#signaltonoise

Jackson (in collaboration with engineer Damon Iddings) has remastered the majority of the bonus features material on the Immersion editions of “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “Wish You Were Here” for the Why Pink Floyd...? reissue campaign.

In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Jackson has also worked with artists such as ‘Heatwave’,’ Strawbs’, ‘The Boomtown Rats’ (most notably mixed their hit "I Don't Like Mondays"), ‘Incredible Kidda Band’ and goth rock group ‘Fields of the Nephilim’ – he was also guitar player in the live band version of ‘The Eden House’.

Jackson is a two-time nominee for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album for ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’ and ‘The Division Bell’.

Inbetween engineering, producing, AND playing bass on two of the tracks on Pink Floyd’s new album “Endless River”, Andy has also recorded his first truly Solo album.   Helen Robinson caught up with him recently to talk to him about ‘Signal To Noise’, and of course ... Pink Floyd!

HR : So, this is actually your 4th record, but your first entirely solo album?

AJ : It’s the 4th one I’ve made yeah, the others sort of leaked out and nobody noticed! So yes this is the first proper one.

How long did it take you to put it together from concept to mastering?  

When I finished working on the last ‘Eden House’ album at the beginning 2013 – I decided I’d done enough there and it was time to move on.  So I started thinking about the idea of doing my own stuff then, but there were all sorts of brick walls in the way, which all became part of the process; struggling through the barriers of taking on things that I couldn’t do. First one being lyrics ; I had never written lyrics on my own before -  I’d done a little bit in collaboration, but that was the first question I had to ask myself “can I do this, can I write lyrics?”. I started the process and started to get things that I liked and it became something that I felt confident in doing. I didn’t want to do things that were naff, and I certainly wasn’t going to write about girls and cars – I wanted to write about things that interest me, or something that I wanted to say.   Having done a lot of stuff through work where people struggle to have lyrics until late on in the process, I really thought that was NOT the way to do it! So it was a very deliberate thing with this to have the lyrics first. And then I either wrote the music from scratch, or maybe if I had an idea knocking around that went with it I would work on it - but lyrics were quite pivotal in the process.   So that was early in 2013 but it’s been quite bitty since because I’ve made a Pink Floyd album in the meantime, but there were long  periods where I wasn’t working and could get on with ‘Signal To Noise’

Was it a joyous experience or, because it’s what you do day in day out, did you find it frustrating?

No no! In some ways it’s actually fulfilling what I have always wanted to do. When I first got into recording it was on the basis of wanting to make records of my own. I wasn’t really trying to do that, but it was the next best thing.   I never felt I had the ability or the confidence to do stuff on my own. I played in bands a bit but nothing that really went anywhere. And I’ve been recording for long enough, so that part of its easy. Actually piecing it together and doing a lot of the music was quite quick. It was more the thinking about it stages and where I was tackling stuff that was quite difficult, but that became part of the ethos of the album as I said before. You know, doing stuff that was hard - which sort of became a lyrical thread, that ran through the album, about grabbing hold of life rather than just drifting. There were quite a few challenges but I felt it was good to have the challenges! It pushed me to my limits and it became a real interesting process of learning stuff.   It has made me listen to music in new ways. Having to sing myself, which was not what I originally intended to do. I was going to get a succession of guest singers to do it, but it became clear pretty quickly that I didn’t want to do that.  It just didn’t feel like it was my album with someone else singing it - having written the lyrics and done vocal demos to give an idea; people ended up singing them differently and it wasn’t really what I wanted. So that was a big challenge because I’d never sung myself, before. When I first heard it I didn’t like it, but I stopped for about 3 months and just concentrated on improving my vocals - Until I got to a point where I could listen to and think about it as if it was someone else singing . So that was quite tricky.

