Orkus March/April 2016

 

The never-to-rest-comers from Lord of the Lost will release their next album soon – for Orkus! the perfect occasion to pry into the recordings and be led through the local Chameleon Studios personally. What's the status of the new work? How does the studio work look like and what exactly happens during a production of an album? Here you will exclusively learn what happens in the holy halls.

 

Hamburg. Fog. Thanks to citizens who know the place, the Chameleon Studios are easy to find, where a slightly overtired Chris Harms opens the gates. Fast inside the snuggery, though this term might be a bit understated for the complex including three recording studios. After an extensive tour through the rooms, in which the music plays, we're going – with coffee and cigarettes – with the whole group into the lounge: time for the cross-examination.

 

Orkus: Please characterize the object at first!

Chris: The studio has its name since the end of the 70s. It has produced many historic discs, from Udo Lindenberg to Nena. Some classic-rockers still come here nowadays. Deep Purple were just here or also GammaRay. In the German studio-region, they're one of the few big studios which survived.

 

Orkus: Why is it like this?

Chris: First stagnation, then response of the music industry. Due to the digital music programs, big analogue-studio became extinct in the 90s. Everyone can be music producer today, if he wants to – the so-called prosumer topic; every consumer can also be a producer. If you have photoshop, you're also automatically photographer, if you can write halfway decently, you're journalist – you know this. That's the main problem, why so many studios became extinct.

 

Orkus: How did you come by the Chameleon Studios?

Chris: I already lodged in here many years ago, as well as in other recording studios in Hamburg. We never had a steady production place, but were always here or there, like in the Hammer Studios from Kai Hansen (GammaRay). But they totally gutted two years ago. After the fire, the team had to go somewhere and it was perfect here, because the rooms were free and so we moved into a part of the Chameleon Studios. Due to my participation it also became the home of Lord of the Lost.

Gared: Naturally we don't go into any other studio anymore.

 

Orkus: How many albums have you already produced here?

Tobias: None. (lustily laughing)

Chris: Well, we were in the middle of producing the last real LP From The Flame Into The Fire when the Hammer Studios burned down.

 

Orkus: Is the reason known?

Chris: It seemed to be the chemistry-fire next door. We moved with the album during the production process. We finished our classical-album Swan Songs and the EP Full Metal Whore here. But right now, we're in the first album production, which solely takes place here.

 

Orkus: Swan Songs and Full Metal Whore were released last year and now you're already busy with the next production. Compared to other bands, you have an impressive output. How's that possible?

Gared: (points at Chris)

Bo: That's for the main part Chris' fault. This guy has a creative output, where none of us is able to keep up – and also no one I know. Now you can talk about quality and quantity. (laughter) He has a fantastic amount of ideas; he partly elaborates them with us, partly also with other artists. It feels like there is coming a new song from him every two days. For example a situation during our US-tour: I'm driving, half of the guys is sleeping in the back, and I'm seeing Chris through the rearview mirror with headphones and his laptop – and five hours later, when we arrived at the hotel, Chris said: “I wrote a song.”

Gared: He looks out the window, gathers inspiration and writes a whole song.

Bo: They have working titles like Missouri so he can remember where he wrote them.

Chris: The whole Full Metal Whore-EP – except one song I wrote with Caspar from Coppelius – first consisted of working titles, which had state names of the US. Some songs from the album, which we're recording right now, have also been written during the US-tour. Means: The production process requires the same time as for other bands, but it overlaps. While we're finishing one album, we're already starting at some points for the next album. While album X is being mixed, recordings for album Y already started and also songwriting for album Z. That's how it always works up to now.

 

Orkus: And since you're all living around the corner, you can always work here?

Chris: Quasi. Depending from other bookings, we can work here whenever we want.

 

Orkus: So it's a big difference to other bands, which lodge in finish or brandenburgian forests for weeks.

Gared: Maybe we'll also do it someday. (daydreams for a few moments)

Chris: Sure, that would be cool. Surely someday the point will come when we say “We don't get any further like this, we need a bigger producer.” But it has to be someone who is in a completely different league. We don't need to ask someone who makes the same as we do. But if we had the chance for example – I overexaggerate now – to work with Rick Rubin, because he's affordable, we would for sure go somewhere else. But as long as that's not the case, we'll continue here.

