**A Firedancer exclusive**

This month we bring to you a close, up and personal review of music by our friend Anthony J. Resta who was the co-producer, co-mixer and principal percussionist on Medazzaland. Anthony was kind enough to answer some questions for us and we had to bring them to you. We know it isn't as good as having the album out itself, but perhaps it will keep us satisfied just a few months longer.

Can you give a general description of the type on of music on the upcoming Duran album?
Its very modern, sort of high tech pop; but there are offshoots from song to song, psychopop, cyberpop, trippop, but all labels aside just basically a bunch of well crafted classy Duran Duran songs. I think what they do is really unique to them alone, always evolving in new directions but un-mistakably Duran Duran..

What are Duran like to work with?
They are very much perfectionists. It is a major challenge to impress them, they are all very up on what's happening and current in the music world. They are on one hand keeping a finger on the pulse of the industry but on the other ignoring it and being true to themselves, refusing to jump on trends and do a record like say David Bowie's latest where you completely hand over the control to hip programmers and remixers and write songs around their tracks. Mark Tinley and I who both do a lot of sound design and sound scape work with them, are working in the opposite way, a song is well constructed, having an identity all it's own and we must add to it and help bring it to the level they demand without losing it's identity. Its a lot of work but when you finally get it to their satisfaction and approval, they are the most gracious, and thankful people I've ever worked with.

What do you see as your role with the band?
I have a mixed up one for sure... I played 90% of the drums and percussion, and do what is considered post-production and mixing, i.e. adding textures and effects to existing tracks. Working with my partner Bob St. John, who is a brilliant mix engineer, to decide where things go in the stereo spectrum, how things move in the mix, what vocal effects to use for different sections of the song etc. but the band is also involved in this process by leading us in the right direction in advance. For instance in a remix of Out of My Mind, we had Simon's voice going through a spinning speaker (a Leslie) and it creates an extreme vibrato, and he only liked it at the end of the song, so we came up with something else for the rest of the song. Sometimes we do something really radical and they just love it. Like the last song we just mixed in Miami last month, the vocal in verse 1 is on the right with a telephone sort of E.Q. and the background vocals come in clean and lush on the left, they really liked it. We have similar tastes and have done nearly 40 songs between Thank You, Thank You Remixes, Medazzaland, Medazzaland Remixes, Blondie, and T.V. Mania.

As a musician, mixer and producer, what part would you say is the most difficult?
They are all completely different and equally difficult in their own ways. I know that sounds vague but executing a musical part with precision good feel, and personality, (which is the musician's role) is no easier than making it sound interesting and keeping it sonically acceptable on an emotional and technical level (which is the mixer's role) which is no easier than deciding if it even fits in the song in the first place (which is the producer's role).

Which part do you like doing the most?
I love them all.... I have been working in studios for hours upon days upon weeks for years, often sleeping on the floor or couch there, getting up in the middle of the night and pounding on the piano strings with a hammer and sampling it and playing it backwards or eating left over Chinese food and drinking a glass of wine and listening to "Rubber Soul" for the twenty millionth time. It's a strange life and I have given up a lot of relationships to continue moving forward...

How is Duran Music different than working with a project like TV Mania?
T.V. Mania is more avant garde and we do some crazy stuff with psycho-acoustics where sounds literally come at you from behind and way beyond the boundaries of the speakers. It is experimental in a bit more of a radical way.

Can you describe TV Mania? What can we expect about it?
My description is, Art of Noise meets Zappa in cyberspace. But it's too easy to coin shallow comparisons like that, its very original and once combined with multi-media. As an opera it could be "hair" of the Millennium. It makes some social commentary about the state of television and the technological revolution as well.

Getting back to Medazzaland, which song did you like doing the most?
I think "Buried in the sand" was my favorite, it's really trippy and has sort of a futuristic beatles vibe.

The least?
A song called "Midnight sun" we remixed 3.5 times and I probably heard it close to one hundred and fifty hours. 10 long days literally about 1500 times . The scary thing is after it was done, and it went through sort of an evolution of it's own. I still listen to it almost every day and love it now.

As a producer, is it better to work with new artists or well established ones, like Duran?
They each have advantages, working with new artists you often have more freedom to help define a sound that will become their trademark, whereas more established artists have much stronger ideas and input because of years of experience. That's often more of a challenge, because they are not easily impressed, after 5 or six records you've pretty much heard all the ideas, and coming up with new variations and making them fit is like a big puzzle, and I love puzzles. Only in music the pieces go together a million different ways and the picture is complete to some and incomplete to others. The way it hits us and makes us feel should be what it's all about not what is hipper than thou rock critics have to say. I mean how can you compare say The Spice Girls with Elastica, I absolutely love elastica, but I find The Spice Girls not that entertaining. But who am I? A rock critic? No. Just someone who buys and works on records. Why can't we all just not look down our noses at certain styles of music and just appreciate it for what it is?

Which segment of the music industry do you see has the biggest potential for growth?
That's really too hard to say. Things are going in so many directions at once these days, but I think it's getting more the norm to be experimental, which is good, but I also think that when you combine that with memorable melodies and clever and interesting lyrics it has much more longevity.

Considering the popularity of programmed music, like Prodigy, Moby, the Chemical Brothers, and the work you have done with music programming, do you see this as a way of the future of music?
It seems to be going quite a bit that way, but that's far from the only trend. all the artists you mention are brilliant, but I am not sure that 25 years from now you'll be hearing "Firestarter" performed by a lounge act in Las Vegas.

What do you see as the key element in making music?
Notes and chords. No I don't mean to be sarcastic, but that's nearly impossible to answer. Listen to Elvis, Mozart, Bartok, Patsy Cline, the Future Sound of London, Bjork, Debussy, Beck, the Sex Pistols , Duran Duran...What do they have in common?
a. An imagination
b. A talent
c. Perseverance
d. The desire to create and make some kind of statement and to transcend those feelings and emotions in the music to the listeners.

Published in Firedancer