From The Recording Musician Magazine
March/April 1989
How does one break into a professional career as a record producer? Well, like most positions in the music business, there is no one proven method. Many would-be producers attend special training schools, spend years practicing on their 4-track at home, or serve coffee to rock stars in the studio until they get their chance behind the mixing board. None of these approaches guarantee success, but the fact is that they are considerably less ulcer-inducing than the way Todd Rundgren was initiated.
In 1968, Rundgren found himself in the grips of a true musician's nightmare. He and his band, the Nazz (with whom he played guitar and was the principal songwriter), were in the studio cutting their all-important debut album. Although the band was well rehearsed, they had virtually no studio experience, and looked to the expertise of their chosen producer, Bill Trout. The problem was that Trout represented "the old school of production," Rundgren recalled, "where you just sat down, read magazines, and exerted occasional pressure to do things one way or the other. The engineer actually wound up taking care of most of the sound stuff."
So the band performed their material exactly as they had in live performance, which -- during the '60s -- was fairly common procedure. But, as if to rub salt in their wounds, Trout left altogether before the final re-mixes had been completed. So the band found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to wing it, and produce the album on their own. But Rundgren was up for the challenge, and relied upon his innate musicianship to pull them through.
This experience, although nerve-wracking and potentially enough to make one quit the music business altogether, proved to be pivotal in the development of Rundgren's creative approach to writing, performing, and recording music. As a result of having to develop his producer's ear overnight, he learned the value of pre-production: Having the band well rehearsed, the arrangements agreed upon, demo tapes analyzed, the entire album concept determined, even the marketing strategies planned before a single note is played in the studio.
By producing the next two Nazz records, Rundgren established a sensible, but creative approach to the recording process. In 1970 his producing career took off with the release of Nazz 3 (followed shortly thereafter by the band's break-up), his first solo album, Runt, and engineer and producer credits on the Band's Stage Fright, and the James Cotton Blues Band's Takin' Care of Business. The recording industry had finally taken notice of his many talents. Up to this point it was rare for artists to produce their own albums, let alone ever finding the time to produce other artists.
With the release of his landmark 1972 double solo album Something/Anything, Todd Rundgren proved that a single performer can play the studio like an instrument Sequestered in a 24-track studio, Rundgren multi-tracked guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums -- making use of the new technology to get the exact performance he had envisioned.
His career now spans two decades, and in his wake is a catalog of achievements as both performer and producer. He adopted the guitar hero persona in Utopia, the band that satisfied his live performance needs throughout the late '70s and early '80s. He has produced over 60 albums for a spectrum of artists, ranging from Shaun Cassidy to XTC. Plus he has continued to experiment with radical concept album ideas: His 1976 Faithful album respectfully duplicated some of his favorite pop songs from the '60s, while 1986's A Capella was an entirely vocal album, with lush arrangements comprised only of Todd's overdubbed voice and vocal samples. Over the years Rundgren has developed a rabid following of fans who will pick up any project he chooses to become involved with.
Rundgren's producing and composing have covered a broad spectrum of musical styles. Nevertheless, he leaves an indelible signature on every project he touches. It might be a particular vocal arrangement, or perhaps a chord progression. It's never anything that takes away from the particular band's character, however. Because, quite simply, if he didn't like a certain band's character to start with, he wouldn't choose to work with them.
Today Todd Rundgren finds himself in the rare position of being able to do whatever he wants to do. He's established a flexible arrangement with Warner Brothers Records that promises they'll release any solo album he can deliver, but they'll only pay advances on the albums they deem commercial. This allows him to experiment with practically any new album concept He now also tries to limit himself to producing only one or two outside projects a year. And thanks to his reputation for delivering a great product on time and under budget, he can afford to be picky.
