Interview with Michael Goldwasser
Producer of Dub Side of the Moon
& Founding Member of Easy Star Allstars
Dub Side of the Moon is one of the best reggae albums in the past decade and it has constantly remained a top choice on Billboard Reggae charts since its release in 2003. In 2013 and 2014, the band has been celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of Dub Side of the Moon with full plays of the album at many of their shows.
Founding member of Michael Goldwasser has helped produced every album to date by Easy Star. He took over an hour to speak with LiveMusicDaily founder, Andrew McConnell, to discuss Dub Side of the Moon in the most in-depth interview on the site to date. Michael talks about how the idea for the album came about, the recording process, the philosophy of covering a classic album, the live performance, and much more.
Andrew McConnell:
Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album is a sacred piece of art. It really is. In all facets, production wise, playing wise, songwriting wise. It is a sacred piece of music that almost seems untouchable. Where did the ideas initially come from to cover the entire album in reggae style? Was there a point where you thought that reggae could meet Pink Floyd in some form or were you taking it head-on as a challenge?
Easy Star:
Well, the idea for doing “Dub Side of the Moon” the reggae version, or reggae adaptation for “Dark side of the Moon” actually came from one of my partners, Lem Oppenheimer, who was a big fan of the original album. He said when he was a teenager there was one period of his life where he listened to side 2 of “Dark Side of the Moon” every day before going to school. So he was really into the album. Then fast forward to our mid twenties and we have started our records to make reggae music and he just had this idea one day when he was listening to Dark Side of the Moon and he thought “wow, maybe this could work as reggae.” He brought the idea to me, I’m the only one at Easy Star Records who is a musician and a producer, so at that point I was handling all the production through the label and he gave it to me and one of our other partners who’s heavily involved on the A&R side.
I actually at first was somewhat skeptical, because I didn’t get into making reggae music to do covers of classic rock albums. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but it isn’t what I wanted to be doing. After thinking about it for a while and then actually going into my home studio and making a few demos for a few of the songs I found that it could actually work. I think the first song I worked on was “Breathe” and I think that the bass line that you hear on Dub Side of the Moon is the first thing I came up with after tinkering around in my studio.
It somehow came together somewhat quickly and so I understood it could work. We also liked the idea of tackling an entire album, because there are plenty of covers in reggae such as covers of songs or greatest hits of an artist or genre. Representative reggae. Which makes a lot of sense because like most forms of popular music have a lot of covers in them. Its just part of the music making process, take a song which everyone loves and add your own style to it. There certainly has been reggae covers of the works of certain bands, there’s a series of reggae Police albums, two reggae Grateful Dead albums, and there was a group called Dread Zeppelin who did a few albums of reggae Led Zeppelin.
So, we figured the only way to really move into this space with any kind of purpose and legitimacy would be to take an entire album. Which has actually worked out well for us, because now we have carved out a niche by doing that. When we were first thinking about whether Dark Side of the Moon would work as reggae there were several reasons why I think Lem had the idea and then how me as the arranger and co-producer was able to see it to fruition. The tempo to Dark Side Of The Moon is pretty laid back; a lot of reggae is too, so we didn’t have to take a big leap in tempo. And there’s also a lot of open space, room for doing stuff on the original album, which when we wanted to do a reggae version that was heavy on the dub. That comes in really handy if you want to be doing dub effects you need space for that. Lyrically while the album is very English and British with British sensibilities, people have to remember is that Jamaica was a British Colony until 1962 or so.
The Jamaican way of thinking is very much formed by the British way of thinking in a way so it kind of made sense lyrically on that level. Also, there are some universal themes in the album that really anyone from anywhere could get with. So we felt we did good work in many ways on many levels. One of the reasons why I think we were able to pull it off is that, you said you thought it was a sacred work of art, I understand and respect that, but I wasn’t coming to it from that angle. I was, I mean Dark Side Of The Moon is one of the biggest albums of all time in American rock music and even the wider scope of popular music, but I was never a big fan. I probably had heard the entire album straight through, but I really can’t say for sure that I did. I wasn’t someone who said “hey lets go listen to Dark Side of the Moon right now” I mean I’ve never even owned a copy of it. I understood its importance in the scheme of the world of music, but I didn’t have reverence for it. I had respect for it, which made it easier for me to tackle.
Andrew McConnell:
What was from a production side the most challenging and/or fun track you produced on the album and why?
Easy Star:
My co-producer and I, Victor Axelrod, we spent a lot of time figuring this stuff out. We didn’t really have a strict timetable, which was great. We basically recorded the album over the course of three years. It was not like we were working for three years, but we did some work here then took a break and did some more work. It really gave us enough time to figure things out.