 

Orkus: In the end, what makes a good studio and a good producer up?

Chris: I'm a firm believer that someone, who knows what he's doing, can come to a better result, with the worst equipment in the worst room, than someone who knows nothing, in the most expensive studio of the world. If you know your equipment, you can theoretically produce a great album only with a laptop in a very crappy room, if you perfectly know what you want and exhaust all given possibilities. So it's not only the studio. If you also have an idea of what you're doing and good-sounding rooms, you'll get somewhere else. For us it's like this: We don't have a plan, but we have great equipment, so we always come to a result, which is okay. (mildly laughter

Class: I also think a great producer gets the chance to speak – as well as wealth and fame – if he produces the right band. That's mainly an interaction. For example photographer and model, it's similar. I think someone who built up a reputation as a good producer, can also choose the hot bands, so it's again easier to ascend in the ranking.

Chris: I had a very short discussion with Jacob Hellner, the Rammstein-producer, when he was in Hamburg five years ago and ran a Pro-Tools-Workshop, where I also participated. He undertook the creative part and I the technical one. It was about new Pro Tools, means music production program. Doodad – you know. (laughter) I asked him directly: “Hey Jacob, old chap, how's it, we'd love to” – it was at the very beginning of LOTL – “work with such a great producer like you. How would this be?” And he said: “Sure, can understand this. I am good. You have to wait until there's enough money and then I'll think about it, if I like it.” (half lies on the table laughing) Additionally he also said people always expect magic happens as soon as he enters the room. What emerges in the end is 90% the band's work. As Class said: if the band is great, the producer can only steer the band in the right direction and get the last grain of magic out.

Bo: It's the same for movies.

Chris: Right, only a good director doesn't make a good movie.

Bo: Producer and studio are not a sewage work. If shit comes in, shit also comes out.

Class: Most important is the team of producer and band. I think Slayer hated Rick Rubin and therefore the product was also bad, though he is a great producer, but they hated each other. If you dislike the other one, magic can't happen.

Chris: Sometimes it just doesn't fit. HIM recorded one of their latest albums with a producer from England; it was technically great, but the emotions were gone. It was overproduced, too smooth and too polished. Then they shitcanned the whole album, went back into a small studio in Finland with their old producer – and made everything totally new again.

Bo: Big name and big production company doesn't mean it's going to be great. Like Metallica's Death Magnetic – totally overmastered album.

Chris: Crap.

Bo: Crap. After the mastering, it sounded shitty. The mastering engineer said someday he doesn't want his name to be on this product. The band wanted it to sound like it sounds. But the engineer didn't want to deal with it anymore. That's also a way how it can happen.

 

Orkus: And then there are also bands who need eight years for an album, because they can't handle their programs and computers anymore.

Chris: 18 years with Guns N'Roses...

 

Orkus: 14! Let's get back to the new LOTL-album...

Chris: I'll be right back... (disappears)

Bo: I also think it's not that good... (everyone laughs)

 

Orkus: In which direction does it run this time? Normally a dumb question, but justified for you now.

Gared: It will be similarly hard as the EP, just because we like it a lot.

 

Orkus: And because you want to be back at Wacken?

Bo: Totally right!
Gared: There's always movement in our music, we hate to copy ourselves. Too many bands in our society are doing this. Additionally to our roots, which we always keep and therefore always stay LOTL, something new is always added. The new album will have a synthie-heavy, spherical, futuristic sound, because it should also fit the thematic golden thread of the album, which... – I don't know if this anticipates to much, but...

Bo: THIS WAS TOO MUCH!
Gared: Sorry

Class: Lord of the Lost goes out of space!! (cheers)

Chris: (comes back) What's the topic? Ah, the new album. It will be futuristic.

All: (helter-skelter) We already had this!! (laughter)

 

Orkus: How far have you come with the recordings so far?

Class: Veeeeery far. (laughter) It will be released in 2016.

