Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Chris Birkett: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1548

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In this 1548th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with musician Chris Birkett about his life in music, recording and producing Sinéad O’Connor’s iconic “Nothing Compares 2 U,” collaborting with other A-list artists like Talking Heads, Dexys Midnight Runners, Alison Moyet, The Pogues, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Quincy Jones, Mel Brooks and Steve Earle and recording his own music. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

You can remix this song if you like, Chris. Welcome to episode 1548 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada.

Learn how to plan, invest and live smarter. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past, and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic debut is Chris Burkett. Burkett, say your last name Chris. Burkett. Yeah, but Canadians say Burkett, which I kind name Chris. Burkett. Burkett.

Yeah, but Canadians say Burkett, which I kind of like because it sounds like French. We Canadians get it wrong all the time. Burkett. Burkett's good, yeah, yeah, it's cool. Both are good. What a pleasure to meet you Chris. The pleasure is mutual.

All right, now a lot of ground I want to cover. Now, who is that? Oh, that's a reminder that you have an interview with me. Stevie Wonder. I was going to say, you turned off your ringer and you said you don't want to get a call during this chat. And I said, it depends who's calling. I had visions of Stevie Wonder or Elton John, one of these big, big musicians

giving you a call. I'm like, put them on speakerphone. Let's talk to them. Yeah. Well, Elton might call me during the interview, but we'll we'll go to voicemail. Elton's I can tell you another show I produce Mary Jo Eustis has a show called senior bitches and she had David Furnish on her show. So I was zoom in with David and Elton was like in the next room. So I zoomed with someone who was really close to Elton.

That's as close as I've got. Have you met Elton John? No, I didn't have the good fortune to meet him. Our paths never quite crossed, but I know a lot of people that work with him, a lot of the musicians that played on his records and all that stuff. I met all those people. I think Gus Dudgeon produced most of his stuff and I used to work with Gus down at Tapestry Studios in London. Okay, so let's find out a little of your origin story and hit some, you know, hot spots along the way. And I have new music from you, which I'm excited to play and discuss here.

But we take us back like music. And I was reading this in your bio, Chris, I don't want you to think I've been doing some hardcore investigative research, but music's been your salvation since the age of eight. So what happened at eight years old eight years young? I should say that you figured out that the guitar Could provide an escape from the poverty and violence of your hometown Well, actually it was being into I've also had rhythm in me

I'm actually a natural-born drummer and so I was when I was a kid, you know, like even younger than eight I was in the Sea Cad ex band playing military snare drum and I was pretty good I mean they showed me a rhythm on pick it up straight away and the other guys would all be like Studying it for three weeks, you know, I just had it's just like that So I obviously had that thing but when I was about eight years old I just I was just dying to get into a melodic thing, you know so music and the melody of music. And I had because I came from a poor, very poor family.

My mother and father split when I was four. And my sister just grew up on her own, basically, with a wicked step monster looking after us. And, you know, that kind of story, you know, a lot of people have that background, unfortunately, but I was like, I was determined to play music and I, of course, I couldn't afford an instrument so I looked around in some garbage, found some wood and some nails and stuff and I actually made my first, very first instrument and I managed to get scrounged some banjo strings off somebody and it kind of sounded like a koto, you know, it was a kind of sound.

Yeah. and it kind of sounded like a koto you know it was a kind of sound but it was a way of making music and that went on from there when I was 12 I saved up every penny I could find and got my first proper guitar which is a friend of Stratocaster copy it's called a top 20 from Japan at the time and it was a really cheap you know probably like you know equivalent about 50, you know, probably like, you know, equivalent about 50 bucks, you know, on like an online magazine thing. I purchased it and that was but that was my first real guitar and then I formed a band and in my local farm where I lived grew up and that band's we played like Led Zeppelin and but anyway, my main thing about the guitar is most of them my peers most of the people I grew up with Ended up doing time in prison and I'll give you an example I was I was in my room learning this solo for highway star from Deep Purple chorus and

And my friends are out robbing a Chinese restaurant, which they actually got caught doing and they ended up, you know Getting punished for that and I missed that Episode because I was playing I was learning some music and that's that's the kind of story in my life has been many Instances where it's really kind of you know, it's just saved me being in love with my guitar So this is a suburb of London, right? Yeah, it's all farm, bro So what's going on there that you've got such poverty and violence going on and just just help me out as a guy who's? You know never been there. Well, it's kind of I grew up in a place called Holy Lane estate and it's kind of a so you could you'd call it an affordable housing place in Canada

We call it council house estate and it's all like subsidized housing. Yeah kind of is really cheap brands, you know There's but there's they're all broken families, you know, they're all single moms and you know That sort of stuff and a lot of it wasn't so many drugs in those days because that wasn't really didn't really kick in till later But it was a lot of violence. You couldn't really walk around But it was a lot of violence. You couldn't really walk around safely in the evening, you know, without being attacked by somebody. So there's another reason why I kind of stayed in a lot rather than going out and getting into trouble, you know. Well, music to the rescue. Yeah, exactly. So it's safe, you know, as I say on my bio, but also this album that I've just put out, which is called She's My Guitar, as you know, it's all about that, the love affair with my instrument.

So we're going to visit the present tense for a moment and then go back. Yeah. Because She's My Guitar, this is basically a love letter to that guitar that saved your life. Yep. Is it? Title track. Let's hear a little bit of this. Yeah. Looking at her body every night, so clear and so bright, she treats me right. Running my fingers through her strings, I know that everything would be alright. All those secret curvy corners

Puts my whole life into order My guitar, she sings to me so true I can hear sweet melodies from you So where did this love song to your guitar come from? Ah, that's a good question. I was contacted by a friend, a songwriter friend, Diane Baker Thornley, she lives in Toronto, and she asked me if I'd be interested to participate in the acoustic guitar project. It's an international project where they take this guitar, specific guitars, I think it's a Martin, it's a really nice acoustic guitar,

they take it to lots of cities in the world. And they get a songwriter from that city to write a song on that guitar. So she brought it to my home in Toronto. I live downtown Toronto, Queens Key. And I got to- You should have biked here. Right on the bike, waterfront trail. Yeah, I could have done it.

Come on, Chris. Yeah, well, I actually thought this was a Zoom meeting. So I was hanging around- Who told you that? That is my stupidity. I didn't read the Eriks email properly. On that note though, because we're going to get back to She's My Guitar, but then I really want to go through your history in music because, I mean,

you know where I'm going to want to go and I got places I got to visit because you've done some fascinating stuff and then I'm going to close with this new album again. But when you're doing these promotional chats promotional chats and stuff because of course you want people to know about She's My Guitar which is your fourth solo album and of course a collection of guitar inspired songs and this is the title track we're listening to right now do you care if it's in person or zoom or you just want to get the word out like do you have a personal preference to sit down in the

same space and be eye-to-eye with somebody or you're like I'll just zoom this in. I have to tell you this is one of my favorite interviews so far because they this is actually in person. I don't I'm kind of tired of zoom and it all came about through you know because of the COVID nonsense you know we had to go through and people become very isolated and I think it's that's caused a lot of mental health problems and I think we need to get back in and talk to each other person to person again. So it's a real pleasure for me to do this. And I'm happy to be talking to you regardless, but I got to tell you the enthusiasm level

I have knowing that at my side door, Chris Burkett's going to be knocking at my side door. He's going to be down here. You literally brought a guitar. We're going to be in the same space. I can read your body language. I can look into your eyes. I can get lost in your eyes.

Shout out to Debbie Gibson. Like to me, that enthusiasm, I can't get that from a Zoom. And I'm not saying I won't do any Zooms, because of course you can just go to the archives and say, hey, you Zoomed with this person, you Zoomed with that. But there are some Zooms. But my strong preference is to get you, Chris, in the basement and let's have a one-on-one chat.

I'm sick of Zooms. Yeah, me too. I totally agree with you. I think we have to move on from that and get back into collaboration. The same with music. You know, there's one of the problems with the music business right now, or the creative side of the music business is that people don't actually work in teams very often. There's so many people work in isolation. And you're not getting that team spirit anymore that you used to get when you get four or five people together in the same room.

