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| Photo by Chris Becker |
Back in September 2010, Syl Sylvain was interviewed when the New
York Dolls were recording their latest album at Blast Studios in
Newcastle, England. During the recording of the album, the band also
performed three sold out concerts at local Newcastle venue, “The Cluny”
on September 4th, 5th and 6th.
You’ve got the whole world to choose from, so what brings a
bunch of New Yorkers over to sunny Newcastle to record new material?
I guess its work you know, and Newcastle has been such an
incredibly nice, hospitable place for us. They come out of the pubs to
see us when we’re walking down the road. We played three nights at The
Cluny and we were so well received. There’s such warmth and open hearts
round here, that it’s the place to be. For any musician, you go to
where you are wanted the most and right now for us its here in
Newcastle. One of the main reasons that we are here is
because of Ged and Eric at Demolition Records up here in Newcastle. They
had so much faith in us and just loved what we were doing and they
really wanted us to come over to do the record.
Is this the first time you’ve recorded in England?
No, no, we’ve recorded here many times before throughout the ages but it’s our first time in Newcastle.
You’ve been over for a few weeks now, how have you found life in England compared to the States?
It’s just so friendly over here. There is such a warm hand that people give out to you no matter where you are from.
Have you been able to sample any of the local delights or
have you been pretty much hard at work the whole time you’ve been here?
We haven’t really had that much time to get out of the studio but as
busy as we have been we have been stepping out here and there. I have
been into the City Centre for a little while which was fantastic. I
just love Newcastle.
What about a football match? That’s big up here in Newcastle?
Oh, no I haven’t been to one yet. That would be like a vacation for
us. We just didn’t have the time to do that unfortunately. Maybe next
time?
The main reason that you are here is to record a new album which is the follow up to last years Cause I Sez So.
This will be your 5th studio album in almost 40 years so in New York
Dolls terms this is pretty fast work since your last one. Are you in a
rich vein of writing form at the moment?
It is a prolific time for us but having said that as a writer,
you’re always bustin’ out a tune, at least one that you want to hear. I
still like to write. The way I hear things coming out, I think it’s
the most creative record that the New York Dolls, and me and David in
particular, have ever done. We’ve worked with a lot of great people and
I’m not putting anybody down and I’m not trying to compare it with
earlier versions of The Dolls but as far as song-writing goes I think
that these are the best songs that we have ever come up with.
As far as style goes Cause I Sez So was probably
the most varied New York Dolls release to date and in many cases was
quite a departure from your rock`n`roll roots. Will you be spreading
your musical net widely again or will you be keeping things simple and
direct?
What they love us for is “Personality Crisis”, “Looking For A Kiss”,
“Trash” and stuff like that but we’ve already done that. We don’t have
to make records. We have a name which we can use and perform probably
for the rest of our lives. That’s not the kind of musicians and
performers that we are. We’re doomed to write songs whether they are
good or not, are well received or not, or flop like they did in the
beginning.
We were told that we didn’t know how to sing, we didn’t know how to
write and we couldn’t tune a guitar so why even bother, but you know
what? We thought we looked pretty damned good doing that, even if it
was a big crash. We had the last laugh though. It’s like those guys
that’ll say “You only had one hit” but at least we got there once!!
We never really wanted to be stars, that was never in our minds, not
that we never had that conversation, but we just became that. We
thought it would be nice to last for two weeks as we just wanted to
entertain ourselves. The norm of the day was so mundane. Stadium Rock
`n` Roll became more like opera and nothing to do what we thought Rock
`n` Roll should be.
As musicians, we cannot help but do something that’s important to
us, and that is to write new music. We may feud and fight and try to
make the best out of things. It’s sometimes a love and hurt situation,
but we come up with new music that represents what we are about today
and at this moment we want to do a record that shows many different
sides to the band.
Before you entered the studio in Newcastle did you have any
ideas or demos already prepared or has everything been written from
scratch?
We had a lot of ideas and we’ve had a long time to work on
them….about two weeks, or as you say, a fortnight! We came as prepared
as possible as we all have different commitments with performing and
solo careers so we didn’t have that much time really, but it’s not the
time that’s important, it’s how much you can pour out of your soul.
How do you tend to write? Do you all bring ideas to the table
and knock them around until a song develops or do you tend to jam
together and develop ideas that come from these?
That’s very close to how we do it. A lot of time there’s the hand
signals saying “Yeah, that’s great” or “No, that’s shit”. We work
through a lot of ideas by improvisation and we learn a lot through live
performance. We did the shows at The Cluny where we played through
some of our new songs, some of them were more complete than others. We
played them, worked on them, and improved them by playing them live and
seeing how they worked and made changes where we thought necessary.
Have you ever come across a time where one or more of you just can’t seem to come up with anything?
To write a good song is such a hard thing to do. If you’re doomed to
write songs then you have to write songs but you’re not going to be
able to write every day. A song may be good for you or it could be good
for somebody else. You’ve just got to write the song and worry about
who’s going to get it later. Sometimes I write songs which I call
“stoppers” where I can’t take it any further at that particular moment
so I’ll put it to one side and give it a break and move onto the next
one.
One day, all a sudden, either a piece of that one, or the results
needed to finish that one, will manifest. So instead of trying to force
things, we decided to make a u-turn. The song will come if you treat
it right. It’s like giving birth and that’s the way it is with songs,
you can’t really sweat over them too much. If they take too much
thinking then you’re probably on the wrong track. If you’re flying on
automatic then that’s it. If it takes an enema to get there, you just
better forget about it and plug it up. The more you write the better
you get at it, it comes with experience.
