Wally Badarou

Benji B

Now, as I was just discussing with my colleague, Jeff, there's enough to talk about to make this lecture last about a week. We're going to do our best to try and navigate it in the next 90 minutes or so. I think really the most natural point to start off in this huge area that we have to talk about is really to ask you, Wally, what it is that made you first do what you do?

Wally Badarou

Hello everybody, hope you’re all doing alright. Jetlag has passed away? I suppose it’s a seek for visuals, a seek for honesty and many things. When I was young, when I was about 14, anyone who knew me would swear that I was to become a pilot because I was into aviation so much. Anything that resembled a cockpit was heaven for me and the first time I entered a recording studio I saw a cockpit. I saw a place that was nothing, that was just cold equipment, cold gear, and you just had to bring your knowledge, your experience of life, what it is that you wanted to do and where you wanted to go to make it fly. That's what a recording studio is to me ever since. Nowadays it's a laptop, but that hasn't changed. It's the same thing. That's what made me do what I do.

Benji B

How would you best describe what it is that you do?

Wally Badarou

If you look at my website you would see the first thing I put was a painter. I think I’m a painter. Actually, I thought I was but I didn’t dare say it up until Manu Dibango told me, “Wally, you’re a painter,” and I said, “Oh, yes. Thank you. That’s exactly what I want to be.” I’m a painter, but I think we’re very privileged in making music that we design to think that we want to paint and painters normally, actually, take their models from outside of their minds to actually paint something. Unless we’re talking about abstract painting. Even abstract painting derives more or less from the regular thing that you can’t actually see. I’m a painter. I’m a soul painter. I paint with music. I paint with notes. I paint with sounds. I paint with melodies. Melodies come first to me. I know it sounds a bit strange for somebody that loves James Brown, but I can tell that James Brown is a melody man before being a rhythm, a groove maker.

Benji B

How can you tell that?

Wally Badarou

Well, listen back to what he did in the ’50s, ’60s, and you’ll find out that he was an incredible melody singer to start with.

Benji B

In melody versus groove, melody wins for you?

Wally Badarou

Yes. That’s a very hard issue to me, even today. I believe that the value of a melody is difficult to appreciate. It is more than just putting notes together. It is actually creating textures. With just a melody, with just knowing exactly what an instrument can do you can create things that the best synthesizer in the world won’t do. I’m a synthesizer specialist, by the way. Sorry to say. The more I learn, and the more I get I’m growing to mastering my machines the more I realized that people like Ravel and Debussy were capable of doing the exact same thing, even better than what we do with synthesizers, just by using the right timbre from an oboe and a cello and a flute and a violin. They do that just by telling each of them what exactly to play. What note to play. I believe that, also, if you listen to, I don’t know how many of us here know about Joseph Savino, weather report, he would pick up any synthesizer even the cheapest one, plastic sounding chord machine, and make it sound incredible. Simply because he’d be playing the right notes. That to me is key.

Benji B

Though you paint with a range of different mediums, as a producer and as a musician your paintbrush of choice is the keys...

Wally Badarou

It’s the keys, yes. It’s the synthesizer. I see in the synthesizer the extension of the recording studio medium, which is that you’d have something that is totally bland that has nothing. I mean, when I started with the synthesizer. Nowadays the synthesizers are loaded with thousands of sounds and you can download them by the millions, but when I started out a synthesizer was just a blank piece of machine with just patch chords and we had to devise the sound from the ground up. And that was what a recording studio was also. Tape machine was just sitting there and you had to put something into it that would make the whole of the world dance to what you did. That for me, it’s unbelievable. It still is an unbelievable experience. I will tell you about what I’m doing nowadays, if you ask me, “What do you do today, Wally?” I know that we’ll come back to that later. I’m a stage actor. Yes. I went into theater five years ago and I embraced that thing like, wow, and I thought it was that different from music. It’s the exact same thing. But we are very privileged that the thing that we are expressing come from our inner soul. Where a stage actor will impersonate somebody that is a character out of a book, out of a novel. Why was I going onto that? I can’t remember anymore.

Benji B

What you’re doing right now.

Wally Badarou

Yes, because I just wanted to talk about what actually is the beginning of things. What I love about music is that you can actually go anywhere in the world. Do I have a favorite place in the world? No. I can be happy anywhere as long as I have a place where I can start something that is within myself and I will propel, that I will project to the world. That will go beyond the four walls of wherever I am. That’s basically it. Yeah.

Benji B

Even though you consider yourself a citizen of the world now, and have traveled everywhere, where did it start for you? Where were you born?

Wally Badarou

I’m African from Benin. Yoruba. From a Muslim father. A Catholic mother. I speak French. I speak English. I spent ten years in Africa, about ten to 15 years in the Bahamas speaking English. I spent a lot of time in London eating Indian food and the rest of it in France and in America. So, I belong to the world. Actually it sounds corny, but it’s a reality. One of my main mottos is that you are not reduced to where you come from. Where you were raised is part of who you are, but so is everywhere else, each and every experience that you go through is your roots, just as much as where you come from. That’s my belief. All those wonderful experiences, all those wonderful people that I’ve been privileged to work with are my foundation, just as much as where I come from.

Benji B

Just to fill people in, can you give us a few examples of people that you have collaborated with over the years?

Wally Badarou

I’ve been really privileged to work with some of my heroes. To start with yesterday I named a few. The music that was on when you came in was from Fela, and I produced a double album by Fela made of three songs. I worked with James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul,” that was a very short-lived experience but we will talk about that later. I worked with Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones. I worked with Paul McCartney, we had a jam together in my studio. I just cannot believe even today that I did all those things with all those people. Herbie Hancock, Josef Zawinul. I am yet to work with Stevie Wonder, but we worked with Quincy Jones on the French bicentennial, he was our godfather. That’s more or less it, really.

Benji B

When would you say was the bulk of your most well-known music recorded?

Wally Badarou

In the ’80s, I would say. Most of what people know about me came from the ’80s area. In Europe and England I was involved with a band called Level 42. I was the so-called fifth member. I not only worked with them but we co-wrote tunes together. That was from the England side of things. From the West Indies, Island Records side of things, I would be talking about Grace Jones, Robert Palmer, the Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Jimmy Cliff, a bit of Bob Marley on a soundtrack that I did that was called Countryman. Um, Gregory Isaacs. I don’t have a list of all that stuff. All that era. French artists as well, maybe if I say Serge Gainsbourg it will mean something to someone here. [people in audience nod] OK. Also lots of African artists, like Manu Dibango, Salif Keita, Youssou N’Dour. I had the privilege to work with a fabulous Indian percussion player called Trilok Gurtu. I went to Bombay to work with him.

Benji B

I think we are going to go into depth in some of those areas later on, but you also were involved as a session player with some absolute smash hits in the ’80s, certainly some records that were on heavy rotation when I was a child. Shall we let them have a listen?

