If we tried anything fancy it sounded like we were playing wearing boxing gloves. This made for a booming, murky sound that made subtly impossible. If there was too much bass 'spill' on the drum mikes we simply turned down the direct bass channel. We also played a lot closer to 'stage' volume so that there was little or no separation. We set up in the studio as we would in rehearsals, using monitor speakers rather than headphones. ' Uncomplicated' was my latest failed attempt to write a song based on one chord. When a guitar was not on hand I found the rhythm I needed by slapping the kitchen counter as I pieced together ' Honey Are You Straight (Or Are You Blind?)' from a very confusing dream.

It had a suitably clanky sound (that's it at the beginning of ' Crimes of Paris'). I wrote most of them very quickly on an old 1930's Gibson Century guitar. The songs were extremely simple to learn. Certainly, the recording room couldn't have looked much different when Jimi Hendrix or the Rolling Stones were recording there in the sixties. In my memory I see Bakelite switches and knobs although I am sure I must be romancing this. The venue was Olympic Studios, London.Īlthough it was a 24-track studio I liked the arcane look of the control room. He had worked with both Nick and myself on a variety of productions. For the first time in five years our producer was Nick Lowe. There was a good chance that this was going to be our last work together. The terrible experience of The Attractions' Hollywood sessions was far from forgotten. by the time we started recording it King Of America was just about to be released, having been completed less than six months previously.

It's a rock 'n' roll record with a couple of weird ballads and few pop songs thrown in. There is not an awful lot that needs explaining about this record.

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