Randy Muller
Randy Muller is the brains behind a stack of 1970s classics. Working with bands such as Brass Construction, BT Express and Skyy, he brought orchestral strings to funk, was at the forefront of synth disco and became a stalwart of the mighty Salsoul label. As an arranger, producer and songwriter Muller has been responsible for hundreds of songs, many of which would go on to become classics and influence his contemporaries.
In this lecture at the 2007 Red Bull Music Academy, he talks about playing steel drums as a child in Guyana, moving to New York and how the city’s public school system acted a breeding ground for musical talent.
Hosted by Monk One With me on the couch today, all the way from Brooklyn, New York City, it’s my pleasure to welcome Mr Randy Muller. [Applause] Actually, Randy, you moved out of Brooklyn, but you’re still a Brooklyn boy
at heart, I guess. Randy Muller Always Brooklyn. Monk One This is a guy who’s done so many songs, he was just telling me, “I had to print out a discography online because he doesn’t remember all the songs I’ve done.” The stuff you were just listening to when you came in were his compositions, numerous other classics of the disco era, the so-called classic club scene of New York in the late ’70s, early ’80s. That music came out of funk, and before that there was a lot of funk that you were involved in and I want to give people some background of
where you started, where you were born, how you came into the scene and what it was like when you were a boy growing up. Randy Muller First of all, I want to thank you guys for inviting me. This is really a cool thing. This is my first time checking out the scene. The Red Bull Music Academy was described to me and I was expecting a very Harvard/Yale/back-to-school set-up, so to come in here. I just got off the plane, my bags are behind me here and I haven’t had the chance to go the hotel – but coming here, this is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I wish I had this when I was trying to get into the business. You have the equipment I used to dream about and all these potential collaborators gathered in one space. This is so utopian; I just love it. Only good things can come of this, getting all these creative minds under one roof without the bother of taking out the garbage and going the job. And all the access here, this is just fantastic, so I appreciate you being here. To answer the question of how I got started, well, I was born in Guyana, down in South America, right next to Venezuela. It’s 83,000 square miles, a small country. I started out just banging on the stairs because we had no instruments and I love percussion. In a lot of places in the Caribbean, we had these small wooden stairs going up, and I would find the tone on each step [gestures banging stairs] “dunng, dunng, dunng.” It wasn’t so perfectly tuned, but after school I would sit there with some coconut oil on my skin and try to make music. But what happened later on, I remember getting steel drums. The bands were very big and the professional bands would throw out the steel pans… they had no more use for them, they didn’t sound so good. I would go and collect the old steel drums from the garbage and I retuned them and formed my first band. I took the drums, got some guys together and we started playing those songs on them. I think it was really cool and that’s when I first started getting into the music business in a way. I had this entrepreneurial idea, “Guys, we can make some money from this…” I decided we could play Christmas carols. We could play “Silent Night” and they’d give us some money. It was a penny, two pennies, there was no union scale. It was a great idea. Some people felt sorry for us and gave us a few pennies. But I guess, I wasn’t a great marketing guy because it was the middle of August and Christmas carols in the middle of August is not too saleable, it’s not so cool. I guess, they felt sorry for these little kids and gave us a few pennies. But that’s how I started playing on the steel drums, then I left Guyana and came to Brooklyn, New York. I thought it was such a cool place: America, the streets are paved with gold. I was telling someone the other day, I did see a sparkly street, not realizing they had this new asphalt here, where they grind up the glass. “Wow, the golden streets.” So, Brooklyn was almost like a movie set for me. I lived on Hart Street but my window was right near the sidewalk. The first time I came into Kennedy
Airport, I was whisked into the city and saw these lights. This is America, big lights. I was in my room and I could hear guys singing in the streets these four-part harmonies [sings]. I just thought, “Wow, America is so cool.” Monk One When was this? Randy Muller This was the ’60s, about 1964. It was unbelievable. The guys had the do-rag and the processed hair, and were walking around singing cool harmonies. So, after that, I graduated from banging on the stairs and used my grandma’s dinner plates and started banging on them like a xylophone. The big plates made the lower sounds and the little plates gave the higher sounds. I was in public school and I remember getting my first guitar. I used to pass a pawn shop and I saw this guitar for $16 – this is big time. I know when my grandmother bought me the guitar I didn’t want to sleep, I just wanted to stay up playing songs. Around that time I got the flute. They asked you in school which instrument you want to play, and I wanted to play the flute so badly, because when I was in Guyana there was this old guy named George. He was kind of a homeless guy, but he lived across the street in this little village and every Christmas he played “Silent Night” – I guess that’s where I got the “Silent Night” from – and it was so cool, because I was waiting up to see Santa for myself, and all of a sudden, I hear this beautiful music that sounds so great. I wanted to be like George. I just made my first flute solo album because of this guy. People said, “He’s just a bum, he’s just a homeless guy.” But it just shows you never know what kind of influences you’re going to get, and up to now I love this instrument with a passion. So, I got my start from nothing fancy, just tried to use what was around me. Later on, I had a little band, I played guitar with another fellow, we used to play talent shows at school. We thought it was cool because we’d get a lot of girls that way and we sang all the hot songs. A guy from Puerto Rico, name of Joseph Felicia – I don’t know where he is, I’ve not seen him since we were kids – but we made a lot of music together. Then I went into junior high school and this is where the whole thing of taking recorded music seriously started. I put together a talent show in junior high school and I was writing songs – stuff I wrote on my plates – and I wanted to get a couple of guys with me. I took band [class], we had some guys in the band, pretty cool trumpet guy, and I thought I’d put these guys together for this talent show. I needed a bassist, a drummer and so on… so, we got these guys together and started playing these tunes. There was one guy who’s now a big-time actor – I saw him on some good movie. What’s his name? Goldberg. I can’t remember his first name, Michael Goldberg, that’s it… great trumpet player. We took guys who were in the school band and I had my own after-school program. I had four trumpet guys, two sax players, just playing around and getting some songs together for a concert. Pretty much that’s what evolved into a group called Dynamic Souls and Brass Construction. Monk One What bands were you listening to at the time that gave you the inspiration to work with brass sections like that? Randy Muller I always loved brass and there was a lot of interest in the calypso sound, the Caribbean bands. I listened to a lot of Mighty Sparrow and these guys had great horn sections. But I also loved the big-band sound, the Duke Ellington sound and Count Basie. In a country like Guyana – and I saw this happen in England when I went there in
