Welcome to the Sound On Sound People and Music Industry podcast channel. With me, Kevin Paul. In today's episode, I speak to Bernard Butler about his production and songwriting career and how he gets bands and artists. To perform and to be challenged within the studio and songwriting environment. I think it's a very interesting interview with loads of great information, and I hope you enjoyed the episode. Bernard, thanks for joining me. Thanks so much for having me. Let's just go straight into it. I don't necessarily want to go over all of your very extensive history as a, as a recording artist, but I thought that we'd maybe start with your most recent band, but the Blake and Grant. How did that all start? Well, it started because I was asked to do Celtic connections, the, and a show in, in a place called Stren just south of Glasgow. Somebody had a good idea, somebody who knew Norman and James just said, you two fancy doing a show. Uh, together, like a songwriting circle thing, and they said, yeah, and then some, somebody put up my name as well. And, uh, I knew Norman Blake from Teenage Fan Club. I've known him Norman since about 92 or something. So a long, long time. Um, uh, always a big teenage fan club fan and played with them and stuff and, uh, I didn't know James at all, but it just sounded like fun. I just thought, yeah, I like, I like things where they're a shot in the dark where, you know, a jump into something and I, you dunno what's gonna happen. So I'm always quite attracted to that musical situation. So, um, so we did this one show, um, we just met one night, did a rehearsal for about two hours, and then did the show the next day. And it was just quite good fun and everyone seemed to like it. Excellent. You know, and so now we've made, made a record this year and we've, I've just finished another one that's gonna come out next year. You are touring that record, aren't you? Yeah, we've just been, I've just come back from Ireland yesterday. I was in Ireland for a week, going to Spain next week for a week. So, and yeah, we'll be on tour again next year when the record comes out. So yeah, there's been, we've done a lot of shows. Yeah. What's it like going back on the road again? Is that a place that you're comfortable with? I do a lot of touring, uh, uh, because as you mentioned, you know, my, my my sort of discography, if you like, is, is pretty varied. Mm-hmm. It always depends Yeah. Who I'm talking to, which bit you keep up with and I don't expect anybody to keep up with any of it really. But, um, I've actually been touring for about over 10 years on an awful more, I mean, I did for, for about five years, I was with Ben Watt being his sort of sidekick guitarist, and we did. Went around America twice, Japan three times. You know, we, we toured for, for years after that, the last few years I've actually been touring a solo as a solo artist and, um, yeah, and got really extensively as well as Butler, Blake Grantham. So, yeah, I think, depending on which, which person, you know, you think I'm a. Reclusive guitar player or a producer, reclusive producer or whatever, you know, I don't really care. Yeah. But I'm, I'm very, I, I love touring. I mean, I love, I love playing live. And I, when you say touring, I, what I really like at, at, at the age I'm at, particularly the, the part of, part of my life I'm at is, um, I like traveling. I like meeting people. Right. I like, I like, yeah. Um, everything I do when I tour now is. It is on my own. I I'm arranging the shows with agents. I do the artwork. I book, okay. I book the hotel, uh, I book the trains. I book the planes. You don't have a tour manager then? I've No, nothing musicians these days you, you can't afford to do anything. So I do all of that. Um, I, and in the UK and Ireland and Scotland, I drive myself to the show. You set it up, you pack down afterwards, you do the merch. You drive yourself back to a hotel, you go on the next day and you do everything exclusively. I do everything on my own through to, you know, that's wonderful. Packing the merch up, it's wonderful, but it's, it's incredibly hard work. But, um, but, uh, but it's, it's, you know, it's rewarding and you get to that way, I get to choose exactly how I travel. Where I travel to. And so you, I go to nice places like, I'm gonna Spain next week. And it's just, well, I'm going around Spain, I'm going to Madrid, Barcelona, j Granada, you know, all on the train. And, uh, I really enjoy that process of just seeing, seeing the world in that way. It's, it's kind of a, a, a, a privilege that you get as a musician, uh, to have that opportunity, um, to tra to travel in that way, you know? There's so many things we could talk about, but the main thing really I would like to focus on is the production. Yeah, sure. Um, how did you start getting into production and what brought you into the studio as a producer for other artists, the first thing I was asked to for other artists. Was, um, actually for Tony Wilson, legendary Tony Wilson from Factory Records. Yeah. He asked me, he had a group called Hopper, um, and they were assigned to what he called Factory two, which is, um, after factory broke down. He set up a new label and, and, and it was with him. And, and I