HOT Magazine July 15, 2015 | Page 37

addition to hearing I think I listen to things differently than other people, it’s something that all music producers and sound engineers have to do. We have to listen critically and understand the emotional response of the musician your recording while at the same time have the foresight to cut, paste and edit things together from what you are doing live time in the studio with the artist. ways to re-group and re-monetize the industry so that musicians, composers and songwriters can still get paid. The situation now is yes you can download music for free but it is stealing. Fifteen years ago you would have never thought of going into Tower Records and taking an arm full of CD’s and walking out but that’s exactly what’s happening now on the internet. Russ: In addition to playing and recording you’re also a writer. The record industry was unbelievably slow in spotting that that was going to happen and I remember those discussion very well. The first downloading site that popped up was Napster. Eventually a major company bought them thinking that if they owned the company it would stop the problem but of course there’s a smart kid in the Philippine’s who can knock out a site the next day so the Genie was out of the bottle and the industry hasn’t recovered. Chris: Yes, I write both words and music. A friend of mine who works at an advertising agency in London said to me that I should write a book that gives insider tips on what a person should listen to if they like this particular song or that particular opera. I thought it was a good idea. He said to write an introduction and he would send it to a friend of his who runs Trans World Publishers. In a few days I knocked out the introduction of what the book would be and did the chapter headings of what I thought a book like that should have. Trans World signed the book on the spot and that was the start of my writing career in 1991. My first book was called “Get into Classical Music” and it was a fun easy to read paperback that came out with a CD so you could listen to things I was referring to and then go and expand your collection thereafter. That was quite a big success and kept me in Jaguar cars ever after. I followed that with “Get into Opera” which was demystifying opera and introducing people to it in a user friendly way, same story, paperback book with CD and then the next year I wrote “Get into Jazz”. The books were translated into 7 different languages including Mandarin and Spanish so we covered all the main languages around the world. Russ: How long would it take you to write a book? Chris: That’s an interesting question really because all during that time I was really busy producing records, it was my absolute busy busy years. I limited myself to a month and I would just take that month out. The first one I went down to my Uncle’s house out by the coast in South England and was writing two to three thousand words a day. It was the same story for the other two books, I just really focused for a month. Russ: Last night with friends we were discussing how so few people buy music anymore now that you can download most everything for free or you can join a website like Spotify and pay a monthly subscription fee. From your standpoint being so entrenched in the music business, what are your thoughts on this? Chris: Well, the whole music industry is in total free-fall at the moment and I’m very fascinated by that and am actively involved in trying to find People’s ability to earn money in the music industry now has been severely hampered. Musicians who were selling millions or tens of millions of records in the 80’s and 90’s are ok but I f X\