the late ’70s… you had real broadcasting. In Guyana we had this station – and the population was mixed between Indian, the black population, Chinese and everything – but I had to listen to a few hours of Hindu programming before I’d hear the funk, and I was introduced to other types of music and sounds. I think it was great, it helped me so much as an arranger. I’d listen to Jim Reeves, country music, Glenn Miller, all this old stuff, any kind of big band. I had a shortwave radio and we’d hear music late at night from wherever; you know when it goes “Whoo-oooh-ooh,” and some guy with a megaphone-sounding voice. I used to love just tuning in to hear whatever exciting stuff I could find in the middle of the night. Monk One Did you hear the Latin bands that were big at the time? Randy Muller Yes, yes, but I didn’t even know their names. I’d just hear them late at night, and it sounded so cool. It’s a cool place, wherever that music is coming from, I want to be there and I want to do that. It was a very interesting time and it made an impression on me. Monk One At this time you were about to go into high school. Had you already started at Jefferson? Randy Muller We put the talent show together in seventh grade in George Gershwin Junior High. It’s funny how I went to Jefferson because Caribbean culture, or at least my family, doesn’t see music as something valuable. It’s like me telling them I want to be a robber when I tell my father I want to be a musician. It’s like a joke – anything to do with the arts, it’s not valued. If you say, “I want to be an artist,” it’s the worst thing you can say. “Are you kidding me? You need a job, something that will help mankind: doctor, lawyer,” something fancy like that, highbrow stuff. I had to satisfy both ends, and my dad was a pretty cool guy. The guy used to embarrass me sometimes. I’d go to gigs, and people would be like, “There goes your dad, he’s on the floor, girls around him, Mr Cool.” Him going, “That’s my son.” I felt like hiding behind my drum set. But he’s the one who got me into professional music. He introduced me to his friends and I joined a professional steel band. Steel drums, but they had a drum set and a Fender bass, an Ampeg amp. It was an interesting mix for that time, 1967, a guitar with a steel band, it was pretty hip. They were called the Panharmonics, and they were pretty successful in the area, we played all the Caribbean gigs, boat rides and bus rides. But to tell your family that you wanted to do music was a big thing, so I made a deal with my dad. He said, “You keep your grades up, you can play.” So, that’s what I did, I’d be backstage at gigs doing my homework, then do the show. It worked out, but music was not a thing that was much desired in that culture. It’s like saying, “I’m a failure as a parent. My kid wants to play music.” But, I guess it worked out. Monk One You told me you were accepted at a high school for high academic achievers, but it wasn’t a music school. Randy Muller Yeah, I was supposed to go to tech, which was a cool all-boys school where all the big brains went. They all went there and then to MIT afterwards to do great things for mankind, and I lied to my grandmother and said I didn’t pass the test because all the cool guys were going to the other high school. So, I went there and we had lots of music, beautiful girls, it was great. And a very supportive teacher. He saw what I was doing at a very young age – I would write scores, I taught myself to write just by reading books and observing. The steel drum was one of the best things I could’ve played because it taught me about chords. If I wanted to do a major 7th, it was, “OK, you hold an A and a C, you hold a C and an E, you hold an F and an A, and you get a voicing of a certain chord.” So, I learned how to put them together, serendipitously this whole thing grew. I was able to translate that so when I was voicing horns or strings it’s the same kind of process [gestures working out chords]…
You find out these things about textures and making a certain voice speak. The steel drum, something that seems so simple and primitive, was very instrumental in learning about music theory and how to construct things. I learned about dovetailing brass and making a sound big, wide and open, which is something I did – I only had four guys but sometimes you make them sound really big by open voicing. So, it was very interesting in those days, and the teacher took an interest in me. I would have questions about theory and harmony and he’d take me after school to check out a group playing somewhere. I remember Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing at the Carnegie, so we’d go and check it out. He didn’t have to do that, it wasn’t part of the curriculum, but he had an interest in what I was doing. And in the school band, we played “The Kid From Red Bank,” some Basie tune, and we’d just get interesting music to play. I had a pretty good support system. I was just doing a radio show the other day and they asked me about advice for kids and what has changed. It was a Brooklyn station, and I was talking about how vibrant the public school system was in New York City, how fantastic it was in producing these bands at that time. We had Crown Heights Affair, BT Express… Monk One A lot of great jazz bands… Randy Muller A lot of great cats came out of that, and that was the public school system. There was a connection between what we do as musicians, it does something to the mind… we’re multi-lingual, we talk a language other people can’t get into [lists chord changes as an example]. We could do these translations in our heads. That skill can be translated to mathematics and language and other things. Most lawyers I know, they want to be musicians and musicians want to be lawyers. The grass is always greener. But it’s wonderful for the mind, especially music, I can speak about that from experience. You exercise your mind and thinking, and there’s logic involved, a certain kind of reasoning. We look at dots on a piece of paper, and make sense of that and we can make people laugh, and cry and move their body. We’re taking frequencies and mixing them in a certain order and form and affecting human emotion. This is powerful stuff; we have special powers. [Applause] We do. This is big stuff! Politicians only dream about having that sort of power. That’s why those political ads have the music behind it to pull the emotion. We know how to do that well, we know the notes and frequencies. Monk One I want to play some of the first recordings you worked on. Not too far out of high school, you formed Brass Construction, and I think we can hear your horn arrangement here. It’s pretty intense. Randy Muller You’re going to surprise me… (music: Brass Construction – “Take It Easy” /applause) Randy Muller Oh, my God. I feel like This Is Your Life. I think I was in high school when we did this. Oh, my God. Monk One One thing that’s fun, you seem to be showing your chops off, making the horn section as crazy as possible. Randy Muller I think we had a lot of influences from jazz. People may not associate the group with funk, and they’re not a funk group, but I love the horns of Chicago. Early on, if you listen to my very first album – the album with “Movin’” – the lyrics are very sparse. We sang hooks and change. I wasn’t into lyrics. This track was still the time of Chicago, I loved their horns, and I loved Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Very hot. Tower of Power and Mandrill were very influential, I enjoyed “Mango Meat” and all those songs. So in those days you had to show you had your chops. There were certain licks the drummer had to play, you’ve got to do that. But I love the glaring horns, I love the power of it. Monk One Was this when you met Jeff Lane? Randy Muller Yeah, I met him in high school. Monk One Can you explain who he was? Randy