Paul Northfield
When the 17-year-old Paul Northfield applied for a post at Advision Studios in London, he didn’t expect to get it. “I was miserable at school, I found out about studio life from hanging out with bands,” he says. “I found a copy of Beat Instrumental with addresses in it and I wrote to three studios. Trident didn’t reply, CTS in Wembley gave me a form letter saying we will get in touch and Advision sent me an interview.” For some reason Paul was chosen over the 40-odd university graduates that had also applied. “It was very much an apprenticeship, they wanted somebody they could mould,” he says. “Your first year or so is setting up microphones and making tea.”
In March 1973, Paul started engineering for Greg Lake, his first project being to assist on Gentle Giant’s album ‘In A Glass House’. He worked with Gentle Giant on and off for a number of years, becoming their preferred engineer – Paul went freelance from the studio so he could work wherever they went. When in 1977 the band wanted to produce an album at the renowned Canadian studio in Morin Heights, he was the logical choice – and was offered a job at Le Studio for his efforts. “The owner kept the offer open for a year or so,” says Paul. For the 22-year-old, to be back in a salaried post was attractive, so in July 1978 he took it. “I went from London to the mountains of Quebec.”
In the autumn of 1978 Paul engineered for Terry Brown on ‘Permanent Waves’, assisted by Robbie Whelan. ‘Moving Pictures’ followed – “in many respects, the highlight of my career and in some ways the highlight of Rush’s career,” says Paul. “It is not a question of peaking, I think that everything came together on that record, the arrangements, the sound, the songwriting, performance, it all gelled in such a way that it made a record that stands the test of time. Those things I don’t think you can plan, they just happen.” Paul also participated on ‘Signals’, then ‘Grace Under Pressure’, assisting Jim Burgess with the PPG synthesiser programming. When Peter Collins brought with him Jimbo Barton there was no role for Paul, but when Jimbo was no longer available as Peter’s engineer, Geddy set Paul up with Peter. “Jimbo and his wife were having a baby, so Peter called me up and asked me if I would do the Queensrÿche album,” says Paul. “I have done five or six records with him.”
Meanwhile, Paul’s own career went from strength to strength, including spending a month engineering with Marilyn Manson. “I had done a lot of what I call ‘gorilla recording’, where we go and set up a studio on the spot,” says Paul. “They were going to work in the old Houdini mansion, we had to build a recording space. Dave Sardie (co-producer) had never done anything like that and Manson really wanted to work in the house, so they had me go in and do the bed track recording.” Paul was also firming up his producer’s skills, working in more of a production capacity on albums for I Mother Earth, Suicidal Tendencies and GZR with Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler.
Paul retained close links with the band, working on the two ‘Burning for Buddy’ tributes to Buddy Rich, with Neil. He was brought back in to co-produce ‘Different Stages’ with Geddy Lee, then ‘Vapor Trails’, joined by David Leonard for the mixing. Straight after ‘Vapor Trails’ came the Porcupine Tree album ‘In Absentia’, co-produced with Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson. “That was the opposite end of the spectrum for me,” says Paul. “Going from spending seven or eight months with Rush, to doing an album a month in New York with Steve, it was quite an amazing shift of gears. It was a very beautiful record to do and probably just what I needed.”
By coincidence, Neil mentions ‘In Absentia’ as one of his favourite albums, in his book ‘Travelling Music’. “I get an e-mail from Neil saying its funny, I have been listening to this record, its been on my turntable for the past two months, its my favourite record, and today I picked it up and I see your name on it,” says Paul. “It was a wonderful confirmation, suddenly out of the blue he wrote this absolutely wonderful letter to say that it was a wonderful piece of work.” Paul has been involved in engineering the latest Porcupine Tree album ‘Deadwing’, as well as producing the debut album for Pure Reason Revolution.