Dick Plant

This interview is strictly © Pipeline Magazine & should not be reproduced without permission of the magazine.   This interview originally appeared in Issue 66 of Pipeline Magazine & of further interest to Vibratos fans Issue 63 of Pipeline Magazine featured an interview with Warren Bennett as well as a bonus for readers-  namely a free 6 track Vibratos CD which consisted of 6 exclusive recordings which are unavailable elsewhere.  Thank you therefore to the Pipeline Editors; Dick Plant & George Geddes for their permission to upload this interview to my  Web site; and finally, now you have read this interview there really is no reason why you shouldn't subscribe to Pipeline is there so click here for the details.

When and where were you born?

I was born in Eastbourne, in Sussex,  30th April 1946

Continuing in 'Desert Island Discs' fashion, was yours a musical family?

No, not at all. I don't think there was any musical side to our family at all. It was the usual thing with me, there was a friend with a Dansette record player, and the purchase of his first record, which was 'Apache'.

So this would be 1960, when you were 14?

I suppose, to be honest, I got my first guitar with the birth of the skiffle era, Lonnie Donegan, but I didn't really learn to play much for a year or two, until the instrumental thing came in which really encouraged me, by means of my enthusiasm for it, to do something about learning to play.

 It sounds pretentious to say that records like 'Apache' were life-changing, but they were life-changing.

Oh, yes, absolutely, one of those turning points in your life, and you can remember the very definitive ones, can't you, that do those special things to you? Like when I went to see 'Easyrider' it turned me into a complete bike freak.

Are you self-taught?

Yes. I wish I had had lessons.

What was your first band?

A little band called 'The Sabres' made up of school pals. Started when I was about 14.

 And how long did that last?

Well, it developed gradually over the years. We changed the name to 'Shelley' because 'The Sabres' at that point when we were about 16 or 17 sounded an 'old-hat' name and one of the guys in the band had a vague family tree connection to the poet Shelley. That's how the name came about. The band just completely evolved as pop music changed. We stopped doing instrumentals and became a typical 60s band, singing and what have you, and the name stuck through a complete change of members in the band, until we packed up in 1968.

You were, as they say, quite big in Scandinavia.

Yeah, we went to Norway in 67 and we were playing a lot of Tamla stuff and they didn't seem to have heard of it. There was no sign of it in their own charts but with us playing there, a lot of gigs, incredible audiences, incredibly enthusiastic, within a few months Tamla Motown records started getting in their charts. We'd like to think we had something to do with that! Though maybe we had nothing to do with it at all [Laughter]. We got on pretty well, stayed there for 18 months, had a great time.

So when the band broke up, you came back to the UK

I came back to London to stay with a guy who had started to work at Pye recording studios, he was an old friend of mine from Eastbourne who used to be our driver. He had a great interest in recording and he became an engineer at Pye and he got me in there as a tape op.

So that was where you really started in the engineering side of things? How easy was it to move on from that to the actual engineering?

Not that difficult, actually, George. The only way that you could build up from tea boy up through assistant engineer and becoming an engineer was simply by keeping your eyes open and learning the ropes as you went, and then waiting for the chance. The way that I actually got into engineering was because the engineer that was booked on the session - by then I was working at CTS Studios in Wembley - was ill. And the job had to be done. I was the tape op., and I'd worked on several different projects as a tape op,  so the producer said "Well, you do it ...". So I went to the loo and threw up immediately. [Laughter] And that was it! In at the deep end, totally.

On course by the end of the 60s into the 70s, sleeve notes on an LP would actually say who was doing the engineering, which they didn't do previously. Presumably that's when you started to get some kind of acknowledgement.

I guess so, yeah. In the 70s you would start to see who had actually worked on stuff and by then I suppose I'd been an engineer  for two or three years and I noticed that the Shadows had booked in because they couldn't get in at EMI and I said to the bookings guy "Whatever happens, you have to put me on that session!" That was it, that was how I met them.

Just looking at the kind of stuff you've done, you've worked with wide variety of artists, including - Thin Lizzy, ELO, Def Leppard, Renaissance, Annie Haslam, Maddy Prior, Steve Gibbons.

The Tourists, Dr. Feelgood, Roy Wood, who is still a friend of mine, Level 42 ...

It's a very eclectic selection.

I suppose it is really, yes. I was very lucky and it was a lot of fun.

Does any of it rub off on your own kind of music and your own tastes?