Muller He was a local producer who was forming a little production company. One of the guys went to school with his daughter and told him about me and he wanted to meet me because we were getting pretty hot around the neighborhood. In those days Brooklyn had a wonderful infrastructure for live music. I’d go during the week, because I was the guy who got the gigs. The guy would say, “Come in on Thursday, and we’ll give you a try.” No pay. You’d go, you’d play, they’d like you, book you for Saturday. Brass Construction, because we were too young to drive, we’d take the subway – the whole band would go to the gig on a train. All your boys would come and help you carry the drum and custom amplifier. It was crazy. I look back and think I don’t believe we did this. Until we got big-time, and would all fit in one van and go to the gig. If you bring your girlfriend, you’ve got to squeeze her in, and we’re all in the back of the van. Some people didn’t want to pay so they’d come with to get in free, help us lift the stuff, that was the deal. Anyway, Jeff was a local producer and I guess he heard about us and Morris was going to school with his daughter. I met him, and he was doing gospel music with Nat Kennedy. I can’t say it was hokey, but you look back and say, “Wow, he did that!” The lyrics would be him having a bad day and everything’s going wrong and a bird would do some droppings on him and the lyric would go, “I’m so glad a damned cow can’t fly.” [Laughs] I did some stuff with Jeff and had a lot of fun, learned some things. We went to the studio, there was an engineer called John Bradley. In those days it was 16-track, and so we learned how to group the stuff together. You took the horns and there was a lot of bouncing. Monk One Can you explain what bouncing is? Randy Muller You combine the tracks. Let’s say you have 16 tracks, but you got 20 different things to put down. Today we’re so spoiled, you’ll have ten tracks for drums. But in those days, you had the kicks separate and the drums would be like two tracks, maybe one: actually maybe three; the kick in one, then everything else and another for stereo. If push comes to shove, we’ll mix it down, combine everything and make it permanent on one track, which frees up the other tracks that were taking up the space. Then, we have four horns, you play the horns
twice, that takes up eight tracks. So maybe you blend them in and bounce them down to how you think they should be sounding on the record. You balance them; more horns, more trumpet, whatever. That’s basically what bouncing is, you’re taking multiple tracks and funneling them down to one. The thing with it is that if you do a lot of bouncing, you get tape hiss. Monk One That kind of thing is not an issue anymore. Randy Muller Not any more, you have enough tracks. Sometimes I think it’s great and helps with the experimental aspect of composing. But sometimes I look and see guys with 20 tracks of drums and stuff. In the old days, you had to get it right early on. That’s why being literate and doing charts was important. Today, it’s more like freeform. “I’m not feeling that kick right now, I’m going to change the kick, put something else. Put another one under it, get a loop going.” We had nothing like that. You sync it down, that’s it, it’s over. So you have to know what you’re doing. It’s a more strategic approach to production. Even the tempo, you couldn’t change tempo in those days. You didn’t go, “It’s 120. I don’t like that, maybe 123.” Back then, no. Your tempo didn’t change a bit. And if the tempo went up and down, the drummer would get excited. But that’s how it was, there was a permanence to your work. Also, you’d do five songs in a session. In those days, you had live players, you had to pay these guys. Having strings was big-time; those were union guys, serious musicians. You can’t just say, “Give me a bit of this, ‘da da da.’” You’re getting charged for it, and these guys know what they’re doing and they’re looking at the clock. After time, it’s double-time and it brings up the budget of your record. So, you have to know what you’re doing and plan. Arranging was key. Now you hear something, and it’s, “Nah, I’ll change that. I’ll take a sample from some place, I’ve changed my mind. Turn the strings into horns.” There’s value to that as well. Both ways have their charm, I guess. Monk One Getting back to what Jeff did, he brought you in to work on arrangements. Randy Muller Actually, I never did string arrangements before in my life until Jeff said, “Muller, I want some strings on this track by Wednesday.” “I never did strings, I did horns.” “You’re smart, you’ll find out, by Wednesday. Just tell me what you need.” “Oh, my God, I don’t know how to do this.” So, I went to my professor and said, “Tell me about the violin.” “What do you want to know?” “Please, tell me about the violin.” So he said, “Well, there’s the clef, and you can do this and that and ‘blah, blah, blah’, and it sounds like this on the piano if you write it here.” And I go, “OK.” He said, “What do you need?” I said, “Give me five violins and two violas.” I didn’t know what I was doing, I was embarrassed. So now I have to write the charts that I didn’t write with a piano. I was getting some ear training and some scales, and I remember when I was writing for the gospel stuff, I got a guy from school called Jeffrey Steinhurst, to write this stuff out. It was like guesswork; I don’t know what the hell I was doing. We did the song, put the track on, and it sounded good, just like I heard it in my head. I was like, “Yes! This is so cool.” And I started to develop the language of writing. I remember the song “Express” and Jeff would be, “I need some strings on this.” I’d be writing it at my grandmother’s table without a piano, and I’d hear it in my head. That’s why those string parts in “Express” were so simple. But I wasn’t finished and he was outside my house blowing his horn [makes sound of car horn]. That’s why I missed simple little lines. That’s how the track came about and became a gold album or whatever it was. Monk One So BT Express was more like a funk band… this was what, ’74, ’75? Randy Muller ’72. Monk One So, he had the idea he was going to put strings over this thing. Kind of an unusual concept. Randy Muller At the time, very different. Monk One But the boy genius can invent a string section. So, let’s listen to what you came up with while he was blowing his horn at your grandmother’s house. (music: BT Express – “Express”) Monk One The crazy thing is that song went onto become a huge, huge smash, right? [Applause] And the other crazy thing is that song kicked off a whole style of groups who suddenly wanted to put string sections on their funk. Randy Muller That’s true, there was Silver Convention. You had that thing we called the “fall off,” where that string goes [makes sharp upwards movement], I don’t think anyone did it before. I serendipitously stumbled into it because I was used to doing horns. I wanted a horn blast, so I just wrote this thing on the paper and it became one of my musical rigidities. Monk One Check out if you guys can hear it. (music: Silver Convention – “Fly Robin, Fly”) Monk One So, there you are not knowing what you’re doing, writing strings that sound like horns, and then you’ve got people all around the world copying you. Randy Muller That’s what music is about, you’ve got interchange and exchange. We talk to each other over oceans and geography, and this is what goes on. We’re part of the times. We were saying something new then. It’s part of an almost Darwinian process, where the best ideas surface and someone grabs it and runs with it. It becomes something like public property. You can’t just say, “I’ll do a cool beat and no one else can do it.” It’s going to go out in the main. It’s a compliment, I’m flattered that someone steals something of mine. In music we speak to each other, there’s so much cross-pollination that goes on, I