On top of everything else, Todd is currently gaining a reputation as an innovative programmer, having developed the Utopia Graphics Tablet System, which was published by Apple in 1980. In addition, he's composing the music for the Broadway adaption of the late Joe Orton's musical, Up Against It (originally written for the third Beatles movie), and finding time to raise his family in Sausalito, California.
In conversation, Todd Rundgren repeatedly refers to integrity and vision. And it is exactly those characteristics that explain his longevity. THE RECORDING MUSICIAN spoke with the legendary producer/composer/arranger/engineer/ performer about his role as a maverick record producer.
How do you decide which artists you want to produce?
They have to please me in some way. The first thing that pleases me 99% of the time is that I find the material interesting. Very rarely do I find the material to be good and the performer of the material not to have at least a worthwhile interpretation of the material. So I don't often make a judgment just purely on the way somebody performs, the way they sing or play guitar. The material has to justify it all in the first place.
Is there a certain type of relationship that you try to establish with an artist that you're producing?
Well, I'm me. And from my standpoint, I don't really adapt myself that radically from project to project, except in as much as you have to work with people of varying temperament The one thing that I do try to establish unequivocally is that if they hire me, I'm going to express my opinion to them in a fairly forthright manner. It's just not my personal style to beat around the bush. So if they can live with that part of me, then the rest of it can be a fairly pleasant experience.
That's what they're paying you for.
Well, a lot of people don't understand that when they come in. There are a lot of artists who would rather produce themselves, but whose record companies won't allow it. And what invariably happens when you get into the studio, and the record company isn't watching any longer, is they try to commandeer the project midway through.
Would you say that it is generally a bad idea for a band to self-produce their first record?
Not necessarily. But it's a mistake to take someone who isn't resigned to have a producer, and force them to have a producer. You may ultimately get a record that is successful and benefits all parties involved. But in terms of the actual experience of making it, it might not be the most ideal.
Once you've decided to work with a particular artist, do you try to best represent their sound, or do you try to mold their sound into your own vision?
I personally don't believe there's such a thing as "the sound." There's a style, and if people want to incorporate that into the sound part of it, that's one thing. But you can bring a lot out of an artist by the way you choose to highlight and emphasize things in the recording process. In the old days the priorities were primarily getting the right material, and getting it down at all. It's only since we discovered multi-track recording that we got into concepts. When I say multi-track recording, I mean the ability to simulate a performance rather than to actually document a performance. The distinction being that when you document a performance you have all the elements going at once, and what you get is what you get I don't know who started the multi-track approach, maybe it was Les Paul, and people like Phil Spector adapted it, and the Beatles refined it, and Los Angeles kind of perverted it What once added a little bit of convenience to the process kind of took it over and became the whole thing. It got to the extent where a band like the Rolling Stones would only record their parts one at a time. So Charlie Watts would get in there and dick around with Bill Wyman, and they might keep Charlie's performance. Then overdub the bass, and then overdub one guitar, and things like that A lot of people don't think about it, but the whole challenge then becomes re-creating what you would have gotten if everybody had rehearsed a little bit and then came in and played the whole thing at once.
Is that you're preference?
Yes, that's my preference, definitely. It becomes a measure of whether it appears that there is an actual performing unit here, or if it's going to be an ordeal to make it appear that way. It's the silk purse/sow's ear problem. But it very rarely happens that someone has very good material and a totally unworthy performance of it
It sounds like you do a lot of pre-production work.
The only work I ever do is mental. I don't get paid for anything physical that I do, at least not at this point. If I go out and play on the road, then I'm getting paid to show up physically, and act as alive as possible. But all of the studio work I get paid for is mental. I don't do the band's rehearsing for them, and if I think they need more rehearsing I just say so, and they do the work. What I get paid for is my ability to put all the elements into a perspective, into a greater time frame than the individuals involved might have. In other words, I have the ability, perhaps above anyone else involved in the project to visualize the final product before anyone else does. I cause things to move in that direction. That's the reason you get a producer in the first place. If you thought you knew how it was supposed to be, then all you would have to do is hire an engineer and tell him, "Mix this a little louder, put some more top on that." Stuff like that. What I get paid for is to develop the vision and see that everybody sticks to it. And eventually I'm supposed to incorporate into this vision all the priorities of everyone involved. But I am the keeper of the vision for as long as this process is going on.