You get this, I mean, one of my bands, my favorite bands, it was from the 70s that I was in was Omaha Sheriff. And we were based, we were kind of like a yes sound alike remember the pro rock band Yes, and we were signed by Tony Visconti who's David Bowie's producer. Yeah in Moody Blues Yeah, that's right and Mark Bolan and some other great people absolutely We we had the good fortune to be able to live down in Devon in West England For a couple years and just be together live together eat together and Rehearse constantly and that's why our albums are so so great because we had that

Interaction for five musicians that is working and Tony was gone. He played bass on our first album No, herbie flowers just passed away. Yeah Yeah, do you have any stories about herbie flowers? Did you? Know I know I know we played on a lot of yeah, why the t-rex stuff and that's right So I didn't I never met mark Bowden now, unfortunately he died by the time I met Tony But you know, I mean met Pino Palladino and some other really, you know monster musicians in my time I ran a studio called tapestry studios in London and for some years and I got to work with I the creme de la creme of the UK music industry, you know

Well, we're gonna talk about some of those names the creme de la creme as you say one more song here The creme de la creme as you say one more song here And then we'll play a game of why is Mike playing this song Heart's for the stray, keeping her when they go I went away just when you, you need me so You won't regret, I've come back begging you Won't you forget Welcome love, we once knew Open up your eyes, then you realize Here I stand with my everlasting love

Need you by my side. Sing along. Who can resist? Do I even want to talk to somebody who can resist singing along? You should be singing along. Why am I playing Love Affair, Everlasting Love? Well, how much time we got? I could tell you the story. We'll make time for this story.

Okay, right. So basically I was living as a homeless musician in London. I ran away from home at 19 and I got a job in a gas station so I could find a place to live and Two o'clock in the morning this guy came in and said you Chris Burkett the guitarist. Yeah, he said we're going to Germany for 18 months tour so We need a guitarist John the King. Yeah, I'd love to come so So I thought it was like, you know, rehearsing and all that stuff. I said, when are we going? He said, tomorrow morning at seven o'clock. So I had to like make an instant decision whether to take this job or not.

And of course I decided to. And then we became the best soul band in Germany. Got to play with, I got to play guitar for Rufus Thomas, Ann Peebles, Gene Knight, King Freud., yeah all Stax artists actually and that was like that was real education for me into soul music but when I came back to London after the tour I was again looking for work so I went into the Melody Maker magazine which is where the classified music ads were in those days and I saw an ad for named a top band looking for a guitar player so I called them up and they arranged an audition and it turned out to be Love Affair so so I they gave me the job and I got to I shot straight from like you

know homeless musician sleeping under hedges in London you were in Love Affair yeah yeah I joined the band yeah we toured for about two years we just had the hit with everlasting love I wasn't in the band. Yeah, we toured for about two years. We just had the hit with Everlasting Love. I wasn't in the band when that was a hit. I'm still singing along to Everlasting Love in 2024. Oh, it's a classic song, you know, it's very well put together actually. So it's really, it's got really nice chord changes. So this is before Omaha Sheriff. Yeah, yeah. So what happened at the bass player with Love Affair at the time I got sort of fed up with just doing playing everlasting love

I've got but I've got a really interesting story actually, which is This is the place listen, this is the home of interesting stories. Yeah, so he's gonna like this one So we were making so much money because we were like a successful pop band right and we're touring England Island Wales Scotland all that stuff right constantly The our agents are we you guys we got to get you out of the country for three months This year because otherwise you're gonna hit super tax and you're gonna pay a fortune, right? So he said I'm gonna book you a club in Guernsey Which is a tax-exiled country in between it's a little island in between England and France

There's two islands Guernsey and Jersey So he booked us in this big massive club and he said I can't have you'd sitting around doing nothing You're gonna play the residency you're gonna be playing every night sort of thing So anyway, the second night literally I was on stage playing Everlasting love you know blah blah blah all that still in Rainbow Valley and all other hits And I looked down in front of me and as you know, what's like on stage you've got the bright lights in your face you can't quite see the audience so I put a shield in my eyes and look down I thought that looks like Jimmy Page you know it can't be it looks like Robert Plant and

yeah so on John Bonham you know John Paul Jones so I thought my god Led Zeffra here what the hell are they doing here so I got a camera stage and I went down to introduce myself yeah we are not worthy, you know from Waynes world Yeah, it was and it turned out to let's say within I said, what are you guys doing in a clubbing currency? So we got to stay here for three months of the tanks So so they said would you would you mind if we come out and jam with you? So I got to jam with Led Zeffelin for three months. That's unbelievable.

And you got to keep some of your hard earned money, at least more of it. Yeah, is. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, as we weren't personally making all that much money, it was our management that were coining in really. So they got to keep more of your hard earned money. It's the typical music biz story. I can't talk.

I can't talk about you finding loopholes in the tax system over there without just letting people know. Now this is not a tax podcast, but letting people know there's a great podcast called the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James. And basically it'll help give you tips on how you can keep more of your hard earned money, how you can invest it properly and wisely. So I urge all listeners to subscribe to the Advantage to Invest Your Podcast from Raymond James Canada hosted by Chris Cooksey, another Chris. Chris, how come you're playing guitar with

these bands when you're the natural born drummer? Well, as I mentioned earlier, drumming was in my nature and I played drums and percussion a lot on a lot of the records I produce now. But guitar was, you know, I play guitar like a drum. I play it very rhythmic, you know, so it's. It's kind of a I prefer it because you have the concept and the possibility of harmonic construction, which you don't have drums. Right. possibility of harmonic construction, which you don't have drums, right? Right. You know, the old drummer jokes, you know, we've got four musicians, musicians in the band and one drummer, you know.

But I mean, drummers, good drummers are just super high level musicians anyway. It's not it's not a question of status. Who's the best drummer you've ever seen? Well, I work with Vinny Caliuta, Sting's drummer, because I did a tour with Sting and Peter Gabriel. So you're friendly with Sting, right? Yeah, well, I sat in a tour bus with him for quite a long time, yeah.

I had this, okay, I'll tell you a little inside here. Look, this is the home of Real Talk, but I had an opportunity to get Sting, Gordon on Toronto Mic'd, but this one would be via Zoom. No, he wasn't kind of the bass man, but that's fine. I'll do that once in a while. But the caveat was I couldn't ask him about the police. This was the caveat. And I mean, you're friendly with him, so you might bring some natural bias to this. But I personally

didn't think that was fair to say, Hey, you can talk to this gentleman, but you can't ask him about that. You know, legendary band he was a part of for, you know, I just felt like I'd have questions about, for example, the police picnic, which was a part of. I just felt like I'd have questions about, for example, the police picnic, which was a big events here in Toronto, the Gary's would put on, or when they played the horseshoe tavern to nine people before Roxanne broke.

These are things, some questions I would need to ask if I had Gordon Sumner on Zoom. And just to agree beforehand that I would not ask any questions of the police, it turned me off to a point I politely passed am I an idiot am I the idiot because this is how I feel and I you know I live of that decision but I mean if you said to me Mike I'm gonna come on your show but don't ask me any questions about Sinead O'Connor and nothing compares to you I would say Chris that's rather uncool of you. Yeah, well the

To give you example, I as you know, I've produced the last co-produced the last five Buffy St. Marie albums and She was involved in a controversy last year and which is kind of still going on a bit, you know about being a real Indigenous person etc. Right. I I got my own views on that but I Buffy actually phoned me before this all came out into the press and She she said Please don't talk about this particular thing because you don't really have the information So I got that you know when it when it broke on the CBC thing. Yeah, the fifth estate

Yeah, I got I was getting phone calls from all over the place. People were calling me. I had to just say, I'm sorry, I can talk about anything else, but I cannot talk about this particular situation. So I know, I know the feeling. Yeah, but that's them. They're inbounding to you sort of like if you were going out and doing things like here, let's do that now. So cause I'm actually thinking this is a good time and we'll close with Sinead because I got to play a bit of the song and talk to you about it because your, your role in music history is quite extraordinary there. But can we just maybe drop some names and again I don't know what you're willing to say on the record but yeah please tell us your role with you know what I call Buffy St. Marie's comeback. Well the comeback

started in 1992 and she was signed to N- sign records, which is a chrysalis group right and She signed by Nigel the late great Nigel Grange. It was a he is him that discovered Sinead O'Connor and the water boys and Bob Geldof. He's a big guy. He's very talented music a true music lover So Nigel phoned me up one day because I was doing I was in house producer for Ensign at the time. And he said, Hey, Chris, guess what? I've just signed a legend and I want you to produce her.

