FEATURE Roy Thomas Baker is one of the On the phone from his Arizona studio, Roy as a reference. Justin and Dan [Hawkins] are Thomas Baker frequently roars with laughter. pretty unique songwriters and they can churn world’s most renowned record He’s relating the astonishing excesses that went out a song a minute. We had what seemed like producers and his recent super into the creation of the new Darkness album, thousands of songs. The main task for me as a One Way Ticket To Hell... And Back. It’s a tale of producer was to work out what the best parts effort recording The Darkness’s endless studio lock-out sessions, 50-odd guitars were and help evolve them. We were working One Way Ticket To Hell… in the control room (“don’t touch ’em, don’t even out arrangements as we went along, and RECORDING And Back has his production point at ’em!”), up to 160 guitar overdubs per ended up with very clear ideas of the kind of song and a similar amount of vocal overdubs, arrangements we wanted.” signature all over it. Strap and endless rows of guitar amplifiers, cabinets, That last statement turns out to be of much yourselves in for a rock ’n’ roll microphones, preamps, and so on. There are also greater importance than one would initially ride like no other. orchestras, bagpipes, a sitar, and a purpose-built suspect, but more about that later. First, Baker pan flute, with everything ending up on 400 continues his story: “We decided to record at Text: Paul Tingen reels of two-inch tape. Some songs expanded to Rockfield studios, partly for nostalgic reasons – THE DARKNESS 1000 tracks when loaded into ProTools which it was where I recorded Bohemian Rhapsody and were then whittled down to 72-tracks for final a couple of Queen albums – and partly because mixing, and… well, you get the picture. of the way it’s set up. It’s a good studio with Roy Thomas Baker’s story of the recording of unique acoustics, with many different rooms One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back frequently and echo chambers, all with varying degrees conjures up images reminiscent of Spinal Tap. of liveness. Even better was that Rockfield has The band’s website plays on this, eulogising “the two studios set in different cottages, and we exhaustion and the fear, the pressure, paranoia, ended up booking both. It meant that we could and pan pipes, the breakdowns and the break- lock the door and keep ourselves to ourselves… ups, the sackings, sitar solos and endless studio and record in two studios at the same time! sessions.” This kind of self-mockery would Other than a couple of times when we went out go down like a lead balloon if it wasn’t for for dinner, we were there seven days a week,” one crucial detail: the fact that the album is, remarks Baker. actually, astoundingly good. Its secret lies in the combination of its fantastic (in both senses TRADE SECRETS of the word) over-the-top production, excellent Rockfield is located in the middle of nowhere songs, and the Darkness’s refusal to take itself and is one of Britain’s few surviving residential too seriously. studio facilities. With the help of Rockfield engineer Nick Brine, recording took place The pairing of Roy Thomas Baker and The during the first half of 2005 in the Quadrangle Darkness is a one-way ticket to heaven. Take a and the Coach House. And how. For several lead singer (dis-)graced with leotard suits and a months Baker had the band over a barrel, balls-in-the-bench-vice falsetto, add music that recording the backing tracks – mostly takes its inspiration from 1970s hard rock, season drums, bass, and rhythm guitars – in endless with lots of operatic bombast, and you have a configurations and locations, all to get the band that can lay claim to being a genuine 21st densely, subtly and richly-textured sound he century heir to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Queen, was after. AC/DC, Slade, and other rock bands from rock’s golden age – pomp, glam or otherwise. “In the smaller studio, The Coach House,” Meanwhile, Roy Thomas Baker is, of course, the explains the producer, “they have a [48-channel] man behind much of the most innovative and Neve 8124 and Rosser mic pres, which came outrageous rock music from the ’70s and ’80s, from the Rosser desk on which I recorded including several Queen albums, one of them Bohemian Rhapsody. In the Quadrangle there’s containing the perennial Bohemian Rhapsody. Roy Thomas Baker. ROUND TABLE Baker and The Darkness are kindred spirits, and unsurprisingly, when the two parties met at the beginning of 2004, it was love at first