Full Transcript

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John Kennedy: Hello, welcome to Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: Before we dig into this week’s episode, I just wanted to put out a reminder that we are on the hunt for an intern to join the video side of Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: Full job description and how to apply can be found on our link tree across any of our socials.

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John Kennedy: Now, we have got a new episode for you.

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John Kennedy: I was joined by Olly Alexander, formerly known as Years & Years, and producer Danny L Harle, to talk about Olly’s new album, Polari, his first released under his own name.

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John Kennedy: Now, it was brilliant to see Olly again, because years and years ago, I know I couldn’t resist it, but years and years ago, way back in 2014, I got to introduce Olly and Years & Years as part of the In The Woods Festival.

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John Kennedy: Now, some of you may know that the In The Woods Festival is what led to Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: I used to be the compare for this festival that took place in a wood, and there were two stages, and I would introduce the bands on each of the stages.

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John Kennedy: And one year we had Years & Years playing, and they were amazing and sparkling in the woodlight.

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John Kennedy: It was a very special occasion.

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John Kennedy: So it was brilliant to see Olly again, and it was fascinating to find out about his new record and the evolution of his songwriting.

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John Kennedy: And Danny has got lots of great production tricks throughout this whole episode.

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John Kennedy: He really digs deep into the sessions with plugin demos and the sounds behind the album.

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John Kennedy: It’s definitely an episode that would benefit you seeing his screen.

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John Kennedy: And if you’d like to do that, head over to the Tape Notes Patreon page where you can see the full episode in video form.

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John Kennedy: That’s at patreon.com/tapenotes, as well as access to the full video episodes, which often include additional material from the conversations.

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John Kennedy: Becoming a patron also gives you access to episode gear lists, episode previews, and the opportunities to ask questions to upcoming guests, among many other things.

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John Kennedy: Thank you to everyone that supports us on Patreon.

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John Kennedy: Thanks also to our partners at Tape It, the iPhone recording app for musicians.

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John Kennedy: Olly and Danny had a go on Tape It during one of the breaks.

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John Kennedy: They seemed like they really enjoyed using it and even suggested some more features they’d like to see, which was really exciting.

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John Kennedy: More on Tape It later in the show.

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John Kennedy: But if you’d like to try it out for yourself, then head to tape.it forward slash Tape Notes, search Tape It on the app store or click the link in the show notes.

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John Kennedy: But now without further ado, let’s get started.

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John Kennedy: Hello and welcome to Tape Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music.

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John Kennedy: Every episode, we’ll be reuniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio.

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John Kennedy: So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath.

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John Kennedy: Hello, I’m John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes are Olly Alexander and producer Danny L Harle to talk about how they wrote, recorded, and produced the album Polari.

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John Kennedy: Olly Alexander is an English singer, actor, and LGBTQ plus activist.

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John Kennedy: Olly’s early career in music began in 2010 as part of the electro pop band Years & Years.

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John Kennedy: While releasing a string of successful singles, the band launched onto the global stage in 2015 with the hit King, which topped the UK singles chart and reached the top 10 around the world.

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John Kennedy: Their debut album Communion arrived later that year on Polydor Records and went on to become the fastest selling debut album by a UK band in 2015.

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John Kennedy: Over their career, Years & Years achieved remarkable success, including two UK number one albums, 10 UK top 40 singles, and the prestigious Brit Billion Award for surpassing 6.5 billion global streams.

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John Kennedy: With two studio albums to their name, their third, 2022’s Nightcall, although still under the Years & Years name served as a solo project from Olly.

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John Kennedy: As a solo artist, Olly has collaborated with musical icons including Elton John, Kylie Minogue and Pet Shop Boys, and in 2024, he represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest with the track Dizzy.

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John Kennedy: His fourth studio album, Polari, arrived in February 2025, working with producer Danny L Harle.

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John Kennedy: His first record under his own name, the album marks a new chapter in his artistic journey, showcasing his evolution as a singer and songwriter.

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John Kennedy: Danny L Harle is a British music producer, artist and composer.

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John Kennedy: Coming from a creative family, Danny’s passion for music crystallized at the age of 12, when he discovered bands like Slipknot and Madness, inspiring him to pick up the bass guitar and eventually leading him to study classical music at Goldsmiths University of London.

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John Kennedy: While at university, Harle reconnected with AG.

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John Kennedy: Cook, a former schoolmate, and they began to experiment with sounds, merging their shared love of electronic music.

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John Kennedy: This collaboration deepened his interest in pop songwriting and production, laying the foundation for his solo career.

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John Kennedy: His debut single, Broken Flowers, a track infused with 90s dance pop nostalgia, was released in 2013 through A.G.’s fledgling label, PC.

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John Kennedy: Music.

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John Kennedy: While also working on remixes for numerous high-profile artists and releasing an album of his own, Harle Corps, in 2021, Danny has become one of the most sought after producers and songwriters in music.

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John Kennedy: Over the years, he has shared his talents with artists including Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Clairo, Dua Lipa, Liam Gallagher, Flume and many more.

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John Kennedy: His most recent work can be heard with Olly Alexander, co-writing and producing Polari.

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John Kennedy: Today, I’m at Strongroom Studios in London and I’m joined by Olly and Danny.

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John Kennedy: And what better way to start than by hearing something from the record.

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John Kennedy: This is Whisper In The Waves.

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John Kennedy: It is Whisper In The Waves by Olly Alexander from the album Polari.

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John Kennedy: And I’m very pleased to say that Olly Alexander and Danny L Harle, who created the record, are here with me.

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John Kennedy: Hello.

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Olly Alexander: Hello.

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Danny L Harle: Hello.

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John Kennedy: It’s great to see you, and it’s great to see you swaying to that song.

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John Kennedy: It was very appropriate.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, it just sounded lovely.

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Olly Alexander: Thank you.

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John Kennedy: But that is actually the first song we’re going to look at from the record, because we’re going to look at four songs today, rather than the normal three, which is very exciting.

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John Kennedy: And we’re going to go back to the very act of initial creation, I think, possibly with you, Danny, because you’ve got some interesting things to share with us.

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Danny L Harle: Yes.

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Danny L Harle: So this song was quite interesting in its conception.

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Danny L Harle: And it was almost a product of the way in which we went about writing it.

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Danny L Harle: Because first of all, it started off with just us in the room, Olly with a mic just improvising over a chord sequence that I wrote that had this almost a 6-8 feel to it that I can play.

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Danny L Harle: The 6-8, 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6-2-dum-dum-dum.

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Danny L Harle: And we started doing that, and then I was getting excited about that.

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Danny L Harle: That was great.

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Danny L Harle: We were vibing on that.

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Danny L Harle: Olly was coming up with some really nice little melodic ideas that went from one section to another.

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Danny L Harle: And I think that’s often the start of a song’s creation, definitely in the process of this album, where it’s like you work out a little bit of melody that fits one bit to the next bit, and then it’s a kind of almost like-

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Olly Alexander: What next?

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Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

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Danny L Harle: Cause you basically create a puzzle piece by doing that, and then you sort of find all the other bits that fit in.

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Olly Alexander: I feel like you would set, it’s sort of almost like you set me little challenges.

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Olly Alexander: You create sort of like 16 bars of extremely complex music.

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Olly Alexander: Not complex, but just surprising kind of chord sequences.

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Olly Alexander: Cause I think you’re in, we’re both into that.

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Danny L Harle: Yes.

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Olly Alexander: And Whisper In The Waves, I think, is a good example of how we like a sort of major to minor modulation, maybe then going back.

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Olly Alexander: And I had forgotten that we started this song as a different song.

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Danny L Harle: Yeah, exactly.

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Danny L Harle: That’s what made it quite unique in that way.

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Danny L Harle: Because, so we, this is the, the session that ended up as Whisper In The Waves started with.

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Olly Alexander: Well, it’s feeling very Danny L Harle.

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Olly Alexander: It’s good.

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Olly Alexander: There we go.

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Danny L Harle: And that sort of flute is giving the 6-8.

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Danny L Harle: And this is the repeat.

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John Kennedy: So what are those sounds, Danny?

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Danny L Harle: So it looks like we’ve got a lot of contact happening here.

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Danny L Harle: We’ve got, we’ve got some mm’s.

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Danny L Harle: We’ve got some glassy sort of pads going on there.

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Danny L Harle: Some really nice little flutes there.

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Danny L Harle: I literally need to have flutes in the music, otherwise it’s basically not music as far as I’m concerned.

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Olly Alexander: It’s quite a signature of yours, a flute, I think.

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Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, it’s just got to be in there.

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John Kennedy: But they’re all created in the box?

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Danny L Harle: All in the box, all in the box.

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Danny L Harle: Don’t be silly, it’s all in the box.

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Olly Alexander: It’s a very in the box record.

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Danny L Harle: I love the box, what can I say?

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Olly Alexander: It’s in the box and then out of it.

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Danny L Harle: Yes, exactly.

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Danny L Harle: Then we have the piano doing the bass notes.

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Danny L Harle: But let’s not bother dwelling on this, I would say, because actually we can listen to the music that Olly was improvising over it because I think it’s actually a really nice melody.

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Danny L Harle: This is a kind of thing that when we’re starting off with, I’d present Olly with something like that and then Olly would just start sort of just hearing stuff over the top of it like this.

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Danny L Harle: Same thing again.

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Danny L Harle: So we’re writing this, getting a little excited over it, and then I was just like, okay, great.

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Danny L Harle: So it’s as much as a complex sequence, it needs a bigger sequence to release into.

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Danny L Harle: So then after that in the file, I’ve got this.

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John Kennedy: So that’s the pocket orchestra that you have at hand.

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Danny L Harle: Yeah, that’s two sounds.

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Danny L Harle: That’s this and that.

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Danny L Harle: This is that same sort of like underwater piano sound.

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Danny L Harle: And then in this file, it goes back to that sort of 680 thing.

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Danny L Harle: And then after that, we have this again.

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Danny L Harle: So, I think what basically happened is at that point, and I don’t know if Olly remembers, I was just like, wait, wait, wait, okay, let’s stop this.

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Danny L Harle: This is actually the song here.

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Danny L Harle: This section is the song.

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Danny L Harle: And then, I think we then just worked on something else, because the next session I have is one that’s sort of emblematic of a rather interesting process that we went through to write this song, which is with an engineer in the room, where it’s basically, was it James Mellor for this one?

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Danny L Harle: I can’t remember.

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Danny L Harle: So it was me and Olly just sitting in the room, and I was doing what I call goblining, which I know is not a known phrase, but it is the best way of describing what I do, which is kind of like hunching over my laptop, working on it like that, like a goblin in the corner, and airdropping files to the engineer who has the sort of larger file that is kind of playing.

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Danny L Harle: And it’s almost like then Olly and me can sort of write to that, as if it’s just like a song we’re listening to, and we can just sing over it.

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Danny L Harle: And then if we have an idea, I can like airdrop something over, and then it’s, yeah, it’s just a very, it’s a process I love.

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Danny L Harle: You need the privilege of an engineer to do it, so that was an amazing thing to have.

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Danny L Harle: And it allows for total like fluidity of songwriting, cause you don’t have to think about the recording process at all, you just pick up the mic and just start singing over it, and then it just, the song materialises.

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Olly Alexander: Also, I feel like the way that we were working together, because I don’t want, you know, sometimes you can work with a producer who’s just constantly like not giving you any attention or focus because they’re working, you know, on the desk or in the box, whatever.

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Olly Alexander: So having, being able to kind of actually bounce everything back and forth all the time, was I think very key for us.

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Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.

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Danny L Harle: And it allows you to, from Audie’s perspective, it allows him just to be an artist in that way and just think about it in terms of how the song feels and what he’s saying.

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Danny L Harle: And from my perspective, it allows you to produce, the funny thing about producing is that people really associate it these days with that kind of like hustling on your laptop thing.

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Danny L Harle: But actually a lot of producing needs to be done like psychologically standing in the George Martin tradition of just standing and thinking about it and then if you have the privilege of having other people in the room experimenting with different arrangements of people doing stuff.

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Danny L Harle: In my case, it was telling the engineer to arrange the song differently and then seeing how that felt.

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Danny L Harle: But from a third person perspective.

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Danny L Harle: So, this is the file that I have, which we were writing from for Whisper In The Waves.

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Danny L Harle: All it is, is this big block of information because what I was doing is I was just making more and more material and then bouncing it over and putting it all into this big loop and then seeing what happens if I get the internet to mute certain bits of it.

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Danny L Harle: This is one bit of it.

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Olly Alexander: You kind of be conducting on the fly sometimes.

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John Kennedy: Yes.

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Olly Alexander: Take this out, put this back in.

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Danny L Harle: Yes.

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Danny L Harle: So this for example is something that I would like just bounce in my laptop and just airdrop over to the engineer so we just have that to listen to.

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John Kennedy: Yes.

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John Kennedy: So the engineer has the door in front of them, and you’re kind of chucking them sounds as it were.

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Danny L Harle: Exactly.

00:14:32.532 –> 00:14:36.732
John Kennedy: Then you can rearrange instructing them to do the maneuvering.

00:14:36.792 –> 00:14:37.052
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:14:37.052 –> 00:14:42.212
John Kennedy: Just so that you’re free to just listen and look and observe and vibe.

00:14:42.472 –> 00:14:43.132
Danny L Harle: Exactly.

00:14:43.152 –> 00:14:44.972
Danny L Harle: It allows for total freedom in that way.

00:14:45.312 –> 00:14:47.852
Danny L Harle: It’s an amazing thing to be able to do.

00:14:49.692 –> 00:14:51.652
Danny L Harle: I am able to work in a way that isn’t like that.

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Danny L Harle: That’s just, I just thought this is an interesting example of a songwriting process that I really enjoy.

00:14:58.132 –> 00:15:01.532
Danny L Harle: I mainly don’t work like that.

00:15:01.532 –> 00:15:06.232
Danny L Harle: But with a lot of the songs I think were in this album were made in this way.

00:15:06.832 –> 00:15:10.312
Danny L Harle: So then, yeah, so here’s some other material for it.

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Danny L Harle: It’s got some reversed percussion there.

00:15:18.272 –> 00:15:22.892
Danny L Harle: And they kind of like quite sort of distorted acoustic sounding kick there.

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John Kennedy: And when you’re in the room with this happening, Olly, are you thinking about how you’re going to respond to that vocally?

00:15:37.243 –> 00:15:41.643
John Kennedy: Or the little section that we heard before, how long would you improvise for?

00:15:41.643 –> 00:15:46.263
John Kennedy: You know, would there be an hour of you singing away, or would it be like just five minutes?

00:15:46.263 –> 00:15:47.803
Olly Alexander: Usually, it depends.

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Olly Alexander: I like to sit with something, hear it, and then start just in the room vocalizing.

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Olly Alexander: Then maybe when I feel like, oh, there’s something good happening, get on the mic, and then just put it in, put it down.

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Olly Alexander: Not caring too much about what comes out.

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Olly Alexander: Usually, I don’t like to spend too long doing that, because I think you can kind of get a bit lost.

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Olly Alexander: And Whisper In The Waves, I really can’t remember what came first with this, because remember, Danny, we had this idea from the Greek myth of Calypso trapping Odysseus on her island.

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Danny L Harle: I don’t remember it that being that.

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Danny L Harle: I remember it being the Hesperian-

00:16:24.183 –> 00:16:25.143
Olly Alexander: The Hesperian air.

00:16:25.143 –> 00:16:25.843
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

00:16:26.163 –> 00:16:29.123
Danny L Harle: The Hesperia and the orchard.

00:16:29.123 –> 00:16:30.783
Olly Alexander: Yeah, but it came from Calypso.

00:16:30.783 –> 00:16:31.463
Danny L Harle: Oh, right.

00:16:31.463 –> 00:16:34.243
Olly Alexander: And that’s why it’s the waves, the waves lapping the island.

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Danny L Harle: Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, nice.

00:16:36.603 –> 00:16:38.023
Olly Alexander: We had different kind of-

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Danny L Harle: Oh, that’s interesting.

00:16:39.043 –> 00:16:46.623
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, no, I never associated with Calypso in my head, but I guess that’s another thing, is that we don’t necessarily talk about what the song’s about.

00:16:47.463 –> 00:16:52.083
Danny L Harle: Like, whilst we’re writing it, we’re just talking about, like, just the lyrics and what feels right.

00:16:52.163 –> 00:16:55.443
Olly Alexander: Yeah, because that would mean different things to us both.

00:16:55.443 –> 00:16:56.383
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

00:16:56.383 –> 00:16:58.223
Olly Alexander: But it was important that we both related to it.

00:16:58.223 –> 00:16:58.643
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:16:58.643 –> 00:17:03.603
Olly Alexander: But yeah, I think Whisper In The Waves, we must have done chorus first, maybe?

00:17:03.603 –> 00:17:04.583
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I would say so.

00:17:04.583 –> 00:17:09.123
Danny L Harle: I would say so, because the way it then worked, because it’s actually a very simple song in terms of arrangement.

00:17:09.123 –> 00:17:09.943
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:17:09.943 –> 00:17:14.083
Danny L Harle: Is that we just have these big chords with this big bass thing.

00:17:20.543 –> 00:17:24.683
Olly Alexander: Like this song as well was all about finding the most interesting intervals in the melody.

00:17:24.683 –> 00:17:27.623
Danny L Harle: You can hear that he’s got that note that connected.

00:17:28.843 –> 00:17:31.663
Danny L Harle: There you go, because that fits over the last and first chord.

00:17:34.963 –> 00:17:39.023
Danny L Harle: So that was the method we used to write that.

00:17:39.203 –> 00:17:47.043
Danny L Harle: That’s a method that I really like as well, just because I think it makes the music that I like to listen to the most in the world.

00:17:48.083 –> 00:17:59.423
Danny L Harle: And so basically the whole track is just moving from those big chords with the drums to just a sort of reduced form of the bass and the drums.

00:17:59.603 –> 00:18:02.603
Danny L Harle: That’s how the song starts with these, with maybe some slight extras.

00:18:25.095 –> 00:18:26.535
Danny L Harle: And there we go, I just listened to those chords.

00:18:27.388 –> 00:18:28.608
John Kennedy: So it sounds great, yeah, favourite.

00:18:28.608 –> 00:18:29.488
John Kennedy: They’re quite hypnotic.

00:18:29.488 –> 00:18:29.768
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:18:29.768 –> 00:18:33.088
John Kennedy: So that kind of led you into a zone.

00:18:33.388 –> 00:18:39.048
Olly Alexander: Yeah, I usually, to be honest, it’s all about what, yeah, I feel like the songs reveal themselves.

00:18:39.048 –> 00:18:46.668
Olly Alexander: They want to get written, you know, so I just like to sit with it and try and figure out how it’s making me feel and where it’s taking me.

00:18:46.668 –> 00:18:51.548
Olly Alexander: And I feel like a lot of the songs on this album, we kind of latch onto what the idea was.

00:18:51.548 –> 00:18:56.628
Olly Alexander: In this case, there’s water, there’s waves, there’s a story, this sort of almost tortured love story.

00:18:56.628 –> 00:18:58.608
Olly Alexander: And then it feels like the song reveals itself.

00:18:58.608 –> 00:19:03.988
Olly Alexander: And then often we’d kind of try and focus on the chorus or a specific hook.

00:19:03.988 –> 00:19:05.848
Olly Alexander: And then, you know, the verses would follow.

00:19:05.848 –> 00:19:14.568
Olly Alexander: And I think the benefit of doing everything together, working on everything together, is that we would chop and change between different songs and work on one thing, put it down, come back to it.

00:19:14.568 –> 00:19:27.328
Olly Alexander: So it’s a real process of like refinement, I think, with every song, instead of kind of more scatter shot, doing demos here and there, and then moving on, we go back to things all the time and go, let’s revisit and see if there’s another section and kind of build it out like that.

00:19:27.328 –> 00:19:27.708
John Kennedy: Right.

00:19:27.708 –> 00:19:28.808
Olly Alexander: So it was a bit more…

00:19:28.808 –> 00:19:32.408
John Kennedy: So was this a different way of working or was this a usual method?