Which again echoes what you say about reflecting a life process where you take control of things ... Well exactly!  It’s a bunch of threads in my life coming together. It coincided with a time of quite big change in my life – personal circumstances. I was at a point in life where it would have been easy to just drift into a state of freewheeling and I became very determined not to do that. And not spend time wishing I was this or that, and just thought ‘well I can still do that’ – it was just a question of putting the work in. And it’s been really rewarding. In some ways doing things that are easy – there’s not a lot of value in it. If you push yourself to the limit, and do things that are hard, you get tremendous personal value from it. It’s been a great experience from that point of view.

So are you happy with it then?

Oh of course not!  [laughs]  But yes as well!  Anybody who makes records will always think there are a million details that you could have done better. But I’m also very aware – having worked with Pink Floyd so much, where everything takes such a long time – I’m quite keen to get to a point and just move on,  and if there’s stuff that can be better then,  do it next time!  Which I have already started to process, I’m already writing again for the next one; and just trying to learn all the time - find out new stuff - and I already think that the next one is going to be better than this one ... which is the way that it should be!

I’ll look forward to that ...

Yeah could be a while yet [laughs] although now I’ve finished the Floyd album I’m less busy ; and I like to be busy , I like to do stuff, I’m not good at just sitting around, otherwise I go riot!

Presumably you were a musician before you were a sound engineer?

I was a bad musician, yeah! [laughs] My dad taught me to play guitar when I was about 10. I was always really keen and played in bands at school and things like that ...

Was there a particular piece of music that inspired you to want to be a part of the recording process?

Well because of the age I am, my love through my teens was British Prog – King Crimson, Vandergraf and stuff like that. It was that that got me into music and - I would listen to it and picture in my head the people playing it and want to be recording it. Inevitably when you get into the industry, as a studio engineer, you’ll record anything that comes along really – mainly pop music – but then the opportunity came to go and work with Floyd and that really was the ‘never look back’ point.  Which has been fantastic – what a brilliant thing to have done. I just wish we’d been busier!! Actually recently it’s been busier because David’s [Gilmour] done a few things, and there have been reissue box sets and things, which have been nice to work on.

Do you have a Favourite piece of gear that you use in the Studio?

Oooh. I’ve got favourite guitars – i have a guitar collecting habit! In terms of recording stuff. No, I mean I’ve got things that I use a lot because I regard it as being really good, but nothing that makes me really excited like a favourite compressor or something!

Favourite Guitar then?

Well it changes all the time. At the moment its one I just bought.  It’s a Paul Reed Smith. I’ve had loads of them over the years but this one’s beautiful, unusual. As far as I know it’s the only sort they’ve ever made that has a Soapbar, tremolo, and not got a maple top. So that’s why I got it, but it weighs a ton! Ironically it’s not on the album! [Signal to Noise] I bought it more recently but I can actually say that all the guitars I own, have got on the album somewhere – because when you’ve got a part you just pick up each guitar until you find one that’s right for it, and I ended up using them all!

Have you embraced the evolution of technology – do you rate MP3 vs Vinyl / CD

No - they don’t sound very good, that’s for sure! It’s a real shame that it’s the first time we’ve ever gone backwards in sound quality.  There’s been a continual push forwards ; even within CDs – at the margins of the technology it was about how good the players were and how good converter technology was and things like that, and that all keeps going forwards.   But MP3s are a terrible backwards step!   There’s still clearly an appetite amongst some people for much higher resolution stuff and if you release it, people will buy it - above CD I mean, really high res stuff.   My album will be available like that. You can buy it just as a CD, or there’s a double disc version as an alternative which has 2 discs – CD bundled with a DVD which has got Hi-Res and a surround version on it. It’s been nice to do that.   I chatted to a few people when the ‘Division Bell’ [Pink Floyd] surround came out and a lot of people really liked that, so certainly there is a bunch of people who will buy it because it’s surround - and also because I love it! Every album I do now there’s a ‘surround’ with it as well.

