Michael Ruff- Speaking in Melodies
Et album som anbefales på det varmeste.
Har du ikke smekk og dynamikk- (stopp/start/forskjell på svake og sterke partier) når du spiller denne, bør du sjekke rom og oppsett.
Noen få ord om dette albumet i et intervju med Ruff:
Most if not all of your records range as hard-to-find. Also "Speaking In Melodies".
Yeah (laughs).
It's more or less self-explanatory that that record is one-of-a-kind and sold in big numbers, and I should think that it must've been a truly inspiring challenge as a musician to get to record at Sheffield's Lab?
That was very special, because they were only concerned with making it sound great. They weren't telling me what kind of songs to play, right. They said: "You go make music and we'll make it sound good". So we all had fun, and that's the best way to make music - is just to make music!
And you did it live-to-two-track?
We did it live-to-two-track at Oceanway in L.A. - great studio - with George Massenburg, an amazing engineer. And one of the best things about it was that I got to bring over these guys, this Scandinavian band to play - Per and Lars and Henrik Janson - and they blew everybody away in L.A., 'cause nobody had heard them play before. And also, originally we were gonna have Jeff Porcaro play on some tunes, and this was a week or two after he passed away, so a lot of folks were in the studio, listening, and there was this huge emptiness left when Jeff died, 'cause there was only one of him; there's no drummer that plays like him. And then here's all these guys from L.A., and they're in the studio and they're listening to Per play, and it was like, not like a ghost, but it was like Per filled in this hole, this one-of-a-kind drummer hole. That was definitely evident. And people were in tears, man, listening to him play, they were going: "This is uncanny, this guy from Sweden we've never heard of comes and plays like..."
Kind of the same way that Simon Phillips now fills up the void?
Yeah, kind of, but Simon doesn't have anywhere near the subtlety that Jeff had...
I guess that's true.
... and Per is a very unique artist as far as I'm concerned - in these guys own category. So that was an amazing experience.
How do you feel about recording that way? Do you prefer recording live as opposed to recording in layers?
It is what it is. I think if I record live I'd rather make it a little more wild. That was too controlled for a live atmosphere. So it doesn't matter - it is what it is. I'm actually more comfortable in the studio now than I used to be. I used to get caught between those two things. I never had the time or the budget to do it in the proper studio way, so we'd do it mostly live, but then it wasn't really all the way live, so it didn't feel as good as live.
The way you all swing on stage really adds an extra dimension to the music. It seems like you put a lot of effort into it and it always has "fun" written all over it in a laid-back kind of way, I think. You're so much at ease on stage, and I think that's something you just don't see very often nowadays.
Do you consider that an important thing?
Hm, yeah, very much! I'm very at home on stage and playing. I mean, that's where I have the most fun, you know. Especially when you get great musicians and give them a lot of room. And there's no rules up there; there's just a song - "Here's a song, let's play!". Like a big play-pan, a big sand-box (laughs). So that's the idea.