(music: Robert Palmer – “Addicted To Love”)

(music: Foreigner – “I Wanna Know What Love Is”)

(music: M – “Pop Muzik”)

Wally Badarou

That one, “Pop Muzik,” was actually very precious to me because it was the very first one I did with a British band. Up to then I was just a regular French session player. And I was working on small pieces of music – should I be honest to everybody here? For “films roses,” doing little pieces of music for, say, sex movies. You got to make a living somewhere. [laughter] The bass player was English and the drummer was English and between sessions we used to jam a bit. One of them said, “You should meet my brother. He is working on something I am sure you are going to love it.”

So one day I was sleeping because I had a very long night demo-ing on my four-track Teac machine. I received a call from that guy, “Wally, you should come over, it’s great!“ And I said, “I am too tired,” but I went over anyway. I brought my Korg machine which only had one preset, polyphonic ensemble, and there it was. It was “Pop Muzik.” It was his 15th version of the song. And we spent a whole week devising just the bass sound because in those days synthesizers didn’t have neither memory nor MIDI. So by the time we had the sound it was out of tune and we couldn’t keep it so we had to do it again.

[video cuts to new section] The Compass Point All Stars was a dream of the founder of Island Records, Christopher Blackwell. He had an album that he wanted to do for Grace Jones, who happened to be Jamaican also, and his idea was to get some kind of a cocktail of musicians. He had Sly & Robbie in the pocket already. He did not know me, but he had heard of me through “Pop Muzik” and also with a band I used to do with a band called the Gibson Brothers, a tune called “Cuba,” and he said, “OK, Wally, I want you on this.” And I took the plane and landed there and met Sly, Robbie. I did not know who those guys were, really. Even Chris Blackwell. I saw somebody coming to the control room, barefooted, just sitting relaxed and everything. “Oh, you want to do this? OK.” I was furious. Why? I was a regular session player and you say nine o’clock in the morning and at five to nine, I’m there, ready to go. In the Bahamas – we’re talking Jamaican style, we are talking “soon come.” So I waited for four days and nothing happened. When the session finally started, I was furious, I just wanted to go home, I had had enough of it there, up until we did “Private Life.” Do you have that thing?

(music: Grace Jones – “Private Life”)

... So, it would have been very difficult publishing-wise to start to share credit. Still, today nobody would do that without getting a share [of the credit], right? [to participant] You wouldn’t do that without having a share, would you?

(music: Grace Jones – “Private Life (Dub)”)

I used to be called Prophet. “Hey, Prophet!” Ah, look at that. And it was, buy-ba-yup-by-yubup. To me it was just, OK, this is what I have for the time being. I’ll come back later and devise something smarter than this. I can’t leave this. You can’t keep this. There we go again. The good thing about working with people also is that you learn from them. You learn from their body language, you learn from the way they react, that you’re actually there. The thing that you’re looking for is already there. You don’t have to be too hard on yourself sometimes.

Benji B

Can you tell us about what you learned from Sly & Robbie in that period?

Wally Badarou

Well, that very thing, which is that if it was not cooking, it was not cooking, and there was no point trying to even go any further. Blackwell will come with a bunch of tunes to try, and they will give just a couple tries to each of them. If, on the second try, if it was not cooking, forget it. I was like, “That’s it. Look, we can still do it. We can do it, please.” “No, no. It’s not happening. Forget it.” And they were right, because see, when I left Nassau, the very first year, I was so happy to be back to the regular thing. You know, nine in the morning, five to nine. I’m on time. I was doing all those boring sessions, and one day I just put a cassette of the rough mixes of those things and I listened and realized that this was music. That’s what music is all about. It’s got to be just there. Sometimes it needs to be worked. Sometimes it just needs to flow.

This is the hardest thing that we musicians have to come to terms with. When is it that you actually made it? Do you still need to work harder on what you did, or is it already there? How do you define that? There’s some level of self-censorship that we have to go through. Even I, I come with things. There’s one tune that I want you to have a listen to, but I’m not even sure that you should listen to it because I don’t know if it’s already there yet, you know? How do you define that? That’s where being a producer comes in.

Benji B

When is the painting finished, kind of thing?

Wally Badarou

Exactly. Talking about Fela, for instance. How can you produce Fela? Nobody can produce Fela. He is larger than life, OK? But even being larger than life, sometimes it’s good to have that other ear who’s going to tell you that you already done it. It’s there. Don’t go any further. That’s all I did. I did not give any direction to Fela. I mean, Fela knows what he’s doing. I cannot teach him Afrobeat.

Benji B

Yeah, but you still have to record the fifteen horns in the back.

Wally Badarou

Yeah, and the 20 women and fight against that kid who is trying to shut the SSL computer off right in the middle of the mix. That was horrendous, yet it was very short. We did the whole double album in three days from start to finish, mixing included. Well, we didn’t have much time to fiddle around anyway. Each song is about forty-five minutes long, so the question was, “When does it start, actually?” We just had to be ready to go onto to blood light, as they say in Jamaica. Red button.

Benji B

How did you know what was a take and what was rehearsal in that situation.

Wally Badarou

Well, we just guessed that. By the time they rehearsed the fifth or seventh section of the song, they were ready to go. For us, they didn’t even give us a start time. They just said, “One, two,” and it was, “Oh, get in,” and that was the take. There was no double take. There was no second chance.

Benji B

We’ve spoken extensively about your work as a session musician and as an arranger, but as you’ve just mentioned, you also did a lot of producing as well. In your mind, what is a producer?

Wally Badarou

As I tried to say, it’s actually, for me, the man who is an alter-ego to the artist and who will be able to tell him that he is already there. That’s basically what a producer is. Actually, it is more than that obviously. In a conventional way the producer would choose the material with the artist, would choose the studio, the engineer, the musicians, the arranger – all of that. That is what a producer used to be in my days. Nowadays, people believe that being a producer is to go into a studio with a drum machine or a computer and start programming things. I never do that unless that is part of what the artist wants me to do. Being a producer for me is from start to finish discussing the project. What is it that you want to do? Why do you want to do this album? What is it that you want to make it different from the rest of the pack? Discuss that in-depth before going to the studio.

Benji B

How do you get the best out of the artist once you are in the actual creative zone in the studio? What is the secret?

Wally Badarou

I don’t know if there is any. It really depends on the artist, it depends on the vibes, it depends on the music. There are always so many different parameters. There is one artist called Carlinhos Brown from Brazil. The man wouldn’t stop writing. Every day he came with ten new songs. “Wally, you should listen to this! Listen to this! Listen to this!” I said, “Please, let’s finish what we already have in the works, and then we will go into something else.” There was a song called “Argila,” which was one of these new ideas, and it is one of the best songs in the album. I had to give to him at least a chance to listen to the album. He played acoustic guitar and I played Fender Rhodes and we did it in one take. We did it in one take because it was late at night, I was hungry, I was tired and I wanted to go home. And it is one of the best songs on the album.

