 Gary Numan a distinguished name in synth pop and one of UK techno's most exciting DJ's and producer's Ade Fenton have joined forces. In late 2005 Gary Numan commissioned Ade to co-produce and co-engineer his album ‘Jagged’, which was released to huge critical acclaim, reaching number 3 in the BBC Indie chart. Such was the success of their working relationship, the pair continued working throughout 2006 on a series of studio and live collaborations.
Gary Numan's mark on the music world extends far beyond his lone American hit, Cars which reached the American Top Ten and hit number one in the UK. This seminal track helped usher in the synth pop era on both sides of the Atlantic, especially his native UK, where he was a genuine pop star and consistent hit maker during the early '80s with classics such as Are 'Friends' Electric?, Down in the Park, I Die: You Die and Pure.
An inspirational artist, Numan’s music has notably influenced many prominent artists over the years such as Nine Inch Nails. By the late '90s Hole, Foo Fighters, and Smashing Pumpkins had covered Numan’s songs in concert and Marilyn Manson had recorded Down in the Park for the B-side of his "Lunchbox" single.
Ade Fenton first broke onto an unsuspecting techno scene in 1998 with the now legendary ‘Coded’ EP on his own Advanced label, and since then he has continued to develop his own brand of harsh, twisted dancefloor beats. Fenton’s busy Dj schedule has taken him across the globe, from Europe to North and South America, from Malaysia to Australia. More recently, his work has seen him experimenting by fusing his love of industrial acts as Nine Inch Nails and Cabaret Voltaire into his dance floor material. His independent techno record label Perverter provided the perfect platform for these darker soundscapes. Gary and Ade take time out with FXpansion to discuss their thoughts on music software.
FX - Ade, Jagged was received well both with music critics and fans. Considering that your role as producer for Jagged was not an initial foresight the outcome was extremely successful. What is it about your working relationship that made it so successful?
 Ade - Well our friendship obviously helps enormously. That always comes first no matter what, so even if we disagreed on stuff, which is actually pretty rare, none of it mattered ‘cos we’d just laugh about it and move on to the next one. After the first couple of tracks were in the can, Gary had built up enough confidence in me to leave me to my devices and by track 3 or 4 we were on a roll and really enjoying ourselves. Although it was an incredibly hectic process, I think we both found it inspiring and rewarding.
FX - Gary, you have always embraced music technology and have influenced many artists over the years. When did you first use music software, can you tell us what influenced you and how it affected the way you make music?
Gary - It's difficult to remember what order things came along. It was about 1983/1984 I think. Early Steinberg software running on the Atari although I do have a very vague memory of something earlier than that. Soon after that I started to work with a duo called The WaveTeam who used a PPG Wave System that had a very crude sequencer system. A horrendous machine with very flaky software but it was worth putting up with hours of frustrating crashes and nonsense because at least once every day you could eventually create a sound that was absolutely amazing. Then came C-Lab and, soon after, software became commonplace in music the world over. Software has revolutionised the way I make music in many ways although not at the most basic level. I still start with a simple piano and work out the melody, chord structure and basic arrangement. From then on the software comes in to play. It gives you the ability to search endlessly for new sounds, to create an entirely new soundscape for every album. It requires a fairly strict level of discipline though or you would never finish anything. My last album took five years to make and that's getting ridiculous.
FX - How did you use BFD’s features to create the sound on Jagged, do you have any tips you can share?
Ade - It was always our intention to mix the live sounding drums of BFD with more electronic sounding drums. So what I’d do is start with some of the really heavy sounding kicks from Stylus RMX, then begin to build snare, hat, tom and cymbal patterns with BFD. I’d then comp the lot and feed them through my Ridge Farm Industries Boiler, which is a fantastic drum compressor. A good example of this is the track Fold, which features an eerie, electronic sounding verse. We wanted the chorus to be as epic as possible, so I programmed a very live sounding drum pattern and smashed the hell out of it through the Boiler.
Perhaps the best example of my use of BFD is a track called ‘Healed’, which is actually an alternative version of the track ‘Healing’ from my album ‘Artificial Perfect’. It’s a very dark, intense track and the drum sound plays a massive part in creating that feel.
FX - If you could create a plug-in that would change your life in the studio what would it be?
 Gary - One that I could type in' Gary Numan' in the style pull down, then add, Heavy, Dark and Anthemic from the sub menu's, click on the Write 10 Tracks button and then piss off to the beach for the day.
Ade - An updated, bug free version of the classic hardware sequencer Notron. I’ve still not heard an analogue sequencer like it, you could play one note through it, and it would literally sing back at you. I think a software version of it was developed, but I’ve never seen it.
FX - What other projects are you currently working on at the moment?
Gary - Helping to promote the Ade Fenton 'Artificial Perfect' album that I guest on a few tracks, working (with Ade) on an album of songs that were not used on the last two studio albums but are worth releasing, mixing three different gigs from 2006 that are to be released as concert DVD's later this year and working (again with Ade) on the next new studio album which will be the follow up to last years Jagged album. Also trying to get on top of programming software for a projection system I've bought for live shows as well as starting to programme songs for another batch of live shows in November. I also have a few collaboration tracks to finish off, most notably a fantastic track from an outfit called South Central which I'm supposed to be writing and singing the vocal parts for. I'm a bit behind schedule to say the least.
Ade - As well as all of the stuff Gary’s just mentioned, I’m also producing an album for a band called Pro-jekt. I’m also dying to get back in the studio and make some new techno, as I’ve rather neglected it because of the amount of work involved with Jagged and my album. I’d also like to work on a remix version of Artificial Perfect if I get time.
FX - How is the progress on your new album going and what does it have in store for us, will it be of a similar vein to Jagged?
Gary - Not too much progress at the moment but my intentions are that it will be more aggressive than Jagged although still very melodic. I like the anthemic chorus approach. I want it to be more varied in tempo, heavier and possibly even darker. Heavy electronic but still with a strong guitar presence. It will be like the big, nasty brother to Jagged.
Ade - I’ve already started getting some ideas together for Gary’s new album. We’re gonna’ approach the production angle of it in a similar way to Jagged as it worked so well, but in terms of sound, it’s our intention to make it less ‘ethereal than Jagged. In other words, we want the songs to start heavy, get heavier then get a bit heavier still. As Gary said, it will be very electronic. |
