Nick Launay

Nick Launay is an English record producer and recording engineer. He is currently one of the most sought after producers in the world due to his current success with recent albums by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He is among the most successful producers of the post-punk era, helming records from pivotal acts including: Public Image Ltd, Gang of Four, Killing Joke, the Birthday Party, and the Slits. Launay is known primarily for his passionate approach to recording with emphasis on raw sounds and capturing mood. Other artists he has worked with include: Kate Bush, Talking Heads, David Byrne, INXS, Midnight Oil, Grinderman, Lou Reed, Blue October, The Living End, Silverchair, The Cribs and Supergrass. He currently lives in Hollywood, USA and travels to London frequently.^[1] His latest work includes producing Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz!, mixing Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, and producing and recording Grinderman 2.

Career background

The son of French author André Launay, and fashion model Eve Launay, Nick was born in London, England on March 5th and moved with his family to a village in Spain at age eight, where his parents adopted a bohemian lifestyle. The family returned to England in 1976, where Launay developed a love of punk rock.

In 1978 he began working at Tape One studios on Tottenham Court Road, where he was trained to edit hit songs for K-tel Top 20 compilation albums, reducing their length to 2½ minutes in order to fit 20 songs on one album. He recalled: "The trick was to keep all the good bits that people would recognise."

According to his website, Launay was late at work one night "frantically editing and reconstructing an experimental version of "Pop Muzik" by UK pop band M, for his own amusement, when he was visited by respected mastering engineer Denis Blackham". Blackham was so impressed with the new extended version, he played it the next day to M’s Robin Scott. Launay says his version was released as a 12-inch single and became a Top 10 hit in the UK and other countries.

In 1980 Launay moved to Virgin Records’ Townhouse studios, where he worked as an assistant engineer on albums including The Jam’s Sound Affects and XTC’s Black Sea, assisting producers John Leckie, Tony Visconti, Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham.

In 1981, as the most junior member assistant engineer, he was conscripted to work on a Public Image Ltd recording session for a single, "Home is Where the Heart is". In a PiL fansite interview^[2] Launay recalled:

“

None of the other assistant engineers at the Townhouse wanted to work with PiL because of John's reputation for throwing up, walking all over the mixing console, and being verbally abusive. The session started very slow because the engineer/producer they had chosen wasn't very familiar with the then very new, and experimental SSL mixing console. This meant I had to keep showing him which button did what. Back then an assistant engineer's place was to stay very quiet, at the back of the room, operating the analogue tape machines. John sat in a big arm chair with two crates of Red Stripe, the Jamaican Beer, one on each side, and watched with amusement at me going back and forth trying my best to help the engineer out. John wanted a triplet delay on a particular vocal line, and the engineer didn't seem to understand what he meant. I was really into Dub Reggae at the time, so I set it up and it worked well. Later the engineer got up and left the room to have a piss. John got up and locked the door behind him. When he came back he started thumping on the door shouting, "Let me in..." John told him to fuck off.

”

Days later Launay was told PiL wanted him to mix a new song they had worked on. He was asked by the Townhouse manager whether he had done a mix before. "I remember lying and saying, 'Yes of course I have'," he said. "She told me I would have to work alone, as no other assistant would do it. Once again I couldn't believe my luck."

Launay co-produced the band’s The Flowers of Romance album (1981), which brought praise for its sonic oddities and prompted other bands including Killing Joke, the Slits, the Birthday Party and Gang of Four to collaborate with him in the studio.

He worked for two months as engineer on Kate Bush’s self-produced The Dreaming (1982), about which he remembers:

“

She had all these wild ideas. She would come in in the morning and go, in her very high voice, "Nick, can we make the drums sound like cannons?" So we would go in and try to make this drum kit sound like it was cannons going off – every kick drum, every snare. We made up these corrugated iron tunnels coming out of the drum kit, and we would mike up the tunnel.[3]

”

He worked with producer Colin Newman of Wire on the Virgin Prunes’ If I Die I Die (1982) before securing his first major production role on the fifth album by Midnight Oil, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (1982).

