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A prolific producer, remixer and artist - Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee is one of the most sought-after, influential names in music right now. While his popularity among bands and listeners alike is soaring to stratospheric heights, he has long been involved in music production, but whatever you do, don’t call him a ‘Jack of all trades’. Ahem.
First, a bit of history for those who wouldn’t know a producer from a sound tech. Jacknife Lee carved his way into music as guitarist of punk band Compulsion. Following their demise, he began recording electronica under his current name, releasing both an EP and his first album ‘Muy Rico’ in 1999.
Jacknife Lee’s finest and most well-known producing conquests can be outlined as break-through albums for Snow Patrol and Kasabian, U2’s first ‘rock’ album ‘How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb’ and the more experimental sound of Bloc Party’s ‘A Weekend in the City’. Now Jacknife is releasing his fourth solo album and has recently been working with R.E.M to produce their latest, long-awaited album.
Enigmatic yet frank and forthright, Jacknife Lee is an antidote to the phenomenon to the ‘celebrity producer’, Lee shuns the excess and over-exposure that comes with being part of the commercial and musical elite. He has a somewhat shrewd approach to collaborating and has been involved the music biz long enough not to succumb to passing trends, nor be dazzled by flash-in-the-pan bands. Let’s just say, he didn’t win his Grammy award for producing indie has-beens.
With the boundaries between artist and producer ever blurring, many artists prefer the control and artistic expression of writing their own material to producing. Jacknife said, “I am purely involved with noise control. It’s all mostly enjoyable. I’m not going to make a choice. Like standing and sitting, they’re both good.”
After a long spell of being the man behind the mixing desk, Jacknife’s latest album brings his own songs to the foreground, although it seemed to taken on a life of its own. He said “it took too long to finish but only days to record and write. I was busy on other things and only got to work in the wee gaps of time between jobs. The original idea was to have one idea per song and see how far I wanted to take it. For the most part it’s good. I like it, yeah, but it’s my last of this kind.”
When asked how the new album differs from his previous releases, Lee said, “the last one wasn’t one of mine, that was Planck’s. The ones before that weren’t very good. I was just trying some stuff out. The first one wasn’t even supposed to be released and the second one shouldn’t have been released. This one should.”
One thing that Jacknife Lee didn’t intend envisage for this album was that it would be self-titled. “It has no name. I didn’t name it. The distributor, iTunes, Amazon, the shop, the magazine, the label did. Formatting in modern media requires an album title. I didn’t want one, so they named it themselves. You can call it what you want. I’ve lost interest in calling my records anything, seems superfluous.”
While he is satisfied with the new album, this is no ‘golden era’ in his music and he has no intention of cultivating a winning formula. A driven perfectionist, Lee is never content with his music is always looking for ways to progress or even diversify. He stressed, “I haven’t even started properly yet.”
So, how does the recording process begin? Do producers offer their services or is it the band who seek them out? “Sometimes they’re blind dates and sometimes, like with Editors, our eyes met across a crowded room.”
Not all Jacknife’s experiences with artists have been a meeting of mind, however. “I did a DJ tour of Australia a few years ago and some very big old Djs didn’t like my involvement. They behaved stupidly and it reminded me of the worst aspects of school playground crap. I DJed at a Pink party and she was a little silly. Now I don’t work with people I don’t like. Why would I?”
While Pink and her gang no longer get a look in, Lee maintains that his other musical encounters only have a positive effect on his writing. He said, “When you’re surrounded by creative people your life can only get better.”
Shaping a band’s sound while incorporating their ideas and quirks is always a challenge for a producer, particularly when working with head-strong, well-established bands like U2 or R.E.M. Jacknife explained, “I have an idea how I want the song to sound, filtered through how the band sound, could sound or would like to sound. Then it’s just a matter of moving everything to get there, eliminating every other possibility along the way, to make sure. We’re all sitting there together figuring it out.”
Surely, after producing so many albums, Jacknife must know just what is the ‘Jacknife Lee’ sound. “I have no idea. I don’t have one. I’ve been involved in rock, hip hop, electro, opera, pop, R’n’B, electronic, folk etc.”
While being the indie-rock producer du jour, Lee is a fan of a number of his contemporaries, who create very different sounds to his own such as Rich Costey, Kieran Hebden, James Ford, Paul Epworth, T-Bone, Burnette, Leila, Switch, Timbaland, Valgeir Sigurossen and Flood, to name but a few.
Ever with his ear to the ground, Lee is looking for a new generation of bands with new music that he could turn his hand to. “I like Hadouken!, The National, Midlake, Ra Ra Riot, Regina Spektor, Annuals, Autolux, I Was a Cub Scout.”
Refusing any hot goss on the new R.E.M album, Jacknife lets slip that his upcoming projects will include new albums by The Hives, Play Radio Play!, and Savile Robots. He added, “Editors ‘An End Has A Start’ is a remix I just finished. I like it much. It’s out in a few weeks.
Defiant, focused and totally uncompromising, this is Jacknife Lee as he wants to sound and has always aimed to sound, but for how long is anyone’s guess.
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