We knew the basic idea which we established very early which was we wanted to keep the melodies intact. Respect the melody; respect the lyrics, except we’re making a few changes to make it more reggae. We also wanted to respect the harmony, respect the chord changes. A lot of reggae covers break things down. They’ll take a song, but they’ll just put it over two chords and change the melody to fit on that. We really wanted to keep it so that the second someone hears a part of the song they’re going to know what it is, but then we’re going to flip it by making the drums and bass straight up reggae and of course adding the reggae skank rhythm with the guitar and piano and organ.
Then we also knew we wanted to replace the more bombastic rock elements with typical reggae elements. David Gilmour, great guitarist, but we did not add any guitar solos. Actually I did record a guitar solo for “Money” where I painstakingly learned every note. But in the end we didn’t wind up using it, because it was too much like the original and it was too far away from what we wanted to do in terms of reggae-fying things. We knew any guitar solos would be replaced by something like we do either trombone on “Any Color You Like” or melodica on “Time.” So, I feel like we’ve figured out everything that we wanted to figure out in terms of how we wanted to approach things.
But, I’d say the most difficult song might’ve been “Money” because up until us doing this I don’t think there had been a reggae song in seven before “Time” before. It took us a while to figure out how do you do reggae in 7/4 time signature. All reggae before we did this was in 4/4 time signature. What we realized the way to do reggae in seven was to use what we call a steppers beat, which is when the kick drum is playing on every beat of the bar. So a steppers beat is usually when you have four beats per bar on the kick drum, instead we made it seven. So it just became a matter of getting the drummer to feel that and then also play a hi-hat pattern in F. So it was a challenge to even conceptualize it. I think my co-producer came up with the idea that it had to be that beat. It took a while for the drummer, Patrick, to get it, because it’s tough. You’ve been playing reggae your whole life, but you’ve never tried to play it at 7/4. That definitely was a challenge, but the great thing is now that we figured it out for “Radiodread” that 7 out of the 12 songs are not in 4-4 time or incorporate many different kinds of instruments. You might be part of 4-4 but then it switches. Like the song “Paranoid Android” it switches time signatures 13 times in the song. All that stuff was a challenge but at least I know I could pull it off. I did “Money,” I can do this. I still think we might be the only known reggae band that does all these reggae songs in non 4-4 time. Initially I played on the guitar and playing rhythm guitar, it was a little hard to figure out the pocket in that signature. Now, I don’t tour with the band regularly, but when I do play with the band that song is second nature to me. I have no problem playing reggae in 7/4 or any time signature we’ve done. You just have to kind of learn it until it just feels right.
We had a lot of fun making the album, because we didn’t have the weight of expectations on us. We took a lot of time, but to a certain point the guys at Easy Star Records realized that we had to get this album out, so it wasn’t like all the time we needed. It was more time than a typical record and especially since we hadn’t done anything like this before there was nothing to compare it to. All of our subsequent records, people will always compare it to Dub Side of the Moon. It was fun overall; also Victor my co-producer is also a great friend of mine. We have been friends since we were 15 years old, so it was awesome. It’s hard to think of what the most fun was, well coming up with the concept of the intro to “Money.” I don’t remember whose idea it was, I kind of feel like it was mine, but then my partners will be like “No, No it was mine.” The whole lighting a bong and taking a hit thing and just to figure that out was just fun. Like how are we going to replicate each part of a pattern and make it work? Then producing that part was fun because my friend Russell volunteered to play the bong. We wanted to be authentic with the use of the bong, so it was fun.
On a serious note, some people assume that we were high or on some kind of substance while making this album, but Victor and I did not do anything when we were making the album. Maybe at some sessions, we had a beer at the end of a long night. While I understand that “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Dub Side of the Moon” are famous stoner albums, but we did not partake at all. It’s always kind of funny to me that people find it hard to believe. Even though, drugs are a part of music’s culture, but I feel if you are a real musician or producer you don’t need that kind of stuff.
Another fun thing about the album for me, aside from being a producer is that being a musician, I rarely think about this stuff but I just last week had to proof a new test pressing for “Dub Side of the Moon” for the vinyl because we switched to a different manufacturer, so we got new test pressings. I had to listen very intently to make sure it was perfect. I had good headphones on and I was really listening to it. When you do a test pressing and check it you should listen to at least three copies all the way through to make sure everything is cool. So I had to listen very intently and I was listening to stuff I had played on guitar and I was really stunned, because Gilmour came up with some really cool stuff so it was really fun to simulate it. Like on “Breathe” all the pedal steel sounding stuff, I’m not really a pedal steel kind of player, I had a player that was digitally manipulating the sound to do that and it was funny because I kind of forgot that I did that kind of stuff. I don’t really listen to the stuff I do all the time, so it was fun to pick apart the details and play them.