Benji B

As a producer, how do you react to being produced?

Wally Badarou

I’ve never been produced as a solo artist. As a session musician, it is like being an actor, you take directions from the producer. But most of the time I have been very lucky to work with a lot of people who wanted me in the studio because they knew that the type of color I would bring in, the type of melodies, counter-melodies, gimmicks and everything would just fit the work. One of the great examples of this is Gregory Isaacs’s Night Nurse – one of my all time favorite albums because it happened so very easily.

The album was not even planned to me, I just landed there and found out I was wanted on board, “Here’s the Prophet 5.” I was jetlagged, I was tired. Again, most of the great events of my life happened when I wanted to go home. It was a one night thing for me. All those 15 tracks maybe, done in one night! They had been cutting down the tracks for three or four days before. It was real fast, real sparse, fantastic singing, lots of space, beautiful. Still today, I play it as if I wasn’t part of it. I’m really proud of that album.

Benji B

If you’re not sure what he’s talking about, you’ll definitely recognize this in a minute.

(music: Gregory Isaacs – “Night Nurse”)

Wally Badarou

Thank you very much. Again, this is such an explicit example because what I did on that one was very simple as well. I only did that stab, badap-bap. Which is part of the rhythm, which is almost part of the melody. I was not told to do that. This is why I still believe that I am a melody man, because what I had in mind was a melody and I brought it to the song to finish or complete the idea already behind the melody. Sometimes it’s there and you don’t even notice.

Benji B

Before we move onto your work as a composer and your solo work, we should talk a bit about Level 42. It’s a big part of your life, right?

Wally Badarou

Yes. Level was also one of the things that I didn’t plan. It actually derived from the “Pop Muzik” experience. I met Phil Gould, the drummer, when we were rehearsing “Pop Muzik” for the BBC Top of the Pops music show. Again, we were just jamming in between takes and it happened that we loved the same thing, which was jazz fusion. Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin. He said, “Wally, I want you to meet that fantastic bass player that I am working with. His name is Mark and I am sure you are going to love what we do.”

So I met Mark and that was it. It was jazz fusion and Mark was doing his thumb thing on the bass – incredible. But to me, I didn’t take it seriously because I was already really into that sort of thing in France years before, but I was just happy to fly to London to play with people. That was what made me come back to London. Aviation? London? And then gradually, they started to sell. And it was like, “Oh yes, we can sell that?” And they could sing, oh my god! The day I met Herbie Hancock, I had the chance to meet him. He said, “Wally, you don’t know, but you guys are blessed. Because not only can you play but you can sing.” I didn’t realize that. And not only could they sing but they could also write pop songs.

A lot of people have been criticizing Level 42 for leaving the jazz fusion thing and going towards more commercial stuff. I would reply that, for us musicians, if you can devise a great melody, don’t be afraid to do so. No matter how hard you are going to be criticized for trying to seek commercial success. This is stupid. Just go for what you think is great. And having a great melody never hurts anybody. We managed to write and co-write hits together. Till today I am proud of it and that makes my living. Thank you!

(music: Level 42 – “Starchild”)

Benji B

Tell us, for the nerds in the room, what are the synths you are using on that one?

Wally Badarou

Prophet 5. I’ve been a Prophet 5 man for quite a long time. I started out with Korg machines at first. My main horse for quite a long time was a Korg 800-DV, dual voices. Then I switched onto the Prophet 5. Then, before I could afford it, I was granted enough money in a publishing advance to get a Synclavier. Now, let me talk about the Synclavier. The Synclavier is a dinosaur today. It is a huge machine, much larger than this speaker, higher than that. It was not a micro computer it was a mini computer in those days, a main frame computer. It was one of the first machines ever to be able to sample. To be able to do some FM synthesis, which now is commonplace, like the DX7 and everything. To do notation on the screen, to have a hard drive, to have a floppy drive – all those things are commonplace today, were pioneered either by the Synclavier from New England Digital or the Fairlight, which was the equivalent almost.

The Synclavier had that thing that still makes it one of the best machines even today: The quality of the digital to analog converters. They are much better than the Pro Tools one even today. They are almost like the Apogee’s, I would say. Even today they will have Synclavier rooms in Hollywood, if you are listening to Titanic, you are listening to the Synclavier. It was extremely expensive, because it was a pioneering machine. Adding anything on to it was mind-bogglingly expensive, sixty thousand dollars just to add a four-track machine.

Benji B

What year was that?

Wally Badarou

That was back in 1986 or ’87. That was a lot of money. That was why they went down the well. Nowadays, with a laptop you can do just as much, but in those days being able to compose, play music, not having to rewind, being able to change the sound without having to perform again, that was unbelievable. Unbelievable! I remember days and nights I was staying awake thinking back, “I wish I had this machine when I was doing that album!” When I had to redo it all over again because one sound was a little out of tune. I still have the Synclavier, it’s a wonderful piece of furniture. [laughter] I don’t use it anymore. A very beautiful piece of furniture, very expensive.

Benji B

You are evidently someone who embraced technology from the onset. What is your weapon of choice today?

Wally Badarou

Well, like everybody else in this room I am doing most of my work out of virtual synthesizers. I think it is unbelievable. I think it’s great. I still need my vintage just to feel like any time I want to indulge into the hands-on knobs fashion, I can still revert to that. But as I evolve, I am happy just dealing with a mouse. As long as I can still create my own sounds, which is what I really encourage everybody here to do. Of course, we have tons and millions of sounds at reach because we can download easily, we can have tones, and we can muck about and change this and that. Still you end up sounding like most of the rest of the pack. There is nothing like coming almost from scratch and devising your own sound. It’s not just self-fulfilling, it’s also putting you apart. You can create something very distinct that way. It is almost the only way that you can do that. I haven’t been proven wrong so far. Can I play something out of my machine here?

(music: Level 42 — unknown)

OK, now one more thing very quickly.

(music: I Muvrini – unknown)

The common thing between those two songs is the sound in the background and that sound I spent nights developing. The first thing was Level 42, obviously, and the second one was a Corsican band called I Muvrini. That sound I spent nights developing. You cannot maybe realize, but what it’s doing, it is not like an organ sound, but like a pulsating heart that would be beating between left and right, not just doing a vibrato, not just doing a tremolo, but more than that, it is moving within itself. If you had cans on your ears you would be surrounded by something which would remind you of being in a rock type situation. When those Corsican guys called me, they heard that Level 42 thing and they knew it would work for their song. That is what I like about being able to craft your own sound.

Benji B

Everyone has their own line in the sand about intellectual copyright and where that starts and ends. In your mind, do you feel you really have to create your own sound to feel your music is truly your own?