How do you get a handle on what that vision is before you go into the studio? Do you see the band live?
I may hear the band live, although that isn't necessarily germane. Everybody makes demo tapes these days, and I can recognize what is wrong with the tape as opposed to what's wrong with the band when I hear it. And I also don't want to keep emphasizing "band" as if I'm looking for bands. It could be an artist of any stripe.
At what point do you usually make suggestions concerning arrangements and sounds?
What I'll normally do, if I get a tape full of demos, is go through and put down my frankest comments about each song, and what I think the solution should be, without being specific to the point of influencing it to my taste. Even though people say that they can hear me in most of the artists that I do, I don't think it's always that I put myself in there. Sometimes it's there when it comes to me -- that's why it came to me in the first place, or the reason why I wanted to do it Even the type of artists that I choose to involve myself with reflects certain recognizable tendencies. I like the material to have a certain lyricism to it a certain approach. And having done that then people say, "We recognize your influence in this." No, it's just that they recognize my discrimination.
Once you've agreed on an arrangement for a song, will you keep trying to get that arrangement to work, or is there a point of re-evaluation?
That happens in specific instances, usually as a result of not wanting to be trite, wanting to be original. But often the only way you can characterize the subtleties of a piece of material is by getting self-consciously creative with the arrangement. Using anything from funny rhythm patterns to pre-recorded sounds, and creating entire scenarios and sonic atmospheres. In other words, "Purple Haze" sounds distinctly different played by Dion than when Jimi Hendrix played it. Jimi Hendrix was relying heavily on the effect part of it. I'm sure he never visu alized playing it on acoustic guitar. People, particularly nowa days, envision an element of the performance in their composition. Like a lot of James Brown's songs that sound completely monotonous when recorded, have been done that way because they function well in a live performance situation. It gives him more time to dance around. And people focus on that, and not so much on the fact that they're playing the same funk groove 120 times in a row. So there are definite arrangements built into the way that some of these songs are proposed in the first place, and you don't gratuitously dispose of that. Then there are some songs that are written almost without any kind of rooting in performance at all, they may take a lot of work to make them sound real.
What kind of pressure are you under, as a producer, to make hit singles?
If the record company believes that the act is capable of a hit single, and doesn't display it or come up with at least a fragment before they go in to record, I don't think they have any business expecting us to magically produce the so-called hit single. Worse than that these days is if a record company intends to make the act a singles act they want more than one hit single. They come back and say, "We don't hear the second hit." I only rarely get involved with acts that are pitched at that level -- that are singles acts only. Most of the time when I hear an act like that I just don't like them, I don't enjoy them. I hate what I hear on the radio, so if they had an album full of that I just wouldn't be interested. I'm not that kind of producer. I produce a different kind of act. I produce an act that everyone recognizes is valid and worthwhile and marketable, but is having problems with the recording process, period. They're all unrealized potential, or a great percentage is unrealized potential.
Do you ever have to make concessions to the record label?
The reason I get involved in most of the projects I do is not to somehow commandeer the marketing of a record or the way they're pitching it to the public at large. I'm essentially disinvolved with that. People come to me for a certain kind of musical validity. And that musical validity may be strong enough in some cases to increase the commercial potential of the artist even so far as to get them a hit single. But that would just be a further consequence, a secondary consideration. People don't come to me because I'm a hit single producer.
How often do you have to take the bull by the horns and do some last minute rewriting?
If I do then it usually means trouble. I would much rather chuck the song than have to take over writing it myself, unless I'm really in love with it for some reason. I haven't written a song voluntarily with an act in a good, long time, and I don't intend to.
