MBW’s World’s Biggest Producers collection sees us interview – and have fun – a few of the excellent abilities working in studios throughout the many years. Right here, we converse with British super-producer James Ford about his function as a key artistic collaborator with Arctic Monkeys, an important hyperlink in Blur’s reunion, and far more. World’s Biggest Producers is supported by Hipgnosis Music Administration.
James Ford is well-known for producing Arctic Monkeys. However he may simply have simply grow to be infamous for not producing Arctic Monkeys.
In 2005, Ford was simply breaking out as a producer. He’d grown up in Leek, Staffordshire as a music obsessive. His dad performed in native bands and, after flute and piano classes in school and encouragement from a music trainer that will let him bunk off rugby to play the drums, he too joined the native pub circuit.
After years of “cider, magic mushrooms and taking part in in bizarre funk bands”, he went to Manchester for college and shaped Simian, who precipitated fairly a buzz on the Noughties indie scene.
They moved to London however, in response to Ford, “fell into the traditional factor of attempting to maintain the label blissful on our second report… We ended up cracking below the stress and splitting up.”
Simian went on to have an enormous posthumous hit with a Justice remix, We Are Your Mates, however, on the time, the remainder of the band received “correct jobs”, whereas Ford and keyboard participant Jas Shaw shaped DJ/dance music spin-off Simian Cell Disco. Ford additionally began producing “anybody and everybody who would have me”.
The names he was producing slowly received greater till he met Laurence Bell at Domino, who launched him to Arctic Monkeys.
He and Mike Crossey decamped with the band to Liverpool’s Motor Museum studio to work on some “fairly gnarly, punky, fairly aggy” variations of songs that will characteristic on the band’s iconic debut album, No matter Folks Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Ford, nevertheless, didn’t characteristic on the completed report, having been changed by Jim Abbiss.
“I used to be completely gutted,” Ford says at present, talking to MBW in his house studio in Clapton, East London. “I may see what was about to occur to them: their star was within the ascendant and the hype round them… It was a reasonably heady time. However we received phrase that the People didn’t just like the recordings. It was the largest alternative I’d ever had, and it didn’t go the way in which I supposed.
“However I nonetheless felt like I used to be in the fitting place,” he provides. “I used to be gutted, however I wasn’t like, ‘Again to the drafting board’. I used to be simply going to have to choose myself up and keep on, I felt one thing else would come alongside.”
“IT WAS THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY I’D EVER HAD AND IT DIDN’T GO THE WAY I INTENDED.”
He was proper to not fear. Since then, Ford has grow to be the UK music trade’s go-to producer for… effectively, just about something, actually.
His deliberate avoidance of a ‘trademark sound’ means he can add edge to pop stars (Kylie Minogue, Jessie Ware), reinvigorate legendary bands (Blur, Depeche Mode), or give new artists the sonic armour-plating they should climate at present’s hostile surroundings for breakthrough acts.
And, because it seems, he can produce Arctic Monkeys in spite of everything. After a ‘no arduous emotions’ chat at an awards ceremony quickly after the debut album got here out, he’s labored on each AM album since, forging one in every of British rock’s longest-running, best relationships. He even performs in Alex Turner’s spin-off band, The Final Shadow Puppets.
And past the Arctics, Ford is presently on the form of roll most producers can solely dream of. Within the final yr or so, he’s helmed Depeche Mode’s Memento Mori, Jessie Ware’s That! Feels Good!, Blur’s The Ballad Of Darren, Pet Store Boys’ Nonetheless and The Final Dinner Celebration’s Prelude To Ecstasy, amongst others.
However, whereas his telephone is operating as sizzling as that streak of smashes, he’s determined to make 2024 “a fallow yr”. He’ll be taking part in in Portishead singer Beth Gibbons’ touring band (having produced her latest album, Lives Outgrown), seeking to work on the follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut solo album, 2023’s The Hum, and having fun with “just a little ‘saying no to issues’ section”.
Earlier than he can put his toes up, nevertheless, there’s the small matter of speaking MBW by studio bust-ups, trade crops and why he doesn’t even take into consideration TikTok…
WHY DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ARCTIC MONKEYS WORK SO WELL?
We share a musical language now, we’ve grown up collectively. I’ve a lot respect for them and for Alex’s writing. I simply try to assist them develop in one of the best ways attainable and be sincere with them.
I don’t know why it’s lasted so lengthy – it’s like a friendship or a wedding at this level, the place it’s arduous to see [a way] out of it! It’s greater than only a producer-artist relationship.
It most likely could be good for them to work with different producers with a extra goal view of it. However, once you’re working with Alex after which go and work with one other band you’ve by no means labored with earlier than, you discover how a lot clarification there may be. We don’t want to speak about references or snare sounds anymore. It means you may push on to the subsequent section with out having to go over a great deal of outdated floor.