And I said, Wow, who's that? He said, Buffy St. Marie. And I said, Who's that? Because I didn't know who she was. She's big in America. Yeah, well, the big one would be I guess love lifts us up where we belong I think she's and again, we'll get into this but she's joke joke, right? She didn't yeah, she wrote it I guess but she's still I saw this the other day as somebody took a photo where she's still being

Recognized as the first indigenous person to win an Oscar. So we'll get to that in a minute Yeah, but yeah, you didn't know who it was because Unknown Soldier, right? That was the big universal. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Yeah, she is. Yeah, I've got an interesting story about that. She actually she they she sold that song. Well, they bought it off for something like 10 bucks, you know, years ago. And then she this is a typical example of music business nonsense, you know, she had to buy the rights back because she had no rights on the song and it had been done by Donovan as well. He covered it and she had to buy it back for twenty five thousand. You know,

they gave her ten bucks for and she had to buy her own song back for twenty five thousand dollars. That's amazing, isn't it? Well, this industry of yours might don't get me started on that, but universal soldier was written at a coffee house here in York fields. It was around from 1960 to 65 called the Purple Onion. And I did have a founder of the Purple Onion on this program to talk about it. But so Buffy, you're producing Buffy in this this comeback in the early 90s that she had. Yeah, so what so basically what happened?

I should phone me and said told me about it. It's a common meter. She's coming she lives in Hawaii, so she flew over to London to meet me and She's bit jet lagged and stuff, but we got on really well and she said Look Chris, I don't want us to keep flying backwards and forwards from London to Hawaii You know with those because it takes four days to get over the jet lag, right? She said let's work out a way we can start this album Using CompuServe which is the pre web thing right it's before though the web really kicked in the worldwide Well, it's true. CompuServe has done on everything was done on modem. So she works, you know

Engineered that she had a really smart engineer boyfriend at the time called Roger Jacobs and he worked out a way to get her music keyboard files because most the hold of that all that first album was based on keyboard compositions he got those files into the modem format and it's called MIDI musical instrument digital interface yeah and he got he sent them over over through CompiServe and I downloaded them in London Into my system and all I had to do is mirror her keyboard setup So she's using stuff like proteus at those days, you know in the rolling d50 and was you know? DX7 Yamaha DX7 what stuff they all dab, you know 80s keyboards and 90s

So so once I down mirrored her system in my studio in London I just had to download everything and there I had all the Basic songs the basic arrangement for the songs down on to and I recorded it on 24 track 2 inch tape and a log tape and then the only thing then I had to I had to pull the tapes in a flight case to go and do the vocals. And we just, she didn't have a 24 track machine in her home studio. So we went to Walter Becker's studio,

Steely Dan's studio in Maui. And got to meet Walter and it was really cool. And we recorded all the vocals and other stuff like drums, real drums and stuff. And so that was the first album called Coincidence and Likely Stories. And then after that technology moved on quite a bit.

I was able to take sound files over on USB keys and hard drives and that sort of stuff. It was different after that. And I did it, I've been to backwards and forwards 20 times to Hawaii to work with Buffy on and off. How many albums did you work with Buffy on? The fifth album came out in 2017. It's called Medicine Songs.

Of course. That was the last one. I've done some other stuff with her for movies and stuff since then, which involved going over there again. But yeah, that was the Medicine Songs was the fifth one. I think we got another Juno for that. She's got, we've got like four Junos, a Polaris Prize. I even got a Canadian Screen Award, which I proudly

have on my wall, for best sound on her recent documentary. Amazing. But now I need to ask you the tough question and see if you tap out of this one, my friend. But what are your thoughts? The Fifth Estate, and I'll speak for myself, the only person I can speak for, is they put, what I saw, and I should caveat for this, is what a Buffy fan I was. I used to watch her on Sesame Street when I was a kid. I used to joke on the show, she was my second mother.

Love, Buffy. But I thought the evidence presented was rather compelling, and it is most likely that Buffy St. Marie, whose birth name I believe was Beverly, was an American who had really no interaction with indigenous culture until she was, I think, 19 or 20. And then. Miss led us that she was part of a 60s scoop and born in to an indigenous family in Canada here. And I was quite I felt quite

deceived by Buffy St. Marie but I don't think anyone cares what I think I think people would want to hear what you somebody who was very close to Buffy thinks about this controversy well obviously the intense research that went into all that I don't want to argue about any of that but all I will say is that Buffy has done so much for indigenous people's awareness. I think it's all irrelevant personally. It doesn't matter.

I look at this planet as one humanity. If you go up in space and look at this planet, you don't see cultural, political boundaries. You just see one humanity. And I think we need to think, be that it's another form of racism and I and I need to look what a person does not who they're genetically what the genetic coding is but who that what they do in their life and stuff he's done so much for indigenous people whether she believed it or not it's irrelevant the main fact is the is that

what you do, not what you are and what you say, what really counts. And I really value your insight into this, but one last question before I move on to some of these other big names here. One last question is, if Buffy won an award that was earmarked for an indigenous artist, let's say, best album by an,

I'm making up the name of this award, but best album by an indigenous artist, and she say, best album by an, I'm making up the name of this award, but best album by an Indigenous artist and she had received that award, should that award now go to an actual Indigenous person? And see that is, that's a question I would just pose to you because that's different than what you're suggesting, which is that her, the awareness and the work she did for the Indigenous people, it weighs the, any, any misrepresentation Or deception on anyone's part, but do you think that she should give back an award if it was earmarked for an indigenous artist? I think she I seriously think in my heart that she owned all her awards to her hard work So it's as again. I'll say it's irrelevant whether it's indigenous or white or black or brown or whatever

I like the song everyday people by sly and the family stone actually released it with my band of free spirits A couple years ago You should check it out on YouTube and that's one of my favorite songs because it's this Opposes the question that we're all we're all everyday people, you know It doesn't matter about black and whites and reds and yellows and all that stuff, you know it's a humanity and I'm I'm very I'm a very I believe that we're spirit beings in material bodies here on here on this planet to experience everything good and bad about life on this planet and I think we need to think more like that

and move away from division and separation. Well said. Now, so let's move on from Buffy. So Buffy bailed here now. Bye, Buffy. I'm going to if this is cool with you again, I'm going to close up Sinead. And then I want to get back to this. She's my guitar. Your your latest and your latest album. You've recorded eight albums, by the way, and four of them solo albums.

And the latest being She's My Guitar. I got more tracks from that I want to play. But before I close of Sinead, can I just literally like name drop and then you can tell me a little story about what you might have done with them? Is that cool? Yeah, with the Sinead? Well, I'm going to close the Sinead. I'm actually going to open with Talking Heads. Oh yeah, okay. Ever heard of them?

Yeah, yeah, I did have the good fortune to work with them in there in luck when I was Living in London. I was kind of Go to flavor the month engineer at one point in my life and everybody was calling me to do things So talking heads phone me one day and said they wanted me to come in and record with them Wanted me to record them on a song called nothing but flowers So and that's the only that's the only track I actually did with him, but it was it's fun They're you know, very talented another another band yellow. I don't know where the people in Canada know. Oh, yeah, but they were They were like phenomenal phenomenal

early pioneers in EDM, you know electronic Yeah, well, we all know oh, yeah from the movie soundtracksacks. I think there was a period of time in the 80s where every other movie used that song. Yeah well the other guy that I worked with who was really great at that and one of the pioneers in electronic music is Thomas Dolby. I did an album I worked on an album called the Golden Age of Wireless with him and I was just so impressed with his ability to control technology is you know since he's a really great keyboard player too. You ever watch the Simpsons? Not much. Okay so I watch a lot of my youngest because we streaming on

Disney Plus and there's an episode where Homer wins a Grammy Award because he's with a barbershop quartet called the B sharps and the B sharps and then she's on he's on the phone with his daughter Lisa Simpson from the Grammys goes yeah we beat Dexys Midnight Runners oh no Lisa says to Homer you beat Dexys Midnight Runners and then Homer says oh yeah we haven't heard the last of them the joke being that in North America Dexys Midnight Runners have one hit a Monster hit I think it went to number one. Yeah Come on Eileen many more hits in the UK though. Yeah, so what that joke doesn't work over there, but you worked with Dexys Midnight Runners

