Record Producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur and The Cranberries.)
Record Producer Stephen Street
Stephen Street is a producer with both a musical and an engineering background. Bands he has produced include The Smiths, Blur and The Cranberries.
Musical versus engineering skills
"I would say that to be a producer you have to be eighty to ninety percent a musician. There are people who are especially good at knowing how to balance sound and I suppose their career really should be more in mixing rather than production."
On complex studio equipment such as the SSL mixing console
"I reckon I only use about sixty to seventy percent of what it's capable of, but that's enough for me. Ergonomically, I think the SSL is a very well laid out piece of equipment and I think the computer is very easy to use. I have learned it well enough to know how to do what I want to do."
Getting work
"Normally acts come to me but the one exception was Blur. I heard their first single and said to their manager, 'I love that band and I would like to work with them if they are looking for anyone'. They were going to carry on using the same guy they had used for their first single but in their next session it didn't quite work out. So I got a call saying would I like to have a go? I went in with them and it was a success straight away, and I have been with them for four albums now."