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| The Exclusive Interview with "Mr. Synergy" Larry Fast |
| Larry Fast has long been regarded an innovator of music technology with his dazzling keyboard contributions to such projects as Peter Gabriel, The Tony Levin Band, Nektar, and Kate Bush, as well as taking his own path in a series of solo projects of synth bliss under the name of Synergy. His sound is unmistakable, but most people still seem to be a little uneducated on the sheer range of talent and technology at Mr. Fast's fingertips. I was thrilled to have Larry join me here and answer some questions about his work, past and present, taking us a little deeper into the mystery we like to call "Synergy". |
| Q: Larry, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me here! This is a great thrill for me because I am very familiar with your work, mainly through Peter Gabriel, and I think your synths and keys just add a unique element to any project you are involved in! I wanted to start off by asking you about your newest Synergy CD entitled Reconstructed Artifacts, which are brand new recordings of some of your classic Synergy pieces. How do these pieces sound with all of the updated music technology that is available? A: I think that they're a lot more expressive and "clean" since a lot of the analog murkiness and mud that clouded the original recordings was not an intentional style, but a matter of the shortcomings of analog tape and analog synthesizers back then. And even some of the pieces from Metropolitan Suite which were digital recordings done in 1986 still used some analog synths. But even more important was that the early digital synthesizers (DX7, etc.) were very hissy and noisy, and created a lot of unintended artifacts. Same for the very early digital multitrack and mixdown recorders. They were good for 1986, but they had a long way to go to get a smooth and silky audio quality. Now we're much farther along and the 24 bit direct to disk recordings of Reconstructed Artifacts have added a transparency to the recordings that wasn't there two decades ago. I tried hard not to stray from the original intent of the arrangements. It would have been way too easy to drift from cleaned up arrangements to altered arrangements to practically rewriting the entire pieces. If I was going to do that, I might as well just jump into creating a completely new collection. Q: How has public reaction been to the re-recordings? A: Generally, it's been good. It's been selling very well and it's not even in full distribution yet. There are some people who seem to be a little disoriented by the new recordings and miss the familiarity of the warts and all old recordings. But even they're not really complaining--just saying that they still treasure the old versions and will continue to listen to them. It's not for me to tell people what to like, so we'll keep the old and new versions available as long as possible. Q: Those who are not familiar with Synergy music can get a taste of it on several of the old Gabriel albums, as well as on the Tony Levin solo releases. In fact, Yourself and the rest of Tony's band redid an old Synergy piece called Phobos for the Pieces of the Sun album. How did you enjoy the added elements of Tony, Jerry, Jess playing on that piece? A: That was quite an experience. The guys did a wonderful job with it. I was feeling guilty about all the work required for them to learn the quirky time changes and difficult musical layout of the piece. But they were all reassuring, even when they got frustrated with the difficult parts. I couldn't have asked for better input from more talented players than these guys in bringing Phobos into the 21st century. I have the added kick of its being a part of our regular live set now. Q: In the last couple of years, you have completed 2 albums and 2 tours with the Tony Levin Band, and all of the new music and the shows have been quite well received. Tony has said that a live release and another tour is possible for later this year. How have you enjoyed the enviroment of these shows and recording the albums? A: Touring with these guys is always great. Tony and Jerry and I have been doing this on and off since the late 1970s with Peter Gabriel. What few people know is that Jesse and I first ran into each other about 30 years ago when we both lived in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and were part of the same music circles there.We toured all across the US and parts of Canada again this year. The audiences were universally great. The live album recorded during the Spring 2002 tour is finished and should be out on Narada Records by November or December, 2002. Q: Are you anticipating another tour later this year or is that still up in the air? A: Probably not in 2002. Tony is tied up with Peter Gabriel, and I'm touring with the reformed Nektar. Q: Yourself, Tony Levin, and Jerry Marotta were the core of a brilliant band that backed Peter Gabriel for several years in the late 70s/early 80s. In fact, I think that the T-Lev band have captured some of that magic on Pieces of the Sun. What do you remember most about those experimental years with Peter? A: That's a tough question. So much happened over the course of those 10 years that it's difficult to pick any particular thing. What seems apparent, and what we hear from the fans a lot, is that the Peter Gabriel sound of those years was due in part to our particular interaction. Of course we get that when we play together amongst ourselves, or working on other artists' projects. We first discovered that working with an artist named Johnny Warman back in the early 80s. And fans have pointed out that Peter's sound changed a lot after the three of us stopped working with him. The openminded approach that Peter had on his recordings is something that comes naturally to us when we're recording as the TLB. I think that comes through on the projects we all work on. Q: It is arguable to say that your sound was really a major focal point in the PG band when so many of the old PG tunes are instantly recognizable by the synths, such as Shock The Monkey, On the Air, Games Without Frontiers, and White Shadow. Knowing that Peter was so keen on technology and new ideas as you are, how involved was he in creating some of the keyboard and synth parts? A: Peter was very involved. It was a very cooperative partnership. I usually had an edge in technical details and so I would introduce Peter to new sounds and approaches like programmable drum machines, or arranging for the the first prototype Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer to be a part of the PG3's recording session. But Peter has that extra creative spark; that obtuse way of imagining things that took these tech developments on to new creative ground. As to the creation of the actual musical parts, we'd often trade off playing and arranging the parts almost on a bar by bar basis. Today, it's hard to remember exactly who did what on a particular part. Q: You just did a reunion show with another project of yours from the late 70s and 80s called Nektar at the NEARfest in Trenton, NJ only a few days ago. How did the show come off? A: The show went better than I ever could have hope for. The fans were so enthusiastic. I didn't think that after 27 years without playing together that we'd be able to pull it off. But when Roye Albrighton arrived from England for the one week of rehearsals that we managed, picked up his guitar and we launched into one of the old pieces, it was like we had only played together a week ago. The last time had actually been late 1976. That show was recorded and a DVD video will be out this fall. We're playing a few more shows--a couple in the US and some in Europe late this year. If we can make it happen, we're going to try to play a few festivals, probably in Europe and Japan during 2003. Q: Larry, I want to wrap up here again by thanking you so much for your time for my questions, and I was wondering what else you have in the works for the upcoming months? A: We'll be seeing the reissue of the original Synergy CDs which were remastered in the US a few years ago and are coming out in Europe, Asia and South America probably with some added bonus tracks. We're exploring doing some surround mixes for the 5.1 formats on either DVD-A or SACD. I'll be doing a bit more with creating sound logos for the XM Satellite Radio network. I've already created about 80 for them which are used on the air on many of their broadcast channels. And I want to carve out some time to create new Synergy music. I've got some brand new pieces in various states of writing and recording. I want to get them moving along. |
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