【INTERVIEW】プロデューサーChris Priceが語る、Emitt Rhodes復活ストーリー
Chris Price Interview
＜質問3＞
あなたや参加メンバーにとってEmittはとても大きな存在のはず。彼と一緒に作品を作ることの喜びについて話し合ったりしましたか？ 彼の新作に対してどんな貢献ができたと思います？
僕らはみな、顔を合わせるたびに、Emitt Rhodesのニューアルバムに参加してることがどんなにクールかについて話をし、マニアックな話題でおおいに盛り上がったよ。
このアルバムに対する僕の貢献は……、彼がことのなりゆきを気持ちよく受け入れて、サウンドに満足できるような状況をつくれたってことが大きいんじゃないかな。僕は自分の時間と能力を彼に捧げた。そしてEmittはレコーディングすべきときがくると、僕を信頼し彼の凄い才能を僕に預けてくれた。
僕が手がけたアレンジで気に入ってるものはいくつもあるけど、それはEmittが書いた素晴らしい曲があってこそのもの。素晴らしいミュージシャンたちに参加してもらうため、少々苦労もしたけど、これがもしEmitt Rhodesの新作じゃなかったら、きっとこの千倍も大変だっただろうね。 そして最終的にEmittと僕は本当の友人になったんだ。
彼の今後が気になるね。僕はなんとしても彼の成功をこの目で見たい。かつてのEmittはトラブルが絶えなかったよね。その理由は、彼の仕事相手が彼を利用して儲けようとする連中ばかりだったからだと思うんだ。うん、僕の最大の貢献はそんな連中とは正反対の存在だったってことかもしれないね。
In a world exclusive, Chris Price who is known for producing the Emitt Rhodes New Album talks the return of Emitt. Let me know what you think.
1) What were the circumstances that led to your producing this album?
I met Emitt in 2006, after a woman on Myspace said she knew him. I sent her a message and said "If you know Emitt Rhodes, please put me in touch with him because I would love for him to produce my first album". I had just arrived in Los Angeles with my brothers, and our band Price had just been signed to a deal with Geffen Records. After a phone conversation with this woman, there was a plan for her to come down from Northern California where she lives and we would go have dinner with Emitt.
I didn't hear from her for several months after that initial phone call, and one day she called me to let me know she was really worried about Emitt. She had been trying to contact him for 2 months and he hadn't answered the phone or returned any calls. Emitt is a diabetic and has had a few health scares over the years, so she was fearing the worst. Since she didn't know anyone else in the LA area she could ask, she gave me his home address and asked if I would drive to Hawthorne and go check on him to make sure he was ok.
I show up at a house I've never been to, to check on a man I've never met. And that man just happens to be one of my heroes. He answered the door with a bowl of cereal in his hand. "Who the hell are you?", he said. "Your friend gave me your address and told me to come check on you. But she also had planned on setting up a time for us all to go to dinner together.", I said. "I'd really love to talk to you about music. Would it be ok if I left a CD of my music for you to check out?". He says, "Sure, I'll listen to this, and if I like it I'll give you a call. If not, you'll never hear from me again."I leave and start driving home, and maybe 10 minutes later he calls me and says he likes the music and I should come hang out with him later that week!
When we finally spent some time together, Emitt never wanted to talk about music. He seemed sad about everything that had happened to him over the years, and I don't think he wanted to think about his career at all. So I never really asked. I would just come and hang out with him every once in a while, and we would have lunch and talk about whatever was going on in the world, and sometimes I would play him some of the music I was working on and he would give me comments and criticisms.
After 7 years or so of just being friends, one day I show up at his house and he had all of these manila envelopes spread out and he was playing a guitar. In each envelope there was a song. There was a chord chart, multiple lyric sheets and sometimes a demo tape for each one. And there were around 20 of them. All of a sudden he decided to share all this music with me that he had been working on in secret. I heard 7 of the 11 songs that would eventually wind up on the Rainbow Ends album that day.
