Roger (The Immortal) Nichols has engineered all of the Steely Dan records, Donald Fagen's “Nightfly" and upcoming “Kamakiriad" as well as many of the jazz and pop efforts produced by Walter Becker. He also discovered and broke the news that MCA had been using inferior master tapes for nearly all of the Steely Dan CDs manufactured in 1990-92.
In the following piece put together a few years ago by “Metal Leg" founder Brian Sweet, Nichols talks about how he got into the recording business and then gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the how Becker and Fagen operated as Steely Dan in the studio.
Brian Sweet: Tell us about your background.
Roger Nichols: I was born in California and lived all over the U.S. until junior high school because my Dad was in the Air Force. He flew B-47s. When he got out of the Air Force in 1957 I went to high school in Cucamonga, the same one Frank Zappa went to. Frank actually used to come over to my house and mess around with guitars and things. After that I went to Oregon State University where I studied nuclear physics. Then I worked for Southern California Edison at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant as a nuclear operator from 1965 to 1968.
BS: How did you make the switch from nuclear power to rock?
RN: Me and a couple of friends built a recording studio, Quantum Studios, in Torrance, just south of Los Angeles. It started out as a four-car garage and when we'd converted it into our studio in about 1965 we recorded high school bands in our spare time. We built a hi-fi store also and began to supply custom equipment to people in the music business. That led to a lot of business for the studio and a lot of contacts. We made commercials—Karen Carpenter sang on a lot of the ads and Larry Carlton did arrangements and played guitar. We also did some work with Kenny Rogers when he was still with the First Edition. So we expanded, building a larger studio out of an old post office and moved up from 4 tracks to 16 tracks. Then we started supplying equipment for other studios, including all the machinery for ABC's first studio. Phil Kaye was in charge of that studio and he hired me in about 1970 to do maintenance and engineering. I started right in working with Steve Barri and Phil Kaye on albums by the Grass Roots and Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds and John Phillips and Denny Doherty of the Mama and the Papas.
BS: How did you get together with Steely Dan?
RN: Gary Katz came to ABC about a year after I did and he brought in Steely Dan. No one at ABC quite knew what to make of Donald and Walter so by default I started working with them. We hit it right off. The main reason I had gotten involved in the music business and recording was that I hated clicks, pops and ticks on records. I wanted to be able to play 2-track stuff direct from the studio on my system at home and have it really hi-fi. The only way I could get 2-track 15 i.p.s. masters was if I was working on them, so that was my big incentive for doing it. The strive for true hi-fi was common ground with Donald and Walter and Gary—we're all perfectionists, especially Walter with his quad electrostatic speakers at home and the latest tone arm. It wasn't a drag for me to do things over and over until it was perfect, as here it would have driven a lot of other engineers up the wall. In my own way, I'm just as crazy as they are.
BS: At what stage are the Steely Dan songs when you are brought in?
RN: It depends. Either they haven't cut anything or, if Elliot Scheiner has been engineering in New York, I'll come in from the first overdub. They do their demos—just the piano and voice stuff—just the three of them, but as soon as anything is recorded, Elliot or myself is there.
BS: By that time, they have a good idea what they're after, right?
RN: It's amazing, my mouth still hangs open. They seem to know what's going to fill a little hole in a chorus that won't be recorded for a year. I don't know how they do it. I don't know if they know how they do it either, but they do. It makes it very easy to work. We never have to do things over again because of arrangement problems or because one instrument conflicts with another. Stuff will get done over again because a player's style won't match the tune, or a player's execution isn't good enough, or the horn section is out of tune, or something like that.
BS: Was Donald and Walter's contribution equal?
RN: It was always Donald and Walter together. They're both equally talented and it really was a fifty-fifty operation. Either one of them could've done the records alone, but you can tell there is a difference when both of them bounce ideas off each other. They get fine-tuned that much more. Walter's a great guitarist. The only thing is, he takes a long time to do solos, about an hour a bar, so it takes us a day to do an eight-bar solo. When we started using studio musicians, Walter would show 'em what he wanted, so the later guitar parts were very much influenced by him.
BS: How did Fagen and Becker get so much out of jaded session musicians?
RN: It's like the musical Olympics. Here's a musician whose style and capability they know, and they'll push him to ten percent beyond his limits. Just the chords they've written and the things they have in their mind; maybe Larry Carlton's not used to playing these scales over these chords. Another big factor is that we don't care how long it takes. The musicians will say, 'Hey, I'm really sorry it's taking so long. It's a great idea, I'm trying to execute it,' and we say, 'We don't care how long you take.' It's all constructively done, and it just takes a long time to do it. But every time somebody comes out, they say they've never played that well in their lives. And then they always want to come back.
BS: What's the story behind the solo in “Peg," which apparently frustrated an awful lot of guitarists?
RN: There were only eight guitarists who tried that tune, not thirty. It was just that everyone had their own idea of what the solo should be, and it just didn't match up to what Donald and Walter expected of it. Jay Graydon was their last ditch effort—it became the Jay Graydon solo by default. It came out pretty much the way they had in mind, though. Usually they'd put a band together for the rhythm sections based on the tune and the style of the musicians: 'These three guys will work together on this tune, let's put 'em together and try it.' Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't quite work out, so you'd put together another rhythm date later with a different combination. But it wasn't like there were ten tunes to cut and you tried to cut five different bands on all ten, and then picked the best one. It sort of got blown all out of proportion by the times the rumors started spreading around 'Eighty-five bands tried that tune!'
BS: How were the duties of Gary Katz and yourself divided?