How often does an artist disagree with one of your production ideas? And what do you do in that situation?
It often happens. It's ultimately up to the band, but I have to express my opinion in the most vehement terms. My confrontations with Andy Partridge [from XTC] are world-famous at this point, even though no one has heard the specifics. Andy has complained so vehemently that it seems like it was nothing but constant, non-stop fighting. It wasn't like that, but there were definitely incidents where I was making my opinion as strong as Andy was making his.
You've got a reputation for working really fast and staying within your budget. What's your secret?
Well, I don't do anything in the studio that could have been done outside the studio. This is the process that people hate the most, but all it takes is for me to get a tape every week, and just call them back and say, "No, this is wrong. Change this, that, and the other thing." I really don't relish having to do it in the studio.
It does sound as if it's very possible to get an adversarial relationship going between the artist and producer.
Yeah. That's the only reason you meet the band to start with, to get some sense as to where they're at. The biggest mistakes that I've made have been when I haven't met the band first, and they just show up to make the record. Usually it's because they came from some foreign country -- England or Australia or something like that. That's when you have the biggest problems. Because you've got to get all of this stuff aired out beforehand, you've got to get everyone resigned to it before you start the process. They didn't call me up to be their friend, they called me up to make sure they have the best record they're capable of making at the time. I may become their friend, but that's not why they called me. They should understand that
You mentioned earlier that you liked to try to get the whole ensemble recorded during the basic tracks. But what if you get the best performance only from the drummer? Will you keep that track and overdub?
Yeah, we don't exclude the possibility that any one of the people involved may get a performance that he thinks is the best he can possibly do. And if everyone else concedes, then we'll try to piece it together. But at all times we try to get the maximum number of people playing at once. In other words, if we keep the drum part, the other three players can't go and record each of their parts alone. They're all three going to have to play their part on top of it
Is that in order to achieve the groove?
Well, there's a lot of this thing about the elusive groove. I can't say what it is. I just think that that's the way music's meant to be. It's a religious conviction on my part Yes, there is a certain thing that happens when you're trying to overdub one track at a time, and try to get the thing that's the most musically perfect But to me that is transcription, not performance. What you want ideally is for a bolt of inspiration to hit you so that you know something worthwhile is happening. Usually the significant thing is that you don't feel like it's work. You get chills, you feel like this is the best thing in the world while you're doing it. That rarely happens when you're overdubbing your way through an album. It happens when everybody is in there, and they're playing together, and they get a vision suddenly of what it was always supposed to sound like.
In that case, how important is it to you to try to get a good performance on the first take?
First takes are great things. I will take all the first takes I can get if I feel that they embodied some element. On the last project I did there were several songs on which we used the first take. If the band knows what they're supposed to do and they've been playing the material live, you really want to get them into the same sense of agitation they have when they play live. It can often happen -- particularly if you've spent a lot of work on a previous song, and go on to a new song -- that alone may be enough to bring out everything you want in a performance.
I suppose there is a burn-out factor after a song has been played ten times in a row.
If we do a song anywhere between ten and 20 takes, I'll say, "Stop playing and we'll do it later." It becomes apparent at a certain point whether there's any improvement. If you're not making some kind of incremental improvement every time you do it, what's the point?
Do you use click tracks as a rule, or do you try to avoid using them?
I avoid it whenever possible. A precise groove has never been a priority for me. Some of the people I've worked with have expressed it as a priority -- I'll live with it when I have to. And there are some instances where you need some time reference just to keep certain events synchronous. But I would always prefer that the groove transcends that rhythmic underpinning, and if it can be done without a click I certainly will.
How often do you use studio musicians if a member of a band isn't cutting a part you wanted him to play?
Never. Never have, unless the band already had it in mind.
Some producers believe there is a significant difference between live players and studio players. Why do you feel differently?