Wally Badarou

Yes, probably because I’ve been raised that way. Even today, most people assume that I am very good at sampling. I am not. People think that because I have a Synclavier I have a huge library of sounds. I do not. Most of the sounds that you hear me playing are sounds I have created either from scratch or from the very basic sine wave tables. But it is something I really want to develop. I am not saying that everybody should be doing it; maybe you could be happy with using other peoples’ sound. But I wouldn’t be satisfied using other peoples’ sounds because I know I can do it myself. And, as a matter of fact, I’ve been part of developing sounds for companies like Arturia, the French-based virtual synthesizer makers. People of my generation want to believe that when you want to do things you can do it from scratch. Why buy sounds when you can do it by yourself?

Benji B

Which brings us on to the question of sampling and how you feel about that?

Wally Badarou

That’s an issue, because I am going to make a lot of enemies here, but when sampling was invented we thought that it was an opportunity given to us musicians to explore things that have never been done before, and that has been achieved to some extent. But then, that is probably not what most people have been using sampling for ever since. Most people actually use sampling to build upon other peoples’ work. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, anything that I do was also inspired by other peoples work. If you listen to “Chief Inspector,” all I was trying to do was emulate Lalo Schifrin’s “Mannix.”

(music: Wally Badarou – “Chief Inspector”)

...mixing, having the musicians all together and everything. And, um, at first I felt uneasy about it. For quite a long time actually. But then I realized that doing that, you can still create something. It is not just building upon, you can actually retrieve things that the original work didn’t really pursue. So it could be an entire direction on its own. And as long as the original composer or artist is actually rewarded his own regular share and has been granted permission to do so, there is no problem. The issue here is that it’s kind of a delicate issue.

If you listen to Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” and then to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” I would say, what I liked about “Pastime Paradise” is it went through all those changes, it’s not just a groove, it had a bridge and I love all those things about it. But if you asked Coolio, he would just say, no, it’s the groove, and we can just do the thing on the groove itself. It’s a different way of looking at things. I am more sensitive to what it was originally than to what it ended up being with Coolio. Yet I understand that there is a beauty to that as well. Being a first-hour fan of James Brown where I can listen to “Escap-ism” for hours, or tunes like “Sex Machine” around the clock until six o’clock in the morning. I am sensitive to just groove-based music as well.

Benji B

You mention James Brown and obviously, whole generations of people spent their lives extending the breaks in the middle of those songs, and that goes for your songs too. Are you aware of the fact that a lot of your work with that rhythm section of Sly & Robbie had on the hip-hop generation? I’ve got a couple of things here...

(music: Kool DJ Red Alert beat-juggling Grace Jones “Pull Up to the Bumper”)

Wally Badarou

I do not relate to this personally, like on a musical level. I would relate to it more in terms of a reward. Anybody who will take any of the work that I’ve done in the past and using it is showing interest and that is enough of a reward for me. They don’t even have to justify. Years ago, I would have said, “You want to do a remix of my tune? OK, well, can I listen to it?” Nowadays, I don’t even do that anymore. You want to do your version of it, please, be my guest – do it!

Should I appreciate what you do? In terms of music, I don’t know if that’s the issue. Whatever you do, I know that you are paying tribute to what I did, and that only is enough for me. When Stanley Kubrick took the music of Johann Strauss for 2001 Space Odyssey everyone thought it was a great idea. It’s not just a classic movie and a classical piece of music, but the combination of the two is a classic piece of art. Now, I would love to know what would Johann Strauss think of it. Maybe he would say, “This guy did not have a clue about what my music is all about.”

Benji B

We’ve got a good example of the blurred line between sampling and the cover version. Or sampling and the remix. What I’m about to play comes from one of Wally Badarou’s solo albums entitled Echoes and if you are not already familiar with this album, you may well recognise what I am about to play via a different source. This track is called “Mambo.”

(music: Wally Badarou — “Mambo” / applause)

(Massive Attack - “Daydreaming” / laughter)

When there is sampling on that level, as the artist – how do you feel about that?

Wally Badarou

Great! [laughter / applause] They took the whole lot, right? But it was done on purpose, this had been discussed before they did it. I had no problem with that at all. I believe it’s a tribute and that’s how I should look at it.

Benji B

And on that level, just to touch on some of the more boring, business side of things. For people that are in the process of starting their own creations, be that on labels or through digital media or whatever, are there some basic business pitfalls to watch out for that you may have learned from?

Wally Badarou

I wish I had some recipes or secrets but I don’t, really. My only advice is – you are out in the bushes; it’s a jungle out there, right? Depending on who you meet, on who you work with, depending on your personality, depending on so many parameters, things are going to change. Sometimes, you need to be forceful about things. Sometimes, you need to let things flow. All you need, I believe, is to keep your eyes open, no matter what. It’s a really, really crowded world out there and it is very difficult to get noticed.

Each of us believe that people should take pay attention to what we do. Maybe the secret is to be able to accept that this might not be the case all the time, but it will be the case once. When will that be? How will that be? Who with? You cannot plan, no matter how hard you try. Even today, listening to these things, sitting here in front of you guys, is overwhelmingly difficult to understand to me. What did I do? I mean, look, this piece, “Mambo,” do you know how it was crafted? LinnDrum, that was a drum machine. I was just fiddling with the machine, trying to work out how to store the programs and I had that thing and I had the “Chief Inspector” drums and that was it. It’s as easy as that.

Then in the studio we had a ball, the engineer and myself, listening just to drums and that was why you had that long introduction to the melody. I did not expect that tune to go any further than, say, a few Hollywood people who might think it could be a good soundtrack to a film. And that was it. Then, for Massive Attack to have used it, it was unbelievable. It was not expected. That is the beauty of it, when you do not expect success, that’s where you can really nail it. Anything which has been forged towards success, to me, never really works. Look, I worked with Mick Jagger. Has anyone heard that tune that I did? Can I play it?

(music: Mick Jagger – “Lucky In Love”)

Well, well, well. He was lucky in love. [laughter] That never really did it, really. But I feel privileged that I was part of his first solo effort. I worked with Fela, it was a good album, yet it didn’t sell massive. Things that really worked for me were not “prestigious,” they were simple things, like the Level 42, I never thought that it would work. The Chief Inspector thing, and “Pop Muzik” was refused everywhere. That guy fought hard to have a label release it. Robert Palmer, “Addicted to Love” was supposed to be a failure up until we had the video. “I Want To Know What Love Is,” that was supposed to be a failure too. I mean, the album was so expensive that the record company, I think it was Warner, thought that the album would go down the well just like Titanic. It was supposed to be a Titanic album and it sold millions.

Benji B

So what is success to you?