00:19:32.408 –> 00:19:34.028
Olly Alexander: I had never worked like that before.

00:19:34.028 –> 00:19:35.628
Olly Alexander: And I always wanted to.

00:19:35.628 –> 00:19:43.348
Olly Alexander: I’ve often worked with kind of more collaborators where you maybe make more demos here and there, you’re trying lots of different things and trying lots of different people on the songs.

00:19:43.348 –> 00:19:50.028
Olly Alexander: But this time, you know, I just wanted it to be really focused with just one or two people.

00:19:50.028 –> 00:19:51.828
Olly Alexander: So I think that really informed it, for sure.

00:19:51.828 –> 00:19:52.628
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:19:52.628 –> 00:19:56.628
John Kennedy: And so, and Danny was kind of in the box all the time working on the sounds.

00:19:56.628 –> 00:20:02.208
John Kennedy: And you were just free to then think in terms of melody lines and lyrics and-

00:20:02.208 –> 00:20:02.848
Olly Alexander: Yeah, totally.

00:20:02.848 –> 00:20:11.108
Olly Alexander: When we were just, I mean, my, my extent of really, I’d say, I like that, or I don’t like that, or more of that, Danny, less of that.

00:20:11.108 –> 00:20:12.628
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:20:12.628 –> 00:20:16.408
Olly Alexander: I think you just develop a way of communicating kind of instinctively as well.

00:20:16.888 –> 00:20:17.388
Danny L Harle: Totally.

00:20:17.388 –> 00:20:22.008
Olly Alexander: Because you spend so much time together in the studio and you feel like what feels good, what feels right.

00:20:22.008 –> 00:20:25.768
Olly Alexander: And once you get into a groove, it kind of, I don’t know, just felt like it was coming out.

00:20:25.768 –> 00:20:25.988
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:20:25.988 –> 00:20:27.968
Danny L Harle: Because you’re making music, I think.

00:20:27.968 –> 00:20:40.528
Danny L Harle: And if you’re someone like Olly, who just starts singing when he hears something, there’s not really much of a need to say that much in most situations because it’s just very clear if it’s working or not.

00:20:40.528 –> 00:20:40.688
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:20:40.688 –> 00:20:46.768
Danny L Harle: And like, you don’t need to say, do you like that, to somebody who’s singing along to the song.

00:20:46.768 –> 00:20:49.128
John Kennedy: So you hear sounds and immediately starts singing.

00:20:49.368 –> 00:20:55.628
John Kennedy: So it makes me recall that you ended up in Years & Years because they heard you in the shower.

00:20:55.668 –> 00:20:57.548
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:20:57.548 –> 00:21:00.148
John Kennedy: And it’s like, oh, he’s just singing and it sounds great.

00:21:00.228 –> 00:21:02.128
John Kennedy: Do you want to play in our band?

00:21:02.128 –> 00:21:02.608
John Kennedy: Am I right?

00:21:03.028 –> 00:21:03.868
John Kennedy: Was that the story?

00:21:04.368 –> 00:21:11.208
Olly Alexander: I mean, it’s slightly kind of a story that’s sort of, I don’t know what the right word is.

00:21:11.248 –> 00:21:12.448
John Kennedy: There’s more to it than that?

00:21:12.448 –> 00:21:15.008
Olly Alexander: No, it’s just become a bit of a sort of funny legend.

00:21:15.008 –> 00:21:16.628
Olly Alexander: But I was singing in the shower.

00:21:16.628 –> 00:21:18.588
Olly Alexander: That is how Mikey kind of heard me singing.

00:21:18.588 –> 00:21:19.768
Olly Alexander: He was in the band.

00:21:19.768 –> 00:21:22.568
Olly Alexander: And I had said to him, like, I want to join the band.

00:21:22.568 –> 00:21:23.388
Olly Alexander: I’m a good singer.

00:21:23.388 –> 00:21:29.308
Olly Alexander: But he hadn’t heard me sing until he heard me in the shower because he was staying over one night after a party.

00:21:29.308 –> 00:21:29.468
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:21:29.468 –> 00:21:33.228
John Kennedy: So a conversation had happened before then, but then he finally got to hear you sing.

00:21:33.348 –> 00:21:33.788
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:21:33.788 –> 00:21:34.148
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:21:34.148 –> 00:21:34.688
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:21:34.688 –> 00:21:40.048
John Kennedy: But that illustrates this trait that you like singing basically.

00:21:40.048 –> 00:21:41.248
Olly Alexander: I do like to sing.

00:21:41.248 –> 00:21:41.868
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:21:41.868 –> 00:21:42.388
Olly Alexander: Very much.

00:21:42.388 –> 00:21:44.028
Olly Alexander: I’m always vocalizing.

00:21:45.048 –> 00:21:45.388
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:21:45.388 –> 00:21:48.368
Olly Alexander: And that’s really how I hear melodies or songs.

00:21:48.368 –> 00:21:49.608
Olly Alexander: It just comes out of me.

00:21:49.608 –> 00:21:51.208
Olly Alexander: And then I figure out, you know.

00:21:51.208 –> 00:21:51.608
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:21:51.608 –> 00:22:01.548
John Kennedy: But it’s really nice, particularly today, because it means that you’re going to be improvising as we go through today’s show, which is to a really nice experience.

00:22:01.548 –> 00:22:13.508
Danny L Harle: And so just to finish this one off, I would say, I’ve got the final production file from it, where I’ve got the production underneath and I’ve got Olly’s vocals here that we recorded with Cam.

00:22:13.508 –> 00:22:22.068
Danny L Harle: I can see Cam’s unique stem style at the top here, where it’s divided into how many files in total?

00:22:22.068 –> 00:22:23.008
Danny L Harle: Let’s have a look.

00:22:23.008 –> 00:22:23.688
John Kennedy: And Cam is?

00:22:24.348 –> 00:22:26.148
Danny L Harle: Cameron Gower-Poole.

00:22:26.148 –> 00:22:27.128
Olly Alexander: Vocal producer.

00:22:27.168 –> 00:22:28.708
John Kennedy: Right, who is actually based here.

00:22:28.708 –> 00:22:30.288
John Kennedy: We’re at Strongroom Studios today.

00:22:30.288 –> 00:22:31.668
Danny L Harle: We are at Strongroom Studios.

00:22:31.668 –> 00:22:37.668
John Kennedy: But there are many different studios in this combination of buildings, and you were in one of them recording the vocals.

00:22:37.668 –> 00:22:39.268
Olly Alexander: Yes, yes.

00:22:39.268 –> 00:22:41.648
Olly Alexander: And this one’s very good.

00:22:41.648 –> 00:22:46.028
Olly Alexander: I mean, all the vocal production, I think, is excellent, but this one, I think, shows off quite well.

00:22:46.148 –> 00:22:47.048
Olly Alexander: Lots of whispering.

00:22:47.048 –> 00:22:48.168
Danny L Harle: Yeah, and the…

00:22:49.908 –> 00:22:51.508
Danny L Harle: Yeah, exactly that.

00:22:51.508 –> 00:22:51.808
Olly Alexander: That’s me.

00:22:52.268 –> 00:22:53.668
Danny L Harle: Yes, that is.

00:22:53.908 –> 00:22:56.428
Danny L Harle: Let’s just have a listen to some of the vocals.

00:23:06.888 –> 00:23:09.728
Danny L Harle: There’s 15 tracks of a vocal.

00:23:12.748 –> 00:23:13.228
Olly Alexander: Love that one.

00:23:50.308 –> 00:23:55.328
John Kennedy: Is there a particular vocal chain or a particular microphone?

00:23:55.348 –> 00:23:59.108
John Kennedy: Or you’re creating a little choir here of Olly’s.

00:23:59.108 –> 00:24:00.888
John Kennedy: But are they all on the same microphone?

00:24:00.888 –> 00:24:02.308
John Kennedy: Are they all being treated the same way?

00:24:02.308 –> 00:24:03.828
Olly Alexander: They’re all on the same mic.

00:24:03.888 –> 00:24:05.408
Olly Alexander: And what is Cam’s my annoyment?

00:24:05.408 –> 00:24:06.588
Olly Alexander: Something.

00:24:06.588 –> 00:24:07.468
Danny L Harle: It’s…

00:24:07.648 –> 00:24:10.388
Danny L Harle: What’s that famous mic called?

00:24:10.388 –> 00:24:12.788
Danny L Harle: The one that isn’t the C800.

00:24:13.928 –> 00:24:14.708
Danny L Harle: I can’t remember it now.

00:24:14.708 –> 00:24:15.388
Danny L Harle: I’m drawing a blank.

00:24:15.388 –> 00:24:17.368
Danny L Harle: I can’t remember the name of every other microphone apart from that one.

00:24:17.368 –> 00:24:20.388
Danny L Harle: But yeah, it’s that big classy vocal microphone that everybody uses.

00:24:22.128 –> 00:24:25.468
Danny L Harle: But Cam’s got one and Olly sounded amazing through it.

00:24:25.468 –> 00:24:26.848
Danny L Harle: But honestly-

00:24:26.848 –> 00:24:28.708
Olly Alexander: We did quite a lot of vocals at your room as well.

00:24:28.708 –> 00:24:29.508
Danny L Harle: Yeah, we did.

00:24:30.108 –> 00:24:33.428
Danny L Harle: And sometimes those vocals just-

00:24:33.428 –> 00:24:40.188
Danny L Harle: Yeah, it’s so dependent on the room and how Olly’s feeling, I think.

00:24:40.288 –> 00:24:41.188
Olly Alexander: Because a lot of demo-

00:24:41.188 –> 00:24:47.888
Olly Alexander: You know, we would make the demo vocal in your studio, and then obviously you get so attached to it, and you just can never really beat it.

00:24:48.448 –> 00:24:50.428
Olly Alexander: If it’s right, it’s right.

00:24:50.428 –> 00:24:52.268
Olly Alexander: But we did do a lot of vocals at Cam’s as well.

00:24:52.268 –> 00:24:53.408
Olly Alexander: We did these at Cam’s.

00:24:53.408 –> 00:24:53.908
Danny L Harle: We did.

00:24:54.388 –> 00:24:58.328
John Kennedy: Does Cam mix it, or do you then take it away and mix it, Danny?

00:24:58.328 –> 00:25:05.268
Danny L Harle: I think with this one, it’s pretty much just Cam’s mixing, because I give Cam the track as well, and he mixes the vocals into the track.

00:25:05.268 –> 00:25:10.268
Danny L Harle: That’s part of what he did is this process, and I’m pretty sure I left it as he did.

00:25:10.268 –> 00:25:14.388
Danny L Harle: Sometimes I do a little bit of stuff, like for example, these little harmonies in the verse.

00:25:17.468 –> 00:25:22.828
Danny L Harle: And like that, and those little sort of harmonies on top.

00:25:24.108 –> 00:25:29.868
Danny L Harle: But I mean, other than that, I left it exactly as Cam made it.

00:25:29.868 –> 00:25:31.988
Danny L Harle: He’s one of the best at what he does.

00:25:31.988 –> 00:25:40.468
Danny L Harle: And then underneath this sort of stack of 15 tracks that Cam gave me, I’ve got the track, and there we have it.

00:25:41.388 –> 00:25:48.908
Danny L Harle: It ended up as this file with all the active files, they’re not bounced in place or anything.

00:25:48.908 –> 00:25:53.368
Danny L Harle: They are frozen, but they’re not sort of, it’s not audio files, it’s all sort of MIDI activating stuff.

00:25:53.368 –> 00:26:00.788
Danny L Harle: And then 15 tracks of vocal, and that’s how I got it into Stems and sent it off to the mix engineer.

00:26:00.788 –> 00:26:01.368
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:26:01.368 –> 00:26:06.688
John Kennedy: And it sounds like with this track, that in some ways there weren’t necessarily any references or anything like that.

00:26:06.708 –> 00:26:19.208
John Kennedy: It just kind of emerged through the happened chance of working on one bit of a song that was going to be another song, and then trying to fit that in to this other sequence that you responded with to it.

00:26:19.208 –> 00:26:23.748
John Kennedy: And then it just kind of took flight or took to the water, whatever phrase you want to use.

00:26:23.748 –> 00:26:24.368
John Kennedy: Set sail.

00:26:24.368 –> 00:26:29.068
John Kennedy: You rather than, because when I was listening to it, I was thinking, oh, there are elements of Japan here.

00:26:29.548 –> 00:26:32.348
John Kennedy: There’s even kind of Thompson Twins drums or something.

00:26:32.348 –> 00:26:33.788
John Kennedy: I mean, obviously they’re from a certain era.

00:26:34.928 –> 00:26:37.308
John Kennedy: But you weren’t referencing in that way.

00:26:37.308 –> 00:26:38.888
John Kennedy: You weren’t thinking, all right, we’re going to do this.

00:26:38.888 –> 00:26:39.408
John Kennedy: We’re going to do that.

00:26:39.408 –> 00:26:45.168
John Kennedy: You’re just kind of creating sound both in the box and through your voice really.

00:26:45.168 –> 00:26:46.148
Olly Alexander: Pretty much.

00:26:46.148 –> 00:26:56.888
Olly Alexander: I mean, when we first started working together, we discussed a lot of music and we had a playlist of songs that we both just loved or that you wanted me to listen to, or I wanted you to listen to.

00:26:56.888 –> 00:27:01.808
Olly Alexander: And by the time I think we’d gotten right into the process and by the time we’d making Whisper In The Waves, we’re really living in that world.

00:27:01.908 –> 00:27:03.788
Olly Alexander: So I think it just kind of start coming out.

00:27:03.788 –> 00:27:12.648
Olly Alexander: So I can hear little bits from what we were listening to that we may have referenced, but it usually just felt a bit more kind of, it was being more organic, I guess.

00:27:12.648 –> 00:27:13.028
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:27:13.028 –> 00:27:19.348
John Kennedy: And by this stage, it was already there in your communication and knowledge of each other.

00:27:19.348 –> 00:27:21.448
Olly Alexander: I really love the Kate Bush song, Sensual World.

00:27:21.448 –> 00:27:21.748
John Kennedy: Oh yes.

00:27:21.748 –> 00:27:27.008
Olly Alexander: And I feel like that has a sort of, has a bit of a nod to that in possibly the drums or something like.

00:27:27.008 –> 00:27:27.888
John Kennedy: Yeah, interesting.

00:27:27.888 –> 00:27:35.328
John Kennedy: But I guess we’ll go into this more because one of the other songs we’re going to look at is Cupid’s Bow, which I think was one of the first things that you wrote for this project.

00:27:35.328 –> 00:27:37.988
John Kennedy: So is there anything else before we move on to that?

00:27:37.988 –> 00:27:39.648
John Kennedy: Because that’s the next one we’re going to look at.

00:27:39.648 –> 00:27:41.868
John Kennedy: Anything else we should hear from Whisper In The Waves, do you think?

00:27:41.868 –> 00:27:42.728
John Kennedy: Oh, well, do you know what?

00:27:42.728 –> 00:27:49.488
Olly Alexander: We did something on Whisper that we like to do is that the third chorus, well, actually this begins with the chorus, which is kind of unusual for us.

00:27:49.488 –> 00:27:52.048
Olly Alexander: But by the time we get to the third chorus, the melody has changed.

00:27:52.288 –> 00:27:55.868
Olly Alexander: It’s sort of been uplifted to a slightly different place.

00:27:55.908 –> 00:27:57.748
Olly Alexander: And we like doing that, honestly.

00:27:57.748 –> 00:27:57.988
Olly Alexander: Yeah, yeah.

00:28:20.728 –> 00:28:25.008
Danny L Harle: So we have a kind of heightened version of the chorus melody for the third.

00:28:25.443 –> 00:28:29.643
Olly Alexander: I was a man to say we’re on a boat on the ocean by the end of the song, you know, it’s like really rocking.

00:28:29.643 –> 00:28:31.603
Olly Alexander: And then it kind of gradually…

00:28:31.603 –> 00:28:32.663
Danny L Harle: Yeah, that’s a big wave down there.

00:28:32.663 –> 00:28:33.303
Olly Alexander: That’s a big wave.

00:28:33.303 –> 00:28:34.983
Olly Alexander: And then it comes down.

00:28:34.983 –> 00:28:37.243
Danny L Harle: Exactly, yeah.

00:28:37.243 –> 00:28:37.923
John Kennedy: Excellent.

00:28:37.923 –> 00:28:38.823
John Kennedy: We’re gonna move on.

00:28:38.823 –> 00:28:42.823
John Kennedy: We’re gonna take a quick break, and we’ll be back to look at Cupid’s Bow.

00:28:46.543 –> 00:28:51.203
John Kennedy: This episode is being supported by Tape It, the iPhone recording app for musicians.

00:28:51.203 –> 00:29:01.663
John Kennedy: As many of the fantastic artists and producers on Tape Notes have mentioned, recording voice memos, field recordings, and capturing ideas on the go is crucial to the creative process, and Tape It makes it effortless.

00:29:01.663 –> 00:29:13.123
John Kennedy: With Tape It, you can record straight from your lock screen, capture ideas in stereo, choose between multiple recording formats, drop markers to highlight key moments, and create shared mixtapes with friends and collaborators.

00:29:13.123 –> 00:29:14.943
John Kennedy: You can even view your recordings on a map.

00:29:14.943 –> 00:29:20.323
John Kennedy: Whether it’s a quick melody or a full song idea, Tape It helps you stay creative without the clutter.

00:29:20.323 –> 00:29:27.203
John Kennedy: So click the link in a recent episode, Show Notes, or head to tape.it forward slash tape notes to download Tape It for free.

00:29:27.203 –> 00:29:32.723
John Kennedy: And for even more, check out Tape It Pro and use promo code Tape Notes for 20% off.

00:29:32.723 –> 00:29:35.183
John Kennedy: That’s tape.it forward slash Tape Notes.

00:29:35.183 –> 00:29:37.103
John Kennedy: Now on with the show.

00:29:39.863 –> 00:29:43.523
John Kennedy: The next song we’re going to look at from Polari is Cupid’s Bow.

00:29:43.523 –> 00:29:46.183
John Kennedy: So Danny, if you could play us the blast of the master, that would be brilliant.

00:29:46.543 –> 00:29:47.223
Danny L Harle: Oh, am I doing that?

00:29:47.443 –> 00:29:48.123
John Kennedy: Yeah, that’s you.

00:29:48.123 –> 00:29:49.283
John Kennedy: That’s your responsibility.

00:29:49.283 –> 00:29:50.983
Danny L Harle: It’s all yours.

00:29:51.003 –> 00:29:52.083
John Kennedy: I feel the pressure.

00:29:52.083 –> 00:29:53.103
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I’m feeling it.

00:30:40.206 –> 00:30:44.926
John Kennedy: Just A Little Taste Of Cupid’s Bow by Olly Alexander from the Polari album.

00:30:44.926 –> 00:30:49.926
John Kennedy: And now we’re going to go back and find out how you created this beast.

00:30:51.666 –> 00:30:55.806
John Kennedy: So, I mean, I think this is one of the first things you worked on or the very first thing?

00:30:55.806 –> 00:30:56.586
Olly Alexander: I think it was the first thing.

00:30:56.586 –> 00:30:57.246
Danny L Harle: It was our first session, yeah.

00:30:57.246 –> 00:30:58.706
Olly Alexander: Yeah, our first session.

00:30:58.706 –> 00:31:01.366
John Kennedy: So how did you two come to work together?

00:31:01.366 –> 00:31:04.706
Danny L Harle: I’d wanted to work with Olly my entire career.

00:31:07.406 –> 00:31:08.566
Olly Alexander: Well, it was back at you.

00:31:08.566 –> 00:31:10.346
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

00:31:10.346 –> 00:31:12.586
Olly Alexander: Well, you did a remix for us back in 2015.

00:31:12.786 –> 00:31:14.186
Olly Alexander: Yes, I did.

00:31:14.186 –> 00:31:15.546
John Kennedy: So that was pretty early on then.

