Richard Barone - The Warm Glow of Creativity

Story by Bill Kopp

Richard Barone: Like most of the songs on this record, I didn't go into the studio with a song at all. I had the vibe and idea as I went into the studio. When I was working on this record with Tony Visconti, that was the sort of concept we had. Either one of us -- because we cowrote a lot of these songs -- would show up with the concept, but not the actual song. So we'd get to actually create it in the studio.

So I came in that day, and I literally felt gravity's pull that day on the way to the studio. It was a sensation that I hadn't noticed before. So when Tony asked me how I was feeling, I said, "I'm fine. I'm feeling gravity's pull, though." And that's how the song started; it was very natural. We started writing about it right then, right on the spot. And we recorded it that day.

And that's kind of how we did this record. Almost every song that I did with Tony Visconti on the album, we had no song written before we started a session. I had always wanted to do that; I had heard that certain artists worked in that way. And I had never had that experience of sort of being on a tightrope, where you don't know where it's going to go.

You really have to trust your producer, and in this case I did, so I said, "Okay, let's do it. We're really going to be able to do it."

Bill Kopp: There are real strings on this album. Certainly that adds to the complexity of recording, and to the expense. But there's a quality you can't get any other way. Did you have the concept of using a real string section to begin with, or was that something Visconti encouraged you to do?

Richard Barone: We just knew right away that was how it had to be. Tony's a great arranger, and I feel he's the closest that we have to George Martin now. He's musical in every sense of the word, as a producer. Not just the sound, not just the arrangement. Not just the composition, but the whole thing.

So as we were writing these songs, the arrangements developed as we were writing. We were using the recording program Apple Logic; that allowed us to arrange and change things around without any hassle. As we were working, we were arranging as we went along. As we came up with parts, we could do them right there. And luckily, between the two of us we know so many musicians. So we were able to call up and say, "Can you come play a cello?" or whatever. People would pop by and do their parts.

The idea of mixing Mellotron and [real] strings is something I started on Clouds Over Eden, the previous album I did. I had my Mellotron and combined it with cello and violin. And doing that was a suggestion from Van Dyke Parks to me. I had been talking to him about that part -- about arranging the strings -- and he lived in L.A. at the time. I was in New York, recording. And he made a lot of suggestion over the phone. And one of those was to use a small group of strings mixed with a Mellotron.

But Tony did it independently of that, so it was a natural thing for us to continue that process on this album. And we pushed it much farther than I did on the previous album.

Bill Kopp: It's funny that you mention that. You're the second person that I've spoken to recently who's talked about that very approach. There's a particular texture that you get when you mix real strings and Mellotron. There's a kind of heavy retro band out of L.A. called Bigelf...

Richard Barone: I know them, yeah.

Bill Kopp: ...and their leader Damon Fox owns something like four Mellotrons. And he told me the same thing: there's a certain nasty wobble that you get from a Mellotron, and when you put those together, what you get is great. If you're somebody like me who loves that sound, it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Richard Barone: It's an amazing instrument. I worked with the producer Hugh Jones on Clouds Over Eden, and when he was young he worked for the Mellotron company [Streetly Electronics -- ed.]. He recorded many of the tapes that were in the machine. And of course they're all actual performances. So what you get is the sound that's been put through the process of automation, the process of mechanization, being played on a keyboard. But you still get the performances, and whatever emotion there is in those performances. And you can create chords that maybe string players might not play together. They're parts you might not normally write for strings, but on the keyboard you do. So you create new textures that way.

Bill Kopp: I'm a liner notes reader, and so I see that on the track "Girl" you used both Mellotron and Chamberlin? That's almost perverse!

Richard Barone: What we love about the Chamberlin -- which came a bit later than the Mellotron -- is the recordings [in it] are a little bit better. The cello, especially. (I'm a liner notes reader too, and we tried to include as much detail in the notes for Glow.) We used the Chamberlin cello on that song; the sound has a very precise sound, and we mixed that with the Mellotron strings.

Bill Kopp: Whenever I read that someone has used a Mellotron on their record, if I get the chance I ask: a real one or a sample? They usually mumble "um, a sample." But you use the real machine. So are you a glutton for punishment?

Richard Barone: I bought my Mellotron in the 90s. It was a beautifully maintained white M400 that had hardly ever been played since 1973. I happened to find it in New York, and that's the instrument we used on this album. At the Magic Shop [recording studio] they had another black 400, one of the later ones, and it had a different motor in it, and different sounds.

Bill Kopp: I had an opportunity to buy an M400 in 1985 for $500. But in those days I didn't have $500!

Richard Barone: It was always considered an expensive instrument, even when it first came out. Still is. It's a handmade instrument, basically. You can see by the woodwork; it's like a handmade vintage car...

Bill Kopp: An English car!

Richard Barone: A very English car. With the serial number hand-inscribed on each part. I love it.

Bill Kopp: I see Dennis Diken plays on "Gravity's Pull." Besides being one of the nicest people I've ever met, he's -- to me -- the very embodiment of tasteful drumming.

Richard Barone: He is.

