Paul Rodgers - Electric Legend Rocks On... Page 2
By Martin Popoff

How about specifically the production contrast, versus the last album, Now, where you worked with the Eddie Kramer? What kind of sonic vibe does this album have?

"Well I find that production is a whole different deal. What it amounts to from my point of view is, let's see, structuring the songs and structuring the album and choosing the songs. I like to have a little bit of input for that, but on this one I pretty much selected the songs myself. And I did that on the basis of what I felt was strongest. I recorded more than was necessary and just used the ones that were very, very strong. And what I wanted to do, and what I always try to do is capture a spirit in a song with a particular take. When I listen to old blues things, or old Otis Redding, one of the things I noticed about it was that they always tried to do that, to capture almost a live feel, but in perfect conditions in the studio. And this is what I'm still striving to achieve. You don't ever quite get it. It's funny because when you play live, when I record the singles, I'll be playing it for a couple of months and it gets to be so hot on stage, and it's hard to really recreate that from the word go. You do your best and you try to get it and capture as much magic as you can in perfect conditions. But having said that, if you were to record it live three months later and have all the buzzes and crackles and the things that go on live, that doesn't work either, so it's always a constant battle to try and get a live energy under studio conditions."

Is there anything on this album where you stepped out of your comfort zone at all, vocally or lyrically? "Well, I always go for things. I always experiment vocally. Even if I play the same number. 'All Right Now' has been kicking around for a long time. I always try to be in the moment when I'm singing that song. It's not like, 'here we go again, I played this last night and I'm singing it again.' When any of the songs get a little bit like that, what I do is drop it from the set to give it a rest and go back to it later. But I'm always reaching for things that work in my framework. And I believe that I'm improving, I hope so anyway."

Paul Rodgers - Electric Legend Rocks On... Page 3