think it’s beautiful. Monk One Talking of cross-pollination, I want to play another Brass Construction song that probably everyone has heard before. (music: Brass Construction – “Movin’”) Randy Muller Well, it’s funny, in those days we didn’t think of sampling, we weren’t thinking legalistically, we didn’t think about it in those days. But in retrospect we do see the similarities. Today, the publishers would’ve had a great big battle with that one, it’s very similar. Monk One I heard a rumor that Motown wanted to sign Brass Construction at one point. Randy Muller I remember getting phone calls, it was actually from Jobete, the publishing division. I still have the contract in my house. I signed it but I never mailed it in because I changed my mind, the vibe just said no. All the guys signed it, had it ready to mail out. They were very interested in what we were doing, and we had a very different sound at the time. They had the group Rare Earth in their stable, and they wanted another horn funk band. I would get phone calls at school telling me to be at the phone booth at two o’clock, and they would talk to me and send me songs. I think they were more interested in us recording songs from their catalog, but yeah, maybe things would have been different. We never turned their contract in and ended up going with United Artists in the end. Monk One Your songs at that time were instrumentals. Randy Muller Mostly instrumentals. Jeff pushed me to put words in there, but I was an instrumental guy, I just loved the music part. I remember listening to the all the stuff from Thom Bell, a brilliant arranger, but I could sing the third cello part or the third trumpet part, I would listen that closely to the records because I liked to hear what’s going on back there. But Jeff would tell me to add some words to these songs, that it would make the song more commercial. You notice our records, they’re all verbs “Movin’,” “Changin’,” “Talkin’,” “Dancin’,” it was all verbs. We had this theme that ran through the songs, but I just made it up, like, “OK, “Sittin’.” [Laughs] Now, I would like to sit here and tell you about the great deliberation of my music, it’s deep – well, no, it’s very spontaneous. Monk One Around this time the vibe of what was popular in music was changing, and you can hear on those early records that the four-on-the-floor kick is coming in, as opposed to the syncopated style. Randy Muller You had the Motown sound where they had that slick polished thing going on with great arrangements. I think Brass and BT were the first bands to make that street funk, like if James Brown had strings. We took that rawness of the street sound and merged it with the polish of the strings and the fancy horns. The strings were the more revolutionary element. It was funny because on the first album there was a song called “Changin’”… and I remember still being in school, learning about technique and hearing about a thing called contrary motion in theory. So, I would take all the homework and practice them in the songs. It was displacement, “I’ll take this and shift it here.” I would do all these little techniques that I’d learn in class and incorporate these techniques into my arrangements. I like “Changin’” so much because I was using all these things I learnt in class like contrary motion displacement, all these techniques. Monk One Shall we give it a listen and you can point out what you’re talking about? (music: Brass Construction – “Changin’”) Randy Muller The way we did it, we did the rhythm track of bass drums and guitar and keyboards. We’d have rehearsals in the basement and do some of the parts and then sometimes we would change stuff in the studio. But if it was grooving in the studio, I would just let it groove and then write more stuff around it. Monk One Did you punch-in stuff? Randy Muller Yeah, we did a lot of punching. Muhammad Ali would be proud of us, we did so much punching. It was a vibe thing. The essence of a lot of these tracks is the rhythm track has to be pumping, otherwise we wouldn’t bother with it. I’m a frustrated bass player, I love the bass, I’m big on basslines. We’d have these ostinatos that keep on going and you just write around them. Even the simplicity of the lyrics, in a way I
look back and say it’s good, but sometimes less is more, the abstraction engages people. It’s like a commercial, you say a lot but you’re saying nothing. This time was very significant, you had the war going on. We had a lot of stuff going on socially for the black community, there was the civil rights thing happening, and let me see, Nixon was out, right? We had a lot of things going on in America and globally, and what helped these tracks to resonate around the world was we didn’t get a very static lyric. Just to
say, “Times are changing” – has a certain power to it. “Got myself together and I’m moving on.” It sits with the whole civil rights thing and people trying to get empowered; that was big and they identified with that, it’s an anthem. It seems simple and trite, but you have to put in its social context. “Movin’” still gets a lot of play, I see the ASCAP and BMI stuff, and today we’re going through a change again, politically around the world. I think we need some of this stuff to happen. Monk One That’s interesting advice to lyric writers. Less, in this case, was definitely more, because people can apply their own context to what you put in the songs. Randy Muller Sometimes you can say one word and it will have a lot of power. Just because you put in 300 words, it doesn’t mean more than one word. The beauty of one word is that it has these levels of abstraction. If I say “happiness,” what does that mean? We all have our own concept of what makes us happy, and you can write a ten-page essay on it. You have to look at it that way. Monk One Do you think the same thing can be applied to music in terms of complexity of music expression? Randy Muller That’s a deep question, man. I see with the loops and stuff you get a one-bar loop, two-bar loops, just changing the ornamentation is what’s happening there. You’re dealing more with sonic spaces, like colors and textures, a pastiche of sound, just getting a raggedy–sounding drum beat and putting something else with it, making a kind of musical gumbo. I think it’s just as powerful. I like what’s happening with music today, a lot of great things are happening. I know a lot of the old guys are saying, “They don’t make it like they used to,” and the old guys before them were saying the same. This is part of it, it comes with the territory, it’s not a static thing. We react to changes in our society, we’re a product of our times. Someone asked me the other day, “Who are you?” I spotted my definition of self. I’m a product of all the radio I listened to and all the movies and all the songs. I’m a product of my media experience, I’m a product of my calypso music back then, I’m a product of James Brown and Aretha Franklin and Duke Ellington and Mighty Sparrow. I put them all in one space and they speak and came up with something new. What’s happening here? We don’t have to get deep about it, but the same revolution and changes we’ve seen happen in music are happening in art and even politics. Everyone’s going for the little soundbite and icons to express greater ideas. We use little samples and that sound brings a certain emotion to the song. Sometimes you want something to sound grainy and straggly. It’s like using film versus video, it gives you a different look. Using color or black and white; it’s the same object, but if you put it in a certain space, then the emotional response becomes very different. As producers and writers, you think about these things and make certain decisions how you want to express your thoughts and ideas. What’s good about today is there’s so much access, it’s like having a larger alphabet. We have 26 letters we can use and all these words, so imagine all the colors we can paint with