Hot Press catches up with Daniel Lanois

He’s best known as a producer and groundbreaking sonic collaborator with the likes of U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, among dozens of others. But it’s easy to forget that Daniel Lanois is a musician at heart, with an impressive back catalogue in his own right. His tenth solo album, Flesh And Machine, finds him pushing the envelope once again – this time on a collection of largely ambient compositions. On atmospheric pieces such as ‘Sioux Lookout’ and ‘Forest City’, the Canadian processes a dizzying array of textures – including steel and electric guitars, piano drums and human voices – to build a mesmerising soundscape.

“I’m always hoping I’m going to find the next dimension of sound,” muses Lanois. “I’ve been able to do it a number of times in the past on other people’s records. Well, it’s still my job today to raise that spirit of sound and I’d like to think that I’ve done it on this record.”
The album has been well received critically and despite the studio-bound nature of the material, he takes it on the road this month, with a Dublin date on the itinerary. “What I’ve done for the live show is I’ve prepared some tracks, reduced them down to 8-track and I feed them to our drummer in metronomic time and off we go,” he explains. “It’s a bit of a risk doing all that freewheel dubbing, mixing and sampling on the fly. But it gets pretty wild and inventive. Part of the set will be that and I’ll also be paying respect to my back catalogue. I’ll have my steel guitar with me, which I hope will be a treat for listeners.”
He won’t be entirely alone onstage however and along with the technology he’ll have a drummer to help him out. “His names is Kyle Crane, and he’s young and very talented,” Lanois enthuses. “His claim to fame is that he’s the kid playing the drums in the movie Whiplash, during the moments when you don’t see the actor’s face. I first heard him in a local bar in Los Angeles around the corner from my studio, and I thought he had a lot of fire inside him.”
Is Lanois aware of the commercial limitations of a record like this? “I’ve stopped thinking that way. I mean, I want things to go well with touring and so on, but I don’t really know what a ‘commercial’ sound means anymore – and I don’t care that much. If you get the hit when you’re doing what you want, it’s great. But when you don’t get the hit after you’ve gone after it – that’s when you don’t want to hear that song again, ever. I was at the Juno Awards and they have categories like Adult Contemporary Alternative – I mean what the fuck is that? It’s clearly something invented by the radio stations, because they’re trying to reach an audience from 22 to 37 or something.”
Does all this solo work mean he’s given up his role in the producer’s chair?
“Well, I’ve devoted big chapters of my life to other people and I was happy to do it, man. I liked helping people and I got a lot out of it. I was fortunate to be making records at a time that was very special. But you can only do that for so long and I had to ask myself – who the fuck am I? I didn’t go to sound school and come out as a record producer. It was a life’s journey. But I’m a musician first. It’s not even a conscious decision, it’s just a segue into a new chapter. Do I really need to be in a chair in Berlin for two years?”
Finally, is there anyone Lanois regrets not being given the opportunity to produce? Bruce Springsteen, for example, has often been mentioned as a suitable candidate for the Lanois treatment...
“I’m a friend of Bruce’s, I mean we don’t hang out all the time but I see him now and again, and yes, it’s been talked about. But why would I do that? Do I want to be in a studio making a Bruce Springsteen record when I could be out with my motorcycle club? It doesn’t mean I’m giving up or anything. I’ve made some very fast records and I’ve made some very slow records – and I’m not talking tempo here (laughs). Try sitting in a chair for two or maybe three years and tell me how you feel.”