George Harrison Only Liked Drum Machines When Jim Keltner Played Them
George Harrison enjoyed drum machines, but only when his friend Jim Keltner played them. The former Beatle was never interested in using the latest technology to record his music. The inhuman-sounding drum machines of the 1980s were at the top of his list of instruments he avoided as much as possible.
However, Keltner did something with the instrument, making it sound just a little better to George.
George Harrison and Jim Keltner became close in the 1980s
Keltner drummed for George’s fellow Beatle, John Lennon. That’s how the pair met. Later, Keltner added drums to tracks on George’s 1987 album Cloud Nine. Keltner was also an unofficial member of the former Beatle’s supergroup, The Traveling Wilburys.
In 1987, George spoke with Anthony DeCurtis (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) about the recording process for Cloud Nine. George had Keltner and his former bandmate, Ringo Starr, as drummers on the album. So, he was in safe hands. Together, the drummers allowed George to keep the album’s sound authentic.
“I always had in mind that when I did this record, I would like to have these proper drummers, and more or less do it like I did it in the late ’60s, early ’70s, which is to say [Jim] Keltner and Ringo,” George said.
“Those two are perfect. Jim is a very great session drummer, and he’s always kept ahead of or up to the technology, so Jim could just as well sit down on his drum kit and play whatever you need. At the same time, if you want to have a machine play it, Jim can play that machine like nobody else, and make it sound like real drums. I mean, he’s called the ‘Stenographer of Soul.'”
If George wanted drum machines, he went to Keltner
As Geoge told DeCurtis, Keltner knew how to play the drum machine. He told Guitar Player that Keltner knew how to make drum machines sound more authentic.
“We only used them on two tracks on the album, I think,” George said. “But Jim Keltner, who is ace as a drummer with a real kit, is the best that I’ve ever heard on the drum machine, too. We loaded all his sounds in, or put him with Ringo’s kick in, and various snare sounds.
“But the engineer got a really full sound. Like the drumming on ‘Mind Set On You’ is all machine. Jim also can make it swing, so it’s not ridged. I don’t mind them on demos, and I don’t mind them when Jim plays them, but basically I don’t really enjoy machines and MIDI and all that DX7.
“Everybody’s got it, and the sound has got so boring. I just wanted to do more live, like a band, with Ringo and them. Nowadays, people are so conscious of perfect timing but I like to have some human element to it. I supposed I’m just old fashion, from that old school.
“I tried to make the record so that I like it, too; fortunately, that’s one of the reasons I like to work with Jeff. He dislikes the things that I dislike about current music and certain sounds.”
George hated drum machines
In his interview with DeCurtis, George continued to say that the music being made in the 1980s sounded the same because they all sampled the same music. Thankfully, Jeff Lynne, George’s co-producer on Cloud Nine, knew how to make drum machines sound good.
“Everything’s become so dependent on sampled sounds,” George explained. “I don’t mind sampled sounds, but rather than find one that’s already in there [referring to synthesizer pre-sets and the like —Ed.]—and this is a great thing about Jeff.
“Say we wanted to sample a snare drum sound, and this is something Keltner pointed out as well. This is the difference between the ‘now’ kind of consciousness where you get this drum sound, put it in your machine, and then you save it onto your disc. This is what Jim and all these engineers and millions of people will do.
“With Jeff, he just gets a good drum sound, say a specific snare drum sound, and he’ll use that. And then, he doesn’t have Keltner saying to him, ‘You mean you don’t have a disc drive on your drum machine? What happens when you want to use it again?’ He said, ‘I don’t use it again, I’ll make another one.’ And I like that
idea, I like that approach. Everything, then, is …
“Fresh, yeah. Otherwise, you’ve got people who now are just copying sounds off everybody else’s records, and it becomes like … washing-up liquid [indistinct].”
George was old school in every sense of the word. Fortunately, he had Keltner and Lynne to help him when he did need a drum machine.
