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Home , Hazell Dean, Jason Donovan, Pete Waterman, Phil Harding (producer), Top of the Pops

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Phil Harding He has a background in the engine room of one of the greatest hit factories of the 80s but his success extends before and after SAW and PWL. shares his insight with GEORGE SHILLING

hil Harding grew up in Romford, , and landed a job at ’s Who did you learn the most from at Marquee? Marquee Studios straight from school. He was there from 1973 until 1985, Probably technically from Geoff Calver, and tips, hints and how to deal with clients working on sessions with legions of famous names, as well as learning to from Phil Dunne. He used to arrive in a full suit with a bowtie, like it was still the work fast making soundalike albums in three days. Upon 60s, and that was his image. He’d smoke dope and be a great friend to all the graduatingP to engineer, Harding found himself working with artists and punk musicians and producers — he wasn’t straight-laced, he was flamboyant. And of bands including and , where often there would be no producer. By course the very flamboyant Gus Dudgeon as we remember him, he and Phil were a 1985 one of his main clients was and his producer partner Peter Collins, match made in heaven. Phil was a great engineer; he’d cut corners more than Geoff, and when Stock Aitken & Waterman decided to set up their own PWL Studios, it was a and get results. And that stood me in good stead for later on when I was doing a natural move for Harding (and several other Marquee staff) to move with them. lot of fast pop turnaround work. Harding recorded and mixed SAW’s first number one, Dead Or Alive’s You Spin Me Round, and was soon being credited with the middle name Mixmaster on the What were your first engineering experiences? PWL records, due to his increasingly important role mixing hits in PWL’s Bunker I engineered all sorts of things from the Clash — part of the punk revolution was studio for Princess, Mel & Kim, , , , and that the bands had no producer. It was like, Book us a studio, we’ll have whoever many more. Partnering with Ian Curnow, the pair increasingly mixed external the house engineer is, and we’ll produce ourselves. So I went through some fairly projects like , and Jesus Jones, and broke free from hairy sessions. The one that sticks out in my memory the most is the first Killing PWL to set up a room at The Strongroom where bands became their speciality, Joke album. The A&R guy turned up with a couple of crates of beer and champagne having enormous success with acts like , Let Loose and Boyzone. on the first day of recording, and no instruction other than, Good luck Phil, here’s Eventually Phil tired of the genre and semi-retired to Suffolk, but he has the band! And off we go…! Haha! Wonderful guys, but with no central leading diversified into music technology education and has become Chairman of J.A.M.E.S. figure in the band and no producer. He is also vice-chairman of the MPG. He released a solo album in 2008, and has written an entertaining book about his PWL years, PWL From The Factory Were you expected to produce? Floor, which is available from his website philharding.co.uk. He is now back in It was expected that I would technically and creatively get down what the the hotseat on a couple of projects — Canadian actress/singer Louise Robey and band wanted the best I could. And it was expected that the band could and -based singer Ellis. Resolution met Phil at his old hunting ground The should produce themselves. But their idea of production was that each member Strongroom, London. (photos www.recordproduction.com) should come into the control room, and stare at me from the other side of the

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When you mixed the PWL hits, why did you have Symphonic setting on both the Rev 7 and Rev 5? The reason it was there was to turn instantly something that was mono into a glorious stereo, like a keyboard or something, but I think they would have been on different settings. So I ended up with three — the Dimension D was doing that as well, in its humorously subtle way, which I used to put on bass, and even occasionally a lead vocal, to give it more spread, but you wouldn’t do that through the Symphonic. The Eventide Harmonizer would always be on a slightly sharpened setting for a lead vocal, just to brighten it. When people say, ‘How did you get that Kylie vocal sound?’ it was just double or triple tracked vocals, with that on the mix, just the minimum up, and in the centre with the vocal.

Did you ever go out clubbing? No, it was always Pete, he was the one who went out clubbing, still DJed, and he’d bring stuff in.

But you were left to your own devices to do club-specific 12-inch mixes… And it was quite strange for someone like me, a trained engineer, non-DJ, to be doing that, and sometimes if I’d go to DJ conventions — I got asked to judge at the DMC DJ Championship one year, and thank God I was surrounded by people like Ben Lebrand who were remixers but coming from being DJs that would tell me what on earth was going on!

desk during playback, screaming at me to get whatever their instrument was, louder than anyone else’s! Especially the keyboard player/singer Jaz, he’d absolutely scream at me! And it’s like, we’re only recording, it’s not the final balance, guys! It was quite an exciting time, for an engineer to go through that. Working under Gus, and then going on and engineering like that was good mentoring towards production later on, and how to deal with bands and artists.

Did you help create the PWL in-house sound and style? I was there from day one, so I did help create it, and the creation of the various genres of sound that we went through — it was all pop-dance, but we went from 125bpm Hi-NRG disco, down to Princess R&B through to Chicago House, so we went through lots of different styles while we were there, but people tend to say there’s one overall sound.

Yes, and it was quite a different sound from pop records in the charts previously… Yeah, and each time there was one of those changes I was generally quite involved in helping to shape that.