Favourite album that you’ve worked on? It’s funny with working on albums because it puts it into a completely different mental place, and you can never hear it the way you hear an album you don’t work on. In some ways the ones that I enjoy listening to the most now, are the ones which were recorded incredibly quickly. For example – David Torn, who’s an avant-garde jazz guitarist, did an album called ‘Cloud About Mercury’, which I recorded, and it was done in 3 days. There’s almost no ‘pollution’ by the recording process, and I can just listen to it as if it’s someone else’s album.

I have to say that the new ‘Pink Floyd’ album “Endless River” was really fun to do because it was quite a different project to anything else I’ve done.   We were taking existing material and manipulating it, and that made it a very different process to the conventional one that we’d normally use, so I have really have enjoyed this album.

I really enjoyed making mine too, but for different reasons.   I’m already thinking on the next one, what I’d like to do – and maybe work in different ways, try to do it in much more of a band kind of way if I can find the right facilities to do it, because I can fit a drummer in my bedroom! [laughs].

Are you going to be able to listen back to ‘Signal To Noise’ in years to come without it really paining you that it’s summing up this period in your life now?

No, no, I listen to it all the time actually - I genuinely do listen to it for pleasure – I really like it!

Is there an album, which you haven’t worked on, that you’ve listened to and though ‘’Ah that would have sounded so much better if I’d have engineered / produced it’’?

Oh that’s not fair! I can’t answer that!  Yeah LOADS! But I’m not going to say anything ... [laughs] I would be critical of everything I ever hear to be honest, even if it’s done really really well, subjectively one would make different choices!   It’s inherently a subjective art form, and everyone’s work is different.  I can’t think of anything  I’ve listened to and thought that it’s perfect, but I’m sure people listen to my work and say exactly the same.  

Well if everything was perfect I suppose you’d never strive to create anything new or better ...

Well that’s right! It’s interesting, and talking to people I know who say the same thing – they’re their own worst critic and always feel that they could have done better, and that pushes you on. I really try to get better all the time. Even working on the new Floyd album, I was working with new techniques; because out of necessity I have to invent something, and then it becomes a really interesting area to explore and you can do new stuff that you’ve never done before. So I always try to keep learning, and I think I do!

You’ve been Nominated for 2 Grammys – is it important to you to have a recognised achievement like a Grammy, or is it enough to have been responsible for crafting a world recognised sound across Pink Floyds albums in the past 25 years?

Not really.  It’s nice, but to be honest, I really only have to answer to myself I think. Of course, other people’s opinions count, and inevitably we all have certain vanities, and enjoy it when people like what you do, but really it’s more about whether you can look at yourself in the mirror and know that you’ve maximised yourself and put the effort in. It’s certainly the way that I look at things now, and it really pushes me forwards to achieve things.

Is it testing to work with Pink Floyd?  Do you have conversations about the recordings before you begin? Do they come to you with a particular sound in mind, or do they let you have control?

It tends to be more talking about other things when we’re stopped really! People, with them, have always imbued it with a great sort of reason, even down to the most bizarre things like linking up ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ with ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ – people give it meaning that’s over and above what it actually has.   When it comes down to it it’s much more intuitive - the same as most people making music really. It’s not fundamentally that different to anyone else’s recording process I don’t think, but yeah, as far as control goes – particularly when it comes to mixing, I’ve worked with them for so long now, since 1981, I have got a pretty good idea what it’s supposed to sound like and that makes it a much easier process.

What’s the most fun – Pink Floyd or David Gilmour’s solo recordings?

It’s not really very different to be honest. There are different people involved, but at the core, you’re working with David. Whether it’s Floyd or his Solo thing – he’s the dominant factor in it. If you group together his 3 solo recordings and include ‘Momentary Lapse of Reason’ and ‘Division Bell’, I think ‘On an Island’ was probably his best work.

Any artist who you’d really love to work with?

They’re all dead! [Laughs]

So your next project is to invent a time machine!

Yeah exactly!   It would have been interesting to have been the industry maybe 10 years before I started in 1976. There would have been some really interesting stuff to be involved in but ... I make my own interesting stuff ... I hope!!