Alan Parsons was to be the first act of the three day Johnnie Walker One Tree Music Festival. I had the pleasure of meeting the man and speaking with him about his music. This is how the meeting went.
My scheduled interview time was 12:10 but I thought I’d get to the ITC Grand Maratha (which is where the interview was held) a little early. A little while after I got there Alan Parsons entered the interview area looking very calm and relaxed. He was dressed in black and was wearing sunglasses and the moment he got near the photographers, he said, “I’m sorry about the sunglasses. I don’t normally wear them, but my eyes are really swollen and it’s just to protect them.” Perfectly understandable I thought and I sat down and waited my turn to talk with him. It took quite a while but finally it was my turn to have a go at this legend. I must say that though he had been answering questions for over an hour he was very pleasant and seemed to enjoy himself throughout the interview. Here’s how it went.

Mihir: What got you into music to begin with? What were the first few instruments that you played?
Alan Parsons: I came from a musical family. My mother was a harpist and she sang traditional Scottish folk songs. My father was a pianist and flautist and he was the reason I took up the flute myself. So…I actually come from a family of entertainers. My grandfather was also a famous actor. Yes, it was a very artistic family. And so it was no real accident that I chose to go into an artistic field myself. But, like a lot of young boys I wasn’t interested in the dedication it takes to be a great piano player or a great flute player. I never practiced, much to my dad’s chagrin.
When I discovered the guitar, when I was about twelve years old and after that I just couldn’t put it down. The guitar WAS my instrument. Actually I failed at school because of the guitar. (chuckles). I didn’t progress beyond sixteen at school. I went straight to EMI Music for my first job, which ultimately led to me working in sound business.

M: What encouraged you to become a sound engineer?
AP: Its funny, I think it was something that I was born to do. I had the interest in music. I had the interest in gadgets. There was a tape recorder in our household that my father bought. It was one of the first good tape recorders available and he had bought it to record me singing in my bath when I was a kid. So we had this tape recorder and I would work with friends and my cousin James in particular and we would make radio plays with sound effects and stuff. This was a long time ago.
M: Wow! So even before you got into it professionally you were doing this.

M: Is it true that “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, the Beatles album, was a big influence. Was that what got you into the recording business?
AP: It was necessarily an influence but it certainly had an impact. When I heard it and I was so curious to find out how they did it. There were sounds on it that had never been heard before. I just wanted to go and find out how it was done. Its like watching a magician and wanting to know how the trick is done.
M: Well, you did get a chance to work with The Beatles soon thereafter. You worked with them on their rooftop recording of “Let It Be” and “Abbey Road” right? (He nods)  How was that experience?
AP: It was amazing. It was a dream come true. I was just a nineteen year old, young out of school and there I was, working with The Beatles! It was hard to convince people you know. If I’d go to my local pub and people asked me ‘so what’d you do today’ and I’d go ‘Oh! I worked with The Beatles’ and people would go ‘oh rigghhtt…’ (we both laugh). It was kind of a dream. The rooftop session was particularly memorable.

M: After The Beatles broke up you got to work with Paul McCartney and George Harrison on their solo projects. (He work with McCartney on McCartney, Wings, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway and with Harrison on All Things Must Pass) Was it very different working with them as solo artists as compared to working with them when they were with The Beatles?
AP: Interestingly no. They had both absorbed from George Martin a certain way of achieving things so it wasn’t that difficult. I think though when George was working with Phil Spector it was a bit different. Everything was based on quantity with Phil Spector, not quality. If there was a rhythm guitar part to be played then lets get eight guys to do it. If there was a tambourine part, lets have five people playing tambourine. It was just everything in excess. And it was also very loud…but it was good fun. I mean because I was really an engineer rather than a musician, I was interested more in the production techniques really. I was learning more from producers than I was from musicians.

M: “The Dark Side Of The Moon". I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times about it. But it was without a doubt an important step for you. The kind of techniques you used in this album…were just fascinating. I’ve seen the documentary of the making of the DSOTM and its just brilliant. So how was it working on the album with them?
AP: It was a good experience. We worked well together. I think the ultimate dream for an engineer to do a Pink Floyd record because they were so into using the studio as a part of the basis of their compositions. I mean, if you think about “Us And Them” and how it changed from being just “Us and them” to “Us, us, us, us and them, them, them, them” you’ll know what I mean. The science of the recording was very important to their success and that made my role as an engineer particularly satisfying and important.

