The silent partner

Many of the most accomplished Irish albums of the past few years have one thing in common - producer Stephen Shannon. He tells TONY CLAYTON-LEAabout life in the studio

UNLIKELY AS it may seem, music producer and engineer Stephen Shannon started his career in the early 1990s as a member of Striknien DC, one of Ireland’s most uncompromising punk band.

In truth, Shannon looks the type: he’s dressed from head to toe in regulation black, and gingerly sports a broken wrist (which resulted from, he says, a genuine gardening accident). But his old punk rock life is something of an about-face to the guy’s demeanour, which is openly genial and gentlemanly.

The way Shannon tells it, he tired of thrashing it about with Stricknien DC and headed off to Gothenburg, where he quickly found creative solace as the only white bloke in a 14-piece reggae/dub band called Jah Love. He helped them produce an album, then began to learn about recording techniques and equipment. “I was a complete novice,” he says, “but I became infatuated with the process.”

Shannon returned to Dublin in 1995, and people he had known in his punk days started to hear of his burgeoning skills in the recording studio. His first real production job was with Dublin band Estel. “They had just formed, were quite raw,” he recalls, “and they asked me to record them, which I did in my basement. I just put two microphones pointing at the drums – that was all we had. The album turned out great for what it was, and so began my reputation in Ireland.”

After this, more bands approached him. At first he combined this work with stints in commercial studios. “Which I hated. You’d get some guy coming in for a studio session – say, singing a U2 song – that had been paid for by his parents as a birthday present.” When he could no longer stomach such chores, Shannon began to hire out studios to record various Irish acts, but discovered the cost was prohibitive.

“I really wanted to produce a band – to take a song from them playing in front of me in a rehearsal room to a point where it sounded as good as anything else. In order to do that, I needed a lot of time in the studios, and it just wasn’t affordable.”

In an effort to extend the recording process without running up a huge bill for his clients, about four years ago, Shannon built his own studio at the end of the garden of his suburban Dublin house. Negotiating a bank loan and liaising with a professional sound designer, his home recording studio has since hosted an impressive array of Irish acts (as well as a home from home for his dog, Disco Fred, who sits dutifully under the desk, keeping a cocked ear, no doubt, for his master’s voice).

“I now have everything I need,” he says, “all the microphones, a live room I really understand, a very comfortable place, and I can now see a recording through from start to finish.”

In the past three years, it would seem that Shannon has sold his soul to furthering the cause of Irish indie music; as well as his own electronica band Halfset, he has worked with the likes of Carly Sings, Adrian Crowley, Jeff Martin, Holy Roman Army, 202s, Delorentos and Neil Jordan (for whom he recorded and mixed, in Windmill Lane, parts of the soundtrack for the director's forthcoming Ondine).

Upcoming production credits include Vyvienne Long (“probably one of the most talented arrangers I’ve ever worked with”), Baby Beef (“she’s amazing, like an electro-driven Peaches”), David Turpin, Dinah Brand (with assistance from Stephen Ryan, formerly of Stars of Heaven and The Revenants) and The Sick and Indigent Song Club.

Such an extensive roll call of Irish talent doesn’t necessarily indicate that Shannon is casting his nets as wide as he can in order to pay back the bank loan. Despite what one may think, he determinedly doesn’t work with music he isn’t personally interested in, nor with people he doesn’t get on with.

“If I hear the music and it doesn’t work for me, then I don’t go near it. And if I work on music I don’t connect with, I’d probably end up not liking the people either! It’ll turn for me, I just know it.”

The biggest mistake bands make, he reckons, is the assumption that after four days in a studio, they’re going to come out with something that sounds terrific. “I always say to bands that they can go into any studio in Dublin for four days and they’ll leave with something that’ll be fine, but if they come to work with me it’ll take longer – maybe eight, 10, 12 days.”

According to Shannon, the crucial elements to making something that is above and beyond “fine” is a lot of editing, post-production, and working with different ideas. “Some bands – Redneck Manifesto, for example – can go into a studio for a couple of days and come out with something that sounds amazing. I can’t think of many other bands in Ireland that can do that.”

And what about his own modus operandi? Shannon doesn’t come across as an egotist, so it’s not too much of a shock that he admits to not being known for a distinctive sound. “I much prefer to interpret what people want when they approach me. I sit down and discuss with them what they’re after. We talk about common musical tastes, and it builds from there. Railroading people into taking on a sound is something I wouldn’t be comfortable with.”

Neither is Shannon comfortable with the tricky subject of where the producer’s credits end and the songwriter or creative collaboration begins.

“I just charge a fee for my day’s work. If I write a part or work on a chorus or a middle-eight in a song, which happens a lot – and if it’s an open thing, if it improves the song, and if it’s discussed – then I will not take a credit for that, because I view it as part of the day’s work.

This crossover between songwriter producer is what Shannon brings to the party. Sometimes, he says, a member of a band or even a solo artist (and, no, he ain’t naming names) could be quite precious about a specific part of a song. The truth of the matter is that that specific part of the song is the very thing that’s holding it back.

“I have the benefit of years of experience of putting songs together compositionally,” says this most self-effacing of people, “as well as pulling sounds apart and finding a slot for everything. As I’m not as attached to the song as the person who has written it, I can be direct and clinical about it. That’s the biggest benefit.”