KEN SCOTT - From Beatles to Jazz-Rock Fusion (Part Three)
Ken Scott on producing
Interview by George Cole
In addition to engineering and co-producing a string of jazz-fusion classic albums, Ken has produced many pop and rock acts, including three David Bowie albums, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and Aladdin Sane. He also produced Supertramp’s 1973 album, Crime of the Century. In 1976, Ken moved to the US, where he worked for the next forty years. He now lives in Yorkshire, and is a senior professor at Leeds Beckett University School of Film, Music and Performing Arts, where he lectures on music production.
How did you evolve from being an engineer to a producer?
I like to joke that as an engineer, I was very proactive and coming up with suggestions to make the music sound better. Sometimes the producer would try out my ideas, and if the idea worked, the producer would take the credit; but if it didn’t, it was Ken’s suggestion! Also, engineering had become too easy and I needed a new challenge.
What are the biggest challenges in being a producer?
Getting the sound right is the easy bit for me these days. I’m a creature of habit: I do everything the same every single time and it’s what happens in the studio that changes it. You never know what is going to happen at any given time. As a producer, you’ll be [the artist’s] best friend; sometimes their worst enemy. You’ll be the shrink or the bully – you take on so many roles through an album. The one thing I’ve always wanted as a producer is to make something that the artist and I like and can be proud of. If no one else likes it, that’s fine, as long as you can look and think, ‘yes, we worked our asses off and got a good end product.’ That’s what you can be happy with.
What would you say are your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a producer?
The weakness hasn’t shown itself too much, but it’s the lack of musical knowledge. I have a musician’s soul but not a musician’s brain. I play very little – I can tinker around on a keyboard or a guitar, but I can’t say, ‘You know, what it wants is for you to play a D-major as opposed..’ It could have been detrimental, but I haven’t noticed it.
One of my strengths I think is patience – it will take as long as it takes to get what you want. I learnt from the best [producers], George Martin and Gus Dudgeon. Their way of producing is knowing that an artist is put into a studio for one reason and that’s to create, and you have to allow that talent to create – ‘you know what? It was better ten minutes ago. Let’s go back and carry on from there.’ As an engineer, I’ve worked with producers who say, ‘it’s my way or the highway,’ and that’s not me in any way, shape or form. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to work in so many genres.
Some producers – like you – have a technical background, and others have a musical background. Is there is benefit in being one or the other?
It’s different strokes for different folks. I don’t think there’s a preferential way; it’s whatever works for the producer and the act. I have turned down acts that I didn’t feel I could bring anything to and that’s what it’s all about. That’s why the musical aspect hasn’t been detrimental because I’ve chosen to work with talent that will give me everything I need and I can give them something without having to say musical things to them.
Looking at your CV, it’s interesting that almost the first time you work with an artist is as an engineer, but on any subsequent collaborations, you are either producer or co-producer.
The one that broke the mould for me was Bowie. I worked with him as an engineer and Tony Visconti was the producer. The first two [Bowie] records I worked on [1969 Space Oddity and 1970 The Man Who Sold the World] I really feel were Tony’s albums and not David’s. David wrote the songs but everything else was Tony. The one thing that wasn’t part of that was the single, which Tony refused to produce, so David worked with Gus [Dudgeon]. As I said, Gus was the type of producer who relies on the talent in the studio, so Space Oddity was very much David’s ideas and the rest of the album and the next one were Tony’s ideas and they were failures.
I think after taking a period of time off, David realised it was time to put up or shut up. If it was his ideas and it was not successful, then he was not meant to be doing what he was trying to do. He knew my background; we had worked together and got on well, and he asked me to co-produce with him.Because of the way he worked, he knew he could throw ideas around with me in a way that he could never do with Tony. That’s how we worked together.
Thinking of jazz-fusion acts like Mahavishnu and Bill [Cobham]; the business side came in. It’s all very well being paid as an engineer on an hourly/daily/weekly basis, but if they’re successful, you want a bit more say. It wasn’t necessarily that I would say anymore, but as a co-producer I just started to get paid more.