00:31:15.546 –> 00:31:16.386
Olly Alexander: Very early on.

00:31:16.386 –> 00:31:17.046
Olly Alexander: We loved that.

00:31:17.046 –> 00:31:17.786
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:31:17.786 –> 00:31:24.446
Olly Alexander: And then we had almost worked together, I think along the way, but it wasn’t until this time round.

00:31:24.446 –> 00:31:28.566
Olly Alexander: And when we got in the studio together, I remember I told you I didn’t want to make anything.

00:31:28.626 –> 00:31:30.286
Olly Alexander: I was just wanting to like talk.

00:31:30.286 –> 00:31:34.286
Olly Alexander: Because I had felt a bit kind of burnt by the record making process before.

00:31:34.286 –> 00:31:37.046
Olly Alexander: And I just, you know, I wanted to get to know you.

00:31:37.046 –> 00:31:39.766
Olly Alexander: So we just spoke, I think, for the first day or two.

00:31:39.766 –> 00:31:45.906
Olly Alexander: But I don’t remember really how this track came about apart from, was it the bass line?

00:31:45.906 –> 00:31:48.326
Olly Alexander: And then I remember going, yeah, over the top of it.

00:31:48.326 –> 00:31:49.366
Olly Alexander: You think, yeah.

00:31:49.366 –> 00:31:50.646
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:31:50.646 –> 00:31:51.666
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:31:51.946 –> 00:31:54.406
Olly Alexander: And then that became obviously the lyric, yeah.

00:31:54.406 –> 00:31:54.586
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:31:57.026 –> 00:31:58.866
Olly Alexander: And we kept that, yeah, I think, from that.

00:31:58.866 –> 00:32:01.146
Danny L Harle: It’s still in the final track, yes.

00:32:01.146 –> 00:32:02.026
Danny L Harle: That rings true for me.

00:32:02.446 –> 00:32:03.966
Danny L Harle: That was, it was the first session.

00:32:03.966 –> 00:32:08.206
Danny L Harle: And I just think, like, because it had been a long time coming, us working together.

00:32:08.206 –> 00:32:12.446
Danny L Harle: So I knew kind of exactly what I wanted to do musically with you.

00:32:12.446 –> 00:32:16.126
Danny L Harle: I just wasn’t entirely sure that you want to do the same with me.

00:32:16.126 –> 00:32:19.846
Danny L Harle: So I was sort of just, I just had lots of ideas.

00:32:19.966 –> 00:32:24.566
Danny L Harle: It’s like, I’m very attracted to voices in terms of people who I want to work with.

00:32:25.546 –> 00:32:37.006
Danny L Harle: And if I feel like there’s something that I can sort of contribute musically to the voice, or a melody that I’d love to hear on the voice and that kind of thing, and here it sort of move around certain chords in a certain way.

00:32:37.686 –> 00:32:39.186
Danny L Harle: It’s just a thing I know I love to hear.

00:32:39.186 –> 00:32:43.866
Danny L Harle: So I was just hoping that Olly would be up for experimenting with that kind of thing.

00:32:43.866 –> 00:32:44.406
Danny L Harle: And he was.

00:32:44.406 –> 00:32:48.446
Danny L Harle: So it just sort of came together very quickly.

00:32:48.446 –> 00:32:48.986
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:32:48.986 –> 00:32:50.626
Danny L Harle: Our collaborative process.

00:32:50.626 –> 00:32:50.946
Olly Alexander: It was good.

00:32:50.946 –> 00:32:53.926
Olly Alexander: I feel like it helpfully kind of set the blueprint a little bit.

00:32:54.586 –> 00:32:59.586
Olly Alexander: You know, this song also modulates Minor to Major.

00:32:59.586 –> 00:33:05.566
Olly Alexander: It lives in that sort of seedy, underground 80s world.

00:33:05.566 –> 00:33:11.006
Olly Alexander: And that song is kind of about desire and like the hunt or the chase.

00:33:11.006 –> 00:33:20.906
Olly Alexander: And Cupid, because you had a, I feel like you had a book of either Medieval poetry or Greek mythology, or well, one of your random books in your studio.

00:33:20.906 –> 00:33:22.806
Olly Alexander: And we were reading, and there was a line about Cupid.

00:33:23.126 –> 00:33:27.326
Olly Alexander: And I love George Michael, and you know, George Michael Fastlove’s song has got an amazing lyric about Cupid.

00:33:27.326 –> 00:33:34.146
Olly Alexander: And it just was, this is how it all started connecting for me, into like what the record was going to be, even though I didn’t know at the time when we made this.

00:33:34.146 –> 00:33:38.746
Olly Alexander: But it felt, I knew that it felt really different to anything else that I’d sort of been working on.

00:33:38.746 –> 00:33:40.646
John Kennedy: And did you have any music ready then?

00:33:40.646 –> 00:33:45.746
Danny L Harle: No, often I just rely on me making something about 10 minutes before someone walks in the door.

00:33:45.746 –> 00:33:51.486
Danny L Harle: I find my, I’m at my most creative when I’m like, oh my god, they’re about to arrive.

00:33:51.486 –> 00:33:55.086
Danny L Harle: And it’s like that, that sort of like just drives me.

00:33:55.086 –> 00:34:02.446
Danny L Harle: And I was thinking if it’s possible to engineer that feeling for a whole day of work, I could probably just like make 20 albums in a day.

00:34:02.866 –> 00:34:08.126
Danny L Harle: I feel like I get the majority of my instrumental writing done in using that energy.

00:34:08.326 –> 00:34:17.946
Danny L Harle: There’s something about it that absolutely makes me give my undivided attention and just puts me in a flow state where I can just hear exactly what I want to hear.

00:34:17.946 –> 00:34:18.926
Danny L Harle: It all just comes together.

00:34:19.526 –> 00:34:21.166
Danny L Harle: It’s almost like a shock to my system or whatever.

00:34:21.166 –> 00:34:24.106
Danny L Harle: So yeah, I think I made it about 10 minutes before I came in the door.

00:34:24.106 –> 00:34:31.166
John Kennedy: So would this have been in your mind when you’d been thinking you’d love to work with Olly Alexander because of his voice, because of your voice?

00:34:31.166 –> 00:34:35.446
John Kennedy: Had you been thinking I’d like to hear his voice on this kind of a track?

00:34:35.446 –> 00:34:40.086
John Kennedy: Or was it more that you just felt this kind of way that day?

00:34:40.086 –> 00:34:55.426
Danny L Harle: I would say like this whole album, after we wrote this track, I realised that it seemed likely that Olly was up for writing what would be my dream synth pop album.

00:34:55.426 –> 00:35:00.666
Danny L Harle: And so I sort of just kind of went with that.

00:35:00.666 –> 00:35:05.226
Danny L Harle: And I don’t mean synth pop in a way that’s that strict.

00:35:05.226 –> 00:35:13.886
Danny L Harle: But I just mean with like electronics as the main instrumental sounds and Olly going over the top of it, doing these kind of agile melodies.

00:35:13.886 –> 00:35:17.266
Danny L Harle: And I think that’s what was kind of silently established.

00:35:17.626 –> 00:35:18.186
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:35:18.186 –> 00:35:20.126
Danny L Harle: With this song with our first session.

00:35:20.126 –> 00:35:24.806
Olly Alexander: I also think kind of looking back at it because we hadn’t sort of settled on Polari at that point.

00:35:24.806 –> 00:35:34.666
Olly Alexander: But there’s an intentional bit of misdirection in the lyrics, like somebody like, yeah, it’s kind of a bit of a playful misdirection, which, and also the whole song really, like Cupid’s Bow is looking for somebody like you.

00:35:35.206 –> 00:35:38.046
Olly Alexander: And that became a real theme for me, like in the lyrics, especially.

00:35:38.046 –> 00:35:43.106
Olly Alexander: And I think in the production too, there’s a playfulness that is very Polari to me.

00:35:43.106 –> 00:35:46.186
Olly Alexander: But yeah, it was kind of bubbling before I knew what it was at this stage.

00:35:46.426 –> 00:35:47.206
Danny L Harle: Yeah, interesting.

00:35:47.206 –> 00:35:49.166
Danny L Harle: So should we listen to…

00:35:49.166 –> 00:35:52.606
Danny L Harle: This is the writing file.

00:35:52.606 –> 00:35:55.866
Danny L Harle: So this is the file that we had on the day of writing it.

00:35:55.866 –> 00:35:57.206
Olly Alexander: No one’s supposed to ever hear.

00:35:57.206 –> 00:35:57.686
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:35:57.686 –> 00:36:00.226
Olly Alexander: But we’re sharing it now.

00:36:00.226 –> 00:36:04.606
Danny L Harle: Yeah, and it has Olly’s demo vocals in it, where there’s no real lyrics there.

00:36:04.606 –> 00:36:06.966
Olly Alexander: I would have been nervous too, because I didn’t know you that well.

00:36:06.966 –> 00:36:08.306
Olly Alexander: Yes.

00:36:11.306 –> 00:36:13.226
Danny L Harle: And you can hear differences in the structure.

00:36:13.226 –> 00:36:17.306
Danny L Harle: Obviously, the production being incredibly simple at this stage.

00:36:17.306 –> 00:36:17.806
Danny L Harle: And here it is.

00:36:57.025 –> 00:36:59.805
Olly Alexander: And we moved this to the later part of the song, didn’t we?

00:36:59.805 –> 00:37:00.745
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:37:00.745 –> 00:37:03.305
John Kennedy: And are those all improvised words or…?

00:37:03.305 –> 00:37:03.425
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:37:03.425 –> 00:37:03.585
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:37:08.225 –> 00:37:10.005
Olly Alexander: There we go.

00:37:10.005 –> 00:37:12.325
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:37:12.765 –> 00:37:19.085
Olly Alexander: I like to kind of, yeah, vocalize and then that’s like nonsense words, but then it can be helpful to pick out the lyric.

00:37:19.085 –> 00:37:19.325
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:37:19.325 –> 00:37:21.945
Olly Alexander: Or something that sticks, or sounds, the vowel sound.

00:37:23.165 –> 00:37:24.265
Olly Alexander: I want to trust.

00:37:24.265 –> 00:37:25.325
Olly Alexander: Maybe that’s what that came from.

00:37:40.805 –> 00:37:41.365
Danny L Harle: And there we go.

00:37:41.365 –> 00:37:42.725
Danny L Harle: We have the second verse there.

00:37:42.725 –> 00:37:46.745
Danny L Harle: Then it’s a sort of copy and paste job at that point because this is the first day session.

00:37:46.745 –> 00:37:50.725
Danny L Harle: And then there’s this section as well.

00:37:50.725 –> 00:37:52.745
Danny L Harle: Go straight into the chorus from the second verse.

00:37:53.365 –> 00:37:56.445
Danny L Harle: And then we have the bridge.

00:38:00.824 –> 00:38:05.044
Danny L Harle: Which we have no vocals for, we just have this kind of like implied.

00:38:05.044 –> 00:38:07.184
Olly Alexander: I don’t think we had a bridge for a long time, did we?

00:38:07.244 –> 00:38:08.664
Olly Alexander: I think we came back to the song.

00:38:11.364 –> 00:38:14.444
Danny L Harle: The bridges are some of my favorite parts of this whole album, I have to say.

00:38:14.624 –> 00:38:16.584
Olly Alexander: Yeah, same, love the bridges.

00:38:16.584 –> 00:38:17.584
Olly Alexander: We both like bridges.

00:38:17.584 –> 00:38:18.044
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:38:18.044 –> 00:38:18.724
Olly Alexander: Or middle eights.

00:38:18.724 –> 00:38:20.184
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:38:20.184 –> 00:38:21.604
Olly Alexander: Choose your term.

00:38:21.604 –> 00:38:23.464
Danny L Harle: And then, this is it.

00:38:24.884 –> 00:38:25.724
Danny L Harle: There you go.

00:38:25.724 –> 00:38:29.564
Danny L Harle: That’s what we left the first day with.

00:38:29.564 –> 00:38:31.464
John Kennedy: Pretty productive first day, I would say.

00:38:31.464 –> 00:38:31.804
Danny L Harle: Yes.

00:38:31.844 –> 00:38:33.124
Danny L Harle: As first days go.

00:38:33.124 –> 00:38:34.064
Olly Alexander: Very productive.

00:38:34.064 –> 00:38:38.924
Danny L Harle: That was very productive, especially as we didn’t know each other, and Olly didn’t actually want to do anything.

00:38:41.124 –> 00:38:42.344
John Kennedy: So when was this?

00:38:42.344 –> 00:38:44.204
John Kennedy: Are we talking 2023?

00:38:44.204 –> 00:38:45.524
Olly Alexander: Does it say on your file?

00:38:45.524 –> 00:38:45.964
Danny L Harle: No.

00:38:45.964 –> 00:38:47.064
Olly Alexander: No.

00:38:47.064 –> 00:38:48.244
John Kennedy: When were you first hanging out?

00:38:48.244 –> 00:38:54.404
Olly Alexander: I think it might have been really early, because we started working together, but then we stopped working together for a while.

00:38:54.404 –> 00:39:00.244
Olly Alexander: It was just very bitty until, I think, the summer of 2023, then we got quite hard going to it.

00:39:00.244 –> 00:39:02.244
Olly Alexander: But then I think Cupid’s Bow was a bit before that.

00:39:02.244 –> 00:39:04.924
John Kennedy: And this is taking place in Hackney, in your studio in Hackney.

00:39:05.024 –> 00:39:07.024
Danny L Harle: Exactly right, yes.

00:39:07.024 –> 00:39:12.964
Danny L Harle: Which yeah, I’ve got just a little room in Hackney because it’s like, I like…

00:39:12.964 –> 00:39:18.764
Olly Alexander: Making people trek up five flights of stairs to your room at the top of the studio.

00:39:18.764 –> 00:39:25.424
Danny L Harle: That, and it’s got exactly the space that I need to make the music that I want in it.

00:39:25.424 –> 00:39:29.744
Danny L Harle: It’s not like a big studio full of lots of instruments and stuff, it’s just…

00:39:30.484 –> 00:39:35.544
Danny L Harle: I personally am a believer in just having exactly what is required.

00:39:35.724 –> 00:39:36.924
John Kennedy: What is there then?

00:39:36.924 –> 00:39:38.324
Danny L Harle: There’s…

00:39:38.324 –> 00:39:40.524
John Kennedy: I’m picturing a really bare room.

00:39:40.524 –> 00:39:41.184
Danny L Harle: Pretty much.

00:39:41.184 –> 00:39:43.964
Danny L Harle: It’s like some speakers, the computer.

00:39:43.964 –> 00:39:45.104
Danny L Harle: There’s lots of stuff.

00:39:45.104 –> 00:39:45.504
Olly Alexander: That’s nice.

00:39:45.504 –> 00:39:46.624
Olly Alexander: Yeah, lots of little trinkets.

00:39:46.624 –> 00:39:49.504
Danny L Harle: Yeah, and books and things.

00:39:49.504 –> 00:39:50.184
Olly Alexander: But it’s small.

00:39:50.184 –> 00:39:56.424
Danny L Harle: And I reluctantly have a guitar in there because some people want to play that, but you know, I can avoid the guitar at every possible opportunity.

00:40:00.224 –> 00:40:04.604
Danny L Harle: And there’s a keyboard, but it’s hidden under the table.

00:40:04.604 –> 00:40:10.884
Danny L Harle: So, if I want to play some keyboard, my hands go to a secret zone under the desk and play.

00:40:10.884 –> 00:40:14.904
Danny L Harle: I just think, yeah, I want to keep it hidden.

00:40:14.904 –> 00:40:17.544
John Kennedy: And is it just a laptop, computer, or do you have a…?

00:40:17.544 –> 00:40:18.504
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I’ve got two screens.

00:40:18.504 –> 00:40:19.404
John Kennedy: Yeah, you’re right.

00:40:19.404 –> 00:40:21.984
Danny L Harle: And so, that’s the sort of main thing.

00:40:22.564 –> 00:40:30.944
Danny L Harle: Olly likened my room to this character Howl’s Room in Howl’s Moving Castle, which is, dare I say, the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

00:40:30.944 –> 00:40:31.724
Danny L Harle: But anyway…

00:40:31.724 –> 00:40:33.224
Olly Alexander: How’s that vibe?

00:40:33.884 –> 00:40:42.884
Danny L Harle: Right now, my favourite thing in my room is this new instrument that I’m obsessed with playing called the tenor viol, which is like a Elizabethan instrument that I’ve never really been…

00:40:42.884 –> 00:40:45.824
Danny L Harle: I used to play instruments all the time, but I kind of abandoned it for writing music.

00:40:45.824 –> 00:40:49.044
Danny L Harle: But now I just play this Elizabethan instrument like…

00:40:49.044 –> 00:40:50.004
Olly Alexander: Is it stringed?

00:40:50.004 –> 00:40:51.024
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, six strings.

00:40:51.164 –> 00:40:54.364
Danny L Harle: And the reason I like it is because you can play arpeggios really easily on it.

00:40:54.364 –> 00:40:55.964
Danny L Harle: And it’s just so fun to play.

00:40:55.964 –> 00:41:00.724
Danny L Harle: And I just spend quite a lot of every day just playing that now.

00:41:00.724 –> 00:41:07.904
Danny L Harle: So now we have the, what I call the stem file for Cupid’s Bow.

00:41:07.904 –> 00:41:16.984
Danny L Harle: So this might be quite an interesting one for people to see, because it shows what one of my logic files looks like when I’m going to send it off to a mix engineer.

00:41:17.724 –> 00:41:31.644
Danny L Harle: And I’ve got all the relevant thingies labelled, all the tracks labelled, which is a pain in the ass, but it means you can do this cool logic thing where it’s just like export, bang, 112 tracks as audio files, bang, just straight to the mix engineer.

00:41:31.644 –> 00:41:33.024
Danny L Harle: Very nice.

00:41:33.024 –> 00:41:35.544
Danny L Harle: And yeah, and there’s a lot more in it now at this point.

00:41:35.544 –> 00:41:40.864
Danny L Harle: There’s also on Cam’s signature vocal stem style there.

00:41:40.864 –> 00:41:43.184
Danny L Harle: But there’s lots of vocal editing that’s happened in there as well.

00:41:43.184 –> 00:41:46.324
Danny L Harle: There’s lots of little extra thingies going on.

00:41:46.404 –> 00:41:50.764
Danny L Harle: There’s this sort of in the choruses stuff like this.

00:41:52.724 –> 00:41:55.984
Danny L Harle: Like little sort of extras that just-

00:41:55.984 –> 00:41:57.224
Olly Alexander: That got added quite late.

00:41:57.224 –> 00:41:58.304
Danny L Harle: Very late.

00:41:58.304 –> 00:42:02.704
Danny L Harle: It’s just to enrich the sort of world of the song really.

00:42:02.704 –> 00:42:08.384
Danny L Harle: And to kind of, I think I added that just to add some kind of backwards momentum.

00:42:08.384 –> 00:42:10.964
Danny L Harle: That doesn’t sound like the correct term.

00:42:11.024 –> 00:42:13.024
Danny L Harle: But it’s like off beat momentum.

00:42:13.064 –> 00:42:15.844
Danny L Harle: It’s like one, two, three, da, da, da.

00:42:15.844 –> 00:42:20.724
Danny L Harle: There’s like to sort of, because I sense a sort of a vacuum in that on those beats.

00:42:20.724 –> 00:42:22.564
Danny L Harle: So I just sort of like put that in there.

00:42:22.564 –> 00:42:25.444
Olly Alexander: And I feel like it plays slightly against the chorus melody as well.

00:42:25.544 –> 00:42:26.504
Olly Alexander: It’s a nice partner.

00:42:26.544 –> 00:42:37.584
Danny L Harle: And it’s that kind of like very, very on the nose sampling that you get in sort of certain types of like fair lighty, emulatory 80s production.

00:42:37.584 –> 00:42:41.844
Danny L Harle: Where it’s like, say, say, say, oh, oh, oh.