It was incredibly overwhelming and emotional for me, both as a fan and as a friend. As a fan, I had a front row seat to the re-emergence of one of my heroes, and it was really incredible songs. As a friend, it felt like there was finally some real trust and mutual respect between us, to the point that he was willing to share his most cherished, private works, and allow himself to open up to me in a way he really had never done before.
After listening to the music, I begged him to let me help him realize some recordings. I suggested that we restore the studio he has behind his house and just do it there, exactly how he did his first records. At first, he seemed hesitant. He never wanted to go into his studio because I think it brought up painful memories, and I don't know if he felt he was up to the challenge of making a new album. But I was determined to make it happen for my friend.
After a few more times of begging him, he finally agreed to let me go in and clean the place up. We dusted off the gear, turned it on and a bunch of stuff still worked, after decades of not being used. That was an encouraging start, and I asked Emitt to let me put a band together to help make the process go smoothly. That's when I started to call friends up as well as some bigger name artists whom I had never met before. Which leads us to your next question.
2)Who gathered together members(RJMJ, Jason, Joseph, Taylor and Fernando)? How did Jon Brion participate in this work?
I gathered all the band members together, starting with the people I've worked with before. Both Taylor and Joe were in the band Taylor Locke & The Roughs with me, so we already had a good working relationship. And Fernando and I have known each other since high school (we both grew up in Miami Beach).
But prior to making the Emitt album, I had never met Jason Falkner or Roger Manning. Obviously I was a great admirer of their work, and we actually knew a lot of the same people, so perhaps it was just a matter of time before our paths crossed, but what better time to meet up than for a new Emitt Rhodes album! Everyone I asked to participate said yes, because everyone was so happy to support Emitt's comeback.
And I asked some very serious musicians to participate. I reached out to Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs from The Bangles, Jon Brion, Nels Cline & Pat Sansone from Wilco, Probyn Gregory & Nelson Bragg from Brian Wilson's band, and my good friend Kaitlin Wolfberg, who I pretty much always work with for strings.
In particular, Jon Brion played the guitar solo and one complimentary guitar on the opening track, "Dog On A Chain". I met Jon through Susanna Hoffs, because the two of them have been playing regular shows at Largo recently. It took several meetings before I could finally get a commitment from him, but once he agreed to do it he worked very fast. I sent him the track, he worked on guitar parts at his studio and sent it back to me. I was worried because it was the only part recorded on the album that Emitt or I wasn't in the room to oversee, but when we heard what he sent that worry went away quickly. It was great! It sounded like he was in the room tracking live with the rest of the band!
Which, by the way, I should also mention that the entire album was cut live in the studio by the core band (Me, Emitt, Jason, Roger, Taylor, Fernando and Joe) in 2 days. Then vocals and additional overdubs by all the special guests were done later.
3) Emitt is surely a major presence for both yourself and the other participating members. Do you ever talk about the joys of working with Emitt? What kinds of contributions do you think you've been able to make?
Every time I see someone who worked on the album we always talk about how cool it is that we got to participate in a new Emitt Rhodes album! We definitely geek out a lot about that.
In terms of my contribution to the album, I like to think the most important thing I did was to make sure my friend was comfortable with what was happening, and happy with the sounds. I gave my time and my talent, and Emitt gave me his trust and his genius when it came time to record.
I did some of my favorite arrangements I've ever done on this album, but none of that would be possible without the wonderful songs Emitt wrote. I worked hard to get in touch with some amazing people to play on the album, but it would've been a thousand times harder if we weren't talking about a new Emitt Rhodes album. At the end of the day, Emitt is my longtime friend.
I care about what happens to him, and I so badly want to see him succeed. I think Emitt has run into trouble in the past because he got into business with people who took advantage of him and used him. So my contribution is to be the opposite of that.
01. Dog on a Chain
02. If I Knew Then
03. If It Isn't So
04. This Wall Between Us
05. Someone Else
06. I Can't Tell My Heart
07. Put Some Rhythm to It
08. It's All Behind Us Now
09. What's a Man to Do
10. Friday's Love
11. Rainbow Ends
1｜2
Dec 5, 2015