Chris: It's a crazy production order this time. Due to the futuristic approach, we'll finish the electronics first. I'm doing this with my co-producer. (insiders are exchanged and quipped)

 

Orkus: Sobriety please!

Bo & Gared: Never!

Chris: We have Gabor from Formalin as co-producer. This time, drums will be recorded last.

 

Orkus: Because Tobi always takes longest? (he leans on the table and grins)

Chris: No, because when you're doing the electronics first, you know exactly where you need real drums and where not. Otherwise you'll record everything and in the end you have to exchange everything, because nothing matches anymore. Therefore we take the way backwards this time.

Gared: If it should be futuristic, you also start with the most important parts first.

Chris: We're in the middle of recording the guitar, which should support and partly also replace this. Then bass, vocals and then drums. Therefore exactly the other way around this time. Very crazy, but cool.

 

Orkus: Which parts are most annoying?

Chris: I think singing is most annoying. (silence)

 

Orkus: (confused to everybody round) Is he serious or is this a joke again?

Chris: No, I'm really serious. With a guitar or also drums, you're able to lead everything emotionally. You can also hit a snare drum with a cold or in a bad mood. It's complicated with vocals. You're capturing an emotional moment, a snapshot, which also remains. And the magic gets lost after three to four takes for me; it might get better technically, but it doesn't transport the emotion anymore. Therefore it annoys me, so: it always puts big pressure on me. I love singing live, but I hate it in the studio. At first I have to get myself into it, have to relax and have to find the point, where I'm pleased with myself. And if it's crappy or I'm showing it to the guys and they say: “Yeah, it's okay, but it doesn't really rock, maybe you should sing it again.” I can't do it again the next day, but have to wait a few weeks, until I'm up for it again and have the courage to do it again.

Bo: We never were present during a vocal recording.

Chris: Yeah, it's very rare.

Bo: You also transported it like this, it's too naked for you, if we're present too.

Chris: I'm mainly alone.

Bo: It's somehow exciting. Such a softie.

Chris: I won't get better if five people want to lead me and if there are five different opinions.

Class: You're a little girl.

Chris: Totally. I prefer to test it and it goes wrong, then I'll get some criticism from someone who listens to it and then we decide...

Bo: … if you're allowed to stay for dinner.

Chris: It's the same with mixing. You can't mix, if five people are sitting behind you, that's not possible. Many bands want to be present. It's totally annoying. The guitarist asks: “Can my guitar be louder?”, the bassist asks “Can my bass be louder?” No, first finishing, showing to the band, listening to it few times, giving feedback and then, with profound feedback, burnishing and correcting. That makes more sense and we also do it like this with the vocals.

 

Orkus: Do you enter the production process with completely finished songs or do they still change in the course?

Chris: There's both. They're mainly completely finished and are only processed, because they're already being completely designed during the demo production. Then this will be reproduced and until the end, only details regarding perfection and expression are changed. But sometimes you also realized it wasn't that great and you start changing the song during the process, this can happen. Mainly these are the songs, which will get kicked out in the end, so: if you have to change so much about it, you realize it wasn't it. If the idea wasn't the right one intuitively, these ones are mainly the songs on the B-sides. The best songs are always the ones, which are finished fastly. Bam and finished, and that's it.

 

Orkus: Probably 90 percent of the songs...

Chris: No, but 87 percent. (grins) Some songs really need years. We finalized songs, which I wrote in the age of 17 or 18 and they always felt wrong over all these years – in regard of a certain album – and then it changed and in a new version, it was perfect for the atmosphere of an album. Songs like Die Tomorrow or Prison.

Gared: It's funny how a song can change during all these years, especially if you have so many attempts. Die Tomorrow is the best example.

Chris: Hm, there are five to six versions for it. Sometimes you already ceded songs to other bands.

Gared: … and reclaimed them again. It sounds completely different than originally, but it suddenly fits.

 

Orkus: How does your songwriting work if Chris doesn't write the songs in the bus? Do you jam sometimes?

All: We neeeever jam!

Bo: We all hate it like poison.

Chris: We never did this sitting around and jamming. And also a song never emerged from it.

Gared: Pity!

Bo: Exemplary scene from a rehearsal: Gared plays something, Tobi joins...