Wally Badarou

It is just that unexpected thing. It is that thing that you go with your heart and you do not really plan anything other than to be true to yourself and put down what you think is good. That’s it. It’s a magical moment in time and space where what you do meets what people are ready to listen to. It’s a cross-section between those two curves. How much you can plan what people are going to be available to and what you actually do... How can you plan those two? There are people called record executives, A&R people, who are paid to understand those curves. I wouldn’t like their job, not at all. I prefer mine, I tell you. No matter how successful or unsuccessful I may be – because believe it or not, I have more failures than successes, even though all those things show like, “Oh, well he can do anything. Anything he does just goes beyond...” You know? That’s not true. Before I get that, there’s been a lot and a long string of unsuccesses, or failures. You have to take your part of that.

Benji B

I just want to go back to the film thing for a minute, because you just reminded me, talking about 2001 and the soundtrack for that, that you’ve also scored for films, right? We should definitely mention that.

Wally Badarou

Yes.

Benji B

I think for a lot of composers, that’s a dream thing to do, to score for a film. What’s the difference in the discipline of scoring film and composing a song for a record?

Wally Badarou

Well, it’s almost the total opposite. It’s a job on its own. Quite honestly, I don’t know that I’m successful at it. I believe that I’ve been lucky to work on films that were successful. I don’t know how much that has anything to do with my own scoring, although people would say differently. I believe that scoring is actually adding your imagination to somebody else’s imagination, and that’s the very difficult part of it. It means that you actually have to bring something that that person doesn’t even express up until you actually express it for him. That’s what makes it so difficult for film directors to pick up a composer. They are very, very, very sensitive to that. Music is such a powerful medium. With music you can destroy a movie as much as you can elevate it. It almost has nothing to do with composing. It really is co-painting with the film director, and it’s very hard because the film director has his own idea of what the movie is all about, and it takes more than collaborating with another co-composer, but it takes structurally go into somebody’s visions of things that can be preset way before you actually get into the picture.

Some people are really good at it, and I really admire them. OK? I admire John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, all those great composers. There’s a fantastic great composer, a French composer, Vladimir Cosma, who I happen to know, and he told me, “Wally, you are blessed. You are blessed because you can do things without somebody else’s imagination. It’s yours that comes first. Mambo.”

Ever since, I believed that if I can score for a movie, that’s great. It’s a dream, because we always sit in a chair. We always enjoy the John Williams behind Star Wars. But, if you can make music that will make people fly in their imagination, that’s even more powerful. So, that’s it really.

Benji B

Can you tell us some of the films you’ve done music for?

Wally Badarou

I’ve been privileged to work on Kiss of the Spider Woman, that was a movie by Hector Babenco, which granted an Oscar for Best Actor to William Hurt. And, that year, that was 1985, I was part of those people who can make Oscar-winning movies. Then I was flown first class, and I had a limousine, I had five-star hotel, all that year because people just wanted me to be on board their movie, without even knowing the kind of music I did. That’s strange.

Benji B

Is it a very hard world to penetrate, the world of music scoring for film and television?

Wally Badarou

I think it is. It’s like anything else, really. You have clubs. If you have a good agent, then you can make it. If you don’t have a good agent and if you haven’t been lucky enough to come with a hit movie, then you stay nowhere. It’s like anything really. It really is. I’m still puzzled by that process of scoring movies. I still wonder what it is that is required to make a great score. I’m just like you guys. I’m still learning.

Benji B

So let’s talk about your solo albums. There’s three main ones, right?

Wally Badarou

Right. The first album that had those numbers that you know, like “Chief Inspector,” “Mambo,” was really rhythm oriented and was going different places, which I wanted to explore later. Then “Chief Inspector” had sort of success in England and “Mambo,” and I was afraid to be reduced to just a groove thing, and I just wanted to make sure that people understood that I could do something else as well. So I came up with a second album, which was more classical-oriented and I could show also more of my programming sound. Can I play something? Just one section, won’t be long.

Benji B

And this is also on Island Records. Your relationship with Chris Blackwell’s Island went on throughout the ’80s, right?

Wally Badarou

That’s right.

Benji B

And it seems to be quite a fruitful relationship. When was this one released?

Wally Badarou

It was 1988, 1989. Oh, Echoes album was 1983 or ’84.

Benji B Right.

Wally Badarou

Then ’88, ’89 was Words of a Mountain. For instance, this thing that I was crafting,

(music: Wally Badarou – “Wolves in the Urals”)

So this album is really made of all those textures, of sounds evolving, morphing, from one to another and also, it was more melodically-based. Again, I didn’t want be reduced to that neither. And then I also wanted to show what it is that makes me an African artist as well. So I came up with a third album in 2001, which had something like... Do I have it here? No, I don’t have it here. Something in the vein of this.

(music: Wally Badarou – unknown)

OK, so those are the three things that I’ve been basing my work on, which is, I could do some hip-hop, R&B, jazz, soul. I could do some real orchestrated work as well. And I do also some African thing as well. I just didn’t want to be reduced to any of those three branches. I just wanted people to understand that that was those three things at the same time.

Benji B

So I guess this brings us onto the title of this session, really, “Where’s Wally?” Because evidently there’s an unbelievable body of work throughout the ’80s, up until ’89, and then there’s nothing until 2001.

Wally Badarou

That’s right.

Benji B

Kind of missing in action. Why did you decide to take your foot off the gas for a minute?

Wally Badarou

First of all, I was quite happy and lucky to have gone through the ’80s the way I went, which is working with great people and coming up with great projects. Yet, out of the ’80s, I felt that I wanted to just concentrate on my own work. And by that time, I was not looking for a direction, but I was accumulating material that I wanted to build upon. And I was called to produce people. I did quite a lot of African artists and Brazilian and Indian production. They didn’t get noticed, but they were there, so it didn’t feel to me that I was actually taking steps back from the scene. But, it just didn’t happen. I’m still working on my own next project, solo project. And in the meantime, I discovered stage acting five years ago. And I thought that this was, at long last, a way to bring the stage performance together with music because, as I told you at the beginning, I’m a studio man, basically, when it comes to music. I’m a solitary worker. I work just by myself, and I love that. I love to collaborate with people also, but it remains a studio-confined effort. I didn’t do much live work as a musician. I never toured with Level 42, for instance. I discovered stage acting because somebody made me believe that I could direct a movie one day. I said, “Oh my God, if that ever happens I better know what it is to be an actor before I pretend that I can direct an actor.” So I went from the basics, I took lessons and discovered a new love, which is stage acting. Which is unbelievable. That explained also that I am taking longer to complete my next musical project, but it will happen. Don’t you ever worry.

Benji B

Thanks then. Well, I think at this point we need to say thank you. [audience applause]

Wally Badarou

Thank you.