just, if, if Tony Wilson had asked me to produce a cup of tea, I would've said yes. Yeah. You know, it was Tony Wilson, you know, and, uh, but I liked that he was such a character. Yeah, obviously. And I grew up with all that music. I grew up with the music of factory records and uh, new order is such a big influence on me and, and, um, all of that, that influence of Manchester, um, took as a Londoner who'd never been to Manchester. Of course there is an indie group, sort of britpop sort of style indie group. And, and they had a really interesting singer and they were, they were just nice people and we had a lot of fun. And I did that. Yeah, I did that and went into rac, my engineer, the guy at the time who's engineering at rac. And who I always used was my mate. It was called Nigel. And that was Nigel Godrich. And, um, yeah, and Nigel was just, Nigel was the house engineer at Rack Studios in London. And so where everything I did with me or other stuff I was doing or when this came along, I just, I just said to Nigel, can you do this? And he said, yeah. So, so we worked together and we just went, went up and down. I used to pick him up in the morning and, uh, drive him down and we used to drive home afterwards. That was the way it was. Yeah. So it was good. It was a good time, you know, good fun. And we got to sit in the studio and spend lots of money, you know, sitting in RAC for a month or something and, um, and recording and, and learning. Well, we don't have those budgets anymore, do we? No, not, not at all. No. No, I haven't been in a recording studio for, for years. Oh, really? You do most of it at home now? I, I do everything at home. I mean, I do everything at home or, or wherever. I, you know, I can, but I mean, I haven't had a budget to go into a recording studio for, I dunno when the last time was, you know, uh, cca. There was a occasionally here and there. I get the odd couple of days here and there or something, but it's, it's just almost impossible. When you are working with an artist or a band, what do you like to do in terms of recording? Are you of, are you very much like, okay, let's get everyone in a live room and play together, or do you like to get like individual people. Playing separately. How, how, what's your approach to a particular project? Or does it vary from artists to artists? Yeah. Yeah. You find out who they are and what they do and, and what, what, what they're best at and what will, what will create the best, um, environment for a start. That's the most important thing where, where people will be comfortable and also where people will be uncomfortable when they're too comfortable in a certain setup. Um, you, you have to break things down a little bit as well. Um. So, uh, it really depends on what it is, you know, so, for example, worked with an Irish band last year called The Clockworks and, uh, four piece Rock and Roll Band, guitars and drums. And, um, they're, they're really su really superb great songs and, uh, great people. Um, they were very comfortable playing exactly as they were, but they'd grown up playing together, playing everything as they did. All very democratically. Um, so the most important thing I could do for them was to, was to throw a grenade in the room. You know, because everything was so comfortable and it sounded like lots of rock and roll bands. So I'd say, now you sound like a band. You sound like lots of other people, so why do you want to sound like everyone else? And what was their reaction to that? Well, that the, you know, shock. Normally it's normally shock, you know? But that's which is good because if, when people are just really comfortable and cozy just playing along and saying, yeah, we wanna be a band, and we wanna just sound like all the other bands. And I, my first question is always, why do you wanna sound like everyone else? What's the point? So you have to, but you know, we are all individuals, we're all, we all have our own DNA. Um, if you're just trying to sound like everybody else, then, then, uh, you know, you have to find out where the character is and, and, and where your limitations are. And a lot of that, that is about pushing people, uh, mentally to try and find out right what they've got. You can always say, you've played your song for me. There's your song. I can hear it. It's recorded. Why aren't I screaming for joy? What, you know, you have to see, what else have you got? You've just done things successfully. What happens if you, if you, you know, if you go further. So that's normally part of the game, really. And a lot of that can be about, yeah, people playing in a room and then people not playing in a room. People breaking things down and saying, okay, we've done that. How about we just mute those drums or mute this or take this out. Or see actually, you know, your guitar part that you've worked on so well, how about we get rid of that? And just, just to see what will happen. Are you looking for a reaction there? No reaction. I'm just, I'm looking for a musical reaction. I'm looking for a creative reaction. Yeah. Where it, where somebody is put into a decision where they have to say, okay, well, you know, that's the, the part that I've always wanted to have on it. But I'll always