Production technique

Asked in the Mix interview^[3] for his formula for making a record, he said he usually went into rehearsals for about two weeks, experimenting with songs and arranging them in different ways, but with "strong, solid ideas" about how the songs should be arranged. After about two weeks' work, he enters the studio with the band.

“

I always work in studios where the whole band can be in the same room looking at each other ... The main point is to have fun and to basically capture that band at that point in their life doing the absolute best performance of that song. And if it takes 20 takes, then we'll do 20 takes. If they do two takes and the first one is just killer, then I might push them to do five just to see. And we might go back to that first take and use that. I record on analog because it sounds the best. There's nothing in the digital area yet that sounds as good as analog. Anybody who says there is hasn't listened to analog or hasn't lined their tape machine up properly.

”

Production credits

1981: The Flowers of Romance by Public Image Ltd 1981: What's THIS For...! by Killing Joke 1981: "To Hell With Poverty" single by Gang of Four 1981: "Release The Bats" single by The Birthday Party 1981: "Earthbeat" single by The Slits 1982: "Empire Song" single by Killing Joke 1982: ...If I Die, I Die by Virgin Prunes 1982: Junkyard by The Birthday Party 1983: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 by Midnight Oil 1983: Seance by The Church 1983: The Pleasure of Your Company by Models 1983: Grapes of Wrath by Spear of Destiny 1984: Red Sails in the Sunset by Midnight Oil 1984: The Swing by INXS 1985: Big Canoe by Tim Finn 1985: Out of Mind, Out of Sight by Models 1985: Over the Rainbow by Virgin Prunes 1985: Waiting for the Floods by The Armoury Show 1988: Bonk by Big Pig 1992: Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites by Talking Heads • "Popsicle" • "Gangster of Love" • "Lifetime Piling Up" 1992: Uh-Oh by David Byrne 1993: Earth and Sun and Moon by Midnight Oil 1994: Peach by Lupins 1995: Example by For Squirrels 1996: Amazing Disgrace by The Posies 1997: Freak Show by Silverchair

1997: "Transmitter" (song) by Automatic 1997: Never Bet The Devil Your Head by Subrosa 1998: Feeling Strangely Fine by Semisonic 1998: Freak*on*ica by Girls Against Boys 1998: Vicious Precious (EP) by Primary 1999: Neon Ballroom by Silverchair 1999: Chronicle Kings by Earth to Andy 2000: Consent to Treatment by Blue October 2000: Stereodreamscene by Deckard 2001: Roll On by The Living End 2002: Androgynous Jesus by Must 2003: Nocturama by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2003: The Art of Losing by American Hi-Fi 2004: Aiming For Your Head by Betchadupa 2004: Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2006: Nux Vomica by The Veils 2006: State of Emergency by The Living End 2007: Young Modern by Silverchair 2007: Grinderman by Grinderman 2007: Welcome The Night by The Ataris 2007: Is Is by Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2008: Diamond Hoo Ha by Supergrass 2008: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2009: It's Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2009: Quicken the Heart by Maxïmo Park 2009: Ignore The Ignorant by The Cribs 2010: Grinderman 2 by Grinderman 2011: Ornaments from the Silver Arcade by Young Knives

Mix/Recording credits

1981: The Dreaming by Kate Bush 1985: Behind the Sun by Eric Clapton 2004: A Song Is a City by Eskimo Joe 2005: Animal Serenade by Lou Reed 2007: Neon Bible by Arcade Fire 2008: Twenty One by Mystery Jets 2010: The Suburbs by Arcade Fire 2011: Boombox by Beatsteaks

References

1. ^ Biography at Nick Launay's website
2. ^ Nick Launay interview at Fodderstamp website, 2003
3. ^ ^{a b} Mix interview, February 2004

External links

• Official site
• Interview, HitQuarters Nov 2009

Persondata
Name	Launay, Nick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death