UNCUT: You must have spent more time with this music than anybody else on the planet. What did you learn from this experience? Is there anything new for you to hear and discover?
GILES MARTIN: Yeah, it’s funny – there’s always something new, because when you mix the albums, you’re sort of living with the band at that time. My introduction to the Beatles is unusual compared to most people’s, because I didn’t have any plans to work on Beatles music, and then I did the Love show and Love album, which involved going through absolutely everything, almost alphabetically rather than in a timeline. My whole job was doing the mashups, creating the sound bed for the show. So I wasn’t actually very good on the albums, to be honest – I sound like a Philistine saying that!
So when the Beatles asked me to start remixing and doing these packages, I’d spend time in each period with the band, if that makes sense – so you can understand the direction they were going, and you’re in that creative space with them. Even though I’m working backwards – I did Revolver previously – Rubber Soul is interesting because it’s a bed partner to Revolver. At the same time, you start hearing in it the creativity that inspired them. It all makes sense, really: they came back from America, they’d been touring heavily, they hung out with a bunch of American musicians who were inspired by them, and they decided to steal their stuff to make their next record – which is how musicians work. Because I work intensely with the four – track tapes, I get into that period of time, if that makes sense.
How much is this a work of restoration, and how much are you making creative decisions yourself – in the new mix, in unearthing the old demos and instrumentals?
I don’t really see it as restoration. That makes it sound like it’s gone old and musty without me being there. When the Beatles – or Apple – first asked me to do Sgt. Pepper’s, the public perception was that I sit there like Little Lord Fauntleroy and go “I want to go mix Sgt. Pepper’s” and just do it. That’s not how it works at all. Apple approach it, and my first reaction was that the album sounds pretty good to begin with.
Interestingly, with Rubber Soul and Revolver especially, there was never really a proper stereo mix of these albums. The stereo done by my dad and Geoff Emerick – I think it was done at Montserrat, funnily enough, in the ’80s.
’87, was it?
Yeah, I’m not totally sure, I’m talking off the top of my head. What I tend to do is realise I have much better technology than they did. I don’t have the Beatles around, which they didn’t have at the time either, if you know what I mean.
How much input do you get from Paul and Ringo?
They’re my bosses. They come and listen, they give me notes. They have to be happy with it. As does Sean Lennon, as does Olivia Harrison and Dhani Harrison. That’s how it works. And Yoko. It’s actually quite useful, because most people who mix – most of my contemporaries – are mixing for A&R men, and I think they’re much less heartfelt in their opinions. So there are a lot of creative decisions to be made, and I have the advantage of an A/B button – actually an A/B/C button – so I’m listening to the original mix, the stereo done in ’87, and the mix I’m doing now.
The thing about those earlier stereos: because of the technological limitations at the time, they had to be in stereo even though these albums were designed for mono – that’s what they were made for. People didn’t really have stereos then, not in the UK. So the only thing you could do was put the vocal on one side and the band on the other. We don’t have to do that anymore. Not doing that is key, because it makes it feel like mono but stereo – more like how the band would have wanted it. I’m sure if John Lennon sat in a room and all the vocals were coming out of one side, he’d have gone, “This is crap, why don’t we play rock and roll properly?” You have much more impact with two speakers being used together for one thing than with one thing on each speaker.
Do you ever wonder about things like spatial audio and Dolby Atmos – do you think in 20 years these mixes might look as quaint as the hard – panned stereo mixes do now?
I hope not – though I suppose it sounds arrogant saying that. I’ve always quite liked Dolby Atmos, spatial audio, but not for the reasons people think. Dolby themselves have criticised me for not being brave or artistic enough in my approach, which is funny, because I’ve done some pretty brave and artistic things, especially with Beatles music. But it’s not about showing off technology. Mixers should never be heard. You should be able to hear a song, not a mix.
With Atmos, the great thing is you can put someone in a room that sounds really good. But I don’t want to be in a situation where the lead guitar is coming from behind me and Ringo is somewhere else – that’s not how I experience a band. I remember Dolby came to see me at AIR Studios in 1994 and played me an early spatial mix – I think it was “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye – and the guitar was behind my left shoulder. I said, “I’ll never put anything in that position.” They said, “You don’t understand.” I said, “No, I do – but what I want to do is make people feel like the vinyl is melting and they’re falling through the record slightly.” I hope the Atmos mixes stand the test of time. I’m probably wrong – people will probably think in ten years it’s a complete relic. But that’s my intention, anyway.
From a fan’s perspective, the big discovery from this package is the new song, “Little Girl.” Can you tell me how that discovery came about? It seems remarkable to me as a Beatles fan that there are still new songs being unearthed – I hadn’t even heard this one mentioned before.
It came from Sean, actually – Sean found his dad singing this song. It’s just the reel – to – reels they had. It was an abandoned song that didn’t mean a thing – it’s not, you know, his best song. If it were his best, it’d be on the record.