I like working with new artists and having that recent vitality – and there’s a respect you may command with new artists that you would be able to’t with somebody you’ve identified for knocking on 20 years! You don’t have that very same energy or no matter [with Arctic Monkeys], however you even have this very completely different, deep data and love for what they do this informs it differently.
YOU SEEM TO HAVE A GOOD RADAR FOR NEW BANDS THAT ARE GOING TO MAKE IT. WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR NEW ARTISTS TO BREAK THROUGH AT THE MOMENT?
I try to keep out of the enterprise dialog. I am going on my intuition and my musical style; if I hear a demo that’s attention-grabbing and doesn’t really feel like one thing I’ve heard earlier than, and I can think about that going over effectively, that’s about so far as my evaluation goes.
You possibly can inform when individuals have gotten momentum behind them, even when it comes to their angle or the individuals which can be round them, and typically that may affect it. But it surely’s actually arduous to second guess what’s and isn’t going to work. I simply go together with what’s thrilling and what I’d need to hearken to.
Picture credit score: Cal McIntyre
HOW AWARE WERE YOU OF THE NOISE AROUND THE LAST DINNER PARTY BEFORE YOU PRODUCED THEM?
The trade plant factor? Once I heard their demos, there was no [record] trade round it. That being mentioned, the way in which I heard about them was by [Tara Richardson], a supervisor who I labored with on a Foals report. She’s working with Q Prime, one of many largest heavy-hitter administration corporations on this planet.
They’re fairly a formidable bunch of individuals in order that clearly factored in my head: these songs are nice, it’s artistic, the ladies can play the shit out of their devices and so they can write, that is attention-grabbing. And so they’ve received Q Prime behind them, that’s much more attention-grabbing, as a result of individuals are going to listen to it.
As a result of they’re heavy-hitters, they received me concerned, they received an enormous label concerned, they received them on numerous payments early on, most likely earlier than they have been actually prepared… So, from an out of doors standpoint, it possibly seems to be like this trade conspiracy, however it’s not.
It’s an old-fashioned huge administration push, the identical as I noticed with a great deal of bands. However these bands have been all guys and now it’s a bunch of women, individuals are very fast to leap on this, ‘They’ll’t have finished all of it themselves, it should be this trade plant factor’.
There’s a touch of misogyny in that. Their styling and ostentatious method was their concept from the start. That they had the loopy concepts for music movies on our first assembly within the espresso store not far away. It’s very a lot all from them, however individuals for some cause can’t consider that, partly as a result of they’re ladies.
DO YOU HAVE TO BECOME A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PRODUCER FOR A NEW BAND VERSUS AN ESTABLISHED ONE?
One of many issues I actually like about being a producer is it’s a very completely different course of each time. I’m fortunate that I’ve received numerous strings to my bow; I can play and write, do the technical stuff, I combine – I can take the method from the start to the top if wants be.
“ONE OF THE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT BEING A PRODUCER IS IT’S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PROCESS EVERY TIME.”
However, typically, it’s going right into a room and never doing any of that stuff – it’s nearly managing the scenario and attempting to get individuals in a frame of mind the place they really feel snug sufficient to give you concepts in entrance of one another.
I used to get fairly freaked out if there was stress, like, it’s all going to collapse. However now, I discover that basically attention-grabbing. I like the dynamics between completely different individuals and attempting to navigate that. In case you go in open, sincere and never attempting to be too Machiavellian about it, attempting to assist individuals get the perfect out of themselves, you may’t go too far unsuitable.
YOU’VE HAD A COUPLE OF INTERESTING EXPERIENCES IN THAT AREA IN RECENT YEARS…
Yeah, Depeche Mode’s Spirit was an actual baptism of fireplace. It was at a degree the place their interpersonal relationships have been fairly strained, to say the least.
There was simply this stress with Martin [Gore] and Dave [Gahan] that you might lower with a knife and poor Fletch [Andy Fletcher], bless him, received caught within the center.
It received to some extent the place Martin was going to go away the band. I received a telephone name at 3am from the administration, ‘Are you able to cancel the session tomorrow, we’ve received an issue’. We ended up on this huge empty studio, everybody had been despatched house and it was like a wedding steering counselling session with me, the managers and Martin and Dave speaking to one another. Ultimately, they patched it up and we received by the report, however it was disturbing.
AND YET YOU WENT BACK FOR MORE?
We left on fairly bizarre phrases, there have been a number of arguments and stuff, so I used to be fairly shocked once they requested me again to do one other report [2023’s Memento Mori]. I agreed to go round yet another time, however I used to be barely apprehensive.
