You’ve been working in studios now for over 30 years, what’s been the biggest change?
I started working in Mayfair studios in London in the late seventies. The studio was one of a handful of independent facilities in London and was booked virtually 24 hours a day. The advent of powerful and affordable new technology has led to a huge increase in “Home” recording and the demise of many of these legendary studios, which is sad although technology now given many bands the opportunity of going it alone.

How has the recording process changed?
When I joined Mayfair, most of the recording sessions were analogue 8 or 16 track and it was one of the first studios to go to 24 track. Studio time was expensive so many great albums were recorded in a week or less and the studio was always full of musicians.  Today with Pro Tools you can mix 128 track sessions on a laptop with no power cord, and there’s an “Undo” button! When I was working with tape, I’d have paid a fortune for that one button alone.

That being said, more often than not artists now tend to work with producers later in the recording process. The pre production phase in sweaty rehearsal rooms is a rarity now and I think productions generally are the poorer for it. This phase was really important as it allowed a producer to get to know the band intimately and develop a creative relationship with them.

The producer’s job more often than not was to help the artist arrive at creative decisions and also to recognise that a mistake could actually be a moment of inspired genius. Today, with another track always available for another vocal or solo much of the decision making is left to the last moment. A large part of the production work I do now is on material that has already been recorded and sometimes it’s not that easy to sort out and more often than not lacks spontaneity.

You’ve done a lot of work in Italy and Spain how did that come about?
After the success of the Tina Turner Private Dancer album I was approached by a number of major artists to produce their albums. For some reason, I’m never that sure why, many of them were from Italy and Spain and when I listened to them I really liked the song structures and melodies.

I’ve worked with Lucio Battisti and Lucio Dalla and many others in Italy and Miguel Bose and Ana Torroja in Spain. They’re all artists in the truest sense of the word, and they all inspired me. I learnt a lot from working with them.

Miguels’ “11 maneras de ponerse un sombrero” remains one of my all time favourite albums and I have very fond memories of working with him both in the studio and live.

Currently my brother Peter Walsh is in the studio here, mixing an exciting new Spanish album by Najwa with Alfonso Perez which is sounding great.

So how did Arkade come about?
Arkade grew organically. I was developing a label “Ark Records” with a very good friend of mine Stephen Miller. We we’re signing acts to the label and were successful with a number of dance products. It became apparent very early on that the quality of demos that were being submitted was getting better and better and a good deal of it was release ready.

We began to feel that actually what today’s artists needed was not so much the production and recording facilities a label traditionally offered them, but more a service that they could use to distribute and market their products.

Ark Records was one of the first labels to provide a platform for artists to submit material online, so it was a relatively small step to build a delivery mechanism and payment gateway to the back end of that would allow artists to go it alone.

So what’s different about Arkade compared with say MySpace?
MySpace was never a dedicated music site, the music side evolved out of a networking space. Arkade was designed from inception for indie artists who understood the “You’ve got to be Seen to be Heard” philosophy and are serious about getting their product out there under their own control. Artists today are doing it for themselves and the Arkade’s ethos “Your Music, Your Label, Your Income” seems to have really hit the mark. It’s very exciting.

Arkade is not a graffiti wall where artists post their product in the hope that someone will come across it by chance, it’s a dedicated tool that allows them to operate professionally, actively promoting and marketing, themselves, their products and their gigs whilst growing their fan base and revenue by running their own label. Obviously there’s still a place for the major labels but they’ve now been forced to become increasingly selective as to the artists they sign. They’re now looking for bands that not only have great product but have also shown some initiative in getting it out there. Arkade has been designed to bridge that gap.

Arkade allows artists to set any price for their products whether digital items or physical items such as t-shirts or gig tickets, and we don’t deduct any commission, so anyone buying product from the site is doing so knowing they are directly supporting artists. We’ve now got over 8,000 artists in a wide variety of musical genres, using the service so there’s something to suit everyone. Our community of music lovers is increasing daily and discovering the amazing diversity of really great new independent music Arkade represents.

Are you coming to Bennicassim?
No unfortunately not, but I’d have loved to…..Glastonbury without the mud!! It’s getting more and more publicity over here and I know quite a few people who are combining the festival this year with their summer break.

It’s a great line up; Kings of Leon will be especially great. They played an amazing gig at the O2 arena here in London last night.

http://www.arkade.com