say, well, well, is it better? Does it work better? Is it more interesting without it, or is it, would it be more interesting if you did that in a different way? You know, so it's all about, it's all about asking questions and challenges all the time. It's interesting, isn't it, because people become attached to things, don't they? They become, you know, the guitar player, you know, loves his part. He spent hours recording it and you go, yeah, I'm really sorry, but it doesn't really work. Yeah. And then there's a battle of Will, isn't there? Between what actually happens and how it moves forward. How, how do you deal with that when, when artists are not necessarily insistent, but kind of attached to things that unfortunately may or may not work for the song? Well, quite often things do work for a song, but they just sound, mm-hmm. Fairly standard and where you don't feel, yeah, you don't feel like that the musician has, has pushed themselves as far as they can because particularly with groups, they stand in a room together and they play the same song and they play it live and they just think, this is all great. It all works, let's just leave it like that. And they, and they forget about it for six months or a year or, or however long years, you know, before they record it. Yeah. And all their dream is just, is to record that thing as they hear it live or hear it when they're playing. Um, without thinking about what could they create. What could it be? You know, what, what, what could they be at their best? And a lot of the time, a lot of the time that does work. A lot of the time just pressing record and recording something brilliantly live is exactly the right thing to do. And, um, but I think to, to get the best in every area, uh, ev every element of what you do, then what you have to, um, you have to start asking questions as a lot of the time I have to, my job is to say I don't like it. Because that, because as a producer, they think you've been hired. To say you love them and everything they do is great and, and so sometimes you just say, I don't think this song's very good. And I'd always say to them, turn on the radio now, any station, and tell me you like every song you hear. Yeah. And you know, we don't do it. We all turn on radio or whatever. You turn on a, a Spotify playlist, you don't know or something like that. And, um, and we just flick and flick, you know, to, we fallen in love with something and we got honest about that's, that's on most people's emotional reactions to, to everything. Clothes, haircuts, music, art, yeah. Tv, everything. You know, you, you, you, you, you, something clicks with you at a certain moment. It has an emotional, um, reaction. And um, and so I'm always just trying to find that. And when I get bored in the studio, I just tell them, I say, oh, look, I'm a bit bored by this. What can we do? And often, the often it's well. You know, I, I haven't got a solution, but I feel that by throwing, yeah, throwing a problem into the, into the, the room means that people have to work hard to create something and then it's not like, it's not my job to say, you know what, this doesn't work and what will work exactly as if you perform this or, you know, a, a semitone up, um, on a, on a har yeah, on a harpsichord, um, through a, uh, chorus pedal. That's, that's not my job to say to, to give you the exact solution. My job is to say something else could happen. What can you do? And then, and then ask Yes. And encourage them. Exactly. So, so then, so then we all create something together that we didn't have, and then you can say, right, well we're we, I didn't know that was gonna happen, but by, but if I didn't, if I hadn't asked the question. You, you wouldn't get in the situation where you create something, you know? So, so a lot, a lot of the, so a lot of the time that's my job. I mean, I should imagine if, if it's, if it's a new artist with your pedigree and cv, it's probably quite easy to convince people to, to go with the way that you're going. How do you get people to listen to your way of thinking? I don't really find it easy. I mean, but I honestly, it's not easy and, and I always try and make it that this is. Stand. This is a standard situation. It is, but I always have to take a deep breath secretly, you know? And, and, um, and just, just pray that something works out. But I'm just being, I always just try and be honest about what I'm hearing and whether I like something or not. Right. And I always say, if you, that's fine. If you don't agree with me, then that's fine. You ask me to be here. You asked me. I'm not a recording engineer, you know, I, I'm not interested in that. Really. I do it, I do it because, because I learn how to do it and by default, but, but I'm not here to be a recording engineer and I'm not here to put, um, to go through your favorite plugins and get out your fancy mics. You know, I, I just don't really care about all that. 