Benji B

It’s not quite over yet, Wally, because I am about to open the questions up to the floor. Please, please don’t feel shy about asking questions. I know this is the first lecture, but it’s highly likely that anything that you are interested in finding out the answer to, the rest of us are as well. Is there anyone that would like to elect themselves? Great, OK. There should be a mic on it’s way to you soonish.

Audience Member

Hi, Wally. Thanks so much, that was an incredible speech. I’m sure we all really appreciate it. I’ve just got a question in particular about this record here, Nightclubbing. This is probably one of my favorite records ever. It’s actually Nina’s record, but I’ve got this back at the hotel as well. I’m sorry I’m rambling on here. My question is with the stuff that you did, the pop stuff that we played earlier, it’s very much the US sort of influence, and then you had the Level 42 was to me a very English sort of sound. But this record here when I first heard it, it was just a very exotic sort of sound to me. I guess working with Sly & Robbie that was a very sort of Jamaican sound. On that record in particular, the outstanding track to me was “I’ve Seen That Face Before.” That was just a very exotic, French sort of sounding record. Can you talk to us about that record?

Wally Badarou

That was the point actually. When Chris Blackwell had that idea of making me and Barry Reynolds, the guitar player who used to work a lot with Marianne Faithfull, to join Sly & Robbie was to actually create that sort of cocktail of influences. It was not going to be a regular reggae session. It was not going to be a regular disco session either. I remember when we flew together, Barry and I, and discovered Sly & Robbie, we were fighting because we knew that these guys were Jamaican and they were going to ask us, “Can you play reggae?” And we would come in and say, “Well, we don’t know that we can play reggae, but can you read music?” Anyway, that never happened. Actually, there was a sense of uneasiness at first. Then the whole thing started to gel from “Private Life.” Then we realized that there was a groove and there was some sophisticated synthetic electronic palettes upon the groove. That’s what made it so different. So that was the key.

Audience Member

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you.

Benji B

A good tune to illustrate that work.

Wally Badarou

She needs a mic.

Audience Member

Thank you. I just wanted to ask more about the actual creation of sounds. Listening to your stuff is breathtaking. I was wondering with all the incredible people you get to work with, do you ever take stuff from the sessions? As far as sampling, I know that’s a touchy issue, but take like, say you work with an amazing singer or vocalist, when you have those strings coming in on that sound it almost sounded like you couldn’t tell if it was a violin or a voice. Do you use, from working in these sessions have you ever taken people’s things and worked them in to these incredible soundscapes that you’re making in sounds?

Wally Badarou

Most of the time I would develop all those sounds by myself. I’m glad you are raising that issue, because it has always been a question on how I would work. Developing a sound takes time. It’s a time-consuming process. Most of the time you have producer, the artist, and everybody sitting here just getting bored to death, because it’s not very spectacular. It’s not entertaining at all. I mean, it wasn’t. That’s probably where being familiar with your machine was key first.

Secondly, working with people who understood the process was very important. Chris Blackwell, who produced those Grace Jones albums, realized from day one that I needed my space before myspace.com was ever invented. He just left me alone. He said, “Wally needs his space. That’s Wally’s part now, everybody out of the studio.” I was privileged to have all the time I needed to do my own thing. When I worked on Foreigner, “I Want To Know What Love Is,” I had what we call slave tapes. I had my own studio within the big studio. When they were cutting all the drums and everything I had my own thing where I could develop my own sounds. So that was key, yes. Most of the sounds that I would use, even though I might not create them right on the spot, were created by myself either from other sessions or in my own home as well. It’s a combination of different sources. Some of them I would create from scratch.

Audience Member

Something like strings of a violin. I found some of the best synthesizers today had such a hard sound to come up with, and yours sounds so warm. Are you building on ones that are already synthesized or are you actually getting strings in to your bass?

Wally Badarou

Layers. Layers of different things, but it also has a lot to do with the line that I’m trying to do as well, so the sound will depend a lot on the line itself. The type of layers that I’ll be coming up with will be dependent on that as well. How to put it... It’s a combination of different things. Sometimes I would just muck about and fiddle with nubs and fiddle with the bank presets, but I would create. Then things will just pop in and I will say, “Oh, that’s cool. Let’s keep it.” That’s what happened with “Addicted to Love,” for instance. Most of the time I would try, I would think of something that I wanted to do and would develop a sound in respect to that thing I wanted to do.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Wally Badarou

Yes, please. There are two more over there.

Audience Member

Hi.

Wally Badarou

Hi.

Audience Member

As someone who has worked with as a composer and producer, in terms of making a record how would you weigh at the importance of composing the ideas and producing how those ideas are realized in to the final piece of music?

Wally Badarou

It’s the most difficult part, especially if you work by yourself. There’s a reason why I think it’s very important that no matter how you proceed that you get people to listen to what you do. At least listen to, if not produce. Producing has a lot to do with listening. Listening to what is actually happening. I found myself on the verge of losing it if I didn’t have somebody to come in and just listen to what I was doing. Just by the body language telling me how far I was to the point that I wanted to make. Producing is very hard. Self-producing is very hard. It’s like self-directing. I don’t know how Woody Allen does his movies. He’s incredible. He’s not just a great actor, not just a great movie storyteller, but he’s also self-directing, which is unbelievably hard. I believe that he must have, he too, him too, people who can watch. By just their body language, he can tell that he’s there or not. Yes. Does that answer your question?

Audience Member

Yeah. What I’m looking for is how you weigh out the importance of composition of the final production.

Wally Badarou

Composition is first. I know this is a strange place to say it, but composition to me is key. Production is important because it will make the value of the composition reach the world. Yet, if an idea doesn’t make it by your production, it may happen with somebody else’s production. As long as you have the gems in the can, which is the idea first, then you’re there. That’s how I think of it. I may be wrong. Sometimes I know that I’m wrong on that issue. This is what I want to believe. I feel more comfortable that way. Thank you.

Audience Member

First of all, I shall say that this is one of my most favorite albums ever. I guess, the first question is what’s it like when you first put those synths and Grace just, she was just here or synths first or what? How does it all work?

Wally Badarou

Grace would cut the tracks with us. Actually, the whole of the album was done very conventionally, which is that she would do guide vocals as we were playing. Chris Blackwell would sit as well in the studio with us. Then, parts would be fixed here and there, basses, guitar. Then I would have my own shot, fine-tuning, revising, redoing some of the parts. Then, she will do the finished vocals. That’s how it usually worked. Sometimes, she would do her vocals before I do my little icing things. Take for example that tune called “Libertango, I’ve Seen That Face Before.” That one actually was sung before I did most of the synthetic part on it, which allowed me to really be doing those things in between her vocals to highlight them. Pleasure.

Audience Member

How did you feel when you were at the table or are you sometimes on the guitar?