As a matter of fact, in the cases where I have to use studio players, I find that they have a difficult time adding a particular character to the music, because they've already used it so many times. Since I don't use studio musicians that much I really can't speak authoritatively on what the current trend is. It was a little disturbing that Toto was successful, being essentially a band of studio musicians. But since when have you ever heard of anyone scalping Toto tickets?
Do you try to avoid playing on albums that you produce for other artists?
I don't avoid it but it's kind of hard to keep an objective ear sometimes, if you have to concentrate on having to play your part right and be objective about the band as a whole. It's not the kind of thing I normally do.
How about when you're recording your own solo albums? Is it difficult to keep your objectivity in that situation?
In a case like that I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, so there is no dichotomy there. If I'm playing on somebody else's record, I'm trying to fit into their particular vision. And that's trying to do two things at once.
On the live cuts that you've done, how willing are you to overdub tracks later on in the studio?
I don't recall ever having done that at least not on my own live recordings. If anything goes horribly wrong, I obscure it in the mix
Many producers, like recording artists, come and go as styles change. How would you explain your longevity?
I don't know. I'm afraid that anything I'd say would sound pompous. But I firmly believe that it's because I have a commitment to the music over the business.
Todd Rundgren has established an impressive track record as a producer. The artists he has worked with don't necessarily fit into a single category stylistically. But somehow, despite their obvious differences, they all can boast of having tapped into the Rundgren sound.
We asked Todd to comment on several of his past album projects; interesting occurrences, production techniques, or roadblocks he encountered along the way.
(on Mercury): New York Dolls, SRML 675,1973.
"That was a case of too much interference. Aside from press in the control room throughout the project. For some reason they insisted that we had to get the record out fast. They had to meet these unrealistic deadlines.
"We had the worst room for mixing in the entire studio complex, because they were in a hurry, and they were cheap skates on top of it. They mastered it in Mercury Records mastering faculty, which had to have the most antiquated equipment in use at the time in New York. It was the most difficult circumstances that anybody can mix under, with every member of the band in the room at the same time yelling, 'Make me louder, make me louder, make me louder!'"
(on Rhino): A Capella, 75761.
"Well, I happen to know the artist personally. I sometimes have these concepts for albums that float around in my head for years. At the time I recorded A Cappella it had to have been a ten-year-old concept that I had just gotten around to realizing.
"It happened to coincide with the termination of my contract with Bearsville Records. Of course, if you ever work with Albert Grossman, nothing really terminates. They held the album up for a year in order to kind of extort me into re-signing with Warner Brothers. Mostly it was a device of Albert's so he could retain my publishing. What ultimately happened is that I re-signed with Warner Brothers, they released the album with very little fanfare, and fortunately Rhino has picked it up and is re-releasing it. It will probably get more attention now than it did when it was released on its own record label."
(on A&M): Remote Control, SP 4751, 1979.
"That was one of those last chance records, and it turned out that it was their last chance anyway. Desperation made the record company want somebody to come in and play Svengali, so that's essentially what I did. I had to devise a whole coherent direction for them to go in, and lorded over the project in a manner that I'm not especially anxious to repeat."
(on Capitol): We're an American Band, 11207, 1973; Shinin' On, 11278, 1974.
"A friend of a friend of a friend got me involved. It was going to be their first record with organized management, having gotten rid of Terry Knight. You could say that their records had not been produced at all before that.
"They were all really creative musicians. They rehearsed lot and cared about their material. We got along well, and whipped through the first one we did in ten days, I believe. The second one took a little longer, about three weeks. They were both the kind of records you want to make all the time. The band is really competent and cooperative, and it's a huge success -- everybody gets rich. What more could you want?"
(on Capitol): Stage Fright, EASW 425, 1970.
"I was principally the engineer on that. The Band never credited producers on their albums because there would be too many people to credit. There were too many opinions going at once. In the strictest sense I didn't really have much to say about the music. I was in charge of the sounds."