Mixing It With The Best

With a production CV that now includes Bell X1, The Walls, Blotooth and Juno Falls, Ireland’s favourite Australian-in-residence Nick Seymour is cruising to the top of the list for rock acts shopping for a producer. But as to why he wanted to make that transition from musician to producer, Seymour explains that it was mainly due to the fact that he’d had unique experiences of making records in high-end audio situations in different parts of the world.

“While recording with Crowded House I learned a lot about multi-tracking from observing Neil Finn in the studio. I began to realise that when Neil was working, say, on some overdubs he would constantly be thinking three or four takes ahead, and I realised I had so much to learn.”
He compares multi-tracking to print-making, a subject he was formally trained in back in the southern hemisphere.
“In both disciplines you’ve got to be thinking ahead of yourself. In print-making you are working on something that you can’t quite see the end result of until you’re finished. It’s often the same producing music. I also felt I should be able to apply the experience I’d had in studios to recording other artists and to work in a creative recording situation where you didn’t have to worry how much it was costing. But I also wanted to learn about the ins and outs of working a mixing desk and the sleight of hand stuff required in juggling tracks and really getting inside the art of multi-tracking.”
He accepts that the role of producer can sometimes incorporate that of minder, team manager, psychologist and confidence booster. But he realised that he might have crossed a threshold of sorts when he was working with Bell X1 in Wales.
“At the time, I wasn’t really aware of the fall-out from the break-up of Juniper and the full circumstances surrounding the split with Damien Rice and how much traumatic pressure that put on Paul Noonan to deliver as a lead singer. But one night after doing some recording, and wondering if we were really getting anywhere, we all went off and got completely pissed. When we came back to the studio somebody put on a track and we were all amazed to hear this really great sound and then we were even more amazed to discover that it was actually the work we’d done earlier which Tom Rixton had mixed. It was a very enlightening moment and a turning point for the band discovering a music that was the sum of their parts.”
Seymour likes ensuring that when he goes into a studio with a band he and they have done all the necessary preparation.
“That way, I just have to remind them about what they did in rehearsal. There’s a lot of diplomacy involved, more a question of persuasion than being dictatorial. You have to be sensitive to the musician’s self-esteem and sometimes find subtle ways of getting them to change what they’re doing. You might casually suggest that something a musician’s just done is a bit like, say, The Corrs. If you know he doesn’t want to sound like The Corrs, he’ll want to change it himself. The best producers I know can show leadership without bruising egos.”
Seymour rates Flood as a particularly good example.
“Flood has a fantastically collaborative attitude, like a psychologist. He’s both an engineer and a really good producer and sometimes you don’t even feel he’s in the room. He’s very good at manipulation without you knowing he’s doing it.”
Nick accepts that the producer can be the real star of some records, as in the case of Phil Spector, or Norman Cook turning a track like Cornershop’s ’Brimful of Asha’ into a hit. Is it a case of somebody saying, “make this a hit”?
“I’ve had record company people asking me to bear in mind what the ads sound like on radio stations,” he chuckles. “That tells you why record companies are in decline. You really can’t allow these decisions to be made by committee. But then I’ve only ever wanted to make music I wanted to hear on radio anyway.”
As a bassist by trade, there are times when he’s been working with a bassist who seems to be struggling and has been tempted to say, ‘Here, let me do it!’
“It happened to me when I was playing in the early days, so it’s really just part of the process that every musician has to deal with it. But the producer should be a team player anyway, and part of the job is to coax the best performances from each player in the overall interests of the team.”
Although rock bands have similar dynamics no matter where they’re from, he feels that Irish bands tend to be more assertive.
“Their terms of reference are different. It may be something to do with what they’ve been exposed to in their teenage years. I think young Irish bands definitely have more to rail against than young Australian bands, especially the environment in Ireland. Even though Irish people actually consider art as a real job, unlike Australia where artists are regarded as chancers, it’s very competitive here, and very expensive to live. It doesn’t have the political infrastructure of schemes and grants to plug into and there’s a limited population. All that makes it more hostile for young musicians. And then there’s your weather.”
He tends to feel that many musicians still fall by the wayside because they thought that getting the deal was the end-game, and not just the first part of the struggle, citing Gemma Hayes as an example.
“I hope she doesn’t hate me for saying this, because I think she’s a fabulous talent, but when she got back from cutting a record in the USA she absolutely slated the local scene, gave the musicians a real hammering. Yet many of the musicians she gave that hammering to, have gone on to do really great things, so I don’t think any of that helped her career at all.”
Seymour’s philosophy about attracting new projects is simply to sit and wait.
“I used to be very good at glad-handing, but I find it abhorrent now. I don’t think it works anyway, going around asking people can you work with them. They have to hear something you’ve done or something about you that appeals to them.”
Somehow with the current projects on the go at his Exchequer Studios, including the One Day International which Brian Crosby is producing, and some film soundtracks, not to mention the new Crowded House album and tour of Europe coming up, I don’t imagine he’ll be sitting around too often waiting for the phone to ring.