From Adele to Radiohead, XL Recordings’ Co-Owner Richard Russell Shaped One of the World’S Most Successful Independent Record Companies
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING From Adele to Radiohead, XL Recordings’ co-owner Richard Russell shaped one of the world’s most successful independent record companies. Dan Keeling meets him at London’s Brat to talk alpha personalities, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and his own collaborative album project Everything Is Recorded Photographs by Benjamin McMahon 46 Noble Rot Noble Rot 47 “ hat’s different every time? Robert Wyatt?” asks Richard success with The Bouncer (a hardcore record “made in two hours” Russell, illuminated, saint-like, in front of a large with DJing partner Nick Halkes under the pseudonym Kicks Like W Georgian window. “Er, is that an album?” says Noble A Mule, which went to number seven in 1992), the following year Rot, taken aback by the sudden burst of music trivia. “It’s a lyric he took over running XL Recordings, a dance label founded by on a song from his album Rock Bottom,” Russell continues. “Have Hawkes and another friend, Tim Palmer, in the photocopier room you heard Rock Bottom? It’s a masterpiece, it’s incredible. He of Wandsworth’s Beggars Banquet before both departed, leaving made it just after the accident that left him paralysed, but he said him “knocking about in a ‘no one particularly seems to want to get it had nothing to do with that. It’s got some threads with what rid of me kind of way’.” Having had hit singles with House Of Pain, I’ve done, in that some people who’ve listened to my album made Roy Davis Jr and The Prodigy, the label’s most significant connections to me having been ill. I said that there’s no connection, breakthrough came with the latter’s third album The Fat Of The but when I told my friend, he said, ‘That’s what Robert Wyatt Land (1997), which went to number one in 26 countries on the way always said about Rock Bottom, but he didn’t know. You can say to selling a gazillion copies. this album has nothing to do with getting ill, but sometimes other Over the next couple of decades, Russell went on to sign a roster people know better than you.’ Now I think he’s probably right.” of artists unequalled by any other British record company since We’re discussing Everything Is Recorded, the sublime musical the heyday of Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. Having worked as patchwork Russell recorded in the aftermath of being diagnosed an A&R man at rival labels, it’s been inspirational for Noble Rot with Guillain-Barré syndrome – a rare autoimmune disorder that watching Russell cut a creativity-focused course through an left him temporarily paralysed – from which he’s now almost fully industry built on compromises, continually enjoying artistic and recovered. Featuring Damon Albarn, Brian Eno and Peter commercial success throughout the most challenging times. Adele, Gabriel alongside a host of younger talent including Sampha, Dizzee Rascal, Radiohead, The White Stripes, The XX, Basement Giggs and Ghostface Killah’s son Infinite, Everything Is Recorded Jaxx, The Streets, MIA, Badly Drawn Boy, Vampire Weekend: mixes raw production values, live improvisation and samples Russell’s record speaks for itself, and then some. We meet for from Grace Jones and Curtis Mayfield into a fresh yet familiar lunch at Brat, a wooden-panelled beauty of a dining room whole. “My sister said, ‘It sounds like your bedroom in 1987’, overlooking Shoreditch High Street, recently transformed into a which I took as a big compliment.” Having previously produced temple of Basque-inspired grilling from its previous incarnation as final albums by Gil Scott Heron (I’m New Here, 2010) and Bobby a grotty strip club. “I got chatting to a cabbie who was an ex-raver Womack (The Bravest Man In The Universe, 2012), as well as the other day,” says Russell, fresh from the first Everything Is Damon Albarn’s debut solo Everyday Robots (2014), a return to Recorded live shows. “He said, ‘How do you keep up with a load of making his own music, rather than just releasing other people’s, 20-year-old musicians? No one your age could’ve partied with us was seemingly inevitable. when we were 20; it must be killing you!’ When I told him that Russell, 47, grew up in an orthodox Jewish household in they’re mostly vegan teetotallers, he seemed disappointed. Maybe Edgware, north London, losing his religion in the capital’s that’s the new generation gap: parents who secretly wish their burgeoning 1980s rave scene. Getting his first taste of chart kids would get off social media and take some drugs.” 48 Noble Rot Noble Rot 49 Noble Rot: Do you drink RR: I like it. I’m not a big Python, and that’s a different much at home? Champagne drinker, kind of listening, because you Richard Russell: I always although I find if I drink have to listen to every word. drink at home, and I get a lot Champagne and stay on it, of pleasure from it. I know it has a really good effect. NR: So who’s the funniest “Having a sense of humour is really common in great music quite a few alcoholics and This is quite an unusual artist you’ve worked with? people. There's a certain type of artist who appeals to me, consider myself lucky not to Champagne, to be fair. It’s RR: Having a sense of be one. I can have a drink or more like a wine, and has humour is really common in who are alpha characters, who’re playing by their own rules” two and be happy, but I think got a lot of different layers great music people. There’s a it’s pure luck if you’re able to of interest. certain type of artist who do that. I drink different appeals to me, who are alpha things depending on my NR: How did you get into characters, who’re playing by mood. I know that if I have a music? their own rules and don’t Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it’s RR: Well, hip hop before give a shit. That’s when the going to really taste of dance music and pop music really good stuff happens. made a record together with assure you not nearly as Liam Howlett [The Prodigy], something, and that I’m before hip hop; the Beatles Damon [Albarn, from Blur] is Bobby Womack, during the many people think you’re who I was working with by going to really know about it. before pop music. My dad really funny, maybe in ways recording Bobby was like, a cunt as think I’m a cunt.” then, had turned it down. I Then there’s lighter Riojas, used to listen to a lot of that he doesn’t communicate “We’re going to play all this I felt great after that. He’s was like, “Hmm, he’s on to which I like. If I’m cooking, spoken word like Monty publicly much. When we stuff live together, right?” really funny. Gil [Scott something there that I’m I’ve got definite ideas about And I was thinking, “That’s Heron] was really funny, but not.” There was definitely an which wine will go with never going to happen”, and with him there was also this element of wish fulfilment, something. I never use then it did. It was the first deep profundity to every but while it’s quite recipes, but I have ideas live performances I’d done word. I once asked him how interesting to do Top of the about what goes together, since Kicks Like A Mule and he saw himself and he said, Pops, it’s more interesting to and sometimes it’ll work every show was brilliant. “I don’t see myself one way or have the opportunity to do really well. Then we did Later… with the other. I might go off and Top of the Pops and not do it Jools Holland, and when the get high now, I might not, but because you’re on to NR: Where are your audience turned up there if you start thinking like that, something greater favourite places to eat out were a lot of record company you’re going to die a artistically. The Prodigy in London? people, which made me feel thousand deaths between never performed on RR: Dinings in Marylebone, a bit self-conscious. I was here and the corner.” television because Liam and the Mandarin Kitchen on playing [sampling drum thought it was crap, and that Queensway. Wow, this bread machine] MPC, and Damon’s NR: What do XL artists have was very inspiring for me. is so good – the anchovies playing piano, and he asks, in common with each other? Actually, one of the reasons I are amazing! “Are you all right, Richard?” RR: Quality. I think that was lost my bottle making music and I said, “No, there are a the Island Records thing, too. early on was that I was busy NR: So you’re into Japanese lot of record company people running the label and Liam and Chinese? here and I’ve started to feel NR: Is it something to do was so much better at RR: Oh yes. They say you can self-conscious”, which I with attitude as well? music-making than I was. always tell a good Chinese hadn’t felt at all in the rest of RR: Possibly, but that can be The mistake was to look at restaurant if it’s got a lot of the process.