In 2012 Prog investigated the background of Producers – later known as The Trevor Horn Band – after Yes collaborator Horn, his right-hand man Stephen Lipson, 10cc’s Lol Creme and Rick Wakeman drummer Ash Soan agreed after five years that their debut album was ready to release.
They’re a quartet whose combined hits, in terms of released they’ve written, played on or produced, tally up around the 200 mark. You can see how they’ve achieved that with their combined four-decade history.
Trevor Horn is a former member of Buggles and Yes, and producer of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ABC, Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Simple Minds and Seal. In 10cc, Lol Creme charted in the 70s with albums such as Original Soundtrack and How Dare You, and the number-one hit Rubber Bullets in 1972. In the 80s, as one half of Godley & Creme, he was back in the charts and also directing videos for The Police, Duran Duran, Kate Bush and Yes.
Steve Lipson was Horn’s right-hand man at the ZTT label, who engineered and/or produced the likes of Paul McCartney’s Flowers In The Dirt and Simple Minds’ Real Life. Ash Soan has drummed for Rick Wakeman, Adele, Cee Lo Green, Del Amitri and Squeeze among many, many others.
Calling themselves simply Producers, the band are poised to release their debut album Made In Basing Street – named after ZTT’s famous HQ in West London. It’s multi-layered, meticulously crafted, melodic prog pop, with all the crafty time signatures, intricate musicianship, precise harmonies, zany guitar solos and studio pyrotechnics. It’s everything you’d expect from people involved in dazzling and daring records including 10cc’s Sheet Music, Yes’ 90125, Propaganda’s A Secret Wish and Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome.
Trevor Horn
I’ve no idea if radio will play the album or not. I just wanted to see if we could write an album. We did one gig in London in 2006, and then we all went into Hookend Manor studio [in Oxfordshire], which I own. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if we wrote and recorded something – because being a producer is quite different to songwriting.
It was never going to be a solo album. I used to dream about making a Trevor Horn solo album when I was 19, and like a lot of people I dreamed of playing everything myself. But now it doesn’t interest me because I like playing with other people. I’ve always tried to be the worst musician in whatever band I’m in – you’ll get better if you play with better people. I’ve played with some greats over the years. Ash is one of them and Geoff Downes, who plays keyboards on the Producers album, is another.
Seeing Pink Floyd playing in Blackpool in 1969, when I was 19, was a life-changing experience. I was like, “There are only four instruments; but, man, you can do all that with them!” That’s what was exciting about prog rock – when I first heard Yes, I was knocked out. I was 20, living in Margate and playing in a band called The Canterbury Tales. We went down to a pub and took some LSD, and this band were on playing an amazing song. It was Yes’ I’ve Seen All Good People. The next day I bought The Yes Album.
I still love Close To The Edge, especially the title track. It’s a very beautiful and well-constructed piece of music. You have to be a pretty fanatical muso to get that together – it’s no joke playing that. The Producers were messing around once, and we started doing Yours Is No Disgrace, but once we got past the intro…!
Most of our album was done in two weeks, five years ago – it’s taken us this long to agree that it’s finished. It’s been therapy for me; it’s probably my Blood On The Tracks.
We just did a little tour of universities. I really enjoyed it. One of the hardest things about being a producer is trying to be realistic: things are never as good or as bad as you think they are. You need to just get on with it and do it. Maybe that accounts for the five years between recording the album and releasing it!
I’m used to things being polished and perfect in the studio, but it’s great to play live and see what funny things can happen as you go off in all sorts of directions. Especially when you’re with musicians who can follow you. They might look at you funny for a second – like when we did a medley and went from Space Oddity to Highway 61 Revisited to Everybody Wants To Rule The World. You can do that when you’re with fluent players who know lots of songs.
We even do 10cc’s The Dean And I live now – that song’s got more chords per square inch than any other! But it’s actually easier to play something like that than a song with one chord, like The Beatles’ Get Back. When there’s just one chord you have to sell it much harder. When you’ve got a good drummer you lock in; it’s like floating. Every time I hear great music it fills me with joy – I laugh from joy.
I guess this album could have been a triple, with lots of complex song suites and lengthy instrumental pieces. We could have jammed all over the place. But you have to be careful; rock jamming can get a bit much. There are probably prog people out there willing me to go in that direction, but you’ve got to do what you want to do. I didn’t really want the Producers to be a prog band; but we do have two really good guitar players in Steve and Lol.
Did you know Lol and I had a number-one single in Greece, called Pass The Flame, for the Olympics in 2004, and it was written in 11/8 time? It’s funny because in the middle of this mad rhythm, Lol, in a show of total bravado, launches into a guitar solo. He’s a one-off, that’s for sure. But it’s Steve, if anyone, who holds the whip-hand in the studio. He’s the most vocal.