'cause you go past the point where you, you're impressed by all those processes, you know, that. Um, yes. Those things. My job is that you've asked me to be here. So I have to show what I am for you, otherwise you can just otherwise. Otherwise, it's absolutely fine because you can get somebody else to record you well, doing the thing that you want to do, and I will be really happy. The statement that you said you asked me to be here is quite a defining one, and it's quite important, isn't it, in terms of the role of a producer within the studio. I mean, as a, as a guitar player, I always say the same thing. I always say, what is the point of me being here? You know, you can get lots of people to strum chords or, or to play blue solos or whatever you want to do, or you, or you know, you, if you've got music that's already recorded, just to copy the part that's there, that's fine. You can get lots of people to do that, and please be my guest. To, to get that person to just do that. You know. But again, it's like, what, what, what, what's the point of me being here? You know, what can I, what can I add? What can I do that changes things? Or, or, you know, yeah. Or, or makes things, you know, I guess, you know, makes, makes it worthwhile. Me being here, I think a lot of that is in the modern, in the age we are in. Every, particularly young, well, any, any musician, most musicians under, well under our age probably, um, you know, they grow up with, um, a MacBook with Logic built in. Yeah. And, and there's their studio and, um, and they, they're already very fluent with, with, well, I wouldn't say recording techniques, but how to edit, um, and make fantastic sounds and, and, um. And do stuff. It's not very impressive to just do all this stuff and, and often you hear stuff and you think, wow, this is really, it sounds really brilliant. Why are you playing this to me? You know? Off you go, you know? But again, I come back to the same question. It's like, what do you want from me? Your music sounds great. Yeah. What's the value? Yeah, yeah, exactly. What. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not just going to put it onto my pro tool system and put it through my converters and ex and hope it just sounds a bit better or something. I, I just don't care about that. You know, what's, what's the point? So, I guess from where my generation started, it was, it was different because you'd just never seen a recording studio until you'd stood inside it and you were ready to go. You'd never, you'd never recorded anything apart from on a four track if you were lucky, you know? Do you have a, a, a regular recording engineer? You spoke about being an engineer, but do you have one or do you just use anyone or do you use any, do you just do it all on your own? I do everything at home on my own. Yeah. Sure. Um, if I do anything involving pro tools or anything anywhere else, it's all on my own. If I go to a studio, if I, occasionally I use another studio, I'll just use the engineer that's in the studio. My policy will always be, this is your studio, you know how to use it. What do you expect from a recording engineer in the studio? Are they literally a technician or is there creative inputs that you want from them? 'cause some people don't want that. They just want, okay, put mics up, get a sound press record. That's it. I'll tell you when I need something else from you. I want somebody who knows the best to best places in their studio. Yeah. I don't really want them to set up a big outboard vocal chain or anything like that because I'll just say. I don't care, you know, you know, if you set up, if you've got two or three, you've got, you know, oh, I'm gonna go from this mic pre, which is really fantastic, into this, uh, compressor, and then I'm gonna go out of it into this whatever and stuff. I'll just be like, right. That's really impressive, but we finished yet. And the same with drums. Drum drums is always the thing. I'm just, I don't, I, I would, I would give an engineer one hour maximum one that, that even, that's too much. I want mic, I want two or three microphones in front of a drum kit, and I want a drummer playing all the way through. I would, I would never go through that situation again that I did when I was younger, where you were told to come into the studio at four o'clock because that, because that time was spent. Setting up the drums. Yeah, I mean that, that is just mind up. And getting 16 microphones up, it's like this is where where you are, you are coming to the studio to make your first record. This is the greatest moment of your life. You've never been so excited. Absolutely. The session begins at 10:00 AM Can you please arrive at 4:00 PM. You know? Yeah. Or even worse, you just sat there and you're like, I was here at 10:00 AM ready to play, and what is going on? What is this horrible noise? You know? And then at 4:00 PM you're asked, okay, don't worry about your amplifier or whatever. Can you just plug into this, this socket here, and we'll just plug you in. And, and that's all you need to do. And it was the most depressing day of my life. So I'll, I'll, I'll never want to go through that again. Whenever we record drums, I expect to just walk in, put them there and play and that's it. And you put mics around as you as you can and get on with it really quickly. So that's, yeah, any engineer I work with, I just say I, I, I think, I guess that's what I ask them. Just get on with it basically. Yeah. Don't, don't try and press me with gear 'cause I don't care at