RN: It worked out pretty well. Once in a while I'd have to slam him against the wall, keep him in line. 'I'm not doing that! Kerrump!' But it's just one of those things that clicks. The musicians pretty much know what they want. They're in charge of that, I'm in charge of getting it on tape and making it sound great.
Roger Nichols: I was born in California and lived all over the U.S. until junior high school because my Dad was in the Air Force. He flew B-47s. When he got out of the Air Force in 1957 I went to high school in Cucamonga, the same one Frank Zappa went to. Frank actually used to come over to my house and mess around with guitars and things. After that I went to Oregon State University where I studied nuclear physics. Then I worked for Southern California Edison at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant as a nuclear operator from 1965 to 1968.
BS: How did you make the switch from nuclear power to rock?
RN: Me and a couple of friends built a recording studio, Quantum Studios, in Torrance, just south of Los Angeles. It started out as a four-car garage and when we'd converted it into our studio in about 1965 we recorded high school bands in our spare time. We built a hi-fi store also and began to supply custom equipment to people in the music business. That led to a lot of business for the studio and a lot of contacts. We made commercials—Karen Carpenter sang on a lot of the ads and Larry Carlton did arrangements and played guitar. We also did some work with Kenny Rogers when he was still with the First Edition. So we expanded, building a larger studio out of an old post office and moved up from 4 tracks to 16 tracks. Then we started supplying equipment for other studios, including all the machinery for ABC's first studio. Phil Kaye was in charge of that studio and he hired me in about 1970 to do maintenance and engineering. I started right in working with Steve Barri and Phil Kaye on albums by the Grass Roots and Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds and John Phillips and Denny Doherty of the Mama and the Papas.
BS: How did you get together with Steely Dan?
RN: Gary Katz came to ABC about a year after I did and he brought in Steely Dan. No one at ABC quite knew what to make of Donald and Walter so by default I started working with them. We hit it right off. The main reason I had gotten involved in the music business and recording was that I hated clicks, pops and ticks on records. I wanted to be able to play 2-track stuff direct from the studio on my system at home and have it really hi-fi. The only way I could get 2-track 15 i.p.s. masters was if I was working on them, so that was my big incentive for doing it. The strive for true hi-fi was common ground with Donald and Walter and Gary—we're all perfectionists, especially Walter with his quad electrostatic speakers at home and the latest tone arm. It wasn't a drag for me to do things over and over until it was perfect, as here it would have driven a lot of other engineers up the wall. In my own way, I'm just as crazy as they are.
BS: At what stage are the Steely Dan songs when you are brought in?
RN: It depends. Either they haven't cut anything or, if Elliot Scheiner has been engineering in New York, I'll come in from the first overdub. They do their demos—just the piano and voice stuff—just the three of them, but as soon as anything is recorded, Elliot or myself is there.
BS: By that time, they have a good idea what they're after, right?
RN: It's amazing, my mouth still hangs open. They seem to know what's going to fill a little hole in a chorus that won't be recorded for a year. I don't know how they do it. I don't know if they know how they do it either, but they do. It makes it very easy to work. We never have to do things over again because of arrangement problems or because one instrument conflicts with another. Stuff will get done over again because a player's style won't match the tune, or a player's execution isn't good enough, or the horn section is out of tune, or something like that.
BS: Was Donald and Walter's contribution equal?
RN: It was always Donald and Walter together. They're both equally talented and it really was a fifty-fifty operation. Either one of them could've done the records alone, but you can tell there is a difference when both of them bounce ideas off each other. They get fine-tuned that much more. Walter's a great guitarist. The only thing is, he takes a long time to do solos, about an hour a bar, so it takes us a day to do an eight-bar solo. When we started using studio musicians, Walter would show 'em what he wanted, so the later guitar parts were very much influenced by him.
BS: How did Fagen and Becker get so much out of jaded session musicians?
RN: It's like the musical Olympics. Here's a musician whose style and capability they know, and they'll push him to ten percent beyond his limits. Just the chords they've written and the things they have in their mind; maybe Larry Carlton's not used to playing these scales over these chords. Another big factor is that we don't care how long it takes. The musicians will say, 'Hey, I'm really sorry it's taking so long. It's a great idea, I'm trying to execute it,' and we say, 'We don't care how long you take.' It's all constructively done, and it just takes a long time to do it. But every time somebody comes out, they say they've never played that well in their lives. And then they always want to come back.
BS: What's the story behind the solo in “Peg," which apparently frustrated an awful lot of guitarists?
RN: There were only eight guitarists who tried that tune, not thirty. It was just that everyone had their own idea of what the solo should be, and it just didn't match up to what Donald and Walter expected of it. Jay Graydon was their last ditch effort—it became the Jay Graydon solo by default. It came out pretty much the way they had in mind, though. Usually they'd put a band together for the rhythm sections based on the tune and the style of the musicians: 'These three guys will work together on this tune, let's put 'em together and try it.' Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't quite work out, so you'd put together another rhythm date later with a different combination. But it wasn't like there were ten tunes to cut and you tried to cut five different bands on all ten, and then picked the best one. It sort of got blown all out of proportion by the times the rumors started spreading around 'Eighty-five bands tried that tune!'
BS: How were the duties of Gary Katz and yourself divided?
RN: It worked out pretty well. Once in a while I'd have to slam him against the wall, keep him in line. 'I'm not doing that! Kerrump!' But it's just one of those things that clicks. The musicians pretty much know what they want. They're in charge of that, I'm in charge of getting it on tape and making it sound great.
Complete on: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=79868
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