How important was it to record old-school analog?
For the basics it was crucial. At this point in my life I didn’t want to do any digital recording. I wanted everything to be analog. I wanted it to be big and fat—a warm, real sound. I wanted really great drum, bass, and guitar sounds. And that’s exactly what we got with Andy. As soon as we started working with him, it was just like being in England at Olympic studios in 1967 when everything was analog—it felt the same way and we just took off. In your 1978 Guitar Player cover story, you talked about the frustration of hearing a great tone in the room but a skinny, bad tone on playback. The tones on this record really sound like you’re in the room with them. They do, and that was really inspiring. We’re still in that world where you get a great sound in a room and you come in and listen to it and say to the engineer, “Would you put that on your record? What the hell is wrong with you?” But recording’s a trick. It’s very difficult to get the right sound and you have to work a lot. Andy