Yeah, I was down at tapestry studio I was the in-house engineer and did a lot of really big artists down there So like Kevin Rowland and his band you know Dexie's Midnight Runners came down and we did a we did a break The ace I was supposed to be breaking down the walls of heartache, which is a you know, well-known soul classic But at the same time they wanted to do one of their songs on the B side, which is called Gino and It's a tribute to Gino Washington and it turned out that Gino turned out to be much more interesting than breaking down the walls

of high, so that turned out to be the a side and it's like it made like number one in the UK for about. I would say is there's the second biggest hit maybe yeah yeah, so I was happy to say I was I recorded that and mixed it amazing So I was happy to say I was I recorded that and mixed it amazing. Yeah, it's amazing good record the Pogues Yeah, I had a couple of Rattling off your names here. I had a couple of I love now by the way, don't be shy. Okay, we're dropping names on this episode well the part that my first contact with the Pogues actually it was With I was working on an album called copperhead Road with Steve Earl. I love that album and tell me more because that's like my that was my introduction to Steve Earl was that help? Oh yeah okay

well I was producing co-producing a band called the Bible and Steve was asked to come over and help you know be an executive kind of producer at that time by Nigel Grange because he's in contact with all these wonderful people. And then Steve asked me if I would be interested to do some stuff on Copperhead Road. I did a track, You Belong to Me, I think I did the program, all the percussion played on that. But the interesting thing is that while I was in the studio working with him with the Bible Yeah, he came in one day. It's a place called Eden Studios in London He came in with a mandolin and he said hey Chris

I've got this new riff tell me what you think and he thinks so I could play it for you on guitar But it's in the case at the moment, but it's a it's the riff from coffee I think you need it and then you need a new duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty duty on that guitar. I think the last guy to do that might have been Gino Vanelli. But you just you could always I could always shutter to sponsor while you grabbed your guitar. It's up to you. But I'm so I'm flexed that way. I'm enjoying talking to you. So I'm playing guitar all the time. I was just just made a new song. Now I want you to play Copperhead Road for me. Oh, good play. Well, maybe if you put an ad on I'll just grab it. And but the but anyway the interesting thing I was probably the first person to hear that riff, you know before he actually made a record so I felt really honored and

I went to see him while I was working with him We had a couple of gigs and I went to see him at the mean fiddler in London Yeah, and I fell in love with one of his songs my old friend the blues I just is just one of the best ballads ever written. And I played that recently in the Dakota Tavern with a young band called The Regulars, who are big fans of my music. And they asked me to come in

and do a Steve Earle song with them. So it was really cool. I know you didn't see The Simpsons, but have you ever seen The Wire? Okay, because Steve Earle's great in The Wire. Oh yes, I've heard of that. To be quite honest, I don't watch a lot. I don't watch any TV.

I don't watch a lot of TV. I kind of am most of the time I'm creating. You're creating content for all of us music lovers. You don't have time to watch the wire or the Simpsons. Well, I'd like to. But I'm the time I'm not creating. I just actually choose a movie, you know, on Netflix. No, I don't.

But if you ever did catch the wire, he played a character named Whalen and he was fantastic. Steve Earl. Oh, cool. Yeah, I've got a lot of time for that guy. Great respect for him. I just saw the Steve Earl. Does he introduce you to the Pogues in this story? And yes, he said he's been a big fan of, you know to the Pogues in this story? Yeah, so I haven't he said he's been a big fan of you know the Pogues for many years

And he loves Irish music you know and he said I'm gonna invite them to play on a song called Johnny come lately and Said I want you to you know record it and mix it for me and all that stuff so so we went down to Studio coming was named the studio now anyway but the Pogues turned up and is this pretty funny Sean the the chain yeah Shane sorry the banjo sit one of the singers and the banjo player he came into the it took a few days to get this track done but he came in he's come in the morning with a cup half filled cup of coffee And then he filled the rest of the cup up with whiskey. This is his breakfast

That's how he lost those teeth man. That's a good breakfast Yeah, that was shiny points when I met him Yeah, but I don't know how he must have had an incredible liver to take it, you know take all that alcohol And so well, he didn't you know, he lived longer than we all predicted he'd live but he didn't get to be an old man Well, he didn't you know, he lived longer than we all predicted he'd live but he didn't get to be an old man Unfortunately, yeah Look the alcohol was taking a lot of people like my other favorite drummer John Bonham went the same way and Rory Gallagher I went the same way as my one of my favorite guitarists, you know, they the alcohols, you know Done a lot of people in unfortunately

Well a lot of people in our chat today are no longer with us and gone too soon. Again, we'll talk more. And this is just an opportunity for me to say shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, Pillars of the Community since 1921. That green measuring tape there is all yours, Chris. Oh, thank you. That is courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. Measure what you wish.

I don't need to know the details. I'm going to measure my success. Well, listen, you're going to need a bigger tape, okay? Because wait till we get to this Sinead story. Oh my goodness gracious. Okay so the Pogues, how'd you produce a track? What is it? It was Johnny Come Lately with Steve Earle. But I didn't produce it. I was kind of like an engineer and mixed it and recorded everything you know. So is the difference that when you're a producer you can have like creative input Well, some producers don't actually they just organize everything, you know, it's not necessarily an artistic job to be producer I'm actually an artistic producer because I came up as a musician and an engineer

So I've got all the angles covered to make it to know how to make a great record So I'm a kind of one-stop guy, you know But something some producers I've worked with I don't know anything about music. Actually, they just they're just like a project manager. They just know how to pull in the good, the 18 on records and put it together, make it happen and get the best engineers and the best studios and I think what's that guy? Phil

got the specter for specter. We're only talking about the past, people who have passed away. Phil Spector. Yeah, I think he's the people like him work that way. They're just organizers, you know, and they're good at it too. You know, if you get the A team on something, it's going to sound great. In the last episode of Toronto Miked, I played a Phil Spector produced song by the Ramones, actually.

So that was the last episode. Now, four more names, unless there's another name you want to shout out before we get to Sinead. Alison Moyer. Oh yeah, well I did a record called That Old Devil Called Love and two records with that, Love Letters too and Elvis Presley song which I played guitar on, which was pretty cool, but that was another record. It doesn't. That was an extraordinary record because we we made that record in a day and a quarter. I don't know if you know the song that old devil called love. It's that old devil called love again. Gets behind me, keeps giving me that shove again.

You know, that's the old jazz thing. So anyway, we We recorded that a Jazz quartet came in the studio put down the track She came in in the evening and did a one take vocal Just went home and I mixed it next morning like three or four hours and it was a huge hit That's amazing sometimes the best same as nothing compares to you, which is not a story, but that story's like a teaser. That story's coming.

I got questions about that one. Holy smokes. Yeah. I got lots to say about that. Few more, few more names and then we're getting to that story here, but I'll give you a couple of gifts before that, but Quincy Jones. Yeah. We, we amazingly, and the next name I'm going to drop.

These are people you'd think we might have to shed a red leaf funeral home, but they're still with us. Quincy Jones. Yeah. Well, my, uh, I didn't never actually met him in person, but he, him and Rod Timberton were producing a debut album for side of Garrett, who's one of, uh, Michael Jackson's singers. And, uh, it was the, the album's called kiss of life and they chose I wrote a song

Co-wrote a song with this guy called Barry blue in London and it's called kiss of life and Rod's I know Rod Timberton because I used to play with him in Germany He's passed away now, but he's he wrote thriller. He's a really you know it did no absolutely He went from a light spotty Keyboard player currently acne when I was working with him to this like multi-millionaire guy living in LA you know But Rod heard heard the demo kiss of life Check will Wayne Hernandez saying the demo. He's got a really soulful voice and they so Quincy's office phone me and

So we want to do this. Quincy wants to do this song with Rod, your song. Can you tell us what sounds you use on it? Because they really like my demo. And I told him all the sounds and everything. And they literally copied everything I did. Wow. Note for note, except for they put some horns on it, which I didn't do. It was pretty, pretty cool.

Do you get compensated for that? Yeah, I got quite a lot of royalties for that as a writer. Yeah. Okay. Then it's a good thing. And it's out there on YouTube. You can hear it if you want to just go kiss of life by side of Garrett and you'll hear it, hear the song.