Are you able to date it precisely to a particular month in ’65?
No date – I mean, I could hazard a guess, but I have no idea, really. It’s literally a reel – to – reel tape that was found with that on it. Same with “Day Tripper” – that was on a reel – to – reel tape as well, which was then wiped. There are these things where you hear snapshots, once – once said and gone.
Cynical fans might say it feels like there’s a store of these songs that always seem to become available whenever there’s a new package. Is it just “Carnival of Light” left now? Do you feel there’s anything left?
I promise you that isn’t the case. My approach on these projects is to try and cast a net that doesn’t damage the ocean, so to speak – collecting everything from that period. What happens is you start going into people’s personal archives and collections, so I’m not necessarily aware of everything going in. I’m asking, “What do you have? Is there anything useful I can tap into?” – and that’s how we find this material. But I don’t think there’s anything else. I might always say that, and then turn out to be a bare – faced liar talking to you at the end of it – but I don’t think there is.
Do you think “Carnival of Light” will ever see the light of day?
“Carnival of Light” was my White Album period, in a way – I do sort of live in the era I’m working on. It’s interesting – I did think about doing something with it when we hit that period. “Carnival of Light” isn’t a song. When people ask about it – it’s not an unreleased song, it’s an experience. It’s not a song, it’s –
It’s like an installation, I guess. A sound installation.
Exactly that. I talked to Paul about it at some point – doing an installation based on “Carnival of Light”. But it’s not something to be released as a record. I think they did something with it at the Roundhouse originally – with lighting. It’d be a fun thing to do properly: find an amazing lighting person and build something around it. But it doesn’t need to be released on a record, because that’s not what it was for. My approach to all this material is not to do things just so people can add to their collection – that’s not what the Beatles were about. It’s about stuff that’s fun to listen to, that people play more than once. That’s the idea.
It’s interesting hearing you talk about getting into the headspace of the band at that time. In 1965, the big records of that year are “Satisfaction” by the Stones, “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds, “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan – it’s almost as if musicians the Beatles had inspired were coming up with things just as radical and new as the Beatles had been. Can you hear that?
Yeah, you can hear that. There’s a thing – they wanted to conquer the pop charts, they were the first band to do so in a deliberate way. There wasn’t really a pop band before the Beatles, just pop singers. They wrote songs that were fairly pleasant – “She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Eight Days a Week,” and so on. I think what happened is the Stones, and especially Dylan in America, showed the Beatles they didn’t have to be a pop band to have success. So they rolled up their sleeves and thought, “Okay, we can make music that doesn’t mean we have to be cute and wave and smile.”
There’s always a sort of reflecting mirror in that world. You get “Satisfaction” by the Stones, and you get Paul McCartney playing fuzz bass high up in the mix on Rubber Soul. You get Dylan topping the charts with “Like a Rolling Stone,” and John writing “Norwegian Wood,” which is such an homage to Dylan. You get George writing his “Byrds” songs. I think the Beatles gave the Stones licence to be a pop band – but it worked the other way round too. And don’t forget The Who as well.
Actually, “The Word” is a really bizarre song for its time – it surprised me, that song.
I know the Stones recorded “Satisfaction” in L.A., and I think they sensed they could make more impressive – sounding records there. Was that purely a technological difference between London and L.A. studios, or was it better musicians, better technicians?
No, it was just a different way of working. They had better technology – they were recording on multi – track tape way before Abbey Road was. I don’t remember the exact story, but the four – track Studer J37 machine that arrived at Abbey Road – I think it was around the Help! period – apparently EMI took the Studer J37 and had to put their own modifications on it, and one of those “modifications” was adding wheels. Such a brilliant thing – “What have you done? We’ve added wheels.”
My dad got sent out to America because nobody knew why the Americans were making records so much louder than the British – not as a race, but in terms of record – making. He went to the Come Fly with Me sessions with Frank Sinatra and tried to work out how they did it – it’s about the needle jumping out of the groove, compressors, how they limited and mastered records. So yes, there was an element of that, definitely.
In retrospect, it seems like a remarkable tribute to the camaraderie the band had with your dad that they never went and recorded in the States – they were quite happy to stay in London recording with George.
Yeah, I think there was a lot of love there. It’s funny – a lot of people’s perception of the Beatles is shaped by what was said by the Beatles themselves in 1972–73, but honestly – one thing we were criticised for with Get Back, working with Peter Jackson, was that we’d “Disneyfied” the Beatles. But we made seven and three – quarter hours of documentary, and we showed as much as we could – we didn’t edit the bad bits out. It was pretty harmonious.
That’s a long way of saying: the studio was their refuge. They liked going to America, but they weren’t American, they didn’t want to be American – I think more so than the Stones, the Beatles had more of a sense of self. They were these guys from Liverpool. The Stones don’t go on about where they’re from in the same way. I know this from knowing Paul – his attitude is very much “this is what we do, this is where we’re going to go.” He went to Montserrat and Air Studios, he went to India with Wings, eventually went to New York. But as a band, it was so crazy for them wherever they went – it was less crazy in the UK, to be honest. The Stones didn’t have the same issues there.