Chris: … then I always leave the room...

Bo: Then Chris really always leaves the room; a little jam emerges, but it never lasts longer than five minutes.

Class: Or something from Joe Cocker, we never come up with something by ourselves.

Gared: But there are also songs which emerged from riff-ideas during a soundcheck. Bo just played a riff, Chris thought it's cool and recorded it with his iPhone, or also due to percussion-patterns, which I played – this also already happened.

Chris: In general there are two models: Either I'm making the song alone, in the nightliner or at home, or I'm playing pingpong with another songwriter or someone from the band, or sometimes also with someone from another band. It goes through our electronic e-mail world, until a great song has emerged.

 

Orkus: How about discipline?

Chris: We're very Prussian about this topic. There's a day planner, and we work after this one.

Bo: The dates for the guitar recording are fixed for nine months now, so you keep this date clear, that's it. So you have time to get prepared.

Gared: Until then, often new songs are added.

Chris: That's the problem right now. We're actually finished, but three to four new songs have been added and now we have to add some sessions. It's always like this and mostly the strongest songs are added at the end.

Gared: The album isn't finished until shortly before the last session. Well, actually it is – you think – but then so much is changed again. This is going to be a song, this will be a strong single, and other things are taken back, have less priority or get kicked completely.

Chris: There is one song we started to produce during the first album, but we left it, tried it again for the next album and continued producing it, stopped again and now it will finally – if it doesn't get kicked again – be on the next album.

Bo: If Johnny Cash Was Here for example. We tried it several times, but it logically never fit – and then suddenly we had the acoustic album and there was a place for it.

 

Orkus: Chris, how long are you already producing other bands?

Chris: Actually always since I'm sound engineer. But as much as now only since we have the Chameleon Studio. We now produced eight or nine albums in during one year. All genre-bands. We're not only producing Heavy Metal or Gothic – that would be boring; there are producers who only make Metalcore, their whole life. I would go crazy, that would be totally boring for me, to produce the same music over and over again. Someday you start working after a raster, after a pattern, you never have the courage to do something new. Terrible, like an assembly line work in a factory.

 

Orkus: Do you only produce the things you like or do you produce everything that's coming in?

Chris: We, as the team from Chameleon Studio, are in the happy position to be able to reject inquiries, because we get more inquiries than we could work on. Sure there are times where you don't have so much to do and you think “Nah, that's not that great”, but you have to see yourself as a service provider. We have to get the money from somewhere, such a studio is really expensive, as well as the whole life. Then you're also doing things which you don't totally love, sure.

 

Orkus: Are you able to listen to music without thinking about how it has been produced?

Chris: No, terrible. It doesn't work for me, I listen to music with different ears. The musical-ear, then there's the songwriting-ear, the producer-ear, the technical-ear, that's really awful. It happens very rarely during a long car ride that I'm totally into an album and can enjoy it.

Class: I'm fan, so I see myself more as a consumer. I visit a lot of concerts. So I don't listen to music from the analytic point.

Chris: Bassists... (smirks)

Class: I'm an album-freak and not someone who says “Do you know the song from band xyz?” I listen to the album completely, I don't care.

Chris: And that's how I get music. I would never listen to something new, because I don't feel like it – I prefer listening to Roxette, because I've listened to it my whole life. And then there's Class during our US-tour and asks “Do you know In This Moment? That's totally cool at the moment” - and so I started listening only to In This Moment. I would never do this. I never discover new bands spontaneously.

Class: That's what I defend myself from. I listen to it deeply and realize it has been produced very nice, but I try not to tear it apart, but to enjoy the music. It's not always like this, but I'm more a consumer. So in the end I also enjoy nice food, but must not be able to cook it.

Gared: For me it balances each other. Since I studied audio engineering under Chris Harms' thumb, what has been predicted to me at the beginning of my studies, has become truth. But I tried – as Class – to preserve to enjoy listening to music, no matter if produced badly or nice; so you just feel it. If I analyze something it happens from the musical point of view. Since I always boast about my theoretically established knowledge, I listen more to the musicality and the instrumental part – and less to the production. How is it played et cetera – I'm on a common thread therefore with Tobi, we often listen to Progressive Rock and all these virtuosos – it always works faster and more complicated – just to analyze it and to train myself with it.