all. Tool. I love that. Great engineers know great rooms and they know, they know well. Um, you know, I often put. Or, you know, uh, 57 over there in the corner or something, you know, and I just leave it there. It sounds really good. And I, I'll say, great, record it for me. That's brilliant. I trust you. You, you, you think, you think that's where the, you know, you get a room sound or something. That's nice. Great. And, and I'll say, have you got a guitar, Amplifi? You know, and they said, oh, I always use this. It's great. And I said, great. Give it to me and I'll play through it. I don't care what it is. So stuff like that, having, having that opinion, sense of opinion, um. I mean, and also not messing around with singers, not messing them around with headphones and spending hours, setting up vocal booths and all that kind of stuff and, and getting them to, getting them to, to sing takes in order to, you know, just do run throughs to get your DSR right or something like that. No, I mean, all of that. If a singer's gonna sing, I expect you to her, her or, or the, or he or whoever to walk over to a microphone and record it. And that's all. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'cause it's about capturing the performance, isn't it? It's, it's not the, you know, as we discussed before we started, it's not, the gear doesn't really make great records. What makes great records is performance. Yeah, absolutely. Performance and ideas. You know, and all the rest. Yeah. All the rest you find, you know, you, you can have fantastic rooms and I've stood in fantastic rooms that you record and you know, oh, that's great. You know, obviously if you're recording an orchestra, you're not gonna do that in your bathroom, you know, or in your bedroom, you know? Or, or, yeah. Or something and expect it. But, but with an awful lot of recording individual instruments or. At a time, you know, you just, it, it's not, it's not about that. You know, and you find great spaces at home in your hallway or, or whatever, if you wanna find those spaces, yeah. It doesn't matter if it's in the hallway of RAC or in the hallway, um, you know, outside your lounge. It's, it's, no one cares. Like, no one ever writes down on the back of a record, you know, where that amazing room sound was. Because no one cares. Your mum will never care. She just wants to know, did I turn it up or did I turn it off? Do I like it? Do I not like it? I see it. Yeah. That's all they're interested in. That's it. Yeah. Can we talk about songwriting just for a little bit? Yeah. How do you, I mean, songwriting. Look, I'm, I'm a frustrated musician. It's, it's the reason why I'm an engineer and a producer. You know, if I, if I hit something, I can get a noise out of it, but I can't put things together. Hmm. How do you. Start your songwriting? Is it called Melody lyrics? Where, where's your kind of like, I mean, I'm sure after, you know, the career that you've had, you are, you are well versed at that, but when you sort of went back to the beginning, how were you kind of starting your approach to songwriting? I mean, again, it, it is. Uh, boringly depends who it is and who you're with. And, and everyone's different case really. So, um, you know, if I was doing a co-write with somebody, for example, like, uh, the most recent thing is Duffy Singer Duffy, who I, I've done a lot of work with. Yeah. And we've been. Writing a lot recently. And, um, how's it start with her? We, we, for start, we're just talking, you know, we're always just talking and she'll just be talking about, um, generally Duffy will have an idea, she'll have a, um. A line, like she loves this line, I wanna write a song about this line, and it'll be something to do with her. And I won't get involved about what that is with, with her life and what reference that is to her, you know, private life or whatever her thoughts or whatever it is. And so I'll just think about. You know, lines that she has that, um, that I find attractive and I think are musical. So if I can hear them instantly with some kind of rhythm or, or melody, or I can hear her singing them, you know, and that it's not terribly cheesy or something like that. So, and I'll hook it around that. Me and her would always go to a piano, always the piano, and, uh, go around the piano together and, and I'll just bang on stuff. She would, she'd often say, I want something, uh, upbeat or, uh, always upbeat. Duffy always wants something upbeat. Dude, let's do an upbeat. And we always end up not doing upbeat, but, um, but we start, you know, start with something and a groove or whatever. Just try and find grooves and, and little hooks, um, with, with little notes from the piano and, and get her singing or get her singing in front of me as quick as it can. Standing next to me and the more she sings, I vibe off that and I go to places and I think, okay, we're there. And I, I'll, I'll tell her what I like, say, I like that little phrase there, that was really nice. We'll record everything on our phones and, and then you'll move on and say, okay, this is where it can go. And, you know, quite quickly, you, you, you pull together, you know, a groove, and then you start bashing it and saying, okay, is this any good? Is