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What guided you with the structure of the format? Did you ever use the Harmonizer to correct pitch? We based the structure on Frankie Goes To Hollywood, then Dead Or Alive Only for brightening up on the mix session. Only when the Akai sampler came came in and said, We want to sound like Divine and , and each time along could we do drastic pitch changing. you go along either copying your own sound or someone else’s sound, and you end up with your own sound, developing routines where you know what the DJs Presumably sequencing the Linn 9000 was a bit clunky? want. You give them a good chance to mix in the beginning, a good chance to mix It was continually breaking down, so there was a process of like, if a sequence is out the middle, then go through to the end and give them a good chance to mix out in there then get it on tape while it’s working. In a two-room setup there were four — it’s not brain surgery. Increasingly, myself and Ian [Curnow] did go out to clubs. Linn 9000s, doing the rounds of studio and maintenance room. You’d often have guide drums on tape that may not become the final drums until the mix, and even What did you do with those influences you heard in the clubs, were then, nearly always, the kick and snare would be something locked in the AMS you directly copying the sound? sampler. And apart from the bass and a few high end keyboards that would need The difference we would add is that we would try to commercialise it, so we’d take sequencing, most other keyboards would be played live to tape by Mike or Matt it out of the underground and make it palatable for daytime radio. Rather than just or whoever was around. Matt would do guitars, so a lot of live played stuff would being in a club, so that Capital Radio could play it — and play our 12-inches as be there. well. We would be influenced by and be copying, but not so directly that that’s all we’d do. Which was not the impression… Very good players, exactly. Only when Ian Curnow came along, by the time we got Once Pete started bringing in soap stars, how did you cope with on to Rick Astley and Mel & Kim, Ian would do Fairlight stuff, you’d get it running singers who couldn’t sing in the days before Autotune? in sync off the SRC, print it to tape, and that would be it! Ian would sequence the You’d always rely on having session singers come in and give you plenty of strings and the brass on , Ian still has those samples to backup, which generally would leave you with only a couple of verses to deal this day. with. Only twice do I remember having to ghost lead vocals at PWL. That was your last resort, getting your backing singer to not only do the chorus, but to ghost Do you think we’re training too many engineers who won’t get a job? the verse as well — a bit drastic! Wonderful when Autotune came along. But then, That is a point that a lot of industry people are concerned about. Any youngster lower level singers could get away with making records. And we ended up with going on a course is going to get a good all-round grounding, apart from their the Calrec SoundField microphone which had a great sound, and seemed to work prospects of actually getting a job as a producer. I think if the students enjoy the for everyone. course, they can get what they want from it. I do find a lot of the students want to be musicians, and realise that they need the technology knowledge and background And you really did use just that mic, as credited on the records? now to be successful musicians. But I think anyone working in the music industry That was the only mic that we had apart from maybe a 57. in any kind of creative/technology side has to be an all-rounder. As a technologist you have to have an understanding of music. It is a concern both to education and But presumably you didn’t record the B-format outputs? to industry that there are, certainly in the UK, too many students on media courses No, just the front stereo format that we would put down onto mono, bringing it for the amount of positions there are in the industry at the moment. One can only up on two channels on the SSL. The only time we recorded in stereo was on a encourage the institutions running those courses to make the students aware of particular Rick Astley track on the second album where we knew we wanted to go that, and instil an amount of entrepreneurial and independent encouragement. for a single vocal, because the routine was to double track the vocal, or triple track, All media needs audio, so the wider audio industry that requires those skills that or more. Those were the tricks, and if it wasn’t a great vocalist, always eight takes they’re learning is out there. And I know students who are finding a gap in the and then compile it afterwards. market and turning that into a business.

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Should there be psychology modules in these courses? It wouldn’t be a bad idea — a couple of weeks at a Buddhist retreat! How do you teach someone patience? I don’t know of any courses — they do the practice of being on a session, the etiquette, but the psychology, that’s a human thing that’s not necessarily anything to do with the technology or the music. You do have to say to students, if you do get an opportunity to do some work experience or get a job in a studio environment, people are not interested in your creative opinions, you’re there to do a job and provide a service, as everyone else in the room is. That side of it is a difficult thing to teach, because then it comes down to psychology, personality, etc.

What are your ambitions? It’s been a long-term ambition to get the book done. Tougher work than finishing off a CD! The other things that prompted me to write the book about that intense period were Waterman and Stock writing books about that period; [mine is from] someone in the team rather than at the top. The only strong burning ambition is to complete an album with some old buddies I was in a band with, in the early 80s. The first 12 years of my career I was still in bands. I remember having an intense conversation with Geoff Calver — it was great advice, that at some point you’ve got to make a decision, either you’re a studio person, or you’re an artist. With today’s technology it’s a lot easier, but back then, career-wise it was one or the other. I went to America with my band, but in 81 or 82 I came back and made that decision to stop trying to be in bands. The start of that was picking up more freelance work, and working with Pete Waterman’s previous partner Peter Collins, and became one of his engineers.

What tips would you suggest for setting up a home studio? With your own setup, certainly in my glorified shed, it made a huge difference doing a bit of acoustic treatment. I found someone local who came in with his own ideas, and for less than a thousand pounds, I’ve got a much better listening environment. And I found a particular bit of equipment that made a big difference. Something I DU: 09.01.2010 GB was missing from my traditional way of working was a traditional set of physical VU meters, and I was also missing extra external inputs on my console and a nice main monitor pot. I found a box that gave me all of that in one, the Nautilus Nemo DMC-8; it was designed by a mastering engineer who built it for A/Bing. Each external source has its own level control, and it’s all XLRs. It’s designed so the input from your desk has a straight output — I go to a DAT machine, I still like the sound of DAT. One thing I remember all these years later from Phil Dunne was his favourite compressor setting, and that’s still my start point. Little things stay with you for years and years.

What’s the setting? It’s in the book, hahaha! n • co: 17.12.2009 53223-001 • Messe FFM Prolight+Sound KV Resolution (1. Schaltung) 105x253 mm/A CD Rom ISO-39 C M Y K co: 17.12.2009

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