via a larger palette. We can become more precise in our expressions. We don’t just want green, we want a certain type of green. We don’t want 20bpm, we want 20.5bpm. We can speak with more precision musically and artistically. In the old days, if I had a song idea, I had to have money to manifest it make it happen. There were no string synthesizers, in the old days a piano was a piano – you had to have enough physical space for it to make it happen. Now you can have a small space and make big-sounding music. There’s no economic barrier. In the old days, I wanted strings, I had to pay big-time union guys. Now we can do amazing things with samplers and so on. The old music is great, it has its charm as well, but it’s like saying all the great movies have been made back in the 1960s, all the great directors have died. No, we’re doing great things visually now as well. You see changes in art, it’s like going from Michelangelo to Picasso or Peter Max in the ’60s, they all have their charm. It’s like, if Peter Max would say, “Ah, Van Gogh is terrible.” And Van Gogh would say, “Oh, Peter Max, you don’t know how to draw a straight image… Picasso, your stuff is all twisted.” There are different ways of expressing things, we even have different thoughts; our politicians now talk to us using certain symbolism. I don’t know if that’s lazy, but you see a certain connection, so it’s not a static thing. So, getting back to the point, there was good music back then… you’re responding, you’re a product of your experiences and what’s inside you. You are who you are, and I think that’s good. Monk One For a lot of us, many of our media experiences in music were informed by stuff that came out in the late ’70s, disco etc, and many of those were arrangements came from you. Some of the great songs and club tracks in New York in the ’70s and early ’80s. You filtered your Mighty Sparrow and Duke Ellington down, and now the music you made entered our collective consciousness and is informing the music we make, whether we’re reacting against it or working with it. Randy Muller This isn’t a philosophy class, but as human beings we like to have maps, we need something that guides us. We have to have an operating system to make sense of what’s around us. We don’t like being without maps, that’s why we have religion, to explain the inexplicable. “The gods are angry.” Then another guy says, “No, it’s not the gods, whatever.” We need to understand what’s going on around us, so we have maps. In music, it’s the same thing. I like to think I did it all on my own, but no, I had George. People said he was a useless old man, a drunk playing the flute, but he informed me up to now. I’m still carrying George’s voice. The trick is to try to get good maps to follow, good solid maps. What is a solid map? We take a certain chance. I try to listen to a variety of music. I don’t just stick to my local hip-hop station, I listen to all sorts of stuff. I just did a smooth jazz album… very different to the stuff you just heard. I did some hip-hop stuff, I did a relaxed album full of birds and sounds, using atmosphere. From that to the other stuff is a wide spectrum, stuff with no kick drum. Monk One No kick drum? Wait a minute, I need a kick drum. I want to talk about stuff with a heavy kick drum. Let’s get off the philosophy cloud for a minute and talk about fun stuff. After you had big success with Brass Construction, can you tell us about some of your experiences meeting the Salsoul, Prelude, Patrick Adams, Peter Brown, midtown Manhattan, there were an incredible number of amazing dance records coming out at that time. A lot of that stuff was centered on a small number of players. What was that scene like, before the Paradise Garage? Randy Muller It was very, very exciting times. I’d be in the city doing sessions with the musicians and come out and see Patrick Adams. It’s funny how I met the Cayres – the guys who owned Salsoul – because I’d just taken my life savings out and
decided to record this group Skyy. I did a lot of it while I was on the road with Brass [Construction], come back, record at night, get a cheap rate, didn’t have the full budget. Anyway, I shopped it and got turned down – “We’re not hearing it, we’re not hearing it” – and I said to my girlfriend, “I’ve lost everything, my life savings on this group and nobody’s buying it.” Then one day I’m looking through Billboard [magazine], at the hot labels, and I see Salsoul and decide to go and see them on Monday, find these Salsoul people and get a deal. I remember doing a session the following week and someone saying, “Let’s go by
this guy’s place.” All the producers hang out there and all the musicians: Patrick Adams, the Philly guys, Norman Harris… But guys, I was new in the business, relatively speaking – I went there and walked in and the guy said, “This is the guy.” That’s how I met Ken Cayre, the guy I’m trying to make a deal with. The guy walked up to me and said, “Oh, my God, I’ve been looking for you.” I didn’t go out that much, I was always busy in the studio. It’s funny, he approached me and I said, “I have this group,” he said to come by the office, and the rest is history. I did get a deal with Skyy and made several albums with them. It was real exciting times; music was alive. I recorded at Blank Tape Studios, Larry Levan was doing his thing and the Paradise Garage was big… Monk One Can you tell us about the Garage? Did you actually take unfinished stuff there? Randy Muller I would sometimes take an acetate over and test it out in the club. Larry Levan and the guys would be playing, and sometimes you’ve got to wait until late in the set; they won’t play the new stuff early on because they’ve got to get the crowd right. So, I’d have to wait until 3am, all the cool people are coming in, the DJs. I didn’t really like hanging out late like that, but I wanted to see how they’d react to my record. There were some very friendly guys in the booth, it was an open, free-spirited place and guys came up to me and embraced me. This was a really cool DJ guy, I didn’t want to insult him, so I tried to engage the best I could. But it was a cool place, we had a DJ called Frankie Crocker in New York, who was the hottest DJ, he broke records. I think he was very much responsible for the success of Brass [Construction], a lot of that stuff. Because radio at the time didn’t go in for a whole lot of research. They’d play it, that’s it, it was bottom-up kind of approach. We had guys like Sylvester coming up at that time. Monk One So, Frankie was also hanging out in the booth? He would see the reaction to whatever was playing, and if it was hot, he’d turn around and play it on the radio next week. Randy Muller Exactly, it was a great testing ground for new stuff and a lot of wonderful things came out of there. Monk One Did you ever change your songs as a result? Randy Muller Yeah, if the kick wasn’t loud enough or you need to bring up the guitar or whatever. Sometimes, you’d go back and make the adjustments. Sometimes you wouldn’t have to touch it, you would go right away into pressing. Monk One I want to play one of the tracks from Skyy and I wonder if maybe afterwards you can tell us about this song and how it came to be. (music: Skyy – “Here’s To You” / applause) Randy Muller That’s a blast from the past. Monk One That’s got to be a masterpiece. What can you tell us about making it? Randy Muller That’s a very special record to me, it’s a very positive record. It was about my girlfriend, my wife at the time. But what’s interesting about it is the great musicians. The Skyy rhythm section is one of the best I’ve worked with, Tommy on drums, Solomon’s a
