Are we wrong when we split your career in three main periods? The 70's - where you establish yourself as a hippie prog-rock guitar player. The 80's - getting involved with synth pop music as a record producer. The 90's - combining your experience with both these styles in the ambient psychedelic dance sound of System 7. Any regrets?
"You are not entirely wrong, but I don’t really see things like that. For a start I never saw myself as “prog-rock” - never really like the term. “Psychedelic” yes but not really “prog-rock”. Secondly I always planned to be a producer – in fact working with people like Todd Rundgren and Nick Mason on my 70s solo albums was great training, and I was seeing it a bit like that at the time. Thirdly we were starting to hear electronic dance music in our minds in the 70s, but we didn’t have the technique at the time, although we were fans of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. In the 80s while I was producing we were also learning – in fact we’re still learning. I think if you stop learning you stop growing as an artist – and then it’s maybe time to stop!
"Regrets? Not really. I’m pretty happy basically – I’ve always been free to do exactly what I want to do musically and now with our own label we own all the rights to nearly all of our System 7 music. It’s a nice feeling. I’ve met and collaborated with a lot of really great and inspiring people – it’s been good!"
Looking at the number of bands you have played in and the numerous collabs you have done and still are doing with people you met along the way, we guess you're a loyal person in terms of friendship but find it hard to commit yourself to a single band with a fixed line-up.
"I don’t agree with the gang-type rock band formula. I prefer individual collaborations and that’s one of the things I like about the dance music scene which is based around collaborations and remixes. But at the same time, I’ve worked with Miquette Giraudy since the 70s, so in that sense we are a permanent duo."
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