00:42:41.844 –> 00:42:46.064
Olly Alexander: That was a very important thing you just said though.

00:42:46.064 –> 00:42:47.364
Olly Alexander: I feel like that was very key.

00:42:47.364 –> 00:42:48.024
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:42:48.024 –> 00:42:49.084
Olly Alexander: Across everything.

00:42:49.084 –> 00:42:50.004
Danny L Harle: Definitely.

00:42:50.004 –> 00:42:53.664
Danny L Harle: That’s the thing that I really like about music from that period.

00:42:53.664 –> 00:42:59.304
Danny L Harle: I don’t understand why it stays in that period because it’s not like, it was because of the technology, the time that it came about.

00:42:59.304 –> 00:43:04.584
Danny L Harle: But people seem to really not like it after that period because people didn’t seem to do it since then.

00:43:04.584 –> 00:43:08.244
Danny L Harle: But that repetitive sampling of the same audio.

00:43:08.244 –> 00:43:11.504
John Kennedy: Because there was only so much tiny space available.

00:43:11.504 –> 00:43:14.184
John Kennedy: And it’s like, oh, the novelty of like, oh, we can repeat it.

00:43:14.184 –> 00:43:15.744
Olly Alexander: How fun.

00:43:15.744 –> 00:43:17.104
Danny L Harle: And I still think that’s fun.

00:43:17.104 –> 00:43:17.424
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:43:17.424 –> 00:43:18.504
John Kennedy: Well, I think it does too.

00:43:18.504 –> 00:43:21.184
John Kennedy: I mean, it sounds fun across the whole of the album.

00:43:21.364 –> 00:43:26.884
John Kennedy: And you wanted to make this your version of an electronic pop record with Olly singing on it.

00:43:26.884 –> 00:43:30.104
John Kennedy: And it covers the whole gamut of that whole decade, I think.

00:43:30.104 –> 00:43:32.024
John Kennedy: Because for me, this is late 80s.

00:43:32.024 –> 00:43:35.184
John Kennedy: It has a kind of a damskey kind of feel to it.

00:43:35.184 –> 00:43:40.204
John Kennedy: And some of the other tracks are, well, I’ve mentioned what I thought of Whisper In The Waves reminded me of.

00:43:40.204 –> 00:43:42.724
John Kennedy: But, you know, different, different periods of the 80s.

00:43:42.724 –> 00:43:45.444
John Kennedy: And can you dig more into the production in this final version?

00:43:45.444 –> 00:43:48.184
John Kennedy: Then you’ve got all the, what are you calling the stems?

00:43:48.384 –> 00:43:49.044
John Kennedy: This is your stem file?

00:43:49.044 –> 00:43:52.404
Danny L Harle: This is a stem file that I would send off to a mix engineer.

00:43:52.404 –> 00:43:57.824
Danny L Harle: Although I can go into it in more boring detail if you want to, in terms of how I submit stuff to a mix engineer.

00:43:57.864 –> 00:44:01.804
Danny L Harle: Because it’s been a long process and mix engineers do appreciate it.

00:44:01.804 –> 00:44:02.604
Danny L Harle: I don’t know.

00:44:02.604 –> 00:44:05.904
Danny L Harle: Maybe it’s a waste of time with Olly here for me to go into that, but I can make it.

00:44:06.364 –> 00:44:09.384
John Kennedy: But what you’re saying is that you prepare it very well?

00:44:09.504 –> 00:44:11.264
Danny L Harle: I think so, yes.

00:44:11.464 –> 00:44:14.824
Danny L Harle: Mix engineers find my stems quite comprehensive and know what to do with it.

00:44:14.824 –> 00:44:16.664
Danny L Harle: Because I also provide a reference track.

00:44:16.664 –> 00:44:22.384
Danny L Harle: I also provide the logic file as well, which some people would not like to do.

00:44:22.384 –> 00:44:25.624
Danny L Harle: But I do that just to show them the change that I use.

00:44:26.224 –> 00:44:31.804
Danny L Harle: Also, I provide all the stems in the initial file are all grouped buses.

00:44:31.804 –> 00:44:42.724
Danny L Harle: But if they want, I’ve got all the splits that go into the buses in a separate file, in case they want, if there is a bass synth, but it’s made up of five sounds, it will just say bass synth.

00:44:42.724 –> 00:44:48.704
Danny L Harle: And then if they go into this split file, it will be like bass synth one to bass synth, bass synth two to bass synth.

00:44:48.704 –> 00:44:51.504
Danny L Harle: So they can actually split it into all the other ones.

00:44:51.504 –> 00:44:53.864
Danny L Harle: And that’s in the splits file.

00:44:53.864 –> 00:45:01.944
Danny L Harle: But that method of sending is a result of years of sending stuff off to Mixing Engineers and then being like, I don’t know what that is.

00:45:02.004 –> 00:45:02.704
Danny L Harle: Is this that?

00:45:02.704 –> 00:45:06.304
Danny L Harle: And these two tracks sound the same.

00:45:06.304 –> 00:45:07.324
Danny L Harle: I can’t tell the difference between these.

00:45:07.324 –> 00:45:20.604
Danny L Harle: And it’s just that, yeah, it’s about clearly labeling tracks and then having files within the file that you send off to the Mixing Engineer with the raw vocals in it as well, the unprocessed vocals in case they want to try something.

00:45:20.604 –> 00:45:22.184
Danny L Harle: It’s a thing that they find really useful.

00:45:22.184 –> 00:45:22.624
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:45:22.624 –> 00:45:24.464
John Kennedy: Very interesting.

00:45:24.464 –> 00:45:26.244
John Kennedy: Can you dig into some of these sounds as we-

00:45:26.384 –> 00:45:29.904
Danny L Harle: Yeah, here we go.

00:45:29.904 –> 00:45:34.764
Danny L Harle: So this is the first time I’ve pressed play on this, so there might be a bit, some delays getting warming up.

00:46:18.304 –> 00:46:21.624
Danny L Harle: There’s a lot of little details in there, and there’s lots of little percussion-y details.

00:46:21.762 –> 00:46:26.042
Danny L Harle: I actually made those using a thing called a Korg MS-10.

00:46:26.042 –> 00:46:33.802
Danny L Harle: I do actually have a single analog synthesizer in my room, and this is a Korg MS-10, and it’s really good for these white, noisy little sounds.

00:46:33.942 –> 00:46:37.922
Danny L Harle: I use it for these sort of thingies, where is it?

00:46:45.770 –> 00:46:53.230
Danny L Harle: It produces a certain kind of white noise that I haven’t really heard a plug-in make, and that is the thing that I am interested in.

00:46:53.230 –> 00:46:55.170
Danny L Harle: So there.

00:46:55.170 –> 00:47:00.230
Danny L Harle: So then, interestingly, the bridge is filled in here because it’s the final file.

00:47:00.230 –> 00:47:02.470
Danny L Harle: So we could learn to the bridge in this context here.

00:47:15.710 –> 00:47:18.230
John Kennedy: It’s a synth plug-in, or is that a…?

00:47:18.230 –> 00:47:21.050
Danny L Harle: Nearly all plug-ins apart from those white noise sounds.

00:47:21.050 –> 00:47:21.210
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:47:22.790 –> 00:47:30.090
John Kennedy: And in terms of like, creating this drum beat, and building the pattern and everything, how are you doing that?

00:47:31.550 –> 00:47:33.230
Olly Alexander: Yeah, how did you do that?

00:47:33.230 –> 00:47:34.490
Danny L Harle: Uh, just…

00:47:34.490 –> 00:47:34.690
John Kennedy: I…

00:47:37.810 –> 00:47:38.410
Danny L Harle: There we go.

00:47:38.410 –> 00:47:38.650
Danny L Harle: Um…

00:47:39.850 –> 00:47:41.950
Danny L Harle: The drum pattern is…

00:47:45.250 –> 00:47:49.030
Danny L Harle: So, it wasn’t that hard to think out, dare I say.

00:47:49.030 –> 00:47:52.830
Danny L Harle: But the way in which I thought about it, though, is I just…

00:47:52.830 –> 00:47:54.010
Olly Alexander: Propulsive.

00:47:54.090 –> 00:48:04.490
Danny L Harle: Yeah, but also that kind of like dumb simplicity that is sort of created by people who are just actually playing it live.

00:48:04.490 –> 00:48:09.910
Danny L Harle: And the way that lots of synth pop was actually programmed onto drum machines.

00:48:09.910 –> 00:48:30.110
Danny L Harle: And if you listen to how simple a lot of these patterns are in order to sort of leave room for the synthesizers to do the real rhythmic work, I was thinking about it from that perspective, about the function of what function the drums truly have in music like this that I like.

00:48:30.110 –> 00:48:33.890
Danny L Harle: And that’s sort of where I got to with the drums for this.

00:48:33.890 –> 00:48:34.650
Danny L Harle: Let’s see if I can.

00:48:41.151 –> 00:48:41.691
Danny L Harle: Where’s that?

00:48:41.691 –> 00:48:43.151
Danny L Harle: Where’s that synth?

00:48:45.331 –> 00:48:48.351
Danny L Harle: I’ve got certain drums that I do enjoy.

00:48:48.351 –> 00:48:51.631
Danny L Harle: A lot of these are just in my personal kit that I’ve made.

00:48:51.631 –> 00:48:57.531
Danny L Harle: So I think a lot of them I did make, but there are certain drums that I really like.

00:48:57.531 –> 00:49:05.771
Danny L Harle: I think RX5, Drum Machine or RX5, I think is one that I really think sounds fantastic.

00:49:05.831 –> 00:49:15.931
Danny L Harle: It really has this sound of a perfectly badly sampled version of whatever drum it is.

00:49:15.931 –> 00:49:22.431
Danny L Harle: I think a big thing in production is making stuff sound like what it is.

00:49:22.431 –> 00:49:25.231
Danny L Harle: And that sounds like a stupid thing to say.

00:49:25.231 –> 00:49:27.391
Danny L Harle: But it’s actually a very real thing.

00:49:27.391 –> 00:49:37.351
Danny L Harle: It’s very easy, if you put an EQ on something, that a vocal will end up sounding just sort of a sound, that you can take the character out of something.

00:49:37.351 –> 00:49:42.551
Danny L Harle: And the RX5 is almost like a cartoony version of each of the drums.

00:49:42.551 –> 00:49:45.551
Danny L Harle: And I do enjoy that sometimes, but didn’t use it on this.

00:49:45.551 –> 00:49:47.971
Danny L Harle: I used the drums that I made myself.

00:49:47.971 –> 00:49:55.191
Olly Alexander: But that approach, I think what you’re talking about, is sort of something we try to take with us, with everything, I think.

00:49:55.191 –> 00:49:56.371
Olly Alexander: That kind of approach.

00:49:56.371 –> 00:50:03.371
Danny L Harle: It’s funny because I’m really obsessed with the idea of expressing a complex idea in the simplest terms possible.

00:50:03.371 –> 00:50:27.891
Danny L Harle: And that’s what I think some of my favourite producers, like people like Max Martin, are really able to do, especially in the Sherri-Ann Studios period of their life, where it was Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, where you get these unbelievably complex textures of sound that sometimes even reference Baroque music, and then go onto a harpsichord and modulate during the chorus, something you very rarely see these days, apart from stuff written by Max Martin.

00:50:28.931 –> 00:50:31.131
Danny L Harle: But the overall impression is so simple.

00:50:31.171 –> 00:50:31.791
Olly Alexander: Simple.

00:50:31.791 –> 00:50:33.091
Olly Alexander: And it’s easy, not…

00:50:33.091 –> 00:50:36.891
Olly Alexander: Yeah, I totally think what you’re saying is just…

00:50:36.891 –> 00:50:37.631
Olly Alexander: It’s good.

00:50:37.631 –> 00:50:38.351
Olly Alexander: It’s very good.

00:50:38.371 –> 00:50:40.391
John Kennedy: I appreciate it, Olly.

00:50:40.391 –> 00:50:41.431
Olly Alexander: It was the ethos.

00:50:41.431 –> 00:50:41.871
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:50:41.871 –> 00:50:45.891
Danny L Harle: And I really like, it’s possibly my favourite kind of thing.

00:50:45.891 –> 00:50:53.071
Olly Alexander: But that’s your perspective on pop, I think, which is why it worked, because that’s what we were trying to do, is create music like that.

00:50:53.071 –> 00:50:54.691
Olly Alexander: Which I think, yeah, it’s just not…

00:50:54.691 –> 00:50:56.351
Olly Alexander: Lots of pop isn’t made like that.

00:50:56.351 –> 00:50:56.891
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:50:56.891 –> 00:51:00.831
John Kennedy: Is there anything else we should hear from Cupid’s Bow before we move on from Cupid’s Bow?

00:51:01.111 –> 00:51:03.211
Danny L Harle: Oh, that’s it as far as I’m concerned.

00:51:03.211 –> 00:51:05.651
Danny L Harle: Is there anything that you think?

00:51:05.651 –> 00:51:06.471
Olly Alexander: I don’t think so.

00:51:06.471 –> 00:51:07.591
John Kennedy: Okay.

00:51:07.591 –> 00:51:08.171
John Kennedy: Okay.

00:51:08.171 –> 00:51:15.431
John Kennedy: Well, should we have another blast of the master just to round things up or another section of the song that we haven’t heard just to…

00:51:15.431 –> 00:51:16.931
Danny L Harle: Actually, let’s listen to the end of the song.

00:51:40.620 –> 00:51:42.180
Olly Alexander: Yes, a slight chord change towards the end.

00:51:42.180 –> 00:51:45.700
Olly Alexander: We like to employ that as well in one of our songs.

00:51:45.700 –> 00:51:46.180
John Kennedy: Excellent.

00:51:46.180 –> 00:51:51.960
John Kennedy: Right, we’re going to take another quick break, and the next song we’re going to look at is Beautiful.

00:51:51.960 –> 00:51:52.320
Olly Alexander: So beautiful.

00:51:52.320 –> 00:51:53.760
Danny L Harle: You’re telling me.

00:51:57.440 –> 00:52:02.080
John Kennedy: The next song we’re going to look at is Beautiful, and it’s called Beautiful as well.

00:52:02.080 –> 00:52:03.680
John Kennedy: Sorry, couldn’t realize.

00:52:03.680 –> 00:52:07.320
John Kennedy: Could you play us the Blast of the Master, please, Danny?

00:52:07.320 –> 00:52:08.140
Olly Alexander: Blast of the Master.

00:52:08.180 –> 00:52:09.200
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:52:09.200 –> 00:52:10.580
Danny L Harle: Blasting the Master.

00:53:36.135 –> 00:53:40.715
John Kennedy: So, just a little taste of Beautiful by Olly Alexander from the album Polari.

00:53:40.715 –> 00:53:46.415
John Kennedy: And in a way, this conjures up that classic electronic pop duo, doesn’t it?

00:53:47.995 –> 00:53:49.895
John Kennedy: There were so many from the 80s.

00:53:49.895 –> 00:53:53.675
John Kennedy: And in some ways, this track seems to tap into that in a nice kind of way.

00:53:53.835 –> 00:53:56.515
John Kennedy: And now I’m sitting in front of the two of you.

00:53:56.515 –> 00:53:59.375
John Kennedy: I’m also picturing you, I can imagine you on Top of the Pops.

00:54:00.475 –> 00:54:02.955
Danny L Harle: Top of the Pops 2, maybe, but yeah.

00:54:02.955 –> 00:54:06.815
Olly Alexander: We had a few Top of the Pops 2 videos, didn’t we, that we watched in the studio?

00:54:06.815 –> 00:54:07.195
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

00:54:07.195 –> 00:54:15.255
Danny L Harle: I mean, Dest, I reveal, I think Adamski and Seal’s Top of the Pops performances are some of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen.

00:54:15.255 –> 00:54:17.935
John Kennedy: But Seal’s such a magnetic personality.

00:54:17.935 –> 00:54:19.435
Olly Alexander: Oh, I love him.

00:54:19.435 –> 00:54:21.895
Olly Alexander: We are Seal if you wanted to be on Whisper In The Waves.

00:54:21.955 –> 00:54:23.275
Olly Alexander: But he said no.

00:54:24.735 –> 00:54:27.755
Danny L Harle: Imagine him on that third chorus.

00:54:27.755 –> 00:54:30.735
Danny L Harle: Whisper in the waves.

00:54:30.795 –> 00:54:32.275
Olly Alexander: Oh, yeah.

00:54:32.275 –> 00:54:34.035
Danny L Harle: Come on, Seal.

00:54:34.035 –> 00:54:36.595
John Kennedy: But in terms of Beautiful, what were you thinking?

00:54:36.595 –> 00:54:37.315
John Kennedy: What were you thinking?

00:54:37.315 –> 00:54:37.835
Olly Alexander: What were you thinking?

00:54:37.835 –> 00:54:38.355
Danny L Harle: What were you thinking?

00:54:38.355 –> 00:54:41.355
Olly Alexander: Well, like this song came sort of towards the end of the process, I think.

00:54:41.355 –> 00:54:50.815
Olly Alexander: And we’d written a lot of, you know, I mean, for me, a lot of the themes on the album is that there are a lot of love songs, but they’re kind of, there’s some kind of tortured love songs.

00:54:50.855 –> 00:54:52.635
Olly Alexander: There’s a bit of the chase.

00:54:52.635 –> 00:54:53.695
Olly Alexander: There’s some songs about desire.

00:54:53.695 –> 00:55:04.675
Olly Alexander: And by this point of the album, it felt like there was something that was a bit more of a kind of straight up love song that I previously had sort of thought was a bit too corny to make.

00:55:04.675 –> 00:55:10.695
Olly Alexander: But we’ve been in this world of like open heartedness, like heart on your sleeve, like, you know, the common yards, only you.

00:55:10.695 –> 00:55:16.695
Olly Alexander: And like, I really wanted us to have a song like that, but we needed to have all the other songs, I think, before we could get this song.

00:55:16.695 –> 00:55:18.395
Olly Alexander: There’s this real tenderness to it.

00:55:18.595 –> 00:55:19.375
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:55:19.655 –> 00:55:24.875
Danny L Harle: It’s so simple in its message and in its construction.

00:55:24.875 –> 00:55:44.775
Danny L Harle: I think that was a concern for us to keep it simple, like to keep it just like you can hear each element production wise coming in and just the chorus melody has been these really simple sequences, saying these really simple sort of like ideas that just communicate the core message.

00:55:44.775 –> 00:55:47.955
Olly Alexander: Because we went through a few rewrites in the chorus, didn’t we?

00:55:47.955 –> 00:55:52.575
Olly Alexander: And I think we ended up classic, going back to sort of how it was when we first did it.

00:55:52.575 –> 00:55:57.215
Olly Alexander: It’s quite simple statement of someone that’s just, you want to tell them they’re so beautiful.

00:55:57.215 –> 00:56:08.915
Olly Alexander: And I think we, yeah, we’d had some quite complicated lyrics and then we kind of went back and yeah, I even think as the chorus melody, it’s a bit different because I love a chorus that’s like right at the top of my range, it’s really the climax.

00:56:08.915 –> 00:56:13.375
Olly Alexander: And this is a bit more of a gentler, that’s like lilting, simpler vibe.

00:56:13.375 –> 00:56:15.995
Olly Alexander: And people have really responded to it, which I’m really happy about.

00:56:16.035 –> 00:56:23.295
Olly Alexander: Because I was, this song, I think I umbed and ahed about could it be a different song on their record, because we had a couple of others that were similar-ish.

00:56:23.295 –> 00:56:25.435
Olly Alexander: But this one, yeah, I’m glad it went on.

00:56:25.435 –> 00:56:27.275
Danny L Harle: And drum wise, I’ve got some good news.

00:56:27.275 –> 00:56:30.875
Danny L Harle: There is a drum I didn’t make on this.

00:56:30.875 –> 00:56:31.355
Danny L Harle: Good news.

00:56:31.355 –> 00:56:38.135
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, there’s a synth that I can get up on my screen for you, which is the Triton, which is a synthesizer that I very much love.

