Interview with

words: Griff

Brighton just never seems to slow down in producing world class record producers. Tim Bidwell has been busy. Having just produced a number one download LP called 'Tim’s House' for Kate Walsh, he has got back to his own band Hardkandy to release a third LP called ‘Second to None'. An apt title indeed as this may well be one of the best UK soul LPs in many years. In the midst of all this he also finds time to run a small folk music label 'Folklaw' with Fin Greenall (aka FINK of Ninjatunes records).

So you’ve been in the studio this afternoon…who are you producing at the moment then?
A girl called Charlotte Webster that I'm producing at the moment… a twenty year old songwriter kind of like Feist, Regina Spektor type stuff. I discovered here about a year ago and taken her under my bingo wing and we are literally just finishing the album next week. It's sounding really good actually.Was that in your living room studio?
It's not in my living room… well it’s kind of off my living room… I've got these big velvet curtains that I pull across or whatever but it’s nice. My vocal booth is basically getting between the curtains. It’s a nice dead sound.

So first of all congratulations of the success of the Kate Walsh LP 'Tim's House', that was recorded in your house I believe. Looking on Myspace and seeing that some of the songs have been listened to nearly 300,000 times you realise something special has happened. Were you expecting that to happen?
Me and Kate were really pleased with it and I knew it sort of had a magic quality to it. But I've held my breath so many times in the music business and you never count your chickens and all those old chestnuts. But when it went to number one at iTunes it hit like a ton of bricks… first it was number 12 and then next day it was number 5 and then next day it knocked the Kaiser chiefs off number one and we were like "Holy shit"! At one point Kate's manager was having to charge his phone up three times a day because so many people were phoning from record companies and all that kind of thing. So it was a pleasant surprise and one in the eye for the music industry as well in a lot of ways. There was no marketing involved… she got single of the week and free download on iTunes and it just spiralled from there. And there was no hype or anything… just people genuinely loved the music and bought it. So Kate's gone on to license it to Mercury and Verve and we're about to start a new album in July and I'll be producing that.

Has that helped you as a producer as well then? Must be a nice calling card to have the LP named after your house!!
Well it's obviously helped Folklaw Records… although it wasn't released on Folklaw, people know I produced Kate's LP and I got to produce 'Peggy Sue and the Pirates' debut single but that was just because I approached them and liked what they did and that got to no 3 in the Indie Charts. It's just opened doors and people know I can do that sound now if you know what I mean.

And now you're just about to start promoting your own band Hardkandy’s new LP 'Second to None'. Tell me a little about that then.
Yeah I mean I wrote that album in three months basically and it was finished April last year so it was the kind of thing where I had done Kate's album and I had done a couple of EPs for people but I just thought 'I really want to do the third Hardkandy album'. And that's my project where I write. Kate's stuff and the other people it's all their material… so I was just chomping at the bit to write some new Hardkandy stuff so I thought I'd gather the troops… all the people I collaborate with.

So Hardkandy is basically you and your songs, and you pull in a team of other msucians to work with you?
Yeah I'm the Ronson basically…. I wish. Simon Little did the first two albums with us but he took a back seat on the second LP as well as he was so busy with Quantic Soul Orchestra and Bonobo and stuff like that. The irony is that he plays more keyboards on this album than either of the others, but he hasn’t done any of the writing on this LP.

And you’ve got the amazing vocals of Sean Clarke as well who is a fantastic asset to any band. Does he do more tunes on this album than the previous ones?
Yeah he did two on the last album and he does like six on this one. I found Sean midway through the second Hardkandy LP 'Last to Leave' but I decided that he was a male vocalist that I wanted to work with more… and Sean's on the front of this album as well. But I still wanted to work with other vocalists as well.Hardkandy's always been that kind of… I handpick people that can bring something to the project… and it's never been like 'This is the band and this is how it's going to be done'. It's more like 'Ooh I wouldn't mind working with him'. It's great.