Andrew McConnell:
Did you do a lot of this on analog or was a lot of it digital?
Easy Star:
If we had the resources, we would’ve done the whole thing analog. For financial reasons we recorded the basic tracks in analog on one-inch tape into a sixteen-track machine then we bounced everything to ADAT machines. We didn’t have Pro Tools, but Victor had two ADAT machines, so it would’ve been two 32 tracks except during the whole process at all times at least one of those four machines weren’t working. So basically we had 24 tracks, but all the recording we did was through a good analog board. Using vintage gear, the actual media we wanted to record it on was digital, ADAT is digital but as much analog as possible. Every compressor on the album was a real compressor and all the effects, the reverbs etc.
Andrew McConnell:
When you’re working with a lot of digital tape play what is your go to for reverb or delay, were there any preferred pieces of equipment? Were there any “go to” pedals during the recording?
Easy Star:
The honest answer is I really cannot remember what units we used, because some of this stuff was recorded or mixed in 2001 and 2002. We weren’t using primarily my effects units so I cant remember which spring reverb or delay we used. One of the delays we used was an Effecttron. I don’t think that was the name that we used, but one effect we did use on a few songs that I really love was called a Boss T-wah. It’s an envelope filter but it’s also kind of like an auto wah. We used that some times on the bass and drums on “Us and Them” also on “Money” at some point.
Andrew McConnell:
Once the album was released, how did you respond to the success of “Dub Side of the Moon” and were you surprised? For a reggae album to get that much attention was huge.
Easy Star:
I’m humbled and appreciative of the success and that so many people love the album. I always say that if everyone who loved the album says they had actually bought the album the idea would be in a much better place right now. All of my homeboys say they love the album and I’m just like “Don’t tell me that.”
I wasn’t surprised on some level by the success, because I really did feel that when we were done I felt we made a solid album that people should like if they give it a chance. The fact that we got some great press and part of it was that we hired a really good PR agent that did a good job in getting it to the right people. It was definitely exciting. We were putting out what we thought was really great quality and authentic Jamaican influenced reggae for a few years and the best we could ever hope would be to sell around 5,000 copies. Certainly we’re not going to get any love from any kind of media outside of reggae media. It’s certainly very cool to be on NPR and to be mentioned in Entertainment Weekly and Playboy magazine so it felt great.
All of a sudden there was a demand for us to go on the road and do it live which was something we never really thought about when making the album. That was a whole other trip and a trip that is still going on. It’s cool that we started touring in 2003 and have been touring consistently ever since and we’ve hit many countries around the world. We’ve played on 6 continents, I don’t think we’re ever going to play Antarctica but that’s alright. We’ve played most places anyone could hope to play in front of some huge audiences and playing the Glastonbury Festival. We have not played many of the bigger US festivals and I feel we get looked at as a cover band and Bonnaroo doesn’t really want to be associated with that.
Personally, I stopped touring with the band, because I realized I would never be able to make records if I was on the road all the time. These tribute albums I’m spending at least a year and a half on of pretty concentrated work. I gotta be in the studio sticking with it making that stuff.
Andrew McConnell:
For artists on the Easy Star Record label do you assist with the producing of their records? Are they recorded on independently or are you directly involved or a little bit of both?
Easy Star:
It’s a little bit of both. Look, I love the artists on Easy Star. I would be very happy to be producing all of their stuff, but there’s not enough time in the year to be doing that. We work with a lot of bands who self produce and are really great at it. They don’t really need my hands on touch necessarily, although we executive produce. We advise them through and make suggestions. I certainly do producing and mixing for other artists outside of Easy Star which is good.
It’s great we have been able to tour so much and personally being able to travel so much and to have this music bringing joy to people all around the world still is really gratifying. Look I know I complained about how people weren’t actually buying the album, or it’s not making the money I think it could be making, but it is certainly an amazing feeling to be on stage with thousands of people and you’re playing this music that, yes I didn’t write it, but I did arrange and conceive of this version of it and to be able to play it and see the happiness on their faces and their physical reactions, their dancing and just how excited they get to listen to it feels great. It’s a really great high.
Andrew McConnell:
What would you say, when you were on the road, was the transitional phase taking it from the studio to the live area thought? What adjustments and preparations had to be made? Pink Floyd when they toured live in their later years, they’d bring in an extra keyboardist, an extra guitarist, an extra everyone for every instrument almost, it’s an operation. Can you take me from its infant stages the procedure from the studio to the road?