00:56:38.135 –> 00:56:39.675
Danny L Harle: And it’s these drums here.

00:56:45.157 –> 00:56:46.717
Danny L Harle: Yeah, love that, love that.

00:56:46.717 –> 00:56:51.457
Danny L Harle: I think that snare sound is quite undeniably amazing.

00:56:51.457 –> 00:56:56.197
Danny L Harle: And I like that’s the snare on its own.

00:56:56.197 –> 00:56:58.597
Danny L Harle: And then I think maybe this is the reverb.

00:56:58.597 –> 00:57:01.697
Danny L Harle: Yeah, so there’s a kind of gated reverb coming back to it.

00:57:01.697 –> 00:57:17.397
Danny L Harle: And I think I wanted to have that quite sort of intrusive snare going over the track, because for some reason, I quite like that sort of juxtaposition of having this like quite sort of stomping, like driving rhythm over this quite tender track.

00:57:17.397 –> 00:57:21.677
Danny L Harle: I think juxtaposition is often quite an evocative thing to do in a song.

00:57:21.677 –> 00:57:22.397
Danny L Harle: I like that.

00:57:22.397 –> 00:57:24.317
Olly Alexander: We were always trying to draw out contrast, I think.

00:57:24.317 –> 00:57:30.637
Olly Alexander: If it was going to be a sort of happy theme, we’d have like really miserable production.

00:57:30.637 –> 00:57:32.317
Olly Alexander: I mean, not really, but you know what I mean.

00:57:32.317 –> 00:57:35.357
Danny L Harle: No, but I do think that is a very evocative thing to do.

00:57:35.457 –> 00:57:42.577
Danny L Harle: For some reason, just that tension does produce a kind of emotional feeling in the music listener.

00:57:42.577 –> 00:57:44.437
John Kennedy: Do you fine tune those drum parts?

00:57:44.437 –> 00:57:45.737
John Kennedy: Do you edit them at all?

00:57:45.737 –> 00:57:46.317
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

00:57:46.317 –> 00:57:54.417
Danny L Harle: You can go into the Triton and turn off the various things to them that have also got this very quiet gated reverb coming.

00:57:54.417 –> 00:57:57.817
Danny L Harle: This sort of room reverb to give it a bit of space.

00:57:57.817 –> 00:58:04.977
Danny L Harle: There, which is EQed, taking it to the low end, then we’ve got it going entirely through this Valhalla.

00:58:04.977 –> 00:58:05.717
Danny L Harle: That’s it with out.

00:58:05.717 –> 00:58:06.877
Danny L Harle: That’s it with.

00:58:06.917 –> 00:58:07.637
Danny L Harle: Let’s give it the room.

00:58:07.637 –> 00:58:11.557
Danny L Harle: And then I’ve got it slammed through a limiter.

00:58:12.757 –> 00:58:13.117
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

00:58:13.117 –> 00:58:18.237
Danny L Harle: So it’s like I wouldn’t call that fine tuning in terms of like what some producers do.

00:58:18.237 –> 00:58:28.437
Danny L Harle: But I do when I bring something up in the Triton or whatever, I I do tend to just make sure that I’m OK with the way it’s being filtered, the way the sort of oscillators are working.

00:58:29.117 –> 00:58:37.657
Danny L Harle: And I’m OK with the effects that are being put on it here, like the room reverb and the reverb hall that’s on it.

00:58:37.657 –> 00:58:49.737
Danny L Harle: So I always like to strip all the internal effects off a drum first and then experiment with them inside the synth before I add any ones sort of extraneously.

00:58:49.737 –> 00:58:50.997
Olly Alexander: Good word.

00:58:50.997 –> 00:58:51.677
Olly Alexander: Thank you.

00:58:51.677 –> 00:58:54.117
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I was really the edge of my head there.

00:58:54.197 –> 00:58:55.357
Danny L Harle: So let’s see.

00:58:55.357 –> 00:58:57.557
John Kennedy: Would you be able to demonstrate that?

00:58:57.557 –> 00:59:00.517
Danny L Harle: Yeah, no, I just I just did that with this, for example.

00:59:00.517 –> 00:59:02.557
Danny L Harle: So like so with the Triton here, here we have.

00:59:02.557 –> 00:59:03.497
Olly Alexander: I can’t see what he’s doing.

00:59:03.497 –> 00:59:03.877
John Kennedy: No, I can’t.

00:59:03.877 –> 00:59:05.097
Danny L Harle: It’s being screen recorded, though.

00:59:05.557 –> 00:59:07.017
Danny L Harle: So the viewer will.

00:59:07.017 –> 00:59:08.497
John Kennedy: The viewer and the listener can.

00:59:08.497 –> 00:59:10.377
Danny L Harle: Hello, viewer and listener.

00:59:10.377 –> 00:59:12.597
Danny L Harle: So we have these drums being played here.

00:59:12.597 –> 00:59:18.337
Danny L Harle: So if you go into this, the easy menu, easy menu, then you can sort of remove these two.

00:59:18.617 –> 00:59:21.697
Danny L Harle: They’re not actually doing that much, as you can see.

00:59:23.177 –> 00:59:28.337
Danny L Harle: But that’s the area that I would sort of be looking into it.

00:59:28.337 –> 00:59:33.957
Danny L Harle: They’ve also got this, sort of change the dry, wet sort of level of them there.

00:59:35.637 –> 00:59:36.597
Danny L Harle: If I were to turn them up there.

00:59:36.597 –> 00:59:43.597
Danny L Harle: And then so I can decide whether I actually like those, turn them up or edit them maybe, or change what they are as well.

00:59:43.597 –> 00:59:45.957
Danny L Harle: But if not, I usually do turn them off.

00:59:46.117 –> 00:59:52.717
Danny L Harle: In all honesty, the level going to the master was so low, I think the reverb hall was nearly turned off there.

00:59:53.917 –> 00:59:54.517
Danny L Harle: Made no difference.

00:59:54.517 –> 00:59:59.877
Danny L Harle: I think I must have just like auditioned it and just decided very quickly that I’m fine with those on.

00:59:59.877 –> 01:00:01.237
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:00:01.237 –> 01:00:13.577
Danny L Harle: But yeah, I think in terms of using synths, unless you just have a very instinctive relationship with it, it is good to check for internal effects and stuff to understand how to use them.

01:00:14.337 –> 01:00:31.797
Danny L Harle: Because often if you deal with presets or anything like that, you can be dealing with a lot of reverb before it even gets to your channel strip and it’s good to understand what the sound is at its core that you’re using before you start putting stuff on.

01:00:31.797 –> 01:00:33.437
Olly Alexander: I like that Danny.

01:00:33.437 –> 01:00:34.437
Olly Alexander: That was very good.

01:00:34.437 –> 01:00:34.617
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:00:34.617 –> 01:00:35.177
Olly Alexander: That’s a good tip.

01:00:35.177 –> 01:00:35.737
John Kennedy: Excellent.

01:00:35.737 –> 01:00:45.337
John Kennedy: But I don’t know we found out about how Beautiful came about in terms of melody and because you went straight to the drums to illustrate your triton.

01:00:45.337 –> 01:00:45.757
Olly Alexander: Sorry.

01:00:46.097 –> 01:00:46.437
John Kennedy: No, no.

01:00:46.497 –> 01:00:58.437
Olly Alexander: No, actually I was trying to think how it was created because we probably did a similar thing that we had an eight bar or 16 bars, you had a simple drum loop, you know, because I can’t remember if I was there when you made the drum loop.

01:00:58.437 –> 01:00:59.377
Olly Alexander: Probably not.

01:00:59.377 –> 01:01:05.377
Olly Alexander: And then we just pull it up really simple, there’s music and I’d start improvising over the top.

01:01:07.277 –> 01:01:11.597
Danny L Harle: With this one, I didn’t have a bunch of different writing files like I did for the other ones.

01:01:11.597 –> 01:01:14.177
Danny L Harle: I think this one came together quite simply and quickly.

01:01:14.177 –> 01:01:18.977
Danny L Harle: I think I don’t know if we made lyrical changes when we were recording final vocals as well.

01:01:18.977 –> 01:01:20.237
Danny L Harle: I think that might be one of those ones.

01:01:20.237 –> 01:01:25.897
Danny L Harle: But the simplicity of the track sort of lend itself to a sort of simplicity of process as well.

01:01:25.897 –> 01:01:27.357
Olly Alexander: That’s a good point.

01:01:27.357 –> 01:01:40.677
Olly Alexander: And I think, yeah, just by the time we came to make this, we’ve made so many other songs that did feel like, oh, we need a sort of this gentle, quite tender, simple moment towards, and I always imagine it towards the end of the record.

01:01:40.677 –> 01:01:44.457
Olly Alexander: Because it’s part of this love story that’s kind of being explored on the album.

01:01:44.457 –> 01:01:49.757
Olly Alexander: And by this point, it’s feeling good and feeling like they have all these.

01:01:49.757 –> 01:01:50.137
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:01:50.137 –> 01:02:02.657
Danny L Harle: And the only real change, because I think we experimented with a bridge slightly, but then we went with a post-chorus kind of thing, just to keep the feeling consistent towards the end of the last chorus.

01:02:02.717 –> 01:02:08.957
Danny L Harle: So, the only real change you get is this, Oh, yeah.

01:02:14.617 –> 01:02:17.637
Olly Alexander: And there’s a little counter melody that’s about to come in that we like.

01:02:23.677 –> 01:02:26.937
Danny L Harle: And then it modulates with it just all going over.

01:02:26.997 –> 01:02:30.297
Danny L Harle: Let’s not really modulate the chord change.

01:02:36.437 –> 01:02:37.117
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:02:37.117 –> 01:02:39.137
Danny L Harle: So it’s just, yeah.

01:02:39.137 –> 01:02:42.237
Danny L Harle: I guess that’s why there’s not much to say about it because of the simplicity of it.

01:02:42.237 –> 01:02:43.637
Danny L Harle: It’s like it is what it is.

01:02:43.637 –> 01:02:45.277
Olly Alexander: How would you describe the synth sounds?

01:02:45.337 –> 01:02:49.517
Olly Alexander: Because I feel like this is quite a sort of signature sound across the record as well.

01:02:49.517 –> 01:02:51.877
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:02:51.877 –> 01:02:52.817
John Kennedy: What is that?

01:02:52.817 –> 01:02:57.077
John Kennedy: Because we’re talking about the 80s and talking about the equipment limitations.

01:02:57.077 –> 01:03:05.137
John Kennedy: A lot of those sounds from that time are because that was a particular Casio keyboard that had just been released in 1983 or whenever it was.

01:03:05.137 –> 01:03:07.617
John Kennedy: And so a whole load of records had that.

01:03:07.897 –> 01:03:11.017
John Kennedy: And there were like five settings on it that they could adjust to.

01:03:11.297 –> 01:03:16.497
John Kennedy: So in recreating that, you’re not necessarily using the original keyboard.

01:03:16.497 –> 01:03:16.957
Olly Alexander: No.

01:03:16.957 –> 01:03:30.077
Danny L Harle: But in fact, I’m doing something far worse and far more sacrilegious as far as producers are concerned, which is I’m using a Triton sort of preset that is emulating a Juno synth.

01:03:30.577 –> 01:03:41.577
Danny L Harle: So I’m actually emulating a synthesizer that I’m not using in a 90s synth emulation.

01:03:41.577 –> 01:03:42.857
Olly Alexander: I thought that was fun, though.

01:03:42.857 –> 01:03:43.497
Danny L Harle: Oh, yeah, no, exactly.

01:03:43.497 –> 01:03:44.817
Olly Alexander: I think that’s very Polari.

01:03:44.817 –> 01:03:48.937
Danny L Harle: Yeah, well, it’s just like I’m just completely led by sounds.

01:03:48.937 –> 01:03:53.337
Danny L Harle: So I honestly don’t really care where they come from as long as they sound good and it feels good.

01:03:53.337 –> 01:04:04.237
Danny L Harle: And it’s a very sort of classic producer thing to be obsessed with like all the equipment and all the sort of having the real synth from that time, having this like vocal chain from this time and that kind of thing.

01:04:04.757 –> 01:04:11.557
Danny L Harle: And I just really only am interested in having the equipment that’s absolutely vital for making the best music I can.

01:04:11.557 –> 01:04:21.377
Danny L Harle: And that’s why I really don’t mind if this Triton preset sounds amazing, I will just go with it because that’s what sort of really inspired me at that point.

01:04:21.377 –> 01:04:25.697
Danny L Harle: I’m not going to be trying to recreate the exact same patch on a real Juno.

01:04:26.377 –> 01:04:32.477
Danny L Harle: I very much respect a lot of producers that do think this kind of thing, but I just know they wouldn’t respect what I’m doing here.

01:04:33.877 –> 01:04:41.077
John Kennedy: But at the same time, it’s all about trying to realize the sounds that you’ve got in your head, isn’t it?

01:04:41.677 –> 01:05:00.537
Danny L Harle: Well, that’s an interesting point because my creative process, and I think the creative process we went through with making this album, is less that kind of, I guess it’s a 19th century idea of the visionary artists with the music in their head and they write it all down on a page.

01:05:00.537 –> 01:05:14.037
Danny L Harle: For me, it’s much more a case of discovering a song through creating some chords that do some things that I know that I love, and then working out ways of relating them to each other with melodic fragments and that sort of thing.

01:05:14.057 –> 01:05:27.597
Danny L Harle: That’s exactly as we described the songwriting process to be like, I don’t know whether you could equate that to that same idea, but for me, it does feel like it’s a discovery rather than a kind of realization of a thing that I previously had.

01:05:27.597 –> 01:05:32.357
John Kennedy: But I guess that what I’m thinking is that this sound palette is in your head.

01:05:32.357 –> 01:05:38.917
John Kennedy: No, so that’s the one that you turn to to start making sounds that you like and enjoy.

01:05:38.917 –> 01:05:42.457
John Kennedy: I guess maybe in turn that leads to this discovery process.

01:05:42.917 –> 01:05:43.737
Danny L Harle: You could be right with that.

01:05:43.737 –> 01:05:54.237
Danny L Harle: I can’t remember how, this was definitely the first thing that I wrote to for this track, this arpeggio-y thing or this sort of like sequential pattern.

01:05:54.237 –> 01:06:02.237
Danny L Harle: I think I found the sound first and then my mind immediately thought this pattern would sound good on that sound.

01:06:02.237 –> 01:06:07.157
Olly Alexander: Yeah, I think you, because some people will cycle through lots of sounds, get the pattern and then cycle through.

01:06:07.157 –> 01:06:11.217
Olly Alexander: But you didn’t really do that, I think, much less.

01:06:11.217 –> 01:06:13.897
Danny L Harle: There’s something that I love in music, it’s things like that.

01:06:15.577 –> 01:06:20.017
John Kennedy: And with this song then, were you both together when this was being created or discovered?

01:06:20.017 –> 01:06:20.797
Olly Alexander: I think so.

01:06:20.797 –> 01:06:25.437
John Kennedy: Because you didn’t do any prep before Olly got there, you were, you know, it’s just another day.

01:06:25.437 –> 01:06:31.117
John Kennedy: But you also had an idea of what the kind of song you were looking for in a way.

01:06:31.117 –> 01:06:37.617
Olly Alexander: Even stuff that you would prep before I got there, it felt like you would intentionally do very bare stuff usually.

01:06:37.617 –> 01:06:40.997
Olly Alexander: And we both just be in the room being like, what is the song?

01:06:41.477 –> 01:06:45.197
Olly Alexander: Let’s uncover the song, but for all of them, really.

01:06:45.197 –> 01:06:46.057
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:06:46.057 –> 01:06:47.957
John Kennedy: What else can we hear from Beautiful?

01:06:47.957 –> 01:06:48.857
John Kennedy: What do we need to hear?

01:06:48.937 –> 01:06:50.357
Danny L Harle: Let’s think.

01:06:50.357 –> 01:06:51.677
Danny L Harle: What’s this bit?

01:06:51.677 –> 01:06:58.497
Danny L Harle: Because the thing is, there’s not one of the sort of the bridges that appear all the way through the music.

01:06:58.497 –> 01:07:01.337
Danny L Harle: There is this thing that I do like, this pause.

01:07:04.477 –> 01:07:07.177
Olly Alexander: Which I could never get right timing-wise.

01:07:07.177 –> 01:07:07.597
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

01:07:10.337 –> 01:07:11.557
Danny L Harle: And then we go straight back into the-

01:07:11.557 –> 01:07:12.857
Olly Alexander: A very short second verse.

01:07:12.857 –> 01:07:13.737
Danny L Harle: Yes.

01:07:13.737 –> 01:07:14.757
Danny L Harle: Love that.

01:07:14.757 –> 01:07:19.357
Danny L Harle: And then after the second verse, it’s just chorus, post, then out.

01:07:22.117 –> 01:07:26.757
Danny L Harle: And I think that’s as far as, yeah.

01:07:26.757 –> 01:07:27.977
Danny L Harle: Oh, and also-

01:07:30.337 –> 01:07:34.557
Danny L Harle: We’ve got a synth doubling the melody, which is the thing.

01:07:35.917 –> 01:07:38.097
John Kennedy: Do you automate mini effects?

01:07:38.097 –> 01:07:39.837
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I do.

01:07:39.837 –> 01:07:41.277
Danny L Harle: I think one has to.

01:07:41.277 –> 01:07:43.757
Danny L Harle: I don’t think there’s a lot of that in this one.

01:07:43.757 –> 01:07:57.717
Danny L Harle: Yeah, nearly none because it’s just so, for me, yeah, that sort of, for this track, that element of simplicity had to remain there with the sound staying as they were to give it that mechanical feel.

01:07:57.717 –> 01:08:13.657
Danny L Harle: But often I think it’s very important to play with things like, I think the tuning of a lead synth is a very important thing to play around with because playing with kind of microtonal tuning of a lead synth gives it more of a feeling like a human voice.

01:08:13.657 –> 01:08:14.517
Olly Alexander: More presence.

01:08:14.517 –> 01:08:15.217
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:08:15.217 –> 01:08:21.877
Danny L Harle: And it means it sort of sticks out of the sort of harmonic series a bit more as well and makes it work more as a lead.

01:08:21.877 –> 01:08:22.357
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:08:22.357 –> 01:08:25.017
John Kennedy: Do you think the lyrics respond to the production?

01:08:25.017 –> 01:08:33.017
John Kennedy: I mean, you mentioned earlier on that the sounds or the melodies might inspire you, but just the kind of sounds that are being created.

01:08:33.697 –> 01:08:34.877
Olly Alexander: Definitely.

01:08:34.877 –> 01:08:48.037
Olly Alexander: You know, if it’s like sparkling or if it’s icy or if it’s fizzy or, you know, words like that, and then that kind of directs the words that pop up in my head or I might say this to Danny and Danny will go, oh yeah, I think that makes me think of this.

01:08:48.037 –> 01:08:57.077
Olly Alexander: And it really is led by the feeling and the soundscape and just sort of letting off all these different like bright sparks in my mind.

01:08:57.837 –> 01:09:17.357
John Kennedy: Yeah, it’s interesting this correspondence that the two of you were having, you know, this shared set of ideas or values, you know, to start with in terms of soundscape and then immersing yourself in that world in a way through the use of the box as it were, you know, just creating those sounds and seeing where it takes you.

01:09:17.357 –> 01:09:20.877
John Kennedy: We are filling four songs into this episode of Tape Notes.

01:09:20.877 –> 01:09:28.097
John Kennedy: So there’s one more that we’re gonna have a quick look at, but we should round off with Beautiful then I guess, is there a blast of the ending maybe of the song?

01:09:28.097 –> 01:09:29.557
Danny L Harle: Yeah, it’s got a nice ending to it.

01:10:12.598 –> 01:10:13.198
John Kennedy: Nice.

01:10:13.198 –> 01:10:14.558
John Kennedy: So, that is Beautiful.

01:10:14.558 –> 01:10:19.078
John Kennedy: We were going to look at Polari as well, which is the opening track on the album.

