Steve Lillywhite

Now it's like talking about Coca-Cola, a global brand.

But the fact of the matter is Steve Lillywhite produced their records and he was very good with the solid drum sound and things like that.

Then they wanted to work with Brian Eno.

Chris Blackwell thought it was a bad idea and he'd signed Brian Eno making music for airports and things.

It doesn't evoke like a tribal feel.

It feels more like a Steve Lillywhite, tom heavy production like what he was doing you know with phil collins with peter gabriel it's more pop oriented than that but it still feels like it has less of a tribal sound and more of just like okay just use the toms sort of a vibe to it you know which i i like that because i think it kind of sets it apart from a lot of those other bands that were doing the very heavy tribal sound

But this is another concept that dates back to the turn of the day, like the Peter Gabriel 3 album, where there's very little cymbal work, if any.

It definitely has that same feel to it with the drums.

And again, the drums are key.

The drums are definitely clunkier than...

Then on Icicle Works, especially the big drum fill at the end, and it's the typical gated reverb sound of the 80s that Phil Collins and Steve Lillywhite and company patented.

By this point, we're in the middle of the decade, and it's really proliferated, this big drum sound.

The Banshees' debut album, The Scream, was released that November.

It, like Hong Kong Garden, was produced by Steve Lillywhite, and it had a sound that was certainly punk in its uncompromising attitude, but way artier and weirder than most of what people called punk rock.

The guitar was a dissonant skronk, the drums were more of a mechanical pounding noise than a rock beat, and Susie was far more imposing and theatrical than anybody else fronting a punk band.

It was like, like some kind of...

Turned down an offer from Simon Cowell.

He signed with producer Steve Lillywhite.

It was a pretty big deal.

Like prior to this, he's worked with Big Country and he would go on to work with like U2.

Maybe this is because I don't listen to vinyl versions of things...

but it took me forever to just realize oh they've been running from track one i want to run that pace has never really let up and then running to stand still then we get to the end of that record or that side of the record these boys have got some stamina well this is one thing i was going to bring up this is one of the most elegantly and perfectly sequenced u2 records ever but apparently that had very little to do with them so steve lillywhite was brought in towards the end of the process to do

some mixing and polishing up and things like that sort out the mess that brian eno had got them in

no well apparently a lot of people were a bit annoyed at steve lillywhite for being brought in because he came in did they would consider you know the cherry on top of the cake and he's going around saying oh look at the cake i made and like well you didn't did you um but anyway i'm not going to get into that debate because i love steve lillywhite he's fantastic Bono and Edge apparently gave this, though, to Steve Lillywhite's, I don't know if they were partner, wife, girlfriend, Kirstie McCall at that time.

And they said, look, Streets has got to go at the start.

Mothers of the Disappeared has got to go at the end.

It's not as if you can sit down and write, I'm going to write a timeless album.

no and there was so much coincidence and serendipity as we said before that led to this particular group of songs holding together edge creating something bono possibly even a country or a continent away working on something else and the things just join up brian eno being held back from the disc uh being held back from the desk

I chose The Laws.

They're self-titled and only official album released in October of 1990, produced by Steve Lillywhite.

The Laws, they started out in Liverpool in 1983 by a guy named Mike Badger.

Lee Mavers joined the group at some point and basically took over.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, they tried recording this album multiple times with multiple producers, John Leckie, Mike Hedges, John Porter.

And so this album comes out of sessions with Steve Lillywhite.

But even these sessions were scrapped.