It has an effect. You can't help but put your own slant on things, but by means of working with people like ELO, Roy Wood, people who have a very definite direction that they want to go in, you do learn things. Simply by them wanting to do something that you might not have considered doing and you have to figure out some way of doing it. I'm certainly not cutting edge anymore, probably very much back in the past, but I can record a drum kit!

That's maybe an advantage, in that you have skills and techniques which the newer generation don't have.

Maybe so, there was no greater buzz than to have a big studio full of orchestra, rhythm section and everything, and having control of that.

Anything you would single out as a really memorable session?

Obviously, meeting the Shadows was a big thing. One of the most amazing things was working with Level 42, with a producer called Mike Vernon who did a lot of blues stuff, like the John Mayall 'Beano' album. Level 42 were such an incredible bunch of musicians. When you're setting up a session, the band's getting itself organised, getting in tune, and they were doing that, and suddenly they actually started to run through this track which was just unbelievably good, the quality of the playing and everything, it was just like a record coming out of the speakers. I didn't do anything, it was just faders up and the sound was already there because they were so good. After the album was done, a friend, a contemporary of mine said "How did you get that to sound so good?" I said "I did absolutely nothing! They did the whole thing. I didn't have to try"

Then there was the time Duane Eddy came over to Brian's studio to put his guitar on Hank's version of "Pipeline."  I'd been told he was very picky with regard to his sound so I was pretty nervous. There was a knock at the studio door and a cabby was standing there saying, "I've got Duane Eddy in a car outside - is this the right address?" It was the most surreal moment I can remember - the heroic guitar man whose records I'd listened to on the juke box in the amusement arcade when I was a kid was sitting outside in a cab!! It was just so weird. Needless to say, after all, he was a perfectly normal, regular guy and not the prima donna I'd been prepared for. I stuck a mic. on his amp and hoped for the best. He said, "It sounds great - let's do it!" I sagged with relief and the rest of it was easy. After he'd finished, he sat down and reeled off the most riveting series of anecdotes about his early times. I got to play his guitar, too! He was a truly nice, interesting guy and when he left, he and Hank said goodbye by his car before he went. Watching, I thought to myself, "When I was a kid back in that amusement arcade, I'd never in my life have thought I'd be personal witness to anything like this - Hank Marvin and Duane Eddy in a mutual hug!" Absolutely amazing!

Another interesting thing is that back in the 70s, drum sounds had come to the fore, big fat snares, big fat tom-toms and stuff. I used to think "I can't do this, I'm crap, I obviously can't get a good drum sound. Then I was working on a session which was all session musicians, and a drummer called Harold Fisher came in, and I did the usual thing and suddenly I got a great drum sound... simply because he knew how to tune his drums. So one of the things about making a great recording is that the engineer doesn't necessarily have a great deal to do with it. It's really down to the quality and talent of the people who you're recording.

I recorded Des O'Connor a little while ago, an album of standards, with Alan Hawkshaw. He's a great arranger, Alan. I put the microphone in front of Des and this wonderful voice came out. He is a great singer, he's got a great voice, he sings perfectly in tune, it's effortless, so that's it. You've got the talent to record, you make a good job of it.

The first time your name appeared on a Shadows album would be Tasty in 1977, that would be the one you mentioned earlier.

It probably was. It's all a bit of a blur now. I think I met Hank earlier than any of the others because he was producing a duo called Therapy, which he brought in.

Anorak mode on - I think that was Bruce. Hank produced a group called Flair from Denmark.

That could be it!

You didn't do String of hits, then you were the regular engineer from Hits right up your street until 1990.

I became self-employed, freelance, and they started to record at Brian Bennett's studio, so that fitted in very easily.

Another album from that time was one Brian did with Alan Jones and Francis Monkman, called Voyage. Do you remember anything about that one?

That was a great album to do. It was a lot of fun, because 'Star Wars had just come out, 'Close encounters...' and all that stuff. Brian was writing music to fit that kind of picture. Great album to make, he'd got it all organised and he made it a lot of fun. Unfortunately, due to the incompetence of the record company involved, it didn't do as well as it deserved to, in my opinion.

How different is it doing film music or library music compared to recording a band?

It's pretty different, really. When I'm doing tv with Brian, for example, we work as fast as we can, because they don't give you any time. They spend ages on everything else, and give you a couple of days to do the music. You have to work quickly so he just sits, plays his parts, I record it, mix it and we go on to the next cue. You don't spend a lot of time. Having said that, we often look back on what we've done and think "How did we do that?" Because often it sounds very good.