Another guy. So I should timestamp this at 12 20 PM on September 9th, 2024. The great Mel Brooks is still with us. I just want to say he's still with us, you know, just like Quincy Jones. You worked with Mel Brooks. Yeah, I did two records with him. One's called the Hitler rap. The other one's called To Be or Not To Be. And what they're both associated with the movies. One was the history of the world and the one was just about the French Revolution. I can't remember what it's called, but but the funny thing about Mel is he came down

the studio and this is in tapestry in London. Yes, to work and we put the track together. The Hitler rap is a great groove. Yes, but it's all real musicians. We put it together with a, know, super drummer bass player. Okay, so no drum machine. No, no, it's before the days of drum machines actually. Well, there was things like Lin drums and the Fairlight, which I used to, I could tell

you about that later. Whatever new order was using, right? Yeah, well, the Fairlight was one of the first sampling machines and I did the drums on the Pyromania Def Leppard on that machine. Really? That's a monster album. I'll tell you that all about that later But yes, so I was one of the pioneers the early people of drum programming

He one of the first people to do it But for Mel's records, it was all straight up bands playing, you know, but like the early BG stuff, you know Yeah, and so any melt no couldn't really rap in time. I don't even know the song because it goes Well, hi there people, you know me, I used to run a little joint called Germany. I was number one, the people's choice, and everybody listened to my mighty voice. My name is Adolf, I'm on the mic, you're gonna hit me to the floor. The story of the new Third Reich, well it all began down in Munich town. Pretty soon the word started getting around, so I said to Martin Gorman, I said

hey Marty, why don't we start a little Nazi party? And we had an election. Well, kind of sort of before you knew it. Hello, new order. So all those mothers in the fatherland, I said, baby, I got me a plan. I said, what got able, what you got eight off? What you gonna do? I said, how about this one? World War II. That's the first verse of it. Right? Wow. And the reason I know that so well, because I literally listened to it like 400 times Because Mel couldn't rap in time with the music. I've got this really system It's got that kind of groove right and he couldn't get the rhythm at all So I just said all right Mel just do your rap and I stuck it on quarter inch tape and now to fly in like literally word by word off of tape into a 24 track tape was took ages to do because it's

Analog recording is destructive if you drop in too early to record you've erased what's there It's not like Pro Tools where it's all non-destructive, right? So it took me a long time to get that that wrapping time But the funny thing about Mel is we did two records with him. The other one was you know, they're To be or not to be it's about good King Louis in the revolution is for another really funny record There the last thing he ever said to me when he left the studio the studio is down in the basement of London I'm in London. He said Chris has been really great working with your man said Fabulous no stress wonderful this these records are gonna make a lot of money

He said but very little of it will trickle down here. Real talk. All right. So this is going to come out of left field, I think. But there's a song I want to play that I know you produced, and there's a reason I'm playing it. I'll explain in a moment. But a little obscure, and it's not quite the Hitler rap, but let me play this.

You recognize it right away. Okay, Michael Winslow. So on this program, we talk quite a bit about let him cook I can't read it's really very simple. I'm the only one who can bring a soul around that I can't reach I wanna get my message all across the land It's really very simple I'm the own Walkman I can be anybody that you want me to be You may be on all but two or three

Meatbox takes real victor too I got a whole winter just coming straight to you. It's great to see we're in the right direction. It's all here in your hands. No boundaries. We break our own connection And for nobody else, I am my own woman Oh yeah, I am my own woman Ooh yeah Michael Winslow, so give me a little info on this.

He's fantastic actually. I think he's fantastic, but he might be best known for Police Academy, I would think. But how did this come to be? What is this? This is another great recording I did at Tapestry Studios in London and The guy that produced it is playing the keyboards on this is Pete Wingfield. Oh, so you're not the producer of this one No, I'm the Give you credits you haven't earned yet

Well, I recorded it and mixed it. It's my sound basically. I think I might play guitar on this too. But anyway, it's I did a lot of stuff you know playing instruments on the on the stuff that I was working on. The funny thing about Michael is he was an expert of making sounds with his mouth you know. That was his thing. He would do it like a Jimmy Hendrix guitar solo with his just with his mouth you know and there's one instance was I was sitting there he's standing behind me and I was sitting at the console and he did this I heard this sound come out from back at the room it's like it is a sound of a tape winding off and I looked around

I thought that I thought the tape something happened to the tape he's like he's laughing no he's amazing right You can mimic any sound. Yeah, he's really good. Very gifted. He's very percussive. Good groove. You know, he's got a root. He didn't need instruments. He didn't need to be playing any guitar. You just have him voice everything. That's it. As he said, he's his own Walkman. Yeah, he's his own Walkman.

OK, so before the song runs out and I get to the subject of the matter, I just want you to know Chris, I have fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery for you right there. I don't know if you're a beer connoisseur. Yeah, I love beer. Yeah. Okay. You'll love this beer. It's brewed right here in Southern Etobicoke. Fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Beautiful cans. Yeah. Beautiful artwork. I like the artwork on this. Really good. What's this? What's delicious too? What do you got there? You got a... Yeah, that's the premium lager. You're going to love that. You got a Canuck Pale Ale, a Hay's Mama. Wow. I too? What do you got there? Yeah, that's the premium lager. You're going to love that.

You got a Canuck Pale Ale, a Hay's Mama. Wow. I think you got a burst in there. So you got your fresh craft beer, but you know what goes good with beer? Italian food. I have in my freezer a large meat lasagna from Palma Pasta for you. It's in my freezer. Oh, well, I've got brandy's for you.

I'm actually a vegetarian. You know what I can do though? I can make a call to Anthony Petrucci at Palma, actually a vegetarian. You know what I can do though? I can make a call to Anthony Petrucci at Palma, get a vegetarian lasagna delivered and I can bike it to you somewhere in the city. That's very nice. I can make it. So we're going to take care of you with a vegetarian lasagna. Last but not least, before I play this song, I mentioned to play it.

I would just like you to know, because you probably have a drawer full of old electronics or maybe it's a drawer full of old electronics or maybe it's a room full of old cables and they don't work anymore and you're like, I got to clean this up. Don't throw that in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill. Go to recycle my electronics dot C a and you'll put in your postal code and they'll be like, Hey, just a block away from you is one of our depots. We've accredited. You drop it there. It gets properly recycled. It's good for everybody Recycle my electronics dot CA you got it recycle my electronics

Yeah, that's that thanks for saying that cuz I do have a lot of electronic. I'm here to help as we all have you know I'm here Chris. We got to work together right we got to collaborate. We're in the same room Yeah, well actually my wife's really really really into saving the environment. She's a documentary filmmaker and Really? Yeah, well, I met her through Buffy st. Mary. She's a documentary filmmaker and really yes Oh, well, I met her through Buffy st. Mary. She's making Buffy's document first documentary, right? She's her name her name is Joan Prowse and she has a company called Cinefocus and they they did all the Green heroes series on TV. Oh, there are people out of the box people who like, you know Suzuki and people like that even go down

he she did a interview with him and He was saving as he's trying to save some tires being burnt, you know, it's a ruining the environment So she's done a lot of environmental work So she really appreciate this because we've we've been wanting what to do with our electronic junk, you know Well recycle my electrons at CA. It's interesting. All these things are interesting. I was with core Downey's brother on Friday. So this might Mike Downey, there's a new, you know, tragically hip documentary going on prime. I produced a show for Diane Sachs. She was the last environment commissioner of this province. And it's called green economy heroes, where she talks to basically people who are entrepreneurs who are choosing businesses that are good

for the environment. This is an interesting subject. In fact, I'm doing a concert for the city of Toronto in October. In fact, it's, no, it's next month. The next month is October, yes. And it's, I'm gonna be working with, I got this song called Save Our Beautiful World,

which features a bunch of young kids You know that ten eight to ten year olds singing about saving the planet and we're gonna be featuring that song at the concert. So Great synergies I'm very much into using music to communicate truth I released a song called everyone deserves a home last year and Got the local government, you know the the NDP in fact I released a song called Everyone Deserves a Home last year and it got the local government, you know, the the NDP. In fact, they they contacted me and they they gave me a community service award for raising awareness about the homeless situation in Toronto. So so that's the way I believe we should be using music

for no great to hear and I'm glad you shared that now I'm going to play a song. People might have heard this song and we're going to see what details you can share about this. What's this? Have you heard this before Chris? No, it's been seven hours and fifty. I will say it still gives me chills. This is a beautiful recording. Brilliant production. Since you took your love Since you've been gone I can do whatever I want I can see whomever I choose I choose

I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant But nothing, I said nothing can take away this blues Because nothing compares, nothing compares to you. Chris, my first question is, what are you thinking about? How do you feel hearing this in the headphones right now? Oh, just realized what a great job I did mixing it. It sounds really good in your system. Well, I could have told you that. Oh, just realized what a great job I did mixing it. It sounds really good. Well, I could have told you that. Honestly, honestly, and this is not just because you're sitting here in the room, but since

I first heard this, it's just a wonderful vocal performance of a great song, great recording, great production. This is aces, man. Yeah, in fact, this is the only record I've ever made where I never put never put a bass on it there's no bass on it you should have done that more often well I was just thinking I was thinking I should have maybe I should have put a bass on it but there's enough bottom coming out the strings to cover the low end but it would have been cool with a bass because it's just got you know drum loop guys you know so where do we begin on this of course this is a

Prince Penn song that I don't even know the story. Sinead O'Connor recorded it of course and I know you have a great, you know, again, my condolences, another great artist gone far too soon, Sinead O'Connor, but please all shut up and listen to you. Talk about Sinead O'Connor, talk about this song, talk about working with her. Well, one of the... My contact with Sinead came about again through Nigel Grange of Ensign Records. He found her in Ireland,

as he did with Bob Geldof and a lot of other people, the Waterboys and stuff. So he called me one day and said, I'd like you to mix a couple of songs off the Lion and the Cobra album, the new Sinead album. This is the one before this album. Big fan of Mandinka. Yeah, well, I mixed that. Love that song. Yeah, I did two songs on that album, the Mandinka and Put Them On Me.