How many songs have written so far?
We came to Newcastle with about 20 ideas and we recorded about 16 of
them and at the end of the day we’ll end up with about 10 really good
songs which will cross that line and become magic.
So you’d prefer a shorter album with 10 great songs than a longer one with 15 not so good songs?
I like to look at it in the way the whole thing fits and makes a
whole. Just because someone makes you a big pie doesn’t necessarily
mean that it’ll taste nice. What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t
matter about the size of that pie, it’s all about the taste and the
flavour in every little bite and even though it’s only 10 songs, so
long as those songs pass that magical point then we’ll have a great
record.
Do you have any titles sorted yet?
Some of the songs have pretty cool titles. There’s a song called “Kids
Like You”, which is amazing. David wrote the most beautiful lyrics to
that and I wrote the music and the organ part. That really has a
Leonard Cohen feel to it. David sings that so well in that beautiful
baritone, raspy, Bluesy voice of his. There’s also “The End of the
Summer” and that is the hit of the album to be honest.
We’ve got another which is a real rocker, a kind of `60`s Mitch Ryder
and The Detroit Wheel kind of tune. It has a real R&B feel to it.
It is really Newcastle-ish in a way, you know the way that you guys do
R&B and Soul. We didn’t set out to get that sound it just happened
because we’re here I guess. That’s the beautiful thing about the New
York Dolls and the way me and David work together. That’s a song called
“Round and Around”. There’s a great line in there where David goes “I
wanna listen to the tambourine” and then there’s nothing but drums and
the tambourine going “doo dah da doo dah da doo dah!!” That’s so cool
and really dancing. I have to say that I think these are the best set
of songs that me and David have written in years.
On your last album you reworked “Trash” from your debut album. Why did you decide to do that?
We always do a cover or we do one of our own songs and why shouldn’t
we cover ourselves, it’s great for our royalties...Ha!! We always try
to lay our signature over a song and make it our own. On this record
we’ve done a cover of “I Sold My Heart to the Junk Man” which is a
Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles number back in the `60`s. It’s such a
great song and we’ve done it our way. There’s a girl called Stephanie
who worked in the pub around the corner called The Ship Inn singing on
the album. One day I heard this beautiful voice coming from the pub and
it was Stephanie and I thought “Wow, we need her singing on the album”.
It then all of a sudden became like a movie, she was doing our
catering from the pub and then she appears on our album. She also knew
some singers from a college in Leeds and we brought them into the
studio to play.
So you see we’re using the local fans and acquaintances on the
album. They also knew a sax player who came in here and did some
incredible sax work. We did this very Baroque style of song with the
girls called “You Don’t Have To Cry”, it’s so beautiful and Stephanie
who was singing also knew a string section. One night she went down to
Leeds and brought us some singers and the next night she went back down
to Leeds and brought us a string quartet. They laid down such a
beautiful melody and David wrote some gorgeous lyrics for that one too.
On 2006`s One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This album
you featured a special guest appearance by Bo Diddley on the albums
bonus track “Seventeen”. Were you in the studio when Bo laid down his
parts?
I didn’t come down to the studio the night Bo Diddley was there as I
was sick. I was thrilled though that he appeared on our record, it was
a real honour. We try to utilise special guests but it depends on
whether we can get them there and that depends on schedules and where
they are at the time and whether we can get them over to work on the
album.
David played with Howlin` Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin at the
Radio City New York in 2003 playing “Killing Floor” and this was
featured on the excellent Lightning in a Bottle DVD. You also guested on his album About Them Shoes. Did you ever consider inviting Hubert to play on the album?
You know what, if he was here, and he was available, I’d say yes
straight away but unfortunately it’s a long way and it’s all about
timing so we couldn’t get him involved.
Is it your plan to finish all of your writing and recording
here or will you be moving on somewhere else to mix the album and
finish things off?
99% of the album has been recorded and finished in Newcastle and then
we have to do the mixing. If there’s anything left to be done then
Jason Hill, our producer, will do that in California where he lives.
How did Jason originally become involved?
We had a few shows together about a year or two ago where we
performed with his band “Louis XIV” at a festival and Jason was a big
fan of good music like T-Rex and the New York Dolls. He’s grown up
loving that so he’s got that in his heart and soul. When his name first
came up I was so grateful as I thought we were doomed with some of the
other names that also came up. It’s worked out great for us and he’s
taken us exactly into the realm of sound that I think we should be in.
Is he a hands-on producer, a slave driver or someone to bounce ideas off and generally get the best out of you?
He’s kiss ass when you have to be and he can be a slave driver when
he needs to be so he has the two of them which gets the best out of us.
His balance and bed-side manner are perfect and he gets the job done.
He sees your side of the story and can explain so clearly what he is
thinking and he just clears away any obstacles to the creative process.
Technology wise is he keen on trying new recording techniques
or is the approach more of a back to basics affair of the band in the
studio together playing on vintage equipment and analogue recording?
We’re using everything together. Any recording at the end of the day
winds up being digital, no matter what we like to do. We do have a shit
load of vintage instruments and pedals and noisemakers and beautiful
analogue gear. We’re lovers of that. I’ve been collecting that sort of
stuff since the old days. So when I first talked to Jason we talked
about what equipment each of us had. When I sent him my first demos he
was saying, “How did you get that old Vox organ sound?” I thought
“Wow”, he was really interested. All the other ones I have worked with
have gone “Oh, are you going to give me that old thing again?” Jason
was so different; he was really into using the old vintage equipment to
get the perfect sound for us. We’re so lucky that we have Jason Hill
who understands exactly what we want to do. The same things turn us on.
