Multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood, the man who put the go into the Move and the magic into Wizard took time off from recording his new album at the Old Smithy to cook his engineer bacon and eggs. Incidentally, he also talked to Paul White about his approach to recording and production.

Since the demise of Wizard, Roy has been indulging in a few solo projects and, because of management problems, he's had to bide his time until his contract expired before becoming heavily involved in any new creative work. These stop-gap projects have included production work for other bands, engineering sessions, and of course Roy is a prolific songwriter. In fact he worked for a time with a band he formed called the Whizzo Band: a jazz rock outfit with a 13-piece horn section but it proved too expensive to take on the road.

You've obviously been used to writing and producing your own material for several years now but how does your approach differ when you're asked to produce another band?

What I try to avoid is imposing my will too heavily during the session and ending up with a recording that sounds like me. I like to stand back and see how the band themselves work when left to their own devices, and then try to inject that vital spark of commerciality somewhere along the line. It's probably true to say that my forté is adding catchy little hooks, whether they are vocal or guitar parts or whatever. If the band needs some help on the instrumental side, I like to join in there too. For example, on the Cruella de Ville album which I produced, I played drums which I enjoy doing and somehow you feel less pressure when working on somebody else's song.

You've been in the business a long time; how have you seen production and recording change during that time? I imagine, for instance that on some of your earlier work you were lucky to be able to use four tracks.

When the Move started, we could only use two tracks for the stereo backing: one for the lead vocal and one for anything else that had to go on. It was very limited. As the number of available tracks increased and as the outboard gear became more sophisticated, my writing style adapted accordingly. You may be using the same brain you had ten years ago but you absorb new influences from music you hear on the radio, and quite unconsciously your writing style becomes more up to date. Even if what you hear really isn't your kind of music, something usually rubs off, even if it's only a sound, and then your songwriting approach changes to make use of that sound.

I'm not alone in admiring the way in which Trevor Horn works, and Jeff Lynn's production has a lot of strong points, like Dave Edmunds'. But production is bit like songwriting; you take ideas from everywhere which all melt together to influence the way you approach things, but you don't set out to write a song to sound like somebody else. Similarly, you don't set out to produce a song exactly as someone else would. And, as new sounds and as new processors come into fashion, you try to use them in the context of your own work so that you can get an up to date sound. Take the gated drum sound that's been around for the last few years. I'll use that only if the finished result would benefit from it.

Do you find that having moved a way from the all-in-one take approach on to large scale multitrack has taken away any of the spontaneity from your performance?

I've worked with multitrack ever since it was available and so it doesn't cause me any problems in that area. My first solo album was all overdubs and I played virtually everything myself. On the new album that I'm recording now I play virtually everything myself simply because it's easier for me to play what's in my head than to have to teach a band of musicians to play it my way. If however I come across a part I can't play, then I get someone in. If I wanted a violin solo for example, I couldn't do that myself. I tend to play safe and write songs that are within my playing capabilities.

Do you do all your own production or to you like to collaborate with someone else?

It seems silly to bring someone in at the last minute, but I'd quite like to work with Colin (Owen) when doing the final mix if he were available because he engineered all the sessions at the Old Smithy.

I'm probably going to mix down these tracks at Maison Rouge, and it seems pointless to involve another producer when I've already got a finished set of multitrack tapes to mix and then ask them to put in their twopenny worth. After all, I've got the information already in my brain.

When producing yourself, do you find it difficult to view your work as your audience might see it?

I used to be able to do that but now, I think it's true to say that pop music is based as much on fashion as on the music itself, which is why most bands don't stick around for any length of time. You give them a couple of years at the outset and that's it. Bands like Queen or The Police stand the test of time, but they are the exceptions. In that light it can be difficult to view your own music objectively.

If fashions have changed drastically during the recording of one of my albums then it can be confusing as to what needs doing.

"I go for the old George Martin sound like the Beatles used on 'I am the Walrus': fairly hard and raspy sound. I like it rough."

In the Home

At what stage did you get involved in home recording?

