“It was hell”: Steve Lillywhite on producing The Rolling Stones at their most divided
Grammy-winning producer Steve Lillywhite has opened up about one of the toughest studio experiences of his career, describing his time working with The Rolling Stones as “hell”.
Speaking on the Word in Your Ear podcast, Lillywhite reflects on producing the band’s 1986 album Dirty Work – a record made during one of the most tumultuous periods in the Stones’ history.
According to the producer, tensions between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at the time were running so high that the two barely interacted in the studio.
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“I worked with Keith and Mick when they were not talking to each other at all,” Lilywhite recalls [via UCR], noting that the pair spoke to one another for “maybe one hour out of the whole time that we were making the record.”
“It was hell,” he adds. “They literally weren’t [in the same room].”
With the band’s two creative figureheads keeping their distance, Lilywhite found himself stuck in the middle, relaying messages back and forth between them: “I would have one come up to me go ‘blah blah blah blah. And I would go and say [the message] to the other one. And he would go, ‘You tell him, blah blah blah blah.’”
“I say I was [American diplomat] Henry Kissinger.”
Despite the challenges, the producer says the experience left a lasting mark on how he approaches recording sessions. One key lesson? Keep the studio doors open.
“I learned this from The Rolling Stones: Never stop people coming into the studio. Always have an open-door policy,” he says.
“When people come in, and they listen to something, I sort of hear it through their ears. So there might be something that I’m, subconsciously, I’m thinking it’s not quite right, but it hasn’t come to the conscious yet. Whereas when someone’s in there listening, and I’m playing them a rough mix, I go, ‘Got it. Now I know what we have to change.’”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