Both actually minor hits at the time, you know, great videos and Sinead did a great song. So anyway, that was Sinead kind of like the sound I've got on those records and so did Nigel and So but what happens when she came to do the next album which is called I do not want what I haven't got They started it off they wanted to use this character nearly Hooper to produce the album right use this character Nelly Hooper to produce the album right so they started the book the studio they're all the songs ready musicians all that stuff and after two on the second day Sinead walked out of the studio she couldn't stand working with this person right so the so Nigel phoned me up and said Chris you got help us out here mate said we got Sinead's ready to do our when we got the studios all booked

Musicians everything's ready. We haven't got producer. Could you would you do it? and I said yeah, I'd love to because you know, I liked her I met her before and And I remember before I started the project Manager folk no, okay Lee at the time And Sinead they are sitting outside the studio in London In his car and they played me the demo of nothing compares to it. It's not demo. It's the princess version, right, right? And they said and she nice say I'm gonna I'm thinking of covering this because she knew Prince and she'd heard the song and Everything I won't go into detail why she knew Prince. That's a private thing, but

they and she'd heard the song and everything. I won't go into detail why she knew Prince, that's a private thing, but they played me the song, I said, what do you think, should we do it? And I said, well, I don't actually think it's strong enough, you know, I don't think it's gonna be a hit. And I think if we do it, we've gotta completely change it. Because the Prince's version was a little bit boring, to be honest. Old kudos to Prince, he's a genius. I love his stuff. But that version of nothing compares to you wasn't really going anywhere. And it's a great example

of how an arrangement can make or break a record. So you only have to change the vehicle behind the melody. The melody is the same and the words are the same. But the met the vehicle behind it is completely different. And that's actually what really makes a great record but I have to tell you that um That that song was released The BBC had all the power in those days, you know If you got on radio one and you you're good right good to go for a hit They got up to 42 in the charts and she was calling me every day. I was, you know, 50 is 48, 42.

And then then they dropped it. I didn't think it was going to be a hit. Right. So this is nothing compares to you. I'm talking about. Yeah. And this they went in like literally a week later. They went to Paris to the Saint-Metri in Montparnasse. I think it was and filmed a video and she did a stunning performance on the video she's like crying you know the real tears and stuff right and then that video

literally catapulted the song into number one it's amazing if it hadn't been for that video nobody would have ever heard this song no that is absolutely amazing this is a true screen in hands jam you've got the song but it was the video that took it to the next level I needed this everlasting hit that we're talking about today Exactly precisely and it was a it was a really easy record to make the whole album that she made Didn't like recording studio. She used to get really bored after two hours. She just wanted to go home I so she just come in she came in one morning and said Some of it's done in my studio studio my own studio CB sound in London she came in

one day and she said I want to sing the vocal for nothing compares we had the track all done his stuff and done the bass yet but the strings are that programmed by go to he's a Japanese guy I was working with the time really talented string arranger and But there's keyboard strings, but anyway, so put them up I put up my go-to favorite mic, which is a kg-4 and 4b I do all my Steve Earl's sung in it everybody sung it now. This is more. He's been it's still got it It's a great mic and and it can take a lot of dynamics this mic. So and because nothing because she named had a Nick what you call negative mic technique.

I'll tell you what that means. It's so explain that to me. Normally you get when you're singing soft, you know, you go, it's been seven hours and you get on the mic. I mean, 15 days since you took your love away. Then you go come back off the mic for the loud bits. Nothing compares, you know, back off the mic for the loud bits saying Can't be you know advice it this is it's a standard mic technique

But she needs to do it the other way around she do all the quiet bits off the mic And she screamed come right into the mic and scream into it for the high bits And she didn't let she didn't like me using compression. She's somebody told her it's fake So I had to I had to spend ages on the album taking out the distortion overdrive distortion on the with the special EQ and Doing it all in real time took two ages But the magic about nothing compares to you is that she came in said I want to sing it today And I'm only gonna be here for a half an hour

Put the mic up One take vocal she sang that she sang it perfectly and then I didn't have to tune it or anything because you know these days I put people in Melodyne and correct little pitch things but it was perfect and then she said I'm gonna double track it and she she double tracked the whole vocal that's all two voices on that record one behind the other and You can hardly hear it because the double tracking is so perfect. I've never seen anybody do that She's she was so on top of the song. It was just I'm not even sure I do I know that so there's there's no It's two voices all the way through. It's all double-tracked. I Don't think you can't you can hardly hear it because it's so close. It's okay. Hold on. Let's this

You'll hear if you, you're here two voices. I go out every night and sleep the whole day since you took your love. Okay, part of my ignorance here. So you have the one recording by Sinead and you simply... It's there twice? What happens double tracking is just a way of thickening the sound. Yeah, like I've seen behind the music videos when they talk about, I don't know, Butch Vig will be talking about Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and he'll talk about this technique. Yeah, just two voices there. But nothing, I said nothing can take away this blues Cause nothing can pain

Yeah, it's like it fattens it up somehow The trick is not to, you don't want it to sound double track So you put the other voice way, way back Sometimes you add a little bit more room to this double track And it kind of fattens the whole sound up. So, but she's, she did an extraordinary job because it's, it's invisible. You can hear more on the second verse. You can hear more of the, the double track. Well, you'd be the conductor. You tell me when to bring this up, but, uh, what was your

relationship like of Sinead after this monster hit for her? Oh, it's great. She was so happy. She kept, she used to phone me every day when it's going on the charts, like overjoyed with excitement. But then the funny thing is when it became like, she became like a mega star, right? Yeah. You know, as you do when you get a number one record

in every country in the world, she started to really like not like what was happening to her. She's a, I'll give you an example, we did a big showcase at Hammer Smith Parlor, it's a big venue in London, and I read the label there and I was with the label in this VIP box and Sinead was on stage with her band. And when it came to do this song, because everybody's waiting to hear the hit, right? As they do on the concerts. Okay, I'm gonna do this song.

I didn't write it, it was written by Prince. And if I'd known it was gonna be a hit, I wouldn't have effing done it. Ah! Ha ha ha! And the like- And it's true, the spotlight's not for everybody, right? Sometimes, be careful what you wish for,

because she seemed excited as it climbed the charts. Like she seemed to want to be number one. But then what does that come with? You know, the paparazzi, the tabloids. Yeah, maybe she wasn't quite prepared for that kind of attention. Yeah, I don't think she was actually really on soul levels for that, for a huge success, unfortunately. Let me ask you about,

you know, the Saturday Night Live appearance, right? This is the the moment where she tears up a, prescient in hindsight, but she tears a photo of the Pope. The backlash was unbelievable. Yeah, as she said, fight the real enemy. The reason she did that is because she grew up with so much child abuse. Of course, it was going on all the time in the Catholic Church at the time. It was all coming out.

She knew about all that just through personal experience, you know So that she's very passionate about being bringing out the truth, you know in a not very subtle way National you know like huge TV show I sat in I'd live tearing up the picture the part was pretty pretty It's not so so no no no no, but you know, she was she's really young the funny thing about that is it's, I earned, I probably earned about upward of $5 million in royalties for this record. Right. This is the days when you got paid to produce records. And that was like, how'd you know I was going to ask that question?

Well, a day after literally the week after that tearing up the picture episode, the sales in America went down to like zero. People are burning. So you're like, I appreciate the real talk, but it's hurting my, my accountant doesn't like it. Well, it was, it cost me, probably cost me out with a couple of million bucks in lost royalties that, that one act, but I don't, I don't. Oh, here's the, here's the end of Sinead.

