Dorian Gray
Refugee
from Canoe:
http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusic/aug7_lanois-sun.html
Lanois 'gone rocking'
By MIKE ROSS -- Edmonton Sun
After being locked behind glass in recording studios for 10 years, Daniel Lanois is ready to ROCK! He will accept no producing jobs until further notice. He made his own album, Shine, and says he has "secret plans," not so secret anymore, to crank out another one by next summer. His tour will continue indefinitely.
"Gone rocking," reads the sign on his studio door.
Of his impending performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival tonight, Lanois says in a soft voice, "It's going to rock." Hard to believe, until he reveals that he's touring with Mother Superior - Henry Rollins' band. What Lanois is to folk music, Henry Rollins is to punk rock, and never the Twain, so to speak, shall meet. Until now.
"There'll be some mellow," Lanois says. "Don't worry. I've got some folk songs that I'll do solo, but others that will make full use of the rock band."
Oh, we're not worried. The folk fest is a unique event in that you can have 20,000 people behaving in an extremely mellow fashion, willing to listen in rapt silence to some bearded fellow they've never heard of sharing his feelings over nothing but a hammered dulcimer, then in a heartbeat be up on their feet hollering their lungs out when some performer pulls out Honky Tonk Woman, say, just for the sheer hell of it. This has actually happened.
In other words, anything goes here. As long as it's not Sgt. Barry Sadler or anything.
It's hard to imagine a more pleasant recording star to talk to than Daniel Lanois. At the end of a 20-minute phone interview, he wishes this reporter "good luck with your journalism" with absolute sincerity, to which I reply, "Good luck with your music."
Hyperbole by understatement. Lanois is a multiple Grammy winner, Juno winner, Hall of Famer, accomplished songwriter, performer and recording artist, but it's his work producing other artists that's brought him international fame. When his client list includes names like U2, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan and no names like Def Leppard or Britney Spears, it's more than good luck.
"They invite me in because they want my thing," he says. "Aside from technicalities and what you can learn from someone, what's in somebody's heart is what touches you in the end. I think the folks I've worked with have had something special in all their hearts. That's something you can't go to school for."
The feeling has to be mutual.
His cool superstar friends - and they're all cool; look at the list - keep calling him. Emmylou Harris just happened to "drop by" while Lanois was working on Shine, so she sings on one track. So does Bono.
Lanois's "thing" Bono and the others want so much is easy to define, hard to capture: Magic. Whether it's live or in the studio, "My technique never changes much. I just look for a spot of magic to build on top of, something special that keeps you coming back to a track. I use that technique on all the records I make, including my own."
The only difference when playing live is that you only get one take.
"It's an ongoing mystery to me, the live performances," Lanois says. "I'm a firm believer of coming up with new renditions of songs depending on what configuration I'm working with or the event.
"I'm cool with loss of control. It's kind of a kick in the shins of resourcefulness. I operate in the laboratory a lot of time. I love the challenge of live. You only get one chance at a song., You have to make it work and have it be elevating somehow to listeners. You never know how it's going to be on any given night."
All he needs is a little heart of the lion: a single straight-up whisky right before showtime.
Says Lanois, "Oh, why not."
Spoken like a true rocker.
http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusic/aug7_lanois-sun.html
Lanois 'gone rocking'
By MIKE ROSS -- Edmonton Sun
After being locked behind glass in recording studios for 10 years, Daniel Lanois is ready to ROCK! He will accept no producing jobs until further notice. He made his own album, Shine, and says he has "secret plans," not so secret anymore, to crank out another one by next summer. His tour will continue indefinitely.
"Gone rocking," reads the sign on his studio door.
Of his impending performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival tonight, Lanois says in a soft voice, "It's going to rock." Hard to believe, until he reveals that he's touring with Mother Superior - Henry Rollins' band. What Lanois is to folk music, Henry Rollins is to punk rock, and never the Twain, so to speak, shall meet. Until now.
"There'll be some mellow," Lanois says. "Don't worry. I've got some folk songs that I'll do solo, but others that will make full use of the rock band."
Oh, we're not worried. The folk fest is a unique event in that you can have 20,000 people behaving in an extremely mellow fashion, willing to listen in rapt silence to some bearded fellow they've never heard of sharing his feelings over nothing but a hammered dulcimer, then in a heartbeat be up on their feet hollering their lungs out when some performer pulls out Honky Tonk Woman, say, just for the sheer hell of it. This has actually happened.
In other words, anything goes here. As long as it's not Sgt. Barry Sadler or anything.
It's hard to imagine a more pleasant recording star to talk to than Daniel Lanois. At the end of a 20-minute phone interview, he wishes this reporter "good luck with your journalism" with absolute sincerity, to which I reply, "Good luck with your music."
Hyperbole by understatement. Lanois is a multiple Grammy winner, Juno winner, Hall of Famer, accomplished songwriter, performer and recording artist, but it's his work producing other artists that's brought him international fame. When his client list includes names like U2, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan and no names like Def Leppard or Britney Spears, it's more than good luck.
"They invite me in because they want my thing," he says. "Aside from technicalities and what you can learn from someone, what's in somebody's heart is what touches you in the end. I think the folks I've worked with have had something special in all their hearts. That's something you can't go to school for."
The feeling has to be mutual.
His cool superstar friends - and they're all cool; look at the list - keep calling him. Emmylou Harris just happened to "drop by" while Lanois was working on Shine, so she sings on one track. So does Bono.
Lanois's "thing" Bono and the others want so much is easy to define, hard to capture: Magic. Whether it's live or in the studio, "My technique never changes much. I just look for a spot of magic to build on top of, something special that keeps you coming back to a track. I use that technique on all the records I make, including my own."
The only difference when playing live is that you only get one take.
"It's an ongoing mystery to me, the live performances," Lanois says. "I'm a firm believer of coming up with new renditions of songs depending on what configuration I'm working with or the event.
"I'm cool with loss of control. It's kind of a kick in the shins of resourcefulness. I operate in the laboratory a lot of time. I love the challenge of live. You only get one chance at a song., You have to make it work and have it be elevating somehow to listeners. You never know how it's going to be on any given night."
All he needs is a little heart of the lion: a single straight-up whisky right before showtime.
Says Lanois, "Oh, why not."
Spoken like a true rocker.
He also did quite few songs in French 
and yes, he is a truly gracious man...very humble and appreciative of his fans.