sight. Work on the new album began in earnest in the late summer of 2004 in a barn converted to a rehearsal room cum studio somewhere close to their native town of Lowestoft, Suffolk. Baker remembers arriving in October, and elaborates, “We had two stages to the writing process, one was referred to by the band as the ‘round table’, and this was literally done sitting at a round table in the control room where everyone would play acoustic instruments through Line 6 guitar and bass Pods and a Roland electronic drum kit, and put in their 10 cents. We recorded all that with a couple of mics.” “The next stage was to go into the live room and play the songs with guitar amps and a real drum kit, which we also recorded into ProTools Photo: Jim Steinfeldt AT 32 AT 33 an old [82-input] MCI 500, which was the same toms, and each kit had different surroundings, desk on which I mixed the Jazz album with different miking situations, and different mic Queen. Both studios also have several Neve placements. We had Shure condenser and 1060/1 mic pres and API 550 EQs, and each has dynamics mics, Telefunken overheads, and two Studer 24-track recorders.” several other old microphones that we found in “We spent maybe two weeks setting up, finding the closets, like Neumann M50, M49, U67, U87, out what sounds best on what, and for the most AKG C12, or C24, and a whole bunch more part we used the Rossers for drums, while modern-type microphones.” the Neve, API and MCI pres worked best on Moving on to the subject of rhythm guitars, guitars. We laid down the drums and guitars Baker seems puzzled by the occasional sound first. One set of drums was set up in the Coach of incredulity in his interviewer’s voice. “Oh, House live room, on top of the stage that the of course there were at least 120 guitar parts band uses on the road, so the bass drum was in many of the songs!” exclaims the Briton halfway between the floor and the ceiling, breezily, as if it’s the most normal thing in the equidistant to all eight corners of the room. We world. “A lot of people play one guitar from the had ambient microphones in each of the eight beginning to the end of track, but we didn’t do corners, plus close microphones and overhead that. Dan has a lot of different guitars, and so mics. Typically we would use 36 microphones we went, ‘OK, the first half of this verse sounds to record the drums, but we would have nearly good on this guitar, but why don’t we change to double that amount set up. For a couple of tracks a different guitar in the second half, and then we put a drum kit outside in the Quadrangle go back to the first guitar for the chorus, but in parking lot, which resulted in an unusual a different tuning, or with different strings, or ambience with a slap echo coming back off the a different amplifier, or a different microphone, brick stables.” and so on. By the time we multi-tracked all those we ended up with up to 160 guitar parts A MULTITUDE OF DIFFERENCES on a good deal of the songs. In some places there It’s here that recording enthusiasts really may be a bunch of 100 guitars that comes in for prick up their ears, eager for more details. Yet just two seconds. frustratingly, time and time again during the interview Baker was evasive in providing them, “The way I like to work,” continues Baker, quoting a desire to protect his “trade secrets,” “is to have all the guitars in the control room, but also stressing that there’s “no such thing as so they’re all at the same temperature. That a favourite drum, vocal or guitar microphone. way you never spend half an hour waiting for “ Typically we would use 36 When you’re miking, you’re going for the sound a guitar to stabilise and remain in tune. I also that’s appropriate for the song, not necessarily want the guitarist with me in the control room, microphones to record the what’s a good sound. And what’s appropriate can so we can have complete communication all the drums, but we would have vary greatly. That’s why you need a multitude time. With the sound coming back from the of mics, because different songs need different monitors you instantly know whether you have nearly double that amount sounds. It’s why we had three drum kits and the right sound or not. set up” a multitude of different snare drums and “Dan had between 40 and 50 guitars in the control room during this stage of the recording, but we were not only surrounded by guitars surroundings, one in a live room and one COW FIELDS & BAGPIPES Rockfield, the company moved to Whitfield but also by guitar amplifiers, because the amp in a dead room.