The Art of Noise by Daniel Rachel

Author:Daniel Rachel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466865211
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

MIKE BARSON

Clive Langer suggested Thunderclap Newman was an early influence on your playing?

Clive has always been very instrumental in making Madness records and he likes the piano as well. It’s often been the teamwork of me and him. He would often bring in little bits of music and say, ‘What about this?’ which would inspire you in a certain way. There was a bit of discordant piano on ‘Something In The Air’ as I recall it, and then I did the solo on ‘My Girl’ which was sort of coming out of that. I wasn’t a big fan of Thunderclap Newman.

The sound of another record to inspire something new. I understand ‘My Girl’ came from listening to Elvis Costello’s ‘Watching The Detectives’.

That’s right, sometimes you hear a sound or a song and that inspires you. I liked that chord progression. On ‘My Girl’ it’s D flat minor going down to A. They had C to A minor and we changed it a semitone. I like those moody minor / major key changes. I don’t know if I was trying to get it exactly the same; maybe I was. Nowadays I think it doesn’t really matter. You think, ‘Oh, what about that song?’ It gives you a bit of inspiration to get you up and running, as it were. It doesn’t matter if it sounds like it at the end of the day because when you are inspired it makes all the difference. On ‘Bed And Breakfast Man’ I was trying to get Smokey Robinson’s ‘Tears Of A Clown’ (hums the bass lines of both)—sort of similar, although they sound miles apart. Nobody would say, ‘Oh bloody hell, “Bed And Breakfast Man” sounds like “Tears Of A Clown”.’ Everything, any sort of human endeavour, has got such a history behind it. Somebody makes the first fridge and it’s like Fort Knox and then somebody makes a smaller one. It’s all about refining and building on other stuff. In music you get inspired by other people’s music. Earlier we were talking about the Funk Brothers and the bass-playing and somebody says, ‘Oh that’s great,’ and then you want to do the same, but interpreting it in your way and doing something more with it. There’s copying and there’s bringing something original to it so it’s not sad and ripping off. When Mr McPherson and I worked together solo for a while it all got a bit unpleasant and I got less and less inspired, then it’s all, ‘That’s no good,’ and you can’t do anything. When we were working with Clive and Alan on 7 in the Bahamas all their minds were on going to this bloody casino on Paradise Island. If nobody’s listening and saying, ‘Yeah, it sounds great,’ and you’re playing away and they’re all looking the other way, discussing—if you’re a bit sensitive to that, it’s not easy. When you have a good atmosphere it brings it out of you. That spark just kind of comes.

What was your process

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