Chris: Terrible!

Gared: I really love to analyze, I can also listen to a crappy production from a metal-band, where I think the songs are really good, though it sounds like a garage recording.

Chris: We had a Dream-Theater-ban in our nightliner for a long time – I think we still have it...

Gared: But it's always dismissed...

Class: Well, there's music which is cool for a single person and you delight in musical top performances. But it's nothing without party... uhm

Gared: A party stunner with 18 minutes...

Bo: AND NOW ALL SING ALONG!

Class: It's only for the ones which take pleasure in Super High Speed.

Bo: I basically never listen to music. It's just a job. Nah, I'm similar to Class, I don't visit concerts as often as he does, but I like to, when I have time, lie in my bed, with headphones, and enjoy the music. For me it's equally important which emotion is transported. The genre doesn't matter for me, but if the emotion, that the musician made this with passion, is transported. no matter if Hip Hop, Electro or whatever, then I understand it and can party along. When it's only ran through or the artist is unsympathetic – like Megadeth for example, I just don't like Dave Mustaine, totally unsympathetic – I can't get anything out of it. For me the main point really is that the emotion is right.

 

Orkus: Chris, are there any artists you would like to produce?

Gared: Gared Dirge & friends.

Chris: If I had one wish? Then I would make a rock album with Lady Gaga.

Class: Now I have to pose a question. Can everyone produce every artist or should you find a producer team for artists with a high expectation, to increase the know-how? (Silence... Chris ran away, half didn't listen, the other half is clueless – the question remains unanswered. But Class takes it calmly.)

Tobias: Music is sports. No really: If I buy music newly, I first have to analyze it, no matter if in regard of playing or sound engineering. I listen to certain music a thousand times, but I listen to some albums eternally and then I can enjoy them. But first I have to digest it. Therefore I don't find new bands that fast and always need some more time. There are people who buy five albums at once and listen to them completely. I couldn't do this – I don't like everything the first time on principle. Everything that's new is at first always moderate.

 

Orkus: What's better: Very great production with meaningless songs or great content, but totally bad recording?

Tobias: I want to answer! (is wide-eyed) For sure both! No, history showed people can get along with bad productions and still become famous; it depends for sure from the time, what was possible sound engineering speaking. Nowadays a Beatles-production can be seen as bad, but by the standards of the time it was the ultimate and the best for this time. But I think there's also a point for the consumer, where it really gets crappy... especially if it has off-key notes and a wrong rhythm; I think people react very fast upon it – unless it is punk. In general a production can be less good; until the songs are strong and people can bond to it, then it's cool. Sometimes it's even a stylistic device, if you want to sound especially dirty, or sometimes the vocals are distorted to transport a better feeling.

Bo: It's also a question of attitude. Some bands have this garage-rock-image, wanting to be really true with it. If Lady Gaga was thinking about this, everyone would ask what this should mean. The overall concept has to be right. When we released our live-CD, the sound wasn't like the one from the studio either – but that's how it should be.

Gared: It's an overlap of both.

Bo: Right, but for me personally a nice meaning is more important – up to a certain point. If the production is so bad you can't distinguish an E from a F anymore, I can't enjoy it anymore. The enjoyment comes first for me.

Class: First comes a good song. There are enough albums which haven't been produced well, but became famous nevertheless, because they include great songs. (everyone agrees)

Gared: There's also a difference between musicians and producers, which want their works to sound like this, and fans on the other side. The consumer doesn't listen analytically, but pays attention to the atmosphere. Means: the part of the overlap from quality of the production and emotions always depend on who's listening to it right now, but both always must be there. Except if you're black-metaler and want it to sound like garage. (Chris comes back)

 

Orkus: Say something technical nerdy no one understands, but sounds totally sexy.

Gared: (starts after a collective confusion and raises a cheer) I think it's totally cool to play, over a 7/4 stroke at the drums, a 7/8 one, means to perceived duplicate the speed, but to still rhythmic it, so it sounds like a danceable 4/4 stroke.