01:10:19.078 –> 01:10:23.878
John Kennedy: It’s short, but it kind of sets up the whole world of Polari in a way.

01:10:23.878 –> 01:10:24.798
Olly Alexander: It does.

01:10:24.798 –> 01:10:26.738
Danny L Harle: Would you like a blast of the monster?

01:10:26.918 –> 01:10:28.198
John Kennedy: I would love that, Danny.

01:10:28.198 –> 01:10:30.778
John Kennedy: Yeah, you’re in our world now.

01:10:30.778 –> 01:10:32.058
Danny L Harle: I’m in Tape Notes.

01:10:32.058 –> 01:10:34.038
Danny L Harle: I’m in Tape Notes, season pro now.

01:10:34.038 –> 01:10:34.738
Danny L Harle: Okay, here we go.

01:11:44.190 –> 01:11:54.110
John Kennedy: It’s great to listen to that and also listening to it with Olly Alexander, because it demands some kind of shape throwing, and you were throwing a lot of shapes to that.

01:11:54.110 –> 01:12:02.450
John Kennedy: Because it really reminds me of Janet Jackson, and Janet’s particular style of dancing when she was creating this kind of music was amazing.

01:12:02.490 –> 01:12:04.370
Olly Alexander: The blueprint.

01:12:04.370 –> 01:12:06.070
John Kennedy: Is there going to be a dance routine on tour?

01:12:06.070 –> 01:12:07.510
John Kennedy: Is there?

01:12:07.510 –> 01:12:08.550
Olly Alexander: Well, I did.

01:12:08.550 –> 01:12:10.070
Olly Alexander: Do you have to watch a music video for the dance routine?

01:12:10.070 –> 01:12:11.410
Olly Alexander: I did it in the music video.

01:12:11.770 –> 01:12:15.870
Olly Alexander: I can’t afford it on tour, but I’ll do something.

01:12:15.870 –> 01:12:16.890
John Kennedy: Brilliant.

01:12:16.890 –> 01:12:17.370
John Kennedy: Love that.

01:12:17.670 –> 01:12:20.890
John Kennedy: So, what was the idea with this track?

01:12:20.890 –> 01:12:27.450
John Kennedy: Because there are words and you do sing some things, and they are kind of important in a way, and maybe they help explain the choice of the title.

01:12:27.670 –> 01:12:44.170
Olly Alexander: Well, we had been talking about Polari, came up in conversation and loved it as a sort of title and a kind of blueprint for the whole record, and thinking should there be a song called Polari, using Polari, what would that song be?

01:12:44.170 –> 01:12:56.410
Olly Alexander: And Danny, you had something insane that you had made, I think, out of little bits from other ideas, that you pulled it all into one file, and then you kind of just gave me the mic and said, do something.

01:12:57.390 –> 01:13:04.670
Olly Alexander: And I just did something, like, do do do do, do do do do, do do do do, that was as easy as that, I think.

01:13:04.670 –> 01:13:05.610
Olly Alexander: Do you have it?

01:13:05.610 –> 01:13:15.910
Danny L Harle: I don’t have that, no, because this was another one where I was goblining in the side of the room, throwing stuff to the engineer.

01:13:15.930 –> 01:13:17.630
Danny L Harle: Oh, yes.

01:13:17.630 –> 01:13:29.110
Danny L Harle: The first time I presented this track to you, I think it was before with the idea of the Polari was in the air, but all that do do do do do kind of stuff.

01:13:29.410 –> 01:13:35.530
Danny L Harle: You’re seeing that because I basically didn’t play this track, and then I just said like, here, just sing something over this.

01:13:38.730 –> 01:13:42.290
Danny L Harle: I just played this to you and you just had to improvise over it.

01:13:42.290 –> 01:13:44.210
Olly Alexander: It was again, it was like Danny’s challenge.

01:13:44.410 –> 01:13:47.010
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is, yeah.

01:13:47.010 –> 01:13:51.710
Olly Alexander: Also, what’s good with working with Danny is, Danny will be like, Olly, why don’t you try this?

01:13:51.710 –> 01:13:53.850
Olly Alexander: But you, I won’t know exactly.

01:13:53.850 –> 01:13:57.390
Olly Alexander: I will, but I have to interpret what you mean.

01:13:57.410 –> 01:13:58.830
Olly Alexander: It’s like a fun.

01:14:11.862 –> 01:14:15.162
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I just wanted to see how you would react to this.

01:14:29.633 –> 01:14:33.433
John Kennedy: I mean, it sounds like it’s all played, Danny.

01:14:33.433 –> 01:14:33.853
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:14:33.853 –> 01:14:37.573
John Kennedy: I mean, like you’re playing, you know, a keyboard or something.

01:14:37.573 –> 01:14:38.973
Olly Alexander: You did play it in, though.

01:14:38.973 –> 01:14:50.113
Danny L Harle: I played bits of it in, but I always, even if I play something in, I always then quantize it to make it sound like it wasn’t played in, to remove any sense of humanity from anything that I do.

01:14:53.373 –> 01:14:53.893
Danny L Harle: I love that.

01:14:53.893 –> 01:15:05.033
Danny L Harle: So, for example, we got that, which I think to me that looks, I could have played it in, but it’s been like very much quantized since.

01:15:05.033 –> 01:15:11.493
Danny L Harle: This is on a, possibly my favorite synth called Plasmonic, and that’s a fantastic synth.

01:15:13.213 –> 01:15:15.333
Danny L Harle: And that’s the sound on its own.

01:15:16.753 –> 01:15:26.793
Danny L Harle: And then I bounced it into audio, so it’s just like, so there’s no reverb tail, and it’s like panned to the left.

01:15:26.793 –> 01:15:30.393
Danny L Harle: So then it just forms part of a texture, which it turns into this.

01:15:32.433 –> 01:15:38.173
Danny L Harle: Because the texture of this track really demands that nothing has any kind of reverb tail at all.

01:15:38.513 –> 01:15:42.273
Danny L Harle: There’s these very extreme jumps from the sort of…

01:15:42.273 –> 01:15:55.753
Danny L Harle: I was quite inspired by those example sort of vinyl records and cassette tapes that would demonstrate how a stereo system works with stuff hard panned left and right.

01:15:55.753 –> 01:15:57.893
Danny L Harle: And that’s why I sort of…

01:15:57.893 –> 01:15:59.213
Olly Alexander: Used every frequency.

01:15:59.213 –> 01:15:59.533
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:15:59.613 –> 01:16:04.433
Danny L Harle: And I was just interested in all that kind of this sort of thing where it plays with like left and right.

01:16:04.433 –> 01:16:11.693
Danny L Harle: Like, and almost in a way that’s sort of a demonstration tape of something.

01:16:11.693 –> 01:16:20.213
Danny L Harle: Like, I’ve always really liked that, the old THX sound, with all those sort of swarm of notes that turns into that chord at the end.

01:16:20.713 –> 01:16:23.093
Olly Alexander: It was a kind of demonstration of the album.

01:16:23.093 –> 01:16:23.253
Danny L Harle: Yes.

01:16:23.253 –> 01:16:25.173
Olly Alexander: It’s a demonstration tape for the album.

01:16:25.233 –> 01:16:31.373
Danny L Harle: Yeah, it turned into that because it’s just worked very well with the concepts that you were playing around with.

01:16:31.373 –> 01:16:31.593
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:16:31.593 –> 01:16:46.533
Danny L Harle: And I think, I don’t know if you agree, but I think the sort of Polari idea goes with this idea of like a language breakdown in terms of communication and lots of confusion resulting as a result of that.

01:16:47.413 –> 01:16:54.593
Danny L Harle: And the sort of like maybe the tension or the frustration inherent in this song sort of felt like quite apt as well.

01:16:54.873 –> 01:17:01.253
Danny L Harle: I also really like the aggression and the strength that’s implied by the song.

01:17:01.253 –> 01:17:10.513
Danny L Harle: And I’ve always really liked characters in films that are like really weak but really strong at the same time.

01:17:10.513 –> 01:17:11.813
Olly Alexander: Are you trying to say that’s me?

01:17:11.813 –> 01:17:13.793
Danny L Harle: No.

01:17:13.793 –> 01:17:18.453
Danny L Harle: Like, no, because the characters, Darth Vader is the best example.

01:17:18.453 –> 01:17:19.853
Danny L Harle: So you’re not like Darth Vader at all.

01:17:19.853 –> 01:17:20.993
Danny L Harle: But like, you know what I mean?

01:17:20.993 –> 01:17:23.913
Danny L Harle: He’s like unbelievably strong, but also needs this kind of like equipment.

01:17:24.193 –> 01:17:25.513
Danny L Harle: And I love that sort of combination.

01:17:25.513 –> 01:17:29.013
Danny L Harle: And that’s what I sort of hear in this combination.

01:17:29.013 –> 01:17:33.013
Danny L Harle: And that’s a sort of another juxtaposition idea that I really enjoyed.

01:17:33.013 –> 01:17:36.213
Olly Alexander: It’s quite fraught, but it’s also quite ecstatic.

01:17:36.213 –> 01:17:38.393
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:17:38.393 –> 01:17:41.133
Danny L Harle: And it just seemed to really work.

01:17:41.133 –> 01:17:43.013
Danny L Harle: And I played it to Olly.

01:17:43.013 –> 01:17:46.253
Danny L Harle: He just did some improvisations over it.

01:17:46.253 –> 01:17:47.453
Danny L Harle: These little fragments of melody.

01:17:47.453 –> 01:17:52.953
Danny L Harle: And it just sounded great as it was with these just little fragments that sort of add up.

01:17:53.133 –> 01:17:56.553
Danny L Harle: And these ideas relating to Polari.

01:17:56.553 –> 01:17:57.873
Danny L Harle: And it just came about from there.

01:17:57.873 –> 01:18:03.753
Danny L Harle: And with this sort of like small, very sort of compact section of chords in the middle.

01:18:03.753 –> 01:18:04.953
John Kennedy: Yeah, it sounds great.

01:18:04.953 –> 01:18:06.093
John Kennedy: I love it.

01:18:06.093 –> 01:18:08.473
John Kennedy: For those who aren’t aware of what Polari is.

01:18:08.473 –> 01:18:08.893
John Kennedy: Oh, yes.

01:18:08.893 –> 01:18:11.413
John Kennedy: We should give them some kind of explanation.

01:18:11.413 –> 01:18:11.773
Olly Alexander: I should.

01:18:11.773 –> 01:18:15.773
Olly Alexander: So Polari, it’s the name given to a kind of slang that used to be spoken in the UK.

01:18:15.773 –> 01:18:20.693
Olly Alexander: And it became quite popular with some gay men as a way for them to communicate kind of in secret.

01:18:21.453 –> 01:18:23.493
Olly Alexander: And there are lots of Polari words.

01:18:23.493 –> 01:18:36.273
Olly Alexander: It kind of fell out of fashion really by the 1960s, 70s, but lots of Polari words made their way kind of into common parlance, you know, like naff or bevy for a drink or dizzy actually was a Polari word.

01:18:36.273 –> 01:18:37.733
Olly Alexander: So hence the song called Dizzy.

01:18:37.733 –> 01:18:51.593
Olly Alexander: And yeah, I was very inspired by where it came from, why the people spoke it when they did, the journey it’s taken to now and the sort of approach to language has got such a playful approach to language.

01:18:51.593 –> 01:18:55.613
Olly Alexander: And so yeah, it became the way I approached the record.

01:18:55.613 –> 01:18:56.093
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:18:56.093 –> 01:19:05.393
Olly Alexander: So kind of bringing together different eras, different eras, hidden meanings of symbolism and the whole different eras thing was important to me.

01:19:05.393 –> 01:19:12.233
Olly Alexander: Also because Polari is close to Polaris, which is the North Star and it also felt futuristic to me.

01:19:12.233 –> 01:19:15.293
Olly Alexander: And I was trying to bring that kind of feel to it as well.

01:19:16.253 –> 01:19:19.593
Danny L Harle: I’ve got the final Polari file here.

01:19:19.593 –> 01:19:24.773
Danny L Harle: So we can, there’s more of the hi-fi elements of it in this one.

01:19:24.773 –> 01:19:36.733
Danny L Harle: Because that was a kind of like very, that first one that you heard was the initial file that I made, almost as a kind of, yeah, this sort of surprise track to play, Olly, just to see how it bounced off it really.

01:19:36.733 –> 01:19:37.433
Olly Alexander: Surprise.

01:19:37.433 –> 01:19:43.953
Danny L Harle: The drum sounds, I would say, like to name a specific track, we’re quite inspired by People Are People.

01:19:44.033 –> 01:19:45.533
Danny L Harle: Do you know that Tape Shmode song?

01:19:45.533 –> 01:19:46.873
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:19:46.873 –> 01:19:49.113
John Kennedy: You and I should get along so awfully.

01:19:49.113 –> 01:19:50.573
Danny L Harle: Awfully, yeah.

01:19:50.593 –> 01:19:53.613
Danny L Harle: So why should it be that you and I should get along?

01:19:53.733 –> 01:19:55.753
Danny L Harle: It’s incredible.

01:19:55.753 –> 01:19:58.313
John Kennedy: It’s got a big sound, actually.

01:19:58.313 –> 01:20:00.273
John Kennedy: When they play that in a kind of stadium type thing.

01:20:00.273 –> 01:20:01.853
Danny L Harle: It sounds incredible.

01:20:01.853 –> 01:20:03.793
John Kennedy: That’s kind of, yeah, it’s almost thinking about it.

01:20:03.793 –> 01:20:09.073
John Kennedy: It’s kind of influenced by industrial music at the time, which is coming through.

01:20:09.073 –> 01:20:28.773
Danny L Harle: I find, I really like this genre that, I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but it’s like the theme tune, theme tunes to TV programs about like, kind of piles of metal, like Scrapheap Challenge or How It’s Made, shows like that.

01:20:28.773 –> 01:20:35.593
Danny L Harle: They always have this kind of like, these like specific style of industrial soundtrack to them.

01:20:35.593 –> 01:20:40.933
Danny L Harle: I don’t know if that’s a genre, but that is one of my favorite genres.

01:20:40.953 –> 01:20:41.413
Danny L Harle: If it is.

01:20:42.773 –> 01:20:44.233
Danny L Harle: So, that’s a thing.

01:20:44.233 –> 01:20:45.533
Olly Alexander: Metallic.

01:20:45.533 –> 01:20:46.413
Danny L Harle: Yeah, there’s always that.

01:20:46.413 –> 01:20:47.273
Danny L Harle: I don’t know what the word is.

01:20:47.793 –> 01:20:50.693
Danny L Harle: There’s that element to it.

01:20:50.693 –> 01:20:55.793
Danny L Harle: I’ll see, we can have a listen to the final file here.

01:20:55.893 –> 01:20:58.313
Danny L Harle: You see, we’ve got Cam.

01:20:58.313 –> 01:20:59.213
Olly Alexander: I think, and as well.

01:20:59.213 –> 01:21:00.933
Danny L Harle: Oh no, this isn’t Cam’s doing here.

01:21:00.933 –> 01:21:05.613
Danny L Harle: I think there was someone else on it, because I can see it doesn’t have Cam’s signature 15 tracks of.

01:21:05.613 –> 01:21:07.213
Olly Alexander: No, I think we just did it in your studio.

01:21:07.293 –> 01:21:08.673
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I think we did.

01:21:08.673 –> 01:21:22.093
Olly Alexander: And often we would have this kind of session file which sounded really good and quite like far along, but then you would kind of go back in, like with Polari, you went back in and I feel like you just, you were like freaked out and did something crazy all over it.

01:21:22.093 –> 01:21:23.913
Olly Alexander: And it became what it became.

01:21:24.293 –> 01:21:24.933
Olly Alexander: In a good way.

01:21:24.993 –> 01:21:34.513
Danny L Harle: I wanted to go for that like the world of stereo sound style of track as well with that one.

01:21:34.513 –> 01:21:39.553
Olly Alexander: And the, uh, that comes back up in the, I know, in the album.

01:21:39.553 –> 01:21:40.553
Danny L Harle: So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:40.553 –> 01:21:43.313
John Kennedy: As a kind of art of noise thing going on.

01:21:43.313 –> 01:21:44.213
Danny L Harle: Yeah, absolutely.

01:21:44.213 –> 01:21:44.793
Danny L Harle: Absolutely.

01:21:44.793 –> 01:21:53.593
Danny L Harle: That sort of ruthless sampling and very like bare face sampling, just the same sound again, like really like that.

01:21:53.593 –> 01:22:00.213
Danny L Harle: And it’s kind of evocative or emotional use of sampling rather than to impersonate an instrument or anything like that.

01:22:00.213 –> 01:22:15.673
Danny L Harle: And that’s the thing with making this album, I was really excited by as well because within this sort of synth pop world, you can just use electronic sound emotionally in a way where you don’t have to hide that it’s electronic.

01:22:16.473 –> 01:22:30.673
Danny L Harle: That’s the thing that a producer I very much admire called Vince Clark, I want to say like pioneered an approach to and was very honored to get to work with him on one of the tracks on the album as well called Make Me A Man.

01:22:30.673 –> 01:22:44.613
Danny L Harle: And that approach where you’re not trying to make electronic sound like real instruments, where you’re extracting an emotion from the fact that it’s electronic sound and you’ve got a human voice over the top of it.

01:22:44.613 –> 01:22:50.693
Danny L Harle: That for me is a very special combination and one of the most evocative sounds for me.

01:22:50.693 –> 01:22:55.293
John Kennedy: I thought maybe that could be the outro to the podcast today.

01:22:55.293 –> 01:22:56.193
Danny L Harle: Yeah, sure.

01:22:56.193 –> 01:23:00.453
John Kennedy: But before that, I think you were going to play some of these amazing sounds on Polaris.

01:23:00.493 –> 01:23:02.073
Danny L Harle: Okay, yeah, sure.

01:23:02.293 –> 01:23:03.913
Danny L Harle: Let’s go back into Polari for a second.

01:23:03.913 –> 01:23:04.893
John Kennedy: Sorry, Polari, yeah.

01:23:04.893 –> 01:23:06.773
Danny L Harle: We have the track here.

01:23:28.522 –> 01:23:30.682
John Kennedy: So, are you able to pull apart any of these sounds?

01:23:30.682 –> 01:23:31.562
John Kennedy: Yeah, sure.

01:23:31.562 –> 01:23:32.422
Danny L Harle: Let’s go into it.

01:23:35.102 –> 01:23:38.462
Danny L Harle: So, there’s all sorts going on in there.

01:23:38.462 –> 01:23:42.162
Danny L Harle: We have the sort of drums at the center of it.

01:23:42.162 –> 01:23:43.602
Danny L Harle: Let’s see if I can find that.

01:23:43.602 –> 01:23:46.662
Danny L Harle: There’s lots of funny layering going on here.

01:23:49.942 –> 01:23:51.462
Danny L Harle: And that’s a section of the drums.

01:23:51.462 –> 01:23:53.202
Danny L Harle: Let’s see if I can get some more going here.

01:24:03.061 –> 01:24:05.901
Danny L Harle: Okay, so that section there is a little fill.

01:24:07.121 –> 01:24:10.161
Danny L Harle: And there’s usually something filling in here.

01:24:12.721 –> 01:24:13.701
Danny L Harle: There we go, that’s what that was.

01:24:13.701 –> 01:24:22.201
Danny L Harle: So the drums are enhanced by these kind of like tricks that you can use to sort of enhance the stereo image.

01:24:22.201 –> 01:24:23.941
Danny L Harle: This is a tape delay trick here.

01:24:23.941 –> 01:24:26.441
Danny L Harle: Let’s see if we can pull this down here.

01:24:26.441 –> 01:24:35.641
Danny L Harle: Where basically the delay time is zero milliseconds, and it’s only got the sort of wet of the dry and wet up.

01:24:35.641 –> 01:24:39.281
Danny L Harle: And therefore all you’re hearing there is just this really quick delay.

01:24:39.281 –> 01:24:46.361
Danny L Harle: And if I were to up the feedback, it would make it start feeding back with itself if it gets past a certain threshold.

