Interview: what music producers do, according to Stuart Price
With the BRIT Award winner for Best Producer set to be revealed, we are interviewing some of the nominees.
This award was reinstated about three years ago, recognising that musical talent runs deeper than simply the bands themselves, and that music is a collaborative process.
Second up is Stuart Price, who produced Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor and The Killers' last album Day and Age, has also worked with Seal, Keane and Duffy.
More recently he produced Kylie's Aphrodite, Brandon Flowers' Flamingo and Take That's Progress. He also has a fantastic list of remixes under the moniker of Thin White Duke and releases albums himself as Zoot Woman.
Why have you not yet won a BRIT Award?
Not good looking enough to be in a boy band and I'm a terrible singer. I have some negative characteristics too.
How do you compare with the other nominees?
Humbled in their presence
What does a producer do?
Listens, in more ways than one.
Are producers frustrated rock stars?
Of course! Being a producer often means you get a lot of the upside of being in a band - making records for fun, and little of the downside - knackered in the back of a transit van.
How did working with Take That and the Killers differ? Who are more of a man band!?
Ha-ha. Well, they're both man-bands with feminine sides I suppose. Actually there is less of a difference now than there was at the start of their careers.
Is there any album you wished you had produced?
I seem to be constantly listening to records and banging my head against the wall shouting "I'll never be that good!" They include Dare (Human League), Oxygene (Jean Michel Jarre) and Actually (Pet Shop Boys).
You produced the Pet Shop Boys' BRITS medley of 2009, any plans to work with them again?
Yes, they just don't know it yet!
