Hei, Gavin!
I remember the moment when my best mate and I listened to Sam Bronwn's "Stop!" album the first time in his father's recording studio. And then we listened again, then again. And countless times in his or my car, just driving aimlessly around Vienna, Austria, noting and discussing your drum parts that were at that time quite the most sophisticated example of intelligent drum arrangement we've heard to this date.
Apart ftom the compositions with their quirky and humorous, but always deep little details in the arrangement there was always your presicion and little gems - often in the fade-out part of the songs.
I have a load of questions about this production, but I'll keep it precise:
- how did you prepare for this recording project? Did you work with finished tracks and "just" added your parts separately, or did you discuss this with the project band?
- how much time did you have to "get into" the recording's mood? I mean, it's Pop Music after all, but it's very intelligent music, wonderfully arranged, quite a bit minimalistic, so the drums really had the opportunity to shine.
- THE BREAKS! How much of your really ingenious drum breaks did just "happen" because you already had a good personal drum break "vocabulary", how much of it was planned in advance?
- as far as Wikipedia and other sources go, "Stop!" is one of the definite milestones in your development as a musician. You did great tracking work before (hard to find sometimes, the internet was not so rich in detail as it is today), and "Stop!" really is a big step up. How did it come to pass that you were selected? Was there an audition? Did they call you?
- David Gilmour is named as producer and did some characteristically deep and rich guitar atmospheres. How would you describe working with him? Was he a big influence on the project? Or did he just give his sanctus to the finished project?
- Drum setup and sounds: "Ball and Chains" shows a lot of quirky unusual soundscape for a drum set. Is some of this triggered? Did you hang your drumset with various noisy appendages?
- Some songs, especially "High as a Kite" show very controlled and high skill double kick work - I have not heard this before in your work catalogue (at least what I could find online). Is this something you decided to step up especially for the project or did you need double pedal skills before?
- How was it? I always try to imagine the situation in the studio when I listen to a record. How was the atmosphere, did you get along well? Did you discuss the lines you all recorded, or did everybody deliver separately, probably from his own personal studio?
There's lots more, but I don't want to overdo it