M: Yeah, when I think about all the songs in the album… “Time”, “Money”, “Great Gig In The Sky” and all the others, its just amazing how you went about making them. I remember your commentary in the documentary on the songs and it was just brilliant. (If you haven’t yet seen the documentary, do so today…in fact go about looking for it the moment you finish reading this interview!)
AP: My regret about that program actually was that it wasn’t long enough. It was really short. I mean it should have been at least for two hours. (He laughs as he says this). I mean I was there the whole day. I got there at about ten in the morning and left at six in the evening. There was a lot of stuff that didn’t make it in the show. They really should re-edit it.
M: Yeah, it would be nice to have an extended version of that on DVD.
AP: Oh yeah, in fact I would love to produce it myself!
M: Wow! That would be awesome. I’d look forward to that.

M: Can you tell us about “Pilot” and “Cockney Rebel”. What exactly was your interaction with these bands?
AP: Those two acts were a direct result of the success of “The Dark Side Of The Moon”. I got a call from an A&R executive from EMI Records who said that they like me to try working with a couple of acts as producers. So that’s what I did. I produced their records.
(Alan’s venture into production with the British band Pilot scored a huge success with the hit single “Magic”. Other hits followed with Pilot and Cockney Rebel, the other band he produced also achieved two consecutive British Number Ones. The hits continued with the singles “HighFly” and “Music” by John Miles. Alan also made three albums with Al Stewart, spawning the hit singles “Year Of The Cat” and “Time Passages”.)

M: Lets talk about the Alan Parsons Project. What exactly was your idea behind that?
AP: It was two people; it was Eric Woolfson and myself. Eric’s vision was that the Edgar Allen Poe album would be an attempt by a producer to do his Darks Side Of  The Moon, a technologically ground breaking album and spare no expense on musicians, orchestration, and whatever it took to make it one of those great albums. And I think it was largely successful. We probably featured more orchestration and any previous rock album had ever done. And that was a dream of mine…to combine a rock band with an orchestra.
(The Project debuted in 1976 with “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”,a collection inspired by the work of Edgar Allen Poe.)
M: Are you a big Isaac Asimov Fan? Your second album was based on his science fiction. (The second album was called “I Robot”.)
AP: I can’t say I was particularly an Asimov fan. I always liked science fiction but to be honest I wasn’t a great reader. Even to this day I don’t read a lot, just don’t have too much time. But science fiction was something that I did enjoy.
M: A lot of your albums were based around works of famous people like Edgar Allen Poe or Asimov or Freud. How exactly did that figure into your scheme of things musically? Was that something you intentionally wanted to do?
AP: Its just a fashionable thing to base music around a central concept. No other reason really. It was a comfortable framework to write. If you knew what the song had to be about, it made your composition easy.

M: Your 82 release, “Eye In The Sky” was possibly your most successful album and the single itself is something that audiences immediately relate with when they think of the Alan Parsons Project.  Why do you think audiences took to that song so much? What makes it different from everything else?
AP: I’ve NO idea…and Eric has never let me forget that I didn’t actually like it very much when I first heard it. We spent a great deal of time trying to capture the right feel for it. We spent probably two whole days, before we found a feel for it that worked. And, not only did I not like the song, I even agreed to let Eric himself sing it. And of course it was one of our biggest hits so I was clearly in the wrong about my feelings for that song. But in this day and age I enjoy listening to it and playing it and I sing it though (laughs).