Wally Badarou

The way I write is very, very specific. I would proceed almost like Josef Zawinul, which is that I would sit on the acoustic piano and develop ideas on the acoustic piano, record them, and forget about them for years. Then, in the back of my mind without even knowing, ideas will flow out of those ideas to complete them, to make them richer, to develop them. I’m very grateful that you’re asking this question. I believe the composition has a lot to do with just that sparkling little idea at first that was magic even before you knew it. It’s a very simple, little tiny, little melody, chord change, sound, rhythm. It could last five seconds or half an hour, depending on how great you felt about when you did it. I know my weaknesses. I know that, just let it go, I will probably kill the thing without even knowing what was the real value. That’s why I never rush any of my production. That’s why it’s taking so long actually. I just leave this thing, age like good wine. You’re French, right? Yes. I like that. I leave it to rest like a good wine, and if three years later it still talks to me like it did when I did it, wow, I know I have something.

Audience Member

Can I ask another question too? [inaudible]?

Wally Badarou

Oh, no, actually, I tell you what. I’m glad you’re talking about it. We never watched the movies, no. We were doing those things that were called kilometers music. Music aux kilometre in French, right? Which means that all we were required to do was just any music, really. Just play music. We just had a long jam. We never watch any of those movies, sorry to say. Yes, anybody?

Audience Member

Hello?

Wally Badarou

Yes, hello.

Audience Member

What do you think about this virtual…

Wally Badarou

Synthesizers. I think they’re fantastic. They’re getting better and better and better and better. They lack one thing. Physical. Again, it’s a matter of generation. It’s a matter of getting used to whatever you have. People, you want to believe that you needed to fee; the knobs in order to actually come up with a great sound. It’s true, to a certain extent, if you’re used to it. Then, you can also do it differently. I used to have a Synclavier years ago. A Synclavier was what, a big keyboard, one knob. Loads of push buttons that you needed to activate in order to go to page number 23 in order to do this shape. I mean, it took forever, it could take forever. But then you could develop strategies to actually get faster to this or that aspect of things, which is not slower or more time-consuming than actually using your mouse or your trackpad. It’s a matter of getting used to whatever medium you have.

Benji B

If you have to take the Pepsi challenge on it, with a blindfold, are you really honest that you can’t hear a difference between the two?

Wally Badarou

Oh yes, you can. I’m not saying that you cannot. I’m saying that they’re just as good. I don’t want to develop a cult of vintage, I keep my vintage gear because I know it, that’s all. I could almost blind program the Prophet 5, I know where the knobs are, “OK, OK, alright.” Because I know the Prophet 5, I’ve been using it for so long. There’s also a distinct sound out of it. Whether the emulation of the virtual copy of the Prophet 5 matches or does not match the Prophet 5 is no issue to me. It has its own distinct thing as well. I’m sure that one day people are going to look at those virtual synthesizer as being just classic as just the Prophet 5 ever was. I remember when the Prophet 5 came in, people used to laugh at it also, saying, “Well, it doesn’t have the meat that you can have on the CS-80 Yamaha.” Yes, but today, it’s a classic. What the fuss, sorry. Excuse my French. Yes?

Audience Member

I just have a question about performance. It’s refreshing to see you not getting stuck on the warmth of analog and vintage gear. But as far as performance is concerned do you, what do you value from your performance? Do you ever go and change the velocity of something that you thought you were doing it with your fingers or change the sounds of something that ... Or do you ... Are you really dedicated to getting it right with your fingers in the performance?

Wally Badarou

It’s a combination. Actually, are you talking about live performance?

Audience Member

No, I’m talking about like your productions. For you is that something that you focus more on getting a performance right, like, if it’s not right. Do you go and play it again? Or do you like fix it in the computer now that you’re using a computer?

Wally Badarou

I do just as much as you do. The issue is I can play keyboard to a certain extent. I’m glad I can do that. It really helps a lot. Yet, I know that at some stage it’ll be preferable to keep the magic of the past that I did and just fiddle with things like the velocity, the filters, and everything afterwards. So I do just as much as you do. It’s just that it all really depends on how. It’s all a question of how much I spend actually doing the main substance. Yeah, I can be fast on that, but see I’ve seen Herbie Hancock once in the studio doing a pass on a Manu Dibango album. Everybody was like, “Wow listen to this!” One take. He’s got it. And the man was not happy. “No, no way, you’re not going to keep this. I need to re-do it. Please let me do it again. I mean it’s just so bad let me do it again.” He did it fifteen times and at the end of that the thing was dead, even him. You know Herbie Hancock, as big, as great as he is, was capable of destroying his own work. Luckily enough, we kept the first take. Now we all have to learn, OK? I can still improve my playing just as much as you. Probably, I mean don’t know but, you know I do not consider myself the best keyboard player ever. I have things that can work that I know how to do and I can achieve quicker than other people, but I still have to work on it. Yeah.

Wally Badarou

Yes?

Audience Member

About the creation of the melody, does it generally come from your voice?

Wally Badarou

Nowadays, yes. Most of what I did in the past came from the keyboard. Out of playing and jamming and just practicing. I would spend hours just practicing. No aim, nothing in sight other than just feel good about keeping my fingers unrested. And an idea would pop up and I would capture that and that would be it. Then, I would develop on it later as I said earlier on. Nowadays, I’m more into developing ideas from within or from guitar. I can play some guitar as well. Ideas that I get from playing guitar are very, very different from the ideas that I get from the keyboard. Very different, because the guitar somehow I do not master as much as I do keyboards, and also it’s definitely more basic. So melodies… Oh, can I play something?

Benji B

Please.

Wally Badarou

Quick Wally, people are waiting. People are waiting. They’re not going to wait any longer. [mumbles] There it is.

(music: Wally Badarou – unknown)

This is a soundtrack. There is no keyboard in it, only strings, guitars, and my voice. Very different. [applause] Thank you.

Audience Member

You didn’t tell us and Mary anything about your work statement in France, but let me search up Michael Maslow.

Wally Badarou

Oh yes.

Audience Member

What kind of work would you do with him and what. All the works you would do in France…

Wally Badarou

In France ...

Audience Member

You also told. Self-production is hard and is it harder to work with a guy who is a self producer?

Wally Badarou

Oh, no! OK. There are two questions in your question, okay. Yeah, the work that I did with the French people are known to the French, most of the time, because it’s in the French language. I worked in Los Angeles with a singer called Alain Chamfort and Serge Gainsbourg was doing the lyrics. That’s how we worked together on that project. And, working with a self-producer, that’s a very interesting question because that’s what I want to do. Today I’m interested in self-productions because I believe that there is nothing more exciting than people who know that what they have to do, they have to do it by themselves first. And then, get somebody else in to just balance some of the decision, some of the direction, just make sure that they are into something.

Audience Member

How do you feel if you are working with someone?