this worth pursuing? Or do you start again? You know, that's, that's one example, you know, with her, you know, with other people it would be completely different if it was, uh, for example, Jesse Buckley, when I, I made that record a few years ago with Jesse. Um, me and Jesse would sit in my kitchen every day for hours and hours and we'd, we'd, all we'd do is we'd sit there and drink tea for a start and talk. And we talk a lot and, um, we talk about a lot about what's going on in the world. Jesse wasn't interested really in, just in the same way as Duffy sitting at a piano and just jamming. It's not, not her thing. Yeah. She just talked and taught and the more we taught, we'd both write things down that we were talking about, and then we'd start going through books. And quite often we went through books just in my bookcase, uh, on, on the shelves. And we, we had a pattern of, we got into a process of grabbing books that one of us hadn't read. And opening them at random places and suggest Jesse would open something and say, what's this book? And I said, oh, I dunno, my wife got it. I, I can't remember. And she'd open it a paragraph and she'd read something out and she'd say, what, what does this mean? You know? And, and I'd say, I don't know. And we'd talk about it. And so we'd talk about what it meant and we'd grab lines from it or phrases, but then we'd, we'd, we'd write down what we. How we interpreted this completely out of context, paragraph from a, a narrative that we didn't know anything about. You know, and then we'd, we'd actually, the musical part of it would be the last thing we did. You know, it'd be almost be the last hour and I'd, I'd sort of grab a guitar and start, um, start jamming something. Yeah. And. Everything I did with Jesse was in a dadgad tuning on the guitar. So, um, because I wanted everything to be, to be in a, again, in an uncomfortable place for me, I'd never used Dadgad before. So I wanted it to be uncomfortable for me because I felt that Jesse was in an uncomfortable place as an actor, um, write writing songs, and I wanted to be in the same zone as her. And, um, so we, we'd, yeah, we'd spend the last hour just molding the, these things that we'd written down. And, um, these lines, these abstract lines and putting them together and, and that, that's how the song, and we, we wrote songs like that. We wrote songs like that. And we'd, we'd, we recorded it once with that record. We'd, so we'd, we'd do this in the last hour. We'd, we'd have one run through on our phone, recorded it on our phone, and that would be it. And, and, and she'd go away in the next week. She'd come back and we did it again. And we did that for kind of. I dunno, a few months. Like every, yeah, every week. Once a week. And then the record became basically that, I mean, I, I, I recorded, I put all these phone recordings into Pro Tools and I built pieces of music around the phone recordings. Even. I, I did tempo maps as well around Okay. Around, because obviously they were just jams in the kitchen. So I'd build a tempo map and add percussion along to that with the exact tempo that was going up and down all over the place. And, um. Very back to front way of making a record. But, but that said, that began with the songwriting. So it went from the, you know, quite an unusual process of songwriting, which I, which i, I really like. And then through to the, the recording on that day. And the recording that day was basically the blueprint for, for the, the ultimate recording and a production. Tell me about BB and the King, your radio show. With so much music that's being released literally every single day. How did you find music for that? It was good because, because it forced me every week to just find loads and loads of new music. And with my friend Mark Kingston, I did it with, he's just a good friend of mine who's an encyclopedia of great culture. We'd sort of pick a theme, like Mark would come up with a, a literary quote or theme or something. And uh, and that became our theme that we weeded music around and we weed new music into it. That's all. And it, and it gave me a good opportunity to just go. Just spend a few hours every week just searching for music within a theme, pre, you know, music that wasn't mine. Um, that fitted a theme which we'd invented. So it was quite cool. Quite a creative way of doing things. Yeah, it's good fun doing, doing things like that with radio. But again, like for me, there's so much music coming out. It's impossible to know everything and you're gonna miss so much. Yeah. But it's always nice to, to get the bits that you do get, you think, oh, that's really good that I'm so glad I've discovered X or seen this or gone down this rabbit hole. You know, I do wonder how people who do DJing for a living, whether it's in a club or on the radio, manage to find their music. 'cause it's gotta be an absolute nightmare these days. You know when when I bought records, there were maybe 200, 300 a week coming out. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. You know, now you're talking 20,000 records a week coming out. