using an AC30, as I couldn't get a good sound from the Twin Reverb, and a Marshall stack — heavy. I've also used the chorus from a Playbus, anything that's lying around."

TINTONES

SD: "For each song, what I try and do is find a style which I can explain. My songs are heavily stylised on this new album, from pop (like 'Unkiss That Kiss'), ballads ('Sunday Supplement'), soul ('The Disenchanted'), African ('Why Shouldn't I?'), to disco, so I go through the lyrics with the band, explaining what sort of mood it is. I just say you know how it sounds, you're not stupid, you can do this..."

SS: "The songs dictate how the arrangements should go. You can't imagine Costello doing a rock & roll version of 'Alison'; it wouldn't happen.

"String and brass arrangements, the icing, obviously aren't there to start with. You work on the track for a few weeks, then you can say — that would sound nice here, this would be good there."

SD: "I don't dictate at all, even though it has my name on it. This song has a guitar on it; that's about as far as I go with arranging."

SS: "Brass was arranged by Chris Cameron or Bimbo Acock, and the strings were all real — me and Linton Nathan, working with an 18-piece string section. All the strings are real, except for a bit of Emulator on 'Disenchanted'.

"All the sounds on the album are real. That Phil Collins drum sound on 'Why Shouldn't I?': God forbid that we should have sampled it. It's just that we recorded our drums in the same room, the Stone Room at the Townhouse. I did add a little reverb."

SD: "All this sampling nonsense has gone too far — that was last week, nobody wants to do that any more. People who are still sampling are not happening."

SS: "It's cheating. Nowadays producers already have preconceived ideas of how they want something to sound, as they've already got their library of sampled tapes. It's taking away that idea of creating your own sound. I'd hate to think that I couldn't create any sound I wanted."

SD: "Donovan would never have used samples."

SS: "Ssshh."

TINTUNES

SS: "Stephen had some kind of reputation for only working with drum machines and sequencers, so we went for real drums to lay that to rest.

"We did all the backing tracks — about 20 — in the first week at the Townhouse. But there was one which didn't feel right with the band, which was 'Unkiss That Kiss'. So we did that one with the Linn and a sequencer, to give a complete section of styles on the album."

SD: "We used an SH101, with its 100 step sequencer. I wanted to use the most basic electro equipment. It worked for 'Icing On The Cake' — that had a really good groove on it.

"Although we're using real instruments, creating it all from scratch, we hate that snobbery about 'real' music — you can make a groove out of the simplest things. All I did on the 101 was a little 16-bar sequence, record the verse parts, change the sequence, then drop in for the choruses. I like that punky simplicity."

SS: "We wanted it to be simple to the point of being moronic."

SD: "We were enthusing at the time about that Godley & Creme record, 'Cry', which didn't have any snare drum, and how nice it was to hear something on the radio that didn't go BOOM/CRACK."

SS: "So we went for a very simple pattern, a pumping feel."

PRODUCTINTIN II

SS: "I take my own speakers — JBL4401s — everywhere. Everyone's using Yamaha NS10s at the moment; engineers can be very like sheep sometimes. The NS10s don't go down deep enough for me, which is why I prefer the JBLs. They're about the same size (around 18in high). I tend to mix on these, occasionally using the big speakers to check things. Since they're hi-fi size, they give you a good idea.

"I like to record things as they're happening: rather than put drums down clean, then waiting till the mix to think of an idea, I often record the effect. If there's a good vibe in the studio, there's no reason why I shouldn't be playing around to find something new. There's a lot of this splashback delay, 120mS pre-delay reverb which doesn't come off the snare straight away, but bounces back afterwards. You hear it on the album.

"But having said that about playing around — we don't faff about. We're very workmanlike in the studio."

SD: "I'm very freaky-deaky, and he's sort of straight!"

SS: "I'm not into this rock & roll martyrdom of 15 hours in the studio, leaving at eight the following morning. I like to get in at ten or 11, and work till nine o'clock. It gives you a chance of living outside the studio; if you don't, how can you look at making an album realistically?"

SD: "And it worked: 40 days, and a finished album for under £70,000. We're so under-budget, I just don't know what we're gonna do with the rest of the money. I may have to go on holiday again."