Bill Kopp: He never overplays, and he seems to have an innate sense of what a song needs. So on the tracks where you did bring in other players beside yourself and Tony, how much direction did you give on these songs? Did you chart it out very loosely, or did you say, "Play this?"

Richard Barone: Like I said, when we wrote the songs, we were arranging them in our head as we did them. So we had the part basically worked out for anybody who came in. But -- and Tony and I are very similar in this way -- we encouraged the musicians to bring their own style and flavor to what they play. So while we know what we want, within those parameters there's a lot of freedom to play.

For instance, on "Gravity's Pull" we were interested in having the kick drum do a certain thing. So that's the kind of direction we might give, so the bass drum doesn't have just the standard [makes "boom" sound]. It has a certain pattern to it. Usually what's important for the drums for Tony and I -- and it's always been important on his records -- is that the bass drum has its certain little part.

And that's very important now, in 2010. So much of pop music now is based on the bass drum. People talk about "beats" on a pop record. And what they're talking about is what the bass drum is doing. It's not as straight-ahead as it would have been in the past. And one of the things that makes this record more competitive with contemporary sounds is that our bass drum patterns are more intricate than what might have happened ten years ago.

Bill Kopp: I appreciate that you mention that. Because as I listen to the album, there's a classicist vibe to a lot of the songs, but there's something -- and I couldn't quite put my finger on it -- sort of modern about it.

Richard Barone: Tony and I -- and [producer] Steve Rosenthal also -- would talk about how melodies are classic, and guitar sounds are classic. But what really changes in each era, each decade, are the beats. The rhythms. And I think what we've done on this record is to have classic melodies and song structures, but the beats are contemporary. The beats are written into the songs. On "Gravity's Pull," for example, the bass drum hits when certain words hit. The casual listener doesn't have to notice all that. But we kind of wrote the songs form the bottom up.

Bill Kopp: That's one of the cool things about good songs. You can sort of let them wash over you, and enjoy them for what they are. Or you can pick them apart and appreciate the components. And if a song holds up to that kind of listening, then you've got something.

Richard Barone: I should add something here. I've been fortunate to have around me some amazing mentors. Tony and my other producers, obviously. But also, Garth Hudson from The Band is a good friend of mine. And he's someone like that -- he notices parts of songs --and he'll call me and say, "Let's add a trombone part" to a particular song. He sort of finds what makes pop music interesting. And that gets my mind going. And it makes it interesting for all of us: for myself as well as the listener.

Bill Kopp: The lead guitar on the title track has a very Robert Fripp feel to it. Is that the digital guitar and e-bow?

Richard Barone: All the guitars on that track are the Gibson digital guitar, except for the dual solo that's played by myself and Steve Addabbo. I'm playing e-bow guitar, and he's playing old jangly Gibson ES-335.

Bill Kopp: Yes. In the liner notes you even listed the year [1966] of the guitar! [laughs]

Richard Barone: I work with Gibson, for one thing. And there are such differences in the different years. So on that one, we said, "Let's put that particular year guitar with that particular sound." But the thing about the digital guitar is, because the sound is so clear and clean, it makes the e-bow sound more "e-bow-y" than ever! [laughs]

Bill Kopp: I don't know much about the digital guitar. Can you give me a thumbnail description of how it's different?

Richard Barone: Sure. It's very simple. As I said, I've been working with Gibson for quite some time, constructing parts. They send me parts to test and so forth. One of the guitars that they were working on was a prototype of a digital guitar. They'd been working on it for ten years; it's a major, major development.

It's quite expensive, and there are not too many of them. The guitar has a high-definition pickup. But the most important thing to me about it is that the signal is so pure. It's not that it does anything weird; it doesn't try to recreate other guitar sounds or anything like that. It's not a modeling guitar. It has a pure digital output that comes out via an Ethernet cable. And there are six separate outputs: one for each string. And you don't hear the other strings on each channel; there's no "bleed."

So on a song like "Glow" we can pan each string sound anywhere in the stereo image. We went to [George Lucas'] Skywalker Ranch to mix that. They have this big console, and 88-input Neve. Each guitar took six tracks. That's a lot guitars...a lot of strings, I should say.

Bill Kopp: Oh my god. I'm gonna have to play the album again, but with headphones...

Richard Barone: It's really nice with headphones. When I performed at Carnegie Hall last year, we used the SurroundSound system, so each string went through its own speaker in the hall.

So that's why I use the digital. I love it. It's also a beautiful Les Paul; Gibson uses the Les Paul Custom as the template for it. It's a classic-looking instrument. And it also has normal humbucker pickups. So it plugs in as a regular Les Paul or a digital. I use both.

It's a really special instrument. In the CD package -- including the back photo from the Carnegie Hall show -- you can see a Les Paul in every photo. And the blue one, that's it.

Bill Kopp: You collaborate on "Silence is Our Song" with Paul Williams. How did you connect with him?

Richard Barone: I was performing in a tribute to him. Because, you know, he did so many amazing songs. And one of them was a song that I had been doing at my shows, a song called "Fill Your Heart." It was on David Bowie's Hunky Dory album, and also on Tiny Tim's first album. I knew both of those, in different arrangements.

