Chris Birkett, multi award-winning singer/songwriter, producer

Transcript

Speaker: Hi it's Dan here for Dusty Disks Radio and this is the podcast Liner Notes revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Today I'm very honored to have as my guest multiple award -winning singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and producer, Chris Burkett, who has collaborated with many world -renowned artists to create timeless songs that have inspired and entertained music lovers everywhere. We'll be talking about much of that as well as his many musical adventures, and we'll get some insights into the ah music scene from someone who's been part of it for many decades. So thanks for joining me today, Chris. How are you?

Speaker: I'm fine, Dan. Thanks for inviting me. Well, thanks for coming on. So you're a British born now Canadian from what I understand. I can tell from your accent and as well as your your resume and your yeah history, which I read. So tell me about that. Yeah. it so Well, I got my passport, my citizenship just before Covid kicked in. It was very lucky. I arrived here in 2012 and I couldn't work when I first came because I had to get a PR card.

Speaker: And then when I got my PR ah card, I decided to rather than keep renewing it every five years, I thought, let's get, let's go for the citizenship. And my wife helped me. She was my sponsor to help me get over it. And that's another story I'll tell you later, but that um she, she was in Australia. She's a documentary filmmaker and she's in Australia at a film festival at the time when my ah they got I got the letter saying you've been, you know, accepted and come and get, you know, come and do the ceremony, right? And so I phoned her and said, oh yeah, done it, you know, there' there's like months of work and stacks of paperwork, you know, it's unbelievable how difficult it is to get into this country. And so I said, well, yeah the my ceremony is on blah, blah, blah date, right? You know, March or something. And she said, oh, well, I won't be back. could Could you please just delay it a couple of weeks, you you know,

Speaker: because I really want to be there. And I said, I don't think we should, you know, because we've taken on such a long time to get this. I'm not really sure it's a good idea. So I went to it without her and literally like the day after my ceremony, they shut the whole thing down. So I would have been waiting for, you know, another two or three years for my citizenship if I hadn't gone to that meeting on time.

Speaker: Wow, crazy. well Well, we're glad that you were able to do that. you know It's funny because at one time, if you had a British passport, you could travel anywhere within the Commonwealth and it was very easy to do, right? Yeah. Well, actually, I i do still have a Brit passport, but it's not my shoes now. It used to be really good like you know before they before it it.

Speaker: Yeah, there you go. yeah po Brexit nightmare. yeah I had the right to go anywhere in Europe. So I actually opened a studio in Bordeaux, south of France. I bought an old Chateau, built a studio there and i I didn't have to get visas or permission or anything. you know I could actually work in Italy, Greece, anywhere I wanted it to. Now,

Speaker: is we're we're out of the market, you know. I see. All you've got now is a little Britain, you know, to tour around with your passport. So I use my Canadian passport most of the time now, anyway. Yeah, right. So while you grew up in the golden age, what I call the golden age of music, I mean, you were just born at that time where the 60s, 70s and into the 80s was just a magical time for music. and And for you, I guess, did you have formal training or did you just kind of love music and figure it out?

Speaker: ah Well, I call it the renaissance. There was a renaissance in pop music at that time, which I'm really proud to have been involved in. But I was a self -taught musician. I just briefly came from a really poor family. My mother and father split up when I was four, and I wouldn't go too much into that. But me and my sister just grew up in the house on our own, and most of my contemporaries were you know, ah kind of quite rough, roughnecks, you know. So I rummaged around in some garbage and got some pieces of wood and nails and i I nailed together my first guitar when I was eight years old. Wow. And because I was desperate to play. So but in fact, the guitar, you know, as an instrument, which is i've always been a passionate about actually saved my life many, many times. I mean, I was you know, I was I was at home learning

Speaker: the solo from Deep Purple's Highway Star. right And my friends are out robbing a Chinese restaurant, you know which they got caught for and ended up in prison. So so it's a good it's an example of how I was you know it' saved. My life has been saved many, many times. like Well, it's funny how you you know because music soothes the soul, but it also, you know when you're if you have a tumultuous upbringing or you have difficulties, it it seems to be a comforter.

Speaker: yeah some way Yeah, I wonder whether a lot of artists ah have a similar kind of unhappy childhood and they spend the rest of their lives trying to express themselves and and get people to like them. you know could be that too. I just find that that that there's something about music for for us musicians. There's something that just feeds my soul. ah You can't necessarily explain it, but it just comforts you and feeds your soul. I could tell you a million and stories about my some of my epiphanies through my life, but I call it the universal language yeah because dave you

Speaker: There's no barriers in music. There's no political, cultural, race racial. it's tight It speaks to everybody straight to the heart. So it's actually very, and it's also incredibly therapeutic. And I believe it makes you live longer too. Well, you know, I often say at my shows, you know, music makes the world a better place and I have yet to have a person disagree with that. Yeah. so it's Of course, it depends what music. Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, there's ah's a whole study on the law of vibrations and and you know the molecular reaction in water to sounds. And they found that certain you know its beautiful music creates a certain harmonious pattern in the water molecules under a microscope. But yeah but like you know like really brash, death metal and stuff like that, creates these like really jagged kind of patterns. you knows Great. And in the sand. and It might be something in that too. and you know it's kind of ah and therapy. Have you seen the sand table where they put certain vibrations on the sand and it makes these beautiful images? Oh, I'm totally into that. I believe that's how the universe was made. You know, they they say in the Bible in the beginning was the word, and the word was God. I actually actually think the word means it's a sound, you know, the word is a sound. And did you know that if you ever wondered why these hives are constructed in ah in a perfect hexagonal shapes,

Speaker: Those hexagonal shapes are created by the sound of their wings. It creates a certain frequency and it and it makes the the wax mold into perfect little hexagons. It couldn't be made in any better bounds. It's perfect. You look at bees hive and you see how perfect those hexagons are. It's crazy, yeah, you know, you're right. it's Yeah, there's some some mystery there that, and and music is a big part of that mystery, I think. so totally Yeah, I'm totally into the sand play thing, you know, seeing that, the way they, I mean, ah I wonder even if the, you know, crop circles are made by sound, you know, is because it's so beautifully symmetric, that sand when you hit certain vibrations.

Speaker: it is It is interesting and strange at the same time, but but it's mysterious anyway. it's its yeah There's a mystery there. Yeah. well so um One of those songs is called Mystery. Yeah. It touches on that kind of idea too.

Speaker: So you you were like a thousand other kids or a million other kids. You had stars in your eyes. You loved music. Did you have sort of a defining moment or did you have a plan or was what happened to you sort of happenstance or accident? Well, that's a good question. now When I left school, my dad wanted me to be an aircraft electronics engineer, so I did a degree in that. I loved electronics, but you know one One night, Dee Purple came to play at our college in Farnborough, coming to London, Richie Blackmore was from the same area as me. you know In fact, we had the same guitar teacher. who said oh well but I didn't actually know him personally, but anyway i was I was there as a student, I'd been there for five years, ah standing right in front of Richie Blackmore while he was playing ah i think they're playing Highway Star, which is one of my favorite guitar sellers.

Speaker: And I just had an epiphany. I just thought, I don't want to be an electronic engineer. I want to be that guy. And so literally a week later, I packed my few things. I had a Gibson, this G at the time, guitar. And I jumped on a train and never came back. I ran away from home and tell him where I was and it ended up sleeping on the streets in London.

Speaker: and going to every audition I could go to and getting dog jobs in like Irish pubs and that sort of thing. um And ah I had to get, ah because I had nowhere way to live, I had to get, place you know, in a sort of like an apartment. So I got a job at night shift in the gas station. And then two o 'clock in the morning, after being there about three weeks, about two a .m., this guy came in and said, are you Chris Burkett, the guitar player? And I said, yeah, I thought he was going to hold up the gas station. a Good dodgy.

Speaker: And ah I said, yes, me. He said, well, we're a soul band called Montana Red Dog. And we've got an 18 month tour of Germany. And we need a guitar player. Do you want the job? And I jumped almost jumped out of my seat. you know Yes, of course. And the I said, well, great. Well, when are we going? And I was thinking I'll have get get my affairs all packed up and everything. He said, we'll get in the ferry tomorrow morning at seven o 'clock. Oh, Jesus Christ. Germany.