I guess I missed it. Maybe. Check it out. Check it out. Two verses. Two verses. Oh, it's over now. Oh, here's the end of Sinead. I guess I missed it maybe. Check it out. Check it out. Two verses. Two voices. Oh, it's over now. I'll bring it back a minute. Hold on. Nothing compares. Nothing compares to you. Hear it? I think I now hear it and that's wild.

Okay, so... Hear it? It's two voices there. She's just out on the... And then Chris, that's not cheating, right? This is okay. This isn't... No, no. It's standard stuff.

Ben Johnson level controversy. Well, it kind of shows it on this record. It shows what a great singer she was to be able to track that vocal so accurately. And I know you said you specifically went out of your way to say you're not gonna talk about how Sinead knew Prince but you have any insight because it's been reported in the press that Sinead wasn't happy with the what I call the pillow fight incident I don't know if you read this where there was a pillow fight when she would she met with Prince and Prince would put things in the pillows to hurt her in this pillow fight.

Yeah, she told me a few personal things about Prince. That one she went public with. I won't go into the Prince thing too much but I will tell you a funny story if you're interested. I like funny stories. While we were doing I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album. We're working in various studios. One of them was my own studio, which I got a call from. I got a call from Bill Wall magazine after the album was, you know, broke the charts and everything. And they said, hey, Chris, tell me about your studio.

You know, it's you. You listed as a second best studio in the world. I said, well, it's actually just a potting shed converted into a studio. But it's still better than the studio you're in right now. Yeah. Well, then I said the whole point is it doesn't matter. Right. All this kind of like BS and stuff like big gear and big rooms. It's actually what you do with it really matters. Well, look, you're preaching to the choir on that one. Okay. So that's what I say about this. Great job. Well, thank you. And I'm really digging this convo. In fact, I'm going to surprise you with a song

before I play another. Let me tell one quick story. Yeah, please. Cause I have another story. I lost Sinead story. Well, we were working on the album and you know, and she'd come in that this guy would come in the studio with a heavy day with sunglasses on and sit at the back of the room. I was you know recording the musicians or Sinead or whatever's doing and With my his my back to him because work in the console and they said on the second day I thought wonder who these guys he keeps you know, he's sitting with some I thought what a dick You know wearing sunglasses in a dark recording studio, you know

So I went up to him. I think it's the third day. I went up to him said hi My name's Chris, you know, who are you? And he said, Peter Gabriel. I said, Oh my God, I just love Peter Gabriel. I didn't recognize him. He's all like disguised. That's very, very funny. And did you have a relationship with Sinead in her later years before her sudden and unexpected passing? Unfortunately not. I kind of lost contact with her. The last record I ever did with her was called My Special Child.

It came out after the big album and it was about her son who actually tragically passed away. Took his own life. Yeah. But that's when he was a baby. We went to Dublin and recorded with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra. And then a guy called Donald Looney came in

and did Julian Pipes on it. It's a beautiful record. Didn't really break as big as nothing compares. That's part of the problem, right? I mean, I don't even know if she was trying after that album to have a monster hit like that. But you could never put in one one. I want to shut out a song on that, that album. No, I do not want what I haven't got. I just want to shut out Emperor's New Clothes as a killer single. Like that is a, that is a fantastic single. And often that would be like

the song I would go to on that album would be Emperor's New Clothes. Oh, I display. I haven't heard it for years. So do you have it? Well, you know what? I grab it quickly from YouTube. This is OK, because but but Emperor's I know Emperor's New Clothes. This is thrilling stuff here, but we're going to get this really quickly.

See if this plays off of my YouTube channel. It's a cool story. And wasn't it close? You know, the meaning behind it. Yeah, it's about denial basically. Okay. And then again, this is a real time as I switch to my YouTube account. That is actually premium.

So I have a YouTube. Oh, good. You don't get an ad in the middle of it. No ad in this thing here. I pay for one of my accounts. Well, you might get an ad for Palmas Kitchen. Palmas Pasta. Palma Pasta.

Palmapasta.com. Absolutely here. So any second now. Here you go. Since years since you held it baby while I ranked the bedroom You said it was dangerous after the Sunday, and I knew you loved me Hit things, I just became famous and that's how you messed me up But it's wrong, how could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21? I'm only 21

There's millions of people who offer advice and say how I should be But they are twisted and they will never be Any influence on me but you will always be You will always be If I treated you mean

I really don't mean to But you know how it is and how a pregnancy can change you I like how she says pregnancy. It's a pregnancy. Okay, very good. I gotta say, a hold's up. Still digging it many, many moons later here. But good on you for capturing such great music. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

As I said, it was an easy record to make. I think we made the whole album in about six weeks. Unlike most records I made, I worked a lot with Matt Langer. Well, you were gonna tell me a Def Leppard story before we close with your new album. Yeah, well basically, I'll make this brief, but I was one of the first people

to ever use sampling technology is in the days of The only samples around was a synclavia and a fair light and it was a hundred thousand dollar machine Wow, so there's one down in the studio I was working because it was owned by a guy called John Congress who was a you know inherited wealth person He had a lot of money and Pete Townsend had one too So anyway, my phone one day said we want to use the Fairlight to do drums on the new Pyromaniac, the album called Pyromaniac by Def Leppard. And could you do it for us, Chris? And I said, Yeah, sure. But you know, I need to hear the drummer's parts. What does he want to play? Because it's a monophonic machine. You have

to do instrument by instrument with a code. So's murder in those days. It wasn't MIDI. You couldn't just hit a key and then you'd get a kick drum. You had to write it all in in music composition language. So he came down, the drummer sent me his tapes, what he wanted, and I listened to it. I scored it all out. I had to write it out in score because it's all mathematical. And then you had know I had to put program all these drums in and then we'd listen for that was like you know it's very very very anal about things so it was like we had to listen to a hi-hat the whole day against the click you know and slightly ahead no it's not slightly behind all this stuff right and then every instrument went down like that one at a time until they had the whole drum kit there and then he

went off with the tapes to do the guitars and he used to record one string at a time on guitars He wouldn't play the six strings. It'd be like one string. You know doubled up six times and So he called me six months later. So we got to do the drums again I said oh god what's happened because we took six weeks to do the drums, right? I said the tapes have been wearing out and I've had to keep transferring them four times now because analog tape in those days. And we, I want first generation drums. So luckily I saved all the writing, you know, the parts on floppy disk, but we still had to do the painstaking. Was it another six weeks?

Yeah, another six weeks. Wow. And we had a huge… What was you, did you get any cash for that one? That that thing? How many units did that sell? I sold a 40 million copies, I think. But I think you spent those days over two hundred and fifty thousand pounds doing the record, you know, because it took a long time. Right. I just got I was getting like 400 pounds a day.

A fee as an engineer. Not too shabby back then, especially. Well, yeah, I was kind of a go-to top engineer in London at that time. So look here you are in my basement right now. Okay so I do want to close up your new stuff and I know we have a hard out but we're gonna make it don't worry. But I'm gonna play something kind of out of left field but I'm listening to your stuff yesterday and I'm gonna play this just to see how you react. Oh yeah, I just found that. That was cool. Love it. That's the deal. Go ahead, bikini. I'll break it down a little bit, but please tell the listenership, what are we listening

to here? This is Afrodisiac by Crysisco. That was my band. I was working with a guy called Barry Blue and I came up with this. I took that whole track on a S950, Akai S950 sampler. I had all these samples from Africa, because I've worked all over the world recording things. So I put this, I had this song called Aphrodisiac,

but it was as Aphrodisiac, you know, the enhanced. Yeah, like an Aphrodisiac, yeah. The enhanced, enhancing thing. But. Not that we need that. So I put the whole thing together, I was working at his studio at the time and he said why don't we call it Afro Dizzy Act and get like a girl to these two black girls who are twins to go out and promote it. So that's actually how the song came about.

Barry came up with one or two ideas. One was to change the title, the other one was to put the samples from the African Queen movie on, which you can hear in the back. And that's all my work. I put the whole thing together on the sampler, played the keyboards and guitars.

And you wrote this song? Yeah. Yeah, I just came up with it, yeah. It's... I'm just having a bit of fun, really. That's me singing the chorus, by the way. That's... Yeah. Cat for a daisy, yeah. Look at that bit. And I used... Oh, yes. Well, there's several remixes, as you know, because you did the...