For me the new Hardkandy LP has a classic soul sound in its arrangements like the glory days of Atlantic Stax and Hi records. Particularly the strings and the organs and so on. So did you actually set out to achieve that from the start or did that kind of develop organically as you tried to fit backing to the music?
I collaborated quite a lot with Sean on this album writing with him, doing theguitarwith him or maybe himplaying the guitar. And we would sort of build the tune up. And then it's not till later that we create the vocal melody or the lyrics. We do the music first and then the vocals. And then a lot of the time the songs are written and then I'd get Mike Siddell in who played and arranged all the strings on the album. I mean they're all microphone layered up, so it's all him playing over himself… he's a genius.

Listen to: Hardkandy 'Elevation'

I was going to ask about the strings because that's particularly what gives it that Al Green feel on a couple of tracks.
Yeah wicked. That's what I was going for… I wanted to make it sound like Curtis Mayfieldand Al Green as much as I can because I just love that stuff. And Mike plays in a band called the 'Sons of Noel and Adrian' and a band called 'The Miserable Rich'. And he's more of a folky… I met him doing Kate's album as he plays the strings on Kate's album and so that was a contact that was made there. And I just thought this guy is amazing, let's see if he can do the soul thing and giving all credit due, he knows his genres really well and he played it really well… so I was very lucky with that. The strings go in at the end quite a lot of the time on the songs.

So that's the icing on the cake!! In terms of influences I thought I heard Curtis Mayfield on 'Second to None' and 'The Others'. I reckoned 'My Morphine' was a bit Sly Stone, 'Elevation' was definitely Al Green, (Tim laughs) and the 'Good and the Bad' I thought sounded a bit JJ Cale-ish… or is that just my imagination?
That was one of the songs that was two and a half years old. I was working with Nik Barrell producing his album and it was just something I worked on at the time and just wanted to do a psychedelic blues workout. We have done a JJ Cale cover in the Harkandy band because we used to do 'Cocaine' live so maybe it has seeped into my sub-conscious. But I just wanted a psychedelic blues workout really.

So any other obvious influences and references I didn't pick up on?
Yeah the track 'Hey Lover' with Laura Vane is definitely influenced by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger. But what you said is pretty on the money, particularly with the Al Green. And Marvin Gaye obviously is a huge influence of mine. But whether they sound like them… I'm not so sure about! (laughs)

And tell us about some of the stuff you do with Fink and your record label 'Folklaw'.
We started that a couple of years ago and started to produce this album for Nikolas Barrell. I'd been doing Hardkandy stuff and I saw him play in a bar in Brighton and thought 'Wow that’s amazing' and thought that I really wanted to sink my teeth into producing someone else. So I did his album and was really pleased with it. And then I got some money to put a little label together, and asked Fink whether he wanted to do it with us and he was well up for it. He’s more on the business side. And he's got great taste in music and he’s doing really well himself lately as well. He’s all over the place he's been writing songs with John Legend for his new album over in LA and allsorts.

Listen to: Hardkandy 'The Others'

Brighton just seems to be ridiculously full of talent at the moment who are not just messing about on the edges but getting really stuck into the international music industry globally.
It is ridiculous really. Brighton's just full of talented people, musicians particularly. And that's one of my things as a producer is not just how I make things sound. It's the people that I know on the record and getting that sound from the people that I work with like Martin Harley and Mike Siddell and people like that.

Do you produce Martin Harley as well… I know he had a guest spot on the LP?
No I haven't. He went to Africa last year to Mali and did this documentary called 'Tracing the Blues' through African music. And he plays with loads of these amazing African musicians… and that's going to be made into a DVD so I've mixed that. It's all these amazing live recordings just made with eight mics in Africa in huts and by rivers and all that. It's nuts. He's playing slide over all this mad African harp. Amazing stuff.

So as far as Folklaw goes we've had Nikolas Barrell’s first album and then we had an EP out by Carrie Tree called the High Tide EP. And I’ve just produced a single for Jono McCleery, watch out for him because he’s amazing so that’ll come out in the next couple of months. And then onwards really… we want to do Jono’s album if we can.

