- in Production by Bobby Owsinski
Trident Studios Stories From Ken Scott
I was interviewing Dewey Bunnell from the band America yesterday and in doing research, it dawned on me that my buddy Ken Scott had worked with them during his time at Trident Studios and we had documented it in his Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust autobiography. As I reread the chapter that contained info on recording the band’s first album, I found some other good stories that I think you’ll find interesting as well.
Ken Scott: My time at Trident Studios was filled with some amazing musical experiences that went far beyond The Beatles. In many ways, I had now graduated from their training school and was now qualified to move onto much bigger and better things. A few of these new associations changed my life in a major way, but I also worked on a number of other great projects as well.
America
One of my early projects at Trident was a band called The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, the named leader being someone I’d work with again a few years later. The producer of this album was one Ian “Sammy” Samwell. Now Ian’s initial claim to fame was that he was a member of Cliff Richard’s original backing band, The Drifters, playing rhythm guitar and had written a song (“Move It”) that became renowned as the start of UK rock n’ roll. Shortly after Aynsley’s album I worked with Ian again on an album with singer Linda Lewis (whom I would also work with again later), and so when he brought a new band in to record after that, we already had a bit of a history together.
He and a DJ named Jeff Dexter discovered these three American army brats that used to perform at military bases in England. They brought them into Trident to record what ended up being their first album called America. It was interesting seeing the two producers working together, which is why I think I’ve never chosen to work with another producer since. Two producers can create too much indecision, as I saw then. Everything took a lot longer because they both had different ideas of how the project should go. It was like dealing with Labour and Conservatives or the Democrats and Republicans; they had to meet somewhere in the middle, but that wasn’t always quick or easy. There were no major blowups or anything like that, but there were always compromises between the two of them.
The trio of Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley didn’t sing when we laid down the basic tracks, but since the album was built primarily around the sound of the acoustic guitars, the basics consisted mostly of acoustics and, on certain songs, drums. The bass was usually overdubbed later. I remember that they brought in a friend to play drums and I have a vague recollection that he wasn’t much of a player, which could be one of the reasons they’re not featured that strongly on the album.
The band had been gigging so their harmonies were already worked out, which was a plus. Generally all of the vocals were done at the same time, but I put them each on a separate mic as opposed to having them all around one mic and letting them get their own blend, which would have made the recording easier. I don’t think they were quite at a point where they could do it that way yet. If I remember correctly, they each sang into a U67. I know that later on in their existence as a band, they refused to sing more than one chorus, so the rest of them had to be flown in, which wasn’t that easy back in the days of tape. I have to state for the record that on this album they did sing every section.
Despite the push and pull of the two producers, the record finished up just fine, but Ian found it really hard to make up his mind on anything, an annoying trait that a number of producers have. He especially couldn’t decide on a running order for an album, so he wanted to hear every possible combination before he would finally make a decision. This was before you could cut and paste so I had to physically edit every song together in different orders, which was incredibly tedious. He was a lovely guy and I liked him, but that almost pushed me to the limit at times.
The album was released and did nothing. Zilch. Died. It seems that the only problem with the album was that the record label didn’t hear a single, so the band went into Morgan Studios in London and recorded “Horse With No Name,” which turned out to be their first hit of many hits. I can only image what kind of problems it caused Ian with his many running orders of the album. The album finished up doing very well. We had a blast working together and the experience was really nice. When I first moved to L.A., one person I kept on running into just walking down the street was Gerry Beckley. For a couple of years, we just kept bumping into each other. It was strange.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
I’d fallen in love with the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album and I was blown away when I learned they’d booked about a week or so to do some recording, this time with the addition of Neil Young. I don’t know if I was put on the session because I had worked with Graham Nash before at EMI, but he was very pleased to see me. Unfortunately he kept on telling the other guys, “This is the guy that recorded Sgt. Pepper.” I was constantly going, “No, I didn’t Graham. That wasn’t me.” It was embarrassing.
