Power-pop outfit Badfinger were signed to The Beatles’ label Apple Records in the early 1970s and went on to become one of the most successful pop bands of its era. But while the band were enjoying success, sadly, bad management and the suicide of two of its main songwriters, Pete Ham in 1975 and Tom Evans in 1983 would cause the bands’ success to be short lived. The band, over the years, has continued on in the wake of its personal tragedies with original guitarist Joey Molland at the fore. The group’s 1971 album Straight Up, recorded between June and July of 1971, and produced by George Harrison and Todd Rundgren, is considered the band’s finest hour and spawned a number of hits in the form of Day After Day and Baby Blue. In this next installment of Ultimate-Guitar’s classic album series, Joe Matera speaks to Badfinger’s Joey Molland to look back on the making of this Badfinger classic.
UG: What was the songwriting process like for Straight Up?
Joey Molland: We basically would get our ideas and then make demos of them. We’d record our own stuff on two track ReVox tape machines [A77’s]. Then we would bring all the ideas that we had for the sessions, and we’d pick the songs as we go one by one. For this album, we had already recorded a version of the album which Apple had turned down because they thought it was a bit crude sounding, and it kind of sounded like the No Dice [1970] record. They [Apple] were looking at doing something a bit more sophisticated for our second album. We had gone into the Manor which was Richard Branson’s studio in Oxford, by ourselves and had recorded an album. We had recorded a bunch of songs such as Blind Owl, Get Away, Timeless, and some of it was later used on the Ass [1973] album. We gave that entire album we had recorded to Apple as the next Badfinger album but they knocked it back. Pete [Ham] actually worked with George [Harrison] on the side, and they did some arrangements of stuff that he’d done like Day After Day in there. They weren’t complete arrangements though by any means. We went into Abbey Rd and as we worked on them, we would improve on the ideas and George worked with us closely on things like I’d Die Babe and Suitcase which was completely revamped as well as Day After Day. All of the songs were basically turned from a four piece band arrangement into a much more produced idea with overdubs, multi-layers and loads of acoustic things. It was very frustrating because there was no way we could reproduce that thing onstage. And that led us to not doing a lot of the songs onstage including Day After Day. We very rarely performed that song live. Lyrics were also changed in songs so that they were more radio friendly.
"Working with George was a great experience, he was a master in the studio and he brought all his Beatles experience into the mix."
We took about four or five weeks recording but there was a bit of a delay in the middle of it because George went off to do the Bangladesh show and so Todd Rundgren came in to finish the record. Todd was really hard to work with, a real egomaniac and it was insufferable. Baby Blue was recorded live except we overdubbed an acoustic, then Todd took the tapes off and did what he did to it. It was not an enjoyable experience working with him, but Straight Up was our best selling album.
Where was the album’s recording sessions done?
We worked in three studios for this album, Abbey Rd, AIR studios and Command Studios in Piccadilly. At AIR studios, Sweet Tuesday Morning and Baby Please were recorded there.
Do you remember what sort of budget was allocated by Apple for the recording of the album?
Parts of our recording deal with Apple Records, was that they paid for all our recording costs – which they never recouped incidentally - so I never saw a recording budget. The deal was that they would pay for all the recording costs and all the coats and never recoup. Instead they would just pay the band something like 5%. The publishing deal we had with Apple was a routine deal, where they got the publishing and we got the writers, a 50/50 deal.
And what were the tracks that George produced before Todd Rundgren took over the production reins?
George produced four tracks George; two new recordings of Name of the Game and Suitcase; and two new songs, I'd Die Babe and Day After Day.
What was working with George on the album like?
Working with George was a great experience, he was a master in the studio and he brought all his Beatles experience into the mix. George was very encouraging and co-operative. He would bring in his guitar and plug in and work on songs with you. He was only too willing to play a bit of rhythm guitar or some lead guitar and advise us on singing vocal parts. He did make us work around the microphone and made us sing all the backing vocals all at once. He wouldn’t let us overdub them one track at a time. So it was all the three part harmony done live.
What tracks did George contribute guitar on?
He played the slide part with Pete on Day After Day. It took them about six hours to do that. He and Pete did that part together and t. It was overdubbed live which is why it took so long for them to play the two parts together. Playing it live together was difficult, getting it right and getting the pitch right. George also played the acoustic rhythm on I’d Die Babe and he also played that off-beat lead line in it too. That’s the only bits he actually played on for the album.
As producers, how did George and Todd go about capturing the guitar sounds in the studio?
That was done by the engineers back then. There were two engineers – Phil McDonald at Abbey Rd and I can’t remember the other one. The producer would listen to the band rehearse and the sounds, help to pick out which parts we were doing and while we were doing that, and working on the arranging, the engineer would be listening and going up to the control room and listening to the sounds coming out. He’d then come back down, move a few mikes around go back into the control room, have another listen to what he was getting and so forth. And that was how it all worked. The engineer worked on the actual recording of the stuff.
"For this album, we had already recorded a version of the album which Apple had turned down because they thought it was a bit crude sounding."
Both Pete and I predominantly used two Fender Vibro Champs, and Tom used a Fender Bassman with a 2 x 12 bass cab. We both used Les Pauls, I used a 1957 TV model on Baby Blue which later got stolen. Pete used a Gibson SG that George had given to the band a couple years back. It was the same SG that George had used on Paperback Writer. And Pete and George both used a Fender Strat for the slide parts on Day After Day. Acoustics, I was playing a ’68 or a ‘69 Gibson J-50 and Pete played a 1970 Martin D28. Any effects heard were generally added later during mix down.
Did you do much double tracking during the recording sessions?
We did a lot of double tracking especially with acoustic parts, back up parts and occasionally, the guitar leads, and the lead vocals too. But we did real double tracking on the lead vocals. I mean, they had a setting in the studio which they called Automatic Double Tracking [an analogue recording technique] which was a very quick tape delay, a very fast one which would simulate double tracking but it wasn’t as nice and warm as real double tracking was. What I mean by real double tracking is where you actually sing or play along with yourself, duplicating the original part.
Interview by Joe Matera
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