Wally Badarou

Yes. Absolutely. Actually, that comes from the fact that I do not believe that as a producer I should be doing the down work, which is programming the drums and all that. That to me is not just producing. This is writing. So if we’re talking about collaborating on the writing level, then fine. Let’s do that. But it’s a much longer process. If you’re talking about producing, I mean, I’m not going to play anything other than just some icing you want a bit of my personal touch here and there. I would be glad to do that. But, I shouldn’t be doing the core of your work. That’s your right.

Audience Member

You started talking about co-production and the line...

Wally Badarou

Yeah, the line is very thin between the two. And actually, I do more core production in that respect, nowadays. So if you have anything that you want to show to me and you want me to be core producing with you, please. [laughs] I’ll be down to do that. It means to me ... As long as you know that sometimes my share of the work can just be, “OK, OK, what you’re doing is great you don’t need to do more, keep it that way, let’s go and release it.” If you’re ready to take that from me, if you’re ready to take that word from me, then we can work together. But, if you believe that I have to actually go and analyze and put everything, tear everything apart before you have something out, there’s no point calling me. That’s how I work with Salif Keita. Salif Keita has a band, a fantastic band. He said “Wally, we want you to come in here and have a listen, what do you think?” And I said, “This is great. Don’t touch it. Let’s go in the studio, you want to do it?” “Yes, lets do it!” I did virtually nothing else than refrain people from overplaying. That’s all I did. That was my production. [applause] Thank you. {to audience member] Go ahead.

audience member

You space it out into the main product. A lot of respect for the space. Is that something like [inaudible] or is it like, you know come back in after the vocal is done?

Wally Badarou

You’re talking about the studio work that...

audience member

Yeah.

Wally Badarou

If I understand your question.

audience member

Sorry.

Wally Badarou

Yes. You’re trying to figure out...

audience member

It seems like you have a great spec for the written section in space.

Wally Badarou

Yes. Well it’s something that is natural to me. I mean, I don’t, I like to be more precise. When I first started, I was a very busy keyboard player. I would play everything, put clavinets everywhere, I would just fill the tape with just takes, OK? I was a clavinet guy, you know I used to [sings a beat]. I wouldn’t leave one little thing. And I realized that I was going the wrong way. I realized it and what helped me realize that was those guys, “Private Life,” Sly & Robbie. Loads of space. Now, I must say something here to the memory of that guy. His name was Alex Sadkin. He engineered those fantastic albums: Nightclubbing, Warm Leatherette, Joe Cocker, Sheffield Steel, Talking Heads. All those things were engineered by that guy and what that guy did was even before MIDI was invented which allowed us today to be able to sit back and listen to things that are almost already mixed. This guy, out of the tape machine was capable of putting almost finished mixes every time. Each time. So, when I was working I had almost the finished version already. The drums, the bass sounded magnificent before I even started putting my keyboards, when I did “Private Life” overdubs. That way, I knew that I didn’t have to fill things, you know.

We used to do that a long time ago where you only have the proper rough mix, so you did not know where you stood, right? So, you would just fill the tape, just in case. You know, just in case we need something here, let me put it. That’s wrong. I mean, to me it seems wrong today. Right? Nowadays, it’s easy to figure that out because it’s so easy to have the great sound right out the box. But in those days, it was... So I made it something very personal that I will always fight for something that would be as sparse as possible. Very, very sober.

Benji B

Do we have time to play a quick example of that? Yeah, we can’t finish without playing a bit of this and I think that this is a beautiful example both of your point and also the talk about engineering and sonics.

(music: Grace Jones – “Nightclubbing” / applause)

Wally Badarou

Thank you. Well the sound was pretty much there when we did it all the way through in the control room. So it was... Yeah. I mean, Alex Sadkin, he did it. He changed my life, in a way, because he helped me understand that you didn’t need to just crowd things up. If you have it, it’s there, and it’s large, it’s wide, and it helps having all the dynamic coming through. That’s key.

Benji B

Anymore, for anymore?

Audience Member

I also noticed you saying you make your own sounds and what have you and you’ve been doing this for a long time. I was wondering if you have like a catalog of your own sounds, like a pamphlet or whatever you put it. You start up from scratch with a sine wave or whatever it might be to get the sound you want to.

Wally Badarou

Both ways, actually. I have a catalog of things. Definitely. But, I try as much as possible not to use it. It will depend on the emergency. [chuckles] The degree, I mean degree of emergency. If I’m asked to do something quick for advertising and stuff, obviously I won’t be spending much time developing sound from scratch. But, as much as possible I try to avoid it because I try to avoid repeating myself. As much as I understand that it is a trademark that I can benefit from, and still I’m always trying to do something new to make the challenge. The beauty of the thing is each trip is a new trip. No matter how much times I go through the same channel or I wanted to make it different.

Audience Member

Do you always try to make little signatures to make sure...

Wally Badarou

No. Never. Never, ever. It comes just naturally. This certain type of ego that I’m trying to avoid actually what matters is the beauty of the music. No matter, regardless of who that is for. Whether it’s for me or for somebody else. I’m looking to serve the music first. Inevitably, I will have a trademark being developed down to process. I don’t have to fight for it. Because there’s a certain type of sound that I like. Yes?

Audience Member

This is my last question. [giggles] Sorry, I was so fascinated with that last track like as far as the depth of the keyboard and where things sit in the mix and I watched you engineer this. As far as reverb is concerned, I mean that’s something that digitally I struggle with constantly. With your sounds, are you recording room sounds that you’re adding in as well? Or do you use a reverb unit that software that you prefer, it’s probably one of the most criticized that’s inside computers.

Wally Badarou

In those days we were not working with software. It was all analog. The long AMT Lexicon 24480. Yes, Alex Sadkin use of live room reverb and added outboard reverb as well to the thing. It’s a matter of ears, it’s a matter of balance, it’s a matter of how you feel about what you have. It’s about the very fabric of the sound itself prior to adding the reverb, so it has to do with how Sly would hit the snare drum. Oh, yes. And he has a very distinct way of doing it, believe me. Which is not the same as Tony Thompson, the drummer of Duran Duran would have on the Power Station would have his own way of doing things. You won’t be in the same room as Tony Thompson. When he hits the snare drum, you better be far, far away. It was just massive. Reverb, like production, depends on what material you have to deal with at first.

Benji B

Are you going to be able to hang around a bit this evening if people have got more things…

Wally Badarou

Oh yeah that’s great. Definitely.

Benji B

Because we’re gonna have to wrap it up now, but I’m sure there’s more, much more that people want to come up and ask you personally. I must say at this point please don’t go anywhere because Gerd is going to come and talk to you about the RBMA radio, but I must say, on behalf of absolutely everybody in the room and myself, thank you so much for making the trip from London, thank you for sharing your time and wisdom, Mr. Wally Badarou.

Wally Badarou

Thank you.