As a producer your creative input probably differs with each artist you work with. Can you describe your role creating this album?
"I view my role as being similar to a movie director. Sometimes a director on a film has to get involved with script rewrites, with firing actors and getting new ones, with changing locations, etc - and sometimes the script requires no changes and the actors are brilliant. At that point the director's job is simply to make the movie. My role changes dramatically from record to record. With mika, the "script" was so strong to begin with, meaning his songs were amazing from the demos, that we immediately jumped into recording when we first got together. The very first thing we did was "grace kelly", which was kind of an audition for both of us to see if we worked well together!"
Who was the funniest and who was the most serious artist you have worked with? Is there someone you regret to have worked with?
"I'm drawn to artists and art that have some dark sense of humour because for me when things get too serious, I feel like I'm painted into a corner. The funniest artist was Rufus Wainwright - he's incredibly smart and witty, also devastatingly talented of course.
"The most serious artist I've worked with would have to be Otep, but she's also really funny.
"There are plenty of people I regret working with! A lot of those names on my resume are from earlier in my career as a studio musician, when I would get hired to play on a record and often not know who the artist was until I walked through the studio door. I must say that even though I'm embarrassed to have my name next to their names, simply because I think I'm cooler than I really am, I learned a lot from all those sessions I did as a hired musician.
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