Abbey Road, being this vast building, was like a Tardis. You’d walk through the door and no one bothered them. They liked that there was “EMI, Abbey Road” written on the loo paper, so nobody stole it – though apparently they had to break into the fridge to get milk. It was somewhere they could retreat to. Ringo says that during that time they’d have massive [hotel] suites, but they’d all end up in one room together – and I think it was the same with Studio Two.
You can really hear Paul becoming a generational bass player on this record. There are various rumours about the Beatles recording with Motown, or with Stax, at various points towards the end of 1965, or at least the offer being on the table. Do you know anything about that – or even whether it happened?
I certainly know they were heavily influenced by them – “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Money,” all that early on. I think at this stage particularly, and you can really hear it on Rubber Soul, bass became a much more important thing. They realised these American records relied on a groove that was bass and drums. Previously their own style, musicologically, was more guitars and top – end kit – there’s not much bass on “She Loves You,” say. Whoever’s got a great bass riff, it’s not the same thing.
They wanted that rounder sound, that Motown feel. So it’s like they went pre – Rubber Soul and made a shopping list in America, bought the ingredients, and came back and cooked up Rubber Soul – the Rickenbacker bass Paul started playing is a good example of that. There’s a great story – I think John was listening to a record, maybe Marvin Gaye, and said, “I want us to sound like that,” and Ringo said, “But that’s two drummers, John,” and John said, “Well, I wouldn’t let that bother you.”
One of the lovely discoveries is your dad’s original organ solo on “In My Life”. Were you aware that take existed?
No – because the way he always told the story, it wasn’t in there originally. That’s the funny thing about all this: everyone makes things up as they go along, you tell a story once and it becomes the truth. I had no idea it existed. Knowing my dad – and I can say this because he’s my dad – I think he probably scored the music out. He was very particular, he’d have written out the notes, then gone to an organ, probably during the lunch break while the boys were out.
Do you think they’d asked him to put something in there, or was it purely off his own back?
No, I think he probably had the idea in his head while they were recording – that melody. He was very into Baroque music, which is what he’d studied at the Guildhall. He’d have written it out on manuscript paper, gone into the studio, and thought an organ was the closest thing to a Baroque sound – a Hammond organ, in that kind of vibe. I think he found the sound wasn’t quite right, and also he couldn’t quite play it at the right speed, so he thought, “What if I play it at half speed?” – because then he could manage it. I know this because I’d have done exactly the same thing. He played it on piano at half speed, and when it was sped back up it sounded like a harpsichord. I don’t think he set out for a harpsichord sound – I think he tried something and it happened to sound like one.
It’s a wonderful example of the collective intelligence of the band and your dad together – John was vaguely trying to write a Smokey Robinson kind of song, but then sets it in Liverpool, and you get this Baroque piano solo. Such a crazy mix of different things.
That’s the beautiful thing – that’s why I think AI won’t win, funnily enough. There’s a Douglas Adams line: “The secret of flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Sometimes the secret of writing a great song is to aim for something and get it completely wrong – and in that process end up somewhere much better than you intended.
I think my dad really respected them as musicians – found it fascinating, because they were so far from his own sensibility, the way they’d learned music. He was a man who measured things – the biggest argument we ever had was about the fact I don’t measure things when I cook. I’m much more an instinctive musician than he was. He’d find it strange when I’d put music together in the Love show without writing it out – he’d say, “But you haven’t written it down,” and I’d say, “No, but I know all the parts in my head.” The Beatles were so far from that world that he was almost in awe of them, but also wanted to compete with it a little, to show them what you could do with technique – and bring them into that world too. It was a successful mash – up. Listen to “I Am the Walrus” – that’s a classic example of pop and classical colliding, there’s nothing else like it. Or “Eleanor Rigby,” months later – no other band has a double string quartet and just vocals sound like that. That’s what Rubber Soul is, in a way – that really interesting cusp where they’ve reached the peak of pop, the absolute zenith of it, but they’re also hurtling down this new creative pathway, throwing off the shackles of their pop past, not giving a damn about it anymore.
One final question, which you may not be able to answer – feel free to shut me down. The Beatles biopic has been in the news again this week – I saw your dad’s been cast, Harry Lloyd is playing him. Has he spoken to you at all, got any notes from you on how to portray him?
I’m not allowed to talk about it! I’d love to tell you everything, maybe over a beer sometime. I actually got in trouble with the film people because I announced Harry Lloyd’s casting on a Beatles anthology livestream before it was meant to come out. All I’ll say about the films is that they are extraordinary – I’ve done three biopics now, and this is off the charts. The attention to detail is crazy – it’s a very strange, very dangerous thing to do, but they really are extraordinary. I think people’s minds will be blown. If people get excited about Rubber Soul, wait till these films come out.