great guitarist and Denise became the sound of the group. Monk One That was the first song she did? Randy Muller Denise was like the third harmony background in the group. There were three sisters, the singing part of Skyy, and prior to that we featured her sister who had a smoother, softer voice, and I remember thinking, “Why isn’t Denise singing lead?” So this record is the first to feature her lead vocal, which went on to be the sound of the group. But Gerald Lebon, the bass player, is really hot; I loved working with the group, great musicians. We went on to do stuff with Cameron, I used the Skyy rhythm section on all those tracks, we became a unit. I’m spontaneous, but I still like a structure, so what I’ll do is sit at a Rhodes, I’ll have a mic, everyone has their can. I generally don’t like the group to know the song too much in advance. I would sit with Denise and get a sense of the key. I don’t like to rehearse the vocals too much, give the guys the bassline so they can get the feel, then go in the studio without too much rehearsing, give the guys instructions over the cans. “Cymbals here… bam… let’s go.” We were just talking and rocking, and it comes out spontaneous, you can hear the life in the track. Everything locks, you get a great chemistry, the Skyy guys are great. And that’s a really cool, happy track and it’s memorable to me for Denise’s performance. Monk One You used the Skyy rhythm section on other projects, so you were getting other work at this time. Randy Muller I did some stuff with Tamiko Jones, I used them for Cameron. We were just a good unit, we locked well. And after a while, they knew what I liked. Most of my records, I hit my cymbals on the second beat of the measure – even in my new one, there’s something about that two I like, just put the crash on the two – it just pushes the beat a bit more. So, Tommy knew my hits, how I like the drums to flow… Monk One Were these the same guys who played on the Charles Earland stuff? Randy Muller That’s right, he played on Charles Earland. What’s the name of the song, “Let The Music Play?” Monk One We’ll hear a bit of that, but I want you to tell them about when you were rehearsing to make this. (music: Charles Earland – “Let The Music Play” / applause) Monk One This came out under Charles Earland’s name and it’s called “Let The Music Play.” Was that the Skyy girls in the background? Randy Muller Yes, I totally forgot about that song. Charles Earland is a very respected jazz organist… he’s done some great things, and at that time the dance thing was happening and everyone was going club so the company wanted to go into that market. They called me to hip him up, so I did and had a wonderful time working with Charles. He’s no longer with us, but he’s a brilliant cat. I recall a very interesting experience when we were rehearsing. We were in Detroit, he’d played in the club the night before and I flew in just to get things going, and he had his band there. Some of my charts are pretty hard, and I noticed one guy just fell out, the bass player just fell to the ground. “What’s this about?” Then the guitar guy fell to the ground. “What’s going on?” Suddenly, I was started feeling dizzy and it turned out we had a gas leak in the club and we almost collapsed and died. The gas had no odor, and I was thinking it’s the effect of the music, “This is amazing! The guys were dropping like flies.” I found myself going, and a guy was shouting, “Guys, get out, get out.” Someone came in and opened a door and we went to the hospital. Anyway, Charles… great guy, haven’t heard that track in a while and it sounds good. Monk One Another you played on was this one. (music: Tamiko Jones – “Can’t Live Without Your Love” / applause) Monk One That’s Tamiko Jones and “Can’t Live Without Your Love.” Randy Muller Yeah, wow. Monk One You definitely had some interesting keyboard and synth textures. You came up at a time when there was a transition from more traditional keyboards right up and through the full-on synthesizer era. Can you tell us about the transition, but first of all about what you used? Randy Muller For that record, for the “dugga-dugga” 16th thing in the back, I used a regular Clavinet and we put it through an MXR phase shifter, and we get
the big wide open sound. I think there was also a Fender Rhodes playing in the bottom along with Arp strings. Monk One You used the Oberheim? Randy Muller Yeah, for a lot of the tracks I used the Matrix 12, which gave you a lot
of fat sounds. As a matter of fact, that Skyy “Here’s To You,” that [makes synth noise] was the Matrix thing, the OB-8 was really on a Matrix 12 there, that was used a lot. But there was a time when we went through this change, and it was interesting because I came from that big horn
tradition and all of a sudden no one wants to hear horns. The guitar went out, the DX-7 came in, then all of a sudden, we had the Linn drum, the DMX drum, then the Linn drum, and also the Doctor Rhythm, going way back [laughs], and also the 808 and the 909, which are classic pieces now. But to me, the 808, 909, these are supposed to be real drum sounds, which they
failed at, but they finally came up with something which was a thing unto its own self. I remember Linn saying, “This sounds like real drums.” No, it’s not, but it filled a certain space and worked. Now the dance community took it up and the 909 sound became really cool for dance music, and then the 808, which even the rap cats were using, there was something about that. But, all of a sudden, horns weren’t happening, guitars were definitely out, it was anti-groove. But in rock music, they kept the guitars, kept the live drums. But in R&B, we moved into a very techno sound, very hip, got into technology a bit more. I remember with Brass Construction, it was brass, get it? You’ve got to use the brass. But it’s not happening, so we did a couple of albums where we didn’t use as much brass, we put it in a secondary, even tertiary stage in the production. “OK, we’re a brass band but we’re hip, too, and we try to get that sound.” Every so often you go through a cycle where a sound becomes popular. There was the Syndrum, “poow-poow,” remember [Anita Ward’s] “Ring My Bell?” You had
to have your Syndrum. We did a record “First Time Around” by Skyy on the first album, Larry Levan did the mix and his remix was Syndrum, man, almost the whole record [makes Syndrum noises]. It was like a Syndrum solo, because
that was the hot sound, it meant you were hip, so we plastered it with Syndrums to make it happen. The old analogue sounds weren’t hip anymore and technology was new, exciting and sexy and we got into that. So, you’ll hear some records that use more technology. Brass [Construction] did a record called “Walking the Line”, where we used more of the keyboards on the records. It was a very tough time for the acts, the traditional fans want you to sound the way you’re supposed to sound, but the general market is saying, “No, we don’t want that.” So, I tried to write more in the middle, but it was difficult. The guitars weren’t happening, so the keyboards were taking the place of the guitar. A lot of funk bands weren’t happening in the charts. Some big funk bands, like Earth, Wind & Fire made the transition, Kool & The Gang did, they got a new singer who was a bit more vocal. Kool & The Gang used to have some killer stuff, like “Hollywood Swinging,” just some amazing stuff. I used to love their stuff, some serious jazz stuff, too, but they shifted and got into more vocals and they became very successful with great records that topped the pop charts, not just the R&B charts. Monk One So what do you do, if you’re in that situation where you’ve been very successful with a certain style and now that style is just not considered hip any more? You’re Brass Construction, this producer comes in and says, “Your last record didn’t do that great, I think it’s because brass isn’t hip anymore. You need to call yourselves DX-7 Construction…” What do you do? Randy Muller We tried to handle it. We had a similar situation with some of the Skyy stuff. I remember some of the later records, it was, “You’ve got to get with what the kids are doing, we’ll get some of the kids in to write some stuff.” I found out a lot of