So I was asked to perform at the Paul Williams tribute a few years ago. And he was there. I did the song in my arrangement, which was a combination of Bowie's and Tiny Tim's and my own. He really liked it, and after the show he came over to me and told me that I really should record that song.

I said, "Yeah, I really would like that." But then he said, "But why don't we write something new for you, too?" And I said, "That would be fantastic." So he invited me to co-write with him in Los Angeles, and it was very spontaneous. In fact it [happened] the first night that we had talked and met.

It was a great experience, because he's a very detailed songwriter. Writing with him was a really good lesson in songwriting: the structure of the song, the kinds of words to use. It was an unforgettable experience. We've since become friends, and hope to write some more together.

Bill Kopp: I mean this in a respectful way, but I had sort of wondered what ever happened to him. When I was a kid, he seemed to be everywhere. Lots and lots of creative energy.

Richard Barone: He's active in so many ways. He's active in humanitarian causes. And also, he was the president of ASCAP. He's very big in the music industry. He also works a lot with people struggling with drug addictions; he's set up a foundation to help with that.

He constantly writes, but a lot of his songs show up more in the Nashville scene. And that's sort of another world; it's not the mainstream pop world. He's very flexible in all styles. And he's another great mentor for me.

Bill Kopp: Listening to "Silence is Our Song" I immediately thought that it had a vibe similar to early Bowie, circa Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold the World. Maybe it's the forceful attack on the acoustic guitar.

Richard Barone: Yeah! That's probably right; I think you're very perceptive. That music was a big influence on me. In fact I was just talking to someone last night (in an interview) about how I don't really approach the acoustic guitar in a gentle folk way. I do attack it the way that Bowie did on that record.

Bill Kopp: I like the guitar crosstalk on "Candied Babes." And all that guitar is you, right?

Richard Barone: Right. On the other songs, though, Tony and I would sit and play guitar. Like on "Gravity's Pull," for instance, that's a real combination: that's both of us. You can tell: you can tell the different styles. Tony has a much smoother style of rhythm playing that I do. I'm chunky, and definitely from the pop-punk sound of the Bongos, really. And together our guitars styles make a bed for the song.

And on a song like "Sanctified," that's both of us playing acoustics. Believe it or not, because they sound so heavy. There's a certain sound you get when you play guitars together at the same time, as opposed to overdubbing. So whenever it was possible to get that sound, we both played together.

Bill Kopp: There's something organic that happens in that situation, something that overdubbing can't capture...

Richard Barone: And each song was a challenge that Tony would give me. On "Candied Babes" Tony just gave me the drum track. He constructed this drum track for me, and if you listen to it it's quite intricate. He had the idea for the rhythm, and he assembled it in that structure. And then he said, "Here. Write a song on top of this!"

And it ended up as a song about the 80s club scene that I was in. That's why I put the audience sounds in at the beginning and end. In fact the beginning of the song has a little snippet from the Bongos' Drums Along the Hudson.

Bill Kopp: So how did you end up working with Tony Visconti? We've talked about it already, but how did it all originally come about?

Richard Barone: It's a long story, really. I started communicating with him when the Bongos were signed to RCA. I'm not sure...I think we called him, or he called us at that point. He was in London at the time. [pauses] I think he called us, because he had heard the T. Rex Electric Warrior song "Mambo Sun" that we had covered. We actually had a Billboard dance hit with that song. Tony had produced the original version, and liked our arrangement.

When we were getting signed to RCA, we wanted him to produce the album. Well, RCA wanted us to stay in New York. We were just kids; I was barely eighteen when we signed. So I don't think RCA wanted us to go to England where they couldn't keep a eye on us!

RCA said, "You have to do it in New York; can he come here?" And he could not. So that didn't work out schedule-wise. And location-wise. So we worked with Richard Gottehrer, and he was a great producer for us. And another great teacher.

But we did stay in touch with Tony. And when he moved back to New York in the 90s, I contacted him: "Let's do something." And I had to do a lot of different projects, a lot of different musicians. At the time I was working with a guitarist named Gary Lucas -- liner notes readers will know his name from the Captain Beefheart band -- and I thought it would be interesting to do a sort of progressive, prog-rock album with Tony. So [although that didn't happen] somehow that started our process of talking about writing and doing some stuff together. It evolved out of that; it was a very natural process.

We started writing songs together; none of those songs made it to this album, but the process eventually turned into this album. It was a long process, because both of us take on so much -- and so many different kinds of -- projects.

I produce a lot of artists, but for my own music, I like to have a producer.

Bill Kopp: It allows you to concentrate on different things...

Richard Barone: Exactly. You know, Tony started out in the 60s as a songwriter. He would record his demos, and his recordings were so good that the labels said, "Why don't you get involved on the production side of it?" And that's how he, at age nineteen, became a well-known producer.

Tony has been a part of my life for so long that I sometimes forget how long we've known each other...oh, another thing: we both performed at a T. Rex tribute concert. He asked me to sing on a song, and I asked him to play bass on a song. So we've collaborated in many different ways. And it all comes together now, on this record.

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