I Saw the Light is extraordinarily brilliant. How did you write it? Eamonmcc
I was still learning about songwriting and by the time I got to Something/Anything? [1972, featuring I Saw the Light] I was slipping into formula – verse, chorus, bridge and so on, always about the girl or boy who broke your heart. I moved my hands about the keyboard and 20 minutes later that song was done. It’s partly why I went completely off the grid for my next album, A Wizard, a True Star [1973] – because I realised I couldn’t keep cranking out songs in 20 minutes about that one relationship in high school. The prettiest girl in school had suddenly taken a shine to me – I think because I had long hair, which was also the reason her dad made her break up with me, which messed me up pretty bad.
Wikipedia says A Wizard, a True Star was “heavily informed by Rundgren’s hallucinogenic experiences”. Were you actually taking LSD? mjhmjh
I didn’t smoke or drink anything until my first album [Runt, in 1970]. In my first band they’d smoke pot and the rehearsal would turn into a 30-minute giggling session. Then, when I was 21 I was living in [rhythm section] the Sales brothers’ house and their mom said “I can’t believe you’ve never had a drink” and got me drunk. Then my best friend who was studying to be a psychiatrist suggested I try psychoactives. I trusted him implicitly, so I did. I was taking drugs occasionally throughout the building of the studio. Not when we were doing the music – I had to run the sessions – but I remember lying on my back as high as a kite trying to do the wiring. Through psychoactives I discovered there was more going on in my head than that high school relationship.
In your book The Individualist you said that when you were travelling around you wrote a song but didn’t have a recorder, so kept replaying it in your head until you got back to the States. Which song was it? JanetDM
I believe it was Lost Horizon. I was in a little hotel room in Kathmandu and a song started going round in my head. The only way I could remember it was to visualise a piano keyboard and practise the piano part on the imaginary keyboard, so when I got back I was able to play it. You never know when a song will hit you. I once woke up in the middle of the night with Bang the Drum All Day in my head. It wasn’t a song I’d normally have written, but I’ve realised that my subconscious doesn’t stop when I go to sleep.
Did Levon Helm really chase you around the studio when the Band were making Stage Fright? tomcasagranda
There may have been an episode. It was my first major project as an engineer and I was a smart-ass kid, like calling Garth [Hudson] “old man” thinking he was too old to stay awake, not realising he had narcolepsy. I wasn’t into that kind of music and not cognitive of the fact the Band were one of the biggest acts in the world. They suddenly had all the money, drugs, drink and sycophants available to them and it affected some of the guys. Levon got into opiates so while he may have chased me round the studio he spent as much time underneath a pile of curtains, dead to the world. In later years they all became my friends … except Robbie [Robertson], who was kind of a snob.
When you produced Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, did [composer] Jim Steinman mean it, or was it a parody of the ever earnest Bruce Springsteen? roxusrollus
Steinman never admitted what a Springsteen fan he was, even though he took me to see him, but from my point of view it was a parody. Everyone they’d played stuff to had said the songs were too long and Meat Loaf was too weird, but I heard it in the context of Springsteen’s leather jackets/50s thing – but not a handsome guy from New Jersey, a big sweaty guy. It’s not that well known that Steinman had a keen sense of humour, so even in the most sincere moments Steinman is taking it purposely over the top. That album unleashed a force upon the world – the brand of excess. After that everything Steinman did was excessive.
What was Laura Nyro like when you worked together – and why do you think she’s not held up alongside the likes of Joni Mitchell and Carole King? laurasnapes
I met her just after Eli and the Thirteenth Confession [1968] and was in awe of her. She asked me to be her bandleader but I was busy with my own band, the Nazz. Over a decade later she’d built a house with a studio but couldn’t get an album started so called me in desperation. We worked on each song until she was satisfied, but I became uncomfortable because she had a girlfriend there offering opinions which meant more than mine. I withdrew, but she did finish the record [Mother’s Spiritual, 1984]. Her music was remarkably sophisticated and passionate, completely individual, but audiences don’t really want people who sound completely different to everybody else. Some artists exist to influence other artists, to go where others won’t and show them how.
Your DIY approach to recording albums was apparently a huge influence on Prince, and Bebe Buell has spoken of a young and star-struck Prince Rogers Nelson waiting to meet you backstage at a show. Do you have any recollection of this? TheManWithoutFear
No recollection whatsoever, which isn’t to say it didn’t happen. Prince took the play-every-instrument thing to another level. I wanted to write beyond what I could play and realised there are better players, whereas he tailored the songs to his capabilities as a player. So the drums are simple, certainly not like Stevie Wonder’s, who was a crazily funky drummer. I thought some of Prince’s stuff was great but some of the lyrics made no sense to me at all. I don’t know what the hell Purple Rain is. Is it some kind of pollution?
Did you keep the amusing letters that John Lennon sent you? kaipahead
I met him at a party in the period he was drinking with Harry Nilsson and misbehaving all over Hollywood. He looked like a bundle of rags in the corner and as a Beatles fan I was disappointed that he had nothing to say. Later I was being interviewed by NME and I said something along the lines of that you can’t be a revolutionary and preach one thing if you’re behaving in another way, and that became the headline. John wrote a letter ostensibly to me but as an open letter in NME. There was a kerfuffle. Then one day I got a call and it was John, saying: “I think we’re being used here, so let’s bury the hatchet.” I said: “Fine” and that was that.
What do you think of the XTC album Skylarking, 39 years after you produced it? Is it hard to divorce the record from the notoriously fraught recording sessions? Angrysince1967
I don’t think Andy [Partridge] ever wanted a producer. He’d already steamrollered over the likes of Steve Lillywhite and Gus Dudgeon. When I did Skylarking, Gus sent me a letter of condolence. Everything came to a head when we recorded Earn Enough for Us, the only song on the entire album where they played together. It was great, but the next day Andy made Colin [Moulding] punch in every note of the bass part. I said “Oh God, for once you did something like XTC the band …” and Andy flipped out. I told him “I’m just trying to make the best record I can for you guys”, and he said “Then why do I feel like cleaving your head in with an axe?” Andy told anyone that would listen that it was the worst record they ever made, but I heard he has since confessed it’s one of their best.
When you produced the New York Dolls’ debut did you realise the record would prove so divisive – a well-known UK television presenter called them “mock rock”? willcantopher
I don’t think that was inaccurate. Most people categorise them as punk rock simply because John Lydon cited them as the principle influence on the Sex Pistols. Technically the New York Dolls wanted to be the Rolling Stones: that album cover is straight from the Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? era. The more cynical rock critics like Lester Bangs liked them because it was the kind of music a rock critic could play – three chords. Even though the Dolls were New York celebrities in Max’s Kansas City every night they all lived out on Long Island, some of ’em with their moms.
To say you’re prolific would be an understatement. I particularly like Liars, State and White Knight of your most recent catalogue. How do you rate these albums in your body of work? MonsieurMadeleine
With Liars I was getting my sea legs after the transition from the traditional record company model to the internet thing. State was essentially me trying to get up to date with techniques I’d kinda pioneered in the 70s but another generation had taken over, like electronic and drum’n’bass. White Knight was my first serious collaborative record, so I wasn’t continually stewing in my own juices. For my last album, Space, I got people to give me demos of songs they’d never finished, and we’d finish them together. I am working on a new record, which I’ll finish after the next touring leg, but playing live keeps me youthful. My body likes me to get out there for two and a half hours each night. It’s like an aerobic exercise, or a marathon.
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