Speaker: So I had to rush back to my place where I just ive just found the place because I got a job and I had to leave a check for the landlord, grab anything I could and just hightail out of there. And that was it. And then that we became the best. We were the literally the best soul band in Germany at that time. yeah And so the managers sort of said, you know, would you mind being the band?

Speaker: the main band for all the Stax artists that come in over to entertain the NATO troops. wow and you so we said yeah this we course we've writtenen then ah I so got to play guitar for like Rufus Thomas and Peebles and Gene Knight and King f Floyd, all these great, you know huge artists and Peebles just had a hit with I Can't Stand the Rain.

Speaker: I got to tour Europe with these these wonderful stax artists. you know It was a lot of fun. What a crazy story. yeah always but yes I went from like you know homeless to I worked in a night shift at a gas station and suddenly, bang, I was in like a really good soul band playing with, you know, high level artists, A -list artists. And that's complete happenstance, but in a way you were ready to say yes. I mean, I often tell guys, I say, you got to say yes a lot. When people ask you, that's how i I'm doing this podcast, even right now. They said, do you want to do a podcast and interview some people? I said, yeah, I didn't even really know that' why's what it was. But you say, sure, yeah, I'll do that. thats That sounds like what you did.

Speaker: I had the same problem. I can't say no. so Well, because i and then the other thing we was curious about you is I always i often ask my guests, you know, when you started out, your goal was to be, I want to be that. And so you said, I wanted to be like Richie Blackmore, which of course, I love his playing. He's one of my my top five, probably the top 10 influences. um So you wanted to be that.

Speaker: But then your genre, your multi genre too, like many many of us are from that era, right? Rock and yeah folk and the Beatles and it's it's it's a mixed bag. So what's your main genre? Yes, right. After cutting my teeth on soul music, you know, I got at that time I was getting into heavily into bands like Tower of Power, you know, and the yeah OJ's and some of these great bands around the time. Fantastic. And then ah then I went back to England and went to as many auditions as I could.

Speaker: got a job with a pop band, you know. Yeah, there you go. Experience in pop music is the pop band is called Love Affair and they just had a hit with the Everlasting Love, which is your number one massive hit. People still know it now, actually. Absolutely. yeah And then ah the I went from that band after a few years touring with them and having a ton of fun.

Speaker: I heard about a band called Omaha Sheriff and looking for a guitar player, so I went to the audition and they just got signed to Tony Visconti's Good Earth Records and Visconti's the producer of David Bowie and the movie Blues and Mark Rowland. So so that I suddenly got you know launched into a like ah working with really top producers and Tony became my mentor and from then From working with him and watching how he did things and how he got sounds, I was fascinated. I guess it could also combined my electronic ah knowledge too with music. you right ah got I got really into like you know technology and music. you know i't Not many people know this, but I actually

Speaker: I was one of the first people to program the Fairlight, which is the very first sampler on the market before yeah or before the days of MIDI. And I programmed the drums for Def Leppard's album ah Pyromania, which sold 40 million copies. Wow. And that's that's all me. A guy gave me his drum parts on tape. Matt Langer, the producer, didn't didn't he wanted to use the latest technology on drum sounds, so he wanted it sampled.

Speaker: So I had to write out all the drums in score and then convert it into music composition languages before MIDI. So I could tell you it's a lot of work. yeah conflict You couldn't just hit a key and get a kick drum, you know, like you do now. you You had to write it all in to tell the computer where the kick drum was going to arrive in the bar with mathematics. Yeah. So it was like ah it took me probably i two or three weeks to program all the drums on pyromania.

Speaker: And then Matt went away to do the guitars and called me six months later. And he said, ah um Chris, um we've got to redo the drums again. I said, why was that? He said, well, I want first generation. We've already transferred the 24 track tapes like four times on the first generation drums. And so we he came back in again. And, you know, it's one thing programming, it which took ages, but the other thing was it is monophonic. So we had to put a track down at a time against the click.

Speaker: and And that was like, you know, really, really sort of used the word anal about ah timing. So we listened to a hi -hat against a click for like hours and hours. you know so And that all had to be done again. So and so it was a big budget album. As you mentioned, that wasn't happening these days. But dealing with someone like Bart Lang, he was obsessed with every aspect of of everything he did, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's obsessive. No doubt about it. He was anyways. Well, that if you don't do it right, you hear the little flams between the the kick and the hat or whatever, right? Yeah. Which you don't want.

Speaker: Well, that I mean, that that was kind of ah we touched on my studio work, which a lot of people know me as a producer. But all the time I was doing that, I've always been writing songs. And, you know, kind of sadly, I've had to always put them on the back burner, you know, because I yeah i got married and got a load load of, you know, responsibility, a couple of kids. And I had to, like, make a living. I couldn't make enough of music.

Speaker: just, you know, but just playing live. Right. So, you know, I got into studio work and then became well known as producer and started earning in those days a lot of money. I'm a producer, Sinead O 'Connor's biggest hit, you know, nothing compares to you. yeah Literally, we getting I was getting checks for half a million dollars coming in every few weeks. You know, it's just amazing. Of course, that doesn't happen these days. No, back then that that would happen. But that's the interesting thing I was going to ask you about. So you were primarily a guitar player, and but you also played percussion and bass and sang, did some vocals and stuff. But then I guess you're one of those guys, because I've i've been around lots of studios and certain guys, they're they're hunched over the console and asking questions and going, what about this and what about that? You're one of those guys, right? Yeah, well, i I've done ah i've done ah every aspect of recording right from the tent. I mean, I used to repair the equipment of the first studio.

Speaker: i worked out which is Tapestry Studios in London and by John Congress. And that's why I worked with Mark and Trevor Horn, all those big producers used to come down and use our Steinway piano and Harrison desk at the time. But I've had a vast experience because A, doing all the engineering, the knowing how the electronic gear works, and then but always being a musician and being also a great drummer. I got a really good sense of rhythm, natural. I joined the C Cadet band when I was 12 and I was the lead drummer within two weeks because I picked up all the grooves really quick. So I've always had that experience from all... I guess people say I wear many, many hats. This is useful because I've got big heads.

Speaker: Well, it's you know it's the curiosity, like some people ask me, what you knowt I think my best trait is just curiosity. I just want to learn about things. I just am curious about how does that work? How does this work? And then if you're capable and you exhibit some capability, then you're in.

Speaker: Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm totally into new technology. All's happened. And, you know, like put I put this hit record together called aphrodisiac on the very first available commercially available sampler, which is the Akai S950. It's the first sampler that came out that people could actually afford, because the fairlight was 60 ,000 pounds, you know, which is $100 ,000. That was in the 80s. So it's the only which I'm Pete Townsend had one, and and the guy I worked for, John Congress, had one. this There's only two in the country. yeah but But when the acai came out, everybody could go out for a few hundred bucks and get get a really good sample. So I had all these great sounds from all these countries in the world I've been recording in. And I put this ah this this record together ah with using african samples of African singers and all all kinds of stuff. oh wow And it became a club anthem.

Speaker: It's called Afro Disiac. If you go on YouTube, you'll find loads of people remix it. You know, Norman Cook. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, so so that was a bit of a success. And I was i was one of the pioneers in early technology and sampling technology.

Speaker: So listening to your story, it sounds like you're sort of on two tracks. Like on the one hand, you know, yeah it's the mid seventies into the eighties. I mean, you're living the dream, right? You've had the record contracts, you're recording all these big artists and everything else. But on the other hand, you're still a working guy, right? A working staff in a sense.

Speaker: yeah i think is i I get so many songs coming through me. I'll just i'll explain that why I said that. I've had a few major epiphanies in my life. and one One of them was in India, I think. I was invited to a university, kind of an ashram place, to learn Deeksha as a form of healing.

Speaker: yeah you know, light vibration and hands and stuff. Anyway, so was ah something happened to me there, which just opened changed my life completely. And I'll tell you that story some other time, because it's a long one, but um it was you it's called it's known as an epiphany when something happens that really just wakes you up. right And ah after that happened to me, i I never had to try to write songs anymore. they' just like um They're just coming through me. Like four in the morning is a classic time for me. I wake up and I've been in a dream listening to such fantastic singer or this band or whatever. But I don't know who they are.

