Flashback

Record producer Trevor Horn on working with Paul and Linda Mccartney in a windmill, 1987

You only have to spend 10 minutes with Paul to understand why the Beatles were so good

THIS WAS TAKEN in 1987 in Paul Mccartney’s recording studio in a windmill outside Rye in Sussex. It’s Paul, Linda, me and Steve Lipson, the recording engineer I was working with at the time. Paul had been looking for a new producer, and to be honest, I didn’t know if I wanted to work with him, even though the Beatles had been my heroes. I was really successful at the time. Steve and I had already worked with Simple Minds and the Pet Shop Boys that year and you’ve got to watch who you work with – you can get bogged down by people.

Paul had been holding auditions for musicians and I asked if he’d mind if I came along. I just wanted to see what he was like. I liked him, and I really liked Linda, so I agreed to work with him. We went down to the windmill studio for a few days and cut a song called Rough Ride, which became a track on his album Flowers in the Dirt.

The Beatles were totally influential for me, particularly [their 1963 album] With the Beatles – that was the one that really got me. I was about 14, and had a group myself, The Outer Limits, but we were more into the Stones because their stuff was easier to play. Little Red Rooster or It’s All Over Now only had three chords. The Beatles were always a little more complicated.

A lot of things I learnt as a producer came from listening very closely to Beatles records, and you only have to spend 10 minutes with Paul to understand why they were so good.

For instance, he was also a talented drummer – I hadn’t realised that, but just listen to the drums he played on Rough Ride. And he was just one [Beatle]; there were another three! I used to bump into George Martin at awards ceremonies, and he told me the Beatles learnt so fast. All he had to do was show them something once and the next week they’d have 20 ideas. You could see that in Paul. He was good company too, with funny stories, as you’d imagine. And Linda was lovely, she played the Minimoog [analogue synthesiser] in the sessions.

I’ve bumped into Paul a few times since then. He gave me an honorary degree up at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. And because I’m a vegetarian, Paul invited me and my late wife, Jill, to the launch of Linda’s vegetarian food range in London. They were doing veggie burgers, and to this day I’m still eating Linda Mccartney sausages.

Neil Tennant has a theory about success in the music business. He says your ‘imperial phase’ is when everything you do is successful, and the minute that ends you’re into survival, which I think is funny, but true. My imperial phase was the ’80s. I’m probably best known for the Frankie Goes to Hollywood records. They’re the best-engineered, best-mixed records I’ve ever heard – Steve Lipson was absolutely brilliant, and I don’t think I’ve made anything better than that sonically.

— Interview by Mick Brown

Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties is out now

Producer Trevor Horn (top right) with engineer Steve Lipson, and Paul and Linda Mccartney