Yeah, Norman Cook, do the one. One, Fatboy Slim, and then yeah, it's me on the organ. So this is... Oh, it's the extended version, yeah. Yeah, this is a cool Casbah mix is what this was called. So I wanted to play this and find out what the heck it was. I knew you were the father of this song. Actually, my favorite version is, apart from the original, which I mixed myself, is the Norman Cook one, Fatboy Slim did a mix of it.

You have to take that up. It's pretty, yeah, it's kind of out there. He did a good job. I liked his stuff. Norman Cook, he's a really good mixer. All right, let's get back to 2024. Ah, yes. Yes. That's the attitude that I'm taking to the street All of the simple pleasures of being alive Don't need to search for treasures, they will arrive for me tonight A rush of gratitude, from my head down to my toes

That's the attitude that will keep the love and growth. And if you listen to it, you will hear a sound of nature alive with spirit as we change our lives and turn around. So full of gratitude. Gratitude, this is from She's My Guitar, your latest release. Love to hear it. Thank you. Wow, and you brought a guitar, but I guess we won't be whipping out that guitar here, but you never know when you need to burst into song. Well, actually you'll come back again.

You'll come back again and you'll play live here. Yeah, just invite me. All in all, this is kind of an impressive statistic. So if we take all the projects and collaborations that you've had with various artists and we add up the sales figures, we're in excess of over excess. That means over everybody, over a hundred million records sold. Yeah. That's a, that's a, in fact, there's an old figure. It's more like, what is it now? Probably a, probably 200 million. I should imagine this.

It doubled. And who's buying these albums now? Well, the thing is it's, no, it's, it's kind of stopped now, because everything's got free live streaming these days, but It's not records I actually sold with I haven't received money for all that stuff, but I worked out that my name, my name is a Collaborator is on over 200 million records. Yeah. What do you think of the new model? Where basically you can't sell like I don't know how many units that Sinead O'Connor album sold, do you know? I do not want what I haven't got. How many albums did she sell? Well, I think in excess of 40 million, but you know...

But today these would be streams, like what are your thoughts here on our way out here on this new model for artists? I think artists, I can swear on this show, right? It's my show? Yeah, yeah. I think artists are getting fucked. Yeah, totally. That's a good way of putting it. So it's all down to a corporate BS now and we're not The basically companies like Spotify and started with Napster actually but it's Spotify and other companies like that are paying nothing for Artists, but they're making a ton of money themselves and there's now down to it. There's no there's no money now to finance

The making of records so everybody's really forced to make their records on their own You know on their little laptops and and with minimum Budgets, but it has but funny enough hasn't stopped creativity So yeah, and that it never will but there's no as I told you before but in the in the 90s I was I was making a really really good living off my work you know a lot of people were maybe a bit too much money but you know because I actually bought a chateau in the south of France with some of my royalty money and built a studio down there but but now our next episode we're gonna do it there do you still own

that shit I gave it to my ex exes get everything yeah well I was I'm not really when you get to know me I'm not really that hooked on the material possessions I think though I think the things that we think we own actually own us and we know that's in Fight Club oh is it that is a line in Fight Club. Oh, is it? That is a line from Fight Club. Oh, I must've stole it from me. Yeah, they probably, uh, he stole it from you. Absolutely. But, but okay.

So artists again screwed. So one of the main streams of revenue now for an artist is to tour, tour, tour. Like this is the, this is the way they make money. And I always think about all the recording artists out there who maybe for various reasons, health reasons, who knows, they can't go out and do a big tour. Like they're getting a hose. And you mentioned Napster. Napster literally paid zero, but now there's pennies trickling in. But unless you are a Taylor Swift or a Drake and you know, name those like 0.01% artists, it is difficult to make anything of substance. Many a great artist has been in this basement and then I will have a private chat or not

So private chat about what they get from Spotify and it sounds like they might be able to get a coffee and a doughnut But not necessarily like a million strings, you know, you can't buy it. You can't buy a piece of chewing gum for millions things But that's awful. Yes. I noticed what you said about artists coming back on the road. I went to see yes, and deep purple with the bub boys a stage last week and They're they're pretty old, you know, they're having to go You know, they're having to go back out and play again, which is cool but but they you kind of I kind of felt sorry for them because some of them like it's the only way to get an Influx of cash and many of them like you and you had a taste of success

Because some of them like it's the only way to get an influx of cash and many of them like you and you had a taste Of success many of them went and bought you know Chateaus and so the France and stuff and suddenly now you need to make a certain amount of money to To maintain all of this lifestyle that you've built for yourself. Yeah, you have to simplify everything actually That's the thing the danger of making a lot of money is For artists is that you as you said you live start to live to that level of income and then it never stays the same because it's artistic and I know so many people have just thought well I've got a hit record now so I'm set up for life and it's not true they the level of their expenses goes up you know I put my kids in a really nice school and I bought all these houses in London

stuff I did a lot of spending and I don't really regret any of it it's all experience you know it's I think we're here to experience all these things in life and but now I'm really very very careful and keep my you know outgoings really low but I make great quality records because I've got all this experience years and years of record making so when people come to me to produce a record I just I it sounds like it's been done like in the best studio in the world by the best producer ever Yeah, and they're really people are amazed by what I can turn out I just use a got a small home studio with a running a Pro Tools system with a great stuff in it and great I've got my walls of rack with guitars, you know, it's a stuff from all over the world

You know, so it would from Egypt and the six string banjo stars from Persia I've got all this great these great instruments and tempura is from India and I I use them all on the records You know, so so Chris if somebody like an aspiring Musician is listening right now. Are you available for hire? Yeah, I do it I make records for unsigned artists. If the artist is signed to a label like Buffy, I will have a certain rights. But for unsigned artists, I do.

I work for half my rights, which is really affordable. And what's the name of your where's your website? I was on it the other day. Is it Chris Burkett, Burkett, not C.A.? Yeah, Chris Burkett with an I B I R K E T T dot CA yeah yeah that's my website go there yeah and then if you want to see any of my social media things most of my social media handles Chris Burkett music like you know the Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff you know and where exactly to be very specific where exactly are your

four Juno awards right now? Well, the Juno awards are given to the artists I produced. So you didn't get any Juno awards? I've got, yeah, I've got, I don't actually have the physical award because this Buffy's, you know, got them all, but they're Juno awards issued for stuff that I've made, so that's why I claim it as a Juno. Okay, so stuff you made have won for junos But you didn't get four physical

Trophies, so I got I've got a lot of gold records stuff I've produced Some of them hanging on my wall some of them got lost in my divorce unfortunately You know that's like I'm a divorce guy to worst financial decision You'll ever make but you know what, money isn't everything. No, well also you could be, sometimes we end up with the wrong partners and we don't realize until we start living with them.

So that's quite natural really. Are you with somebody now or are you? Yeah, I'm not trying to pick you up, but just curious. And I'm married to Joan Prouse. Oh yeah, so we can always, we talked about her. Yeah, she's the lady, she's, I met her at Massey Hall and physically met her at the green room after the concert and she does my videos now so you know she's produces my music videos. We've got to get her in the bass maybe maybe your next visit she

joins you and you can serenade her with your guitar. I did actually invite her but she had to stay home because I've got this guy coming from America to meet me he's a film music guy and he wants me to do some. So you're finally going to meet Quincy Jones. Yeah, it's actually not Quincy, but close to it and he's going to turn out close to it. I'm going to do the extra, but now that he's so close to Quincy Jones, can I have a clue? Can you give us initials? Give us something. No, she's just a, I was kind of joking a bit. He runs a company called Alibi Music and they're really interested

in me writing some film music for them. Well, good luck. If they hear you on this program, they'll definitely proceed. Sign on the dotted line. Excellent. What a pleasure, Chris, it was to have a deep dive, a 90-minute chat with you. But your fascinating career, Sinead and more more and I loved hearing the new album and I hope people check out She's My Guitar. Yeah, thank you for playing it, it's great. It sounds really good on your system too. Somebody did a good job producing that music. If you find out who, let me know. I will. Let me know. And that brings us to the end of our 1548th

show. You can follow me all over the place. I'm at Toronto Mike. Go to torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Raymond James Canada, and Ridley Funeral Home. My next guest is the guy who inspired the character played by Tom Cruise, you might know him as Jerry Maguire.

That's right, Lee Steinberg, a very successful sports agent who inspired the movie, Jerry Maguire, is my next guest. That should be fun. See you all then! Everything is coming out rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today