The award-winning music producer and member of chilled-groove collective Leisure on their new album, success with Benee and writing hits.
To my left is the main window in the studio. Most of the time I have the blind down because so much sun comes in, which is apretty rare problem to have in a recording studio. But it’s such a nice thing to have, especially in this room where I spend so much time on my own. It’s what’s special about it.
The studio has a bit of history. It’s called Golden Age and it was Joel Little’s studio. He built it and did Lorde’s Pure Heroine in here. That funny, useless, soundproofing on the back wall is original. When Joel moved to the States after all the Lorde stuff, I took over. I’ve actually been working out of here way longer than Joel ever was. This is where we did all the Benee stuff and we do a lot of Leisurehere as well.
When people think of a recording studio they usually think of a big mixing desk and a big dark room. This is more like a homely bedroom studio. People like that. It disarms them. It feels relaxed and there’s a bunch of interesting little things around.
Sonically, the room does not sound good. But there’s a certain vibe in here. Maybe that’s to do with the window and having a bit of direct sunlight. There’s something special here. I keep saying I’m gonna pass it on, find someone else to come in, take over and continue the legacy but I can’t quite bring myself to let it go.
As a producer, my first big influence was The Neptunes. I grew up in that first wave of super-producers like The Neptunes, Dr Dre and Timbaland. Pharrell [Williams, one half of production duo The Neptunes] was always my guy. I loved the idea of doing the music and also singing and being an artist. I thought that was exciting.
When Benee took off it didn’t dawn on me how special it was until a year after Supalonely had blown up. At the time, you’re swept up in the momentum. You get calls from the label with updates; “We had two million streams last night!” It’s amazing how quickly everything gets normalised and you forget how big a deal it is.
For me, it was a real relief to have financial security. My daughter was born in December and then Supalonely came out in March. When you’re trying to do music for a living it can be pretty stressful. You have a lot of thoughts like, “What am I doing with my life?” I was so relieved that I didn’t have to worry about that side of things anymore.
It’s what every producer and artist fantasises about — having that one song that relieves that financial pressure. Of course, as soon as you get that you just shift to other problems.
Right now I’m working on all sorts. There’s more Benee stuff and we’re wrapping up the Leisure album and getting ready for the tour, which is very exciting.
But I’m also trying to figure out exactly what my next move is. I’ve done a couple of trips to the United States on writing excursions but you can’t really just go for a couple of weeks. It’s interesting working in LA. All the best people flock there so there’s this incredible vocal and songwriting talent, but everything’s so good and so polished it starts sounding pretty similar and uniform. In New Zealand there’s interesting ideas and interesting voices. It’s rough around the edges, but that’s part of the charm. I’d love to find someone here to develop and work with again.
Leisure was always the fun side project. We didn’t start off wanting to be a band. Most of the band works in and around the music industry and Jaden [Parkes] asked us if we wanted to go away for a week, write some music and just see what happened. The chemistry turned out to be really good so we made a band.
Leisure is all about doing what feels good and trying not to overthink it. We put time and effort into crafting the songs into something that’s cool and if we all like it, then it goes on the album. You never want to go into making music with a goal of, “We’re going to make a hit record,” because all the times I’ve done that I’ve made the worst music I’ve ever made. With Leisure, we want to write catchy tunes, but not we’re not competing with the pop charts or anything like that.
It’s so nice that we’ve got a project that is not our main thing. Ironically, it’s also one of the most successful things I’ve been a part of.
· As told to Karl Puschmann. Leisure is supporting their upcoming album, Leisurevision, with an Aotearoa tour. They play Auckland’s Powerstation on Friday, October 13.
