Jimmy Miller

Jimmy Miller

Jimmy Miller is probably the best and most famous record producer in the world. He did Traffic and Spooky Tooth, and he now produces the Rolling Stones. His work is characterized by an unmistakable crispness, a clean, precise, hard-edged quality. Just listen to Through The Past, Darkly, it’s all great, essential rock and roll, but on those cuts that he produced it’s as if a film of gauze has been lifted from between the Stones and you; you weren’t even aware it Was there, but suddenly the music has so much more presence.

One day Russ Gibb called and said that Jimmy Miller would be in town the next day to listen and talk to Russ,and (isi band, the Sky-would we like to set up an interview? you betchum, we said, and he said he’d call back. About eight o’clock the next night we got a call from Russ made on some electronic device concealed in his car, on the move.

“Well, said Russ, “we’re on our way to Motown right now. How about meeting us there?” chk-chk (electronic device noise)

“Umrnmm ...' will I have a chance to talk to him? I mean, more than ‘So you’re Jimmy Miller, eh?’ ‘Yas, very glad to meet you’?”

“Oh, sure, sure, he’ll talk to you,” chk-chk “Hurry up, though, we’ll only be there for about an hour and then we have to go out to the £ky’s house.” chk-chk.

“Yeah; well, maybe we could do it later, you know, when we could sit down and talk for a while.”

Oh, well, sure. Wait.” chk-chk “Listen, man, I’ll call you when we leave the Sky’s house and we can meet you at our hotel, ok?” chk-chk “Fine. Thanks a lot. Ten-four.” , About nine o’clock the next morning I got a call, this time without the chk-chk’s, explaining that they hadn’t gotten back from the Sky’s until 3:30 in the morning, and hadn’t been in any condition to do an interview then. Sorry and everything, but they’ll be at' the hotel until 11:30 this morning, when they have to leave to catch a plane, and if I like T can come right down and do that interview now. About 10:30 I walk into the St. Regis dining room to find • Russ, Jimmy Miller, his partner Tony Secunda (ex-manager of the Moody Blues, Procul Harum and the Move), and the Sky all just finishing breakfast and getting ready to leave ’for the airport. Did I realize that Michigan is the only state in the country not on daylight savings time? I mumbled something about having heard that. “Well, come on,” said Russ, “you can sit in the back seat and do the interview on the way' to the airport.” Which is exactly what I did.

CREEM: Your name first came to my attention in connection with Traffic and I don’t know what you did before that. What’d you do before that?

Miller: Spencer Davis Group. I did a lot of things before that but I didn’t have very much happening. I went to England in the summer of. 1966, in August. The first session I did over .there was “Gimme Some Lovin’” with the Spencer Davis. Group and that was sort of my first hit as a producer and their first hit in the States. They had a couple of hits locally in England. But anyway, it got my English trip off to a good start so I stayed and I’ve been there for four years. Then Traffic followed which was originally Steve with Spencer splitting and getting Jim and Chris Wood and Dave Mason together and it went from there.

CREEM: You went over there with the idea of producing Stevie Winwood? Miller: Yeah, I went over there actually on an assignment by his manager, Chris Blackwell, as a producer. 1 was to go over and do some general producing for Chris with his artists; he also had the VIP at that time, which were to become later Spooky Tooth with the addition of Gary Wright, an American who I knew from the States so that project came along under the Island records situation and that’s how it started, anyway. CREEM.:: How did you get into producing in the first place?

Miller: I didn’t know-what I wanted to be. I was in college studying law, so I knew what I didn’t want to be; but I didn’t know what I wanted to be so I left college and I did some singing, as an artist, and I was going to acting school in the Village and then I got friendly with a cat who I later formed a company with and we started producing but it started mostly by our living right across the street from each other and he’s an excellent musician, a pianist, he started writing material, and cutting demos and then we realized that with a little more money or a few more friends to call on we could just as easily, or almost as easily, cut possible masters for making demos of our own material. We just got into making masters and I was sort of up against it pretty badly in New York. We spent three years there trying to get something on and in most cases not even having an opportunity to see or reach anybody that could do me some good. The first man who sort of didn’t say “well, what have you done” was an Englishman. It was Chris Blackwell.

CREEM: Now that Traffic is once again, are you going to be doing them again? Miller: No. Things change. It’s just come to a pointnow, actually where Tony and I have both had experiences in this business. We’ve both-been through a lot of shit, a lot of good things, each in our own respective capacities. About a year and a half ago we first started conceiving of an idea which 'would contain all of what we felt were the ways to get it on. Not only from what 1 could do in the studio but from general direction in every Tespect. We’ve got the only free radio station in Europe, Radio Geronimo, theonly progressive rock station. It’s 400,000 watts. We’re going to be, blowing people’s heads off over there. BBC doesn’t knoty what to think of it, they’re keeping a close watch on us. They’re very afraid of free radio in Europe, and England particularly. England is the only country that jams frequencies, outside of the Iron Curtain countries.