Speaker: It's just music, but it and it's the most but great, some melodies just really gets really gets to me. I just, I love it. So I get out of bed and grab my voice memo on my phone, because by the time you go and plug in your Pro Tools and all your studio gear, yeah the chances are it's gone. yeah so and And then I grab it on the voice memo with a quiet guitar, and then I put ah turn it off and go back to sleep. And I told Buffy St. Remy about this. I've been working with Buffy since 1992. on here, yeah. I told that story to her when the last time I was in Hawaii. said She's like, that's the same thing happens to me. She said, you know what, if you don't grab that melody when it's given to you, someone else will get it. Well, it's funny because, ah you know, I've heard people say two different versions of that. So one is it's sort of like you're channeling, like the universe is giving you a song and it's coming through you. Other people say, well, you know, we all have this well of musicality within us. And if you reach down into that well,

Speaker: that that exists within you, you can pull out certain things in certain songs and melodies. Something spooky per se, but it's - It's kind of where AI works, but on a personal level, right?

Speaker: If you reach vi you're your conscious and your subconscious to your old impressions and sounds. yeah but ah I agree with that. I think um I've used that technique a lot through my life because I've written thousands of songs. and But ah this is different. This is like this is just something staring me right in the face. It's like here it is.

Speaker: Do you want it or don't you? And it's quite often it's words, music, and sometimes even a video. right are interesting And it's it's so powerful and so evocative and so emotional that I have to have to get up and capture it. you know so um That's how most of my is so my all my songs in the last two years have come through like that. Because ah you know Paul McCartney said about writing Let It Be, he wrote it in a dream.

Speaker: yeah Then he woke up and wrote it down, but he doesn't necessarily say it was he was channeling that or whatever. It was just an image he had in his dream from his subconscious mind, I guess. Yeah, we weren't using that expression in that in those days, but when I heard about like you know yesterday as well, as he just heard it. Then he thought it must be someone else's song. He played it to his dad and his dad said, I don't know it. I've never heard that. so it you know Paul channels things. I saw the documentary on the you know Get Back.

Speaker: Yeah. and then And I saw that song. It's fascinating. You can see that song actually coming through him. He just grabbed his bass and he started jamming away and then something just started emerging.

Speaker: And that's that's the way it happens. I think it's kind of magic, you know yeah on a communication. So you it sounds like, I mean, the producing and stuff is is is ah extremely creative. And of course it's commercially successful, as you said, but it sounds like to me, your first love is is to to write songs that make a difference in the world. Cause I often ask songwriters, like, is there some meaning or message behind your song? And some people say, no, I just, I like to write fun songs like the guy from,

Speaker: Casey in the Sunshine Band, he said, we just wanted to write happy, fun party songs. That's all we cared about. um But other people like yourself, obviously, your your answer is yes, there is a message behind your music. yeah Your first love, writing songs and sharing them? Yeah, totally. i i'm ah i don't know what ah I don't know what else I could do in life because it's so important for me to actually communicate truth and beauty.

Speaker: and when i i've done a lot of a lot of work in on a psychological and spiritual level in my life ah studied You know, I was with the Gurdjieff teaching in London for 15 years, yeah ah which is, if if you look that look that up, Gurdjieff is kind of a is a powerful ah wake -up teaching. And I've studied you but Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, just about every ism on the planet. I've got vast amount of books and studied and even gone to temples and all that stuff, you know. So so so the stuff i've I realized as truth,

Speaker: and beauty and really what's necessary for us to find our place in this in this universe. I've learned so much that I'm trying to really actually put that now into my music. So and sometimes i'll I will hide the spiritual message and inside a love song. So I'll give you an example. as One of the songs on my record, it's called Me and You. And if you listen to it, it's a really beautiful song. That came through as another channeled song. But when you listen to that song, it sounds like I'm singing to a woman. And I could be, you know, I'd like to keep everything open. but But in fact,

Speaker: and i'm I'm actually singing to the create ah creator, the creative spirit. okay and i I don't believe that the creator is male or female. I think i think it's a so so love energy which makes everything happen. You know, we talk about the sand plate, you know. know perfect symmetries form with sound. Well, there's much more than sound in the universe. There's light, but there's other oxes which we don't even know where. And I think the creator works with that. And this song, me and you, is about finding the creator, the energy of the creator in me. And I say in the last line of the song, in the end, there's only me and you. So that's a spiritual message right there. But people didn't hear this podcast.

Speaker: A lot of people think it's a love song. Yeah, no, I would agree with that from from my study of theology. I think that that that the Supreme Being would be both and neither when it comes to gender, which transcends gender. Yeah. But to there's lots of those messages through your songs. i have ah I have a list here. I'll just sort of run down them if that's okay, and you can make comments, okay? So you did a song called Gratitude, which is is fantastic because I often say to people, like, if if you if you love what you're doing, you're just better at it.

Speaker: Yeah, it just the way it works. And so it's an uplifting acoustic, folky feel. Yeah, it's kind of a a lot of the meaning of the songs in the um is the first bridge when I say all of the simple pleasures of being alive. It's just the the fact of being alive and being aware of the beauty of the fact you exist. It just overwhelms me with gratitude. Yeah. So that's that's kind of where that song came from.

Speaker: Yeah. And again, it makes you better at whatever you're doing. I don't care what it is. If you're a garbage collector, if you're thankful to be that person, you're better at it. Oh, totally. It's got nothing to do with material comfort and it can never have either. I'll give you a quick example. I used to work a lot in South Africa. I used to produce this black and white band called Mango Groove.

Speaker: produced a couple of platinum albums for them actually. And while I was down there I was recording all kinds of great other musicians too. I was going to open a record label down there. oh ah i love that but That's another story.

Speaker: time the yeah ah Now Mango Groove, because they they had black members in the band and white members, but the bass player, who was white, would invite me for dinner one night, as yeah as they do, right, because you're working in the studio all day. and So I went round his house, and he don't his father owned like a diamond mine, and they had like three swimming pools. and oh and yeah like up you know to to like over the top luxury. and And I looked around the property and I could see this big wall all around with razor wire on top. And then the kids are wearing these necklaces with little buttons. And I said said, what's that button? I was going to push it and the kid goes, no, don't push that. That's a five minute armed response call. So anyway, I deduced the fact that there yes they they're living in a really paranoid way at that time.

Speaker: yeah You know, the apartheid was going on. And then the next night I'd go around, the trumpet player, who was black, would invite me to his place. And he lived in Alexandra, one of the townships, which had kind of fenced off poor areas, right?

Speaker: I went in there and there was a tin shed with a big long table on a dirt floor. And all the family in there, they're in the best time ever and they're really friendly and great people. And I just looked at that and thought, well, these people are happy, but those rich people are not happy. And it gave me a real kind of understanding of what happiness really means.

Speaker: Yeah, for sure. The thing I've realized in my life is that we don't actually ever own anything, but quite often it owns us. Your possessions own us, and that's says that's why we should... ah I don't want to preach to you, but they're not important. They're really not important in your possessions. It's what you do.

Speaker: in your life, how but how creative you are and how much you're willing to help another person. That's what counts. Well, it's it's funny because a wise man once said to me, you know your life is defined by what you give and not by what you get. So if you're trying to measure your life at the end of your life, take away all the things that you've got, all the money, all the success, all the accolades, take that away and just measure your life by what you gave.

Speaker: Yeah, but you can't take any of that stuff with you, right? Right. But you can leave what you gave. Well, I believe thats sign ah believe the the idea of giving is totally linked to love. yeah does We have a be a big misunderstanding in our culture about what love is. And I was saying this last night, at the the other night at the Hughes Room, I did an album release concert. I did see that, yep. And I did the song Mystery. And I explained just briefly, I just said, well, most people think that love is, you know, desire and passion. And so that's actually wanting, you're wanting something. But for me, the true love is is giving. So it's a different direction. If you're want if you're wanting something, you're grasping, you're trying to pull it towards you. If you're giving, you're trying to give leave out. And it's a completely different energy. And I believe that's where the definition of love comes in is, as you just say said, you're giving.