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. But it's just like everything, you know, there's, there's, uh, a hundred billion, trillion people on the planet and, you know, yeah, I know. Three, I'm fine. I'm yes, I'm fine with that. Yeah, I'm fine with that too, actually. I'm not, I'm not worried about all the people I never met. I'm just not gonna, you know, you know, I never saw the Beatles. I never will, you know, I'm not worried by it. You know, I wish, you know, Elvis, it would've been nice to have seen Elvis, I guess, but you know, it's not gonna kill me. You know? So it is the same with you Find, you find the things that, that you like, that mean something to you and, and, and, and hang onto them. What advice do you have for the, uh, budding songwriter, producer and artist? What advice could you give them starting out in this industry and making records? Um, what advice do I give them? Wow. Uh, I mean, do things you love. Don't expect it to be a living. I mean, currently don't expect a career. Don't, don't do it to be a career or successful. I find. I find those young people, I, I say young, you know, I'm talking about people, people who aren't that young, relatively young, but yeah. Young adults. Yeah. But I, I find them, I find it really boring when I meet people that are so career motivated to build a career. I, I'm just, I, I do a lot of work with other. Organizations that, that, um, within the music industry, if you like, and, and a lot of the people I work around, um, trying to help young musicians, the questions are always about that. Always about how do I, how do I become successful? How do I build my brand? How do I do that? How do I, how do I, um. How do I achieve? And I always think about success criteria. That, that, that's the phrase that, that comes in my brain a lot. You know, people's idea of success is always about building a career, having a salary, having money, have success in terms of number of streams, um, the amount of work you get, all that kind of stuff. And the truth is that. And that's great. And I'm really pleased for those people who, who want to work and are, are ambitious to work in that way, but I never have been. And, um, I, I kind of go off people as soon as they talk. In that way, I'm, I'm just not interested, you know, when I never thought I'd make a career out of, of, uh, making music. You know, I, I didn't think people, when I grew up, I didn't think the people I liked did. You know, I di I didn't think they were people making money, you know, um, again, we go back to factory records and stuff. I, I always thought of that as people would just like, probably had jobs or probably did something, but, you know, it was only me that really knew about them and, and, and their music meant everything to me and, and what they did. And, and I thought you'd be privileged if you could do, if you could do stuff like that. But I never thought it was something you made money out of. I just genuinely didn't and certainly enough to sort of sustain a career over a few decades. Yeah. So, um, so I never expected it. I still don't expect it. I've never felt entitled in that way, and I've never, I've never, and, and the, the, so my success criteria has always been to do something. I love something that I hope. The, um, that I, I've got a passion for and I follow with a passion and, and, you know, and the greatest joy to me is that it brings, you know, joy to other people, you know, in the way those all those great records have to me, you know, and when you find out that. You know, you know, when someone says something to you in that way, then you know, it sort of, it still blows you away every time. So, so my advice would be to do something you love, create, try and create something unique that you love and that other, and that might mean something to other people's lives. And, and if you do that once, I mean, I've done it, you know, several times, many times over and, you know, had music that that means something to people. But I, I still believe, like if I just made one three minute song. You know, a, a great song that people loved, you know, and we're playing, you know, 10 years later or something. I, I, I think that's such a great thing in life to, to have achieved that. I. Yeah, and it is about being consistent, isn't it? If you want to do that as a pursuit, if you're consistent about it, eventually people will find you and eventually you'll have all of those things that you maybe were asking about at the beginning. You know, really it's about just being creative and. Just sharing yourself with the world, you know? Yeah. I mean, when, when people ask that question, there's also now a whole network of people who will say, sure, this is exactly how to do it, and I'll tell you the framework and Yeah. And we'll lay out a, a, a PowerPoint presentation of, of how this can work for you in your life in response to the, you know, the current climate and stuff. And I just find that whole system incredibly boring. I just find it incredibly tedious. And it's just, won't it just, there's nothing creative about it. It's just so. Matter of fact, and, um, it's all or formulaic. It's formulaic. And formulas are boring. Mavericks, you know, in every area of life are the people that are interesting. You know, as soon as you become like everyone else, it's just, it's just what's the point? Are