A Conversation with Carl Palmer – HuffPost 3.3.14

Mike Ragogna: Do you have a second or two to talk about Gravitas?

Carl Palmer: I can definitely talk about it, yeah!

MR: Take us on a little tour of the album. What were some of your favorite experiences while recording?

CP: You know, it’s really difficult to talk about experiences because we don’t record together as a group, we record individually, so I’m never in the studio with all the other men there at one time. We never have done it that way. But when I’m in the studio, I listen to the raw demo tracks that have been put down and I listen to what’s happening and what I’ll do is I’ll create various drum parts for the various sections whether it be the middle eight, the verse, the chorus, the intro, the outro, whatever it might be and I do lots of various versions just so we’ve got lots of choice. The reason being that we do everything through a Protools base so that means that we can have a huge library of intros and outros and whatever we want and we can keep constructing the music bit by bit as we go. The minute you put the drums down, that’s the track, you can’t really change it. Today, that’s not the case. There are so many alternatives. Basically, I try to work on all of the tracks myself. I go in and I get the drum sound, get the sound that’s going to be set up and I think that works, tune the drums within the monitor system, get that going and I work just with the engineer. There’s no producers there, no one actually producing it, just me and the engineer and I go through whatever tracks have been put together at the time. That’s how each one is constructed, really. There’s no real connectional fusion between band members at that stage, it’s simply not like that. We’ve got the piece of music, we know what it is and I just create what I think is the appropriate drum part.

MR: Nice. How does the material of Gravitas hit you, compared to the other albums?

CP: Your last album is always the best. That goes without saying. This is basically Asia the way Asia is. This is Asia being Asia. All of the songs are written by Wetton and Downes and that’s probably a question you should put to them more than to me As far as I’m concerned it’s typically Asia; not soft rock, not super hard, not middle of the road even and it’s not metal, it’s kind of its own style, really. It’s in that Foreigner, Journey vein I would say. It might not be quite as heavy as that, but it’s in that area. That’s the only way that I can really describe it. A title’s a title and obviously we do try to have one word titles because they tend to catch people’s imagination and things. It was going to be called Valkyrie at one stage–I think you’ve seen that written in print many times–but there is a song called “Valkyrie” so that’s how things developed.

MR: So when Geoff and John sent you the material were there a couple of tracks that you couldn’t wait to get to when you heard them?

CP: At that particular stage there aren’t many top lines, I know the verse and the chorus and whatever but the stuff is not really that mature by the time I get it. They need a very strong rhythm track to actually develop it and take it further, so that’s why I do so many different permutations of verses, chorus, outros, intros and things, so they’ve got lots of possibilities of choice. That’s really what it’s all about, and really that’s my skill in what I do. But I don’t always hear a guide vocalist if that’s what you’re insinuating, because there’s not always one there. Sometimes the top line hasn’t been written yet. I actually come in at a very, very early stage which would be wrong, really, if you couldn’t change it like we can change it through Protools, but we can. I come in with all of the various variations of all the sections so we’ve always got something there that’s more than adequate for what we need. Of course, I’ve been doing it for so long I know exactly what is needed, and that’s how it’s put together. So basically I cover a library of parts for each of the various sections so whoever’s going to produce–it was these two [John and Geoff] in this particular case–have something to sort out and play from. That’s how it goes.

MR: Do you find Sam Coulson adds a different kind of energy to the band that’s different from Steve Howe’s?

CP: You’ll have people tell you that Asia isn’t a “hard” sort of band, we’re more middle of the road, but nevertheless great musicianship and good songs and good stage presentation. We figured that going in for a new guitar player we might as well see if he could pick up the hard edge. Whether we’ve achieved it on this album is not for me to say, and not for even you to say, it’s down to the man on the street. If he likes it and he thinks we’ve done the job and we are tougher sounding and the material is as well-written then we could say that Sam has played his part within the setup. But that’s all I can say at the moment. Music is for listening, it’s very hard to talk about it. We are so much older than him, it’s a case of, “Will he be accepted?” Yes, he’s been accepted, he’s already played some of the biggest concerts here in Europe like Sweden Rocks and some English dates and we’ll go on to tour America with him and possibly even play on a cruise in the future, who knows? It’s just a case of waiting to see if the transition works with the die-hard Asia fans who only ever saw it as the four original names. We’re just hoping that it crosses a boundary and gives it a new life and only time will tell, forgiving the pun.

MR: Absolutely. When you looked at this album after it was finally mastered, what was your first impression?