I guess it’s weird to have a group of musicians and producers with so much past. There aren’t many about like us. And we’re only just finding out that we’ve got to do all the other stuff that artists have to do, like talk shite for hours!
Ash Soan
I usually play four or five-minute pop songs, so playing with Rick Wakeman’s band, as I did recently, was a major challenge. The first track I had to play was Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, which is 20 minutes long. That’s real prog – changing time signatures, and loads of different stuff within one piece.
To me, the drumming Goliaths of that scene would have to be Bill Bruford and Alan White. There’s a resurgence of that kind of prog playing and writing, with Dream Theater and Gavin Harrison with Porcupine Tree. It’s a new version of prog.
For the Producers album, we just played and had fun – and that’s the true spirit of prog. Prog isn’t po-faced! It’s about being indulgent, but not in a pompous way – more like, ‘Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?’
It was an excuse to use up some bits I’ve had lying around, like the chords for Man On The Moon, which I’ve had for 30-odd years
Lol Creme
Without being too sickly about it, being in the band has meant working with my heroes. I was 15 in 1985; I distinctly remember Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax, and now I’m in a band with the guy! It’s weird. The same goes for Lol and 10cc – when we do Rubber Bullets live he still hits the same high notes and sings in the key he did when he was 25, which is unbelievable.
We’ve had great reactions to our songs; comments like, “Thank you for putting music out like this in this day and age,” and, “In a sea of mediocrity, people are daring to play music.” I’d classify it as prog pop – the sum total of Yes’ 90125, 10cc’s Sheet Music and Propaganda’s A Secret Wish. It’s concise three-minute songs with a lot of detail. I also think the lyrics were an opportunity for Trevor to get things off his chest. It’s incredible how therapeutic music can be.
Lol Creme
Some of the album was really just an excuse to use up some bits I’ve had lying around for a while, like the chords for Man On The Moon, which I’ve had for 30-odd years! The riff for Freeway was the opening part of the riff on my Hotlegs track Suite F.A. [from 1971].
When we began work five years ago it was very raw; but with Trevor being the way he is, it’s had lots of noodling, and that very Trevor kind of production. I think Steve Lipson misses the rawness of the original recordings. He’s an amazing guitarist, inspired by Dave Gilmour more than anyone; a very naturally gifted and technical musician.
Ash is the reason we’re all playing together. He’s an inspirational live drummer. I worked with Kevin Godley so I’ve been spoilt, but when you’re with a fantastic drummer it makes you want to play more. I used to mess around in a rehearsal room in LA once a week with Stewart Copeland – real primal scream type therapy sessions; just one big racket, with him thumping and crashing and me banging on my guitar.
Lol is a dog – everyone likes him and he gets on with everyone
Stephen Lipson
We’re all fans of each other. Trevor’s an amazing musician and a brilliant bass player. Me and Kev first met him when we were in New York doing an edit for The Police’s Synchronicity video and he was out there producing Foreigner. He said he really liked 10cc and that we’d been a big influence on him wanting to be a producer.
Me and Trevor definitely share a sensibility. We’re always going for fresh sounds and looking to make song structures a bit more interesting. I’ve always treated each song as a lab experiment – “I’ve done that track, now I want to come up with something completely different.” Trevor uses the phrase “looking for gags,” which is certainly true of me and Kev – we were always looking for gags. And that’s what we’re doing in the Producers.
Stephen Lipson
A journalist recently asked a weird question: “What animal would everyone in the Producers be?” It took me ages, but I said Trevor is a lion because he’d like to be king of the jungle. I’m an elephant because I do all the heavy lifting. Lol is a dog because everyone likes him and he gets on with everyone. And Ash is an owl – wise and quiet.
I started engineering when I was 22, with a group called Sniff ‘n’ The Tears. After that I worked for Paul McCartney, the Stones, Gerry Rafferty; loads of people. Then I heard Trevor was looking for an engineer. I said, “I don’t want to fucking work with Trevor Horn!” I was bitter that he was doing so well. But eventually I said, “Oh, alright” – because I needed the money.
And within a few weeks he and I, plus J.J. Jeczalik and Andy Richards, were the band who played the music on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax. Then we did Two Tribes and Welcome To The Pleasuredome. I thought, ‘Why would I ever want to leave this?’
Some of that Frankie album was prog-ish, and so was Propaganda’s A Secret Wish, which I co-produced with Trevor. We even had Yes’ Steve Howe on one of the tracks.
It feels like what we’re doing is using all our life experiences in the Producers, and it’s coming out in a wash of fun. It’s a culmination of everything we’ve learned.
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