M: The song “Sirius” was used by a lot of sports people.
(Professional wrestler Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat used “Sirius”, the instrumental piece that opens Eye In The Sky, as his intro music after joining the WWF in 1985. This is the first documented use of the song at a national sporting event, and is featured prominently in his WrestleMania III appearance in March of 1987.
“Sirius” is popular in the NBA as background music during player introductions. It is perhaps best remembered as playing this role for all six Chicago Bulls championship teams of the 1990s.
“Sirius” is played during the Tunnel Walk of all Nebraska Cornhusker football home games.)
AP: Its kind of become a basketball pop anthem now. A lot of basketball teams are using it now.
M: Any idea why?
AP: No idea. (laughs) I think the publisher gave the NBA a good deal or something. Sure didn’t make me rich. (laughs some more)

M: Was it difficult working without Eric Woolfson when he left? Is there a possibility for a reunion of sorts for future studio projects or live projects in the future?
(A brief venture into musical theatre resulted in “Freudiana” in 1990.The show ran for over a year in the historic Theater An Der Wien in Vienna, Austria.
Eric and Alan then went separate ways after that. Eric devoted his career to the musical theatre while Parsons felt the need to bring his music to the live concert stage and to continue to record conceptual symphonic rock music.)
AP: All our catalogue is being re-released this year. So its very likely that we will be doing some combine promotion. So that means that we will ultimately meet face to face again which hasn’t happened for a while now because he lives in UK and I live in California. I’m hopeful for a future collaboration.

M: On a lighter note…what is your relation to Dr.Evil? What did you think about the use of your name in the movie?
(A long-standing fan of Alan's Music, Mike Myers as Austin Powers in “The Spy Who Shagged Me” decided to name his Dr Evil character's Death Ray “The Alan Parsons Project”.)
AP: It certainly did me no harm. I’m actually very grateful for it. It kind of means, that the younger generation has now heard of me. They were very close to forgetting everything about me. I’m very pleased with that.

M: Can you tell us a bit about “A Valid Path” (his latest album).
AP: The title comes from the windows message ‘invalid path’. It is just an indication that its essentially a record made with computers…which was a departure for me. So it was nearly all a control room based album. Very little performance going on in the performing area of the studio. Drums are all electronic…no actual drumming going on, but that’s the way I chose to do it. I don’t know if that’s going to be the way of the future.
(The album also features a guest appearance by Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour.)
M: Is there a DVD that’s also coming along with that?
AP: There’s a live DVD which we recorded in Madrid.
(The DVD side contains 5.1 surround mixes as well as video material, including interviews with David Gilmour and The Crystal Method as well as previously unreleased music videos and concert footage.)

M: In 2006 you did a number of astounding concerts with a full symphony orchestra and an awesome laser presentation. Can we expect a bit of that in the show in Mumbai?
AP: The lasers didn’t come into the budget unfortunately but the lights are going to be really good. Its not a theatrical show with flying pigs and explosions and fireworks and stuff like that. Its about the music. But we’ve a very well coordinated sound and light situation.

M: Well, I had to ask this…how does it feel being in India?
AP: Its great. We’ve traveled around a bit. We’ve been here for about five days now. We went to the south, to Kerala and a few other places and it was really nice.
M: So the eyes puffing up…was it because of that? The traveling?
AP: I went on a boat in the backwaters without any sun protection and my eyes are now swollen up. Never happened before. I thought living in California I was used to the sun but obviously I’m not.
M: Well hope you have a brilliant show tomorrow and we hope to see you back in India soon.
AP: Thank you. I’m sure it will be a great experience.

And so we ended the interview. I got him to sign a “Best Of Alan Parsons Project” album and the inner sleeve of “The Dark Side Of The Moon” which he very sweetly did for me. All in all a fabulous experience and I’m now looking forward in a big way to watching him perform live tomorrow at the Johnnie Walker One Tree Music Festival.

A very small concert review of the first day of the Johnnie Walker One Tree Music Festival.
Great stage set up. Fairly large crowd. Great ambience. Brilliant music. Fantastic performance. All in all…totally worth the Rs.600 they asked for one day…or the Rs.1000 that one paid for a three day pass. I mean for God’s sake…if you split 1000 by three, that’s lesser than the cost of one CD by any of the three legends playing on the stage. If a gig like this comes to your city, don’t think twice before going for it.

- Mihir

Do not miss the related photo threads.
> Alan Parsons Concert - 2nd Feb 2007
> Alan Parsons Interview - 31st Jan 2007