Talking To... Phil Harding
Welcome to the 7th of “Talking To” where FATEA editor, Neil King gets to chat to some of the artists that have impressed
him through their work and releases. This occasional series continues with an interview with Phil Harding
#NK How close did it come to being Stock, Aitkin, Waterman, Harding?
#P [laughs] Close in the early days. My role in the team was strong enough to ask for a royalty on the first Dead Or Alive album. I'd started co-producing a number of bands, like Matt Bianco, as well. My career was well on the way. My role within the team was definitely engineer. With three of them already producing, that's enough in the pot really.
If I were to go through the magazine articles etc. there were a few things that had all four names in the headline in publications like Music Week. It wasn't really on the cards.
I will say though, for the record, Pete was always a fantastic team leader and motivator. If there was an occasion where you thought you were being hard done by, he was always there to talk to. I always considered my payback for not getting then royalty on Dead or Alive was producing four tracks on the first Rick Astley album.. After a few years working with him, you know you would be treated properly, which was one of the reasons I was there for eight years.
#NK You then moved through the likes of East 17, Boyzone and the ilk. Was that as exciting as being there with the Clash or the start of SAW? And hands up yes it is about, did it feel like working with proper musicians?
#P To be honest, it was exciting from the point of view that myself and Ian, became an A team. You know what I mean. We were almost exclusively working for Tom Watkins, another industry entrepreneur. We did well, but I don't think it was as interesting. I've started writing a book about the 80s. I think there are more people out there interested in what happened with PWL than happened with the boy band explosion of the 90s.
It was good to be there, our success and to make some serious money and have our own hit records. From an historical point of view, not as exciting as the eighties and the early stuff I did with the Clash.
I only did a limited amount of stuff with The Clash, mixed "White Man At Hammersmith Palais" and recorded some of the tracks for the mini album. A hallowed name in our industry.
#NK I was lucky enough to meet and interview Joe, as it turned out, not too long before he died. A man not easily forgotten.
#P Absolutely. He was such a driven personality and such a driver of the band, though obviously the conflict with Mick Jones. Even then there was never any question about his commitment to his music.
#NK So following the line through, after the boybands you moved into education.
#P End of the 90s I'd got fed up of being pigeonholed as a boy band producer. Ian and I tried to get ourselves out of it, tried to record our own solo female artists and contemporary type music, but the record labels said, 'This ain't your sound guys, what are you doing?'
By that stage I was sorely missing what I had in the seventies, which was working with good rock musicians. The chance to use more than one microphone after years of just using one microphone. Pretty much it was keyboards so only vocals and occasionally a bit of percussion.
I had a hankering to get back to working with bands and real musicians. I stumbled into the lecturing education thing by accident having been asked to do a workshop. Although I was nervous about it I took the students through the process of the songwriter demo through to the finished master.
I really enjoyed it and saw how much the students got from it. I found it a rewarding process and that lead me to doing more guest lectures and then got offered a job and it seemed the right thing to do.
I'm now at the point where I've got the new recording projects to do and I'm looking forward to new challenges away from the paperwork and the politics, which sort of brings us up to date.
The next thing is reforming a band called The Stompers and revisiting that.
I've found it incredibly liberating to get out playing live again, so I'm really looking forward to doing some more of that.
Thank you very much