Easy Star:
Basically I had to reconceive all of the arrangements, because we couldn’t hire. We already have 8 musicians on stage and then a live dubbing engineer who is a musician as well; he’s part of the band although most people won’t see that person. 8 musicians on stage is a lot of musicians for a touring party unless you’re a much bigger band. Even so, we couldn’t make it any bigger. I had to think, so on each song there are at least 2 guitar parts not 3 or 4, but I had to kind of distill it down. I had to figure out what was most essential on every song. That wasn’t impossible it just required some thought. Luckily the keyboardist has two hands so he can play piano and organ or piano and synth at the same time so we had to reduce it down but not as much as the guitar. We couldn’t tour with a percussionist, so we had to leave out a percussionist. It would be nice to have more vocal harmony at some points, but most of the band thinks we have it covered. I think we can do a pretty faithful job in terms of playing it live, although most of the singers on the album do not tour with us. That’s a difference, but it’s not all about the singers even though the singers on the album did an amazing job and that was also one of the fun parts of making the album was working with some great reggae artists who had no idea what these songs were or what they were about. They just interpreted them in their own way and it came out really cool. Another reason the live version is cool is that, especially being on the road for 11 years, some songs have really developed from the live arrangements or from the recorded arrangements. I think it’s great. We decided that we were going to put the guitar solo back into “Money” but not in the middle but in the end. There are different ways to stretch it out live, so we try to keep it fresh. I personally hate to see bands who perform and try to sound exactly like their records; I think it’s boring. When I go to a show I expect some level of improvisation and new arrangements. We definitely welcome the opportunity to do that.
Andrew McConnell:
Do you feel there are any overlapping themes or connections between the records you choose to cover in a reggae style of music? Is there an overall theme?
Easy Star:
There’s definitely a theme that connects the albums we decide to cover you know, that doesn’t necessarily connect the theme to reggae. We want to do great albums where every song is great in a different way and it’s not just all the same thing like every song sounds the same. In order to make an interesting adaptation it’s easier to do that when you’re starting with interesting source material.
All four albums that we have done have been interesting in their own way. I think a connection to reggae is, that reggae is sometimes derided, by people who don’t necessarily listen to reggae, as being an overly simplistic style of music but people who really know reggae know the depths of it. Know there’s a lot of interesting stuff in reggae and know that there are lots of sub genres and lots of bands approach things very differently. We feel like reggae is right for making adaptations for making something very cool and interesting. It’s all about finding the right album that we feel could really work as reggae.
Andrew McConnell:
Do you have plans to tackle another album in the next couple of years?
Easy Star:
Generally speaking, maybe. I can definitely say that.
Andrew McConnell:
David Gilmour, when asked about technology and what they were using at the time the idea is that you control the technology and as long as you don’t let it control you there’s no problem. I wanted to get your thoughts on the balance, especially as a guitarist, of this concept of using this technology in the production technique and the instrument without letting the technology control you?
Easy Star:
I agree, I think the biggest problem is that technology these days seems to trump originality or a good musician. It sucks because the disease has infected me even because now as a producer. I started out in the days of strictly analog I recorded only a tape and maybe you got a good take or maybe you got a bad tape. That was it. Now even musicians even expect that a producer is going to fix shit digitally. Me as a producer, I’ve come to be like “yeah, I’ll fix it.” The musicians don’t expect to play the amazing take every time out. As the producer I don’t expect to get the amazing take every time out. That sucks, but it’s kind of the way it is now. I would love for one day to make an album where that’s not the case. Whenever I have the budget and just be like “look this is the way we are going to do it” and I get the absolute best people to do it. Where I know there’s not going to be a lot of editing or over dubs. I always try to record as many people as possible, but it’s a big problem.
Technology has taken away the essence of what a lot of music is. I still listen to vinyl whenever I can because to me that’s the best sound. Its crazy to me that, I listen to all kinds of music, so much of music that I hear these days it’s very rare that I hear anything that’s new that I’m like “wow that’s just as good as all the classic music I love from back in the days.” Part of that I think is the fault of technology. It’s so easy for anyone to make something that sounds halfway descent. It used to be in the realm of very talented people and now it’s not. It’s way to easy to make music and it not be great but people accept it anyone even if it sounds like something that was popular. You don’t know how many times I’ve been working on writing a song or doing a remix and the instructions from the publisher are, “it’s gotta sound hot and it has to sound like another song on the radio.” It’s not about originality, it’s not about quality, and it’s just about capturing what’s hot now. Popular music in America has always had some part of that like someone comes out with a hit record and… but it’s gone to an extreme now.