CREEM: Where are you set up?

Miller: The station itself is in Monte Carlo, and programs are produced in London and flown down there.

CREEM: Will you reach England?

Miller: Oh, it blankets. It goes from the Persian Gulf to Iceland. We’ve gotten letters from like, Czechoslavakia, Poland, Israel, Morocco. We have hundreds of letters coming in every day. Some people send money. They send you five pounds and they say, “we don’t want anything, we don’t want one of your posters, we don’t want one of your albums.” We do marketing through the station, too — anything that’s played on the air you can buy and a lot of people just can’t get these albums through their local record shop or whatever. So just general ideas. Not only am l trying to get ^ it onin the studio, but in general, you’re seeing the situation as a whole. As recording being one aspect to the whole and by the time you start dealing with other people, who just don’t seem to ever get it on, you might as well work a bit harder and try and find the right people who understand and can work with you and; just get it on yourself. So that’s what we’ve been doing. What I’m coming around to say is that now we’re developing this under our own steam and our own banner in England and I simply' can’t at this time have a relationship that I had at one time with Traffic, because they are with another office. My personal wish would be to work with them, I’ll have to admit, but I don’t know. I can’t make any more concessions of that nature. I’m sure they’ll be great regardless of who . >. CREEM: I’m not sure what you mean by concessions. ^

Miller: In other words, they’re with a different office which has different ideas of everything and I can’t work on one aspect of'It and not feel that I’m totally involved in it and when I see things get screwed up and can’t do anything about it, it’s sort of legistically but of my control, then it becomes a drag. Especially, when at the same time we’re doing things the way we see fit Completely, and seeing it come off and getting courage by it, it almost seems like a step backwards to go into somebody else’s scene, even though you dig the-artist. You say “right, that’s two years ago and that’s the sort of things I was doing when all I wanted ,to do was get a hit record.” That’s all I wanted in this world and I Was very fortunate, and I worked hard and I’ve had a lot of hits. And I still dig it and it’s a gas to hear your work be really accepted and for people to dig it but, if you say, “Right, now I’ve done it”, then you did. You might" as well stop living-. You’ve got to say, “Right, now how can I take this and put it intosomething that will reproduce and really, flourish and what can I do now . for artists and producers who' are going through the same hangups that I Once went through.” CREEM: Can I infer from this that you won’t' be producing the Rolling Stones anymore?

Miller: No, I am going to produce the Rolling Stones, because all through this period, I have so the Stones have continued to be a part of me whereas Traffic was something that stopped a year and a half ago'. . . I just have a continuing relationship with Mick and all of the Stones and it’s very clear that I’m not seeking the power of total control over the Stones because that’s a completely different situation from new artists whom you are bringing up and you want to do an overall thing. The Stones are the Stones. I’m very content to get totally involved with their recording aspects and quite honestly, when they split and do a tour or something, it’s great for me because I know that I can go and get something else on. Now I’ve got plenty of time to do it or work with my own artists; and the Stones are cool because they are out gigging.

CREEM: How did you come to be associated with the Stones? Also what I wanted to ask, kind" of, was did the Stones get tired of that muddy sound and come to you because they wanted that kind of sound or did they just come to you and you just kind of decided that that wasn’t the kind of sound you wanted for the Stones. Because your things are noticeably crisper than anything they’ve produced or Andrew Long Oldham produced. Miller:' To answer how did I first get together with the Stones, Mick called me from his house to my house one night. It’s that personal. It wasn’t through an office or anything. He just wanted to rap and we got together and he felt that they needed a producer. He’d tried producing Satanic Majesties, they all had, you know. I don’t think there could have been a Beggar’s Banquet without a Satanic Majesties', it wouldn’t have meant to me or to anybody what it did. But in any event, Mick just realized that, what are you trying to do that for. As an artist, as a writer, you’re still going to produce to that same extent anyway. You’re going to have definite ideas and a groovy producer, the right person, isn’t going to stifle you or assert himself on you. He’s just going to be --a help. He knows exactly what you are trying to do and can understand that and then add to it in his own way. We just talked generally like that andT was very happy to work with the Stones. I’d always been a Stones fan, you know.1 But I was very interested to, know what their next album was going to be about in their heads. This was prior to Beggar’s Banquet. A lot of people said to me, “Is it true you got the Stones back into where theywere best.” No, I didn’t really. It was the Stones who were really ready to, but I was quite happy about it.