it didn’t work, because it’s like trying to get your dad who’s 55 years old, and he puts on some new clothes and goes to the club and tries to be hip. But it doesn’t work, because it’s still your dad trying to be hip. So, we tried to maintain our sound. You could do things with the content of the song, make the lyrics a little more street relevant, a little more in-the-now. Like a guy speaking old English, saying, “thee,” “thy” and “thou.” OK, we don’t say “thee,” “thy” and “thou” any more, you just use more modern parlance, you say the same thing in a different way. You get some of the more modern instruments, you cooperate a little bit, you can make a marriage of it. Skyy were very good, we didn’t have too many horns, it wasn’t a horn-based band, we used them a bit when we needed that voice. But these guys were very good rock musicians, they used to prefer playing rock & roll stuff, they used to be called Fuel before then and they could do serious rock stuff. But, for commercial reasons, we said, “No, we’ve got a groove, let’s do this.” So, we did that, but without losing our identity. It’s a tough thing because you have to think, “Do I do what they want me to do or what I want to do?” The whole point is to sell records. I can make records all day that will please
me, and my boys around the block will think I’m the greatest guy in the world. But then you go into the market and you’re talking to yourself. You have to do something that will engage people, that seems relevant, that’s engaging enough for them to go in their pockets and buy that song. There are other songs out there, and they don’t have a billion dollars, they may only have $20. What am I going to spend my $20 on, this song or this song? You try to make it engaging enough that they buy your song. You have to always consider the market. “Who am I speaking to? What’s my audience?” If I’m going to speak to a Spanish guy, I may speak brilliant Latin or French, but you have to speak in his language to get through to him… it has to be engaging. It all has to do with the instrumentation and the colors of the track. It’s an interesting
question. Monk One So, around that time, the mid-’80s, late ’80s, when you were theoretically going out of style, you were actually coming back into style in the form of being sampled. There are plenty of tracks that were sampled that, but here’s one good example. (music: Skyy – “High”) Monk One What were you trying to do there with the strings? Randy Muller Well, it’s called “High,” so I thought of taking off. It’s kind of corny, but that’s what I had in mind. You say high, you think of flying, so we tried to reinforce that idea. Monk One Well, it works, and, obviously, a lot of other people picked up on it, whether it’s the bass drum or the groove, the way the whole thing locked together. Randy Muller I liked this song, it’s one of my favorites with Skyy. Sometimes you write a song and it’s OK, it’s not exactly what you had in mind. But this track by Skyy is one of my favorites… really well executed. Monk One Staying with Skyy, when you were almost done, I think it was the Skyyport, the third Skyy album, album, you were telling me you felt the album wasn’t finished, it needed something else. Can you tell us about this? Randy Muller When you do a record, as producers and creators, there has to be a certain kind of honesty. Your boys are around you – “That’s cool, that sounds hype” – but you have to step back and be objective. Your friends want to hype you up, they want to give you good news – “Yo, that’s the bomb” – but you try to step back and be objective. I did a Skyy album, I listened to it and I always have a test: would I buy that album? I thought it’s cool, but it still needs something to pull it together, give it that little bit of rawness. And this album, I went in that day to re-edit that stuff, downstairs where we edit the tapes, and I just said, “No, this record is not working.” I had an idea of what to do. I gave the drummer a beat, got the secretary from the studio, a guy delivering a pizza, I said, “You want to be on a record? Come here.” I had this hook, “No Music,” because there was no music. The bass guy wasn’t there, it was just something I made up just to make the whole thing congeal. So this is the track, it’s called “No Music.” We had a thing called the Skyyzoo [kazoo], and we just put a little melody on top and this is the song. (music: Skyy – “No Music” / applause) Randy Muller That’s the pizza guy doing the clapping. Monk One And that’s what the album needed. I want you to let people know what you’ve been working on these days, but also, if anyone’s got any questions, ask away. So what’s going on? Randy Muller I’m doing a couple of things. As I said, I love the flute and I’ve done a lot of things that feature brass and horns. I always wanted to do something with my flute, something mellow. I was going to do some straight-ahead jazz, but the smooth jazz genre is growing, the new jazz thing is happening, and I wanted to do something different from what I’ve done in the past because there are different aspects. So I decided to form a group called Randy Muller Boom Chang Bang, the weirdest thing, but I love the name. What is a “Boom Chang Bang?’ I don’t know, but it sounds cool, so it’s Randy Muller Boom Chang Bang, and we’ve done this CD. I’m also doing a ’70s funk album, which is exciting because it’s going back to this kind of stuff. It’s an act called Soul Biscuits and that’s going to be with the live stuff, but incorporating the new technology too. It’s going to have live guitar, live drums, the cheesy hooks that I used to do. It’s something I want to do, just go back to basics, go all out to the end, then back to basics. I’m also doing a hip-hop artist called Shadina – that’s more of a Mary J. Blige type of thing, but I think she’s just
a brilliant singer, so I’m working on those albums. Monk One You’ve also worked with Kenny Dope extensively to reissue your back catalogue. I think there are a couple of CDs out… Randy Muller Kenny and I did an album called Randy Muller’s Best. We took a lot of the old stuff, went back and got the 16-track and 24-track masters. Some guys rerelease these compilations and it’s basically the same song on there, just put a bunch of songs on one thing. We decided to go back to the original masters, put some more modern punch on there, it goes through an SSL, which is something we didn’t have in those days. Give it a little more punch, don’t mess around, keep it pure. Kenny did a great job on that, hooked it up, rocked it, couple of edits. So that’s an album out now, Kenny Dope Presents Randy Muller’s Best. Monk One And they can get this stuff where? Randy Muller Oh, it’s like a commercial. My label’s called Plaza Records, you can go to www.plazarecords.com and see also the other stuff we have. Also, Traxsource, for a lot of you guys who are into dance music, that’s a great place to get funky music. You can go to Traxsource and look for Plaza Records. For my smooth jazz stuff, you can go to Wavehill. Or you can go to CDbaby.com, they’ll mail it out to you. The Randy Muller Boom Chang Bang, just came out last week. Monk One So anybody out there got something to say? Hang on, you’ve got to wait for the microphone. Audience Member There’s an obvious progression in the string writing from the early BT Express stuff to Skyy and I wondered if there was a point where you specifically checked out string music. If so, what was it? Randy Muller I love the stuff out of Philly, I love that Philly thing. Thom Bell I listen to a lot. The old Stylistics stuff, oh my god, the arrangements are like butter, wonderful, great writing. I also listen to a lot of Van McCoy, he ended up doing “The Hustle.” He was a great guy, he did a lot of charts around town. But yes, a lot of Thom Bell stuff, I used to listen to it and take it in. I just love that Philly thing later on, just great music. So a lot of strings, not counting the