#herewegomagic

Here We Go Magic - A Different Ship

Luke Temple, from Here We Go Magic, was interviewed by Tape Op and had a few comments about Nigel:

Q: On Here We Go Magic's A Different Ship you worked with producer Nigel Godrich.

Long before we ever met him, we had finished our second LP with Here We Go Magic called Pigeons. We did it ourselves. I was happy with that record, but I was listening to it and thinking there was a certain spaciousness and a sonic quality that we didn't get that I don't think any of us really understood how to achieve. We'd all been in studios in the past, to various degrees. That's partly why we decided to record it ourselves. We wanted that freedom. After listening to it, I thought this music could stand to be really produced. I had worked with producers in the past, and I didn't really enjoy it. I was thinking, "What producers would I want to work with that get that more hi-fi sound, but also have a soulfulness or an idiosyncratic sound?" The two people that I thought of were Brian Eno [Tape Op #85] and Nigel Godrich. But I felt so far removed from those guys. I didn't know how I would ever get in touch with them, or if they would even be interested. It turned out that Jen [Turner], the bassist in our band, had some encounter with Nigel Godrich. I asked her if she could get our recordings to him. It was too uncomfortable for her to do that, for whatever reason, so I dropped it. Six months went by; we were touring that record and playing at the Glastonbury Festival. We got there the day before to pick up our wristbands, and then we decided we were all going to stay there for the night. We didn't even have tents or anything. The drummer, Pete [Hale], and I ended up sleeping on this really steep hill. We woke up with the sun beating down on us, and we had 15 minutes to get to our stage because we were playing early in the morning. We got to the stage right in time for our set. I was feeling hung over, and a little bummed about our slot. Glastonbury's a nighttime thing, and we were playing at 11 in the morning. It was either people still up from the night before wobbling on their feet or families checking us out. I noticed there were two guys in front that were really into [our set]. On closer inspection, I realized it was Thom Yorke and some guy. They came backstage and were talking to us after the set. It turns out the other guy was Nigel Godrich. We talked for a little bit. It was pretty uncanny that I had had that thought about him earlier that year, and then we met him. We ended up playing in London, opening up for Broken Social Scene, and it turned out that Nigel was good friends with Kevin [Drew], the singer. So he showed up again at the next show, and we got to hang out with him more. He really liked the set. Then, when we were playing in Paris, and he turned up again at that concert. It seemed he was really interested. After that show, he said, "I'd love to record you guys." It was totally weird. It felt I had manifested it or something - it was pretty cosmic. We ended up making that record a year later.

Q: How was that for you, as somebody who's held the reins of your music and been in control of recording and production?

I had implicit trust in him. The second he set everything up and we started to record, it sounded amazing. You wonder about these people. Like if their reputation precedes them, or if the story around them is more grandiose than their actual ability. But he is really worth everything that's said about him. He's a total wizard. It sounds as good as it sounds when the record comes out on the first take. The first time you sit in the control room and listen to it, it sounds that good. He basically mixes as he's going. There wasn't much to argue with. The session was a little stilted, only because I had put him on such a pedestal. I was really nervous and felt it was my one shot or something. I had put all this pressure on myself. We had almost a year before we recorded with him, so I was feverishly writing songs with all this pressure in my mind. I don't think it was my best work. The first session we had with him was in L.A., and I realized after listening to that first session - and all those songs - that it really wasn't happening. That was originally our only session. I was like, "Well, that was a failure," but he realized what was going on. He got back in touch with us, and said, "We should book another session at my studio in London now that we've gotten to know each other a little bit better." The bulk of that record was made in London. At that point, we were friends, and we were more equal partners in the process. I basically wrote that record in the studio - I didn't have anything prepared for the second session. We kept only two of the songs from the original session.

Q: What was Nigel bringing to the session that brought out the best in the music?

He works really fast. Part of what I don't like about working in the studio is that it's a lot of waiting. You spend a day getting drum sounds. You go in there really eager and fresh, and you want to start. It's a day to get drum sounds, and then half a day to get a bass sound. By the time you get started recording, you're at half-mast. But with Nigel it's like everything was set up immediately, so the second we had an inspiration for something, it was ready to go. If we wanted to change anything, or he needed to set up a new microphone, he did it so quickly. He's an amazing enabler for an artist to stay inspired. That's his greatest strength. Also, he was constantly recording everything, and we didn't realize that. He had this archive of all these weird, in-between sounds of us talking, noodling on synths, or whatever. At the end, when he mixed, he had that library of all these sounds that he manipulated and would weave in and out of the songs, which was amazing. I didn't realize he was doing that.

Q: That must have given you pretty good confidence, in terms of moving forward.

The conversation took off from there and a date was set to start recording. “I was just shi**ing my pants.  I didn’t have any songs written.  So, I wrote like twenty songs, just really mediocre songs.  But, I wasn’t editing myself -- just writing and writing, and the band was trying to catch up.  So, we went into the studio and recorded all of those songs.  At the end of that session, only about two of them were worth anything.  I think he [Nigel] knew that we were nervous working with him.  Because for us, working with someone like him was a coup.  It wasn’t supposed to be.  So, he said that I think we need to work more with each other to relax, so he offered us another two months in his studio in London, and that’s where it really started to happen.” “The best was the stuff that I wrote while we were in the studio.  I’ll wake up early, and I usually get really inspired in the morning after I have had coffee – that is when I am the most manically inspired – and I’ll write a song, and then we will go into the studio.  I’ll show it to everybody, they will learn it, and then this time, we had Nigel who is just such a master.” Working with Nigel allowed Luke and the band to explore a more dynamic and encompassing sound, fostering experimentation, as well as a different approach to recording.  “We had this hodgepodge of songs and sounds, and we would just sit there – we would mix songs, and have all of this ambient stuff, and give him ideas.  He would run with it.  He is like an old school masterful engineer and producer.  But, his engineering is like form.  He learned from guys at Abbey Road -- like old school white lab coat, science of sound.  They understand the mathematics of sound and how it works, and that is why all of the records that he makes have that real spatial, geometric form to them.  He understands where the frequency of bass should sit in relation to the frequency of guitar, where the vocals should sit, all of those things to make it sculptural.  There is so much space [on A DIFFERENT SHIP] that it’s three-dimensional.  It’s like revolving around you.  It’s more sculptural.”