Speaker: Yeah, well, C .S. Lewis has a great book called The Four Loves, and he breaks it down in the four ways that love is used in the Greek. And Agape is the brotherly love, right? The giving, selfless. Yeah, unconditional, right? yeah not You're not expecting anything for it. You just very truly wish for the well -being of another person. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: Well, they of so those themes permeate all your songs. So the the other one I listen to is we are not the only ones. You're playing ukulele and penny whistle. There's a penny whistle part in there. It's kind of a world beat. I'm not sure what, but it's, it's cool. And, and you're, um, it speaks to your eclectic background. Like you're not, you're not stuck in one genre, you're multi genre. And then, so when I watched that, I thought.

Speaker: Okay, it's a good message. You're playing, again, ukulele, pennywhistle. It's a different kind of a tune, so speak about that a little bit. ah Well, that's actually from an album called Men from the Sky, which I released in 1993. But I did actually remix it. That's why it's up on YouTube, because so ah My Men from the Sky album was done on 24 track analog tape and I can't get any of the files anymore because the tape's self -destruct after 15 years. you know You didn't bake it? You didn't try baking it? I was down living in Bordeaux at the time. It was hard for me to... My studio is down there and it it was I didn't have that kind of technology. okay

Speaker: so So what I've done, ah like with you know we're not the only ones, which is about, essentially, it's about extraterrestrials, like but which is a big subject for me. But I always thought as a kid, we were not alone. you know It's so obvious. You know just have to look up the stars to be to see that. you but So what i did was well not what I'm doing with Men From The Sky, which is a really great album,

Speaker: ah I'm actually taking the analog tracks, putting it into Pro Tools and then syncing it up and then like, you know, enhancing some of the sounds that I put on the original analog. Oh, very cool. So the one you heard was an enhanced version of the album track. Now the album came out in 1993 ah lunching ninety three and the Ed Bicknell, who was the manager of Dire Straits,

Speaker: He heard the album and he phoned me and he said, because this is the best album I've heard in the last seven years. So I was totally like, you know, golf smack when he said that. Because I'm a big Dire Straits fan, I think mark not because of my favorite guitar player. hundred percent yeah agree vote The manager at Turnland says the best album he's heard in seven years. I was really impressed. so yeah and or happy. And so Ed said, well, come see me. Come for a meeting. So I went to his office and chatted away. And then he picked up the phone. He said, do you want a record deal? I said, yeah. We picked up the phone to Polydore and got me a deal that I literally just bought a phone in them. He was so influential. And they took one of my songs, Where Do We Go From Here, which I played actually at the Houston on Saturday.

Speaker: um I played a track from some of my solo albums during my my new album release, probably just to entertain people. So where did we go from here? It was picked up by, it was released as a single by Polydol, and they came out on the album called One Voice, One Love, yeah and which featured U2, Dire Straits, Peter Gabriel, Queen, Lenny Kravitz, Tears for Fears, and Chris Burkett. There's like a huge list of huge artists.

Speaker: There's ah is a massive break for me. And and this it was, you know, got a lot of lot of accolades. Well, yeah, and and a good message again, like about saving the planet and taking care of our home. Yeah, the the whole song is about the rise and fall of civilizations, the way this is constantly happening. And that and people, the only people who really suffer are the the poor people. You know, it's going on and on. as The song says, how long will it?

Speaker: How long would will it go on for? You know, where do we go from here? Because it's, you know, the Romans. There seems to be an arc. Yeah, the British, you know, the English Empire and the and Americans. And it's got it's going on and on. but they but They all rise and fall. They have their time and then they're gone. you know yeah So I listened to a whole bunch of your songs and the one that really jumped out at me is Precious Love with the sax and they just a great band. gee The bass player is excellent. That's me playing bass, but I actually did it ah quite you know as you know. you tend to play most of the stuff on my records. But on Precious Library, I actually wanted to get ah some outside help. So I've got Paul DeLong to play bass, not bass, drums. He's a really good drummer in Toronto. Really good. And then I've got ah ah Gene Hardy played sax, because I can't play sax. But he's excellent. He wouldn't he want to next to him. yeah Yeah, exactly. And I've got a good friend of mine, Bill King, who's a

Speaker: prestigious guy here in the Toronto area. He played keyboards on it. And then I got Taylor Abrahams to do some wicked dirt back. He's a really good singer. He did some high. I did see that. Yeah. Yeah. So it was that was a collaboration.

Speaker: That's excellent, though, really good. And and the thing about two the production value, like some producers, they tend to overproduce things and just cram everything in the kitchen sink in there. it's it'ss I don't want to say it's stripped down, but it's it's very clean production. It's not overproduced, if you know what I mean. Yeah, so I'm trying to be more minim minimalistic. If you check out the new album on Bangcamp,

Speaker: you know, she's my guitar, you hear some really, really, really, one song has just literally just got acoustic guitar on it, you know, yeah just a little bit of percussion here and there, but not nothing over the top. So i I'm trying to simplify my productions, because i've I've gone through the big, massive sound thing, you know, the war comes kind of ah fashion, I've done all that. And ah I want to keep things a little bit simpler now. And also, it's great to, for me, it's just great to to write a song or to have a song come through me, that I can actually go out on stage on my own and actually play it, and and people like it. Right. Well, and then the the other thing that that always strikes me is is that, you know what are you looking for in your songs? like If you're looking for commercial success, like someone like Matt Lang, i mean he wants those albums to be commercially very successful. right i mean that's That's got to be baked into his goal of what he's doing.

Speaker: And so he's super meticulous. And somebody told me that he he would do chords on the guitar and do one string at a time. That's right. Yeah. In fact, that's absolutely true. It wouldn't allow the player to play bar chords after doing things separately. It's a little bit out of the top. I don't know. I know him quite well because He's a good friend of John Congress, and they all came over from South Africa together. Him and when Clive Calder, and Clive started clivestein Jive Records, who were really successful. yeah we But I didn't actually feel that he was, I didn't feel that he was really, it wasn't about commercial success. I think he was just very, very dedicated, and he really wanted it to be the best it possibly could. I don't think his motive was, ah you know,

Speaker: financial. And it's like that with a lot of truly, truly creative people I've worked with, you know, like Sinead and Rafi and Steve Earl. I've worked with Sting and Peter Gabriel and different capacities. And they've all got that thing in common where they don't actually appear to be doing it for what you think they'd be doing it for, you know, fame and fortune. Like I'll give you an example,

Speaker: When nothing compares to you was going up the charts. Sinead was phoning me every day. It's gone up to 14 now, it's gone up to nine. Eventually it got to number one in the UK charts. They did a big concert at Hammersmith Odeon. It's one of the big venues in London. And there's Sinead with her band and I was there with the record label. We had this VIP box and we were sitting there. Came to the point in the evening when she had to do the big hit.

Speaker: And she stood there and said, this song is called Nothing Compares to You, and I didn't write it, Prince wrote it. yeah And if I know it's going to be an effing hit, I wouldn't have done it. Oh, wow. So that's just an example of a lot of people are not actually They're not trying to be rich and famous. they just They're just trying to like find themselves through the music, you know express themselves. Well, fair enough. and That's a fair point. You're speaking to the artistry part of it, but the lots of people I've talked to, there's a tension with the record companies because the record companies want to sell records. so yeah you know My one buddy often tell the story. My one buddy had ah had ah a decent hit song and the record company said, we need 10 more songs just like that. He goes, well, that's not what I do. I'm a songwriter. you know

Speaker: 10 more songs just like that. What are you talking about? We've got to sell records. Well, I think that's probably another discussion. I actually think it's that kind of thing which is really spoiled music. the the thing Monetizing music has been really banned for creativity because a lot of bands have been forced against their will to do things to sell more records. and the yeah like One of my favorite bands ever is Yes,

Speaker: yeah And that most people don't actually know who they are. They would just know that some some people know Roundabout, which is, their in my opinion, one of the not so, it's a good track, but nothing like, you know, close to the edge and the deeper stuff. And that's where that's why I fell in love with that that amazing ability to composition and playing that was on those records. A lot of people only know, like, owner of a lonely heart. And I couldn't believe that was yes when I heard it. And I thought,

Speaker: I thought to myself, well, I think the record company got on and said, look, we need a hit, boys. and put so Well, Trevor Rabin came in, obviously, right? after I think that and, and you know, did Love Will Find a Way and that sort of stuff, right? Yeah, it's kind of much, is they turned it into a pop band. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. yeah And that's the problem. so you I think there's The good thing that's happening today is the record companies don't really have that much power anymore. In fact, they practically don't exist just for one major conglomerate.