CREEM: I’ve always wondered about the nature of the relationship between an ace producer and an ice band.

Miller: We all throw ideas around. There’s so much-.going on it’s hard to .write a song, I‘think, if you’re a.groovy writer,' without having a.concept as to what that thing* should be, at least to the extent where you say, “1 think this should be an 'acoustic, bottleneck scene”. And then a producer, if he feels it, will say, “Right, Charlie, instead of you playing drums, why don’t you play a scraper,” or whatever you’re going to say. You’ll try things for a session and everybody contributes ideas and the thing may change around totally. Sympathy for the Devil wa& completely different the first time it was written. Tony Secunda: When I’ve seen them in full flight, it’s a tremendously complementary tl\ing. Everybody is trying everything. They are putting everything on the line. There’s no ego and there’s no shit. They all do it. You know what I mean? And they’re all able to, which just has to be.

Miller: I think it’s a situation where if the producer and the artist’s thing isn’t right, then it shows tremendously. And when it is right, it’s almost the negative aspect of there being no hang ups. We still sometimes take three nights to record something. We sometimes all run out of ideas and we sit there really stumped and we just don't always know. But we’ve always been able, in the end, to get it on. This is an important-thing, you know. It’s hard for meito evaluate myself.I’m very conscientious1 about the Stones because I consider them to be so fantastic. And Mick to be just so profound. When I’m working with them, and I do it in spurts. Sometimes I don’t see any of the Stones for three months. Sometimes they don’t see each other for three months, although that hasn’t happened for about a year and a half. But, when we started the last album they hadn’t seen each other for three or four months. But then we’ll work in the studio for maybe five or six sessions a week, generally all night, to get it out. We spend a lot of time on sound because I’m into sound. I’m a drummer and I particularly hear rhythmic sounds and want them really right. I was a bit late getting into guitars, I’ll have to admit, when I went to England. Because I don’t think a lot of American guitarists were into guitars to the extent that Steve and some of those others were.

I got, in a way, an education in what one can bring out of a guitar, man. It’s a whole orchestra, you know. It really is. Every string is a different section. It can be and I became aware of that after England although, 1 was always sort of into trying to get a really nice bass sound and drum sound. We spent a lot of time getting the sound right. If you Can hear it right it’s so much easier to 'do it, you/know. Mick is-different than me as;a producer, and he is, too. Lots of times I like to record things rather flat, leave them with a lot of leverage, you know, so that one can do most anything with it. Whereas when you are recording it, when you’re doing the basic track, say if you’re recording a guitar on echo, you can’t take the echo off later if you’re not happy with it, if it’s the wrong kind .of echo or whatever. But Mick really does dig hearing that, then and there, you know what I mean. And if it’s going to work* he' really digs hearing that working then ■ because it gets him, off a lot more. I get it to an almost complete point for that time in the recording so that it’s happening in the cans. It’s not all flat, “but don’t worry, fellas, we’ll get it together, and when we, mix it it’ll sound great”. They really want to hear it, even though they’re sure it will, they really want to hear it then and there. Hear it as i'a sound, as a whole. Whereas other people are sort of . |. they just want to get it down right, the basic track. Just get it down' right and then we can do whatever we want. It’s just little differences like that that the producer understands the artist and the particular way that he does things best, then you can’t screw him up. That’s his method and that is what gets^him off best. It doesn’t really matter to me. All it means to me is that I’ve got to make the decisions then at that point while they’re on the other side of the glass rather than waiting, you know, and doing it later.

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CREEM: That seems a matter' of exploiting confidence.

Miller: Yeah, .that’s right. You get it on then.

CREEM:' If you have that kind of confidence, you’ll be just that much _better.

Miller: I mean, I remember when I used to walk into a studio the first Sessions I ever did. I was afraid to tell the engineer anything, because, you know, I figured, wow, he’s an engineer. I mean, he’s'here six days a week, it’s his job, you know. Who am I to tell him that’s not a good sound. It’s just a matter of realizing that nobody knows, there’s no answer to begin with. There’s just what you feel is right, collectively and individually. CREEM: After all, that’s your job:

Miller: Exactly. And the more you realize that, the more you learn, the more you hope to get on, the more you hope to do. t

CREEM: Would it be an inopportune time to ask what your plans are for the Sky?

Miller: Yeah, It would be now, because I’d like to say definite things when I do say, you know. But they’re a groovy little group now and I dig them, artd it’s been really great coming out here to' Chicago . .. Detroit.

Deday LaRene