You’re not one of those engineers or producers who believe that you can ‘fix it in the mix,’ in other words, it doesn’t matter how badly recorded something is, you can always use technology afterwards to improve the sound. You, on the other hand, are a strong believer in getting the sound right before recording starts. This means you can spend a lot of time setting up mikes, checking levels, etc. Do artists generally appreciate the amount of time you spend during this process?
Generally yes. The calibre of musicians I’ve worked with are professional, and if I want to change something, they will go along with it. The first time I worked in LA with session musicians, Jeff Porcaro happened to be the drummer [during the 1970s and 80s, Porcaro was one of the most in-demand session musicians]. In the UK, we were moving towards a more live drum sound in the studio, whereas LA was still at the dead drum sound stage. So, I go into the studio and ask to hear Jeff’s drums and they are really dead. When I asked him to take all the damping off, Jeff said, ‘Why? It’s taken me years to get this and it’s perfect.’ I tell him it’s not what I’m looking for and so he rips all the damping off. After the recording, he listens to the playback and the next time he’s in the studio, he tells the producer, ‘I’m not putting any damping on my drums and I’m using these mikes,” so he obviously liked it!
Looking back at your long career, what works would you like to be remembered and how would you like to be remembered?
I’ve been blessed with doing what I love for 55 years. My favourite stuff of what I’ve done tends to be individual tracks rather than an album. Ziggy [Stardust] as an album, holds together better than anything else I did with Bowie, but I think there are better things on both Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane, like 'Time', 'Aladdin Sane' and 'Life on Mars', of course. I can’t fault [Lou Reed’s] 'Walk on the Wild Side' – to me, there’s nothing I would change about that; it worked out perfectly. 'A Salty Dog' by Procol Harum, that particular track. 'Night Meets Light', Dixie Dregs. A band I worked with from the east coast called Happy The Man, who to me, were the best prog band to come out of the States. How would I like my own contribution to be remembered? I can’t answer that; that’s for other people to decide.
In addition to engineering and co-producing a string of jazz-fusion classic albums, Ken has produced many pop and rock acts, including three David Bowie albums, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and Aladdin Sane. He also produced Supertramp’s 1973 album, Crime of the Century. In 1976, Ken moved to the US, where he worked for the next forty years. He now lives in Yorkshire, and is a senior professor at Leeds Beckett University School of Film, Music and Performing Arts, where he lectures on music production.
How did you evolve from being an engineer to a producer?
I like to joke that as an engineer, I was very proactive and coming up with suggestions to make the music sound better. Sometimes the producer would try out my ideas, and if the idea worked, the producer would take the credit; but if it didn’t, it was Ken’s suggestion! Also, engineering had become too easy and I needed a new challenge.
What are the biggest challenges in being a producer?
Getting the sound right is the easy bit for me these days. I’m a creature of habit: I do everything the same every single time and it’s what happens in the studio that changes it. You never know what is going to happen at any given time. As a producer, you’ll be [the artist’s] best friend; sometimes their worst enemy. You’ll be the shrink or the bully – you take on so many roles through an album. The one thing I’ve always wanted as a producer is to make something that the artist and I like and can be proud of. If no one else likes it, that’s fine, as long as you can look and think, ‘yes, we worked our asses off and got a good end product.’ That’s what you can be happy with.
What would you say are your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a producer?
The weakness hasn’t shown itself too much, but it’s the lack of musical knowledge. I have a musician’s soul but not a musician’s brain. I play very little – I can tinker around on a keyboard or a guitar, but I can’t say, ‘You know, what it wants is for you to play a D-major as opposed..’ It could have been detrimental, but I haven’t noticed it.
One of my strengths I think is patience – it will take as long as it takes to get what you want. I learnt from the best [producers], George Martin and Gus Dudgeon. Their way of producing is knowing that an artist is put into a studio for one reason and that’s to create, and you have to allow that talent to create – ‘you know what? It was better ten minutes ago. Let’s go back and carry on from there.’ As an engineer, I’ve worked with producers who say, ‘it’s my way or the highway,’ and that’s not me in any way, shape or form. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to work in so many genres.