classical stuff I would listen to. Audience Member You mentioned gospel earlier, I wanted to know if you worked with Shirley Caesar? Randy Muller I did an arrangement of a song called “No Charge,” I don’t know if you know that song. Audience Member Yes, I do. Randy Muller “No Charge” was a song where we needed some things. The song’s considered a classic now. It was an honor, I didn’t really know who she was. This person called Shirley Caesar, I didn’t know, but the guy said she’s really big. And it’s such an interesting, honest song about a little guy whose mother wants him to take out the garbage and he wants to charge her… And the mother gives him this list: for the cost of carrying you, no charge, for all these other things, no charge, and she just slams him with this stuff. Great record. Audience Member What was it like working with her? Randy Muller I didn’t know her because she did the vocals before. But last week she was performing at A Night Of Healing, the Rev Shirley Caesar I understand, but I hear she’s a wonderful person. Audience Member So you haven’t been able to meet her all this time? Randy Muller No, no, I’ve never met Shirley Caesar or had a discussion or anything. Audience Member Since you started making music the way people listen to it has changed a lot, from vinyl to iPod. What do you think of that? How does it make people experience music differently? Randy Muller A lot of it’s about the sound. We just put together these blocks of sound. You talk about Phil Spector with his Wall of Sound, we can just do that, we have that ability to lay a bunch of stuff. I just got into using the Stylus, which is really cool, you can get a whole bunch of stuff. I have a track on the Soul Biscuits thing like that. I’ve stayed away from plug-ins, but now I’m starting to use them a bit more, so I got into the
Trilogy and Stylus thing, which are great tools. There’s one track where I used the Stylus and the drummer, integrating the two, going from the drummer to the Stylus and
back again. It’s a weird thing I’ve started to do, because the stylus can give you really live sounding stuff, if you know how to manipulate it properly. I like things really precise, I want my beats a certain way and in some cases, you can get it. With the Stylus Commercial, you can make the tempo go up, put a human touch to it. But I think it’s more of a sound experience. Some songs don’t even have bass, because the frequency spectrum is all taken care of, you can have an 808 or something take care of the bottom of the range so the song has that wide spectrum. I think the average listener is very sophisticated, we got used to good sound today. They may not tell you, “It needs 60hz,” or whatever, but they can say, “I like that one, I don’t like that one.” They’re not going to do an analysis, but they’re very aware of the sound and how it hits them. Before, there was more of an emotional interplay, people were listening and sometimes the lyric was so strong they didn’t care so much about the music carrying it. Today, I think Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation says it all. We’ve got to have a kicking beat, the sound’s got to be right, for dance music and the popular stuff we do, it is like a rhythm nation… Monk One But, in a way, nothing’s changed because you talked about how you guys used to write songs that had to have that low end, they’ve got to be pumping. Randy Muller It’s like, say, we used to drink pure water, then someone puts a little sugar into it and you think, “That tastes good.” So they put a little more in and we got used to the good sound. The whole thing evolves like a Darwinian thing. With sampling we took the best stuff from that period and goosed it up even more and made it stronger. We took four of those things and put them together and got something new. We listen to the sound spectrum and we don’t get too deep into analysis, but we know it needs a little 30hz. With the Skyy stuff, we always used to boost that 60hz or we’d go to the 30, a +2 on the 30, just for the kick on the bass, just to give it that drop. Now if you’re doing rock & roll you don’t get care about the bottom so much, but in R&B that bottom is very important. Audience Member Most of your records we’ve listened to were sampled in the ’90s, but you didn’t get any credit. How do you feel about that? Randy Muller No, some of them we did, we had a very good publishing administrator. That “High” record, Too $hort, the rapper, did a whole record on it. He had the word in the title. Some records slipped through the cracks, but for the most part we did deals with the companies for compensation. Today they’ll give us some credit on it. Some of them, it’s just so long ago, forget about it. Audience Member Could we also listen to some of the new stuff, the hip-hop? Randy Muller Sure. It’s totally different, but there’s a song on there, the title track called “Groovin’ U,” where I wanted to create a very ’70s feel, smooth jazz, yet very raw. You’ll hear “Groovin’ U”, then you’ll hear a house track for which Kenny Dope did a mix. It’s called “Devotion”, where I took a gospel singer, taking quote/unquote smooth jazz and new jazz to another place. It’s very housey. (music: Randy Muller Boom Chang Bang – “Groovin’ U” / applause) Randy Muller This is not done for a dance audience, more of a smooth jazz audience. Monk One Smooth jazz isn’t hip, man. Randy Muller I know. We have another thing called “Standing In The Rain,” just to show you the range of what I’m doing. (music: Randy Muller – “Standing In The Rain” / applause) Randy Muller It’s very different from the first track. You’ll find the Soul Biscuits thing is very different. It’s a very rough draft. This is a song I wrote in high school. The horns aren’t real, I just put in a sampler, which wouldn’t even hold it out. So this is a rough draft of Soul Biscuits “Beautiful Day.” (music: Soul Biscuits – “Beautiful Day”) Randy Muller These are just roughs, it has to be mixed and the sound made stronger. Audience Member Maybe two little things before you go. It’s remarkable to see you embrace working with Kenny Dope so strongly. He’s a guy who has great attention to detail, he can tune a hi-hat for six hours. Could you tell us how you got to know him, the intricacies of his work and if that relates to what you were doing? Randy Muller I don’t really look back to see what I’ve done and realize my connection to other things… I can’t get too specific if you want me to connect my work with someone else. Audience Member Did you find out about The Bucketheads before the check from the publishers was in the mail or afterwards? Randy Muller Kenny had done it before, but they did the right thing and went through the publishers, got the clearance. A lot of old tracks for me are over, they’re done, then someone comes and puts some life into it and recontextualizes the whole track and gives it life for a new generation, which is great, I encourage that. Matter of fact, I’ve been working on taking a bunch of my tracks and giving them, to producers. Those guys want to remix, fine by me, it’s keeping it alive. Audience Member Speaking of keeping it alive, we understand you are a musician, but there’s this keyboard thing set up there. Is that because it looks good… Randy Muller It’s great aesthetics [laughs]. That was just in case I wanted to demo something. Audience Member This could be the case. Monk One Play some chords, man, show us you’re a real musician. [Starts playing / applause] Randy Muller I don’t know what to play, I can’t think of anything. No, this is too jazzy. The thing with the funk thing, you need a good beat and I don’t think I’m in the mood to sing a ballad. But yeah, I’ve been known to play the keyboards now and then. Monk One So if some of you can set up a good beat while Randy’s hanging around here, we might be able to entice him to get into the studio. But, for now, I’d like to thank Randy for coming down here. [Applause]