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Steve Levine in his new studio space at Liverpool’s Baltic Creative CIC
Thirty years since his work on Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers record garnered him the Music Week Top Singles Producer award, producer and songwriter Steve Levine talks to Jim Evans about his near 40-year career, moving his studio to Liverpool, and what’s next on his plate.
In the Studio: Steve Levine
T
he old cliché of having many strings to the proverbial bow is regularly overused, whoever
the subject, but in Steve Levine’s case it’s most appropriate. From his early days as a tape op at CBS Studios (now sadly an office block) and at Red Bus Studios, through his own various studio projects and a spell working out of Los Angeles, he has forged a successful career as record producer, songwriter, radio show presenter, and industry agent provocateur. Levine is a director of PRS for music and a member of the MU executive committee. He also happens to be chairman of Te Music Producers Guild. “As a producer, I’m as busy now as
at any time over the past 30 years,” says Levine, whose past credits include the Beach Boys, Motörhead, and China Crisis – and of course, three multi-platinum albums for Culture Club. “With the changing market, so many bands want several things from a producer now. In some instances,
22 May 2014
they want 25 years of experience shoehorned into a single session. Tey want the Sam Philips approach. He was record producer, studio owner, record company boss, mentor, and in many ways an innovator. Te role of the record producer has gone absolutely full-circle.” His broadcasting career took off with the Radio 2 series Te Record Producers, while his company also produced the Stephen Fry-narrated Tird Reich & Roll for Radio 2, which looked at how Hitler’s Germany pioneered many – if not most – of the recording techniques that made later music possible. And then there are the industry associations: “Working at the audio coalface, I believe I have much to bring to the table,” he says. “I think there’s going to be a tremendous amount of overlapping, which can only be of benefit to all.” One of Levine’s key reasons for being involved with so many industry organisations is to get the voice of
“For too long the music industry has been the poor cousin. We need to elevate our position.” Steve Levine
the producer heard, to shout the producer’s corner in an ever-changing music and entertainment industry. “We are all involved in the same business of making and selling music. Te various organisations all have their corners to fight, but generally everyone now appreciates that from the inception of the song through to the finished record quite a lot of people are involved in the chain. And it’s only right and proper that all those people are compensated. It’s the same in the film world, but for too long the music industry has been the poor cousin. We need to elevate our position.” As well as increasing the MPG’s
membership and profile, Levine wants the organisation to encourage excellence and lobby for the industry at the highest levels. “Te rise of Swedish pop in the 90s was due primarily to the Swedish government allowing Pro Tools systems and other equipment to be tax deductable and you got all these fantastically equipped studios. We need a government that understands the hardware costs. Maybe there needs to be some form of different business rate for something that is a creative space – theatres, studios, rehearsal rooms – just so there’s a chance of survival for the creative community.” Levine has little time for some of
the executives within the major record companies and how they land the jobs they get. “Many of them seem to have no passion, love, or understanding of music, or even the creative process,” he suggests: “Perhaps we need to get back to the era when the person in charge of a record company was a passionate music maker, like Chris
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