Some producers – like you – have a technical background, and others have a musical background. Is there is benefit in being one or the other?
It’s different strokes for different folks. I don’t think there’s a preferential way; it’s whatever works for the producer and the act. I have turned down acts that I didn’t feel I could bring anything to and that’s what it’s all about. That’s why the musical aspect hasn’t been detrimental because I’ve chosen to work with talent that will give me everything I need and I can give them something without having to say musical things to them.
Looking at your CV, it’s interesting that almost the first time you work with an artist is as an engineer, but on any subsequent collaborations, you are either producer or co-producer.
The one that broke the mould for me was Bowie. I worked with him as an engineer and Tony Visconti was the producer. The first two [Bowie] records I worked on [1969 Space Oddity and 1970 The Man Who Sold the World] I really feel were Tony’s albums and not David’s. David wrote the songs but everything else was Tony. The one thing that wasn’t part of that was the single, which Tony refused to produce, so David worked with Gus [Dudgeon]. As I said, Gus was the type of producer who relies on the talent in the studio, so Space Oddity was very much David’s ideas and the rest of the album and the next one were Tony’s ideas and they were failures.
I think after taking a period of time off, David realised it was time to put up or shut up. If it was his ideas and it was not successful, then he was not meant to be doing what he was trying to do. He knew my background; we had worked together and got on well, and he asked me to co-produce with him.Because of the way he worked, he knew he could throw ideas around with me in a way that he could never do with Tony. That’s how we worked together.
Thinking of jazz-fusion acts like Mahavishnu and Bill [Cobham]; the business side came in. It’s all very well being paid as an engineer on an hourly/daily/weekly basis, but if they’re successful, you want a bit more say. It wasn’t necessarily that I would say anymore, but as a co-producer I just started to get paid more.
You’re not one of those engineers or producers who believe that you can ‘fix it in the mix,’ in other words, it doesn’t matter how badly recorded something is, you can always use technology afterwards to improve the sound. You, on the other hand, are a strong believer in getting the sound right before recording starts. This means you can spend a lot of time setting up mikes, checking levels, etc. Do artists generally appreciate the amount of time you spend during this process?
Generally yes. The calibre of musicians I’ve worked with are professional, and if I want to change something, they will go along with it. The first time I worked in LA with session musicians, Jeff Porcaro happened to be the drummer [during the 1970s and 80s, Porcaro was one of the most in-demand session musicians]. In the UK, we were moving towards a more live drum sound in the studio, whereas LA was still at the dead drum sound stage. So, I go into the studio and ask to hear Jeff’s drums and they are really dead. When I asked him to take all the damping off, Jeff said, ‘Why? It’s taken me years to get this and it’s perfect.’ I tell him it’s not what I’m looking for and so he rips all the damping off. After the recording, he listens to the playback and the next time he’s in the studio, he tells the producer, ‘I’m not putting any damping on my drums and I’m using these mikes,” so he obviously liked it!
Looking back at your long career, what works would you like to be remembered and how would you like to be remembered?
I’ve been blessed with doing what I love for 55 years. My favourite stuff of what I’ve done tends to be individual tracks rather than an album. Ziggy [Stardust] as an album, holds together better than anything else I did with Bowie, but I think there are better things on both Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane, like 'Time', 'Aladdin Sane' and 'Life on Mars', of course. I can’t fault [Lou Reed’s] 'Walk on the Wild Side' – to me, there’s nothing I would change about that; it worked out perfectly. 'A Salty Dog' by Procol Harum, that particular track. 'Night Meets Light', Dixie Dregs. A band I worked with from the east coast called Happy The Man, who to me, were the best prog band to come out of the States. How would I like my own contribution to be remembered? I can’t answer that; that’s for other people to decide.