Speaker: ah But that's you know the bad side of that is that there's no money. so Yeah, there's there's less money. but But again, talking about the motivation, i mean people want commercial like all the people that I talk to that are songwriters, that they want that commercial success. They're trying to write that next hit song no matter where it comes from just to to get to their name out there and to get some some notoriety and some platform from which they can express their other songs. Yeah, I guess I don't really have that.

Speaker: I'm not really interested, I have to say, I'm not interested in success. says I am interested in getting my message out. yeah And ah you can do that these days without being filtered through, filtered by the opinion of a ANR person. Fair point. yeah And I think that's quite healthy. And then you can do what you really feel you want to do. And then you then it's up to you to put the dedication in to work and get your friends, build your fan base. The idea of the label paying out vast sums of money so you can live and you know make records ah doesn't exist at the same level as it did when I you know and when i was in my like you in the and 90s.

Speaker: yeah certainly yeah um So every stick has two ends, right? There's there's a positive aspect to it and there's also the negative aspect. And of course the negative aspect is ah it's it's extremely hard to make a living. And i like you know i I write songs all the time and I put them out because I've got the skills. I don't need to have to pay a ah studio or band or anything to to play my stuff, I can actually put it all together and know exactly how to do it. So I'm i'm very fortunate, much more than some other people. but A lot of my friends do ask me to help them. I make a lot of records for people. So you're still working with other people quite often? Oh yeah, I've got hundreds and hundreds of records coming out. oh well and And I charge this a minimal amount just just so I can, you know,

Speaker: function while I'm doing their record type of thing, you know, eat and pay rent and that sort of stuff. Well yeah, good for you. But I try to, you know, I don't charge a lot of money and I'm happy to do it because a lot of people really are so grateful when they come up with like, they call me the bridge builder because they bring me a song and I say they need a bridge or a middle eight or something and I actually create it for them.

Speaker: And I have a ah huge stream of very happy artists that I've got in the past. so And it's still going on. ah Very cool. So let me ask you a rapid fire, ask you about a few other songs that I that i watched and listened to. You did a song called Hear the Angels Sing. It's sort of a hymn, like in a in a church feel. You got a choir in there. Is that a bagpipe solo in there? It sounds like it. It's a union pipe.

Speaker: What is it? Yulian pipes, they're Irish bagpipes. okay And i used the first time I ever used that sound was on Sinead O 'Connor's, the last record I ever did for it was called My Special Child. okay well We recorded it in Dublin with a Philharmonic orchestra and Donald Looney played the Yulian pipes. So the Yulian pipes are just like bagpipes, but they're chromatic.

Speaker: because bagpipes are only played pentatonic. They've got very limited amount of notes. You can't get sharp and sort of stuff like that. Right. And there's a drone because it's in the key of G, right? a thought There's no drone there, but it sounds like a bagpipe. Yeah, it is. So it's actually a bagpipe, but it's not called a bagpipe. It's called a union pipe. Okay. Well, cool. and know all it's It's traditionally from Ireland. Nice.

Speaker: And it's a very ah evocative sound. It really gets you, you know? Yeah. So I use that. And then of course I use the real choir on that record, which is a lot of fun. Excellent. Yeah. And then you did, you try to do the videos. I mean, you just go into the church setting and you have the choir there and stuff, and they seemed happy to be there.

Speaker: Yeah, well, I should tell you that I recorded the choir separately, you know. Of course, yeah. And then, you know, it got them to mind, literally, yeah because that's not get that kind of control standard. Yeah, that's that's what I assumed in that. but I mean, most people wouldn't care anyway, but you have to control the sound. So you have to do it separately. just Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: And then you did Everyone Deserves a Home, obviously, to help the homeless. You you have some affinity to that feeling and and that side of society. So there was a societal message in your songs as well. Yeah. Well, in fact, just I've written two songs but ah dedicated to homeless people, because ah you know as I said, I was homeless myself once. And the first one was called Literally Homeless, and its I wrote it when I was living in Paris. And that was I wrote that song because of ah I used to go past this homeless guy every day and give throw him a couple of euros on the way to the studio. right and i one One day I thought, i I should sit down and talk to him. you know and yeah ah and ah My French is really good because I i don't speak French when I was in France. and i so His name was Alex. and I said, Alex, how did you end up homeless? and and He told me the story was just like,

Speaker: but made me cry. yeah And I had to write this song about it. So the story briefly was that he he had a fantastic job with Yves Saint Laurent fashion house down in Provence, South of France. And he had two wife and two lovely kids.

Speaker: So one day he's working away, he gets a phone call from the gendarme, um you know, the cops. And they say, you know, Monsieur, sorry to tell you, but your family's been in a car accident and they didn't survive. so and So he lost his wife and his kids and he was so depressed about it. he just He just got on a train to Paris and just spent the rest of his life bumming around on on the streets. He just gave up everything. He didn't want to live didn't want to live anymore.

Speaker: yeah So I i wrote this song, which I used some really good high level jazz musicians called Homeless. But when I came to Canada, I i realized that we we have a similar problem here and growing. So I i wanted to write a song about this, you know, so saying that everyone deserves a home because I've seen the homeless person's life completely transform when they were given somewhere to live. Everything can change for them. So it's it's not a lost cause, you know.

Speaker: So I wanted to write that that idea into the song. And then our local MP heard it, his name's Chris Glover, and the he really liked it. And he asked me to perform it, some of the other political functions.

Speaker: then i And then ah i got a few months later, they gave me a community service award, you know, for service to... Yes, I did see that. Yeah. That's pretty pretty cool. Good for you. And and the larger point I think that that you made was each individual has a story. And once you know that story, you don't use homeless. We use homeless as a blanket sort of term. Yeah. But each person has their own story and the paths that led them to where they are.

Speaker: Yeah, it in fact, we're kind of literally, most people are kind of embarrassed or afraid to actually go and talk to a homeless person. like That's true. Find out yeah what happened to them. Yeah.

Speaker: was So, you know, so in this case, I plucked up the courage and sat that sat next to the guy for an hour and talked to him. Yeah. Well, good for you. Good for you for doing that, because it's it is challenging. and I know downtown Vancouver, I saw a guy one time in an alley who had a needle in his arm and stuff, and I felt kind of sick to my stomach a little bit. But then I went over to him and I said, I don't know where you're from. I don't know what your story is, but you're better than this. Yeah, good. And I just left that with him. Yeah, right.

Speaker: and that was that kind of thing's happened to me a lot. I was living in South East London, back in the 80s. And there's this homeless guy, you know, walking around, just a backpack and, you know, you know, sort of bagged shoes and dirty clothes and stuff. And I was going to give him money. And I thought, well, if I give him money, I don't really know what he's going to do with it. Yeah, right. Get some fentanyl or something. So what a deal. I said, look, come with me.

Speaker: I walked along with the Riverbank with him in London, who were teams, and we went to, I said, what kind of food do you like? He said, oh, I love Indian food. So I took him in the Indian restaurant and I said, just order anything you want. And he just likes, he couldn't eat there because he's dirty and they wouldn't let him at the table. But he took it.

Speaker: out in the garden at this feast. And I felt that's more useful than just throwing money at people. Yeah, certainly. And most people don't want to give money to a drug addict to spend it on drugs or money to an alcoholic to spend on alcohol. That's not helping that person in any way.

Speaker: So we we realize that but then helping them on a human level talking to them like they're a human being rather than a you know a Who then a what? Yes, I would say right. Yeah, totally was that that's that's a good for the soul. Yeah, and absolutely And then you wrote a song called savior, which is I saw the live version of that You've got an eclectic band. You got a violin in there again speaks to your abroad Musical sensibility you bring in different instruments and Yeah, um one of my favorite types of music genres is blues. I do a lot of blues music and ah that fits in that category. Well, Savior is a song essentially about fake gurus. I've met a lot of people and who who offer enlightenment and right yeah God or whatever they want want to call it, but they charge quite a lot of money for it. Yes. And so ah that's why I wrote that song because I felt this, you know,

Speaker: You don't need a guru. i mean yeah every Each and every one of us has has that spark in us. You just have to contact it. You can get somebody to help you um point in the way, but you have to walk the path. There's no problem in worshipping somebody that's on a high level of spiritual enlightenment.