I started out with a B&O sound-on-sound tape recorder to demo my ideas on and, if you really worked at it, you could get up to 14 tracks on there without the hiss becoming too apparent. It was purely for recording ideas so I didn't think much about getting a proper studio at home until about ten years ago. I had three monitor mixers which Colin strapped together for a desk just so I could have some knobs to twiddle. There wasn't much in the way of outboard gear; it was really a matter of using whatever I used on stage for my guitar. I had two or three echoes, but it was all live gear, not studio gear. Still, it was good enough to get my songs down so I could present them to the band in a more or less finished form. The thing grew over the years and I've still got the old 16-track Studer that I ended up with, but at the moment, everything is packed into polythene bags because I've moved house and there are a lot of alterations needed before the studio can be installed. Eventually it will be built into a converted barn which should be ideal. It's about 40 feet long and there are two stories so the plan is to take down part of the ceiling and then to use the remaining upstairs section as the control room and then have steps coming down to the main studio - just like the old EMI studio at Abbey Road. I tend to do most of my work from the control room, though I do like to use real drums which have to be recorded in the main studio area. It'll mainly be used for my own work rather than being hired out which will save me money and a lot of time. If I get an idea in the middle of the night, then I'll be able to get up and do it. I also need to get a more up to date desk but nothing over the top. I'll probably end up with a Soundcraft or Soundtracs.

Outboard gear is less obvious because it's changing all the time. I suppose I'll have to get an SPX90 and the work that Colin has done on the Greengate sampling system has almost convinced me that I need one of those too. But I think that it'll be worth waiting for the new Greengate to become available; it will be very useful for me. I often want to use something really unconventional on a record and you can't get them from anywhere. For instance a cow farting in a 5-piece harmony (not very good for your mics). I'd also like to set up my drum kit, tune it to its best, sample it and use it on dance tracks.

I also really love the Klark Teknik DN780 reverb that we've been using on the album. I've heard nothing to beat it, but I can't afford to get one until I've put in some more of the basic gear. Fortunately, I've already got a few decent mics including a U87 and the obligatory D12 for the bass drum. I've also got four of the Sennheiser 421s which are great all rounders. Strangely enough, the old Shure Unidyne is a good tom mic, probably quite underrated, and I've an old heart shaped BBC mic that's just marvellous for vocals. You could magnetise the world with it and it weighs a ton. I'm also going to have to budget for a 24-track recorder because there aren't many studios now where you can copy your 16-track onto 24 which I'd dearly like to do sometimes.

How do you feel about using drum machines?

I like them for saving time, but as far as the sound is concerned, I've always preferred the sound of real drums. It all depends on the style of music. For disco they're great, but for anything else, the sound doesn't usually impress me. For real rock and roll, you just can't get the detail you get from acoustic drums like those little bounces on the snare drum. Neither is the feel right. Perhaps the answer is to play a drum machine through pads, though I've never done that.

I like Simmons kits for what they are, for their own sound, but not for emulating a real drum part. I'd rather take a real drum kit and then overdub the odd bit of Simmons where it's needed.

Have you used many MIDI-controlled instruments during the recording of this album?

Because I'm not really a keyboard player, I haven't invested any money into MIDI equipment, but it's something that I'll have to get more involved with in the not too distant future. I tried the Roland guitar synth as a way round it but that wasn't entirely successful.

I'm not one of the old school who adamantly refuses to use electronic gear, even though I do play a lot of acoustic instruments like cello and oboe. If I could get a realistic sound from an electronic keyboard, then I'd use it purely from the convenience point of view so that I could work from the control room without having to go out and put up mics. Nothing captures the nuances of a real solo acoustic instrument but for some songs, that doesn't matter. If the sound is right for the track, that's all that's important. It could be whistling hippos but if it sounds right, use it.

Making the Arrangements

If you're doing a track entirely on your own, what do you put down first to hold it all together?

As a rule, a click track, but I find a drum machine a bit too robotic for that. I like to record maybe a cowbell played with a stick and then splice it up into a tape loop and then use that. A guide guitar goes on next with as much of the arrangement played as possible, even scraping out drum fills and so on. Strangely enough, although my main instrument is guitar I enjoy playing drums more. I suppose it's more relaxed because you don't have to live up to Van Halen or anyone. The first real part to go on is usually a rhythm guitar part which I double track to give it a big sound, then I'll go out and put on either the drums or the bass line and build up from there. I like to get the drums down fairly early on and if you've got the arrangement of the song firmly in your head, it's perfectly possible to do that.