The band had already began recording in the States so they brought the tapes with them, which immediately went upstairs to the machine room. I told the second engineer what we were going to start with and he began to play it back so I could get a quick balance. It was all going fine until the middle of the song when it went “ennn hue wooop” and then carried on playing normally again. “What the fuck was that?”, I thought to myself. I didn’t say anything to the band except to say, “I need to hear it again,” and asked the second for another playback. He played it and right around the same place in the song once again it went, “bloooog, reh, naah, yaaaah,” and then carried on again normally. Suddenly the second came on the talkback and cooly asked, “Ken, can you come upstairs for a second please?” “Uh, oh,” I thought as I said to the band, “Excuse me guys, I’ve got to go check on something. I’ll be back in a minute.”
When I walked into the machine room, the second showed me the tape and it had, to say the least, stretched. What was once two inch wide tape was now down to about one and half inches. Wondering what the hell was going on, we looked at the tape box to find that it was a kind of tape that we had never seen before. It was from 3M (one of the major tape suppliers at the time), but it was a type that was completely new to us. I immediately called Barry who immediately got on to the 3M rep who said, “Oh, yeah. That’s the new tape that they’re using in the States. It’s much thinner. You need to completely change the tension on the machine for that, but I have no idea how you do it because we haven’t seen any of it over here yet.”
I had to go downstairs and tell the band, “Sorry, mates. Your tape is ruined.” Luckily it was a safety copy so all was not lost, but they cancelled the booking and walked out. Unfortunately, I never saw them again, which was a real drag as I was really looking forward to working with them. Eventually the 3M guy came in and showed us how to adjust the tension on the machine for that particular kind of tape, just in case we ever saw more of it, and all was well. I don’t remember the formulation of the tape, but then I can’t remember what tape I used yesterday either. Oh right, we don’t use tape now do we. Bloody technology.
The Ghost Of Trident
One sunday I was doing a session with Christine Perfect (who later became Christine McVie when she later joined Fleetwood Mac and married bassist Mick Fleetwood) which was just a quick, one off thing (the session, not the marriage). For some reason they couldn’t get any staff to work that day and we needed a second engineer and a tea boy. It finished up that Pete Booth, the maintenance guy, became the second and my wife Patience stood in for the tea boy. The session started in the late afternoon.
Apparently it got very boring for Pete and the Mrs in the evening because they didn’t have much to do, so she suggested setting up a Ouija board in the machine room. It turned out to be more than they bargained for. Pete told me on numerous occasions about how a cold breeze suddenly shot through the room and temperature dived like during a winter storm. He’d never believed in ghosts and gremlins, but at that point he had doubts about his doubts and began to think that there was really something to it all. I seem to remember being told that they had contacted the spirit of a sailor who communicated that he had found a place where he was comfortable (meaning the studio) and he was going to stick around for a while. From that point on, some strange things started to happen.
I don’t remember how it started but we were upstairs in the machine room. There was this sudden cold draft and it was frightening. I never believed in any of that, but at one point that machine room got freezing cold and the glass on the board went nuts. – Pete Booth –
Roy (Thomas Baker) was doing a Nazareth mix in the mix room sometime after and the band was sitting in front of the console having a listen. He felt someone tap him on the shoulder so he stopped the tape machine and turned around only to find that no one was there. It must’ve felt pretty real because it freaked him out a bit.
Another time Robin (engineer Robin Cable) went up to the kitchen about three o’clock in the morning to get a glass of milk. After he poured it, he turned around to get in the lift and something came up under his hand and knocked it all over him. That made him a believer too.
I can’t say that anything like that ever happened to me at Trident, but I heard enough of the stories to believe that there was something extraordinary going on. Then again, most English studios have ghost stories for some reason, and even Abbey Road had a spectre in Number 1. There were various sightings of someone (the daughter of the original owners) walking along the edge of the studio and then disappearing, and stories of doors swinging with no one around on the first floor. It’s just part of the business, I guess.”
You can read more about Ken’s time at Trident Studios and more from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.