And it is written to a tight brief, music for a particular situation.

It can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be very disappointing when you get an inept director who hasn't got a clue about what music does to film or how it should be used. That can be quite irritating. 

One session which has only just seen the light of day is the 'Survivors' CD. Marvellous stuff.

It was all a bunch of demos, to be honest. And again, that was pretty quick. We knocked that down pretty quick. And the mixes on that album were not really destined to be the masters. We tried to do what we thought would be good, not rough mixes but not spending forever on them. But that's the way it ended up.

You have also done some production.

I have done, but not a great deal. Most engineers feel they are doing a bit of the production anyway and they are quite responsible for how things turn out in any case. I was only credited as a producer on one album, that was an album I did with a band called Renaissance, back in the 70s.

What is your 'bread and butter' work now?

Freelance engineer, with a handful of clients that have kept me going for a good few years, now.

Quite a good situation to be in, working with Brian, working with Warren, you're familiar with their work...

Until they all go on holiday together then it can be a bit of a panic...!

From talking to Warren, it sounds as if the Vibratos was a meeting of minds, a happy coincidence?

Totally, yes. With his relationship with the Shadows, by way of his Dad, Warren knows about instrumental music and how it should be. He has an enthusiasm for it. As do I, having grown up with it and played in a Shadows band when I was a kid, and we both have an

interest in rock 'n' roll. I think we realised a long time ago that our tastes in a certain area do coincide, and so it wasn't that difficult to get the concept together and make it something that we both wanted to do. We didn't want to sound like another Shadows band.

So there's a lot of film music, Westerns...

Yes, the kind of stuff that came out late fifties, early sixties and turned up everywhere, America, Europe... that sort of sound.

How do you go about choosing Vibratos material, and then set about recording? Obviously sometimes you work on your own, sometimes Warren works on his own and sometimes you work together.

I'd say that Warren probably knows what he wants to go on the album and I do as well and then when we are getting close to starting doing it we discuss it and say, well, I think it's going to be this, that and the other... So we more or less know what we are going to be doing. Then we start putting it together bit by bit, recording at home and then coming together to do overdubs and the final mixes.

It is an 'extra' to your day job, really.

Oh yes, totally, but very enjoyable.

What about 'live' music? Apart from the Vibratos gigs, are you doing anything else?

No, it would be nice to, but I don't really have the time. Getting a band together and playing in the evenings is something that would take up more time than I've got. I'd love to be able to do it but when we organise ourselves to do a Vibratos gig it takes up as much time just to do the one gig as it does to do a whole tour! It is very time-consuming.

But you went down very well at Shadowmania and Pipeline, and in France.

Yes, and we're doing Germany this year, and the Shaddicts thing in Blackpool.

And what else does the future hold?

As far as the Vibratos are concerned, we want to keep on doing it for as long as people want and have an interest in it. We don't make any money out of it. We sell a few albums here and there. We both enjoy it . I don't know what it is, it's probably a kind of ego thing, that's as much as we get out of it. How long I'll be able to continue engineering I don't know. I suppose as long as my clients remain and I can still hear! I'll keep on going as long as possible, I still enjoy it.

One final thing, and it ties in to what I asked Warren last year. You started working with  the Shadows in the late 70s, early 80s, and you have come full circle because you were involved in the recording of this new track for the compilation, Life story. Did that seem at the time to be something you really wanted to be involved in?

Oh, yes, I'd have wanted to be involved in it. I do think it's a shame they didn't record more to support the tour, I think a lot of people think that. How they would have chosen tracks, and what they would have chosen to do would probably have been quite difficult, and this one Jerry Lordan thing because it was called 'Life story' was obvious, because of all the connections there. I would have thought just an EP or something more would have been nice, and put the lid on it.

Did it pose any problems for you in terms of recording, the fact that Hank was in Australia?

No, none at all. Warren took care of the track from start to finish. He arranged it, top to bottom, it was completely his responsibility and his production. We started putting it together a few weeks before Bruce, Griff (Mark Griffiths) and Cilff Hall came in. They put their parts down and then sent it over to Australia for Hank to put himself on. He sent it back and Brian put his drums on. Very simple, very well organised.

 Dick, thanks for giving your time to 'Pipeline' and best wishes for the future.

Thank you to Pipeline; Dick Plant & George Geddes for permission to upload this interview to this Web site .