There's one advantage of writing the songs; you tend to know what you want before you start to record. I rarely use other drummers just because of the time that is wasted in rehearsals.

Producing the Goods

When you're putting together one of your songs in the studio, what sort of production techniques do you use to create the unique Roy Wood sound?

Well some of the production techniques are well known because I've read about them in your magazine. Others I like to think of as my own trade secrets.

"There's one advantage of writing the songs; you tend to know what you want before you start to record."

I like to mic drums using underhead mics rather than overheads because it gives me a more powerful sound. I have them in front of the kit on the floor pointing up towards the ceiling. This is used in conjunction with conventional close miking but I always mic concert toms from underneath rather than from on top. I like the extra resonance you get from miking below.

Cello I mic from the F slot to get a mellow sound or nearer the bridge if I want extra bite. I multi-layer them to get a thicker sound and, because the cello is a non-fretted instrument, you don't need to use any artificial form of detuning. I go for the old George Martin sound like the Beatles used on 'I am the Walrus': a fairly hard and raspy sound. I like it rough.

When I'm recording the guitar I like to use a bit of room ambience and tend to keep my rhythm sound fairly clean. My chordal parts are often fairly involved and a crunchy guitar sound just wouldn't work. I like to use natural double tracking but one trick of mine is to slightly detune the three bass strings but leave the top three in tune when recording the second part to really fatten it up.

I always DI the bass guitar and I never use cans for it. It's far more satisfying to incur the engineers' wrath by subjecting him to my playing. (Groans of assent from Colin).

Eastern Promise

From the little I've heard of the tracks so far, there seems to be more than a little eastern influence creeping in here and there with some unusual percussion parts.

I played some tabla on the album and I've also got an electric sitar which I like to use occasionally. The studio I recorded at previously records a lot of eastern music so they know how to get a good sound. I didn't do it for fashionable reasons; I just thought it worked on a musical level.

The cynical amongst you will no doubt say that anyone who'd use a sitar playing 5/4 time in the middle of a rock song wasn't going out of his way to be fashionable. But perhaps music in general is getting into a kind of rut and any way of getting it out again was fair game.

Music's been in a rut since punk went out of fashion. Not that I was a punk fan; I thought that most of the bands were rubbish, but it was exciting. After that came the new romantic thing and the rest of the new wave and it all got a bit twee for me. Heavy metal keeps going on and on, but since Rainbow there hasn't been a metal band that's done really well except a few American bands. I don't think people like me can do much about it. If anyone can make an impression on the market and establish a new direction, it will be a young band because that's where the record companies put their money. If a young band that could really play came on the scene and pushed the disco music out of the window, I'd be only too pleased.

The album that I'm working on now is difficult to categorise; they're commercial songs but the backing's more heavy than normal and completely unlike my previous albums. I think that as you go on, your songs become more musically involved, more complex, purely to satisfy yourself. You can never know what the public wants to hear, you can only play what you want to play and then inject say 20% of what in your opinion would make it more commercial. I've never claimed to know just what the public want. So that last 20% might include having a dancy beat with no time changes, modern instrumentation and so on. Or you might really want to put a nose flute in somewhere but you know it's going to be a single so you leave it out and use something else.

As far as the future is concerned, are you going to get involved in more production work or do you want to get out and play live again?

Both really. I got a band together for the gig at the NEC earlier this year and that felt really good. If the opportunity arises to pursue that further, then I'll get out and do more live playing. I still intend to accept production work but it has to be with bands who's music I like. I'm not one of these people who can just work for the money. I've previously been involved with some bands who can't play at all well, and have spent hours behind the desk tearing your hair out waiting for them to get some simple part right. You know that you could just walk out there and do it yourself in five minutes.

Ahh... the frustrations of the artist. But Roy's efforts must continue. This time it's back to Colin the engineer in the control room to feed him the charred remains of the bacon and eggs that had been all but forgotten in the preceding dialogue. Life goes on.