Producer Ben Hillier has overseen albums by a unprecedented vary of artists together with Elbow, Blur, Nadine Shah and at least three by Depeche Mode. Right here he tells Basic Pop how tensions within the studio – and even a band member leaving – can assist the inventive course of… By Andy Jones
After finishing the distinguished Tonmeister course at Surrey College – one which has delivered many a high document producer – Ben Hillier landed a job with the manufacturing duo of Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne.
With them, he quickly discovered the humanities of engineering and remixing and spent the remainder of the 90s working with the greats of the manufacturing world (suppose Flood, Stephen Road, Alan Moulder amongst many others) earlier than being promoted to the function of producer on Elbow’s debut album…
“My first correct album was Asleep In The Again,” he says. “It was somewhat bizarre as Steve had already produced the album with Elbow after they had been with EMI, however the document firm didn’t launch it and ultimately dropped the band.
“Then Elbow had been picked up by V2 and needed to make the document once more, however by this level they’d moved on and needed to do one thing totally different so solely half the songs that had been on the unique had been on the brand new model.”
Ben helped the band re-record some songs and produced the remainder of the tracks with critically-acclaimed outcomes, and despite the fact that it will be some years earlier than the band broke by way of on a serious scale, Ben may inform they ultimately would.
“They all the time had the ambition and the expertise,” he says. “They’re such a stunning bunch and I actually loved making that document with them, I’m actually pleased with it. It’s extra left-field than their newer stuff nevertheless it’s nonetheless nice.”
As his profession progressed Ben embraced extra diversified and difficult initiatives, one probably awkward one being Blur’s Suppose Tank because the band’s Graham Coxon left throughout the course of. “They didn’t have a guitarist which made it fascinating,” he says.
“Damon [Albarn] then performed a lot of the guitar, Alex [James] performed somewhat bit and it was extraordinarily inventive and actually good enjoyable despite the fact that they had been a band in disaster. Graham is a extremely good mate of mine and I’ve executed 4 solo data with him so it was a wierd expertise in that sense, nevertheless it meant that Damon was actually up for attempting a great deal of stuff.
“I used to be there as they wrote the songs and we kind of drew all of it collectively. All the recordings just about ended up on the document and we didn’t return and re-record something as that was the type of really feel we needed – kind of scratchy and thrown collectively.”
Recording Mode
Of all of the artists that Ben has labored with, Depeche Mode have to be an enormous spotlight. This can be a band who typically modified their producers album by album so Ben have to be proud to have been requested to come back again to supply a hat-trick of recordings: Enjoying The Angel, Sounds Of The Universe and Delta Machine.
“I like working with Depeche,” he confirms. “I actually do, and they’re very, superb. That’s the explanation they’ve been going so lengthy: they’re astonishingly good at what they do. I believe Daniel Miller initially launched us and steered me as a producer.
“They’d executed the earlier album, Exciter, with Mark Bell who was superior however I believe they needed to maneuver away from the extra techie strategy with a number of laptops which is what Mark did effectively. So I had a gathering with them and we simply obtained on very well in order that they had been like ‘proper let’s do it!’.”
“They’re fairly a difficult band to document due to their setup,” Ben continues. “You type of must construct a studio for them as a result of most studios are set as much as document acoustic or dwell devices and the management rooms are fairly small whereas all of them have to be within the management room on a regular basis.
“So on all of the data I did with them we constructed a management room within the bigger dwell room of the studio we had been working in so we may have all of the synths and every part arrange within the one place.
“They’re very ready and their concepts of demos are totally recorded and realised songs,” he provides. “It’s wonderful nevertheless it doesn’t go away you loads of area to maneuver stuff round, so if you wish to change the route of a track it’s important to fully pull it aside and rebuild it.
“It’s fairly irritating as you begin off with this demo that sounds wonderful after which whenever you pull it aside it inevitably sounds worse till you construct it up once more.
“The extra I labored with them, the extra that Martin [Gore] particularly would belief me and keep in mind that we’d in all probability wish to rebuild the songs so would go away some area for me to do this, which was nice.”
Which of the three Depeche albums does Ben stay most pleased with?
“I actually loved Delta Machine, that felt actually nice,” he replies. “Martin and I had been working with one another higher than earlier than and Martin and Dave [Gahan] had been in an amazing area personally.
“Each time we’d begin a track I used to be getting Dave to do a complete new set of vocal takes and work on different stuff and that drove him mad by the top of it, however I’m actually pleased with the vocals on that document and I hope that Dave is, too.
“They had been realised to a degree that I don’t suppose we achieved on the primary two data, not that they had been dangerous in any means, it’s simply that Dave is such an amazing singer that I simply needed to get the very best efficiency that I may.”
There are, in fact, well-documented tensions between Gore and Gahan on current albums over what number of of every’s songs are used. Did Ben see any of those tensions floor?
“There was nothing horrible,” he recollects. “It undoubtedly got here into the studio and it’s one thing that I may see, and with all of the expertise of working with so many bands I knew that it was one thing that I must confront head on.
“You don’t wish to go away one thing like that to fester, it’s important to discuss it, which I used to be fairly comfortable to do with each of them.
“I’m very a lot an album producer and all the time a lot happier once I can get my enamel into a group of songs and discover that they swimsuit one another very well so you might be constructing a illustration of a band’s musical panorama. From my viewpoint it’s all in regards to the album.”