Speaker: because that's not going to make you on a high level of spiritual life. You have to walk the path yourself. And that's kind of what the song is saying. Yeah, no, a good point. and And again, speaking pragmatically, I know when I studied counseling, the the biggest word that came up all the time was empowerment. You're trying to empower people to think for themselves, to to be spiritually, emotionally, mentally empowered, not create a dependency on them or find gurus to tell you how to live.

Speaker: Great. i I'm glad you get it. and You totally get it. I did a song at the end of my show on Saturday, which has not been released yet. It's called ah Big Fan of Myself. And the that song was all about self -empowerment. It's not Big Fan of Myself, isn't the egocentric idea? It's an idea of about appreciating how ah miraculous it is that we are alive and we function. We've got this amazing thing like immune system and this this stuff that works in us.

Speaker: automatically is a gift from nature. But we can just try and connect with that sometimes and just remember. A lot of these so -called other things that really disturb us and make us upset will just like go away. As a big fan of myself, it's all about not projecting onto to another person for your pleasure. Right. Interesting. yeah i don't have to go out the The first one is I don't have to go out at night to the movies because I'm a big fan of myself. I don't have to worship who's on the red carpet because I'm a big fan of myself. It's that kind of thing.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. I mean, ah yourre you're all your songs are permeated with with some kind of a message you got wake up, which about the state of the earth, right? And preserving it, sharing it responsibly, those kinds of things.

Speaker: Yeah. Wake up. du I did that on Saturday, the end of the show as they went down. It goes down extremely well. People really like it. Yeah. Very nice. And then I love the tweet me right. the It's a very fun song. So so that that song is not you know preachy in any way. It's just fun and uplifting, but it's got a good message right in that turbo street funk. That's pretty cool. I love the video. It's great.

Speaker: Yeah, my wife did the video. She's a documentary filmmaker. She takes care of most of my videos. She did the wake up video too. So nice. but A tweet me right. It's just, it's literally about so cell phone addiction. it's ridiculous It's ridiculous. I've actually seen, you know, there's one part in the video we we put in was where the people are watching, ah there's there's us walking down the street playing live music and down King Street, and ah Queen Street in Toronto, going to the Horseshoe Tavern.

Speaker: And that so all the people sitting there, they're all watching me on a video. on Yeah, on the phone, right? they' but They're far more interested in in that than actually look at the top looking up and saying, I'm actually singing to them. Yeah, it's very good, very ah appropriate message for the way life is nowadays. Yeah, so we're just so addicted to our smartphones. I mean, the society is even set up.

Speaker: for us to be addicted to them. yeah I went to the bank today and the the guy said, ah before I get into my account, she said, I just sent a code to your phone. And I said, bloody good job I bought it then. I always have to walk all the way home and do it again. yeah yeah So we're we ah literally forced into using them. I just bought some tickets for a Deep Purple and Yes concert here in Toronto.

Speaker: oh And it's all, you know, you can't actually hold the ticket. It goes into your wallet and you have to... Oh, right. That's right. It's something that's like virtual. God knows what happens to people that don't have smartphones. you know Well, it's already getting by a ticket now and just take it and show the ticket. You have to show your phone.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly. That's crazy. Yeah, it has been nuts. Yeah. And then it was predicted in Star Wars. I ah love Jean, Jean Roddenberry, not Star Wars, Star Trek, and Star Trek. Yeah. Yeah. There's one of the start early Star Trek's where these people on this planet were all just walking around like zombies staring at their that would look just like a smartphone. that was yeah It's amazing. I saw a sheet one time and they were talking about all the things that he predicted, speaking to the computer and having it speak back to you, the computer owners. Brilliant. and The futures just future society without money. Isn't that crazy? It's like the Galactic Federation. you know it's like I believe that stuff is, I believe we're destined for that kind of thing. It's very exciting.

Speaker: Yeah. So one other song I wanted to ask you about is you did save our beautiful world. That's with your other project, the happy campers. And then you got the kids voices in there, which I think is cool. I enjoy it when, when, you know, I mean, obviously in the wall, like with Pink Floyd and stuff, they use the the kids voices, but the way you use it is, is good. And it's telling because it's about the future generation save our beautiful world for us, basically.

Speaker: Yeah, it's full of that song is full of insights into what's happening with climate and and the way we yeah we're behaving about that. it's ah you know it's about the its about the you know up Up in the north, most of the permafrost is melting and and the effect it's having on the road is it they're turning into like, what's that thing in the fairground, the helter -skelter kind of thing. I put that in the song. That's kind of as a result of climate change. I'm not saying that We're 100 % causing climate change because I think some of it might be a natural cycle that's happening. but I think we're definitely.

Speaker: not helping it with our fossil fuel burning. Well, and and the argument, even if you had a ah dispute or someone had different views of that, the pollution is indisputable, yeah raping and pillaging the ocean and stripping forests. All that plastic, little animals full of plastic and everything. yeah Nobody's arguing that point. Yeah, exactly. um yeah it I think we're ah personally on ah on an optimistic note.

Speaker: I actually think we're being watched by the rest of the universe because I think this planet, they find this planet extremely interesting. I think it's an experimental planet and I think we're being watched and in some ways, the the prime directive you know from Star Trek, which is which is which is a thing that you're not allowed to interfere with the free will of any being on any planet yeah because they have to go through their own experience in order to grow. So I think that's the case, but I feel that if it gets to a point where it looks like we're losing it, which you might might do, I actually think that we'll get help from the rest of the universe as widely. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Like if if we came to the brink of nuclear war and self annihilation, for example, there might be some intervention there.

Speaker: Well, it's happened before in this server system, apparently, and they they allowed it to take its course, and it caused such a huge problem in the space -time continuum that they had to stop it. ah distance can going to stop I don't think they i got the technology just to turn off all our codes, and yeah I believe that. So I'm very optimistic about the future, and I think we're in the age of awakening, and I think that's really ah you know exciting. I appreciate that, and thanks for sharing that.

Speaker: So let me ask you, I know you've run a studio for many years. Did you do a lot of touring? Have you toured a lot or, or minimum? Yeah. Well, I so um i started my life touring, as I mentioned earlier, you know, with the stax artists and all those people. And then, um and I toured a lot with love affair. I was touring with them for two years, practically nonstop. okay And I got stuck in doing studio work. So yeah all my, you know, touring and playing live, just literally we've got put on the bank burner.

Speaker: for a long time. And it wasn't until I decided to move to Canada. I actually lived in Hawaii before I came here for a year. So you were England, France, Hawaii, Canada? Sort of, yeah. Left England in 93. Left France in 2006. No, no, I left Bordeaux in the south of France. I moved to Paris and then I ended up going to Hawaii to build a studio for so some my rich hippies over there. okay and And they offered me a lot of money. and you know I've got an 01 Visa for three years and all that stuff. ah i just After a year, I had to leave. It's so boring. You couldn't play music. You couldn't play live there. I wanted to get

Speaker: I've been itching to get back on stage again. I was wondering when I looked at your timeline, I thought he must have not toured much when he's producing albums and stuff. No, it's too time consuming. Without exaggeration, I was literally working like 48 hour shifts sometimes. I had no time for anything. It isn't even difficult to eat sometimes. There isn't the heyday of music production.

Speaker: um I was working with people like Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols manager, right and the the they're all lay out of their heads on coke and I was the engineer holding it all together, you know, in no sleep. It was just awful. That's partly why I moved to France because I couldn't stand it anymore. It's driving me nuts.

Speaker: I was going to ask you about the drug thing because that's, that's right. that Those guys, every time they feel a bit tired, they just snort another line of coke and' and it's cut with speed anyways. So they're rake skinny and they're awake for three days at a time, right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I mean, each to his own, right? and yeah and I'm not judging them, but when you have to work with those people and you're not on that in that place, which I wasn't, yeah I was a vegetarian. Nobody's vegetarian in London in those days, you know, we've been told a bit.

Speaker: and And I had incredible energy to be able to stay awake 48 hours and keep everything together. yeah Because being a mixing engineer and recording engineer takes a lot of concentration. It does. Yeah. So get back to your question. i was When I arrived here in 2012 in Canada, I promised myself on top of my bucket list was I needed to get back to playing and get releasing my own music again.