you allowed to talk about what you're up to now or what are you up to? Are you recording like some new stuff with people or on your own? You said you're touring? Uh, I've been tour. I'm in between these two tours. I'm starting to make another solo record for myself, and then there's, uh, which are, which I hope to be out, I don't know the end of next year or maybe the year after. But I'm in starting that process now, um, working on a bit of McCalmont and Butler, um, a reissue. So there's always little things going on. We, I've spent a year trying to get Universal to, um, uh, allow us to put the music that we made that they own. Which we don't have any say over, um, back in the shop essentially, so people can actually buy it right and enjoy it. And it's taken a year to get them to agree to it, which is mad maddening. But anyway, that's hope that's happening now, um, for next year so that people will be able to buy that record again, that music again, and so, and talk about it. Um, so there's always things like that that pre take up a lot of time, um, doing art artwork and, and, and. And stuff like that. Um, and there's things like Duffy, I, I, I make me shit. I know Duffy's in the process of, um, making new music and I dunno when that will come. And then the, the, the big one is always, I've no idea because you, you know, it could be next week there'd be some, somebody asked me to do something or, or I think of something or I dunno. And that's, that's, that's always. The way it's been for me, you just, you just don't know what's gonna happen, and that's sort of the thrill of it as well. And where can people find you if they want to follow what you're doing? Probably the, in the, in the modern world, it's, uh, Instagram is the thing I, and Facebook, you know, Bernard Butler official on Instagram and Facebook, uh, are sort of, you can keep up with things and I, I try and use that as the sort of the voice of letting you know what I'm up to and what I'm doing. Yeah. That's, that's it, Bernard. It's been a fascinating conversation and I hope you've enjoyed yourself. Yeah. Lovely, thanks. So I don't often get to talk about production processes really, because often it's about a particular project and normally what, how you actually do things and think about things in a studio context is, is sort of. Bypass a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the reasons for the podcast actually, is designed really to get people thinking about what they're doing and you know, in a world that has become so sterile in its application to make music. I, I want to get people thinking about how to do things differently. You can almost tell these days how records are made. If you listen to them, you can go, oh yeah, this is made by these processes. Mm-hmm. And the thing that I always loved when I started working in the studio is every person had a different way of doing the same things. Yeah. That's how I learned how to do things. And, and that's kind of been lost a little bit because the big recording studios aren't there. The career path, if you like, you know, tape up engineer, producer, that's kind of disappeared a lot and it's been overtaken by social media or other avenues and, and for me, I think it's really important that people like yourselves and other people that come on the podcast are allowed to. Rejuvenate and, and hopefully invigorate people into thinking about how to make records in a different way. Yeah, I think that, yeah, the, the, the key to it is that things are homogenized, um, and made to feel like here's the, here's how to get that great pop vocal sound as heard on Sabrina or whatever. And you see a lot of that on social media and, and it's selling plugins and stuff, but the thing that always. I always think about is that how few times I've been in a studio watching another producer and I, I often think I don't really know how anybody does stuff. You know? I, I don't really, yeah. I don't know how other people work really. I mean, obviously when I was younger, Eng and a certain, occasionally engineers. That's why now I love just an engineer. You are good engineer and you know your studio. Brilliant. I'm gonna sit over there, have a cup of tea and tell me when you're ready. Yeah. 'cause it's, 'cause it's really nice to watch people do their job in that way. But, but, um, really, I don't know how producers work. And, um, so, and that's quite good because I think you end up hopefully doing your own thing and, you know, if someone punches you, someone punches you, you know, that's fine. If you get, if you get to that, you know, that's, that's it. But at least you've, you've been yourself, you know, and you've, as I said, you know, you've, you've brought yourself to the, to the picture rather than. You know, a, um, a Facebook post. Bernard, it's been fantastic talking with you. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Pleasure. Thank you for listening. And be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all our other episodes. And just before you go, let me point you to the Sound on Sound slash podcasts website page where you can explore what's playing on our other channels. This has been a mixed bus production by me, Kevin Paul, for sound on sound.