Then, actually sadly, a number of weeks earlier than we have been as a result of begin, poor Andy handed away. It turned out they needed to hold on and, weirdly, due to that, the entire thing completely flipped on its head.
A brush with mortality meant that Martin and Dave have been truly talking to one another straight for the primary time in years and reconnecting. It was a extremely pretty, straightforward report to make, and it got here out nice due to that. It was a really odd, touching expertise.
Picture credit score: Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
AND THEN YOU DID BLUR’S REUNION ALBUM?
I used to be at all times Blur over Oasis. I at all times revered their writing and appreciated their melodic decisions. I’d labored with Graham and Damon individually and received on with them each, however I do know the historical past: Graham left the band and the previous couple of information have been a bit fraught, so I used to be like, ‘We may very well be in for a bumpy journey’. However you may’t flip down the chance to be in that scenario.
“I WAS ALWAYS BLUR OVER OASIS. I RESPECTED THEIR WRITING AND LOVED THEIR MELODIC CHOICES.”
We had some conferences earlier than we began and so they have been actually tense, you might see plenty of the outdated dangerous blood between them; they hadn’t actually been in a room collectively for 10 years. It had the potential to spiral and the primary few days have been fairly intense, however I took the technique of attempting to plough ahead as rapidly as attainable.
It solely took a day or two for all of it to start out clicking into place. The vitality was all of the sudden actually excessive; it was nearly getting by that first bit, and after that, it went actually easily. By the second week they have been all laughing and joking, taking the piss out of one another and reminiscing over bizarre outdated tales. I used to be loving it, I used to be like a fly on the wall.
DO YOU, LIKE MANY OTHER PRODUCERS, BEAR TIKTOK IN MIND WHEN YOU’RE PRODUCING?
I’ve by no means considered it, no. I don’t even know if the 20-second TikTok [clip] feeds into individuals listening to the music correctly.
I undoubtedly don’t cater for the TikTok world, typically issues get on there that I’ve labored on, however it’s not by any design of mine. It looks as if bending to the need of the buyer an excessive amount of, there’s one thing a bit icky about it that I discover disingenuous. I simply don’t suppose it makes for good artwork.
SO HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE POTENTIAL THREAT FROM AI?
Music goes to be so simply generated sooner or later. The one factor that’s going to carry its worth would be the prime tier of nice artwork, individuals making nice stuff that’s human. I can’t consider you’re going to have an AI Leonard Cohen. Perhaps that’s me being an outdated man, possibly a brand new era received’t care, however that human-to-human connection is what drives most individuals to devour any artwork or music.
My means of manufacturing may be very hands-on, bodily, about actual issues. There are such a lot of micro-decisions for higher and for worse within the making of music and music manufacturing. You may get a facsimile of one thing somebody’s already finished, however I defy it to do the identical as I’d do in the second.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TREND FOR HAVING MULTIPLE CO-WRITERS AND CO-PRODUCERS ON A TRACK?
I’ve been by these conditions and, even simply doing one or two tracks on a report, if it’s going to be like that, I’m not that . I would like the entire report to carry collectively and, in case you’ve received completely different individuals pulling in numerous instructions, I try to keep away.
All the perfect information, and the perfect songs even, are one particular person’s imaginative and prescient – ideally the particular person singing the tune – and also you’ve received a collaborator or some facilitators who assist that one, guiding imaginative and prescient go ahead. Whenever you’ve received a great deal of individuals pulling in numerous instructions, you get this bizarre, gray, center bland factor, simply by the character of it.
A whole lot of these writing rooms are simply individuals attempting to get their chords into the middle-eight. It’s about who’s the perfect salesman in that second and who’s received the loudest voice. The entire thing simply appears a bit advertising [oriented] and that comes throughout within the music. These committee writing camps lead nowhere good.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
I’d discover a means of getting artists paid extra. I’m conscious streaming may work if it was going on to the artist, however it’s this old skool music trade mannequin the place most of it’s nonetheless going to the labels.
We’re going to attain a degree, if we’re not cautious – and we’re most likely already there – the place the standard of music goes down, as a result of new artists can’t survive. It’s virtually impossibly costly to be in a band at this level in historical past and the place’s that going to go away us in 10 years? We have to discover a higher system to get artists, particularly younger artists, paid.
DOES THAT APPLY TO PRODUCERS AS WELL?
It applies to everyone. I’m not complaining, however I’m in a really lucky place. There are lots of people struggling to make ends meet.
It additionally forces individuals to make music primarily based on industrial selections. Folks hark again to the glory days, however there was far more room for manoeuvre when there was extra artist-facing cash within the music trade. Now, some tech billionaires are making billions and the individuals truly making the music aren’t getting paid. We’re making a bizarre two-tier system.Music Enterprise Worldwide
