Alan Parsons has had a truly amazing career in music. His start was as an assistant engineer on the Abbey Road and Let It Be albums by The Beatles. He went on to engineer Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and their sonic masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon.
He also engineered and/or produced works by Paul McCartney (Red Rose Speedway, Wildlife), The Hollies (“The Air That I Breathe”), Pilot (“Magic”), Al Stewart (“The Year of the Cat”) and Ambrosia.
He then focused his attention on The Alan Parsons Project, with classic albums including Tales of Mystery and Imagination, I Robot, Pyramid, Eve, The Turn of a Friendly Card and Eye in the Sky, and songs including “Eye in the Sky,” “Games People Play,” “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” and “Sirius,” the latter of which is particularly beloved by fans of the Chicago Bulls.
The Alan Parsons Live Project will perform a benefit concert at the Lobero Theatre on Saturday for the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County. Click here for tickets.
The following is an excerpt from a phone interview. Click here to read the full interview.
Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert at the Lobero Theatre?
Alan Parsons: Well, we’re very excited to be playing, particularly because it’s a local show. Santa Barbara is my hometown and has been for 11 years. This is actually only the second show we’ve done in Santa Barbara.
When you say, “What can we expect,” you mean, will we have flying pigs and fireworks and stuff like that? The answer to that is no [laughs]. But we have a seven-piece band. It’s going to be a big sound.
I think the Lobero is a great venue. I saw Steve Miller there a few months back, and he sounded amazing as well as putting on an amazing show. So I’m excited about it.
JM: Will the opener David Pack from Ambrosia be joining you for any songs, or vice versa?
AP: Actually, we’re going to rehearse one of the songs that he performed on one of my albums [1993’s Try Anything Once] called “Oh Life (There Must Be More).” We’re going to do that.
JM: I do have to ask, were you involved with the recent Pink Floyd reissues?
AP: No, I wasn’t.
JM: Have you listened to the complete Dark Side of the Moon package?
AP: Yes, when I asked for a copy from the record company they kindly sent it to me. It’s very frustrating that I had nothing to do with it. You know, that’s just the way this business operates.
JM: At least they sent you one [laugh].
AP: They sent me three actually. But it’s very frustrating, particularly as an engineer that I didn’t get the opportunity to give my blessing to the way it was mastered.
JM: How would you characterize your contributions to Dark Side of the Moon?
AP: I think I was an engineer with production expertise. I certainly wasn’t paid as a producer, that’s for sure. Engineers, for the most part even to this day, are paid salary, not royalties. So Dark Side of the Moon did not make me rich.
JM: Moving on to your albums, my favorite of the Alan Parsons Project albums is the first one, Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
AP: Mine, too.
JM: Cool! Could you give your reflections on that album and how that came together, and why it worked so well?
AP: I think it was just a good piece of timing. It was kind of the first of a new breed of albums, really, a producer putting his name to something as artist, which arguably had not been done until that time. And there was a combination of great talents. I mean, Eric [Woolfson] was a very good songwriter, we worked well together as composers and he was a good businessman as well. He pulled off a great initial deal with the label, and we got some really good musicians and singers.
So good musicians, good songs, good concept — all the ingredients came together at the right time, and we did well with it. It wasn’t the biggest album, of course, but it paved the way for a series of albums which did a whole lot better. But it still is my favorite.
JM: You had a string of classic albums through the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s. What are some of the high points of that time for you, musically or otherwise?
AP: It was just very exciting to be doing so well. Most people come and go overnight. We had basically 10 years of success, which was almost unheard of for a lot of people.
JM: Do you find it challenging to pull off your music live, because there’s a certain sophistication to it?
AP: I think it would’ve been difficult to do it before 1995 [when Parsons first started performing live], because the music tends to be heavily orchestrated, and it was really only in the mid-‘90s that the technology was good enough to give a true impression of the orchestral sound. I mean, it really wasn’t possible up until that time. The only way to have done it would have been to have a real orchestra, and that would’ve made everybody go broke.
JM: It sounds like you have another album either in the works or in the planning stages.
AP: Kind of. We actually have two tracks already done for it, one of which has been released on the Internet, called “All Our Yesterdays.” That was recorded as part of a DVD series called The Art and Science of Sound Recording that has been out a year now.
The previous three years I spent making this DVD series. It’s an educational documentary, equivalent to a full TV series. The intention is that it covers every aspect of sound recording, from the eyes and ears of not just me but also other luminaries in the business.
JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?
AP: I think the basis of successful rock music is collaboration. I think too many people try to do it on their own, and sit in front of their laptop and try to be creative, and think that they can do the whole thing themselves. All the best records have come from successful collaborations, co-writing, co-performing. I would encourage musicians to work with others.
This show is for the Boys & Girls Clubs, and their spin-off, Notes for Notes, has a great program of kids working in a studio together downtown. I’m all for that.
— Noozhawk contributing writer Jeff Moehlis is a professor of mechanical engineering at UCSB. Upcoming show recommendations, advice from musicians, interviews and more are available on his Web site, music-illuminati.com.
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