Speaker: because I haven't released an album. I released an album in Paris called Freedom. And there's a beautiful track on it called Fly, which was recently covered by a French artist again. That was, you know, Freedom was released in 2009. And then I came here, released Be Creative. It's my debut Canadian album. I've got Rick Emmett to play on it. And Rudy has drummer Glenn Milchon played on it.

Speaker: And that was but that was in 2013 that came out, 2014. And then I didn't do it, still still got myself buried in producing. So I didn't really, when I was in Canada, I started playing in clubs, much as I could play anyway, even when to open mics, right? So I'd get the chops back.

Speaker: And then I got a purpose of a residency down the 120 diner down in Church Street in downtown. So I played there once a week and I would invite all my musicians I knew to come and guest. It was some fabulous nights there.

Speaker: And then then I sort of thought, well, I've got all these hundreds of songs, which nobody's ever heard. I need to really just get them out. And so that's what I'm doing. I started doing Facebook Live. During COVID, I was doing Facebook Live every week. Nice. And I've got, you know, like thousands of people listening. It's really good. Yeah. And and so I'm really, ah you know, it's taken a long time, but I've actually found, you know, what I should be doing. so Yeah, good. ball What did Joseph Campbell said, find your bliss, find that thing that feeds your soul and and do that because otherwise, you know, and like the drug thing too, I get what you're saying, but I've, ah my friends, what I say to them is, are you living your best life? Exactly. And almost always to a point they they admit, they go, no, it's not. I'm like, well, it's not.

Speaker: You know what they're being honest with you. They'll tell i'll tell you this. don A lot of people know that they're being self -destructive. They still do and and still do it. because i' taking a lot That's why a song like Big Fan and Myself needs to come out next year, probably, on the Happy Campus project.

Speaker: because it's ah You know, we don't like ourselves. Most people don't actually like themselves. And that's that's been indoctrinating in us over the centuries. I think Constantine started it, or some so some bad person like that. And it's but ever since that, people have been filled with this idea that we're sinners and evil and all this stuff. And it's not true, you know. We're we're spiritual beings in material bodies. We're we're all divine. We're all eternal and immortal. And once we start realizing that, well life will be so much better

Speaker: and we manifest ourselves the best we can in the physical. And it's like in big fan of myself, so you can't, it it sort of indicates that you can't really love someone until you appreciate yourself first. If you hate yourself, it's impossible to love another person. Right. No, that's that's a good point. And it's it's so like the old saying, of you know if someone asks you for five bucks and you're broke, you have nothing to offer them. you have to The best thing you can do for the world is to be the best you that you can be, yeah and then go out in the world and share that with the world. Yeah. If you want to help other people, you could have to get your bricks in order.

Speaker: So I have to ask you a couple more quick questions here. um You got involved with Buffy St. Marie and produced some albums with her, and there's a video of you playing live with her and stuff. um How did that come about? That's through Nigel Grange of Ensign Records in London. They're part of the Chrysalis music group. yeah well Nigel was yeah He's a big fan of my sound that I used to get in the studio. So yeah he they the he asked me to be like the Indian House producer for Inside Records. So that's how I got to work with Bob Geldof, also Sinead and the Pogues. I got all those gigs through my contact with Nigel Baines here.

Speaker: so ah The Sianade thing came about because I'd mixed two tracks for him, ah for Ensign Records, on their Line and the Cobra album and called Mandinka and put them on me. They're both hits. and okay Early hits for Sianade. She really liked that, so that's how I got to steam into doing the the big one, I think, compared to you and whatnot. Then the Buffy's hit, Marie, came off of that? Yes, because he Nigel phoned me one day and he said,

Speaker: Chris, guess what? I said, what's that? He said, I've just signed a legend. And I said, wow. He said, I want you to produce. I said, wow, who's this? You know, I thought it was a Tina Turner or something. yeah And he said, Buffy St. Marie. That sort of went quiet for a minute. I said, who's that? Well, in Canada, everybody, everybody knows. Yeah, I was in the UK, right? I didn't really know, apart from the fact I was always in the studio, so I wasn't really listening to everything that was happening in the music world, but I didn't know who she was. and then she So she flew over to meet me, she lives in Hawaii, and ah we got on really well. and ah she's so you know We've been together ever since.

Speaker: she's taught Give me so many compliments. She said, I have the patience of an angel. And she seems quoted once. She said, Chris Burke, it's half half rocker and half angel. Yeah, there you go. Well, I mean, but you have to have, you know yourself better than anybody. You have to have the right disposition and the right sort of temperament to be a studio producer engineer. Yeah, we've got a psychologist for one. For sure.

Speaker: ah But also you have to have to you have to kind of remove your ego from the process. If you don't, you end up but wasting so much energy. yeah And that's why I got on so well with Buffy because I didn't ever assert my opinion unless I really felt it was needed. But also I never had an agenda. I learned ah many, many years ago, i was in the early 20s, not to work for towards a goal, but actually work towards just just for the pleasure of being creative. And that's I learned that in the Gurdjieff School in London, yeah and you know they give us a

Speaker: a chair to make in the carpentry shop. And then just before you put the last leg on, they give it to someone else. It's kind of like the sand painting thing. that oh buddhists do you know it's It's called non -detachment. Non -attachment. So you're attached to the creative aspect of doing something, but you are not possessed by the outcome. doesn' It doesn't matter about the outcome. You don't know what the outcome is. There is going to be one.

Speaker: So you just do it for the sake of the actual process. yeah That's always carried me through in music production. It's helped ah enormously for me to just be really super patient with artists and let them manifest, try not to steer them, but get in the way of their creative you know Right. Well, and and how many times I've heard stories of the, you know, you're assigned a producer by the record company and your nose to nose in the studio and there's arguments and everything else. I mean, that's got to squash the creative process. I mean, come on. Yeah, I've seen producers totally destroy artists in the studio, just through being, you know, two egocentric and my way or the highway. You know, they're probably driven by some material things, pressure, you know, from the label.

Speaker: Well, that's right. I've never ever let that get in the way. Yeah, no, that's right. They won't hit songs. I mean, if if the record company assigns a producer to a band, it comes with the expectation there's going to be a one or two or three singles off that album and they're going to make a pile of money. I mean, that's yeah sorry, that's just the way it is, right? so Yeah.

Speaker: they don't care of what what you do. I don't care what your songs are. So I've had a few friends who you know they did an album of really good stuff, but the record company comes back and said, there's no single on this album. We've got to bring some writers in, we've got to bring some other people in. Yeah. yeah like it It's odd, isn't it? Yeah. yeah i mean ah you know The biggest hit I've been involved with was Junaid's hit, right? Yeah. But that came out and then the BBC,

Speaker: who had all the power in the UK at the time, they're about to drop it. It went to 42 and then it started going up the charts. And so this is an interesting, you know, like what's a hit record, right? Yeah. and What really broke that record, what changed the course of history for that record, was they they made they went out and made a video in Montparnasse Cemetery and Sinead did a wonderful performance because, you know, she was thinking about, I think she's thinking about her grandmother who she loved.

Speaker: and we'd passed away and it was, um so the video broke it. So there's an idea of like people saying, oh, we don't have a hit record on now. It's kind of rubbish because anything could be hit, be thrown off money at it. We've seen so many times. yeah yeah Yeah, so so let me ask you about the two people you worked with. Sinead had some personal issues, obviously, and she had some issues where she kind of um was controversial and in a way that harmed her career, but that didn't really affect you in any way, I'm assuming, because you were apart from that process at that time. Yeah, ah yeah i I was already

Speaker: I've learned the art of goalless activity, right just we're doing things purely for the sake of the beauty of the process with not being at all concerned with the outcome. I think Sinead liked that because she tried to work with and another flavor of the month producer at the time, Nellie Hooper. And she she walked out of the studio after two days, she couldn't stand. looking but But I think the disconnect, I guess, would be that your your messages are positive. I mean, when she tore the picture of the Pope in half on Saturday Night Live, that was not a positive message. No, no, no, that was an angry, angry message. And we'll probably all know why she did it now. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, yeah we know what's been going on in the church and yeah yeah the whole structure.

