ROBERT PALMER : Music & Style

Chris Fay gets marooned with Robert Palmer

One of the things that has always struck me as being infuriatingly compelling about Robert Palmer, is his unceasing ability to come up with consistently good material almost to order. It must be a familiar story to most of us when we hear an album for the first time. There will be something about it that makes us feel that after a few listens, it will grow on us enough to appreciate it.

With Robert Palmer this process is accelerated enormously. A melody will filter through, an arrangement will strike home almost without the listener being aware of the fact. Next day, your memory stirs with any great effort of will, and you can faithfully recall almost an entire LP after hearing it just once.

RP: You hear so many bands that bring out an album with just one or two strong tracks carrying the rest. That's the inspiration not to do it yourself. (...)

Are you a very-self critical person when it comes to analysing your own material?

RP: Hopefully worse than anybody else! I won't hesitate to chop something out. But on the other hand, I won't short-change myself. Sometimes I'll sense that there's a great core of an idea in there, but there'll be aspects of it that to me, are stretching my abilities and I don't want to drop it because I feel lazy. I'll carry something through even if it just feels half right, even if it doesn't come off. I'll stash it, and maybe a year later I'll be able to take those elements that didin't quite gel and put them together right. So, I've a backlog of sketches that I always keep, but they don't go too far back because you can find out pretty quickly wether or not they're worthwile. But then other things that I experiment with, particularly rhythms and harmonies, I'll find that they become like a sort of 'how to..." book for me. I'll come across a little phrase that's maybe difficult to negotiate and I'll say, ah, now, if we move into three time here and put sixth harmonies through this section, that'll just make it read properly. But I don't usually keep songs around for long.

Do you actually play any instruments yourself - besides playing synthesizer on the recordings?

RP: I play bass, drums, guitar and synthesizer. I have played rhythm guitar live. More like a baton for the band. I play it like the scar beat or the slaps and stuff. But I'm not going to anymore because I find it hard to split my attention between exactly what tone the guitar should have and where it sits in the song, which I'm very deliberate about. And also the vocal performance suffers, so I'll probably take a guitarist on this tour so I don't need to worry about it.

Which instrument do enjoy playing most?

RP: Er, bass.

Why bass? Is it for the feel it creates?

RP: Yeah, you can write the whole thing on bass. I usually write on bass or drums, simply because it sets up the group for the tune and it doesn't limit me to chord changes or anything. So I can start to work out my syncopation within this beat, and then see where I can move. Then I'll pick up the bass. I'll put down the drums on tape and then start messing around with how I'm going to phrase against the drums to make the drums feel like they're working hard, and then adding the bass to make the movements. The syncopation between the vocal and the kick drum comes next, and then I'll put the changes. Usually I'll just add something else. As long as the bass and the drums and the melody are together everything else for me is just like decoration.

I found it difficult to suppress my surprise at Robert's approach to writing. I mentioned that most creative musicians tend to use a piano or guitar to compose their material.

RP: Well, I've tried that, but I find  that when you do use that method, especially if you're in a position where you've got to describe the song to the rest of the band, you end up sitting at the piano or playing a guitar. And it becomes a song accompanied by the guitar or a piano, and to get away from that takes ages. So I've dropped that and now, if someone comes up and says "how does it go?", I just sit down at the kit for a minute and - you know, they've got it straight away. But recently, I've got to the point where I make a very comprehensive demo of a song, and I record it using sequencers, and various things, before the band comes in. Then, one by one, I'll replace the machine parts  with the players and then throw the machine parts away. So the player is in no doubt as to what mood the song has, where the part lies, whatever. And they don't have any worries, and they just come in and they really enjoy it because they can just play. And I'm giving them the style of the tune and they get off on it great.

This struck me as being something of a paradox in this age of digital synthesis and drum computers. Instead of the machines performing the end product, as is so often the case nowadays, with Robert Palmer the emphasis has reverted right back to the musician.

This is not to say that Robert has no real interest in electronic gadgets and effects. Indeed, it's quite the opposite, and he was highly enthusiastic in his praise for such items as the Simmons kit and the PPG synth. Most of his new album, which is scheduled for release this month, has been recorded utilizing the latest digital technology that Europe can offer. To use a Palmerism, he is extremely clued up when it comes to knowing what's what on the instrument and recording side of affairs. He was also very excited about the new album, and he's convinced it's going to knock over the European audiences, which is the area where he appears to be gaining ground of late.

RP: I just like to follow the demand. American audiences kept up with me so far and then, when I made the last move, which is after my major success in America, which was the Secrets album, they wouldn't go that far for the Clues album, and all of a sudden I became avant garde in America. Now, I've a better reputation over there than ever, but it's like back to square one. I'm a cult figure over there, whereas Europe, I'm mainstream. So it's really a reversal.

Was this the reason you chose to do the new album in Paris?

RP: Right. Because the demand switched. I'd changed my style when the Clues album and suddenly it was a hit throughout the world, except America. As it happens, the rest of the world, in terms of a market, adds up to about the same as America. So I just followed it.

Why do you think it took you so long to have a hit in Britain?

RP: Haven't got clue. No idea.

Do you think it was because you weren't available for promotional work in Britain at the time?

RP: No, I don't think so. But I mean the market here must be one of the most fickle in the world. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but it is. I've always had kind of "turntable hits" in England, plenty of airplay, but I guess I just struck lucky. I made a song that happened to fit the current three month fashion thing here.

But wasn't 'Johnny And Mary' a hit here besides 'Some Guys Have All The Luck'? Robert didn't entirely agree.

RP: Not actually in Britain. In Europe it was huge. Europe it was amazing.

I meant more in terms of air-time. Because I used to hear it so often on the radio, and for ages I never realised it was a Robert Palmer song. Robert was amused, and I could tell at once that this was a trek across familiar ground for him.

RP: Oh I get a lot of that when I'm playing live. We'll be going through the set and so often I see like - well I get a lot of couples in my audiences...

Careful Robert, this is a family magazine.

RP: You've been looking too much at the album covers, no. I get these couples in the audiences and I'll see them nudging each other and saying "oh it's 'im that does that" - you know. They know the songs but they don't know who the performer is.

I suppose this reaction stems from the diversity, or perharps versatility is the correct description, that is attached to Robert and his material. The latest album has several surprises in store and incorporates modern techniques like triggering the bass from the kick drum signal, pre-programmed sound synthesis and a host of other shock-and-hold wizardry. There's also a very striking number on the album which Robert sings in a rarely used Indian language. Simmons electronic drums provide the tablas effect but an actual sitar was used on the recording for authenticity. The overall effect is superb and yet another track features the Simmons kit, this time emulating congas to an extremely fine degree.

I can't help feeling that it's largely due to the variety of style that Robert Palmer has introduced throughout his career that's been a factor perharps working against him insofar as the British market is concerned. In England, unless a musician or artist can be catogorised or filed under a specific musical heading, they generally remain cult figures, bubbling somewhere between the public focus and the murky liquid beneath. If this assessment is valid, then Robert Palmer's success has been impeded in Britain simply because the average concert goer-cum-record-buyer didn't quite know whether he was one of "us" or one of "them".

Happily, it seems as though Europe and the rest of the world outside the USA are about to be given the opportunity to discover the real face behind all those songs that everybody knows but can't place the singer. One thing is sure. As long as he is still in demand, Robert Palmer will be around to fulfil it. He summed it up best himself when he told me: "I'm in this business to make music. I've got no interest in acting or anything else. Even production, I intend to do less of, not more. It's the music that counts." (...)

Chris Fay (nc - Jan. 1983)

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