01:24:48.341 –> 01:24:48.741
Danny L Harle: There you go.

01:24:49.481 –> 01:24:54.241
Danny L Harle: But it’s just enough below, you get that sound feeding back against itself.

01:24:54.241 –> 01:24:58.521
Danny L Harle: And because it’s in a stereo image, it has this kind of like hi-fi effect to it.

01:24:58.561 –> 01:25:02.801
Danny L Harle: And you can actually control sort of what frequencies it’s sort of feeding back at.

01:25:02.801 –> 01:25:05.461
Danny L Harle: If you want it low or just high.

01:25:05.461 –> 01:25:09.821
Danny L Harle: But when it gets high, it starts like feeding back in that quite harsh, higher frequencies.

01:25:09.821 –> 01:25:12.981
Danny L Harle: I was just interested in it, in that world.

01:25:12.981 –> 01:25:14.101
Olly Alexander: Very mechanical.

01:25:14.101 –> 01:25:14.881
Danny L Harle: Yes.

01:25:14.881 –> 01:25:17.581
Danny L Harle: That’s sort of one of the things that makes that sound.

01:25:17.581 –> 01:25:25.461
Danny L Harle: And that sort of layered up then just gives it this kind of wider and kind of just strange like artificial industrial.

01:25:28.801 –> 01:25:29.581
Danny L Harle: Feel there.

01:25:29.581 –> 01:25:32.381
Danny L Harle: No, that was the sort of layered sound there.

01:25:34.021 –> 01:25:34.921
Danny L Harle: Doubling that.

01:25:34.921 –> 01:25:37.581
Danny L Harle: Just that happens once in the track.

01:25:39.401 –> 01:25:41.281
Danny L Harle: And there’s lots of things that just happen once actually.

01:25:41.441 –> 01:25:52.441
Danny L Harle: That’s, I think, was another core idea of the track to have these like endless amount of fills and extra things that just happen once, to kind of saturate the listener with information.

01:25:53.501 –> 01:25:55.641
Danny L Harle: Go on to some more, maybe.

01:26:03.701 –> 01:26:04.301
Danny L Harle: There we go.

01:26:04.301 –> 01:26:07.701
Danny L Harle: Okay, so we have a bit.

01:26:07.701 –> 01:26:11.861
Danny L Harle: So there, I sort of changed the chord that’s being played there.

01:26:11.861 –> 01:26:15.581
Danny L Harle: I think it’s a tambourine going through a kind of gated reverb.

01:26:15.581 –> 01:26:25.261
Danny L Harle: And then that is a very fast flute arpeggio that’s just another sort of tightly sort of bounced files.

01:26:25.261 –> 01:26:28.161
Danny L Harle: There’s no audio tail on that.

01:26:28.161 –> 01:26:35.001
Danny L Harle: And then, which is, I think, a sample of me, Olly in the songs Shadow of Love.

01:26:35.001 –> 01:26:38.501
Danny L Harle: I think it’s that shadow of love.

01:26:38.501 –> 01:26:45.781
Danny L Harle: And then we have these one, two, three, fours, which I think are maybe from the, I think they might be from the Triton.

01:26:45.781 –> 01:26:47.181
Danny L Harle: It’s the effect that I really enjoyed.

01:26:47.181 –> 01:26:48.941
Danny L Harle: It had a sort of studio feel to it.

01:26:49.061 –> 01:26:51.121
Danny L Harle: Yeah, studio, studio feel.

01:26:51.121 –> 01:26:53.341
Danny L Harle: Sound, feel.

01:26:59.441 –> 01:27:00.301
Danny L Harle: I love that.

01:27:00.301 –> 01:27:06.721
Danny L Harle: Yeah, the vocal samples, I think that is literally from, I don’t know, that’s the sample that I did.

01:27:07.841 –> 01:27:14.081
Danny L Harle: Another Triton, a lot of Triton on this, or maybe just on the songs that we were looking at today.

01:27:14.081 –> 01:27:26.621
Danny L Harle: And yeah, so a lot of these sort of very intricate sounds, but always, I’ve give them all a very tight haircut, so they just fill in the tiny bit of space that they’re occupying.

01:27:28.941 –> 01:27:30.401
Danny L Harle: There we go, there’s another one.

01:27:30.401 –> 01:27:35.021
Danny L Harle: Is that, that looks like a sort of manually ridden automation there on that one.

01:27:36.481 –> 01:27:39.061
Danny L Harle: There we go, those two chords.

01:27:39.061 –> 01:27:42.421
Danny L Harle: And yeah, so it’s just a sequence of things like that.

01:27:42.421 –> 01:27:48.021
Danny L Harle: And there’s this kind of quite strange, pinched guitar harmonic.

01:27:50.841 –> 01:27:55.481
Danny L Harle: There, that’s sort of accompanying the initial bit of the song.

01:27:55.481 –> 01:27:59.081
John Kennedy: And those, those kind of things like the guitar, what is that?

01:27:59.081 –> 01:28:02.181
John Kennedy: Is that you picking up the guitar even though you don’t want to?

01:28:02.181 –> 01:28:05.821
John Kennedy: Or is that just grabbing a sample?

01:28:05.821 –> 01:28:08.881
Danny L Harle: You can kind of make that sound out of anything really.

01:28:08.881 –> 01:28:15.441
Danny L Harle: I could just sample a MIDI instrument and do that in Waves Tune or something like that to create that thing.

01:28:15.941 –> 01:28:24.381
Danny L Harle: I often sort of have a sort of perverse joy in doing that, in like recreating what could be real in a sort of, in a synthesized way.

01:28:24.381 –> 01:28:33.961
Danny L Harle: I recently enjoyed listening to the Coca-Cola Pop and Fizz sound, which was what Coca-Cola had used for years and years and years.

01:28:33.961 –> 01:28:36.321
Danny L Harle: And it is actually a completely synthesized sound.

01:28:36.321 –> 01:28:37.421
Olly Alexander: Of course it is.

01:28:37.421 –> 01:28:39.301
Danny L Harle: But it just is so perfectly done.

01:28:39.361 –> 01:28:45.401
Danny L Harle: It is actually, as sort of Foley sound is, sounds more perfect than real life.

01:28:45.401 –> 01:28:55.281
Danny L Harle: And that’s kind of why I like that sort of process, because I like creating these sort of dream environments.

01:28:55.281 –> 01:28:58.061
Danny L Harle: And I like the fakeness of it.

01:28:58.181 –> 01:29:01.121
Danny L Harle: It makes it more of an honest transaction.

01:29:01.121 –> 01:29:01.921
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:29:02.821 –> 01:29:04.501
Danny L Harle: It feels like it’s not real.

01:29:04.501 –> 01:29:06.561
Danny L Harle: It’s something that sort of separates it off.

01:29:06.981 –> 01:29:08.061
Danny L Harle: There’s more of a fantasy.

01:29:08.061 –> 01:29:09.281
Olly Alexander: Fantasy, I was going to say.

01:29:09.281 –> 01:29:09.861
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:29:09.861 –> 01:29:10.581
Olly Alexander: Brings an element.

01:29:10.581 –> 01:29:11.341
Olly Alexander: Fantasy.

01:29:11.341 –> 01:29:11.801
John Kennedy: It’s interesting.

01:29:11.801 –> 01:29:15.781
John Kennedy: It just kind of calls to mind Queen writing, no synthesizers were used on that.

01:29:15.781 –> 01:29:17.481
Danny L Harle: Yeah, exactly the opposite.

01:29:17.521 –> 01:29:20.861
Danny L Harle: No real instruments were used apart from Olly in the making of this.

01:29:20.861 –> 01:29:24.141
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:29:24.141 –> 01:29:25.361
John Kennedy: Fantastic.

01:29:25.361 –> 01:29:28.561
John Kennedy: We have got some questions that we ask everybody who comes on Tape Notes.

01:29:28.561 –> 01:29:33.441
John Kennedy: And we also have some questions from our patrons on Patreon, which have come through.

01:29:33.441 –> 01:29:36.241
John Kennedy: And I thought maybe I’d run through some of those now.

01:29:36.241 –> 01:29:40.021
John Kennedy: Tommy Taylor says pitch shifting is a common effect in Danny’s production.

01:29:40.021 –> 01:29:41.901
John Kennedy: How does he achieve this?

01:29:41.901 –> 01:29:42.661
Olly Alexander: Tell us Danny.

01:29:42.661 –> 01:29:43.681
John Kennedy: Yes, please.

01:29:43.681 –> 01:29:46.301
Danny L Harle: I don’t know if I’m revealing secrets of the pros here.

01:29:46.321 –> 01:29:47.721
Danny L Harle: I suppose that’s what this is all about.

01:29:47.721 –> 01:29:55.641
Danny L Harle: But for me, the best software for doing that is Audacity, but I can’t always do that.

01:29:55.641 –> 01:30:07.121
Danny L Harle: And historically, all of us, instead of PC Music World, always use the Logic Varispeed function, where you slow down the whole project by a few semitones.

01:30:07.121 –> 01:30:09.261
Danny L Harle: And I do recommend that you use semitones.

01:30:09.261 –> 01:30:18.621
Danny L Harle: You do not use the percentage because that can get into a world of disgusting nonsense when it comes to BPMs and what key the song’s in.

01:30:18.621 –> 01:30:28.161
Danny L Harle: So you detune it by a few semitones, record it in to a slower Varispeed track, and then bring it back to the normal BPM using Varispeed.

01:30:28.341 –> 01:30:32.321
Danny L Harle: So you take Varispeed off basically, and then you’ll have a sped up vocal in your track.

01:30:32.321 –> 01:30:40.141
Danny L Harle: Yeah, no, I’ve always been attracted to those voices, definitely, and it’s been a thing in a lot of music that I write and enjoy.

01:30:40.141 –> 01:30:47.721
Danny L Harle: But then I think the way in which sped up voices move is a thing that’s just quite apparent in a lot of the voices that I’m attracted to anyway.

01:30:47.721 –> 01:30:53.901
Danny L Harle: So there’s a lot of ways in which Olly’s voice sounds like a sped up voice, and that’s why I like that.

01:30:53.901 –> 01:30:54.381
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:30:54.441 –> 01:30:55.561
John Kennedy: So I was wondering about that.

01:30:55.561 –> 01:30:58.801
John Kennedy: I mean, is that something that you’re creating purposely or?

01:30:59.021 –> 01:31:04.361
Olly Alexander: I think it’s just my natural sort of vibrato, the way my voice moves between notes.

01:31:04.361 –> 01:31:06.881
Olly Alexander: But we did actually pitch shift.

01:31:06.881 –> 01:31:07.721
Olly Alexander: I know.

01:31:07.721 –> 01:31:09.421
Olly Alexander: Yeah, we did the whole song.

01:31:09.421 –> 01:31:10.261
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:31:10.261 –> 01:31:16.461
Danny L Harle: Olly’s voice is a lot like he is as a person, where it’s sort of like a kind of high energy and sort of-

01:31:16.461 –> 01:31:17.161
Olly Alexander: Highly strong.

01:31:17.161 –> 01:31:17.481
Danny L Harle: Yeah.

01:31:17.621 –> 01:31:20.961
Danny L Harle: Because you can sort of move very quickly.

01:31:20.961 –> 01:31:29.061
Danny L Harle: But he does that melodically instead of all just find a strange new avenue of melody just by just accidentally going up a bit sort of at the end of a line.

01:31:29.061 –> 01:31:33.261
Danny L Harle: And that is a thing that I really enjoyed about the songwriting process.

01:31:33.261 –> 01:31:34.141
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:31:34.141 –> 01:31:38.161
John Kennedy: Jen says, Hi, Olly, I’m a singer and would love to know how you look after your voice.

01:31:38.161 –> 01:31:40.201
John Kennedy: Do you have any special tricks?

01:31:40.201 –> 01:31:42.821
Olly Alexander: Oh my gosh, I’m not the best at looking after my voice.

01:31:42.821 –> 01:31:46.101
Olly Alexander: But I would say what really changed my life was warming down.

01:31:46.101 –> 01:31:49.261
Olly Alexander: Because everyone tells you to warm up, which is obviously very important.

01:31:49.261 –> 01:31:56.681
Olly Alexander: But a warm down is equally as important because you want to put your larynx and everything back into the best place for talking.

01:31:56.681 –> 01:32:03.621
Olly Alexander: Lots of singers really hammer the voice and then don’t think about how they’ve changed their placement and then when they’re speaking.

01:32:03.621 –> 01:32:04.441
Danny L Harle: Or go to an after party.

01:32:04.441 –> 01:32:05.061
Olly Alexander: Or they go to an after party.

01:32:05.061 –> 01:32:05.381
Olly Alexander: Yeah, that’s true.

01:32:05.381 –> 01:32:06.221
Danny L Harle: And shout really loudly.

01:32:06.221 –> 01:32:06.681
Olly Alexander: That’s true.

01:32:06.681 –> 01:32:07.681
Olly Alexander: I don’t really do that.

01:32:07.681 –> 01:32:08.781
Danny L Harle: But many singers do.

01:32:08.781 –> 01:32:09.341
Olly Alexander: They do.

01:32:09.341 –> 01:32:10.101
Olly Alexander: And that’s that.

01:32:10.101 –> 01:32:11.641
Danny L Harle: If you got a gig the next day.

01:32:11.641 –> 01:32:12.121
Olly Alexander: Don’t go out.

01:32:12.121 –> 01:32:12.901
Danny L Harle: It could be trouble.

01:32:12.901 –> 01:32:13.361
Olly Alexander: That’s true.

01:32:13.361 –> 01:32:13.941
Olly Alexander: That’s a better advice.

01:32:13.941 –> 01:32:15.081
Danny L Harle: I’m not saying don’t go out.

01:32:15.081 –> 01:32:16.221
Olly Alexander: Okay.

01:32:16.221 –> 01:32:17.221
Olly Alexander: Just don’t go crazy.

01:32:17.221 –> 01:32:19.181
John Kennedy: So what’s the best way to warm down?

01:32:19.601 –> 01:32:20.881
Olly Alexander: You go like this.

01:32:23.301 –> 01:32:24.621
Olly Alexander: And then you go.

01:32:31.101 –> 01:32:31.681
Olly Alexander: That’s great.

01:32:31.681 –> 01:32:33.741
Olly Alexander: And then you’re kind of back into the talking placement.

01:32:33.741 –> 01:32:34.141
John Kennedy: Right.

01:32:34.141 –> 01:32:34.741
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:32:34.741 –> 01:32:35.981
Olly Alexander: That would be my tip.

01:32:36.441 –> 01:32:38.001
John Kennedy: And then Danny samples that and puts that on.

01:32:38.221 –> 01:32:41.481
Danny L Harle: I would say you should start a session by just doing that.

01:32:42.861 –> 01:32:45.421
Danny L Harle: And then if anybody talks, you just go.

01:32:45.421 –> 01:32:45.961
Olly Alexander: No, no.

01:32:46.181 –> 01:32:48.281
Danny L Harle: Yeah, exactly.

01:32:48.281 –> 01:32:49.341
Olly Alexander: But yeah, singing.

01:32:49.341 –> 01:32:50.041
John Kennedy: Excellent.

01:32:50.041 –> 01:32:50.761
Olly Alexander: Stay healthy.

01:32:50.761 –> 01:32:52.341
John Kennedy: That’s a good tip.

01:32:52.341 –> 01:32:54.961
John Kennedy: Carl Carlson says, I think this is aimed at Danny.

01:32:54.961 –> 01:33:03.081
John Kennedy: What is your strategy for finishing songs and focusing on getting the emotion to translate rather than getting stuck tweaking sounds?

01:33:03.081 –> 01:33:05.021
Danny L Harle: I think he’s answered his own question there.

01:33:05.021 –> 01:33:05.541
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:33:05.541 –> 01:33:08.941
Danny L Harle: He just focused on the emotion and get stuck tweaking sounds.

01:33:09.261 –> 01:33:13.441
Danny L Harle: Yeah, it’s really easy to, I think taking breaks is essential.

01:33:13.441 –> 01:33:19.801
Danny L Harle: Sleeping on something like a bed, but also sleeping on the song and returning to it.

01:33:19.801 –> 01:33:22.601
Danny L Harle: Really easy to spend too much time on something like that.

01:33:23.681 –> 01:33:25.901
Olly Alexander: Finishing is hard, it’s difficult.

01:33:25.901 –> 01:33:41.661
Danny L Harle: It is, but in the question there is the answer, which is just focus on the way it makes you feel and also listen to the first version of it, which can be quite painful because it’s like, actually you might hear a bunch of stuff that you preferred about that version, and then you got to be really honest with yourself and be like, should we just return back to this?

01:33:41.661 –> 01:33:45.441
Danny L Harle: Often the first version is a lot simpler, like we’re talking about with the Beautiful track.

01:33:45.441 –> 01:33:53.661
Danny L Harle: That’s not a process that we went through because I think we’re both really used to writing in that sense and we understood that song from the start, that we wanted to keep it simple.

01:33:53.661 –> 01:34:00.301
Danny L Harle: But I think early on in my career, I would just end up adding and adding and adding and then just listen to the original.

01:34:00.301 –> 01:34:07.861
Danny L Harle: I don’t think I was mature enough at that point to actually make the call, actually the first version was better and we should go back to that.

01:34:08.881 –> 01:34:11.901
Danny L Harle: That kind of calls made a lot these days.

01:34:12.021 –> 01:34:23.181
Danny L Harle: I think there’s that story about a Michael Jackson song being mixed where they went through 98 different mixes for it and then they landed on mix 2 at the end of the whole thing.

01:34:23.181 –> 01:34:23.921
John Kennedy: Of course.

01:34:23.921 –> 01:34:24.461
John Kennedy: Wow.

01:34:24.461 –> 01:34:25.361
John Kennedy: Amazing.

01:34:25.361 –> 01:34:31.521
John Kennedy: This is another one for Danny saying from Louis Morehouse who says, as a producer, how do you normally get work?

01:34:32.021 –> 01:34:39.521
John Kennedy: Do artists reach out via Instagram or is it mainly through labels, managers, et cetera, which is kind of an interesting thing in a way.

01:34:39.521 –> 01:34:44.481
Danny L Harle: Early on artists don’t reach out to you because no one knows who you are.

01:34:45.841 –> 01:35:03.901
Danny L Harle: Early on, I think it’s important for you to look for people and to believe in people really early on who are just starting to find somebody with something that you believe in and stick with them and I think that’s really important and they will remember that for the whole career as well.

01:35:03.901 –> 01:35:07.161
Danny L Harle: If you hear something in them, there probably is something to them.

01:35:07.161 –> 01:35:10.801
Danny L Harle: If you help them achieve something, then they’ll believe in you too.

01:35:10.801 –> 01:35:28.961
Danny L Harle: It’s just like if you look at Timbaland’s history with Missy Elliott, when he was DJ Timmy Tim and he was just making tracks on his keyboard and stuff, and Missy Elliott got offered a record deal and she said, I’ll come to New York if I can bring Magoon Timmy Tim, because she trusted them and they all collaborated so well.

01:35:28.961 –> 01:35:30.361
Danny L Harle: I think it’s about finding people.

01:35:31.221 –> 01:35:33.461
Danny L Harle: You shouldn’t necessarily wait for artists to reach out to you.

01:35:33.461 –> 01:35:40.701
Danny L Harle: You should also be really looking for people that you think have something, especially people who are just starting out.

01:35:40.701 –> 01:35:47.581
John Kennedy: And then you get to experiment and have some fun and work out and discover what you’re actually going to do.

01:35:47.581 –> 01:35:48.621
John Kennedy: Very interesting.

01:35:48.621 –> 01:35:55.481
John Kennedy: So one of the questions we ask everybody is about tech or a piece of equipment or an instrument.

01:35:55.481 –> 01:36:06.961
John Kennedy: I mean, Olly, you started playing keyboards, and now we’ve mainly been discussing you as a singer today, but I mean, you are a musician as well.