CP: I didn’t really have an impression, to tell you the truth. When you’ve been around it for that length of time it felt Asia. I didn’t suddenly think, “Oh, I’m missing Steve,” which is a good thing. As far as I was concerned it felt comfortable, it felt that it was right, it didn’t feel like we were doing something that wasn’t really or trying to put a Band-Aid over anything. It felt, “Yes, this is working, this is an album, and this is our calling card and we’ll be able to go on tour and prove to everybody that we’re still a band and produce this sound on stage as well as we possibly can.” There wasn’t any one track that popped out to me. “Valkyrie” gets talked about, but at the end of the day you just never know. I kind of sit back at this stage and wait and see. Not to be rude to yourself, but whatever people write about it or say about it, if they were to say it was the greatest album in the world, at the end of the day it’s the public that has the last call and if they buy it and they want to come and see us playing it then we’ve done our job. If that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter what people put in print, really.

MR: That’s true, that’s true. What advice do you have for new artists?

CP: Today the market has so much of everything. There are so many different genres of music that just didn’t exist when I started and there’s nothing wrong with that. If there’s art to be created, let’s create it. But it’s really, really difficult. Years ago we would build up a reputation through going out and playing and building up a solid base of real loyal fans, not just in the country that we’re from, but on a global level. That’s very important, but on the other hand you can cut to the chase here and suddenly be doing a broadcast from your bedroom every Saturday night on a webcam and have people sign up for it. You can do it a different way, and isn’t that fantastic? The only thing that is really important here is that it doesn’t matter how you do it, whether you do it the old way or whether you do it from your bedroom or whatever you’re doing, you need to know that you’re good at what you do and you can produce this music live. Producing it live is very, very important today, mainly because CD sales are what they are. New albums, unless you’re a mega, mega, mega star are merely a calling card. Downloads don’t make you money, you’ll be living at McDonald’s all your life unless you’ve got an album that is selling so, so, so many. So at the end of the day you need to know that you can go out and physically perform in front of people, because that’s what’s left. If you’ve got new material that people enjoy, who knows, you might start to chart, and if you chart you’ll play bigger places and wouldn’t that be great? But really, the deal is, you’ve got to be so good live these days because there are so many of us doing it in all genres of music. So really it’s a case of perfecting your craft as much as you possibly can because the live situation is the only thing they can’t take away from musicians right now. Playing a tour like we did years ago where you go out to promote the CD, you didn’t even consider making money on tour, you went out to promote your vinyl, your CD, cassette, whatever it was. Today it’s the other way around. You’re going out to make money from touring and your CD is the calling card.

MR: Hey, Carl, there have been a few amazing groups that you’ve been in over the years including of course Asia, but especially also Emerson, Lake & Palmer. What do you think of the legacy that these groups have left on pop culture?

CP: Well, I’ve actually got the Carl Palmer ELP legacy and I’m on tour in England at the moment, it’s my first tour in two and a half years. I actually don’t play any Asia music in my set, it’s basically classical adaptations and original ELP music because that’s kind of what I’m promoting and playing at the moment. But a lot of people are interested in the past. Whatever way you go, whether it be Asia or the legacy, we always have like three generations there. I’ve got guys my age, obviously, bringing their sons and before you know it those kids have got their boys with them. You’ve got this makeup of a family thing. People who like the music stay with the music because they grew up with it, their dad played it and that’s the way it goes. I’ve been very fortunate to have been in four bands that had number one singles. Atomic Rooster had a track called “Tomorrow Night” which hit number one. They had to rerecord this track because I had just left the group. I recorded a demo, which basically was going to be in the master and then I joined Keith [Emerson] and Greg [Lake] and played with them in the studio for about four months while Atomic Rooster when number one with “Tomorrow Night,” so I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. Of course Emerson, Lake & Palmer have had a number one with “Fanfare” and ” Son Of Eve” in Canada. And obviously, prior to all of that, I was with The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and we had a number one album and single in America at the same time which was in 1968 which was unheard of at the time, and of course Asia had a very successful beginning–we’ve not repeated it since, but we were extremely popular when we very first came out.

MR: Well, on the other hand, the band Asia and its material keep popping up in culture through South Park, Forty Year-Old Virgin, et cetera.

CP: I’ve got my trace within that infrastructure, and that’s a nice thing, I’m very, very pleased about that, but at the end of the day I like all of that but I always consider myself as a musician, this is what I do, I don’t consider myself a rock star. I happen to have been in so many different bands that have been really famous, it’s not been luck, obviously, there was a certain amount of luck involved but you also have to know what music you should play, what environment you should put yourself in. I’ve been very lucky, the bands that I’ve been in have been very successful. I’m kind of happy that I’ll see something in South Park or you’ll hear some music in Matador or whatever. It’s really nice. I don’t have any problem with it at all. One of the biggest kicks I had with it was when British Airways put their new ad together and they were playing “Fanfare For The Common Man” as this huge jet would take off from Heathrow airport. We thought this was fantastic. They had to use it so much and they had to pay PRS on it, so they had to rerecord it because of how much money they had to pay us. It’s got some really nice things attached to it. Some of the things have been very successful, so I’m very grateful.

MR: This was wonderful, as always, Carl. Thank you so much for your time and all the best for the future.

CP: Thank you so much, and thank you for the interview.

Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne