“John was in the toilet…”
Co-producer Peter Henderson looks back on the sessions.
“The sessions that produced the demos began on April 2, 1978, and the recording proper started on June 1. There’s a myth that we spent three weeks getting the right drum sound but it wasn’t like that. We spent a week bringing in instruments to make sure everything sounded good, then we set everybody up – drums, bass, Wurlitzer – in the studio, except for John [Helliwell] who had to record his sax parts in the toilet because there weren’t enough booths!
“If the album sounds slick, that’s less because of the musicianship and production and more because everything had been so carefully worked out. But it wasn’t sterile – we wanted to capture a feel, a spark. We didn’t want to labour anything. I was always looking to get a live-sounding performance, to make sure it jumped out of the speakers.
“Everyone pulled together. They’d all settled in LA, and for the first time they bought houses there, and they all got on well as far as I remember. There was one issue between Rick and Roger –
Rick had written Gone Hollywood and Roger had persuaded him to change the lyrics because he considered them a bit downbeat. He was unhappy about that because he hadn’t been too keen on Roger’s Babaji and felt it was unfair, but eventually he went along with it.
“Apart from that, they were very respectful of each other and had a good bond. It’s too simplistic to see one as Lennon and the other as McCartney. But there was always magic whenever they were in the room, and whatever their personal differences they respected each others’ input and advice.
“Nobody expected the album to do so well. It was very pleasurable to work on and I never tire of hearing it, even though I spent nine months listening to those songs. I grew up listening to Yes, ELP and Crimson but to me Breakfast… wasn’t prog – 10cc are closer to that. They were pop songs, pure and simple.”