01:36:06.961 –> 01:36:10.061
John Kennedy: So do you think in terms of tech these days?

01:36:10.121 –> 01:36:16.741
John Kennedy: I mean, if you’re writing music, especially now you’re a solo artist, do you just find the right person?

01:36:16.741 –> 01:36:21.061
John Kennedy: So in this instance, you found Danny and it’s like, you’re in the right space together.

01:36:21.061 –> 01:36:22.821
Olly Alexander: Yeah, I mean, that was definitely important for me.

01:36:22.821 –> 01:36:25.941
Olly Alexander: I mean, I barely can use logic.

01:36:25.941 –> 01:36:30.801
Olly Alexander: I mean, I can do enough to make my own very clunky bad demos.

01:36:30.801 –> 01:36:32.521
Olly Alexander: And I enjoy that as well sometimes.

01:36:32.521 –> 01:36:43.701
Olly Alexander: It’s a different thing because again, it’s a set of limitations because I play piano and sometimes I’ll write at the piano or I’ll try and make something in logic, but it takes me about a day to do anything.

01:36:43.701 –> 01:37:00.501
Olly Alexander: And I really, yeah, it was about finding Danny basically for this record and being able to just have like that one person where I could talk about anything with, just really opened it all up for me.

01:37:00.501 –> 01:37:04.261
Olly Alexander: And because tech stuff, I mean, I like a Roland Gaia.

01:37:04.261 –> 01:37:05.701
Olly Alexander: I bought a Roland Gaia a long time ago.

01:37:05.701 –> 01:37:06.521
Olly Alexander: It’s a nice little synth.

01:37:06.841 –> 01:37:08.081
Danny L Harle: Yeah, yeah.

01:37:09.341 –> 01:37:12.021
Olly Alexander: But otherwise, it’s like, I don’t know anything.

01:37:12.021 –> 01:37:13.301
John Kennedy: What about you, Danny?

01:37:13.301 –> 01:37:20.401
John Kennedy: I mean, you’ve kind of moved on from musical instruments, although apart from you’ve rediscovered your new musical.

01:37:20.401 –> 01:37:21.341
Danny L Harle: I know, yes.

01:37:21.341 –> 01:37:24.321
Danny L Harle: Yeah, this is kind of contradicting everything that I’ve said.

01:37:24.321 –> 01:37:29.101
Danny L Harle: The fact that I have a new found love for the tenor viol, the Elizabethan instrument.

01:37:29.101 –> 01:37:33.501
Danny L Harle: But yeah, that will doubtlessly be manifesting itself in various ways.

01:37:33.501 –> 01:37:36.181
Danny L Harle: I’m gonna force it into various people’s album projects.

01:37:36.321 –> 01:37:38.221
John Kennedy: I’m looking forward to that.

01:37:38.221 –> 01:37:40.401
Danny L Harle: It’s an amazing instrument, I have to say.

01:37:40.401 –> 01:37:43.661
Danny L Harle: But yeah, a preferred favorite piece of tech.

01:37:43.661 –> 01:37:52.641
Danny L Harle: I mean, to be honest, I kind of don’t like any of it, or I don’t like any instrument or piece of technology, because it’s just all sort of like in the way.

01:37:53.301 –> 01:37:55.041
Danny L Harle: I like music, basically.

01:37:55.041 –> 01:38:00.381
Danny L Harle: And it’s all stuff that is just in between me and the music.

01:38:00.441 –> 01:38:02.441
Danny L Harle: It’s like, I’ll use whatever, whatever’s there.

01:38:02.881 –> 01:38:04.441
Danny L Harle: I’ll be using it.

01:38:04.441 –> 01:38:06.241
Danny L Harle: And it’s-

01:38:06.241 –> 01:38:07.381
Olly Alexander: You bend it to your will.

01:38:07.381 –> 01:38:07.981
Danny L Harle: Yeah, I do.

01:38:07.981 –> 01:38:09.321
Danny L Harle: And it’s…

01:38:09.321 –> 01:38:18.801
Danny L Harle: I don’t really fetishise instruments or technology in any way, or sort of like love them in that way, because it’s some…

01:38:18.801 –> 01:38:22.361
Danny L Harle: They’re sort of a necessary thing, part of the process, to get to the music.

01:38:22.361 –> 01:38:23.601
Danny L Harle: And I just…

01:38:23.601 –> 01:38:25.701
Danny L Harle: That’s the thing that I’m obsessed with.

01:38:26.921 –> 01:38:31.261
Danny L Harle: Even to extrapolate on that, it’s the feeling music gives me, is the thing that I love, actually.

01:38:31.261 –> 01:38:33.641
Danny L Harle: So music is actually part of that process.

01:38:34.901 –> 01:38:37.861
Danny L Harle: And so it’s really hard for me to answer that.

01:38:37.861 –> 01:38:53.561
Danny L Harle: If I was to answer in terms of a plug-in, that is one that I just jump to a lot, is that Plasmonic is one that I use a lot, and it produces a kind of sound that immediately evokes a world that I sort of want to be a part of.

01:38:53.561 –> 01:38:59.341
Danny L Harle: And yeah, I would say that’s what I would sort of be inclined towards.

01:38:59.341 –> 01:39:01.001
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting.

01:39:01.001 –> 01:39:03.161
John Kennedy: There’s one more question that we ask everybody about.

01:39:03.161 –> 01:39:06.681
John Kennedy: Before that, I’m going to go back to one of the Patreon questions.

01:39:06.681 –> 01:39:13.881
John Kennedy: Do you guys have any, this is from Aaron Blackett, do you guys have any tips for staying calm and consistent whilst making music?

01:39:13.881 –> 01:39:33.621
Olly Alexander: Well, I think one thing is just to keep showing up, you know, because you can have days where you don’t feel inspired, or I don’t know, or there’s missing answers, or we’ve got a song that we’re working on and I don’t know how it should be, how it should go, but you still have to show up and try, I think.

01:39:33.621 –> 01:39:34.621
Olly Alexander: That was kind of important.

01:39:34.641 –> 01:39:54.281
Olly Alexander: And we didn’t really have too many moments like that, but then, but that’s the good thing about being able to kind of work on a project with someone in this way, is that you’re going to come back to it another day, you can try another idea that you’ve got going, so you’re not just completely reliant on one thing working, because that can really be, I think, kill the creativity, if you’re just trying to hammer away at something that’s just not fitting.

01:39:55.941 –> 01:40:07.041
Danny L Harle: I’ll say from a producer’s perspective, a thing that really solved a lot of stress that I used to have in the sessions, was one, sorting out what I’m going to eat and when I’m going to eat it.

01:40:07.041 –> 01:40:08.401
Olly Alexander: Very true, very good point.

01:40:08.401 –> 01:40:26.741
Danny L Harle: In the session, because early on, I used to do sessions in LA or whatever, the session would start at like 11.30 or 12, and I wouldn’t sort out when I’m going to have lunch, and I’d be absolutely starving, and feel like unbelievably sort of like I have underperformed in the session as a result, because I just didn’t have it sorted out, I didn’t know where to get food in LA and that kind of thing.

01:40:26.741 –> 01:40:32.461
Danny L Harle: So that doing that is one thing from producer perspective, I’m sorry how technical I’m being.

01:40:32.461 –> 01:40:40.441
Danny L Harle: The second thing is having a template file on your DAW, which is ready to record, to have a mic, to have it set up.

01:40:40.441 –> 01:40:45.621
Danny L Harle: We had the privilege of having a engineer in a lot of our sessions, which makes it even easier, the process.

01:40:46.321 –> 01:40:54.021
Danny L Harle: But the majority of my sessions, I have a template file where I have a lot of instruments that I can just jump straight into.

01:40:54.021 –> 01:41:01.401
Danny L Harle: If I have an idea that’s like an arpeggio, or a chord, or something like that, I have a template that I can go to, and then obviously tweak or whatever there.

01:41:01.401 –> 01:41:14.521
Danny L Harle: It’s very embryonic early sounds, like very simple pads, very simple bass sound, very simple drums, and then have a track where you can just record audio straight into it and have the microphone.

01:41:14.521 –> 01:41:19.121
Danny L Harle: And so, because lots of artists, like Olly, just start singing if they have an idea.

01:41:19.121 –> 01:41:22.281
Danny L Harle: There’s no kind of like, okay, let’s get the headphones on, let’s get this.

01:41:22.281 –> 01:41:29.241
Danny L Harle: And then if you have one of those dynamic microphones that just can record in the room, so you can just press record, and then it’s there.

01:41:29.241 –> 01:41:37.561
Danny L Harle: So there’s no scrambling, there’s no suddenly press record, and then the feedback makes the speakers sort of go crazy.

01:41:37.561 –> 01:41:51.581
Danny L Harle: I’ve had so many times like that in sessions before I had the sense of preparation before a session, where I’ve done that, and then it’s really embarrassing, and then some artists have especially sensitive ears as well, and it really puts them off.

01:41:51.581 –> 01:42:08.661
Danny L Harle: If you make a big feedback sound in the session, this is like very early days stuff I’m talking about, but that kind of thing makes a massive difference in terms of keeping the session sort of feeling relaxed and consistent, as you said, that level of preparation.

01:42:08.661 –> 01:42:12.241
Olly Alexander: And also we did quite sort of civilized hours, I’d say.

01:42:13.081 –> 01:42:15.061
Olly Alexander: You know, we newly leave by six or seven.

01:42:16.161 –> 01:42:17.101
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:42:17.361 –> 01:42:18.261
Olly Alexander: That’s always a plus.

01:42:18.621 –> 01:42:22.201
Danny L Harle: I would say that’s a privilege of like a more established session.

01:42:22.201 –> 01:42:24.461
Olly Alexander: Totally, that’s true.

01:42:24.461 –> 01:42:25.681
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:42:25.681 –> 01:42:40.921
John Kennedy: One final thing, which kind of links in to what Aaron was asking, but do you have any advice, something that you’ve learned along the way, something that somebody said to you once that you would pass on to other creative people that you’d like to share?

01:42:40.941 –> 01:42:41.621
John Kennedy: I mean, it’s a big one, but-

01:42:41.621 –> 01:42:43.081
Olly Alexander: What’s your advice?

01:42:43.081 –> 01:42:59.561
Danny L Harle: I do have something to say in response to this question, because it reminded me of something we were talking about before, actually, which is that I’ve always had multiple projects going on at the same time, and I’ve always had sort of a main project, and I’ve always had lots of side projects going on.

01:42:59.561 –> 01:43:05.801
Danny L Harle: And a lot of the side projects are often just things that are just for me, or for a friend of mine, or something like that.

01:43:05.801 –> 01:43:08.661
Danny L Harle: And I think that is very important.

01:43:08.661 –> 01:43:21.661
Danny L Harle: I would say essential for me, but very important to have a kind of like creative playground where there is no, maybe no one’s even going to listen to it, but a place where you can truly be free and experiment creatively.

01:43:21.661 –> 01:43:23.641
Danny L Harle: This is good advice.

01:43:23.641 –> 01:43:33.441
Danny L Harle: If you have that in a side project, then it gives you this chance to truly experiment and then find elements of yourself that you might not have known about to sort of experience creative freedom.

01:43:33.441 –> 01:43:38.781
Danny L Harle: And that will 100% without a doubt affect your main stream of work.

01:43:39.221 –> 01:43:40.081
John Kennedy: In a positive way.

01:43:40.081 –> 01:43:41.821
Danny L Harle: In a very positive way.

01:43:41.821 –> 01:43:43.141
Olly Alexander: I think that is brilliant advice.

01:43:43.141 –> 01:43:56.081
Olly Alexander: I don’t think I have better advice, but I just, I know as an artist, and you know, if you’re trying to find your voice, like what is it about you, like that you’re going to bring to the table, to the music, to your project, trying to figure out what that is.

01:43:56.081 –> 01:44:04.821
Olly Alexander: And it’s not easy, but like Danny’s saying, like you really need to keep the joy and the love alive because you can get pushed into a place where you just want to make something work.

01:44:04.821 –> 01:44:06.021
Olly Alexander: You want to make it sound good.

01:44:06.021 –> 01:44:07.601
Olly Alexander: You want to make it hit in a certain way.

01:44:08.261 –> 01:44:12.881
Olly Alexander: And I think that just leads to paranoia and sadness eventually.

01:44:12.881 –> 01:44:14.321
Olly Alexander: So keeping that.

01:44:14.321 –> 01:44:18.341
Danny L Harle: And yeah, it makes you not enjoy doing this thing, which is the thing that you love.

01:44:18.341 –> 01:44:19.141
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:44:19.141 –> 01:44:20.361
Olly Alexander: Like how does it make you feel?

01:44:20.361 –> 01:44:21.321
Olly Alexander: You know, that you’re right.

01:44:21.321 –> 01:44:23.021
Olly Alexander: It’s all about the way it makes you feel.

01:44:23.021 –> 01:44:23.661
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:44:23.661 –> 01:44:25.201
John Kennedy: Fantastic.

01:44:25.201 –> 01:44:30.161
John Kennedy: We’re going to let you go, but we are going to play one more track, an outro track, another selection from the album.

01:44:30.161 –> 01:44:37.061
John Kennedy: Now I did think that maybe we should end with Make Me A Man just because I’d like to ask a tiny bit about Vince Clark.

01:44:37.221 –> 01:44:40.461
John Kennedy: So Vince Clark ended up being the producer of this song.

01:44:40.461 –> 01:44:43.661
John Kennedy: So in effect, Danny, you are the producer of this album.

01:44:43.661 –> 01:44:44.841
John Kennedy: What did Vince do?

01:44:44.841 –> 01:44:46.101
John Kennedy: How did he get involved?

01:44:46.101 –> 01:44:48.641
John Kennedy: How dirty did he get his hands?

01:44:48.641 –> 01:44:50.141
John Kennedy: How did you approach him?

01:44:50.141 –> 01:44:51.001
John Kennedy: How did this come about?

01:44:51.001 –> 01:44:55.341
Olly Alexander: Did we just email him and say, hey, do you want to be on work with us?

01:44:55.341 –> 01:44:55.821
Olly Alexander: I think we did.

01:44:55.821 –> 01:44:56.261
Danny L Harle: Correct.

01:44:56.261 –> 01:44:56.641
Olly Alexander: Yeah.

01:44:56.641 –> 01:44:57.601
Olly Alexander: That’s how it happened.

01:44:57.601 –> 01:45:00.041
Danny L Harle: You just sent an email.

01:45:00.041 –> 01:45:05.921
Danny L Harle: Sent him an email, but there’s slightly more to it than that because Vince Clark does not work with just anyone.

01:45:06.961 –> 01:45:09.441
Danny L Harle: It is an honor to work with him and he is-

01:45:09.461 –> 01:45:10.341
Olly Alexander: Huge honor.

01:45:10.341 –> 01:45:11.021
Danny L Harle: He is-

01:45:11.021 –> 01:45:12.381
Olly Alexander: Mentioned.

01:45:12.381 –> 01:45:34.781
Danny L Harle: Very discerning and also with some people who are more associated with their work in the past, they’ve kind of in their older age, some people sort of, dare I say, like lose their sort of message or their strength, but Vince just is exactly at that same level of artistry that he’s always been at.

01:45:34.781 –> 01:46:01.241
Danny L Harle: When I was talking to him, he takes what he does very seriously because it is legitimately serious and he sent over some sort of demo ideas to sort of like get us going on some songs because he didn’t produce the track, he wrote a lot of the chords as well, he sort of rejigged it, but he did a lot on that track and as soon as I played the demo, I was like, yes, there he is, there he is.

01:46:01.241 –> 01:46:10.661
Danny L Harle: It was just like at the level of the erasure stuff of Yazoo and his period of Depeche Mode, it was right there and it was so exciting.

01:46:11.821 –> 01:46:19.061
Danny L Harle: So that level of collaboration was really quite extraordinary and then we rejigged some structural things about it.

01:46:19.061 –> 01:46:21.361
Danny L Harle: We wrote this song over it, sent it back to him.

01:46:21.361 –> 01:46:24.781
Danny L Harle: He was really happy with it and then suggested some of the stuff.

01:46:24.781 –> 01:46:31.981
Olly Alexander: Yeah, he had a good suggestion on the chorus that we kind of switched up on his recommendation, which was a very good note, I thought.

01:46:31.981 –> 01:46:34.221
Danny L Harle: A very good note just about repeating an element of the song.

01:46:34.221 –> 01:46:43.021
Olly Alexander: Yeah, but he’s amazing because in his, you know, he would just write a sort of very succinct, like three letter, absolutely, exactly what needs to be expressed.

01:46:43.021 –> 01:46:58.061
Danny L Harle: And just like his music, there’s nothing, the sound, I don’t mean it’s untreated as in like not produced, but the sound is so clear and simple and what he’s working with and that, just the purity of it is just quite something.

01:46:58.281 –> 01:47:04.161
Danny L Harle: Such a sort of, his musical point is so distilled in his music, and he’s the same in the way he talks.

01:47:04.201 –> 01:47:06.321
Danny L Harle: He says, he’s a man of a few words.

01:47:06.321 –> 01:47:07.341
Danny L Harle: Right.

01:47:07.341 –> 01:47:08.781
John Kennedy: Did you get in the same room together?

01:47:08.861 –> 01:47:15.101
Danny L Harle: No, no, it’s all over e-mails, it’s over the power of electricity, communicating with Vince Clark.

01:47:15.101 –> 01:47:18.101
Danny L Harle: I do have his demo on it that he sent.

01:47:18.101 –> 01:47:18.921
John Kennedy: Well, that would be brilliant.

01:47:18.921 –> 01:47:23.361
John Kennedy: Maybe we could play out with Vince Clark’s demo of Make Me A Man.

01:47:23.361 –> 01:47:29.561
Danny L Harle: I’m not sure we should play out with it, because it’s not the demo of Make Me A Man.

01:47:30.181 –> 01:47:33.181
Danny L Harle: It is an instrumental demo that he sent that we then wrote Make Me A Man over.

01:47:33.241 –> 01:47:37.761
Danny L Harle: This is the initial thing that he sent that I was like, wow, there’s Vince.

01:47:37.761 –> 01:47:39.041
Olly Alexander: That’s cool.

01:47:40.581 –> 01:47:52.241
Danny L Harle: So it was amongst a few ideas that he sent over, but there was this one that really stuck out and fit with a tone that we were going for and we immediately had some ideas.

01:47:52.341 –> 01:47:55.261
Danny L Harle: This is the instrumental demo that Vince sent over.

01:48:08.172 –> 01:48:09.212
Danny L Harle: It’s right there, that…

01:48:41.845 –> 01:48:42.665
Olly Alexander: How amazing!

01:48:43.625 –> 01:48:45.825
Danny L Harle: It was just an incredible day.

01:48:45.825 –> 01:48:47.865
Danny L Harle: That was the demo, and then it was, yeah.

01:48:47.865 –> 01:48:50.705
Olly Alexander: We were so excited when we heard it, we were like, ah!

01:48:50.705 –> 01:48:51.865
John Kennedy: Yeah, that sounds great.

01:48:51.865 –> 01:48:56.265
John Kennedy: So from that, you then evolved this.

01:48:56.265 –> 01:48:57.385
John Kennedy: So this is Make Me A Man.

01:48:57.505 –> 01:48:59.225
John Kennedy: I must say, thank you, Danny, Olly.

01:48:59.225 –> 01:49:00.785
John Kennedy: It’s been brilliant to talk to you.

01:49:00.785 –> 01:49:01.305
John Kennedy: Thank you so much.

01:49:01.305 –> 01:49:04.605
John Kennedy: Thanks so much for opening up and sharing Polari with us.

01:49:04.605 –> 01:49:05.605
John Kennedy: It’s been fantastic.

01:49:05.605 –> 01:49:08.185
John Kennedy: And from Polari, this is Make Me A Man.

01:49:23.383 –> 01:49:28.683
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01:49:28.683 –> 01:49:33.203
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01:49:53.663 –> 01:49:55.223
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01:49:55.223 –> 01:49:56.523
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