Speaker: But yeah, I i don't subscribe to try doing negative stuff in my own songs. I'd rather give up lift somebody than bring them down, if you see what I mean. Okay, fair enough. And then what what was your position on the Buffy St. Marie controversy? Does that affect you in any way? Not really. um I was in the I was featured in her latest documentary by White Pine Pictures. i think that I think that some of the journalism involved in that whole thing was not accurate enough. I know for a fact that a lot of people that had babies in those days from both sides of the blanket, as they i say, of well ah was hidden they were hidden up and even their birth certificates were changed because they didn't want to be associated with that culture.

Speaker: but and So that's all I could really say about it. I mean, Buffy asked me at the time it was happening, she said, oh please don't talk to any press about it. I had people calling me from all over the world. Yeah, I imagine. yeah inter interviewing I said, so I can't really comment. Well, I mean, you're one. god I just think Buffy was a victim of a kind of a witch hunt. OK. And I think so.

Speaker: It doesn't really matter for me what which culture she comes from. I think we all make like we're all in the human race. If you look at this planet from space, there are no countries and boundaries. It's it's just one one humanity. Well, that's I guess her catalogue isn't erased, obviously. and And you're sort of one step removed from that anyway. I mean, that's not your issue. No, I'm i'm half Greek, but yeah so I don't get too much trouble for that.

Speaker: I actually care who I am actually. but that's That's my point. is i think i'm a I think we're all spiritual beings in material bodies and I think that's that's what we should be thinking about, not not which culturally accidentally popped ins into the world as you know. I think it's, i think it' said and that's why, I felt sorry for Buffy because I felt she's being, all the good she's done for Indigenous awareness, which she's done a lot of good, including her work with Sesame Street and all that.

Speaker: It's all just overlooked. It's all overlooked just because some that somebody was not sure about her you know what a real race was. what He cares about that. That's my take on it. Okay, not fair enough. so I just wanted to ask you quickly about your your live event at the Hughes Room. You had Lisa Hart there of which I saw. I had her on the podcast and and Blair Packham as well. I had both of them on the podcast. Great people and and really interesting to talk to and I saw them there with you. so i I had a smile on my face.

Speaker: Yeah, this is great. I love her. I've been doing a series of recordings with her actually. yeah because so she's a ah you She's kind of like a born -again alcoholic. She's been dry for 40 years. yeah she She and her husband were like, you know really like going for it and in their day yeah and she nearly killed her and she's she's like glowing now because she hasn't had a drink for like 40 years, amazing. But excellent person to talk to and super talented and what a voice man, really. Yeah, she's wonderful. yeah Have you heard any of the records I've done with her?

Speaker: I have. Well, I had her on probably six or eight months ago oh yeah now, but I listened to all her stuff. And in her voice, the one comment I made to her is because a lot of people get what I call old man voice, right? As you get older, your voice kind of goes away. You know that. But um but it hasn't happened to her. Like her voice is still crisp and clear. It's really nice. Yeah. She was great. um She was great at my shows, some really nice harmonies and stuff. Good. Well, that's, that's great to hear. So I saw that and I thought,

Speaker: And then Sherry Tallon, you worked with her. She's her talented, sweet, beautiful woman. Yeah, she's ah she plays keyboards. And I've got a band called the Free Spirits. yeah She might want to look into because we it, because we're kind of like a more contemporary version of Yes, almost. The compositions and the the musicality of the songs is extraordinary. yeah And the messages, we like I'll give you an example. we got We did a video and a song recently called Cybercrime. And the reason we wrote that is because it you don't actually know these days if you've been listened to all the time. you know when we tape but We all tape up our cameras on our laptops now so we can't be looked at because yeah that's how that came out. but

Speaker: People don't realize that your mic's on all the time. You can't really take that up, you know. And so we did this funny song called Cybercrime. And the videos, that you see it on the Free Spirits page. It's Free Spirits YouTube page. It's very funny. Yeah. No, good. No, that's a good point, too, because, ah you know, the your phone's, in a sense, maybe recording everything you say, right? So if you're... Yeah. Whatever you're doing, it's it's tracking it in some measure.

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, jerry we did we did another song with the free spirits about this subject too, called Safety in Numbers. And the reason we wrote that song is because this is happening obviously all over the world. Anybody can hack into it anything now. Yes, that seems to be. But the only thing that's really savers is there's so many of us, the chances of them like Hank into little, not little old me, you know, and they they've probably got algorithms to pick up keywords now, you know, like ah bomb, you know, I probably get like a ton of blood. It's certainly the FBI and those agencies. Yeah, for sure. Right. Yeah, exactly. So there's that. So, you know, I think we're We don't have any data security at all these days. It's just gone. yeah And there are only some iCloud now. So, you know, who's who can get into the iCloud? Probably any hacker can get there. Well, just imagine. All you have to do is imagine if everything you ever wrote in an email or or said or put online was made completely public right now. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's happening now is where we are. It's interesting. Yeah. Wow. Crazy.

Speaker: a question I often ask my guests, looking back, is there anything you would change about the course of your life career? Any any decisions you made that you wish you hadn't or would have done differently? no just well i'm pretty happi with well <unk>uded sir i guess that ah I went through being a father and that was great and unfortunately my marriage broke up 25 years, but it didn't didn't break up until the kids had left home, grown up, so that I'm quite happy about that. yeah I guess the one thing, the time I told you about Ed Bignell, Dye Straits' manager, and love was in love with my um my new album.

Speaker: men from the sky. yeah And ah at that time, if I had just sort of like stopped everything and just got back into music, I think I would have been as big as Peter Gabriel, you know, right because ah the music was the same quality as as that. and But I didn't. I went, I said, I bought, you know, I was earning a lot of money, big royalties coming in for all sorts of stuff.

Speaker: So I went and bought a 32 room Chateau in the south of France and built a studio. The reason I did that is because I wasn't seeing my kids. So I don't really regret that, but that was a career move that just like stopped me from being really well known as an artist. But I did it for my kids because I wasn't seeing them. I was away all the time, hardly ever home. And I came back from South Africa, been there for six months recording.

Speaker: And the kids have literally forgotten me. you know Yeah, well, that's that's what happens. and And that's a short window, too, looking back now, the position you're in now, when you look back, it's a very it's not a significant time of number of years because they go by quickly. Yeah, exactly. so that that's ah but i dont In fact, you know,

Speaker: my insights that I have now, I don't really look on it as regrets because I just think it's all something to to learn from. Well, that's true. i think and and I often say you don't see the path you don't take. All you do is you know the path you did take, and if you're comfortable in your own skin and you're happy, I often ask my guests at the end of the podcast, are you happy? Some people say yes, some see people say, sort of.

Speaker: you know

Speaker: A couple of people have, you know like I say, what what what did you sacrifice to get what you thought you wanted? and And then they'll list a bunch of things and then say, was it worth it? And a couple of people have said, no, it wasn't worth it.

Speaker: Yeah. well that's Well, that's insight, isn't it? yeah i call that I call that learning. it's it's ah I think that's valuable. I see that as valuable. Even if you know we can complain that the rose bushes have thorns or we can rejoice that the thorn bushes have roses. yeah It's all about perception. you can you can perceive If you change your perception on what what you've done, you can actually perceive it in a completely different way and it wouldn't it necessarily have to be negative. yeah I think for the most part, I would agree with that.

Speaker: yeah I mean, if you're if you're in a concentration camp or if you're stuck in North Korea under a system that so you can still find some happiness, but within that... Change or a radiator. Yeah, of course, those are extreme things yeah and ah people do have to go through that. And I believe that The life on this planet is a very, very short spark of our yes hope existence. And I think those things actually, in retrospect, help you to in your understanding of other beings in the universe. so So I think we don't always see the value of what's happened to us as it's happening. You know, you're being tortured, you're not going to be see the value, you're just going to have to...

Speaker: die or go through it, right, there's no way out of it. But looking at it, you know, 4000 years later, when you're working in a certain part as a spirit being, that kind of information might be really useful to you, you know, because you don't understand somebody else is in a similar position. Yeah, yeah, no, it's, that's, that's interesting. And your perspective is certainly broad. So I appreciate that. I know we went over time, but what a deep and interesting conversation. I really appreciate it.

Speaker: time is an illusion now there you go many thanks to my guest chris perquette for being part of the lino notes podcast and sharing some insights from his many musical adventures and accomplishments more information is available like chris burett dot c a excellent website lots of information hope you enjoyed the podcast and invite you to subscribe to it and share it on social media so others can enjoy it as well

Speaker: Time is an illusion.