And that's a tough challenge to take on for yourself when people are struggling to make money out of selling music. You might think OK if I’m going to do it then let’s do something as mainstream and popular as possible and folk isn't the thing that you’d immediately think of. I mean how are you finding that?
It's difficult… I'm not going to lie to you. But we've just done a great new deal with Pinnacle now so our distribution is really sort of in line now and they're really behind it. I mean everyone that we play to, generally loves the stuff that we're doing. It's difficult… but we're only doing very small amounts… we're doing a thousand 45s we're still in the little leagues and only have a certain amount of money to put into it.

How are they selling because 45s and 12"s sell pretty much just to DJs these days so who's buying them up?
Well general music lovers buy 45s as well. So the 45s market is quite strong and it's generally people who love their music that buy so as long as you make sure that what you are putting out is quality then it's cool because the music lovers buy it. And obviously we have online sales as well and we have no overheads for that.

So now for the techno geek questions. How do you approach most of your production stuff? Are you using modern technology or do you try to avoid it… 'what’s you attitude to it?
You know what I do mix of both. I've got a very simple set up. It's a PC with Cubase SX and I've got a couple of bits of outboard gear like a valve compressor and EQs. And the most important tip I can give anyone is microphones. Get really really good microphones… vintage if you can.

Ouch… you gotta have some money for that!
Well no because you know what? Most of my mics are SE mics and they make really good valve mics. I bought a twin valve condenser Gemini from SE the other day. I've dealt with lots of production before with people using standard Rode 84 and all the big studios use that for vocals, and the Gemini just beats it hands down. It's just total quality and you can buy that for £600 now. So I use it with a 1960s Reslo microphone, it's just a really standard, you can buy them on ebay for about £80-100 and the Beatles used to use them in Abbey road. It's got a really dirty old sound and used in conjunction with the old valve mics you get some really good results.

Incidentally what do you use for strings for acoustic guitars and so on?
I use the SEs with the valve compressors. I did Kate Walsh's album all on one microphone.

So are you recording straight to computer then?
Yeah I use Cubase SX and I use onboard compressors and stuff like that as well... I'm not a snob about that. I don't use any virtual instruments though… I don't agree with virtual instruments! (Laughs)

I knew there'd be a 'policy' in there somewhere!
Yeah if I even thought of using one I'd send it from my soundcard into my amp and then re-record it because I just don't like the sound of internal synths and things like that. If you can use the genuine thing then use the genuine thing.

Whereabouts did you pick up your production skills then? Did you train specifically at college or anything?
No it was more a case of 'Help me I've become a producer by mistake'. (Laughs!) I'm self-taught! I started doing music properly in the studio in 97 when I worked with a band called the Space Raiders on Skint! So I helped with that… really nice lads who took me under their wing and taught me loads of stuff and then I started working in my own studio and branched out from there mainly doing my own and then other people's stuff. When you work with a lot of musicians I used to just concentrate on doing the music and writing music. But now I've learned so much in the studio that I can make them sound really good so it's a good partnership.

It's hard when you are teaching yourself without mentors because you get bogged down with technical stuff and just wish you could ask someone that already knows it all!
Yeah I have lectured at Guildford Music College and they get taught all the technical stuff. But a lot of the stuff I hear that comes out of there and from music colleges in general can be very lifeless. Part of being in production and engineering is trying to be inventive and think out of the box a little bit and not make everything sound all nice. Sometimes you have to think a little differently. A lot of what production is about is to get a mental image of the song when the artist plays it to you. Feist said it well about this guy called Gonzalez who produces her. She said 'My music is sort of naked and he puts all these lovely clothes on them'. You know what I mean …that's what a producer does, he takes a song and sort of dresses it and gives it a home and that's the secret of production and engineering I reckon.

Links
Hardkandy on myspace
Wah Wah 45s